THE LAST LIEUTENANT: A Todd Ingram Novel (The Todd Ingram Series Book 1)

by JOHN J. GOBBELL

  Ingram followed Beardsley's finger to the top of the control pedestal between the two seats. "Landing gear switch," he said.

  "Right."

  Beardsley's fingers moved to another switch. "This is the wing flaps. Flip this when I tell you."

  Ingram pointed. "Wing flaps."

  Beardsley nodded. "Not bad for a snot-nosed Navy--"

  TILLY shuddered. A scream ranged from back aft. DeWitt shouted. Someone shouted back. DeWitt stuck his head in between them and said, "Holloway's hit. They've got a heavy machine gun."

  Beardsley said, "Shit. I wanted time for a little run-up. Hold on." He stood on the brakes and advanced the throttles all the way. At full rpm, TILLY roared and rattled and surged, spewing great clouds of mist behind her into the jungle. Beardsley quickly flipped through the four magnetos, checking each tachometer. Finally he shouted, "Tail wheel lock!"

  Ingram leaned down and threw the lever as Beardsley released the brakes. TILLY started rolling. "Locked," Ingram said.

  TILLY accelerated, and Beardsley quickly pointed to a panel instrument. "Call our speed."

  "...ummm. Forty-five...fifty...fifty-five..." TILLY thumped violently as the mains hit a pothole.

  "Shit. I can't believe we're still rolling," called Beardsley.

  TILLY bounced again, but not as heavily. Overhead the twin .50s chattered, and Sunderland whooped once more.

  Ingram bit his lip then said. "...ninety...a hundred...one-oh-five, one-ten...one--"

  Beardsley gently pulled back on the control column. TILLY bounced once and left the ground. He grinned and said. "Sweet Jesus. Gear up, Todd."

  Ingram looked down to make sure he flipped the correct switch. He'd just done so when the bomber shuddered. The whole right side vibrated and numbers three and four engines misfired and shook violently in their mounts.

  "Oh, my God," shouted Ingram. In terror, he looked out, seeing both engines windmill to a stop. They were only about a hundred feet up with the tree line fast advancing.

  "Shit!" screamed Beardsley. "Prime! Prime the--" He reached over and frantically jabbed the number three prime button. Then, the two port engines sputtered out.

  Ingram heard a horrible scream. He realized it was his own, as they sank back to earth. TILLY smacked the ground with a gut-wrenching crunch at a hundred and five knots. She plowed between two trees, ripping off both wings, and careened into the forest.

  PART THREE

  So I turned about and gave my heart up to despair over all the toil of my labors under the sun, because sometimes a man who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave all to be enjoyed by a man who did not toil for it.

  Ecclesiastes 2:20-23

  * * * * *

  When a man has nothing to do, it means that he has nothing in which to believe; and lacking belief, he has no will, or need for will; and lacking this, he ceases to be a man.

  John Keats,

  They Fought Alone

  Lippencott, 1963

  CHAPTER FORTY FOUR

  17 May, 1942

  Naval Base Fleet Landing, Kure

  Hiroshima Prefecture, Honshu, Japan

  Laden with men from the armada, tens of shoreboats dipped and wallowed in the bay’s choppy waters, eventually converging a few hundred meters off downtown Kure, a dull, shipbuilding city on Japan's Inland Sea. One by one they picked their way into a narrow channel to the Fleet Landing, unmistakable because of the cloud of blue engine exhaust looming above an overhanging shed. The boats lurched against the docks and disgorged Sailors who clumped up ramps and headed into town with exuberant plans for drinking, shouting, and desperate, last minute encounters.

  Among them walked a barrel-chested civilian. The weather was overcast, yet it seemed bright to the man, particularly as he looked about seeing the late spring had finally brought greenery to the surrounding mountains and plains. He immediately turned right, separating from pleasure seekers, and strode toward the railroad station three kilometers to the east. With an hour to kill, the five-foot-three, one-hundred-thirty-pound man held his head imperviously as he walked past the sprawling Uraga Shipyards where the yet unpainted upperworks of an enormous new cruiser lanced the sky. Pity, she would not be ready in time.

