Mr Raizo shakes his head. 'Your stepmother is helping to nurse him in the ward, and... how can I express this?'

'She thinks I am a leech who wants to suck money from the Tsukiyamas.'

'Precisely. Just for the record: is that your intention?'

'No, Mr Raizo. All I want is to meet my father.' How many times must I say this?

'Your grandfather believes that secrecy is the wisest strategy to belay your stepmother's misgivings, at this point. Young lady!' Mr Raizo crooks his finger at a passing waitress. 'One of my gigantic cognacs, if you please. Your poison, Miyake?'

'Uh, green tea, please.'

The waitress gives me a well-trained smile. 'We have eighteen varieties-'

'Oh, just bring the boy a pot of tea, dammit!'

The waitress bows, her smile undented. 'Yes, Admiral.'

Admiral? How many of those are there? 'Admiral Raizo?' Raizo?'

'That was all many years ago. "Mr" is fine.'

'Mr Raizo. Do you actually know my father?'

'Blunt questions earn blunt answers. I make no secret of the fact I despise the man. I have avoided his company for years. Since the day I learned he sold the Tsukiyama sword. It had been in his your family for five centuries, Miyake. Five Hundred Years! The snub that your father dealt five centuries of Tsukiyamas not to mention the Tsukiyamas yet to be born is immeasurable. Immeasurable! Your grandfather, Takara Tsukiyama, is a man who believes in blood-lines. Your father is a man who believes in joint stock ventures in Formosa. Do you know where the Tsukiyama sword presently resides?' The admiral rasps. 'It resides in the boardroom of a pesticide factory in Nebraska! What do you think of that, Miyake?'

'It seems a shame, Mr Raizo, but-'

'It is a crime, Miyake! Your father is a man devoid of honour! When he separated from your mother he would happily have cut her adrift without a thought for her future! It was your grandfather who ensured her financial survival.' This is news to me. 'There are codes of honour, even when dealing with concubines. Flesh and blood matter, Miyake! Blood-lines are the stuff of life. Of identity! Knowing who you are from is a requisite of self knowledge.' The waitress arrives with a silver tray, and places our drinks on lace place mats.

'I agree that blood-lines are important, Mr Raizo. This is why I am here.'

The admiral sniffs his brandy moodily. I sip my soapy tea. 'Y'know, Miyake, my doctors told me to lay off this stuff. But I meet more geriatric sailors than I do geriatric doctors.' He drinks half the glass in one gulp, tips his head back, and savours every molecule. 'Your stepsisters are dead losses. A pair of screeching vulgarities, at some half-wit college. They rise at eleven o'clock in the morning. They wear white lipstick, astronaut boots, cowboy hats, Ukrainian peasant scarfs. They dye their hair the colour of effluence. It is your grandfather's hope that his grandson you have principles loftier than those espoused in the latest pop hit.'

'Mr Raizo, forgive me if... I mean, I hope my grandfather doesn't see me as any kind of, uh, future heir. When I say I have no intention of muscling my way into the Tsukiyama family tree, I mean it.'

Mr Raizo makes rumbles impatiently. 'Who meant what where when why whose... Look, your grandfather wants you to read this.' He places a package on the table, wrapped in black cloth. 'A loan, not a gift. This journal is his most treasured possession. Guard it with your life, and bring it when you rendezvous with your grandfather seven days from now. Here. Same time ten hundred hours same table. Questions?'

'We never met is it wise to trust me with something so-'

'Brazen folly, I say. Make a copy, I told the stubborn fool. Don't entrust some boy with the original. But he insisted. A copy would dilute its soul, its uniqueness. His words, not mine.'

'I, uh...' I look at the black package. 'I am honoured.'

'Indeed you are. Your father has never read these pages. He would probably auction them to highest bidder, on his "Inter Net".'

'Mr Raizo: could you tell me what my grandfather wants?'

'Another blunt question.' The admiral downs the rest of his cognac. The jewel in his tie-clasp glimmers ocean-trench blue. 'I will tell you this. Growing old is an unwinnable campaign. During this war we witness ugly scenes. Truths mutate to whims. Faith becomes cynical transactions between liars. Sacrifices turn out to be needless excesses. Heroes become old farts, and young farts become heroes. Ethics become logos on sports clothing. You ask what your grandfather wants? I shall tell you. He wants what you want. No more, no less.'

A coven of wives blowhole wild laughter.

'Uh, which is?'

Admiral Raizo stands. Butler is already here with his cane. 'Meaning.'

1st August, 1944 Morning, cloudy. Afternoon, light rain. I am on the train from Nagasaki. My journey to Tokuyama in Yamaguchi prefecture will take several more hours, and I will not reach Otsushima island, my destination, until tomorrow morning. Over the last weekend, Takara, I was torn between two promises. One promise was to you: to tell you every detail about my training in the Imperial Navy. My second promise was to my country and the emperor: to keep every detail regarding my special attack forces training an absolute secret. The purpose of this journal is to resolve my dilemma. These words are for you. My silence is for the emperor.

