“Order a security exercise,” he said majestically. “It seems that I had forgotten clause 56/976 of our original French-Iran contract that says every six months for a period of several days security must be checked against any and all intruders for… for the great glory of France and, er, Iran!” De Plessey’s fine eyes lit up with the beauty of his ruse. “Yes. Of course my subordinates forgot to remind me but now we will all hurl ourselves into the exercise with perfect French enthusiasm. Everywhere, on Siri, on the rigs, ashore, even at Lengeh! Les cretins! How dare they think they could sabotage the work of years.” He glanced around. There was still no one near. The rest of the party was assembled now near the second 212. “I’ll have to tell Kasigi because of his tanker,” he said quietly. “That might be the target.” “Can you trust him? I mean to do everything quietly.”
“Yes. We will have to, mon ami. We will have to warn him, yes, we’ll have to do that.” De Plessey felt his stomach rumbling. My God, he thought, very perturbed, I hope it’s just hunger and that I’m not in for a bilious attack - though I wouldn’t wonder with all that’s happened today. First we almost have an accident, then our top pilot almost has a fight with that barrel full of dung Ghafari, and now the revolution may come to us. “Kasigi asked if he could fly back with you. When will you be ready?”
“Before sundown, but there’s no need for him to wait for us, he can go back with you.”
De Plessey frowned. “I understand why you don’t like Japanese - me, I still can’t stand the Germans. But we must be practical. He’s a good customer and since he asked, I’d appreciate it if you’d, you’d, er, ask Vossi to fly him, mon cher ami. Yes, now we are intimate friends, you saved our lives, and we shared an Act of God! And he is one of our very good customers,” he added firmly. “Very good. Thank you, mon ami. I’ll leave him at Siri. When you’re ready, pick him up there. Tell him what you told me. Excellent, then that’s decided, and rest assured I will commend you to the authorities and to the Laird Gavallan himself.” He beamed again. “We’ll be off and I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Scragger watched him go. He cursed silently. De Plessey was the top man so there was nothing he could do and that afternoon on the way to Siri he sat back in the cabin, sweating and hating it.
“Jesus, Scrag,” Vossi had said, in shock, when he had told him he was riding in the back. “Passenger? You all right? You sure y - ”
“I just want to see what it feels like,” Scragger had said irritably. “Get your arse in the captain’s seat, fetch that bugger from Siri, and set her down like a bleeding feather at Lengeh or it’s in your bleeding report.” Kasigi was waiting at the helipad. There was no shade and he was hot, dusty, and sweating. Dunes stretched back to the pipelines and tank complex, all dirty brown from the dust. Scragger watched the dust devils, little whirlwinds, dance over the ground, and he thanked his stars that he could fly and didn’t have to work in such a place. Yes, choppers are noisy and always vibrating and maverick, he thought, and yes, I miss flying the high skies, flying fixed wing alone in the high skies, diving and turning over and falling like an eagle to rise up again - but flying is flying and I still hate sitting in the bleeding cabin. For God’s sake, here it’s even worse than a regular aircraft! He hated flying without the controls and never felt safe and this added to his discomfort as he beckoned Kasigi to sit beside him and slammed the door shut. The two mechanics were dozing in their seats opposite, their white overalls stained with sweat. Kasigi adjusted the Mae West and snapped his seat belt tight.
Once airborne Scragger leaned closer to him. “There’s no way to tell you but quickly so here it is: there may be a terrorist attack on Siri, one of the rigs, perhaps even your ship. De Plessey asked me to warn you.” The air hissed out of Kasigi’s mouth. “When?” he asked over the heavy cabin noise.
“I don’t know. Nor does de Plessey. But it’s more than possible.” “How? How will they sabotage?”
“No idea. Guns or explosives, maybe a time bomb, so you’d better tighten security.”
“It is already optimum,” Kasigi replied at once, and then saw the flash of anger in Scragger’s eyes. For a second he could not fathom the why, then he remembered what he had just said. “Ah, so sorry, Captain, I did not mean to be boastful. It is just that we have always very high standards and in these waters my ships’re…” He had almost said “on a war footing” but stopped himself in time, containing his irritation at the other’s sensitivity. “In these waters everyone is more than careful. Please excuse me.” “De Plessey wanted you to know. And also to keep the tip mum - to keep it to yourself - and not get any Iranian backs up.”
