Hiroshima Joe: A Novel

by Martin Booth

  These crabs, with winkles, small shore clams and mussels, tiny fish trapped in rock pools and edible seaweed were stirred into the evening meal, giving it a gritty texture but adding valuable protein in the process. On occasion, the three prisoners would discover sea birds’ nests and steal the eggs. If they were particularly hungry, and if they were sure the fragile linings to their stomachs could accommodate it, they ate some of the shellfish raw. More often they would eat the gulls’ eggs by drinking the yolk and sticky albumen from a sliced eggshell.

  ‘Do you know what happened today, Joe?’

  Sandingham shook his head and grunted, his hands swilling and grinding the grey mixture in the utensils.

  ‘Our gunzoku – Cyclops – was mounting guard on us at the beach when we found a gull’s nest by the spring in the rocks. Four eggs in it, bluey-whitish colour. Big as a bantam’s. He saw us find it from where he was squatting on the first dune and shouted something to us. We thought we were in for it for wandering too far from him, but instead he gets up from his dune and walks over to us, leaving his rifle in the grass.’

  ‘Why didn’t you grab it?’ was Sandingham’s automatic response.

  ‘What’s the use?’

  He nodded in agreement.

  ‘Anyway, when he got to us,’ Foster carried on, ‘he pointed to the eggs. We’d not touched them. He signals to pick them up, so I do. Then what?’ He drew on his cigarette and waited until he had exhaled before speaking again. ‘He takes one, cuts off the top with a little jack-knife he had in his pocket, gives it to Brackenby. Takes another from me, slices it open and hands it to Alan. Takes a third. Tops it. Gives it to me. Takes the fourth, removes the top, says, “Jabber-jabber onzarokku” and drinks it back in one, just like any old shogoto. What do you make of that?’

  He thought: if the guard was prepared to share a raw egg with a PoW, this meant either that the egg was a rare local delicacy or the captor was as hungry as his captives. The latter seemed the most likely explanation, and Sandingham said so.

  ‘I never thought of that,’ said Foster. ‘Poor bastards…’

  Leaning against the door jamb of the kitchen building, he pulled again on the cigarette. Sandingham heard his hiss of breath above the swishing sounds of his chore.

  The woks were finished. He stood up, tipped out the filthy water, piled them into each other and lifted them into the kitchen. The rice cauldron was next. He lifted this off the floor by the big stove, slopped some clean water in it from the storage barrel, dropped some ashes on the water and tipped in a handful of sand. Carrying the cauldron outside, he put it down by the step and started to rub the inside clean.

  ‘I think they’re starving. The Japs. I think things are getting pretty bloody tight for them, too. The raids have increased, the USN’s semi-blockading Japan and their own navy’s getting thrashed to hell.’

  Sandingham looked to the ground by the cauldron where something thin and white caught his attention. It was a half-smoked cigarette, the flame still feebly glowing.

  Foster was dead. His head was tilted to one side and his mouth was shut. His eyes were open and blank and his hands were loose on his lap. Sandingham touched him and he was already cold. It couldn’t have been three minutes.

  Looking in the direction of the dead man’s eyes, he saw what he had been looking at last. It was the side of a barrack hut, the dust whipping in an evening breeze. It was the typical panorama of captivity. The last of the sunlight was dimmer now.

  ‘Poor bastard,’ he whispered to Foster, unaware that he was quoting the man’s last words. ‘You poor bastard.’

  There was nothing else to do. He left the cauldron and went in search of the senior officer who would act as priest. The Dutchman had been dead for less than a month.

  * * *

  The summer of 1944 inexorably moved along. News of the successes in Europe filtered through, partly via the study group and partly through the good offices of Mr Mishima who was able, on rare occasions, to receive the BBC or the Americans on his radio. He did this late at night, without anyone knowing.

  He wasn’t a turncoat. Nor a traitor. He explained it all to Sandingham one midday break.

  ‘You see, I know Japan is finished. We are an island and we cannot fight. We live under Bushido and Bushido is old-fashioned now. The laws of Bushido, of honour, of that kind of patriotism, are out of date. We must move into the new era. How is the question.’

