Iwo Jima, Volcano Islands—One Year Later
Shake Davis draped an arm over his new bride’s shoulder and hugged her close against a chill wind blowing up off the black sand below their perch atop Mt. Suribachi. The orange ball of sun descending on the horizon lit the surface of the rolling sea with brilliant light that stretched toward them in lengthening spears. It was a spectacular sight, as if a drowning man was stretching desperate fingers toward the island in a last effort to keep from slipping beneath the Pacific waves.
“Hell of a place for a honeymoon,” Shake mumbled into Chan’s silky hair and hoped yet another time since the wedding that she was really happy to be here with an old warhorse on yet another desolate South Pacific island haunted by specters of World War II.
“It beats th
