by Peter Albano
Word of Brent’s fight with Commander Takuya Iwata had spread throughout the ship with the speed of a brushfire. Crewmen bowed deeper, saluted with more panache, and even smiled when the American passed. Iwata’s injuries were painful, but he insisted that he be dismissed from the sick bay within two days despite three cracked ribs. He reported immediately to the airfield where his dive bomber squadrons were training. Brent did not miss the arrogant commander.
The first days of the second week found Commander Yoshi Matsuhara happily welcoming the twelve American Grumman F6F Hellcats and their pilots. Also, two new Seafires were delivered to Tokyo International Airport. Because of the rigorous training procedures, the American pilots were billeted at the airport. However, Brent did meet the squadron commander, Commander Conrad Crellin, who reported aboard during a Communications Department meeting with Admiral Fujita. Very young for a commander, Crellin, a thin fair man, was soft-spoken and had the demeanor one would expect from an engineer or scientist, not the leader of a fighter squadron. The two Frenchmen, the German, and the Greek also reported aboard The Turkish pilot had been murdered by Sabbah in New York City. The four foreign pilots were billeted at the airport with most of the other aviators and Brent did not have an opportunity to become acquainted with them.
On Thursday of the second week, the American submarine Dallas reported the entire Arab task force of carriers Al Kufra and Ramli al Kabir, cruisers Babur and Umar Farooz, and six escorts were anchored at Tomonuto. Then, Dallas was pulled from her station by the United States Navy and sent to the Mediterranean. Fujita’s anger was unbounded. In a fit of rage, he called all the demons in hell down upon the “brass heads” in the Pentagon.
The repairs on the damaged Gearings at Surabaya were reported as nearing completion on two of the damaged destroyers. The third was still in dry dock, having new hull plates welded into place. Most ominously, the great 100,000-ton tanker Jabal Nafusa had departed Bushehr with two escorts and was reported already in the Gulf of Oman on a southeasterly heading. Repairs on Blackfin were rushed and Brent saw very little of Lieutenant Reginald Williams. If Blackfin were to make a successful attack on the tanker off Tomonuto, she would be forced to get underway within a week.
New 25-millimeter and five-inch gun barrels arrived and Gunnery Officer Nobomitsu Atsumi personally supervised the replacements. Radar was calibrated, directors checked and rechecked, and gun crews drilled by tracking Yonaga’s own aircraft as they flew overhead.
Every day formations of Aichi D3A dive bombers, Nakajima B5N torpedo bombers, and Mitsubishi Zero-sens streamed over Tokyo Bay in tight formations. Daily the number grew as Mitsubishi, Nakajima, and Aichi hurried the delivery of replacement aircraft. The day twelve magnificent Grumman F6F Hellcats roared overhead, a great throaty cheer came from crewmen waving from Yonaga’s weather decks. Others rushed up from below to catch a glimpse of the graceful American fighters making a low pass around the bay. Brent thought he would burst with pride.
Often Brent thrilled when he saw the Mitsubishi with the red cowling and green hood flash over with the two Seafires close aboard its elevators. He knew his friend Yoshi Matsuhara and the two Englishmen were up there. It gave him a feeling of pride and confidence. Yoshi’s plane had changed. The cowling was longer and a trifle wider than before. Then, Brent realized Yoshi was flying with the new Sakae 43 Taifu 3200-horsepower engine. He saw nothing dramatically different in the performance of the fighter until one day the “three” swooped low over Yonaga and then Yoshi pulled up sharply into a vertical climb. There was a roar like thunder reverberating in a canyon and the Zero shot straight up like a space shuttle launch Brent had seen as a youth at Cape Canaveral. The Mitsubishi outstripped the Seafires as if they had suddenly been turned to lead. It was a breathtaking exhibition of power; but it looked dangerous, as if the aircraft had really been pushed beyond its design limitations. However, the Zero disappeared into a cloud still in one piece.
Brent renewed his friendship with Rear Admiral Byron Whitehead and found the man’s company pleasant and stimulating. Whitehead’s mind was clear and incisive, and he picked up new information and procedures very quickly. He had heard of Brent’s fight with Iwata and cautioned him about his temper. In fact, he made the same comment Brent had heard from Admiral Fujita: “Just like your father, Brent. You’ve got to keep it under control.”
