Eyes of the Emperor

by Graham Salisbury

  But when Admiral Nimitz announced in a radio address broadcast over the loudspeakers that the U.S. had defeated the Japanese at Midway, the whole ship broke out in the longest cheer I'd ever heard in my life. For now, our families were safe.

  It had been a long time since I'd felt that good.

  On June 10, we slipped under the Golden Gate Bridge, so big and so high I couldn't believe anybody could have built it.

  But even better was all that land—solid ground—sun-shine, clean air, green hills on one side, biggest city I ever saw on the other.

  We docked in Oakland, and the second we got off the ship, me, Chik, Cobra, and about three hundred other soldiers dropped to our knees and kissed the pavement.

  Before we could get back up, armed troops swooped down on us.

  “Move along!” they shouted, herding us away from the civilian families who had sailed with us. The troops, Sweet among them, marched us onto three different trains.

  “Keep the window shades down,” Sweet said as I stowed my gear and found a place to sit. “We don't need people seeing you and panicking over a train full of Japs.”

  That did it.

  “Sir,” I said. “You wrong to call us Japs. Japs are the ones who bombed Pearl Harbor—the enemy, not us. We're Americans.”

  Boom!

  Sweet had me in the aisle.

  “Fifty push-ups, Private, then fifty more. I want you down there licking spit until your arms fall off. You hear me? Private? You hear what I said?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “I don't take insubordination of any kind. You don't talk back to a superior. You do that again, you're in the brig, understand?”

  “Yes, sir!” I spat.

  His boots were planted an inch from my face. I glanced up. His face was red and veins bulged in his neck. I thought he was going to kick me.

  He spun around and slammed down the aisle to the next car.

  When he was gone I got up, rubbing my burning arms. “Fool,” I mumbled.

  “We going to prison,” Cobra said. “They tricked us into thinking we were going to fight!”

  “But why, Cobra?” Chik said.

  “You watch.”

  I fell into a seat.

  Two armed guards came in and pushed down the aisle, studying us. I lowered my gaze when one of them locked on me.

  The train jerked ahead, and I soon fell asleep.

  I woke with a jump when, sometime later, the train squealed and jolted to a stop.

  I lifted the shade and peeked out. A station.

  Not twenty feet from my window, a crew of workers were digging with picks and shovels.

  “Hey, come look,” I said.

  Chik, Cobra, and PeeWee squeezed in around me.

  It was a shock. Never in our lives had we seen white guys doing pick-and-shovel work.

  Cobra clicked his tongue. “Prisoners, ah? Must be a chain gang.”

  “But no guards,” Chik said.

  He was right. They were free men.

  The train moved on.

  Sweet let us raise the shades when we weren't in some town or city, and ho, what a sight. I'd never been anywhere that I couldn't see the ocean. It was the strangest feeling to be inside the land. Trapped in it. We were islanders, used to small places. Only because we knew the ocean did we understand endlessness like this—mountains far away in the hazy distance, dry desert, red hills, miles and miles of pastures, cows, horses, farmland so perfect it looked fake. Amazing.

  On and on, the train clicking along the tracks, with nothing from Sweet about where we were going. Click, click, click—the sound lulling me to sleep—until I realized something and popped awake. My birthday had come and gone on that ship!

  I was seventeen.

  Days later, when we just about couldn't take it anymore, we crossed into a green land of forests, lakes, cows, and no mountains.

  “You're in Wisconsin, grunts,” Sweet said, finally giving us something. “Anyone ever heard of it?”

  “Only all of us, you fool,” Cobra mumbled.

  When the train stopped, I peeked out the window.

  Yah!

  My scalp prickled. Felt like my hair rose straight up. Cobra was right—prison was right outside the window!

  Faces peered back at us through a chain-link fence—Japanese faces. And one face I could hardly believe.

  A guy standing off by himself.

  Sakamaki.

  Chik and Cobra shoved in around me. We gaped at him. And all those people. So sad, so beaten. A fire burned in my throat.

  “It's really true,” Cobra whispered.

  “Can't be,” Chik said. “No.”

