MacArthur's War: A Novel of the Invasion of Japan

by Douglas Niles

  “Only when you start offering a liquor service, Lieutenant,” he replied, which drew another laugh.

  The hatch over Greg’s head slid back and he took a few deep breaths of sea air. He’d avoided membership in the Order of the Wet Diaper and, with luck, would keep from throwing up until he was out of the Avenger.

  Encumbered as he was in flight suit and helmet, he had to be helped out of his seat and down the ladder before he had enough working room to get rid of the extra garments. As usual, he observed the reactions of the people around him when they first saw he was Asian. One of the plane crew noticed first and punched the guy next to him in the shoulder. Both of them stared openly at him until the crew chief caught them and gave each a whack on the side of the head. The crew chief himself did a bit of a double take, shook his head in a way that said goddamn army more eloquently than any words, and ostentatiously turned away, the universal sign that none of this was any of his business.

  The lieutenant commander who patiently waited for him wasn’t surprised. Clearly, Yamada’s name had to be written on that clipboard he was carrying. The navy officer was trying to keep his expression carefully bland, but he was clearly curious. Yamada wasn’t yet sure whether the curiosity was about his mission, his ethnicity, or both. He’d assume both for now and see what developed. Yamada was going to need allies, and this young officer looked like he could be influenced pretty easily.

  The navy officer stepped forward and saluted sharply, then started speaking with a pronounced Southern accent. “Welcome to the New Georgia, sir. I’m Lieutenant Commander Dan McPherson. If you can spare a moment, Captain Alexander would like to give you a personal welcome.” McPherson was about medium height, stocky, with close-cut brown hair. His face was open and friendly. Yamada noticed a class ring. Naval Academy. A ring knocker.

  “That’s very gracious of him,” Yamada said. “I know he’s very busy, so I won’t take much of his time. Will you be able to take me to see my prisoner afterward?”

  “Of course,” the lieutenant commander replied. “This way, sir.” McPherson signaled to a seaman to take Yamada’s luggage: a duffel and a briefcase. Greg let them take the duffel but kept the briefcase.

  Most of the men clearly weren’t expecting to see a Japanese man in a U.S. Army uniform. Some men were curious, some actively hostile. A few muttered under their breath as they passed. Yamada couldn’t hear all the words, but he didn’t need to. They were all some version of, “What’s a fucking yellow Nip bastard doing here?”

  What was more interesting was his escort’s reaction. Most non-Asians never noticed, but as McPherson held open a door for him—hatch, Yamada silently corrected himself—the navy officer said, “I apologize for that, Major.”

  “No need, Commander. Army green just sets some of you navy boys off,” Yamada said. He’d heard it all before. Better to turn it into a joke.

  McPherson led Yamada up a gangway to the bridge. Captain Alexander was huddled with several officers around a tall metal table going over damage reports. He looked up as soon as Yamada entered the bridge. Like McPherson, Captain Alexander was not in the slightest surprised that Yamada was Japanese. He was angry, though. His eyes kept straying down to the papers—there must be bad news in them—and here Yamada was, complicating his work. There was something more, though. The way the corners of his mouth turned down spoke of revulsion. Yamada noticed the absence of an academy ring.

  Seeing which officers were in the know was also important. Of five, three were carefully unsurprised: the captain, the XO, and a first lieutenant. The first lieutenant was a ring knocker like McPherson, the only one in the captain’s inner circle. Maybe he could be of use, too. I wonder if he’s friends with McPherson. That would be useful.

  Two weren’t in the know. One was a rather hapless-looking ensign, obviously the resident whipping boy. No ring. The other was a middle-aged, overweight commander who looked not at Yamada but at the XO and the lieutenant. The commander, probably of prewar career vintage, looked like he’d been passed over for captain a few times for being a mediocrity, and his two enemies were busily cutting him out of anything important aboard the carrier. Both powerless, Yamada thought. So far McPherson was his best bet.

  McPherson made the introductions. “Captain, this is Major Gregory Yamada of Army Intelligence. Major Yamada, Captain James Alexander.”

