Gaijin Cowgirl (13): In the service of the Emperor
“I don’t like you, Staff Sergeant. You lack fighting spirit.”
(Previous chapter or start at the beginning.)
BURMA
MARCH, 1945
The ominous drone of propellers broke the idyll of a humid afternoon. From their perch near the city, Major Shigeru Takahashi and his aide watched the triangle formation of Allied bombers emerge from the north, silver wings reflecting spots of sunlight against the deep blue sky. The planes flew in a tight formation below 4,000 feet, prepared to risk Japanese anti-aircraft fire.
“Today again,” groaned his aide, a Private Moriki, whose tattered uniform seemed several sizes too large; he like many of the men had virtually shrunk from disease and privation. Takahashi, however, stood erect in an immaculate officer’s uniform, cap visor crisply paralleling his brow, insignia precisely pinned to his breast: the very picture of vigor.
Across the river the city teemed in panic. Soldiers scrambled to take up arms or find cover. Takahashi remained calm, detached. He was far from the enemy’s sights and the notion of watching others die left him unmoved; his concern was with a different kind of time.
He regarded the incoming airplanes from the stillness of a large brick Buddhist pagoda atop a hillock amid the otherwise flat emerald rice paddies, sunlight catching fire on the occasional gilded stupas among the trees. It looked idyllic from a distance, although the paddies no longer grew rice and the last oxen had been devoured months ago.
The lead B-17 erupted into flames a few seconds before Takahashi first heard the report of an 8cm gun from the Army base. The boom of the exploding airplane followed shortly after. Private Moriki let out a cry of delight and Takahashi allowed himself a tight smile.
A series of lights and sounds followed like an exploding string of Chinese firecrackers. The next two bombers could not avoid flying through the burning ordinance of the exploded lead plane and burst into fireballs. Only those pilots in the back of the formation had enough time to ditch their incendiaries and fly through the conflagration unmolested while their payloads thundered uselessly in the river. The remaining Allied bombers fled west, leaving a trail of white parachutes floating above the black flak and debris.
It was a rare victory, and one Takahashi knew was unlikely to be repeated. For two years the Japanese had ruled Burma, having swept northwards after the fall of Singapore and Malaya. But their army, 300,000 strong and full of fighting spirit, lacked the provisions to complete the assault against the British Raj in India. Indeed, in the heady days of victory, even the most senior officers in Southeast Asia didn’t know the truth: that since June of 1942, and the sinking of the fleet in the Pacific, the war had been lost.
Yes, the fighting war had long been a lost cause. But not the secret war; not the other war. Not Takahashi’s war.
Dabbing sweat from his forehead with a kerchief, he turned now toward the looming central stupa, a huge, passive monument that rose over fifty meters from a bouquet of smaller chedis and the ruins of ancient monastery walls. An ugly hole had been punched in the stupa’s side. On the ground below lay the corpses of two Burmese coolies he had recruited. He and Moriki had shot them once the entrance was pried open. With the bombers gone, the air was once more filled with the greedy buzzing of flies – the true victor in this war.
“A great discovery followed by a courageous victory, sir,” offered the aide.
“You realize my mission is of utmost secrecy, soldier.”
“Yes sir.”
He motioned for the private to enter the stupa’s wound.
“Your sacrifice will be remembered.” The aide, entranced by the dance of smoke in the sky, neither saw nor heard Takahashi’s pistol leave its holster.
* * *
“Staff Sergeant Yasuda, you’re wanted at headquarters.”
Yasuda looked up at the soldier delivering the message and nodded, but he could not pull himself away from the side of the cot where he held the hand of Corporal Imai. There was a time when the staff sergeant would have given any enlisted man in his regiment hell for hesitating to follow an order. But now, gazing down at the wasted remains of Imai, who was from the same Kyushu island village as Yasuda, he felt no urgency. He wasn’t sure exactly when he had changed, and changed so completely, but that old, disciplined Yasuda lay buried in the mud back somewhere along the trail of corpses.
“Staff Sergeant?”
Yasuda sighed. The hand he held was as insubstantial as a clutch of straw. Imai had suffered against malaria, dysentery, malnutrition, and shock from losing a foot to a mine. The nurse, who looked as haggard as her charges, had said Imai might make it, but Yasuda knew she had been lying out of kindness.
He followed the other soldier across the compound to Lieutenant-General Mutaguchi’s staff headquarters. Yasuda’s eyes strayed to the wing that had been recently erected in the back of the British colonial house; geishas lived there, whispered the soldiers.
