No Surrender (31 page)

When the washing was done, I stood there looking at the river for a time, and then I looked up at the sun. Whenever I had crossed this river in the past, I had first looked carefully in all directions, then darted across the river and into a clump of
bosa
trees. Now I was standing here practically naked with the sunlight streaming down on me. It was an odd feeling.

What was to happen now? Major Taniguchi had said that I could go back to Japan immediately, but the idea of going back and trying to live among ordinary people frightened me. I could not quite imagine it.

When I had flown out of the Utsunomiya airport on that night so many years ago, I had discarded all my personal hopes for the future. I told myself at the time that I must put all that behind me. After that, whenever I started to think of home or my family, I deliberately forced the thoughts out of my mind. This became a matter of habit, and eventually the thoughts stopped coming. For more than twenty years now, the idea of home had barely occurred to me, and I had never once dreamed of my family. My military assignment was my life and my support.

Now that life was ending, and that support had been abruptly removed. As I looked at the thick clump, of trees across the river, my brother Tadao's face floated up before me.

I thought, “Maybe I should go to Brazil, where Tadao lives, and become a farmer. After all, I'm used to the jungle . . . One of those leaflets said Tadao has six children. He only had two thirty years ago when I left Japan.”

For the first time, I began to feel the weight of those thirty years, but my reverie went on.

“Maybe Tadao would let me adopt one of his boys. If I had one grown boy to help me in the fields . . .”

I finished wringing out the clothes and took them back to the tent, still clad only in my loincloth. This was the first time I had done anything like that in all the years on Lubang, and it made me nervous. I hurried along, taking long strides.

Handing me some new underwear, Major Taniguchi said, “My wife sent this for you.”

I put it on immediately. Suzuki mischievously took a picture of me while I was changing from my loincloth to my new shorts, but I was happy to find later that the picture did not come out.

The three of us breakfasted on red rice, fish and stewed vegetables, all from cans. We ate ravenously.

Suzuki lighted a beacon signaling to the others that I was
here; two hours later the contingent from Brol arrived at Wakayama Point. Among them was my oldest brother Toshio. He put both hands on my shoulders and said, “We finally found you!” This was our reunion after thirty years.

The road leading down to Brol was barely wide enough for two men, but Colonel Los Panios (district commander) and Lieutenant Colonel Pawan (commander of the radar base) insisted on walking on either side of me.

I changed into a suit my brother had brought me and was given a camera to carry in my left hand. Without asking, I understood why we had to walk three abreast on the narrow road: there was a possibility that one of the islanders might take a shot at me. After all, they had reason to hate me.

The two officers kept a sharp lookout to right and left. At times they walked before and behind me; at others. we were shoulder to shoulder. I was grateful for their solicitude, but deep down I would not have minded being shot.

When we entered the town of Brol, there were Philippine soldiers with automatics lined up along the street at intervals of about ten yards. Despite these security precautions, when we stopped to rest at the mayor's house, the islanders who looked in through the windows registered nothing but curiosity on their faces. I saw no signs of anger.

After we had had some soft drinks, we started out for Snake Mountain to get Kozuka's rifle and my sword. When we came out of the house, we found that several hundred islanders had assembled on the main street. They were all laughing, and some were waving at us. There was not an unfriendly face among them. My brother was vastly relieved.

When I first came to Lubang, Brol consisted of nothing but fifteen or sixteen nipa houses. Now there must be about a hundred houses. Once again I felt my years.

I started climbing Snake Mountain at my usual pace, but Major Taniguchi, Suzuki and the Philippine troops with us soon fell behind. I had to stop and wait for them to catch up.

Major Taniguchi laughed and said, “When Onoda says ‘thirty yards,' he means ‘three hundred yards.' ”

From crevices between the rocks in a cave, I took out the rifle, the sword, and the dagger that I had received from my mother. By this time the sun had set.

We started back with the aid of Lieutenant Colonel Pawan's flashlight, but it was so dark that we stopped and made a torch out of palm leaves. Major Taniguchi and I walked together under its light. We all got wet to the shins in the river.

At the guardhouse of the radar base, I changed into my old clothes to comply with President Marcos's request. As a “prisoner” who had in accordance with orders admitted defeat, I was in no position to object. I simply did as I was told.

Philippine troops were lined up at attention on both sides of the asphalt road in the base. They saluted me by presenting arms. Saluted
me
, if you can believe it, when I was nothing more than a prisoner of war. I was astounded.

The place was lit up like daylight. Taking my sword, wrapped in a white cloth, in my left hand, I advanced toward Major General Rancudo. After saluting him, I held up the sword with both hands and presented it to him. He took it from me briefly as a token of acceptance, then handed it back to me immediately. For a moment something that might be called the pride of a samurai swept over me.

I remembered how Kozuka, looking down on this radar base from a distance, had once said, “We'll take that over someday, won't we?”

But how strange it was to be received here like a triumphant general! Having seen the attention given by the Japanese newspapers to Kozuka's death, I suddenly realized that they must also be raising quite a stir over me.

“I mustn't disappoint them,” I thought. “My uniform may be a mess, but I will try to look like a soldier.”

And I marched as firmly and proudly as I could, putting strength into every step.

That night in a room in the officers' quarters, I drew charts showing where I had hidden my ammunition and extra clothing, so that the people from the Ministry of Health and Welfare could find them later. As I drew the charts, I laughed ruefully to think that all my dreams had ended as a dream.

My dream had been to make a bastion of Lubang. The port at Tilik could be an atomic submarine base or something like that, and I would develop the mountainous areas in my own way. We would plant more palms, and make more paddy fields, and raise more cows. The island would become a self-sufficient, impregnable stronghold.

“Aren't you sleepy yet?” called my brother.

“Not quite yet,” I answered.

Although we had been reunited after thirty years, I had not yet talked with him very much. When I finished drawing my charts, I looked up at him. He seemed to have been staring at my profile. He was blinking sheepishly.

The next day I went to Kozuka's grave. After burning incense before the tombstone, I knelt in silent prayer. With my eyes closed, I saw Kozuka on the hill, screaming “It's my chest!” and falling over. I also saw Shimada falling at Gontin.

“Both of you, forgive me,” I begged. “I've let you down.”

In my ears echoed the sound of their voices.

“Lieutenant, let's wait but . . . let's not depend on it,” Kozuka had said.

And Shimada, looking at the picture of his wife and daughter: “She must be about the age to start liking boys.”

We had never talked about it, but we all had hoped that we would someday return to Japan together.

And now I alone was returning, leaving the spirits of my
two irreplaceable comrades on this island. Returning to a Japan that had lost the war thirty years earlier. Returning to my fatherland for which I had fought until the day before. If there had not been people around, I would have beat my head on the ground and wailed.

Ten minutes later the helicopter I had boarded rose off Lubang, flailing the grass around it. Through the windproof glass I could see Kozuka's grave, and gradually the whole island, grow smaller and begin to fade.

For the first time, I was looking down upon my battlefield.

Why had I fought here for thirty years? Who had I been fighting for? What was the cause?

Manila Bay was bathed in the evening sun.

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