Seaton's War

Seaton’s War

Lily Ennis

This book is dedicated to my grandmother

Norma Joyce Agnes Stables

Copyright 2013 by Lily Ennis

Smashwords Edition

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover Creator: Tugboat Design

Editor: Amanda Weston

Chapter One

The piercing shrill of the fire alarm screamed into the late autumn morning air and bounced off the town’s hills drowning out the joyous chime of the church bells. Kitty quickly spun her bicycle around nearly tipping off on the coarse gravel road and followed the other townsfolk toward the sea.

‘It’s a submarine,’ a man ahead of her called out.

‘Not one of ours,’ Michael Spencer added.

Kitty struggled to regain her momentum and pushed hard down on her pedals. The cane basket on the front jostled uncertainly and Kitty’s hat bobbled tenuously on her coiffed head. She absently wondered how she would present at church today after such wilful neglect to her grooming.

Too late she looked up to see a well dressed man with a leather satchel over one shoulder step out in front of her. She leaned back on the seat and slammed her feet hard onto the pedals in a desperate effort to apply the brakes and in what felt like slow motion knocked him flying. She saw it all in her mind’s eye before it happened but there was no way she could avert the collision.

‘Watch out,’ she cried. But the man was too preoccupied with the unfolding tragedy at the shore.

‘Aah,’ Kitty cried as she crashed into him, bike flying, basket hanging limply and wheels spinning in mid air. Her gloved hands had tried to soften the fall and the sting of gravel imbedded into her skin through her glove welled up. A pain shot up her left buttock and side all the way to her shoulder as she lay in a heap on top of the man and the bicycle. The unforgiving steel of the frame dug into her thigh.

She tore at her gloves with her teeth. ‘Can’t you watch where...’ And then she caught his eye. For a flash she forgot about her grazed hands and the cold steel digging into her leg. His dark blonde hair was dishevelled around his head and a flop of it flicking in his eyes. He didn’t hold Kitty’s stare but dragged himself out from under her and groped around on the dusty gravel for his narrow-rimmed glasses which had bounced off in the crash. Finally locating them he meticulously threaded them behind his ears.

Kitty scrambled to right herself. ‘I’m awfully sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t see you until too late. The siren was still shrieking and people jostled around them. Vehicles came to a standstill, immobilised by the crowd. No one stopped to help.

Robert scrambled to his feet. ‘Here, let me help you.’ He rubbed his hands along the outsides of his trouser legs before offering a hand to Kitty. She hesitated, still stuck underneath her bicycle. But it wasn’t just her impossible position that caused her not to take his hand. Somewhere in the dark recess of her mind she was sure she knew this handsome man with the piercing grey eyes. Or was it that she wanted to know him?

Robert realised Kitty’s predicament. ‘Oh. I’m sorry.’ He cleared the bicycle from her and she wriggled onto her knees. ‘Please, let me help,’ he said again smiling lightly and without waiting for her permission lifted her to her feet with his hands firmly at her waist.

‘Thank you,’ she said, trying to compete with the siren. She winced as the painful impact of the accident played out over her body. She assessed the damage: scuffed brogues, tattered gloves, ripped dress at the hip. Her shin was bleeding and her thigh began to ache. She modestly lifted the hem of her best Sunday frock to reveal a grazed knee.

Robert adjusted his glasses at his nose. ‘Nasty,’ he said as he bent to peer at Kitty’s knee.

Kitty quickly put her hem back in place, smoothed her frock down and patted her hair. Again Robert offered Kitty his hand.

‘Robert,’ he said. ‘Robert Anderson.’

‘Kitty Williams,’ she replied timidly touching his hand. ‘Pleased to meet you.’

Kitty smiled hesitantly. He was the mysterious professor she had heard about. He was supposed to be a hermit. He was so much more interesting in the flesh than in local rumour.

