by Peter Albano
Chapter II
Brent rose slowly from the depths of sleep, conscious of a growing sense of disquiet and unease. He was a deep-sea swimmer, flat on his back, arms and legs extended, rising without effort on a whim of the sea toward the surface which was only a faint glow high overhead. On the edge of consciousness a misty dream image swirled overhead. Slowly a great cavern formed and descended to meet him — a maw lined with serrated teeth like rows of daggers. It was a mouth — the jaws of a great, predatory creature about to envelop and shred him. Hot breath fouled his face. He gagged. Tried to scream. There was a rumble. More heat and flames erupted from the beast’s bowels, reaching for him with yellow incandescent fingers. Terror froze the deep primal recesses of his being. He cried out, tried to throw up his hands, but they were trapped. He rolled from side to side in desperation. He heard screams. But it was not his voice. He was sure of it.
He broke through the surface. The jaws vanished and the light was brilliant — so bright it ached against his retinas. His head felt as though someone had knotted a piece of barbed wire around it and twisted it up tight. The time-ravaged face of Chief Hospital Orderly Eiichi Horikoshi, like parchment preserved in spirits, loomed above him, and he was directing a tiny beam into Brent’s eyes, his ears. The young American rolled his head from side to side. “He is almost back,” he heard Horikoshi mutter.
Mercifully, the light vanished and he could see Commander Yoshi Matsuhara, Admiral Mark Allen, and Admiral Hiroshi Fujita staring down at him silently. Brent tried to focus his eyes on Admiral Fujita’s face, but the old admiral’s features appeared fogged by mist — like the ghost of King Hamlet.
Admiral Fujita, The Ghost of the Seventh Carrier, an Arab newsman had dubbed him. And, indeed, not five feet tall, the tiny admiral appeared as a wraith about to be swallowed by the tunic of his blue uniform. With only a few wispy white strands on a nearly bald head, his skin was like that of a prehistoric reptile, browned to the color of tobacco juice and splotched with dark stains of age and benign sun cancer from too many decades on the bridge of a warship. The nose was flat and indifferent, his lips almost vanished in a web of deeply chiseled lines. But his chin was well formed and strong, and his eyes were remarkable. Charged and vital, they were shrunken into their dark cavities like a skull, glittering with intelligence and probing deep as if they could penetrate not only a man’s mind but his soul as well. There was steely command and latent power there.
No one knew Admiral Fujita’s exact age, but everyone agreed he was over a hundred years old. Descended from a famous samurai family, he was a graduate of Japan’s Annapolis, Eta Jima. He had fought the Russians at Tsushima and acted as a liaison officer in London and Washington during the First World War. Like most Japanese officers of that period, he studied abroad, and after the Armistice he took his Master’s in English at the University of Southern California. He attended the Washington naval conference where the despised 5-5-3 rule for capital ships — a ratio that reduced Japan to a position inferior to the United States and Britain — was adopted over his objections.
An advocate of naval aviation, he learned to fly in the early twenties, serving on carriers Kaga and Akagi. For over fifteen years he helped develop dive-bombing and torpedo tactics and oversaw the building of the incomparable Tsuchiura Air Training School. He was a captain when the Second World War broke out. On November 11, 1940, naval warfare was changed forever when the English carrier Illustrious launched twenty-one antique Swordfish torpedo planes which sank three Italian battleships and damaged two more in a daring night raid on the Italian Fleet in the harbor at Taranto.
Within a week, Fujita, Kameto Kuroshima, and Minoru Genda were ordered by the Commander-in-Chief of the Combined Fleet, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, to develop contingency plans for a carrier attack on the American fleet at Pearl Harbor. With typical samurai logic, Fujita decided to go for all or nothing, risking the seven fleet carriers of Kido Butai in a single massive stroke on the American bastion. Plans completed, Fujita, now an admiral, was given command of Kido Butai and he moved his flag from Kaga to the new giant, Yonaga, leaving the remaining six carriers in command of the incompetent Admiral Chuichi Nagumo. Then came the oil embargo by the Americans, British, and Dutch. Without oil, Japan was forced to attack. The order was given and Kido Butai began to gather in the Kuriles.
