Dragons in the Forest

by Peter Yeldham

  He arrived this morning with news. He had found the address without difficulty. A very expensive area, and very few apartments in that vicinity. The lady was home, and fortunately alone. At first his arrival alarmed her, but the uniform did that, he said, it gave people a scare. He explained to her that he was on a friendly mission, then delivered my card. She put on small round glasses to read it, Suzuki said, and then she smiled. He said she had a really lovely smile and sends a message. She wonders if I would care to meet her in the park at noon?

  The trees were stripped bare. In the far distance were the walled gardens of the Imperial Palace. Cecile was already waiting there, wrapped in a thick warm coat, fur boots and a hat. Alex thought she looked years younger.

  “Mademoiselle …”

  “Cecile,” she said.

  “Cecile,” he smiled.

  “Fancy you knowing a friendly policeman, who brought me a New Year card. He startled me, but he seemed friendly.”

  “He’s very friendly,” Alex assured her.

  “Thank you for the card. Thank you for a great many things, Alex.”

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  “Oh, but you did. I’m well aware that you did. And I’m very glad of this chance to tell you so. I’d like to ask you home, but the removalists are there.”

  “Removalists?”

  “Your friendly gendarme caught me only just in time. I’ve packed my own belongings. The men arrived to pack for Jacques, since he’s not accustomed to that kind of thing, and then tomorrow we go our separate ways.”

  “Where?”

  “Did Monsieur Le Comte not tell you anything?”

  “Not a lot. Except he’d said some cruel things to you.”

  “Quite cruel,” Cecile said, and to his surprise she smiled, “but they needed to be said. Things I’d been trying to tell myself for … for such a long time. Hearing him say them, saying what a fool I was, that I’d become a thief to buy the love of this worthless man who didn’t love me at all … well, it does make a rather deep impression, which was what he intended.”

  “I didn’t know it was that cruel,” Alex said, feeling out of his depth. He was astounded Cecile seemed able to talk about it with apparent equanimity.

  “He only said what I really knew,” she said gently, sensing his perplexity.

  “So now what? Divorce?”

  “Whatever he wants. Because I no longer want him.”

  “But what will you do?”

  “I’m moving into a tiny place. No more absurd rents, or prestige addresses. I’ve got a good job with a friend of the Count.” She noticed his startled expression. “What’s the matter, Alex?”

  “I asked him what you’d do about a job. He told me it was not my problem, or his. He as good as ordered me to shut up.”

  She smiled. “He arranged it. And a generous allowance from his own bank account, to help me get myself sorted out. I’m not supposed to mention this to anyone, but I trust you. Whatever he did to help, of course, was dependent upon my leaving Jacques. The Count said he had no intention of subsiding tennis players or skiers, not to mention a series of complaisant blonde girlfriends.”

  “My God,” Alex said.

  “Don’t feel sorry for me, Alex dear” she said.

  “Not if you’re content.”

  “I’m content,” she said. “Please believe that.”

  He nodded, hesitated, then said, “Actually, what I wanted to say when I first saw you was that you look so much younger. And … well, beautiful. Only I thought it might be insulting.”

  “If you want to insult me like that, you may do it any time you wish,” Cecile laughed. “If I do look younger … and I hope I do … it’s because I feel free. The rest of my life belongs entirely to me.”

  When Alex left, he walked to the edge of the park and looked back. She was still standing there. She waved, then touched her hand to her mouth and blew him a kiss. He felt moved, and strangely, indescribably happy, that the rest of her life did indeed belong to her.

  20

  SLASH AND BURN

  The B-29s were lined up in neat formation, almost wing to wing as far as the eye could see. The first attack group was in position on the tarmac, awaiting the meteorological report and the signal for takeoff. Crews were on edge; there was a long night ahead, and nobody knew what kind of reception they’d meet at the end of it. They only knew from their briefing that this raid would be completely different. Once they were airborne, they would then receive orders and find out what this meant.

