Honor & Entropy

By Arthur Spevak

Norse god-like Telly Brensen grows up longing for his father, a naval pilot who disappears late in 1945. After matters of honor go badly and send Telly to the brink of despair, he gets a tip about his father and heads off to Borneo, enlisting the backup of an old school mate, an uproarious misfit named Arthur Spevak. Then Telly vanishes, and Spevak picks up the trail, unable to imagine what he will become.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hillcrest Media Group
• Release date: Sep 25, 2015
• ISBN: 9781937563929

Book preview

Epilogue

FORWARD

I never knew Arthur Spevak, though it seems he once lived in the house I have called home for years now, a fact to which I remained unaware until the day I sallied forth against some bellicose blackberries and uncovered a trunk bearing his name. In it was a collection of computer junk, piles of paper, a rusty typewriter, and a box containing something else with his name on it: a manuscript.

With curiosity feeding on itself, I took the would-be book inside and began to read. Soon, I was consumed by an adventure I could scarcely imagine in this modern age, an old-fashioned quest for honor, where duty and disgrace clash without quarter, where lives are lost and saved and changed forever; and when I was finished, exhausted and shaken really, I was left with a signal sadness knowing that the thing to which he had dedicated his life had simply been left there to die.

I cannot account for the man’s present whereabouts and now fear to inquire any further. I like to think he will suddenly appear and reintroduce himself. I would be overjoyed to tell him that I have found his story and been given this chance to share it with that world – and that it might now look upon him in a different light. But I can find no trace. If he is still alive, I am convinced he does not want to be found.

They say everybody’s a critic, but I don’t count myself among that everybody. I am not qualified to judge the man’s writing, though there are those who say the tale certainly deserves telling. For that, I can only try to express the appreciation I’m sure he would voice were he here. And I take no credit. I am simply a messenger.

His life was, to put it mildly, unique, and I can never forget discovering a story so rich in heart while, at the same time, so devoid of pretense. I can’t help but think I am fortunate to be passing on for him what he must have wanted to convey with all his being. Failing him now would be something I could not do without everlasting regret, perhaps a regret to rival his own.

I am sure, too, that his intent was not to dump more sorrow onto the world. No writer worth his laser jet would do that to a planet already flush with it. He must have wanted terribly to make people feel deeply, laugh loudly, and live life to the fullest, though I suspect that it might have been because he never found those things for himself.

As you proceed from a forward that is as much a farewell, as his life and where it took him unfolds, I hope you are moved by the same sense of wonder I was when I uncovered his lost tale and went on a journey from which I, like Arthur Spevak, have never fully returned.

J. E. Rainey

August 14, 2011

A SPECIAL INTRODUCTION

by

ARTHUR SPEVAK

If fortune stays the course, my account of an extraordinary soul and his life journey will go to earth, cried over, at most, by a gathering of gulls; but should this forsaken tale of mine escape a roundup of chuckables in my own time, or resurface as a dusty barn find in a future I do not reach, it will have beaten the odds. Either way, I am its eternal captive. And since your eyes are now upon these words, it appears Fate has granted the thing another gasp. So I invite you into that forgotten world with the words I would say from wherever I now may be: If it is adventure you seek, come along with me.

My name is Arthur Spevak, and I am the unlikely teller of this tale, for unlike Authors, who bathe in reward and rest in remembrance, I have no pretensions of landing in Bartlet’s or moving to the cape. I am just a writer with a non-refundable ticket to Oblivion. No talents entered the world with me; likewise, the treasury of wisdom that should swell with age has little in the vault. Nor could the heart have been the engine of my industry. It is simply that we judgmentally challenged have a knack for smothering good sense with lofty intentions, and by shouldering a burden I should not have even considered, I proved myself to be among the knackiest.

The source of this miscalculation was my involvement with one Telly Brensen, a figure whose fierce nature and bold deeds would have, in more runic times, been recounted with song and string; but in this age of legal briefs and anger management, a tendency to express displeasure through metal objects won him a drier sort of verse.

They don’t call in the Muses for ne’er-do-wells either, and because of that odd commonality, I suppose, Telly and I blundered across each other’s paths for years. Then, out of nowhere, he came asking for help with an impossible quest, a descent into something drunken cliff divers would call unwise; and applying every jot of wisdom I had by then acquired, I closed my eyes and did a double-twisting half-gainer into hell. It was thereafter I made that resolution, the one that has owned me ever since. I wish someone had stopped me.

Let me say here (to relieve others of the trouble) that Telly’s tale would have been better served by an Author, what with the way their creations skip across pages like stones on a pond. How I envy that! Instead, it was banged out by this simple witness, in language that stumbles and snags like a Stone Age plow. It deserved better, and yet it defaulted to me. But enough digression.

Telly was not of this age, and with what passes for manliness these days, he would likely be called a Neanderthal, though that would be unfair: Norsemen didn’t live in caves. He was indifferent to approval, intolerant of insults, contemptuous of petty authority, and possessed of a strength forged in the fires of a genetic Vulcan. His presence alone demanded all listen, while a single look evoked gasping desire in female hearts – or a shudder up the spine of a challenger. Without a hint of uncertainty, he forced his will onto matters of honor the weak could not, and the ordinary dared not. The ancients well recognized those who could make things happen and why not to run afoul of them. Had he lived in the age for which he was meant, he would have grown used to heads bowed in silence and hoping for his good will.

