Days of Infamy

“It’s your bet, Les,” Dutch Wenzel said.

Dillon shoved money into the pot. “I’ll bump it up a couple of bucks,” he said. He had two pair, and nobody’d shown much strength. But the change in the background noise worried him. “What the hell are they doing? They break down? We’re sitting ducks for a goddamn Jap sub if we just park here.”

“Thank you, Admiral Nimitz,” said Vince Monahan, who sat to Les’ left. He tossed in folding money of his own. “Call.”

“I’m out.” Wenzel threw in his hand. So did the last two sergeants.

“Here’s mine.” Dillon laid down his queens and nines. Monahan said something unpleasant. He’d had jacks and fives. Dillon raked in the pot. “Whose deal is it?” he asked.

“Maybe we ought to find out what’s going on,” Monahan said. “We were steaming around in the North Pacific marking time, and then we started heading south like we were really going somewhere-”

“Yeah. Somewhere,” Dillon said drily. The other men in the poker game grunted. A couple of them chuckled. They’d been heading for Oahu and whatever happened when they hit the beach. Now… Now they weren’t going anywhere.

A few minutes later, the engines started up again. So did the poker game, which had stalled. The troopship swung through a turn. Dillon’s i

“Jesus Christ!” Wenzel said. “Why the fuck don’t they make up their minds? They send us all the way out here to march in place, for crying out loud?”

“I know what it could be,” Dillon said.

“Yeah?” Wenzel and Monahan and the other two men in the game all spoke together.

“Yeah,” he replied. “The Navy’s got to be up ahead of us somewhere. If they don’t clear the Japs out of this part of the Pacific, we aren’t go

After some thought, Dutch Wenzel nodded. “Makes sense,” he allowed. “They wouldn’t want us bumping into carrier air.” He made a horrible face. “That could ruin your whole day, matter of fact.” One more brief pause. “Whose deal is it?”

LIEUTENANT SABURO SHINDO prided himself on never getting too excited about anything. Tomorrow morning, battle would come: Japan’s most important fight since the opening blows of the war against the USA. Some people were jumping up and down about that-and making a devil of a racket doing it. Shindo ignored them. He sprawled dozing in a chair in the briefing room. He wore his flying togs. He could be inside his Zero and airborne in a matter of minutes.

Every so often, the noise around him got too loud to stand, and he’d wake up for a little while. When he did, he thought about what he would have to do. This would be no surprise attack. The Americans knew they’d been spotted. They’d sent up fighters to chase off or shoot down the first H8K that found their fleet. They’d done it, too, though the flying boat had taken out a Wildcat before going into the Pacific. By the time it went down, others were in the neighborhood.

The Yankees might try to get away under cover of darkness-try to scurry back to the West Coast of the United States. Some of the Japanese pilots thought they would. Saburo Shindo didn’t believe it. Ru

If they weren’t ru

Stay where they were and wait to be attacked? He wouldn’t do anything that foolish. He would storm forward, launch his own search planes as soon as it got light, and strike with everything he had the instant he found the Japanese fleet. If he could see that, wouldn’t the Yankees be able to see it, too? He expected they would.

They had three carriers. The Japanese also had three, including two of the newest, largest, and fastest in the Navy. The Americans had who knows what for pilots. The Japanese had men who’d smashed everything they came up against from Hawaii to Ceylon. The Americans used Wildcats for fighters. The Japanese used Zeros. Shindo yawned and smiled at the same time. A Wildcat could take more punishment than a Zero. It could, yes-and it needed to. He dozed off one more time, laughing a little as he did.

When he woke again, it was with someone’s hand on his shoulder. Full alertness returned instantly. “Is it time?” he asked.

“Not quite yet, sir.” The man standing beside him was one of the wardroom stewards. “We’re serving out a combat meal before the fliers go up.” He held out a bowl full of nigirimeshi — rice balls wrapped in bamboo shoots, with plums at their centers.

“Arigato.” Shindo took one and bit into it. The stewards had served the same meal before the fliers set off for Pearl Harbor. Another man carried a tray with cups of green tea. Shindo washed down his breakfast with it.

Akagi ’s three elevators were lifting planes from the hangar deck to the flight deck, getting them ready to go into action. Flight-crew men wrestled the bombers and fighters into position one after another. As soon as each elevator went up and came down, another plane went on. Up above, more men from the flight crew would be fueling the planes and making sure their engines and control surfaces and instruments were in good working order. Armorers would be loading bombs and torpedoes, machine-gun bullets and ca

Before it came, though, Shindo gathered up the fighter pilots he would be leading. “Some of you were stuck on Oahu with me when the American bombers raided us,” he said. “They fooled us, and they hit us, and they made us lose face. Now is our chance to get revenge. Are we going to let it slip through our fingers?”

“Iye! ” the fliers answered loudly. Not all of them had been stuck on the island, but every one had been embarrassed. Of course they would say no.

“Good,” Shindo told them. “Very good. They want a lesson. It’s up to us to give them one. By the time we’re through with them, they won’t want to come anywhere near Hawaii for the next hundred years. Let’s give the Emperor a Banzai! and then go out there and serve him.”

“Banzai! ” the fighter pilots shouted. They hurried up to the flight deck.

Shindo climbed into his Zero. Morning twilight stained the eastern sky with gray. Somewhere out there, the enemy waited. As Shindo went through his checks, he was pretty sure he knew where. Any which way, he would get a signal from the bombers, whose radios were more fully hooked into the reco

Planes began roaring off the flight deck. He fired up his engine. It roared to smooth, powerful life. His turn came soon. The air officer swung his green lantern in a circle. Shindo’s Zero sped along, dipped as it went off the end of the deck, and soared into the sky.