WARRIORS Read online

  “Yeah, yeah. Newhouser’s smart enough to dodge the draft. And Greenberg may be just back from the army, but that’s the best your Tigers got against my Bowroy and Cavarretta. We’re hot today.”

  “My Newhouser’s going to pitch circles around your Cubs,” Jones declared. “That fuckin’ thirty bucks I win from you today goes toward the newest style boat engine back home—Palmer Forty at least.”

  “Bull! Whoever wins today has got to spend it in Tokyo. I need to show a dumbass like you around. Somebody’s got to make sure you don’t get rolled.” With a shrug, Jones agreed with to go to Tokyo, though he still pretended reluctance. “Nobody rolls Jones Henry!” he declared.

  Gus’s connections hitched them a transport flight direct to Tokyo. And since Gus knew—or more likely had buttered him up, Jones thought—the pilot, they were invited to the cockpit soon after takeoff, instead of staying strapped to a bucket seat in the cargo hold with the others taking leave.

  “Why do we want to do that?” Jones had growled.

  “To see the sights, man. Suit yourself. I’m going up.”

  As Jones expected, there was little to see over the pilot’s shoulder that he hadn’t already looked at disinterestedly on the ground. Just more of the same blasted out buildings, cratered earth, and squared patches of land.

  “So,” said the pilot over engine noise, “Who’s going to take Game Six? Looks bad for the Tigers.”

  Jones popped to life. “Who told you that?”

  Gus grinned at Jones. “Cavarretta’s gonna bring it in for the Cubs, man.” He wiggled his thumb against his fingers. “See? I’m already counting my win money.”

  “You’ll count your empty hands. Why am I on this plane anyhow? I should be by some radio for when the game starts!”

  “Just wait’ll you get to Tokyo,” the pilot announced. “Try loudspeakers by the train station. Whole town’s likely gonna be there listening.” Plainly enjoying himself, he turned to glance up at Jones. “Your Detroit Tigers are in trouble—even if before today they’d got three wins to Chi’s two. Chi Cubs are going to take this game today and tie the Series.”

  “Sonuva bitch!”

  Suddenly the pilot turned serious. “Look off to your left.”

  Jones squinted without interest. “Nothing but clouds. Mebbe smoke. And we’re going to miss the start of the game!”

  “Smoke, still. Hiroshima. Today’s October 8th right? So two months ago, almost to the day. Every time I make this run I change course a notch to see it. May be against orders, but this ain’t wartime still, so fuck orders if it don’t hurt the plane.”

  “Yeah? That’s the place? Well. Couldn’t burn there enough for me.” Nevertheless, Jones leaned toward the glass and squinted to see whatever details could be made out. A few black shapes rose from the ground—maybe bits of buildings. He could see little else from that distance. But soon the plane had traversed this part of the scene, and they passed on over patches of water hemmed in by trees with yellowing leaves. “Nope. Couldn’t ever be smoke there enough in—what they call it? Hirohito?”

  “Killed a few thousand they say,” observed the pilot.

  “Did even one American get blown up there?”

  “Don’t think so, Sarge.”

  “Then it suits me just fine. Mebbe even got the Jap who would’ve shot my ass in the invasion. Couldn’t ever kill enough Japs. And here we’re stuck in the sky with no radio!”

  The paved airstrip they landed on was clean and open, as was another strip nearby, although further off lay heaps of glass shards and concrete slabs with weeds grown tall around them. Jones headed for a hangar from which a cheer had suddenly burst, but Gus hustled him into the only jeep around that had room to take them into the city.

  “What’s the score?” Jones demanded of the driver.

  “You mean the World Series? You got the wrong man, Sarge. I don’t follow baseball. That’s why I’m driving today—you can hear everybody else is hangin’ around the radios.”

  “One numbnut they got at this base . . .” muttered Jones.

  “Enjoy the scenery, man.” Gus produced a pint bottle of whiskey from some recess of his uniform. “Got this at the PX before we left. Figured we’d need to loosen you up.” He broke the seal, took a gulp, and offered it to the driver who shook his head, before handing it to Jones. “Not carrying this bottle any further, man, so do your share.”

