In the Clutch of the War-God | Page 6

happy human beings, they would never have waged war to keep them out of the States.
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"In three days we leave Japan," said Professor Oshima, as he sat down to dinner one evening in the early part of April, 1960.
"All?" asked Komoru, the Professor's secretary.
"We four," replied Oshima, indicating those at the table, "the children will stay with my mother. I'll need your assistance, and as for Miss Ethel, she cannot well stay here, so I have had you two listed. Although it's a little irregular, I am sure it will not be questioned, for I know more about American soils than any other man in Japan."
Ethel glanced apprehensively at Komoru. She had never quite understood her own attitude toward that taciturn young Japanese whom she had seen daily for two years without hardly making his acquaintance. She admired him and yet she feared him.
Professor Oshima was saying that she had been "listed" with Komoru for some great journey. What did it mean? What could she do? Again she looked up at the secretary; but far from seeing any trace of scheme or plot in his enigmatical countenance, she found him to be considering the situation with the same equanimity with which he would have recorded the calcium content of a soil sample.
As for Professor and Madame Oshima, they seemed equally unruffled about the proposed journey, and not at all inclined to elucidate the mystery. Experience had taught the younger woman that when information was not offered it was unwise to ask questions, so when the Professor busied himself with much ransacking of his pamphlets and papers and his wife became equally occupied with overhauling the family wardrobe and getting the children off to their grandmother's, Ethel accepted unquestionably the statement that she would be limited to twenty kilograms of clothing and ten kilograms of other personal effects, and lent assistance as best she could to the enterprise in hand.
On the third day the little party, with their light luggage boarded a train for Hakodate, at which point they arrived at noon. Hurrying along the docks among others burdened like themselves, they came to a great low-lying, turtle-topped warship; and, passing down a gangway, entered the brilliantly lighted interior.
The constant flood of new passengers came, not in mixed and motley groups, as the ordinary crowd of passengers, but by two, male and female, as the unclean beasts into the ark. And they were all young in years and athletic in frame--the very cream and flower of the race.
[Illustration: Every few seconds an aeroplane shot into the air and joined the endless winged line.]
Late that evening the vessel steamed out of port, and during the next two days was joined by a host of other war craft, and the great squadron moved in orderly procession to the eastward.
One point, that Ethel soon discovered was that, in addition to being excellent physical specimens, all the men, and many of the women, were proficient as aviators. Of these facts life on board bore ample evidence, for the great fan ventilated gymnasium was the most conspicuous part of the ship's equipment and here in regular drills and in free willed disportive exercise those on board kept themselves from stagnation during the idleness of the voyage. Into this gymnasium work Ethel entered with great gusto, for there was a revelation in the discovery of her own physical capabilities that surprised and fascinated her.
In the other chief interest of her fellow passengers, Ethel was an apt pupil, for though woefully ignorant of aviation, she was eager to learn. She spent many hours in the company of Professor or Madame Oshima, studying aeroplane construction and operation from the displayed mechanisms on board. In fact, they found the great roomy hold of the ship was packed with aeroplane parts. Small gasoline turbines were stored in crates by the hundreds; also wings and rudders knocked down and laid flat against each other and still lower down in the framework of the floating palace were vast stores of gasoline.
At the end of two weeks the Japanese squadron was in latitude 34° north, longitude 125° west, and headed directly for the Los Angeles district of Southern California--the richest and most densely populated area of the United States.
One evening, just at dark, after they had been in sight of the American aerial scouts all day, the Japanese fleet changed its course and turned sharply to the southward. Now Panama was six days' steaming from Los Angeles and less than three days from New Orleans. So the authorities at Washington ordered all warships and available soldiers on the Gulf Coast to embark for the Isthmus.
Meanwhile there was much going on beneath the armor plate of the Japanese transports, and on the fourth day of their southward movement the great trap doors were