Ghosts of Bungo Suido (24 page)

Gar’s personal goon pointed him at a group of four. When he joined them he was handed a wooden mallet, a blunted chisel, and a basket of oakum fiber. Their job was plain to see: stuff the oakum into every bulkhead penetration in front of them, and then hammer it tight around the cable, pipe, or wire bundle coming through the hole in the vertical bulkhead. As in warships the world over, there were hundreds of penetrations through the bulkheads between adjacent spaces. None of these appeared to have the simple metal device the U.S. Navy used to ensure watertight integrity, called a stuffing tube. On this ship there was just a drilled hole, and they were stuffing it with oakum, as had been done in the seventeenth century. If the space ahead of where they were working ever flooded for any reason, the water would soon be pouring into this space. In damage control parlance, that was called progressive flooding, and it always had one, inevitable result. Oakum was a joke, a bad joke.

They stood on small stools to reach the cableway penetrations that ran along the overhead. Gar wondered why they were bothering. A stuffing tube anchors the caulking material between two metal collars that are permanently attached to the bulkhead. Water pressure on one side pressed the collar into the other side, sealing it. Hammering oakum into the holes gave the impression of sealing them, but he knew that with the first hint of real pressure all that oakum would pop right out, no matter how hard they hammered it. They were kidding themselves, especially if this compartment was below the waterline.

They were not allowed to speak to or even look at each other. Anyone caught looking around got whacked on the head by the ever-ready bamboo baton. Still, Gar could see that most of the prisoners were Allied soldiers or sailors, dressed in the tattered remnants of various uniforms. They were all considerably thinner than he was and bore the many scars of the Japanese army’s hostile indifference toward POWs. In retrospect Gar realized that the captain’s offer to let him shoot himself should not have come as a surprise. Wait until the B-29s come, he thought.

His thoughts were interrupted by sharp commands from the guards. They picked up their baskets and went single file into the next compartment, where they set to work hammering oakum into the other side of their previous efforts. The senior guard finally spotted Gar’s wristwatch and then quickly relieved him of it.

Hours later they were all herded back up several ladders and out into the cavernous hangar bay. From there they were marched to the very back end of the hangar bay, through a long passageway, and out onto the fantail of the carrier. The flight deck extended overhead, supported by crisscrossed I-beams rising out of the steel of the main deck. There they were made to sit in ranks against the final bulkhead, their backs to the cold steel, and their hands in their laps. One of the goons came along the line of sitting men and inspected their hands to make sure they were empty. They showed him palms up, palms down, and then dropped their hands back into their laps. If one didn’t do it fast enough, the guard would reward him with a smack on the elbow from his baton.

Once the hand inspection was complete, the guards clapped handcuffs on each man and passed a steel wire through all the handcuffs, which was then shackled to the deck at each end. After a while two mess cooks came out onto the fantail area, each carrying a wooden tray. The men were allowed to take two rice balls apiece, each impregnated with a single drop of soy sauce. Once the rice had been distributed, the team came back with a black pot and a large copper dipper. They each got to drink one dipper of water.

From the looks on the goon squad’s faces, the POWs were being positively pampered, even though they were outside on a weather deck, sitting against cold steel with no coats or jackets. The sun was going down, illuminating nearby islands and the distant shore with a cold, metallic light. They could see two destroyers plowing along in the carrier’s expansive wake. It looked to Gar like they were making 20 knots. The props below them vibrated more than Gar would have expected for a brand-new ship. An occasional puff of stack gas whipped across the fantail, making their eyes water. The goons stood against the lifelines stretched across the very back of the fantail area, four of them, dressed out in padded vests, woolen trousers, Japanese army caps, and black gloves and carrying their ever-present batons.

As full darkness came, Gar felt movement along the line, as everybody began pressing into the center of the line of sitting men for mutual warmth. A small red light came on above them; it was mounted under the flight deck so as not to show beyond the edges of the deck. The smell of cooking food wafted back along the deck, and the guards, after a final check of the wire, went into a small guardroom just forward of the fantail area. They left the hatch open so they could keep an eye on their charges.

