The mustached major bowed, "Perhaps it is better, sir, that you are not at home. Things are very bad in Japan just now. At least we eat food here in the Soviet Union."
Dugan closed his eyes for a long time, then opened them. "I do not believe it. The Americans are not that kind of people. You eat in this camp, yes, but you eat garbage. I tell you, I come from a camp where we Japanese did not eat at all."
The mustached major persisted. "You look plump, sir."
"That," said Dugan, "is because I am a colonel. The men gave me their good food and kept the worst for themselves. I could not accept that, so I escaped. I heard from other prisoners that yours is a model camp, and that men are occasionally selected for return home."
The clean-shaven major nodded respectfully. "That is the case. You should have a good opportunity. In the next year or two."
The mustached major said, "Sir, I don't see why you should go home first when I have been here just as long as you have."
"Don't you, Major?"
"No, Colonel," said the major. Then even he recognized the absurdity of using the title and refusing the respect. "Sorry, sir," he said. "I keep saying that we are all just citizens. When I get back to Great Japan I will be a good man again. I have been too long in Russia."
"Perhaps you have," said Dugan drily.
They sat in silence. The clean-shaven major took a cigarette butt out of his pocket. He offered it to Dugan, who lit it, took a puff, and returned it. They smoked the cigarette until it began to burn their lips.
Dugan stood up. "Then I can count on you gentlemen to straighten out my identity with the camp authorities?"
"Yes, sir," they chorused. The clean-shaven one went on. "I have already explained that you took a false name and lower rank because you were so ashamed at having to surrender the Japanese flag. I told them that you had been passing under the name of Lieutenant Oh."
"And what happened to Lieutenant Oh?"
"He died in January, sir, but we've been drawing rations for him and doubling up for him on roll call ever since."
"And the body?"
Both majors looked abashed. "We could not cremate him, colonel. So we buried him."
"Where?"
The mustached major pointed straight down.
"I am a Japanese colonel," said Dugan, in Japanese, "and my name is Tamazawa. Here is my card from the camp. They say that I am psychoneurotic and that I cannot work. It is not true. I can work when I do not have arthritis. But I must be treated. I am a Japanese colonel. I am entitled to the care due prisoners of war. I admire the Soviet Union. I have been very much impressed by the great progress which Russia has made. All I ask is that you get me a private room in a hospital for a few weeks and allow me to select an orderly from among the Japanese enlisted men in the camp. I will be glad to write propaganda for the Great Soviet Union. I admire the Great General Sutarin. But I must have medical treatment first—" and he went on babbling in Japanese.
"Does he know Russian?" asked the Soviet medical officer.
"Speak beautiful Russian," said Dugan in very bad Russian.
"Did you have this arthritic condition before the war?" asked the doctor. Dugan just looked blank.
The infantry captain in charge of the camp said rapidly in Russian, "He only knows a few words, Comrade Doctor. That's the way he's been ever since he revealed his true identity as a colonel. Talking all the time. Trying to run the camp. Disorganizing the other men. Bragging. But nothing subversive, nothing political. He even draws horrible Japanese pictures of Comrade Stalin all over the camp and writes under them in Russian, 'Greatest Man in World.' Do you think he is faking it, Colonel? He looks like a fake to me, Comrade Doctor, but fake or not, he is an awful nuisance."
"What did you do?"
"I disciplined him a couple of times."
The doctor grew stern. "How?"
The camp officer blushed. "Hung him up by his thumbs for two days and then the medical orderly said he might lose them, so I took him down. The thumbs are all right, now."
Acting as though he had caught the Russian word "thumb," Dugan held up his hands and wiggled his fingers and thumbs. "Tell the big doctor," said Dugan in Japanese, "that I am not angry at you for punishing me. I've done the same thing to prisoners, myself. Just a misunderstanding."
"What did he say?" asked the medical officer.
The camp captain looked more uncomfortable than ever. "He says to tell you that he is not mad at me. He says he's done the same thing to prisoners himself. In a minute he will start his set speech about how Stalin and the Japanese Emperor will effect a reconciliation some day and will then conquer America together…"
The two Russians looked at Dugan. Then the medical officer stared at the camp captain, and asked, "What was the other 'discipline' you used?"
The captain looked relieved. "Just a beating, sir. With a belt. No scars."
"Medically speaking," said the doctor, "I'd say put him on the list. But the politics is something you'll have to approve. And get checked."
"He's harmless that way, Comrade Doctor. Unless he's faking."
"You're sure there's no evidence for one of those sensational 'torture' reports? You know the capitalist press thrives on nothing but scandal. Chiefly about us." The doctor, who remembered something of the old pre-1917 world, allowed himself a grim chuckle. "They might even say you hung a colonel up by his thumbs for two days."
The young captain looked shocked. "They could. Funny how they can twist everything into a lie. They don't want to see the constructive side of things at all."
The medical man said, "Certify him for repatriation, then."
"You're sure he's not faking, medically speaking?"
"Of course not," snapped the doctor. "From the medicopsychological point of view, this is a very plain case. As long as he went under another name and pretended to be a lieutenant, you did not notice him because he was normal. He held his personality together by remaining privately at war with the Soviet Union. But when he admitted his real name and identity, he could not hide the situation from himself. He had to admit that he really was a colonel, that he really was a prisoner, that he really had surrendered his flag. For a Japanese, that is unthinkable. In his time, this fellow must have been a fine-looking man. He could almost pass for a Russian. But the truth tore him to pieces. His mind is more than half gone."
"Please, Sir Captain," said Dugan in Japanese, "what does the honorable doctor officer say?"
"He says you can go home to Japan." The captain spoke passable Japanese, which he had learned in a special school at Ulan Ude.
"But — but — but—" Dugan stammered, "I cannot go back to Japan. Not until I have gone to a rest home for convalescing. I will write the Great General Sutarin himself. You must not send me home until I am well. It is just arthritis. If you will just give me a room and an orderly, as befits an Imperial Japanese colonel who is proud to be a prisoner—"
"Shut up," said the Russian captain in Japanese. "What was that last?" asked the Russian doctor.
"He's going to write Stalin if we don't send him to a rest home before we make him go back to Japan. All he wants is a private room and a servant all for himself and a few other little things like that. I'd like to see him get them."
"So would I," said the doctor. "He's on the list. Got any more?"
"Two," said the captain. "One lost a leg. The other went blind." He turned to Dugan and said in Japanese, "Tamazawa-san, you can go along now."
When Dugan had left the room the doctor said, "I'm almost sorry for him. Look what he's going back to. American rule."
The captain said, absent-mindedly, "Those Japanese will try it again some day."
"You think so?" said the doctor, a funny look on his face. "The Americans have the atomic bomb. Japan can never fight again."