Spirit Invictus Complete Series

by Mark Tiro

  It all took a second for me to process. I stood there dumbstruck for a minute until I realized that I must have looked like an idiot—like I was the one who didn’t understand the language.

  “Don’t you worry, honeybee. Nothing ever happens here. All we ever do here is dig tunnels and dump dirt into the sea to hide our digging. I can’t believe we’d be important enough on our little island here to ever get the attention of the Americans.”

  “And the C/O?”

  “Our company commander? Not bad at all. Actually, he’s somewhat of a disaster, which so far—for me at least—has been quite good. He basically delegates the delegating. So I kind of just decided one day to take it upon myself to figure out what needs to be done, and then I just do it.”

  “Sounds like a nice situation you have set up here. Thank you,” I said, smiling. “What about the other platoon commander? Why isn’t he—”

  “He blew himself up a few months ago trying to dig out one of the bunkers. Since then, it’s been just me here, commanding both platoons until the higher ups decided to send a replacement.”

  “Well, it’s probably best then that the C/O just delegates everything. You let him do any digging, and he might just have a work accident too. You might find yourself in charge of this whole island before you know it.”

  We both laughed. In war, you try to come up with ridiculous scenarios, and then talk about them with your buddies or play them out to the nth degree in your mind. It was a way to avoid thinking too much about things that might actually happen. I’d been doing this already for most of the war, to keep sane, and to keep from dwelling too much on the hell I’d actually fallen into.

  So far, it had worked like a charm.

  From that day, Kazuo and I spent our days in relative peace. Generally, we were happy. We spent our days digging out tunnels, and we spent our nights trying to turn our army life into as close as we could get to a tropical vacation.

  This went on until one day, when our C/O actually did blow himself up in one of the tunnels. Or something like that. It was close enough that when we heard, Kazuo and I stopped what we were doing and looked at each other. I think we both decided then and there not to joke anymore about that kind of thing.

  “Your new C/O’s arriving tomorrow,” the division commander announced to us over the radio. “We intercepted a dispatch, and it looks like your island is targeted. We expect an Australian and British detachment to attempt a landing there by the end of the week.”

  “Will you be sending reinforcement troops with the new C/O?” Kazuo asked.

  “Negative. We’d have to run the resupply transport past their blockade, and we could never do that in time. Anyway, don’t hold your breath. Tokyo has more pressing matters now than the fate of your little island.”

  I covered the transmitter with my hand and turned to Kazuo. “This doesn’t sound good.”

  “You’ll have to stop them on the ground,” the division commander went on. “The good news is that the new C/O I’m sending you is as tough as they come. He’ll stiffen the backs of all your troops there. One way or another.”

  “Thank you sir,” I said. “We can use all the extra support we can get here. Can I ask—what is the name of our new C/O? So we can give him a proper greeting when he arrives?”

  “Koga Matsuo,” he said. “Tough soldier that one. Should be wheels down on the island in a day or so now. Good luck soldiers.”

  Koga Matsuo.

  The name almost didn’t register at first. And then, it did. The division commander went on, but I could barely process any of it. In my mind, I was back in that officer training classroom, my eyes locked onto Koga as my lover and friend—Kazuo—was writhing on the floor, getting the living shit beaten out him by the other students, on Koga’s orders.

  “Thank you, sir.” Kazuo told the division commander.

  I couldn’t manage to get out even a word.

  Later that night, once all the bunker and tunnel digging was done for the day, I took dinner with Kazuo in the command bunker. We pulled out four bottles of shochu that I had dragged halfway across the Pacific, and we drank them all.

  One night later, not long after we had both sobered up, our new C/O finally arrived. Koga, at least, was fortunate to make it to the island at all. The plane he had meant to take had been shot down just as it had landed to pick him up. He had been forced to cross the enemy blockade lines in a sub that had to maintain ten meters below its max depth most of the way here. He just barely made it, but the sub that brought him wasn’t as fortunate. Two minutes after it had dropped Koga off on our island, it was hit by a depth charge, killing everyone on board.

  Body parts washed up on our beaches for the next week.

  Koga might have been fortunate to arrive. The day he did though, was the day our fortune ended.

  “Yamazaki-san,” he said, looking directly at me. Then he turned to Kazuo. “And Terata. Of course, Terata too.” He turned away derisively and looked back towards me. “Well, I guess you two are what the army has given me to work with. Still, you wear the Emperor’s uniform, so I feel everything will work out.”

  At his words, I cringed. After his beating—after Kazuo’s beating—the mantra which had always seemed to apply to my life, never came much to my mind anymore. Now, hearing my own words again was a kick in the gut.

  “Listen, I would like to address the men. Intelligence expects a small force peeled off from the main American armies to attempt a landing. Probably also some Australians, Indians and Brits—that sort of thing. Nothing too serious. But the last dispatch we got was almost a week and a half ago now, and as you can see,” he said, pointing to the general direction of the shelling, “our intelligence may not be quite what it used to be.”

  “I will pull all troops except a minimal guard,” I said, pointing to a map of our Northern and Eastern perimeter. “We also have positions here, here and here, but we won’t be able to move those the troops out without giving away their positions.”

