End of the Beginning Read online

  “I’m Ken,” Kenzo answered. “This is my brother, Hank.” He thought their Japanese names were best buried at the moment. “What happened to you?”

  Burleson also shrugged. “About what you’d figure. Recon in a PBY. We got bounced and shot up four, five days ago. Managed to break away into some clouds, but we were on fire pretty good by then. Pilot tried to put her in the water. It wasn’t pretty. I was tail gunner. I think I was the only guy who got out.” His face closed in on itself. “Till the two of you saw me, I wasn’t sure I had the clean end of the stick, either.”

  “We’ll do what we can for you,” Kenzo said again. “Get you ashore some kind of way without anybody seeing.”

  “Have any food?” Burleson asked. “I managed to catch a mackerel with the line they gave me, but raw fish ain’t my idea of fun.”

  Kenzo and Hiroshi both broke up then. Kenzo didn’t know about his brother, but he felt on the ragged edge of hysteria. The flier stared from one of them to the other, wondering if they’d gone off their rockers. Maybe they had, at least a little. Carefully, Kenzo said, “Next to what you’ll get on Oahu, raw fish is pretty good.”

  “We are Japanese,” Hiroshi added. “We grew up eating the stuff. We don’t mind it so much. And it’s a hell of a lot better than going hungry.”

  Burleson contemplated that. He didn’t need much contemplation before he nodded. “Yeah. No argument. Took me a while before I caught anything.”

  “We’re gonna finish our run, too,” Kenzo said. “We can’t go back to Kewalo Basin without a catch. People will wonder why if we do.”

  “I was hoping you would think of that,” Hiroshi said. Neither of them had used a word of Japanese since Burleson came aboard. They hadn’t been speaking Japanese before, either, but now things had changed. It was a language they could share if they had to. It was also dangerous, because the flier still had the .45 on his hip.

  He seemed tractable enough now. “Do what you need to do, sure,” he said. “I’ll help, best I can. I know how to gut fish. Everybody goes fishing in Minnesota.”

  “Minnesota.” All Kenzo knew about the place was that it bumped up against Canada and it was cold as hell in the wintertime. “You’re a long way from home.”

  “You better believe it,” Burleson said. “I was thinking that when I was in the raft there. Well, I got another chance now. Thanks, guys.”

  He couldn’t have put it any better than that. And, even though he was a long way from at his best, he did help with the gutting when the Takahashi brothers brought in their catch. Kenzo offered him a strip of prime ahi flesh. “Here—try this. It’s a lot better than mackerel.”

  Burleson tasted warily, then ate with real enthusiasm. “Damned if you’re not right, Ken. It’s not so—fishy-like. But it’s still fish. That’s pretty funny, eh?”

  “Steak and lamb chops don’t taste the same,” Kenzo said, and then wished he hadn’t. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had either. But Burleson nodded, so he supposed he’d made his point.

  After a while, the American flier said, “You’re not throwing anything back, are you?”

  “Not these days,” Hiroshi answered. “We used to, sure, but now it gets eaten as long as it’s not poisonous. Like we said before, nobody’s fussy.”

  “If there were any fussy people, they starved a long time ago,” Kenzo added.

  “What are you going to do about me?” Burleson asked.

  “Drop you on a beach somewhere and say good luck,” Kenzo told him. “What else can we do? We’ll take you to Kewalo Basin if you want to surrender to the Japanese. They’ll have soldiers there to take charge of the catch.”

  Burt Burleson shuddered. “No, thanks. I’ve heard about how they treat prisoners. You guys know anything about that?”

  “We’ve seen labor gangs. The POWs in ’em are pretty skinny. I don’t think they get fed much,” Kenzo said. “The soldiers who run ’em can act pretty mean, too.” All that was true. If he told Burleson how big an understatement it was, the flier might not believe him.

  What he did say seemed plenty. “Okay, I’ll take my chances on the beach,” Burleson said, and then, “Um—can you pick one close to a place with lots of white people so I blend in better?”

