by John Kelly
For the next few days, every time she had a free moment, Amanda trawled through libraries and newspaper houses searching for information that would give her some insight as to the events surrounding the decision to bomb Hiroshima. She googled the internet for websites posting anything that would help her piece together the facts. She found it difficult to accept Quentin Avers' assertion. The notion that dropping the Atomic Bomb was not justified on military grounds, that somehow political considerations could have triggered such a decision was anathema to her. Surely not! Only a madman, a Hitler, a Stalin, a Pol Pot, could do such a thing. She spent all her spare time reading, absorbing everything she could find on the subject. Several books and de-classified Pentagon documents together with a host of historical analyses later, her worst fears were confirmed. Several website descriptions of that cataclysmic morning of August 6th 1945, and its horrifying aftermath for the victims dramatically captured the extent of the broader devastation.
Amanda was shocked enough at the vivid nature of eye-witness reports expressed on some websites she perused. But that was only the beginning as she then turned her attention to the books she had borrowed from the library and information downloaded from the internet. Information that told the political side of the story; the story that had somehow been erased from the international conscience, the story that had been covered up, and then, when it could no longer be concealed, was glossed over, then mollified with a spin so sickening to the morality of human kind, it overshadowed accounts of Japanese atrocities in Burma.
The initial justification for dropping the bomb, carefully presented as it was, offered a dramatic shortening of the war, avoiding a land invasion of Japan. Up to one million American lives would be saved, it said. It had to be done, it said. The Japanese would fight to the last man, they said. They would never surrender. As Amanda read report after report, she found it resonated with a more recent invasion of another country, to capture and destroy certain non-existent weapons of mass destruction. But just as the propaganda smoke-screen shielded the truth about Iraq, Amanda realized the same process had been employed post-war, by President Truman about Japan. For in truth, the Japanese had offered to surrender. They knew they were defeated and for them, the war was over except for the fighting. They had no navy left; they had no air-force. Their supply lines were cut, depriving their soldiers in the field of both food and ammunition. Moreover, their people at home were starving. Document upon document, diary upon diary, revealed attempts by the Japanese to end the war. Those same documents also revealed a puzzling lack of interest by the US administration to respond beyond continuing to demand a total and unconditional surrender. But most troubling of all to Amanda, they revealed unmistakeably, that Truman knew the Japanese wanted to surrender, he knew he could end the war without dropping the bomb, and without the need for a land invasion. He had been petitioned by the scientists who built the bomb not to use it. He had been cautioned by several senior US military leaders including General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who were also aware that Japan had wanted to surrender. But Eisenhower cautioned Truman further. He did not want the United States to be the first country to use such a weapon.
Yet, President Truman gave the order anyway. 'Why? Amanda thought. 'Why would he do that?'
During that week she saw Quentin Avers once more when he called for her at the office and drove her to Coventry House. There, she set eyes upon Ronnie Maclean, who looked even older than his eighty years. He looked frail and wasting, his thin, bony structure a testament to his illness. He sounded incoherent, often gasping for breath. His two sisters, Penelope and Evelyn sat quietly in the background while Amanda and Quentin sat at his bedside and the three of them spoke briefly.
'I hope you find what you are looking for,' he struggled to say. Amanda nodded. 'I'll do my best,' she said reassuringly.
'Japan will be very pretty this time of year, with the spring blossom out,' he said, resting his head back on the pillow.
Quentin had found Ronnie when he launched his own investigation after he received the journal. He wanted to know who wrote it, and in the process learn more about those mentioned and more detail surrounding the events described. And Ronnie wasn't the only one he tracked down.
Amanda's visit ended almost as quickly as it had begun, but it gave her a vital shot in the arm, a determination to take on the assignment and give it all she had. Meeting a veteran of the occupation force filled the vacuum where personal experience normally resided. Now she could go to Japan with the image of one of the men in whose footsteps she was following, firmly imprinted on her mind. It was exactly the confidence boost she needed. Ronnie Maclean however was not in need of a confidence boost. He had a different agenda. The motive behind his son going to Japan centred on personal gain, not vindication of a fellow soldier. He was sending his son David to Kamakura, convinced that past spoils of war remained safely hidden in the forest, buried there sixty years earlier. Gold!
