by Peter Albano
Brent beamed. But before he could respond, Fujita turned to Bernstein. “Colonel, please accompany me to the bridge.”
As Bernstein turned to follow Fujita and Hironaka, he spoke to Schlieben. “We will meet again, Kapitan.”
“Ja, Oberst. We have some unfinished business.”
The German was chuckling as Colonel Bernstein closed the door.
*
“All guns manned and ready; damage control manned and ready; Combat Intelligence manned and ready; radar manned and ready,” the talker droned on and on, reporting to a stoic Admiral Fujita who stared through his binoculars, nodding and muttering, “Very well”
Gazing through his glasses, Brent speculated about the old man’s ability to absorb so much information without missing a detail. But as the rating finished his report, it was obvious the canny mind had detected a flaw.
“Engineering?” Fujita snapped, without turning his head.
The talker shouted into his headset. Waited a moment, then turned to the admiral. “Pressure up in all boilers except four and eleven. Ready to get under way, sir.”
“Very well! Heave short on the anchor chain.”
Immediately, Brent heard the whine of a windlass and the clank of the great chain. Although he was weak, he was happy to be out of the sick bay, free of Captain Werner Schlieben and on the bridge where the strong wind was fresh, chasing billowing clouds like fluffy game fleeing a hunter. And the normally sheltered expanse of the bay broke restlessly with each gust, quivering and peaking into a light chop, reflecting the sun like a million back-lighted jewels. There was beauty there, but a warning, too, seemed to howl from the halyards as the teeth of the wind bit into the rigging.
Craning his neck, Brent found a dozen Zeros circling in threes and stacked in layers up to ten thousand feet. He sighed, pondered the Al Kufra. It was time for her sortie. And Yonaga was ready with every gun manned, CAP alert, anchor heaved short.
It had started that morning after breakfast when he rose and tried his legs with a slow walk up and down the sick bay's aisle while Schlieben, Horikoshi and a half-dozen orderlies watched.
“You're almost healthy enough to kill,” the doctor had quipped.
“Ja!” the German mocked. “The warrior is ready for the Gotterdammerung of the mighty Al Kufra!”
He had ignored the doctor, turned to the German. “She won’t find her end in a gas chamber, Kapitan.”
“Verdammter scheisserech.”
“You’re a ‘shit’ too, Schlieben.” And then with a warning glinting in his blue eyes. “Get healthy fast, Kapitan. We’ll discuss this in private!”
“Gut! Gut!”
At that moment, an orderly approached, carrying a crisp, neatly folded uniform. “Number three combat fatigues, sir,” he said, placing the uniform on the ensign’s cot. “Admiral Fujita has designated ‘threes’ as the uniform of the day until the mission is completed.”
“Very well.”
“And, sir… the Admired requests your presence on the bridge immediately… if you feel strong enough.”
“Thank you. Please tell the admiral I will report.” In a few moments, and under the watchful, mocking gaze of the German, Brent Ross had slipped into the green fatigues.
Turning for the door, he had heard Schlieben’s jeering voice. “Auf wiedersehn, Hauptmann!”
He had kept his back to Schlieben, not dignifying the taunt with an answer.
And now he was on the bridge crowded with Admiral Fujita, Mark Allen, Colonel Irving Bernstein and a half-dozen lookouts, all helmeted wearing green fatigues. All eyes were focused over the port bow and the harbor’s entrance.
The talker spoke softly to the admired. “Foretop reports a small vessel bearing three-five-zero, range over twenty kilometers making a sortie, sir.”
“Very well.” And then to Brent Ross, “Can you see her?”
Brent focused sharply, found a movement in the far distance. “A curved bed-spring antenna, but there’s an awful lot of rigging in the way.”
Mark Allen said, “She might have ‘Top Sail’ radar, then.”
“Range of ‘Top Sail’?” Fujita asked.
“Eighty kilometers,” Allen answered. “Admiral, may I suggest radar confirmation and tracking.”
“Excellent idea.” And then to the talker, “Radar, confirm sighting.”
After a moment’s silence, the rating spoke. “Confirmed, sir. Radar reports exiting vessel… range twenty kilometers… bearing zero-one-zero true… speed, very slow – perhaps four knots.”
