by David Bishop
"The sarge is still alive?"
"I'd take more than a skull fracture and concussion to kill that old soldier."
Paxton was relieved to know he hadn't murdered Hicks, but didn't savour the prospect of serving under the sergeant again. "Where is he?"
"How should I know?" the sentry shrugged. "Try one of the field hospital units; they've got them set up all over the base." He walked past the marine, his attention already focused on an approaching truck.
Father Kelly didn't hear about the attack on Pearl Harbour until he made his daily visit to the base hospital shortly before noon. He had been praying at the chapel most of the morning, after a sleepless night haunted by a vision of Catherine. The priest knew she was dead, he was the one who had found her body and led her funeral service, but the beautiful young women in his dreams seemed more alive than ever. She spoke to him, asking the same question over and over again, the same question she'd been asking him in his sleep every night since she died: why?
The priest still didn't have an answer, despite spending two hours on his knees in the chapel, praying for guidance or an enlightenment that never came. Father Kelly said five novenas without interruption before giving up for another day. If he kept busy tending to the needs of others, it helped him forget the numbing hollowness in his own soul, if only for a while. That was better than the constant memory of how he'd failed Catherine.
He was surprised to see Wierzbowski in the ward and approached the private, ready to make light of whatever was ailing the soldier. "What's it this time? Another dislocated knee, or did you bruise your knuckles teaching Arnold Buntz a much deserved lesson?" Not that I condone violence, of course."
"Hello, father," Wierzbowski responded, his voice thin and weak. "I'm surprised to see you here. I thought they might have shipped you out."
"Really? Why?"
"You haven't heard? About what's happened at Pearl?"
Father Kelly shook his head. He was soon shaking it in disbelief after Wierzbowski described the reports he'd heard over the armed forces radio. "But that's terrible! And you say the Japanese gave no warning of their attack?"
"Seems they didn't."
"That's appalling," the priest whispered. "Declaring war is bad enough in a world already ravaged by so much fighting, but to attack an island populated by so many innocent women and children..." He thought back to his brief time at Oahu, en route to this posting. "You're sure this isn't some kind of hoax, like when that Welles fellow made his broadcast about Martians?"
"It's no hoax, father." The newly married Nurse Martinez came over to check Wierzbowski's chart and temperature. "Radio says President Roosevelt is expected to declare war in the next day or so, if not sooner."
"My God," Father Kelly said, making the sign of the cross and offering up a silent prayer for all those killed or injured back in Hawaii. As he did so, the priest was all too aware of the inherent contradiction. His own faith might be in question, but the habits of a lifetime died hard. Besides, even if I'm not sure I believe in God, Father Kelly thought, that doesn't mean He's stopped existing. Once his prayer was finished, a new and worrying fact occurred to him. "Pearl Harbour is between here and mainland America, isn't it?"
The nurse nodded, eyes fixed on her watch as she checked the pulse in Wierzbowski's left arm. "And we're between Pearl and Japan."
"Exactly," Father Kelly agreed, "so why did the enemy bypass us to attack Hawaii first? That doesn't make any sense to me."
"The whole Pacific fleet is stationed at Pearl," she replied. "Take that out of action and life gets a lot easier for the Japs. Besides, the sun rises five hours earlier at Oahu, and bombing's probably easier in daylight."
"Then it's only a matter of time before this base is attacked."
"That's what the doctors reckon," Nurse Martinez said. "Wierzbowski, I've got good news and bad news. What do you want first?"
The patient shrugged. "Good news, I guess."
"The treatments have worked, you're getting better."
"And the bad news?"
She grimaced. "Another few days and you can go back to your unit. Right now, I'm not sure that's the safest place to be."
"I'm not sure anywhere's safe now," Father Kelly observed.
The nurse nodded. "You're probably right." She noticed the priest staring at her. "Is there something wrong, father?"
