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Full text of "Time of Fallen Blossoms"
Time of Fallen Blossoms
Allan S. Carter
Published by Cassell
Sydney 1950
Contents
Preface 1
Chapter 1 Arrival 5
Chapter 2 Train Journey 9
Chapter 3 Ujina 14
Chapter 4 'Moose' 16
Chapter 5 Treasure Island 20
Chapter 6 'Pikadon' 24
Chapter 7 Fire within, Fire Without 28
Chapter 8 'Wogging' 33
Chapter 9 Elections 36
Chapter 1 Truly Rural 40
Chapter 1 1 Yoshida 44
Chapter 12 Devil's Language 48
Chapter 1 3 The Hall of Victorious Return 52
Chapter 14 Honeymoon for Three 57
Chapter 15 A Night Out 63
Chapter 16 British Justice (chapter incomplete) 69
Chapter 17 Indian Summer 70
Chapter 18 Police 75
Chapter 1 9 Fifth Column 8 1
Chapter 20 Yabanjin 86
Chapter 2 1 Marooned 91
Chapter 22 The Fruits of Autumn 96
Chapter 23 Apologia 101
Chapter 24 Operation Foxum 107
Chapter 25 Education 112
Chapter 26 Tokyo 117
Chapter 27 Sayonara 122
"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
Preface
The events described in this book took place in the year 1946. Almost all is personal
experience; a little is that of close companions. The only deviation from fact is that
necessary to conceal the identity of persons who might be embarrassed or placed at a
disadvantage by having their personal history recorded. For this reason all personal
names have been altered; place names remain unchanged.
The events are set down in roughly the order of their occurrence; some slight
rearrangement has been made for the sake of continuity.
I purposely omitted for the story proper all economic and political observations except
where they bore directly on the subject. But since it is impossible to overlook or ignor
their importance I shall attempt to summarize them here, separated from the body of the
record.
Any journalist knows, a great deal can be culled from books and newspaper files and set
down to produce an appearance of wide knowledge and erudition. While I, as an
interpreter and a member of Intelligence, had almost unique opportunities for studying
at close hand the life and customs of the Japanese people, I was in no special position to
gather information on economic or political matters, or to observe the effects of the
impact of the Occupation on the social structure of the nation.
But any person of normal intelligence may, if he takes the trouble, form his own ideas
with as much chance of their being right as the next man. Ultimately, the validity of any
such judgement, whether made by a layman or the professional economist or statesman,
is provable only by relation to the future course of events.
It is notable that, even among the professionals, there are wide divergences of opinion.
one does not have to go to Japan to be aware of the existence of a great struggle, the
nature of which is plain enough to all. It is a part of the contest for control of the entire
world, between the forces of world Captialism and the growing power of Communism.
General MacArthur is quite frankly on the side of the former, and its high priests in
Japan make open obeisance to him on that account. But for those of us whose fervent
wish is presumed to be peace and security there is the fear of the same forces emerging
from the struggle, with the same ambitions as before.
The common people of Japan, like those of all other countries, do not want war, and
will not have it unless their leaders are able to present it to them as something desirable
or inevitable. But hungry stomachs are notoriously inaccessible to ethical niceties, and
if Japanese living standards fall, or remain stable, Japanese governments of the future
will have a powerful lever ready to move the nation once more towards expansion.
Japan, in spite of the prodigious and unceasing labours of its people, hardly approaches
at the best of times a frugal self-sufficiency in food. With the raw materials of
commerce and industry the position is infinitely worse: she is almost completely reliant
"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
on outside sources for petroleum products, raw cotton, and most metals, all essential to
her industrial life.
It would appear that, unlike Russia or America, no rearrangement of the political or
social structure, or balances of power within the country, could make her independent
of outside sources of supply. Thus Japan's survival appears to demand the return of
some of her former territories, however they were acquired. In this connection it is of
interest to contrast the statement made frequently by the Allies, that they have no desire
for territorial expansion, with the unashamed annexation piecemeal of Northern
Sakhalin, the Kuriles and Okinawa. If we accept the view that Japan has no right to
them because they were forcibly possessed, then we must admit that the Allies' claims
are no more valid.
Perhaps the best solution would be to return some, if not all, of her former territories to
Japan, subject to certain guarantees enforceable by the United Nations. This would
remove a potential threat to Pacific peace, and offer Japan the prospect of survival and
development.
Some have declared their complete indifference to Japan's future welfare, because it
was she who produced the cataclysm that engulfed her. Let us not be too smug on this
point. It is impossible to evade the fact that Japan's position in an industrial society had
become untenable largely throught the exertions of her rival across the Pacific. In the
circumstances that existed, there was probably no solution other than the drastic one
taken. This is in no sense an attempt at condonation of, or acquiescence in, her action -
it is a mere statement of fact.
Those who have been surprised to find no sense of war guilt in the majority of Japanese
or Germans should ask themselves if they would have had any had their own countries
been the aggressor in like circumstances.
Since I left Japan a new Constitution has been written and proclaimed. Many of the
brave phrases and copious cribbings from the American Declaration of Independence
(apparent in the official English version), high-sounding though they be, have already
lost significance and mock the ideal of democracy.
The educated Japanese will read with doubtful pleasure those clauses guaranteeing him
freedom and equality, if he knows that they are not granted, in fact, to all citizens of the
United States itself. The empty letter of the law has no significance for an American
negro - only the existing reality.
Within the British Commonwealth also, after centuries of democracy, there are still
'untouchables' in India and unprivileged Australian aborigines, while in the new
nationalist South Africa oppression of the dark-skinned peoples grows from day to day.
The Japanese now receiving their first instruction in the elements of Christianity must
be a little puzzled by its injunctions to love thy neighbour and turn the other cheek, with
its exaltation of poverty and humility, when the example shown him is to the contrary.
To those who advocate his reformation through Christianity, he might well pose the
question: What good has it done the West, with its long succession of wars and
"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
accompanying barbarities and injustices? And when we charge him with indifference to
the suffering of others, and make cruelty a quality particular to him, he could ask of our
coal-mine ponies, of coursing with live hares, of trap-shooting of birds, of rabbits in
traps in night-long agony, and of fox-hunting.
For their rehabilitation the Japanese people need, not spurious self-righteousness, but
the sympathetic assistance and example of the rest of the world. America, Burma and
Siam, among others, have shown, by admission of trade representatives, a relaxation of
war-time bitterness, but at the time of writing, the British Commonwealth remains
inplacable, perhaps from old hatreds, perhaps from fear of Japanese competition in the
fast-dwindling markets.
From the war's beginning, Australian Governments have shown political immaturity in
their attitude towards the Japanese. on Morotai we were issued with instructions as to
the method of returning a Japanese prisoner's salute. We were to 'stare him fiercely and
fixedly in the eye' and walk past. In Japan, we were told, they were unhygienic and
disease-ridden and unfit to associate with, and we were constantly reminded of their
war-time villainies. This indoctrination was without doubt the major cause of the
delinquency of a large body of Australian soldiers.
The policies of different Occupying Governments were reflected faithfully in the
behaviour of their troops. British soldiers held themselves aloof; the Americans, with a
benevolent cheek-turning Christian at their head, indulged themselves to the hilt; the
Australians reacted as if they were still at war and Japan and its inhabitants a vast
village in overrun territory, subject to the whims and passions of battle-inflamed
soldiery.
In Australia it is still fashionable to despise the Japanese for their war-time conduct, and
banal newspaper articles, larded with frequent use of the word 'democratic' and with
special derisive emphasis of the 'peculiarities' of Japanese life, flow by the mushy
bucketful from correspondents in Tokyo. Much of the material appears to have been
copied from English-language newspapers in the Press Club lounges. Seldom is any
serious attempt made to interpret the great and constant changes that have occurred
since the war's end.
But so long as the average Australian, on buying his newspaper, continues to turn at
once to the sporting pages, with profound contempt for atom bombs and national
upsurges at his back door, there will be a place for this kind of journalism. And so long
as his Government continues to conduct its mediaeval White Australia policy with
inhuman rigor, so long will we remain in political swaddling clothes, until they are torn
from us by the 'inferior' races we choose to despise.
The intense and pathetic admiration of the West that we encountered in the first year of
the Occupation did not extend beyond material things. The Japanese have, no doubt, by
now assessed the Occupation and the Occupiers at their true value, resulting in a
commensurate change of attitude. Whether I shall find them the same again I cannot
know until I revisit them. I can only hope they will be fundamentally unchanged.
"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
A good deal of hard thinking preceded the writing of this book. For some time after my
return to Australia I was hesitant about expressing opinions that ran counter to the
current popular mood, and I deferred to private prejudices born of lost sons, husbands,
and close friends. But I do so no longer. All the libraries of hate-books, all the ostracism
and unforgiving exclusionism, will not bring back one dead soldier or salve the wounds
of the maimed: it could dig the graves of their children.
That is my defence, if there is need for any.
Melbourne, 1949
"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
Chapter 1
Arrival
The afternoon sun glittered on the Dakota's wings as it swung high over the mountains
of Kyushu.
Thatched houses dotted the rice fields in the valleys. Somewhere near here lived Jimmu
Tenno, first Emperor of Japan, kin of the Sun-Goddess.
The fulfilment of twelve years of studying, watching and waiting was near.
What was it going to be like? What would they be like?
Those little brown men of New Guinea jungle, Thailand railroad, and Borneo
plantation... I could hear the screams of white men in the agonies of revolting torture, of
Dutch nuns at Kuching... the crack of bursting rubber nuts in Sandakan plantations
mingled with rifle shots as British, Indian and Australian soldiers, too sick to drag
themselves an inch farther along the road to Ranau, received the boon of death from
their captors...
Japanese prisoners in Borneo working in their
compound under the supervision of the author (right).
But, by Christ we'd got even. We'd beaten up the unarmed Nip working parties lined up
on the Sandakan Wharf after surrender. Rolled quarter-ton drums of petrol over them as
they lay there, too.
Then there was that big captain with the loaded rubber hose. I can still see his elbows
weaving through the tent flap. Didn't he love it! That was the way to find the war
criminals. Some of them had done nothing, of course, but what did that matter. A Jap's a
Jap.
And the embarkation of the sick and wounded, about two thousand of them. Nothing of
any value was left to them. Emptied out their rice on the ground; might have been
watches or jewellery under it. A kick in the behind or on a raw patch of tropical ulcer on
"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
the leg soon got 'em moving again. When they couldn't climb the ladders we hauled
them up the LST's side with a rope. The lads with the lifeboat paddles were waiting for
'em on deck. Sounded good, the crack of wood on their skulls. Bloody hard skulls some
of them were too; broke some of the paddles. Those that fell were kicked in the face; if
they couldn't get up, overboard they went...
The R.A.A.F. M.O. that interfered; he was bloody lucky he didn't go overboard too. He
would, if he hadn't locked himself in his cabin. 'Are you men or animals?' he'd said
before we'd made a rush at him. As if the Nips were any better than animals.
They died like flies on the trip back to Jesselton. Every morning they'd be brought up on
the lift from the L.S.T.'s tank deck. God, did they stink! Someone said something about
peace on their faces as they lay huddled up on the deck. All evil shed away'. What did
he know?
We tied weights to 'm and cheered as we slid 'em overboard, knocking against hooks
and rails as they went down the side. Hope the fish didn't object to eating them.
Remember old Blackie, the cook, how he cut off a Nip P.O.W.'s head with a meat
chopper? Never had a chance to get near one before, he said. Wanted to be able to say
he'd killed one when he got back home. Quite right too. Cooks don't get much chance to
get up the front with the boys.
And then the fellow we made dig his own grave. He'd been given a hell of a belting, but
he still said he knew nothing about the Sandakan march, wasn't even there. But you
know how you can't take a Nip's word for anything. They laid him on the ground and
marked out his length, then gave him a spade and made him dig. I'd never seen a Jap
show terror before. When he had finished they knelt down on the edge of the hole and
stood over him with an axe. He was screaming his innocence and begging for time to
pray when I turned it in. I told them I couldn't stand any more. They went and got
another interpreter...
Other thoughts intruded. There was that pilot shot down over Darwin. He'd a letter in
his pocket, from his eight-year-old daughter, and a little pastel drawing of his home,
pretty good for a child. She'd written on it: 'Please come home soon, dear Daddy. We
think of nothing but the day when we shall be together again.' Funny they thought like
that. Just like your own daughter.
Then there was Ito, private secretary to Kawai Tatsuo, His Imperial Japanese Majesty's
Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Australia. While his fellow
Japanese beguiled their leisure hours in Melourn brothels, we sat in his quiet room in
South Yarra and discussed Marx, Bertrand Russell, and Ito's faith in the brotherhood of
man. He hoped his children would grow up to serve the same ideal. He didn't live to see
it.
And Shigemori, who loved his golf, eschewed politics, and was bossed by his wife. He
didn't want to go back to Japan, where he mustn't think of anything but war, wasn't
allowed to play golf. (Were the soldiers in China playing golf?) And she couldn't wear
her fur coat there. The soldiers in China didn't wear them, either.
"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
Then those lists of names in the records of the Kempeitai and Tokumu Kikan at
Sandakan. There were hundreds of them, men with 'dangerous thoughts' who didn't like
the war, who had been sent to work out their penance in the Borneo jungles, to make
Japan safe for the militarists they despised.
Well, anyway, I'd soon be able to find out what they were like in their own country. The
few travellers I'd met had certainly painted a very pretty picture. Sentimentalists, no
doubt, remembering only the better part of it.
Just how far I'd got with the language after twelve year's study I'd soon know too.
Reading and writing was easy enough: you could do that from books, but conversation
was different. Talking with a few POWs on the same stereotyped technical subjects
didn't help much. We were now over the Inland Sea. The buzzer was blaring. That
meant we were preparing to land. Below was the strip at Iwakuni. It wouldn't be long
now. Better put my revolver on, just in case...
A tiny policeman in shoddy, ill-fitting staple-fibre uniform and wearing a shining
nickel-plated sword, sauntered over as we steeped from the plane. He threw us a casual
American-style salute and took no further interest in us. Anything less like our
traditional idea of a policeman was impossible to imagine.
We were apparently no new sight to him, and even the sight of our jeep being unloaded
from the plane failed to move him. It was now three months since the first Americans
had arrived and he'd probably seen everything since then.
This was something of a setback to our egos. Consciously or not, we had exalted
ourselves to the role of conquering heroes, and had expected to be received in a manner
befitting such men, though of course we were to come down from our high positions
just to show how democratic we were - none of those distinctions were we came from.
Considerably crestfallen, we piled our own gear into the jeep with our own hands and
drove off through wrecked planes and burt-out frames of petrol tanks to the
administrative building.
A Royal Air Force officer gave us a courteous welcome and a bottle of Japanese beer
each and we ate English canned rations. The quality of the beer was a surprise, as good
as we'd drunk, though lighter. Beer has never been a sine qua non of my diet, but to the
others that bottle case a rosy light down the long, uncertain vista of their future days in
Japan.
Our small group was restless, and the prospect of staying here for the night appealed to
no one. We decided to drive the jeep straight through to Kure, about sixty miles away,
via Hiroshima. It was getting near dusk when we left. We sped along a pretty fair road,
with only an unremembered glimpse of the scene around us.
The cold wind blew through us in the open jeep and froze our heads into insensible
blocks of ice. Two days before we had been in Morotai, and we were beginning to feel
the effects of sudden contact with winter after many months of tropical heat.
"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
At a small railway station, Koi, on the outskirts of Hiroshima, we stopped for directions.
A porter offered to come with us as guide to Kure, whence he would return to Koi by
train.
And so we passed through the ruined, unlit city in the darkness, with only a dim hint of
its tragedy apparent to us.
Kure was a motley of Americans packing up to leave, and handfuls of advance troops
from all parts of the Empire. We moved into a large Western-style building, formerly
the Japanese Naval HQ, and wonderfully equipped. on the ground floor was a huge
Japanese-style bathroom, with three swimming pools, containing hot water at varying
temperatures. After eating, we luxuriated in these for about an hour, then bedded down
for the night in a huge dormitory inhabited by a few remaining G.I.s.
By now it was ten p.m., time for lights-out, and I wondered at the alacritiy of the
Americans in leaping to conform to the regulations. I was not left in the dark,
figuratively, for long. The soft clatter of wooden clogs treading a familar path, the rustle
of silk, embarrassed giggles, creaking beds and rhythmic movements made the night
eloquent, as Japanese girls made sacrifice, though with no great reluctance, to their
country's conquerors.
Very difficult conditions for a lone soldier, newly out of tropical solitude, to find sleep.
When it did come it was deep.
"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
Chapter 2
Train Journey
Next morning I was up early and set out to see how many illusions would be shattered
that day. It is inevitable that one should build, on one's reading and study of things
Japanese, a fairyland peopled with wonders at every turn and I was prepared for
disappointing first impressions.
It was just as well. Kure is hardly the place from which to begin a pilgrimage to the
shrine of beauty. Set in a bowl of hills and docks, it was a ruin of bombed buildings and
twisted webs of girders when I first saw it. on the sides of the nearer hills large grey
and white houses clung precariously, moulded int the steep face like swallows' nests,
and equally inaccessible. Away from the centre, the houses were ramshackle and the
facilities primitive. The water supply flowed in ditches past the door, and sewage, as is
usual in extra-urban Japan, was applied directly to its most profitable purpose -
fertilization of an over-impoverished soil, to produce staple food necessities. The drab
grey-tiled roofs and white walls held nother of the expected colour. The only brihtness
to be found was in the women's costumes. It was winter, and there was a premonition of
snow in the icy-crisp air; the flowers were long dead.
The public market (the Japanese always called it, with complete frankness, the black
market) was a great sprawling collection of rickety booths on a wide bomb-cleared
space. They werecrammed with inferior goods of al types, and the many 'restaurants'
displayed varietys of dishes of dubious origin and freshness. What few treasures there
were, such as bicycles, radios and clothing, were priced as pearls beyond even the
coveting of ordinary men. Of pieces of art, pictures and bronzes there were none.
I resolved to get away fromit until I had time for readjustment. Then suddenly an ideal
opportunity presented itself.
In Borneo, after the war had ended, I had worked in close liaison with certain Staff
Officers of the 37th Army Group under Commander-in-Chief Lieutenant-General Baba
Masao. (Baba was later condemned to death by hanging for responsibility for the
Sandakan-Ranau death march.) The officers with whom I worked, on documents and
general matters relating to the Borneo campaigns, had been cleared of war crime
suspicion. When I left for Japan they pleaded with me to bear letters on their behalf to
their families, telling them of their good health and circumstances. only one of these
was addressed to a place immediately accessible to me, that is, within the B.C.O.F. area.
I went to Kure railway station and inquired. The place, Kisa, was well back into the
mountains, but if I caught a train at five-thirty a.m. the following day, I could make the
return journey within the day.
I set to and made preparations, which consisted chiefly of scraping together enough
rations for the day. Humility, pleading and cajoling were necessary, as food had number
one priority 'on the black' and, consequently, was as a premium with quartermasters.
"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
I went to bed early that night, my sleep once again punctuated with ghostly footsteps,
half-hearted protests, and creakings from over-laden beds.
I gave some considerable thought to what I was about to do: to penetrate into the wilds
of what was, in effect, enemy country, with no protection of arms, with nothing but a
sentimentalist's blind faith that things would turn out all right. Not much to go on, and a
few doubts stole into my mind.
Morning brought freshness of spirit and new faith. Kure station was only a few steps
and a Tokyo-bound train stood in the station. I entered a carriage bearing the chalked
legend in Chinese characters Shinchugun Senyo - 'For the exclusive use of the
Occupation Forces'. one glance at the rest of the train gave cause for thanks, vor it was
overflowing with a human flood. The engine and its tender swarmed with people, sitting
on the coal, or clinging precariously to the sides. one or two audacious spirits had
achieved the miraculous by forcing themselves through carriage windows, thus
presenting the inmates with silently resented faits accomplis.
The train struggled out and laboured on to Fukuyama, where I had to change. Here I had
a glimpse of the newly-ruined castle. The main structure had been completely destroyed
by incendiaries, though little else in the vicinity appeared damaged. The armoury had
survived, and its symmetrical classic lines suggested the beauty of the ancient structure
that had vanished. The ruins held that nostalgic quality inherent in all old buildings
whose walls have not for may years quickened to the footfall of an inhabitant.
It was time to leave on the next stage. The branch line train had no provision for
Occupation personnel, and with some diffidence I entered the rear carriage, half guard's
van and half passenger coach. This was jammed tight with people, but space was
cleared immediately and I was politely forced into a seat against the door
communicating with the van. I had decided to show no knowledge of the Japanese
language, partly from lack of confidence, and partly from fear of the interminable
questions from all within earshot which was the invariable outcome.
Outside it was bitterly cold, and as we drew closer to the mountains fine driving snow
beat against the windows and flew past silently in ghostly patterns, sometimes fluttering
in through broken panes. It powdered the young green barley that grew in all the fields.
A man beside me began talking to me in rudimentary English, so exasperatingly
unintelligible that I was forced into admission of some knowledge of Japanese. This, in
the early days of the Occupation, always evoked amazed wonder and admiration,
tempered afterwards with tactful and salutary criticism that brought one down to earth
again. After the intitial astonishment we settled into conversational commonplaces. My
companion was an unshaven and roughly-clad middle-aged man with a certain
straighforwardness that impressed me.
Inevitably we got around to 'the bomb' and he unexpectedly began roundly to condemn
its use as inhuman. I agreed, but added that it had probably greatly shortened the war,
and avoided sacrifice of large numbers of men on both sides. He countered that we must
have known that they were at the end of their tether, and anyway, there were other ways
of exhibiting its power than by dropping it on populous cities.
10
"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
I had talked this question out so often that I was becoming a bit uncertain about the
ethics of it, and was wondering how to change the subject, when a ragged-bearded head
thrust out from the door opening into the guard's van. It said 'You!' in English, with an
abrupt rudeness possible only to a Japanese using a foreign language. I had come to
expect, but not demand, formal politeness, so I ignored it. It was repeated. Then my
sleeve was plucked to such purpose that I decided to defer, and followed him in. Haifa
dozen railway employees were in there, some squatting on the floor, most smoking
kiresu - ridiculously small pipes, which hold only a pinch of tobacco. My bearded friend
pressed on me a small salmon tin which he had filled from a huge bottle containing
something that looked and smelt like methylated spirit (I learned later that it was pure
alcohol). I inwardly recoiled at the thought of drinking it, but my bearded one had
obviously imbibed deeply and importuned me with sly gestures and familiar embraces
that seem to distinguish the behaviour of drunks all over the world. I thought it wise not
to offend him, so tasted it and found it fishy and fiery.
My token drink satisfied him, and he inquired politely in Japanese my purpose on the
train. I told him briefly, and immediately regretted it. It staggered him that a former
enemy was enduring the discomforts of that train to bring peace to the mind of his foes's
family. Within a few moments everyoneknew. My immediate comfort became the
concern and responsibility of all. A couch was made from straw-matting-covered
bundles in the van. Thery were wonderfully comfortable, but their number gradually
diminished as we reached their respective destinations, until there was only one left.
They refused to let this one go, and sent it back on another train!
When the first frenzy had subsided, it was decided that the populace of Kisa should be
told the story by railway telephone, so that suitable preparation could be made to
receive me. This was done at Fuchu, a few stations later, where a change of trains was
again necessary. I was received at Fuchu by the Joyaku, or deputy Station Master, in the
same warm and unaffected manner as I had hitherto experienced. He was a man of
considerable intelligence and had the quiet air of efficiency and self-assurance of a man
who knows his job. This applied also to the staff of three or four girls, in trim navy blue
trousers and white blouses.
We sat around the stove in the centre of the room, piled on railway coal, drank railway
tea, and smoked my cigarettes. My name, age and personal history were dragged from
me in a few minutes. It is easy to amuse a foreigner merely by conversing in his own
language. Everything has a touch of novelty, and I learned to repeat 'impromptu' many
of my ｅxpressions that were always good for a laugh.
Kisa was only two stations further on. Japanese railway stations display on either side
of the station names, those of the next station in either direction. This is an excellent
idea and a great help to a stranger. Since the Occupation it has become compulsory for
these names to be in English also.
As we approached my destination, I was troubled with a few uncomfortable thoughts.
What if this soldier's wife hated her husband's former antagonists? Perhaps she had
heard that General Baba had been indicted as cheif war criminal in Borneo. Was she
still living in Kisa?
11
"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
A knot of railway employees and bystanders met me with great ceremony and I was
ushered into the office. A broad-faced sweet woman of about thirty years, in a blouse
and skirt, obviously not a peasant type, and a boy of about six years were there. They
had come from a relative's home beyond the mountains, whence they had been
summoned by a member of the railway staff. She had already been informed of the
purpose of my visit. I gave her the letter. She did not thank me overmuch, but simply, as
one who is tryly grateful gives thanks. We were escorted to a house a few yards away,
and there in a little room we were left alone. We sat at the kotatsu (a kind of room
heater) and she read the letter. There was no breakdown or weeping; just a sublimely
happy ｅxpression like that sometimes seen on the faces of lovers thinking of the beloved.
I was thankful, for their sakes, that he had been free of suspicion, and had not been
placed in the potential war-criminals' camp, for probable arraignment later on.
I told her of conditions for her husband in Borneo - and I could do this without fear of
causing her anxiety - and something of the campaign there. Some of the warmth of the
tropics came back in the heat of the kotatsu. This is a peculiarly Japanese invention. In
the floor of most rooms in a Japanese house is a small pit about eighteen inches square
and of the same depth. Burning charcoal is placed in this, a wooden grating fits over the
opeing, and above it stands a low table coverd with a large square quilt.
We sat opposite each other at this table with our legs stretched out underneath. A
delicious warmth crept around us, and coaxed a cat to the table-top - a spot cats are
customarily conceded. I sat there with an intrigueing feeling of intimacy, barefooted as
always when in a house, our legs interlaced and almost involuntarily caressing each
other. Of course, it was all so conventional and correct for a Japanese to be thus, but I
must confess to a disturbing preoccupation as we talked and drank dark green tea.
For two hours we sat there, until it was time for me to leave. She gave me here address
in Kyoto, where she and her husband, who was a painter, had lived before the war, and
where she would return as soon as he came back. I said good-bye to her and her grave-
faced son, and boarded the train, considerably embarrassed by gaping hordes of
passengers. They found me a seat, and I sat there, too absorbed in thoughts of the last
two hours to concern myself with my fellow travellers.
As we laboriously huff-puffed up into the mountains, the snow became thicker and
deeper, obliterating the barley. There were long stops because of the engine driver's
inability to see ahead. At these halts men went to the carriage windows and
nonchalantly micturated on to the snow outside, to the complete unconcern of the other
passengers. It is difficult, at first, not to assess such actions on the basis of one's own
conventions and standards of behaviour. The false modesties of the West have not
imposed themselves on the Japanese. The adult mind does not submit to restrictions on
natural functions not applied to children. There were many things I had to unlearn when
I returned to Australia. In any case it would have been impossible to use the lavatories,
since they were packed to the roof with passengers' baggage. How the women managed
I was spared from knowing.
As darkness fell, I gradually became uncomfortably conscious of my situation. I began
to think of these nodding, dozing people around me were blood kin to the men whose
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"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
deeds throughout China and the Pacific had shocked the world, men with minds
reputedly inaccessible to Western understanding. And here alone among them was one
their enemy, whose own activities had been suitably distorted, magnified and darkened
for the benefit of their war effort. Those primitive fears that come with midnight and
solitude descended upon me.
The train stopped with a creaking jerk. Heavy snow had made it impossible to go on in
the darkness, so all began to settle down for the night. Those that could lay on the floor,
in all possible and impossible positions. Some lay across the carriage couplings, their
heads through the lavatory doorways. The air became overpoweringly laden with
physical odours, like a wild animals' lair. I began thinking again of Borneo and Malayan
campaigns, and my composure melted more and more at the thought of spending the
night amongst them, isolated in a desert of inscrutable minds. Yet, as in all previous and
subsequent contacts, I was fortified by and intuition - a sense that they would not harm
me. This feeling, will, of course, remain valid until the contrary occurs. No doubt the
presence of women and children reassured me, for rarely does oriental or occidental
reveal the brutal side of his nature in their sight.
I was jerked out of my musings as the train, with driving wheels spinning madly, moved
slowly forward again. The windows were now crusted with snow, and beyond a broken
one was a black nothingness. Before long we were through the mountain barrier and
reached the Geibi line which runs from Hiroshima to the castle town of HImeji. We
made our final change of trains here. It was herculean labour for others, but I was given
a reserved half-carriage and thereafter travelled in solitary and frigid state.
For the rest of the return journey, memory of only one incident remains. At one small
country station, a young mother, with a child strapped to her back, found it impossible
to board the over-burdened train, and stood there forlorn and anxious on the snowy
platform. As I sat, torn between diffidence against inviting her to share a dark, unlighted
carriage with an Occupation soldier, and the realization that she would probably have to
stay on the station all night, the train moved off and left her standing there. In her face
there was no emotion, merely the calm resignation to a life that has been the lot of
Japanese women for centuries, a life that has ennobled and dignified them far beyond
the men of their race.
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"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
Chapter 3
iina
Uj
Supply ships and transports began to arrive from the south, and the former naval
wharves at Kure became choked with men and materials. I worked with a docks
operating unit, directing Japanese working parties engaged in unloading. We lived in a
building in the docks area, and had four house-girls 'doing' for us. Under an
arrangement with the Japanese Government, a fixed number of these girls were
employed as domestics throught all units of the occupying armies, their wages being
paid by the Japanese Government. Our four were all sisters, three young ones, shy as
birds, and an older sister, a war widow, still very eligible.
When the first Americans came they had fled to the mountains, to return wide-eyed with
wonder to find that the barbarians were not quite so barbarous as the propaganda
instruments had foretold. With the coming of the Australians, there was another flight to
the hills, and another cautious return. They were quite certain of one thing, however. 'If
the Chinese ever come, we shall not come back.' The reason for this apparently lay in
the lower standard of living enjoyed by the Chinese. Even the meagre possessions of the
Japanese would be attractive loot to such impoverished people, they believed.
We spent long evenings together over the stove, and gradually they made me their
confidant, and sought advice on all things. Was Captain , who took more than a
polite interest in them, married? Was it all right to remain in the room while the officers
undressed? It would not have made any difference to Japanese men, but these
Australians seemed so uncomfortable. Perhaps if they did not watch?
There were interminable questions about Australia, which they, like most Japanese,
called 'yonder place', as if uncertain where it was, or what it was. Knowledge was
gained by mutual straightforward trial-and-error methods, the occasional raised
eyebrow of surprise being rather one-sidedly ours.
one ordeal, at first, was the daily visit to the latrines. Long years in the army had
accustomed us to communal lavatories, with long vistas of holds that would have
warmed the heart of Chic Sale. But to find the adjacent one occupied by a young
woman was something outside army experience. The embarrassment we felt seemed a
bit foolish, since the lady herself, in supreme ignorance of our discomfort, refused to be
in the least moved by the situation.
We gave top priority to the building of a separate convenience for the women, and bade
them use it, to the exclusion of all others. This restriction on their liberty gave them to
wonder if, after all, there was equality of the sexes in the democracies!
Their customary composure was sorely tested a few days later, when a medical
inspection of all Japanese employees for venereal disease was ordered. The women
were examined first. 'You'd better stick with me,' grunted the visiting Medical Officer,
an elderly jaded man. After all, I cannot do everything with signs.' The girls took the
whole thing as an affront to their personal honour. They were obviously exceedingly
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"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
virtuous, and the imputation of having such diseases humiliated them, quite apart from
the ordeal of a physical examination, although the doctor was very considerate with
them. The details of the examination may not be recorded, except to say that any gaps in
my knowledge of feminine anatomy were filled that day! The poor dears could not look
me in the face for a week afterwards.
Troops of all Empire countries began to pour into the city. The Stars and Stripes flew
over only one building now, Allied Military Government Headquarters. Sikhs and
Ghurkas, Royal Navy sailors and Anzacs thronged the narrow streets and denuded the
markets and shops of their shoddy silks, cheap lacquer ware, and gewgaws in general.
Imperial troops met and appraised each other for the first time. An English captain told
me of his first encounter with an Australian. He walked down the ship's gangway and
was about to set foot on Japanese soil for the first time, when he was confronted by a
reeling six foot private, grasping a bottle of beer. 'Have a drink, mate,' was the
Australian's greeting. A little taken aback by the unaccustomed informality of the
approach, the officer rather superciliously declined. 'Have a drink, or I'll chuck
yer in the water,' roared the Australian. The captain drank without further
comment and returned to his cabin to compose himself and ponder the mysteries of
Australian army discipline.
