“Ah, so desu-ka?” Jiro said. “Is there some way the Americans won’t find you here?” Despite Kita’s half-promise of a little while before, he did not presume to include himself among the number who might not be found here. When he talked with an important personage like the consul, he still felt very much like a horny-handed fisherman.
Nagao Kita smiled. “There is some way, yes. How would you like to stay here till tonight and come to Honolulu harbor with me? If we are lucky, a submarine will surface and take some of the people who matter to us back to Japan.”
“And you really would take me?” Jiro hardly dared believe his ears. “I am a man who matters enough to go back to Japan?” He wondered what the home islands would be like. He’d been away so long. A lot had changed here in Hawaii since he came. Japan was bound to be different, too.
The consul’s smile grew wider, almost filling his broad face. “I would take you. I am glad to take you, Takahashi-san. Your broadcasts served your country and served your Emperor well. And we have two spaces on the submarine we were not sure we would. The King and Queen of Hawaii have decided to stay here and face whatever happens.”
“They are brave.” Jiro thought they were also foolish. Then full understanding of what the consul had told him sank in. “I will get a place on this submarine that would have gone to the King or Queen of Hawaii? I will?” His voice rose to a startled squeak. It hadn’t broken like that since he was nineteen years old, but it did now.
“Don’t worry about it,” Kita said easily. “Even if they had decided to go, we would have found a place for you one way or another.”
Jiro bowed in his seat. “Domo arigato, Kita-san. You could put me in a torpedo tube. I wouldn’t care.”
“Oh, you might, if they had to shoot you at an American cruiser.” Kita had a good laugh, the kind that invited everyone who heard it to laugh along. It made even a silly joke funnier than it would have been otherwise.
“I would like to go back and say good-bye to my sons,” Jiro said slowly.
“Takahashi-san, if you were going on the submarine alone, I would tell you to go and do this,” Kita answered. “We’ve never talked much about your sons, and one reason we haven’t is that I know they think of themselves as Americans, not Japanese. I don’t hold that against you. How could I, when it is true of so many of the younger generation here? I don’t know that they would raise the alarm. For all I know, they probably wouldn’t. But, please excuse me, I would rather not take the chance.”
Jiro bowed his head. “I understand.”
“Thank you,” Kita said. “I do not want to make things more awkward than they have to be.”
After that, Jiro had nothing to do but wait. He leafed through magazines from Japan. Everyone in them seemed happy and cheerful and prosperous. All the news was good. They talked about beating the Americans again and again. In their pages, the United States seemed a clumsy, stupid giant, not worth taking seriously. Off in the distance—but not far enough off in the distance—artillery and bombs thundered. Every so often, an American plane would roar over Honolulu. The USA made a more serious foe than the propaganda magazines cared to admit.
Darkness fell. The staff at the consulate went right on burning papers. Jiro felt useless. He didn’t know enough to help. But they wouldn’t want to take him back to the home islands if he were useless, would they?
He dozed in his chair. Nagao Kita shook him awake. “It’s time, Takahashi-san,” the consul—the departing consul—said.
“Hai.” Jiro yawned and stretched. “I’m ready.” Was he? He was more ready to leave Honolulu if he could than to face the returning Americans. He supposed that made him ready enough.
The streets of Honolulu were dark and empty, but far from quiet. Off to the west, the battle for Pearl Harbor still raged. By all the signs, fighting was getting closer to the city. If that submarine didn’t come in now, it would never have another chance. Jiro could plainly see that. The Japanese occupation was finished. He sighed. He wished things had turned out different. Even if he wasn’t here to hear it, Hiroshi and Kenzo would be saying, I told you so.
Barricades and roadblocks slowed the journey down to the harbor. The special naval landing forces who manned them were alert, even jumpy. But Consul Kita talked his way past them every time.
Other little parties made their way to the harbor, too. Some of them were Japanese, others Hawaiians and even haoles who’d gone along with the new regime. They had a good notion of what they could expect when American rule returned. But the king and queen were staying behind. Yes, they were brave. Did they have any common sense?
