by Peter Albano
“Don’t do it, Brent,” Whitehead said.
“Chop the bloody bastard, guv’nor,” Elwyn York said. “If you ain”t, give me the bloody shiv. I’ll do ’im good.”
“That’s contemptible,” Mayfieid said.
“Up your arse with two hot stuffs, your nibs,” the Cockney scoffed.
Brent looked around. Fujita, Arai, Katsube, Iwata, Yoshida, Atsumi, Kai, Matsuhara — all stared at him expectantly. All the other officers, too, had turned toward him. He felt a strange upwelling of pleasure in the warmth of respect, even admiration, in every eye. He belonged here, was part of Yonaga, part of the bushido tradition and belonged to these samurai irrevocably. He could not disappoint them and perhaps cast dishonor upon himself by refusing a task that, despite Fujita’s opinion, was onerous and would leave him drained and depressed for days. He stepped forward.
“Banzai! Tenno heiko banzaii” bounded from the bulkheads, to the walls, to the overhead, and reverberated the length of the hangar deck.
Slowly, like a man in a trance, Brent mounted the stairs and stopped next to the doomed man. Abu al Sahdi had vomited into his gag and was choking on his own vomit. His face was purple, and the veins in his forehead and neck bulged as if they were ready to burst through the skin. “Remove the gag.” Fujita ordered. “He will be dead before we kill him.”
A seaman guard pulled the binding from the Arab’s mouth. Commander Takuya Iwata did not leave the platform. Instead he sheathed his sword and took a position in a far corner. There was an expectant, satisfied expression on his face.
Brent took a position to the left side of the doomed man. The Arab was muttering, a garbled string of sobs, oaths, and prayers run-in together in a blend of incoherence. Through the blubbering, Brent could discern, “Allah Akbar,” over and over again.
Gripping the silver-fitted tang, he pulled the three-foot sword from its jeweled scabbard. Strangely, the sword rang from its home with little effort from the young American, fairly leaping out of its lair as if it were eager to fulfill its destiny. Crafted in the fifteenth century by the master swordsmith Yasumitsu, it was fashioned of layered and tempered metal, folded and drawn eleven times, finely wrought as a polished diamond, and as sharp and spare as a Kano Eitoku painting. Slowly, Brent raised the blade over his right shoulder. He gripped down tight on the tang with both hands.
The silence of death filled the room. Only the Arab’s sobs and mutterings could be heard. It seemed to Brent the whole world was holding its breath. He stared down at Abu al Sahdi’s neck. It was very dark from the sun or dirt. Perhaps both. Three vertebrae stood out like little knobs of wood. His aiming point was between two of them.
He felt an involuntary charge of strength flow into his muscles, and his mouth was suddenly filled with saliva. With all his strength he whipped the blade up and down in a vicious arc. The blade cut the air with a soughing sound, the kind of sound a woman might make in the height of sexual pleasure. The impact hardly slowed the blade and the fine steel slashed through flesh and bone almost as cleanly as slashing thin slivers of bamboo.
The blubbering stopped and the severed head dropped neatly into the basket. But the blood spurted, pooling immediately on the deck. The Arab’s body twitched and jerked a few times and then fell still.
Breathing hard, Brent came erect, bloody sword at his side. “Banzai! Banzai!” rolled through the room like peals of thunder. A guard handed Brent a towel, and the lieutenant wiped the blade clean.
Iwata stepped very close and spoke into his ear. “You will be my gunner. Mister Ross.”
Brent stared into the flat, immobile face. Hostility still lived there, but something new had come to life in the depths of the black eyes. Brent caught a glimmer of respect. The young American nodded, sheathed the sword, and left the platform.
Chapter Twelve
The day Yonaga and her escorts stood out of Tokyo Bay was blustery and ominous. With Captain Fite’s DD-1 leading, two destroyers to port, two to starboard and two more scouting far ahead, the task force slowly exited Uraga Straits into the rising Pacific swell. Fortresses of dark clouds banked the entire northeastern horizon in solid phalanxes of dark grays, outriders of line squalls advancing in a row ahead of the thunderheads, dense dun-colored curtains of rain slanting beneath them. A storm was moving down from the north and the sea was restless, the scend of the rollers charging unimpeded across the limitless wasteland. Overhead, thin clouds the color of sow’s bellies scurried before the wind like frightened sheep. The early morning sun had fought a losing battle with the clouds, its rays streaming feebly overhead, only able to tint some of the thin clouds with weak shades of pink and scarlet like dried blood.
