End of the Beginning

by Harry Turtledove

  As soon as the leatherneck got a look at Susie, the rifle stopped moving. His grin showed white teeth amidst brown stubble. “I don’t care about you, pal, but I hope like hell she is,” he said. “Here. Enjoy.” He tossed them a pack of cigarettes and some crackers and cheese wrapped in cellophane. Then he fired a couple of rounds and ran on.

  “My God!” Oscar said dizzily—and he hadn’t even opened the Luckies yet. “We made it!” Susie kissed him. Charlie pounded him on the back. Nobody stuck anything up where a bullet might find it. Oscar didn’t want to turn himself into a liar now, especially after Susie kissed him again.

  THE JEEP THAT ROLLED SOUTH FROM HALEIWA down the twice wrecked and now restored Kamehameha Highway carried a pintle-mounted .50-caliber machine gun. The driver glanced over to Fletch Armitage. “You handle that thing if you have to, sir? Still Jap snipers around every now and then.”

  “I’ll handle it,” Fletch promised. “You think I’m skinny now, you should’ve seen me a month ago.” He felt like a new man. If the new man tired easily and looked as if he’d blow away in a strong breeze, he still marked one hell of an improvement over the old one.

  Fletch looked like a new man, too, in the olive-drab uniform that had replaced khaki while he was on the sidelines. The jeep was new, too, or new to him; none of the handy little utility vehicles had got to Oahu before the war started. The machine gun, by contrast, felt like an old friend. He could have stripped it and reassembled it blindfolded. He’d had to do that at West Point. If the instructors felt nasty, they’d remove a key part before you put it back together, and make you figure out what was wrong.

  War had chewed up the landscape—chewed it up twice in less than two years. Not even Hawaii’s luxuriant growth was able to cover up the latest round. Fletch looked at things with a professional eye. The Japs had fought like sons of bitches, no doubt about it. Burnt-out tanks and wrecked artillery pieces and pillboxes told how hard they had fought. So did the smell of death that fouled the warm, moist air.

  The Kamehameha Highway was better than new: twice as wide, with no potholes because the paving was still so fresh. The engineers who’d put Humpty Dumpty back together again had done a hell of a job. And they’d needed to. If supplies didn’t go south by the Kamehameha Highway, they didn’t go south at all.

  No snipers fired at the jeep. Less than an hour after Fletch got off the landing craft, he found himself in Wahiawa. “Here you go, sir,” the driver said, pulling up behind the gutted corpse of a Packard that had sat by the curb since December 7, 1941. “Good luck.” He pulled a Big Little Book out of his pocket and settled down to read.

  “Thanks,” Fletch said tightly. He got down from the jeep. Wahiawa looked—trampled was the first word that came to mind. The Japs hadn’t cared about civilians. To them, built-up areas made good strongpoints. The town had paid for their stand. Everybody in Hawaii had paid and paid—including, at last, the Japs themselves.

  Civilians on the streets were scrawny. K-ration cans were some of the commonest trash Fletch saw. K-rations weren’t delicious, but they were paradise next to what people had eaten while the Japs ruled the roost.

  A brunette haole woman with her hair hacked off short as a Marine’s shrank away from Fletch when his eye fell on her. He wondered what that was all about, but only for a moment. She must have been sleeping with the enemy. His mouth tightened, which only made the woman look more frightened as she scuttled past him. How anyone could . . . But then he sighed. Some people didn’t care what they did to get by. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t seen that before. If your choices looked like screwing a Jap and starving to death, what would you do? He thanked God he wasn’t a judge. Making Hawaii run the way it was supposed to again would take years.

  His own worries were more personal. He turned west off the highway toward Schofield Barracks, which he knew were nothing but wreckage, and, more to the point, toward his old apartment building, which he hoped was still there. A lot of the places around here were okay. The Japs must not have thought they could make much of a stand in this part of town.

  There it was, battered but still standing. Just like me. Fletch started to shake. This was harder than anything he’d done since the first time he went into combat, with Japanese fighters and dive bombers blowing up everything in sight. And who says you’re not going into combat now? he asked himself. Jane already blew up your heart.

