Spirit Invictus Complete Series

by Mark Tiro

  All of this came flooding back to me, like when you remember back to a movie you’ve seen before, but instead of it taking an hour or two to watch, it all plays out in a single instant. These thoughts, this noise all rushed in, overwhelming and obliterating the quiet empty silence I had been drifting in when I hadn’t remembered any of it.

  “Officer, please follow me,” one of the white soldiers told me. English. He was speaking English. Of course he was, he’s white, I thought. I recognized the sound from having learned in university. But I couldn’t understand the words themselves. At least not yet, but I felt confident enough that with the passage of a little more time, this would come back to me too, just as most of my other memories had.

  One of the white soldiers nudged me forward. He did this hard enough to make me understand that I was not free to say no. But he was also gentle enough for me to understand that I had not fallen into the hands of an entirely cruel enemy.

  As far as I could see now, I was the only Japanese in the camp.

  Flashes started to come to me though, of the night before, of having been on my back, in a holding pen with a group of other soldiers who looked like me. Japanese soldiers. As I continued to walk to wherever it was these white soldiers were taking me, the form of a military base began to take shape. This was, I believe, a commonwealth base. British maybe, or some such thing.

  “In here please.”

  I was standing now at the entrance to a small building. One of the soldiers pulled open the door and all three of us walked in. In front of us stood a tall white man with light brown hair that had been sun-burnt to a sandy blond. He was just that age that I couldn’t tell if he was young or old. It was obvious though, that he was an officer.

  “Here’s the Jap officer. Is there anything else you need, sir?”

  “Thank you soldier. We should be fine here. You can leave us now.”

  And that’s how I found myself standing face to face with him for the first time.

  “Please have a seat,” he said.

  His eyes looked kind, and his lips had a soft smile about them.

  I looked around and saw a chair in the corner. It wasn’t until I was dragging it over, in front of his desk that I realized he’d been speaking to me in perfect Japanese.

  Which is, of course, why I dug in and decided to only respond to him in English.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that,” he said, still with that kind smile.

  “I said ‘thank you,’” I repeated. In English.

  He still stood there, still not comprehending.

  “Thank you!” I exclaimed somewhat more forcefully this time. And in Japanese.

  “Oh, you’re welcome!” he answered, flashing me a big grin.

  I guess my perfect English wasn’t nearly as perfect after it left my mouth as it was in my head.

  “Captain Nigel David,” he said, reaching his hand across the table towards me. I stood there frozen, not able to move. “Thank you for coming Yamazaki-san. I’m the operations officer for the AIB here. I’ve been waiting for you.”

  I stared at him blankly. Even in Japanese, it made no sense. What did make sense, or at least it was clear enough, was that he was here to interrogate me.

  “Miger is it? What are you?” I asked, realizing I hadn’t understood most of what little he’d said. Also, I couldn’t understand his name, and was going to have a hard time repeating it.

  “It’s Nigel, but call me David. Most people do. That should make it a bit easier on you. Speaking of—Yamazaki-san, what’s your given name?”

  “Yoshio,” I answered. This was an easy enough question. I’d learned the answer when I learned to speak. “Yamazaki Yoshio. And thank you for asking,” I said, adding that last part with a grin. This little improvisation made me quite proud of myself, I thought. My thinking was clearing up now.

  “Well, Yamazaki Yoshio, you must be as surprised as I was to find yourself here.”

  I stared at him without saying a word.

  I didn’t know what he meant. Also, I didn’t know where ‘here’ was.

  “We didn’t manage to pull you out of that tunnel until almost a half a day afterwards. We didn’t expect many survivors, but then… there you were.”

  All at once, Kazuo flooded my mind. I became dizzy. I regained my composure just enough to ask, “Did you find any others? Any others alive?”

