12



Lieutenant Mamiya's Long Story: Part I

*



I was shipped to Manchuria at the beginning of 1937, Lieutenant Mamiya began. I
was a brand- new second lieutenant then, and they assigned me to the Kwantung Army
General Staff in Hsin-ching. Geography had been my major in college, so I ended up in
the Military Survey Corps, which specialized in mapmaking. This was ideal for me
because, to be quite honest, the duties I was ordered to perform were among the easiest
that anyone could hope for in the army.
In addition to this, conditions in Manchuria were relatively peaceful- or at least
stable. The recent outbreak of the China Incident had moved the theater of military
operations from Manchuria into China proper. The China Expeditionary Forces were the
ones doing the actual righting now, while the Kwantung Army had an easy time of it.
True, mopping-up op erations were still going on against anti-Japanese guerrilla units, but
they were confined to the interior, and in general the worst was over. All that the
powerful Kwantung Army had to do was police our newly "independent" puppet state of
Manchukuo while keeping an eye on the north.
As peaceful as things supposedly were, it was still war, after all, so there were
constant maneuvers. I didn't have to participate in those, either, fortunately. They took
place und er terrible conditions. The temperature would drop to forty or fifty degrees
below zero. One false step in maneuvers like that, and you could end up dead. Every
single time they held such maneuvers, there would be hundreds of men in the hospital
with fros tbite or sent to a hot spring for treatment. Hsin- ching was no big city, but it was
certainly an exotic foreign place, and if you wanted to have fun there, it provided plenty
of opportunities. New single officers like me lived together in a kind of rooming house
rather than in barracks. It was more like an extension of student life. I took it easy,
thinking that I would have nothing to complain about if my military service ended like

this, just one peaceful day after another.
It was, of course, a make- belie ve peace. Just beyond the edges of our little circle of
sunshine, a ferocious war was going on. Most Japanese realized that the war with China
would turn into a muddy swamp from which we could never extricate ourselves, I
believe -or at least any Japanese with a brain in his head realized this. It didn't matter how
many local battles we won: there was no way Japan could continue to occupy and rule
over such a huge country. It was obvious if you thought about it. And sure enough, as the
fighting continued, the number of dead and wounded began to multiply. Relations with
America went from bad to worse. Even at home, the shadows of war grew darker with
every passing day. Those were dark years then: 1937, 1938. But living the easy life of an
officer in Hsin- ching, you almost wanted to ask, "War? What war?" We'd go out
drinking and carousing every night, and we'd visit the cafes that had the White Russian
girls.
Then, one day late in April 1938, a senior officer of the general staff called me in and
introduced me to a fellow in mufti named Yamamoto. He wore his hair short and had a
mustache. He was not a very tall man. As for his age, I'd say he was in his mid -thirties.
He had a scar on the back of his neck that looked as if it might have been made by a
blade of some kind. The officer said to me: "Mr. Yamamoto is a civilian. He's been hired
by the army to investigate the life and customs of the Mongolians who live in
Manchukuo. He will next be going to the Hulunbuir Steppe, near the Outer Mongolian
border, and we are going to supply him with an armed escort. You will be a member of
that detachment." I didn't believe a thing he was telling me. This Yamamoto fellow
might have been wearing civilian clothes, but anybody could tell at a glance that he was a
professional soldier. The look in his eyes, the way he spoke, his posture: it was obvious. I
figured he was a high-ranking officer or had something to do with intelligence and was
on a mission that required him to conceal his military identity. There was something
ominous about the whole thing.
Three of us were assigned to accompany Yamamoto -too few for an effective armed
escort, though a larger group would have attracted the attention of the Outer Mongolian
troops deployed along the border. One might have chosen to view this as a case of
entrusting a sensitive mission to a few handpicked men, but the truth was far from that. I
was the only officer, and I had zero battlefield experience. The only one we could count
on for fighting power was a sergeant by the name of Hamano. I knew him well, as a
soldier who had been assigned to assist the general staff. He was a tough fellow who had
worked his way up through the ranks to become a noncommissioned officer, and he had
distinguished himself in battle in China. He was big and fearless, and I was sure we could
count on him in a. pinch. Why they had also included Corporal Honda in our party I had
no idea. Like me, he had just arrived from home, and of course he had no experience on
the battlefield. He was a gentle, quiet soul who looked as if he would be no help at all in a
fight. What's more, he belonged to the Seventh Division, which meant that the general
staff had gone out of their way to have him sent over to us specifically for this as-
signment. That's how valuable a sold ier he was, though not until much later did the
reason for this become clear.
I was chosen to be the commanding officer of the escort because my primary
responsibility was the topography of the western border of Manchukuo in the area of the
Khalkha River. My job was to make sure that our maps of the district were as complete as

