As things were, the Japanese in Hawaii didn’t have the fuel to do all the patrolling by air or water Shindo would have liked to see. They’d spent gasoline and fuel oil like a drunken sailor to get through the last battle. Now they had to bring in more, a ship at a time. It wasn’t a good way to do business, not when the merchant ships were short of fuel, too-and not when American subs would be hunting them.

“How soon will we be able to start using the oil we’ve taken in the Dutch East Indies?” Shindo asked.

“I’m afraid I haven’t got the slightest idea,” Fuchida answered. “Maybe Commander Genda would know, but I don’t.”

“If it’s not pretty soon, why did we go to war?” Shindo grumbled.

“Because if we hadn’t gone to war, we wouldn’t have any oil coming in at all,” Fuchida said. “And you can’t very well worry about using or rationing what you don’t have.”

However much Shindo would have liked to argue with him, he didn’t see how he could.

JIM PETERSON STOOD IN THE CHOW line with his mess kit and spoon. The rice and vegetables the Japs doled out to American POWs in labor gangs weren’t enough to keep body and soul together. That didn’t mean he wasn’t hungry and didn’t want the meager supper. Oh, no! For a little while after he ate it, he’d feel… not quite so bad.

He’d seen what happened when people got too weary to give a damn about food. The Japs didn’t let them rest. They worked them just as hard as anybody else, and beat them if they couldn’t keep up. And if the POWs died under such treatment-well, tough luck. Japan hadn’t signed the Geneva Convention. As far as her soldiers were concerned, surrender was the ultimate disgrace. Having surrendered, the American soldiers and sailors on Oahu were essentially fair game.

Plop! The man four in front of Peterson got his miserable supper. Plop! The man three in front. Plop! Two in front. Plop! The guy right ahead of Peterson. And then, plop! — he got his. For ten or fifteen seconds, the world was a glorious place. He had food! He hurried off to eat it, cradling the mess tin to his chest like a miser with a sack of gold.