Harry Turtledove - End of the Beginning

War had chewed up the landscape-chewed it up twice in less than two years. Not even Hawaii’s luxuriant growth was able to cover up the latest round. Fletch looked at things with a professional eye. The Japs had fought like sons of bitches, no doubt about it. Burnt-out tanks and wrecked artillery pieces and pillboxes told how hard they had fought. So did the smell of death that fouled the warm, moist air.

The Kamehameha Highway was better than new: twice as wide, with no potholes because the paving was still so fresh. The engineers who’d put Humpty Dumpty back together again had done a hell of a job. And they’d needed to. If supplies didn’t go south by the Kamehameha Highway, they didn’t go south at all.

No snipers fired at the jeep. Less than an hour after Fletch got off the landing craft, he found himself in Wahiawa. “Here you go, sir,” the driver said, pulling up behind the gutted corpse of a Packard that had sat by the curb since December 7, 1941. “Good luck.” He pulled a Big Little Book out of his pocket and settled down to read.

“Thanks,” Fletch said tightly. He got down from the jeep. Wahiawa looked- trampled was the first word that came to mind. The Japs hadn’t cared about civilians. To them, built-up areas made good strongpoints. The town had paid for their stand. Everybody in Hawaii had paid and paid-including, at last, the Japs themselves.

Civilians on the streets were scrawny. K-ration cans were some of the commonest trash Fletch saw.

K-rations weren’t delicious, but they were paradise next to what people had eaten while the Japs ruled the roost.

A brunette haole woman with her hair hacked off short as a Marine’s shrank away from Fletch when his eye fell on her. He wondered what that was all about, but only for a moment. She must have been sleeping with the enemy. His mouth tightened, which only made the woman look more frightened as she scuttled past him. How anyone could… But then he sighed. Some people didn’t care what they did to get by. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t seen that before. If your choices looked like screwing a Jap and starving to death, what would you do? He thanked God he wasn’t a judge. Making Hawaii run the way it was supposed to again would take years.

His own worries were more personal. He turned west off the highway toward Schofield Barracks, which he knew were nothing but wreckage, and, more to the point, toward his old apartment building, which he hoped was still there. A lot of the places around here were okay. The Japs must not have thought they could make much of a stand in this part of town.

There it was, battered but still standing. Just like me. Fletch started to shake. This was harder than anything he’d done since the first time he went into combat, with Japanese fighters and dive bombers blowing up everything in sight. And who says you’re not going into combat now? he asked himself.

Jane already blew up your heart.

ARMITAGE was still on the mailbox in the lobby. He climbed the stairs two at a time so he wouldn’t have time to think. By the time he got to the second floor, he was panting-he still wasn’t in great shape. But exercise wasn’t the only thing making his heart pound when he walked down the hall. He took a deep breath and knocked on what had been his own front door.

Maybe she wouldn’t be home… But he heard footsteps inside, so she was. The door opened. There she was, skinny (but who wasn’t skinny these days?) but still looking damn good to him. “Yes, Captain?”

she said-and then she did a double take right out of the Three Stooges. “My God! Fletch! My God!”

she squealed, and threw herself into his arms.

She didn’t feel skinny. He’d forgotten how a woman in his arms did feel. Finding out again was like three shots of bourbon on an empty stomach. When he kissed her, she kissed him back-for about three seconds before she twisted away. What had been intoxication curdled. “Hello, Jane,” he said sourly.

“Come in,” she said, looking down at her toes and not at him. “I’m sorry, Fletch. I know what you must be thinking. But that-wasn’t all about you, anyway.”

“Great,” he said, and she flinched as if he’d hit her. He did go in. The place didn’t look too different. It smelled of wood smoke, but she sure wouldn’t have been able to go on cooking with gas. “How are you?” he asked.

“I’m here,” she answered. “I saw you once, with those others…”

“I know. I saw you, too,” Fletch said. “I must have looked like hell.”

Jane nodded. “You did. I’m sorry, but you did. I didn’t think anything would be left of you in a little while.”

“Damn near wasn’t,” he said. “I was down to about a hundred pounds when the leathernecks raided the camp in Kapiolani Park and got me out.” He’d put some weight back on, but he still had a long way to go. “You made it, though. Way to go.”

“Way to go. Yeah. Sure.” Her laugh might have been dipped in vitriol. “Fletch…” She stopped, then muttered, “Well, you might as well hear it from me, because you’ll sure hear it.”

“Hear what?” he asked, ice forming in his belly. If she’d collaborated… He didn’t know what he’d do if she’d collaborated. Bust her in the chops and walk out, he supposed. Slam the door on this part of his life forever.

“They made me their whore,” she whispered. “Comfort woman, they called it. They stuck me in a brothel, and they made me… They made me fuck them and suck them, all comers welcome. There. Is that plain enough? I was doing that till the place got shelled and I could get away.”

“Oh,” he said, and then, “Oh, Jesus,” and then, “No wonder you didn’t want to kiss me.”

“No wonder at all,” Jane said bleakly. “Hawaii, the impregnable fortress of the Pacific.” Another acid-filled laugh. “What was impregnable was me, and it’s just dumb fucking luck-yeah, that’s what it is, all right-I’m not carrying some Jap’s bastard. I’d never know whose, either, ’cause there were too damn many to be sure.”

Fletch felt like sinking through the floor. There is a peculiar, horrible helplessness unique to the man who can’t protect his woman. “I’m sorry,” he said in a low voice. “I’m so sorry.” Part of him knew that was irrational. He’d been a POW, at least as helpless as Jane, and she’d dumped him anyhow. But he’d also been a soldier, charged with defending Hawaii against the enemy. And he’d failed. The whole Army and Navy had failed, but he didn’t care about that. He’d failed. It was personal, which made it all the worse.

“That ought to take care of any silly foolishness about getting back together,” Jane said. “You won’t even want to look at me now, let alone touch me.”

“Hey,” Fletch said gently. Jane looked up in surprise-she must have thought he would stomp out of the place in disgust. He said, “I know all about what the Japs could make people do. They would have killed you if you didn’t. You think I don’t know that, too? I saw-plenty, believe me. Whatever you had to do, nobody’s gonna blame you for it. I sure don’t. You’ll probably end up a hero, babe, and go to the mainland and make speeches about what a bunch of bastards we’re fighting so people in war plants’ll buy more bonds.”

She stared at him. “You son of a bitch,” she said, and she started to cry.

“What the-devil did I do now?” he asked, honestly bewildered.

“If you’d just walked away, it would have been over,” Jane answered. “But you’re-you’re sweet to me.” She cried harder than ever. “What am I supposed to do now? Everything that has to do with common sense says I ought to finish what I started. But then you go and you act sweet. What am I supposed to do about that?”