One Man's Justice

by Akira Yoshimura

  Takuya and the sergeant-major stood under a cherry tree watching the hive of activity in the courtyard. Soldiers holding bundles of documents hurried out to throw the papers on to the fire, then scurried inside for more. The air was dead calm and there was no sound except the snapping of the fire.

  The major from High Command and the lieutenant from the legal affairs section stepped out of the rear entrance, accompanied by two enlisted men. They joined Takuya watching the bonfire while the soldiers ran over to the garage. Moments later, there was an engine’s roar as a lorry rounded the corner of the building and stopped in front of them. The major and the lieutenant jumped up into the cab while Takuya and his sergeant-major clambered into the back. A number of soldiers were already sitting in the back holding shovels, picks and coils of rope.

  The lorry moved off. Takuya sat down on a coil of rope and looked at the charred ruins of the city from under the rolled-up canvas hood. Reports released in the days that followed would state that nine hundred and fifty-three people had been killed in raids on Fukuoka, and over fourteen thousand homes had been destroyed. Over two thousand people had been killed in both Kagoshima and Yawata and more than twenty thousand in Nagasaki, with the estimated death toll from air raids on all eighteen cities in Kyushu close to forty thousand. The execution of a mere seventeen prisoners, he thought, would hardly temper the outrage caused by the deaths of so many defenceless civilians in the fire raids.

  The truck moved past piles of rubble and burnt roofing-iron which seemed almost to quiver in the hot haze. Takuya stared at the clouds of dust billowing behind the lorry as it rumbled forward. The engine raced as the vehicle began to climb the winding road up the hill. Before long the grassy slopes on either side of the road gave way to forest, with branches of trees brushing noisily against the sides of the canvas hood.

  Moments after the lorry came out on to a flat stretch of road, it pulled over to one side, close against the face of the hill. Takuya jumped out of the back and saw that another two lorries and a smaller, khaki-painted vehicle had arrived before them. A sergeant standing on the road saluted Takuya and pointed to the left, in the direction of a bamboo grove.

  Takuya and the others stepped off the road and down on to the raised walkway between two paddy fields. A battery of frogs launched themselves into the still water as the men thudded down onto the path. Within seconds Takuya and his comrades had left the track and were walking through the dense thicket of bamboo beyond the paddy fields. Mosquitoes buzzed everywhere, and Takuya waved his hand busily from side to side to keep them away from his face.

  When they emerged into a small clearing he saw some officers and enlisted men from headquarters. The prisoners, blindfolded by strips of black cloth tied round their heads, were sitting huddled on the grass. Takuya went over to them.

  To a man, the prisoners sat dejectedly with their heads hung forward. One was mumbling what might have been a prayer, and another, a very large man, was straining so hard against the rope round his wrists that he was almost toppling over.

  Takuya noticed a group of officers from headquarters standing off to one side, a purplish-grey plume of cigarette smoke drifting straight up in the still air. When Takuya pulled out one of his cigarettes and lit it with a match, a few other officers stepped over to him and lit theirs from the flame. Puffing on his cigarette, Takuya stood gazing at the prisoners. The shrill chirring of what seemed like thousands of cicadas in the undergrowth around the small clearing had reached a crescendo, intense as a summer cloudburst. The sickly-sweet smell of wet grass hung in the air and the whirring of insect wings could be heard close by.

  ‘Shall we get it over with?’ said the major, throwing his cigarette into the grass and turning to Takuya.

  Almost as if they had been waiting for him to issue the order, two enlisted men stepped forward and pulled a young blond prisoner to his feet. The American dwarfed the soldiers on each side of him.

  They pulled him forward, but he moved uncertainly over the grass, his legs obviously weakened from his time in captivity. The major followed, and the four men soon disappeared into the forest.

  Takuya stood smoking his cigarette, mesmerised by the noise of the cicadas. The glossy dark-green leaves of the trees glistened in the sunlight. As Takuya stared in the direction the four men had gone, he felt sweat trickling down the small of his back.

