Hupatila Island
By
C. S. Marshall


I am a daydreamer, a fellow with a fertile imagination given to excursions into worlds not quite real, so when I heard we would be briefed for my first assignment, a classified deployment to tropics area RLP 27, my dream machine shifted into high gear. The idea of being 'briefed'� was a shocker for me. I was not used to the Army telling me anything but, 'Shut up and get into the truck.
I will admit I was never the ideal soldier. I knew I had made a mistake from the moment my first DI shoved his finger in my face and called me names the devil himself would be ashamed to use. Drill Sergeant 'Hammerhead'� Godden was a man of many talents and shouting obscenities at the top of his lungs while spit-spraying me from the top of my newly shorn head to the toes my ill-fitting boots, was clearly one of his favorites.
I did fare a little better in MOS training where I learned the enviable skill of counting olive drab boxes of beans and bullets and placing my initials next to that same number on a three-part requisition form. I contributed to the nation's security by spending boring hour after boring hour in my first job at Post Supply, Fort Hood, Texas. I remember Sergeant Kovak's briefing as though it were yesterday,
'Okay, you maggots, shut up and get on the plane.'� Briefing over.
A four-month stay on a tiny island in the Pacific teemed with possibilities. It was surly an opportunity for a dream to come true. All I needed was a beautiful woman; say Sandra Bullock or Shania Twain. I am not a picky man. Elle Mc Phearson or Halle Berry would do just fine. Just how I planned to accomplish this part of the plan escapes me now. Reality has a way of hitting with the subtlety of the notorious 'blunt instrument.'� Instead of a beautiful female companion, what do I get? Captain McCoy, Sergeant Kovak and five fellow grunts. Not exactly dream material. I found the future held, not harmless daydreams, but ghastly nightmares.
We finished stowing the rations by day four. We ferried in everything by choppers from the USS Palmerton. There had to be a couple of hundred islands in the hemisphere with better access, some with beachfront bars and friendly approachable natives selling straw hats and coral bracelets, but that just isn't the Army way. Legget and Jackson tested the TFES (Temporary Fixed Earth Station) and its cellular back-up transmitter while Mullins and Lowery set up the shortwave package. Stokes and I stowed the supplies. The Captain said we did a 'Damn fine job'� and told us later that we beat our best time ever for communications deployment. I never knew if it really was true or just some of the new positive re-enforcement bullshit, not that it really mattered.
Sergeant Kovak seemed like a standup Joe. I was not sure at first because he was regular army through and through. I was a little surprised when Legget asked him if we could swap shifts and Sarge agreed with out a fuss. Legget wanted the 0600 to 1400 and Stokes and I did not care one way or another. We figured, with facing four months without feminine companionship, we were going to get bored fast, no matter which shift we had. It was either, have nothing to do but work and sleep or have nothing to do but sleep and work. Hupatila Island was not exactly Honolulu.


Hupatila was actually 'RLP 27 Number 4 off 124 Beta.'� No one ever bothered naming an island only 128 meters wide and 339 meters long before. Legget said it reminded him of an island called Hupatila in a book he read. We ribbed him and acted astonished to find he had ever read a book. I was glad to see he took it well. Legget was built like a professional wrestler and as my daddy used to say, 'He could have gone bear hunting with a switch.'�
Hupatila was uninhabited until our Mac C Unit landed. Recon's report said, 'Protected leeward by shallows and windward by reefs, inaccessible by or conventional landing craft.'� They failed to mention, it also would have made a damn fine prison and it did not take long for us to see it as such.
We are all irritable and short tempered by the forty-first day. Lowery and Stokes got into a fight over a damned volley ball game. Recreation on the island was limited to volleyball and fishing with homemade tackle. The Captain exercised by himself every afternoon doing calisthenics. Sarge lifted cotton bags filled with sand for barbells and never missed a morning. The rest of us were required to play volleyball three days a week. We rotated teammates every day. Captain McCoy said it would promote better teamwork. I guess Lowery and Stokes forgot that lesson. They hated each other and went at each other in one way or another almost every day. There was Jackson, with his constant chatter, who grated on everyone's nerves. Of course, there was Mullins. Nobody liked Mullins and the feeling was mutual. I may have been a miserable excuse for a soldier, but he was a miserable excuse for a man.
Sarge made it clear, in his own divergent manner we would shape up or he would have our asses. We all managed to keep our feelings to our selves after that. The arguing and fighting stopped but I do not think anything really changed. We all did our jobs and were cordial but it just was not a family-like atmosphere.
Day forty-two was the beginning of the nightmare. I was awakened by Sergeant Kovak's brain-rattling voice. '�Get out here, NOW.'� I had worked the 1400 until 2200 shift with Stokes and was trying to catch a few winks before chow. I checked my watch. It was 0500.
