Ghosts of Bungo Suido (2013)

by Deutermann, P. T

  Then he saw where they were going. Stashed under the pier was the carcass of a fishing boat. There was no engine, screws, rudder, or even a cabin. There was just the hull, covered by a wooden deck that had a rectangular hole where the forward cabin and pilothouse had once been. They climbed aboard the derelict boat and sat down on the deck. Some things wiggled away from them in the darkness. A lone crab stood his ground, watching them. He must have sensed Gar’s intentions, because he suddenly skittered sideways and disappeared right over the side.

  Hashimoto sat down beside him, produced a tiny candle from his pocket, and lit it. The smoke was fragrant, driving away the stench of the tidal flats. He then opened a small cotton bag. It contained a small piece of warm fish and a handful of cooked rice wrapped in some kind of green leaf. Gar ate it all in about three bites. He then handed Gar another bottle of water, again with no cap. Gar could see that it was an old beer bottle, and he had a bad feeling about the quality of that water, but even so, it was wonderful to get it. Hashimoto then produced two cigarettes, lit them both, and handed one to Gar. He wasn’t a smoker, but he became one that night, if only to suppress the rank air and drive off some of the larger mosquitoes. Hashimoto settled back on his haunches and gave Gar a look that said, Okay, what the hell happened?

  Gar told him the story, from having to send the sub down without him to going over the side as the Shinano met her end east of Bungo Suido. Hashimoto listened in weary silence. He looked older and much thinner. When Gar was finished, he nodded several times and then fished for more cigarettes. Gar shook his head, so he lit one up for himself. In the candlelight he looked like one of those Buddha figures, weary, patient, and imperturbable.

  “Goddamn army.” He sighed. “It is very bad here. No food. Army take everything. Army make us go out, then take everything we catch. Army give us fuel, but it is not real fuel. We hide some fish in the boat. They know we do this, but they know we must eat or they will not eat. Village get one sack of rice each month. That is it. Alla farmers’ food, fruit from trees, rice from field, alla the villages’ food, go to army. Children die everywhere. No food. In Hiroshima City, also very bad.”

  Gar didn’t know what to say. Having just consumed some of their meager rations, he actually felt a little guilty.

  “Last night,” Hashimoto continued, “army come. Officers very excited. All boats must go to sea. Go east, they say. Many submarines attack. Big ship go down. Many people in water. Find navy ships. Find people, bring them back here to village.”

  “That was cold water, Hashimoto-san,” Gar said.

  The old man nodded. “We knew. When winter comes, you have one hour, maybe two. Then you go to sleep and die.”

  “But you had to go out anyway.”

  He nodded again. “Army not asking. They tell. We gotta go.”

  He told Gar about a hodgepodge fleet of fishing boats all streaming out to sea in the middle of the night, some with army soldiers onboard with their radios. They searched until dawn, and actually picked up some survivors. The dead they left in the sea. There were many dead, and there was a huge oil slick bubbling up like some kind of underwater volcano. The fishermen had heard rumors that a great ship had left Kure under the cover of darkness, but the officers were crystal clear: No one was permitted to know or talk about this. Anyone talking would be shot.

  He said they listened to Radio Tokyo every night in the village and heard reports of great victories in China and Southeast Asia, that the Americans were being thrown back to Australia and that the imperial armies were preparing to corner them there and destroy them. They said that the American navy had already been destroyed at Pearl Harbor, and later the remnants had all gone down at Midway. No one believed these reports. Fuel oil was desperately short; even the office buildings and hotels up in Hiroshima City had no heat. Rice was almost impossible to obtain, and people everywhere were trying to grow it in their yards, gardens, and even window boxes. A bridge had collapsed last winter due to ice, and there was no steel to rebuild it. When people went to the hospital, they often did not come back because there were no medicines or doctors. Then there were the B-29s.

