Harry Turtledove - End of the Beginning

“Hai,” Genda said, and not another word. Any other word might have been too much. But after a moment he did find a few that seemed safe: “I hope the Army will fight strongly for us.”

“Why shouldn’t it?” the king asked.

Genda said nothing. The question had too many answers-because the soldiers might not be loyal to the King of Hawaii, because they didn’t have all the weapons they needed to fight first-rate foes like the U.S. Marines and Army, because they had no combat experience, because some of them were either cutthroats or men looking for enough to eat and not really warriors at all. They’d all been trained since they joined up, but how much did that mean?

Only one way to find out. By now they’d be up near the line. Whatever Japanese officer they reported to would use them. Why not? They would surely kill some Americans. If they died themselves, even in swarms, so what? Better them than precious, irreplaceable Japanese troops.

King Stanley was doing his best to act like a proper ally. Genda admired him for that. He also pitied him. Japan didn’t want a proper ally here in Hawaii, any more than she wanted proper allies in any of the countries she’d conquered. She wanted puppets who would deliver natural resources and do as they were told.

Hawaii had no natural resources to speak of. Sugar? Pineapple? Neither would have been worth a single Japanese soldier or sailor. Hawaii’s position was its natural resource. Under the Rising Sun, it shielded everything farther west and made it hard for the USA to help Australia and New Zealand. Under the Stars and Stripes, it was a spearhead aimed straight at the rest of the Japanese Empire.

It behooved Japan to hold on to Hawaii as long as she could, then. How long that would be… “We will all do the best we can, your Majesty,” Genda said.

“How good is that?” King Stanley demanded. “You can hear the American guns off to the north. Sounds like they come closer every day, too. You don’t see anything but American planes any more. They shoot up anything that moves. They’ve damn near killed me two, three times by now. How can you stop them, Commander? Answer me that, please. Answer me that.”

“We will do the best we can,” Genda repeated. “We have more courage than the enemy does.” He believed that was true, even if the Marines were not to be despised.

The king looked at him. “What difference does courage make if they drop bombs on your head and you can’t do anything about it?”

“Well…” The question was too much to the point. Genda found he had no answer. He feared none of his superiors did, either.

LES DILLON HAD ALREADY DISCOVERED THAT SOME OF THE JAPS FIGHTING THE Marines carried Springfields, not Arisakas. That made sense; after the Army threw in the sponge here, it must have handed over a zillion rifles, plus the ammo to shoot them for a zillion years. But it made him have a harder time telling by ear who was shooting at whom.

That was doubly dangerous right now, because the enemy in front of his platoon didn’t seem to be Japs at all. They spoke English as well as half the Marines, and they wore what looked like U.S. Army khaki, not the darker shade Japan preferred.

He wasn’t the only one who’d noticed, either. “Who are you guys?” a Marine yelled through the racket of gunfire.

The answer came back at once: “Royal Hawaiian Army! Get the fuck off our land, haole asshole!” A burst from a machine gun punctuated the words.

Royal Hawaiian Army? Les blinked. He knew the Japs had given Hawaii a puppet king. He hadn’t known-he hadn’t dreamt-anybody besides the Japs took the King of Hawaii seriously. Not sticking his head up, he called, “Why aren’t you people on our side, not the enemy’s?”

That got him another burst. He’d been smart to keep low-tracers went right over his foxhole. Whoever was handling that gun knew what to do with it. “Japan never took our land away from us! Japan never took our country away from us!” another Hawaiian shouted. “The USA sure as hell did!”

Yeah, but that was a long time ago. The words died unspoken on Les’ lips. It might seem a long time ago to him. To the noisy bastard on the other side of the line, it wasn’t even the day before yesterday. For that matter, you couldn’t talk about the Civil War with a lot of Southerners-Captain Bradford included. It wasn’t the Civil War to them, either. It was the War Between the States… or, if they’d been drinking for a while, the War of Damnyankee Aggression. Whatever you called it, it happened long before Hawaii joined-or was joined to-the United States.

He tried another tack: “Why fight now, for Chrissake? You can’t win, and you’ll just get shot.” He knew damn well the Japs wouldn’t surrender. He’d seen them fight to the death in hopeless positions too many times to have any doubts on that score. But maybe the Hawaiians were different. If he could do things on the cheap instead of putting his one and only irreplaceable ass on the line, he would, and gladly.

No words came back this time. One more burst of machine-gun fire did. Whatever the men in front of him had in mind, surrender wasn’t it. He muttered to himself. Sooner or later, he’d find out what those bastards in old-fashioned khaki were worth.

It turned out to be sooner. Not long after dark fell, a runner brought word that the Marines would go forward the next morning, half an hour after sunrise. Les almost opened fire before the man stammered out the countersign to his hissed challenge. When he got the news instead, he half way wished he had shot the fellow.

He lay in his foxhole, trying to grab whatever uneasy sleep he could. That wasn’t much. Little firefights kept breaking out all along the line. Maybe the Hawaiians knew something was up, or maybe they just wanted to prove they had balls. He would have been happy to take it on faith.

The U.S. barrage started as soon as morning twilight painted the eastern sky gray. Volley after volley of 105s crashed down on the enemy positions in front of Les and his buddies. Mortar bombs added to the weight of flying metal. He’d seen heavier bombardments in the last war, but this was plenty to cut a man into screaming hamburger if he stood up in it-and maybe if he didn’t, too. The Royal Hawaiian Army wouldn’t have faced artillery fire before. He wondered how the Hawaiians liked it.

Under cover of the booming guns, half a dozen Shermans clanked up toward the line. Les was glad to see the big, ugly iron monsters. They could clear out the strongpoints that survived the artillery-and some always did. And they drew enemy fire, too. Infantrymen always aimed small-arms fire at tanks. Les didn’t know why-rifle and machine-gun bullets couldn’t penetrate armor plate. But he’d seen it again and again. If the Hawaiians were shooting at the Shermans, they wouldn’t be shooting at him so much.

He approved of that. Oh, yes. He approved of that very much indeed.

His belly knotted as soon as the 105s fell silent. He knew what was coming next. And it came. Captain Bradford yelled, “Come on, men! Up out of your holes! Follow me!”

Grunting, Les scrambled out of his foxhole and ran forward. He bent over. He zigged and zagged. He knew none of that would do him a damn bit of good if the bullet with his name on it was out there flying. A Boche machine gunner had taught him that lesson once and for all time in 1918, and he still had the puckered scars to prove it.

Bullets cracked past him. The Hawaiians weren’t dead, and they weren’t paralyzed, either. Too fucking bad, he thought. When you heard a crack, a round came much too close. He ducked automatically whenever he did hear one. He’d been ashamed of that till he saw everybody else did it, too, which sure hadn’t taken long.