In spite of everything, Walter Short was astonished. “What? You can’t do that!” he shouted.
Admiral Kimmel hung his head. He knew too well that they could. He might not have expected it, but he recognized the possibility.
“By passing sentence on you, we remind other officers in the military service of the United States that they must be diligent in the pursuit of their duties at all times and under all circumstances,” the judge who’d announced the verdict declared.
“Pour encourager les autres,” Kimmel murmured.
“I beg your pardon?” the judge said. “I don’t speak French.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Admiral Kimmel replied. Charlie was sure he was right. The judge would never have heard of Admiral Byng. Chances were he’d never heard of Voltaire, either.
“This is an outrage!” Walter Short certainly sounded outraged. “I’ll appeal this-this travesty of justice!”
As a matter of fact, that was just what it was. Even so, Charlie was sure appealing wouldn’t do General Short one red cent’s worth of good. The judge didn’t say that, not in so many words. He said, “You have the right to appeal, yes. The President will personally review this proceeding and will pass judgment on all appeals springing from it.”
“Oh,” Short said in a sick voice. Reality suddenly crashed down and hit him on the head, the way the acorn-and maybe the whole sky-had hit Chicken Little. He wouldn’t be able to talk his way out of the blame for Pearl Harbor. He might or might not deserve all of it, but it had landed on him. Husband Kimmel had figured that out faster.
In the end, they both appealed. Kimmel must have thought he had nothing to lose, and how could anyone tell him he was wrong? He also had nothing to gain. Neither did Walter Short. Joe Steele rejected both their appeals and ordered the tribunal’s sentence carried out.
Charlie didn’t go to watch the executions. No one was paying him now to witness men’s deaths. It had sickened him when he did it. Yes, some died more bravely than others. What difference did that make, though? Brave and not so brave ended up equally dead.
Word came back to the White House that both Short and Kimmel met their final moments with as much courage as anyone could want. “I didn’t have them shot for cowardice,” Joe Steele said. “I had them shot for stupidity-a much more serious failing in an officer.” His pipe sent up smoke signals. Neither Charlie nor any of the President’s other aides had any reply to that.
XVII
Mike approached the encampment’s administration building with trepidation. No, dammit, I’m a writer. Forget the fancy talk, he thought. I’m approaching that place with fear. Like any wrecker, he had good reason to stay as far away from the administration building as he could. It was full of Jeebies, and nobody in his right mind wanted anything to do with those bastards.
Snow crunched under his boots. The air he breathed in stung his nostrils. He breathed out fog. It was goddamn cold. It was dark, too. The encampment lay on about the latitude of Bangor, Maine-far to the north of the New York City cycles he was used to. When winter neared, night slammed down early and stayed late.
Not surprisingly, the administration building lay next to the punishment block. The GBI men needed to keep an eye on the luckless fools they jugged. Also not surprisingly, the administration building, unlike the rest of the encampment (well, except for the searchlights in the guard towers), had electricity. A gasoline-powered generator inside chugged away. It sounded like a distant truck engine idling rough.
A guard in a fur hat frowned and hefted his Tommy gun when Mike came inside the circle of light the bulb above the entryway threw into the darkness all around. “Who are you? What do you want?” the Jeebie asked, his voice harsh and suspicious.
“Sullivan, Michael, NY24601, sir. Barracks Seventeen.” Mike identified himself the way a wrecker should. He exhaled more vapor before he went on, “I want to ask permission to join the Army, sir.”
“Oh, Jesus! Another one!” But the guard didn’t tell Mike to get lost, the way he would have before the Japs hit Pearl Harbor. The United States was at war now. A wrecker who volunteered for the Army wouldn’t necessarily have it easier than one who served out his stretch inside an encampment. All kinds of bad things could happen to you in these places, sure. But unless you ran away or the guards were feeling uncommonly mean, they weren’t likely to shoot you. Japanese and German soldiers might prove less considerate.
“Yes, sir.” Mike stood there and waited. He didn’t come any closer. Doing that before the guard said he could might make the SOB decide he was dangerous. He didn’t want that. Oh, no.
After a few seconds, the Jeebie gestured toward the door with his Tommy gun. “Well, come on, then,” he said gruffly. His breath smoked, too. “They’re putting together some kind of asshole list in there. You wanna stick your name on it, you can. Guy you wanna see is Lopatynski. Room 127-turn left when you get inside and go halfway down the hall.”
“Thank you, sir!” Mike knew most of that from other wreckers, men who already had their names on the list. But you had to keep the guards buttered up. They’d make you pay if you didn’t. Sometimes they’d make you pay even if you did.
The Jeebie patted him down before letting him inside. He had a knife, one made from part of a big can of corn and patiently sharpened on granite. Most wreckers had them. They used them as tools more than as weapons. He’d made sure to stash his in his miserable sawdust-stuffed mattress before coming here, though. No matter how common they were, they were also against the rules.
Bright lights and heat clobbered him inside the building. He unbuttoned his jacket, something he hadn’t done since early fall except for the weekly scrub in disinfectant soap. Wreckers shivered through about eight months of the year. Not the Jeebies. They had it soft.
Aloysius Lopatynski was a warrant officer. Not a sergeant. Not a lieutenant. Betwixt and between. He had a specialty that made him useful, but not enough general wonderfulness for them to turn him into a full-fledged officer. He was typing some sort of report-respectably fast-when Mike stood in the doorway to room 127 and waited to be noticed.
He didn’t have to wait long. Lopatynski looked up and said, “Who are you? What do you need?” Not What do you want? — an interesting variant, especially from a Jeebie.
“Sullivan, Michael, NY24601, sir. Barracks Seventeen.” Mike went through the ritual again. Then he said, “Jonesy outside told me you were the one to see about joining the Army.”
“Right now, no one from any encampment is joining the Army. No wrecker, I mean-several guards here have enlisted,” the warrant officer said. “What I am doing is putting together a list of people who may be interested in volunteering if and when that’s permitted.”
“Okay, that’s what I need, then.” Mike gave his information to Lopatynski once more. The Jeebie entered it on that list. Then Mike said, “My stretch is five to ten. I got here in 1937, so they could be turning me loose in a few months.”
“You were an early bird, weren’t you?” Lopatynski remarked.
“Well, kinda,” Mike answered with a certain pride. He wasn’t an early bird next to somebody like John Dennison, but far more wreckers had come in after him than before. He went on, “If they do turn me loose next summer, can I go straight into the Army then?”
“That’s an interesting question. I’m not sure of the answer. Of course, you also don’t know if they’ll turn you loose at the short end of your stretch. But if they release you while the war is still going on. . I don’t know what your obligation would be. I don’t know if you can volunteer, either. You can try, and find out what happens.”
“All right. I’ll do that when I get the chance. If I get the chance.” Mike hesitated before adding, “Thanks.” He said it to the guards all the time. It didn’t mean much to them, though; he was just another wrecker trying to keep the screws sweet. Saying it when he did mean it came harder.