by Peter Albano
“Your first histories reported an unlucky bomb dropped down her stack, exploding her boilers and setting off her forward magazines — virtually impossible.”
“I know, admiral, but later the official histories claimed a bomb penetrated six decks and set off the magazines. In fact, the tour guides tell this version to the tourists.”
“They are lying,” the old man said matter-of-factly. “I studied her, ensign. I stood on our bow and studied her.”
“You couldn’t see much, sir.”
“Enough, ensign. No Japanese ordnance did that.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“I planned the attack.”
The admiral had to be joking. But Brent knew the subtle wit never joked about naval matters. The young man pulled his thoughts together. Recalling a scrap of history, he said, “But I read a man named — ah, Kuroshima…”
“A sake-sodden shiran-kao. Sorry, ensign,” he explained, “a drunken know-nothing. I did the planning with Kameto Kuroshima and Minoru Genda. Genda was the one who thought of using finned fourteen-inch AP shells for bombs. And I designed the wooden fins for the torpedoes. You know the harbor was only forty-two feet deep, and an aerial torpedo can plunge to a hundred feet when dropped.”
“Kuroshima plotted the course, didn’t he, admiral?”
“Any shiran-kao could do that. It was a simple great circle route across the North Pacific. There was no other choice for a surprise attack.”
“Then what destroyed her?”
“Since none of our bombs could penetrate six armored decks and a torpedo inflicts only outer hull damage, Arizona must have had powder stored on one of her upper decks — number two or three by the looks of her.”
“Why, admiral?”
“Carelessness. Or her gunnery officer was just lazy and, of course, your navy would be embarrassed by the truth.”
“So after all these years, they are lying still?”
“I believe so, ensign.” He gestured over the bow, continuing in his unusually talkative mood and moving to a new topic. “We will stay on this heading until free of those snooping PBYs. Then we will come to two-seven-five, splitting the waters between Wake and Midway Islands. This heading will carry us northwest on our own great circle and well clear of Taongi, Bikini, Rongelap, and other atolls in the Marshall Islands.”
“No problem there, admiral. The Marshalls are American.”
“You conducted atomic bomb tests there.”
Brent began to wonder about the new path taken by the canny mind. “At Bikini and Kwajalein.”
“Uninhabitable?”
“Parts, true, admiral. The radiation levels are very high.”
“High enough to kill, ensign?”
“Of course — over a period of time.”
“Would Sabbah care?”
Brent stared with amazement. “You don’t think a base could be established.”
“The commanding officer of a warship must consider every contingency; especially when dealing with suicidal fanatics led by a madman.” He tapped the windscreen. “Before the Greater East Asia War, we developed submarines with aircraft-carrying capabilities. I’m sure the Russians have built submarines capable of transporting planes. They could even be disassembled.”
“Of course, admiral.” Brent returned to his glasses.
*
The great carrier had just crossed the Tropic of Cancer and the International Date Line, had Midway Island 300 miles off her starboard beam and Wake Island the same distance to port when Fujita called Brent Ross and Mark Allen to his cabin.
“Our pilots have disturbing reports about Kwajalein,” Fujita began from his chair behind the desk. He waved Brent and Mark Allen to chairs facing him.
“Lord,” Mark Allen said, seating himself. “Kwaj must be five to six hundred miles south of us.”
“Our D3As and B5Ns have the range.”
Brent remembered the admiral’s concern about air bases in the Marshalls. “Then we’ve scouted Bikini, Rongelap, Wotje —”
“All of them,” Fujita interrupted impatiently. “But at Kwajalein they discovered a very disturbing structure — a great circular concrete dome, perhaps three hundred meters in diameter, and the stern of a sunken warship jutting from the water.”
“The ship is the Prinz Eugen…”
“The German cruiser?”
“Yes, admiral. She was used in atomic bomb tests. She didn’t sink immediately, but was under tow and foundered in the anchorage.”
“The circular dome? A base?”
“No. Radioactive waste disposal.”
