One Man's Justice

by Akira Yoshimura

  The train jolted forward. Before long the bustle of voices and activity gave way to the monotonous beat of the wheels against the joints in the tracks.

  A squadron of moths fluttered around the electric light outside the washroom, bashing themselves relentlessly against the misted glass cover protecting the bulb. Just when Takuya thought that at least one moth had decided to settle, wings trembling, on the metal top of the light fitting, it took off again to resume butting against the light, powder from its wings dropping visibly after each assault.

  At station after station more passengers jostled their way on board, and by now it was decidedly uncomfortable. The crush was so oppressive that the rucksack on his back was being pushed downward, and he felt himself losing his balance.

  The train pulled into Usuki station just before four in the morning. Takuya passed through the ticket gates and stepped out on to the road in the darkness. Usuki had not entirely escaped the ravages of war, but rows of antiquated wooden houses still stood on both sides of the street, as befitted the old castle town. The road wound through the town, with different buildings silhouetted round each bend. The moon was on the wane and the heavens teemed with stars. When he reached the outskirts he smelled salt in the air and heard the sound of waves breaking. Before long an expanse of sea opened up in front of him and he could make out a number of small boats moored to a little jetty.

  Takuya made his way along the road beside the water. When he was near the ferry terminal he slipped under a canopy and sat down on the ground. Many people were sleeping there, lying or sitting under the eaves of the building. One man stirred and turned to look listlessly at Takuya, who had propped himself against the wooden wall, pulling his service cap down over his face and shutting his eyes. He was feverish and his joints felt tired and weak. The pistol felt hard yet reassuring through the cloth of the rucksack in his lap. His grip on consciousness loosened and he slipped into a deep sleep.

  The sun beat down on his face more and more intensely. Takuya opened his eyes and, still seated, gazed out across the water. His lower back felt cold and his legs were numb. His sleeping companions were awake now, sitting or lying on the narrow pier.

  Takuya pulled a paper bag from his rucksack and dropped a few dry roasted beans into his mouth. He hadn’t had anything to eat since the afternoon of the previous day, but he wasn’t really hungry.

  As he chewed the beans his throat felt dry and he stood up, walked around to the rear of the building, drank some water from a tap and washed his face. He relieved himself on the dirt, and noticed that his urine was yellowish brown and frothy.

  After a while a long queue formed on the pier, and he joined the end of it. Lice crawled over the scalp of the young girl standing in front of him. As soon as one hid itself in her hair another would appear immediately somewhere else, lift its rear end slightly, then burrow in among the roots of her hair.

  After about an hour Takuya followed the others on to the boat bound for Yawatahama. Another forty-five minutes passed before the boat finally chugged laboriously away from the pier. Takuya found himself a corner of the deck near the bow and sat down.

  The boat left the bay and passed close by Muku island on the starboard side before entering the Bungo Channel, where the smooth passage ended and a slight pitch and roll began.

  Far off to the northwest he could make out the Kunisaki peninsula. The American B-29 bomber squadrons operating out of Saipan had often aimed to enter and leave Kyushu airspace at this landmark. Aircraft spotters were stationed all over the peninsula, as well as electronic listening devices to detect the approach of incoming aircraft. In the anti-aircraft strategic operations room of Western Regional Command they had processed the information, immediately alerted the air defence forces with an estimated point of incursion, and then provided them with a precise flight path to intercept the bombers.

  As Takuya gazed at the peninsula, his mind returned to an incident involving the people of a fishing village at the tip of the landmass. Six months before the end of the war, a B-29 returning from a bombing mission was hit by fire from an anti-aircraft battery and brought down in the sea just off the fishing village. Three of its crew survived by parachuting into the water. The villagers put their boats out straight away, found the bomber crewmen and roughly pulled them into the boats before dumping them on shore. One of the three fliers was utterly terrified, running at the nose and convulsing uncontrollably. The villagers – men, women and children – beat the crewmen mercilessly until an old fisherman picked up a harpoon and ran it through one of the Americans. The official report on the incident described the old man’s action as motivated by ‘irrepressible feelings of indignation toward these outlaws who would violate the Imperial realm with the objective of slaughtering innocent old people, women and children’.

  In all likelihood US military intelligence had already established that some fliers not only had survived their bomber going down, but had then been assaulted, and that one of their number had been killed. At the time, the actions of the villagers met with unquestioning approval, and they doubtless even felt something akin to pride about what had happened. But with the end of the war they, too, would be leaving for fear of pursuit by the American military.

  Takuya stared toward the peninsula, now nothing more than a dim shadow in the distance. He realised that throughout the country countless people must be in the same predicament as he was.

  The boat’s pitch and roll remained slight, and all he really noticed was the monotonous beat of the engines. Before long Takuya fell asleep.

  He was awakened by the sound of the boat’s horn. The ferry pulled alongside a pier and a rope was thrown into the waiting arms of a man on shore. Takuya filed off the boat behind the other passengers.

  Near the exit from the landing-stage there were two policemen in washed-out uniforms watching the passengers disembark nervously. Those carrying luggage tried to pass by the police, but almost all were ordered to enter a holding-pen set up to one side. They were confiscating any items, such as food, upon which the authorities had placed trading restrictions. The two policemen hardly glanced at Takuya and his battered rucksack as he walked past.