  Jones shrugged and drank. They drove through stretches of rubble on either side of the road where only a pipe stood here and there. Past areas that had maybe a building or two intact. Others were roofless, with black holes for windows. People everywhere stooped like mushrooms, picking over things that they put in bags and boxes. Most turned their backs at the approach of the American vehicle. Jones took one more swig and another.

  Deeper into the city, the driver steered through streets that had been cleared of rubble, leaving a single lane. He honked nonstop to clear the Japanese to the side, then emerged into a wider street lined by lean-tos and shacks thrown together from charred boards.

  We showed ’em, thought Jones dispassionately. What surprised him, though, was the energy with which these city Japs hopped about. Nothing like the ones on Okinawa. These were like the mosquitoes on the islands: sprayed ’em down, you turned for a minute, and back they came in double numbers. Some Japs even waved at them. When, still honking, they slowed a bit, one Jap ran alongside trying to sell a drawing of trees and mountains. By now, Gus held the nearly empty bottle, and he sprinkled the last drops of whiskey onto the Jap’s head before tossing the bottle out of the car. It clunked off the boards of a stall where little skewers of meat were smoking, then bounced against an adjoining stand selling pictures. It had barely touched the ground when a Japanese woman ran to pick it up.

  “You might’ve hit somebody,” grumbled Jones.

  “But I didn’t.”

  “Yeah, you missed.”

  The driver let them out at the side of a large building that he said was the Tokyo train station. “If you want your World Series, guys, here’s the best place.” As the two clambered heavily out of the vehicle, Jones was less than impressed. Japs and Americans stood side by side, practically shoulder to shoulder, listening to the voice from the loudspeaker. “Tigers better win,” Jones growled, half-buzzed, to Gus. “Otherwise just standin’ around in some shit hole, buddyin’ up with Japs for no good reason.”

  Jones and Gus elbowed their way through the crowd as Greenberg hit a home run over the left-field wall, bringing in two more runs for Detroit. But even as Jones joined in the cheer—looked like the Tigers were gonna win anyhow—he couldn’t help but think how there was only one place in the world Jones wanted to be. Home in Alaska. In Ketchikan where his old boat waited.

  PART ONE

  I

  CAGED

  OKINAWA, AUGUST 1945

  A pistol would have done it. It could have been with that pistol they took from his belt. The insult! To revive him with medicine when he had ordered himself to die. It was the fault of the soldier whose gaze had fixed with his soon after his capture. Captain Kiyoshi Tsurifune knew enough English to understand the man’s order—from English studied long ago, in a different world where dealing with barbarians was integral to the family business passed from father to son for decades.

  If only they had shot him during capture as they had some of the others. If he had not been stunned by the explosives thrown into the cave, if he had strode toward them boldly as had young sub-lieutenant Kiji—with a concealed grenade ready to take at least one of them with him. Kiji had died a hero’s death. The Americans had shot him in the chest—only moments before the armed grenade blew him apart. This angered the Americans, who had shot others of his group—anyone who made even the least move. In other circumstances Kiyoshi had given those same orders. Shoot the prisoners—even those with hands up for surrender—if they made the slightest step forward.

  “That’s for my dead buddy you yellow bastards!” one of th
e Americans had yelled before shooting two Japanese soldiers. Kiyoshi hoped indeed that some of those the American called his “buddies” had been righteously killed for the Emperor.

  In the fetid cave where they had lived like rats in dark and mold for weeks, waiting to kill the Americans when the invasion came, hatred for all but anyone Japanese was clear enough. Even worthless local villagers, cringing disgracefully and screwing up their Chinese-like faces, were driven away when they too tried to use the caves after the shelling began. Those villagers that were not even useful for providing food, for they proved to have none themselves; inferiors who would have quickly revealed hidden stores under even lightest torture.