  His head was close-shaved, and he wore a tight-fitting light-gray suit, silk burgundy tie, and spectacles. He blended well with passersby, but for insurance, a gauze mask completed the disguise. Though short, he was solidly built, and moved with purpose unlike the sailors and Imperial Marines who darted about impetuously seeking delights of the pink houses. Even with the gauze over his face, the fifty-eight-year-old man seemed ordinary, although more than one policeman looked him up and down, wondering why was such a dapper looking man strayed so near the shipyards, as if he were a petty criminal of some sort. But something about his stature, perhaps it was the way he carried his head, made police stop short of demanding his papers.

  His name was Isoroku Yamamoto. He was a Tai-sho, or admiral, and was Japan's highest-ranking naval officer. This gave him the added honorific of Rengo Kantai, or commander of the Imperial Japanese Navy's Combined Fleet. And for this operation, more capital warships were under his command than any other individual in history.

  In the harbor, three behemoths of his personal command, Battleship Division 1, tugged at their anchors. Prominent was the giant Yamato, his brand-new flagship displacing seventy-two thousand tons. She had nine eighteen-inch guns that could hurl a 1,451-kilogram projectile--an object heavier than a pickup truck-- over twenty-seven miles. The other two battleships, the Nagato and the Mutsu, displaced thirty-two thousand tons and had nine sixteen-inch guns. Other elements of his main body attack force were scattered around Kure: the light carrier, Hosho; a light cruiser, the Sendai; nine destroyers, two oilers, and two seaplane carriers. The rest of his fleet, over one hundred warships, was harbored from Kwajalein to Hokkaido, waiting for the order to sortie for the Midway attack.

  Months of preparation had gone into this operation. Midway--code named island AF--was roughly 1,200 miles northwest of Honolulu and was the westernmost island in the Hawaiian Island chain. Yamamoto's major objective was to draw out the remnants of the U.S. Navy's battered Pacific Fleet and destroy them. Having done this, Japan could secure her eastern flank and stage forays against Pearl Harbor and America's West Coast with Yamamoto's vaunted Kido Butai. Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego would be crushed.

  Yamamoto was the sixth son of Takano Sadayoshi, a former samurai. The boy grew up in Nagaoka, in the Niigata Prefecture on the Sea of Japan. It was one of the few oil-producing districts in the country, and Yamamoto grew to learn and appreciate oil production. Later, as an aide to Admiral Ide Kenji, he toured the rich oilfields of Texas and Mexico. And after the successful Midway operation, he looked ahead to seizing them along with California's oil fields too. He'd even asked his staff to draw plans on how to quickly turn them to Japan's use in case of a protracted land battle on the U.S. mainland.

  He was about a half a kilometer from the railroad station when he cocked an ear, hearing a train chuff through. Most trains these days were overloaded with material and troops for the war, and the station would be crowded. Instinctively, he tightened the straps on his gauze mask and walked on.

  Again, Yamamoto stopped. Before him was a Shinto shrine that stood half block from the rail station. For a moment he gazed up at two uprights and a double crossbar, a Torii gate. He couldn't see the shrine because of shrubbery, but the curving path, laid in a large uniform gray pebble, peacefully beckoned. He rubbed his chin and examined the stone koma-inu, or guardian lions that stood on either side of the path's entrance. He was pleased to see the lions were correctly portrayed; the mouth of the one on the right was open, the one on the left was closed, the pair symbolizing the "ah" and "um" of life--universally recognized sounds of birth and death--an extended interpretation from Hindu mythology, contemplating beginning and end.

  The sound of Yamamoto clearing his throat was the only o
utward sign of the deep uneasiness he felt. The distance between the "ah" and "um" figures was a mere two meters, intended to remind the onlooker of life on earth and how quickly it raced by.

  "'Beginning and End,'" Yamamoto mused; the Alpha and the Omega, as he had read in the Book of Revelation. For Yamamoto had been exposed to Christian teachings as a boy when he attended church services held by an American missionary in Nagaoka. It stayed with him even at the Naval Academy at Etajima, where he defiantly displayed a Bible, provoking arguments among classmates. And Christianity influenced his thinking as he matured and traveled as a naval attaché in Western cultures.

  A train hooted and rumbled through the station. Yamamoto checked his watch, seeing he should hurry.

