The Plum Blooms in Winter

by Linda Thompson

  6. Dave discovered that there were areas where he needed, not just the forgiveness of other people, but God’s as well. We all have those. Have you met anyone like Dave, who struggled to forgive? How could you help or advise someone like that? “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom 6:23). “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:8-9).

  7. Think about a time when you were offended, when someone hurt you or did something against you. Did they ask for forgiveness? Did you accept it? Was it easy to forgive, or did you find it difficult? What would you share with someone facing the same challenge?

  8. Is there someone who has offended you who never sought forgiveness, but you forgave that person anyway? How did that feel? If you have not forgiven them, even if you believe what they did was wrong, can you imagine how it would feel to let it go, as Dave did with his captors and torturers? Talk about a time you showed compassion for an “enemy.” What enabled you to do it?

  9. Feeling God’s love is sometimes difficult, especially when we look to it to assuage a loss as great as a father’s love. Talk about a time when you felt the presence of God’s love...and a time when perhaps you wanted to but didn’t. What do you do to draw closer to God? When you don’t feel His presence, what do you cling to, to keep your faith that He’s a good Father?

  10. Many books and movies have been set during World War II. Here we see it through a different lens: life in vanquished Japan, after the war. What struck you most? Did experiencing Miyako’s world through her eyes have an impact on your view of how the war ended in the Pacific theater? Do you agree or disagree with the U.S. decision to deploy atomic bombs in Japan? (Bear in mind that U.S. military planners at the time projected that a land invasion of Japan would cost 1.7 to 4 million Allied casualties, and 5 to 10 million Japanese casualties.)

  Now, a Sneak Peek at Book Two

  THE MULBERRY LEAF WHISPERS

  Chapter One

  Saturday, April 18, 1942

  Pacific Ocean, 650 Nautical Miles Off the Japanese Coast

  Sub-Lieutenant Matsuura Akira paced the open bridge of the Nitto Maru. He had the dawn watch—as usual. Captain Yoshiwara wasn’t much good before noon. Like his vessel, the captain had seen better days.

  Rough seas that morning. It wasn’t raining hard, but the swells stood tall as the mast. A stiff morning breeze drove icy spray into Akira’s face. He filled his lungs, relishing the bracing tang of sea air. It smacked of everything he loved about life in the Imperial Navy. Rigor. Discipline. And with his nation triumphing against the U.S. and British fleets, a golden opportunity to follow Papa-san in glorious deeds. To prove himself worthy of his long line of ancestors, the ancient lords of Hirado domain.

  There hadn’t been a more exciting time to serve in Japan’s Navy since his sixteenth-century forebear, the great Matsuura Shigenobu, led Regent Toyotomi’s army against Korea. Akira should have every chance to mark a path his little brother, Hiro-chan, would be proud to follow. Not to mention his own sons, when he had them. And he would give the Matsuura women—Mama-san and his sister, Miyako—full right to stand tall.

  He’d been born for the emperor’s navy, although this first assignment would give him little opportunity for glory. This former fishing trawler stationed off the coast of the Land of the Gods wasn’t exactly the finest ship serving the emperor.

  The thirty-meter boat crested a swell. Akira raised his binoculars and scanned the strip of oily light that shone on the horizon, beneath a thick layer of pewter-gray clouds.

  The fourth day on patrol. Everything was as expected.

  Ensign Nagai ambled onto the narrow deck ten feet below him. Akira’s cabin-mate, making his rounds, reliable as rain on the China Sea. Even his round face and solid frame conveyed a sense of something immovable.

  About midway across the deck the ensign turned and stared up at Akira, the wind whipping the end of his thick muffler. He grabbed at it and mouthed something. With an exaggerated gesture, he pointed at the sky, then cocked his head and brought one hand to his ear.

  Listen.

  Akira cupped his hands behind his ears and stood still.

  Wind. Waves. Spars thrashing. The iron mast in front of him creaking. And above it all—the whine of a propeller in the clouds.

  He let out a soft whistle. Odd. Especially considering the transmission they’d received two days earlier. Command had raised the alert level.

