The lane now turned sharply south and entered upon a huge grassy area. As was the custom in Hawaii at that time, no specific roadway led up to the Hoxworth mansion. Over the spacious lawn, guests drove as they wished, for no matter how badly the grass was scarred by such usage, the next day’s inevitable rain and sunlight cured it. On the lawn there were only two trees. To the right stood an African tulip tree with dark green leaves and brilliant red flowers scattered prodigally upon it, while to the left rose one of the strangest trees in nature, the golden tree which Whip had found in South America. Each year it produced a myriad of brilliant yellow flowers, and since it stood some fifty feet high, it was a spectacular exhibit.
The house was long and low, built originally in China of the best wood, then taken apart and shipped in an H & H cargo ship to Hanakai. It ran from northeast to southwest, and its southern exposure consisted of eight tall Greek pillars supporting a porch upon which the life of the mansion took place. For at Hanakai the view from the lanai—the open porch—commanded attention. A soft green grassy lawn fell away to the edge of a steep cliff some three hundred feet above the surface of the sea, which here cut deeply inland forming the bay of Hanakai. When a storm of major proportions fell upon Kauai, the wild ocean would sweep its penetrating arm into the bay and find itself impounded. Then it would leap like a caged animal high up the sides of the red cliff. Its topmost spray would poise there for a moment, then fall screaming down the sheer sides. To see such a storm at Hanakai was to see the ocean at its best. But to the north and east, from where the storms blew, there was a row of trees, not visible from the mansion, and it was upon these that the life of Hanakai depended, for they were the casuarina trees, and it was their needles that sifted out the salt and broke the back of the wild storm; they were the speechless, sighing workmen, and if the golden tree was the marvel of that part of Kauai, it existed solely because the casuarinas fought the storms on its behalf.
Within the protection of the casuarinas Wild Whip paused to review the beauty of his favorite spot in the islands. It had been given him by his doting grandfather, Captain Rafer Hoxworth, who had got it from the Alii Nui Noelani, and here Whip had brought his treasures from around the world. Hawaii’s best mangoes grew at Hanakai, its most brilliant hibiscus and its best horses. As Whip now studied the red earth and heard the ocean growling at the cliffs he muttered, “Lucky Japanese who came here to work.”
Kamejiro and his fellow laborers did not, of course, accompany Whip to the mansion. At the end of the lane Mr. Ishii, the interpreter, took them off in quite the opposite direction, toward the casuarina trees, and after half a mile he brought them to a long low wooden building consisting of a single room. It contained three doors, a few windows, half a dozen tables and some sagging wooden beds. Outside were two unspeakably foul toilets with a well between. There were no trees, no flowers, no amenities of any kind, but there was a copious amount of red mud, a thicket of wild plum from which firewood could be cut, and in all directions the green wilderness of growing sugar canes. This was the Ishii Camp, so known because of the interpreter who ran it.
In this particular camp, there were no women, no facilities for recreation, no doctor, and no church. There was lots of rice, for Wild Whip insisted that his men be fed well, and in each camp—for this was merely one of seven on Hanakai Plantation—one man was appointed fisherman, bringing to the table whatever he caught on the fruitful reefs of Kauai. It was Whip Hoxworth’s full intention that any laborer whom he imported should work for him five or ten years, save his money, and return to Japan. There was thus no need for women or churches, and little need for doctors, since he hired only the ablest-bodied.
At Hanakai the Hoxworth laborers rose at four in the morning, ate a hot breakfast, hiked to the fields so as to be there at six and worked till six at night, hiking back to the Ishii Camp on their own time. For this they were paid sixty-seven cents a day, but they did get their food and a sagging bed. During harvest, of course, they worked nineteen hours a day for no extra money.
On the first workday Kamejiro Sakagawa marched home at dusk, feeling great strength in his bones, and looked about for some place in which to bathe, for like all Japanese he was fanatic in his attention to cleanliness, and he was dismayed to find that no provisions had been made. Water could be pumped from the well, but who could bathe properly in cold water? On this first night he had to make do, protestingly, and he listened to his mates growling as they recalled the sweet, hot baths of Hiroshima, and that night he went to see Ishii-san and said, “I think I will build a hot bath for the camp.”
