End of the Beginning

VI

ANYONE WHO WANTED TO HOLD AN OUTDOOR CEREMONY IN BUFFALO IN March-even at the end of March-was rolling the dice. There was a backup plan, then. Had the weather gone south (or rather, in Buffalo, gone arctic), Joe Crosetti and his fellow cadets would have received their commissions in the Castle, an impressive-looking crenellated building in the eastern part of the Front, the park that nestled up against Lake Erie.

The Castle, as far as Joe was concerned, had only one thing wrong with it: it was the headquarters of the Buffalo Girl Scouts. He could hardly imagine a less martial place to become an officer in the U.S. Naval Reserve.

But the weatherman cooperated. The day dawned bright and sunny. The mercury was in the upper forties. In San Francisco, that would have been frigid at noon. Everybody from less temperate parts of the country kept assuring him it wasn’t bad at all. Since he wore a warm wool uniform, he couldn’t argue with them too much.

Memorials to Buffalo units that had fought in the Civil War and the Spanish-American War were scattered over the park. They were probably easier to spot at this season of the year than in high summer, when leaves would have hidden many of them from view. Seeing them reminded Joe of what he was at last becoming fully a part of.

So did the tall bronze statue of Oliver Hazard Perry. The folding chairs for the ceremony were set up in front of it. “This is a good place for doing what we’re doing,” Joe said to Orson Sharp.

Sharp nodded. “I’ll say. ‘We have met the enemy and they are ours!’ ” he quoted.

Joe had forgotten that. He suddenly laughed. “And the enemy he was fighting was England, and she’s the best friend we’ve got.”

“Yeah.” The young man from Utah laughed, too. “And do you remember who his younger brother was?”

“Afraid not,” Joe admitted. He’d done okay in history, but he hadn’t set the world on fire.

“Matthew Perry-the guy who opened up Japan,” Sharp said.

“Holy Jesus!” Joe said. “Boy, he never knew how much he has to answer for, did he? He should have left it closed. That would have saved everybody a lot of trouble.”

“Places, gentlemen, places,” someone called in an official-sounding voice.

Places were in alphabetical order. Joe sat up near the front, his roomie toward the back. The mayor of Buffalo made a speech praising all the bright young patriots who passed through his city on their way to knocking the stuffing out of the Axis. It sounded like every other political speech Joe had ever heard until his Honor pointed to the bridge spanning the Niagara River at the north end of the Front. “That’s the Peace Bridge,” he said. “This end is in the United States; the other end is in Canada. We want peace all through the world, but we will have to win this war before we can get it.”

Along with the other cadets, Joe applauded. Most of the clapping sounded dutiful. Joe’s was a little more than that. The mayor’s words echoed what he’d been thinking himself. What would Oliver Perry have made of a Peace Bridge between the USA and what was still a dominion of the British Empire? And what would Matthew Perry have made of a war between the United States and what had been a backward, hermit kingdom-especially of a war the Japanese looked to be winning at the moment? Which of the old sea dogs would have been more surprised?

After the mayor sat down, another speaker limped up to the microphone. The cadets greeted him with a hand much more heartfelt than the one they’d given his Honor. Lieutenant Zachary Gunston was a Buffalo native. Like Jack Hadley, he’d also been a Wildcat pilot in the battle in the North Pacific the summer before. Also like Hadley, he’d had to ditch his fighter, and a destroyer had plucked him from the drink.

He pointed out to the cadets. “It’s up to you to carry the ball,” he said. “My buddies and I, we took it as far as we could go. We didn’t quite have the machines we needed, and we didn’t quite have the techniques we needed, either. You’ve learned in your training a lot of what we had to find out the hard way. Your ships will be better. Your planes will be better-I hear the fighters aboard the new carriers are a long step up from Wildcats. But in the end”-he pointed again-“it’s going to be up to you, and what you’ve got inside you.

“We made a mistake,” Gunston went on. “We figured the Japs were patsies, pushovers. We’ve been paying for that mistake ever since we made it. They’re tougher and smarter than we ever dreamt they could be. Now it’s going to be up to you to teach ’em a lesson: no matter how tough they are, no matter how smart they are, nobody sucker-punches the United States of America and gets away with it. Nobody! Am I right or am I wrong?”

“Right!” The word came out as a fierce growl from the throat of every graduating cadet. Joe felt like a dog snarling at another dog on the street-and God help that other sorry mutt, too!

“Okay, then, gentlemen. I think you are about ready to be commissioned now,” Lieutenant Gunston said.

“Please rise, raise your right hands, and repeat the oath after me.” Along with his classmates, his squadmates, Joe Crosetti did. Pride tingled through him. If he had to blink rapidly several times to keep tears from forming and running down his face, he wasn’t the only one. Beside him, another kid’s eyelids were marching doubletime, too. When the oath was complete, Gunston looked out at the brand-new officers. “Welcome to the Navy, Ensigns! You’ve got a big job ahead of you.”

Joe looked down at the gold stripe on his sleeve. He was as junior an officer as possible-an ensign with no seniority-but he was, by God, an officer! Crosetti the fisherman’s son, an officer in the U.S. Navy! If this wasn’t one hell of a country, he didn’t know what would be.

“Congratulations, Ensign Crosetti,” said that youngster beside Joe who’d also been blinking. He was blond and handsome and looked as if he came from a Main Line family. Maybe he did. But he wasn’t any more an ensign than Joe was.

“Thanks, Ensign Cooper. Same to you,” Joe said. Nobody was ragging on anybody today, and who your father was, what he did for a living, or how big a bankroll he had didn’t matter. The way it looked to Joe, that they didn’t, or shouldn’t, matter was a big part of what the war was about.

Twisting, he looked back towards Orson Sharp. He couldn’t see his roomie. Too many other newly minted officers stood between them. Guys were starting to move around and find their special friends. Even when Joe did, he had trouble seeing past the taller people in his class. But he knew about where Sharp would be, and headed back there. Sharp was coming up toward him. They clasped hands.

“We’ve been waiting a long time,” Joe said-it seemed like forever since he’d volunteered. “Now-”

“We get to wait some more,” the ensign from Utah finished for him. “We have to get a ship. We have to get trained up on whatever we fly, whether it’s a Wildcat or one of these new jobs Lieutenant Gunston was talking about. And we have to wait till enough carriers are ready to give us the best shot at licking the Japanese.”

Every word of that was eminently sensible. Joe liked it no more because of that. If anything, he liked it less. “You’re no fun,” he said.

“I know,” said Sharp, who laughed at the wet-blanket reputation he’d had all the way through the training program. “Before too long, though, the Japs will say the same thing.”

“Yeah!” Joe said.

WATCHING SOME OF THE PILOTS who’d come to Hawaii as replacements, Lieutenant Saburo Shindo wondered how they’d ever made it out of flight school. They had trouble finding Haleiwa, let alone landing at the airstrip there. A few of them might never have made the acquaintance of their airplanes before these flights, or so it seemed to Shindo.

When he finally couldn’t stand watching any more, he got on the telephone to Commander Fuchida.

“Moshi-moshi,” the head of the Japanese naval air effort said. “Fuchida here.”

