End of the Beginning Read online

  Trails of smoke and flame told of Betty after Betty going into the Pacific. They never had a chance. They must have counted on getting close to the American fleet without being spotted. They might have done some damage if they had. The way things were, it was a massacre.

  “Let’s head for home, children,” the squadron leader said. “We’ve got one enemy carrier sunk, one enemy carrier dead in the water and burning, no other carriers spotted. By the size of the enemy strike, it probably set out from two ships. We did what we came to do, in other words. We’ve cleared the way for things to go forward.”

  That sounded good to Joe. He wanted to shoot up some more Japanese ships, but a glance at the fuel gauge told him hanging around wasn’t a good idea. He had to find north again, the same way he’d had to find south when he went after the Bettys.

  He shook his head with amazement that approached awe. Two Bettys for sure. He thought he’d got a Zero and a Kate. One fight and he was within shouting distance of being an ace. He’d dreamt about doing stuff like that, but he’d had trouble believing it. Believe it or not, he’d done it.

  He hoped Orson Sharp was okay. He’d looked around whenever he got the chance—which wasn’t very often—but he hadn’t spotted his longtime roomie. He kept telling himself that didn’t prove anything one way or the other. Sharp was probably looking around for him, too, and not finding him.

  On he went toward the north. He wondered how much damage the Jap strike force had been able to do. Less than it would have before it tangled with the American planes, that was for damn sure. And where would the Japs land now? Both of their carriers were out of business. Would they go on to Oahu? Maybe some of the Zeros could get there, but the Vals and Kates didn’t have a chance. “Oh, too bad,” Joe said, and laughed.

  He might have been speaking of the devil, because he got a radio call on the all-planes circuit from a Hellcat a few miles ahead of him: “Heads up, boys. Here come the Japs on the way home—except they don’t know home burned down. Every plane we splash now is one more we don’t have to worry about later on.”

  Joe didn’t need long to spot what was left of the enemy’s air armada. He whistled softly to himself. The Japs had had a lot more planes the first time the American strike force ran into them. The U.S. fleet’s antiaircraft guns and the combat air patrol must have done a hell of a job. That looked like good news.

  Zeros still escorted the surviving dive bombers and torpedo planes. Hellcats roared to the attack. Joe took another look at his fuel gauge. He’d be pushing it if he gunned his bird real hard—but why was he in this cockpit, if not to push it?

  He saw a Kate flying south as if it didn’t have a care in the world. Was that the sneaky bastard who’d given him the slip last time by jinking left instead of right? He nodded to himself. He thought so. “Fool me once, shame on you,” he said. “Fool me twice, shame on me.” He goosed the Hellcat and raced toward the Jap torpedo plane.

  COMMANDER MITSUO FUCHIDA’S HEART WAS HEAVY as lead inside him. He knew the strike force he led hadn’t come close to defeating and driving back the U.S. fleet. In words of one syllable, the Japanese had got smashed. A glance at the battered remnants of the strike force was enough to tell him that. Far too many Japanese planes had never got to the American fleet. Of the ones that had, far too many hadn’t got away.

  And what would become of the ones that had done everything they were supposed to do? That was another good question, one much better than he wished it were. He’d seen the size of the American strike force when its path crossed his. What had the Yankees done to the Japanese fleet? Were any flight decks left for these few poor planes to land on?

  He checked his fuel gauge. He’d been running as lean as he could, but he didn’t have a chance of getting back to Oahu with what was in his tanks, and he knew it. He hadn’t said anything to his radioman and bombardier, not yet. No point borrowing trouble, not when they already had so much. Maybe Akagi or Shokaku—maybe Akagi and Shokaku—still waited. He could hope. Hope didn’t hurt, and didn’t cost anything.

  One of the handful of Zeros still flying with the strike force waggled its wings to get Fuchida’s attention. He waved to show he’d got the signal. The pilot (yes, that was Shindo; Fuchida might have known he was too tough and too sneaky for the Americans to kill) pointed south.

