WARRIORS Read online

  WARRIORS

  WARRIORS

  A NOVEL

  BY WILLIAM B. MCCLOSKEY JR.

  Copyright © 2013 by William B. McCloskey Jr.

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Skyhorse Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

  Skyhorse Publishing books may be purchased in bulk at special discounts for sales promotion, corporate gifts, fund-raising, or educational purposes. Special editions can also be created to specifications. For details, contact the Special Sales Department, Skyhorse Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018 or [email protected]

  Skyhorse® and Skyhorse Publishing® are registered trademarks of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.® , a Delaware corporation.

  www.skyhorsepublishing.com

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data McCloskey, William B., 1928- Warriors : a novel / William B. McCloskey Jr.

   pages cm.

  ISBN 978-1-62873-567-3

  1. Fisheries--Fiction. 2. Fishers--Fiction. 3. Alaska--Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3563.A2617W37 2013

  813’.54--dc23

  2013025361

  Printed in the United States of America

  For my grandson William Lyell McCloskey

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  A pleasant task at the end of writing a long book based around facts is to thank those who helped me with the impression of those facts however I chose finally to present them. Also to thank those who looked over parts of the manuscript to check hard information about which there was no room for interpretation. And others who created the climate in which a long book could be written.

  The book is dedicated to my thirteen-year-old grandson William Lyell McCloskey. Will is a bright, sassy, inquiring presence, has been a bike and kayak buddy, and a precious friend. That said, the book could not have been written without the support of my wife for more than half a century, Ann Lyell McCloskey, to whom the preceding trilogy of Highliners novels have been dedicated with love. Also in a small circle of my support group was my late daughter and mother of grandson Will, Dr. Karin A. Lyell McCloskey. And very much still there for the rest of us is son Wynn, my onetime Alaska fishing companion, now trial lawyer William Bertine McCloskey III of Houston joined by his wife Shawna.

  For advice on the Japan portions of this book I’m particularly grateful to Jay Hastings, long an American representative of Japanese fishing interests, who advised in detail on portions of the manuscript. Any slip-up in following Jay’s advice can only be laid to my own decisions. Thanks also to Shaya Nakatsuka of the Japan Embassy in Washington, DC, for his comments reflecting a younger generation of Japanese than those in the book. And as always to Alan MacNow, who made possible my commercial fishing visits to Japan from 1980 to the recent present from which I learned respect for Japanese fishing concerns in general.

  In Kodiak, as in the past for entree and companionship during my commercial fishing forays to Alaska which have furnished the bedrock of all my Highliners novels, I thank Thorvold (once my skipper for king crab) and Connie Olsen, Al Burch, and Tom Casey, all of whom have remained available for advice and support.

  Of recent help, my thanks to historian Bob King of Juneau for information and insights on Bristol Bay history circa 1951 at that crucial time when engines supplanted sail on the boats while simultaneously various unions scrambled for dominance.

  Further in Alaska: to Alice Ryser of the Kodiak Historic Society for photos of that town before the 1964 tsunami rearranged the town’s layout. And for hospitality in Kodiak during my fishing time starting in 1975, still remembered with gratitude, friends and their spouses including Hank and Jan Pennington, Harold and Marcie Jones, plus the late Oscar Dyson and Chris Blackborn with their spouses Peggy and Jim.

  In a remarkable accommodation, the Ketchikan Public Library loaned me microfilms of the Ketchikan Daily Mirror for the years 1945—47. This was the period when Jones Henry of my present book returned home to Ketchikan from war duty and pieced back together his fishing career. In Baltimore the Johns Hopkins University library received and stored the films while providing me with the means to view and copy them over a period of months. Thanks for this loan in Ketchikan to Tammy Dinsmore, and in Baltimore to the Hopkins Interlibrary Services and Audiovisual Services.

