End of the Beginning Read online

  As things worked out, he woke up long before he expected to. At half past one, air-raid sirens started howling. Genda did his best to work them into a dream about an attack on the Akagi, but after a few seconds his eyes opened. Staring up into the darkness, he needed another moment to remember where he was, and why. Then he swore and jumped out of the cot.

  The sirens kept wailing. Orders were to shelter in a cellar till the all-clear sounded. Genda was not about to obey orders like that. He threw on his trousers, rushed downstairs, and hurried out into the quiet streets to find out what was going on.

  “Careful, sir,” said a sentry outside the building.

  “Where are the enemy airplanes?” Genda demanded.

  Before the sentry could answer, antiaircraft guns around Pearl Harbor opened up. A fireworks display of traces and bursting shells lit up the western sky. Half a minute later, the crump! of bursting bombs added to the din.

  “Zakennayo!” Genda exclaimed in dismay. “They’re going after Akagi!”

  American flying boats didn’t have the astounding range of H8Ks. They would need refueling from a submarine to reach Hawaii from the U.S. mainland, and probably another refueling to make it home again. As long as the enemy flying boat found the submarine in the vastness of the Pacific, though, that wasn’t an insurmountable problem.

  The Yankees must have decided the same thing. Yes, they were doing their best to make nuisances of themselves.

  Commander Fuchida had laughed when he told of suddenly appearing over San Francisco harbor in an H8K and bombing U.S. warships there. Now the shoe was on the other foot—and Genda didn’t like the way it felt.

  Long after the American raiders must have disappeared, antiaircraft fire kept throwing up shells over Pearl Harbor. Shrapnel clattered down on Honolulu streets and rooftops. A chunk of steel falling from a few thousand meters would kill a man as dead as any rifle bullet.

  Realizing he couldn’t do anything useful where he was, Genda went back into the office building and climbed the stairs as fast as he’d descended them. He flipped on the light in his office. Blackout curtains kept it from leaking out into the street. Right this minute, that probably didn’t matter. Having struck once, the Americans wouldn’t be back tonight.

  Genda picked up the telephone. “Get me Pearl Harbor!” he snapped when an operator came on the line.

  “Who is this?” The operator sounded rattled. “Are you authorized to be telephoning during an emergency?”

  “This is Commander Genda,” Genda said coldly. “Put me through at once, before I ask who you are.”

  “Uh, yes, sir.” Now the operator sounded terrified. Genda wanted him to sound that way.

  “Pearl Harbor—Ensign Yasutake here.” The youngster who picked up the phone at Pearl Harbor, by contrast, almost squeaked with excitement.

  After giving his name again, Genda asked, “What’s going on over there? Is the carrier all right?”

  “Uh, yes, sir. A couple of near misses, but no hits,” Yasutake said, and Genda breathed a sigh of relief. The ensign went on, “Uh, sir, how did you know the Americans would attack Akagi?”

  “Because she’s the most valuable target there. Why come all that way if you’re not going to attack the most valuable target?” Genda said. “And the Yankees are bound to know she’s there, too.” He was sure Oahu—and, indeed, all the Hawaiian Islands—crawled with American spies. A hidden wireless set in the mountains, a few quick code groups, and . . . trouble. “I don’t suppose we managed to knock down the American flying boat, did we?”

  “No, sir. Or at least we didn’t see any sign of it,” Ensign Yasutake answered.

  Genda sighed. “Too bad. Still, it could be worse. They didn’t hurt us badly, either.” Even if they did scare us out of a year’s growth. “You’re sure Akagi is all right?”

  “Oh, yes, sir. No new damage,” Yasutake said. Genda hung up. For the next little while, people would be running around like chickens that had just met the chopper. One of the things the Army would be screaming about was that the U.S. flying boat managed to catch the Navy napping. And the Army would have more of a point than Genda wished it did.

  His own phone rang. In the after-midnight quiet, the jangle made him jump. He picked up the telephone right as the second ring started. “Genda here.”

  “This is Fuchida.”

  “Good to hear your voice. I’m glad you’re all right. I’m glad Akagi’s all right.”

