throat.
The lights on the ridges were flashing signals faster than ever, moving here and there. Then one of our men must have lost his nerve, for a voice at one side uttered: “Namu Amida Butsu (Praise the Lord Buddha).”
I heard a sharp reprimanding, “Shh.” It was Mizushima. “There may be an enemy scout around here,” he whispered.
Everyone was .silent again. Once more there was cannon fire overhead; star shells burst so close to us that we were almost blinded; now and then we heard a heavy rain of earth and rocks come pouring down, or a tree trunk splinter.
When that had subsided a little, Mizushima edged up to the captain and whispered something. A few moments later he began climbing up the face of the ravine all alone, carrying his harp. The stars were glittering in the sky; you could see his silhouette among the trees for quite a while, until it disappeared over the ridge.
I’m not sure how much later it was (it seemed like a short time) when we heard twigs crackling in a clump of trees about a dozen yards away. Then we heard someone coming through the underbrush. Two men were talking—in English.
“There’s nobody down here,” said a strong, young voice. “It must have been an animal.”
After a few moments’ silence the other one said, “I need a cigarette.”
“Too risky!” the first voice warned. “Forget it.” “What do you mean? It’s all right—they’re not around here.”
We heard the scrape of a match and saw a flare of light in that direction. Two British soldiers were sitting on a boulder. The match flame lit up their red cheeks and blue eyes. They were scouts. The match went out immediately. We held our breath and remained motionless. Even in the dark we could see each other distinctly , but the enemy soldiers didn’t notice us.
One of them began to whistle softly. The other joined him, humming along in a low voice. It was a tune which we knew as “The Firefly’s Glimmer.” Presently one of them sighed, and said, “I wonder how my family’s getting along.”
Just then we heard the sound of a harp coming from the other side of the ridge. At first it was a sad, quiet melody, but soon it became quite passionate, a wild improvisation.
The glowing tip of the cigarette bobbed up in surprise. “What’s that?” one of the scouts exclaimed. “Am I hearing things?”
“No, I hear it too. Whoever it is, he really knows how to play!”
We could see the lights on the mountain ridges swarm together for a moment and then head down into the other valley toward the harp.
In the darkness near us the enemy scouts were talking agitatedly.
“Let’s go have a look over there—it’s probably the Japs.”
“Don’t be stupid. That must be a native village. But maybe they know where the Japs are.” The two soldiers went scrambling up the ridge.
The harp stopped for a while, then started up again even farther away. When one of our men went to investigate he saw that the enemy lights were being lured farther and farther into the distance.
That is how we were saved. Corporal Mizushima returned to us the next morning covered with scratches and bruises.
During our flight we were often attacked by Gurkhas. These ferocious soldiers wore green uniforms and had curved daggers stuck in their leather belts. They would wait in the trees and, as we passed below, sweep us with a sudden burst of automatic rifle fire. We feared the Gurkhas more than anything, and whenever we heard they were in a nearby village we skirted around it to avoid them.
If we came to a forest that seemed dangerous, Corporal Mizushima always changed into Burmese dress and went scouting.
The Burmese look very much like us Japanese, except that they have light beards. However, Mizushima was only twenty-one, and had a light beard and large, clear eyes like a Burmese. His skin was deeply tanned. But above all, though he was a man of great courage and daring, he seemed to have the sad, contemplative expression that tropical peoples such as the Burmese often have, perhaps because of their oppressive climate. And when he wrapped the red and yellow patterned longyi around himself he looked just like a native.
He was so convincing in his Burmese outfit that we used to laugh and tell him, “Say, Mizushima, you ought to stay in Burma. They’d love you here.”
Mizushima would laugh too, and looking down at himself would put together a few scraps of Burmese. “I ... native of Burma. Burma is fine country.”
Dressed in that disguise he would take his harp and disappear into the forest. If he thought the road was safe, he played the harp and sang a native song. Then the rest of us came out of hiding and made our advance.
Once Mizushima walked right into a band of Gurkhas. In a giant teak tree directly ahead there was a Gurkha astride one of the branches. Biting a red lower lip shaded by a scraggly mustache, the man sat watching him with sharp eyes. As Mizushima took stock of the situation, he noticed more green-uniformed figures here and there in the tall trees, hiding among the leaves.
It was too late to get off the road. Mustering up his courage, he started singing a Burmese priest’s song and walked straight under the giant tree.
The Gurkha must have thought he was a traveling musician, for he threw a coin down to him. Four or five other soldiers followed his example and scattered down coins. Mizushima picked them up and bowed his thanks in the traditional Oriental manner, raising the coins to his forehead.
The soldier astride the branch swung his legs idly as he called out in a loud voice, “Hey, seen any Japs?”
Mizushima lifted his arm and pointed to a distant mountain. The Gurkha nodded, drew his curved dagger from his belt, reached out and cut off a fragrant fruit from the tree, and tossed it down to him.
Again Mizushima bowed his thanks. Then, standing under that tree infested with Gurkhas, he played them a tune—a tune we used as a danger signal.
Another time, something rather comical happened. Mizushima had been out scouting so long that we began to worry. Finally, just as we were getting ready to send out a second scout, we heard a faint song—it was our all-clear signal—coming from the depths of the forest.
With a sigh of relief we headed into the forest and found Mizushima crouching in some tall grass, strumming his harp dejectedly. When we came up to him we were startled to see that he was wearing a large banana leaf wrapped around his waist, instead of a longyi. The stalk jutted out in the back like a bird’s tail feathers.
“What happened to you?” we asked. He explained that a fearsome looking Burmese had jumped out at him from the side of the road and pointed a pistol at his head. It was one of the robbers who were beginning to appear everywhere, using arms abandoned by the Japanese troops. But since most Burmese can be robbed of nothing but their longyi, that’s what the man asked of Mizushima.
On a scouting mission disguised as a Burmese, Mizushima always went unarmed. To lose his life for the sake of a longyi would have meant to fail in his duty, so he did as he was told.
However, the curious thing about these robbers is that they carry a large supply of banana leaves. The Burmese wear nothing under their longyi, not even drawers. If you take away their longyi, you
