Harry Turtledove - Days of Infamy

Don Ward stuck his head into the room. “Supper at 1800,” he announced. “That’s an hour and a half from now. Lights out at 2130. Reveille tomorrow-and every day-at 0530. Tomorrow you’ll draw your clothes and do another pile of paperwork. And after that, gentlemen”-his grin went hard and ruthless-“we put you to work.”

Joe was still slow at translating military time into what he was used to. He said, “Lights out at half past nine, sir? Is that right?” He hadn’t gone to bed that early since he was thirteen years old.

But Ward only nodded. “That is correct, Mr. Crosetti.” People didn’t have any trouble remembering Joe’s last name once they heard it. Accurately interpreting the expression on his face, Ward added, “You’ll find enough to do to tire yourself out by then. Trust me, Mr. Crosetti-you will.” And, leaving that promise behind, he went down the hall to pass the word to the next dorm room.

“SO SORRY, JIRO- SAN,” Tomatsu Okamoto said nervously. “So sorry, but I haven’t got any more fuel to sell you. I’m all out.”

Flanked by his sons, Jiro Takahashi glowered at the man from whom he’d been buying diesel fuel for years. He’d known this day was coming, but he hadn’t expected it so soon. “You had plenty day before yesterday,” he growled. “Where did it go? Did you drink it?”

Okamoto laughed nervously. “Not me,” he said. “The Army confiscated everything I had left. They said they had to keep their trucks running as long as they could.”

“Does anybody else have any?” Jiro asked. “Do you know?”

“I don’t know, not for a fact, but I wouldn’t bet on it,” Okamoto answered. “I’m not a big operator, not even close. If they’re down to taking away my stock, they’ve already sucked the others dry.”

Jiro nodded. That made more sense than he wished it did. “What am I going to do now?” he asked, not so much of old man Okamoto as of the whole uncaring world around him. “How am I supposed to take the Oshima Maru out if I can’t get fuel for her?”

“Weren’t you talking about knowing somebody who could fit her out with a mast and sail, Father?” Hiroshi said. “It’s about time.”

“Yes, I was talking about that,” Jiro said. “But I don’t know how long it will take. I don’t know how much it will cost. Jesus Christ!” He clapped a hand to his forehead. “I don’t even know if that Doi fellow is still alive.”

“If he isn’t, it’ll take longer,” Kenzo said.

Hiroshi laughed. Even old man Okamoto laughed. Jiro glared at his younger son. What kind of a joke was that? An American joke, that was what. Jiro didn’t think it was funny (though he might have if Okamoto had told it). It was just annoying to him.

“Eizo Doi, the handyman fellow?” Okamoto asked. Jiro nodded. Okamoto said, “He’s still around-at least, I saw him three or four days ago. You think he can put a sail on a sampan?”

“I don’t know for sure. He’s talked about it,” Jiro answered. “If he can, I’m still in business, whatever business there is. If he can’t…” The fisherman spat on the sidewalk. “If he can’t, I have to find something else to do.”

“Like what?” Okamoto asked with interest. Jiro only shrugged. Except for his stint in the fields, he’d been a fisherman all his life. He didn’t know anything else. He didn’t want to know anything else.

“What are we going to do if we can’t put to sea today?” Hiroshi asked.

Jiro shrugged again. Again, he had no idea. Reiko would be surprised to see him and their sons home so early. Whether she’d be happy to see them… That was liable to be another story.

Hiroshi and Kenzo and he had just started back from old man Okamoto’s when Japanese bombers appeared overhead. The air-raid sirens didn’t begin to wail until after antiaircraft guns opened fire and bombs started whistling down. “Oh, Jesus Christ!” Jiro exclaimed in dismay. His sons both swore in English.

He wasn’t so frightened as he might have been. The Japanese planes had been in the habit of dropping most of their bombs farther east, on the haole part of town. The ones that had hit around here had seemed like accidents-to everyone except the people they landed on, of course.

But things were different this morning. This morning, bombs rained down all over Honolulu. When one burst a couple of hundred yards ahead, it sounded like the end of the world. If it had burst any closer than that…

Kenzo grabbed him by the arm. “We’ve got to find some cover, Father!”

He was right. Jiro could see that. But where? Farther east, where things were more open, they’d dug air-raid trenches. Not many of those here, not with concrete and asphalt covering so much of the ground. Not many cellars to huddle in, either; hardly any buildings in Honolulu had them.

His younger son pointed to a deep doorway. That would have to do. It would, unless a bomb burst right in front of them-or unless the building came down on top of them. Jiro did his best not to think of such things.

More and more people crowded into the doorway. Women screamed when bombs burst close by. So did several men. Others cursed in a variety of languages. So did several women. Neither the men’s screams nor the women’s curses affronted Jiro the way they would have under different circumstances. He was almost frightened enough to piss himself. Why should anyone else be different?

Hiroshi pointed up into the sky. “One of them’s coming down!” he shouted in Japanese. Then he said what was probably the same thing in English.

Sure enough, a Japanese bomber trailing smoke and fire plummeted out of the sky, swelling enormously as it did. Jiro wondered about the men inside. Were they dead? If they weren’t, what were they thinking as they plunged to their deaths? Could they keep the Emperor in their minds? Or did bright panic swallow everything else?

Panic swallowed everything else in the voice of a woman by Jiro as she shrieked, “It’s coming down on us!”

Jiro wanted to call her a stupid idiot. He wished he could. But she was right. He started to scream himself when he thought the doomed bomber would smash into the building in whose doorway he huddled. It didn’t. It crashed into a laundry half a block away. A fireball erupted-the plane must have had almost a full load of fuel on board. Blazing fragments pinwheeled off and went flying along the street.

“Come on!” Now Jiro grabbed his sons instead of the other way around. “We can’t stay here. That fire will burn this whole block.”

They had to fight their way out of the doorway. Some people couldn’t think of anything but the moment’s shelter. But what good was staying in the roasting pan if it was about to go into the oven?

Bombs kept screaming down. The Takahashis weren’t safe in the street, either. But they had to get away from the spreading fire-if they could. “This whole part of town is liable to burn!” Kenzo shouted.

“We’d better get Mother out, if we can,” Hiroshi said. “I wish she’d been willing to get on the sampan with us.”

“So do I,” Jiro said. Fear for Reiko rose like a choking cloud within him. Some of it turned to fury. “And I wish the Americans had surrendered a long time ago. They can’t win. They can’t hope to win. They’re the ones who are making Japan do this to Honolulu.”

His sons looked at each other. Their shoulders went up and down in identical shrugs. Those could have said, He may be right. Jiro didn’t think they did. He thought they meant, He’s crazy, but what can you do? That only made him angrier. Before he could say anything more, though, Hiroshi said, “We can worry about that another time, Father. For now, let’s see if we can get back to the apartment and make sure Mother’s all right.”