The House of Special Purpose

by Paul Christopher

  Vassili Zarubin smiled. ‘Don’t be silly, Miss Todd. That one’s as old as the hills.’

  * * *

  Second Lieutenant Masaji Suganami’s attack on the Marine Air Corps station at Ewa had been a complete disaster. The secondary target, which was a rear-echelon support base for the bases at Midway and Wake Islands, comprised mostly transport aircraft and amphibious PBY patrol aircraft. As far as the Japanese plan was concerned, it was a gathering point for members of the First, Second, Third and Fourth Attack Groups and a target to expend their remaining ammunition on after completing their primary mission. As planned, Suganami and several other aircraft already there did several strafing runs, low and slow over the runways. Yet the first shell in the packed sixty-round belt of the left-wing cannon jammed in the receiver, effectively taking Lieutenant Suganami’s aircraft out of combat, since the jamming of one cannon made it impossible to fire the right-wing weapon as well.

  Suganami desperately squeezed on the bicycle-brake firing lever on the left side of the cockpit and even ducked down between his now empty twin machine guns to toggle the cannon master switch on and off but nothing seemed to work. Furious and ashamed, he peeled away from the rest of his comrades and headed south-east, reaching Ewa Beach, then gained a little altitude as he streamed away towards Diamond Head, the final landmark he would use to guide himself back to the pitching deck of the aircraft carrier Soryu.

  Hurtling along the coastline at roughly three hundred miles per hour, Suganami was barely aware of the roiling pall of smoke over Pearl Harbor off his left wing and even less aware of the city of Honolulu in the middle distance. Suddenly the air around him was full of anti-aircraft flak and he pulled up on his control column in an effort to avoid it.

  Peering down as he jinked the Mitsubishi fighter plane back and forth, he was astonished to see what appeared to be a relatively new-looking cargo liner with a stark white superstructure firing at him from an anti-aircraft gun platform mounted on the afterdeck. He couldn’t be sure but he thought it might be flying the Dutch flag. Then it was gone and so was Honolulu.

  Pushing the stick forward, he dropped down until he was almost skimming the incoming breakers as he raced for home. He gritted his teeth with anger and shame, tears forming in his eyes behind the goggles. To return to the ship with his assignment incomplete was an almost unbearable humiliation, even though the fault was not his but the machine’s. He squeezed his eyes shut for an instant, knowing that such a thought was only an excuse. He was the leader of his group and most of all he was responsible for everything that happened. The word ‘fault’ had no meaning.

  Second Lieutenant Masaji Suganami believed in Bushido, the Way of the Warrior, and a true Warrior would have become Kamikaze, the Divine Wind, and turned his aircraft into a blazing weapon, crashing down into the enemy ranks, even at the cost of his own life.

  Just ahead of him he was suddenly aware of a mad vision – a yacht of monumental proportions was tied up to what had to be a fisherman’s wharf, its prow with a long, ornate bowsprit pointing directly at him. Without thinking he reached out with his left hand, somehow knowing, almost as though someone was whispering the solution into his ear, that the reason his cannon had jammed was because the barrels had been overheated. He squeezed the bicycle brake firing lever and the cannons began to roar.

  Although the cannon had a slow rate of fire and a reduced muzzle velocity, the huge twenty millimetre calibre and the fact that it used explosive shells more than made up for those deficiencies. Each of the 120 shells in the wing magazines weighed slightly more than a quarter pound and had the destructive force of a hand grenade. By the time Second Lieutenant Suganami began to fire on the Southern Cross he had a total of thirty-four shells left.

  * * *

  Jane had spotted Suganami’s Zero a split second before the lieutenant began to fire and managed to grab the sleeve of Morris Black’s jacket and drag him down to the carpeted floor. Vassili Zarubin wasn’t quite as quick. Spinning on his heel, he turned and stared out one of the forward portholes in the dining room cabin as the world began to explode around him.