  “I see. Well do what you can Yamazaki-san. I’ll travel up to those positions to speak with the troops personally if I have to.”

  Twenty minutes later, our command bunker began swelling, and then overflowed, with so many of the soldiers Koga had pulled in that I started to worry whether the oxygen would soon be exhausted. But it wasn’t, and Koga delivered his message to the assembled troops.

  “I have been sent to personally direct your defenses of the island,” Koga started. “And from what I’ve seen so far, you’ve done quite well without any direction at all since you lost your last C/O.” At that he pointedly looked sideways at Kazuo and I.

  “But I have received word from the fleet command that they expect a major landing by the end of the week. Until then, no one sleeps until all our positions are fortified and camouflaged.”

  There was chaffing and rumbling, and Koga waited for quiet to return before continuing.

  “We expect the best will happen, and yet we prepare for all eventualities. I have consulted with the fleet admiral, who has issued our orders. They come not from him, but directly from Tokyo. We are to hold this island, at all costs.”

  There was chaffing, again, and more noise. Again, Koga waited for quiet.

  “There will be no surrender. I have looked at your positions, and they are defensible. Maybe not the best, and maybe not where I would have chosen to dig them out,” he said, again looking back and around at Kazuo and me. “But they are what we have to work with, and I think, due to your excellent efforts digging them out, they will hold. I fully expect we will repel the enemy. There is no choice. If this island falls, then the way to our home island—the way to your families and your children and your farms, the way to the Emperor himself even—will be open and defenseless. And so on my orders, and on the orders of the Admiral, and on the orders of the Emperor above him, none of you will be captured. None of you will allow the thought of surrender to enter, even into your mind.”

  Kazuo caught my eye, and w
e both looked at each other—in resignation now, more than anything else.

  “I expect each of you to inflict the maximum damage on the enemy, should they overwhelm your position. I don’t have to remind any of you of the unspeakable cruelty of the Americans and Australians and British towards our own men who have so little respect for their country that they let themselves be captured.” He paused and looked around—for effect, I thought, as a simmering rage started to boil up inside me. “I am confident, and the Admiral is confident that you are among the finest of all sacrifices we have to offer on behalf of the Emperor. And I am confident, your sacrifice will not be in vain.”

  He finished, finally, and the troops filed out.

  “I’ll go to shore up our Eastern flank next,” Koga announced, “and I will be back here directly after.” A long minute later, Kazuo brought himself at last to give a weak salute. Koga turned to me now, waiting to leave. After an even longer pause, I raised my hand up and saluted him as well.

  Bastard.

  “Sergeant, let me speak with you alone,” Koga said, motioning to first platoon’s second in command.

  “Yes sir,” he snapped, jumping to attention. I watched as Koga took my platoon’s second in command aside and began telling him something I couldn’t make out. When they were done, my sergeant snapped back to attention and saluted smartly. Then Koga turned, and, without looking at me, strode out of the bunker.

  I turned to my sergeant, and asked him what that was about. “Orders,” was all he would say. I watched him duck around the corner and disappear.

  “Yoshio-kun, why do you do that?” Kazuo asked me after we were reasonably sure that Koga was safely gone from earshot.

  “That bastard!” I answered, my blood still boiling. “He might be right, he might not, but I—”

  “—that’s the protocol. You know that. He’s just—”

  “No, he’s not just anything!” I exploded. “Did you see that smug look on his face. Arrogant bastard.”

  Even in the little light we had, Kazuo could not have missed my anger. He came over and put a hand on my shoulder.

  “Yoshio-chan. I love you. We may die here—together—on this god-awful, mosquito-infested island. Or we may get out of this, and live to find ourselves telling stories to anyone who will listen as we sip our tea with the other pensioners. Either way, leave Koga here. Don’t give him a home in your head. Stop letting him live in your mind!”

  “But it’s just something, it’s just—”

  “Visceral? I know, honeybee, I know. Remember, nothing happened. Nothing he does, nothing he says—nothing can hurt us.”

  “I was the one who held you that week in the infirmary, night after night, as you drifted in and out of consciousness after he had you beaten. I do not want to go through that—”

  “Honeybee?”

  “What!”

  “Nothing happened. Then, or a day or a week from now, or when we’re one hundred, it will be done either way. Please stop already, okay? I have. Please stop carrying him—that hatred you have for him—in your mind. It is done. It’s over.”

  I hated Koga. More than anything, more than anyone.

  And right now, I hated it that Kazuo was just standing there, looking at me with those eyes of his. Those innocent, pleading, loving eyes.

  “Kazuo-chan, let me ask you one thing,” I said, trying to give my anger space to abate.

  “Sure honeybee, anything.”

  “Why do you call me ‘honeybee’?

  “You don’t know?”

  “I don’t. Why do you call me that? It must be because you really love me though. And if I don’t say it enough, I love y—”

  “—I call you that,” he grinned, cutting me off, “because I’m your queen bee.”

  I started to protest, but he interrupted again. “Oh my, honeybee. I’m your queen bee because you always do what I ask—at least in the end, even if it takes a little for you to come around sometimes.”

