Dust on the Sea

by Edward L. Beach

Except for the cold air, his life belt supported him so well that he was not physically uncomfortable at all, thought Richardson. He and Oregon pulled out the strings around the bottoms of their parkas, twisted the cords together into a single strand of double strength, and then lashed themselves together. They left enough slack so that each man could have a modicum of individual motion without discomfort to the other. Perhaps they could last thus several days, but he doubted it. Even though he could feel the cold only slightly, it was already sapping the strength from him. Without food or water, or sleep, the longest he could honestly hope he and the quartermaster could survive was about twenty-four hours. Despite his rather pessimistic second prediction to Oregon, he had in fact privately thought that Eel would be back very soon to look for them. Her failure to reappear could mean only one thing: that the situation on board was serious, possibly downright critical. Gradually his secret optimism gave way to a more sober assessment. In twenty-four hours he and Oregon would simply drift off to sleep. They might float for days, dead in their life belts.

  Richardson judged it must be about midnight—his watch, advertised “waterproof,” had not been proof against depth—when he became aware that he was hearing something. He turned about, trying to orient himself to the slight breeze, equalize the sound in his ears.

  There was no doubt about it. He could hear a motor, or an engine, running. The two men strained to hear more clearly: The sound was approaching, grew more defined. Finally both were forced to admit that by no stretch could it be a submarine diesel.

  “Maybe it’s that contact we had on the radar just before we dipped under,” said Oregon.

  “That’s what I was thinking too,” agreed Richardson. He fumbled with his life belt. One of its attachments was a single-cell waterproof flashlight for just such contingencies. He brought it up, held it in his hand, looked at it.

  “Going to signal them, Skipper?” asked Oregon.

  “I was thinking of it. If we don’t, the Eel might come back, but then, she might not for a while. How long do you think you can last in this water?”

  “I don’t know, sir,” said Oregon. His normally ruddy face showed ghostly white in what light there was. “I’m okay, but I’m starting to feel the cold, I think. Maybe a day, or a couple of days.”

  “Me too,” said Richardson, inspecting the flashlight carefully. Maybe it would be better to let the noise go past and take their chances in the water. At worst they would die a peaceful death as their body machinery slowly ran down. Perhaps this was to be his atonement. Too bad Oregon had to be involved too.

  The sound grew louder. The ship, or boat, would pass fairly close aboard. “Well, what do you say, Oregon?” Richardson asked. “If I put on the light, we go to a Jap prison camp, maybe worse. If I don’t, we may float around here forever. Maybe the Eel will come back in a day or so, maybe not.”

  The quartermaster did not answer. Richardson hesitated. Oregon’s face was working, “I don’t know which would be worse,” he finally said. “I—I guess you’ll have to decide, Captain. It’ll be worse for you than for me, I think, anyhow.”

  “You mean if they find out about the last patrol?”

  “No sir, no sir, I wasn’t thinking of that—the war can’t last much longer, don’t you think? We won’t be too long in prison camp—it’s just that you’re the skipper. They always treat the skippers worst, don’t they?”

  But Richardson was sure that Bungo Pete was exactly what Oregon was thinking about. Japan obviously could not hold on much longer. Soon the island-hopping campaign would bring the U.S. Navy to her front door in force that could be neither denied nor delayed. Imprisonment in a POW camp would be of short duration for the average, run-of-the-mill prisoner. Not so for the man who had killed Bungo Pete. There was little prospect he would live that long.

  But that mattered little at the moment, Richardson quickly realized. What mattered, instead, was Oregon’s loyal attempt not to permit his own hopes for survival to affect his skipper’s thinking.

  The noise of the engine—it could now be identified as a lightweight diesel engine, or possibly even a gasoline engine, poorly muffled, besides—approached closer. Richardson waited until he felt it was as near as it was likely to come. Having had no opportunity to test the light, he was surprised it functioned.

