The Passion and the Glory

by Christopher Nicole

  But that was at least partly because of the presence of the Commander in Chief of the Japanese fleet. She had seen him before, but never at close quarters; never before had he come to Hashimoto’s house. Now she gazed at the bald head, the somewhat flat features dominated by the wide gash of a mouth, the slightly stiff left arm which lacked two fingers — he had lost those at the Battle of Tshushima in 1905, Japan’s greatest naval victory before the start of the present war. Some said the admiral was the most powerful man in Japan. Certainly, according to Hashimoto, he was the greatest.

  Yamamoto was equally surveying the tall, yellow haired woman in the blue and white kimono. It pleased Hashimoto that she should be Japanese in all things, where she could never be Japanese in herself. Thus she wore her hair in the Japanese chignon, secured with the large ivory pin, and her feet were encased in white ankle socks and sandals. And she kept her head bowed.

  ‘This is the woman you took from Hong Kong,’ Yamamoto observed. ‘I have heard of her, and wished to see her. May she not raise her head?’

  ‘Raise your head, Joan,’ Hashimoto said, and Joan obeyed, now able to meet the admiral’s gaze.

  ‘I can understand your reason for doing so,’ Yamamoto said. ‘Not everybody can do this. There has been some criticism.’

  ‘My private life is my own affair,’ Hashimoto said. ‘Nor do even you understand all of my reasons for making her my servant.’

  ‘Of course, my dear fellow. But this woman is an enemy. Is not her father a captain in the United States Navy? There are many who say she should be in a prison camp. And others who say that it is contrary to the rules of warfare that a prisoner of war should be taken as a mistress.’

  ‘There is nothing in the rules of war that say a prisoner may not be employed as a servant, Isoroku,’ Hashimoto pointed out. ‘And she volunteered for the position. Did you not, Joan?’ Joan hesitated only a moment; there was no chance that Yamamoto really wanted to help her. And having rejected the thought of a concentration camp once, she could not consider it now. ‘Yes, sir,’ she said.

  ‘That her father is an American captain is another of the reasons for having her here,’ Hashimoto said. ‘Her father betrayed my friendship in the pursuance of his work for his country.’

  ‘There is no friendship can rank higher than loyalty to one’s country,’ Yamamoto said.

  ‘I accept that. Nonetheless, my possession of this woman satisfies my need for revenge.’

  Yamamoto shrugged, and looked at the spilt tea. ‘You have not yet made her a true Japanese, however, I see.’

  ‘I will do so,’ Hashimoto said, and Joan could not repress a slight shiver. She was going to be punished. Because he enjoyed punishing her. That too was part of his revenge on Father.

  ‘I am sure of it,’ Yamamoto agreed. ‘She may withdraw.’ Hashimoto waved his hand, and Joan stood up, bowed, and left the room. Her heart was pounding and she could already feel the strokes of the cane. But she remained standing on the far side of the screen, listening to the two men. They were discussing the true facts of the war. She dreamed of escaping, one day, and perhaps being able to give those facts to Father. It was of course a dream, and had become more so during the months she had lived in this house in the very centre of Tokyo, a permanent reminder, every time she went out, of the humiliation that had over taken both the countries to which she owed allegiance. But in Tokyo at least she did not have to look at the visible evidence of that humiliation. In his search for ‘subversives’, Hashimoto had been to Singapore, and then Manila, and then Batavia, as each had fallen. Each time he had taken his prize with him: she had never expected to see so much of the world. But equally each time she had had to endure the gaze of those people of her own race who had been conquered, and not been as fortunate as herself. That was how they looked at it, and they would not forget, she knew.

  Thus if she did not dream, of somehow atoning for her crime, then she had nothing.