'When David contacts you,' he said to his sisters after Amanda and Quentin had left, 'give him all the remaining information you have. Make sure he takes something large enough to safely carry the artefact and conceal it from preying eyes. Tell him to go early in the morning. Many tourists use the track during the day. Tell him to follow the directions carefully or he may miss the point where he is to leave the track.'
'Ronnie,' Penelope asked, 'are you really sure the vase would still be there? It's been sixty years. Surely someone would have reclaimed it by now.'
'Of course it's still there. I should have dug it up five years ago when I went back. It's been forgotten I tell you; a vase with several gold ingots inside waiting to be found again.'
'But how do you know Len Patterson hasn't been back too and claimed it all for himself?'
'Because he would have told me, that's why. He would have shared it with me.'
'What about Derek Avers though?' He might have reclaimed it years ago, or given it to someone else.'
'He had so much money floating around everywhere, he wouldn't remember what he did with it and wouldn't know where half of it was,' Ronnie replied.
Ronnie's sisters were highly sceptical of the notion that a Meijji vase containing several gold ingots, buried in a forest sixty years ago could possibly be there after all this time. They were of the opinion that this was more the ravings of a sick man, confused over time, and often delirious, but such was the passion Ronnie displayed once having received the journal and noting the specific mention of gold, that they were unable to dissuade him. The prospect of their nephew traipsing through a strange forest with a pick and shovel following directions that were vague at best, did not sit well with them. It was, to them, pointless, but if David Maclean was willing to give it a try, then who were they to argue?
Ronnie Maclean had chosen a difficult life after serving in Japan, remaining in the army, signing on to become a career soldier, and rising eventually to the rank of Warrant Officer.
He served briefly in Korea after which he took on the task of drill instructor for new recruits at Puckapunyal. He married a sergeant's daughter and although the marriage failed after five years he was devoted to his son David. He was a victim of wanderlust and always felt the call to distant places. It was the Malayan Emergency that saw him once again on overseas service for which he received a 'Mentioned in Despatches'. Then, in 1968 he was sent to Vietnam, a posting that affected him such that he was unable to serve again in any leadership role. While on a search and destroy mission with 7th Battalion RAR, his platoon engaged the enemy coming under fierce mortar attack in thick jungle. He suffered shrapnel wounds to the head and was evacuated by chopper under fire. Repatriated home, he recovered but was never the same again. He saw out his army days in minor clerical roles until his retirement. The head wounds affected his speech, and his cognitive ability. He was constantly in and out of Repatriation hospitals for the next twenty years. His sisters, Penelope and Evelyn, were his principal carers for the latter part of his life and particularly during his confinement follo
wing the diagnosis of leukaemia. It was then the journal arrived in the mail with no information as to its origins. His son David was retiring from work and about to go on an overseas trip with his wife Margaret. When they mentioned that Japan was on the list of countries they planned to visit it triggered a mechanism in Ronnie's erratic brain recalling events long since forgotten; events surrounding the disposal of gold ingots purchased for cash that Derek Avers arranged as a means of disposing of bundles of awkward notes.
He remembered that Len Patterson had been selected for the job of disposing of the ingots and Kamakura had been chosen as the preferred location. Kamakura was a popular place for soldiers on leave, famous for its many Buddhist monasteries and shrines, notably the Kotokuin, a giant Buddha set in beautifully landscaped gardens, a place of spiritual refuge for war-weary Japanese civilians living in Tokyo less than an hour away by train. Beyond that, Ronnie's memory was blank. To him, the passing of time was something his mind was unable to process. He was able however to give David some reasonably accurate instructions on where to look. When dictating to Evelyn, his description sounded quite plausible:
'Outside the Shrine Park turn right on the roadway until you come to an earthen stairway just before the road tunnel on the right hand side of the road. Follow the track. When you come to a clearing and you see a clear view of Mt. Fuji miles away to the south, walk twenty yards into the woods until you come to a large Matsu pine. Dig on the south side of the pine.'
David thought it an amusing adventure; something to tell his grandchildren. He did not expect to find the Matsu pine let alone any ingots. But when Quentin Avers offered to arrange and pay for the accommodation both in Tokyo and Kamakura, he agreed to go.
8.