  It was not defeatist but realist talk, and both men knew it.

  ‘See there.’

  Mishima pointed to an ant nest under a pile of bark chippings and debris.

  ‘See the ants? There are red ants and there are black ants. The black ants eat tree juice and the red ants eat meat. They eat dead moths and grasshoppers, dead mice and rotten things like that. Now the black ants are in the red ant world. They are fighting.’

  Sandingham looked closer. Sure enough, the red and black ants were going at each other hammer and tongs. The battle was fierce and many black ants were dying. Many more than the red ones.

  ‘Watch.’

  A few minutes later, there was a distinct pause in the fighting. The black ants surged forward, collected up their dead and retreated with them, heaping them under a large roof of bark. Then the battle recommenced.

  ‘They have a truce to collect their dead. Now they fight. All over again.’

  Three times a truce was invisibly, inaudibly ordered. Finally, the black ants came forward and there was much feeler waving with the red ants; then the black ants retreated and the red ants, after a final assault, won the day. They did not follow the black ants to their nests, but left them to retreat – ignored them. Even so, the black ants had decisively lost.

  ‘Japan is the army of black ants,’ Mishima said. ‘They could not win. But still they fought until it was hopeless. Too many were dying. Then they ask for peace and the red ants give it after showing for a last time how strong they are.’ He shifted to keep himself in the shade. ‘Men are like ants. If you were a Buddhist teacher you would know. Watch ants and you see the world of men in tiny.’

  ‘Miniature,’ Sandingham corrected him.

  Mishima smiled and thanked him for the putting right, before saying, ‘But you and I? Are we black or red? We are neither. It doesn’t matter. So long as we live and do not fight amongst ourselves. Perhaps we are Buddhist ants.’ The hancho was getting up from his chair in the shadow of the office. ‘Best we are no colour. Just be ants.’

  That afternoon, as they strove at the saws and planers, Sandingham thought to himself that Mishima was wrong. At least, he was partly so. Ants accept when they are beaten or winners and then they stop. Men don’t do that: they go on and on until the bitter, attritious end.

  Arriving back in the camp that evening, Sandingham was met by an uproar of excitement amongst the prisoners. An IJA vehicle convoy had visited them during the day and delivered thirty-seven prisoners. They were all American sailors and they were billetted in the hut by the latrines, everyone originally in there having been moved out and distributed to the other barracks, to step into dead men’s places.

  ‘What are they from?’ asked Sandingham as he helped in the kitchen.

  ‘A destroyer. Sunk by air action,’ Phil explained. ‘We’ve only had a chance to talk to a few. They were captured a fortnight ago and the Kempetai’s been at them. Some of them are in pretty ropey shape. The boss is in with the commandant now, asking if we can mix with them. Since they arrived, they’ve been under guard in their hut.’

  He jerked his thumb at the window and Sandingham looked out. By the door of the barrack was a pair of guards: three or four others walked around the building, ascertaining that no one peered out of the windows. Or in.

  ‘A couple are in the eiso.’

  That stopped speculation. The guardhouse punishment cells were terrible. Each was six feet square with a threadbare blanket and a bucket. Without light and without air, proofed against sound, they were the worse form of solitary confinem
ent the Japanese could invent. The loneliness was regularly punctuated by brutal beatings described as interrogations.

  The senior officer entered the kitchens. He looked grim.

  ‘We can’t see them today. Maybe tomorrow. We can take them in food and those who take it in can stay while it is eaten in order to bring out the dishes. They eat after we do. Joe: go to the stores. The QM’s going to issue three pounds of bean curd for them. We can water down the soup a bit and give them that, too. What’s in it?’

  ‘Purple death, some carrot tops, some crabs from the beach, water, a fish, eight potatoes and three and a half pounds of rice millings. Also a couple of daikon. And, of course, there are soya beans in it too, sir.’

  ‘Good. Do your best.’

  Sandingham was one of those chosen to deliver the food to the new inmates. After swallowing his own meal, he set off with some others for the barrack. The guards pulled the bolts and opened the door.

