Blood Red Sun

by Mertz, Stephen

  Hanklin was closest to the driver’s side of the cab.

  “Tex, get us the hell out of here!”

  Ballard turned to face the shifting shadows across the road. He pulled up on his M-1 and returned fire. Ramone and Mischkie opened fire from aboard the truck. The incoming fire faltered, died off.

  Hanklin heaved himself into the cab, yelling at the driver. “Move it on over, short legs.” He popped the clutch and the rig jolted forward.

  Ballard turned and hustled forward in a running leap at the cab, pulling himself aboard, the driver squeezed in the middle. Rifle fire opened up behind them. Bullets pinged off the truck.

  Ballard grabbed for the radio to call in the air strike.

  Chapter Nine

  Their instructions were to deliver Goro to the detention unit at a base just outside Malolos. The sentries were advised to expect them, and they waved the rig through after a glance at the orders Hanklin thrust down at them from the cab. Hanklin wheeled the vehicle to a halt in front of the Quonset but that served as a brig.

  Hanklin killed the lights and truck engine. He and Ballard swung down from the cab and moved to the rear of the truck. The gate had already been lowered.

  Mischkie knelt, handing Evita Ramone’s limp body down to her brother.

  Luis must have cradled his sister’s body all the way back to the base. The front of his clothes was smeared with thick, wet blood. He took the body from Mischkie and cradled it, hugging her close to him.

  Lieutenant Stilwell’s body was stretched out in the back of the truck. Goro sat in the back, his wrists handcuffed in front of him.

  Mischkie delivered a brusque shove that catapulted Goro from the truck. Goro landed on his feet, stumbled, but maintained his balance without falling. He straightened and assumed a stance of formal military bearing. Hanklin came over and vised his right arm above the elbow.

  “That’s being real smart, General. Reckon you could get yourself plugged right easy without offering too damn much provocation.”

  Goro said nothing.

  “Luis, I’m sorry about your sister,” said Ballard, “and about Valera and Castro.”

  “We knew the risks when we took on this mission,” Ramone said in a voice that quavered. “I think perhaps the dead are the lucky ones. For them, the suffering is over.”

  He took a step toward Goro. Hanklin and everyone else tensed, not knowing what to expect, but Ramone knelt to cradle his sister’s limp, torn, tattered body and only stared at Goro across a distance of less than twelve inches. Then he cleared his throat and coughed up phlegm which he spat into Goro’s face.

  Goro reacted by slowly lifting his left sleeve to wipe away the spittle.

  Ramone turned and walked away, his back erect, carrying his sister in the direction of the front gate.

  Mischkie called after him.

  “Luis … your team is dead. Where will you go?”

  The Filipino turned to face them.

  “I go to bury my sister in the churchyard where our parents lay, if the Japanese have not destroyed that. I will grieve for them and for what has befallen us, and then I will join up with other Filipinos and I will fight on and pray some day for an end to this madness.”

  “Amen to that,” said Hanklin.

  Luis walked away.

  “I know how he feels,” Mischkie said, looking at Goro. “That Evita was a real good kid, General. I could strangle the life out of you right now with my bare hands and not feel a thing.”

  “Slow down, city boy,” said Hanklin. “Orders are to deliver the general with some life left in him.”

  “You are treating me in a civilized fashion,” Goro said stiffly. “I thank you for that.”

  “A damn sight better than you treated our boys on Bataan,” said Ballard. “Come on, General. Inside.”

  The front door of the brig swung inward before they reached it, and a milky rectangle of light poured out. A figure stood silhouetted there, holding a billy club at his side like a cop on the beat back in the States.

  “That you, Ballard?”

  “It’s us.”

  “Where’s Lieutenant Stilwell?”

  “What’s left of him is in the back of this truck.”

  The driver appeared from the cab.

  The silhouette said, “Soldier, see that the night duty officer is advised.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The driver seemed glad to get away.

  “Ballard,” the silhouette said, “bring our guest inside where we can get a better look at him.”

