by Mark Tiro
In my mind though, I had only one thought.
Kazuo.
And in it, a question. I wondered if Kazuo’s father had been able to arrange it so that we could both serve out our commission together.
It didn’t take me long to find out. Once I was inside, my wife poured us both another cup of tea. Then she pulled out a second telegram that Hiroshi had brought up to the house when he had come with my military commission.
It was from Kazuo.
His father had succeeded. We would see each other much sooner than even I had expected: both of us were ordered to report at the end of this month for officer training at the intake base.
“I have to give you credit Kazuo-kun. You were completely right.”
“What do you mean?” he asked, with just a hint of a smile.
“There is nothing cute about these uniforms. Nothing at all.”
We both laughed, and I added, “I think you might have psychic abilities, how you knew these uniforms were—”
“—hideous? Yes, they’re hideous.” The smile dropped off his face. “And worse—wait to see how they look when people start dying in them.”
“Well, that kind of killed the mood there,” I said. “Officer training hasn’t been bad at all you know. Not until just now.”
“I know. Believe me, I know. I’m sorry. My father came back on leave after he finished his training… for a weekend before he got sent back off. That was just before I—just before we—got our telegrams. The worst part, he told us, was not being in control of your day. Not knowing when you could let down and rest, or when some crazy kid who was your commander or trainer or whatever rank was one step higher than yours, would come in and start screaming at you.”
“It’s always the not-knowing that’s the worst. One can handle anything, with just a little time to process it.”
“To reflect Yoshio-san. To reflect and accept. ‘That’s what they take away from you,’ my dad said. ‘The time to be a human being.’”
“They can try,” I grinned back. “But remember what I always say.”
“‘Everything works out’?” We had both said the words at the same time.
“Everything works out.”
“But everything doesn’t always work out Yoshio-kun. It doesn’t.”
As the war picked up, our officer training seemed to get lighter and lighter. Less focused. Almost every other day, it seems, one of our trainers or commanders would be called off to Tokyo for consultations. More and more of them were receiving orders, attaching them to some unit or other that was about to be shipped out. As far as our officer training was concerned, everything was working out almost better than I could have ever imagined. One day, all our trainers and officers had been ordered away. Our entire class simply slept in that day until lunch.
“Every day is a new day,” I told Kazuo after we’d been awake a bit.
His response, I thought, was more serious than was really necessary.
“The army not having enough trainers for the officer school is not a good sign. That much is obvious,” he said with a dour expression.
We made love that day anyway, in a store room not too far from the barracks where we all were assigned to sleep. No one really knew what the place was for, and other than Kazuo and me, it didn’t look like anyone ever went in or out of it.
And no one ever did either, the rest of our time on that base. Once we had figured out that the place was basically ours for the taking, I put up a ‘forbidden’ sign on the door, and turned it into our own private retreat.
Everything seemed normal, and despite—no, probably because of—the lack of structure and enough officers to complete the training course, the war seemed to almost pass us by. It was very far off and remote. That is, until one day when it wasn’t.
“Wake up! Everyone wake up!”
I did of course—we all did, because there was a strange officer in the door of our barracks screaming at everyone.
“I apologize.”
It wasn’t a real apology. He had said the words, yes, but didn’t lower his head when he said them. Not even the slightest. Then he made a point to look every one of us straight in the eyes, which made his ‘apology’ all the more jarring.
“We have not had the resources to properly train you. We have failed in your training, and because of that, most of you will be dead soon. Does anyone have any questions before we start?”
I raised my hand most impertinently, and a nonchalant voice, I asked, “What are you here for then, sir?
The officer had obviously not been expecting anyone to take him up on the offer to ask questions. He glared at me what seemed like eternity. But then his face changed. Slowly, the slightest hint of a wry smile began to form on his lips.
“Thank you for asking,” the officer answered. “I was sent here to teach you how to die.”
That was the first time I ever met him.
In time, we would come to learn, contrary to rumor, that the officer did indeed possess a given name. Matsuo.
No one I knew ever used it.
None of us would ever call him by anything other than his family name.
To all of us, he would always simply be known by one word.
Koga.
We had been in the class for quite some time by that point. For all intents and purposes, we should have been almost done. Even under normal circumstances, we would have been set to finish in no more than another month or so. Actually, I had been thinking up until that point that things had been going rather well. Kazuo and I had found our deserted store room to be a very pleasant retreat. But then Koga had come in and turned our semi-vacation on its head.
The lessons Koga had brought with him from Tokyo consisted mainly of him teaching us basic conventional infantry strategies that may not ever win you a decisive victory, but at the least would avoid you losing your entire platoon. I suppose it was reasonable to expect I’d have to learn at least some military strategy while at officer training school. And in any event, Koga’s strategy lessons were a far way off from the way he had billed his curriculum the first day he’d arrived. Despite the constant backdrop of war rumors and news, and despite Koga’s classes, life for Kazuo and me continued on relatively peacefully, without any major changes.
