The Story of Danny Dunn

by Bryce Courtenay

  It is a small city that has maintained its heritage and still allows people a glimpse of the old Japan, with its temples, ancient monuments, tea houses, gardens, monks and geisha in cobbled alleys; a place wonderfully redolent of the past. Kyoto allows a people who have embraced Western modernity to remember where they came from and for a day or so to enjoy the richness of their remarkable heritage. Every year, millions of Japanese make the pilgrimage to Kyoto to renew their sense of who they are, and foreign visitors eager to discover a Japan that essentially no longer exists flock to this small city to catch a glimpse of pre-industrial Japan. And so the parliamentary delegation from New South Wales was inevitably taken to the place where, together with Mount Fuji, seven out of every ten Japanese picture postcards originate.

  If anyone thought it odd that Captain Tony Blackmore, the Australian military intelligence attaché, accompanied the group on this particular day, they said nothing. He and Danny had hatched a conspiracy, planning to slip away for an hour to visit the Chion-in temple where Mori lived as a monk.

  On the train going to Kyoto the attaché, as arranged, approached Helen and Danny. ‘It occurred to me, Danny, that you might be interested in several aspects of Japanese military history in one of the museums in Kyoto not usually on the tourist list.’ He looked at Helen. ‘Of course, you’d be welcome to come, Mrs Dunn. It’s just that, if the idea appeals, we might skip lunch so that you don’t miss any of the other sights – the Golden Temple, in particular.’

  Danny pretended to think, then said, ‘Hmm . . . yes. Sounds interesting. Can’t say I’m too taken with Japanese tucker, anyway.’ He turned to Helen. ‘You wanted to attend the cooking demonstration at lunch, didn’t you, darling? Would you mind if Tony and I gave it a miss?’

  Helen smiled. ‘No, of course not. Thank you, Captain Blackmore. I’m far more interested in sushi and tempura than I am in machine-guns and ordnance. My military life is long past.’

  ‘Helen was a lieutenant colonel in military intelligence during the war,’ Danny explained.

  Blackmore grinned. ‘Yes, I picked it up in your file, Mrs Dunn. You were the highest ranking female officer in Australian army intelligence at the time. I very nearly saluted you when you approached at the embassy reception.’

  ‘Goodness, you have done your homework, Captain Blackmore,’ Helen exclaimed, amused, although Danny could see she was pleased. ‘It’s probably because I was the only one in the unit with a masters degree that included decoding Egyptian hieroglyphics.’ She turned to Danny. ‘Darling, you don’t think this museum might upset you, do you? Bring back unfortunate memories, like the tour yesterday?’

  Tony Blackmore jumped in. ‘Oh, I shouldn’t think so. This is traditional stuff, ancient weaponry, personal armour – nothing to do with the last big Pacific stoush.’

  Danny didn’t like deceiving Helen and promised himself he’d tell her all about it later, unless, of course, it all went horribly wrong with Mori, but at least the deception had been simple.

  The incident on the previous day Helen referred to had occurred when the delegation had visited the Yakusuni Shrine in Tokyo – the national resting place of the spirits of Japan’s war dead. Helen had suggested they give it a miss, for obvious reasons, but Danny had insisted they go. ‘I fought the buggers; the more Japs I see safely dead the better.’ The tour had been uneventful, even interesting, and hadn’t aroused any particular emotion in him other than what might be expected from someone who had fought an enemy they had grown to hate.

  They had almost completed the tour when they entered a hall that contained a large number of Japanese tourists, including several young children, who were being photographed standing in front of a locomotive by their parents. Danny’s heart skipped a beat when he realised it was engine No. 31 of the Mitsubishi C56–44 class, which had been used on the Burma Railway, then sent back to Japan to be perfectly restored. He called over to their interpreter and guide to read and translate the large notice explaining the exhibit. The interpreter translated it for him, and Danny soon realised that there was no mention of the atrocities committed or the lives lost building the railway. Instead, it extolled it as a remarkable engineering feat and a demonstration of the superiority of Japanese technology, pointing out that ‘the enemy’ had claimed that such a railway was impossible to build. The translator, having completed his translation, added in a proud voice, ‘Where other nations fail, the Japanese see a challenge and conquer it.’ He bowed, thanking them for the honour of allowing him to translate.