  But there was the proof—Sakamaki. The guy we'd captured at Waimanalo.

  A feeling of complete emptiness washed over me. The feeling you get when you give up.

  But the train jolted and moved ahead.

  Sakamaki's fingers clutched the chain-link fence as we pulled away. He glared at us, his face strangely pockmarked. His eyes were fierce. Probably he still wanted to be shot.

  But the rest of those faces seemed hopeless and confused. Men and women, young, old. Who were they? What crime had they committed?

  We looked at them and they looked back, and something passed between us—something like deep, deep sorrow.

  But not Sakamaki. He lived in another world.

  The train stopped for the last time less than a mile down the line.

  From there we were bussed into Camp McCoy, a sprawling army reservation of fields, forests, creeks, and low hills. Tall trees framed the camp itself, a tidy place.

  But back in the far corner of the camp was the prison. An internment center, they called it. Except for Sakamaki, it wasn't a place for enemies but for people the government had kicked out of all those West Coast states.

  Just people. Americans.

  The air at Camp McCoy was fresh and sweet, and the summer sun blazed hot, just like at home.

  Cobra looked the place over with his usual squint. PeeWee and Golden Boy broke out their cards, and Chik wondered if there were any good-looking girls in town.

  “Now, this is more like it,” I said, because for the first time since any of us had been in the army, we slept in bunks with springs and mattresses and stored our gear in footlockers, and best of all, enjoyed clean latrines—inside the barracks.

  One night after chow, Chik fell back on his bunk with his hands behind his head. “This is the life, ah?”

  “Pfff,” Cobra scoffed. “Fools are so easily pleased, ah, Eddy?”

  I laughed and headed outside to sit on the steps to write a letter to Herbie.

  I thought for a long time before I wrote, remembering what home looked like. Kaka'ako, the harbor, the boatyard. Sharky and Opah. Ma and Herbie. Bunichi.

  And Pop. What was he doing now? Rebuilding the Red Hibiscus? Would they let him do that?

  Maybe.

  But mostly I wondered if he ever thought about me.

  Dear Herbie,

  Well, we made it to the mainland without getting hit by a torpedo. We had to zigzag all the way to San Francisco. The week on that ship was the worst week I ever had in my life. Everyone got seasick and had to throw up all the time, sometimes on each other. But we made it. Now we're at an army camp where we're going through basic training all over again. But I like it here. I wish I could tell you where we are.

  So tell me, how's Pop? Did he ever find out why the sampan burned? I don't know about you, but I think about that all the time. Boats don't just burn up like that. What's he doing now? Rebuilding it?

  Except for the food, the army is okay. But I don't think I'm going to stay in it when my time is up. I don't think they want us anyway. They won't miss me.

  Write me and tell me what's going on at home. Tell me everything, okay? And tell Ma I'm doing fine and not to worry.

  Don't forget.

  Write back.

  Oh, and thanks for that stone. I got it in my pocket right now.

  Eddy
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  Three weeks later, we were designated the Hundredth Infantry Battalion, and for the first time our platoon leaders were Japanese, not white guys. We still had Sweet, and Mr. Parrish joined us, too. He was a major now.

  The only bad part about Camp McCoy was the endless boot camp. Everyone else in the U.S. Army was fighting in Europe and the Pacific. But not us, not the guys who looked like Hirohito. We just kept on training.

  “This is nuts,” I said one day, sitting around with Chik and Cobra. “They never going let us fight in this war, so why not just send us home?”

  “You dreaming,” Cobra said. “Here they got us under control, ah? If we was home, they would worry about us again. Think about it.”

  Me and Chik nodded.

  “All one game, this,” Cobra said.

  “Yeah, but if we was in Europe, would be ugly,” Chik said. “War ain't pretty.”

  “But at least we could do our part, ah?” I said. “Prove we loyal.”

  “That what you are?” Cobra said.

  I glared at him. “Of course. You not?”

  Cobra turned away. “Yeah, I am, but this is…”

  I nodded, thinking if they ever let us fight in this war, I will stand up and go to the end.

