Under the Sun (10 page)

Their countries were at war and their traditions could not have been more different. But what had begun as enmity had been transformed if not quite into friendship, then at least into an understanding. Strickland remembered how little
animosity
his father held for the Germans, even though he had spent four years fighting them in the trenches of Flanders. It was as if the world had to go through such convulsions in order for humanity to rediscover civilisation. Attila the Hun had reached the gates of Rome and Europe was laid waste by the Barbarian tribes, putting an entire civilisation to the torch. The Palmyrans celebrated their sacking of Egypt by immolating the libraries at Alexandria, which burned for three days and nights. Centuries of scholarship and learning reduced to ash and scattered by the four winds. War, it seemed, was a fire which raged unchecked until there was nothing left to burn and it finally extinguished itself.

The pilot’s gaze fell on the gold emblem on the swords’ hilts.

‘Is this a particular type of flower?’

‘It’s a peony. Our family crest,’ and the captain pointed to the design on his kimono.

‘What’s the significance?’

‘Well, it’s a sad tale and possibly apocryphal, but we abide by it nonetheless. One of my ancestors, Keizo Hayama, was slain by a rival samurai called Ko Goto. Legend has it that Goto was furious with my ancestor for taking his favourite geisha, who was very beautiful. In fact my ancestor had merely offered the woman protection, because her master was crazed with jealousy and would beat her if she so much as looked at another man. Anyway, Goto demanded that his honour be restored and he challenged Keizo to single combat. Whoever won the contest would have the geisha. It was a foolish thing to do because my ancestor was an excellent swordsman, but Goto would not back down and my ancestor was obliged as a samurai to accept the challenge. Sure enough when the day of the fight came the man was soundly beaten and my ancestor was within his rights to kill him, but he refused. He had not issued the challenge and he had no particular argument with the idiot Goto. Unfortunately, that was his mistake because what the other samurai lacked in courage and chivalry, he more than made up for in deviousness and cowardice.

‘Some time later Goto pretended that he wanted to make it up with my ancestor, to let bygones be bygones and asked him to come to his house for supper. He told Keizo to bring the geisha too, just to show that he had no hard feelings. Well, my ancestor didn’t want to go, but he couldn’t really refuse a fellow samurai’s offer of hospitality, especially after what had just happened. Then, the night before my ancestor was due to visit his adversary, the geisha had a dream. She dreamt that Keizo went to Goto’s house and was offered a bouquet of peonies and as he accepted them, he was ambushed by his enemy’s henchmen who charged at him with their swords. Mortally wounded he managed to escape, but only out into the roadside where he lay beneath a tree. Weeping, the geisha tended to him as he bled to death. The next morning she told Keizo about this dream. My ancestor listened patiently and did not dismiss it as the ramblings of a hysterical woman.
He was a poet and often his poetry came to him in dreams. He told the woman that she did not have to go, but that he must fulfill his duty. And so he put on his best suit and set off on a cold winter’s day. The geisha, however, ignored his order to stay behind and instead followed him through the snow. When Keizo got to Goto’s house he was alone and the samurai asked him where the geisha was and my ancestor told him that she had a chill and couldn’t come.

‘Goto looked disappointed, but only because he wanted to slaughter them both. Instead he would have to make do with my ancestor and so he laughed and told Keizo that he had a special gift for him: a beautiful bouquet of flowers even though it was the middle of winter. And, just as the woman had predicted in her dream, Keizo was offered a bunch of peonies by one of Goto’s family. As he held them to his face, Goto’s thugs leapt from behind a screen and attacked my ancestor, running their swords through him time and time again. Nevertheless, Keizo managed to beat them off and staggered out into the road, where he lay down beneath an oak tree. The geisha had been waiting outside and seeing him collapse, she ran to his side and tried to staunch his wounds. Sadly, it was to no avail and he bled to death. The geisha hurried home to tell the family what had
happened
. But when they arrived there was no sign of Keizo’s body, just a patch of bright red peonies in the snow. So they built a shrine in his memory and that is why the flower is our emblem.’

