The Skeptical Children

A coiled mass of muscle whispered to one another beneath the canopy of the jungle. Images of home grew in the shade as the sun rose and tried to get a look at the starry-eyed soldiers who had fallen asleep during an artillery barrage. They spoke about their wives and girlfriends, and how easy life used to be. Both graduated from high school and played football. Both had never voted and had been drafted. Jacob said, “We’ll never be thanked for this,” and Robbie replied, “They never said there would be a reward.” They shared a kiss and stroked each other's wet hair.

The jungle is another planet, and it was no different on the coral island of Peleliu, where the beach looked like a postcard and the mangroves like a bag of grapes and blood. Jacob and Robbie were separated from their platoon by Japanese troops who wore helmets of American dead and penetrated their line at night, engaging in close-quarter combat that was lit by the occasional mortar. Their biggest enemy had been heat exhaustion, and when oil drums were used to bring water, Jacob drank from them and now lay in Robbie's arms.

“I’m sick.”

“You’ll be ok.”

They had never needed to shave and were covered in mud so ubiquitous that the idea of washing themselves was scary and foreign. Even the clear, clean lagoons turned them into skeptical children before a bath, but it did nothing to deter the swims they took into each other's frightened and tired eyes, where they first communicated with one another. Jacob shook, and Robbie held him with great tenderness and a pressing reassurance.

“I’ll tell you what this war is really about.”

“Try to relax. It’s quiet.”

They looked around and saw the pockets of light that illuminated the untouched beauty of a world with a gun to its head. There was an acute awareness of time that they had known since they opened their notices, but it was slowing down now. It was quiet, and they could feel the good news of a half-dry shirt that the heat would also soak with their sweat in due time.

“Isn’t it funny, listening to nothing?”

“I did it all the time. Used to sleep outside when all the cattle were shipped off before winter. Not a bug or bird.”

The jungle began to wake up and hiss, and yet they saw nothing but one another: the urgency in Jacob's face and a fight in Robbie’s to stay above the melancholy. To tread in the optimism of his superiors, but they were wrong about this island, just like they had been wrong countless times before. Nothing frightened them more than discovering a nest of pillboxes along the mountainside, or the sound of their own Navy missing their target. Regaining strength, Robbie’s eyes darted from side to side until he heard Jacob cry.

“What’s wrong?”

“I pissed myself.”

“It’s alright. How do you even know? Your pants are wet.”

“'Cause I just went.”

When he first met Jacob, he was a boy who kept up with the reputation built around him by those who would never fight him. To hear him cry over pissing himself was something Robbie thought he’d never hear. He’d seen it happen to others, and he had done it back home, but Jacob was tough, and now he wept like the children they were, except they had rifles and a license to kill anyone who didn’t look like them.

“Do you love me, Robbie?”

Jacob’s ear was over his friend's heart. He thought if he didn’t have to think about pumping his own heart, then why did he have to think about dying, which terrified him because, friend or foe, he had seen that there was nothing else in the eyes of a frozen casualty.

“I do.”

He kissed his forehead and held his hand. The tears would not stop, and Robbie wanted nothing more than to stop Jacob from crying, even if everything he said was true.

“I’m dying.”

They kissed, and he could feel how dry Jacob’s mouth had become. Robbie checked his canteen, and it made them feel worse.

“It’s alright, Robbie. I’m ok. I’ll be ok.”

“I’m going to find us some clean water.”

“Don’t leave. Please.”

“I need to find us water and then…”

“There is no ‘then’ for me. Look at the color of my face.”

It was grey, even when he got angry about his self-diagnosed predicament. Jacob remembers how red they both were when they landed, covered in sand, and digging for cover, but they met little resistance, and Jacob stayed red in an embarrassment he tried to pass as laughter. How he now knew he contained no color was a mystery to Robbie, and he didn’t question Jacob’s authenticity regarding an awareness Robbie believed required a reflective surface. He whispered, “We can’t stay here.”

Jacob grabbed him by the collar and pulled him within an inch of his face. This was the Jacob Robbie had known.

“Don’t tell me what to do, pissant.”

But just as soon as he snatched him, Robbie was released, and it did not feel like it was Jacob’s decision, but the product of what his body could handle as the soldier he had become began to shed into a thousand worthless pieces. He looked at Robbie with his civilian eyes and asked him again if he loved him.

“I do.”

“My daddy used to beat me.”

“Why?”

Jacob reached for a photograph, but couldn’t hold it; he was shaking so bad. Robbie picked it up and saw another enlisted boy their age in Europe.

“His name is Nathan. We grew up together. I loved him too.”

Robbie had never seen such smiles of genuine happiness, of Nathan having his picture taken, and of Jacob before him, reminiscing silently of past summers and summer firsts.

“I’ll take that drink now.”

He slid down Robbie's chest, and the world plunged further into the fire. Distant green-clad figures found them, but by the time their platoon got there, only Robbie was left.