Battle Stations: a novel of the Pacific War (Crash Dive Book 3) Read online

  “We’ll win the war without you somehow, Harrison.” The man slurped his coffee. “Though many of us won’t survive it.”

  Liebold cleared his throat. “Good morning, Captain.”

  Moreau entered the wardroom. “I could eat a horse.” As Liebold rose from his chair, he added, “Stick around, Jack. We’re gonna have us a war council.”

  Charlie had served under commanders who occasionally looked to his officers for advice. Moreau, who played his cards close to the chest, didn’t. He leaned forward, wondering what the captain wanted to talk about.

  “The Japan Sea is filling up with tin cans,” the captain said, tucking into his bacon and eggs. “Trying to flush us out. We got a Jap sub in the area. We’ll check on Otaru, but my guess is the marus are gonna lie low for a while.”

  The men watched him eat.

  Moreau looked up in irritation. “So I want advice. Go.”

  “We made our point, didn’t we?” Percy said. “We could just leave and hit them on the east coast.”

  “We could also try our luck here,” Liebold said. “Something might turn up in two days. But I agree with Jerry. Better hunting on the Pacific side.”

  “Uh-huh,” Moreau muttered, his mouth full of eggs. He gave Charlie the stink-eye. “What about you, sunshine? Do we stay or go?”

  “I recommend we attack their destroyers,” Charlie said.

  “Oh brother,” Percy muttered.

  A dangerous idea, perhaps a little crazy. But it made sense. They’d come over 4,000 miles to maul the Japanese on their home turf. Show them that nowhere was safe. That wherever they went, American submarines would be waiting.

  The destroyer was the submarine’s natural enemy. Sleek, fast, and with a narrow draft, it proved hard to hit with torpedoes. Armed with big naval guns, it typically bested a submarine in a surface action. If the destroyer pinned the boat underwater, it used sonar to hunt until able to smash its prey with depth charges.

  Submarine skippers typically stayed well clear of them.

  Perhaps not this time.

  With this mission, they could show the IJN that nowhere was safe. And neither was any ship, even sub killers. The submarines would sink ’em all.

  “Attack their destroyers,” the captain echoed.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You want us to take on their destroyers.”

  Charlie nodded. Moreau slowly grinned. Then he laughed. Percy chuckled along nervously, his gaze shifting between the two men.

  “Charlie, for a while there, I saw a bright future for you as commander of the Flat-Top Desk,” the captain said. “Shooting torpedoes in the crapper.”

  He added, “It looks like you’re out of the doghouse, boy. Let’s bag us some tin cans before we head home.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  ENEMIES

  Charlie caught a few hours of sleep and awoke still exhausted. After coffee and a visit to the head, he read over department reports. After that, a walk through the boat to make sure machines and crew had optimal function.

  He was back in Moreau’s good graces, but he didn’t trust it. He sensed his days were still numbered. If not this patrol, then perhaps the next. Charlie wanted to destroy Japanese resources without unnecessary waste of life and thereby shorten the war. Moreau’s outlook had a much broader scope. He hated every one of them personally. They killed ours, we’ll kill ten times theirs. Kill everything in sight.

  Charlie doubted they’d ever see eye to eye. He felt fine about that. In a way, their styles complemented each other. One tempered the other. But the captain wanted somebody as passionate about killing the Japanese as he was.

  As he passed the crew mess, the red-faced cook waved him over. “Just wanted to thank you for the extra man. We’re getting along famously.”

  The Japanese sailor grinned and went back to peeling potatoes.

  “Glad to hear it,” Charlie said. Sandtiger had a good cook. Despite the war, many days on patrol were tedious patterns of grinding routine. Food was only thing to which the crew looked forward.

  “I’m teaching him English, Mr. Harrison. Right, Eiji? English?”

  “Fuck Tojo!” Eiji declared with a bright grin.

  Charlie laughed despite himself.

  “Marine are asshole!” the sailor declared.

  A bad joke. When Sandtiger reached Pearl, the crew would hand the prisoners over to the Marines for processing.