  Fuchida’s eyes followed that leather-gloved index finger. There in the privacy of the cockpit, he groaned. Running into the U.S. strike force coming and going struck him as most unfair, though it wasn’t really surprising, not when both air fleets had to fly reciprocal courses to strike their enemies and return.

  “Attention!” he called over the all-planes circuit. “Attention! Enemy aircraft dead ahead!” That would wake up anybody who hadn’t noticed. Then he added what was, under the circumstances, the worst thing he could say: “They appear to have seen us.”

  “What do we do now, Commander-san?” Petty Officer Mizuki asked.

  “We try to get through them or past them,” said Fuchida, who had no better answer. How? And what if they succeeded? Hope one of the carriers still survived? Hope some of the other ships in the Japanese fleet still survived, so he might be rescued if he ditched? That struck him as most likely, and also as a very poor best.

  Reaching the Japanese fleet would be an adventure in itself. Here came the Americans. Fuchida tried to get some feel for their numbers, some feel for how many the combat air patrol over Akagi and Shokaku and the fleet’s antiaircraft had shot down. It wasn’t easy, not with enemy planes spread out all over the sky ahead. The shortest answer he could find was not as many as I wish they had.

  Brave as a daimyo’s hunting dogs, the Zeros shot ahead to try to hold the Americans away from the Aichis and Nakajimas that might hurt enemy ships in some later fight . . . if they still had a flight deck to land on. But there weren’t nearly enough Zeros to do the job. A few American fighters engaged them. That kept them busy while the other Yankees roared on toward the Japanese dive bombers and torpedo planes.

  Fuchida fired a burst at an onrushing American fighter. That was more a gesture of defiance and warning than a serious attempt to shoot down the American. His B5N2 made a good torpedo plane. The Nakajima had also made a pretty good level bomber, though it was obsolete in that role now. It had never been intended to make a fighter.

  After squeezing off the burst, Fuchida flung the aircraft to the left, as he had on the way north. Then he’d shaken off his attacker. This time, to his horror and dismay, the enemy went with him without an instant’s hesitation. The American plane carried half a dozen heavy machine guns, not two feeble popguns like the B5N2.

  Bullets slammed into the torpedo plane. Oil from the engine sprayed across the windshield. The bombardier screamed. So did Mizuki. Fuchida wondered why he hadn’t been hit himself. It wouldn’t matter for long. The plane was falling out of the sky, and he couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

  Still wrestling with the controls, he shouted, “Get out! Get out if you can!” The Pacific rushed up to meet him. He braced himself, knowing it would do no good.

  Impact.

  Blackness.

  A COLUMN OF SMOKE GUIDED Saburo Shindo to Shokaku’s funeral pyre. The carrier burned from stem to stern. Destroyers clustered around her, taking off survivors. He supposed they would torpedo her before long. She deserved a merciful coup de grâce, as a samurai committing seppuku deserved to have a second finish him after he’d shown he had the courage to slit his own belly.

  Akagi was already gone. Shindo had found no sign of the proud carrier from which he’d taken off. That made things about as bad as they could be.

  Antiaircraft shells burst around him. Some of the ships down there feared he might be an American, coming back for another strike. “Baka yaro!” he snarled. Yes, they were idiots, but hadn’t they earned the right?

  He watched an Aichi go into the sea not far from a destroyer. The aircraft was lost, but the crew might live. Few strike planes had managed to come even this far
. After two encounters with the U.S. strike force and after the furious defense above the American fleet, the Japanese had taken a beating the likes of which they hadn’t known since . . . when? The encounter with the Korean turtle ships at the end of the sixteenth century? No other comparison occurred to Shindo, but this had to be worse.

  He thought about ditching, too, thought about it and shook his head. Unlike the Nakajimas and Aichis, he had a chance to get back to Oahu. Hawaii would need as many airplanes as possible to defend her. Japan certainly wouldn’t be able to bring in any more. If he could land his Zero, he should.

  On he flew, then. A cruiser burned not far south of Shokaku. Again, lesser ships were rescuing survivors. They probably should have been fleeing back toward Hawaii, too. The Americans were bound to strike again as soon as they could. What the devil could stop them now? This whole fleet lay at their mercy.

