End of the Beginning

by Harry Turtledove

  About twenty feet away from Fletch, an American keeled over without having been walloped. “Man down!” Three or four POWs sang out at the same time. If somebody went down and they didn’t sing out, they’d catch it—the Japs would figure they were colluding in his laziness.

  Two guards strolled over to the fallen man. One of them stirred him with his foot. The prisoner—one more bag of bones among so many—lay there unmoving. The other Jap kicked him in the ribs. He didn’t even curl up to protect himself. The Jap kicked him once more, harder. He still didn’t move. Maybe he was dead already. If he wasn’t, the guards took care of it. They bayoneted him, again and again.

  “Too fucking cheap to waste ammo on him,” the PFC with the shovel said out of the side of his mouth.

  “Hey, it’s more fun to stab the poor bastard,” Fletch said, also sotto voce. He wasn’t kidding; he’d seen the gusto with which the guards wielded their bayonets. This POW was too far gone to give them much sport. When they were satisfied they’d killed him, they thrust their bayonets into the dirt to get the blood off them. Tidy SOBs, Fletch thought disgustedly.

  “Work!” the sergeant shouted again. Fletch worked—again, as slowly as he could get away with. His eyes kept going toward the dead man, who still lay in the hole the Americans were excavating. What did hard work get you here? What the luckless prisoner had got, nothing else. Of course, what did work that wasn’t so hard get you? The same damn thing, only a little slower.

  FROM THE COCKPIT OF HIS NAKAJIMA B5N1, Commander Mitsuo Fuchida spotted an oil slick on the surface of the Pacific northwest of Oahu. Excitement shot through him, but only for a moment. That wasn’t the sign of a Yankee submarine, however much he wished it were. It was only fuel bubbling up from the Sumiyoshi Maru. An American sub had sunk her.

  Now that Fuchida had found where she’d gone down, he flew his carrier-based bomber in a search spiral, looking for the boat that had done the deed. The Sumiyoshi Maru wasn’t the first Japanese freighter on the way to Oahu the Americans had sent to the bottom. She was, in fact, the second ship they’d got in the past two weeks. Japanese forces in Hawaii couldn’t well afford such losses. They needed food. They needed fuel. They needed aircraft to replace the ones they’d lost in the fight at the end of June. They needed munitions of every sort.

  As long as everything went smoothly, the Japanese could just about keep themselves supplied. The locals had had a lean time of it—literally. Now, though, the islands were growing enough food on their own to keep people from starving. That was a relief. The American subs operating against Japanese shipping, though, were anything but.

  Things would have been worse than they were if a couple of American torpedoes that squarely struck freighters hadn’t been duds. When planes from the Lexington attacked the Japanese task force north of Oahu just after the fighting started, a torpedo that hit Akagi had been a dud, too. Fuchida didn’t know what was wrong with the U.S. ordnance, but something clearly was.

  For now, he kept scanning the Pacific. He’d been in overall charge of air operations for both the invasion of Hawaii and the defense against the U.S. counterattack. A lot of men with such exalted responsibilities wouldn’t have gone out on ordinary search missions themselves. Fuchida liked to keep his hand in any way he could.

  He called to his bombardier on the intercom: “See anything?”

  “No, Commander-san,” the rating answered. “Please excuse me, but I don’t. How about you?”

  “I wish I did,” Fuchida told him. “That sub is probably fifty meters down and waiting for nightfall to surface and get away.”

  “I’d do the same thing,” the bombardier said. “Why stick your neck out when you don’t have to?”

  “We’ll search a while longer,” Fuchida said. “The sub skipper may not think the freighter got a radio message off before she went down. If he doesn’t, he might figure he’s home free and head back to the U.S. mainland on the surface.”

  “Maybe.” The bombardier didn’t sound as if he believed it—which was fair enough, because Fuchida didn’t believe it, either. It was possible, but not likely. The bombardier added, “Hard work!”

  That implied the work was not only hard but pointless. “Can’t be helped,” Fuchida said. “I’d love to bomb a U.S. submarine. If I have any kind of chance, I will. Maybe it will persuade the Yankees to keep their boats away from Hawaii.”

