No Surrender Soldier

by Christine Kohler

  “Now both you and Sammy have knives to pass down to your sons.” Tata turned the volume back up and hummed along with the music.

  At the airport, Tata and I were like two little fish swimming against the tide in an ocean of people who showed up to see Seto off.

  The Japanese man who was escorted up the stairs of a Japan Airlines DC8 barely resembled the straggler I discovered in the boonies. This stooped man was clean-shaven with a fresh, closely cropped haircut, and wore a drab suit.

  Did he see me? I wondered. Nah. Too many people. Too much excitement.

  Seto stepped cautiously up the steel staircase. When he reached the top step, he turned and faced the crowd.

  On a whim, I raised two fingers in a victory sign.

  Seto raised one hand as if to wave, then halted.

  I thought for an instant our eyes met. I bowed my shoulders and head forward, keeping my eyes on the ground.

  When I straightened up, Seto bowed a deep bow from the waist forward, then turned and disappeared into the airplane.

  The last I heard or read of Seto was that when Japan Airlines touched its Mother soil, Seto stepped out on the gangway, leaned forward, and said in a voice choked with tears, “Though I am ashamed, I am alive, and have come home again.”

  CHAPTER 28

  BEYOND THE HORIZON

  APRIL 21–22, 1972

  “Are you ready?”

  I knew Daphne was asking me if I was done setting up chairs so she could finish decorating. Sunday would be the Confirmation ceremony at San Miguel Catholic Church. Our class had spent the entire day preparing the sanctuary and grounds for the fiesta afterward.

  But as I looked at her, holding a white satin bow in her hand, waiting to stick it on a chair or table or something, the question haunted me. Are you ready?

  Am I? Am I ready to go through with Confirmation?

  All this time I’d been avoiding talking to our priest about my doubts. I still felt unworthy. Being confirmed into the Church was a big responsibility.

  “Go ahead,” I told her, opening up the folding chair in my hand. “I’m going to look for the Father.” I stepped out from under the shadow of the canopy and into the blinding sunshine. I shaded my eyes with my hand and looked around. Tomas and our buddies were staking tiki torches into the ground. Some girls were filling the torch wells with oil. I didn’t see our priest anywhere.

  I went into San Miguel. Our church is small compared to most on the island. I poked my head into our classroom. “Father?” No one there. I peeked into his office. “Father?” Not there either.

  I walked into the sanctuary, decorated in white satin bows and flowers like a bride waiting for her wedding day. The place was empty.

  Toward the front of the church, off to the side in an alcove, is a statue of Madre Maria. Someone had lit a votive candle in front of her. I went over and stood above it, watching the light flickering, threatening to go out in the pool of hot wax. I knelt. The candle smelled like a rain-soaked mango. I’d seen my nana light candles many times. I think lately she was lighting them for Sammy.

  Thinking of Sammy, I crossed myself and folded my hands. I figured praying was the best way I could mourn my nana’s losses—all of her losses, which seemed many on account of the war that stole her innocence, but blessed her with Sammy. And now this other war, the one in Vietnam, that stole her blessing. She certainly had reason to mourn like Madre Maria must have done for her own son. No wonder she was known as Our Lady of Sorrows.

  I prayed a prayer I’d heard my nana pray many times, but never thought about it much before: “O Virgin Mary, no one who ever fled to your protection, asked you for help, or sought your intercession was left unaided. So I come to you, O Madre Maria. Before you I kneel, sinful and sorrowful…”

  A draft, cool on my neck, breathed through the chapel. Darkness covered my closed eyes. I inhaled smoke and heat flushed my forehead. I opened my eyes to dying embers. Quickly I fumbled with the matches. My heart raced, as if this were a bad omen for Sammy. It felt as if Sammy was lost in the dark and scared. He needed his way lit home.

  The wick flickered, and stayed lit. My heart quit thumping as I slowed my breath. I continued the prayer with my eyes fixed on the light: “O Madre of the Word Incarnate, don’t hate my plea. But in your mercy, hear and answer me.”

  Then I added my plea, which wasn’t part of the memorized prayer, but what I really came to beg God for, “Please bring Sammy home alive…”

  “Kiko?” Daphne’s voice. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know…”

  “Amen.” I crossed myself and stood, then lit a second candle.

