Harry Turtledove - End of the Beginning

“Everything good out at sea? Spot anything unusual?” this sergeant asked.

“What could we spot? It’s just lots of water.” Kenzo sounded as casual as he could.

“Hai. Lots of water.” The sergeant drew the kanji for ocean in the air. It combined the characters for water and mother. “You understand?”

“Oh, yes,” Kenzo said. “A mother of a lot of water.” The sergeant laughed at that. Kenzo added, “But nothing else.” The Japanese soldier asked no more questions.

IF YOU PAID ENOUGH OR HAD CLOUT, YOU COULD STILL EAT WELL IN HONOLULU. If you had enough clout, you didn’t have to pay through the nose. Commander Mitsuo Fuchida fell into that category. When he had Commander Genda along with him, the proprietor of the Mochizuki Tea House bowed himself almost double and escorted them to a private room.

“Thank you for coming here, gentlemen. You honor my humble establishment, which does not deserve the presence of such brave officers.” He laid the ceremonial on with a trowel, bowing again and again. Fuchida had to work to keep a smile off his face. No matter how formal the man acted, his accent was that of an ignorant peasant from the south. The impulse to smile faded after a moment. Starting as a peasant, the fellow would have had trouble rising this high had he stayed in Japan.

Kimonoed waitresses fluttered over Fuchida and Genda as the two of them sat cross-legged at the low, Japanese-style table. “Sake?” one of the girls asked. “Yes, please,” Fuchida said. She hurried away. He eyed the menu. “We can get anything we want-as long as we want fish.”

Genda shrugged. “I’ve heard this place used to have fine sukiyaki. But beef…” He shrugged again.

“Karma, neh ?”

“Shigata ga nai,” Fuchida answered, which was self-evidently true: it couldn’t be helped. “The sushi and the sashimi here are good-and look. They’ve got lobster tempura. If we’re going to be honored guests, we ought to make the most of it.”

“What’s that saying the Americans use? ‘Eat, drink, and be merry, because tomorrow-’ ” Genda didn’t finish it, but Fuchida nodded. He knew what his friend was talking about.

Back came the girl with the sake. That was brewed from rice, and there was, finally, just about enough rice to go around in Oahu-and on the other islands of Hawaii, though they mattered much less to the Japanese. Fuchida and Genda both slurped noisily from their cups. The stuff wasn’t bad, though it wasn’t up to the best back in the home islands.

After the food came, the waitresses knew enough to withdraw and let the Japanese officers talk in peace. Fuchida spoke without preamble: “We’re going to have to fight the Americans again.”

“Yes, it seems so.” Genda dipped a piece of tuna into shoyu heated with wasabi. He sounded as calm as if they were talking about the weather.

“Can we?” Fuchida was still blunt.

“I don’t expect them to come after us right away-they’re busy in North Africa for the time being,” Genda answered. Fuchida nodded and sipped at his sake again. The USA had shipped an enormous army around the Cape of Good Hope and up to Egypt. Along with Montgomery’s British force, they’d smashed Rommel at El Alamein and were driving him west across the desert.

Fuchida ate some sushi. He smiled. Barbecued eel had always been one of his favorites. But, again, the smile would not stay. “Did you notice one thing about that attack, Genda- san ?”

“I’ve noticed several things about it-none of them good for us,” Genda replied. “Which do you have in mind?”

“That it didn’t use any American carriers,” Fuchida answered. “What the Yankees have left, they’re saving-for us.”

“I’m not worried about what they’re saving,” Genda said. “I’m worried about what they’re building. Admiral Yamamoto was right about that.” He invoked Yamamoto’s name as a bishop might invoke the Pope-and with just as much reverence.

“We’ve given them lumps twice now. We can do it again-if they don’t cut us off from supplies,” Fuchida said.

“You sound like you’ve been listening to General Yamashita,” Genda said sourly. “I got an earful of that at Iolani Palace not long ago.”

“I have no more use for the Army than you do. Those people are crazy,” Fuchida said with a distinct shudder. “But even crazy people can be right some of the time.”

“What worries me is, we can beat the Americans two or three more times, beat them as badly as we did in the last big fight, and what will it do for us? Buy us more time till the next battle, that’s all,” Genda said.

“They’ll just go back to building, and we can’t do much to stop them. But if they beat us even once… If that happens, we’re in trouble.” He drained his little sake cup and poured it full again.

“They have a margin for error, and we don’t-that’s what you’re saying,” Fuchida said.

Genda nodded vigorously. “Hai! That’s exactly what I’m saying, except you said it better than I did.”

“We’d better not make any errors, then,” Fuchida said. “We haven’t yet.”

“Not big ones, anyhow,” Genda agreed. “And the Americans have made plenty. But we’re already doing about as well as we can. The Americans aren’t, not yet. They’re still learning, and they’re getting better.”

Fuchida went bottoms-up with his sake cup. “We’re in Hawaii, and they aren’t. That’s how it’s supposed to work, and that’s how it’s going to keep on working.” He hoped he sounded determined and not just drunk; he’d poured down quite a bit. He wondered if he would have a headache in the morning. He wouldn’t be surprised if he did. Well, there were still plenty of aspirins.

Genda said, “There’s a legend from the West, where every time the hero cuts off a dragon’s head, two more heads grow back. That’s what worries me in this fight.”

The image fit the war against America much too well-so well, in fact, that Mitsuo Fuchida got drunk enough to have no doubts whatsoever he’d regret it in the morning.

AFTER PENSACOLA NAVAL AIR STATION, the Naval Training Station outside Buffalo jolted Joe Crosetti in lots of ways. First and foremost was the weather. The chilly wind of Lake Erie was like nothing he’d ever known. It was only autumn, too; winter would be worse.

Orson Sharp, who’d switched stations and squadrons along with him, took it in stride. “Can’t be too much nastier than what I’m used to,” he said.

It was already a lot nastier than San Francisco ever got. Joe had hardly ever worn a topcoat; a windbreaker was usually all you needed where he grew up. He was glad of his topcoat here. He had long johns, too, and expected to wear them.

Flying out over the lake felt strange. He was used to large expanses of water. The Pacific and then the Gulf of Mexico were both magnificent, each in its own way. But the idea of being up over water as far as the eye could see and knowing it was fresh water… for a Californian, that seemed as alien as Mars.

Then there was the USS Wolverine. She’d started life as a coal-burning sidewheeling excursion steamer, but she’d been decked over to give aspiring carrier pilots somewhere to do endless takeoffs and landings without impeding the war effort by tying up a ship that could actually go into combat. She wasn’t pretty, but she got the job done.

The same held true for the Grumman F3Fs the cadets were flying. Zeros would have slaughtered them, but they were a lot hotter than Texans. And, to Joe’s amazement, Lake Erie could grow some perfectly respectable waves. That meant the Wolverine pitched and rolled, just the way a real carrier would out in the Pacific. It also meant the apprentice pilots had to obey the landing officer as if he were God.