Infamy

Now she remembered everything: coming in flying low over the anchorage with all the battleships lined up in the early light of a beautiful dawn; circling Hickam Field and approaching for landing, with the noise of the lowering wheels in the slipstream; a sudden row of bullet holes appearing in the side of the fuselage just ahead of her, as if sewn perfectly by a Singer machine; the violent rearing of the cabin as the pilot took evasive action; a fleeting glimpse of another aircraft flashing past her window; bodies and the luggage flying everywhere; a harsh CRASH as the plane landed so heavily the wheels snapped off; more perfect rows of holes, this time accompanied by loud noises and a sudden scream of pain from one of the other passengers—yes, it was the admiral who had told her he was satisfied with the forward deployment of the fleet;  the agonizingly loud screeching of the metal belly of the aircraft as it careened down the runway in a cascade of sparks, as if she were riding a firework rocket or a shooting star; the sudden softness of a woolly wall of impenetrable darkness at the end of the runway which gave way, in due course, to the sounds of the Chattanooga Choo Choo.