“Excellent short story. Your writing style reminds me of my favorite short story author–O’Henry!” – James G. Zumwalt
“It has an F. Scott Fitzgerald feel to it…. Irony. How wonderful. I love this story.” – Vicky Kline
“Be resolved that honor is heavier than the mountains
and death lighter than the feather.” ―Yasuo Kuwahara
July 7th, 2012
The Cessna’s engine rattled. A wet cough, old lungs failing. Eighty-three years old. Isamu’s hands on the yoke—knotted fingers, arthritic knuckles—felt the vibration through the control column. The doctors had used that American phrase. On borrowed time.
He’d paid for every day.
Scars on his face caught the late sun through the windscreen. Deeper scars inside where no light reached.
The runway at the small airfield near Yokosuka stretched ahead. Hot asphalt shimmering. He advanced the throttle three notches. Held the brakes. The aircraft shuddered, but it was sound. Functional.
His retirement letter lay on the right seat. Creased paper. Formal characters. With greatest respect, we congratulate you on your retirement after a long and honorable career in government service.
Coward’s hands held the yoke. He’d served his country for decades. But once—when it needed him most—he’d turned from duty. The Americans had pulled him from the water. Saved him when he should have died. His mother’s voice never let him forget.
Perhaps today, he could put her to rest.
He released the brakes.
The acceleration pressed him back. Not hard. Gentle. Like a hand on his chest. Ground speed forty. Fifty. Sixty. He pulled back on the yoke. Front wheel lifted. The aircraft climbed into golden air.
No wind today.
Not like July 4th, 1945.
He banked east. The setting sun bled red behind him. Bloody clouds. He climbed to five hundred feet and turned north along the coast. The harbor at Yokosuka would be quiet on a Saturday evening. Gray ships at their piers.
The memory came as it always did.
July 4th, 1945. Dawn.
The sun broke through clouds and spilled light across the field. Six aircraft in line. Engines idling. The first—the only one whole—was the kaigun-dai’s Zero. Behind it, patchwork monsters. Metal patches. Wooden repairs. Binding wire holding wings together.
Frankenstein creatures in the morning light.
The thought came with his mother’s voice. She’d taken him to see that American movie for his birthday in San Francisco. Isamu, why do you like these awful movies? They are not suitable for you. But she’d taken him anyway. Sat beside him in the dark theater watching the monster stumble and rage. Created by a man. Destroyed by men. Neither creator nor creation ever asked what they’d become.
Now here were Japan’s Frankenstein monsters. And he would pilot one.
Isamu stood at rigid attention. Sixteen years old. Slender, tall for his age. Fine features. Long fingers holding his soft cover against the wind. Artist’s hands, his mother called them. Had called them. Before the firebombing of Tokyo on March 9th killed her and a hundred thousand others. Her birthday and his. An irony that today—July 4th—was also a celebration. For Americans.
For him, it had become a day without meaning. Yet one that now meant everything.
The kaigun-dai stood near the small wooden building. His right sleeve empty, pinned to his shoulder. It flapped in the wind. Despite the missing arm, he was powerfully built. Solid chest. Thick neck supporting a burn-scarred head that lacked an eye. His face was stiff with pride. When he moved, you could see what he’d been. A carrier pilot once. Ferocious. Now shattered legs dragged across dirt. One after the other.
He glared into the sun. One eye refusing to yield. Refusing to shade it with his remaining hand. After a long moment, he turned to face the line of child-pilots.
“Today, you serve the emperor as do I. Today, we become immortal!”
The words were bitter lies in the air. Isamu heard them for what they were.
With a fierce scowl, the kaigun-dai lurched to the last airplane in line.
The smallest boy—the youngest—stepped forward. Marched to meet the officer at the aircraft. Saluted. Climbed into the cockpit.
A mechanic—a sergeant with gray in his hair and deep lines around his mouth—climbed onto the wing. He pulled the canopy closed and began seating bolts on the left side. One bolt. Two. Three. Four. Each one driven through the canopy frame into the cockpit rail. Locking the boy inside.
The sergeant moved to the right side. Same procedure. Bolt. Bolt. Bolt. Bolt. The boy’s head visible through the glass. Not moving. Staring straight ahead.
Three more aircraft. Three more boys. The methodical horror of bolts being driven. Each canopy sealed. Each pilot locked inside their Frankenstein machine.
Then the last boy and the second aircraft in line.
Isamu stepped forward. Marched to his aircraft. Saluted the kaigun-dai. The shine on the officer’s face caught his eye. Sweat or tears. A blind eye still weeps. A hard heart still sweats. It didn’t matter which.
Isamu climbed into the cockpit. The sergeant began with the left side. Close to the kaigun-dai. One bolt. Two. Three. Four. Driven home. Secure.
The sergeant moved to the right side. Away from the officer’s view. He positioned the first bolt. Tried to drive it. The wood frame around the canopy rail was splintered. Dry. The bolt wouldn’t seat. He tried the second. Same problem. This side had been poorly repaired. Wood already splitting. The bolts wouldn’t hold.
The sergeant’s hands paused. His eyes met Isamu’s for one second. Then he straightened. Stepped down from the wing. Said nothing to the kaigun-dai. Walked back to stand by the building.