  Ballard heard something in that voice. Goro heard it, too. He dug in his heels in a momentary show of resistance, but Hanklin’s superior strength prevailed and they pushed forward.

  The figure stepped out of the doorway and was waiting for them behind a gray metal desk when they herded Goro in.

  The interior of the Quonset but had been partitioned into office space, cells, and interrogation rooms. In the front receiving area, high-wattage bulbs inside wire mesh on the ceiling made Ballard and those with him squint at first. There was a desk, a battered file cabinet painted o.d. to match the walls, a couple of straight back chairs, the guy at the desk, and two staff sergeants holding rifles aimed at the prisoner.

  The one behind the desk, the silhouette, was big and bulky, a salt-and-pepper crew cut atop a scarred face, the first signs of beer belly flab bulging above his belt.

  “I’m Major Corbin. What the hell are you staring at, Ballard?”

  Ballard knew what he and Goro had heard in that voice. Combat touches a man and changes him forever. Too much and some men harden themselves against life. Others let it push them to, and sometimes over, the edge.

  “Guess I just didn’t expect a major to be honching a field interrogation. The brass usually keeps its hands clean of the dirty stuff. Sir.”

  “I asked for the chance at the general here,” Corbin said with that something stronger in his voice than before. He came around the side of his desk to stand in front of Goro. “We want scum like this to receive only the best of treatment.”

  Corbin held the billy club with both hands. Ballard saw what was coming. Before he could do anything to stop it, Corbin swung the billy in a short, savage punch, striking Goro in the crotch.

  Goro bleated out in agony and doubled up, collapsing to his knees and onto his side, curling himself into a fetal ball, dry heaving, mouth pressed to the bare wood floor.

  The two sergeants stood with their rifles aimed at Goro as if nothing had happened.

  Ballard stepped in to grab Corbin’s right arm. He swung it back as Corbin was leaning in to deliver Goro another blow with the billy. Ballard gripped the arm with enough strength to arrest the movement and almost topple Corbin off balance. Corbin straightened up without following through on the strike. Unadulterated rage flushed his face.

  Ballard said, coolly, “Nix on that stuff. You’re not the first guy who’s wanted a crack at this little shit tonight, but if everyone gets a crack at him, there won’t be anything left. Our orders from General MacArthur were to bring Goro in in condition to talk.”

  Corbin stared pointedly down at where Ballard gripped his arm, then up at Ballard.

  “Get your paw off me.”

  Ballard saw no point in pushing this unless it became necessary. He released Corbin’s arm.

  “Sorry, Major, but the general here is my responsibility and orders are orders. I wasn’t told to turn him over to you. Maybe I should ask to see your authority in this before we go any further.”

  “I am in charge of this detention unit, Sergeant.”

  “Yeah, and I’m in charge of the general here. He’s a VIP, not one of your regular prisoners, and you damn well know it.

  Let’s get the intelligence team that’s supposed to question him over here and see what they have to say.”

  “I get it,” Corbin said. “You’re a goddamn Jap lover, is that it?” He sneered at the balled-up form of Goro who was somewhat recovered but not enough to stand. �
�Maybe you forgot Guadalcanal, Saipan, Bataan. I commanded infantry when we retook Manila, and I hope never to see hell like that again, mister. We fought these yellow slime hand to hand, house to house, room by room. The bastards. The yellow-bellied little bastards. They burned out eighty percent of that city. Killed 100,000 Filipinos. Strapped patients to their beds and burned the hospitals down. Mutilated the men before and after they killed them. Raped females of all ages before they killed them. Babies’ eyeballs were gouged out and smeared on walls like jelly.”

  “We took fire in that one, too, sir,” Ballard returned. “We walked through the same hell and I’ll never forget what I saw and what I did, no matter how hard I try. “I’ve lost count of the buddies I’ve made and lost in this man’s war. Guys you come in contact with, share your smokes with, your gripes and your jokes with, your memories of back home. You get to like the guy and then one day you have to watch him die by inches with his guts hanging out on some lousy beach, screaming with his dying breath for his mother to come take him. “But we’ve given every bit of that and more back at them, sir. We went after their civilians, too. We atomized two of their cities and every other city in Japan has been bombed back into the Stone Age. They say 100,000 people died during one night of bombing in Tokyo.”

