Tomorrow We'll See Morning

Chapter Two

Attu Island, AK. May 29th, 1943.

Huge, dark hills of damp black pebbles loomed over the snow-layered valley, so immense as if to be untouchable yet so near that Isamu felt that if he would just reach out, he could scoop a handful of snow off the uppermost peak. He could watch it melt in his gloved hand, tiny diamonds sequestering into the warm cotton fabric, the ice numbing his skin.

The deafening explosions and gunfire from the valley over had long since stopped echoing throughout the barren hills. A translucent peace had settled over the island. The sudden influx of screams, too, had trickled off, and Isamu was finally able to take off his ear muffs. Whether the final screams had belonged to the Japanese, the Canadians, the Americans—he couldn't tell, didn't know. All he knew was that they were human and that they were long silenced by now, enveloped by the thick blankets of fog rolling over the mountains.

Isamu leaned back against the snow drift he was lying against, letting his head tilt down to observe the combat knife at his feet. Every single tendon and joint in his body ached. They had been on the move perpetually since the Americans landed on the island and they had first started exchanging their welcoming shots. There was simply no end; the Americans had been gaining land day by day and, despite his commander's insistence, everyone knew that they were losing hold of the island.
    
     And they had. Just a few hours ago, in the chaos of their final charge and the hammering of bullets over his head, Isamu had been consumed by a blind terror that had manifested itself in his legs; and so he ran. Sprinted down the hill they were to die on and ran until his heart was finally able to settle.
    
I'm a coward. Holding out in nowhereland while my comrades fight against the Americans. Isamu picked up the knife with quaking hands, running his thumb along the pristine flat of the blade. He had sat with the knife clutched with two tight fists just a few hours ago, held aloft in the air. Snowflakes had gently drifted down, flecking his uniform. His arms had never shaken harder.

It is the right thing to do, he had told himself. The only thing left to do. There is no alternative. My comrades can do it; so will I.
    
And yet, here he sat, still living, still listening to the tentative call of one lone shore-dwelling bird somehow not left for calmer islands. He had thrown up shortly after he had set the knife down, and, after a few minutes of being wracked by tremors and nausea, had managed to compose himself just enough to shovel snow onto the sick. There was no need to demean himself any further.
    
Isamu sheathed his knife and unclipped his canteen to raise it to his lips, sipping on whatever water was left that was not clinging to the sides of the steel in an icy sheet. After draining it, he shakily clipped it back onto his pack, his cold fingers fumbling for the metal clasp.

His T-38 Ariska—his rifle which had long since been jammed with ice—lay a few dozen meters away on the snow where he had let it slip from his hands in his frantic escape. Isamu was tempted to walk over to it, to bring it into his arms like an ill child to warm it up, (And what a bizarre sight that would be, he thought with only faint amusement) but he wasn't keen on moving too far from his position. He had found a nice little alcove in the snow, protected on all three sides save for the open descent in front of him to the frothy grey sea. He had even carved out a bit of an overhang that, depending on its mood, could either shield him from the harsh winds that relentlessly buffeted his coat, or collapse in and bury him alive.

Will they find me here? Isamu wondered. They meaning the Americans, who would most definitely shoot him, or even his comrades, who would do the same to him for deserting. Who knew, anymore? After everything that had happened, there remained only a hollow, echoing chasm in his chest. What mattered in a field of snow and rock and nothing? What mattered when no one cared whether you lived, only hoped that you died?

There is an ugly guilt in living.

     He traced the remnants of teasing kanjis his friend had scribbled onto his canteen in chalk, his chest tightening. Where was everyone now? Still charging down that mountain, banzai on their lips? Standing victoriously amid the Americans' tents, the red-white flags waving in the air mirroring the early-morning colors of the snow? The alternative briefly entered his mind—total annihilation—but he quickly pushed that thought away. There had to be soldiers left, stragglers from different units who he could meet back up with.

     Take no prisoners, become no prisoner, he recalled his corporal's words.

     He had heard stories of the Americans' brutality. The horrible feats of violence they were capable of. After all he had seen, he did not doubt the rumors. What was one more atrocity in a war like this one? In the end, it all amounted to numbers. He would die alone on this island, and no one would take note of it anymore than to add a tally-mark to their paper. He would be no brother, no son, no student; just a random number assigned by whoever found his corpse first.

For the next few hours, as the sun climbed up the pale blue sky, Isamu nibbled on the hard tack and canned cabbage from his bread bag. The cold numbness across the surface of his skin slowly spread to his chest, to his heart, threading through his arteries until he felt rather indifferent to it all. How could he allow any hope to crystallize, knowing that he had nothing to return to, no family or comrades he could face in good conscious? Who would welcome a coward into their midst?

Who's to say how many people saw me run? Someone must have. And that's all it takes, is one witness.
 
College had been a welcome escape just a year ago— now it was a distant world altogether. Eighteen and foolish, enthralled by poetry and the meaningless stuff of flowers, he'd felt like he had a whole future ahead of himself. For a while, it was good living. Naïveté living, but good living all the same.

Until my number was drawn. Until I lost the lottery.

     The faint roar of an approaching plane broke through the shell of ice around Isamu's mind, and he startled out of his state. He scooted backward across the ground until his back was flush with the wall of snow behind him. He was hoping the snow caking his dark uniform would camouflage him into the hillside, but he knew that he was more so relying on the pilot being too disinterested in the barren landscape to check.

     An American plane. Isamu watched the fat-bellied, dark-green monster coast low over the hills, two blue stars painted on its sides. It flew over his spot and continued on without incident, leaving Isamu in the company of the coast bird's distant, soft warbling again. A weak wind stirred the collar of his coat.

     Something wasn't right. Isamu leaned forward, his hand darting to the knife at his hip. There were deep bootprints in the snow to the right that hadn't been there before, glistening ruby-drops splattering the snow alongside them. They were fresh. Too fresh. Fresh enough that they had to have been made only a few seconds ago, while he had been too focused on the plane.

Isamu scooted out from his alcove in the snow and shakily stood up. His legs tingled with that familiar numbness that came with sitting so long; it was as if someone had poured a sack of sand straight into his bloodstream. He crept past the drift over to the prints and kneeled to examine them, touching the stained snow with a glove.
    
The nearby shore-bird let out a shrieking trill and launched itself into the sky, swooping overhead toward the ocean. Footsteps crunched loudly through the snow. When Isamu looked up, he was met with the sight of a bayonet glinting before his eyes.