  Inside it was dark. The guards had switched off the electricity. Sandingham lit a peanut oil lamp he had brought with him. Others lit similar lamps.

  The Americans were lying around on the tatami rows, or sitting of the edges of the bunk and at or on the two tables.

  There was not a word spoken until one of them, not seeing clearly who had entered, warned, ‘More goddam Nips, guys. Get yerselves orf yer asses.’

  A shuffling of feet followed a desultory straightening of limbs.

  ‘I’m English, actually,’ stated Sandingham – the last word, which he did not usually use in such a context, somehow comically capping his introduction in his mind.

  ‘Limey?’

  The enquirer was incredulous.

  ‘Yes. We’ve brought you some food. Not very good, but what we usually have here.’

  This information was greeted with a low hubbub of consternation.

  Sandingham and the rest of those from the kitchen set the food on the table and began to pour it into bowls. Spoons were handed round. The Americans said nothing, but lined up to collect their servings, then sat down to consume them. Still there was no conversation.

  As they collected in the empty bowls an American by Sandingham, who was wearing the remnants of an officer’s khaki naval uniform, took him by the arm.

  ‘Hey, Joe. We owe ya. Okay?’

  Sandingham laughed and, in the dull light, the Americans looked at him with a renewed puzzlement.

  ‘You got my name right. Joe Sandingham. British Army, captured at the fall of Hong Kong.’

  ‘Jesus H. Christ!’ replied the American. ‘You been prisoner for two and a half years…’

  ‘Right,’ Sandingham admitted. ‘Is there anything else you need?’

  ‘Last month, I was in San Diego with my…’ The American realised the tactlessness of what he was about to say and Sandingham ignored his words in preparation for the noun that didn’t come – wife, or lover, or mother.

  ‘Yeah. There is something we need. We got a young seaman here who’s hurt bad. You got a doctor?’

  ‘We have, but we’ve no drugs – or anything else, really – to go with him. But I’ll see what I can do.’

  It took the senior officer more than an hour’s humbling discussion with the commandant to get permission for the doctor to enter the barrack. When he did treat the young man he found his main injuries were several broken ribs, a twice-fractured arm, severe contusions and lacerations and a number of burn marks. None of the injuries was typical of those obtained in a sinking ship. The burns were caused by red-hot iron rather than floating, ignited fuel oil.

  Three days later, the Americans were allowed to join the remainder of the prisoners and were integrated into work squads and issued with their bango tags, numbers on toughened card discs that had to be worn at all times. Once they were in with the rest the stories started to circulate.

  Their destroyer, which for obvious reasons wasn’t named, had been sunk in the most bizarre fashion. At first, many of the prisoners found it hard to believe.

  ‘What happened was this. We were cruising about four hundred miles east-south-east of Okinawa, about due south of Kyushu. Anti-sub. patrol. Catch them two days outa Kobe. Hadn’t seen anything for several days. Suddenly, the siren goes. All hands to ‘Action stations’ quick as hell. Our captain was real tight on drilling us for this. Radar picked up hostile aircraft. No sweat.

  ‘AA guns manned, loaded, ready. Bearings given. Then we see the planes. Three of them. They run by us, too close to be clever and at about eight hundred feet. For’ard guns open up. Hit one. He nose-dives. Hell of an explosion. Other two peel off.’

  There was nothing unusual in this narrative, Sandingham thought. They’d heard it all before, over and over. Some had experienced it.

  ‘The two that peel off. They bank up high, real high. Five thousand feet. Maybe more. Too high for a torpedo or bomb run. “Those bastards are gonna spray us!” says the aimer. I gott’ agree – it’ll be tracer shell. Down they start to come, near as dammit vertical. Their range is greater than ours. We wait to open fire. But they don’t first. They jus’ come on down. ‘Wotthehell!’ I heard some guy say. We open up now. Fire fast as hell, aiming quick as hell. Hit one. He trails black smoke for about three hundred feet then – Wham! – one hell of a fireball. Through my mind goes this one thought: how come the guy’s got so much fuel after flying so goddam far from base? We knew there weren’t no carriers out. And since when does fuel ignite like that …

  ‘The other one’s still comin’ on down. He’s weaving.’

