five yards of our destination.
Suddenly it was night. In the tropics the border between day and night is sharp; as soon as the sun drops below the horizon it becomes pitch-dark. This was an immense advantage to us. All our other preparations were made. Here and there in the shadows little groups of our men crouched with their fingers on their rifle triggers. The captain had his hand on his saber and was staring hard in the direction of the enemy, waiting for the moment to give the command to charge.
Just as the cart reached a safe place, we came to the end of Hanyu no Yado.
Instantly the captain drew out his saber. Those of us who had brought the cart stopped singing and took up our rifles. During that brief interval of stillness you could hear, quite distinctly, the river flowing in the valley far below. The birds that had been busily twittering until a few minutes ago were now all fast asleep.
The captain raised his saber. The soldiers were poised, ready to shout their battle cry and charge. But just then the captain checked his command and stood transfixed. An extraordinary thing was happening. Out of the forest soared a voice—a high, clear voice, fervently singing Hanyu no Yado.
The captain grabbed one of our men who had started forward, and blocked others by spreading out his arms.
“Wait!” he shouted. “Listen to that!”
The voice in the forest was joined by two or three more, and then by voices from here, there, and everywhere. It was Hanyu no Yado sung in English: “Home, home, sweet home ... ”
We looked at each other in astonishment. What could this mean? Weren’t the men in the forest the dreaded enemy soldiers who were out to kill us? Were they only the villagers? In that case, we needn’t have been so anxious. We gave a sigh of relief and lowered our guns.
Now the forest was full of singing voices. A chorus arose even from the base of the cliff hanging over the river. We joined in and sang too.
The moon was shining. Everything was dyed blue in its cool light. There seemed to be luminous pillars of glass between the trees. One by one, shadowy figures came running out of that forest into the open space.
They were British soldiers.
Gathering into little groups here and there, they sang “Home Sweet Home” with true feeling. We had always thought Hanyu no Yado was a Japanese song, but it is actually an old English melody. Englishmen sing it out of nostalgic pride and longing for the joys of their beloved home; whenever they hear it, they think of their childhood, of their mothers, of the places where they grew up. And so they were astonished and moved to hear their enemy—the dangerous enemy they had surrounded high in the mountains of Burma-singing this song.
By this time we were no longer enemies. The battle never began. Before we quite knew what had happened, we were all singing together and coming up to one another to shake hands. Finally we built a bonfire in the middle of the open space and sat around it singing in chorus under the baton of our captain.
A tall Indian soldier pulled out a photograph of his family and gazed at it by the light of the fire. He was a stately, dignified looking man with a white turban and a black beard, but his eyes were as gentle as a lamb’s. He showed us the photograph—of his wife and two children smiling under a palm tree. It turned out that he was a businessman from Calcutta.
A soldier whose nationality we couldn’t tell asked us to show him our family pictures. One of our men pulled out a picture of his mother; the other soldier looked at it with tears in his eyes.
A ruddy-faced English soldier began to sing “If a body meet a body ... ” He was joined by one of our men, singing in Japanese. Then the Englishman put his arm around our man’s shoulder and they strode about together. The Japanese soldier sang at the top of his voice. We all joined in once again.
Mizushima improvised a beautiful accompaniment for this song too. Even the Englishmen applauded him loudly. Looking at the side of his face lit up by the firelight, you could see that tears were streaming down his cheek as he played. There were tears in everyone’s eyes as we sang together.
That night we learned that the war had ended three days earlier. Having no way to let their ferocious enemy know, the British troops thought they might have to annihilate us in order to mop up resistance. We threw down our guns.
THE GREEN PARAKEET
CHAPTER ONE
WE THREW down our guns. From that day we were prisoners of the British forces, something we had never dreamed could happen.
The following night the captain called us together and talked to us. He spoke slowly and haltingly, as we listened in silence.
“We’ve surrendered,” he began. “Not just us but our whole country. I don’t know what to think. I don’t know what will happen to us, where we’ll be taken, or what we’ll have to do. I don’t even know if we’ll be allowed to go on living.
“It’s hard to say what condition Japan is in. We lost contact long ago, and since we took to the mountains we’ve had no way of resuming it. But according to the leaflets and newspapers dropped by enemy planes, our country has been bombed from one end to the other, and many people have been burned, or wounded, or are starving to death. It can’t be all propaganda. Our people must be suffering. It makes your heart ache just to think of it.
“Our country is in ruins and here we are, prisoners of war, thousands of miles away. Who could have imagined such a thing? I can hardly believe it’s true—the thought of it bewilders me. I ask myself what happened? All I can feel is a sense of shock.
“In time, I suppose the shock will give way to sorrow. We’ll probably feel despair, and doubt, even anger and bitterness. But we can’t be sure what to think until we learn the facts. Actually, I began to suspect quite a while ago that we might end up like this. But now that it’s happened, I have to admit I’m completely at a loss.
“All we can do now is wait to see what the future brings. Our luck has turned against us, there’s no use fighting it. If there’s no way out, the manly thing to do is to recognize clearly how we stand, accept our lot, and make the best of it. Let’s at least have the courage to do that much.
“As far as I know, our situation is hopeless. It looks pretty grim for us. All we have left is our faith in each other. That’s the only thing we can count on. It’s all we have.
“So let us go on sharing our sorrows and our pain. Let us help each other. Up to now we’ve faced death together—let’s go on that way, sharing the same fate. We have to be ready for hardship. For all we know, we may die here in Burma. If that time comes, let us die together. Meanwhile, let’s try not to despair. Let’s try to live through this somehow.
“And if the day ever comes when we can go back to Japan, let us go back together—every man of us and work together to rebuild our country. That’s all I can say now.”
Our taut nerves slackened, and we sat there in a daze. Everyone stared at the ground, thinking to himself that the captain was right.
I remembered how stirred and excited we had been when we left Japan with cheers ringing in our ears, but how, even so, the whole country already seemed to be in an uneasy mood. Everybody was bragging about our strength, but our words were hollow. We were like drunken bullies. It was a vivid, painful memory, and I burned with shame.
Someone
