Caged Eagles

CAGED EAGLES

ERIC WALTERS

ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

Text copyright © 2000 Eric Walters

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Walters, Eric, 1957–

Caged eagles

Sequel to: War of the Eagles.

ISBN 10: 1-55143-139-4 / ISBN 13: 978-1-55143-139-0

1. Japanese Canadians—Juvenile fiction. I. Title.

PS8595.A598C34 2000    jC813".54    C00-910192-6

PZ7.W17129Ca 2000

First published in the United States, 2000

Library of Congress Control Number: 00-100927

Summary: A young boy learns to take pride in his Native heritage, but can he

accept his country’s betrayal of his best friend.

Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing

programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada

through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and the Canada

Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts

Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

Design and typesetting by Christine Toller

Cover artwork by Ken Campbell

www.orcabook.com

Printed and bound in Canada.

12   11   10   09   •   10   9   8   7

To those who endured.

Contents

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afterword

.1.

Kairn Island, British Columbia

March 17, 1942

You know you can’t take all your dolls with you, I said softly to my seven-year-old sister Yuri.

But I can’t just take one and leave the other two here, she pleaded. It wouldn’t be fair to pick one over the others. And who will take care of the ones I leave? I can’t just leave them here … alone … She blinked her eyes quickly to try to hold back the tears that were starting to form in the corners of her eyes.

There just isn’t room on the boat for all of them. Maybe you could just tuck the other two dolls into your bed together and that way they wouldn’t be alone, I reasoned.

But there’d still be nobody to take care of them. They’ll be scared, she whimpered.

I didn’t know what to say to her. I was scared right now. Maybe it would have been better if we at least knew where we were going. All we were told by the RCMP was that we had to be out of our homes within twenty-four hours — by noon today. Since then every family in the village had been working to put their things on their fishing boat. And I’d heard that the same was happening up and down the whole coast. All families of Japanese heritage had been ordered to leave their homes and assemble at Prince Rupert. For some families, farther up the coast, that was a trip of over a hundred miles. For us it was about fifteen miles to the outer reaches of the Prince Rupert harbor.

My father said that once we were at Prince Rupert we’d be told where our final destination was. There were rumors — there were always rumors — that our boats were going to be pulled out of the water and stored in the boatyards in Rupert, and then we’d all be sent by train down to Vancouver. And what then?

Tadashi … I just can’t leave them … Yuri continued. But father said you could only take one, I answered.

I’d been surprised that he’d allowed her to even take the one. There really wasn’t much space on the boat — at least, space in the cabin — and that space was already filled with pots and pans and dishes and food and extra clothing and bedding … things we’d need.

The only non-essentials he’d allowed anybody to take were the family photo albums and two delicate vases that had been brought over from Japan thirty years ago when my father and his family first came to Canada.

Are we just going to be gone for a few days? Yuri asked. I don’t know. That was at least partially truthful.

I didn’t know how long we were going to be gone for. Nobody knew. All we did know was that every person who had Japanese blood in them had been ordered to leave an area within one hundred miles of the coast now that Canada was at war with Japan. Why couldn’t they just leave us alone?

I just can’t choose one of my dollies over the others, she said, clutching all three to her chest, tightly wrapped up in her arms. She was no longer even pretending that she could stop the tears and big, fat drops started to leak out of the corners of her dark eyes, tracing a path down her cheeks.

Maybe I can help, I said. Let me see your dollies.

Yuri hesitated and then reluctantly released her grip on one and handed it to me.

What’s her name? I asked.

Mollie.

She’s a very pretty dolly, I said, grateful there was nobody in the room to overhear my conversation. At fourteen, I was far too old to be playing with dolls.

She’s my prettiest doll, Yuri said. Doesn’t she have lovely hair?

I ran a hand over her hair, stroking it gently. It was soft, red yarn that formed the doll’s hair. The hair matched the freckles spread across her face. Bright blue eyes stared back at me as I looked at the doll.

