We smashed them, Shindo thought complacently. If they come back here again, we’ll smash them again, that’s all.

A tall, horse-faced officer came up onto the flight deck from below. Seeing Shindo, he waved and walked toward him. Shindo waved back, then saluted as the other man drew closer. “How are you feeling, Fuchida-san?” he asked.

“Better day by day, thanks,” Commander Mitsuo Fuchida answered. He’d come down with appendicitis during the fight with the Americans. He’d completed his attack run, brought his bomber back to Akagi, gone straight to sick bay, and parted with the inflamed organ.

“Glad to hear it,” Shindo said. He’d led Akagi’s fighters during the last wave of the attack on Oahu and in the recent battle against the Yankees north of Hawaii. Fuchida had been in overall command in the first wave and also, illness or no, in the fight where he’d come down sick.

“It’s over. I got through it. They patched me up,” Fuchida said as more clanging and banging came from the hangar deck. Fuchida smiled. “Akagi can say the same thing.”

“I wish it weren’t taking so long,” Shindo grumbled. A thoroughly businesslike man, he didn’t notice Fuchida’s joke till it was too late to respond. Keeping his mind on business, he looked north and east. “I wonder what the Americans are doing with that beat-up flattop of theirs.”

“She’s under repair up in Seattle,” Fuchida answered.

“Ah, so desu? I hadn’t heard that,” Shindo said.

“I just found out a few hours ago myself,” Fuchida said. “One of our H8Ks spotted her. They’re amazing aircraft.” Enthusiasm filled his face. And the big flying boats were remarkable planes. Flying out of what had been the Pearl City Pan Am Clipper base, they could reach the West Coast of the USA for reconnaissance work or even to drop bombs. Fuchida had flown on one in a three-plane raid on San Francisco. That, no doubt, accounted for a good part of his enthusiasm.