They Mocked the Slow Black Cat Over the Solomons—Until Every Night Convoy Began Disappearing, and the Ocean Started Whispering Back Through the Radio

The first time Lieutenant Haruto Koga saw a PBY Catalina, it was in daylight—so bright the sea looked like hammered metal and the clouds seemed painted on.

He and the other pilots were returning to base, engines humming, canopies speckled with salt, when the lookout on the coastal ridge began waving like a man trying to swat the sun out of the sky.

“Big one!” someone called over the radio. “Low and slow!”

Haruto turned his Zero toward the horizon and saw it: an ungainly flying boat with a long wing and a belly like a fisherman’s skiff. It moved with the lazy confidence of something that had no reason to fear. It didn’t dive. It didn’t twist. It didn’t sprint away like a proper fighter.

It simply kept flying, stubborn and level, as if the sky belonged to it by inheritance.

In the first second, Haruto felt irritation. In the second, he felt disbelief.

In the third, he laughed.

So did the others.

“You call that a warplane?” Ensign Mizuno said in Haruto’s ear, voice bright with youthful contempt. “It looks like it should be delivering mail.”

“It’s an American bathtub,” another pilot added. “If you shoot it, does it float better?”

Their laughter filled the radio like warm air, loosening the tightness that had become normal in every cockpit. Even their squad leader—stern Lieutenant Commander Sato—let out a small, reluctant snort.

Haruto banked for a closer look. The Catalina’s broad wing cast a shadow over the water. Sunlight flashed off its canopy. Its engines throbbed evenly, without urgency. For a moment Haruto imagined it landing right there, dropping a fishing line, and pulling up a ridiculous catch.

He swung in behind it, lining up his sight out of habit, not intent. The Catalina didn’t even wobble. It didn’t seem to care.

Sato’s voice snapped through the radio. “Don’t waste fuel. Stay alert. It’s only watching.”

“Watching what?” Mizuno scoffed.

Haruto kept his eyes on the big flying boat until it drifted toward clouds and vanished into brightness. He felt oddly unsatisfied, like a man who had thrown a stone at a tree and missed on purpose.

That evening, in the cramped mess hut, the Catalina became a joke that improved with every retelling.

Mizuno mimed its slow flight, arms out like a drunk heron. Another pilot imitated an American voice: “Excuse me, is this the way to the war?” The men laughed and banged their cups on the table until tea sloshed.

Haruto laughed too.

The only one who didn’t was Sato. He sat apart, listening without joining, his face half-shadowed by a hanging lamp that flickered every time the generator coughed.

When the laughter peaked, Sato finally spoke.

“You laugh because it’s slow,” he said. “Slow things can be dangerous when they choose the time.”

The room quieted for a heartbeat. Then someone muttered, “It’s still just a flying boat, sir.”

Sato’s eyes didn’t change. “Just remember what I said.”

Haruto told himself the commander was simply tired. Everyone was tired. Even laughter felt like a ration lately—something you saved and spent carefully.

Still, later, when Haruto lay on his cot listening to the jungle breathe outside, Sato’s words returned uninvited:

Slow things can be dangerous when they choose the time.

Haruto drifted to sleep with the image of the Catalina—steady, level, indifferent—crossing the sun like a bad omen that refused to look ominous.

---

A week later, the first pin vanished from the map.

The operations room on their island base smelled of sweat, paper, and chalk dust. A crude chart of the surrounding seas covered the largest wall, marked with shipping lanes and islands, with colored pins representing convoys. Haruto had always found the pins strangely comforting. They made the war look organized, manageable—like a game board where every piece had a place.

One morning, he walked in to see two officers bent over the map, their heads close as if they were studying a wound.

A red pin—one that had sat proudly near a narrow channel—was gone.

Haruto watched an intelligence clerk write in neat block letters on a clipboard: “Convoy K-17: No contact after 2300. Presumed lost.”

Presumed. Lost. Neat words. Clean edges.

