Em thought. Let’s get to Hawaii and get this show started.
Cannon talked more during their long flight; however, because of the noise, Em could only understand the words he spoke when he was looking right at his lips. Every time he turned toward Jack, all Em could hear was a distant muffled voice. When they reached Hawaii, boot camp would begin all over again. Only this time, it would include parachute training along with survival skills preparedness training. If they made it through this training, they would then be trained on the aircraft. Sergeant Cannon did not say what type of aircraft. As to what sort of missions they would be assigned, they knew better than to ask.
Em felt thrilled to actually be on his way but frightened nonetheless. There were still so many questions in his mind. Most of all, he wanted to know when he could tell his family and Irene where he was. He wanted to tell Irene everything. He reached into his bag that he was now carrying with him and retrieved his journal. He began to write for the first time in days. He did not know if or when Irene would ever get to read the words that he was putting on the paper, but he felt a sense of relief with every word he wrote. The plane’s dull drone began to make his eyelids heavy. He put his pen down. He closed his eyes and, for the first time in over a week, fell asleep to thoughts of Irene and the white dress.
“Wake up, Storybook; you got to see this!” Jack’s eyes were bulging from his skull. “You are not gonna believe this! Take a look!” Jack pointed to a small window toward the front of the plane. Em unbuckled and at first felt a little dizzy and unbalanced. He rose slowly to his feet and commanded himself to move toward the front of the plane. He suspected his legs were going to be slow to cooperate. He looked once again at Jack, who looked completely at ease with his situation. Grinning from ear to ear while he prodded Em forward, he said, “The pilot says we can fly right overtop of it!” Em could not imagine what he was about to see.
He leaned toward the small window—which was not exactly like a window—and squinted into the bright sunlight. He saw nothing at first, only small wisps of clouds in the distance. He strained his neck to look down and could barely make out the blue-and-white floor of the ocean surface. Then he saw the most amazing sight his eyes had ever seen. There below him was an island. The mountain in the center was glowing.
The low altitude made the volcano’s lava look like a brilliant fiery river. The pilot was flying them directly over the summit of one of the Hawaiian Islands’ many active volcanoes. Jack poked Em in his ribs. “How ’bout that, hillbilly? Never seen anything like that before!” Em could not stop staring. The sight under their wings was truly the most awesome event he had ever witnessed. “I talked to Captain Meyer!” Jack was speaking into Em’s ear from a mere few inches. “He said these islands just keep getting bigger! The lava never stops creating new land! I can’t wait to get down there! This is it, Em!” They looked back toward the rear of the plane, and Morton was waving his arms. Evidently, it was time to land this thing.
The second time that Em and Jack were on an aircraft as it returned to the earth was quite different from their first. The initial thing they noticed was the temperature. As the giant cargo vessel lost altitude, the temperature rose. Before they were on the ground, the airmen wished they had removed their cold weather gear. By the time the plane had nearly come to a stop, Em and Jack were sweating profusely. It surprised them to see the six other people that were on the plane disembark in only their flight overalls. Neither Em nor Jack had seen anyone remove his heavy winter gear.
As they exited through the rear of the plane, the sunshine was so bright they were temporarily blinded. As Em’s squinting eyes began to adjust, he looked out across the airstrip at the greenest picture he had ever seen. Even the hills of Kentucky had never looked so green. The colors of everything seemed to be brighter here. He could count at least ten different shades of green.
They were following Sergeant Cannon. He had not said a thing to them since the engines had stopped, and he declared, “Welcome to paradise.” Now he was almost running across the flight line.
They trotted to keep up. They were not worried about their gear. Sergeant Cannon’s gear was also on the plane. Jack and Em were trotting and removing clothes at the same time. Sergeant Cannon looked as crisp as ever in his olive drab fatigue uniform. He walked with a purpose heading for the enormous opening in the aircraft hangar that stood before them. As if he had been raised here, Sergeant Cannon headed straight through the building and beyond the back wall. He walked through another set of doors and proceeded into a hallway. His brisk pace led them to believe that he knew exactly where he was going.
No one else from the plane was following. They walked toward another door at the end of the hallway. When they walked through, the only thing they saw was a jeep and more of the green landscape. Sergeant Cannon jumped into the driver’s seat and said, “Hop in, boys.”
Chapter 3
Paradise
He looked through the small window of the train; across the hazy distance, the white dress was somehow fading into the gray walls of the station. Em squinted and put his hand up to block the rising sun and looked desperately to see her smile one more time. Now he couldn’t see her at all. She simply was not there. He could still see his family and the platform, but Irene was gone.
He ran through the cars looking for someone to stop the train. He frantically searched for a way to stop it before it was too late. He saw the emergency brake line running through the top of the train car. He reached up and pulled and heard rain pouring through the trees onto the sloping mountainside. Where was he, and why was he soaking wet under a canopy of trees bigger than any mighty oak that grew near the creek bottoms back home in Kentucky? Where did Irene go?
Em came out of his fitful sleep and instantly panicked. He knew he could only have slept for a few brief moments, but the dream was so agonizingly long and realistic it seemed he had slept a long time. He even thought he could smell the brakes on that train.
The rain was coming down hard, just as it did almost every day. He knew it would not last long. The sun would win, and the rainclouds would scatter for another day. A rainbow would be visible for a brief moment of time. “Paradise! Yeah, right,” he said to himself.
Hawaii was beautiful, and the last twelve weeks had been the longest weeks of his life. The training had started immediately. He and Jack had followed Sergeant Cannon around like puppies for the first three days. They were each issued new gear. Everything they thought they would ever need compacted into one olive-green utility bag. Instructors told them that before they left this island, they would be able to survive anywhere on earth with just the contents of this bag. As soon as each item had been inspected, catalogued, and labeled with both S and T, it was put back into the bag in reverse order. On their first three attempts, the bag did not condense to the size that would please their new instructors. Finally, on their fourth try, the bag would zip the entire length.
In total, the bag, with all its contents, weighed 51 pounds. There was enough food to survive for six weeks if it was used sparingly. To Em, it looked like enough for one good supper. There were knives ranging in size from about an inch long up to daggers with seven-inch blades. Six in total. He could scale and filet fish if he could figure out how to catch them with just a few feet of line and three hooks. A belt with tools that Em or Jack had never seen before could be stored in the pack or worn. If worn, it removed 4.8 pounds from the bag. They were told to get used to wearing the belt.
There were canisters filled with some powdery stuff, labeled “water purification.” A small chart explained their usage. A few other small gadgets, a compass, a flare gun, and a pistol were carefully packed into a waterproof container. The ammunition weighed close to fifteen pounds. Em hoped he would not need that. The food packets weighed a mere 10.2 pounds. It was difficult for Em to believe that he could survive for six weeks on that small amount of food.
The most amazing items in the bag were the clothes and boots. There were three pairs of pants, three shirts, long sleeve, three pairs of socks, underwear, one rain slicker, one stocking cap, all packed into a smaller canvas bag. It weighed only six pounds and measured just seventeen inches by seventeen inches. Remarkable!
The last thing the two of then