He stepped back.
“How long?”
“What?”
“How long do I have to wait?”
“Sir, there are other men a lot worse off than you.”
“I don’t mean that,” he snapped back, sensing that she was interpreting his question as some sort of appeal, or an attempt to pull rank to be treated first. “I just want to know when you think someone will look at it.”
The girl sighed, and it struck him at that instant that she was in shock, in a way as wounded as the men she was tending.
“It’s OK,” James said softly now. “I know these guys are ahead of me.”
“Maybe tomorrow morning, sir,” she finally said, and her voice was brittle.
“Can you get us a couple of sulfa packets?” Dianne asked. “I was training to be a nurse once; I’ll take care of him.”
“Sure,” and she motioned to a corpsman who was on his knees, using forceps to pull out a piece of shrapnel from a marine’s forearm. The man was grimacing; obviously the hasty operation was being performed without any painkiller.
The nurse turned and walked away, going over to a stretcher that was being carried up the walkway. She stopped the team for a moment, gave one quick glance at the man lying on it unconscious, wrote a number on his forehead, and gestured over to a grove of palm trees. There were a hundred or more men lying under those trees, a lone chaplain with them; it was obviously the dying place, where those triaged off were placed until they died.
Dianne was back by his side. “I got some sulfa. Let’s get the hell out of here, sir. I’ll take you home.”
They started back to the car.
“Dianne?”
She slowed, looked over her shoulder to the young second lieutenant who was calling to her. His arm was in a sling, his forehead bandaged, his nose swollen—it looked broken—and his face blistered, except around the eyes, clearly where flight goggles had protected them.
The young officer came up to them.
“Adam? Good lord, are you OK?”
“Sure, Dianne, sure.”
“What happened to you?”
“Got shot down, that’s what happened. Crash landed, broke my damn nose. Medic said I might have cracked my noggin. I’m waiting to get x-rayed.”
His voice was slurring. James could see the young pilot was badly battered.
“I’m sorry, Adam,” and she leaned up and gently kissed him on the cheek. He winced a bit but forced a smile.
“Jeremiah, how is he?” she asked—and in that instant, the look in his eyes, James knew. For the moment he forgot his own pain, and with his good hand reached out to grab Dianne’s.
“Oh damn,” Adam sighed. “You didn’t hear about it?”
James squeezed her hand tight.
“He’s dead, Dianne. Got shot down yesterday afternoon.”
She froze in place, and then strangely, actually laughed softly.
“No, not my Jerry. He always said he was the best, you know that, Adam.”
“He was the best, the best we had,” Adam whispered. “I’m sorry, Dianne. Word was he went at it alone in one of those obsolete crates, a 36, against the entire third wave. Gave the first warning, then went in alone.”
“So you didn’t see him?” she asked softly. “His body, I mean.”
“No, sweetheart,” Adam sighed. “He crashed out to sea, no chute.”
“He could have made it to shore somewhere, that would be like my Jerry.”
Adam said nothing, only lowered his head.
“Take care of yourself, Adam,” she whispered.
“Come on, James,” and she started to walk back to the car, James still holding her hand tight.
“I’ll drive,” James said.
“What?”
“I’ll drive, Dianne. It’s OK.”
“Yeah, sure.”
Ignoring his pain, he helped her get into the passenger seat, went around to the driver’s side, and got in. For a moment he cursed his sense of chivalry. It was going to be hell shifting gears.
“Can I have the keys, Dianne?”
She reached into her purse, pulled them out, and handed them over without saying a word. He made eye contact with her.
“Dianne?”
“What, sir?”
“He’s gone. I heard the report when it came in yesterday. A lone P-36 spotted the Japs, said he was closing to attack, and then radio contact was lost. I’m sorry. I had no idea it was your boyfriend flying that plane. I would have told you if I had known.”
She didn’t reply.
“He died a hero, Dianne. He gave us ten extra minutes of warning, enough to get our defenses ready.”
