Dragon of the Mangrooves (22 page)

Nevertheless, Tomita remained unruffled. Things had gone this far to encounter the gunboat, the most dreadful of all. He had heard Kasuga’s warning, in spite of this desperate situation. And in an instant, he had also chosen what he must do first.

Kasuga didn’t know when he had drawn it, but Tomita already had his semiautomatic pistol in his hand. He was agile and thorough, as if he expected things to develop this way.

He turned back as efficiently and accurately as a machine and found the crocodile rushing toward him. Having cocked the slide without a moment’s delay, Tomita held the gun aloft and aimed at the space between two ridges on its head rising up to the surface—likely, it was where a brain fit into a cranium. It was the weakest point, no matter what creature it might be. All his action was fluid and worthy of his reputation as a hardened veteran. He spent only three seconds from turning back to laying his gun.

But three seconds was a long time. At least on the edge between life and death, it was hopelessly too long. Enormous triangular white jaws came up from the water with startling speed and leaped at Tomita. His pistol discharged and made an arc in the air, and the two figures disappeared in Myinkhon Creek with a splash at the same moment.

“Sarge!” Kasuga cried out.

Tomita’s pistol fell right in front of him. Immediately he tried to pick it up, but it slipped through his fingers and sank into the water helplessly. So he drew his bayonet, attached to the belt of his fundoshi—there was no other choice.

Having witnessed those armor-like scales, he guessed the bayonet might have no more effect than a toy, but it was still better than bare knuckles.

Darkness began wrapping up the surroundings again. The flare was burning itself out. Under its last flame, the upper half of Tomita’s body suddenly burst out of the surface about ten meters to the right of Kasuga.

Tomita was still alive. His face was puzzled rather than pained. He seemed unable to understand the preposterous calamity having just befallen him.

The crocodile had possibly changed the way it held Tomita in its mouth, momentarily permitting Tomita’s return to the surface; suddenly, he submerged and never came up again.

The beam of the searchlight stroked the pitch-dark surface. Apart from the light, sheer darkness covered everything. Kasuga frantically paddled through it.

Flight was his only option.

He had imagined his own death many times as a way to accept it. Death had nearly come with the aerial bombs at the bunker in Hill 353, or with the mortar shelling in Mountain Maeda. But if death knocked for admittance with a scaly reptile, he would never open the door.

His home arose in his mind—gentle waves washing the white beach rimmed with pine trees. The thin trail of kitchen smoke rising over the house where he had been born. Over the threshold, he could even see the clean white bedding laid out on the newly made tatami mat. And beside the room, he saw the

long-missing faces of his parents, smiling.

This was not a human world. If he wanted to survive, he couldn’t be in such a place any longer.

Kasuga shielded himself behind entangled prop roots and studied Myinkhon Creek. The roar of machine cannons had ceased; the enemy might have lost sight of them. There were no whistles; only the shaft of the searchlight came through the mangrove. However, it also went away, keeping pace with the dwindling exhaust hum.

It was the third time he had landed on Ramree Island. He peeped at the creek through the loathsome mangrove and thought it was infinitely wide. Having failed to cross twice, he had no energy to try it anymore. In the first place, he had lost his precious bamboo pole during his desperate flight. Even if the enemy completely withdrew, he couldn’t swim across it as long as a herd of crocodiles prowled there.

A deep sense of fatigue swept over his body. He was too tired to even sit on the ground. Kasuga lay on the mud spread-eagled.

Something clinked in his haversack—it was Hirono’s finger bone in his mess kit. Now, quite unexpectedly, he became the only one who could deliver

Hirono’s ashes. As matters stood, he could hardly expect to return home alive, but it was still a possibility. Hirono had died a gallant death, for sure. If only Kasuga could make it somehow, Hirono’s remains could be nicely consigned to his ancestors’ tomb, and his family would know how he had died and how stately his last moment had been.

But then, what could he do for Tomita? He had not so much as a pinkie bone.

Not even a chip. How could he show his face in front of Tomita’s family, only to tell them that Sarge had been killed and devoured by a crocodile? How in the world could he report such a word with no glory, with no honor, and with no hope at all?

His sense of life had been very simple for the past month at the front. He was alive if he wasn’t dead. He wouldn’t go to pieces over every single death of a comrade. Nevertheless, he burst into tears. In this stillness of the night, he found himself unable to hold it back.

Kasuga had no strength to evacuate further inland anymore, so he climbed a nearby tree and passed the night there. Anything was fine, as long as he could stay away from the water. Sitting on a fork and bending his legs, he didn’t even realize when he fell asleep.

When the first light awoke him at last, he sensed someone approaching.

The tide had gone out below the tree. He could see many vertical roots protruding from the mud, which had been submerged completely when he climbed the tree. Threading its way through the maze of roots, a group of figures came toward him. They seemed to be locals, because each man wore a scruffy lungi wrapped around him with a muddy shirt. Except for the leader, they all carried bulging rucksacks on their backs. They might be farmers carrying produce.

But Kasuga was frightened to see one of them holding a submachine gun under his arm. Are they bandits or guerillas? In any case, they’re not decent Burmese. He wanted to hide himself immediately, but the sparse foliage made it easy for them to see him.

However, the leading man spoke words that Kasuga did not expect. “Hey! Are you one of Nagashima Force?”

It was clear, unmistakable Japanese.

“Yes, I am,” answered Kasuga timidly.

“Is there anybody around you?”

“I don’t know,” Kasuga replied and stared at the man. He was a man with bright eyes and a Nambu fourteen pistol at his belt. Then he spoke again.

“Don’t worry. Its okay, Private. Second Lieutenant Sumi is my name. We are the Fifty-Fourth Reconnaissance Regiment under Tsuwamono Corps. We’re here to rescue Nagashima Force!”

