1945 (22 page)

Paul felt his heart race and he tasted a surge of bile. "Whatever you do, don't let them hurry us in on my account."

Ruger stood and looked over the railing. The captain was staring in the direction of Japan, and a distinct glow was now on the horizon. The ship and the entire convoy had been zigzagging, and the motion was enough to cause a standing man to sway, but they were still moving inexorably closer to Japan.

"Is that the battle?" Paul asked in wonderment.

Ruger gripped the railing. The
Luce
had changed course again, and their bodies tilted slightly. Ships always zigzagged now. What had happened to the cruiser
Indianapolis
when she had failed to do so was on the minds of everyone. She'd been sunk with enormous loss of life by one Jap sub.

"It sure ain't the dawn," Ruger said hoarsely. His throat was suddenly dry. "That would arrive from the other direction. Yeah," he said, still in little more than a whisper, "it's the landings. We're moving slowly but still getting closer with every minute."

Paul stood and walked the couple of steps to the railing. Others had seen the strange light in the distance, and the rail was soon lined with silent men straining to look and listen. The light, an orange-reddish glow, seemed to flicker slightly, and the men became aware of a dull, rolling, thundering sound. Guns. They could hear the big guns from the ships.

"Before I saw you sitting here," Ruger said softly, "I went up top as far as I could in this tub and I saw the lights from off in the distance. Funny thing about a ship, you can see for twenty miles, maybe more. I just stared at it until someone from the crew asked me to get down."

"The fires of hell," Paul rasped. Now the quivering light extended for miles in each direction, painting numerous ships in its satanic glow. "How far away from Japan do you figure we are?"

"Maybe fifty miles. Maybe a little less."

Suddenly, light flashed above them, followed by the booming sound of an explosion. In the flaring light of the explosion a plane disintegrated and fell into the sea in flaming pieces, some only a few hundred feet away. Men pointed and yelled at the sight.

"Oh my God," gasped Paul.

"I think we just saw our first suicide attacker, and it looks like one of our planes got him."

The decks of the
Luce
bristled with 20mm and 40mm Oerlikon antiaircraft guns, whose crews strained to see in the night skies. What would have happened if the Jap hadn't been seen by the American pilot? Both men shuddered and concluded that there was no safety on the USS
Luce
, or anywhere else in the world.

Lines of tracers from other ships illuminated the night as gunners sought out targets that neither Paul nor Ruger could see. A helmeted sailor ran by and told the soldiers to get their asses belowdecks. A few complied, but most remained on the deck. They would take their chances where they were.

The
Luce's
antiaircraft guns added to the angry, deadly chatter. Still, no one could see what the guns were shooting at. Paul and Ruger crouched on the deck. All around them, men removed their boots and some of their clothing in case they were plunged into the water. They could hear yelling and screaming from below.

"Jesus Christ," Ruger yelled, "we'd better get down and try to calm them." He turned and raced toward the sound of the tumult. They didn't want a hysterical mob on their hands.

There was another burst of light. A ship was on fire about a mile away as a kamikaze drew blood. Then another ship was hit as more kamikazes struck home, and both wounded vessels became plumes of flame. What if those ships were full of men like the
Luce
? How many hundreds were dead or wounded in what had to be a pair of charnel houses? He caught the silhouette of a destroyer against the flames as it raced toward one of the stricken ships to pick up survivors.

Oh, God, he moaned again as he headed below to escape the carnage.

The young and disturbingly neat
kempei
officer stood at attention, looking elsewhere and avoiding eye contact, but was otherwise undaunted as Col. Tadashi Sakei vented his wrath.

"It is inconceivable that you have been unable to find one radio and one spy with all the resources at your disposal. It is even further inconceivable that you have been taken off the assignment. Is it your commander's intention that the traitor wander about Kyushu until he dies of old age?"

The lieutenant wasn't sure just who was going to die of old age, the spy or his commander, but decided it would be imprudent to ask. "Sir, the invasion in the south has forced us to reassess our priorities in light of our capabilities. There are far too many civilians who wish to surrender, and there have been some desertions from the army."

Sakei was aghast. Weakness from civilians he could understand, but Japanese soldiers running from the enemy? Never! But then he recalled that many of the men now in Japan's army were new soldiers, very young, and not well trained. With that in mind, he concluded that he should not be surprised that many were not imbued with dedication to the code of Bushido.

Sakei shook his head in disgust. "So, you gave up on the spy."

"Not entirely, Colonel. While my captain is of the firm opinion that we will never be able to find the spy with the detection gear we now have, we will not cease looking. But we have given up on using technology to locate the clandestine radio. We will have to wait for him to make a mistake."

Sakei rubbed his forehead. He had a savage headache. There had been many of those lately. "Again, tell me why."

"Colonel, we need three pieces of directional information to locate a transmitter, which is, of course, why the method is called triangulation. One or two will only give us a long line, and the traitor could be broadcasting from anywhere along that line, which could conceivably stretch around the earth. Three sources is an absolute necessity, and we must have them before the spy's radio is moved. We have been able to get one, sometimes two positions, but never three because the hills and valleys block the signal. The roads are so miserable that we cannot get our trucks with the triangulation gear out into the valleys to set up for that third source.

"To be truthful, sir, triangulation works best in an urban environment, not the countryside. The spy transmits in short bursts, rarely more than a couple of minutes each time, and it takes us hours to set up, if we are able to get out into the field in the first place. By then, he is always off the air well before we can establish meaningful contact. He is cunning and never broadcasts from the same location. The best we've been able to do is identify a fifty-square-mile area in which he is operating."

Sakei took a deep breath to control himself. Even though he'd like to strangle the insolent and pompous
kempei
puppy, he was telling the truth. They would find the spy when he made a mistake, and not sooner. He reassured himself with the knowledge that most people in such a situation would make a mistake sooner or later. Sakei could only hope the mistake occurred before the war ended.

