Hiroshima Joe: A Novel

by Martin Booth

  Without success, Sandingham tried to introduce him to Mr Mishima, but it was to no avail.

  ‘Joe,’ the boy told him quite categorically, ‘I like you. You’re straight down the line. But I don’ give a shit how good a guy he may be. He’s a goddam Jap and the only good Jap’s a dead Jap.’

  ‘He’s not like all the other Nips – or what you take them to be. Many of them aren’t, as a matter of fact. They don’t want the war and they know they’ve lost it.’

  ‘Then let ’em surrender. MacArthur’s ready for ’em.’

  ‘It’s not that simple, Garry. They can’t just jack it in.’

  ‘Too bad.’

  Garry shrugged his shoulders and lifted the broad wooden shovel of sawdust, tipping it into the hessian sack hanging from two nails by the entrance.

  His wounds were healing, but in Sandingham’s view he should not have been sent to labouring work so soon. The fractures were mended but the bruises were prolonged by the continued use of the muscles. After ten days Garry suddenly let out a groaning yell and doubled up on the floor of the timber shed. Sandingham and Mishima ran to his aid before the guard arrived.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘My stomach!’ He was choking on the words. ‘It’s like awful cramp. Right across it.’

  O God, thought Sandingham, he’s got appendicitis. It was a killer, for there was no way to operate. The expression on Sandingham’s face told the lad more than words.

  ‘No,’ he divined, ‘I’ve not got appendix trouble. It’s been took out.’

  Maybe a hernia, Sandingham said to himself.

  They lifted him on to the pile of sawdust sacks waiting to be taken to the camp with the prisoners at the end of the day’s work. Garry lay there on his side in an embryonic crouch while Mishima explained the problem to the two guards and the hancho. They agreed to let him stay there as he was.

  That evening, the doctor having diagnosed acute cramp, Sandingham squatted by the steward’s tatame and massaged the young man’s solar plexus, gently kneading the muscles loose. His fingers pried and smoothed the flesh as his patient lay awkwardly and painfully naked upon his back. They were alone in the barrack. The evening tenko was over and the prisoners were left to their own devices. Many were sitting on the parade ground in the last of the sunlight.

  ‘If we were back in the States,’ Garry murmured, ‘I’d let you do that to me any time.’

  ‘Relaxes you?’

  It being so long, Sandingham suspected nothing.

  ‘Sure does. And if it didn’t hurt so much, I guess you’d see other muscles tighten.’

  His words gripped Sandingham’s mind. Garry was at one with him. An overpowering feeling of companionship came over him, the comradeship that springs between two men who belong to the same freemasonry of sexual attraction. He carried on pressing gently on the youth’s stomach.

  After a while, Garry wished him to stop and, with difficulty, tried to raise himself on to one elbow. It stung him deep in the gut and he grimaced. Sandingham put his arm under Garry’s shoulders to help him up.

  ‘Thanks,’ Garry muttered.

  He eased himself round so he could face Sandingham, lifted his right arm and put it around Sandingham’s neck, drawing him down and kissing him on the mouth. His tongue briefly slipped wetly across Sandingham’s lips. For his part, Sandingham made no response. He was altogether too surprised, and moved, and confused.

  ‘C’mon, Joe. I know you like it and you’re one of us. I can tell by your touch.’

  ‘It’s not that easy. You’re right to recognise me – I’m like you and you are like me, but…’

  ‘They ain’t gonna see us.’ Garry spoke with all the adolescent thrill at a clandestine sexual encounter. ‘We can be quick here. It’s almost dark.’

  ‘You don’t understand. I…’

  ‘They’re not gonna label you and me. And if they do, who cares? We’re in the crap too deep in this camp to get people worried about two queens like us. And we ain’t alone. We all got too much to be concerned with.’ He giggled, then stopped, for it ached his belly muscles.

  Sandingham drew back.

  ‘You’re new to the camp. New to Japan and being a prisoner. Look at your body and then look at mine.’

  Garry smiled tenderly and interjected, ‘I’m not worried about your skinniness. I ain’t put off it. I just want the warmth we can make. I just want the love; if you can, I can.’