Life for me, up to the beginning of all this, had been quite the opposite. Early on, the world began telling me how little effect I would have upon it; finding my station in the face of this did not come any gentler. Was I meant for a life where striving always pays off? Was I to struggle and thrash and end up with nothing but pride? Or would I be better off just getting out of the way? An inventory of my assets said that any notion of thriving was absurd, and since struggling in vain and getting out of the way beget the same results, choosing wasn’t hard. I put on my label, hoped for luck, and went out into the world girded up for an unremarkable life. Then came that day when I alone was left to tell this tale of misplaced magnificence; and without the good sense to consider the qualities I didn’t have – like the talent to write the bloody thing – or stop to think of what I was really committing to, I embarked on what I thought was to be a swift, smooth crossing on the good ship Delayed Gratification, discovering too late, I had boarded a listing derelict known by sensible men as the Overreaching Dolt. That is how I got to this point. It has cost me everything.

But I have seen wonders.

As I began that long, sometimes harrowing, but more often lonely journey, I discovered that change was not through with me. A single question hounded: Could serving honor –even if it is not my own– transcend my insignificance? The answer to that became my story; Telly’s life and mine, once united by little more than a wispy strand of familiarity, were now inseparable. It caused in me a feeling of purpose I had never known. I may be better for it. I do not know.

By accident or design, I had acquired a reason to live, and in defiance of a universe in which any suggestion that we matter is laughable, I assumed my seat as the chronicler of one heroic and otherwise forgotten life. It didn’t occur to me that, from this journey, there would be no return. It also didn’t occur to me that I was headed for a winner-take-all arena, where Authors gorge, and writers choke on humble pie.

Such as it is, Dear Reader, I do beg you bear with my struggling passages. They are woven with inadequacy and loosened by time. If, however, you are touched by it, despite my less than Authorish delivery, it means I have, in my own way, bearded the universe. And since you now know how this all came to be, there is nothing left for me to do but urge you to read on. Should that be your wish, it means my work is done. I truly hope so. I am weary. Or worse.

Either way, it belongs to you now. So let me leave you here at this door of your discovery. Enter and relive an age long gone – except for scraps of it kept on life support by fools such as I (and worthy Authors, of course); and if, when you found this, I am still among the living, know that I am hard at the business of enjoying what remains of my time. Heroes cannot do this until wrongs are righted, but for the rest of us, it is all we should ever do.

Arthur Spevak,

December 31, 1999

A life of honor and of worth

Has no eternity on earth, –

'Tis but a name –

And yet its glory far exceeds

That base and sensual life which leads

To want and shame.

– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

BOOK I

Part 1

1

Manila, October, 1945

To those who understood, the Lotus Bar & Grill’s little neon sign was a miracle. Two feet high and dangling from a weathered plank, the delicate, hand-blown device had survived the final fight for Manila to blink and buzz and entertain the nightly swarm of insects. It was the only one for a mile around, a defiant landmark in the otherwise burned-out landscape, or, as the GIs who gathered there said of it, Better to light a candle than curse the darkness − unless she’s ugly.

A half year after the Japanese swaggered in for the last time, kicking over chairs and shouting for the two things all soldiers want, Mama Rose was back in business. Real business. The GIs had money. They weren’t mean for the most part. They paid for what they got − for the most part. And the Lotus, as they say, delivered.

Rose looked around the room, feeling somehow peaceful with the night setting in. It held only the quiet terror of the occasional knife wielder, which, by comparison to the Japanese in their final fury, was no terror at all; and with her two Negrito bodyguards, Benny and Tulo, robbers got more than they bargained for.

The two dozen or so GIs − marines on one side, sailors on the other − and her girls were busy drinking, chattering, and laughing in earnest, while Glen Miller filled the remaining space for noise with a romantic lowing that had nothing to do with this place. For many, this would be their one great adventure in the Eastern world. They would not tell it as it was, though, and Hollywood would not call them out for liars. Film is odorless, after all.

Rose patted herself down and tugged her skirt into place. She was gaunt from the war, but now the extra food was beginning to show. First money gets first food, and in her line of work, the money was up front and plentiful. Life wasn’t great, but compared to the horror of the Japanese, it wasn’t so bad she was thinking, when a shadow filled the doorway.

Ordinarily, Rose liked officers. They didn’t play out dramas with her girls, they spent money, stayed dignified, and didn’t break furniture. If anything, just having one there was as good as Shore Patrol. But this one was different. God, he was handsome. Six-foot four, broad-shouldered, trim at the hips, blonde, with a square jaw and steely gray eyes: he made her knees tremble. She wished he’d come around more, but he seemed the serious type. She could tell you didn’t joke with this one. When he walked in, she knew she would be busy doing something he wanted and not profit from it. And here he was again.

The girls stopped playing with their customers. They were all staring at the door.

Ah, welcome Colonel!

Sorry, Rose. That’s Commander.

That, too? My, you have a lot of rank, Colonel-Commander…

Brensen. Ulysses S. Brensen.

Rose showed him the teeth she was so proud of, as if hearing his name felt good. They were white, straight, and real. Other men weakened in their sparkle. Not this one.

Ulysses smiled back indulgently while the concentration on his face said he was not there to get drunk or hump one of her girls, though she and God knew, not one of them would hesitate to rip his clothes off if he so much as wiggled a finger; anyone wanting proof of that needed only to look then upon the girls, staring, mouths agape, the men they were with utterly ignored.

What does the S stand for? Superman?

Ulysses smiled a little more to show he got the joke and kept looking around the room. Siegfried.

That’s a funny name.

Yes, it certainly is…Have you seen Chief Sikes?

Billy? Sure. He here every night.

As if on cue, the chief stumbled in from a side door, adjusting his belt buckle, a long-haired, doll-like girl clinging to his arm and wearing a lipstick-smeared smile.

Skipper?

Ulysses signaled the old chief with a nod, and the two men converged at the bar.

Sikes tucked in his utility jacket, what the Army called fatigues, a faded, green herringbone called salty by sailors and marines when washed repeatedly in sea water, which was, in turn, a moniker for an expert, or anyone who presumed to be one. Sikes was the right kind of salty. Twenty years before the mast and this war stint in the air crew made the man indispensable. What he didn’t know about electronics hadn’t been invented yet. What he didn’t know about young sailors and what turned their cranks didn’t exist.