He stared out past Sand Island, which helped protect the approaches to Honolulu’s harbor. The Americans hadn’t landed there yet; they probably hadn’t thought they needed to. A Japanese garrison still held the place. If U.S. troops had taken the island, the sub would have had a much harder time getting in—and getting out again afterwards.
Off to the west, tracers—American red and orange and Japanese blue—made a fireworks display against the night. They shed enough light to let Jiro see everyone else looked as worried as he felt. One of the Japanese, a bureaucrat in a civilian suit, said, “Where is the submarine?”
Not five minutes later, like a broaching whale but ever so much bigger, it surfaced by the pier. A hatch came open at the top of the conning tower. A moment later, several people exclaimed in disgust. Jiro didn’t, but he came close. The air that wafted out of the hatch was as foul as any he’d ever smelled, and fishermen knew everything there was to know about stinks. Too many people too close together for too long, foul heads, and sour food all went into the mix. So did the stink of oil and several other things he couldn’t name right away. He wondered how the sailors stood it, then decided they had to be so used to it, they didn’t even notice it any more.
An officer popped out of the hatch. “Is everyone here?” he called. “We can’t wait for stragglers, not if we want to get out in one piece.”
“The King and Queen of Hawaii are not coming,” Consul Kita said. “They have refused our invitations.”
“It’s their funeral,” the officer said. Jiro thought that was likely true. The officer climbed out of the hatch. Sailors followed him and laid a gangplank from the pier to the sub’s iron hull. The couple of dozen escapees came aboard. A sailor guided them to the ladder up to the conning tower. Another ladder led down into the dark, smelly bowels of the submarine. As people started down that ladder, the officer took their names. Nagao Kita vouched for Jiro. “Oh, yes.” The officer nodded. “When we were surfaced, I would pick up his broadcasts myself. Good man.”
“Arigato,” Jiro said shyly.
“Do itashimashite,” the officer answered. After the last person came aboard, he asked, “Where is Commander Genda? He’s supposed to be here, too.” When no one answered, the man muttered, “Zakennayo! The order for his recall comes from Admiral Yamamoto, no less. Well, we’re not going to wait, no matter what.”
Only dim orange lamps lit up the inside of the submarine. Pipes and wires ran overhead; even short men like Jiro had to duck all the time. Machinery was everywhere—above, below, and to either side. Whatever space existed for people seemed an afterthought.
The hatch clanged shut. The officer dogged it. He came down the internal ladder, his shoes clattering. He gave a series of crisp orders. The sub backed away from the pier and then went under, air bubbling out of the buoyancy tanks and water sloshing in. Slowly—Jiro gradually realized everything underwater happened slowly—it turned and started out the channel by which it had entered the harbor.
He sighed with mingled pleasure and disappointment. On the way home at last!
MINORU GENDA HAD NEVER IMAGINED he would disobey an order from Admiral Yamamoto. He looked to the commander-in-chief of the Combined Fleet as an example, a mentor, a friend. Yet the Japanese submarine had presumably come and presumably gone. Assorted dignitaries were presumably aboard the boat. He remained somewhere between Honolulu
and Pearl Harbor, doing everything he could to hold back the advancing Americans.
Cynthia Laanui had nothing to do with it.
So Genda told himself, and believed he told himself the truth. The Queen of Hawaii made a wonderful diversion. He liked her more as a person than he’d thought he would, too. But none of that was reason enough to throw away his naval career.
Hawaii was.
This invasion had been Genda’s idea from the beginning. He’d proposed to Yamamoto the notion of following up the air strike with ground troops. Only with Hawaii under the Rising Sun, he’d said, could it serve as Japan’s shield rather than America’s outstretched arm. He’d persuaded Yamamoto. Yamamoto had persuaded the Army—a harder job, since the conquest of Malaya and the Dutch East Indies and their vital resources had to move more slowly. But Yamamoto made the generals believe Japan had a better chance of keeping her conquests if she held Hawaii.
