A breath of damp air rustled through the trees. I slowly raised myself to my elbow as a sudden new hope burned within me. That wind, I knew, was the wind native superstition blamed for bringing sudden death to livestock, but I knew also that in this season it was a precursor of rain.
Presently the rain came. A refreshing patter filled the air, and before long, droplets of water began to drip from the lower leaves of the trees.
I opened my mouth to catch the falling droplets, but they instantly dissipated in my parched throat, creating scarcely the slightest sensation. The rain let up a little, and the space between droplets grew longer. Thinking it silly to remain in the brush waiting for water to collect on the leaves when the rain fell steadily out in the open, I dragged myself into the meadow and rolled onto my back. Unfortunately, the raindrops falling directly into my open mouth came no faster than the droplets from the leaves.
Now the rain stopped completely. I turned to look upwind. This was the direction of the stronghold, and above the gentle slope of the meadow I could see a familiar stand of trees hazy in the moonlight. With surprise, I discovered that I was much closer to the stronghold than I had realized.
A dense fog descended on the stand of trees. The night came alive with sounds again; the moist breeze cooled my cheeks; and a fresh shower of rain-drops fell from the depths of the sky. I opened my mouth with my hands cupped on either side to help gather the raindrops, but the rain ceased without even moistening my palms. The clouds near the top of the sky began to break up, revealing a misshapen moon whose brightness stabbed painfully at my eyes. No more rain came after that.
How long could it have been from then until daybreak? I returned to my comfortable bed among the trees. The whispering voice had departed, but I was now gripped by an excruciating oppression in my chest such as I had never experienced before. Turning one way and another, I tried every manner of contortion to ease the pain. I cried aloud in torment; I discovered that tearing at one’s chest in agony was more than a figure of speech.
Slowly the moon descended over the towering trees across the meadow and then seemed to hesitate as it touched the treetops. The moonlit night gave way imperceptibly to a milky twilight as the moon disappeared. The day had broken.
A carabao lumbered down the slope—no doubt the same one that had led me up this way the day before. Seeing me, he stopped to study me for a few moments but then swung his pendulous neck forward again and proceeded on his way.
Watching his slow, plodding steps gave me new energy. The pain in my chest subsided, and I experienced something of the exhilaration that comes to a sick man who has made it through a difficult night. I ceremonially chewed on a few grains of rice and prepared to set out on my journey.
Just then I heard a report on the other side of the canyon, precisely in the direction I was making ready to go.
As I later learned, the San Jose platoon had sent some scouts to investigate our position that morning. Spying enemy troops on this side of the canyon, the scouts beat a hasty retreat, but not before one of them had fired at the Americans. When I later met that man at the POW camp, he told me he had fired three shots, but I can remember only one, and I find it a telling lapse of memory: In essence, under the circumstances at the time, the difference between one shot and three was immaterial; all that mattered was that I had heard gunfire. Because I could not imagine friendly troops returning to the area, this gunfire signified to me that I still remained within the circle of American troops and that it would therefore be impossible for me to escape by my planned route. Furthermore, lacking any clue as to when the Americans might withdraw, there was no telling how long I would remain pinned down in that spot with no water.
I finally accepted that I would die thirsty. And since death was inevitable in any case, what point could there be in hopelessly prolonging my life? It would merely prolong my suffering.
Arriving at my decision calmly, I smiled commiseratively at myself for having failed to come to it sooner.
I removed the hand grenade from my waist and set it on the ground before me. I studied it carefully. Known as a Model 99, it was a six-sided steel cylinder with a grid of grooves running all around its sides and painted a reddish brown. The pieces of steel roughly one-third of an inch square formed by the grooves were apparently intended to fragment in all directions when the charge inside exploded.
I pulled on the safety pin stuck sideways through the fuse assembly. The pin clung tenaciously to its place and refused to budge by hand. As I pried at it with the tip of my sword, I began to worry that I might fail to dislodge it and, for no more reason than that, fail to die. To some degree, that may in fact have been my hope. As if in willful betrayal of any such hope, however, my hands continued their efforts and ultimately succeeded in extracting the pin.
I do not intend to belabor the question of why I failed to kill myself. The psychology of a suicide is of minimal interest, and the psychology of the man who fails in his attempt is of less interest still. In essence, his substantial will to undertake an act that contravenes nature is met by the altogether normal response of his flesh in opposition to that will. What then actually determines the outcome is, in most cases, an entirely extraneous, accidental factor. My life today owes itself to the accident that the hand grenade I carried was a dud. Of course, since they say that 60 percent of the hand grenades issued to Japanese troops in the Pacific were duds, my good fortune cannot be considered an especially rare stroke of luck.
The relative ease with which I was able to cross over the line that should have marked the end of my life probably owed to my physical infirmity at the time.
In my mind I tried to picture the faces of all those I had loved, but I could not bring any of their images into focus with the clarity of a picture. Feeling a little sorry for them as they milled vaguely about in the depths of my consciousness, I smiled, said “So long,” and struck the head of the fuse against a nearby rock. The fuse assembly flew off, but the grenade failed to explode.