  Danny was thunderstuck at what he took to be the real arrogance under the feigned humility of most Japanese people. He had become accustomed to Japanese functionaries merely expressing ‘regret’ for their atrocities during the war, but small children being photographed beside the engine with a sign boasting about a project that had cost over 90 000 men’s lives and ruined the futures of countless others was breathtakingly arrogant and unfeeling.

  While the other delegates went in to lunch and a demonstration of Japanese food preparation, Danny and Tony Blackmore left in a taxi for the Chion-in temple. In the taxi, Danny took the opportunity to question the military attaché about his background. He didn’t appear all that much younger than Danny, and if his brother had been a prisoner on the Burma Railway, he too must have had a war history. However, as it turned out, Tony Blackmore was the youngest of five children and had missed the Pacific War, but had joined army intelligence in time for the war in Korea. He already spoke Chinese and Russian, and when he’d been initially stationed in Japan, he’d learned Japanese, ‘the language,’ as he put it, ‘of our Ally, now that Russian and Chinese are the languages of our enemies. I need to be fairly fluent in all three, as our Allies can often cause more trouble than our enemies.’ This was his second tour of Japan since the conclusion of the Korean War.

  Danny realised that the advantage of having Tony Blackmore with him was that they wouldn’t need an interpreter. He was certain his Japanese would be too rusty to deliver effectively what he intended to tell the cruel ex-camp commandant turned Buddhist monk.

  Lying in bed the previous night, Danny had rehearsed his confrontation with Mori a dozen or more times in his rusty Japanese, while flicking through his phrasebook, which proved frustratingly inadequate. Now he decided to ask Tony for the words he was unsure about. He still wasn’t entirely sure he could articulate what he wanted to say, even in English. It is much easier to describe a man as a bastard than to confront him as one.

  Danny knew very little about Buddhism and had always supposed that Shinto was the more common belief in Japan. ‘Isn’t it unusual to have someone like Mori become a monk in a Buddhist temple?’ Danny asked, after their language session had come to an end and he had noted down the words he’d been unable to remember. ‘I would have expected him to be Shinto.’

  ‘No, not at all unusual,’ Tony replied. ‘Japan doesn’t have a state religion, but you’re right – Shinto has perhaps more adherents. Although it’s hard to say, because the Japanese are fairly catholic in their religious beliefs. Shinto ritual, for instance, is usually employed for births, whereas Buddhist ritual is preferred for deaths. Most Japanese follow both and visit both Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples. It would be logical for Mori to seek his redemption as a Mahayana Buddhist monk, following the path to enlightenment through a monastic life of meditation and withdrawal. They believe that attempting to get others to reach a state of enlightenment is nearly impossible when you can barely help yourself. The idea is to confine yourself to the temple and work on your own enlightenment.’

  ‘Bloody convenient, if you ask me,’ Danny sniffed. ‘You can be an utter bastard all your life, then, when you’re old, you can buy an insurance policy from God or Buddha or whoever you’ve chosen to back.’

  ‘Dunn, that’s an Irish name, isn’t it?’ Tony Blackmore smiled, adding, ‘Catholic?’

  ‘I guess,’ Danny replied.

 
‘Well, as your local Father Murphy will tell you, it’s never too late to return to the true faith, the true God. We do it all the time in Christianity. The Japanese are no different. Old people seeing the light after a lifetime of dark deeds is common in most faiths, I’d guess.’

  The taxi dropped them outside the high stone wall surrounding the temple, and they walked unchallenged through an open wooden gate and into the large compound.

  ‘Looks old,’ Danny said, unconsciously lowering his voice.

  ‘It is old, bloody old,’ Tony replied.

