In the mid-1930s, high-schooler Joe Sullivan, slightly crippled by a childhood accident and therefore ineligible for enlistment in the US Armed forces feels his future is very dim. Befriended by a Japanese maritime radio officer, Takeo Okada, Joe decides to become a ship's radioman. After obtaining an amateur radio operator's license and a commercial op's certificate, Joe maintains radio contact with his Japanese benefactor until he hears from another Japanese amateur that Takeo was lost in a ship wreck. Applying for a shipboard radio job just before his 18th birthday, Joe meets and is seduced by Kate Nelson, the company president's secretary. He becomes involved in a continuing feud with "Bull" Taylor, the ship's first mate. He learns that both his parents are killed in an auto accident. Joe, despondent over the loss of Takeo and his parents turns too whiskey and women. In a stop-over in Hawaii he meets and falls in love with a nisei, Myoshi. After a short-lived affair, Joe departs Hawaii. When his ship strikes a Japanese mine near Makin Island, Joe is the sole survivor. Rescued by native fishermen he is taken to a hospital on a French controlled island. Regaining his health, he is taken to Australia where he is induced by the officer in charge of coast watchers to serve a half-year stint on an isolated island. After reporting enemy ship movement during the Battle of the Coral Sea, Joe is unnerved when he sees a one- armed man put ashore on the opposite end of the island by Japanese navy men. He later discovers that the one armed man is his old friend. Takeo had lost an arm when attacked by sharks, and was no longer an asset to the IJN as a fighting man. The two renew their old friendship even though their countries are at war - friend and foe. They enjoy their island life even though alarmed by several incidents that threatened discovery. When the time comes for Joe to be relieved of his duty, he sadly leaves his friend alone on the island.

Friend and Foe

By David G. Weaver

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2013 David G. Weaver
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4772-9845-9

Chapter One

On the big wooden-decked wharf, Joe Sullivan leaned his lanky body against the sun-warmed concrete facing of the firebreak between Headhouses 9 and 10. He looked up at the sparkling clean hull and superstructure of the Japanese motor ship, Kuri Maru, in admiration. The shiny black shell contrasted starkly with the snowy whiteness of the deckhouses and the orange-yellow of the masts, kingposts and booms. Every inch of the ship appeared spotless, scrupulously immaculate. Boy! Joe thought, I'd sure like to get the chance to sail on a beautiful baby like that. Joe often dreamed of traveling, being out on his own, seeing distant, romantic places, doing wonderful things.

Out on the broad deck of the pier, shouting, cursing, sweating negro stevedores scampered about, tugging awkward heaps of rusty scrap iron into cargo slings to be hoisted aboard ship and stored in its bowels. From his vantage point Joe watched as the cargo booms swung out over the wharf, empty slings dangling down to waiting men. One of the muscular black longshoremen would grab the steel loop, release it from the hook on the cargo cable, and allow it to fall to the wooden decking. Then, quickly, other men would grab the hook and, grunting and straining, pull it over to a readied load of junk steel and slip the sling-cable loop over the hook. Then the men would dash away from the clanking, swaying-pendulum danger, as the wench operator aboard the ship shifted his levers and sent the clutch of cargo upward to hurtle over the rail and disappear into the gaping maw of the cargo hold. As soon as the load was lifted, the men on the pier scurried about readying another load.

Above the cacophony of nagging, shouting, and cursing, Joe heard the piercing screams of seagulls. Looking toward the stern of the ship, he could see a huddle of Japanese sailors along the railing, tossing bits of food into the air for the excited birds to catch and gulp down. That's pretty nice of those guys, Joe thought, feeding the gulls like that. Those Jap fellows aren't as bad as the news people make them out to be. They sure aren't anything like the ones I've seen in the picture magazines like Life and Look, and in the movie newsreels. Everybody heard tales about how vicious most Oriental people were. They were told that cruel, heartless Chinese parents murdered their infant daughters, and they heard about such things as the terrible Chinese water torture and the ten-thousand-cuts punishment. But, right here in front of his eyes, Joe saw a group of Japanese seamen sharing their food with the birds and acting as if they were thoroughly enjoying it. He turned his attention back to the activity on the wharf.