  The listeners were with him, in the picture, the fighter coming at the ship, waiting to open fire at the last moment in order to get a good hit on the bridge. Demolish the steering and then go in for a bomb or torpedo run when the ship’s out of control.

  ‘Then I get it. The bastard’s trying to crash into us. That’s what it was, too. We hit him a coupla times, I’m sure as God knows we did. But it di’n’t stop the plane. Maybe by now the pilot’s dead. The plane ain’t. It comes straight down and hits the ship aft of the funnel. I was up in the bows. Ship shakes on the impact. Count three and then there is one god-awful explosion. The plane was a flying bomb with a poor sonovabitch guy in it guiding it in … No parachute showed.’

  It transpired that rumours had been about in the US Navy of the Japanese planning suicide missions, kamikaze pilots who dedicated themselves to their gods and their Emperor and, after a special service in a temple, then set off on a one-way flight, their flimsy plywood aircraft loaded with explosives and insufficient fuel for a return to base. Some of the aircraft were said to drop their undercarriages at take-off, leaving the wheels on the ground to be re-used.

  ‘What do you make of it, Norb?’ Sandingham asked his pal amongst the long-term Yanks.

  ‘I guess it’s true,’ the other answered. ‘And I reckon it shows that the Nips are getting pretty damn desperate.’

  * * *

  ‘It is true,’ confirmed Mr Mishima, the next day.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘We have had it in the newspaper and my neighbour, who is called Mr Hoshigima, has his son gone to be one.’

  He looked glum and Sandingham guessed why.

  ‘And your son?’

  ‘He is on a list for going. Already, he has his cloth – hachimaki – to wind around his head. A white cloth…’

  For a moment, he watched the boy carrying planks out to a waiting lorry; not wanting to press the point, Sandingham turned back to the planer.

  ‘You know what they say for the pilots?’ Mishima stared at the spray of sawdust fanning on to the floor. ‘It is an old poem in Japanese. In English it says,

  Death is lighter than a feather,

  Duty higher than a mountain.

  But what use is that to me if my son dies? I have only one son and why should I give him when the war is lost for Japan? If I have no son, my family name dies.’ A plank was slewing awry and he pressed the stop switch on the saw. ‘You know what “hagakure” means?’ Sandingham sh
ook his head. ‘It is the code of honour of samurai. It says, “The Way of the Samurai is Death.” All Japanese think of this now.’

  The following week they were excused the Thursday from working in the timber yards. It was not a festival or a holy day, nor even a rest day. Whatever the reason, they made the most of it. On returning on the Friday they found a new and large machine installed in the shed. The planer had been moved to one side and the saw shifted.

  ‘What’s it for?’ Sandingham questioned the hancho.

  He replied through the interpreter that it was a machine for making and shaping plywood.

  * * *

  Garry had been the officers’ mess steward. Nineteen years old, he hailed from Saginaw, seventy miles north-west of Detroit. He had been drafted into the Navy from a set life as a chef in a diner off the highway near Bridgeport and a keen fisherman in Lake Huron. He knew all the best spots to catch walleyes, blue gills and crappies from Whites Beach round to Caseville. His skin was tanned, his young flesh firmly trim, his blonde hair close-cropped in a crew-cut and his stomach badly bruised from the repeated kickings he had received at the hands of the Kempetai who were particularly vicious in their treatment of US personnel in the light of the increased air raids upon the major cities.

  When he slept, he chattered with fear but when he was awake he affected a brave face. Sandingham befriended him when he was placed in charge of his well-being and convalescence – the lad was assigned to duties in the timber yard, sweeping up and sharpening the teeth of the band-saw with a shaped file.

  It was difficult for Sandingham to watch over the lad. He was unbowed by the bloodiness of his treatment at the hands of the Kempetai and he exhibited an open hostility to their captors. He declined to speak to a Japanese and flatly refused to obey orders unless they were translated for him, feigning ignorance of the most obvious sign language or pidgin-English instructions. This was taken as arrogance by the more hostile guards, especially the Koreans, and he suffered many a slap or punch for his insubordination.