Dragon of the Mangrooves (16 page)

The sky had cleared, and many stars were twinkling. The pitch-black darkness had become diluted. Although it was still vague, they could discern the surroundings more clearly than ever.

“We belong to Tsuwamono Corps under Saku Group. Are you of Nagashima Force?” shouted Sumi, using a counterespionage terminology.

After a short while, a mumbling response came from the shrubbery. “Nagashima Force? We certainly are.”

Sumi heard somebody among his men let out a deep sigh of relief.

Soldiers came out from the shrubbery, one after another, while Sumi put his pistol back and stood up. Counting five total, Sumi felt a delight welling up from the bottom of his heart. No matter how small it might be, this was the first set of friends he had directly contacted. His mission would almost be complete if he were to take them to Uga promptly and bundle them into the boats.

One man who seemed like an officer stepped up to him, looking around suspiciously with a bare sword in his hand. Sumi introduced himself, but the man only revealed his rank of first lieutenant and didn’t give his own name, or that of his unit.

Even though his rank was higher, he seemed much younger than Sumi.

Likely, he was a regular elite from the military academy. But his gaunt look reminded Sumi of a zombie. His subordinates looked much the same. They were all wrapped in threadbare cotton uniforms, with ammunition boots full of holes.

One was in bare feet. Two of them had bayonet-attached rifles. A soldier must sheathe his bayonet when he didn’t use it, because a bare bayonet reflected well and often ended up being spotted by enemies. These men seemed to have forgotten common practice. No doubt they were the men who had hidden themselves in the ridge the previous evening.

Sumi sensed some distrust from the academy first lieutenant who didn’t even sheathe his sword, so he ardently explained the details of the rescue party. While Sumi talked, the academy first lieutenant looked vacant somehow; Sumi was unsure whether he was even listening. Then, as soon as Sumi finished, he inquired sharply, “If you are a rescue party, why did you land a place like Uga on the sly? It’s on the far side of the mountains, isn’t it? Why didn’t you dare to do the east coast?”

Sumi was puzzled to be asked about what he had just detailed. Unwillingly he repeated the explanation. But the first lieutenant abruptly cut Sumi off and bawled him out. “What attire are you in? You lousy spies! Are you really His Imperial Majesty’s servicemen?”

Sumi shrank back. He felt something insane in the academy grad, who was nearly screaming regardless of the fact that they all might be in the midst of enemies. Although he was also enraged, he tried to persuade the first lieutenant despite everything. “Come to Uga with us at once, please. Soldiers of our reconnaissance regiment are waiting there with boats prepared for you and your men,”

Sumi informed him.

The first lieutenant answered, “Even though you parrot an evacuation order, I’ve already gotten the command to defend the island to the death.”

“Yes, but I’ve just told you the new evacuation order was announced on February 9.”

“Shut up! You traitor! How can I believe such talk?”

Sumi suppressed an impulse to knock him off his feet. “I’ve gotten a directive in person from Colonel Nagashima, your superior and regiment commander himself. In addition, this is a division order. His Excellency the division commander is announcing…”

“Shut up!” shouted the first lieutenant again.

“It’s dishonorable for a warrior to disobey an order. What do you think the military order is?”

“I told you to shut up! Get out of my sight and go wherever you like. We’re headed for Hill 509 to join the main body.”

“The positions in Hill 509 have already fallen into enemy hands.”

“Oh, shut up! Stop intruding, or I’ll hack you off!” snapped the academy first lieutenant as he raised the sword over his head.

It was hardly worth discussing any longer. Members of the rescue party came closer to guard Sumi, sensing the tension between the two officers. The academy officer, maybe feeling a bit oppressed, stepped back. Then he looked around at his subordinates and urged them on, saying, “Hey, what are you doing? Come on! Get a move on.”

And he began trudging northward. The four soldiers faltered as they followed him. They were totally exhausted; each face looked blank like the dead.

Sumi followed close behind to stop them, but he was pulled by the sleeve and stumbled forward. It was Shimizu who stopped him.

“Damn you! What the hell are you doing?” Sumi bawled at him.

Shimizu said, “It’s no use trying more, Lieutenant. I’ve seen officers like that many times in China. Too much war has made him insane. He can’t tell you why he is fighting now. He’s doing his own war here. I don’t want to see you hacked off here.”