By the time you read these words, Mother will have already received a telegram informing you of my death and posthumous promotion. Perhaps you, Mother and Yaeko are in mourning. Perhaps you wonder what my death means. Perhaps you regret you have no ash, no bones, to place in our family tomb. This journal is my solace, my meaning, and my body. The sea is a fine tomb. Do not mourn immoderately.

Let me begin. The war situation is deteriorating rapidly. Our emperor's forces have suffered severe losses in the Solomon Islands. The Americans are invading the Philippines with the clear aim of possessing the Ryuku chain. To prevent the destruction of the home islands extraordinary measures are called for. This is why the Imperial Navy has authorized the kaiten programme.

A kaiten is a modified mark 93 torpedo: the finest torpedo in the world, with a cockpit for a pilot. A kaiten can be steered, aligned and rammed into an enemy vessel below the waterline. Destruction of the target is a theoretical certainty. I know you are fond of technical data, Takara, so here goes. A kaiten measures 14.75 metres in length. It is propelled by a 550hp engine, and fuelled by liquid oxygen which leaves no wake of air bubbles on the surface, thereby allowing an invisible strike. A kaiten can cruise at 56 kph for 25 minutes, thus outpacing capital target vessels. A kaiten is tipped with a 1.55-ton TNT warhead which detonates on impact. Four kaitens will be mounted on I-class submarines. The submarines will sortie to within strike range of enemy anchorages, where the kaitens will be released. This new, deadly manned torpedo will reverse the recent losses in the Great East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere, will dismay and ultimately decimate the American Navy. The Pacific Ocean will become a Japanese lake.

From the naval airbases at Nara and Tsuchiura, 1375 volunteers offered their lives for the kaiten programme. Only 160 passed the stringent selection procedures. You can see, my brother, how the Tsukiyama name shall be honoured and remembered.

2nd August Hazy morning; a hot, cloudless afternoon. I awoke with other kaiten trainees in cells at the military police barracks in Tokuyama regular billets were destroyed in bombing raids last month. A bomb struck the fuel depot, and in the ensuing destruction the port and large districts of the town were razed to the ground. From this wreckage a launch took us to Otsushima. The short voyage takes only 30 minutes, but the contrast could not be more complete. Otsushima is a body and head of peaceful wooded hills, terraced with rice-fields. The kaiten base and torpedo works lies on the low-lying 'neck' of the island.

Sub-Lt Hiroshi Kuroki and Ens Sekio Nishina, the two coinventors of the kaiten, paid us the inestimable honour of meeting our launch. These men are living legends, Takara. Initially, Naval High Command was reluctant to sanction the use of special attack forces, and rejected the kaiten proposals submitted by Sub-Lt Kuroki and Ens Nishina. To convince High Command of their utmost sincerity, they resubmitted their proposals, written in the ink of their own blood. For all this, they are cheerful, unassuming fellows. They showed us to our quarters, joking about the 'Otsushima Hotel'. They led the technical debriefings that took up the rest of the day, and postponed the tour of the base until tomorrow.

3rd August Windy conditions. Sea choppy. The perimeter fence of the kaiten base encloses an area of approximately six baseball grounds, and accommodates between 500 and 600 men. Security is tight even the islanders are unaware of the true purpose of the base. The base includes a barracks, refectory, three torpedo factories, a machine-shop to convert the mark 93 torpedoes to kaitens, an exercise yard, a ceremony square, administrative buildings, and the harbour. From the machine-shop, a narrow-gauge railway enters a tunnel blasted through 400 metres of rock to the kaiten launch pier, where training began tonight. I jankenned with Takashi Higuchi, a classmate from Nara, for the privilege of the first kaiten run co-piloted with Sub-Lt Kuroki. His stone beat my scissors! Never mind, my turn will come tomorrow.

4th August Sultry, humid, hot weather. Tragedy has struck so soon. Last night, Sub-Lt Kuroki and Lt Higuchi failed to return from their run around the northern body of Otsushima. Frogmen spent the night searching for their kaiten. It was finally found shortly after dawn, a mere 300 metres from the launch pier, embedded in the sea-floor silt, 16 hours after launching. Although kaitens have two escape hatches, these may only be opened above water. Underwater, the water pressure clamps them closed. A kaiten contains enough air for about 10 hours with two pilots, this time was halved. They ensured their sacrifices were not in vain by writing 2000 kana of technical data and observations, pertaining to the fatal malfunction. When their paper was used up, they scratched words on the cockpit wall with a screwdriver. We just returned from their cremation ceremony. Ens Nishina has sworn to carry the ashes of Kuroki aboard his kaiten when he meets his glory. The atmosphere on the base is one of mourning, obviously, but tempered with a determination that the lives of our brothers shall not be lost in vain. My own heart was burdened with guilt. I begged a private audience with Commandant Ujina and told him about how I felt a special responsibility to Higuchi's soul. Cmdt Ujina promised to consider my request that I be included in the first sortie of kaiten attacks.