And what do you call these two? I asked as I reached out and took the other dolls in my hands.

Their names are Nabuko and Sachi.

They’re very pretty dollies too, I offered as I looked at them.

Although I hadn’t known their names, I knew the dolls well. They’d been in our house for longer than Yuri had been — actually, longer than I’d been around … a lot longer. They were dolls my mother had when she was little. Sent to her by a grandmother she’d never met — a great-grandmother I’d never known. My mother was born in Canada just one year after her parents — both dead now — came from Japan.

The two little dolls were almost identical: straight black hair, dark slanting eyes, slight in build and powdery-white faces — little Japanese girls. Of course, the traditional Japanese dresses had long ago been replaced by dresses that looked like those worn by my two sisters, like those worn by any other girl in my school.

My mother was a wizard with a needle and thread and could make anything. She sewed almost all our clothes. Sometimes Yuri or my other sister, Midori, who was eleven, would come to her with a picture of some Hollywood actress and beg her to sew them a dress like the one in the picture. If mother thought it was a nice dress, she’d make it. If she didn’t like it, she’d give some excuse about not having the right material or say. maybe later. My mother didn’t like to say no, but I knew what maybe later really meant.

I looked at the dolls. They were wearing Western clothes, but that still didn’t change what they were — little Japanese dolls … still Japanese dolls after being in this country for forty years. And I looked over at my little sister and saw the same delicate features of the dolls and realized that being born here hadn’t changed her appearance either … or mine.

Why do we have to leave our house anyway? Yuri asked.

I didn’t know what to say. It’s because … because of the war, I stammered. They want to make sure we’re … safe.

That was nothing but a lie and I knew it and felt bad. Our safety had nothing to do with it. Instead, it was to make sure that they were safe from us. They were afraid that we’d help the Japanese — be spies or blow up bridges or kill people or I don’t know what. Did they believe my grandmother was dangerous? Or my mother, or my two little sisters? Or me? I was born in this country. Did they really think I was going to help Japan? I’m Canadian.

Will my doll be safe if I bring it where we’re going? Yuri asked anxiously.

Are you a little scared like your dolls? I asked, realizing what she really meant.

A trail of tears started again. I reached out and wrapped an arm around her shoulder.

Everything is going to be okay. We’re all going to be together. Do you think Father or Mother, or Grandmother, or Midori or your big brother here would ever let anything happen to our little Yuri?

She shook her head, and I squeezed her a little bit tighter. If only I believed what I was saying.

Tadashi!

I turned around at the sound of my father yelling out my name. I’m in here with Yuri! I yelled back.

He appeared at the door to her room. No time to waste. Come and help — now, he ordered.

I was just getting the bedding from the girls’ room, I explained. There was no point in mentioning the dolls to him.

Hurry. There is much still to be done.

Yes, Father.

I will help old Mrs. Koyanagi. She is alone and needs assistance. You finish loading our boat while I help with her belongings, my father continued.

Is she coming with us on our boat? Yuri asked.

No, he answered, shaking his head. Traveling with others.

I’ll get the bedding down to the boat and come right back to the house, I offered.

My father gave a curt nod of his head in response and then he was gone.

Here, I said, handing Yuri one of the Oriental dolls — I didn’t know if it was Nabuko or Sachi.

But what about the other two? she pleaded.

They’ll be just fine, I said.

But I can’t leave —

I put a finger up to her mouth to silence her. You’re not leaving them. I took the two dolls and stuffed them into the bedding, folding them in so they were lost but safe within the folds of the material. Yuri’s face erupted into a smile.

But I want them to stay deep down in your bedding. I don’t want to see them, and you better not let Father see them. Do you understand?

She nodded her head obediently.