  ‘The fact remains,’ Yamamoto was saying, ‘that we cannot truly plan to extend our perimeter to the limits which we consider necessary for safety, while the American carriers remain at large. We may have sunk Lexington, and my reports indicate that we have badly damaged Yorktown, but there remain Enterprise and Hornet.’ He brooded for a few minutes, and Joan knew why. Only a month previously Hornet had provided the launching platform for Doolittle’s sensational raid on Tokyo, made by B-25’s flying from the deck of the carrier. No one in Japan had known then that Hornet had been the carrier involved, but they had all known it had had to be a carrier, as there was no US territory within flying range of the Japanese capital. She could remember the utter panic caused by the raid as if it had been yesterday, the screaming people, horrorstruck that such a catastrophe could happen to their city; the burning houses, their thin walls and roofs easily set alight by the American incendiaries as the planes had flown just above the rooftops. She had run outside to look at them, and stayed outside when everyone else was scurrying for shelter. She did not care if she was blown up by an American bomb just so long as part of Tokyo went up with her. That day she had laughed for the first time since Christmas. But she had not been blown up, and when Hashimoto had returned home he had beaten her with a savage intensity, until she had wept. Just as he had told her that all of the aircraft had been lost; even those who had flown on to China had crash landed. She didn’t care, because obviously that had been planned; there was nowhere else for the planes to go, as B-25’s could not land on the limited flight deck of a carrier. But America had struck back for Pearl Harbour, and Hong Kong, and Singapore, and that was all that mattered.

  Now they had struck back again, even more successfully, if what Yamamoto was saying was true.

  Hashimoto of course took a different view. ‘I think you are being unnecessarily pessimistic, Isoroku,’ he argued. ‘Now that Corregidor has fallen, there is no allied force within the perimeter to affect our plans.’

  ‘Corregidor was always bound to fall,’ Yamamoto told him. ‘That it surrendered while the Battle of the Coral Sea was actually being fought is of propaganda value, nothing more. It helps us to disguise the fact of our defeat, but not the defeat itself, to those of us who know the truth. No, Hashimoto, I have recognised that my next task must be the destruction of the remaining American carriers, and I have determined how to do this. My orders in fact have already been issued. It is a simple plan, like the attack on Pearl Harbour, and it will further our design in every way. I mean to seize the island of Midway. It is in any event the perimeter limit I set before the war began. We will now extend the perimeter to that limit, but the assault, which will be carried out by our main carrier task force supported by the battleship squadron, will have the added virtue of forcing the Americans to accept battle. I do not see how they can allow us to establish ourselves on Midway, because it is within land-based bomber range of Honolulu. They must fight for it, and they can only do so with their two remaining carriers. As we will have four, plus the battleships, we will overwhelm them.’

  ‘Then they will have to give in,’ Hashimoto said.

  ‘No. I do not think they will give in,’ Yamamoto said. ‘They will set to work to build more carriers and battleships, as indeed they are doing now. I do not think we will ever force them to give in, Hashimoto. What we can, and must, do, is establish our position so strongly that they will consider it too great a task to attack it, and thus accept a negotiated settlement. Just as the Russians did in 1905. We could never defeat a country such as Russia. But we could make it too expensive for them to continue the war, and this we accomplished. In our present position our task must be to extend the perimeter to its natural limits, and strengthen it beyond risk of attack. Once we have done that, we will be able to keep American planes and submarines at a distance. At this moment they are becoming too venturesome. Do you know that last Friday the Taiyo Maru was torpedoed just off Hong Kong?’

  ‘I read the report,’ Hashimoto said. ‘It is outrageous, this attacking of merchant vessels
. We do not attack their merchant vessels. The Americans are as barbarous as the Nazis.’

  ‘That may be. The point is that a submarine was there, off Hong Kong. Next thing there will be one off the coast of Japan itself. And the Taiyo Mam, as I am sure you know, Hashimoto, was carrying nearly eight hundred oil technicians to Java to take over the operation of the oil fields. Every one was drowned. That is as serious a loss as a defeat in battle. It cannot be allowed to happen again. Our final perimeter must be established, and this summer. Midway is one such limit, and will, as I say, have the added virtue of eliminating the remaining American carriers. But the Solomons are the other natural limit. We were able to put men ashore in Bougainville, unopposed, during the recent battle. Now we must extend southwards, to take in all of the islands. Equally, New Guinea is a natural perimeter.’

  ‘And then Australia,’ Hashimoto said eagerly.

  ‘No, no. Not Australia. Australia is nothing but a large desert. It is of no value to us.’

