Rising Sun

lust was up.

In earlier times, Masao had thought that way as well, but not now. He had seen far too many men die to think kindly on the idea of slaughter as a sport. Killing the helpless was not the way of the warrior. Nor was it right for the gunners on the cruiser to have kept firing, forcing Masao to kill again. There was no shame in retreating to fight again another day. The Australian gunners had been fools and it would be justice if they were dead.

The newer Japanese pilots were not the same quality as the men they were replacing, the men who had fought and died for Nippon, the men he mourned as lost companions. The men replacing them were children in comparison, a point he’d frequently made to his good friend Toki.

The Canberra rolled on its side and then on its back. Australian sailors tried to cling to the slippery hull but it bounced obscenely in the water and they were thrown off. God help anyone trapped inside, Masao thought and permitted himself a shudder since no one could see him show weakness in the cockpit of his plane. When I die, he thought, let it be fast.

An hour later, his plane and all the rest of the pilots were safe on the Kaga. Two Zeros had been shot down by enemy fire and both pilots lost. They had been new pilots and now they would be replaced by two more who were even less well prepared.

Masao took a long drink of water and walked as close to the edge of the flight deck as his fear of heights would let him. The mighty ocean swells were hypnotically beautiful and deceptively peaceful. One could look and never see war.

“Don’t jump,” a familiar voice whispered from behind him.

“Go to hell, Toki,” he cheerfully said to his friend. Masao was glad to see him. There hadn’t been much opportunity to visit in the last several days.

“We may already be there, or haven’t you noticed? The men and the ship are wearing down. We need a long and slow refit in a harbor that actually has facilities and where the people don’t want to kill you like they do on Hawaii. And admit it, wouldn’t you like to walk on the ground just one more time before you die?”

“Yes, but I don’t plan on dying just yet.”

“Who does, but we are in a war,” Toki said.

“Which is why we cannot surrender to our desire for luxuries,” Masao answered. “We must harden ourselves and be stronger than the Americans. Our time will come. Then we will have geishas or even American or Australian maidens to service us,” Masao added facetiously.

“And they’ll be as enthusiastic as the whores, or slaves, in Hawaii. By the way, that little piece of happiness and sunshine near Hilo has been abandoned. Apparently, Hawaiian guerillas overran the place and freed all the slaves. Now you can’t even go there and just sit on the beach. We bombed and strafed the island, doubtless killing a number of the enemy, but that was an exercise in futility.”

“Enough,” Masao said sharply. “Please tell me you have some good news for a change.”

“Well, it is news, but I won’t be the judge as to whether it’s good or not. Apparently, we have somehow located the American carrier, the Saratoga.”

Masao beamed. “Excellent. Now we can strike at her and kill her. And then perhaps we can go home and get laid by a proper Japanese woman.”

“What happened to your American or Australian women? Regardless, it might not happen. Just because we found the damned carrier doesn’t mean she’s in a position where she can be attacked. Apparently she is off the Mexican coast, in a body of water called the Bay of California. It is near enough to San Diego for surface planes to protect her. Neither Admiral Kurita nor Admiral Nagumo thinks she would be worth the price. Yamamoto of course disagrees. He reminds his admirals that Japan was willing to lose two carriers at Pearl Harbor in order to destroy the American fleet, and should be willing to lose a carrier or two in order to wipe out the final vestiges of American power in the Pacific.”

Masao grinned. “Just so long as one of the carriers sunk isn’t the Kaga. I’m very tired of having to change ships because the previous one was sunk. Seriously, what do you think will be the decision?”

“Apparently our revered Admiral Yamamoto is torn. Attacking the Saratoga while she is being repaired is one option. Another is to wait until her repairs are complete and hit her with a host of submarines. The exit from her sanctuary is relatively narrow and could easily be covered by our submarines. A number of them are already on their way to blockade the gulf.”

Masao pondered for a moment. “A good plan, but not good enough. The Americans will surely be looking for our submarines, whether they suspect that we know where the carrier is or not. No, the only way to be certain is to use our planes. I suppose we could use our subs to trail the Saratoga once she does emerge and take her on the high seas when she’s away from any help from land-based planes, or even their subs. But the American carrier is much faster than our subs, and that means we would run the always present risk of her escaping. If that were to happen, the chase would begin all over again.”

Toki laughed. “You should have been an admiral. Those are exactly the arguments that are raging. Yamamoto does not want to run the risk of having to chase her again.”

“Well, I am smarter than most people think, and better looking, too. But what do you think will happen?”

Toki took a deep breath. “I believe Yamamoto is looking for the slightest excuse to attack her while she is in Mexican waters.”

Dane came up with the basic phraseology for the second message and Krause modified it only slightly. The message said that not only was the client recovering in Mexico, but that the client would shortly be visited by his twin brother and suitable gifts should be provided for the siblings.

Krause was happy. He could see himself one step closer to being free to disappear in the vastness of the United States. He was more and more convinced that Germany would lose the war. He felt that the offensive against the Soviet city of Stalingrad which had begun in June would prove to be a catastrophe.

“According to your newspapers and radio,” Krause said, “Hitler will lose in Russia and he will lose in North Africa, even though your advances have been slow and poorly managed at best. The German Army in North Africa cannot be reinforced or kept well supplied. You will simply overwhelm Rommel or whoever is in command. In a way, it is like your situation in Alaska, although that seems to have taken a turn for the better.”

“I’ll relay your thoughts to Roosevelt and Marshall,” Dane said drily. “I’m sure they’ll be gratified to know of your approval.”

Krause ignored the gibe. “When will you arrest the men I’ve been communicating with in Mexico?”

“Not my call. I suppose, though, that it will happen when they and you are of no further use. Who knows, maybe we’ll get lucky and they’ll all be killed resisting arrest. Why, are some of them your friends?”

Krause paused for a moment. He was visualizing their faces and remembering the times they’d had together.

“Friends? No. I will concede that they are, or were, comrades in arms. But after all is said and done, if they must become casualties, then so be it.” He laughed. “It’s not as if I have a choice in the matter. If anybody has to be a casualty, I would much prefer it be them and not me.”

* * *

Farris sat in an uncomfortable chair in the darkened hospital room and looked at the doctor shining a light into his bad eye. He put a hand over his right eye and used only his left. What he saw was blurry and bright, but at least it was sight. He reached over with his left hand and picked up a pencil on the third try.

“Damn it.”

“Keep working at it,” the doctor said and left. Farris thought the doctor had been useless, telling him nothing he didn’t already know. He could see out of his left eye, just not very well. Sometimes he thought he would be better off wearing a patch but the doctors said he should try to strengthen his eye and his vision by using it. Sometimes he got headaches, but they would be a small price to pay if he could regain much of his vision. An eye doctor suggested that he might wind up wearing glasses when his vision stabilized. Damn, that meant he would look like Clark Kent, without the ability to turn into Superman. Would Lois Lane, Sandy, want such a creature? Did he want Lois Lane? The doctors informed him that there would also be scarring and that half of his left eyebrow no longer existed. This was hardly a big deal when he considered some of the others recovering in this and other hospitals. At least he was alive. Stecher wasn’t.