Honor and a Lost Cause

U

pon returning to Hiro, I learned that two others of our group had made it to safety. My friend Shiro Hashimoto had been shot down but had survived with a badly shattered leg, A few days later, Oka, Yamamoto, Nakamura, and I visited him at a hospital in Hiroshima and were depressed at what we found. Hashimoto’s leg had been amputated and he had attempted suicide.

Antiseptic odors assailed my nostrils as we entered the room, and I began to wish we had never come. What could we possibly do, even say that would help? Simultaneously, I was strangely fascinated by the scene.

Hashimoto seemed to be a different person, wraith-like there in his white bed. His skin was ashen. Only the burning eyes revealed what was happening inside. The cotton blanket dropped away starkly where his leg should have been. Our greetings were uncertain, trite, somewhat embarrassed. “We brought you some magazines,” I said, humiliated at the triviality of such a gesture.

“Thanks, Kuwahara,” he said,” but I don’t feel like reading anything right now.”

“Well. . .” I replied hesitantly, “maybe we can just leave them for you. . . until you’re feeling better. I mean. . .” I persisted, “I’m sure you’ll be improving in a few days.”

Hashimoto shook his head, gasping a dry laugh. “How do you im­prove when a leg’s been blasted off? Grow a new one?”

I made no reply, and we all simply stood there, wordless and stupid. Yet something had to be said. Why were they leaving it all to me? I was becoming irritated and eventually blundered onward. “We know it’s very hard for you right now,” I said and patted his hand, groping for an intel­ligent thought. “But you have fulfilled your obligation to the Emperor. You are a true samurai, far more than the rest of us. And, from now on you will be able to do as you please, even find a wife and get married.” I knew that last was a mistake even before I said it, but the words had simply tumbled out.

“Oh yes!” Hashimoto rasped. “Wonderful! Maybe I can find a good strong one—one like an ox who can carry a cripple on her back.”

Still, I kept talking. “I know how you feel, but lots of people are be­ing wounded in this great war, and that doesn’t mean they can’t marry. Think of Lieutenant Shimada. He’ll never—”

“Would to God, that I had followed Shimada!” Hashimoto croaked, actually struggling to sit up as if he might attack me. Then he fell back with a moan, closing his eyes, barely breathing, it seemed. “What good am I?” he sighed. I could scarcely hear him. “To anybody?”

Silently cursing myself, I glanced at the others. There was no accu­sation in their own countenances, merely vacuity. Yamamoto shook his head and stared at the floor. Then Oka, with a slight toss of his head, indicated the door. Reluctantly, I started to leave, but turned back for an instant, patting his shoulder. “We’ll see you again soon,” I said, knowing that we might never see him at all. It was too painful.

Just then footsteps sounded in the hallway. A man and a woman entered, obviously Hashimoto’s parents. After we had exchanged intro­ductions, the woman turned to her son without speaking and laid her hand upon his brow. Long delicate fingers, slightly tremulous. “Here,”

Oka volunteered and slid the room’s only chair her way. Thanking him, she sat down and continued to stroke Hashimoto’s forehead.

Again there was silence, and again we were ready to leave, but now the woman was speaking. “Why must people fight? Why must they hate and destroy each other? Why?” Her voice was surprisingly rich and low, filled with incredulity. She was shaking her head now, eyes half closed. “Oh, the senselessness of it all! The stupidity! Why can’t. . . ?” She hesitated, eyes closed for an instant, collecting herself. “Shiro’s father and I did not rear him so that he could lose his leg. Nor did we rear his brother Joji to die in some awful jungle on Guadalcanal.”

Hesitantly I informed her that I had recommended her son for the medal of valor, but that too was a mistake. Obviously the only way to avoid further idiocy was to keep my mouth shut.

For a moment I gazed out the window across Hiroshima. Little did I comprehend how ironic her comments about death and destruction would become in the days ahead and how applicable with respect to that city. At the moment, I devoutly wished that we had never come there, that I could simply vanish.

