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Conditions aboard were miserable The vessel rolled ominously as it pursued a course well away from the cal the last of the soldiers stationed on Guadalcanal was steah flat ocean

The Yuguineering, was capable of over thirty-five knots wide open But tonight it was crawling along at less than a third of that speed, and the power plants throbbed steadily belowdecks as the weather slowed its progress to a crawl

The sudden squall had hit unexpectedly, and the exhausted and e transported home were hard-pressed to keep their rations of rice down Even the seasoned faces of the sailors were strained at the pounding they were receiving One of the sea water to the soldiers, offering what limited cos now, their bodies in the final throes of starvation

On the bridge, Captain Hashimoto watched as the helmsman tried to meet the chaotic swells to soften the worst of them There seemed to be no rhyth to stay on course He’d briefly considered deviating to flatter water but had chosen to keep forging north toward Japan His schedule allowed no time for detours whatever the reason

The destroyer had been conscripted on a top secreton the confusion caused by the Japanese’s final evacuation of the island The officer they had taken aboard had been deemed too important to the war effort to be risked in the main evacuation, so he and his elite staff had been spirited away aboard the Konami, which had veered east while the rest of the force proceeded on a auntlet froainville Island

Hashimoto didn’t knoas so special about the army officer who required the dispatch of a destroyer for his transport He didn’t care He was accustoly in conflict with common sense His role as a Japanese destroyer coh command—if the powers in Tokyo wanted him to take his crew to hell and back, his only question would be how soon they wanted him to leave

A monster of a wave appeared from out of nowhere on the port side and slammed into the ship with such force that the entire vessel shuddered, jarring Hashirabbed the console for support, and the hellanced at him with a worried look Hashi the order he hated He sighed and grunted as another mammoth roller approached

“Back off to ten knots,” he gru with the words

“Aye, aye, sir,” the heled

Both ht and blasted over the bow, for a th The vessel keeled dangerously to starboard but then righted itself as it continued its assault on the angry seas

Captain Hashiuided his vessel through some of the worst the oceans could throw at the ship since her christening a year earlier He’d been through two typhoons, survived every type of adversity, and co the li and he knew it

When er—the possibility of being hit by a carrier-launched Allied plane equipped with a torpedo Night was his cloak, and usually his friend—with light ca the streak of good fortune that had marked his short wartime career

Hashimoto understood that at soht—and not from a little wind and a feaves Could it be that the as lost now that their occupation of Guadalcanal was over? If so, he would do his duty to the end and die a courageous death that would do justice to his rank and faiven—and he would follow the course of so many of his fellow combatants in the best samurai tradition

The are fro ramrod stiff He nodded to Hashi sea through the windshield

“We’ve slowed?” he asked, his sandpaper voice hushed