“I know, sir. I know,” Brent had answered.
The CIA man Horace Mayfield spent most of his time ashore either at the American Embassy or with Colonel Bernstein at the Israeli Embassy and, Brent guessed, in bars. Brent enjoyed Bernstein’s company, but did not miss Mayfield. Mayfield had eyed him suspiciously — almost fearfully — since the fight in the hangar deck. Brent knew the man regarded him as a volatile hothead who could explode at any instant.
At the end of the third week, Admiral Fujita called for a ‘special ceremony.” All officers not on duty were requested to appear in the Shrine of Infinite Salvation with white gloves and swords. Brent had expected the special ceremony weeks earlier and had been wondering at the delay.
At 1000 hours, Brent stood rigid with perhaps eighty other officers in the close quarters of the shrine. His big hands were sheathed in white gloves, the fabled Konoye sword hung at his side. The large number of officers standing in ranks made the large space seem smaller. Although it was a place of worship, there were no pews, chairs, or even benches. Everyone stood. Admiral Fujita and his senior officers occupied a space close to a raised platform in the center of the room. It was covered with a white satin-like material.
Against the far bulkhead, which was the starboard side of the ship, was an altar with a large golden “Buddha from Three Thousand Worlds” which had been a gift from the temple at Kanagawa, a carved rosewood talisman of the “Eight Myriads of Deities,” and a golden tora (tiger), the animal exalted by the Japanese because it wanders far, makes its kill, and always returns home. The altar was cluttered with a variety of other talismans and icons of minor gods sacred to the Japanese.
Stretching to both sides of the altar, long shelves held white boxes covered with ideograms. Here rested the ashes of Yonaga’s honored dead and the real reason for the existence of the shrine.
Reginald Williams, Byron Whitehead, and Horace Mayfield arrived late. Williams was anxious because his boat was to put to sea the next day, Whitehead and Mayfield breathless after rushing ashore in the early hours to the American Embassy and returning just in time for the ceremony. Brent had kept his suspicions to himself, and no one was certain what was about to transpire except Fujita and his executive officer, Captain Mitake Arai. But the formal dress was a tipoff to Brent; he expected the worst or, in the Japanese mind, the best. He suspected blood would be spilled.
Byron Whitehead took a place on one side of Brent, and Mayfield stood on the other with Williams at his side. Captain Colin Willard-Smith and Pilot Officer Elwyn York crowded into a place next to Reginald Williams. Willard-Smith considered the submarine commander his saviour and always sought him out.
Then the Israeli, Colonel Irving Bernstein, entered. He was strangely garbed. A linen yarmulke capped his head, and his arms were wrapped with strange thongs and a fringed prayer shawl hung to his waist. He was holding an open Book of Psalms and was muttering to himself without glancing at the book. He took a place directly behind Brent. Brent, Mayfield, Williams, the Englishmen, and Whitehead all turned and looked at the Jew curiously. He seemed not to see them, obsessed by his chant, which became audible to all, “O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One. And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart...”
He stopped, as if suddenly aware of the stares, and closed the prayer book. He indicated the wrapped thongs. “These cords are called phylacteries, and I have wound them so that they form the letter Shin of the word shaddai — ancient Hebrew for God.”
“But the shawl, the skullcap — and you were praying,” Williams noted.
The Jew’s eyes peered unblinking into the black man’s eye
s. “I am here to pray for the dead.”
Williams waved at the white boxes. “Honor them?”
Bernstein shook his head. “No. You shall see...” Before he could explain, Fujita’s voice filled the enclosure and all noises of work in the hangar deck ceased as if by an invisible command. “We are here,” the admiral said, “to perform a final honor for our defeated enemies.”
Now Brent knew, and Bernstein resumed his prayers. The admiral gestured to the door, and an ensign opened it. Captain Conrad Schachter was pulled into the room by a pair of young, strong seaman guards. He was dressed in white, and his hands were bound behind him. The German’s beady eyes quickly surveyed the scene, finally fixing on the platform. He stopped, his great weight holding even the guards back, and his usual blustering bravado was suddenly transfixed by fear. “Nein! Nein!”
“What the hell’s going on?” Williams whispered.
“I say, what’s what?” Willard-Smith asked, softly.