‘My hat,’ she said pointing at the bicycle which had squashed it into the dust. A sheet of paper sprawled beneath it, having escaped from the notebook that contained it. Kitty gathered the sheets into a neat pile as Robert squatted alongside. For a second their eyes locked on each other, hands clutching the hat and notebook. Slowly Kitty handed Robert the notebook but not without glancing at the scrawling ink which appeared to be calculations or algebra. Suddenly there was nothing outside of that moment as they held each other’s eyes, save for the screaming siren and the staccato church bells.

Suddenly Kitty lurched forward as Maybelle roughly knocked her in the chaos that the narrow road had become.

‘Come on Kitty,’ Maybelle cried. ‘They say it’s a Japanese submarine.’

Kitty set her hat on her head then righted her bicycle. She looked after her friend then back to Robert who was preoccupied putting his notebook back together. Kitty doubted he ever looked in the mirror. His hair defied the fashions and he wore no hat. He was clean shaven which gave emphasis to his strong jaw. His shirt clearly had not seen an iron but paradoxically it was a fashionable muted stripe of yellow, white and pink. Likewise his wool trousers may have had a centre crease when he bought them, but it had long since disappeared. Kitty smiled to herself, pleased that she had finally met the mad professor although a little uneasy that he seemed to unwittingly provide fuel for the many rumours that persisted about him.

Kitty hesitated to take her leave and as she faced Robert the awkwardness of the situation was evident. He shuffled from one foot to the other like a cat on coals eager to be away and join the mob.

‘Once again Mr. Anderson, I do beg your pardon. Good day.’

Robert plunged the notebook into his satchel. ‘Good day Miss.’ Then he bounded ahead to join the throng until he became lost in the crowd leaving Kitty with an unexplained feeling of anticipation.

***

Kitty walked her bicycle to the shore. It seemed the whole town was there, half of them in their Sunday best. Most stood lined along the shore staring out to sea and Kitty joined them to watch a beached submarine. She had heard there were Japanese subs prowling New Zealand waters but only in harbours that served cities. They surely would find nothing worthwhile in Seaton. And how is it they came up such a shallow waterway? Everyone knows the firth is shallow. That’s why the flounder dories have shallow draughts. And when the tide goes out there’s nothing but rippled mud as far as the eye can see. She peered at the sub. There was nothing on it to indicate its provenance, but there was something happening on top of it. The air punctuated with harsh screams. Men in navy uniforms moved about and sometimes a silver glint of a sword caught the sun.

Kitty edged her way through the crowd until she stood on the sand. Men were washing up on the beach; dozens of them. Most were face down and wore navy blue uniforms, their jacket belted at the waist. They had shiny jet black hair. Some that had reached the shore had been rolled over, kicked and prodded by onlookers. They had smooth eyelids, no crease. Japanese without a doubt.

The siren finally stopped and left the church bells timbre tones hanging in the air. The sound amplified over the shore adding chaos to an already frightening scene. It was the first time she had seen a Japanese man. The same could be said for most of the townsfolk of Seaton. Of course the fashion for wallpaper designs and painted china in the last ten years had put Japanese culture to the fore in the western world but as for actually coming face to face with a Japanese person, well that was entirely a new and unexpected experience.

Kitty counted about twenty men perched on the distant floundering submarine. There seemed to be some urgency in what they were doing. They were in full dress uniform; a navy belted jacket, trousers covered to the knee with white calf length spats, and a diagonal white belt to which was attached a small leather bag. Each wore a round helmet and carried a rifle with a bayonet.

Kitty watched in horror as the men started to fall one by one under the guttural cry of their attackers. As the men fell more appeared from below decks.

‘Someone launch a flounder boat so we can get those men off the sub,’ a voice shouted. It was the mayor, Jim Hayward, a slight man, balding even though his remaining hair was still quite dark.

‘Let ‘em drown.’ An angry voice pierced the air. Michael Spencer again.

‘I’ll not have unnecessary deaths on my watch,’ Jim barked.

‘Which watch are you on Mr. Mayor? Town father or captain of the Home Guard?’

Jim puffed himself up. ‘Home Guard of course, Mr. Spencer.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Now listen up everyone. There are several of my platoon here and this is a matter for the Home Guard. We will be in charge of this operation.’

