It was most of the time, anyhow. Though Fletch obediently dug, he kept looking at that Jap guard out of the corner of his eye. He wasn’t the only POW doing that, either-oh, no. Up till now, it had looked as if the Japanese would hang on to Hawaii indefinitely. That being so, you had to go along-at least some-to get along. But if this place would be under new management (or rather, the old management again) pretty soon…

Yeah, you slanty-eyed son of a bitch, I’ll remember your face in my nightmares for the rest of my days. Do you have nightmares now, you bastard? If you don’t, I bet you will pretty soon. Serves you right, too.

Along with glancing at the guard, Fletch also looked south toward Wahiawa. Jane was still okay. He’d seen her. He knew. Maybe they could patch things up again. If Hawaii returned to the old management, why not? Anything might be possible then, anything at all.

X

PLATOON SERGEANT LES DILLON SPENT AS MUCH TIME AS HE COULD ON THE Valdosta Liberty’s deck. It was cooler and less cramped there than down below. He went below to eat in the galley-the rule was that no food left it-and to use the heads. He slept down there, too, and played poker. Other than that, no. Besides, when he was below he couldn’t see what was going on.

His troopship had been zigzagging west and south ever since sailing from San Diego. Other converted freighters and liners-and the destroyers escorting them-filled the Pacific as far as his eye could see. He thought this was a bigger fleet than the one that had sailed and then turned tail the year before. He couldn’t prove it, but it looked that way.

He was sure the course changes were quicker and more precise than they had been the last time around. When he remarked on that, Dutch Wenzel nodded. “I guess even the swabbies can learn something if you give ’em enough time,” the other platoon sergeant said.

“Looks like you’re right. Who would’ve believed it?” Les said. They stood only a few feet away from a couple of the Valdosta Liberty’s sailors. The sailors pretended not to hear. If they’d felt like brawling, Les was ready. What would Captain Bradford do to him? Make him miss the invasion? Not likely! The worst they could do to him was to send him in no matter what he did on the way.

That thought had hardly crossed his mind before the troopship’s loudspeakers crackled to life. “Now hear this!” an exultant voice said. “Now hear this! Our ships have whipped the Japanese Navy, and so we are good to proceed to our destination. Beautiful, romantic Hawaii coming up!”

The deck exploded in cheers. Sailors and Marines all yelled as if it were going out of style. Les joined in as enthusiastically as anybody else. So did his buddy. People around them were still shouting and screeching when he suddenly sobered. “What are we jumping up and down about?” he said. “We just won the chance to get our heads blown off. Aren’t you glad about that?”

“Fuckin’-A I am,” Dutch answered. “And so are you, you sandbagging son of a bitch. Otherwise we’d both be gunnies by now.”

“Well, shit. When you’re right, you’re right,” Les said. He and Wenzel had both turned down the chance for a third rocker under their sergeant’s stripes so they could go along on the failed attack the year before instead of training boots at Camp Pendleton. Then they’d ended up at Pendleton anyhow, still at their old grade. Life was a bitch sometimes.

The racket from the Valdosta Liberty’s engines got louder. The ship sped up. So did all the others in the invasion fleet. Wenzel grunted. “They don’t want to waste another minute, do they?”

“Would you?” Les answered. “They’ve wasted a year and a half already, and then some. About time we took Hawaii back. It’s not right for Hotel Street to belong to somebody else, goddammit.”

“There you go!” Dutch Wenzel laughed. “Now I know what I’m fighting for: cheap pussy and overpriced booze.”

“Suits me fine,” Dillon said, and Dutch didn’t contradict him.

As Dillon always did when he was up on deck, he looked out into the ocean to see if he could spot a periscope. The odds were long. In this miserable tub, the odds of being able to dodge if a Jap sub did fire a torpedo were even longer. He knew all that. He looked anyhow. It was like snapping your fingers to keep the elephants away: it couldn’t hurt.

“Wonder how far from Hawaii we are,” Dutch said.

“Beats me,” Les answered. “Ain’t a hell of a lot of street signs in this part of the Pacific. We’ll get there when we get there, that’s all.”

They got there three days later. They must have sailed past the battle between the American and Japanese carrier forces, but not a sign of it remained. The ocean kept its own secrets, kept them and buried them deep.

As the troopships approached the north coast of Oahu, the battlewagons and cruisers and destroyers that had accompanied and escorted the U.S. carriers were giving the landing beaches hell. The boom of the big guns echoed across the water. When the shells roared in, they rearranged the landscape pretty drastically.

Les watched with enthusiastic approval. “The more they knock the snot out of the Japs, the easier the time we’ll have,” he said.

Dive bombers took off from the carriers and pummeled what Les presumed to be Japanese positions, too. Their bombs kicked up even more dust and dirt than all that high-caliber artillery. It was, more and more, an aviator’s world. What does that make me? Les wondered when the thought occurred to him. A minute later, he shrugged. It makes me necessary, that’s what. They can blow Hawaii to kingdom come, but I’m the poor, sorry son of a bitch who lands there with a bayonet on the end of his rifle and takes it away from the Japs. Boy, am I lucky!

He couldn’t even blame his draft board, not when he, like every other Marine, had volunteered. The Army was the place for draftees, and welcome to them.

In spite of everything U.S. aircraft had done to the island, a few Japanese planes did get off the ground and attacked the fleet. The Hellcats and Wildcats overhead went after them like dogs after marauding wolves, but they made hits, too: here a cruiser, there a troopship. When flames and smoke burst from that other ship full of Marines or dogfaces, Les swore horribly: those were his countrymen getting hurt.

Here and there along the beach, Japanese field guns fired at the fleet. Shells splashed into the water around the warships. They returned fire. The Japs might have been wiser to stay quiet. When they drew notice to themselves, bigger U.S. guns did their damnedest to smash them flat.

Somehow, Dutch looked away from the astonishing spectacle ahead. He nudged Les. “Here come the LVIs.”

That made Les glance back over his shoulder, too. Sure enough, the landing craft-Landing Vehicles, Infantry, in official alphabetese-were coming alongside the Valdosta Liberty, as they were alongside the rest of the troopships, including the one that was on fire. Maybe that was a way to get the men off as fast as possible. Maybe it was more on the order of routine gone mad.

Whatever it was, Les didn’t have time to worry about it. He nodded to the men with whom he’d be going into battle: mostly kids not old enough to vote, some of them hardly old enough to shave, leavened by a sprinkling of the old breed, veterans like himself. He’d been wondering what to tell them when the moment finally came. Now it was here. “Don’t do anything stupid,” he said. “Just like the book, and everything’ll be jake. Right?”

Their helmeted heads bobbed up and down. Despite the most realistic training the Corps could give, most of them had no idea what being under fire was like. Their big eyes, tight lips, and somber faces said their imaginations were working overtime. Les remembered how scared he’d been when he got up to the line in France. He soon discovered everybody else was just as scared, including the Germans.