by Peter Albano
“You’ve been reading Tolstoy, Yoshi-san.”
Matsuhara laughed. “I’m glad he agrees with me.
“But men do make decisions — decisions that send us into battle,” Brent noted.
“Of course, Brent-san. But they are in the river, too. As helpless in the current as we are.” He drained his glass. “In a way, Kafka, in his madness, saw the world in correct perspective — a hostile, uncontrollable place, where we are all at the mercy of powerful, remote leaders who share the common madness — are as helpless as we are to control the wheel.”
Brent was gripped with a sudden insight. “Then this is a terribly futile thing we do, Yoshi-san. We spend men and wealth like drunken gamblers throwing away chips for what? Sink the next carrier, take the next hill, the next trench, on and on without end. We achieve nothing at all.”
“I disagree. We’re stopping Kadafi.”
“But the wheel turns and wars go on. We move on to the next battle and the next with no idea of where we are going and why. Killing, victories, give us the illusion we are going somewhere, but nothing changes and we just flounder deeper in the swamp.” He drank. “And if it isn’t Kadafi, it’s Hitler, Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, Idi Amin, the Ayatollah — take your pick.”
“Just because we can’t control the wheel does not mean there is not right and wrong. Every generation must face this. I did not mean to suggest our battles were futile. Of course I would prefer to be dedicated to some future life of wisdom and beauty — to add my iota to it instead of the sword. But that is not the way of mankind. We must fight and have fought since time began. What else is there for us to do?”
Brent pondered the strange circular logic for a moment. It seemed to make sense, but he knew it should not. “You amaze me, Yoshi-san.”
“Why?”
“Your mind. Your power of reason. Your love of literature. The amount of reading you’ve done and such a wide scope.”
“Thank you, Brent-san. But remember, my early schooling was in America and I had forty-two years in Sano-wan to catch up on my reading.”
They both laughed. Then Brent felt suddenly troubled. “You won’t seek death up there.” He stabbed a finger upward.
The pilot shook his head. “No. I will fight with all my skill, but never deliberately seek death.” He rattled his ice cubes. “And you?”
“The same. A trade. My life for your life.”
Matsuhara looked away, asked self-consciously, “The woman?”
“What about her?”
“She is very attractive.”
“One of the most desirable women I have ever met.”
“You love her?”
Brent answered honestly, “I don’t know. I’ve known her for a very short time.”
“War compresses everything. You’ll be in New York together — will you see her?”
“Perhaps.”
Yoshi sighed, a deep mournful sound. “We all need our women, Brent-san.”
Brent knew his friend’s mind was with Kimio and the terrible loss he felt. He could say nothing. There were no more words left. He could only nod and clench his jaw.
They stood together as if by signal and shook hands firmly.
Chapter VII
With refueling stops at Midway Island and Los Angeles, the flight of the chartered Pan American Douglas DC-6 from Tsuchiura to New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport was a plodding twenty-five hour ordeal. With thirty-one volunteers for Blackfin, Brent Ross, Mark Allen, and Irving Bernstein and extra fuel tanks mounted in the rear of the fuselage, there were still twelve empty seats. However, to Brent, the vibrating old aircraft was still cramped and there was no way he could uncoil his six-foot-four-inch bulk comfortably, finding the trip harrowing and fatiguing. “Better in the third seat of a B5N,” he grumbled to Mark Allen after a sudden downdraft dropped the old plane five hundred feet.
The old admiral grinned and gestured. “President Truman used one of these for his personal aircraft — the Independence. I flew in it once.”
Brent looked around solemnly. “No wonder he had such a nasty temper.” Mark Allen laughed.
While the four huge Pratt and Whitney engines roared and the old transport vibrated its way over the ocean, Brent had hours to think, to reflect and ponder. No one condemned him for Watertender Kurosu’s death except himself. He had tried to protect his man and he knew he had fought well — had killed two assassins that night. And poor Yoshi, so concerned. They had made a strange compact — to try not to die; almost laughable if you thought about it. But he felt better about Yoshi’s chances, which as a fighter pilot were not very good anyway. And Admiral Mark Allen was in a jovial mood. He had finally torn Brent from Yonaga and Fujita’s influence, which he felt was destructive. And old Admiral Fujita, he had been so anxious about Brent and the attempts he felt the Red Army would make on his life.
