Dragon of the Mangrooves

by Yasuyuki Kasai

  Pondgi followed him. “Yes, Master Morioka is right. The crocs are hiding out and waiting for us all in this very water! This is a croc’s lair. Very dangerous.

  They are watching us from somewhere we can’t see them, because we are in great numbers. But if somebody goes near the water alone, they’ll certainly catch and devour him.”

  Nobody had anything more to say after that.

  Sumi had read about crocodiles in some book on the ancient civilization of Egypt. He could remember the paragraph well.

  “In the Old Kingdom, Sebek, the crocodile-headed deity, was a god who governed the night and the darkness and often beckoned the ruling pharaohs to the underworld. Sebek was broadly worshipped throughout ancient Egypt and was believed to have powers of reviving the sight and senses of the dead. People took crocodiles as his vassals there, handled them gently, and even adorned them with gold ornaments sometimes. When one of these special crocodiles died, people mummified it elaborately and placed it in a decent coffin.”

  The book stated that Sebek and Horace, the god of war, were buried in a temple constructed in a place named Kom Ombo, in the suburbs of Aswan, Upper Egypt, and visitors could observe various mummies of deified crocodiles there.

  But, sadly, that was all Sumi knew about crocodiles. He had never seen one.

  “Well, men. Don’t go near to the water’s edge. Come on back here. Is it all right, Pondgi?” Sumi urged the soldiers to pay attention and gathered them near the road. He let them sit beside the path, after one of them stood sentinel to keep an eye over the area.

  “Have a break here. Anyway, we know nothing about crocodiles. Tell us about them, Pondgi,” Sumi said while he distributed the cigarettes given to him by Colonel Nagashima to everybody.

  Yoshitake said cheerfully, “What a blessing! A cigarette is a good sleeping pill for me. Now, start your pillow talk, Pondgi.”

  Pondgi wasn’t good at articulating complex topics such as ecology or biology.

  However, Morioka, who was versed in animals, came to his rescue. Having regained their composure, the other soldiers listened as they relaxed.

  Saltwater crocodiles live widely in the tropics, from eastern India to the western Pacific, and prefer relatively tranquil water, whether in the river or in the sea.

  They are gigantic, as Morioka said—maybe the biggest reptile of them all. The croc naturally reigns at the top of the food hierarchy. Although fundamentally a solitary animal, crocodiles sometimes herd together in between breeding seasons.

  They say a crocodile has acute senses of sight and hearing. The pupil of its eye is set vertically like a cat’s. It can see prey in dead darkness and is sharp-nosed, as well. It is easy for a crocodile to smell faint scents of blood far away, so it can locate other animals even in muddy water with poor visibility.

  A crocodile fixes its aim and skillfully hides its huge trunk under water, leaving only its eyes and nostrils inconspicuously on the surface. Then it approaches its prey slowly and silently. Once the prey enters the effective range, the crocodile pounces upon it with lightning speed. The power of its jaws is enormous. It can crush the skulls of cattle easily. If the croc doesn’t kill its prey on the spot, it immediately drags the prey into the water and suffocates it.

  Quite contrary to its gigantic body, its stomach is small. A crocodile can’t swallow its prey in one gulp like a snake does. It drags the kill to a favorite place and hides it there. Then it savors the half-rotten meat bit by bit, leisurely tearing it off with sharp teeth. Though the kill is hidden, in the case of a big carcass, its odor and blood soon attract other crocodiles, creating a herd. As they rush at the prey and fall over one another, it causes quite a commotion. However, it’s not a hindrance for them all. It is often preferable to tear off pieces while the prey is held firmly on the other side. So these banquets hardly develop into scuffles.

  They say that locals in the coastal area of Burma often disappear abruptly while scrubbing or washing. More than a few incidents happen every year. They vanish suddenly in most cases, although body parts of the missing persons are found later, torn unpleasantly on some occasions. Locals believe this is the work of crocodiles.

  Pondgi said his uncle had been missing for three years after having gone to a mangrove near Sandoway to set weirs. All the family had gone out to search for him many times, but the only thing they had ever found was his masterless sampan adrift on a creek.

  This was all quite inappropriate for pillow talk. Sumi was overwhelmed by the fact that such formidable animals inhabited the Burmese waterfront.