Yamamoto grew uneasy with the massing of the force at Hitokappu Bay, especially with the movements of the colossus, Yonaga, and he ordered the great carrier to the secret anchorage at Sano Wan where she was to await the radio signal to attack Pearl Harbor, “Climb Mount Niitaka.” Then she was trapped by the sliding glacier and assumed lost. After the war, surviving senior officers in Japan, honor bound by samurai tradition and the power of Bushido, kept the existence of the carrier, which everyone assumed lost, secret. Gradually, the old sailors died off and Yonaga was forgotten.
But Admiral Hiroshi Fujita and his crew of samurai had not forgotten. Trapped in a prison of ice, supplied with power from an inexhaustible steam vent releasing power from the Pacific Ring of Fire and tunneling to the Bering Sea to harvest food from one of the world’s great fisheries, the crew waited for over four decades. Many of the older officers died, but the men goaded by Fujita, trained daily, kept themselves in superb physical condition, maintained their equipment, waiting for the day — the miracle when they would be free to carry out their orders and attack Pearl Harbor. Similar to holdouts who had held out after decades on Pacific islands, the men of Yonaga aged slowly, kept their youth long after most men had collapsed into geriatrics.
The miracle happened in 1983 when the world’s warming from the greenhouse effect caused the glacier to slide away like a curtain opening on a great drama. And indeed it was a great drama, Yonaga finally escaping and her maddened crew bent on carrying out her orders to the letter. She destroyed ships, planes, captured Brent’s father, Ted “Trigger” Ross, wrecked Pearl Harbor, sinking New Jersey and Peleliu. Then the return to Tokyo Bay to find the impossible had happened; Japan had surrendered. Within a day, Hiroshi Fujita discovered his wife and two sons had been vaporized at Hiroshima in 1945. He was crushed by the news, but the war against Kadafi and his Arab jihad, and the personal orders from Emperor Hirohito to attack brought new vitality to the old sailor — gave him a new purpose in life. And then Ted “Trigger” Ross’s suicide and Ensign Brent Ross’s assignment to Yonaga by his NIS (Naval Intelligence Service).
Staring upward and concentrating with all of the strength of his will, Brent Ross began to focus his eyes, and Admiral Fujita’s inscrutable stone face actually showed concern, the crosshatch of a century of wrinkles crinkling in incipient lines of anxiety at the corners of his narrow eyes. Brent tried to speak, but his lips refused to form words. He felt terribly frustrated and helpless.
Brent heard the admiral’s familiar soft, rasping voice: “He will recover, Chief Horikoshi?”
“He has a mild concussion, and his chest and head and the side of his face have been lacerated by bullets and shrapnel and he has first and second degree burns to his right side which are not life-threatening. There is danger of shock and he is in much pain and we have kept him heavily sedated. He has lost enough blood to kill the average man. Fortunately, he is not an average man and we are giving him whole blood intravenously. His response has been miraculous.”
“You said lacerations.”
“Yes, Admiral. I spent the evening sewing. His chest is a tatami mat stitched by a madman. It took over a hundred twenty sutures to put him back together.”
Christ. I’m a Humpty Dumpty, Brent thought. He tried to laugh but only gurgled deepen his throat. He heard Yoshi Matsuhara’s basso profundo, “He groaned, Chief.”
“Perhaps. He’s probably trying to talk,” the chief orderly suggested.
“I am, you stupid shit,” Brent finally managed.
“See. He’s back,” Chief Orderly Horikoshi said. There were chuckles of relief.
A soft cultured voice spoke. “You’ll be all
right, Brent. You’re as tough as your father.” The speaker, Admiral Mark Allen, loomed over the bed, his pallid face appearing as white as linen, surrounded by the tanned leather skin of the Japanese around him. A tall man in his mid-sixties with gray-green eyes and a strikingly thick shock of white hair that hung over his forehead like a valance, Mark Allen had been COMNISPAC (Commander Naval Intelligence Service Pacific) when he and Brent Ross had been assigned to Yonaga. Allen had spent his formative years in Japan where his father, a naval officer, had been moved about from legation to legation as an attaché. An expert in languages, he spoke Japanese fluently and became an expert in Japanese history and Oriental cultures.