  “Fat chance!” That wasn’t the bombardier. It was the radioman, First Flying Petty Officer Tokonobu Mizuki. He’d been listening in from the rear of the cockpit, where he faced the way the plane had come. He and Fuchida went back a long way together, long enough to let him speak his mind to his superior: rare in any military, and especially in the obsessively hierarchical Japanese Navy.

  Fuchida saw nothing but a little light chop on the surface of the Pacific. No trace of a wake, no trace of exhaust—not that a sub’s diesel engine gave off much.

  He eyed the fuel gauge. He still had plenty left. He intended to search as long as he could. He’d gone into battle with appendicitis, and kept doing what he had to do till he landed aboard Akagi. If illness hadn’t stopped him, nothing less would.

  There was a wake! But that was no submarine. It was a Japanese destroyer, also searching for the enemy boat. Fuchida waggled his wings to his countrymen down on the Pacific. He couldn’t tell if they saw him—they weren’t going to send up a flare or anything like that.

  The spiral got wider and wider. Still no sign of the submarine. Fuchida muttered to himself, there in the cockpit. He hadn’t really expected anything different. Subs’ elusiveness was a big part of what made them so dangerous. So no, he hadn’t expected anything different. But he had hoped. . . .

  “Sir?” Petty Officer Mizuki said. “I’ve got an idea.”

  “I’ll listen,” Fuchida said.

  “When night comes, we ought to send some of those big H8K flying boats along the course from here to the American mainland,” the radioman said. “The submarine will be on the surface then. If one of our pilots spots it, he can make a good bombing run.”

  Fuchida scratched at his closely trimmed mustache. Slowly, he nodded to himself. “That’s not a bad notion,” he said. “Someone else may have had it already, but it’s not a bad notion at all. Radio it back to Oahu. If we send out the flying boats tonight, the sub will still be close to the islands, and we’ll have a better chance of finding it.”

  “Commander-san, I’ll do it, but what are the odds the brass hats will pay any attention to a lousy rating?” Mizuki spoke without bitterness, but with an acute knowledge of how things worked. How frankly he spoke told how much he trusted his superior, who was, after all, a brass hat himself.

  “Do this,” Fuchida said after a little more thought. “Radio it back to Oahu. Do it in my name. Tell them I want it done. If nothing happens, if the flying boats don’t find a sub, we’ll leave it there. Failure on something like that won’t hurt my reputation. But if it works, if one of them nails the enemy, I’ll see that you get the credit.”

  “Domo arigato,” Mizuki said. Some officers stole credit when the men who served under them came up with good ideas. Fuchida wasn’t one of that sort, and the radioman knew it. “They acknowledge, sir,” Mizuki told him a few minutes later. “They promise they’ll tend to it.”

  “Good,” Fuchida said. “How does it feel to be a brass hat yourself?”

  “I like it,” Mizuki answered at once. “And I like it even better because I’m doing it under an assumed name.” He and Fuchida both laughed.

  Inexorably, the bomber’s fuel ran down. Fuchida hadn’t seen any sign of the American submarine. With a regretful sigh, he turned the Nakajima B5N1 back towards Oahu.

  With the Akagi anchored in the calm waters of Pearl Harbor, landing aboard her was almost as easy as coming in on an ordinary runway. She wasn’t rolling and pitching, the way she would out on the open sea. It required precision, but flying always required precision. Fuchida obeyed the landing officer’s wigwag si
gnals as if the man on the flight deck were piloting the bomber. The first arrester wire snagged the bomber’s tailhook, and the plane jerked to a stop.

  Fuchida slid back the cockpit canopy and climbed out of the Nakajima. So did Mizuki. The bombardier emerged a little later; he had to scramble up from his prone bombing position in the plane’s belly.

  Captain Kaku came across the flight deck toward Fuchida. “A good thought about the flying boats,” the Akagi’s skipper said. “No guarantees, of course, but it’s worth a try.”

  “That’s what I thought when Mizuki here proposed it.” Fuchida set a hand on his radioman’s shoulder.

  Kaku’s eyes narrowed. “The signal came in under your name.”

  “Yes, sir,” Fuchida agreed. “My idea was that no one would take a suggestion from a petty officer seriously. With my name attached to it, it might have a better chance of going forward.”

  “Irregular,” Tomeo Kaku rumbled. Then, almost in spite of himself, he smiled. “Irregular, but probably effective.” He nodded to the rating. “Mizuki, eh?”

