Over the Hill: a novel of the Pacific War (Crash Dive Book 6)

by Craig DiLouie

In the end, he decided to trust that the emperor’s subjects would obey his command to lay down their arms.

  The rafts plowed the calm sea, making way toward the rocks.

  “Now this feels like the end,” Cotten said. “This feels real.”

  Charlie had to agree. In minutes, he’d return to Japan, this time as an agent of a conquering power.

  They reached the rigid sandstone rocks, which lay in neat lines radiating from shore, a formation like a washboard or the scales of a dead dragon.

  “We get out here,” Cotten said while they were still in the water.

  They piled out and carried the raft through the warm surf, which became shallower until they set foot on dry rock. Past the sandstone, a hill covered in wild grass sloped 200 feet in the air.

  Over the hill, they’d find the camp about a half mile inland.

  Charlie huffed toward the top, lagging behind the others.

  Braddock turned. “You need a hand, sir?”

  “I’m not an invalid.” He rested with his hands on his knees. To hell with his pride. “Yeah, give me a hand.”

  The chief wrapped Charlie’s arm over his shoulders and helped him climb.

  The top of the hill suggested a paradise. Majestic phoenix palm trees, a riot of red poinsettia trees, a panoramic view of the Pacific. The Swordfish, Tetra, and Barracuda lay surfaced off shore, launching a wave of bright yellow rafts that would ferry the prisoners aboard. Determined to reach the end of his personal war, Charlie ignored it and pressed on.

  Cotten paused to consult his map. “Horikiri Pass. This is the road.”

  They followed it until the shabby wood walls of Miyazaki Branch Camp came into view. Khaki-clad soldiers stirred in the guard towers. The prisoners had harvested most of the vegetables from the sprawling garden, which was now bare. The sight of this place filled Charlie with loathing. He wanted to burn it down.

  “So what exactly is the plan here?” Braddock wondered.

  “We won,” Cotten told him. “They lost. We walk right up to the gate and knock. Anybody starts shooting, we kill them all.”

  The chief paled. “Great plan, Jonas.”

  The Scouts spread out, preparing to defend the party if necessary. Charlie, Cotten, and Braddock walked up the road to the gate, which opened in welcome.

  Beyond its doors, Sergeant Sano frowned. “You.”

  “I’m back, pilgrim,” Charlie said.

  “I am surprised.”

  “What are your orders?”

  The sergeant glanced at the Scouts fanned out on the road. He returned his attention to Charlie. “The war is over.”

  “Good. Where are the prisoners?”

  “I ordered them confined to barracks when we saw you coming.”

  “We’re releasing them. Now. Any problem with that?”

  “I will take you to the commander.”

  Charlie opened his mouth to tell the interpreter in charge of discipline what he thought of that but reconsidered. Until several days ago, all these heavily armed men had been bitter enemies. The ceasefire had done nothing to quell the hatred built up over years of warfare. Observing proper form would ease tensions.

  “Very well,” he said.

  They followed him to the headquarters. Colonel Murata stood behind his desk and bowed to the Americans. “Konnichiwa.”

  “Tell him why we’re here, Sergeant,” Charlie ordered.

  Sano had a brief exchange with the commander, who gestured at the phone on his desk. Braddock watched everything with wide eyes. He’d never communicated with one of the people he’d fought for the past four years.

  “The commander says he will have to talk to Tokyo for orders,” Sano said.

  “How long will that take?”

  “The situation in Tokyo is difficult. He say you come back in several days.”

  “Okay.”

  “It’s okay?”

  “Okay.” Charlie slugged the commander in the face.

  Even in his weakened state, he summoned enough force to knock the colonel sprawling on the floor. The man looked up and wiped blood from his nose.

  So much for proper form.

  Charlie stood over him and said, “Sergeant, tell the commander he has new orders. We’re taking our men back now.”

  Another exchange, which ended in the colonel saying, “Hai.”

  “Yoku yattane, Taisa Murata,” Charlie said. “Arigato.” Good job, Colonel. Thank you.

  “Very diplomatic, sir,” Braddock said. Cotten laughed.

