The Seventh Samurai

by Doug Walker

  "You're a civilian now. Let's go," Chalk said.

  The boy followed the older man past a burned-out brick warehouse, past a row of rusting Japanese military trucks. The building they sought appeared to be a warehouse with a corrugated tin roof and wide vertical planks on the side.

  Chalk went to the door marked with a stenciled number 10 and unlocked a padlock. Partitions had been thrown up in the building to make a series of semi-private rooms. There were two bunks in the room, each neatly made with a rough wool khaki blanket. Between the two was a big table made from a single large piece of plywood. A lamp, radio, hotplate, cigarettes, some canned goods, a bayonet and a half-empty whisky bottle were on the table.

  Chalk moved immediately to an oil heater and stooped to light it with a large, wooden kitchen match. When he was certain it had caught, he rose and said, "That's Sergeant McKay's bunk. You can sleep there. He's in the infirmary with the flu. He pointed to a door at the back of the cubicle. "There are showers and toilets through that door. But don't use them when I'm gone. You're really not supposed to be here."

  "You're going somewhere?" There was alarm in Yoshimoto's eyes.

  "Just out to get some chow. I'll be back in twenty minutes. Do you have to use the toilet?" Yoshimoto shook his head. "I'm going to padlock the outside door so no one can come in. But you won't be locked in. You can leave through the shower room if you want to go." Yoshimoto looked at the rear door and shook his head again. He rather liked the idea of being locked in. He might be free, but so far the land seemed alien to him.

  They dined on corned beef slathered with mustard between thick slices of bread. Chalk used the bayonet both as bread knife and can opener. After the sandwiches he shared out a can of beans he had let warm on the oil heater. Then he returned from the shower room with a kettle of water. Coffee was served steaming from heavy GI mugs with no handles. The knife was used again, this time to punch open a can of condensed milk. Chalk laced his cup with whisky, and then offered the bottle to Yoshimoto. The boy refused.

  Shortly after Chalk had cleaned up the dinner mess he sat on the edge of his bunk and announced he was going to turn in.

  "I can't seem to get enough rest," he said. He had wanted to talk to the boy about prison camp and share his experiences, but he didn't. Then he thought he might tell Yoshimoto about Satsuki, his Japanese wife who might still be alive somewhere in the Philippines. She was his real reason for not returning to the States. But he was played out.

  He put out the fire and stripped to his skivvies, then sat on the bunk and drank a couple of fingers of whisky from the cup. It would be cold, so he would sleep in his socks. "Put the light out when you go to bed," he told Yoshimoto.

  Yoshimoto slept fitfully. He was used to sharing a room with many people. There were always noises; this was a different sort of silence than he was used to. He had heard trucks moving nearby then the dull blast from a ship's horn in the harbor. The sounds of aircraft droned overhead. Then Chalk's sleep was troubled: Turnings and grunts and moans and sometimes a spoken word, but in English. He wondered where Chalk had learned Japanese.

  He kicked back the sheet and blanket and sat on the edge of the cot. The night was chill, but he had slept in his clothing. His thoughts troubled him, particularly at this hour. Three o'clock, four o'clock, he wasn't sure. He shouldn't have told Sergeant Chalk about the cave and the Colonel. He had thought of it for hours and now he was certain he had made a serious error.

  Chalk was his enemy. He had been tricked in some way and now had been isolated from his fellows. Alone and virtually cooperating with the enemy. After all, he was a Japanese soldier. In fact, the seventh samurai.

  A towel was tacked over the front window, a makeshift curtain, but a light outside filtered through and around the edges. Yoshimoto could see perfectly well.

  Yoshimoto stared at Chalk, lying on his side, his face to the wall. Slowly he moved to the table and picked up the bayonet, then carefully returned to his cot. He ran his finger over the long, cold blade. It was nicked from misuse, but the point was good. Chalk had somehow tricked him, compromised him.

  The romantic tales of bushido - the historic unwritten code of conduct for Japanese noble and samurai class - instructed him to be indifferent to death if he knew he was in the right. Yoshimoto knew. He clutched the haft of the bayonet in both hands, the point toward the floor, then rose slowly to his feet.