A sudden increase in the volume of screeching caused Joe to turn again and take another look at the cluster of men on the after deck of the Kuri Maru. Two of those men were making synchronous tossing motions; wheeling above their heads chunks of meat tied to the ends of string, as the flock of excited gulls hovered above on frantically beating pinions, churning and screaming as if pleading for the food.

Two walnut size chunks of meat soared upward simultaneously and several seagulls dove upon the loot, slashing at each other in their eagerness to snatch the bits of food out of the air. Almost at once the tethered hunks of meat were caught in midair and disappeared down identical gullets. The two triumphant birds attempted to rise. There was a moment of utter confusion in the flock of gyrating, squawking gulls, and then the pair that had snared the food fell awkwardly into the river. The struggling birds rose valiantly from the water only to flop back down again as the twelve feet long string tether between them grew taut, jerking against the inner surfaces of their craws, sending the bewildered birds floundering downward again and again into the foamy water.

Up on the ship's deck, the excited sailors whooped and laughed as they danced about in merriment, pointing and gesturing at the stricken birds struggling to lift themselves into the air on thrashing, frightened wings. Joe stared up at the group of seamen in utter disbelief. A moment earlier he had considered them to be beneficent, generous, caring nature-lovers. Now, as he witnessed their malicious barbarism, he felt sick at his stomach. His face clouded with anger, disgust and frustration.

A small man, clad in the white uniform of a ship's officer, raced out of the door at the rear of the deckhouse and began to loudly berate the assembly of sailors. Joe, of course, was unable to understand the Japanese tirade, but the officer's gestures made it quite clear that he was chastising the crewmen. The seamen edged away, cringing, and sulked off like whipped puppies. But the damage was already done and there was little anyone could do for the tied-together seagulls. Either they would eventually break the string or they would die of starvation.

The teenage boy continued to stare up at the stern deck of the motor ship. The man in the white uniform made his way to the railing and looked down. He raised both hands above his shoulders in a gesture of nonchalance or, possibly, helplessness. Then he turned and slowly made his way back to the door of the deckhouse. Joe took the man's gesture as meaning, "So what?" The man's action intensified the boy's anger. "Damn stinkin' Japs," he muttered aloud. "They really are like the magazines and movies say. Dirty, stinkin' yellow bellies."

Feeling the bile rising in his belly and angry at the villainous acts of the Japanese sailors, Joe turned away from the activities on the pier and headed for home with dragging steps.

* * *

Joseph Aloysius Sullivan was almost sixteen. He was tall for his age and rather slender—thin, skinny. His dark brown hair was a little too long, but it was summer time, school vacation time. No school for another two months. Besides, haircuts cost 35 cents and that was money he'd rather spend on something else. His face and arms were suntanned to a nut brown. There was a slight gap between his upper front teeth and he had long ago learned to whistle through that gap, but Joe didn't feel like whistling now. Little beads of perspiration dripped from the hairs at the back of his neck, making those hairs turn up in tiny ducktails just above the collar of his khaki shirt. Only a slight limp marred the picture of exuberant, youthful, good health.

That little limp didn't mean much to Joe. He never allowed his mind to dwell on it. It had never been a hindrance in sports, no handicap at all. He played baseball and basketball as well as any of the other guys and he could swim, hike, and row a boat with the best of them, better that most fellows his age. But hardly anybody knew that.

Joe vividly recalled the time last year when 12 year old Harry Lloyd had slipped and fallen off the pier into the swift flowing ebb tide and was being swept perilously near the oyster encrusted pilings that support the wharf. Herbie, Harry's older brother, transfixed with fear and indecision, stood and watched his kid brother being carried closer and closer to the razor sharp shells and the undertow caused by the venturi effect between the pilings. Without hesitation, Joe had kicked off his sneakers, peeled off his shirt and trousers and dived into the raging river. Swimming strongly, he raced to the struggling youngster, grabbed Harry's shirt and turned toward the shore. With his strong side stroke, Joe fought the swift current and pulled the boy to...