‘Major what’s-his-name told you the ship’s coming. And you took it seriously and came here, didn’t you? But look here, it’ll never come this way, never! We’ve been deceived, all of us’
—Captain Hanai, patient, Giruwa
One day, on a beach near Giruwa, on the Papuan north coast, the Japanese war correspondent Okada Seizo was sitting staring at the empty horizon, when he heard a rustling sound behind him. He turned to see ‘a worn-out shadowy young officer’ standing there, smiling faintly and clearly happy to have company on the beach.*
‘How do you like it?’ the officer asked. ‘Wonderful isn’t it? I come here every day and look at the sea. Far beyond the sea is my dear old homeland. I come from Osaka where my wife and three children are waiting for me…I suppose you are waiting for the ship? So am I.’
The young officer surveyed Okada’s face, and then asked, ‘By the way, have you got any sushi? I’d like to have some…could you spare me a little? A mouthful if you please.’
The young officer repeated the joke several times.
‘Don’t joke,’ Okada interrupted. ‘I haven’t had enough to eat for some days, not even sweet potatoes. It’s cruel of you to remind me of such a delicacy.’
The officer paused and asked: ‘Do you know, there are lots of gold bars along this coast? New Guinea has been famous for its gold mines, as I suppose you know. Did you ever see Charlie Chaplin in The Gold Rush? A damned funny picture, wasn’t it?’
The officer, Okada noticed, was gazing wistfully out to sea, and kept ‘rattling away in a hollow voice’:
Funny? Well, everything in the world is funny. How about yourself? Funny, I’m sure. What on earth are you waiting for, hanging around here like a blessed fool? H’m that boss of the hospital, Major what’s-his-name, told you the ship’s coming. And you took it seriously and came here, didn’t you? But look here, it’ll never come this way, never! We’ve been deceived, all of us. And yet you don’t know you’ve been deceived, and are waiting for the ship. Isn’t that funny? Oh don’t get cross my friend. You’re not the only person who looks funny. What do you think about that blockhead at the hospital, Major what’s-his-name? No one is more dashed funny than that Major fellow. He’s deceived you, but he’d deceived himself too. He doesn’t know that he himself has been deceived. By the way, have you got some rice-balls? Oh, I’m sorry, forget rice-balls, my friend. Anyway, I’m not going to be deceived anymore, not I. If the ship comes, let’s board it! Don’t bother about the gold bars. We must not miss the ship. By Jove, I’m not going to be deceived again. I’m going to stay here until the ship comes. I’m going to wait here for the ship that will take me back to my wife and children. Look here, my friend, the ship will come. Don’t you think so? It…[will] surely come, won’t it, my dear friend?
Okada turned away from the young officer, who kept raving in this vein, uninterrupted, until a hospital orderly arrived.
‘By God,’ the orderly cried at the young soldier, ‘I never thought you’d come as far as this. Oh, how I walked about looking for you. The medical officer is very anxious. Come on, sir. Let’s go back.’
The orderly led the officer back ‘like a mother leading her child’, wrote Okada.
The young officer’s name was Captain Hanai. Suffering from a violent attack of malaria in the Owen Stanleys, he was carried back to the coastal hospital, where he lay for days tossing with fever. When the fever subsided, he seemed normal. Then he started coming to the beach, and would sit there all day, staring at the horizon, awaiting ‘the ship’.
‘It’s the same every day,’ said the medical orderly. ‘I always take him back to the hospital at a proper hour.’
Okada watched the pair depart: ‘The nurse led the captain away into the wood, gently, with an air of commiseration. The officer followed meekly, with his hand deposited in the nurse’s, looking back from time to time towards the sea.’
*This dialogue is taken from Lost Troops, Okada’s extraordinary personal account of the Papuan campaign, translated by Keiko Tamura.