Flying Blind

by Max Allan Collins

“No.” He kept his eyes straight ahead as we marched along, didn’t even look at me when we spoke.

  “But you said you have priests.”

  “Two. For Chamorro, the missions. Spanish priests. Darker skin than you.”

  The morning was still young, and clusters of giggling children, knapsacks on their backs, were heading for school, and an occasional straggling fisherman trudged toward the pier. Handcart peddlers wound their way among the bicycles and pedestrians, hawking in their language, making it sound as if torture were being performed on them, while postmen and policemen on their rounds pinged the bells on their bicycles to clear a path.

  Of course, nobody dinged a bell at the chief of police, who was diminutive of stature but towering in bearing; in fact, everybody was clearing a path for us, as we left a trail of intimidation and astonishment in our wake, the chief and the foreigner.

  “You have a nice town here,” I said.

  “We have factory, hospital, post office, newspaper, radio station, electric light.”

  “It’s a modern place, all right.”

  On the other hand, they didn’t seem to have indoor plumbing. The side streets were unpaved and dusty, and lined with an assembly of bedraggled stores and ramshackle private homes with tin roofs; outhouses were easily glimpsed, even if they did lack our traditional half-moon.

  We were four blocks from the waterfront when the street opened onto the town square, built around a rather grand, official-looking white wooden two-story building, colonial-style with pillars and double doors. The place was like an ice cream salesmen convention: everybody going in and out wore white suits or white shorts and white shoes with white Panama hats or white pith helmets or white military caps.

  “Court of Justice,” Chief Suzuki said, quietly proud. “My office here.”

  But we didn’t go in; the chief had paused at a black sedan parked out front. He barked at a cop in white shorts, caught on his way into the courthouse; the cop bowed, on the run, went inside and shortly thereafter another servile young copper in white shorts, white cap, and black gunbelt came trotting out and saluted the chief. The chief gave him some instructions, the young copper said, “Hai,” and opened the rear sedan door for me.

  I took my cue, and the chief got in after me, with the young copper going around the front to play chauffeur.

  “Would it be impolite of me to ask where we’re going?” I inquired, as we pulled out between bicycles. The backseat was roomy; it wasn’t a limo, but this Jap buggy with its cushiony black interior was comfortable, even though it rode like a lumber wagon—they’d have to go some to catch up with American automaking.

  “Forgive my rudeness,” Chief Suzuki said. “I escort you to meet shichokan.”

  “Oh. Local official of some kind?”

  “Yes. What you call ‘governor.’” He pondered that for a moment. “Not governor of Nan’yo chokan; he is not chokunin. He is governor of shicho.”

  “You mean, he’s the governor of Saipan?”

  “Not Saipan only. Governor of all Mariana Islands.”

  “Oh…but not of Micronesia.”

  “Yes.” He seemed pleased that his intelligence and communications skills were overcoming the limitations of the slow-witted child in his care. “I instructed Lieutenant Tomura to call ahead. The shichokan…” He chose his words carefully. “…anticipation our arrival.”

  Then he leaned back, happy with himself over that memorable sentence.

  “Does the, uh…shichokan speak English?”

  “Yes. Not as well as mine. But he does speak.”

  We passed a pleasant park with a bandshell, yet another confounding familiarity in this foreign place; somehow it was oddly reassuring when we glided by a pagodalike shrine on a tastefully landscaped plot.

  “Buddhist?” I asked.

  The faintest frown passed over the chief’s stone visage. “Shinto.”

  “I see. You mind if I roll the window down?”

  “Please,” he said.

  It was warm in the car, and the only breeze available was the one stirred up by our movement. The chief rolled his window down, just a little, a nice politeness on his part.

  “Do you mind my asking what the population of Garapan is?”

  The chief said, “Fifteen thousand people. Few thousand islanders.”

  Glad he broke it down for me.

