The two commanders looked at each other again. They gave Shindo another matched set of slightly overacted shrugs. Once more, he had to fight not to show the anger he felt. Minoru Genda said, “Please believe me, Shindo-san — you aren’t the only one who has seen this problem coming. The carriers had other things to do. But now that Admiral Nagumo’s force has returned to home waters from its sortie into the Indian Ocean…”
“Ah, so desu! ” Shindo breathed. The Japanese strike force had sunk a British carrier and smashed up ports and shipping along the east coast of India and in Ceylon. That would help Japan tighten its grip on Burma and perhaps clear the way for an invasion of India. Shindo gave back a shrug of his own. The western fringe of the Japanese Empire wasn’t his special worry. The eastern edge was. “How many carriers will we get?” he asked eagerly.
“Two,” Genda answered.
Shindo had hoped for three, but feared the answer would be only one. “Not bad,” he said.
“Tell him the rest,” Fuchida put in.
Genda did: “They’re Shokaku and Zuikaku.”
Those were the biggest, best, and newest carriers the Imperial Navy boasted. Shindo wanted to jump up and down and whoop, but showing delight would have been as uncalled-for, as American, as showing anger. “Well,” he said, “That is good news.”
“Hai,” Fuchida said. “If the Yankees want to make a big fight of it, let them. We’ll deal with whatever carriers they send the same way as we dealt with the ones we caught off Hawaii when the Pacific War started.”
“Oh, yes. Oh, my, yes. I can’t wait to start flying off a carrier deck again,” Shindo said. “After you’ve got used to doing them at sea, takeoffs and landings from an ordinary airstrip just aren’t the same.” He made as if to yawn. Fuchida, also a carrier pilot of great experience, laughed out loud at that. Shindo went on, “And, as we said, the Americans won’t take us by surprise again.”
“We will make very sure of that,” Commander Genda said. “Along with the picket boats, now we’ll have the new H8Ks flying long-range patrols to the north and east.”
“They’re really remarkable machines.” Having flown in one, Fuchida could hardly contain his enthusiasm. “Wonderful endurance, good protection, lots of guns, and they aren’t even all that slow. Lieutenant Muto said he wasn’t afraid of taking on American fighters, not even a little bit.”
“No, eh?” Shindo let it go at that. Pilots were supposed to be happy about the planes they flew. All the same, he thought this Muto, whom he didn’t know, not just an optimist but a fool. No matter how fast a flying boat was, it couldn’t outrun or outmaneuver a fighter. The fighter could pick an attack angle where most of the victim’s guns didn’t bear, and then… Shindo’s thumb twitched, as if on the firing button. American warplanes didn’t measure up to Zeros, but they were plenty to deal with the likes of an H8K. He hoped Muto didn’t discover the truth of that the hard way.
Still… Shokaku and Zuikaku coming to join the Akagi! He went back to Haleiwa a happy man.
OSCAR VAN DER KIRK met Charlie Kaapu on the beach at Waikiki. They both had their sailboards and everything else they needed for a fishing run. Oscar was proud of himself for his invention. Not for the first time, he thought he might have made a mint off it in ordinary days. The trouble with that was, in ordinary days he wouldn’t have thought of it. Amazing how hunger concentrated the mind.
And he’d found a real niche no one else was exploiting. The fishing was pretty good out in that area beyond the beach but closer than sampans usually came. He hoped it would stay that way now that more and more people were putting sails on their surfboards.
He didn’t begrudge Charlie his sailboard. The two of them had been through too much together for that. The hapa — Hawaiian grinned at him, saying, “Here comes the smart haole.”
“Where?” Oscar looked back over his own shoulder. Charlie thought that was funnier than Oscar did himself. He made a hell of a good audience. The two of them walked down to the Pacific. As usual now, the men fishing at the edge of the surf made way for them.
As they paddled out past the breakers, Charlie said, “You really that smart?”
“What do you mean?” Oscar asked, though he had a good idea.
Sure enough, his buddy said, “You so smart, why you take up with that blond wahine from the mainland again?”
That had several possible answers, from the crudely anatomical to None of your business. Oscar chose a mild middle ground: “Susie’s not so bad. A lot of people would’ve flipped, getting stuck in all this. Heck, a lot of people did flip. Susie’s come through pretty well.”
“Yeah, but you fought like cats and dogs last time she was at your place,” Charlie said, which was true. “Why bang heads with a broad when it’s so easy to find one that doesn’t want to yell and throw stuff? Waste time.”
“We’re getting along pretty good now.” Oscar wasn’t about to claim any more than that. More would have let Charlie give him the horse laugh if things blew up in his face day after tomorrow.
They put up their sails and let the offshore breeze waft them out into the Pacific. Lousy name for this ocean, Oscar thought, remembering that the word meant peaceful. The brief taste of oceanic war he’d got up by Waimea was plenty to sour him on it forever.
After a while, the two of them separated. Charlie swung east, toward Diamond Head, while Oscar went west, toward Pearl Harbor. He thought the fishing outside the Navy base was better than it was farther east. That stretch of ocean had been restricted before the war; sampans hadn’t gone through it as they had everywhere else near Honolulu.
The Japs weren’t enforcing the restricted zone. Maybe nobody’d told them about it. If they did decide to crack down, Oscar had every intention of staying away from then on out. Falling foul of U.S. authorities would have meant a fine and maybe a little time in the cooler. If a Jap patrol caught somebody where he wasn’t supposed to be… They’d shoot first and wouldn’t bother asking questions.
But as long as there was no rule against being here, Oscar intended to make the most of it. He was well out to sea as he scattered grains of rice and dropped his line in the water. He wanted a good catch, enough to keep him and Susie eating for a while, enough to let him trade some so they wouldn’t have to eat nothing but fish till they wondered if they’d grow fins. Whether what he wanted was anything like what he’d get was another question. He’d find out pretty soon.
It was going to be a good day. He had ahi and aku and even a small mahimahi on the line as he drew it back onto the sailboard. He gutted the fish as fast as he could. Some of the offal would make more bait. The rest he kicked back into the Pacific. He’d put some distance between this spot and his next one. He hadn’t had any trouble from big sharks yet, and he didn’t want to start now.
Something splashed behind him. He turned, careful not to upset the sailboard. His jaw dropped. His eyes bugged out of his head. That was no shark, no pod of dolphins, no breaching whale. That was a goddamn submarine, its deck almost awash, its conning tower painted an oceanic blue.
I’ve had it, was the first thought that went through his head. He almost jumped into the water and tried to swim for it. Only the sure knowledge that that was hopeless kept him where he was. If they were Japs, maybe they were just intrigued with his contraption. Maybe they wouldn’t do him in for the fun of it.