Yasuyuki Kasai - Dragon of the Mangroves

Abruptly, the clattering died down. Kasuga expected a deafening explosion of an enemy boat, but the surroundings were sinking into a hush again. The recon section might have already beaten a hurried retreat; nobody could hear their exhaust.

The whole battle ended in less than five minutes. Kasuga wondered what caused it to end so quickly. Two planes might have been too few, or they might not have had enough ammo. Or, the firepower or the number of enemy boats might have been too much or many for the recons.

Kasuga was disappointed. He didn’t understand what that operation meant.

He doubted such a halfway attack could contain the enemy. Even when looked at in the most favorable light, it was hard to think the air support had gotten the desired results—to make their crossing operation easy. Instead, it seemed to advertise that the Japanese Army was doing something that night. He couldn’t help feeling it was an unwelcome favor, being sorry for the airmen having come to support them without considering the difficulty of night attacks.

After a short while, a voice came from the front. “Our spearhead has arrived at Myinkhon Creek. Hurry up!”

Kasuga could see the sky through the foliage, which was getting more sparse.

Now it was late at night, and the moon was setting in the hill. But it was lighter than expected, owing to the firmament full of stars.

When the Fifth Platoon finally got to the waterside, Kasuga found the area already full with soldiers. One was tying a light machine gun, wrapped up by an inner tube of a tire, to his torso. Others were building a raft with bamboo poles they had kept and carried with jealous care. Some exhausted soldiers were sitting down on the ground idly with vacuous expressions on their faces.

Tomita stopped a man nearby. “Hey, what’s coming up? Have you gotten any orders to prepare?”

“I don’t know.” The answering soldier was just about to slip off his clothes.

“What do you mean you don’t know? You’re preparing for creek crossing yourself, aren’t you? Where is the company commander?” Tomita bawled at the man.

“I don’t know means I don’t know. There’s been no news of the company commander since he went to the battalion HQ to receive an order. I’m just preparing for whenever the damn order to dive may come,” answered the soldier rather calmly.

The man seemed like an old regular. He had the presence of a man who had served a long hitch in the military. Although his manner of speaking wasn’t rude, he continued to undress without showing the slightest wince at Tomita’s bluster.

Having gone through the maze of the mangrove, all the troops of Machine Gun Company were tangled up at the waterfront. And their chain of command was much the same.

Kasuga began to fret anew upon looking at the left side of the creek, where a black dotted line extended along the surface. It was a column of soldiers who had already started swimming toward the opposite bank, unseen in the darkness.

They were riflemen of Seventh Company who had been marching ahead of Machine Gun Company. Far from the preparation, they were clearly performing the crossing itself. Meanwhile, MG Company stayed behind without knowing whether the order to prepare had been issued or not. The situation had already become critical.

The murky water of Myinkhon Creek flowed quietly in front of Kasuga’s eyes.

It was quiet enough to make him feel he could hear the twinkling of the stars in the sky.

After keeping silent for a while, Tomita raised his voice. “Listen, men! Prepare for crossing right now. You have my permission. There is no time to wait for an official order anymore. Throw away everything you don’t need. The regiment commander issued the order to return with no property but our own bodies.”

All of the Fifth Platoon had been waiting for this. Everybody hurriedly set out fixing himself up for the crossing. Kasuga took off all his clothes except his “fundoshi,” a classical underwear made with white cotton. He decided to discard his helmet and all of his spare clothes, and he also gave up the idea of bringing the rice, except for some in the hollow of the bamboo pole. He thought it wasteful to abandon his hard-hulled rice but had no option but to make his outfit as light as possible.

Then he destroyed his gas mask. As equipment for chemical warfare, it was originally classified. Not so sure that he should discard it so easily, he asked Tomita for instructions—only to be shouted at. “You idiot! Do you have any idea what’s so classified about such junk? It’s nothing but charcoal!”

Kasuga meekly tossed the wreckage in his knapsack, where he put most of the things he was leaving behind. He shoved the knapsack into one of cavities among the prop roots and quickly covered it with mud.

He didn’t have much to start with. Rushed by Second Lieutenant Jinno, he had already left the bulky equipment, like a shelter tent and blankets, in the trench around Payadgi before he had taken part in the Battle of Mountain Maeda. He had also buried letters and photographs from home in the old foxhole at Yanthitgyi Hill 604. Even if he got killed and skewered by the point of a bayonet, he didn’t want to be the source of laughter for enemies about his happy peacetime memories.

Then he stuffed his uniforms, smeared with dust and dirt, into a haversack.

After he had packed his mess kit with the inner tray containing Hirono’s finger bone, his canteen, and his ammunition boots, he painstakingly tied the swollen haversack to the bamboo pole with a hempen cord. As the finishing touch, he attached his bayonet and a rubber pouch, keeping three precious grenades inside, to the belt of his fundoshi. Now all was ready. He inhaled deeply. The air filling his lungs was damp and smelled of saltwater. Nevertheless, it felt somewhat bracing.

Abruptly a stifling holler was heard from their right. “Fifth Platoon! Where is Fifth Platoon?”

One gaunt soldier threaded through the tree trunks and came running toward them. Tomita promptly responded, “Here we are! I’m the acting commander.”

Tomita eagerly threw his arm about and shook his white sash with another hand. The soldier could be an orderly dispatched belatedly by the company HQ.

He came up to Tomita and said, “I pass on an order from the company commander! All the Machine Gun Company should cross the creek and shift to Lamu by breaking through all the marshes in the opposite bank. If needed, all are allowed to occupy positions at Leikdaung Island on the way, assemble there, and destroy the pursuing enemy. Over!”

Although the wording sounded ridiculous, this meant that the crossing operation had gone into action. Kasuga swallowed his saliva and waited for instructions. He was in the middle of the tropics; nonetheless, the night air touching his naked body was so cold that he got goose bumps.

Tomita said seriously, “Hey, men! You fought well up to now. Though it ended up a retreat to our regret, you have nothing to feel ashamed of. Swim to the mainland, no matter what. Let’s go!”

Tomita had already gotten naked, save for his fundoshi. He put his pistol, tucked in a rubber pouch, on his head, wrapped a rag over his head and cheeks, and tied it up under his chin, which looked weird. With Tomita in the lead, every soldier stepped into the water without a word. Kasuga also followed. When his thigh soaked in the viscid saltwater, he felt the festering wound reopen. It should have been excruciatingly painful, but, strangely, no pain struck him; his senses had been paralyzed at the border between life and death.

As the water reached his throat, his feet automatically left the mud on the bottom. He clung to the bamboo pole and gave himself to the flow of Myinkhon Creek. The bank was already one hundred meters far behind when he looked back. He could vaguely see many figures of soldiers, going this way and that. A confused air hung over the waterside.