He puttered around arranging things while the young men looked on. He seemed reluctant to turn and look around the room. Finally, as the candle flames rose to their apex and the chamber was bathed in their gentle glow, he turned and motioned the young men to join him.

They came in, walking close to the wall, as he had. When they got to the shrine, they filed along its length and then turned, to gaze with Kuwahara at the men who had made it their tomb.

Lying in a row, their feet toward the shrine, were seven uniformed Japanese soldiers. They were mummified and in a state of perfect preservation. Their arms were at their sides and sake cups were near each right hand. Their helmets and ornate samurai swords were close beside them.

Solemnly, Kuwahara bowed toward the bodies, weeping. Then he pointed to each soldier, identifying him.

"This was Captain Anoka; Lieutenant Sakai; Lieutenant Saito; Lieutenant Genda; Sergeant Tanaka; Sergeant Ohnishi and Sergeant Kozono. They were my dear friends. And although they were not privileged to die in battle, they were all fine soldiers who served with honor and loyalty at their assigned posts."

Pinned to the front of the shrine was a message, which he read aloud. "We trust that this, our final message, is being read by those in whom our spirits still live.

"After our post was overrun by the enemy and our comrade, Lieutenant Kuwahara, left on reconnaissance and did not return, we stayed hidden, lest our presence become known and our stores be looted by the Americans. For weeks we monitored the broadcasts from the mainland and then heard our beloved Emperor order all Japanese forces to cease resistance and unite in rebuilding our nation.

"Further broadcasts revealed that the Americans were treating our Emperor with honor and our people with decency. Since there will be no resistance, our military stores will be of no use to our people for some time and so must be guarded for future use.

"Since we are all samurai and most of our adult lives have been spent as professional soldiers, we see no place for us in Japan at this time. Also, we fear the disclosure of our stores should we radio for transport from this base.

"Therefore, it is our mutual decision to take the poisoned sake and go the the Yasukuni Shrine. There we will await the decision of Heaven to return in spirit at such a time as we can again be of service to our Emperor and our people."

The young men stared, in a state of shock. Even Takeo was visibly moved as he leaned back against the shrine. His hands clutched its edge and lightened as he squeezed in his attempt to hold on to reality.

He was not afraid of the bodies. Rather, impressions of the live individuals they had been flooded into his unprepared brain, bombarding him with memories not his own. He knew these men. The absoluteness, the enormity of a revelation which in no way fit into his frame of reference stunned him and turned his legs to jelly.

Such was the effect on the others that they could not speak. Their throats constricted, the blood rushed from their heads and only their strong wills kept them from fainting.

After waiting a few moments to allow the young men to regain their composure, the old priest said to Saburo, "Saburo, take Captain Anoka's sword and helmet."

Saburo walked unsteadily the few steps and fell to his knees at the officer's side. As he reached for the sword and helmet he gazed wonderingly at the face of the captain and exclaimed, "Master, this man looks enough like me to be my father or my brother."

Kuwahara answered, "I noticed the resemblance when I first saw you. Now Yoshi, you take Sergeant Ohnishi's sword and helmet."

Yoshi gasped as he saw the same resemblance to himself in the dead sergeant's face. As Tadashi, Yasuo, Takeo, Minoru and Hideki picked up the swords and helmets assigned to them, they each were impressed by the resemblance to themselves in the faces of the dead soldiers.

"Master," said Yasuo, "could it be that we were these men?"

"Only Heaven knows that, my boy," said the old priest. "But I know their spirits live on in you. And as they gave up their lives to keep this place secret, I trust you all to continue their dedication to the use of the goods in these caves to the service of our people."

Takeo then spoke up, "As far as I'm concerned, I'm Lieutenant Sakai, of the Imperial Japanese Army. I swear on the honor of my ancestors and by my loyalty to the Emperor and our people that I will guard this secret with my life."

The trite oath was given originality by Takeo's heartfelt pronouncement of it. From this self-centered individualist, the oath was so universal that it demanded unreserved agreement by all the others.