“There’s no lumber,” Ishii-san said. It was his job to protect the interests of Mr. Hoxworth and he did so.
“I saw some old boards at the edge of the sugar field,” Kamejiro replied.
“You can have them, but there are no nails,” Ishii-san warned.
“I saw some nails where the irrigation ditch was mended.”
“Were they rusted?”
“Yes.”
“You can have them.”
On his second full day ashore in Hawaii, Kamejiro began building his hot bath. It was most tedious work, for he could not find lumber that fitted nor could he get hold of a piece of galvanized iron for the bottom, where the fire was to be built. At last he grabbed Ishii-san, who was skittish about the whole affair, and made the interpreter speak to Mr. Hoxworth—Hoxuwurtu, the Japanese men called him—and the tall boss growled, “What do you want galvanized iron for?”
“To take a bath,” Kamejiro said.
“Use cold water. I do,” Hoxworth snapped.
“I don’t!” Kamejiro snapped back, and Hoxworth turned in his saddle to study the runty little man with the long arms that hung out from his body.
“Don’t speak to me that way,” Hoxworth said ominously, pointing his riding crop at him.
“We have to be clean,” Kamejiro insisted, not drawing away from the crop.
“You have to work,” Hoxworth said slowly.
“But after work we want to be clean,” Kamejiro said forcefully.
“Are you looking for a fight?” Hoxworth cried, dropping from his horse and throwing the reins to an attendant. Ishii-san, the interpreter, began to sweat and mumbled his words, replying on behalf of Kamejiro, “Oh, no, sir! This man is a fine workman!”
“Shut up!” Hoxworth snapped, pushing his little assistant aside. Striding up to Kamejiro he started to grab him by the shoulders, but as he did so he saw the enormous musculature of the stubborn workman, and he saw also that Kamejiro had no intention of allowing even the boss to touch him, and the two men stood in the cane field staring at each other. The other Japanese were terrified lest trouble start, but Kamejiro, to his surprise, was unconcerned, for he was studying the big American and thinking: “If he comes one step closer I will ram my head into his soft belly.”
In mutual respect the tension dissolved, and Wild Whip asked Ishii-san, “What is it he wants?”
“He’s building a bath for the camp,” Ishii repeated.
“That’s what I don’t understand,” Hoxworth replied.
“Japanese cannot live unless they have a bath each day,” Kamejiro explained.
“Pump the water and take a bath,” Whip said.
“A hot bath,” Kamejiro replied.
For a long moment the two men stared at each other, after which Whip laughed easily and asked, “So you’ve got to have some corrugated iron?”
“Yes,” Kamejiro said.
“You’ll get it,” Hoxworth replied. As if they were boys playing, Whip winked at Kamejiro, and chucked him under the chin with the whip. With one finger the Japanese laborer slowly moved the crop away, and the two men understood each other.
When the bath was built, a square tub four feet deep on stilts, Kamejiro rigged a triple length of bamboo which delivered water from the pump. Beneath the galvanized iron he built a fire with wild plum branches, and when the water was hot he clanged a piece of iron to summon the camp. Each man stripp
ed, hung his clothes on a pole spiked with nails, and was allowed one panful of hot water with which to soap down outside the tub and rinse off. Then, mounting three wooden steps, he climbed into the steaming water and luxuriated for four minutes. While he was doing this, the next man was cleansing himself, and as the first crawled out reluctantly, the second climbed in eagerly. Kamejiro tended the fire and added new water as it was needed.