I, too, paused to consider the attitude up till now of the population towards us, and
found it very puzzling. There had not been the faintest show of hostility. Instead there
was a readiness to help and in any way to make us feel 'at home'. Often someone would
stop me in the street, and press some rare and desirable article, such as a camera film,
into my hand. The donor would then make off, after murmering a
polite 'prezen to' or 'sabisu ' (service), meaning, I took it, part of the service, no payment
expected.
My own unit was one of the first to arrive, and we set up headquarters at Tenno, four or
five miles out on the Hiroshima Road, on the Inland Sea. Winter had locked the people
in their houses, and no diversions offered. Then, after an uneventful week, I received, at
ten o'clock at night, one of those maddeningly unnecessary orders often given in the
army - to go immediately to a place four miles on the other side of Hiroshima. I was to
be posted there indefinitely. I threw my belongings hastily into a waiting jeep, and was
rushed off to Hiroshima and my destination, Ujina, fourteen miles away. We arrived at
midnight, still without more than a glimpse of the devastated city in the darkness.
Ujina is the port of Hiroshima, and at that time was the headquarters of an American
port director, supervising supplies for troops over a wide area. A company of
Australians had moved in that day and the Americans were celebrating their departure
with a farewell party when I arrived. Their recreation hall thundered to the revelling and
dancing of G.I. s and their Japanese girlfriends. on the following day, hundreds of these
girls clung to the Americans in emotional farewells on the railway station. When the
train pulled out we were alone - one hundred and twenty Australians in a camp
surrounded by 'the enemy'.
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"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
The camp had been formerly an embarkation and supply depot for Japanese troops,
consisting of an expanse of buildings and wharves. It included also a Hall of Victorious
Return, built to welcome home the conquering Imperial Armies. Two great stone lions
brought from China crouched beside its bleak deserted doors, gazing out over the bay,
from which transports laden with the flower of Nippon's sons steamed years before. The
stone eyes of the lions seemed to watch for their return. Return they did soon, with
bitter irony, to the Hally of Victories, to receive alms and comfort, by courtesy of the
Australian Army.
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"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
Chapter 4
? Moose ?
The Americans had been gone some days and the ladies had had time to dry their tears
and appraise the newcomers. In the evening, drawn by the twin urges of curiosity and
the need for warmth, they cautiously took up what were no doubt old familiar positions
around the sentries' braziers, hands covering their sniggering faces.
Most of the men in the unit had been in the tropics for long periods, cut off from
feminine society, and made no secret of what they wanted, or of their readiness,
willingness and ability to recover lost ground. The first barrier they encountered was
language. At first they circumvented it and relied solely on gestures. What English the
ladies knew had obviously been learnt in the lists of love, and consisted of such phrases
as 'Oh, my aching back', or some other anatomical region, spoken with an American
accent. This was encouraging, but did not get one anywhere, so my services were
enlisted to smooth the way to the ultimate goal.
My efforts had mixed results. At the sound of Japanese being spoken the girls would
abandon their new-found friends for the speaker. They were as yet indifferent to our
physical characteristics. All one needed to be considered handsome was a big nose, and
mine was big enough. The girls' attentions engendered a certain amount of heartburning
and distrust, and I came to be held responsible for the success or failure of each soldier's
venture. If a girl did not appear at an appointed place or lost interest, it was because I
had so advised or directed her, for my own lewd and selfish ends. only once was this
accusation justified, and I think the lady was grateful for it.
Outside the flickering circle of the brazier's glow stood several disused refrigerating
chambers, the floors spread with matting left by destitutes from Hiroshima. These
became the scenes of the final consummation of love, and, like army latrines, were
occupied and used by numerous people at the same time. The girls were a pretty grubby,
dubious lot, as was to be expected. Camp followers are the same the world over. Nearly
all were venereal disease hosts, a matter of supreme indifference to the soldiers. Since
the girls had to be given a general name, it was not long before the standard appellation
became 'moose'. This derived from the first part of the Japanese word musume, a girl.
As the girls were the quarry in a great game hunt, the term was singularly apt.
I could never bring myself to condemn these girls, whose immediate past experiences
could hardly have been conducive to observation of the niceties of the moral code. Like
almost every woman in Japan, their general bearing and manners were dignified and
gentle, and, so far as I was concerned, could not be ugly. Certainly in post-war Japan,
they were on ordinary occasions sartorially drab and shabby, especially when wearing
European clothes, but even then they could do, without a loss of dignity, things that
would be crude and disgusting in a Westerner.
Their figures were lamentable in European dress, with their daikon ashi - radish-shaped
legs - bowed from being curved around their mothers' bodies when carried as children
for long hours slung on the maternal backs. But in their kimonos and obis, they became
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"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
princesses of the blood, the beauty of their silk-smooth honey-coloured skin and the
unhurried dignity of their movements blending into a being completely satisfying to the
aesthetic sense. Their speech, also, took on the character of their costume, and was
flavoured with mincing ｅxpressions and polite circumlocations in imitation of Yamada
Isuzu, Tanaka Kinuyo, and other currently popular screen actresses.
While the other ranks wandered at will down these pleasant by-ways, the officers' path
to love was strewn with the thistles and thorns of military discipline and social
convention. They chafed at the knowledge that, as usual, their subordinates were
indulging their whims without restriction, whilst they sat in enforced virture in their
mess. I was called in to H.Q., five miles away, for consultation. Was there somewhere
in the town where the American officers had sought solace in their exile? Could I find
it? Discrete inquiries of the camp carpenter, a little rat of a man, supplied the answer.
His sister would be honoured to make all the arrangements. Three officers and myself,
tomorrow night? Yes, yes, Kurifuton San. Of course I could be sure of his uttermost
discretion. Venereal disease? No, no, no! He would see that our partners' blood was
'pure' (a popular euphemism). At this point I made it clear that I was appearing in the
role of interpreter and go-between only.
The officers prepared themselves as for a gubernatorial levee. The youngest of them,
newly commissioned, was obviously still a virgin. The excitement always attendant on
the prospect of that first rapturous experience glowed in his face and sparkled on his
Sam Browne belt and immaculate uniform. We arrived at four-thirty p.m., early for an
occidental, apparently a normal time for entertaining in Japan. The rendezvous was a
second-class hotel, which I knew later to be the most notorious brothel in the town, and
there were many competing fiercely for this honour, as this was a seaport, catering
primarily for the needs of seamen. We were introduced to the carpenter's sister and two
girls of no great beauty or talent to amuse. We produced prezentos of chocolates,
biscuits and cigarettes - keys which opened all doors. Tea was brought in, followed by
small bottles of hot sake. one drink of this was the signal for the women to make lewd
gestures and try out equally lewd English phrases learned from their late G.I. patrons.
The carpenter's sister was a blowzy, bawdy creature of forty-odd, with not one outward
redeeming feature, quite unlike the women I had hitherto met. Until now I had
considered her merely an agent for the others, but when the time came to separate and
worship at Eros's inner shrines, I realized with a certain amount of horror that she was
to be a participant in the final rites, and had allotted herself to the young lieutenant. If
the woman repelled him, as she did me, he gave no sign, but carried out his duties that
night in a manner befitting an officer, if not a gentleman.
At camp the next morning the carpenter surreptitiously thrust three small glass
ampoules into my pocket. 'Just in case the girls' blood was not so pure!' he whispered.
I did not dare tell the officers.
Some time after I went to the home of the carpenter on matters relating to work required
in the camp. He was not at home, and his sister invited me in to wait. She left me to
make tea, and I glanced around the room. In the alcove were four small plain wooden
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"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
boxes, and one larger one. They held the ashes of her husband and four children;
according to the inscriptions all had died on the same day, 6 August 1945.
All my revulsion for this woman melted into compassion. There is no place for moral
judgement when all about which one's life was centred and which gave it meaning was
disintegrated in one vast blinding flash; when one became , with a quarter-million other
Hiroshima inhabitants, a terrified guinea pig in a monstrous, amoral experiment.
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"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
Chapter 5
Treasure Island
Three boats lay tied up alongside the camp pier. All had been allotted by the Home
Government for the sole use of our American predecessors; now they had gone, their
captains stood by, ready to serve their new masters. one was a trim white launch, in
charge of a bullet-headed, beef-witted boor. His father, head of the shipping company
which owned the craft, obviously despised his perpetually-grinning, rather unsavoury-
looking offspring. Another director of the firm had spent many years in America, owned
to an American wife, still there, and spoke English of a sort. He combined all the worst
qualities of both races and had developed servility to the ultimate degree. Their
eagerness to please us was protested over much, and their 'loyalty' obviously lay where
the most profit could be gained. Their earlier affiliations were betrayed later when the
launch was being scraped preparatory to repainting. Beneath the previous coast of paint
was revealed its former name - Kamikaze, the 'divine wind' which had scattered and
shattered the great fleets of Kublai Khan in the first attempt to invade these sacred
shores; the name bestowed on suicide planes in the later stages of the war, in the vain
hope that 'divine' intervention might again be conjured up by the heroism of their pilots.
All members of this family had declined the invitation to become immortals and had
managed to remain 'the men behind the guns' - several hundred miles behind.
The second vessel, a twenty-foot sampan, was home, have and source of livelihood to
its owner, a pleast slow-thinking fisherman, endowed with a wife and child, and a
philosophy that made him content with the little he had or could hope for. The two
rooms below deck were clean and comfortable enough, but cooking on the open deck
over a charcoal brazier, fair weather or foul, was calculated to ruffle the placidity of
Buddha.
The remaining craft, a tiny tugboat, was a thing apart. It was a mere twenty feet long,
and appeared to have a draught of only a few inches. Its 'crew' was an old woman of
about sixty years of age, full of vitality, who in some amazing way combined the duties
of an engineer, navigator, and helmsman. The single-cylinder heavy oil engine must
have been of the same vintage as its operator. The ritual of starting-up was probably
known to her alone. A large plug in the side of the cylinder-head was unscrewed,
something like a roman candle was lit and shoved inside, showering sparks. Vigorous
rocking of the great flywheel eventually induced a tremendous puff, setting the engine
chugging and blowing thick, perfectly formed smoke-rings from the smoke-stack.
In all her activity, instinct seemed to most control, and the chain of operations, from
starting-up, engaging clutch and taking over the helm, blended into the flow of her
movements about the ship. She knew every rock, sunken ship - and these were legion -
submerged object, and shallow in Hiroshima Bay and adjacent water, and every inch of
the islands in the vicinity.
These islands were formerly navy territory, and fell within the area of our stewardship.
During the settling-in period there was little interpreting to do, so one day I took the
opportunity to do a little exploring. After a few words of explanation to the skipper I
20
"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
boarded the tug and we headed for the nearest island about a mile away. As we
approached, threading our way through anchored rusty submarines, she asked me how
long I intended to stay. The tide was near full, and evidently a point of landing had to be
chosen with this in mind. I said about half an hour and leapt ashore, to be greeted by a
policeman, one of several posted to prevent illegal entry. He courteously invited me to
look around, after the manner of a floor-walker in a department store. I half expected
him to add 'no obligation to buy'.
The island, called Kanawa, was nothing more than a high hill, about half a mile across,
with a shelf of beach around it. The sides of the hill were shot through with hundreds of
tunnels, some laid with narrow-gauge rail tracks, nearly all wired for electricity, though
was no power connected. I switched on my hand lamp and entered the nearest one.
From that moment time stood still for that day.
The walls were lined from roof to floor with shelves, and on these shelves reposed all
the wonders of the modern industrial world. As I moved in the depths of the caves,
criss-crossing in every direction, electric clocks, meters, and tools of all possible types
and sizes gave way to welding equipment, car batteries and vacuum flasks, bolts of
cloth, furs from Mongolia and Siberia, brushes in infinite variety, motor-car engines,
radios, photographic apparatus, and chinaware. Hardly anything ever wrought by the
hand of man or woman was missing. Much of the machinery and tools was of German
manufacture, and bore labels in Dutch and Malay, probably plundered for the
Netherlands Indies. There were even a few ingots of zinc, embossed with a map of
Australia, and the name of the smelters. These, I learned later, had been brought from
Singapore.
No one who does not know the fascination of machines, of the satisfaction gained from
something wrought with his own hands in his own workshop, and bearing his own
individual character and imperfections, can understand the thrill of being confronted
with such a vast array of treasure-trove, its potentialities unlimited, there for the taking.
Perhaps a child held in the spell of a vast toyshop would understand. I emerged at
length from the labyrinth to find the day darkening, and my original point of entry
nowhere visible. Halfway round the island from where I had come out was a very
forlorn old lady, sadly inspecting her ship as it lay high and dry, the screw buried in the
sand. She could hav taken it further out, I suppose, when the tide began to ebb, but she
had cosen to remain. I tried my best to apologize, but she didn't mind really, now that
she satisfied herself that no damage had been done. The tug was her home and she could
eat and sleep at will wherever she was.
I had been in the caves from ten a.m. to five p.m. and had not given a thought to food,
but now the need for physical sustenance made acute demands and drew me quickly
from my trance. I accepted gratefully the old lady's offer to share a dozen or so roasted
eels she had prepared. We sat there in the crisp, clear twilight, waiting for the rising tide,
and, as we ate, talked, not of wars, or of where I came from, but of the sea, the sky and
its stars, and the virtues offish as food.
Old Japanese ladies are not very easy to understand, espeicially when they flavour their
speech with words of the local dialect, half forgotten by the present generation, but I
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"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
learned a little of her history. It had been her husband's ship, and when he had died, a
few years earlier, she had been content to carry on. Necessity had taught her what little
she did not know about the handling of the ship, and as she nosed it gently homeward in
the darkness, I pondered on how much of her knowledge had been learnt, and how
much of inherited from, maybe, generations of fisher folk.
There was no need to ask pardon for my unlawful absence from camp, since I carried in
my arms forgiveness in the shape of an electric clock, excellent crockery, vacuum flasks,
and sheeting, with promises of hidden treasure yet unmined.
Next morning I returned to the island with the officers, with a long list of items which
had suddenly become essential and urgent requirements. They were all there, literally
everything from needles to anchors. The primitive camp equipment gave place to the
luxury of real china, bed sheets, clocks that told the correct time, and fur-lined boots.
Radio sets, minus power units as yet undiscovered, offered long hours of potential
pleasure, and electric fans that were mere curios at this time of year, were stored away
by a far-sighted quartermaster.
I did not forget 'Captain' Hamaguchi. All she asked was a couple of dippers for bailing
water, and a few yards of sheeting. That was all she, and her ship, needed to make her
world a better place to live in.
Constant, daily use of these craft changed us from timid landlubbers who stepped
gingerly about and clung fiercely to some support, to men with the lilt of old sea-dogs
in their walk as they paced the deck, scanning the sky for weather signs, or sat at the
helm or tiller changing course with an infinitesimal turn of the wheel that brought us
fairly between two ships at anchor or round the corner of some island and dead ahead
for our home port.
When weather permitted we went far afield. We lived on the edge of what is reputely
one of the most beautiful stretches of water in the world, the Inland Sea, containing
Itsukushima, or, as it is usually called, Miyajima. This island, close to the mainland of
Honshu, is one of the 'Sankai', the three famous beauty spots of ancient times. It was a
bit disappointing on our first visit, like most much publicized places, and the impression
was of gaudy shops tricked out for the benefit of tourists, of street-corner photographers
with their crude, while-you-wait product, and inartisitic souvenirs bearing the name of
the place. But there were also shops that had, hidden away, some choice pieces of
Japanese handcraft, and I managed to unearth two magnificent porcelain dolls, and a
royal purple kimono, woven with a design of gold thread. These took more than half of
ten thousand yen (208 pounds), souvenired in Borneo as worthless, and now found still
to have currency. The balance went into a bicycle. All these purchases met a tragic end
within a week.
Beyond the shops were beautiful cryptomeria trees, symmetrically trunked pines, and
maples, and a brilliant vermilion Shinto shrine. Rising out of the sea before this stood
the famous torii, 'the most perfect gateway in all the world'. Seen in the early morning
wreathed with mist, it stirred deep-buried memories and visions of long forgotten fairy-
tales. The shrine of Itsukushima draws constant streams of pilgrims from all parts of
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"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
Japan. The tutelary goddess is credited with a special fondness for shamoji - wooden
rice spoons. In Senjokaku, 'Hall of a Thousand Mats', a temple devoted to Hideyoshi,
Japan's great peasant statesman and hero, lie mountains of them, ranging from salt-
spoon size to some that would do great service as galley oars. Tourists from all
countries have added their tribute, and shamoji bearing American and even Australian
place-names mingle with the multitude of Japanese ones. Swinging from the roof above
them is an anachronistic aeroplane of early type, presented by some Japanese squadron
seeking protection of the goddess.
Footgear is never worn by Japanese in these sacred places, and with the coming of the
Occupation forces the shrine authorities have discreetly arranged at the threshold a large
assortment of overshoes made of cloth. I have never known a soldier to enter without
first slipping a pair on over his 'half-heavies'.
on the return journey a few sen purchases the privilege of feeding a plateful of fodder
to the 'Divine Horse', an off-white beast confined in a cage-like stall, who wearily turns
in a circle if the word 'Maware' - turn around - is spoken. This he does even when
presented with the problem of reconciling with the native tongue the highly-imaginative
rendering of the word by Anglo-Saxons, who traditionally reserve the right to
pronounce foreign words as they choose.
This first trip was done by sampan, and on the long three-hour voyage home I became
the guest of the owner and his wife at a simple dinner below-decks. That evening I
heard for the first time the story of the first atom bomb (civilian type) from an eye-
witness. From this and other accounts heard later, I gather together the story that
follows. No one person knew it all.
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"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
Chapter 6
Tikadon* - the Atomic Bomb
Hiroshima ken, or the province of Hiroshima, is the central one of a group known
asChugoku, 'the Middle Provinces'. This word is met with often throughout the province.
The Hiroshima daily newspaper is the Chugoku Shimbun, and a bank and various
companies and organizations in the district incorporate the word in their titles. Chugoku
is also one of the names given by the Japanese to China, which is apt to confuse anyone
not familiar with its local application.
Japan was once a heterogenous collection of kuni or small states, nominally owing
allegiance to the Emperor and Shogun but in fact independently governed by feudal
lords. War between these kuni was almost continuous in early days, and power
sometimes overflowed from one to the the other. Hiroshima was a fusion of two kuni,
Aki and Bingo, and these names are still used throughout the Prefecture to distinguish
between two places of the same name: e.g. Aki-Saijo and Bingo-Saigo.
The city of Hiroshima (pronounced Hi rosh'i ma) is built on a group of islands formed
by the seven branching mouths of the Ota River. The city probably derived its name
from one of these islands, since the word means 'broad island'. It is enclosed almost on
three sides by a curve of mountains, the open side facing the Inland Sea.
The hub of the city was a castle built by the old feudal lords. Around this, units of the
Chugoku Regional Army had their headquarters. Ujina, the seaport, was a vast depot for
provisioning and embarking troops from western Japan. It also boasted the largest rayon
factory in Japan. The best oysters in the Orient grew prolifically in Hiroshima Bay.
There were a good number of Western style ferro-concrete buildings, a fine university,
city hall, an eight-story department store, and an industrial museum, the show place of
the city. And on the edge of the city was a very large brewery, producing an excellent
light beer.
The pre-war population, was 300,000 odd, but during the war it dwindled to 250,000,
mainly through evacuations for safety reasons. A greater number of people have
migrated from Hiroshima to America than from any other prefecture in Japan. Many
must have returned home, since there is a surprising number of people who speak good
English, with an American accent. German Jesuits had established a novitiate a few
miles from Hiroshima many years before 1945. They had worked hard at spreading the
Catholic Faith and claimed a moderate number of converts. They had built a church in
the middle of the city, and near by was a mission building.
Such briefly, was Hiroshima up to 5 August 1945.
The morning of Monday, 6 August 1945, was warm and oppressive with the intense
humidity of the Japanese summer. The seven branches of the Ota River added their
measure of moisture to the sluggish atmosphere. The semi-circle of hills behind the city
shimmered in the hot air, and from the Inland Sea came no refreshing breath of sea
breezes. An over-imaginative writer of a year later might have written, wise after the
24
"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
event, of the doom-burdened air lying dark and heavy over the city, like the Dragons of
the Middle Air over ancient China.
But the people below, having no foreknowledge, moved listlessly about, after a night of
fitful sleep, broken by the sullen roar of 'B san\ 'Mr B', American Super Fortresses on
reconnaissance flights. Japanese often apply the polite 'san' to anything they have
learned to respect or to hate. Each time the planes appeared, Ack-Ack gunners from
units grouped around the castle in the centre of the city fired a few rounds at them,
indifferently, aware that the action was little more than a gesture of defiance, since the
height at which the planes flew placed them beyond danger from ground guns.
Up to 6 August there had been many traverses over the city, but never had so much as
an incendiary been dropped, so that the inhabitants had come to turn a shrugged
shoulder and sink back into sleep. In the later days of the war, sleep was cherished as
the most efficient method of conserving losses of energy insufficiently recouped from
the scant war-time rations.
At about eight a.m. the low familiar rumble of four-engined bombers was again heard
over the city. Troops crouched in slit trenches on the edges of the wide parade ground
near the castle, whilst civilians thronging streets and trams on their way to work
watched doubtfully as a parachute supporting a cylinder swung down over the Aioi
Bridge, a little west of the castle.
A few moments later, at exactly eight- fifteen a.m., came the end of the world - the
world of the 250,000 people of Hiroshima. Not all died - only about 100,000 - but their
world flashed into dust in one brief bright instant. The unfortunates - those who did not
die at once - lived on for a while in scenes that surpassed anything created by most
imaginative mediaeval religious painters and writers, who sought zealously to portray
the exquisite refinements of agony of the Christian Hell. Not that they should have felt
discouraged. It took the highest development of twentieth-century culture to eclipse
them.
A man who had been fishing lazily from a sampan in Hiroshima Bay suddenly found
himself unaccountably struggling in the water. As he clambered back into his oddly-
shuddering boat, he wondered if he had dozed off and fallen in. He looked around and
saw in the direction of land a huge yellow cloud coiling and undulating above a great
pillar, rather like a mushroom in shape. It occurred to him that one of the many
ammunition dumps in the city had 'gone up', but he immediately dismissed the thought.
He seemed to remember a sort of flash, but had heard no sound of an explosion.
There had, indeed, been a sound - a sound overwhelming and encompassing all other
sounds - too vast to be audible.
Weaving laboriously on his single stern-oar, he at length beached his craft, and began
walking through the strangely deserted streets of Ujina, three miles from the heart of
Hiroshima, on towards the fringe of the vast yellow cloud. As he moved silently along
the tram-tracks, passing an occasional deserted stationary tram, the street became
spinkled with people all moving dubiously and with vague misgivings towards the
centre.
25
"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
The fisherman turned the corner at the Government Monopoly Tobacco factory, and
looking across the Miyuki Bridge,spanning one of the rivers, saw the base of the cloud
for the first time. And out of it seeped slowly the horror that it contained, as if so much
could not be held in such limitation of space.
At Meijuki-bashi, near Ujina Hiroshima, one
hour after the atom bomb fell.
He saw first naked beings, bald of all hair, their skin all crepey blisters, or hanging in
flutters like wallpaper from walls of old neglected houses. The eyes of some had melted
into solidified trickles of tears on bones where cheeks had been; their hands fumbled in
the air before them. Coagulations of blood streaked below ears, nostrils and mouth. No
sound came from them as they wandered on through a ghastly dream world.
The parapet of the bridge had been neatly sliced off at its base. on one side it lay flat on
the pavement. one the other it had been swept into the river. The bodies of people who
had wandered blindly over the edge floated in the shallow water. Still figures lay here
and there on the bridge surface.
^^^^^^ ^^^^ HBBiHSPI^W^W^^^ -
~- -\~ '"-. ^T^r^r-?* - '-_Sz~Jis^v- ■" , "~is
r
^gp^r* 8 ^^
H
£ft^J3sBr^* "'. u - ■ '*fi^faifii^^L__
^^^^^^MBHifcjr'^^! *
■ p^fcuL'i
Hiroshima after the bombing.
The fisherman moved on in gradually-growing stupor, struggling over increasingly
numerous bodies, until he found himself one of a multitude that flowed towards a new
focus - the Red Cross Hospital. Fanning out from this were tens of thousands of people,
some in the last terrors of life, many in the mercy of death. They lay so thick that it was
26
"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
impossible to pass without treadin on them. The fisherman apologized to living and
dead alike as he did so. The living cried out to him for various urgent needs: water,
doctors, even death, anything to relieve their agonies. He tried to raise one or two, but
recoiled in mingled bewilderment and disgust when their bodies shed sheets of skin
where he had laid hands on them. They sank back and added their numbers to the
growing dead.
Inside the Red Cross Hospital a handful of doctors, most of them injured, worked
without knowledge of time or events in their hopeless unending attempts to give
medical treatment to a torrent of pain-crazed creatures that threatened to engulf them
time and time again. What few drugs remained were applied to only the desperate cases.
The others lingered on for a while, then vanished among the accumulating corpses in
the hospital grounds and in the streets, which showed hardly a bare spot anywhere.
Rain, generated by atomic fission, began to fall in huge drops. It beat down the yellow
cloud and revealed fires rising from stoves of houses that no longer existed. As these
fires spread slowly through the city, people began to search feverishly among the debris
for friends or relatives. The screams and cries of those pinned or buried under the ruins
rose higher and swelled in volume as the fires overtook them. Thos who had been
denied death bit their tongues as the fire swept over them and the hated life ebbed
slowly from them with their blood. Mothers crouched beside their children, pinned
beyond possibility of rescue under immovable masses of collapsed buildings, and as the
fire approached, became possessed with the thought that their little ones might suffer as
they themselves were suffering. Some of them gnawed through their children's wrist
arteries, with no nice consideration of the moral aspect, and were rewarded with the
relaxing of their tiny tortured faces.
A Japanese naval launch crawled up each of the rivers and blared encouragement to the
survivors over loudspeakers. A hospital ship was coming, it said. Then it fled. For days
afterwards the city ws left to look after itself. There was no food and what water there
was had become radio-active. This caused violent vomiting and ultimate death. The
countless corpses lay unburied in the streets, and as days passed their putrefaction,
accelerated by radioactive burns, added one more particular horror to the general scene.
The promised hospital ship never came.
The group of German Jesuits in the mission building, less than a mile from 'the great
flash', had all survived the holcaust - by a miracle, they like to say. Oblivious to injuries
that were only minor by comparison with those surrounding them they doctored and
ministered to believers and unbelievers alike, unhindered by differences in race, creed,
or standards of behaviour. Consideration of these and thoughts on the originators of
wars would have been merely blasphemies to add to this one great blasphemy. By their
unexpected guidance and help many sufferers were able to find their way to the almost
intact railway station to be removed by train to the country for such treatment as could
be given by doctors with pathetically meagre supplies of drugs. Death followed many of
them and claimed them on the trains and in remote villages.
A month later a typhoon tore through the province, and thousands who had begun to
recover or who lay ill in flimsy improvised hospitals were swept way in a great flood
27
"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
that cleansed the city with a thoroughness beyond the capabilities of its inhabitants.
Then there came a great calm and peace.
Hiroshima - the A-bomb dome.
If you went to Hiroshima to-day you would see groups of tombstones springing fresh
and clean from the rubble, like mushrooms from some rich decay. There would be
hundreds of raw wooden barracks scttered among the ruins. Inside these barracks, if you
condescended to look, you would see armless and legless children, schoolgirls, still
living, with their chests showing muscles and sinews like a coloured plated in a book on
anatomy; or the 'one sided beauty', a young woman hideous on that side of her body that
faced the flash, beautiful as a flower on the other.
You would see children with such revolting disfigurements that you would want to hold
them close to you, to protect them from their own ugliness, and to cover you own shame
in thinking them so; perhaps identifying youself or your own child with these poor
maimed creatures, who could know nothing of war and its causes. You would perhaps
rack your brains to find reasons to dissociate yourself from any responsibility for all this.
Perhaps you might like to think that maybe these people (the women and children
anyhow) did not suffer at that time, that they had transcended the limits of human agony,
as the martyrs did. You might want to believe this because you, and your children,
might one day find yourselves groping your own tortured way through the streets of
another city, blotted out by another yellow cloud.
Before you leave Hiroshima you should go to a school, any school. As soon as you
enter the grounds you will be swept away by a mad rush of children thrusting flowers or
small gifts into your hands or pockets, or dragging you to a vantage point just to look at
you and listen to you speak. There would be no fear or hatred of you there, just happy
exuberance, abounding curiosity, and eagerness to understand you. If they spoke of the
atomic bomb, they would not say 'Genshi Bakudan\ a cold, scientific term. Their word
would be 'Pikadon', the 'flash-bang', a merrier, warmer word - a word for children to use.
Your children would find much in common with these.
28
"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
Chapter 7
Fire Within, Fire Without
We were getting pretty used to our new amenities by now. In the evenings most of us
sat by radios branded 'Military Secret' in Japanese, listening to the local Japanese relay
station of N.H.K. the only one audible. We made toast over electric toasters and kept an
eye on electric clocks for 'lights out'. In bed, white sheets protected us from 'the rough
male kiss of blankets' for the first time in years. All in all, we were reasonably content.
The officers, however, being of finer and frailer flesh, must needs have their sheets
hemmed, and I was sent out to find someone with a sewing machine. In Japan, as
elsewhere, the best thing to do in the circumstances was ask a policeman. They told me
at the police station that the only machine in town was to be found in a near-by hotel, or
more correctly a lodging-house, since beer or liquor is not usually sold in such a place,
its primary purpose being to accommodate travellers. I was escorted there and handed
over to the care of a pretty, bright- faced girl with a most infectious smile, and a carefree
manner that made one feel at ease at once. She was about thirty, but, like most Japanese,
looked a good deal younger. Something about her charmed me and made me wish, not
without a certain quickening of the pulse, to see her again, and soon. She apologized
that the machine was out of order, but she would be pleased to hem the sheets by hand,
and could I come back for them that evening? I most certainly could, and would, I
assured her.
I returned after the evening meal, which I only dimly remember eating, this time armed
with a precious quarter-pound block of Cadbury's chocolate, the most sought-after of all
the things we had to offer. The hotel had undergone a transformation. From a quiet,
unpretentious place it had changed to a brightly-lit palais, with half a dozen brilliantly
dressed women seated around low tables playing with hana-fuda, a Japanese variant of
playing cards. As I sat on the edged of the raised floor of thegenkan, or inner porch, a
suspicion forming in my mind crystallized when a Japanese entered, and after looking at
me dubiously, asked for 'entertainment'. one of the girls rose and led him upstairs. After
what seemed to be an inordinately short time, perhaps a quarter of an hour, they
reappeared and washed their hands in a basin. The man left with as little ceremony as he
came, and the girl returned to the group at the table and resumed her hand at cards.
Disillusioned and disappointed, I sat musing at the deceptiveness of life, when Hiroko,
my seamstress, appeared in a gorgeous kimono and obi, dazzling to the eye, and with a
faint odour of strange perfume around her. She sank to her knees, bowed low, and said:
"Won't you please come in?" and I, being human, and with six months of enforced
tropical celebacy behind me, could not resist. She took by the hand as one would a child
and led me up the steep stairs into a small, exquisitely clean room overlooking the street.
She sat me at a small table, the only piece of furniture there, and left me, to bring
refreshment. The little room, the atmosphere, the strange Oriental uncertainty of it all,
entered into my whole spirit and utterly bewitched me.
Hiroko returned with hot sake, and the neatly-hemmed sheets. We sat, and talked and
looked at each other, and I sank deeper into the spell. Outside light snow was falling,
29
"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
and there was a warm red glow in the sky in the direction of our camp. Inside there was
another warmth, older than fire, which drew greater strength from the hot sake before us.
This was so far removed from the sordid squalor, the simulated passion, and the demand
for payment in advance inevitably associated with the oldest profession in the West, that
no effort of mind could possibly relate the two. Surely here there was no place for
shame. I know that I should not have felt any had I succumbed.
But the fire in the sky now streamed through the falling snow and stained the white
eaves below, calling up vague misgivings. A discreet knock on the wall and a small
excited voice outside confirmed them. 'Please excuse me, but as the camp of the
Shinchugun is on fire...'
I hurried home in the all-enveloping red gloom, absently fingering the chocolate that
was still in my pocket. Perhaps I had forgotten it; perhaps I had not dared to offer it for
fear of being misunderstood.