  Charlie shook his head. “Make sure he unlearns that before Pearl, Freddy.”

  Then he visited Lieutenant Tanaka in the forward torpedo room. The man sat cross-legged on one of the empty torpedo skids, surrounded by his letters. His uniform had dried. He wore his tunic buttoned to the collar per regulation. Heavy socks with a curious indent separating the big toe covered his feet.

  “How goes it, Buster?” Charlie asked the watch.

  “Another fine Navy day, Mr. Harrison.” The auxiliaryman stood at the door with a .45 on his hip. “The prisoners are no trouble. The only excitement is the crew coming around. They’re curious. You know how it is.”

  “Lieutenant Tanaka, how are you today?”

  The Japanese officer looked up from his letters and shrugged. “I am alive. Smells terrible in ship. Gives me headache.”

  Charlie laughed. “That’s the diesel fumes. Plus the stink of sixty men. They don’t call these boats sewer pipes for nothing.”

  “You wish to interrogate me more?”

  “Now that you mention it, there’s something I’ve always wondered. What does banzai mean?”

  “It mean, ‘ten thousand years.’ Wish long life to Emperor. I may ask you question? I hear men call you hara-kiri. Why they say this?”

  “Long story. Another question for you. Why do you hate us so much?”

  “I do not hate you. I grew up in Fukui Prefecture. My family grew grapes, made wine. I was in university in Kyoto to study architecture. I learn English there. I thought about girls, classes, spending money. Kyoto had dance clubs and movie houses. I watched American movies. I admired you, with your big cars and motion pictures.”

  Charlie sat on the edge of the skid. “How did you end up in the Army?”

  “After Marco Polo Bridge Incident, we were at war with China. That was 1937. Everybody caught war fever. We looked up to soldiers as heroes. Father said Army not for me. He had government job in Kyoto. Appointed by prefect. I did not see him very much growing up. I was raised by mother, three sisters.”

  “Same here,” Charlie said. “My dad died when I was young. My mom and three older sisters raised me.”

  “Father said to go to university to study. I believed he was afraid of family name dying if I died. In university, Army officers taught how to march and clean a rifle. We bowed to portrait of Emperor every morning. War was everywhere.”

  In 1941, Tanaka said, he rebelled against his father and joined the Army. The IJA sent him to Rikugun Shikan Gakkõ. Japan’s counterpart to West Point. It was an exciting time. NHK, the state radio broadcaster, declared Japan would liberate Asia from the West. Create a Great East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere for the benefit of all. Asia for the Asians!

  Military life was nothing like he imagined, however. Hard work seventeen hours a day. Calisthenics, classes, homework, laundry, drilling. He learned judo, kendo, and juken-jitsu, the martial art for the bayonet. A hundred ways to kill a man. The recruits received constant abuse, beatings from the instructors. They were hungry all the time. Slowly, they became hard men ready to fight and die.

  “Mother cried when I went to war,” Tanaka said. “Beautiful woman. Her soul. Always singing around house. When I was little boy, she sang for me. She sang the day I left. Being strong for me, though I broke her heart.”

  Something else they had in common. Charlie remembered leaning out the train window and blowing a final kiss to his mother standing on the platform. She waved him out of sight, smiling while tears flowed down her cheeks.

  Tanaka held up his wrinkled letters. “From her.” He
sighed. “It feels good for me to talk. I will more if you will listen.”

  “I don’t mind. I’m actually fairly curious.”

  “Important that I say these things. I know I will die soon.”

  “We’re not going to kill you, Lieutenant. We’re going to put you in a camp, and you’ll sit out the war. Tell me. How long did you serve in the Philippines?”

  “Since beginning of occupation. Luzon. The nightmare.”

  Tanaka’s unit moved from town to town. The engineers made a clearing in the jungle for the camp. Canvas tents, mats on the floor draped in mosquito netting. The insects ate the soldiers alive. At night, the Filipino guerillas came out of the rotting jungle. They moved without a sound, carrying their bolo knives.

  “Natives hunted animals in forest. Easier to hunt us. A man would be missing. A day later, we find his head on a stake.”

