“You’ve all got big mouths,” the XO told Fujikura. “An officer has to learn how to rein in his tongue. And by the way, never confuse the Hagakure with ‘Imperial Instructions to the Military.’ The two things have nothing in common. There will be no need to pursue the matter any further. The recon students exceeded their authority. They overreached themselves, and I intend to admonish them. So don’t worry, just put it out of your mind.” That was an uncommonly fair decision. It turns out that the XO plays a pretty nice game. One fellow advanced a theory that he is a descendant of the masterless samurai who was expelled, during the so-called “cat-monster disturbance,” from the Nabeshima clan and was later to produce the Hagakure.
Mr. Wang Ching-wei[4] has died in a hospital in Nagoya.
November 14
The day of the sumo match.
Purple curtains stretched around two sumo rings out behind the drill hall, and navy blankets, emblazoned with anchors, covered the four pillars. Facing the rings, seats were set up for the commander, the wardroom officers, and the officers of the first and the second gun rooms. To the left and right of these were seats for the recon students and the student reserves. Petty officers and enlisted men filled the seats further down.
The match was conducted as a tournament, according to the initial plans. From 1300 hours, the seamen divisions had their match. Once they had completed their semi-final bout, it was our turn to hold preliminaries. The bustle that had surrounded the rings gave way at once to complete silence, suffused with a kind of mute truculence. To a man, the wrestlers’ adopted a fair-and-square attitude. Team 1 on our side won its match by a single point, but Team 2 lost, also by a point. This meant that Team 1 of the student reserves would compete with the recon students’ Team 2 in the finals. Before that, however, the seamen had their final match, and the victory went to the carrier-based bomber trainees. But we took hardly any interest in anyone else’s competition.
Finally, our spearhead wrestler, Cadet Murase, faced off against Ensign K. The instant they rose from their crouches, they threw themselves into it, heaving against one another fiercely. Presently they moved into belt grips. First, Murase was pushed outward, his body arching back. My heart pounded, and I broke out in a cold sweat. I thought he was done for. But not for nothing had Murase earned his reputation in sumo back at Waseda University. With a wrapping maneuver, he freed himself, and, in a flash, he pushed his opponent out of the ring. A loud cheer went up. Our second wrestler brought us another win. We lost the third and the fourth bouts, won the fifth, and then lost the sixth. In the end, the contest came down to a match between the two team captains. Never have I witnessed a more exciting fight. Deafening cheers rang out from both sides. Our captain was Shirozaki, a Ritsumei-kan graduate weighing in at seventy-three kilograms. We had firm faith in him, but nonetheless our faces flushed, and all of us, without being aware of it, leaned forward in anticipation. Shirozaki himself, however, approached the ring with an air of perfect composure, stood up, and, without a hint of shakiness, easily dispatched his opponent with an overarm throw. For a moment we were struck dumb, but then came the applause. At last we had won, and our fortnight-long grudge was satisfied. It was a load off my mind. I felt as if I myself had been in the ring.
We returned to the barracks in triumph, in the excitement rapping each other on the shoulders for no good reason at all. “Hey, buddy!” “Hey yourself!” We talked of nothing but the sumo match. At dinner, our instructor, Lt.jg S., stopped by to eat with us. I was curious as to how he would behave, but he seems to be genuinely happy for us in our victory. In due course, our prize was brought in: a case of beer and two bottles of sake. A couple of ensigns from the 13th Class came over to thank the wrestlers. Also present were Lt. O. of the Aviation Maintenance Branch, Surgeon Lt.jg A., and Paymaster Lt.jg J. Next, yet another ensign from the 13th Class, a carrier-based bomber pilot who was good and soused, staggered over to congratulate us. They all looked immensely pleased. Clearly, the Naval Engineering College graduates, the surgeons and the paymasters—not to mention the students of the 13th Class—really had it in for the Naval Academy men. Practically everybody came by, except for the junior officers of the first gun room, all of whom graduated from the Academy.
We had agreed among ourselves to drink no more than half a bottle of beer each, but our visitors wouldn’t leave it at that. Again and again they cried out, “Cheers!” “Bring more sake!” Aviation Maintenance Lt. O. reeled away, singing “Bring me sake, my true love,” and back he came with a half-gallon jug. Paymaster Lt.jg J. sent his dog robber out to fetch his own personal ration of a dozen beers. And so the whole company went off on a mad drinking spree, singing military songs and overturning the dishes on the tables.
“Is our real enemy America or the Naval Academy?” someone asked. “We dedicate ourselves to Japan, but we don’t intend to die for the Imperial Navy,” declared someone else. At which a drunken Fujikura yelled out, “I don’t intend to die for anybody!” I kicked him in the shin. Fortunately, in all the chaos his voice didn’t carry.
The party finally ended when the command to “Prepare for the rounds” was issued. By that time, we had emptied one hundred eighty bottles of beer, seven half-gallon jugs of sake, and a considerable quantity of alcoholic beverages of a dubious nature. Each of us downed eleven apples and four oranges. Hard to believe how much we consumed. After the rounds I stood duty, my head spinning.
November 19
We had a spell of lndian summer days, with on-again/off-again training flights. But today at 2140, for the first time in a long while, Lt.jg S. ordered us all out on deck. We drew up, wondering what could be the matter. There seemed to be no call for a reprimand, now that the frenzy over the sumo match had subsided. The lieutenant showed up on the dot with a strained look on his face. He stared at us for some time.
“As of tomorrow, your training flights will cease.” This was unexpected. “And there is no prospect of resuming them in the foreseeable future. No fuel is available. Japan staked the fate of the nation on Operation SHO-1 in the Philippines, and the results are anything but welcome.” His emotions overcame him as he spoke, but he pressed on as if talking to himself, choking up from time to time. “We spoke of life and death, we talked about breaking through, but now we have nothing. Nothing at all is left us.”
My mind went blank. I couldn’t take it all in. In the month and a half since we arrived at Usa, we have had twelve days of flight training—in all, a mere ten hours and a smattering of minutes in the air. Now it looks as if the final battles may go on without us, that they may be lost to us forever.
As he wound things up, the lieutenant gave us a kind of placebo. “Surely you will be able to fly again, just as soon as we find a solution to the fuel problem. So don’t let it get you down.” As I climbed into my hammock, a flood of tears streamed down my face. I have finally shaken off my attachments to the things I once loved—to the campus, to the beauty of Kyoto and Yamato, and also to the Manyoshu. I have at last directed my mind into a single channel, and now they are telling me yet again to abandon what has become my sole purpose in life. We are absolutely forbidden to live freely. Will we now be denied the chance to die gracefully?
4
Wang Ching-wei (1883-1944), rival of Chiang Kai-shek, was head of the government established in Nanking to administer Japanese-occupied China; he lived in Japan during the war and died in Nagoya.