  Beyond the walls stood a series of tiered wooden buildings. Solid-looking and weathered, they gave the impression of having been there for a very long time. On many, the roof tiles were covered in moss and lichen. Dotted among the structures were great old trees, and the entire complex was surrounded by a beautifully manicured lawn. The chanting of monks punctuated by the tintinnabulation of small bells intruded into what might have been described as a serene silence. In a very real way, the sounds enhanced the sense of quietude.

  ‘Christ!’ Danny said under his breath. ‘Who’d have thought?’

  ‘Wrong God,’ Tony shot back. ‘This is the house of the fat guy with the smile.’

  ‘I can see what you mean about trying to catch up with your inner self,’ Danny remarked. ‘Difficult to be a bastard in these surroundings.’

  They’d reached the main temple and removed their shoes at the entrance, at the same time trying to adjust to the shadowy interior. The great hall was dimly lit by clusters of flickering candles that gleamed on an expanse of polished wooden floor stretching ahead of them to a large gold statue of Buddha, where a group of monks sat in a circle chanting with their heads bowed, intermittently ringing tiny bells.

  A young monk, perhaps a novice, approached them, his every footstep making the floor sing as if it were specially sprung. ‘It’s called a nightingale floor,’ Tony Blackmore explained quietly. ‘It sings as you move over it to warn of an enemy approaching. Probably built around three centuries ago.’

  The novice, smiling, bade them enter, then inquired if they were tourists and wished to be shown around. ‘No,’ Tony replied, ‘We have come to visit the monk Mori-san.’

  The young monk looked surprised. ‘But you cannot be family?’

  ‘No, old acquaintances. We are from his distant past, far away,’ Tony explained.

  ‘And you have come to see him before he attains the next step to enlightenment?’

  ‘Yes,’ Danny said, not sure what the young bloke meant. Then he added, ‘We wish to pay our respects.’

  ‘I will ask. Wait, please.’ He turned and set off across the singing floorboards towards the circle of chanting monks, returning after he had consulted with one of them. ‘He is still aware. You may come with me,’ he said.

  The floor sang or, Danny thought, made a wobbling sound as they crossed towards the chanting circle, and it wasn’t until they reached it that he realised a monk lay at its centre. ‘Christ, it’s him – Mori!’ he said in a shocked whisper. ‘He’s carking it. The bastard’s dying!’

  The monks continued to chant, ignoring their presence. Tony Blackmore touched Danny on the shoulder. ‘Looks like we’ve arrived too late. Better leave, hey?’ he whispered.

  But Danny seemed not to hear. The Japanese words came to him clearly. He’d heard them a dozen times or more from Japanese guards as they’d beaten a prisoner to death for some trifling transgression. He stepped forward and gently placed his hands on the shoulders of two monks, forcing them to part sufficiently for him to step into the circle. Inside he dropped to his haunches beside Mori, who appeared to be still conscious. Looking directly into the dying man’s eyes, he said, ‘This is Sergeant Major Dunn, Colonel Mori.’ A fleeting look of recognition appeared in Mori’s eyes and a faint nod of his head signalled that he’d heard him, but there was no fear, and no remorse. Danny stared at that hated face, then leaned down and placed his mouth close to the dying monk’s ear. In his rough Japanese he whispered, ‘Die, you mongrel, you worthless piece of dog shit!’ The chanting continued unabated, as he hissed, ‘We are bound together for all time, Mori. May my spirit, and the spirits of those you harmed, haunt you for eternity!’

  The monks droned on. As Danny rose, the two monks swayed to the left and right to allow him to leave the circle. Danny almost ran from the building, the floor bouncing and wobbling under his panic-stricken feet. Without waiting to put on his shoes, he reached the fresh air and barely made it to an ancient Sugi tree, a Japanese cedar, where he began to dry-retch. It was as if he were vomiting emotional bile, purging himself of the memories of the prison camp and the men who had died needlessly. Finally, his stomach turned and he threw up its contents.

