by James Webb
He barked at me as my jeep slowed. “You! Cut your lights!”
I brought the jeep to a dead stop and turned off the headlights. He walked to the driver’s side and shined a flashlight into my eyes. Then he noticed my rank.
“Sorry, Captain.” He shouldered the rifle, giving me a brisk salute. “We’ve had some pretty strange people trying to get in here tonight, sir. Reporters, photographers, and all that, wanting to cover the execution. I’ve got orders to turn all visitors back. The hanging’s a private matter. By direction of General MacArthur himself.”
“Well, General MacArthur happens to be the person who sent me,” I said. I handed him my military identification card and my written orders. “To observe.”
“Holy Moley,” he said, examining my papers under the flashlight’s beam. “He wants you to just come down here and watch a Jap general die? Too bad for you, huh, sir?”
“General MacArthur is a very thorough man,” I answered dryly. “He is very much concerned with details. He wants a full report.”
“We could’ve sent him pictures, or something.” The corporal caught himself. “No disrespect intended, sir.” He gave me a snaggletoothed grin, unable to contain his awe. “You work directly for the supreme commander?”
“Three years,” I said. “This is my last show. I’m on the troopship out of here tomorrow.”
“And thank God for that, I’ll bet. Off this goddamn pile of mung.” He interpreted my sudden silence as agreement and grew even more familiar. “How does a soldier get picked to work for General MacArthur, if you don’t mind my asking, sir? I wouldn’t mind that.” His flashlight beam bounced off the deep scar on my cheek. “Nasty scar. Wow! Must have pulled you in from the field after you were wounded, huh?”
“Are you on duty, Corporal?” The scar was none of this little pissant military cop’s business. He had passed from politeness to an irritating coziness. I felt suddenly done with him. “I’ve got a job to do. Give me my papers and open up the gate.”
“Sorry, sir. No disrespect intended, you understand.” Abashed, he quickly handed me my papers. Then he moved toward the gate and began to swing it open.
I turned the headlights back on and put the jeep into gear. As the gate swung open I drove forward. The corporal saluted me again. I called to him as I drove through the gate.
“Call the camp commandant. Tell him I want to see General Yamashita. Immediately! On orders from MacArthur.”
The camp commandant, a leathery-faced, humorless colonel, did not conceal his irritation at my demand to visit with the Tiger so soon before his hanging. Even the invocation of MacArthur’s orders did not deter the colonel from a petulant display of his own power. Meeting me at the gate, he perfunctorily ordered me to park my jeep in front of his Quonset hut. Then he brought me into his office, leaving me standing as he took a seat behind his small field desk. He slowly, deliberately smoked an unfiltered Camel cigarette, pretending to meticulously examine my papers. Finally he grunted his assent, unimpressed.
“I don’t know why we’re making such a big goddamn deal out of this thing. For Christ’s sake, how many Americans died in the war? How many Filipina women did the assholes rape in Manila? How many babies did they bayonet? They should’ve just taken the fucker out back and shot him six months ago.”
He tossed my papers dismissively across the desk. “Hamamoto’s already awake. Surprise, surprise. They all are. It’s like locusts out there in the tents. The whole camp’s buzzing, knowing the old guy’s gonna die. Anyway, I’ll get him for you.”
“I don’t need an interpreter.”
The surprise on his face was mixed with a veiled contempt. “Jap speaker, huh?” I nodded. “Fluent?” I nodded again, and he sneered again. “I see. One of those real Asia guys.” He stubbed out his cigarette. “You can have this fucking place. The sooner they send me back to Kansas the happier I’ll be.”
I thought I’d try a pleasantry or two. “So you’re from Kansas, Colonel?”
“No, I’m from Chicago. But once we’ve sent all these slope-heads home I’m going to go back to Fort Leavenworth. I’ve already got my orders. To the jail, that is, not the post.” He smiled. “I like putting people away. And I enjoy keeping them there.”
The colonel had a thoroughly felonious grin. I began to wonder on which side of the prison bars he really belonged. I made a mental note to include my uneasiness with him in my after-action report to MacArthur. And then I remembered that I would no longer be writing after-action reports to MacArthur.
