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Chapter 7

San Francisco, California

March 1942

Events seemed to come in clusters.

For months an uneasy Bill Macneil had bided his time. At last, more was to happen in one day than during the three months since that date in December 1941 that would “live in infamy.”

He strode toward his off-campus apartment, breathing deeply the morning air of another fine San Francisco day. The morning mists were being defeated by the warming sun. He had finished his two early classes and had nothing to do except study until his three o’clock.

Since it was Friday, he wondered if he should fly up to the Mount Shasta area for more training with his mountain rescue team or stay home and study for mid-terms. If he stayed, he might go to Chinatown tomorrow for Shanghai cuisine. An added attraction would be the lovely waitress of Chinese extraction who often favored him with languid looks from her dark, almond-shaped eyes. Unconsciously, Bill quickened his steps and took a sharp breath.

A block from campus he passed two young men in obviously new army uniforms. One of them had sat near him in a physics class last semester.

“Hey, Macneil. You signed up yet?”

“Not yet.”

“Better hurry. War will be over.”

Bill didn’t argue. He walked on, knowing the war would be hard and long. He would like to have seen Japan beaten to her knees and ground into the earth immediately, but he knew the Japanese too well. They would put up a stubborn resistance.

Bill knew the Japanese were capable of acts both puzzling and contradictory, even to him. Only last week, for instance, he had read that shortly after sinking HMS Prince of Wales and Repulse off the coast of Malaya, pilots of the Japanese naval air force had flown low over the site of the sinkings and dropped bouquets of flowers on the ships’ watery graves. “Because,” the pilots later explained, “the British warships died such beautiful deaths.” An amazing people.

That event did nothing to diminish Bill’s hatred of his former neighbors for what they had done at Nanking, but it did warn him that if he was to fight against them in the Pacific, he might face other danger-laden unpredictabilities.

Taking two letters from his mailbox, he glanced at the return addresses, then mounted the three flights in a burst of energy.

Inside his two-room apartment, he stroked his black cat Satan and hurriedly gave him a saucer of milk. Flinging his jacket over a chair, he flopped onto the sofa and hungrily tore open the letter from his father. He had gone no farther than the date and “Dear Son,” when the doorbell rang.

With an impatient grunt, he opened the door to find an army captain in full uniform. His lapel insignia was a sphinx, with which Macneil was unfamiliar.

“Bill Macneil? I’m David Spencer. I’d like to talk to you.”

Stuffing his father’s letter in his pocket, Bill gestured for the officer to enter, wondering what business the army had with him, although they would have a grip on him soon enough.

Captain Spencer was dark and almost as tall as Macneil. He was lean and seemed fit. He had prominent teeth, oversize ears, and a mobile mouth under a trim moustache.

“I saw you looking at my insignia,” he said, taking a straight chair. “Not many people know it. It’s military intelligence. Have you read your mail yet? The letters are from your father and Helma Graf.”

“What the devil! Did you read my mail? You have no damned right to—” Bill was furious.

“Simmer down, Macneil. We’re at war. We can do a lot more if we choose to. I didn’t read your letters, but I suggest you go ahead and glance through the one from your father. I know you’ve been waiting for it, and we can probably have a more productive chat after you’ve seen what he has to say.”

His eyes still hot with resentment, Macneil removed his father’s letter from his pocket and ignored the army captain for the moment.

Dear Bill,

I am aboard a Swedish repatriation vessel scheduled to dock in Goa within the hour. I would like to mail this letter here and so haven’t much time.

The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor before even I thought they would. All our assets were frozen, but I managed to transfer most of our movable holdings out of Japan before then.

I was holding space for Umeko, Shipton, and myself on this ship but in the last week before sailing, Umeko came down with uremic poisoning occasioned by kidney failure. It’s her diabetes, of course. The doctors absolutely forbade that she be moved. She’s in the Seventh Day Adventist hospital in Shinjuku, in good hands.

Shipton insisted on staying with her. He has a stout heart, that boy, at least as far as his mother is concerned. Since she is a Japanese national and he is a minor (although holding an American passport), his status presents no problem . . . yet. The Japanese were understanding about that. Shipton is fifteen, and if he has to remain in Japan until he turns eighteen, he will become an adult enemy alien—and that will be a problem.

Anyway, I hope I will be able to change ships in Goa to a vessel bound for a South American port and from there make my way back to the USA. Upon arrival, I will go to SF first to see you if you’re not already in uniform.