What’s up?

We gotta talk − the whole crew.

A problem?

No, but it’s…I’ll explain.

Sikes had been with Ulysses since the Canal, when they dropped supplies onto marines holding Henderson Field. He knew Brensen as no family member could. Under duress, no one was cooler. Nobody panicked when the man was around. It was easy to follow an officer like this. Sikes knew his chances were better with this man bullets seemed to swerve around. He snapped his fingers at three men sitting at a table, giggling girls lounging on them, a half empty bottle between them. They hardly noticed.

A snap of the fingers could have meant a lot of things, but when Ulysses moved toward the table, with Sikes before him as if to clear the space, it was the girls who understood. They got up, stood waitress-like for a moment, and receded to other opportunities.

Seaman 2nd Class George Petrikian rocked back on his chair, grinning at nothing, his eyelids half open. He was, he believed, a true intellectual, plucked from the Berkeley campus as war planners calculated losses for an invasion of Japan. The Bomb saved him from that, but not from service beyond the war’s end. He wasn’t belligerent for it, but let his resentment be known, and liked to fling his knowledge around a little more than others wanted to hear it. That made for few friends. He liked books and didn’t seem to care what others thought anyway. The best way to get work out of him was to give him something complicated to figure out. He was trustworthy, but had to be guided from a tendency to drift off.

With the commander before him, Petrikian tried to straighten up, only to slump back into the chair again. The balance it took to sit up was too much of a challenge for the state he was in. Even seeing the big man was hard enough. But he liked the feeling of being that many drinks into oblivion. College boys could drink, but they overdid it, with dry spells in between. Military guys really knew what they were doing. They were on their way to drunk or on the way back from it all the time. That was the way to do it.

George Petrikian thought to himself, why was ol’ Odin here? Never saw him drink. Still in all, he had to give the guy credit. One night, the subject of allegory came up, and Odin got into Coleridge, reciting Rime of the Ancient Mariner. All of it.

Seaman First Class Arnold Biff Landry sat grinning and nodding at nothing in particular. He liked being thought of as the crew’s go-to hustler. He believed careful planners could not survive without men like him. Honesty was negotiable, and seizing a lucky break was true accomplishment. He was a grumbler when it came to drudgery, but when something was absolutely unavailable, he was the one to bring it back.

Landry liked Brensen when he wasn’t barking orders. The man had a sense of what he called practical ways. Many times the guy’d asked him to find parts for Penelope, never questioning where he got them, and always giving him special liberty for it – and they had the best maintenance record in the squadron. Still, it bothered him that Odin didn’t drink with them. His rule was to never trust a man who wouldn’t, but, for ol’ Odin, he’d had to make an exception. Brensen never asked them to do anything he wouldn’t take the risk of as well. Whatever the guy wanted, Landry knew he’d make it square.

Seaman First Class Adam Rossman was tough. He didn’t say much and wore a chip on both shoulders. Brensen was constantly getting him out of the brig. Most of his fights were set off by the man’s touchiness, but he rarely lost, and had the scars to rival a hand-to-hand combat survivor. It was always best just to keep him busy. He didn’t mind routine and would finish whatever he started, just like his fights.

Rossman sat with his big arms folded, his eyes barely open. Between the girls and the booze, he’d found something they never told him about in Torah school. Sure, in the old neighborhood, he could get his horns trimmed; but it was such a chore. And God forbid his mother ever found out. Was America crazy or what? You could get into a fight any time, but just try to get a girl to play your flute. At the Lotus, it was like afternoon tea. No wonder the Japs got beat. Prob’ly got hummers all the time. Takes the legs out of a man his boxing coach used to say. So what did the boss want?

Ben Blakely was young for a chief, but he could handle a radio dial like a safecracker. It got him promoted fast. He was reliable, simple-spoken, and the sort military life was made for. He had started a family and liked to talk it over with the skipper when things quieted down. He could see that ol’ Odin really missed his wife, even named the plane after her. They had no kids yet, but he’d said, with a grin, that they were practicing for it. Since he’d been the only one to accompany him back to the states for the last few weeks, he’d seen the boss take on a different demeanor. Something was up.

Ulysses looked the crew over. Trying to get them out of the Lotus was a headache, and he blamed himself for letting it get out of hand. At first, he sent Sikes to roust them out, but then the chief got pulled in as well. The place was like some kind of whirlpool. But now he had a way to get them out for good. The world had changed a lot in the three weeks he’d set out with his copilot, Lieutenant Senior Grade Andy Hollingsworth, to see what General Muraoka wanted. Now that day seemed like a lifetime ago.

The commander motioned for a round of drinks, not noticing the elbows his men were trading. He was too busy thinking of how they’d gotten to this point, how fortune turns like a gun that keeps on firing, or jams for no reason at all.

That day, like most any other day, Manila lay smoldering and stinking in the noonday heat. Walking in silence was impossible, as everything crunched under your feet, some fragments of which you did not want to know the source. The newly arrived could easily think the fighting had just stopped: broken buildings, broken houses, broken lives everywhere. Only black marketeers, rats, and roaches…and the Lotus were thriving. Hope was on vacation.

On the south side, in the smothering humidity of a coming typhoon and a wasteland of rubble and stench, lay one of the nine war crime trial stockades scattered across the devastated nations of the Eastern world. One by one, Japanese war criminals were being identified by survivors and witnesses. Of the ninety-seven held there, much had already been done, but trials were still ongoing. The involvement of some senior officers had been brought into question, but with Yamashita probably going to the gallows, and the butcher Homma certainly going, Pacific Command and The War Department seemed to be focusing more on the overall command breakdown. It was a reprieve for some; for others, a respite. And for General Ichiro Muraoka, the place was just an obstacle to a claim.

