The tides of march, p.1
The Tides of March, page 1
THE TIDES OF
MARCH
S D Price
Published as an ebook by Amolibros 2024
POD 7 PUBLISHING
Copyright © S D Price 2024
First published in 2024 by POD 7 Publishing
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United Kingdom
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Published electronically by Amolibros 2024
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All the characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, is purely imaginary.
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To Dad, who provided the youngster with all those hand-me-down books; he showed me so many windows into other worlds and their infinite possibilities.
* * *
Part One
Prologue
The Japanese, having transitioned from centuries of isolationism, now exhibit a remarkable capacity for assimilation, at least on the surface, as they present themselves as a modern, Western-oriented society. This transformation is most evident in their dominance across various manufacturing and technological sectors, a testament to the substantial investments and unwavering work ethic of the Japanese people. Japan’s rich tapestry of culture and tradition, honed over centuries, remains a fundamental underpinning of its society.
This aspect of the country has often been misinterpreted by Western cultures, initially through ignorance and later through arrogance, throughout Japan’s history. To this day, many people continue to misread Japanese actions as mere appeasement or acceptance, failing to grasp the nuances of their complex society. A misinterpretation that overlooks the astute strategic thinking inherent in Japanese culture and the subtle sleight of hand that is always taking place. While everyone smiled at the fluffy rabbit on display, the bowler hat that it sprang from was being measured, quantified and analysed, before being copied, improved and marketed. The Japanese have always firmly understood that true power can manifest itself in many forms.
At the end of the Second World War, one of Japan’s fundamental challenges that had contributed to its entry into the conflict – the scarcity of natural resources – remained as pressing as ever, if not more so.
From the 1930s onwards, Japan’s deficiencies in natural resources created a critical need that was skilfully exploited by both its political and military leaders. They adeptly linked the country’s demand for essential materials, vital for a modern, expanding nation, with Japan’s martial heritage. This strategy led to catastrophic consequences for those nations that possessed the resources Japan sought.
This self-perpetuating cycle of insatiable expansion, which began in Korea, extended to China, and then spread across Asia and into the Pacific, created an escalating spiral of need. This expansion formed a fragile bubble that grew increasingly tenuous as it encroached upon territories controlled by more powerful adversaries. Ultimately, this led to its inevitable and catastrophic collapse.
Post-1945, following the disintegration of its hegemonic ambitions, Japan embarked on a quest for a new approach to satisfy its energy needs. Intriguingly, the answer lay in the very element that had precipitated its ultimate capitulation.
For the Land of the Rising Sun, its aggressive wartime actions inadvertently set the perfect stage for the very force that led to its swift surrender: the advent of the atomic age. This new era, marked by the devastating impact of nuclear power, further compounded the suffering of its people, already deeply scarred by the brutalities of war, etching a new, formidable chapter into their daily lives.
The devastating introduction of this new, unparalleled power into the human realm brought the Japanese people not only profound sorrow but also critical lessons. One key lesson was their ability to transcend the immeasurable suffering they had endured and envision a future for their nation and its people, beyond the shadows of their traumatic past.
Japan’s destiny would not be marked by disintegration or isolation, responses that might have been expected under such circumstances. Instead, by enduring the seemingly unendurable and shouldering an even greater burden of hardship, Japan discovered a path of resilience. This path revealed the potential advantages of the very power that had once caused their downfall.
The birth of the nuclear age would not only drive Japan to develop a globally dominant economy but also to become one of the leading users of nuclear energy in the world. It would remain one until March 2011…
The sea beguiles one like no other, it is like the passion of a volatile lover. Violent storms once rode out can always be abated by the gentle balms, that bring consoling forgetfulness. A light breeze over a soothing swell, anaesthetises, re-charming the passion-raged soul, along with its powerful amnesia, creating a mollifying oblivion.
It is the ultimate selfish desire, which only heals the distress within those who are coveted, just enough for them to endure the next frenzied emotional typhoon, thus allowing the cravings of their wanting attraction to return again and again.
Always will it be so, that the potent sea and the passionate lover be confident in the eternal consumption of their addiction. Forever drawing each to the fate, that is perpetually written for them.
The Ogress Adachigahara
* * *
Chapter One
11 March 2011, 13.35 Coast of Fukushima
The fishing boat’s hull gently slapped against the light swell of the Pacific waters. Stood, brace-legged on the very point of the boat’s prow, Kurosawa Hikaru gently swayed in harmony with the short lapping movements of the small vessel. His breathing naturally cycling within him, his knees gently flexed to absorb the water’s soothing rhythms, harmonising with the movements as he allowed his spirit to attune to the powerful age-old forces of the deep ocean currents, held in abeyance beneath him.