Before Brent could answer, a gesture from Fujita made the purpose of the ceremony clear. Two seamen placed a large block on the edge of the platform while a third placed a basket on the deck directly beneath it. Commander Takuya Iwata stepped from the ranks and mounted the platform. He pulled his sword from its scabbard with the ring like a struck chime.
“Nein Gott. Nein!” The German was dragged forward.
“No!” Whitehead said. “You can’t.”
“I’ll be buggered,” Elwyn York muttered. “They’re gunna cut off ’is blinkin’ ’ead.” He turned to the admiral. “Bully for you!”
Mayfield and Whitehead clamored at the admiral. “This is barbaric! You can’t do this. There are international laws.”
Fujita raised his hands. “Please do not try to impose your Christian-Judaic probities upon me and my command. They are fit for women playing children’s games, but not for the samurai. “Banzai!” rang through the huge hangar deck. Fujita stared at the group of foreigners. “If any of you lacks the stomach to witness the application of a just act of war, please leave.”
Mayfield made a start toward the door, stopped, and returned to his place. “I remain only to witness this savagery and then make a report of it to my superiors.”
Fujita waved a hand as if he were warding off an annoying insect. “Follow your own conscience, Mr. Mayfield. I care not if you report this action to your president — your supreme being.”
Sobbing, Schachter was dragged to the platform. Two more seaman guards were required to pull the big man up the three stairs.
“Is there anything you wish to say before you exit this existence?” Fujita asked.
The pilot looked around the room, finally fixing his eyes on Colonel Irving Bernstein, who was staring up at the overhead and chanting. “Juden!” Schachter shouted. “You pray for me?”
Bernstein’s brown eyes found the platform. “I pray for the soul of man.”
“You get your revenge, Juden?”
Bernstein ran his hands over the prayer book. “You have served Baal and Moloch. The Law of Moses says you must pay with your immortal soul. I will pray to God for you.”
The German suddenly drew himself up as if his hatred for the Jew had uncovered another tiny wellspring of courage. “This Gott,” he shouted. “This Gott of yours does not exist. Where was he when the Jews of Poland dug their own graves? Where was he when we used the skulls of Jewish children in soccer matches? Where was he at Auschwitz? Treblinka? Buchenwald? If he did exist, he kept silent. He is as much a murderer as all of us — as Adolph Hitler.” He sneered. “So you are the ‘chosen.’ Ha! Chosen for what?”
Bernstein stuffed the Book of Psalms into his pocket. Piety dropped from his face like a wax mask in a fire. “Chosen to outlive you, Nazi pig.”
“Nein! Gott! Gott!” Schachter shouted as the guards pulled him to the block. Then his head was pulled down and a line looped over his neck and secured to the deck while his feet were shackled. Another line was pulled around his shoulders and tied down hard. Fujita nodded. Iwata raised the big two-handed killing blade and held it poised high over his right shoulder in the classic pose of the samurai about to strike. A silence as heavy as thick oil poured through the room. Not even a breath could be heard, not even the usual ship sounds of engines and blowers.
Bernstein sighed and resumed praying softly to himself. The German began to scream and howl at the top of his lungs, the sounds reverberating through the compartment with all the horror of gutted creation. The great sword flashed in a silver semicircle, humming as its great speed parted the air like a missile. There was the sound of steel cleaving meat. The screaming stopped, and Schachter’s head dropped neatly into the basket. There were the usual involuntary jerks of arms and legs and then he was still, his severed jugulars hosing streams of blood onto the deck. Quickly, the body and head were removed and four seamen with swabs cleaned up the blood. Iwata wiped his blade clean and stood in a corner of the platform, gripping his side.
“My God. My God,” Mayfield said. “What are we witnessing?”
“Not a bit sporting, but fit,” Willard-Smith commented.
“Served the bugger right,” York said, grinning.
Whitehead turned to Brent. “You knew this was going to happen.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you try to stop it?”
Brent stared at the rear admiral long and hard. “Why? The son-of-a-bitch had it coming.”
Whitehead looked at Mayfield. “I can’t believe this.” The CIA man nodded agreement.
