Five days later Rooster and I found ourselves back in the strait where Hagfish lay in pieces. We were on one of several 20-foot-long coastal fishing boats departing the Orotai anchorage an hour before dawn. The owner and skipper of our boat was ancient but willing, since it had been his granddaughter and her children Tachibana had slaughtered that bloody night in Lingoro. His crew of four looked to us like teenagers but were actually men in their early twenties. They were actual fishermen, too, but not the ones usually crewing this boat.
The boat had a curved, half-height bamboo-and-rattan shelter over the back ten feet, but the rest of it was open. Amidships was a galvanized metal fish tank for whatever they managed to catch. The rest of the boat was piled with nets, poles, and several of what Rooster called trotlines. The gasoline engine was mounted right in front of that shelter where the man steering could tend to it. There was a single mast whose function I could not discern. Some small pennants decorated with what looked like religious symbols flew from it. The boat had slots for outriggers on one side to aid in stability in case bad weather ambushed them, which happened often. Fortunately there was a breeze, because the boat reeked of spoiled fish.
Rooster and I were stowed away out of sight in the shelter behind the owner, who did the steering while smoking a truly noxious cigar. Between the fish-stink and that cigar in the hot, close confines of the “cabin,” we were both starting to get seasick, even though the sea was flat calm. The owner’s name was Emilio and he spoke no English. One of the deckhands, named Tomaldo, did speak some English, courtesy of a course that Father Abriol had been running before the Japs invaded. His mother had been killed six months ago by an injured water buffalo after Tachibana had flubbed the killing stroke out on the main street; the bellowing beast had run over her trying to escape. Of all our volunteers, Tomaldo had been the most insistent on coming with us.
Nothing would happen until late afternoon when the local fishing fleet began returning to port. That gunboat wouldn’t even bother to come out until midafternoon, waiting until there was a chance that there’d be fish to confiscate for the garrison. The rest of the day it was moored to Tachibana’s communications ship. Our plan was to sink the gunboat with a surprise grenade attack when the Japs boarded us to help themselves to some of our catch. Emilio had told Father Abriol that the gunboat would usually hail and then stop the fishing boat that seemed to be sitting lowest in the water on the return trip, an indication of a full load. They’d come alongside, throw over a line, and then send down two unarmed sailors with baskets.
The gunboat was about 90 feet long and armed with a twin 25mm antiaircraft gun mount up on the bow. In a former life it had probably been a deep-sea fishing trawler that the Japs had converted to a coastal patrol boat when war broke out. The ones that patrolled the Jap mainland coasts carried a crew of thirty or so, but this one was manned with only ten men. They were used to dealing with a thoroughly cowed bunch of fishermen, and reportedly these days didn’t even bother to take the canvas cover off that AA mount.
Our plan was simple if chancy. The gunboat normally tried to intercept the fishing boats about 10 miles offshore before they began to scatter to avoid having their fish confiscated. We were not going to evade. Once it came alongside and bent on a line, we’d wait until they put two of their crewmen down into our boat to root around in the midship fish tank. On my signal, Tomaldo would dispatch the two crewmen with a lethal-looking short spear called a sibat. Rooster and I would come out and begin lobbing grenades into the gunboat’s open pilothouse and any other openings to the boat’s interior. Our crew would then break out the three captured Jap rifles and shoot anyone who appeared on the gunboat’s deck. Rooster and I would then clamber aboard the gunboat under their cover and heave grenades down ventilation scoops, the main stack, and any other openings that might lead below the waterline. Once we knew all 10 crewmen had been killed, we’d scuttle the gunboat, taking any small arms and ammo we could find. Then instead of going back in to Orotai, we’d make for a small cove where a party of villagers would be waiting for us to offload any fish we’d caught and then hide the boat for the night.