The clerk didn’t look up. He didn’t need to. He had written this kind of sentence too many times.

Haruto found Mizuno near the doorway, chewing a piece of dried fruit as if it were tough leather.

“What happened?” Haruto asked.

Mizuno shrugged. “Night trouble. Patrol boats say they heard noise. Then silence.”

“American submarines?”

“Maybe.”

Mizuno tried to sound casual. But his jaw worked a little too hard.

Haruto stared at the empty spot where the pin had been. It looked like a missing tooth.

That day, Sato called the squadron together. He didn’t mention the pin directly. He didn’t have to. Everyone had seen it.

Instead, he talked about night discipline.

“Convoys will move after sunset,” he said. “Our job is to keep the air clean above them. Don’t chase shadows. Don’t scatter. And don’t assume the night hides you.”

The last sentence landed oddly, as if it belonged to a different language.

Afterward, Haruto approached Sato privately.

“Sir,” he said, careful with his tone, “are the Americans flying at night now?”

Sato studied him for a long moment. Then he answered in a low voice.

“Not like before,” he said. “Something has changed. Their night patrols are more… confident.”

Haruto hesitated. “Is it the flying boat?”

Sato didn’t confirm it. He didn’t deny it.

He simply said, “You’ll learn soon enough.”

---

Another week. Another pin.

Then another.

The convoys didn’t vanish all at once. They thinned, like hair falling out slowly until you suddenly noticed your scalp showing. It was always the same pattern: a convoy departed at dusk, hugged the darkness, sent short radio updates—then stopped speaking.

Sometimes a battered escort would limp into harbor at dawn with a crew that looked older than it had the night before. Sometimes floating debris was reported near a reef. Sometimes nothing was found at all, as if the ocean had learned to erase.

And always, the rumor came afterward, traveling faster than any official report.

A “black” Catalina. A “ghost boat” with wings. A slow aircraft that didn’t need speed because it didn’t hunt like a fighter.

It hunted like a patient animal.

They began calling it—half joking, half uneasy—the Black Cat.

Haruto hated the name. It sounded like a superstition dragged into uniform. But the men used it anyway, because naming fear made it feel smaller.

Then the jokes stopped being funny.

One afternoon, Haruto and Mizuno were sent on a routine patrol over the sea lanes. They found nothing—only the endless water and a few whitecaps that looked like torn paper. When they returned, the base was buzzing in a way Haruto had come to recognize: something had happened.

In the operations hut, a young communications officer was replaying a recorded radio exchange for anyone who would listen. The crackle and hiss made every voice sound like it was speaking from inside a storm.

A convoy captain: “All escorts, hold course. Lights out. Maintain spacing.”

Then silence.

Then another voice, strained: “Something above us… can’t see—”

Then a sudden burst of static, sharp and loud, followed by nothing at all.

The officer clicked the recording off and looked around, pale.

“That’s it,” he said. “That’s where it ends.”

Someone in the room cleared his throat. Someone else whispered, “Maybe their radios failed.”

But nobody believed that.

Haruto leaned toward Mizuno. “That voice,” he murmured. “It sounded like they saw something.”

Mizuno swallowed. “Or something saw them.”

They left the hut and walked toward the runway, the late afternoon sun slanting through palm fronds. Ground crew moved equipment in tense silence. Even the usual shouting sounded subdued, as if the base didn’t want to wake the jungle.

On the far side of the field, Sato stood alone watching the sea. Haruto and Mizuno approached him.

“Sir,” Mizuno said, trying to sound light, “if the Americans insist on bringing flying boats to a fighter war, perhaps they want to lose them.”

Sato didn’t even glance at him. His eyes remained fixed on the horizon.

“You’re still laughing,” Sato said quietly.

Mizuno’s grin faltered. “A little.”

Sato finally turned. His gaze was not angry. It was worse—tired, and certain.

“The Catalina you saw in daylight is not the one you should fear,” he said. “The one you should fear wears the night like clothing.”

