Cryptonomicon

by Neal Stephenson

  Terrified by the barrage, a bunch of Nip soldiers stagger out of a side exit of the hotel, almost too drunk to stand, some of them still pulling their trousers up. Shaftoe disgustedly throws a grenade at them and then gets the hell out without bothering to examine the results. It is getting to the point where killing Nips is no fun anymore. There is no sense of accomplishment in it. It is a tedious and dangerous job that never seems to end. When will these stupid bastards knock it off? They are embarrassing themselves in front of the whole world.

  He finds his men in Rizal Park, beneath the shadow of Intramuros’s ancient Spanish wall, disputing possession of a baseball diamond with what is left of the Nipponese squads that pursued them here. The timing is both good and bad. Any earlier, and Nip reinforcements in the surrounding neighborhood would have heard the skirmish, flooded into the park and wiped them out. Any later, and the American infantry would be here. But Rizal Park is in the middle of a deranged urban battleground right now, and nothing makes any kind of sense. They have to impose their will on the situation, the kind of thing Bobby Shaftoe has gotten fairly good at.

  The one thing they have going for them is that the artillery is pointed elsewhere for the time being. Shaftoe squats down behind a coconut tree and tries to figure out how the hell he is going to reach that baseball diamond, which is a couple of hundred yards away across totally flat, open ground.

  He knows the place; Uncle Jack took him to a baseball game there. Wooden bleachers rise along the left and right field lines. Beneath each one is a dugout. Shaftoe knows how battles work, and so he knows that one of those dugouts is full of Nips and one is full of Huks and that they are pinned down in them by each other’s fire just like Great War troops in their opposing trenches. There are a few buildings under the bleachers, containing toilets and a refreshment stand. The Nips and the Huks will be creeping through those buildings right now, trying to get into a position from which they can shoot into the dugouts.

  A Nipponese grenade flies towards him from the direction of the left field bleachers, making a stripping noise as it passes through the fronds of a palm tree. Shaftoe ducks his head behind another tree so that he can’t see the grenade. It explodes and tears the clothing, and a good deal of the skin, from one of his arms and one of his legs. But like all Nip grenades it is poorly made and miserably ineffectual. Shaftoe turns around and uncorks a spume of .45-caliber rounds in the general direction the grenade came from; this should give the thrower something to think about while Shaftoe gets his bearings.

  This is actually a stupid idea, because he runs out of ammunition. He has a few rounds in his Colt, and that’s it. He also has one grenade left. He considers throwing it towards the baseball diamond, but his throwing arm is in pretty bad shape now.

  Besides—Jesus Christ! That baseball diamond is just too far away. Even in peak condition he could not throw a grenade from here to there.

  Perhaps one of those corpses out in the grass, between here and there, isn’t really a corpse. Shaftoe crawls towards them on his belly and establishes that they are most definitely dead people.

  Giving the field a wide berth, he begins working his way around behind home plate towards the right field line, where his people are. He would love to sneak up on the Nips from behind, but that grenade thrower really threw a fright into him. Where the hell is he?

  The firing from the dugouts has become sporadic. They have stalemated now and are trying to conserve ammunition. Shaftoe risks rising to a crouch. He runs for about three paces before he sees the door to the women’s toilet swing open and a man jump out, winding up like Bob Feller getting ready to throw a fastball right down the middle of the plate. Shaftoe fires his .45 once, but the weapons’ absurdly vicious recoil jerks it right out of his lamed hand. The grenade comes flying towards him, perfectly on target. Shaftoe dives to the ground and scrambles for his .45. The grenade actually bounces off his shoulder and falls spinning into the dust, making a fizzing noise. But it doesn’t explode.

  Shaftoe looks up. The Nip is standing framed in the women’s room door. His shoulders slump miserably. Shaftoe recognizes him; there’s only one Nip who could throw a grenade like that. He lies there for a few moments, counting syllables on his fingers, then stands up, cups his hands around his mouth, and hollers:

  Pineapple fastball—

  Guns of Manila applaud—

  Hit by pitch—free base!

