Rising Sun Page 2

  His ninety-odd men cheered as he said that. There was no greater honor for a Japanese warrior. The sub surged upward, broaching and exploding onto the surface. She slammed back onto the water, raising a huge wave.

  Astonished sailors from American destroyers watched incredulously as the sub’s deck gun was quickly crewed and opened fire on the surrounding ships. At the same time, the sub launched her fresh load of torpedoes in the general direction of the American ships.

  The destroyers returned fire, killing the gunners and sweeping their bodies into the sea. More shells shredded the conning tower and pierced the sub’s hull with multiple hits. Moments later, the sub exploded and broke in two as a shell from a destroyer hit a remaining torpedo. The pieces rolled over and sank. There were no survivors. None of the Japanese wished to survive. Therefore, none of the dying Japanese were able to see that one of the indiscriminately fired torpedoes had struck the badly damaged Enterprise, killing any chance of saving her.

  * * *

  Once again, Dane found himself prone and stunned on the gore-covered flight deck. He lurched to his feet. There was something wrong with his left leg. It hurt like hell and it was difficult to stand. He looked for his friend Greene for guidance, but couldn’t find him. Many of the men of the damage control parties who’d been trying to douse the flames were also strewn about. Unmanned hoses whipped and snapped, sometimes hitting and injuring sailors who were trying to grab them. Most of the sailors lying on the deck weren’t moving, and some of the bodies were smoldering. He assumed one of the bodies was Greene’s and others were the sailors he’d been working with just a moment before. He felt sick as he realized the flames were going to win.

  Another violent shudder and the ship listed farther to port. We’re going over, Dane thought. What do I do now? Men were hollering, “Abandon ship!” But was this an order or were the sailors panicking? Hell, he was panicking. Someone yelled that Captain Murray was dead and that it was every man for himself.

  An older man with blood streaming down his face grabbed Tim’s arm in a strong grip. “Help me,” he said.

  Dane was shocked. It was Admiral Spruance. He grabbed the admiral’s arm to steady him. Spruance’s eyes were glazed and he stared intently at Dane. “I know you,” he said with a slurred voice. “You’re on my staff.”

  Still another shudder rumbled from an explosion below the deck, and Dane had to hold up the admiral who was quite likely concussed. “Admiral, I think we’ve got to get out of here.”

  Spruance mumbled something, but didn’t protest as Dane took charge and guided him. The list was so pronounced that people and planes were tumbling off the flight deck like so many toys, falling into the ocean that was, while still quite a drop, much closer than it had been.

  “Hang on,” Dane said as he half pushed Spruance off the deck and into the sea, hoping that they wouldn’t land on anything or that nothing would fall on top of them.

  Dane had been holding the admiral’s arm, but the impact drove him under water and separated them for a moment. He came up spluttering and choking from spilled oil, but only a few feet away from the now even more thoroughly shaken and confused Spruance. Oil was burning on the water and they had to get away before they were burned alive. Dane’s leg hurt and the salt water stung the cuts and burns in his scalp, face, and hands.

  Dane grabbed the admiral. He started to look around for a life-raft or even some debris. He flailed his arms frantically until he realized his life jacket would not let him sink, at least not for a while. Other swimmers were doing the same thing as the Enterprise, now almost on her side, slowly and mindlessly plowed on, propelled by the energy produced from her dying engines, and escorted by the cruisers who were still pouring water on the fires. He was horribly aware that there were very few men swimming in the water, although a number floated lifelessly. He reminded himself that the carrier had a crew of more than two thousand. Where were they?

  An hour later, the two men lay awkwardly and alone on a damaged liferaft that was half filled with water. Dane was afraid that the raft would disintegrate, leaving them with nothing but their life jackets. Getting onto it had proven extremely difficult. Dane’s leg wasn’t responding and he wondered if it was broken, and the shocked and stunned admiral was little help. Still, they somehow managed.

  Far in the distance, the Enterprise lay on her side, while the Hornet burned furiously and began to settle by the bow. American cruisers and destroyers raced around, plucking sailors from the water. As yet, they hadn’t found Dane and his high-ranking companion even though he’d waved his arms in a fruitless attempt to get attention.