9th August Weather extremely hot. Forgive the long silence, Takara. Training has swung into full gear, and finding even ten minutes to sit down with my journal during the day has been impossible. At night, I am asleep as my head touches my pillow. I have wonderful news. During the morning roll-call, the names for the first wave of kaiten attacks were announced and 'Tsukiyama' was among them! Kikusui is our unit emblem. This is the floating chrysanthemum crest of Masashige Kusunoki, champion of Emperor Godaigo. Kusunoki's 700 warriors withstood an onslaught of 35,000 Ashikaga traitors at the Battle of Minatogawa, and only after sustaining 11 terrible wounds did he commit seppuku with his brother, Masasue. The symbolism is obvious. We are the 700. Our devotion to our beloved emperor is ultimate.

Four fleet subs will each transport 4 kaitens. I-47 I-47, captained by the the Lt-Cdr Zenji Orita, will carry Ens Nishina, Sato, Watanabe, and Lt Fukuda. Lt-Cdr Zenji Orita, will carry Ens Nishina, Sato, Watanabe, and Lt Fukuda. I-36 I-36 will carry Lt Yoshimoto and Ens Toyozumi, Imanishi and Kudo. Aboard will carry Lt Yoshimoto and Ens Toyozumi, Imanishi and Kudo. Aboard I-37 I-37 will be Lt Kamibeppu and Murakami, and Ens Utsunomiya and Kondo. will be Lt Kamibeppu and Murakami, and Ens Utsunomiya and Kondo. I-333 I-333, captained by Cpt Yokota, will transport Lts Abe and Goto, and Ens Kusakabe and Tsukiyama Subaru. After the announcement we were reallocated dorms, so members of the same sortie can sleep in the same room. I-333 I-333 is on the second floor, at the end, overlooking the rice terraces. At night the croaking of frogs drowns out the foundries. I remember our room in Nagasaki. is on the second floor, at the end, overlooking the rice terraces. At night the croaking of frogs drowns out the foundries. I remember our room in Nagasaki.

12th August Weather cool and calm. Sea as smooth as Nakajima river where we sailed our model yachts. Today I will write about our training. After breakfast we divide into Chrysanthemums and Drys. Because there are only 6 kaitens available for training, we are given priority practice privileges. At 0830 we proceed through the tunnel to the kaiten pier. After boarding, a crane lowers us into the sea. Usually we sail two to a cockpit. Of course, we have no room, but this doubling up helps to save fuel, and 'a drop of petrol is as precious as a drop of blood'. Our instructor knocks on the hull, and we knock back to show we are ready to embark. First we run through a series of descents. Then we solve a navigation problem, using a stopwatch and gyrocompass. We locate a target ship, and simulate a hit by passing under the bow. One must be careful not to clip the upper hatch on the keel two kaiten pilots died in Base P this way. We also dread being stuck in silt, like Sub-Lt Kuroki and Lt Higuchi. If this misfortune occurs, one is supposed to blast compressed air into the warhead (filled with seawater rather than TNT) which should, in principle, buoy the kaiten to the surface. None of are eager to be the first to test this flotation theory. What we dread most, however, is surviving the loss of a training kaiten. This occurred to a hapless trainee from Yokohama five days ago. He was dismissed, and his name is never mentioned. After returning to the pier or the base harbour, depending on our course, we attend debriefing sessions to share our observations with the Drys. After the worst of the afternoon heat is over, we practise sumo wrestling, kendo fencing, athletics, rugby. Kaiten pilots must be in prime physical condition. Remember our father's words, Takara: the body is the outermost layer of the mind.