For a moment Father Kelly believed he was looking not at her but at Catherine, as she would have been if still alive. So often she had talked about her dreams of becoming a nurse, helping people by easing their pain, making a difference to their lives. She saw it as a noble calling, a vocation like the priesthood. She saw him as noble, not as a man but as a healer of souls, and he had taken advantage of that naivety, had used his position of trust to-
"Father Kelly, are you all right?"
The priest shook his head, pushing away the images in his mind, the memories of what had happened back in Chicago. "Yes, yes, I'm fine. Sorry, my thoughts wandered there for a minute."
She walked around Wierzbowski's bed to put a comforting hand on Father Kelly's arm. "I know how you feel. Yesterday I was getting married and today we're all standing on the edge of war, with no way of knowing where it will lead us or what effect it'll have on our lives, or the people we love."
"Yes. Yes, you're right. It feels as if events are spiralling out of control. That's a frightening sensation for anyone, let alone those in a war zone." He patted her hand in thanks before walking across to a window that looked out over Clark Field. Dozens of P-40 fighters and B-17s were taking off, no doubt in search of the enemy, trying to head off an attack. "I fear my services could well be needed later, but is there anything I can do right now, my child?"
"We need fresh blood. If the Japanese do come-" The nurse stopped and corrected herself. "When they attack, we'll need all the blood we can get. The other nurses are setting up a donation station downstairs."
"I saw that as I came in and wondered what it was for. I'll go and give blood then. It'll feel good to do something useful. Prayers and comforting are all very well, but they aren't as much use as bullets or blood in a battle."
The vast aerial armada of Japanese bombers and fighters was approaching the Philippines when Suzuki felt a prickling sensation run up the back of his neck. He shivered, unable to account for his sudden feeling that they were on a collision course with trouble. "Otomo, can you see any sign of the enemy?"
"No, sir," the wingman said. "There's nothing up here except us."
"You're sure of that?"
"Yes, sir," Otomo replied. "Why do you ask?"
Suzuki hesitated before answering. "I can't shake the feeling that we're flying into danger. It's nothing tangible, more like a jangling at the back of my brain."
"Perhaps you're one in a thousand."
"Explain."
"Before he left for his own mission, Commander Hitori arranged a meeting with us while you were busy elsewhere. He said he wanted to see what sort of pilots you had chosen for the first squadron of kyuuketsuki."
"That sounds like Hitori, always wants the last word."
"He told us that one in a thousand vampyrs develops latent abilities they never knew they'd possessed. A sixth sense for danger was one such ability."
Suzuki snorted, his sceptical nature making it difficult for him to believe in such notions. But the uneasy sensation nagging at his brain was getting more insistent by the moment, demanding his attention. Perhaps there was something to what Hitori had told his recruits. Three months ago, Suzuki would never have believed in vampyrs, and now he was one of the undead, drinking the blood of living humans to sustain him. How was the idea of an instinct for imminent danger any more unbelievable than that?
"Kyuuketsuki, we must change course," Suzuki said. "On my mark we break right and fly directly south until I determine otherwise."
"Sir, I don't mean to question your judgement, but are you sure about this?" Otomo asked, doubt all too evident in his voice.
/> "Yes," Suzuki replied, trying to sound more certain than he was. "Prepare to change course: Five, four, three, two, one, break!"
The seven aircraft tipped up their left wings and headed south, moving away from the rest of the planes. Within a few seconds the Japanese flight commander was on the radio, demanding to know why the kyuuketsuki had broken away from the rest of the aerial armada. "Contact our advance radar stations, they'll have the answer," Suzuki said. He wasn't sure if he believed this himself yet, but it was the only response he had.
A minute later the rest of the Japanese planes changed course too, following the vampyr fliers south. The flight commander called Suzuki in person. "One of our radar stations detected another presence in the sky, at least fifty enemy aircraft moving to intercept our former heading. How did you know? The radar station said the presence was right at the edge of its range."