He felt foolish saying what he had just said. Did dying a hero really matter to a woman, any woman who had lost a lover, a son, a husband?
And then she dissolved into tears, sobbing, leaning against his shoulder. He put his good arm around her for a moment, hugged her as he would a child.
He finally let go of her, started the car, and left the place of sorrow.
They drove in silence, except for her muffled sobs.
There was surprisingly little traffic on the road out of the base, though he had to gingerly weave around more than one wreck and backtrack around a blocked-off street, cratered by a bomb or a shell. Every shift of the gears was agony, as he braced the steering wheel with his legs, injured arm nestled into his lap.
Once out of the base the streets were all but empty. National guardsmen were posted every few blocks. A couple motioned for him to stop, but he didn’t slow down, and at the sight of his uniform and then his handless arm, which he deliberately rested on the rolled-down driver’s side window, they let him pass until he was onto Pali Highway.
A roadblock and long frustrating minutes of inching up to the checkpoint.
Again some national guardsmen; a sergeant came up to the window and looked in.
“Identification, sir?”
He took his hand off the gearshift, fumbled to his breast pocket. Damn, his wallet was gone; he must have dropped it somewhere, he couldn’t remember.
“Sergeant, I’ve lost my wallet.”
“What about her?”
She didn’t move, face turned away.
“Sergeant, she just found out her boyfriend was killed, a pilot. Damn it, I’m wounded, I’m ordered to go home, and home is up that road.”
The sergeant looked at the blood-soaked bandage covering the stump and nodded.
“Sir, we’re not supposed to let traffic over the pass to Kaneohe. Civilians are being evacuated to this side of the island in case the Japs try to land there.”
“I know. I moved my family out last night. I’m just going up the road a mile then turning off.”
The sergeant hesitated then nodded, stepped back, and saluted.
“OK, sir.”
And he motioned to the half-dozen men who blocked the road ahead to let him pass.
He eased the clutch out, struggled to get into first gear, drove up the empty road, and finally turned onto the street where Margaret’s cousin lived. He was barely into the driveway and the door was open, Margaret flying out the door and down the steps, her mother hobbling behind her.
She pulled the door to the car open, and he winced.
“James?”
“I’m OK, just a little shaky. If you could help her out, I’d appreciate it.”
Margaret looked in through the open window. Dianne was not responding, staring off.
“Her name is Dianne.” He lowered his voice though he knew she’d hear. “She’s one of our staff. She just found out her boyfriend was killed.”
Dianne looked over at him, eyes defiant.
“He could still be alive out there.”
James nodded, saying nothing, not sure what to say.
Margaret went over to the other side of the car, opening the door while James got out. His mother-in-law came up to his side and actually put a supportive arm around him.
“My poor
boy,” she said in Japanese.
“Sir.”
He looked across the hood of the car. Dianne was standing there, staring at him coldly.
“You never told me you were married,” she hesitated, “to one of them.”
“It’s OK, honey,” Margaret said calmly. “Let me help you inside.”
“Don’t touch me,” Dianne snapped. “Get him inside. Whoever did the bandaging didn’t know what the hell they were doing. I’ll take care of it.”
James caught Margaret’s eye. He could see the tension boiling up; he subtly shook his head, and she nodded. His mother-in-law said nothing, but then finally broke the moment by starting back up the stairs, alone, not looking back, Dianne following her.
“Who is she?” Margaret whispered. Beyond the insult of the moment, he could sense a bristling. Was it because of the obvious racial insult, or because a woman who she knew nothing about, and now found out had been working alongside her husband for nearly a year, was exceedingly attractive, even in her wretched, disheveled condition?
“As I said, she’s a civilian assistant to Collingwood. Her boyfriend was a fighter pilot. He got shot down yesterday, reported killed in action.”
“Poor girl,” but James could sense there wasn’t much compassion in Margaret’s voice.