For close to two years, Hawaii had done what it was supposed to do. With a Japanese garrison here, the USA had to fight the Pacific war from its own West Coast. Its reach wasn’t long enough to do Japan much harm from there.
Now, though . . . Now Hawaii was falling back into U.S. hands. Genda was no fool, but no blind optimist, either. He knew the signs of defeat when he saw them, and he saw them now. The fall of Pearl Harbor was perhaps the next to last nail in the coffin.
And if he took credit for the victory of 1941, how could he not shoulder blame for the defeat of 1943? To duck it would make him into a liar, and he refused to lie to himself. He intended to atone in his own person for his plan’s failure. He thought Yamamoto would understand.
He had an Arisaka some soldier or naval landing force man would never need again. He wished he had a uniform that gave better camouflage than his Navy whites. By now, the whites had so many dirt and grass stains, they hid him better than they had a couple of days earlier. He wasn’t the only man in whites to form a part of the Japanese skirmish line. That made him feel better. He wasn’t the only officer determined to make the Yankees pay for everything they got.
The enemy skirmish line was a couple of hundred meters away. The Americans weren’t pushing forward right this minute. Every so often, they would fire a few rifle shots or a burst from a machine gun or a Browning Automatic Rifle to discourage the Japanese from attacking. The men on Genda’s side would do the same.
Genda didn’t think his countrymen could attack. They were a motley mix of Army and Navy men. An Army captain seemed to be in local command. Genda outranked him, but didn’t try to throw his weight around. The Army officer sounded capable, while he himself knew as much about infantry combat as he did about Paris fashions. He was learning fast, though.
As for the Americans . . . By all the signs, they were waiting till they built up overwhelming force. Then they would hit the Japanese line somewhere and pour through. The defenders would have the choice of dying where they stood or falling back to try to stop the enemy somewhere else. Genda had already seen the Yankees do that once. They didn’t take many chances. If he’d enjoyed all their matériel, he wouldn’t have taken many chances, either.
A senior private squatted in the foxhole along with Genda. He was filthy and weary, but managed a smile of sorts when he noticed Genda’s eye on him. “Hard work, sir,” he said wryly.
“Hai.” Genda nodded. In a mess like this, he worried less about rank than he would have otherwise. He said, “You look like you’ve done your share of hard work and then some.”
“Could be, sir,” the soldier answered. “I started up at the north coast—and here I am.”
That was something unusual. Most Japanese soldiers who’d met the Americans on the invasion beaches were dead. Genda knew the Army preferred dying in place to retreating. Keeping his voice carefully neutral, he said, “You must have seen a lot of fighting. How did that happen, Senior Private, ah . . . ?”
“My name is Furusawa, sir.” The soldier showed no reluctance to give it. He didn’t seem to feel he’d done anything wrong. And he explained why: “I found all my superiors killed around me. That left me free to use my own judgment. I thought I would be more use to the Emperor killing as many Americans as I could than throwing my life away to no good purpose.” By the way he eyed Genda, anyone who presumed to disagree with him would be sorry.
But Genda didn’t disagree. “And have you done that?” he asked.
“Sir, I have,” the soldier answered. His rifle—an American Springfield—had plainly seen a lot of use, but it was clean and in good condition. Seeing Genda’s glance toward the weapon, Furusawa went on, “My unit’s barracks in Honolulu were bombed, and we lost our Arisakas.”
“How do you like the American piece?” Genda asked.
“It’s a little heavy, sir, but not too bad,” Furusawa said. “And it fires a larger-caliber round than an Arisaka, so it’s got more stopping power. I do like that.”
Like the rest of what Senior Private Furusawa had to say, that was more clearly reasoned than Genda would have looked for from a lowly enlisted man. And, while Furusawa’s accent said he came from somewhere in the south—down by Hiroshima, perhaps—he also sounded better educated than the farmers and fishermen who made up a large part of the population there.
“Why are you only a senior private?” Genda asked, by which he meant, Why do you talk the way you do? Why do you think the way you do?