  They’d have to radio this in.

  He scanned the dull gray clouds, wondering for about the twentieth time what piece of intelligence had made Tokyo wary. With the Americans still nursing their wounds from Pearl Harbor and the British recently trounced at Ceylon, what could the threat be?

  About half a nautical mile to the east, the cloud cover thinned a bit.

  There. A cross-shaped fleck against the sky. She was exposed for just seconds, then banked immediately and vanished, bearing east-southeast.

  Nagai loped across the deck toward him, bounded up the ladder, and saluted. Akira returned his salute. “Did you identify the aircraft, Ensign?”

  Nagai bowed. “Maybe a Zero out of Yokosuka, sir. But I didn’t get a good look.”

  Akira heaved a sigh. “Nor did I. And I didn’t see the insignia. We’ll call it in to Kiso.”

  “I’m very sorry, sir. The radio’s giving Onishi-san trouble.”

  Of course. Akira swore.

  “Shall I give Onishi your order, sir?”

  “Hai, alert him. I’ll join you there.” After I do the dirty work of waking the captain.

  Nagai descended the ladder to the deck and disappeared into the radio room beneath the bridge. Akira followed his ensign to the deck, then took another ladder below. He strode through the hold, past three seamen snoring in their hammocks, and along a narrow corridor to the captain’s cabin. He pounded on the door and braced himself for Yoshiwara’s displeasure.

  Nothing.

  He knocked louder. “Pardon the interruption, sir. We’ve sighted a plane. Shall we report it to Kiso?”

  The captain coughed a couple of times. He said something Akira couldn’t quite make out.

  “Permission granted, sir?”

  This time the harrumph from the other side of the door was more distinct.

  “Hai.” Akira bowed at the closed door. He retraced his steps, thoughts flicking from the Nitto Maru’s captain to his own father, Matsuura Saburo. Captain of the heavy cruiser Aoba. Six-hundred-fifty men under his command.

  What Yoshiwara had been five years earlier.

  Akira certainly wasn’t the only one imagining himself with a better assignment. But where Akira’s career lay ahead of him, Captain Yoshiwara’s was adrift in a backwater. No wonder the man pounded down the whiskey every night.

  The brisk sea air struck Akira’s face again, a vast improvement over the reek of fish offal that filled the hold. The old fishing trawler would never lose that stench, no matter how much the Imperial Japanese Navy overhauled her.

  He strode into the radio room. A gust rattled the door he’d closed and buffeted the windows. Midshipman Onishi, at twenty-six, the oldest among them save the captain, was prodding around inside his equipment. He stood and saluted.

  “Onishi,” Akira said. “We have a job to do. What seems to be the problem with that radio?”

  “My apologies, sir. The solenoid went out. I’m replacing it.”

  “How long?”

  “It’s almost ready, sir.”

  Akira gave him a brisk nod. “Get it done.”

  This simple surveillance mission, this foul-smelling vessel—they were his duty. And he would not see it carried out in a manner one whit short of stellar. Even if it was routine.

  It meant something to carry the blood of the Mats
uura, the ancient naval power of Hirado Island. He would not dishonor Papa-san or all those generations of formidable ancestors for anything. He turned his attention to Nagai. “Ensign, stand watch on the bridge.”

  “Hai.” Nagai saluted and left.

  Akira helped himself to a cup of lukewarm tea from the thermos. He perched on a stool and observed Onishi as he poked around the radio’s entrails. The precision work would clearly be easier with a steady surface. But nothing for seventy nautical miles in any direction was steady that morning. The man was doing all he could.

  Akira stood and buttoned his coat, preparing to relieve Nagai. Before he could take a step, the ensign burst back in, his round face flushed from the wind. He saluted.

  “Sub-Lieutenant Matsuura, sir. You might be interested to look outside. Two of our beautiful carriers are on the horizon.”

  What’s this? Akira should have been informed of any operation in their area. He set his cup down so firmly tea sloshed onto the table, and strode past Nagai onto the deck. “Where?”