Gar was sore, cold, dead tired, and depressed, and this was just his first day in captivity. Some of these guys were wearing what looked like British uniforms, which meant that they could have been shipped back to the Home Islands from Singapore. That city had fallen almost three years ago. That was not an encouraging thought, nor were his prospects once they got to Tokyo. The Japs had to know the U.S. submarines were strangling them. A captured skipper would be made to sing in detail, and then he would be beheaded. Or maybe just beheaded. On that happy note, he fell asleep.

SubPac Headquarters, Pearl Harbor

It was almost seven thirty before Admiral Lockwood got back to his headquarters.

“How’d the boss take the news?” Forrester asked.

“I think he aged a year right in front of me,” Lockwood said. “But after we’d kicked it around for a while, we decided there was nothing to be done. If they break him, they’ll either change their codes or they won’t. If they do, we’ll break ’em again.”

“That’s easier said than done, I suspect,” Forrester said. “Why wouldn’t they change their codes? Disinformation?”

“Sure. They’re Japs. You know, clever Oriental bastards. If they find out we’re reading their message traffic, then they could start throwing in some bullshit, like a fake transit route of the next carrier deployment. Get us to deploy subs—right into a minefield we didn’t know about.”

“Oh, boy.”

“As Nimitz pointed out, we don’t even know if he’s been captured,” Lockwood said. “The waters out there, off Japan? In December? How long would someone floating around survive? An hour? It’s not like he’s going to swim to the nearest Jap destroyer.”

Forrester thought the admiral was starting to whistle past the graveyard. “There’s no way in hell to predict what he’ll tell them, if anything,” he said. “Knowing Hammond, he’ll probably sing like a canary and baffle them with so much bullshit they won’t know what to believe.”

“One can always hope,” the admiral said. “Any word on what happened to that carrier?”

“Weather’s prevented the air force from getting any aerial photography. Snow, low cloud cover, the usual excuses.”

“Oh, c’mon, now, Mike, what good’s a camera when it’s snowing, right? They’ll get out there. Tell me about the deployments for the Lingayen Gulf landings.”

“Uh, yes, sir,” Forrester said, glancing at his watch. “I can get a briefer up here, but it’s almost twenty hundred…?”

“Jesus, is it? Okay, tomorrow will do.” He went to the small mahogany cabinet in the corner of his office and retrieved a bottle of bourbon. He offered a glass to Forrester, who declined. Whiskey made his liver hurt.

“Is this goddamned war ever going to end?” Lockwood asked, looking out the windows at the muted lights around the Pearl Harbor lagoon. “Talk about time on the cross.”

“Think how it must be for the POWs out there in Asia,” Forrester said. “We know this has to end sometime, but they have no idea.”

Lockwood raised his glass. “Here’s to Gar Hammond, then. Let’s hope and pray he holds.”

TWENTY

The next day began at predawn. Each man was forced to get up and walk to the lifelines at the back of the fantail. Below the lifelines were woven-steel safety nets, installed to catch anyone falling or being blown off the flight deck above by prop wash or a gust of wind. They were then made to get down into the nets in groups of three.

Welcome to the POW head.

When everyone had had a chance to relieve himself, three prisoners were detailed to man a fire hose and wash down the netting. Gar noticed that the fire-main pressure wasn’t very impressive. U.S. Navy fire mains ran at least at 100 psi; these looked far more anemic. Once again he wondered how much work remained to be done before this ship would be truly ready for sea. He could guess why they were moving her: B-29 photo-recce birds, and then a submarine attack. The naval bases near Tokyo were probably much better defended than these beautiful islands. He jumped when a baton landed between his shoulders. No looking around. Yes, boss, got it.

Breakfast was a repeat of dinner. Two rice balls, with no soy this time, and a single ladle of warm tea. Then a long hike back down belowdecks to continue caulking the cable penetrations. During the night he’d managed to get some information from the guys on either side of him. The prisoners were a collection of army guys from the Southeast Asian theater. They’d been brought from camps in Malaya, Borneo, the Dutch Indonesian islands, and even China. Gar was apparently the only American, and they already knew that he had been the skipper of a submarine. How they knew that he couldn’t fathom. He was surprised to learn that they thought they were getting better treatment here on board this ship than in the camps from which they had been sent.

