Girl Rides the Wind

by Jacques Antoine

  Just a year ago, this news would have produced squeals of delight, but now, at almost nine years old, she’d grown much more reserved, too reserved for the carefree childhood Gyoshin wished for her. Probing fingers eventually found a tickle-bone, hiding just under her ribs, and got the preferred response.

  “Eee-hee-hee,” she shrieked and squirmed. “Stop it, Auntie Go-Go.”

  “So, I can come to your birthday party?”

  “Yes, yes, yes!”

  For the next hour, Gyoshin walked with her niece in the woods that encroached more and more every year on the untended estate, and ran after her awkwardly in business shoes, and held her close when she caught her up. Could she find Taka-chan in her daughter’s eyes? It was practically a religious quest that she owed to her cousin’s memory – she was the strong one, the one to whom the charge of the family ought to have been entrusted. What she wouldn’t give to have her back now.

  On the ride over to the Okamoto’s farm, bringing Haru-chan home in the last estate car, she admired the preparation of the rice paddies along the roadside, newly flooded and ready for planting. The irony wasn’t lost on her, that what little remained of the family’s agricultural holdings was managed mainly by the old couple on whom Ojii-san had vented his wrath. The taue-ki would mechanize the process and preserve them from the backbreaking task of planting individual rice-seedlings.

  * * *

  Looking down from the end of Vulture’s Row, craning their necks to see down the starboard side of the flight deck, CJ and Zaki scanned the firing line, looking for Emily and Kiku. Sergeants Huart, Durant and Ishikawa stood behind a line of Marines and Jietai stretched out along the flight deck, also observing another range practice session. Every few minutes, Huart’s team ran across to the port side to replace the targets strung up between two lines, while the self-styled trigger-pullers reloaded and traded positions.

  “There they are,” CJ shouted into Zaki’s ear, even though all the firing didn’t produce much noise on the open ocean – it sounded more like salvoes of champagne corks than little explosions from their perch. “On the end.”

  CJ ducked into a nearby hatch and Zaki trailed dutifully after, skipping down ladders, and trying not to hit his head on a bulkhead.

  “Slow down, CJ,” he called vainly after her. “They’re not going anywhere.”

  Out on the flight deck, on the end where the target line had been set closer for pistol practice, they found Emily, with a few Marines hovering nearby.

  “I’m such a poor shot,” Kiku moaned, as Sgt Huart showed her the target sheet with only three holes near one edge.

  “It looks like you just need to brace yourself better,” Emily offered, as the rest of the shooters began to congregate at the far end of the deck and get a line ready for an FOD walkdown.

  “Hold on, guys,” Huart shouted to his team. “Keep the range clear. We still have two more shooters.”

  “Not necessary, Sarge,” Emily said. “I think Kiku’s done, and I’m not shooting today.”

  “Don’t worry, LT,” he replied. “We brought your 1911 up, in case you wanted to get some rounds in.”

  Emily glowered at him, and then noticed the idiot grin on Durant’s face, and Ishikawa’s, too. “Fine,” she said, and held out her hand.

  Huart offered her an M9. “You sure you wouldn’t prefer the smaller Berretta?”

  Emily took it, squared herself to the range and squeezed off six rounds.

  “Not bad,” Huart said. “All six in the silhouette, and three center mass.”

  Emily handed him the Berretta and took her 1911 from his other hand and repeated the performance, more or less.

  “Not bad at all, LT,” Huart said. “I have to hand it to you. I didn’t think you’d be able to handle the heavier weapon.”

  “I’m not really interested in shooting at this distance,” Emily said.

  “Too close for you, Ma’am?” he said with a sneer.

  “Too far, Sarge. I work better up close and personal.” Durant and Ishikawa snorted at this remark, and Huart turned to look at them in irritation at not being included in whatever the new joke was.

  “Can I try?” CJ asked, and when Emily handed her the 1911, she emptied a new clip, standing ramrod straight, with one hand behind her back. “It’s got a nice feel. A little heavier, but the recoil is controlled better than the M9. I see why you like this one, Em.”

