Pearl Harbour - A novel of December 8th by William R. Forstchen, Newt Gingrich Page A

we must purchase and at a premium from one or the other of you or the Dutch in the East Indies.”
    “So you would like to secure these resources?” James asked.
    Fuchida smiled. “Trade is better of course,” he replied. “And, dear friends, don’t quote me, I’m just a naval lieutenant trying to get those above me interested in flying.”
    “But of course,” Cecil replied smoothly.
    “I cannot speak for policy,” Fuchida continued, “but I think it fair to say that if wiser heads prevail, on both sides, the three of us can find far more in common than what might divide us. There are, of course, the Soviets to contend with; and remember, they are not at your back door, but they are most certainly at ours.”
    “Though Stalin has backed away from the more radical talk of the International and Trotsky has fallen, still they export their disease into China with this new revolutionary leader there, this Mao. Imagine China as Communist, and you and I might find ourselves side by side trying to block them.”
    “I would think that the Nationalists have him well in hand,” James said.
    Fuchida shook his head.
    “Give it five years,” he replied. “You Westerners do not understand the Chinese as we do. Remember, we have had two thousand years of dealing with them; you have not. Oh, you have your sentimental visions of them from your missionaries; but China can only be ruled by one central authority, and for now, the thought of any democratic rule, the line that the Nationalists parrot to you in order to receive aid, flies in the face of their history.”
    “So you will go into China?” James asked.
    “I did not say that,” Fuchida said forcefully. “And besides, even if that did happen, it would not be a naval affair, it would be the army, and they are a different breed.”
    He fell silent and James registered something in his manner and speech. A hint of disdain in his reference to the army.
    “Another?” Cecil asked, holding up what was left of the bottle.
    Fuchida hesitated, making as if to stand up to leave.
    “Come on, my friend,” Cecil said. “I don’t have to teach tomorrow. I look forward to hearing your talk, then seeing the two of you off in your plane. Besides, I want to hear about your insanity with this flying. Bad enough getting off the ground, but from the deck of a ship?”
    Fuchida smiled and held his glass back up, and there was something in the gesture that made James smile.
    Within a minute, loosened up a bit by a few more sips of scotch, the Japanese pilot was talking animatedly about the future of naval aviation, dreams of new designs, of planes that could cruise at four hundred kilometers per hour, how the battleship was obsolete, as proven by the now disgraced Billy Mitchell, and all three were soon sharing the usual complaints about the hidebound nature of battleship admirals lost in the past.
    And as the hours slipped by James found, at first, an admiration for this young man, so dedicated, so intellectual and visionary. Perhaps it was fueled by the scotch, perhaps by sentiment, but it was not all that long ago that he and Cecil had been like him, though their passion was code breaking.
    With the coming of dawn another bottle had been consumed, and the three were trading songs, at first traditional ballads of their respective branches, and from there descending into bawdy chanties that seemed to be amazingly universal in their plots and themes, no matter what the language.
     
    Near Tokyo: April 1934 2:30 p.m.
     
    “Hung over or not, my friend, I think it’s time you saw what we can do!”
    James, strapped down in the backseat of the open cockpit American-made Stearman biplane, wanted to beg for mercy.
    The flight, well so far, had been relatively uneventful, even though he did vomit within five minutes after they had lifted off from the grass strip, leaving behind Cecil and several dozen cadets who had attended Fuchida’s animated lecture about the future of naval