possible. I had even been over the area several times in a plane. My presence was meant
to help the mission go smoothly. My second assignment was to gather more detailed
topographical information on the district and so increase the precision of our maps. Two
birds with one stone, as it were. To be quite honest, the maps we had in those days of the
Hulunbuir Steppe border region with Outer Mongolia were crude things-hardly an
improvement over the old Manchu dynasty maps. The Kwantung Army had done several
surveys following the establishment of Manchukuo. They wanted to make more accurate
maps, but the area they had to cover was huge, and western Manchuria is just an endless
desert. National borders don't mean very much in such a vast wilderness. The Mongolian
nomads had lived there for thousands of years without the need-or even the concept- of
borders.
The political situation had also delayed the making of more accurate maps. Which is
to say that if we had gone ahead and unilaterally made an official map showing our idea
of the border, it could have caused a" full-scale international incident. Both the Soviet
Union and Outer Mongolia, which shared borders with Manchukuo, were extremely
sensitive about border violations, and there had been several instances of bloody combat
over just such matters. In our day, the army was in no mood for war with the Soviet
Union. All our force was invested in the war with China, with none to spare for a large-
scale clash with the Soviets. We didn't have the divisions or the tanks or the artillery or
the planes. The first priority was to secure the stability of Manchukuo, which was still a
relatively new po litical entity. Establishment of the northern and northwestern borders
could wait, as far as the army was concerned. They wanted to stall for time by keeping
things indefinite. Even the mighty Kwantung Army de ferred to this view and adopted a
wait- and- see attitude. As a result, everything had been allowed to drift in a sea of
vagueness.
If, however, their best- laid plans notwithstanding, some unforeseen event should lead
to war (which is exactly what did happen the following year at Nomonhan), we would
need maps to fight. And not just ordinary civilian map s, but real combat maps. To fight a
war you need maps that show you where to establish encampments, the most effective
place to set up your artillery, how many days it will take your infantry to march there,
where to secure water, how much feed you need fo r your horses: a great deal of detailed
information. You simply couldn't fight a modern war without such maps. Which is why
much of our work overlapped with the work of the intelligence division, and we were
constantly exchanging information with the Kwantung Army's intelligence section or the
military secret service in Hailar. Everyone knew everyone else, but this Ya-mamoto
fellow was someone I had never seen before.
After five days of preparation, we left Hsin-ching for Hailar by train. We took a truck
from there, drove it through the area of the Khandur -byo Lamaist temple, and arrived at
the Manchukuo Army's border observa tion post near the Khalkha River. I don't
remember the exact distance, but it was something like two hundred miles. The region
was an empty wilderness, with literally nothing as far as the eye could see. My work re-
quired me to keep checking my map against the actual landforms, but there was nothing
out there for me to check against, nothing that one could call a landmark. All I could see
were shaggy, grass -covered mounds stretching on and on, the unbroken horizon, and
clouds floating in the sky. There was no way I could have any precise idea where on the
map we were. All I could do was guess according to the amount of time we had been