Roland Lishman stepped up, his big frame giving him more authority than he warranted. ‘Sir, you’d better hurry,’ he said. ‘Those Nips are doing hurry curry.’

Michael laid a firm hand on the mayor’s arm. ‘You think you can stop that lot committing suicide Sir? I’m not sure how the good people of Seaton would interpret that. What are you going to do with them anyway? We got nowhere to put ‘em. Shit!’ He released his grip which had got firmer and rubbed his hands through his greying hair. ‘You could be a hero if you just leave well alone.’

A murmur rippled through the crowd. Jim shrugged his shoulders as he patted down his sleeves and muttered under his breath only for his ears. ‘What are you trying to do? Make a fool of me? You’re under my orders so shut it and do as I say.’

‘Here here,’ cried Hugh Fowler. The crowd soon echoed him. He spoke loudly and slowly, deliberately enunciating every syllable as though subconsciously defying his smaller than average stature. ‘What were they doing here anyway? Going to bomb us while we were asleep in our beds, I’ll warrant. Good bloody job they’re stuck and good bloody job if they all commit hurry curry I say.’

‘How do you propose we protect our wives and daughters Mr. Hayward?’ asked Roland. ‘From what I’ve read the Nips don’t kill nicely. Slow and painful is how they kill their prisoners. No, in my opinion the only good Nip is a dead ‘un.’

‘Where are we going to put them?’ asked Hugh. ‘Because by Christ Jim, it’ll need to be secure. I’m not having my family put at risk if these slit eyes escape. Be it on your head.’

‘If you don’t hurry up there’ll be no one left to lock up.’ It was Clarice Fisher, Kitty’s colleague whose bark was pretty fierce and not much softer than her bite. She never minced her words; called a spade a spade. ‘Seems to me Mr. Mayor you have a duty to get those men off the submarine and whether they come off dead or alive isn’t much to think on. By the time a boat gets out there they’ll all have hurry curried anyway.’

‘Save us a lot of bother Clarice,’ Hugh replied jostling past Kitty to gain a better look at the turmoil occurring on the sub.

‘Now Hugh,’ said Jim. ‘You know the rules of war.’

Tommy Holander finally got up the courage to speak. ‘That sub’s an aircraft carrier,’ he said quietly.

‘No!’

‘It’s true,’ he replied. ‘It will have been skulking around the surface at night to launch its plane looking for something to bomb.’

‘He’s right,’ Robert joined in. ‘Wellington and Auckland harbors have already been surveyed by I-25 and its float plane, the Glen.’

A series of heads turned to Robert. Although the professor wasn’t on intimate terms with any of the townsfolk, they knew enough about him that they could trust what he said. He operated the direction finder after all.

‘Why didn’t it beach in those harbours?’ asked Clarice. ‘What went wrong here?’

‘Guess the skipper was using old charts. The tsunami we had last year probably filled in the old channel and scoured out a new one,’ Robert explained. ‘The Japanese charts would be old. They won’t have those changes marked.’ He spoke softly, assuredly. The authority of what he said belied his relatively young years and satisfied the discordant crowd.

Jim stepped forward. ‘Johnny, launch your boat.’

Johnny and his brother dragged a wooden dory off the beach and set to. For a time the crowd watched in silence as Johnny manoeuvred the boat around the floating human debris. The church bells had stopped and now the shrill cries of the suiciding submariners pierced the salty air.

‘What about the drowned ones?’ asked Michael.

‘They’ll have to be buried,’ the mayor replied.

‘Not in my cemetery,’ Michael barked.

‘Yeah, my father chose that land for his family and I’m going to be buried there, and so are my children,’ drawled Hugh. ‘Damned if I’m going to let the Nippons lie next to my family.’

There was much head-nodding. Mayor Hayward fumbled for a handkerchief and wiped his brow. The crowd was insufferable; so much discussion and debate. He needed to get their respect back. His men should be leading by example not goading him, making him defend his position in front of the whole town. If he didn’t handle this right he may as well say goodbye to another term.

The crowd hushed as they watched Frank Gliddon dressed in his Sunday suit wander down to the shore and stand beside a body. With disdain he kicked at it, as if it were a piece of flotsam come ashore with the tide. With a bit more effort he tipped it over onto its back.