  He made it just as the Tokyo, Shimonoseki, train steamed into the station. Afraid he would be recognized, Rengo Kantai tightened the gauze straps over his face, then paced up and down until the train made a complete stop. He waited patiently as the passengers debarked. Most were military, the others aged or bureaucrats looking as if the war’s outcome depended solely on what were in their shiny, leather satchels. In any case, no one stood in the same spot very long--they too, were nervous about police, even though they were on authorized travel. And it was hard to tell which civilian in the shadows were either a Kempetai or a Kempetai informer.

  A thin dapper civilian in his mid-forties eased a woman off the train by her elbow. Kawai Chiyoko’ s eyes lighted up when she spotted the stocky admiral. With some discomfort she pulled herself to full height and said softly, "Iso."

  "Chiyoko," the admiral of the Combined Imperial Fleet spun on his heel, pulled down the gauze mask, and bowed as passengers brushed past. He had the strongest impulse to kiss Chiyoko right here before the world but that, he knew, would be bad form for Rengo Kantai.

  Yamamoto retied his mask and said, "Thank you Doctor. How is she?"

  "Please," protested Chiyoko. "I'm fine."

  "Better than before," Although he was forty-two, Doctor Nomura's voice was almost a prepubescent contralto. "But she wheezes and she's weak. I had to inject her several times."

  "What do you think is wrong with her?" Yamamoto muttered in Nomura's ear.

  Nomura shook his head slowly. "Infection is all we know. We have ruled out tuberculosis, however."

  Chiyoko tugged at Yamamoto's sleeve. "Iso, please."

  Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto hoisted Chiyoko on his back and carried her toward the front entrance, with Nomura hurrying to keep up like a dog on a leash. In front, a 1939 black Buick sedan waited. A young lieutenant, impeccably dressed in whites, snapped open the rear door allowing Yamamoto to carefully arrange Chiyoko in the backseat. Making sure she was comfortable, he turned to Nomura on the sidewalk and said, "Find out."

  "Sir?"

  "Find out what's wrong with her, damnit! Give her tests. Anything. Do you understand? Send me the bills," Yamamoto growled.

  Nomura nodded. They'd had this conversation before. Tests had been ordered. Nothing had worked.

  "Where will you be staying?" asked Yamamoto.

  Nomura stuttered out the answer in a high-pitched squeal. Yamamoto gave a quick nod, stepped in the car, and they drove off.

  * * * * *

  Kawai Chiyoko had been a geisha in Shimbashi when Isoroku Yamamoto first met her. She worked at the Nojima-ya house under the professional name of Umeryu or Plum-Dragon.

  Yamamoto, married and a father of two boys and two girls, began seeing Chiyoko seriously eight years ago just before he left for London as naval attaché. And now, Yamamoto was leaving on another mission, and he had to see her again. But she was not well. She'd been suffering from pleurisy since March, and at one time Dr. Nomura and his staff had given up, telling Yamamoto she would die.

  To Yamamoto, one day in April was especially bleak. Not only had Nomura phoned with terrible news about Chiyoko, he'd also learned about the American B-25 raid on Japan's sacred Homeland. Rage over the Americans and helplessness over Chiyoko weighed heavily.

  As he tucked her into the Buick's backseat, he was glad to have a chance to do something positive. Yamamoto was convinced that he could make Chiyoko well during his four days of liberty, and he was prepared to devote all his efforts to her during that time.

  At the inn in the mountains overlooking Kure, they slept on the bed Chiyoko preferred, a large Western-style called a double. She was propped up against the headboard to keep the fluid from running into her trachea. Even so, her breath rattled but it would not bother Yamamoto; he was a sound sleeper.

  Wearing just towel and sandals, Rengo Kantai padded in after forty-five minutes in steam bath, hot tub, and shower.

  "Better?" she asked.

  "I can't wait to get you in there again," he said.

  She stared at the floor in that contemplative way that made her look deliciously innocent and virginal; a countenance Yamamoto loved even though he knew she had been well practiced long before they met.

  She smiled at the thought of their lovemaking. "Nomura doesn't think it's a good idea."

  "Nomura is full of it," said Yamamoto.

  "He thinks it best, Iso."

  Yamamoto stood to his full height, sucked in his gut and cheeks. His rib cage actually protruded a bit as he pointed and pulled a face with eyes squeezed almost shut. "I forbid it," he said imitating Nomura's female falsetto.