driving.
Sometimes, when one is moving silently through such an utterly desolate landscape,
an overwhelming hallucination can make one feel that oneself, as an individual human
being, is slowly coming unraveled. The surrounding space is so vast that it beco mes
increasingly difficult to keep a balanced grip on one's own being. I wonder if I am
making myself clear. The mind swells out to fill the entire landscape, becoming so
diffuse in the process that one loses the ability to keep it fastened to the physical self.
That is what I experienced in the midst of the Mongolian steppe. How vast it was! It felt
more like an ocean than a desert landscape. The sun would rise from the eastern horizon,
cut its way across the empty sky, and sink below the western horizon. This was the only
perceptible change in our surroundings. And in the movement of the sun, I felt some thing
I hardly know how to name: some huge, cosmic love.
At the border post of the Manchukuo Army, we transferred from truck to horseback.
They had everything ready for us there: four horses to ride, plus two packhorses loaded
with food, water, and weapons. We were lightly armed. I and the man called Yamamoto
carried only pistols. Hamano and Honda carried Model 38 regulation infantry rifles and
two hand grenades each, in addition to their pistols.
The de facto commander of our group was Yamamoto. He made all the decisions and
gave us instructions. Since he was supposedly a civilian, military rules required that I act
as commanding officer, but no one doubted that he was the one in charge. He was simply
that kind of man, for one thing, and although I held the rank of second lieutenant, I was
nothing but a pencil pusher without battle experience. Military men can see who holds
actual power, and that is the one they obey. Besides, my superiors had ordered me to
follow Yamamoto's instructions without question. My obedience to him was to be
something that transcended the usual laws and regulations.
We proceeded to the Khalkha River and followed it to the south. The river was
swollen with snowmelt. We could see large fish in the water. Sometimes, in the distance,
we spotted wolves. They might have been part wild dog rather than purebred wolves, but
in any case they were dangerous. We had to post a sentry each night to guard the horses
from them. We also saw a lot of birds, most of them migratory fowl on their way back to
Siberia. Yamamoto and I discussed features of the topogra-, phy. Checking our route
against the map, we kept detailed notes on every bit of informat ion that came to our
notice. Aside from these technical exchanges, however, Yamamoto hardly ever spoke to
me. He spurred his horse on in silence, ate away from the rest of us, and went to sleep
without a word. I had the impression that this was not his first trip to the area. He had
amazingly precise knowledge of the landforms, directions, and so forth.
After we had proceeded southward for two days without incident, Yamamoto called
me aside and told me that we would be fording the Khalkha before dawn the next
morning. This came as a tremendous shock to me. The opposite shore was Outer
Mongolian territory. Even the bank on which we stood was a dangerous area of border
disputes. The Outer Mongolians laid claim to it, and Manchukuo asserted its own claims
to the territory, which had led to continual armed clashes. If we were ever taken prisoner
by Outer Mongolian troops on this side, the dif fering views of the two countries gave us
some excuse for being there, though in fact there was little danger of encountering them
in this sea son, when snowmelt made fording so difficult. The far bank was a differ ent
story altogether. Mongolian patrols were over there for certain. If we were captured there,

we would have no excuse whatever. It would be a clear case of border violation, which
could stir up all kinds of political problems. We could be shot on the spot, and our
government would be unable to protest. In addition, my superior officer had given me no
indication that it would be all right for us to cross the border. I had, of course, been told
to follow Yamamoto's orders, but I had no way of knowing if this included such a grave
offense as a border violation. Secondly, as I said earlier, the Khalkha was quite swollen,
and the current was far too strong to make a crossing, in addition to which the water must
have been freezing cold. Not even the nomadic tribes wanted to ford the river at this time
of year. They usually restricted their crossings to winter, when the river was frozen, or
summer, when the flow was down and the water temper ature up.
When I said all this to him, Yamamoto stared at me for a moment. Then he nodded
several times. "I understand your concern about the violation of international borders," he
said to me, with a somewhat patronizing air. "It is entirely natural for you, as an officer
with men under your command, to consider the locus of responsibility in such a matter.
You would never want to put the lives of your men in danger without good cause. But I
want you to leave such questions to me. I will assume all responsibility in this instance. I
am not in a position to explain a great deal to you, but this matter has been cleared with
the highest levels of the army. As regards the fording of the river, we have no technical
obstacles. There is a hidden point at which it is possible to cross. The Outer Mongolian
Army has constructed and secured several such points. I suspect that you are fully aware
of this as well. I myself have crossed the river a number of times at this point. I entered
Outer Mo ngolia last year at this time at this same place. There is nothing for you to worry
about."
He was right about one thing. The Outer Mongolian Army, which knew this area in
detail, had sent combat units-though just a few of them-across to this side of the river
during the season of melting snow. They had made sure they could send whole units
across at will. And if they could cross, then this man called Yamamoto could cross, and it
would not be impossible for the rest of us to cross too.
We stood now at one of those secret fords that had most likely been built by the Outer
Mongolian Army. Carefully camouflaged, it would not have been obvious to the casual
observer. A plank bridge, held in place by ropes against the swift current, connected the
shallows on either side beneath the surface of the water. A slight drop in the water level
would make for an easy crossing by troop transport vehicles, armored cars, and such.
Reconnaissance planes could never spot it underwater. We made our way across the
river's strong flow by clinging to the ropes. Yamamoto went first, to be certain there
were no Outer Mongolian patrols in the area, and we followed. Our feet went numb in the
cold water, but we and our horses struggled across to the far shore of the Khalkha River.
The land rose up much higher on the far side, and standing there, we could see for miles
across the desert expanse from which we had come. This was one reason the Soviet Army
would always be in the more advantageous position when the battle for Nomonhan
eventually broke out. The difference in elevation would also make for a huge difference
in the accuracy of artillery fire. In any case, I remember being struck by how different the
view was on either side of the river. I remember, too, how long it took to regain feeling in
limbs that had been soaked in the icy water. I couldn't even get my voice to work for a
while. But to be quite honest, the sheer tension that came from knowing I was in enemy
territory was enough to make me forget about the cold.