  Commander Fuchida laughed. “I might have known you’d already know. But we were lucky, Genda-san—no more than lucky. If the Americans had aimed better, they could have done a lot of harm. We have to get some of those electronic range-finding sets out here from the home islands. Then we won’t be blind to attacks till they’re on top of us.”

  That marched well with Genda’s thoughts. “I’ll do what I can,” he promised. “I’ll send a message to Admiral Yamamoto. If anybody can get some of those sets out here, he’s the man. I wish the Americans weren’t ahead of us there—they’re already running, while we’ve just started to walk.”

  “Walking is one thing,” Fuchida said. “Thinking we can stand around is something else again.”

  To that, Genda said the only thing he could: “Hai.”

  III

  JIRO TAKAHASHI CARRIED A PLUMPAHIUP NUUANU AVENUE TOWARD THE JAPANESE consulate. The Rising Sun had always flown above the consulate, reminding him of the land he’d left when he was younger than Hiroshi and Kenzo were now. These days, the Rising Sun waved above Iolani Palace and all over Hawaii. That made Jiro proud, even if it appalled his sons.

  Even before the war started, Jiro had brought fine fish to the consulate. The men who served Japan deserved the best, and talking with them had given the fisherman a taste of home, so he’d been glad to do it. Since the war started, things were different. Jiro was pleased that his fish helped keep Consul Kita and Chancellor Morimura from going hungry.

  Japanese soldiers in their dark khaki uniforms stood guard outside the consulate. Along with the palace and the leading warship in Hawaiian waters, it was one of the places where policy for the islands got hammered out. A sentry pointed toward Jiro. “Here comes the Fisherman!” he exclaimed.

  By the way he said it, it might have been Takahashi’s name. All the sentries called Jiro the Fisherman. They bowed as he drew near. “Konichiwa, Fisherman-sama,” one of them said.

  That was laying it on thick. The Fisherman or Fisherman-san—Mr. Fisherman—was fine. Fisherman-sama . . . As Jiro bowed back, he said, “You boys must be hungry if you start calling me Lord Fisherman.”

  The sentries laughed. “We’re always hungry, Fisherman-sama,” said the one who’d used the name before.

  They probably were, too. Japanese soldiers got better rations than local civilians, but still ate lots of rice and not much of anything else. The sentries came from the same class as Jiro, and from the Hiroshima area, too. When he could, he brought them something. Today, though, he bowed again, apologetically. “Please excuse me, friends. Next time for you, if I get the chance. Maybe the men inside will share this ahi with you.” He held up the fish.

  “Fat chance!” two soldiers said at the same time. One of them added, “Those stingy bastards don’t know how lucky they are to have you for a friend.”

  “No, I think I’m the lucky one,” Jiro said. The sentries only jeered. But he meant it. “These are important people from the home islands, and they’re glad to see me. Of course I’m lucky.”

  “They’re glad to see your fish, anyhow,” a sentry said.

  “We’re not going to convince him,” another one said. “Let’s just let him through. He’ll find out for himself sooner or later.” They stood aside. Jiro walked past them and into the consular compound.

  A clerk greeted him: “Good day, Takahashi-san. How are you?”

  “Pretty well, thanks. I’d like to see Consul Kita, if I may.” Jiro held up the ahi again to explain why.

  “I’m so sorry, but the consul is
n’t here right now,” the clerk said. “He’s still out on the golf course. He won’t be back till this evening.”

  “The golf course,” Jiro muttered. He knew Kita was fond of the Western game, but he’d never understood why. Whacking a ball with a stick till it fell into a hole? What was the point, besides giving you an excuse to waste time whenever you felt like it?

  “Chancellor Morimura is in, though,” the clerk said helpfully. “I’m sure he’d be glad to help you.” He was looking at the ahi, not at Jiro. Maybe the sentries knew what they were talking about after all.

  Tadashi Morimura was studying a map of Pearl Harbor when the clerk led Jiro into his office. Morimura was tall and handsome, with a long face and an aristocrat’s cheekbones and eyebrows. He couldn’t have been more than thirty. “Good to see you, Takahashi-san,” he said, rising and bowing. “That’s a handsome fish you have there. Do you want me to take charge of it till the consul comes back?”