Standing on the flag bridge with Admiral Fujita, the executive officer, Commander Mitake Arai, who was also the navigator, Rear Admiral Whitehead, the talker Seaman Naoyuki, and a half-dozen lookouts, Brent Ross gripped the windscreen as the great carrier finally cleared the channel and began to feel the power of the North Pacific swell. Admiral Fujita spoke to his talker, Seaman Naoyuki, “Secure the special sea detail, set the starboard steaming watch, Condition Two of readiness.”
Naoyuki spoke into his headpiece, and the commands could be heard carrying through every speaker on the ship. Half of the ship’s armament would be manned. Brent could see green-clad and helmeted gunners tumbling into their tubs and manning their weapons in the galleries that lined both sides of the ship and the foretop above his head. There were shouts, the sound of steel on steel as breeches received their rounds and sixteen five-inch guns and thirty-one triple mounts were cranked skyward. No doubt the Arabs knew the force was standing out. Moving Yonaga was like moving Fujisan: it was impossible to conceal, and everyone knew spying eyes lined the shore. Fujita would take no chances.
“Starboard steaming watch set, the ship is at Condition Two of readiness, sir” Naoyuki reported.
“Very well.”
Captain Mitake Aral hunched over a small covered chart table while a short, middle-aged quartermaster, Quartermaster First Class Kinichi Kunitoini, stared through the gunsight of a bearing circle mounted on a gyro repeater. Quickly, he took tangents on points of land. “Nojima Zaki two-seven-zero, Irō Zaki zero-five-five, south tangent Ō Shima one-one-zero,” the quartermaster announced.
“Very well. Very well,” Arai repeated, parallel rules clattering, pencil moving over the chart. He turned to Admiral Fujita, “Suggest we change course to two-one-zero, sir.”
“Very well.” The old man turned to Talker Naoyuki. “Signal bridge make the hoist, ‘Execute to follow, course two-one-zero, speed sixteen.’” The talker spoke into his mouthpiece, and in a few seconds flags and pennants were ironed out flat in the strong wind at the halyards.
Brent chuckled to himself. Not one bearing had been verified by radar. Fujita and Arai knew the channel so well, had made the transit so often, and were so confident of their old piloting procedures, neither man called on radar unless there was heavy fog. And Fujita was observing radio silence. Not one transmission would be made until the enemy was engaged.
They all heard the call from the foretop before the talker reported it. “All escorts answer!”
“Execute!” Fujita shouted at the talker. Yonaga’s flags and pennants were whipped down. After the signal bridge reported, “All escorts have executed hoists,” Fujita said into a voice tube, “Right standard rudder. Steady up on two-one-zero, speed sixteen.”
The command was repeated by the men in the pilot house, and the ship swung to the right. Brent could feel the tempo of the engines pick up through the soles of his shoes, and the roll and pitch changed as the big swells began to take her on the port bow. “Steady on two-one-zero, sir. Speed sixteen, eighty-three revolutions, sir.”
“Very well.”
Now the bow of the great carrier was pointed into the open sea. The force of the seas grew, and Yonaga lifted her bows grudgingly, the seas passing in smooth and weighty majesty beneath the ship’s hull. The wind was from the north and
it brought the Arctic cold with it, whipping the breath from the lips of every man in banners of white vapor. Brent flexed his fingers and gripped the windscreen tighter. The steel felt cold even through the leather of his gloves.
The young American raised his glasses and focused on a destroyer five hundred yards off their starboard side. The seas through which the 84,000-ton Yonaga shouldered her way disdainfully were like the Rocky Mountains to the 2,100-ton destroyer. The narrow-hulled ship, heavy with guns, rolled and pitched violently, taking the swells on her port shoulder in explosive bursts of white spray, digging her nose into the seas, water tumbling across her forecastle and sweeping her from stem to stem. Sometimes she would drop sickeningly into a deep trough with only her upper works visible. Brent would hold his breath as new cliffs of black water bore down on her and smile as the tough little warship threw her head back and swooped up the slope to meet the crest in another explosion like the impact of a torpedo. Then the drop and the whole procedure would be repeated.