As any connection to atrocities had yet to be verified, charges against the general were still inconclusive, conflicting testimony in different languages and difficulty interpreting coded orders making the process maddeningly slow. He was like a man on a river bank between a tiger and a crocodile. But he was smart.

Andrew Hollingsworth had been Brensen’s copilot for three years. The young flyer from Oregon moved his lanky frame around with an ease that seemed to match a relaxed outlook. He wasn’t especially talkative unless drawn into a discussion of engineering, a thing he approached with adoration. Any discussion of it distracted him from a look of far-away melancholy that seemed to overtake him from time to time. He was not a man who stood out in a crowd; neither did he invite arched eyebrows.

Wiping the sweat from one eye, Hollingsworth opened the door to a hut simply called Number 8, the rusty hinges announcing the arrival with a raspy, metallic complaint.

Some senior officers, like Muraoka, were not in lock-up, though it didn’t mean they couldn’t be sent there once sufficient evidence warranted a trial. And American senior officers still had to be escorted to their presence. You never knew what they might come up with. On one hand, they wept and flung themselves in the dirt at a hint of whatever it was that bothered them, but on the other, they had the best poker faces Andy had ever seen.

Love to stake one at a game back home Hollingsworth almost said out loud, when Commander Brensen breezed past him and stepped up into the hut.

Now, Japanese military forces, once feared wherever they went, were disarmed and confined. It was hard to believe their ferocity could have been so real. Unlike the Jerries, who smiled, shook hands, and tried to engage in conversation with any willing Yank, the Japanese were a forlorn bunch who looked humiliated and surprised, even when given decent food, as if it proved their notions of superiority overturned. And now they were ever so civil.

The general was sitting ramrod straight on a backless stool, with Major Sadao Shimano standing to his left. Shimano bowed while the general just looked at the approaching Americans with no expression at all. He was wiry, without the paunch General Yamashita had acquired somehow, a figure who looked to have been born to military life and too small to assume it. He wore a trim moustache and cut his hair to stubble, just as Yamashita did. He wore glasses only to read and had shown no fear when the Americans first arrived. With wailing suicidals all around him, he was in control of himself. To anyone who knew nothing about the military, it was still obvious he was in charge.

Ulysses bowed back awkwardly and approached. At this juncture, he figured, it couldn’t hurt to indulge them. He was only glad no American ex-POW saw him do it. He presented himself before the two with a disarming expression, which, curiously, got the same response as an intimidating one. Anyway, the Japs were a formal lot, and when they did things with representatives, it meant their reputations were on the line. This was how they made deals.

You sent for me, Gentlemen? Is there something I can do for you?

2

Shimano smiled. These Americans get right to the point. No fussing around. They didn’t understand true formality and always seemed to avoid it, but at least they didn’t waste your time – and they carried out orders, something junior Japanese officers could not be relied upon to do. He could not help believe that they were in that place because of the rashness of those undisciplined hotheads, always justifying their actions by insisting it was for Tenno. But that would not be sorted out to anyone’s satisfaction. It was a saddle the horse could never shake. Shimano knew the general had never engaged in atrocities. It did no good to say so, though. The Americans were going to exact a price either way.

The major made a cordial sweep with a gloved hand. Please, Commander. Please sit.

Shimano’s tattered uniform and grimy gloves would have been a clown suit anywhere else, but the grace he maintained under such conditions made no one laugh. It raised him well above the situation in Ulysses’ eyes as well as his own. This, after all, is what Japanese manners are about: how you make yourself look.

Ulysses followed the still gesturing officer and sat on a tiny chair at the small, bare table between them. He was learning. In the Eastern world, you sit when you discuss anything wanting a decision.

General Muraoka has a proposition.

Ulysses batted at a fly, not aware that his casual manner was about to dissolve. Oh? By all means, let’s hear it.

I understand, Commander, that you are a pilot.

That is correct, Major.

Shimano seemed to gather his thoughts for a moment, or maybe he had rehearsed what he was going to say and wanted to give it impact. As he did so, a pair of geckos chirped angrily at each other for invading disputed wall space. No one seemed to notice. At night, they would get things thrown at them.

I will be…how you Americans say…to the point. The general has something of value he is willing to share with you for a certain…favor.

I’m sorry, Major. I cannot do favors for any –

Please, Commander. Hear what I have to say.

Very well.

Ulysses removed a pack of Luckies and pushed them across the table, a little surprised at the interruption. It was not like a Japanese to do that, and predictability seemed so important to them.

The major looked hungrily at the cigarettes as he offered one to the general who, in turn, fanned a hand rapidly back-and-forth across his own face, the way the commander now knew Japanese declined things.

Odd, thought Ulysses that, with Americans, the same gesture meant whatever it was smelled bad.

Shimano lit up and sat back. You know about Chandra Bose?

Only months before, Pacific Command had briefed all pilots to be on the lookout for a Jap bomber evacuating Chandra Bose from the British re-take of India. Bose was leader of the I.N.A., the once powerful anti-colonial Indian National Army, and a Japanese puppet. Reports had it that his plane crashed on Taiwan, that he died from burns, and that his ashes had been taken to Japan. But there was one more thing Brensen did not know.

Most of us have heard the story.

Shimano leaned forward and lowered his voice. Do you also know about the gold on that plane?

Gold?

Yes, Commander. Gold.

Ulysses grinned at his lieutenant. And what about this gold?

Shimano took a long drag of the cigarette, knowing the words he would send out with the next exhale were loaded.

General Muraoka knows where this gold is.

Ulysses tried to maintain his amused demeanor and, too late, realized he had opened a negotiation for which he was not prepared when he spoke again. "How much gold?"

One-thousand kilos.

Shimano, seeing that the blonde giant was not breathing, continued. If you are willing to assist General Muraoka to…disappear, he will share this gold with you…even shares to you and your men.