Much love from,

Dad

P.S. Your sweetheart (?) Helma Graf’s parents are on this vessel. Good people, I think. Helma stayed on in Japan. She is a Swiss and neutral and, of course, in a different category from us in the view of the Japanese. Still, things won’t be easy for her. The Japanese will probably mistake her for an American. She was talking about making an arm-band identifying her as Swiss. She did us a big favor, though, by moving into our house in Azabu . . . at my invitation.

That permitted us to nail a sign on the gate saying this was the residence of a citizen of a neutral country. Of course, Umeko retains her Japanese citizenship and Shipton is a minor. I left a sizable amount in a bank account in Umeko’s name, but when I heard from one of our bankers that Japan planned to limit the amount of cash that could be withdrawn from ordinary accounts even by Japanese, I took out the equivalent of $60,000 and hid it in three caches in the house, one known only to Umeko, one to Shipton, and one to Helma.

(I think you can imagine why.)

Bill Macneil felt the tension of recent months drain from his body. Except for his sister, Chankoro, he now knew what had become of his family. Slowly, he turned to the army captain. Remembering his manners, Bill offered him a drink, which was accepted. Bill was somewhat suspicious of this sharp-toned man who seemed to be watching his mail, but this was no time to be influenced by minor animosities.

“Well, David, how can I help you?” Bill asked, calling the captain by his given name. He had not the least intention of kowtowing to military rank . . . yet. Besides, the man was hardly older than Bill, if at all.

Captain Spencer nodded his head toward a wall plaque. “Member—Mt. Shasta Rescue Team.” He sipped his anchor steam beer. “Been called out lately?”

“Not since early January. That what you came to talk about?”

David Spencer laughed. “Not by any means, but your experience as a parachutist could be of considerable interest to us.”

Bill wondered at the man’s use of “us.” “You know someone who needs rescuing?”

Abruptly, David Spencer began speaking to his host in Japanese. To Bill’s utter amazement, the army officer’s Japanese was impeccable—really of native quality. Macneil’s surprise must have shown on his face.

Continuing in Japanese, Spencer said, “Do I surprise you?” Replying in Japanese, Bill said, “There aren’t many of us. How did you learn?”

“Born to missionary parents in rural Shikoku. Only way I could get myself educated was to go through the Japanese school system. I must say you’re pretty good yourself. I had heard you were the best, but I wanted to make sure. How about the written language?”

Bill grinned. “Want to give me a test?”

“We’ll get around to that. What I wanted to do today was ask you about your plans. Won’t you be finishing your third year in college soon?”

“To tell you the truth, I was waiting to hear about my family. I wanted to stay flexible in case they needed me—somewhere.”

“What did your father write?”

“You mean you really don’t know? Well, here. Go ahead. I assume you could have found out, anyway.”

Quickly, Spencer glanced through the letter. “Do you plan on volunteering for service this year?”

“Probably.”

“Then we have a proposal for you.”

“We?”

“Military intelligence. We would like for you to stay right where you are. I’ll get you a deferment if they try to draft you. When we’re ready, we’ll have you come to Washington, where we will commission you. Same rank as me. Then it’s off to paratroop school.”

“I don’t need to go to school to learn how to—”

“There’s a military way to drop from aircraft and a civilian way, Bill. We want you to do it the military way.”

“And then?”

“You’ll lead a team of translators and interpreters in the Pacific.”

Macneil bridled. “Why go to paratroop school to sit at a desk and translate documents? That’s not how I want to fight the goddamned Japanese.”

“We’re forming a unit called ATIS—Allied Translator and Interpreter Service. Some of its members will be ‘combat interrogation officers.’ Their job will be to parachute behind Japanese lines, capture prisoners, and interrogate them on the spot. They may even have to kill the prisoners after interrogation, to preserve the team’s safety.” Spencer laughed. “How does that strike you? Derring-do enough?”

“What do I do till you call me?”

“Stay where you are. Our country is desperate for men who can translate and interpret, so we’ve set up a Japanese language school in the Presidio. I’m one of the recruiters. Let me tell you, Bill, it’s not an easy job. All the Japanese Americans on the coast are being sent to relocation camps inland, and white Americans who claim to know Japanese are damned few and hard to locate. Most of those I’ve found don’t handle Japanese well enough for the work we have in mind. Some of them speak kitchen Japanese but could never translate a military document. That’s why we will have to send them to school for a year or so. Which is where you come in. We would like to send you some of these prospective students and ask you to judge their abilities. Interview them in Japanese. Ask them to read and translate a Japanese newspaper. See if they can decipher a letter in grass-writing—because that’s how some of the diaries we pick up on the battlefield will be written.”

Spencer paused. “How about it?”