That is, until one day, when it was all jarred lose and then, blown apart.
“When you receive your assignment,” Koga began, rationally enough, one day after he had arrived down from Tokyo to teach our class, “you may not have the benefit of commanding the best troops. The best troops are already fighting. The new ones now, some are a little younger, perhaps, than we would prefer. Some are a little older. It’s only a matter of time until we push the enemy back, island by island, even though this may cost us quite a few of these new soldiers.”
As he was talking, he was looking out over the entire class. “Maybe even quite a few officers will die in our cause,” he went on, looking now straight at me. “But of course, you are not the best officers the Emperor has in his service either.”
There was complete silence now. Koga looked straight in my direction, again, and I wished I could’ve stopped my heart from beating. It seemed so loud, I feared everyone could hear it.
“It is understandable, the war has taken much focus from our training, which has been wholly inadequate. So of course, it is understandable that some of you may not have known just how grave an offense homosexuality is, both against the army, and against the Emperor himself.”
Up until this point, no one much seemed to have an issue with, or even care about, Kazuo and I. Now, as Koga was talking, I began to get chills down my back. It was more than just his words.
Koga never once took his eyes off me.
He glared at me.
And then… he kept talking.
“See, one of you has committed grave crimes against the nation by engaging in forbidden homosexuality.” He was still glaring straight at me, but suddenly, he called out Kazuo.
“Tera
ta-chan,” he barked derisively. “Step forward girl.”
After an interminable moment of hesitation, Kazuo stepped forward.
Though he now was now addressing the entire class, Koga never once took his eyes off me.
“This soldier here, Terata Kazuo, has engaged in the most flagrant violation of homosexuality I have ever seen in all my years serving our beloved Emperor. If everyone behaved as Terata-chan has, there would cease to be even a home island for the Emperor to govern.”
When I looked into the faces of the other students in our class, I became worried.
“Normally,” Koga continued in a booming voice, “the punishment of course, would be immediate court-martial and then a swift execution.”
That felt like a punch in the gut, and I began to get dizzy.
“But these are not normal times,” he went on. “My hands, sadly, are tied by the bureaucrats from Tokyo when it comes to this sort of thing. The army needs all available citizens deployed to the various theaters of combat—however defective those citizens may be.”
The bastard was still looking straight at me, even as he was talking about Kazuo. “Still, do not think that any of you are beyond my reach, or beyond the army’s punishment, if you would flout and disobey the rules like Terata—like Kazuo-chan here has done. And so, each of you will please take a moment to let… Kazuo-chan know just what you think about his prideful arrogance, about his disobedience to the Emperor’s rule. And if some of you want to emphasize your displeasure with him in more than words, I will not stop you, so long as you do not leave any visible marks.”
Koga at last lowered his voice, and took his gaze off me.
Now, he watched, casually it seemed, the terror rise on Kazuo’s face. But Koga continued talking, this time to address me.
“Yamazaki Yoshio. You, of all officers here, who comes from a most respected family—you must be horribly offended by this soldier’s behavior.”
I wanted to strangle Koga.
Of course I could do nothing but just stand there and take it.
“You see,” he went on, looking around at last, to the other people in our class, “Yamazaki Yoshio here can trace his family’s position back even from before the Tokugawa. And while I have no such noble distinction—having been born to a mere peasant rice farmer, and owing my position completely to the divine grace of the Emperor—I am equally outraged and offended, just as Yamazaki-sama here must be. Which is why,” he went on, “Terata-san’s serious transgression, his homosexual disorder, must be suitably punished. Kazuo must know that nothing escapes the watchful eye of Koga-sama.”
I wanted to throw up.
Then that bastard turned to me again. “And so, Yamazaki-san, please have the honor of inflicting the first blow on Kazuo-chan here. Please tell him what you really think of his abominable homosexual behavior.”
I was frozen in place, and could neither open my mouth or do anything else. I was consumed with rage.
I hate you, you fucking bastard! Koga—I hate you!
Time stood still, and so did I.
I didn’t move.
“I see then,” Koga said, returning his gaze to the rest of the class. “It seems that Yamazaki does not have the resolve and the strength to fulfill his duties as an officer. These are sad times indeed, that the army shall soon be forced to put an officer such as this into the field, with good Japanese boys under his sorry command. In the meantime, I will step outside, and let the rest of you emphasize to Kazuo-chan here the importance of the rule of law. Please make sure Yamazaki stays to watch, but does not interfere. And please—no visible marks, at least on the face.”
Koga looked at me with an arrogant little smile, then turned his back and strode out.
What followed, I can barely remember.
I was held down and forced to watch as my classmates—classmates who had, up until that time, almost certainly known about my relationship with Kazuo, but hadn’t seemed to care in the least—took turns beating my sweet, gentle Kazuo.
