They agreed that it was a splendid idea. Harding said his wife lived a couple of miles away and would get them some clothing so they could get started on some real shopping without having to wear hospital gowns.
“Just curious, but what would you have done if we’d said we wouldn’t cooperate?” asked Grace.
Harding smiled grimly. “Then we would have moved you to a place in the desert with real guards and it would have taken decades to find your nursing credentials.”
Grace nodded. “Keeping mum sounds like a splendid idea to me.”
Harding turned and smiled at Amanda. “And I do hope you find your boyfriend in San Diego.”
Amanda blushed. “Are my motives that transparent?”
He laughed. “Yes.”
Amanda flushed. “He’s a navy officer and his name’s Tim Dane and he was supposed to leave Hawaii on a sub. Have you heard of him?”
Harding shook his head. “No, but it’s a big navy. I’ll check around. Any of you other ladies have anybody you want me to check up on?”
Ruby Oliver and her little band of soldiers had been augmented by one more GI who carried a tattered duffle bag instead of a rifle. He explained that he was the base photographer and that the major had told him to take pictures of his troops fighting off the Japanese.
“And I did what he said, Miss Oliver, and it made me sick,” said Private Perkins.
Ruby took him aside so they could talk privately. “First of all, call me Miss Oliver again and I’ll be forced to kill you and it will be painful. Understand?”
Perkins was a scrawny kid who was well outmanned by Ruby. “Okay,” he said with a shy grin. “Ruby.”
“Now, what kind of cameras do you have in that bag?”
“Ah, one eight-millimeter movie camera and a couple of regular cameras. The eight-millimeter’s one of those that’s sixteen millimeter and takes pictures on two halves.”
Ruby had no idea what he was talking about, but decided it didn’t matter. “And you took pictures of everything?”
Perkins face fell and his lips began to tremble. He had seen much too much for a young kid. “Yeah. I started shooting when we pulled out of the base and kept it up when Jap shells started clobbering us. I started to help some of the wounded, but the major told me to keep filming so people would know what had happened, so I did. Then he got killed along with the wounded I was trying to help. When I realized I was alone, I ran into the town and watched as the Japs massacred the prisoners by shoving them into the ocean.”
“You got that on film?” Ruby asked incredulously.
“All of it, Ruby. Every second of it,” he said and started to cry. “They were my friends.”
“How old are you, Perkins?”
“Seventeen. I lied to get in. I’ll never tell a lie again. I’d really just like to go home.”
She held him to her bosom and hugged him until he calmed down. None of the others could see the exchange, so no one would mock him for being a sissy and breaking down in front of a woman. If they had, she would have chewed them out until they’d cried as well. None of them had handled this disaster very well, and a couple looked like they too were on the verge of emotional collapse.
“You have any film left?”
“Lots, and of both types.”
She took him back to the others and introduced him. They were from different units and didn’t know him very well. The men were uninterested until she told them he was going to take their pictures and send them home to loved ones. At that point they brightened up. Maybe life wasn’t so futile after all.
First, though, they had to find a place that was far enough from the Japs and where they could communicate with the rest of the world either by phone or radio. Maybe she could arrange for a small plane to land somewhere and pick them up along with Perkins’s films. Remembering the massacre of the prisoners made her angry once more, but having proof of it would be vindication. Let the world see what miserable, barbaric sons of bitches the Japs were.
She looked at her nervous and frightened flock, and wondered—what have I done to deserve this? “I know you’re all soldiers and the highest ranking one of you is supposed to lead, but let me make a proposition. I’m from here and I know the area. I’m confident I can get us all to safety, including Perkins and his magic cameras. If you don’t want me to work with you, that’s okay too, and I’ll just strike off on my own and leave your worthless asses here to either starve, be eaten by grizzlies, or be captured and you know what’ll happen to you then.”
One of the soldiers, a PFC, stood and smiled. “My name is Crain and we’ve already talked it over and I guess I’m senior and would normally be in command. However, back at the fort I was a cook and not really much of a soldier. None of us are so stupid that we’d reject your idea, and we’re all willing to follow your lead.”
“Good.”
“One thing, though. When we get back to the real world and the real army, please tell them you were just advising us, won’t you?”
Dane’s first view of the attack force that would strike the Japs at Anchorage came from one of the inadequate windows of the C47 that was carrying him and others to Puget Sound. Below, the twelve PBYs looked like either strange toys or a flock of large but truly ugly birds sitting on the water. More and more he doubted the wisdom of launching an attack on the Japanese invaders with such unwarlike planes. He was beginning to deeply regret opening his mouth and putting both himself and others in peril.
He asked for and got permission to fly again with Ensign Tuller who openly called it a suicide mission and berated him for coming up with the idea. “Look, Commander, it’s one thing for us to attack a sub or a relatively unarmed freighter, but we’re no good at hitting ground targets and we’ll be nothing more than low, slow targets for Jap gunners.”
“Which is why the plan calls for us to fly low and slow and come in over from land, rather than water. Hopefully, they won’t expect us to come from that direction.”
“With respect, Commander, ‘hopefully,’ my ass. Low I’ll give you and slow is the only way we can fly, and coming in over land might just give us the element of surprise, but that won’t last long. Maybe ten seconds if we’re lucky. Besides, I’ll give you a dollar for every real target we hit.”
Dane could not argue with Tuller’s assessments. What was now referred to as “Dane’s idea” had taken hold and would be implemented regardless. As Spruance had explained to him as he was departing, “It’s vitally important for us to hit back at the Japs, or at least be perceived as hitting back. The American public is demanding that we do something, anything, to strike back at our enemies. Even though Alaska isn’t a state, it’s damn close to us and we just can’t let them get away with invading us and not do anything.”
When Dane had been on the verge of saying something, the admiral had put his hand on Dane’s shoulder. “Doolittle’s raid was a mission with little chance of success and it managed to rile the Japanese government into doing something foolish. With just a little bit of luck, the Japs would have suffered the disaster at Midway and not us.”
“Even if we do nothing other than dig holes in the ground with bombs and lose a lot of planes?” Dane asked.
“No. It won’t be like flying over Japan and then having to bail out over China like Doolittle’s boys did,” Spruance said. “You’ll have a much greater chance of survival.”
Dane shuddered. While many of Doolittle’s pilots had escaped, some had been shot down and captured. Rumors had it that they either would be executed or had already been killed.