  “Yes, please,” Jiro said.

  Morimura didn’t take it in his own hands (interesting hands, for his left index finger was missing the first joint). He called a clerk, who carried it off to the refrigerator. Had he dismissed Jiro right after that, the fisherman might have decided the consular staff did value him for his fish alone. But the chancellor—who held a title that sounded impressive but could have meant anything—said, “Please sit down, Takahashi-san. I’m glad to see you. I was thinking about you earlier today, as a matter of fact.”

  “About me?” Jiro said in surprise as he sank into a chair.

  “Hai—about you.” Morimura nodded. “Do you know Osami Murata?”

  Jiro shook his head. “Gomen nasai, but I’m afraid I don’t. Could you tell me who he is?”

  “He’s a broadcaster, a radio man,” Morimura said. “He usually works out of Tokyo, where he lives, but he’s here in Hawaii now. He’s doing some shows about the islands since we took them away from the Americans. You would be a good man for him to interview. You could tell him—you could tell all of Japan—what things are like.”

  “They would hear me back in Japan?” Jiro said.

  “That’s right.” Morimura smiled and nodded. His smile was exceptionally charming; it made his big eyes light up. “They’d hear you all over the world, in fact. That’s how short-wave radio works.”

  “All over the world? Me?” Jiro laughed at that. “I can’t even get my boys to pay attention to me half the time.”

  “Didn’t they pay attention when you were in the Nippon jiji?” Morimura asked slyly.

  “Well . . . some.” Takahashi didn’t want to say what kind of attention he’d got from Hiroshi and Kenzo after they saw his interview in the Japanese-language newspaper. They’d warned him against being a collaborator. How can I be a collaborator? Japan is my country, he thought. But his sons didn’t see it that way.

  “We’ll set up an interview,” Tadashi Morimura said. “Are you free tomorrow afternoon, Takahashi-san?”

  “I ought to be out catching fish,” Jiro said uncertainly.

  Morimura winked at him. Jiro blinked. Had he really seen that? The chancellor said, “Can’t you send your sons out on the Oshima Maru by themselves for one day?”

  Jiro was flattered that the consular official remembered the name of his sampan—flattered almost to the point of blushing and coughing and stammering like a schoolboy. “I suppose I could,” he said, and knew that he would. Hiroshi and Kenzo would be astonished when he didn’t want to put to sea with them; he’d never been a man to shirk work, and, say what they would about him, they couldn’t claim he had. But they were no happier with his company than he was with theirs. Their hearts wouldn’t break to make a fishing run without him. If they brought in a good catch, they wouldn’t let him forget it, either.

  He shrugged broad shoulders. He’d survived worse things than that. “What time would you want me here, Morimura-san?” he asked.

  “Come at two o’ clock,” Morimura answered. “But not here. Go to the KGMB studio. That’s where he will want to do the interview. Have you got the address?”

  “I’m sorry, but no.” Not speaking English and not caring for the music KGMB played, Jiro had no idea where the station was. Morimura gave him the address. It wasn’t too far from the consulate. “I’ll be there,” he promised.

  And he was. His sons both stared at him when he told them to take the Oshima Maru out on their own. But they didn’t argue very hard or ask very many questions. That saddened Jiro without much surprising him.

  Nobody could stay sad for long around Osami Murata. “What, no fish for me?” he exclaimed when Morimura introduced Jiro to him. “I’m so insulted, I’m going to commit seppuku.” He mimed slitting his belly, then laughed uproariously. “Now, Takahashi-san, let’s figure out what we’re going to talk about when we get you in front of the mike.”

  He was a whirlwind of jokes and energy. Jiro could no more help being swept along than his sampan could have in a gale. He wasn’t even nervous when Murata plopped him down in a chair in front of a mike in a room whose likes he’d never seen before. The ceiling, three of the walls, and even the inside of the door were covered by what looked like cardboard egg cartons.

  Noticing his stare, Murata said, “Stuff deadens sound.” He pointed to the fourth wall, which was of glass and let Jiro see into the adjoining room. “Those are the engineers in there. If they’re very, very good, maybe we’ll let them out again once the show is over.”

