Harry Turtledove - Days of Infamy

Jesus H. Christ! Fletch thought. This is what they do to their own guys. No wonder they’re hell on wheels to the poor suckers they catch.

The noncom looked him over. He made himself stand there. If he showed any kind of fear, he thought he was a dead man. If this monkey started beating on him, though… Well, in that case he would be a dead man, because he intended to jump the Jap. He also intended to take the noncom down to hell with him.

Instead of hitting him, the fellow pointed to his wristwatch, the same as the ordinary soldier had done. Despite what Fletch had seen the noncom do, he hesitated again. Plundering prisoners was supposed to be against the rules. Maybe it was-if you were a private, and a corporal or sergeant or whatever this bastard was caught you at it. For him, though… To the victors go the spoils.

A curt word or two of Japanese had to mean, Make it snappy, Charlie! The noncom reached out and undid the watchband himself. Fletch didn’t knock his hands away, however much he wanted to. The Jap put the watch on his own wrist. When he fastened it, he closed the band a couple of holes farther along than Fletch did. Off he went, peacock-proud.

Other Japanese soldiers were relieving American prisoners of their minor valuables. Seeing his countrymen robbed made Fletch feel a little better. Maybe misery really did love company. And it could have been worse. It wasn’t a massacre. That noncom had done worse to the poor greedy private than the Japs were doing to the Americans.

You know you’ve hit bottom when you’re glad ’cause they’ve only stolen your watch, Fletch thought. He was glad, too. Maybe it would be all right, or at least not too bad.

WHEN THE ORDER to cease fire and lay down his arms reached Jim Peterson, he was in a house in Pearl City with his back to the sea. He couldn’t have stayed there too much longer. Either he’d get killed or he’d be squeezed off into the west-into irrelevance-while the Japs reached the oil-befouled waters of Pearl Harbor.

He was damned if he felt like giving up. He had a good position and plenty of clips for his Springfield. Had he signed up as a ground-pounder only to surrender to the enemy? What would you have done if you’d stayed aboard the Enterprise? he jeered at himself. You’d have been shot out of the sky or gone down with her.

As a matter of fact, he had got shot out of the sky. But he’d had golfers for company, not sharks. The Pacific was a wide and lonely place.

He wondered if he ought to put his lieutenant’s bars back on. He might get better treatment if he did. After a moment’s thought, he shook his head. He’d signed up to be an infantryman, and he’d go into captivity as one. He knew that was pride talking-perverse pride, probably. He shrugged. He didn’t give a damn. Perverse or not, it was his.

“Come out and assemble!” some loudmouth was yelling. “Come out! If the Japs take you later, they’ll say you tried to go on fighting after the surrender. You don’t want that to happen. Believe me, you don’t.”

Loudmouth or not, he was much too likely to be right. Regretfully, Peterson slung his rifle and came out of the house. Other similarly draggled men were doing the same thing elsewhere along the block. They’d been in close contact with the Japs. Japanese soldiers were coming out, too, to look them over.

The Japs were about as grubby as the Americans. Their beards weren’t so thick, but plenty of them needed shaves, too. Even though neither side showed much in the way of spit and polish, you could sure as hell tell who’d won and who’d lost. The Americans walked with their shoulders slumped and their heads down. They mooched along as if they’d just watched a tank run over their cat. That was about how Peterson felt, too.

By contrast, the Japs might have just conquered the world. They’d sure as hell just conquered one of the nicest corners of it. And boy, were they proud of themselves! They swaggered. They strutted. They grinned. Some of them seemed almost drunk with happiness-or was it relief?

Japanese officers were easy to spot. They were the ones who wore swords. Peterson had seen they really thought they could fight with them, too. At close quarters, he would have preferred a bayonet-it gave more reach. He hadn’t seen any hand-to-hand combat, though. People shot each other before they got that close. Bayonets were handy things to have, but they didn’t get blood on them very often.

“Over here!” the loudmouth bawled. “Stack arms!”

One of the Jap officers had a local Oriental with him. The local gave him a running translation. He nodded in reply.

Collaborators already, Peterson thought. Happy day! The officer said something in Japanese. The local Japanese man translated: “Even though you have surrendered and are dishonored, you must try to remember that you are men.”

That was a dangerous thing to say to soldiers with weapons still in their hands. For a nickel, Peterson would have blown that Jap’s head off for him. Fear for himself didn’t keep him from doing it. Fear for what would happen to other Americans all over Oahu did.

His rifle joined others stacked in neat pyramids. Japanese soldiers watched the Americans giving up their weapons. Peterson looked down at his hands when the Springfield was gone for good. He felt naked without the rifle. Whatever the Japs wanted to do to him, they could.

Dishonored? Maybe that officer hadn’t been so far wrong. If losing to these bastards wasn’t a humiliation, what was? As far as he was concerned, the USA should have been able to lick Japan with one hand tied behind its back. Maybe it had tied both hands back there, because it had sure as hell lost.

And what would happen next? How the devil was the United States supposed to fight a war in the Pacific from the West Coast? What would happen to Australia and New Zealand? How could America get soldiers and supplies down there without going through Hawaii? It wouldn’t be easy-if it was possible at all.

“Hey, you lousy little monkey, keep your goddamn hands off me!” a soldier with a thick Southern drawl said angrily. He shoved away a Jap who’d been about to lift something from him.

Peterson didn’t think the Japanese soldiers spoke any English. That didn’t matter. The tone and the shove were all they needed. Half a dozen of them jumped the American. All the others close by raised their rifles, warning the rest of the newly surrendered Americans not to butt in.

They stomped the Southerner. It was angry at first, and got angrier when he managed to land a blow or two of his own. That didn’t last long, not against six. After he stopped fighting back, it turned cold-blooded and methodical. To Peterson’s mind, that was worse. They knew exactly what they intended to do, and they did it. By the time they finished, it wasn’t a human being on the ground any more: only dead meat in khaki wrappings. They had blood on their boots and puttees.

To Peterson’s surprise, they didn’t have smiles on their faces. They hadn’t particularly enjoyed what they’d done-which didn’t mean they hadn’t done it. It was just… part of a day’s work. That was pretty scary, too.

The Japanese officer watched the whole thing without making a move to interfere and without batting an eye. He spoke in his own language. The local Jap, by contrast, was green and gulping. The officer had to nudge him before he remembered to translate: “Let this be a lesson to you. You are prisoners, nothing more. When a Japanese soldier comes up to you, you are to bow and you are to obey. Do you understand?” Appalled silence answered him. He spoke again, sharply. He didn’t have to nudge the local this time: “ Do you understand? ”