A CODE FOR TOMORROW: A Ingram Novel (The Todd Ingram Series Book 2)

by JOHN J. GOBBELL

  Tied outboard of the YFD was a curious yard service craft; an ammunition lighter, another Cavite-based war-orphan. A corrugated metal superstructure with sliding wooden doors and a peaked roof occupied most of her deck space. Her hull was black and haze-gray paint peeled in great strips from her corrugated metal superstructure. A faded, grease-smeared white YFN-376 was still discernable on either side of the lighter's blunt bow.

  They stopped at a stateroom where one guard knocked, then opened the door and shoved him roughly inside an empty stateroom. He was tied, hand and foot, to a sturdy brass stanchion decorated with scrimshaw. Then he was surprised when they turned and walked out, closing the door softly.

  Except for the rain pounding outside, it was quiet. He looked around, finding he obviously was in an officer’s stateroom with three large polished brass portholes giving a view on the harbor. The inboard side had a neatly made pilot berth. Mounted on the bulkhead was a gilded-framed picture of Emperor Hirohito atop a white stallion. Flanking the Emperor were pictures of admirals, one he thought was Fleet Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. The other Admiral he didn’t recognize and ironically, dirty laundry was stacked underneath. In the stateroom's opposite corner was a desk with books and papers scattered about. A combination safe stood next to that, its double doors gaping open, more books and pages spilling on the deck. A gleaming brass Seth Thomas twenty-four hour clock was mounted to the bulkhead over the desk. Even as he watched, it delicately chimed seven bells: 0730.

  The rain roared harder, and with it the realization he was tired, the dull, sleepless hours from the trip north catching up to him. He sagged against his bindings, water running from his clothes and dripping on a polished hardwood floor. But the way he was tied he couldn’t ease all the way down. The hell with it. He’d slept standing up before. He closed his eyes; the rain drummed outside and he drifted...

  The door crashed open, and two officers in blue uniforms with high collars walked in. One stepped up and ran his eyes up and down Ingram. He was older, bald, and a convoluted smile meandered across a long, crinkled face that had been at sea for a long time. He helped Ingram to his feet. “Welcome back to Nasipit, Commander Ingram. I understand you’ve been here before. My name is Warrant Officer Hisa Kunisawa. And I am to be your interpreter.” He bowed to another officer standing beside him and said, “Allow me to introduce your host, Lieutenant Commander Katsumi Fujimoto, Captain of this vessel.”

  Ingram’s eyes flicked to Fujimoto who cocked his right arm and yelled “Bakayaro!” driving a fist deep into his stomach.

  Ingram gasped horribly, lost consciousness momentarily, and sagged to his knees.

  Kunisawa stepped back, pulled out a silver hip flask and poured a slug in the gleaming cap. “Ummm, Commander Ingram. He just called you a stupid bastard. I wonder why?” Then he knocked back his capful and smacked his lips. Stowing his flask, he stepped up to Ingram, grabbed his elbow and yanked him roughly up.

  Wheezing, coughing, Ingram struggled for a breath that he felt would never come. Just when he thought he could draw one, Fujimoto grabbed his head and smashed a knee up into his face...

  ...not realizing how long he was out, he woke up gradually, realizing they had tied his hands to a pad-eye on the overhead so he couldn’t sink the deck. Water splashed on his face and he heard a voice...it was the Warrant.

  He yelled, “Commander Fujimoto wishes to congratulate you on your promotion to Lieutenant Commander. Now you two are of equal rank.”

  Ingram tried to steel himself against the fist that drove into his left kidney. The pain was as if lightning had detonated in his torso; a secondary shock like a thousand tiny pieces of glass dragged through his back and stomach...

  “...I asked, ‘is this your picture?’“ said Warrant Officer Kunisawa.

  He stood close, and Ingram tried to focus on the man. But the fog was thick, and everything seemed coated with red; his nose throbbed and blood ran from his mouth and from a cut above his eyes. A wet rag was roughly wiped over his face. He could see.

  “Commander, look at this please.” Kunisawa stood close, and his breath smelled of alcohol. “Is that you?”

  “Huh?” Through throbbing, shrieking pain, Ingram squinted, finally recognizing the San Francisco Chronicle picture of Spruance pinning the Navy Cross on him. “Uh, huh.”

  “Hei.” Kunisawa bowed to Fujimoto.