  Richardson’s captor was the biggest and heaviest Japanese he had ever seen, and it was soon clear that the boat he commanded was far more than an ordinary Japanese fishing boat. While superficially similar to a large sea-going sampan, the boat must have been built like an ancient war-junk. She had two masts with the usual mattinglike sails, which were furled on deck, and she was large, half the length of Eel, even broader of beam. She was newly built of extremely heavy timbers, with the exception of the masts, which seemed light and spindly for a craft of her size. Between the masts there was a wooden deckhouse with a gently domed roof of long thin reeds. But beneath the reeds there was clearly a strong wooden roof as well. The whole structure of the craft seemed to be much more solid than an ordinary fishing sampan, even a sea-going one, might need to be.

  More, Richardson had not been permitted to observe. He now sat uncomfortably on a stool in the deckhouse, arms bound behind his back, facing someone who could be no one else than the Japanese skipper. The man was tremendous in size, and he spoke perfect English.

  “So,” he said, “will you tell me again, please, how you came to be here?” He carefully pronounced the word “please,” but there was otherwise no hint of the traditional Japanese difficulty with the letter L.

  “We escaped from that submarine that was depth charged and sunk.”

  “You’re lying!”

  “I am telling you the truth. The submarine was disabled. We waited until the depth charging stopped, and then some of us escaped with breathing apparatus.”

  Without warning the Japanese jumped to his feet, struck Richardson in the face with a clenched hammy fist. He knocked him off the stool, kicked him several times in the stomach. As Rich tried to roll away from him to protect his abdomen, he shouted a stream of orders in Japanese. Two men came in the compartment, picked Richardson up, sat him again on the stool.

  “Now,” said the moon-faced Japanese captain, “you are going to stop insulting my intelligence!” He held a heavy stick in his hand, waited a moment for Richardson to answer, then struck him across the side of the head with it. Richardson saw the blow coming, ducked his head so that the club struck the upper part of his skull instead of the thin area of his temple. There was not enough room in the tiny compartment for the big Japanese really to swing the timber. It hurt excruciatingly, nevertheless. Tiny amoebalike blobs drifted back and forth in front of his vision. Still he remained silent. He saw the second blow coming, could not dodge it. It struck the side of his face. He could feel the blood in his mouth, the pain along his jawbone and in his head as he lost consciousness.

  He came to as he was being carried across the deck. He felt himself being lowered through a companionway, and then apparently a door was opened and he was placed, fairly gently, it seemed to him, inside a small room. His head ached, and there was blood in his mouth, but the surcease from beating felt heavenly. There was not sufficient floor space to lie at full length. He curled up in the position in which he had been placed and, his arms still bound behind him, fell again into a comatose state which gradually transformed itself into sleep.

  Morning came a few hours later, and with it Richardson’s inquisitor had apparently decided to change his tactics. Richardson was tightly held by the two crewmen who had brought him. He faced him, standing. “Listen carefully,” the huge, round-faced Japanese captain said. “Point one, just in case you wondered, I grew up in Berkeley, California, and graduated from Cal before the war. So don’t try anything funny with me. Point two, this ship is a patrol unit of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Point three, three of our larger antisubmarine escorts destroyed one of your submarines last week, not far from here. It was damaged and sank to the botto
m, where we heard it making desperate efforts to save itself. We located it by dragging with grapnels, and after we hooked it, we blew it apart by sliding depth charges down the grapnel wires. Point four, there were no survivors.” He looked Rich in the eye with a malevolent grin.

  Richardson still said nothing. He concentrated all his mental forces on resisting the beating which must be coming.

  Still grinning, the Japanese produced a pistol, aimed it at Richardson’s belly. His grin expanded, and he began to titter. His voice was pitched at least half an octave above his normal speaking voice. “You’ll tell me what I want to know if I have to shoot your balls off one at a time!”

  The hatred and contempt in Richardson’s soul must have revealed themselves in his face, for suddenly the Japanese thrust the pistol forward and fired.

  Richardson saw the move coming, nerved himself to take the obscene blow. His every sense jumped to full clarity, and he saw that at the last minute “Moonface” dropped the muzzle of the gun just a fraction. The force of explosion caught him in the groin. He doubled over in pain, but it was only the slap of the powder charge striking his clothing. The bullet had passed between his legs, grazing the right one but otherwise causing no injury.

