Summary: Chapter 15
The following morning, army trucks take San Piedro’s Japanese families
to the Amity Harbor dock. They embark on the first stage of the
long and arduous journey to Manzanar, an internment camp in the
deserts of Southern California. At Manzanar, the Japanese-Americans
live in cramped barracks that do not adequately protect them from
the incessant wind and dust storms. The residents do not speak or
complain to each other, however, but merely wander around in a daze
like ghosts. Families lose track of one another and children wander
off from their parents.
Ishmael’s first letter to Hatsue arrives at Manzanar.
Ishmael has taken precautions so that the letter will reach Hatsue
without her family’s knowledge, but this elaborate plan is foiled
when Hatsue’s sister opens the letter, reads it, and shows it to
her mother. Fujiko angrily confronts Hatsue about the letter, ordering
her never to write or speak to Ishmael again. Hatsue admits that
the relationship was wrong. The following day Hatsue writes Ishmael
a letter breaking off their relationship. Within months, Ishmael
is a memory, “a persistent ache buried beneath the surface of [Hatsue’s]
daily life.” Hatsue meets Kabuo, and they soon fall in love.
Summary: Chapter 16
The narrative leaves Manzanar and rejoins Ishmael, who
is now a marine aboard the U. S. S. Heywood, about to storm the
island of Betio, part of the Tarawa Atoll in the South Pacific.
Ishmael has been a marine since the late summer of 1942,
training first as a rifleman in South Carolina, then as a radio
officer in New Zealand. He and his fellow marines load into boats
before dawn, then wait for hours in the waters off Betio. When they
finally storm the beach, everything goes wrong. Nearly all of Ishmael’s
company is killed before the men even reach the shore. Ishmael hides
behind a seawall for hours, watching soldiers die all around him.
Finally, when evening falls, Ishmael and the remaining
troops climb over the seawall to storm the beach. When a bullet
hits his left arm, Ishmael drops behind a dead soldier and passes
out. He wakes up to find that medics are tending to him. He blacks
out again and then wakes up on a ship, surrounded by sick and dying
soldiers. Ishmael realizes that his left arm has been amputated.
As he recovers in bed, in a morphine-induced stupor, he mutters
in confused rage about Hatsue, “that fucking goddamn Jap bitch.”
Summary: Chapter 17
As the blizzard continues to rage outside the courtroom,
the narrative follows several San Piedro islanders as they cope
with the storm. Back inside the courtroom, Art Moran testifies that
one of the mooring ropes found on Carl Heine’s ship did not match
the other three ropes but did match those on Kabuo’s boat. Furthermore,
one of Kabuo’s ropes is brand new, indicating that he recently lost
one and had to replace it. Art explains that he first thought to
search Kabuo’s boat after speaking with Etta and Ole about Kabuo’s
determination to reclaim his father’s land.
Summary: Chapter 18
The narrative flashes back to the moments just before
Kabuo’s arrest. Art goes to Judge Fielding’s office to request a
warrant to search Kabuo’s boat. When Art arrives at the dock with
the warrant in hand, Kabuo allows the sheriff to search the boat
but declares his innocence. Kabuo is eager to get out to sea and
start fishing. Art soon discovers the blood-covered gaff, however,
and decides to arrest Kabuo on the spot.