  I had expected a native village with a small garrison of Japanese troops treating the place like a prison camp; instead, I was in a boom town, attested to by the contemporary residential neighborhood we were rolling through, bungalow after bungalow rising three or four feet off the ground on stone or concrete pillars with neat little yards and gardens of papaya, guavas, mangoes; despite modern construction and style, the little houses wore tin roofs whose grooves sluiced rain to gutters down to cisterns. Occasionally a stone building dating to the period of Saipan’s German domination would rear its head, or a hacienda-style abode going back to the Spanish days. Primarily, however, I was witnessing the boxlike houses—some wood-frame, mostly of newer, cement construction—in the classic gridlike layout of the modern factory town.

  But what were they making in this factory town? Were these thousands of people (and natives) all employed by the sugar refinery, and the service industries of the downtown?

  On the fringes of the city, finally, were clusters of the poor indigenous housing I’d expected, the thatched wooden shacks before which sat heavy-set middle-aged native women in faded sarongs fanning themselves with palm leaves. I felt strangely reassured.

  “Where are the native children?” I asked. I’d seen very few, except a handful of filthy bare-assed toddlers.

  “In school. We bring these simple people kansei.” The chief winced in thought, briefly, realizing I wouldn’t understand the meaning of that final word. “Rules,” he explained. “Law from society.”

  “Civilization?”

  He nodded, as if to say, Not quite, but close enough.

  As we left the city, moving along the wide, well-paved road that seemed to be leading us into the green hills, bright red hibiscus grew along roadside hedges beyond which stood guardlike rows of palms, their broad leaves whispering with a hint of wind. Then our sedan turned down, and up, a gently sloping gravel road boarded by blooming flame trees, a riot of red and orange under the dull gray sky.

  We ended up in a crushed-stone cul-de-sac, where a number of other black sedans were parked, their radio antennas bearing tiny white flags with red suns. We came to a stop, and the young copper came around and opened the door for his chief. I was reaching for the travel bag at my feet when Chief Suzuki said, “You will not be needing.”

  So I left the bag behind—and the nine-millimeter tucked away inside, rolled up in my spare priest attire. The young cop chauffeur stayed behind, too, as I followed Chief Suzuki up a wide crushed-stone path through an immaculately landscaped Oriental garden, with perfectly squared-off hedges and flawlessly rounded bushes, to stone pillars bordering stone steps that rose in landings up a terrace at whose crest sprawled a latticework-decorated white wooden structure, red-roofed, cupola-surmounted, swimming in a sea of red, yellow, white, and purple chrysanthemums, emerald explosions of palm trees standing watch.

  This would seem to be the governor’s mansion.

  At a slant-roofed portico awaited a Naval officer in a green denim uniform—long pants, jodhpurs, a black-holstered revolver, and something else: a samurai sword. I decided I liked the more casual uniform better.

  We were immediately ushered inside, into a world of sliding wooden-frame rice paper walls, hardwood floors, and Buddha-belly vases of dried flowers. We removed our shoes, trading them for slippers, and were escorted into a large sunken octagonal chamber that might have been the living room, but was more a receiving-area-cum-office. The furnishings were sparse but of an impressive dark-lacquered teakwood: three chairs arranged before a massive desk, behind which a higher-backed chair awaited an important posterior.

  The possessor
of that posterior was a short, heavy-set individual of perhaps fifty, wearing the same white uniform as the chief of police, but with a black string tie, and without a gunbelt, or samurai sword either. His face was pleasant and round, fat enough that his features were getting lost in it, distinguished by a mustache and goatee, his thinning black hair combed forward and plastered to his forehead like a spreading spider.

  Chief Suzuki, with a half-bow, said, “Shichokan, this Father Brian O’Leary from Milwaukee, United States of America.”

  “Father O’Leary,” the shichokan said, in a surprisingly bassy, rumbly voice, bowing. “You honor my house.”

  I returned his bow. “You do me honor, sir. May I present my letters of introduction?”

  The shichokan nodded.

  I withdrew from my inside jacket the two envelopes and handed them to him.

  “Please sit,” he said to me, and with a nod extended the invitation to Chief Suzuki.

  We took chairs opposite the desk as he got back behind it, settling into his teakwood throne, where he put on roundlensed wire-frame glasses and read the letters. One, on embassy stationery, was from the German Ambassador to the U.S.A.; the other was from Sean Russell, Chief of Staff of the Irish Republican Army, currently in the States on a fundraising tour, and laying low after several major London and Liverpool bombings.