"How I know is not important," Suzuki maintained, "but remember this in the future. When the kyuuketsuki takes action, you should pay attention."
Martinez watched the B-17s and P-40 fighters returning to nearby Clark Field, showing no signs of having engaged the enemy while they were away. He and the other artillery gunners had been poised beside their anti-aircraft weapon all morning, waiting for an attack that never materialised. Now the sun was directly overhead, the blistering heat and humidity sapping their strength. The recruits were grumbling about having to stay out in the sun, when there was nothing to shoot at. Aimes sent two of them to fetch water and K-rations from Stores. The artillery teams didn't dare leave their guns in case the Japanese did attack, but they still had to take on liquid and food.
By midday even Martinez was expressing doubts about the radio accounts of a surprise attack at Pearl. "You know what reporters are like, always exaggerating everything to make their stories more exciting. The whole thing probably boils down to two guys in a midget sub popping up in the middle of the harbour and taking pot shots at the battleships," he muttered.
"Stow that garbage, Martinez!" Aimes barked. "We've got our orders and we'll stick to them, until somebody tells us different. If the Pentagon had wanted you to think, they would have made you an officer, not a grunt."
"Yes, sergeant," Martinez responded, "but how do we know that radio broadcast wasn't a hoax? Maybe the brass set it up as a kind of test to see if we're ready for war if it happens."
"There's no if about this, soldier. President Roosevelt, Congress and the Joint Chiefs may not have declared war on the Japs yet, but you can bet your bottom dollar we'll be at war by this time tomorrow. Is that clear?" Martinez didn't respond. He was too busy staring at something over the sergeant's shoulder. "I asked you a question, soldier! Is that clear?"
"Yeah, yeah, whatever you say, sergeant..."
"That's insubordination, Martinez. One more crack like that and you'll be spending the first week of the war on report!"
"I think you'll have to report me later," the private said, pointing at the sky. A black cloud had appeared on the horizon, moving towards Clark Field and its neighbour, Fort Stotsenberg. But the dark mass in the air was moving too fast to be a meteorological phenomenon. "Looks like the war's arriving."
Buntz was so busy arguing with the two artillery gunners outside the stores building, he didn't notice the dark cloud on the horizon, getting bigger by the minute. "You two clowns go back and tell Sergeant high-and-mighty Aimes that if he wants to requisition K-rations from me, he needs to supply the proper documentation, in triplicate, or else he and his men will go hungry." Buntz jerked a thumb at his office. "See that in there? It's my private domain. Not only do I run Stores for Fort Stotsenberg, as far as you're concerned I am Stores. You want something, you have to go through me, end of story."
But the two recruits had stopped listening to him. The fresh faced pair dropped the supplies they were trying to requisition and dashed away, back towards their anti-aircraft emplacement. "That's right!" Buntz shouted after them. "You better run! I'm the guy in charge around here, not Sergeant Aimes."
He watched the sprinting soldiers and realised his words were falling on deaf ears. Then he noticed the black cloud in the sky and heard the thrum of distant engines, getting louder and nearer with each passing moment. Private Arnold Buntz muttered a profane curse under his breath, all notions of his superiority forgotten in the face of more than two hundred and fifty enemy aircraft. He watched as a shower of black objects tumbled from the cloud, falling towards the US planes parked outside at Clark Field.
The Pacific war had reached the Philippines. The Japanese attack had begun. Buntz did the only thing he could think of at that second, the most historic moment of his greedy, grasping life: he ran for the nearest latrine.
TO: Sister Marie Kelly, Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Convent, Chicago
Dear Sis,
I watched people die today. The Japanese attacked Clark Field and Fort Stotsenberg with bombs and bullets, causing God only knows how much damage and death, and pain and suffering. Now that we're at war, I know I can't say too much in my letters to you, in case these missives should fall into the wrong hands. I'm sure you'll forgive my vagueness about specifics: censors have better things to do with their time than worry about a priest telling his sister the nun any military secrets.