  Visible originally only as contrails high in the sky, they were now easily distinguished whenever they came over in daylight. With the B-29s came fire, fire in the city, fire in even some of the smaller towns. They no longer dropped big bombs, which seemed to go off all over the place and only occasionally land on a factory or large building. The bombs now came in clouds, tiny things, six, seven pounds, and they spread some kind of jelly all over the place. The tiny bombs were then followed by slightly larger ones, and these lit the jelly on fire, and the combination then ignited the entire city. Just a few weeks ago there had been a terrible fire in the north. The news reports said that it had been extinguished quickly with little damage and not many casualties, but civilians fleeing Honshu told quite a different story, of an entire city burning, flaming figures running down the streets, and there being no air to breathe. Yes, it had been extinguished, but only because there was nothing left to burn.

  The people of Honshu were very angry, Hashimoto said. It was one thing to bomb a ship or shoot down an airplane, quite another to set an entire city on fire. Gar told him the reason that he had been told: The Japanese army had dispersed war production throughout the country into the homes of workers in the city. There they made small parts, castings, and subassemblies. These were then sent to the factory where they were assembled into cannon shells, airplane parts, torpedoes, or heavier machinery. Hashimoto said he could understand that, but people on Honshu were killing the crews of any B-29s that parachuted into the countryside on sight.

  Which brought them to Gar’s situation.

  “I cannot stay here, then,” Gar said. “If the army finds me here, they’ll shoot everybody in the village, won’t they?”

  Hashimoto nodded. “Yes. Two weeks ago, army officer found a family listening to American radio from China. They take men away, then burn house. People still inside.”

  “When do you go back to sea again?”

  “In morning. Early.”

  “Can you trust your crew?”

  He nodded again. “All family. Whole village, family. No one talk to army.”

  “They know you came back from Hawaii?”

  “They know.”

  “Why did you come back, Hashimoto-san?” Gar asked.

  “I am old,” he said with a sigh. “Die soon. I am ashamed of what army has done to Nippon. Officers all crazy. They beat, sometimes kill soldiers for no reason. Soldiers very afraid. Officers carry swords, think they are samurai. Soldier makes mistake, officer cut off soldier’s hand. This war destroy my country. I am ashamed. Angry. I will make revenge. Maybe get caught. Die then.”

  “Still have that thing?”

  “I do,” he said proudly. “The secret thing. Wait for paper rain, then go to Hiroshima City. Put it in gardens of Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall. Then wait to see what happens.”

  “Is there a prisoner of war camp near here?”

  “On Kyushu, there is big one. Many gaijin held there. Smaller one here, near Hiroshima City. We hear very bad stories in Hiroshima City. Many prisoners are slaves in the Kawasaki coal mine near Nagasaki. Many die.”

  “Has Hiroshima been bombed?”

  “No. Radio Tokyo say no cities bombed, but we know that is not true. Railroad men come from the north, tell different story. No wanna go back.”

  “Okay,” Gar said. “I think what we have to do is let me be captured again. Go out on the boat. Put me back in that hole, then come back in. You tell the army you found me floating on a box.”

  “They kill you.”

  “They will see I wear khaki. They will question me first. I will tell them who I am. They will think I am a valuable prisoner. That way they won’t hurt you or your village.”

  Hashimoto considered that rationale. Gar sure as hell didn’t want to be recaptured, but he also didn’t want to bring death and destruc
tion down on this little fishing village just because one of them had fished him out of the sea. He was pretty sure Hashimoto understood. He told Gar that it would be better if he stayed right here during the day tomorrow. He would then pretend to find Gar after dark while making a final inspection of the boat for the next day’s fishing trip. He would call the guards at the nearest crossroads. He would get the villagers to act excited over his big discovery. After that, he would wait for paper rain and do what he’d promised to do.

  Gar considered trying to escape to sea. Perhaps steal a fishing boat at night and sail it through the minefields to the open ocean—but even if he escaped the Seto, then what? No food, no water, and 1,500 miles to the nearest American base. There’d be a high probability of being intercepted by Jap patrol boats, and then the village would still catch hell. It was obviously crucial to somebody important back in Pearl that Hashimoto did whatever the hell he was supposed to do with that thing. In turn, Hashimoto’s chances were dependent on the village remaining on his side. Escape simply wasn’t feasible, so he reluctantly agreed to what Hashimoto was proposing.

