Suicide River

by Len Levinson

  The little Japanese soldier's name was Hirokoshi, and he realized he was a prisoner of war. This frightened him, because he knew how the Japanese Army treated prisoners of war, but the Americans weren't beating him up or threatening him in any way. Hirokoshi hated being a soldier, because he was a weak sickly person who simply didn't have the strength to do all the things a Japanese soldier was supposed to do. This made him a punching bag for Japanese sergeants. Now he realized that his military career was over, and he was safe, with friendly American soldiers.

  The hand was removed from Hirokoshi's mouth. Hirokoshi smiled and bowed. One of the American soldiers handed him a cracker to eat, and Hirokoshi accepted it with another little bow, trying to eat it slowly although he was starved to death and tempted to gobble it down like a maniac.

  “Friendly little feller, ain't he?” asked the Reverend Billie Jones, who always tried to see the best in people.

  “I wouldn't turn my back on him,” Frankie La Barbara said. “A good Jap is a dead Jap.”

  Lieutenant Breckenridge turned to Frankie. “Be nice to him. He can tell us a lot, and he probably will because he must be mad at his own people since that sergeant was beating him up before we saved him.”

  “I still don't trust him,” Frankie said. “If he makes one funny move, I'm gonna kill the little slant-eyed son of a bitch.”

  “You'd better stay away from him. I want to bring him back alive.”

  The Reverend Billie Jones handed Hirokoshi another cracker, and Hirokoshi ate it daintily. Hirokoshi was feeling better, realizing he didn't have to worry anymore about getting shot or stabbed in combat. He never thought he'd live long if he ever got into a bayonet fight with an American, because Americans were so much bigger and stronger than he. He'd thought for sure he'd be dead soon after the big offensive began, but now he was going to live.

  Hirokoshi was overjoyed. He'd never believed much in the war anyway, and on top of that he was a Buddhist, and Buddhists were discriminated against by the Shintoists, the majority religion in Japan. Hirokoshi had been an accountant in a bookkeeper's office before the war, working with an abacus, writing neat columns of figures on pieces of paper. He'd been a bachelor living with his mother, never paid much attention to the news, and then one day he'd been drafted. He'd worked as a bookkeeper and clerk in the army, but General Adachi was mobilizing as many soldiers as possible for his upcoming offensive. Hirokoshi had been given a rifle and transferred to the infantry.

  Hirokoshi hated the Army and had no special loyalty to the Emperor. He was a dissident in the Japanese Army, although he always kept his mouth shut.

  Now he was free, and the big American soldier was giving him another cracker. Hirokoshi bowed again and accepted it, raising it to his quivering lips, wondering if he was dreaming or if the war really was over for him as it appeared. He smiled happily at his American captors and said, "Arigato,” thanking them for saving his life.

  “Watch out,” Frankie La Barbara uttered. “When a Jap smiles at you, that's when you'd better start reaching for your gun.”

  “Leave him alone,” Lieutenant Breckenridge told him. “Get away from him. I don't want you scaring him.”

  “I'll scare him all right,” Frankie La Barbara said. “I'll blow his fucking Jap brains out.”

  “I said get away from him, and I mean it.”

  Frankie walked on his hands and knees to the outer periphery of the circle around Hirokoshi, and it was a good thing because Hirokoshi could detect the hostility in Frankie's voice. But the strong sensible sound of Lieutenant Breckenridge's voice reassured him. Hirokoshi munched his cracker, still believing he was safe. He hoped the Americans would give him a cigarette after they took him to safety behind their lines. He was sure they would, because they appeared to be decent fellows, except for the one with the threatening voice, and even he seemed nicer than Hirokoshi's platoon sergeant, who used to beat him up with terrible regularity.

  They gave Private Hirokoshi all the cigarettes he wanted while he was at the headquarters of the Twenty-third Regiment, and he got more cigarettes plus breakfast by the time he got to the headquarters of the Eighty-first Division. His cuts and bruises were treated by doctors and pretty nurses at the Eighty-first Division Medical Headquarters, and his next stop was the headquarters of the Persecution Task Force. He felt like a movie star or a celebrity, because everybody made a fuss over him, giving him anything he wanted. He thought Americans were kind people, exactly the opposite of the monsters depicted in Japanese Army propoganda. He believed it had been wrong for the Japanese High Command to go to war against such a friendly people, and meanwhile the American officers figured he was going to sing like a bird.