In front of the fire station adjoining the police station, several firemen were working
frantically to start an ancient fire engine. I realized then the futility of hurrying to
prevent what was now accomplished, and hoped for the best.
The fire was nearly out when I got there. The first thing I saw was the officer's quarters,
then the barracks alongside, both unscarred. Beyond them was a great glowing smoking
mass. In the heart of this lay everything I had brought to Japan and had acquired since.
Everyone else had made neat piles of most of their gear out of the reach of the flames.
Mine only was not accounted for. The old Navy quip came to mind: "Haul up the ladder,
Jack, I'm aboard.' That night I could not remember much of what was lost. That came
later. The beautiful dolls, the kimono, camera, binoculars, the gold locket with
someone's hair in it, all the little treasured, irreplaceable things... Even now something
occasionally occurs to me.
Near by was a Salvation Army jeep, always just where and when it was wanted. The
Red Shield man was dispensing chocolate, biscuits and hot drinks to ... no, not
Australian soldiers, but by common consent to grimy, smoke-blackened Japanese. A
corporal said: 'I just don't understand these Nips. Our camp catches fire and they come
from everywhere, form bucket chains, risk their lives saving furniture and gear (some
were badly burned), and generally work like niggers to help us. Two of our chaps are in
the Nip hospital with burns. The nurses came down for them with stretchers. Their own
mothers could not have been gentler. Others have brought us clothers, blankets, and
furniture, though God knows, they've damn littled themselves.'
'Can you imagine what it would have been like if it had been their camp in Australia? It
would have been "Burn, you bastards, burn!" and we'd have stood well back and
enjoyed it.'
'They're a funny people all right,' he said, and put a friendly hand on the shoulder of one
standing at his side.
30
"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
I slept that night in the officer's mess with a couple of other warrant officers who had
lost most of their possessions. Under me was a pile of eight staple-fibre Japanese army
blankets given to us by our Japanese neighbours. Over me were another eight, yet I
swear I have never been so cold in my life as I was that night. No wonder Australian
blankets were selling at anything up to five hundred yen (ten pound odd) on the
Japanese 'black.
The fire brigade's report on the cause of the fire came in next day. 'Owing to the
overloading of the electrical system by a large number of appliances such as toasters...'
The treasure-trove of the caves of Kanawa had been paid for, in full.
After a week or so we had sorted ourselves out again, and had moved into new quarters,
a comfortable building opposite the police station, close to the main street of the town.
Most of our army issues had been replaced, but the personal losses still saddened the
few who had saved nothing.
I had not been away from camp since the fire and I wanted to go and see Hiroko, for the
sympathy and consolation I needed, and knew I would get.
I went to the hotel with the same pounding heart, but there was no Hiroko. Two days
before she had gone into the Red Cross Hospital in Hiroshima for an operation for a
form of osteomylitis. These bone diseases seem to be one of the commonest complaints
in Japan, and were possibly of malnutritional origin.
That evening I went to the hospital, the scene of so much misery and suffering, and
heroic selflessness on the part of a few doctors and nurses on Pikadon Day. Outwardly
it looked clean and neat, with little superficial scarring. Opposite it the university stood
squat and solid, its blank windows staring into the darkness.
All buildings immediately surrounding the hospital had collapsed in heaps of rubble.
only an occasional tall cylindrical chimney stood out oddly and unexpectedly against a
background of debris half buried in snow. The darkness hid the rest of the city.
Inside, the hospital was shabby and depressing. The walls were cracked, and laths
showed through the plaster. The rooms lacked doors, the floor covering. There were no
doctors on duty, and a nurse I spoke to could not find Hiroko's name in the records. I
might have known she would not have used her right name in the hotel. I described her
to the nurse, and she smiles as she recognised her. We went upstairs and found her in a
dingy single room with no door. She was just as cheerful as ever. The doctor had
decided her condition necessitated an early operation, and she was being 'built up'.
I sat beside her and she told me part of her life story. Her husband had been a soldier
and she had had no news of him until the war ended. She learned then that he was dead.
During the war she had worked on munitions, but now there was nothing for unskilled
women, especially widows. She went to the hotel as a kitchen-maid, for a few
inadequate yen a month. Economic necessity, and pressure from the hotel-keeper, or
procurer, to give him his proper title, had driven her to the first step. It was only 'part-
time' with her, and she chose her own companions. This all seemed a little plausible and
it flattered me to believe it, but I found later that it was true and that many a woman of
31
"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
character and intelligence had succumbed in the face of similar circumstances. Before
passing judgement, it is necessary to consider the place of prostitutes in Japan, where
the profession has acquired over centuries respectability and condonation from many
classes of society. There were many worthy people among their ranks.
Hiroko had kept her activities a close secret from all her friends and relatives, and I
swore to reveal them to no one. on later visits I met her sister and a cousin, who had
established themselves in the room and there did all her cooking and washing. The
window-sill was always strewn with great white radishes and vegetables of all sorts.
The meals were cooked over a portable charcoal brazier in the middle of the room. This
was not normal practice in a large institution, but was now customary in the small one-
doctor hospitals found all over the country, where relatives take the place of nurses in
everything but strictly medical treatment.
A constant visitor was a tall, lean tram-driver, an old family friend. He was a likable
person, and the three of us made a pretty cheerful group.
Just before the operation Hiroko asked me to take a note to the hotel-keeper, directing
him to give me some of her kimonos. She sold these to pay the surgeon's fees, which
left her without a sen. These girls were never able to save money, as they received only
a fraction of the fees paid to them. This arrangement was deliberately planned to
prevent them from becoming independent and giving up the life.
Whether because the operation was a difficult one or from lack of proper equipment,
Hiroko went through a pretty bad time afterwards. I arrived one night to find the tram-
driver being over her, bathing her chest with cold water as she lay in a fever. As I stood
by the bed, one of the most revolting things I have ever seen associated with a woman
occurred. From her open, panting mouth crawled a great worm, almost as thick as a
pencil, and a couple of feet long. The tram-driver calmly drew it out and laid it on a
sheet of paper with two others. 'They come out for food, he said quietly, and resumed
the bathing. His devotion to her disturbed me, and I think it was then that I realized that
he was in love with her.
As for the worms, the doctor told me they were common among Japanese and were
introduced into the body through the practice of eating raw vegetables and fish.
Before she got well, I left Hiroshima for a month. When I returned she was gone. She
had left a letter for me. It said she had married the tram-driver, and they had gone south
to Kyushu to live.
I knew her problems were solved, and that they were happy, and the knowledge
softened the blow.
32
"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
Chapter 8
? Wogging ?
Up till now I had nothing to do with the black market, mainly because it seemed
undignified and demeaning to barter with people to whom we were supposed to be
shining examples of the new and better way of life we were imposing on them. Most of
the others, the men personally, and the officers through their batmen, had been
'wogging' canteen goods ever since their arrival, chiefly to buy sake and beer, and to
pay for their erotic experiences, all very costly in more than one way.
The fact that three or four tins of cigarettes or condensed milk brought the same price as
one of Hiroko's beautiful kimonos offended my sense of the fitness of things, and her
need for further funds sent me off one Sunday to Hiroshima Station with bulging
overcoat pockets.
I boarded one of the trams that ran into the city from Ujina. The bomb had destroyed
most of the rolling stock, and those that remained were dirty rattling wrecks that made
an adventure of every journey. Holes gaped in the floor of this one and gave a full view
of grinding, sparking driving motors as the vehicle swayed and bounced its way along
tracks that floated and sprung on their beds. The tram was jammed tight with passengers
even before it left the terminus, and a person other than a member of the Shine hugun
stood little or no chance of boarding it en route. The motorman's compartment was not
partitioned off, so that he had barely space to manipulate the controls with the press of
passengers around him. He entered and left the tram through the front window.
We had not gone very far when the tram drifted gently to a stop, and the driver called
out in an apologetic voice: 'Teiden de gozaimasu' (The power has been cut off). I heard
these words with maddening frequency in later days. It happened at least once a day;
always, it seemed, at the most inconvenient time. We never paused to consider the
miracle of there being current at all, with the city as it was. Sometimes it would be off
for minutes only; at other times it was hours before it was restored, and one was faced
with the choice of walking or waiting. on this first occasion I chose to walk, in order to
get a close look at the ruins. I had only gone a hundred yards or so when the tram
lumbered past, hardly visible under a mass of people clinging desperately to even the
smallest projection.
Among the debris on all sides the rough outlines of building foundations were still
discernable. Private houses were identifiable by fused crockery and cooking utensils,
and heavy steel safes marked the sites of banks and industrial houses. on one such spot
I raked out a handful of large oval coins of the Tempo era, some welded together by the
blast. The university, town hall, library, and a few other ferro-concrete buildings that
still stood added emphasis to the flatness of the vacant places. Where the castle had
been for centuries was now a few scattered stones surrounded by a scummy, stagnant
moat, half-filled with rubbish.
33
"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
Traffic lights dangled awry at street intersections, and steel poles bowed low like
bamboos in a hurricane. And from all this rack of atomic storm rose the columns of
tombstones, sprouting clean and fresh in mushroom patches. The bodies of those whose
names they bore were lost, unrecognizable ashes, burned, blown, and washed away by
fire and flood.
The first sight of this 'atomic desert', as it is called locally, created a mood of deepest
melancholy and despondency, and the fate of a hundred thousand men, women, and
children weighed heavily on the spirit. But frequent visits dulled its influence, and I
gradually grew to accept it almost as normality; so much so, that on a later visit to
Tokyo, the great devastation in the northern suburbs of the capital made little or no
impression.
The road led eventually to a rough trestle bridge, carrying the tram-line across one of
the rivers. one the far side was the railway station and the shopping centre. People were
crossing with apparent ease, skipping nimbly from sleeper to sleeper. I started off all
right, not looking down too often, but the sleepers lost their even spacing and I lost the
rhythm and suddenly found myself standing paralysed, half-way across, forty feet above
the flowing water, waiting for a tram to come and finish me off. I tried not to show fear
before passers-by, and feigned a tremendous interest in the minutest detail of the
bridge's construction. After a while I began again with uncertain steps, and in an
agonizing few minutes gained the other side, with a tram running dead slow behind me
and the station and black market ahead.
The black market, or Yamiichi, was not just an abstraction in Japan; it was a very
substantial reality. The Japanese made no attempt to conceal their activities, or their
methods of operating, which were anything but subtle. Prices of most new goods were
fixed by the Government, and the price was stamped on them. But there was no control
on second-hand goods, and new articles in short supply were transferred to the second-
hand market by the simple process of mixing them with a few old articles of similar
type. A typical example was that of gramophone records, fixed price for which at that
time was twenty-one yen. They could rarely be bought in the regular music shops, but
large numbers were available on the 'second-hand' stalls, at anything from fifty to one
hundred and fifty yen, according to popularity.
Opposite Hiroshima station was a wide expanse of shops and stalls, comprising the
city's main shopping area.
A dozen soldiers alighted from the tram that had followed me in, and moved into the
throng of people already gathered in tight little circles about other soldiers. New circles
formed immediately around the newcomers and hid from the eye of any roving provost
the contents of pockets and haversacks now spread on the ground. Prices had found a
more or less fixed level, variations being a mere yen or two. A quarter pound of
chocolate was fifty yen, condensed milk, highly prized by mothers, was sixty yen,
twenty cigarettes were forty-five yen, and cigarette lighters (army issue), one hundred
yen.
34
"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
Some Australians with experience of the Middle East, or with vague memories of books
about Chinese or 'native' merchants, tried for higher prices but seldom got them.
Haggling is a practice not common to Japanese in normal times, but in their present
need they were sometimes forced into fierce competition with each other for the limited
supplies.
The spectacle of soldiers trying to drag the last possible yen from these bomb-stricken
people, some of them mothers with pale weakly children, somehow repelled me, and
with good resolutions gone, I returned to Ujina sono mama, as the Japanese say - in the
same condition as I arrived. But Hiroko's need was still urgent, so I sought out a
restaurant-keeper with whom I had struck up acquaintance. He was a man of some
learning and a profound interest in the classical music of the West. In the early days
when we were permitted to enter Japanese shops, he charmed away many a lonely
evening with superb German recordings of Beethoven, Bach and the rest.
I told him of my problem and we came to an agreement, whereby he would buy at
normal prices all that I had to offer. He had a wife and three children, and I think he
welcomed the opportunity of supplying their wants without the risk of confiscation by
the provosts or Japanese police. Like the average Japanese he could not understand why
it was wrong to buy what soldiers had, after all, legally obtained. 'Why must I pay, for
instance, fifty yen for very inferior locally-made biscuits, when I can buy from your
soldiers infinitely better ones for forty-five yen?' was a question he put to me. Neither
the provosts nor I knew the answer, nor was any attempt made by the authorities to
explain it to us, though no doubt there were sound economic reasons for the regulations
forbidding it.
Because of this arrangement between us, perhaps also because of his faith in our
friendship, this man died within six months, and, even now, his wife and children are an
unwitting and silent reproach, and their welfare is a burden on the conscience. Whether
this should be so or not is a matter for individual judgement. The circumstances shall be
told later.
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"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
Chapter 9
Elections
March had come, and tall weeds and grasses grew in wild luxuriance over the ashes of
the city, hiding its desolation and giving the lie to the sages who said that nothing would
grow here for fifty years. Vivid green shoots burst through the limbs of the trees lining
the streets as if the already prolific spread of leaves offered insufficient outlet for the
forces of growth within. Everyone waited expectedly for the blooming of the cherry.
The Japanese cherry tree bears no edible fruit, and is grown for its blossom alone. But it
is much more than a mere flower to the Japanese, ft is the living symbol of the great
love of beauty in the Japanese character, a beauty seldom given audible ｅxpression, but
whose outward manifestations are to be found in their arts and handcrafts, the arranging
of flowers, and their religious and social ceremonies.
The glory of the cherry blossom endures for only three or four days, after which its
pink- white fragrance vanishes at the touch of the spring breeze. Hence it became the
emblem of the samurai of old, who chose to meet death on the crest of his career, rather
than to wait for it in doddering decrepitude, all glory departed.
At the first breathless word of its blooming the people stopped their activities, donned
their finest clothes and made for the spots where the cherry grew best, to the shrines and
temples, to Miyajima and little villages in the hills.
In the midst of all this beauty, the powers that were decided to hold the first general
elections under the new post-war dispensation. Just how the people would react, and
how much they understood of democratic processes had to be measured and recorded,
and polling facilities had to be established and supervised.
At headquarters of Occupation units throughout the whole country teams were formed
and briefed and issued with distinguishing armbands and maps showing their areas of
patrol.
An officer, a driver, and myself set off by jeep one morning, with our destination a mere
shaded-in patch on the map. None of us had ever been out of the cities before (except
for my train journey to Kisa). Our instructions were to set up headquarters at a Japanese
inn in any convenient town, and to remain there until a fortnight after polling day. After
close study of the map for arterial roads, we cut through Hiroshima city in a northern
direction and ended up on a narrow rough track that threatened to peter out at any
moment.
I inquired for the main road to the north and was told the disconcerting fact that this was
it! The prospect of travelling fifty odd miles on such a surface was not very comforting,
but it seemed that just here the road had been washed away by floods and the surface
soon improved, though the road always remained narrow, and restricted on either side
be the dykes of rice fields, farmhouses, and sheer mountains. It was utterly impossible
to pass another vehicle, and when we did meet an occasional one - usually horse-drawn
- it involved, on our part, a lengthy and tortuous retirement in reverse gear to the nearest
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"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
crossroad or farmhouse, in the very porch of which we would back, followed all the
way by the discomforted Japanese, forever raising his cap and bowing, and apologizing
for his very existence.
The whole countryside was alive with activity. Young and old, men, women, and
children, worked with the zest of the spring season, hoeing and digging, without pause,
to prepare the fields for the planting out of the young rice-shoots that grew green and
brilliant in near-by paddies. The toilers' picturesque rush hats and head-cloths made
bright flower-like patches among the brown, freshly turned earth. Here and there, in a
rich man's field, a solitary cow leisurely drawing a primitive wooden plough replaced
human labour.
The road began to follow a deep river made rapid-flowing by the melting snows. The
bridges spanning it were crude replacements of ones swept away in the floods that
followed the typhoon a few month earlier, and the round logs that formed the floor
rolled and rumbled perilously as we crossed.
The narrow streets of villages we passed through filled with gaping peasants, many
seeing for the first time the 'men with different coloured eyes' as they called us, since
their own were always of the same brown hue.
A Japanese village is at first sight unalluring to the eye, the buildings being of
unpainted weathered wood, the practice throughout the country. By contrast the
farmhouses were fairy islands in the seas of fallowed fields, with glistening chocolate-
tiled roofs and dazzling white walls, framed by feathery pines, evergreens, and the
blossoming cherry. The older homes had thatched roofs, some mellowed with mossy
growth, all superb examples of an ancient craft. We decided that our destination would
be a town called Yoshida, just because it had the biggest name in the centre of our map,
and presumably the biggest inhabited place. When we eventually arrived, we found it to
be little different form or larger than the villages we had passed through, and it was a
considerable distance from the railroad, which might have complicated supply and
communication problems. But it was too late to change our plans, so we decided to
make the best of it. We chose an inn near the police station, which was to be our
communication point, for at that time it was part of the only reliable telephone system in
the province.
The inn was called the 'Iroha', the name being roughly equivalent to ABC in English.
Like all Japanese inns, the exterior was dreary and uninviting, and as we sat in the
porch and went through the irksome business of removing gaiters and boots we
regretted our choice of residence. Not for long, however, for inside were beautiful,
clean rooms and underfoot the tatami mats were soft and comforting to the feet. on the
wall hung the ubiquitous gaku, a framed proverb from the classics. This one read, A
good guest is like a bright cloud.' No doubt it conveyed to a Japanese shades of meaning
beyond our occidental intellects, but its friendly implications were reassuring, and the
innkeeper more so. He was a man of about thirty-five with a quiet gracious manner and
none of the hateful obsequiousness sometimes met with. We decided immediately that
he and his young shy wife were 'good types', worthy of respect. His aged parents had
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"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
handed over to them the tasks of administration, while they sat overhibachi, glowing
charcoal braziers, smoked their tiny pipes and dreamed of the old heroic days.
We were given a large bright room opening on to an inner garden about twenty feet
square, an exquisite miniature of small trees, shrubs and rocks, but no flowers. But our
minds were on other things at first. We wanted a bath, and we wanted to be well fed. As
interpreter the responsibility for all such matters fell on me.
There was the maid of all work, Sadako, a girl of about thirty, with a sad face, even
when she smiled, that hinted of tragedy not far back. She took the rations we had
brought, conducted me to the bathroom, the first native-style one I had seen, and then
left me. The bath was like a large copper, filled with steaming water, with a round
wooden board floating on it. A fire burned underneath, and the board was apparently to
keep one's feet off the metal bottom.
After undressing I tested the water with one finger, and thought I had lost it for ever, for
the water was nearly boilng. There was no accessible supply of cold water in the room,
and I was considering dressing again in order find some, with the door opened and
Sadako entered with two buckets of cold water. A blush of shame stole over me from
head to foot as I stood facing her. Not in the least perturbed and showing considerable
interest in my form, she asked, 'Is the water too hot?' I answered emphatically that it
was, and she emptied both buckets into the bath, thereby lowering the temperature by
about one degree. 'I will bring you more,' she said, and left slowly with another
thoughtful sidelong glance at me. I was nonchalantly holding a towel before me when
she returned with two more buckets. She emptied them in, then announced that she
would wash me. My protests were brushed aside like those of a naughty child and little
wooden buckets of what seemed scalding water were dashed over me. I submitted to the
inevitable.
When it was over, I was invited to enter the bath. I did so and never thought to survive
the ordeal. I learned later the trick of immersing completely and at once, and then
keeping perfectly still. This was the only way to mitigate the agony of the scalding
water.
In Japanese baths the body is always thoroughly cleansed before immersion. The water,
since it remains apparently clean, is seldom changed. In the ordinary household, where
the health of members is known, the practice is probably hygienic enough, but the
possibilities of infection from public baths is rather alarming.
Sadako handed me a clean cotton kimono, always supplied to guests, and I was soon
back with the others, feeling very much refreshed, and keeping very mum about the
bath. The officer went in next, and I waited with some relish to hear of his reactions,
since he was a bit of a disciplinarian and rather addicted to formalities. His was a
stronger spirit than mine, for the maid was bundled out of the bathroom after the first
two buckets, and he bathed in the good old-fashioned uninteresting way.
I asked Sadako and Kazuko, as we rather familiarly began to call the host's young wife,
if they knew how to cook European-style food. With just a bare hint of the affront they
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"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
felt at our doubts, they assured us they did, and we ordered steak and eggs, chipped
potatoes and toast, the raw materials for all of which we had brought with us.
After two hours of famished waiting, the food arrived, beautifully cooked, but stone
cold; the 'toast' was thoroughly warmed, with not a trace of brown clouding its snowy
surface. We were hungry enough not to care overmuch, but we resolved on a few
changes being made in the future. After dinner we sat around the kotatsu, with our feet
under the quilt covering, and talked, or rather I did the talking, to the girls and our host.
He produced one of the best collections of recordings of the jazz classics I have ever
seen. Benny Goodman, 'Fats' Waller, Muggsy Spanier, Bunny Berrigan - they were all
there, and a lot I did not know of- all American records.
Bedtime came and the mattresses were produced from behind the sliding doors in the
wall and spread out around the kotatsu. We lay down with our feet under the quilt,
resting on the grating over the hot coals. 'What about pillows?' I asked, and out they
were brought, little wooden and bamboo ones, on which samurais and their ladies rested,
not their heads, but their necks, not to disturb their elaborate coiffures.
'Make a note of it for to-morrow, Sar' Major; pillows, No 1 priority!'
Sleep came late that night for me. It was not through lack of a pillow, but because of
that excitement stemming from the unknown that was all about us. At odd intervals of
time the watchman could be heard in the silent streets, clapping his sticks together
before calling the hour, and ending with 'Hi no yohiri ('Be careful of fire').
Presently he, too, faded into a dream.
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"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
Chapter 10
Truly Rural
Because of the importance of the village as a unit in rural Japanese society, it would be
as well to interpolate here a brief outline of its organisation and function.
The first political division of the nation is into ken, or prefectures, which approximate
geographically to the English counties. Each ken is subdivided into gun, or 'regions',
and these again into mura. (The gun was abolished as a political unit some years ago,
but it still survives as a geographical and social entity.)
Mura is usually translated as 'village', although it has not the English connotation of the
word. A mura is rather a group of settlements forming a tiny shire. It is the rural unit of
government and is responsible ultimately to the Central Government through the
Prefectural Administration.
The village is governed by a soncho, or 'village chief, his deputy, the joyaku, and a
group of councillors, all elected by the local community. The soncho is responsible for
the collection of taxes, supervision of elections, road and bridge building, and for the
direction of the many diverse co-operative activities within the village. He receives only
a small remuneration, insufficient to subsist on, and consequently is usually chosen
from the wealthy members of the village. His is a position of high respect and
considerable importance.
one of the functions of the Village Office is the keeping of koseki, the records of each
family and its individual members. In the koseki are recorded all births, adoptions,
marriages, and deaths. If a member is convicted of a criminal offence this is also
recorded. When a girl marries, her name is obliterated from her family koseki, and
entered in that of her husband's.
The Village Agricultural Association is an organization of farmers, who, naturally,
comprise the great majority of the rural population. It is purely co-operative, buying and
selling on behalf of members, and performing the functions of banking. Its experts
advise on all matters pertaining to production.
Co-operative assistance is widely practised among rural Japanese. If through fire, flood,
or other 'natural calamity' a man loses his possessions, the Village Office raises a levy
of labour and materials and as far as possible replaces his losses. When roads need
repairing, or bridges rebuilding, the Village Chief, after consultation with group leaders,
fixes a suitable date, usually during a slack period. A person from each household is
chosen, and a 'working bee' formed to carry out the appointed task. Whatever
overseeing or directing is done is purely mutual and each person applies himself to the
particular activity required of him.
The same procedure is applied by the Agricultural Association to the planting of
members' crops, which is done on a rota system. So strong is this impulse towards
mutual assistance that few would dare to evade their obligations. The greatest deterrent
to this is the village office's power to refuse assistance and co-operation to the
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"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
transgressor. Since this aid is indispensable, there is no place for the rugged
individualist in rural Japan. The few 'misfits' usually leave the district for the big cities
and 'higher culture'.
In these demands for labour no class distinctions are made and the levelling produced
by grouping together rich and poor alike for a common purpose is a great unifying
influence.
This form of rural society has continued for many years in Japan, with little change. In
the recent war years, when labour was short, contractors from the cities sometimes
undertook such tasks as the transplanting and harvesting of rice, bring their own
labourers with them. These contractors, along with brokers who speculated in rice, were
universally despised by farmers, patly because of their sharp practices and lack of
scruples, but chiefly because they produced nothing of value to the community.
Our first call in the morning was at the Yoshida Village Office, to make ourselves and
our purpose known. It was only a couple of hundred yards, yet we had to go through the
infuriating business of removing gaiters and boots before entering, and putting them on
again a few minutes later. Of course, we did not have to do it, but as emissaries of the
new, benevolent culture we could hardly have ridden roughshod, as it were, over native
customs and the smooth floors polished by countless bootless feet.
Within a minute of our arrival we were drinking green tea with the village chief, served
by a little girl who was too awed by our presence to speak or smile as she offered us the
small handle-less cups and bowed her way out with an enviable grace. We were
depending on the chief for the setting up and conducting of polling booths at suitable
places, and for the dissemination of all relevant information to all in his domain. He
assured us of his co-operation, and suggested schools and public halls for the booths,
since these places had always been used in previous elections. For informing the people,
there was a long-established and effective means - the kairanban. This is a circulating
notice board, which is passed from hamlet to hamlet, where it is shown to the individual
members by some responsible person.
There were about half a dozen village offices in our territory, and all had to be visited
for the same purpose. For six days we travelled, returning each night to our inn,
sometimes climbing narrow roads into wild mountain country, through snow storms that
froze into rigidity the wind-shield wipers and had us peering round the glass into the icy
air. But the unconquerable jeep never faltered, and carried us on, shaking the snow from
the pine trees as we passed. Sometimes in the heart of the forest a tree screamed as
electric saws bit into it, for electricity was everywhere, in deep valleys and remote
mountain heights.
on such days we lingered over the charcoal braziers in the village offices, and sipped
potent orange wine with the officials who, still clinging to the ceremony of other days,
raised their cups to their forehead in gestures of respect before drinking. The fire of the
wine crept through us, and gave us fortitude for the cold continuation of our journey.
The driver, with admirable prudence, declined to drink, and received his portion in a
bottle, to be consumed on his return.
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"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
But there were warm days too, when we idled along through the lowlands, where water-
wheels groaned and creaked on their wooden bearings, pounding away at their task of
hulling the barley that was spread in stone pits under the hammers. Each wheel bore the
name of its owner and his price for the work it did.
We stopped often to talk to the friendly farming folk, and to girls who searched among
the roadside grasses for edible herbs and spices to add interest to their insipid,
monotonous diet.
In the highlands men with rifles or shotguns roamed the roads and forests. We
wondered at first at this, until we inspected their armbands and papers which
proclaimed them to be licensed hunters, who strove to suppress the rabbits and badgers
that ravaged the rice crops in these remote regions. Some of their weapons were superb
pieces of Krupp craftsmanship, or finely chased 'over and under' Remingtons, that made
some of us regret we had not the right of confiscation.
There were also itinerant priests in their huge head-concealing hats, who led us to the
mud images of Jizo and told us of him and his works. The god Jizo is many things to a
Japanese but to the mother he is especially the patron saint of children. According to
Buddhist legend, when children die they go to a river under the earth - 'the Dry Bed of
the River of Souls'. There they must gather stones and build them into mounds to the
end of eternity. Wicked demons constantly beset them, destroying their work as soon as
it is completed. But Jizo, out of his deep love of children, has renounced Nirvana, so
that he may always be with them, to drive away the demons, and comfort and protect
the little ones in the sanctuary of his great billowing sleeves. The Japanese mother
believes that by placing stones at the foot of a wayside Jizo, she can help him in his
endless task of alleviating the toil of her lost child.
It is said that Jizo is a creation of the women of Japan, to whom the inexorable law of
progress toward Nirvana, as expounded by the Lord Buddha himself, is an intolerable
and unacceptable concept when applied to their beloved children.
That this is true I choose to believe, and I am not ashamed to admit that I have never
passes the image of Jizo - and he is everywhere - without adding a few stones to the pile
at his feet; not because I am superstitious, but as a gesture to the faith of mothers, and
the humanity expressed in the legend.
Many similar beliefs that are unknown in the modern cities still survive in the country.
By the crossings of mountain streams we often encountered a piece of white cloth,
suspended by its four corners over the water on four stakes. Alongside there was always
a tablet bearing the name of someone's dead beloved, and a small ladle, so that passers-
by might pause a while, and, murmuring a Buddhist invocation, pour a ladle or two of
water through the cloth. When the cloth is worn through by the pouring of water and the
compassion of the pourers, the dead soul is released from its travail.
It is said that in some temples the priests offer for sale a fine fragile cloth at fabulous
prices, for the souls of the rich, while for the peasant's few sen a coarse durable stuff is
provided. Whoever looks after these matters in the other world will, I hope, make a
poetic and appropriate compensation for this.
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"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
The Iroha had not seen much of us during these days, and at the end of a week we were
glad to get back for a day's rest, to check over the results of our work and to count the
spoils of our journey.
No matter the circumstances of those we had visited, there had always been some small
parting gift - a picture, a doll, some wine or fruit, or perhaps only a flower or two from
one of the girls. There was never a hint of hostility, only the courtesy and kindliness due
to a guest. And with such hospitality we could only think of ourselves as such. Some of
them had lost sons or brothers in the war, but the foe had always remained impersonal
and abstract, not identifiable with us. Nor could we liken them to the enemy we had
known and grown to hate in the jungles.
Now, when we stopped to consider, we found ourselves uncertain of many things.
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"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
Chapter 11
Yoshida
on odd evenings at the inn I was invited to the room of the old man, no doubt to relieve
the young people of the tedious task of beguiling away his long lonely hours. There was,
however, no need for feigned interest or polite patience on my part, for he was still
keen-witted and not at all crotchety, with a wealth of anecdote that lay just beneath the
surface, readily unearthed by any who sought it. We sat on the floor and leaned on the
warm porcelain hibachi in the centre of the room, and he smoked his tiny pipe, filling it
with a pinch of tobacco, which was exhausted at a puff, and immediately replenished. I
let him do the talking and he told me much of the history of the place.
Nearly four hundred years before, in the days of the old provinces of Aki and Bingo, all
of western Japan was the domain of Mori Motonari, a daring and astute general. These
very streets resounded to the tred of his armies and from his castle in the neighbouring
hills he planned his conquests of the southern islands. The castle site is still visible, and
his tomb is near by. There is a legend that when he lay dying at the age of seventy-five
years, he called his three sons to him on his death-bed, and taking three arrows in a
bundle, tried in vain to break them. He then broke them singly and died uttering the
words 'Hyakuman isshin' - 'one million people, one spirit' - the Japanese equivalent of
'union is strength'.
I had seen this phrase often throughout the district and had wondered what its
significance might be. It is used as a trade mark for many local products, particularly
the justly famous pears.
With just a tinge of pride, the old man pointed to iron heads of arrows that had in some
early battle penetrated the thatch and still protruded from the roof beams above us. I do
not know how old they were - they might have been relics of the civil war of
Restoration times - the 1860s - but it was charitable to accept their implied antiquity.
The next Sunday afforded opportunity to explore the town, unhindered by jeeps and
'foreigners' in uniform who spoke only English. It was a perfect spring day, officially a
day of rest, but the farmers, like their Western counterparts, refused to interrup the even
course of their activity.
The main street was narrow and without wasteful footpaths. Most of the shops seemed
to ironmongers and chemists. Japanese must surely rank high among the world's
greatest consumers of patent medicines. As elsewhere, the same cure-all properties were
claimed for the same mixtures and pills. one could also buy baked snakes, which were
ground like coffee while you waited. Various miraculous properties were attributed to
this repugnant stuff, and it seemed to have a ready enough sale.
Election posters covered every available space on walls and fences and proclaimed
dates of meetings and the unique qualities of the candidates. Socialists, Liberals, and
'progressives' were in force, and there was one Communist, but the most numerous
'party' was Independent.