Haruto asked, “What can a flying boat do against a convoy guarded by guns?”

Sato’s expression sharpened.

“It can do what it was built to do,” he said. “Find you. Follow you. And choose the moment when you are most blind.”

He looked past them toward the operations hut.

“And it doesn’t fly alone anymore,” he added.

Haruto felt the back of his neck prickle. “What do you mean?”

Sato’s voice dropped. “The Americans coordinate. They use ships. They use devices. They’ve learned how to turn darkness into an advantage.”

Then he straightened.

“Tonight,” he said, “you’ll escort Convoy T-3. You’ll see the ocean at its most honest hour.”

Haruto opened his mouth to speak, but Sato raised a hand.

“No speeches,” Sato said. “No jokes. Fuel up.”

---

By dusk, the sky had become a bruised strip of purple and red. The convoy waited offshore—dark hulls floating like patient beasts. There were cargo vessels, smaller escorts, and the quiet, practical craft that did most of the real work in war: barges, tenders, boats with no glamour and no mercy.

Haruto stood on the sand near the revetments, watching mechanics tighten panels and check lines on his Zero. The engine cowling gleamed faintly. The aircraft looked sleek, purposeful, beautiful—everything the Catalina had not been.

And yet, as darkness deepened, Haruto felt no pride in that beauty.

Mizuno climbed up onto his wing root and leaned into the cockpit, adjusting his straps with practiced ease.

“Still think it’s funny?” Haruto asked.

Mizuno forced a grin. “If I don’t laugh, I’ll start counting how many pins are missing.”

Haruto almost smiled, but the humor died before it reached his face.

They took off just as the last light drained out of the sky. The island shrank behind them. The convoy below became a set of moving shadows with faint wakes, like fish gliding under glass.

Their orders were clear: circle above and slightly ahead, keep visual discipline, conserve fuel, and—most importantly—do not break formation chasing a single target.

Haruto wanted to believe those orders mattered. He wanted to believe discipline could outmatch whatever the Americans were doing.

Then the night began to feel watched.

It wasn’t a sound. It wasn’t a shape. It was a sensation—like walking through a room where someone had just stopped speaking.

Haruto glanced down at the sea. The convoy moved without lights. Only the soft foam at their bows showed their motion. Everything else was darkness.

The radio remained mostly quiet, except for occasional check-ins.

“Sato to Blue Flight. Maintain altitude.”

“Blue Flight acknowledges.”

Haruto’s hands stayed steady on the controls. His eyes scanned the darkness beyond the convoy’s path. He searched for any sign—an engine glow, a wing reflection, a break in the stars.

Nothing.

Minutes passed.

Then a new sound entered the cockpit: a low, distant engine note that didn’t match his own. It was slower, deeper, like a drumbeat carried across water.

Haruto stiffened.

“Mizuno,” he said, keeping his voice low, “do you hear that?”

A pause, then Mizuno’s reply: “Yes.”

Sato’s voice cut in sharply. “All flights. Report any contacts.”

Haruto leaned forward, peering into blackness. The sound grew slightly louder, then shifted, as if circling wide.

Haruto saw it then—barely more than a moving blot against the stars. A large aircraft, low, skimming just above the sea.

It was so dark it seemed carved out of the night. The only hint of its shape was the way it erased starlight behind it.

A flying boat.

Haruto’s pulse quickened.

“Contact,” he reported. “Low, ahead of convoy. Large silhouette.”

Sato responded instantly. “Do not dive alone. Hold position. I’m moving to intercept.”

Haruto watched as Sato’s aircraft banked, descending slightly to gain angle. Haruto and Mizuno followed at a cautious distance, maintaining the discipline they’d been ordered to keep.

As they closed, the silhouette resolved: a PBY Catalina, painted so dark it looked like a shadow that had learned to fly. No navigation lights. No careless glow. It moved with a calm that made Haruto’s teeth clench.

This was the Black Cat.

Mizuno’s voice came through, smaller now. “It’s… really black.”