  Across the room, Sergeant Chalk moaned and rolled onto his back. Yoshimoto read this sudden shift as an omen for him to act. Quickly and silently he crossed the darkened room, lifted the blade high into the air then plunged it with a fury into the sleeping man's chest.

  He maintained his tight grip on the bayonet for a moment, expecting some sudden, violent reaction from the prone figure. But there was none. A slight gurgling sound, then breathing ceased. It was as if he had brought peace to the still body. He retraced his steps and sat on the cot. For a long time he stared at the haft and the few inches of blade that rose above the chest. Then he crossed the room and with great effort withdrew the bayonet from the dead man. He carefully wiped the blade and handle with a towel. If he had dared he would have entered the shower room and washed the weapon clean.

  After returning the bayonet to the table he sat back down on his cot. He felt no remorse and very little emotion. He had slain twice with a blade and he was not yet fifteen. He was accustomed to death, He had helped bury battle-dead, lifeless objects like the carcasses of cattle. Yoshimoto had been imprisoned with men who had been horribly burnt by the flamethrowers the Americans had used to clear the caves and gullies. Few survived that brutality. Chalk had been his enemy.

  Chalk's wallet was on the table. Yoshimoto picked it up and carried it near the window to examine it. For some inexplicable reason there was a picture of a Japanese woman in the wallet. She was not very young and not very pretty. Yoshimoto puzzled over why an American sergeant would carry such a photo. There were three one hundred dollar bills, four twenties, a one and a five.

  Yoshimoto reasoned that taking the money would cheapen his act of courage. Yet Chalk obviously didn't need it and to take it might lead authorities to believe that this act of violence was committed by a common criminal, rather than one who scrupulously followed the code of bushido. He took the money and tossed the wallet on the floor where it could easily be seen.

  Picking up Sergeant Chalk's watch from the table he returned to his cot to examine it. It was a handsome watch. The time was just after five and it was still full dark outside. He turned the watch over in the dim light and ran his thumb over the inscription: Burt, All My Love, Satsuki - 1940. He had no knowledge of English and the words meant nothing to him. He would not keep the watch. Japanese were not thieves.

  He put the watch back on the table and pulled on the field jacket that Chalk had given him. Yoshimoto heard an engine start nearby and what sounded like a rooster crowing. The area would be waking up. The cooks would be the first to stir. There would be guards.

  Cautiously, he peered from the window at the gray wretched morning. Then on impulse he picked up the watch and shoved it into his pocket, performing the act quickly, as if he were under surveillance. After rechecking the deserted area he was outside and had padlocked the door.

  Yoshimoto walked away into the rubble of Osaka.

  CHAPTER 5: Tracking Ben Hardy

  It was relatively easy for Detective Taro Watanabe to learn who paid for Ben Hardy's ticket - the Japanese Immigration Department. Government travel was not an uncommon transaction, and it had been done by phone. Hardy himself had the flight moved up at the last moment.

  Learning why Immigration had paid for the ticket was not so simple. Watanabe was blocked at every turn by the Osaka office. In desperation he called Tokyo and was referred back to Osaka. He had begun his quest on Monday morning. After three days of sandwiching calls to Immigration between other work, he showed up at the Immigration office in person early Thursday before the staff arrived.

  The
office was on the fifth floor of a government building near Osaka Castle. Watanabe sat on a padded bench among the nervous foreigners waiting anxiously either to obtain work visas or get their work visas renewed. There were Brits, Americans, Australians and New Zealanders, mostly language teachers, along with Filipino and Thai prostitutes who sat under the watchful eye of their yakuza mafia masters who would palm them off as dancers and entertainers. The yakuza were generally husky, cheerful men, given to weight lifting and high fashion. They were members of a class that in the old days had trouble finding decent work, so they got together and started their own thing. They considered short prison terms as rest periods on a health farm and a respite from consuming various types of alcohol and womanizing.

  Watanabe's objective was Takashi Mitani, the office chief who had declined to talk with him on the telephone. By questioning early staff arrivals he got a description of Mitani and learned that his custom was to stop by the coffee shop down the hall. As described, Mitani was drinking coffee and reading the daily Yomiuri Shimbun.