“Things here OK?”
“No,” Margaret replied coldly. “Someone drove by earlier, saw mom and me outside, and called us f-ing Japs. There have been rumors all day. Two men executed down on the beach, supposedly spies, rumors of lynch mobs downtown hanging a kid accused of signaling enemy ships with a flashlight. Men being rounded up and taken to jails. No, things are not OK.”
“I’m sorry, honey, tensions are pretty high right now.”
“What next?” Margaret replied, “A concentration camp? That’s the rumor going around.”
“Just damn rumors” was all he could say, as she helped him up the stairs and into their cousin’s house.
“Sit him down at the dining room table,” Dianne said, as if giving an order, “then boil a couple of towels, a sheet, some scissors, tweezers, a sharp knife, thread and needle.”
“My mother knows what to do,” Margaret replied, still trying to sound polite.
Her mother said nothing. She was already in the kitchen and came out a moment later with everything Dianne had requested.
“I was prepared for him to come home,” she said slowly, looking straight at Dianne.
“Did you boil everything then keep it covered with something sterile?”
“Young lady, I was tending to injuries out in the pineapple fields before you were born,” Nan replied, and now there was a note of sharpness in her voice.
“Well, you didn’t do a good job on the commander here. It’s infected.”
There was a momentary standoff. James actually felt torn. This was his family, and yet he could understand the grief, the rage this girl was feeling. But still, this was his family.
“Dianne,” he finally said, stepping between the two, turning to face her. “I know you are hurting about Jerry. We all have lost someone. But please don’t take it out on my mother-in-law or my wife.”
She looked at him coldly. “I can leave if you want, sir.”
“Where’s home?”
“Over in Kanoehe.”
“You heard what the sergeant said back at the roadblock. It’s sealed off for now.”
Tears started to stream down her face, but there was no sob, no shuddering.
“Jerry might be over there. He was the best. He could have swum to shore or been picked up. And besides, he could outfly any damn Jap.”
“You can’t go home now,” James replied, keeping his voice low, even. “You are welcome to stay here.”
He hesitated.
“But in my house, Dianne, I don’t want to hear the word ‘Jap.’” She stared at him, tears flowing. “I think I’ll go back to the base, sir.”
“Young lady, lie down on the sofa. I’ll get you some tea with something in it once I’ve taken care of James.”
It was Nan coming up to Dianne’s side.
Dianne looked at her coldly, but Nan stared at her comfortingly and repeated in a welcoming voice, “Come on now.” Then Dianne just simply broke, and Nan put her arms around her. Dianne, far taller, cradled her head on the old woman’s shoulder, sobbing.
Nan led Dianne over to the sofa, sat her down, helped her put her feet up, even taking off her shoes, and the girl turned away, facing the wall, crying softly.
Margaret came into the room with a blanket and covered her, and James felt tears come to his own eyes as he watched the three women. How completely different war was for them, he thought. And there was fear as well. If things got worse tomorrow, if another strike hit—and he far better than most knew just how utterly defenseless the island now was from attack by air or sea—would there be an escalation? Would some idiot set off a lynching frenzy? He knew the story of the two men being shot was not a rumor, but it had not been an execution. The kid being lynched, that had not been reported on the base, but he could easily imagine it happening. And the concentration camp? He didn’t want to think about that prospect.
“Sit down, son.”
His mother-in-law motioned to the dining room table, where she had already spread out a towel. She deftly cut the bandage off and he could not help but flinch as she peeled it away.
She whispered something in Japanese, he couldn’t quite catch it, and Margaret was up by his side.
He looked down at the stump. It was swollen; the edge of the wound she had stitched up was puckering, red, a slight discolored discharge leaking from it.
“It’s infected,” she sighed. “James, why didn’t you go to the hospital?”
He shook his head.
“Mom, you don’t want to know what that place was like. There’s thousands of guys hurt worse than me.”
“I’m going to have to cut it open and clean it out again.”
