1945

Chapter 27

General Anami had been drunk for a while. The other two senior officers, more recently arrived at the command bunker, were still relatively sober. The Americans were coming and it had reached the point where the generals and admirals could not prevent a landing. It would be up to the soldiers and sailors of Nippon to destroy the invaders. In a way it was a relief.

Anami waved his hand to get their attention as they gathered about the table in the safety of the bunker. His gesture was impolite, but the others ignored the breach of etiquette.

"Kyushu," the general said with only the hint of a slur in his voice. "It will be Kyushu. Of that there is no doubt."

General Anami did not necessarily see such confidence in his declaration in the eyes of the others. Admiral Toyoda was openly worried, and Field Marshal Sugiyama looked away when he heard the statement. They were all thinking the same thing: the right decision meant Japan had a chance of ultimate victory, but the wrong one would result in total disaster and an end to the Japan they revered. They had focused on defending the island of Kyushu, but now they had doubts.

"But what if we are wrong," Toyoda wondered aloud. "If the Americans choose to attack elsewhere, such as Korea, Shikoku, or, God forbid, the Kanto Plain outside Tokyo itself, we would be hard-pressed to stop them. Indeed, we would never stop them."

Anami slapped the table with the flat of his hand. The sharp noise made the others wince. "Kyushu. It will only be Kyushu! Nothing else makes sense. We know how the Americans fight. They are cowards who depend on the weight of their supplies to overwhelm us, instead of fighting at close range like warriors should. For this they need bases and air cover. For them to attack Shikoku or the Kanto Plain would be for them to ignore those needs. No, they will not attack Tokyo without supply depots and land-based air cover. Like us, the Americans are out of options."

Anami chuckled. "I recall that the late and revered Admiral Yamamoto liked to play the American game of poker, which he learned during his tour of duty at our embassy in Washington. I also recall that he taught it to us."

Admiral Toyoda smiled at the memory. "I lost a great deal of money to Yamamoto in a vain attempt to master that game."

Anami wondered what the great Yamamoto would have recommended they do in a situation such as this. He had the uncomfortable feeling that Yamamoto, the architect of the attack on Pearl Harbor, would have counseled surrender. Yamamoto was one of a number of commanders who had worn the cloak of Bushido lightly. It was as if his years in the United States had softened him. Perhaps it was better for their sacred cause that Yamamoto lived on only in memory.

Anami sighed. "To use another American saying, we must play the cards we've been dealt. We are in desperate straits, but we still have some good cards in our hand. First, they must come to us and fight on our homelands, which our military will defend with every drop of blood in their veins. Second, we know exactly what they will do and when they will do it."

The others nodded reluctant agreement. Their actions had been based on a briefing by the brilliant Maj. Eizo Hori of the General Staff. Hori, legendary as a result of his earlier assessments of American intentions, had forecasted the attacks on Iwo Jima, Saipan, and Okinawa with stunning clarity. Japan's tragedy was that she'd been unable to do anything to stop them.

This time would be different. Hori had determined that Kyushu, and only Kyushu, would be the target of the first American assault, and that the attack would occur after October, when the typhoon season was considered over. Hori had then traveled to Kyushu and interviewed

Lt. Gen. Isamu Yokoyama, the commander of the Sixteenth Military District, which comprised Kyushu. He had then hiked the paths and traveled over the stark beaches of the forbidding island.

Hori concluded that the Americans were going to attack in only three places, and that they would attack more than one of them at a time in an attempt to overwhelm the Japanese defenders. The three places were the west side of the Satsuma Peninsula, Ariake Bay on the east side of Kyushu, and the land south of the city of Miyazaki, which was also on the eastern part of the island. No other places made sense. America's goals would be to establish bases in the bays of Kagoshima and Ariake and use them to launch a final assault on the Kanto Plain. Once lodged on Kyushu, the Americans would be almost impossible to dislodge. Thus, it was absolutely essential that they be defeated before securing bases on Kyushu.

Hori's logic convinced both Anami and Yokoyama, who subsequently developed their plans based on those assessments. Anami and the others had seen nothing to change their minds in the ensuing months. All American efforts hinted at by intelligence sources that allegedly aimed at Formosa or Korea, or anywhere else for that matter, were dismissed as feints. The landings would come on Kyushu, and they would come soon. Already there were reports that large American forces had left the Philippines and that others would soon leave Okinawa.

General Sugiyama sipped his drink. "General Yokoyama has deployed fifty-two thousand men to repel landings on the Satsuma Peninsula, sixty-one thousand men at Miyazaki, and another fifty-five thousand men at Ariake Bay. Altogether he will defend the coast with sixteen infantry divisions plus a number of fixed coastal brigades as a first line of defense. They will be quickly reinforced by four additional infantry divisions and three tank brigades once the exact strength and direction of the American attacks are ascertained."

"Tanks?" Admiral Toyoda queried with a smile and a suppressed giggle. The small and underarmed Japanese tanks were monumentally inferior to their American counterparts. What armor the Japanese army possessed had worked well against the Chinese, who had even less, but the American Sherman tank outclassed anything the Japanese had, presuming that Japanese tanks could find their way to the battlefield under the watching eyes of American planes.

"Our tanks," Sugiyama responded with a trace of bitterness, "along with other reinforcements, will move at night to places where they can be dug in and hidden. They will then function as relatively stationary defensive weapons."

"Good," said Toyoda in an attempt to mollify the prickly field marshal.

Sugiyama regained his usual boisterous confidence. "There are now more than six hundred thousand men on Kyushu with more arriving daily. The Americans will be crushed."

Anami nodded. "And what about American airpower?" Far too many of the enormous Japanese army on Kyushu were on the northern part. They would have to travel overland to reach the southern portion where the initial battles would take place.

Sugiyama shrugged dismissively. "Airpower has never yet won a war. Their planes will hinder us, but they will not stop us. As we will do with the tanks, we will make every effort to move our infantry at night, and in small groups if they must travel during the day. That way their planes won't see us. It will make it difficult for us to coordinate any large-scale attacks, but again, it will not stop us. Even now our men are swarming over the hills to the south of Kyushu where the decisive battle will be fought. General Yokoyama will have our men form defensive lines and independent strongpoints rather than waste themselves on piecemeal attacks that would be decimated by overwhelming American firepower. While attack may be the preferred method of fighting for the Japanese soldier, I concur with General Yokoyama that a fierce defense would better serve our poor country."

General Anami agreed. It would be far better for the Americans to impale themselves on Japanese defenses than for it to be the other way around. He had no doubt that the Americans would ultimately be able to force themselves through the first line of defenses on Kyushu. It was only intended that they pay a terrible price for the privilege.

"Admiral?" Anami asked as he turned to the senior naval officer.

Toyoda also reflected confidence. "The Americans will bleed from a million wounds. We have amassed more than ten thousand kamikaze planes, along with a thousand Ohka piloted rockets. That is more than six times what we used with such devastating effect at Okinawa. The pilots have been instructed to leave the picket ships alone and to go for the troopships and carriers only. They are not to squander themselves on unimportant targets like destroyers and other small ships."

They recalled the efforts wasted on the American picket destroyers at Okinawa. It was reputed that one destroyer, the Laffey, had been hit by twenty kamikazes, a total waste of effort. Anami wasn't even certain that the Laffey had been sunk after all that effort.