After the oath taking, Yasuo leaned his sword against the shrine and examined his helmet. As he held it and turned it around in his hands, he felt a warmth emanating from it. He then said, "This helmet gives me a strange feeling. I wonder if putting it on would give me a memory of when it was last worn."

"No," said Kuwahara, sharply. "Never put on those helmets unless you are acting in the service I will assign you. I'll explain later."

"Does the same principle apply to the swords?", asked Minoru.

"Yes," said the old priest. "The swords were all made by Muramasa, hundreds of years ago. They are of the finest craftsmanship, and priceless. They have powers undreamed of, since they have been passed down from their original samurai owners to those retaining the spirits of those original owners. They are also reputed to get their owners into valorous situations which are most often fatal.

"Don't try to understand, but in a sense, you have owned these swords since they were made. In your hands, they are weapons wielded with the skills of every samurai who ever owned them."

Hideki had been examining the scene from his place by the shrine. "Master," he said, "since my family has been Buddhist and not very religious, at that, I know little of Shinto. But I've always thought cremation was traditional and mandatory in the Shinto way of disposing of bodies. I note four pans which must have contained fuel to burn the oxygen from the air and further preserve the bodies.

"Also, to take poison, instead of ripping open the belly in traditional seppuku seems strange. And the short swords for Hara-kiri are missing. I thought all samurai carried them."

Kuwahara pondered a moment and said, "I was not here when the plans for the end were made. Mummification would not have occurred to me. However, the others were not deeply religious and accepted the basic precepts of Shinto only as they fitted into the military traditions they had to live by.

"Of course, cremation would have been impractical underground. Also, who would have wanted to be the last? I can't see how he could have cremated himself. Furthermore, seppuku was a renewal of lost or sullied honor. The honor of these men was never in question. So seppuku was not necessary. Since they were the elite among samurai, who never flinched at death, the short swords would have been out of place."

Yasuo had been reading from Tanaka's diary by candlelight and spoke up. "Master, Sergeant Tanaka's last entry may throw some light on the mummification." He read, "Anoka and the others have given me permission to orchestrate our leavetaking. It must be dramatic without being in bad taste."

"So it was Tanaka's doing. I might have known," said Kuwahara, smiling. "He did have a flair for the dramatic. Had he not been assigned here he would doubt have killed any number of the enemy, taking into account the camera angles needed to set the scene."

Yasuo then observed, "In reading his poetry from this diary, I can't imagine him being able to kill anyone."

"Tanaka was a complex man," said the old priest. "It was killing which got him assigned to this island. Tanaka could kill without giving it a thought. He was a true samurai, taking offense from no one.

"He told me of killing his army instructor as casually as you would tell of stepping on an insect."

"His army instructor!" exclaimed Yasuo. "Why would he do it and how could he have gotten away with it?"

"Tanaka could get away with anything," said Kuwahara. "His family was one of great wealth, in textiles. The Tanakas supplied one-fourth of the cloth for uniforms in the Japanese military.

"His father was an army colonel stationed at Hiroshima and had great influence with other samurai in high positions. Young Yamaga had been frightfully spoiled by his artistic mother, who had had him trained in ballet, singing and dramatics to turn her darling from the ways of war, which chilled her gentle spirit.

"It didn't work. Little Yamaga, at the age of five, laid claim to the family sword, throwing a tantrum when his father or anyone else touched it. He said it was his and always had been.

"Such were his rages, his father feared the child as somehow unworldly and so seldom called attention to the sword. He left his upbringing to Yamaga's mother and the poor, harried creature had her hands full.

"He excelled in all he did, outdancing the best in every class, singing like a bird and reciting whole plays by memory after one or two readings. But, although he planned to be an actor, he never applied himself professionally.

"As he matured, he sampled every girl who came his way. His undoing was the pregnancy of the daughter of a wealthy and powerful neighbor. The father, on finding out, rushed to the Tanaka home with his own family sword. He gave Yamaga the ultimatum that he would marry the girl or die.