  “That’s one of the special features of the CQPB,” Durant pointed out. “They did some work on smoothing out the recoil.”

  “That could come in handy for shooting in bursts,” CJ said.

  “You missed the target entirely, Ma’am,” Huart said, when his corporal retrieved the sheet.

  “I wasn’t aiming at that one,” she said, and tilted her head to one of the remaining targets still strung up on the far end of the deck.

  “Don’t just stand there…,” Durant growled at the corporal, and he dutifully trotted the fifty or so yards to the far line to fetch it.

  “Okay, I am officially impressed, Ma’am,” Durant said, when the target showed six out of seven holes center mass. “You can ride along with my platoon anytime.”

  “Thanks, Sarge, but I’m happy just doing my bit to keep the BHR afloat,” CJ replied, and then turned to Emily and Kiku. “Speaking of which, Zaki and I have an UNREP to supervise in a few minutes. The resupply ship is on approach, and you said you wanted to see what I do, right?”

  “Holy crap,” Huart whispered to Durant. “She did that at almost two hundred feet.”

  Emily nodded to her and Kiku trotted along after as they made their way back to the hatch, and then down the ladders to the Upper-V, where one of the Master Chiefs had already lined up the Underway-Replenishment crew by the starboard elevator doors.

  “We’re at fifteen knots and thirty five yards, Ma’am,” he reported.

  “Prepare for the gun-lines, Chief,” CJ replied.

  A guideline was fired across from the flight deck above them, and several pneumatically-fired lines came across from the Kaiser-class oiler, USNS Guadalupe. After several minutes, the fuel lines were secured and pallet transfers began, two at a time, with forklifts working in tandem to move supplies off the delivery line.

  “You run quite an operation,” Emily said. “I’m glad we’re not also using the Phrogs for a Vertical-Replenishment this time, or I might never get to see this side of things.”

  “The ships are moving quickly,” Kiku observed.

  “Yes, more speed makes it easier to maintain a steady spacing.”

  The chief and two ensigns supervised each pallet, occasionally confirming the checklist with CJ. After a near collision of forklifts, the chief glanced at CJ, who nodded her approval, and he proceeded to chew out the offending parties. Zaki called out that they were ready to disconnect the fuel lines, while CJ checked the chief’s clipboard.

  “Two more pallet stacks to bring across,” she barked out. “Let’s look sharp everyone.”

  “This is quite an operation,” a familiar voice purred from behind the girls, who turned to see Capt. Diao. “This is why the Chinese navy is not competitive with the US Navy, even within the China Seas. We are not prepared to mount an operation on this scale.”

  CJ grunted at this seeming praise, then turned her attention back to her men and the arrival of the final pallets, while Zaki walked over.

  “People always assume it’s something top secret,” he said. “But a navy is effective mainly because of stuff like this, and you can see videos of our replenishment on YouTube anytime. They’re everywhere. CJ and her crew are the backbone of our operation.”

  “I see,” said Diao. “So in a war, one ought to target the supply chain officers first.”

  “Wouldn’t matter,” CJ snorted. “The chiefs could manage just fine without me, everything except the paperwork. But they can find a hundred more like me, ready to step in at a moment’s notice.” Her face fairly glowed as she said this last bit, smiling at the Master Chi
ef the whole time.

  “Enough war talk,” Emily said. “Don’t we have to get to the XO’s ward room, Kiku-san?”

  Kiku nodded, and after a few politenesses were sorted out, the two of them hurried off, and Diao followed after at a discreet distance.

  “That was some fine shooting up there,” Zaki said, once the last details of the UNREP wound down. “You still haven’t lost your touch.”

  “If I’m lucky, I’ll never have to do it in battle… again.”

  Chapter 10

  A Calligraphy Lesson

  Kano wanted to crumple up the letter, but he considered the handwriting and thought better of it. He glanced at the idiot American with the improbable name, Oleschenko, snoring in his bunk, and above him Diao, who may or may not have been asleep.