  In the distance, gray water met gray sky. He spotted them there—two darker flecks near the horizon, almost due east. He focused his binoculars. The flecks resolved into enormous vessels with elongated decks. Planes clustered in neat rows at their sterns like lines of jacks. Both vessels boasted commanding island structures, which towered above their flight decks.

  Two carriers, indeed. Enormous carriers. Along with two—no, three—smaller vessels. Cruisers.

  Bearing toward Japan.

  He focused on one of the carriers and took a slow, deliberate breath. This ship looked like nothing he’d seen. He’d toured the emperor’s newest carrier, Shokaku, in the shipyard at Kobe. Its island sat like a stack of blocks. It had a conventional curved prow. The vessel in front of him boasted a dramatic, squared-off prow. And its island stretched above its deck, graceful as a geisha’s neck.

  She was not the emperor’s.

  The Nitto Maru’s situation swirled into focus in his mind like the optics had focused the scene between his fingers. Only three nations in the world boasted aircraft carriers. His own, and two nations at war with Japan.

  He was witnessing something that hadn’t happened in seven centuries. No enemy since the Mongols had dared venture an invasion of the Land of the Gods. And a kamikaze, a divine wind, had risen up to destroy that fleet.

  Generations of ancestral spirits, all of them bred as warriors, breathed the truth into his soul. He was facing an enemy for the first time. And very likely the last. The Nitto Maru had one purpose—to radio an alarm to Japan. When his crew accomplished that, the enemy would hear them and almost certainly hunt them. Barring another divine wind, this was a battle they would not win.

  His pulse took up a drumbeat in his ears.

  Calm your own mind. The foremost act of war. Ancient wisdom Papa-san had taught him. He took a deep breath and wrestled back a tendril of fear. Tore his gaze away from the enemy warships and focused on Nagai. “Those carriers are beautiful. But they are not ours.”

  The ensign’s eyes went wide. “Sir?”

  “Call the men to battle stations. I’ll alert the captain.”

  Nagai saluted. “Hai.”

  “And Ensign.”

  “Hai.”

  “Inspect the crew. Make sure every man has his life preserver.”

  Early Summer, 1587

  Sakaguchi, Hizen Province, Kyushu Island

  Omura Sono plucked the last arrow from the bucket beside her and nocked it. She took a deep breath and raised the bow and arrow just above her head. She brought her left arm down in a strong arc while drawing the bowstring back past her ear. Then farther back, in time with her slow exhale. The polished bamboo shaft glided across her knuckle until everything from her right fingers to her left forearm burned.

  She stared down the shaft at the painted target a quarter cho away. Cicada song throbbed from the stand of mulberry trees behind her.

  “Steady.” Captain Fujita’s voice over her shoulder was a silken whisper of guidance rather than his customary thunder of command. “Calm your own mind. That may be called the foremost act of war.”

  Sono focused on the center of the target, a wooden plaque that rested at chest height on an easel at the far end of the field. The hum of cicadas and the wheeze of the captain’s breath disappeared as she let the target transform into a fearsome Shimazu warrior charging her on horseback, in full armor, with his naginata pike aimed at her heart.

  She parted her fingers. The bowstring thrummed. The arrow hissed past her ear and whooshed above the brilliant green rows of tea bushes, and…

  Buried itself in the earth bank behind the target. The bow vibrated in her left hand.

  “Che!” she swore. She couldn’t help a little stomp of her foot. Only four of her fifteen arrows had pierced the target. The first three had fallen into the bushes well short of it.

  “Patience, Sono-chan,” Captain Fujita said. “Your muscles need time to grow accustomed to the longer bow.”

  She huffed out a sigh. “It seems so, sensei.” She’d recently graduated to this bow, which stood nearly her own height. Not as long as the bows the samurai used in mounted archery, but long enough to make her a formidable enemy, once she mastered shooting through a port in a castle wall.

  She glanced back at him. Was that a hint of a smile crinkling the leathery corners of his eyes? A flush of pride swelled her breast. She smothered it. The nail that sticks out gets hammered, ah?

  Fujita gave a brisk nod to a page standing behind them. The boy trotted off between the rows of bushes to collect her arrows.