I could feel the colonel peering eagerly at my face under the dim light of the bare bulb that hung above us. “Captain, that is one miserable-looking scar. Where the hell did you pick that up?”
I checked my watch. “Is that it, Colonel? Would you like to frisk me, to make sure I’m not going to slip General Yamashita an escape weapon?”
He lit another cigarette. The wicked grin reappeared on his face. “That won’t be necessary, Captain. Go ahead and give the Jap a weapon. I’ll just have both of you shot on the spot. And I guarantee you I’ve got handpicked boys here who wouldn’t mind doing it.”
I could hear the prison tents buzzing with whispered anticipation as I walked across the camp in the sultry darkness. The Tiger’s imminent death was on the lips of every Japanese soldier in Los Banos. These were, after all, Yamashita’s troops. Or at least the fraction of them that had survived nearly a year of vicious fighting, from Leyte to Lingayen Gulf and then all the way to the northern mountains. They had been defeated, but Yamashita had brilliantly maneuvered them against overwhelming odds. They were fiercely loyal to the Tiger. And few of them would sleep tonight.
Yamashita’s tent was on a small hill in the center of the prison camp, surrounded by a second field of concertina wire. By the time I reached it the Tiger was waiting for me, standing at the front flap. He smiled brightly and his eyes were clear, but he looked terrible, even for a man about to die. He had lost at least thirty pounds since I had last seen him in early December. His usually shaved head was covered with a shaggy mat of unkempt hair. He had grown a scraggly, white-flecked beard. On orders from MacArthur they had taken away his uniforms, making him wear a set of worn blue army fatigues. He looked to me like a very old man who had just escaped from a cancer ward.
I greeted him in Japanese as I stepped inside the barbed wire. “You’re awake, General.”
He laughed, amused. “Captain Marsh. And I suppose you thought I would be resting up for my hanging?”
I reached him. We bowed slightly to each other, then shook hands. He caught the surprise in my eyes and knew immediately that it embarrassed me to be inspecting him in the muted darkness.
“I am fine,” he said, preempting my questions. “It is just that your colonel is afraid that I will kill myself before he has the opportunity to do it for me. And so they took everything from me that I might use. My razor. My nail clippers. My pen set.” He laughed, pointing at his face. “Even my glasses! Did he think I would slash my wrists with the lenses?”
“The colonel does not understand the Japanese,” I said.
“I could never kill myself,” said the general simply. “It would be disloyal. The emperor ordered me to surrender.”
“I know that,” I answered. “But things look differently to the colonel. If you did kill yourself he would lose face. Then they would never send him back to Kansas to work at the prison of his dreams.”
“The colonel is a soldier. He is only doing his duty.” Yamashita shrugged, no longer concerned. Then he pointed beyond the barbed wire at the rifle-toting sentry who was standing guard at the break in the wire that led to his tent. “The corporal has become my little nephew. He sneaks me my glasses for an hour every night so that I might read my Chinese poetry. He watches me while I read, then he takes the glasses back.” He grinned impishly. “I wonder sometimes what he thinks when he watches me reading. Why does a Japanese soldier about to die wish to read Chinese poetry? I don’t know enough English to exp
lain it to him. And anyway, it doesn’t matter. He has been kind to bring me the glasses.”
The sentry could not understand what we were saying, but looking at him I could see compassion in his eyes. Abruptly I left the general and strode up to him.
“Get me a razor and some scissors,” I said.
“Captain, I can’t do that,” he protested. He was looking nervously toward the colonel’s Quonset hut.
“Hurry up.”
“Captain, the colonel—”
“Fuck the colonel,” I said. “I have orders from MacArthur.”
Within five minutes the corporal had delivered Yamashita’s razor, scissors, and manicure kit. Inside the general’s tent I took a long time cutting off his hair. After that he shaved, first his face and then his scalp, and clipped his fingernails. Once we finished he carefully made a pile of the cuttings and folded them inside a handkerchief. He had grown emotional as I cut his hair, as if I were a devoted attendant. Now he bowed, far too deeply, handing me the handkerchief that contained his hair and fingernails.