Haruto almost wanted to laugh at the simplicity of the observation, but nothing in him could laugh anymore.

Sato’s voice was controlled. “Stay high. Watch for escorts.”

Haruto’s eyes widened. Escorts?

He remembered Sato’s warning: It doesn’t fly alone anymore.

The Catalina continued on, unhurried, as if it knew exactly how much time it had.

Then something strange happened.

A faint greenish shimmer appeared on the water ahead of the convoy—like a floating star that had fallen gently and refused to sink. Then another shimmer. And another, spaced out along the convoy’s projected path.

Haruto frowned. “What is that?”

Mizuno whispered, “Lights.”

They weren’t normal lights. They didn’t flicker like lanterns. They glowed steadily, marking the sea like someone drawing points on a map.

Haruto felt a chill.

The Black Cat had dropped them—small floating markers, placed with deliberate spacing.

The convoy below kept moving, unaware or unable to react in time.

Sato’s voice sharpened. “They’re marking the route. They want the ships to run into their line.”

Haruto’s mouth went dry. “For what?”

Sato didn’t answer, because the answer arrived first.

A second sound—higher-pitched, faster—came slicing through the night. A different engine tone, more aggressive.

Then a third.

Haruto looked up and to the side and saw faint motion above: smaller aircraft, moving with purpose toward the glowing markers on the sea.

Not flying boats.

Fighters.

Haruto’s stomach tightened. The Black Cat wasn’t just hunting the convoy—it was guiding the hunt, shaping the night into lanes.

The sea, Haruto realized, had become a map again.

But this time, the map was being drawn by the enemy.

“Sato,” Haruto said urgently, “we have more contacts! Above!”

“I see them,” Sato snapped. “Blue Flight, climb. Do not lose altitude discipline.”

Haruto climbed, trying to gain advantage. But the American fighters had already approached with altitude and coordination. They moved like they had been invited to the exact point where the convoy would be.

Haruto’s breath came shallow.

So this was it.

The laughable flying boat was the beginning, not the threat itself.

It was the eye, the pointer, the quiet hand that arranged everything.

In the middle of the chaos, the Black Cat continued its work, sliding over the sea and dropping more faint markers that glowed like a path meant for someone else.

Haruto felt an irrational anger rise in him—anger at the Catalina’s calm, at its patience, at its refusal to behave like prey.

He wanted to dive and tear it apart with cannon fire.

But Sato’s earlier words held him like a grip:

Don’t chase shadows. Don’t scatter.

The American fighters swept in. The sky became a place of crossing engine notes and sudden streaks. Haruto turned hard to avoid a pass. He glimpsed tracers—brief lines that seemed to appear from nowhere and vanish.

Mizuno shouted, voice cracking. “They’re above me!”

Haruto snapped his aircraft around and saw Mizuno’s Zero rolling, diving slightly to escape an attacker. Haruto tried to line up a shot, but the American fighter moved away cleanly, as if it knew exactly how long to linger.

Haruto realized the Americans weren’t just firing at random.

They were controlling space.

Haruto fought to keep his formation, to keep his mind clear. The instinct to chase was powerful. It screamed at him: Go! Finish one! Prove you can!

But he resisted, remembering the pins disappearing from the map. Remembering how many men had died because someone had acted alone in darkness.

Below, the convoy began to react. Ships changed spacing. Some turned slightly, trying to avoid the glowing markers. But it was too late to undo the geometry the Black Cat had created.

A sudden flash lit the water—brief, bright, and distant. Then another. The convoy’s radio erupted in frantic bursts.

“Contact near lead vessel!”

“Something in the water—”

“Hold course—no, turn—”

Haruto’s chest tightened. He wanted to look down and understand, but he couldn’t. If he looked down too long, he would lose the fighter above him. If he lost the fighter above him, he would become one more vanished dot in the night.

Sato’s voice came through, clipped and urgent. “Haruto, stay with me. Don’t let them split us.”

Haruto gritted his teeth. “Understood.”