I've seen death before of course, many times in fact. As a parish priest I sat with the old and the young alike as they passed from this life into God's eternal embrace. I've witnessed people dying so peacefully you'd think they had merely fallen asleep, and others who raged against the end as if it were a foe they could pummel into submission. I always thought such experiences would be ample preparation for life as an army chaplain. Death is death, and there's no denying it.
But the reality of so much death coming so quickly to so many, it rocks you back, it pushes all your certainties aside. I've never felt so helpless and yet so needed as I did today. Helpless because holding a gun is anathema to me, let alone firing one. The Japanese planes came and I could do nothing to turn them away beyond prayer. Invocations to heaven may be good for the soul, but I've found they have little effect when your enemy can neither hear your prayers nor understand the language in which they are spoken. So yes, I felt helpless amid the onslaught.
But I also felt needed. I was in the base hospital when the attack started, stacking sandbags in front of windows and helping to move patients away from vulnerable parts of the building. The hospital at Fort Stotsenberg is small and primitive by Chicago standards, but it is a solid enough building. That probably saved quite a few lives today. The first casualties reached the hospital not long after the bombing began, men risking their lives to deliver comrades in arms to the care of doctors and nurses. I'd never seen so many broken bones, so much scorched flesh.
The sobbing and wailing and groaning undid me at first, the level of suffering overwhelming me. But my training at the seminary and all my time as a parish priest was better preparation than I ever thought possible for life during wartime. I know that probably sounds amusing, even incongruous, but I believe it to be the truth. As a priest, your actions become ritualised, an automatic response overtaking you in certain situations. So it was for me today. I saw a soldier dying and found myself giving him the last rites, without even thinking. It was simply the right thing to do, the natural response to his suffering.
When I wasn't committing men's souls to the Lord, I was helping to save their lives, in my limited way. I carried stretchers, I put pressure on wounds to stop them bleeding, I even held one man down while his leg was being amputated. I'd never felt more alive in my life, in the midst of so much death and carnage. I believe I've found my true calling, the reason I took the cloth and became a man of God. But there was one moment from today that will haunt me forever, no matter how much good I do during this war, one loss that I cannot overcome or undo. The look in that person's eyes on facing death...
Forgive me, sister, I am rambling. I have not yet slept and am not sure when I will sleep again. My nerves are still jangling
from the day and my heart is overflowing with emotion. Thank you for being there, someone to whom I could pour out my soul, a confessor for my sins.
All my love,
Shamus.
FIVE
The bombers attacked first, unloading their deadly cargos from 23,000 feet. The bombs rained down on Clark Field, sprinkled like explosive confetti from the sky. The blasts walked down the runway where all the B-17s were parked, the aircraft engines still warm from their abortive search for the incoming Mitsubishis and Zeros. The American planes were stripped of their skins, either blown off by the explosions or burnt down to the frame by the scorching fires that followed. Within minutes the US aircraft were little more than twisted hulks, metal skeletons like the bones of some extinct species. Thick black smoke from the fires billowed up into the tropical sky, creating a dark shroud in front of the green mountains around the facility.
The anti-aircraft guns manned by the 200th Coast Artillery peppered the sky with flak, but their powder train fuses were only effective to 20,000 feet and could do no damage to the high altitude bombers. After ten minutes of firing uselessly at the heavens, Sergeant Aimes ordered his unit to stand down. "Stop wasting the damned ammunition!" he bellowed, pulling the recruits away from their guns one by one. "Stand down! You're not hitting anything, you're just blowing holes in the sky."
Martinez was last to abandon the effort, so intent was he upon targeting the enemy aircraft. "But we can get them, sarge! They can't stay up there forever; sooner or later those yellow bastards will run out of bombs. They'll have to come down here to shoot us. That'll be our chance!"
"Exactly," Aimes agreed. "Until they do come down, there's nothing we can do. Be patient, soldier, the war won't be won or lost today."