14th August Weather fine at first, clouding over by midday. As my training session was cancelled today owing to engine failure, I have a spare hour to write to you about my I-333 I-333 brothers. Yutaka Abe is our leader, aged 24, of old Tokyo stock and a graduate of Peers. His father was aboard brothers. Yutaka Abe is our leader, aged 24, of old Tokyo stock and a graduate of Peers. His father was aboard Shimantogawa Shimantogawa at the glorious Battle of Tsushima back in 1905. Abe is a superhuman who excels in every field. Rowing, navigation, composing haiku. He let it slip that he has won every chess match he has played for the last 9 years. The motto on his kaiten is to be 'Unerring Arrow of the Emperor'. Shigenobu Goto, aged 22, is from a merchant family in Osaka and has a wit that can kill at twenty paces. He gets love letters nearly every day from different girls, and complains about the lack of women on the base. Abe responds with a single word: Purity. Goto can impersonate anybody and anything. He even takes requests: Chinaman attacked by snake in privy; Tohoku fishwife being blown through tuba. He uses his voices to distract Abe when they play chess. Abe wins anyway. The message on Goto's kaiten is to read: 'Medicine for Yankees'. Our third member is Issa Kusakabe. Kusakabe is a year older than me, quiet, and reads anything he can get his hands on. Technical manuals, novels, poetry, old magazines from before the war. Anything. Mrs Oshige (our 'mother' on Otsushima, who believes we are testing a new type of submarine) arranged for a boy to bring Kusakabe books from the school library every week. He even has a volume of Shakespeare. Abe questioned whether the works of an effete Westerner were appropriate for a Japanese warrior. Kusakabe explained that Shakespeare is English kabuki. Abe said Shakespeare contained corrupting influences. Kusakabe asked which plays Abe was thinking of. Abe let it drop. After all, Kusakabe would not have volunteered to be a kaiten pilot if his ethics were in any way questionable. He is inscribing not a slogan, but a line of verse on his kaiten. 'The foe may raise ten thousand shouts we conquer without a single word.' I must not neglect Slick, our unit chief engineer. His nickname is derived from his hands, which are always oily and black. Slick is one of the oldest men on the base. He is vague about his age, but he is old enough to be our father. Goto jokes that he probably is our father. Slick's real children are his kaitens. By the way, I have elected to leave my kaiten without a motto. My sacrifice shall be its motto and its meaning. at the glorious Battle of Tsushima back in 1905. Abe is a superhuman who excels in every field. Rowing, navigation, composing haiku. He let it slip that he has won every chess match he has played for the last 9 years. The motto on his kaiten is to be 'Unerring Arrow of the Emperor'. Shigenobu Goto, aged 22, is from a merchant family in Osaka and has a wit that can kill at twenty paces. He gets love letters nearly every day from different girls, and complains about the lack of women on the base. Abe responds with a single word: Purity. Goto can impersonate anybody and anything. He even takes requests: Chinaman attacked by snake in privy; Tohoku fishwife being blown through tuba. He uses his voices to distract Abe when they play chess. Abe wins anyway. The message on Goto's kaiten is to read: 'Medicine for Yankees'. Our third member is Issa Kusakabe. Kusakabe is a year older than me, quiet, and reads anything he can get his hands on. Technical manuals, novels, poetry, old magazines from before the war. Anything. Mrs Oshige (our 'mother' on Otsushima, who believes we are testing a new type of submarine) arranged for a boy to bring Kusakabe books from the school library every week. He even has a volume of Shakespeare. Abe questioned whether the works of an effete Westerner were appropriate for a Japanese warrior. Kusakabe explained that Shakespeare is English kabuki. Abe said Shakespeare contained corrupting influences. Kusakabe asked which plays Abe was thinking of. Abe let it drop. After all, Kusakabe would not have volunteered to be a kaiten pilot if his ethics were in any way questionable. He is inscribing not a slogan, but a line of verse on his kaiten. 'The foe may raise ten thousand shouts we conquer without a single word.' I must not neglect Slick, our unit chief engineer. His nickname is derived from his hands, which are always oily and black. Slick is one of the oldest men on the base. He is vague about his age, but he is old enough to be our father. Goto jokes that he probably is our father. Slick's real children are his kaitens. By the way, I have elected to leave my kaiten without a motto. My sacrifice shall be its motto and its meaning.

I put the journal under the counter of Shooting Star to give my eyes a rest the pages are laminated, but the pencil marks are fading away to ghost lines. Plus, many of the kanji are obscure, so I have to keep referring to a dictionary. I open a can of Diet Pepsi and survey my new empire: video racks, stacks, shelves. Mucus aliens, shiny gladiators, squeaky idols. Soft rock pumps away. In my week away the old shoe repairer next to Fujifilm has been turned into a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet. A spooky life-sized statute of Colonel Sanders stands outside, under a limp 'Opening Fayre' banner. He is as fat and grinny as a statue of Ebisu in a temple. Does KFC make you that fat?

Buntaro and Machiko will be on their JAL airplane now, somewhere over the Pacific. Buntaro was in a near-frenzy when I got back from my meeting with Mr Raizo, even though he had ninety minutes before the taxi came. What would happen if the computer crashed? If the monitor broke down? If it rains tap-dancing conger-eels? Machiko hauled him into the taxi. I I can watch anything on the monitor, but there are too many films to choose, so I leave the same Tom Hanks movie running all day. Nobody will notice. Between two and five, business is pretty quiet; once offices and schools start winding up I get much busier. The regulars gape when they see me they immediately assume that Machiko has suffered a miscarriage. When I tell them the Ogisos are on holiday, they act as if I said Buntaro and his wife turned into teapots and flew to Tibet. The question of who I am is a trifle delicate my scuzzy landlord sublets my capsule without troubling the tax office. Schoolkids cluster around horror, office ladies hire Hollywood movies with blond stars, salarymen hire titles like Pam the Clam from Amsterdam Pam the Clam from Amsterdam and and Hot Dog Academy Hot Dog Academy. Several customers bring videos back late you always have to check the dates. Mrs Sasaki arrives at 7.30 I dash upstairs to feed Cat, and then across to KFC to feed myself. Colonel Sanders' chicken is made of sawdust. Mrs Sasaki tells me about my replacement at Ueno, which makes me sort of nostalgic for my old job. She leaves me the Tokyo Star Tokyo Star Monday has the jobs pages. If I want a career in kitchen portering, telesales, shelf-stacking or mailbox-stuffing then Tokyo is heaven on earth. Cat appears on the stairs during my week in hiding she learned how to open my capsule door. I tell her to go back but she ignores me, and after replacing a stack of returned videos I find her settled on the counter chair, so I have to make do with a wobbly stool. Fujifilm says 10:26. Business drops off. Monday has the jobs pages. If I want a career in kitchen portering, telesales, shelf-stacking or mailbox-stuffing then Tokyo is heaven on earth. Cat appears on the stairs during my week in hiding she learned how to open my capsule door. I tell her to go back but she ignores me, and after replacing a stack of returned videos I find her settled on the counter chair, so I have to make do with a wobbly stool. Fujifilm says 10:26. Business drops off.