Then he saw the Black Cat again—still low, still calm—now turning in a wide circle that kept it just beyond the convoy’s frantic movements.

It was watching.

Not like a pilot watching.

Like a fisherman watching a net settle into place.

Haruto’s anger sharpened into decision.

“Sato,” Haruto said, “I can reach the flying boat. One pass. I can—”

“No,” Sato cut in. “That’s what it wants. It’s baiting you into the low layer.”

“But it’s guiding everything!”

“It’s guiding you too,” Sato snapped. “Hold.”

Haruto’s hands trembled slightly on the controls. He hated being held back. He hated the sense of powerlessness.

And then the Black Cat did something that made Haruto’s blood turn colder than any refusal could.

Its underside flashed briefly—like a hidden eye opening—then the floating sea markers brightened in sequence, as if someone were signaling down a line.

The American fighters shifted their approach angle immediately, sliding toward the convoy with new alignment.

Haruto realized, with a sudden sick clarity, that the Catalina wasn’t just marking.

It was coordinating.

It was the conductor.

It was the quiet brain behind the night.

Haruto’s laughter from weeks ago came back to him like a slap.

It looks like it should be delivering mail.

No. It had been delivering something else all along: certainty.

The battle above the convoy grew sharper. Haruto managed to force an American fighter away with a well-timed turn, but he couldn’t catch it. Every time he thought he had a favorable angle, the enemy was already moving as if anticipating his intent.

Mizuno’s voice came again, strained. “Lieutenant… I can’t see anything but dark and tracers.”

“Follow your instruments,” Haruto told him, voice tight. “Stay with us.”

Haruto wanted to sound confident. He wanted to be confident. But confidence was difficult when the enemy seemed to know where everything was—even in a place where sight should rule.

Below, more flashes lit the sea. Not constant. Not huge. But enough to suggest the convoy was being pried apart piece by piece.

And through it all, the Black Cat remained present—never rushing, never panicking, never leaving.

Haruto finally understood why the convoys vanished.

It wasn’t one dramatic moment.

It was a process.

A slow tightening.

A patient erasure.

The radio from the convoy turned into overlapping voices, some shouting coordinates, some pleading for instructions, some going abruptly silent mid-sentence.

Each silence felt heavier than sound.

Sato’s voice came, quieter now, as if he had accepted something.

“We’ve lost the center ship,” he said. “Others turning back.”

Haruto’s throat tightened. “Can we cover them?”

“We can try,” Sato replied. “But we can’t change what’s already been set in motion.”

Haruto stared at the Black Cat’s silhouette and felt something twist in his chest—an unfamiliar mixture of hatred and reluctant respect.

It was not the fastest thing in the sky.

It did not need to be.

It was the thing that arrived first and stayed last.

The thing that turned night into an advantage instead of an obstacle.

Haruto dove slightly—not toward the Black Cat, not fully—just enough to position himself between it and the convoy’s retreat path.

Sato immediately noticed. “Haruto. Hold altitude.”

Haruto didn’t disobey. He only adjusted, trying to find a compromise: a posture that could threaten without being baited.

Then the Black Cat turned toward him, just slightly, as if acknowledging his presence.

In that tiny shift, Haruto felt something uncanny, like eye contact.

The flying boat’s dark shape grew larger in his canopy as he approached at an angle—still not diving, still not committing.

Haruto’s finger hovered near the trigger.

He imagined a clean burst, the Catalina’s wing tearing, the shadow dropping into the sea. He imagined the glowing markers fading out, the American fighters losing their guidance, the convoy slipping away into chaos that favored no one.

But before he could act, a fast engine roar cut across his cockpit like a knife.

An American fighter sliced in, forcing Haruto to jerk upward and break away. Haruto’s chance vanished in a single heartbeat.

And the Black Cat continued on, unbothered.

That was when Haruto understood the final cruelty:

The Black Cat didn’t need to protect itself aggressively.

Its system protected it.