Brent lowered his glasses and glanced at Byron Whitehead through the corner of his eye. In the four weeks since the beheadings, the rear admiral had found little to say to him except for official consultations concerning the decoding and encoding of messages. In fact, a message received the day before had sent the entire force to sea. Blackfin, on station off Tomonuto, had sent a special CISRA encoded transmission — CISRA was a acronym for a special code developed by the CIA and Israeli Intelligence. It was used only for messages pertaining to Yonaga and forces under the control of Admiral Fujita. It had been sent in a millisecond burst and Williams had taken a grave risk in even making such a short transmission. But the news warranted the risk: the entire Arab task force had put to sea including the three Gearings that had been repaired at Surabaya. Two carriers, two cruisers, and seven escorts had sortied from the atoll on a northwesterly heading, apparently intending to fly in reinforcements to their depleted squadrons in the Marianas. Or perhaps it was a plain and simple challenge to Yonaga to come out and fight, settle the issue once and for all. In any event, Fujita received the news with undisguised relish. He had his escorts, his air groups were up to full strength, and he was spoiling for a fight. Now the feint on the Marianas to “draw out the swine” was not necessary.
After the islands of Ō Shima, Nii Shima and Mikura Jima were cleared to starboard, course was changed to one-three-five. In a briefing, Fujita had explained this course would take the force into the vast void of the Pacific six hundred fifty kilometers to the west of the Marianas Islands. Here, in this enormous empty arena, Fujita hoped to find his enemy and destroy him. The fact that he was outnumbered and outgunned never mitigated his decision. The enemy was expected here, he would find him and engage. It would be a fight to the death — the way of the samurai.
By noon the storm had moved to the east, the sea calmed, and the sun finally broke through the dissipating clouds. The dark blue outline of the Japanese land mass had long since vanished beneath the horizon. Suddenly the talker put his hands to his earphones, listened intently for a moment and then turned to the admiral. “Radar reports large formations of aircraft bearing three-five-zero true, range 310 kilometers. IFF reports friendly emanations, sir.”
“Very well. Our air groups.”
An hour later the first specks were spotted off the starboard quarter and a deep rumble could be heard.
Fujita shouted at Naoyuki, “Signal bridge, make the hoist, ‘Stand by to receive aircraft.’ Flight deck, stand by to handle aircraft.”
In a few minutes, a deep rumble could be heard approaching from the north. Raising his glasses, Brent could see over a hundred aircraft approaching like migrating geese. Handlers, wearing their colorful clothing, rushed to their stations on the flight deck and the fearsome steel-mesh barricade was cranked out of its slot in the middle of the flight deck. Any aircraft that missed all five arresting cables would be caught and probably crushed by the barrier.
Fujita glanced at the ensign whipping at the gaff, ordered a new course hoisted and after every ship had answered his hoist with its own, he shouted, “Execute!”
Every hoist was dropped simultaneously and the old man shouted into the voice tube, “Left standard rudder. Steady up on zero-eight-zero, speed twenty-four.”
The ship came about with every escort holding station in the turn like a ballerina and her consorts. “Steady on zero-eight-zero, sir. Speed twenty-four, one-hundred-twenty-eight revolutions,” came from the tube.
“Very well.” Fujita nodded with satisfaction. Their bows were in the wind, and the motion of the deck was at a minimum. For the first time, he turned to Rear Admiral Whitehead. “We are ready to receive aircraft, Admiral Whitehead.”
“Very efficient, sir.” He glanced at his watch. “But it’s late, sir. Can you take aboard all those aircraft before dark?”
Fujita glanced around anxiously at the sun that was well into its descent in the west. “We must, so we will.”
The roar of aircraft engines became thunder that caused the windscreen to tremble under Brent’s hands, the first squadrons of bombers passing low and to the starboard side of the ship. They began to orbit counterclockwise. The white fighters hung high in the sky. They would land last. “Two block ‘Pennant Six’!” Fujita shouted. Within seconds, the black and white pennant was whipping from the halyard. Slowly a destroyer dropped back and began to trail the carrier on its lifeguard station. The landing control officer took his post just abaft the island. Dressed in yellow overalls, he held two yellow fan-like wands. He raised them and gestured toward himself.