Fujita, the enigma, the Fujisan of strength, the ghost who defied time, the walking, living encyclopedia of history, the confidant of kings and statesmen who had known some of the most powerful and influential leaders of the twentieth century: Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, John J. Pershing, Lloyd George, Douglas Haig, Winston Churchill, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Adolf Hitler and many, many more in every corner of the globe. Fujita the strategist and tactician, who with Isoroku Yamamoto had been the driving force in developing Japanese naval aviation and who had joined with Kameto Kuroshima and Minoru Genda to plan the attack on Pearl Harbor. And today, still the tenacious Fujita, the immovable boulder who blocked the flood of Arab terrorism.
The British had a whole history written around Winston Churchill, who, with the temperament of a bulldog, had almost single-handedly rallied a nation on the verge of defeat to eventually triumph over Nazi Germany. Fujita was no less. Whipping together the few fighting forces of an impossibly divided Japan which refused to fight even when attacked, he had blunted and bloodied the Arab’s strongest efforts. He handled Yonaga masterfully, as if the great carrier was an extension of himself, striking like a lurking predator only when the odds were in his favor and then withdrawing quickly like a phantom in the night, leaving his enemies cursing and bloody. Men did not follow him, they became shards of his will, not obeying it but possessed by it.
The eyes. Those strange black eyes that pierced as if they had a life of their own, exuding a mesmerizing power and command that dug into a man with preternatural force. From the first moment he met the old admiral, Brent knew he was special to him. True, the old man had known his father, Ted “Trigger” Ross, and admired him. But it was more than respect for his father. He knew Fujita had been impressed by his fighting skill, his respect for Bushido and gradual acceptance of it, his extraordinary vision and marksmanship — “Sharpest eyes on the ship,” Fujita had said. There was a closeness, a condescension — if the admiral could ever feel that emotion — that was nearly paternal. Yoshi had noticed it, commented one day, “He had a son, once, vaporized at Hiroshima. Big boy, strong, intelligent, as much like you as a Japanese could be.”
A surrogate son? In a way, perhaps. Did the old man feel he needed a change to preserve his mental stability? Certainly he had shown erratic warning signs, knew he had been on the verge of unhinging, possibly breaking down completely. Did Fujita actually feel Blackfin and New York City would be safer for him than duty in Japan? Sent him away to protect him? Hardly. Yonaga was as much a part of Fujita as his circulatory system; his heart, his lungs, his soul. The carrier and the emperor came first — came before everything; himself, family, crew, Brent Ross.
Life was a cheap, expendable commodity in war. Any commander who thought otherwise had no right to command. The bright, the witty, the talented were sacrificed in wholesale lots. No, indeed, a man did not search for safety when he fought a war. Blackfin would be no haven. There would be mortal danger in her mission and everyone knew it. Notwithstanding, Brent’s ambience would be changed and he was convinced both Mark Allen and Admiral Fujita thought he needed it.
He shifted his w
eight in the knobby seat restlessly, staring down at the endless vista of the Pacific twenty-four thousand feet below. Scattered blobs of low clouds drifted below like dollops of frosting dropped by a careless baker, casting shadows like flat, dark duplicates of themselves on the sea. In the distance, the puffs blended in a single mass becoming a gray-white line that stretched to the horizon like a luxurious carpet. High above at its zenith the white eye of the sun glared overpoweringly in a dazzling crystalline void, reflecting from the sea in a silver sheen that ached his eyes, brushing the tops of the clouds with white like December frost. Such beauty. No wonder Yoshi and the other pilots loved their planes, the sky; even wanted to die there, “closer to the gods.”
Suddenly, the beauty brought Dale back and she filled his mind. Actually, she had never left it. He had to see her again. In New York. He had her address and phone number. He felt anxious, and a familiar, warm excitement began to stir deep down. He squirmed uncomfortably. Could they love each other? It had been such a short courtship — if you could call it that. Yoshi had put it succinctly when he said, “War compresses everything.”