“This is Shindo, Fuchida-san. What the devil’s happened to flight school since we went through it?” Mitsuo Fuchida laughed, not all together comfortably. “By all I’ve heard from Japan, nothing much has happened to it.”

“Then what’s wrong with the chowderheads it’s turning out?” Shindo demanded. “Plenty of the Americans we faced were good pilots. We had better planes, and that helped a lot, but we had better fliers, too. These people… Yes, a Zero is better than a Wildcat, but it’s notthat much better-not enough to let these people go up against Wildcats with good pilots and hope to beat them.”

“They’re about the same as we were when we got out of flight school,” Fuchida said.

“No!” Shindo denied the mere possibility.

But Fuchida said, “Hai. The difference, Shindo-san, is that we had plenty of combat experience against the Chinese and the Russians who flew for them before we took on the Americans. We were veterans. We were ready.”

Shindo thought about it. Had he been that green when he left the flight school at Kasumigaura? He didn’t want to believe it. He’d certainly thought he knew what he was doing. Of course, so did these gas-wasting idiots. “Maybe,” he said, most grudgingly.

“With some experience, they’ll do fine.” Fuchida’s voice was soothing. “And remember, the Yankees have taken worse combat losses than we have. If they come at us, they’ll have more inexperienced pilots in the air than we do.”

“I suppose so.” Shindo still wasn’t happy. “Have you seen these new ones, though? They haven’t had much time up there, and they sure fly like it. Fuel still must be tighter than a mouse’s asshole back in the home islands.”

“Er-yes.” Fuchida, a straitlaced sort, made heavy going of the comparison. He continued, “It shouldn’t be. With the Dutch East Indies in our hands… That’s why we fought the war in the first place.”

“If the problem isn’t fuel, the program’s gone to the dogs,” Shindo said. “It’s as simple as that. I tell you, some of these people aren’t ready to fly combat missions against pilots who know what they’re doing.”

“Get them as ready as you can, Shindo-san, and do it as fast as you can, too,” Fuchida said. “Things are stirring in the United States. The Yankees keep launching new carriers, and they’re supposed to be getting new fighters, too.”

“You’re full of good news today,” Shindo said. “Where are our new fighters?”

Fuchida didn’t answer that. Shindo knew why, too. The replacement for the Zero had been on the drawing boards for a couple of years. It seemed unlikely to come off the drawing boards any time soon. The Army was starting to get a new fighter. The Hien, with an engine based on the one that powered the German Me-109, was a much tougher plane than the Hayabusa. But it was also much less reliable, needed skilled mechanics-always in short supply-to keep it running, and was available in much smaller numbers than the older machine.

“One thing that will give the new pilots flight time is antisubmarine patrolling,” Fuchida said. “The more enemy boats we can sink, the better off we are. You know that.”

“I know something about it,” Shindo said. Despite the sub he’d sunk, the Yankees hadn’t left Hawaiian waters. They kept on with their part of the war as if nothing had happened. Americans owned more stubbornness and more courage than Shindo or most Japanese had expected.

“All we can do about this is the best we can,” Fuchida said. “I constantly work with the destroyer skippers so they can do a better job of attacking the American boats. The problem is not easy. Ask the Americans themselves, or the British, if you don’t believe me. They have it in the Atlantic.”

“I have more urgent things to worry about-like why my so-called replacement pilots aren’t as good as they ought to be,” Shindo said. “And another one occurs to me, too: when the Americans try again, they’re going to throw more ships and planes at us than they did last time, neh?”

Commander Fuchida was silent for a moment. “I don’t know that for a fact,” he answered cautiously when he did speak.

Shindo gave him a scornful snort. “I don’t know it for a fact, either, but it’s the way to bet, eh?”

“Yes, probably,” Fuchida admitted.

“All right-we’re thinking the same way, then,” Shindo said. “When we came to Hawaii, we hit with everything we had. The Americans didn’t the last time, and it cost them. It was three carriers against three last time. We only have two in these waters now. If they bring more than three, two may not be enough. When do the reinforcements come, and how many will there be?”

Mitsuo Fuchida was silent quite a bit longer this time. “Well, that’s not such an easy question to answer, Shindo-san.”

With another snort, Shindo said, “I’m afraid you just did.”

“Things are… difficult.” Fuchida sounded defensive, not a good sign. “The Americans in Australia are bombing the southern coast of New Guinea as heavily as they can. And the British are kicking up their heels in the Indian Ocean. Admiral Nagumo’s raid a year ago didn’t clear them out of there. They bombed Rangoon and even Singapore not long ago.”

“I hadn’t heard that,” Shindo said.

“We don’t go out of our way to advertise it,” Fuchida said. Shindo grunted. The other officer went on, “But what it boils down to is, our carrier forces are stretched thinner than we wish they were.”

“Wonderful,” Shindo said sardonically. “The Americans are building new carriers as fast as they can, aren’t they?” He didn’t wait for an answer, not that Fuchida tried to deny it. Instead, not trying to hide his anger, he plowed ahead: “Where the devil are our new carriers, Fuchida-san?”

“We’ve launched Taiho,” Fuchida told him. “She’s supposed to be a step up from Shokaku and Zuikaku. ”

A step up from Japan’s newest, strongest fleet carriers would make Taiho a formidable ship indeed. But launching a carrier and putting her into action were two different things, as Shindo knew only too well.

“When will we be able to get some use out of her?” he asked.

Unhappily, Fuchida answered, “Early next year, I hear.”

“Wonderful,” Shindo said again, with even more sarcasm than before. “All right, then. Let me ask a different question, sir. When do we get Zuikaku back? It’s been a long time since she limped off to the home islands to get fixed up.”

“Now there I really do have good news,” Fuchida said. “She is ready to return to duty now.”

“Well, fine-that is good news. Took them long enough, but it is,” Shindo agreed. “So we still have the same six fleet carriers that started the war, plus a few light carriers for small change. What can the Yankees throw at us?” He refused to count Taiho. She would be worth something-with luck, worth a lot-later on, but not yet.

“They have Hornet, if she’s been repaired by now. They have Ranger. They have Wasp. They also have some light carriers. And they have whatever new fleet carriers they’ve built. We are just about certain of two.”

Shindo brightened. “That’s better than I thought. They have two oceans to cover, too.”

“But the British help them in the Atlantic and cause us trouble in the Indian Ocean,” Fuchida said. “This is a world war, Shindo-san. And their advantage is that they can join hands. There’s too much space between us and Germany to make that easy on our side.”

“Hai,” Shindo said. The Germans had managed to get their fancy aircraft engine and the drawings that went with it to Japan by submarine. Such ventures were all too rare, though, while America and England might have been in bed with each other. Shindo sighed. “If only the Russians had gone down…”

“Yes. If,” Fuchida said heavily.