The right side of Isamu’s canopy was unsealed.
The kaigun-dai saluted the line. Shambled to his Zero. The only worthy aircraft. Tired. Worn. But deadly still. He waved off help from the sergeant. One-armed, he pulled himself up the ladder. Swung broken legs into the cockpit. His canopy stayed open. Unsealed. No doubts. No questions about duty.
Isamu glanced at the others, even younger than him. Three weeks of instruction. No navigation training. Barely basic instruments. Power settings. Control movements. Hatchlings pushed from the nest too soon. This was their first solo flight.
It would be their only flight.
At the field’s edge, the sergeant waved a red flag. Isamu advanced his power three notches. Brakes on. The aircraft shook with increased RPMs. Not power barely contained. The convulsing of something wounded, forced to run when it wanted to die.
The green flag raised.
Isamu released brakes. Power to half. Watching the Zero’s tail ahead. It moved. He advanced throttle to three-quarters. Speed building. Forty. Fifty. Sixty. Ease back on the stick. One more notch of power.
Wheels left the ground.
Then the wind hit them.
God’s breath. Scattering geese after the first shot. Five aircraft. Five directions. The wind was a hand shoving him sideways. He fought the stick. Tried to follow the lead Zero. Behind him, others failed. Angled off. Taken by the wind.
It wasn’t far to fly. American ships drew closer every day. Pounding guns that never stopped. Their submarines severing arteries. Their aircraft—first insects, then crows, now buzzards circling the dead and dying.
Isamu glanced at the control stick. His hands gripped it. Artist’s hands gripping a shaking, shivering thing. The twitching of something dying.
Then the ships appeared. So many ships. The sky became a garden. Black flowers blooming on smoke stalks. Each burst meant to kill him. Fireworks of the deadliest kind.
Ahead, the kaigun-dai’s Zero pitched down. Dropped toward a gray ship below. Explosions filled the air. Fire and smoke. The Zero spun right—one wing gone, tail blown off. A discarded carcass. The officer and his aircraft falling. Food for fish.
The ship filled Isamu’s windscreen. Its bridge. Forward gun. Fresh paint. New rust. Exquisite clarity. The gun centered on him.
Black maw of his death.
It flashed.
He flinched. Yanked the stick right. The ship slid left. Only water ahead. Gray-green. Churning.
Impact.
Rattle-shock. A can of rocks dropped from a building onto pavement. The unsealed right side of the canopy gave way. Tore off. Water flooding in. The taste of bright copper blood. Bits of teeth in his ruined mouth. His hands still gripped the stick.
His mother’s voice whispered through the roar of water: Beautiful hands. Artist’s hands.
All he saw were a coward’s hands as the waves took him under.
The Americans pulled him out minutes later. A boat alongside. Hooks and gaffs. Rough hands dragging him from the water like debris. Like a caught fish. He was the enemy. One of the people who bombed Pearl Harbor. They hauled him aboard. Restrained his hands. Spoke words he didn’t understand. Their voices hard.
He should have died. The bolts should have held. He should have been locked inside like the others.
Instead, he lived. Pulled from the sea by those he’d tried to kill.
The shame was heavier than mountains.
The harbor at Yokosuka spread below. Gray ships at the piers. Isamu dropped to three hundred feet. Began his approach from the sea.
A destroyer at the main pier. He could see people on deck. Children. A summer school group visiting. American kids. Japanese kids. Mixed together. Saturday afternoon. Independence Day had been Wednesday, three days ago.
He circled. Studying the ship. USS Montgomery painted on the stern transom. He slowed. Dropped lower. Two hundred feet.
Activity on deck now. They’d spotted him. An unauthorized aircraft in restricted airspace over the naval base. Threat protocols engaged. Sailors moving. Now he could even hear the ship’s klaxon sounding the security alert.
Isamu had expected this. The ship was fixed. A sitting duck at the pier. It couldn’t maneuver. Couldn’t run.
But he could change course.
His hands—old, gnarled, twisted—tightened on the yoke.
The deck cleared fast. People running. Kids pushed toward the gangway to the pier. A young sailor—part of the deck watch—sprinted to the port rail. Raised a handgun. Sighted on the approaching aircraft.
Isamu pushed the yoke forward. Nose down. Speed building. The destroyer filled his view.
The young sailor fired.
The windscreen starred. Glass blowing in. Something hot tore across his forehead. Blood in his eyes.
Isamu pitched right. Not hard. Not as much as he could. Just enough. Away from the ship. Away from the children.
The water rushed up.
Like before.
The Cessna hit beside the Montgomery. The nose crumpled. Green water surged through the shattered windscreen. Over his head. Into his mouth. Filling his lungs.
Cold. The shock of it.
His hands floated to his face. Blood washing away. Old scars and new cuts.
Quiet under the surface. Pressure in his ears. In his chest.
The cabin door was open; the means to escape fate. As free to face it as the kaigun-dai had been that morning so long ago.
No bolts this time. No failed mechanism. No accident.
His choice.
His mother’s voice faded, finally releasing him.
The aircraft settled into darkness. Taking him with it.
The sea held him. Would not let go.
# # #
“But seek only to preserve life, your own and those of others.
Life alone is sacred.” ―Yasuo Kuwahara