He came to as he was being carried across the deck. He felt himself being lowered through a companionway, and then apparently a door was opened and he was placed, fairly gently, it seemed to him, inside a small room. His head ached, and there was blood in his mouth, but the surcease from beating felt heavenly. There was not sufficient floor space to lie at full length. He curled up in the position in which he had been placed and, his arms still bound behind him, fell again into a comatose state which gradually transformed itself into sleep.
Morning came a few hours later, and with it Richardson’s inquisitor had apparently decided to change his tactics. Richardson was tightly held by the two crewmen who had brought him. He faced him, standing. “Listen carefully,” the huge, round-faced Japanese captain said. “Point one, just in case you wondered, I grew up in Berkeley, California, and graduated from Cal before the war. So don’t try anything funny with me. Point two, this ship is a patrol unit of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Point three, three of our larger antisubmarine escorts destroyed one of your submarines last week, not far from here. It was damaged and sank to the bottom, where we heard it making desperate efforts to save itself. We located it by dragging with grapnels, and after we hooked it, we blew it apart by sliding depth charges down the grapnel wires. Point four, there were no survivors.” He looked Rich in the eye with a malevolent grin.
Richardson still said nothing. He concentrated all his mental forces on resisting the beating which must be coming.
Still grinning, the Japanese produced a pistol, aimed it at Richardson’s belly. His grin expanded, and he began to titter. His voice was pitched at least half an octave above his normal speaking voice. “You’ll tell me what I want to know if I have to shoot your balls off one at a time!”
The hatred and contempt in Richardson’s soul must have revealed themselves in his face, for suddenly the Japanese thrust the pistol forward and fired.
Richardson saw the move coming, nerved himself to take the obscene blow. His every sense jumped to full clarity, and he saw that at the last minute “Moonface” dropped the muzzle of the gun just a fraction. The force of explosion caught him in the groin. He doubled over in pain, but it was only the slap of the powder charge striking his clothing. The bullet had passed between his legs, grazing the right one but otherwise causing no injury.
The pistol slammed against his head. Again the kick in the side, again shouted orders in Japanese. Two crewmen jerked him upright, held him against the weakness in his legs and the pain in his head. “Moonface” (as Richardson had come to think of him) tittered again, struck him across the face with the back of his hand. “Come along,” he said, waving his arm in a beckoning gesture. “I’ll show you something!”
More orders in Japanese. The two crewmen propelled Richardson out onto the deck, where the first thing that caught his eye was Oregon, who had been trussed up in a standing position against a mast. His hands were pulled hard behind him, evidently tied together behind the vertical spar. His body sagged against the ropes. His chin was down on his chest.
Richardson wanted to shout encouragement to Oregon, but he dared not. There was a stab of ice in his vitals.
Moonface tittered once more. “This is the way your man spent the night,” he said. “It is up to you if I treat him more kindly.” He raised the pistol, pointed it at Oregon’s body, spoke sententiously, spacing the words: “Where did you come from? How did you get here? Are there any more American submarines in these waters?”
“We’re survivors from that submarine that was sunk,” Richardson said desperately. “We escaped with breathing apparatus. There are no other American subs around here.”
Moonface snapped off his mask of mirth. Oregon was looking at them with fearful eyes.
“Is that true?” Moonface hissed to him. Oregon nodded weakly.
Moonface turned to Rich. “This is how we treat liars,” he said. He put his pistol against the lower part of Oregon’s abdomen, pulled the trigger.
As the shock of the report died away, Oregon began screaming a high-pitched, incoherent cry of torture. Moonface waited two full minutes, fired a second time. Again he waited, fired a third time. Jack Oregon’s agony was horrifying to watch. His muscles bulged and writhed within his bonds, tearing the flesh where his arms and hands were pinioned. His shrieks, which had been high and bubbling, diminished in volume, became animal-like. Bloody froth came from his mouth. Richardson, too, was screaming, lunging against the hands that were holding him back, straining at the cords that bound his arms, lunging toward Moonface. The raving torment gave him strength to drag the two men holding him several feet across the littered deck. He had no conscious plan. Had he been able to reach Moonface, he would have attacked him with the only weapon he had, his teeth. He felt another pair of hands join those that held him, and then a fourth pair. He was wrestled to the deck, held immobile.
Great gouts of dark blood were spilling out of Oregon’s groin, splattering on the deck. His head had fallen down on his chest once more. His heaving breath was stertorous, his groans nearly inaudible. Perhaps he was unconscious. Richardson hoped so.
“Help him!” shouted Richardson hoarsely. “Get him some help! He’ll bleed to death!”
“You’re the one who could have helped him, my friend,” said Moonface. “However, I shall be merciful.” He stepped forward, lifted Oregon’s head by the hair, placed the pistol on the bridge of his nose between the eyes and fired one more time. The heavy automatic literally blew off the top of his head. Bits of bloody matter splashed around the mast and some distance beyond it on either side. Some of it fell upon crew members who had gathered in a group of uneasy watchers.
Moonface holstered his gun. “We’ll give you a little time to think it over, my friend,” he said. “I may not be so merciful to you.” He barked a few words in Japanese to the dozen or so gathered crew members, giggled, and grandiloquently stalked away.
Pinioned to the deck, Richardson was vomiting. The four men holding him down picked him up, carried him to the rail, propped him over it until he had finished. Curiously, their hands felt sympathetic, almost apologetic.
Others had cut the ropes binding Oregon’s body to the mast, carried it also to the rail. They averted their faces from Richardson. The reckless disregard of consequences still drove him. He stood up, came as near to a posture of attention as his bound arms would permit. “Stop!” he shouted.
Unsure of themselves, they paused. Rich walked over the few feet to Oregon’s body, the men detailed to hold him moving uncertainly with him. Not many of the Japanese sailors or fishermen, or whatever they were, would understand English, but they were men of the sea. They would grasp the significance of what he was about to do. Probably the word would get back to Moonface, but he was beyond caring. Rapidly his mind searched over his early memories. Once, before the war, he had been present at a funeral on board ship. He could not remember the words exactly, but that didn’t matter.
He stood alongside the ruined body of his friend, raised his face. A furious recklessness drove him. Let them try to stop him in this duty. The unarticulated thought, unformed, only an emotional reaction, defied them, or anyone, to interfere. He almost wished they would try.…
The choking words, some of them heard every Sunday at his father’s church, then for four years at the Naval Academy and countless times since, came clearly, without conscious effort to remember. There was a stillness in the air, a high gentle note as the inadequate stays allowed the skimpy masts to creak in their steps. A lapping of the water alongside the wooden hull. Twice he faltered, but it was only the inability of his voice to croak out the words.