  Charlie said, “Wait until you see my next trick. Sergeant Sano, where is Nakano-san?”

  “Gone. Went to Kure before it was hit and has not come back.”

  “Then maybe our planes saved us the trouble of hanging him.”

  They returned to the compound. About eighty Americans milled around. Skeletal figures blinking in disbelief their living hell was over. Some cried. The Scouts mingled among them, shaking hands and handing out cigarettes.

  “Christ,” Cotten said. “Now that I’m seeing this, I’m surprised you didn’t kill that son of a bitch.”

  “There’s only one son of a bitch I’m interested in killing right now.”

  Lance Corporal Chiba approached, bowing and grinning like the clown he was. “Konnichiwa, Johnston-san. Big surprise. American friend. Americans good friends.”

  “Sergeant Sano.”

  “Yes?”

  “Instruct Heicho Chiba to lend me his katana.”

  Sano translated, and the corporal did as he was told, joining Charlie in admiring it.

  Charlie nodded to Cotten, who kicked out the man’s legs. The chubby guard cried out as he fell to his knees. The Scouts raised their weapons to cover the surprised guards.

  “Iie,” the man gasped as Charlie unsheathed the gleaming samurai sword. “Onegai shimasu. Gomen-nasai!”

  “What’s he saying?” Braddock said.

  Cotten spat. “He’s begging. He’s saying he’s sorry. He ain’t sorry yet.”

  Charlie raised the sword over his head while the prisoners gazed at him with blazing eyes. Sano took a step back, seemingly unsure whether to order his guards to intervene or make a run for it while he could.

  “Do it,” one of the prisoners snarled.

  Braddock raised his hands. “Sir. The war’s over.”

  Charlie sheathed the sword in its scabbard. Something he’d keep. For all Chiba had stolen from him, he’d taken the corporal’s manhood in return.

  “Sergeant Sano, instruct Heicho Chiba that he has three minutes to leave the camp before an American kills him.”

  Sano relayed the message, and Lance Corporal Chiba scrambled to his feet. “Arigato gozimasu.”

  The man ran toward the gate without looking back.

  “Iiko,” Charlie called after him. Good dog.

  The prisoners hooted and hurled insults at him until he was gone.

  It wasn’t Charlie’s recognition of the man’s humanity that saved him. Charlie didn’t see the Japanese as subhuman the way these guards had once regarded him. Chiba, however, was a monster, plain and simple. He had it coming.

  What stopped him was Hiroshima.

  Holding the sword, Charlie realized he could never kill again. For as long as he lived, he’d never take another man’s life.

  Braddock blew out the deep breath he’d been holding. “You did the right thing, sir.”

  “He’ll get what’s coming to him another day,” Cotten said.

  Other Americans would end up giving Chiba justice. Once the war crimes tribunals started, either the man would face decades of hard labor or swing from a rope for all he’d done.

  Charlie’s eyes roamed the prisoners, who looked back at him, some with surprised recognition. His gaze settled on a single ragged stick figure that was barely recognizable as a man.

  He approached this man, came to attention, and saluted. “Lieutenant-Commander Reilly. Welcome back, sir.”

  The shattered submarine captain sobbed as he returned the
salute. “Thank you.” His voice came out a whispered croak after months of disuse.

  “You’re safe now, Captain. We’ve come to take you home.”

  Sailors arrived from the three boats, including another two pharmacist’s mates and men carrying stretchers. The Swordfish’s executive officer was in charge of this phase of the operation, getting all these men to the shore.

  “Let’s go,” Charlie said.

  Apparently amused at how Charlie had taken over the mission, Cotten smiled. “What’s next?”

  “What’s next is we go to the base camp and get Rusty and Percy.”

  And if they weren’t alive, he might have to rethink his vow never to kill again in anger.

  “You heard the man, Johnny,” Cotten said. “Let’s get cracking.”

  Liking this kind of work, the Scouts grinned like wolves at the new orders and fell in behind the three veterans as they returned to the road.

  Charlie spotted the women, hauling water as they always did this time of day. At the sight of the gaijin, they shrank into the ditch and bowed.