That seemed unlikely to happen now. For a while there, after the disaster at Stalingrad, it had looked as if Germany would go down instead. But the Germans were nothing if not resilient. They’d stabilized the front and even regained a lot of ground. That fight had a long way to go; it remained up in the air. Even so, the quick German victory on which Japan had pinned so many hopes was nothing but a pipe dream. And, while Germany and Russia remained locked in a death embrace, Russia and Japan were neutral. That created all kinds of ironies. Russian freighters from Vladivostok freely crossed the Pacific to the West Coast of the USA even though Japan and America battled to see who would dominate the ocean. Japan did nothing to interfere with those ships. When they got to Seattle or San Francisco or Los Angeles, they took on American planes and tanks and trucks and munitions the Russians would use against Germany, Japan’s ally. Then they sailed back across the Pacific, and Japan still did nothing to interfere. It was a strange business.

It was also one for which Shindo had no taste. He went back to the things over which he did have some control: “Fuchida-san, can you get me some extra fuel up here?”

“I don’t know,” Fuchida answered cautiously. “Why do you need it?”

“I want to take these puppies up and let them get some practice dogfighting me,” Shindo answered.

“Once they see I can shoot them down whenever I please, or near enough, they’ll start to realize they don’t know everything there is to know.”

“That would be good,” Fuchida said. “I can’t promise you anything-you know how tight the gasoline situation is. But I’ll try.”

“We can’t fight the Americans if we don’t have the gas to train our pilots,” Shindo said.

“Yes, I understand that,” Fuchida replied. “But we can’t fight them if we don’t have the gas to get our planes off the ground, either. The more we use beforehand, the less we’re liable to have when we need it most.”

“This is no way to fight a war,” Shindo said. Commander Fuchida didn’t contradict him. Fuchida said nothing to reassure him, either.

IN JIM PETERSON’S MILITARY EDUCATION, he’d never learned the difference between dry beriberi and wet. Somehow, the instructors at Annapolis hadn’t thought either kind important enough to put on the curriculum. That only went to show they hadn’t realized slowly starving to death might form part of a naval officer’s career.

Only goes to show what a bunch of ignorant bastards they were, Peterson thought as he lay in the miserable bamboo hut in the Kalihi Valley. It was raining. Of course it was raining. As far as Peterson could see, it always rained in the valley. The roof leaked. Since the Japs didn’t let the POWs use anything but leaves to cover it and didn’t give them much time even to put on more leaves, that wasn’t the world’s hottest headline, either.

Looking around, he had no trouble telling the wet beriberi cases from the dry. Men who had wet beriberi retained fluid. They swelled up in a grotesque and horrible parody of good health. Swollen or not, though, they were starving, too.

Prisoners with dry beriberi, by contrast, had a lean and hungry look. Like mine, Peterson thought through his usual haze of exhaustion. The pins and needles in his hands and feet were red-hot fishhooks and spikes.

The really alarming thing was, he could have been worse off. When cholera went through the camp a few weeks earlier, he hadn’t caught it. He’d buried some of the dark, shrunken corpses of men who had-after he put in his usual shift at the tunnel, of course. Cholera killed with horrifying speed. You could be normal in the morning-well, as normal as POWs got, which wasn’t very-and shriveled and dead by the afternoon.

One nice thing: cholera scared the Japs, too. Several guards had died just as fast as any prisoners. Beriberi, by contrast, didn’t bother them at all. Why should it? They had plenty to eat, and the right kind of food, not just a starvation diet of boiled white rice and not much else.

Peterson looked around, hoping to spot a gecko. POWs ate the little lizards whenever they could catch them. Sometimes they roasted them over little fires. More often, they didn’t bother. When you were in the kind of shape they were in, raw meat was as precious as any other kind.

“You know what?” Gordy Braddon asked from beside Peterson. The Tennessean was as skinny as he was, with knees wider than his thighs. A nasty abscess ulcerated one calf. Pretty soon, the medical officer would have to cut it out to keep it from going gangrenous. A puckered red scar on Peterson’s leg showed where he’d gone through that. Ether? Chloroform? The Japs had them. They laughed when the medical officers asked for some. The medical officers were lucky to get iodine, let alone anything more.

“Tell me,” Peterson said after a while. Beriberi sapped the will as well as debilitating the body. Sometimes even conversation seemed more trouble than it was worth.

“We’re gonna leave one man dead for every foot of tunnel we drive,” Braddon said.

Peterson contemplated that. Again, he took his time. He couldn’t help taking his time-his wits wouldn’t work fast no matter how much he wanted them to. “One man?” he said after the slow calculations were complete. “We’re liable to leave five or ten men dead for every foot of tunnel.”

His companion in misery took his own sweet time thinking about that. “Wouldn’t be surprised,” he said at last. “God damn Walter London to hell and gone.”

“Yeah.” Even in his present decrepit state, Peterson didn’t need to think that over before he agreed with it. He managed a graveyard chuckle. “Well, you know what the Japs say. ‘Always prenty plisoner.’ ”

At the rate POWs were dying in the Kalihi Valley, he wondered how long there would be plenty of prisoners. Of course, this place was specifically designed to use them up. A lot of men who went into the ever-deepening tunnel shaft lasted only a few days. The ones who managed to get past that dreadful initiation to life here did better-if survival was better, which didn’t always strike Peterson as obvious.

“All I want is to be alive when we take this goddamn place back,” Braddon said. “Reckon I get to pay these sons of bitches back then for what they owe me.”

“Yeah, that’s what keeps me going, too,” Peterson agreed. “Sometimes the idea of getting my own back is about the only thing that does keep me going.”

He wondered whether the USA would be able to take Hawaii back. When he’d been in the POW camp up near Opana and the ordinary labor gangs, he’d had some connection with the outside world. Part of what he got was Jap propaganda, of course, but not everything was. Here and there, people had clandestine radio sets and heard the other side of the news.

Not in the Kalihi Valley. The Japs hardly bothered with propaganda here, because they didn’t think the poor damned souls working on the tunnel were ever coming out. If any of the prisoners had a radio, no news from it had ever got to Jim Peterson’s ear.

He started to settle down for sleep. A thrashing in the bushes made him pause. A furious grunting made him scramble to his feet. Braddon jumped up, too. So did men in worse shape than either of them. So did men in worse shape than either of them who’d been sunk deep in exhausted sleep.

That grunting meant a wild pig was out there. If they could catch it, if they could kill it, they could eat it. The mere thought of a chunk of pork drove Jim Peterson harder than any Japanese taskmaster’s bamboo club.

Pigs did wander into the camp every once in a while, looking for garbage-or maybe looking to dig up bodies buried in shallow graves and do unto humans what humans were in the habit of doing unto them. The POWs had pigstickers-bamboo spears with points made from iron smuggled out of the tunnel. They hid them in the jungle; if the guards found them, they confiscated them and beat everybody in the nearest barracks. To the guards, anything that could stick a pig could also stick one of them. The guards weren’t wrong, either. Peterson dreamt of spearing a couple of them. Only the certain knowledge of what would happen to him and everybody else if he tried stayed his hand.

He grabbed a spear now, and plunged into the dripping emerald jungle in the direction of the grunting. Before he got there, it rose to a furious squealing. “For Christ’s sake, don’t let it get away!” he shouted, and ran harder than ever.

