No Surrender by Hiroo Onoda Page B

more important to know how to build a fire without making much smoke. My course at Futamata had done nothing to fit me for a primitive life in the mountains, where the greatest enemy was nature. Shimada was better equipped for this because of his experience at burning charcoal. I learned a lot from him about the art of staying alive. He knew, for instance, how to make a net, and Kozuka and I were always searching for bits of string for him.
    In Lubang, besides the cows raised by the islanders for meat, there were wild water buffaloes, wild boars, wild chickens and iguana ranging up to three feet in length. In hunting for food, we aimed mainly at the islanders’ cows.
    Our supply of ammunition was limited, and we had to use it as effectively as possible. The object was always to kill with a single shot. Two bullets for one cow would mean one less cow in the long run.
    When we found food, we brought it all to one place for storage, and I meted out each day’s portion. But as time went on, it seemed as though every time I went to the storage place, there was less there than there ought to have been. I knew why. Shimada and Akatsu were sneaking in and taking the food. Every time it happened, I spoke to them about it, but to little effect.
    One day Kozuka complained strongly to me, “If we continue to let this go on, I’m going to die. From now on, I’m going to eat all I want too.”
    Bananas were our principal staple. There were banana fields here and there all over the island, but we had to be careful not to harvest too many. With a war of endurance in mind, I had set up a long-range plan in which I had calculated the amount of bananas to be harvested. If I allowed things to go on as they were, there was a very real danger that the plan would break down, and we would be destroyed from within. The fact of the matter was that we were all suffering from malnutrition.
    Finally, I had had all I could stand.
    â€œFrom now on.” I decreed, “we’ll keep our food separately. Do not touch anyone else’s food. That is absolutely forbidden.”
    It goes without saying that in those days eating was our only pleasure. What we ate largely determined how well we would feel on the following day. It would have been unfair in these circumstances to blame anyone too severely for giving in to his appetite. We had vowed to fight to the end, but as time went on, it was all we could do to keep out of sight of the islanders. Maybe it was only natural that animal instincts came to the surface.
    Still, as the person technically in charge, it was my responsibility to see that some restraints remained in force. I myself would have liked to eat all I wanted. I would have liked to sleep all I wanted to, too. But even aside from the shortage of food, if we ate all we wanted, we would get fat, making it harder than ever to do the work we had to do. And if we did not develop the habit of suppressing our baser instincts, we would gradually become demoralized to the point of admitting to ourselves that we were stragglers from a defeated army. We definitely did not want to be classed as stragglers. There was no possibility at that point of adopting aggressive guerrillatactics, but when we learned all we needed to about the terrain, we would go on the offensive and take control of the island.
    In this connection, Kozuka was very important to me. I had not told him my special mission, but he seemed to sense something and was always cooperative. He never complained, nor did he once look resentful. He was quick to make decisions, and there was a positive air about him. Whenever I watched him in action, I remembered the saying about big things coming in small packages.

    Akatsu finally deserted in September, 1949, four years afterthe four of us had come together.
    I had thought this would happen some day. Kozuka, too, just shrugged and said, “This kind of life was too much for him from the beginning.”
    Akatsu had