“Do you want to see me hacked off in another place?”

“I didn’t say anything of the kind.”

“I don’t care what comes to such a dense officer! Which gutter he dies in is no concern of mine. But how about his men? We have lost Murakami. What excuse can I offer to him without saving somebody instead?”

“Those soldiers are much alike. Didn’t you see their faces? This was their des-tiny. They were destined, more or less, when they were placed under him. A dog can’t choose its master. It’s too late to get them back,” said Shimizu. “We can get to Yanthitgyi faster anyway, Lieutenant. We can save them there.”

The academy officer and his soldiers had already disappeared into the darkness. Members of the rescue party looked on silently, puzzled. Unable to find any other outlet for his anger, Sumi rudely brushed away Shimizu’s hand.

Sumi’s rescue party set out marching to the sea again. Sumi’s blood was still boiling. It wasn’t because he had been abused by the young idiot. He simply couldn’t stand having missed the chance to put in a good word for himself and to run back to the continent.

Sumi realized he would have to go all the way to Yanthitgyi, just as he had feared. However, it would be quite a different issue if the soldiers would meekly follow his direction, even if he could find friendly troops. He might find himself entangled in a last suicidal attack or something if he couldn’t settle things well.

He didn’t want to get involved in the height of such folly.

But the monotonous rhythm of walking gradually soothed his nerves. As

Shimizu said, the officer from the academy was indeed mad. During this battle, he might have suffered something hard enough to cause him a mental disorder, and his lot was pitiful. It was even more so for his subordinates. Sumi came to think he should at least have given them some food and ammunition at that late hour.

The sun rose over Payadgi Plain. The dense woods ended, and the rescue party came to a broad barren stretch covered sparsely by patches of low weeds. There were no hiding spaces around. A dirt road, seemingly parallel to Payadgi-Ramree Road, ran beside it.

Sumi went scouting alone and found that the enemy had settled there. An Indian fatigue party, similar to the one seen the day before, was mending the road.

It was quite a substantial troop, under the escort of a security squad with nearly ten Bren gun carriers. This troop transport vehicle was tracked, armored, and equipped with a light machine gun, as its name implied. All were parked in the opening just in front of them, with many British soldiers hanging around.

Without exception, they carried automatic rifles or Sten guns. Sumi even spotted an M3 middle tank on the other side of the road.

He tore his hair as soon as he returned to the bush where the other soldiers hid themselves. His party had just gotten stuck again. He didn’t have a strict order to contact the garrison by a definite deadline. However, the garrison planned to carry out the creek-crossing operation at midnight of February 18. He must get in touch with the garrison by that evening to be in time.

But he could not come up with any ideas on how to break through that clearing in open daylight, no matter how hard he might think. He could also find no detour around the plain. What he managed to think up was only a reckless plan to pass through the clearing by pretending to be innocent Burmese farmers.

Some of their group could speak Burmese in addition to Pondgi. And Sumi was good at English. He felt he could cope, even if British soldiers were to challenge them.

But Yoshitake, who was usually courageous, vehemently opposed this plan soon after Sumi suggested it to the soldiers, saying, “Nobody would take us for farmers without hoes or plows. We won’t make it out. Never!”

Yoshitake was right. Sumi realized his own stupidity and was forced to think again about the danger of being challenged by an enemy whom they had no chance to beat.

Then Shimizu showed his aggressiveness here again.

“We’d better take a shortcut through the hills. We should head for the sea by cutting across the all-round position there. It’s not certain that the enemy occupied the area around there, is it? It’s useless to hide here throughout the day. I’ll go myself and find if there is a good route.”

Indeed, it might be worth risking it to break through the hills. Sumi judged it better than sitting and worrying. He made an effort to be cheerful and said, “OK! I’ll go with you.” He ordered the others to stand by in the bush and started for the foot of the left hills, accompanied by Shimizu.

After a while, the two found a game trail and took it into the mountain. This place was overgrown with broad-leaved trees, unlike Hill 306, which was covered with thick tropical rain forests. Now almost all the trees were bare of leaves because of the dry season, so they feared hostile aircraft might spot them at any moment.

However, the trail led them toward Yanthitgyi, according to the compass.

