Early that day Matsuo saw a marine.
The enemy came looming around a bend in the trail and Matsuo took a hasty shot, then fled without knowing the result, ran until breath was a pain in his chest and his legs were rubbery.
As his feet slowed, he felt ashamed of the panic and resolved to make a stand.
He crossed the next meadow and climbed a tree where the jungle trail resumed.

In the leafiest part of the tree, straddling a broad horizontal limb, he could see over the meadow.
For a while he was content to let events develop in their good time.
He had no doubt the marine was the lead scout of a column, and while his shot had probably bred indecision, they would soon come hunting.

His superiors had emphasized that marines tortured others for the sheer pleasure.
Yesterday;
today;
tomorrow: no surrender.
His remembering the self-dictate brought no peace -- only a faint chill of doubt.
He murmured to himself, with firmness: "No surrender".
It was best to die fighting the marines.
His superiors had also preached this, saying it was the way for eternal honor.

What if the marines never came?
His comrades were all dead.
He had no rice.
Then it would be a choice between starvation and suicide.

Whichever the way, he would rot in this vast choking green, his wife never to receive an urn of his ashes.
He sighed and leaned for a moment against the trunk.
His fingers touched the bone handle of a knife.
The knife, an ammunition pouch, and a half-filled bottle of purified water hung on his belt.
Besides the belt he wore a loin cloth.

As he looked up from picking at a leg ulcer, he saw a marine in the jungle across the clearing.
Gloom receded.

The marine came to the edge of the green jungle mist and stayed, as though debating whether to brave the sunlight.
His fatigues made a streak of almost phosphorescent green in the mist.

"Come out, come out in the meadow", Matsuo said under his breath.

The man leaned against a tree and wiped a sleeve across his face.
A signal?
Matsuo lifted his rifle, easing the sling under his left upper arm for steadiness.

Fresh on his mind were events of the past day when his whole regiment was destroyed in the hills.
They had fought from caves, and the marines resorted to burning them out.
Even now, like a ringing in his ears, he heard the wooooosh of flame-throwers squirting great orange billows.
A wave of flame rippling through their cave had reached Nagamo, his friend, and with a shriek the man bolted through the entrance, then slowed to the jerky walk of a puppet, his uniform blazing.
The marines let him advance.
When he sank on his knees, they had allowed him to char without administering the stroke of mercy.

Matsuo had faked death and was pitched on a stack of corpses, both the burned and the unburned, the latter decomposing rapidly under the tropical sun.
The callous marines had laughed at each other's retching, while stacking bodies.
Matsuo repeatedly choked down his own nausea.
At nightfall he had been able to sneak down a hillside and into the jungle, reeking of death.

Apprehensively he peered to the left, to the right into the leafy, vine-crisscrossed maze.
He decided that the marines must be deploying around the meadow, with the one left to distract him.
He strained his hearing.
Cautious feet stepping on leafmold;
faint creaking of belts and slings;
whispers: he heard none of these.
Only the hum of insects and the distant fluttering call of a bird.
Because he couldn't hear them, he was more convinced they were there.

A spectacle occurred across the meadow: the lone marine took a seat on the ground;
leaning sidewise on a tree trunk, he embraced it.
Humiliation made Matsuo tremble.
While his comrades cocked the trap, that one behaved as if it was some dull maneuver.
Taking aim at the man's face, Matsuo squeezed the trigger up to the point of discharge, and then he changed his mind.
He wanted the arrogant marine to know fear, and so he aimed above the head.

The shot reverberated in diminishing whiplashes of sound.
Hush followed.
Like a mischievous boy expecting punishment, Matsuo awaited reaction from the jungle.
How stupid to give his position away.

The jungle did not retort.
The sitter remained seated hugging the tree.
Before long the atmosphere reverted to its old normalcy, and insects hummed and birds occasionally called.
Matsuo puzzled and grew anxious over the complete passiveness, concluding that he was the butt of a devilish joke.

Five or so minutes later the marine abruptly pulled up and stepped into sunlight, immediately throwing his hands over his eyes.
He went into a whirling dance, a sort of blind chasing of the tail.
It ended when he tumbled;
but jumping right up, he staggered in no particular direction.
He wore no head cover of any kind and, more odd, had no visible weapon.

With a sudden decisiveness he lurched in Matsuo's direction, crossing the meadow in a zigzagging gallop.
When he got closer to the tree, Matsuo noted the wild look on his face.
The pockets of his jacket bulged.
Hand grenades.

The bobbing head was a poor target, so Matsuo shot him in the upper trunk.

The marine spun, clapping a hand high on his chest, and dived forward.
In the hush that followed the echoes, Matsuo was tense.
They could come on him now without difficulty.
Gradually he reached a conclusion.
The marine was alone, for they were impatient people and by now would have vied to knock him from the tree.

Down the tree he scrambled and knelt at the edge of foliage.
The marine was sprawled some thirty yards away, one arm extended.
Matsuo jumped when the hidden arm flopped out.
Reflex?

Rifle leveled on the man, he made a rush.
Heat, in the sunlight, pressed in like an invisible crowd.