Since the orbiting of the Chinese laser system, the incessant fighting had inflicted terrible casualties. With death so eager and greedy, he had felt the power of life at the other end of the balance grow. Courtship, convention, ritual, morals went by the board. He had known it with other women and they with him. Tradition was a luxury that belonged to the slow pace of peace — something he could not even remember. Since the “terrorist wars” began four years earlier, he had snatched at the flimsiest promise of life. Do men and women actually “love” during wartime? They desire, demand, and take from each other whatever they can get — conventions, morals, obligations be damned. Was that what he sought with Dale? Certainly, desire for her had been fanned by the prospects of death — the fatalism of every fighting man. But he told himself there was more to it than her body — had to be. He chuckled, remembering the awed comment of the exhausted Israeli intelligence agent, Sarah Aranson, who two years earlier, after a marathon night of lovemaking said, “You’re nothing but two hundred twenty pounds of superheated sperm, you big oaf.” Maybe that was all there was — would ever be. He sagged back, disturbed, confused and ill at ease, watching the Pacific crawl by below.
After they refueled at Los Angeles International, the flight became far more interesting. Crossing the continent, Brent never tired of looking down at the spectacular country stretching to the four horizons. It was a map — a relief with a bewildering amount of extra detail unfolding as if it were an endless parchment cranked over a drum. But the colors were subtle and there were shades never found on the printed sheet. The Rockies swept up and faded away like giant white-tipped breasts. Then the Midwest where towns and cities were laid out with rigorous precision in the geometric patterns and order so loved by the planners: highways showing gray and black, the glistening tops of occasional cars reflecting the sun; railways winding threads more difficult to see than the roads; lakes reflecting shimmering blue like chips of broken mirrors; rivers clear glossy ribbons meandering carelessly; woods dark patches of green merging into the dark browns of the ploughed fields surrounding them; farms with their sprinklers marked by green circles as if a giant had toyed with enormous compasses. And as they finally approached the east coast, ground mists blurred the horizon with occasional cloud shadows darkening patches of landscape while throwing others into high relief. Rarely could a man see this much of his country in a few hours, feel the size and beauty of it. It was impossible not to love it as he would a beautiful woman. It was his, and he was part of it. Maybe this was what patriotism was all about. Suddenly, a slowing in the rhythm of the engines interrupted his thoughts.
They began to let down and the No Smoking and Fasten Seat Belts signs flashed on. The same low clouds that had dogged them all the way across the continent were still there, but suddenly they broke away and Brent had a clear view of New York City and its boroughs. They were actually out over the Atlantic south of the city and making their turn to approach John F. Kennedy International Airport from the west. To the northwest he saw Staten Island, New Jersey, Newark; to the north, the Hudson River where Blackfin was moored and Manhattan with its forest of skyscrapers; to the northeast, the East River, Long Island Sound, the Bronx, Queens, and in the east, the green swath of Long Island stretching off into the Atlantic.
The sweeping turn took them low over Staten Island, the Narrows between Staten Island and Brooklyn, and then over row after row of tiny houses lined up like troops on parade, broken only by the green swaths of Greenwood Cemetery, Holy Cross Cemetery, Washington Cemetery, Trinity Cemetery, and Cypress Hills National Cemetery. Turning to Mark Allen, Brent waved out the window. “The only relief they get is in their cemeteries.”
The old man smiled. “There’s a lot of truth in what you say, Brent.”
From his window seat, Brent saw the flaps drop, slowing the Douglas and giving it a nose-down attitude. Then there were loud thumps as the landing gear locked down and they were so low Brent could see people looking up. At a hundred twenty miles an hour they skimmed over the Belt Parkway, missing the top of a bus by only a few feet. “Christ, I could’ve transferred,” Brent said. Mark Allen and Irving Bernstein laughed.
There was a new set of vibrations as the pilot pulled the throttles back to twenty-four inches of boost on all four engines and slipped the propellers into fully fine pitch. Then a thump and a screech as rubber tires wasted themselves on concrete and the plane shook and slowed, the pilot jamming his brake pedal.
“New York, we’re here,” Mark Allen said. “Brace yourself.”
