Days of Infamy by Harry Turtledove Page A

loud, he couldn’t stand it any more. He and Charlie went into Waimea for something to eat. It wasn’t a big town. There weren’t a lot of choices, especially on a Sunday. As they usually did when they were up there, Oscar and Charlie headed for Okamoto’ssiamin stand. For a quarter, you could get a bowl of noodles and broth and sliced pork and vegetables that would hold you for a hell of a long time.
    Old man Okamoto looked faintly apprehensive when they walked in. Oscar wondered why. They hadn’t cadged a meal off him in a year and a half, and they’d paid him back for that one the next time they were here. They ordered their noodles and sat down to wait while the gray-haired little Japanese man ladled them out of the big pot he kept bubbling in back of the counter. He set the bowls on the table along with the short-handled, big-bowled china soup spoons every Japanese and Chinese place in Hawaii seemed to use.
    â€œThanks, Pop,” Oscar said, and dug in. He and Charlie both ate like wolverines. He was halfway down the bowl before he noticed old man Okamoto had the radio tuned to KGMB, not to the nasal-sounding Japanese music he usually listened to. KGMB should have been playing music, too, if of a more normal sort. It wasn’t. Instead, an announcer was gabbling into the mike. He sounded as if he’d have kittens right there on the air.
    That was how Oscar—and Charlie, too—heard about Pearl Harbor. “Jesus,” Charlie said. Then he spooned up some more siamin. Oscar nodded. He went on eating, too. After a couple of minutes, he glanced over to old man Okamoto. No wonder the old guy was nervous! If the Japs had done that down there, he probably counted himself lucky that his neighbors hadn’t come by with pitchforks and tar and feathers.
    Oscar laughed. Like most old-country Japanese, Okamoto had come to Hawaii to work in the fields. He’d been running this place for as long as anybody could remember, though. You had to be crazy to think of him as a danger to the United States. His neighbors must have felt the same way—no sign of tar and feathers.
    â€œYour KGMB time is eleven-forty-eight,” the man on the radio said, his voice getting shriller every minute. “We have been ordered off the air by the United States Army, so that our signal does not guide Japanese airplanes or parachutists. We will return only to transmit official bulletins and orders. Please stay calm during this period of emergency.”
    This time, Charlie laughed first. Oscar followed suit. The radio signal cut away to sudden, dead silence. How would the horrible news, followed by the station’s disappearance, make anybody stay calm?
    Something else crossed his mind. Japanese parachutists? What wouldhappen if the Japs invaded Oahu? He hoped the Army would trounce them. What else was it here for? But suppose it didn’t. It sounded as if the Japs had landed on things with both feet. Suppose . . .
    Oscar eyed old man Okamoto again, more thoughtfully this time. If the Japanese Empire’s soldiers came to Oahu, how would the local Japanese respond? He’d heard Army and Navy brass had sleepless nights about questions like that.
    But it was their worry, not his. He and Charlie got to the bottom of their bowls at the same time. “What now?” Charlie asked.
    â€œI don’t want to go back to Honolulu right away. Everybody’s gotta be going nuts down there,” Oscar answered. “Besides, if the Japs are shooting up Wheeler and Schofield and Kaneohe, God knows if we can even get there from here. We might as well hang around and surf and hope the waves get better. What do you think?”
    Charlie nodded. “Suits me. I was gonna say the same thing, but some haoles , they figure they all the time gotta do stuff, you know what I mean?”
    â€œIf I saw anything I could do, I’d do it,” Oscar said. “You want to join the Army right