They spent the day back down in the bowels of the ship, still hammering oakum. There was no midday meal, only a ladle of water every three hours. Then back to the fantail for another night in the cold. One of the prisoners had developed a vicious hacking cough. Three guards took him away before everyone else went on the wire, and they never saw him again. They doubted the guards took him to sick bay. The other guys had been working at a copper mine before this job. They said that anyone who got seriously ill was usually thrown down one of the abandoned shafts. The other prisoners would then be made to shovel ore into the shaft until they could no longer hear the man screaming.

“They’re not human,” Gar commented to his wire mate.

“Neither are we, sunshine. Not anymore.”

When they woke the next morning, the carrier was anchored off the Kure naval arsenal and already surrounded by a dozen barges bringing supplies, fuel, more oakum, in bales this time, and what looked like a variety of electric motors, pumps, and refrigeration machinery. In peacetime a ship as large as an aircraft carrier would take up to two years to fit out, which was the process of installing the tons and tons of equipment needed to turn her into a warship. It was apparent to Gar that they were in a hell of hurry to get her out of here, and the POWs joined the lines of sailors hauling stuff on board from all the barges into the hangar bay for the rest of the day. Gar noticed the one thing they did not bring aboard was any sort of fresh food.

That evening as they were assembled for the wire, Charlie Chan appeared on the fantail and gave orders to the goons. Gar was rousted out of the line before the rice balls came, which hurt his feelings. One goon ahead, one astern, Charlie and Gar in the middle, and with Gar back on his familiar leash, they went forward into the hangar bay and then climbed what seemed like an endless series of ladders. Charlie said nothing to him this time until they reached the bridge, which was full of people. It was obvious the ship was getting ready to heave up the anchor and get under way again. They perched Gar on a binocular storage box out on the port bridge wing, with stereo goons in attendance. Charlie reported to Captain Abe, who looked over at him and made an annoyed face. He said something in Japanese to Charlie, who bowed several times and backed away as if he’d been caught crapping on the deck.

“What did you do?” Gar asked when Charlie came out onto the bridge wing.

“I did what he told me to,” he said. “He told me to bring you up here.”

“Seems to be in a bad mood today.”

“He is very angry, but not at you. You are a distraction. He says the ship is not ready to go to sea, but that Tokyo is insisting. There was another B-29 today. They fear a major bombing raid.”

Gar thought of several clever things to say but kept his mouth shut. Charlie noticed.

“Did they feed you tonight?”

Gar shook his head.

Charlie bowed slightly. “I am sorry. No one has eaten. There is no electricity in the main galleys. Something happened.”

“In my navy, we’d say they are working on it.”

He nodded. “Yes, they are. If there is no food soon, some engineers will be shot.”

That oughta do it, Gar thought. He could just imagine what his snipes would think of that logic. On the other hand, there probably would be food. Gar must have smiled, because Charlie asked him what he was thinking. Gar told him.

Charlie didn’t smile, but his face did soften. He dismissed the goons and then just stood there, looking out over the bullrail. The sun was going down, and they could hear the clattering of the anchor chain from under the extended bow, nearly 500 feet away. Despite his perfect military bearing, Charlie looked apprehensive.

“What is your name, please?” Gar asked.

Charlie looked down and began to repeat that that was forbidden. Gar held up his hand, and Charlie stopped.

“We’re going out to sea tonight, aren’t we?” Gar asked.

Charlie nodded.

“We’re going to die, then,” Gar said. “I was telling the truth the other day. There are at least ten submarines waiting for us. Only one has to get lucky. This ship will never see Tokyo Bay. So: I would like to know your name.”

“So you say,” Charlie replied. “Captain Abe sent for you. He wants you to watch as we outrun all these imaginary submarines. If they do shoot torpedoes at us, they will bounce off. This ship began life as a battleship. Belowdecks there is heavy, heavy armor. Our Type 97 torpedoes could do some damage. But yours? I am told that half of them do not even explode.”