The bedding filled my arms and I walked out of the room. I held it tightly, knowing that I had two little secrets locked away inside. My mother and Midori were nowhere to be seen, but I could hear my grandmother in the kitchen, humming loudly to herself. How she could be humming I didn’t understand. Throughout this whole ordeal — the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese, the declaration of war against Japan by Canada, Great Britain and the United States, all JapaneseCanadians having to get registration cards and not being allowed to leave our village, and now, finally, being forced to move — she’d seemed almost happy. No, that was wrong. Not happy … just not upset.

All she kept saying, over and over and over, was shikataga-nai. That was Japanese for it can’t be helped. She somehow saw this as being almost like fate — our fate — and there was no point in fighting it.

I wanted to fight it. Or fight something. Or somebody. But there was nobody to fight. I just felt so angry and hurt and confused and it was all so tightly balled up together inside of me that it made my gut ache when I thought about it too much.

I opened the front door and walked out into the cold March air. Walking down our front path I couldn’t help but be amazed at the sight before me.

Everywhere I looked were the people of our village, either burdened down with possessions and headed for the boats at the dock, or walking back toward the houses empty-handed. Regardless of the direction they were moving, they all looked the same: heads down, moving silently, serious expressions etched on their faces. I wondered what would happen if I called out to somebody, or yelled or laughed out loud. Would anybody even turn my way? Would they pretend that they even heard or noticed? Probably not.

I hurried along the path to the dock. Our boat was just one of more than a dozen little fishing vessels tied to the wooden dock. There were another two dozen sitting out in the harbor, already loaded, anchored and waiting for us to join them. It wasn’t unusual to see them all bobbing up and down together in our little harbor, except at this time of year. All the fishing boats had been taken in for the winter, their hulls scraped and repainted, fishing nets mended and stored. Then came the order that the fishing boats had to be turned over to the government. Did they really think that somebody would chug their little boat out into the ocean and then lead the Japanese Imperial Navy to the coast? I didn’t know what was more stupid, the thought that any of us would help the Japanese, or that they’d need our help to find the coast.

So all the boats had been put back in the water, waiting to be turned over. And now that we had to leave as well, it only made sense to pile our things onto the boats and go to Prince Rupert. If the boats had been turned in before this, then how would we ever have gotten our possessions to the town? We couldn’t very well walk to town with our things on our backs.

I looked at the line of waiting boats. While they were all different, they weren’t very different. Each was a wooden vessel with a small cabin to shelter the captain and crew — usually one other man. The deck was mostly open to accommodate the gear and nets. Near the back was the hatch, which opened to the hold where the catch was stored.

Most of our deck was covered by an enormous, gray, oilskin tarp. Underneath it was large pile of wood — fuel for the woodstove in the cabin. My father’s worst fear was that once we got to Prince Rupert, they’d make us live on the boat for some time, and he wanted to make sure he had enough wood to keep us warm.

I danced between the other people along the length of the dock. A couple of them nodded their heads at me, but nobody said a word. It was an eerie silence. The only sounds were of the wind, the waves washing against the shore, the boats rubbing against the tires lining the dock and our footfalls against the wood.

Shifting my load to one arm, I carefully grabbed hold of a stay and stepped onto our boat. The deck was wet, and I struggled to regain my balance as my feet almost slipped out from under me. Thank goodness the temperature was above freezing or the salty spray thrown up by the winds would have been forming into layers of ice. I’d only ever been on the boat once when it was like that.

It was a late November day when I was only nine or ten years old. A cold front had moved in without warning. Our boat had been in a Prince Rupert shipyard for a refit, and when it was ready, my father had to sail her back to our village to be stored for the winter. Although it was only about four miles through the forest from Prince Rupert to our village, the trip by sea was longer, almost fifteen miles. My father asked if I wanted to come along. Back in those days I wanted to be a fisherman, just like my father, and I never turned down an opportunity to join him aboard. Of course, we weren’t fishing that day. The nets were already in the storage shed. I remember how calm the water was when we were in the Prince Rupert harbor. But what had been calm in the harbor changed fast as soon as we hit open water. The waves were tremendous — bigger than I ever remember seeing. When we were in the trough between waves, I could look up through the windows and see the crests of the waves on both sides rising high above the tallest part of the boat.