  A lucky break for me was contact with Professor Mansel Blackford of Ohio University’s History Department. Mansel’s dad had been one of the vigorous young World War II veterans who pioneered Alaska’s nascent king crab fishery with their catcher-processor vessel Deep Sea. Besides becoming a personal friend along with his wife Viki, Mansel provided me with rare material from the Deep Sea’s days starting in the late 1940s on the Alaska grounds: both original documents and from his own book Pioneering a Modern Small Business.

  In another lucky break, I established contact with marine biologist Dr. Francis M. Fukuhara. Frank was a young Japanese-American consultant of about my own age in 1952 at the only other time that I had ever encountered him. Back then the Coast Guard Cutter Sweetbrier on which I was a junior officer took him from Adak in the Aleutians to ride with the Japanese fishing fleet just permitted back into Alaskan waters. It was a controversial rendezvous at the time. Frank has shared his notes aboard the Japanese vessel of an event that at the time was in my perspective only from the deck of my own American ship.

  Thanks further, in no easy category: To veteran Bristol Bay fisherman Dave Milholland of Anacortes for his knowledge of boat engines and gear circa 1950. To librarian Julie Johnson of Baltimore’s Enoch Pratt Library system for frequent help with research. And to Gaylord Clark, Baltimore-based seasonal fisherman up in Bristol Bay, for confirmation of traditional grounds along with current updates.

  CONTENTS

  Prologue I: Okinawa, July 1945

  Prologue II: Okinawa, October 1945

  Part One

  1 Caged

  2 Sea Storm

  3 Kiyomizu Leap

  4 Home

  5 Reality

  6 Tokyo

  7 Born on the Fourth of July

  8 Fishboat

  9 Arnie Skovkus

  10 Creek Street

  11 Jones Married

  Part Two

  12 A Small World Stewing with Change

  13 Promised Land

  14 Boss Swede

  15 Mug-Up

  16 Becoming American

  17 Fish Pickers

  18 Delivery by Pew

  19 The Outsider

  20 Strikers

  21 Encounters

  22 Southeaster

  23 Good Rye Whiskey

  Part Three

  24 Jackson Pollock in Tokyo

  25 Prospecting Kodiak

  26 Crab Dreams

  27 Swede Sees Crabs

  28 Pioneers of American Fishing

  29 Aboard the Vessel Deep Sea

  30 Akutan

  31 Aleutian Dance

  32 Forbidden Hootch

  33 Decision

  Part Four

  34 Departure

  35 Factory Fleet

  36 Classified Secret

  37 No Secret at All

  38 Inundation

  39 Adak Rain

  PROLOGUE

  I

  OKINAWA, JULY 1945

  Nothing’s changed about ’em. Except that now they squatted in a pen—where they belonged. Jones Henry sneered in contempt. Go on, be scared. Should have shot the whole batch of you when we had the chance. He
regarded them down on the ground below, past the sight of his combat boots, where they squatted, stuffing their faces with American rations instead of rice and fish heads. Kissed on the ass is what you got instead. One gaggle even shared puffs on an American cigarette. None looked you in the face. Thought you had so much honor you’d rather kill yourselves than be captured. All bullshit—that’s what your Jap lies turned out to be.

  The prisoners’ camp in the heat had its predictable odors of latrine and old sweat and ammonia disinfectant. The stench rose to the guard tower where Jones paced. He’d likely soon have enough of that stink buddied in some snake hole, ducking shells overhead, when they invade Japan itself. So, you yellow Japs, just be glad nobody plans to shoot you. Unless you get out of line.

  Prisoner-of-war duty at least gave a breather until the big push.

  “Patted on the fuckin’ head, mebbe,” Jones rubbed the smooth barrel of his piece. “But just try to escape with me up here.” Out over the hills, past craters and debris, among tile-roof shacks and neat little patches of cultivation, lay the blue ocean—slick and hot under the raw sun. Water he wanted nothing to do with, he who’d once thought water was his only home. Their ratty little boats in the harbor wouldn’t last through a storm, and they said typhoons blew regular through here. Boats that would never last a day back home in Ketchikan. Jones Henry could show them how to build a boat to catch fish.