  At the headquarters of the Persecution Task Force, Hirokoshi was brought to a tent where an American officer sat behind a desk, and to Hirokoshi's surprise and delight, the American officer greeted him in Japanese!

  Hirokoshi regained his composure and bowed. “How do you do, sir,” he said to the officer.

  The officer was Major Rainey, the former overseas rep for General Electric, who now worked for General Hall. “Have a seat,” Major Rainey said.

  Hirokoshi sat on a wooden chair. Armed American MPs were on either side of him. Major Rainey lifted a package of Camels from his desk and held them out to Hirokoshi.

  “Cigarette?” asked Major Rainey.

  “If you please,” replied Hirokoshi, although he'd smoked more cigarettes during the past few hours than he'd smoked during the past month in the Japanese Army.

  Major Rainey leaned forward and lit the cigarette. Hirokoshi took a few puffs and returned to his chair. He savored the cigarette, thinking that American cigarettes were superior to Japanese cigarettes. He wondered what it would be like to live in America, among such decent people.

  “How are you feeling?” Major Rainey asked.

  “Very well, thank you,” Hirokoshi replied, puffing the Camel cigarette.

  “I hope you've received adequate medical attention.”

  “Oh yes, thank you, I have.”

  “Good, because we want you to be comfortable.”

  “You speak excellent Japanese,” Hirokoshi said. “Where did you learn?”

  “I lived in your country for a while before the war.”

  “Did you really?”

  The conversation continued in this unimportant vein for several more minutes, as Major Rainey worked to put Hirokoshi at ease. He wouldn't have tried so hard if he'd known Hirokoshi already was at ease and had been ever since the recon platoon took him prisoner. Hirokoshi loved to sit around and talk with people, and he wasn't stupid, he knew Major Rainey wanted information, but Hirokoshi was prepared to answer all questions. He wasn't happy about the way he'd been treated in the Japanese Army, and didn't like the military dictatorship that ruled his country.

  Finally Major Rainey decided the time had come to get down to business. He continued smiling as he steeled himself for his assault on Hirokoshi's loyalties, little realizing that Hirokoshi had few left.

  “I wonder if you could give us some information?” Major Rainey asked.

  “What exactly would you like to know?” Hirokoshi asked.

  “We understand General Adachi is planning a major attack soon. Is that correct?”

  “Quite correct,” Private Hirokoshi replied. “Until recently I worked in the headquarters of the Eighteenth Army, and I was aware that the attack was being planned.”

  Major Rainey was thunderstruck. He couldn't believe his good luck. He had before him not an ordinary infantry private as he'd thought, but a clerk who'd worked in the headquarters of General Adachi himself!

  Major Rainey leaned forward. “Tell me,” he said, “is the attack really going to take place on the night of July ninth?”

  Now it was Private Hirokoshi's turn to be surprised. “How do you know that?”

  Major Rainey smiled knowingly. “We have our ways. Will the attack take place on that night?”

  “It will as far as I know,�
�� Private Hirokoshi said, “but I haven't been in General Adachi's headquarters for several days now, and the plans might've changed.”

  “Have you ever actually seen the plans?”

  “Yes I have, sir.”

  Major Rainey nearly fell off his chair. “You've seen the plans!”

  “Parts of them, sir.”

  “What parts?”

  ‘The parts concerned with logistics, and some of the overall plans for operations.”

  Major Rainey swallowed hard. It was his lucky day. “What are the overall plans for the attack, Private Hirokoshi?” he asked politely.

  “As I said,” Private Hirokoshi began, “the plans might've been changed since I left General Adachi's headquarters, but as I recall, the attack was scheduled to proceed along two axes, the first toward the northern seacoast and the second across the Driniumor River midway between Afua and the point where the Driniumor empties into the sea.”

  Major Rainey looked down at his map. The sector near the coast was held by the Thirty-fifth Division, and the sector midway between Afua and the mouth of the Driniumor was held by the Eight-first Division. Major Rainey wrinkled his brow and looked up at Private Hirokoshi.

