He must have slowed down. A guard whacked him across the shoulder blades with a length of bamboo. He staggered, but kept his feet. The bastard would have kicked him if he’d gone down. Could he have got up after a couple of good licks? He hoped so, anyhow. If he couldn’t . . . Well, that would have given Jane something to watch, wouldn’t it?
“You move!” the Jap corporal yelled again.
On he went; he had no choice. Ships passing in the night, he thought. Jane stared after him; he looked back over his shoulder once to see. But their ship had taken a torpedo and sunk back before the war started. Whatever he saw now, wasn’t it just debris floating on the surface?
Two tears ran down his face. He wiped them away with his skinny, filthy, sunburned forearm. When he looked back over his shoulder, Jane was gone. Had she ever really been there? He knew damn well she had. Whatever the Japs had done to him, they’d never been able to make him cry.
ALL ALONE IN THE APARTMENT she’d shared with Fletch once upon a time, Jane Armitage lay on the bed they’d also shared once upon a time. Her shoulders shook. She sobbed into the pillow. He was alive. She supposed she should have been glad. She was glad—and then again, she wasn’t. Wouldn’t he have been better off dead?
She’d seen plenty of POWs. She’d imagined seeing Fletch that way. That only went to show the difference between imagination and reality. A bright-eyed skeleton with a ginger beard . . .
And he’d seen her, too. For that little stretch of time, it had been as if he’d never got drunk, as if she’d never talked to a lawyer. If he could have broken out of that sorry pack, she would have . . . She didn’t know what she would have done. Whatever he wanted, probably.
He was either still lurching along or at hard labor somewhere only a couple of miles away right now. In the movies, she would have figured out a way to go to him and comfort him and feed him and get him away from the people who were making his life a hell on earth. It would have been easy as pie, and the Japs wouldn’t have caught on, at least not till too late. Then they would have been left gnashing their teeth and shaking their fists as she and Fletch rode off into the sunset together.
Real life, unfortunately, didn’t usually come with a Hollywood ending. The Japs were a lot tougher and smarter than the villains in the movies. She didn’t have the faintest idea how she could spirit Fletch away from the work gang he was in, or even how she could get him any food. If she did get Fletch away, what could she do with him? Stash him here in the apartment? Then he could never go out, and she could never have anybody in. Anyone who spotted him could blackmail her forever. And a ration that wasn’t adequate for one wouldn’t come close to feeding two. They’d both starve. And he’d probably—no, certainly—want to sleep with her again, and, that moment of surprise on the sidewalk aside, she didn’t want to sleep with him. Oh, maybe once out of pity, but no more than that, for God’s sake. And trying to get him out and failing would lead not to one horrible death but two.
“Shit!” she said, all at once understanding why Hollywood endings were so popular. They were a hell of a lot better than the way things went when the cameras weren’t rolling.
BEFORE THE JAPANESE OCCUPIED HAWAII, Jiro Takahashi had never been a man of any great consequence here. Oh, he did his work and he paid his bills and he had some friends who thought he was a pretty good fellow, but that was about it. He could go anywhere without having anyone pay special attention to him.
It wasn’t like that any more. He’d been on the radio several times. He’d had his words and opinions featured in Hawaii’s Japanese-language press. And he’d even had his picture and his translated words show up in Honolulu’s English-language papers.
Now his fellow Japanese said, “Hello, Takahashi-san!” and bowed when he went by. Or they called him “the Fisherman,” like the sentries at the consulate. They asked his advice for their problems. They did favors for him, and tried to have him get favors for them from the consul and his henchmen. They treated him like an important person, like a doctor or lawyer—not like a real fisherman.
He loved every minute of it.
He’d had haoles bow to him as if he were a senior Japanese officer. They probably wanted him to do them favors, too, the only trouble being that he had no English and hardly any haoles spoke Japanese. But getting respect from people who’d looked down their noses not just at him but at all Japanese before things changed was as heady as strong sake.
The only people who seemed unimpressed—to put it mildly—with his rise in the world were his sons. Hiroshi and Kenzo did their best to act as if nothing had changed, or to wish things hadn’t. Once, when they were out in the Oshima Maru and no one else could hear, Kenzo asked, “Why couldn’t you just keep your head down like most people, Father?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jiro answered his own question before Kenzo could: “It means you’re still full of sour grapes, that’s what.”
“You think the Americans are gone for good,” Kenzo said. “You think you can call them all the names you want. But they haven’t gone away. They’re sinking more and more ships these days. Their planes come over more and more often. What will you do when they take Oahu back? You’ll be in more trouble than you can shake a stick at, that’s what.”
“They’re back on the mainland.” To Jiro, the U.S. mainland was as far away as the moon. “How can they come back here? Do you think I’m afraid of the bogeyman? You’d better think twice.”
“They aren’t the bogeyman, Father.” Hiroshi backed Kenzo. “They’re real.” He spoke with a somber conviction Jiro couldn’t dismiss, however much he wanted to.
“Oh, yes!” He still tried to laugh it off. “And I suppose you’ve talked to them, and they told you just what they’re going to do.”