The old Japanese tapped the desk. “Don’t you mean storage, Admiral Allen?”
“What do you mean?”
“You conducted tests on the islands.”
“Yes.”
“The soil, rocks, trees, junk from your tests will be radioactive for thousands of years.”
“True.”
“Then you cannot dispose. You can only store.”
“You can look at it that way.”
“What have you done to this planet, Admiral Allen?”
Sighing, Allen hunched forward. “There were military pressures immediately following the war. We had to show the Russians…”
“I saw Kwajalein many times during my naval career. Its anchorage was a crystal clear lagoon so vast a man could not see from one end to the other. There was a fringe of coconut trees growing from the narrow white islands surrounding the anchorage.” He moved his eyes to the overhead and stared into the past while the Americans looked on silently. “I would dive off the ship, pull myself down the anchor chain, could see fish and plants on the bottom like they were in glass. I would swim to the island and crack coconuts open on the rocks.” He moved his eyes back to Mark Allen. “And now it’s an obscenity.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Yes, I do understand, Admiral Allen. Women are raped by monsters, too.”
A knock interrupted the hard silence. Obeying Fujita’s gesture, Brent opened the door. A glowering Lieutenant Konoye in full flying kit entered the room. Brent moved to his chair, but did not seat himself. Instead he stood behind it while the pilot became a ramrod in front of the admiral’s desk. “Another of the huge, circular structures at Bikini Atoll. I saw it myself and made several low level passes.” With the terrible loss of bomber pilots in the recent fighting, fighter pilots often did double duty, flying reconnaissance and anti-submarine patrols in the bombers. They despised the clumsy, slow airplanes. Konoye continued. “I saw no aircraft, just a few fishing boats far to the south, and there were no visible entrances or exits from the circular structure. That is why I maintained radio silence.”
“A wise choice, lieutenant. They mount no threat to Yonaga but could inflict terrible casualties on mankind for generations to come.”
“I do not understand, sir.”
Quickly, the admiral explained the origins of the structures and their function.
“You did that?” Konoye said, shifting his fatigue-rimmed eyes to Brent Ross as if the young American was personally responsible.
Brent felt the usual tight spring begin to uncoil in his chest, and his senses sharpened. “Yes,” he said, eyes flaring. “My nation tested in those waters. The tests were actually mandated by the Kremlin.”
“I thought you did your testing over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Certainly you had hundreds of thousands of guinea pigs there to work with — to incinerate — to vaporize.”
“See here…” Mark Allen began.
“Please, sir.” Brent said, waving the American admiral to silence. “This is directed at me.” Angrily, the admiral sank back while Fujita again assumed the attitude of spectator at a sumo match. Brent knew the old man derived a kind of twisted pleasure in watching others thrash out differences. Now he was one of the performers. Nevertheless, there was no anxiety, just anger and resentment at the unjust attack. Konoye hated him virulently, not only as a symbol of the defeat of his nation and the b
urning of his family, but for the degradation Brent had inflicted on him on the hangar deck as well. Such hatred could not pass or be dimmed by time. It must be settled, somehow. Perhaps here and now.
“We still have something to settle, ensign.”
“No!” Allen shouted, half rising.
“Please, sir,” Brent pleaded, “allow me — please.” Sighing resignedly, Mark Allen sank back. Fujita continued his implacable stare. Perhaps in his wisdom he knew this thing must be resolved.
“I have nothing to prove to you or any other man, lieutenant.”
The pilot stabbed a finger at the deck. “You denied me an honorable death that day on the hangar deck. Injured my karma. Denied me my place in the Yasakuni Shrine.”
“No. I obeyed the order of Commander Matsuhara.”
“Liar! No hand restrained you. You yielded to his voice!”