  “Japs aren’t people, Sergeant. So what are we supposed to do about it, kiss this douchebag’s skinny yellow ass? Are you telling me how to run my unit?”

  “The battle for Manila wasn’t that long ago, sir. Maybe you just saw too much.”

  Corbin said, in a quieter voice than before, “You are Jap lovers, all three of you.”

  “Better get a hold of yourself, Major,” Mischkie advised in a brittle tone. “We’re all gut tired of this war.”

  “There wouldn’t have been a war,” Corbin snapped, looking down at Goro who was starting to drag himself to his knees, “if it weren’t for shit like your pal General Goro.”

  He drew back his right boot to kick at the kneeling man. Goro saw it coming and started to scoot away.

  Ballard stepped in and again grabbed Corbin by the arm as he had before. He extended his straightened left leg between Corbin’s legs and caught Corbin in the process of pulling his leg back for a kick. Ballard gave a shove, tripping the major.

  Corbin went down heavily into a corner. The partitions forming the room shuddered.

  Ballard said, “Go somewhere else and let off steam, Major. We’ll deliver the general to those intel boys on our own.”

  “Like hell you will,” Corbin snarled. “You’re not taking this ugly little bastard anywhere and you’re not going anywhere either, you son of a bitch. You’re under arrest for assaulting an officer.”

  He picked himself up, taking extreme care to distance himself from Ballard as much as the confines of the room would allow.

  The two sergeants reacted by tracking their rifles around on Ballard. Hanklin and Mischkie had their rifles aimed at the sergeants.

  “Tex, Wil, leave the general here with me,” said Ballard. “He’ll be all right. Track down those intel people.”

  “Right,” said Hanklin. He and Mischkie started out. Corbin snapped, “Hold it right there, you two. No one goes anywhere.”

  They paused at the door.

  “So what the hell did we do?” Mischkie groused.

  “You’re witnesses. Both of you saw Ballard strike me. I’ll press formal charges against you first thing in the morning, Sergeant, but as for now,” he nodded at the cell door behind Ballard, which led deeper into the Quonset, “you can shack up with your pal, the Jap, and the rest of the bad apples.”

  “If that’s the way you want to play it, Major, that’s okay with me,” Ballard told him. “I’ve done time in worse shit holes than this. But my men were assigned with me to bring the general in and your penny ante crap is not going to change that.”

  “I’m going to see you rot in a jail cell, Ballard, until you die.”

  “Maybe so, but leave the general alone. This is a critical, highly classified mission, Major, and right now General Goro is the man of the hour.”

  Corbin considered this.

  “All right, all right, your men can go and the general here won’t get roughed up, thanks to you, unless it’s by those boys from intelligence you’ve got such a hard-on for.”

  Mischkie said, “Maybe Tex should go and I should stay, Sarge.”

  Corbin snapped, “Move your asses out of here.”

  Mischkie and Hanklin waited for Ballard’s nod to that, and he gave it.

  “Get your hands on the people who want to get their hands on the general. I can handle this.”

  Hanklin and Mischkie left. The screen door slammed behind them on their way out.

  Corbin waved a thumb at Goro.

  “Get this puke out of my sight,” he instructed his NCOs.

  Goro moved gingerly after the billy club blow to his privates, but he allowed himself to be led by the arms without resistance through the cell door, leaving Ballard and Corbin alone.

  Corbin grinned. “So, Sergeant. Everything’s been fixed just the way you want it, hasn’t it? Your men are about their business. General Goro is locked up nice and safe.”

  “That leaves just you and me then, doesn’t it, Major?”

  “That’s right, Sergeant. Just you and me.” Corbin strutted in closer. “And you’re not about to try and pull any more shit on me, are you, Sergeant?”

  “I’m stupid sometimes, sir. I’m not that stupid.”