"There are," Toyoda announced proudly, "still more than a dozen destroyers and fifty submarines remaining in our fleet. The destroyers will all attack, as will those submarines not in use ferrying soldiers from Korea or currently on other duties. We have more than four hundred midget submarines as well as thousands of smaller craft which have been equipped with mines, bombs, and torpedoes. While many of the men sailing in them are not true kamikazes, all have pledged to press their attacks with vigor."

"Good," said Anami.

Toyoda bowed at the brief compliment. "As Field Marshal Sugiyama has said, our efforts to launch the attacks and to carry them out will be handicapped by the American planes, but not halted. Our aircraft and naval forces are dispersed and well hidden. We had hoped to be able to launch our attacks on their shipping as one overwhelming wave of planes and ships, but the disruptions to our communications will prevent that. Instead, our forces will attack as they receive the orders to do so. This may be a blessing in disguise as the result will be many days of continuous warfare, which will strain and exhaust the Americans at the most critical time of the battle."

It was reality, Anami concluded, and his companions had adapted to it. "General Sugiyama, how about your plans to arm the civilian population?"

Sugiyama flushed slightly. "It has not gone well. There are some units forming, but not in the numbers we expected. We are dismayed by the defeatism within the civilian population. When the bombers come over, more and more civilians are putting out white flags of surrender, as if- he snorted derisively- "the bombers could see them. There are so many civilians waving white flags that our police have almost given up trying to stop them. General Yokoyama feels they would be a hindrance in battle and I have deferred to his judgment. On the other hand, he is using tens of thousands of civilians to dig defenses, carry supplies overland, and to staff hospitals. What weapons we have are being given to infantry newly arrived from Korea, many of whom have lost so much in escaping from the mainland.

Those few civilians who have volunteered to fight are being given bamboo spears and taught how to make Molotov cocktails."

Again, Anami accepted the reality. The bulk of the population of Japan were not warriors, not samurai, and had been shocked and terrified by the devastation the war had brought them. The economic fabric of Japan had been torn apart. People no longer went to work; instead, they spent their time in hiding and almost never emerged. It was up to men like himself to save them.

"The Americans are weak," Anami added softly. "Their economy is in ruins and their army is ready to mutiny. Why else would they cancel the rationing of civilian goods, and why else would they release their best warriors and return them to civilian life? No, the United States is severely weakened and needs only a push before its will to fight disintegrates. Because they have released so many soldiers, we will be fighting their second and third best, many of whom have no combat experience. Their better soldiers have had their fill of us and are running home. These are more reasons why we will win this battle and save Japan!" he added vehemently.

"But what about the Russians?" Sugiyama asked. A quick glance at the map showed that Soviet forces were well south of the Yalu in Korea and were on the verge of taking the city of Pyongyang, while other Red armies were driving into the heart of China. Amphibious forces of the Red Army had taken the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin Island to the north of the island of Hokkaido. Those islands, however, had not been heavily defended. This did not stop the assaults from shocking the Anami government. As a result, additional forces had been sent northward to defend Hokkaido from similar landings. It had also forced the Japanese to reassess their situation with regard to the Soviets.

"The Russians," Anami said with a sneer, "are paying the price of their treachery. Already they are running out of supplies, and a Siberian winter is beginning to blanket them in ice and snow. Do not worry about the Russians. Stalin's frozen and hungry legions are not going to be a factor in the coming battle."

And so much more was going on with Stalin. At Anami's direction, Foreign Minister Hideki Tojo was working wonders with the most subtle of negotiations. With only the slightest good fortune, there would be some unpleasant diplomatic and military surprises for the Americans as the despised Soviets were being extremely cooperative. Anami thought that the Soviets also wanted the Americans to bleed profusely.

Anami took another sip of the cheap, harsh whiskey that was all that remained of what had once been a magnificent supply. But they would be stopped, he swore.

The Decisive Battle would begin shortly. The storm that had swept the Pacific and caused so much damage on Okinawa had delayed the inevitable invasion but not stopped it. Yet, every day the invasion was delayed had brought additional strength and numbers to the defenders of Kyushu. What a magnificent thing it would be, Anami thought, surging with pride, if the typhoon turned out to be yet another divine wind, a true kamikaze.

Chapter 28

As always, Commander Hashimoto let no hint of any emotion show on his face as he stood in the conning tower of the I-58. Inwardly, he was churning. He wanted to yell at the confused soldiers who had spilled out of the hatches and onto his deck. They looked like fish escaping from a torn net. He wanted them to hurry even faster than they were, for every instant spent on the surface and so close to land was fraught with peril. Even seconds too long could mean death. He silently cursed.

As with the other transits, this too had been a litany of confusion and even horror as one soldier, confined in a submarine that was under the ocean and jammed full of sweating, stinking bodies, had gone mad and been bludgeoned to death. It could not be helped. Ferrying soldiers from Korea to Kyushu by submarine was the only way their arrival could reasonably be assured. The I-58 had made a score of those trips between Korea and Kyushu and, by Hashimoto's count, had delivered more than fifteen hundred frontline soldiers to fight the coming of the Americans.

The routine was simple. The I-58 would surface in the night off the Korean coast and south of the city of Pusan. Small boats would stream out from the shore and deposit as many soldiers as the I-58 could hold. That most were without weapons or other equipment meant that more could be squeezed in. Once loaded, the I-58 would submerge and make the 150-mile journey to Kyushu. Sometimes they would pause at Tshushima Island, a rough midway point in their journey, and surface to clear the air that the presence of so many bodies had fouled. The I-58 had been refitted with a German air-breathing device called a Schnorchel, but it was barely adequate under normal circumstances, and the additional men simply overwhelmed the schnorchel's abilities.

When they arrived at the night-darkened coast of Kyushu, the soldiers would be off-loaded onto yet another swarm of small boats and taken ashore where they would get new equipment. From there they would be sent southward to stem the anticipated onslaught.

While Hashimoto recognized the need to do this, he resented that his submarine had been forced to act as a transport and not as a weapon. He knew it was as a result of his using two of the precious kaiten human torpedoes against that damned American sub. In retrospect, he realized that he should not have given in to the wails of the young volunteers and should have saved them for a more significant target, such as a carrier, and used conventional torpedoes against the American sub. He had been rebuked for his actions, and the assignment as an underwater ferryboat captain had been his punishment.

Thank God, his stint in purgatory was about to end. Or it would as soon as the last of the soldiers stumbled and bumbled their way off his boat and onto the small craft. Thankfully, they were being quiet. While the likelihood of voices carrying over water to where an American patrol boat might be lurking was small, it was not a chance he was prepared to take. The soldiers had been ordered to maintain silence under penalty of death.

Hashimoto saw his lookouts straining, staring into the darkness to try to detect even the slightest hint of motion. If they saw anything, the I-58 would submerge immediately, even if that meant that some of the soldiers were lost.

Many of the larger American planes had radar and would, upon registering a contact, drop flares and use searchlights to pin a target. Then they would strafe with machine guns and drop depth charges to sink the target. Since the I-58 was in relatively shallow water, a sudden attack would be fatal, as he could not dive deeply to get away. Hashimoto had a submariner's dread of being submerged so close to the surface as to be visible to an enemy plane.

