by Peter Albano
Yoshi had confirmed some of Brent’s own suspicions, but the woman had made a whirlwind of his mind. Certainly Dale knew more of the war than she had let on; but did she love him? No... he did not see that, feel that under the bristling, belligerent facade. Brent tried to sigh his confusion away but found it impossible. Instead he drained his glass and Yoshi recharged it. He could feel the warm incursions of the liquor spreading through his body, but the usual softening and relaxation of muscles refused to set in. All he could say was, “But why? Why?”
Yoshi smiled his slow smile that spread like a warm viscous, liquid over his broad features. “Sometimes, my friend, it is easier to fathom the depths of the Marianas Deep than the heart of a woman.” He drew a thumb and two fingers down his cheeks until he clutched just the point of his chin. He spoke thoughtfully. “It could be her age, Brent-san. The years mount much faster, count much higher with women than with men.”
Brent shook his head. “I can’t believe that, Yoshi-san.” He sipped his drink, tabled it, and tapped the glass with a single finger. “She brought it up in New York, but it never interfered.”
“You’ve been at sea — had no other women — and she knows it. Jealousy is endemic with women, and I saw none in her anger. Mark me, under it all, I believe you’ll find her age.”
Brent chuckled as the liquor at last began to melt the ice that coated his mind and his quick sense of humor revived. “I’m afraid that under it all I’ll find nothing at all, Yoshi-san.”
“She loves you, Brent-san,” Yoshi persisted.
Brent stared down at his glass and for a moment only the blower and the faint rumble of an auxiliary engine could be heard. He looked up at the concerned face across the table and smiled. “You’re a good friend, Yoshi-san, the best I’ve ever had. When I saw your Zero-sen swoop in over Blackfin, I knew we’d make it.” He was struck with a new thought. “Your Englishmen — They’re a helluva pair of wingmen.”
“The best. We need more good men like Colin Willard-Smith and Elwyn York.” The flyer toyed with his drink, sloshing the liquid around the glass. “We have more good men coming to fill our empty cockpits.”
“You have all the Japanese volunteers you need.”
“True. But experienced pilots who hate terrorists are applying from France, America, Germany, Italy — even Greece and Turkey.”
“That’s good news, Yoshi. Can you use them?”
“Of course. Of course. It could mean a mix of aircraft, too, which I dislike. There’s a problem with spare parts, and it’s like mallards flying with teal — you never see it. But the Seafire fits in perfectly, and now we may have a few Grummans in our fighter group, too.”
“The F-Six-F Hellcat?”
“Correct.”
“One or two.”
Yoshi smiled. “A squadron of twelve. The finest pilots in the United States Navy. All volunteers, of course, and employees of the Parks Department.”
“How soon?”
“Maybe a month. They’re completing their training at Pensacola.” The Japanese chuckled to himself. “Kind of an AVG in reverse.”
“AVG — American Volunteer Group. The Flying Tigers. They flew in China.”
“I know. I fought them in 1940 and ‘41. Ironic, isn’t it?”
Brent knew Yoshi Matsuhara had flown Zeros in China and had shot down three Chinese planes. Yoshi had never mentioned it to him before. It was a delicate subject, and both men had always avoided it. Brent felt himself relaxing, and his troubles did not seem so overwhelming anymore. After agreeing with a nod and, “Yes, very ironical,” he breached a delicate subject. “You have a woman, Yoshi-san?”
The Japanese shook his head and took a deep drink. “It’s still Kimio Urshazawa?”
The air group commander turned his lip under and nodded. “I was responsible for her death that day in Ueno Park.”
“That’s a lot of crap.”
Yoshi’s brown eyes flashed a warning. “Don’t talk to me that way!”
“The hell I won’t. I was there too. I led us into the ambush. I remember, I was looking at some broad’s butt instead of...”
“No! No! I was Kimio’s lover, her protector — she took a burst of AK-Forty-Seven for me!” He emptied his glass with a single gulp and refilled it.
“I can’t convince you.”
“No, Brent-san.”
“You’re still shinguari (crazy to die)?”
“Don’t you remember? The admiral refused my request to commit seppuku.”
“And mine.”
“Yes. What nonsense. An American requesting seppuku.”
“I thought I was the American Samurai.”