He found where the pig was by almost falling over it. It was a boar, as nasty a razorback as ever roamed the hills in Arkansas. Two men had already driven spears into it, and hung on to them for dear life. A boar’s tushes could rip the guts out of a man almost as well as a bayonet could. And a wild pig was faster and stronger than a Jap with an Arisaka.

Peterson thrust his spear into the boar’s side. Much more by luck than by design, the point-which had started its career at the end of a pick-pierced the pig’s heart. The beast let out a last grunt, one that seemed more startled than pained, and fell over dead.

“My God!” Peterson panted. “Meat!”

The boar was almost as scrawny as the prisoners who’d slain it. Hunger must have made it chance the camp, just as the POWs’ hunger had made them attack it. More men ran up behind Peterson.

By camp custom, the prisoners who’d done the actual killing got first crack at the carcass. Also by camp custom, they took less than they might have-enough to fill their bellies once, no more-and left the rest for their comrades who hadn’t been quite so fast or quite so lucky.

Peterson toasted his chunk of meat over a small fire. He wolfed it down, charred on the outside and blood-rare-close enough to raw to make no difference-inside. In happier times, people warned against pork that wasn’t cooked all the way through. They talked about trichinosis. He couldn’t have cared less. He would have eaten that pig knowing it had died of the black plague.

His stomach made astonished, and astonishing, noises. It wasn’t used to such wealth. He had to gulp against nausea once or twice. Meat was rich fare after rice and nowhere near enough of it.

For a little while, the pins and needles in his extremities would ebb. Some of the men with wet beriberi would lose a little fluid from their limbs, and from their lungs. Their hearts wouldn’t race quite so hard whenever they had to move. And then, until the next time a pig got desperate or unlucky enough to fall foul of the POWs, things would go back to the way they’d been before. You couldn’t win. The most you could do was stretch the game out a little.

“By God, I’ve done that,” he muttered. He slept better than he had in weeks. Too soon, though, his next shift came. It would have been killing work even with all the food he wanted all the time. As things were… As things were, by the time he finished, he wondered whether he’d stretched the game at all-and, if he had, whether he’d done himself any favors.

JANE ARMITAGE WEEDED HER TURNIPS AND POTATOES with painstaking care. Weeds grew as enthusiastically as everything else in Hawaii. She chopped and dug and chopped and dug, and didn’t notice Tsuyoshi Nakayama coming up behind her till he spoke.

“Oh. Hello!” she said, hoping she didn’t sound as startled as she felt. “What can I do for you?” Nakayama might have been a gardener before Hawaii changed hands. He was still a gardener, in fact, and a damn good one. But, because he was Major Hirabayashi’s liaison man, he was also a major power in Wahiawa these days. You had to be careful around him.

“You don’t have husband, do you?” he asked now.

Ice avalanched along Jane’s spine. Had somebody else seen Fletch? Had somebody ratted on her to the Japs? Could you trust anybody at all these days? It sure didn’t seem that way. “I’m not married,” she said firmly, and thanked heaven she’d taken off her wedding ring as soon as she threw Fletch out of the apartment. It would have made a liar of her on the spot.

“You don’t have husband, even in the Army?” Yosh Nakayama persisted.

“I’m not married,” Jane said again. And the divorce would have been final by now-would have been final long since-if everything in Hawaii hadn’t gone to hell the second the Japs came ashore.

“You sure?” Nakayama said.

“I’m sure.” If she had to, she’d show him the papers she did have. They ought to be convincing enough, even if the final interlocutory decree hadn’t been formally granted. (She wondered why they called it that. It was the decree that meant people weren’t interlocked any more.).

The gardener who was also right-hand man to the occupiers’ local commandant grunted. If that wasn’t an inscrutable noise, Jane had never heard one. Nakayama said, “Maybe you should be careful for a while. You have family you can go to?”

Jane shook her head. “I just moved here a few years ago.” She wished she could have the words back. They didn’t quite scream that she’d come to Wahiawa as part of a military family, but that was the way to bet.

Another grunt from Yosh Nakayama. “You go somewhere else for a while? Honolulu? Waimea? Anywhere?”

She had no travel documents. She thought about what was likely to happen if she ran into a column of Jap soldiers when she didn’t-or even when she did. More ice formed under her skin. “I’m staying right here.”

He sighed this time instead of grunting. “If I get you papers, will you go?”

If she left, she would have to walk. The thought she’d had a moment before came back. How much good would papers do her? “No, thanks, Mr. Nakayama,” she said. He’d never been Mr. Nakayama before the war. If she talked to him at all then, she called him Yosh. How could it be otherwise? She was a white woman, after all, and he was just a Jap.

Now she knew how it could be otherwise. She knew, all right, and wished she didn’t.

Yosh Nakayama let out another sigh. She had the feeling he was washing his hands of her. But no, for he said, “You change your mind, you let me know right away. Right away, you hear?”

“Yes, Mr. Nakayama.” Before the war, she would have added chop-chop, pidgin for pronto. Never mind that Nakayama didn’t use pidgin, but real English-slow, sometimes clumsy, but real English. She would have said it just to keep him in his place, in her mind and in his.

He shrugged his broad shoulders now. He must have known she didn’t intend to do anything of the sort. Off he went, shaking his head. She returned to weeding, but the worm of worry wouldn’t leave. He’d been trying to tell her something. Whatever it was, she hadn’t got the message.

The next morning, she was about to go out to the vegetable plot again when someone knocked on the door. She opened it-and found herself facing three Japanese soldiers, two privates and a noncom.

“You-Jane Armitage?” In the noncom’s mouth, her name was barely comprehensible.

She thought about denying it, but decided she couldn’t. “Yes. What is it?”

He spoke in Japanese. The two privates lunged with their bayonets, the points stopping inches from her face. She yelped and hopped back. “You come,” the sergeant said.

Jane yelped again. “I haven’t done anything!” Fletch. God help me, they must know about Fletch.

“You come,” the Jap repeated. Maybe he didn’t understand what she said. Maybe-more likely-he didn’t care.

Since the other choice was getting killed on the spot, Jane came. The Japanese soldiers marched her about four blocks to another apartment building, one that had stood empty since Wahiawa fell. Now it had bars on the windows and guards out in front. A sign in Japanese said something Jane couldn’t read.

Three or four other parties of Japanese soldiers were also coming up to the place. Each of them had a woman with it. All the women were in their twenties or thirties. All but one were white; the other was Chinese. All of them were prettier than average. A horrid suspicion flowered in Jane. “What is this place?” she demanded.

“You come.” The noncom pointed to the front door. He’d used just about all the English he had. The soldiers prodded her with the bayonets. She didn’t think they drew blood, but she didn’t think they would hesitate-at anything-if she balked, either. She took an involuntary step. They prodded her again, and she went inside.

Eight or ten more women already crowded the lobby, along with an equal number of soldiers to make sure they didn’t go anywhere. Jane’s fear grew. Maybe this didn’t have anything to do with Fletch after all, but that wasn’t necessarily good news. Oh, no, not even a little bit.

