by Steve Perry
“Stones, Grandfather? Why would he do that?”
The old man had smiled. “Because,” he’d said, “he knew that the enemy who had caused his downfall planned to stack him atop other condemned men to blood his new sword. And that the traditional strike is to the belly, below the ribs and above the hips. A well-forged blade would easily cut through human flesh and a living spine, but a cut powerful enough to bisect two, three, or even four men stacked up on one another? That would take a most sharp blade and a strong arm. And if such a hard cut was swung at a pile of rocks? It would break the steel . . .”
The old man’s laugh stayed with Yamada for a long time. “How clever was that?” he had asked. “The perfect samurai revenge. How clear his mind was, to think of that.”
“Did it?” the young Hajime had asked. “Did the sword break?”
“Oh, indeed! I myself was a witness to the execution. The owner of the blade was an arrogant bastard—rumored to have had family come out of the merchant class—and his katana was a thing of great beauty, forged for him by one of the premier smiths of the day at great cost. It was his pride, and he meant to demonstrate it to the world.
“Shattered as if it were made of glass when it hit. The condemned samurai died slowly, bleeding from the cut that did get halfway through his belly, but he died with a smile on his lips. Later, when it was found out what he had done, condemned men used for sword testing had to be specifically forbidden from swallowing rocks . . .”
Yamada shook his head at the memory. Yes, while some men would be nervously composing their death-poems, the unnamed samurai had been methodically preparing his revenge. What calmness of mind and spirit that had shown.
His own sword was a powerful blade, Yamada’s, and he had used it to release half a dozen souls from their flesh. He was a doctor, and he could heal, but he was also a samurai, and he could kill. Whatever was needed.
He turned, the rain pouring over him like a waterfall, to face another imaginary enemy—
—and saw in the trees a face that was not the least bit imaginary. Watching him.
Without a second thought, Yamada raised his wooden blade and charged at the watcher—
Gruber would have pressed on once the rain began, but he was quick to realize that the American, Englishman, and Japanese wouldn’t be doing so; and since he had to stay behind them and far enough back to avoid detection, then stop they must.
He was eager, but he did not wish to behave rashly.
He was drenched, his clothes soaked, and the tarp that had been quickly stretched and angled with ropes among several trees sagged under the weight of water that sluiced over the lower edge in a continuous sheet, like a waterfall on a river. The men laughed and joked, but it rained big here, and the lightning and thunder came close together—flash . . . boom!—so you knew the strikes were nearby, and when such happened, the laughter stopped before it nervously began again. The captain had forbidden smoking, and just as well—the gusty wind drove rain under the tarp, and cigarettes not kept in a tightly capped tin would have been too wet to light. But it was warm enough, the rain, the only good point connected to it.
Gruber sipped from a flask of schnapps and watched as the water runoff from the tarp dug a trench in the muddy ground. This would certainly make walking more like slogging until it dried up.
He didn’t envy the scouts out there in the jungle with nothing but hats and thin oilskins for protection.
It did not rain this way in Germany. Oh, yes, they got weather, fair and foul, but not this end-of-the-world feeling as a crackling thunderstorm swept over an already fetid jungle, scrubbing all underneath it with a mighty and electrically charged wet hand, leaving ozone in its wake . . .
A summer shower in the Bavarian hills? Yes, one would certainly get wet if caught outdoors, but the promise of a balmy afternoon usually lay past that. And that beautiful, golden, actinic light, right after a rain? Nothing in the world compared to how it was in the Fatherland. Proof that there was a God and He favored Germany above all others.
Ah, home. It was a comforting thought out here in this wet hell, the ideal of it. He would go back in triumph and glory. The war would end, and it would be time to start a family—a sturdy, well-made blond and buxom wife with whom he could produce tall and fair sons and daughters; and since he would be a man of substance, perhaps a mistress or two to keep the fires fanned as he grew older. There had been so little time for that, save a few women he had been with during medical school, local waitresses at the beer gardens, mostly; once, the daughter of a professor, ah, what a sweet and tasty thing she had been. A shame she had moved away, to keep company with a Canadian somewhere in the frozen wastes of North America . . .