  ‘My last friend was killed with me in Hong Kong,’ Sandingham confided. ‘I’ve not had anyone since, and now I’m just not able to.’

  ‘You shouldn’t let memories screw you up.’

  ‘The memories don’t. I’ve got over them now. God knows, it’s been long enough since then. A year here is a decade elsewhere. But I’ve been on a meagre diet for thirty odd months now. I haven’t…’ He tried to remember what Bingham had said when he had fallen for the boy in the camp in Hong Kong: he’d forgotten that boy until now. ‘I mean, I can’t get horny. Can’t get a stand. It’s because the diet here has no vitamin E in it. I’m too run down for sex. Even at the sight of your…’

  His eyes wandered over Garry’s torso. Between the scars and bruises the young man’s skin glowed with health.

  Garry beckoned Sandingham nearer. He leaned over and Garry kissed him delicately on the side of his neck.

  ‘We’ll be close,’ said Sandingham. ‘Be sure of it. But we can’t be lovers. You can, but I can’t. I’ll be your lover, but you can’t be mine.’

  Lowering himself back on to the tatame, Garry said, ‘No, Joe. That’s no deal. Just stay put while I get to sleep.’

  When he was asleep, and the other men had entered the barrack, Sandingham left, and walked quickly – for the guards would soon be locking up – through the twilight to his own barrack. On his own tatami, he curled up under the cotton sheet and tried to sleep himself. He could not. He so wanted to love and be loved, but he just could not.

  Lying awake, he let his fears grow and multiply: what if he were now incapable of love? Not just the sexual kind but the spiritual too?

  * * *

  Over the next few weeks, the friendship between the two men evolved into a kind of love and Sandingham was comforted by this: his body might be beyond even a hint of consummation but his mind was certainly not. He discovered an unfamiliar peace descended upon him when he was alone – or as alone as was possible in the circumstances – with Garry. If they were preparing food in the kitchens together Garry would deliberately brush his hand against Sandingham’s arm and wink surreptitiously to him. In the latrines, Garry would hand him the block of communal soap after rubbing it on his thighs. In the timber works, the younger man would draw quick erotic shapes in the sawdust and then rapidly blow them away. He was cheeky and funny and lively.

  In quieter moments, he would talk of his home without any concern that he might never see it again. He dealt with the past in a matter-of-fact manner: it had happened, so why not think about it? It was the future he did not consider, partly out of a horribly rational fear and partly, he admitted, out of a superstitious belief that, if he thought optimistically, he ruined the unborn chance-to-be.

  At night, they did not sleep together. That would have been asking for censure, and was out of the question. Yet Sandingham would lie so that he faced the general direction of Garry’s tatame, although it was in another barrack, and he was somehow deeply cheered by the thought that Garry was facing him through the darkness and over the prone, groaning, shifting mass of their fellow sufferers’ bodies. Sleep came more easily to him now than at any time since he had been taken captive.

  One puzzle did kept him awake on some nights, however. Now that he was in contact with human love once more, albeit only in thought rather than deed, he found himself wondering in the darkness as to why he was still alive. The odds were against him. They were against them all. The longer one was held prisoner, the less one’s chances had to be. It was merely statistics. He tried not to think of this, accepti
ng Garry’s assumption that to think of death meant death. Yet his continuing survival continued to surprise him.

  * * *

  ‘Listen!’

  They were lying back in the sun. The guards on the ground were strolling to and fro by the wire while those in the towers were fanning themselves.

  ‘I can’t hear anything,’ said Sandingham.

  ‘I’d swear I can – there it is.’

  It was very far off, very high up: a dull droning.

  ‘So?’

  ‘It’s a – I’d swear it’s a B29.’

  ‘Not a chance.’

  A siren sounded. The guards sprang into motion.

  ‘Shewltah! Shewltah!’

  ‘It’s an air raid! A daylight raid!’

  They had recently been forced to dig four large shelters in the camp for such an event. The Japanese knew that the chances of day raids were increasing rapidly.