  Fujimoto wound up with his fist. Ingram tried to jerk his head away, the blow smacked into his cheek, tearing open the scar from Corregidor. Blood gorged as pain ripped through his face and then...

  From two blocks away, Helen surveyed the barge through binoculars. They were in an abandoned grain and feed store, its contents long ago seized by the Japanese. Palm branches waved before her lens; the view further hindered by rain and an abandoned single-story pineapple cannery.

  “What is it, honey?” Wong Lee reached for the binoculars.

  “Bastards.” She wrenched them away, her face pressed tighter to the eyepieces. “They hit him with a rifle butt.”

  “Is that your boy?” Asked Wong Lee as the rain thumped on the tin roof.

  “I...” Of course it was Todd. Helen recognized him the moment he'd been shoved off the truck. My God! Todd, she couldn't believe it, and her pulse raced like a teenager.

  Todd. All her doubts faded the moment he saw him tumble from the truck and hit the wharf. Amador, Legaspi, Estaque, and another American soon followed, all bound hand and foot. They were yanked to their feet and marched up the gangway.

  Then another body was pitched on the wharf. But he didn't move, bloody holes stitched across his back: Ramirez. Tears sprang to her eyes and she wiped at them.

  “Gimme.” Wong yanked the binoculars away and looked for himself. Soon, he too moaned.

  Helen turned to Manuel Carillo and Luis Guzman and said, her voice shaking, “Carlos didn't make it.”

  The two guerrilleros sucked in their breath. “How could this have happened?” growled Guzman.

  “Another traitor?” Carillo hung his head, it had happened so many times before. A sellout. People talked about anything, sold scraps of information for food, especially in the more densely populated Misamis Oriental, Bukidnon and Lanao provinces to the west.

  Helen looked at Carillo. How? So few knew of Ingram's arrival. “Don Pablo had a feeling. Maybe that's why he didn't let us go.” After receiving a message late yesterday afternoon about Ingram's arrival, Amador almost had to forcibly restrain Helen from going along. “Somebody has to take care of the fort,’“ he had said.

  Wong nodded. “Well, honey? Is that your man?”

  Helen watched them march Todd onto the second deck, then into Fujimoto's stateroom. She handed the binoculars over to Wong. “Yes, that's him. He's gained his weight back.” Lord, he looks good. Oh God, help him, keep him healthy. Don't let those pigs hurt him.

  Wong hoisted the binoculars, “I don't doubt it. You're breathing kind of hard.”

  “That's not funny.”

  Wong Lee whirled, “I'm sorry, baby, I didn't mean to upset you...my God, Helen. What's wrong?”

  Helen's fists were doubled, her eyes narrowed and nostrils flared.

  Wong had seen her like that once before. She'd grabbed a Springfield rifle, stood fast, and methodically pecked away at a squad of Japanese Kempetai chasing them up a hillside. On they came until she'd carefully shot three in the head from twenty feet. The rest dashed back down to a roadside ditch, radioing for help. That’s when they escaped with Amador's raiding party into the jungle. “Are you okay?” Wong Lee asked.

  “We just can't sit here and do nothing,” she said in a cold fury.

  Wong Lee dropped his binoculars in a gesture of futility and Lit a cigarette. “How ‘bout the radio? Call Australia.”

  “Even if I knew how to do it send code, they wouldn’t recognize my fist. Otis would think it was a hoax.”

  Wong Lee’s shoulders sagged. “We got nothing left.”

  Helen stared through him.

&nbs
p; “What?”

  “You ready to give up? You want to walk over there and turn yourself in?”

  “Helen, I’m just a poor Chinaman who cooks for a living.”

  “What we have left is,” she patted a knapsack at her side, “a document that I worked like hell to get. And if I don’t miss by bet, it’s going to make a big difference when it gets into the right hands back home.” She pointed to the wharf. “And there are people over there who have risked their lives for us. They deserve the chance to board the submarine as well as you and me. “Besides, Wong. Do you know the recognition signal for the submarine?”

  Wong Lee gasped, “Oh, my God. Doesn’t Pablo?”

  “No. He didn’t have to. Only the beach master, Todd, knows the signal. Which means we have to get him out if we want to board that submarine.”

  He held his hands to his head.

  “That’s right. Don Pablo has always taken care of things. The first thing you should remember is your friends over there. When are you--Wait,” she snapped her fingers. “What day is it?”

