Harry Turtledove - Days of Infamy

Les said, “Just don’t shoot at the Japs with aim like that.” They went below, reclaimed their spot-no mere privates had presumed to occupy it-and got down to business. Dillon took out the cards. “My deal this time, I think.”

JOE CROSETTI AND Orson Sharp listened to the bad news coming out of the radio in their room. “The Saratoga and the Yorktown are definitely known to be lost,” Lowell Thomas said in mournful, even sepulchral, tones. “The Hornet has suffered severe damage at the hands of the Japanese, while two cruisers and a destroyer were also hit by Jap aircraft. Our own gallant fliers inflicted heavy blows on the enemy fleet. They struck at least two and maybe three Jap carriers, as well as several other enemy warships.”

That was all good, but nowhere near good enough. The American carriers should have knocked out their Japanese rivals, then gone on to gain dominance over whatever land-based planes the Japs had in Hawaii. The plan must have looked good when the American fleet set out from the West Coast. Unfortunately, the Japs had had plans of their own.

Thomas continued, “Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, who commanded the American task force, has issued the following statement: ‘Our movement toward the Hawaiian Islands has failed to gain a satisfactory position, and I have withdrawn our ships. My decision to attack at this time and in this way was based on the best information available. The Navy and the air did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt, it is mine alone.’ ”

A singing commercial extolling the virtues of shaving cream came on. Orson Sharp said, “Well, you can’t stand up and take the heat any better than that.”

“Yeah,” Joe said glumly. “I only wish he didn’t have to. What the hell went wrong?” He often felt funny about cussing around his roommate, because Sharp so scrupulously didn’t. He couldn’t help himself today. “God damn it, we were supposed to whip them.”

“I think we sold them short again,” Sharp said. “We didn’t figure they’d have the nerve to attack Hawaii at all, and then they did. And they licked us there and in the Philippines and down in the South Seas, but they had numbers and surprise on their side. We’d lick ’em if we ever got ’em even-Steven.”

“Well, sure,” Joe said. But it hadn’t turned out to be well, sure. The American carrier force and the Japanese had met on equal terms, and the Japs had come out on top. That wasn’t just shocking. It was mortifying.

Patiently, Sharp said, “Looks to me like we sent a boy to do a man’s job. We wanted to do something fast, pay the Japs back for what they did to us. And we tried it, and it didn’t work. We’ll try again-we have to try again. I just hope we do it right next time instead of fast.”

Joe eyed his roomie. “When the next war comes, you want Thomas or H. V. Kaltenborn or whoever’s in back of the microphone to go, ‘Admiral Sharp has issued the following statement,’ don’t you?”

“Not if it’s a statement explaining why what we tried didn’t work,” Sharp replied.

He didn’t make a big fuss about things. He hardly ever did. But he had his eye on one of the top prizes, sure as the devil. Joe owned no ambition higher than roaring off the deck of a carrier and mowing down Zeros one after another. The way Sharp thought about the bigger picture and how things fit together made him want to do the same.

Lowell Thomas returned. He talked about big German advances in southern Russia, and about the Afrika Korps’ push to Alamein. The next stop after that was Alexandria and the Nile. “The upcoming Fourth of July holiday,” he went on, “promises to be the most anxious for this great nation since that of 1863, when Meade’s army met Robert E. Lee’s at a little Pennsylvania town called Gettysburg.”

“Gettysburg,” Joe echoed. To all but a dying handful of graybeards, it was only a name from a history book. None of his family had been on this side of the Atlantic when men in blue and men in gray tried to kill one another with muzzle-loading muskets and cannon. The weapons, by modern standards, were laughable. The fury with which the soldiers on both sides had wielded them was anything but.

“We’ll do what we need to do,” Sharp said. “If it takes a little longer than we figured at first-then it does, that’s all. When the Federals marched down to Bull Run, they thought they’d win in a hurry, too. It didn’t work like that, but they didn’t lose, either, not in the end.”

“You’ve got a good way of looking at things, you know?” Joe said.

His roomie shrugged. “Hey, I wish we’d done it the easy way, believe me. If we have to do it the hard way, then we do, that’s all.”

Joe eyed him. “Anybody ever tell you you’re too sensible for your own good?”

“Besides you, you mean?” Sharp asked. Laughing, Joe nodded. The other cadet said, “Oh, I’ve heard it a few times. But my guess is, the people who say it aren’t sensible enough.”

He sounded dead serious. That only made Joe laugh harder. He said, “God help the Japs when we turn you loose on them.”

Now Orson Sharp was the one who laughed. And Joe had been joking. But, while he’d been joking, he probably hadn’t been kidding. How many pilots had the Navy lost in the failed attack on Hawaii? Too damn many-Joe was sure of that. A lot of what had been the first team wasn’t there any more. If the United States tried again-no, when the United States tried again, for he too was sure the country would-a lot of the guys who flew off the flattops would be rookies like him.

Yeah, he thought. Just like me.

FOR THE FIRST time in Kenzo Takahashi’s life, the Fourth of July wasn’t a holiday. It was a little slower than usual, because it was a Saturday. But no firecrackers spit and snarled. No fireworks displays were scheduled for the evening. No admirals and generals made pompous, boring speeches about the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Instead, both the Advertiser and the Star-Bulletin ran banner headlines: GREAT JAPANESE VICTORY! and JAPAN SAVES HAWAII! respectively. Both got more paper than the occupying authorities normally doled out to them. The Japanese wanted them to make a big fuss about this. Japanese-language newspapers shouted even louder.

Kenzo wanted to believe all the shouts were a pack of lies. He wanted to, but he couldn’t. It wasn’t just that no American planes appeared over Oahu and no American fighting men splashed ashore. Word always got around when the Japanese were telling tall tales. Kenzo wasn’t sure how. He supposed some people still had shortwave sets and listened to news from the mainland, even if they took their lives in their hands when they did it.

He kept hoping he would hear that Japan was inventing a battle that hadn’t happened or exaggerating about one that hadn’t gone so well. He kept hoping, but nobody said anything like that. It looked as if those gloating headlines were nothing but the truth.

His father had no doubts. Jiro Takahashi rubbed it in. “You see?” he said as he and Kenzo and Hiroshi lined up for their rice that evening. “You see? This is what happens when the United States fights Japan. Twice now, big battles-and who won? Who won, eh? Japan won, that’s who!”

“ Banzai,” Kenzo said sourly.

That only made his old man mad. He’d known it would, which was why he did it. “You should always say that with respect! With spirit!” Jiro growled. “You don’t joke around with it!”

Kenzo hadn’t been joking. Before he could say so, Hiroshi stuck an elbow in his ribs. He gave his brother an Et tu, Brute? look. But Hiroshi only shook his head, ever so slightly. And Kenzo realized his brother was right. If he sounded too American, somebody in earshot was liable to report him to the occupying authorities. His father wouldn’t-they might disagree, they might quarrel, but he knew his old man would never betray him. Some stranger who might get some cash or some extra food, though…