“Very well.”
“I have her, sir,” Brent said. “Small vessel, with many radar antennas bearing zero-zero-zero relative, range… ah, so long she is hulled down, sir.”
“Very well.” There were shouts from the foretop.
“That’s her!” Allen and Bernstein chorused as the small vessel finally cleared the harbor and entered the bay, hull clearly in view.
Fujita spoke to the talker. “All guns that bear, track vessel crossing our bow from port to starboard, range twenty kilometers. Director, begin tracking and inform the CAP flight leader.”
“Admiral,” Brent said slowly. “There’s a flotilla of yachts following her.”
“Very well,” Fujita said.
“More yachts,” Allen said, suddenly. “Hundreds of them coming out of Yokohama and Kawasaki. They’ve all hoisted lanterns – like a celebration.”
Fujita swung his glasses. “The o-ban, Admiral Allen – the festival of the dead. Those are special lanterns. Each contains a candle and on the paper cover is printed a lotus flower and the legend ‘funerals for the myriads of souls of three worlds.’” He slipped his glasses to his waist. “And they expect many more souls to be available from this world, today.”
Silence as every man focused his glasses on the Libyan, which was clearly visible off the starboard bow, headed for the Uraga Straits and the Pacific. “She’ll pass within six kilometers,” Fujita said, almost to himself.
As the Al Kufra moved slowly toward Yonaga’s beam, Brent studied the old trawler. She appeared to be less than two hundred feet long and poorly maintained with rust glaring from her hull like open sores. She had a low forecastle with a small crane while her superstructure, funnel, mast and antennas were crowded aft. Just abaft the funnel and on a high platform, Brent saw her thirty millimeter Gatling, manned and trained on Yonaga. And men crowded her bridge, staring at him through binoculars. Then he caught the flash of white, rising up her mast. “She’s putting up a hoist.”
“That’s not bunting,” Allen said. “It’s attracting sea gulls – dozens of them”
“It’s a man,” Brent said. “Bound – hanging by the feet.”
“Sacred Buddha,” Fujita muttered.
Leaning into his glasses, Brent saw the naked man clearly. Head down, he appeared to be alive, twisting, humping, screaming at sea gulls that fluttered madly about his head, pecking at his eyes. He was very old, toothless, white hair flying in the wind.
“Fujimoto!” Brent cried. “Fujimoto!” He pounded the windscreen. “The gulls! The gulls are going crazy!”
Gripping his glasses with white knuckles, Fujita stared, cursing under his breath.
“They are tearing his eyes out! Attacking him everywhere,” Kawamoto said hoarsely. “May I order the gunnery officer to open fire, Admiral? We owe the commander a better death than that!” He waved. “His karma is being destroyed! His spirit will never enter the Yasakuni Shrine, sir!”
“No! I gave the emperor my word. I promised Yonaga would not fire a shot in Tokyo Bay unless attacked.” The old admiral turned to the talker. “Notify the brig… have the Arab prisoners brought to the bridge immediately. And tell Chief Orderly Horikoshi to send up the German captain. Use the elevator!” And then grimly, “Call the galley… I want six large raw fish.”
“Fish?” Brent said under his breath into Mark Allen’s ear. “The samurai would have a snack, now.” Mark Allen shook his head stiffly, moved his glasses ove
r Al Kufra.
“Sir,” Kawamoto persisted with an anguished voice. “Just a round or two into her rigging!”
“No, Captain.”
“She’s stopping,” Brent shouted.
“They are making certain we can read their hoist,” Fujita said, bitterly.
Every man on the bridge stared silently as the Libyan lay to, bow swinging slowly into the wind. And the maddened birds swirled, pecking and tearing at Fujimoto. There was blood on his face, streaming from holes where his eyes had been. And his genitals had been torn from his body, splattering his abdomen and stomach with blood and gore. Brent felt a welling.
There were shouts and the two Arab prisoners were suddenly pushed out on the platform by a pair of seaman guards. Short and dark with black frightened eyes, the two men crowded defensively against a bulkhead as a cook carrying an aluminum battle ration container pushed past them.
Ignoring the prisoners, Fujita spoke to the cook. “There… dump them there!”
“On the deck, sir?”
“Do not question orders!”
