At least you could grow food, Alexa thought. How the hell did one grow toilet paper? Or sanitary napkins? All over the islands, fields and lawns had been turned into gardens with edible plants thrusting through the surface. In a while, much of the food problem would have solved itself, but vegetables were so maddeningly slow growing, or at least it seemed like it.

“Thank God for Jake,” Alexa muttered.

“You think he’ll get in trouble?”

Jake had made several deliveries of “surplus” materials. He’d even helped dig an earth-walled basement under Alexa’s house to store the supplies. Jake had insisted that all the items, treasures to the two women, were being discarded by the military for a number of shortsighted reasons. Neither Alexa nor Melissa quite believed him. It was easy to say he was showing them favoritism, but it also seemed that he was stockpiling goods for some unknown need in the future.

“Do you like him?” Missy asked.

“Jake?”

“No, the man in the moon.”

“Of course I like him. He’s a very good and strong man. Don’t you like him as well?”

“Yes.” Melissa grinned. “But I think you like him a little differently.”

Alexa flushed. “Don’t you think it’s a little early for such speculations?”

“No. Haven’t we all said that times are moving more rapidly than ever and that the old rules don’t apply?”

“Are you suggesting that I should marry Jake Novacek? For one thing, he hasn’t asked and probably won’t.”

“All you have to do is encourage him. Besides, Lexy, you don’t necessarily have to marry him, just get involved.”

“As a protector? Are you suggesting I should be his mistress?”

Melissa shrugged and laughed. “Could be worse. What’d he tell us about surviving? He’s a survivor, Lexy. My bet is he’ll even prosper in this war. Look, he got himself promoted, didn’t he?”

Alexa commented that any thoughts of marriage, or even an affair, were terribly premature with Tim less than two months in his grave. She was going to add that Jake Novacek wasn’t her type when she asked herself, Just what was her type?

Jake was strong, intelligent, educated, compassionate, and he respected her. These were all traits that Tim had had in abundance and that she missed terribly.

It was fairly evident that Jake had an almost adolescent crush on her, which was very flattering but was hardly grounds for marriage. Or an affair.

Jake had indeed been promoted and had shown her his new oak leaves with almost childish joy. Funny how a war brought out certain qualities in people while others were left behind. Melissa was right. If Jake survived, he would prosper.

That raised another point. Alexa had just lost one husband to the war, and Jake was a member of the military on an island that was going to be invaded. Did she want to go through all that again? Perhaps events were moving very quickly, but maybe it was time to slow down a little. No, she would keep Jake Novacek as a dear and trusted friend, at least for the time being.

However, the thought of bringing someone like Jake home to her family and friends in Virginia made her smile. He would eat them alive. Not for the first time did she wonder how Jake would be in bed. With guilt she’d found herself thinking more of sleeping with Jake than of being with Tim. She’d justified such behavior by reminding herself that Jake was alive, her husband was not.

“Is he coming by tonight?” Melissa asked.

“Don’t know.” I hope so, she didn’t add. No need to set Melissa off again.

Then the sirens wailed again, and distant explosions made the ground tremble. The two women looked at each other in dismay. In the time since the Japs had taken Molokai, everyone had become expert in the sounds of war. They realized with a sickening clarity that they weren’t hearing bombs. It was a naval bombardment.

“No,” Alexa said grimly. “I don’t think he’ll be coming tonight.”

Jake reviewed the reports as they came in. A line of Japanese warships was shelling the defenses on the level ground around Bellows Field while dive-bombers hit anything that moved beyond it.

Colonel Collins burst into Jake’s office. “General Short has already decided this is the real thing. One of our subs spotted transports behind the warships. He’s ordered the units at Schofield and Barbers Point to move toward part of the Koolau Range that overlooks Bellows.”

“It’s a feint, and they’ll be cut to pieces while on the move,” Jake said. “Besides, aren’t you leaving? Shouldn’t you be packing?”

“Don’t be a smart-ass. Everything’s up in the air now and you know it. Short thinks Barbers is the target, and Phillips is happier than a clam that his leader’s been proven right. Now they’re saying the Japs’ll shell today and land tomorrow, then attempt a quick thrust up the Koolau to where they can dominate Honolulu and where their long-range field guns can hit Pearl. Both of them are confident the Japs can be stopped.”

Jake shook his head. “Whoever holds that part of the Koolau Range dominates the field, and right now that’s us. Our guns already overlook the Bellows area and can hit their ships and landing craft, and, no matter how hard they try, they can’t knock out all of them. That is why they won’t land there. Did you tell him that those Jap transports can slip away under cover of darkness and be off Haleiwa in a couple of hours at most? Did you remind him that those are only light cruisers and destroyers out there off Bellows? Where are the heavies and the battleships? Joe, this is only a feint! The Japs are making us move potential reinforcements away from Haleiwa, which is where they’ll be tomorrow morning and we won’t be able to do jack-shit about it.”

“I told General Short everything, Jake, and he insisted that he’d made a decision and he’d stick with it.”

Jake took a deep breath. “Then let me go to Haleiwa and observe.”

“Now?”

“Now, Joe. Let me slip away under the cover of night and see what’s happening up there.”

Collins hesitated. He didn’t like the idea of sending one of his most capable officers, and a good friend to boot, off on a possible wild goose chase. But, with Short’s mind made up and all decisions made, there wasn’t anything more to be done at G-2 for the time being.

“Go ahead, Major Novacek,” Collins said. “And I hope you’re wrong.”

“So do I, Joe. So do I.”

The Japanese landing and bombardment forces were out of sight as they prepared to launch the assault. Admiral Yamamoto paced the bridge of his mighty flagship and felt that he had again been taught the lesson that nothing goes according to plan.

Yamamoto was particularly distressed by the failures in leadership that had occurred, although he fully understood that he had only himself to blame for much of what had happened.

The admiral now flew his flag on the superbattleship Yamato, and, along with the additional battleships and heavy cruisers that constituted the heart of an exceptionally strong strike force, held station about fifty miles west of the bombardment force and the transports. They lay silently and waited for the arrival of an American relief force. Then they would pounce and destroy.

To the best of his knowledge, the existence and strength of the Yamato remained a secret. His problem was that he didn’t know this for certain. It had been a mistake on his part to send the Yamato along with two smaller, older battleships against the Pennsylvania. He had thought that the three would dispose of the damaged American battleship in short order and provide the raw crew of the Yamato with invaluable combat experience. Instead, the crippled American ship had fought with a ferocity reminiscent of a wounded, cornered animal.

While the Yamato had emerged unscathed, the Fuso and the Ise had been damaged, with the Ise forced to depart for Japan for repairs and modifications. There was talk of putting a short flight deck on the Ise’s stern and making her a hybrid: half battleship, half carrier. Yamamoto thought it was nonsense and showed what problems lurked beneath the surface of Japan’s successes.