The Persimmon Tree (80 page)

On the dot of eleven when the cloud cover began, the soldier appeared, urinated in the same spectacular and satisfying way and returned to the interior of the cave, then twenty minutes later he reappeared. I watched him through the binoculars and saw that he carried what appeared to be a flat, medium-sized book under his arm together with a bamboo rod, although I couldn’t be sure. He made his way down the narrow path and while it was obviously dangerous he seemed to traverse it with a sure-footed nimbleness. If he was indeed ‘Goat’, then we’d named him well. He was a small, very slight man, and to my astonishment he evidently carried no weapon.

I moved silently to the point where I calculated the natural progression of the diagonal path on the cliff face would reach the floor of the jungle and waited. Ten, then fifteen minutes passed, but he didn’t appear, nor could I hear any sound of his progress. I felt sure as he drew closer I would hear the clatter of a small rock falling or the crunch of his footsteps on the narrow path or, if he’d come to its end and entered the jungle, the snap of a twig — something that would give him away. Unless you are prepared to move no more than fifty yards in an hour, planting each footprint with infinite care, the jungle will reward a pair of alert ears to another’s presence within thirty or forty yards almost every time.

I studied the cliff carefully once again, focusing my glasses at the point where the so-called path entered the canopy. I decided the path must suddenly run parallel once it entered the trees, gradually descending to the very end of the cliff face, possibly a hundred yards from where I stood. So I made my way carefully to where I could see a part of the cliff wall existing below the line made by the canopy. No path continued in an area that fell some seventy yards short of the end of the huge rocky outcrop that formed the summit.

‘Goat’ — or whoever it was — had simply disappeared, vanished into the dark green canopy. Once again I focused on the point where the path entered the trees abutting the cliff. My father had once told me, ‘Nicholas, there are no mysteries to a patient man.’ The tree line beneath the cliff was almost straight but then I noticed that, at the point where the diagonal cliff path entered the canopy, a forest giant rose perhaps eight feet above the rest of the trees.
Holy shit, it’s the tree! He’s come down the tree!

It took me nearly an hour, hugging the cliff face, to traverse the sixty yards to where I thought the tree might be and then, quite suddenly, I came upon it. Metal spikes had been driven into the trunk; they protruded about nine inches, making it relatively easy to climb or ascend. The giant tree had become a ladder growing up against the face of the cliff to the point where the path virtually petered out.

The Japanese soldier hadn’t made any attempt to conceal his footsteps and the first thing I noticed was the smell of faeces where he’d defecated and covered the result with a pile of dead leaves. Using a twig I scraped them clear and examined what was a very small bowel movement. He’d been eating insects and perhaps a little rice and some forest greens. It was at best a subsistence diet, but not an entirely unintelligent one. I pushed the leaves back in place and then proceeded to pick up his trail, not a difficult task, although I continued to move very quietly.

I finally reached a clearing beside a small stream, the babble of water running over limestone caused sufficient noise to cover any tiny sound I might have made with my approach. I stood about ten feet behind him and slightly to his left and watched. A large tree had fallen to create the clearing, allowing the sunlight to penetrate. It must have come down fairly recently, for the bark showed no decay and the undergrowth, feeding on the sun, had not yet overwhelmed the area to form a wildness of scrubs scrapping for the available space.

The Japanese soldier was seated on a wide branch of the fallen tree. Resting on his knees was a small sketchbook and beside him on the branch, a box of watercolours and a tin mug containing water. I noticed with detached interest that the squares of colour within the box were all but used up. On the ground in front of him was a large green leaf and on the leaf, with its wings arranged in the open position, was a butterfly.

I could hardly believe my eyes! It was a Clipper, the very same species I had boxed as Anna’s keepsake! Later I was to tell myself that it wasn’t such an amazing coincidence — the Clipper is found throughout the islands, and though it is not common it could not be called scarce. But it was spooky and at the time I thought of it as an omen, though whether a good or bad one, I couldn’t yet say.

