Read Pearl Harbour - A novel of December 8th for Free Online

themselves by calling for help, or they just collapse and die shortly after reaching shore from severe exposure. Believe me, when you witness that, the way they finally come staggering out of the ocean, sunburned from the island, damn near blue from the ocean, but still working as a team and not a word of complaint, you wonder just who these lads will turn into.”
    Cecil looked down at his wristwatch. “Nearly tea time, or would you prefer something a bit stronger?”
    James grinned. “Stronger, but I do have that speech after dinner, and it would not be proper for a serving officer to trigger a diplomatic incident, so let’s stick with the tea.”
     
    The shimmer of moonlight across Hiroshima Bay held a haunting quality, actually reminding James of the old Japanese prints of such scenes as he settled back in his chair, Cecil bringing out the bottle of single malt they had both denied themselves hours earlier.
    With a nod of thanks, James let him pour several ounces. They smiled and held their glasses up.
    “For the King and President, God bless them,” James said, and without any more fanfare he drained nearly the entire glass in two gulps, Cecil following suit.
    “Well, is it fair to say your speech was a bloody disaster?” Cecil said, offering a weak smile.
    James said nothing, looking off. His audience of cadets, to be certain, had been the model of politeness, attentive, eyes fixed upon him, chuckling good-naturedly a few times when he stumbled a bit on his syntax and pronunciation of Japanese, but he knew the talk had been a lead balloon.
    The implication of the Washington Treaty, now over ten years old, the so-called 5-5-3 agreement, had been bald-faced in its intent. For every five capital ships allowed to the Royal Navy and the United States Navy, Japan was limited to three. The rational argument had been that both America and Britain had multiocean responsibilities, even in this period of alleged peace, while Japan’s natural interests were limited to the Pacific.
    It was an asinine agreement, James always thought. Though like many he had real reservations about Japan’s ever-increasing Imperialistic goals, nevertheless, she had indeed been a loyal ally, especially to England in the Great War. Bound by treaty, Japan had declared war on Germany when the show started in 1914, swept the small German enclaves out of the Pacific, and then dispatched a squadron of ships to help Britain in the Mediterranean. At war’s end she had aligned herself with her allies in the expedition to occupy part of Siberia during the Soviet revolution, until all had withdrawn in 1921. Those with a sharp eye toward the geopolitics of East Asia argued that a closer alliance with Japan should be sought as a counterforce to Soviet expansion into China.
    There had been several serious bumps in the situation between America and Japan, dating back to of all things the racism of the city of San Francisco, which had banned Japanese students from its public schools back in 1905; from immigration laws that essentially banned Japanese from settling in America, to the current diplomatic flurry about the takeover of Manchuria. But in general, a broad-thinking Occidental could see the potential of actual cooperation, if handled adroitly.
    The Japanese were as anxious about expanding communism as were most Americans, and the Soviet Union was right on Japan’s back doorstep. With this Stalin now firmly in control and apparently drenching his tortured nation in yet more blood, Japan could be seen as a potential counterforce in the region.
    But the 5-5-3 treaty had thrown a monkey wrench in the works for the time being. James felt as if he were navigating through a mined channel as he delivered his talk, having to adhere to policy, not able to mention the Soviets by name, and trying to emphasize points of agreement, all done in a language he had learned from his wife, a Nisei, half-Japanese, whom he had met when stationed in Hawaii right after the