2nd September Hot weather, but cooler in the evenings now. I received your letter today, Takara, and the parcel from Mother and Yaeko containing the thousand-stitch belt. Given the special attack nature of my mission, the five-sen coins sewn into the belt will not avert death, but I shall wrap it around my middle every time I climb aboard my kaiten. Abe, Goto, Kusakabe and I read aloud our letters from home, and I was proud as Tengu when I told them my younger brother is already a junior squadron leader at the bullet factory. Your games resemble authentic military training charging at Roosevelts and Churchills with bamboo bayonets. My thoughts are also with Yaeko at the parachute factory. Her stitches may save the lives of my former classmates at Nara Naval Air Academy. It must pain Mother to trade Tsukiyama family treasures for rice, but I know Father and our ancestors understand. War changes rules. It is wise of you to tape Xs over the windows, to guard against bomb blasts. Nagasaki was ever a most fortunate city, and if raids come the enemy will target the shipyards rather than our side of town. All the same, every precaution should be taken.

I will write a reply to your letter very soon. By now, you will understand why my reply fails to provide answers to all the questions you asked.

9th September Weather: warm, mild, balmy. I am 20 years old today. To celebrate my birthday in a time of national emergency is inappropriate, so after a warhead study session I sneaked away before supper. I gratefully accepted the sunset as my birthday present. Inland Sea sunsets are special. Tonight's was the colour of Yaeko's plum preserve. Do you remember the story of Urashima Taro? About how he saved the giant turtle, and stayed in the undersea palace for three days, but upon his return three generations had come and gone? I wondered about how this place will look in ninety years, when the Greater East Asian War is but a distant memory. Bring your children to Otsushima when the war is won. The local sea bream is delicious, as are the Inland Sea oysters. I was about to return to the refectory, when Abe, Goto and Kusakabe appeared. Somehow Abe had found out about my birthday and told Mrs Oshige, who managed to prepare chicken skewers on a stick. Kusakabe built a fire and we had supper on the seashore and some home-brew sake which Goto appropriated from a canteen assistant. The drink was rough enough to paralyse our faces, but no meal ever tasted better, with the exception of Mother's.

13th September A warm morning, a muggy afternoon. An attack of flu has been around the base. I myself have been in the sickbay for 24 hours with a temperature of 39 degrees. I am recovering now. I suffered from strange dreams. In one, I was in my kaiten cruising around the Solomon Islands in search of an enemy aircraft carrier. Everything was so blue. I felt indestructible, like a shark. Suddenly Mrs Shiomi's son, the boy who threw himself under a Russian tank with a bomb at Nomonhan, was in my kaiten. 'Did nobody tell you?' he said. 'The war is over.' I asked who won, and I saw than Shiomi's eyes were missing. 'The emperor entertains the Americans with duck shoots in the palace grounds. In this fashion he seeks to save his skin.' I decided I should sail into Tokyo harbour and sink at least one enemy vessel, and pointed my kaiten north. The acceleration forced my body back, and when I woke I felt I was remembering being born, or perhaps dying, the last time or the next time. Kusakabe and Goto visited me later, to share notes they had taken in our navigation class, but I said nothing about my dream.

2nd October Drizzle all day. The Kikusui target sites were announced at a secret meeting this afternoon. I-47 I-47 and and I-36 I-36 will head for Ulithi, a vast lagoon in the Philippines captured by the Americans only 10 days ago. will head for Ulithi, a vast lagoon in the Philippines captured by the Americans only 10 days ago. I-37 I-37 and and I-333 I-333 will simultaneously attack Kossol Passage anchorage in the Palau Islands. The purpose of a dual-site attack is to ensure maximum damage to enemy morale. Find the Palau Islands in Father's atlas, Takara. You can see how vividly blue the seas are. When you wonder where I am, remember: your brother is the blue of the sea. will simultaneously attack Kossol Passage anchorage in the Palau Islands. The purpose of a dual-site attack is to ensure maximum damage to enemy morale. Find the Palau Islands in Father's atlas, Takara. You can see how vividly blue the seas are. When you wonder where I am, remember: your brother is the blue of the sea.

Disharmony grows between Abe and Kusakabe. Our unit leader challenged Kusakabe to a game of chess, and he declined. Abe teased him: 'Are you afraid of losing?' Kusakabe made a strange reply: 'No, I am afraid of winning.' Abe retained his smile, but his irritation was plain. Brothers who shall die together should not quarrel in this way.

