In the special course, we played interdivisional games of “Capture the Pole.” Our opponent was the 7th Division. “Capture the Pole” is a fierce game in which you are permitted to punch, to kick, and even to die. (Honestly, there was a casualty at this station last year.) “How can we imitate the boys at the Naval Academy?” some of the fellows grumbled. It is all so silly. Still, they formed their line, stripped to the waist and going barefoot. And once the whistle sounded, most got fired up like fighting dogs. Only after the fact did I reflect on the combative instinct in men.
I was in the attacking party. As I gathered momentum and thrust myself forward, I noticed Sakai in the 7th Division. He kept up a constant battle cry through the top of his head, as he stayed busily engaged for the sake of appearance, dashing about, this way and that, dodging skillfully. A wave of real antagonism rose in me, and I pounced on him. He slipped away, and soon I found myself drawn into a vortex of friends and foes. In no time, my head was forced down by a forest of wobbling legs in white fatigues. I was beaten, kicked, and trampled, countless times. I endured it all, seeing stars often enough, surely. Then the whistle sounded again, and our victory was confirmed. It was rather exhilarating to win, as I found out. Sakai approached me later, wearing an annoyed expression. He said he never dreamt I would rush him with such a ferocious look, even granting the fact that we were opponents.
The word is that the division officers of some of the defeated teams were so out of humor that they canceled dinner. Speaking of which, we had beef stew tonight. It contained a surprisingly generous amount of meat that had been steeped in sauce, though the latter was a bit on the floury side. Uncommonly delicious. Other defeated divisions found themselves slapped with sanctions, too, a snack withheld here, cigarettes denied there. On the other hand, I hear that one of the other winning divisions was allowed an extra postcard.
After the study session, we recited the “Five Reflections.” I heard that we must do this every night before taking down the hammocks. We are to straighten up and close our eyes, and as the student on duty softly reads out each item, we (supposedly) reflect, solemnly, on the events of the day.
-Hast thou not gone against sincerity?
-Hast thou not felt ashamed of thy words and deeds?
-Hast thou not lacked vigor?
-Hast thou exerted all possible efforts?
-Hast thou not become slothful?
N. poked my knee and whispered. “Doesn’t ‘Hast thou not become slothful?’ sound ridiculous somehow?” I almost burst into laughter, but managed to hold it back. It would have been a disaster if I hadn’t. In any case, they impose on us, at every opportunity, what is in fact a kind of mockery of the education the men receive at the Naval Academy in Eta-jima, which only feeds the antipathy of the students here. Even I am bothered by it. Much more so after seeing a captain, a full-fledged graduate of the Naval Academy, have parcels of pond smelt from Lake Kasumiga-ura shipped home on official flights. Our minds are not necessarily simple. For example, this diary differs altogether from the “Cadet Journal” I submit to the division officer, and which I am obliged to keep (again, in imitation of the practices at Eta-jima). In the journal meant for his eyes, my spirit already approaches the level of a war god.
February 26
I experienced sexual urges practically for the first time since joining the navy. I was in some kind of trance, clasping a woman’s warm hand in mine, and listening to a melody on the thirteen-stringed koto. (This all happened in a dream.) The woman wasn’t anyone I knew, and I couldn’t see her face. It was just a woman’s warm, meltingly supple hand. A fat goldfish swam leisurely around our two clasped hands, trailing algae behind it. As for the tune I heard on the koto, “The Dance of the Cherry Blossoms”: that turned up in the dream because the Yokosuka military band came yesterday and performed it. I don’t feel like saying anything more. It was a wet dream.
Many of the men exchange dirty quips, but few, I gather, actually suffer from frustrated sexual desires. It was an unusual incident for me.
March 1
The weather here is highly changeable. Strong winds blow, kicking up huge clouds of dust, into which Mt. Tsukuba disappears. The surface of Lake Kasumiga-ura itself gets dusty from time to time. They say this heralds the coming of spring, but however that may be, the weather is certainly fierce here, as the anonymous poem in the Manyoshu suggests: “the leaves in Musashino bend to and fro before the wind….” It is hard for Kansai people to get used to. Today, on the other hand, was actually quite warm. Energetic young trainee pilots tumbled through the wind in those big steel hoops. At night, when we get a break from our studies, we hear what might well be taken for the howling of dogs, as the trainees rehearse their shrill commands. They bed down soon afterwards, and I wonder if they dream the dreams of childhood. Something about their voices, and the way they look, puts me in mind of those Manyoshu poems by the sakimori—the young soldiers garrisoned in Kyushu in ancient days, so young as to still be smelling of milk. It gives me a catch in the throat.
As for our own group, today we were ordered to toss our jackets into the ditch below Waka-washi Bridge. Why? Because we left them in a pile during morning calisthenics. One by one, we were made to throw our white jackets into a filthy stream near Lake Kasumiga-ura, and then made to fetch them out again. This is too sadistic, too absurd. At night, we were all smacked in the face because we failed to fold our blankets properly. That was the eighth blow I’ve taken since arriving at Tsuchiura. A deck officer did the work. He knew that his hand would be badly swollen after slapping four hundred twenty men in the face, so he ordered the student assistant on duty to bring a washtub of water for him to cool his fist in as he carried out the task. Judging from the pitying look on his face, the student assistant obviously thought he would be exempted, but he also got his in the end.
We are watched every minute of the day. Maybe it isn’t easy to be the deck officer who constantly picks at us, but neither is it easy to live under such relentless surveillance. I realize I have been looking forward to emptying my bowels recently. The toilet is just about the only place where we really can lock ourselves in. There, I relish complete solitude, at least for five minutes.
A false rumor is making the rounds. The word is we are to leave this naval air station at the end of March, possibly to be posted overseas for flight training. Let’s go! Let’s do it!, I said to myself. Let’s really become pilots! To be sure, my mind suffers its contradictions, endlessly vacillating this way and that, but when the time comes, I will die bravely. Our life at this base is just too tiresome.
Lately we have done nothing but practice Morse code, day in and day out. We got bad marks again today. The average score for the division was 81.7, and we were denied our snack as a result. It’s contemptible of them to manipulate our physical desires every chance they get, simply to make us work harder. I myself missed three letters today. The ki sound is represented as ―· ― · ·”, which corresponds to “kii te hoo ko ku” (or, “listen and report?) in our mnemonics. But Fujikura routinely makes us chuckle by mocking the pattern with “kii te hoo ko ku, mi te jigoku” (or, “listen and report; you see it and it’s hell”). Consequently, I mistook ki for mi, and by the time I noticed the error I had already missed three letters.