  Chiyoko put a hand over her mouth.

  "You are not to bathe." Yamamoto's spine stiffened, his voice was impossibly high, and his elbows were clamped to his sides.

  "Don't," pleaded Chiyoko.

  The admiral slapped his hands on his hips and wiggled his thick torso. "We need you smelling like a goat to kill the germs."

  "Yes?" she twittered. Except for the congestion in her chest she felt fulfilled and wonderful. Yamamoto had placed her in the tub and slowly, carefully, soap-sponged every inch of her body before they made love.

  "You are Japan's top secret weapon," the admiral declared. "The Kempetai wants you for their very own to kill Americans with your deadly body odor."

  "Iso!" she gasped. Chiyoko was not used to jokes about the Thought Police.

  Yamamoto shook off his sandals, leaned down on a chair, placed his hands on the opposite corners, and kicked high in the air into a perfect handstand. She'd seen him do it once on the bow of a shoreboat. But then he wasn't wearing just a towel which now flipped down, displaying everything.

  "Don't point that at me," she declared.

  The admiral's orderly, dressed in unmarked whites, quietly stepped in the room picking up clothes and tidying. Chiyoko pulled the sheet up to her neck.

  "You may be right, Umeryu." Upside-down, Yamamoto sounded hoarse. "Why needlessly risk your life before such a powerful weapon?" Releasing his grip on the chair, Yamamoto landed lightly on his feet and rolled through a perfect somersault, ceremoniously standing before their dinner table now being cleared by the orderly.

  "Come back here. You're getting too old for that," Chiyoko declared.

  Yamamoto snatched two saucers off the table, locked his elbows, and began spinning them on outstretched forefingers. Actually, he had to use his left hand's ring finger since the index and middle fingers were gone. He lost them from a turret explosion aboard the battleship Nisshin as a new midshipman during the Battle of the Japan Sea against the Czarist Navy in 1905.

  With wet towels and soiled laundry draped over his arms, the orderly bowed and silently backed out of the room.

  The corners of Yamamoto's mouth turned up slightly.

  She knew what he was going to do. "Don't!"

  He flicked his wrists making the saucers spin faster.

  "Please," she giggled.

  Satisfied that her chest didn't rattle, Yamamoto did an about-face that would have made any of his Imperial Marines proud. Then he shrugged off the towel and rolled through a somersault with his arms still outstretched and saucers spinning, ending a half-meter before her. He did another perfect about-face and bowed deeply.

  "Sto
p!" She was laughing. Suddenly Chiyoko fell into a racking, impossibly liquid cough. She sat straight up and coughed harder.

  Yamamoto quickly set the saucers aside, sat beside her, and slapped her back.

  The orderly stuck his head around the door with his eyebrows raised.

  Yamamoto shook his head and the man disappeared. "Chiyoko," he whispered in her ear. Over and over he said it with the spasm passing after several minutes.

  Thirty minutes later, Chiyoko was fast asleep. To Yamamoto her face was white, almost the color of the ringed moon that illuminated the rock garden outside. With great tenderness, he brushed her hair and kissed her on the forehead. Making sure her head was elevated and that she rested comfortably, he relaxed against the headboard and stared at the garden. With this position he wouldn't sleep tonight, but it was worth it. Tomorrow, Chiyoko would waken with that look of a sixteen-year-old. They would make love again, then have breakfast and take a walk.

  The-late night patterns in the rock garden were beautiful. And it was perfectly quiet. No screeching, shipborne exhaust-blowers or bugles or airplane engines, or men screaming orders. It was so quiet he could almost hear the shadows scraping across the perfectly manicured grounds outside.

  He sensed his orderly's presence and admitted him with a nod. The man quickly entered, lay a sheaf of papers next to Rengo Kantai, and withdrew.

  After a lingering glance at the rock garden, he reached to the stack with his free left hand and picked up a twenty-page report. It was a summary stamped MOST SECRET and labeled OPERATION AF. ORDER OF BATTLE.

  His right arm was pinned under Chiyoko and, with fingers missing off his left hand, he had trouble flipping pages. Finally, he got to section twelve and studied it, as he had every day for the past two months:

  MOST SECRET