We followed the river southward. Like an undulating snake, the Khalkha flowed on
below us to the left. Shortly after the crossing, Yamamoto advised us to remove all
insignia of rank, and we did as we were told. Such things could only cause trouble if we
were captured by the enemy, I assumed. For this reason, I also removed my officer's
boots and changed into gaiters.
We were setting up camp that evening when a man approached us from the distance,
riding alone. He was a Mongol. The Mongols use an unusually high saddle, which makes
it easy to distinguish them from afar. Sergeant Hamano snapped up his rifle when he saw
the figure approaching, but Yamamoto told him not to shoot. Hamano slowly lowered his
rifle without a word. The four of us stood there, waiting for the ma n to draw closer. He
had a Soviet-made rifle strapped to his back and a Mauser at his waist. Whiskers covered
his face, and he wore a hat with earflaps. His fllthy robes were the same kind as the
nomads', but you could tell from the way he handled himself that he was a professional
soldier.
Dismounting, the man spoke to Yamamoto in what I assumed was Mongolian. I had
some knowledge of both Russian and Chinese, and what he spoke was neither of those,
so it must have been Mongolian. Yamamoto answered in the man's own language. This
made me surer than ever that Yamamoto was an intelligence officer.
Yamamoto said to me, "Lieutenant Mamiya, I will be leaving with this man. I don't
know how long I will be away, but I want you to wait here- posting a sentry at all times,
of course. If I am not back in thirty-six hours, you are to report that fact to headquarters.
Send one man back across the river to the Manchukuo Army observation post." He
mounted his horse and rode off with the Mongol, heading west.
The three of us finished setting up camp and ate a simple dinner. We couldn't cook or
build a campfire. On that vast steppe, with nothing but low sand dunes to shield our
presence as far as the eye could see, the least puff of smoke would have led to our
immediate capture. We pitched our tents low in the shelter of the dunes, and for supper
we ate dry crackers and cold canned meat. Darkness swiftly covered us when the sun
sank beneath the horizon, and the sky was filled with an incredible number of stars.
Mixed in with the roar of the Khalkha River, the sound of wolves howling came to us as
we lay atop the sand, recovering from the day's exertions.
Sergeant Hamano said to me, "Looks like a tough spot we've got our selves in," and I
had to agree with him. By then, the three of us- Sergeant Hamano, Corporal Honda, and
I- had gotten to know each other pretty well. Ordinarily, a fresh young officer like me
would be kept at arm's length and laughed at by a seasoned noncommissioned officer like
Sergeant Hamano, but our case was different. He respected the education I had received
in a nonmilitary college, and I took care to acknowledge his combat experience and
practical judgment without letting rank get in the way. We also found it easy to talk to
each other because he was from Yamaguchi and I was from an area of Hiroshima close to
Yamaguchi. He told me about the war in China. He was a soldier all the way, with only
gram mar school behind him, but he had his own reservations about this messy war on the
continent, which looked as if it would never end, and he expressed these feelings honestly
to me. "I don't mind fighting," he said. "I'm a soldier. And I don't mind dying in battle
for my country, because that's my job. But this war we're fighting now, Lieutenant-well,
it's just not right. It's not a real war, with a battle line where you face the enemy and fight
to the finish. We advance, and the enemy runs away without fighting. Then the Chinese