  “One last thing, Hashimoto-san,” Gar said. “Remember, put the secret thing where they told you, but don’t stay there.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  ComSubPac Headquarters, Pearl Harbor

  Admiral Lockwood and Captain Forrester were discussing the planned move of the SubPac headquarters out to Guam when a messenger came in from the operations center.

  “Op-immediate traffic, Admiral,” he said, handing a message to Lockwood.

  “Who’s it from?” Forrester asked as Lockwood read the message.

  “Archer-fish,” the messenger said, and then he left the office.

  “Who is claiming to have hit a carrier with six fish,” Lockwood said. “Only to have the damned thing sail over the horizon as if nothing happened.”

  “That doesn’t sound like Joe Enright,” Forrester said. “If anything, he’s too conservative with his reporting. And where’d they find a carrier?”

  “Says it was an unidentified class, but definitely a flattop. Appeared to be very large, bigger than the Shokaku. He chased it for six hours and then got a shot. The thing never slowed down. Six steamers, and it kept going?”

  “Bigger than Shokaku,” Forrester said. “I wonder.”

  “The thing Gar Hammond went after? You’re thinking they got her to sea?”

  “It’s possible. Hammond reported attacking the dry-dock caisson, but not the actual ship. That might have spooked the Japs to get her out of the Inland Sea and up to Yokohama or even Yokosuka. Somewhere that our boats couldn’t go.”

  Lockwood put the message down. “They probably thought that the Inland Sea was somewhere our boats couldn’t go.”

  Forrester shrugged. “We’ll have to wait for ULTRA, see if there’s chatter about losing a carrier.”

  “That’s assuming we’re still getting real traffic intercepts,” Lockwood said. “After, well, you know.”

  Forrester nodded. “Gar Hammond giveth, and Gar Hammond taketh away,” he said quietly.

  Kyushu, Japan

  By nine the next evening Gar was riding in the back of an army truck, arms bound, blindfolded, and escorted by two soldiers who’d looked like they were about twelve. Their rifles, with bayonets fixed, looked older and even taller than they were. The army officer who’d come to the village could barely contain his glee. He celebrated his accomplishment by whacking Gar across both shins with a baton, which brought Gar to his knees with what felt like two broken legs. Apparently he had been supposed to kneel the moment he saw the officer approaching. He knew that the longer he sat on that bench in the back of the truck, the harder it was going to be for him to get up and get out.

  One of the village women had brought Gar a last meal and more fresh water. He had no idea of what he was eating, but he was still pretty hungry, and he knew that food was going to be in short supply wherever he was going. More than once he wondered if he’d made the right decision not to at least try to escape, but the reality was undeniable. If he got caught and was made to tell where he’d been, there would be a firing squad for the entire village, whose only crime had been to look the other way when a certain old man suddenly reappeared in their midst, acting as if he’d been there all along.

  They drove for at least an hour, stopping at what sounded like several checkpoints along the way. Gar listened to much hissing and muttering at each stop. The officer who’d taken him into custody had come along for the ride to headquarters, or wherever they were going. When they finally stopped and shut down, Gar heard the canvas back of the truck pulled aside and then a lot of shouting in Japanese. He knew what they wanted, but he really couldn’t move. His legs hurt like hell, and he was still blindfolded. Then he felt two sharp blades prodding him in the side and heard more shouting. He fell sideways, toward the back of the truck, rolled once, and then fell off the truck and onto the ground. Someone helpfully kicked him to his feet and prodded him in the direction they wanted him to go. When the blindfold finally came off he was in a cell of some kind, very small, with a single metal chair in the middle and nothing else. They prodded him into the chair, removed the ropes, and slammed the metal door. Gar actually appreciated being left alone for a few minutes while he massaged his burning arms and tried to stop the bleeding cuts in his side.