  The pistol slammed against his head. Again the kick in the side, again shouted orders in Japanese. Two crewmen jerked him upright, held him against the weakness in his legs and the pain in his head. “Moonface” (as Richardson had come to think of him) tittered again, struck him across the face with the back of his hand. “Come along,” he said, waving his arm in a beckoning gesture. “I’ll show you something!”

  More orders in Japanese. The two crewmen propelled Richardson out onto the deck, where the first thing that caught his eye was Oregon, who had been trussed up in a standing position against a mast. His hands were pulled hard behind him, evidently tied together behind the vertical spar. His body sagged against the ropes. His chin was down on his chest.

  Richardson wanted to shout encouragement to Oregon, but he dared not. There was a stab of ice in his vitals.

  Moonface tittered once more. “This is the way your man spent the night,” he said. “It is up to you if I treat him more kindly.” He raised the pistol, pointed it at Oregon’s body, spoke sententiously, spacing the words: “Where did you come from? How did you get here? Are there any more American submarines in these waters?”

  “We’re survivors from that submarine that was sunk,” Richardson said desperately. “We escaped with breathing apparatus. There are no other American subs around here.”

  Moonface snapped off his mask of mirth. Oregon was looking at them with fearful eyes.

  “Is that true?” Moonface hissed to him. Oregon nodded weakly.

  Moonface turned to Rich. “This is how we treat liars,” he said. He put his pistol against the lower part of Oregon’s abdomen, pulled the trigger.

  As the shock of the report died away, Oregon began screaming a high-pitched, incoherent cry of torture. Moonface waited two full minutes, fired a second time. Again he waited, fired a third time. Jack Oregon’s agony was horrifying to watch. His muscles bulged and writhed within his bonds, tearing the flesh where his arms and hands were pinioned. His shrieks, which had been high and bubbling, diminished in volume, became animal-like. Bloody froth came from his mouth. Richardson, too, was screaming, lunging against the hands that were holding him back, straining at the cords that bound his arms, lunging toward Moonface. The raving torment gave him strength to drag the two men holding him several feet across the littered deck. He had no conscious plan. Had he been able to reach Moonface, he would have attacked him with the only weapon he had, his teeth. He felt another pair of hands join those that held him, and then a fourth pair. He was wrestled to the deck, held immobile.

  Great gouts of dark blood were spilling out of Oregon’s groin, splattering on the deck. His head had fallen down on his chest once more. His heaving breath was stertorous, his groans nearly inaudible. Perhaps he was unconscious. Richardson hoped so.

  “Help him!” shouted Richardson hoarsely. “Get him some help! He’ll bleed to death!”

  “You’re the one who could have helped him, my friend,” said Moonface. “However, I shall be merciful.” He stepped forward, lifted Oregon’s head by the hair, placed the pistol on the bridge of his nose between the eyes and fired one more time. The heavy automatic literally blew off the top of his head. Bits of bloody matter splashed around the mast and some distance beyond it on either side. Some of it fell upon crew members who had gathered in a group of uneasy watchers.

  Moonface holstered his gun. “We’ll give you a little time to think it over, my friend,” he said. “I may not be so merciful to you.” He barked a few words in Japanese to the dozen or so gathered crew members, giggled, and grandiloquently stalked away.

  Pinioned to the deck, Richardson was vomiting. The four men holding him down picked him up, carried him to the rail, propped him over it until he had finished. Curiously, their hands felt sympathetic, almost apologetic.

  Others had cut the ropes binding Oregon’s body to the mast, carried it also to the rail. They averted their faces from Richardson. The reckless disregard of consequences still drove him. He stood up, came as near to a posture of attention as his bound arms would permit. “Stop!” he shouted.