soldiers take their uniforms off and mix with the civilian population, and we don't even
know who the enemy is. So then we kill a lot of innocent people in the name of flushing
out 'rene gades' or 'remnant troops,' and we commandeer provisions. We have to steal
their food, because the line moves forward so fast our supplies can't catch up with us.
And we have to kill our prisoners, because we don't have anyplace to keep them or any
food to feed them. It's wrong, Lieutenant. We did some terrible things in Nanking. My
own unit did. We threw dozens of people into a well and dropped hand grenades in after
them. Some of the things we did I couldn't bring myself to talk about. I'm telling you,
Lieutenant, this is one war that doesn't have any Righteous Cause. It's just two sides
killing each other. And the ones who get stepped on are the poor farmers, the ones
without politics or ideology. For them, there's no Nationalist Party, no Young Marshal
Zhang, no Eighth Route Army. If they can eat, they're happy. I know how these peo ple
feel: I'm the son of a poor fisherman myself. The little people slave away from morning
to night, and the best they can do is keep themselves alive- just barely. I can't believe that
killing these people for no reason at all is going to do Japan one bit of good."
In contrast to Sergeant Hamano, Corporal Honda had very little to say about himself.
He was a quiet fellow, in any case. He'd mostly listen to us talk, without injecting his
own comments. But while I say he was "quiet," I don't mean to imply there was anything
dark or melancholy about him. It's just that he rarely took the initiative in a conversation.
True, that often made me wonder what was on his mind, but there was nothing unpleasant
about him. If anything, there was something in his quiet manner that softened people's
hearts. He was utterly serene. He wore the same look on his face no matter what
happened. I gathered he was from Asahikawa, where his father ran a small print shop. He
was two years younger than I, and from the time he left middle school he had joined his
brothers, working for his father. He was the youngest of three boys, the eldest of whom
had been killed in China two years earlier. He loved to read, and whenever we had a
spare moment, you'd see him curled up somewhere, reading a book on some kind of
Buddhist topic.
As I said earlier, Honda had absolutely no combat experience, but with only one year
of training behind him, he was an outstanding soldier. There are always one or two such
men in any platoon, who, patient and enduring, carry out their duties to the letter without
a word of complaint. Physically strong, with good intuition, they instantly grasp what you
tell them and get the job done right. Honda was one of those. And because he had had
cavalry training, he was the one who knew the most about horses; he took care of the six
we had with us. And he did this in an extraordinary way. It sometimes seemed to us that
he understood every little thing the horses were feeling. Sergeant Hamano acknowledged
Corporal Honda's abilities immediately and let him take charge of many things without
the slightest hesitation.
So, then, for such an oddly patched- together unit, we attained an extraordinarily high
degree of mutual understanding. And precisely because we were not a regular unit, we
had none of that by-the- book military for mality. We were so at ease with one another, it
was almost as if Karma had brought us together. Which is why Sergeant Hamano was
able to say openly to me things that lay far beyond the fixed framework of officer and
noncom.
"Tell me, Lieutenant," he once asked, "what do you think of this fellow Yamamoto?"
"Secret service, I'm willing to bet," I said. "Anybody who can speak Mongol like that

