Grass and ferns had grown over the works the Yankees had dug near the beaches to try to hold back the Japanese Army. The plants and the rain had softened their outlines, as well as those of the bomb craters and shell holes from the Japanese bombardment that had forced the enemy soldiers away from their hastily dug holes.
Lieutenant Horino led his platoon to some of the battered, abandoned American works. “We are going to restore these, men,” he said, by which he meant, You are going to restore these — he wasn’t about to pick up a shovel himself. “We are going to restore these, and meet the enemy on the beach if the Navy screws up and lets him land. If he does, his bones will bleach on the sand. Honto? ”
“Hai! ” the soldiers shouted, Takeo Shimizu loud among them.
“Not one American will set foot on the grass. Honto? ”
“Hai! ”
“Then get to work.”
A corporal wasn’t above digging in with an entrenching tool, even if a lieutenant was. As Shimizu cleared trenches and built breastworks, he looked out to sea. The Americans had sited this position well. If not for destruction rained on them by airplanes and warships, they might have held it. We will hold it, Shimizu thought, and added more dirt to the breastwork.
COMMANDER MINORU GENDA stood by the edge of the Wheeler Field runway. Right on schedule, two Mitsubishi G4M bombers flew in from the northwest and landed on the runway. The G4M had proved very useful. It was almost as fast as a fighter, and it had extraordinary range, which meant the Japanese Navy sometimes, as now, ferried important passengers across long stretches of ocean in G4Ms.
But the bomber wasn’t perfect. Everything came with a price. The Mitsubishi plane burned like a torch if it got hit.
No danger here, though; there were no hostile aircraft within fifteen hundred kilometers of Hawaii. The G4Ms taxied to a stop, one behind the other. Vice Admiral Matome Ugaki got out of the first plane: a short man with a face so round, it was almost wider than it was long. From the second G4M descended the officer for whom Ugaki served as chief of staff: Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. Yamamoto had a firm rule that he and his chief aide should not travel in the same aircraft, lest one disaster overwhelm them both.
Yamamoto looked around as Genda hurried across the tarmac toward him and Ugaki. “So this is Oahu,” said the commander of the Combined Fleet.
“Yes, sir,” Genda said, saluting. “Have you never been here before?”
“I’ve seen Honolulu on my way to and from the United States,” Yamamoto answered. “I never got back into the countryside, though. How about you, Ugaki-san?”
“This is my first time here, sir,” Ugaki said. “Pretty. The weather’s nice, neh?”
“Hai,” Genda said. “If the weather were all we had to worry about, we wouldn’t have anything to worry about, if you know what I mean.”
Yamamoto smiled. As always, Genda was struck by the sheer physical presence of the man. Yamamoto was short-though not quite so short as either Genda or Ugaki-but energy blazed from him. He said, “Well, we didn’t come here to take on the weather.”
“No, sir,” Genda agreed. “We are honored that you have come to take personal charge of the defenses of Hawaii.” He bowed, thinking, And you and Ugaki both outrank General Yamashita. About time the Navy was in charge of things again.
Shrugging broad shoulders, Yamamoto answered, “The highest-ranking officer should be in charge at the most important point, neh? Nothing is more important for the Empire than holding Hawaii. You were the one who first pointed that out: here we have the great shield behind which the rest of our conquests have proceeded. The Americans are not blind to this. In their hands, Hawaii is a shield no more, but a dagger aimed at our heart.”
Commander Genda bowed. “You are too generous, sir.”
“I don’t think so,” Yamamoto said. “I’ll want to get out to sea as fast as I can. The Yankees are on their way, eh?”
“So it seems, sir,” Genda replied. “They appear to have slipped by our submarines at night, but flying boats report that large numbers of Navy ships and transports are no longer in West Coast harbors.”
“Why haven’t the famous flying boats found the enemy fleet at sea, then?” Vice Admiral Ugaki asked irritably.
“My guess is, the Americans are trying something sneaky,” Yamamoto said before Genda could reply. “They’ll come down on us out of the north, or maybe even from the northwest, instead of making a straight run from their Pacific coast. And the straight route is the one the flying boats and the subs will be patrolling most. What do you think, Genda-san?”
“That’s how it looks to me, too, sir,” Genda said. “They’ll assemble somewhere up in the north, hope they can defeat our carrier force, and try to land if they do.”
“Good enough,” Yamamoto said. “Well, the sooner we get out to Akagi and go after them, the better off we’ll be. We have better planes and better pilots, and I aim to take advantage of it.”
“Yes, sir,” Genda said, and then, “You’ll want to spend the night here on Oahu, won’t you, and fly out in the morning? You’ve been traveling for a long time.”
By the look on Vice Admiral Ugaki’s face, he would have liked nothing better. But Yamamoto shook his head. “I’ll rest when I get there,” he said. “I want to make sure I’m in place when the fighting starts. If I wait, it may start without me. You do have aircraft here that can land on a carrier?” His bulldog expression said somebody-probably Genda-would catch it if he had to wait while planes came back to Oahu from the Akagi.
But Genda pointed to a pair of Aichi dive bombers. “They are at your service, sir.”
“Good.” There was never anything halfway about Yamamoto. If he was unhappy, he was very unhappy. If he wasn’t, everything was rosy. He walked over to the edge of the runway, undid his fly, and eased himself on the grass. When he came back, he was smiling. “That’s a lot better than trying to piss in a tin can while an airplane’s bouncing all over the sky. Go on, Ugaki-san, while you’ve got the chance. You won’t make a mess here.”
“I didn’t make a mess,” Ugaki said with dignity, but he walked off the runway and turned his back, too.
Admiral Yamamoto threw back his head and laughed. Now that he saw he’d got what he wanted, he was in a good mood. He cocked his head to one side and studied Genda. “Are you feeling well, Commander? You look a little peaked.”
Genda bit down on his lower lip in embarrassment. He hadn’t realized it showed. “I’m… all right, sir.” He gave himself the lie, for he started coughing and wheezing and had trouble stopping. “I’ve had a little trouble with my lungs lately; nothing too bad, though.”
“You ought to see a physician,” Yamamoto said.
“I intend to, sir-after we beat the Americans.”
“All right, as long as you’re well enough to help us fight them. You won’t do the Empire any good if you’re flat on your back.”
“Yes, sir. I understand that. I’ll get through the fight.” Genda knew he was trying to convince himself as well as Admiral Yamamoto. There’d been a couple of times when he almost did go to the doctor in spite of the action looming ahead. But whatever was troubling his chest had eased back, and here he was.
Here came the officer in charge of Wheeler Field: a lieutenant colonel. He bowed to Yamamoto and Ugaki in turn. “Honored to have you here, sir,” he told the commander of the Combined Fleet. “I trust you’ll do me the honor of dining with me tonight?”