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"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
one incident occurred that irritated and disappointed me. In front of a chemist's shop
was a large blackboard, belonging to the local branch of the newly-formed Young
Men's League. on it in chalk was a message urging the youth of Japan to become aware
of their newly-acquired responsibility for rebuilding their country, and reminding them
of the opportunity that presented, for the first time, of taking an active part in the
reconstruction.
The message contained two ideographs umfamiliar to me, and, after studying them
closely, I copied them on a piece of paper and went back to the inn to look them up in
the dictionary. I returned in ten minutes, to find the whole message erased. The
misplaced suspicion and implied lack of faith in our purpose infuriated me and I
stormed into the shop and demanded of its very frightened tenant who had done it. He
replied that he had.
'Can't you understand,' I said, 'that our purpose here is to help you to do just those things
that your had urged in that message? Unless the youth of Japan can feel that the future
of their country is in their hands, that there is no longer the need for subterfuge and
secrecy in matters political, there is no hope for them or their country, and the whole
purpose of the Occupation will be defeated?'
These were words full of meaning in those days, and my sincerity so impressed him that
he asked me to sit and tell him all I knew of democracy, its theory and practice. I
discovered then how nebulous and confused were my own concepts of it under
relentless questioning. I recalled afterwards something of a letter written by Francis
Xavier, during his mission in Japan, to Ignatius Loyola: 'Send me only tried and patient
men as teachers. The will be persecuted more times than they realize. At all hours of the
day and night they will be called on to answer questions, there will be no time for
prayer or meditation, no time for saying Mass, hardly time to eat or sleep. The curiosity
of these people is such that they question and argue without knowledge of time. They
must have answers, to communicate to others.
They are the delight of my soul.'
My reward was to see later that day on the blackboard a new and more inspired call to
youth, in a firmer and bolder hand.
on a shelf in the hills outside the town stood the school, and its grounds offered an
excellent point for panoramic observation. In a few minutes I stood there panting and
gazing at the vivid fields and farmhouses beneath, and all around me was the fragrance
of cherry blossom and cedars in the warm sun. Then from somewhere in the school near
by a piano tinkled and a thrilling soprano voice began to sing:
'Du meine Seele, du mein Hertz,
Du meine Wonn, O! du mein Schmerz.'
In such a place the words of Schumann's 'Widmung' were an unexpected and
incongruous delight. When the song had ended, I stole over to the hall, and peeping in
through the door found myself rather foolishly face to face with the singer. She was
plump and vivacious, not the least bit shy, and obviously not country bred. We
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"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
exchanged names and brief histories. She was a student from the Imperial University of
Music in Tokyo, and was here on holidays. Her father was a properous farmer in the
locality who indulged his only child rather more than was customary with daughters in
Japan.
on the piano was a copy of Somerset Maugham's The Razor's Edge, borrowed from an
American friend. She apparently knew English sufficiently well to understand it, but
like most Japanese was unable to cope with the pronunciation and would not speak it
unless forced to.
She sang me songs in French, Italian and German, but confessed she did not understand
the meaning of the words. I translated as best I could the lines of 'Widmung', with all
their passionate burden, which disturbed her not in the least. She was a city girl,
different from all the ones I had hitherto known. Her sophisitication would have been
considered reserve in a Westerner, but it contrasted oddly with the quiet charm of the
maidens of Yoshida.
My next visit to the school hall, two days later, was in rather different circumstances. I
had received an invitation from the chemist to hear his favoured candidate, an
Independent, give his policy speech. one arrival I was ushered to a seat on the rostrum,
next to the candidate. This confronted me with a delicate problem, since my attendance
could have been construed as carrying with it the imprimatur of the Occupation forces.
At somebody's urging I got up and made a bit of a speech, as non-committal as I could
make it, about democratic principles and all that, then excused myself.
My presence may have made some impression, for the candidate was subsequently
elected. Months later I met him on Hiroshima station, in morning coat and striped
trousers, and he hardly deigned to return my greeting. He had become just another
politician by then.
Polling day was a mad rushing from village to village and booth to booth to see that all
was well, but there was nothing for us to add, or amend, so thoroughly had they ordered
everything.
Women voted for the first time, for the first women candidates. Thirty-nine women
were elected out of a Diet of four hundred-odd members. Interviews on the lines of a
Gallup Poll later revealed that political parties had been ignored in the choice of
members. With everything unstable and uncertain, and with no precedents to follow,
votes had been cast for personalities; people who were known by their past acts, and not
by their future promises. Many women candidates, particularly educationalists, we held
in high regard.
Our work was now at an end, and it was time to return. We all, in our different ways,
felt tugs at leaving these people we had grown to know and respect. I knew I would
miss keenly the days in the kitchen, laughing, and being laughed at, by the women when
I helped them with the meals; the lovely inner garden; our ernest host who would not
believe that Japanese soldiers could commit atrocities, because he was incapable of it
himself... no more would I hear the words: 'Take care of yourself , as we set out each
morning, and 'Welcome home, how tired you must be', on our return, that had seemed to
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"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
us not conventional greetings but anxious concern for our well-being... No doubt the
others had their thoughts too, for we were all very subdued on our last evening, when a
small farewell party was given for us. The village chief came, and so did the singer. We
exchanged parting gifts, and avoided the customary tips that are given even to the inn-
keeper in Japan. We couldn't have offered tips to these folk.
The singer offered me a long weighty cylindrical parcel which I guessed and hoped was
a kakemono, or hanging scroll, rare in this part of post-war Japan. After they all had all
gone I opened it up and found a dozen eggs neatly arranged in a row. Half of them were
broken, too.
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"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
Chapter 12
Devil's Language
Ujina was rather alien corn for a while after a month of lotus-eating in the country, but
the rest of the unit had become well consolidated. Its members had explored every street,
shop, and wharf in the town, and necessity and a remarkable intuition had guided them
to most of the sources of sake and beer. To raise funds for buying these, they had
established in the lobbies of the local 'live' theatre a Yamiichi - 'dark market' - where
native and visitors alike congregated, bartering and haggling for their diverse needs, in
scornful indifference to the clashing of swords and the shouts of samurais in the fourth-
rate stage performance that went on unceasingly.
Allied cigarettes, condensed milk, and chocolate changed hands at twenty times their
cost price, and the money received bought cheap-jack silk handkerchiefs and fans, or
bottles of beer, on villainous terms.
In these transactions, dog ate dog, and no quarter was asked or given.
Because of the total lack of sugar in Japan at that time sweetened condensed milk was
the most sought-after commodity. Not much of this was available to the troops, however,
and some offered instead the easily obtained unsweetened milk in an identical can. This
subterfuge was soon discovered, and thenceforth the contents of the can were always
tested before buying by shaking, the thinner unsweetened milk thus revealing itself. The
troops countered by shaking the tins so vigorously immediately before sale, than an
internal froth was created that defied detection.
But soldiers, like other mortals, do not live by bread alone. The season was spring and
they were all young, so that it was inevitable their minds should turn to the
contemplation of the musume. It was not long before most of them had, by devious
devices, involved themselves in varying degrees with one or more of the local lasses.
These innocents were accosted in streets, waitresses were cajoled in cafes, while the
less enterprising swains were pursued by those girls who had tasted of the white man's
exotic fruits with American predecessors. Physical characters were not important to
most girls, though a man with a big nose was deemed handsome, whatever other defects
he had. But excessive hairiness placed him in the outer darkness, for the smooth-
skinned Japanese have secretly abhorred the 'hairy foreigners' since their first advent
centuries ago.
With the professional ladies, money, gifts, and gestures overcame all language barriers,
but the shy and virtuous ones had to be courted carefully and under great difficulties.
Mutual ignorance of a common tongue confined communication to a few fragments of
both languages, ruthlessly mutilated.
As romances budded and blossomed, the girls began to write love-letters in their own
language to their chosen suitors. The recipients, after a brief bewildered contemplation
of them, brought them to me and pleaded for translations. So I took and read them.
Sheltering behind their lover's ignorance of Japanese they poured into these letters all
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"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
the surging flood of passion and the craving for romantic fairy-tale love that had for
years been dammed up in their hearts by rigid conventions, and which now had found
an outlet.
Some of the letters were pure poetry, with a beauty that was deepened because its
meaning at times could only be half comprehended, only guessed at, by an alien reader.
And this alien was stirred and inspired to produce translations whose expressiveness
excelled anything he had ever managed to create in his own sentimental youth.
After a time he became conscious of a certain similarity in the letters. Surely not more
than one person could express their reaction to a moon-lit bay in just that same way?
Such passages as 'If it were death to love, I should wish to die ten thousand times over,'
sounded a familiar bell, and were gradually recalled as lines from some of the
anthologies of classical Japanese poetry - the Manyoshu, 'Collection of a Myriad
Leaves' and others.
But the sincerity of the writers was not to be questioned because of this. Why should
they not, aware of their own inadequate talents, search in the works of the masters of
poetic ｅxpression for moods that matched their own? The ability to recognize the
quality of the words they chose was in itself a sign of the divine spark within.
The soldiers' answers to these letters were pretty crude efforts by comparison, and
consisted for the most part of well-worn words and phrases. Nor did they gain much in
the process of conversion, by one who only vicariously experienced the emotions that
inspired them, into a language in which the intention was to be implied rather than
stated. Perhaps they were redeemed from banality by the mere novelty of the occidental
constructions and mode of presentation.
There were times when a lady's passionate outpourings were not reserved for one alone,
as her letters, presented to me by more than one man, revealed. Nor were all soldiers as
constant as their protestations seemed to indicate. My position being a combination of
father-confessor, postmaster, and censor, all their secrets remained inviolate, though it
must be admitted that the translations of 'two-timers' lacked the warmth and earnestness
of those of the single-minded.
In spite of the great limiting disadvantage of not knowing Japanese, few soldiers made
any serious attempt at a systematic study of it. All of them picked up a few phrases and
words in everyday use, but only a handful went further than this. The chief reason was
no doubt because the language, especially when written, appears at first sight
terrifyingly difficult, devoid of all form and reason, and the committing of it to memory
a feat encompassable only by mental freaks. This is a false impression however, and an
earnest student soon begins to recognize the inevitable pattern of it.
The Kanji script was brought to Japan from China in the early days of the Christian era.
The Japanese and Chinese ideographs are therefore identical, though not nearly so many
are in common use in Japan as in their land of origin.
As far as it is known, there does not appear ever to have been an indigenous form of
Japanese writing, although it is believed that the early tribes that settled there may have
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"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
brought some forms of writing with them. This absence of a native script seems rather
remarkable. The fact is, however, that no records or examples of proved authenticity
exist.
The ideograph in its original form was essentially a pictorial representation of the object
itself. An abstract idea, such as love or hate, was expressed by depicting an object, or
group of objects, associated with, or suggesting, the emotion or concept.
In course of time the ideographs acquired simplified and conventionalized forms, for the
sake of convenience and speed in writing, and for easy and universal understanding. No
doubt early China too had its impressionists, whose concepts of everyday things like
trees and clouds deviated to such a marked degree from the 'normal' to be
incomprehensible to the general. Centuries of scribes and Philistines have reduced the
ideographs to forms that are constant within narrow limits, recognizable by all.
A mouth, for example, has become a simple square instead of the original oval shape. A
man has been reduced to two strokes that barely suggest the hman figure. From 214 of
these simple elements has been built up more than 40,000 characters, some of which are
highly complex, but once the 214 elements are memorized, ideographs lose much of
their mystery, and a pattern is readily recognized.
The origin of the composition of most ideographs is unknown, and the many, varied,
and complicated explanations offered are valuable only as aids to memorizing them.
Some are easily comprehended, as the ideograph 'to be fond of, which consists of two
simple elements, a woman and child side by side. Some others are exceedingly fanciful,
however. It is not readily obvious, for instance, why a hand, three mouths and a tree
signify chastity.
While the written language is less formidable than first impressions suggest, the
converse might be said of the spoken language. It appears to have no affinities with any
other tongue, with one unexpected exception, the Bantu of Africa. It has no genders, no
plurals, and no definite article. This very simplicity snares and deludes. 'Prepositions'
are called 'post-positions' since they follow, not precede, the words they govern.
Pronouns are rarely used and first, second and third persons are usually distinguished by
the degree of politeness of the words that accompany them. If a man, for example, uses
a polite word for 'wife', one can be sure he is not referring to his own, but to yours, or
someone else's!
The honorific prefix O is much used, and gives rise to the stupid practice of placing
'honourable' before words in translations into English. In many cases this honorific has
long lost its significance, as in the word for stomach, onaka (honourable inside).
In animated conversation, the European linguist, unless he strains a very attentive ear
for the polite inflections, finds it very difficult to discover just what is happening to
whom. The spoken language is made more mystifying by the huge number of words
pronounced exactly the same. A simple word like 'cho' appears in one dictionary under
eighteen different headings each with its own distinct ideograph. Most of these
ideographs are again capable of expressing several different meanings. This confusion
can be attributed in part to the fact that when the Chinese characters were adopted their
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"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
Chinese sounds were retained and used in conjunction with the Japanese synonyms. The
distinguishing Chinese 'tones', however, were discarded.
Some words when spoken may have two conflicting meanings. The word 'kosd 1 , when
applied to guns, can mean either breech-loading or muzzle-loading, but a glance at the
written characters immediately solves the problem. There is one character, however,
which can mean either to stand still, or to wander about!
It is not unusual, during a conversation between Japanese, to see the speakers drawing
ideographs in the air before them, to clear up some ambiguity.
It is thus easily seen why Roman letters have not been substituted for the Chinese
characters.
Personal names create new difficulties, since the pronunciation of a man's name does
not necessarily indicate how it is written. Consequently visiting-cards are in wide use,
but a visiting-card alone gives no infallible key to the pronunciation of the characters on
it.
The abundance of homonyms affords unequalled opportunities for the punster, and the
pun is sanctioned by centuries of poems and epigrams by emperors, lords, samurai and
common folk.
A current pun may be quoted as an illustration. A man who evades payment of train or
tram fares is often derisively called Hadanori, the name of a famous historical figure.
But if written with different characters, Hadanori can also mean 'free ride'.
By contrast, the pronunciation of Japanese is extremely simple. Several English sounds
are missing. There is no V or 'er' sound, and the average Japanese renders a word like
'verb' as 'barb'. The sound of 1' is also lacking and 'love scene', a typical ｅxpression
adopted from Hollywood publicists, is rendered as 'rub-sheen'!
The speech of women is much purer and more melodious than that of men, as they
rarely use vulgar colloquialisms or foreign or technical terms. A multitude of words
from other languages, especially English, have been assimilated into Japanese, though
not always do they have the same meaning. A 'pipe' for instance, is a cigarette holder,
an 'apron' is a smock, a 'playing card' is a 'trump', a 'machine' is always a sewing
machine, and 'sauce' is Worcestershire sauce.
Extraordinary abbreviations of adopted words are sometimes met in newspapers, as in
zenestd 1 for 'zeneraru storaikii (general strike), and General MacArthur is often
irreverently shortened to 'Ma'!
The early Christian missionaries may perhaps be excused for asserting that the Japanese
language was invented by the Devil to prevent dissemination of the Gospels!
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"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
Chapter 13
The Hall of Victorious Return
The fierce summer sun brought waves of quivering hot air from the American-built
Liberty ship as its half-exposed screws threshed up the Inland Sea. Mute men in ragged
uniforms drooped over the rails at the bows, and scanned the sea's confining hills and
the hilly islands, here verdant and vivid to their tops with young sweet-potato plants,
and there golden with ripe barley stubble.
Beneath their feet a long line of letters ran along the ship's bow, a name familiar to
readers of adventurous fiction - James Oliver Curwood. To the men above, it signified
nothing - in any case, they were past adventure. This was 'the most beautiful waterway
in the world', but they had no eyes for it either.
Sometimes the ship passed close to a lone fisherman, standing in the stern of his small
craft, tiller-pole between his legs, as the small engine thrust it forward in smooth jerks.
He did not raise his head, but stared before him, lost in his own small world, in which
fish stood higher than passing ships.
An instinctive pressure against the tiller-pole to swing his boat head-on to the wash of
the overshadowing vessel was the fisherman's only sign of recognition of its existence,
and the repatriates on board passed in silence.
As the ship neared Ujina Bay, and the tall smokeless smoke-stacks of the ruined rayon
factory showed dark against the lighter hills beyond, the screws beat more slowly,
andJames Oliver Curwood glided silently to anchorage among his fellows, Max
Brandand another, unremembered, straining gently with the ebbing tide at their mooring
bouys, as if anxious to return home to America, from where they had been sent for their
special task.
The rattle of anchor-chains roused hundreds of men lying on the hot decks, and as they
heaved to their feet, the mountainous burdens of gear and equipment on their backs, and
on which they had rested, rose with them. The brown-skinned crew - there were no
white men aboard - made ready with ladders for the approaching barges. A little later
the first of these was alongside, and the men clambered gingerly and awkwardly down
the side. Laden to the gunwale the barge moved off shorewards, and its occupants
struggled on to the pier and trod again, after long absence, the sacred soil of their
homeland.
The fierce sun distilled tarry, woody odours from the planks beneath their feet, and
under the weight of a surging emotion and the load on their backs, they sank to their
knees on the boards. Quickly and gently, sturdy, placid-faced Japanese nurses, in their
little round Red Cross caps, relieved them of their burdens, and raised them to their feet.
Stooping in front of the weak ones, the nurses took the tired arms over their shoulder,
and bending forward bore them off to shelter from the heat.
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"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
Nurses at the Quarantine Hospital, at the
Repatriation Centre, Ujina.
At the head of the pier stood two tall wooden columns, and down their sides ran bold
characters: 'Welcome home!', 'Thank you for all you've done!' and 'Don't give in!' A
little farther on the repatriates found themselves face to face with two ancient stone
lions from China, crouched on either side of the entrance to a splendid hall. And by the
doorway of the hall was its name: Gaisenkan - 'The Hall of Glorious Return'. The cruel
irony of it half shamed them from entering, but inside was the cool of Heaven, and a
place to lay down their loads. They dropped them anywhere - it didn't matter much now;
there was nothing worth stealing any more.
When their eyes had become accustomed to the cool gloom, white patches on the walls
shaped themselves into a bewildering confusion of notices, telling them of the ordeal of
examinations, filling-in of forms, inoculations, and medical inspections that they must
endure before they left the precincts.
After a little while they were marched off to a great barn- like building, whose walls,
floors, and furniture were blanketed with a covering of fine, grey dust. Nurses in masks
stood beside chattering pumps and held instruments like giant fly sprays heavy with
D.D.T. powder. As the men halted before them the nurses thrust the nozzles down their
open shirt necks, pressed triggers, and great blasts of powder-laden air rushed inside
their clothes and around their bodies. 'Do not wash for twenty-four hours,' the nurses
said, as the men moved on, but the irritation of it on their hot skins drove many of them
to the nearest taps. They were lead back to their gear, while Allied soldiers searched for
weapons, drugs and contraband. Brown eyes watched timid and anxious, fearful that the
few worthless treasures that remained to them might be confiscated. But all that had
been done with, and after a dusting with D.D.T. it was their to do with as they wished.
Inoculations followed. Coldly efficient nurses, with the callousness of long practice,
jabbed them with numerous hypodermics, and sent them on with swinging, smarting
arms to the doctors and specialists.
After medical examinations there was searching through records and interminable
documentation. As they passed, from building to building, little bright-eyed girls,
volunteers from the near-by town, gave them ladles of water for their parched throats,
and apologized for the heat. Each of the hundreds received the same greeting, with the
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"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
same sympathetic smile. 'Go kuro sama deshita', ' 'Thank you for all you've done.' To
the guards at the doors, the scene suggested the crush in a theatre foyer, with the girls
calling, instead of 'tickets please', a greeting whose meaning and original sincerity had
become lost in monotonous repetition. Occasionally a nurse received a word of advice
or instruction from a guard, which she acknowledged with a shy smile and polite bow,
and the repatriates marvelled at the sight of Japanese girls moving, at ease and unafraid,
among the barbarians they had been taught to hate so intensely.
Such was the ordered efficiency of the Japanese Repatriation Bureau that the whole
process of demobilization took only a few hours, and when the repatriates first ashore
had filled in their final form, and had received a one-way railway ticket for home, there
were others crowding at their heels to take their places. They picked up their gear and
moved out into the blinding sun, free men at last.
Free to take their place in a new, frightening, and unfamiliar world, or to try to find a
new place if the old one were gone. Free to live among people who, in their hearts, and
against their natural feelings, begrudged the food for these extra mouths, that would
deplete further the nation's meagre rations.
There was another reason, too, why the soldiers' gaze sometimes met sullen faces
among their once hero-worshipping kinsmen: They were no longer conquering heroes,
but soldiers defeated in war - men without honour in their own, or any other, country.
They sat on their baggage in the scant shade, and pondered on the past and the future,
until moods of utter dejection settled over them. No one watching them could fail to stir
feelings of pity for them, and an Allied interpreter went among them, offering a
cigarette here and there, and begging them not to rise, as they had been told to do, in the
presence of Occupation Forces. They almost feared to take the cigarettes, as if it were
some form of torment to humble them further. When they did take them, they held them
up to their foreheads, and receiving a light, drew in long, ecstatic gusts of smoke. There
were only a few cigarettes to give, and these disappeared in a couple of minutes. The
more fortunate shared theirs with their comrades, and all felt the world to be a little
better place.
The interpreter watched and wondered about these men, and where they had come from.
The label on one said 'Borneo', reviving not-so-old memories... first glimpses of
Sandakan from the air, the bomb-pocked aerodrome... the negotiating of surrender terms
in the black 'Cat' riding in Sandakan harbour, packed with Japanese service chiefs and
four Australians, while on shore, a few yards away, waited three thousand fully-
equipped Japanese troops, doubting their Emperor's call to capitulate, and waiting on a
word from their commanders for their next action... Along the road from Sandakan to
Ranau, the bursting of rubber-nuts in the plantations crackling like distant machine-
guns, and in the ground beneath the bodies of two thousand British prisoners...
Burma, Thailand, Singapore, the labels conjured up scenes of horror, and ultimate
degradation of human beings... But there were no marks on these haggard, impassive
faces to show what manner of men they were, or had been; only the dark uncertain
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"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
future was there, holding perhaps expiation of evil deeds for the guilty, and martyrdom
for the innocent.
When they had rested, they took their bundles to the railway station a few yards away,
ready for the trains that would come to take them to all parts of Japan, to their
homes. Those who had long hours to wait boarded trams and went into Hiroshima. Their
uniforms did not distinguish them from the crowd, for many denizens of the 'atomic
desert' wore similar clothing; had in fact, nothing else to wear.
But the soldiers sensed a difference, a tangible separation from the other passengers,
and they spoke only to each other quietly, until the first sight of the disaster crushed all
speech from them. They stared like country bumpkins on their first visit to a city, at
scenes that had long become commonplace to the inhabitants.
When, hours later, they boarded trains at Hiroshima station, the shame of defeat was a
little more endurable and submission more understandable in the face of such a force
whose power they had just witnessed.
Those who returned home in later months were not so neglected and friendless. The
Home Government had by that time made the nation aware of its responsibility to the
soldiers they had feted and glamorized in victory. Posters and placards everywhere
proclaimed: 'Repatriates are your brothers. Do not forget they offered their lives for you.
Give them your sympathy.'
Japanese civilians, too, returned home. Children who had never seen their parents'
homeland were nervous and ill at ease among their unfamiliar surroundings, and their
parents quailed at the prospect of a life of austerity, so different from the ease and
comfort abroad.
Some time later, a letter came, bearing the posmark of Kisa, a name that by now was
little more than a small memory lost in a crowd of greater events. The letter was written
in beautiful picture-like characters, as only an artist could have written. Here is part of
it:
Dear Mr Clifton,
Even in the cold Japanese winter, the plum and cherry trees blossom, the air gradually becomes
warm, and mountain, field, and sea take on the hues of spring.
I suppose that you who are not accustomed to our Japanese climate and customs are suffering
many inconveniences, but are you well and busily working?
I left Jesselton on 22nd March in a ship called the Phoenix and arrived in Japan on the 29th.
The waves were a little high, but the ship was fast and we had a comfortable voyage.
The Southern Cross disappeared, and Orion from directly overhead sand gradually to the south,
and it became very cold in the ship. I put on all the clothes I had, but they were all 'hot-weather'
garments, and did not help much.
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"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
on arrival in Japan, I saw at once the 'Rising Sun' badges on the hats of Australian soldiers,
but among them were no familiar faces, although I looked very carefully to see if you and
Sergeant Sissons, who had been so kind to me on Labuan, were there.
on the 31st March, after five long years, I rode once again on a Japanese train, and looked
once more upon Japanese scenery. The great joy that I felt changed to a sad loneliness at seeing
the ruins of Hiroshima.
I returned the next day to home of my family. I thought that the delight I felt at the time was the
same as that of returning Australian prisoners whose pictures I had seen in Fix. My wife told
me of how you had come, even to this distant, inconvenient country place, to tell her of my
happy circumstances in Labuan, and to give her my letter.
I was deeply thankful to hear this. I told my wife of the many kindnesses I had received in
Labuan from you, Captain Wright, Lieutenant Bryan, and Sergeant Cox. My wife heard with
great gratitude. By this letter I thank you from my heart. Soon I shall go Kyoto to begin life
again. When I am established there I shall let you know. If you have some spare time, please
come. Kyoto and Nara are representative of the true beauty of Japan, and shall be your guide.
I pray that this happy day comes soon.
Nakase.
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"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
Chapter 14
Honeymoon for Three
I should have mentioned Harry before this, I suppose. I first knew him in Borneo, and
he came on to Japan with us. He was about thirty-five, and there was more of his Irish
father in him than of his English mother. He was a medical sergeant and by nature a
Good Samaritan and a champion of the underdog. I think he chose the medical branch
for the opportunity it gave him of relieving pain, instead of inflicting it. His duties
included treating the camp's Japanese staff for injuries incurred at work, but the number
of 'strangers' who paid him more than the usual respects when he passed through the
streets hinted at an extensive surreptitious practice outside, and it was rumoured that
vitamin tablets and packets of sulphanilamide that were scorned and discarded by us
had saved the lives or health of many a Japanese child, old man, and woman.
He first met Terumi on one of her evening walks to Ujina railway station. She was
twenty-two, and very beautiful, with a classic oval face - one the Japanese call a 'melon-
seed face' - that made you feel that beauty, after all, did not belong to time or country,
but was timeless and universal.
Terumi.
on those evening walks Terumi was always accompanied by her two small sisters.
Harry thought at first that she was their mother. The children completely charmed him,
and he used to give them pieces of chocolate or toffee each time he saw them, which
was often. I was with him one evening and talked to Terumi for a while. She fascinated
me too, because of an extraordinary resemblance to a girl I had once known and
admired, if nothing else. She told me she was the daughter of a man whom I
immediately recognised as a high official of the Prefectural Administration, and with
whom I had frequent official business.
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"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
Terumi's young sisters.
He was of the old school, forthright and intelligent, just and austere. Like most of his
class and generation, he adhered to the old formalities, and Terumi and an elder sister
were never to be seen alone, whether inside or outside their home. Whenever Harry and
I visited the family, often on ficticious official calls, Terumi was never left alone in a
room with us. If her father had to leave even for a few minutes, he always called for
another member of the family before he excused himself.
So quickly did their friendship develop that one spring day Harry took Terumi and her
two little sisters for a trip by launch on the Inland Sea. Her father was absent on
Prefectural business, and her mother, perhaps remembering her own romance-less youth
and marriage, was a ready conniver. What happened that day I do not know, but
thenceforth there was a closeness between them that words never conveyed; only the
glance and the touch of lovers bound irrevocably.
one summer evening I was having tea in my small room, where once a sergeant of the
Kempeitai slept, when Harry came in and sat beside me on the bed. I sensed what was
coming.
'I want to get married,' he said..
'To Terumi, I suppose?'
'Yes. Do you know how it is done. I mean officially?'
He was thinking of the so-called marriages that had taken place between some of our
soldiers and their Japanese koibito. 'I must have it so that it will be binding, and there'll
be no doubt in Terumi's mind of my intention.'
I sat back and thought for a moment.
'First,' I began, 'I had better give you some idea of the form of the Japanese marriage
contract. I think I've told you before of the koseki, which is the history and record of the
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"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
Japanese family and its members. This is kept at the village office or the municipal
office in the the place of a person's birth. When two Japanese get married the wife's
name is struck from her family's koseki and is then entered in the koseki of her
husband's family. The reason for doing this, and the date, are written alongside. A copy
of this transaction is forwarded to the Prefectural office. This is all the State requires.
As in our own country, any religious ceremony is purely a matter for the participants,
and is not an essential part of the contract.'
'But what happens in the case of a foreigner, like myself, who has no kosekiT
'Before the war, I knew an Englishman who had married a Japanese girl. The procedure
then was to receive from the village chief who performed the ceremony a copy of the
contract. The parties then presented themselves and this copy to the British Consul in
Japan. If he was satisfied that the couple were legally married lex loci, according to the
law of the land, he forwarded the document to Somerset House in London, where
records of all births, marriages and deaths are kept, and the marriage then became law
and the Japanese girl a British subject.'
This troubled Harry a bit.
'But at present there is no British consul, and in any case, you know I daren't breathe a
word of it to anyone but you. Above all, her father must not know, as I'm certain he's
too conservative to approve. He would probably tell someone at B.C.O.F. immediately,
and you know what they would mean - I'd be on the first boat for home - and demob.'
'I know. That's a problem we have got to overcome. Will you leave it with me for a day
or two?'
So Harry left it with me.
I decided to take our problem to the fountainhead: the Soncho of Terumi's native village.
This was a small place in the heart of Hiroshima Prefecture. The Soncho was a middle-
aged pleasant man, and received me with the usual courtesy and hospitality. After a cup
of green tea and a salty biscuit, we lit cigarettes and I took him into my confidence,
urging him to profound secrecy. He was thoughful for a few minutes, and then said that
there were many things to be decided before he could pronounce judgement. First, was
Terumi of legal age, and therefore beyond parental control? Was she single? A glance at
her family's koseki in the old earthen fire-proof storehouse at the rear of the village
office assured us that all was well here.
Then the man. Was he similarly eligible to marry?
This might have proved very difficult, had not I suddenly thought of that precious
possession of a soldier, his next best friend to his rifle - his paybook, wherein is
recorded among other things his date of birth, and his next-of-kin, and consequently, his
marital state. After careful consideration of this, the Soncho agreed to accept it as proof
of Harry's eligibility.
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"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
We now laid our plans. Terumi pleaded a slight illness - there was the shadow of the
dreaded haibyo, tuberculosis, over her family - and asked to be allowed to spend the rest
of the summer with her mother's sister, in the village of her birth. We had already met
her aunt, who had the farmer's instinctive dislike of government officials and had never
accepted Terumi's father as a useful citizen. From her, certainly, would come no
whispers of our secret. From now on, her home was to be the rendezvous for meetings
between Harry and Terumi. There was nowhere else. We did not look into the future
beyond the end of summer.
The following week-end, we got leave together, and Harry and Terumi were married
according to the laws of Japan. The koseki of the house of Terumi Hirota no longer bore
her name, and the only formal record of her existence reposed in Harry's pocket, against
the time of the signing of the peace treaty and the appointment of the first post-war
British Consul.
Terumi had chosen the place for a honeymoon - a refuge for the mid-summer heat in the
cool of the mountains. It was not very distant in miles, but it involved long slow hours
and train and road travel through mountainous country. Terumi came to the station in a
black frock - the first time I had seen her in Western dress, and she exhibited a figure
rather unexpectedly exquisite. A Japanese lady's legs are not the feature one dwells
upon, and her knees rarely make each other's acquaintance, but keep an awkward
distance forever. But Terumi could have walked with ease with a visiting-card between
her knees as the geisha do in their early training.
There was no 'exclusive use' carriage on the train, so we rode in the shasho shitsu, the
conductor's compartment, at the rear. It was a favourite spot of mine, on any occasion,
for all kinds of persons came and went: farmers, railway-men, and common folk, with
many an original character among them.
Harry and Terumi sat close to each other, silent and thoughtful, still without the gift of a
common speech for everyday intercourse. I talked with the conductor and his occasional
visitors and the time passed pleasantly and quickly enough.
We were moving through country that presented an ever-changing scene. The railway
ran almost continually through hills clad with pines and maples, which this hot summer
sun would burn into an autumn glory in a month or two. An occasional break revealed
valleys of rice and fields of the giant radish, and renkon - the lotus whose root is eaten,
and patches of the stunted mulberry, for the food of silkworms. Often in the thicker
fastnesses of the forest, a straggler from an overhanging thicket of bamboos swished
thunderously along the carriage roofs.