  ARMITAGE was still on the mailbox in the lobby. He climbed the stairs two at a time so he wouldn’t have time to think. By the time he got to the second floor, he was panting—he still wasn’t in great shape. But exercise wasn’t the only thing making his heart pound when he walked down the hall. He took a deep breath and knocked on what had been his own front door.

  Maybe she wouldn’t be home. . . . But he heard footsteps inside, so she was. The door opened. There she was, skinny (but who wasn’t skinny these days?) but still looking damn good to him. “Yes, Captain?” she said—and then she did a double take right out of the Three Stooges. “My God! Fletch! My God!” she squealed, and threw herself into his arms.

  She didn’t feel skinny. He’d forgotten how a woman in his arms did feel. Finding out again was like three shots of bourbon on an empty stomach. When he kissed her, she kissed him back—for about three seconds before she twisted away. What had been intoxication curdled. “Hello, Jane,” he said sourly.

  “Come in,” she said, looking down at her toes and not at him. “I’m sorry, Fletch. I know what you must be thinking. But that—wasn’t all about you, anyway.”

  “Great,” he said, and she flinched as if he’d hit her. He did go in. The place didn’t look too different. It smelled of wood smoke, but she sure wouldn’t have been able to go on cooking with gas. “How are you?” he asked.

  “I’m here,” she answered. “I saw you once, with those others. . . .”

  “I know. I saw you, too,” Fletch said. “I must have looked like hell.”

  Jane nodded. “You did. I’m sorry, but you did. I didn’t think anything would be left of you in a little while.”

  “Damn near wasn’t,” he said. “I was down to about a hundred pounds when the leathernecks raided the camp in Kapiolani Park and got me out.” He’d put some weight back on, but he still had a long way to go. “You made it, though. Way to go.”

  “Way to go. Yeah. Sure.” Her laugh might have been dipped in vitriol. “Fletch . . .” She stopped, then muttered, “Well, you might as well hear it from me, because you’ll sure hear it.”

  “Hear what?” he asked, ice forming in his belly. If she’d collaborated . . . He didn’t know what he’d do if she’d collaborated. Bust her in the chops and walk out, he supposed. Slam the door on this part of his life forever.

  “They made me their whore,” she whispered. “Comfort woman, they called it. They stuck me in a brothel, and they made me. . . . They made me fuck them and suck them, all comers welcome. There. Is that plain enough? I was doing that till the place got shelled and I could get away.”

  “Oh,” he said, and then, “Oh, Jesus,” and then, “No wonder you didn’t want to kiss me.”

  “No wonder at all,” Jane said bleakly. “Hawaii, the impregnable fortress of the Pacific.” Another acid-filled laugh. “What was impregnable was me, and it’s just dumb fucking luck—yeah, that’s what it is, all right—I’m not carrying some Jap’s bastard. I’d never know whose, either, ’cause there were too damn many to be sure.”

  Fletch felt like sinking through the floor. There is a peculiar, horrible helplessness unique to the man who can’t protect his woman. “I’m sorry,” he said in a low voice. “I’m so sorry.” Part of him knew that was irrational. He’d been a POW, at least as helpless as Jane, and she’d dumped him anyhow. But he’d also been a soldier, charged with defending Hawaii against the enemy. And he’d failed. The whole Army and Navy had failed, but he didn’t care about that. He’d failed. It was personal, which made it all the worse.

  “That ought to take care of any silly fooli
shness about getting back together,” Jane said. “You won’t even want to look at me now, let alone touch me.”

  “Hey,” Fletch said gently. Jane looked up in surprise—she must have thought he would stomp out of the place in disgust. He said, “I know all about what the Japs could make people do. They would have killed you if you didn’t. You think I don’t know that, too? I saw—plenty, believe me. Whatever you had to do, nobody’s gonna blame you for it. I sure don’t. You’ll probably end up a hero, babe, and go to the mainland and make speeches about what a bunch of bastards we’re fighting so people in war plants’ll buy more bonds.”

  She stared at him. “You son of a bitch,” she said, and she started to cry.

  “What the—devil did I do now?” he asked, honestly bewildered.

