“Sir, a radio message to you from the Russians.” He handed a typed sheet to the general.
“General Nishikawa. We know who you are, and why you have invaded sacred Russian soil. We know of your small force, and how you captured our island. We do not wish to start World War Three. However, you must, I repeat MUST, take your troops off our island and return to Japan.
“We will allow you seven days to do this. Our military forces are powerful. Even now they are heading for Kunashir. Our aircraft will be monitoring your movements. If you do not evacuate our island within the seven days, your force will be crushed with powerful missile and aircraft attacks, and you will be annihilated to a man. There is no room for compromise. You are occupying sacred Russian soil and if you do not leave, you must suffer the fatal consequences.” The message was signed by Captain Admiral Vladimir Rostow.
“Dismissed,” General Nishikawa said, and the sergeant did a smart about-face and hurried out of the room. General Nishikawa opened the desk drawer, and took out a framed photograph. He stared at it, then smiled and touched each of the faces in the picture: his wife and their three children, two boys and a girl. He looked at it again, smiled, and brushed tears from his eyes, then gently put the treasure back in the drawer.
There was still a chance. The U.S. might step in and serve as a buffer between the island and the Russians. The Japanese Diet might pass some quick legislation to make his move legal. Russia might be willing to back down on its threat.
A slim chance still existed that he might have his dream. He would send all of the Russians on Kunashir Island on to other islands in the chain, then bring in his relatives and as many of those Japanese who had ancestors resting on this hard rock of an island who wanted to come. A chance. Yes, perhaps a good chance.
He called for Major Hitachi, his second in command. He had promoted him the day they embarked for the island. Hitachi was short, a little heavy, a career soldier, and excellent with the men. He also had ancestors buried on this island. They had yet to find Hitachi’s ancestors’ graves, or where their graves might have been.
“Major, I’m taking the utility vehicle and going to the school.
I’ll be back in an hour. Keep track of anything coming in by radio.
Ignore all transmissions from Defense Force’s radio.”
“Yes, Sir,” Hitachi said. “I’ll keep track of it.”
General Nishikawa left at once. He stepped into the Russian-style jeep, and the driver gunned away. He knew without asking where the general wanted to go.
First they stopped at an unused crab processing plant that had been turned into a prisoner-of-war compound. Fifty-six Russian soldiers were held there, including their commander, a Russian major who had suffered a minor injury when he had fallen down in a drunken stupor while being transported from an elaborate party the night of his capture.
General Nishikawa inspected the guards, looked in the large room where the prisoners were held, and then talked to his lieutenant in charge of the captives.
“Yes, Sir. All is quiet. The men seem to think that they will not be held here long. They say in this cold weather it’s much better to be in here rather than standing guard in the snow and ice. They assure me that it will snow again soon, and the temperature will drop well below zero degrees.”
“Keep them locked down, keep them fed and warm. We are not the enemy of these men.”
They drove from there directly to the school, now empty by decree.
On the far side of the playground, the earth had been leveled. General Nishikawa paced off twenty steps from the corner of the play area, and put a mark in the soil. He stepped off sixty paces from the pine tree growing at the side of the playground, and put another mark. Between the two had been a small hill that had contained the tombs of his family for over a hundred years. Now there was nothing but bare earth, and the marks of dozens of children who usually played over this area.
Tears squeezed out of his eyes as the general knelt in prayer on the sacred ground. He didn’t want to admit it, but it must be that the hill, and his ancestor’s remains, had been bulldozed into the small gully that had been directly in front of the hill. Now the gully was filled all the way to the school.
He wailed and cried openly for the souls of his departed ancestors, and for the evil that the heathen Russians had heaped on their souls by desecrating and destroying the graves.
For an hour he knelt on the ground praying.
By the time he returned to his military headquarters, there were three long typed messages on his desk. Each had come over the radio, since he had cut the telephone cable from Kunashir to Hokkaido. He settled down to read the messages. He knew they would be denunciations from the Russians, from the Americans, and from the senile and impotent Japanese politicians in the Diet.
Before he could read them, a thundering roar shook the building.
He rushed outside where two guards pointed away from the headquarters.
“Aircraft,” one said.
Three minutes later, two jet fighters again came in low over the town. The fighters did not fire, but their afterburners shook the whole community. As they flashed directly over the military headquarters building, General Nishikawa saw the identifying red stars on the wings.
“Ah, so. The Russians have arrived,” the general said. The planes made one more thundering low fly-over, then headed northwest for the Soya Strait between Hokkaido and the Russian island of Sakhalin. That way they would not penetrate the Japanese airspace on the way back to their Russian aircraft carrier somewhere to the southwest.
General Nishikawa hurried back to his office to read the three dispatches. The one on top was from Tokyo. The Prime Minister himself ordered him to end his invasion of Kunashir, and return his force to Hokkaido.
“If you do not comply with this order, you will be declared a traitor to Japan, and will be dealt with according to Japanese parliamentary law. You and your men will be outlaws, branded as cowards, and rebels, and forever denied entry into Japan. For the good of Japan, cease this outrageous invasion, and return to Japan at once.
I guarantee you leniency if you return within two days.”
The message was signed by the Prime Minister himself.
He could not do it. Nishikawa had sworn a vow of vengeance against the government that had destroyed the graves of his ancestors. He would not give up until he had caused them as much damage as they had done to his family.
The second message was sent by the United States ambassador in Tokyo.
“General Nishikawa: We appreciate your situation, and your honorable try to recover the graves of your ancestors; however, we do not agree with the way you have gone about it. We have a battle group steaming your way. The ships, planes, and men should be off your eastern shore shortly. We will attempt to put a screen around your headquarters with an air cover, and Naval ships along both coasts near the southern end of the island.
“If requested by the Japanese government, we will take action against you to subdue your force, and remove you from the island within the seven-day limit the Russians have imposed. It will be your option whether you oppose our forces or not. If you choose to fire upon our troops and aircraft, we will respond with all of our capability.
“We hope that we do not have to engage your forces in combat; however, we are ready, and ultimately able, to do so. We look to your timely response to our message.”
It was signed by the United States ambassador to Japan, Lloyd Contreras.
Nishikawa stared at the message and shook his head. “Mr. Ambassador, I’m sorry, but I’m not leaving my ancestors again. This time somebody will have to blow my dead body off this island. This is my ancestral home, and I intend to either live here or die here.”