Indeed, Ebiro Takamori, the man whom Father had selected to be fishing master of this important first voyage, had proven himself many years ago to have been a good producer. Also, he bore a distinguished family name. Counted on the fact that he still possessed the ability to judge currents and sea beds for the presence of fish. The fortunes of the trip rested ultimately on his shoulders. He remained aloof while scanning the seas, studying old charts from years ago, and occasionally speaking on the radio to other fishing masters. His time to prove himself would come only when they reached the fishing grounds and he took command of the ship from the captain.
As for the fishermen themselves, they stayed belowdecks, biding their time until they could produce. They stood their watches, played card games, ate heartily—since all they wanted was provided them—and slept.
“Ha. There,” said Fishing Master Takamori as he scanned with binoculars from the wheelhouse. “Coming from Kushiro up north, those vessels. We’re not alone out here.”
In the distance, two ships rode wave crests and disappeared into troughs. Kiyoshi knew that their trip through the ocean would be alongside others, but only seldom had they sighted any vessels making the voyage to Alaska. He knew that Takamori had spoken with at least four other ships via radio. Had the new fishing agency allowed by the governing Americans in Tokyo given too many owners permission to come, so that there wouldn’t be enough fish to catch?
A voice spoke in English through the static on the ship’s shortwave radio. “Japanese fishing boat Shoji Maru. Do you read me? Do you read me? Over.” Kiyoshi took the microphone. “Here. Yes. Shoji Maru. Hello.” At least he could enjoy the fact that he alone of the men aboard the vessel spoke English. The others in the wheelhouse—fishing master, captain, and helmsman—all turned to watch him with respect. “Hello, hai, yes, yes?”
“Give us your ETA for rendezvous at north latitude . . . west longitude . . .” ETA? What did the speaker mean? But he understood the other words. He hurried to the chart that lay unfolded on a cramped table in the corner, studied the marks on it, and declared into the microphone: “Vessel Shoji Maru. Location, now. Latitude 46°-37' north. Longitude 35°-57' west. Okay?”
“Read you, Shoji Maru. Assume that’s your present location. But I’m asking your ETA here. Estimated Time of Arrival. Over.”
“Ah!” Now that he understood he could save face before the others. It was easy to answer since they had calculated their position that morning. “Arrival time. Shall arrive at rendezvous today number thirty of May month. May 30th. At afternoon time hour 1600.” He enjoyed having mastered so many of their expressions and the look of respect it gained him from those watching. “Thus, arrival time vessel Shoji Maru, seven hours from this which is now present nine hours in the morning.”
After a long pause: “Shoji Maru. The time you gave me, arrival time 1600, May 30th,—that’s four o’clock in the afternoon—is nearly a whole day from now, not seven hours. Request that you re-calculate and clarify. Wait. Hold on.”
When the radio activated again, it was a different voice, and this at last spoke Japanese. “Shoji Maru. Give me your position. Then give me your date and time.” Kiyoshi complied. “Shoji Maru, I must inform you. You have given me Tokyo time and Tokyo day. We here, waiting to receive you, observe the time and date of our true location, in Alaska of United Sates. Your boat has crossed the International Date Line which divides one day from the next. Thus, you have entered back into the previous day and have lost a day of the calendar. Furthermore, you have in this process advanced five hours against the sun’s passage around the Earth, making your day by the sun five hours earlier. Present local time here is 1400, 2:00 p.m., on May 29, not nine in the morning of May 30 as it is indeed now in Tokyo.”
Kiyoshi glanced around at the others. Only the fishing master nodded with any comprehension, and even he was respectful. His own blunder in timing and position might not be held against him.