The younger man understood what he didn’t say, which showed Furusawa did think that way. With a crooked smile, he replied, “Well, sir, for one thing, I was a pretty new conscript when we came here, and there weren’t a lot of promotions after that. And my father is a druggist. That sort of made me a white crow to a lot of the country boys in my regiment.” He echoed Genda’s thought there, and continued, “Complaining wouldn’t have done me much good. And keeping me down made some sense, too, because the others might not have followed me the way they would have with someone else.”
Genda wondered if he himself could have spoken so dispassionately about being passed over for a promotion he obviously deserved. He doubted it. “What do you think will happen now?” he asked.
“That depends, sir. You’d know better than I do—has the Navy got enough ships and planes to beat the Americans and drive them away?”
“No.” Genda spoke without hesitation.
Senior Private Furusawa shrugged. He didn’t seem very surprised. “Well, in that case we’ll just have to give it our best shot, won’t we?” He shrugged again. “Karma, neh?”
He could speak indirectly at least as well as Genda. What he meant was, We’re all going to die here, and we can’t do a damn thing about it. Genda thought about that, but not for long. He didn’t need long. He sighed, nodded, and said, “Hai.”
YASUO FURUSAWA KNEW HE OUGHT TO GET AWAY from Commander Genda. The naval officer knew he’d fallen back from the north instead of senselessly charging and throwing his life away. That made Genda dangerous to him as the Japanese were driven back into Honolulu. If the officer wanted to make an example of someone, he had a nice, juicy target. And sticking around Genda endangered Furusawa in another way, too. The Navy man was a greenhorn at infantry combat. His white uniform only made things worse. He drew bullets as well as he could have without painting a target on his chest. And bullets meant for him could all too easily find someone nearby instead.
But Furusawa stayed by him. Before long, he found himself Genda’s unofficial aide and orderly. Genda, he thought, was the smartest man he’d ever met. And the officer didn’t seem to think he was a baka yaro himself. That made Furusawa proud. Right now, pride was about all any Japanese had left.
He shook his head. Japanese soldiers, or most of them, had a contempt for death the Americans couldn’t begin to match. Oh, the Yankees were brave enough. He’d seen that in the first invasion, and he saw it again now. But he could not imagine an American rushing out against a tank with a flaming bottle of gasoline and smashing it down on the cooling louvers above the engine. The Japanese who did that
must have known he couldn’t get back to cover alive. And he didn’t; the Americans shot him before he made even three steps. But their snorting mechanical monster went up in flames, and the Japanese picked off the crewmen bailing out. Without the tank, the enemy attack bogged down.
Could I do that? Furusawa wondered. His long retreat from the north left him with doubts about himself and about his courage. He didn’t think he was afraid to die if his death meant something. The death of that soldier with the Molotov cocktail certainly had. He’d cost the Americans a tank and five men.
That was one side of the coin. The other side was, losing that tank and those five men wouldn’t cost the USA the battle. Honolulu would fall. Hawaii would go back under the Stars and Stripes. Nobody but a blind man could believe anything else.
Well, in that case, why don’t we throw down our rifles and throw up our hands and surrender? But Furusawa shook his head. No less than any other Japanese, he believed surrender the ultimate disgrace. And he didn’t want to spread his own disgrace and shame to his family back in the home islands.
Besides, some of the men in charge of Honolulu might have been blind. If they didn’t think they could throw the Americans back, you wouldn’t know it to listen to them. The garrison commander was a Navy captain—in Army ranks, he counted as a colonel—named Iwabuchi.
“We can do it!” he shouted to anyone who would listen. “We will do it! The white men have no stomach for blood! Well, before long we will drown them in an ocean of it!”
Furusawa remembered him drilling his special naval landing forces before the Americans landed. He’d been just as fanatical then. He’d sounded like a screaming madman, as a matter of fact, and he still did. But he did more than just scream. Furusawa wouldn’t have wanted to attack Honolulu. Artillery hid inside buildings here. Machine guns had elaborately interlocking fields of fire. If you took out one nest, you exposed yourself to fire from two or three others.
End of the Beginning Page 47