  “This is very interesting information,” he said.

  Private Hirokoshi smiled. “I thought you'd think so, sir,” he replied.

  EIGHT . . .

  At 1400 a meeting was held in the office of General Hall. All his staff officers were in attendance, as well as division commanders, regimental commanders, and their staffs. It was a huge assembly of officers, and if a Japanese artillery shell happened to land on that wooden shack, the entire U.S. Army leadership in the Aitape area would be wiped out.

  The officers gathered around a map table six feet wide and six feet long, with various American units represented by squares of wood, while Japanese units were represented by round pieces of wood. It was raining torrents outside, with lightning streaking across the sky and thunderclaps sounding like bomb explosions. Three tin pails had been placed on the floor to catch water dripping through the roof.

  General Hall stood behind the map table, holding a long pointer in his right hand. “This meeting has been called,” he said, “because of important intelligence that has been obtained this morning. The intelligence arrived in the form of an enemy soldier captured by a patrol from the Eighty-first Division, and I believe the information will give us a leg up on the Japs if they attack as scheduled on the night of July ninth.”

  Everyone glanced at General Hawkins, and he stiffened his spine, puffing out his chest with pride, because a patrol from his division had brought in the prisoner, although he didn't have anything to do with it.

  If anyone in the room should've received credit, it was Colonel Hutchins, because he was the one who'd organized his recon platoon, hand-picking many of its members, and the recon platoon furnished the patrol that captured Private Hirokoshi. But no one paid any attention to Colonel Hutchins, who stood near the rear wall of the tent, behind all the generals, because although he was head honcho at the Twenty-third Regiment, he was just another bird colonel among a conglomeration of one- and two-star generals at Persecution Task Headquarters.

  “According to this captured Japanese soldier,” General Hall continued, “who was a clerk in General Adachi's headquarters, by the way, the Japanese attack will consist of two main elements. One will be a thrust along the seacoast here”—General Hall pointed to that sector of the map—“and the second will be an attempt to force the Driniumor here.” He pointed to the area midway between Afua and the mouth of the Driniumor. “Our informant reports that General Adachi is determined to win this battle and will give it all he has. Although General Adachi is short on supplies, and his men have been poorly fed and cared for, he still thinks he can overcome us. From what our informant tells us, we can expect the same numbers of Japanese soldiers that we've been expecting. Our intelligence up until now has been accurate, I'm pleased to say. The attack itself will come on the night of July ninth, which we've also known for some time, but this new information confirms it.”

  A hand shot up. It belonged to Colonel Daniel MacKenzie, an intelligence expert on General Hall's staff. “Sir,” he said, “may I suggest that this might very well be stale information. It's quite possible that we'll gear up for an attack on the night of July ninth, and the attack itself will come sometime before that date or after it. We know ourselves how often plans are changed, sometimes at the last moment. I don't think we should concentrate unduly on July ninth. I think we should be prepared for an attack at all times. If we exert all our efforts to the night of July ninth, we just might let the Japs trick us. For all we know, this prisoner might be part of an elaborate plan of deception. He might be a Japanese intelligence agent himself. I think we should take what he told us with a grain of salt, and make our own preparations based on our own knowledge. Even the description of the two-pronged attack might be completely erroneous. I think we must exercise extreme caution in this matter, and prepare for all possible contigencies.”

  Colonel MacKenzie closed his mouth. He'd said what was on his mind and felt relieved. General Hall and the others reflected upon what he'd said. They thought perhaps he was right.

  General Hall cleared his throat. “I think we ought to give very serious consideration to what Colonel MacKenzie has just said. We can't let ourselves be deceived by the Japs. There's too much at stake here. Perhaps we shouldn't give undue weight to the night of July ninth. Perhaps we should maintain a general state of readiness, as Colonel MacKenzie suggests.”

  Another hand shot up, and this time it was Major Rainey who wanted to speak. “Sir,” he said, “I'm the one who interrogated the Japanese prisoner, and I believe his story completely. Moreover, I think it's unlikely that he's an intelligence agent in disguise, because he was captured under the most unusual circumstances. He was being beaten physically by his platoon sergeant when he was rescued by the patrol from the Eighty-first Division, and he's most grateful for being rescued. This particular prisoner has never believed in the war, and always has been opposed to the military men who've taken over the government of his country. On top of all that, he's a Buddhist, and Buddhists have been persecuted by the Shinto majority in Japan. The prisoner might indeed have provided stale information, but it was provided in good faith, in my opinion.”