  Meanwhile, the pilots went through pre-flight procedures again, checking gauges and instrument panels. Others in the crew tested radios and navigation aids, while the gunners ensured their weapons were effective and loaded. Guns were the conundrum causing disquiet to the crews. The Superfortress, like its antecedent the Flying Fortress, bristled with defensive armour. It was normally a safe, well fortified aircraft. But not on this mission. Most of the turrets were empty; machine guns and ammunition removed to allow extra clusters of bombs to be carried. So the air-gunners wanted to be certain what weapons they’d been left with were at least dependable. They had no wish to be buzzed by fighters and unable to return fire. The ground crew, equally on edge, tried to quell their nerves with a diet of cigarettes despite the signs: STRICTLY NO SMOKING IN THIS AREA.

  Beyond where these planes stood in rows, the jungle had been cut away. The ground had been levelled by bulldozers and laid with concrete. What had been a primitive airstrip months earlier was now extended to form a vast holding zone, and here stood more squadrons of bombers ready to move into their assigned back-up positions, when the first groups took off. They were all B-29s, for no other aircraft had the range. This four-engine citadel of the air could, as the Japanese had learned to their cost since the previous October, fly almost 7000 kilometres. Saipan, Guam and the other Mariana Islands were less than half that distance from mainland Japan and its principal cities. At a speed of 500 kilometres an hour, it took the bombers five hours to reach their targets — and after that they had more than sufficient fuel for a safe return.

  On the late afternoon of March 9th, 1945, the meteorological report was good. The time was 17:00 hours. The sun was setting, lingering on what had been a peaceful Pacific Ocean. Then it began. From airfields all over the islands, the B-29s took off during the next two hours. The noise was unceasing. Flimsy buildings on the ground shook with the reverberation, as squadron after squadron headed north. There were 325 Superfortresses. Each carried a payload of 5000 kilograms of jellied-gasoline incendiary bombs. The operation was the largest yet mounted against domestic Japan. This time the target was just one city: Tokyo.

  A northerly wind had freshened, and the temperature felt close to zero. It had been like that for much of the winter; soon after Christmas the mercury had dropped below freezing and stayed there for seven weeks, the longest and coldest spell on record. But with early March, the approach of spring and expectation of cherry blossom, there had been warmer temperatures and a thaw. Parks and gardens had begun to revive — until the wind off Siberia had brought winter back with a vengeance.

  Alex was hunched into a thick woollen coat as he hurried down the narrow street, declining urgent invitations from whispered voices in the dark doorways. Transvestites and prostitutes jostled for clients in this district notorious for erotica; brothels, nude bars and sex shows competed for custom in a fusion of sleazy alleyways behind Shinjuku railway station.

  Nearby was a small building that housed the radio news bureau. Across the street from it loomed the garish red windmill of the Moulin Rouge music hall, a diminutive replica of the Paris original. Alex ignored a whispered invitation from a young girl and hurried into the studio, where a friend, Carl Kranz, had just finished reading the early evening news bulletin.

  “So who’s winning the war?” Alex asked him, after making sure nobody was close enough to overhear this.

  “Japan, of course! God, the things I have to say. I’ve just finished
telling our faithful listeners that America is on the brink of defeat.”

  “And do the faithful believe it?”

  “Implicitly, so I’m told. Every stupid word.”

  Carl was also wary of being overheard. They ran the gauntlet of hopeful girls working the street outside the Moulin Rouge, and headed for a favourite bar in a less lubricious part of town.

  Two hours away, to the south, the night was cloudless with a sprinkling of stars. There was no moon, and the sea was a black void below the aerial armada. The Superfortresses were flying low, at altitudes between 4000 and 7000 feet. Apart from a few tiny atolls which they by-passed, there was no land mass, and hence no danger for another 1000 kilometres. Six months earlier there might have been the hazard of patrol ships, but the Japanese navy had been decimated since then. On any normal approach to the coast they would climb to avoid anti-aircraft fire, but tonight their orders were to remain at this altitude even when over the target.

