One Man's Justice by Akira Yoshimura Page A

disappeared into the forest.
    Takuya stood smoking his cigarette, mesmerised by the noise of the cicadas. The glossy dark-green leaves of the trees glistened in the sunlight. As Takuya stared in the direction the four men had gone, he felt sweat trickling down the small of his back.
    Before long he noticed movement among the trees. The major appeared, sword in hand, followed by the two enlisted men. The major’s face was expressionless except for the faint hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth.
    Another prisoner was dragged to his feet, a big, red-bearded man with a remarkably pointed nose. As soon as Takuya laid eyes on the muscular frame he instinctively stepped forward. He’d thought that this man had been executed long ago, but there was no mistaking it: this was one of the airmen who during the interrogations had casually replied that the bomber crews relaxed by listening to jazz on the way back to base. The man was held on either side by the two soldiers and led off down the path into thewoods. Takuya followed close behind. He could almost feel the eyes of the other officers and men burning into his back. It doesn’t have to be perfect, he told himself. As long as I end this man’s days.
    The prisoner was taken along a narrow track through the trees. Takuya gazed fixedly at the man’s thick neck muscles as he walked into the forest.

4
    Takuya dozed, slumped against the wooden wall of the freight car.
    The previous night he’d walked along the coastal road as far as a town called Yoshida, but as the last train had left two hours earlier he had no choice but to sleep sitting on a bench in the cramped waiting-room. Once dawn arrived, he awoke and caught the first train out. It stopped at Yawatahama, where he would have to change trains, but the only thought in Takuya’s mind at this stage was to put as much distance as possible between himself and his hometown.
    Awakened by the shrill voice of the stationmaster, Takuya jumped down from the freight car on to the tracks. Afraid that there might be someone amid the throng in the station who would recognise him, he pulled the peak of his service cap down over his eyes and found himself a place to sit down at the end of the platform.

    The train that pulled in two hours later was only going as far as Matsuyama, but thirty minutes later, after waiting over two and a half hours on the platform, Takuya boarded a train bound for the port of Takamatsu. On reaching his destination, he left the station, walked over to the dimly lit pier, and joined the long line of people waiting to board the ferry. Moments after he felt himself being pushed down into the crowded hold of the vessel, it started to move away from the pier, and in what seemed a very short time the boat reached the port of Uno, where Takuya then boarded a train bound for Okayama. It was already one in the morning by the time he disembarked. He was exhausted, but at the same time relieved that he had managed to distance himself safely from his hometown and make it to Honshu. Being just one more anonymous body in a sea of strangers must offer some degree of protection against arrest, he thought.
    Following his father’s advice, Takuya had decided to pay a visit to his mother’s elder brother. At the end of the war his uncle had been an army colonel, responsible for overseeing military training in the country’s schools. He was obviously a central figure in his mother’s family, and Takuya’s father had often expressed his respect for the man’s integrity, giving pride of place on the wall to a framed piece of his calligraphy. There had seemed to be no doubt in his father’s mind that the uncle would offer Takuya sanctuary.
    Takuya, too, felt certain that his uncle would help. When he had joined the Imperial Army his uncle had written him a long letter, which, along with the usual congratulatory words and encouragement, seemed to Takuya to have been penned by