  She turned to leave the sanctuary the way she’d come in, out the back.

  “Wait.” I hurried toward her. “Did you need something?” I asked when I caught up to her.

  “There’s a rope that needs cut,” Daphne said. “And then we’re all done.” She smiled at me. I wanted to steal a kiss, but I looked up and saw Missus DeLeon talking to our priest out under the canopy. Daphne showed me the rope that was a tripping hazard.

  I pulled my knife out of my pocket—the one my tata had given me. As I cut the rope, the knife reminded me of what Tata had said. None of us are worthy. If we were, then Christ wouldn’t have needed to die for us. There was nothing I could do, not pay penance or anything, to earn God’s forgiveness. I just had to ask for it.

  “It’s finished,” our priest said, gesturing toward the chairs and tables and flowers and bows. We all marched through the back of the church, gathering our belongings from the classroom before going home.

  We walked through the sanctuary and I glanced up at Christ on the cross. Yeah, it’s finished, I thought.

  “Are you ready?” Tomas held the front door open for me.

  “Yeah. I am.”

  “Are you sure? Anyt’ing we’ve missed?”

  “No. Not’ing. Not a t’ing we can do. It’s already done.” I walked out the door and got into the Tanakas’s car to go home.

  I hadn’t planned to tell my parents that my friends invited me to spend Saturday at the beach. They had enough on their minds with business, Tatan taking a turn for the worse, and them worrying about Sammy being M.I.A.

  But when the Tanakas dropped me off Friday after we’d prepared the church for Confirmation, they stopped in for coffee and talked to my parents.

  So Saturday morning at breakfast I told my parents that I didn’t mind staying home with Tatan instead of going to the beach.

  “Don’t see no harm in you taking Tatan with you,” my tata said. “Do you, Roselina? Tatan’s going to be the same no matter where he is. What you t’ink, Rosie?”

  Nana stopped spreading cream cheese on bread. She held the butter knife up as if in deep thought, then said, “Your tata’s right, Kiko. Might as well take Tatan with you. Just ’cause his lytico-bodig is getting worse, Doc Blas says that doesn’t mean he isn’t fit as a carabao physically.”

  “Are you sure? ’Cause I can stay here with him. Besides, I need to fatten up that new sow tata bought. I want to make sure we have the biggest, most prized pig to slaughter for the fiesta we’ll throw when Sammy comes home.”

  “No, it’ll be all right. No sense you missing out on fun with your friends. Tatan’s not going to get better just ’cause you stay home,” Nana said. “Take a quilt. If he gets tired he can lie down and rest on the beach.”

  The Tanakas picked up Tatan and me right after my parents left for work. I locked the door. Funny how even little things changed since I found the soldier in the boonies behind our house.

  When we got to Talofofo beach, Mister Tanaka opened the trunk and Tomas and I unloaded lunches, a thermos jug of water, and a big stick.

  “Here.” I handed the stick to Tatan, who was in a stupor. Did he even know it was me, Kiko—his “Little Turtle”? I took his hand and formed it around the walking stick. “I carved this with my knife Tata gave me, then sanded it down and polished it up in shop class.” Although Tatan didn’t look like he und
erstood what I said, he sighed heavily and leaned on the stick.

  “That’s cool,” Tomas said.

  Tomas and I and Tatan started down the steep cliff to Talofofo Bay. “Last day of Spring break,” Tomas said.

  “Not counting tomorrow, our Confirmation Day.” I steadied Tatan by holding his forearm as we slowly stepped from crag to cranny. “Yeah, somet’ing, eh?” Tomas said. “You going to sunrise service here by the bay?”

  “Sure, our whole family.”

  “Ours too. Going to be a long day tomorrow,” Tomas said.

  I concentrated on guiding Tatan to the bottom safely.

  Tomas reached the beach first, then helped me ease Tatan down the final decline. Some of our friends from Confirmation class were already swimming and body surfing. “Hey, bro,” Tomas said. “Check out Daphne.” He flicked his eyebrows. “Va-va-voom! She’s filling out that bikini in all the right places! Kaboom!”

  I looked out at the ocean. Daphne, wearing a pale pink bikini, ran through the tides with her girlfriends, laughing as they splashed each other.

