Cuttlefish
Posts: 2454
Joined: 1/24/2007 From: Oregon, USA Status: offline
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February 7, 1945 Location: Kure Course: South Attached to: TF 43 Mission: Bombardment System Damage: 0 Float Damage: 0 Fires: 0 Fuel: 475 Orders: Return to Kure --- Riku, Shoji, and Yoshitake receive a day’s liberty ashore and decide to spend the time in nearby Hiroshima, which offers a greater variety of diversions and entertainments. It also has less of an overwhelming naval presence than does Kure, which makes it easier to forget about the war for a while. It is hard to escape all thought of the war, however. In the early afternoon the three men sight a large convoy coming into Hiroshima Bay. Professional curiosity impels them to watch for a while to see what kind of ships they are. It turns out that the convoy consists of seventeen freighters, none of them small, shepherded by a pair of old destroyers and several C-class escorts. The freighters are heavily laden and all of the ships look as though they have been at sea for some time. “Where do you think they have come from?” asks Shoji. Yoshitake shrugs but Riku looks over at him. “Somewhere in the Southern Resource Area,” he says. “Just where is hard to say. Borneo, Java, Sulawesi, Sumatra? They could be from almost anywhere down there.” “That’s a lot of stuff, whatever they’re carrying,” says Yoshitake. “I’ll bet it’s needed, too.” Riku nods. “It’s why we started this damned war,” he says. “Iron, rubber, tin, I’ll bet there’s all kinds of stuff on those ships.” “Tungsten?” asks Yoshitake. Riku looks dubious. “Maybe,” he says. “I don’t know if they have any tungsten down there. Why do you ask?” “I heard someone talking about a shortage of tungsten the other day,” says Yoshitake. “I thought bringing it up would make me sound smart like you.” “Is there food aboard?” says Shoji. It is close to lunch time and he is feeling hungry. “Maybe,” says Riku. “If it were peacetime or the war was going better I’d be sure of it. Sugar and pepper, coffee and tea, other spices…” He gets a bit of a dreamy look. “That, my friends, is treasure, better than gold and jewels. Those could be treasure ships.” “Uh oh,” says Yoshitake with a laugh. “He’s getting that look again. Let’s go get something to eat before he starts going on about tariffs and exports and stuff like that.” He grabs Riku’s arm and tugs him away. “Come on, Riku.” Riku allows himself to be led away, but not without one backwards glance at the slowly approaching ships. “Hey, what is tungsten, anyway?” Shoji asks.
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