  That lasted for five minutes, and then the door opened to reveal a middle-aged man in a civilian suit. He was carrying a metal folding chair. He was maybe five-six and had dark hair with graying temples and the face of a parish priest: a kind, calm, welcoming expression, and a look in his eyes that said, Relax, nobody’s going to hurt you, we’re all going to be friends. The two child-guards outside looked on with interest and bowed deeply as the older man stepped in and set up his chair. Then the new arrival produced a small black semiautomatic pistol. He checked to see that there was brass showing at the slide and then pressed it into Gar’s forehead.

  “Quickly, now,” he said. “Name, rank, and serial number.”

  Gar made the required recitation.

  “Commander,” he said. “Did you say commander?”

  “I did.”

  He withdrew the pistol. “Commander of what?”

  “That is my rank. Commander, U.S. Navy.”

  “Commander of what ship?”

  Gar recited his rank and serial number.

  The Priest, as Gar visualized him, stared at Gar for a long moment. His expression never changed. A sweet man, a kind man. Never hurt a flea.

  “Commander of what ship, please?” His English was unaccented. Not prease, please.

  Gar again recited his name, rank, and serial number, trying to maintain the pretense that the Japanese respected the Geneva Convention on the treatment of POWs, the one they’d never signed.

  Gar’s interrogator put the gun back into his jacket pocket and turned his head slightly. He nodded to one of the guards, who opened the cell door wide. Outside in the hallway an extremely gaunt and sick-looking Caucasian was kneeling on the concrete floor. His clothes were in tatters, and his eyes were swollen closed. Another, much older guard stood behind him with his own hands behind his back. The Priest said one word in Japanese, and the guard produced a pistol and shot the prisoner in the back of the head. He dropped to the floor without a sound and began to bleed copiously onto the concrete floor. The guard made a sound of disgust and shot him again. The two kids in uniform looked nauseated.

  Nobody moved. A ribbon of blood had reached the drain in the floor outside and began to trickle audibly down into it. That was the only sound. The air stank of gunpowder.

  “Commander of what ship, please?” Same placid expression. I’ve got all night and the world’s supply of prisoners.

  Gar heard the sounds of a metal door opening and someone else being dragged into the corridor outside his cell. Guards muttering in Japanese, grunting and pulling, and a third voice whimpering, “No, no, please,” in English. A third guard dragged the dead priso
ner out of Gar’s sight, and a new one was forced to kneel in the mess on the floor. The guard with the pistol looked over at the Priest, waiting for the sign. The interrogator sat back, lit a cigarette, spit out a fleck of wet tobacco, and gave Gar a moment to consider his circumstances. So he did.

  He was a prisoner of the Imperial Japanese Army, who, these days anyway, were the absolute masters of the ancient kingdom of Dai Nippon. The Japanese were a race of men who were the masters of the delicately intricate tea ceremony, the precision and discipline of Zen rock and sand gardens, single-stroke calligraphy, and the arrangement of fresh cherry blossoms. They lived in wooden houses with parchment windows, and they slept on flat mats with no heat in the winter. These same men were also the masters of the exquisite samurai sword and the perpetrators of the rape of Nanjing in 1937, where they used live Chinese civilians for recruit bayonet practice. They were the architects of the hell ship system, transporting POWs captured in Southeast Asia in the holds of merchant ships with the hatches bolted shut for the entire two-week journey to the copper mines of Honshu. If the ship happened to be torpedoed along the way, the Japs went into the lifeboats and listened as the POWs tried in vain to open the hatches before the ship finally sank.

  They were an alien race, so alien that Americans couldn’t even begin to appreciate how different the Japanese were in every respect. Death was supposed to mean nothing to them and everything to them. For any soldier, death in battle was the sublime objective. Death in captivity was the greatest dishonor they could imagine. Prisoners of war were therefore walking bags of offensive protoplasm, nothing more. POWs forfeited their humanity and all respect when they first raised their hands. Gar knew this Kempeitai officer would pull prisoners out of their cells and shoot every damned one of them until Gar decided to answer his question, and he’d do it without as much thought as he’d put into flicking that piece of wet tobacco off his lips.

  Okay, he thought, I get the picture.