  A machine-gun crew rushed into the centre of the parade square and erected their weapon upon a tripod like a camera stand. Normally the Nambu Type 11 only appeared for special occasions – visits from area command or the tenko on the Emperor’s birthday. With it mounted, they opened fire.

  ‘What the hell do they think they’re doing?’ Norb joked. ‘The gun’s not accurate at over a mile and the B29’s got to be at least twenty thousand feet up.’

  Still, regardless of the hopelessness of the range, they emptied magazine after magazine at it until it disappeared.

  The all-clear sounded.

  Speculation was rife, especially as no bombs had fallen within earshot, either in the vicinity of the camp or further afield. A raid in the city to the west would have been audible.

  ‘No doubt about it,’ Frank Gough said with an air of authority. He had been an observer with the RAF. ‘That was no bomber. That was a photographic reconnaissance. And we’d best protect ourselves.’

  Within a week, the Japanese had provided the materials and the letters ‘P.O.W.’ were painted on the roof of the kitchen and on the Americans’ barrack hut.

  * * *

  The late summer hung lazily in the sky over the timber works. They had tidied up the yard and were stood down from duty because there was no electricity to power the machines. A raid somewhere had felled the power lines or hit a transformer substation. That was not what they had been told, but it was what Mr Mishima had surreptitiously relayed to them.

  The water was short in the yard, too. The lack of power had caused the pumping station to halt and, by three o’clock, the barrels were nearly empty and the men were getting thirsty. The lorry was not due to call for them until five-twenty. The shade was hot and the sunlight hotter, sultry and humid.

  Sandingham was restless, as were the others. The guards, conscious of this, allowed them to pace about or shift from spot to spot in the shadows. They were certain no one would attempt an escape.

  Behind the tall pyramid of felled tree trunks, awaiting the saw and the shaver, the barbed wire that surrounded the timber yard premises was loose and low. It was also close to the trunks that had rolled or slipped against it. From time to time Sandingham had had to go behind the mountain of logs in order to shift the stack for selection and removal. From the rear of the pile, throughout the summer, he had seen a papaya tree growing. That it was a rare plant in Japan and much prized by its owner were facts of which Sandingham was ignorant. He was similarly ignorant of the fact that the guards had their eyes on the tree in anticipation of the day when the fruit might grow to maturity.

  At first, it had been a leafless pillar but, as spring came, so did large, palmate-like leaves. Under these, which grew only on the top, appeared exotic flowers that swiftly died and changed into small, deep green rugby balls two inches long. As the summer developed, so did the fruit, watched almost daily by Sandingham. The fruit swelled, filled and grew longer. Towards the end of the summer the deep green altered to emerald and then to a faint greenish-white. This became, by degrees, a washed pink and then a peachy, soft canary-yellow colour. The fruit were ripe at last.

  Under the guise of going to relieve himself, Sandingham made his way behind the timber sheds and then, when the guards were looking away, he hunched low and dashed behind the uncut supplies. There was a space here between the tree trunks and the wire that was several feet wide but narrowed to a point where the stock-pile leaned upon the posts supporting the wire.

  Carefully, Sandingham surveyed the outside world. He had hardly ever looked through the encompassing fence.

  The papaya tree was standing against the fence on a strip of land a little higher than the surrounding countryside, which consisted mostly of lotus and rice fields interspersed with patches of cabbage or daikon. A quarter of a mile away was a hamlet of typical Japanese houses and a small shrine beside a farm. He could hear ducks quacking. A good way off, a figure was slowly ploughing or fertilising with a bullock towing an implement of some sort. It was too far away to spot him.

  Climbing the wood pile and peering over the top, he could see the road passing the timber yard. There was nothing moving on it in either direction for as far as he could see.

  Gradually, he eased himself on to the top log, lying flat upon it and hoping that his brown skin and scrawny frame would camouflage him. When he was sure he was not being seen by the guards or the prisoners, he put his left leg over the top wire and flipped himself into the cover of the trunks. There was no shouting or fusillade of fire smacking into the logs.

