Harry Turtledove - End of the Beginning

The sergeant didn’t answer right away. He looked at-looked through-Oscar. File cards riffled behind his impassive dark eyes. He no doubt knew who Oscar was, and that Oscar and Charlie ran around together. He might have needed to remind himself of that, but he knew. He said, “They’ve taken him to Honolulu.” His voice, rough from years of two packs a day, revealed nothing.

“Why would they want to do that?” Oscar didn’t have to fake astonishment. “What’s he done? What do they think he’s done? It can’t be anything much-you know Charlie, don’t you?”

“Sure.” The cop looked through him again. “You want to spring him, right?”

“Well, of course I do,” Oscar answered. “He’s my pal. Can I bail him out? I’m not broke.”

By the way the sergeant touched his pocket, he was going for cigarettes that weren’t there. How many times had he made that gesture since Hawaii fell? From his sour expression, quite a few. “Bail him out?” he said. “I don’t know about that. It, ah, isn’t only the police that are interested in him.”

“Who else?” Oscar knew he’d better sound naive. As if the idea were just occurring to him, he said, “The, uh, Japanese?” He’d better not say Japs around somebody who worked with them and, for all practical purposes, for them.

“That’s right. He’s been poking into places where he doesn’t belong, sounds like,” the policeman said.

“So you can go there, but…” His voice trailed away. He’d made the same calculation Oscar had before.

Oscar shivered. “Thanks, Sergeant,” he said, and left the station in a hurry.

Into Honolulu? Into Honolulu, he decided, and started west. His knees weren’t knocking, but he didn’t know why not. He was scared green. He and Charlie had got caught in the crossfire between invading Japs and Americans right at the start of the war. He’d jumped into trenches when bombs fell not nearly far enough away. Going after his friend now, though, was consciously brave. So this is what courage feels like, he thought. Not letting anybody, even me, see how frightened I am.

Maybe it would be all right. Honolulu’s police chief, still doing his job under the Japs, had come out from California not too long before the war to shape up a corrupt force, and he’d done it. The assistant chief was a full-blooded Hawaiian. Cops came from every piece in the jigsaw puzzle of nations that made up Hawaii. But if the occupiers said hop, the cops had to make like frogs.

The main station wasn’t far from Honolulu Hale, the city hall. Typewriters clattered as Oscar went inside. He wondered how the police got new ribbons, or if they’d figured out a way to reink old ones.

By his looks, the desk sergeant here was at least hapa -Oriental. Japanese? Chinese? Korean? Oscar wasn’t sure. The man’s voice didn’t give anything away as he asked, “What do you want, buddy?”

“You’ve got a friend of mine in jail,” Oscar said. The sergeant raised an interrogative eyebrow. Not another muscle on his face moved. Reluctantly, Oscar named Charlie Kaapu.

That eyebrow jumped again, higher this time. Oscar wondered if the desk sergeant would yell for help, or if he’d just pull a gun and hold Oscar himself. But all he said was, “Sorry, you can’t have him.”

“How come? I couldn’t believe he got jugged. He’s the nicest guy you’d ever want to meet. What do they think he did, anyway?”

Instead of answering, the sergeant asked a question of his own: “Mac, you ever hear of the Kempeitai ?”

Oscar shook his head. “Nope. What is it?”

“Japanese secret police. And now I’m going to do you the biggest favor anybody ever did: I’m not gonna ask you who you are. Get the hell out of here before I change my mind.”

Oscar got. Once he was out of the station, he turned several corners as fast as he could, in case the sergeant did send police after him. But there was no sign of that. Oscar shivered. He hadn’t learned much about winter in California or here-Susie laughed at how ignorant he was. But winter, winter unquestioned, dwelt in him now.

The Kempeitai. The name wasn’t chilling the way, say, the Gestapo was-at least not to Oscar. But-secret police? It was bound to be the same kind of outfit. And it had Charlie. What had he done? What did they think he’d done? What can I do to get him away? Oscar wondered miserably. Anything at all?

CORPORAL TAKEO SHIMIZU HAD JUST FALLEN ASLEEP when an air-raid alarm bounced him from his cot. Wearing the thin cotton shirt and breech clout in which he’d gone to bed, he grabbed the rest of his uniform and his shoes and ran for the trenches outside the barracks hall. The Yankee marauders probably wouldn’t come close, but nobody got old taking stupid chances.

Antiaircraft guns started going off. There were more of them in Honolulu these days than there had been. There needed to be more, for the Americans came over the city-and over Oahu generally-more often than they had. Machine guns started hammering, too. Tracers scribed ice-blue and yellow arcs across the sky. Through the din of gunfire, Shimizu heard the deep growl of a flying boat’s engines, and then the roar of bombs going off.

Twenty minutes went by before the all-clear sounded. The guns had fired for most of that time, though the American plane was surely long gone. Shrapnel pattered down out of the sky. It might end up doing almost as much damage as the bombs.

Muttering in annoyance, Shimizu went back to bed. He hadn’t been sleeping long before the air-raid sirens screeched again. “Zakennayo!” he said furiously. “Why doesn’t the baka yaro in charge make up his mind?”

He found out why in short order: more U.S. aircraft were in the sky. One or two hit Honolulu, while a couple of others caused a commotion at Pearl Harbor. That meant another fireworks display off to the west.

What he wanted to see instead of more fireworks was a flying boat going down in flames. He didn’t get what he wanted. After the usual delay, he did get to go back to bed.

An hour and a half later, a third wave of American planes came over Honolulu. By then, he was so tired he wanted to stay in the barracks even though the building would fall down on him if it got hit. Shouts from officers got him moving. Shouts from him helped get the men moving.

Huddling in the trench, Yasuo Furusawa said, “They want to keep us from sleeping.”

“They know how to get what they want, don’t they?” Shimizu growled. The Americans weren’t doing a lot of damage. They couldn’t, not coming over in handfuls. But they had all the Japanese in Honolulu-maybe all the Japanese on Oahu-jumping around like fleas on a hot griddle.

He wondered if yet another set of U.S. aircraft would hit Honolulu just before dawn. None did, but a nervous gunner not far from the barracks opened up on something apparently imaginary. The gunfire didn’t wake Shimizu. Shards of steel crashing down on the roof did. He went to sleep again after that, too, which proved he was made of stern-and very tired-stuff.

Getting up at dawn did nothing to improve his mood. The tea he gulped with his breakfast of rice and pickled plums didn’t do nearly enough to pry his eyelids apart. He couldn’t get more, either. It came from the home islands, which meant it was in short supply. That he could have any at all meant a freighter must have made it in not long before. Only officers got all they wanted.

Some officers shared the precious stuff with their men, using it as a reward for duty well performed. Unfortunately, neither Shimizu’s platoon leader nor company commander seemed to have thought of that. It was going to be a sleepy, stupid day.