  A shrieking sound and a plane flew low overhead, bullets spitting from its guns. It was a Japanese Zero and a host of other enemy fighters and bombers followed. The Japanese carriers had found them.

  Bombs exploded on and about the helpless and ruined carrier hulks, while still more planes attacked the escorting destroyers and cruisers. It was a massacre. Some enemy pilots amused themselves by strafing sailors in the water. Bullets kicked up spray a few feet from Dane and Spruance, but none hit them.

  “Do you have a gun?” Spruance’s eyes were clearing, but his voice was still a little slurred.

  “No, sir.”

  Spruance shook his head in an attempt to focus his thoughts. “Of course not. Carrying a heavy sidearm into the ocean is a dumb idea. Forget I asked. Do you have a weapon of any kind?”

  “A pocket knife,” Dane answered, wondering just what the hell Spruance had in mind.

  “Don’t lose it. If it becomes necessary, I want you to kill me with it.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me and that’s an order. If it looks like we’re going to be taken prisoner, you must kill me. If it’s a small knife, you’ll have to slice my throat. I’ll resist instinctively, but you are doubtless stronger and must prevail. I know too many things that would endanger our country’s security. Whatever happens, you must kill me. Do you acknowledge that order?”

  Dane gulped. This couldn’t be happening. Was Spruance even sane or had the blow to his head made him crazy? “I understand and I will obey, but tell me, sir, did you ever read Ben Hur or see the movie with Bushman and Navarro?”

  “I’ve done both, Lieutenant, but what the devil does that have to do with our predicament?” Spruance asked, even as understanding dawned. “Of course, there was a scene where Ben Hur and the Roman admiral were adrift in the sea, and the admiral wanted to die because he was shamed by what he wrongfully believed was a defeat. Nice thought, Dane, but I am not suicidal because I’m ashamed of a defeat. No, I want to live to get another crack at them; I simply know too much to be taken prisoner. They would torture me until I told them everything I know and that would be terrible for the United States.”

  Spruance looked away. He didn’t want the young lieutenant to see the anguish in his eyes. He was fifty-six years old and the Midway battle was his first major command, and he’d botched it horribly. His two carriers were destroyed and only God knew how many other ships damaged or sunk and, Jesus, how many young men were dead or wounded? Surely the butcher’s bill would eclipse that of the attack on Pearl Harbor. On a purely personal and selfish note, he wondered if he would ever get another command even if he did survive.

  He shook his head. He had to think clearly. A new command was the least of his worries. He could not be captured. He did not want to die, but he could not live as a prisoner of the Japanese. He understood full well just how brutal interrogations could ultimately break anyone. He had no illusions regarding his ability to resist torture. Sooner or later and after untold agonies, he would break.

  Aside from the sound of the waves slapping against their raft, there was silence. The Japanese planes were gone. A couple of American destroyers and the light cruiser Atlanta were burning furiously on the horizon. Worse, all the surviving ships were moving farther away. Dane and Spruance were truly alone in the vast Pacific. There was no drinking water in their damaged raft and their
enemy would now be thirst, which Dane was feeling already, thanks to the salt water he’d swallowed. Unless the Japanese fleet arrived and plucked them from the sea they were doomed to die an agonizing death from thirst.

  Dane understood what Spruance had said and realized that the admiral was both sane and correct. Word of Japanese atrocities against prisoners was spreading. He didn’t want to be taken alive either, but could he kill himself after killing Spruance? He doubted it. Not only did he consider suicide morally wrong, but he simply wanted to live. Could it get any worse, Dane wondered?

  Spruance grabbed Tim’s arm. “Dane, is that a periscope or am I losing what’s left of my mind?”

  Dane turned in the direction the admiral was staring. A submarine’s periscope peered at them from a distance of maybe a hundred yards. It looked like a one-eyed sea monster, which, Dane decided, was exactly what it was, but whose? He pulled the pocket knife from his pants pocket and opened it. Spruance looked at it sadly and nodded.

  There was a rush of water and the submarine surfaced.