“You are.”
“Then it’s not nonsense.”
Yoshi smiled his slow, warm smile. “No, Brent-san, maybe it’s not.”
Brent stabbed a finger straight overhead. “You seek your shinigurai up there.”
“Is there a better place to die?”
“Rosencrance and Vatz will be happy to oblige you.”
“No!” the pilot spat. “Never! I will kill them first. Then I can join my ancestors.”
“I want that privilege,” Brent said softly. He drummed the table with two thick fingers. Some of the things Dale had said to him long ago in Manhattan came back. “It’s a crazy world, Yoshi-san.”
“Some think we are crazy.”
“Why... because we’re samurai?”
“Not just that, Brent-san. Our way of life takes us from the Hondas, recorders, films — why, the Admiral even prohibits television.”
“This is insanity?”
“Why of course,” Yoshi retorted. “We won’t be sane until we queue up for our cars, toasters, recorders, and televisions, and glue our eyes to that tube and let our brains melt.”
“A touch of Camus.”
“And Kafka.”
Brent could see Yoshi’s face brightening with anticipation. Similar to Fujita, he had been starved for books during Yonaga’s forty-two-year entrapment, and now he gorged himself on works on any topic and loved to discuss with Brent the ideas of the men he read. “They knew,” Matsuhara asserted, his eyes brightening. “They both rebelled against the absurdity of existence, the lack of social justice, and the limitations of individual fulfillment.” He pointed to a leather-covered volume resting on a tiny desk and showed his love for the books that jammed the bookcases in the room. “And Kafka, especially, viewed the world as a hostile, uncontrollable place.”
“Well, he was rebelling against his father, who was tyrannical and irrational, but you’re accurate,” Brent noted. He added, “He also felt the ordinary man was helpless and at the mercy of powerful people who are as remote as the galaxies and entirely arbitrary and uncaring in their actions.” He turned up both palms and shrugged. “That was his father again.”
“Maybe, in a way, we all rebel against our fathers, Brent-san. But it is clear to me that Kafka found a universal truth, father or no father. And he was well aware of the people who give men like us employment. They have used us for millennia — made ours truly the oldest profession. Kafka described our world precisely and don’t forget, in The Trial, he concludes that suicide is the only end to a man’s life that really pleases God.”
Brent chuckled. “A Jewish samurai.”
“In a way. Just like us.”
“Then we’re the only sane ones.”
“Obviously, Brent-san.”
“Joseph Heller would disagree with you.”
“The author of Catch-22?”
“Yes, Yoshi-san. He contended we were the mad ones — had to be crazy to do what we do.”
“But we know he’s wrong, Brent-san.”
“Why, of course. He never met Kafka.”
“Or Kadafi,” the pilot countered. They both laughed and drank.
Yoshi tapped his nearly empty glass with a fingernail until it rang like a tiny chime. “Brent-san, the submarine captain, Lieutenant Reginald Williams, there is something septic between you. Do y
ou dislike him?”
Again, Brent was taken aback by his friend’s peculiar insights. He had hardly said a word to Williams in Matsuhara’s presence and threw only a look or two his way during the staff meeting. Brent knuckled his forehead and answered, “I respect him.”
“You did not answer my question. Is it his color?”
“Of course not, Yoshi-san. You know me too well even to suggest that.” Brent described his early experiences with Williams, the arguments about football, the deep-rooted frustrations Williams felt about growing up in South Central Los Angeles, the death of one brother and jailing of another because of drug-related crime, the loss of his mother, his only parent, when he was an All-American linebacker at the University of Southern California.
Yoshi nodded and said, “Remember, I was born in Los Angeles and grew up in the west side with all races. I felt no hatred from the blacks or whites, although my father claimed dōhō (ethnic Japanese) and nisei (American born Japanese) were discriminated against. He was incensed by the Exclusion Acts of nineteen-twenty-four that barred the rest of his family from immigrating to the States. That’s why he sent me back to Japan to complete high school and, he hoped, college.” He drummed the table top. “You functioned well as Lieutenant Williams’ executive officer and his attack officer. He seemed quite proud of you, yet there was something in his eyes.”
“Yes, unreadable.”
“Brent-san,” he waved, “when I found Blackfin out there and circled you, he wanted to shoot me down.”