“You remembered, Captain Marsh. I am deeply grateful. They took everything from me when I transferred from Manila to Los Banos.”
I took the handkerchief from him and stuffed it into my pocket. An unspoken promise passed between us, that in the Japanese tradition I would ensure that these clippings were sent back to his family along with his cremated ashes.
“I will take care of this, General.”
“Why do you bother with these things?” He stood close to me, gazing curiously into my eyes. Outside I could hear vehicles approaching. It sounded like two jeeps and a truck. I knew they were coming for him and that within an hour he would be dead.
“Because I respect you,” I finally answered. “And I know that you did nothing dishonorable.”
“I cannot complain about my fate,” he said. “But I still do not understand this trial.”
“Did you know that General MacArthur received a petition last week, signed by eighty-six thousand Japanese, asking that your sentence be commuted?”
The Tiger smiled, obviously moved, then shrugged. “But a thing such as that would never change his mind.”
“No,” I said, looking steadily at him. “I must tell you the truth, General. A thing such as that could only guarantee that his mind would never change.”
Yamashita chuckled knowingly. Outside, the vehicles braked to a halt, their engines running. Several car doors slammed. A host of voices barked nervously to one another. And so he had no chance to answer me, for in seconds the tent flaps opened and four armed military policemen strode inside.
“Good evening, Captain,” said a bulky, hard-eyed sergeant, giving me a false grin. “Or should I say good morning, sir? It’s now zero-two-thirty hours. Anyway, I assume you’re done with your little visit, here?”
“In a minute,” I said.
The sergeant impatiently checked his watch. “We’ve got a schedule, sir, and we—”
“In a minute, Sergeant!” I towered over him. I was thick-muscled and ugly-scarred and totally unafraid. My lips had tightened into a threatening scowl. “What difference does five minutes make? He’ll be dead soon enough. Now, get the hell out of the tent.”
“Ah—right, sir.”
The four soldiers looked at one another for a moment, then backed slowly out of the tent. Only then did Yamashita relax his stoic expression into an amused grin.
“These are your own soldiers, Captain Marsh. You should show them more respect.”
“Respect has nothing to do with it anymore.”
My words seemed to jolt him. He suddenly put a hand on my shoulder, moving his face to within inches of my own. He was the only Japanese I had ever met who was taller than I, and even in his wasted condition he exuded a physical power that filled the tent.
“Captain Marsh, I am a defeated soldier. I will soon be dead. But you have been good to me, and so I would like to leave you with one last thought. In fact, you are the last person I may ever talk to. So you are hearing my final words.”
He paused as if waiting for my agreement. I watched him silently, feeling moved but also very guilty. I was in his tent because of my own personal sympathy, but I was attending his hanging under orders. And why did I deserve this advice, having stopped fighting on his behalf a few months before?
“It always matters.” He peered into my eyes, trying to see if I had understood him. “Respect,” he added. “For one another. For oneself. Is there anything more important to leave behind? I don’t think so. Why did so many of our soldiers fight to the death rather than surrender? Because respect is more important than life.” He continued to watch me. “That is why MacArthur did this. To destroy my respect. Is it not?”
I held his stare, deciding that he deserved the truth. “Not only MacArthur,” I answered. “Also the imperial court.”
He shrugged, unsurprised. “Oh, of course many members of the imperial court would want me dead. This should not trouble you, Captain. I understand the complications if I were to return and confront them.”
“You are right. So now you know. Good-bye, General.” There was, after all, nothing left to say. “This may sound strange, but it has been an honor knowing you.”
He gave me a slight bow, indicating his farewell. “Please do not think ill of the emperor.”
The sergeant reappeared, pushing aside a tent flap and again standing silently just before us. The colonel followed him inside the tent, looking at me as if I were a collaborator with the enemy. Nearing Yamashita, he flicked his cigarette onto the tent floor and ground it out with the toe of his boot. Then he fixed me with his evil grin.
“Time for a hanging, Captain. I didn’t know you were in love with the old guy.”