  Tony Blackmore stood, unmoving, a short distance away, holding Danny’s shoes, and when Danny eventually approached him, he handed them over without a word. For the most part they were silent as they returned to the group, but just before they arrived, Danny turned and offered the military attaché his hand. ‘Thanks, mate, I truly appreciate what you’ve done for me,’ he said quietly.

  ‘For my family too, Danny; for my brother Jack,’ Tony replied.

  It was not until New Year’s Eve, when Helen and Danny once again sat on the upstairs verandah cracking the traditional bottle of Bollinger, that he told Helen the story of the final hours of the life of the one-time Colonel Mori. He couldn’t bring himself to tell her the first part of what he’d said to the dying monk – they were words from the camp, and later he’d regretted using them. He simply told her that he had whispered to the dying man, ‘We are bound together for all time, Mori. May my spirit, and the spirits of those you harmed, haunt you for eternity!’ But in retrospect, even this gave him no sense of triumph or of a mission accomplished.

  Nevertheless, Helen was appalled and said so. ‘Danny, I don’t know whether I believe in God, least of all a forgiving and merciful one, but I do believe in the human spirit, and you have sullied yours by saying what you said to Mori, and you immediately became a lesser man for it.’ It was the closest he’d ever heard Helen come to making a moral judgment that left no room for appeal.

  ‘Yes,’ Danny said quietly. ‘Yes, I know.’

  1966 was the year of the British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Kingston, Jamaica. While Dawn Fraser, still at the height of her swimming career, would have been expected to return from Jamaica with four gold medals, a sanctimonious Amateur Swimming Union of Australia, flexing its muscles about the flag incident at the Tokyo Olympics, had banned her from competitive swimming for ten years, effectively terminating her career.

  All of Balmain and most of sporting Australia were immediately up in arms, and Danny, as both a lawyer and the Independent member for the area, went in to bat for her reinstatement. He was to learn a salutary lesson: that dealing with fanatical amateurs who hold to what they believe is the moral high ground is not the same thing as working with professional and fair-minded people looking for a just and equitable solution to a problem.

  As a lawyer, he could present a case that, if strong enough, could be expected to earn a not-guilty verdict or be dismissed. Similarly, in parliament, both sides were able to question and debate issues, and although deals were made from time to time, if they were clandestine or overtly unfair, the deal-makers risked exposure by the Opposition or the media.

  His efforts to have the Balmain harbour-front rezoned as residential land was a case in point. Well argued on the floor of the house as beneficial not only to the immediate community but also to the city of Sydney and to the state, it met with the approval of all who had no special agenda. Most saw it as long overdue, a correction to blatant Labor Government corruption and inertia. However, none of these rules or traditions applied to the Amateur Swimming Union or the bodies controlling Australia’s entrants in the Commonwealth Games or the Olympics.

  Danny was more than a little surprised to d
iscover a bias within the Swimming Union against so-called lower- or working-class swimmers, not dissimilar to the nonsense spouted by Hitler about racial purity that was supposedly supported by the ‘science’ of eugenics. Hitler had hoped to demonstrate the superiority of the German people at the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games, but despite Jesse Owens proving him disastrously wrong, he and the Nazis went on to murder six million Jews, Gypsies and other people they considered inferior.

  The Swimming Union, using a high-minded and fanatically policed code of amateurism, tried to restrict the number of working-class Australian swimmers representing their country. In fairness, this concept originated from the International Olympic Committee, whose chief, Avery Brundage, was a notorious bully and Nazi sympathiser. Here in Australia, money was the weapon employed by the ranks of swimming officialdom to keep the sport socially pure and effectively only available to those with parents who could afford to sponsor their children’s training and travel expenses. As the state or federal government made no contribution to the development of Australian athletes, this effectively kept the hoi polloi out of contention.

  Danny’s sense of fair play was immediately aroused. Dawn had been involved in the flag-stealing incident with a number of other Australian Olympians and hadn’t instigated the prank herself, but despite that, she was the only participant to be punished with a career-ending sentence. This was especially galling because Dawn Fraser, the kid from the wrong side of the tracks, had the potential to become the greatest swimmer and possibly the greatest athlete in Australian history.