Charley was both relieved and disappointed. “I spent most of my time in hiding, ma’am. From what I could tell, and from what people told me, it’s a pretty miserable place. The Japanese military is everywhere, and their secret police are the nastiest people on the face of the earth.”
He watched as her eyes clouded. The comment about Omori’s secret police had struck home. Alexa waited a moment, then continued. “How are the people getting on? What are they eating?”
Charley shrugged. “I can only tell you what I heard, and that’s that anyone who’s white is having a rough time, while anyone who isn’t is doing okay. There’s enough food to go around now, but nobody’s gonna get too fat from it.”
She laughed softly and glanced at his still prominent paunch. Thanks to their Spartan rations, it was disappearing, but far from gone. “I got this”-he grinned-”while hiding out with that old lady. She must’ve thought she was going to feed an army for a hundred years. It might’ve been illegal to hoard, but I’m kinda glad she did.”
“You know I lost my husband, don’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am. A lot of good people died that day.”
“Did you have family in Hawaii? Friends?”
What should he tell her? he wondered. “No, ma’am, although I do have a girlfriend in San Francisco. Want to see her picture?” It was a spur-of-the-moment comment but seemed logical.
Alexa nodded and Finch pulled a snapshot out of his wallet. Alexa’s eyes widened as she saw it. “She’s very pretty,” she finally said. “What’s her name?”
“Nancy Winfield,” he said, improvising quickly. Nancy Winfield was somebody he’d known back in the States. He wasn’t certain what the name of the person in the picture was. “And she is prettier than I deserve. I sure know that, and I remind myself about it a hundred times a day. At least,” he said sadly, “I used to. God only knows what’s happening to her now. She probably thinks I’m dead.”
Alexa put her hand on his arm. “Perhaps we can send a message that you’re all right.”
“That would be great,” Charley said sincerely. Even if they did send a message, it would be to an address where no one named Nancy Winfield lived. They would assume she’d moved and forget about it. “Thank you, ma’am.”
Alexa stood and brushed the dirt off her khaki slacks. She smiled at the sergeant and walked off. When she was far enough away, she allowed her eyes to well up with tears.
“You’re going to die,” she whispered angrily. “You’re going to fucking die, Charley Finch.”
Their main radio was in a hut near the top of a hill. It was large, and Jake’s soldiers had quipped that the radio was about as portable as a dead elephant. The antenna was on a tall tree a little ways away. Unless you were close and knew what to look for, it was invisible.
The Japs were looking for it, so Jake hadn’t had the set and antenna placed on the highest hill in the area. That would have been too obvious. Instead, the tree-covered hill was one of scores like it that jutted up in the rugged terrain and were otherwise not significant.
Someone always stayed by the radio in case a message came in. There was a planned schedule, but you could never tell when something important might arrive, especially now that it looked like big things were about to happen. So far, only a handful in the main area knew of the planes’ arrival, but it was only a matter of time before the secret became common knowledge. They had to be used fairly soon or any element of surprise might be lost.
Jake didn’t have to take a turn in the radio hut, but he rather liked doing so. It felt good to have a roof over his head, and the privacy he insisted on while up there was a splendid relief. His Morse code skills had improved to where he could receive a message without screwing up.
He might be alone, but he was safe. The shack was protected by Hawk’s soldiers, who kept out of sight and gave him the illusion of privacy.
The isolation gave him a chance to think without the distractions of routine command. He stripped off his uniform and relaxed in his army shorts and sleeveless undershirt. He was filthy, but so was everyone else. Back home, people might have bathed once a week or more, but not here. There was sufficient water, but it was primarily for drinking and cooking, not bathing and showering. Crude containers had been devised to hold rainwater and springwater so that some washing and showering did occur, but it wasn’t on a frequent basis. Jake sniffed. He hadn’t had a chance to clean up in more than a week. Hawk had made the comment that it was part of their camouflage. “If you smell like a jungle, you’ll be mistaken for one,” he’d said.
Small quantities of soap were made from ashes and sand, and were strictly rationed. As a result, everyone, even the women, kept their hair very short. Jake thought Alexa looked very attractive in a haircut that would have seemed short on a man only a few months ago.
Maybe it would rain and he could let Mother Nature hose him down. But even rain wouldn’t help the tattered condition of his clothing. Like everyone else’s, it had been reduced to little more than rags. His underwear was so bad it reminded him of the type old ladies said you should never wear in case you got in an accident.
He stepped outside and looked up at the star-filled sky. No rain in sight, but there was a breeze that was comfortable on his bare skin. Although he was not a stickler for discipline, he insisted that his men- and women-be suitably dressed, rags or not. States of undress were tolerated only in situations such as this, where there was a degree of privacy.
Jake sighed and went back inside the shack. When would the radio open up and tell him when and how he was to use the pilots and planes? The obvious target was Pearl and its rebuilt fuel depots. If that was the case, what were they waiting for? The British carrier and the American pilots had run tremendous risks to get to him, and those efforts should not be wasted.
He shuddered when he thought of the danger. Not only had the pilots run the risk of getting lost or being discovered but they had made the trip with extra fuel and bombs strapped to the lower sides of the wings of their F4Fs. Like most people who don’t fly warplanes, he hadn’t given a thought to how the bombs would arrive. He hadn’t known that no pilot in his right mind-which was damned few of them-would try to land a plane with the bombs hanging below the wings. The smallest bump as they landed and they would have blown up, taking plane and pilot with them. No, bombs were always ditched in the ocean before landing.
Instead, Ernie Magruder and his cohorts had flown their lethally dangerous devices across the ocean in the night and had landed safely-bombs, fuel, and all. Now the pilots were hiding near their planes, doubtless playing cards and drinking the homemade booze that Jake tolerated for those off duty.
Another plus was the fact that they’d not yet been detected. Despite an apparent change in attitude, Japanese foot patrols still hadn’t come close to them. It was as if the Japanese garrison in Hilo was holding back and waiting for something to happen. Jake wondered if this Japanese reluctance to act had anything to do with the arrival of the planes. He had no idea what it might be, but he did feel there was a pattern of activity developing.
This stalemate could go on forever unless the Japs at Hilo were heavily reinforced, which Jake concluded was inevitable. The American presence would have to be eradicated sometime.
If the Japanese did begin sizable sweeps of the island, it would be a disaster for Jake’s men and women. They would be on the move in a harsh land and separated from their food sources. Death or capture would be only a matter of time. They could run and hide, but they had to eat. They would have to abandon the radio, which would leave them alone as well. It was a miserable thought.