  “Yes, sir.” The radioman saluted.

  “Well, Mizuki, I think this will go into your promotion jacket,” the Akagi’s skipper said.

  Mizuki saluted again. “Thank you very much, sir!”

  “You earned it,” Kaku said, and he strolled off.

  The petty officer turned to Fuchida. “And thank you very much, sir!”

  “I’m glad to help, Mizuki, but I didn’t do it for you,” Fuchida answered. “Anything that will twist the Americans’ tails—anything at all—I’m for it.”

  “Good. That’s good,” Mizuki said. “It doesn’t look like they’re going away, does it?”

  Fuchida turned toward the north and east. He’d made that motion a good many times before. The U.S. mainland drew him the way magnetic north drew a compass needle. He sighed and shook his head. “No. I wish they were, but they aren’t.”

  “DILLON, LESTER A.” The supply sergeant behind the counter checked Les Dillon’s name off a list. “Here you are. You have now been issued an M1 helmet.” He handed Dillon the new helmet, and a fiber liner that went inside it.

  “What the hell was wrong with my old tin hat?” Dillon grumbled. He’d worn the British-style wide-brimmed helmet since he joined the Marine Corps during the First World War. He stared suspiciously at the replacement, which was much deeper. “Looks like a damn pot, or maybe a footbath.”

  “Bitch, bitch, bitch,” the supply sergeant said. By his craggy, weathered features, he’d been a Marine at least as long as Dillon. “For one thing, the new model covers more of your head than the old one did. For another thing, orders are that we get rid of the old ones and wear these. You don’t like it, don’t cry to me. Talk to your Congressman.”

  “Thanks a lot, pal,” Dillon said. As well as being about the same age, they held the same grade. “I’ll remember you in my nightmares.”

  “Go on.” The supply sergeant jerked a thumb toward the door. “Make like a drum and beat it.”

  Carrying the new helmet and the liner, Dillon did. Outside, Dutch Wenzel had put on his helmet. “What do I look like, Les?”

  “You look like hell, if you want to know what I think,” Dillon answered. “The new helmet doesn’t have anything to do with it, though.”

  “You’re my buddy, all right.” Wenzel gave him the finger. Then he pulled out a pack of Luckies, stuck one in his mouth, and offered Dillon the pack.

  “Thanks.” Dillon took a Zippo out of his pocket and lit both cigarettes. He sucked in smoke and then said, “What I want to know is, how come they’re giving me a new helmet when I’m a couple of thousand miles away from anybody who’s gonna shoot at me?”

  “Beats me. Maybe they think it makes you look cute.” Wenzel shook his head. “Nah, there’s gotta be a reason that makes sense.”

  “You oughta go on the radio,” Dillon said. “You’d run Benny and Fred Allen right off the air.” He looked at the new helmet—the M1, the supply sergeant had called it. “Maybe they think they’re changing our luck or something. I don’t know why, though, honest to God. We’ve used the old one for twenty-five years, and there wasn’t anything wrong with it.” Like a lot of Marines, he was conservative, almost reactionary, about his equipment.

  But Wenzel went on cracking wise. “That’s what they said about this broad on Hotel Street.”

  “Can’t make that joke on the radio,” Dillon said. They both laughed. Dillon went on, “If we can get off the base this afternoon, you want to go see a Padre game?”

  Wenzel nodded. “Why not? Who’s in town?”

  “The Solons. They’re in second place,” Dillon said. The closest big-league teams, the Cardinals and (stretching a point) the Browns, played just on this side of the Mississippi, and the Mississippi was a hell of a long way from San Diego. Pacific Coast League ball was pretty good, though. A lot of the players had put in time in the majors. A good many who hadn’t, the younger ones, would sooner or later. And some of the ones who wouldn’t lived on the West Coast, enjoyed playing here, and didn’t give a damn if they ever went back East.

  Lane Field lay right across Harbor Drive from the beach. The Pacific was right behind the third-base stands. If you looked out past the left-field fence, you could see the Santa Fe railroad yard. It was a long look; it was 390 down the line in left and 500 to dead center. Outfielders who played in that park had to be able to run like the devil. Catchers, on the other hand . . .