On the ground beside him lay the net made from mosquito netting, a twist of wire and the bamboo stick I had seen him carry. It was basic, but perfectly adequate for the task. The little enemy soldier, I hoped it was ‘Goat’, was humming what I took to be a Japanese tune, every once in a while singing a snatch of words, then returning to humming, meanwhile painting the lovely butterfly whose wing pattern was reminiscent of a sailing ship.

It was a situation beyond my wildest imagining; even if he wasn’t ‘Goat’, this man’s life was as good as spared. His uniform was in tatters but clean, his hair, which fell down to his shoulders, was also clean, and more surprisingly, his cheeks and chin were shaved. I glanced over to the stream to see resting on a rock a cut-throat razor placed on a ragged scrap of towelling. This was a man who, despite his isolation, was trying to keep himself together.

It was ten minutes past noon. ‘Good afternoon,’ I said, greeting him in Japanese. ‘
Hajimemashite
[I am pleased to make your acquaintance].’

The sketchbook went flying from his lap and he leapt to his feet to stand to attention without turning to look at me. I could see he was shaking, obviously terrified. ‘I can explain, sir. The cloud cover — I cannot use the radio — I am not neglecting my duty, sir,’ he stammered.

He was standing with one boot planted on the big leaf with one of the Clipper’s wings protruding from its toecap. He had mistaken me for a Japanese, a tribute to all the listening I had done over the months. I felt a shock as I witnessed the crushed butterfly under his boot. Was it a bad omen, telling me that Anna was dead, crushed like an insect under an Imperial Japanese boot?

‘You may turn around. I am
gaikokujin
and you are my prisoner,’ I replied, informing him I was not Japanese.

He turned slowly to face me, lifting his arms above his head in the universal gesture of surrender, his expression showing astonishment – perhaps it was at my size as he couldn’t have come to more than halfway up my chest. ‘Ah-meri-can, sir?’ he asked in a trembling voice.

‘No, Aus-tra-lian,’ I pronounced carefully. He didn’t reply, merely nodded his head and so I said, pointing to the crushed butterfly, ‘I am sorry to have caused you to crush
Parthenos sylvia
.’

He glanced down at his boot, withdrawing it in horror at what he’d inadvertently done. Then he asked, ‘This is its name, sir?’

‘Latin name. In my language it is called a Clipper.’

‘Clip — clip — Clip-purr,’ he finally managed. ‘You are
konchugakusha
? [You study insects?]’ he asked.

‘No, I am a butterfly collector,’ I answered, realising that if he knew the word for ‘entomologist’, he probably wasn’t a peasant. ‘Please, bring your hands down and relax. I am not going to kill a man who carries no weapon.’

‘Oh, but I have one, sir.’ He glanced in the direction of the cliff face, then added somewhat ingenuously, ‘I think it is rusted.’ Visibly relaxing, he brought his hands to his side. ‘What will you do now?’ he asked.

‘You are the radio operator who monitors the aeroplanes leaving? The only one?’

‘Yes, sir, there is only me.’

I grinned. ‘You are very good, your morse fist is fast and smooth.’

‘Thank you, sir. I was trained in the Telegraph Department of the College of Engineering in Tokyo.’

In retrospect this sounds like a ridiculous conversation to have with a just-captured Japanese soldier — gruff-voiced instructions, a bit of assertive manhandling and prodding with the barrel of the Owen was the recommended method. But unless he was a very cool-headed master of kung-fu or jujitsu and was trying to lure me to come closer, he was physically incapable of harming me. Nevertheless I remained standing to one side of him and out of reach of either his feet or his arms. ‘After that you joined the army?’ I enquired.

He looked horrified. ‘No, sir,
watashi wa minkanjin desu.
[I am a civilian.] I was required to attend
Takunan-juku
, the school run by the Ministry of Colonisation. I was
kaigun rijisei
[a cadet attached to the navy].’

I looked surprised. ‘Navy? I am also in the navy.’