  During the rainy season, rain fell in sheets. Weeks of downpour and mud. The soldiers raised their mats off the ground with bamboo. Hordes of centipedes crawled out of their hiding places to escape the water. The men shook in their beds, racked by malaria, dysentery, and beriberi. Feet raw with trench foot. The jungle smelling of death and decay.

  In the night’s darkest hours, the soldiers consoled themselves by picturing their homecoming. A massive parade honoring their victory.

  “We hated natives. They could keep their islands. We wanted to go home. We hated them for living in this hell. We hated them for killing our comrades. We stopped seeing them as human. We killed them, used their women. They hated us back. Every stone, blade of grass, and leaf in that country wanted us dead.”

  “Doesn’t sound like Asia for the Asians to me,” Charlie said. “More like Asia for the Japanese. Besides the Philippines, we didn’t have anything in Asia to offer you. Why attack America at all?”

  “To survive.”

  Charlie frowned. “Explain that.”

  “Father told me. He knew whole story. We need resources to feed our people and sustain our strength. We went to war with China for resources. Just like western powers did all over world and built their own empires. Your government supported China. Called us immoral for acting like European country. You refused to trade oil and materials we needed to survive.”

  The United States moved its Pacific Fleet from San Diego to Pearl Harbor in 1941. That’s when the Japanese decided on war with America. The nation’s leaders had a choice. Withdraw from China and become dependent on others to feed their people. Or claim their destiny and take it all.

  “We occupied Indochina to stop you supplying China. We offered withdrawal if you lifted embargo. You said we must withdraw from China. We could not. By then, too late anyway. We on our way to Hawaii.”

  “Where you launched your sneak attack at Pearl Harbor,” Charlie noted.

  “We did not declare war before attack. That is true. We broke international law. But you sink unarmed merchant ships. You break international law too. You are no better than we. We are no better than you.”

  Many Japanese thought attacking America was a mistake, including Tanaka’s father. The real reason he didn’t want his son joining the Army. Nobody could say such things in public. The government controlled the media. The Special Higher Police enforced loyalty. In the Army, the Kempeitai crushed anyone who questioned official lies.

  “We are same,” Tanaka said. “We wanted China. You wanted us out of China. You wanted war, we started war. Now we are fighting. There is no honor in any of it. Everything else is story. A story to make men willing to kill and die. My government fooled me. You are fool to believe yours.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  GONE DARK

  Plates, mugs, and silverware littered the wardroom table.

  His dinner finished, Charlie slaughtered Gene Autry’s “Back in the Saddle” while Percy harmonized with chords on his banjo.

  “Not bad, Exec,” the communications officer said when they’d finished.

  He looked down at his harmonica. “I’m god-awful.”

  “Okay, you’re terrible. But practice makes perfect.”

  Charlie had fallen for the instrument. Every game he played to pass the time in the submarines hinged on competition. Chess, hearts, poker. The harp taught him unity. Pitches in succession, each with its own duration that defined rhythm. In a way, Sandtiger ran like music, from its daily routines to the steady pulse of its diesels. It all worked together in harmony.

  Playing helped him relax and go with the flow. You had to hang loose to make it in the submarines.

  “Have you seen the prisoners yet?” Charlie asked. “The officer?”

  “Yeah. Me and Nixon visited him. We just stood there gawking while he stared at pieces of paper. Like he was praying. I got embarrassed and left.”

  “I talked to him again. He’s an interesting guy. We have a few things in common. I feel sorry for him. Trapped in the war. He wanted to be an architect.”

  “Don’t tell me that,” Percy groaned. “I don’t want to see them as just like us, Harrison. The propaganda has a purpose. It’s hard enough to fight them as it is.”

  “Well, he’s free of the war now, I guess. His fight is over.”

  “Exec and Mr. Percy to the conn,” the 1MC blared.

  “But not ours,” Percy said. “Ours goes on and on.”

  Charlie checked his watch. “Almost first dog watch anyway. We’re on duty.”