  I glanced back at Tomas, furrowing my eyebrows at him.

  “What? What?” Tomas threw both hands in the air. “I thought we were squared away, bro.”

  “We are. Just don’t disrespect them, eh? You wouldn’t like it if someone talked about your nana that way.”

  “Got you, bro. That’s cool. No more disrespecting the chi… I mean, girls.” Tomas smiled and slapped between my shoulder blades.

  Daphne turned and ran to me.

  I shook out the quilt and it billowed up, then down, like a parachute landing. I put my arm around Daphne’s waist and she leaned her head on my shoulder. I studied Tatan’s deep-lined face, tanned the color of a coconut shell. I hadn’t noticed before that I stood taller than my grandfather.

  “Tatan? Want to sit here?”

  Tatan looked confused. He stumbled toward the ocean.

  “Is he going to be, you know, safe?” Tomas dropped our lunches and thermoses on the quilt.

  “I’ll keep an eye on him. Go ahead, both of you. I’ll be along in a minute, as soon as I know he’s all right.”

  Daphne kissed my cheek and ran with Tomas to join our friends in the surf.

  Tatan walked toward the bay and sat down on the black sand. He drew his knees up to his chest. Water lapped back and forth underneath his body as the sun and the moon played tug-of-war with the tides. He gazed far out over the Pacific Ocean.

  I squinted into the glare of the sun, trying to see what Tatan stared at beyond the horizon.

  Was Sammy hidden away somewhere safe? I looked for a sign that Sammy would come home someday from across the sea like Seto did.

  All I saw were rainbows dancing in the spray where the constant waves beat against Guam’s shore.

  I sat down beside Tatan. The surf surged around us, pulsating in-and-out, in-and-out, hollowing out the sand from under our bodies. Today was a good day. A day of confirmation. I soaked in the warmth of the sun and coolness of the spray. I breathed in the salt air, and watched Daphne and Tomas and my friends play in the ocean. I imagined Sammy there with them, calling to me, “Little Turtle!” I wanted to be strong and steady like the ancient turtle that carried our island on its back. I got up from the black sand and led Tatan to the safety of the dry quilt. Then I turned back toward my friends and ran into the ocean. Sammy was waving to me in the sea foam crests. I dove in and swam against the tide.

  Author’s Note

  Kiko’s fictional story began January 3, 1972, when he first learned his nana was raped by a Japanese soldier during World War II. However, the story of Isamu Seto is based on the true-life story of Shoichi Yokoi, the World War II soldier who never surrendered. Yokoi’s story began August 5, 1941, when he was drafted into the Japanese Imperial Army.

  During World War II, Japan allied with Germany and Italy. Japan invaded China, Southeast Asia, and many Pacific Islands. Shoichi Yokoi, the son of tailors, was drafted into the Third Supply Regiment for temporary duty.

  Hours after Japanese pilots attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Japanese forces attacked Guam, which was a United States territorial possession. Three days later, Japan occupied Guam. During the two years and eight months Japanese soldiers occupied Guam, they committed many atrocities against the people. Most of that time, Yokoi was not stationed on Guam. It was not until March 4, 1944, that Yokoi arrived on Guam from Manchuria (China) and was assigned to the supply unit at Talofofo Camp.

  The US Marines liberated Guam on July 21, 1944. Germany surrendered May 7, 1945. Japan surrendered September 2, 1945.

  But for Yokoi, the war did not end. Why didn’t he surrender to the American soldiers and go home to Japan like most soldiers who chose not to commit suicide? I studied news articles written and translated from Japanese into English to read what Yokoi himself had to say about his long ordeal hiding in the jungles of Guam. As near as I could figure, he was filled with fear and shame. At that time, Japanese soldiers believed their emperor was a god. They were taught that if they were captured they would be severely tortured by enemy soldiers, and if they did not die in battle, or commit suicide, they greatly shamed their families.

  Yokoi was a survivor, at all costs. So when the US soldiers liberated Guam, he hid in the Talofofo jungle with two other Japanese soldiers, Mikio Shichi and Satoru Nakahata. At first they hid in natural caves in the rolling mountains of Southern Guam. Later, they built separate huts within the jungle. But as Guamanians built new houses closer to the Talofofo River, the two soldiers moved to a cave, and Yokoi dug a tunnel eight feet underground, and ten feet long. In 1964, Shichi and Nakahata died, possibly of poison. Only Yokoi remained as the last straggler, a term Guamanians called soldiers who never surrendered.

