Read No Surrender for Free Online

force of officer trainees to blow up the airfield. Some of the local people thought the military police should be notified immediately, but others urged caution, and the decision was put off until the following morning. By that time the maneuver had ended, and nothing more came of the affair.
    On November 30, our class received orders to “withdraw” from the school. I still do not know why, when we had completedour course, we were ordered to “withdraw,” rather than given some recognition of our graduation, but in any event I was confident that those three months had done wonders for my spirit, as well as for my capability as a soldier. I felt that I would be able to conduct myself as cleverly and as coolly as the captured lookout who had been my fellow trainee. I told myself that whatever happened, I would be able to carry out my duties creditably.
    Just before we finished school, word was received that forty-three of the trainees, including myself, would be sent to the Philippines, and twenty-two of us were directed to reassemble at Futamata on December 7.
    On the evening before I left to go on leave, I walked down to the banks of the TenryÅ« River and stared for a time at the rushing waters. Suddenly I remembered a popular song called “Kantarō of Ina,” which was going around at the time. The words went:
    I may look like a crook and a ruffian.
    But witness, O Moon, the splendor of my heart.
    The inspiration for this was a historical tale about a gangster named Kantarō, who had aided the emperor’s troops during the Meiji Restoration. Standing here by the river I saw the secret warfare troops, of whom I was one, as gangsters like Kantarō, stealthily providing aid for the valiant imperial troops in the field.
    I came to the conclusion then that I would probably go off to the Philippines and carry on my guerrilla warfare in the mountains until I died there all alone, lamented by no one. Although I knew that my struggle would bring me neither fame nor honor, I did not care.
    I asked myself, “Is this the way it ought to be?”
    And I answered, “This is the way it ought to be. If it is of the slightest use to my country, I shall be happy.”
    As I went on with the song, my voice rose above the sound of the turbulent river:
    O Moon of my homeland, I am newly reborn.
    Mirror the brightness of my soul tonight.
    I went home to Wakayama for the first time in three months. This would be my last visit for a long time, perhaps forever, and I said to my mother, “Let me have that dagger you keep in the drawer of your cabinet.”
    The dagger was a last-resort weapon that had been handed down from my great-grandmother to my grandmother and then to my mother. I remembered hearing my mother tell how her mother had given it to her when she married my father. It was in a white scabbard, and as she handed it to me, she said gravely, “If you are taken captive, use this to kill yourself.”
    I nodded, but inside I knew that I was not going to commit suicide even if I were taken captive. To do so would be a violation of my duty as a secret warfare agent. I coaxed the dagger from her simply because I wanted it for self-protection.
    I also wanted something to remember my father by, but I could not bring myself to ask him. While I was trying to decide what to do, I thought of a bamboo incense tube of which he was very fond. It was about a foot long, with a black sandalwood stopper and a beautiful inscription carved on the side. My father always kept it beside a metal incense burner on a small three-drawer cabinet in the living room. I made up my mind just to swipe it. When I told my mother what I was going to do, she did not object.
    Later, my two brothers told me that when they heard I had taken the dagger and the incense tube, they were shocked. They thought I was thinking of lighting the incense and committing ceremonial harakiri in front of it. Nothing could have been farther