by Peter Albano
Rosencrance had kicked left rudder brutally in an attempt to bring his armament to bear on the peril bolting down from above. From one-quarter ahead, both Matsuhara and York opened fire. But the canny American had anticipated the attack and kicked opposite rudder, winging over and away from the tracers with Vatz still maintaining his station 300 meters from his leader. It was precise, professional flying, as if the two men had but one mind. Yoshi saw the bright flashes of strikes as his stream caught the red ME’s fuselage far back near the tail. However, both of the enemy aircraft showed no disabling damage. In fact, Yoshi’s dive had carried him below the MEs, which were now climbing and turning to come about for their own pass.
Kicking rudder and pulling back on the stick, Yoshi rolled toward the enemy so tightly he felt the juddering that warned of a high-speed stall. Cursing, he eased off, and Rosencrance had his opening. Flame flickered on the leading edges of the ME’s wings and from the cowling. It was a short but accurate burst. Yoshi felt the stick and rudder pedals vibrate as slugs tore into his tail. With the danger of stalling gone, he jinked below his enemy’s guns and then just as quickly fooled his enemy by curving up and toward the Messerschmitt instead of rolling away into the dive Rosencrance had every right to expect. “Never dogfight a Zero-sen, you cowardly butcher!” he screamed.
The ME finally filled the required three rings. The cross hairs were on the cockpit. Now barreling down on each other nearly head-on, both pilots fired together. Gunfire winked bright red, tracers glowed and left white trails, tying the two machines together with a deadly gossamer web. The commander felt the fighter jerk and shudder, and then there was a loud bang as a piece of aluminum was blasted from his port wing and more jolts as bullets ripped his fuselage. But he was scoring. Bright fire motes blossomed on the enemy’s hood and fuselage, but the cockpit was still intact. Now the enemy’s propeller boss filled his windscreen. He would ram his despised enemy and avenge the dead Shigamitsu, who was drifting far below. Exit this world and enter the next in a blaze of glory, like Mizumoto. Sacrificing his life for the Emperor would assure him of entry into the Yasakuni Shrine. Masaichi Mizumoto, Todoa Shigamitsu, his one love, the beautiful Kimio Urshazawa, and dozens of others awaited him. The best company in the realm of the gods for eternity. He skinned his lips back, clenched his perfect white teeth in a grimace of determination.
Rosencrance read his mind. Frantically, he horsed back on his stick and banked sharply to port. Yoshi countered with stick and rudder. But his port wing dropped too much, and the fighter slewed down and to the left. He was out of trim. The wing had taken too much punishment. It was serving as an air trap.
With only a few meters to spare, they passed each other like two smoking projectiles fired from duelists’ pistols, Rosencrance slightly above and to the right of Matsuhara. Yoshi saw the canopy and Rosencrance’s leering smile as he flashed past, and then the Mitsubishi rocked and wallowed in the ME’s turbulent wake. He had scored no hits on the cockpit and missed his second attempt to ram. The butcher was still alive. “Amaterasu!” he screamed. “Where are you? He should be dead! Dead!”
A glance in his rearview mirror told him Rosencrance and Vatz were not turning for another pass. Instead they were diving to the south and west in the ME 109’s favorite evasive tactic. Rosencrance must be damaged. He killed like a wild animal, but he never abandoned a fight. Maybe he was wounded or out of ammunition. Certainly the Zero-sen’s ammunition tanks were nearly empty and fuel was low.
Miraculously, the skies were suddenly empty. Every aircraft except York’s and the two fleeing MEs, which were rapidly dwindling on the horizon, had vanished. It was an astonishing phenomenon he had experienced many times before. At one moment the heavens would be filled with tumbling, snarling aircraft shooting each other to pieces; in the next they would vanish as if swept from the sky by the broom of a bored god. Incredible, but he and Pilot Officer Elwyn York owned the sky. And Blackfin was nowhere to be seen. Maybe she had been sunk and Brent Ross had been killed, too. Yoshi sighed and choked back a sour taste that suddenly filled his mouth. Many good men had died this day. He glanced upward. “Please spare Brent Ross,” he pleaded.
