In a field three miles from a village, Brubaker lay hiding in a rice paddy. What was he doing here, he wondered. Why wasn’t he at home in Denver tending to his law practice, having dinner with his wife and daughters. He looked up and saw the enemy soldiers closing in ...

Also by James Michener:

Fiction
TALES OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC*
RETURN TO PARADISE*
SAYONARA*
SELECTED WRITINGS
THE FIRES OF SPRING*
HAWAII*
CARAVANS*
THE SOURCE*
THE DRIFTERS*
CENTENNIAL*
CHESAPEAKE*
THE WATERMEN THE COVENANT*
SPACE*
POLAND*
TEXAS*
LEGACY*
ALASKA*
JOURNEY CARIBBEAN*
THE NOVEL*
MEXICO

Nonfiction
THE BRIDGE AT ANDAU*
RASCALS IN PARADISE*
JAPANESE PRINTS: FROM EARLY MASTERS TO THE MODERN
IBERIA: SPANISH TRAVELS AND REFLECTIONS*
MODERN JAPANESE PRINT: AN APPRECIATION
PRESIDENTIAL LOTTERY: THE RECKLESS GAMBLE IN OUR ELECTORAL SYSTEM
SPORTS IN AMERICA*
KENT STATE: WHAT HAPPENED AND WHY*
THE FLOATING WORLD

*Published by Fawcett Books

THE
BRIDGES
AT
TOKO-RI

James A. Michener

FAWCETT CREST  NEW YORK

Sale of this book without a front cover may be unauthorized. If this book is coverless, it may have been reported to the publisher as “unsold or destroyed” and neither the author nor the publisher may have received payment for it.

A Fawcett Crest Book
Published by Ballantine Books
Copyright © 1953 by James A. Michener

All rights reserved under international and Pan-American Copyright Conventions, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form. Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

ISBN 0-449-20651-3

This edition published by arrangement with Random House, Inc.

All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Fawcett Crest Edition: April 1973
First Ballantine Books Edition: June 1982
Twenty-seventh Printing: September 1993

To MARSHALL U. BEEBE

Jet Pilot

Contents
Contents
SEA
LAND
SKY
About the AuthorYou know your husband’s at war. You know he’s brave. But somehow you can’t believe that he’ll fall into the sea.” Her voice trembled.
When she regained control Admiral Tarrant asked, “Has Harry told you about the bridges? At Toko-ri?”
“No. He never talks about the war.”
“You must ask him about those bridges.”
Weakly she asked, “Is he involved with the bridges?”
“Yes. When we go back to sea, your husband must bomb those bridges.”
In a whisper she asked, “Why do you tell me this?”
He replied, “In 1942 I had a daughter as sweet as you. She was my daughter-in-law, really. Then my son was killed at Midway trying to torpedo a Jap carrier. She never recovered. For a while she tried to make love with every man in uniform. Thought he might die one day. Then she grew to loathe herself and attempted suicide. What she’s doing now or where she is I don’t know, but once she was my daughter.”
Nancy Brubaker could hardly force herself to speak but in an ashen voice she asked, “You think that ... well, if things went wrong at the bridges ... I’d be like. ...”
“Perhaps. If we refuse to acknowledge what we’re involved in, terrible consequences sometimes follow.”
A strange man was telling her that war meant the death of people and that if she were not prepared, her courage might fall apart and instinctively she knew this to be true. “I understand what you mean,” she said hoarsely.
“Let’s get your little girls and we’ll have dinner,” Tarrant said.
But Nancy was too agitated to see her daughters just then. She pointed to the end of the bar where Beer Barrel lay at last sprawled upon his arms, his face pressed against the polished wood. Will he fly against the bridges, too?” she asked.
When the admiral turned to survey the mammoth Texan his lean, Maine face broke into a relaxed smile. “That one?” he said reflectively. “He flies against his bridges every day.”