  Did he mean it? He might—some of them were haoles, and had surely been doing their jobs here before the Japanese came. Or he might be fooling again, trying to put Jiro at ease.

  “Nervous?” Murata asked. When Jiro nodded, the broadcaster poked him in the ribs and made funny faces. Haoles were often boisterous and foolish. Jiro didn’t know what to make of a Japanese who acted like that. Murata scribbled some notes, then pointed to a light bulb that wasn’t shining just then. “When that comes on, we’ll start. All right?”

  “Hai.” Jiro didn’t know whether it was all right or not. He didn’t know which end was up just then.

  The bulb lit up. It was red. “This is Osami Murata, your man on the go,” Murata said glibly, leaning toward the microphone. “I’ve gone a long way today—here I am in Honolulu, in the Kingdom of Hawaii. I’m talking with Jiro Takahashi, who’s been here a lot longer than I have. Say hello to the people back in the home islands, Takahashi-san.”

  “Hello,” Jiro said weakly. Here in Hawaii, his old-fashioned Hiroshima accent was nothing out of the ordinary. Most Japanese who’d come here started out from that part of the country. Murata’s elegant tones, though, told the world he hailed from Tokyo. They made Jiro acutely self-conscious.

  Murata winked at him again. It didn’t help much. The broadcaster said, “Why did you move to Hawaii all those years ago?”

  “To work in the fields here,” Jiro answered. “The money was better than I could get back home, so I thought I’d try it.”

  “And how did you like it?”

  “Hard work!” Jiro exclaimed, and Murata laughed in surprise. Takahashi went on, “As soon as I could, I got away from cane and pineapple. I rented a fishing boat till I could finally afford to buy one. Put everything together and I’ve done all right for myself.”

  “A man who works hard will do all right for himself wherever he is,” Murata said. Jiro found himself nodding. The younger man asked him, “Did you ever think about going back to Japan?”

  “I thought about it, yes, but by then I’d married and settled down and had a couple of boys,” Jiro answered with a shrug. “Looks like I’m here for good. Karma, neh?”

  “Hai,” Murata said. “But Japan has reached out to you, and you’re under the Rising Sun again. What do you think about that?”

  He’d mentioned the Kingdom of Hawaii, but now he didn’t bother pretending the islands were under anything but Japanese control. “I’m glad,” Jiro said simply. “Japan is my country. I want her to do well.”

  “That�
��s good. That’s what we like to hear,” Murata said effusively. “And your family thinks the same way?”

  “I lost my wife in the fighting, but I know she would have agreed with me,” Jiro said. And that was true. Reiko was also from the old country, and from his generation. Of course she would have been happy to see Japan take over from the United States.

  “I’m so sorry to hear of your loss, Takahashi-san.” Osami Murata sounded as if he meant it. “And what about your sons?”

  Jiro might have known he would ask that. Jiro had known he would ask it. Answering it wasn’t easy, though. Carefully, Takahashi said, “I always tried to raise them as good Japanese. They went to Japanese school every day after American school was over. They learned to read and write, and they speak with a better accent than the sorry one I’ve got.”

  “You’re just fine the way you are, Takahashi-san,” Murata said easily. If he noticed that Jiro hadn’t really said how his sons felt about the Japanese occupation of Hawaii, he didn’t let on. One of the men on the other side of the glass gave him a signal. He nodded to show he’d got it, then turned back to Jiro. “Do you have anything to say to the folks back home?”

  “Only Banzai! for the Emperor, and that I’m proud to be a Japanese subject again,” Jiro answered.

  “Thank you, Jiro Takahashi!” Murata said. The red light went out. The broadcaster leaned back. “There. That’s done. I think it went well. Arigato.”

  “You’re welcome,” Jiro said automatically. “They really heard me in Japan?”

  “They really did, unless the atmospherics are just horrendous—and they’ve been good lately,” Murata said. “I’m glad Chancellor Morimura arranged for you to meet me. You’re exactly what we needed.”

  Nobody had ever said anything like that to Jiro before. “The way I talk—” he began.

  Murata waved that away. “Don’t worry about it. Not everybody comes from Tokyo. This is better. It will remind people the whole country is together here.”