The radio voice continued, “If you wish to keep Tokyo time for yourselves, very well. But you must also at once prepare a clock for communication with Alaska where your vessel now speaks with officials here. For example, I’m now speaking from an office in Adak of the Aleutian Islands, where I can look up to see a clock with the time that guides business here.” The voice in Japanese paused long enough that Kiyoshi thought he had ended, but then spoke so quietly that hearing was difficult through the static. “Listen. Not everyone in America is happy that we’re finally allowed to come here to fish their seas again. They don’t understand that the seas are for everyone, and thus that we are entitled to come take all we can from it. A vessel of the United States Coast Guard is preparing to depart here and meet your fishing fleet. Uh, to make you welcome.”
“We come prepared to show all respect,” said Kiyoshi as he glanced toward the others and exchanged nods.
“If you’ll take my advice, be discreet,” continued the voice in Japanese. “Follow their rules, especially at first. Americans don’t realize the wealth of their sea here. If they did, they might turn greedy and try to fish it all themselves. If you and the others are discreet, you’ll get rich from what’s here. So. Listen carefully to any rules they might want to give. And, hah! As your first sensible step, set a clock to function in their time.”
Several hours later the ship arrived at the gathering point where other Japanese fishing vessels pitched and maneuvered. Beyond the enclave, open sea stretched dark and empty in all directions. Truly this was water that belonged to those who had the ability to fish it. By arrangement they lowered their smallboat to take Kiyoshi over to the mother-factory ship that had been designated for official greetings. He dressed in a suit and tie that he had brought for the occasion and completed the look with lowcut shoes.
“Put on rubber boots and a rubber coat for the trip over, Tsurifune-san,” Captain Tanaka suggested. “Otherwise you’ll be dripping water.” Kiyoshi considered. Would these official Americans respect a man in common seaman’s clothes?
“Coat, yes, since that can be removed. Boots, no.”
In the smallboat, they had barely left the lee of their ship before the sea gurgled over the rail and left water sloshing around Kiyoshi’s feet. When they reached the side of the host ship, Kiyoshi stood, gripped the rope ladder as it clattered toward him, and, with dignity, climbed to deck. Seawater squished down from his sodden shoes. No matter. His shirt and tie were only a little bit wet and would soon dry. The Americans would see him as a vessel owner of authority.
Fortunate indeed that he had dressed for the occasion. Barely had he reached the ship’s rail when men with cameras began snapping his photograph.
36
CLASSIFIED SECRET
ADAK, MAY 1952
Swede Scorden straightened his tie, then tipped up a glass of beer and gazed out the window. Beyond low corrugated sheds and ships both military and cargo, there stretched the nothernmost edge of the North Pacific Ocean. Light from a gray sky played on the water’s restless surface. Was this to become the seaway of his life—he who had once considered the Atlantic Ocean to be mankind’s natural boundary? At mid day in the Adak officers’ club, the tables were empty except for a group of women playing cards. On the evening of his arrival the day before, with John Stockhausen, manager of the company’s new crab processing plant in Adak, a welcoming host, the place had been lively enough with filled tables and everywhere the white dress uniforms of the American Navy.
His present assignment was to observe and report, whatever his impatience. Events would occur in their proper time. Eventually he’d be home again. The Seattle company that had finally placed him second in command of its local cannery in Ketchikan, then in summers put him in full charge of their seasonal facility in Bristol Bay, now barely allowed him time to be home. Mary and the children might as well remain in Ballard, where they were visiting her sister, for all that their house in Ketchikan mattered while he pursued the fish business in remote corners of Alaska. Now when she returned, she and the kids
would be speaking as much Norwegian as English from all the contact with their cousins down there. At a time when his own English, honed conscientiously, might now be taken for native-speaking American. He had even mastered profanity! Profanity only when appropriate, of course—only among fishermen and workers. He’d labored to become a leader. When he walked in town to the bank, dressed in suit and tie, people addressed him respectfully. All in English.
“Hi,” said Stockhausen, and he pulled out a chair for Swede. When Stockhausen tossed his cap onto an adjacent chair, the man was revealed to be going gray, but he still retained the youthful American vigor that Swede so admired. “The club sandwich ain’t bad, if you haven’t already ordered.”
