As far as Jiro was concerned, a radio for the boat was more expensive than it was worth. He said, “Whatever’s going on up there, it’s got nothing to do with us. We have a day’s work ahead of us, and we’re going to do it.”

Neither Hiroshi nor Kenzo argued with that. If they’d tried, he would have knocked their heads together, and so what if he would have had to stand on tiptoe to do it? Some things simply needed doing, and he would have done what needed doing here without the least hesitation.

As things were, the Oshima Maru ’s diesel kept pounding away. Most of the smoke to the north vanished below the horizon. Jiro forgot about it. He’d find out what it was when he got home. In the meantime, there were fish to catch. If his sons wanted to go on about Pearl Harbor while they worked, he didn’t mind-as long as they did work.

He steered the sampan to what he thought would be a good spot. Boobies plunged into the sea nearby. That said there were small fish around. Where there were small fish, there could be tuna to feed on them. He killed the motor. The sampan glided to a stop, alone on the Pacific-alone but for that nasty smoke smudge in the north, anyhow. Whatever had happened to Pearl Harbor, it wasn’t anything small.

Again, Jiro made himself shove that aside. He picked up a tub of bait minnows and poured them into the ocean. Away they streaked: little silver darts racing in all directions. “Come on,” he told Hiroshi and Kenzo. “Let’s get the lines in the water and see how we do today.”

The fishing lines followed the bait. To Jiro’s eyes, those big, barbless hooks didn’t look much like minnows. Tuna, fortunately, were less discriminating.

As soon as he and the boys started hauling in the lines, he knew it would be a good day. Fat aku and bigger ahi hung from the hooks like ripe fruit from a branch. Take them off, gut them, store them, throw more minnows in the water to lure more tuna to their doom…