  “I can’t see too well, Lieutenant. Whose is it, ours or theirs?”

  Dane rubbed his eyes to clear his vision. Damned salt water made it difficult to see. He squinted and caught the name. She was the Nautilus. He smiled. “Ours.”

  CHAPTER 2

  DANE WAS DRESSED IN HIS UNIFORM, SITTING ON THE EDGE OF his hospital bed in the naval hospital in Honolulu, and thinking of how very different he was from most navy officers. After four years of ROTC at Northwestern University, and several more years in the Naval Reserve, he’d never been on board anything larger than a fishing boat in Lake Michigan. Thus, the sheer size of the aircraft carrier Enterprise had been both daunting and humbling upon his last-minute arrival. Even though the Enterprise had been huge, he knew that many of the carriers and battleships now under construction were much larger. The soon-to-be-completed aircraft carrier Essex was a third bigger than the sunken Enterprise, and the Essex was the first of a class of ships just like her. She had a number of sisters that would be just as large when they were completed.

  The doomed Enterprise had been capable of going thirty-two knots, which was, he thought ruefully, close to forty miles an hour and was what his old Ford could do on a good day. Dane hadn’t seen the car in ten months and wondered if his young nephew hadn’t run it into the ground. Tim had been activated in October of 1941 and had been in San Francisco when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.

  The other officers on the Enterprise had teased him about his lack of seagoing experience and laughed hysterically when he got thoroughly seasick during the early part of the voyage. Some of them did as well, which pleased Tim.

  Dane was still mildly puzzled as to why he had been assigned to the Enterprise in the first place. He’d had one very brief conversation with Spruance, who’d also wondered, and pointedly asked him just why he thought he’d been assigned to his staff. Dane had prudently decided not to say he had no idea either. Instead, he said he thought it was because he could read and speak Japanese, a skill that was in short supply.

  Spruance had smiled slightly and asked if Dane thought there were many Japanese on the carrier who might need interrogating, and whether he thought he’d run into any out in the Pacific.

  Before Dane could answer, the admiral had laughed and said the ways of the United States Navy were wondrous indeed and that Dane should simply try to make himself useful. Barring that, he should stay out of everyone’s way. That was weeks ago and now he was in a hospital in Honolulu, and the Enterprise was at the bottom of the Pacific along with the Hornet and a number of other American warships.

  There had been time to find out that fewer than three hundred men had survived the sinking of the two carriers. He was astonished to find that one of them was Lieutenant Commander Mickey Greene, the man who’d said that Tim didn’t know how to handle a fire hose. Greene had been burned over much of his body and was wrapped up like a mummy. He told Tim that most of the burns were superficial and that he had no recollection of how he’d survived. He assumed that some of the crew had dragged him into a raft and he dimly recalled being hauled onto a destroyer that had managed to survive the slaughter. Greene said he was lucky and that he would survive. It humbled Dane, who was so much better off.

  While horrified by the numbers of dead, Tim felt oddly disconnected. He’d only been on the carrier a short while and, with the possible exception of Mickey Greene, hadn’t really known many of men all that well. They were acquaintances, not friends. Even he and Greene hadn’t had time to become close.

  After seeing Greene and trying to imagine the pain the man was enduring, Tim decided to quit feeling sorry for himself. His head had been shaved, he had six stitches in his scalp, a couple along his mouth, and his leg still hurt. His knee would heal and the dark brown hair on his scalp would grow back and, if it didn’t, who cared? Half the men in his family were bald and he thought his hairline was already beginning to recede. He wondered how Mickey Greene would look when his bandages came off. Greene once had thick and curly red hair. Was any of it left? Tim’s own burns were rapidly fading and wouldn’t likely leave any significant scars.

  He realized with a start that a young nurse was standing in front of him, looking at him quizzically.

  “Good morning, Lieutenant, I’m glad to see you obeyed the instructions to get properly dressed. My name is Amanda Mallard and I’m a nurse, and unless you want some particularly painful injections in very sensitive parts of your body, you will never, ever refer to me as Ducky Mallard or Nurse Ducky or anything like that. Nurse Amanda, or simply Amanda, will do just fine. Understood?”

