The Emperor's General

by James Webb

“Yes, sir,” said Colonel Genius. He now nodded to his assistant. The major stood, removing the notepad from the easel and beginning to take apart the easel itself. “Well, we thank you for your time, General MacArthur.”

  “Not at all,” answered the General. “Excellent work, gentlemen.”

  “And we’ll be back to you when we come up with the additional information you requested.”

  “Excuse me, Colonel?” MacArthur had started to turn away from Genius. Now he was facing him again.

  “You said you didn’t have enough information. Well, I’m going to get it for you.”

  Colonel Genius was standing with his feet slightly apart, facing the supreme commander like a worn-out, pudgy old boxer who was taking a severe beating but nonetheless was electrifying the crowd by answering the bell for yet another brain-crushing round. His eyebrows were slightly raised. His lips were pressed tight into a thin line, almost as if suppressing a smile. He was breathing in shallow but rapid breaths, making his chest heave quickly in and out.

  The colonel’s adrenaline was back. The burning in his eyes was telling me yet again that MacArthur had a problem, and it was not simply Nanking. It was a fire that the supreme commander’s pomposity and intellectual dissembling had created in Colonel Sam Genius’s sense of—what? Fairness? Equity? Or perhaps merely in his competitive spirit?

  It didn’t matter. It was fire, sure enough. Sam Genius had put a lot of work and thought into this. He believed in the truth of what he had found. He wanted Asaka. And Higashikuni. And Konoye. And, more than likely, he wanted Hirohito, too.

  MacArthur nodded slowly to him. “Good day, Colonel.”

  “Good day, General. Enjoy your lunch, sir.”

  The door closed quietly behind Colonel Genius as he departed. MacArthur continued to stare toward it for several seconds, almost as if he were waiting for the acidic lawyer to reenter the room and deliver one final riposte. He was standing stiffly, with his hands in his back pockets, as he had stood when the photographer snapped the now-famous picture of him and Emperor Hirohito. But his face was tight and angry, and his own eyes were aflame.

  Finally he turned to Court Whitney. “I don’t imagine it would be difficult to find something important for Colonel Genius to be doing in another venue? Like, perhaps, evaluating war damage claims in New Guinea?”

  Whitney chucked softly, knowing instinctively when to humor the General rather than indulge him. “Bad idea, Boss. Do you really want him outside the tent, pissing in, instead of inside the tent, pissing out?”

  “He wouldn’t dare.”

  “And why not? If you send him to New Guinea he knows his career is over. And I’m sure he’d find a wide and receptive audience for his frustrations. People who feel they’ve been wronged will seek vengeance. I know you don’t like it when I point this out, but you’re being criticized extensively for being too soft on the Japanese. Not only in the States, Boss. The Filipinos, the Dutch, the French, the Australians, the British, all are rather loudly expressing their disappointment. Most are wondering whether you’ll act strongly on the war crimes issue. If your own former judge advocate says he was relieved from his duties because he agrees with that feeling, how can there not be controversy? Controversy sells newspapers. It’s how they make their money.”

  “You’re right.”

  MacArthur began his inveterate pacing, walking back and forth in front of his window. We waited silently and patiently, knowing that for the moment we did not exist to the General. The onyx clock above the pipe rack on his bookcase ticked over to one o’clock. MacArthur was late for lunch. Soon I began to notice that he was glancing over at me after every few turns. Shortly after that I watched a small, grim smile creep onto his face.

  “What do we control?” he asked, somewhat rhetorically.

  We all looked blankly at him, unsure of where he was heading. Finally General Court Whitney shrugged, grinning ironically. “Just about everything, from what I can tell. What do you want?”

  MacArthur put his hands in his pockets, stopping to stare at his key political adviser. “Yamashita. Or at least a—resolution—in his case. Soon.”

  Whitney turned facetious. “It would be a good idea if we tried him first, General.”