The very thought made him angry again, coaxing him out of his lethargy. The Lieutenant-General had been cavorting with geishas all spring while his 15th Army was smashed to pieces in the hills of Kohima…sipping sake and listening to women singing beautiful songs while soldiers in despair, unable to walk another step, embraced and committed double suicide with a grenade; taking pleasure in his calligraphy as his men cut off the fingers of dead comrades to cremate them and return the bones to Japan….
The messenger left Yasuda in the colonial house’s foyer, still replete with comfortable Chesterfield chairs and sofa, lorded over by a huge imperial flag of the rising sun. The room seemed too grand for the diminutive Mutaguchi, enveloped in a big foreigner’s chair. Yet this pudgy little man, it was rumored, had been the one who faked a Chinese assault on Japanese troops in Manchuria, the Marco Polo Bridge incident of 1937, thus arranging an excuse for the invasion that had begun the entire Pacific war.
Mutaguchi’s reputation soared as the besieger of Malaya and Singapore in 1942, and it was with high expectations that he took the land war to the British Raj, to sever the lifeline to the Nationalist Chinese that ran from Burma to Chunking and to seize the sparkling riches of India.
Who dared question his audacious Imphal campaign? No one, but the reports in the Japanese and co-opted native press failed to mention that it had brought the Army in Burma to its knees. Now Yasuda found this conqueror of the perfidious Chinese and slayer of the mighty British empire sitting quietly in the oversized foreign chaise looking distracted.
Not so the man who occupied the other chair: erect and engaged as his superior sat slumped and chastened; tall and boasting a new pair of round eyeglasses; a newly issued, smart officer’s uniform displaying the insignia of major. This newcomer had the same smirk as the cocksure officers who had overthrown the civilian government and rushed Japan into war. Yasuda saluted as he was supposed to. “Staff Sergeant Yasuda reporting, sir.”
The lieutenant-general said, “This is Major…no, excuse me, he is now Colonel Takahashi. His insignia are on their way. He is on a top-secret mission from Tokyo. You will not speak of it to anyone under any circumstance. You will obey his every order. Clear? Then I leave you in the hands of Colonel Takahashi.”
The lieutenant-general brusquely saluted Colonel Takahashi, in return for a respectful nod. This made Yasuda feel even more apprehensive about this strange officer who seemed too young to be accorded such deference by the head of the 15thArmy.
“I must oversee maneuvers,” the lieutenant-general added, and walked out, leaving the engineer alone with this new superior.
Colonel Takahashi regarded him for a long moment as a cat might eye a mouse with its tail stuck in a trap.
“Excuse me, sir,” Yasuda said, “may I ask what our mission is?”
“You have been selected because I need engineers.” The colonel’s remarks snapped as neatly as the clean folds on his immaculate uniform. “The 15th Army can no longer hold its position at the Irrawaddy. The order to retreat to Moulmein will be given this evening. We don’t have much time. First I need to requisition a hospital train.”
“Sir?”
Takahashi cleared his throat. “How many healthy men can you muster? They must be able to swim.”
“Swim, sir?”
“I asked for a number, not for an ignorant question. I’ll need demolition experts. I’ll need able-bodied men who can push heavy loads. And who can swim well.”
“There are few healthy men, sir. In fact I am the only one from my unit who can still stand without a stick.”
“What is your unit, soldier?”
“The 20th independent engineering regiment, sir.”
“Well, Staff Sergeant, I need a dozen men in the next hour. Then we’ll need equipment.”
“For what kind of job, sir?”
“There is heavy equipment – tanks, actually – in the jungle. They are abandoned, their motors destroyed, but they can be repaired to be used to defend the city if we return them to Rangoon. These tanks are situated directly beside a river. You will devise a way so that a dozen men can push these tanks into the river and pull them along.”
Yasuda’s brow furrowed. “We would need a large boat.”
“We don’t have time. This must be carried out in the next few hours.”
Yasuda thought this sounded very strange. “I suppose these tanks could be heaved onto some kind of raft, but then they would sink, due to their weight.”
“That’s acceptable, as long as they can be then pulled a short distance.”
“But wouldn’t that be the end of the tanks?”
Takahashi rose from his chair. “Don’t question me, Staff Sergeant, just carry out this order. Prepare a raft and the necessary levers and ropes so that a dozen men can pull a tank along a river bottom for about ten meters.”
“Yes sir.” Yasuda gave a limp salute and turned to leave.
“Staff Sergeant.”
