Wounded Tiger

by T Martin Bennett

  Another administrator in suit and tie opened the car door as all of the students bowed deeply and held their positions.

  Dr. Sakata stepped out of the car holding a large, white, rectangular box in his white gloves and regally made his way up the steps into the school’s main hall followed by a small cadre of administrators in methodical procession.

  Inside the most honored place at the school, Dr. Sakata meticulously unfolded the purple velvet inside the box, and, one at a time withdrew the Imperial Portraits of the Emperor and Empress and ceremoniously set them inside a shrine-like wooden box adorned with purple curtains. The top of the small shrine displayed a golden chrysanthemum – crest of the Imperial Family. Stepping back while facing the shrine, He and the entourage bowed reverently in unison and held their posture.

  Chapter 12

  Spring, 1937. Medford, Oregon.

  An unending chorus of chirps from turkey chicks emanated from inside cardboard boxes stacked in a column inside the busy hardware and feed store. While a bearded man in a clerk’s apron peered into an open box counting, Jake spoke excitedly on an old wall phone with a mouthpiece that extended out like a black daffodil.

  “Ma! You sitting down? I said – are you sitting down? You’re not going to believe this. I saved up a thousand dollars. Yeah. Two years of work. Uh-huh. One thousand dollars!”

  As the clerk folded up the top of the box and flipped his journal closed he looked over to Jake. “Keep ‘em warm, now. Cover ‘em up good.”

  Jake looked back, distracted by his call, and waved. “Yeah, I know. Put ‘em in the truck. Ma? I bought five hundred turkey chicks and I’m gonna get ‘em fat for the holidays and double my money. What do you think of that?!”

  Six Months Later.

  Standing in a snow-frosted duster and cowboy hat at the same phone, Jake dejectedly waited for the call to go through. Behind him, men wrestled with full grown turkeys flapping and squawking in a cloud of feathers and stuffed them into cages.

  “You’re not gonna believe this, Ma. Too many turkeys this year. No market. I lost it all. Yeah. Nearly every penny. OK, I’ll write later.” Jake slammed the earpiece down and glared at his lost venture. He whispered stoically, “I should‘ve just fed my money to the turkeys. A thousand bucks!”

  Chapter 13

  Early December, 1937. Hankow, China.

  As his engine blared in the wind, Fuchida saw that the sunlight had highlighted a streak on the half windshield at the front of his open cockpit. He rubbed it off with the back of his left jacket sleeve, his right hand steady on the stick. Fuchida patted the side wall of his Yokosuka B4Y biplane like a familiar dog as he led a squadron of twelve planes above China at fifteen thousand feet, the wind rushing past his smiling face. The aircraft carried three men with the navigator and radio operator/gunner behind Fuchida.

  Although his division of Imperial Navy bombers were primarily carrier-based, this time he was working in conjunction with the Japanese army in China. Like the rest of his nation, he beamed with pride over the headlines that read Japanese Troops on Shanghai Front Capture Lotien and thrilled to see their military theories becoming realities, but Fuchida’s call away from the Naval Staff College to China stemmed from a bad turn of events.

  Japan’s war with China began in earnest earlier that year at the Marco Polo bridge where fighting broke out into full battle. In Nanking, navy pilots created a diplomatic crisis when they bombed an American gunboat in the Yangtze River, sinking it and killing three sailors along with scores of Chinese who were in junks traveling with the Western river boats.

  The pilots had received orders from their own headquarters via an Army request to attack all shipping in the Yangtze at Nanking. It was referred to as the “Panay Incident” after the name of the American ship, USS Panay, and called an “incident” because Japan in no way wanted to be seen as being at war with China, which could have spurred U.S. and British intervention. Japanese diplomats apologized profusely to the Americans, and Fuchida was called in with others to put a clamp on poorly targeted bombing raids in the area 600 miles due west of Shanghai.

  Locating the arms manufacturing area near the Yangtze River off to his left, Fuchida raised his hand in the air, tipped his wings, and led his group into their bombing run. They veered left, vectored in on their targets, and released their payloads.