There was something wrong with his controls and thoughts of self-immolation were suddenly banished from his mind. A dead man could avenge nothing. The left rudder pedal was very heavy, and the drag pulling to the left had increased. The hole in his wing was gulping air, and the skin of the wing was bulging with the pressure. He could see his main spar, hydraulic lines, and control runs. Frantically he throttled back to 1,700 rpms and left his propeller in fine pitch. Then he cranked his trim wheel and felt the pressure on the left rudder pedal ease as the change in trim compensated for some of the drag. He gently tried his ailerons and rudder and found the response sluggish but firm. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw York still holding station. He was apparently undamaged except for some rents in his fuselage and tail. He was a good man... a very good man.
The young Englishman throttled up and pulled alongside. He drew a finger across his throat in the universal sign of low fuel levels. Yoshi nodded his understanding. The Cockney’s radio must have been shot out. In fact, he could see a half-dozen holes just forward of the pilot’s seat. He verified by calling out, “Edo Three,” three times on his radio. Only the hiss of the carrier wave answered his call, and glancing at his wingman he saw York raise both hands and shrug in a gesture of helplessness. He had seen Yoshi speak into his microphone and understood there had been a radio check. Yoshi stabbed a finger to the north and mouthed, “Home! Home!” York bobbed his head up and down and smiled.
Carefully, Commander Yoshi Matsuhara banked the Zero, compensating for the drag with right aileron and elevator. There was a familiar seething, burning deep in the pit of his stomach. Anger and frustration was corroding his guts like boiling acid. Rosencrance had made his kills and escaped him again. The butcher was still loose. At fifty thousand dollars a kill, the American renegade had probably made one hundred fifty thousand dollars for his afternoon’s work. And something else frightening had become apparent: the Arabs had a much more formidable base in the Marianas than he had suspected. Counting the bombers, perhaps seventy enemy aircraft had been in the air. Maybe more.
He clenched his jaw so tight his teeth ached. Yonaga and all of Japan could be open to attack by long-range aircraft. He sighed deeply, trying to rid himself of the vision of Shigamitsu’s death and the terrible tension that turned his muscles to steel, his blood to ice. Sighing explosively, he relaxed his back and neck, but not his grip on the control column or the pressure on the rudder pedals. He watched the horizon swing slowly beneath his cowling and stared at the card of his magnetic compass. And then his eyes moved to the chart strapped to his knee for Yonaga’s point option data. “Zero-four-zero,” he said to himself. “That should be our course if she has not changed hers and if,” he threw a glance skyward, “the gods smile on us.”
He centered his controls as the compass settled on the desired course and sagged back in his seat. He must conserve fuel. He thinned his mixture and throttled back to 1350 rpms, releasing the lever when the engine’s backfires told him it would take no more. His airspeed indicator showed 140 knots. It would have to do. He glanced at York, who had followed his lead dutifully and then threw one last look to the southwest horizon. Rosencrance and Vatz had vanished.
Slowly the two fighters droned through the empty sky toward the cold mists on the far horizon.
Chapter Two
Seated alone at the single table in Blackfin’s tiny wardroom, Brent Ross toyed with his coffee mug with fingers as numb as his mind. His ears still rang from the gunfire, and there was a dull ache in his neck. Slowly and deliberately he rubbed the big corded muscles, but his mind was elsewhere. They had just buried Chief Gunner’s Mate Philip Robinson and the captain had said a memorial for the two dead lookouts, Max Orlin and Bob “Tuck” Tucker, at the end of the chiefs services. All three were together now for eternity in the 6,000 fathoms of t
he Marianas deep. Brent shuddered. It was very cold down there, and with a complete absence of light, the creatures that lived there were blind. He looked up from his coffee as if something in the familiar room could distract him, take his mind off of the visions of the dead men, the blood splattered bridge, the gore on his helmet, life jacket, and binoculars that he had washed off with the frantic motions of a man trying to rub out reminders of his own mortality. That could be the worst part of funerals — the reminder that yours was yet to come.