  Unsure of themselves, they paused. Rich walked over the few feet to Oregon’s body, the men detailed to hold him moving uncertainly with him. Not many of the Japanese sailors or fishermen, or whatever they were, would understand English, but they were men of the sea. They would grasp the significance of what he was about to do. Probably the word would get back to Moonface, but he was beyond caring. Rapidly his mind searched over his early memories. Once, before the war, he had been present at a funeral on board ship. He could not remember the words exactly, but that didn’t matter.

  He stood alongside the ruined body of his friend, raised his face. A furious recklessness drove him. Let them try to stop him in this duty. The unarticulated thought, unformed, only an emotional reaction, defied them, or anyone, to interfere. He almost wished they would try. . . .

  The choking words, some of them heard every Sunday at his father’s church, then for four years at the Naval Academy and countless times since, came clearly, without conscious effort to remember. There was a stillness in the air, a high gentle note as the inadequate stays allowed the skimpy masts to creak in their steps. A lapping of the water alongside the wooden hull. Twice he faltered, but it was only the inability of his voice to croak out the words.

  There was silence on the deck of the little ship as Rich finished. Tears streamed down his cheeks. He drew himself up, looked around. “Attention on deck!” he snapped. Whether they understood him or not made no difference. A respectful silence had settled upon the dozen Japanese present. He fixed his eyes on the men who still held Oregon’s body, with his head motioned toward the sea. They understood, lifted up the body, and dropped it gently over the side.

  The men who had charge of him still had their hands through his arms. He turned away from the rail. They led him forward, down through a small hatch into the hold of the ship, and all the way forward to her bows. The overhead was so low that all of them had to stoop, he more than any, and the heavily barred door which they unlocked for him could not have been more than four feet high. He indicated his bound arms. After a moment, one of them untied them. They pushed him in. He could hear a bar placed upon the door, and the click of a heavy padlock.

  Moonface had decided to give Rich plenty of time to think things over, he decided. Perhaps he intended to add hunger to his efforts at persuasion. Clearly he suspected Rich and Oregon must have come from a second submarine, possibly hoped confirmation would redound to his favor. Richardson cursed himself for not having had the wit to remove his parka before he was picked up. It was marked “CAPT,” while Oregon’s parka had been correspondingly marked “QM.” Assuming Moonface had realized he must be the captain of a submarine, the only logical purpose behind
his insistent questions must be to establish the existence of a second sub in the area. Perhaps he hoped to gain personal credit for the discovery. This must be only the beginning of the interrogation Richardson could look forward to.

  After what he had seen in the twelve hours or so he had spent aboard the little wooden craft, there could be no illusions as to the sadistic lengths to which Moonface might go, unless the rewards for bringing home an American submarine captain alive and reasonably well appeared more substantial than any information he could wring out of him by torture. Even here, there was something irrational. What could Moonface do with any such information that could not be better done by Japanese naval authorities at headquarters? The patrol boat could reach the naval base at Sasebo, for example, in two or three days, or rendezvous even more quickly with one of the faster destroyer types with which she must be associated. But the motion of the patrol boat gave no indication of any purposeful movement. Her tiny engine still maintained the same cadence which Rich and Oregon had noticed the night before in the water, and twice already he had felt her reverse course. During daylight, if fishing was the patrol boat’s cover, she would of course have lines out. She might in fact actually do some fishing, although Richardson had seen no evidence of fishing gear during his few fleeting glimpses about the decks.

  His arms were numb. The bruises on his face and head, and in the abdominal area, ached with a dull monotony. The inside of his right leg smarted in the path of the bullet which had grazed it. Squatting on the floor of the tiny compartment, for he could not stand upright, he rubbed the injured places. Sufficient light came through the clouded glass of a tiny porthole, about six inches in diameter, to reassure him that the bullet wound was superficial. He was not bleeding. The skin had barely been scraped by the flaming powder grains.

  The compartment, if it could be called one—it was no more than five feet in any dimension—was some kind of a storeroom. It was roughly triangular in shape, larger at the top than at the floor level. Two sides, one of which contained the door, were vertical and met at right angles. The third side was in effect the hypotenuse of the triangle, had a slight curve, and was itself almost triangular, being much longer at the top than at the bottom.