  Before long he noticed movement among the trees. The major appeared, sword in hand, followed by the two enlisted men. The major’s face was expressionless except for the faint hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth.

  Another prisoner was dragged to his feet, a big, red-bearded man with a remarkably pointed nose. As soon as Takuya laid eyes on the muscular frame he instinctively stepped forward. He’d thought that this man had been executed long ago, but there was no mistaking it: this was one of the airmen who during the interrogations had casually replied that the bomber crews relaxed by listening to jazz on the way back to base. The man was held on either side by the two soldiers and led off down the path into the woods. Takuya followed close behind. He could almost feel the eyes of the other officers and men burning into his back. It doesn’t have to be perfect, he told himself. As long as I end this man’s days.

  The prisoner was taken along a narrow track through the trees. Takuya gazed fixedly at the man’s thick neck muscles as he walked into the forest.

  4

  Takuya dozed, slumped against the wooden wall of the freight car.

  The previous night he’d walked along the coastal road as far as a town called Yoshida, but as the last train had left two hours earlier he had no choice but to sleep sitting on a bench in the cramped waiting-room. Once dawn arrived, he awoke and caught the first train out. It stopped at Yawatahama, where he would have to change trains, but the only thought in Takuya’s mind at this stage was to put as much distance as possible between himself and his hometown.

  Awakened by the shrill voice of the stationmaster, Takuya jumped down from the freight car on to the tracks. Afraid that there might be someone amid the throng in the station who would recognise him, he pulled the peak of his service cap down over his eyes and found himself a place to sit down at the end of the platform.

  The train that pulled in two hours later was only going as far as Matsuyama, but thirty minutes later, after waiting over two and a half hours on the platform, Takuya boarded a train bound for the port of Takamatsu. On reaching his destination, he left the station, walked over to the dimly lit pier, and joined the long line of people waiting to board the ferry. Moments after he felt himself being pushed down into the crowded hold of the vessel, it started to move away from the pier, and in what seemed a very short time the boat reached the port of Uno, where Takuya then boarded a train bound for Okayama. It was already one in the morning by the time he disembarked. He was exhausted, but at the same time relieved that he had managed to distance himself safely from his hometown and make it to Honshu. Being just one more anonymous body in a sea of strangers must offer some degree of protection against arrest, he thought.

  Following his father’s advice, Takuya had decided to pay a visit to his mother’s elder brother. At the end of the war his uncle had been an army colonel, responsible for overseeing military training in the country’s schools. He was obviously a central figure in his mother’s family, and Takuya’s father had often expressed his respect for the man’s integrity, giving pride of place on the wall to a framed piece of his calligraphy. There had seemed to be no doubt in his father’s mind that the uncle would offer Takuya sanctuary.

  Takuya, too, felt certain that his uncle would help. When he had joined the Imperial Army his uncle had written him a long letter, which, along with the usual congratulatory words and encouragement, seemed to Takuya to have been penned by someone who understood how it must feel to be joining the military without having had the chance to apply the knowledge he had gained at university. An uncle who could show such understanding, thought Takuya, would surely empathise with his
participation in the execution and help him avoid capture.

  After a little less than an hour, the Osaka-bound overnight train pulled into the station, so packed that there were even passengers standing on the couplings between the engine and the front carriage. There was no way Takuya could get on board, and before long the train slowly wrenched itself free from the throng on the platform. Shortly after daybreak another Osaka-bound train arrived, but again every imaginable space was taken. People were even sitting half out of the windows or perched precariously on the steps below the doors. The next two trains, one just before noon and the other in mid-afternoon, were just as crowded, and not until early evening did he manage to force himself into the window of a train from Okayama.

  Stopping at every station, the train made its way down the line. After sunset, only scattered lights from houses and other buildings could be seen from the window. It was after ten o’clock when the train eventually reached Osaka.

