Senior Private Hayashi smiled and nodded. If a sergeant made a joke, a senior private thought it was funny. “Have you seen the ones that go in the hot springs in the middle of winter? The Russians are so hairy, that’s just what they remind me of.” He made his own joke: “And they’re in hot water, too.”
“ Hai. They sure are,” Fujita said. No matter what had happened during the last war between Russia and Japan, he couldn’t see his own countrymen wasting much food or care on prisoners of war, especially when there were so many of them.
He was soon proved right-even righter than he’d expected. The regimental commander, Colonel Watanabe, gathered his men together so he could harangue them: “Soldiers of Japan, we have got to deal with this Russian pestilence!”
Along with plenty of other men, Fujita nodded. Hearing the colonel like this was safe enough. Usually, if his eye fell on you, it was because you’d screwed up. He’d make you sorry, which was one of the things colonels were for.
“Our regiment has been chosen for a high honor!” Watanabe went on. Fujita had a good idea what that meant. It meant that, whatever came out of the colonel’s mouth next, they were stuck with it. Sure enough, Watanabe went on, “We have the privilege of removing many of the Russians from proximity to Vladivostok. That way, they can no longer endanger the city, which has become an integral part of the Japanese Empire.”
A murmur of “Hai” ran through the men. Again, Sergeant Fujita joined it, though he wasn’t quite sure what Watanabe was talking about. And then, suddenly, he was. They were going to guard the Russians while the prisoners went wherever Japanese officials had decided they should go.
Colonel Watanabe looked out at his men. “You must be severe. These prisoners have no honor left. Since they’ve surrendered, how could they? Some of them will realize this. Others will not care, and will act like the wild beasts they are. If they try to get away, you will dispose of them the way you would get rid of any other vermin. Do you understand me?”
“Hai,” the Japanese soldiers chorused once more. This time, Sergeant Fujita spoke firmly. He heard no hesitation from any of his comrades, either. It wasn’t as if Watanabe had told them anything they didn’t already know.
The colonel nodded to the regiment. “Good,” he said. “I knew you would hear me in the spirit of bushido. Do you have questions?” He pointed to a captain from another company. “Yes?”
“Please excuse me, Colonel- san, but what arrangements will be made for getting the prisoners food and water on the march?”
“They are prisoners,” Watanabe said, as if to an idiot. “They will get what bushido says they deserve. Is that clear enough?”
“Oh, yes, sir,” the captain said quickly. It was clear to Fujita, too. Bushido -the way of the warrior-said letting yourself get captured was the ultimate disgrace. A prisoner deserved nothing. Better he should have died.
As if reading his mind, Colonel Watanabe raised a hand in warning. “I have been told it is important that some of the captives reach the destination to which we are ordered to take them. They must not all fall along the way. So there will be food. There will be water.” He shrugged. “Not what everyone would want, perhaps, but it can’t be helped.”
After the colonel dismissed the regiment, Fujita went to watch the prisoners some more. He nodded to himself. Monkeys. That was just what they looked like, all right.
“I’m sorry, Sergeant- san, but you must not go too close to the wire.” The private who spoke to Fujita sounded nervous, and no wonder. Fujita outranked him. Persuading a superior to do what another superior had told you needed doing was liable to get you in trouble.
Not this time, though. “I’ll be careful,” the sergeant said. “I’ve never seen so many Westerners close up, that’s all.”
“Oh, no! Neither have I!” The private showed his teeth in a broad, relieved grin. “I never knew they were so ugly. Did you?”
“No. They look like they were taken out of the oven too soon. And all that hair! They might as well be Ainu, neh?”
“I don’t know, Sergeant- san. I’ve never seen an Ainu-I’m from Shikoku myself.” The private named the southernmost of the four main islands; the Ainu lived on Hokkaido, the most northerly. “All I know is what people say.”
What people said was also all Fujita knew about the Ainu. He wasn’t about to admit that to a no-account guard. He looked at the Russians. They stared back at him. Just as some of them had yellow or red hair instead of black, some had eyes of blue or green instead of brown. Were they really human?
They were humanly miserable. They stretched out their hands to him, palms up, like begging monkeys. Some of them knew a few Japanese words: “Food, please?” “Rice?” “Meat?” “Bread, sir?” “You have cigarettes?”
“You can ignore them,” the private said. “Just about everybody does.”
“Just about?” Even the qualification surprised Fujita.
“Some people are soft,” the private answered. “You know-the kind who feed stray dogs in the street.”
“Dogs are only animals. They do what they do because that’s what they do,” Fujita said harshly. “These Russians, they’re a different kind of dog. They chose to surrender. They could have done the honorable thing instead.”
“I would have,” the guard said. Fujita believed him. Any Japanese would have. If you killed yourself, everything was over. Your kin would be sad, but they would be proud. The enemy couldn’t humiliate you or torment you, and your spirit would find a refuge at the Yasukuni Shrine along with all the others who’d died well. What more could you want?
They got the prisoners moving three days later. Before they opened the gates to the enormous enclosure, a Japanese officer who spoke Russian talked to the captives with a microphone and PA system.
“I wonder what he’s saying,” Senior Private Hayashi remarked.
“You don’t know Russian?” Fujita asked.
“Sorry, Sergeant- san. Chinese, and I was starting to learn German, but I hadn’t taken much before I went into the Army.”
“Well, you don’t really need to know the language to work out what’s what here,” Fujita said. “It’s got to be something like ‘Behave yourselves and we won’t kill you-yet.’ What else would you say?”
“That should do it, all right,” Hayashi agreed.
After the gates swung wide, the Russians shambled out. They even smelled different from Japanese: harsher, stronger, ranker. Waves of that distinctive stench rose from them as they moved. Their officers and sergeants shouted at them. Obedient as so many cattle, they formed neat ranks.
A Japanese lieutenant at the head of the parade gestured with his sword. Following the wordless order, the Russians trudged off toward the northwest: toward what had been the border between the Soviet Union and Manchukuo. Now all this came under the Emperor’s purview.
Fujita couldn’t have been happier. No matter how much marching this new duty entailed, nobody would be shooting at him. He didn’t think the Red Air Force would try to bomb him, either. They’d blow up more of their own countrymen if they did. Any duty that involved only a small risk of getting killed looked mighty good to him.
Pretty soon, the rasputitsa would be over. Already, Poland wasn’t quite such a muddy place as it had been when things were at their worst. Hans-Ulrich Rudel could see that, before long, the ground would let panzers move and airplanes take off and land. When that happened, the front was liable to shift far and fast.
As long as it headed east-and he confidently expected it would-he approved of that. Why had they ordered him here, if not to push the front? And yet… And yet… He wouldn’t be happy leaving Bialystok behind.
Even Sergeant Dieselhorst teased him about his reasons: “Ha! That’s what you get for falling for a Jewish barmaid.”
“She’s only half Jewish,” Rudel answered with fussy precision.
“ Fuhrer wouldn’t care,” Dieselhorst said, which was as accurate as the Pythagorean Theorem. As a good National Socialist, Hans-Ulrich knew that perfectly well. And Dieselhorst went right on sassing him: “Besides, even if you go mooning after her like a poisoned pup-”
“I do not!” Hans-Ulrich broke in.
“Hell you don’t.” Again, Sergeant Dieselhorst deflated him with the truth. “Like I say, even if you go mooning