  As Shimizu said, the Army usually didn’t fear crocodiles and other animals; their purpose was to murder troops. Compared with modern weapons, which could burn up a city in an instant, an animal was next to nothing, however fierce it might be. When this war broke out, soldiers were more ferocious than now.

  Some might have wanted to kill a croc and eat it if things hadn’t changed. But now the whole situation had changed completely.

  Enemies cornered them with material superiority. Starvation and fatigue gnawed at every soldier not issued enough weapons to defend himself. Darkness and only a few geographic advantages were all the refuges left for the Japanese, but their soldiers truly controlled neither.

  Sumi recalled Sebek again.

  Minoru Kasuga was dreaming of a day when he had been a schoolboy. He had been playing with his friends at a Hachiman shrine after school, as usual.

  His hometown had a splendid shrine surrounded by tall cedars. It even had a hall for Noh performance in the precinct. Locals not only respected it as a religious institution but utilized it as a festive center of their community. For chil-dren, it was their favorite playground. They used to spend time there until sunset, playing every kind of game like tag or hide-and-seek.

  In the dream, he had brandished a twig like a sword and had run after one of his schoolmates. They had played swashbuckling ninja. But his friends had disappeared from view, one by one, as if they had become real ones. And he had been left alone at dusk. Feeling uneasy, he had walked along to the shrine.

  To a lone child, the presence of the shrine and the holy territory had been getting stronger than ever. And the shrine had one thing that had always frightened him.

  The shrine was reportedly built in the latter period of the Tokugawa, a medi-eval time of samurai governance. It had many reliefs under its eaves. Mythologi-cal sacred animals, such as Chinese lions and phoenixes, had been splendidly carved. A dragon on the front architrave was a true masterpiece among them. A carver of considerable ability must have made it.

  But it had scared him. He had understood it was merely an imaginary creature carved out of wood. Yet it had been so lifelike to his eyes that he couldn’t help feeling it real.

  He had fearfully looked up the architrave. The dragon had been there as usual.

  Clad in whiffs of clouds, it had clawed the air with its sharp, pointed talons. It had been a monster. Its iris-less eyes had appeared to shine, in spite of its natural wood surface. Its nostrils had seemed ready to steam at any moment.

  He had gradually been possessed by a delusion that the dragon might come out of the relief. If it happened, the dragon would kill him and tear his body to pieces on the spot.

  Unfathomable fear had begun gnawing at him. The harder he had tried to control his increasing pulse rate, the more alive the dragon had become, as if it read his thoughts. Suddenly, he had come to believe it was not a delusion anymore, but a sheer reality.

  The scales that had never been anything more than a wooden crafted work had trembled. The cloud twining around its four limbs had become translucent and emitted white, hazy light. Then, he had been astounded to see the long, stout tail wiggle.

  A real dragon must have waited in the shape of the relief to catch some prey here. After seeing him, it must have been revealing its true colors. He had immediately tried to run away, but his feet had disobeyed his will and hadn’t moved, as if nailed on the ground.

  All of a s
udden, he had heard a strange voice, deep and serene: “Don’t be afraid. A dragon surely looks fierce. But it is Buddha’s vassal chastising evil.”

  When he had looked again, the dragon had lost its shine. It had had no vitality at all. It had been nothing more than a weathered, musty relief. He had breathed easily again and looked around. The evening twilight had been gradually surrounding the shrine, as usual. It had almost been time to go home. Relieved from fear, he had become thirsty. He had strolled down the approach and headed for a water fountain beside the gate.

  The donator of this shrine had most likely been a considerable dragon lover.

  The spout of the fountain was also a dragon’s head. It was a cast statue full of ver-digris. Clear water had trickled ceaselessly from it into the basin.

  He had picked up one of wooden dippers from the basin. Right at the moment he had begun filling it with water, he had seen the statue open its eyes.

  Both had glittered in pure gold. Then he had sensed the dipper taken violently from his hand. When he flinched and drew back a few steps, it had no longer been a statue. A long trunk had appeared from the rock base of the spout and had wriggled to get out of it. Its innumerable scales had emitted a pale green light.