And then like that, Koga walked back in the room, and ordered everyone to leave.
I ran over to Kazuo and held him, as he laid on the ground writhing in pain. Koga gave me one more arrogant grin. Then for the second time that day, he turned his back and left.
The only good thing that came out of that day was that, once it was over, I did not see Koga again for almost another year.
Later that night, trying to comfort Kazuo as he laid passed out from pain in the wholly-inadequate base infirmary, the thought occurred to me that maybe everything in life might not be alright.
5
Five
“I’m going up to take personal command of the defenses on the North side of the island.”
I pulled the radio tighter to my ear, straining now to hear—
I was rocked back by another mortar explosion, knocking the handset to the ground.
I fumbled around the bunker for the radio until I found it again, then I pushed it up to my mouth. “We’re under heavy attack here,” I shouted.
“Yoshio-san! Listen, this is Koga-san. I am rushing up to try to hold our Northern flank. You are in charge of the company on the ground until I return. At all costs Yamazaki, you will hold our line!” he ordered. “Do not, repeat, do not—”
The receiver cut out again. This time, it sounded like the cause was an explosion on Koga’s end. I threw the transmitter down, glad to be free of the thing.
I turned and yelled through the darkness.
“Sergeant!” I shouted, searching for the second in command of my platoon. He heard me from the other side the command space and rushed over.
“Sir?”
“Can you go find me second platoon’s command lieutenant? We need to coordinate our positions here.”
“Yes sir,” he answered. “I saw Lieutenant Terata one tunnel back. I’ll go find him for you.”
My sergeant turned around and ran back towards tunnel one.
Our positions on this part of the island of course were dug deep into the earth. Despite the withering bombardment, our defenses had held, mostly intact, until this point.
There was, I reflected, nothing left to coordinate, and no reason for the sergeant to bring Kazuo back. He had just left to go back to his own platoon, not too long before.
But seeing how we were pinned down basically into a straightforward holding operation, I didn’t see any downside of Kazuo coming over either.
I may have had a small, selfish desire in the request, too. Just in case the worst happened, I’d decided to hell if I’d let the last voice I ever heard be Koga’s.
And so I waited for Kazuo.
The shelling had been getting worse for the last week. But now, with somewhere between two and maybe as many as five of our tunnel/bunkers collapsing under the weight of the most recent barrage, our position was becoming critical.
As I sat in the command bunker waiting, I closed my eyes. How long had it been since I’d slept? A day? A day and a half maybe? How long had it been since we’d been on this island?
I closed my eyes, and slipped back, remembering.
“Congratulations on your transfer Yoshio-san!”
The transfer clerk, a junior lieutenant with glasses so thick they made his eyes look as if they’d been trapped under water, had brought the news.
“Thank you. It’s been a real joy to serve with you these past few months—”
“Aaah, you don’t have to say that Yoshio. Orders came from Tokyo. You know they’ll give most anybody with five good fingers and toes a platoon command now. Anyway, you’ll be lucky to even make it to your island. Word is, we’re having problems moving troops around.”
“Well, I appreciate your vote of confidence. Should I count up my fingers and toes before I accept?”
“No, anything close to five should do. Total.”
Neither of us showed more than the smallest grin. Soldier humor didn’t require much more.
“But I thought our fleet is in solid
control of all the approaches?” I asked, turning serious.
“That, Yoshio-san, is not my problem. I’m sorry. All I can say is that you might want to think about brushing up on your swimming before your trip.”
“Well, that’s comforting.”
“What I do know is that for you to receive transfer orders like this directly from Tokyo, someone must really want you on that island there.”
Three days and five islands later in mostly airplanes—not boats, as it turned out—I found out who had greased the wheels for my transfer orders.
“Kazuo-san!” I shouted from across the landing strip.
“Yoshio-san!” he shouted back, a huge grin on his face as he waited impatiently for me to cross the landing strip that stood between us.
We embraced for what seemed like forever.
“You did this?”
“Me? Oh God no. No one ever listens to a thing I say here. But it’s the army, what can you expect? No, it was my dad.”
“How is he doing?”
“My dad? Oh, he was injured back in—”
“I’m sorry,” I interjected. “What happened? Is he okay?”
“Oh, don’t worry Yoshio. It probably saved his life. They sent him back to a hospital in Tokyo to recover. While he was there, one of his old foreign ministry buddies who had done quite well for himself in the army ran into him by chance. And what do you know—suddenly, there’s an opening for a translator at General Staff HQ.”
“That sounds good. I mean, he must speak German and maybe English well, after all those foreign ministry postings in Europe before the war.”
“I think he speaks like seven different languages,” Kazuo said. “Everything except English. Anyway, the best part is that now, he’s done getting shot at. He never has to go back to his unit again.”
“So, his old friend there had enough pull there to get you transferred here. Congratulations Lieutenant. You’re the new commander of first platoon. Second platoon is mine.”