He turned his face to the rays of the sun filtering through the midday light haze, controlling his breath, seeking inner calm amidst the clamour of the bustling fishermen behind him. By focusing on his breathing, he gained a few more moments of tranquillity. He brought his mind back to the immediate task of ladling the last of the bait fish over the guardrail of the craft’s bow. The oily, puce patterns of the small, bloodied fish hitting the water evoked a childhood memory of the autumn cherry blossoms of Fukushima Prefecture.
As the final bait vanished into the Pacific, its fish blood mingling with the vast ocean, his fleeting memory of the blossom faded, yielding to the relentless uproar of activity that surged behind him. Ending his brief meditation, he turned to look along the full length of the open deck. The Michi Maru was a tuna fishing boat, long and narrow, constructed in the traditional Japanese style; a craft built to cut through the sea at speed when called upon. The sleek bow gave it the ability to chase the fast and agile tuna shoals once they were located by the boat’s powerful ‘Fish Finder’ sonar. Moreover, and most importantly, this feature enabled the Michi Maru to swiftly head for shore upon the emergence of unyielding, turbulent weather on the horizon. However, this requirement for swiftness was a trade-off. For, in lumpy waters, at slow speeds or worse, at rest, when the tidal swells were strong, its slender draft made it wallow like an overweight sow drunk on fermented chestnuts. This movement of the craft could induce seasickness, even in some of the most seasoned of sailors, but it was a price worth paying for the promise of a quick catch and a safe return to shore.
The Michi Maru could hold about twenty-three crew but had only eighteen souls on board that day. The ones topside now split either side of Kurosawa, were running from the bow backwards to almost the stern. Fifteen men in all, each with a fishing pole, skilfully whipping Blue Fin Tuna out of the bloody waters over their heads and onto the decks behind them.
The fishing poles bore a resemblance to the Tenkara variety used in river fishing, but these demanded individual skills for hooking and efficiently despatching the fish, embodying an industrial essence in their design and use.
An array of jets which ran around the hull of the vessel just below the deck, sprayed outwards with constant streams of water agitating the sea around the craft, masking its outline to the fish below.
In conjunction with the water spray was the live bait Kurosawa had been scooping over the side, these two elements acting as a dynamic lure continually drawing the fish in. Behind him fish were being repetitively arced out of the frothing sea by the fishermen. Skill and ingenuity combined became a deadly attraction for the remarkable creatures that did not have the capacity to resist. Fish after fish were being efficiently whipped out of the water, each one ending up on the sloping deck behind them, landing with a violent slap as their solid, muscular bodies hit the steel catchment chute. The surface of the deck was drenched with a mixture of sea water and fish blood, from where the barbless hooks of hig
The fisherman remained focused on recasting their lures, economic in the rhythmic consistency of their motion, creating a kind of perpetual kinetic energy that they continually imparted into the pendulum action of the Tenkara rods. The Pole Men steadily took one fish after another, in a deadly dance of strike, whip and rip. The tuna, unable to resist the ship’s allure, would only end when the shoal had ceased to exist, or the hold was full.
Kurosawa had used the day’s labour to lose himself in the repetition of his mechanical task, employing it as a temporary balm for his ever-troubled thoughts. To him these trips were a kind of aquatic basket weaving, a type of occupational therapy of the sea. But now the bait had long gone, along with the hours of his waking meditation. He got up from his seat next to the tank that had held the little fish and started to cross from his station to the bridge to tell the captain that the bait had been consumed. He was about to open the door to the wheelhouse, when it flew open, almost hitting him. The captain suddenly stuck his head out of the doorway, directly into Kurosawa’s face. He began frantically shouting and wildly waving his arms in the air, as he pushed past Kurosawa and came out onto the deck.
‘Stop! Stop, the hold is full, stow the poles and start cleaning up top-side – and make sure the catch is well iced when you have stowed it all below.’
He had said little to the captain during the trip out into the Pacific, other than during the initial brief introduction. An exchange facilitated for him by Kengo, an acquaintance who was one of the regular crew members and that had been a minimum of the social perfunctory requirements to secure him the job on board. The captain had not offered his name to Kurosawa, he had been preoccupied with getting the boat ready to disembark, so it had been a brusque, cursory meeting. To the captain he was just another dayworker, which suited Kurosawa fine.
The nameless Captain, known for his minimalist communication, treated Kurosawa with the same concise orders he gave to the rest of the crew, a dynamic Kurosawa preferred. Yet, in a fleeting moment of unexpected face-to-face encounter, the captain glimpsed a peculiar expression on Kurosawa’s face before he quickly diverted his eyes to the deck. That brief, unsettling expression left the captain feeling uneasy, a rare occurrence in their otherwise straightforward transactions.
