He didn’t tell them so. He didn’t want them getting swelled heads. Besides, why should he praise them for merely doing what they were supposed to do? If he did, then they’d want praise for every little thing. They’d expect it, but they’d be disappointed. He wasn’t the sort to throw praise around. He never had been, and he never would be.

They chattered back and forth in incomprehensible English as the Oshima Maru skimmed over the water. When they needed to talk with him, they switched to Japanese. That was almost always pure business. They didn’t waste a lot of time on chitchat with him. This past week, with no progress in the talks in Washington, the impulse to talk had dried up even more than usual. For all his efforts to make them into good Japanese, they saw things from the USA’s point of view.

Jiro looked ahead, trying to spot a good fishing ground. Hiroshi did the same, even if he wasn’t so good at it. Kenzo stared over the sampan’s stern, back in the direction from which they’d come. Jiro almost told his younger son, “Waste time!” but figured he’d be wasting his breath.

Then Kenzo pointed north towards Oahu and spoke one word: “Look!”

The urgency in his son’s voice made Jiro turn around. “Oh, Jesus Christ!” he exclaimed, an oath he used even though he was a Buddhist and Shintoist, not a Christian. Those black clouds on the horizon couldn’t be good news.

“That’s not Honolulu. It’s too far west,” Hiroshi said. “That’s Pearl Harbor. I wonder if some of the ammunition there blew up or something.”

Maybe he would make a proper fisherman one of these days after all. He was dead right about the direction from which the smoke was rising. Kenzo said, “I wish we had a radio on board. Then we’d know what was going on.”