  On January 24, 1972, Jesus Duenas and Manuel DeGracia found Yokoi while checking shrimp traps in the Talofofo River. Yokoi could still speak Japanese and halting English. He told authorities and reporters how he survived for twenty-eight years in the jungle, the last fifteen years underground.

  The only fact that has been disputed is whether Yokoi took part in the murders of two young men in 1950, one the brother of Jesus Duenas. When Yokoi was first questioned, he admitted to being a participant when his comrades murdered Francisco Duenas, 15, and Jesus Pablo, 26. However, later the Japanese government denied Yokoi had anything to do with murdering the two Chamorros.

  After Yokoi returned to Japan he was given a hero’s welcome, promoted to sergeant, and married. He died September 22, 1997, in Japan at age 82.

  Yokoi told his story, and I have passed on this story to you through Kiko’s story, which in a way is true, too. It is the story of many secondary rape victims and how, in order to heal, they often go through stages of shock, disbelief, denial, obsession, shame, anger, rage, and retaliation, before reaching acceptance, forgiveness, and healing. However, this is really not a story about war, or hatred, rage, or retaliation. It is a story about forgiveness, redemption, and restoration. For both Yokoi and Kiko.

  Acknowledgments

  It has been said it takes a village to raise a child. And so, as a book is the child of an author, it is my deep gratitude to these readers who critiqued No Surrender Soldier in part or in whole:

  Kathleen Ahrens

  Jennifer Bradshaw

  Pam Calvert

  Jody Cosson

  Sherry Garland

  Michael Green

  Kristi Holl

  Katy Huth Jones

  Julie Knight

  Patti Kurtz

  Kathleen Muldoon

  Christy Ottaviano

  Carmen Richardson

  Lupe Ruiz-Flores

  Anna Webman

  Student readers: Robert Jones and Ben Rinehart

  SCBWI workshop Arkansas retreat group

  Gayle Roper’s novel revision workshop group at Mt. Hermon Christian Conference Center

  Research Acknowledgments

  Pacific Daily News, Gannett Corporation: Publisher
Lee Webber and Archive Librarian Carmelita Blas for researching and sending news clips on Shoichi Yokoi.

  University of Guam: Richard F. Taitano Micronesian Area Research Center, professor of history and Micronesian studies Dirk Ballendorf, and Archive Librarian Lourdes Nededog for researching and sending news clips on Shoichi Yokoi.

  Raymond Baza, musician and composer, of Washington, who answered questions regarding Chamorro music.

  Personal Acknowledgments

  I’d like to thank my editor Jackie Mitchard for selecting and believing in my story and characters enough to be of Merit for readers. And thanks to Ashley Myers for the final revision notes to refine and polish my novel before publication. Thanks to copyeditor Hillary Thompson; as a former copyeditor myself I know what a tedious job this is, but the polish is in the details.

  Last, but foremost, I couldn’t have written this story without my traveling companion through life and patron of the arts, my husband, Mike.

  Bibliography

  28 Years in the Guam Jungle: Sergeant Yokoi Home from World War II, compiled by correspondents of the Asahi Shimbun, (Japanese News Service). Tokyo: Japan Publications, Inc., 1972.

  Dardick, Geeta. Home Butchering and Meat Preservation. Blue Ridge Summit, PA: TAB Books, Inc., 1986.

  Farrell, Don A. The Pictorial History of Guam: Liberation–1944. Tamuning, Guam: Micronesian Productions, 1984.

  Gailey, Harry. The Liberation of Guam: 21 July–10 August 1944. Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1988.

  Hafa Adai, Guam Visitors Bureau. Tamuning, Guam: The Palms Press, 1988.

  Harrison, James Pinckney. The Endless War: Fifty Years of Struggle in Vietnam. NY: The Free Press (Macmillan Publishing Company), 1982.

  Masashi, Ito. The Emperor’s Last Soldiers, translated by Roger Clifton. NY: Coward-McCann, Inc., 1967.

  Pacific Daily News, Gannett Corporation, various news articles.