For the most part it was very slow going, because of the steep gradients and the low-
quality coal, which looked more like dark clay than anything else. Sometimes we
remained at a station for half an hour or so, until the engine gathered up sufficient head
of steam to tackle the next long pull. This was ancient country and the stations had odd
names, bearing no resemblance to the modern reading of the ideographs above them.
We left the train at last at a station called Tojo, the Eastern Castle, though there was no
sign of such an edifice. We boarded an ancient charcoal-burning bus terribly overloaded.
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We got on last, to avoid the stifling physical odours with and the crush and curious gaze
of the passengers.
Harry went near to losing his beloved within a few minutes. The three of us were on the
outer step, and when the bus suddenly swerved in a narrow street, a telegraph pole
scraped along its side and only a tremendous effort on our part dragged Terumi from
being crushed. For a little time afterwards we were rather quiet.
A hint of dusk was in the air as we wound and twisted through rocky tunnels and steep
hills to the edge of a small deep lake, set in a deep crater in the very summit of a
mountain, like an emerald in a ring. A path led to its edge and to a lovely clean-lined
native inn. It was just like a huge houseboat moored at the lake's brink. All the interior
timbers were unpainted, but polished to show the clear grain at its best. A verandah
running round the upper floor gave views of exquisite maple and pine-covered hills and
the deep green water of the lake.
There were no other guests and the upper floor was all ours. There was a family group
in the kitchen below, and an old thin-bearded man, meditating. There was always an old
man in these inns.
We had a bath in icy water piped through bamboo from a distant spring, and then went
upstairs and rested awhile untile the evening cool replaced the day's heat. We then
began preparations for the wedding banquet. I did most of this, partly because I liked to,
but chiefly to leave them alone. There was fresh-caught fish at hand and we had brought
all else we needed. I worked in the kitchen with the landlady and her daughter, and the
old man looked wonderingly on. Between us we produced an elaborate though strangely
assorted meal, and we sat down at the lovely low lacquer tables on which Australian
bread and cheese, fruit and sugar lay beside Japanese fish, rice and sweet potatoes.
My function up to date had been that of a nakodo - the go-between who traditionally
arranges all matters concerning a marriage - and I was installed with mock ceremony as
the honoured guest at the marriage feast, according to the custom of the land.
It was a merry meal, mostly because of Harry's attempts to converse in Japanese and
Terumi's answers essayed in 'English'. Australian beer and some wine, drunk from
absurdly small lacquer sake cups, added it portion.
We sat afterwards in a languid daze, and then clapped hands in the customary manner to
call a servant to clear away. We heard a distant 'hai' in acknowledgement and soon the
lacquer tables were bare of all but the wine and the little cups.
I went out and sat on the verandah rail. There were no mosquitoes here and the air was
fresh. Presently Terumi went into a near-by room. In this one she spread a single futon
from a wall-cupboard. 'For you,' she said to me, and smiled apologetically. In a room
across the passage she spread a large one. The she returned and taking Harry's hand,
that trembled a little, led him away with a smile and a bow, as though they were two
children.
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I sat for a long while on the verandah rail, immersed in many thoughts, while in the
water below an energetic fish plopped frequently. on the far side of the lake a fish
watcher crouched by his lantern, for the water was low, and the fish easily caught, and
he took his turn with his follow villagers to guard them against the hungry intruder.
Away in the hills an old water-wheel ground out ghostly whines and creaks as the
trickle of water barely contrived to turn it.
It would have been a long sleepless night for me, had it not been for the wine that
remained, and I was thankful for the oblivion in brought.
The next morning I went boating and fishing on the lake - alone.
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Chapter 15
A Night Out
Back in Ujina I was pretty busy, and duty took me to places far and near. Our principal
task at that time was the seeking out of military stores and equipment, the destruction of
discovered weapons and ammunition, and the turning over to the Prefectural
Government's 'Diversion' Department of any useful goods, clothing, food, and other
material, suitable for conversion to civilian use. This was a continuous and monotonous
process, with rarely a good find to highlight a day's work.
Associated with this task was a search for individuals or organizations which might
attempt to resurrect the old militarism, or to preserve it if it was not dead. There was a
rumour that some such activity might be carried on in my own neighbourhood, in a club
which had been the gathering place of army and navy officers during the war. It
sounded like a possibility, and I could not afford to overlook it.
The place was on the coast, a mile or so from our camp, and the road to it led past
ruined factory buildings and stagnant lotus ponds, and across a shallow tidal river. A
little farther on found me outside a large house between the road and the sea, almost
hidden behind high walls. The barred wooden gate was silent and discouraging, and the
house beyond was indeed a 'fine and private place'.
I stood outside and called 'Gomen nasaf rather diffidently and half apologetically
several times, and eventually heard an answering 'Hai' from somewhere within.
Presently a woman in a white overall unbarred the gate with not a little timidity and
admitted me to the genkan, that part of a Japanese house which serves as a porch, and
from which one ascends a couple of feet on to the floor of the house proper. I asked if I
might see the master of the establishment. The woman vanished inside and a few
moments later a well-kept man of middle age, with greying hair, came to the entrance
and politely invited me to enter. As I sat and wrestled with the gaiters and boots I
glanced inside past the screen that sheltered the interior from common gaze, into rooms
wide and spacious, with immaculate tatami on the floors and austerely plain sliding wall
panels.
Ungaitered and unbooted at last, I followed the old man through the house to a large
room giving on to the sea. The panels that formed the seaward wall had been removed
by the simple operation of lifting them from the grooves they slid in. A garden of pines,
dwarf trees, and shrubs lay between the house and the sea wall and its tidy neatness was
in perfect accord with all within.
My host bade me sit on the floor at one side of a low red lacquer table, the only
furniture in the room, and he took his seat opposite. Behind him in the tokonoma - the
alcove which is part of the chief room of all Japanese houses - was a flower group
arranged in the incomparable fashion of the country. A hanging scroll bore no picture,
but only two ideographs written with great skill and imaginative abandon. The lower
one strongly suggested a sleek black cat crouched on an invisible wall, his fat furry tail
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drooping to the lower margin. Together, the two characters read: 'Buji\ whose only
meaning I knew was safety. In answer to my question the old man took me into a maze
of Confucian philosopy and Mencian ethical principles. The inner meanings nearly
always eluded me when confronted with these old epigrams, though I have consoled
myself by considering how one could explain satisfactorily to an oriental some of our
own commonly used phrases. How does one explain 'Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty',
even in English!
During his dissertation the woman who had first admitted me laid before us two thick
brown bowls containing a few spoonfuls of a pale-green frothy concoction. In one was a
small bamboo whisk, obviously the producer of the froth. This lukewarm and
exceedingly bitter liquid was matcha, a kind of tea made of the leaves ground and
powdered. I knew I should have praised its flavour and quality, but I was thankful there
was so little of it.
At length we came to the reason for my visit. I told him it was my duty to investigate
the activities of all organized bodies, and wished to know the club's aims and
membership. He answered that during the war the building had been turned over to the
entertainment of military and naval officers and had now reverted to its earlier function:
the meeting-place for members of a club formed by business and professional men for
mutual cultural advancement and the interchange of ideas. Meetings were held monthly
and were followed by a banquet. If I cared to attend at the next one, in about a fortnight,
perhaps with a friend, he would be honoured. I accepted and promised to bring a
companion, chiefly to check if my judgement was sound.
There was in my mind a colonel, still young, a student of life and those who lived it, an
intellectual oasis in a desert of oafs. Because of his position, and his strict enforcement
of non- fraternization rules, he had no opportunity of approaching the people within
distances that made intimate observation possible. I told him of the invitation and
suggested that, from an intelligence angle, it offered a unique chance to gain some first-
hand impressions. He was glad of the artifice and said he would come.
We told no one but the unit Intelligence Officer, and on the appointed evening our car
wove its way across barley stubble and between lotus ponds on the edge of Hiroshima
to the road by the Inland Sea. It was a perfect evening to a hot day, and the rising moon
was nearly full. The people of the fishing village near by were abroad in the cool of the
evening, fishing from the sea wall, or strolling in their light summer kimonos and
stockingless feet on wooden geta, the coolest and cleanest of all mankind's footwear,
enviably different from our hot heavy boots and gaiters, and tight-necked shirts.
At the entrance to the club we dismissed the car, instructing the driver to return at about
eleven p.m. His pleasure at this order spoke of a koibito waiting somewhere to beguile
his spare hours.
Our host and two pretty daughters were waiting to welcome us. They stood in awkward
silence while we tore off our footgear. The colonel cursed under his breath at a hole in
his sock and surreptitiously worked it under to the sole. It was one of the minor
tragedies that befall one on entering a Japanese house, but one I had learned to avoid.
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We were escorted to the room of my first visit, but now the sliding shoji were all in
place. These shoji are mere wooden skeletons divided into squares, each one covered
with a thin rice paper. Their untorn condition seemed to preclude the presence of
children in the house, for though in ordinary use they are durable enough, a child or two
wreaks extensive and continuous destruction on them.
A Japanese room interior.
Most of the other guests, the club members, had already arrived, and I noticed with a
guilty start that Terumi's father was among them. An interminable round of
introductions began. Most of the guests were retired business men and all were sticklers
for ceremony. As the first of them was presented to us, he began a series of low bows
that took the colonel by surprise, so that I responded on behalf of both of us with
equally low salutations, being careful, from a past experience, to keep such a distance
that we did not inadvertently crack our skulls together. These bows usually go on
indefinitely, unless a friend intervenes, it being considered impolite to be the first to
stop. on this occasion, however, our host passed us from one to another, so that for me
the performance was continuous.
At last it was over, and we were seated cross-legged on wadded cushions in the
traditional place of honour - with our backs to the tokonoma, the alcove in which the
scroll I have mentioned hung. Immediately there came to our sides the two daughters of
our host, dressed in bewildering beautiful kimonos and obis. No description in words
alone can capture the magnificence of the costumes, their colours and textures, the faint
fresh odours that breathed from them, the thin line of white silk at the neck-line against
the honey skin, the shy smile and quiet incomparable grace of the wearers.
The colonel and his fair companion melted into a dim and distant background as I gave
all my faculties to a proper study of my own lovely creature. I thanked my stars for the
gift of common speech that we had. I knew she would be by my side, all the evening,
wherever I went, to minister to my least wish, to study my tastes in food, wine, and song,
even the topic for conversation. She poured me a glass of Japanese beer, of whose
excellence I already had knowledge. She did not drink too, but remained kneeling
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beside me, sitting back on her heels. This appeared to be the posture for most women;
they never sat cross-legged as men did, nor did men sit in the feminine fashion.
We were all very formal still, the other guests never addressing us without first laying a
hand on the floor. This old etiquette created an odd sensation, as if we were living in an
earlier age. The sombre kimonos of the men, long slender pipe-cases and fans thrust in
their sashes like swords gave a heroic touch to their majestic bearing. This was no
fleeting impression induced by drink; it was experienced on every occasion. Let it be
emphasized that in these gestures was no subservience to superiors or conquerors, but
an old etiquette that has survived westernization and commercialism, which are shed
with the European costumes in the home, where the older people revert to earlier modes
of living and habit.
Before long servants brought food and the meal began.
The first offering was sashimi - the raw flesh of the tai, the best of all Japan's fish,
sliced thinly, but still remaining in compact laminations in the shape of the fish's body.
The colonel looked appealingly at me, and I in turn at my sweet companion, whose
name was Murako. 'Do not eat it if you do not wish,' she whispered. 'But please leave it
before you; it is also intended to be looked at, and, if it merits it, to be admired.'
To the Japanese, the appearance of food is as important as its culinary preparation. And
indeed, the whole dish was a small detached piece of art; the shallow pale platter and
the iridescent skin of the fish, and a little bright berry or two to add the perfect touch of
colour.
There followed ise-ebi, the giant prawn, and Hiroshima's famous oysters in the form
oftempura - fried in batter. Then came what was for us the most delectable and
satisfying course of all: sukiyaki. The word means fried on a plough, and its origin, it is
said, goes back into ancient times, when the Buddhist restriction on the eating of the
flesh of animals was much more rigidly enforced than it is to-day. According to the
legend, it became the practice of toilers in the fields to convey secretly to the scene of
their labour tasty morsels of beef, where, upturning their plough they lit a fire beneath it,
and fried their steaks on the mould-board. one can imagine the impatient appetites that
waited on those sizzling steaks. Certain refinements on this method of cooking were
now at our disposal. A charcoal brazier was placed on the table before us, and a huge
platter of thin slices of beef, mushrooms, shallots, giant radish, beans, and young peas
in pod set beside it, so that we could watch the whole process of cooking.
A piece of beef fat was rubbed lightly all over the surface of a pan over the red
smokeless coals. Into it was laid a few slices of beef, a little each of all the other things,
a sprinkle of sugar (a present from me) and, most essential of all, some shoyu. This
Japanese sauce has a salty character all its own, and has no affinity with the sweet
insipid Chinese variety.
In a matter of minutes, the first pieces were ready. The girls lifted them out into little
bowls, and we sampled them, and found their savour beyond dreams. More pieces were
added to the pan, and the mixture, feeding on itself, grew richer and richer, adding
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flavour to flavour. My handmaid had soon learned of my predilection for mushrooms,
and I had more than my share of them that evening.
Throughout this long course there were interspersions of beer drinking and toasts msake.
The etiquette of drinking was as yet only partly understood by me, but when a man
across the table dipped his tiny cup in a clear bowl of water and handed it to me, I knew
that I must take and hold it while he filled it with warm sake from a small porcelain
bottle, one of several that stood in a cruet-like container of hot water. I drank with as
much grace as I could manage and returned it, filling it again from another bottle. We
then repeated the whole operation with my own cup. The colonel had also been
receiving attention, and had followed me slavishly.
What we had drunk at length forced upon us a natural necessity. I turned to my host for
guidance and he nodded to the girl at my side. She rose and beckoned me down a long
passage at the end of which was what is picturesquely called an asagao - the Morning
Glory - because of its close resemblance to the bell of that flower. She stood beside me
with a towel wrung out in warm water, and wiped my hands when I had finished. It was
done so simply and unselfconciously that one had no feeling of surprise or discomfort.
But I looked forward with malicious pleasure to my colonel's turn.
At the end of the meal came fruit - grapes and mandarins, the grapes peeled with infinite
patience and care by Murako; the mandarins stripped down to their tiny cells of juice,
and held to our mouths in soft delicate fingers.
Toothpicks were produced, and we plied them gratefully as our fellow-guests did, with
the left hand held like an inverted fan over our mouths to conceal the inelegance of the
operation.
one of the girls began to strum a samisen. First she sang a bright Geisha song, in which
all who knew it, and some whod did not know it, joined. Then one or two men recited,
weird moaning chants that seemed to be in the repertory of every Japanese, perhaps
because it is impossible to detect whether one is in or out of tune!
Then something happened that I did not think I should ever see. As if some common
urge had commanded it, the shoji of the seaward wall of the room were taken away, the
lights were extinguished, and we sat there and gazed, through a thin tracery of the pines
in the garden, at a calm sea shimmering under a moon the like of which I do not think I
will ever see again. Someone began to play softly a shakuhachi, and a girl sang a song
of a fisherman and the maid who loved him. 'Perhaps this same moon looks down on
him, though he is a thousand ri way, and my pillow is wet with tears for him,' she sang,
and the tones of the flute rose and felll and floated out into the still night, over the sea.
The wonder of it was the unanimity of the mood that had settled over us. All knew,
sensed with certainty, that there was no dissentient, no inharmonious spirit among us.
It had to end, of course, but the memory still remains.
When the world returned to us, there was a delicious weariness in our bones and an
uncontrollable desire to sleep. Sensing this, my companion drew from a wall-cupboard
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several more cushions, and spread them behind me on the floor. I caught the half-
reproving, half-envious gaze of the colonel as sweet oblivion enveloped me.
I was awakened by an apologetic host and told that our car was waiting outside. I turned
to the colonel and found him as I had been a minute before: stretched out in a celestial
comfort on still more cushions, his holey sock gaping unashamedly. I woke him and
waited until he had regained some of his customary composure.
All the other guests waited with polite impatience for our departure. When we were
once again booted and gaitered, we took our leave, pledging friendship and an early
reunion. We drove off into the chill morning and I asked the colonel if it had been worth
while. His short 'Yes' was all that the question required. I knew that he was at one with
me.
A day or two later, when I paid my respects to our host and thanked him for the
pleasure of that evening, I asked if there were any impressions he had formed of us.
'There is one thing I shall not forget', he said. 'When you had said goodnight and
prepared to leave, a colonel held the door of a car while a warrant officer, with no salute
or stiff formality, preceded him inside. This perhaps marks the difference between our
ways of life more clearly than anything else. It shall be the theme and subject for study
at the Club's next meeting.'
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Chapter 16
British Justice
- missing pages here due to a binding error - a blackmarket associate of Clifton was on
trial for black marketeering. Clifton was assigned to act as his interpreter.
-tensive shaded patches. Beside the drawing, a doctor's barely legible scribble told in
cold scientific words of an advanced stage of T.B. It was not the first appeal tendered to
the court on health grounds for mitigation of a sentence. The judge had usually rejected
them as exaggerated or falsified. No time was wasted on this one, and sentence was
pronounced. Nine month's hard labour.
I made no appeal on his behalf, no admission of my part as an accessory.
This might be forgiven because I sensed the futility of it, and because of a belief that
ultimately 'the Occupation' might suffer by a soldier's admission of complicity.
At any rate, I kept silent and saw him led away to an existence that would be barely
tolerable to a person such as he.
In my mind stirred a promise to apply myself to his release and his restoration to his
family.
I avoided them for a month, until I had prepared an appeal through a Japanese lawyer,
and some hope of success seemed possible. Then I went to see his wife. She was as she
always had been, gracious and friendly.
After a cup of tea and some inconsequential talk, I asked how her husband was. She
turned on me that baffling Japanese smile that hides all signs of deep tragedy and
suffering, and said simply:
'He died last week in Yoshijima.'
She added quickly, apologetically, to be sure that no insinuation of blame might be
inferred:
'He was always very weak, you know!'
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Chapter 17
Indian Summer
one's first summer in Japan is an unwanted surprise. After the cold snows of winter and
the gently 'plum rains' of spring, the newcomer looks forward to a period of mild
warmth in which to laze and dream away the days, and go comfortable to bed at night.
Then suddenly at the turn of the season there comes a wilting heat and a stifling
humidity that drains all one's energy and leaves one panting and prostrate after the
slightest exertion. Not even a wet season in Borneo jungle produced the same degree of
discomfort.
The foreshore of the Bay of Hiroshima at Ujina is mostly land that has been reclaimed
from the sea and the area behind it is low-lying, holding in its hollows great pools of
stagnant water, which under the heat of the summer sun saturate the air with moist
vapours.
From the depths of these ponds rise the ragged fan-like leaves of the lotus - cultivated
for its edible roots and stems. Because it has its origin in slime and mud and rises above
it to produce a pure lovely flower, it has become a Buddhist symbol of mankind, who,
springing from primitive and base beginnings, can rise and blossom in goodness and
virtue above them. This same lotus was known and grown by the Egyptians in the
waters of the Nile, and the cross-section of the tuberous root, with its wheel-like
structure, is supposed to be the origin of various conventional designs.
Images of the Buddha seldom occur without some form of the flower or its petals
incorporated.
The winter barley had long been garnered, winnowed and husked with great
expenditure of manual labour and a slow, infinite patience, and from the same ground
rice plants now leapt lush and green, so that one could fancy to see movement of its
growth. As the ears of grain filled, paper discs bearing grotesque resemblances of
human faces danced over the paddy fields on strings attached from margin to margin, to
discourage marauding birds and insects.
The discs were set leaping and diving by the faintest breeze, which was as well, for
there was little movement of the air. In Japan, it seemed, there were only the two
extremes, a still calm, or a raging blast that plucked houses from their foundations and
laid great trees low, only the pliant bamboo, bending but not breaking, withstanding its
fury.
on these days no one worked beyond mid-day in the towns and cities. only a few
government offices remained open, such was the heat.
Those who could afford to fled the cities and sought relief in mountain villas or at the
seaside. only those whose fierce battle for the bare necessities of life compelled them
remained, held by strong, immovable roots to the city.
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All day, meticulous housewives scattered water on the parched streets to lay the
powdery dust that rose with every movement of shuffling feet and the wheels of each
passing cart.
Evening brought no relief, only prodigious clouds of mosquitoes from the lotus-ponds
to torment and harass strollers seeking relief in the still night air. Some enterprising
people carried a slat of bamboo, which they swished in a wide swath around them as
they walked, the bodies of countless insects rattling faintly against it as they were struck.
The rooms of the houses were hung with great mosquito nets the same size as the room.
An evening visit on a friend often discovered him and his wife, both stripped to the
waist for comfort, seated behind such a net, while outside the baffled mosquitoes sought
to gain entry.
Finding the small space in my room intolerable at night, I became addicted to walking
the streets, sometimes returning by train or tram if my wanderings had taken me too far.
This was one of my greatest pleasures, for there were many people to talk with me,
people who had come to know and understand 'the man with different-coloured eyes,' as
I felt I now had begun to understand them. There was hardly a home or a shop where I
could not go and be sure of a cup ofOcha or perhaps some fruit or an 'ice-cake'.
From the first moment of my arrival in Japan I had sworn never to participate in any of
the petty pillaging that appears to be an inseparable part of a military occupation. To
some it seemed of little moment to seize two or three oranges from the stall of an old
woman in a market-place, but a few such losses during the day could deplete her poor
hardly-won stock and leave her broken and resourceless, with a bitterness towards those
who had caused it.
Whatever my dealings with the people, I had always striven to be just, though it often
meant the carrying off of a husband or son to prison. At any rate I became known far
and wide, and may perhaps be forgiven a little pride in the courtesy shown me in the
oddest places and circumstances.
Often, when riding in a tram or train, some little souvenir or parcel of fruit was pushed
into my hands or pocket with a murmured 'please'. once a large number of biwa (the
Japanese loquat, larger and more delicious than ours) were emptied into my greatcoat
pocket before I was aware of what was happening. But the greatest satisfaction and
pleasure came from the school children who sidled close on the trams, looked up and
smiled, and said 'Kurifuton San\ Some of them bore the hideous keloid scars of atom
burns on cheeks and neck, but the effect of their experience appeared to have gone no
deeper.
The Hiroshima evening newspaper, Yukan Hiroshima, publicized me further by asking
for my impressions of Japan and the atomic bomb. I wrote them out at the newspaper
office, using a brush for the first time and making a woeful mess of it. After being
suitably edited and revised, in typical newspaper fashion, I wrote it out again and was
photographed. From the time it was published I began to receive fan mail, containing
offers and requests of all kinds, from offers to teach me how to write with a brush to
requests for the removal of certain unfavoured schoolteachers!
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Among the most friendly were the girls from the hotel where I had met Hiroko.
Notwithstanding their occupation they were gently, worthy creatures, and invariably
greeted me with a warmth that raised many an eyebrow among my more prim friends.
They had seized on my friendship with Hiroko to create a situation that had extended
far beyond its actual termination. If they saw me with another girl, to my great
embarrassment they would call out, with mischief in their voices: 'Uwaki shitara dame
yoP (You must not be unfaithful.)
on humid nights they sat outside in the streets on benches and if I passed too closely
drew me down beside them. They talked to me, held my hands or laid their heads on my
shoulder like the children that, at heart, they were. My other friends, shocked at first,
came to know that I never entered the hotel beyond the porch except in the company of
provosts on some duty or other, and all was well.
About this time a different kind of woman entered my life for a brief period. I first met
her by an unusual circumstance.
A letter came one day, written in very good English, from the Chokaicho of a
neighbouring suburb. (Chokaicho is the suburban counterpart of the Soncho, the rural
village chief.) He invited me to call on him to discuss 'a problem'. 'Problems' were my
business, so I accepted. His home was near the Hiroshima Club, in the comparative cool
of the coast. At my first glimpse of him, a youngish handsome man in white trousers
and shirt, leaning over his front gate I knew him for what he was, a Nisei - an
American-born Japanese, who had returned to the land of his parents.
He said, 'I'd like to show you something,' and we walked across the road to a tunnel in
the face of a small hill. These tunnels were to be found everywhere, and had served both
as naval and military storehouses and air-raid shelters. Along the floor trailed thick lines
of a cord-like material, that led to a couple of dozen large iron drums. The cords had
been pushed into apertures in the drums.
'Do you know what they are?' he asked. I could see the name on them: 'Depth charges'.
'Children are always trying to detonate them with those fuses. They are full of TNT.
Can you have them removed?'
I promised to inform the appropriate authority, and made to leave.
'But that is not why I asked you here,' he said. 'Come inside,' and we returned to his
house.
There was a girl seated at a table.
'This is Chieko,' he said. 'She is in love.'
I bowed to her. (I bowed to everyone these days, almost without knowing it.) She wasn't
pretty, but her manner distinguished her from the average Japanese woman. In a word
she was 'interesting'.
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She said, 'How are you,' in English, but nothing more.
'She is hopelessly in love with a man in your camp,' began the Chokaicho. 'He wants her
to marry him, but she can see so many obstacles that she has appealed to me for
guidance.'
I asked his name.
'She only knows him as "Fred". Does that help?'
I told him there were half a dozen 'Freds'.
'What worries her most is what would happen if the Occupation Forces were withdrawn.
Fred has told her she would be allowed to go back to Australia with him, but she hardly
dares believe it. Besides, what about possible children?'
I told him frankly that it was highly improbably that any Japanese would be allowed
into Australia for years to come, and that most certainly her position as wife would not
gain her any privilege.
All this time she sat silent, apparently not understanding anything of our conversation. I
now turned to her, and began speaking in Japanese, asking her about Fred.
In all her speech of him was evidence of so strong a love, or infatuation, that I though
this Fred to be some God-like creature, and doubted if he could be from our unit, for I
could think of no one among the whole one hundred and twenty of us with the qualities
she attributed to him.
Despite her earnestness, I told them both I felt it very unwise for her to enter into any
relationship with Fred that she was not prepared to have terminated when he returned
home.
We left it at that for the evening. on a later visit, when I learned his surname, Fred was
revealed as a great illiterate boor of a batman, with golden hair and a big nose that, to a
Japanese, gave him some pretensions to good looks. The lower dives of Hiroshima
knew him better than the average soldier, but his intellectual poverty was hidden from
her by inexperience and ignorance of English.
one evening soon after our first meeting I met her on the waterfront of Ujina, a very
boyish un- Japanese figure in blouse and skirt, riding bicycle.
We began to talk in commonplaces and gradually settled ourselves down on the edge of
the pier, dangling our legs over the edge, and smoked cigarettes. Her conversation
showed her to possess a standard of education not often met with in a Japanese girl. Her
studies had embraced philosophy and psychology and a wide reading of the literature of
England, France and Germany, in Japanese translation.
She had with her that evening a volume of English plays in Japanese: Bernard Shaw,
Galsworthy, and, incredibly, J.M.Synge's Playboy of the Western World. I could not
have believed that anyone should have ventured to reproduce in another language the
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lovely Irish idiom, but there it was, though what it conveyed to her was beyond
conjecture.
Hers was a typical Japanese temperament, whose essence was a kind of Weltschmerz -
what the Japanese call mono no aware wo shiru - to know the sadness of things.But like
many such people she had a ready wit and a quick comprehension of all that was said to
her. She was one of the few Japanese I met who attempted to interpret their own people
to me.
We met many times after, at her home, on the waterfront, where we used to climb to an
old lookout platform on the roof of an old army building and watch the moon rise or set
behind the islands of the Inland Sea.
Then in the darkness we sang to one another our own individual songs. It is easy to sing
to a person unversed in either the singer's native language or music - the mere novelty
of it has sufficient charm and interest. Of all the songs I sang, none pleased her more
than 'When Irish Eyes are Smiling', and a popular song, 'The Wind and the Rain in your
Hair'. For all I knew my taste in Japanese uta was just as uncritical.
Through these meetings she learned to evaluate the Westerners more correctly, and her
preoccupation with Fred was gradually and spontaneously dissipated, though with no
development of a corresponding emotional attachment towards myself.
She was twenty-eight years old, long past the marrying age in Japan, and for love to
have come to her then was Indian Summer, soon spent.
She disappeared from my life as abruptly as she had entered it. I called at her home one
night after an absence of a month or so, to find only her mother there. Chieko had gone
travelling 'somewhere' she said with an air of melancholy resignation acquired from
many earlier absences.
'She is always in search of something,' she sighed. 'Something she does not speak of to
me.'
She had not returned from her seeking when I left Japan, six months later.
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Chapter 18
Police
My duties as interpreter in the early days at Ujina were concerned chiefly with the
establishment of the unit and the exploration of the area under its control. In a couple of
months this phase was past and there were left only a few uninteresting routine jobs.
The officers had three house-girls 'doing' for them, one, a young Nisei, who lived near
by with her family, and who spoke excellent English and Japanese. Since she was
always at hand, and, no doubt, because she was a more interesting companion than
myself, the officers chose to employ her on interpreting work that did not involve
security matters, such as the examination of repatriation ships and the general conduct
of the camp.
This left me with nothing useful to do, and with some trepidation I asked headquarters
for further instructions. To my joyous surprise I was told to stay where I was, and was
given a roving assignment in various wide and potentially fruitful fields, which covered
smuggling, illegal entry (mostly from Korea), black-marketing, and the possession of
weapons. (To these duties was, unhappily, later added the investigation of crimes
against civilians by B.C.O.F. soldiers.) Most of the crimes being also in the civil code, I
was to co-operate closely with the Japanese civil police, to support them in their task of
maintaining civil order, and even though the offences were breaches of S.C.A.P.
(Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers - ie General Mac Arthur - ed) directives
only, to demonstrate our confidence in them by having them apprehend the culprits.
My first encounter with the police occured within a couple of days after my arrival in
Ujina. It was an evening of heavy snow, and I was passing the stone lions at the Hall of
Victorious Return. I started as a maid in kimono fled from the doorway like the
proverbial bat out of hell, with an American G.I. in close pursuit. She flung herself at
me with a wild dramatic cry of 'Save me!' or some such appeal, and I found myself
thrust between her and the towering bulk of a thwarted, and therefore angry, American.
I considered it discrete to make no great display of defending her honour, but instead
asked her a couple of questions in Japanese. This so nonplussed the G.I. that he
abandoned the chase and sauntered away.
Having decided that the girl was safe, I started off again, with the girl trotting at my side.
It soon became evident that she had been in no great danger, and was quite able to
defend herself, if indeed she still had anything to defend.
As we approached the police station she said, 'Let's go over here and get warm,' and led
me across the road into an abandoned army building, in which a red-hot stove glowed
unattended. There was an old sofa beside it and it offered some welcome refuge from
the snow outside. We had only been there a minute or two when a movement in the
room swung me round and I was in a circle of men in crumpled dark uniforms, with
glittering nickel-plated swords at the waists. Trapped by a woman at last! I thought, but
they saluted and begged in broken English that they might stay and talk. They squatted
by the stove, the Allied cigarettes were passed around and in a moment we were friends.
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They were from the police station opposite, and it was their duty to guard the building.
one of them was the girl's brother and she often came here to warm herself
The building later became my home for the greater part of my sojourn in the country.
Thus, long before I had any official dealings with the police, I came to know them and
make friends among them. They were nearly all raw recruits, for most of the war-time
police force - those who had survived the atomic bomb - had been dismissed as
unreliable and a potential danger to the Occupying force. The new men were from many
callings, their uniforms were woefully shabby and ill-fitting, and their swords, which
were largely ornamental, were beginning to tarnish. They lost them later in the general
modernization of the force, and gained in their place, to their great disgust, wooden
batons and a long list of instructions on how to use them, though one would not have
thought there was any science involved.
I still remember the final paragraph: 'In the case of riots, take care that reverse use is not
made of the baton.'
From a European viewpoint, the Japanese police appeared far too polite and affable in
their contact with the people. This impression, however, belied their true character, and
their devotion to duty and persistence in discharging a task were admirable if at times
irrational.
on being asked one morning by a constable if I could regain for him his irreplaceable
identity card from a soldier in the unit, I asked how a soldier came to have it. He replied
that he had been shadowing, under orders, a suspected criminal the night before, when
two soldiers had held him up and robbed him of everything he had. I said why hadn't he
reported it immediately and he explained that he had received orders to follow his man,
but none on how to deal with such fortuitous incidents as being robbed!