  * * *

  During weapons training Masaji Suganami was deemed to be one of the most accurate and intuitive pilots in his entire squadron. Almost without thinking he knew that he was flying too fast and too low to get a reasonable shot below the yacht’s waterline and the target offered by the narrow prow was far too small anyway. Instead he concentrated on the superstructure, emptying his wing magazines into the main deck, upper deck and wheelhouse, followed by a string of hits that included the pantry, galley, captain’s cabin, chief engineer’s cabin and rear drawing room on the afterdeck. Of the thirty-four shells expended, eighteen of them struck home, including three in the dining cabin. The entire attack took slightly less than eight seconds and then Second Lieutenant Masaji Suganami and his fighter, all ammunition now expended, climbed towards Diamond Head, on his way home, honour served and shame averted.

  * * *

  The first shell to strike the dining room hammered through the outer skin of the cabin with barely any loss of velocity then impacted the thick oak panels at the back of the sideboard. The sideboard exploded into a hundred whirling pieces, most of them smoking or on fire, totaling immolating the copies of the Romanov film and incidentally saving Vassili Zarubin’s life.

  An instant later the second shell struck two feet above the first, ripping out half the ceiling, which plummeted onto the table, collapsing it. The shell exploded against the far wall, blasting it in pieces into the stairwell leading down to the owner’s suite and the gymnasium. The third shell followed an instant later, roaring through the remains of the aft wall of the dining room and exploding into the galley and pantry, killing the entire cooking staff. The concussion of the third explosion, which included the secondary detonation of three pressurised containers of bottled gas, blew up through the floor of the captain’s cabin, killing him in his bunk.

  Jane Todd’s ears were still ringing from the explosions as she began pulling the wreckage of the dining room table off herself and helped a battered Morris Black to his feet. Almost unbelievably he still had Arthur’s .45 automatic in his hand. He had a few cuts here and there and his clothes were scorched but he didn’t seem to have any major injuries. Jane had a short, deep gash on her temple and her teeth felt half rattled out of her head from the multiple explosions but that was it.

  The cabin was on fire. The curtains had caught and small blazes burst up in several other corners of the room, which was now filling with smoke.

  ‘Where’s Zarubin?’ Black asked.

  ‘Here,’ came a small voice. With a cough the Russian staggered up out of the ruins of the sideboard. The whole front of his shirt appeared to be soaked in blood and one trouser leg had been torn open, showing a five- or six-inch piece of wood and iron protruding from his thigh – one of the sideboard’s old-fashioned hinges. His face was covered with dirt and blood and his hair was singed. There was no sign of the Tokarev. He pushed himself fully upright, using the bulkhead beside him for support. ‘You must help me.’

  Jane reached down and retrieved the axe. She took a pair of staggering steps towards the Soviet spy and raised the axe a few inches. ‘Mexican standoff’s over, pal. I think we’ve got more important things to deal with now. Like figuring out why we were being shot at by a Japanese fighter and getting the hell off this boat. You, buddy, are on your own.

  ‘No, you must help me! Poszhalujsta!’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Please,’ said Black.

  ‘You must!’ Zarubin moaned. ‘I know where Levitsky is. I know where he is hiding the original of the film!’

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Sunday, December 7, 1941

  Kewalo Basin

  Getting off the Southern Cross was as easy as pushing open the door to the main corridor, stepping out onto the deck and then going down the companionway to the wharf. There was a brief moment of tension in the corridor as
the Duchess of Windsor appeared in a fur-ruffed robe and matching mules, demanding to know what was going on, but the moment ended quickly when Jane raised the bloody fire axe. The duchess’s jaw clamped down and she rushed back down the stairs.

  ‘Snotty bitch.’

  Once out on the wharf, they helped Zarubin towards an old green Chevy but it had obviously ceased to be useful after sustaining two hits from Suganami’s Zero, both of which had struck the engine, destroying both the block and the radiator.

  ‘So much for that idea,’ said Jane. ‘You think the buses are still running?’

  ‘Shut your cakehole,’ Black answered in an excellent East-Ender accent. He looked down the fisherman’s wharf running at right angles to theirs. If any of Shivers’s men had been in the administration building, they were dead. One or more of the Zero’s cannon shells had turned the small shack into a blazing pile of kindling that was on the verge of setting the two old pumps alight. Still moored in front of the burning shack was the shallow-draft net boat with the curved bow. Jane could read the name on the bow, neatly done in simple block letters in black: Oriana B. Behind it the fire from the shack was creeping out onto the wooden planks of the wharf and was now no more than a few yards from the two old Sinclair pumps.

