“Two other boats came ashore with what must have been heavy machine guns… and killed everyone they saw! Many more tried to flee into the forest, but most were shot down. Finally, when nothing and no one remained, they set fire to the village and left.” He took a deep breath. “They transported the crew from Mizuki Maru to other ships and simply abandoned her there.” He shrugged. “She was badly damaged, as you’ve seen, and slowing the other ships down.”
“What other ships?” Sandra demanded with an edge.
Okada looked at her grimly. “A quite-modern Japanese Imperial Navy destroyer, I’m afraid, and one of the tankers she was sent to escort-to Yokohama. The destroyer is the Hidoiame, and she’s less than a year old.” His face wore a strange expression. “She is the newest thing in anti-submarine warfare, I’m told.”
“Who told you?” Sandra and Laumer both demanded at once.
“One of Mizuki Maru ’s crewmen who elected to remain behind, and also fled into the woods,” he said matter-of-factly.
“Well… who’s he, and why would he do that?”
“He was the ship’s cook,” Okada said simply. “And he is likely the reason they killed all the people they brought ashore.” He looked at the uncomprehending faces. “You see,” he added bitterly, “when asked if he could, if it came down to it… he refused to cook them!”
There was a collective, horrified gasp in the chamber, but Okada continued remorselessly on. “His act probably kept the officers from slip- ping entirely over the edge, and they decided to just kill all the ‘useless’ mouths instead.”
“Defenseless prisoners, you mean!” grated the tall, skinny man at Sandra’s side. He looked much older than he probably was; his hair prematurely white and his eyes and cheeks sunken in. He’d given up trying to stand, but there were tears on his face and he clearly intended to talk. “All those men were prisoners of war, not as if you could tell it by the way they treated us. More than five hundred men, slaughtered!” He glared at Okada. “And that’s not the half of it!” He paused to collect himself. “I’m Second Lieutenant Jack Mackey, forty-one-C, from Big Spring, Texas. I was in the Thirty-fourth Squadron of the Twenty-fourth Pursuit Group.” He nodded at his companion. “This is Second Lieutenant Orrin Reddy of the Third Pursuit Squadron, out of San Diego. He’s also forty-one-C-we were ‘newies’ together.” He looked apologetically at Sandra as the tears began to pool at his feet. “The Thirty-fourth was almost all Texans,” he said. “There were other Southern boys too, but only one Yankee, out of Illinois… I don’t know what happened to him.”
“There were fellas from everywhere in the Third,” whispered the man beside him, but that was all he managed to say. He couldn’t seem to take his eyes off Saan-Kakja, however.
Mackey nodded. “Look,” he said, “I don’t know much about what’s going on here. Sometimes I think I’m still in hell and this is just a dream. I hope somebody besides him”-he jerked his head at Okada-“can fill us in, but I guess something weird happened to us, and some of you too.” He shook his head. “Tin cans, submarines, PBYs-all that stuff you said after you met us with the ferry-seems as if this joint’s a regular dumping ground for folhis nd stuff that disappear where we’re from…”
“ When are you from, Tex?” Sheider asked anxiously. “I mean, sure, you were in the Philippines when the Japs came, but when did you get, you know, here?”
Taken aback, Mackey looked at the submariner. “Well, we figured, once we saw Japan was all goofed up, it must’ve had something to do with a screwy storm we went through a week or so before. What? Did the same thing happen to you?”
“Yeah. Well, the destroyermen saw it; we were underwater,” Laumer supplied. “Said it was a big, scary green squall of some kind.”
Mackey shook his head. “We didn’t see it. We were all belowdecks on that damn, nasty tub. We felt it, though. Queer.”
“We ‘came through’ around March first, ’forty-two. You’ve got almost two years on us. What happened to you… and how’s the war going?”
