No Surrender Soldier (22 page)

“Kiko?” Daphne’s voice. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know…”

“Amen.” I crossed myself and stood, then lit a second candle.

She turned to leave the sanctuary the way she’d come in, out the back.

“Wait.” I hurried toward her. “Did you need something?” I asked when I caught up to her.

“There’s a rope that needs cut,” Daphne said. “And then we’re all done.” She smiled at me. I wanted to steal a kiss, but I looked up and saw Missus DeLeon talking to our priest out under the canopy. Daphne showed me the rope that was a tripping hazard.

I pulled my knife out of my pocket—the one my tata had given me. As I cut the rope, the knife reminded me of what Tata had said. None of us are worthy. If we were, then Christ wouldn’t have needed to die for us. There was nothing I could do, not pay penance or anything, to earn God’s forgiveness. I just had to ask for it.

“It’s finished,” our priest said, gesturing toward the chairs and tables and flowers and bows. We all marched through the back of the church, gathering our belongings from the classroom before going home.

We walked through the sanctuary and I glanced up at Christ on the cross.
Yeah, it’s finished
, I thought.

“Are you ready?” Tomas held the front door open for me.

“Yeah. I am.”

“Are you sure? Anyt’ing we’ve missed?”

“No. Not’ing. Not a t’ing we can do. It’s already done.” I walked out the door and got into the Tanakas’s car to go home.

I hadn’t planned to tell my parents that my friends invited me to spend Saturday at the beach. They had enough on their minds with business, Tatan taking a turn for the worse, and them worrying about Sammy being M.I.A.

But when the Tanakas dropped me off Friday after we’d prepared the church for Confirmation, they stopped in for coffee and talked to my parents.

So Saturday morning at breakfast I told my parents that I didn’t mind staying home with Tatan instead of going to the beach.

“Don’t see no harm in you taking Tatan with you,” my tata said. “Do you, Roselina? Tatan’s going to be the same no matter where he is. What you t’ink, Rosie?”

Nana stopped spreading cream cheese on bread. She held the butter knife up as if in deep thought, then said, “Your tata’s right, Kiko. Might as well take Tatan with you. Just ’cause his
lytico-bodig
is getting worse, Doc Blas says that doesn’t mean he isn’t fit as a
carabao
physically.”

“Are you sure? ’Cause I can stay here with him. Besides, I need to fatten up that new sow tata bought. I want to make sure we have the biggest, most prized pig to slaughter for the fiesta we’ll throw when Sammy comes home.”

“No, it’ll be all right. No sense you missing out on fun with your friends. Tatan’s not going to get better just ’cause you stay home,” Nana said. “Take a quilt. If he gets tired he can lie down and rest on the beach.”

The Tanakas picked up Tatan and me right after my parents left for work. I locked the door. Funny how even little things changed since I found the soldier in the boonies behind our house.

When we got to Talofofo beach, Mister Tanaka opened the trunk and Tomas and I unloaded lunches, a thermos jug of water, and a big stick.

“Here.” I handed the stick to Tatan, who was in a stupor. Did he even know it was me, Kiko—his “Little Turtle”? I took his hand and formed it around the walking stick. “I carved this with my knife Tata gave me, then sanded it down and polished it up in shop class.” Although Tatan didn’t look like he understood what I said, he sighed heavily and leaned on the stick.

“That’s cool,” Tomas said.

Tomas and I and Tatan started down the steep cliff to Talofofo Bay. “Last day of Spring break,” Tomas said.

“Not counting tomorrow, our Confirmation Day.” I steadied Tatan by holding his forearm as we slowly stepped from crag to cranny. “Yeah, somet’ing, eh?” Tomas said. “You going to sunrise service here by the bay?”

“Sure, our whole family.”

“Ours too. Going to be a long day tomorrow,” Tomas said.

I concentrated on guiding Tatan to the bottom safely.

Tomas reached the beach first, then helped me ease Tatan down the final decline. Some of our friends from Confirmation class were already swimming and body surfing. “Hey, bro,” Tomas said. “Check out Daphne.” He flicked his eyebrows. “Va-va-voom! She’s filling out that bikini in all the right places!
Kaboom!
”

I looked out at the ocean. Daphne, wearing a pale pink bikini, ran through the tides with her girlfriends, laughing as they splashed each other.

I glanced back at Tomas, furrowing my eyebrows at him.