I wasn’t scared, though — at least, not at first. I knew my father knew everything about the sea and he’d never let anything bad happen to me. So we were rocking and rolling and bouncing and bucking. I closed my eyes and imagined we weren’t on a boat but were riding a wild bronco. I used to love reading western paperbacks and thinking about what it would be like to be a cowboy, but that was as close as I’d ever come to actually riding a horse.

Of course, everything in the cabin was tied down — that is, everything but me and my father. We were bounced around pretty good. I tried my hardest to hold on to something all the time, but I was thrown right out of my seat by one wave.

The waves were bad, but what was worse was the wind. It screeched and howled and rattled the small windows of the cabin. And with the wind came the spray, and, while there was no danger of the ocean itself freezing, that spray froze solid as soon as it touched anything. Soon the deck, all the windows except the one out the front that was constantly cleared by a hand-cranked wiper, and all the lines were coated with ice. I thought it looked pretty, and I mentioned it to my father. He said there was nothing pretty about something that could kill you. I didn’t understand how some pretty ice could kill anything. He then told me that he’d heard of boats that got so caked with ice that they became top-heavy and then turned turtle — flipped over.

I can remember that first rush of fear when he said that, and I think he saw it in my face. He told me not to worry, that he’d never let anything like that happen. And I believed him, and I felt better.

After that he turned to me and said, Take the wheel, and before I even knew what he was doing, he left the cabin and went out onto the open deck and started to chop away at the ice and throw chunks overboard. He was probably only out there fifteen minutes, but it seemed like forever. And I knew we’d be okay because my father said so, and he was never wrong. At least, that’s what I thought back then. Sometimes I wish I was still back then, instead of here and now, loading the boat to leave our home.

I pushed through the door into the cabin. It was crammed full of things, and the tiny space seemed even smaller now. Pots and pans and dishes protruded out of boxes piled against one wall. I knew they’d have to be stowed differently before we left or they’d come tumbling down when we hit the first decent wave. Bedding and clothes were piled against the other side. Three mattresses — my parents’, Grandmother’s and Midori’s — were propped up on their sides. At night, when they were laid flat on the floor, there wouldn’t be any space left over to move. I could hardly imagine how the six of us were going to fit in here. I guessed if the waters were calm enough I could go out on deck. Of course, that was a big question mark. How calm would the waters be this time of year?

I looked out through the side window, across the harbor, and tried to see beyond the finger of land that protected it from the open ocean. It was hopeless. Whatever awaited us wouldn’t be known until we got out of the harbor … but what did it matter anyway? Rough or calm, we were going out there.

"Shikata-ga-nai … it can’t be helped," I thought out loud, and then couldn’t help but smile at my grandmother’s words escaping from my lips.

As I watched, a boat rounded the outstretched finger of land and entered the harbor. Who would be coming to the village at this time? Maybe it was a fishing boat from farther up the coast, also heading for Prince Rupert, but forced in by bad seas … no, it wasn’t a fishing boat. It was under a good head of steam and quickly crossed the calm of the harbor. It looked like it was going to try to put in at the dock. Whoever it was would need some help getting in.

Carefully I laid down the bedding, making sure that the dolls remained safely hidden within the folds. I hurried out of the cabin, securing the door behind me. I climbed up onto the dock. There was now plenty of space. In the short time I had been on our boat, two other vessels had moved away from the dock. I waved my arms so the captain of the vessel would be able to see I was offering my assistance. Partially I was trying to be helpful, but I was also anxious to hear what the conditions were out on the open ocean.

I still couldn’t see who was inside the cabin, but I could clearly tell it was no fishing boat. Who was it? Who would be out there? As the boat came about, positioning itself to come into the opening at the dock, two men came out