Kitty covered her mouth in horror. Her stomach lurched. The dead man appeared young, probably only as old as she. A bolt of guilt rose up inside her as she witnessed the indignity of the action.

‘Respect for the dead, please Mr. Gliddon,’ she said timidly behind her hands.

He stopped, uncertain how to react to being told off by a young school mistress in front of the agitated crowd. Somewhere to the left of Kitty a body spluttered and the crowd turned its attention to it. Kitty was suddenly transported to a long ago summer holiday when two fishermen had brought a shark ashore. People had stood around it with a mix of awe and fear, confronting the vexed problem of what to do with it now that they had it. The fishermen started hacking at it and that had made her sick. She ran down to the water’s edge and tossed up her lunch. She stayed there and watched with sickening horror. They knifed its eyes from its sockets and put them on sticks then gave them to the kids who stood around. It wasn’t even dead yet. They sliced off its fins and let the kids play shark with it. The fishermen didn’t even put it out of its misery. There was no dignity in that death. She could not eat fish after that. Those feelings flooded back. But today she could prevent such indignity.

The body that convulsed tore her away from the past. Whether the man was dead or alive, the crowd now had to decide what to do with him. He was a person, not like one they’d ever seen in these parts, but a human nevertheless. And he was an enemy. The town didn’t have a precedent for dealing with enemies. Not live ones anyway.

Kitty took a step forward, tentative, testing the crowd. She walked slowly towards the man who lay spluttering salty warm water from his lungs and wriggled onto his side.

‘Kitty, no!’ It was Maybelle. ‘He might have a gun.’

‘You can see he doesn’t have a gun,’ Kitty snapped. He didn’t have anything. He wore no helmet, carried no bag across his body or a rifle. He had been surprised to find himself engulfed by water. There was no time to grab a bayonet or a bottle of poison, no time to think of death by honour or dishonour. He and his colleagues had simply been overwhelmed by the flood of seawater.

‘Leave it lass,’ barked Jim.

‘Ain’t no place for a school ma’am,’ Michael warned in his less than masculine voice that was starting to get on Kitty’s nerves.

Kitty halted above the prostrate submariner and spoke softly to the crowd. ‘I ask you all to show some compassion. This man has family just like you Mr. Gliddon, just like you Mr. Mayor and you Hugh Fowler. He was following orders just like your sons are following orders of General Freyberg, and this man finds himself washed up with the tide on the beach, in a foreign land, where no one will hold out a hand to him. Were most of you like me, on your way to church this morning? Does the good book not teach us to treat others as we would want to be treated?’

‘You calling me a hypocrite?’ spat Frank.

‘Watch what you say, Miss,’ warned Tommy. ‘You haven’t lost a brother to the war.’

Jim coughed then barked an order. ‘Enough. Private Lishman.’ Roland clipped to attention. Get some rope and tie them to each other when they come ashore. Private Fowler.’ Hugh straightened. ‘Open up the town hall. Everyone else, drag the dead onto the grass. Tom, would you fetch Dr Logan to look at the near dead.’ He clapped his hands. ‘Come on everybody. Let’s move.’

The crowd dispersed, relieved to have had decisions made for them. Jim Hayward was good like that. It was his third term as mayor which was none less than he expected. He had the ability to pull people into his way of looking at things, manipulating them without them realizing it. As a result he could have made a polar opposite decision and the town would still have been right behind him.

Kitty bent to the submariner and studied his face: rounded, soft features and not a single wrinkle on his eyelids. He almost didn’t have eyelids; the cover was integral to the skin on his brow. As strange as she found him she also thought him angel-like. Fear showed in his dark brown eyes.

‘It’s all right,’ Kitty murmured.

The man struggled onto his side and belched out hot sea water. Kitty tentatively reached out to him. He startled, scuttled to his knees and shuffled away from her but then collapsed on the sand. He convulsed.

Further along the beach people were tipping corpses right way up and dragging them out of the tide line up onto the grass. Several other submariners were also alive and being not so much attended to but guarded with a swift boot by over vigilant folk.