Between those images and the schnapps, and with a tarp to keep much of the water off, he could bear up here a bit longer. The end would justify the means.
He heard a noise. It was faint, and he was uncertain of it. There were several fast claps of thunder, far off, and then another sound.
He turned to Schäefer. “Did you hear that?”
“Thunder?”
“No. Something after that.”
“A pig,” Schäefer said.
Gruber listened, but the cry was not repeated—or if it was, he couldn’t catch it. It had not sounded like a pig. As a doctor, he had heard many injured men and women yelling over the years, and that’s what it had sounded like to him.
Not a pig.
Some person screaming in pain.
THIRTEEN
THE WATCHER seemed slow to take notice of Yamada’s charge, as if the sight of him somehow did not register.
Yamada splashed through the puddles for four meters—five!—gathering speed on the slick ground, and was but two meters away. And still the man had not moved. Dark-skinned he was, with black hair and eyes, wearing no more than a sleeveless shirt that might have once been tan, and dark trousers cut off below the knee, not even any shoes Yamada could see—
His sprint was fast, and the watcher would have to be able to spring like a rabbit to avoid him now, he would knock him silly with his bokken—
—except that Yamada’s speed was too fast—he hit a muddy spot and his foot shot out from under him. He lost his balance, slipped and fell, hit on his back, and skipped like a flat stone thrown at a pond—!
Yamada cursed as he slid to a muddy stop. By the time he managed to get back to his feet, the watcher was gone.
“Chikusho!” he said. A choice word to be employed when in a rage.
A gun went off. Once, twice, three times. Somebody screamed, a sound so horrific it frosted Yamada’s entire body with chilblains.
The sound came from the direction in which the watcher must have gone, and without stopping to consider Yamada ran into the forest.
Somebody had shot his watcher, it seemed.
He didn’t have far to go to see the source of the terrified yell.
It was not the watcher who had screamed.
Lying on the ground where a tree had fallen and beaten down a wide spot in the brush was one of Suzuki’s men. His throat was torn out, blood spraying from the torn vessels in his neck, pumping into the rain and washing onto the soaked ground.
The watcher, who stood over the downed soldier, turned only slightly to regard Yamada, and despite the downpour his teeth and lips were coated with blood as he smiled.
Yamada had no doubt at all what had happened here. He knew in a heartbeat.
He was a scientist, but also a samurai; however, samurai were not immmune to superstition. His grandfather had filled his head with tales of spirits, demons, ghosts, and while he had turned away from such things as he became educated, there was always some doubt . . .
He had fought men in matches where the loser was carried off, and he had killed others with a sword. He was not unused to seeing blood, nor was he a coward. But the sight of the dying man’s gore dripping down the jowls of the . . . thing that had bitten his throat out? It was unnatural, this creature. He raised his wooden
blade, afraid, expecting that the bokken would be useless. This was no ordinary human—
The thing turned away and lumbered off, moving steadily if not quickly. Yamada stood there, frozen. He should go after it. He should—
A second later somebody ran toward him from the camp, yelling. “Yamada-san! What is it!”
Suzuki, with another soldier, rifles held ready.
Thank the gods—
“Doctor?”
Yamada pointed at the downed man with his wooden sword.
“What happened?”
“A demon,” Yamada said. “A gaki.”
Suzuki shook his head. “A hungry ghost? Here?” To the soldier, he said, “Go, shoot whatever it is!”
The man ran after the thing, but Yamada knew it was gone. He would not find it. And if he did?
There was nothing to be done for the fallen soldier. His blood had run out and been diluted by the driving rain. He was as dead as they got.
