Page 4 of Daikon

TWO

Lieutenant Miyata made his way back through the base to the main workshop, where the kaiten, the manned torpedoes, were prepared. The job of investigating and disposing of the bomb required a competent man—competent, but not too valuable in case it exploded.

“Yagi! Where are you? Where’s my hairy Korean!”

Petty Officer Second Class Ryohei Yagi looked up from the fuel pump he was repairing. He was no hairier than Lieutenant Miyata. And he didn’t smell of garlic, another slur the lieutenant frequently used.

He came over to Miyata, wiping grease from his hands.

The two men were the same age, twenty-three, but Yagi looked older, due to the lines etched on his face by his time in the engine room of an Imperial Navy oil tanker, back when the Imperial Navy still had ships.

And then there were the ugly scars that snaked up his neck, a souvenir from the night his oil tanker went down.

“Yes, Lieutenant Miyata,” Yagi acknowledged—a little too casually for the Navy, a little too proud.

The lieutenant’s eyes narrowed. “Is today the day you lose that last bar?” He was referring to the single bar above the wreath and anchor on Yagi’s petty officer second class insignia patch, one step above seaman. Yagi had suffered much to ascend that one step.

“No, Lieutenant. I hope not,” he said.

“Then straighten that back.”

Yagi felt the anger stirring inside him. One day, if this war ever ended, he might pay Miyata a visit.

He swallowed the feeling down and straightened his back.

“That’s better,” said Miyata. “Now, I’m sending you on a little outing.

That B-29 that came down—they’ve found the crash site, and a bomb that’s got the farmers shitting their pants.

I want you to secure the site and deal with the bomb.

There’s a policeman waiting at the gate who will show you the way. Understand?”

Yagi gave a curt nod and started back to his workstation to gather some tools.

“On the double!” roared Miyata.

Yagi picked up his pace.

Petty Officer Yagi took two men with him: Seaman First Class Kuniyasu Nakamura, nineteen years old, and Ordinary Seaman Kotaro Wada, eighteen.

Nakamura, a university student, had washed out of the profoundly difficult kaiten pilot training program and been reassigned to working on the craft, a tremendous disappointment.

Yagi liked him. Nakamura had a sharp mind and was not given to resentful looks and loafing.

He thought less highly of Seaman Wada, a slow-witted bumpkin and easy mark when they played Cho-han, Yagi expertly handling the dice.

Nakamura, to his credit, rarely allowed himself to be fleeced.

The trio set out on bicycles, Policeman Kinoshita leading the way.

It took them across the bridge spanning the Shimata River and through the center of the town of Hikari.

It was a small place, not a likely target in itself for American bombers.

It was home, however, to Hikari Naval Arsenal, where engines, cannon, bombs, and torpedoes were manufactured.

The bombers therefore would surely come. It was only a matter of time.

They turned north and continued, the road angling back to follow the west bank of the river, clumps of bamboo screening the water and the train tracks on the opposite side.

The going was easy, the road level, but Policeman Kinoshita was straining nevertheless.

He was tired out from the fifteen kilometers he had already pedaled that morning.

The civilian ration, reduced again and then again over the previous year, was also not enough to sustain any sort of physical effort.

Seven kilometers on and they turned away from the river into a narrow valley heading west. “There,” said Kinoshita, pointing up the track they were following.

PO Yagi had seen it already, tendrils of black smoke hanging over a stand of trees.

He looked off to the right at the rice paddies filling the valley, about 500 meters across.

A Buddhist temple overlooked the scene from a ravaged hillside on the left, the pine trees that had once surrounded it all gone.

They had been cut down and the roots dug up to be distilled into fuel.

It was after passing the shrine that Yagi spotted the first piece of wreckage, an immense wheel with its supporting arm sticking up.

It must have been thrown a great distance.

He was starting to pick up smells now, acrid smoke from burning rubber, fuel, and scorched metal.

Then they were past the trees and at the heart of the crash site, a mass of scattered wreckage, some of the larger pieces blackened by fire that had now almost burned itself out.

There were twenty or more people standing around, mostly farmers.

Some were chatting in the shade, still excited by the crash and enjoying a respite from their labors.