  They were not forgeries. Wall Street boy Forrestal’s connections with wealthy supporters of the I.R.A. had made both letters possible; and the real Father Brian O’Leary of Milwaukee, a former I.R.A. advocate appalled by the recent spate of bombings, had lent his cooperation. It was a solid cover story.

  Seeming mildly confused, the shichokan removed his glasses and rested them on the table, by the two letters, which he had not returned to their envelopes. “You are Irish? Or American?”

  “I’m an American citizen,” I explained. “My parents were from Dublin. There are many of us in the United States who aid and support the I.R.A. in their righteous war on England. The reason I have come is to seek your—”

  The shichokan raised a pudgy hand in a “stop” gesture, smiling; his head looked like a cookie jar with a face on it. A face with Fu Manchu whiskers, that is.

  “Before we go on,” he said, in that bass that rumbled up out of his squat body like an echo up a canyon, “I will need to show your letters to kaigun bukan. I hope you will forgive this formality.”

  I loved the way he made it sound like I had some kind of choice in all of this. And, of course, I had no idea what the hell a kaigun bukan was.

  “Not at all,” I said.

  He folded the pudgy hands as if in Christian prayer. “I have taken liberty of calling him. He should be arriving soon…. Tea?”

  A lovely young woman in a flower-print kimono served us, and we sipped from delicate hand-painted porcelain cups as the shichokan asked me how I liked his island and I told him how swell I thought it was. Chief Suzuki said nothing, barely sipping his tea. Then the shichokan inquired if I would like to visit the Spanish mission while I was on Saipan, to meet with my fellow priests, and I declined.

  “I came to your island on matters of state,” I said, “not of church.”

  “In Shinto religion,” the shichokan said good-naturedly, “there is no division…. Ah! Captain Tatehiko.”

  The governor rose and so did we, turning to see a slim, surprisingly tall naval officer, in the more formal jodhpurs and sword uniform, embellished with campaign ribbons, striding across the hardwood floor; that he, too, wore slippers made him seem somewhat absurd though no less formidable. I placed him in his mid-forties, a warrior with Apache cheekbones and cuts in his face where his eyes should have been. He half-bowed to us. We all returned the compliment.

  “Captain Tatehiko no speaks English,” the shichokan informed me. “Please to sit. I will speak to him of what we have said.”

  Chief Suzuki and I returned to our teakwood chairs while Captain Tatehiko—who was apparently the liaison officer between the Navy and the colonial government—stood with crossed arms, like a sentry, listening to the shichokan, who had remained standing. Then the shichokan handed the letters to Captain Tatehiko and stood beside him, pointing at words as he read/translated.

  Tatehiko listened to all this expressionlessly, then nodded curtly and took the third chair, beside Suzuki, as the relieved shichokan took his seat behind the desk, again.

  “Father O’Leary,” the shichokan said, leaning forward, hands flat on his desk. “Why do you honor us with visit?”

  I stood, to lend some weight to my words. “The I.R.A. has since January of last year been waging a bombing campaign against Britain. Unfortunately our resources are limited. The quality of our explosives, homemade or stolen, has not always been the best.”

  “Forgive please,” the shichokan said, holding up his palm again. “I must translate as we go.”

  And he translated for Tatehiko. Then he nodded to me to continue.

  I did: “We have been discussing an alliance with Germany for many months. Arrangements are being made for Sean Russell to go to Berlin. He seeks aid to fight the common British enemy.”

  I paused, to allow the shichokan to translate for Captain Tatehiko, which he did.

  Then I went on: “I am acting as a courier in hopes that Mr. Russell, or some other I.R.A. envoy, can go to Tokyo to build a similar alliance with your imperial government. Britain bedevils you by aiding China; they hold island territories in these waters that are rightfully yours. With funding and supplies, the I.R.A. can mount a sabotage campaign aimed at key British war industries.”

  Again I paused, and again the shichokan translated.