  “Better not leave it lying around,” he muttered. “Maybe it’s time to go find her.”

  The door creaked behind him, but he managed to hold the knob quietly. Now to figure out where she’d be at this hour, oh-two-hundred hours. Maybe the weight-room, pumping iron with the muscleheads – how did she tolerate their company? He might have mentioned the letter at dinner, but somehow the right moment never arose, what with Diao prosecuting his “charm” offensive, and Lt. Otani fawning on him… or so it seemed to him. But Lt. Tenno hadn’t eaten – he’d taken notice of the way she picked at a salad and a bowl of rice. “She must be hungry,” he concluded, and headed for one of the informal messes, where midnight rations were served.

  He glanced both ways in the second deck passageway, then stuck his head in the entryway and looked around the room, hoping she’d be visible without having to enter. No such luck, and the steam-table for the buffet obscured the seating along one bulkhead. He didn’t really want spaghetti and meatballs, or fried chicken. Fortunately, the mess was almost empty, and no one was queued up for food. A few tentative steps further into the room and he spied her, slurping some sort of noodle dish and talking with Martinovich, her flying partner, whose precise rank he’d forgotten.

  “It means I won’t be flying on those days,” he overheard her say, his English improving almost against his will during his time onboard. “You’ll have Baca in that seat.”

  “I won’t feel nearly as safe without your arsenal in the cabin,” Martinovich replied, laughing through a mouthful of food.

  “May I sit down?” Kano asked, trying not to look at Martinovich’s mouth.

  Emily and the fat Captain – yes, that’s his rank – exchanged meaningful glances, or more precisely, she glowered at him, and he quickly put his tray together and stood up to leave.

  “I can take a hint,” he said, in that way Americans have, which always left Kano wondering whether they meant to be rude or jovial. “I’ll leave you two by yourselves to chatter in some foreign tongue.”

  She looked at him expectantly, once they were alone, and he unfolded the letter that was now a bit worse for wear.

  “I think this is meant for you.” He slid the paper across the table, and she squinted at it for a long moment, before finally passing it back to him.

  “Are you sure? It’s from your mother, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. But I think she wanted me to show it to you.”

  She picked it up again and began to examine it more closely. “Her handwriting is difficult for me to read. I think she’s telling you about her garden, but some of the kanji don’t look familiar to me.”

  “But you do know how to read nihon-go, right?”

  He’d met a few Nissei who’d come from America, speaking Japanese well enough, but unable to read it, and couldn’t help thinking of them as not genuine. If it were true of them, how much more true should it be of this half-breed girl? But he also resented her insertion into his life, whatever the forces behind it. The fact that she’d monopolized his father’s attentions in the last year of his life, that his most essential commitments concerned her, rather than him, or his mother… to Kano, this was unforgivable. Add to that the inexplicable liberty the Crown Princess granted her, and he felt justified in thinking the worst about this interloper. But the strangest thing was that however comforting such a condemnation might be, when she merely grunted at him, he found himself recognizing the injustice of his train of thought.

  “What’s this bit mean?” she asked, pointing at a swirl of lines, and then sounding it out. “Josha-hissui, jissha hikkyo… did I get that right?”

  “That’s the part that tells me it’s meant for you,” Kano said, after catching himself gazing a little too long at her neck and the line from chin to ear. “It’s a quote from the Heike Monogatari.”

  “You mean because that’s a poem about warriors, and she thinks I’m a…”

  “…a warrior? No, that’s not it. The Heike reference means it’s really a message from the Crown Princess, and I doubt she’d have anything to say to me.”

  “That’s not your mother’s style?”

  “No, it is. When I was a boy, she would tell me about exchanging coded messages with her best friend in school, always taken from the ancient tales.”

  “And her best friend was…”

  “… the future princess.”

  “ — ‘The mighty must fall, those who are full will be emptied’ — does that sound right?”

  “Close enough,” Kano replied.