  Goto Dengo and Bobby Shaftoe lock themselves inside the women’s room and share a nip from a bottle of port that the former has looted from a store somewhere. They spend a few minutes catching up with each other in a general way. Goto Dengo is already somewhat drunk, which makes his grenade-throwing performance all the more impressive. “I’m hyped to the gills on benzedrine,” Shaftoe says. “Keeps you going, but kind of screws up your aim.”

  “I noticed!” Goto Dengo says. He is so skinny and haggard he looks more like some hypothetical sick uncle of Goto Dengo’s.

  Shaftoe pretends to take offense at this and drops into a judo stance. Goto Dengo laughs uneasily and waves him off. “No more fighting,” he says. A rifle bullet passes through the women’s room wall and digs a crater into a porcelain sink.

  “We gotta come up with a plan,” Shaftoe says.

  “The plan: You live, I die,” Goto Dengo says.

  “Fuck that,” Shaftoe says. “Hey, don’t you idiots know you’re surrounded?”

  “We know,” Goto Dengo says wearily. “We know for a long time.”

  “So give up, you fucking morons! Wave a white flag and you can all go home.”

  “It is not Nipponese way.”

  “So come up with another fucking way! Show some fucking adaptability!”

  “Why are you here?” Goto Dengo asks, changing the subject. “What is your mission?”

  Shaftoe explains that he’s looking for his kid. Goto Dengo tells him where all of the women and children are: in the Church of St. Agustin, in Intramuros.

  “Hey,” Shaftoe says, “if we surrender to you, you’ll kill us. Right?”

  “Yes.”

  “If you guys surrender to us, we won’t kill you. Promise. Scout’s honor.”

  “For us, living or dying is not the important thing,” Goto Dengo says.

  “Hey! Tell me something I didn’t fucking already know!” Shaftoe says. “Even winning battles isn’t important to you. Is it?”

  Goto Dengo looks the other way, shamefaced.

  “Haven’t you guys figured out yet that banzai charges DON’T FUCKING WORK?”

  “All of the people who learned that were killed in banzai charges,” Goto Dengo says.

  As if on cue, the Nips in the left field dugout begin screaming “Banzai!” and charge, as one, out onto the field. Shaftoe puts his eye up to a bullet hole in the wall and watches them stumbling across the infield with fixed bayonets. Their leader clambers up the pitcher’s mound as if he’s going to plant a flag there, and takes a slug in the middle of his face. His men are being dismantled all around him by thoughtfully placed rifle slugs from the Huks’ dugout. Urban warfare is not the metier of the Hukbalahaps, but calmly slaughtering banzai-charging Nipponese is old hat. One of the Nips actually manages to crawl all the way to the first base coach’s box. Then a few pounds of meat come flying out of his back and he relaxes.

  Shaftoe turns to see that Goto Dengo is aiming a revolver at him. He chooses to ignore this for a moment. “See what I mean?”

  “I have seen it many times before.”

  “Then why aren’t you dead?” Shaftoe asks the question with all due flippancy, but it has a terrible effect on Goto Dengo. His face scrunches up and he begins to cry. “Aw, shit. You pull a gun on me and start bawling at the same time? How unfair can you get? Why don’t you kick some fucking dirt in my eyes while you’re at it?”

  Goto Dengo lifts the revolver to his own temple. But Shaftoe sees that one coming a mile away. He knows Nips well enough, by this point, to figure out when they are about to go hari-kari on you.
Shaftoe jumps forward as soon as the barrel of the revolver begins to move. By the time it is against Goto Dengo’s skull, Shaftoe has his finger stuck into the gap between the hammer and the firing pin.

  Goto Dengo collapses to the floor sobbing piteously. It just makes Shaftoe want to kick him. “Knock it off!” he says. “What the fuck is eating at you?”

  “I came to Manila to redeem myself—to get back my lost honor!” Goto Dengo says. “I could have done it here. I could be dead on that field right now, and my spirit going to Yasukuni. But then—you came! You ruined my concentration!”

  “Concentrate on this, dumbshit!” Shaftoe says. “My son is in a church right over on the far side of that wall, with a bunch of other helpless women and children. If you want to redeem yourself, why not help me get ’em out alive?”