There was a commotion at the door, and the Arab Sergeant Haj Abn al Sahdi was dragged in. His hands, too, were bound behind him, and he was dressed in white. He saw the platform, the blood, the man with the sword, and began to shout “No! No!” He twisted, planting his feet in futile efforts to resist the power of the two seaman guards pulling him to the platform. Once on the platform, the two guards held the whimpering Arab erect.
“A last statement before you join Allah?” Fujita asked.
“A rug.”
Fujita motioned and a rating unrolled a small tatami mat on the platform.
“That is not a rug,” the Arab said, with sudden composure that shocked everyone.
“It will do.”
“Which way is Mecca, Effendi?”
Fujita pointed to the east. Abu al Sahdi dropped to his knees and prostrated himself. He prayed in a loud voice: “Allah Akbar! Glory to Allah, full of grace and mercy. He created all, including man. To man he gave a special place in His creation. He honored man...”
“Enough!” Fujita shouted. “We do not have the time to hear you recite all one hundred fourteen suras (chapters) of the Koran — all ninety-nine names for Allah. One verse is enough.” He waved at the guards, “Proceed with your duties.” The guards pulled the Arab to the block.
“Go fuck a dead camel!” the doomed man yelled at the entire assemblage in a final show of defiance. Then he saw Bernstein, who was again praying. The Arab began to scream as he was pushed down and lashed to the block. “The Japanese and the Jews are the enemies of Allah and humanity. You are scum — all of you! Israel and Japan will be destroyed!” He began to blubber incoherently as his head was secured.
Fujita gestured at Iwata, who was leaning on his sword with one hand and holding his ribs with the other. Now Brent knew why the ceremony had been delayed. Iwata’s ribs had been too sore for earlier executions and, apparently, Fujita had promised him the honor of being the executioner.
Iwata spoke to the admiral with a pained look on his face. “Admiral,” he said grimacing and holding his side.
“My ribs. The swing damaged something.”
“Do you wish a replacement?” Scores of eager eyes turned to the admiral.
Iwata breathed haltingly and in obvious pain. “Yes, sir. I deeply regret this request. I am remiss...”
“Nonsense. You have performed a most strenuous and demanding duty.” He looked around at the eager faces.
Before the admiral could spea
k, Iwata said, “May I suggest my own replacement?” The admiral looked up questioningly. Iwata moved his eyes to Brent Ross. Brent felt his spine become as rigid as steel, his stomach churn. He knew what was coming.
A sneer twisted the bomber commander’s face into an ugly mask. “Let the man who damaged my ribs replace me.” He gestured at the prostrate Abu al Sahdi, who was blubbering in a kind of madness of fear. He had soiled himself, a common occurrence with those about to be executed. The Arab began to howl like a mortally injured animal caught in a steel trap.
“Gag him!” Fujita shouted. A seaman guard stuffed a rag into the Arab’s mouth and bound it behind his head.
Iwata pointed at Brent Ross. “Let the ‘American samurai’ dispatch this filth,” he taunted.
“I say,” Willard-Smith said.
“No!” Mayfield and Whitehead chorused.
“I refuse,” Brent said.
“Has your courage escaped you?” Iwata waved. “Like a wisp of smoke in a gale?”
“I need not prove my courage or any other quality to you, Commander.” Then Brent did his own taunting, “That was done on the hangar deck.”
“Lieutenant Ross,” Fujita said. “You have been offered an honor.”
“I know, sir. I performed this honorable duty with this sword years ago on Lieutenant Konoye.” He patted the Konoye sword.
“You were a fine kaishaku (second and decapitator) at Lieutenant Konoye’s seppuku. You earned the sword with great honor. You have great strength, can perform this duty with the one final stroke better than any man in this shrine.”
“This is insane,” Whitehead exclaimed.
Brent spoke to Admiral Fujita, “Is this an order?”
“No. A request.”
Brent sighed, fingering the hilt of the sword. He had beheaded two men; Lieutenant Nobutake Konoye in this room in 1985, and Lieutenant Yoshiro Takii, his frightfully burned pilot, at Takii’s request in the sick bay three years later. He had accepted the Konoye sword by right of kaishaku but refused the Takii killing blade. In the eyes of the Japanese, his performance in both cases had been incredible, the one swift stroke more powerful than any of them had ever seen. In fact, his blow to Takii’s neck had slashed ail the way through the mattress of the burned pilot’s hospital bed and into the wooden frame itself.