Others were moving about in the fields, picking through the wreckage.

Those who were near enough to see the military outfits stood up and bowed as the navy men approached and dismounted.

Yagi set his heavy iron bicycle on its kickstand and offered his canteen to Policeman Kinoshita, who was struggling to catch his breath.

The policeman urged Yagi to go first, then gratefully accepted the canteen with both hands and took a long drink.

They refreshed themselves to the drone of cicadas, so loud that it seemed to envelop the whole area in a vibrating cocoon.

Yagi mopped his brow and began surveying the scene.

The B-29 had first hit the ground off to the right, judging from the swath cut through the rice plants that were starting to ripen.

Straight ahead—that was a broken remnant of a wing, some of the aluminum skin peeled away, exposing the bones of the frame.

One of the engines, propeller sheared off, was still attached—a stunningly massive engine, larger than anything Yagi had seen on any Japanese aircraft.

A second piece of wing lay farther off, electrical wiring trailing out like intestines.

Somewhat closer, amid flattened rice plants, lay a huddled mass that looked like a pile of rags.

It took a moment for Yagi to realize that it was a body, one of the crew.

The largest portion of the wreckage in sight appeared to be the central fuselage, with half the starboard wing still attached.

Two farmers could be seen searching through it.

No sign of the tail section. There was something very large farther up the track, however, something plowed into the hillside, partly obscured by the trees.

“The cockpit,” said Policeman Kinoshita, noting the direction of his gaze. “And some smaller parts farther along. It’s all through the trees. The bomb is farther down, against the embankment.”

Yagi took out several sheets of paper from his knapsack, each one bearing a printed warning: “ DO NOT TOUCH! BY ORDER OF THE IMPERIAL JAPANESE NAVY. ” He handed a dozen of them to Nakamura and a jar of paste to Wada. “Post these on the larger pieces. This site is off-limits.”

The two men snapped a bow before hurrying off. “Hai!”

“And keep your eyes open for aircraft markings!” Yagi called after them.

He turned to Kinoshita. “All right, show me the bomb.”

Kinoshita led the way up the track. As Yagi followed, he could hear Nakamura and Wada in the distance, establishing order: “Get away from that! Put that down! No one in this field!”

Yagi stopped first to examine the cockpit.

It had been torn completely off in the crash, skipping on across the field and plowing partway up the hill, the last of its forward momentum arrested by the trees.

An elderly Buddhist monk stood beside the track a short distance before it, rocking back and forth as he chanted over a second crumpled body, the remains of another member of the enemy aircrew.

He took no notice of Yagi and Kinoshita.

The cockpit lay angled up the hillside, its ragged edges trailing wires and cables.

The interior space was sealed off at the rear by a bulkhead with an access hatch on the upper side.

Yagi tried the hatch, but it would not open.

He put his shoulder against it and pushed, but it still would not move.

So much the better. No one would get in.

He took out one of the “Do Not Touch” notices and affixed it to the bulkhead, then continued on up the hillside to look at the nose, pulling himself up with the broken branches of the trees.

The entire nose of the aircraft was comprised of thick glass panels, now mostly covered with dirt. One had been knocked out, the open space large enough for a small person to squeeze through. Yagi, stocky of build, stuck his head in for a look.

He saw two bodies, pilot and copilot, strapped to their seats.

The pilot, eyes partly open but quite dead, had his hands still locked on the yoke.

The copilot was slumped sideways, hanging limp in his harness, blood down the front of his flight suit.

A third seat, empty, was situated between them, lower down and farther forward.

It was so close that Yagi could reach out and touch it.

Who sat here? The bombardier? They were perhaps on a weather observation mission.

Or taking reconnaissance photos. But why carry a bomb?

Yagi withdrew his head from the nose of the plane and looked around. Small pieces glinted in the undergrowth here and there: torn shards of metal, bits of wiring, a metal cylinder that looked like a thermos, a brown leather boot.

Policeman Kinoshita was right. It was all through the trees.

He affixed another “Do Not Touch” sign to the glass. There likely would be a good deal inside the cockpit of interest to the Imperial Navy. The warning alone should be enough to deter the local people from wriggling in through the broken-out panel, but still…