  “You don’t think much of me, do you, Ballard?”

  “I don’t think much of the way you’ve been acting. What we’ve been through in this war, you and me, it can’t help but drive a guy a little nuts. You just seem to be getting too much of a kick out of it.”

  “I’ll show you how crazy I am.”

  Corbin made a fist of his right hand and threw a punch at Ballard.

  Ballard saw it coming but did not dodge. The punch connected with considerable force. It snapped his head back, and his senses exploded with a swirling flash of pain. Then everything went dark.

  He lost consciousness.

  Chapter Ten

  “Yes, Colonel. Yes. That is quite all right. It was very good of you to call with the news.”

  Baron Tamura replaced the telephone receiver. He felt the eyes of every man in the room on him. They already knew the essence of this last telephone report, but they would want to hear everything.

  Midmorning sunshine shone through the shroud of thick summer mist that had wrapped itself around the point and the castle during the night. Gulls wailed mournfully beyond the open windows.

  The hours had dragged by, the reports coming in sporadically, sometimes thirty minutes apart, sometimes ninety. The four men in Baron Tamura’s study had passed the time together in silence.

  At one point, Baron Tamura produced, from a desk drawer, a slim leather folder from which he withdrew sheaves of paper. Using a fountain pen, he spent much of the vigil reworking a particularly difficult line of a poem he had begun four days earlier, a poem about the bittersweetness of watching the cherry blossoms fall, of the impermanence of this world.

  Major Okada had paced the study floor as a caged animal would. The opaque black eyes only seemed to grow more icy behind the lenses of his glasses as the hours wore on.

  The Baron had gone to the window and looked down to see Okada pacing across the grounds of the castle courtyard below, looking every bit as restless and caged as he had indoors.

  Colonel Hayashi had selected a book of Buddhist philosophy from the Baron’s book shelf. He sat in an armchair beneath a corner lamp and immersed himself in the tome, looking up only when the phone rang. Seated there, the overweight Air Force colonel looked something like a Buddha in uniform to Baron Tamura.

  General Nagano took a twin to that chair in another corner, had rested his head back around dawn and immediately began emitting soft snoring noises. He too looked up whenever the phone rang, then promptly nodded off again into a light s
leep.

  “The coup has failed,” the Baron told them. “That was one of our men in the military affairs section. Several minutes ago on the green in front of the Imperial Palace, Major Hatanaka placed a pistol to his forehead and pulled the trigger. His rebels have surrendered to the First Guard Regiment and the Kempeitai. General Anami has committed suicide also.”

  “I had better be getting back to headquarters,” said Okada. “I will be expected.”

  “Major Yasuki reports that an attempt to assassinate the Premier has also ended in failure. The rebellion of the force at Atsugi continues but is not expected to last.”

  Hayashi said with some pride, “I knew the men of my 302nd would not disappoint us.”

  “And I knew it was over when we received word that that hot headed fool, Hatanaka, had killed General Mori tonight during the coup attempt,” said Nagano. “Mori was a good man, a good soldier. We were wrong to put so much faith in the hands of those fanatics.”

  “And we were wrong in not committing the full resources at our command,” added Okada.

  The Baron glared at Okada.

  “Not at our command, Major. Certainly not at your command. At my command. You understand, Major Okada?”

  Okada lowered his voice and his eyes. “Certainly, Baron-san. I meant no disrespect.”

  Nagano said, “I believe it is a wise course we have taken, remaining in the background as we have concerning the palace coup, the attempted assassination of the Premier, the insurrection at Atsugi. We now have freedom to formulate contingency plans. If we were known to be a part of what has happened, we would all be dead or under arrest.” Nagano’s thin features looked more cadaverous than usual in the morning light.

  “I must admit I expected Hatanaka’s coup to succeed,” said Baron Tamura. “Certainly the major was a hothead, but a man like that is necessary at times to whip up sentiment in the ranks. I felt certain that once the palace grounds were secure and the desire to resist government policies made known, the full military would rise to take up the cause. I am disappointed, gentlemen.”