  So they won’t turn me in, he meant. But Kenzo and Hiroshi both nodded. It was a legitimate point. Hiroshi said, “Don’t trust a haole too far just because he’s a haole. There are more Japanese collaborators, yeah, but there are white ones and Chinese and Filipinos, too.”

  “Terrific,” Burleson said bleakly. “Sounds like we’re gonna need to clean up this joint—clean out this joint—once we get it back.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” Kenzo said, and tried not to think about his father.

  For somebody who’d sneered at raw fish, Burt Burleson put away a hell of a lot of it. Kenzo didn’t begrudge him. Floating on the Pacific wondering whether you’d live or die and sure your buddies were already dead couldn’t have been much fun.

  Kenzo waited till sundown to start the Oshima Maru back towards Oahu. He wanted to get there in the wee small hours, when people were least likely to see Burleson splashing ashore. He steered by the stars. He and Hiroshi had both got pretty good at that.

  Burleson stayed awake, which surprised Kenzo a little. When he asked about it, the flier laughed and said, “I slept as much as I could in that goddamn raft—what else did I have to do? I can stay awake for this. Besides”—another laugh—“now I can see where I’m going, not where I’ve been like in the PBY.”

  The moon crawled across the sky. Oahu came up over the northwestern horizon, pretty much where Kenzo had expected it to be. He steered for Ewa. There were Japanese everywhere on Oahu, of course. With the population a third Japanese, there wouldn’t be many places without them. He wondered if Burleson realized that. But he would do what he could for the flier.

  He almost ran the Oshima Maru aground doing it. That wouldn’t have been so good, which was putting it mildly. But Burt Burleson went over the side with a muttered, “God bless you guys.” He struck out for the beach, which wasn’t very far. Kenzo steered away from the coast to give himself some sea room.

  Dawn was staining the sky with salmon-belly pink when the sampan came into Kewalo Basin. Nobody got excited about that; sampans went in and came out all the time. As usual, Japanese soldiers took charge of the catch. They paid Kenzo and Hiroshi by weight, and winked at the fish the brothers carried off “for personal use.” The noncoms in charge of the details got fish from the Takahashis and other fishermen to make sure they didn’t fuss about things like that. One hand washed the other.

  “Everything good out at sea? Spot anything unusual?” this sergeant asked.

  “What could we spot? It’s just lots of water.” Kenzo sounded as casual as he could.

  “Hai. Lots of water.” The sergeant drew the kanji for ocean in the air. It combined the characters for water and mother. “You understand?”

  “Oh, yes,” Kenzo said. “A mother of a lot of water.” The sergeant laughed at that. Kenzo added, “But nothing else.” The Japanese soldier asked no more questions.

  V

  IF YOU PAID ENOUGH OR HAD CLOUT, YOU COULD STILL EAT WELL IN HONOLULU. If you had enough clout, you didn’t have to pay through the nose. Commander Mitsuo Fuchida fell into that category. When he had Commander Genda along with him, the proprietor of the Mochizuki Tea House bowed himself almost double and escorted them to a private room.

  “Thank you for coming here, gentlemen. You honor my humble establishment, which does not deserve the presence of such brave officers.” He laid the ceremonial on with a trowel, bowing again and again. Fuchida had to work to keep a smile off his face. No matter how formal the man acted, his accent was that of an ignorant peasant from the south. The impulse to smile faded after a moment. Starting as a peasant, the fellow would have had trouble rising this high had he stayed in Japan.

  Kimonoed waitresses fluttered over Fuchida and Genda as the two of them sat cross
-legged at the low, Japanese-style table. “Sake?” one of the girls asked. “Yes, please,” Fuchida said. She hurried away. He eyed the menu. “We can get anything we want—as long as we want fish.”

  Genda shrugged. “I’ve heard this place used to have fine sukiyaki. But beef . . .” He shrugged again. “Karma, neh?”

  “Shigata ga nai,” Fuchida answered, which was self-evidently true: it couldn’t be helped. “The sushi and the sashimi here are good—and look. They’ve got lobster tempura. If we’re going to be honored guests, we ought to make the most of it.”

  “What’s that saying the Americans use? ‘Eat, drink, and be merry, because tomorrow—’ ” Genda didn’t finish it, but Fuchida nodded. He knew what his friend was talking about.

