He finished his beer and took another one from Sue, who let him know she liked being called Suzy by her friends and he now qualified. “I guess they felt they wasted a trip, and they’re right. I don’t know what they wanted, but they should have known they wouldn’t get it from me. They’ll just have to wait until the war’s over and they talk to the other survivors.”
If there are any, Suzy thought. She’d caught snatches of conversation between senior officers that told her otherwise.
She decided to redirect his thoughts and pointed out the glories of the sun reflecting off the waves. It didn’t work.
“Japan’s out there,” Jamie said.
“So’s Hawaii,” she answered softly.
Jamie bit his lip. “God, I’m sorry. I haven’t given a thought about you losing your father. I must sound like a spoiled child.”
“Just a little,” she teased. She was gratified that he did seem genuinely contrite. A lot of guys wouldn’t have cared.
“Tell me about your dad,” Jamie said.
She leaned back on her elbows and drank in the sun. She took off her glasses, and the world beyond a dozen feet away became a pleasant blur. She wished she was naked and could let the sun play over her entire body as she liked to do on some of the more private beaches in the area. She wondered what Jamie’s reaction would be. Shock? Dismay? Delight? Maybe someday she’d find out.
“Not much to say. He was a good man, a good father, and a good sailor, and I loved him very much. He encouraged me to get an education, which I did. He served with Spruance, which is how I got this job as his clerk at the tender age of twenty-four. Being a sailor, Dad was gone for long stretches of time, so I got used to him not being there. My mother lives in Oakland. They got divorced a few years ago, and she remarried some guy who works in a factory. The guy’s a jerk, and I’m really disappointed in Mom, but I guess she needed the security.”
Suzy took another beer for herself and snapped off the top with more force than was necessary. She’s hiding her anger too, Jamie thought, but not very well.
“Dad died on his battleship,” she went on. “Now they’re saying the Arizona will be a permanent tomb or memorial when we retake Hawaii. I’d like that, and I know he’d like that. I could visit there and know where he is and that he’s finally safe.”
“In the meantime, we do what we can,” Jamie said.
He was proud of his work. Already a partial solution had been found for the problem of the torpedoes running deeper than set. The weight difference between the test warheads and a real warhead was significant enough to cause a torpedo to run ten feet deeper than expected. Adjusting the settings was all that was needed, although there was concern that the earth’s magnetic field was producing variances that also affected the settings.
The situation with the impact detonators was still not totally resolved. It was now a given that they were too sensitive, and there was talk of copying a more reliable British design. In the meantime, mechanics onboard submarines tinkered with each torpedo to make them all more effective.
“When you write your book, put me in it,” Suzy said with a grin.
“My what?”
“You heard me. After the war, you will write a book about your experiences, and I want to be in it. As the heroine, of course.”
Write a book? Funny, but the thought intrigued him. “Okay, I’ll write a book. And I’ll put those four admirals in it in all their glory.”
Perhaps a book would be a way of telling the world about the quiet courage of people like Seaman Fiorini, and about his photos, which might have influenced the course of the war.
They finished their beers, and Suzy broke out sandwiches. As they ate, she couldn’t help but think that her father would have liked Lieutenant Jamie Priest.
Charley Finch had never intended to be a traitor. All he ever wanted was a little peace and comfort for himself and a way out of the prison camp. If it meant ratting on a couple of his buddies, well, so what? He’d done it before, and he’d do it again if the situation was right.
All he thought the Japs would do about the POWs’ command situation in the camp was to smack the guys involved around a few times, maybe put them in solitary for a while, and everything would get back to business as usual. Hell, everything had been fine so far. His “duty” outside the compound was now considered normal by his fellow prisoners, who actually awaited his returns with eagerness. Along with the others who worked outside the barbed wire, he had become a font of information regarding the outside world and even “smuggled” in excess food. His buddies in no way begrudged him the fact that he ate his fill from Jap leftovers and brought only what he could hide and carry. What the hell was he to do-they’d all laughed-push a handcart or wheelbarrow full of Jap goodies in each day? Only Jake knew that Colonel Omori made Charley take the food. It made him more valuable and trusted by his fellow prisoners.
All this was now threatened, even destroyed, by the punishment Omori was inflicting on the four American prisoners, which Finch was forced to watch. He was behind a screen and the POWs were blindfolded, but he had the nagging, crawling feeling they knew he was there.
Goto was clad in only a loincloth, and his short, muscular body glistened with sweat and the prisoners’ blood. He had worked the men over with his pliers as they hung from the rafters by ropes tied under their armpits. All their fingers and toes had been smashed, as had their noses and teeth. Now Goto was finishing the job by battering each man’s chest and back with a baseball bat. As another blow landed, a soldier groaned and Charley heard the nauseating sound of a rib snapping.
Goto laughed and pounded the kidney area of another man. Blood had begun to ooze from their bowels. At least they were through screaming. The first few hours had been terrible with their howls of agony.
Goto shifted and began a series of savage uppercuts with the bat on the prisoners’ testicles. He had done this earlier, and their balls were swollen like purple grapefruits that looked like they would burst.