  Now he was not even allowed an honorable death through starvation. The captors brought him food. Rice, of course, boiled to a clogged mush. The Americans had no understanding of how it ought to be prepared. Canned meat that smelled like dogs—Kiyoshi had to admit that perhaps it was better than the “meat” that was mostly weeds and sawdust to which they had become accustomed in the caves. But it was so rich that it cramped his stomach and worse. Yet he ate what they dished out onto his metal plate. At first he thought the meat’s strange taste was poison, and he prepared calmly for the justified, agonizing death of the defeated. At least he would die without flinching. When this happened, his identity would be found in the worn canvas pouch of letters and photographs that was all he had managed to keep when he was captured. Hope, then, that perhaps merely the report of his death would reach home, but not the circumstance, and Father would be able to mourn a son lost in honorable combat for the Emperor.

  Not that the eternal spirits would be fooled. He himself would never be a Righteous Soul enshrined at the Yasukuni Shrine on Kudan Hill, like Junior Sub-Lieutenant Kiji. It appeared it was his doom to remain among the living, the vessel of his own disgrace.

  He had prepared himself to suffer greatly as a prisoner. Yet even his wounds healed under enemy care. Now, instead of pain, his body produced such disgusting dysentery that he was often obliged to stagger or crawl in desperation to defecate into a stinking pit. A piece of canvas covering the pit trapped insufferable heat, and the stench attracted insects that bit any part of skin not covered by the rags of a once-proud uniform.

  The Americans even humiliated officers as if they were only common soldiers. It was a mere American corporal who ordered them to strip and relinquish their clothes. They were sprayed with brackish seawater pumped by a small, noisy engine through a hose. The sudden pressure slapped their thin bodies against each other until they learned to brace against the gushing water. (And how the inferior American behind the hose laughed at their struggle!) Then, by gestures, they were made to cup their hands and scoop a thick, slimy liquid from a large can and smear themselves with it. One captor tapped each man’s private and most tender parts with a stick unless the man rubbed in the liquid until it sudsed white. The liquid stung Kiyoshi’s open sores and scraped like knives on the sores where the nested lice had bitten in a frenzy.

  Then the hose would have been welcomed, but it was left to gush on the ground while their sweat dissolved the pasty liquid into long brown streaks. At last the hose again—washing off with its torrent both the dead lice and those still trying to bite. Finally the Americans splashed a bucketful of fresh, heated water over each man, half into the face and half toward the crotch. (How good that water felt despite the humiliation. Don’t admit it, even to yourself.) And the final indignity: each man was ordered to pick and mash any lice that remained on the body of the man beside him. The prisoners did so in apologetic shame, avoiding each other’s eyes.

  The clothes, when they were returned to them, had been boiled clean. They were still hot and soggy, now shrunken and nearly shapeless, but the naked men hurried to cover themselves again.

  It was an insult akin almost to torture to be made clean by the barbarian enemy. To be fed by them. Not beaten. Spoken to roughly, yes. Ordered about by the common ranks of their own soldiers. Deprived of an honorable death.

  But the sun poured over the camp; it seeped through the shelters formed by swathes of canvas draped across poles. When rain fell, it settled into dripping pockets throughout the canvas. The raw chemical smells of disinfectant slowly replaced the odors of rot—except around the shit pits. Eventually the prisoners’ clothes dried and took shape again around their bodies. The lice became so few that they could be sought out and killed with a pop of the fingers—this time, they didn’t leave behind a dozen of their vermin brothers to make the picking a useless exercise.

  When left to himself in the canvas shelter—the prisoners were too subdued to seek out one another’s company—Kiyoshi’s gaze wandered toward the sea. It formed lines of purifying blue beyond the fencing and past the heads of restless prisoners. It stretched in distant bands between hills and beyond the broken wings of a plane crashed into one of the squares of cultivated field.

  In former days the sea had welcomed him as comfortably as home. From the desolate caves he’d stretched a hand toward goddess Sea. Daydreamed that her clean water washed the filth from his body. Now she beckoned as the ultimate home of the dead. Would drowned souls then live as gods? As restless spirits? As fish? Or, the greatest blessing of all, might the waters close over in simple blackness?

