Harry Turtledove - End of the Beginning

Up. Forward. Thunk! Pull. Clatter. Pause. Up. Forward. Thunk! … After a while, the work, like a lot of work, developed its own rhythm. Peterson fell into the almost mindless state any endlessly repetitive labor can bring on. Not thinking was better. If time just went by, he didn’t dwell on how tired or how hungry or how filthy he was.

And then he brought himself up short, so suddenly that he almost slammed the pick down on his own foot. Aside from the self-inflicted wound, that would have earned him a thumping from the guards. To them, anybody who hurt himself was trying to shirk, and they made would-be shirkers sorry.

But if they were serious about wanting this tunnel to Kaneohe, wouldn’t they be using a lot more dynamite and maybe jackhammers and a lot less of this hand labor out of ancient days? Of course they would. Anybody with an ounce of sense would. The Japs didn’t have a lot of their own bulldozers, but they sure used the ones they’d captured here to fix up airstrips and to dig out field fortifications. They were bastards, yeah, but they weren’t stupid bastards.

Which meant the tunnel was-had to be-designed first and foremost to work POWs to death. That made perfect sense, and nothing else did, and if he hadn’t been so weary and starved he would have seen it right away.

It also made no damn difference, not in what he had to do. The air stank of sour sweat and rock dust and burning fat. The rubble on the tunnel floor poked and gouged his feet through the soles of his shoes. What would happen when the shoes gave up the ghost? Things would get even nastier, that was all.

Up. Forward. Thunk! Pull. Clatter. Pause. Up. Forward…

LIEUTENANT SABURO SHINDO LOOKED OUT across the airstrip at Haleiwa. It was beautiful, no doubt about that: green grass, a creamy beach, and then the blue, blue Pacific. What worried him were the things the blue, blue Pacific hid.

He forgot about the view and glowered at the mechanics he’d summoned. “Don’t tell me it isn’t an authorized modification,” he snapped. “I want a bomb rack on my Zero, and I want a bomb rack on every Zero at this airstrip. Wakarimasu-ka? ”

“Yes, of course we understand, Lieutenant- san, ” one of the mechanics answered. “But think of the drawbacks. What happens if you get into a dogfight with an American plane? Think how much the weight and drag of a bomb would hurt you.”

“If I run into an American, I can dump the bomb,” Shindo said. “But I need something to let me go after submarines-or surface ships, if the Yankees stick their noses into these waters again. You’re not going to tell me the bomb rack will slow me down much by itself, are you?” His glare warned that they’d better not tell him any such thing.

And the chief mechanic shook his head. “Oh, no, sir. But what about a malfunction? How could you land on a carrier with an unreleased bomb?”

“Carefully, I suspect.” Shindo’s voice was dry.

Had the mechanic been an officer, he would have had plenty to say. His face made that very plain. Since he was only a rating, “Sir, that’s not funny” had to suffice.

“I didn’t say it was,” Shindo answered. “What other way would you expect me to land after those conditions? And after I get down-because I will get down-the first thing I will do is come after the thumb-fingered idiots who mounted a malfunctioning piece of equipment on my plane. So it had better work, the first time and every single time after the first. Do you understand that ?”

The mouthy mechanic bowed. So did all his friends. They had to know Shindo wasn’t kidding. If something went wrong with the bomb rack, he would come after them, probably with his sword. And no Japanese military court was likely to convict an officer for anything he did to ratings.

“Good.” Shindo nodded coldly to them. “You can’t tell me there’s no scrap metal to do the job, either. Hawaii has more scrap metal than a dog has fleas.”

They bowed again. Their faces showed nothing, nothing at all. Shindo knew what that meant. They hated his guts, but discipline kept them from showing it. For a moment, that tickled him-but only for a moment. A mechanic who didn’t like a pilot had a million ways to take his revenge. Planes broke down a million ways. If an accident wasn’t quite an accident… who’d know? Yes, who’d know, especially if the evidence, if there was any evidence, lay at the bottom of the Pacific?

Shindo bowed back. It went against his grain, but he did it. The mechanics flicked glances at one another. “Domo arigato,” he said. Their eyebrows sprang up like startled stags. Superiors were not in the habit of thanking inferiors so warmly. He went on, “We all serve the Empire of Japan, and we should always do everything we can to help her.”

“Hai.” Several of the stolid men in coveralls spoke up. The word could have been no more than acknowledgment, but he thought it was also agreement. They did love the Empire, no matter what they thought of him. And they had to know he felt the same way about his country.

“Good,” he told them. “Very good. Take care of it. We never can tell when the Americans will come sneaking around again.”

They did what he told them. If they did it more for Japan than for him, he didn’t mind. If anything, that made it better. If they did it for Japan, they were likelier to forget their anger at him.

A couple of days later, though, he did get a telephone call from Commander Fuchida. “What’s this I hear about fitting bomb racks to your fighters up there?” Fuchida asked.

Shindo slowly nodded to himself. I might have known, he thought. Mechanics had more ways than sabotage to make their displeasure felt. Gossip could be just as dangerous. “It’s true, sir,” Shindo told the senior air officer. “I want to be in a position to kill a submarine if I spot one. I can’t dive like an Aichi, but I’ll get the job done.”

He waited. If Fuchida said no, to whom could he appeal? Commander Genda? Not likely, not when Genda and Fuchida were two fingers of the same hand. Captain Toda? Would he overturn a ruling his air experts had made? Again, not likely. Admiral Yamamoto? Shindo was not the least bold of men, but he quailed at that. Besides, Yamamoto was back in Japan, and would surely defer to his men on the spot.

But Fuchida said, “All right, Shindo- san, go ahead and do it. The more versatility we can give our aircraft here, the better off we’ll be.”

“Thank you, sir!” Shindo said in glad surprise. “I had the same thought myself.” He hadn’t, not really; his own ideas centered on finding new ways to strike the enemy. Keeping a superior sweet never hurt, though, especially when he’d just given you what you wanted.

“I’ve been sub-hunting myself, but I haven’t had any luck. Nobody’s had a whole lot of luck hunting subs, and the Army isn’t very happy with us on account of that,” Fuchida said. “Anything that gives a plane that spots a sub a chance to sink it sounds good in my book.”

“We agree completely.” This time, Shindo was telling the truth. He and Fuchida talked a little while longer before the senior officer broke the connection.

A smile of satisfaction on his face, Shindo hung up, too. He started to get up and throw the news in the mechanics’ faces. So they thought they could go behind his back, did they? Well, they had another think coming!

After a couple of steps, Shindo checked himself. He laughed an unpleasant laugh. Better if he kept his mouth shut. Let the mechanics find out for themselves that Fuchida had come down on his side. They would, soon enough. Then they would spend some time worrying about whether he knew what they’d done. He laughed again. Yes, letting them stew was better.