"Not being able to make up his mind, Yamaga left and joined the army, taking the family sword. He was an excellent soldier and won the admiration of all, except for his instructor, Sergeant Muso Shozan. After a few Kendo sessions he could parry any blow from his instructor and even delighted in making him look like an incompetent.

"Tanaka took the casual beatings of the barracks and parade ground in his stride, since they were impersonal. But then Sergeant Shozan ordered Tanaka up to his office on the third floor or the barracks building. Tanaka knew such an invitation was the prelude to one of the vicious beatings Shozan was famous for.

"At the appointed time, Tanaka ambled up the stairs and entered Shozan's office. Shozan had been drinking whisky and was quite tipsy, even though it was midday. He had been working himself into a rage and after ordering Tanaka to attention, promised him a beating he would remember to the end of his life, if he lived.

Tanaka replied, smirking, "Oh, I'll live, but I'm not so sure about you."

"Then you will resist?", asked Shozan, astonished.

"I'm the property of His Imperial Majesty," said Tanaka. "And as a soldier, it's my duty to protect His Majesty's property."

"Oh, you are glib, you smooth-tongued devil," said Shozan. "But I have ways of changing your attitude." As he said this he glanced out the open, low-silled window and saw his fellow instructor, Sergeant Nagamasa below on his way to the barracks. Wanting moral, if not physical, support, he put a foot on the sill and leaned out, waving his bottle, and shouted, "Hey, Nagamasa, I've got something for you."

"Catlike, Tanaka quietly sprang around the desk. Grabbing Shozan by his right heel and upper left thigh, he launched him out into space. Witnesses swore he leaped, almost with elation. But his screams belied his bravado.

"Tanaka left the office and went to the canteen where he was found a few minutes later. His name was in Shozan's appointment book for that time so he was the logical suspect. On being charged, he said Shozan was drunk and simply asked him some meaningless questions about his family and dismissed him.

"Everyone knew he had done it but no one had actually seen him. The base commander called Tanaka's father and the colonel told him to leave it alone and hung up. Since Tanaka was apart from the average recruit, and since his training was almost over, discretion suggested he be assigned quickly. The base commander decided the only punishment he could mete out was isolation, so he assigned him here.

"Tanaka began his life here as a private but advanced rapidly. He worked well and also needed rank in order to command the work crews. So he became a sergeant after a short time.

"His next victim was an army captain offloaded here and due to ship out to the front the next day. He had taken one of the comfort girls to his cabin that night and had beaten her so savagely that she died. Then he threw her over the side to the dock. The next morning he was found with his head pulverized, due to a twenty-five foot fall, head down, to the steel floor of the cargo hold.

"The ship's gangway was well-guarded, as standard procedure, so the crew swore no one could have gotten aboard. Nor could they imagine how the captain could have fallen into the cargo hold. But we knew.

"And then there was a lieutenant who had offloaded several wounded soldiers from the front. We were short handed and even with us helping, the supplies slated for the front would have been held up an extra day. Over our protests, this brutal lieutenant ordered the wounded soldiers to help.

"One of the soldiers died when his wound opened and we were all upset over that. Next morning, the lieutenant was nowhere to be found. Three days later, after the ship had left, his body floated to shore with a cargo hook in its throat. Tanaka said he was so rotten even the sharks wouldn't have him."

"Then could Tanaka have been insane?" asked Yasuo, in a tone of disappointment in this man he had come to closely identify with.

"Oh, no," replied the old priest. "There was no insanity in his makeup. He was just very sensitive and gentle. He looked for the best in everybody. Where he could, he glossed over the faults of others. But those he could not idealize, he killed."

The dim light and the swirling plumes of incense smoke lent themselves to a mystical atmosphere. The young men knelt in a semicircle as the old priest remembered his comrades. As he spoke of them, the young men began to see a pattern in Kuwahara and the seven intense young samurai he had served with all that time on Supply Base Three.