  Back came the girl with the sake. That was brewed from rice, and there was, finally, just about enough rice to go around in Oahu—and on the other islands of Hawaii, though they mattered much less to the Japanese. Fuchida and Genda both slurped noisily from their cups. The stuff wasn’t bad, though it wasn’t up to the best back in the home islands.

  After the food came, the waitresses knew enough to withdraw and let the Japanese officers talk in peace. Fuchida spoke without preamble: “We’re going to have to fight the Americans again.”

  “Yes, it seems so.” Genda dipped a piece of tuna into shoyu heated with wasabi. He sounded as calm as if they were talking about the weather.

  “Can we?” Fuchida was still blunt.

  “I don’t expect them to come after us right away—they’re busy in North Africa for the time being,” Genda answered. Fuchida nodded and sipped at his sake again. The USA had shipped an enormous army around the Cape of Good Hope and up to Egypt. Along with Montgomery’s British force, they’d smashed Rommel at El Alamein and were driving him west across the desert.

  Fuchida ate some sushi. He smiled. Barbecued eel had always been one of his favorites. But, again, the smile would not stay. “Did you notice one thing about that attack, Genda-san?”

  “I’ve noticed several things about it—none of them good for us,” Genda replied. “Which do you have in mind?”

  “That it didn’t use any American carriers,” Fuchida answered. “What the Yankees have left, they’re saving—for us.”

  “I’m not worried about what they’re saving,” Genda said. “I’m worried about what they’re building. Admiral Yamamoto was right about that.” He invoked Yamamoto’s name as a bishop might invoke the Pope—and with just as much reverence.

  “We’ve given them lumps twice now. We can do it again—if they don’t cut us off from supplies,” Fuchida said.

  “You sound like you’ve been listening to General Yamashita,” Genda said sourly. “I got an earful of that at Iolani Palace not long ago.”

  “I have no more use for the Army than you do. Those people are crazy,” Fuchida said with a distinct shudder. “But even crazy people can be right some of the time.”

  “What worries me is, we can beat the Americans two or three more times, beat them as badly as we did in the last big fight, and what will it do for us? Buy us more time till the next battle, that’s all,” Genda said. “They’ll just go back to building, and we can’t do much to stop them. But if they beat us even once . . . If that happens, we’re in trouble.” He drained his little sake cup and poured it full again.

  “They have a margin for error, and we don’t—that’s what you’re saying,” Fuchida said.

  Genda nodded vigorously. “Hai! That’s exactly what I’m saying, except you said it better than I did.”

  “We’d better not make any errors, then,” Fuchida said. “We haven’t yet.”

  “Not big ones, anyhow,” Genda agreed. “And the Americans have made plenty. But we’re already doing about as well as we can. The Americans aren’t, not yet. They’re still learning, and they’re getting better.”

  Fuchida went bottoms-up with his sake cup. “We’re in Hawaii, and they aren’t. That’s how it’s supposed to work, and that’s how it’s going to keep on working.” He hoped he sounded determined and not just drunk; he’d poured down quite a bit. He wondered if he would have a headache in the morning. He wouldn’t be surprised if he did. Well, there were still plenty of aspirins.

  Genda said, “There’s a legend from the West, where every time the hero cuts off a dragon’s head, two more heads grow back. That’s what worries me in this fight.”

  The image fit the war against America much too well—so well, in fact, that Mitsuo Fuchida got drunk enough to have no doubts whatsoever he’d regret it in the morning.

  AFTER PENSACOLA NAVAL AIR STATION, the Naval Training Station outside Buffalo jolted Joe Crosetti in lots of ways. First and foremost was the weather. The chilly wind of Lake Erie was like nothing he’d ever known. It was only autumn, too; winter would be worse.

  Orson Sharp, who’d switched stations and squadrons along with him, took it in stride. “Can’t be too much nastier than what I’m used to,” he said.

  It was already a lot nastier than San Francisco ever got. Joe had hardly ever worn a topcoat; a windbreaker was usually all you needed where he grew up. He was glad of his topcoat here. He had long johns, too, and expected to wear them.