  On the ground, the Chinese antiaircraft guns began firing away, but had swung into action too late – the bombs were already falling and Fuchida’s group was peeling away, waiting and watching to see if they hit their marks.

  Fuchida grinned with satisfaction as buildings erupted into a series of horrendous explosions that cracked through the air blowing debris into the sky. He had little doubt that China would soon fold under the weight of the Japanese war machine.

  After several months in China, Fuchida returned to Japan, stopping briefly to see his mother in the Nara prefecture as his father had died the previous year. Yazo, his father, had also aspired to join the military, but his hopes were crushed by a baseball accident that robbed him of the sight in one eye. Still, he had been a respected teacher in the community and Fuchida had loved hunting and fishing with his father. He was unprepared as to how much he missed his presence and advice.

  As he gazed from their porch to Mount Wakakusa in the east, he wondered, “What am I living for? What am I willing to die for?” He was long overdue for a visit to another place. He smiled and nodded his head. “Perhaps,” he wondered and sighed, “perhaps I will renew myself there.”

  On his train ride back to the Naval Staff College in Tokyo to complete his studies, he took a slight detour to Ise City, the location of over 120 Shinto shrines. In the Shinto faith, all objects, animate or not, or features of nature, are respected for their kami, or spirits – some more than others.

  Once at the main complex, he headed straight to Ise Jingū, or the Ise Grand Shrine, home to the shrine of Amaterasu-omikami, the goddess of the sun – the most sacred place in Japan.

  In his khaki uniform, Fuchida stood pensively below the traditional entrance to all Shinto shrines, the torii – a pair of huge, wooden beams spanning between the tops of two cypress columns, the upper beam always being longer. He looked across the arched Uji Bridge over the Isuzu River. It was a demarcation separating the sacred from the worldly. “Just what I need,” he thought.

  Fuchida looked up, closed his eyes, heard the unique hoh-hokekyo chirp of the Japanese Bush Warbler, and breathed in the spring air of the towering cypress trees. He wanted to cleanse his mind from the impurity of war. The still of the forest and solitude of the sacred grounds revitalized his sense of gratitude and a feeling of favor. Opening his eyes he recalled that the bridge faced east, that on the day of the winter solstice – two weeks away – the sun would rise, shining straight down the bridge under the torii, fitting for a temple to the sun god.

  The shrine had few worshippers that day and afforded him a measure of privacy he relished as he crossed the wooden bridge, the planks giving an occasional creak. Certainly, Fuchida thought, there is nothing to compare with the sun itself. It brings light and causes all things to grow. Without it, there would be no life on earth.

  He came to the Temizusha, an open-sided, roofed structure over a stone-walled pool of water and reached for one of the many long-handled bamboo ladles from the wooden grid that overlaid the basin. Fuchida felt privileged. In the distant past, no one but the imperial family was allowed to worship there, but beginning in the 12th century, the samurai warriors were given access, for the sun goddess was the god of victory. In time, others were granted access. He sensed a deep union with the samurai of old as he lifted the dipper and slowly cascaded the cool water over his left hand, then switched hands and poured water over his right. He wondered what the old woman next to him thought she needed purification from.

  Though not particularly devout, his father taught him Buddhist verses as a boy which he brushed out onto rice paper and memorized. He’d also spent time in Shinto
shrines. Today his mind seemed to drift off into a blend of thoughts and memories – A pure, cloudless heart is a heart which finds life in the true way by dying to one’s self and one’s own ends ...

  Following the path further through the lush forest, he began climbing the steep, stone steps leading to another wooden torii in front of a fenced sanctuary called Kotaijingu, founded 2,000 years ago and home to the sacred mirror believed to be the very one used to bring Amaterasu-omikami from her cave to deliver sunlight to the entire world. At the top of the steps, his heart pumping from the hike, Fuchida was awed to think that this kami was connected directly to the Emperor of Japan – a spiritual descendant of the kami themselves.