Stokes and I emerged from the hut to find Sarge and Captain McCoy standing over a vacant communications consol chair, 'Where the hell is Mullins and Lowery?'� They had the 2200 until 0600 shift. I could see inside the communications hut from where I stood. It was unoccupied. Legget and Jackson, who had the 0600 until 1400 had followed us out of the barrack hut. They were as bewildered as the rest of us.
We looked at each other as to say, 'What the hell is going on?'�
'If you know where they are, you had better say now.'� Sarge's face was beet red.
I looked at Stokes and shrugged
'Don't know, Sarge.'� The four of us said in near-perfect unison.
The Captain was obviously shaken. 'Uh, men . . . this is serious.'� He did not need to tell us that. Sarge's tone had made the point quite well.
Sarge nodded to Stokes and me, 'You two check out the grove. Legget, you and Jackson run the perimeter.'�
The island was all sand, grass and rock except for a stand of trees at the far north end and had set up on the south end to avoid interference. The search of the whole island took no more than twenty minutes and produced neither the two men nor any clues to their disappearance.
Sarge told Legget and Jackson to man the consol while Stokes and I made one last search of the supply hut. The Captain retreated to his hut and did not show again until midday. At mess, Sarge asked what we thought but no one answered.
We all hung around the communications consol after chow. No one ate much. No one spoke, not knowing what to say. Captain McCoy broke the awkward silence first, 'Jackson, get me Colonel Poston at Gresham.'� The Captain's face was pale and expressionless. We did not know the Colonel but we knew brass. Captain McCoy's goose was cooked. A quick raise of Sarge's eyebrows told Stokes and me to take a walk.
I did not need to hear the Colonel to know what he would say. 'How the hell do you lose two men on an island the size of a postage stamp?'�
We ducked into our hut as we heard, 'Sarge, we have a problem here.'� Legget was feverishly pounding at the Sat-Com's keyboard. 'We've lost the hook-up. It's like the satellite is gone, you know, vanished.'�
'Yes, Legget, I know what 'gone' means.'� Sarge's patience was understandably wearing thin.
'I can't hook up. I tried four times now.'� Legget was checking the connectors on the back of the unit.
Sarge slowly wagged his head, 'Break out the back-up.'� Legget swung around to the back-up's keyboard, punched in the access code.
'Well?'� Sarge did not bother to hide his growing concern.
'Nothing here either, Sarge." The satellite is gone.'� Legget spoke without looking up.
'Holy shit.'� Sarge cocked his head back, 'Holy-fucking-shit.'� He glanced at the Captain, 'Sorry, Sir.'�
The Captain replied, 'Sergeant, in this particular situation, I believe 'Holy-fucking-shit' is the appropriate response.'�
'Jackson, you have Colonel Poston?'� The Captain reached for the radiophone.
'Sorry Sir, no response.'�
'Get that damn short wave working, now.'� Sergeant Kovak barked.
We spent twenty-four hour a day for the next ten days working on the Sat-Coms and the radio. Captain McCoy said the rescue team would be dispatched after not hearing from us for a couple of days and it would take them between two to six days for them to reach us depending on the nearest ship. We were too far out for a land-based chopper to reach us. Therefore, it depended solely on naval deployment in the area.
Mullins and Lowery had been missing for two weeks and remained officially AWOL. I did not mention it to the others, but I thought they had sneaked off for a swim and had been pulled out to sea by the tide. I fully expected their bloated bodies to wash ashore in the next few days. They didn't. I also expected to see a rescue chopper by then. I didn't.
Legget was the hardware technician and Jackson Radio man. Stokes was a medic and I was supply but we were all trained in Sat-Com and short wave. Legget broke down and reassembled the two satellite communications units dozen times without success. We took twelve-hour shifts re-booting the computers. We found the shortwave had somehow fried. Nothing worked. Not one blessed thing.
Day sixty came and went without any sign of contact with the outside world. Speculation became the all-consuming sport of the camp. Legget thought we were caught in some Bermuda Triangle while Jackson believed we were part of some psychological test. Stokes and I favored the 'Nuclear Holocaust'� theory, however, our theory did not account for the disappearance of Mullins and Lowery.
Jackson woke Stokes and me on the morning of day sixty-six. 'You guys know where Sarge and Captain McCoy are?'�
'Six little, five little, four little Indians. . .'� The children's song crossed my mind.
'This is some weird shit here, man.'� Jackson announced. We all had to agree.
'I guess that makes me senior rank.'� I said. I the irony did not escape me. 'Maybe we should take a look around.'�
I sent Stokes and Jackson to search the island as Legget and I checked the supplies. Just as before, there was no sign of the two men and no supplies were missing. We had eight hundred gallons of water, five hundred gallons of canned food and two hundred K kits. I calculated the four of us could live over two years on that much food and water but I was not sure we could survive whatever was on the island. I got the feeling we were not alone.