  They're not going to crush me, no.

  Ganbare! Persevere!

  That was what Pop would do.

  One dark, cold night I lay on my bunk, sleepless. It was after midnight.

  I heard a creak and popped up on my elbow.

  Two men stood in the doorway, their silhouettes outlined by a glowing bulb outside the open door.

  They waited a few seconds, then came inside.

  They went from bunk to bunk, waking one guy here, one there. But not everyone. They woke Chik, Shig, Cobra.

  I recognized one of the intruders as Ricky Kondo, a college Rotsie from Maui. Because of his education, they'd made him a lieutenant.

  The shape of the other guy was unmistakable.

  Sweet.

  They woke Slim, Ray, James, Tokuji.

  Each guy got up and went quietly to his footlocker.

  But some guys they left alone.

  What was this?

  They woke Hot Dog, Golden Boy, Koji.

  Sweet headed toward me. Faint light from the open door reflected off the brass on his uniform.

  I sat up. The metal springs under my mattress squeaked.

  “Get all your gear together,” he said. “Everything. Assemble outside in field dress in five minutes. And be quiet about it.”

  I got up. Dressed quickly.

  Out of habit I made my bed, then jammed everything from my footlocker into my barracks bag.

  Outside, the air stung my face, cold and sharp. Ghostlike smoke swirled when I breathed. The other barracks and the roads between them and the trees that lined the compound were lit by a few dim bulbs. Two personnel trucks idled nearby. The only other sounds were the padded footfalls of guys falling in.

  No one spoke.

  Relief surged through me when I saw that I was still with Chik and Cobra.

  Ricky Kondo came out of the barracks and stood on the top step. He shook his head, a small private signal that meant he didn't know much more about what all this was than we did. Just following orders.

  Sweet ducked out behind him. He studied us, eyes hard, lips tight.

  What was going on?

  He came down off the steps to review us. When he got to me, he stopped.

  Ever since that time I'd corrected him on the train, he'd been watching me, ready to take me down.

  Look at a spot on the bridge of his big fat nose, I told myself. Anywhere but his eyes. Hold your breath if you have to. Think of the beach. Think of Sharky growling at Cobra. Think of anything, but don't look in his eyes and don't blink.

  Sweet grinned and moved on.

  When he finally spoke, it was in his quiet voice, the one that made you worry.

  “Listen up, because I'm only saying this once. When I dismiss you, take your gear and go get on those two troop trucks yonder. Don't nobody speak to nobody or try to go back into the barracks to say goodbye to your buddies. Just get on the trucks. Quick and quiet.”

  A distant train blew its whistle, echoing through the night.

  “Dismissed.”

  I grabbed my barracks bag and tossed it onto one of the trucks, then climbed in. A bench ran along each side, and a heavy canvas tarp covered the top.

  I moved forward and sat with my gear between my feet. More guys piled in.

  Why only twenty-five guys? And why us twenty-five?

  Sweet peeked into the truck. “I'm tying down this tarp. Keep it that way.”

  Now I couldn't see anything. Even when my eyes adjusted, I could barely make out the shape of the guy across from me.

  Up front, both cab doors thumped shut. We lurched forward, the sickly smell of diesel exhaust seeping in under the tarp. I held my breath as long as I could.

  The hum of the engine made me doze off, the first sleep I'd had that night. I dreamed about the easy blue sea, and Sharky, licking engine oil off parts in Pop's boatyard.

  I was jarred awake sometime later when the truck stopped and sat idling, diesel fumes drifting back in.

  Sweet threw open the flap.

  We were backed up to a doorway. Inside, there was light.

  “What you're looking at,” Sweet said, “is the inside of a DC-3. That's an airplane. Take your gear and step over into it.”

  Not one of us had ever in our lives been this close to an airplane.

  “Let's go,” Sweet said.

  The plane sat with its back end slanting down and its front rising to the cockpit. The window shades were down and the cockpit door was open to a city of glowing red dials. The pilot and copilot were turned in their seats, watching us come on board.