The whole force seemed to work in a haphazard way. If we wanted a man for
questioning, whether for the minor crime of black-marketing or the major one of
carrying weapons, a constable would go to the suspect's home during the day, in his
absence, and tell his wife that he was wanted for interrogation and request him to appear
at the station after his evening meal. That he did not fail to do so remains a matter of
perpetual wonderment.
The whole force seemed to work in a haphazard way. If we wanted a man for
questioning, whether for the minor crime of black-marketing or the major one of
carrying weapons, a constable would go to the suspect's home during the day, in his
absence, and tell his wife that he was wanted for interrogation and request him to appear
at the station after his evening meal. That he did not fail to do so remains a matter of
perpetual wonderment.
The officer in charge of the station was a man who at first sight might have been taken
for a criminal freshly out of the cells. He was shabby and always wore a heavy stubble
of beard. He probably drank a good deal and was dubbed 'Bert' by us. The name
survived a long acquaintance with him.
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Before I had known him long it became apparent that he was very efficient, and
thoroughly reliable; how much so we came to know later when he has transferred to
another district.
He gave us access to the police telephone network at all times - a great boon, for in
those days the civilian telphone system was chaotic and completely undependable, the
Government having decided that there were more urgent and important utilities to be
restored first.
In later days, when the deeds of Australian soldiers had cast a deep shadow over many
of my friendships, 'Bert' was ever ready to dispel the shame I felt, and his mature
wisdom and complete frankness were a refreshing stimulus.
He was not too proud to lend a hand when an occasion demanded. one morning a
Korean reported the theft of 400,000 yen (about 8000 pounds) in cash from his home,
where he had secreted it as proceeds from black-market transactions. The same
afternoon 'Bert' came shambling along the main street driving the culprit before him,
like an obstinate sheep, in one hand a great mass of bank-notes tied in a square of silk,
and in the other a pistol he had discovered with it. How he found the man I never knew,
and I shall not belittle him by assuming it was by a mere chance.
Two incidents involving the Japanese police are worth recording for the light they shed
on the Japanese character.
The first occurred at night as I was walking with a provost in the main street. A shot
rang out behind us and a group of Japanese we had just passed broke up and fled down
a dark alley. The provost drew his pistol and was at their heels in a flash. When I caught
up with him he had five men held up in a corner. I searched them and found a holster on
one, and in the gutter nearby a small calibre automatic of German make. We marched
them to the police station for interrogation and got our first good look at them. They
were all in their twenties, dressed in dark kimonos, and had just come from a bath-
house. There were of more than average height and all were handsome. one wore a belt
fashioned from parachute harness. All had been drinking.
I demanded to know who had had the pistol and how it had come into his hands. No one
answered. Then 'Bert' took over.
He talked to them for about five minutes. I could not follow it all, but a man's personal
honour and the benevolence of the Occupation were the themes.
The five sat silent until he was done, and then one stood up with tears on his cheeks and
said: 'I had the pistol.'
one of the others immediately stepped forward and protested: 'He is sacrificing himself
forme!'
And then the same from the other three, until I had five grown men weeping their hearts
out in protestations of their own guilt and the innocence of the others.
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'Bert', the police chief of Ujina
The spectacle was too much for me and in desperation I cried, 'Lock them all up!' and
fled the bedlam.
The one who had first claimed ownership of the pistol was later sentenced to two years'
hard labour, though I swear he was innocent. He strode from the court like a saint in the
glory of his martyrdom, content that his friends were free.
The second incident was enacted in a former rayon factory, converted into a depot for
re-patriates awaiting movement.
At one time there were a couple of thousand Formosans, long residents of Japan,
awaiting a ship to take them back to their country, newly restored to China. Three or
four of them in need of a little pocket-money seized a bag of sugar from the depot stores
and set themselves up in the public market in the main street, offering it at an exorbitant
price.
A single policeman demanded that they should surrender the sugar and themselves to
his custody, but they replied that they were no longer Japanese citizens and not
answerable to him. They finished by saying that if he wished to do something of benefit
to the community he should go immediately and drown himself in the harbour.
Instead the policeman made a discreet withdrawal and came to us for advice, as the
Formosans were technically Chinese citizens.
We decided that the law should be upheld, and gave him permission to take them. Three
constables and I, a living badge of authority, set off for the market, perched precariously
on the tray of a three- wheeled motor cycle.
The birds having disposed of the sugar, had flown back to their depot in the rayon
factory. We followed and found inside the gate a thousand or more Formosans
congregated in an open arena.
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I looked for the Australian guard, of which there should have been half a dozen, but
there was none in sight. The policeman who had first attempted to arrest the sugar-
sellers moved among the crowd until by a miracle he discovered one of them and
immediately laid arresting hands on him. The constable was immediately struck several
heavy blows and ejected savagely from the crush.
Two of his policemen
The other two went to the assistance of their reeling comrade, but the mob moved
menacingly towards them and they retreated to where I stood, a few yards back. Farther
back than a pace in front of me they refused to yield.
I called to the Formosans to send forth the men we wanted, but if they understood they
ignored me and with an angry murmur that rose and grew continued their slow approach.
one stole ahead, aimed a blow at a policeman, and rushed back to the protection of the
others.
Behind the barrier formed of the three little Japanese, I turned in a growing panic and
shouted for the guard in a voice that I hoped was calm.
The policeman continued to be pushed and buffeted back until we found ourselves up
agains a low wooden fence running around the main building, and there was no further
retreat.
They now came at use from the sides, and the more daring cowards among them
continued to steal in, strike a sly blow at a policeman and scurry back to the mob's
protection.
In sudden realization of the hopeless situation we were in, my fear left me, and was
replaced by a furious rage. I struck back at one Formosan, who did not retaliate.
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The policeman and I were shoulder to shoulder now, ready to die together, forlorn and
forsaken heroes.
Then someone behind us called and the guard were there, four half-naked lads dripping
with bath water, fixed bayonets on rifles levelled over the low fence at the Formosans.
I gave the orders to load, aim ... my mind crowded with visions of men, brown and
white, lying dead at my feet ... of an international incident between China and Australia;
of my first active command of soldiers and my misuse of them; the censure of my
superiors ... disgrace ...
From all this I was delivered by a man who came from the crowd facing us and declared
himself to be their spokesman. He would surrender the sugar-dealers into my hands, but
not into the Japanese; a last attempt to save face. I agreed, they stepped forth, the crowd
dispersed and it was all over.
We put the pair in the carrier at the back of the three-wheeler and took them to the
police station. I thought of warning the police not to ill-treat them, but decided they
deserved anything they might get and said nothing.
That evening I begged and borrowed half a dozen bottles of beer, mortgaging my
drinking for a month ahead, and took them over to the station, where, like old comrades
after a blood and victorious battle, we drank our mutual health and everlasting
friendship and to hell with all Formosans!
The sugar merchants were released on bail the next day, and they came to me and
offered profound apology. They were bright and cheerful after a night's sleep, and there
was not a mark of ill-treatment on them.
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Chapter 19
Fifth Column
Loyalty, however misplaced or exaggerated, is a virtue that compels respect. It attains
its highest ｅxpression in the Japanese, a homogeneous, insular people closely knit
together by family loyalties and by extension bound to their racial father, the Emperor.
This quality had not apparently weakened in defeat, and the task of those whose duty it
was to supervise and sustain the demilitarization of the country was made infinitely
more difficult by the lack of informers. From accidental discoveries and occasional
unguarded conversations it became obvious that large amounts of weapons and
ammunition had been, immediately before the Occupation, secreted away in remote,
inaccessible places, against the day when the Japanese nation would rise in righteous
anger and throw out the 'hairy foreigners'.
An initial benevolent Occupation policy had dissipated the immediate necessity for this,
but the weapon-concealers dared not uncover them. There can be little doubt that a great
deal still remains hidden, although, if a time should arise for its need, it would be
useless from rust and corrosion.
But if the Japanese kept their own counsel, there were those within their country who,
for various, reasons, did not. They were the Koreans, of whom there were about three
million.
After Japan's defeat many Koreans professed a violent antagonism towards the war and
the Japanese, and requested to be returned to their homeland, or, rather, that of their
forefathers, since many had been born in Japan. But when the time came many were
loth to avail themselves of the opportunity to leave Japan, and the flesh-pots of the
black market. Having been willy-nilly repatriated to their homeland these reluctant ones
set about devising schemes to return. Small ships crept back under cover of night to
Japan, and sympathetic or mercenary captains of large vessels smuggled them in and
dropped them off into small boats in the Inland Sea.
Those still remaining in Japan became a highly-organized pressure group, with
intelligent and astute leaders, and branches of the League of Koreans Resident in Japan
extended to remote villages.
My first encounter with them was in company with Japanese civil police. Acting on
information received' we searched one of the League branch offices for illegal weapons.
We found none, but in a desk drawer was a box of percussion caps and in a radio
cabinet a tin of Allied fruit saline. Possession of the former alone was a serious crime.
The significance of the outcome of this search was not lost to the Koreans, who at once
seized the opportunity to avenge themselves on certain of their enemies. Thereafter we
received many intimations from the Koreans that a Japanese called so-and-so had a
sword or a pistol. Surprise raids rarely unearthed any weapons, but there was always a
store of black-market rice, which by its nature was forfeit and its possessor prosecuted -
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a subtle form of revenge since nearly everyone in Hiroshima was guilty of the same
offence.
After a series of these anonymous notes, some of them written in 'backhand' to elude the
over-curious, direct contact was made with me in the form of an invitation to visit one
of the Hiroshima branches of the Korean League. It was well out of the city at the end
of tram-line in a district notorious for its lawlessness. Since I had become accustomed
to moving among the Japanese unarmed, I thought it wise for reasons of policy to do the
same in this case. I reasoned that if I carried a pistol someone might easily dispossess
me of it, and in the Japanese phrase, 'make reverse use of it'.
The tram took me across numerous bridges and rivers, through streets of hovels that had
existed long before the bomb made such dwellings highly-desirable habitations. At the
terminus a man was waiting, and in a few yards we were at a newly-erected shop-like
building, over which flew a flag bearing the red and blue emblem of Korea.
The place was packed with young men and women, all with the revolutionary zeal
shining in their faces. The men were by physique and clothing indistinguishable from
the Japanese, but the women wore the Korean billowing skirt of raw silk. They eyed me
with some suspicion and a long discussion in Korean followed, of which, of course, I
understood not a word. Then a man who would have been picked out as their leader by
anyone, addressed me in a curious kind of Japanese, all the hard 'js', 'ds' and 'bs'
softened to 'ch, 't' and 'p'.
Many of the Australian prisoners of war, had they heard it, would have remembered it
as the accent common to some of the more brutal guards in the camps of south-east Asia.
The leader suggested we should adjourn to a Korean's house a few hundred yards away.
It was very apparent as we walked through the streets that there was a strong
antagonism between the two races, and I was relieved to reach the house and escape the
questioning, almost contemptuous scrutiny of the Japanese.
We sat at a low table, on which was a huge dish of the bodies of small birds, roastedm
toto. There were no trimmings or side-dishes.
'Sparrows,' said one of the Koreans, seizing a bird by its leg.
'We catch them with nets in those fields,' and he waved the bird towards the open
doorway. He then began unceremoniously to crunch it.
My host urged me to help myself, which I parried by pleading that I had just eaten. But
they pressed me and I ate one of the loathsome things, entrails and all.
During the meal my companions spoke sometimes in Korean, and at others in Japanese
with the curious accent. At first it was completely unintelligible, until I began
unconsciously to substitute the hard sounds for the soft.
After a preliminary wrangle as to who should be spokesman, one of them began a long
tale of oppression for many years by the Japanese, of how the Koreans were now ready
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and eager to take revenge. The speaker now would give such information as would
cause heads in high places to fall. First he would tell me about the American bomber.
It had been hit by A. A. fire over Ujina a year before and had crashed in the mountains
beyond. There had been eleven in the crew, only four of whom had survived. Two had
parachuted into the sea and while still in the water had been battered to death with gaff-
hooks. The other two were taken from the plane, and after interrogation and God knows
what else at the headquarters of the Kempeitai in Hiroshima, were tied to posts in the
main street and stabbed to death with bamboo lances by policemen. Certain high police
officers and prefectural officials had been the instigators. A paper containing their
names was then passed to me.
Subsequent investigation showed that all but one of the persons listed had been killed
by the atomic bomb. In the circumstances it is highly probable that the Koreans were
aware of this.
Eager to consult with my superiors, I begged to leave, but first there was the inevitable
'request'. This time, it seemed, the Japanese, having guessed that the Koreans were
assisting the Occupation authorities, were refusing to supply essential goods to them.
The owner of this establishment, a mean place judged even by post-atom bomb
standards, had been boycotted by the ice-sellers. Could I help? It seemed an easy way to
make an impression and so hold their goodwill, so I wrote on a sheet of Australian
Comforts Fund paper the following:
To the Iceman,
Please supply to Mr Yamagata (the Koreans all had Japanese names as well as their
native ones) with one block of ice (quite small) per day
and signed it with name and rank.
A couple of months later, when I visited him again, my host was a very prosperous cafe
proprietor and I wondered at his sudden success. The reason was soon clear.
In an ice-starved sweltering city he had shown my letter to every ice-seller he could find
and on its authority had received from each countless blocks of ice, from which he had
made kori-mizu - shaved ice with a fruit flavouring, selling at a huge profit.
They were finished with me when they had received their ice order.
Two of them escorted me to the tram. We had only gone a few steps when we came up
against a milling mob of about fifty people on a street corner. About twenty men of the
most villainous types stood in a circle, each armed with a sword or some sort of knife.
From the head of one of them a great gash streamed blood.
In the near-by shop doorways women fingered knives and choppers, in self-defence or
to succour their men.
The scene exactly resembled a tableau in a kabuki historical drama.
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'Ignor them, they are very bad men,' whispered one of my companions, and he
attempted to hustle me past. But I could not ignor those prohibited weapons and to show
fear was too great a risk to take. I walked foolishly in among them, waving my arms and
shouting 'Break it up!' in English.
They stood glaring at me for a few frightening seconds, then turned and slowly
dispersed. My Korean companions were not in the least impressed. It was obvious they
considered my action mere bravado.
We found the American plane next day, a few miles off the main road, half buried in the
side of a hill. It now being nine months since the Americans had first spread throughout
the country it seemed too absurd to suppose they had not already discovered it. Yet it
was not known to them, and no one had considered it their business to inform them to
date.
This was the first of many such adventures and anticlimaxes. The last came several
months later. This was to be something big, something that would surely oblige us to
transfer considerable quantities of clothing and raw materials from the Japanese military
warehouses to the storerooms of the Korean League.
The investigating team this time consisted of an Intelligence corporal and myself, and
two Koreans as guides. As usual, they told us nothing of our mission and we were
wholly in their hands.
At their direction we drove down a long, barren peninsula with a group of low hills at
its head. As we drew near these the Koreans became uneasy and asked that they should
be taken no further. They pointed to the top of one of the hills and whispered: 'There!'
Then they bolted back the way we had come.
We went on slowly to the near side of the hill, and leaving the jeep there climbed up
through thick scrub and undergrowth. Up till now we had no idea what we were looking
for, and it had begun to look hopeless, until we suddenly reached the top. Before us was
the Inland Sea panorama; immediately below us were three small brick buildings set in
a clearing in the trees. We worked down to them and found they had steel doors, heavily
padlocked. From each lock ran a steel wire through the thickets and downhill towards
the beach at the foot. The terminated at the rear of an old shack in an extraordinary
alarm system. It consisted of a collection sheets of glass and old cans so poised that they
would fall if the wires were slackened.
We drew our pistols and called to anyone in the shack to come forth. There was no
reply. We entered and found it empty.
It was obviously the habitation of someone very poor, and a thief would have found
little to repay him for a visit. Through the doorway which faced the beach, a few dim
figures could be seen moving about at the water's edge, a good distance away. Having
covered our rear we returned to the brick buildings and undid the wires. A great crash of
breaking glass and clanging cans proclaimed the efficiency of the alarm. A short iron
bar soon had the first lock off, and with a pious hope that no further traps were set we
kicked the door in. A pungent, sickening-sweet smell wafted out on ice-cold air and
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turned us momentarily back. But we could see all that was necessary from where we
stood.
The building was stacked to the ceiling with wooden cases, containing thousands of
sticks of dynamite, percussion cap, and fuses. It was the same with the other two
buildings.
It looked as though we really had something big at last. We went back to the cottage
and prepared for the return of its tenants. A careful examination revealed no weapons,
but in the kitchen was a rack of razor-sharp knives and choppers of all sizes, which are
to found in every Japanese house. We dropped them all through a loose board under
the tatami mats, and sat down to wait - for how long we had no idea.
It was nearly dusk when two figures came slowly up from the beach laden with nets and
a few fish, and draped with trails of hard- won edible seaweed. We drew out pistols and
waited tense. A little later we were confronting an aged fisherman and his wife, both
terrified beyond speech at the invaders of their home.
Without preamble we drove them before us up the steep incline to the brick storehouses.
An angry look leapt into the face of the old man when he saw the shattered locks, but he
checked himself.
The explanation we demanded was given immediately.
The explosives belonged to a sixty-year-old firm of gunsmiths and explosive dealers,
still trading in Hiroshima. The old man had been appointed caretaker and watchman,
and received tenancy of the cottage as reward. So far as he knew the firm held a license
from the Japanese Home Government to carry on business.
We knew from his manner that he was telling the truth, but we sent for a Japanese
constable and placed him on guard - a necessary precaution in any case, with all the
locks as they were - and returned to Hiroshima to check up. All the old man had said
was true.
It was when I was in bed that night, despondent over our latest fiasco, and reviling all
Koreans, that I thought of the old lady's knives, still under the floor, and wondered what
curses she was heaping on the thieving Shinchugun.
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Chapter 20
Yabanjin
I stood beside a bed in a hospital. on it lay a girl, unconscious, her long, black hair in a
wild tumult on the pillow. A doctor and two nurses were working to revive her. An hour
before she had been raped by twenty soldiers. We found her where they had left her, on
a piece of waste land.
The hospital was in Hiroshima. The girl was Japanese. The soldiers were Australians.
The moaning and wailing had ceased and she was quiet now. The tortured tension on
her face had slipped away, stained with tears like the face of a child that has cried itself
to sleep.
The eyes of the doctor and nurses turned questioningly, unemotionally towards me.
I had seen that look so many times before, in this same hospital. Always it said this: 'So,
we are barbarians, and you are civilized, and this is your way of life that you fought
against us to preserve, that you now command us to accept. How is it then, that all
through the Far East your tribunals are now trying Japanese soldiers for these very
crimes? This girl is not a soldier. She had no part in the war. Besides, the war is over.'
It was easy to answer them at first: 'This is not the act of a typical Australian. Such
brutes as these are found among all people, in all armies. It is a question of proportions.
There were so many more of them in your army.'
That was the first time it happened. But since then I had become a monotonously
regular visitor to the hospital, always bringing with me a victim of the Yabanjin - the
barbarians - as they began to call the Australians.
Last time it had been a young lad, who had been knocked down and kicked unconscious,
and left lying in the gutter. His head had been distended like a bladder, the features of
his face made indistinguishable by the taut skin, one ear pierced by an iron-tipped boot.
He had not been robbed, and he was too young to have been a soldier, but he was a 'Jap',
and no better reason would have been needed by his assailants.
It was the unhappy Japanese women who were the chief sufferers. In pre-Occupation
Japan, a woman could walk abroad at any hour of day or night without fear of
molestation. They supposed, reasonably enough, that if they could do this among their
own men, how much more secure they would be under the protection of the cultured
white men. They were soon disillusioned, but in the meantime they exposed themselves
unwittingly to the attentions of any louts who felt like a 'bit of fun'.
Staying indoors was not sufficient to give women protection. one evening a young
married woman was reading a book in bed in a hotel. Her husband was absent for the
night on business. In the next room, separated only by the paper sliding partitions, a
party of Japanese men were playing cards. It was a hot night and she fell asleep in the
middle of her reading, with the light still burning. She woke a little later to find a huge
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Australian soldier kneeling beside her, and another swaying in the doorway, his drunken
leer telling more clearly than any speech or gesture what was to follow...
The men in the next room heard and watched; saw all and did not intervene. To call
them cowards would be to presume the obvious and improbable. The reason lay
elsewhere: in their blind unquestioning acceptance of instructions from the Government
that placed the Shinchugun beyond criticism and Japanese justice; in their self-
discipline; and in their only mild interest in the welfare of the woman. I think that if the
Australians had been Japanese in our country, we would have killed them and risked the
consequences.
Instead the Japanese went and told the police.
The police, having no power, could do no more than inform us, when it was too late.
They brought the girl to the police station, and later two provosts came, with the man
swaying between them in an elaborate attempt at simulating drunkeness. His
accomplice followed, cocky, insolent, and talkative.
I expected to see a low-browed apish creature, with little intelligence and education.
This description certainly fitted his companion, who had remained a spectator.
But I was amazed and shocked to see a tall, handsome lad of twenty-one or two years of
age, with a mild look on his fresh face. one could imagine him in flannels on a cricket
field, or at tennis in any middle-class suburb; the pride of doting parents and the quarry
of pretty women.
While the provosts tried in vain to get a statement from him, the police wrung the story
from the girl.
I shuddered at their callousness as they probed and questioned so that no smallest detail
should be unrecorded, and no aspect of the affair forgotten or overlooked.
She re-lived it all as she told it in revolting detail, until, desperate, she turned to me and
said, 'It is all done and over. What possible benefit can it be to me if this man is tried
and punished? Nothing but bitterness and humiliation for me and disgrace for the
soldier can come from a trial.'
I tried to explain to her that only by trial and punishment by a properly constituted court
could we deter others, so that other women would be spared a similar experience. When
asked if the sentence would be heavy.
I said, 'Five, perhaps ten, years in prison.'
She started and said, 'He is so young, and it is so much of a man's life.'
After a pause she went on: 'There was a war between our countries. He is still a soldier.
Perhaps there is justification in that. If he must be tried, please record that it is not my
wish that he be punished.'
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Her wish was granted from a totally unexpected quarter. At the Court Martial that
followed, the accused was found guilty and sentenced to ten years' penal servitude. In
accordance with army law the court's decision was forwarded to Australia for
confirmation. Some time later the documents were returned marked 'Conviction
quashed because of insufficient evidence'!
The exclamation mark is mine.
In the immediate post-war period in Japan, because of economic hardship and semi-
starvation, young and physically desirable women offered themselves at street corners
or railway stations in exchange for anything that was edible or capable of conversion to
food. For this reason, if for no other, any condonation of criminal assault was
impossible.
But crimes against women were not the only offences. Bashing of men and youths for
the sheer joy of it, setting fire to brothels from pique at being refused entrance, which
was forbidden, were others; but robbery, with and without violence, comprised the
major number. It is an ugly sight to see a truck-load of twenty or thirty of one's fellow
soldiers descend like ravening wolves on a row of market stalls, grabbing fistfuls of
tawdy trifles, overturning counters, and punching anyone who looked as though he (or
she) might resent it.
At such times no trace of culture, breeding, or restraint was discernible, and one wished
that the side-upturned slouch hat did not so unequivocally distinguish the thieves as
Australians.
Of all the incidents of which I had first-hand knowledge, there was only one in which
resistance was offered by the Japanese.
That occasion was when six Australians entered a brothel and attempted to eject three
Japanese seamen. one of the latter was kicked in the shins and was goaded to retaliate.
A pitched battle with sticks and stones continued outside the building until the
Australians chose discretion rather than valour and withdrew.
The Japanese were very chary of reporting incidents to the police from fear of
retaliation or because no recompense could be claimed for damage done, and only
inconvenience and unwelcome publicity resulted. Women, naturally, concealed their
shame where possible.
This, and the fact that the Japanese could not, or would not, identify their attackers
made the army's task of apprehending them almost insuperable.
In the last months of 1946, crimes against the civil population had become so numerous
that I was being called out almost every day and night by the Japanese police, so that I
was becoming exhausted for lack of sleep.
At length I arranged for the police to by-pass me and make direct contact with mobile
provost patrols, who joined me afterwards. Their help was essential, for these hoodlums
would tolerate no interference - especially if drunk - whether from officer or N.C.O.,
"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
and on several occasions presented to the Japanese the spectacle of beating unconscious
one of our own N.C.O.s who had remonstrated with them. This was beyond the
comprehension of the Japanese: they could understand and even accept ill-treatment of
themselves; but such behaviour to a fellow-soldier was unthinkable.
The shame of being identified with them moved me later to discard the slouch hat and
wear instead the officer-type peaked cap. I shunned the company of Japanese
acquaintances for a day or two after each serious incident. When travelling on trams I
pretended not to notice how they became silent and edged away. I tried not to see the
fear in the eyes of shopkeepers when I went shopping. I did not linger as I used to, but
paid and left.
No amount of denial, glossing-over or whitewashing by army authorities or 'fact-
finding' missions can change the facts. I saw countless incidents of the kind I have told
of with my own eyes and for every one I had personal knowledge of there were half a
dozen of which I had indirect knowledge, from provosts, intelligence reports, and
fellow interpreters with other units.
Several reasons may be given for the existence and continuance of these conditions.
The major one is that many of the troops were poor types, men who had never taken any
active part in the war and who had little or no discipline owing to lack of training. They
joined the Occupation Army to evade the responsibility of rehabilitating themselves, to
make money 'on the black, or just to have a good time. The leavening of 'old soldiers'
had learned self-discipline and tolerance through war years and rarely offended.
A desperate shortage of provosts also contributed greatly to the difficulty of keeping
order. Because of the deep-rooted prejudice against provosts only unacceptable types
offered themselves for enlistment when reinforcements to the Provost Corps were
sought. At one time an area of twenty-five square miles was being policed by a total
strength of fifteen M.P.s, all of whom, of course, could not be on duty at the one time.
Their movements were of necessity regulated, and soon became known to the average
soldier, who arranged his actions to match the absence of M.P.s.
Another factor was the constant quashing by the authorities in Australia of court-martial
sentences pronounced in Japan. This was probably due to fear of public opinion, based
on a concept that anything our troops might have done was somehow justified by the
war-time behaviour of the Japanese soldier. This view was not confined to Australians:
when a G.I. was sentenced to hang for the murder of two Japanese civilians in Tokyo,
letters written to the U.S. Army newspaper Stars and Stripes protested that had he done
it two years earlier he would have been acclaimed a hero! The tendency to think along
these lines was do doubt partly responsible for the hesitancy to discipline the men of the
B.C.O.F.
My knowledge of other troops in Japan is mostly second-hand, but from personal
experience I believe that the Australians were the worst-behaved of all, and the belief
was widely held by some Japanese - that one could not (have) distinguished between the
aborigines and the white inhabitant of Australia - was strengthened, with poor justice to
the former.
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Here I must express my admiration and respect for the 34th Brigade Provosts. For good
discipline, and discharge of their duty in trying conditions, for exemplary conduct
towards both Japanese and Australians, at times in the face of great provocation, they
are deserving of special praise.
They had their girl friends and 'wogged' their canteen goods, I suppose - we all did - but
I have seen many instances of their incorruptibility in the pursuit of their duty.
They appeared to be beyond bribery by money or favour, as many a Japanese black-
market broker found to his cost in the Provost Court.
They were just and considerate to Japanese and Australians alike, and tolerant and
sensible in interpreting the many restrictive regulations that governed troops' relations
with the civil population.
There was no better unit in (the) B.C.O.F., and no finer ambassadors for Australia in
Japan.
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Chapter 21
Marooned
The summer's heat had driven many of my friends to the hills and seaside villas, half the
unit had gone into the country for a summer bivouac and no activity offered. There had
been an outbreak of cholera on the other side of Hiroshima and because of this the
Government had forbidden all bathing and fishing in the Bay.
I had drawn near to the edge of the doldrums when I received a visit from a man who
had been the camp carpenter, but who had left us some months earlier for more
profitable fields, after getting married.
He asked me to come to his home that evening to discuss 'something'. He was an
unsavoury sort, much given to sharp practices, and consequently liable to lead me to
matters affecting our position and responsibilities, so he could not be ignored. Besides,
he was grateful to me for replenishing from Japanese Naval stores the tools he lost in
our barracks fire - though no doubt he had greatly magnified his loss - and may have
wished to repay me with information that was useful.
When I arrived that evening his wife, a big foolish creature, was alone in the squalid
little house, sobbing quietly to herself. It seemed that her husband had come home a
little earlier and found her asleep and therefore unable to welcome him, whereupon he
had soundly thrashed her and bounced off in a temper to a friend's home. The fact that
she was soon to have a baby appeared to have deterred him not at all.
In the midst of my attempts to console her he arrived back, and after apologizing
abjectly, presented me with a kimono, a most acceptable gift, since they were
practically unprocurable. It was some weeks later that I learned that he had taken it from
his wife's trousseau as an added punishment for her unpermitted sleep! He was an
odious creature, ready with insincere smiles, and I would not have trusted him with a
sen. He told me a business man of his acquaintance, who lived fifteen miles out of the
city on the Inland Sea, had expressed a desire to meet me and had arranged a banquet
and fishing trip in my honour for the following Saturday.
The carpenter then handed me a highly-decorated envelope, which he said contained
some little mark to signify the depth of his friends's desire to meet me. In it was 1,000
yen (at that time worth about 20 pounds).
Since business men, eastern or western, do not dispense such largesse without some
hope of reaping a dividend, I became greatly curious as to his purpose and accepted the
gift on condition that it obligated me in no way, and that, if I saw fit, I would return it
later. He pleaded with me not to return it on any account, as it would be an
unpardonable breach of etiquette.
The Saturday afternoon was hellishly hot, and we had to travel by packed electric train.
After an hour of sardine-like existence we alighted at a fishing village, and squeezed
our way down dark narrow streets to th scene of the banquet - a large inn on the shore -
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line, belonging to our host. He was waiting in the doorway - a different type to any I
had met to date, dapper and sophisticated in a vulgar way, with the air of one who got
everything he wanted. With him to greet us was a pretty, saucy wench, obviously his
mistress, and an older woman, his wife. Like her husband she had a poise and assurance
rarely seen in a Japanese woman, and a knowledge of French hinted at a higher
education. Also in attendance was his partner, a hearty bachelor, who probably had less
business acumen than his associate, but more humanity.
It was apparent that the carpenter's duty had been discharged with my arrival, for he was
dismissed in a few curt words, and sent home.
After the initial formalities we climbed by almost perpendicular stairs to the first floor
and entered a room furnished in pseudo-Western style, with cane chairs and chaises-
longues, and a balcony which overlooked the sea and a crowd of fishing boats at the
quay. In the air was the pungency of seaweed and the tang of tarry rope.
We sat and drank iced beer and watched the glow of sunset pale into soft twilight. A
daughter of the host came in silently with a koto - the Japanese harp - the playing of
which is an accomplishment much cultivated among the upper classes, as being in
genteel contrast with the popular, and therefore vulgar, samisen.
The koto consists of a sounding board six feet long and a foot wide, with thirteen silken
strings tuned by a system of movable bridges. It rests on the floor horizontally and is
plucked like a Hawaiian guitar. This one, like most of these instruments, was a beautiful
example of the woodworker's craft.
The girl played several airs having a weird, ethereal charm, until it was time for dinner.
We went downstairs to a room off an interior garden of gloomy, fantastically-distorted
dwarf trees. The group of men already there had obviously been drinking heavily and
were now laughing and talking with a woman of forty-odd, whose great charm and
mature beauty proclaimed her a geisha - the only one I ever met.
The geisha is a phenomenon peculiarly Japanese. She is not, as is popularly supposed, a
prostitute, but a woman trained with meticulous care from childhood in the arts of
conversation, dancing, and music, for the sole purpose of pleasing men, of creating the
illusion and glamour of romantic love, without its disillusionments or responsibilities, a
love denied to most Japanese by a marriage system in which the partners have little to
do with the choosing of their mates.
Though their calling does not necessarily involve cohabitation with clients, liaisons of a
lasting nature are often formed, especially as a geisha passes her prime. It is usual in
such cases for the patron to establish the lady in some business from which she may
extract a reasonably comfortable living.
This woman in our midst was now the chatelaine of a well-known restaurant in
Hiroshima dispensing food of a quality that placed it far above any other.
When I was seated, a thick-set, study girl came and sat by my side. She was rather plain
of face and figure; only her exquisite costume lifted her above the commonplace.