Neither of his sons said anything. They only looked at each other. The breeze shifted. With automatic attention, Jiro turned to the rigging. Every bit as automatically, Hiroshi swung the rudder a few degrees to port. He and Kenzo had become good sailors, even if they liked the United States too well.
They proved right about one thing: the Americans weren’t going away. Jiro had thought they would. After the beatings Japan gave them, wouldn’t they see they didn’t have a chance and give up? Evidently not. U.S. seaplanes buzzed over Honolulu or Pearl Harbor, dropped bombs, and flew away under cover of darkness. Or a submarine surfaced, fired a few rounds with its deck gun, and disappeared under the sea again. Or a sub didn’t surface, but put a torpedo into a Japanese freighter—and, again, disappeared.
A couple of times, the Japanese had sunk a marauding U.S. submarine. The papers and the radio trumpeted those triumphs to the skies. Hiroshi’s sardonic comment was that they wouldn’t get so excited about it if it happened more often. That hadn’t occurred to Jiro, and he wished it hadn’t occurred to his son, either; it made an uncomfortable amount of sense.
Was there a kami in charge of bad timing? If there was, the spirit had its eye on the Oshima Maru right that minute. No sooner had Jiro worried about how Japan was really doing than Kenzo said, “It sounds like the Russians are still giving Hitler a hard time.”
The Japanese-language papers that were the only ones Jiro could read had done their best to talk around that, but they couldn’t get around the brute fact that Germany had got into Stalingrad, had fought a terrible battle there, and had lost it. Jiro did his best to shrug it off, and even to counterpunch: “Hitler has his war, and we have ours. Did you see how our bombers hit Australia again? More haoles getting what they deserve.”
“Our bombers?” Kenzo shook his head. “They weren’t mine, Father, please excuse me.”
“You’re Japanese, too,” Jiro said angrily.
“I look like you. I speak Japanese, yes,” his younger son answered. “But I speak English, too. I was born in America. I’m glad I was born in America.”
“That silly girl you’re going with has you all confused,” Jiro said.
Kenzo glowered at him. “Elsie’s not silly. She’s abo
ut the least silly girl I ever met.”
“I’m not seeing any haole girl, and I feel the same way Kenzo does,” Hiroshi said.
Jiro went back to tending the sails. His sons just wouldn’t listen to reason. One thing growing up in America had done to them: it had taught them not to respect their parents the way they would have in Japan. He and his wife had done everything they knew how to do, but America corroded good moral order—that was all there was to it.
“You don’t know how lucky we are that we’ve come under the Emperor’s rule,” Jiro said.
That got squawks from both his sons. The squawks took some little will to turn into words. Kenzo got there before Hiroshi: “Some luck! If we didn’t catch most of our own food, we’d be as skinny as the rest of the poor so-and-sos in Honolulu.”
The ration ordinary people got was less than extravagant. “The Americans are sinking the ships that bring in rice,” Jiro said. “Chancellor Morimura told me so himself. And besides, we don’t have white men telling us what to do any more. Doesn’t that count for something?”
“We have Japanese soldiers and Japanese sailors telling us what to do instead,” Hiroshi said. “If we don’t do it, they shoot us. The Americans never did anything like that.”
“You haven’t got the right attitude,” Jiro scolded. His boys—now men with minds of their own—both nodded. He didn’t know what to do about them. He feared he couldn’t do anything.
COMMANDER MITSUO FUCHIDA BOWED TO HIS OPPOSITE NUMBER from the Army. “Good to see you again,” he said.
Lieutenant Colonel Murakami bowed back in precisely the same way; their ranks were equivalent. “And you,” he said, slyly adding, “Kingmaker.” Fuchida laughed; along with Commander Genda and one of Murakami’s colleagues, they’d chosen Stanley Laanui to head the restored—on paper, anyhow—Kingdom of Hawaii.
That, though, probably wasn’t why Murakami had come to the Akagi—had actually set foot on a Navy ship—now. Fuchida waved him to a chair in his cramped cabin. There was no other kind on the carrier; even Captain Kaku was pinched for room. “What can I do for you?” Fuchida asked.
Before answering, Murakami looked to the closed watertight door that gave them privacy. “How long have we got before the Americans attack Hawaii again?” he asked.
“Why ask me?” Fuchida replied. “The Americans are the ones who know. You can ring up President Roosevelt and get the answer straight from him.”
Instead of laughing, Murakami grimaced. “That’s not as funny as it sounds, Fuchida-san. There was a telephone operator who passed on information to the Americans by calling California in the middle of the night when no one was paying attention to what she did. She will not call California any more—or anywhere else, either.” He spoke with a grim certainty.
“I never heard anything about that,” Fuchida exclaimed.
“You wouldn’t. It’s not something we’re proud of. But I’m telling you—in confidence, I hope.” Murakami waited.
Fuchida’s “Hai” was, Yes, I understand, not, Yes, I agree. He recognized Murakami’s ploy. The Army officer was telling him something he didn’t know. Now Murakami hoped to hear something he didn’t know. Bargains often went along routes like that.
When Fuchida said no more than Hai, Murakami sighed. “We do need this information,” he said reasonably. “We have to defend this island, too—with our airplanes, and with our soldiers if the Americans manage to land.”