  “The rest is a bit easier: ‘The wind has shaken the trees in the garden. Dark clouds in the west, the last chrysanthemum blossom may fall.’ … I don’t think that can be good.”

  The sound of her words sent a shiver of recognition through Kano. Half-breed or not, the import of the message, mysterious as it seemed, spoke in the voice of the imperial court, and he needed her to interpret it for him. Whatever judgment he might think he could form of her, the undeniable fact staring him in the face was that she was closer at this moment to the beating heart of his culture than he was. It was time to stop caviling and recognize this truth for what it was.

  “What do you think it means?” he asked in a quaking voice.

  “The last chrysanthemum blossom must refer to the Emperor’s granddaughter, Princess Toshi.”

  “Third in line to the Chrysanthemum Throne, if the Bill of Succession passes,” he said after a moment. “But why would she fall?”

  “This message must have come from Ozawa-san. He and the Crown Princess have long suspected a conspiracy against her daughter. Your father came to Annapolis to warn me of it. But why would the dark clouds be in the west. Do they think the threat comes from the US or Europe?”

  The mention of his father stung, since that very mission had cost him his life. An hour earlier, he’d have turned from her and stalked off in anger at the reminder. But the unthinking presumption of an American soldier – yes, she is an American after all, not Japanese – gave him the space of a moment to compose himself and laugh at her.

  “Not that West,” he snorted. “Chuugoku is west of Japan.”

  “Yes, of course, China” she said, and even she had to laugh at herself. “If they sent this to your mother, they must think time is short.”

  “What can they expect of you… or us? We are useless to her on this ship.”

  “I wonder what the dark clouds really refer to. There’s been no news of a crisis in China, or anywhere in the East China Sea.”

  “What about the news of a shake-up in the Imperial Household Agency. Didn’t you hear?”

  “If that’s the wind the letter speaks of…” Emily paused a moment, her eyes wandering, unfocused, around the mess.

  “…and if it means the Crown Princess managed to remove conspirators from her household…” Kano continued, picking up what he took to be her meaning.

  “Perhaps there’s more time to prepare than we thought. We’ll be back in Sasebo in a little over a week.”

  “Maybe that’s what the first phrase is meant to tell us… I mean you,” he added after a moment, and feeling a bit flustered. “You were right about it, but only the first half is included in the Heike Monogatari –
josha-hissui, the mighty must fall. The second half…”

  “… sounds very Buddhist – ‘the full will be emptied’ – but with a note of… I don’t know… maybe despair.”

  “Unless being full is bad,” he added, surprised that he could share so much with her.

  “Or not all her enemies are ‘full’,” Emily said.

  “Full means what… prosperous?”

  The two of them talked over the meaning of the message, and wondered what they should do with it. He couldn’t keep from staring as she turned the paper over in her hands, her fingers such an enticing mixture of strength and delicacy. She examined it from different angles, let the light catch it in one way and another, until finally she asked if he would leave it with her.

  “Your mother’s handwriting is still a mystery to me, especially in that phrase.”

  “That’s another of her childhood games.”

  “A different kind of code?”

  “Yes,” he replied. “They saw an ancient manuscript once and tried to copy its style. It became one of their little tricks. Not many people could figure it out, but you did.”

  “Just a lucky guess.”

  “The secret’s in the stroke order. If you write the kanji in a specific, non-standard order, you end up with something that’s almost inside-out, in a subtle sort of way. To read it, you have to think in a way analogous to the inverted order of strokes. Let me show you.”

  It didn’t take long before his explanation led him to want to show her another connection he’d always found in his mother’s calligraphy, and to do that required a sword and a dojo. The training room on the third deck would have to do, and fortunately no one was using it.

  “A shinken would be better,” he said, brandishing one of the oak practice swords he’d insisted on bringing on board. “But this bokken will have to do.”

  He slashed the air with it while she watched his demonstration, and then tried to replicate it.

  “Everyone thinks kendo is about directness and simplicity – and it is – but they fail to see the subtle inversions that characterize some of the strokes.”