  Colonel MacKenzie raised his hand again. “I respect Major Rainey's opinion, and always have admired his facility with the Japanese language, but I still think it's possible this prisoner is a cleverly disguised intelligence agent. His whole story is too pat. His allegation that he worked in General Adachi's headquarters is simply too good to be true. I don't believe it.”

  The room was silent. A simple straightforward briefing had become a controversy. Everybody looked to General Hall for direction.

  “Does anyone have any more thoughts on this matter?” General Hall said, throwing the ball back into their court.

  A lively discussion ensued, with some officers taking Colonel MacKenzie's side and other officers on Major Rainey's side. Some officers tried to steer into the middle of the road, always the safest way to go. General Hawkins was one of these, trying to sound reasonable and conciliatory, like a diplomat or a United States senator.

  Colonel Hutchins leaned against the rear wall, his thumbs hooked into his cartridge belt. He hated big meetings because they brought out the ham actor and tinhorn politician in some Army officers. Those with something significant to say invariably were drowned out by the phonies. Colonel Hutchins was tempted to mention that he was the only person in the room who'd actually spoken with the officer who'd led the patrol—Lieutenant Breckenridge—and was convinced that the capture of the Jap prisoner hadn't been set up by the Japs. Colonel Hutchins was on the verge of raising his hand, but if he did he knew he'd get into an argument with somebody, and he'd probably punch the son of a bitch out. He didn't want that to happen in General Hall's headquarters, because there could be very serious repercussions
, such as Colonel Hutchins being relieved of command.

  The discussion continued, boring many of the officers, but providing others a platform on which they could express their ideas and advance their careers. The mood of the room shifted back and forth from believing Private Hirokoshi to not believing him. Colonel Hutchins thought perhaps he could provide important information that would help the other officers make up their minds. On top of that, he was one of the few officers in the room who hadn't spoken out yet, and sometimes it was very bad careerwise to be quiet at meetings, because your superiors might start thinking you were dumb and had no opinions about anything.

  Colonel Hutchins took a deep breath and with great reluctance raised his hand.

  General Hall aimed his pointer at him and said, “Yes?”

  All eyes turned on Colonel Hutchins, and he felt ill at ease because he hated to be the center of attention, where any error he made would fall under the close scrutiny of his superiors. Now, with all those eyes on him, he wished he hadn't raised his hand, but it was too late.

  General Hawkins groaned audibly, because he hated Colonel Hutchins and was sure he'd make a fool of himself. Other officers in the room knew of Colonel Hutchins's reputation as a drunk and troublemaker. Many officers knew nothing at all about him, and one of these was General Hall, who thought Colonel Hutchins looked like an old bulldog, the kind of officer whom enlisted men respected and followed because he spoke their language.

  “Sir,” said Colonel Hutchins, jutting his bulldog jaw forward, “I think I might have some information that might be of use to y'all.” Colonel Hutchins sniffed and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “As far as I know, I'm the only man here who actually talked with the officer who led the patrol that captured the little Jap, and I think it's impossible that the whole thing could've been a setup. In the first place, my patrol was about a mile behind enemy lines, and if the Japs knew they were there they would've killed them and not put on this little show for them. Second, the Japs didn't know where my patrol was going, so they could set up the play, because my patrol didn't even know where they were going themselves—they were just roaming around looking for whatever they could find back there. Third, I doubt whether Japs would deliberately expose themselves to an American patrol, since the American patrol might be tempted to kill them all. Fourth, the officer who led the patrol indicated to me that the little Jap who was getting beat up really looked like he was getting beat up. Fifth, the little Jap would've been killed by his sergeant if my patrol hadn't killed the sergeant. Sixth, I don't want to say that the whole thing couldn't've been a setup, but I think it would've been damn near impossible for the Japs to organize all those factors the way they did, and have everything turn out as they'd planned. It's just not logical, and if we could have the officer here who led the patrol, I'm sure he could give you a more convincing explanation than I have. That's all I got to say.”