has got to be a pro. And he knows this area like the back of his hand."
"That's what I think. At first I thought he might be one of those mounted bandits
connected with top brass, but that can't be it. I know those guys. They'll talk your ear off
and make up half of what they tell you. And they're quick on the trigger. But this
Yamamoto guy's no lightweight. He's got guts. He is brass- and way up there. I can smell
'em a mile away. I heard something about some kind of secret tactical unit the army's
trying to put together with Mongols from Soviet- trained troops, and that they brought
over a few of our pros to run the operation. He could be connected with that."
Corporal Honda was standing sentry a little ways away from us, hold ing his rifle. I
had my Browning lying close by, where I could grab it at any time. Sergeant Hamano had
taken his gaiters off and was massaging his feet.
"I'm just guessing, of course," Hamano went on. "That Mongol we saw could be
some anti- Soviet officer with the Outer Mongolian Army, trying to make secret contact
with the Japanese Army."
"Could be," I said. "But you'd better watch what you say. They'll have your head."
"Come on, Lieutenant. I'm not that stupid. This is just between us." He flashed me a
big smile, then turned serious. "But if any of this is true, it's risky business. It could mean
war."
I nodded in agreement. Outer Mongolia was supposedly an independent country, but
it was actually more of a satellite state under the thumb of the Soviet Union. In other
words, it wasn't much different from Manchukuo, where Japan held the reins of power. I t
did have an anti- Soviet faction, though, as everyone knew, and through secret contacts
with the Japanese Army in Manchukuo, members of that faction had fo mented a number
of uprisings. The nucleus of the insurgent element consisted of Mongolian Army men
who resented the high-handedness of the Soviet military, members of the landowning
class opposed to the forced centralization of the farming industry, and priests of the Lama
sect, who numbered over one hundred thousand. The only external power that the anti-
Soviet faction could turn to for help was the Japanese Army stationed in Manchukuo.
And they apparently felt closer to us Japanese, as fellow Asians, than they did to the
Russians. Plans for a large-scale uprising had come to light in the capital city of Ulan
Bator the previous year, 1937, and there had been a major purge carried out. Thousands
of military men and Lamaist priests had been executed as counterrevolutionary elements
in secret touch with the Japanese Army, but still anti-Soviet feeling continued to smolder
in one place or another. So there would have been nothing strange about a Japanese
intelligence officer crossing the Khalkha River and making secret contact with an anti-
Soviet officer of the Outer Mongolian Army. To prevent such activities, the Outer
Mongolian Army had guard units making constant rounds and had declared the entire
band of territory ten to twenty kilometers in from the Manchukuo border to be off- limits,
but this was a huge area to patrol, and they could not keep watch on every bit of it.
Even if their rebellion should succeed, it was obvious that the Soviet Army would
intervene at once to crush their counterrevolutionary activity, and if that happened the
insurgents would request the help of the Japanese Army, which would then give Japan's
Kwantung Army an excuse to intervene. Taking Outer Mongolia would amount to
sticking a knife in the guts of the Soviets' development of Siberia. Imperial Headquarters
back in Tokyo might be trying to put the brakes on, but this was not an opportunity that
the ambitious Kwantung Army General Staff was about to let slip from their fingers. The

