The Ambassador's Son Read online

  “Sure do, sir. There’s a mike back at the mess tent. Just flip a switch and you’re on the air. What do you have in mind?”

  Josh was warming to his idea. “Jersey Joe, do you know a few insults you could hurl at Emperor Hirohito?”

  Jersey Joe grinned. “I might could come up with a few.”

  “Would you like them in Japanese, sir?” another soldier asked. He was a round-faced man of obvious Oriental descent.

  “You know Japanese?”

  “Jack Hamoru at your service, sir. I’m a trumpet player. Born and raised in Portland, Oregon, but my folks talked the old language at home.”

  It was the good fortune that often comes to those who form desperate plans rather than just lie down and die. Josh explained what he wanted them to do. “Go set up on that mike. I’ll let you know when to start.”

  Jersey Joe and Jack Hamoru loped off toward the mess tent just as the first Japanese soldiers appeared on the path on the other side of the meadow. Josh saw a few of them move off to the side, probably the teams carrying the machine-gun and the mortar. He waited for a bit, watching the Japanese fan out. It was all very professionally accomplished. Then Josh sent a runner back to tell Jersey Joe and Jack Hamoru to start talking. Some squawky feedback occurred, but their voices echoed across the grassy field to the Japanese.

  Hey, Tojo! Your emperor is so stupid, he has to think twice to say nothing! Hey, Tojo! Your emperor is so ugly, the doctor slapped his mother when he was born! Hey, Tojo . . .!

  The Japanese stopped their preparations for battle. Some of them shook their fists and yelled back their own insults. Babe Ruth go to hell! was a favorite. Also, Fug Eleanor Roosevelt!

  “God, no, you fug her!” Jersey Joe called back, and everybody lying along the pitiful log defense line laughed. The Japanese, however, were clearly furious. They were yelling and shaking their fists.

  “Not a round will be fired until I say so,” Josh told the soldiers, who, despite their nervous laughter, were wriggling anxiously around in the dirt behind their pathetic logs.

  A Japanese officer stepped forward, his face pinched and nearly scarlet with rage. He marched back and forth, waving his sword and exhorting his troops. One or two of them made mock attacks, rushing forward, then falling back, yelling and waving their rifles. The officer faced his troops and spoke to them, then raised his sword. “Here it comes, boys,” Josh said. “Get ready.” Then, to Penelope who was kneeling beside him, “Go and hide. Save yourself.”

  “I will not leave you,” she said, and tapped the flat side of her machete in her hand.

  The Japanese officer turned toward the line of soldiers and pointed his sword at them. His men roared in unison and then charged, their rifles tipped with bayonets held horizontally at their hips. The officer led them, his sword waving over his head. “Banzai,” they yelled in a high-pitched wail. “Banzai!”

  It was precisely what Josh hoped might happen. The inherent weakness of the Japanese soldier was on parade. Insult him and it was as if he were compelled to come at you, standing up. Josh walked behind the men lying behind the logs and said a single word over and over in as soothing a tone as he was able. “Wait. . . wait. . . wait. . .” When he judged the charging Japanese were less than fifty yards away, he yelled, “First group, fire now!” The designated men fired, and a few Japanese soldiers fell. “Aim, men!” Josh yelled. Then he ordered everybody to cut loose, and more Japanese fell. The Japanese officer kept coming like a maniac, waving his sword and screaming gibberish.

  Now it was Josh’s play, the only one he had remaining. “Don’t shoot me in the back!” was his plea to the special services troops as he stepped out in front of them while unsheathing his Aleut ax from his belt with one hand and unholstering his pistol with the other. He began to run, his eyes unflinchingly held on the Japanese officer. He dodged a thrust of a bayonet from an Imperial soldier, shot him with the pistol, and kept going. When he reached the officer who had taken no notice of him, Josh plunged the ax into the man’s chest. The officer gave Josh an uncomprehending stare, then fell. The charging Japanese soldiers stopped to gaze dumbly at their quivering, bloody officer lying in the grass while the Americans kept shooting them. Josh wiped the blade of his ax on the officer’s shirt and then waited to be killed. But the Japanese began to back slowly away, then turned and ran.