  ‘You’re kidding,’ said Jane.

  ‘You have any other suggestions?’

  ‘Please decide so I do not bleed to death,’ muttered Zarubin. The more blood he lost, the less grip he had on the English language.

  ‘Come on.’ Black took Zarubin under one arm and Jane supported him on the other side. The Russian hobbled between them as they headed for the fishing boat. Jane looked to the west. Fires burning in Honolulu were sending up plumes of smoke but they did not compare to the sight a few miles farther on. The cloud over Pearl Harbor was black as night, a gigantic thunderhead, shot here and there with monstrous licking flames. It was now beginning to sink in that the fighter plane that had strafed Southern Cross was no aberration but part of a massive, concerted attack on the Pacific Fleet.

  Zarubin followed her gaze. ‘It would appear that America and the Japanese are now at war, Miss Todd, whether America likes it or not.’ He was smiling widely.

  ‘What are you so happy about?’

  ‘I am happy because Hitler will be forced to declare war on America as well under his Axis agreements. He is already fighting a war on two fronts. Now it will be three. I am glad we are now allies, Miss Todd.’

  ‘I think we might move along a little faster,’ said Black nervously. ‘Those flames are getting quite close to the pumps and we aren’t the only ones trying to get away from here.’ He looked back over his shoulder and both Jane and Zarubin saw what he meant. People from the Southern Cross had come out on deck, both passengers and crew. Smoke was pouring out everywhere on the upper decks and even from halfway along the fisherman’s wharf Jane could see that the pilothouse and the bridge had been completely demolished.

  For a moment she saw Wenner-Gren, dressed in a long silk robe, and she was sure the imposing Swede was looking in their direction. She picked up the pace and a few moments later they reached the Oriana B. Together Jane and Black eased Zarubin into the boat, sitting him down on the scarred plank top of the big fishbox amidships. Black jumped back up on the wharf, cast off the bow and stern lines, then jumped back down into the boat again. A hundred yards away people were beginning to stumble off the Southern Cross. Under Wenner-Gren’s direction, half a dozen of his striped-jersey crew were heading in the direction of the little fishing vessel.

  ‘You know anything at all about boats?’

  ‘Yes, as a matter of fact, I do,’ Black answered. ‘I used to spend all my summer hols on a place in the Thames Estuary called Canvey Island. All I did was go about with the fishermen there in boats quite like this one.’ He paused, looking back over his shoulder at the approaching crew members. ‘I suggest you tend to Comrade Zarubin’s wounds while I get us out of here.’

  Jane nodded and headed back to the hatch-covered fishbox. Black thumbed the starter button beside the wheel and somewhere underneath him he felt the rumble of the engine turning over. A few yards away the flames from the office shack were beginning to lick at the base of the pumps. There was very little time left. He pressed the button again, felt the starter rumble and then catch. Instantly his hand shifted to the throttle mechanism bolted to the gunwale.

  He eased back on the lever slightly until he was sure the engine was running smoothly, then spun the wheel and hooked the fingers of his other hand around the lever and pushed it forward, hard. They roared away from the wharf in a broad curve, the almost flat bottom slapping against the water. At Zarubin’s side, Jane lurched as she began tearing the remains of his left trouser leg into strips she could use for a bandage. Even before they reached the entrance to the basin, she felt a concussive explosion that felt like someone had pushed a fist into her back as the pumps finally exploded. Then they roared out into the main channel.

  Ignoring the marker buoys, Black swung the Oriana B hard to port, taking them into the shallower water just offshore. Like the boats he’d fished from off Canvey Island in the Thames, the Oriana B was built for shoal fishing with a slightly more than flat bottom so she wouldn’t limpet on the mud banks at low tide. The water towards shore was a pale green-blue, indicating shallow water. Cutting across the flats off Fort Armstrong would save a great deal of time.

  Dead ahead, no more than a mile away, he could see Sand Island and the entrance to Honolulu Harbor. Dark columns of smoke were rising over the city but nothing like the monstrous cloud that still raged over Pearl Harbor. Black instinctively looked out to sea, scanning the horizon for any sign of an invasion force, but saw nothing. Clearly the intention of the air strike had been to destroy the American Pacific Fleet. It was shameful but he felt a surge of savage joy, knowing that a blow like this was exactly what was needed to push the Americans into the war. England would no longer stand alone.