*
The ride to Manhattan and the docks was fast even in the rickety old chartered bus. The driver, a dark, sallow madman totally lacking in depth perception, charged down Linden Boulevard through the heart of Brooklyn en route to the Prospect Expressway and the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. The route was explained on the bus’s PA system by the driver in a mixture of ruptured Brooklynese and Puerto Rican. Luckily, the fuel shortage had lightened traffic, removing potential targets from the driver’s path.
The view was depressing. Old rickety frame houses lined the expressway, interrupted here and there by ugly clusters of industrial buildings. Passing through Flatbush, many buildings were actually in decay, and north of Greenwood Cemetery some abandoned buildings took on the aspect of bombed-out ruins. Passing trains were scrawled obscenely with graffiti. “The logos of bums,” he heard Mark Allen mutter.
“You’d think they could clean it up,” Irving Bernstein said, obviously appalled by the spectacle.
“Corrupt administration — they just don’t give a damn,” Allen said.
Mark Allen said to Brent, “You know the men have a barracks on the dock next to Blackfin?”
Nodding, Brent glanced to the back where the thirty-one enlisted men sat quietly. They were a picked group, all veterans of the Self Defense Force and fluent in English, which would be the only language they would hear for the next six months — if they lived that long. Four older men had actually served in the Imperial Navy at the end of WW II as fifteen-year-old apprentice seamen. They had survived because the Imperial Navy had lacked the ships to send them to sea, which would have been certain death. One of these men, who was in charge of the draft, was Chief Torpedoman Masayori Fujiwara — a compact, solid man with arms and shoulders of timbers and boulders. After his brief service in WW II, he had spent a career in the Self Defense Force. Despite the objections of his wife and family, he had come out of retirement to serve Admiral Fujita. He was tough, reliable, and commanded men like a whip. In fact, he carried a short leather cane and was not adverse to laying it across the buttocks of crewmen who did not step lively enough to suit him. In extreme cases when the cane failed to illicit the desired enthusiasm, he did not hesitate to use his fists to expedite orders. He brought to mind the ancient naval adage, “Officers lead, petty officers drive.” Drive, indeed. Brent was convinced Fujiwara could dri
ve the devil back through the gates of hell.
The bus rumbled through the long, claustrophobic confines of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel and then emerged into the brilliant sunlight of Lower Manhattan, turning north on Broadway. There were dozens of taxis and buses, but traffic was still thin, pedestrians crowding the sidewalks and staring long and curiously at the bus. Wide-eyed and silently, the sailors gazed back under Fujiwara’s hard stare.
They left Wall Street to the right with its clutter of stolid-looking financial buildings, sidewalks crowded with men in Brooks Brothers suits, while to the left the Gothic spire of Trinity Church pointed a thin finger to the sky. It was a charming old building and Brent chuckled to himself, reflecting on its antique cemetery where each grave was now in land worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. There were “oohs” and “ahs” as they passed the hundred-and-ten story twin towers of the World Trade Center, soaring a quarter of a mile into the sky.
Finally, the bus made a sharp turn at Fourteenth Street, rumbled to the Hudson River, and then turned north on West Street along the waterfront. When they reached Twenty-Third Street, the driver wheeled into a hard left turn that sent a groan through the vehicle. Shouting unintelligibly and pointing, he pulled up to the gates of a nearly deserted parking lot just above the waterfront. A ten-foot chain-link fence crowned with barbed wire surrounded the area and the only opening was gated and barred with a striped barrier. Two marines in camouflaged fatigues and carrying M-16s at port arms stood in front of the barrier.
Mark Allen leaned out of the window, showed his orders, acknowledged the salutes of the sentries, and the barrier was raised. With a roar of loose connecting rods and belching clouds of black smoke, the driver turned the bus toward the front of a dilapidated barracks. Rows of warehouses and service buildings concealed the river and the usual bent backs of giant cranes loomed above the buildings like arthritic old men. Hysters and trucks passed, filling the air with their busy sounds and spewing smoke as if fuel was in long supply. All drivers wore the dungarees of US Navy personnel and they all stole glances at the bus and its occupants.