Hashimoto saw an army officer heading toward the conning tower. It was the commander of the army unit. What the hell did the man want?

"Captain, I wish to thank you for bringing us safely home."

Hashimoto wanted to tell the man to shut up and get the flick off his ship, but he forced himself to be polite. The officer wheeled and stepped briskly onto the last of the small craft. En route, the officer had told an interesting story. He claimed that he and his men had actually passed safely through the Russian lines on their way to the Pusan area. Most interesting if it was true. But then, the officer was quite young and most likely confused. The Russians were Japan's enemies, and not her allies.

Hashimoto ordered the hatches closed, and the I-58, free of its cargo, turned its nose toward the sea and safety.

"The last time," Hashimoto muttered, and a few heads turned at the sound of his voice. No one dared to ask what he was talking about.

Hashimoto gave the order to dive and went to his cramped cabin, where he sat down at his small desk and examined the piece of paper on which his radio operator had written his new orders. His hands shook slightly as he reread the orders. The I-58 was to proceed with all prudent haste to a position off southern Kyushu. There, American ships were gathering for the invasion. His orders concluded with the simple phrase that he was to attack and destroy any and all targets of opportunity, but with special emphasis on carriers and troop transports.

For the first time in weeks, Hashimoto smiled. The orders had told him he could return to base and get additional supplies if that was necessary. He had thought about it briefly, but decided against it. He was safest under the sea and not alongside a dock at some navy base that was subject to bombing. No, he would proceed directly to the waters off southern Kyushu. He had food and water for several weeks normal cruising and could extend that by cutting back on rations. He had a full complement of Type 95 torpedoes. He did not have any of the distracting kaiten on this trip and didn't want them.

Targets of opportunity, the orders said. The I-58 and her sisters were free to roam and kill as they wished. Instead of working as ferries, they were to be sharks, predators of the sea. It was glorious, as was the phrase targets of opportunity. It was a submariner's dream and he vowed to live it to the fullest.

Chapter 29

With more than a thousand men and many tons of their equipment jammed onto the attack transport USS Luce, Morrell found it more comfortable to be on the deck than below in their cramped sleeping quarters. In this he was joined by hundreds of others, who, after several days afloat, found the accumulated stenches from belowdecks a little difficult to take.

Several days of puking and sweating had turned the interior of the Luce into something of a putrid garbage dump. No lights were permitted on deck, not even cigarettes, and Paul wondered if Jap pilots could really see the ship from the glow of a bunch of cigarettes. Maybe they could, but it probably was an unnecessary precaution. Even solely with starlight, he could see the shapes of other ships in the convoy.

Another, more primal force drove the men to the decks. They approached ever closer to Japan each time the Luce's bow surged into the choppy November waves. They all knew that death might strike at them at any moment, just as it was striking at those who were going before them. Along with the so-far-unseen suicide planes, Japanese submarines were presumed to be nearby, and no one wanted to be inside a ship as it sank into the depths of the Pacific. They would much prefer to take their chances on the cold waters of the ocean, rather than a downward plunge in a seven-thousand-ton steel coffin. Most of the soldiers had decided that the risk of being struck by a kamikaze while on the decks of the Luce was the lesser of evils.

Paul shifted his aching buttocks on the cold metal of the deck. There was a chill in the November air, but it wasn't really cold yet. If only he had a pillow or a cushion to sit on, things would really be okay. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet, which he opened to the photo of Debbie. He could barely see her face in the stiffly formal studio picture she'd sent him. The face that looked up at him really wasn't her. It didn't show her laughing, or flashing that silly grin he liked so much, and it didn't capture anything of her personality. It didn't smell at all like her, and it sure as hell didn't feel like her, and the portrait was from the shoulders up so it didn't show any of the slender but delightful body he liked to hold.

But it was the only thing he had to remember her by and it triggered rushes of memories that almost caused tears to well up in his eyes.

"Nice-looking girl, Paul. Gonna marry her?"

It was Captain Ruger. Paul laughed reluctantly, folded his wallet, and put it back in its waterproof pouch. At least he hoped it was waterproof. "I hope so. If I get back, that is." Then he corrected himself. "I mean, when I get back."

Ruger sat down beside him and watched as a couple of soldiers edged by them. Right now their biggest danger came from being stepped on, not from the Japanese.

"I just put my wife and kids' picture away too. It hurts a lot to look at it, but I had to at least one last time. I guess everyone on this slow ship to nowhere feels that same way."

They had spent their last days on Okinawa packing their gear for the journey and spending their empty nights trying to forget about it. In what some felt was a macabre salute to the departing soldiers, there'd been USO shows galore to lighten their emotional burden. Bob Hope did arrive and brought Jerry Colonna and Frances Langford with him. Danny Kaye was there and so was Kate Smith. In just a few days they got more entertainment than many could handle, although that didn't stop some GIs with a warped sense of humor from announcing that Glenn Miller would be appearing at a particular field. This resulted in several hundred men waiting patiently at the designated place for the arrival of a man who had been killed a year earlier over the English Channel.

Finally, they had been taken out to the attack transport Luce, where they had, once again, waited. When they did move out to sea, it was to join a vast convoy. Comments were made about being able to walk across the rows and rows of ships all the way to Japan without getting their feet wet.

During the daylight hours they saw the destroyers and other escort ships dipping in and out of the endless lines of transports and herding them like sheepdogs keeping the wolves away.

Then the convoy slowed and almost stopped. Word went through the ship that the invasion had started. This was quickly confirmed by the Luce's captain, who read an announcement to that effect to the soldiers and crew. On hearing it, a few men had cheered, while some others wept. The majority responded in grim, almost prayerful silence. Now any hopes they'd been harboring that they would not have to take part in the ordeal were dashed. Their turn to land on Japanese shores could come at any time.

"You take care of everything like I told you?" Ruger asked.

"I did. I told the men that if something happened to you, I was taking over the company and that Sergeant Collins would be responsible for the platoon. Or if something happened to me, for that matter, it was still Collins. I ran down a complete chain of command involving all the NCOs and made certain they knew just who was next in line."

"How'd they take it?"

Paul laughed softly. "It went okay until the PFCs got into the act and figured out that Private Randolph was the most junior man in the platoon. Randolph then said if he was ever in charge of the platoon, he was taking it and him home right away and flick the war."

Ruger chuckled in the night. It never ceased to amaze him how men found humor in the darkest of situations. The black humor showed that morale was fairly high. "Good for them. You told them to make wills?"

"Yeah, but most of them didn't. They said it's bad luck to make a will on the eve of a battle. I didn't, either. I rationalized my way out of it by deciding I didn't have anything to leave anyone."

And I really don't, Paul thought grimly. What the hell kind of a mark will I have left on this world if some Jap shoots me? No wife, no kids, nothing. My parents would mourn for me and Debbie would too, but, after a while, life would go on. My parents would go about their own lives, and Debbie would find someone else. God, she would have to. She had a life to lead. At least his parents were older, almost fifty. He had written Debbie and told her not to waste herself on his memory in case he got killed, and that he wanted her to live a life that was full, whether it was with him or not. He'd started to cry while writing it.