In a moment, six raw fish had been dumped on the deck in front of the Arabs. Fujita stared at the Arabs with eyes as cold as a tomb. Pointing at the intelligence ship, he said, “You will answer that hoist.”
At first, the men did not understand. But then, at Fujita’s urging, they moved to the windscreen, stared at Al Kufra and her swirling white cyclone of seabirds. Then, simultaneously, two little dark men moved their eyes to the fish at their feet.
“No! Allah! No!” They both broke for the door. But a half-dozen guards rode them to the deck.
“Strip them! Bind their hands and feet just like his!” He waved at Al Kufra.
“Admiral! Admiral!” Brent Ross shouted. “You can’t do something as hideous as—”
“Silence, Ensign!” Fujita interrupted with a voice of cold steel. “Do not attempt to teach a samurai your woman’s brand of Western justice. You will observe bridge silence or leave this platform.”
Brent stared at Mark Allen who looked back helplessly. The forty-seven ronin ran through Brent’s mind.
Fujita turned back to the Arabs who lay nude and bound on the cold steel grating. “Gut the fish and rub them all over our guests, especially there,” he pointed at the Arabs’ heads, “and there.” He indicated the men’s genitals.
Twisting and turning, the Arabs screamed and howled; cried and cursed. But the guards leaned over their prisoners, rubbing entrails and blood onto their hair, ears, eyes, testicles, and pubic hair.
“More! More!” Fujita screamed. “Push it into their ears, noses – everywhere!” He waved a hand. “Can you not see – the sea gulls are hungry!” He pointed at the Arabs. “You will answer Al Kufra’s hoist!”
“No! No! Allah! Allah akbar!”
“Take them to the signal bridge!”
As the Arabs were dragged from the platform, there were shouts of “Gott! Gott!” And Captain Werner Schlieben was pushed out on the flag bridge.
“Over there,” Fujita said, waving. “Your Arab friends.”
There were shouts from the foretop, and Al Kufra was under way, bow pointed again toward Uraga Straits.
“Two-block that hoist!” Fujita shouted to the talker.
There were more screams of, “Allah! Allah!” Brent turned toward the funnel and looked upward as two twisting nude bodies rose quickly to the yardarm. Immediately, seabirds streamed from Al Kufra.
“Morder! Morder!” Schlieben screamed. Brent had never seen a man so terrified. He had wet his pants.
More shouts from the foretop. Men were pointing. Brent brought his glasses up. Blue puffs of smoke were being ripped by the wind from the Libyan’s bridge. And Fujimoto was jerking grotesquely. His chest was ripped, spilling shattered bone and torn lungs into the wind. Then pieces of bone exploded from his head and the red-gray contents of his skull streaked to the sea.
“They’re machine-gunning him, sir,” Brent said quietly.
Calmly, Fujita turned to Kawamoto and pointed at the Libyan. “She will be six hundred kilometers at sea before we get under way, tomorrow.” He hit the windscreen with a tiny fist. “See the engineering officer now! I want boilers four and eleven at full pressure as soon as possible.” He stabbed a finger. “We may never find her!”
“Aye, aye, sir,” the executive officer said, handing a rating his helmet and binoculars and heading for the door.
Inhuman shrieks turned every head to the yardarm. The birds had arrived. Brent could hear the rustle of wings, the sharp calls. The nude bodies twisted and jerked. There were shouts of “Allah! Allah!” In less than a minute, the Arabs’ eyes were bloody holes, genitals ripped, and streaming blood and flesh.
A sticky rain sprayed the bridge. Brushing his cheek, Brent's hand came away streaked with blood. He felt a spasm, tasted bile.
Fujita turned to a lookout. “The gun locker,” he jerked a thumb toward the bridge. “Bring me an Arisaka.”
The rating vanished through the door and in a moment returned with the rifle. “Give it to him,” the admiral said, gesturing toward the German. “And you, Hori,” Fujita said to one of the guards, “put your pistol to the back of Captain Schlieben’s head.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
In a moment, the German stood holding the rifle, staring at it dumbly.
“It has Mauser action, Captain,” Fujita said. “You should know how to use it. But if you make any mistakes, that barrel you feel is a six-point-five Rikushiki. Seaman Hori will blow your brains all over this platform.”