  I threw my barracks bag up into a bin and sat.

  Ricky looked irritated, his face pinched. I didn't blame him. He was a lieutenant, and still nobody was telling him anything.

  I lifted my shade a few inches. Not too far away was a hangar lit by one light, its huge door open to black emptiness inside.

  I jumped when a guard on the ground outside tapped on my window with his rifle. Ho, where'd he come from? He scowled and motioned for me to pull the shade back down.

  The other truck arrived and loaded the rest of us onto the DC-3.

  Sweet got on last, pulling the door shut behind him.

  The pilots fired up the props, making a terrible racket. I reached into my pocket for my good-luck stone: You better be working today.

  The DC-3 started to move. All around me guys had mempachi eyes, big and bugged-out like that fish. We picked up speed, going faster and faster down the runway. Had to be a hundred miles an hour, or a thousand, I don't know.

  The plane groaned into the sky. I felt like I weighed two hundred pounds. Up and up, bouncing, rattling, shaking. We tilted, straightened, went up some more, and with my eyes pinched shut and my fingers digging into the seat, I begged that I would please, please, please step on solid ground just one more time in my life.

  With shades down, the DC-3 droned on.

  Chik and Cobra slept.

  But I was wide awake, rubbing that blue stone and wondering if I had the guts to peek out the window. What was out there, so high up? Clouds? Angels? Ghosts?

  I checked Sweet, then inched up the window shade.

  Ho!

  Far below, the long silver-colored serpent of a river snaked across the land. The sun was just rising in the east, spreading long shadows over green fields, pastures, lakes, and forests. The view was so big I could hardly take it all in. Never had I seen anything like it before.

  I pulled the shade back down and tried to sleep.

  I woke with a jump when I felt the plane going down. I grabbed that blue stone quick.

  Down, down.

  I stopped breathing.

  When the wheels thumped back on earth, we shouted and clapped and joked about how easy flying
was.

  “Knock it off,” Sweet shouted.

  The urge to raise the shade and peek out was so strong I had to sit on my hands.

  Sweet stood. “Grab your gear, grunts. We're getting off. Kondo, take the lead.”

  The pilot ducked out of the cockpit and hunched back to open the door. Thick, warm air rushed in, soft and thick and warm as the air back home.

  Outside, two more army troop trucks waited for us. Otherwise, the airfield was deserted.

  “Where are we?” Lieutenant Kondo asked Sweet.

  “Mississippi.”

  I squinted into the distance, thinking I'd seen something move. What I saw jarred me. Armed MPs were positioned around the edges of the entire field, standing back in the morning shadows.

  “Move along. Let's go.”

  We boarded the trucks and headed away from the airfield.

  After we'd been driving awhile, PeeWee said, “You smell that?”

  I sniffed the air.

  “Salt water,” Cobra said.

  When the truck came to a stop, Sweet looked in on us. “One more ride, grunts… then you're home.”

  We jumped off the truck.

  We were at a harbor, with sunny ocean beyond. A wharf, or a pier. “Yes,” I whispered.

  But again, MPs lurked in the shadows.

  No civilians anywhere. No workers, no fishermen.

  What is this?

  Chik lifted his chin toward the harbor. “Man, that sight is like honey on my tongue,” he said, shading his eyes from the sun.

  Boats sat motionless in their slips. Outriggers and antennas stabbed into the air, looking just like the fishing boats back home. The sea beyond was light blue and calm, and the sweet stink of dead fish whispered in my nose.

  Sweet headed out onto the pier to see the skipper of one of the boats. As they talked, the skipper kept glancing back at us.

  A few minutes later, Sweet returned. “Lucky us. We got an easy sea today.”

  “We going on that boat?” Ricky Kondo asked.

  “Grab your gear.”

  I tossed my barracks bag over my shoulder. We filed out onto the pier.

  The boat was white with black trim—the same colors as the Red Hibiscus. But this one had rust stains leaking from its water ports. It needed new paint. Looked to me about forty-five feet. Sugar Babe, Gulfport was arced across the transom. A fishing boat, but not sampan style.