  Watanabe sat down and pushed his credentials across the table. "Mitani san, I'm Detective Watanabe, attached to the Osaka police. I'd like to ask you a few questions."

  Mitani said nothing at first, but examined the ID in detail. "There's been a crime?" he finally asked.

  "I'm investigating under that premise. I'm sure you're aware of my telephone calls."

  "I do recall something about them. I thought we had referred you to Tokyo." Mitani sipped his coffee and gazed out the window.

  "Yes, I talked with Tokyo Immigration. They said this was an Osaka matter. It seems to be in your lap."

  "Well, just what is the question?" Mitani asked. His tone indicated he hadn't any idea what information Watanabe was seeking.

  "In the course of my investigation I was interrogating a witness, an American named Ben Hardy. Benjamin Hardy, I assume. I had not completed my questioning when I learned he had left Japan, returned to the United States."

  Mitani shrugged. "Usually we can't stop people from leaving. " He smiled slightly. "Our main job, it seems, is to keep people out."

  "Yes," Watanabe returned the faint smile. "But you assisted this man in leaving. Immigration bought him a first class ticket on JAL."

  "We try to use JAL as much as possible. It is a leading Japanese airline with a good safety record."

  "Of course, but my question is why did you fly this particular person to the States at this particular time?"

  "And my answer," Mitani shot back, "Is I don't know. I can't keep track of everything."

  Watanabe's anger began to rise. "This isn't just idle chit chat, Mitani san. You're talking to a police detective. Your refusal to cooperate puzzles me."

  Mitani backed off. "I'm not refusing to cooperate. All I'm saying is I don't know the details of this case. I'll see who handled it and I'll have that person call you. Now I've got to go to work." He rose to his feet.

  Watanabe didn't move. "I can get a warrant for you and your records and I won't hesitate to do it."

  "You're very confrontational, Watanabe-san. We can negotiate this through channels the Japanese way."

  "I've been through channels for three days and I haven't gotten shit. This isn't inter-agency feuding. You're dealing with the Osaka police investigating a serious crime involving the loss of Japanese life."

  Mitani stared at the wall in back of Watanabe for several seconds. "All right, give me half an hour to get the files together, then come to my office."

  Watanabe bought a paper and a cup of coffee. When he checked his watch only fifteen minutes had passed. He turned to the editorial page and read a column about continuing trade disputes between Japan and the U.S.

  The writer touched on the point that the U.S. had produced 180 Nobel laureates compared with Japan's seven. He said that many years ago the U.S. had the know-how to put a man on the moon and suggested that Japan's considerable research abilities had been poured into commercial gimmickry - ultra thin tape players, tiny TV sets and so forth.

  Watanabe turned the page and read where some obscure American trade official was threatening to invoke some obscure trade law. Every day it seemed there was some threat from some different American official. No one seemed to really speak for the U.S. government. Through the years, the Japanese, while considering the threats an irritant, had learned that headlines were all a game. Nothing ever changed. Why should it? The Japanese were good at making things and the Americans were good at buying them. Now China posed a growing trade threat to both the U.S. and Japan. The Chinese paid their workers next to nothing and could undersell almost everyone on the face of the globe.

  Thirty minutes were up and Watanabe made his way to Takashi Mitani's office. The secretary immediately took him into the inner office and installed him in a comfortable chair by Mitani's large desk.

  "This man, Benjamin Hardy, " Mitani began, "is, frankly, an undesirable. At least in the eyes of our department. He was more or less deported. That is, he was asked to go and decided to comply."

  "Did he commit some sort of crime?"

  "No. Not that we know of. Deporting people is not uncommon, as you know. But sometimes it's a messy business. It's easier, cleaner, just to ask someone to leave and to have them do it. I'm sure he knew we could have gone through the ritual and forced him to leave."

  "Just what did he do?"

  "I'm not sure of all the details. It may have been his daily life, a lifestyle. The words 'social deviate' are used. But you must understand in a case like this there is no complete report, no ironclad file. It was felt that it was in the best interest of Japan that he leave the country. I'm sure you run across many people like that in your line of work."