  Goto Dengo seems to have gone into a trance now. His face, which was blubbering just a minute ago, has solidified into a mask. “I wish I could believe what you believe,” he says. “I have died, Bobby. I was buried in a rock tomb. If I were a Christian, I could be born again now, and be a new man. Instead, I must go on living, and accept my karma.”

  “Well, shit! There’s a padre right out there in the dugout. He can Christianize your ass in about ten seconds flat.” Bobby Shaftoe strides across the bathroom and swings the door open.

  He is startled to see a man standing just a few paces away. The man is dressed in an old but clean khaki uniform, devoid of insignia except for a pentagon of stars on the collar. He has jammed a wooden match down into the bowl of a corncob pipe and is puffing away futilely. But it’s as if all of the oxygen has been sucked out of the air by the burning of the city. He throws the match away in disgust, then looks up into the face of Bobby Shaftoe—staring at him through a pair of dark aviator sunglasses that give his gaunt face the appearance of a skull. His mouth forms into an O for a moment. Then his jaw sets. “Shaftoe… Shaftoe! SHAFTOE!” he says.

  Bobby Shaftoe feels his body stiffening to attention. Even if he had been dead for a few hours, his body would do this out of some kind of dumb ingrained reflex. “Sir, yes, sir!” he says wearily.

  The General composes his thoughts for half a second, and then says: “You were supposed to be in Concepcion. You failed to be there. Your superiors did not know what to think. They have been worried sick about you. And the Department of the Navy has been positively insufferable ever since they became aware that you were working for me. They assert, in the most high-handed way, that you know important secrets, and should never have been placed in danger of capture. In short, your whereabouts and your status have been the subject of the most intense, nay, feverish speculation for the last several weeks. Many supposed that you were dead, or, worse, captured. This distraction has been most unwelcome to me, inasmuch as the planning and execution of the reconquest of the Philippine Islands have left me little time to devote to such nagging distractions.” An artillery shell rips through the air and detonates in the bleachers, sending jagged fragments of planks, about the size of canoe paddles, whirling through the air all around them. One of them embeds itself like a javelin in the dirt between The General and Bobby Shaftoe.

  The General takes advantage of this to draw breath, and then continues, as if he were reading this from a script. “And now, when I least expect it, I encounter you, here, many leagues distant from your assigned post, out of uniform, in a disheveled condition, accompanied by a Nipponese officer, violating the sanctity of a ladies’ powder room! Shaftoe, have you no sense whatsoever of military honor? Do you not respect decorum? Do you not believe that a representative of the United States military should comport himself with more dignity?”

  Shaftoe’s kneecaps are joggling up and down uncontrollably. His guts have become molten, and he feels strange bubbling processes going on in his rectum. His molars are chattering together like a teletype machine. He senses Goto Dengo behind him, and wonders what the poor bastard can possibly be thinking.

  “Begging your pardon, General, not to change the subject or anything, but are you here all by yourself?”

  The General juts his chin towards the men’s room. “My aides are in there relieving themselves. They were in a great hurry to do so, and it is good that we came upon this place. But none of them considered invading the powder room,” he says severely.

  “I apologize for that, sir,” Bobby Shaftoe says hastily, “and for all of those other things that you mentioned. But I still think of myself as a Marine, and Marines do not make excuses, so I will not even try.”

  “That is not satisfactory! I need an explanation for where you’ve been.”

  “I have been out in the world,” Bobby Shaftoe says, “getting butt-fucked by Fortune.”

  The door of the men’s room opens and one of The General’s aides walks out, woozy and bowlegged. The General ignores him; he is gazing right past Shaftoe now.

  “Pardon my manners, sir,” Shaftoe says, turning sideways. “Sir, my friend Goto Dengo. Goto-san, say hi to General of the Army Douglas MacArthur.”

  Goto Dengo has been standing there like a pillar of salt this whole time, utterly dumbfounded, but now he snaps out of it, and bows very low. MacArthur nods crisply. His aide is staring darkly at Goto Dengo and has already drawn his Colt.