  Closing his eyes once again, he reverently bowed twice, clapped his hands twice, bowed again and stood in silence. Opening his eyes and standing upright, he stepped back, and bowed again. He wondered if he really believed it – but there was nothing like the awesome power of the sun itself. Certainly the favor of the sun shone down onto his home of Japan, blessing their nation above all others.

  Chapter 14

  December, 1938. Yokohama.

  “From Ezekiel, Chapter eight.” Jimmy spoke quietly in Japanese to the students and friends who had gathered in his tatami-matted living room that evening. “‘With their backs to the sanctuary of the Lord, they were facing east, bowing low to the ground, worshiping the sun.’” A few lamps cast a golden hue over the dim room as Jimmy looked up over the top of his glasses and scanned their earnest faces. He wondered how much of what he saw, they, too perceived. Peggy sat beside her father, almost leaning against him as he continued. “‘He said to me, “Have you seen this, son of man? Is it nothing ... to do the detestable things they are doing here, leading the whole nation into violence, thumbing their noses at me, and rousing my fury against them? Therefore, I will deal with them in fury. I will neither pity nor spare them. And though they cry for mercy – I will not listen.”’” He gently laid the Bible down, removed his glasses for a moment, and wiped his eyes with his shirt sleeve.

  A Japanese girl cocked her head and looked at Jimmy quizzically, as if to try to understand his reason for showing such emotion. Jimmy knew that few of them could fathom the depths of horror he feared might lie ahead if the nation didn’t change its course. “Fury without pity” resonated in his mind.

  This was one of the highlights of his time – being with students and friends crowded together with his wife and children inside their home, all sitting cross legged or kneeling on the floor, some with open bibles before them. Here he was free to speak his heart and mind, and so he did. Deeds were almost as important as beliefs to him, but beliefs always preceded deeds.

  With a refreshing smile and deep inhale, he turned and pointed to a framed poem on the wall, written in both Japanese and English. “I love this poem. This is my heart. This is my prayer.” Reciting from memory in Japanese he looked into each face around the room, one at a time, “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace; where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy.” He closed his eyes for a second while he spoke. “O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood, as to understand; to be loved, as to love others; for it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.” He ended looking at Peggy, whose eyes glimmered with admiration.

  The room fell silent as most looked downward in contemplation. Jimmy waited.

  One of the students, a young man, looked up at Jimmy. “Mr. Covell, these are difficult things to do.”

  “No, not difficult,” Jimmy responded, “impossible to do – on our own. But with Almighty God, all things are possible.”

  The student gently nodded, then both of them connected in a soft smile.

  On the crowded sidewalk along a street in downtown Yokohama, Jimmy held Peggy’s arm through his, and in the other hand carried a basket of heads of hakusai – Japanese cabbage. He listened to Peggy’s story unfold as a packed streetcar rumbled past.

  “So I asked if I could try out for that part of the play and since they needed two more girls, they said, ‘Sure! We’d love to have you.’ Isn’t that great dad?” They stopped walking as Peggy looked at her father’s face.

  He stared at a row of colorful posters going up on a wooden wall over older, peeling bills. The new sheets were all identical, featuring an illustration of proud soldiers surrounded by cheering throngs of civilians, emblazoned with the words, Asia is for Asians! Working together we bring prosperity to the world! The cold chill he felt wasn’t from the weather. Only a week earlier, with great curiosity, he’d watched several Tokkō in a drugstore meticulously go through stacks of magazines tearing out a single page from each one. He could feel the momentum.

  A workman pushed his brush to flatten out the wrinkles of the last poster, then plopped it back into a tray of paste at the feet of Jimmy and Peggy. Squinting through the smoke of the cigarette in his teeth, the unshaven worker slowly raised his eyes, stopping at Peggy’s fearful face. He smiled with missing teeth, shook his head, and slapped the brush back against the advertisement, pasting it to the wood. Peggy pressed against Jimmy’s side, reassured by her father’s firm arm around her.

  Jimmy navigated past the workman and posters. “It’s all right, Peggy,” he whispered. “Not everyone here believes that.”