  Alexander was a tall man, easily a foot taller than the five-foot-three Yamada, with brown eyes and close-cropped brown hair. He wore a thin mustache.

  Yamada saluted first. He could feel Alexander’s eyes boring in, narrowing as they contemplated his Asian features. The army intelligence officer put his briefcase on the tall table, snapped it open, and pulled out a sheet of paper. “My orders, Captain.”

  The captain took the orders and skimmed them. Then he read them again, this time more slowly. “You know some important people, Major,” he said, the anger in his voice matched by the slight eyebrow movement when using Yamada’s rank, showing suspicion of his legitimacy.

  “No, sir. But Admiral Fletcher and General Krueger both believe my mission is important.” Yamada didn’t need a fight. Besides, lowballing his relationships was the strongest strategy.

  Captain Alexander looked at him, his disapproval moderated slightly by the mention of his seniors. Then he read the orders through a third time, his mouth tightening progressively from first line to last.

  “It says here that I am to keep the New Georgia completely out of harm’s way until your business on board is concluded.” Alexander said, omitting Yamada’s rank altogether. “Right now, for your information, I’m flying close air support operations to cover the beachhead. In case you don’t understand that, Major, my continued ability to fly in support of the brave American troops risking their lives while others warm chairs on shore rests on my ability to stay—on—station! I’ll thank you to conclude this business as quickly as possible so this ship can return to its proper duty.”

  Okay, Yamada thought, that’s the game. He snapped his briefcase shut. “Captain, may we speak in private?”

  Alexander paused, obviously weighing his options, but without lessening his anger. If the captain thought he could win, he’d have it out in public. But if he thought he was going to lose, he’d want that in private. Yamada concentrated on looking calm and certain.

  “Very well. In my ready room.” Language curt and clipped. His junior officers traded glances. They knew he was probably going to lose. At least this way the captain would avoid witnesses.

  Alexander waved Yamada ahead of him and closed the hatch behind them. The compartment had a small conference table and Yamada circled quickly to the table’s head. Stake out your territory immediately and take the high ground where possible.

  “I presume you’re going to tell me just how quickly you can get the hell off my ship,” Alexander said.

  First came the obligatory peace gesture. Yamada put his hands out to his sides, palms forward. “I’m sorry to say, Captain, that the time varies. Your prisoner and what he may have in his skull is enormously valuable right now. I need you to move far enough away from shore so that you’re out of reach of suicide planes, boats, submarines, or anything else that might harm that prisoner before I finish with him.” He didn’t expect his rueful smile or his open-palm gesture to deflect much of what was coming his way, and he was right.

  “If I had known that little son of a bitch was going to get my ship pulled out of the battle, I would have let him drown!” snapped the captain. “That’s exactly what he was trying to accomplish, you know that, don’t you?”

  “Captain, when your men fished him out of the water, still alive, that fellow became the most important enemy in this whole ocean. He’s the only one we’ve taken alive! Now, I need to get inside his head, find out what he knows, find out what the hell is going on!”

  “And what about the brave Americans on shore? Or don’t you care about them, now that you have a fellow countryman to protect?” The captain’s voi
ce was dripping with contempt and sarcasm.

  An argument about racial versus national loyalty was an argument without a victory as far as Yamada was concerned. He ignored the attack altogether and went back to the facts. “Captain, you have your orders, as I have mine. You received your own set yesterday, and what I just gave you is identical.” Yamada was bluffing, but from the angry reaction, he knew he’d hit paydirt.

  “Goddammit! Who the hell…”

  With the captain slightly off guard, it was time to attack directly. Putting both hands on the table and leaning forward, he said in a voice with more menace, “I don’t know how they do it in the navy, but in the army, when we receive lawful orders, we don’t have a fucking debating society about them. Getting the truth out of that boy you have locked up belowdecks matters more to the war effort right this minute than anything else you’re doing. There will be another carrier here within six hours to pick up the slack. In the meantime, Captain Alexander, the New Georgia is to be moved well out of harm’s way.” He kept his eyes locked directly on the captain’s and waited. It took about forty seconds for the conflict to resolve.