  “Some, mostly from the other tunnel. Just one other from near where we found you. Which when you think about it, is some sort of miracle that anyone survived at all. Everyone else around you was buried when you blew up your tunnel.” He hesitated a minute then added, “A few are alive, but not many. The others all killed themselves before we got there.”

  “I didn’t blow up my tunnel!” I snapped. “I never would have—”

  “—well someone did, because we had been trying damn near a week by that point to force you all out alive. You know—we were trying not to kill everyone. We wanted to talk to you, which gets harder to do when we blow everything up and kill everyone before we get in.”

  “Why would I blow up my own position?”

  “I was going to ask you that exact question. Why did you? You were the ranking officer, no? Why’d you give the order?”

  “But, I didn’t give that order,” I stammered. Then I’d remembered.

  Koga!

  Aaargghh!

  And I remembered. I remembered my sergeant. I remembered Koga pulling my sergeant aside and having a conversation with him.

  ‘Orders,’ the sergeant had said.

  Koga, you bastard! So those were your orders! You ordered my sergeant to blow my bunker! To kill all my soldiers! To kill Kazuo!

  “Koga!” I blurted out. Then in the only bad English word I knew, I added, “Bastard!”

  “Well, I hope you don’t mean me,” the officer said with a bemused smile. “Not after how well we’ve treated you here—and after we saved your life and what not.”

  I lowered my head. “Sorry,” I apologized. “I am sorry, thank you. I did not mean you.”

  “What then?” he followed up. “Who?”

  “Did he make it?” I blurted out suddenly. “Kazuo? Did you find someone named Kazuo? Did Kazuo make it out?”

  He looked at me silently before answering.

  “No, I’m afraid not. I’m sorry, we didn’t find anyone by that name.”

  “Wha—“ I started to ask. But my voice trailed off, and I didn’t finish the word.

  “No, I am sorry. But of course, how could he have made it out alive? He strapped what must have been half the munitions you held down there onto his chest and blew that bunker of yours just as we broke through.”

  Koga did this! I thought. That bastard’s orders. Koga! Koga! Always Koga!

  “We did pull out one other officer, but not named Kazuo,’ he said. “The one we found was a bloke called Terisa, or something. Maybe Terita—”

  “Kazuo!” I blurted.

  “Kazuo?” he repeated, considering the name as he ruffled through some paperwork on the desk in front of him. “Here it is,” he said. Sorry, don’t know where my head’s at. It looks like it’s a Terata we found. Lieutenant Terata. We got him out just before we got to where you were buried. We also managed to save some of the soldiers under his command. It was because they were at least one tunnel away from you when the explosion happened.”

  “So he’s alive?”

  “Terata-san? Yes. And if he’s the same person as this Kazuo you’re asking me about—”

  “He is,” I interrupted. “The same person. Terata Kazuo. That’s the name of the lieutenant you saved.”

  “Well, he’s injured, but we expect him to recover.”

  “Thank you,” I said humbly. Then I looked up and as my tears started to fall, I repeated it. “Thank you. Thank you.”

  My heart leapt. He’s alive! I thought. He’s alive!

  And then, just like that… the crushing weight of guilt
bore down on me. I lowered my head again. This time it was because I had suddenly become dizzy. Everything started to swirl.

  Gone, I thought. My whole platoon, everyone I was responsible for—they were all gone.

  And I hadn’t given them a thought. My first thought had been only for myself—for what I wanted. Not for my platoon—for Kazuo.

  The weight of my guilt closed in on me.

  I had been responsible for each and every one of them. These men were under my command… my responsibility. And still—the very first thought I had wasn’t for whether they lived or died. I’d only cared about Kazuo. For him, and for me too, if I lost him.

  They were supposed to return home at the end to their families. At least some of them.

  Now none of them would.

  Only me and Kazuo.

  Now I didn’t have to worry anymore, I thought bitterly as everything seemed to collapse into a small dark tunnel.

  I didn’t have to worry, because now—they were all dead.