10th October Weather clear. Dew on the grass this morning. Slick, his ground crew and I were hauling our kaiten through the tunnel to the launch pier this afternoon when the air-raid siren sounded. No drill had been scheduled. The tunnel filled up with men from the launch pier while the commandant shouted orders over the loudspeakers. TNT was secured in the deep bunker, the submarines manoeuvred out of the bay, and we waited anxiously for the sound of B29s. If a bomb scores a direct hit on the machine-shops, the project could be delayed crucial weeks. Slick wondered aloud if an attack on the mainland means the Americans are attacking Okinawa already. We hear so many rumours but reliable news is scant. After a nervous forty minutes the all-clear siren sounded. Maybe a jumpy lookout post mistook our own Zeros for enemy planes.

13th October Pleasant afternoon sun. Clouds by evening. Rereading this journal, I notice that I have failed to describe the atmosphere of the base. It is unique, in my experience. Engineers, instructors, pilots and trainees all work together towards the same end. I have never felt so alive as in these weeks. My life has a meaning to defend the Motherland. Discipline is not lax. We undergo the same drills and inspections as any military bace. But the excesses of ordinary camps, where green recruits are hazed and where soldiers are hung upside down and beaten, are unknown on Otsushima. We receive regular rations of cigarettes and candy, and real white rice. My one regret is that I cannot share my meals with you, Mother and Yaeko. I am stockpiling my candy for you, however, and refuse to gamble with it like Goto and most of my co-trainees.

18th October Steady rain all day. The Zuikaku Zuikaku is still afloat and Father is therefore almost certainly alive! Abe arranged for me to use military channels to dispatch a telegram to Mother immediately. I received the news from Cpt Tsuyoshi Yokota of is still afloat and Father is therefore almost certainly alive! Abe arranged for me to use military channels to dispatch a telegram to Mother immediately. I received the news from Cpt Tsuyoshi Yokota of I-333 I-333, which docked in Otsushima today. Cpt Yokota had himself spoken to Admiral Kurita aboard the Atago Atago only seven days previously while on patrol in the Leyte Gulf. The news that Father is still well and thinking of us heartens me beyond words. One day he may hold this very journal in his hands! Cpt Yokota says that only seven days previously while on patrol in the Leyte Gulf. The news that Father is still well and thinking of us heartens me beyond words. One day he may hold this very journal in his hands! Cpt Yokota says that Zuikaku Zuikaku is regarded as a charmed ship since Pearl Harbor. Remember that civilian mail to the South Seas is a very low priority, so do not be discouraged if you hear nothing. This evening, a 4-day leave was announced for the Kikusui Group men, before we depart for the target zone. is regarded as a charmed ship since Pearl Harbor. Remember that civilian mail to the South Seas is a very low priority, so do not be discouraged if you hear nothing. This evening, a 4-day leave was announced for the Kikusui Group men, before we depart for the target zone.

20th October Clear day, refreshing breezes. Good fortune begets good fortune. During dinner, Cmdnt Ujina broadcast the evening news over the camp speakers, and we heard of the extraordinary kamikaze successes in the Philippines yesterday. Five American aircraft carriers and six destroyers sunk! In a single wave! Surely even the American savages will realize the hopelessness of invading the home islands. Lt Kamibeppu stood on his bench and proposed a toast to the souls of the brave aviators who had given their lives to our beloved Emperor Hirohito. Rarely have I heard such a moving speech. 'Pure spirit, or metal? Which is the stronger? Spirit will buckle metal, and blast it with holes! Metal can no more damage pure spirit than scissors can cut a rope of smoke!' I confess, I imagined the day when similar toasts shall be drunk to our souls.

28th October Light rain today. The new I-333 I-333 kaitens became operational today. They handle more smoothly than the training kaitens. After a longer-than-expected test session, I ran back through the rain across the exercise ground and nearly collided with Kusakabe, who was leaning against the supply shed, staring intently at the ground. I asked him what had caught his attention so. Kusakabe pointed at a puddle, and spoke softly. 'Circles are born, while circles born a second ago live. Circles live, while circles living a second ago die. Circles die, while new circles are born.' A very Kusakabe comment. I told him he should have been born a wandering poet-priest. He said maybe he was, once. We watched the puddles for a while. kaitens became operational today. They handle more smoothly than the training kaitens. After a longer-than-expected test session, I ran back through the rain across the exercise ground and nearly collided with Kusakabe, who was leaning against the supply shed, staring intently at the ground. I asked him what had caught his attention so. Kusakabe pointed at a puddle, and spoke softly. 'Circles are born, while circles born a second ago live. Circles live, while circles living a second ago die. Circles die, while new circles are born.' A very Kusakabe comment. I told him he should have been born a wandering poet-priest. He said maybe he was, once. We watched the puddles for a while.