“You know?”
“Of course, I will say this for Williams, any pilot who wishes to survive knows enough not to casually fly over a warship — any warship.” He drained his glass and refilled it and then poured more into Brent’s depleted drink. “But you don’t expect to see AA guns tracking you on a clear day when your markings are easy to see. You challenged him over this?”
“I was going to kill him.”
Yoshi laughed, but he knew his friend was telling the truth. “That could be a major undertaking. He is a big, formidable man.”
Brent took a drink. “As you said, it was a clear day and I had no trouble identifying you, and he still insisted we would take you under fire if you came within range.”
“But I saw no real hatred between you. Some kind of barrier, true, but that was all.”
Brent described Williams’ horror at his killing of the Arabs in the water and Fite’s massacre of the Tubaru’s survivors. “But he changed in Tokyo Bay,” he added.
“When he shot that terrorist in the water,” Yoshi observed.
“At that moment, he discovered he was no better than any of us — he was just as capable of the ‘savagery’ he accused Fite and me of showing.”
“The same savage that lurks in the hearts of all men.” The pilot sipped his drink thoughtfully. “The lessons of war are as numerous as the hairs on the leg of a three-year-old calf.”
Brent found a familiar ring to the words. “The Hagakure,” he guessed.
“Correct, my young friend. And in the same chapter we are told, ‘The samurai who does not use his sword will be forgotten by the gods and Buddha.’”
“Well, now, Lieutenant Reginald Williams has bared his sword and will not be forgotten by the gods, Buddha, Arabs or terrorists.”
Yoshi held up his glass. “Let us drink to this strange man — a man who may become a samurai and not know it.” He took a sip from his glass. The air group commander continued, “He is intelligent and well educated.” Brent nodded his agreement. Yoshi continued, “Yet a man who has knowledge but lacks true wisdom is like a blind man carrying a lantern.”
Brent chuckled. The aphorism was familiar. “You’ve been reading Bodhidharma,” the young American noted. The pilot pushed his glass from side to side until the scotch threatened to slosh over the lip of the glass. “You are acquainted with the father of Zen?”
Brent laughed. “I’ve been on this ship for over four years. You know I’ve been indoctrinated into Shintoism, Hinduism, Buddhism-even Islam.” He took a drink and then spoke like a college professor. “Bodhidharma was an Indian monk who introduced Zen to China in the sixth century. Zen means ‘meditation.’ Enlightenment comes through meditation and intuition.”
Yoshi smiled up at his friend and held up his hand with his thumb and forefinger forming a circle. “As you would say, my friend, “Four-oh.” Very good, Brent-san. You’ve been studying.”
Brent had been surprised by his friend’s renewed interest in religion. After Kimio’s murder, Matsuhara had abandoned all religions, claiming, “The gods abandoned us in Ueno Park, left only demons.” Now he showed a sudden interest in Zen. But, to Brent, Buddhism was atheistic, anyway. The consistency was still there. “Thank you, Yoshi-san,” he said. “I knew you had been a Buddhist, but I didn’t know you had returned to it.”
“Yes. Just recently I decided to return. It is austere, fits me. Bodhidharma was a purist, rejected ceremonies, scriptures, and the trappings of other Buddhist sects. Now I am a follower of Bodhidharma. And so is Admiral Fujita.”
“I know,” Brent said smiling. “He has spent hours lecturing me on it. He said it fits the tenets of bushido perfectly.”
“True, and time well spent, Brent-san. Time well spent.”
Brent held up his glass. “To Bodhidharma.”
The friends touched glasses and drank.
Chapter Eight
The two prisoners captured by Blackfin were scheduled to be interrogated the next morning at a staff meeting. The four men picked up by Captain John “Slugger” Fite were kept in irons in Yonaga’s brig. In addition to the Japanese members of the staff, Lieutenant Brent Ross and Colonel Irving Bernstein attended. Lieutenant Reginald Williams and Captain John “Slugger” Fite nearly came to blows in the sick bay with Chief Hospital Orderly Eiichi Horikoshi before the old medic released them, but only after they promised to return immediately after the meeting. They were the last to arrive. Both ship captains had been relieved with the news that their vessels were in drydock and their crews sent ashore to the “Rest and Recreation” facility — a large hotel-like complex within the enclosure where there was an abundance of recreational activities; even swimming, baseball, bowling, and tennis. Liquor and women were to be found there, too.
