During study session New Year’s Eve, a fellow got caught drawing elaborate pictures of an oyako-donburi, curried rice, and all manner of cakes. This was M., of the 6th outfit, and he used pencils in twelve different colors to sketch these painstakingly detailed pictures. But no matter, they ended up torn to bits. He received a slap on each cheek from the division officer. Fortunately, I have yet to suffer a blow since joining the navy.
January 7
The cold last night chilled me to the bone, and, sure enough, we had snow this morning. It has been falling steadily ever since, blanketing the mountains of the Chugoku district and the islands of the Seto Inland Sea.
Bending and stretching exercises. Jogging. Then rowing drills in the cutter.
“Make it snappy! Go!” Petty Officer Yoshimi barked out his commands, banging on the broadside. But that was just while we were boarding the boat, and with the division officer overseeing the exercise. Once we were out in the offing, he ordered us to cross oars, and then he gave us a little talk. We snuggled up together to get warm, like a group of chicks, and rubbed our hands as we listened. Itsuku-shima Island, which before had always looked blackish-blue, lay powdered in the snowy inland sea. A thin layer of snow covered the cutter, too. I could make out two German submarines in port.
Petty Officer Yoshimi told us the story of how his warship, the So-ryu, went down at Midway Island. That battle was a watershed defeat for Japan, and we have now lost nearly all our big carriers: the Akagi, the Kaga, the Ryu-jo, the So-ryu, the Hi-ryu, and the Sho-ho. The auxiliary aircraft carrier Chu-yo was also sunk recently. According to the officer, the Chu-yo used to be a Japanese mail-boat called the Nitta-maru, but it was converted into a warship. Only two vessels, the Shokaku and the Zuikaku, remain in service as purpose-built aircraft carriers. From now on, he explained, the war will be an extremely difficult affair for Japan. He doesn’t think our prospects are necessarily as bright as the radio reports from Imperial Headquarters suggest. The men who have taken part in actual combat know this better than anybody else. of us, he added, should understand that our lives will likely end sometime next spring; we must prepare. Officer Yoshimi spoke with feeling, and his words absorbed us utterly. We forgot even to rub our hands. Before long, he also said, we will join operational units as officers, and our sense of responsibility might well lead us to impose severe discipline on our subordinates. The more earnest and dedicated we are, he suggested, the more we will be prone to do that, but the fact is that there are many occasions when neither the character nor the degree of the discipline we enforce has any bearing at all on the wider situation. It is perfectly all right to tighten the reins, to push the men, or even to beat them if necessary. However, Officer Yoshimi said that he wants us all to take care to discern when to come down hard, and also to slacken up a little bit, occasionally turning a blind eye to the men. How gratifying that is for deprived young soldiers! He urged us never to forget how we felt during our brief period as seaman recruits at the naval barracks.
Later, a man in my outfit criticized Petty Officer Yoshimi. He claimed this little speech was done from calculation, that Officer Yoshimi says we’ll all be dead next spring, but all the while is just shrewdly looking out for his own hide in a way perfectly characteristic of petty officers. Well, I can’t agree, and it is impertinent of that fellow to say such a thing, pulling a rank he doesn’t even have yet. If we indulge ourselves in needless conceit and lose our humility, we surely invite needless troubles.
It’s so cold that my fingers are almost numb, but I’m getting the hang of rowing the cutter. Also we are learning light signals, semaphore, and rope work. Rope work involves the half hitch, two half hitch, bowline knot, bowline on the bight, sheet bend, log hitch, and so on, and is all rather complicated. We learn to clean the toilet and do the laundry, how to wash socks as well. It seems I’m gradually assimilating myself to navy life. They say we’ll leave this barracks on the 25th of this month at the latest.
We had hot tofu miso soup and a sardine for dinner. The fish, complete with its head and tail, had plenty of fat, and the saltiness penetrated it. Quite good. I saw a guy slip a second sardine into his bowl of rice, taking advantage of its being his turn to serve the meal. He hid the fish well, but inevitably it poked its head out as he ate. Still he kept at it, cool as a cucumber. Is this what we should expect of someone from the law college at Kyoto University? His conduct is beneath contempt, but all the same I clearly envy him that one sardine—intensely. Why do I get so hungry?
Quite unexpectedly, we will be allowed to have visitors on the 14th. I sent out a mimeographed invitation today, and asked for A Trip to Manyo by Bunmei Tsuchiya, The Complete Works of Sakutaro Hagiwara, matches, mentholatum, and medicine for stomachaches.
Another secret gift of sweets tonight: an-mochi. As I munched mine in the hammock, I thought of seeing my parents, and I was thrilled.
January 10
A cluster of letters has arrived from Professors O. and E. at Kyoto University, from my old high school teacher Mr. N., and so on. Kashima, Sakai, Fujikura, and I sat around the cigarette tray during the break, exchanging postcards. It has been quite a while since we had so lively a discussion of the Manyoshu and the scenery and customs of Yamato (the very heart of the anthology). But as we talked I noticed a certain look on the face of a fellow from another division, and it struck me that we should take care lest our most innocent conversation sound strangely pedantic. This is the case even in a company of seamen with an academic background, and soon enough we’ll be assigned to operational units, where we must mingle with career officers and enlisted men. We really can’t indulge this pointless nostalgia for university life. We should tuck it away deep in our hearts until the world is again at peace—that is, if we survive the war.
All the same, I enjoyed the conversation. What a consolation it was to chat about the three mountains of Yamato, about Mt. Futakami, the Yamanobe Pass, the streaming Furukawa River, and about all the places we visited during our Manyo trip last winter! In the town of Nabari, we played the card game karuta at an inn, warming ourselves in a kotatsu built into the floor, while out back brown-eared bulbuls swooped down from the hill to eat the red berries of the oleaster. I also remember sitting up through the night once, at the inner temple of Nigatsu-do, for the water-drawing ceremony spoken of in Basho’s poem.
When midwinter ends, the water-drawing season will come again to Nara. I distinctly remember how my feet felt as I tread on the thin ice, and as muddy water seeped into my worn-out shoes. After all, we entrusted our very lives to these “things of Yamato” and to the Manyoshu. But I have to remember: All that is just a fine memory now, a lovely bit of atmosphere, and this isn’t the time to dwell on an atmosphere. War is about to teach me firsthand what the poet Otomo no Tabito felt when he was sent to fill a government post at Dazaifu, that remote land where “incessantly the light snow falls,” as he once put it. So I will set aside my studies for the moment and devote myself utterly to the navy. This can only deepen my understanding of the Manyo poems anyway, should I be fortunate enough to outlive the war. I really have to believe that.