* * * *
Sergeant Taro Kitahara (a Purple Hearted veteran of the 442nd RCT) had arrived in Tokyo on September 23, 1945, as a military intelligence linguist with the U.S. 97th Infantry Division. When that unit was deactivated, six months later, he was transferred to Korea--and the 6th Infantry Divison--for service in the same category. And, following _their_ deactivation (1 Jan. 1949), he was transferred back to Japan, to serve the 25th "Tropic Lightning" Division as an all-purpose interpreter!
In all that shuffling around, he lost a crucial piece of mail from his sister and her husband. The one notifying him that he had just become the uncle of seven-pound/seven-ounce Samuru Watanabe.
To remedy this, Anjiro Watanabe contacted Buck Fogarty in Hong Kong. The latter was now a foreign correspondent for a Los Angeles-based news wire service. But, during WWII, they had been O.S.S. agents, operating along the Thai/Burmese border. Anjiro, translating the Japanese radio traffic they intercepted; and Buck, relaying it to guerrilla units loosely attached to the British Fourteenth Army.
Then, one day, while evading a trigger-happy enemy patrol, Buck was wounded in the line of duty. Or, more precisely, he got hit by a stray bullet in the left posterial cheek!
The nurse who ultimately assisted in removing it was Corporal Katherine Anne DeCoteau; a Canadian metis later stationed in Japan as part of the British Commonwealth Occupation Forces. Her maternal grandparents--Russian Doukhobors from Sakhalin Island--had emigrated to British Columbia in 1900.* As a result, she spoke Japanese more fluently than Buck. So, he enlisted her aid in tracking down the good sergeant.
They achieved this objective at a certain Chinese restaurant in Yokohama. And, Sgt. Kitahara (which is Japanese for "north field") was so overjoyed by the news, he impulsively bear-hugged Cpl. Decoteau, while simultaneously kissing her full on the lips!
As Buck told Chet, eighteen years later: "When they pulled apart, I couldn't tell which of them was more shocked. Still, she couldn't have minded it, too much. Because, a year later, I was best man at their wedding in Seoul! They honeymooned in Bora Bora. And, nine months afterward, you came into the world."
Since Buck had frequently addressed Anjiro as "chet" (the Thai word for "brother") during their off-duty conversations in the CBI Theater, that was what the newlywed parents decided to name their son.
In short, then, Chet Northfield felt he owed his very identity to Buck. Which is why he felt so helpless, now.
He and his Uncle Jiro had been driven to the American embassy by Detective Sgt. Sun Tan of the Saigon Munincipal Police. The young detective was the personally handpicked driver of Lt. Nguyen Van Dinh. And, that was precisely who was waiting for them, in the backseat of an unmarked police car, at the embassy.
Anjiro joined him there, while Chet "rode shotgun" in the front passenger seat. The older police detective naturally started asking questions, when he saw the shrunken reporter in the cricket cage! But, he acquiesced when Anjiro suggested they postpone any discussion until they arrived at his house.
Upon reaching their destination, they reassembled in the privacy of Lt. Van Dinh's study. And, there, Chet briefed everyone of his rescuers about what had occurred at Club 23 Skiddoo.
By this point, of course, the shrunken reporter had been released from the cricket cage. And, the middle-aged ninja was quick to interrogate him.
"How did they do it, Buck? Chemical injection, or atomized solution?"
"Neither one. I was simply dragged into a corner, off-stage, and held against a wall while those deceptively dainty Amazons stared at me."
"Stared at you?"
The little man nodded: "Very intently, too. And, I couldn't look away from them. It was like I was hypnotized! Plus, there was some kind of...tingly feeling coming from where their hands pressed against me. The next thing I knew, I was staring at their toes!"
Anjiro mulled over what he had just been told. Giving Chet the opportunity to ask some of his own burning questions. Questions he no longer had the patience to refrain from asking.
"Uncle Jiro! What the frig is going on, here? How come seeing Buck in this condition didn't freak you out? Or, at least, make you speechless, the way it did me? In fact, why do you sound as if you've seen this type of thing before?"
The ninja half-smiled: "Because, I have, my nephew. I have!"
tbc
Giantess World
Author's Chapter Notes:
THE VAN DINH RESIDENCE, SAIGON, 1973