2nd November The dying heat of 1944. I just returned from Nagasaki for the final time. Those memories are yours too, so I have no need to describe them here. I can still taste Mother's yokan and Yaeko's pumpkin tempura. The train journey took a long time because the engine constantly broke down. The military carriage was commandeered by a high-ranking party of officers, so I travelled with a carriage full of refugees from Manchukuo. Their stories of the Soviets' cruelty and their Chinese servants' treachery were terrible. How grateful I am that Father never joined the colonists over the past two decades. One girl younger than you was travelling alone to find an aunt in Tokyo. This was her first time in Japan. Around her neck was an urn. It contained the ashes of her father, who died in Mukden, her mother, who died in Karafuto, and her sister, who died in Sasebo. She was afraid she would fall asleep and miss Tokyo, which she imagined was a small place like her frontier town. She believed she could find her aunt by asking people. At Tokuyama I gave her half my money, wrapped in a handkerchief, and left before she could refuse. I fear for her. I fear for all of them.

'Golems,' I explain, lying showered and naked in after-midnight capsule darkness with Ai on the other end of the phone, 'are totally different to zombies. Sure, they are both undead, but you mould golems from graveyard mud in the image of the dead man buried below, and then you inscribe his rune on the torso. You can only kill golems by erasing the rune. Zombies you can easily decapitate, or set alight with a flamethrower. You make them from body parts, usually stolen from a morgue, or else you simply reanimate semi-rotten corpses.'

'Is necrophilia a compulsory subject in Kyushu high schools?'

'I work in a video shop now. I have to know these things.'

'Change the subject.'

'Okay. What to?'

'I asked you first.'

'Well, I always wanted to know what the meaning of life is.'

'Eating macadamia-nut ice cream and listening to Debussy.'

'Answer seriously.'

Ai hums as she changes position. 'Your question is seriously wrong.'

I imagine her lying here. 'What should my question be, then?'

'It should be "What is your your meaning of life?" Take Bach's meaning of life?" Take Bach's Well-Temper'd Clavier Well-Temper'd Clavier. To me, it means molecular harmony. To my father, it means a broken sewing machine. To Bach, it means money to pay the candlestickmaker. Who is right? Individually, we all are. Generally, none of us is. Are you still thinking about your great-uncle and his kaiten?'

'I guess. His meaning of life seemed rock-solid valid.'

'To him, yes. Sacrificing your life for the vainglory of a military clique isn't my idea of "valid", but to your great-uncle learning how to play the piano as well as my united brain, nerves and muscles will allow wouldn't have seemed very worthwhile.' Cat walks in at this point. 'Maybe the meaning of life lies in the act of looking for it.' Cat laps water in the thirsty moonlight.

'So much space!' Buntaro yells into a telephone on a windy morning. 'What do you do with all this space? Why did I never come here years ago? The plane took less time than my dentist. Do you know when I last took a holiday outside Tokyo?'

'Nope.' I stifle a yawn.

'Me neither, lad. I arrived in Tokyo when I was twenty-two. My company made transformers, and they sent me up for training. I get off the train at Tokyo station, and twenty minutes later I find the exit. Would I ever hate hate to spend my life living in this hell-hole! I think. Twenty years on, look at what I did. Beware of holidays in paradise, lad. You think too much about what you never did.' to spend my life living in this hell-hole! I think. Twenty years on, look at what I did. Beware of holidays in paradise, lad. You think too much about what you never did.'

'Does everyone in paradise get up so early?'

'The wife was up before me. Strolling on the beach, under the palm trees. Why is the ocean so... y'know... blue? You can hear the waves crash from our balcony. My wife found a starfish washed up. A real, live starfish.'

'That's the sea for you. Is there, uh, anything specific you wanted to talk to me about?'

'Oh, yeah. I thought I'd run through your problems.'

'Which ones, uh, did you have in mind?'

'Your problems with the shop.'

'Shooting Star? There are no problems.

'None?'

'Not one.'

'Oh.'

'Get back to paradise, Buntaro.'

I try to get back to sleep I was talking with Ai until after three a. m. but my mind is moving up its gears. Fujifilm says 07:45. Cat laps water and leaves for work. The morning plugs itself in. I doodle blues chords for some time, smoke my last three Lucky Strikes, eat yoghurt after spooning out a mould colony and listen to Milk and Honey Milk and Honey. A kite of sunlight settles on Anju.

For two days she was classed as missing, but nobody was cruel enough to tell me not to give up hope. True, tourists go missing on Yakushima all the time, and often turn up or get rescued a day or two later. But locals are never so stupid, not even local eleven-year-olds we all knew knew Anju had drowned. No goodbye, just gone. My grandmother had aged ten years by the following morning, and looked at me as if she scarcely knew me. There was no big scene when I left that day. I remember her at the kitchen table, telling me that if I hadn't gone to Kagoshima, her granddaughter would still be alive. Which I thought and think is only too true. Being surrounded by Anju's clothes and toys and books was unbearable, so I walked to Uncle Orange's farmhouse and my aunt cleared a corner for me to sleep in. Officer Kuma called round the evening after to tell me that the search for Anju's body had been called off. My Orange cousins are all older girls, and they decided I needed nursing through my grief they kept saying it was okay to cry, that they understood how I felt, that Anju dying wasn't my fault, that I had always been a good brother. Sympathy was also unbearable. I had swapped my sister for one never to be repeated goal. So I ran away. Running away on Yakushima is simple you leave before the old women stir and the fog goes home seawards, tread quietly through the weatherboarded alleyways, cross the coast road, skirt the tea-fields and orange orchards, set a farm dog barking, enter the forest and start climbing.