‘What happened to the geisha?’

‘She tied a stone around her neck, threw herself into a river and drowned.’

‘And what about Goto?’

‘I’m sure he became a
daimyo
.’

Strickland looked at the sword in Hayama’s hands. He
understood
why the captain revered it so much.

‘You said your ancestor was a poet. Can you recite any of his poetry?’

‘Of course. He wrote many verses,’ and Hayama began to sing.

The captain finished his song and laid the
katana
down on the table. The sun glanced in through the open window, making the swords’ blades gleam. Strickland looked at the weapons that lay before him: these objects of terrible beauty and destruction.

‘You must be proud of your ancestor.’

‘I am. I honour all my ancestors, but Keizo is the most
illustrious
. Since his death these swords have been handed down from father to son. My father gave them to me before I left for the Pacific. I must be a great disappointment to him,’ and Hayama gazed sadly at the weapons on the table.

‘Why do you say that?’

The captain raised his eyes and the look he gave Strickland was one of profound unhappiness.

‘I come from a family of samurai, but I have never killed an enemy. Where is the honour in that?’

Strickland said nothing and for the first time he felt sympathy for the captain. Here was a man bound by an ancient martial code who, instead of fighting as a warrior as his ancestors had done, had been sent to a remote island in the South Pacific. There was a silence between the two men, like the calm before a storm when the birds stop singing, the sky darkens and the wind drops. Eventually the pilot spoke.

‘Am I the enemy?’

‘You were the enemy. But I did not kill you.’

‘Why?’

Hayama let out a long sigh, the sort a man makes when he sees there is a hole in the bottom of his boat and knows that he is a long way from the shore.

‘I don’t know. And I don’t think that I will ever know.’

Strickland sat there in silence. He wanted to help the captain in some way, say something that would remove his burden of guilt.

‘Hayama, I must thank you for saving my life.’

‘There’s no point in thanking me. You must thank the gods. It was they who saved you.’

‘Then I thank them.’

‘Good. Honour them. They have their reasons.’

The captain managed a smile, but the sadness in his eyes remained.

‘It’s a beautiful day. You should take your walk.’

The pilot understood and saw that it was time to leave Hayama alone with his swords.

Strickland thanked the captain and getting up, he went to the door. He opened the fly screen and closing it behind him, he walked out across the baking compound. The sun beat down upon him and after a few yards, he could feel the sweat running down the back of his neck. The Englishman wiped a hand through his hair, wishing he had a hat and carried on. Ahead the coconut palms grew thickly like a palisade. In the middle was a trail, which led through the forest. Leaving the camp Strickland headed up the track, the shadows of the trees shading the path before him.

The pilot’s presence disturbed a troop of monkeys, which screeched and swooped above his head and he watched as they made graceful arcs through the canopy, swinging from tree to tree. He wondered how the monkeys had come to the island. Had they been brought by earlier visitors as pets and escaped from the ships, or had they come from elsewhere, dislodged by a storm and thrown into the sea where, grabbing a piece of flotsam, they had washed up on the shore? The pilot was sure Hayama would know.

The monkeys disappeared into the forest and the path got steadily steeper as Strickland made his way up the mountain. He noticed a variety of different trees interspersed among the palms,
many of them bearing fruit. There were paw-paw and mango, carob and caraway as well as clumps of plantains. Among the boughs were lichens and orchids and plants with great flowers, which oozed nectar and attracted scores of butterflies, as well as the occasional hummingbird. It seemed the island was a tropical larder, a horn of plenty for any animal or Robinson Crusoe who washed up on its shores. There were even goats. Ito tended a pair in the yard and milked them for their breakfast.