  ‘It can be used as an enemy assembly point,’ Hashimoto protested.

  ‘Not even that will be possible, once we have Midway, because our planes will control the routes from Hawaii and the West Coast of America to Australia. But it is New Guinea which is our natural bastion in the south. This is why I regard the failure of our task force to complete its mission and take Port Moresby last week as so serious. I have every intention of continuing with my plans in that direction, as soon as we have dealt with this carrier problem. And I have already given orders for the rest of the Solomons to be taken over. But, and this is the crux of the matter, the Americans and the British and the Australians have shown that they are prepared to fight, desperately, if need be. And they are being assisted. There is no doubt in my mind about that. They knew of our concentration in the Solomon Sea, when there was no way they should have been able to do so. None of their planes penetrated our airspace until the battle was already commenced.’

  ‘One of their submarines must have sighted the carriers,’ Hashimoto suggested.

  ‘I do not believe so,’ Yamamoto said. ‘For two reasons. One, I cannot believe an American submarine would have sighted our task force and not attempted to sink one of the carriers with torpedoes, and two, any attempt to signal their presence by radio could only have been made on the surface, and north of the mountains of New Guinea. This is a long way from the position taken up by their own task force, or from Australia, with those mountains in the way. The signal would have been weak. But such a signal was picked up by one of our own submarines in the Solomon Sea, very loud and clear, as if sent by an aircraft, or at least, an observer several hundred feet above sea level. This signal was in code, and we do not know what it said, but in view of the presence of the American fleet, waiting for us, it must have been informing them of our concentration. There is no doubt in my mind that the signal was sent either from the north coast of New Guinea or from New Britain.’

  ‘A native traitor?’ Hashimoto mused. ‘Or a Dutch one. But with sophisticated radio equipment?’

  ‘That is exactly it, Hashimoto. We have confiscated all radio equipment belonging to the Dutch, or indeed the native populations. All we could find. Yet there was a powerful transmitter in use last week.’

  ‘Hm,’ Hashimoto said. ‘I will put my people on to it, immediately.’

  ‘I would like you to put yourself on to it, Hashimoto. Immediately.’

  ‘Myself?’

  ‘I think you should remove your headquarters to Rabaul. We are engaged in making it our main base for the southern perimeter. From there you will be able to direct operations on the ground. Your very presence will make your people more active. It is very important that this spy, or these spies, are discovered, and quickly. I wish you to make this your number one objective, Hashimoto. Otherwise we will be like a man who must live his life in public, with no privacy at all. This would be intolerable, and dangerous.’

  ‘I will leave immediately, Isoroku.’

  ‘Good. Good. Find these people, Hashimoto. Find them. What I have said here today is in confidence, you understand.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Very good. Now I must be about my duties. The tea was excellent. But your white woman … she is as careless as she is beautiful.’

  Joan listened to movement, and then to the sound of the door closing. She tensed her muscles for the coming ordeal, bowed as low as she had been taught when Hashimoto came into the inner room.

  ‘You heard?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ she said.

  ‘So, we are going to Rabaul. Me! It is absurd. How these commanders think they can move people about the world as if it were all a game of Go. And I am an admiral, not some junior lieutenant. My business is here, in Tokyo, at the heart of the empire, not operating on the fringes. It is almost a demotion.’

  Joan made no comment. He had taught her only to speak when spoken to.

  ‘But I will find these spies, and destroy them,’ Hashimoto said. ‘And return in triumph. And you will enjoy Rabaul. It is almost on the equator. You will be able to sunbathe, eh?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Joan said. ‘Do you wish my skin to turn brown?’

  ‘Why, no,’ he said. ‘I wish your skin to remain white. So you will not be able to sunbathe after all. Why did you spill the admiral’s tea?’

  ‘I was nervous, sir,’ Joan said. ‘My hand shook.’