As they made their way back to the impromptu camp, carrying the body of their fallen comrade, Yamada found himself looking carefully at the woods around them. Something evil lived here.
The soldier sent after the killer returned. He had not seen it, he said.
Just as well, Yamada thought. These soldiers were the best in the empire. The dead man had fired his weapon thrice, and surely he had not missed all three times?
Something evil lived here, all right, and it was hard to kill, whatever it was.
“You hear something?” Mac said.
“What, besides the rain, thunder, and trees not fifty yards away burst into splinters by high-voltage electricity?”
“Yes, besides that.”
“Nope.”
But Indy caught an exchange of looks between Marie and Batiste, as if they were sharing a wordless secret.
“What?”
Before either could speak, as if somebody had shut off a faucet, the rain stopped. Water still dripped from everything—trees and bushes, spattering upon the tarp and the puddles—but the storm had passed.
“Not so bad,” Batiste said.
Mac looked at him as if the man had just grown horns and a forked tail. “A man looking up during that deluge would have bloody well drowned!”
Batiste laughed. “In a hurricane, it will rain like that all day and all night, and the wind will knock down trees and buildings like a child does a house of matchsticks. When you go through l’oeil—the eye—of such a storm, the wind comes at you fiercely from one side . . . and then it just . . . dies. Your ears pop, the sky clears, you can see the stars, nothing stirs. Then the wind comes back just as hard, but from the other side. Boats will be torn from their moorings and thrown into the trees a hundred yards from the sea. Houses pushed across fields. A whole village leveled into piles of rubble. The sea will come far inland, and when it ebbs, it takes the living and dead alike. This? This is nothing compared with that.”
Indy nodded. Yes, he had been in typhoons. He understood.
“We should go,” Marie said. “We are not alone in the jungle.”
“We never are,” Indy said. “No help for it. Come on.”
Boukman’s rider today was La Petite Fille, the loa called The Little Girl. Not much was known of her, the little one, and she rarely chose to enter one of the male bokor, preferring women. Even so, from what Boukman knew, few among the living mambo had served as her horse, and there were plenty among the houngan who had never even heard of her. There were myriad loa, and many of them never came to find a human horse to ride.
What worlds, he sometimes wondered, did they visit instead of this one? What creatures did they mount there?
The loa were not gods themselves, only servants of good or bad gods—Bondye or Maldye—but like angels, they had great power. The Little Girl had a particular strength that she could, if she pleased, allow her horse to share: She could speak to women at a distance, and command them to stillness.
Boukman had prepared the ritual sacrifice with care—La Petite had a fondness for fresh fruit rather than blood, and she especially liked syrup made from sugarcane, so sweet it would make you shiver to taste it. Boukman had already eaten fruit and drunk a cup of this sugared brew, and La Petite was demanding more. He poured the cup and began to sip at it.
Boisson plus rapidement! she demanded.
He smiled. “Yes, ma petite, I will drink it faster.”
He chugged the syrup down. It was too sweet, but he had drunk much worse, more than a few times. Such acts were but means to an end, and had to be endured.
He could feel her contentment growing as the solution filled his belly.
“A small favor,” he said aloud, “s’il vous plaît.”
Ask, horse.
He did.
Her response was, he interpreted, akin to a shrug. A matter of no great importance.
Good. She would allow it.
Boukman smiled.
They buried the dead soldier. The grave was shallow and scavengers would likely dig up the corpse eventually, but that was not to be helped. A few days, a week, and it would not matter to the mission. The man had died doing his duty. That would be reported to his family, and they would take comfort in knowing that. Died in the service of the emperor. Killed honorably in battle. Although what had killed him would not be spoken of in detail. Families did not like to hear that hungry ghosts or demons had taken their sons.
As they were making ready to leave, it was the man from Hiroshima who reported back with the unpleasant news.
Yamada said, “You are certain?”
“Hai, Yamada-san.” He bowed to punctuate his comment with the proper respect.
