“The White Tiger. Look what I have for you inside.”
“Come out please,
Tanaka-sensei,”
Kon said. The door on the other side opened and I saw the shaven head of Tanaka-san. I did not bow to him and neither did Kon.
The unexpected sound of lorries coming up the road stopped us. “More vehicles?” Kon said. Saotome smiled. And then the road was overrun with Japanese soldiers, and in the lead I saw Goro, charging toward me. Saotome had anticipated our plan.
I fired a shot at Goro, but missed. Saotome reached again for his sword and I kicked him in the shin. He stumbled back, which gave me the opportunity to pull out his sword. I turned and faced Goro. Yong Kwan shot three soldiers and the Chinese guerrillas, hearing the gunshots, came running from behind us. Everyone began shooting. Kon moved next to me and said, “Take Saotome and
Tanaka-sensei
back to camp. Move!”
I pointed the tip of Saotome’s sword into his throat. “Let’s go.” Tanaka was already climbing up the embankment into the jungle. I pushed Saotome up the same way and we stumbled into the slippery undergrowth. I lost my grip on the sword, and Saotome kicked it away. He opened his buttoned holster and lifted out his pistol but, at that moment, Tanaka pinched a nerve in Saotome’s neck. I saw his eyes roll up, and the lids come down, and he was unconscious. I picked up Saotome’s sword and tried to determine which way we should go. We lifted Saotome and made our way into the jungle. Behind us the shots had died off and it was suddenly quiet, the birds and the monkeys frightened away.
“Do you know which direction we should follow?” Tanaka asked.
“Not at all,” I said, trying to find some landmarks I could remember.
I jumped when Kon touched me from behind. “I’ve wounded the officer but we’ve got to move faster. There were more soldiers coming up the road,” he said.
“His name’s Goro and he knows me.”
“Then you can’t go back to Penang,” Kon said.
“I must,” I said. “My father’s all alone there.”
* * *
They had lost two guerrillas but Yong Kwan was beaming widely. Capturing Saotome had given him an immense amount of face.
We entered the camp and everyone hurried into hiding, knowing from past experience that the Japanese troops would soon start searching the area.
“They won’t find this place,” Kon assured me.
“What about their spy, the rice farmer?”
“He’s dead. Yong Kwan killed him before we left.”
As Saotome came to consciousness, Yong Kwan hit him across the face. Saotome rocked on his seat, his bound hands unable to rub the pain away from his cheek. He looked around and saw me. “It appears that Goro-san is not with us. Unless he is dead, your position would be very tenuous now.”
I did not reply but walked to the entrance of the cave. “Where’s Tanaka-san?” I asked Kon. He looked around us and then said, “Come with me.”
I followed him out into the clearing, where a small, heavily patched tent had been erected. Kon waved to the guard, opened the flap and we ducked inside. Tanaka, like Saotome, had been bound to a chair that had been crudely hammered together from a few pieces of planking.
“Sensei,”
Kon said.
“Tanaka-san,” I greeted him.
We untied his hands and he flexed them as he thanked us. He appeared not to have changed at all in the past few years, unlike Endo-san. I wondered what had happened to him, for I had not heard from him since our parting.
“Did you go up into the Black Water Hills as you said you would?” I asked him.
He nodded to me. “I went up into the hills and stayed there with the monks. I would not have come out again until all this insanity was over. But Saotome-san found me. How I do not know.”
“It was my fault. I told Endo-san where you had gone,” I said.
“No matter,” he replied.
“Yet Endo-san wanted me to warn Kon and to rescue you. I don’t understand.”
A look of forgotten happiness visited Tanaka’s face for a moment and I knew he was recalling the days of his youth spent with Endo-san. “After so many years, you should know your
sensei
by now,” he said.
“He feels bound by the duty of his position,” I said, thinking carefully about what Tanaka said. “But the duty of friendship and the principles of his teacher also pull at him.”
“And so, through you, he has found a way to harmonize the conflicts in his life,” Tanaka said. “When you see him again, tell him I have missed him. I have missed our evenings spent drinking and talking. When the war is over,” here he looked wistful, “when the war is over, we must all meet again, and talk, and drink as though we were young again.”
“I’ll tell him, Tanaka-san.”
He smiled an old man’s smile at Kon. “And how are you? I see you have done what you told me you would do. That is good. On behalf of my people, I apologize to you for the terrible things done here.” He bowed with difficulty.
“Sensei,
please,” Kon said, distressed.
Tanaka let out a sigh and asked, “What is going to happen to me now?”
“I’ll speak to the leader of the camp and get you released,” Kon said. Tanaka looked at him with concern. “Do not be too sure. In times like these, everyone wants us dead.”
“You have my word I’ll get you away from here,” Kon said. I wondered what he had in mind. For as long as I had known him he had never made promises easily.
* * *
An argument arose between Kon and Yong Kwan later that evening after the Japanese spotter planes had patrolled above us for an hour. The monsoon season chose to begin that night and the rain started to fall, gently at first and then heavier, until it was impossible to see into the darkness ahead. Through the violence of the storm we heard their voices. The guerrillas looked at each other uneasily and I remembered a Malay proverb taught to me by my father:
When elephants in the jungle fight, the mouse deer suffers.
Kon came out of Yong Kwan’s sleeping quarters. I put on a tattered raincoat that let in more water than it kept out and ran to meet him. “What’s wrong?”
“Yong Kwan wants them questioned tonight,” Kon said.
“Even Tanaka-san? But didn’t you tell him he is innocent?”
“He doesn’t care. Yong Kwan is very much like the Japanese he loves to hunt. He’s also found out about my connection with Tanaka-san from Su Yen.” He paused for a moment and I saw that he was gathering strength to ask something of me.