Yasuda came to attention again. “Sir.”
The slap nearly crumpled him, as much from the surprise as from Yasuda’s weakened state. “I don’t like you, Staff Sergeant. You lack fighting spirit.”
“I fought hard at Kohima, sir.” His cheek stung.
“You’re a disgrace, slouching like that. If we had more time or more available men, I’d recommend a suitable punishment. But I’m stuck with you. So let me tell you that this mission is of the greatest importance to the service of the Emperor.” The colonel slapped him again, with the back of his hand. “You have the look of defeat on your face. And yes, our military is suffering in battle. But the battle is only half the war that we are fighting for the Emperor, for our nation. The other battle, Staff Sergeant, we are winning. This mission is the culmination of that battle, and its success will ensure the security and prosperity of the empire long after the last Japanese soldier leaves this Godforsaken country. Do you understand?”
“Other battle, sir?”
“Are you questioning my judgment, Staff Sergeant?”
He winced in anticipation of being struck a third time. “No sir.”
“One hour, then, Staff Sergeant, be here in one hour with a dozen men.”
“Hai!” Yasuda swallowed his distaste and exited with a smart salute and a pair of red cheeks.
* * *
The pathetic squad set out from Rangoon in a truck, led by Takahashi’s staff car. The city streets were beset by chaos as the Japanese military, which had occupied the Burmese capital for two years, continued its messy withdrawal. A giant gold stupa hovered majestically over the grid of tree-lined streets and British colonial buildings. Below, supply trucks, horses, tanks and running soldiers snarled into angry knots among the dark-skinned hawkers and begging children.
Black clouds rolled closer as Takahashi led his men out of the city center, the Colonel and his two staff in a jeep, followed by the rest in a pair of trucks.
They kept north and then crossed the river via one of the few remaining bridges. Takahashi’s driver honked furiously at the clog of villagers fleeing the fighting that raged just a few dozen kilometers west. Takahashi raised himself out of his seat, brandishing his Japanese saber, and screamed at the villagers blocking his way.
Yasuda stared glumly at the passing green terrain from the truck. He had scraped together the Colonel’s force with a mix of sick engineers, a few able-bodied soldiers, and half a dozen Burmese coolies. Including himself, they numbered thirteen, their worn canvas shoes and bare feet stuck between piles of rope, bamboo, tools and dynamite. One truck contained tree trunks, whittled to form rollers capable of moving heavy equipment.
Yasuda was sick of fighting, sick of death. Everyone knew the war had to end. He wanted to go home, not prowl for defunct tanks. This Colonel somehow thought a few rusted vehicles would save the 15th from defeat. Yasuda had seen plenty of madness and idiocy, and he could only hope he’d survive it again.
Fat raindrops hit the truck, and after ten slow minutes, Yasuda and the stronger men were ordered to help push the vehicle through the worsening muck up an incline.
They eventually arrived exhausted at a long-lost monastery, its big stupa poking over treetops. The serenity of the site was in stark contrast to the anxiety of the men.
“This way,” said Takahashi, sword in hand.
The colonel hiked up the hill to the pavilion, accompanied by the two soldiers from his staff car, men that had been handpicked by Lieutenant-General Mutaguchi. Yasuda’s heart sank when he saw the dead coolies by the gouge in the stupa’s flank. War was against heaven, but this was a desecration too far. He sensed the Burmese workers, dark and emaciated in their sarongs and sandals, freeze at the site of their dead brethren.
Takahashi raised his blade. “Have your men widen that opening so that we can get the logs through. Yasuda, you and those coolies come with me.”
“Sir, where’s the river?” Yasuda asked.
“Never mind,” Takahashi replied. “Make sure those wretches bring all the supplies.”
Mutaguchi’s two soldiers raised their bayoneted rifles.
Yasuda issued orders. The Burmese got to work smashing their own holy site and the Japanese men arranged the logs and tools.
“Sir, I need to evaluate the project,” Yasuda said.
Takahashi sheathed his sword and gestured to one of his soldiers, who brought him a flashlight. “Then follow me.”
He followed the Colonel on hands and knees along jagged edges of bricks, until he felt a cool dryness and a thin draft. He heard something like a thud and realized they had climbed through to a chamber inside. The beam of Takahashi’s light was not far below, but it was still terrifying to jump into darkness. He landed and fell into a roll. Nothing broken.
“What is this?”
Takahashi’s light circled. Murals leaped everywhere the light touched: Buddhas, bearded wise men, bodhisattvas holding lotus flowers, and monstrous figures with animal heads.