There was no relief, no solace in the small room. He was alone, terribly alone, in one of the most crowded places devised by man. His eyes wandered restlessly over the opposite bulkhead where a small refrigerator was built in under a stainless-steel drainboard and sink and a high rack of steel cupboards; he gazed at the forward bulkhead, where a compact desk, counter, and slotted box holding thumb-worn magazines and paperback novels were crammed into a minute space the officers sarcastically referred to as “rest and recreation areas.”
Brent sniffed and wrinkled his nose in distaste. “Chlorine,” he muttered to himself. Despite repairs made to the damaged cells of the battery and the efforts of the ship’s ventilation system that was operating at full capacity, Brent could still smell a faint odor of the gas. And other evidence of Blackfin’s wounds came up through his feet and the seat of his pants. Although he could not hear Number One and Number Two ballast pumps over the rumbles of the diesels and the hiss and clatter of the ventilating system, he could feel the vibrations of the two machines as they attempted to stay ahead of the water entering the Number One ballast tank through the damaged sea valve. With the sixth sense of all men who serve for long, lonely months at sea, Brent was more than just intimately acquainted with his ship. He was as much a part of it as a blood cell is a bit of a human body, and the boat was much more a part of him than any woman could ever be — or had ever been.
He had known many women, explored every hidden part of their bodies, knew how to fondle and tantalize with just the right touch in just the right places. Pamela Ward, Sarah Aranson, Mayumi Hachiya, Kathryn Suzuki, Dale McIntyre; he had orchestrated all of their passions like a conductor coaxing the utmost from an orchestra. But none of them had ever really become part of him or he part of them even when locked in the most intimate acts of love.
Blackfin was different. The old fleet boat had become the ultimate courtesan, a tyrannical, demanding mistress. But more than that, he was bound to her as he had never been bound to anyone or anything: a bondage of a human to a machine that no longer was a machine but a vital, viable creature made of metal. He smiled at his irrational thoughts. But there was truth there. Why was it always she or her — the feminine? He knew when speed was changed by the variations in the pulse of the four main engines; when a new course was cut by the slightest alteration in roll and pitch patterns. These changes would jar him awake like no change in a woman’s mood ever had. He would lie rigid in his bunk, wide-eyed for a moment until he was convinced there was no problem, no threat. He would live or die with her. No one could argue with that.
All men who fight at sea carry an atavistic dread of entrapment in a sinking hull. A submarine can hold particular horrors unique to the species. Even when surfaced, a submarine is on the edge of negative buoyancy, with most of her pressure hull below the waterline. Submerged, the pitiless, cruel sea has an enormous advantage. A depth charge exploding within fourteen-feet can crush the hull like an eggshell. And a special kind of death awaits the submariner. Death does not come by drowning. In fact, drowning would be a pleasant alternative. The truth known to all who fight in the depths is that pressure inside the boat is instantly compressed to many atmospheres and the air super-heats to hundreds of degrees. Bulkheads are ripped out before the onslaught of seawater under hundreds of tons of pressure. Steel fittings and shattered bulkheads pepper the declining spaces like hails of bullets and shrapnel. Lungs roasted and bodies riddled by flying steel, it is instant death for every man.
Cursing, the young lieutenant tried to shake himself free from moribund thoughts. He had fought well, hit every JU that had come within range. Crog and the two gunners on the Orlikons had scored, too. They were all picked men, known for their accuracy. Then his spirits dropped again. Yoshi Matsuhara had fought Rosencrance. He had caught glimpses of them trying to kill each other, sometimes so high they left condensed vapor trails in crazy patterns. There was no way to know if his dearest friend was still alive. Maybe he had entered the Yasakuni Shrine through Neptune’s Gate. The mixed metaphors of the two mythologies gave Brent’s fatigued, distressed mind no trouble. He was a man of two worlds and was too preoccupied with death, anyway.
He had seen many aviators die this day. The chief, Max Orlin and Bob Tucker had been joined by many more who had fallen from the skies. They were all down there now, suspended in the depths, attracting the creatures that fed on the flesh of the dead. But not Phil Robinson. Wrapped in canvas and weighted with two five-inch shells, the chief would find the bottom. And they would not have him, at least for a long while, and then they would find nothing but bones. Great triumph, Brent thought bitterly.