  One of the scarecrows below fastened eyes on him. An officer, probably, since he was one of a small bunch that had been cordoned off by themselves: the only way to tell with their muck-caked uniforms in rags. All bones, like the others. Bugs crawled over his face and he made no move to squash them. Eyes narrowed more than just sneaky Jap eyes. Seemed to say “I’m still better than you up there.”

  Jones scowled back and held the gaze. Yeah fellah, look at me—a sergeant in charge of enlisted. In charge now of you—an officer. Still alive no thanks to you and your people. In a few weeks I’ll be taking fire again from Japs like you while you’ll be here, all safe, so don’t feel too sorry for yourself. Those cooties crawling over your face—that you’re too lazy or too full of yourself to smash—let ’em chew their fill. Jones cradled his piece for long enough to light up. He let the cigarette dangle from his mouth while he slapped the stock. Just try to escape, Jap! Give me the excuse!

  Captain Kiyoshi Tsurifune scorned to crush the lice crawling inside his clothes and across his chin. Or to groan from the wound he’d patched with grass and mud to stop the bleeding. The wound now five days old, or six, ached and sometimes screamed inside the remains of his shirt. To eat their food was disgraceful enough. He’d let the time for honorable death slip away when he’d lost consciousness, and now he sat waiting for slow dishonor at the barbarians’ hands.

  He glanced around. Others watched him with dead eyes. Soldiers under his command who had survived, lice-caked, like himself. He’d failed them, had set no example of dying with honor. They who had heard him day after day shout words of duty from generals and from the Emperor himself. He’d warned of the unspeakable tortures that awaited those taken alive—taken in disgrace. And now he, alive among them, awaited the enemy’s pleasure.

  How would he face his father if he ever survived to return to Sendai? Father might be glad to have a son back home to help direct the family’s small fleet of fishing vessels that were out searching for food in the sea that would feed their countrymen during the struggle against American imperialism. But how would Father and Mother ever again hold up their heads with a son—proudly trained as an officer for the Emperor—returned defeated but still alive?

  Let this wound kill me. Let it help me to die bearing pain. Let me do that at least for my Emperor.

  Two days before, an American enlisted man—not even an officer—had gone among the captured to cull out the wounded. For treatment, the man had said as he, unbelievably, passed out cigarettes and talked in a friendly way. More likely he was culling them to be tortured and shot so they’d be no more trouble. It was what he himself had ordered for some prisoners, back during his battalion’s victories. He barely had enough food for his own men. Back when all knew that being captured proved despicable weakness.

  Above him on a crudely constructed platform stood one of their soldiers. Beneath the helmet, the man’s face was a blank of lines and eyes, although how could you distinguish the expression on a barbarian’s face? They all looked alike. Before he could glance away, the soldier returned his stare.

  Even in disgrace, Captain Kiyoshi Tsurifune did not permit his gaze to falter. Let this soldier from a foreign army know that I will die proudly. But suddenly the wound scraped at his very heart. Even so, except for one jolt he couldn’t suppress, he kept his look cold and steady. Blood seeped into his mouth. He swallowed it back down. His mind dizzied, but he screwed his eyes to hold the gaze. This—now this was important. Show the victor my resolve until, Emperor willing, I can die and be released.

  Jones Henry wasn’t going to look away first. You’d kill me if you could, Jap, just as I’d kill you, and you ain’t getting the better of me on this. Just let me kill more of your little yellow brothers when we invade your dirty Jap homeland in a few days. Then if they get me, at least it’ll be some ways even.

  Slowly, the Jap squatting down below began to teeter. As his head hit the ground—with eyes still fixed on Jones’s own—blood started to trickle from his mouth.

  “One less,” Jones muttered. “Good riddance.” But he didn’t turn away. The Jap kept his gaze locked while he struggled to get back onto his feet.

  At last, Jones looked away, then back again in spite of himself. The Jap still struggled, his eyes still fixed.