Yosh was trying to warn me. Sweet Jesus, he told me to get lost, and I didn’t listen to him. And what was she liable to get for being stupid? In the old days, they’d called this a fate worse than death. To her, the phrase had always been one from bad melodrama. Now, suddenly, she understood just what it meant. It wasn’t so far wrong after all.

She looked around at her companions in misery. About half looked as terrified as she felt. They had to be the ones who’d added things up the same way she had. The others just seemed confused. Ignorance, here, was liable to be bliss-but not for long.

One of the Japs in the crowded lobby was a lieutenant she didn’t remember seeing before. “You will listen to me,” he said in very good English. “It is not, ah, convenient for Japanese soldiers in this part of Oahu to travel to Honolulu for comfort and relaxation. So, we set up a comfort house here. You are chosen to man this house.”

His English might be good, but it wasn’t perfect. Manning wasn’t what the Japs had in mind for them. What they did have in mind… Nobody could keep any illusions any more. The women started screaming and cursing and telling the lieutenant no in terms as certain as they could make them.

He let them yell for a minute or two, then spoke in Japanese to the soldiers by him. They raised their rifles. As one man, they chambered a round. Those sharp clicks pierced the din like a steak knife cutting tender, blood-rare prime rib. Even at that dreadful moment, food came to the forefront of Jane’s thoughts.

“Enough,” the officer said. “If you do this, you will be well fed. The term of service will be six months.

You will not be liable again. If you do not…” He shrugged. “If you do not, you will be… persuaded.”

“I’d rather die!” one of the women shouted. She got the words out only a split second before Jane would have.

With another shrug, the lieutenant barked an order in his own language. Two soldiers handed their rifles to other men, then grabbed the woman, threw her down on the floor, and started beating and kicking her. Her screams and those of the other women filled the lobby. The Japanese seemed altogether indifferent.

They knew what they were doing, too. They inflicted the most pain they could with the least real damage. When they finished, the woman lay there crumpled and sobbing, but not too badly hurt. She was an object lesson, and a frighteningly good one.

After yet another order, the soldiers started taking women out of the lobby one by one. Some screamed and had hysterics. The Japs ignored that. Some tried to fight. The soldiers didn’t put up with any nonsense. They grabbed the women’s hands. If that didn’t do the job, or if the women tried to kick, they beat them into submission. They didn’t seem particularly malicious about it; they might have been dealing with restive horses.

When it came to be Jane’s turn, she did her best to boot one of the Japs right in the balls. Her face must have given her away, because he laughed and hopped back and left her looking like a Rockette with her foot way up in the air. A second later, his buddy punched her in the jaw.

Had it been a prizefight, the referee would have stopped it and called it a TKO. She didn’t fall down and she didn’t pass out. But everything went blurry for a while after that. When the Japs hustled her along, her feet walked. Her will, her wits-they were somewhere far away.

She came back to herself sitting at the edge of a bed in a room with bars on the window. I have to get out of here, she thought, and hurried to the door. She was a little wobbly, and the side of her face hurt like hell, but she stayed on her pins. The door opened when she thumbed the latch. She hadn’t been sure it would. But Japanese soldiers in the hallway leered at her when she stuck her head out. No way in hell she could get by them. She ducked back in a hurry.

Down the hall, a woman started to scream, and then another. A black, choking cloud of fear filled Jane. I have to get away, she thought again. What she thought she had to do and what she could do, though, were two horribly different things.

She’d just had the bright idea of using the bed for a barricade when the door opened. Too late again, just as she’d been too late figuring out what Yosh Nakayama was trying to tell her.

In strode the lieutenant who spoke English. “I decided I would start you out myself,” he said, as if she ought to be honored.

“Why?” Jane whispered.

“We need comfort women,” he answered. “And I liked your looks.” He took a step toward her. “Let’s get it over with, neh? Then you will know what you have to do.”

“No,” Jane said.

But it wasn’t no. She screamed, too, adding to the chorus that had to make this building sound like one of the nastier suburbs of hell. She did her best to fight, too. Again, her best was nowhere near good enough. She took another shot to the jaw. This time, things did gray out for a little while. She came back to herself with her jeans on the floor and the Jap pumping away between her legs. That hurt, too-the pain was probably what brought her back. He didn’t care if she screamed, but he slapped her when she tried to punch him.

A minute or a lifetime later, he grunted and shuddered and briskly pulled out of her. “Not bad,” he said, getting to his feet and briskly doing up his trousers. “No, not bad at all.”

Jane lay huddled on the bed. “Why?” she asked again. “What did I ever do to you?”

“You are the enemy,” he answered. “You are the enemy, and you have lost. You do not ask why after that happens. It is part of war.” He reached out and swatted her bare backside. “Maybe I will see you again.” Away he went, as pleased with himself as any man is afterwards.

She lay there, trying to decide whether she wanted to kill every Jap in the world or just kill herself. When the door opened again, she gasped in horror and reached down with futile hands to try to cover herself. But the soldier who came in, although he stared and laughed, only stared and laughed. He carried a tray probably stolen from the elementary-school cafeteria. He set it down on the floor and went out.

Dully, Jane eyed it. It held more food and better food than she’d seen in months. The Jap lieutenant hadn’t lied about that. For a little while, Jane didn’t think she could eat. She wanted to throw up.

No matter what her mind wanted, she saw rice and vegetables in front of her. Almost without conscious thought, she found herself eating. The plate emptied in what seemed the blink of an eye. The wages of sin are… lunch, she thought, which went a long way toward telling her how punchy she was.

Food even came ahead of putting her pants back on. She was just starting to reach for the jeans when a noncom walked into the room. He laughed to find her half dressed, and gestured that she should lie down on the bed again.

“No,” she said, even though he carried a bamboo stick like the ones the Jap guards used when they wanted to hurt POWs but didn’t want to kill them. “I’m not going to just give it to you.”

Maybe he spoke a little English. Maybe the look on her face told him she wouldn’t cooperate. Either way, he did what he wanted to do. He whacked her with the stick again and again. She tried to grab it, but she couldn’t. She screamed, but he ignored her. When she did her best to knee him in the crotch, he twisted to take it on the hip and slapped her in the face.

Before long, no matter how she fought, he was in her, slamming away to please himself without the faintest thought for her as anything but a piece of meat. When she thought he was distracted, she tried to bite him. Without missing a stroke, he jerked his shoulder back. Her teeth clicked on empty air. He smacked her again, and came in the same instant.

Out of the room he went, whistling one of the Japs’ unmusical tunes. Jane lay on her back, his seed dribbling out of her onto the sheet. If she fought every man who came in here, she’d be dead in nothing flat. Part of her said that would be for the best, but she didn’t want to die. She wanted to live till the Americans came back, and then to have her revenge.

If she just lay there and let them have her, maybe they wouldn’t hit her. But could she do that without losing her mind? She had no idea of anything just then, except how many places she hurt and how disgusted with life she was.

“God damn you, Yosh,” she muttered. “Why didn’t you tell me what they wanted me for?” He’d probably been too embarrassed to come out and say it; middle-aged local Japanese were downright Victorian. But why, oh why, oh why, hadn’t she taken the hint and lit out for the tall timber?