  The boat surfaced twenty minutes ago. Soon, he had to take over as officer of the watch on the bridge.

  The officers navigated the busy passages until they reached the control room. There, Spike lorded over the radio shack, radar stacks, manifold, and planes. Wheels, gauges, switchboards, and levers dominated the cramped space.

  They grabbed the ladder and mounted to the conning tower. Moreau stood next to a white-faced Nixon and Liebold at the plotting table. Something was wrong.

  The captain waved them over. “Flash message from Redhorse.”

  Charlie and Percy exchanged a glance. “Sir?”

  Moreau laid the message on the table. “Warmouth’s gone dark.”

  “Any idea what happened to her?”

  The captain wagged his head. He looked shaken by the news.

  Percy said, “Her antenna could be damaged. Or her radio broke.”

  “She answered our message last night when we ran into the Jap sub,” Charlie said. “That was soon after the battle—around 0200.”

  “We’ll find out soon enough,” Moreau said. “Tomorrow night is the rendezvous at Rishiri.” A small island near La Pérouse Strait, their only exit from the Sea of Japan. “Rickard’s already on the way.”

  “I’m sure Captain Shelby’s fine, Captain,” Liebold offered.

  “No Jap alive can hurt Pete Shelby.” The captain’s face was the color of ash.

  The two captains had been friends for years. They’d gone to Submarine School and come up through the ranks in the boats together. Same with Rickard.

  “Are we still going ahead with the attack tomorrow, sir?” Charlie asked.

  Moreau nodded. “Rickard’s gonna join us as soon as he catches up.”

  “What’s the plan?”

  “We’re gonna surface and shell Otaru Harbor from a distance of three miles.”

  The officers smiled as their imaginations went to work. The sheer gall of it astounded Charlie. Shelling a Japanese port in broad daylight!

  That would make an impression.

  The Japanese government could lie all it wanted to its own people. Tomorrow, Otaru would know the Americans had come in force.

  “We’ll drop rounds on the harbor until a tin can shows up,” the captain went on. “Rickard will be set up off Takashima, ready to ambush the sumbitch.”

  The men nodded. The plan sounded good to them.

  “Now get to work,” the captain said. “Charlie, keep a sharp eye out for Redhorse topside. She’s approaching bearing double-oh-five. We’re moving at a slower speed, so she should be catching up soon. Do
n’t shoot her.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain.”

  Charlie pulled on his windbreaker and mounted to the bridge with his lookouts. A northerly blew across the water. The cool night air refreshed him.

  “Permission to relieve you?” he asked Smokey.

  “Granted, sir. Lots of traffic up here, but we haven’t had to dive yet.”

  The new lookouts took their stations.

  Standing on the cigarette deck of the after bridge, Charlie swept the southern horizon with his binoculars. Overhead, the radar made regular sweeps. Time passed slowly as it did on the watch. The long hours gave him time to think.

  Somewhere out there in the darkness, Rickard was on his way. Tomorrow, Redhorse would be ready to drill holes in whatever luckless tin can the Japanese threw at Sandtiger. Knowing this, Charlie felt more confident in the plan.

  He peered into the shades of black and gray that divided sea and sky, hoping to catch sight of the telltale smudge of Rickard’s boat.

  Maybe he’d find Warmouth.

  Warmouth had cleared the battle scene by 0200 while the DDs searched for Redhorse. What could have happened to her? Equipment malfunction?

  His mind refused to explore other possibilities. Shelby was an American, a submariner. He was one of the best submarine commanders the Navy had.

  Charlie wondered if Lieutenant Tanaka had it right. That Japan had attacked America, but America had done everything possible to provoke it. That the war was neither heroic nor moral but an inevitable duel to the death between these rival powers. If that were true, Shelby killed and died for nothing.

  He refused to believe that.

  Regardless of the causes of the conflict, it existed. In the end, it wasn’t a fight between nations, but between men. Men connected to each other in the brotherhood of war and to the people they loved back home.

  They fought for each other. More so, they fought for home. For the future. If Shelby was gone, he’d died for it.