Its timing protected it.

Its role protected it.

It wasn’t brave. It was efficient.

Haruto pulled back into formation, breath shallow. His fuel gauge had dipped lower than he liked. The night seemed endless, but he knew his endurance was not.

Sato’s voice came once more, heavy with decision. “We return. We’ve done what we can.”

Haruto wanted to argue. He wanted to fight longer. But he looked down at the sea—at the scattered wakes, at the faint glow of markers still drifting—and he knew Sato was right.

You couldn’t punch the ocean and expect it to stop being water.

They turned back toward the island. Behind them, the convoy’s radio chatter thinned. A few escorts broke away, heading toward safety, their wakes thin and desperate.

Haruto glanced once more over his shoulder.

Far behind, low above the sea, the Black Cat still moved—steady, patient—like a dark thought that wouldn’t leave.

---

Back at base, dawn crept in as if ashamed to arrive.

The operations room felt smaller than usual, packed with men who didn’t speak much. The map on the wall waited like an accusation.

The clerk approached with a pin tray.

A senior officer pointed at the convoy’s last known track.

“Remove those,” he said.

The clerk’s hand hesitated for only a second. Then he pulled two pins, then a third, then a fourth—each one leaving a tiny empty hole in the paper.

Haruto watched, feeling as if each hole opened inside his own chest.

Mizuno stood beside him, face pale, eyes fixed on the map. He didn’t joke. He didn’t grin. He didn’t even sigh.

He simply said, almost inaudibly, “So that’s how they do it.”

Haruto nodded without looking away.

Sato entered the room quietly. For a moment he simply stared at the wall chart, as if weighing whether pins still meant anything at all.

Then he turned to the pilots.

“You saw it,” he said.

No one laughed.

No one denied.

Haruto spoke, voice rough. “The flying boat marked the sea.”

Sato’s eyes narrowed. “Yes.”

“And it coordinated,” Haruto added. “It wasn’t alone.”

Sato’s gaze held steady. “No.”

Haruto swallowed. “We used to think it was a joke.”

Sato’s expression softened—only slightly, and only for a moment.

“War teaches through humiliation,” he said. “It strips away the comfort of underestimating.”

He walked to the map and touched one of the empty holes with a fingertip.

“The Black Cat isn’t fast,” Sato said. “It doesn’t need to be. It finds. It waits. It points. And when it points, others arrive.”

Haruto felt a cold clarity settle over him.

The Catalina in daylight—slow, exposed, laughable—had been the mask.

The Catalina at night—black, patient, precise—was the truth.

And the truth had consequences measured in missing pins.

After the briefing, Haruto stepped outside. The sun was higher now, bright enough to make the runway shimmer. The world looked almost normal again, as if night had been a lie.

Haruto walked to his aircraft. Mechanics were already patching small scars on the fuselage. The metal looked tired, like everything else.

Mizuno approached, hands shoved deep into his pockets.

“I used to think speed was everything,” Mizuno said quietly.

Haruto didn’t answer at first. He watched a bird land on a fence post, tilt its head, then fly away as if it had no opinion on human wars.

“Speed matters,” Haruto said finally. “But only when you know where to use it.”

Mizuno nodded. “And they know.”

Haruto stared toward the sea. Even in daylight, he imagined those faint floating markers, glowing softly on black water. He imagined the Black Cat sliding low, indifferent, drawing invisible lines that ships couldn’t see until it was too late.

He realized something that made his throat tighten:

They hadn’t been laughing at the Catalina.

They had been laughing at their own assumptions.

That night, Haruto wrote in his logbook—not with poetic flourish, not with drama. Just a plain sentence, as if plainness could keep it from hurting:

“The enemy’s night patrol does not search like we do. It arrives already knowing where to look.”

He stared at the words until the ink dried.

Outside, the ocean remained the same color it had always been.

But on the map, there were new empty holes.

And somewhere beyond the horizon, Haruto knew, a slow black flying boat was already choosing the time for the next lesson.