  He had frozen on the spot. The dragon had breathed out sharply, as if threatening him. The bridge of its nose had wrinkled deeply. It had been a clear sign of hostility.

  When it had bared its fangs, rows of sharp teeth had shattered the dipper.

  Sensing danger, he had stepped back further. But he had had no chance. The dragon had raised its head and charged at him with lightning speed.

  He had been resolved to the fact that he would die. But at the moment the fangs had been about to bite at him, he had heard another voice from nowhere apparent again: “Wake up, Kasu! How long are you going to sleep?”

  It was a voice of Superior Private Hirono, the loader of HMG Tomita Squad.

  His dreams always ended the same way. Strangely, he had had the same dream ever since the Army had drafted him.

  In his hazy view, Kasuga found Hirono frowning at him. Then behind Hirono, he saw some of their ammo bearers sleeping at the bottom of the trench, where the sun was relentlessly blazing down. The men showed clear signs of total exhaustion on their faces, which were smudged with sweat and dirt.

  Kasuga could enjoy the cool filling the trench when he came off sentry and went to sleep in the early morning. But now it was gone, replaced by stifling heat.

  No wonder he’d had such a nightmare. Even his trousers were wet with sweat.

  “Sorry, but Sarge told me to wake you up and set you on the gun.”

  “Right now?”

  “No need to hurry. Hey, you sweat a lot. Are you all right? If you’re hungry now, I’ll give you some noodles. Let’s eat.”

  Hirono took out his mess kit and served boiled noodles on the tray. Kasuga gave thanks and ate them with his hands. He had lost his own chopsticks long ago in the confusion. The noodles were lukewarm and only seasoned with salt but tasted good because he had lost some salt by perspiring.

  “Hirono, is there any sign of enemies?”

  “I don’t know,” answered Hirono.

  Kasuga asked again. “I’ve heard those riflemen were storming toward tanks when the enemy smashed HMG Arakawa Squad in the last battle. Why didn’t they use antitank guns?”

  “How can I know that? I didn’t hear any of the friendly artillery, though I didn’t watch the battle myself. Even if we have any guns, that humongous tank is too much for our thirty-seven-millimeter gun. Engli don’t give a shit about it.”

  “Where are our antitank guns then?”

  “How am I supposed to know that? Maybe HQ saves them somewhere.

  Somebody says they sent one or two toward Myinkhon Creek.”

  “Why there?”

  “It may be fighting against Engli gunboats there. Those damned enemies are going to cut our line of retreat and make us mice in a trap.”

  “I see…”

  “If they break through our line here, it’ll be terrible. Maybe a banzai charge or something worse is waiting for us all,” Hirono said as he slurped his noodles.

  Kasuga had to understand how the enemies carried out their advance after they had completed the landing operation. According to Sergeant Tomita, this was a modern war, utilizing aircraft, battleships, artilleries, armors, and infantries in three-dimension tactics.

  Airstrikes always reached their height when accompanied by the naval bombardments from destroyers sailing down the Bay of Bengal. Confronted with this ferocity, Japanese outposts made from palm logs were quite insignificant. Thus the enemy destroyed almost one-third of the defenses Kasuga and others had toiled to set up during their occupation, which would be a year and a half sometime this week. Artilleries opened fire, and a land force advanced on a full scale.

  Struck by the heavy rain of bombs and shells, all Japanese soldiers, including Kasuga himself, could do nothing but bear it in the bottom of half-wrecked trenches. If the enemy had charged with bayonets, they might have stood a fair chance of having a good war. But the enemy’s first charge was with tanks, and the Japanese had no weapon able to contend with them.

  After the Battle of Ondaw, Sixth Company pulled out of Hill 353 and continued moving southward. Casualties were relatively minimal. It was natural because the Japanese repeated retreats under cover of darkness every time strong enemies came up.

  Kasuga had once been taken aback to hear Sergeant Tomita say delightfully just before one of those retreats, “How smart the Sixth Company commander is!

  There’s a big difference between him and that shit-faced Binchoku, though both are officers of this same battalion.”