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The heat of the day had worn me a bit thin and after a long meal and some drinking, I
had great difficulty in holding my head up. 'Put him to bed,' mine host suggested to the
girl, provoking bawdy laughter and suggestive gestures. She led me off by the hand and
I stumbled up the steep stairs into a quiet room.
She laid out the mattresses as I undressed, and hung the huge mosquito net, a difficult
matter for one person. I flung myself down in an ecstacy of drowsiness. She sat beside
me and took from the bosom of her kimono a card and held it before my eyes. In the last
moments of wakefulness I read: Certificate of Health... Hiroshima Prefectural Police .. a
name Hifumi, an odd one written in Japanese with the figures 1, 2, 3 ... Occupation ...
hardly necessary to record ... the impression of a seal against today's date, certifying
safety for the time being ... Sleep enveloped me the next moment.
When I awoke the next morning I was alone, and everyone was astir, though it was only
six-thirty. After what I believe is termed a Chinaman's wash, I joined the others and we
went, without breakfast, or further delay, to the quay, where a tug stood ready for the
fishing excursion, deck spread with nets and gaffs.
There were twelve of us, six men and six women. An implicit pairing-off found most
men with their wives, my host with his mistress, his wife and his partner, and I with
the geisha, whom I found to be amiable and entertaining.
The tug was powered by an old-fashioned oil engine, and we chugged softly and
smoothly out over the Inland Sea. In the half-light of the early morn, with mists
wreathing low on the water, it was a fantastic fairy-tale world. The mist stood a few feet
from the water's surface, so that from the level of the gunwale one could look far ahead
as through a tunnel that eseemed to run to the edge of the earth and beyond.
Such a journey did Urashima Taro make, in the old folk-tale, on the back of a tortoise,
to the Palace of the Dragon King, there to stay for three days that were three hundred
years on earth, to return and find his line extinct and unremembered; to break a promise
and perish.
The mists dispersed slowly under the warmth of the sun, and left us on a wide expanse
of glassy water. The mainland was far behind and islands stood all around us. Soon
these, too, vanished in the distance and we headed into the empty sea.
The salt air sharpened the growing hunger we felt at the absence of breakfast.
Presently a pine-clad island appeared ahead, and as we drew near nets were payed out
astern into the shallowing water. When the ends were drawn together the centre teemed
with flashing fish of every hue and size. Haifa dozen of Japan's premier fish,to/ - the
sea bream - were hauled out and the remainder released. Never have fish been more
easily obtained. We went ashore on the island, which was uninhabited, and all manner
of food and the wherewithal for preparing it were unloaded.
Driftwood fires were lit and the busy women cooked the fish and a multitude of other
things, and soon we were noisily devouring it all.
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During the meal a rather theatrical conversation, with many gestures, ensued between
the two partners, and I was obviously the topic. When we were ready to start off again,
my host said: 'There is something on an island near-by I should like to show you,' and I
knew at once that there lay the whole purpose of my visit.
I stood at the bows and wondered what I was to see, and suddenly my musings were
dispelled as the engine came to a grinding, rattling stop. The main bearing had collapsed,
and was utterly beyond our power to repair.
Our place of departure showed far astern; nothing else was visible. We drifted
imperceptibly until late afternoon, when a sampan hove in sight and we hailed it, and
asked its owner to tow us to the nearest inhabited place.
Twilight found us, at the end of a long slow pull, at a fishing village on a small island
far from the mainland. It was remote from ordinary communications and hardly anyone
there had seen the Shinchugun, but my host's name was known. A house on the water-
front was vacated and we were installed.
We were tired and ravenous, and the food resources of the island were meagre and
simple. Fish and rice were about all they could muster, though someone miraculously
unearthed half a dozen bottles of beer.
The twelve of us slept that night on the fllor of one room in disturbing proximity, while
outside a storm raged and threatened to unhouse us at every moment.
In this house, on an island barely half a mile in circumference, we lived for five days,
while a new bearing was being obtained from the mainland. There was hardly a place to
put one's foot outside. Every inch of flat ground was cultivated, and barren slopes
behind the village were cut off from the rest of the island. There was no beach; only a
rough and narrow shingle shelf.
After the first day I began to chafe at the enforced inactivity and thought of the search
parties that would scour the country when my failure to return was discovered. By the
time the new bearing had arrived, everything was ready to receive it, and on the sixth
day we were once again at sea, and on our way back. Somewhere near the island we had
first landed on, we came to another island, and on the beach, half-lying in the water,
were great steel cylinders, like ship's boilers.
'Those were oil tanks,' said my host. 'During the war, the Navy filled them with gasoline
until they were just submerged, and then towed them to their destinations, out of sight
of your aeroplanes. Now they have been abandoned. What a waste! If they could only
be brought to the mainland, who knows what benefit could not be derived from them?
They could be converted into boilers to generate steam, with which to clean rice, cut
timber for homes, make bread (we were supplying civilians with a ration of flour at this
time), and change the whole condition of the people for the better. What wonders from a
few steel cylinders!'
'Would it be difficult to get them back?' I asked.
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This was the partner's cue.
'Oh, no, they could be towed there one at a time, by such a tug as this. In its present
patched up condition, no, but at a later date ...
'Unfortunately, being formerly naval property, they now belong to the Occupation
forces, to you! It would be difficult to persuade the police of our high motives and our
desire to mitigate the hardships of our people. However, your presence on board at such
a time would be unquestionable authority...'
It might have worked had he been a little more plausible or less obvious in his planning.
But five unexpected days in his company had told me more than he intended.
It had been worth a try anyhow - one thousand yen and the cost of a party.
As far as I know, the tanks are still where we left them.
Back at camp a complete indifference to my absence made me vow to make the most of
my future opportunities and I settled down to work on a large accumulation of other
men's love letters, which I had rashly undertaken to translate.
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Chapter 22
Fruits of Autumn
Harry, who had married Terumi, and I, with memories of my election tour as a stimulus,
spent many of our weekends in the country. Transport was woefully inadequate, there
being only one jeep to the whole unit, and even for official business we relied largely on
what must have been an excellent railway service in normal times, but was now
severely over-taxed.
A railway line ran from the main line at Hiroshima north through the centre of the
province and then across to Himeji, the castle town. It was known as the Geibi line, a
contraction of the names of the two ancient provinces through which it ran, and led to
the heart's desires of both of us - Harry's at Miyoshi, whence Terumi came to meet him,
and mine at the Iroha inn at Yoshida. We thus became familiar figures on the train.
From the beginning there had been a regulation forbidding soldiers to travel on
Japanese trains, except in a carriage allotted to them exclusively, but duty compelled me
sometimes and the provosts knew this and winked at it. Since no one else mattered, my
companion and I travelled with immunity, even though at times the 'duty' would have
been embarrassing to explain.
I always travelled in the shasho shitsu - the conductor's compartment in the luggage van
in the rear. Railway employees often rode there, but there was always a 'reserved seat'
for me.
The carriages were old and dilapidated, and the locomotives small, long-funnelled and
low-powered, long discarded for main-line work and unsuitable for any purpose but
shunting.
When the empty train drew into Hiroshima station an hour or so before departure, the
platform was already so crowded with hopeful passengers that many were in imminent
danger of being pushed on to the tracks. With the carriage doors still locked, the more
agile leaped through the open windows to avoid the frantic rush when the doors were
opened. In a matter of a minute the train was crammed to a suffocating fullness and the
lavatories stacked to the roof with baggage.
The unlucky weaker ones sat on the platform and resigned themselves to many hours of
waiting for the next train and another chance. Some of them, the older people, would
lose again.
Harry and I rode together for the last time on an autumn morning of that year.
The train left on time and pulled slowly out, past the brewery, on the outskirts of the
city, miraculously preserved from the bomb. In the first days of the Occupation it was
the centre round which the lives of most Australians revolved. A 'requisition' written out
on any of the myriad army forms was enough to procure a crate of beer. The brewery
still has many of these documents bearing the flourishing signatures of Ned Kelly, Ben
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Hall, Captain Thunderbolt, and other Australian bushrangers. Now at one's approach to
the brewery gates, on no matter what business, a notice signed by the Commander-in-
Chief was brandished by the guard; the wording left no loophole through which a thirsty
soldier could squeeze a drop of beer.
From the start, the journey seemed constantly uphill, and the mountainous terrain must
have been a heart-break to the railway engineers. Nor were the engine-drivers to be
envied.
I once road on the footplate for a few miles, and no power on earth would persuade me
to do it again. It was a mid-summer day, and in spite of the heat from the boiler, was
tolerable, until we entered a long tunnel. The further we penetrated the greater the heat
became, and the effect of the hot smoke and sulphurous gases against the skin and in the
throat was such that I could barely keep from screaming into the darkness of the hell we
were in. When we eventually emerged the driver grinned across at me, apparently
immunized by long experience.
There were the usual long halts at stations to generate steam expended and not
replenished from the inferior coal. on the main line, trains were allotted pusher-engines
for steep gradients, but there were none to spare here.
From our privileged position in the van we could study all the secrets of railway
operation, the exchange of staffs (they are discs in Japan), and the replacement of crews
when they were tired.
The politeness that is the essence of Japanese life was evident among the railway staffs.
At each station appeared a man wearing a cap banded with red. The station master, I
thought, but was told he could be of any rank: the red cap gave him superiority over the
others for the time being and control of the train while it was in the station. It was his
signal only that brought the cry of 'Hasshd from the conductor and started the train
moving again. As they passed each other the man in the cap and the conductor
exchanged formal salutes.
There was always a girl or two in blouse and trousers, working in the station offices.
They usually attended to the loading and unloading of parcels in the van. They
obviously knew the conductors well, and there was considerable badinage between
them as they worked. But as the train moved off they bacame formal again and
exchanged grave bows. The girls looked so demure as we glided by, that I could not
resist patting them affectionately on their pretty heads, bringing a frown to their smooth
brows as if they had been disturbed at prayer.
on this trip a Railways Bureau medical officer travelled with us. He spoke little English,
but had a good knowledge of German, for Japanese doctors do a large part of their
studies in that language and often write their case-histories in it. We fell to talking of
German literature and music, and whiled away the time translating the Lorelei into
Japanese, each taking a line in turn and submitting it verbally to the other for judgement.
I alighted at Yoshidaguchi, the station nearest to Yoshida, leaving Harry to continue on
to Miyoshi, and found half a dozen other soldiers had got off too from among the mass
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of passengers. I knew in a minute or two what had brought them: not to visit friends or
to sight-see, but the endless search for beer and sake, a craving for which ousted even
women from their thoughts.
Their quest kept them off the bus for Yoshida, and I was thankful for it as we bumped
along the eight-mile journey.
The scene had changed greatly since my first visit. It was now autumn, and the orchards
were burdened with fruit, of which the district's famous pears predominated. Each pear
had been tied with incredible patience in its own paper bag, to protect it agains birds
and insects and to preserve its perfection. They were not pear-shaped but squat like an
apple.
The rice lay tedded in the fields, or hung from frameworks of poles, while farmers with
mattocks turned the earth again for the sowing of winter barley. Their toil was
unceasing, only night's darkness and serious illness halting them.
When I arrived at the Iroha there was a jeep outside. I was suddenly filled with an
unreasoning resentment that someone else should have discovered this little personal
Eden. I called out in Japanese, and the same warm welcome from the innkeeper and his
wife and family dispelled less pleasant thoughts.
Our room of the first visit was now occupied by three men and three women. The men
were officers from an army hospital; the girls were members of an Australian show
troupe. They sprawled ungracefully on the floor and were wholly incongruous to the the
simple Japanese room. All had been drinking and all were patently bored.
I made the usual courtesies with little grace, and asked how they liked being in Japan.
They did not like it at all, it seemed. They had the usual prejudices of the superficial
observer: the smells were abominable, and the food unconventional and unpalatable.
As for the women,' one girl said, 'I simply cannot understand how anyone can bear the
ugly ungainly creatures.'
It was clear this sentiment stemmed from pique, and the comparison between these
painted, loud-voiced women and those of the innkeeper's household, fresh-skinned, shy,
and graceful was so clearly unfavourable to the former that I left my protests and went
out into the street.
But I was no happier there. The beer seekers had by now arrived and were wandering
the streets clamorous and threatening in their demands of shopkeepers. I preferred not to
be present at the desecration of my Eden and left on the next bus for the railway station
and thence to the quiet of Miyoshi, and the harmonious company of Harry and Terumi.
She had spent the summer at the farmhouse of her uncle and aunt, ostensibly to escape
the heat and help with the harvest, but in reality to be free to meet her husband.
They were put up at an inn in a by-street, opposite an ancient temple and away from the
path of curious M.P. patrols.
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The surrounding hills were aflame with the red and yellow glory of the autumn maples,
and the bight orange of the persimmons in the clear evening air made the gardens gay,
and consoled the sadness of the dying year.
I was dog-tired and famished, and went straight to the bathroom. In it was a very large
rectangular wooden tub, sunk in the floor, and the steam rose from its dark depths.
I stripped and began the preliminary washing, pouring wooden buckets of hot water
over myself before entering the bath. The door slid open, and a young woman entered
with an empty basket. In a few moments she had filled it with her clothes, and she stood
beside me waiting for the bucket.
She had an exquisite figure, a straight back, small firm bosom, and a tantalizingly
smooth skin that was a constant temptation to touch. I gave her the bucket and stood
watching her, without emotional stirrings, like an art student in a life class, and
wondered at the great change wrought on me since the first day of my arrival.
I had dinner with Harry and Terumi, and retired soon afterwards. They had so little time
together.
Morning came with the booming of the temple bell, a curious penetrating sound that
seemed to vibrate the very cells of the body. From within and without the inn, the
devout droned prayers in a monotone that matched the note of the bell.
I spent the day with a former class-mate of Terumi's. She was an old friend of mine by
now and had planned to keep me amused, so the two could be alone.
We went to visit a government agricultural research farm, where, she promised, there
was something that would surprise me. It turned out to be a lone merino sheep, penned
in a stall like a horse. It had come from Australia, she told me, so we stood and stoked
its silly head, and mourned its wretched exile. We returned laden with corn-cobs picked
at their perfection, and with her duty done she left me to gorge myself with the cobs.
Evening fournd us at the station and I stood apart while Harry and Terumi made their
farewells.
There were few other travellers. Nearby a girl stood fidgeting with her luggage, an
anxious look on her pretty face. The anxiety dispersed as she saw me and she bowed in
recognition. I hardly knew her as my bathroom companion with her figure swathed in
voluminous kimono.
She asked apologetically if I could help her with her luggage and if possible to find her
a seat. Her eyes were two brown pools of pleading and distress and any hesitation was
drowned in their depths.
Her luggage, a wicker trunk, was certainly heavy, almost beyond her power to lift, and
with the conductor's permission we sat it in the luggage van, while Harry day-dreamed
in a corner.
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The return was much faster than our coming, because of the many down gradients.
From Yoshidaguchi, where other soldiers entrained, the journey seemed even more
precipitous. In the darkness the countryside stirred old memories and I realized this was
the line I had travelled on my return from Kisa, an eternity of nine months ago.
I was roused from half-sleep by my girl companion, who had clutched my arm in a
sudden access of fear.
'Tell them I am your friend,' she pleaded in a fierce whisper.
I looked up to see two policemen who had entered by the connecting door from the
adjoining carriage.
Apart from a formal salute they showed no interest in either of us. Instead they talked
earnestly with the conductor, who turned to me.
'There are some soldiers on the train,' he said. 'They are a little drunk. Could you speak
with them?'
We began making our way through the train towards the engine. Halfway we entered a
carriage that presented a peculiar tableau. The passengers were crowded into one end,
and at the other a group of soldiers had set themselves up on a rostrum of seats,
auctioning parcels of sandwiches that had been intended as their lunches to the
cowering crowd.
They got down when I entered and dispersed in the direction I had come from.
Remembering my female companion, I followed close behind.
Before I caught up with them I stopped at at a curious sound. It was the locomotive
whistle and it went 'whoo wh-wh-whoo-whoo, whoo whoo'.
It could only mean one thing: some of our soldiers were in the engine-drivers cabin, and
I trembled as my imagination pictured the train roaring uncontrolled, past signals and
open points, carrying us all to destruction.
In the midst of debating which way to go the train pulled into a station, and I got out.
The conductor, reading my mind, said, 'The locomotive crew are still at their posts, so
do not worry. They will make sure the train does not pass against signals. Shimpai
shinai de kudasai.' I promised him I would not worry and returned to the van, whence
three or four of the drunken soldiers had made their way. The sake they had drunk
began to overpower them and soon they were spread in a stupor on the floor, snoring
like pigs in the loose straw from rice bales.
The conductor's high-pitched call of 'Shuten de gozaimasii announced our approach to
the end of the journey. At Hiroshima the girl asked me to see her through the railway
barrier, and I staggered out into the street under the burden of her wicker trunk. A man
came from a three-wheeled motor-cycle and put her luggage in it. She thanked me,
climbed aboard the motor-cycle and they made off in the darkness.
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I became aware of the two policemen from the train, standing behind me and watching
their departure wistfully.
'Why was she afraid?' I asked them.
'We are Prefectural Police. It is our duty to search the baggage of train passengers who,
we suspect, are in unauthorized possession of rationed and government-monopoly
produce.' (Tobacco is a government monopoly in Japan.) 'That trunk is full of rice
bought illegally from farmers and destined for the black market.'
'Why did you not arrest her?' I asked.
'But she was your companion and under you protection; that gave her immunity,' they
replied, astonished.
It was my wounded pride and not a sense of duty that made me say sternly: 'Do not let
the presence of an Allied soldier deter you in the execution of you duty. Go to it!'
They saluted quickly and hurried off in search of a vehicle. I think I was rather glad
they did not find one.
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Chapter 23
Apologia
In August, my eighth month in Japan, it occurred to me that a contentment I had seldom
known had been with me for a long time. That this was not merely a transitory state of
mind, springing from some fleeting pleasure, I could not be sure, so I wrote on the wall
of my room: 'I am happy, 15 August 1946.' The intention was to record any change
monthly. Beside each succeeding month until I left appeared only ditto marks.
From the first day of my arrival, I had lived under anything but comfortable conditions.
The food was notably poor and insipid, I did my own laundry and, unlike men of
equivalent rank in other units, had no house-girl. My bed was a camp stretcher, my
pillow a folded rough blanket, and there were no sheets. Nor did we have showers.
Yet these physical discomforts were hardly sensed.
Whence then, I asked myself, did this contentment derive? The answer could only lie in
the fascination of the scene and those who inhabited it.
I had come to the country after years of association with Japanese in Australia, and with
some knowledge of their culture, customs, and language, so the notion popular among
others that the Japanese were uneducated and physically dirty, unoriginal, and
inscrutable had long since been dispelled. I had found them to be none of these things in
Australia.
Consequently I arrived armed with a pistol, prepared to sleep with it on the hip or under
the pillow, behind locked doors. I lost it in the fire in the first month and never carried
one again; my room was open to all who cared to enter - had in fact no lock.
First impressions of the Japanese had remained valid. I had found them industrious and
alert, friendly and hospitable beyond measure to the stranger, and devoted to the welfare
of their own family group. With all their practical talents went an artistic taste and a
sense of the appropriate that was our despair and envy.
As for their inscrutability; well, that was largely an individual matter. one can go
through life without knowing much of one's closest friends, even one's parents.
You may say that these were abnormal times, and that the Japanese had set out to create
a favourable impression on the Occupying Forces, to humble themselves and to
acquiesce in all things so that they would be the sooner rid of us. Had it been so, any but
the most ingenuous and gullible would have seen through it before long.
Of course they wanted to get rid of us; a less proud people than the Japanese would
have resented the intrusion of foreigners in their domestic affairs. But this resentment
was on a political level, and did not enter into personal relationships between
individuals. Differences in philosophies, religious or politcal opinions do not
necessarily preclude friendship.
If any doubts still remained they were dispelled by contact with the children.
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The spontaneity of their welcome of we called at a school, their friendly greetings in the
street, their complete lack of fear, and their interminable questions were unequivocal
and left no room for doubt. Had their parents hated, feared, or despised us, some
element of their mood would have been manifest through their children.
The contrast between them and the Hitler-nurtured German children was startling.
That these impressions are not confined to post-war conditions and experience can be
vouched for by many who lived in Japan before Pearl Harbour.
There used to be a 'sickness' among European businessmen resident in Japan, known to
them as 'Japan Head'. This was nothing more than the culmination of a process of
change in which the European had come to consider things Japanese to be of more
importance than his own country's, when their customs grew to be more acceptable and
the women desirable as consorts or wives.
When this stage was reached it was customary for the man to be recalled home, or
transferred to another country 'for the good of English prestige'. Some of the personal
tragedies so created were solved in the only possible way - the suicide traditional of the
country which had given happiness to a man and then destroyed him.
one does not live in a foreign country for long without realizing that human nature and
the fundamental requirements of happiness are essentially the same everywhere.
Whether it be Hitler's Germany or Fascist Italy, America or Soviet Russia, enduring
friendships are made and individual and national problems understood if not necessarily
given sympathy. Such friendships are formed with the people, and they are the nation,
not a group of men who happen to be temporarily in control of it. Governments pass,
the people remain.
During the Nazi regime in Germany, when men whose only crime was membership of
an ancient and cultured race were being slaughtered like dumb cattle or undergoing
bestial tortures that degraded the perpetrators below the animals, the Hitler apologists
purported to find extenuation and even justice in these crimes.
I do not attempt to condone barbarity, whether it be perpetrated by German or Japanese,
Jew or Gentile. But I do wish to confine it to those responsible, and not to impute it to
all members of a race, which is the function of propaganda in war-time.
Two such notions which have survived the conflict are: That the Japanese had been
dreaming of world conquest for hundreds of years; and that they are at heart barbarians
and have always been so.
The absurdity, and even irony, of the first statement is evident to any student of the
history of Japan.
From the end of the sixteenth century, when the country had at last been tranquillized
and unified under Iyeyasu, the founder of the Tokugawa Shogunate, Japan withdrew
into itself , and no intercourse was sought, or permitted, with the outside world. Iyeyasu,
by all-embracing formalization, tried to force men and manners into inflexible moulds,
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to preserve the golden age of peace and the supremacy of his line for ever. The
emperors had long been mere symbols and figureheads, surrounded by women or retired
to secluded monasteries.
But the seeds of Christianity sown years before by St Francis Xavier had spread through
the land and had grown into a great disruptive force that threatened more than anything
else to divide the country into factions, and destroy its hard-won unity.
By supporting factions opposing the Shogun the Portuguese missionaries and merchants
brought on themselves persecution and ruthless suppression, which ended in the
banishment of all foreigners but a few Dutch. Some die-hard Portuguese tried again to
resume trade in 1640, only to be seized and beheaded by the Shogun Iyemitsu.
A group of them was spared in order that they might be sent back to Macao, to tell of
what had been done, and to bear the following message: 'Do not fail to inform the
inhabitants (the Portuguese) that the Japanese wish to receive from them neither gold
nor silver nor any manner of gifts or merchandise; in a word, nothing that emanates
from them.
'We have even burned the clothes of those who were executed. Tell them to do the same
to us if they find occasion to do so; we consent to it willingly. Let them think no more
of us, as if we were no longer in this world.'
Finally they were thus enjoined:
'So long as the sun warms the earth, let no Christian dare set foot on Japan, and let all
know that if King Phillip himself, or the very God of the Christians or the Lord Buddha
himself should contravene this prohibition, their heads shall be forfeit.'
This condition persisted until Perry's black ships with guns gaping at the gunwales
sailed up Tokyo Bay and demanded free access for trading and commerce for the West.
The Japanese, like bamboos in a storm, bowed so they might not break, before the
irresistible might of America.
In such manner were the seeds sown of which Pearl Harbour was the fruit.
History will also dispose of the belief that the Japanese have always behaved inhumanly
in war. Bushido - the way of the warrior - is more than a name; it is a code of ethics that
matches knighthood in its influence on soldiery; in its exhortation to chivalry and
justice in peace and war, in the sacredness of a vow, and the keeping of a promise.
Japanese history abounds in tales that extol these knightly virtues.
That this recent war's cruelty is not typical of the Japanese is apparent from reading the
history of the Russo-Japanese war, when the Japanese Army was extolled for its
humanity and chivalry. In those far-off days the odd idea still persisted that wars were
fought between governments and the forces they controlled; enemy civilians went about
their legitimate business as usual, and prisoners of war were treated no whit differently
from the civilians.
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Count Oyama, in a speech to the Japanese Army in 1894 said, inter alia: 'Belligerent
operations being properly confined to the military and naval forces actually engaged,
and there being no reason whatever for enmity between individuals because their
countries are at war, the common principles of humanity dictate that succour and rescue
should be extended even to those of the enemy's forces who are disabled by wounds or
disease.'
Here also is an extract from Cassell's History of the Russo-Japanese War 1904-5: 'In
concluding this article (on the treatment of prisoners of war) one cannot refrain from
paying a tribute to Japan for the way in which she has observed the rules of
International Law in her present conflict, her chivalrous treatment of her wounded and
prisoner enemies, and her strict compliance with all the laws and uses of neutrality.'
Even in this war the treatment of civilian internees in Japan was in most cases a model
of correctness and the prisoners in mainland camps appeared to have fared infinitely
better than those far from the central administration.
It is significant that the average Japanese has the same difficulty in accepting the
inhuman behaviour of some of their soldiers as Australians would in regard to their own,
simply because they would not themselves so behave. The changes wrought by a
brutalizing army system and the slow degrading influence of jungle life, the isolation,
and the inadequate food, are not known to the civilians.
After the first announcements in the Japanese press, in mid- 1946, of the rape of
Nanking, incredulity gave way to shame and the desire to make restoration. A Buddhist
scholar said to me, 'We must find some way of atoning. We have been thinking wrongly
for forty years, and we need your guidance desperately in the future.'
And we must grant them this. Their potentiality for good is so great that it would be
criminal folly and a betrayal of posterity not to encourage its resurgence.
After reading this book you may say that I am pro-Japanese. No one called me that
during five years in the army. No one could have found any reason to do so.
I fought not against the Japanese people but against those elements who had led them
into a futile war, who had sought inevitably if not intentionally, but from the very nature
of war, to destroy the pattern of our lives and to deprive us of the small things that make
life significant and liveable.
There were times during the conflict when I forgot all this, being imperfect and swayed
by propaganda and immediate emotional stress, and by the sufferings of fellow-soldiers
and friends.
We must remember that this last war was fought primarily against tyranny, wheresoever
found and against whomsoever practised. And the Japanese had suffered tyranny at the
hands of their own militarist class for a decade or more. The wonder is that any spark of
liberal thought still remained.
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To adopt a Christian approach is not to condone guilt. Rather it is a demonstration of
faith in the common man, of whatever race or colour. I kept this faith with difficulty
during the war, lost it completely in the jungles along the death-road from Sandakan to
Ranau, and regained it in the weed-grown ruins of Hiroshima. An American soldier had
it too, when, dying, he left his worldly possessions to be devoted to a closer mutual
understanding, through education, between Japanese and Americans. It is the faith that
offers mankind a chance of survival.
Without it we are lost.
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Chapter 24
Operation Foxum
The freedom of movement and access to public places that we all had once enjoyed
soon became severely circumscribed. A brawl or two in a dance hall or theatre brought
to its doors the army bill-posters with their out-of-bounds signs and before long every
place of amusement bore a placard that forbade entrance - not to the undisciplined,
short-sighted trouble-makers; they remained undeterred - but to those whose contact
with the people might have done so much good.
Eventually every building, every house in the Prefecture, was out of bounds, thought the
law was administered with admirable wisdom and prudence by the provosts. I know of
no one discovered in a home where he was obviously a well-behaved and welcome
guest, who suffered inconvenience or expulsion from it.
once we had had freedom to use the trains, but that was before the armed robberies by
our soldiers began. After that, only military guards travelled on them, and at Hiroshima
and other main stations picquets checked the credentials of all who passed through the
barriers.
one or two of the outlying cinemas were accessible by tram, and we still went there and
saw Tarzan, Bing Crosby and Gary Cooper with Japanese sub-titles, and watched the
audience squirm with embarrassment during the love scenes. They, unlike us, had not
acquired the indifference that came from repetition, but saw the kisses for what they
were: Hollywood's substitute for the sex act.
Yet the nude women that often roamed through French pictures moved them not at all,
whereas the Australian soldiers crowded to see them.
In the periods of inactivity that intervened now and then, I, as an interpreter, was free to
rove where the whim took me. I seldom went far from camp; there was so much of
interest in Hiroshima that I never tired of visiting it, and rarely went farther afield.
An addiction to collecting odds and ends had long before gained me the nickname of
'The Bower Bird' among my closer friends, and this passion I indulged to the full here. I
spent days raking among the wreckage for relics, or talking with those who had lived
through 'the bomb'.
I pored over photographs and files in the Chugoku newspaper office, one of the few
buildings that still stood. As a newspaper man I found much of interest there, the most
unusual sight being girl compositors, tiny creatures of fourteen or fifteen, setting by
hand columns of type from cases containing five or six thousand different characters.
Clean readers' proofs bore witness to their efficiency.
It was about this time that I met John Hersey, and for a brief period, while he was
collecting material for his book Hiroshima , acted as his interpreter. I envied him his
unemotional approach to his subject, his sense of news-value and the way he worked all
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he had learnt into a carefully planned pattern. 'I am writing a sort of Bridge of San Luis
Rey in reverse,' he said; 'Taking the stories of the survivors instead of the victims.'
Had he not anticipated me with so much of the city's story, I might have set it down
here, however unskilfully. It was through my meeting with him that I came to know the
German Jesuit fathers, and the doctors of the Red Cross Hospital, who survived the
bomb by a series of extraordinary accidents and became Roman Catholic converts in
consequence.
In the course of my wanderings in the city, I discovered a ruined temple and went near
to committing sacrilege. It stood - or rather lay scattered - near the centre of the city.
Hardly anything was distinguishable from the rubble: only a few shattered stone
lanterns, and a tall overturned bronze statue gazing at the sky; and beside the pedestal
from which it had toppled a carved wooden mask of some god or goddess rested. Like
the works of Shelley's 'Ozymandias', nothing else remained.
From my first sight of it, the face fascinated me. The calm of its smooth domed
forehead, in which had once been set some jewel or ornament, the sharp-cut, full-curved
lips, and the heavy-lidded slumbrous eyes so haunted me that I conceived a plan to take
it back to Australia.
Remains of a shrine at Hiroshima: the fallen
figure is that of the Goddess of Mercy
At first I thought of making a formal request for it, but decided, illogically enough, that
even if I could find someone with the authority to dispose of it, my request could hardly
be refused, so I made my own decisions.
on a dark night in August I slipped off a tram at some distance from the spot, and
stumbled my guilty way to the scene. A rubber raincape under my arm flapped in the
rising wind. I found the face with difficulty and threw the cape over it. It proved to be
larger and heavier than I had expected and the cape did not by any means envelop it
completely. As I put it under my arm and began to grope my way back to the road a
struggle with my conscience that had arisen earlier began to rage more fiercely. I lost
my direction in the pitch darkness and after a few minutes of blind wandering came out
on a cleared space studded with stone pillars, bamboo vases of fresh flowers set before
them. It was unmistakably a graveyard.
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I remembered that this was the event of O Bon Matsuri , the Festival of the Dead, when
the souls of the departed return from the pitiless, ghastly underworld to walk again for a
few brief hours the beaches and hills, the valleys and city streets of their beloved Japan,
the only heaven they will ever know, or ever wish for, which the love and remembrance
of their families and friends have made into a bright and happy garden, fragrant with
flowers by day, and gay with lanterns at night. Food in tiny dishes would be set out for
them and, at the appointed time, they would be conducted back to these graves until the
following year.
There was one column near me, without flowers or any other decoration, just four
Chinese characters which read: 'Together meeting, one family'. It was an old cemetery
and perhaps all that family were indeed meeting together now. I rested to face of the
image agains the column carefully and returned with a light heart and a sense of justice
done.
When I passed by a few days later it was no longer there.
At night the centre of life was Hiroshima railway station. It was the trysting place for
lovers and amateur prostitutes, the trading post for black-marketeers and a haven for the
homeless.
As soon as darkness fell, orphaned children of any age from two to about ten years crept
from their refuge in the city's wreckage to seek the warmth and security of the station's
surroundings. The first sight of them, ill fed and ill clothed, huddled together on the
dusty pavement or tossing restless sleep, inflamed us with anger at the cause of their
plight and our inability to alleviate it. To offer one of them food only made it worse;
one could not bear the silent plea in the others' faces. Later we could look upon them
almost with indifference, our sensibilities dulled with familiarity.
