Just then we heard the sound of a harp coming from the other side of the ridge. At first it was a sad, quiet melody, but soon it became quite passionate, a wild improvisation.
The glowing tip of the cigarette bobbed up in surprise. “What’s that?” one of the scouts exclaimed. “Am I hearing things?”
“No, I hear it too. Whoever it is, he really knows how to play!”
We could see the lights on the mountain ridges swarm together for a moment and then head down into the other valley toward the harp.
In the darkness near us the enemy scouts were talking agitatedly.
“Let’s go have a look over there—it’s probably the Japs.”
“Don’t be stupid. That must be a native village. But maybe they know where the Japs are.” The two soldiers went scrambling up the ridge.
The harp stopped for a while, then started up again even farther away. When one of our men went to investigate he saw that the enemy lights were being lured farther and farther into the distance.
That is how we were saved. Corporal Mizushima returned to us the next morning covered with scratches and bruises.
During our flight we were often attacked by Gurkhas. These ferocious soldiers wore green uniforms and had curved daggers stuck in their leather belts. They would wait in the trees and, as we passed below, sweep us with a sudden burst of automatic rifle fire. We feared the Gurkhas more than anything, and whenever we heard they were in a nearby village we skirted around it to avoid them.
If we came to a forest that seemed dangerous, Corporal Mizushima always changed into Burmese dress and went scouting.
The Burmese look very much like us Japanese, except that they have light beards. However, Mizushima was only twenty-one, and had a light beard and large, clear eyes like a Burmese. His skin was deeply tanned. But above all, though he was a man of great courage and daring, he seemed to have the sad, contemplative expression that tropical peoples such as the Burmese often have, perhaps because of their oppressive climate. And when he wrapped the red and yellow patterned longyi around himself he looked just like a native.
He was so convincing in his Burmese outfit that we used to laugh and tell him, “Say, Mizushima, you ought to stay in Burma. They’d love you here.”
Mizushima would laugh too, and looking down at himself would put together a few scraps of Burmese. “I ... native of Burma. Burma is fine country.”
Dressed in that disguise he would take his harp and disappear into the forest. If he thought the road was safe, he played the harp and sang a native song. Then the rest of us came out of hiding and made our advance.
Once Mizushima walked right into a band of Gurkhas. In a giant teak tree directly ahead there was a Gurkha astride one of the branches. Biting a red lower lip shaded by a scraggly mustache, the man sat watching him with sharp eyes. As Mizushima took stock of the situation, he noticed more green-uniformed figures here and there in the tall trees, hiding among the leaves.
It was too late to get off the road. Mustering up his courage, he started singing a Burmese priest’s song and walked straight under the giant tree.
The Gurkha must have thought he was a traveling musician, for he threw a coin down to him. Four or five other soldiers followed his example and scattered down coins. Mizushima picked them up and bowed his thanks in the traditional Oriental manner, raising the coins to his forehead.
The soldier astride the branch swung his legs idly as he called out in a loud voice, “Hey, seen any Japs?”
Mizushima lifted his arm and pointed to a distant mountain. The Gurkha nodded, drew his curved dagger from his belt, reached out and cut off a fragrant fruit from the tree, and tossed it down to him.
Again Mizushima bowed his thanks. Then, standing under that tree infested with Gurkhas, he played them a tune—a tune we used as a danger signal.
Another time, something rather comical happened. Mizushima had been out scouting so long that we began to worry. Finally, just as we were getting ready to send out a second scout, we heard a faint song—it was our all-clear signal—coming from the depths of the forest.
With a sigh of relief we headed into the forest and found Mizushima crouching in some tall grass, strumming his harp dejectedly. When we came up to him we were startled to see that he was wearing a large banana leaf wrapped around his waist, instead of a longyi. The stalk jutted out in the back like a bird’s tail feathers.
“What happened to you?” we asked. He explained that a fearsome looking Burmese had jumped out at him from the side of the road and pointed a pistol at his head. It was one of the robbers who were beginning to appear everywhere, using arms abandoned by the Japanese troops. But since most Burmese can be robbed of nothing but their longyi, that’s what the man asked of Mizushima.
On a scouting mission disguised as a Burmese, Mizushima always went unarmed. To lose his life for the sake of a longyi would have meant to fail in his duty, so he did as he was told.
However, the curious thing about these robbers is that they carry a large supply of banana leaves. The Burmese wear nothing under their longyi, not even drawers. If you take away their longyi, you leave them in a pitifully shameful state; and so the robbers, out of sympathy for their victims, have a substitute ready to hand over to them. Their language is mild too. Pointing a pistol at you, they say, “Trade me your longyi for this banana leaf!”
Burma is a devoutly Buddhist country where the people are content with a very low standard of living. They are a gentle people—without greed, or, to put it less kindly, without ambition. That is one reason why they have lagged behind in the present-day world competition, despite their wealth in natural resources and their high level of education. Brutal criminals never existed in this country. Even these newly armed robbers behaved with the traditional gentleness.
It was lucky for us that the robber had his eyes on Mizushima’s longyi and not on the harp.
That is how we happened to find Mizushima there in the rank-smelling grass under the scorching sun, naked except for a banana leaf. We went up to him and slapped him on the shoulder saying, “What’s the meaning of this getup? Were you bewitched by a fox or something?” Mizushima gave an embarrassed laugh but returned our teasing. “A banana leaf makes a nice cool outfit,” he answered. “Why don’t you try it?”
CHAPTER THREE
WE TRAMPED on and on, over mountains, through valleys and forests. We were like the fugitives in the tales of old, frightened even by the sound of the wind.
British forces would parachute down into the villages along our route to block our advance. One village would send word to another about us, and hide their food. Sometimes when we put up in a village for a much needed rest we would find that the natives had informed the enemy and that we were under attack.
For months on end we were unable to relax our guard. However, a few of the native tribes were friendly, and with their help we made our slow progress over the mountains.
One day we came to a village at the top of a high cliff. Our Burmese guide assured us that we were at last out of danger. He was a tall man and his head was shaved clean—you could see the veins standing out on his scalp. “Look there,” he told us, wiping the sweat from his forehead. “You go over that pass. Then you are in Siam.” The vast panorama stretching out before us was really superb. As we stood looking at the view, the cold, bracing air of the mountains swept over us. In the direction the guide was pointing we saw a kind of bluish haze hanging over the dense forest in a sunlit stretch of the mountain range. Beyond that was the Japanese army.
“There are no British or Indian soldiers or Gurkhas around here,” the guide said. “Tonight you can have a good sleep.”
It