“I like that part about dropping behind enemy lines.”

“One more thing. We’ve been told how much you hate the Japanese. That’s all right, because we’re all supposed to hate them now. Only thing is, if your hatred is too excessive, that may interfere with your ability to interrogate POWs. The manual says we can extract more intelligence from a POW if we can establish some sort of rapport. Not friendship, of course, no one expects that. But if your hatred shines through too strongly, the POW will clam up, become surly, and refuse to say anything.”

Macneil was silent for a long moment. “I hate them all right—for something they did in Nanking—”

“We know about that.”

“But I was born in Japan and there was a time when I had more Japanese friends than American. Hell, my stepmother is Japanese. My brother and sister are half-Japanese. I guess I could conceal my dislike enough to do interrogations.”

“By the way, where is your sister Sarah?”

“I wish I knew. She was in Dairen, Manchuria, the last I heard.”

“Another branch of our service might want to talk to you about her some day.”

After Spencer left, Bill Macneil reread his father’s letter, then opened the one from Helma Graf—after some thoughtful hesitation.

It was the first time he had heard directly from Helma since waving goodbye in Yokohama. Her silence had been a relief, in a way, because he feared that complications would arise from what he had regarded as a passing affair. But then, by the end of 1941, he began to feel some concern for her. Gradually, his thoughts about Helma became more positive. He recalled her persistent pursuit of the man—himself—she professed to love to the point of distraction: What had been a bother was taking on a certain charm. He found himself admiring her retention of chastity until she felt obligated to sacrifice it in a last-gasp effort to tighten her hold on the target of her devotion.

Even her annoying use of the juvenile expression ‘jeepers’ seemed cuter than it did obnoxious. He remembered more fondly what he could only describe as her looks of desperate innocence.

On those nights he slept alone, his last waking thoughts were more often of Helma than the Chinese waitress on Grant Street or that sophisticated, high-toned, eager young lady from Nob Hill. The memory of Helma’s naked body in his cabin on the City of Glasgow shone through the mists of encroaching slumber with remarkable clarity. Her lewd lipstick decorations on her intimate parts repelled him less and fascinated him more. What had been a confused, hurried, and startingly abrupt coupling took on—seven months later—the more engaging aspect of a rhapsodic adventure in sweet lust.

He found himself longing for an opportunity to repeat the experience.

Even so, his changing perception of Helma did not extend to marrying this strange, determined female who steadfastly refused to see evil in the hearts of men who actually had not a scintilla of good anywhere within them.

Helma’s letter was disappointingly brief. Even though she addressed him as “My dearest Bill” and employed “thee” and “thou” liberally, her letter made him wonder if someone was reading it over her shoulder—or if she thought someone would later invade the privacy of her mail.

She was sorry, she wrote, that she had been so remiss in her correspondence. One reason was that most Westerners still in Japan were sending their foreign mail out through the International Red Cross, but many voiced suspicions that Japan’s secret police—both the Tokko Keisatsu (Special Political Police) and the Kempeitai—were censoring letters.

Helma had waited until she could make an arrangement with a family friend in the Swiss Embassy to send out her messages in the diplomatic pouch for delivery to Pepin and Lurlei Schwerz in Zug, Switzerland. Pepin was her father’s first cousin. She had written instructing him how to handle her communications. Even getting nonofficial letters from Switzerland to the United States in wartime was time-consuming—but not impossible.

He could, she wrote, send letters to her—if he had not forgotten her—by the same route in reverse, and she included Pepin and Lurlei’s mailing address in Zug.

Helma’s letter was written in January, before the Swedish repatriation vessel Gripsholm sailed the following month, but Helma believed her parents would be aboard. She was thinking about moving into Bill’s Tokyo home to be of whatever assistance she could to his family. Also, it would benefit her in that she would no longer have to travel back and forth between Tokyo and her parents’ home in far-off Shizuoka Prefecture.

Before Bill could wonder why she would not stay in Shizuoka—a better place than Tokyo to take shelter from the uncertain dangers of war—Helma sprang her surprise. “I am thinking about taking a job. Missionary work seems out of the question. Although I am a Swiss neutral and legally free to move about Japan even as the Japanese can move about my country, it doesn’t work that way in actuality. Too many people assume I am American or English and therefore cause problems. This inconveniences the Germans, too, even though they are allies of the Japanese. Anyway, what work would I do? I am not sure. I might obtain a clerical position at the Swiss Embassy. I have also heard Radio Tokyo may be hiring persons fluent in English. Anyway, I must have money for living expenses, so we will see. I love thee. Helma.”