  He smiled at the old woman, whose eyes widened in recognition.

  Charlie removed a pack of cigarettes from his breast pocket. “Jonas, you have any smokes?”

  The Scout handed over a pack of Lucky Strikes. “All I got.”

  Charlie handed them to the old woman.

  She bowed. “Arigato.”

  The cigarettes were highly valuable; she could trade them for whatever she needed.

  In return, he bowed. “Arigato gozimasu.” The extraordinary kindness she’d showed him had given him hope and more than that, faith.

  “You’re full of surprises, sir,” Braddock said.

  They continued toward the base camp. The gates opened as they approached.

  An unarmed Japanese soldier marched out, leading two Americans.

  Rusty and Percy.

  Charlie limped ahead of the others as fast as he could to embrace his friends.

  His war was finally over.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  RUSTY

  Jam-packed with riders, the Swordfish made way on all four mains toward Third Fleet and its hospital ships.

  McMahon granted Charlie permission to go topside for space and air. He and Rusty sat on the deck with mugs of coffee, reveling in the sunshine on their necks and the bow wake’s sea spray in their faces.

  Neither man said anything for a while. There was too much to say, and talking required much more energy than they were prepared to give. Honshu rolled by, more lush green and rocky coastline backed by rows of purple storybook mountain ranges. The Swordfish passed the Kii Peninsula, where American light cruisers and destroyers had hurled six-inch shells at a naval seaplane base near Kushimoto.

  Charlie told Rusty about the horrific time on the hell ship, his escape after it was torpedoed, Morrison’s death, rescue by the Thornfish, and transfer to the Swordfish, which was bound for Miyazaki for a rescue operation.

  The firebombing of sixty-five cities. The destruction of the Japanese fleet at Kure. Hiroshima. Nagasaki.

  “I once told you that your career would make one hell of a movie,” Rusty said. “I take it back. It’s too horrific for a family audience.”

  “The people back home don’t want to know the reality about the war.”

  “You sound like Braddock. If they did know, it would have been a hell of a lot harder to fight and win it. Would you want Evie to know?”

  “I guess not,” Charlie admitted. As long as America didn’t trick itself into fighting another one anytime soon, he didn’t care what they believed.

  “I wouldn’t want Lucy to know either. It’s bad enough she thinks I’m dead.”

  “No, she doesn’t. I told the captain of the Thornfish. He radioed Pearl. She’s waiting for you, Rusty.”

  Rusty gripped Charlie’s shoulder. He flinched at the sudden contact, and his own reaction irritated him.

  “Thank you,” his friend said.

  “You would have done the—”

  “Shut up and let me say it,” Rusty said. “You don’t know what I would have done. You saved us, and you almost died for it. Thank you. I mean it.”

  “I’m just glad to see you. If you and Percy had been lost, I don’t know.”

  They’d taken Rusty, Percy, and the worst-off from the prison base camp. Planes dropped supplies and provisions, so the remaining prisoners would be all right until other Allied forces could rescue them.

  “You found us,” Rusty said. “I know Percy appreciates it too, even though he isn’t talking much. The Japs didn’t just break his body in interrogation.”

  “So what about you? What happened after I left for Manchuria?”

  “The base camp was another sort of hell, but a far kinder one. More rations, we were allowed to talk, and the prisoners got fewer beatings. With over five hundred prisoners, the guards were less likely to single you out. Some of them were real bastards but none like the Ogre. That’s what me and Percy called Chiba.”

  “The shoe fits,” Charlie said. “I took his katana.”

  “So that’s whose sword you had when you showed up. You should have used it on him.”

  “I almost did. Then I figured General MacArthur’s lawyers would take care of him. He’s looking at hard labor or the gallows.”

  “Well, too bad,” Rusty said.

  “I did punch Colonel Murata in the face, though.”

  His friend laughed. “It’s the little things, brother.”

  Charlie laughed too for the first time in almost a year. “They do help.”