“I had thought out here near the sea that people would gladly order fish.”
“That’s if you haven’t been here long enough to get your fill of fried, creamed, baked, whatever with scales on it. But don’t let me stop you.”
A few moments later, a Lieutenant Matt Chivers joined them with a casual apology for being late. He, too, seemed driven by energy. “Can’t stay long. You guys ordered?” To the waiter. “Halibut, fish, whatever’s your special, but pronto.” Stockhausen introduced Chivers to Swede as one of the US Navy’s finest young officers, whose present duties included communications with ships at sea. Chivers regarded Swede with only a casual interest. “Just looking around, eh? For some report back home? If you want to know, Stockhausen here’s not doing a half-bad job. Joined Rotary—away and running you might say. Already on a committee with me there.”
“I’ve come to observe the Japanese fishing ships, sir. When they assemble in water close by.”
Chivers hesitated, then asked, “Where’d you hear that?”
“Come on, Matt,” laughed Stockhausen. “The whole world knows.” The Lieutenant looked from one to the other and frowned. “Me, I don’t know nothin’!”
“Nobody knows except everybody,” continued Stockhausen. “Knows that some Japanese-American guy got flown in here yesterday to go greet the ships. And that some Coast Guard ship tied up down at the pier is set to take him out to go aboard and interpret. That one of the radio bands you think is closed to civilians has been buzzing in both English and Jap for two—three days now. That we’re allowing the whole Jap fishing fleet back here.”
“You sure didn’t hear that from me, buddy.”
“You deny it?”
“Shoot!” Lieutenant Chivers shook his head. “And they got me up at four this morning to decode a message from HQ in DC. Classified Secret. That’s the official designation, last step below Top Secret. Took me over an hour, sliding strips in and out of the decoding board.” He considered. “Things I couldn’t tell you. But stuff that, maybe, you just told me. Washington lives in its own world back there. But you didn’t hear that from me.”
The waiter brought their drinks. John Stockhausen fingered his glass. “The thing is, Matt, we wonder if Swede here could go out on that ship that’s supposed to meet the Japs. To observe whatever’s out there. No use letting foreigners in if we can’t do business with them. Swede here’s doing American business. It’s only patriotic to send him out.”
“That ship, that I don’t acknowledge exists, is Coast Guard, John. I’m navy here.”
“Navy runs this base whoever comes. You’re in the office that does all the communicating and arranging. I hear you’ve even got a Jap interpreter here talking to them on radio.”
“Who said? That’s classified.”
“Adak Base might be run by the US Navy, but that don’t stop navy gossip. See those women over there playing bridge? What do they have to do all day but jaw-jaw while their big men run the base? You think one of them wouldn’t spot a Jap among all these white people? And start buggin’ her husband when he comes home from a hard day’s?”
“You think there’s not a lieutenant commander over me, and then a captain, all answering to the navy brass in DC who suck up to, I guess, Congress and maybe the State Department?”
“And a Rotary election coming up for the new chair of the Steering Committee? Everybody knows anyhow, Matt!”
“Sorry, man. Washington, DC, comes first. Let the politicians talk when they’re ready. Or play their game. I’m nearly halfway into twenty-year retirement, and I plan to get there with a clean ass.”
Stockhausen considered, then shrugged. They ate in silence. The voices of the women at the nearby table continued in a lively murmur.
After the departure of Lieutenant Chivers, John Stockhausen exclaimed against keeping government secrets when everybody knew anyway. “First American boat that sees those Jap letters on a ship in our waters and calls a newspaper, the only people in the dark’s going to be the bureaucrats. If Eisenhower gets chosen by the Republicans this summer, he gets my vote in November. This Democrat pussyfoot under Truman, or Adlai Stevenson or whoever else they decide to back, it’s got to stop.”