“What? What?” Tomas threw both hands in the air. “I thought we were squared away, bro.”

“We are. Just don’t disrespect them, eh? You wouldn’t like it if someone talked about your nana that way.”

“Got you, bro. That’s cool. No more disrespecting the chi… I mean, girls.” Tomas smiled and slapped between my shoulder blades.

Daphne turned and ran to me.

I shook out the quilt and it billowed up, then down, like a parachute landing. I put my arm around Daphne’s waist and she leaned her head on my shoulder. I studied Tatan’s deep-lined face, tanned the color of a coconut shell. I hadn’t noticed before that I stood taller than my grandfather.

“Tatan? Want to sit here?”

Tatan looked confused. He stumbled toward the ocean.

“Is he going to be, you know, safe?” Tomas dropped our lunches and thermoses on the quilt.

“I’ll keep an eye on him. Go ahead, both of you. I’ll be along in a minute, as soon as I know he’s all right.”

Daphne kissed my cheek and ran with Tomas to join our friends in the surf.

Tatan walked toward the bay and sat down on the black sand. He drew his knees up to his chest. Water lapped back and forth underneath his body as the sun and the moon played tug-of-war with the tides. He gazed far out over the Pacific Ocean.

I squinted into the glare of the sun, trying to see what Tatan stared at beyond the horizon.

Was Sammy hidden away somewhere safe? I looked for a sign that Sammy would come home someday from across the sea like Seto did.

All I saw were rainbows dancing in the spray where the constant waves beat against Guam’s shore.

I sat down beside Tatan. The surf surged around us, pulsating in-and-out, in-and-out, hollowing out the sand from under our bodies. Today was a good day. A day of confirmation. I soaked in the warmth of the sun and coolness of the spray. I breathed in the salt air, and watched Daphne and Tomas and my friends play in the ocean. I imagined Sammy there with them, calling to me, “Little Turtle!” I wanted to be strong and steady like the ancient turtle that carried our island on its back. I got up from the black sand and led Tatan to the safety of the dry quilt. Then I turned back toward my friends and ran into the ocean. Sammy was waving to me in the sea foam crests. I dove in and swam against the tide.

Kiko’s fictional story began January 3, 1972, when he first learned his nana was raped by a Japanese soldier during World War II. However, the story of Isamu Seto is based on the true-life story of Shoichi Yokoi, the World War II soldier who never surrendered. Yokoi’s story began August 5, 1941, when he was drafted into the Japanese Imperial Army.

During World War II, Japan allied with Germany and Italy. Japan invaded China, Southeast Asia, and many Pacific Islands. Shoichi Yokoi, the son of tailors, was drafted into the Third Supply Regiment for temporary duty.

Hours after Japanese pilots attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Japanese forces attacked Guam, which was a United States territorial possession. Three days later, Japan occupied Guam. During the two years and eight months Japanese soldiers occupied Guam, they committed many atrocities against the people. Most of that time, Yokoi was not stationed on Guam. It was not until March 4, 1944, that Yokoi arrived on Guam from Manchuria (China) and was assigned to the supply unit at Talofofo Camp.

The US Marines liberated Guam on July 21, 1944. Germany surrendered May 7, 1945. Japan surrendered September 2, 1945.

But for Yokoi, the war did not end. Why didn’t he surrender to the American soldiers and go home to Japan like most soldiers who chose not to commit suicide? I studied news articles written and translated from Japanese into English to read what Yokoi himself had to say about his long ordeal hiding in the jungles of Guam. As near as I could figure, he was filled with fear and shame. At that time, Japanese soldiers believed their emperor was a god. They were taught that if they were captured they would be severely tortured by enemy soldiers, and if they did not die in battle, or commit suicide, they greatly shamed their families.

Yokoi was a survivor, at all costs. So when the US soldiers liberated Guam, he hid in the Talofofo jungle with two other Japanese soldiers, Mikio Shichi and Satoru Nakahata. At first they hid in natural caves in the rolling mountains of Southern Guam. Later, they built separate huts within the jungle. But as Guamanians built new houses closer to the Talofofo River, the two soldiers moved to a cave, and Yokoi dug a tunnel eight feet underground, and ten feet long. In 1964, Shichi and Nakahata died, possibly of poison. Only Yokoi remained as the last straggler, a term Guamanians called soldiers who never surrendered.

