Harry Turtledove - End of the Beginning

“What submarine?” Kenzo asked-this was the first he’d heard of it.

“There was one,” the landing-forces man said. Kenzo couldn’t very well argue with him, because he didn’t know there hadn’t been one. The fellow went on, “I don’t know whether your old man was on it or not, though. They don’t tell guys like me stuff like that.” He gestured. “Go ahead, buddy. I hope you find him. I always did like listening to him.”

“Thank you,” Kenzo said, wishing he hadn’t heard that quite so often from Japanese military men. He could have done without the compliment. Would his father have got on a submarine-one probably bound for Japan? Muttering unhappily, Kenzo nodded to himself. His father would be able to see the jig was up here. And he must have been afraid of what the Americans would do to him when they came back. He likely had reason, too, even if he was a Japanese citizen. Collaborators would catch it.

Kenzo talked his way past another couple of Japanese strongpoints. The special naval landing forces and the soldiers they had with them seemed determined to hold on to Honolulu as long as they were still breathing and still had ammo. God help the city, Kenzo thought, not that God seemed to have paid much attention to Honolulu since December 7, 1941.

The fresh shell crater in the Sundbergs’ front lawn made Kenzo gulp. One of the windows had only a few shards of glass in it. There was a fist-sized hole in the front door. Nobody answered when he knocked. He started to panic, but then quelled the alarm thudding through him. They’d built a hidey-hole under the house.

He tried the door. It swung open. He carefully closed it behind him, wanting things to look as normal as they could. Then he went to the closet that held the entrance to the foxhole. Sure enough, the rug over the trap door was askew.

If Elsie and her family were down there, they had to be panicking, hearing footsteps over their heads. Kenzo squatted down and rapped out shave and a haircut-five cents on the trap door. He didn’t think any Japanese soldier would do that. When he tried to lift the trap, though, he found it was latched from below. That was smart.

He rapped again, calling, “You okay, Elsie?” Could she hear him through the floor? He called again, a little louder.

Something slid underneath him-the latch. He got off the trap door so it could go up. It did, about an inch. Elsie’s voice floated out of the opening: “That you, Ken?”

“Yeah,” he said, almost giddy with relief. “You okay?”

“We are now,” she answered. “You gave us quite a turn there.”

“Sorry,” he said. “I figured I would, but it was too late by then.”

“How about you?” Elsie asked.

“The Americans shelled the camp,” he said bleakly. “There are machine-gun nests not far away, so they’ll probably do it some more. Hank and I are okay so far. The Japanese dragooned him into being a stretcher-bearer, but he was all right last I saw him.”

“What about your father?” Elsie knew where his worries lived, all right.

“I think he’s on his way to Japan right now,” Kenzo replied. “And if he is, that may be the best thing for all of us.”

Elsie’s mother spoke up: “If they’re shelling the camp, you won’t have anywhere to stay. Come down here with us.”

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“Damn straight we’re sure.” That gruff male voice belonged to Mr. Sundberg, whom he hadn’t met so often. “We owe you plenty, Ken. Maybe we can pay back a little. Come on-make it snappy.”

Kenzo lifted the trap door high enough to get through it, then closed it over his own head. It was dark and gloomy under the house, and smelled of damp dirt. There’d been more digging since he last saw the shelter. Elsie squeezed his hand. “We just went down here yesterday,” she said. “We’ve got water. We’ve got some food. We can last till it’s over-I hope.”

“And we’ve got a honey bucket over there in the corner, at the end of that trench.” Mr. Sundberg chuckled hoarsely. “All the comforts of home.”

Kenzo’s nose had already noted the honey bucket. It was better than nothing. The whole setup was a lot better than staying out in the open. “Thanks,” he said. That didn’t go far enough. He tried again: “Thanks for looking at me and not seeing a Jap.”

Elsie squeezed his hand again. Her mother said, “We’ll sort that all out later. Let’s see if we can live through this first.” He couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard such good advice.

REPLACEMENTS CAME UP TO FILL THE RANKS of Captain Braxton Bradford’s company. Les Dillon looked at the new men joining his platoon with something less than delight. They were plainly just off the boat. They must have landed in the north, hopped on a truck to get down here-and now they’d go into the meat grinder. They were clean. They were clean-shaven. Their uniforms weren’t filthy, and weren’t out at the knees and elbows. The way the veterans looked and smelled and acted seemed to dismay them. They might have been in the company of so many wolves.

“Any of you guys ever seen combat before?” Les knew the answer would be no even before the new fish shook their heads. He sighed. Sheer ignorance was going to get a lot of them shot in the next few days. He couldn’t tell them that straight out. What he said instead was, “Try and stick close to somebody who knows what the fuck he’s doing. Shoot first and ask questions later. The Japs have had time to get ready for us, and they don’t give up. We’ve got to make the damn bastards pay for what they’ve done to Hotel Street.”

“Hotel Street, Sergeant?” a replacement asked.

Les rolled his eyes. The kid didn’t even know. Wearily, Dillon said, “Best damn place in the world to get drunk and get laid. That give you the picture?” The young Marine nodded. He looked eager- gung-ho, people were calling it these days. Gung-ho was great if it kept you going forward. If you didn’t pay enough attention to where you were going, though…

“Y’all listen up, hear me?” That was Captain Bradford. A Southern drawl often seemed to be the Marine Corps’ second language. The company commander went on, “We are gonna go on through those houses and apartments in front of us, and we aren’t gonna stop till we get to the rubble past ’em where the Japs bombed Honolulu a year and a half ago. We’ll set up a perimeter on the edge of that zone and wait for the artillery and armor to soften up the way ahead. Questions, men?”

Nobody said anything. Les figured the new guys would keep going if they got half a chance. Marines were like that, grabbing as much as they could as fast as they could. The Army was more methodical. Dogfaces said the Marine way caused more casualties. Les thought there might be more at first, but not in the long run.

“You new men, keep your eyes open, hear?” Bradford added. “Damn Japs are better at camouflage than y’all ever reckoned anybody could be. Fuckers’ll hide in a mailbox or under a doormat. Everybody watches out, everybody helps everybody else. Right?”

“Right, sir!” the Marines chorused. Les caught Dutch Wenzel’s eye. The other platoon sergeant gave back a fractional nod. The replacements wouldn’t know what to look for. Some of them would get educated in a hurry. Others-probably more-wouldn’t stay in one piece long enough to have the chance.

Some of those houses and apartments and little shops up ahead were as innocent as they looked. Some held Jap riflemen or machine-gun positions. Japanese mortar crews would be waiting in the alleys and on the roofs. Les knew the Marines could clear them out. What the cost would be… That was the question.

A couple of bullets snapped past. Les was on the deck before he knew he’d thrown himself flat. It was just harassing fire, but it was from an Arisaka. He didn’t believe in taking chances. Some of the new guys gave funny looks to him and the other Marines who’d flattened out. He didn’t care. His mama hadn’t raised him to take chances he didn’t have to.