‘Can you speak English?’ Kitty asked the man. ‘English?’

The man scowled and spat at her feet.

‘Told you, you dozy bitch.’

Kitty flushed as Michael approached.

‘That’s enough Mr. Spencer,’ snapped Clarice.

Michael prodded the man with his boot. ‘Pay some respect to the nice lady.’ Then he gave a sharp kick to his kidney.

Kitty flew at Michael, hand flailing, but he caught her wrists tightly until she stopped.

‘Mr. Spencer,’ Clarice demanded. ‘Take your hands off Miss Williams.’

Clarice was hard to ignore and Michael obeyed her like the school ma’am she was.

Clarice continued, ‘I think you would be useful carting the dead off the beach.’

Embarrassed he relinquished his hold on Kitty.

Kitty again squatted near the man and gestured to herself. ‘Kitty. Kitty,’ she said and smiled uncertainly. Perhaps he could see the fear in her eyes but Kitty thought his eyes lightened. ‘Ryotaro,’ he said pointing to his chest. He said it boldly without a hint of familiarity. He seemed distanced by it. He turned toward the shrieks of his colleagues aboard the submarine. Again he shouted.

Kitty repeated the name.

‘Hai,’ Ryotaro turned back to face her but kept his eyes downcast.

Kitty held a hand out to him but he would not take it. Instead he scrambled to his knees and made a feeble effort to brush the damp sand off his uniform. He looked around him and after surveying the casualties then sat back on his haunches, downcast.

Kitty stood slowly and backed away from Ryotaro. The set of his shoulders mirrored the defiance in his face. Several of his compatriots had gasped back to life and like him, sat on their haunches to await their fate.

Behind them the flounder boat had reached the submarine and Kitty could faintly hear the cries of the submariners above the purr of the boat’s outboard motor.

‘I wouldn’t trust them slit eyes.’ She didn’t look to see who spoke.

‘They should display a surrender flag,’ Frank suggested.

‘Oh they won’t surrender,’ Roly answered.

‘Why not?’ asked Kitty.

Frank fingered the end of his wiry moustache. He wavered, trying to decide whether to explain or not. But in the end he lowered his voice and spoke only to Kitty.

‘There is no honour in surrender. There is no honour in being caught by the enemy,’ he explained. ‘Why if their Emperor knew these men had been caught alive he’d spit on them. They’d be cursed for the scabby dogs they are. The only reason these men haven’t committed hurry curry is because they haven’t got the means to.’

Kitty frowned. ‘You mean…’

They looked out to sea.

‘Yes,’ said Frank. ‘They are carrying out their greatest honour; to die a warrior.’

‘Good grief,’ Kitty whispered. She glanced at Ryotaro and the other survivors. She couldn’t begin to understand what it meant to be Japanese. These men have families. Honour before one’s own family? Death by their own hand?

The mid morning sun shone gold on the shallow muddy waters of the firth. The small wooden planked fishing dory pulled up alongside the submarine and a gentle wake broke the rhythmic lapping tide against the shore. Voices on the boat carried the short distance to shore but not clear enough for comprehension.

The townsfolk hushed and strained to hear what was being said at sea. Kitty noticed Robert standing up on the roadside behind the remaining crowd. He had to his eyes a small pair of binoculars and he still wore the leather satchel over one shoulder. It struck her as strange that he should have a pair of binoculars at this particular time. Was he bird watching? She didn’t think so. Coast watch? She knew some of her students’ fathers volunteered to keep an eye on the coast but had not heard that Robert was part of that group. But Robert had volunteered information on the whereabouts of enemy submarines. It was widely understood that Robert operated a radio direction finding network. Kitty concluded that Robert must have known the submarine was in the firth, and he surely must have known before everyone else.

There was a frenzy of activity on the submarine. Still no surrender flag was raised. Several shots rang out causing everyone on the beach to freeze. Soon no men were left standing on the submarine and the fishing dory motored slowly back to the beach, empty but for Johnny and his brother Willie.

Johnny dragged the boat high onto