Easy enough to describe, but we were on thin ground when it came to what we actually knew about the gunboat, its crew, and their level of readiness. None of us was trained in close combat, although Tomaldo, who had that sibat stashed next to the fish tank, was clearly chomping at the bit to kill some Japs. Those initial grenades to the pilothouse would be crucial, because that’s where an officer would be and probably the boat’s radio. Rooster, who’d been the pitcher for the Big E’s softball team, would be aiming at the pilothouse, while I looked for openings in the side. The gunboat’s gunwales were at least four feet higher than our little fishing boat and it wasn’t like anyone was going to hand us a sea ladder. I was the one tagged to initiate the attack, and that would depend on whether or not there were enough open hatches, portholes, windows, etc. through which we could get grenades inside the gunboat and maybe punch holes in the bottom. If it showed up with all guns manned, armed sentries at both ends, and in an obvious state of alert, then we’d abort it.
Lots and lots of “ifs,” but I knew that this had to be a case of the gunboat going out and simply not coming back. Missing at sea and overdue. If the Japs contemplated any other scenario, life on Talawan would become even more violent than it already was. Father Abriol had spent a lot of time talking to village heads, the Orotai police chief, and what served as an informal town council in the town. He hadn’t told them what we had in mind, only that we were going to do something. He’d learned that there were quite a few islanders who were ready to organize a general uprising, especially once word got around that American frogmen had been seen on Leyte Island. Somehow they knew that frogmen meant a landing was in the offing. I didn’t have the heart to tell them that frogmen meant that a landing was coming somewhere, but not necessarily at Leyte. In the end, the Filipinos decided they were with us. The more I got to know these people, the more I admired them. They were stoic, brave, and tireless, and this was their home.
At around four in the afternoon we saw the other boats beginning to turn for the harbor. Emilio had enjoyed a pretty good day, although none of the fish had been much over six inches long. He added extra water to the fish tank to lower our waterline and then we headed in, deliberately trailing the other boats. A half hour later we saw the gunboat lying alongside another fishing boat about two miles ahead of us. There was a dirty column of engine smoke curling off its stack. Emilio made a course change as if to take advantage of the fact that the gunboat was occupied. For a few minutes I thought maybe we’d outsmarted ourselves, but then the gunboat began to move away from the smaller fishing boat and head in our direction, with even more smoke streaming out of its flimsy-looking stack. Emilio pretended not to notice her until she tooted her horn, a clear signal to stop. Rooster and I took a deep breath and waited to see how it would play out.
We saw one crewman in a shabby uniform standing on the high bow of the ex-trawler as she closed in. He had a coil of rope in his hands. Another man was standing amidships with a boathook. Since we were looking into the setting sun we couldn’t see how many faces there were in the pilothouse windows, nor could I see what the doors and windows situation was behind the pilothouse. Emilio stopped his engine and then the shadow of the gunboat began to block out the setting sun and we heard a heavy rope land next to the fish tank. I looked through a crack in the rattan roof and saw a single bored-looking officer standing in the doorway of the pilothouse, smoking a cigarette and seemingly paying zero attention to what was going on down on the main deck. He pitched his cigarette butt over the side as I watched, and sauntered back into the pilothouse.
The crewman who’d been in the bow of the gunboat walked down and opened a gate in her lifelines and then climbed down to our boat. He didn’t use a ladder; there were toeholds welded onto the side of the gunboat, just like the ones we used getting up into our cockpits. There was a single door open in the superstructure amidships but I was too close to the hull for me to see what was inside. I looked forward to find Tomaldo staring holes in my face. By now the single Jap was head down in the fish tank, grabbing up squirming fish. I nodded at Tomaldo.
Rooster and I had four grenades each, standard-issue Army grenades we’d both handled in basic training, and with a single spare sitting in Emilio’s hat next to the steering wheel. Once I gave the signal, Tomaldo was supposed to uncover the spear and stab the fish thieves. Rooster would step out and throw two grenades up into the pilothouse, one after the other. By then our crewmen would have hopefully uncovered the rifles. Once the pilothouse grenades went off, my job was to step out and start throwing my grenades. That was the plan, anyway.