  In the leading B-29 the group commander had handed over controls to his co-pilot. He thought about the mission ahead of them. Flying this low over Japan’s major city was going to be hairy. It was also a ruthless, cold-blooded assignment. Tonight the objectives were not the docks or the great factory complexes; their target zones were the residential areas. The justification given for this was the amount of small industry in back yards and workshops of these districts, but it was not an explanation that convinced him. The commander felt sure the real purpose of tonight was to incinerate as much of the city and its people as possible.

  He tried to calculate the number of incendiary bombs they were carrying. Each plane had 40 clusters, which meant 1600 per aircraft. It was too difficult to work out in his head. Instead he tried to doze, but the co-pilot was talkative.

  “Wonder what they’re doing?”

  “Who?”

  “People on the ground.”

  “Back home?”

  “No, the ones ahead who don’t even know we’re on our way. It’s eight o’clock there. Dinner’s over. The kids are all in bed.”

  “Shut up,” the Commander said.

  “Makes you wonder, though. What all the people in a city of that size are doing? Sitting at home listening to the radio? Or out on a date, maybe at the movies, or even some guy getting lucky with a broad in the back of a car?”

  “Shut the fuck up,” his commander said.

  “Just trying to picture it,” the co-pilot shrugged.

  The group commander hated to picture it, or to talk about it. His job was to take the aircraft there and bring it back safely. What happened over the target was for the bomb aimers. His crew considered him taciturn but he had a wife and children of his own in Dayton, Ohio. He had no wish to think about the thousands of kids who were being put to bed in the city they would reach within the next few hours.

  “Don’t picture it,” he told his co-pilot. “Just fly the ship and for Christ’s sake shut up.”

  He closed his eyes. Counting might help him sleep. He was going to need sleep, for they would not be back until dawn. Three hundred and twenty five aircraft, each with 1600 incendiaries … that added up to five hundred and twenty-something thousand. Plus many with high-explosive and special phosphorus bombs as well.

  Holy shit, he thought. What in God’s name are we doing? That’s well over 500,000 fire bombs, in one night, on one city.

  Carl Kranz had been one of Alex’s close friends at school, and had remained so ever since. Carl was Eurasian; his German father and Japanese mother having divorced when he was a child. After an unhappy early life being shared between their bitterly divided homes Carl, as soon as he was old enough to make a choice, shocked both parents by choosing neither of them and going to live with his paternal grandfather instead.

  Hugo Kranz was a widower, tall, impressive and now aged 75. As a young newly-wed in 1904, he had come to the Far East from Berlin, one of the first to travel on the new trans-Siberian railway, and had started a factory in China making gunpowder. Stories about him were legion. Grandfather Kranz knew little about the manufacture of gunpowder. But he did discover the key ingredient his warlord clients required, which was that their explosives should make the loudest possible noise in order to frighten the other side. He employed a chemist who found the traditional gunpowder mixture of sulphur and saltpetre could be greatly enhanced by the addition of nitroglycerin. It resulted in a dangerous explosive, unstable to handle and likely to inflict as many casualties on those who fired it as their targets — but the shattering blast was what the rival warlords wanted, and in consequence Hugo Kranz had made a modest fortune.

  “How is the old boy?” Alex asked when they were seated at a table in a local restaurant.

  “Independent as ever. Refuses to renew his passport because he despises the German Ambassador and his staff. Says he’d rather not have a passport, than deal with a bunch of Nazi thugs.”

  Alex smiled. They were both very fond of Hugo Kranz.

  “By the way, Grandfather sent a message. Sorry to miss you tonight, but he’s met a widow. An Italian lady in her 60s.”

  “A new one. Good for him.”

  “She teaches languages, and he’s having private lessons.”

  “The old bugger. Is she a nice widow?”

  “Very nice,” Carl said. “She hates Mussolini as much as he hates Hitler, so they have a lot to talk about.”

  Over dinner Alex told him how the German conduct in Karuizawa was deteriorating. Each time he was there the arrogance seemed more overt and aggressive, the goose-step parades and fascist salutes now quite threatening, ruining what had been the charming village atmosphere. The Jewish doctors were being harassed and the new doctor sent from Berlin strutted like an SS officer.