“My God. Of course I yielded to his voice. We’re trained to obey. Our lives would have no meaning…”
He was halted by the staggering impact of a gloved hand that cracked across his cheek so quickly he had no time to duck or even roll with the blow. Instantly, lights flashed in his eyes, and a salty taste came to his mouth as the blow lacerated soft tissue against his teeth. Staggering backward and to the side, he went into his crouch and brought up his fists, the fires of rage welling and wiping out all restraint.
But Mark Allen was between them, pushing on their chests while Admiral Fujita shouted, “Enough! Enough! Come to attention or you will both be in irons.”
Turning slowly to the admiral, Nobutake Konoye asked, “We can settle this matter, admiral?”
“Yes, lieutenant. It must be settled for the good of Yonaga.”
Rage dictated Brent’s response. “Yes, I agree.” The baleful eyes moved to Brent. “With the admiral’s permission, I will meet you in the Shrine of Infinite Salvation at fifteen hundred hours.”
“A pleasure, lieutenant.”
“You are dismissed,” Fujita snapped.
“May I remain for a moment, sir?” Konoye requested as the Americans filed out.
After the door closed, the flyer made a request that shocked even Adm. Hiroshi Fujita.
*
Brent entered the Shrine of Infinite Salvation alone. Because there had been a flurry of signals from Tripoli, Benghazi, Cairo, Tel Aviv, Rome, London, Moscow, and Washington, Colonel Bernstein and Adm. Mark Allen had rushed to cryptography to assist panicky cryptologic technicians, promising to come to the shrine as soon as the mystery of the avalanche of signals was solved. “The British — the British — they must be in the Med,” Allen had shouted as he ran down a passageway past Brent. “Sorry, Brent! Sorry!”
Now it was 1500 and the ensign had made his way alone from the elevator across the hangar deck. Scores of mechanics laid aside their tools the moment the elevator doors opened. They had been expecting him.
The shrine occupied a large part of the hangar deck forward on the starboard side, enclosed by unpainted plywood. Its interior was unlike any place of worship Brent had ever seen — he had been in it once before to claim his father’s ashes for shipment to Arlington. There was no nave, no chairs, and no altar. Instead, there were shelves against the walls where the ashes of the dead were kept in white boxes covered with ideograms. Here and there, gold Buddhas and other icons were placed between the boxes. The deck was covered with a fine white cloth, and the center of the enclosure was dominated by a raised platform also covered with white cloth. There were over a hundred officers standing in rank behind Admiral Fujita, Capt. Masao Kawamoto, Commander Matsuhara, and Lieutenant Commander Atsumi. The entire assemblage was silent as were the mechanics who had been working on their aircraft. But all work ceased, and a heavy oppressive silence descended the moment the American officer walked to the shrine. The mechanics followed, but remained outside — a large silent group that listened mutely with the discipline of decades. There was a figure dressed in flowing white robes with wide hempen wings kneeling on the platform and obviously praying. His hair had been knotted at the back. It was Konoye.
Shocked, Brent stopped in his tracks.
Before Brent could speak, Konoye’s strident voice boomed, filling the hangar deck. “Welcome, Yankee,” he said, coming to his feet. “We shall soon see if you are a man.”
“I’m here. What else do you want?”
“Courage! Resolution!”
“No man has ever sneered at my back.”
“Spoken like a samurai,” Konoye acknowledged. He extended a hand. “Come forward, ensign. Come forward.” There was no threat in his voice. Brent stopped at the platform. “Up here.” Carefully Brent mounted the platform, fists balled, muscles tight. He could feel the cords in his neck pulse, and he was suddenly thirsty.
“You denied me my destiny as a samurai.”
“You’ve told me several times.”
“My karma can be redeemed and my spirit can find its place with my ancestors.”
“If we fight and you kill me, or if we fight and I kill you. You really can’t lose either way.”
“Or by seppuku.”