  Now Josh heard the unwelcome cough of a mortar followed by an explosion and then the chatter of a machine gun. The Japanese had pulled themselves together and were fighting the way they should have from the beginning. Josh consoled himself with the thought that he had done his best. He looked across the field and saw that Penelope was still alive, though there was a stricken look on her face that was strangely at odds with the special services troops, who had stopped firing and were standing up and grinning. Jersey Joe and Jack Hamoru were even laughing and, their arms around each other’s shoulders, kicking up their boots like cancan girls. This didn’t make any sense to Josh at all. Why would they laugh and dance now that they were being chewed up by mortar rounds and machine-gun fire? The answer, it dawned on him, was that they weren’t.

  Josh turned to look at the Japanese and saw half-naked black men among them, hacking away with long knives and spears. The Japanese who tried to run away were shot down by a machine gun secreted in the bush. Mortar rounds stopped the rest. Very quickly, it was over, the last gun popped, the last Japanese fallen, and the black men in lap-laps and ornamental beads and feathers were stalking across the field toward him, only stopping to loot the dead. A white man, dressed in khakis and wearing an Australian campaign hat, also crossed the field, his bearded face wreathed with a smile. It was Whitman. He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Good show, Thurlow!” Then he looked past Josh, and his eyes widened and his mouth dropped open.

  Josh was confused by Whitman’s expression, but he became even more confused when he saw the special services troops leaving their rifles to greet their saviors, only to be greeted in a most unexpected manner. One by one, they were cut down with a slash of a knife or a jab of a spear or, when a few ran, a bullet in the back. Penelope appeared at his side. “I told you what Whitman is,” she said. “Have you forgotten? I think we should run now.”

  Josh hadn’t forgotten, but he hadn’t entirely believed her, either. Now the proof was undeniably before him as the last American soldier was struck down. “Run, Penelope,” he replied urgently. “Run and don’t wait for me.” And run she did, with Josh close behind, though several of Whitman’s men, rifles in their hands, their beads clicking, their feathers waving, their horrible red mouths grinning in eager anticipation, followed.

  35

  Once and Again dived off the gunboat and swam to shore, then ran up the beach to where Mister Phimble, Fisheye, and Stobs stood in the shade of the Darlin’ Dosie’s wing. There were shouts of joy while the Japanese pilot, Ichikawa, sitting with his hands tied, watched with an indifferent expression. Again, being the more voluble of the twins, told their story quickly, how they’d run a barge onto the reef the night before, and that it was Lieutenant Kennedy at the wheel of the PT boat, except it was really a gunboat and named Rosemary after the officer’s sister, and all else was well, except that Captain Thurlow was missing on New Georgia.

  The last of Again’s story was stressful to Phimble, and it only got worse after Kennedy came ashore and confirmed it, adding, “Colonel Burr says Captain Thurlow is probably dead.”

  “No he ain’t,” Phimble declared. “And don’t you be telling our boys he is.”

  Kennedy pressed his lips together, his only outward expression in response to Phimble’s intemperate remark. “Don’t concern yourself with what I might say to these boys,” he replied evenly. “I got my boat, just as I said I would, and those boys and I have worked very well together.”

  “You did well to attack the barge,” Phimble relented. “They were coming to rescue this Japanese pilot I captured.” He led Kennedy to Ichikawa.

  After an introduction, Ich
ikawa said, “I have sunk three of your PT boats and killed their crews.”

  “Then you can go to hell,” Kennedy replied with some heat.

  “Don’t pay any attention to Ichikawa-san,” Phimble advised. “He’s got some screwed-up ideas about war being heroic and all. Kind of reminds me of you.”

  “Ensign Phimble!” Kennedy snapped. “I have been on the receiving end of what passes for your wit long enough. You don’t like me. Fair enough. But keep your comments to yourself. Understand?”

  Phimble eyed Kennedy, then shrugged. “Fisheye’s near to fixing our starboard engine, at least good enough for me to take off. My plan is to head for New Georgia and find the skipper.”

  “In a crippled Catalina? The Rufes would have you for dinner. What you’re going to do is to abandon your aircraft and come along with me. Together, we’ll find Thurlow if he’s capable of being found. That’s an order, by the way.”

  “And I heard you loud and clear, Mister Kennedy,” Phimble replied. He looked out to sea, his hands shoved in his pockets. Then he shook his head. “I’m not going to abandon Dosie. Josh would have my hide.”

