Letters Across the Sea by Genevieve Graham (spicy books to read .txt) 📕

of urgency Max and most of the others felt appeared to be lost on the men in charge. Sergeant Cox maintained a stony expression, though Max could tell from the way his eyes constantly scanned the area around him that he was as confused as the rest of them. Everyone kept repeating what they’d been told, that the Brits would beat the Japs back, and they’d never make it to Kowloon. All they could do was sit tight and hope the people in charge were right.

“Richie,” Max said, watching his friend pace. Richie’s hands opened and closed, opened and closed, and Max recognized the need to use them. “Let’s toss a ball.”

Without a word, Richie ducked under his cot and pulled out his glove, and they headed behind the barracks.

“We haven’t done this in a while,” Max said, pitching.

The ball slapped into Richie’s glove. “Feels good,” he said.

After they’d thrown the ball back and forth a few times, Richie spoke up. “You remember that incredible game against the Sons? When we were sixteen? You were the best.”

“We were,” Max said. “The two of us. Those were the days, weren’t they?”

Richie didn’t speak for a couple of pitches, then he paused, holding the ball. “I think we’re in trouble here, Max. This feels like the night of the riot, you know? When everybody knew it was gonna be a brawl to remember, but none of the cops showed up. That’s how I feel right now. Like, why isn’t anybody doing anything?”

Max punched his glove, nodding. He knew the feeling exactly. “We’re supposed to pretend it isn’t happening.”

Richie’s eyes went to the sky. “What’s that?”

Max turned, startled by the sight of airplanes coasting in on the horizon, traveling swiftly in a wide V. “Think they’re ours, coming from Singapore?”

“Sure hope so.”

Something dropped from one of the approaching planes, and Max frowned, squinting to see. Then he made out more of the small dark objects tumbling from the sky, and he saw smoke plume up. From somewhere inside the barracks, Gander began to bark hysterically. All at once Max understood, and he and Richie exchanged a look of horror.

“Get inside!” Max shouted.

The first explosion hit the street a block away, and they ran for all they were worth. The rat-tat-tat! of machine-gun fire came from the planes closing in behind them, drawing ever closer. At the entrance to the barracks, they threw themselves inside just as the bullets strafed the walls of the building.

“Under the bunks!” Sergeant Cox ordered, and Max and Richie dove under the iron beds as the others had, flinching when something crashed outside. Max turned his head to look at Richie beneath the next bunk, and saw his eyes were closed, his lips moving in prayer.

Half an hour later, when the bombing had ended, they peeled themselves off the floor, stiff from tension and fear.

“That’s it,” Cox said. “We’re out of here tonight.”

They got the evacuation orders at last, and C Force set out under cover of darkness. Relieved to finally be in motion, Max slung his pack and rifle over his back and set out into the night, quietly marching behind the others as they evacuated the mainland. They boarded the ferry to cross the narrow Lye Mun Passage to Hong Kong Island, and Max looked back in shocked silence as they set off. Behind them, nothing could be seen of the British-Indian company of courageous Rajput soldiers, left to guard the hill called Devil’s Peak, the Brits’ final hope of holding the mainland. Ahead of them loomed the forbidding island of Hong Kong, made almost entirely of steep, granite mountains. He could see no escape either way.

Arnie’s eyes were wide with panic. “What are we supposed to do once we land there? We have no big guns, no ammo.” He patted his belt, touching a grenade buckled there. “I don’t even know how to use one of these.”

At Hong Kong Island, C Force was split into two groups. The Winnipeg Grenadiers were sent west, while the Royal Rifles covered the east side of the island. As soon as they were organized, Max and the rest of D Company positioned themselves along the water’s edge and waited. For five days, they watched explosions rock the mainland. On the fifth day, it fell under Japanese control. Max didn’t need Cox to tell him the Japanese’s next target was Hong Kong Island. The enemy was on its way.

As night deepened, Max, Arnie, and David shivered in the muggy night, partly hidden in a ditch. Cox and some of the other senior soldiers were holed up behind them, inside a cement bunker that had been built decades before for the last war. There were tunnels, too, but most were too old and cracked to offer any sort of passage. Max knew, because they had explored them during an earlier exercise on the island. About ten feet away, Max made out Richie’s profile, then his pale red hair, just as grey as everyone else’s in the moonlight. Richie gave him a nod of encouragement, and Max did his best to appear just as confident, but nothing could reassure him about tonight. He slid his eyes away from his old friend and studied the dark water stretching before them, indistinguishable from the sky.

Waiting, he thought. Waiting was the worst part.

But he had a feeling that was almost over.

David slid closer. “With all this going on, did you guys remember it’s Chanukah? Hannah and the kids will be gathered around your mama’s table, eating latkes and playing dreidel.”

“Pretty dark out here,” Arnie said quietly. “Sure could use a menorah right about now.”

Max closed his eyes, picturing his family around the candles. He could almost hear the warm voices of years past, filled with laughter and love. If I don’t come home, he thought, know that I love you all.

David patted Max’s back. “Don’t worry. It won’t happen tonight. One of the Brits told me the Japanese never attack at night. He said they have