Sumi and Shimizu reached the top after they had ascended the path through the broad-leaved forest for about an hour. It was flat and covered by sparse evergreen woods, cleared sporadically by some meager vegetable fields and irrigation ponds. Sumi supposed he could get a view of Hill 509 if he stood at the edge of its north side. Just then, he sensed someone was near.

About ten meters away, a big, stout man stood smoking leisurely at the bank of the small pond just in front of him. It was a turbaned and bearded Punjabi soldier with a Thompson submachine gun dangling from his shoulder. The man must have sensed something as well, because he looked around abruptly at Sumi.

Their eyes met for a moment. Sumi was startled to encounter the unexpected enemy but barely remembered that he had disguised himself. He tried to feign calm at once. But the opponent didn’t miss his split-second consternation. The suspicion shown in the man’s look turned to hatred in the twinkling of an eye.

Immediately Sumi stuck his right hand into the haversack to rummage for his pistol. But the Punjabi soldier reacted remarkably quickly. As soon as he tossed away his cigarette, he picked up the submachine gun, stabilized it on his hip, and aimed at Sumi in a flash. Sumi’s hand froze instinctively.

Sumi saw the grenade thrown by Shimizu arcing in the air. Almost at the same instant, the forty-five-caliber bullets descended on his feet and made clouds of dust rise.

The grenade landed just in front of the Punjabi soldier and had him run away.

Sumi finally managed to draw his pistol. He fired two rounds back at the man’s back and jumped into a nearby bush with his face distorted with fear and anger.

Both were merely potshots.

The grenade exploded, and twigs and leaves fluttered in the cloud of powder smoke.

Sumi and Shimizu took advantage of this moment to hurl themselves over the bank and slithered down it. Fortunately, dense grass covered this side of the bank.

“Fall back, Lieutenant! Fall back quickly! That bastard cannot be alone. A barrage is on the way.”

The two frantically crawled into the grass. Shimizu was still clenching another grenade firmly while he flattened himself on the ground. A sudden yell in a lan-guage Sumi wasn’t familiar with rose behind them, and it was soon responded to by another call. Then a hail of machine gun bullets fell all over the bank, as if they were proof of Shimizu’s words. It was safe to bet they had gotten caught by a sentry line.

In the midst of the volley, Sumi and Shimizu drew back on the slope of the bank, almost falling off. Sumi didn’t know how much time had passed. While they pushed their way through the dead grass, they came across the defoliated forest where they had started their ascent. Now they were covered with dust and sweat, but all hostile gunfire had ceased.

The critical moment had apparently passed, but Sumi felt his heart thumping fast. The Punjabi soldier whom Sumi had been up against just then was quick, but he wasn’t a marksman. He had jolted hard by the firing reaction, so the first rounds had landed around Sumi’s feet. Sumi had narrowly escaped getting shot.

If the enemy had been a better shot, or if Shimizu had hurled the grenade a bit later, his body might have been already cold somewhere around the pond.

His own KIA would be inevitable, sooner or later. The enemy had already set up a cordon even in the remote mountains far from Hill 509. The way things stood, it was natural to think all routes leading to Hill 509 were under blockade.

No doubt, it would be senseless to continue that dangerous reconnaissance.

They found the game trail and began trudging silently. Sumi recognized anew what a troublesome duty he had, and nothing could stop him from getting bogged down and depressed. He spat out the mud that had splattered into his mouth during the run and found some blood mixed in his saliva on the ground.

While slithering down the slope and falling many times, he must have gotten a cut lip.

He tried to imagine Yukiko again.

Every time Yukiko had visited him, his old, poor, lonesome boardinghouse room on the riverbank in downtown Kyoto used to brighten up, as if a garden full of flowers had been planted inside. He recalled the day when he had the meal she had cooked there. He remembered the appetizing taste and flavor of the boiled meat and potatoes with soy sauce. When he had praised her good cooking, Yukiko had flashed an embarrassed smile, showing her white teeth. That night, they had embraced each other for the first time, and he had let her sleep in his arms. It was hard to find a happier day in his entire life up until now. He had indulged in those memories many times whenever possible since the Army had drafted him. But it didn’t work now because of the disturbing smells of blood, mud, dead grass, and gunpowder, however hard he might try to bring the fragrances of those days to mind.