  On that unbelievable night they said the Emperor appeared on the radio to announce surrender, when word traveled mouth to mouth among the prisoners, the sudden sound of booming guns made those around him hope. Hah. The surrender was a clever ruse, and now the Imperial troops were arriving to finish off the Americans. Shells exploded overhead, flashing in the night sky. The explosions were so great that hot metal from the broken shells singed through the prison shelters. Now it is that I am to die, he’d exulted, and I will be spared the disgrace of having submitted to capture. The thought did not fill him with the relief he would have felt only weeks before, even though he told himself—with tears in his eyes—that it did.

  And then, after all, it was only the captors celebrating. The Emperor truly had surrendered. Reason enough for tears.

  With acceptance that his entire nation was disgraced, Kiyoshi stopped thinking of personal death as the only way out. Surely not everyone should die. Looking back, the cleansing of the lice might have been the symbol of his return to life. All that the incident lacked in importance was the solemnity of a priest, as at one of the great shrines. He began to consider what life—not death—might lie ahead.

  A father waited far away. And a mother, of course, both surely still living, although no letters had been exchanged for months. Were able to be exchanged. Father was the one face that remained vivid, the revered one he’d been trained to honor since boyhood. He was meant to follow him in the family enterprise. What of that now? And back home was a dead wife waiting to be mourned. His tender, sweet little Yokiko, who he had barely known except in childhood but married in haste before going to war.

  The days after the surrender turned into long weeks. Daily rations of food and cigarettes began to be taken for granted. Anticipated. Criticized, even! And the small soap ration that provided a level of cleanliness beyond imagining during the months in caves and mud-slogged bunkers began to seem stingy in view of the American wealth of food and supplies. Those few prisoners to whom he deigned to talk—defeated officers like himself—complained so much that he felt ashamed. The Americans towered over the defeated. Barbarians, yes: big and loud. Voices deeper than those of the Japanese, less shrill when excited. He watched their confident progress. Men he might have liked if they hadn’t been the enemy.

  It remained hot even in pouring rain. And boring. Kiyoshi watched as ordinary Japanese soldiers marched off in groups with shovels or picks over their shoulders to do some kind of manual labor. At the very beginning he thought, yes, aha, they were being taken to dig their own graves after all, and his own death was still to come—whether he desired it now or not. But each night they returned, tired perhaps, but joking more and more, with enough cigarettes that they no lo
nger needed to share. Their disgrace forgotten. Reluctantly, he envied them in his own enforced idleness.

  With his energy slowly on the rise, he yearned to run and stretch. It so happened that two officers had also once trained in the ways of Jigoro Kano, and the three of them began to practice judo. Long abandoned during the rigors of burrowing in caves, preparing for attack; such hardships had sapped any will for excess movement. The three men gathered what rags and other soft material they could find for matting against the hard earth. At the outset they felled each other with slow ritual to conserve their fragile energy, though a decade previous, their dojo masters would have punished such soft restraint with shouts and blows. At first, just a few minutes of training left them staggering with fatigue. Days later they found themselves putting force behind basic moves and taking falls with less caution.

  Some of the American soldiers began to watch from their lookout towers. Even called encouragement. One day an American shouted out, “Hey! Heads up!” and threw down a rolled rubber tent mat to replace their makeshift creation.

  It was the same scowling sergeant who had matched stares with Kiyoshi weeks before. The one who had ordered him medical attention. The two men eyed each other once more. This time, before the sergeant turned away, Kiyoshi made a slight bow.

  2

  SEA STORM

  SEPTEMBER 1945

  One daybreak, as the prison camp was just beginning to stir, a Japanese interpreter suddenly moved among them calling, “War is over. Gather your possessions and be ready to move. There is a ship waiting to take you home!” The rumble around Kiyoshi rose to a roar as the men talked excitedly. Some wept. There was little to gather. Hours yet followed of waiting.

  They lined up for a final meal dished from pots onto metal plates (which the interpreter told them to keep for the journey) then at last they were formed into groups of about twenty men. Each group marched out separately, accompanied front and rear by armed Americans riding in open vehicles.