The first ten men to use the water paid a penny each, and cast lots to determine who had the right to climb in first. After the first ten, each man paid half a cent, and as many as wished used the water. Long after night had fallen, when the pennies were safely stowed away and the other men were eating their evening meal, Kamejiro himself would undress, place one more stick under the iron—for he liked his bath hotter than most—and after carefully soaping himself outside and washing off, he would climb into the remnants of the water. Its heat would encompass him and make him forget Hiroshima and the difficulties of the day. To the east the casuarina trees kept away the storm, and in the hot bath all was well.
When he returned to his bunk he invariably looked with deep respect at his only significant possession, the black-framed portrait of the Japanese emperor. Before this grim and bearded leader the little workman bowed; the one reality in his life was that the emperor personally knew of his daily behavior and was grieved when things went poorly. Each night before he went to sleep he weighed his day’s actions and hoped that the emperor would approve.
In order to collect the firewood needed for the hot bath, Kamejiro rose at three-thirty each morning and worked while the others were eating. When the wood was safely stored, he grabbed two rice balls, a bit of pickle and part of a fish, munching them as he ran to the fields. At six, when the day’s work ended, he dashed home ahead of the rest to get the fire started, and was not free to eat until the last bath had been taken. Then he accepted what was left and in this way he saved the money for the important step he was to take thirteen years later in 1915.
It was not easy to accumulate money, not even when one worked as hard as Kamejiro did. For example, in 1904 events transpired in Asia which were to eat up his savings, but no man worthy of the name would have done less than he did under the circumstances. For some months Japan had been having trouble with Russia, and the emperor’s divine word to his people had reached even remote Kauai, where with trembling voice Ishii-san had read the rescript to all the assembled Japanese: “As it is Our heartfelt desire to maintain the peace of the East, We have caused Our government to negotiate with Russia, but We are now compelled to conclude that the Russian government has no sincere desire to maintain the peace of the East. We have therefore ordered Our government to break off negotiations with Russia and have decided to take free action for the maintenance of Our independence and self-protection.”
“What does it mean?” Kamejiro asked.
“War,” an older man explained.
Now Ishii-san’s voice rose to an awed climax as he delivered the distant emperor’s specific message to all loyal Japanese: “We rely upon your loyalty and valor to carry out Our object and thereby keep unsullied the honor of our Empire.”
“Banzai!” a former soldier shouted.
“Japan must win!” the workmen began to cry.
Ishii-san waited for the tumult to die down, then announced: “On Friday an officer of the emperor himself will come to Hanakai to collect money for the Imperial army. Let us show the world what loyal Japanese we are!” He hesitated a moment, then announced: “I will give eleven dollars.”
A gasp went up from the crowd as men realized how much of his meager salary this represented, and another was inspired to cry, “I will give nineteen dollars.” The crowd applauded, and as the ante rose, Kamejiro was swept up by the fervor of the moment. Japan was in danger. He could see his parents’ fields overrun by Russian barbarians, and he thought how insignificant were his savings from the hot bath. In an ecstasy of emotion, seeing the grave, bearded emperor before him, he rose and cried in a roaring voice, “I will give all my bath money! Seventy-seven dollars.”
A mighty cheer went up, and a Buddhist priest said, “Let us in our hearts resolve to protect the honor of Japan as Sakagawa Kamejiro has done this day.” Men wept and songs were sung and Ishii-san shouted in his high, weak voice, “Let every man march by and swear allegiance to the emperor.” Instinctively the workmen formed in orderly ranks and fell into martial rhythms as they marched past the place where the Buddhist priest stood. Pressing their hands rigidly to their knees, they bowed as if to the august presence itself and said, “Banzai! Banzai!”
When the excitement was over, and the emperor’s emissary had left with the money, the camp settled down to the agony of waiting for war news. It was rumored that Russian troops had landed on the island of Kyushu, and Kamejiro whispered to Ishii-san at night, “Should we return to Honolulu and try to find a boat back to Japan?”
“No,” Ishii said gravely. “After all, what we have heard is only a rumor.”
“But Japan is in danger!” Kamejiro muttered.
“We must wait for more substantial news,” Ishii-san insisted, and because he could read and write, people listened to him. And the year 1904 ended in apprehension.