  “By all means,” said MacArthur, ignoring Whitney’s sarcasm. “A trial is exactly what I have always had in mind. But unlike in Tokyo, this will be my idea of a trial. It is my commission, I convened it. It is my court, I am appointing it. It will be my proceedings, my findings, my review, and my—resolution. A very public trial.”

  His mind was clearly racing. He began walking again, slowly now, staring outside the window toward the palace gardens and buildings across the street, those tranquil, eternal acres that seemed always both to haunt and inspire him. Finally he looked over at Willoughby. “One that will demonstrate to the world the horrors that occurred in Manila, and will allow the Filipino people their full measure of catharsis and emotional retribution. One that will cause the Japanese people to comprehend with finality that this so-called Tiger of Malaya, this falsely heroic figure that they once revered, was in fact a butcher of innocents in an ancient Christian city. One that will put the scale of this carnage fully into the minds of all our allies and to the American people at home, and demonstrate to them clearly my own personal commitment to bringing the actual perpetrators of war crimes to justice. I’ve asked for it. I’ve ordered it. When will this trial take place?”

  Willoughby was examining his notes. I found myself wondering absently what, with his unquestioning loyalty, he could possibly have written on his paper from the General’s impassioned rambling, other than doodles or perhaps rhetorical generalities.

  I knew what I had written on mine: four words. Nanking … Hirohito … Sam Genius …

  Finally, Willoughby looked up at MacArthur. “He has already been charged, sir. They are preparing the case even as we speak.”

  “The trial. When will it happen?” repeated MacArthur.

  “I’ll have to find out,” answered Willoughby, giving the supreme commander a beleaguered and apologetic look.

  “It’s only been a month since General Yamashita surrendered,” interjected Court Whitney. “It takes time to build a case, Boss. They have to interrogate him, collect outside evidence, formalize the charges, prepare the witnesses—”

  “It’s my court,” said MacArthur, cutting off Whitney’s analysis. “We know what happened, and we know who was in command.”

  “Let me check on it,” said Whitney, sighing as he began writing a note on his legal pad.

  “No, that’s OK,” said Willoughby. “I’ll send a message.”

  “No,” interrupted MacArthur. “This is too important to be left to simple message traffic. Too subtle. Too urgent.” He turned to me. “Captain Marsh, I want you to prepare a report for me on the scope and timing of this matter. Go to Manila, immediately. Talk to the lawyers there. Find out what impediments, if any, are in the way of a speedy trial, of the sort I am envisioning. Say nothing specific on my behalf, but make my presence felt. You have become quite good at that. Generals Whitney and Willoughby can arrange for message traffic that will convey my thoughts about the trial itself. But reinforce my expectations. Leave them with the—firm knowledge—of what we are expecting. And what we are expecting is speed.”

  A sudden and overwhelming thrill had swept through me as the General gave me my instructions. It had nothing to do with MacArthur or the emperor or even Yamashita. He was sending me back to Manila.

  Court Whitney had nodded again and again as MacArthur went on, agreeing with his judgment. Now he spoke. “Great idea, Boss. If you sent a lawyer, you’d get one of those tedious legal reports filled with caveats and whereases and thuses and therefores, but they’d be afraid to actually touch on the—urgency of the timing, and those—other things. If you sent me, somebody down there, probably the press, would start screaming that you were engaging in command interference of the trial itself.”

  “It’s m
y trial,” said MacArthur. “I have a right to interfere.”

  Whitney was laughing. “Not so loud, General.”

  MacArthur ignored that. “I wouldn’t send a lawyer because they always end up talking to other lawyers and coming back like Colonel Genius, convinced and trenchant with his briefing charts and his larger accusations. I wouldn’t send you, Court, because what you’re doing for me here in Tokyo is too important.”

  All three of them were looking at me now. I tried mightily to repress my smile. “My bags are packed, sir.”

  Whitney shook his head, grinning. “I imagine it will be permissible this time for you to make a call on my friend Carlos Ramirez? And even to dally for an evening with his young daughter?”

  “So she’s still waiting for you?” asked MacArthur, having suddenly become indulgent.

  “From my mail I’d say so, General. I certainly hope so.”

