Richard Herman
The Last Phoenix
In memory of my mother,
Mildred Leona Herman
Epigraph
The nation that will insist in drawing a broad line of demarcation between the fighting man and the thinking man is liable to find its fighting done by fools and its thinking done by cowards.
Prologue
Tel heard it first. “Captain,” he called in Malay, “something’s out there.” He stood at the bow of the small fishing boat and looked into the night.
Victor Kamigami strained to hear, but his fifty-eight-year-old ears weren’t up to it. Luckily, the boy had excellent hearing. “He’s not a boy,” Kamigami said to himself in English.
“I’ll be twenty in two months,” Tel said in Malay.
“And with good hearing,” Kamigami replied, still speaking English. He had a voice that was unusually soft and high-pitched for such a big man. “Look away from the sound so your night vision can work better.” Automatically, he checked the small handheld GPS that dangled from the throttle lever. On course and four nautical miles to go. At five and a half knots, they’d make landfall in forty-five minutes. He glanced at his Rolex watch — the only clue that he was not a poor fisherman struggling to feed his family on the eastern shore of Malaysia. They would be on the beach and home in time for breakfast.
“I hear two engines now,” Tel called. From his rigid stance Kamigami could sense Tel’s worry and made a mental promise to install a radar set. It wasn’t a question of affording it, but he didn’t want to spoil the simple, classic lines of his prahu, a traditional Malay fishing boat. After his family, it was the pride of his life.
Kamigami retarded the throttle to idle, and they coasted to a stop in the calm waters. Now he heard the deep rumble of diesels at high speed. He started to count. “I can hear two, maybe three,” he said. “Can you see anything?”
“There!” Tel screamed, his voice tight and filled with fear. He pointed to a spot slightly aft of the starboard beam, as a large shadow emerged out of the darkness and bore down on them.
Kamigami’s reflexes were still rattlesnake quick as he shoved the throttle full forward and hit the horn button to blare a warning. A searchlight clicked on and swept over Kamigami’s prahu, blinding him with its brightness. The ship’s big diesels roared as it turned onto Kamigami’s boat. “Jump!” he shouted. He dove over the side and swam down the wake his boat had carved in the water. He was a big man and still physically fit, as befitted a former command sergeant major in the U.S. Army. He took fifteen powerful strokes before the ship smashed into the prahu, crushing it like matchwood. The wake kicked up by the ship’s bow engulfed Kamigami and pulled him under.
He came to the surface sputtering and coughing. Another ship cut by him, outlined by the glare of the searchlight. Son of a bitch, Kamigami thought, a fast-attack patrol boat. Who in hell? Singapore? He didn’t know. He watched as the large craft slowed to a crawl. Its searchlight swept the water looking for survivors. The familiar bark of a heavy machine gun echoed over him. “Bastards,” he said aloud. The light moved toward him. He simply let his breath out and dropped below the surface. His proportions may have matched those of a sumo wrestler, but he was more muscle and bone than fat. He sank like a rock. It was a long swim back to the surface.
A much bigger ship ghosted by him. An LST! What the hell is a landing craft doing here? None of it made sense to him. Now one of the patrol boats circled as its searchlight again swept the water. Then the light was doused and the boat raced after the landing craft. He waited, treading water. He mentally urged Tel to be quiet — if he was still alive. He kept checking his Rolex as the minutes passed. Seven more minutes, he calculated. Is that long enough? He reasoned that was how long he would have waited.
Six minutes later a diesel roared to life, and a patrol craft cruised by with its two searchlights sweeping the water. Again Kamigami exhaled and sank. But this time he didn’t let out as much air and it was a much shorter swim back to the surface.
He patiently treaded water for another five minutes. Finally he judged it was time. He felt for the flat gold whistle on the chain around his neck that May May, his wife, had given him for good luck. It was about the size of his old dog tags and was engraved with a dragon on one side and a tiger on the other. He gave a short toot and waited. Nothing. He blew hard on the whistle — a long blast that carried for a mile.
“Captain!” a faint voice called. “Is that you?”
“You bet your sweet ass!” Kamigami roared, relieved to hear Tel. “Keep talking and I’ll come to you.” He took three strokes and stopped to listen. Tel’s voice was louder. He took an even dozen strokes before stopping to listen. He was getting closer, but there was panic in Tel’s voice. “Keep cool,” Kamigami urged as he stroked hard, pulling ever closer. His hand touched something in the dark. It was Tel, and the boy jumped on him, holding on for dear life.
Kamigami easily broke his death grip and turned Tel around in the water. His big right hand held him by the back of the head. “Lie on your back,” he ordered. “You’ll be okay. I won’t let you drown.” Tel’s breathing slowed. “The ocean’s our friend. Don’t fight it.” He could feel the boy’s body relax. “Much better.”
“Are we going to die?” Tel asked.
“Not tonight. It’s only four miles to shore.”
“I can’t swim”—he gulped for air, the panic back—“that far.”
Kamigami snorted. “Who said anything about swimming? Give me your pants.” He held Tel’s head above water while he struggled out of his light trousers and handed them over. “Okay, you’re gonna have to tread water for a few moments.” Kamigami let go of him and quickly tied an overhand knot in the end of each leg. He grabbed the waistband of the trousers and found the drawstring. Then he gave a strong kick and rose out of the water. At the same time he waved the pants over his head and filled them with air. He held the waistband underwater as he tied it closed with the drawstring. The pants legs stuck out of the water like two overstuffed sausages. Kamigami handed the pants back. “Here’s your life preserver. Lie on it. Keep it wet and it’ll stay inflated.”
Kamigami did the same with his pants and lay across the crotch with a leg under each arm. “That’s not fair,” Tel said. “Yours are bigger than mine.”
Tel’s spirits were definitely improving, and Kamigami played on it. “You want a quick drowning lesson, boy?”
“Not tonight, sir.”
Much better, Kamigami thought. “I need to get my bearings,” he said. He studied the sky, looking for familiar stars. Finding Polaris was out of the question, as they were too close to the equator. “Okay,” he said half aloud, “what’s in the west at three in the morning this time of month?”
“Nothing good,” Tel answered. “But the Belt of Orion is above the eastern horizon, and you can see Sirius.” He pointed to their left.
Kamigami breathed more easily when he found the constellation and the bright star. He was impressed with Tel’s knowledge. “Very good,” he said, wondering what else was hidden behind that pretty face. “Swim away from it. We’ll have the sun later.” They started kicking and stroking. There was no doubt in the older man’s mind that he could make the long swim, but he hardly knew Tel. The boy might not be up to it. Normally Kamigami was a quiet man and never said much, but an inner sense told him he needed to talk to keep Tel’s spirits up. “So you know astronomy?”