  Flying out over the lake felt strange. He was used to large expanses of water. The Pacific and then the Gulf of Mexico were both magnificent, each in its own way. But the idea of being up over water as far as the eye could see and knowing it was fresh water . . . for a Californian, that seemed as alien as Mars.

  Then there was the USS Wolverine. She’d started life as a coal-burning sidewheeling excursion steamer, but she’d been decked over to give aspiring carrier pilots somewhere to do endless takeoffs and landings without impeding the war effort by tying up a ship that could actually go into combat. She wasn’t pretty, but she got the job done.

  The same held true for the Grumman F3Fs the cadets were flying. Zeros would have slaughtered them, but they were a lot hotter than Texans. And, to Joe’s amazement, Lake Erie could grow some perfectly respectable waves. That meant the Wolverine pitched and rolled, just the way a real carrier would out in the Pacific. It also meant the apprentice pilots had to obey the landing officer as if he were God.

  One of the instructors had said, “Following the landing officer’s directions is the most important thing you can do—the most important. Have you got that? You’d better have it, gentlemen. If you don’t, you’ll kill yourselves and you’ll cost the country thirty-one grand for a Wildcat—twice that and then some for one of the new Hellcats, if you happen to draw them—and that’s not even adding in the five cents you’re worth. When you fly up to the stern of your carrier, you are a machine. He is the man in charge of the machine. You are under his control. He can see your approach much better than you can. He can correct it much better than you can. If you trust your own judgment instead of his, you’ll be sorry—but not for long.”

  Some guys knew better. Some guys always knew better. You didn’t get to be a pilot training for carrier operations if you didn’t think pretty well of your own judgment. So far, this squadron had had one guy crash on the Wolverine’s wooden flight deck, one guy slam head-on into the training carrier’s stern, and one guy fly his F3F into Lake Erie because they did what they wanted to do and not what the landing officer told them to do. Two of them were dead. The fellow they’d fished out of the drink was still training with the rest of the cadets. He wouldn’t make that mistake again. Whether he’d make some different mistake . . . Well, at least he had the chance to find out.

  Joe lined his biplane fighter up on the carrier’s stern. They’d even built a little island on the port side, to give her smoke-belching stacks somewhere to go and to make her seem more like the warships she was impersonating. And—also portside—they’d built the little platform at the stern from which the landing officer directed traffic.

  Another F3F was in front of Joe. The obsolescent fighter touched down on the flight deck, tires smoking for a moment, then taxied along to the
far end and roared up into the sky again. Getting everybody as many repetitions as possible was the point of the exercise.

  Seeing that spurt of smoke made Joe check his own landing gear again. Yes, he’d lowered it. The landing officer would have waved him off if he’d tried anything dumb like landing with it up. He knew that. Even so . . . “It’s my neck,” he muttered.

  There were the wigwag flags—for him this time. The landing officer dipped the flags to the left. Joe straightened out the F3F. The landing officer straightened, too, and held out both flags level with his shoulders. Joe was going the way the other man wanted him to.

  I am a machine, the naval air cadet told himself. The landing officer runs me. I do what he says. It wasn’t easy. He wanted to fly the way he wanted to fly. He’d spent all this time learning to do that. Now he had to suppress a lot of the trained reflexes he’d acquired in the past months.

  The wigwag flags moved in tiny circles in the landing officer’s hands: speed up. Joe obediently gave the Grumman biplane a little more throttle. Those circles stopped. The landing officer urged him up a little. The F3F’s stick went back; its nose rose.

  Then, suddenly, the flags dropped. Joe dove for the Wolverine’s deck. Any carrier landing was a controlled crash. The trick was making controlled the key word, not crash. The F3F’s tires hit the timbers of the flight deck. On a real carrier, a working carrier, the plane’s tailhook would have snagged a wire and brought it to a halt.

  Here, Joe bounced down the deck and then off again. He gunned the engine and rose into the sky yet once more. Officers on the training carrier would be grading his performance. He thought he’d done pretty well that time. They didn’t always agree with him.