  “Pleasure,” The General says airily. “Pray tell, what sort of business were you two gentlemen prosecuting in the ladies’?”

  Bobby Shaftoe knows how to lunge for an opening. “Uh, it is very funny you should ask that question, sir,” he says offhandedly, “but Goto-san, just now, saw the light, and converted to Christianity.”

  Some Nips on top of the wall open up on them with a machine gun. The flimsy, tumbling rounds crack through the air and thump into the ground. General of the Army Douglas MacArthur stands motionless for a long time, lips pursed. He sniffles once. Then he removes his aviator glasses carefully and wipes his eyes on the immaculate sleeve of his uniform. He pulls out a neatly folded white hankie and wraps it around his hawklike nose and honks into it a few times. He folds it up carefully and puts it back in his pocket, squares his shoulders, and then walks right up to Goto Dengo and wraps him up in a big, manly bearhug. The remainder of The General’s aides emerge from the shitter en bloc and view the scene with reticence and palpable tension all over their faces. Profoundly mortified, Bobby Shaftoe looks down at his feet, wiggles his toes, and caresses the linear scab running upside his head where the oar clocked him a few days ago. The machine-gun crew up on the wall are being picked off one by one by a sniper; they writhe and scream operatically. The Huks have come up from the dugout and stumbled into this little tableau; they all stand motionless with their jaws hanging down around their navels.

  Finally MacArthur unhands the stiff body of Goto Dengo, steps back dramatically, and presents him to his staff. “Meet Goto-san,” he announces. “You have all heard the expression, ‘the only good Nip is a dead Nip’? Well, this young fellow is a counterexample, and as we learned in mathematics, it only takes one counterexample to disprove the theorem.”

  His staff observe cautious silence.

  “It seems only fitting that we take this young fellow to the Church of St. Agustin, over yonder in Intramuros, to carry out the sacrament of baptism,” The General says.

  One of the aides steps forward, hunched over in that he’s expecting to get a slug between the shoulder blades any minute. “Sir, it is my duty to remind you that Intramuros is still controlled by the enemy.”

  “Then it is high time we made our presence felt!” MacArthur says. “Shaftoe will get us there. Shaftoe and these fine Filipino gentlemen.” The General throws one arm around Goto Dengo’s neck in a highly affectionate, companionable way, and begins strolling with him towards the nearest gate. “I would like you to know, young man, that when I set up my headquarters in Tokyo—which, God willing, should be within a year—I want you there bright and early the first day!”

  “Yes sir!” Goto Dengo says. All things considered, it is unlikely he would say anythi
ng else.

  Shaftoe draws a deep breath, tilts his head back, and stares up into a smoky heaven. “God,” he says, “usually I bow my head when I’m talking to You, but I figure this is a good time for us to have a face-to-face. You see and know all things and so I will not explain the situation to You. I would just like to submit a request for You. I know You are getting requests from lonely soldiers all over the fucking place at this time, but since this one has to do with a shitload of women and children, and General MacArthur too, maybe You can jump me to the top of the stack. You know what I want. Let’s get it done.”

  He borrows a small, straight twenty-round tommy gun magazine from one of his comrades and they set out for Intramuros. The gates are sure to be guarded, so Shaftoe and the Huks run up the sloping walls instead, directly beneath that wiped-out machine-gun nest. They turn the gun around into Intramuros, and plant one of the wounded Huks there to operate it.

  The first time Shaftoe gazes into the town, he nearly falls off the wall. Intramuros is gone. If he didn’t know where he was, he would never recognize it. Essentially all of the buildings have been leveled. Manila Cathedral and the Church of St. Agustin still stand, both with heavy damage. A few of the fine old Spanish houses still exist as hasty, freehand sketches of their former selves, missing roofs, wings, or walls. But most of the blocks are just jumbles of masonry and shattered red roof tiles with smoke and steam seething out of them. There are dead bodies all over the place, sowed all over the neighborhood like timothy seed broadcast onto freshly plowed soil. The artillery has mostly stopped—there being nothing left to destroy—but small-arms and machine-gun fire sound on almost every block.