  Once again, Jimmy stood before the desk of Dr. Sakata, the school president, who sat with his head down and sighed nervously.

  Dr. Sakata looked up. “I deeply regret that the school board has asked me to request your resignation by the end of this school year.”

  “Because I oppose Japan’s march to war?” Jimmy wasn’t really offended. He knew it was coming sooner or later. He just wanted to hear the official reasons, if any.

  Dr. Sakata stood up, his troubled posture intimating sympathy. “Many foreigners have been refused re-entry to Japan, many have been deported, and some have even been arrested. You know this.” He walked to the window and gazed at the empty yard. “Last week the Tokkō confronted me and demanded I answer their question.” He turned to Jimmy. “They shouted, ‘Who is greater, the Emperor or Jesus?’”

  “What did you say?”

  “I told them they couldn’t be compared.” Smiling, he continued, “Then I asked them, ‘Which is better, white or silence?’”

  Jimmy’s face lit up. He actually pitied Dr. Sakata, who stood over the ever-widening gap between what the nation demanded of him, and what his conscience begged of him.

  Dr. Sakata moved closer to Jimmy. “I’ve intervened to protect you, but I’m afraid I can’t do so much longer. Your life’s in danger.” Walking over to a map on the wall he put his hands behind his back. “Perhaps we can get you a transfer to a school in Tokyo.”

  “No. It’s just a matter of time before they deport me. I’ve talked to the mission board and I’d like to go to the Philippines to teach there. The Americans have a strong military presence so we’ll be safe. It’s not too far away, so when all this talk of war is over, I’ll come back.”

  Dr. Sakata looked back over his shoulder and nodded. “The students love you. We look forward to having you here again in the future.”

  They shook hands and held for a moment.

  “Thanks for letting me serve here,” Jimmy said. “It’s been the greatest experience of my life. Truly.”

  June 8, 1939. Yokohama Bay.

  Under a fading light rain, Jimmy set down his suitcases. “There she is,” he said as he and his family admired the 570 foot passenger liner Empress of Russia towering above the waterfront of Yokohama, all three funnels pouring smoke into the blue-gray sky. The docks were a sea of people, umbrellas, and suitcases, most moving toward several gangplanks flowing onto the ship.

  Jimmy had dreaded this moment and looked forward to it; the end of a w
onderful time, the beginning of a new adventure.

  Charma hugged a Japanese woman who wiped the tears from her face as Peggy, likewise, embraced a Japanese girl her age. The family was surrounded by seventy or so well wishers, all pressing in to say their last goodbyes in the rain.

  After shaking hands with a Buddhist monk dressed in traditional gray, a dear friend, Jimmy raised his hands for their attention and spoke in Japanese as the rain dripped from his fedora. “Our life here in Japan, our home for nearly twenty years, has overflowed with friendship, love, and wonderful memories. We’re so grateful for all of our many, many friends.” Charma blotted her eyes with a handkerchief. “This is only a short trip. We’ll be coming back again, soon, I hope. Though we may be far away, our hearts will always be close to yours. Goodbye, my friends.”

  In perfect cue, the ship’s steam whistle sounded with a fierce shout, blowing a white cloud into the air. Jimmy, Charma, Peggy, David and Alice gathered their belongings and shuffled toward the gangplank amid shouts from friends, “Covell sensei banzai! Covell sensei banzai!”

  Chapter 15

  November, 1939. The open sea off of the coast of Tokyo.

  The aircraft carrier Akagi carved through the ocean under a brisk, overcast sky. From the air above, Fuchida, now with a narrow mustache, looked down on the ship from his three-man Nakajima B5N torpedo bomber as they banked for their approach.

  Yamamoto’s got no guts, Fuchida reflected. He was displeased with the new Commander in Chief of the Combined Fleet installed two and a half months earlier. He knew how much time Yamamoto had spent in the UK and in the US, two years at Harvard, and how friendly and comfortable he’d become with the West. Why did he oppose Japan’s plans to move into a deeper partnership with Germany? He didn’t seem like the bold commander Japan needs to take charge.