After the head of the thunder god vanishes into the ocean, I skirt the ridge above my grandmother's house. No light is on. An autumn morning, when rain is always ten minutes away. I climb. Waterfalls without names, waxy leaves, berries in jade pools. I climb. Boughs sag, ferns fan, roots trip. I climb. I eat peanuts and oranges, to make sure I can disappear high and deep enough. Leech on my leg, creeping silence, day clots into grey afternoon, no sense of time. I climb. A graveyard of trees, a womb of trees, a war of trees. Sweat cools. I climb. Way up here, everything is covered in moss. Moss vivid as grief, muffling as snow, furry as tarantula legs. Sleep here, and moss covers you too. My legs stiffen and wobble so I sit down, and here comes the foggy moon through a forest skylight. I am cold, and huddle in my blanket, niched in an ancient shipwreck of a cedar. I am not afraid. You have to value yourself to be afraid. Yet for the first time in three days, I want something. I want the forest lord to turn me into a cedar. The very oldest islanders say that if you are in the interior mountains on the night when the forest lord counts his trees, he includes you in the number and turns you into a tree. Animals call, darkness swarms, cold nips my toes. I remember Anju. Despite the cold, I fall asleep. Despite my tiredness, I wake up. A white fox picks its way along a fallen trunk. It stops, turns its head, and recognizes me with more-than-human eyes. Mist hangs in the spaces between my boughs, and birds nest in what was my ear. I want to thank the forest lord, but I have no mouth now. Never mind. Never mind anything, ever again. When I wake, stiff, not a tree but a snot-dribbling boy again, throat tight with a cold, I sob and sob and sob and sob and sob and sob.

Milk and Honey over, my Discman hums to a stop. The kite of sunlight has slid to my junk shelf, where Cockroach watches me, fiddling its feelers. I leap up, grab the bug-killer, but Cockroach does a runner down the gap between the floor and the wall I zap in about a third of the can. And here I stand, in mammoth-hunter pose, empty of everything. I ran away into the interior to understand why Anju had grown with me, cell by cell, day by day, if she was going to die before her twelfth birthday. I never did discover the answer. I made the descent without mishap the following day the Orange house was having collective hysterics about me but, looking back, did I ever really leave the interior? Is what Eiji Miyake means still rooted on Yakushima, magicked into a cedar on a mist-forgotten mountain flank, and my search for my father just a vague... passing... nothing? Fujifilm says I have to get Shooting Star ready for business. Another day too busy to worry about what it all means. Luckily for me. over, my Discman hums to a stop. The kite of sunlight has slid to my junk shelf, where Cockroach watches me, fiddling its feelers. I leap up, grab the bug-killer, but Cockroach does a runner down the gap between the floor and the wall I zap in about a third of the can. And here I stand, in mammoth-hunter pose, empty of everything. I ran away into the interior to understand why Anju had grown with me, cell by cell, day by day, if she was going to die before her twelfth birthday. I never did discover the answer. I made the descent without mishap the following day the Orange house was having collective hysterics about me but, looking back, did I ever really leave the interior? Is what Eiji Miyake means still rooted on Yakushima, magicked into a cedar on a mist-forgotten mountain flank, and my search for my father just a vague... passing... nothing? Fujifilm says I have to get Shooting Star ready for business. Another day too busy to worry about what it all means. Luckily for me.

7th November Mild weather, fish-scale clouds. I am in our dorm after our predeparture banquet. I am fat with fish, white rice, dried seaweed, victory chestnuts, canned fruit, and sake, which was presented by the emperor himself. Because the weather was fine today, the Kikusui graduation ceremony was held outside, in the exercise yard. Everyone on the base was in attendance, from Commandant Ujina down to the lowliest kitchen boy. The rising-sun flags on base and on the ships and submarines, were all raised in unison. A brass band performed the kimigayo. We wore uniforms especially tailored for the kaiten division: black, cobalt trimmings, with green chrysanthemums embroidered on the left breast. Vice-admiral Miwa of the 6th Fleet gave us the honour of a personal address. He is a fine orator as well as an unequalled naval tactician, and his words inscribed themselves on our hearts. 'You are avengers, at last face to face with those who would murder your fathers and violate your mothers. Peace will never be yours if you fail! Death is lighter than a feather, but duty is heavier than a mountain! 'Kai' and 'Ten' signify 'Turn' and 'Heaven' therefore, I exhort you, turn the heavens so light shines anew on the land of the gods!' One by one, we ascended the podium, and the vice-admiral presented each of us with a hachimaki to tie around our heads like the samurai of old, and a seppuku sword, to remind us that our lives are His Imperial Majesty's possessions, and to avert the indignity of surrender should disaster prevent us from striking our targets. During the closing kimigayo we bowed before the portrait of the emperor. A priest then led us to a shinto shrine to pray for glory.