  “Don’t let Hugo go there. He’d have a stroke. They’re more militant than when they were actually winning the war.”

  In the distance came the familiar siren of an air raid alarm. Inured to the sound, most customers in the restaurant paused to listen, then continued with their meal. A few stood to leave for the shelters, as mindful waiters rushed to collect payments. It was a well known ploy in these days of air raids to run for safety and leave the bill unpaid behind them.

  “How’s the job?” Alex asked, as they ignored the alert.

  “Bloody horrible,” Carl said. He was not a newsreader by choice, but had been drafted by the propaganda ministry. “Yesterday I did a broadcast that said America is on the brink of defeat. That their President is ill, and may be dying.”

  “Roosevelt? Is he?” Alex asked, startled.

  “I think that part of it may be true,” Carl said. “In a few photographs I’ve seen, he looks old and exhausted. But that was just the start. I had to say that the people hate the President, and they blame him for the war. That, quote, ‘they realise the marines will never take Okinawa, and being beaten there will do them irreparable damage. It will teach them the futility of imagining Japan will ever agree to surrender.’ End of quote. That’s the kind of garbage I have to read, and God help anyone who varies one word from the bureau script.”

  “I doubt if anyone believes it.”

  “Not those outside the country with access to a free press. But inside, of course they believe it. They’re being told nothing else. I’d love a chance, just one, to broadcast the truth. To say that people are exhausted. To say they’re cold and hungry, persuaded to shed blood for the Emperor, but unsure why. People can’t understand — if Japan’s winning — why there’s so little food, hardly any fish and not enough rice, why the public baths are open only two days a week, why hot water’s rationed, there’s no soap or shampoo, and why a race that likes to be clean feels dirty. They wonder why they’re harassed by the “Economic Police” who stop them in the streets, and search them for black market goods. Most of all, they wonder why the bombers can’t be turned back. Those with long memories recall the promises of four years ago, that no foreign foot, no bullet or bomb would ever touch Japanese soil.” He stopped, with a rueful s
hrug. “But before I said half of it, I’d be off the air and in gaol.”

  “Or the army,” Alex reminded him. For Carl was in an invidious position. Army service was the alternative if he refused to broadcast. And Eurasians were sent to fight in the worst combat zones in China. They were often victimised by their own side and treated appallingly.

  “Or the army,” Carl agreed ruefully.

  The owner of the restaurant had been talking anxiously on the phone and now he started to move hurriedly around the room. They watched him exchanging brief words with customers at each table; whatever he was saying was making people take notice, they were starting to pay for their meals, collecting hats and coats, and leaving. He reached Alex and Carl.

  “It’s a big raid,” was all he said. “We’re closing.”

  Adept in the ways of interrupted meals he already had their bill made out. They paid him and reluctantly left the restaurant. Outside, there seemed nothing untoward, except the continuous wail of the siren. But the wind had increased and it gusted in their faces, as they contemplated whether to find a bar and some female company or look for shelter.

  The aircraft remained at an altitude of 5000 feet as the coastline approached. The lead squadron dropped their incendiary cylinders to imprint the first target areas. It had already been decided the focus of the raid was to create maximum fire damage and shatter morale in heavily populated districts, and these markers that the Japanese called “Molotov flower baskets” lit up and outlined the area where the primary attacks would take place. Fukagawa, by day a picturesque river anchorage crowded with jetties, wharves and a large residential area, had been selected as the initial locality to be incinerated.

  Alex and Carl would have preferred to remain in the warmth of the restaurant, but the owner’s growing agitation and insistence he must shut his restaurant left them no option. They ignored the public refuges where they could see people pushing and fighting to get inside, and elected to make for the house owned by Carl’s grandfather in Azabu, where there was a solid shelter in the back garden. But the area was ringed by smoke and choked with emergency vehicles and they could not get through. By the time they turned back attempting to look for somewhere safer, they saw the western part of the city in the direction of Fukagawa was ablaze. As the wind increased in velocity fanning the fire, the sky itself appeared to be burning.