Yasuyuki Kasai - Dragon of the Mangroves

If the enemy had been a better shot, or if Shimizu had hurled the grenade a bit later, his body might have been already cold somewhere around the pond.

His own KIA would be inevitable, sooner or later. The enemy had already set up a cordon even in the remote mountains far from Hill 509. The way things stood, it was natural to think all routes leading to Hill 509 were under blockade.

No doubt, it would be senseless to continue that dangerous reconnaissance.

They found the game trail and began trudging silently. Sumi recognized anew what a troublesome duty he had, and nothing could stop him from getting bogged down and depressed. He spat out the mud that had splattered into his mouth during the run and found some blood mixed in his saliva on the ground.

While slithering down the slope and falling many times, he must have gotten a cut lip.

He tried to imagine Yukiko again.

Every time Yukiko had visited him, his old, poor, lonesome boardinghouse room on the riverbank in downtown Kyoto used to brighten up, as if a garden full of flowers had been planted inside. He recalled the day when he had the meal she had cooked there. He remembered the appetizing taste and flavor of the boiled meat and potatoes with soy sauce. When he had praised her good cooking, Yukiko had flashed an embarrassed smile, showing her white teeth. That night, they had embraced each other for the first time, and he had let her sleep in his arms. It was hard to find a happier day in his entire life up until now. He had indulged in those memories many times whenever possible since the Army had drafted him. But it didn’t work now because of the disturbing smells of blood, mud, dead grass, and gunpowder, however hard he might try to bring the fragrances of those days to mind.

After quite a bit, Shimizu finally broke silence. “It was a close shave. Are you all right, Lieutenant?”

“Yeah,” answered Sumi glumly. “How about you, Sarge?”

“Somehow I’m still in one piece. But this hill is no good. Let’s get back to the unit.”

“Well, I wonder why that bastard opened fire so easily, even though we’re in disguise.”

“I don’t know,” Shimizu said, “but I suppose some Japanese guys tried that when they were retreating from Hill 509. Anyway, we’d better head for the sea by taking the course east through the barren, as you suggested first.”

Shimizu agreed with Sumi this time, which seemed rather unusual. Nevertheless, they couldn’t depart in the daytime as long as the enemy fatigue party stayed on. Sumi became lost in thought again while they walked.

The odds were fifty-fifty whether they could get to Yanthitgyi by midnight, even if they could set out right away, considering the remaining distance. And their five boats couldn’t take more than one hundred men against a garrison of one battalion. It was impossible to save all the men from the beginning.

One doubt had smoldered in his mind since he had gotten the order. From the outset, the garrison didn’t have enough boats, if any. Although everybody said a creek-crossing operation would be easy, the garrison certainly had some who couldn’t swim because of injuries or ailments. He had no idea about what those men would do. It was likely that those unable to swim would be mercilessly abandoned on the island. It was a difficult enough task, even in peacetime, to swim across the three-hundred-meter-wide Myinkhon Creek that some men deficient in physical strength or swimming ability might come back after making it halfway. These weak men would need boats the most ardently of all. He believed he’d better utilize their five boats for such men, rather than sound soldiers.

When Sumi and Shimizu came back to the bush where the soldiers were waiting for them, the time was already well past noon. Sumi determined what to do and muttered to himself and the others who could hear, “Wait until night. We can save them, even on the nineteenth. Everything is going to be all right.”

The sun set at last, and the Indian fatigue party’s Caterpillars rattled and pulled out somewhere.

Sumi’s rescue party was quick to seize the opportunity to hit the road again. A bright, calm night deepened, and they were canopied by the sky jeweled with countless sparkling stars. Before they set off, each soldier had withdrawn deep into the dense woods and had taken a nap under a bush, in turns, during the day.

And Sumi had let every free soldier cook. They had pulled back further inside and boiled rice with solid alcohol stoves or tapers, so as not to emit smoke. With meals and sleep, they had all seemed revived. Their bodies seemed to have adapted to the hardship of their duty.

But it didn’t last long. As the night wore on, Sumi’s rescue party came up against a new kind of difficulty: They stepped into vast wetlands where they couldn’t find any roads. All they could see was a boundless community of reeds much higher than a person. The mud was often up to their knees, which made the march extremely toilsome. The compass was the only thing on which Sumi could rely, since the tall wall of grass blocked his view. Each soldier merely followed the man in front of him, for he could easily turn up missing if he left the row even a little. All the men were smeared with mud and gasping for air.

Before long, Sumi’s ears caught a faint drone of engines coming toward him.

He immediately urged the members to take precautions, saying, “Enemy aircraft are coming! Freeze, everybody! Don’t shake these reeds even a bit, or we’ll get strafed.”

The drone gradually came closer. The flying objects sounded like two small planes reducing altitude. They might be searching for enemies over the field of reeds. Every man stopped on the spot, as if he had turned into a stone statue. A second later, the pitch of the exhaust changed overhead, and Superior Private Morioka raised an unexpected voice. “Oh, it’s the Rising Sun!”

Other soldiers also shouted, one and all. “Yeah, that’s right! Japanese aircraft are over our heads.”

“They are reconnaissance planes. There are two, and both are carrying bombs.”

Sumi also looked up and saw a red disk painted on the white wing. Some men jumped and waved their arms, excited with the friendly aircraft hardly seen in those days.

Sumi recalled that Colonel Nagashima had mentioned requesting air cover.

Those two must be planes of the Fifth Air Division, making a sortie to support the creek-crossing operation. They were on the way to contain hostile gunboats, as scheduled.

He looked at his watch. It was a little over half past ten. The regiment HQ

was steadily putting its strategy into action, regardless of the whereabouts or the outcomes of the Sumi rescue party. Ramree Garrison was now trying to swim across Myinkhon Creek.

After a while, Sumi heard a few faint booms from the north in a risen wind.

The friendly aircraft had likely started attacking. But those explosive sounds dropped off soon, and the lonesome, sheer silence returned. Now rustles of reeds and soft smacking footfalls in the mud were all the sounds they could hear. The odor of the sea drifted in the air. They were apparently closer to the strait.

A sound like distant thunder suddenly came from the north. It began to rumble incessantly. Sumi could tell it was the boom of a cannon. The garrison was obviously shelled around Myinkhon Creek. First Class Private Arima murmured in a grievous tone of voice, “Oh, no! They’ve been spotted. That damned crossing operation ended up in a fiasco.”

“Stop your silly talk! How can you be sure it’s a fiasco? Nothing is sure until we get there,” Shimizu said.

Then Pondgi added, “Yes, a man doesn’t die so easily, even if he gets shelled. Listen! The firing has stopped.”

Sumi strained to hear. He couldn’t figured out the real state of the strait; it might be in the midst of a fierce battle, but there was no roar of cannon fire, as Pondgi said. Only reed leaves were swaying in the wind. It was a rather serene night.