  Jane came forward, supporting Zarubin as he hobbled along with her. ‘Is there anywhere he can lie down? He should be off his feet.’

  Morris Black pointed to a low door with a thumb latch just to the right of the wheel. ‘There’s probably a berth through there. Biffy as well.’

  ‘Biffy?’

  ‘W.C. Toilet. Shitter.’

  ‘No,’ Zarubin croaked. ‘No lying down. I wouldn’t get up.’ Grimacing, he eased himself down onto a small padded seat to the right of the doorway, keeping his wounded leg stretched, the knee locked. Jane looked out over the roof of the low cabin in front of the wheel. The ominous cloud was still rising over Pearl Harbor, accompanied by the distant rumble and roar of multiple explosions, loud enough to be heard from five miles away over the clatter of the engine on the Oriana B.

  The sun had risen into a cloudless sky, high enough now to warm their backs. Swinging back and forth in the small invisible eddies of wind were dozens of Laysan albatross and Bulwer’s petrel, waiting for a fishy treat from the boat. In this small patch of wind and sun and water there was only beauty and peace. Jane looked up and saw more birds, high above them, darting back and forth, swooping and careening.

  ‘I can’t believe that this is happening,’ she said, staring out at the black climbing horror above Pearl Harbor, knowing that hundreds, maybe thousands of men were dying over there. ‘It’s such a beautiful day.’

  ‘There’s a famous poem about that,’ said Black, keeping his hands on the wheel and his eyes forward. ‘It was Thomas Barry’s favourite. Written by a Canadian, I think.’ He began to recite. ‘”In Flanders fields the poppies blow, between the crosses row on row, that mark our place and in the sky, the larks still bravely singing fly.” Thomas said he’d be down in the trenches among the mud and the rats and the bodies and sometimes there were clouds of birds overhead, flying about as though millions of men weren’t dying down below.’

  ‘The first few minutes of a war beginning and you’re reciting poetry about the last one.’

  ‘W
hat better time?’ he asked wryly.

  ‘You truly are a strange man, Morris Black.’ She leaned over and kissed him gently on the cheek, gripping his shoulder with one hand.

  Suddenly, almost as though the poem had been a signal, the air was filled with the insect drone of engines. Zarubin, already sitting facing the stem, saw them first.

  ‘They’re coming back!’ he said. ‘Get us off the water!’

  Black looked over his shoulder and Jane turned fearfully as well. Behind them, no more than five hundred feet above them, scores of aircraft were approaching. Fighters like the one that had attacked the Southern Cross were taking up protective positions around flight after flight of larger bombers.

  ‘A second wave!’ said Zarubin. ‘Turn! Turn away.’

  ‘They probably can’t even see us,’ said Black, turning back to the wheel but changing course to port just the same. ‘And we don’t make much of a target.’

  ‘Don’t be so sure,’ said Jane. She watched as one of the fighters peeled away from the rest of the group and lost altitude, veering in their direction. He was no more than a mile or two behind them now and at his speed it was only a matter of seconds before he would be on top of them.

  ‘Get Zarubin into the cabin!’

  ‘There is no time for that!’ the Russian screamed. ‘Turn to shore!’

  Shore was a quarter of a mile away and he hadn’t a prayer of getting that far. ‘Onto the deck!’ Black ordered. This time Jane grabbed Zarubin and tumbled him off his perch on the padded bench. He screamed in pain as he hit the deck, then tried to drag himself into the small cover offered by the fishbox.

  Morris knew that any fire from the incoming fighter craft would chew up the fishbox, the deck and anything on it like paper but they’d all be dead anyway unless his idiot plan worked.

  Looking over his shoulder again, he saw that the aircraft was now frighteningly close, sunlight glinting off the squared glass of the front of the cockpit. He could only hope that the pilot would conserve his cannon fire for a bigger target and merely use his machine guns on the Oriana B. The aircraft was skimming the water now and Black knew he had only an instant of time before the pilot opened fire. He waited for one more breath then grabbed the throttle lever, pulled it back until the engine whistled and died and at the same time spun the wheel to starboard.