OSCAR VAN DER KIRK PACED HIS CROWDED little apartment like a tiger going back and forth in its cage. “For God’s sake, will you cut that out?” Susie Higgins said. “You’re making me nervous.”

He did stop-for about thirty seconds. Then he was going back and forth again. “Something’s happened to Charlie,” he said.

Susie rolled her blue, blue eyes. “How can you tell?” she said in tones obviously intended for sweet reason. “He’s a surf bum. He’s even more of a surf bum than you are. He doesn’t know today what he’ll do tomorrow-and he doesn’t care, either. If he disappears for a few days or a few weeks, so what? Maybe he’s gone up to the north shore again or something.”

“Not now.” Oscar’s dismissal of that was altogether automatic. “It’ll be flatter than a pancake up there this time of year.”

“Then he’s got some other harebrained scheme going instead.”

Oscar shook his head. “I don’t think so. We were supposed to go out together this morning, but he didn’t show. You can count on Charlie. If he says he’ll be somewhere, he’ll be there.”

“Maybe a shark ate him.”

“Maybe one did,” Oscar answered. “You can joke. You don’t go out there like I do. It doesn’t happen very often, but it happens. Or maybe the Japs got him.”

Susie snorted. “Why would the Japs want a half-breed surf-rider, for crying out loud? Get serious.”

He didn’t answer. He could think of some reasons. He’d had an encounter with an American sub skipper out there on the Pacific. Maybe Charlie Kaapu had, too, or with the crew of a flying boat, or… Who could tell? Oscar had never said a word to anybody-Susie emphatically included-about his meeting. If Charlie had any brains, he would have kept his yap shut, too. The fewer people you told, the fewer people could blab. Living under the Japs had taught the people of Hawaii what living under the Nazis taught the people of France: keeping your head down, not drawing the occupiers’ notice, was a damn good idea.

Charlie didn’t even tell me anything, if there was anything to tell, Oscar thought. That hurt his feelings, even though he’d just gone through all the reasons keeping quiet was a good idea, and even though he hadn’t told Charlie about the sub. Logic? None at all. At least he could laugh at himself for realizing it.

Susie was studying him. She’d never been to college-he wasn’t sure she’d finished high school-but she was better at reading people than he was. “You’ve got that knight-in-shining-armor look on your face again,” she said. “Don’t do anything dumb, Oscar. You can end up dead. Easy.”

“Me? Don’t be silly.” He laughed-uneasily. “Some knight. I’m just a surf bum myself-you said so. Besides, when did you ever see that look on me before?”

“When you took me in,” Susie answered. “Oh, I knew what you wanted. Fair enough-that’s the knight’s reward. But a lot of people wouldn’t have wanted to go on with it when things got tough. You did.”

“You walked out on me,” he reminded her.

“That wasn’t on account of the Japs. We were driving each other squirrely,” Susie said, which was true. She sent him a sidelong look. “But Charlie can’t give you what I could-or he’d better not be able to, anyway.”

His cheeks heated, as much in anger as in embarrassment. He was no fairy! If Susie didn’t have reason to know that… Her eyes sparkled. She’d wanted to get under his skin, and she had. But he wasn’t going to write Charlie off just because she’d annoyed him. Stubbornly, he said, “He’s my buddy, darn it.

I was going to go round his place, see if anybody knows anything, that’s all. Safe as houses.”

“And then you wake up,” Susie said, which sounded a hell of a lot more caustic than Yeah, sure. She looked at him again. “I’m not going to be able to talk you out of it, am I?” She shook her head. “No, of course I’m not. You do have that look. Well, for Christ’s sake be as careful as you can, you fool.”

He managed a lopsided grin. “You say the sweetest things, babe. I didn’t know you cared.”

To his surprise-hell, to his amazement-she turned red this time. “Damn you, Oscar, sometimes you’re an even bigger blockhead than usual,” she muttered. He almost asked her what the devil she was talking about, but he had the feeling that would be letting her win, so he kept quiet.

When they went to bed that night, she reached for him before he could reach for her. She slid down and took him in her mouth till he was close to exploding, then straddled him and rode him like a racehorse.

By the time she finished, he thought he’d just won the Kentucky Derby. She leaned forward to give him a kiss, her breasts pressing softly against his chest. “Wow!” he said sincerely.

“You’ve got something to remember me by, anyway,” she said, “in case I never happen to see you again.”

“I’ll be fine,” he said. Susie squeezed him and didn’t answer. She’d already given him her opinion.

When morning came, she was out the door before him. Her job had regular hours, which he’d always despised. And she had to get over to Honolulu, while he only needed to wander over to the shabby part of Waikiki. Tourists, jammed hard against the beach, didn’t think Waikiki had any shabby parts. The farther inland you went, though…

Charlie’s apartment building made Oscar’s seem like the Royal Hawaiian Hotel. On the mainland, stray dogs would have been sniffing at garbage on the corners in this kind of neighborhood. Here, they’d probably been caught and cooked and eaten. He didn’t see any, anyhow.

A woman who looked as if she worked on Hotel Street came out of the building. “Hey!” Oscar called to her. “You seen Charlie any time lately?”

“Who wants to know?” She eyed him. “Oh, it’s you. You hang around with him. Maybe you’re okay.” She stayed cagey, though. “How come you wanna know?”

“He owes me a bottle of okolehao,” Oscar answered, which wasn’t true but was plausible. With liquor imports from the mainland cut off, the stuff distilled from ti root was the best hooch around, and correspondingly important. You would want to find out about somebody who owed it to you.

“Yeah?” the woman said. Oscar knew what that hungry tone of voice meant: she wondered if it was still in Charlie’s apartment. But her shoulders slumped as she went on, “I ain’t seen him since the cops took him away night before last.” Plainly, she figured that if the cops had him, they had his okolehao, too. Oscar would have bet the same way.

“The cops?” he said. “What do the cops want with Charlie? If you know him, you know he wouldn’t hurt a fly.” That wasn’t a hundred percent true; when Charlie had a few too many, he’d get into bar fights. But even those were on the friendly side. He’d never ground a broken bottle into anybody’s face or anything like that. Oscar didn’t think he’d ever gone to jail for one.

“I don’t know what’s going on. I just mind my business.” The woman dripped righteousness. By the way her eyes darted now here, now there, she also minded other people’s business every chance she got. She said, “Maybe he couldn’t pay his rent.”

“Nah. They just throw your stuff out on the street then.” Oscar spoke from experience. “Besides, he catches fish. Way things are now, that’s a heck of a lot better than money.”

“Beats me.” The woman shrugged. “I gotta go, buddy. They come down on me like you wouldn’t believe if I’m late.” Away she went, hips working under her short dress.

“Cops?” Oscar scratched his head. Were they doing the Japs’ work for them? Or had Charlie really gone and got himself in that kind of trouble? It didn’t seem like him, but how could you be sure?

One way would be to go down to the police station and ask if you could bail him out. If the cops said yes, that would tell Oscar some of what he needed to find out. If, on the other hand, they said no… In that case, Oscar was liable to buy himself the same kind of trouble his friend had, whatever that was.