When Brubaker and Gamidge reached Tokyo, night had already fallen and there was slush upon the wintry streets that lined the black moat of the emperor’s palace. At the provost marshal’s office a major asked sourly, “Why you interested in a troublemaker like Forney?”
“He’s from my ship.”
“Not any more.”
“Major,” Brubaker asked directly, “couldn’t you please let me handle this?”
“A mad Irishman? Who wrecks a dance hall?”
“But this man has saved the lives of four pilots.”
“Look, lieutenant! I got nineteen monsters in the bird cage. Every one of them was a hero in Korea. But in Tokyo they’re monsters.”
Patiently Brubaker said, “Mike’s a helicopter pilot. The other night Mike and this sailor. ...”
The major got a good look at Nestor and shouted to a sergeant, “Is this the runt who slugged you?”
“Listen, major!” Harry pleaded. “The other night I ditched my plane at sea. These two men saved my life. This runt, as you called him, jumped into the ocean.”
The major was completely unimpressed. Staring at Nestor he said scornfully, “I suppose the ocean tore his clothes. Did he get his face all chopped up jumping into a wave?”
“All right, there was a brawl.”
“A brawl! A brawl is when maybe six guys throw punches. These two monsters took on all of Tokyo.”
It was apparent to Brubaker that pleading along normal lines would get nowhere, so he asked bluntly, “You married, major?”
“Yep.”
“Tonight’s the second night in eight months that I’ve seen my wife and kids. I left them at Fuji-san to get Mike out of jail. That’s what I think of these two men.”
The major stared at the docket listing Mike’s behavior. “You willin’ to cough up $80 for the damage he did?”
“I’d pay $800.”
“He’s yours, but you ain’t gettin’ no prize.”
A guard produced Mike Forney, his face a nauseating blue in contrast to the green scarf. “She’s marryin’ an ape from the Essex,” he said pitifully.
“I suppose you tried to stop her.”
“I would of stopped the ape, but he had helpers.”
When they reached the narrow streets where hundreds of Japanese civilians hurried past, Mike begged, “Talk with her, please, lieutenant. She might listen to you.”
He led Brubaker to one of the weirdest dance halls in the world. A war profiteer had cornered a bunch of steel girders and had built a Chinese junk in the middle of Tokyo. He called it the Pirates’ Den and installed an open elevator which endlessly traveled from the first floor to the fifth bearing an eleven-piece jazz band whose blazing noise supplied five different dance floors. The strangest adornment of the place was a mock airplane, piloted by an almost nude girl who flew from floor to floor delivering cold beer.
The steel ship was so ugly, so noisy and so crammed with chattering girls that Brubaker wondered how anyone had known a riot was under way and then he met Kimiko, Mike’s one-time love. She was the first Japanese girl he had ever spoken to and he was unprepared for her dazzling beauty. Her teeth were remarkably white and her smile was warm. He understood at once why Mike wanted her, and when she rose to extend her hand and he saw her slim perfect figure in a princess evening dress which Mike had ordered from New York, he concluded that she warranted a riot.
“I very sorry, lieutenant,” she explained softly, “but while Mike at sea I lose my heart to Essex man. Essex not at sea.”
“But Mike’s a fine man,” Brubaker argued. onth of a second, while ten slim Banshees roared in from the sea to resume command of the sky, Harry Brubaker understood in some fragmentary way the purpose of his being in Korea. But the brief knowledge served no purpose, for the next instant he plunged face down into the ditch.
Through the long afternoon that followed, Admiral Tarrant haunted his telephone, waiting word of the miracle that would save his son. When Mike Forney left the scow with his helicopter, the admiral had said, “Well, Mike’ll get him.” Then the leader of the F4U’s reported the copter burning.
Now, from the clandestine broadcaster near Wonsan came the facts: “Jet plane crash. Helicopter crash. Three Americans killed by communist troops.”
Shaken, the lean, hard-bitten admiral left flag plot and walked gravely to his tiny room, for he knew that he must report these facts to Nancy Brubaker, in Yokosuka. But as he stared at the paper he asked, “How do you explain to a wife that her husband has died for his nation? How do you tell that to a woman with two children?” And he thought of his own wife, sitting somewhere in a dark room knitting a child’s garment ... but it was already more than seven feet long.
The job was too much for him. Later, maybe, he would know what to write. Then he thought of the Cag, who had led this ill-starred mission. He burned with fury and summoned the Cag to him, lashing at the bullet-headed commander as soon as he appeared.
“Why was Brubaker abandoned?”
Cag’s eyes were red and tired from too much flying but he controlled his nerves and said, “We kept an air cap over him.”
“If one helicopter crashed, why didn’t you send another?”
“Sir, its not my job to dispatch copters. You ask for volunteers. And there are never enough Mike Forneys.”
“How was Brubaker hit in the first place?”
“He was working over the dumps.”
The admiral pounced on this. “What was he doing at the dumps?”
Patiently Cag explained. “Before we took off we agreed. If we get the bridges, we expend our ammo on the dumps.”
Icily, from the empty bitterness of his bosom, the old man asked, “Was that wise?”
Cag had taken enough. He’d stood this angry old tyrant long enough and there was no promotion in the navy that would make him take any more. “Admiral,” he said grimly, “this was a good mission. We did everything just right. I put Brubaker in charge of the third division because I could trust him to fly low and bore in with his bombs. He did just that.”
Cag, trembling with anger, rushed on, “Admiral, everybody in the air group knows that you selected Brubaker as your special charge. You do that on every command and we know why you do it. Some kid your own boy’s age. So today I led your boy to death. But it was a good mission. We did everything just right. And it was your boy who helped destroy the bridges. Admiral, if my eyes are red it’s for that kid. Because he was mine too. And I lost him.”
The old man stood there, staring stonily at the shaking commander with the bullet head while Cag shot the works. “I don’t care any longer what kind of fitness report you turn in on me because this was a good mission. It was a good mission.” Without saluting he stormed from flag country, his fiery steps echoing as he stamped away.
For many hours the admiral remained alone. Then toward morning he heard the anti-submarine patrol go out and as the engines roared he asked, “Why is America lucky enough to have such men? They leave this tiny ship and fly against the enemy. Then they must seek the ship, lost somewhere on the sea. And when they find it, they have to land upon its pitching deck. Where did we get such men?”
He went out to watch the launching of the dawn strike. As streaks of light appeared in the east, pilots came on deck. Bundled like animals awakened from hibernation, they waddled purposefully to their jets. The last to climb aboard was Cag, stocky and round like a snowball. He checked each jet, then studied his own. Finally, as if there were nothing more he could do, he scrambled into his plane and waited. Majestically, the task force turned into the wind, the bull horn jangled and a voice in the gloom cried, “Launch jets.”
Admiral Tarrant watched them go, two by two from the lashing catapult, planes of immortal beauty whipping into the air with flame and fury upon them. They did not waste fuel orbiting but screamed to the west, seeking new bridges in Korea.

THE END.

About the Author
James A. Michener was born in 1907 and raised by a Quaker woman in Pennsylvania. During World War II he served with the U.S. Navy and traveled across the Pacific. His TALES OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC won the Pulitzer Prize in 1947. He lives with his wife in Coral Gables, Florida and is a professor at the University of Miami.