Captain Iwabuchi went right on yelling at his men. They might not fight skillfully under a leader like that, but they would fight hard. They would fear him more than they feared the Americans, and they would have reason to. An officer like that would kill anybody who he thought was hanging back.
“We’ll leave this place a ruin! We’ll never give in!” he shrieked. “A ruin, do you hear me? Not one brick left on top of another!”
“He’s not so tough,” Yasuo Furusawa said, but he sidled up to Shimizu and spoke in the next thing to a whisper, taking no chances that the fanatical officer could overhear him.
“I was thinking the same thing,” Shimizu answered-also in a low voice. After a moment, he went on, “Nothing wrong with dying for the Emperor, mind you. There’s no better end for a Japanese soldier. It’s an honor. It’s a privilege.” He’d had all that drilled into him in basic training, and he believed it. Even so… “The real point, though, is to make the enemy die forhis country first.”
“Hai!” Furusawa nodded. “I think that’s just right, Corporal-san. And I don’t think it ever once crossed that Captain Iwabuchi’s mind.”
“No, I don’t, either. But all we can do about it is feel sorry for those poor Navy men.”
“Maybe it won’t matter,” Senior Private Furusawa said. “Maybe the real Navy will beat the Americans on the sea, the way they did last year.”
“Of course they will.” Shimizu couldn’t show doubt about anything like that. It would have been unpatriotic. He did think Captain Iwabuchi couldn’t have been much of an officer. If he were, he would have had shipborne duty. Instead, he was stuck doing things that weren’t really a Navy officer’s proper job. Serves him right, Shimizu thought.
Even after his squad turned the corner, he could still hear Captain Iwabuchi screaming at his men and haranguing them. He might push them too far. Japanese military men were an enduring lot. They had to be. But even endurance had its limits. He wondered if Iwabuchi might suffer an unfortunate-oh, such an unfortunate! — accident. Every once in a while, things like that did happen.
The rest of the patrol stayed routine. Shimizu approved of routine. Routine meant nothing was going wrong. It also meant he didn’t have to think for himself. If he didn’t have to think, he couldn’t make any mistakes. If he didn’t make any mistakes, his own superiors couldn’t start yelling at him. They wouldn’t be as bad as Captain Iwabuchi, but all the same he didn’t fancy an officer shouting in his face and maybe slapping him around.
He brought his men back to the barracks. He made his report to Lieutenant Horino, the platoon commander. He mentioned marching past the park where Iwabuchi was drilling his men; he couldn’t very well leave it out. “Ah,” Horino said. “And what did you think of that, Corporal?”
“Captain Iwabuchi is a very… energetic man, sir,” Shimizu said carefully.
Horino laughed. “He certainly is. All right, Corporal. You may go.” Shimizu saluted and left in a hurry. He’d got his message across and hadn’t got in trouble for it. That would do-and then some.
LIEUTENANT SABURO SHINDO WAS LESS GLAD TO BE AT SEA AGAIN THAN HE’D EXPECTED. Akagi and her escorting destroyers and cruisers steamed north. So did Shokaku, some kilometers away. They wouldn’t have sortied if there hadn’t been good intelligence that the Americans were on their way again.
He wished Zuikaku were with them. They’d had three carriers the last time they faced the U.S. Navy, and they’d needed all of them. The Yankees might not be very skillful, but they didn’t give up. That worried Shindo, who’d thought conquering Hawaii would be plenty to knock the USA out of the Pacific War.
“Karma,” he muttered. That submarine skipper had got lucky. He’d heard some of his superiors wondering if the Americans had broken Japanese codes, but he didn’t believe it. How could gaijin ever learn Japanese well enough to do such a thing? It had to be impossible.
Akagi and Shokaku steamed toward the biggest breach the Americans had torn in the line of picket boats. It stood to reason that the Yankees would try to send their ships through there. He would have done the same thing if he commanded the American fleet.
Commander Fuchida was pacing along the flight deck. He nodded to Shindo. “Your planes will be ready to fight when we make contact?”
“Oh, yes, sir,” Shindo answered. “Of course, sir.” Shindo paused, then asked, “Do we know how big the enemy fleet is?”
“Not exactly,” Fuchida answered. “Our best guess is that it’s about the same size as the one last year, maybe one carrier more. Even with only two carriers of our own, we should be able to handle that.”
“Why don’t we know better, sir?” Shindo asked.
“Because most of the yards where the Americans build carriers are on their East Coast,” Fuchida said.
“We can’t do reconnaissance there, and neither can Germany.”
“Their ships have to come through the Panama Canal to get at us,” Shindo said. “Can’t we count them once they’ve got to the Pacific?”
“We’ve tried. We haven’t had much luck,” Fuchida told him. “We’ve lost a couple of H8Ks that tried to spy on the canal. The Americans patrol aggressively in that area. We didn’t get any worthwhile information, either.”
“Too bad,” Shindo said, which was as close as he would come to criticizing any of his superiors. He wanted to know what he was up against. Meticulous planning was a big part of what made the Hawaii operation so successful.
“Shigata ga nai,” Fuchida said, which was true enough. He clicked his tongue between his teeth. “I do wish we had Zuikaku here with us, though. Well, shigata ga nai there, too.”
“If the Yankees have the same number of carriers and the same kinds of planes as they did last year, we’ll beat them again. We’ll beat the pants off them.”
Before Fuchida could answer, the public-address system called his name: “Commander Fuchida! Report to the bridge immediately! Commander Fuchida! Report to the-”
“Please excuse me,” Fuchida said, and dashed across the flight deck towards Akagi’s island.
What was going on? Shindo waited for his own summons to the bridge, or perhaps for the klaxons of general quarters. Neither came, which left him stewing in his own juices. A couple of minutes later, though, Akagi changed course to starboard. He nodded to himself. The skipper had found out something he hadn’t known before.
And then the PA system brayed to life again: “All flying crews report to the briefing room! Attention, please! All flying crews report to the briefing room at once!”
Now it was Shindo’s turn to run as if possessed. He sprinted for a hatchway: the briefing room was on the hangar deck, below the flight deck. The soles of his shoes clanged on the iron treads of the stairs.
A few fliers beat him to the briefing room, but only a few. He found a seat near the front, so he could get the best look at the maps and charts and blackboards there. More and more men came in after him, all chattering excitedly. They knew they were liable to be going into action before long.
They quieted when Commander Fuchida and Commander Genda walked into the room. The man who led air operations and the man who planned them waited a few minutes to let the laggards crowd in. Then Minoru Genda spoke without preamble: “We have found the enemy.”