After graduating from Annapolis, he served on S-Boats and was captain of one of the first Gato class fleet submarines. But his first love was aircraft and after receiving his wings at Pensacola, he was assigned to the USS Lexington as the pilot of a Douglas SBD dive bomber. It was on Lexington that he met Brent’s father, Theodore Ross, who was assigned as his gunner. Mark Allen gave Ted Ross the sobriquet “Trigger” after Ross’s temper exploded following a particularly frustrating mission.
Mark Allen flew twenty-three combat missions and was sunk at Coral Sea when Lexington went down. Then duty as assistant air operations officer on carriers Yorktown and Wasp. He was on board both when they were sunk. He began to be known as “Deep Six Mark,” and men were reluctant to serve with him, calling the ill-starred flyer, “A sure ticket to Davey Jones’s locker.”
But his luck changed and he served with distinction on a succession of new Essex class carriers as an air operations officer. In fact, he commanded the air groups that sank battleship Yamato when she made her insane run on Okinawa on April 7, 1945. In all, he participated in twelve carrier battles earning the Navy Cross and the Distinguished Service Medal. He was nominated for the Medal of Honor after sinking the Yamato. He was not awarded the medal, but he was mentioned in reports and received a personal commendation from President Truman.
After the war, he and Ted “Trigger” Ross were reunited and served on the staff of Samuel B. Morison, aiding in the writing of the monumental, United States Naval Operations in World War II. The two men grew very close and served as best men at each other’s weddings; Ted marrying Kathleen Egan in 1953 and Mark marrying the exquisite Keiko Morimoto a year later. When Brent was born, Mark Allen was the only choice for godfather.
Brent looked up into the concern in Admiral Mark Allen’s eyes. The young man tried to smile. “I’m all right, sir.”
“Yes. Of course,” Mark Allen agreed. And then thickly, “You’re the toughest SOB I’ve ever known.” The two Americans chuckled. The Japanese missed the humor.
Yoshi stepped forward. “You did well, Brent-san. Shot down one ME and damaged another.” He reached down to his waist, unsnapped a scabbard. “I brought you this. Your sword. All officers of Yonaga have the privilege of bringing their swords here.” He gestured at the bulkhead. “I will put it there on those brackets above the bed.” Reverently, the air group leader placed a sword in a magnificently jeweled scabbard above the head of the bed.
Eagerly, Brent watched as the pilot locked the sword in place. The storied Konoye blade; a superb piece of tempered steel sheathed in an elaborately crafted scabbard encrusted with precious stones which were fashioned into ideograms explaining heroic feats performed by members of the famous samurai clan. Brent had been given the sword by the last Konoye to own it, Lieutenant Nobutake Konoye, when Brent served as his kaishaku (second) for Nobutake’s seppuku. Although Konoye despised Brent and had once tried to kill him, the American was chosen because of his courage and great strength. Lieutenant Konoye was not disappointed. Goaded on by Admiral Fujita and a hundred other officers, the big American beheaded him cleanly with one stroke. Afterward, Brent vomited and continued to vomit for two days.
Brent’s wandering thoughts were interrupted by Chief Hospital Orderly Eiichi Horikoshi. “You have done very well, Mr. Ross. You can start taking liquids instead of taking all of your nutrition through that tube.” He gesticulated at the IV dripping down a long plastic tube to a needle in his arm. Then, turning, he spoke to a white-smocked third-class orderly standing at the foot of the bed with a clipboard in his hand. “Continue the dextrose five-percent solution, one-half normal saline concentration, at one-thousand-fifty cc’s an hour, Orderly Takeda.”
“Yes, sir,” the young man said in a nervous, high falsetto, scribbling furiously.
Horikoshi continued as if reading a manual, “For pain, give him one hundred milligrams of Demerol every four hours — and no more.”
“Yes, sir.”
Brent interrupted. “Takii. Lieutenant Yoshiro Takii, my pilot. How is he?”
Before Horikoshi could answer, a loud groan from the next bed turned all heads. Rolling carefully to his side, Brent saw a form under a cradle used for burn patients. The head was completely wrapped like linen rolled around the skull of a mummy. There were tubes in every orifice, even the nose, which was the only part of the man’s face exposed. But there was no nose, only two round black holes where oxygen-carrying tubes disappeared. “Takii! That’s my pilot,” Brent gasped in horror.
