“It is strange,” Matt agreed, “in a lot of ways.” He grinned. “But not much stranger than finding you here.” Orrin chuckled. He looked good, considering what he’d been through. Matt had been amazed to hear the kid had shown up on this world, and still marveled at the coincidence of it. Orrin had been his favorite cousin, more like the little brother he never had, and they’d been close before his uncle and aunt took Orrin and his five brothers and sisters off to California. That had been in… ’thirty-two? Right before Matt entered the Naval Academy. He’d heard Orrin joined the Army Air Corps in ’forty-one and hoped to be assigned to the Philippines, where he and Matt would be close. Orrin even arrived in the Philippines while Matt was still there, but they never had a chance to get together. Either Matt had been on maneuvers or Orrin had been busy with training and readiness exercises. Then, just a few weeks later, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and the Philippines, and Walker was ordered south to Java.
“Honestly,” Matt continued, “when I had time to think about it, I figured you’d been killed fighting the Japs. So many planes were lost so quickly, I knew the odds weren’t in your favor. The slaughter of the Air Corps was why the Navy had to leave the Philippines. We were sitting ducks.”
Orrin nodded with a frown. “I know. And I nearly was killed more times than I care to think about.”
Matt said nothing to that. The same was true for all of them now. “In retrospect,” he said instead, “I shouldn’t have been that amazed you made it here. On the scale of amazing things I’ve seen or learned over the past couple of years, that doesn’t really even make the chart. But I’m glad to see you.”
They talked of many things that day. There was a lot of reminiscing, and they both considered what a tough war it must have been for the Reddy clan back home. They talked about the situation on this world, as Matt knew it, and Matt noticed how the war here was increasingly becoming Orrin’s war, as much as anyone’s. Then they talked about the old war, as Orrin knew it.
Matt was appalled by the treatment Orrin and other POWs had suffered at the hands of the Japanese, and equally horrified by the atrocities inflicted on the Filipinos, whom the Japanese supposedly invaded to liberate. He’d never really liked the Philippines when he was stationed there-hadn’t much liked Walker back then, or the Asiatic Fleet in general, but he’d hated being run off. And then to hear what the Japanese had done after they left…
“Our Jap guards crowed a lot about their successes,” Orrin explained, “which were depressingly frequent at first,” he admitted. “Then they started to clam up and things got worse for us, if that’s possible. Things started to go sour for them after the Coral Sea and Midway, and Guadalcanal. They didn’t crow about those, and most of what we heard about them was smuggled in by Filipinos to boost our morale.” He grinned. “But the first really good news we got was that Jimmy Doolittle had bombed Tokyo itself!” He looked seriously at Matt. “That was right after we heard the Asiatic Fleet had ceased to exist. I hated to hear that.”
He kicked a black rock, and his grin returned. “Anyway, Doolittle’s stunt wasn’t much more than a poke in the eye, see? But it caused the Japs to take forces from their advancing fleets to beef up the defenses around the home islands, so the strategic effect was all out of proportion to the tactical one. Besides, it drove the Japs absolutely, fanatically nuts, and gave us a shot in the arm when we heard.” His face turned grim. “In spite of the increased beatings and sometimes ridiculously petty mistreatments.” Orrin had told Matt that the front line Japanese pilots and troops were first-class fighting men, but the prison guards acted like capricious, sadistic children with deadly weapons.
Matt wasn’t surprised by Doolittle’s stunt. Doolittle had been a national hero long before the war, and Orrin, in particular, had practically worshipped the man when he and Matt were kids together. The son of a sailor, Matt had rooted for the Navy in the air races, but he still admired Doolittle immensely.
“You know, I wonder,” Matt said absently, “if we could figure out a way and a reason to pull a stunt like Doolittle’s here.” He slapped his cousin on the back. “I think I’m going to keep that in my back pocket. I don’t believe- You said they made him a general? I don’t think General Doolittle would mind!”
Matt woke up in a white-painted, plank-wall room. A light breeze stirred the green curtains in the window, and at first he had no idea where he was. Then he remembered. Why on earth did they put green curtains in here? he asked himself. Yuck. They must’ve thought it was regulation or something. He sighed. His mouth was dry and he began to realize he hurt all over. His eyes were full of gummy goo and he wondered if he could get somebody’s attention. He heard an abrupt snort beside him and turned his head to see Isak Rueben sleeping in a chair beside the hard bed he was lying on. Isak’s head was tilted back, his mouth open, and Matt realized he’d been making those snorting sounds for some time.
“Chief Rueben,” he managed to say. “Wake up, Chief.”
Isak raised his head and blinked, then looked at Matt. He jumped to his feet, knocking the chair over with a loud crash. “Why, Cap’n Reddy! You’ve woke up at last! I’ll… I’ll run fetch somebody!” He darted from the room like a minnow.
“Not exactly the face I’d hoped to wake up beside,” Matt murmured grumpily.
“Which face is that?” came Sandra’s soft voice, almost beside his ear. He turned his head toward her and looked into her eyes.
“Yours is better,” he said, and smacked his dry lips. Sandra was fully dressed but lying beside him on the skinny bed, with maybe a foot of it to herself. He wondered how long she’d been there.
“Chief Rueben had the duty,” she answered his unasked question, “but when I came to check on you, he was asleep and I didn’t want to wake him.”
“My ship?” he asked, and she nodded. “He helped Spanky get her in the floating dry dock.” She grinned. “And argued with Tabby like they were married the whole time.” Sandra screwed her face up and tried to recreate Isak’s weird voice. “You may be a engineerin’ loo-tinnit now, Tabby, but I recollect when you was pilin’ brontasarry turds on top o’ each other! This is my… GD dry dock!”
Matt tried to laugh, but winced. Sandra rose and felt his forehead with the back of her hand, then stood. “I’ll get you some water,” she said.
“I’d rather you stay here.”
A commotion in the hallway preceded Chief Gray’s arrival with a pitcher and a cup. Others were behind him, trying to pass, but Gray kept them back with his elbows. He paused in the doorway. “Visitors?” he growled.
Sandra shook her head. “Not yet. Saan-Kakja and the ambassador first. Maybe others later.” She motioned Gray forward with the pitcher.
Gray looked over his shoulder. “You heard the lady, you buncha savages! The Skipper requires further repose!” The crowd eased back down the hall, and Gray handed over the pitcher triumphantly.
“You too, Fitzhugh.”
As taken aback by Sandra’s use of his first name as by the dismissal, Gray backed out of the room.
Sandra turned back to Matt and poured water in the cup, then held it to his lips. “Slowly,” she said. “Just a few sips.” Matt obeyed, then looked at her. “Just us, just now, how bad is it?” he asked. His memory was returning, and he’d localized most of the pain to his right thigh and lower abdomen. Sandra took a breath.
“I nearly lost you,” she whispered. “Again.”
“Comes with the territory.”
“I know,” she said, soft but harsh. “That doesn’t mean I have to like it.” She looked at him. “A fragment of steel-Spanky saw it later and is convinced it was a piece of a rivet. He blames himself.” She rolled her eyes. “Anyway, it went deep in your thigh and clipped the femoral artery. That was actually the worst of it, but we couldn’t find the fragment! It just kept going up-and we were afraid it got into your intestines. That’s why you’re split from just above the knee past your belt line. It actually did get past your pelvis, but stopped short of anything… else. Thank God. You’ll be very sore for a while!”