Liberty was available in Tokyo. But the men could be released only in groups of four and were escorted by seaman guards. Every man carried a pistol, and the Ginza was off limits. Rengo Sekigun lurked there, and two members of Yonaga’s crew had been murdered in a “house of pleasure” there the previous year. Most of the men felt the facility at Yokosuka was far more attractive. Here they could have all the gambling, liquor, and women they wanted. Brent had overheard an old chief put it succinctly one day when talking to a group of new men. “Why risk your life in Tokyo when you can get everything you want here — cards, sake, and plenty of women for ‘pillowing.’”
Although everyone knew Admiral Fujita objected to the use of “pleasure girls,” — an old expression from the Greater East Asia War that the old Japanese insisted on using — he seemed not to notice whenever evidence of the presence of women should have been obvious. He also seemed unaware that someone had sneaked a television set into one of the small card rooms off the main hall. Brent was convinced the old man knew about all of it, but the shrewd admiral recognized the primeval needs of his men and that those needs could not be ignored without destructive effects on morale. The suicides of dozens of his men during the long entrapment in Sano-wan had driven that lesson home.
Looking around the table, Brent saw the entire staff, including Commander Yoshi Matsuhara and his two bomber group commanders, Commander Takuya Iwata and Lieutenant Jai Kai. Fujita had insisted that the three flyers delay their departure for Tokyo International Airport and Tsuchiura until after the meeting. Subordinates were dispatched in their place. The three aviators were obviously irritated and impatient. Fujita read their mood but refused to start the meeting promptly. Instead, he huddled with his scri
be Commander Hakuseki Katsube and his executive officer Captain Mitake Arai. Finally the old man tapped the table and looked up. A half-dozen whispered conversations came to an abrupt halt.
“A few items of business before we interrogate the prisoners,” the admiral said. He put on his glasses, which made an owl of him, and glanced at a document and then down the table to Lieutenant Reginald Williams. “Lieutenant,” Fujita said. “My dockmaster has informed me he can have Blackfin ready for sea in three weeks or less.”
“Three weeks or less,” Williams repeated in awed tones. “I can’t believe it.”
The old man chuckled. “We Japanese are accustomed to the unusual, but we can perform miracles when necessary.” The requisite low chuckle commanded by the admiral’s quip swept the room. The old Japanese eyed each other and nodded at the admiral’s sharp wit.
Williams said, “Sir, my crew?”
“I told you we had already filled your roster with experienced replacements.”
The big man fidgeted uneasily and glanced at the next chair where Brent sat. “My XO — Mister Ross —I would like to keep him.”
The reply was instantaneous. “Sorry, Lieutenant. His orders have been changed.”
“But I did not see them. I’m his commanding officer — they should’ve come through my hands. By whose authority...”
“By my authority, Mister Williams. I cut his orders personally.”
Williams came half out of his chair before Brent could restrain him with a hand to the arm. “I object to that, sir,” he said, unable to hide the anger in his voice. “Blackfin needs him. He’s my XO. I told you he’s the best attack officer I have ever seen. Those orders are arbitrary and...”
Fujita interrupted: “Command is arbitrary, Lieutenant. You should know that.”
“You’ll lower my efficiency, sir.”
Fujita seemed suddenly conciliatory. “I know how you feel, Lieutenant. Blackfin has performed superbly — perhaps saved Yonaga. However, I must consider the fighting efficiency of the entire force — our task force, or battle group, as you Americans would say.” He tapped the desk with his knuckles for emphasis. “Officially, Lieutenant Brent Ross has been assigned to Yonaga as my NIS liaison officer, and that is the responsibility he will fill. We no longer have Admiral Mark Allen or Commander Joseph Carrino.” He stabbed a finger down the table. “You have a fine staff of junior officers. As an intelligent, experienced captain, you should be able to replace Lieutenant Ross with one of your own. They are all highly skilled submariners now, or they would be with their ancestors. And you, as captain, should be the attack officer. You are experienced and intelligent — should make a fine attack officer.” Brent nodded concurrence.
