One Man's Justice (19 page)

Most of those listed were elite, high-ranking officers bearing ultimate responsibility for what happened under their command, but seeing Howa Kotaro's name unnerved Takuya. Distraught and incensed by his mother's death in the fire raids on Fukuoka the previous night, Howa had volunteered to take part in that day's execution and had decapitated two of the airmen. Of the seven men imprisoned
at Sugamo, only Howa had actually been involved in carrying out the executions rather than giving the orders to do so. His arrest must mean that by now Takuya had also been designated a war criminal. He stared fixedly at the name Howa Kotaro in the last line of the article.

In a column further down the page, in fine print, he read that ninety-three war criminals had been put to death in Rabaul, and another hundred and twenty-three in Australia. Many more were probably meeting the same fate all over the Pacific, thought Takuya.

The mornings and nights grew cooler as autumn approached. The trial of the Class A war criminals was approaching a climax, and articles covering each day's developments in court filled the newspapers.

One afternoon, on a day one of the regular power cuts occurred, a local government officer came and sprayed DDT round Terasawa's house, sprinkling some of the white powder in the hair of all the workers, and even shoving the funnel down into their jacket sleeves and trousers. The officer explained that lice had been identified as the cause of the spread of typhus through the country, and that three thousand people had died. He went on to say that there had already been outbreaks of the disease in the Himeji area.

‘This spraying is ordered by the occupation forces, who have supplied us with the DDT and the spraying equipment,' the man reported in an official tone before climbing back into the truck and driving away.

Takuya and the other men followed the orders and left the white powder on their bodies for the rest of the day. The effect of the pesticide was startling. The
itchiness and the sensation of tiny creatures crawling over his skin disappeared in no time, and the number of flies and mosquitoes in the house dropped dramatically.

‘The Americans certainly don't do anything by halves,' muttered Terasawa as he ran his fingers through his powder-covered hair.

Takuya hauled ever-increasing loads of materials into the workshop, and matchbox production was soon in full swing. The men and the machines seemed to be in almost perpetual motion, and on the wooden floor of the workshop the women, sitting on old, worn-out cushions, toiled away tirelessly, sticking paper covers on to the completed boxes. Terasawa racked his brain thinking of ways to keep a supply of glue ready for his workers, and when flour, a key ingredient, wasn't available he bought scraps of cheap wheat-gluten bread, which was boiled to produce a substitute. It worked just as well as flour and water, so from that point on Terasawa's wife got up early every morning and boiled up the day's supply of glue.

Before long, the system changed so that Kameya used the lorry to bring in the materials while Takuya devoted his energies solely to delivering the completed boxes to the match factory.

He loaded the handcart as high as he could and trudged out along the street to the match factory. It was a real struggle to get the cart up the slope to the bridge, and when he made it up on to the long wooden structure he always paused to get his breath. The bridge was showing signs of age and disrepair, with long sections of the handrail rotted away and gaping holes visible in the upright supports, where
ornamental iron fittings had been removed to be melted down during the war.

There was a magnificent view of Himeji castle from up on top of the bridge. The whiteness of the walls of the donjons and turrets was truly spectacular. One of the workers at Terasawa's factory said that many people believed the castle had survived the inferno only because the Americans had recognised its historical value, and had therefore ordered the B-29s to leave it standing. But Takuya gave this theory little credence. He thought the suggestion that an air force which had incinerated cities and towns all over Japan, and then dropped two atomic bombs, would be concerned with sparing historic buildings was nothing but propaganda.

After crossing the bridge he came out in front of a row of old houses which had somehow escaped the conflagration. There was a gradual incline off to the left, and a line of hills on the right. The road threaded its way through the little valley in a way that reminded him of his own village back in Shikoku.