Strickland came to a glade and sat down on a smooth boulder to rest. He looked about and marvelled at the forest around him, the trees towering above his head. He could hear water
cascading
in the distance and assumed it was the stream, which the captain had told him about. He was thirsty and needed a drink and he stood up and followed the sound of rushing water. As the noise grew louder the ground descended sharply and the pilot was careful as he picked his way over the tangle of roots at his feet. Stepping out from behind a great banyan, Strickland saw the bright water tumbling over the rocks as it made its way towards the sea, sunlight flashing on its surface. He went over and bending down, he put his hand into the stream and raised it to his mouth. The water was cold and clear and tasted of flint.

As the pilot drank, he heard another shriller noise above the rushing water. He stopped and listened. There was nothing at first, just the burbling of the stream. Then it came again, a small whimpering like a child’s. Strickland stood up and made his way towards the noise. As the whimpering increased, so did the pilot’s curiosity. Surely there were no children on the island? The cries came from beneath a low plant, its broad leaves
obscuring
whatever it was that lay beneath. The pilot bent down and cautiously raised one of the leaves, revealing something small, brown and hairy beneath. He reached out a hand and touched the creature, which was curled up in a ball. It did not flinch, but simply whimpered some more and putting out his hands, Strickland picked it up.

It was not a child, but a monkey. The little macaque must have
fallen from its mother’s back as she swung through the trees. The pilot raised his eyes to the canopy above him, but could not see any other monkeys, just the fronds fanning a hot blue sky. The baby macaque shivered in his arms and made small
plaintive
noises. It looked cold and probably needed feeding.
Strickland
opened his tunic and put the monkey inside, feeling its soft fur against his bare skin. With the macaque tucked safely inside his shirt, he set off up the path towards the mountain top.

The path got steeper as the pilot climbed and the vegetation thinner and sometimes he had to use his hands to haul himself up the rocky slope. He was careful not to let his new companion fall out, but the monkey seemed quite content and had stopped crying. Soon the forest fell away, the coconut palms and banyans replaced by clumps of bamboo and elephant grass. As Strickland walked through the grass he disturbed myriads of white
butterflies
, which rose in a pale cloud and flitted about his head before settling again. Eventually the grass gave way to bare rock, until there was only the escarpment left to climb. One half was sheer and fell away to the sea, which dashed itself against the rocks hundreds of feet below. It was impossible to traverse and so the pilot walked round to the other side, hearing the sound of falling water as he approached. Turning a corner he saw the cascade tumbling from the bare rock and beneath it the pool Hayama had told him about. The stream poured out from a fissure in the cliff and Strickland assumed there must be a
subterranean
spring. It was clear and bright and the water looked invitingly cool. The pilot’s thirst had returned after his steep climb and he bent down and dipped his hand into the pool and drank. It tasted less flinty than further down the hill, but it was just as cold.

Strickland wiped his mouth and stood up. With one hand holding the macaque inside his shirt, he jumped across the stream and walked around the escarpment. Standing before him beneath a roof of palm fronds was the observation platform. It was well hidden and would have been almost impossible to spot
from the air. He could only have been a couple of hundred feet away when he had flown past it and yet he had seen nothing. He wondered what the Japanese observer had thought with his Spitfire coming so close. A soldier stood smoking a cigarette, which he put out when he saw the pilot approach. The private bowed and the Englishman nodded and said ‘good morning’ and the Japanese smiled and returned the greeting in his own language.

The pilot stepped onto the platform and looked out across the ocean. All around the sea’s skin stretched away before him, its scales glittering beneath the sun. Here and there bright green patches ringed with white indicated other islands and atolls. In the distance a solitary ship steamed, its wake cutting a pale swath through the dark blue water. The ship was most likely American or at least an ally, but it was too far away to distinguish clearly without binoculars. The destroyer was doubtless hunting for the last remaining Japanese submarines in the area. Beyond the ship the silver sea crawled towards the horizon, the sky a wall of blue behind.

The monkey woke up and started to cry and Strickland decided to return to the camp. He left the soldier to his
solitary
duty and jumping across the stream, he made his way back along the escarpment.