They were dressed like peasants, in baggy, crumpled white trousers and loose shirts. One might have thought they were young boys were it not for their braided hair. The older woman and the driver pulled each of the girls by the arm as she descended and stood them in a row before the steps of the veranda. Captain Ono didn’t seem to be looking at them. Instead he stood at attention, clearly waiting for the commander to call out and have him bring the arrivals — five in all — inside for inspection. That there were only five of them seems remarkable to me now, given that there were nearly two hundred men in the encampment, but at the time I had no thoughts of what was awaiting them in the coming days and nights. Like the rest of the men who were watching, I was simply struck by their mere presence, by the white shock of their oversized pants, by their dirty, unshod feet, by the narrowness of their hands and their throats. And soon enough it was the notion of what lay beneath the crumpled cotton of their poor clothes that shook me as if I had heard an air-raid siren, and which probably did the same for every other man standing at attention in that dusty clay field.
The commander must have spoken, for Captain Ono ordered the older woman to gather the others and march them up the steps. The girls looked frightened, and all but one ascended quickly to the veranda landing. The last one hesitated, though just momentarily, and the captain stepped forward and struck her in the face with the back of his hand, sending her down to one knee. He did not seem particularly enraged. Without saying anything he struck her again, then once more, and she fell back limply. She had not cried out. The older woman waited until Captain Ono stepped away before helping the girl up. Then the captain knocked on the door. The house servant opened it and he went inside, followed by the four girls and the older woman bracing on her shoulder the one who had been beaten. The house servant then closed the door and stood outside on the veranda, his hands at his sides, stock-still as we.
That night there was an unusually festive air in the camp. Groups of soldiers squatted outside their tents singing songs and trading stories in the temperate night air. There was no ration of sake in the supply shipment except a few large bottles for the officers, but the men didn’t seem to mind. They weren’t raucous or moody. Instead they beheld the drink of their anticipations. Strangely enough, Corporal Endo alone seemed in a dark mood, and he sought me out as I took my evening walk. Even then I enjoyed a regular period of daily exercise, like my morning swims later in life, to reflect on and review the day’s happenings and thereby try to make sense of them, contain them so. That evening, as I wended my way along our camp’s perimeter, subsumed in the rhythmic din of birds and insects calling out from the jungle, I couldn’t help but think of the sorry line of the girls entering the commander’s house, led by the physician, Captain Ono. They had spent the better part of the afternoon inside with Colonel Ishii, shielded from the intense heat of the day. The captain had come by the infirmary soon after their entering to inform me of my new, additional duties — that I, and not he, would be responsible for maintaining the readiness of the girls, beginning the next day. Very soon the fighting would resume (he said this with a chilling surety), and his time and skills would be better spent performing surgery and other life-saving procedures.
As I was the paramedical officer — field-trained but not formally educated — it would be more than appropriate for me to handle their care. They were quite valuable, after all, to the well-being and morale of the camp, and vigilance would be in order. He was as serious as if we had been discussing the commander’s health, though for the first time he seemed to be addressing me personally, even patting me lightly on the shoulder. His general implication, of course, was that their present good condition was likely to change with the imminent visitations by the officers and noncommissioned ranks and then the wider corps of the men, and that their continuing welfare would soon present me with difficult challenges.
Corporal Endo found me just short of the far southeast checkpoint, beyond which our squads were regularly patrolling the watch. To the left of us, one could see the faintest glimmers of light filtering through the half-cleared vegetation of the perimeter; it was the commander’s hut, some fifty meters away. There was no music or other sound, just weak electric light glowing through the slats of the hut’s bamboo shutters. Every so often the throw of light would flicker as someone moved in front of the window. The corporal and I were both drawn to it, and as I glanced over at him I could see the tiny play of illumination in his eyes.
“Lieutenant, sir,” he addressed me gloomily, “I’ve been thinking all afternoon about what’s to come in the next days.”
“You mean about the expected offensive from the enemy?”
“I suppose, yes, that too,” he said. “There’s been much radio traffic lately. Almost all concerning where they’ll strike, and when.”
“Near here, and soon,” I replied, echoing what Captain Ono had pithily said to me.
“Yes, sir,” Endo said, “that seems to be the conclusion. But what I was thinking of mostly again was the volunteers.”
“You’ll have your due turn,” I said, annoyed that he was still preoccupied with the issue. “It will be a day or two or three, whatever becomes determined. In the meanwhile you should keep yourself busy. It’s an unhealthful anticipation that you are developing, Corporal. You must command yourself.”
“But if I can make myself clear, sir, it’s not that way at all. I’m not thinking about when I’ll see one of them. In fact, sir, I’m almost sure of not visiting. I won’t seek their comforts at all.”
This surprised me, but I said anyway, “Of course you’re not required to. No one is.”
“Yes, sir, I know,” he said softly, following me as I made my way on the path that headed back toward the main encampment, directly past Colonel Ishii’s hut. We walked for some time before he spoke again. “The fellows in the communications and munitions areas drew lots this morning, to make things orderly and have some excitement as well by predetermining the order of the queue, and by sheer chance I took first place among my rank. There was much gibing and joking about it, and some of the fellows offered me cigarettes and fruits if I would trade with them. I had to leave the tent then, and they probably thought I was being a bad winner.”
We had reached the point on the path that was closest to the hut. The sentry noticed us and let us pass; he was a private I had recently treated for a mild case of dysentery. Again there was hardly a sound, save the sharp, high songs of the nighttime fauna. The hut, with its thatched roof and roughly hewn veranda, was the picture of modesty and quiescence.
I asked, “So why did you leave?”
“Because I didn’t want to so freely trade my place in front of them,” he said, his voice nearly angry. He gazed anxiously at the hut, as though the humble structure were some unpleasant memorial. “You see, sir, I’ve decided not to visit those girls. I don’t know why, for sure, because it’s true that every day I’ve been in this miserable situation I’ve been thinking about being with a woman, any woman. But yesterday after I saw them arrive in the camp I suddenly didn’t think about it anymore. I don’t know why. I know I must be sick, Lieutenant. I do in fact feel sick, but I didn’t come to ask for any treatment or advice. I don’t want my lot anymore but I realized I didn’t want any of the others to have it, either. So I thought I could ask simply that you hold it for me, so none of the fellows can get to it. Some of them would try to steal it from my things, and I’m afraid I’d misplace it on my own.”