He declined to say anything about white rocks serving as aiming points. Lytle sat down in a camp chair and leaned back, clearly off balance. For a moment it looked as if he would fall over and Steve relished the thought.
“Farris, just because you had a year of college, it doesn’t mean you’re smarter than I am. I am the captain and in command of this company, and you are a lieutenant and you are rapidly becoming a pain in the ass. If I could, I would send you back and get someone more reasonable, but I can’t.”
Farris was undeterred. “And instead of painting the damn rocks, we should be training. Our men are out of shape and, like you saw on the range, can’t shoot worth squat. Sir, I would like to start patrolling and training instead of just sitting here and admiring the scenery.”
“Lieutenant, instead of wasting our time patrolling, I would like to either relieve you of your command or have your worthless ass court-martialed. Like I said, though, I can’t do much about you. Instead, I am going to do you a big favor. You can take your platoon and your grumpy fucking Sergeant Stecher the hell out of here and build your own little castle a couple of miles up the coast where you can hide behind hills to your little heart’s content. I’ll replace your platoon with Sawyer’s.”
Farris had mixed emotions. Sawyer was the youngest and least experienced officer in the company and was totally intimidated by Lytle. They would do a marvelous job of painting rocks and anything else the company commander wanted, except prepare for war.
There was, however, a good side to Lytle’s orders. Away from Lytle, Farris would indeed be able to get his men as close to fighting trim as circumstances would permit.
Outside, Stecher asked how it went. “Well, we get a little independence,” Farris said and explained that they’d be moving.
“Half a loaf is better than nothing,” Stecher said. He was impressed that his lieutenant had a pair of balls and had stood up to their sot of a CO. He also had a sense of duty.
Farris smiled. “Lytle may be right, and the only Japs we’ll ever see will be running a laundry or something, but if the worst should happen, we’ll be as ready as we possibly can be.”
Stecher laughed. “Chinese run laundries, not the Japs. No Pearl Harbor on our watch then?”
“Not if I can help it. If anybody dies on my watch, it won’t be because I didn’t do the best I could.”
“Uh, Lieutenant, I know you don’t approve of our captain’s drinking, but I hope you agree there’s a time and place for everything.”
“Of course.”
“Then you might like to know that a case of beer has appeared as if by magic in my tent, perhaps sent by the beer fairy, and I’d enjoy sharing one or three with you.”
Farris grinned. “I’d be honored. Tomorrow we move this hot dog stand to a new location.”
“Any of you ladies own a gun?” Mack asked.
Amanda, Sandy, and Grace shook their heads in surprise at the question. Sandy said she hated guns.
“Well, thank God I own a few,” Mack said. “I’ll be bringing a twelve-gauge shotgun, a thirty-two-caliber revolver, and an 1873 model Winchester carbine that I was told was used by the Sioux against Custer. That’s probably a lie, but it shoots straight. Oh yeah, there’ll be a box of ammo for each.”
“But why,” Sandy asked. She was tired. They all were. They’d managed time off from the hospital and had spent the last several days learning how to improve their handling of the catamaran. Sandy had started as the plump one, but was now slimming down. Mack thought she looked good, but not as good as Grace, who had just unbuttoned the top three buttons of her blouse, which gave him a good view of her ample cleavage. Regardless, all three were becoming skilled sailors.
When the nurses weren’t there, Mack had worked hard to improve the sailboat. The decking connecting the twin hulls had been reinforced and compartments made to store food, water, and other supplies, including a spare set of sails and an extra mast. The cabin just behind the single mast in the middle of the boat had been enlarged so they could fit inside in case of bad weather, although sleeping would be difficult for more than two people at a time.
“We need guns because of sharks,” he answered, “and I don’t necessarily mean the ones that swim in the sea. I’m thinking of the two-legged ones who might try to take the Bitch from us before we can leave, or jump us at sea. Tell me, does anyone in your real world know what we’re up to?”
“Not to my knowledge,” Amanda said. “You told us to keep it under our hats and that’s what we’ve done. If anybody’s followed us here or figured things out, I don’t know. What about here? Any of the locals suspect anything?”
Mack nodded. He’d already decided that Amanda, the quiet-looking one, was the smartest of the three and the leader. He wondered if she knew it yet.
“I don’t think any of my neighbors have noticed anything,” Mack said. “Fixing up the cat isn’t unusual, and I’ve been storing stuff at night so nobody should suspect that we’re preparing for the end of the world. As to the guns, I’ll be teaching you how to handle them just in case.”
“I hate guns,” Sandy said again with a shudder.
“You don’t have to like them,” Mack said, “just respect them and learn how to use them. It might just save your life.”
Amanda looked at him stonily. “Are you also suggesting that we save a bullet each for ourselves?”
Well, Mack thought, you figured it out. You are indeed the smart one. “If we’re about to be captured by a Jap warship, or if we’re dying of thirst or starvation, the choice’ll be yours, now won’t it.”
“When are we leaving?” Grace asked.
“Next Saturday’d be good. No sense waiting here any longer than we have to. Wait too long and the Japs’ll be crawling all over the beaches.”
The Japanese Zero was simply the finest plane in the world and it was flown by the finest pilots in the world. This was not only the opinion of twenty-four-year-old Ensign Masao Ikeda, but of everyone else who had half a brain, and that included the deluded Americans who’d been dying in large numbers because they’d underestimated Japan.
The official designation of the Zero was the A6M. The letter A indicated it was a carrier plane, the number 6 said it was the sixth model, and the M said it had been made by the Mitsubishi corporation. The Zero was a one-man fighter that could fly more than three hundred miles an hour, soar to more than thirty thousand feet in the sky, and maneuver on the proverbial dime. Ikeda’s plane had two 20mm Type 99 cannon and often carried a pair of 132-pound bombs slung under her wings.
The Zero simply outclassed anything the Americans had sent against them so far, but there were rumors that the Yanks had newer and better planes coming into play. Let them, Ikeda thought. None would be better than the Zero. Let the arrogant Americans learn to die. They’d tried so hard to humiliate Japan and her revered emperor, they deserved nothing less.
Ikeda was proud beyond words to be a fighter pilot in the service of the emperor. Training had been more than grueling. Ninety percent of the pilot candidates had flunked out. The ones who made it through were the best of the best, the elite of the elite.
He’d heard some officers complain that too many good pilots were being dismissed because they weren’t quite excellent enough. Ikeda scoffed at that idea. The successful pilot candidates, like him, would be more than enough to slaughter the larger number of poorly trained Americans who thought that Japanese were ignorant, buck-toothed, and too nearsighted to fly a plane effectively. The Americans and British also thought that Japan could only produce junk, and both were paying terrible prices for their hubris.