throw your clothes on and rush over? Or did you think they’d hold up the war until you got here?”
“Sir,” Simpkins replied weakly, “I would have been out of uniform.” Then he realized the inanity of what he was saying. “My God.”
Jake shook his head. There was no way he could blame Simpkins or the supply sergeant who’d hoarded the priceless ammo during the battle. They just didn’t understand what was happening. Hell, did he? He’d already shaved and showered when the bombs started dropping, so he too had arrived clean for the battle. But would he have continued if the bombs had fallen only a few minutes earlier? Jake didn’t think so, but he wasn’t absolutely certain. Being at war was something totally new to everyone.
“Don’t worry, Lieutenant, there’ll be a lot of recriminations for this among the higher-ups, and not a whole lot of concern about how one lieutenant might or might not have fucked up. I’m not so sure I’m doing the right thing myself, but at least we’re here and doing something.”
Simpkins looked relieved. He was about to say something when air-raid sirens went off again.
“Jesus,” said Jake and looked around for an enemy. Was this a new attack, or was somebody finally getting around to sounding the alarm for an earlier one? By his count there’d been two distinct assaults on the Hickam Field area, with the last one several hours earlier.
Simpkins yelled and pointed out to sea. A long line of dots was low in the sky and approaching from the south. “My God,” Simpkins said. “They’re coming right over us.”
Jake told the gunners to hold their fire. The 37-millimeters had a range of about ten thousand feet, which wasn’t very much. The lead Japs were coming in low and fast, with other planes in long lines higher up and behind them.
“Now,” he yelled, and both guns opened up with a roar that was extremely satisfying. They were fighting back, and it felt good, damned good.
“What’re they going for?” Simpkins asked through the din. “Hickam’s pretty well shot over already.”
Jake agreed that it didn’t make sense unless they were going to make an additional strike on the ships in the harbor. However, if the smoke from the Ford Island area was any indication, they’d been pretty well shot up also. So what was the target?
Then he remembered the large cluster of oil storage tanks behind him. They were the target, not Hickam, and not the ships.
A Jap fighter peeled off the main group and lined up on them, daring Jake’s guns to shoot him down. The plane couldn’t have been twenty feet off the ground as it streaked toward them. Lights twinkled on the plane’s wings, and seconds later the ground around Jake’s guns was churned up by a storm of bullets.
Jake ducked and tried to claw into the earth while dust and debris covered him. In all his years in the army, today was the first time anyone had shot at him, and he didn’t like it at all. He whimpered and heard others crying and screaming. Then he heard a voice a lot like his own moaning in fear.
The plane was gone. He raised himself and looked around. One of his guns was destroyed, although the sergeant continued to fire the second at Jap bombers who were high overhead and out of range. They passed, and he saw their ghastly bomb loads tumble down onto the fuel tanks.
For a second there was silence, and he hoped they’d missed, but then the tanks began to explode in fiery bursts of oil that rolled into the sky. They were a couple of miles away, and he could still feel the heat. God help anyone near that inferno, he thought.
Again Jake scanned the skies. No more planes were approaching him, and there were smoking streaks across the blue that might indicate a plane had been shot down. He hoped so. Somebody had to punish the bastards. This attack was over, but was it the last? He prayed it was. How many more could Pearl Harbor take?
“Casualties,” he called out.
“Everyone’s okay,” Steinmetz answered, “except for the lieutenant.”
“Where is he?”
“Over here,” the sergeant answered grimly, “and over there.”
Jake looked where the sergeant pointed and gagged. Simpkins had been cut in half by the Jap fighter’s guns, and the two parts of his body were about twenty feet apart, connected only by a bloody trail.
Jake wrenched his eyes away from the awful sight and looked skyward. Far up, he saw a couple of planes. Japs, he thought, checking on the damage they’d done.
“Fuck you,” he screamed at them. “Fuck you!”
Alexa Sanderson had awakened well before seven. It gave her plenty of time to put on the coffee and awaken her husband, Tim. He grumped when she tickled him, and that made her laugh. It was a shame Tim had duty this wonderful Sunday morning, but that was the life of a naval officer. At least they’d had a marvelous Saturday night, attending a concert consisting of a battle among several of the battleships’ bands. The consensus was that the Arizona’s band was the best.
After that, they’d gone home, made marvelously noisy and athletic love, and then fallen asleep.
Tim left with plenty of time to make it from their small but expensive rented house on the outskirts of Honolulu to duty on the battleship Oklahoma. While she hated his leaving her, she was thankful that they were able to spend so much time together. So many other wives simply couldn’t afford to follow their husbands to their duty stations. Alexa didn’t consider having money a curse, although she took great pains not to flaunt it.
Alexa was also thankful that she and Tim had married. She didn’t think of herself as terribly pretty, and at twenty-eight, she was five foot nine and nearly one hundred and forty pounds. By contemporary standards, she was too tall, too athletic, too muscular, and, to compound problems, too intelligent, articulate, and outspoken for most men’s tastes. She had light brown hair, brown eyes, even features, and she thanked God that Tim had been attracted enough by the package to marry her three years earlier.
At least she knew he hadn’t married her for her money. He had even more than she did. There were those who thought Tim was dull, but she knew otherwise. He was quiet and sincere, and, better, would be out of the navy in a few months. Then they could go back home to Virginia and start the family they’d talked about so much.
She turned at the sound of a pounding on her kitchen door.
Melissa Wilson burst in, with her infant son in her arms and concern on her face. “Do you hear it?”
Melissa was Alexa’s neighbor. Short and pretty, she was the type of buxom princess other men always seemed to lust after. Melissa, Missy to her friends, was also very excitable.
“Hear what?” Alexa asked.
“The explosions.”
Alexa strained and realized there were rumblings off in the distance. She’d been so wrapped up in her thoughts that she hadn’t heard a thing. She grabbed her friend, and they ran outside. Located near the hills that overlooked Honolulu, her little bungalow was on higher ground than most of the area, but she still couldn’t quite see the harbor or where the sounds were coming from.
What she could see was smoke starting to rise from the area where the ships were anchored. Planes circled the smoke like bees, and she wondered if they were somehow trying to put out the fire. There were tiny puffs of black smoke in the air that looked like antiaircraft fire, but that just couldn’t be. Evidently it was a bad accident, but nothing that would involve antiaircraft fire.
Whatever it was, Alexa hoped it didn’t involve the Oklahoma. Tim had told her that a battleship was the safest place in the world to be, but she didn’t want that theory tested. She didn’t worry about Melissa’s husband, who was at sea on the carrier Lexington.
People had begun to gather on the dirt road that led to the city.
Everyone was puzzled and concerned. Whatever the accident was, it was beginning to look serious. Then another neighbor burst out of his house.
“Japs! I just heard it on the radio. Japs have attacked the battleships!”
Alexa was first incredulous, then stunned. She grabbed Melissa. “I have to get down there. Tim’s on his ship.”
Tim had taken their car, so Melissa said she’d drive and gave the baby to a neighbor to watch. Then Melissa got behind the wheel of her Chevrolet and drove toward the base. It was slow going as people filled the streets and stared at the growing conflagration. The closer they got, the more damage they saw, including homes and buildings burning fiercely. The Japs weren’t attacking just the base.
