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“I read the account of the submarine that rescued you and the other four sailors. It must have been hard in the open sea with a storm like that raging around you.”
That elicited a reaction. Watanabe nodded. “Three sailors. One soldier,” he said, his voice soft.
“Right. But five of you, correct?”
“Yes. Out of hundreds.”
“It sounds like quite a story. Can you tell me what happened?”
Watanabe shrugged and shifted in his chair. “Our ship sank in the storm.” The Japanese’s English was good, if tinged with an Australian accent.
“Yes, we know that. A destroyer, right?”
He nodded. “Only a year old but already damaged several times.”
“What happened?”
“The repair didn’t hold. Water poured in. No way to fix. Big seas sank her.”
“So it was an old repair that let go. I see,” Remi said. “Why were you running on that side of the islands? Apparently, it was calm to the northeast, near your base.”
“We picked up soldiers on Guadalcanal. Our orders were to return to Tokyo. So a long trip ahead of us. The storm was a surprise.” The ancient Japanese sailor stared at the floor. “The last surprise, for most of us.”
“Tell me about that night,” Remi coaxed, sitting forward on the sofa, her tone quiet. “You’re the last person alive who was there. It must have been agonizing.”
The old man closed his eyes with a flutter, and when he opened them, he was staring at a point a thousand miles away. He cleared his throat, and when he began to speak, his voice quavered.
“We did the trip from our base in the afternoon, knowing the Allied planes wouldn’t get within a hundred miles of Bougainville because of their range. We ran at thirty knots. The seas were confused, and a squall was coming from the west, but nobody knew how bad it would turn out. We were at the rendezvous point off Guadalcanal by ten-thirty and picked up the men we’d been assigned to evacuate in about an hour before steaming away.”
Remi nodded encouragingly.
“The seas began to build a couple of hours later, but it was only clear how rough it would get in the end. Breaking waves the size of cliffs. Wind and rain blowing sideways.” He paused, the memory clearly vivid. “But we’d been through worse. We were fine until the repair gave out. From there, it was a losing battle. We never had a chance. We got lifeboats floated, but there weren’t nearly enough because of all the soldiers we’d evacuated. And, in that weather, most didn’t last long. We did . . . we did what we could, but it was no good.” Watanabe drew a long breath. “Many of the soldiers couldn’t swim. Those that could . . . There were too many in the water. The waves were thirty, forty, fifty feet. It was . . . it was a miracle anyone survived. The lifeboats were overloaded, torn to pieces.” He closed his eyes. “And then the sharks came.”
“And you were heading back to Japan?” Sam asked.
“Yes. Our captain had his orders.”
“Why?”
Watanabe shook his head. “I don’t know. When you’re a sailor, you do as you’re told.”
Remi offered another smile. “You only picked up men on Guadalcanal?”
Watanabe’s brow furrowed. “Yes. It was an evacuation. Our men were at the end of their rope.”
“Is it possible any cargo was brought aboard?”
Watanabe looked puzzled by the question. “What would have been worth bringing? The solders’ clothes were rags. They were starving. They were days away from dying.”
“But was there time to load anything?”
He appeared to consider the question and shook his head. “We barely had time to get the men on board.”
The card room door burst open and an Asian woman in her sixties barged in, a furious expression on her face.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded, staring at Sam and Remi like they’d been beating the elderly Watanabe.
“We’re just talking. He agreed to it,” Remi started, but the woman stepped between her and the old man.