  Takuya followed the crowds through the turnstiles and out of the station. His eyes were met by a dark, overcast sky, without a glimmer of light from either the moon or the stars. Several rows of shacks had been thrown up as temporary housing immediately in front of the station, and he could make out the soft glow of an electric light here and there. Beyond that it was pitch dark.

  Takuya knew that his uncle’s house, which he had heard had miraculously survived the incendiary raids, was about thirty minutes away on foot, but as that would involve negotiating his way in the dark through the burnt-out ruins, he decided to spend the night in the relative safety of the station. He walked back in and found the waiting-area crammed with people. There were men, women and even children sitting and lying everywhere, waiting to board a train the next day or simply homeless and seeking shelter.

  Finding a space beside a pillar in the concourse, he slipped his rucksack off his shoulder and sat down on the concrete floor. He was feverish, and he felt a creeping numbness in his legs. A warm, sickly smell, not unlike that of urine, hung in the air.

  Feeling hungry, Takuya pulled the sweet potato he had bought at Okayama Station out of his bag and took a bite. At first it seemed to have no taste at all, but as he chewed a subtle hint of sweetness reached his tastebuds.

  Suddenly, in the back of his mind, Takuya could hear a voice, a male voice, barely more audible than a whisper, muttering something like ‘Lucia’ or ‘Luciana’. It was the word the red-bearded man had been saying to himself over and over again as he sat slumped in the bamboo grove.

  Takuya’s mind drifted back to that scene at Abura-yama the previous August. He remembered clearly how anxious he had been about whether he would be able to cut through the man’s thick neck. He had concentrated on kendo for martial arts in high school, and had continued training during his days as an officer cadet, but all opportunity for further honing his skills with a sword had ended when he was posted to headquarters in Kyushu. Occasionally he had attended to his army sword, polishing it and then checking and sharpening the blade, but only to the extent necessary to keep it presentable in a ceremonial sense.

  He remembered how flies had buzzed around the prisoner’s head. There had been a light-brown birthmark on the man’s neck, with a little tuft of soft red hair in the middle of it. Takuya remembered how he had stood there, seeing in his mind’s eye the scene inside the bomber returning to base after a raid. When he pictured the red-haired man moving his head and shoulders to the rhythm of jazz, rage welled up inside him. This man must surrender his own life in return for those of the countless innocent civilians upon whom he had rained death and destruction.

  Takuya remembered how the feeling of the sword striking something hard had jarred his palms. For some reason, the man’s knees had jerked upwards with the first blow, a huge gash opening in the back of his neck as his head drooped forward. Takuya had swung his sword down another two times, but somehow recalled it now as three. He remembered his surprise at the relative ease with which he had severed the man’s head, and how he had immediately felt a wave of pride and satisfaction.

  Had it been ‘Lucia’ or ‘Luciana’? Takuya wondered as he sat there against the pillar, rucksack between his knees. Could it have been the man’s girlfriend, or was it his mother? Was it ‘Lucia’ or ‘Luciana’? Takuya whispered to himself. Or then again, maybe it was part of a prayer.

  If the major from High Command had given the order, Takuya would have been quite prepared to dispatch another one, maybe even two, of the prisoners. He had stayed there in the clearing and watched as each successive prisoner was led out of the woods, forced to sit down on the grass, and then beheaded. Takuya remembered how high his emotions had been running then. Watching, he had felt certain that he would do much better if he were asked to execute a second or even a third prisoner.

  Suddenly, as Takuya sat there slowly munching the sweet potato, each bite tasting better than the last, a small hand was thrust in front of his face. He looked up to see a little boy, about ten years old, standing in front of him. The boy’s shirt was open at the neck, revealing bones protruding from under tightly stretched skin so thickly caked with grime that it could almost have been burnt-on coal tar. A foul smell drifted from his body.