  7

  Seven

  After that, I was taken to a tent that could only have been the base’s makeshift prisoner hospital. There were a few other soldiers there besides me—all from Kazuo’s platoon, I noted angrily at myself—who were recovering from various wounds.

  “Yamazaki-san. You are alive sir.”

  “As you. Good to see you soldier,” I answered, looking around. I saw a few other soldiers, all injured, all in beds with bandages. I did not see Kazuo. I scanned the room looking for him, over and over.

  Miracle. David had used the word and the thought occurred to me that here was a small miracle of my own. Kazuo was alive, even if he wasn’t here in this hospital.

  A nurse came in and gave me a pill for the pain. I took it with some water, and then I drifted in and out of sleep for I don’t know how long.

  At some point that day (or the next morning? I wasn’t sure), I pulled myself up on my bed. I was sweating and I quickly looked around in something resembling terror for—him. Like Kazuo, though, he wasn’t there. When I realized this, I exhaled deeply.

  Here was my second small miracle. Koga was not there. A minor miracle, I thought.

  I leaned over to the soldier in the bed next to me to get his attention.

  “I was knocked out in the blast soldier. Can you bring me up to speed on what happened?”

  “Of course sir. We received word from our position in the North. They’d been overrun, and Koga had managed to break out with a handful of troops and slip off, into the jungle.”

  “That’s it?” I asked.

  “Then he asked me to hand the radio to sergeant.”

  “What did he say?”

  “I don’t know. Sergeant took the radio with him into the other tunnel. That’s the one that blew up sir. A minute or so later, it happened. I don’t remember anything after that, not until I woke up in this hospital.”

  “Well, it’s done now. I expect we’ll be safe here until they exchange us at the end of the war. I’m sure we’ll all be sent back to the home island soon enough. I expect we’ll all be back with our families, even before the Emperor’s birthday.”

  By now, I was feeling an unexpected relief. For all the army training about the enemy and their terrible cruelty, I hadn’t see any of it. My experience at being here had so far been only relief. For all of us in this room, so long as we could avoid infection or malaria, the war was effectively over. Good riddance.

  The war might go on all around, but for us—it was done.

  I put my head back on the pillow and closed my eyes to rest. Then I drifted off, into a dreamless sleep.

  The next morning, I was taken back for what the guards said would be my interrogation. They made a point that I would be taken and interrogated every day until the AIB officer was satisfied.

  “How is it,” I asked once the guards had left me alone with Captain David in his office, “that you are white, and yet you speak Japanese like us?”

  “Like you?” he smiled. “Are you sure? Maybe more like…” and he let his voice trail off, giving me space.

  “No, you’re right, not exactly. You speak like they do in Hokkaido. Hokkaido, I think.”

  “And you speak like you are from, where? Kyoto?”

  “Nagahama. But close enough. I went to university in Kyoto, so maybe it’s rubbed off on me. But you—how is that? Did you live in Hokkaido?”

  “Fumiko-san,” he answered with a gleam now in his eye.

  “Who is she?” I asked.

  “Fumiko-san was my nanny growing up. She was with our family and took care of me most of my childhood. And she was from up North, from—”

  “From Hokkaido,” I finished. “Then if you see her again after this war is done, please tell her I said she did an excellent job teaching you Japanese.” I grinned, then added, “Well, as good as can be expected for someone from Hokkaido.”

  He laughed, and I did too. As I did, Kazuo flashed into my mind. For just an instant, I had a strange picture of David and Kazuo and me, of all three of us sitting around drinking tea and sake together after the war was over.

  “I take it you’re feeling better Yoshio-san?”

  “Thank you for asking. Yes, so much better.”

  “I hope not too much better. Your being injured makes my kindness look… well, not unnatural here. And of course we both know how unnatural kindness is in these dark times.”

  “Of course,” I offered.