‘It is only technical, sir. I was given the token title of Naval Commissioned Officer Trained in Radio Communication.’ It seemed somewhat amazing that he too felt he was not entitled to his rank. Then he added, ‘I have never been in the navy, sir. I was sent to Rabaul to work for the
Minseibu
, the civil administration. I worked in the Electrical Communications Unit.’

‘Then how did you get here?’ I asked.

‘In the cave?’

‘No, to Guadalcanal.’

‘I was seconded, sir. Malaria caused too many casualties amongst the field radio operators. I was sent to train others.’

I glanced up, indicating the cliff face with a jerk of my head. ‘And now you are up there?’

‘Yes, sir. It is demanding work requiring the use of ciphers and long-distance transmissions. Most field operators would not have these skills. I was happy when it was agreed I should go.’

‘Happy to be so isolated?’

He smiled, looking down at his boots and shaking his head slowly. ‘I am not a fighting man, sir.’

‘No? A painter of butterflies then?’

‘
Shirouto
[amateur], sir. There are so many in the jungle and they are interesting, fascinating to me.’

I laughed. ‘What — to eat or collect?’

‘Some to eat,’ he said, taking my little joke seriously. ‘It is shameful, all are beautiful.’

‘You are
shirouto no konchugakusha
[an amateur entomologist]?’ I asked.

‘I am not worthy of even the amateur title. I have no reference books. These are not insects I have seen in Japan, I simply try to paint them without knowing their Latin names. My painting too, it is unworthy,
shirouto no gaka
,’ he said shyly, stating his amateur status once again, then looking in the direction of the fallen sketchbook.

It was time to introduce myself, though I still kept my distance — if he was an expert in unarmed combat my own knowledge might not be sufficient to compete and I really didn’t want to have to shoot him. ‘My name is Duncan Nick,’ I said, reversing the order and stating my surname first in the Japanese manner.

‘My name is Gojo Mura. D — Da —.’ ‘Duncan’ is a difficult name to pronounce in Japanese, and he was having trouble getting his mouth around it.

‘Nick, call me Nick,’ I allowed quickly.

‘Yes, thank you, sir — ah,
Nick-san
,’ he said, chuckling at his own clumsiness. It was the first time he had laughed aloud.

‘You do not need to call me “sir”,
Gojo-san
. We have the same rank in the navy. Would you like something to eat?’

‘I thank you for the honour,
Nick-san
, but I have eaten — a little rice this morning.’

‘Rice with insects and weeds,’ I replied. ‘It is probably better for you than my C rations — my soldier’s food,’ I corrected myself. ‘Some insects I have eaten myself, they can be good protein.’ Then I pointed to a plant growing close to me. ‘When boiled this tastes a little like seaweed. Maybe later you will be hungry?’

I realised that, with the exception of the crackers, there was not a single food item in my rations with which he could possibly be familiar; the bread portion maybe, though bread made from wheat is not part of the Japanese diet which is based on rice, fish with seaweed and various green vegies. Fish and rice were both absent from any C rations and canned carrots and peas were the only vegetables. Moreover if he was starving (and his appearance gave that impression), I would have to give him very small amounts of whatever he could stomach of my Western food.

He grinned. ‘You try a bit of everything, insects and plants, if they don’t make you sick then you can eat them. It is like life, trial and error with occasionally a little good fortune.’ We were silent for a while, then he said, ‘When will you shoot me,
Nick-san
?’

I smiled. ‘
Gojo-san
, I can tell from your family name that you are well-born, and we are both officers in the navy. It is not in my nature to kill a man who goes into the jungle without a weapon to paint butterflies.’

‘I am not worthy of such generous treatment,
Nick-san
. It is not what we were led to expect from the enemy.’

‘We butterfly people have to stick together,’ I replied, somewhat embarrassed. Then I admitted, ‘I confess, I have killed some of your soldiers in combat, but it was in the heat of battle — them or me. I am not a cold-blooded killer.’