“He was trapped — soaked in petrol,” Admiral Fujita said hoarsely. “It took time…”
“Third degree burns,” Chief Orderly Horikoshi said. “Entire head and neck, both arms, posterior surfaces of upper and lower trunk. By the Rule of Nines, forty-five percent of his body.”
“Please! I don’t want to know about your Rules. He has no nose! What about his eyes, ears?”
Horikoshi looked above Brent at the Konoye sword. His voice was almost inaudible. “Gone. Gone…”
“He has no eyes, no nose, no ears and forty-five percent of his flesh has been destroyed! Then why keep him alive?” Brent asked angrily.
The chief orderly’s black eyes flashed like chips of polished ebony. “Because that is why I am here. I try to restore what you destroy out there.” He waved a hand over his head angrily. “This is a place of war just like the skies where you do these things.” He stabbed a finger at the burned man and then gestured at the pilot’s sword which was bracketed above his head next to Brent’s. “But I war against death while you war against life.” He glared at the circle of officers, showing no fear of the high ranks. “Expect no miracles from me for what you do.”
Admiral Fujita drew himself up, eyes blazing a warning. But before he could speak, Takii screamed, a high, endless, piercing sound like a flutist testing his instrument to the limit. The screech stabbed like a sword point scraping glass, chilling a man’s blood, and sending tremors racing along his spine. Horikoshi shouted at the orderly, “Takeda! Demerol! One hundred milligrams!”
“But, sir. I just gave him…” Takii screamed, groaned, tried to move his head.
“I do not care what you gave him.” Horikoshi stabbed a finger at the patient. “Now!”
“Yes, sir.” Jaw working, Orderly Third Class Shingen Takeda took a syringe from a table loaded with medications and injected it into one of two IV bottles feeding liquid into Takii. The groans began to fade.
Composure returning, Eiichi Horikoshi turned to Admiral Fujita. “With your permission, Admiral, we must tend to our patients.” He waved at the large ward and the patients occupying twelve of the thirty beds.
“Very well,” Fujita said. “It is time we return to our duties.” With Fujita leading, the officers turned toward the door.
Gripped by a sudden terrifying thought, Brent spoke with all the strength he could muster. “The Arab battle group?”
Yoshi shouted back over his shoulder, “We put two gyos into one of the carriers. They are retiring.”
“Good. Good,” Brent whispered, sinking back into his pillow. As sleep gathered, he felt contentment.
*
Brent recovered his strength with amazing speed. Although his stitches pulled and his burns itched, by the next morning he was ravenous and his headache was almost gone. Old Chief Horikoshi, Petty Off
icer Takeda and a half-dozen other orderlies ministered to him. A small cradle had been erected over his right leg where he had been seared by burning gasoline.
“Excellent capillary refill,” Chief Eiichi Horikoshi said on the morning of the second day, pulling back the sheet and examining the burned leg. Takeda stood close behind Horikoshi, clipboard in hand.
“According to The Rules of Nines?” Brent quipped.
A smile rearranged the wrinkles on the old man’s face into unaccustomed patterns. “You learn fast, Mr. Ross. One leg — nine percent.” He hunched close, probed the burn with a stainless steel instrument. Brent winced but said nothing. Horikoshi spoke to his assistant without turning his head. “Blistering and some eschars are forming — a partial-thickness injury to the dermis, only.”
“What do you mean?” Brent asked.
The old chief looked up. “Scabs are forming and you have some second-degree burns, Lieutenant. But not deep. If they were deeper, they would be third degree.” He returned to the leg, said to Takeda: “Continue with the saline soaks at room temperature.”
“What do you know of Rosencrance? The Arab battle group?” Brent asked suddenly.
“Nothing. We leave the killing to them.” Horikoshi waved airily in the direction of flag country.
“Liquids?” Takeda asked as if he were totally unaware of the exchange.
Horikoshi’s voice returned to clipped professionalism: “Continue with the Parkland point five solution and the five-percent dextrose solution. Force all the water down his throat that he can hold without drowning him and monitor his urine output. If his vascular system holds colloids well enough, we can draw off edemous fluids with diuretics and take him off the IV tomorrow morning.”