  He cautiously descended the wire, using the logs resting against it as footholds and stood on the earth. He was trembling with fear and excitement. He was so agitated, he had to piss so he stood against the wire and urinated through it on to the timber. He chuckled inwardly at the thought that he was doing this against the Japanese wood, a one-day suicide plane and the fence, and all from the free side.

  Relieved, he started to work his way up the vertical papaya trunk. It was smooth and he was not strong enough to get to the top of it. Sliding down again, he measured the distance from the top of the wire to the ripe fruit. Too far. There was only one way to get the fruit down: shake the tree. He estimated that one good vibration should do it. He tested it tentatively. It was not an old tree and it would shake. He embraced the trunk, wriggled his feet into a good grip on the ground and, mustering all his strength, he gave the trunk a hefty heave. The foliage shimmered and hustled. The fruit swung against each other. One dropped. He tried to catch it but could not. It fell to the ground and split open. Within, he could see the sweet, juicy meat of the fruit around the black pips.

  He picked up the fruit and shinned up the wood pile, slithered over the top of the wire and dropped into the space behind it. Here he pulled the fruit into halves and jammed one in a cranny in the wood pile. The other he hugged in close to his body. This he would smuggle into the timber shed and share with Mishima and Garry. The other half he’d eat himself later.

  ‘Dorobo o tsukamaero!’

  There was a man standing at the end of the trunks.

  ‘Yoko ni nare!’

  This other voice was over his head. He heard the rattling home of a bolt in a breach. He could envisage the brass case inserting itself into the barrel.

  ‘Koko ni ki!’ ordered the first voice.

  Sandingham was unsure of what to do – lie down or go forwards. He decided on the former.

  ‘Hayakushiro! Isoge!’

  He stumbled out of the shadow of the trunks into the sunlight. The guard on the top of the stack jumped down to the ground. He grabbed Sandingham by the nape of his neck, pincering his thumb and fingers into his flesh until Sandingham felt his head hum, the blood fighting to get to his brain. He was pushed to the ground where the first guard turned him over and discovered the papaya.

  The hancho came running from the yard office.

  ‘Miro!’

  He saw the papaya.

  ‘No goot!’ the hancho screamed and booted Sandingham in the side, just above his kidneys. He grunted and rolled over, spewing th
e little water he had drunk earlier. The hancho picked up the half-papaya and, as it was covered with sweat and grit, he threw it over the wire. Sandingham lifted his arm up to protect his face. The guard nearest him swung his rifle barrel at his head and cracked the steel against his ear; the foresight dug into his skull and he felt the blood begin to flow.

  Going down the alleyway behind the felled trees, the hancho found the other half of the fruit. It was already covered with ants. He chose to toss it beside the first half where it thumped on the earth, spilling the seeds on to the dust.

  With a length of hawser, they securely bound Sandingham to one of the pine trunks in full sunlight and left him there. The remaining prisoners and the Japanese workforce were herded into the nearest shed and instructed to sit or squat on the ground. The Japanese placed themselves apart from the PoWs. A shouted interrogation followed in which it was eventually divined that no one had assisted Sandingham in his climbing of the wire and thieving of the fruit. That understood, the prisoners were ordered to keep absolutely quiet until the lorry arrived.

  After a little while, Sandingham felt the hawser stretching his skin and his left arm grew numb. A close warmth ran down to his wrist, though whether blood or sweat he could not tell. He started to think about what would happen to him or to the others. Fantastic and horrifying possible courses of action began to mill in his head. He closed his eyes to obliterate them but they continued to play inside his mind, private reels of ghastly consequences running across a screen in his brain. When he opened his eyes he could see the guards gazing at him with cold, disinterested stares.

  What Sandingham could not see was the figure of Garry who had been butted and prodded into the shed with the others. He was taking action.

  Very slowly, so as to attract no attention from either the guards or the other workers, Garry edged himself towards a side door. If he could get close to it, he could hide by it where there were a lot of off-cuts propped against the wall. The others were talking in whispers amongst themselves. It became apparent that Sandingham had been caught not because he had been seen but because the guards had noticed the top of the papaya tree whipping to and fro at his attempt to dislodge the ripe fruit.