Saburo leafed through Captain Anoka's diary and examined its precise entries. "The captain seems to have been a very methodical person," he said. "I have the feeling that he was at once totally involved but also detached from what went on around him."

"Yes," said Kuwahara. "Anoka was a student of Zen. He liked to imagine himself a stone in a stream. He was an observer. He believed in letting the world swirl around him, while he took in every aspect of life. Only when events touched him did he react with all the information he had stored. Then, like the stone rolled out of its place by the force of the stream, he would redirect the stream to a less bothersome channel.

"When we became bored and trouble was about to erupt between us, Anoka would assign one or another of us to a task which would put us out of the way. Often, visitors from the mainland would ask embarrassing questions about supplies sent here for ships which did not arrive. He would turn the matter over to Lieutenant Saito.

"So he would not only direct the embarrassment from himself but Lieutenant Saito would ruthlessly question the busybody about how he knew of such supplies, where were the original bills of lading and other matters the nosy one was seldom sure of. When the investigator was off-balance, Lieutenant Saito would turn him over to Lieutenant Genda.

"Lieutenant Genda, the brilliant and excitable student of the law, would quickly appear to be beside himself with anxiety and then rage. 'You mean a cargo of medical supplies was ordered sent here and you have no proper accounting of them? Do you have the names of the boats they were sent on? I want the names of those owners or captains or whatever, I tell you!'

"He would bang his fist on his desk and call for Sergeant Ohnishi, the recorder. 'Get every bill of lading pertaining to medical supplies sent here in the last three months', he would scream. Ohnishi would scurry off to find the records in question and bring back the ones he had changed to suit the circumstances.

" 'Now show me the medical supplies in question on this list. Who do you think you're fooling? Or do you think we sell the supplies to the fishes? I want to know what really happened to the supplies you have listed on your records but aren't on ours.'

"Sometimes things could get a little out of hand and Anoka would have to intervene, much as he hated to. On one occasion Saito confronted a colonel in the supply service who had come out from Tokyo to investigate some discrepancy or other.

"After Saito had questioned him and found he knew what he was talking about, Genda moved in and sneeringly accused him of falsifying records. The colonel exploded, shouting, 'Sir don't you know you are talking to an Imperial Japanese colonel, you damnable, insignificant clerk!'

"Unabashed, Genda shouted back, 'I may be talking to a smuggler, an embezzler, a thief! You are in a better position to tell what happened to those supplies than we are. And if someone gets his head lopped off whose do you think it will be?'

"By the time the colonel had his pistol drawn, Anoka moved in, shoved Genda into the nearest chair and yelled, 'Let him alone, both of you!' then he urged the colonel to come into his own office and poured him a glass of brandy.

"I was at the next desk and heard Anoka's line. The colonel put back his pistol and buttoned his holster flap. Anoka talked to him as one would talk to an old woman insulted by a crude ruffian. 'Have you ever seen such a pair of officious bureaucrats? Superpatriots who have never seen battle? Watchdogs of the Empire?

'Maybe now you can see what I have to put up with day after day. I can only imagine what they put in their reports about me when they send their dispatches to the mainland.'

" 'But I'm a colonel and they're only lieutenants,' said the still furious officer, petulantly.

" 'You are wrong, Sir. They are gods! They own the supply service. They have their tentacles in every department. I really believe Lieutenant Saito is with the secret police.'

" 'I suspected as much, the bastard,' said the colonel, loosening his collar.

" ' Or maybe they are so zealous to find wrongdoing in someone in your position so they can be assigned posts off this island.'

" 'Well, they'll never get off this island at my expense,' the colonel vowed, emptying his glass in one gulp.

" 'Don't worry, Sir,' said Anoka. 'I'll smooth this out. But I know it's just a matter of some supply clerk's error. Actually, we are occasionally left with supplies slated for a ship sunk before it gets here. But we manage to get them aboard other ships going to the same general areas. They are signed for and if you are ever troubled about their disposition, we can account for them.