Curious, thought Ulysses, how Shimano had not asked anything, but made everything a statement that forced him to ask questions of himself. He was being offered something most men only dream of. His next thoughts left propriety behind.

Let me think about it.

Shimano looked with pleasure at the burning cigarette. Yes. Please do. Your adjutant will receive a correspondence from Burma. It will say they have a witness who knows General Muraoka. They will want us to go there for interrogation in…twenty-two more days. All you need to do, Commander, is make sure you are the pilot.

Ulysses was silent as he took in the near completeness of their plan. He was just the bus driver.

Brensen took out the pack of cigarettes again, laid them on the table, and got up.

Shimano stood at attention, bowed, and turned to translate for the general. It was as if the Americans were no longer there.

Once outside, it seemed a different world. Everything Ulysses did, everything that had meaning was dangling over a cliff. What mattered, what he represented, all that he called himself was about to be flattened by a ton of gold.

Hollingsworth accompanied Ulysses out the door, both of them still wide-eyed. They said nothing to each other for a long time, but they knew their thoughts were the same: an opportunity like this would never come again.

General Muraoka stood by a screen wall and watched the two Americans leave. They could go and report this. It was a dangerous move. But maybe, just maybe, it had worked. He’d looked in his little steel mirror that morning and laughed at himself for the first time in years. He had risen to such a height in the greatest army the Eastern world had seen since Genghis Khan, and now his title meant nothing. He could picture himself back in Tokyo, running errands for the Americans. It was all too funny. Now he understood what the monks tried to tell him. Ambition has no substance, they said. What you have will not be yours, they repeated. What you are, you will not be, they chanted. Now he saw the freedom that he could have accepted from them – and it was so easily given. The Lord Buddha’s teachings should have guided the nation, but it has been run by fools in love with the sound of their own voices. Bakaro, he said to himself. He could even take that word from another without demanding redress. What difference did it make anymore? The deal he’d had Shimano set up was not a desperate grab for life. He no longer cared that much for living anyway. But he could escape the shame of the gallows, and his family would have something left. Maybe he would shave his head, join a monastery, and cover a stupa with his gold. That would have great merit. His karma would be cleansed, and he could forget his wasted life. The more he entertained the idea, the more it made sense. Perhaps, he thought, chuckling to himself, he might even be allowed to live through this. And if he did, was that a sign of what he must do?

Mama Rose delivered the round of warm San Miguels, smiling indulgently at Ulysses and bending over to give him a view of what she wished he would explore.

Landry snatched his beer and clinked it with the others. Okay, Skipper, what’s the gig?

Ulysses looked around and waited for Rose to make her way back over to the bar, almost laughing at himself for his drama. What I’m going to tell you does not get repeated anywhere to anyone. Everyone got that?

Sikes squirmed. It wasn’t like the commander to discuss classified matters in a public bar. The very act of talking like this there meant it was something the military may not like. He was wondering if he would. My word, Skipper.

Landry?

Mum’s the word.

Rossman?

You got it, boss.

Petrikian?

It stays with me, for sure.

Blakely?

As always, Kimosabe.

Ulysses leaned forward and commenced a huddle.

"I’ve got something to tell you. It’s an offer. Understand that you are not obliged to participate. It’s just an offer. If you want it, it’s yours. But if you don’t, you know nothing about it. Nothing. Is that understood?"

The unanimous count me in about to be said never was. The huddle broke faster than a forth-and-one play when a chair sailed over their heads, shattering on the stucco wall behind them.

Holy shit!

As one, pilot and crew ducked, with more furniture taking flight and arcing overhead, accompanied by bottles and glasses smashing into the wall.

A great war cry echoed around the bar as a solid line of marines charged across the room, swinging belts, holding their flimsy chairs as shields, and laying into a line of sailors who, for a moment, held fast against the onslaught with flailing fists and assorted dinnerware. But the sheer force of the leatherneck’s momentum proved unstoppable, and the Navy’s center broke, allowing a flood of combatants to sweep in and reduce discipline to single-combat melees.

In another moment, the momentum swung back again as the sailors, having the advantage of the walls behind them, pushed back at the broken phalanx of jarheads, now crowding each other and losing the force of their blows.

A squad of beggars, unnoticed by the marines, poured through the front door behind them, crawling and scooping up fallen food, stuffing anything they could find into their mouths – without regard for broken glass. Any leatherneck stepping back to brace against a counterattack or encircle the enemy flank, tripped backward over the eager scavengers and fell onto a rapidly growing pile of amazing ethnic and economic diversity.

Ulysses and his crew hunkered down and single-filed along the wall to the side exit, using cover from the remaining tables to dodge airborne inventory.

Now Mama Rose was busy directing traffic. In the way everyone knew to run from an air raid, she had trained the girls to scoop up unbroken bottles and glasses, rush outside to a shelter, and protect her investment. They responded quickly and efficiently all right, but now came just the element to turn it up another notch.

After only two brawls like this one, word got out that Mama’s girls would run outside with their arms full of saleable stuff. When black marketeers learned of this, they knew to pounce on the opportunity. Squads of them were waiting when the girls fled outside and into their arms. The gentler sorts had already made deals with Mama’s girls, or were prepared to do so on the spot. Others just took what they wanted by force. On this occasion, all three methods were in full swing, much to Mama’s chagrin.

"Tigil! Tigil! Umalis na kayo! Ikaw diyan! Tumigil ka!"

Mama’s desperate soliloquy was soon joined by the sound of an onrushing Shore Patrol jeep, its siren harmonizing with her wailing demands.

Marines and sailors shot out the door, body-slamming anyone in their way and scurrying off into the night. Beggars kept at their industry without regard to what the standing were up to. The constabulary fought back with little progress against the broader, deeper mob of black marketeers, while Mama’s girls ran off, some smiling and carrying fists full of script, others bloody and wailing.