"I did write some last letters, though," Paul said. "If worse comes, they'll know that I loved them."

Ruger nodded and Paul realized it was difficult for the other man to speak. Ruger had kids and a wife. Maybe it was better not to have family like that.

Finally, Ruger recovered his voice. "Everyone's writing letters. Are you censoring them?"

"Hell no!" Paul snapped. "I don't want to read what may be their last words. Besides, what kind of secrets could they give away? Dear Mom and Dad, I'm on a transport and we're headed for Japan and- oh, by the way- I'm scared shitless. Sure as hell aren't any secrets in a letter like that, are there?"

Ruger smiled in the darkness. "Agreed, and that's one of the little reasons you're my heir apparent. I actually had to tell young Lieutenant Marcelli to lay off reading the men's letters for just that reason. Let them know they have privacy. I put you in for first lieutenant, but I don't expect you'll get the promotion officially before this is over."

Paul muttered his thanks. "What happens now, Captain? When do we go in?"

Ruger took a deep breath and watched it mist as he exhaled. "Word is that the first waves have been mauled pretty badly, a lot worse than expected. That means we could be landing as early as tomorrow. I guess they're trying to figure out exactly where."

"Jesus." He'd been hoping for a few days, maybe even a week before going ashore.

"Yeah. We all should be getting a good night's rest, but I think that's kind of impossible under the circumstances. I can't imagine anybody able to sleep much this night."

Paul felt his heart race and he tasted a surge of bile. "Whatever you do, don't let them hurry us in on my account."

Ruger stood and looked over the railing. The captain was staring in the direction of Japan, and a distinct glow was now on the horizon. The ship and the entire convoy had been zigzagging, and the motion was enough to cause a standing man to sway, but they were still moving inexorably closer to Japan.

"Is that the battle?" Paul asked in wonderment.

Ruger gripped the railing. The Luce had changed course again, and their bodies tilted slightly. Ships always zigzagged now. What had happened to the cruiser Indianapolis when she had failed to do so was on the minds of everyone. She'd been sunk with enormous loss of life by one Jap sub.

"It sure ain't the dawn," Ruger said hoarsely. His throat was suddenly dry. "That would arrive from the other direction. Yeah," he said, still in little more than a whisper, "it's the landings. We're moving slowly but still getting closer with every minute."

Paul stood and walked the couple of steps to the railing. Others had seen the strange light in the distance, and the rail was soon lined with silent men straining to look and listen. The light, an orange-reddish glow, seemed to flicker slightly, and the men became aware of a dull, rolling, thundering sound. Guns. They could hear the big guns from the ships.

"Before I saw you sitting here," Ruger said softly, "I went up top as far as I could in this tub and I saw the lights from off in the distance. Funny thing about a ship, you can see for twenty miles, maybe more. I just stared at it until someone from the crew asked me to get down."

"The fires of hell," Paul rasped. Now the quivering light extended for miles in each direction, painting numerous ships in its satanic glow. "How far away from Japan do you figure we are?"

"Maybe fifty miles. Maybe a little less."

Suddenly, light flashed above them, followed by the booming sound of an explosion. In the flaring light of the explosion a plane disintegrated and fell into the sea in flaming pieces, some only a few hundred feet away. Men pointed and yelled at the sight.

"Oh my God," gasped Paul.

"I think we just saw our first suicide attacker, and it looks like one of our planes got him."

The decks of the Luce bristled with 20mm and 40mm Oerlikon antiaircraft guns, whose crews strained to see in the night skies. What would have happened if the Jap hadn't been seen by the American pilot? Both men shuddered and concluded that there was no safety on the USS Luce, or anywhere else in the world.

Lines of tracers from other ships illuminated the night as gunners sought out targets that neither Paul nor Ruger could see. A helmeted sailor ran by and told the soldiers to get their asses belowdecks. A few complied, but most remained on the deck. They would take their chances where they were.

The Luce's antiaircraft guns added to the angry, deadly chatter. Still, no one could see what the guns were shooting at. Paul and Ruger crouched on the deck. All around them, men removed their boots and some of their clothing in case they were plunged into the water. They could hear yelling and screaming from below.

"Jesus Christ," Ruger yelled, "we'd better get down and try to calm them." He turned and raced toward the sound of the tumult. They didn't want a hysterical mob on their hands.

There was another burst of light. A ship was on fire about a mile away as a kamikaze drew blood. Then another ship was hit as more kamikazes struck home, and both wounded vessels became plumes of flame. What if those ships were full of men like the Luce? How many hundreds were dead or wounded in what had to be a pair of charnel houses? He caught the silhouette of a destroyer against the flames as it raced toward one of the stricken ships to pick up survivors.

Oh, God, he moaned again as he headed below to escape the carnage.

Chapter 30

The young and disturbingly neat kempei officer stood at attention, looking elsewhere and avoiding eye contact, but was otherwise undaunted as Col. Tadashi Sakei vented his wrath.

"It is inconceivable that you have been unable to find one radio and one spy with all the resources at your disposal. It is even further inconceivable that you have been taken off the assignment. Is it your commander's intention that the traitor wander about Kyushu until he dies of old age?"

The lieutenant wasn't sure just who was going to die of old age, the spy or his commander, but decided it would be imprudent to ask. "Sir, the invasion in the south has forced us to reassess our priorities in light of our capabilities. There are far too many civilians who wish to surrender, and there have been some desertions from the army."

Sakei was aghast. Weakness from civilians he could understand, but Japanese soldiers running from the enemy? Never! But then he recalled that many of the men now in Japan's army were new soldiers, very young, and not well trained. With that in mind, he concluded that he should not be surprised that many were not imbued with dedication to the code of Bushido.

Sakei shook his head in disgust. "So, you gave up on the spy."

"Not entirely, Colonel. While my captain is of the firm opinion that we will never be able to find the spy with the detection gear we now have, we will not cease looking. But we have given up on using technology to locate the clandestine radio. We will have to wait for him to make a mistake."

Sakei rubbed his forehead. He had a savage headache. There had been many of those lately. "Again, tell me why."

"Colonel, we need three pieces of directional information to locate a transmitter, which is, of course, why the method is called triangulation. One or two will only give us a long line, and the traitor could be broadcasting from anywhere along that line, which could conceivably stretch around the earth. Three sources is an absolute necessity, and we must have them before the spy's radio is moved. We have been able to get one, sometimes two positions, but never three because the hills and valleys block the signal. The roads are so miserable that we cannot get our trucks with the triangulation gear out into the valleys to set up for that third source.

"To be truthful, sir, triangulation works best in an urban environment, not the countryside. The spy transmits in short bursts, rarely more than a couple of minutes each time, and it takes us hours to set up, if we are able to get out into the field in the first place. By then, he is always off the air well before we can establish meaningful contact. He is cunning and never broadcasts from the same location. The best we've been able to do is identify a fifty-square-mile area in which he is operating."

Sakei took a deep breath to control himself. Even though he'd like to strangle the insolent and pompous kempei puppy, he was telling the truth. They would find the spy when he made a mistake, and not sooner. He reassured himself with the knowledge that most people in such a situation would make a mistake sooner or later. Sakei could only hope the mistake occurred before the war ended.

