The captain said suicide pilots like us became divine. I knew he was lying, because I see gods, not ghosts, and I’d seen neither hide nor haunting of the others who’d gone before. All the same, when my manned torpedo malfunctioned and Yofune’s didn’t, I asked the captain to let me have another go. But the two mechanics restraining me said to stop fighting, and the captain withdrew to the radio room.
Yofune’s signal was five days lost when we returned to base. The Soviets were coming now. A red north and star-spangled blue south. One mass grave. For weeks, we were told to await orders. Yofune’s signal was twenty-two days lost when we were told to go home.
By then, we’d heard about the bomb.