  “Then take her back to Melagi and see to her repair. I’ll take the Rosemary and go to New Georgia. You can catch up with us as soon as you can.”

  Phimble nodded. “Take Stobs with you. You’ll need a good radioman, and he can keep me informed.”

  “Agreed,” Kennedy said.

  “If I know Josh Thurlow, and I know the big creature about as well as I do any man, he’s still alive near that beach where we left him.”

  “What if he’s not?”

  “Then use all that authority you’re aching to display and come up with a plan to find him.”

  “And Armistead, the purpose for this entire adventure?”

  “You can forget Armistead until you find the skipper. Just keep my boys safe, Lieutenant. You get them killed, you’ll answer to me.”

  Phimble went off to check on the engine work, and Kennedy was surprised and pleased to observe Felicity, dressed in a sailor’s blue jeans and chambray shirt, climb off the gunboat’s bow and wade ashore. Kennedy walked over to greet her. “He’s a pilot,” he said when she stopped to inspect the prisoner.

  “I’ve not known too many Japanese,” she responded. “There was Yodo, a merchant who owned a trading post on Choiseul. He was murdered in ‘37 by a saltwater boy. A nice enough man, but he played with the Maries too much, the downfall for most men here, sooner if not later.”

  Kennedy led Felicity away from Ichikawa. “We’re going to New Georgia to see if we can find Thurlow,” he advised. “Phimble’s taking the Catalina back to Melagi. You and John-Bull can go with us or with him. Either way, I can’t guarantee your safety.”

  “I’ll go with you, of course. New Georgia’s a lot closer to Noa-Noa than Melagi.”

  “We could see combat.”

  “Death is a constant in the Solomons even without war,” she replied. “Don’t worry about me and John. We can take care of ourselves.”

  Kennedy grinned. “You remind me of my sister Kick. Tough as nails.”

  “I will take that as a compliment,” she replied, returning his grin.

  When Fisheye told him he thought the engine was ready, Phimble came to talk with Ichikawa. “Now, Ichikawa-san, we’re going to fly south, and you’re going with us. Please climb aboard the Catalina.”

  “I will go only if you force me,” Ichikawa responded.

  “Let me talk to him, Mister Phimble,” Fisheye said.

  Phimble nodded and walked away. Fisheye sat beside Ichikawa. “Look, Ichikawa-san, we’ve got to go, and we can’t just leave you here. Come and go with us, easy like.”

  Ichikawa shook his head. “No, Fisheye. It is against my Bushido code to go willingly into prison.”

  “I wish you’d forget that code. They only wrote it so they could order you to get killed without talking back. I don’t see your old Tojo coming down here to take his lumps.”

  “Prime Minister Tojo is a brave man.”

  “But stupid to get into a war he can’t win.”

  “We may lose in these islands,” Ichikawa replied, “but we will have written a glorious chapter in our history. And you will never beat us completely. You will see.”

  “I don’t want to see anything. I just want to go home,” Fisheye said.

  “Ah. In that we agree, Fisheye.”

  “OK, how about this? I’ve only put that engine together with spit and chewing gum. It’s probably going to conk out when we try to take off. In that case, we’ll most likely crash and die.”

  “Do you think so?” Ichikawa asked, perking up.

  “The odds are in favor of it, I fear.”

  “Give me the odds.”

  “I’d say three to one against us surviving takeoff, and then two to one against us making it down to Melagi without crashing.”

  Ichikawa closed his eyes in thought, then nodded. “Help me up.” When Fisheye did, he bowed. “Fisheye, I will be proud to die with you.”

  “Attaboy,” Fisheye said, bowing back.

  Kennedy, Ready, Felicity, and the crew of the Rosemary plus Marvin watched as the Dosie turned and aimed directly into the wind, which was coming offshore. Kennedy had moved the gunboat past the reef into deeper water just in case the Catalina didn’t make it. That way they would be better positioned to assist in the pickup of survivors, if there were any. “May God be with them,” Felicity prayed, as the Catalina’s engines revved to a tortured howl.

  “Dave’s with them,” Once said. “That’s got to help in the luck department.”

  “He was with them when they got shot down, too,” brother Again pointed out.

  “Dave, he make’m Dosie fly,” Pogo said.