"Are you still able to translate his messages?"

The officer beamed, delighted to change the subject. "Indeed, sir. He is still using the very simple code he started with, and we now suspect it's the only one he has. Moreover he is rotating his frequencies on a predictable basis. Again, we think he was given only a few to work with, so we are able to anticipate him and listen to his transmissions.

"Sir, the spy continues to give the Americans information about our food resources, the medical conditions in the area, and the units and numbers of men coming through the area. We think he was a soldier because he uses a soldier's terminology and comments on their condition and weapons rather skillfully. There are those who suspect that the spy is an American from the phrases he uses, but it may be a Japanese citizen who spent some time in the United States."

Sakei agreed with that possibility, although he still wondered at the spy's place of origin. More and more he too had wondered if the spy actually was a Japanese. He recalled that many Japanese had emigrated to the United States in the years and decades past. Could one of them be the spy? he asked the kempei lieutenant.

"Yes, Colonel, it could. We believe there are a number of people of Japanese descent working for the Americans. That would tie in with the spy's comments about a submarine that was sunk. We weren't certain whether it brought him, or his supplies, or both. He seems to have picked up an accomplice as well. He informed his contacts that someone was with him by running off a string of numbers. As we now have an index of all American POWs, we were able to identify the numbers as belonging to an American officer we'd thought had been killed in the Nagasaki bombing. He must have survived and then run off into the hills in the ensuing confusion. If so, he was lucky. Mobs have caught other Americans and ripped them to pieces."

The lieutenant added that he thought that the last bit of information was both good and bad news. Bad because he now had two people on the run and two to search for. Two could help each other and stand guard over each other. But the news was also good, because at least one of the two was likely a Caucasian, a white-skinned gaijin. Those few whites who remained free in Japan were diplomats from neutral countries. They were kept near their diplomatic postings in Tokyo, unless they were taken out on a carefully guided venture to see some American atrocity. Thus, any white-skinned American would, as they themselves said, stick out like a sore thumb. The spy would have great difficulty hiding his companion.

Sakei stood and dismissed the lieutenant, who disappeared gratefully. Sakei then walked to a connecting tent where Emperor Hirohito was held.

"Well," said the emperor, "still unable to find your spy?"

"He will be caught," Sakei replied stiffly.

"And the American invasion, what further news on that?"

"It is my understanding that our defenses are holding and that counterattacks are taking place."

Hirohito smiled grimly. "In other words, the Americans have landed successfully and the Japanese army has been unable to drive them off. General Anami must be proud of what he has brought to Japan."

Sakei did not respond. Hirohito's assessment was correct. The Americans had landed the day before in overwhelming force and were inching their way inland despite brutal losses. The coastal defenses had been breached in many places and would soon be overrun. It was grimly apparent that, in only a few days, far too many Americans would have landed to be dislodged without an enormous effort. He wondered if Japan was capable of that effort. He shook the defeatist thought from his mind.

"Your Majesty, the Americans are paying dearly for the privilege of desecrating our land. As to driving them off, the landings started only yesterday. It will take time to accumulate our army and attack."

"I don't doubt that. I just wonder what good it will do."

So did Sakei, and the thought astounded him. Americans were on Japanese soil, and Japanese soldiers were starting to run. It struck him that his world could be ending.

"Majesty, in the speech you never made to the country- the one in which you counseled surrender?- you used a phrase to the effect that we would have to endure the unendurable. Well, it is General Anami's intent to force the Americans to endure what is not endurable so that they depart our lands and leave us in peace."

"At least the bombings have ceased."

Sakei agreed. Even though the tent compound that housed the emperor was in a clearly marked hospital area, there was always the threat of attack from the air. Sakei had taken great pains to ensure that his now much smaller number of guards dressed like hospital orderlies and that nothing threatening or unusual was apparent from the air. Even so, there was the constant fear of an American pilot making a mistake, an accidental bombing, or some hotheaded Yank just wanting to kill Japs and not caring if it was a hospital in his sights.

Therefore, everyone was thankful that the landings had drawn virtually all the American planes southward to protect their ships and men. Even the giant bombers seemed to have vanished. Both men wondered just how long the relative calm would continue. Should the American planes return, it would mean that the landings had been so successful that the Americans on the ground no longer needed such constant protection. Sakei tried to visualize the titanic battles taking place just a little more than 150 miles away.

Sakei bowed and left his unrepentant emperor. If the planes returned, it might mean that he would again have to move the emperor to yet another safe place. He did not relish that thought at all. He'd been lucky so far, but how much longer could that luck last?

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Chapter 31

Dark smoke half-obscured the harsh hills of Kyushu from the men who again lined the rails of the Luce. Clouds from fires and recent explosions billowed skyward, and the men on the crowded transport could see individual explosions where shells impacted on targets farther inland. Rumblings of man-made thunder, occasionally punctuated by sharper, cracking sounds, buffeted them constantly. It was as if Kyushu were alive and angry.

It had been a sleepless night for the men on the Luce. The incipient panic had halted and the men had calmed down. Most then spent the rest of their time mentally trying to prepare for the ordeal ahead. Sardonically, most had decided they would rather face Japanese guns than trust the dubious safety of the Luce as the nightlong battle between the kamikazes and the navy had turned more ships into flaming ruins.

When the LCIs hadn't arrived for them by midmorning, the men began to chafe and wonder, even hope that their landing had been canceled. The delays were agonizing.

To a man, they hoped that the daylight hours would be free from more kamikaze attacks, but the white lines in the skies told them otherwise. Above the low clouds, contrails twisted and crossed each other as American planes continued to seek out their suicidal enemy.

Then, suddenly, the guns on a nearby ship would open up at a diving plane. Soldiers would gape and pray as streams of shells sought out the dark blot in the sky that was the Jap plane. A kamikaze who'd made it that far was a survivor who had somehow penetrated the fighter defenses only to face being blown out of the sky by shipborne guns. When a suicide plane was hit, it either exploded into pieces or had a wing ripped off, which caused the plane to cartwheel out of control and into the ocean. When that occurred, the men cheered.

Sometimes, however, an enemy plane got through, and as they waited, another transport took a hit. They watched in horror as flames billowed from the ship. The stricken ship quickly launched lifeboats, and hundreds of soldiers tried to escape the inferno by jumping into the sea. It looked like an anthill that had been disturbed, only those were people, not ants. The Luce did not change course. Picking up survivors was the job of the destroyers and their smaller cousins, the destroyer escorts.

"Get me ashore," Paul muttered, and shook as he watched men's heads disappear forever beneath the waves. "Please, God, get me off this ship."

At long last, the landing craft arrived and the men clambered awkwardly down cargo nets.

One man screamed and fell into the boat. He grabbed his leg and began to writhe and moan. A medic checked him quickly and turned to Captain Ruger.

"His ankle's broken, Captain. We gotta get him to a hospital ship."

Ruger was coldly furious. "Bullshit. I saw that cowardly little motherfucker let go and fall intentionally. He stays where he is."

The soldier in question was wide-eyed with fear and pain, and the medic was confused. "What do I do with him, sir? I gotta treat him."

Paul had heard of people hurting themselves intentionally to avoid going into combat, even shooting themselves, but he'd never seen it before. He wondered if Ruger was correct in his judgment.