  The boy’s face showed no sign of emotion. His cheeks were sunken and his arms and legs astonishingly thin, his distended belly proof that he was suffering from malnutrition. The outstretched hand came nearer to Takuya’s face. The boy clearly wanted some of the sweet potato. It was the first time Takuya had seen a homeless waif up close, standing there in filthy bare feet and wearing a shirt with one sleeve ripped open at the shoulder.

  As Takuya stared at the child, guilt welled up inside him. His inability to protect this child and others like him had robbed the boy of his family and forced him to beg from adults to stay alive. Important as the remainder of the potato might be to stave off his own hunger, Takuya felt somehow obliged to share with the boy.

  As he was about to break the sweet potato in half, the boy reached out and snatched it from his grip. Takuya looked up instantly, but the boy was already running as fast as his legs would carry him towards the exit. That he could find the reserves of energy to propel himself so nimbly and at such speed, around and over the human obstacle course covering the concrete floor and then out into the pitch darkness beyond the exit, was cause for amazement.

  It never crossed Takuya’s mind to pursue him. He sat motionless, staring out into the gloom of the night. He could still visualise the glint in the boy’s eyes, a look of bold cockiness more fitting for someone twice his age. His eyes bespoke a reserve of worldly cunning and vitality behind his wretched appearance. Neither child nor adult, the boy seemed more like some kind of exotic creature. It disturbed Takuya to think that in just eight short months since the end of the war, the burnt shells of Japan’s major towns and cities had become home to such waifs.

  His own hunger pangs subsiding somewhat, he imagined the boy crouching down like a wild animal in the darkness of the ruins, casting furtive glances to each side as he wolfed down the remains of the sweet potato.

  ‘Was it “Lucia” or “Luciana”?’ Takuya whispered to himself. Leaning back against the pillar, he closed his eyes. Putting his arms through the shoulder-straps of his rucksack, he secured the bag firmly on his knees. A deep sleep came over him.

  There seemed to be no change in the outward appearance of his uncle’s house, or at least what he could see of it over the high wooden fence around the property. A large wooden nameplate was attached to the gatepost, just as there had been the last time he visited. As he opened the gate he heard a bell ring just above his head. The garden was completely different from the way he remembered it. The only trees left standing were those hard up against the fence; the rest of the space had been dug up and turned into a vegetable patch. Buckets and straw mats lay here and there, and the ground was littered with pieces of fine straw. There was no sign of the shelves of bonsai trees that Takuya’s uncle had been known to tend so lovingly.

&n
bsp; Takuya slid open the front door. ‘Is anyone home?’ he called as he poked his head through into the entrance. A half-dozen slippered footsteps from down the hall brought his uncle out of the shadows. Takuya stiffened and bowed respectfully to the old man, but he couldn’t help being taken aback at the physical change in his uncle. He had lost a great deal of weight and his skin was pale and pasty, as though he had aged years in a very short time. No doubt the want of proper food had taken its toll. There was no sign of the stalwart character he had once been known for. As Takuya followed the old man into the living-room, he couldn’t help noticing how bare the inside of the house was.

  His wife had gone out to buy some food, the old man said. The veins on the back of his wizened hands stood out as he made a pot of green tea.

  There was no way, Takuya thought, that he could entrust his life to the feeble-looking old man sitting in front of him. His father’s faith that his uncle would provide safe haven had obviously been based on an image of the man before the war was lost, which clearly no longer held true.

  But then again, he might be reading too much into his uncle’s physical appearance. Anyone who had spent so many years in the military would surely be stout of heart and mind, and not easily swayed by the vicissitudes of the last few years. Such a person would, he thought, be sympathetic to Takuya’s role in the executions at Abura-yama, and therefore would help keep him safe from trial by the Allied authorities.

  Takuya quickly came to the point in explaining the reason for his visit. His uncle sat silently, eyes half closed in concentration, as he listened to his nephew’s story. Takuya’s description of his own part in the executions immediately prompted an unmistakable expression of surprise on the old man’s face.