  Tomita was a man with a reputation as a combat-hardened veteran. He had taken part in the Battle of the Great Wall, Rehe-sheng, China, and had been up against the ruthless attack of Chiang Kai-shek’s Regular Army there. While all others were retreating, Tomita had held the machine gun position alone and had kept firing at the rushing Chinese, which had kept their positions intact.

  Kasuga had heard old regulars speculating many times about why Tomita

  didn’t get the Order of the Golden Kite. He surely was worthy, thanks to the initiative he showed in Hill 353 when they had tried knocking P-38 interceptors out of the sky, or for the fact that he kept the composure in the Battle of Ondaw when the enemy started firing first.

  But now the Sixth Company retreated like a moonlight flit. Tomita always made them set the gun further back than ordered, at his own sweet will. Even when they engaged with enemies, he was noncommittal and wouldn’t order them to open fire. Sometimes he even let the whole squad draw back from a designated position without Second Lieutenant Jinno’s permission.

  Kasuga wasn’t sure whether the fact that Tomita Squad hadn’t suffered any casualties yet was thanks to him. Anyhow, he couldn’t believe the attitude of his squad leader.

  Yet he also noticed days when Hirono tended to protect himself. Hirono was a big guy, well over six feet tall. He could lift a heavy barrel of machine guns as if it were nothing. He had a Judo black belt. Though Kasuga was slightly better in marksmanship, Hirono was more than a match at bayoneting skills or wrestling.

  He was a strong warrior, without a doubt. But all of this man’s concern was limited to his own life. For weeks he had been worrying about a banzai charge.

  Arakawa Squad, their fraternity under Jinno Platoon, went out to support tank-busters and got hit with a mortar shell. It killed three men, including the squad leader himself. It was natural for any man to flinch in terror. But they were fighting a war now. There was nothing for fearing death at that late date.

  If the enemies got Ramree, sooner or later, they would also get the mainland.

  Then Malaya and Java would be added to the list. If the British reopened the Burma Road blocked by the Japanese Army for a long time, a tremendous amount of supplies would flow into China. What would become of the Japanese Expeditionary Force fig
hting against heavy odds there? The Japanese Imperial Navy had already lost the Pacific. If the Army lost Indochina and China, it would get harder for the Japanese to retain even their homeland.

  It was time to shield their land and families from the evil design of foreign sav-ages. However far they may flee, as long as their retreat is blocked—as Hirono says himself—there was nothing to do but resist. It was a little late to worry now.

  The only thing needed was the fortitude to die silently. Kasuga thought he was prepared for it.

  “Hey, you! What’re you doing here? Go back right away!” a raucous shout pierced the ears of two taking a rest after a meager lunch.

  Kasuga looked back and found Second Lieutenant Jinno standing there. Jinno was excited. Since the machine gun of Arakawa Squad had been destroyed, Tomita’s was the only one under him now. So Jinno had stayed with Tomita Squad all the time for those several days, continuing to nag and pick holes in them, always hysterically, and making himself a real nuisance. Motivated by his cantankerous look, Kasuga and Hirono got up and began packing their bags. But Jinno abruptly ordered, “Leave your equipment here. We’ll move out soon.”

  British-Indian forces had already brought the northern half of Ramree Island under control. A river named Yanbauk flowed across its central part. It almost divided the island into two pieces and drained into the Bay of Bengal. It was more of an estuary than a river, but everyone called it a river because of its impos-ing appearance: it was over fifty meters wide, stretching across the inland for miles. Utilizing this as a natural obstacle, Ramree Garrison had reset a defensive line along its south bank.

  From January 26 to 27, enemy troops had intended to cross it forcibly by rubber raft near the mouth. Just when they were bogged down at the opposite bank, Seventh Company had intercepted it with machine guns and a twenty-five PDR field gun and beat it back successfully somehow. Everyone shouted for joy at this clear victory, but it was a passing delight. Soon the enemy rushed around the positions of Sixth Company.

  A village named Payadgi lay at the eastern tip of the Yanbauk River. Considering it a point of strategic importance, the regiment had once set its HQ there until the fall of 1943. A barrier-free plain stretched eastward behind it toward Ramree Town, the second largest town on the island. Determined to stop the enemy from advancing into Ramree Town, Sixth Company now guarded Payadgi, together with Fifth Company, which came from the south as a reinforcement.