  “If you’d just walked away, it would have been over,” Jane answered. “But you’re—you’re sweet to me.” She cried harder than ever. “What am I supposed to do now? Everything that has to do with common sense says I ought to finish what I started. But then you go and you act sweet. What am I supposed to do about that?”

  “Would you rather I slapped you silly?” Fletch inquired.

  His sarcasm rolled right off her, because she nodded. “You bet I would,” she answered. “If you did, I’d know where I stood—right where I always stood. It would be over. But this?” She stared at him again, blinking rapidly; her eye-lashes were wet. “Have you grown up? Did whatever the Japs did to you finally make you grow up?”

  “I don’t know,” he said heavily. “All I know is, I didn’t die, and too many people did. No, I know one other thing—I never stopped loving you, for whatever you think that’s worth. I couldn’t do anything about it for weeks and months at a time, but I never stopped. Take it for what you think it’s worth.” He reached into his pocket. “I’d give you a drink if I had one, but all I’ve got are Luckies. Will a cigarette do?”

  “Sweet Jesus, yes!” Jane exclaimed. “I’m getting the habit back, and I love it. There’ve been times when I thought about screwing a soldier for a pack. There really have. That’s the other side of the coin. After so many, what’s one more, especially when he’s on our side? After you do . . . what I had to do, it doesn’t mean what it used to.”

  “No, I don’t suppose it would,” Fletch said. “Well, I’m not asking. Leave me a couple and keep the rest of the pack. I can get more.” When she took a Lucky between two fingers, he flipped a Zippo he’d got from a pharmacist’s mate and lit it for her. He fired one up for himself, too. He was also getting used to them again. The nicotine buzz hit harder than he remembered from the days before the war.

  Jane’s cheeks hollowed as she sucked in smoke. “That’s so good,” she said, and then, cocking her head to one side, “What the dickens am I gonna do with you, Fletch?”

  “It’s your call, honey,” he answered with a shrug that he hoped hid his own dreams. “I never wanted things to end. If you do . . . I guess I can’t stop you. Think about it, though. Don’t make up your mind right away. That’s all I ask. We’ve both been through—too much. There’s no rush. If you decide it’s over, it’s over. If you don’t, I’ll be here—till I get well enough to go back on active duty, anyhow.”

  “That’s fair,” Jane said, her voice troubled. “That’s more than fair, I guess.”

  “Okay, let’s leave it there, then.” Fletch looked around for an ashtray. Jane was doing the same thing. She went back to the kitchen and came out with a saucer. They both knocked off ash and then, before long, stubbed out their cigarettes. He climbed to his feet. “I better go. I’m glad you came through . . . however it happened.”

  “Same to you.” Looking like a soldier advancing into machine-gun fire, she stepped forward and put her arms around him. He held her, not too tight. She put her chin up.

  “You sure?” he asked. Jane nodded. He kissed her, not too hard. Even with a mild kiss like that, he rose—he leaped—to the occasion. He was starting to feel well enough to know how long he’d gone without. He didn’t try to do anything about it. Letting go of his not-quite-ex was hard. Holding on to her now would have been much worse. He clicked his tongue between his teeth and said, “Take care of yourself, kiddo.”

  “Yeah, you, too,” Jane answered. “I’ll see you.”

  “Uh-huh.” Fletch left the apartment, left the apartment building, and walked back to the jeep parked on Kamehameha Highway. “Take me back to the beach,” he told the driver.

  Away went the Big Little Book. “Yes, sir,” the soldier said, and fired up the engine.

  JUSTICE OF A SORT HAD COME TO WAHIAWA. It was a rough justice, but the times it was trying to deal with had been rough, too. Jane Armitage knew that even better than most of her neighbors. Like them, she scowled at Smiling Sammy Little, who stood before his fellow townsfolk and tried to say he hadn’t collaborated with the Japanese.

  Smiling Sammy wasn’t smiling now. The used-car dealer had on a loud checked jacket that he might have worn on his lot back in the days when Oahu had autos that ran and gas to run them. “I never hurt anybody,” he insisted. “I never squealed on anybody. I never got anything special from the Japs, so help me God!”

  A woman standing near Jane aimed a forefinger at him. “Look at you, you lying son of a bitch! That coat fits you!”

