Down came both wigwag flags. Down came Joe, in the controlled crash that was a carrier landing. One of the arrester wires caught his tailhook. His teeth clicked together, hard. He was home.
He killed the engine, pulled back the canopy, and scrambled out of the plane. Men from the flight crew hauled the Hellcat out of the way, clearing the deck for the next landing. It was all as smooth and practiced as a ballet. As far as Joe was concerned, it was just as beautiful, too.
He ran for the island, so he wouldn’t be in the way if anything went wrong. When the ship wasn’t launching or recovering planes, he spent as much time as he could out on the flight deck. The North Pacific felt like home to him; he’d got to know it from the deck of his father’s fishing boat. Some of the guys who were first-rate pilots made lousy sailors. Not Joe. After a little boat’s rolling and pitching, nothing the massive Bunker Hill did could faze him.
Orson Sharp had landed before him. “We’re getting there,” the Mormon said.
Joe nodded. “You better believe it.” He’d wondered what kind of a sailor Sharp would prove-after all, his roomie had never even seen the ocean before he got to Pensacola for flight training. But Sharp seemed to be doing just fine now.
“When do you think we’ll go after the Japs?” Sharp asked.
“Beats me. Why don’t you get FDR on the phone?” Joe said. His buddy laughed at him. He went on, “I don’t think it’s gonna be real long, though. I mean, look what we’re flying, and look where we’re at.”
It was Sharp’s turn to nod. When they’d signed up to train as pilots, the Hellcat existed only on the drawing board. The Bunker Hill had been laid down, but only just barely. The USA hadn’t been serious about the war till after the Japs hit Hawaii. If it wasn’t serious now, though, it never would be.
“Look at all the other carriers we’re going to have with us, too,” Joe added, and his friend nodded again. Along with the Bunker Hill and the rest of the Es- sex class-big fleet carriers that could take on anything the Japs built-there were the repaired Hornet, the Ranger brought over from the Atlantic, several light carriers built on cruiser hulls, and even more escort carriers built on freighter hulls. Both classes carried far fewer planes than a fleet carrier. The escort carriers, with a freighter’s engines, couldn’t make more than eighteen knots. But they could all get fighters and dive bombers and torpedo planes close to the enemy, and that was the point of the exercise.
“Soon,” Orson Sharp murmured.
“Yeah.” Joe heard the raw hunger in his own voice. “Soon.”
BEFORE THE WAR, Kenzo Takahashi had never thought he would call on a girl carrying a sack of fish. Flowers, yes. Chocolates, sure. Mackerel? Mackerel had never once crossed his mind.
Chocolate had disappeared. He doubted any was left on Oahu. Flowers were there for the picking even now. As far as they went, Hawaii had an embarrassment of riches. Down by the harbor, Hawaiian women still made leis and sold them for a quarter or a yen, though Japanese sailors were less enthusiastic customers than American tourists had been.
But you couldn’t eat flowers. (Although, these days, Kenzo wouldn’t have been surprised if someone had made the experiment.) Fish made a much more practical present. Carrying them in a cloth sack let him worry less about people who might want to knock him over the head for the sake of a full belly. Even in Elsie Sundberg’s neighborhood, such a thing was a long way from impossible.
None of the cars parked in front of the neat houses here had tires any more. By now, the occupying authorities had confiscated them all. None of the cars had batteries any more, either. The Japanese had taken those, too. That didn’t show, though, not with a closed hood.
When Kenzo knocked on Elsie’s front door, her mother opened it. She smiled. “Hello, Ken. Come in,” she said.
“Thank you, ma’am.” He did. As always, he had to shift gears in this neighborhood. West of Nuuanu Avenue, he was Kenzo. But this was the haole part of town, all right. He didn’t really mind; to his way of thinking, an American needed to have an American-sounding name. He held out the sack. “I brought you folks these.”
As always, a gift of food was welcome. When Elsie’s mother said, “Thank you very much,” she plainly meant it. She went on, “We have some ripe avocados to give you when you go.”
“That’d be nice.” Kenzo also meant it. Without knowing the Sundbergs, he wouldn’t have had any for a long time.
“Let me get you some lemonade.” Mrs. Sundberg was firm in her hospitality-and avocados and lemonade were about all she could offer. She added, “Elsie will be ready in a minute.”
“Okay,” Kenzo said. The lemonade would be good. One of these days, maybe Elsie would meet him at the door and just go out with him. He shrugged. He didn’t plan on holding his breath. The Sundbergs clung to gentility with both hands. They didn’t have much else to cling to, not with the Japanese occupation knocking what had been the ruling race and ruling class over the head.
Elsie came into the kitchen while he was drinking the sweet-tart lemonade. She had a glass, too. By now, that was part of the routine for their dates. When they finished, her mom walked them to the door, saying, “Have a good time.”
“We will,” Elsie told her. As soon as the door closed behind them, she asked Kenzo, “Where do you want to go?”
“I was just thinking down to the park,” he answered. “We’ve seen all the movies on the island twice by now, and there isn’t a heck of a lot else to do. We can talk and… and stuff.”
“Yeah. And stuff,” Elsie echoed in ominous tones. She knew he meant necking as well as he did. His ears got hot; he took a couple of embarrassed, shuffling steps. But then she laughed and said, “Okay, we’ll do that.”
A couple of kids were playing on the slide and the surviving swings when they got to the park. They sat down on a bench. The grass was even longer and more luxuriant than it had been the last time they were there. People had more urgent things than mowing it to worry about. None of the greenery had been trimmed any time lately, either.
“How have you been?” Elsie asked.
“Pretty good, except for Dad.” Kenzo grimaced. “That’s a big except, though. The more he talks to the Japanese radio, the more trouble he gets into with his big mouth. What’s he gonna do when the Americans come back?”
“Do you really think they will?” Elsie asked with a bigger catch in her voice than she ever got after he kissed her.
He nodded. “I’d bet on it. All those planes coming over at night, and the subs around, and… all those kinds of things.” He’d never said a word to anybody, not even Elsie, about the flier he and Hiroshi had rescued. What she didn’t know could help keep her safe. He wondered how Burt Burleson had done once he got ashore. The Japanese hadn’t bragged about capturing him, anyhow. That was something.
“God, I hope you’re right,” Elsie breathed. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful to get things back to the way they were before all this happened?”
“Sure,” Kenzo said. Most ways, he thought. Would you still go out with me if things get back to the way they used to be? He had to admit she might. They’d been good friends before. That wasn’t quite the same, even if he had kissed her once.
A cloud passed in front of the sun. Rain started coming down. This was a little more than the usual “liquid sunshine.” It rained hard enough to send the kids home. That didn’t break Kenzo’s heart. Elsie’s sun dress clung to her. Kenzo admired the effect.