“What? That’s impossible!” Genda exclaimed. Sadly, Fuchida shook his head. Genda went on more moderately: “That’s terrible!” Fuchida could and did nod. “How did it happen? Will she sink?” Genda asked.
“How? They don’t know how. They were getting close to Oahu, and wham!” Fuchida said. “They don’t think she’ll go down-she hasn’t lost power, and the pumps are working. But she’s not going to sail against the Americans with Akagi and Shokaku, either. She’s limping in to Pearl Harbor for emergency repairs, and she may have to go back to Japan again.”
“How could the Americans have got a sub in the right place to torpedo her?” Genda wasn’t really asking Fuchida-he was asking an uncaring world.
Fuchida only shrugged. “Dumb luck,” he said. “Shigata ga nai.”
“Obviously it can’t be helped,” Genda said. “It wouldn’t have happened if it could be. But I’ll tell you something, Fuchida-san: it almost makes me wonder if the Yankees are reading our codes.”
“What?” That shocked Fuchida almost as much as Genda’s dalliance with the redheaded Queen of Hawaii. “Don’t be silly. Everyone knows our codes are unbreakable.”
“Well, yes.” That Genda admitted the fact did a lot to ease Fuchida’s mind. “Dreadful news, though. Zuikaku! We could really use her, because the Americans are building up for another go at us. That gets plainer every day.”
“We’ll be able to fly the planes off the airstrips here…” Fuchida began.
Genda was a small man, and usually a mild-mannered man as well. His scowl now stopped Fuchida in his tracks. “The only way that will do us any good is if we lose the fight on the ocean. I don’t want to lose the fight on the ocean,” he said. “I presume we’ve already screamed to Tokyo that we need more carriers?”
“Oh, yes,” Fuchida said. “Whether Tokyo will listen is probably a different story, though. They keep going on and on about how thin their resources are stretched.”
“Our resources won’t have to stretch so far if we lose Hawaii, that’s for sure,” Genda snapped. “Can’t they see that?”
“We need more carriers. We need more trained pilots,” Fuchida said. “The Americans seem to turn out as many as they want. Why can’t we?”
“Admiral Yamamoto always said we couldn’t hope to match them,” Genda replied. “That was the main reason we gambled so much in this attack: so what they could do wouldn’t matter.” He sighed. “But it turns out that it does matter. It’s just taken longer to be obvious.”
Involuntarily, Fuchida looked north and east. “What do we do now?”
“The best we can,” Genda told him. “What else is there?”
“You were doing the best you could with the Queen, neh?” If Fuchida thought about such things, he wouldn’t have to think about the real troubles facing the Japanese in Hawaii-for a little while, anyway.
“It’s not quite like that,” Genda said with more embarrassment than Fuchida had expected from him.
“She’s… very sweet, really, and her husband doesn’t understand her at all.”
How many men sleeping with other men’s wives had said exactly the same thing? Fuchida wondered if telling Genda as much would do any good. Since he doubted it, he reluctantly put aside his own thoughts of King Stanley’s striking spouse. Duty was calling, and in a strident voice. “We’ve got to get you back to Pearl Harbor as fast as we can.”
Commander Genda sighed once more. “Yes, I suppose so. You came out here to give me the news in person so you wouldn’t have to use the telephone or the radio?”
“Hai.” Fuchida nodded.
“Sensible. Good security. The story will get out anyway-bad news always does-but it will take longer this way. We’ll have the chance to come up with some propaganda of our own, maybe even some genuine good news.”
“That’s what Admiral Kaku thought.” Fuchida turned to one of the petty officers. “Okano!”
“Yes, sir?” The man came to attention.
“I’m going to commandeer your bicycle for Commander Genda here. He needs to go to Pearl Harbor right away,” Fuchida said. Okano nodded and saluted-again, what choice did he have? Fuchida went on, “See if you can borrow one or take one from a civilian. If that doesn’t work, you’ll have to walk.”
“He can ride behind me, sir,” the other petty officer said. “I don’t mind.”
The effect wouldn’t be dignified, but Fuchida wasn’t inclined to be fussy, not now. “All right. We’ll do it that way, then,” he said. “Now let’s get moving.”
ENSIGN JOE CROSETTI GAVE HIS FIGHTER plane a little more throttle. The F6F Hellcat responded as if angels flapped their wings harder. A slow grin stretched across Joe’s face. “Wow!” he said.
He’d had some experience with Wildcats now. The F4F wasn’t hopeless against the Zero-it could outdive the top Jap fighter and could take a lot more damage-but it wasn’t a match for the enemy plane, either. The Hellcat… The Hellcat was a long step up.
It was faster than a Wildcat. It had better-much better-high-altitude performance, because its engine packed so much more power. It was even tougher than the older American plane.
Best of all, it was his. He didn’t have a lot of time to get used to it. Before long, they’d throw him into action against the Japs. He had to be ready. He had to be, and he intended to be.
He wouldn’t be alone in the sky when the clash finally came. That was the most important thing to remember. When he looked around-the cockpit gave better visibility than a Wildcat’s, too-he saw a lot of other Hellcats from the Bunker Hill flying with him in neat formation.
Pleasure unalloyed filled his grin. Back when he volunteered to become a Navy flier, this was what he’d had in mind: roaring off a fleet carrier to take the war straight to the Japs. Plenty of guys had volunteered with the same thing in mind. Most of them hadn’t made it. Some washed out of training. Some crashed.
(He crossed himself, there in the cockpit, remembering the funerals he’d gone to.) And so many were flying other kinds of aircraft: flying boats or transports or blimps on antisubmarine patrol off the coasts. But here he was, by God! He’d done what he set out to do.
And there, just a few planes away, flew Orson Sharp. Actually, Joe had been surer his roomie would get a place on a carrier than he had been about himself. He was good. He knew that. Not many who’d gone through the program with him were better. The big guy from Salt Lake City was one of the few.
The formation switched from a vee to line astern as they approached the Bunker Hill and landed one after another. It was just like landing on the Wolverine on Lake Erie-except it wasn’t. That was practice. Everybody knew it. You took it seriously. You had to, because you could get killed if you didn’t. But it wasn’t the real McCoy, all the same. This was. The Bunker Hill wasn’t a converted excursion steamer, and she wasn’t on the Great Lakes. That was the Pacific down there. Destroyers and cruisers screened the carrier, but they weren’t a one hundred percent guarantee no Japanese sub could sneak in and find her. She was in the war-and so was Joe.
His mouth twisted. He’d been in the war for a while now, ever since that Jap flying boat dropped a bomb on his uncle’s house after hitting San Francisco harbor. A lot of guys painted their wife’s name, or their sweetheart’s, on the nose of their plane. Joe’s Hellcat had two names on its nose: Tina and Gina. He’d crossed the country on a train to get to his cousins’ funerals.
Carrier landings were never automatic. If you thought they could be, it was your funeral-literally. When Joe’s turn came, he followed the landing officer’s wigwags as if he’d turned into a robot. One wing was down a little? He didn’t think so, but he brought it up. He was coming in too steeply? Again, he didn’t think so, but he raised the Hellcat’s nose just the same.