  Dillon and Wenzel armed themselves with hot dogs and popcorn and beer. Les pointed to the backstop. “That’s the goddamnedest thing I’ve ever seen in any ballpark anywhere, and I’ve been in a bunch of ’em.”

  After a swig of beer, his pal nodded. “Whoever laid out this place musta had himself a snootful.” Nothing was wrong with the backstop as a backstop. That didn’t mean nothing was wrong with it: it stood only about twelve feet back of the plate. Dutch Wenzel raised the bottle to his lips again. “Not a hell of a lot of wild pitches or passed balls in this park.”

  “That’s putting it mildly,” Dillon said.

  The Padres took the field. The organist played the National Anthem. Boots Poffenberger loosened up on the mound for the Padres. He’d had two or three years in the big leagues, and hadn’t particularly distinguished himself. He got the Solons out in the first. Tony Freitas, another big-league retread, took the hill for Sacramento. He gave up a leadoff single, but the Padre runner was out trying to steal.

  When he argued, the Padres’ manager came out to yell at the ump, too. He waved his arms and shouted and carried on, even though he had to know he didn’t have a chance in hell of getting the umpire to change his mind. “Who is that guy?” Wenzel asked. “He’s having a fit out there.”

  “That’s Cedric Durst,” Dillon answered. “He played for the Browns and the Yankees back in the Twenties.”

  “Oh, yeah. I remember him—sort of,” Dutch Wenzel said. “He’s gonna get his ass thrown out if he doesn’t shut up.”

  “Watch your language, buddy,” a man behind them said. “I’ve got my daughter here.”

  Dillon and Wenzel looked at each other. They both shrugged. A ballpark was no place for a brawl. They let it go. The man in back of them never knew how lucky he was. The Solons’ first baseman ambled over to the argument to put in his two cents’ worth. Pepper Martin could do that, because the veteran of the Gas House Gang also managed Sacramento.

  Durst finally retreated to the third-base dugout, and the game resumed. Poffenberger was sharp, but Freitas was sharper. He hadn’t done much in the majors, but he’d won twenty or more for Sacramento five years in a row, and was well on his way to doing it a sixth straight time. The Solons beat the Padres 3 to 1.

  Lane Field wasn’t far from the base. As Dillon and Wenzel waited with some other Marines for the bus that would take them back, Les said, “That wasn’t bad.”

  “Nope—not half,” Wenzel agreed. “Sorta reminds you what we’re fighting for, doesn’t it?”


  “Yeah, but the goddamn Japs like baseball, too,” Les said. “When I was in Peking—this was before they took it over—their soldiers had a team, and they’d play against us. They’d beat us some of the time, too, the bastards. They had a pitcher with the nastiest curve you ever saw. It just fell off the table.”

  “Fuck ’em. Lousy cocksucking monkeys,” Wenzel said. None of the Marines standing around waiting for the bus told him to watch his language. A couple of them, including a captain, nodded emphatic agreement. The bus wheezed up, belching black smoke. Les and the rest of the leathernecks climbed aboard. With a clash of gears, it got rolling again and took them back to Camp Elliott.

  AS ALWAYS, KENZO TAKAHASHI was glad to escape the tent where he and Hiroshi and their father slept when they weren’t aboard the Oshima Maru. Living and sleeping under canvas reminded him that their apartment was only ashes and charcoal, and that his mother had died in it.

  And living under canvas with his father reminded him how different they were. He laughed a sour laugh. Before the war came to Hawaii, he and Hiroshi had desperately tried to get accepted as Americans. To the haoles who’d run things here, they were just a couple of Japs. Dad never understood why they wanted to be as American as the blond, blue-eyed kids they went to school with. He was always Japanese first.

  Well, now things had gone topsy-turvy. The Japanese were on top. They’d thrown the haoles out of the saddle. Dad was as proud as if he’d commanded the army that fought its way across Oahu. And Kenzo . . . still wanted to be an American.

  He laughed again, even more bitterly than before. He seemed doomed to swim against the current. The black-suited white executives who ran the Big Five, the companies that controlled Hawaii, hadn’t wanted or known what to do with Japanese who acted American. The Imperial Japanese Army and Navy didn’t want them or know what to do with them, either. The two sides probably had more sympathy for each other than they did for people like Kenzo.