Ulysses and the crew, still together, got behind a pair of big marines making good progress, elbow smashing through the crowd and slipping past the constabulary, and once in shadows, split up with the vanguard and scurried into the safety of night.

A lone jeep roared up from the south, Hollingsworth leaning out. Here! Over here! Hurry up! The posse is everywhere!

All five men dove in as the lieutenant floored it.

Ulysses looked back at the collection of drunks, their bodies dangling from the badly overloaded vehicle. He’d succeeded in getting them out of the Lotus. When he told them what was up, there would be no going back to that place. Ever.

3

Misfortune ripped through the overhead on a lightening bolt.

The flattened, blinded occupants of the cargo bay were still in mid-gasp when the fiery invader pounced on the radio and its operator and charred them. In the next instant, the angry force blew its own exit through the bulkhead, sucking the smoking, blackened pile of flesh and metal out with it, leaving the survivors to be hammered down again by a private hurricane. The Douglas twin shuddered and sparked as a maelstrom blew into the cockpit and bellowed at its lone occupant. Now the only defiance to airborne disassembly lay in a single array of white knuckles belonging to Commander Ulysses S. Brensen.

The storm had risen around the lone R4D like a net, and plowing through the wall of it was the only way out, short of diving for the earth, which, in that terrain, was not an option. Limestone spires seemed to reach through the canopy like hands trying to snag the aircraft, now dropping rapidly in the pelting, gray gauntlet. The island of Borneo does not suffer fools, even slightly.

Come on, Penny. Stay with me here!

Sikes staggered headfirst into the cockpit, holding a bloody ear and trying to stay upright in the bucking wreck.

Ulysses felt the yoke creep under his grip as he fought the ship’s maddening disobedience and spoke over the deafening wind. Damage report, Chief!

Blakely’s gone, Commander!

Whadaya mean gone?

I mean he’s not here! There’s a big hole where he was! Jesus, Boss!

Brensen and the crew were incommunicado, and now with Blakely gone, there was no way to reverse that. They’d dropped supplies on the Burma Trail, arms to resistance fighters in Mindanao, even bombs on places nobody’s ever heard of. Now he was living a story no one could tell. Had luck run out because of it? He tore off the now useless headphones, feathered back on the coughing engines, and choked the bucking yoke, memories and urgencies competing fiercely for his attention. The others?

Still here, but they need first aid!

So give it to ‘em!

Front kit’s gone! I can’t get to the back one!

Ulysses thought of Blakely, gone in a flash. He was an upright, God-fearing man. He could find a hiccup with a spin of the dial. He had a family, too, and dreams. Now he was ant food. Small wonder, thought Ulysses, that atheism has its believers. If there was a God, he didn’t care, or did so selectively. Maybe He was senile and couldn’t remember who deserved what. Maybe He didn’t approve of this unauthorized flight.

Do we have enough chutes?

Sucked out!

Sikes watched the commander hang onto the yoke like a terrier on a mailman. The old chief had been with him on countless missions and trusted him plain and simple. Enough experience shared with someone who has never left you at the side of the road makes any mention of loyalty unnecessary, and the subject never came up. Now the reward for sticking by him was a stack of gold bars – if they lived. But then, God, how he missed The Lotus. Stealing an airplane and aiding POWs to escape were not the kinds of things he wanted to answer for. Never had he severed himself so completely from anything. This was scarier than war. And there was ol’ Odin, just sitting there like he throws dice with his life every day. The guy really had some brass ones.

She’s goin’ down. Get back there and do what you can.

The chief, patching an ear with a hand, fought his way out of the cockpit.

Ulysses scanned the shrouded sky for open, level ground, but the mist and clouds would not give more than momentary peeks at mountain tops. All luck can’t be bad, he was thinking, though till then, the good cards still weren’t coming up. Ulysses and the crew were in the hands of Bernoulli’s Principle and an airplane determined to disprove it.

No sooner did Sikes leave the commander than Hollingsworth lunged back into his seat, his flight jacket shredded, his head bloodier than the chief’s, the lanky lieutenant’s affable grin now the expression of a sailor swimming with sharks.

Muraoka! What about Muraoka!

Hollingsworth wiped blood from his eyes and glanced back at the bounding cargo bay. The ship was dying. Dying. Death. Dead. What the commander said seemed an hour ago.

Hollingsworth! Hollingsworth! Look at me!

Huh? Oh.

What about Muraoka?

Ah…I strapped him in.

What?

He’s okay!

The gauges now chorused danger, their needles all pointing in bad directions. A pack of Luckies jumped off the console and flew out into the cargo bay while the angry wind, full of mist and roaring with power, slapped at everyone.

It embarrassed the commander to inquire about a POW before his own men, but these were different times. The general was now a POW only in name. He was a full partner in this scheme. If he was telling the truth – and Ulysses had little reason to doubt him – the general was leading them to an unimaginable fortune.

Ulysses felt some relief that Muraoka was still all right, in spite of the certainty that this plane was going down. The general’s English was nil, but Shimano’s was excellent. He needed them both.

The commander, till then, thought the trickiest part was passed: getting rid of the marine guards. When they refueled in North Borneo, at takeoff, and while still low over the water, Sikes got in the door and pretended to point at something, gesturing for the two marines to come and see it. When they took the bait, Shimano jumped up and threw his slight but wiry body into them, sending them tumbling into the sea, nearly falling himself.

Ulysses rocked the plane back and forth for a while. If the swimming marines followed their progress, they might think they were fighting with their prisoners. Twenty minutes later and well out of fighter range, Shimano yelled Bonzai! on the radio, and from that moment, all calls went unanswered. It was a good getaway, but fate had something to say about it.

What about Shimano?

He’s okay!

