“Is this what you mentioned before?” said Noda.
“It’s coming…” Koichi whispered. Then he raised his voice and shouted, “Sound the alarm! It’s Godzilla! Godzilla is here!”
Captain Akitsu immediately emerged from below deck with Mizushima in tow and quickly started barking out orders as he struggled into his jacket.
“So, it’s finally time, eh?” he said, clearly a little high-strung from the circumstances. “All right, kid! Go get those mines ready to drop at any minute! Shikishima, you man the machine gun!”
Koichi, terrified by the ominous number of fish, offered a counter-suggestion: “Let’s get out of here,” he said. “There’s no way we’ll stand a chance in this boat. If we leave now, we might still be able to get away in time.”
While the damage to the American cargo ship had already hinted at the idea that Godzilla had grown far larger and stronger than he’d been at Odo Island, the exponential increase in the number of dead fish carcasses only lent further credence to that theory.
“Yes, Captain,” said Noda. “We should retreat and assess the situation before doing anything hasty.”
But the captain ignored their pleas and climbed the ladder to the upper deck to take his place behind the steering wheel, where he took the ship’s compass in his hand.
“Doc, you go watch our rear,” he said. “Report the moment you see anything.”
“Captain!” Noda cried.
With his spare hand, Captain Akitsu grabbed the radio handset and started transmitting to their partner vessel.
“Shinsei Maru to Kaishin Maru,” he said. “The big boy’s gonna be here any minute now. Brace yourselves.”
“No worries here,” came the reply from the other ship. “We’ll bag the bloody monster and take home all the glory for ourselves.”
“Why, you little…”
The captain looked over and saw the crew of Kaishin Maru jump into action.
“Captain, please!” Mizushima cried.
“No way, kid,” he replied. “If we run now, Takao won’t have time to catch up. And where do you think that monster’s headed if we don’t stop it, huh? I dunno about you, but I for one don’t wanna see Tokyo go down in flames again.”
“I thought you hated taking orders from the government!” said Noda.
“You’re damn straight I do. It’s gonna be a shitty job, no doubt about that—but someone’s gotta do it.”
The captain seemed dead set in his resolve. And to be sure, if Godzilla was to be stopped before it made landfall, then somebody was inevitably going to have to risk life and limb to do so. But was this really a problem that a wooden minesweeping vessel should be sent to solve? How could it possibly stop a force of nature like Godzilla?
The answer, as it turned out, was that it couldn’t—as became cruelly evident in the very next moment, when the seas began to swell and Godzilla burst its giant head forth from the water, clamped its mighty jaws down on the hull of Kaishin Maru, and dragged the whole ship back down beneath the waves.
It all happened in the blink of an eye, the whole crew of the other ship being dragged to their watery graves before they even knew what hit them.
And what’s more, judging purely from the size of its head, Godzilla had grown far more gigantic even than Koichi had feared, its features more gnarled and rocklike as well. It looked so different and mutated now, in fact, that he almost wondered for a moment if this wasn’t an entirely different beast altogether.
Captain Akitsu, too, got goose bumps as he finally came to terms with the fact that this was no ordinary sea creature they were dealing with. No sense of duty or justice could help them here; to oppose Godzilla was akin to defying a god.
“Okay, yeah… We’re gettin’ the hell outta here!” he exclaimed.
Thinking of nothing but escape, the captain pushed the throttle up as high as it would go—but this sudden increase caused the engine to let out a tortured wheeze, and soon the propeller came to a complete stop. Mizushima and Koichi looked at each other with eyes wide as a cloud of black smoke and the smell of burning oil spilled out from the engine room, almost as if to spell their doom.
“Doc!” cried the captain. “What’s wrong with the engine?”
“I’m working on it!” shouted Noda, poking his head out from the fumes, his face pitch black with soot. He wiped the sweat from his brow with his upper arm, then dove back into the cloud of smoke, tool in hand, to try to fix the issue.