  She moved her right arm in a slow circle to ease the knot in her shoulder. Had the crinkle at the corner of Fujita’s eyes deepened? She dropped into her humblest asking-for-a-favor bow. “Since I’m progressing with the way of the bow, sensei—”

  Footsteps crunched the gravel path behind them. She glanced up to see her younger brother, Nagayoshi. Only thirteen but, annoyingly, he’d come back from the Jesuit school standing as tall as she did at sixteen. Each time she saw him, a jolt of surprise ran through her at how grown-up—and handsome—he looked in his new samurai uniform, with their family crest bold on both shoulders.

  At the same time, a familiar twinge of envy twisted her belly at everything he got to do and see and experience because he was a boy. Sadly, that feeling always lasted longer.

  She dropped her eyes, ashamed.

  Nagayoshi bowed to the captain. “Greetings, sensei.” And a shallow bow to her. “Honored sister. I thought I’d see how you’re coming along.”

  Sono bowed back. “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid you missed today’s entertainment.” Annoyance prickled in her voice. She regretted it instantly.

  Fujita greeted Sono’s brother then turned back to her, one thick gray eyebrow cocked. “You had a question?”

  She glanced at Nagayoshi and swallowed hard. She’d have preferred to do this without an audience. “I was asking, sensei, whether you thought I might be ready to train with the firearms.”

  Nagayoshi let out a barking laugh. Fujita sucked air past his teeth in a cautionary hiss. “That is not a weapon for a noble lady, Sono-chan. It lacks the accuracy of the bow. That’s why we train the men to fire in ranks. A job for foot soldiers, lady. And the arquebuses the men didn’t take on campaign are needed by the guards.” He clamped his mouth closed as if that were the end of the matter.

  “I can come out early. Or late. Any time they aren’t in use, ah?” She bobbed him a second bow. “Please, Captain. I want to learn.”

  Nagayoshi took a pointed look down the rows of bushes, where the boy was busy plucking her arrows from the leaves. “Arquebus pellets can’t be collected like arrows, sister,” he said with a superior smirk. He’d been training with the Portuguese guns since he got back—in spite of everything Fujita said about their accuracy.

  Fujita gave her a penetrating look. “I can ask your older brother when the men return from the southern campaign.”


  “But that could be weeks. Papa-san...” The thought of him brought a catch to her throat. Trapped by disease inside the elegantly paneled walls of his mansion. Withering away under brocade bedding, that horrible cough pulling blood from his lungs.

  Just what she was trying not to think about.

  She went on in a muted voice. “Papa-san told Father Rodrigues I should keep applying myself to the weapons training.” In fact, he’d insisted on it, even though the padres deemed weapons practice unbecoming for a Kirishitan lady. “I’ll ask him. Assuming, of course, you agree.”

  He grunted. “I don’t recall your older sister being so interested in the warrior’s way, Sono-chan.”

  And your father saw her married well. No doubt that was the captain’s thought, although he didn’t say it. The question of how well Sono would marry had hung over her for as many of her sixteen years as she could recall. Anxiety squeezed her chest. This problem soon would be her older brother’s to manage.

  She pushed that thought away—hard. Her fingers went to the cross at her neck. “I want to be ready in case—”

  “In case you have to take on the whole Shimazu clan alone?” Nagayoshi folded his arms across his chest.

  “Hai.” She lifted her chin and squared her shoulders. “Or the Matsuura—cursed pirates—while you’re out on campaign. If the enemy lands a day’s march from my castle, I wish to know everything about how to defend it.”

  Not only how to find my own throat with a dagger if things go poorly. The first lesson Papa-san had given his daughters on warfare. And it was all Sono’s well-married sister had been willing to learn.

  Captain Fujita pinned Nagayoshi with a glare. “Don’t mock your sister. You may not be old enough to remember how hard your father fought to repulse the Ryozuji when they attacked us, but your sister does. And before that? It was the Goto and the Saito with the Matsuura. And before that?” The captain took a ponderous step or two, lurching on his bad leg. “The Matsuura had the gall to board the Portuguese Black Ship itself. In our harbor.”