Mackey blinked and looked disoriented. “Gosh, I don’t know where to start! I’ll tell what happened to us; then maybe I can bring you up to speed on the war later.” He looked at Okada. “The Jap’s right, though. We didn’t get a lot of news; I was in a camp outside of”-he shrugged-“well, I guess not far from here,” he said oddly. “But sometimes, Filipinos on the outside who had radios stashed snuck in the big headlines to us when they could, to keep our morale up.” He glared at Okada again. Apparently, the man’s earlier comments still rankled. “The Jap’s goose is cooked, and we’ve got ’em on the run. That was why they started shipping us prisoners out of the Philippines to Japan where they could keep working us to death. We got on that damn maru-you should’ve seen the sign they posted! Everything you can imagine, basically breathing at the wrong time, would get you shot and thrown over the side! Anyway, we were some of the first ones sent. More than a thousand got on another ship, just a few hundred on the one that brought us here-it was just stopping through. Had a bunch of Brits, Aussies, Dutch, and Javanese slaves already in her. Neither ship was marked to show there were prisoners aboard, and the other ship got torpedoed and sunk by a sub. We got strafed by planes and took an aerial torpedo, but the fish just poked a hole in the bow and didn’t go off. Drowned a bunch of guys down in the forward hold-hell, the Japs on deck shot fellas trying to get out! It was unbelievable!”
Okada stood still at last, staring straight ahead, his face granite. Shinya looked almost ill.
“They kept us down in the holds like animals, cattle-worse! Hell, nobody would ship animals like that! I don’t know how many died every day; starved, sick, thirsty, covered in filth…” For a moment, he couldn’t go on. “Finally,” he said at last, “we got to Japan-only it wasn’t there! We didn’t know what was up, but the Japs on deck got all screwy and yelled a lot. A couple of our guys were China Marines, out of the Fourth, and had some of the lingo. They said the Japs kept jabbering that ‘the world was gone,’ or something. Anyway, there was nothing we could do but wait in the dark until things sort of settled down.”
One of Saan-Kakja’s attendants brought refreshments, and Mackey took a mug, staring at the ’Cat the whole time. Like most Lemurians, she wasn’t wearing a top, and because he was seated, her breasts were prominent and right at Mackey’s eye level. Sandra understood his reaction; it had been universal among Walker ’s crew when they first met the “People.” Mackey had seen Lemurians before now, among Okada’s folk, but he couldn’t be used to it yet. She nodded, and he took a tenative sip from the mug.
“Uh, thank you, ma’am,” he said to the ’Cat, a little self-consciously.
“What then?” Sandra pressed gently.
“After that, things went pretty much like Okada said. They herded us ashore and just started shooting.” Mackey looked at his companion. “Orrin and I and a bunch of other fellas lit out as best we could.” The tears started again. “Most were too weak or too far gone to even try, and of those that did, just a few made it.”
“How many?”
“All told, maybe sixty out of five hundred,” he said, taking a long gulp from the cup and holding it tight in both hands. “Mostly Americans and Filipinos, I guess, but a few Brits and Aussies too. And some of those poor Javanese.” He shook his head. “I think those poor devils had it worse than any of us. They were animals, far as the Japs were concerned, and were practically dead when we first saw ’em.”
“Didn’t they chase you?” Laumer asked.
Mackey shook his head. “What for?” He sighed. “I don’t know. They couldn’t feed us, they’d decided not to… eat us, and they damn sure didn’t want us. Maybe they figured killing us was a mercy.”
“So, sixty-odd survivors,” Sandra said hopefully.
“No, ma’am. Not now. Some were wounded, and others just… died. Too far gone, I guess. I’ll give Okada’s people that. They did their best to save us. Took pretty good care of us, as a matter of fact.” He passed Okada an almost-apologetic glance. “I was mainly mad about that ‘happy East Asia’ bunk he was spouting earlier…” He considered. “I guess there’re maybe forty-five of us left, or there were. He brought Orrin and me along to prove his story, and because we were some of the fittest officers for travel. Sergeant Cecil Dixon-he’s the other man-saved us too many times to count. We insisted he come too. There’re other guys in better shape than us; some Filipino Scouts, some Army footsloggers”-he shook his head-“and those China Marines. Weird ducks, but talk about survivors! We left them in charge.”