Several times each night M.P.s plunged into the darkness and returned with Australians
and Japanese surprised in the midst of black-market transactions. If I happened to be on
hand I was pressed into service as interpreter. If the man was from my own unit I was
greatly embarrassed and usually declined to act. The provosts respected my reasons: my
life would have become unbearable in camp within a very short time.
Beyond the out fringe of light waited the 'pom-pom' girls, as we called them, amateur
prostitutes whe enc hanged the dubious and dangerous pleasures of their bodies for
anything of value.
These exotic and fertile flowers bore bitter fruit, and the potent seeds that they scattered
were gathered in as great numbers as possible by all the resources of army medical
services, who struggled to confine the poison to as small a field as possible.
The alarming and ever-increasing incidence of V.D. had produced drastic and direct
counter-attacks which were constantly being pressed home. Provosts had the authority
to arrest and confine to hospital for medical examination any soldier's female
companion suspected of being a 'carrier'. Many an innocent was gathered into the net,
but this was inevitable, and some of us learned to meet our respectable friends in more
secluded rendezvous.
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A solution to the problem of disease could have been found in licensed houses, but the
padres were implacably opposed to them, and they never came into being, although one
flourished unofficially outside Hiroshima until a fire from the cigarette of some careless
guest burned it to the ground.
While the medical service fought the social evil with science, the padres tackled it on a
moral basis, and the P. P.P. clubs were born. I do not remember with certainty what the
Ps stood for, but I think it was Pride, Purity and Perseverance. There was a less accurate
but more popular rendering and I fancy any soldier could guess what the padres'
converts were called.
After being treated to a long and terrifying disseration on the physical and mental
disorders consequent on contracting the diseases, the men were offered membership of
the club, and upon signing the pledge received a card bearing a record of all their good
intentions.
on the same evening, when they dragged chocolate or biscuits from their pockets to pay
the price of their pleasure, or lay in the bought embrace of a grubby dark-skinned girl,
these cards fell to the ground like leaves in a storm, and the great god Pan smiled at the
folly of those who strove to destroy him.
The professional women kept to their houses and did not solicit in the streets. They
were under the control of the Japanese police and underwent compulsory medical
examinations weekly. If found to have contracted V.D. they were debarred from
practising until certified cured. They were forbidden to accept Allied soldiers as clients,
though a few did not observe this rule. Most, however, preferred to confine themselves
to Japanese, claiming that they understood their needs better.
The Japanese Government, in accordance with a S.C.A.P. Directive, had abolished
licensed prostitution and had declared null all contracts and agreements binding women
to serve as prostitutes. But this did not prevent the exploitation of needy women by
unscrupulous inn-keepers, who offered accommodation, food, and clothing to the
unfortunates, in return for 60 percent of their takings. So long as no contract was signed
and the women were technically free to leave at any time, the law was not broken and
the status quo ante helium was restored in fact, if not in law.
Simultaneous check-raids were sometimes made by Allied teams to ensure that no
abuses were being practised, and that no one held a license to operate a brothel as such.
The first of these raids was called, with unexpected official levity, 'Operation Foxum'.
The whole B.C.O.F. was involved and I was allotted the south-eastern quarter of
Hiroshima.
My guide and escort, a provost, picked me up in the early evening and we drove to the
heart of the city. Behind the headquarters of the eastern police district stretched a
colony of newly-built houses surrounded by the debris of the old city.
'Nearly every one of those is a "pom-pom" house', said my companion. 'We have got a
busy night ahead of us.'
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It was all, so to speak, virgin country to me, and I told my escort as much as we picked
our way down an unfamiliar stone-strewn street to the first house. I called out in
Japanese, and a girl came to the door. She gave a little cry on seeing me, and seizing me
by the arm shouted back into the house: ' Kazuko-chan, Yoriko-chan , come and see
who is here. It is Clifton San! '
I was half dragged into the house by three study girls, and in my wake slowly followed
a very surprised and very suspicious M.P.
When I had unruffled myself, I recognized the occupants as serving girls who had
attended at a party given in honour of several officers of my acquaintance by a high
police official. I must have done something memorable that night, but now it escaped
me.
I explained to the provost, not very convincingly, that I had met the girls 'in the
company of the police', which was true enough. I then settle down to ask the girls a
series of set questions: How long had they been practicing? How many 'guests' did they
entertain each night? Could they discontinue their occupation if they wished? Why did
they become prostitutes? Had they ever had V.D.? (To this last inquiry all answered no,
but added that their 'blood had been bad' sometimes.)
The brothel-keepers were an evil lot, whether male or female, to whom only the making
of money mattered, the welfare and happiness of their employees being of little moment.
one of them had the effrontery to claim the sanction and patronage of the American
forces and produced a placard that had been nailed to an establishment he had kept in
Osaka. It read: 'This brothel is off limits to all U.S. personnel.'
We did not waste much time; there were so many places to visit before we had finished.
Many a personal tragedy was uncovered by the question: Why did you become a
prostitute? In Ujina we discovered a Japanese army nurse with eight years' service in
various theatres of war, an intelligent and capable woman. She had returned to a family
bereft of all its male members and had taken the only course that offered sufficient
income to support the others. one or two girls whom I had met as school teachers
earlier had also joined the ranks of the higher-paid workers.
There were two rosy-cheeked girls of sixteen and seventeen, hardly more than children,
in fresh candy-striped dresses. They were not much sought after, said the harridan
whose charges they were. They were too young and inexperienced to know how to
make men happy.
The reason for their occupation was almost always the same: economic hardship and the
responsibility of providing for other members of the family.
only one bright-eyed beauty gave this answer, 'I am here because I like men and find
the life amusing. 'With from ten to fifteen clients a night, and nothing to do all day, it
seemed too good to be true.
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"Time of Fallen Blossoms" by Allan S. Clifton
Chapter 25
Education
For some extraordinary reason the second phase of 'Operation Foxum' was a secretly-
planned inspection of schools, to discover if anything contrary to S.C.A.P. directions
was being taught.
The first steps to reorganize Japanese education were taken in October and December
1945, when S.C.A.P. issued directives strictly curtailing the activities of the Japanese
education department, and completely forbidding the teaching of history, geography and
ethics until new textbooks were compiled - these subjects being obviously the most
easily adapted to indoctrination of pupils. The problem of 'screening' teachers was
overcome by a simple expedient suggested by the Japanese education department. A
proclamation was issued declaring that the teaching service would be 'frozen' from 7
May 1946. Any teacher removed after that date for holding, or having held, ultra-
nationalistic sentiments would lose all pension rights.
Before the 'deadline' 1 15,000 teachers of a total of 500,000 had 'screened' themselves by
resigning.
The Japanese education system up to the war's end was thorough and highly organized.
There was no scope for individualism: all instructional procedure was strictly
conventionalized and set out in official manuals for the use of teachers. To ensure there
was no deviation an enormous body of inspectors prowled and probed constantly.
To further the unity and uniformity of the system, almost every school had a radio and
public address apparatus, which re-broadcast physical exercises and other forms of
conditioning material from the Government stations. During the war great emphasis was
placed on training of a military nature, and army instructors taught jujitsu, fencing, and
bayonet fighting. Often pupils were supplied with actual rifles and bayonets.
The efficiency and extent of the school system ensured almost total literacy throughout
the whole nation.
The school inspection was a task I looked forward to, chiefly because I had always
found the children intensely interesting, and also because they were the raw material of
the new Japan.
on the morning of the chosen day, however, I was ordered to the automatic telephone
exchange in Hiroshima, where I was shown five pairs of terminals by an Australian
signals man, and given a pair of headphones. The five lines were connected to the
prefectural office, and my job was to plug myself in on any of them to intercept any
calls from schools being raided to the prefecture authorities, warning them to be on
guard. It was a physical impossibility for one person to monitor five separate lines
continuously, so I plugged in at random, constantly switching from one set of wires to
another. I heard some very boring conversations, but not one attempt to warn the
authorities. The only conversation I can still remember was one between a young man
and a girl office worker. It was apparent that he was attempting to lure her to a place
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suitable for seduction, but she was politely adamant and he at last gave it up. The
conversation concluded with humble apologies from him and ready forgiveness from
her, which raised suspicions as to the honesty of her earlier protestations. What
impressed the incident on my mind was the similarity of the couple's technique with our
own.
The first one we visited was an ordinary primary school. It was two or three miles from
the point of the atomic bomb burst, but it still bore marks of the shock - broken
windows and ragged roofs.
We drove the jeep on to the playing ground and walked in past the small shrine that
holds the Emperor's photograph, and before which, even now, tutors and children alike
all make obeisance on arriving in the morning. We were always a bit puzzled about our
footwear on entering buildings. The decision to shed them or not was usually made after
looking at the condition of the floors. These were clean and shiny with the polishing of
countless feet, so we sat down to take them off.
Around the walls of the porch-like entrance were cupboards neatly stacked with the
straw sandals and wooden clogs of the pupils. Suddenly one of the school staff appeared
with slippers for us. He had noted our arrival and concluded that we would have
clumped and scraped our booted way all through the place. He conducted us upstairs
(all the schools were two-storied) to the office of the headmaster, where he bowed and
politely effaced himself.
The headmaster was dressed as the average Japanese of those days - like a tramp - and I
doubted if his suit had seen an iron for years. But he was clean and exceedingly polite.
Here let me add that after a while one soon came to distinguish genuine politeness and
social graces from mere sycophantic grovelling. Nevertheless I do not wish to give the
impression that I considered any of this behaviour ridiculous. Of course it seemed to us
highly exaggerated and unnecessary, but to the Japanese it was normal custom, and we
were, after all, in Japan.
We announced the object of our visit, which he received with no sign of disquiet. It had
occurred to us that any reasonably intelligent man would have guessed our mission as
soon as he saw us enter the grounds, and would by now have begun action to dispose of
anything incriminating. We therefore went straight to our task and began to 'do' the
school class by class. Upon our entrance into the first room the class master behaved
just as if he were a sergeant in charge of a squad and we were top-ranking officers.
Pupils and master alike stiffened into respectful attitudes, but relaxed at our suggestion.
Without preamble we went straight to individual pupils and asked to see their books.
The teacher stood his ground in silence. There were pathetically few books to see. There
were none at all on the forbidden subjects - history, geography and ethics - and
notebooks were for the most part pads of army and navy stationery. There was nothing
in their content to take exception to. There remained only the readers, and we saw for
the first time the new expurgated editions. These were printed on poor quality newsprint,
frail material even in the hands of careful adults, but hardly calculated to withstand the
usage of lively children. Their content matter was that of the earlier books, with the
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anti- Allied parts deleted. But since, as yet, there was only a meagre percentage of the
new ones to hand, every second child was using the old reader, with the offensive
passages struck through with a writing brush, but still clearly legible. I read now what
these children had read all through the war: how the arrogant British had at last been
rooted out of their long-held positions in Asia; and 'how we bombed Pearl Harbour'; all
with appropriate maps and photographs.
It is worthy of record that later, when the problem of finding paper for a hundred-odd
million school-books appeared insuperable, the big Tokyo dailies ceased publication for
a number of days and donated the paper saved to the purpose. This, perhaps more than
anything else, exemplifies the Japanese devotion to education and the sacrifices they are
prepared to make for the furtherance of knowledge.
We might have seized the old readers, but in view of the heartbreaking conditions the
children had to contend with, we thought it better not to add to their burden. We had our
doubts as to whether the controversial material could be considered 'in use' or not, so we
made notes for our reports and ultimately passed the buck to our superiors. In any case
we could soon have been laden with a mountain of books, as in each of these schools
there were approximately a thousand students.
From this first school we made a sweep through the outer circle of the city, with much
the same experience in each school. At each we had pressed on us little hand-made
gifts: dolls exquisite and rough made, ribbons and drawings, flowers by the dozen, and
here and there a plant in a tiny pot. Nowhere was there any sign of fear at our presence.
If we had any reasons to date for being proud, we placed this above them all.
As we worked in towards the centre of the city the usual type of school building
disappeared, and we found the children in long wooden buildings which the Japanese
call 'barracks', or in the shells of old buildings, unperturbed by their surroundings.
It was in one of these buildings that, months before, I had accidently met the girl teacher
who later forsook this profession for an older and more lucrative one.
Lafcadio Hearn had seen Japanese children many years earlier under such conditions in
the earthquake-shattered cities of Aichi and Gifu, where 'crouching among the ashes of
their homes, cold and hungry and shelterless, surrounded by horror and misery
unspeakable (they) still continued their small studies, using tiles of their own burnt
dwellings in lieu of slates, and bits of lime for chalk, even while the earth still trembled
beneath them.'
In Hiroshima's schools one still sees the more terrible examples of the atom-bomb
injuries: the spongy scars on the face and neck, the distortions in the muscles, and the
dead patches from the flash-burns. Yet there is no sign whatever of anxiety or other
neurosis among these children, and if any of the unscarred ones felt aversion towards
their less fortunate companions they did not show it. I feel that a Japanese child would
not taunt or mock, as might a Western child in similar circumstances.
An educationalist would no doubt have seen much more to interest him and to compare
with Western systems. As a layman I could not attempt a comparative analysis. I might
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mention, though, that I was surprised to find psychoanalysis being taught to fifteen-
year-olds of both sexes in a middle school. I sat in on a lecture for a few minutes to get
the feel of it and to discover just how they had translated some of the well-worn terms.
In every school the pupils were in some kind of uniform, the girls in open-necked sailor
blouses and mompei - the soldiers called them 'harem pants' - the boys in all sorts of
odd clothing, most of it resembling military uniform, especially the head-gear.
There was a great contrast between these city schools and the rural ones I had seen on
the election tour. The latter were well kept and well equipped, the pupils plumper and
healthier. For this was the time of high properity for the farmer, who, by a twist of a
word and a pun, was nicknamed 'millionaire'. The city disicpline too was slacker, and
there was much time devoted to outdoor practical work - gardening and building repairs
- to relieve the strain on the few teachers.
Apart from the bomb-damaged ones, the school buildings generally were excellent,
certainly better than those in rural Australia. one reason for this was the large number
of children living in the school areas, which demanded large centralized schools rather
than small, scattered ones. The playing grounds too were remarkably spacious in a
country with a woeful insufficiency of arable land.
But wherever we went, there was about us the refreshing spontaneity of the children's
reception; and the complete absence of fear. one cannot but imagine what the reaction
of Australian and American children might have been, had the situation been reversed.
For it must be remembered that the Japanese propagandists had painted us in not less
vivid demoniacal colours than we had the fathers of these children. The boys, I am
afraid, often appeared rude and uncouth, from their habit of thrusting themselves
forward to examine the stranger or his equipment. This was probably the result of their
teaching of the war years. The girls, however, were completely captivating.
S.CA.P.'s education reforms will doubt bring about substantial changes, but it must not
be forgotten that, whatever is taught in the schools, a large part of a child's life is spent
at home. Thus the school's teaching could be be very largely negatived by parents and
other adults, holding contrary and anciently established ideas. The strength of centuries-
old customs and habits of thought cannot be dissipated in a few months, or even years.
Yet that insatiable curiosity and compelling necessity to learn, which is the common
heritage of all young Japanese, are the seeds that will bear bountiful harvests. There is a
huge variety of literature available to them. At first glance the bookshops' stocks appear
completely cosmopolitan, many magazines bearing titles in French, German, English
and Russian; their general format is in accordance with publishing traditions of the
respective countries, and are all vaguely reminiscent of periodicals one has seen before.
But closer inspection shows them to be mere covers. The contents are almost always in
Japanese, but the subject-matter varies from English literature to French philosophy and
every branch of science including nuclear physics!
The numerous Youth Leagues established, after having had their objectives duly
approved by the S.C.A.P., have become centres for eager young men to exchange ideas,
to learn American' and study Western civilization. This urge, because of its very
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strength, must be given free opportunity to express itself, or it will be diverted into more
dangerous channels.
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Chapter 26
Tokyo
There was a strongly held belief among most soldiers that all of our Japanese linguists
were to a lesser or greater degree mad. No normal person would attempt to study the
language in the first place, they said, and even if he did he would not remain sane for
long.
This belief found some substantiation in the war history of interpreters. There were not
many of us, yet two essayed suicide, one successfully, and two others had gone insane.
Apart from these there were a few 'borderline cases' among us, even by our tolerant
standards.
When, one day in October, still another of our number took his life, the army became
alarmed and decided that an examination of us all by a psychiatrist might yield
something.
We were called in from all over western Japan to pour out our secret longings and
frustrations. I told the M.O. quite truthfully that the only thing that troubled me was that
I might be posted elsewhere. Perhaps some of the others' lives were not so simple and
uncluttered, for it was decided to send us all away for a rest.
That is how a week or so later I came to be on the B.C.O.F. express with a movement
order to 'Lakeside Hotel, Tokyo'. It was a happy enough prospect. Before the war when
I thought of Japan I thought of Tokyo. Now it had become a distant, not very interesting
place, over-run with Americans. But I looked forward to seeing once more two Japanese
friends from the old days in Australia.
The B.C.O.F. express was train travel at its best. Ther carriages were plush-seated,
room, and clean, heated or cooled as needed, and Japanese waiters served us in the
dining-car with excellent food, and bottled beer at each meal. For this one day we forgot
we were soldiers and became tourists.
We were rushed with hardly a pause through places with famous names on them: Kobe,
Osaka, Kyoto, past Mount Fuji in the night, with the fields studded with violet neon
lights that lured to destruction myriads of ravaging insects.
Morning found us in Yokohama, and we sat at the windows watching for the first
glimpse of the great metropolis. But as we approached, rain began to fall, and the scene
was dreary and half obscured.
From Central Station we were led straight to motor-trucks and rushed to a staging camp
for breakfast. Here I learned that our destination, the Lakeside Hotel, was beyond Nikko,
ninety miles away fromTokyo. This appeared to be of little moment to the others, but
the thought that I should not be able to see the city and my friends put me in a fury.
After breakfast we were taken through a drizzle of rain to Ueno station on the other side
of Tokyo and embarked on the Nikko-bound train.
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I was in a black mood and hardly took notice of the great devastation caused by the
Super-fortresses to the northern suburbs. The journey to Nikko held nothing unexpected.
After leaving the train we ascended by almost perpendicular cable-car to a point where
buses took us farther and farther up to the very roof of Japan, and Chuzenji, where our
hotel was.
The Lakeside was a European-style hotel, beautifully appointed, set in a park-like
garden overlooking Lake Chuzenji. The single bedrooms had hot and cold water and all
modern conveniences, the food - titivated army rations - was moderately good. But in
spite of the surroundings it was still an army institution, with an inescapable atmosphere
of regulation and restriction.
I checked in, still in the same gloomy mood, when suddenly a bright ray of hope
appeared in the form of an English girl in the uniform of the Burma Women's Auxiliary
Service.
Mutual recognition was immediate. She was an old friend, the daughter of an interpreter
from my unit, a businessman formerly resident in Japan. I told her of my predicament
and I knew she would understand. Being on the staff of the hotel, she foundit easy to
arrange that any absence of mine would be undiscovered.
With the future bright again, I gave myself over to Nikko for a day. The story of the
colossal monuments to the memory of the first Tokugawa Shoguns has been told in the
guide-books in detail. one can only add that abuot the brilliant vermilion and gold
temples and mausolea there is a kind of magnificence, and air of splendour, that
amounts almost to a surfeit. Certaily there is justification for the Japanese saying: 'Do
not use the word "Magnificent" until you have seen Nikko.'
I was impatient to return to Tokyo, and next day I stepped off one of the speedy electric
trains of the Yamate loop system at Tokyo station and walked out into the Marunouchi.
Then for a few minutes I was filled with panic like a lost child. Here before me was a
great flow of stange people, Japanese, Americans, Englishmen, and Russians, all utterly
indifferent to my existence, al pursuing their own ambitions.
In a word, I was once again in a great city.
I steered a couse by guide map to Empire House, the British headquarters, but received
a cool reception and a warning that I was not entitled to rations from any source other
than the Lakeside Hotel.
Someone whispered that there was food and drink at the American PX and a growing
hunger drove me there. It was on the Ginza, Tokyo's most famous street, but everything
was drab and grey under dark wet skies.
once again I was balked. only American money was accepted in the PX, and of course
I had none. An American M.P., God bless him, staked me to a hamburger and Coca-
cola, and though I felt like a beggar he brushed my protestations of gratitude asised with
a rich Brooklyn accent.
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Hunger assuaged for the moment, I set out to find the first of my friends, Koichi Ito. At
the time of Pearl Harbour, he had been private secretary to the Japanese Minister to
Australia. He was probably the most intellectual of all Japanese I had ever met, a
profound student of philosophy and a disciple of Bertrand Russell. The ideal of
universal brotherhood informed all his thinking, and he was obsessed with a desire to
have his two daughters grow up to be examples to the world of what a Japanese could
be.
I went first to the personnel department of the Japanese Foreign Office. Their records
showed he had been relieved of his duties soon after his return from Australia, under
diplomatic privilege, after the war had begun. There was a hint that he had been
considered 'unreliable', a compliment to my judgement of him, for I had known his real
feelings about the war.
I said, 'Can you tell me where his is now?'
They fluttered the files further, and there it was: 'Went to Nagano to seek employment.
on 8 August 1945, whil in a train standing in the station, it was strafed by an American
plane; he was struck three times and died soon afterwards.'
Somehow I felt empty, and a favourite quotation of his from John Donne came into my
mind, "No man is an iland, intire of it selfe, every man is a peece of the Continent, a part
of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse ... any man's
death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.'
I believe his loss was Japan's loss, for men of his kind were the desperate need of the
new Japan.
I went out to seek his family at the address he had given me in Australia. It was a lonely
place in an outer suburb, beside a great cemetery, in which, I discovered later, lay the
body of Lafcadio Hearn. No one there had even heard of them and it was clear that my
quest was at an end. The loneliness of the graveyard seemed to have been
communicated to its surroundings and perhaps they had fled from its influence. Some
day I hope to meet them and talk to them about the man who was their father and my
friend.
By now I was feeling somewhat forlorn and foolish and I returned to look for Shigemori,
a man who was Ito's diametrical opposite. He was obviously wealthy and when in
Australia he and his wife revelled in their freedom to indulge their tastes in clothes, and
good food, and in amusing themselves. He was an excellent golfer and tennis player,
and returned with many trophies from the Melbourne clubs.
When he was recalled he made no secret of his reluctance to return.
'I shall not be able to play golf at all. They will say "Our soldiers in China are not
playing golf." My wife will not be able to wear her fur coat. Women would stop her in
the street and say, "Our soldiers in Manchuria are freezing to death. Why then do you
wear such a coat?"
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'You cannot understand this, but we do, and we will be sad at the difference between
our countries.'
That had been seven years before and their fate might easily have been that of Ito. Yet
when I entered the head office of his company almost the first face I saw was his. The
first thing he said was, 'Mr Clifton!' and the second, to his secretary, 'I am taking the
rest of the day off!'
His home was on the outskirts of the city and we went straight there. His wife gave me a
welcome that took me back through years of war to peace in Australia. We talked and
ate well into the night, with my Japanese now more than a match for her faltering
English. Then we went to bed, the three of us together, she in the middle, and he and I
talked across her until we exhausted ourselves into sleep.
I spent three days with them, and saw as much of the city as the constant misty rain
permitted. The Ginza was deserted by all the fashionable beauties that had made it
famous. At its major intersections the American Eighth Army provosts directed the flow
of traffic with unorthodox spectacular gestures and great efficiency, and alonside them
their Japanese counterparts reproduced their every movement. At night outside the
Ernie Pyle theatre, a memorial to the famous war correspondent, hard-headed Japanese
realists sold medals bearing the legend: 'Souvenir of American Victory'. For all its
novelty, its fine buildings, and broad streets, it was like most big cities, unfriendly to the
stranger, and I longed to be back home in the 'atomic desert' among familiar
surroundings.
In a few days I was back in Ujina, and the only memento I had of the visit to Tokyo was
an amulet granting me the protection of the gods of Furara San Shrine, Nikko.
There was a letter in my room. It was from Terumi and was three or four days old. It
was very long, very incoherent, and much of it was repetition.
Here is all of it that mattered: 'Today has been worse than death for me. It has brought
home more keenly than anything the ordeal of the women of a country defeated in war.
If you were here I would ask for a Court Martial, but as it is, I have hardly the strength
to write this letter.
'It was on the Geibi-line train. There were two soldiers; both were very drunk and
hardly knew what they did to me... If you ask - you would probably know who they are,
but because of what they did they probably will never travel this way again. More than
this I cannot write now, but since you well understand how I feel, please come and see
me as soon as you can.
'Harry must never know.'
There was a break here and the letter began again: 'Five days have passed since the
thing I spoke of. If you do not come to see me in a day or two I shall bury it deep in my
heart and endure it alone. Please do not ever question me on it. It torments me too much.
Please give me your understanding and sympathy.
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'I had thought the Shinchugun were men of the highest culture, but now I know that
among them are also unspeakable barbarians.
'I do not know if I shall be alive or dead when you see me again. Just now I have not the
strength to go on living. I feel that death would be the best way out.'
Harry must never know, she had written. And know he did not - in this world. Three
nights before he had fallen from a launch in the Inland Sea, and in the pitch-dark it had
been beyond the boat crew's power to help him. on the morning of my return his body
had been washed ashore in a little bay near by.
I never saw or heard from Terumi again, for a month later I was back in Australia.
Perhaps she is dead, and with her Harry again somewhere.
I should like to think it is so.
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Chapter 27
Sayonara
It was December now, and ships were preparing to embark for Australia those who had
come first to Japan, and had not signed up for a further period.
Return to Australia was automatic for those who did not choose to stay on for another
year or two. The decision for many of us was not easy. The desire to stay a little longer
warred with a natural anxiety about finding a place in the post-war world, better than
the one we had, while there was still time. This last consideration had receded far into
the recesses of memory. Now it came forward to contend with the urge to remain.
Before the conflict had resolved itself, the army had made the decision for me, and left
me with a week before embarkation to arrange my affairs.
All the things I had planned to do and see 'some day' now rushed from the future and
crowded into the present. I became aware that procrastination, laziness, and ignorance
had robbed me of many things, and I had to be content to leave them till 'next time'.
Many goodbyes were left unsaid, by reason of the time element alone. Above all, I had
wanted to say goodbye to Yoshida and its inn, but it still remains to be said. There are a
few others, too, that I had to miss.
The last person I visited was a man whom I had met at the Hiroshima Club. He was old
and grey, long retired from business activities, but still vital and flexible in body and
spirit, with an unquenchable interest in human activity. When I announced that this was
my last day in Hiroshima he took up the writing set he had been using and put it into my
hands. He then removed his hakama, an outer garment like a shirt, and said:
'These are my parting gifts to you. It is a compliment to offer to a friend those things
which one is using at the time of farewell.'
Before we said goodbye he showed me a picture on the wall. It was painted in oils and
its atmosphere was unmistakably Australian. Two men in the costume of a century ago
stood with their horses beside the crumbling corpse of a man lying in the sands of a
desert. An old flintlock was across his knees.
'I saw it in a magazine, and had it copied by a Japanese artist,' he explained. 'It is said to
depict an incident in Australian history. Do you recall it?'
I had to admit that I did not.
'The two men are explorers who have pushed far into the interior where hitherto no one
had ever been known to go. And suddenly they find this man, whose intrepid but
imprudent spirit had driven him on and on, alone, into the heart of the unknown
wasteland, long before their advent.
'There is something in this that appeals to me irresistibly. I would like to die like that, in
virgin solitude, still seeking what no man has yet discovered.'
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And after a golden year I left the country of the Gods.
Our ship left Kure on a crisp sunny morning and dragged its slow way down the Inland
Sea, as if the roots we had struck so deeply in the past year strained to hold her back. I
was thankful for the early departure; to have seen those pine-covered hills and the
smoke-stacks of Ujina in the dim loveliness of twilight would have been unendurable.
Memory revived childhood holidays in the country. When the day came to return to the
city and home, every paddock and tree, every cow and sheep suddenly became very
precious, as if one were about to die and would never see such wonders again. And one
vowed through tears never to forget them, and to return at the first opportunity. I made
thos vows again and swore to honour them, come what may.
It was to be, not goodbye, but Sayonara.
The restraining bonds on the ship were broken now, and we steamed down the Bungo
Straits, headed towards home.
I hung over the rail and stared with unseeing eyes into the lacy froth of the bow wave,
my mind crowded with thoughts on what had gone and what was to come. This
melancholy would not last long; nothing ever did. There would be other interests, other
places to lose oneself in.
Memory floated back on the speeding foam to the distant days when Japan had been
only a name, like Afghanistan or Uruguay, to a village in the western district of Victoria
where, twelve years before, my first lesson in Japanese was scratched out on the earthen
edge of a tennis court.
I was spending a holiday with relatives, and the village schoolmaster, an Englishman,
had fallen in love with my cousin. As a means of ensuring regular meetings, he had
begun teaching her the rudiments of the language, and the ground around the tennis
court, where we were accustomed to meet, was scrawled with ideographs from these
lessons. A curiosity to know just what he had written prompted me to join the 'class',
and from this developed a study that absorbed and compelled until its hold was beyond
loosening.
In this fortuitous manner I was introduced to Japan, and not from any special desire or
impulse towards her. Yet now I could not but feel that at some time or other I should
inevitably have been drawn to her by that strange attraction that has seized and held
men from the West, from Will Adams, that first Englishman, who, nearly three hundred
and fifty years before, staggered ashore at Nagasaki, bearded, starved, and fearful; to
Lafcadio Hearn, Japan's great lover and interpreter; to this Australian soldier who hung
over the rail of a ship that was bearing him into spiritual exile
'Hello, Padre,' said a voice behind me.
I started at hearing this old, half-forgotten nickname that someone had once, most
inappropriately, bestowed on me.
'Oh, hello Blackie. You here too? Are you going back for a second term?'
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'Like hell!' His voice held resentment of my appalling assessment of his intelligence.
'Another year among those stinking, grinning bastards? They shrink away from you,
bowing and taking their caps off, or else they force themselves on you to try out their
couple of words of English! I've had the whole rotten lot of them. Just animals! I'll be
back at the butchering soon, and I'd just as soon be killing Japs as sheep or cattle. The
crows were good, though. I'll miss them, they were so easy, you could have any of 'em
you wanted.'
Yes, he could have had any of them - the pom-pom girls outside the stations, or the half-
starved ones in the houses behind the police station. But the vast majority he could
never aspire to, the peasant girls, the hospital nurses that were like nuns, the Chiekos
and Terumis - unless he too travelled on the Geibi-line trains and got drunk on stolen
liquor...
'You going back?'
'No, I'm not, either.'
What was there to bring me back? The quiet of the Iroha and the friendship of its
landlord and family? The old ladies who gave me loquats on trams? The stationmaster
at Hiroshima and his cups of tea; the girl announcers whom I tormented with grimaces
and teased into laughter as they called the names of train destinations for hundreds of
miles ahead; the children who greeted me in the streets; the old lady of the tug; the
peasants who made straw nests for the swifts, to comfort them at the end of their long
migration from Australia...
one thing was certain. I should have to put these people out of my mind from now on.
Back home no one would believe my story. They would remember only the Burma-
Thailand railway, Borneo and Bataan.
There would be photographs of us in the newspapers and leading articles on how we
had been teaching the Australian way of life to our former enemy.
They would not be told about those men in the forecastle, under provost guard, sent
back for every crime in the calendar, to be dishonourably discharged and then sent to
serve years of penal servitude.
The press wouldn't be told, but their mothers would come, weeping, to clasp them in
their arms and cry: 'My boy, my boy! I know your are innocent. No son of mine could
do such a thing!' Just as a Japanese mother might do.
From off Australia's eastern coast, we gazed across vast unbroken stretches of land
beneath a brilliant sun and haze of bluish air. The eyes strained for some feature to rest
on, but there were no mountains, not even a hill, and no pine forests to interrupt the
view.
The New South Welshmen grew subdued and restless and talked of the friends who
would be waiting to meet them.
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once inside the gateway of Sydney Harbour, weprepared for the customs inspectors.
Strings of pearls were hidden in boots or looped around ankles underneath gaiters,
fishing lines were stuffed into shirts and cigarettes were bequeathed for an hour or two
to friends whith less abundant accumulations. For the inconcealables, we crossed our
fingers and trusted in providence.
As we drew near the wharf, taxi-drivers hovered like hawks waiting to pounce on their
prey, and pale-faced painted women with blue eyes, hairy legs, and thin ankles shouted
across the intervening water in loud, harsh voices.
I was home.
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