  The captain did not acknowledge Yamada at all. He turned around, opened the door, and walked out, leaving Yamada to his own devices. Yamada followed after a discreet interval of about five seconds. Alexander strode through the bridge and said, “Plot a course for Take Shima. You have the conn.”

  “Aye aye, Captain,” the XO replied, looking somewhat bewildered as Alexander swept by.

  That went well, thought Yamada. Less than ten minutes and the captain was already pissed off. At least he was following orders. He turned to his escort. “Commander McPherson, may I see my prisoner now?”

  Now that Yamada was officially on the captain’s shit list, McPherson appeared to have cooled off considerably. “Yes, Major. Follow me.” The use of his title rather than “sir” was a traditional way of expressing disapproval or dislike.

  Yamada quickly lost track of where he was in the maze of passageways underneath the carrier deck. The ship certainly seemed much larger on board than it had looked when they were coming in on final.

  Once out of earshot of the captain, McPherson’s curiosity overwhelmed his official frostiness again. “Pardon me for asking, Major, but it’s a bit…um…unusual to meet an officer who’s…”

  Yamada laughed. He wanted to encourage the young navy officer, and indulging his curiosity was a cheap way to build the relationship. “Nisei. That means second generation, or first generation born in the United States. My Japanese was good enough to get me selected for Military Intelligence School, so they sent me to Minnesota for advanced study in the language.” That was a setup ending; the next question was always the same.

  “Minnesota? You went to Minnesota to study Japanese?”

  “The Military Intelligence Service Language School, Camp Savage, Minnesota.” He chuckled. “There are more of us than you’d think. There’s an entire Nisei regiment in the European Theater, the 442nd. But we can talk about that later, if you’re curious.”

  McPherson grabbed the bait Yamada was dangling. “I’d like that, if you don’t think I’m prying. I’m interested.”

  “Good. Maybe later.” Yamada smiled.

  The suicide pilot was in the infirmary, segregated in a private room with a marine guard—a lance corporal—sitting on a chair beside the door. The marine came to attention when the two officers approached. He couldn’t help one glance at Yamada made equally of hostility and fear before his face hardened into marine rigidity.

  “This is the army interrogator, Major Yamada,” McPherson said. “He’s here to see the prisoner.”

  “Sir! Lieutenant Steffan must authorize access to the prisoner, sir!”

  “Corporal, Major Yamada is now in charge of the prisoner, not Lieutenant Steffan. Step away from the door,” said McPherson.

  Yamada tried a different tack. “Corporal, I understand you have your orders, but I presume you can see the little leaf on my shoulder. Why don’t you go find your lieutenant, tell him that an army major ran you off, and that the lieutenant can come talk to Commander McPherson here if he has a problem.”

  “Sir! Lieutenant Steffan must authorize access to the prisoner, sir!” The corporal’s eyes were darting from side to side and his pupils were beginning to dilate. Caught between conflicting orders, he was starting to break. He wouldn’t last long under interrogation, Yamada thought.

  “Last chance, Corporal,” Yamada said. “Go find your lieutenant. I’ll count to three. One. Two.”

  The corporal was gone.

  “Would you mind waiting for this Lieutenant Steffan, Commander McPherson? I’d hate to see that poor corporal take the fall for this. It’s not right to put an enlisted man in the middle of this.”

  “I agree, Major Yamada. I’ll have a word with the lieutenant when he gets here.”

  “If he gets here.”

  “If he doesn’t, I’ll go find him. Again, my apologies on behalf of the New Georgia. The prisoner is now yours, Major. If you need anything, please let me know.”

  “Thank you, Commander. I appreciate your help. A word of private advice, if I might?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Look a little reluctant. Maybe even resentful.”

  “Sir, I—”

  “We’re not going to change the world today. I’d prefer to see your career go well.”

  McPherson paused. “I—well, uh, yes, sir. I understand, I guess. I don’t like it much.”

  “I’m not crazy about it myself. But right now, I have a job to do. Thanks for your help.”

  “I resented like hell having to do it,” McPherson said with a grin. “Officially.”

