Harry Turtledove - Days of Infamy

Kimmel might have been a dead man talking as he said, “We are your captives, sir. What are your orders for us?”

Maybe he was trying to rouse sympathy in the Japanese. If so, he’d made a mistake. To a Japanese soldier, captives roused nothing but contempt. Yamashita did not bother to hide it as he answered, “Just stay here. You will be taken care of.” He gathered up his officers by eye. “Let’s go.”

Once out in the bright sunshine again, Fuchida looked up at the central flagpole, the tallest of the five atop Iolani Palace. The American flag had come down during the ceremony. The Japanese flag flew there in its place.

Tears stung Fuchida’s eyes. Such a gamble-but they’d brought it off. He turned to Minoru Genda. No matter how modest Genda was, he more than any other man had been the man who made this victory possible. Impulsively, Fuchida bowed low. “Congratulations!” he said once more.

Genda returned the bow. “It was for the Empire,” he said, but not even his quiet words could hide all the pride in his voice.

RUMORS OF SURRENDER had swept through the Americans still fighting for a couple of days before they turned out to be true. Even then, Fletcher Armitage didn’t want to believe them. Neither did the men he’d hauled into serving his now-abandoned 105. “What do you think, sir?” Clancy asked. “Should we steal us some civvies and make like we were never in the Army? I’ll be damned if I want to put myself in the hands o’ them heathen bastards. I seen what they do to prisoners.”

“I’m not going to give you any orders about that,” Fletch answered. “If you want to try and disappear, go ahead. I won’t say boo. I don’t know who you are. But if you try and disappear and the Japs find out who you are, your neck isn’t worth a plugged nickel.”

Arnie said, “If everybody’s surrendering, they’ll have to play fair by us, won’t they?”

“Get your head out of your ass, man,” Dave said. “They’re the Japs. They just won. They fucking licked us. They don’t have to do shit. They can do whatever they goddamn well want.”

Clancy nodded. “That’s what I’m afraid of. That’s why I’m thinking about bugging out.” He glanced over to Fletch. “What are you gonna do, Lieutenant?”

Back when he was still married to Jane, Fletch might have tried to get up to Wahiawa and pretended to be part of a civilian couple with her. And you might have been an idiot, too, he thought. What if one of your neighbors turned you in? You’d get shot, and so would she.

He shrugged. He didn’t have that choice any more. “I’m sticking,” he said. “I am in the Army, goddammit. But I’m not going to tell anybody else what to do, not for this. Whatever you think gives you the best chance, you go ahead and do it, and good luck to you.”

Clancy set his rifle and his tin hat on the ground. “I’m gone,” he said. “Good luck back atcha, Lieutenant.” He slipped away. Dave followed. Arnie stayed.

They looked at each other. “What the hell happens next?” Arnie asked. “Uh, sir?”

“Beats me,” Fletch said. “We had drills and exercises for everything under the sun, but I don’t think we ever practiced surrendering.” No American had ever imagined that he could taste defeat. After the Japanese landed on Oahu, Fletch’s imagination had been expanded.

Somewhere not far away, someone with a loud, official-sounding voice shouted, “Come stack your weapons here! Fighting’s done! Come stack your weapons!”

“Jesus,” Arnie muttered. He was a little, swarthy guy with a clotted Chicago accent.

“Got to get rid of your piece even if you bug out,” Fletch reminded him. “Japs catch you with it, you’re history.” There were places-the Philippines, for instance-where a man might take to the jungle and go on with the fight. Oahu wasn’t a place like that. It had jungles, sure enough, but they didn’t have anything to eat in them.

“Jesus,” Arnie said again, and then, “They really gonna treat us like prisoners of war now?”

That poked Fletch’s worst fears. He remembered too well what the Japs had done to American soldiers they’d captured. But they couldn’t do things like that to all the men who’d surrendered… could they? He shook his head. Impossible. “They’re supposed to,” he answered. “We wouldn’t have quit if we thought they wouldn’t, would we?”

“I guess not.” Arnie still sounded dubious, but he nodded. “Lead the way, Lieutenant.”

Rank hath its privileges, Fletch thought. This was one he could have done without. But he had no choice now that he’d decided not to disappear. He trudged along the road toward the man who was shouting about stacking arms. Here in the western suburbs of Honolulu, buildings weren’t jammed together the way they were in the city proper. There was more greenery than there were houses and shops. But war had laid its hand here. Shell and bomb craters scarred the ground. Flame had gutted one of the houses Fletch and Arnie walked past. And the sickly-sweet battlefield reek of dead meat was in the air.

Springfields made neat pyramids on the grass, stocks down, barrels pointing up. The soldiers who’d already stacked their weapons were anything but neat. They looked like Fletch and Arnie: dirty, weary, tattered, dejected. They looked fearful, too. “What the hell are the Japs gonna do to us?” was a question Fletch heard again and again. The answer to that one would win the sixty-four dollars, all right. It might win something even better: life.

A few minutes later, somebody pointed west and said, “Here they come.” Several soldiers, Arnie among them, crossed themselves.

The Japs advanced cautiously, rifles at the ready. Fletch had seen them before, but they’d only been targets to him. Now, suddenly, they were men. Most of them were shorter and skinnier than their American opposite numbers-most, but not all. They weren’t the buck-toothed, bespectacled caricatures he’d more or less subconsciously expected. They looked like the Japanese men who lived in Hawaii.

What a surprise, Fletch thought sarcastically. And yet, in a lot of ways, it was a surprise.

“Attention!” shouted the American with the authoritative voice. “Form ranks!”

Some soldiers heeded him. More didn’t, but just stood around, waiting to see what happened next. Fletch was one of those. He’d had all the shouting he could stand. A Japanese soldier with a scraggly mustache came up to him. He made himself hold still and nod to the victor.

“ Tabako? ” the Jap asked, holding out his hand. Fletch frowned. “ Tabako? ” the soldier repeated, more insistently this time.

A light dawned. Fletch pulled out a mostly empty pack of cigarettes and handed it to the Jap. The fellow grinned and stuck one in his mouth. Then he looked crestfallen. He mimed striking a match. Fletch fumbled in his pockets. Did he have any matches? He did, and gave them to the soldier. The man lit the cigarette. He seemed happy as a hog in front of a bucket of strawberries.

After a long, almost ecstatic drag, though, he pointed to Fletch’s wristwatch. Fletch hesitated. He didn’t want to give that up. But he didn’t want to get shot or bayoneted, either.

Before he had to make up his mind, a noncom strode over. He said something to the soldier, who answered hesitantly. Wham! The noncom hauled off and hit the other Jap a lick that sent his cigarette flying and snapped his head back. Wham! This time, it was a backhand across the face. The soldier staggered, but did his best to stay at attention. The noncom screamed what was obviously abuse at him. The Jap soldier stood there, wooden as a cigar-store Indian. A tiny trickle of blood ran from the corner of his mouth. His cheeks looked to be on fire. The noncom belted him one more time, then barked something contemptuous. Face still impassive, the soldier bowed and got the hell out of there.