I was out of my league with this command business and we all knew it. It was only the smallest chance of rescue that held the other three in check. That, and the knowledge they had no better idea than I of what to do next.
Day eighty was no different from day seventy-nine or day seventy-eight for that matter. We were afraid to sleep. We feared we would wake to find someone else missing, or worse, not wake at all. We fought off sleep until we would unwillingly succumb. Each time we woke, we were relieved to be alive. We did not venture out of each other's sight even for the most personal functions and no one minded. We thought,
'As long as I can see you, neither of us is dead.'�
We all but abandoned the Sat-Com and radio but Legget insisted trying to send out a message each morning at 0700 just as he had from day one. I thought it could not hurt but surely, the brass knew where we were. I remember it was about that time when I began to wonder if the entire mission had been a bizarre hallucination. Maybe I was sick or crazy. That has to be it. I'm crazy. My brain has shorted out and fried a circuit. I'll bet I'll wake up in some psycho ward stateside and find drool all down the front of my PJ's. Each time I fell asleep, I woke right there, back in hell.
By day ninety we stopped keeping track of the days and it did not seem to matter. To be honest, the month or year did not make much difference either. We checked the water supply for a while but as the days wore on, we did not much care to calculate the exact time of our deaths. One day I woke before daylight to see Legget at the keyboard and screen but Stokes and Jackson were not in the Communications hut where we had moved our bunks. I did not panic. We had lapsed from time to time in our promise to stay together.
'Tank.'� I had nicknamed Legget after he ran over me in one of our volleyball games. 'Stokes and Jackson out there?'�
'No.'� Came his chilling reply
'Oh, shit'�
'Oh, shit'� He echoed back,

We did not bother to look for them. It would have been futile. Caring was futile. Living was futile. There comes a time in these situations when you tend to embrace the inevitable. My fear was gone, only numbness remained. Legget and I did not say anything for several days and when we did talk again, it was about inane things; our favorite sports teams or whether we liked canned peaches better than pears.
Day 110 or so, I moved my bunk closer to the door. I do not remember why. Maybe the sound of Legget tapping on the keyboard offered a measure of comfort but it was that small insignificant act that tilted the world back upright on its axis. I saw, from my new perspective, 'message received'� flash on the screen. Legget immediately reached under the console and the screen went blank. I almost shouted. 'There. Did you see that?'�, but I didn't.
What I thought I saw was Legget switching off the computer after receiving a conformation of our signal. Why would he do that? I remembered he had been the one who insisted on being at the Sat-Com every day at 0700 hours. He had been on the console when it went down and he had been the one who said it could not be fixed. Call it paranoia or prudence but the thought hit me. If Legget is behind all of this, I'm next.
I knew I was no match for Legget physically. I had to beat him intellectually. I feigned sleep for another five minutes, hoping he would not pick that precise time to make his move. When I did step out of the hut and onto the sand, I did not mention the message. Legget did not mention it either; a fact that only verified my suspicions.
'Tank, go down to the grove and cut me a pole. I'll catch us some fish for breakfast. I held my breath until the hut was between him and me and crawled under the console. There was a black toggle switch. That doesn't belong there. The son-of-a-bitch installed a second power switch beneath the console. I flipped the switch and the live screen popped up. I quickly entered the security code but the 'Access Denied'� message appeared. He must have changed the password.
I ran into the supply hut and dug through the crates until I reach the side arms and ammunition. Strangely, we had not thought to arm ourselves before. I suppose we were all resigned to the fact our stealth adversary was not flesh and blood. I feverishly loaded a clip into a .45 caliber automatic and checked on Legget. He was heading directly toward me, closing fast. He had a strange and wild look in his eyes
'Freeze.'� I yelled as took aim at his chest. I was ready to fire. Hell, I wanted to fire. He lunged at me with the pole. I fired two rounds in rapid succession. Even Legget was no match for two 45 slugs. He was dead where he fell and as sudden as that, it was over.
I had to wait six days for the chopper. I found Sarge and the rest buried in the dunes not fifty yard west of the camp. CID said they each died of a broken neck. Why did Legget do it? No one knew, not even a hint. He just snapped. You read about it all the time. Some postal worker in Chicago, a schoolboy in Indiana or a solder in the tropics, it happens and no one knows why.
Now and then, I still dream about Hupatila. I awake in cold sweats when I do. Mercifully, the nightmares occur less now than they once did. I did not re-enlist when my hitch was up and, even now, I never go to the beach. Sorry Shania, I guess there won't be any island getaway for us. Too bad though, it could have really been something special, the things dreams are made of.

Want to comment on this Short Stories? Sign up to Edit Red and you will be able to comment on Short Stories and get access to: Upload your own stories and poems, get readers and their feedback, promote your work...