Tomorrow We'll See Morning

Chapter Ten

Kumamoto, Kyushu. April 18th, 1942.

"Assume guard position!"

     Isamu sucked in a wheezing breath as cold rain pelted against his coat, whipping his rifle into position and squaring his shoulders. Officer Hoshi marched behind the line of recruits, sweeping his glossy baton in a wide arc over their heads. The pudgy officer's usually suppressed Tōhoku dialect came through prominently when he yelled, each word buzzing as though his lungs were filled with a hive of bees.

      "Charge!"

     Isamu obliged, breaking into a jog. The flaps of his cap whipped around in the rain as he drove forward, back hunched and ready for the impact. When he got within five yards he lunged forward and thrusted his bayonet into the old rice sack in front of him, twisting it out in a spray of sand as swiftly as he'd stuck it in.

"Use your momentum!" Officer Hoshi barked. He stopped abruptly next to Hirō, who had merely pricked the bag in his drive. Hoshi shoved the stock of Hirō's rifle back, sending him staggering in the mud before he was able to steady himself. He promptly adjusted his cap and stood at attention.

"What are you doing? Giving the combatant a friendly poke? You are killing the enemy, not greeting him! Try again," Officer Hoshi stepped back. "Ease up! Everyone stop and watch!"

Isamu exhaled and stood by his bag, watching as Hirō backed up a few paces and cast an uncertain glance toward him. Isamu shook his head quickly; Don't look at me!

"Watch, he will thrust upward—go ahead, charge now—and drive forward where the neck would be. For a good drive to succeed, you need to extend your arms to the fullest capacity— I said go ahead now, charge!"

Startling, Hirō darted forward and planted the bayonet at an angle in the sack, lodging it straight through the top half of the bag. He let no time go to waste before he wrenched the blade free. A trickle of pale sand spilled out onto the mud, collecting on a thin layer of older grit.

     "Good," Hoshi grunted, although his expression reflected none of the satisfaction that the word would normally suggest. He spun around and addressed the other recruits, baton swinging wildly by his side. "You must not hesitate when you make the drive! When you are in close combat, you have no room to err or think. Life will not be afforded to anyone weak of spirit. You will expect no mercy in the faces of your enemies, and you should give no mercy in return."

     Isamu's shifted his grip in an effort to relieve the tension from his wrists. Fat raindrops dripped through the glossy green leaves overhead, plopping steadily onto his sore shoulders. He watched sullenly as Hirō returned to his place in line, eyes lowered to the ground and water dripping from his nose as he distractedly wiped his face with a sleeve. The recruit next to Isamu, a perpetually agitated young man named Nobutake whom he'd come to only just tolerate, shared a look with him. 

     "Assume guard position!" Officer Hoshi's yell sliced through the downpour, and Isamu snapped back to attention. The officer resumed his march along the line. He was tapping his baton to his thigh, the same agitated pattern he always assumed whenever he was in a particularly sour mood. He was an older man, already wrinkled around the eyes and greying in his hair, more mellowed out compared to the younger, always ready-to-pounce Yoshida.
   
     "Charge!" The command fell and Isamu bolted forward, rainwater splashing around his boots as he sprinted towards the sandbag. He drove his bayonet deep into the bag again, putting his shoulders into it.

     The neck, he thought. This is where the neck should be. He tried to visualize it, to put into his mind an enemy combatant there instead of a soggy jute bag of sand, but all he could see was cloth at the tip of his blade; this was no person. It wasn't even in the shape of one.