  “The I.R.A. can damage the British transportation structure,” I said, ticking off a list on my fingers. “It can demoralize the British public. And it can cripple the British aircraft industry. But we need funds, arms, and supplies. That is the substance of the message I have been asked to convey.”

  And the shichokan translated.

  And I sat.

  Captain Tatehiko mulled all of this over, briefly, then spoke in Japanese, at some length, while the shichokan listened intently.

  Then the governor said to me, “Captain Tatehiko thanks you for your message, and your friendship. Your message will be conveyed.”

  “That’s all I ask,” I said. I looked at the Captain, said, “Arigato,” and nodded.

  He nodded back.

  The shichokan said, “Some time may pass before we have a reply to your message. Captain Tatehiko will speak to Rear Admiral who will speak to Naval Ministry. I will do same with chokunin of Nan’yo chokan.”

  “I understand,” I said. “However, I have arranged passage on a German trading ship due to dock at Tanapag Harbor two days from now. Back to the American territory, Guam.”

  Captain Tatehiko spoke to the shichokan, apparently asking for a translation, which the shichokan seemed to provide. Tatehiko spoke again, and now it was the governor’s turn to translate for me.

  “Captain Tatehiko say that if you stay longer, we will arrange safe passage to Guam at a later date.” The shichokan held his open palms out in a gesture of welcome. “Will you be our guest until that time?”

  “I would be honored.”

  The shichokan beamed. “You honor us, Father.”

  Both Chief Suzuki and Captain Tatehiko excused themselves to pursue their official duties, but I remained behind, at the shichokan’s insistence, for luncheon, with the promise of an island tour thereafter.

  My pudgy host and I sat in another room, on woven straw mats in the usual cross-legged Nipponese style, with a sliding door drawn back on a view of green hills rising into the mist. Two lovely young women in colorful kimonos attended our every whim, keeping first our teacups filled, then later serving tiny warm cups of sake, which I sipped guardedly. Lacquered trays with small dishes of food—seaweed, rice, pickles, miso paste—were set before us. The stuff was lousy.

  It wasn’t like I didn’t know or appreciate Japanese cuisine. There was
a place back home, on Lake Park Avenue, called Mrs. Shintani’s where they cooked sukiyaki on a little gas stove right at your table, thin slices of beef, crisp fresh vegetables, the warm aromas rising to your nostrils like undulating dancing girls. Take a young lady to Mrs. Shintani’s for an intimate evening of heavenly dining, and I dare you not to get lucky.

  This tasteless goo wouldn’t get you to first base.

  “I hope you enjoy meal,” the shichokan said. “We eat only finest imported food. Sent from home in can, jar, sack.”

  “Aren’t there farms here?” I asked, my chopsticks finding a pinch of flavorless seaweed. “I know there’s fishing.”

  The shichokan made a sour face. “Island food. We do not eat the harvest of primitive people.”

  On a tropical paradise, surrounded by waters teeming with fish, where coconuts and bananas and pineapples flourished, where native farmers raised chickens, cattle, and hogs, these proud people ate canned seafood and seaweed out of jars. This was my first real indication that they were nuts.

  The roly-poly shichokan’s tour of the island was fairly brief—an hour and a half or so—but illuminating. Riding in back of another black sedan, with a white-uniformed driver, our route was at first scenic, following hard dirt roads south through lush foliage, stopping to take in a small bay, a tidal pool, a blowhole, and several craters. Then, apparently to demonstrate to his new I.R.A. friend the capabilities of the Japanese, the shichokan paused to allow me to take in the panorama that was Aslito Heneda airfield.

  Two vast crushed-coral runways, two service sheds with spacious crushed-coral aprons, five dark-green wood-frame hangars, and a similarly constructed terminal, Aslito Heneda was a modern airfield in the shadow of an ancient mountain. The facility had an unmistakable military look, but as we coasted by, I caught sight of no fighter planes, no bombers—the only planes on the apron were a pair of airliners—and a few parked automobiles, with some civilian activity around the terminal building, a small ground crew on the field.

  “Great Japan Airways,” the shichokan explained. “People come to work Saipan. Some come for vacation from Tokyo.”