  “You mean you haven’t fallen in love in Tokyo yet?”

  “No, sir. I’m still waiting to get married.”

  “I’d give him a couple more weeks,” chuckled the usually silent Willoughby. “Some sweet little geisha will knock our boy off his feet.”

  “You should be so lucky,” joked MacArthur.

  They were laughing at me, but it did not bother me. Their forced humor was a way of reminding me that I was an acceptable little rug rat, useful and of some small importance, but that I was not one of them and would never truly be a member of the royal court. I was glad to play their game, for in truth I did not want to be one of them. I smiled back, secretly laughing at them as well. Their game had two sides. It had already brought me rewards far greater than I might ever have dreamed.

  “I’ll leave first thing in the morning, sir.”

  “Tonight,” insisted MacArthur. “There’s an evening courier flight that runs out of Atsugi. We’ll make sure you’re on the manifest.”

  He began pacing again, lightened by his little chuckle over my romantic affairs, his mind swept up in his newfound inspiration. As he walked I watched an uncharacteristic sneer creep across his face.

  “I want you to do something else, Jay. I want you to go by and see General Yamashita, in whatever prison cell he is now rotting. I have nothing particular in mind for you there. Just pay him a visit. Have a little fun. Tell him General Douglas MacArthur, who is busily working with the emperor in Tokyo to rebuild Japan, asked you to check on his well-being.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  For some unexplainable reason the General gave a fatherly, doting smile. “You’ve been remarkably reliable, considering your age and experience. I am completely pleased with the work you have done for me.”

  “Thank you, General. It’s good of you to say that, sir.”

  “I’m late for lunch,” said the supreme commander suddenly. “Good day, gentlemen.”

  And with a startling abruptness he strode out of the room.

  CHAPTER 15

  I was late, too. But not for lunch.

  I walked quickly through the dust and autumn leaves. The smell of rain was in the wind, dank and foreboding. And before me in the grey afternoon sky I could see, even from a block away, the goalpostlike forty-foot bronze torii that marked one of the entrances to the Yasakuni Shrine.

  The wind lifted the branches of the trees that bordered the Yasakuni grounds, showering me with freshly falling leaves and carrying in its breezes the aroma of constantly burning incense. I passed under the torii and followed a row of stone toro lanterns toward the main area of the shrine, a wooden temple with a steep roof and ancient, curving borders. Soon I was walking through a sea of fluttering white doves. The doves lived at the shrine, raised and fed by Yasakuni’s attendants.

  Another key landmark that had been left untouched by the Allied bombings, Yasakuni was the resting place for the souls of all the Japanese soldiers who had died in battle since the Meiji Restoration. Inside the shrine’s main temple, the name of every soldier who had fallen was kept on a special parchment scroll, along with the place and date of his passing. The scroll was considered sacred and holy. World War Two alone had added nearly two million names.

  It was midday in a workweek, but hundreds of Japanese were in the park. As I walked I became lost among them, towering over them like a gawking Gulliver. Many were soldiers on their way home from the war, stopping to pay their respects to relatives and fallen comrades. Still in uniform, the soldiers hunched forward in their long brown coats as they struggled under the load of bulky rucksacks that carried all their belongings. Women of all ages, some in kimonos and others in the bundled rags of the farmlands, bowed fervently toward the temple even before they reached it, their faces filled with reverence. My presence brought no reaction from the Japanese. It was as if I were not among them at all.

  A mammoth seventy-foot torii guarded the entrance to the temple. It was the largest bronze torii in all of Japan. I stopped when I reached it, standing awkwardly. I was supposed to meet her there. And finally I saw her walking toward me, having entered the park through one of its three other gateways.

  In stark contrast to the others in the park, she was dressed in a beautiful white kimono. A red obi pulled it into her slender waist. Her long black hair was pulled back and up, twisted tightly above her head. She was wearing bright red lipstick, giving her smooth face a doll’s appearance. She walked purposefully toward me. Her elbows were into her sides and her hands were in front of her waist. Her chin was slightly down, as if she knew in advance that the two of us would soon be under an avalanche of disapproving stares.