I examined the grenade minus its fuse. A hole ran down the middle of the grenade from its now exposed top, and at the bottom of this hole was a small round protuberance—obviously the detonator. I looked at it and shuddered. This was the only time during my day and night alone in the woods that I consciously experienced genuine terror.
I gathered up the pieces of the fuse assembly and put them back together. The slender rod that fit down into the hole appeared too short to reach the detonator inside. I struck the assembly against the rock again, but the grenade remained intact.
I had to smile. The irony of fate that refused to grant me even a quick and easy death seemed funny to me somehow. Everything that had befallen me in the last twenty-four hours had been altogether one great irony. I clicked my tongue in irritation and hurled the grenade deep into the forest.
I had guessed that pushing on the protuberance at the bottom of the hole would detonate the grenade, but oddly enough, I never thought to try setting it off with anything other than the original fuse assembly—such as with a twig. Whether this would have worked is another matter. What is significant here is that the possibility never entered my mind.
Suicides succeed or fail by the means fixed upon at the outset. The person focuses his mental energies solely on carrying out the chosen means; he does not waste his energies second-guessing them. This explains why certain methods of suicide seem to enjoy vogues.
I had placed my hopes on the hand grenade because I had imagined it to be the best means of ensuring the instantaneous annihilation of my vital organs. It was supposed to snuff out my suffering as summarily as the flick of a light switch. I was not prepared for that simple flick to be hindered by complications, which only the exercise of creative ingenuity could overcome.
I had in fact exhausted the greater part of my mental energies just in the very first strike of the grenade against the rock.
My failure to think of pushing the protuberance with something else may no doubt be attributed to the
extremity of my bewilderment and debilitation. I continued to show the same lack of inventiveness in subsequent events as well.
I next attempted to kill myself with my rifle. Sitting up, I removed my right boot and then held the barrel to my forehead with both hands as I tried to push the trigger with my big toe. (I had learned this arrangement from the veterans during basic training back in Japan. In this, too, I followed the example of my predecessors.) To my chagrin, I immediately lost my balance and rolled over onto my side. I’m sure to botch it up this way, I thought. Recalling a story I had read about a man who shot himself twice in the mouth but succeeded only in blowing away his cheek, I decided it would be wiser to wait until my fever had subsided at least a little.
In this case, too, if I had been more determined, I would surely have thought to push the trigger with a stick. Even if I persisted in using my toe, I could have leaned against a tree or figured out a way to do it on my side. Instead, I behaved like a man who only halfheartedly wished to kill himself. At the same time, I must ultimately consider myself fortunate that the rifle barrel in my hands moved away from my forehead when I lost my balance and fell over, thus preventing me from realizing that I could in fact shoot myself in that position.
I laid the rifle down beside me. Instead of putting my right boot back on, I took off my left boot as well and lay down again. I seem to remember the sun having climbed quite high into the sky by this time. I had apparently been contemplating and going through the motions of my suicide in an extremely dilatory fashion. My thirst must have remained, but I have no recollection of it.
I do not know whether I dozed off or passed out, but the next thing I remember is gradually becoming aware of a blunt object striking my body over and over. Just as I realized it was a boot kicking me in the side, I felt my arm being grabbed roughly and I returned to full consciousness.
One GI had hold of my right arm, and another had his rifle pointed at me, nearly touching me.
“Don’t move. We’re taking you prisoner,” the one with the rifle said.
I stared at him and he stared at me. A moment passed. I saw that he understood I had no intention of resisting.
Later, at the POW camps, the Americans often asked me: “Did you give yourself up, or were you taken prisoner?” No doubt they wanted to see if it was true that we Japanese would kill ourselves rather than give ourselves up.
I made a point of answering proudly, “I was taken prisoner.”
“Did you think we killed our prisoners?” they asked next.
“I’m not fool enough to believe that kind of propaganda,” I answered.
“Then why didn’t you give yourself up?”
“It’s a question of honor. I have nothing against surrendering as such, but my own sense of pride would not let me submit voluntarily to the enemy.”
Now that I am no longer a prisoner trying desperately to hold onto my self-respect, I can take a different view of the event. Since I gave up all resistance quite willingly when faced with that rifle, I can admit that I did, after all, give myself up. The difference between surrendering to the enemy with white flag raised and casting down one’s arms when surrounded is merely a matter of degree.
The first GI gathered up my rifle and sword while the second kept his weapon trained on me.
“Get up and start walking,” he said.
“I can’t walk.”
“Walk, walk,” they both repeated.
We went down the path I had come up the day before. I stumbled from one tree to the next as far as the dry streambed and then sank to my knees with nothing left to hold onto. One of the GIs put his arm through mine to help me along.
Noticing the canteen at his waist, I said, “Water?”
He shook his canteen to show me it was empty and said, “No.” He turned to look at his companion.
“No,” he said.
