Grace laughed. “And don’t think it was such a big thrill making love to Mack’s old and withered body.”
“It wasn’t?” Sandy said angrily. “I would have thought otherwise from all the noise you two made.”
“Well, actually it was. Not as good as Captain Billy Merchant, mind you, but quite nice.”
Sandy took a deep breath. “You’re right, of course. I’ll be a big girl and deal with it as it happens. And I’ll skip dessert, thank you.”
Amanda smiled and turned away. Sandy’s situation had brought out her own unspoken fears. What would she do if Tim was badly wounded, crippled, blinded? He’d seen so much action it was a wonder he was still alive. Sometimes she thought it would be easier dealing with someone’s death. Then, when she thought that way, she realized her thoughts were stupid.
The two Australian cruisers were a mass of flames. So too were the pair of transports the fools had been escorting. Masao Ikeda turned his plane for another strafing run on the almost helpless targets. An antiaircraft crew on one of the cruisers was still firing at them. He dropped his Zero’s nose and his guns obliterated the response.
Aichi E13A seaplanes had spotted the ships earlier in the day. The cruisers were tentatively identified as the heavy cruiser Canberra, ten thousand tons and four turrets each with two eight-inch guns, and the light cruiser Hobart, seventy-one hundred tons and eight six-inch guns, and they were now burning and sinking. Australia’s navy had been small and now, he thought happily, it was even smaller. Rumor had it that Australia’s food situation was becoming as desperate as Hawaii’s, so maybe this setback would cause Australia to think twice about continuing to fight the Japanese Empire.
A number of lifeboats and rafts were in the water and some of the other Zero pilots, mainly the newer ones, thought it was great sport to strafe the helpless little boats. He watched in disgust as bullets ripped through the flimsy craft, sending men into water that was rapidly turning blood red around their floating bodies. He heard the pilots exulting on their radios and contemplated telling them to shut up. He didn’t, though. Let them have their way for a little while. Besides, even though he now had a dozen kills to his credit, they might not obey him. Their blood lust was up.
In earlier times, Masao had thought that way as well, but not now. He had seen far too many men die to think kindly on the idea of slaughter as a sport. Killing the helpless was not the way of the warrior. Nor was it right for the gunners on the cruiser to have kept firing, forcing Masao to kill again. There was no shame in retreating to fight again another day. The Australian gunners had been fools and it would be justice if they were dead.
The newer Japanese pilots were not the same quality as the men they were replacing, the men who had fought and died for Nippon, the men he mourned as lost companions. The men replacing them were children in comparison, a point he’d frequently made to his good friend Toki.
The Canberra rolled on its side and then on its back. Australian sailors tried to cling to the slippery hull but it bounced obscenely in the water and they were thrown off. God help anyone trapped inside, Masao thought and permitted himself a shudder since no one could see him show weakness in the cockpit of his plane. When I die, he thought, let it be fast.
An hour later, his plane and all the rest of the pilots were safe on the Kaga. Two Zeros had been shot down by enemy fire and both pilots lost. They had been new pilots and now they would be replaced by two more who were even less well prepared.
Masao took a long drink of water and walked as close to the edge of the flight deck as his fear of heights would let him. The mighty ocean swells were hypnotically beautiful and deceptively peaceful. One could look and never see war.
“Don’t jump,” a familiar voice whispered from behind him.
“Go to hell, Toki,” he cheerfully said to his friend. Masao was glad to see him. There hadn’t been much opportunity to visit in the last several days.
“We may already be there, or haven’t you noticed? The men and the ship are wearing down. We need a long and slow refit in a harbor that actually has facilities and where the people don’t want to kill you like they do on Hawaii. And admit it, wouldn’t you like to walk on the ground just one more time before you die?”
“Yes, but I don’t plan on dying just yet.”
“Who does, but we are in a war,” Toki said.
“Which is why we cannot surrender to our desire for luxuries,” Masao answered. “We must harden ourselves and be stronger than the Americans. Our time will come. Then we will have geishas or even American or Australian maidens to service us,” Masao added facetiously.
“And they’ll be as enthusiastic as the whores, or slaves, in Hawaii. By the way, that little piece of happiness and sunshine near Hilo has been abandoned. Apparently, Hawaiian guerillas overran the place and freed all the slaves. Now you can’t even go there and just sit on the beach. We bombed and strafed the island, doubtless killing a number of the enemy, but that was an exercise in futility.”
“Enough,” Masao said sharply. “Please tell me you have some good news for a change.”
“Well, it is news, but I won’t be the judge as to whether it’s good or not. Apparently, we have somehow located the American carrier, the Saratoga.”
Masao beamed. “Excellent. Now we can strike at her and kill her. And then perhaps we can go home and get laid by a proper Japanese woman.”
“What happened to your American or Australian women? Regardless, it might not happen. Just because we found the damned carrier doesn’t mean she’s in a position where she can be attacked. Apparently she is off the Mexican coast, in a body of water called the Bay of California. It is near enough to San Diego for surface planes to protect her. Neither Admiral Kurita nor Admiral Nagumo thinks she would be worth the price. Yamamoto of course disagrees. He reminds his admirals that Japan was willing to lose two carriers at Pearl Harbor in order to destroy the American fleet, and should be willing to lose a carrier or two in order to wipe out the final vestiges of American power in the Pacific.”
Masao grinned. “Just so long as one of the carriers sunk isn’t the Kaga. I’m very tired of having to change ships because the previous one was sunk. Seriously, what do you think will be the decision?”
“Apparently our revered Admiral Yamamoto is torn. Attacking the Saratoga while she is being repaired is one option. Another is to wait until her repairs are complete and hit her with a host of submarines. The exit from her sanctuary is relatively narrow and could easily be covered by our submarines. A number of them are already on their way to blockade the gulf.”
Masao pondered for a moment. “A good plan, but not good enough. The Americans will surely be looking for our submarines, whether they suspect that we know where the carrier is or not. No, the only way to be certain is to use our planes. I suppose we could use our subs to trail the Saratoga once she does emerge and take her on the high seas when she’s away from any help from land-based planes, or even their subs. But the American carrier is much faster than our subs, and that means we would run the always present risk of her escaping. If that were to happen, the chase would begin all over again.”