  Perhaps half a dozen other Zeros remained in the sky with him. Shindo shook his head in disbelief. Those few fighters were all that was left of two fleet carriers’ worth of air power. Zuikaku was laid up at Pearl Harbor, a sitting duck for American air strikes. He hoped her air contingent had moved to land bases on Oahu. Even if the planes were gone, though, half of Japan’s fleet-carrier strength would have to be written off. The Yankees had put more fleet carriers into this strike than Japan had left—to say nothing of their swarm of light carriers.

  “What are we going to do?” he muttered. He had no idea. Whatever it was, it would be under the Army’s aegis from now on. Japan’s naval presence in and around Hawaii had just collapsed. A man would have to be blind to think anything different. Shindo hoped he could see trouble clearly, anyhow.

  The engine on one of the surviving Zeros quit. Maybe the plane had a small fuel leak. Maybe it had just flown too hard in the battle. Either way, it wouldn’t get back to Oahu. The pilot saluted as he started the long glide down to the ocean. Maybe he could ditch smoothly. Maybe a Japanese ship would find him if he did. But his chances weren’t good, and he had to know it.

  Shindo wondered what his own chances were. He’d flown hard, too. He throttled back even more, using just enough power to stay airborne. Soon, he thought. Soon I’ll see the island.

  And he did. The engine started coughing not long afterwards, but he got down on the Haleiwa airstrip. He’d flown from there during the Japanese invasion of Hawaii. Now he would have to defend it against an American return he’d never really expected.

  IX

  JANE ARMITAGE WAITED FOR NIGHTFALL WISHING SHE WERE DEAD, THE WAY SHE did every day. A couple of the women who’d been dragooned into the Japs’ military brothel had found ways to kill themselves. Part of her envied them, but she didn’t have the nerve to follow in their footsteps. She told herself she wanted to stay alive to see the USA avenge itself on Japan. That was true, but most of what held her back was simple fear.

  She looked out through the barred window of her room. Another perfect late afternoon in Wahiawa. Not too hot, not too cold, not too muggy, not too dry. Blue sky. A few white clouds. Bright sunshine. This hell of a place was all the more hellish for sitting in the middle of paradise.

  Japanese soldiers hurried by. Wherever they were going, they didn’t have time to pause for a fast fuck. Some of them acted antsy, jabbering away in their incomprehensible language, sometimes even shouting at one another. She hoped they had plenty to be antsy about.

  A knock on the door. That wasn’t a horny Jap. Soon, yes, but not yet. That was supper. She opened the door. A tiny, gray-haired Chinese woman handed her a tray. She didn’t speak any English. The Japs made sure of such things. How much practice had they had running brothels like this? Plenty, plainly.

  Supper was better and there was more of it than if she’d still been working her little vegetable plot. She didn’t care. The rice and fish and cabbage tasted like ashes in her mouth. She wasn’t getting close to enough to eat for her sake. Oh, no. The Japs just didn’t want her to be too skinny to please her . . . customers.

  The Chinese woman came back in a bit to take the tray to the kitchen. She held up her hand with fingers and thumb outspread. Jane nodded dully. Next Jap soldier or sailor in five minutes.

  She took off the men’s pajamas that were all they let her wear and lay down on the bed naked. Some days she couldn’t stand it and she fought, knowing fighting was hopeless. The Japs beat her up and then did what they wanted anyway. Today she didn’t have it in her to fight. If she did her best to believe it wasn’t happening, she could get through till they let her quit. Then she could go to sleep . . . and have another day just like this one to look forward to.

  Another knock on the door, this one peremptory. Jane didn’t say anything. She just lay there. The door opened anyhow, of course. In came a Jap. He smiled at her nakedness. She pretended he wasn’t there, and kept on pretending even when he dropped his pants and got on top of her.

  He did what he did. His weight was heavy on her, his breath sour in her face. He squeezed her breasts, but not quite painfully hard. It could have been worse. It had been worse, plenty of times. A slightly better than average rape. Oh, joy. He grunted and jerked and then pulled out and got off her, a stupid grin on his face. Up came his trousers. Out the door he went, without a backwards glance.