He remembered Susie’s warning. He also-warmly-remembered her good-bye present. Did he want to take the chance of finding out what had happened to Charlie? It boiled down to, would Charlie take the chance for him? He knew the answer to that as soon as he formed the question.

Waikiki’s police station was small and run down. The desk sergeant was a hapa-Hawaiian who even in these hard times seemed to overflow his chair. Oscar didn’t suppose cops missed many meals, no matter what. If a local Japanese were on duty there, he didn’t know what he would have done. But he did dare ask a man of Charlie Kaapu’s blood what had happened to him.

The sergeant didn’t answer right away. He looked at-looked through-Oscar. File cards riffled behind his impassive dark eyes. He no doubt knew who Oscar was, and that Oscar and Charlie ran around together. He might have needed to remind himself of that, but he knew. He said, “They’ve taken him to Honolulu.” His voice, rough from years of two packs a day, revealed nothing.

“Why would they want to do that?” Oscar didn’t have to fake astonishment. “What’s he done? What do they think he’s done? It can’t be anything much-you know Charlie, don’t you?”

“Sure.” The cop looked through him again. “You want to spring him, right?”

“Well, of course I do,” Oscar answered. “He’s my pal. Can I bail him out? I’m not broke.”

By the way the sergeant touched his pocket, he was going for cigarettes that weren’t there. How many times had he made that gesture since Hawaii fell? From his sour expression, quite a few. “Bail him out?” he said. “I don’t know about that. It, ah, isn’t only the police that are interested in him.”

“Who else?” Oscar knew he’d better sound naive. As if the idea were just occurring to him, he said, “The, uh, Japanese?” He’d better not say Japs around somebody who worked with them and, for all practical purposes, for them.

“That’s right. He’s been poking into places where he doesn’t belong, sounds like,” the policeman said.

“So you can go there, but…” His voice trailed away. He’d made the same calculation Oscar had before.

Oscar shivered. “Thanks, Sergeant,” he said, and left the station in a hurry.

Into Honolulu? Into Honolulu, he decided, and started west. His knees weren’t knocking, but he didn’t know why not. He was scared green. He and Charlie had got caught in the crossfire between invading Japs and Americans right at the start of the war. He’d jumped into trenches when bombs fell not nearly far enough away. Going after his friend now, though, was consciously brave. So this is what courage feels like, he thought. Not letting anybody, even me, see how frightened I am.

Maybe it would be all right. Honolulu’s police chief, still doing his job under the Japs, had come out from California not too long before the war to shape up a corrupt force, and he’d done it. The assistant chief was a full-blooded Hawaiian. Cops came from every piece in the jigsaw puzzle of nations that made up Hawaii. But if the occupiers said hop, the cops had to make like frogs.

The main station wasn’t far from Honolulu Hale, the city hall. Typewriters clattered as Oscar went inside. He wondered how the police got new ribbons, or if they’d figured out a way to reink old ones.

By his looks, the desk sergeant here was at least hapa-Oriental. Japanese? Chinese? Korean? Oscar wasn’t sure. The man’s voice didn’t give anything away as he asked, “What do you want, buddy?”

“You’ve got a friend of mine in jail,” Oscar said. The sergeant raised an interrogative eyebrow. Not another muscle on his face moved. Reluctantly, Oscar named Charlie Kaapu.

That eyebrow jumped again, higher this time. Oscar wondered if the desk sergeant would yell for help, or if he’d just pull a gun and hold Oscar himself. But all he said was, “Sorry, you can’t have him.”

“How come? I couldn’t believe he got jugged. He’s the nicest guy you’d ever want to meet. What do they think he did, anyway?”

Instead of answering, the sergeant asked a question of his own: “Mac, you ever hear of the Kempeitai?”

Oscar shook his head. “Nope. What is it?”

“Japanese secret police. And now I’m going to do you the biggest favor anybody ever did: I’m not gonna ask you who you are. Get the hell out of here before I change my mind.”

Oscar got. Once he was out of the station, he turned several corners as fast as he could, in case the sergeant did send police after him. But there was no sign of that. Oscar shivered. He hadn’t learned much about winter in California or here-Susie laughed at how ignorant he was. But winter, winter unquestioned, dwelt in him now.

The Kempeitai. The name wasn’t chilling the way, say, the Gestapo was-at least not to Oscar. But-secret police? It was bound to be the same kind of outfit. And it had Charlie. What had he done? What did they think he’d done? What can I do to get him away? Oscar wondered miserably. Anything at all?

CORPORAL TAKEO SHIMIZU HAD JUST FALLEN ASLEEP when an air-raid alarm bounced him from his cot. Wearing the thin cotton shirt and breech clout in which he’d gone to bed, he grabbed the rest of his uniform and his shoes and ran for the trenches outside the barracks hall. The Yankee marauders probably wouldn’t come close, but nobody got old taking stupid chances.

Antiaircraft guns started going off. There were more of them in Honolulu these days than there had been. There needed to be more, for the Americans came over the city-and over Oahu generally-more often than they had. Machine guns started hammering, too. Tracers scribed ice-blue and yellow arcs across the sky. Through the din of gunfire, Shimizu heard the deep growl of a flying boat’s engines, and then the roar of bombs going off.

Twenty minutes went by before the all-clear sounded. The guns had fired for most of that time, though the American plane was surely long gone. Shrapnel pattered down out of the sky. It might end up doing almost as much damage as the bombs.

Muttering in annoyance, Shimizu went back to bed. He hadn’t been sleeping long before the air-raid sirens screeched again. “Zakennayo!” he said furiously. “Why doesn’t the baka yaro in charge make up his mind?”

He found out why in short order: more U.S. aircraft were in the sky. One or two hit Honolulu, while a couple of others caused a commotion at Pearl Harbor. That meant another fireworks display off to the west.

What he wanted to see instead of more fireworks was a flying boat going down in flames. He didn’t get what he wanted. After the usual delay, he did get to go back to bed.

An hour and a half later, a third wave of American planes came over Honolulu. By then, he was so tired he wanted to stay in the barracks even though the building would fall down on him if it got hit. Shouts from officers got him moving. Shouts from him helped get the men moving.

Huddling in the trench, Yasuo Furusawa said, “They want to keep us from sleeping.”

“They know how to get what they want, don’t they?” Shimizu growled. The Americans weren’t doing a lot of damage. They couldn’t, not coming over in handfuls. But they had all the Japanese in Honolulu-maybe all the Japanese on Oahu-jumping around like fleas on a hot griddle.

He wondered if yet another set of U.S. aircraft would hit Honolulu just before dawn. None did, but a nervous gunner not far from the barracks opened up on something apparently imaginary. The gunfire didn’t wake Shimizu. Shards of steel crashing down on the roof did. He went to sleep again after that, too, which proved he was made of stern-and very tired-stuff.

Getting up at dawn did nothing to improve his mood. The tea he gulped with his breakfast of rice and pickled plums didn’t do nearly enough to pry his eyelids apart. He couldn’t get more, either. It came from the home islands, which meant it was in short supply. That he could have any at all meant a freighter must have made it in not long before. Only officers got all they wanted.