But just across from them, where Kaishin Maru had been just minutes ago, Godzilla’s dreaded dorsal fins now reemerged like volcanic crags from the surface of the water—appearing larger and larger as they now made a beeline toward Shinsei Maru. With each passing second, they grew ever closer; if they collided with the little boat at this velocity, Shinsei Maru would surely be shredded into a cloud of wood chips. Their impending doom was looking them dead in the face, just a few seconds away—when, all of a sudden, Noda leaned his head out from the engine room window again.
“Okay!” he shouted. “Hit it!”
Captain Akitsu gripped the lever and threw it forward—full throttle—and the engine sputtered to life once more. But that alone did not mean the crew were out of harm’s way just yet, as it took several moments for the old boat to limber up and set into motion. Only when the gigantic dorsal fins were just inches away did the little ship finally begin to slowly putter away, escaping collision by only a hair’s breadth. Godzilla’s dorsal fins came so close to shredding Shinsei Maru’s stern, Koichi could feel the spray of water they displaced in their passage.
But just when they thought they’d outmaneuvered the beast, Godzilla slowly turned its heading and began to give chase. Even at full speed, there was no way the tiny boat could possibly outrun its pursuer. The whole crew knew they were facing certain death.
“Quick! Drop the mine!” the captain shouted.
“It’s already right behind us!” Noda shouted back. “There’s not enough time!”
“Well, figure it out!”
After one last look of protest toward the captain, Noda hoisted up the first mine hanging from the davit crane at the rear of the ship and pushed it out over the sea. As soon as it was in place, he hit the release mechanism, and the mine fell into the choppy waters in Shinsei Maru’s wake, lolling from side to side as Godzilla grew closer and closer. Then at last, when it was only meters away from the creature’s massive dorsal fins, the captain gave the order:
“Now, Doc!” he yelled. “Blow ’er up!”
“It’s still too close to us!” Noda cried.
Mizushima reached over and snatched the detonator from Noda’s hesitant hands.
“Here goes nothing!” he shouted.
BOOM!
A massive pillar of water burst forth, and in an instant, Godzilla’s dorsal fins were erased from view. The explosion shot forth a spray of seawater that fell harder and faster on the little boat than a sudden squall. The men kept their eyes peeled and watched with rapt attention as the mist cleared, wondering if perhaps they’d dealt the beast a fatal blow.
But through the pillar of water soon emerged Godzilla’s enormous head—still in hot pursuit and utterly undeterred by their attack. It opened its massive jaws and let out a roar as if mocking the crew’s pathetic attempt; even detonating an explosive mine at point-blank range had no effect on it whatsoever.
“Well, so much for that!” shouted Noda.
“Oh man, oh man, oh man!” cried Mizushima.
“Shikishima!” the captain barked. “Lay into it with the machine gun!”
Koichi climbed up onto the emplacement and gripped the gun with both hands.
For a split second, the horrors he’d witnessed back on Odo Island flashed before his eyes.
Godzilla attacking.
His comrades in danger.
His finger hesitating on the trigger.
Koichi noticed that his hands were trembling.
“Shikishima!” shouted the captain, impatient. “Come on already!”
Snapping out of it, Koichi took aim and began firing at the beast. Once he’d let the first shot fly, he found it almost impossible to stop due to the adrenaline, and he kept firing like a man possessed until he’d exhausted the entire magazine, and then the next. But Godzilla paid those measly bullets no mind whatsoever and just kept gaining on Shinsei Maru. There was no doubt about it; this was a new, far more fearsome Godzilla than the one he’d encountered on Odo Island, which had at least shown some response to bullets—and from infantry rifles even.
“It’s no use!” Koichi cried out. “I can’t even put a dent in it!”
As he turned over his shoulder to shout this at the captain behind him, Godzilla raised its massive head from the surface of the water and opened its gigantic jaws—baring its fangs as though it meant to swallow the Shinsei Maru whole. But seeing the creature with its mouth open like this gave Noda an idea.