The German’s glassy eyes moved to the Admiral and then to the yardarm. “Gott! Gott!”
“You may relieve your friends of their misery, now! ‘Special action,’ Captain – ‘special action.’”
Slowly, Schlieben brought the rifle up, squinted through the sight. There was a shot, blue smoke, a brief whiff of cordite. Howling, one of the Arabs twisted, blood streaming from his stomach. Wings beat in irritation. Two more shots. More screams.
“You have two more rounds,” Fujita said calmly. “One each in the head.”
“Ja! Ja!” Two shots rang out. There were no more screams, but the rain continued.
“Justice! Justice!” the German said, dropping the Arasaki to the deck. “Gott! Gott!”
“Bring them down!” Fujita shouted. And then to Hori, “Put them in the refrigerator.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
As Brent left the bridge, he pondered the vengeful, bloody, diabolical mind of the samurai. Why the refrigeration? Why?
Chapter XIII
It had been thirteen hundred hours before Yonaga got under way. All morning long, Fujita had stomped up and down the bridge, brushing past Brent Ross and the lookouts, tormented in his own private hell. Finally, by noon, the engineering department had reported ready; and pressure was brought up in all boilers. Then, the posting of the special sea detail and the familiar clank of chain as the twelve ton bower anchor was heaved in.
Finally, the shout of “Anchor aweigh!” brought a smile to Admiral Fujita’s face and the old admiral turned to the talker. “Secure the special sea detail; set the sea watch; Readiness Status Two. Tell the officer of the deck to steer for the middle of Araga Suido, and I will give him a course after we clear Nojima Zaki. Maintain a speed of eight knots.” Brent felt the deck vibrate as the four great drive shafts began to turn.
Within minutes, they were in the middle of the narrow channel, Uraga dropping off to starboard, the Amaha Peninsula to port. Brent began to feel the swell of the open sea. Soon the sky darkened, as streaks of gray clouds curtained off the sun. Singing halyards and antennas signaled a stiffening wind which sent rollers to greet the great carrier. She took the successive banks of white crested rollers casually and effortlessly, sluicing spray to port and starboard like an old hound shaking water from her ears.
Fujita turned to the talker. “Colonel Bernstein and Admiral Mark Allen to the bridge.”
In a few minutes, both men, dressed in
foul-weather jackets and green caps, stood at the windscreen.
Fujita spoke to the Israeli. “We must maintain this slow speed – live out the hoax.”
“Good idea, sir.”
“Do you think anyone believes Yonaga is rusted beyond repair – that we are headed for Kobe and conversion to a monument?”
The Israeli shrugged. “It’s worth a try, Admiral.”
“And the SOS!”
“It might work – throw them off the scent, temporarily, anyway.”
The Americans exchanged a look. “An SOS?” Mark Allen said.
“Gentlemen, it is time to confer in Flag Plot,” Fujita said. And then, after glancing at a point of land falling off in the distant port quarter and sighting through a gyro repeater, he turned to the talker. “Tell the officer of the deck to steer one-seven-zero.”
Silently, the officers followed the admiral off the platform. But Brent lingered a moment, eyes moving to the navigation bridge, gun director, range finder, and finally the halyards. All traces of the previous day’s horror had been scrubbed clean and covered with paint. But the smell was there: rotten fish and the sweet foul breath of human decay that not even the stiff wind could eradicate. It was in the cracks in the grating under his feet, caught under rivet heads, trapped in seams. As Brent stepped through the door, he knew the bridge would always be a place of death.
*
Seated with Admiral Mark Allen, Colonel Irving Bernstein and Admiral Fujita’s staff in Flag Plot, Brent Ross realized his short stay in the sick bay had removed him from many critical planning sessions. But, perhaps, Fujita and Bernstein had made the plans and kept their own secrets. Certainly, Mark Allen appeared unaware; and Matsuhara, Atsumi and Hironaka stared expectandy at the admiral who stood before a wall chart of the Pacific Ocean. Kawamoto looked thoroughly confused but Kawamoto always looked thoroughly confused.
And something new had been added to the room: a wooden box containing incons hung from a bulkhead next to the usual picture of the emperor. The Americans and the Israeli stared.