Yasuda approached the Colonel, gazing at the murals, when he stumbled and nearly fell. The echo of his cry mocked him.
The beam of light fell on a body. A Japanese soldier, the back of his head freshly blown out.
“What happened?”
Takahashi said, “Obey my orders and this fate won’t concern you.” He stopped before a large statue of Buddha seated, his back to the wall, legs crossed, his right hand touching the ground: bhumisparsha, hand touching the earth, the moment of his enlightenment. A reminder of the Japanese’s common culture with the Burmese whom they had claimed to be liberating.
Takahashi placed his hand against the Buddha’s red-robed chest, where a large splotch of gold was pasted to his breast. He pushed. Beneath the stucco exterior, an inner brick pushed inward. Yasuda head the grinding of stone on stone, and the statue slowly rotated, as if on a hinge.
“This is incredible,” he said.
“We’ll need this removed so the logs can be carried in.”
Yasuda wanted to protest, but Takahashi had murdered the Japanese soldier for a reason.
He followed the Colonel behind the statue which now revealed a winding stairwell. He followed the bobbing flashlight as best he could. The steps were uneven and he moved slowly, one hand against the brick wall – the other side was nothing but blank emptiness, and a fall of unknown depth.
As they descended the well filled with a rumble that turned to a roar. The air blew fiercely upwards.
“Here we are,” Takahashi said, his voice muffled.
Yasuda reached the ground, his legs wobbly, and followed the arc of Takahashi’s flashlight. They were in a vast natural cavern, filled with the bone white digits of stalactites. Among them he saw something glitter darkly.
Yasuda stepped closer and beheld a giant eye.
There were three Buddha statues, all in the same seated, touching-the-earth pose, each human-sized. They were a mix of stucco and gilt, their hair and robes decorated with gemstones.
“Is this why we’ve come?”
“No,” Takahashi said, aiming the flashlight further into the cave. “This is.”
This Buddha was enormous, its recline filling the back end of the chamber, head propped on one hand, face gazing back at the men with the unconcern of the liberated. Paranirvana pose, representing the moment of Buddha’s death, the extinguishing of his ego, the halt to the suffering of rebirth.
“This one isn’t made with bricks,” Takahashi said. “It’s solid gold.”
The source of the thundering noise lay beyond the reclining Buddha: a black underground river.
“This waterway leads to the Rangoon River. The rapid is swift and there are no pockets of air. We will be underwater for over two minutes. It is big enough for us to drag this statue on logs, like rollers.”
“It must weigh over a thousand kilos – sir.”
“Much more,” Takahashi said. “I have a barge waiting near the exit point. There are divers with chains and wooden poles to be used as wheels. It can’t sit there forever, so you have only a short amount of time.”
“Sir, even if we succeed in moving this Buddha, there is no way we can do so without damaging it.”
“That is not important,” Takahashi said. “Just do it.”
Yasuda looked at the giant, serene face of the Buddha, and he thought of Imai, his friend from Kyushu Island, and remembered a small pagoda they had sought refuge in just a few weeks before as the shattered remains of the army fled from Imphal. They had found three soldiers in that pagoda, lying neatly in a row beneath the gaze of a white-glazed Buddha, with their parachute tents covering their faces. These starved, broken men had covered themselves knowing they were about to die, to shield their faces from the living.
“Sir,” he said, “what you ask is criminal.”
Takahashi whirled, strode to Yasuda and struck him with the hilt of his saber. Yasuda fell to his knees as a trickle of blood ran from his nose.
“Staff Sergeant,” Takahashi screamed, “This is a critical mission for the Emperor. Now get those men to work!”
The men excavated the earth around the statue, brought down the logs to form a sort of rolling raft, and heaved it into the river with themselves tied to it. Yasuda was in the back. At first the water was only waist-high but it was fast. With their last reserves of strength the men pushed the golden Buddha into the deepening current. A final breath for the last push to the other side. He stumbled on the broken limbs of the men dying around him. Light glowed and he could go no further. His chest was on fire. He shimmied loose of his rope and kicked for the light.
Only two other men had made it, another engineer, who was bleeding, and an Army cook – just the three of them, and the crushed remains of a coolie.
Yasuda looked around. They were in a mangrove swamp along the edges of the river. The rain had cleared. He heard someone calling and turned around. A barge was anchored nearby, flying the flag of the rising sun, and Lieutenant-General Mutaguchi himself stood at its prow. “We’ve been expecting you,” he said.