" 'But for those two to imply misconduct on your part is outrageous. Believe me, those pencil pushers are all bluff. They can't prove a thing. Only a clerk could get away with such crude behavior. But what can one do with clerks? Since they are the lowest of vermin they certainly can't be demoted.' He laughed and refilled the colonel's glass.

"After a few more brandies the colonel told Anoka of the terrors he was subjected to by his own clerical fiends in Tokyo. 'Don't I know, Sir. Don't I know,' said Anoka as the colonel wiped his eyes.

"As the drunken colonel staggered up the gangway to his ship, Anoka had Tanaka carry a case of brandy to his cabin. No more was heard from that one, I can tell you."

Despite the eerie setting, all but Takeo began to chuckle at the craftiness of the island's staff. Minoru then spoke up to call attention to an entry Sergeant Kozono had made in his diary.

"April 14, 1944. Since we began storing the uncollected cargo, I have begun to have nightmares. Last night I dreamed we were selling it to Americans. They were civilians. The war was long over and in my dream I wondered which side had been victorious.

"I was on the Ginza. It was brighter than day and most of the women were dressed in western clothing. Everyone was laughing and having a good time.

"I was with Ohnishi at a party. A few paces away was a young American Negro in an army dress uniform. He had corporal's stripes. He was with his wife. I wondered why our soldiers didn't capture him. Then I heard a ceremonial bell and Ohnishi and I rushed out and got into a very expensive car such as I have never seen and drove away from the party. There was more traffic in the streets than I could ever imagine. Everything was so bright it dazed me.

"Then Ohnishi left me at a very expensively furnished home, my own, and I got on a shiny black motorcycle and rushed off. As I went through traffic at speeds I didn't think any motorcycle capable of, I was joined by my comrades. They were all there except for Kuwahara. Anoka, Tanaka, Ohnishi, Saito, Genda and Sakai.

"Somehow, we were also ancient mounted warriors. We were rushing to the defense of Kuwahara. In my mind's eye I saw him as an old man. There the dream ended and I awoke shouting, 'Kuwahara! Kuwahara! Get out! Get away!' I was weeping, because he was in terrible danger---."

Minoru paused and looked around, shivering. Then he continued, slowly, hardly able to get the words out, "and I knew we would not reach him in time."

"I'm terribly frightened," said Minoru. "If I had the courage, I would burn this diary. It says too much I can't confront."

"Don't worry about it, my boy," said the old priest. "Just be glad you can know things few others can even imagine."

"But," protested Minoru, "I came into this cave an atheist and now I'm certain I once occupied that body lying over there. I have just read of a dream of today and the future, dreamt over forty years ago, which identifies us all. It cannot be coincidence." The diary fell from his hands and he put them over his eyes, shaking violently.

Kuwahara reached forward and grasped Minoru's hand. "Snap out of it, Minoru. Force yourself to take it as coincidence if you can't handle it."

"But I can't take it as coincidence. A black corporal and his wife stationed here and at a party in Tokyo is not out of the ordinary today. But then, such a thing could not have been a simple dream. The lights, the traffic, the modern car. I've seen designs of Takeo's super motorcycle. And you are an old man. No! No! No! And the part about us not reaching you in time. I don't want that. Will a nightmare I had before I was born turn into a worse nightmare with the loss of you?"

Tadashi then said, "Well, how do you know what actually happens? After all, Kozono only dreamed that they wouldn't reach Kuwahara in time. Isn't it possible that they did, or we do---? Well, I'm confused. But I'm not going to burn my diary. I'll study it, hoping Genda also had a prophetic dream."

Yasuo said, ominously, "And what if Genda dreamt of bright lights and motorcycles and that the lost an election for fish inspector?"

Even Takeo grinned at that. Then Kuwahara arose and went to the shrine. From it he took a ceremonial bell, putting it securely inside his jacket. "Now, let us leave this chamber. It must never again be entered until you bring my body back to lie beside my comrades. And then it must be forever sealed." He then went into his former living quarters and took his own sword.
 

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