Some of the crew were still hooking in a few more fish before they were told to withdraw their poles. With no further room in the hold, these tuna were ripped off the flashing lures with a flick of the wrist, the pole and line snapping like bullwhips as they struck the fish off their hooks and back into the sea. With mouths torn and gashed by the hooks, the tuna made bloody trails through the water as they frantically swam away from the boat to freedom.
Kurosawa waited until all the poles were out of the water before removing his safety hat and visor and moving aft. He had been hit by a rogue tuna before, some of which could weigh as much as thirty kilograms; even the lighter ones could pack a significant punch after being launched off the line. Also, being caught on one of the vicious looking fishing hooks was not a pleasant experience. Several of the crew sported scars from the pitiless barbs. He soon realised that many of the crew were keen to show off their battle scars from this particular occupational hazard. Several of the scars Kurosawa had been reluctantly exposed to on the journey were located in rather unconventional places, making him grateful that the trip out had been a brief one.
The crew started to clean up as the captain pulled the boat about. They were about fifty kilometres off their home Port of Namie as the Michi Maru headed in. Its bow rose out of the waters as the captain applied more power and its sleek hull started to pick up momentum. It quickly reached its cruising speed of fifteen knots on the flat, calm sea. This was the optimum speed for good stability to allow the crew to stow the gear, sort the fish and still get to Namie by early afternoon.
Kurosawa busied himself helping the crew, he definitely was not a fisherman by trade, but liked to go out with one of the boats four or five times a year. He was no stranger to graft – indeed as with most Japanese, he found honourable labours carried out diligently brought with it spiritual solace. Namie was a small town, and he knew many of the fisherman there; fishing boat skippers were ever willing to take on unpaid deck crew or Kōhanshu. They were often short on crew, so an extra pair of hands, particularly one they didn’t have to share the haul profit with, was always welcome. As most fishing villages around the shores of Japan, Namie struggled to compete with other industries in the area, possibly because they did not involve being out in all weathers for low pay, being smacked by a fish, caught on a hook or possibly falling overboard and drowning. Consequently, getting a place on board was usually not an issue.
The problem was he had already made the decision to go on board that particular day…
* * *
At around 14.00 the port started to materialise on the horizon; a misty haze of pastel colours as if someone had painted a vivid watercolour where the grey sea met the duskier land. Though it had been overcast for most of their trip into the Pacific, the weather had held for the main part, the waters calm.
Until they reached the harbour and had to start unloading their lucrative catch, the work for the time being was done. The crew sat around the deck in small groups of contentment, smoking and chatting amongst themselves, some were passing a flask around, each accepting a sip of sake before passing on to the next man, taking satisfaction from an honest day’s labour.
Kurosawa was leaning against the bridge, feeling the tendrils of a light breeze on his face and tasting the sea salt in the air. They were about half an hour out, this was the moment in the trip that he usually felt calm, cleansed and energised, and was the reason he took these little voyages in the first place; today though, something was amiss. He started to experience a deep sense of anxious foreboding, a sensation he was well-acquainted with, though typically perceiving it in others rather than himself. This feeling, unfamiliar in its internal origin, intensified his unease. As he let his mind start to internally examine the emotion, he was interrupted by the wheelhouse door swinging open again. The captain had locked the helm in place and stepped out of the bridge to stand next to him. He arched his neck and surveyed the sky and then the horizon.
‘No shite Hawks,’ he said simply.
Kurosawa followed his gaze. The captain was right, the fishing boats were normally mobbed by gulls on the return journey, looking for scraps from the boats. But today he could not see a single bird in the sky. He looked at the captain.
‘That is very odd,’ said the captain, pulling on tendrils of his wispy beard. ‘Very, very strange.’
Kurosawa saw a look of perplexing apprehension on the man’s face. Seeing such a look on such an experienced sailor was troubling and he was about to ask what he thought was going on when they both felt it.
The boat suddenly seemed to momentarily slow and pull backwards. A low moan of alarm went around the crew in the stern of the Michi Maru as they also felt the sea beneath them create the contrary swell. It was not just the boat that had slowed, the surrounding sea did so as well. Although the vessel continued to motor forwards, the very sea it was moving on was regressing, turning their small piece of the ocean into a kind of alarming watery treadmill for a few seconds. The uniquely odd sensation not only unbalanced everyone, it also caused a strange sickening feeling in the pit of their stomachs. The hull gave a little shudder, slowed slightly for a moment and then chugged on.
‘What the fuck was that!’ shouted one of the now totally spooked crew.
The captain began to bark orders at his crew to put on lifejackets and secure everything that had not been stored below. The underlying fear that he was struggling to control portrayed by the tremor resonating in his voice.