Then the first B5N approached, Fowler flaps down, prop at full pitch, hook extended. Brent liked the B5N. He had flown scores of missions as the rear gunner with the old, long-dead Lieutenant Yoshiro Takii. Takii had described the aircraft to him in great detail. He had been very proud of his bomber, which he had named Tora.
Designed to a 1935 specification of the Imperial Navy, the B5N had been known as “Kate” to the Allies. With a 50-foot wingspan, thirty-three feet in length and carrying a three-man crew in a long greenhouse, it was a big aircraft with clean aerodynamic form. It had been ahead of its time, a low-winged monoplane of all-metal construction with great integral strength and endurance. It had a variable-pitch propeller, retractable carrier-stressed landing gear, integral tankage, stressed-skin construction, and mechanically folding wings. At its inception, it had no peer. It devastated “Battleship Row” at Pearl Harbor, and during the first year of the war in the Pacific, it destroyed or damaged more Allied vessels than any other single Japanese weapon. Among its victims were the carriers Lexington, Wasp, Hornet, and Yorktown.
Brent leaned over the windscreen and watched as the control officer dropped the fans to his knees and flattened them. The pilot cut his throttle and the Nakajima caught the first cable and flopped down on the deck like a big stuffed goose. Quickly the barrier was lowered and the big mottled blue-green bomber was pushed to the forward elevator and struck below. Plane after plane landed, the pilots showing superb skill in handling their aircraft. The last Nakajima was piloted by the torpedo bomber commander Lieutenant Joji Kai. Kai’s bomber was identified by a yellow cowling and a wide yellow stripe painted around the fuselage just forward of the tail. A trifle clumsy in his approach, Kai was caught by a shear of wind that bounced him upward and brought him down well forward. He caught the third cable and bounced to a screeching stop. There was no damage. Then the first Aichi D3A approached the stern.
Brent smiled to himself as he watched the first dive bomber smartly catch the first cable. Although the Japanese would deny it vehemently, Admiral Allen had told him years ago the D3A was a copy of the old German Heinkel He 50, which was first flown in 1931. A two-seat biplane of sturdy construction, a dozen advance models of the Heinkel were exported to Japan in the early thirties. The He 50, not the JU 87, as most Americans believed, became the prototype for the Aichi D3A. Much smaller than the Nakajima with only a 37-foot wingspan, it was a graceful aircraft with
a big cowling enclosing its new Sakae 42 engine, spatted wheels and the trapeze beneath its fuselage for a 250-kilogram bomb. The spatted wheels and large dive brakes were reminiscent of the JU 87 and probably led to the myth. Similar to the Nakajima, every dive bomber was painted mottled blue-green on top and sky blue on the underside. The most effective Japanese bomber of the the Second World War, it sank more Allied fighting ships than any other Axis aircraft.
The landings were uneventful until an Aichi overshot. Frantically the control officer tried to wave it off. The pilot gunned his engine, but its dangling hook caught the last cable. Slammed down with great force, it skewed to the left, bounced five or six times, and blew out both tires, and its landing gear collapsed. Luckily, there was no serious damage, but clearing the damaged bomber claimed valuable time. Every man on the bridge fretted anxiously. Finally, the damaged dive bomber was pulled clear. The last to land was Commander Takuya Iwata. His aircraft was distinguished by a bright red cowling and a red stripe painted around the fuselage. His gunner’s seat was empty. Following Iwata, the fighters began to land.
The light Zeros were whipped to a halt quickly, while the heavier Seafires and F6Fs stretched their cables like giant rubber bands. A stubby, low-winged aircraft with a high canopy, the big Hellcat impressed everyone. Built as a response to the Zero that had dominated the Pacific skies in the early part of the war, the Grumman Hellcat could outperform the Mitsubishi in every way except for maneuverability. It was faster, had armor protection for its pilot and fuel tanks, and carried a terrific wallop in its six fifty-caliber Browning machine guns mounted just outside the break line. Each weapon was supplied with a 400-round ammunition box. Its secret was in its great power: the Pratt & Whitney R-2800, double Wasp, 18- cylinder two-row radial engine with water injection. Originally designed to produce 2100 horsepower, the engine had been upgraded to 2800. The Hellcats now landing on Yonaga’s deck were actually four tons heavier than Matsuhara’s modified Zeros.