  People muttered. It was a telling, maybe a deadly, point. Most people’s clothes hung on them like tents, even after they’d been eating U.S. military rations for a while. The woman accusing Smiling Sammy had arms and legs like sticks. She was far from the only one, too. Sammy Little wasn’t so chunky as he had been when he was selling cars, but he was a long way from emaciated. He’d gone through the occupation on more than rice and turnips and weeds.

  “Where’d you get your chow, Sammy?” somebody called. Somebody else added, “Who’d you sell down the river for your belly?”

  “I never did!” Little said. “I—I had a stash of canned goods the Japs never found. Yeah, that’s it!”

  The chorus of, “Liar!” that rang out had a frightening baying quality to it. Hounds might have bayed like that after treeing a raccoon, especially if they were hungry. Another chorus began: “The gauntlet! The gauntlet!”

  Sammy Little licked his lips. The color drained out of his face. “No,” he whispered. “I didn’t do anything. I don’t deserve it.”

  “We can hand you back to the Army,” said the woman who’d pointed at him. “They’ll give you a blindfold and a cigarette, or else they’ll give you twenty years for sucking up to the Japs. This way, it’s all over at once, and you’ll probably live.”

  Jane didn’t think anybody’d died running the gauntlet in Wahiawa, not yet. Yosh Nakayama went through almost unscathed; only a few people had wanted to take a shot at him. Most figured he’d done the best he could in an impossible situation. Other men and women, though, got badly beaten. They too probably would have faced worse from the U.S. military.

  Two lines formed, from Smiling Sammy Little on one end to getting it over with on the other. The used-car salesman licked his lips one more time, then lowered his head and ran like hell between the lines. People punched him and kicked at him as he dashed by. He’d got about a third of the way before somebody tripped him. He went down with a moan. After than, a lot more of the punches and kicks landed. Jane kicked him in the ribs as he crawled past her. But he made it to the far end. He was bloodied and battered, but he was alive.

  Jane kicked him only once. She despised him, but on general principles. He hadn’t done anything to her personally. When two haole men led out a small, kind-looking Chinese woman, though . . . “Here’s Annabelle Chung,” one of them said. Something made a crunching noise near Jane. She realized she was grinding her teeth.

  “She ran the Japs’ ‘comfort house’ for them,” the other man said. “She took their money. She brought them to the women. She made sure nobody got away, too.”

  “They made me do it!” Annabelle Chung said shrilly. “They said they’d kill me if I didn’t!�
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  That might even have been true. Jane didn’t know one way or the other. She didn’t care, either. “So what?” she shouted. “So what, God damn you! You enjoyed seeing us in hell in there. You enjoyed it. How would you have liked it if the Japs did a quarter of what they did to us to you? I wish they would have.”

  Other women forced into prostitution screamed at Annabelle Chung, too. She started to cry. One of Jane’s fellow sufferers said, “Yeah, look at those tears. What did you think we did every night after the Japs finally got through with us? I spent all that time wishing I was dead. And I spent a lot of it wishing you were dead, too.”

  “That’s right!” Jane said. “Oh, Lord, that’s just right!” Other comfort women also chimed in. The Chinese woman who’d been dragged into prostitution along with the haoles denounced Annabelle Chung as fiercely as any of them.

  “I didn’t mean anything bad,” the madam said when something close to silence finally came. “I was just trying to get through it all, same as anybody else. I’m sorry.”

  “You’re sorry you got caught,” Jane yelled. “You knew what they were doing to us, and you didn’t care.”

  “That isn’t true,” Annabelle Chung protested.

  But a fierce, rising cry drowned her out: “The gauntlet. The gauntlet! The gauntlet!” People made sure Jane and the other former comfort women had good spots. They hustled Annabelle Chung to the starting point. She didn’t want to go through. In her shoes, Jane wouldn’t have wanted to, either. A big man finally gave her a shove. After that, it was run or die.

  People were harder on the madam than they had been on Smiling Sammy Little. That probably wasn’t fair; odds were he’d done more harm through the occupation than she had. But he’d been sneakier about it. He hadn’t been right out there pimping for the Japanese. Saying just what he had done was hard. With Annabelle Chung, nobody had any doubts about that.