I fixed him with a threatening glare. “In four weeks I’m going to be a civilian, Colonel. No disrespect intended, you understand, but I think I might just stop by Fort Leavenworth and kick your sorry ass.”
He gave off a dry, unconcerned laugh. “You can try if you want. My boys will be waiting for you. Handpicked.” He gestured toward General Yamashita. “Now if you don’t mind, it’s time to do the dirty deed.”
Eight soldiers and a very nervous-looking Japanese officer whom I recognized as Colonel Hamamoto were silently gathered at the base of the scaffolding that had been erected to hang the Tiger. The officers ignored Hamamoto, speaking to one another in whispers as they waited in the thick black night. There were no reporters present. Instead, the media would be fed the official story of Yamashita’s hanging by a thirtyish major who introduced himself as the press officer for Lieutenant General Wilhelm Styer, Commander of Army Forces, Western Pacific. The major nervously latched on to me as I joined the group, happy to see another general’s flunky. I shook his hand, then did my best to ignore him.
At exactly three o’clock, Yamashita was led up a half-dozen wooden steps to the center of the platform. His hands were tied behind his back. A masked soldier fixed a noose around his neck. The Tiger looked calmly above all of us as the hangman worked, ignoring these crude preparations, peering out into the jungled darkness.
At the base of the scaffolding another colonel, the camp commandant’s superior, called to him in a flat, emotionless voice. “Do you have any last words, General Yamashita?”
Hamamoto translated into Japanese, looking up apologetically at the Tiger. General Yamashita glanced for a moment at the colonel, then seemed to dismiss him from his thoughts. He bowed deeply, facing the north, toward Tokyo, where at that moment the emperor and General of the Armies Douglas MacArthur both slept peacefully.
“I will pray for the emperor’s long life and his prosperity forever.”
The higher-ranking colonel nodded. Behind him, the camp commandant sneered. The masked soldier cinched the rope up tight. He took two steps back, breathing deeply. Then he yanked hard on a lever. The trapdoor sprung. General Tomoyuki Yamashita dropped abruptly through the floor of the platform, bounced hard against the rope, and then immediatel
y hung limp and lifeless. Dangling before us, the general’s head arched strangely sideways, like a wooden mannequin snapped loose from its neck post.
And that was it. For some reason the way the general swayed on the rope reminded me of the deer my father used to hang from a tree behind our cabin after he had shot and gutted them when I was a child. The Tiger of Malaysia was no longer a person. He was a hunting trophy, waiting to be cut down and incinerated and sent home in a jar. And I knew there was no sense in thinking about this moment any longer.
The camp commandant barked at me as I began walking away. “Did you like that, Captain? Clean and quick, huh?”
“Very clean, Colonel,” I said. “So I’ll be going now. And fuck you.” More than anything else, I was now finally ready to return home.
He laughed at me in the thick night air, refusing to let it go. “Tell me. Whose army are you in, anyway?”
“Not yours, Colonel. So like I said, fuck you.”
The public relations major called after me. “Captain Marsh! What did Yamashita say? His final words. What were they? I have to file a press release.”
“Ask Hamamoto,” I answered, walking ever more briskly toward my jeep.
The tents in the camp were hushed as I walked back toward the colonel’s Quonset hut, as if the snapping of Yamashita’s neck when the trapdoor sprung had echoed so loudly that each of the soldiers inside had heard it and retreated into an accepting silence. It had been a long war, filled with bitter endings. There was nothing left to talk about, just as there was nothing left to think about. The Tiger had faced death bravely. And now he had joined his ancestors.
I felt an odd freedom as I drove back to Manila in the sorrowing darkness. Not the freedom that comes from hope but rather a permanent sense of disentanglement, a knowledge that there was no remaining aspect in my life where I would ever again be required to confront the dangerous unknown of my untested innocence. It was undeniably liberating, knowing I had failed on so many levels and yet still survived. No, I thought, survival was not even strong enough a word. I had prevailed, despite consistently betraying my inner instincts. I had a bright future, and the only place I had reached for it was down. I was going to be rewarded with a plush life, a demigod named MacArthur’s compensation for betraying myself.