“Shit.”
“Watch your language,” she replied, trying to force a smile.
“Let me help.”
He looked over his shoulder. It was Dianne standing behind them.
“I was studying to be a nurse. I’ve helped with worse than this before.”
His mother-in-law hesitated, then nodded. He could feel Margaret’s hands on his shoulders tighten up ever so slightly. She wasn’t happy about this, but he said nothing as Dianne went into the kitchen and scrubbed her hands for a couple of minutes before coming back out, not bothering to dry them, just shaking them to get the moisture off.
She looked at the wound, and James remembered what she had said earlier, that she had quit the training program because she had a weak stomach.
He felt decidedly weak himself as his mother-in-law carefully cut the stitches off. The wound opened up slightly.
“This will hurt,” she said, and she spread the wound open. The pain was electric rushing up his arm. For a moment he thought he would faint, as his vision narrowed.
“Keep it open, I’ll clean it out,” Dianne said, picking up a torn sheet from the tray his mother-in-law had brought out, and she swabbed the wound clean, fresh blood beginning to leak out near the stump of the bone.
“Did you probe for any fragments?” Dianne asked.
“I didn’t see any.”
Dianne picked up a pair of tweezers and looked at Margaret.
“You better hold him tight. This will hurt but I have to do it.”
James nodded, bracing himself, and he felt the tweezers slipping in. He arched, cursing, Margaret holding him down.
“I think there’s a bullet or fragment in there,” Dianne said.
He felt something grating, dear God this was bad… He could barely focus. It was as bad as the amputation; at least then they had him shot up with a local and some morphine. He regretted his bravado; he should have stayed at the hospital.
“Got it,” and she was holding a metal fragment with the tweezers, a small jagged pie
ce of steel, about the size of a dime. “My God,” Nan whispered.
She let the tweezers drop on the table, reached into her purse, and pulled out two packets of Sulfa.
“Pour sterile water in, clean it out good. Then pour these in across the inside of the wound. Then carefully stitch it up. Cover it with sterile gauze and bandage it lightly, then we can check it again in the morning.”
“You are an excellent nurse,” Margaret whispered. “Thanks.”
Dianne was already halfway into the kitchen.
“No, I’m not. I went to school one semester, kept throwing up. Saw that probe thing in a Dr. Kildare movie.”
She raced the last few feet to the kitchen sink and began to vomit, and then started crying again.
Margaret poured him a stiff drink, which he gulped down even as Nan stitched the wound closed again. Margaret gave him another drink, and then she helped him to a bedroom, where as if he were a child, she helped him undress.
She kissed him on the forehead, told him to go to sleep, and left the room, the door still open. He could hear crying out in the living room.
The window was open to let in the cooling breeze. The air was pure, but he could still hear, and sleep would not come. Distant rumbles of explosions, a siren of a cop car or an ambulance, someone shouting in the distance, a couple of gunshots… and out in the living room he could still hear soft voices and crying.
A distant flash reflected on the opposite wall of the room; long minutes later there was a faint rumble, but in spite of the pain, exhaustion and the liquor had taken hold and he was asleep.
Aboard Hiei
31 miles southwest of Oahu
17:52 hrs local time
CAPTAIN NAGITA NEVER heard a warning. No one saw the four torpedoes, fired from but a thousand yards out, streaking in. One circled wide—yet another failed gyroscope in the American Mark XII design. The second hit fifty yards forward of the stern. Those directly on the other side of the bulkhead heard the terrifying bang of its impact, but there was no explosion; as with so many of the American torpedoes, its magnetic mechnical detonators failed. But numbers three and four struck amidships, and the fourth one, just under number two turret, did detonate.
During their long day of struggling to survive, Captain Nagita had first been filled with pessimism. The air strikes had all but finished off his beloved ship, and yet somehow, his damage control teams had managed to keep her afloat and even stabilized the list.
Days of Infamy Page 25