  Takuya made his way to Yawatahama station, where he again joined a long line to buy a ticket. More than an hour later his turn finally came, and he headed toward the platform, ticket in hand. The train was waiting, a steam engine with four passenger carriages and two freight cars. As the passenger carriages were already packed, he squeezed into a space on one of the freight cars.

  The whistle sounded and the train slowly headed south-wards. Takuya sat back against the wall and stretched his legs out on the straw-covered floor. The train stopped at each station along the way, sometimes for quite a while at even the smallest of stations. Some of the floorboards in the carriage were missing, and he could see through to tufts of weeds growing among the sleepers and the stones on the tracks.

  The sun was sliding down toward the west. Takuya felt the urge to relieve himself, so he grasped the sides of the opening through which he’d boarded, stood on tiptoe to clear the low outer wall, and urinated off the moving train. The sky was a brilliant red and the far-off ridges were tinged with purple.

  The sun went down and the freight car was plunged into darkness. That night the stars were out in force, the moon one day further on the wane. Every so often, when the train rushed past electric signals, the freight car was bathed in a blaze of light, providing a split second’s respite from the all-encompassing night.

  The train pressed along the coast and, just as Takuya thought he glimpsed the black expanse of the sea, the engine and its carriages hurtled into a tunnel. From time to time he could make out lights from what must have been clusters of houses and fishing villages along the coast.

  Takuya raised his head just enough to read the names on the passing station signs. He thought that the police might be keeping an eye on the station in the town next to his village, so he had made up his mind to leave the train one st
ation short of his destination.

  The train slowed and pulled to a halt beside the platform of a small station. He jumped down from the freight car, circled around it, crossed the tracks and walked through the ticket gates and out of the station. Avoiding the densely populated street, he made his way back along the railway line and started walking. The subtle bluish white of the steel tracks stretched before him into the distance, the clearly visible lights ahead reminding him that he had only a short distance to go.

  When he was quite close to the town, he stepped down from the railway bed and walked along a path between two paddy fields. Perhaps because his eyes had become used to the dark, the waning moon seemed to illuminate everything around him. There was not a soul in sight.

  Having skirted the town by following the paths through the paddy fields, he climbed up the white stone steps of the local shrine. Both the inner sanctuary and the shrine office were cloaked in darkness. He remembered coming here to pray with the villagers before joining the Imperial Army, standing among them in his university hat and uniform, the national flag slung over his shoulder. Pausing in the shrine gateway, Takuya took off his service cap and bowed toward the inner sanctuary.

  Leaving the precincts of the shrine and its conspicuous smell of bark, Takuya followed a narrow, sinuous track cut into the hill behind the shrine. He had walked this path so many times when he was small that he knew it like the back of his hand, so he made steady progress over the protruding roots and potholes.

  Takuya stopped under the boughs of a large pine. Below him, by the light of the moon, he could see the cluster of dwellings that made up the village where his family lived. There were about thirty houses, dotted along either side of the winding path, strung out between the hill where he was standing and the low knoll directly opposite. The sun rose from behind the hill overlooking the shrine and set behind the knoll on the other side of the village, so sunrise was late and sunset was early. The village was blessed with soil good enough to offset the shorter sunlight hours, which provided quality crops, especially mandarin oranges, for those working the land. The woods around the village were home to countless nightingales, whose pleasant warbling filled the air from early spring until autumn. This gave the village its name, Ohshuku.

  Takuya’s eyes traced the barely visible path through the village down to the area around his family’s house at the foot of the hill. No sign of anyone on the path and no movement around the house.

  Two dogs appeared on the path, trotting more or less side by side. They passed directly beside the house, then crossed the wooden bridge over the little stream. Takuya relaxed somewhat – clearly the animals were not distracted by anything unusual around the house – but, just in case, he pulled the pistol out of his rucksack, loaded it and stuffed it in his belt before making his way down the slope.

  Scanning the area, he cut through an open patch of weeds and jumped over the little brook. A light was on inside his house. When he was near the back door he could tell from the sound of running water that either his mother or his younger sister was washing something in the kitchen.

  Takuya opened the door. His mother, standing in front of the sink, turned and welcomed him home. In the back room, his father sat hunched forward under an electric lamp, his reading glasses perched on the end of his nose as he read a newspaper. Making haste was Takuya’s most pressing concern. Before long the peaceful world his family enjoyed would be shattered by the arrival of those seeking his capture. If they came while Takuya was still at home, the disruption would be all the greater for his family.

  His mother asked if he had eaten but Takuya went straight into the living-room without answering. His father looked up. Takuya made sure his mother had gone back to her task at the sink before sitting down in front of his father.

  In a quiet but deliberate voice, Takuya explained to his father how on the fifteenth of August the previous year, after the broadcast of the imperial rescript announcing Japan’s surrender, he had taken part in the execution of American prisoners of war who had parachuted from disabled B-29 bombers. Now American military intelligence was on his trail and his capture was probably only a matter of time.

  His father listened aghast.