The first thing that went wrong was that the guy who’d been standing in the bows of the gunboat had handed off the other end of the rope to the crewman holding the boathook. He alone climbed down into our boat, while that other man just stood there, holding the end of the rope to keep us alongside. We hadn’t counted on one of them remaining behind but Tomaldo solved the problem for us. He stabbed the man at the fish tank twice with two vicious, short thrusts into his abdomen, then stood up and hurled the spear into the line-holder’s stomach. The first man simply collapsed over the fish tank, while the line-handler crumpled slowly to the deck, letting go of the rope and staring at the thing sticking out of his stomach as a waterfall of blood erupted from his mouth.
By then Rooster was out on deck and our other crewmen were extricating rifles from under a pile of nets. Rooster pulled a pin and lofted his first grenade up at the pilothouse doorway. It hit the edge of the door instead and, thank God, bounced into the pilothouse and not back down on us. Rooster didn’t wait for the first one and threw another one, overhand this time, which sailed right in just as the first one blew up. Once that first grenade went off I stepped out on deck and lofted two of my grenades into that open hatchway amidships, just as Rooster’s second pineapple went off up above. Mine both went true and clacked against what looked like a companionway ladder hatch that was open and latched back inside the athwartships passageway. Since I could see the hatch I knew the grenades could see me, so I jumped back into the steering pit, seeking the unlikely protection of its bamboo wall. Both of my pills went off, one really loud in the passageway, and the other one more muffled, where I hoped it had dropped down that ladder and gone off in the engine room below.
Rooster was standing next to the fish tank, a grenade in each hand with their pins pulled and his fingers clamped around the spoons. One of our rifles forward cracked and a sailor with a rifle tumbled into the sea from the gunboat’s stern. Rooster saw more movement back there so he threw his third grenade onto the fantail of the gunboat. Someone screamed a warning back on the stern and then it went off. A piece of metal came through the bamboo, past my face at the speed of heat, and then chipped some wood off the mast. Rooster, with one grenade left, clambered one-armed up those footholds, through the opening in the lifelines, and then extended a hand to me. I followed with my two remaining grenades, one in my left hand, the other jammed into my waistband. We heard more rifle fire from behind us but I was too busy looking for a way to get grenades belowdecks. I felt the heat of a fire on my cheek and looked up to see the wooden pilothouse entirely engulfed in flames.
A porthole to our left exploded as someone inside fired a weapon right through the glass in our direction. Rooster didn’t hesitate: he pushed his last grenade into whatever room lay behind the shattered porthole, and then jumped back down into our boat. There were two seconds of frantic shouting inside and then that grenade went off, followed by a chorus of men screaming in pain. I looked back down into the boat and saw Emilio still sitting at his steering wheel, chewing on that cigar. He was like a man at a football game, just enjoying the show.
Right above me was a vertical ventilation funnel. It had a small weather vane on its back which would point its mouth into any relative wind and thus force air down below. I pulled the pin on one of my grenades and pitched it into the funnel, where I could hear it rattling down the air duct before it exploded somewhere beneath the waterline with a satisfying thump. I decided to throw my last one down the same funnel, hoping that it led to the gunboat’s engine room. That one produced a sheet of flame and smoke belching back up the main smokestack. Moments later there was more smoke rising up out of that hatch in the athwartships passageway.
Then everything went silent, except for the crackling fire engulfing the pilothouse and a sucking noise as whatever fires were burning down below clawed combustion air down the inside passageway.
The radio. One of us needed to find the boat’s radio and make sure nothing was getting out. I told Rooster where I was going and he positioned a couple of men with rifles to cover me. I ran to where a slanting stairway led up to the level of the pilothouse. There was a single small structure behind the burning pilothouse which had two antenna wires leading up to the boat’s mast. That had to be the radio room. The only weapon I had was the handgun Abriol had taken from the Jap officer up on the caldera.
I crouched down behind a small lifeboat to pull the slide and see if it was ready to shoot. I saw brass, so at least it was loaded. Apparently in my excitement I’d kept my finger on the trigger, so when the slide rammed forward it went off, sending a round ricocheting into the smokestack. Feeling stupid I scuttled forward until I was alongside the door to the radio room. That’s when I realized I should have brought along our spare grenade. Rooster read my mind, went back and got the spare, and lofted it to me on the upper deck. Realizing I needed two hands to catch it I dropped the pistol, which went off again when it hit the deck, this time blowing the heel off my left boot. But I caught the grenade, pulled the pin while holding onto the spoon, and crept up on the door to the radio room. I slowly operated the handle. Locked.