  Half a minute later, another one of those here-I-come knocks. She hadn’t even had time to douche, not that that would have done much against either disease or getting knocked up. In came the next one: an older man, a sergeant. She flinched inside, and hoped it didn’t show. The older guys were more likely to be mean. They fed off fear, too.

  This one let his trousers fall around his ankles in the middle of the little room and motioned for Jane to get down on her knees in front of him. She tried not to let him know she understood. She particularly hated that. She had to do it, not let it be done to her. She wanted to bite down hard every single time, too. Only the fear of what they’d do to her if she did held her back.

  When she kept acting stupid, the sergeant yanked her out of bed and put her where he wanted her. He was shorter than she was, but strong as an ox. He motioned that he’d slap her into the middle of next week if she didn’t get down to business. Hating him, hating herself more, she did. At least he wasn’t very big. She gagged less that way. She wished she had enough Japanese to tell him what a little prick he was.

  She hadn’t got very far when he suddenly pushed her away. That was out of the ordinary. He waddled the three or four steps to the window, pants still at half mast, and stared out. That was when Jane realized the deep bass rumble she felt as much as heard was real, was outside herself, not the product of her own mind grinding itself to pieces.

  The Jap twitched as if he’d stuck his finger into an electric socket. He said something that should have set the peeling wallpaper on fire. Then, still cussing a blue streak, he pulled up his pants and dashed out of the room.

  Jane jumped to her feet and ran to the window. Anything that would make him give up on a blowjob halfway through was something she had to see.

  And she did. The sky was full of planes flying in from the northwest. They were a long way up, but they didn’t look like any she’d ever seen before. That and the Jap’s reaction made a sudden wild hope spring to life in her. Are they American? she thought. Please, God, let them be American. I stopped believing in You when You did this to me, but I’ll start again if they’re American. I swear I will.

  Antiaircraft guns in and around Wahiawa started banging away. The racket sounded like the end of the world, but it was the sweetest music Jane had ever heard.

  Whatever this was, it wasn’t just a nuisance raid like the one the year before. There were dozens and dozens, maybe hundreds, of planes up there. Nobody could have sent so many without meaning business.

  Jane blinked. From what she knew about the state of the art—which, as an officer’s more or less ex-wife, was a fair amount—nobody could have sent that many planes from the mainland at all. B-17s that flew into Hawaii did so unarmed, with no b
omb load, and arrived almost dry just the same. Or they had . . . in 1941. This was 1943. The state of the art must have changed while she wasn’t looking.

  And it had, by God—by the God she began believing in again with all her heart and all her soul and all her might. The bombers started unloading on Wheeler Field and Schofield Barracks, just the other side of the Kamehameha Highway from Wahiawa.

  The brothel shook. The window glass rattled. A not very badly aimed bomb would turn that glass into shrapnel—and might turn her into hamburger. She backed away from the window, tears streaming down her face. All at once, she wanted to live. And if that wasn’t a miracle, what would be?

  Screams and cheers from other rooms said she wasn’t the only one, either. Then she heard another kind of scream: one of pain, not joy. One of the women trapped there must have started celebrating even with a Jap in her room. That was foolish, which didn’t mean Jane wouldn’t have done the same damn thing.

  More bombs burst, and still more. It sounded as if the Americans were really giving it to the airport and the barracks. “Kill ’em all!” Jane yelled. “Come on, damn you! Kill ’em all!”

  KENZO AND HIROSHI TAKAHASHI HAD THEOSHIMA MARU to themselves. Kenzo didn’t know exactly where his father was: at the Japanese consulate, the radio studio, maybe even Iolani Palace. His old man was in tight with the occupying authorities—and in hog heaven. The less Kenzo heard about it, the better he liked it.

  Hiroshi was at the rudder, Kenzo minding the sampan’s sails—or rather, not minding them very well. “Pay attention, goddammit!” Hiroshi barked. “Stop mooning about your girlfriend—she isn’t here.”