“Enough,” Omori said, and his lieutenant looked disappointed. “Cut them down and have the other prisoners retrieve them.”
Charley was surprised. Earlier, Omori had said he would have them executed. The colonel looked fatigued. Charley had picked up enough Japanese to overhear that the colonel had spent the night drinking and fucking some white woman. Lucky bastard. It also looked like the colonel had been using drugs, and Charley found that intriguing.
The soldiers whispered that Goto had been dipping his wick in some local pussy all night as well.
“Don’t worry, Sergeant Finch,” Omori said, “they will die. Only it will be in full view of their comrades and over a great period of agonizing time as the prisoner medics try to save them. Since they don’t have the resources to do any such thing, their efforts will simply prolong the men’s death agonies.”
Charley shuddered. Jesus, what a sadistic bastard.
“You have kept your bargain,” Omori said. “And I will keep mine. We have captured two FBI agents and now have the two men who commanded the prisoners. You will not return to the camp. You will be reported as killed for insolence. Instead, you will be installed in a cottage just off the base and out of sight of the other prisoners. You will be fed and have liquor and the services of one of the Korean whores.”
Charley thought he’d been promised a white woman like the one Omori was screwing, but he didn’t press it. “Thank you, sir.”
“When the time comes, I will have other duties for you.”
Charley was again surprised. He had thought this was a one-shot deal. Of course, he realized ruefully, he’d also thought the four men would be relatively unharmed.
“There are Americans loose on several islands,” Omori continued, “and I believe you would be perfect in flushing them out.”
“What will you do with them, sir?”
Omori glared at him angrily. The question was impertinent. “They are outlaws, Sergeant; what do you think we do with outlaws?”
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br /> Charley Finch bowed deeply in apology. “I understand fully, Colonel Omori.” And he did understand. If a few more died so he could stay alive and well, that was just tough shit. It would be years at the earliest before the United States returned, and Charley Finch had best look out for Charley Finch. He knew it would be difficult to explain his prosperous survival when so many others were dead and dying, but that was something he would resolve when the time came. Maybe he would move to Japan? Hell, after he’d helped them, the Japs would welcome him with open arms, wouldn’t they?
CHAPTER 14
It was time to do something constructive, Jake thought, long past time. He and his men had spent more than enough days hiding and organizing, and now they had to show the people of the big island of Hawaii that there was an American presence nearby, and that it was capable of hurting the Japanese.
This wasn’t something he’d decided on lightly. His mission was to stay hidden and await orders. However, he had to live in the area, and that required the assistance of the handful of people on the farms and in the villages outside Hilo. Many of them were wavering in their support of America, and others felt that the Japanese were invincible and would stay forever, making it necessary to reach an accommodation with their new masters.
Jake believed it was time to change a few minds. Fortunately, the Japanese proved very cooperative in the matter.
Those farmers and villagers in the area who were not of Japanese or Hawaiian extraction were often subject to brutal treatment by wandering patrols of occupying soldiers, who, without anyone to stop them, had become more and more adventuresome. In particular, the Chinese were often treated terribly. It was Jake’s opinion that the soldiers were out plundering on their own while their commander in Hilo drank himself into a daily stupor.
As the Americans were on the move from one campsite to another, a terrified child told them that the Japs were at a farm owned by a Chinese family just a couple of miles down the road. Jake took with him only his regular soldiers and two of his marines. The remaining handful of add-ons and sailors were ordered to stay in place. Most didn’t have the experience needed for this. Jake wondered if he had it either, but he kept that disquieting thought to himself.
The Japs were still at the farm when they arrived and appeared totally unaware of impending danger. Hawkins counted eight of them, and several were lurching around drunk. All had rifles, although several rifles were leaning against the neat white frame house. An army truck was parked by the farmhouse, but it didn’t look like anyone was in it. A barn, again white and neat, was behind and to the left of the farmhouse. The buildings were surrounded by acres of fields, in which wheat and vegetables grew several feet tall. Part of the area had been turned into a rice paddy. The whole place exuded prosperity and the results of hard work.
“If we do this right, sir, this could be a turkey shoot,” Sergeant Hawkins said.
Jake nodded. “Then let’s make sure we do it right. Jesus, what’s that?”
Jake focused his binoculars on the slightly open door to the barn, past which it was difficult to see. A naked woman stood against it. Her arms were spread wide, and her hands had been nailed to the door. Her head was slumped on her chest, and she had been disemboweled. A sausagelike strand of entrails hung down her belly. Other cuts and slashes were visible on her body, and another body lay in the barn. It appeared to be an adult man.
Jake had sent two men to reconnoiter the other side of the farm. They reported that there were no other Japs in the area and no sign of any other civilians either.
“They killed them all,” Hawkins said and spat on the ground.
Jake took one group of men and Hawkins the other. The idea was to get at the Japs with converging fire from two angles to hit them before they had a chance to react. No one would fire until Jake did and until they reached their assigned positions, about a hundred yards from the farmhouse.
They crawled through the fields and reached their places without being seen, even though their movements must have disturbed the vegetation. The Japs were too drunk to care. They would be leaving soon for the comforts of Hilo, Jake thought, and then they’d get them. He didn’t want to attack when they were in the house, which they could use as a fort.