At this point Takuya always stopped to rest and cast his eyes over the gentle slopes on both sides. Every time he paused there, the line of the road and the low hills to the east and west caused memories of home to come flooding back. Often he stood there gazing at the hills and thinking of his father. With SCAP ordering all assets of war crimes suspects frozen or confiscated, there was a very real chance that his father would have lost his job in the public service. Each time Takuya stopped, he visualised his father standing by the back door to the family house, ready to hand over the packet of cigarettes.

The match factory was in a place called Shirahama, amid a cluster of several dozen factories. It was a good five-kilometre haul from Terasawa's workshop. A large operation, it bustled with more than a hundred workers.

Takuya announced his arrival to a young man in the office, who led him round to the warehouse beside the rear entrance of the factory, where he unloaded his cargo. In the warehouse there were stacks of small and large matchboxes and men were busy loading them on to horse-drawn carts.

While he waited for his receipt to be stamped, he peered into the factory. It was the first time he had seen how matches were actually made, and he watched the workers and machines with interest. The young office worker explained the names of the machines, the manufacturing process and the materials used.

Sometimes while he was waiting, horse-drawn carts delivered bales of matchsticks. The workers arranged them on trays, where they were painted with paraffin before the head was dipped in potassium chlorate mixed with fish glue. The matches were then dried and taken out to the area where the women workers packed them into boxes. They sat on both sides of a long table grabbing the matches and putting them neatly into boxes at a dizzying pace. From years of experience, each one of these women could virtually guarantee that any box would contain the required eighty-five matchsticks. Red phosphorus striking-paper was attached and stamped with the company's trademark, and finally the boxes were wrapped, ready to be dispatched.

Restrictions of everyday commodities had been lifted when the war came to an end, but the unregulated sale
of daily essentials such as matches and food was prohibited. The ‘Match Supply Regulations' of 1940 were still in place, so the government bought up all the matches produced and distributed them to organisations running the disbursement of rations. Every match manufacturer was plagued with a shortage of materials, and as matchbox supply could not keep up with demand, matches were often shipped loose in bags rather than in boxes.

No wonder the match manufacturer was happy that Terasawa had started making boxes for them. Every time Takuya arrived with a load of boxes they brought him out a steamed potato or a little bowl of potato starch soup.

The best wood for making matches was white willow from Hokkaido, but as this was almost entirely unavailable they had to make do with local pine. The problem with pine was its lack of strength when cut to match size, which led to waste during the manufacturing process. Apart from this, the paraffin, red phosphorus and fish glue were all of inferior quality, and the supply was inadequate, forcing manufacturers to thin their materials to get by, resulting in a much less effective product.

Takuya delivered matchboxes to the factory day after day. The leaves of the trees on the surrounding hills took on autumn colours, and before long Takuya was hauling his load through swirling eddies of yellow and brown leaves.

Terasawa, Kameya and the others went to a barber's in an enclave of town which had more or less survived the bombing, but because he was wary of being recognised, Takuya got Kameya to cut his hair with some electric shears.

Occasionally Takuya would look into the long, narrow mirror hanging on a post in the house and see a completely different face from that of his days as an army officer. The outline of his face had completely changed. He was gaunt, and his skin was deeply tanned from hours of labour under the sun. The change in his eyes was particularly striking. The piercing look had disappeared, replaced by an unsettled look of apprehension. When he tried to force an angry glare, he could produce no more than a weak and unconvincing grimace.

But that was all right, he thought. The transformation was certainly dramatic, considering that only six months had passed since he had begun his life as a fugitive, but for someone in his position the change was hardly undesirable. If the photographs being used now by the authorities were from his days in the army, there was a good chance, he thought, that even if he was stopped no one would be able to make the connection. The glasses were now part of his normal appearance, and it was almost as though the months of hard work had sculpted the features of his face anew.

The temperature dropped, and there was frost in the morning. The food shortages worsened. Although the government had announced that staple rations of rice were to be increased, more often than not only potatoes and the like were available, and even they were increasingly slow coming through. The newspapers reported an increase in the number of unemployed every day, and there were often stories about people dying of starvation in the big cities.