  Wong scratched his head. “Dunno...Tuesday, the seventeenth, I think.”

  “That’s it!” She clapped. “Here. Come here.”

  Wong Lee stood fast, not just a little frightened at Helen’s countenance. “Anything you say, honey. God, I never seen you so mad.”

  She beckoned Wong Lee, Carillo and Guzman around a crate. Picking up a scrap of cardboard, she scratched out a crude map of Nasipit. “Here's what we're going to do...”

  CHAPTER FORTY SIX

  17 November, 1942

  Service Barge 212, Nasipit, Mindanao

  Philippines

  He sat on the deck, his legs splayed before him. With a terrible cough, he tried to clear his head, dully realizing they’d retied his arms to the brass stanchion. He spat blood and something fell out of his mouth; a red-gorged molar lay on his shirt. Ingram involuntarily pitched his head up and coughed again.

  “Welcome back, Commander,” said Kunisawa. You were out for,” he looked at his watch---it was Ingram’s watch!--- “for twenty minutes that time. That’s pretty good.”

  Ingram spat more blood. “So’s your English.”

  Kunisawa stooped before Ingram, his breath laden with a bizarre combination of garlic and whatever he’d been drinking. “I speak English because I am a sailor of the world. And you should be thankful I’ve got it. You’re going to have to deal with him through me.”

  Ingram wiped his blood-crusted mouth on his shoulder. “Why?”

  “You don’t know?”

  “No idea.”

  “You’re the sonofabitch that made him run aground,” Kunisawa said a bit smugly. Then he said something over his shoulder. It must have been a question, for Fujimoto grunted in the affirmative.

  “Ran what aground?” Ingram asked in an exasperated tone.

  “Last May; his destroyer; the Kurosio.” As Kunisawa explained, Fujimoto stepped close to Ingram, his feet planted apart, fists braced on his hips.

  “Up, up Commander,” Kunisawa yanked Ingram's elbow, jerking Ingram to his feet. Bile rushed to his throat and he retched, nearly passing out. After a while, he felt better and opened his eyes to see Fujimoto examining him clinically. It came to him that this is the pissed-off sailor Captain Falkenberg spoke of in San Francisco--the one he’d outfoxed that night off Fortune Island just after their escape from Manila Bay in the 51 Boat. Ingram looked at the Japanese Lieutenant Commander with new eyes. Solidly built, he was five nine or ten, with sharp features. Yet he had an almost soft, kind face. A face he would have thought incapable of delivering the beating he’d just received. But navies are navies and skippers’ careers are at risk when their ships run aground. Yes, he had probably lost his command, was terribly embarrassed, and consigned to this forsaken corner of the Philippines in shame. Fujimoto’s father, Ingram recalled, was a retired admiral. He checked the pictures on the bulkhead; that must be him up there with Yamamoto, the two were somehow aligned. Something else tugged at his memory. What was it Falkenberg had said? Yes. Fujimoto had been aide to General Yoshitsugu Tatekawa, Ambassador to the Soviet Union. Then what about--

  Ingram screamed as Fujimoto drove another fist into his left kidney. He sank to his knees again and braced a hand to stop his fall. With another shout, Fujimoto stomped on his hand with his the heel of his shoe, then kicked him in the ribs. Something cracked sending him mercifully into...

  “Up Commander. Come on. That’s a good boy,” Kunisawa’s voice reached the recesses of his whirling semi-consciousness.

  Strong hands yanked at Ingram’s elbows, jerking him roughly to his feet. Coughing and spitting blood he sagged against his bindings, his chin on his chest.

  “My, my, Commander, You’re going to piss blood for a month.”

  Ingram opened his eyes, becoming aware that two guards propped him up. Kunisawa stood before him, sipping his schnapps from the silver cap, smiling. “Want a shot?”

  “No, thanks.”

  Kunisawa snapped an order in Japanese. Ingram’s chin was wrenched up, his mouth jerked open. Within an instant, fiery liquid tumbled down his throat and...it tasted good. It was liquor of some kind, sweet.

  Kunisawa nodded toward the bow. “Kahlua. Right off that destroyer. I found it in the Captain’s cabin. Can you believe that?”

  The Kahlua felt good but his body still shrieked with pain. It hurt terribly to breath and his ribs and left hand throbbed as if broken. His left side, especially the kidney area, felt as if it had been run over by an Army M-3 tank. Kunisawa wasn’t far off the mark when he said he’d be pissing blood for a month. His kidney must be about the consistency of hamburger. Ingram coughed again. “Nice ship. Where'd you find her?”