  Dosie plowed ahead, her nose bashing into low waves. Millie listened to the engines. “They sound good,” he allowed. “I think they’re going to make it.”

  “Then why have they stopped?” Stobs wondered.

  On board Dosie, Phimble cursed. Fisheye had reached into the cockpit and pulled back the throttles. “What the hell are you doing, boy?”

  “Sir, I’ve had a change of heart. We got to let Ichikawasan go. It’ll kill him to be put into prison. I lied to him, told him we’d probably crash and die. But I really think we got better than a fifty-fifty chance of making it.”

  Phimble pulled the headset away from his ears and stared at Fisheye. “Listen, you numb nut, he won’t go to prison. Just some sort of camp.”

  “Same thing. He won’t be able to take it. He’ll find some way to kill himself. We’ve got to let him go.”

  “We don’t got to do no such thing. Now, strap yourself in. We’re taking off.” He eyed Fisheye and saw something in his expression. “Wait a minute. Have you already let him go?”

  “Not exactly. He escaped. I opened the starboard hatch and looked away and he jumped out.” He added, after a short second, “I had untied him, you see. Those ropes hurt his wrists.”

  Phimble stared at Fisheye. “On your own, you let a prisoner of war go free?”

  “I guess you could put it that way.”

  “They could hang you for that!”

  “Well, I done what I had to do,” Fisheye replied staunchly.

  “You liked that Jap bastard that much?”

  Fisheye shrugged. “Mister Phimble, he ain’t no bastard. He’s just a man like you and me. Besides that, he likes to fish.”

  Phimble considered turning the seaplane around and taxiing back to pick up the Japanese pilot. It would be easy enough to do, but then he realized Fisheye would probably just let him go again. “Fisheye, consider yourself busted to basic seaman.”

  “Yes, sir. That’s my rank anyway, I think. It’s been a while since I’ve been paid.”

  Phimble shook his head. “All right, boy. Strap yourself in. Let’s see if we can make this old bird fly.”

  As the boys cheered her from the Rosemary, Dosie lifted off, as smooth a takeoff as she’d ever managed, an
d turned south. Soon she was a dot in the sky. And on the island known as Mary, a Japanese pilot touched sand and crawled up on the beach. He looked after the American aircraft until it disappeared south, then at the American gunboat until it disappeared north. Then he sat down and waited for rescue, which he was certain would be soon.

  36

  Penelope was scampering up the mountain slope like a rabbit, and Josh was having trouble keeping up with her. He could hear the feet of the following warriors slapping against the earthen path, and even the rush of their breath. Josh knew they were going to catch him. Like Penelope, they could slip through the bush as a fish swam through the water, while he was heavy-footed, ensnared by vines, and tripped by roots. It was tempting to simply turn and fight even though all he had was his pistol and ax, and Whitman’s men were carrying Enfields.

  Why the warriors hadn’t shot him already was a question that formed in Josh’s mind, even as he twisted and twirled through a thorny bush that tore at his utilities and scratched his skin into bloody rents. More than once, he knew, he’d presented a clear view of his back to his pursuers. Perhaps the bushmen were in competition to catch him. If that was so, that meant they were not working together. All this came to Josh in an instant, as wisdom sometimes did, and he thought to use it as an advantage and at least save Penelope, if not himself.

  He made his plan and wished he could tell Penelope what he was going to do, but he lacked the breath to do it. He could only hope she would figure it out. When they reached an opening in the bush, a wide meadow with waist-high grass, she dodged to the left, but he turned and faced the on-rushing warriors. He jumped up and down and waved his arms and yelled at them, then ran to the right, away from Penelope. He didn’t look back, just chugged along until he reached the edge of the bush. When he realized he couldn’t hear anyone following, he looked over his shoulder and was astonished to find that he was alone. Whitman’s men had ignored him and instead chased after Penelope.

  Josh thought perhaps they had not seen him. He walked back into the meadow and yelled at them. He even fired his pistol into the air. There was no response. Penelope kept running, and Whitman’s men continued to chase her. Josh followed, careful of ambushes. His ripped utilities were soaked with sweat. His knees were sore from falling. His arms were bleeding from the thorns that had scratched him. And his feelings were inexplicably hurt that he was apparently of much less importance to the mangy murderers than the girl. Finally he climbed up on a ridge to see that Penelope had stopped to make a stand.