“We’d do all right.” Douglas still sounded uncomfortable. But then he rallied, saying, “Besides, who the hell would we fight? Nobody in his right mind would mess with Hawaii, and you know it.”

Down the hatch went Armitage’s latest whiskey sour. He gestured to the Filipino bartender for another one. Even before it arrived, he went on, “All this shit with the Japs doesn’t sound good. They didn’t like it for beans when we turned the oil off on ’em.”

“Now I know you’re smashed,” his friend said. “Those little fuckers try anything, we’ll knock ’em into the middle of next week. I dare you to tell me any different.”

“Oh, hell, yes, we’d lick ’em.” No matter how drunk Fletch was, he knew how strong Hawaii’s defenses were. Two divisions based at Schofield Barracks, the Coast Artillery Command with its headquarters at Fort DeRussy right next to Waikiki Beach, the flyboys at Wheeler right by the barracks complex here, and, just for icing on the cake, the Pacific Fleet… “They’d have to be crazy to screw with us.”

“Bet your ass,” Douglas said. “So how come you’ve got ants in your pants?”

Armitage shrugged. “I just wish…” His voice trailed away. He wished for a lot of things that mattered more to him right now than just how prepared the men at Schofield Barracks were to turn back an attack unlikely ever to come. And those weren’t ants in his pants. He and Jane had been married for five years. He was used to getting it regularly. These past three weeks had been a hard time in more ways than one. He sipped at the drink. “Life’s a bastard sometimes, you know?”

“Plenty of people in it are bastards, that’s for goddamn sure,” Gordon Douglas agreed. “You keep the hell away from ’em if you can, you salute ’em and go, ‘Yes, sir,’ if you can’t. That’s the way things work, buddy.” He spoke with great earnestness.