Genda didn’t think Japan could scrape together enough carriers and other ships to challenge this armada, even if she abandoned the rest of the war-which she couldn’t very well do. Everything Admiral Yamamoto had said about what the United States could do if roused was coming true. From Honolulu, though, Tokyo was more than 6,000 kilometers away. Even now, Hawaii shielded Japan.
Maybe a submarine could sneak in and out. None had come in, though. Genda didn’t know if any had tried. Which would be worse, knowing some had failed or knowing his superiors far to the west hadn’t dared risk any? One more question he hadn’t asked himself.
“When… things go wrong, Japanese people often kill themselves, don’t they?” By the way Queen Cynthia asked the question, she knew the answer.
“Yes, we do that.” Minoru Genda nodded. He didn’t go into details about seppuku. Women weren’t expected to disembowel themselves anyway, only to slit their throats. After the nod, he shook his head, trying to shove such unpleasant, unwelcome thoughts aside. It wasn’t the first time he’d had them. He said, “Too soon to worry about such things. Much too soon.” He sipped from the bottle on the dresser. If he drank enough of that, he wouldn’t worry about anything for a while.
Cynthia also drank. But her voice was completely sober. “Too soon to worry about it, yes. Much too soon? I don’t think so.”
Since Genda didn’t really think it was much too soon, either, he didn’t try to argue with her. He asked, “How is his Majesty?”
“He didn’t think… this would happen when he let you put the crown on his head,” she answered. Genda already knew that. She went on, “It’s funny. He’s at least hapa-haole himself, but he really is angry with haoles for what they’ve done to Hawaiians. That’s genuine. A lot of him is bluff and bluster and bullshit”-maybe she felt the almost-gin after all-“but that’s for real.” She looked down at her ring and flushed again. “Well, he isn’t angry at all the haoles.”
“No one could be-can be? — could be angry at you,” Genda said.
“That’s sweet. You’re sweet.” Now Cynthia Laanui kissed him. A long time ago, someone had told him that the person who started a kiss was the one who needed it more. By the desperate way Cynthia clung to him, that held a lot of truth. When they separated, she said, “You don’t know me very well. You can’t know me very well, if you tell me something like that. Don’t get me wrong-I like it. But I know it’s silly, too.”
“I don’t think so.” Genda was sure she was right, but he didn’t care. Right now, they had nothing left but each other, and they might not have each other long, either. He gathered himself, picked her up, and carried her to the bed. He was a small man, two or three centimeters shorter than she was, but he was strong.
Their lovemaking had always had the sweetness of stolen fruit. Now, every time they touched, they knew it might be the last. The way things were these days, each joining might be the last thing they ever did. For him, and evidently for her, too, that only made the flame burn hotter.
Afterwards, a pink flush mottling the pale skin between her breasts, she said, “I wish I had a cigarette.”
With the air of a successful stage magician, Genda pulled a pack of Chesterfields from a trouser pocket.
“Here,” he said.
Cynthia squealed and kissed him. “My God, my God, my God!” she said. “Where on earth did you get these? Where?” To hear her talk, the tobacco drought might have been worldwide, not confined to Hawaii.
Genda made a small ceremony of lighting one for her and one for himself. “A friend gave them to me,” he said, and let it go at that. The friend had got them from another friend, who’d got them from a dead U.S. Marine. That might be more than Cynthia wanted to hear.
She coughed when she first inhaled. Genda had done the same thing. They’d gone without tobacco so long, it was as if they’d never smoked at all. But the second puff made her smile. “Jesus, that’s good!”
she said, and then, after a momentary pause, “Can I have a few to take back to Stanley? I’m sorry. I know it’s greedy. But if I give him cigarettes, he won’t wonder why I went out.”
“Okay,” Genda said. The slang made Cynthia smile. Genda didn’t begrudge her five Chesterfields… very much. He knew she was right. If she gave the king those, he’d think she’d left Iolani Palace to get her hands on them. That she’d got them from her lover wouldn’t cross his mind-or Genda hoped it wouldn’t.
She smoked her cigarette down to the tiniest of butts, then stared sorrowfully at the scrap of tobacco that remained. “I feel like chewing this like a hillbilly,” she said.
Although Genda knew about snuff, chewing tobacco had never caught on in Japan. The idea made him queasy-or maybe it was just the Chesterfield.
The Queen of Hawaii got out of bed and started dressing. “I’d better go back now,” she said. As she had on the way from the palace to Hotel Street, she tucked her hair up under her hat and put on the sunglasses.
“We will do everything we can,” Genda said. Cynthia Laanui nodded. And after they’d done that… Neither one wanted to dwell on what might happen then. She nodded one more time, then walked the bicycle out the door without a backward glance.
Genda waited five minutes before he dressed so they wouldn’t be seen leaving together. He wrestled his own bicycle down the stairs and started back to Pearl Harbor. He hadn’t gone far before he realized the great naval center was under attack. Planes roared above it: fighters strafing and dive bombers stooping on targets to drop their bombs. Japanese antiaircraft guns-and some captured from the Americans at the surrender-filled the sky with puffs of black smoke.
Naval guns were also firing on Pearl Harbor, from ranges beyond the reach of shore-based artillery. Genda wished Japan hadn’t had to wreck the great coast-defense guns the USA had installed along the southern coast of Oahu. They would have taught those ships respect. But they could have harmed the Japanese Navy, and so Aichi dive bombers with armor-piercing bombs had blown up the casements in which they lurked.
Were those landing craft in the water? Whatever they were, they looked a lot more sophisticated than the Daihatsu barges on which Japan relied. Genda pedaled harder. He’d had permission to leave his station, but he wanted to be there to defend the harbor as long as he could. As if one man will make any difference now, he thought bitterly. But his legs pumped up and down all the same.
THE BUNKER HILL WAS A GOING CONCERN AGAIN, flight deck repaired, incinerated planes shoved into the drink, new Hellcats and Dauntlesses taken aboard. Joe Crosetti missed the fighter that had gone up in flames, but the new one would do the job just fine. He missed the men lost when that Jap crashed his Zero into the carrier far more. You couldn’t replace men the way you could airplanes.
Not far away, the Copahee was still under repair. The escort carrier had taken a bomb from that same Jap. The guy was a son of a bitch, yeah, but he’d done a hell of a piece of work there.
Sailors on the baby flattop took off their caps and waved to Joe as he and his buddies from the Bunker Hill flew over them, bound for Oahu. He waggled his wings to return the compliment. By rights, the sailors could have been pissed off. How had that Jap got through in spite of radar and the combat air patrol overhead?
Joe feared he knew the answer. The Americans had got overconfident and fallen asleep at the switch.
The blip on the radar coming in alone? So what? It was bound to be another American plane, wasn’t it? Well, no. And the guys flying CAP had been slow getting a handle on it, too.