That was polite. What he meant was, If the Americans smash our carriers. Since he was aboard one of them, he couldn’t very well come out and say so. Commander Fuchida also sighed. “When they build enough so they think they can beat us—then they will come.”
“Domo arigato.” Murakami’s thanks were a small masterpiece of sarcasm. “And when will that be?”
“They have commissioned—we think they have commissioned—two new fleet carriers, as well as some light carriers,” Fuchida answered. That was pay-back for Murakami’s bit of news; up till now, the Navy had held the information close to its chest.
By the way the Army officer’s eyes widened, it was certainly news to him. “Two?” he said. “I knew of one, but. . . .” He in turn surprised Fuchida, but not so much. The Yankees hadn’t kept quiet about Essex. Maybe they wanted their own people to know they were building ships so they could retaliate. They’d been much more secretive about the other big carrier, and the smaller ones.
“I think our intelligence is reliable here,” Fuchida said.
“Zakennayo!” Murakami muttered. “Two! And light carriers! How soon will they have more?” That wasn’t quite fearful anticipation in his voice, but it came close.
“There I cannot tell you, not for certain.” Fuchida did his best not to remember Admiral Yamamoto’s worries over how fast the Americans could build things once they got fully geared up. Most experts in Japan thought Yamamoto an alarmist, but he knew the USA well—and he was Yamamoto. One disagreed with him at one’s peril.
“What is your best estimate? What is the Navy’s best estimate?” Murakami was nothing if not persistent.
“Summer.” Fuchida spread his hands. “Don’t ask me for anything closer than that, Murakami-san, because I can’t give it.”
The Army officer looked discontented. “General Yamashita is already assuming summer. I was hoping you could tell me more.” He didn’t say, I was hoping to win points for myself if you did tell me more, but it hovered behind his words.
“Please excuse me, but I am not a bonz, to lay out the future for you,” Fuchida said, hoping he hid his irritation.
“Will the Navy be ready?” Murakami asked.
That did it. Fuchida was a patient man, but even patience had its limits. “No, of course not,” he snapped. “We’re going to go out against the Americans in a couple of rusty old tubs, and they’ll sink us just like that.” He snapped his fingers.
Lieutenant Colonel Murakami turned red. He had brains enough to know when he’d been given the glove. His colleague, Lieutenant Colonel Minami, was all too likely to have taken Fuchida literally. “All right. All right. I know you’ll do your best,” Murakami said. “But will your best be good enough?”
“It always has been so far.” Pride rang in Fuchida’s voice; he was still affronted. “Anyone who doesn’t think it will should transfer out of this kingdom—which wouldn’t be a kingdom if the Navy didn’t know what it was doing.”
Murakami blushed again. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said, though Fuchida had been careful not to challenge his personal courage. When the Navy officer didn’t push it any further, Murakami went on, “Speaking of being stationed in a kingdom, here’s something that may amuse you: King Stanley has asked for some airplanes, so Hawaii can have an air force as well as an army.”
“You’re joking,” Fuchida said. Lieutenant Colonel Murakami shook his head. And, thinking about it, Fuchida wasn’t all that surprised. King Stanley was vain. He would be the sort to want a toy air force to go with his toy Army. Fuchida asked, “What did General Yamashita say to that?” Yamashita, from everything he’d seen, had a short fuse.
But Murakami surprised him, answering, “Yamashita-san consulted with the Foreign Ministry, and they said to keep the Hawaiian happy if he could do it without causing us trouble. So King Stanley is getting half a dozen of our most decrepit Hayabusas.”
“The Hawaiian Air Force.” Fuchida had to smile at that. He would have screamed bloody murder, though, if King Stanley had demanded Zeros. As far as he was concerned, the Hawaiians were welcome to Hayabusas. The Peregrine Falcon was the Army’s chief fighter plane. It was even lighter and more maneuverable than the Zero, but armed with nothing more than a pair of rifle-caliber machine guns. A Sopwith Camel rising to fight the Red Baron in 1917 had had just as much firepower. Handled well, a Hayabusa gave good service. Even so . . . He didn’t want to criticize the plane to Murakami, who was not an aviator, but he would almost rather have gone up in a Sopwith Camel.
Murakami was smiling, to
o, for reasons of his own. “Do you know what the King’s biggest challenge is?”
“Tell me,” Fuchida urged. “I’m all ears.”
“Finding pilots small enough to be comfortable in the cockpit.”
Fuchida did laugh then. Hawaiians were bigger than Japanese, as the two sets of guards at Iolani Palace proved. The naval officer said, “A good thing he’s sticking to Hawaiians and not using whites—although local Japanese would solve his problem for him.”
“General Yamashita suggested that,” Murakami said. “The King was polite about turning it down, but he did. He wants Hawaiian pilots flying for him. He has his pride, too, no matter how foolish it is.”
“I suppose he does,” Fuchida agreed. Much good pride would do the puppet king of Hawaii. With or without a few fighter planes to call his own, he would go on doing what Japan told him to. If he didn’t . . . If he didn’t, the Kingdom of Hawaii would suddenly need a new sovereign.
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.
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