Matt looked at his friend with new respect. With a human Bronze Age priest, this would have been about when the torches would be lit.
«You’re not angry that we don’t share your beliefs?» Sandra asked.
«Of course not,» Adar replied. «No one can be forced to accept the True Faith. It would not then be True, would it? I was only. uncomfortable. when I thought you mocked it.» He looked darkly at Rolak. «As the Aryaalans do.»
Rolak sniffed. «A lie,» he said pedantically.
Matt was looking at the Marines and the graves they guarded. «You might be wrong, Adar. My people sail many winds to reach the same destination, but once there, I believe the place might yet still be the same. Perhaps the same as yours.» A commotion grew behind them and they saw the approach of seven destroyermen dressed in whites. They had probably scrounged both ships to find so many bright, clean outfits. All of them carried Springfields on their shoulders and they marched in step well enough, despite being more than a little rusty. Matt swelled at the sight, as well as when he saw the battle-scarred American flag that had been rescued by the Second Marines leading the way. He was surprised to see who carried it. Walking slowly in front of the riflemen, also dressed in whites with gaiters laced on above his bare feet and with his battered helmet on his head, was Chack-Sab-At. His eyes were grimly set and focused before him and his tail was held erect as it swayed back and forth behind him as he walked.
The firing party halted beside the graves and the flag fluttered in the breeze between them and the walls of Aryaal. «I have to go now,» Matt said quietly, and stepped quickly through the Marine guard to stand before the graves, facing the growing crowd with his back to the city. He reached into his coat pocket to retrieve his small Bible, but found himself faced with the difficulty of opening it with one hand. Sandra rushed to join him, opening the book to a page where he had inserted a small piece of paper. He looked at her and smiled.
«Please stay,» he said. She returned his smile with a supportive one of her own and took her place beside him. A column of thirty destroyermen was moving toward them, swaying in step from side to side. Between each group of six was the body of one of their comrades, sewn in his mattress cover. Chief Gray led the procession, hobbling on his crutches. When they drew even with Ellis, Jim joined the Chief and the column followed the pair to the graves. Matt noticed that almost half of the party who bore the bodies of his crewmen were Lemurians, in spite of what might be a religious aversion toward what they were doing. He felt a surge of affection for them, mingled with a sadness that the original crews of the two destroyers had dwindled so far. When the bodies were deposited beside the graves, the bearers stepped back.
To Matt’s further surprise, the final member of the procession was a stony-faced Dennis Silva. Before him in his hands he carefully carried Mack Marvaney’s portable phonograph. He stepped into position beside Chief Gray where a bugler would have been if they’d had one, set the phonograph on the ground, and opened it. It had already been wound and he merely released the brake and positioned the needle on a record as the turntable began to spin.Walker. Many of those in the gathered crowd gasped at the unexpected music, but Matt felt a sudden tightness in his throat and a strange pressure behind his eyes. He blinked.
Looking sidelong at Sandra, he saw a sad, wistful expression and as the anthem ended and Silva leaned down to turn off the machine, he saw tears streaming down the gunner’s mate’s face. Tears for Tom Felts, or Mack Marvaney, or any of the dozens they’d lost, there was no way to know. Or maybe he was just thinking about all they’d left behind.
«Pa-RADE, REST!»
Matt cleared his throat and looked at the book Sandra held open for him. Then he shook his head. «I never was one much for church,» he apologized, «and I guess we’ve all missed a few services lately.» Some of the men chuckled quietly, in spite of themselves. «It’s not my way, or my place, I think, to preach a sermon here today. I do want to say a few words about these men we are burying, as well as all the rest of you destroyermen. Like all of us — except maybe Juan — Tom Felts and Glen Carter, Andy Simms, Loris Scurrey, and Gil Olivera were a long way from home even before the Japs bombed Pearl and Cavite. For some reason, all of us are even farther away now. Tom was from Arkansas. Glen and Andy were both from Ohio. Gil was from New York and Loris was from California.» He paused for a moment, collecting his thoughts.
«Mr. Ellis is from Virginia and so is Lieutenant Tucker. Sonny Campeti is from New Jersey and Frankie Steele is from Brooklyn. Chief Gray and Dennis Silva are from Alabama. I miss Texas as much as any of you miss the places you’re from.» He shrugged. «We might be stuck here, however it happened. My guess is we probably are. But no matter how far we’ve come from those places we yearn for, they’ll always be with us — part of us — deep down. And no matter how far apart they were from each other, those places had one thing in common. They were part of the United States of America, and that made us all Americans.» He looked out at the faces of the firing party and the bearers, and some of the others who had come ashore. He saw out into the bay where Walker and Mahan floated side by side in the distance and, for the moment, those who’d stayed aboard them lined the rails and the flags flew low. «We’re all still part of that no matter how far we’ve come. We were still Americans in the Philippines, and by God, we’re still Americans here.»
He paused for a long moment before continuing. «A few of us have gone even farther than the others now, but it’s my belief that, in so doing, they’ve gotten closer to home, not farther away. I believe there’s one God, above all things, who made the world we came from and this one too. Has to be. Only God could’ve figured out anything as complicated as this situation. I think He can probably manage to sort things out and put us where we belong when we die. I believe the men we bury here today in this strange but familiar place are with their loved ones that went before them now just as surely as if they’d died at home in bed.» He stopped again to let that sink in. He really believed it was the truth, too. At least he hoped it was. The idea of their very souls being banished to this strange world as well was m right.»
«Never was much good at public speaking,» he demurred.
«You did all right, Skipper,» Ellis repeated.
«Yes, you did,» Sandra agreed. «And you know? Maybe you’re right. About why we’re here, I mean.»
«Makes as much sense as anything,» said Jim. «And if it’s true, it proves God sure is an imaginative guy.»
«What do you mean?»
«The way the war was going back home, and in the shape our ships were in, only God could’ve found a use for them. Even if we’d managed to get out of our fix without the Squall — which I doubt — they wouldn’t have been any good to the Navy anymore.»
«God works in mysterious ways, huh?» quoted Matt with a small smile of his own. «What an understatement.»
The crowd dispersed, many to attend to their military duties but most to continue preparations for the Lemurian service later that evening. Labor parties resumed tearing down the wooden warehouses that lined the wharf to use them for fuel for the pyres. Others swarmed over one of the Grik hulks that had been driven ashore during the battle and were quickly reducing it to its skeletal framework. The ghetto housing, such as it was, was left untouched. The allied commanders were unhappy about the necessity of destroying the warehouses — or any property at all — but since there was no suitable timber nearby, they had no choice. They needed all the wood they could find to send this unprecedented number of souls to the sky. At least the warehouses were mostly empty, their contents having been moved into the city when the Grik arrived.