He was angry with Williams. The prisoners should have been killed. An Arab and a German, both were as feisty and belligerent as wet roosters. Strangely, they blamed each other for their misfortune. The German, a big, heavy man who seemed quite elderly for a flier, was the pilot of the bomber — the only pilot who had not been an Arab. “Hauptmann (Captain) Conrad Schachter, Sechste Bombardement Geschwader (Sixth Bombardment Squadron),” he had announced, as he was pulled to the bridge, dripping wet. And then, glaring at his Arab gunner, he spat in surprisingly good English, “This dumm-kopf bedouin goatherd is my gunner. He could not hit the side of a mosque with a fist full of camel shit from one meter or we would not be here.”
The Arab was a short, dark man with the narrow, shifty eyes of a hawk and a nose to match. His most prominent aspect was a great drooping mustache which obviously served as a warrant to his masculinity. “I am Feldwebel (Sergeant) Haj Abu al Sahdi,” he said, palming some beads he had pulled from a pocket. And then staring balefully at Schachter, his contempt for rank became obvious. “This son of a donkey could not drop a ton of shit into the Pacific Ocean if he jumped in with it! He could not fly a kite in a khamsin.” His eyes narrowed and his mustache contorted in a terrible leer and he spat, “Your mother’s cunt was an oasis for camels, you toothless dog!”
Roaring like a prodded bull, the German had leaped for the Arab’s throat. It took the entire bridge gang to pull them apart. Then, with the help of four members of the conning tower crew, Williams had them dragged below. Now they were chained to stanchions in the forward torpedo room a safe distance apart. The German had been furious at the indignity of being confined in enlisted men’s country. He became even more obnoxious. “I am a hauptmann — a captain, you arschlochs (assholes),” he shouted pompously. “I demand quarters in the wardroom!” Everyone ignored him.
There was the sound behind Brent of a curtain being drawn open and a young, tall rail of a man, Navigator Charlie Cadenbach, entered. With a sharp-chiseled nose, narrow face, sunken cheeks and the slight stoop to his shoulders so common to gaunt men, Lieutenant Junior Grade Cadenbach exuded an air of weakness completely inconsistent with his strength of character and boundless energy. But his energy was elsewhere at this moment. With a sigh, he sank on the bench across the table from Brent. “I’d give my left nut for an SINS (Inertial Navigation System.) But I finally got my sun lines and ran up my noon sight.” And then sarcastically, “Got my fix, by God, just the way Christopher Columbus used to do it. Only four miles east of our DR track.” The young officer drummed the table with four bony fingers and stared at Brent’s unexpressive face — a rigid face that seemed fixed in concrete. He tried again, “Good shooting, Lieutenant. You guys up there were uncanny. You saved us. I hear you hit every plane. Unbelievable. That kind of gunnery is damned near impossible.”
Brent was nodding and mumbling his
thanks when the swinging doors in the aft bulkhead opened and Mess Management Specialist Pablo Fortuno entered from the galley. He was carrying a pitcher of coffee and a tray with two thick sandwiches. Short with the large lips and wide, flat nose typical of the Kanakas of the South Pacific, his hair was coal-black and his swarthy skin pockmarked, giving evidence of the variety of poxes that had bedeviled and decimated his people since the arrival of the white man.
Brent was not hungry and had not ordered a sandwich. But the crafty Pablo sometimes knew more about his officers than the officers knew about themselves. He handed Cadenbach a steaming mug of coffee and refilled Brent’s. Then he placed the sandwiches between the men and left. Brent was suddenly ravenous. He picked up a ham sandwich and savored the taste of the meat and the mayonnaise. Lettuce, tomatoes and other fresh vegetables had vanished five weeks into their patrol. Now, virtually everything they ate came out of cans or sealed containers, even ice cream. He began to feel strength flow into his muscles and his spirits rose. He sipped his coffee and said, “I haven”t seen the English pilot lately.”