Takuya reminded himself once again how fortunate he had been to find a job with Terasawa. Having a ration
book didn't guarantee enough food to survive, and the only place anyone could get proper sustenance was still the black market. To be blessed with a job where his employer provided food and shelter must be extremely unusual. Takuya counted his lucky stars that he had come across someone as decent as Terasawa.

Nineteen forty-six came to a close and a new year began. On New Year's Day they had rice cakes delivered, and ate them in traditional zooni soup. The rice cakes weren't as sticky as they should have been, and felt rough on the tongue. The first snow fell, and when Takuya awoke the next morning the mountains in the distance were covered in a white blanket.

When work started again after New Year, a twenty-seven-year-old man called Kimijima was taken on to manage the procurement of materials in the match factory. Takuya often conversed with him in the course of his work. Kimijima was a thin man with penetrating eyes, and the way he wore his naval service cap suggested that he had actually served in the Imperial Navy. He told Takuya he had been a petty officer on a destroyer which had been sunk in the Pacific. He had drifted in the sea for five hours before being picked up. He explained that the scar on his neck was a burn mark from when the ship burst into flames when she was hit.

When Kimijima asked Takuya about his background, he told him that he had been a lance-corporal in the army. The younger man still had the air of someone whose character had been forged in an atmosphere of harsh discipline. Takuya couldn't help but think that there was little left
in his own nature to remind him that he, too, had once been a military man.

Occasionally he passed a policeman approaching from the opposite direction. Other times American soldiers in Jeeps would thread their way through the pedestrians, leaving clouds of dust in their wake. Each time Takuya lowered his already well-concealed face toward the ground as he pulled the cart down the road.

One day when the snow was disappearing from the surrounding hills, Takuya was on the way back from delivering a load of boxes to the match factory when he heard someone call to him from behind. When he looked round he saw two men approaching, one about thirty-five or thirty-six and the other not much over twenty. For a second he felt the colour drain from his face at the thought that they might be plain-clothes policemen, but a closer look put his mind at ease. The older man was wearing a jacket and leather boots, and the younger an Air Force flight suit. Both looked unusually healthy and strong.

Still wary, Takuya turned slowly to face them.

The younger man sidled up to him and offered him an American military cigarette. Takuya declined, saying he didn't smoke.

The older man started talking, at first beating round the bush but eventually explaining that they had seen Takuya delivering boxes to the match factory and followed him on his way back.

‘Anyway, can you help us get some matches? We'd really appreciate it,' he said, familiarly placing his hand on the cart.

Takuya replied that his job was to deliver boxes and that he wasn't in a position to get matches for them. He did not let on that he knew very well they were suggesting he steal from the match factory.

‘So you can't get some for us? We'll pay whatever price you say,' said the man irritably.

Takuya shook his head. ‘I can't do that. Not my line, I'm afraid,' he said, shaking his head as he pushed the cart forward down the road.

‘Not your line, eh?' said the man with a chuckle as he walked alongside Takuya. After a few paces, looking intently at Takuya's face from the side as though to try to decide whether or not he should give up, he grabbed the handle and stopped the cart. He pulled out a pencil and scribbled a name and address on a piece of paper.

‘You can find me here. Remember, I'll pay good money whenever you have matches to sell,' he said, stuffing the piece of paper in Takuya's jacket pocket as he let go of the handle.

Takuya trudged along the road back to the workshop.

Eager to demonstrate his honesty, that night he showed Terasawa the paper and told him what the man had said.

‘It's a dangerous world we live in, isn't it?' muttered Terasawa as he stared at the piece of paper in his hand. He told Takuya that controlled goods such as matches were sold on the black market, and that, while some of them were probably stolen, a sizeable number of match manufacturers were illicitly selling their products to dealers in black-market goods. Evidently these matches were made
of better-quality materials than those supplied for rationing, so they hardly ever broke and were far easier to light.