  ‘I have to go into hiding right away. I’m sorry … but can you give me some money please?’ he said, fixing his eyes on the old man’s face.

  For a few seconds his father said nothing. Then, moving his gaze a fraction to the side, he whispered, ‘So you’ve killed an American.’

  ‘I cut his head off with my sword,’ replied Takuya.

  The old man stayed sitting where he was, not moving a muscle. A mournful look had come over his face.

  Takuya stood up and walked over to his own room, switching the light on as he stepped through the doorway. He pulled out his photo album, stripped it of all the photographs taken since he had reached adulthood, and put them and his letters, diaries and address book in the wastepaper basket. This in hand, he stepped down on to the earth-floor section of the house and pushed the contents into the kitchen stove, lighting the paper with a match. His mother, not seeming to realise what Takuya was burning, dried her hands on her apron and walked into the living-room. He pushed the poker into the fire, checking that the papers were reduced to ashes before stepping back into the living-room.

  There was a pile of notes on the low table in the middle of the room. To deal with the inflation that followed immediately after the war, the government had restricted the amount of money any householder could withdraw from a bank to three hundred yen per month, and one hundred yen per family member. Takuya knew that without the money on the table his family would inevitably struggle, yet he knelt down, took the notes, and stuffed them into the inside pocket of his jacket. His mother looked on apprehensively as she poured tea for the three of them. His father removed his glasses and sat motionless, staring vacantly into a corner.

  Takuya rose to his feet and walked a couple of steps to the chest of drawers. He pulled out some socks and underwear and stuffed them into his rucksack along with a grey army blanket he took from the cupboard. His mother offered cups of green tea to the two men.

  ‘Are you going somewhere?’ asked his mother, looking inquisitively at her son.

  ‘I have to go away. I’ll be off in a few minutes,’ he replied as he tied the cord on his rucksack.

  ‘What? Tonight? It’s late,’ said his mother sharply.

  ‘Where are Toshio and Chiyoko?’ He thought he should see his brother and sister before he left.

  ‘Chiyoko is in bed. She’s coming down with a cold. Toshio is on the night shift. He won’t be home for another hour or so,’ replied his mother incredulously.

  Takuya took a sip of the tea, picked up his rucksack, and got to his feet. He stepped into his shoes on the earth floor of the kitchen area.

  ‘Why can’t you go tomorrow?’ asked his mother, her tone now slightly angry.

  He swung his rucksack over his shoulder, opened the back door and stepped outside. His father slipped on his mother’s clogs and followed him out. Takuya turned round to face his father, took off his service cap, and bowed his head.

  ‘If they catch you they’ll hang you, won’t they?’ the old man said hoarsely. Takuya nodded.

  His father said, ‘Go to the Sayama family in Osaka. They’ll help you.’ He handed his son a small parcel. Takuya nodded, then turned and walked away. He jumped over the little stream and headed straight across the grassy patch, on to the slope of the path up the hill. Like an animal trusting its natural instinct of self-preservation, Takuya decided that the safest way to return would be along the path he had used to come to the village.

  He climbed the track at a brisk pace before pausing under the pine tree halfway up the hill. He looked down over the village, now half shrouded in a rising mist. The houses and the path were barely visible through the pale white murk, with only a few faint strips of light escaping from windows here and there.

  Takuya opened the little package his fat
her had handed him. Under two layers of paper were some two dozen cigarettes. To a father who would cut cigarettes in thirds with a razor and then smoke them stuffed parsimoniously into a pipe, these must have been even more valuable than money.

  He sat down on one of the exposed roots of the pine tree, put a cigarette in his mouth and lit it. Having managed to get in and out of the family house safely, he felt somewhat relieved. He’d disposed of his remaining belongings, he had enough money to tide him over for a while, and he had a loaded pistol tucked in his belt. Even if a would-be captor spotted the light from his cigarette and rushed to catch him, Takuya was confident he could escape in the darkness over the track to the shrine and then beyond.

  Only the faint gurgling of the little stream below broke the silence. He gazed at the area across the stream where his family house was. It was a small house for five people. Takuya had been born and raised in that house, and had commuted to middle school from there on the advice of his public servant father. He had gone on to high school and then to Kyushu Imperial University, paying what he could of the tuition by tutoring and delivering newspapers. Upon graduation he had gone straight into the Imperial Army. His younger brother, Toshio, had just graduated from a community college. Takuya’s father had let him go on to university despite having to struggle on a meagre salary from the town civic office because he expected that Takuya would eventually take over the role of family breadwinner. Never in his wildest dreams could he have imagined his son stealing away from the family home in the middle of the night.

  Takuya wondered how his family’s position might be affected in the days and months to come. If it became public that his son was suspected of war crimes, Takuya’s father might lose the job he’d held for so many years. The police would likely be pitiless in their pursuit, and would no doubt maintain the strictest surveillance over his family. Even the other people in the village might turn cold towards them. Takuya took comfort in the thought that, whatever happened, his family would understand that he had done nothing more than his duty as a military man, and that he was in no way a criminal. Surely that would give them the strength to endure the hardships that lay ahead, and he hoped that his brother and sister would look after his parents in his absence.