We reached the clearing of the day before, where I had first descended into this canyon. Helmets, a mess kit, a pot of half-cooked rice, a crushed gas mask, and sundry other items lay strewn about. I saw no blood, but I did not doubt that many men from my unit had died there. One of the sergeants had been carefully ripening some bananas. Seeing them scattered on the ground made my heart weep.
The climb to our former command post was arduous. As we neared the hut, the GI who was helping me walk shouted continually, “Don’t shoot. Don’t shoot.”
At the hut, they turned me over to four or five other GIs, who checked me carefully for hidden weapons. I was then escorted along the ridgeline to a plateau cultivated by the Mangyans. A force of some five hundred American troops had set up camp there.
I do not know how I got it into my head that they were taking me to my execution, but that is what I thought. Still craving a drink of water before I died, I looked for men who had canteens at their sides.
“Water! Please, some water!” I cried, hoping one of them might step forward on a whim.
As we continued on through the camp, my eyes roved over the Americans all around me with greedy curiosity. When that young GI had turned aside the previous day, I had assumed he would probably be the last person I saw before I died. Now I presumed these troops would be the last.
It was a long march. When we passed what appeared to be the center of the encampment with still no order to halt, I became even more certain that they were leading me to a firing squad somewhere on the far edge of the camp. Here and there holes had been dug in the ground, about the right size for a person to lie in. I guessed they were graves for burying me and my comrades. (I had no means of knowing that I was the only prisoner taken at that location.)
“Sit down,” I was finally commanded.
I fell forward onto my hands and knees. “Water!” I cried again. Picking out a man who looked important, I fixed him straight in the eye and repeated my plea as politely as I could.
“I’ll see what I can do,” he said and went away.
He did not return for a long time. With the advent of hope, my thirst once again grew unbearable. I cried out repeatedly. Finally the man’s face reappeared behind the wall of figures around me. He had no water. After fidgeting about and looking embarrassed for a time, he moved away with a wave of his hand. My hope was crushed.
I went on begging for water. Suddenly someone threw an Imperial Army–issue canteen down in front of me. It was about half full. I drained it in a single draft. The water lacked any taste.
Two bespectacled GIs came and ordered me to take off my clothes. They told me to remove my underpants, too. When I pulled them down and started to step out of them, they said, “That’s enough.” It was a strip search.
Two more soldiers came. One of them had a U.S. Army helmet filled with water. I leaped for it. He stopped me with his hand and transferred the water to the canteen they had given me. The other soldier, a thin, middle-aged man, helped as he poured, kindly holding back the little pieces of grass floating in the water.
After I took several long drafts, this older man looked at me and demanded, “What’s your name?” The sharp look in his eyes and the tone of his voice told me he must be the commanding officer.
Prisoners of war in fiction often refuse to say anything besides “I am a common soldier,” but I did not follow their example. Without the least hesitation, I gave my name, rank, and unit. It seemed easiest to simply tell the truth about such routine things.
Another soldier pulled a stack of papers from an Imperial Army haversack. They had presumably found it abandoned somewhere in the vicinity. Among other things, the papers included our company CO’s maps, organizational charts of our platoons and squads, and individual soldiers’ private papers. The Americans seemed to accept my assertion that none of the documents was of any importance.
I sucked at my canteen continually even as the interrogation progressed. I still believed they would shoot me after they were through asking me questions, so when a soldier came up and whispered something in the commander’s ear, I imagined he was bringing word that prep
arations had been completed for my execution. In a great hurry, I guzzled down the rest of my water. I had drunk a large American helmetful of water in less than thirty minutes.
They gave me a cigarette, but the first puff set my head spinning. I could not smoke it.
The sun had climbed high overhead. We were under the only tree in the immediate area, but it was a tree with scant leaves clinging like a crown high up on its branches, casting a shade almost too pale to be called shade. I lay with my head in this shade (they permitted me to remain lying on the ground during my interrogation), periodically adjusting my position as the shade shifted.
The interrogation must have taken at least an hour. The commander repeated certain important questions several times. Trying to be sure I gave the same answer every time made me tense. The effort exhausted me.
The commander took out a Japanese soldier’s diary and told me to translate what it said. I welcomed this respite from the barrage of questions and set about translating the diary line by line. It was written in a childish hand, and the opening entry was from when our company had been stationed in San Jose. The author declared he had stopped keeping a diary after joining the army, but since he could not find anything else to do for diversion, he had decided that setting things down in a diary when off duty would in no way compromise the discharge of his responsibilities. Still, spending time on his diary meant he would have to devote himself more diligently to his military duties at all other times. The entry went on and on in this jejune vein—words placed there in case the diary fell into the hands of his superior officer, no doubt. That was all, however. There were no further entries.
The author had not inscribed his name, and I did not recognize the hand, but I knew it had to have belonged to one of our young reservists from the class of 1943. Though these greenhorns had all proved themselves to be utterly ignorant of anything, they were also kind and generous and worked hard to cover for the cunning and indolence of us older men. They knew nothing about pacing themselves to conserve their strength, so when they fell ill, they were quick to die.
The Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Literature: From Restoration to Occupation, 1868-1945: vol. 1 (Modern Asian Literature Series) Page 111