But in January, 1905, his prudence was rewarded when word reached Kauai that the great Russian bastion at Port Arthur had surrendered to a Japanese siege. Kauai—that is, the Japanese living there—went wild with joy and a torchlight procession was held through the plantation town of Kapaa; and the celebrations had hardly ended when word came of an even more astonishing victory at Mukden, followed quickly by the climactic news from the Strait of Tsushima. A Russian fleet of thirty-eight major vessels had engaged the Japanese under Admiral Togo; nineteen were immediately sunk, five were captured, and of the remaining fourteen, only three got back to Russia. More than 10,000 of the enemy were drowned and 6,000 taken prisoner. For their part, the Japanese lost only three minor torpedo boats and less than 700 men. The Honolulu Mail called Tsushima “one of the most complete victories any nation has ever enjoyed at the expense of a major rival.”
Kamejiro, listening to the stunning news, burst into tears and told his friend Ishii-san, “I feel as if my hot-bath money had personally sunk the Russian ships.”
“It did,” Ishii-san assured him. “Because it represented the undying spirit of the Japanese. Look at the poor Americans! Their president speaks to them, and nothing happens. No one pays attention. But when the emperor speaks to us, we hear even though we are lost at the end of the world.”
Kamejiro contemplated this for a moment, then asked, “Ishii-san, do you feel proud today?”
“I feel as if my heart were a balloon carrying me above the trees,” Ishii-san replied.
“I can feel guns going off in my chest every minute,” Kamejiro confided. “They are the guns of Admiral Togo.” Again tears came into his eyes and he asked, “Ishii-san, do you think it would be proper for us to say a prayer for that great admiral who saved Japan?”
“It would be better if the priest were here. That’s his job.”
“But wouldn’t it be all right if we ourselves faced Japan and said a prayer?”
“I would like to do so,” Ishii-san admitted, and the two laborers knelt in the red dust of Kauai and each thought of Hiroshima, and the rice fields, and the red torii looking out over the Japan Sea, and they prayed that their courageous country might always know victory.
By this time Kamejiro had saved, from his wages and the hot bath, an additional thirty-eight dollars, and the camp suspected this, so when word reached Kauai that a splendid victory celebration was to be held right in the heart of Honolulu, for all Hawaii to see, and that the island of Kauai was invited to send two men to march in Japanese uniforms and play the roles of immortal military leaders like Admiral Togo, everyone agreed that Kamejiro should be one of the men, because he could pay his own way, and a man named Hashimoto was the other, because he also had some savings, and in late May, 1905, the t
wo stocky laborers set out on the inter-island boat Kilauea for Honolulu. There the committee provided them with handsome uniforms which local Japanese wives had copied from magazine pictures, and Kamejiro found himself a full colonel in memory of a leader who had personally thrown himself upon the Russian guns at the siege of Port Arthur. This Colonel Ito had been blown to pieces and into national immortality. It was with bursting pride that Colonel Sakagawa lined up on the afternoon of June 2, 1905, to march boldly through the streets of Honolulu and across the Nuuanu to Aala Park, where thousands of Japanese formed a procession that proceeded solemnly to the Japanese consulate, where a dignified man in frock coat and black tie nodded gravely. A workman from one of the Janders & Whipple plantations on Oahu was dressed in Admiral Togo’s uniform, and from the steps of the consulate he led the Banzai and the formal marching broke up. Kamejiro and his fellow Kauai man, Hashimoto, walked back to Aala Park, where exhibitions of Japanese wrestling and fencing were offered to an appreciative crowd; but the victory celebration was to have overtones of another kind which Kamejiro would never forget, for at ten o’clock, when the crowd was greatest, a pathway was formed and eight professional geisha girls from one of the tea houses passed through the confusion to take their places on the dancing platform, and as they went one walked in her gently swaying manner quite close to Kamejiro and the powder in her hair brushed into his nostrils and he admitted, for the first time in three years, how desperately hungry he was for that girl Yoko back in Hiroshima.
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