The word shocked Brent. Seppuku. Americans mistakenly referred to ritualistic suicide with the knife as hara-kiri — Japanese slang for belly-slitting. Was this why the man wore the white robes? Certainly, in the samurai mind, seppuku was justified. Konoye had invoked Fujita’s wrath when he ignored bombers and pursued fighters off the Cape Verde Islands. And the humiliation in his fight with Brent. It, too, would be cleansed in the bloody wash at the end of a knife. Finally, the incident on the Arizona Memorial. Konoye had been senior officer and took the blame. In Brent’s mind, it was not justified, but he knew in the Japanese way of thinking, Konoye was responsible. He had heard Admiral Fujita reject earlier pleas by the flyer for suicide. But now Yonaga had found a new security. The British had Kadafi tied up in the Mediterranean, and the well-protected carrier seemed free of threats in the Pacific. And even Fujita could not stand in the way of the code of Bushido indefinitely. After all, were they not all cut from the same cloth?
“You don’t need me for this,” the ensign said, beginning to turn.
“Yes, I do. You will be my kaishaku.”
“Your what?”
“In your tradition, my second. You will be given a sword, and if I falter…”
“Oh, no. No way.” He began to turn again, and again Konoye stopped him.
“You said no man has ever sneered at your back.”
Brent stared at the black eyes that burned like coals in dark hollows. “Yes! That’s true. And —”
“And this would be more of a test of your courage than mine. I am a Japanese. I can accept this — no, rush to it joyfully — but you, you would be put to a supreme test.”
Brent whirled to Admiral Fujita. “It is his right, and he does this only with my permission,” the old admiral said. “In our way of thinking, you defeated the lieutenant and owe him his death. It would purify his karma if you were to act as his kaishaku. Keep in mind, the kaishaku is not expected to kill.”
“But if he falters?”
“You know Lieutenant Konoye. Do you find any lack of strength there? Resolve? He will complete the disembowelment.”
“Please, ensign. As an officer — as a man of honor, accept this duty,” Konoye pleaded.
“But I must use the sword.”
“At the end. When I am finished with my work. And here…” He fingered the knot of hair at the nape of his neck. “I have given you an aiming point.”
“Banzai! Banzai!” came from the crowd, and Brent felt the excitement begin to infect him. The man was beginning to make sense. He opened his mouth, but someone else spoke like an illusion brought on by a high fever. He could not believe his own words. “All right,” he finally conceded. More “banzais.”
The burning in Konoye’s eyes became feverish, and he gripped the ensign’s hand with a firmness born of desperation. He spoke with genuine gratitude. “Thank you, Ensign Ross. Thank you. You show the
Yamato damashii of a samurai. Your duties are simple.” He gestured at Captain Kawamoto who held a white silk cushion on which a knife at least ten inches long glinted. “After my prayers, you will hand me the wakizashi.”
“The knife?”
“Yes. Then Captain Kawamoto will give you his sword. Stand at my right side until I am finished.”
“How will I know?” Brent felt like a man who had slipped into the middle of a dream while awake. Had he really consented to do this? What had he become? Maybe they were all lunatics and he had joined the patients.
“I will start here.” Konoye indicated the left side of his abdomen. “Bring the blade across horizontally to release ‘the seat of the mind,’ and then upward on the right side. When you see the blade come up, you must decapitate me with one clean stroke.” His eyes moved to the young American’s broad shoulders. “One reason I picked you was because of your great strength. Now, take the wakizashi from the captain and I will pray.”
While Konoye prostrated himself on the platform, head resting on a small silk-covered pillow, Brent turned and accepted the knife from the executive officer. Standing and holding the small cushion, Brent waited patiently in a silence that seemed to amplify the throb of engines and whine of blowers. Finally, the supplicant came to his knees, facing Admiral Fujita. He gestured to Brent to kneel before him. Brent complied.
Konoye spoke. “I and I alone was responsible for the tactics of the ready fighters off the Cape Verde Islands. I and I alone was responsible for the disgrace Yonaga found on the Arizona Memorial. Now I disembowel myself and implore all present to be my witnesses.” He reached into his belt, removed a small piece of paper. “My death poem,” he said to Brent softly. Then he read in a loud voice:
To the river of life