  "Of course," Watanabe said, "but they're all Japanese. Can you give me any specifics?"

  "You may have mentioned it. The loss of Japanese lives. That incident up on the Tsugaru Strait where three young men lost their lives in a scuba accident. Hardy seems to have been responsible for that."

  "But it was an accident, wasn't it?" Watanabe asked.

  "Well, was it?" Mitani questioned. "What are you investigating?"

  Watanabe had fallen into his own trap. "I concede that's part of it. Could you tell me why he was given a first class ticket? Why first class?"

  Mitani smiled. "These gaijin teachers are money grubbers. That's why they're over here. Some of them are like children. They lack the patience and endurance of we Japanese. Any little inducement like that influences them. If we can pay for a first class ticket and avoid formal charges, it's money well spent."

  "I wonder if I might borrow the file on this man?"

  Mitani smiled and shrugged. "I've told you basically what's in it. Whatever else there is isn't written down. It's immigration policy not to release files. Of course, if you get a court order, that's up to you. I'm just doing my job."

  CHAPTER 6: Akira Yoshimoto's Cousin

  Before Christmas in 1945, when Akira Yoshimoto walked into the heart of Osaka, hardly one brick rested on another in many parts of the city. In addition to the two hundred yen each repatriated soldier was given, Yoshimoto had $386 and the watch he had taken from Sergeant Chalk.

  Osaka was being turned into a shanty town with bits and pieces of debris, scraps of canvas, and rusted sheets of metal jerry-rigged into shelters. Walls and clumps of broken buildings rose here and there like dark flowers on a rubble-strewn plain. The flimsy houses had burned, their well-tended gardens of moss, stone, shrubs and quiet pools swallowed by firestorms. During the final days of the war, U.S. bombers would rally over nearby Lake Biwa and spread their drum roll of high explosives and incendiaries, using the dusky waters of the Yodo river as a guide.

  Two cities in the area had been spared for cultural reasons. Kyoto, the home of Japanese emperors for a thousand years before the move was made to Tokyo, was untouched. It remains today the treasure chest of Japanese history and ongoing cultural activities. Nara, less important than Kyoto, but famed for its huge sta
tue of Buddha, its tame deer and unique pagoda, was also unharmed.

  The morning air was cold and Yoshimoto was happy to have the field jacket Chalk had given him. He was better dressed than most Japanese on the streets of Osaka. The streets themselves were clear, and motorized traffic, mostly U.S. military, was moving. In addition there was a motley assortment of push, or pull carts, men and women burdened with sacks or baskets, plus bicycles.

  The youthful ex-soldier felt neither remorse, nor fear. Nor did he feel hatred for the man he had killed. The contrary was true. He felt a bond, a sort of kinship, as he picked his way through the growing foot traffic while the city shook off the mist of dawn and came alive. He was pleased to see the electric trains were in service.

  As he neared the station a stout, dirty man came out of nowhere and grabbed his arm. "Hey, kid, give me your coat or I'll beat the shit out of you." Passersby ignored the two and hurried on their way. Yoshimoto was about to speak when he thought better of it. He gave his assailant a quick kick in the leg and twisted away, then hurried into the station. My first day of freedom, he thought, and accosted in daylight on the streets of Osaka by a Japanese thug. What has happened to my country?

  The station was crowded. Although it was unheated, the crowd generated its own warmth. There were peddlers, although prices for tacky goods were high, and almost the only customers were foreign military. One middle-aged man had even found both charcoal and chestnuts somewhere and was doing a brisk business selling the roasted nuts. Steaming sake, served in small cedar boxes, was also a popular item.

  Yoshimoto was surprised that there seemed to be no friction between the Japanese and American troops. The only harassment was being done by ragged groups of beggar boys and girls who importuned the GIs for gum, candy, cigarettes, or coins. Even at this morning hour there were prostitutes offering their services at every opportunity. Yoshimoto was not shocked to see prostitutes, but he was chagrined because they were all Japanese. Prostitutes, or "comfort girls," were a normal contingent of the Japanese army, but they were almost never Japanese. They were Korean, Chinese, Filipino or Burmese teenagers rounded up by Japanese troops during sweeps through the countryside.