  Dane smiled, “Totally, Amanda. However, you may call me the Great Dane if you wish and I won’t object at all.”

  Nurse Mallard blinked and then smiled engagingly. “That, Lieutenant, remains to be seen. Also, and in case you haven’t noticed, I’m a civilian nurse, which means I’m not all that impressed by anyone’s rank, especially a mere lieutenant’s,” she said as she checked him over, verifying that his heart was working and that he was still breathing. He noticed that both had picked up the pace as she touched him.

  “I’m still a civilian at heart myself,” Tim said as she worked. He quickly explained that before being recalled to the navy, he’d been employed as an assistant principal at a junior high school where he also coached basketball and track. “Right now I’d very much like to be disciplining kids who talked in class or got caught necking in the park next to the school instead of worrying about Japanese trying to kill me.”

  Nurse Mallard told him to stand up and he did, wobbling just a bit. “I understand your thoughts,” she said. “So how did you wind up in the navy in the first place? I’m from the Annapolis area and noticed that you do not have an academy ring.”

  She steadied him and handed him his crutches. Dane was six feet tall and one hundred and eighty pounds and she moved him effortlessly. His leg wasn’t broken; his heavily taped knee had been severely sprained and was massively bruised. He grimaced. He hadn’t spent that much time on his feet and he felt stiff as a board.

  “I had good grades, so I was admitted to Northwestern. They had a naval ROTC program. It looked interesting, and it helped pay the tuition. I wound up serving my active duty in Chicago of all places, but the navy had another series of budget cuts and I was cut loose until Roosevelt decided we needed a bigger navy. I got recalled and sent to Hawaii.”

  “So you’re not a career type?” she asked as she guided him around the ward, ignoring the stares from the men in their beds along with their comments that they, too, would like Nurse Mallard to assist them.

  “That may depend on the length of the war, but no. If the war lasts until 1980 like they say, then I’ll be a careerist by default and probably still be a junior officer. Like you said, I didn’t go to the Naval Academy, which might hold me back forever. Now, how did you become a nurse?”

  Nurse Amanda Mallard wasn’t beautiful. She was, instead, perky and cute, and
when she smiled she exposed two upper front teeth that overlapped slightly. Dane thought it was charming. She had light brown hair that was cut short. He’d seen her walking around before, and some of the other guys in the ward thought she was too skinny and flat-chested, even bookish looking when she put on her glasses. Dane disagreed. He thought she was pretty and seemed very pleasant even though she hadn’t spoken to him before now. He’d always thought that the old saying that men don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses was nonsense.

  “I became a nurse because, even though this is the twentieth century, there aren’t all that many occupations where a woman is welcome. Nursing is one, and I do enjoy helping people, so I studied at the University of Maryland. I’m a Terrapin, and I’m okay with a nursing career.”

  “Going to be a nurse forever?”

  “Unless I marry some rich guy, and schoolteachers don’t qualify.”

  He laughed. “If my father’s real estate schemes work out, maybe I’ll join him and get rich and look you up.” His leg stiffened and he winced.

  “Don’t complain about the pain, Lieutenant,” she said as he bit back a groan, “it’ll go away if you work at it and, besides, you don’t want to be left behind, do you?”

  “What are you talking about and why don’t you call me by my first name?”

  “You’ll be Tim when you’re out of here; until then, we keep it formal and militarily correct, even though I am a mere civilian.”

  “All right, but what do you mean about being left behind?”

  “You’re still on Spruance’s staff, aren’t you?”

  “What’s left of it,” he said grimly, recalling their two days in the sub and subsequently being picked up by a flying boat and taken to Pearl Harbor.

  Spruance was recovering well and already out of the hospital. He was dealing with the terrible fact that, along with the two carriers under his command and most of their crews, almost all of his staff had been killed in the disastrous Battle of Midway, which was commonly being referred to as the Midway Massacre. After destroying Spruance’s force, the Japanese had found the remaining third carrier, the Yorktown, near Midway and sunk it as well, along with two cruisers and six destroyers. TF 17’s commander, Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher, had gone down with his ship.