On January 24, 1972, Jesus Duenas and Manuel DeGracia found Yokoi while checking shrimp traps in the Talofofo River. Yokoi could still speak Japanese and halting English. He told authorities and reporters how he survived for twenty-eight years in the jungle, the last fifteen years underground.

The only fact that has been disputed is whether Yokoi took part in the murders of two young men in 1950, one the brother of Jesus Duenas. When Yokoi was first questioned, he admitted to being a participant when his comrades murdered Francisco Duenas, 15, and Jesus Pablo, 26. However, later the Japanese government denied Yokoi had anything to do with murdering the two Chamorros.

After Yokoi returned to Japan he was given a hero’s welcome, promoted to sergeant, and married. He died September 22, 1997, in Japan at age 82.

Yokoi told his story, and I have passed on this story to you through Kiko’s story, which in a way is true, too. It is the story of many secondary rape victims and how, in order to heal, they often go through stages of shock, disbelief, denial, obsession, shame, anger, rage, and retaliation, before reaching acceptance, forgiveness, and healing. However, this is really not a story about war, or hatred, rage, or retaliation. It is a story about forgiveness, redemption, and restoration. For both Yokoi and Kiko.

It has been said it takes a village to raise a child. And so, as a book is the child of an author, it is my deep gratitude to these readers who critiqued
No Surrender Soldier
in part or in whole:

Kathleen Ahrens

Jennifer Bradshaw

Pam Calvert

Jody Cosson

Sherry Garland

Michael Green

Kristi Holl

Katy Huth Jones

Julie Knight

Patti Kurtz

Kathleen Muldoon

Christy Ottaviano

Carmen Richardson

Lupe Ruiz-Flores

Anna Webman

Student readers: Robert Jones and Ben Rinehart

SCBWI workshop Arkansas retreat group

Gayle Roper’s novel revision workshop group at Mt. Hermon Christian Conference Center

Pacific Daily News
, Gannett Corporation: Publisher Lee Webber and Archive Librarian Carmelita Blas for researching and sending news clips on Shoichi Yokoi.

University of Guam: Richard F. Taitano Micronesian Area Research Center, professor of history and Micronesian studies Dirk Ballendorf, and Archive Librarian Lourdes Nededog for researching and sending news clips on Shoichi Yokoi.

Raymond Baza, musician and composer, of Washington, who answered questions regarding Chamorro music.

I’d like to thank my editor Jackie Mitchard for selecting and believing in my story and characters enough to be of Merit for readers. And thanks to Ashley Myers for the final revision notes to refine and polish my novel before publication. Thanks to copyeditor Hillary Thompson; as a former copyeditor myself I know what a tedious job this is, but the polish is in the details.

Last, but foremost, I couldn’t have written this story without my traveling companion through life and patron of the arts, my husband, Mike.

28 Years in the Guam Jungle: Sergeant Yokoi Home from World War II,
compiled by correspondents of the
Asahi Shimbun,
(Japanese News Service). Tokyo: Japan Publications, Inc., 1972.

Dardick, Geeta.
Home Butchering and Meat Preservation
. Blue Ridge Summit, PA: TAB Books, Inc., 1986.

Farrell, Don A.
The Pictorial History of Guam: Liberation–1944. Tamuning, Guam
: Micronesian Productions, 1984.

Gailey, Harry.
The Liberation of Guam: 21 July–10 August 1944
. Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1988.

Hafa Adai
, Guam Visitors Bureau. Tamuning, Guam: The Palms Press, 1988.

Harrison, James Pinckney.
The Endless War: Fifty Years of Struggle in Vietnam
. NY: The Free Press (Macmillan Publishing Company), 1982.

Masashi, Ito.
The Emperor’s Last Soldiers
, translated by Roger Clifton. NY: Coward-McCann, Inc., 1967.

Pacific Daily News
, Gannett Corporation, various news articles.

Sanchez, Pedro C.
Guahan Guam: The History of Our Island
. Agana, Guam: Sanchez Publishing House, 1987.

Copyright © 2014 by Christine Kohler.
All rights reserved.
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher; exceptions are made for brief excerpts used in published reviews.

Published by
Merit Press
an imprint of F+W Media, Inc.
10151 Carver Road, Suite 200
Blue Ash, OH 45242. U.S.A.
www.meritpressbooks​.com

ISBN 10: 1-4405-6561-9
ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-6561-8
eISBN 10: 1-4405-6562-7
eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-6562-5