“I did not mean to hurt your feelings,” she said, “or to appear un­grateful, but there is something I must tell you all before you go. Look at me all of you,” she commanded, and we glanced at her in surprise. “Listen to me carefully, my sons.” Our astonishment increased. Her voice was harsh and dry, almost guttural, yet somehow very appealing, and her eyes possessed a kind of passionate fluidity.

“Your minds are filled with strange ideas,” she continued, “much that is false and malevolent. Ideas about honor and glory, dying with valor. These and many related matters.” Her face was solemn, remark­ably commanding, etched with many lines but also beautiful. Her hair contained a startling streak of white as though it might have been splashed with acid.

“But I advise you to forget such things. Seek only to preserve life— your own and those of others. Life alone is sacred.” Her eyes held us hypnotically. “There is no honor, my sons, in dying for a lost cause.”

I stared at her in disbelief, shot a glance at her husband, expect­ing him to rebuke her. As though reading my thoughts, she eyed him sharply, but he remained silent. “Fathers feel no differently about this than mothers do,” she persisted, “not deep inside.”

Suddenly I recalled with great poignancy how my own father had looked into my eyes months earlier and inquired, “Do you know my heart?”

Shortly afterward we said goodbye, but all the way back to Hiro I kept hearing the words of Hashimoto’s mother: “There is no honor in dying for a lost cause.” A lost cause? An indescribable feeling was set­tling, infusing the very pores of my skin with hopelessness. Throughout the following days those words persisted. The feeling increased, and gradually I became indignant. Who was that woman that she could presume to speak such heresy? A mere woman! And her husband—he must have been a small man. Indeed, a very small man! Obviously, she was in command of that household. She controlled him! Heresy in and of itself.

But my indignation often left me as rapidly as it had come. Always the cold and frightened feeling returned, increasing. I had not seen much of Tatsuno the past few weeks. Both of us, of course, were heavily involved in our military duties, but gradually I came to realize that he made me uncomfortable in much the same way Hashimoto’s mother had. What had he said during our last actual visit? Something about the secret. Yes, what was the secret? What were we waiting for?

I had no answer, none at least that I could accept emotionally. Surely the words of Hashimoto’s mother and Tatsuno did not reflect the attitude of our people in general. And yet. . . I could not deny it. The disillusion­ment was growing, and at last I began to face the facts.

Japan had been driven back three thousand miles across the Pacific. MacArthur had returned to the Philippines, entering Luzon and van­quishing our forces at Leyte Gulf. This I had learned through the winds of military rumor, but the winds had now attained gale force. Although I did not realize it initially, that loss had virtually eliminated Japan as a naval power. Even then, however, I knew that it had exerted a serious impact on troop morale. For many months the Americans had taken very few captives, but now we were surrendering in substantial numbers.

Of course, there was Kamikaze. The suicide attacks had increased on a grand scale, and from all that we could learn they had been highly ef­fective. For a time, in fact, they had fanned the flames of hope, yet still. .

. would Kamikaze actually stop the enemy? If so, it would require far more human bombs. Colonel Okamura’s estimate that three hundred suicide planes could alter the war in our favor was obviously much too small.

Nevertheless, a part of me clung to the fraying branches of hope. If a “Divine Wind” had saved our country once when her plight was just as desperate, why not again? Was not the Imperial Way the right way after all? The best way, ultimately, for the world? Was not Japan divinely destined for leadership? If indeed there were a God—one of truth, reason, and justice—was it not only right, but also eminently logical that he should come to our rescue? Possibly our present trials were the final test, one of our courage and worthiness. So maybe, just when our plight looked the most bleak, as night was closing in, our circumstances would improve.

But how many human bombs would it require? Many of our men were still willing to lay down their lives. To many, in fact, it was no sacrifice. To some, honor and duty were, in very deed, heavier than the mountains, death lighter than a feather.

In any event, the Divine Wind was steadily mounting, and as it increased more and more of us would be drawn into it. Only a matter of time, only a matter of time. The clouds were darkening above Hiro. The first gusts were coming.