Rooster saw the problem and motioned for me to get away from the door. Then he had his three riflemen open fire on the door handle, which fell entirely off after six splintering rounds. I picked up my handgun and approached the door to pitch the final grenade in, but it suddenly swung open and a terrified young Jap came tumbling out, bleeding from a dozen wounds. When he saw me standing there with a pistol in one hand and a grenade in the other, his eyes rolled up and he simply passed out. I guess I was supposed to shoot him but I couldn’t. I could drop a 1,000-pound bomb on a ship and kill everybody, but I couldn’t shoot an unconscious wounded man. I took a quick look and then went into the radio room. It was a complete wreck. There was a single internal door that led forward out to the pilothouse. It had apparently been open when the grenades went off out there. By now the pilothouse had collapsed and the heat was diminishing. There were three radios, not just one, and each of them had multiple holes in them.
Okay, I thought. They probably did not get a message out.
As I stood there trying to figure out what to do next I remembered I still had one grenade left. I pitched that one into a ventilation funnel on the other side. A moment later an explosion down below rocked the entire gunboat. She bucked up in the water and then began sagging to port. Time to go, I thought.
I scrambled across the upper deck to get back to that ladder when a single rifle shot hummed past my head, followed by a loud blast from down on our fishing boat. I hit the deck, just short of the ladder, and I looked down. There was Emilio, standing up at his steering wheel, cigar clenched between his teeth, and with a smoking double-barreled shotgun aimed towards the back of the gunboat. I looked aft and saw a headless corpse roll through the lifelines and into the sea between the gunboat and our fishing boat. I started to slide in the same direction, which is when I recognized that the gunboat was about to capsize. As if to make the point, Emilio backed the fishing boat away to avoid becoming entangled in the mast and funnel of the sinking gunboat. For the second time in my short but exciting navy career I found myself scrambling up the overturning side of a sinking ship. This time I just kept going and ended up in the water on the other side of the gunboat.
I hastily backpedaled away from the now almost overturned hull, which quickly slid out of sight in a rush of blowing air followed by massive, oil-filled bubbles. Emilio steered the fishing boat in my direction. Soon strong hands hoisted me aboard. For a long minute the only sound on the boat was the putt-putt of the engine as Emilio headed for the cove rendezvous he’d arranged. I now thought I knew how the Minutemen had felt when they drove the British army off the Old North Bridge. We’d done it. It hadn’t been pretty, but we’d managed to sink a Jap ship. Now, what were going to be the consequences?
Tomaldo came over and asked for my handgun, which I’d shoved into my pocket. He then stood in the bows as Emilio drove the boat through the debris field from the gunboat, looking for floating bodies. He found three and shot each one of them in the chest. I think they were all dead and wondered why we were bothering. Tomaldo explained that the extra blood would bring sharks, and the sharks would leave no evidence of what had happened. Of course, I thought. Why didn’t I think of that.
Rooster and I took our seats back in the steering pit.
“We did it,” he said, almost wonderingly. “Now all we need is a fuselage to paint a gunboat silhouette on.”
I tried to grin but couldn’t manage it. All I felt right now was increasing dread. “I hope to Christ that none of the Japs in Orotai heard all those grenades,” I said. “Or any local fishermen, for that matter.”
“Someone might have seen that fire when the pilothouse went up, but we were a long way offshore. If they come looking they aren’t gonna find anything. Tomaldo reminded me that the water is miles deep out here.”
But there’ll be fuel oil, I thought. Father Abriol had told me the Hagfish was still leaking diesel oil, much to the irritation of close-in coastal fishermen. The strait’s latest casualty would, too. It had been satisfying to sink a Jap warship, however small, but I couldn’t help wondering if we hadn’t overplayed our hand.