  “I always do, huh?” It was more of a statement than a question. “I always do.” I threw my arms around him, and we held each other until the shelling started back up again, and the bunker began to rock as the hits became closer.

  Kazuo pulled on his helmet and headed towards his platoon a tunnel over. I headed up to the forward tunnel my platoon was manning. As I got there, my sergeant ran up to me, radio in hand.

  “It’s Koga-san sir.”

  “Of course. Let me have the radio.”

  He lifted up the headset and gave it to me.

  “Koga-san? Yamazaki here.”

  “Yamazaki? Listen, I’m cut off here, I can’t get back to your position. I’m going up to take personal command of the defenses on the North side of the island.”

  I pulled the radio tighter—

  An explosion.

  Where is this damn thing? I thought as I reached around on the bunker floor, looking for the radio. I found it finally, and shoved the thing back up to my ear.

  “We’re under heavy attack here as well,” I shouted into the mouthpiece.

  “You’re in charge of the company on the ground until I return. Hold our line Yamazaki! At all costs—you will hold our line!” he ordered. “Do not, repeat, do not—”

  The receiver cut out again. Another explosion—this time on Koga’s end. The transmitter also seemed to be completely dead now, and I threw it down.

  Good riddance. It’s about time that thing died, I thought.

  I was happy to be free of it… and to be free of having to hear the sound of his voice.

  I turned. “Sergeant!”

  I shouted for him.

  “Can you go find me second platoon’s command lieutenant? Both platoons need to coordinate our strategy here.”

  “Yes sir,” he answered, and turned to fetch Kazuo to me.

  The shelling had become one continuous bombardment by now. There was nothing much we could do except stay down and hope we had done our digging and bunker building well enough.

  And then the shelling stopped.

  It just stopped.

  I ordered some troops up to our firing positions, which were only partially protected, to survey the damage. Most important, I wanted to see if they could locate the enemy. After a bombardment like we’d just sustained, we expected ground forces. But where?

  And where are you Kazuo-chan? Where are you?”

  I scanned the darkness that led towards the tunnels where his platoon had been deployed. The bunker was beginning to sag now under its weight. The ground around us was still rumbling even though the shelling had stopped. I was afraid whole bunker complex might just cave in on us.

  “Yoshio—”

  I careened around towards the voice I heard. Towards his voice.

  I still couldn’t see him. But I heard his voice through the darkness.

  “Yoshio-kun. I’m here.”

  “Kazuo-kun, what’s the status—”

  And that was it. An explosion blew apart the command bunker. It happened just seconds after I had walked out of it. The command bunker collapsed, sealing it off… entombing everyone who was inside.

  I was buried in rubble a little off from the collapsed portion.

  I closed my eyes and drifted out of consciousness.

  The enemy poured in.

  Or so I was told later.

  I missed all of it.

  I was unconscious, buried in rubble and trapped there. The Australians who it turns out were the ones who’d stormed the bunker, freed me from the rubble, and then took me prisoner with the handful of other soldiers they’d captured alive.

  I didn’t come to until the next night.

  I found myself locked in a fenced off part of the Australian camp. I could make out a few soldiers who looked like me, and a couple of white soldiers—guards maybe?—as well. Other than that however, everything was fuzzy. I was told I kept drifting in and out of consciousness until the next morning. When the morning did come, the light caused my head to throb. Finally though,
I came to. Once I did, I discovered that I could barely move. Everything hurt, and I still couldn’t see straight.

  One thing I understood very clearly though.

  I had been captured.

  Once I realized this, I put all my strength into lifting my head and looking around. I looked for Kazuo, but I didn’t see him.

  I looked for Koga too, but he also wasn’t there.

  Thank God for little miracles, I thought.

  With my head up, all I saw were the Australians passing cigarettes amongst themselves.

  And then, I couldn’t hold my head up anymore.

  I laid it back down just in time to feel the throbbing start up, all over again. My vision became blurry, and I closed my eyes.

  Then everything went dark.

  Again.

  6

  Six

  “That’s him. Get him up and over to the medic.”

  I came to as two white soldiers were pulling me up. For the longest instant, I couldn’t remember a thing. Not where I was, not how I had gotten there—not even who I was. None of it.

  These soldiers who were pulling me to my feet—they weren’t our soldiers. That much was clear enough. They were speaking some language that was familiar. Yet it hung just out of my reach, just off the edge of my mind. Strangely enough, it didn’t even immediately register that I was a soldier either, though I figured as much when I looked down and saw the tattered remains of my officer’s uniform.

  And one other ‘empty’ thought floated into my mind. This thought, I remember very well. It was as clear and unequivocal as all my other thoughts had been confused and disjointed. It was this: everything is alright.

  And for that one instant before everything came back to me, it was.

  Then something clicked, and just like that, all of my life fell back into place. Memories flooded back to me and I remembered everything.

  Everything, that is, except how I had gotten here.

  I remembered a lot of things. I remembered my parents and my little brother. And I remembered the shriek my mom made when she learned my brother had drowned to death when he was eight. I remembered the first time sensei had kissed me. I remembered meeting Kazuo at university in Kyoto. And I remembered Koga.