  She was shaking now. Even after nearly six months, she was shaking. It was partly fear of what he would do to her — and a realisation that she was going to be made to suffer twice as much as usual, because he felt he had been denigrated by the Commander in Chief. But it was also the ever-present guilt. As Yamamoto had said, she should be in a concentration camp. If she was going to be beaten, it should be in the company of her own people, as she should be sharing their hardships. Sharing Johnnie’s hardships. At least she knew he was alive; Hashimoto had told her that. But no one could say how long he would stay alive, or Harriet, or Betty, in a Japanese prison camp. While she lived in luxury, so long as she pleased her master.

  Her only solace was that she had promised John to survive, and she was doing her best to keep that promise. And that, being here, she could see these people’s arrogance slowly turning to fear. As it was doing. Even with Yamamoto, she felt sure. They wanted to stop their mad career now, while they were ahead. But they couldn’t stop, because America wouldn’t let them. They had mounted a tiger, and the tiger wasn’t going to let them dismount.

  But before the tiger finally collapsed from exhaustion, she would have to endure. As now.

  ‘The admiral was not pleased,’ Hashimoto said. ‘I am not pleased. You are a slovenly bitch. Take off your kimono.’

  She obeyed him, folded it, and laid it on the floor, while he watched her; again, on his instructions, she wore nothing underneath. He enjoyed watching her move, naked, would spend hours doing nothing else.

  ‘Now kneel,’ he commanded, and she got on to her hands and knees.

  ‘Crawl,’ he said, and she crawled in front of him across the room, moving carefully to avoid disturbing the tatami mats which covered the floor, and which would provide a fresh reason for punishment.

  ‘Now beg,’ he told her.

  ‘Please do not beat me, sir,’ she begged.

  He smiled, and picked up the cane. ‘Again.’

  ‘Please,’ she begged.

  ‘It is my pleasure,’ he said, and took off his own kimono. Because it was also his pleasure, to enter her while she still writhed with pain.

  *

  From the window of the aircraft Joan could look down on the serrated mountains which thrust their peaks skywards out of the matted tangle of jungle that was New Guinea. Hashimoto had flown first of all to Manila, before beginning this long sweep over the area to which he had been commanded to devote his attention. Now he too studied the terrain beneath them, frowning.

  He sat beside the pilot, and she sat in the rear of the aircraft beside a junior kempei-tai officer, Captain Osa
wa of the army; he had been brought along, she had gathered, because he was fluent in Dutch. Now Hashimoto pointed. ‘What is that? Cleared land?’

  ‘It is a copra plantation, your excellency,’ the pilot explained.

  ‘There are several in this area.’

  ‘Fly lower,’ Hashimoto commanded, and the plane dipped from the sky. ‘It is still being worked,’ he remarked.

  ‘Oh, indeed, your excellency. These are the orders from Tokyo. The copra is a valuable crop. These plantations are still being operated by their Dutch owners. We take their crops, of course.’

  ‘Hm,’ Hashimoto said. ‘Hm. And there are several of these, eh? That one is close to the coast.’

  ‘About five miles away, yes, sir.’

  The plane was now only five hundred feet above the beach, and Joan had to look up at the bulk of the two mountains. Hashimoto was looking at those too. ‘Are those volcanoes active?’

  ‘There has been no eruption for some time, your excellency. Not like New Britain. There was an eruption there only five years ago.’

  ‘I read of it,’ Hashimoto said. ‘Many people were killed.’

  Where we are going, Joan thought. Oh, how marvellous it would be if there could be another eruption, only bigger than the last, which would destroy Rabaul and the whole Japanese fleet. And herself? She thought she would welcome that.

  They looked down, at a group of transports moving along the sea beneath them, some five miles off the shore, escorted by two destroyers.

  ‘That is our main artery to the Solomons,’ Hashimoto mused. ‘The perfect place for an enemy observer to be positioned. Is there an airstrip at Manokwari?’

  ‘Yes, your excellency. Just completed.’

  ‘Good. You will land there, now.’

  ‘Of course, your excellency.’ The pilot immediately called Manokwari for clearance.

  ‘You will begin your operation here, Captain Osawa,’ Hashimoto said. ‘Make a thorough search of the area. And do not forget, this is an urgent matter. The spy must be found. And those who support him. He could not exist without native support. Root them out, Osawa. Do not concern yourself with treading on a few toes.’