“Arigato,” Jiro said shyly.

“Do itashimashite,” the officer answered. After the last person came aboard, he asked, “Where is Commander Genda? He’s supposed to be here, too.” When no one answered, the man muttered, “Zakennayo! The order for his recall comes from Admiral Yamamoto, no less. Well, we’re not going to wait, no matter what.”

Only dim orange lamps lit up the inside of the submarine. Pipes and wires ran overhead; even short men like Jiro had to duck all the time. Machinery was everywhere-above, below, and to either side. Whatever space existed for people seemed an afterthought.

The hatch clanged shut. The officer dogged it. He came down the internal ladder, his shoes clattering. He gave a series of crisp orders. The sub backed away from the pier and then went under, air bubbling out of the buoyancy tanks and water sloshing in. Slowly-Jiro gradually realized everything underwater happened slowly-it turned and started out the channel by which it had entered the harbor.

He sighed with mingled pleasure and disappointment. On the way home at last!

MINORU GENDA HAD NEVER IMAGINED he would disobey an order from Admiral Yamamoto. He looked to the commander-in-chief of the Combined Fleet as an example, a mentor, a friend. Yet the Japanese submarine had presumably come and presumably gone. Assorted dignitaries were presumably aboard the boat. He remained somewhere between Honolulu and Pearl Harbor, doing everything he could to hold back the advancing Americans.

Cynthia Laanui had nothing to do with it.

So Genda told himself, and believed he told himself the truth. The Queen of Hawaii made a wonderful diversion. He liked her more as a person than he’d thought he would, too. But none of that was reason enough to throw away his naval career.

Hawaii was.

This invasion had been Genda’s idea from the beginning. He’d proposed to Yamamoto the notion of following up the air strike with ground troops. Only with Hawaii under the Rising Sun, he’d said, could it serve as Japan’s shield rather than America’s outstretched arm. He’d persuaded Yamamoto. Yamamoto had persuaded the Army-a harder job, since the conquest of Malaya and the Dutch East Indies and their vital resources had to move more slowly. But Yamamoto made the generals believe Japan had a better chance of keeping her conquests if she held Hawaii.

For close to two years, Hawaii had done what it was supposed to do. With a Japanese garrison here, the USA had to fight the Pacific war from its own West Coast. Its reach wasn’t long enough to do Japan much harm from there.

Now, though… Now Hawaii was falling back into U.S. hands. Genda was no fool, but no blind optimist, either. He knew the signs of defeat when he saw them, and he saw them now. The fall of Pearl Harbor was perhaps the next to last nail in the coffin.

And if he took credit for the victory of 1941, how could he not shoulder blame for the defeat of 1943? To duck it would make him into a liar, and he refused to lie to himself. He intended to atone in his own person for his plan’s failure. He thought Yamamoto would understand.

He had an Arisaka some soldier or naval landing force man would never need again. He wished he had a uniform that gave better camouflage than his Navy whites. By now, the whites had so many dirt and grass stains, they hid him better than they had a couple of days earlier. He wasn’t the only man in whites to form a part of the Japanese skirmish line. That made him feel better. He wasn’t the only officer determined to make the Yankees pay for everything they got.

The enemy skirmish line was a couple of hundred meters away. The Americans weren’t pushing forward right this minute. Every so often, they would fire a few rifle shots or a burst from a machine gun or a Browning Automatic Rifle to discourage the Japanese from attacking. The men on Genda’s side would do the same.

Genda didn’t think his countrymen could attack. They were a motley mix of Army and Navy men. An Army captain seemed to be in local command. Genda outranked him, but didn’t try to throw his weight around. The Army officer sounded capable, while he himself knew as much about infantry combat as he did about Paris fashions. He was learning fast, though.

As for the Americans… By all the signs, they were waiting till they built up overwhelming force. Then they would hit the Japanese line somewhere and pour through. The defenders would have the choice of dying where they stood or falling back to try to stop the enemy somewhere else. Genda had already seen the Yankees do that once. They didn’t take many chances. If he’d enjoyed all their materiel, he wouldn’t have taken many chances, either.

A senior private squatted in the foxhole along with Genda. He was filthy and weary, but managed a smile of sorts when he noticed Genda’s eye on him. “Hard work, sir,” he said wryly.

“Hai.” Genda nodded. In a mess like this, he worried less about rank than he would have otherwise. He said, “You look like you’ve done your share of hard work and then some.”

“Could be, sir,” the soldier answered. “I started up at the north coast-and here I am.”

That was something unusual. Most Japanese soldiers who’d met the Americans on the invasion beaches were dead. Genda knew the Army preferred dying in place to retreating. Keeping his voice carefully neutral, he said, “You must have seen a lot of fighting. How did that happen, Senior Private, ah…?”

“My name is Furusawa, sir.” The soldier showed no reluctance to give it. He didn’t seem to feel he’d done anything wrong. And he explained why: “I found all my superiors killed around me. That left me free to use my own judgment. I thought I would be more use to the Emperor killing as many Americans as I could than throwing my life away to no good purpose.” By the way he eyed Genda, anyone who presumed to disagree with him would be sorry.

But Genda didn’t disagree. “And have you done that?” he asked.

“Sir, I have,” the soldier answered. His rifle-an American Springfield-had plainly seen a lot of use, but it was clean and in good condition. Seeing Genda’s glance toward the weapon, Furusawa went on, “My unit’s barracks in Honolulu were bombed, and we lost our Arisakas.”

“How do you like the American piece?” Genda asked.

“It’s a little heavy, sir, but not too bad,” Furusawa said. “And it fires a larger-caliber round than an Arisaka, so it’s got more stopping power. I do like that.”

Like the rest of what Senior Private Furusawa had to say, that was more clearly reasoned than Genda would have looked for from a lowly enlisted man. And, while Furusawa’s accent said he came from somewhere in the south-down by Hiroshima, perhaps-he also sounded better educated than the farmers and fishermen who made up a large part of the population there.

“Why are you only a senior private?” Genda asked, by which he meant, Why do you talk the way you do? Why do you think the way you do?

The younger man understood what he didn’t say, which showed Furusawa did think that way. With a crooked smile, he replied, “Well, sir, for one thing, I was a pretty new conscript when we came here, and there weren’t a lot of promotions after that. And my father is a druggist. That sort of made me a white crow to a lot of the country boys in my regiment.” He echoed Genda’s thought there, and continued, “Complaining wouldn’t have done me much good. And keeping me down made some sense, too, because the others might not have followed me the way they would have with someone else.”

Genda wondered if he himself could have spoken so dispassionately about being passed over for a promotion he obviously deserved. He doubted it. “What do you think will happen now?” he asked.

“That depends, sir. You’d know better than I do-has the Navy got enough ships and planes to beat the Americans and drive them away?”