131 / 145
131
have an obligation to make a name for them.
These honours and this
glory shall He send, whose honour and whose glory you defend
. Each hour he
was gone, the louder my thoughts became. I must have fallen asleep.
The scream of a young man in the distance penetrated the
atmosphere. No doubt a prisoner working too slowly would return
with harsh red lines on his back, sharp cuts as straight as my brass
ruler. Or, if he was less fortunate, he’d return to the railway with the
flesh on his back missing,
like it had been scooped out by a spoon
. I was one
of the luckier ones –or so I had thought – still tied by ropes in a
single-file line of British, Americans and other Chinese troops.
They made us walk up past the railway and up a steep, muddy path
between two ochre mountain sides, which were decorated with
decaying skeletons covered in a layer of translucent skin that
stretched over thin, brittle bones. The soil was sour and wet under
our bare feet, the rain like acid seeping into our thoughts through
the top of our heads with every thick, heavy drop. Among the roped
line of prisoners, and Japanese officers, there was a raucousness of
disturbance and destruction as we walked single file up the mountain,
yet an eerie silence was imminent in the humid air.
But the place to which we were taken was much worse than that
railway, unimaginably worse. To them, torture was an unavoidable
necessity – for the sake of their country. To us, death couldn’t
possibly come slower.
When poisoned, one might as well swallow the plate
. I
can’t tell the story in full detail, partly because I’m not the writer my
son is, but also because those memories only surface in nightmares.
But
this is what I know
: they believed the Yamato race was superior to
any other. Richer, more powerful, more disciplined. They did what
they did out of fierce loyalty to their country, disciplined themselves
by physical punishment and unbearably strict regimes. Surrender
was the ultimate dishonour. They refused to believe the Chinese
and Americans and British were human, because of our weakness
to surrender. Perhaps they were right – from then on I had always
refused to surrender.
My face was cold against the kitchen tiles. I must have collapsed,
or fallen asleep. Dan was crouched beside me, his warm hand on my
shoulder.
‘Ba, what’s wrong? What happened?’
‘We won.’
‘What?’ his voice had risen with increasing concern, as he lifted
Surrender And
Dishonour
And Discipline
And Glory
12