I stopped him before he spoke. “You don’t have to ask. I’ll do it. I’ll take Tanaka-san with me when I leave.”
“Then I shall be in your debt. You don’t know how much Yong Kwan enjoys playing with his victims. I refuse to allow Tanaka-san to suffer. Take him back to Penang when you return. Hide him in the hills.”
We sat around a cold dinner of yams and stringy wild-boar meat. There were a few British soldiers in the camp now, part of the advance team that had been recently deposited by submarine along the Straits of Malacca. Their sunburned skins marked them as new arrivals; the older European guerrillas all had a luminous pallor, like spirits of the jungle, the result of too much time spent in the half-light of the trees.
“I have to leave as soon as possible,” I said to Kon. I was worried about my father. The fact that Goro had escaped meant he was already on his way back to Penang. He had seen me, and both Hiroshi and Fujihara would use him in any way they could to punish me.
“Then let’s go now and prepare Tanaka-san. I will show you the way to the main road,” Kon whispered in Japanese.
We made our way to the tent where Tanaka had been kept. The ground was beginning to flood, turning into mud. The guard was not there and the tent was empty. We were too late.
We ran back to the cave, Kon pushing his way roughly into the throng. At the entrance to a passageway one of the guerrillas stopped us. “You cannot enter. Commander Yong’s orders.” He raised a rifle at us. We waited, wincing at the screams that echoed through the cave. An hour later the prisoners were brought out, Saotome bleeding from his nose and mouth, his jaw broken. He was still conscious, and so was Tanaka, who could not walk, his legs broken by Yong Kwan. They were taken out into the rain and tied to a sapling. The rain fell harder, washing away their blood.
“Keep them here for the night,” Yong Kwan said. “We will continue tomorrow.”
We stayed in the rain as he returned to the cave. Kon took off his raincoat and placed it over Tanaka. “It will not be long now,
sensei.
Please have strength.” He walked slowly back to his tent and started packing.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“You have seen his condition. He cannot make it out of here with only you to help him,” he said. “I think it is time I returned to Penang. I have been dreaming of home for some time now. I long to walk in my father’s gardens again, to walk in the streets of Georgetown.” There was a wistful tone in his voice, like a little boy who missed his bed and his home greatly. “I just want to go home. And anyway,” he looked up into the slopes of the tent, “I am fed up with this constant rain.”
We waited the entire night but the rain never abated. Toward dawn he said, “Time to leave.” He found another piece of canvas and turned it into a coat. We went back into the rain, Saotome’s sword in Kon’s hand. I cut away Tanaka’s ropes with my sword and we lifted him up gently. I saw that he was bleeding badly from a stab wound which I had not noticed earlier. I tore off my shirt sleeve and tried to stop the flow of blood. He opened his eyes, and gave a weak nod.
“What about him?” I asked Kon, pointing to Saotome.
“Leave him to Yong Kwan,” he said.
But Tanaka whispered, “No.” He touched my hand and said, “You know what has to be done.”
I shook my head. “He is only getting what he has inflicted so often.”
“That is not the Way,” Tanaka said. “You are an
aikijutsu
student now and there are obligations. Be merciful.”
I looked deep into Saotome’s eyes but I saw Isabel, running across the endless beach. I saw Peter MacAllister and I could see Edward, and I knew then that my brother would not be coming home to Penang ever again. Saotome could not move his jaw but I knew what he wanted from me.
“No, I won’t do it.” I sheathed my own sword and he shut his eyes, defeated.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“We’ll head for the river and follow it to Ipoh. It’s not far,” Kon said. We both carried Tanaka and headed out of the camp. Despite his terrible injuries, Tanaka did not cry out. We were almost at the river when I realized we were being followed.
“Stop,” I said. “Listen.”
The river was in full flood and we had difficulty hearing. “I’ll go back and check,” Kon said. “Keep heading for the river.”
I let Tanaka cling to me and we made our way down to the river’s edge, a natural levee that fell away abruptly. The churning water almost ten feet below had breached the banks, carrying fallen tree trunks from the highlands, their branches rising out of the unforgiving water like the hands of drowning men. The river was loud, thrusting and twisting, an endless surge of pure power. I heard a rustling behind us and tried to turn, but Tanaka’s weight on me made it difficult to move.
“It’s me,” Kon said. “You were right. Yong Kwan is behind us with Su Yen and some of the others. They are very close. I think Saotome may have raised the alarm.”
“Let me down,” Tanaka said. I dropped him gently to the ground and he held back a grunt of pain. “I cannot go on. You two must leave. Especially you,” he said to me. “You must return to your father.”
“We cannot leave you here,” Kon said. “Yong Kwan will make you suffer for as long as possible.”
There was a moment of complete understanding between master and pupil, and finally Kon nodded and said, “I will do it,
sensei.
”
Tanaka lifted a circular amulet from around his neck. It was a
mon,
his family crest. “This is for you,” he said. Kon held out his hand and I could see a faint tremor as he closed his palm around the gift. He took out Saotome’s sword and drops of rain instantly made the shiny steel surface look like bubbling molten metal, as though the blade itself was heating up.
Tanaka, with Kon’s assistance, got himself into a kneeling position. I was horrified at the agony he must be suffering and yet he managed to keep himself upright and rigid.
“You cannot go through with this,” I said to Kon, my voice clogged by anger and grief. “We still have a good chance of getting away. Don’t be a fool!”
Tanaka shook his head. “I want him to do it,” he said to me. “Do not judge your friend harshly. Someday, perhaps, you will understand how grateful I am to him.”
There was nothing more I could say, and so I bowed and whispered,
“Sayonara,
Tanaka-san. I am honored to have known you.”