"That sorry son of a bitch is going with us to Japan," Ruger snarled. "When we get there, you drag his ass out onto the ground and leave him there. If he's lucky, somebody'll take pity on him and take him to a field hospital. But there's no way that little shit is going to sleep on a bed with clean sheets while the rest of us are fighting Japs."

That brought an angry growl from the rest of the men, and the LCIs were quickly filled. The injured man whimpered that he didn't want to go, which seemed to confirm Ruger's assessment, but he otherwise stayed quiet.

The LCIs formed a large circle as they waited for all of them to be loaded, and men got sick as they bobbed in the choppy water, and the stink of vomit was added to the scent of fear. Finally, the little boats were lined up with the others that had loaded their human cargo from other transports, and the whole line headed inshore.

As they drew closer to land, Paul peeked over the edge of the boat and looked at Japan. The steep hills seemed to spring directly from the sea. They were scarred and torn, with most of their vegetation blown away or burned off. He could see ruined vehicles and other unidentifiable things that burned fiercely.

As they passed through a line of warships, they tried to identify them. The only one they were certain of was the battleship West Virginia. When her sixteen-inch guns fired at some distant target, the blast was deafening, and it was as if the whole ocean quivered like an earthquake. Despite the shaking they took from the sound of the firing, many were cheered by the sight of the old battlewagon pounding Japan. The West Virginia had been mauled and sunk at Pearl Harbor and, like most of the others sunk in that catastrophe, had been refloated and given an opportunity to take revenge. The Wee-Vee, as she was affectionately known, was happily complying.

"Lookit!" one of the men yelled. Paul followed the soldier's outstretched arm and saw a body floating facedown in the water. Then he saw another, and another. All were Americans. "Aw, Jesus," said someone, who began retching.

"Get your fucking heads down!" yelled the ensign in charge of the LCI as it turned sharply to avoid something. An anonymous voice exclaimed that it was a mine. Bullets clanged against the hull and someone screamed. Paul turned and saw a sailor crumple to the deck. Blood gushed from his massive stomach wound. A medic rushed to help him, but the ensign only glanced briefly at his fallen crewman. His eyes stayed fixed on the dangerous waters and the task of navigating toward the shore.

Sergeant Collins stared at the wounded man. "Jesus, Lieutenant, I thought we owned at least part of this place. What the hell's going on?"

Paul shook his head in disbelief. If the landing forces were still taking small-arms fire a full day after the initial assault, just what had actually been accomplished?

Paul pushed his way through the packed men to the ensign. From the scars on the LCI, she seemed to have made several trips to the Japanese shore. "Is it always this bad?"

Without looking at him, the naval officer laughed harshly. "Bad? Hell, buddy, this trip is a piece of cake. You should've been here yesterday when they threw all kinds of shit at us. I've made four trips in, and this is by far the easiest. I've heard that most of the guys in the first waves were wiped out and that half the people who went ashore yesterday are dead or wounded. If you're real lucky, you guys might even make it onto land before you get killed."

Finally, the ensign glanced down, and Paul saw the ensign was even younger than he was. "The sailor who just got shot is a replacement for another guy who got killed yesterday," the ensign said more gently. "Look to your left."

Paul did as he was told and saw a capsized LCI, and others that were bobbing, half-sunk, in the waves. Some were abandoned and burning, with bodies still in them. The sick-sweet stink of burning flesh was heavy in the air, and Paul gagged.

As they approached the shore, Paul called for all the men to check their gear one last time. A couple of them sank to their knees in prayer while others lowered their heads and moaned. More bullets clattered against the LCI, and a shell landed close by, spraying them with water and metal splinters, but neither caused casualties.

Finally, they felt the landing craft's flat hull scrape against the bottom. The ramp dropped quickly and the men ran through knee-deep water and up onto the steeply rising land. Jesus Christ, Paul thought with horrified disbelief as he clambered uphill, I'm in Japan!

Before the men's headlong rush could slow, a sergeant with an armband that designated him a beachmaster popped out of a foxhole and yelled at them to follow him.

"Move it!" he hollered. "Move fast or you're gonna stay here forever."

The platoon needed no further motivation. The beachmasters owned the landing sites, and regardless of rank they were to be obeyed without any hesitation. The platoon ran like furies where he directed them. Other LCIs had disgorged their human cargoes, and other beachmasters guided their reluctant flocks upward and inland. Paul ran with his troops toward a series of long, narrow trenches cut in the side of the hill. The beachmaster herded them in. On the way, they saw more dead. The majority had been badly mauled or burned, with parts of bodies strewn about with ghastly abandon.

Paul saw the disconnected head of an American soldier that appeared to be staring at the sky in some amazement. He'd seen the results of violent death in Germany and thought himself somewhat battle-hardened, but this was death on a scale that dwarfed his experiences and threatened to overwhelm his senses.

Inside the trench, Paul got himself under some semblance of control and checked his men.

Four were missing.

He turned to the beachmaster sergeant, who was breathing heavily and staring at the glowing end of a cigarette. "Four of my guys are missing, Sarge. Shit, we've just gotten here and I've lost four men!"

The beachmaster shook his head. "Maybe not, Lieutenant. There's a lot of confusion. More'n likely they just got lost or rubbed off onto somebody else's unit. If they're okay, they'll show up. If not"- he shrugged- "then there's nothing you can do about it anyhow."

He offered a smoke, which Paul accepted gratefully. His cigarettes had gotten wet. "Sarge, I thought we owned this place, or at least part of it," Paul commented, unconsciously repeating Collins's earlier comment.

"We thought we did too. But the Japs infiltrated back last night and set up shop with snipers and small mortars. That's why graves registration hasn't cleaned up the beach yet. Ain't no sense in getting killed trying to save a dead body. If we keep our heads down, we're safe from the snipers, and it would take a direct hit on the trench to cause any damage from the mortars. The Japs've got some bigger guns shooting indirect fire on us, but the navy's doing a good job of putting them out of business when they do open up.

"This is bad," the sergeant continued, "but it ain't nothing like yesterday, Lieutenant, nothing like it at all. Yesterday was all flying metal and GIs screaming as guys died. The Japs had troops in bunkers near the water that had to be burned out with flamethrowers. Sometimes a Jap would pop out from behind us and throw a grenade. Lieutenant, this is a walk in the park."

Paul took a deep breath and felt the smoke from the Chesterfield scorch his lungs. It felt good. As he smoked, two of his lost lambs sheepishly reported in. As the beachmaster had guessed, they'd run off the beach with the wrong group of GIs. The other two arrived a couple of moments later, shaken but okay. Paul took another drag on his cigarette.

"How far away's the front?" he asked the beachmaster. After all, the man was a veteran who'd been there a whole day and a night.

The sergeant looked about nervously. "Between ten feet and a mile. Kinda depends on who's counting and measuring. Snipers and infiltrators can be anywhere, so keep your guard up at all times. The big front's about a mile away. You're gonna see it real soon."

Morrell finished the cigarette and threw the butt away. I'm in Japan, he again thought in disbelief. I'm in Japan and thousands of Japanese are going to try and kill me. He looked at his men and saw similar fears reflected on their pale and frightened faces. He had landed and his platoon hadn't yet lost a man. It couldn't continue that way. The devastation in the ocean and on the shores told him that their turn was coming. And all he had to do was survive it.

