Days of Infamy by Harry Turtledove

Author:Harry Turtledove [Turtledove, Harry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group USA, Inc.
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

A JAPANESE OFFICER shouted in his own language. Along with the rest of the prisoners in the Pearl City camp, Jim Peterson waited for the English translation. He didn’t have to wait long. As usual, a Hawaiian-born Jap about his own age stood next to the officer. The local wore a sharp sharkskin suit. He seemed happy as a clam to serve his new bosses.

“You will be moved,” he said. “You will go to the north and central part of the island. Some of you will work in the fields. You will be well fed and well treated.”

Peterson turned his head ever so slightly toward Prez McKinley, who stood beside him. “Yeah, and the check is in the mail,” he said out of the side of his mouth.

McKinley snickered. He didn’t do it very loud, though. Guards watched the POWs. If you got out of line, they beat you. They stomped you, too, and hit you with sticks. They’d already killed at least one American. Nobody wanted to give them any excuse to go to work.

And there were probably prisoners who couldn’t be trusted. Peterson didn’t like thinking so, but it was the way to bet. Some people were out for themselves, first, last, and always. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. If you can’t lick ’em, lick their boots.

The Jap with the sword on his hip shouted some more. The quisling in the sharkskin suit translated: “This move will begin in one hour. All able-bodied prisoners must go. It is an order from the Japanese Imperial Army.” The way he said it, God might have handed it to Moses on a tablet of stone.

“What about the wounded? What about the sick?” somebody called.

Questions—the mere idea that there could be questions—seemed to surprise both the translator and the officer. The officer growled something. If it didn’t mean, What the devil was that? Peterson would have eaten his hat. The local Jap spoke nervously in Japanese. The officer said something else. The translator returned to English: “They will come when they are fit. Until then, they stay here.”

“They could put most of ’em on trucks and bring ’em along,” McKinley said as the gathering broke up.

“They could, yeah, but why would they?” Peterson answered. “They can’t have a whole lot of fuel here. You think they’re going to waste it on Americans? You think they’re going to waste it on American prisoners, for crying out loud?”

“For crying out loud is right,” McKinley said. “Don’t know what the hell I was thinking. I musta been outa my tree.”

“For Japs, they’re being damn nice to give us an hour to get ready,” Peterson said. “It’s not like I’ve got a lot to pack. Outside of the clothes on my back, what I’ve got is a canteen and a deck of cards.”

“Take ’em,” Prez McKinley said. “You can kill a lot of time with cards. And fill up the canteen before you start. God knows whether those monkeys’ll give us anything, no matter what they say.

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