  “Son of a bitch anyhow.” Jones turned to a soldier on duty inside the tower. “I don’t care what you do, but mebbe you want to call a medic if one’s around. Prisoner down there looks like he needs help. If that’s what we’re up to these days.” He thought about it, before adding, “A man who ain’t giving up like the rest.”

  II

  OKINAWA, OCTOBER 1945

  When word came that he could have five days’ leave, Sergeant Jones Henry snorted. Not enough time to fly home to Ketchikan, so big deal. Travel around in Jap-land? The one place he didn’t need to go.

  Over a brew at the noncom’s club, Gus Rosvic raised his bottle, winked, and declared, “You’re nuts, man.” He too had been given leave. “I’m headed for Tokyo. Nobody’s going to hold this boy back!”

  “Suit yourself. I’ll save my dough for home, where it matters.”

  Back weeks before and by coincidence of war, Jones had strode into the club and there had been Gus in navy blues. In the darkened room, Jones hadn’t noticed him until the familiar voice—grown deeper since Jones had left for the war—said, “Man, if they don’t let anybody in here. And if they don’t put anybody in a uniform these days!”

  When Jones saw that it was indeed Gus Rosvic—Ketchikan born and raised—waving and grinning, Jones could have hugged him for excitement. They had just stayed put, staring at each other.

  Jones had been the first to speak. “Navy didn’t kick you out, I see. Looks like they even gave you some stripes.”

  “Bosun First. Looks like the Marines’ve wasted sergeant stripes on you.”

  “You here on a ship?”

  “Shit Jones, I didn’t swim here.”

  Grinning, Jones asked, “Your dad still trolling for salmon back in Ketchikan?” He couldn’t keep the hunger for home from edging into his voice.

  “From his last letter, he did good with the cohos last summer and not bad with kings. Main trouble was getting enough gas to run the boat.” Gus had stopped to consider. “Same with your dad, I guess.”

  “That’s all I want to do, Gus.” Jones had taken an eager step forward. “Get back and fish.”

  Gus held up a hand, reigning in some of Jones’s enthusiasm. “Whoa, man. This boy’s going to stick around here first and see the world!” Neither one moved. Except for a scar that now
ran from one side of his forehead to his cheek, Gus’s broad grinning face had changed little in the five years since they last faced each other across their fathers’ boat rails. Rivals for the most fish caught, the fastest boat back to the cannery. “Last time we drank together, Jones buddy, we both had to lie about our age. Remember? You got permission yet to drink legal?” It was a stupid question, Jones felt—Gus always sulked for being a few months Jones’s junior. “’Course,” Jones sneered.

  “Then it’s me’s going to order your first brew or whatever today.”

  So now Jones wasn’t surprised by Gus’s enthusiasm for Tokyo, no matter that it was prime Jap-land, and was only recently enemy territory. No way he was gonna get Jones to go. In the NCOs’ club Gus practically swaggered with know-how and anticipation. He tilted his cap non-regulation style and made the grinning announcement that the would get laid every night in Tokyo by a different broad. “I’ve heard they just line up smiling and bowing, man. You take your pick! And don’t think that the American buck doesn’t buy you anything—I mean anything—you want!”

  Mebbe I should go, Jones thought. But to Gus, he said, “All Japs. Likely you’ll wake up tomorrow or next day with the clap or worse.”

  “I’ll use rubbers—ain’t stupid. And the way those broads treat you, man!” he said with as much relish as if he’d been there before. “Soft hands all over. Nice smells. Kissy kissy in places you never thought of before. Think you was a king or something.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Jones said he might go but for missing the Tigers win a game in the World Series. Gus laughed.

  “Think they don’t have overseas radio in Tokyo? You sure have gotten stuck on those games since I laid you thirty bucks on my Cubbies.”

  “You tell me something else here that’s closer to the old days. Besides, somebody’s gotta call you. Detroit’s where they make engines, so the Tigers got to have something. Won three games to your two and on a roll to win the fourth today, and the Series, and my bet to shut you up.”