Thus, the long night of Minoru Kasuga came to an end.

The sun rose from the hazy ridgeline on the distant continent, dyeing the mist over the creek a pale pink. Its rays coming through the interwoven leaves grew brighter, restoring vivid colors to the culvert-like mangroves. Second Lieutenant Yoshihisa Sumi took a deep breath and expected it to be muggy again that day.

The rescue party had finally arrived at the destination and worked hard to pick up survivors in the first light. At first Sumi found the superior private of the Machine Gun Fifth Platoon, then they spotted strays of the garrison, one after another. Many soldiers had been hiding in the mangroves, as expected.

The sum eventually swelled to over forty once they found the soldiers who stayed all night in trees. They all belonged to Seventh Company, late for the assembly two nights before. Complete chaos had reigned in the waterfront when those soldiers made the creek at last. Some jumped into the operation only to get strafed and pull back without success. Others were stranded in the maze of mangroves and ran around almost all night like chickens with their heads cut off.

Many of the survivors were stark naked; they had lost all equipment, including clothes and arms, during the flight. Some literally didn’t even wear fundoshi or other underwear.

It was no easy business for them to swim across Myinkhon Creek. As soon as they understood that the rescue party had come all the way from Taungup, they all appreciated it, almost to the verge of tears. Without exception, the dust of a month-long combat had taken its toll on those men. Everyone had shaggy hair and stubble. Some even had skin gnawed away by jungle rot. Sumi lost his words upon seeing those men, almost like primitive mankind, with his own eyes.

“Though they were certainly defeated, who could anticipate that things would be as nasty as this?” Sumi told himself.

He couldn’t keep the group, now mounting up to nearly fifty men, in the mangrove forever. He considered what move to make next. Their fleet of rescue fishing boats, led by Superior Private Yoshioka, was waiting for their return at Uga. He had already filled half of the quota. The problem was what he should do with the remaining vacant seats. He could go to Hill 604 to keep searching, but almost all men they had picked up were completely exhausted. Some were injured severely enough to need immediate treatment. He didn’t know how to cope with these men during the search.

Watching his watch tick mercilessly, Sumi made up his mind to close the search immediately and head back to Uga. Care for the injured was the priority.

He must avoid wandering aimlessly for no more than fifty vacancies.

With Sumi in the lead, the group started southward.

The survivors were exhausted, nearly to the limit. But they tagged along single-mindedly, as if draining their last energies. The rescue party brought them new hope that they might be able to escape from the southern part. Some soldiers made stretchers from bamboo poles, their former temporal buoys and the newly cut branches, and bore the injured on them.

“We’ve been saved. Let’s make it to the continent!”

“We’ve come through many showers of iron. No way to die in such a damned place.”

“Come on! You can get treated if only we get to Taungup. Both your wounds and stomachs!”

Encouraging each other, they struggled to march forward.

Sumi had already saved face because of the number of soldiers he had rescued.

More than that, it was safe to say his magnificent result would enable him to report with his head held high. And, he was finally on his way back, at last. The return trip would be much easier. But he didn’t feel lighthearted in the least, and his step got heavy.

Fearing hostile vessels and crocodiles above all, he wanted to keep as far as possible from the water. But if they got too far away from the water, he tended to lose direction. After all, part of the course was in damp, swampy areas along Myinkhon Creek. Deep mud and protruding roots made marching there very difficult.

He looked back many times to see if anyone had dropped behind and checked the figures of men who appeared and disappeared among the entangled prop roots. Each of them was covered with mud and dirt and suffered from fatigue, hunger, or wounds. Of course, there were some healthy ones, but most of the men were unsteady on their legs. Their unsettled looks showed open fright. They reminded him of a flock of animals, rather than a military column.

Among the survivors, there was a set of soldiers who had tried crossing again, only to be pushed back to the island. All belonged to Fifth Company, except for the machine gunner whom Sumi had discovered first. They had barely escaped from the teeth of crocodiles and had managed a hasty retreat. Sumi didn’t have to hear their report to know how gruesome the event the night before had been.

The obvious reek of blood and flesh had already intensified the putrid smells of this area. He often saw human limbs torn and stranded in the mud when the tide was out. He also found decapitated bodies floating in the creek. These told of the wretchedness those men had experienced more eloquently than any words.

Sumi was struck dumb at the horrible sights, appearing one after another. He had no choice but to neglect those remains, because their conditions were too terrible to identify, to say nothing of picking them up.

As the sky lightened, a large number of birds of prey appeared and circled high overhead. It was a company of vultures. Their wings were well over human height when spread wide. They sailed through the sky like gliders. Circling slowly, the flock flew down to treetop level, one after another. White neck ruffs stood out when they folded their wings. A few of them began to shriek raucously, and they started coming closer to the ground.

Somewhere ahead, it was likely that another Japanese soldier lay dead.

Lance Corporal Yoshitake raised his voice from behind. “Shit! Damn disgusting animals! I want to kill them all right now.”

“Vultures or crocodiles?” asked Superior Private Morioka.

Yoshitake snapped out, “Both!”

“If you do, you’ll only run out of ammo, however much you may have left,” said Morioka.

“You idiot! Of course, I know I will. But each guy here sacrificed himself for the homeland, not for these animals. Every Japanese man knows it. They sent these guys out by waving Japanese flags, didn’t they? How miserable it is! I can’t figure out what these guys have done to deserve this,” Yoshitake said, almost snarling.

Sumi believed he was right. Looking at the vultures, he had also felt great anger welling up inside. It made him shake. Strangely, it was so fierce as to puzzle him at the same time.