He squatted by the head, gently placing the rifle on the ground.
With a snakestrike motion he grasped the hair, and, twisting, pulled the marine over on his back.
He was bearded.
The bullet had penetrated in the area of the right collarbone;
around the hole, blood glistened in a little patch.
Maintaining his clutch on the hair, Matsuo watched the closed eyes while rummaging in the jacket pockets.
In one: a package of cigarettes and a tinplated lighter, both sticky from the man's bleeding.
In the other: a wristwatch with broken crystal wrapped in a dirty handkerchief.
One by one he tossed the objects aside.
He didn't smoke and could not light fires with a flintless lighter;
he had no use any longer for exact time, even had the watch been running.
Then there was no saying how many times the marine had blown his nose on the handkerchief.

Too bad the marine had no water.
From its holder he took his own canteen.
The cap was stuck and made a thin rusty squeaking as he applied pressure.
The marine's eyes opened, squeezed shut, then opened squinted in the glare.

So, alive.
Matsuo put the bottle to his own lips.
The marine reached up a hand.
Matsuo shook his head.
"None for you".
The marine blinked, soon dropping his hand.
Not only had he no canteen, but he lacked even the belt to hang one on.
"You came well equipped to die".

Some odor made him lean over the man.
He sniffed and recognized it.
Sake.
So that had been his difficulty.
Drunk on sake, he must have wandered off from his bivouac.

The marine tried to roll on his right side, and moaned.
When he rolled on the left side, propping on his left elbow, Matsuo seized his hair and pulled him back over.
"Be a good turtle".

Awkwardly with one hand Matsuo got the cap back on the water bottle.
The smell of sake had freshened yesterday's events in his thoughts.
In the caves, with other supplies, they had kept cases of sake.

The marine shut his eyes.
"Are you a thrower of flame, marine"?
Matsuo took the small knife from its scabbard and laid it on the ground, out of the marine's reach and away from their shadows.
He waited in his squat, gripping the hair.

Every so often he turned the knife.
Its blade was dazzling in the intense sunlight.
The sun was noon high and Matsuo perspired until his body was dripping.
Wet also were the marine's fatigues and the face had an oily film.
The man had thrown the left hand over his eyes.
Now and again he murmured something that ended in a giggle.
He must have saturated himself in the drink, for the bullet not to shock him out of his drunken haze.
Matsuo shook his head.
Strange.

At last he reached for the knife.
Even the bone handle scorched, and he retrieved the marine's handkerchief to wrap it.
First he barely touched the blade on the hand which shaded the eyes.
The marine yelled and flung the hand away.
With a firm grip on the man's hair Matsuo applied the blade flat on a cheek.
A shrill yelp, kicked legs, and groping hands that circled Matsuo's wrist.
Matsuo wrenched free and burned the hands into retreat;
burned the other cheek;
burned each hand when they came groping again.
The marine commenced to weep and it blighted the sense of enjoyment.

Matsuo stood up.
"A small measure of payment, marine".
He dropped the knife in its scabbard, hung the rifle behind a shoulder.

The marine, hands on cheeks, rolled by his unwounded side onto his stomach.
He ceased weeping.

Matsuo walked toward his tree, once glancing back.
The marine was still.
He would soon die.

As Matsuo climbed by using the vines and kicking his feet against the trunk, a mood of gloom immersed him like a jungle shadow.
What now?
In the jungle, birds were mute, while insects preserved only the monotony of living.

Someone called.
It was the marine: head lifted, he strained and called.
Then he astonished Matsuo by pushing and dragging himself until he sat.
He cupped his mouth and yelled.
Matsuo hustled the rifle off his shoulder.
Once and for all he'd finish this marine who would not die.
He aimed, but listened.
It sounded as if the man were calling him: "Hey, Japanese hey there, Japanese".
The man tilted back his head and went through the pantomime of drinking from a container.
He performed the act twice more, and the begging in his tone grew more distinct.

"Sake"?
Matsuo called.

The marine nodded vigorously.

Matsuo laughed, slung the rifle.
The marine was a winehead.
His superiors had said that all marines were depraved.

The marine slumped forward into a bow like a priest before an idol.
Remembering his own thirst, Matsuo took out his water bottle.
One swallow was all he would have;
he was very thirsty, but he must observe water discipline.
His years of campaigning had taught him the value of water discipline.

He began to uncap the bottle, the rusty cap squealing on its threads.
Popping upright, the marine waved both hands and shouted.

Of course it was water he really craved;
down in the broil of the sun he was becoming dried out.
The marine shouted for it until it seemed that his voice had to crack.
Matsuo shook his head.
He had no water for an enemy.
And when this was gone, he hadn't even a little bitter tablet to purify other water if he were to discover some stagnant jungle pool.

He capped the bottle and replaced it.
After all, he had less reason to desire it than the marine.

Before much longer the marine quieted down.
His head slumped.
The upper part of his packet had stained dark.
"Marine.
There is nothing for you", Matsuo said.
"Your superiors will certainly beat you for your desertion, besides the dishonor of it.
I've nothing for you".

From the convulsive quivers of the man's shoulders it was plain he had resumed the weeping.
He reminded Matsuo of a similar thing he had witnessed in China.
In China it was a baby sitting on a railroad platform, smudged, blood-specked, with the village burning about him and shells exploding.