Chapter 32

Marshall arrived at the White House with Gen. Omar Bradley in tow. Bradley, who had returned from Europe a few months earlier to take charge of the recently formed Veterans Administration, felt ill at ease in the White House. As a result of his new appointment, he no longer considered himself a full-time military man, and he found the change unsettling. The VA assignment was a chore Bradley had taken on with great reluctance.

Bradley thought it was incongruous to be worried about assimilating returning veterans when a climactic campaign was under way in Japan. Earlier in the year he had led a million and a half men into battle against the Nazis, and he felt he should still be their commander. However, his president had thought otherwise, and the lanky, popular, fifty-two-year-old West Point graduate had complied with the wishes of his commander in chief.

Bradley had grudgingly obeyed. He was also mildly concerned by Marshall's admonition that he should listen rather than comment during the meeting with Truman. It was what he would have done anyhow. Not only was he the junior member of the trio, but he had little knowledge of what was transpiring in the Pacific. He knew the general plans, of course, but not the details.

A few moments later, Admiral Leahy arrived and greeted the others with formal cordiality. He seemed surprised at Bradley's inclusion, which did nothing for Bradley's state of mind.

Truman bade the men to sit around a small table. He waved a piece of paper in their direction. "Gentlemen, I certainly hope you can shed more light on the situation than this imperious little pronouncement from General MacArthur does."

Marshall smiled tightly. The pronouncement had gone out from MacArthur's headquarters and to all members of the press as well as the White House. It was almost as if the president were included on the distribution list as an afterthought.

The message itself was painfully short: "On the morning of November 10, 1945, American ground forces under the command of General Douglas MacArthur commenced landings at several points on the shores of Kyushu, the southernmost of the four main Japanese home islands. Even though confronting stiff, and at times fanatical, resistance, General MacArthur's armies are pushing steadily inland. With God's blessing and through the bravery of our young men, we pray that the will of the United States will prevail."

Truman laid the paper on the table and looked about in exasperation. "This doesn't tell me a damned thing about the battle. It's a press release, nothing more. It also implies that only the army is fighting and ignores the efforts of the navy and, once again, the marines."

The latter issue was a sore point. The navy was separately commanded by Nimitz and could take care of its own press releases. On the other hand, MacArthur commanded three divisions of marines, who technically belonged to the navy but who were under his control for this campaign. The marines had landed on the southwestern side of the island while the army assaulted the southeastern part, and all were involved in bitter fighting. By implication, MacArthur had snubbed the marines.

He had done this before. Earlier in the war when the various units that had fought for him at Bataan and Corregidor were recommended by him for citations, he had left out the 4th Marine Regiment. The men of the 4th had fought with incredible bravery and had endured terrible casualties before ultimately having to surrender along with the other forces under Wainwright's Philippines command. When questioned, MacArthur had said that the marines already had enough medals. The intentional oversight had been corrected in Washington.

"Typical of that fella MacArthur," Marshall said, using his favorite phrase for MacArthur. It was not a compliment. He'd seen the statement before and concurred with Truman's assessment. "General Krueger is the field commander in charge of the Sixth Army, but you'd never know it from this statement."

"General," snapped Truman, "I really don't care how eccentric MacArthur is, or even if his ego is bigger than mine, just so long as he wins and wins quickly. Unfortunately, this scrap of paper doesn't tell me a damned thing. What is going on in Japan? Are we indeed pushing inland, and what are the costs?"

Marshall grimaced. "The landings are a little more than two days old and there is still an enormous amount of confusion. I can, however, tell you what we do know. At all three main landing sites, some penetrations have been made in the Japanese defenses for distances up to two miles. In other cases we are still stuck near the shore and the Japs are defending their positions furiously. It is going about as we figured. We do not have a beachhead in any depth, and we have not yet established a continuous front from which we can break out from the beachhead. At best that will take several more days."

"Casualties?" Truman asked softly.

"These are not firm figures," Marshall responded, "but we suffered between twenty-five and thirty thousand on the first day with between seven and eight thousand on the second. The first day of an attack such as this is always the worst. If history is our guide, about a third of the casualties will be dead or dying."

Truman moaned softly and looked toward the ceiling. In two days the United States had lost the equivalent of more than two divisions, almost an entire corps. No wonder putting the reserve forces in as soon as possible was urgent. The number of dead and wounded was far in excess of those suffered during the landings at Normandy in June 1944. But then, as he'd been reminded so often, the attacks on Kyushu were much greater in scope.

"MacArthur said the Japs would break," Truman said softly. "Has that happened?"

Marshall shook his head, while Bradley gazed in silence at a map on the wall. "No, sir, and in all fairness to General MacArthur, it is far too early to expect that to happen. There are some signs that the resistance will not be as fanatic as it has been in the past. In a few instances there have been withdrawals, and a small number of Japanese soldiers have actually surrendered. Only a couple of hundred so far, but it's a trickle that might someday become a flood. We think it's attributable to both the war-weariness of the rank and file, as well as to the poor quality of training that the newer conscripts have been getting."

"Lord, I hope so."

"Mr. President," Leahy injected, "are you aware that General MacArthur commands from the heavy cruiser Augusta, and that he is off Kyushu?"

Truman smiled tightly. "Yes, Admiral King informed me that the old warhorse had essentially commandeered the cruiser. King wasn't surprised and I agreed with him that there was no reason to deny Mac his ship. We certainly have enough of them. There was no way that MacArthur felt he could fight this battle from the safety of Manila, or even Guam." To their surprise, Truman chuckled. "And I can even see why he insisted on the Augusta. After all, it was the ship both FDR and I sailed on when we went to Europe. Hell, if it was good enough for two presidents of the United States, then it might just be okay for General Douglas MacArthur and his friends."

Both generals and Admiral Leahy smiled at the additional reference to MacArthur's monumental ego.

"Like I said," Truman added, "I really don't care how strange he acts and what he needs for his personal comforts just so long as he wins." He turned to Leahy. "Now, did you get anything from Admiral King regarding suicide attacks?"

Leahy would rather that King have delivered the information himself, but the other admiral was now trying to find additional transport shipping to send to the Pacific and had asked Leahy to carry the news. King's absence pointed out the desperate situation the navy was in.

"Mr. President," Leahy began, "over fifty ships have been hit by various types of suicide attacks, which include airplanes, small boats armed with torpedoes and dynamite, suicide midget submarines, manned torpedoes launched from rails that run to the water, and just about anything else they can think of to throw at us. Two of our larger carriers, the Ticonderoga and the brand-new Tarawa, have been badly damaged and have been pulled out of the battle. They may have to return to the U.S. to be repaired. One escort carrier has been sunk, and five others so badly mauled they are no longer serviceable."

"In just two days?" Truman gasped.

"Yes, sir. The rest of the damage was done almost entirely to our transports. As we feared, the Japs are concentrating on the carriers and the transports, and virtually ignoring the other ships. One troopship was hit by a suicide plane and badly damaged while it still had all its troops on board. There were more than five hundred casualties in that one incident alone, with many dead."

"Awful," Truman said, "just awful. Admiral, why didn't radar pick up the plane?"