  “I have taken you and the other officer we captured on the island—oh, what’s his name now?” he mumbled to himself, stopping to ruffle through some papers. “Oh, that’s right—it’s Terata,” he said.

  Kazuo, I thought. My heart lit up at his name.

  “Yes, Terata Kazuo. Anyway, I’ve assumed responsibility for both of you, along with all the injured soldiers we captured. The unit we’re attached to is supposed to link up with a British unit and move on to the next island. But we’ll stay behind, in our field hospital here with the wounded. Our wounded, and yours alike. The way I see it, the British and certainly the Americans don’t much care for our intelligence gathering operation here anyway.”

  “I’m sorry,” I offered. He looked sad when he said it, like his pride had been hurt.

  “Thank you. I can’t say it matters much either way at this point, seeing how fast they’re advancing island by island now. The whole thing will all be done, soon enough.”

  He put the papers strewn all about his desk back into a tidy pile. Then he pushed them aside, and asked me how I felt. I wasn’t quite sure how to respond. I think this must have been one of their interrogation techniques, but that was the point where our officer training had broken down. And in any event, what few anti-interrogation techniques the army had tried to instill in me, I had bitterly forgotten after Kazuo’s beating.

  “No one likes the pain of being injured, of course.” I answered slowly, because, honestly I didn’t know why he really cared how I felt. “I was injured, so I guess—not good luck, right?” I ventured.

  “Good luck, bad luck, right?” he answered, grinning broadly.

  “I… I guess.”

  “Oh Yoshio-san. I’ve sat here with you for two days now. You can’t tell me you’ve never heard this before, can you? Maybe you’re injured worse than we thought.” He laughed.

  “No, I don’t think I’m injured too badly. I just don’t know it…”

  “The wild horse that wandered onto the farm and was captured by the farmer’s son? You’ve never heard this?”

  “Aahhh—good luck right?”

  “Yes Yoshio-san. Good luck. That’s what the farmer said too. Gaining a new horse to help on the farm was good luck. But then the farmer’s son fell off and broke his leg while he was taming the horse.”

  “And that was bad luck, right?”

  “That’s what the farmer said too, Yoshio-san. Bad luck. Until…”

  “Until the army came around, and rounded up all the young men—at least all of them with two good
legs—to send off to fight in the war.” I was proud of myself for remembering the story now. Sensei had taught it to the entire class when I was just a boy.

  “And so the army didn’t take the son off to the war, because he had a broken leg. That’s good luck Yoshio-san, no?”

  “Maybe I should have broken my leg,” I said.

  “Maybe we both should have,” he answered.

  We both laughed.

  “I don’t remember any more of the story,” I finished. “But I get your point. Good luck, bad luck.”

  “Who knows?” he answered. “Who knows. So you’ve suffered a terrible, traumatic injury here Yoshio-san.”

  “But I didn’t—I…” I started to protest until his point sunk in. When it did, I stopped talking and became quiet.

  “You suffered a terrible injury,” he winked. “But you have important intelligence we must talk about, however long it takes. And so you and I, and the other soldiers—and Kazuo-san—we must all stay here on this little, out of the way island that will soon be forgotten by the rest of the army.”

  “I think everyone but the mosquitoes will forget this place when the war is done,” I answered.

  “God-willing,” he said. “And here we will have to stay, discussing our important intelligence while the war goes on without us, far away from here.”

  “Bad luck?” I interjected, bursting out laughing.

  David laughed too, and repeated it. “Yes, bad luck indeed!”

  I fell back laughing so hard that my head started to ache.

  8

  Eight

  And so it went on like that, day by day, and then week by week. I finally found Kazuo. He had been in a second hospital on the base, where they treated different kinds of injuries. Once he’d recovered, he’d been sent back to the barracks the Japanese prisoners shared. All of us in the barracks here had fully recovered from whatever it was that had initially confined us to the hospital, although three of the men had now come down with malaria. These men were now quarantined back into the hospital waiting for their fevers to break.