Swede had studiously read American newspapers, but still he was not certain. The bestial Germans who’d murdered his father were now being allowed to prosper again. China, the ally of America during the war, had turned Communist and become the enemy. Nothing bad was said any more by the American government about the Japanese, who’d started the terrible Pacific War. Japan had apparently become acceptable to do business with. Well, never in the Atlantic could he ever do friendly business with anyone speaking the detested German! But in the Pacific with Japanese? The war in Asia hadn’t been his concern. If America now decided to make Japan strong, and he himself wished to be American, all he could do was participate and help his company get its share.
And so he shrugged and settled within himself to be patient when Stockhausen advised: “Stick around for a few days. The company’s paying. Something might happen. You can at least watch my operation.”
Swede wandered the compound of the Adak Naval Base. It was a dreary but clean place of long, low, prefabricated buildings. Why had he bothered to come all this way? They might have known when they sent him how secret the government was keeping this matter, and saved themselves the expense.
“I can’t seem to shake you,” growled a familiar voice. “Last year Bristol Bay, then Kodiak. Now here. You following me?”
It was his old friend, Jones Henry the fisherman. No mystery here. Jones wore one of his familiar frayed wool shirts and greased denims, with signature red-billed cap pulled low over his squinting eyes. His chin was blackened by a few days’ stubble. A welcome sight in this enclave of clean military uniforms!
“On the contrary, sir,” Swede joked heartily. “It is you who must stop following me!” He grasped Jones’s hand, even though it was perhaps soiled from work. “I haven’t seen you since you moved from Ketchikan last . . . November, was it? Moved to where? Here? How is your wife? And you?”
“Didn’t move to this navy dump! Moved to Kodiak,” Jones growled. Got a new boat. At least, one that’s new-rigged. Out here now scouting for crab. Thing of the future.”
“Good, good. And your wife?”
“Adele? The girl’s okay now we’ve moved. Don’t cry about things anymore.” Jones took a moment to consider. “Already gotten mixed up in something to do with the town council. Keeps her busy and out of my hair. Livelier place than Ketchikan, that’s for sure. Want to come see my boat?”
“Later perhaps. Later. I’m now trying to puzzle out a situation.”
It turned out that Jones had come ashore to get fuel and water, as well as some odds and ends from the post exchange where, as an ex-Marine, he had permission to deal. Swede accompanied him. The PX, located in one of the longest buildings, turned out to be a veritable warehouse of goods more abundant than any Ketchikan establishment. As Jones observed: “Navy out here on this asshole island from nowhere’s got to keep the wives happy.”
“Now doggone. They must let anybody in here.” It was the two Coast Guard chiefs whom Swede had met at the brothel in Ketchikan and then seen in the crowd at the village dance in Akutan. Vast Alaska was really so
small! Now here they all were again in the remote Aleutian Islands.
Before the conversations had ended, they were all four seated at a club in another building—this one for non-commissioned officers—drinking beer and eating peanuts and pretzels. Swede had tried to hide his excitement, but now that they were settled in, he ventured: “You’re aboard the Coast Guard vessel in the harbor, then? Why so far out from Ketchikan.”
“Summer logistics,” said Ed Hancock. “Some Coastie ship has to do it every year. Us this time. Got sidetracked for a little run out of here tomorrow. Then on to Attu.”
Swede opted to speak boldly. “A run to meet with Japanese, yes?”
The two chiefs exchanged looks. “What did I tell you, cuz?” said Jimmy Amberman. “Word’s all over the place about this Jap we’re here to pick up. Wardroom steward told me he’d had to make up the extra bunk in the junior officer’s stateroom, so you know he’s not just crew. And they’ve even locked up our cameras so nobody gets a picture of whatever it is.”
Swede leaned forward. “I wish to ride out with you tomorrow.”
“Then quick enlist in the Coast Guard, cuz.”
Chief Hancock shook his head. “I’d bring you aboard and show you the captain’s door so you might persuade him, oblige you that. But from the way we’re not being told anything I don’t think he’ll take you. Not often we see such hush-hush about whatever we’re supposed to be doing.”
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