Out strode the commandant, the local Jap again in his wake. He was as good-or as bad-as his word. Three days with nothing to eat would have been no fun for men in good condition. For those already on the edge of starvation… They were the worst three days of Fletch’s life. He didn’t go quite without food: on the last day he caught a gecko about as long as his thumb, skewered it on a stick, roasted it over a tiny fire in his tent, and ate it scales, claws, guts, and all. It should have been disgusting. He remembered it as one of the most delicious things he’d ever tasted.

Several men quietly died during the enforced fast. Odds were they would have died soon anyhow. So Fletch told himself, watching two prisoners drag an emaciated corpse toward the burying ground. He half envied the dead man, who at least wasn’t suffering any more. And the poor, sorry son of a bitch didn’t look a whole hell of a lot skinnier than he was.

The commandant spoke again to the assembled POWs before the kitchens reopened. The warning was clear as a kick in the teeth: if the men gave him a hard time, maybe the kitchens wouldn’t reopen. By then, Fletch was almost beyond lessons. Standing at attention took not only all his strength but also all his concentration. He didn’t have much concentration left; he felt dizzy and light-headed.

Yammer, yammer, yammer. After the commandant spoke, the interpreter said, “Have you learned your lesson?”

Fuck you, you sadistic bastard! Fletch thought it, but he didn’t shout it. By that standard, he supposed he had learned his lesson. Instead, he chorused, “Hai! ” with the rest of the soldiers and managed to bow without falling on his face. It wasn’t easy.

More yammering in Japanese. “Perhaps now you will understand that, as men who have surrendered, you have no rights, only the privileges the Imperial Japanese Army graciously pleases to grant you.” The translator paused after saying that. If some hotheaded fool told him and the commandant where to head in, the whole camp would pay for it.

Nobody said a word. Only the wind’s soft sighing broke the silence that stretched and stretched. Fletch wasn’t the only one who’d learned the commandant’s lesson.

“As you were told before, when your rudeness began, you eat only by the grace of the Imperial Japanese Army,” the interpreter said. “Supplies are short all over these islands. The Army can no longer support idle mouths. If you do not work, you will not eat. It is as simple as that. Do you understand?”

“Hai! ” the prisoners chorused again. Yes, they’d learned the lessons the Japs wanted to teach them, all right.

“You will be assigned your duties,” the interpreter told them. “There is much damage to repair on Oahu, damage caused by your useless, vain, and senseless resistance. You will now have the chance to set it right. Work diligently at all times.”

So the commandant blamed the United States for the damage to Oahu, did he? Japan had nothing to do with it, eh? That’s a hot one, Fletch thought. No matter what he thought, his face showed none of it. The commandant’s idiotic opinions weren’t immediately relevant to him, the way anything that had to do with food was. The dumb Jap could think whatever he pleased.

Three or four more men keeled over waiting in the chow line once the commandant finally got done blathering. All but one came around when the men in line chafed their wrists and slapped their faces. That one, though, wouldn’t get up again till the Last Trump blew. He looked absurdly peaceful, lying there on the ground. Nothing bothered him any more. Fletch wished he could say the same.

When he did get fed, it was the same inadequate ration of rice and greens the cooks had been dishing out all along. It seemed like a six-course dinner at the Royal Hawaiian. Having anything in his stomach felt almost unnatural. And then, after he’d all but inhaled it, he realized he was just about as hungry as he had been before he got it.

It was better and more filling than a seared gecko. That he was reduced to such comparisons told him more plainly than anything else how degraded he’d become since the surrender. And what did he have to look forward to? Slave labor on starvation rations. He wondered how Clancy and Dave had done since they’d bailed out instead of giving up. One thing seemed obvious: it couldn’t have been a whole hell of a lot worse.

Of course, the Japs might have caught them and killed them, too. From where Fletch sat now, that didn’t look a whole hell of a lot worse, either.

KENZO TAKAHASHI SPLASHED Vitalis on his hands and then ran them through his freshly washed hair. The spicy smell of the hair tonic took him back to the days before the war. The bottle had cost him two nice aku. Once he’d rubbed in the lotion, he combed vigorously.

His brother clucked, watching him spruce up. “You sure this is a good idea, Ken?” Hiroshi asked dubiously.

“Not you, too, Hank!” Kenzo exclaimed. He looked down at himself. He wished he had something fancier than dungarees and a work shirt to wear. At least they were clean. Thanks to a Chinaman whose laundry had survived the fighting, he wouldn’t have the stink of stale fish fighting the Vitalis.

Hiroshi seemed embarrassed, but he was also stubborn. “Yeah, me, too. Taking out a haole girl right now isn’t the smartest thing you ever did.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ!” Kenzo stuck the comb in his hip pocket and threw his hands in the air. “I’m not going to marry her. I’m not going to molest her, either.” He had the small satisfaction of watching his brother turn red as he went on, “All I’m going to do is take her to a movie, so what are you jumping up and down for?”

“You can say that to me. I don’t have any trouble with it,” Hiroshi persisted. “What if you have to say it in Japanese to a bunch of soldiers? You’re asking for trouble, is what you’re doing.”

“Oh, yeah?” Kenzo said. “I’ll tell ’em my dad’s in tight with the Japanese consul. They’ll leave me alone so fast, it’ll make your head swim.”

The scary thing was, he was probably right. Connections never hurt anybody. That had always been true, and it seemed all the more so now. Kenzo wished his father had nothing to do with Consul Kita and the rest of the Japanese at the consulate. The more often Dad went over there and talked with those people, the more self-important he seemed to get. He just wouldn’t see they were using him as a collaborator. The idea of using his trips over there against the occupiers struck Kenzo as delicious. Turnabout is fair play. Who’d said that? He couldn’t remember. His English teachers would have frowned. At least he remembered the phrase. That was what really mattered, wasn’t it?

Hiroshi said, “The haoles won’t like it, either.”

“Hey, butt out, okay?” Kenzo’s temper started fraying. “Let me worry about it. It’s my business, not yours.”

“You’re as pigheaded as Dad is.”

That probably-no, certainly-held more truth than Kenzo wished it did. He could either fight with Hiroshi or go get Elsie Sundberg. He chose the latter without hesitation, and without a backwards glance. Just getting out of the tent, getting out of the refugee camp, seemed wonderful. Sunday afternoon felt almost as good as it would have before the war.

Try as he would, though, he couldn’t pretend December 7 and its aftermath hadn’t happened. Too much reminded him of the changes Honolulu and all of Hawaii had seen. The ruins left from the fighting, oddly, often seemed the least of those changes. The gangs of scrawny POWs clearing rubble with picks and shovels under the guns of Japanese soldiers were much more alien to what Kenzo was used to than the rubble itself. Seeing all those hungry haoles made him feel guilty for being well fed.

Before Honolulu changed hands, it had had as much traffic as any other American city of about 200,000 people. Now moving cars and buses had disappeared from the streets, though many were parked at the curb, more often than not sitting on one or more flat tires. Gasoline and diesel fuel for civilian use had simply dried up. If the Japanese couldn’t spare fuel for fishing sampans-and they couldn’t-they couldn’t spare it for anything.