Harry Turtledove - Days of Infamy

“It didn’t shoot at the island here-I would have heard about that,” Jiro said. “From what you tell me, it didn’t torpedo any ships. Why would a submarine come at all, if it didn’t do any of those things?”

“To spy,” the young man from Japan told him. “Submarines and flying boats-those are what the Americans can use. And they do. They keep sneaking around. I don’t know if there really was a submarine this time, but there could have been.”

“I see.” Jiro wasn’t altogether comfortable with what he saw. Why would the United States spy on Hawaii if it wasn’t thinking about taking back the islands? And if it was, that meant his sons were right. Few fathers faced a more depressing prospect than that.

Some of what he thought must have shown on his face. Tadashi Morimura smiled at him. “Don’t worry, Takahashi- san. If the Americans try to stick their long snouts back here again, we’ll bloody those snouts for them and send them home.”

“Good!” The word was an exhalation of relief. Jiro hadn’t done badly under the Americans-he’d done better here than he would have in Japan. But not only did he remain loyal to the country that had given him birth, an American triumph and a Japanese defeat would be his sons’ triumph and his defeat. He didn’t care to think about that.

Morimura smiled again. “You are a true Japanese,” he said. “One of those times when you visit us, you must record your feelings about your mother country.”

“Whatever you say, sir,” replied Jiro, who wasn’t quite sure what he meant by that. Tadashi Morimura smiled once more.

WHENEVER THE JAP commandant strutted into the POW camp that had swallowed Kapiolani Park, trouble followed. Fletch Armitage had seen that was an unbreakable rule. The local Jap who scurried along in the commandant’s wake and did his translating for him reminded Fletch of nothing so much as a lapdog at the heel of some plump matron.

The prisoners assembled in neat rows. Fletch thought about how easy mobbing that arrogant Jap and tearing him to pieces would be. The POWs could do it. But the price! It wouldn’t be just the soldiers with submachine guns who extracted it, or even the guards with machine guns in the towers out beyond the barbed wire. That slaughter would be bad enough. Afterwards, though… If the Japs didn’t massacre everybody in the camp afterwards to avenge the miserable son of a bitch who ran it, Fletch would have been amazed.

The rest of the POWs must have thought the way he did. No one charged the commandant as he got up onto a table so he could look down on the sea of tall American prisoners. He barked something in Japanese. Of necessity, Fletch had started picking up a few words of the conquerors’ language. He couldn’t follow the commandant’s harangue, though.

“You prisoners have benefited too long from the mercy and leniency of the Empire of Japan,” the interpreter said. Even among the cowed throng of POWs, that produced a stir and a murmur. If this was mercy, Fletch didn’t want the Japs getting mad at him. He was filthy. He stank to high heaven. He didn’t know how much weight he’d lost, but guessed it was somewhere between thirty and forty pounds. His shirt hung on him like a tent. He could tie a fancy bow in the rope that held up his pants. The only reason he wished he had his belt back was so he might try to eat the leather.

“This mercy and leniency will end,” the interpreter went on. “Many of you-too many of you-do not do a lick of work. And yet you still expect to be fed. You want to live off the fat of the land, and-”

After that, the interpreter had to stop. The murmurs grew to raucous jeers. Fletch gleefully joined in. With so many men mouthing off, the Japs couldn’t shoot all of them. He hoped they couldn’t, anyway.

Those jeers were enough to make even the commandant pause. He spoke in a low voice to the local Jap, no doubt demanding to know what the obstreperous Americans were saying. He didn’t like what the translator told him. He shouted angrily and put a hand on the hilt of his samurai sword. Then he spoke again, this time with harsh purpose in his voice.

“You prisoners will be silent. You will be punished for this outrageous outburst. How dare you behave so, you who have forfeited all honor? This whole camp will go without food for three days because of your intolerable action,” the interpreter said. “At the end of that time, the commandant will return to see whether you have come to your senses.”

Out strode the commandant, the local Jap again in his wake. He was as good-or as bad-as his word. Three days with nothing to eat would have been no fun for men in good condition. For those already on the edge of starvation… They were the worst three days of Fletch’s life. He didn’t go quite without food: on the last day he caught a gecko about as long as his thumb, skewered it on a stick, roasted it over a tiny fire in his tent, and ate it scales, claws, guts, and all. It should have been disgusting. He remembered it as one of the most delicious things he’d ever tasted.

Several men quietly died during the enforced fast. Odds were they would have died soon anyhow. So Fletch told himself, watching two prisoners drag an emaciated corpse toward the burying ground. He half envied the dead man, who at least wasn’t suffering any more. And the poor, sorry son of a bitch didn’t look a whole hell of a lot skinnier than he was.

The commandant spoke again to the assembled POWs before the kitchens reopened. The warning was clear as a kick in the teeth: if the men gave him a hard time, maybe the kitchens wouldn’t reopen. By then, Fletch was almost beyond lessons. Standing at attention took not only all his strength but also all his concentration. He didn’t have much concentration left; he felt dizzy and light-headed.

Yammer, yammer, yammer. After the commandant spoke, the interpreter said, “Have you learned your lesson?”

Fuck you, you sadistic bastard! Fletch thought it, but he didn’t shout it. By that standard, he supposed he had learned his lesson. Instead, he chorused, “ Hai! ” with the rest of the soldiers and managed to bow without falling on his face. It wasn’t easy.

More yammering in Japanese. “Perhaps now you will understand that, as men who have surrendered, you have no rights, only the privileges the Imperial Japanese Army graciously pleases to grant you.” The translator paused after saying that. If some hotheaded fool told him and the commandant where to head in, the whole camp would pay for it.

Nobody said a word. Only the wind’s soft sighing broke the silence that stretched and stretched. Fletch wasn’t the only one who’d learned the commandant’s lesson.

“As you were told before, when your rudeness began, you eat only by the grace of the Imperial Japanese Army,” the interpreter said. “Supplies are short all over these islands. The Army can no longer support idle mouths. If you do not work, you will not eat. It is as simple as that. Do you understand?”

“ Hai! ” the prisoners chorused again. Yes, they’d learned the lessons the Japs wanted to teach them, all right.

“You will be assigned your duties,” the interpreter told them. “There is much damage to repair on Oahu, damage caused by your useless, vain, and senseless resistance. You will now have the chance to set it right. Work diligently at all times.”

So the commandant blamed the United States for the damage to Oahu, did he? Japan had nothing to do with it, eh? That’s a hot one, Fletch thought. No matter what he thought, his face showed none of it. The commandant’s idiotic opinions weren’t immediately relevant to him, the way anything that had to do with food was. The dumb Jap could think whatever he pleased.