"Sir, radar is good but far from perfect. Not all of our ships even have it, and it breaks down a lot. Then, with all the planes that are in the air at all times, the operators get fatigued and overwhelmed with information that can't be deciphered fast enough. With all that going on, they can't determine who is friend and who is foe. Last, the very way radar beams out in its searches leaves gaps. Low-flying planes will often get through and must be spotted visually."

Truman nodded bitterly. Yet another military marvel was proving itself to be astonishingly fallible. "If we've lost so many, how about the Japs?"

Marshall spoke. "We are confident that the preinvasion bombing and shelling killed or wounded large numbers. While the day of invasion, X-Day, probably cost us more than them, the Japs are paying for it now and will continue to do so in the long run."

Truman nodded. "And how long can the Japs keep it up?"

Marshall looked to see if Leahy wanted to add anything. The admiral did not. "Probably for quite some time. They appear to have more troops on Kyushu than we thought they did, and they continue to be able to feed more into the battle. They are coming across the mountains of central Kyushu in numerous but widely dispersed small groups that are virtually impossible to see by air, much less hit. There are a score of these rough trails and almost twenty thousand men a day can make it overland from northern Kyushu to the battle area."

"And," Leahy injected, "we are dead certain they are still able to bring reinforcements from both Korea and the main island of Honshu. They are using submarines as transports from Korea, and our intelligence estimates say they can bring over about two thousand men each day that way. During bad weather, which is getting more and more frequent as winter gets closer, they are attempting surface runs with troopships.

"Additionally, the straits between Honshu and Kyushu are only a mile wide at their narrowest, which means small boats can swarm across at night, take casualties from mines and planes, and still land a lot of men. During bad weather they are virtually unstoppable because they can't be seen."

"What about using our surface ships?" Truman asked.

"Sir," Leahy said, "using surface ships in the waters north of Kyushu or in the straits makes them terribly vulnerable to attacks by kamikazes. We have some of our own subs looking in the area, but bad weather hinders them as well."

"Mr. President," Marshall added, "through radio intercepts and our source on the ground, we've identified a number of divisions now on Kyushu as those that had been manning the defenses outside Tokyo. This supports our contention that the war will be won or lost for the Japanese on Kyushu. This is consistent with their doctrine of fighting the one Decisive Battle that will give them victory. But there is something very disturbing going on."

Truman looked at Marshall. The whole thing was disturbing. What else could be going wrong? "And?"

"Sir, it looks like some of the Japanese units coming across from Korea are passing through Russian defense lines to get there."

Truman sat bolt upright. "What?"

Marshall walked to a map of China and Korea. "When the Reds came in, in August, they launched a two-pronged attack. One quickly headed south into Korea, where it has stalled around the city of Seoul. This was no surprise to us. Northern Korea is really just an extension of Siberia. In a short while the weather will turn miserable and everything will freeze. The Russians will soon have a devil of a time keeping their very large army supplied and fueled over the totally inadequate Trans-Siberian Railway.

"The second prong headed south through Manchuria and into China to help Chiang and Mao Tse-tung fight the Japs there. Chiang has been complaining that the Russians are helping Mao fight the Chinese Nationalists rather than the Japs, but we've all felt it was Chiang exaggerating again."

To some, Chiang was highly unloved and considered capable of many duplicities to get additional American material help, which would then be stolen or used to fight the Communists and not the Japanese. It stood to reason that the Russian Communists would be far more helpful to the Chinese Communists than they would to the Nationalists, who were foes of the Communists.

"Go on," said Truman.

"Sir, it may just be the vastness of China and Manchuria that is permitting bypassed Japanese units to filter through the Russian armies, but I believe it is something that should be watched carefully."

Truman said it would be, rose, and dismissed the meeting. Leahy left separately, while Marshall and Bradley drove off together. As their staff car headed down Constitution Avenue in the direction of Arlington, the two generals rode in silence. Finally, Bradley broke the spell.

"General Marshall, why did you have me attend that meeting?"

Marshall turned away and did not answer.

Bradley persisted, "General, you are never a man to waste time, either yours or anyone else's. While it was most interesting, it has nothing whatsoever to do with my new duties at the Veterans Administration. Therefore, what was the reason?"

Marshall 's face was grim. "General Bradley, what did you think of that fella MacArthur's announcement? Did he state a case for his normally overwhelming sense of moral superiority that would end in total and unequivocal victory for him and for us?"

Bradley thought back over the precise words Mac had used. He hadn't tried to memorize the message, but he felt he recalled the sense of the short document.

"No," Bradley responded quietly, "it was less than his usual splendid rhetoric, and there were some big ifs implied in it. If I recall correctly, the gist of it was that he prayed for victory, but did not guarantee it."

"Exactly. General MacArthur started out this summer by saying the invasion of Kyushu would be a cakewalk, and that the Japs would run and quit. Now he's saying we should win, but we just might not. He's finally admitting there are a lot more Japs on Kyushu than anyone dared admit to him, and that the situation could be quite grave. Tell me, General Bradley, what's the largest army Mac's ever commanded?"

The question puzzled Bradley. "Maybe half a million in the Philippines last year. No, the Philippine campaign was smaller than that. Maybe three hundred thousand."

"Yes, and now he has more than twice that. And don't forget he's sixty-five years old, the same age as I am. It's the time where most people are thinking of retirement, not commanding vast armies in major campaigns. God knows I wonder if I could do what he is trying to do."

Marshall grimaced in distaste. "Also, he thinks both Ike and I hate him because of the things he's said about us earlier in our careers. As a result, he thinks I left him and his army out to dry in Bataan in 1942. I am more and more convinced that MacArthur thinks everyone in Washington and the Pentagon is out to get him. I can't prove it, but I wonder if the man's paranoid."

"I'm curious," Bradley said. "I know he referred to Ike as the best clerk he'd ever had, but what about you?"

Marshall chuckled briefly. "He said I'd never rise to anything higher than a regimental command. Now, of course, I've got five stars like he does, and he's under my command. Therefore, he thinks I'm out to humiliate him in a quest for revenge."

Bradley smiled. He'd heard the story before, but only through the rumor mill. "That makes him a lousy judge of character, but do you really think he thinks you're out for him?"

Marshall nodded grimly. "Yes, and from 1942 on."

Bradley whistled tunelessly. "And for that reason you think he thinks you've set him up to fail? You're making it sound like we've indeed got an aging paranoid who's in over his head and commanding the American army that just invaded Japan."

Marshall nodded. Bradley sank back in his seat. "Good grief, General, but just where do I come in?"

Marshall looked at him grimly. "General Bradley, I want you to do only the minimum necessary work at the VA. For the next couple of weeks, I want you to learn as much as you can about Operations Downfall and Olympic. The implications are obvious. If MacArthur falters or collapses from the strain, and I feel both are very possible, we'll need someone to step in and take over."

Gen. Omar Bradley looked out the window at the passing Washington scene. They had crossed the Arlington Bridge and were headed toward the Pentagon. Bradley felt as if a tremendous weight had landed on his shoulders and then slid down to the pit of his stomach. He had wanted to be rid of the Veterans Administration assignment and now it seemed he might be relieved of it. But what on earth might he get in return?