Harry Turtledove - Days of Infamy

“Get down!” Peterson shouted. “Get down, you stupid fool!” Maybe he said something stronger than fool ; he didn’t remember afterwards. Whatever he said, it didn’t do a damn bit of good. The Japanese machine gunner was no doubt a louse, a stinker, a rotten, dirty son of a bitch. But he was no fool. If the American was generous enough to give him a perfect target, he’d take it. He squeezed off a quick, tidy burst-three or four rounds. The American who’d intended to rescue Andy crashed down before he got real close to him.

He wasn’t dead, either. He started moaning for his mother. And another brave, stupid fellow hurried up to try to rescue both wounded men. He had no more idea how to go about it than the first would-be hero had, and he got shot, too.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake!” Peterson muttered under his breath. They were liable to get bled white, greenhorns going forward and getting nailed till they ran out of greenhorns or the Japs ran out of ammo. The Japs hadn’t shown any signs of running short.

If you want something done right, do it yourself, went through Peterson’s mind. He did some more muttering, this time of the sulfurous sort. All three of those wounded men were screaming and moaning. He couldn’t just leave them out there. They’d attract more suckers for that Jap to murder. Either that, or he’d start shooting them up for the fun of it. Peterson had seen a few samples of what the Japs called fun, and heard about more. He wouldn’t have wished them on a mad dog.

Before he could ask himself what the hell he was doing, he scrambled out of his foxhole and crawled toward the wounded men. His belly scraped along the ground like a lizard’s. He’d learned a thing or two, if not three. He wished he didn’t have his rifle slung on his back. But one of the things he’d learned was that he couldn’t afford to be taken alive. If the Japs wanted him, they’d have to pay for him-and he intended to save the last bullet for himself.

He almost bumped noses with a mongoose. Which of them was more surprised and appalled would have been hard to say. The mongoose scurried away. It reminded him of a weasel: all slithery grace. Heart thumping, he crawled on.

The thrashing in the cane up ahead wasn’t coming from any mongoose. “Hey, up there!” Peterson hissed. “Who’s hit worst?”

One of the men just kept calling for his mother. Another one, though, said, “Take Steve. He got a slug in the chest.” That took balls: lying there shot and saying somebody else was worse off than you.

Steve turned out to be the one who wanted his mother. Andy had a wounded leg, the third guy a shattered right arm. “You can crawl,” Peterson told him. “Follow me back.”

“I don’t want to leave Andy,” the sailor said through clenched teeth-he wore a U.S. Navy armband on the left sleeve of a khaki shirt. He couldn’t do much with one good arm, but Peterson didn’t waste time arguing with him. He figured Steve would buy his plot if he wasted time.

Going back was ten times as bad as coming forward had been. He had to drag the wounded man behind him. After a while, Steve stopped moaning. Peterson wished he would start again. He didn’t want to think he might be dragging a corpse. And, just to make matters worse, the Japanese machine gunner started spraying bullets around again. They made little clip-clip-clip noises as they cut through the cane. Peterson knew what kind of noises one of them would make if it cut through him. He knew what kind of noises he would make then, too.

A jumpy American almost shot him when he got back into the lines. He managed to persuade the kid that he wasn’t Hirohito’s brother-in-law. Steve was still breathing; Peterson managed some weary pride at that. Stretcher-bearers took the injured man away.

“You did good, soldier,” a sergeant said to Peterson, and then, his voice rising in surprise, “Hey! Where the hell you going?”

“Two more wounded out there,” Peterson answered. “If I bring one, the other can make it back on his own. He’s standing guard on his buddy.”

“You bring him back and I’ll make you a corporal on the spot,” the sergeant promised.

For a Navy lieutenant to be thrilled at the prospect of getting two stripes on his sleeve was one of the more surreal things that had happened since the Japs hit Pearl Harbor. But Peterson was. He crawled back into the cane, hoping he would find Andy and the man whose name he didn’t know.

They were still making noise, so it wasn’t too hard. But he must have got overenthusiastic moving toward them, because the Jap machine gunner sent a long burst slicing after him. He flattened out like a toad after a truck ran over it.

Working a Springfield one-handed was a bastard, especially if that one hand was your left. But Andy’s buddy had found a way. He’d propped the muzzle end of the rifle on a rock and aimed it in the direction of the Japanese. “Look at young Tom Edison,” Peterson said. The man with the wounded arm managed a grin.

Instead of dragging Andy, Peterson got him up on his back. Andy was healthy enough to let out a yelp when he did. The Jap with the machine gun started shooting again.

A bullet hit. Peterson heard it. He didn’t feel it, though. Andy didn’t jerk. Awkwardly, Peterson looked behind him. The man with the wounded arm had been coming after him and Andy. Now the fellow sprawled bonelessly, his brains splashed over the dirt.

“Aw, shit,” Peterson said softly. He brought Andy in. That sergeant saw him do it, and gave him the two stripes and a threaded needle. Two out of three wasn’t bad. So he told himself, again and again. But remembering the guy who’d stopped a machine-gun round with his ear sucked all the pride out of the promotion. That could have been me, dinned in Peterson’s head. Sweet Jesus, that could have been me.

COMMANDER MITSUO FUCHIDA looked down on Honolulu from his Nakajima B5N1. “Now, remember,” Fuchida told his bombardier, “we don’t want to hit too far inland this time, and we don’t want to hit too far west. That’s the Japanese part of town.”

“Yes, sir.” The bombardier sounded more resigned than anything else. Fuchida tried to remember how many times he’d told the man the same thing. More than he should have? Probably.

The Americans kept throwing up antiaircraft fire. They showed more spirit than Fuchida had expected. He’d thought they would surrender once they realized Japan had got the upper hand. But they were still putting up the best fight they could. It wouldn’t be enough. Fuchida could see that. He suspected the enemy could, too. That didn’t keep the Americans from making the fight.

A shell burst near the Nakajima. The plane staggered in the air. Fuchida didn’t hear any shrapnel bang the fuselage or wing. “There’s the Aloha Tower,” he told the bombardier. “Do you see it?”

“Yes, sir,” the man replied. “Shall we go after the docks again?”

“Yes. Plenty of warehouses there. The sooner the Americans get hungry, the sooner they do what we want.”

Down went the stick of bombs. The B5N1 bounced in the air, not so rudely as it had from the near miss by the shell. Fuchida watched the bombs tumble toward their target. The bursts sent up clouds of smoke and dust. “Ha!” the bombardier said. “I think one of those hit the tower itself.”

“Nicely done.” Fuchida wanted to keep his crewman happy. He didn’t care about the Aloha Tower one way or the other. It mounted no guns; as far as he knew, it stored no food. Still… “If you did hit it, that will be a blow to the Americans’ pride.”

“ Hai,” the bombardier said. “Pride is about all they have left, neh?”

“They still have soldiers and guns,” Fuchida pointed out.