result would be no mere border dispute but a full- scale war between the Soviet Union and
Japan. If such a war broke out on the Manchurian- Soviet border , Hitler might respond by
in vading Poland or Czechoslovakia. This was the situation that Sergeant Hamano had
been referring to in his remark on the potential for war.
The sun rose the next morning, and still Yamamoto had not returned. I was the last
one to stand sentry. I borrowed Sergeant Hamano's rifle, sat atop a somewhat higher sand
dune, and watched the eastern sky. Dawn in Mongolia was an amazing thing. In one
instant, the horizon became a faint line suspended in the darkness, and then the line was
drawn up ward, higher and higher. It was as if a giant hand had stretched down from the
sky and slowly lifted the curtain of night from the face of the earth. It was a magnificent
sight, far greater in scale, as I said earlier, than anything that I, with my limited human
faculties, could fully comprehend. As I sat and watched, the feeling overtook me that my
very life was slowly dwindling into nothingness. There was no trace here of anything as
insignificant as human undertakings. This same event had been occurring hundreds of
millions- hundreds of billions -of times, from an age long before there had been anything
resembling life on earth. Forgetting that I was there to stand guard, I watched the
dawning of the day, entranced.
After the sun rose fully above the horizon, I lit a cigarette, took a sip of water from
my canteen, and urinated. Then I thought about Japan. I pictured my hometown in early
May-the fragrance of the flowers, the babbling of the river, the clouds in the sky. Friends
from long ago. Family. The chewy sweetness of a warm rice puff wrapped in oak leaf.
I'm not that fond of sweets, as a rule, but I can still remember how badly I wanted a
mochi puff that morning. I would have given half a year's pay for one just then. And
when I thought about Japan, I began to feel as if I had been abandoned at the edge of the
world. Why did we have to risk our lives to fight for this barren piece of earth devoid of
military or industrial value, this vast land where nothing lived but wisps of grass and
biting insects? To protect my homeland, I too would fight and die. But it made no sense
to me at all to sacrifice my one and only life for the sake of this desolate patch of soil
from which no shaft of grain would ever spring.
Yamamoto came back at dawn the following day. I stood final watch that morning
too. With the river at rny back, I was staring toward the west when I heard what sounded
like a horse's whinny behind me. I spun around but saw nothing. I stared toward where I
had heard the sound, gun at the read y. I swallowed, and the sound from my own throat
was loud enough to frighten me. My trigger finger was trembling. I had never once shot a
gun at anyone.
But then, some seconds later, staggering over the crest of a sand dune, came a horse
bearing Yamamoto. I surveyed the area, finger still on the trigger, but no one else
appeared-neither the Mongol who had come for him nor enemy soldiers. A large white
moon hung in the eastern sky like some ill-omened megalith. Yamamoto's left arm
seemed to have been wounded. The handkerchief he had wrapped around it was stained
with blood. I woke Corporal Honda to see to the horse. Heavily lathered and breathing
hard, it had obviously come a long way at high speed. Hamano stood sentry in my place,
and I got the first-aid kit to treat Yamamoto's wound.
"The bullet passed through, and the bleeding stopped," said Yamamoto. He was right:
the bullet had missed the bone and gone all the way through, tearing only the flesh in its
path. I removed the handkerchief, disinfected the openings of the wound with alcohol,

and tied on a new bandage. He never flinched the whole time, though his upper lip wore a
thin film of sweat. He drank deeply from a canteen, lit a cigarette, and inhaled with
obvious relish. Then he took out his Browning, wedged it under his arm, removed the
clip, and with one hand deftly loaded three rounds into it. "We leave here right away,
Lieutenant Mamiya," he said. "Cross the Khalkha and head for the Manchukuo Army
observation post." We broke camp quickly, with hardly a word among us, mounted the
horses, and headed for the ford. I asked Yamamoto nothing about how he had been shot
or by whom. I was not in a position to do so, and even if I had been, he probably
wouldn't have told me. The only thought in my mind at the time was to get out of this
enemy territory as quickly as possible, cross the Khalkha River, and reach the relative
safety of the opposite bank.
We rode in silence, urging our horses across the grassy plain. No one spoke, but all
were thinking the same thing: could we make it across that river? If an Outer Mongolian
patrol reached the bridge before we did, it would be the end for us. There was no way we
could win in a fight. I re member the sweat streaming under my arms. It never once dried.
"Tell me, Lieutenant Mamiya, have you ever been shot?" Yamamoto asked me after a
long silence atop his horse.
"Never," I replied.
"Have you ever shot anyone?"
"Never," I said again.
I had no idea what kind of impression my answers made on him, nor did I know what
his purpose was in asking me those questions.
"This contains a document that has to be delivered to headquarters," he said, placing
his hand on his saddlebag. "If it can't be delivered, it has to be destroyed- burned, buried,
it doesn't matter, but it must not, under any circumstances, be allowed to fall into enemy
hands. Under any circum stances. That is our first priority. I want to be sure you
understand this. It is very, very important."
"I understand," I said.
Yamamoto looked me in the eye. "If the situatio n looks bad, the first thing you have
to do is shoot me. Without hesitation. If I can do it my self, I will. But with my arm like
this, I may not be able to. In that case, you have to shoot me. And make sure you shoot to
kill."
I nodded in silence.



When we reached the ford, just before dusk, the fear that I had been feeling all along
turned out to be all too well founded. A small detachment of Outer Mongolian troops was
deployed there. Yamamoto and I climbed one of the higher dunes and took turns looking
at them through the binoculars. There were eight men-not a lot, but for a border patrol
they were heavily armed. One man carried a light machine gun, and there was one heavy
machine gun, mounted on a rise. It was surrounded by sand bags and aimed at the river.
They had obviously stationed themselves there to prevent us from crossing to the other
bank. They had pitched their tents by the river and staked their ten horses nearby. It
looked as if they were planning to stay in place until they caught us. "Isn't there another
ford we could use?" I asked.