“It could not have been one of the locals?”
“Skin as pale as milk where it was not pinked by the sun. He had a spyglass, a slung rifle, a canvas pack, and while he was not in uniform, he stood and moved like a soldier. He did not see me.”
Yamada looked at Suzuki.
Suzuki said, “My men are well trained. They can tell the difference between a European military man and one of the natives.”
Yamada nodded. “The Germans.”
Suzuki nodded. “It would seem so.”
So. A European soldier skulking about in the woods? He might be many things, but the odds were overwhelming that he belonged to Gruber. The Germans had caught up. Not what he had hoped for, but it was what it was, and not a great surprise.
“Should we eliminate him?” Suzuki asked.
“No, not yet. As long as they don’t know we are aware of them, it could be to our advantage. Tell your men to pretend they do not know they are being watched. They are not to engage the Germans if they see them, unless attacked directly. We will deal with them when it is to our best advantage.”
“Hai,” Suzuki said. He nodded at the man from Hiroshima. “You heard the doctor. Tell the others.”
The tents were repacked, as much of the water sluiced from them as they could manage. Eventually, the canvas would rot in this climate if not allowed to dry out. They wouldn’t be here that long. Already the sun was turning the water to a steamy vapor, the heat beating down on the forest’s canopy, lancing to the ground here and there and cooking the wet humus. “Best we get going,” Yamada said. “We don’t want to allow our quarry too big of a lead.”
Gruber said, “Captain? Are we ready?”
“Jawohl, Colonel Doktor. Our ranger has reported that the Japanese are on the move.”
“And they are unaware of us behind them?”
“My men are most stealthy,” Schäefer said. “The Japanese show no indication they are aware of us.”
“They are good at that,” Gruber observed, “not showing things. One can never be sure what they are thinking.”
“They are Orientals. We are Germans,” Schäefer said, the disdain evident in his voice, and a great deal being said in that simple comparison.
Once, Gruber would have let such comments pass, for he had agreed with them. But this was a mission of critical importance.<
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“Yes, that is true. But recall how the Japs kicked the stuffing out of the Russians less than forty years ago. Those same Russians who are currently kicking the stuffings out of the German army on the Eastern Front. These little yellow men are not to be underestimated, Captain. Such could be a grave error.”
Schäefer nodded, but Gruber knew he was unconvinced. Like most officers, he was certain of German superiority in virtually all areas of human endeavor. Gruber knew the thinking. It had been delivered with lectures from his first days at school, right up through his last days at medical college—Germans were industrious, inventive, original. Japanese? Well, they were like . . . clever monkeys. Give them a toy, they could take it apart and then copy it, but they would never be able to think it up in the first place. Everything their culture had, they had borrowed from somewhere.
There was an old joke he had heard about the fastest way to defeat the Japanese navy. Allow them to steal the plans for the best Western carriers and battleships, but leave plates missing in the hulls. The Nipponese would copy the plans slavishly, replicate the construction exactly, and the hole would be there when the ships were launched. It must serve a purpose, yes? And believing that, they would leave it, not understanding that it was a trick, and the ships would sink like bricks tossed into the water . . .
It was funny when he had first heard it, but it was not true. Made in Japan was considered equal to saying “cheap and shoddy,” but this was not the case in all things.
German steel was famous around the world, and rightly so. But he had seen some of the Japanese handmade swords, and the construction of them was beyond the best German forges in Solingen. Clash a German saber against a Japanese sword? The saber would break first nearly every time. Hardly the creation of clever monkeys, those blades.
In matters of war and death, the Japanese were well practiced.
Yes, yes, it was not in question that those of the Oriental persuasion were inferior to Germans overall, but the Americans, like the Russians, had learned that the Nips were not inconsiderable adversaries. The Yanks had been caught with their pants down at Pearl Harbor, and it had been the Japanese who had sunk half the U.S. Pacific Fleet there.