Flight rations were distributed again, all manner of new goodies, like wine, black tea, “energy food,” an instant cinnamon drink.
November 10
As the sumo match set for the 14th approaches, the conflict between the recon students from the Naval Academy and us student reserves has been bursting to the surface. In any naval unit there is always considerable friction between Academy graduates and student reserves. On this particular occasion, however, we have a remarkably powerful lineup, including former collegiate sumo wrestlers, and the recon students have little chance of winning. The situation so frustrates them that they seize every possible occasion to pick at us, and deliver their corrections in the most spiteful of ways.
“Student reserves shall remain after everyone is dismissed,” declared a recon student (a deck officer probationer, to be specific) at morning assembly today. Unfortunately, someone had left a book on military intelligence, strictly confidential material, on a desk during the special gymnastics course yesterday, and the recon students confiscated it. First, we endured a round of blows. These men aren’t experienced at the business, but they certainly throw themselves into it, pounding away heavily. It is awfully painful.
“There is a reason why you are so careless with confidential material,” said this deck officer probationer. “Namely, your spirit is more degraded than that of a common conscript, and you will receive a correction commensurate with that fact.” He then proceeded to place conscripts’ caps on each of us (they’d gathered them up from the barracks), ordering us all to “hold a push-up” for twenty straight minutes. It was mortifying. The eyes of some among us brimmed with tears. These Academy men are happy precisely insofar as they manage to bully us in the most humiliating way they can devise. It has nothing whatsoever to do with maintaining military discipline, or with “guiding” their junior comrades. Only six or seven of the ensigns among the recon students ever initiate this sort of conduct, with ten or so more chiming in. Many others adopt a courteous attitude toward us, but it is always the ruder fellows who take the lead on occasions like this. And we can’t defy them head-on because a wall of rank stands between us.
When the second half of the 13th Class (our immediate predecessors) arrived at this base with their commissions, the recon students were still uncommissioned midshipmen. The reserve students actually outranked them. Even so, there was endless trouble, or so I hear. One day a recon student failed to salute a student reserve officer who happened to be an ensign, and the ensign struck him. That night the entire 13th Class was summoned to the lecture hall. “Student reserve officers are strictly subsidiary to men from the Naval Academy,” they were informed. “It is absolutely outrageous for a student reserve to strike a graduate of the Naval Academy. You have sullied our illustrious tradition.” At that absurd declaration, a bunch of lieu-tenants and lieutenants junior grade (instructors assigned to the recon students) ganged up to pommel the 13th Class. No doubt pent-up anger toward our predecessors is making the situation all the more difficult for us.
Let yourself be seen folding your arms, or whistling, or simply placing your hands in your pockets—not to mention inadvertently failing to salute—and a recon student will descend on you. However, he will not administer his correction on the spot. “Come see me at eight tonight,” he will say, or “Come by after the special course,” leaving you to spend hours in fear. And when you finally report to his quarters, he and his fellows all fall in just for the fun of a good thrashing. Sometimes they beat you right in the middle of the airfield so all the enlisted men can see. But for the moment we student reserves hold back our emotions, finding consolation in a sort of motto: “Exercise caution each day, and get satisfaction in the sumo match.” The wrestlers’ countenances change when they set in to practice. They look touchingly heroic.
The guidelines for the sumo match were announced yesterday. Each side is to field two teams of seven wrestlers, who will compete in a tournament. However, the recon students have been observing our practice sessions, and obviously they have concluded that they won’t fare well against us. This afternoon they made a proposaclass="underline" “Let’s make it nine wrestlers each.” When we declined, they came back with yet another proposaclass="underline" “Then let’s make it a round robin of fifteen wrestlers from each side.” We asked why, but their reasoning was obscure. They are brewing something up, some way to pull rank on us so as to change the guidelines to their advantage. We once competed intercollegiately, in the catch-as-catch-can world of university students, but never once did we resort to such dirty tricks as these, no matter how desperately we wanted to win.
The recon students are all aged nineteen or twenty. They smoke and drink, some are already whoring around, and yet they are regarded by the public as the noblest of our warriors, as the very salt of the earth. The student reserves, “undermined by liberal education,” are nothing more than an annoying, impure, and perfectly tiresome lot in the eyes of these recon students. How distorted and peculiar their pride is!
My mother has a younger brother in Kobe and years ago his second son Sadayuki got it into his head to attend a military prep school. His parents opposed the idea, but he persevered. The boy wasn’t at home when my mother and I visited the family to congratulate them on his graduation, and I remember my uncle saying, with a wry grin, “Don’t know, but it seems we’ve got something of a freak on our hands.”
Only four days remain until the match. It appears that our instructors, Lieutenants Junior Grade S. and N. (both from the Naval Academy), are harboring mixed feelings.
November 13
Fujikura landed us in hot water again. Fine, let him stick to that defeatist attitude of his. The problem is that sometimes he goes too far. So long as he thinks and talks seriously, we give him an honest hearing, even when we disagree with him. But what he did today is inexcusable, as it entailed a good deal of trouble for others.
Seated beside the cigarette tray after lunch, Sakai was reading from the Hagakure when Fujikura stuck his nose into it. Written on the page were the four pledges of the samurai:
1. Thou shalt not fall behind in the Way of the Warrior
2. Thou shalt be of good service to thy lord
3. Thou shalt practice filial piety
4. Thou shalt be merciful and benevolent
Fujikura turned it all into a joke, rewording each entry:
1. Thou shalt not fall behind in the Realm of Famished Ghosts (a riff on the Buddhist Hell)
2. Thou shalt be of good service to thyself
3. Thou must understand that getting yourself killed is no way to practice filial piety
A recon student, Ensign Y., happened to be nearby making arrangements for tomorrow’s sumo match, and he overheard Fujikura. Bloodthirsty as the atmosphere was, the recon students called him in at once. Fujikura returned some thirty minutes later, his face swollen up like a rock. The matter seems to have been referred first to the division officer, and then to the executive officer. Word soon spread that the blows might not fall on Fujikura alone, that the rest of us might be in for a correction, too, or else that Fujikura would take the blows and the rest of us be confined to barracks. Some reproached Fujikura, and others comforted him, but we were all apprehensive. However, toward evening, and rather more easily than we had expected, the affair was brought to a resolution. Only Fujikura and one other senior student were brought up before the executive officer.