  Kunisawa waved his little hip flask at Ingram, his eyebrows raised.

  “No, thanks.”

  Behind Kunisawa, Fujimoto sat at the desk and, looking at Ingram, massaged his bloody knuckles.

  Kunisawa turned to Ingram. “Do you realize, Commander, why your Mark 15 torpedoes perform so poorly?”

  Ingram was surprised at the abrupt change of subject. “What are you talking about?”

  Fujimoto held up a drawing; it looked like a torpedo midbody. A little smile crept across his lips as he spoke to Kunisawa.

  Kunisawa went, “Ahhh, ahhh” a few times, bowed and then turned to Ingram. “Come now, Commander. We know you have considerable expertise with Naval weaponry, torpedoes included.”

  “No, I'm a supply officer.” Damnit! It slipped out. He'd said that once before when captured by the Japanese. It hadn't helped his situation then, and he was sure it wouldn't help now.

  Sure enough Kunisawa relayed that to Fujimoto. Both laughed hilariously. Then Kunisawa asked, “How is it that a supply officer who deals in ordering...toilet paper and condoms, became executive officer of the U.S.S. Howell and distinguished himself at the Battles of Cape Esperance and the Santa Cruz Islands?”

  How the hell did he know that? “They're hard up for people.”

  Kunisawa raised his eyebrows. “Hard up?”

  “They're scraping the bottom of the barrel.”

  Kunisawa dashed off another translation to Fujimoto, both laughing again. Then Kunisawa said, “Kidding aside, you must understand Commander Fujimoto is a torpedo expert. He has, how do you say, reversed engineered your Mark 15 torpedoes many times the past few months. We're very aware of the failures of torpedoes manufactured by Winslow River Corporation. Commander Fujimoto finds them horribly lacking.”

  In spite of his pain, Ingram raised his head to meet Fujimoto's eyes. “Is that so?”

  “Yes, that is so. Well, get this commander. Winslow River's skin mounted depth-sensor is what's wrong. With your torpedo going thirty or forty-five knots, the velocity of water over the sensor gives a far different pressure reading than the,” Kunisawa stopped and asked Fujimoto a question. After an abrupt answer, Kunisawa said, “...the actual hydrostatic pressure or real depth. Your error is proportional to the square
of the torpedo speed, the faster it goes, the deeper it runs. Got it?”

  Ingram was flabbergasted. Could this be true? “No.”

  Kunisawa poured another capful and started to drink, when Fujimoto grunted and waved a finger. “Sorry, Commander, this is my last one for a while.”

  Airplane engines roared overhead as Kunisawa screwed on his flask cap. Just then, the Seth Thomas clock chimed two bells: 0900. “Ahh, the Shōsō. Right on schedule.”

  After a moment, Fujimoto rose and looked out a port. Kunisawa joined him to watch a twin-engine flying boat touch down in the outer harbor and settle into the water, spray and mist shooting past its tail.

  Looking at Ingram, Fujimoto spoke rapidly as he gathered papers and stacked them on the side of the desk.

  Kunisawa offered, “The elegant solution, devised by Lieutenant Commander Katsumi Fujimoto, is to relocate the depth-sensing device to the free-flooding section inside the torpedo's mid-body, where it won't be affected by velocity of water flowing over its skin. Thus,” Kunisawa snapped his fingers, “you have measurement of true depth, thus the torpedo runs correctly and hits home. Bam!” He clapped his hands and then turned and bowed to Fujimoto.

  Tightening his collar, Fujimoto gave a boyish grin and bowed back. Then he went to a basin, took the bandages off his hands, and began carefully washing up.

  Ingram pondered what Kunisawa had just said. Wouldn’t George Atwell and Rocko Myszynski love to hear this? It confirmed their tests off Mooloolaba Harbor. And better yet, Fujimoto not only knew why they ran deep, he knew how to fix the problem. He wondered if there was a way he could get word back to Brisbane to Otis DeWitt and Rocko Myszynski. Maybe through Amador's radio, if it hadn't been confiscated. All he had to do was to figure a way. But then he wondered why they were volunteering this information; telling him, it seemed, everything. How could he be expected not to talk? “What do you want me to---”