“I understand. The tip is safe with me. Again, thank you.” Kasigi saw Scragger nod briefly then settle back in his seat. The bigger half of him also wanted to nod briefly and end everything there, but because the Australian had saved his companions’ lives as well as his own, therefore enabling them to give further service to the company and their leader, Hiro Toda, he felt it his duty to attempt a healing.
“Captain,” he said as quietly as he could over the thunder of the jets, “I understand why we Japanese are hated by Australians and I apologize for all the Changis, all the Burma Roads, and all the atrocities. I can only tell you the truth: these happenings are well taught in our schools and not forgotten. It is to our national shame that these things happened.” It’s true, he thought angrily. To commit those atrocities was stupid even though those fools did not understand they were committing atrocities - after all, the enemy were cowards, most of them, and meekly surrendered in tens of thousands and so forfeited their rights as human beings according to our Bushido, our code, that stipulates for a soldier to surrender is the worst dishonor. A few mistakes by a few sadists, a few ill- educated peasants of prison guards - most of whom were the garlic eaters, Koreans - and all Japanese have to suffer forever. It is a shame of Japan. And another, the worst of all shames, that our supreme war-leader failed in his duty and so forced the emperor into the shame of having to terminate the war. “Please accept my apology for all of us.”
Scragger stared at him. After a pause he said simply, “Sorry, but I can’t. For one thing my ex-partner Forsyth was the first man into Changi; he never got over what he saw; for another too many of my cobbers, not just POWs, bought it. Too many. I can’t forget. An’ more than that, I won’t. I won’t because if I did, that’d be their last betrayal. We’ve betrayed them in the peace - wot peace? We’ve betrayed ‘em all, that’s what I think. Sorry, but there it is.”
“I understand. Even so we can make a peace, you and I. No?” “Maybe. Maybe in time.”
Ah, time, Kasigi thought, bemused. Today I was again on the edge of death. How much time do we have, you and I? Isn’t time an illusion and all life just illusions within illusions. And death? His revered samurai ancestor’s death poem had summed it up perfectly: What are clouds,/But an excuse for the sky?/What is life,/But an escape from Death?
The ancestor was Yabu Kasigi, daimyo of Izu and Baka and supporter of Yoshi Toronaga, first and greatest of the Toronaga shoguns who, from father to son, ruled Japan from 1603 until 1871 when the Meiji emperor finally obliterated the shogunate and outlawed the entire samurai class. But Yabu Kasigi was not remembered for his loyalty to his liege lord or his courage in battle - as was his famous nephew Omi Kasigi, who fought for Toronaga at the great battle of Sekigahara, had his hand blown off but still led the charge that broke the enemy.
Oh, no, Yabu betrayed Toronaga, or tried to betray him, and so was ordered by him to commit seppuku - ritual death by disembowelment. Yabu was revered for the calligraphy of his death poem, and his courage when he committed seppuku. On that day, kneeling before the assembled samurai, he contemptuously dispensed with the second samurai who would stand behind him with a long sword to end his agony quickly by cutting off his head and so preventing the shame of crying out. He took the short knife and plunged it deep into his stomach, then leisurely made the four cuts, the most difficult seppuku of all - across and down, across again and up - then lifted out his own entrails to die at length, never having cried out.
Kasigi shivered at the thought of having to do the same, knowing he would not have the courage. Modern war’s nothing to those days when you could be ordered to die thus at the whim of your liege lord… .
He saw Scragger watching him.
“I was in the war, too,” he said involuntarily. “Fixed wing. I flew Zeros in China, Malaya, and Indonesia. And New Guinea. Courage in war is different from… from courage alone…. I mean, not in war, isn’t it?” “I don’t understand.”
I haven’t thought about my war for years, Kasigi was thinking, a sudden wave of fear going through him, remembering his constant terror of dying or being maimed, terror that had consumed him - like today when he was certain they were all going to die and he and his companions had been frozen with fear. Yes, and we all did today what we did all those war years: remembered our heritage in the Land of the Gods, swallowed our terror as we had been taught from childhood, pretended calm, pretended harmony so as not to shame ourselves before others, flew missions for the emperor against the enemy as best we could and then, when he said lay down your arms, thankfully laid down our arms, however much the shame.
A few found the shame unbearable and killed themselves in the ancient way with honor. Did I lose honor because I didn’t? Never. I obeyed the emperor who ordered us to bear the unbearable, then joined my cousin’s firm