"Are you still able to translate his messages?"

The officer beamed, delighted to change the subject. "Indeed, sir. He is still using the very simple code he started with, and we now suspect it's the only one he has. Moreover he is rotating his frequencies on a predictable basis. Again, we think he was given only a few to work with, so we are able to anticipate him and listen to his transmissions.

"Sir, the spy continues to give the Americans information about our food resources, the medical conditions in the area, and the units and numbers of men coming through the area. We think he was a soldier because he uses a soldier's terminology and comments on their condition and weapons rather skillfully. There are those who suspect that the spy is an American from the phrases he uses, but it may be a Japanese citizen who spent some time in the United States."

Sakei agreed with that possibility, although he still wondered at the spy's place of origin. More and more he too had wondered if the spy actually was a Japanese. He recalled that many Japanese had emigrated to the United States in the years and decades past. Could one of them be the spy? he asked the
kempei
lieutenant.

"Yes, Colonel, it could. We believe there are a number of people of Japanese descent working for the Americans. That would tie in with the spy's comments about a submarine that was sunk. We weren't certain whether it brought him, or his supplies, or both. He seems to have picked up an accomplice as well. He informed his contacts that someone was with him by running off a string of numbers. As we now have an index of all American POWs, we were able to identify the numbers as belonging to an American officer we'd thought had been killed in the Nagasaki bombing. He must have survived and then run off into the hills in the ensuing confusion. If so, he was lucky. Mobs have caught other Americans and ripped them to pieces."

The lieutenant added that he thought that the last bit of information was both good and bad news. Bad because he now had two people on the run and two to search for. Two could help each other and stand guard over each other. But the news was also good, because at least one of the two was likely a Caucasian, a white-skinned gaijin. Those few whites who remained free in Japan were diplomats from neutral countries. They were kept near their diplomatic postings in Tokyo, unless they were taken out on a carefully guided venture to see some American atrocity. Thus, any white-skinned American would, as they themselves said, stick out like a sore thumb. The spy would have great difficulty hiding his companion.

Sakei stood and dismissed the lieutenant, who disappeared gratefully. Sakei then walked to a connecting tent where Emperor Hirohito was held.

"Well," said the emperor, "still unable to find your spy?"

"He will be caught," Sakei replied stiffly.

"And the American invasion, what further news on that?"

"It is my understanding that our defenses are holding and that counterattacks are taking place."

Hirohito smiled grimly. "In other words, the Americans have landed successfully and the Japanese army has been unable to drive them off. General Anami must be proud of what he has brought to Japan."

Sakei did not respond. Hirohito's assessment was correct. The Americans had landed the day before in overwhelming force and were inching their way inland despite brutal losses. The coastal defenses had been breached in many places and would soon be overrun. It was grimly apparent that, in only a few days, far too many Americans would have landed to be dislodged without an enormous effort. He wondered if Japan was capable of that effort. He shook the defeatist thought from his mind.

"Your Majesty, the Americans are paying dearly for the privilege of desecrating our land. As to driving them off, the landings started only yesterday. It will take time to accumulate our army and attack."

"I don't doubt that. I just wonder what good it will do."

So did Sakei, and the thought astounded him. Americans were on Japanese soil, and Japanese soldiers were starting to run. It struck him that his world could be ending.

"Majesty, in the speech you never made to the country— the one in which you counseled surrender?— you used a phrase to the effect that we would have to endure the unendurable. Well, it is General Anami's intent to force the Americans to endure what is not endurable so that they depart our lands and leave us in peace."

"At least the bombings have ceased."

Sakei agreed. Even though the tent compound that housed the emperor was in a clearly marked hospital area, there was always the threat of attack from the air. Sakei had taken great pains to ensure that his now much smaller number of guards dressed like hospital orderlies and that nothing threatening or unusual was apparent from the air. Even so, there was the constant fear of an American pilot making a mistake, an accidental bombing, or some hotheaded Yank just wanting to kill Japs and not caring if it was a hospital in his sights.

Therefore, everyone was thankful that the landings had drawn virtually all the American planes southward to protect their ships and men. Even the giant bombers seemed to have vanished. Both men wondered just how long the relative calm would continue. Should the American planes return, it would mean that the landings had been so successful that the Americans on the ground no longer needed such constant protection. Sakei tried to visualize the titanic battles taking place just a little more than 150 miles away.

Sakei bowed and left his unrepentant emperor. If the planes returned, it might mean that he would again have to move the emperor to yet another safe place. He did not relish that thought at all. He'd been lucky so far, but how much longer could that luck last?

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Dark smoke half-obscured the harsh hills of Kyushu from the men who again lined the rails of the
Luce.
Clouds from fires and recent explosions billowed skyward, and the men on the crowded transport could see individual explosions where shells impacted on targets farther inland. Rumblings of man-made thunder, occasionally punctuated by sharper, cracking sounds, buffeted them constantly. It was as if Kyushu were alive and angry.

It had been a sleepless night for the men on the
Luce
. The incipient panic had halted and the men had calmed down. Most then spent the rest of their time mentally trying to prepare for the ordeal ahead. Sardonically, most had decided they would rather face Japanese guns than trust the dubious safety of the
Luce
as the nightlong battle between the kamikazes and the navy had turned more ships into flaming ruins.

When the LCIs hadn't arrived for them by midmorning, the men began to chafe and wonder, even hope that their landing had been canceled. The delays were agonizing.

To a man, they hoped that the daylight hours would be free from more kamikaze attacks, but the white lines in the skies told them otherwise. Above the low clouds, contrails twisted and crossed each other as American planes continued to seek out their suicidal enemy.