  Reaching me she bowed slightly. Her lips now curled into a secret smile. Her eyes remained merrily on my own. “Good afternoon, Jay-san. I am so happy that you could meet me here.”

  I nodded back to her, then looked toward the earnest Japanese who were milling about nearby. “Will they be offended?”

  “Oh, no! They will be honored. And anyway, what does it matter? The lord privy seal wishes greatly that I might bring you here.”

  Careful not to touch each other in such a public place, we moved together onto the white gravel courtyard that led to the temple steps. Yes, I thought again. The lord privy seal wishes …

  I felt a special tenderness for Yoshiko, and I knew she had grown to care for me. But I did not delude myself. After “capturing” me through this lovely gift, Kido undoubtedly viewed me to be a major “asset.” As I played my role of eavesdropper on behalf of General MacArthur, I was also now considered a tendril in the Japanese government’s own sophisticated intelligence network. The Japanese had always been masters at what was called source-level intelligence gathering. And in these crucial days of transition, there could be little doubt that they would seize every opportunity, from bar girls and taxi drivers to high-level emissaries, to gather information and exploit it for the good of the nation-family.

  And so, I knew, with me.

  Nearing the temple, I stopped. Before me, the silent, unspeaking worshipers patiently waited in line at the wide steps for their moment at the temple’s altar. It was not fear that halted me but rather a sense of propriety, and respect. The war was over. They had lost. But I now was standing in the aisle of a national church. Again I recalled the emperor’s broadcast to the nation announcing the end of the war. Let the entire nation continue as one family, from generation to generation.… More than any country on earth, Japan was a nation-family, and this was where its honored uncles and siblings dwelt.

  “It’s OK,” she said earnestly, taking my arm and tugging as she fell in line. “They will be honored.”

  Seeing Yoshiko’s refined clothing, and noticing that she was speaking to me in Japanese, those in line looked at me with a mix of confusion and faint amusement that finally settled in as full understanding. This was not some ordinary American soldier, hanging on to his bar girl from a nearby recreation and amusement association. This was a Japanese-speaking officer, being escorted by one of Kyoto’s most refined geishas. They knew instinctively that Yoshiko was on a mission. An
d the puzzled looks melted into slight but welcoming smiles.

  Just before we reached the altar the others watched curiously as she took a ladle from a rectangular vat and poured holy water over my hands. Then we faced the temple together. I clapped three times with her, to awaken the spirits of the dead. I felt no shame as I bowed deeply alongside her and prayed for the respect and blessings of those who had perished in the war. For a moment I thought of my own lost brother, and wished that there were a way that he too could be so solemnly remembered. For what is a soldier’s fate but to pour his energy into the soul of his nation, at the behest of leaders who give him the reasons and then order him to die?

  At the altar after we finished a sunburned older woman in a formal dark kimono held a bundled infant in front of her, so that it was looking at the altar. The old woman trembled with anticipation as she pulled smoke toward the baby’s face, clapped its unknowing hands together, then pushed on its back, moving the body forward to make it bow. The infant had thus been christened. And I knew that nothing from the outside, not even the increasingly exalted regime of Supreme Commander, General of the Army Douglas MacArthur would ever be powerful enough to break the meaning of that bow.

  Ever-attuned to subtleties, Yoshiko picked up on my lingering gaze as we walked away from the temple. “The lord privy seal advises that you can learn to fully understand our country here,” she said quietly.

  “And who did you pray to?” I asked.

  She secretly touched my arm for a moment. “My father. And two of my brothers.”

  “Dead?”

  “Yes. My father died in China. One brother in the Solomon Islands. The other—” She looked at me hesitantly. “He was a kamikaze pilot. Off the coast of Okinawa. Only this year.”

  I watched her face as we walked. She was a professional, rigorously trained since late childhood to control her emotions. But her visit to the shrine had shaken her deeply.

  “My brother, too,” I said. “Last year.”

  “I am sorry,” said Yoshiko.