Above the plane’s noise Ulysses now heard the sputtering sound all pilots dread. He wished, at that moment, he had no peripheral vision, like a kid who pulls the blanket over his head to avoid the monster in his room. But the situation mocked him, and he had to watch the left engine cough to a stop. The rain, at least, put out the fire, though small favors, thought the young commander, don’t count as blessings when they just prolong the terror.

Hollingsworth! Left’s out!

The lieutenant charged back to the cargo bay.

Andy Hollingsworth marveled at his own thoughts at times, how the heart tells us what to think about, even at the wrong time. Here they were, about to crash in one of the biggest unexplored jungles left on Earth, his head oozing blood, and he was thinking of Oregon. Would he ever see it again? Would he ever see the girl who made it mean something?

A tear in the gray curtain briefly revealed a wide, dark line, a river meandering through the dense forest. It was the first time nature had offered anything like a prospect.

Brensen dropped the nose and started an immediate turn. He would have to find a balance between sufficient airspeed so as not to drop like a stone and making the turn tightly enough to line up on the river – and there would be no second chance. The only hope now was, at any other time, a bad option.

General, brace yourself, head down, said Shimano.

Unlike the Americans, who didn’t reveal their feelings so clearly, the major would always show his sincerity. He was Japanese after all. Failing to protect the general would be a great shame, one he could not live with. And yet the old fool just grinned at him. Was he becoming the old man’s nanny?

My beads.

What? My beads! I can’t reach them.

Shimano reached over the seat and grabbed the general’s prayer beads that had somehow managed to stay nearby. Now please, General, prepare for impact.

Major Shimano knew duty. He knew obligation. He knew how to obey and never quit. But the world had changed. Nothing was the same anymore. The general was acting strange. He seemed un-Japanese. He was smiling a lot. Why? This was a tragedy, wasn’t it? How can anyone smile at such a time? Even with a cut of the gold to buy their way out of war crime trials didn’t mean that Japan had to accept humiliation. Now the general was talking like a drunk while stone sober. Somewhere in Shimano’s head had already begun a grinding suspicion that those who sent him into this war were lying. Did they risk his life to get rich? Was that really what the whole stupid thing was about? Is that what the general understood? Maybe Old Thunder wasn’t such a fool. Either way, his allegiance was to Muraoka, whatever his title would one day be. If all other Japaneseness goes away, thought Shimano, this, for him, would remain: loyalty above life.

Still, what if something happened to the general? What were his orders? What should he do with the body? Do the Americans even understand such things? They were so relaxed and friendly, but could they be trusted? The casual way they slapped him on the back was infuriating. It wasn’t how you treat prisoners. Sure the San Shi no Hyo Ho said otherwise, but these were modern times. What did a two-thousand year old Chinese theorist know about dealing with these people? He was still having difficulty at no longer seeing Americans as the enemy. Why did they drop that bomb? How can they smile and laugh after doing something like that? Too many thoughts coursed through Shimano’s head, all at the same time, and none of it made sense. Perhaps the world really had gone mad, and he was only now discovering it. Perhaps he was mad, and everyone else was all right. It hurt to think about it too much. And there was the general with that peaceful expression. How could he do that? The man had seen women and children blown to pieces. But then, so had he. Was this karma? Was this hell?

Sadao Shimano braced as the plane swept low, now with an eerie rushing sound. He was afraid of nothing, but to die so far from family and his unit…this was awful. He tried to think about the gold. Was the plane bringing him closer to it, or closer to a muddy, meaningless end?

4

Ulysses wrestled the yoke into submission. Barely. A Douglas engineer was eating dinner somewhere and counting gas rations, unaware that his work-up of a hydraulic system was going to let eight men live a little longer.

Mist enveloped the serpentine river as the plane dropped into its path. And then the right engine died.

Uh-oh. Hang on!

Hollingsworth braced himself, and the aircraft, now silent but for the howling wind, swooped lower. If Fate, at that moment, were holding a pair of semaphores, it would be juggling them and laughing at him.

A dim glare blended with the swirling mist, and Ulysses could not determine the water’s depth, though his apprehension rose to a new level as large boulders began revealing themselves in the dark, slithering stream. He only hoped that they would not nose in, take a big rock straight on, and end up tail-over under water.

Seaman First Class Biff Landry braced behind the padding of a shredded life raft, trying to think of anything but the impending impact.

He could never decide how he felt about officers, even ol’ Odin. They were a lot like the shift bosses at the factory. They didn’t let you know what was going on until you were in place to do it. They soft-talked you and pinned medals on you, but they wouldn’t drink with you. As somebody once said, "If they think so much of us by pinning tin on us and writing all this flowery stuff about us, how come they won’t drink with us? That was what kept him alert to officers. Trusting them with your life was a fool’s game. But now, here they were, after a pile of gold. Somehow, it made them all equal. Even the general was in on it. He wanted the yellow stuff just like everybody else. And hell, guys were getting rich off this war. All you had to do was catch the rats trying to slip out of the noose and you’d sure as shit hear some scuttlebutt. That’s what happened that night when Odin laid out the scheme. It was just luck he was there to hear it all, and Brensen had little choice but to include him in on it. But it wasn’t turning out to be a walk in the park. The trees were now higher than the plane. Was he ever going to see the gold?

The jungle rushed past, visible through the plane’s mortal wound, and Muraoka felt he could almost reach out and touch it. Here they were, not a half century past the dawn of flight, and distraught that this flying machine refused to set them down safely. Was there irony in everything?

That day the general last saw Homma and Yamashita was a dose of wisdom few see in a lifetime. The Americans had allowed him to visit both; it was a journey to two different worlds. That, he would always remember as a meeting with a stubborn, vicious man, and another who had grown wise, both on the same day.

The keys rattled and the cell door opened. General Homma stood at attention, his uniform neat, his head shaved, and bearing an expression made of tempered steel. He bowed reflexively, and Muraoka returned it with equal exactness.