  “After Hiroshima, the guards looked really scared for the first time. All the Japs told us was the Americans had destroyed a city with a new super weapon. A guard who was kind to us told us to watch out. The emperor was going to give a speech. Either Japan was surrendering, or Hirohito was going to order the prisoners shot before banding together for a last stand.”

  The day arrived. Wearing their dress uniforms, the guards restricted the prisoners to barracks and prostrated themselves as the emperor delivered his message over a loudspeaker. A recording made in Tokyo. Major French, a flyer who was the senior officer among the prisoners, had instructed the men to arm themselves with anything they could find.

  “Luckily,” Rusty went on, “it was surrender. We couldn’t believe it. That night, though, some of the guards got drunk and tried to storm the barracks. They were going to kill us all for glory. The other guards stopped them. It was a near thing, though. We dog piled in front of the door to stop them from getting in.”

  After that, the camp crumbled. Some of the guards, including the camp commander, abandoned their posts, leaving a skeleton crew of guards to run the place. The prisoners took over and worked with the Japanese to keep the camp running.

  “Some of the guards were good men,” Rusty said. “I’ll testify on their behalf if I have to.” He paused and watched the sea roll by. “Our bombers had hit Miyazaki pretty hard. More than a third of the city burned to the ground. I saw the damage myself. I’d gone out with crews to help salvage. The Japs built their houses close together and made them out of wood and paper. They went up like kindling after the incendiaries hit. We painted ‘PW’ on the roofs of the buildings so we didn’t get creamed.”

  A squadron of fighters buzzed the camp at low altitude. They tipped their wings to tell the prisoners America had not forgotten them.

  “Then the bombers came,” Rusty said. “They dropped steel drums on us. The guys went wild chasing them. One crashed through a roof and almost killed Major French. Supplies and plenty of it. Food, cigs, antibiotics, you name it. I was starting to hope, Charlie. Then you showed up out of the blue.”

  “That’s a hell of a story,” Charlie said.

  They talked the entire day. A warm and placid dusk settled over the Pacific. As the light dimmed, Japan disintegrated into a dark mass, ethereal and unknowable. It was time to go below to get their supper. Charlie wanted to check on Lt. Commander Reill
y, but he didn’t move. He’d missed his friend and enjoyed talking to him. Right now, the world felt safe.

  Rusty gripped his shoulder again. Charlie didn’t flinch this time.

  “We thought you were dead,” he said.

  “You should know by now I’m damned hard to kill.”

  His friend laughed. “You and me both, apparently. We did it, brother. We survived.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  SURRENDER

  On September 2, 1945, Charlie convalesced in a bunk aboard the Benevolence. The ship was one of three hospital ships in a vast armada that steamed into Tokyo Bay. Third Fleet, arriving to receive the Japanese surrender.

  Many of the PWs aboard the 15,000-ton ship had gone topside to catch a glimpse of the battleship Missouri, where the surrender ceremony would take place. Charlie remained in his bunk, his restless mind torn between memories of the war and thoughts about what he’d do now that there was peace. These days, he slept most of the time, but it eluded him now. Irritable and restless, he lit a cigarette.

  The 500-foot-long hospital ship was a marvel. Commissioned earlier in the year, it had a bed capacity for 800 patients, though right now, Charlie suspected it housed far more souls than that. The floating hospital carried seventeen medical officers, thirty nurses, and 240 corpsmen, who cared for the men in wards and medical facilities spanning seven decks, including a surgery and numerous clinics.

  He still couldn’t believe he was here. Bunks with clean sheets, reading lamps, and a five-channel radio system. Weary women in white uniforms hustling on their never-ending medical errands. Corpsmen pushing wheelchairs and library carts loaded with books. Doctors diagnosing and treating his broken and diseased body. Hours of physical therapy, including massage and time in a whirlpool.

  None of it seemed real. He felt like an empty shell in this paradise, his spirit carved up and buried with the Sandtiger, left to torment in Miyazaki, and dragged through purgatory on the Swordfish. He wondered how much of him would actually return to America.

  “Charlie?”

  He blinked and focused on the beautiful nurse rushing toward him in a haze of blinding white light, like an angel of mercy.

  “Oh, Charlie!”