  “Oh—tell Lieutenant Steffan to keep guards on the door. He can start with that corporal. He’s a brave man.” Yamada opened the hatch and went inside.

  “Konichi-wa,” he said to the young, bandage-swathed Japanese aviator in the hospital bed. “Watakushi-wa Chui Yamada Kaito, desu.” Hello. My name is Major Gregory Yamada. Kaito was his adopted Japanese surname; there was no exact translation of Gregory, of course.

  Silence. The prisoner turned his face away.

  Yamada tried again. “Onamae-wa?” What is your name?

  Silence.

  The prisoner was young, no more than nineteen, at a guess. His defiance was mostly bravado and shame at being in the enemy’s hands. A child playing at being grown up, confused and scared and very much alone. Getting him to surrender the information the army needed wouldn’t be too difficult. The problem was getting a dialogue started in the first place. Once he played the first piece of the puzzle, everything else should fall neatly into place.

  Silence was a good strategy for the prisoner. But few people could resist silence in return. Yamada sat down and calmly waited.

  The minutes ticked by with excruciating slowness. Yamada had long practice in the technique; the prisoner did not. The young suicide pilot could keep his face turned away only so long until the position began to ache, then he turned his head back to center, studiously avoiding eye contact with his interrogator. Yamada kept his attention on the man in the bed. He looked at the boy’s forehead rather than into his eyes. It was much more relaxing that way, and almost no one could tell the difference, especially at a distance of four or five feet.

  Yamada could keep this up for a long time, but he really wanted a cigarette. That was the worst part of the silent contest.

  Now the boy’s eyes were moving, looking at the ceiling, then at the featureless walls of the hospital room. There wasn’t much to look at, except for the IV drips. His effort not to look at Yamada grew more strained, and finally he surrendered that battle. He looked directly at Yamada. He tried to put disdain on his face, but it failed. Yamada continued to wait.

  Now there were signs that he wanted to talk, wanted to ask questions, wanted to express how he felt. At this point, Yamada could start asking questions, but it was better to wait, to get the boy to the place he needed
to talk. Things were going quite well.

  “Ishimaru Kawase.” The first words after such a long silence sounded extremely loud, although in fact they were barely a croak from a voice hardly used since the crash.

  “Arigato,” Yamada said. Continuing in Japanese, he added, “Rest now. We’ll talk more later.” In the face of the boy’s obvious confusion, he stood, bowed slightly, and left the room.

  Fifteen minutes later, Yamada was sitting in the officers’ mess, sipping a cup of coffee, smoking a Winston, and reading a week-old Stars and Stripes when the captain came in. He continued to sit and read until he saw the captain’s shadow fall across his newspaper. Then he looked up.

  “Well?”

  Yamada stubbed out his cigarette. “The interrogation is proceeding nicely,” he said.

  Captain Alexander pulled out a chair and sat down opposite him. “What have you got so far?” he said sharply.

  “His name.”

  “His name?”

  “That’s right.”

  “That’s all? Just his goddamn name?” The captain’s face was turning red.

  Yamada leaned forward. “I’m afraid so.”

  “You pull my ship out of the goddamn war, you expose real soldiers to harm, and you sit there and tell me that you got his name? Is that what you interrogators call a full day’s work?”

  “Captain, that’s a nineteen-year-old boy who’s scared to death and who’s trying to pretend to be a man.”

  “Other nineteen-year-old boys like that one have killed thousands of men in the last two days.”

  “You’ve got nineteen-year-old boys too, Captain Alexander. They’ve done some hard and heroic jobs, but they’re still nineteen.”

  “Yeah? And what in the hell does that have to do with—”

  “He’s putting on this big hero face because he knows how his side treats prisoners. He’s wondering when we’re going to start. Instead, he’s getting medical care and soft treatment. This is upsetting his entire view of the world. He tried the silent treatment with me, but he’s desperate to talk. That’s why as soon as I got him to tell me his name, I left the room. I’m going to give him another half an hour to stew in his own juices before I go back, and he’s going to be so desperate to talk I’m going to have to write like hell to get it all down.”