Some officers shared the precious stuff with their men, using it as a reward for duty well performed. Unfortunately, neither Shimizu’s platoon leader nor company commander seemed to have thought of that. It was going to be a sleepy, stupid day.

His squad dragged, too. Even Shiro Wakuzawa, who ordinarily was perky as you please, dragged and slumped. He said, “If the Americans do that every night, they’ll drive us crazy.”

“They can’t do it every night.” As usual, Senior Private Furusawa sounded surer of himself than his rank gave him any right to be.

“Why not?” Shimizu said, and yawned. “They’ve been doing it more and more lately.”

Furusawa yawned, too, but politely turned his head away from his superior before he did. “But they need submarines to refuel their flying boats,” he said. “They don’t have planes that can make a round trip from their mainland to Hawaii. Even ours have trouble, and they’re better.”

“How did you hear all that?” Shimizu demanded.

“I listen a lot. I keep my head down. I keep my ears open. People who know things like to blab.”

“I suppose so.” Shimizu wasn’t sure he would understand things even if he heard them. He was just a farmer’s son. Furusawa, a city man, had the education to make sense of what came his way.

So why are you commanding him and not the other way around? Shimizu wondered. But that had an answer he understood. Experience and toughness mattered more in rank than education did.

Still, education-or maybe just raw brains-also came in handy. For three or four nights, American flying boats stayed away. But then they returned, little wave after little wave, disrupting the lives of the Japanese stationed in and around Honolulu. Shimizu really started to hate them then. He had a certain amount of trouble not hating Senior Private Furusawa, too.

COMMANDER MINORU GENDA STEPPED UP OVER THE STEEL doorsill and into the cabin that belonged to Akagi’s skipper. Saluting, he said, “Reporting as ordered, sir,” and then, “Congratulations on your promotion.”

Rear Admiral Tomeo Kaku bowed in his chair. “Thank you very much,” he said, even his hard features unable to hide his pleasure. “Why don’t you shut the door and then sit down? I have news you need to know.”

Asking Genda to close the cabin off from the corridor meant it was secret news. Excitement and curiosity building in him, he obeyed. He wanted to sit on the edge of the seat, but deliberately sat back, making himself seem relaxed even-especially-if he wasn’t. Keeping his voice as casual as he could, he asked, “What’s up, sir?”

“Zuikaku is finally on her way back to these waters,” Kaku answered, sounding pleased with himself and with the world. “The decoded message came to me not ten minutes ago. You’re the first to know.”

“Domo arigato.” Genda bowed more deeply than his superior had. “I’m very glad to hear it. About time, too, if you don’t mind my saying so. They took longer repairing her than they should have.”

“I agree,” Admiral Kaku said. “I’ve growled and fussed and fumed more times than I can tell you, and it’s done me no good at all. Shigata ga nai.” Genda nodded at that-some things couldn’t be helped. Kaku continued, “But she’s on her way at last, and she’ll be here in a couple of weeks. I’d hoped they would send us Taiho, too, but they say she’ll be shaking down for months yet.” With a shrug, he repeated, “Shigata ga nai.”

“Too bad, sir. We could use her.” Genda sighed. Everything he’d heard about Taiho said how much they could use her here. Among other improvements, she boasted an armored flight deck-a first for a Japanese carrier-that was supposed to protect her vitals from a 450kg bomb. Genda added, “We could use any more carriers they want to send us, big or small. The Americans are definitely getting friskier.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kaku said, deadpan. He was so perfectly deadpan, in fact, that Genda started to believe him. Then Akagi’s skipper yawned a yawn that threatened to split his face in two. The Americans’ nuisance raids were more than a nuisance for him. The carrier anchored at different places in Pearl Harbor every night, to give the U.S. flying boats a harder time finding and hitting her. So far, it had worked; she’d taken only incidental damage from near misses. But Admiral Kaku had to be up on the bridge whenever she was threatened. He wasn’t a young man; that lack of sleep must take a toll on him.

“It’s not just here, either,” Genda said. “They’re starting to attack our picket boats every chance they get.”

“Yes, I’ve heard that, too.” Now Kaku sounded serious, and not at all happy. “They think they can clear them out and give themselves a better chance for surprise.”

“That’s how it looks to me, sir.” Genda also thought the Americans might be right. Japan sent out new sampans when old ones were lost, but there were always delays and foulups. The Americans might be able to build a lane through which they could get ships close to Hawaii undetected.

“I’ve talked with Commander Fuchida. He’s talked with the people who handle our H8Ks,” Admiral Kaku said. “We will have flying-boat patrols to cover the area no matter what. We won’t get caught napping.”

“That’s good, sir,” Genda agreed. “And the more radar sets we can get our hands on, the better. They can see farther than the naked eye can.”

“I suppose so. All these gadgets,” Kaku said fretfully. “It wasn’t like this when my career started out, let me tell you. In those days, you really had to be able to see the enemy to hit him. None of this business of sending airplanes over the horizon to drop bombs on his head.”

“Yes, sir. I’ve heard Admiral Yamamoto say the same thing.” Genda hoped that would keep his superior happy. The difference was that Kaku sounded nostalgic for days gone by, while Isoroku Yamamoto always lived in the present-when he wasn’t looking into the future. Of course, there was only one Yamamoto, which was why he commanded the Combined Fleet. Men like Kaku were absolutely necessary, but were also easier to come by.

“Admiral Yamamoto,” Akagi’s skipper echoed musingly. “If it weren’t for Admiral Yamamoto, we wouldn’t be where we are now.” That was true. Of course, it was also true that the Japanese wouldn’t have been where they were if not for Genda himself. He was the one who’d persuaded Yamamoto to follow the air strike against Oahu with an invasion. Rear Admiral Kaku seemed unlikely to be in a position to know that. He went on, “I wonder if we would be better off if we hadn’t landed. We wouldn’t be stuck at the end of such a long supply line, anyhow.”

“Hai,” Genda said, and let it go at that. As soon as he could, he excused himself and went out onto the flight deck. He found he needed fresh air. Even now, the waters of Pearl Harbor stank of fuel oil spilled in the attack a year and a half earlier. Its rainbow gleam fouled patches of what should have been blue tropical sea.

He reminded himself that Kaku was a good carrier officer. That was true regardless of whether the older man understood grand strategy. Genda remained convinced that, if Japan hadn’t gone for the United States with everything she had, the Americans would have come after her the same way. With Hawaii under the Rising Sun-or even (he smiled) under its own flag once more-the USA didn’t have the chance. To him, that counted for everything in the world.

Thinking of Hawaii under its own flag once more made him think of King Stanley Laanui. And thinking of King Stanley made him think of Queen Cynthia, a much more enjoyable prospect. I need to find an excuse to get over to Iolani Palace, he told himself. Even if it meant conferring with General Yamashita, he needed to go over there.

She hadn’t so much as kissed him. He had no assurance she would. Then again, he had no assurance she wouldn’t, either. One of these days soon, he intended to find out.

If she wouldn’t? If she raised a fuss? The worst they could do to him was send him home. He was sure of that. And odds were they wouldn’t even do so much, not with the next fight against the U.S. Navy plainly right around the corner.