Yamamoto took his eyes from the binoculars and looked at me, shaking his head.
"There is one, but it's too far. Two days on horseback. We don't have that much time. All
we can do is cross here, whatever it takes."
"Meaning we ford at night?"
"Correct. It's the only way. We leave the horses here. We finish off the sentry, and
the others will probably be asleep. Don't worry, the river will blot out most sounds. I'll
take care of the sentry. There's nothing for us to do until then, so better get some sleep,
rest ourselves now while we have the chance."
We set our fording operation for three in the morning. Corporal Honda took all the
packs from the horses, drove the animals to a distant spot, and released them. We dug a
deep hole and buried our extra ammunition and food. All that each of us would carry
would be a canteen, a day's rations, a gun, and a few bullets. If we were caught by the
Outer Mongolians, with their overwhelmingly superior firepower, we could never
outfight them, no matter how much ammunition we might carry. Now the thing for us to
do was to get what sleep we could, because if we did make it across the river, there would
be no chance to sleep for some time. Corporal Honda would stand sentry first, with
Sergeant Hamano taking his place.
Stretching out in the tent, Yamamoto fell asleep immediately. He ap parently hadn't
slept at all the whole time. By his pillow was a leather valise, into which he had
transferred the important document. Hamano fell asleep soon after him. We were all
exhausted, but I was too tense to sleep. I lay there for a long time, dying for sleep but
kept awake by imagined scenes of us killing the sentry and being sprayed with machine
gun fire as we forded the river. My palms were dripping with sweat, and my temples
throbbed. I could not be sure that when the time came, I would be able to conduct myself
in a manner befitting an officer. I crawled out of the tent and went to sit by Corporal
Honda on sentry duty. "You know, Hond a," I said, "we're maybe going to die here."
"Hard to say," he replied.
For a while, neither of us said anything. But there was something in his answer that
bothered me-a particular tone that contained a hint of uncertainty. Intuition has never
been my strong suit, but I knew that his vague remark was intended to conceal
something. I decided to question him about it.
"If you have something to tell me, don't hold back now," I said. "This could be the
last time we ever talk to each other, so open up."
Biting his lower lip, Honda stroked the sand at his feet. I could see he was wrestling
with conflicting feelings. "Lieutenant," he said after some time had passed. He looked me
straight in the eye. "Of the four of us here, you will live the longest- far longer than you
yourself would imagine. You will die in Japan."
Now it was my turn to look at him. He continued: "You may wonder how I know
that, but it is something that not even I can explain. I just know."
"Are you psychic or something?"
"Maybe so, though the word doesn't quite seem to fit what I feel. It's a little too
grandiose. Like I say, I just know, that's all."
"Have you always had this kind of thing?"
"Always," he said with conviction. "Though I've kept it hidden ever since I was old
enough to realize what was happening. But this is a matter of life and death, Lieutenant,
and you are the one who's asking me about it, so I'm telling you the truth."

"And how about other people? Do you know what's going to happen to them?"
He shook his head. "Some things I know, some things I don't know. But you'd
probably be better off not knowing, Lieutenant. It may be presumptuous of someone like
me to say such big- sounding things to a college graduate like you, but a person's destiny
is something you look back at after it's past, not something you see in advance. I have a
certain amount of experience where these things are concerned. You don't."
"But anyhow, you say I'm not going to die here?"
He scooped up a handful of sand and let it run out between his fin gers. "This much I
can say, Lieutenant. You won't be dying here on the continent."
I wanted to go on talking about this, but Corporal Honda refused to say anything
more. He seemed to be absorbed in his own contemplations or meditations. Holding his
rifle, he stared out at the vast prairie. Nothing I said seemed to reach him.
I went back to the low- pitched tent in the shelter of a dune, lay down beside Sergeant
Hamano, and closed my eyes. This time sleep came to take me-a deep sleep that all but
pulled me by the ankles to the bottom of the sea.