Haruki Murakami - The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

First we dig a big hole here, the lieutenant said, speaking as if to himself. He stood up and took a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket. Putting a cigarette between his lips, he offered one to the doctor, then lit both with a match. The two concentrated on their smoking to fill the silence. Again the lieutenant began digging at the ground with his boot. He drew a kind of diagram in the earth, then rubbed it out. Finally, he asked the veterinarian, Where were you born?

In Kanagawa, the doctor said. In a town called Ofuna, near the sea. The lieutenant nodded. And where were you born? the veterinarian asked. Instead of answering, the lieutenant narrowed his eyes and watched the smoke rising from between his fingers. No, it never pays to ask a military man questions, the veterinarian told himself again. They like to ask questions, but they'll never give you an answer. They wouldn't give you the time of day-literally.

Theres a movie studio there, said the lieutenant.

It took the doctor a few seconds to realize the lieutenant was talking about Ofuna. That's right. A big studio. I've never been inside, though.

The lieutenant dropped what was left of his cigarette on the ground and crushed it out. I hope you make it back there, he said. Of course, theres an ocean to cross between here and Japan. Well probably all die over here. He kept his eyes on the ground as he spoke. Tell me, Doctor, are you afraid of death?

I guess it depends on how you die, said the veterinarian, after a moments thought.

The lieutenant raised his eyes and looked at the veterinarian as if his curiosity had been aroused. He had apparently been expecting another answer. You're right, he said. It does depend on how you die.

The two remained silent for a time. The lieutenant looked as if he might just fall asleep there, standing up. He was obviously exhausted. An especially large grasshopper flew over them like a bird and disappeared into a distant clump of grass with a noisy beating of wings. The lieutenant looked at his watch.

Time to get started, he said to no one in particular. Then he spoke to the veterinarian. Id like you to stay around for a while. I might have to ask you to do me a favor.

The veterinarian nodded.

The soldiers led the Chinese prisoners to the opening in the woods and untied their hands. The corporal drew a large circle on the ground, using a baseball bat-though why a soldier would have a bat the veterinarian found another mystery-and ordered the prisoners in Japanese to dig a deep hole the size of the circle. With the picks and shovels, the four men in baseball uniforms started digging in silence. Half the squad stood guard over them, while the other half stretched out beneath the trees. They seemed to be in desperate need of sleep; no sooner had they hit the ground in full gear than they began snoring. The four soldiers who re- mained awake kept watch over the digging nearby, rifles resting on their hips, bayonets fixed, ready for immediate use. The lieutenant and the corporal took turns overseeing the work and napping under the trees.

It took less than an hour for the four Chinese prisoners to dig a hole some twelve feet across and deep enough to come up to their necks. One of the men asked for water, speaking in Japanese. The lieutenant nodded, and a soldier brought a bucket full of water. The four Chinese took turns ladling water from the bucket and gulping it down. They drank almost the entire bucketful. Their uniforms were smeared black with blood, mud, and sweat.

The lieutenant had two of the soldiers pull the wagon over to the hole. The corporal yanked the tarpaulin off, to reveal four dead men piled in the wagon. They wore the same baseball uniforms as the prisoners, and they, too, were obviously Chinese. They appeared to have been shot, and their uniforms were covered with black bloodstains. Large flies were beginning to swarm over the corpses. Judging from the way the blood had dried, the doctor guessed they had been dead for close to twenty-four hours.

The lieutenant ordered the four Chinese who had dug the hole to throw the bodies into it. Without a word, faces blank, the men took the bodies out of the wagon and threw them, one at a time, into the hole. Each corpse landed with a dull thud. The numbers on the dead mens uniforms were 2, 5, 6, and 8. The veterinarian committed them to memory.

When the four Chinese had finished throwing the bodies into the hole, the soldiers tied each man to a nearby tree. The lieutenant held up his wrist and studied his watch with a grim expression. Then he looked up toward a spot in the sky for a while, as if searching for something there. He looked like a stationmaster standing on the platform and waiting for a hopelessly overdue train. But in fact he was looking at nothing at all. He was just allowing a certain amount of time to go by. Once he had accomplished that, he turned to the corporal and gave him curt orders to bayonet three of the four prisoners (numbers 1, 7, and 9).

Three soldiers were chosen and took up their positions in front of the three Chinese. The soldiers looked paler than the men they were about to kill. The Chinese looked too tired to hope for anything. The corporal offered each of them a smoke, but they refused. He put his cigarettes back into his shirt pocket. Taking the veterinarian with him, the lieutenant went to stand somewhat apart from the other soldiers. You'd better watch this, he said. This is another way to die. The veterinarian nodded. The lieutenant is not saying this to me, he thought. Hes saying it to himself. In a gentle voice, the lieutenant explained, Shooting them would be the simplest and most efficient way to kill them, but we have orders not to waste a single bullet-and certainly not to waste bullets killing Chinese. Were supposed to save our ammunition for the Russians. Well just bayonet them, I suppose, but thats not as easy as it sounds. By the way, Doctor, did they teach you how to use a bayonet in the army?

The doctor explained that as a cavalry veterinarian, he had not been trained to use a bayonet.

Well, the proper way to kill a man with a bayonet is this: First you thrust it in under the ribs-here. The lieutenant pointed to his own torso just above the stomach. Then you drag the point in a big, deep circle inside him, to scramble the organs. Then you thrust upward to puncture the heart. You cant just stick it in and expect him to die. We soldiers have this drummed into us. Hand-to-hand combat using bayonets ranks right up there along with night assaults as the pride of the Imperial Army-though mainly, its a lot cheaper than tanks and planes and cannons. Of course, you can train all you want, but finally what you're stabbing is a straw doll, not a live human being. It doesn't bleed or scream or spill its guts on the ground. These soldiers have never actually killed a human being that way. And neither have I.

The lieutenant looked at the corporal and gave him a nod. The corporal barked his order to the three soldiers, who snapped to attention. Then they took a half-step back and thrust out their bayonets, each man aiming his blade at his prisoner. One of the young men (number 7) growled something in Chinese that sounded like a curse and gave a defiant spit- which never reached the ground but dribbled down the front of his baseball uniform.

At the sound of the next order, the three soldiers thrust their bayonets into the Chinese men with tremendous force. Then, as the lieutenant had said, they twisted the blades so as to rip the mens internal organs, and thrust the tips upward. The cries of the Chinese men were not very loud-more like deep sobs than screams, as if they were heaving out the breath left in their bodies all at once through a single opening. The soldiers pulled out their bayonets and stepped back. The corporal barked his order again, and the men repeated the procedure exactly as before-stabbing, twisting, thrusting upward, withdrawing. The veterinarian watched in numbed silence, overtaken by the sense that he was beginning to split in two. He became simultaneously the stabber and the stabbed. He could feel both the impact of the bayonet as it entered his victims body and the pain of having his internal organs slashed to bits.