The Americans didn’t have long to wait. A group of Japanese lurched and staggered out of the house laughing and carrying bags of loot. It was too much to ask that all would line up neatly for him, but six of them were outside at the same time and were easy targets. When they started to pick up their rifles, he knew there was no time to wait.
“Fire,” he yelled, and his five men let loose and were immediately followed by Hawkins’s group.
Four of the six Japanese were hit immediately. Their bodies jumped and fell, then lay still. The remaining two tried to aim their rifles but were riddled by additional bullets. A seventh Jap came running from the house and right into a hail of bullets, which hurled him backward. The eighth jumped out a window and ran into the barn. He had a pistol in his hand and looked terrified.
“Mine,” Hawkins said and darted to the barn before Jake could speak. He lunged through the door and rolled into the darkness inside. A moment later there was the sound of a pistol shot, followed by a full clip emptying from an M1. A moment after that, Hawkins emerged and waved at Jake. A Japanese pistol stuck out from his belt.
Jake’s soldiers checked the rest of the farm. The man in the barn was dead, and it looked like he too had been used for bayonet practice. A girl, about ten, was found dead in the bed in the farmhouse. She had been raped repeatedly and then had her throat cut. Like the others, she had been dead for a couple of hours.
“I don’t know what the Chinese do about their dead, but let’s bury them quickly.”
“What about the Japs?” Hawkins asked.
Jake thought for moment. “Put the bodies in the truck and we’ll drive it into the woods. Maybe it’ll take them a long time to find it. And don’t forget to take their weapons.”
Later, as they hiked back to their camp, Jake sensed the uplift to his men’s spirits. They had finally struck back, and it felt good. They might have to play hide-and-seek with the Japs for a while, but Hawaii was a big island, and they could take advantage of every rugged inch of it.
Better, the people of Hawaii would soon know that the Americans were still around.
“Hawk,” Jake said, “why did you go into that barn alone?”
“Lotsa reasons, sir. If I hadn’t, you might’ve, and you’re more important than I am. Also, the fucking Japs pissed me off. I like Chinese food.”
The two Japanese soldiers detailed to take Alexa home had been ordered not to attack her. They obeyed but decided the orders allowed them to paw and fondle her. When they arrived at her home, they pushed her out of the car and onto the lawn.
Her return attracted Melissa, who helped the stunned and half-naked woman up from her hands and knees and into the house. It was barely dawn, and none of their few neighbors appeared to notice the event. In a handful of terse sentences, Alexa told her friend what had happened and said that she wanted a bath.
Melissa drew the bath and helped Alexa into the comforting hot water. She watched sadly as her friend attempted to wash away all vestiges of the terrible night. It wouldn’t work, of course, but Alexa had to try, and she scrubbed her body with an almost manic fury, even putting the soapy washcloth into her mouth, which made her gag. Her stomach was empty, so she could only retch.
When Alexa finally tired, she left the tub and lay down on her bed. Melissa then called for a doctor she knew who was very discreet. He was of Hawaiian extraction and was still permitted to practice. He examined Alexa, gave her a pelvic exam, suggested she douche, and left them.
Somewhat revived, Alexa filled Melissa in on the details.
“Do you have a diaphragm?” Melissa asked.
“Of course. I was so stupid. I didn’t think I’d need it.”
“Just make sure you take it the next time. It won’t save you from s
ome of the sick games he likes to play, but it should keep you from getting pregnant by the bastard.”
Next time? Pregnant? Alexa hadn’t given that a thought. Dear God, would it happen again? Yes, she realized, it would happen again. And again, and again, and again. The colonel had made it clear that she was his possession, his mistress. There would be more times with him mounting her, more sessions with Han, and more times with her sucking Omori’s penis and tasting his semen. She wanted to be sick.
Melissa stayed with her as long as possible through the day, even offered to stay the night with her child, but Alexa said no. She would deal with her problem herself.
Thus, she was alone and the house was dark when the rear door burst open. Three men dressed in dark clothes and hoods grabbed her, and one covered her mouth with his hand before she could scream. She had been ready for bed, and there were no lights on.
One man was the leader. “Please be quiet, Mrs. Sanderson, we are not your enemy. We wish to talk with you. Will you promise not to scream?”
Alexa agreed. Once again she saw no choice.
“What do you want?” she asked when they released her. They didn’t behave like burglars. “And why those hoods?”
The leader handed her a robe, which she put on eagerly. She’d been wearing only a short cotton nightgown. The act of tying the robe around her waist comforted her.
The leader gestured for her to sit down, and he did as well. The other two took up stations as guards, looking out the windows. “I am sorry that I was too late to help you in your dealings with Omori. I can only hope that I can now be of assistance. As for these ridiculous hoods, it is better for everyone if you do not know our faces at this moment.”
“Then you know what happened?”
“Yes. He raped you. He forced you to serve him in order to save someone else. The Japanese will do this wherever and whenever they can. The threat of sexual assault is a weapon of terror for them.”
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