Please, sit, my old friend.

You are too kind, said Muraoka, He sat with a queasy feeling. At first, he wondered if it was the dysentery coming back. But no. It was simply being in the presence of a man in perfect health about to dangle from a rope. Dying bravely on the battlefield was sad, but this was pathetic.

Homma stood as if giving a lecture, even seeming to strike a pose. I am so glad to see you once more. If this is the last time I ever see you, I shall remember your kindness to the last.

Thank you, Homma-san. I have always treasured your words.

Homma’s countenance changed. A Japanese knows he must go through the amenities of polite speech before spilling what is really on his mind, but Homma made the transition without a pause, like flipping his hand in a game of karuta. There was something course in his manners that Muraoka had always been uneasy with. Now it was more so.

Muraoka-san, if you treasure my words, then please hear them and take them back to the Fatherland. Let the people know that I did not die in vain. Tell them what a proud and noble race of warriors we are. Tell them to carry on the fight.

Muraoka took a deep breath and brushed a hand over his face as if wiping water from a shave. Homma-san, we are beaten. It is over.

If the Thought Police ever heard you –

There are no Thought Police any more. They have to go and find real work now.

Your words are shocking.

"A year ago, I would not have said them. But when McArthur came back vowing to take revenge, I knew we were in trouble. And now he stands over Tenno and orders him about. The world has no room for what we were. Just as the Meiji Samurai had to accept change, we, too, must accept the truth. But I cannot lecture you. You are a great and experienced man."

Homma’s expression was one of displeasure as he put his hands behind his back and stepped across the cell. He could see past the flattery. It is the Japanese way: gentle words and sharp knives.

I fear, Muraoka-san, that we have become two different kinds of officers. You have become something I do not recognize, and I have remained true to our way. Could it be that you have become a servant of the Americans?

Perhaps I have. I am not sure of anything anymore. I am just a confused man. But I envy your certainty.

Do not envy me. I am dead. Envy my steadfastness – and let it be known to heroes of the future.

Muraoka hung his head, knowing there was nothing more to say. Homma didn’t get it. His type caused it all. Arrogant and brutal, there was nothing cultured about the man. Even when he tried to show his sophistication, it came off stilted. There was no shibui about him. He was the sort to spend a fortune on a tea cup solely to leak word of what it cost.

The visit had a time limit, and though Muraoka was grateful for that, it was still longer than he wanted. Homma, the arrogant bastard, would keep on about how he followed the Code, how he never wavered in his devotion to Tenno, how he was the one with honor, not the Americans who quit like little girls at Corrigador instead of dying like real men. Muraoka would listen with strained patience, wish Homma luck, and leave the table, grateful to be done with the words of a dying man, still sputtering the foolishness of a death-wishing culture that had devastated his nation. Yamashita, on the other hand, was another matter.

Muraoka bowed his way out of Homma’s cell and did not look back. A caged animal inspires no awe. In one, a tiger is no more fearsome than a chicken. Homma was neither. He was just a murderous fool.

A young, American guard pointed the way to General Yamashita’s cell. Kochira, dozo. Kkyuban ni irun da.

Odd, thought Muraoka, to hear an American speaking his language. For a Japanese to use such informal verbs when addressing a general would have been unthinkable, but the American either didn’t know any better, or he was told to speak down to them. Either way, the general was amused. Would there be more of this in the future?

"Kyuban. Hi. Domo."

The Tiger of Malaya sat playing chess with himself. He smiled and stood up at Muraoka’s entrance.

Muraoka bowed with his heartfelt respects. To him, this was a gifted man in the wrong place doing the wrong job. If ever greatness was being wasted, this was it.

He waited for Yamashita to sit again before he himself sat.

No one oarsman can save a floundering galley, thought Muraoka. Did the Americans understand how little control senior officers had over their junior? How many of those hotheads who did horrible things would go home and reassume their lives without punishment, as if they had done nothing wrong, without shame for anything other than having lost the war? Certainly, those in charge must take responsibility, but so, too, must the individual. Yamashita never stopped saying that.

You look well.

Sick or well, I am soon dead. At a time like this, formalities don’t matter anymore.

I am sorry. You are right. We have so little time.

Old friend, listen to me. I have had much time here to reflect on my life. Perhaps that has been a good thing.

Yamashita-san, I always take great pleasure in listening to you. Your advice is a treasure.

Look at me. I am a fool for being here. I have failed in my duty, but worse, I am an example of our failure as a nation. We have failed ourselves and everyone else in the world.

Muraoka remained silent and nodded slightly, waiting for the more senior general to continue.

We never taught our young about individual moral judgment. This is our failure. I think you will come out of this. You have done nothing they want to execute you for. Maybe it is your destiny to go back and teach the young to account for themselves. That is the only way Japan can ever be respected in the world.

Don’t the monks already say this?

The older man smiled. You are always a step ahead of me. I wish I were as smart as you. I wish I had followed them, and not the way of ambition.

No. No. It is I who must bow to your wisdom.

A wise man would not be in jail.

Even Confucius spent time behind bars.

But he got out alive…I will not, my old friend.

A silence followed that Muraoka could not forget. It was the last time he would ever see Yamashita and he knew it. When he left the prison that day, he felt he had left a way of life behind.

This way, General, said a non-Japanese speaking orderly.

Thank you. I am ready to return to my quarters now, said Muraoka, in perfect English. Few knew he could do that, and he wanted it that way. He did not know how much and how soon that would matter.

Get ready to hit!

Muraoka, instead of getting lower, looked out at the river, rushing past just feet below them. Since he no longer valued his own life, he was without fear. It was a freedom he had never known. Now he could step back and see himself in ways he had never done before. Losing everything might be the best thing that could happen to anyone. His body