The Captain Was a Doctor by Jonathon Reid

Author:Jonathon Reid [Reid, Jonathon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Military
ISBN: 9781459747234
Publisher: Dundurn
Published: 2020-10-24T00:00:00+00:00

Unlike the men, Reid was never out of camp, except on the rare occasions when he was shepherded by Uwamori or an interpreter to a local pharmacy to buy drugs. Day in, day out, his only freedom beyond the fence was in looking up, to gaze at the sky and clouds, and at night, the stars, with nothing to hold him back. The day of freedom with Iino, his discovery in the little glade, left him craving for more:

The next week when Iino came I was anxious for his coming. I even smiled at his pompous diagnoses and grinned when he stroked through half my sick to mark them for work. I was as restless as a housefly as he mumbo-jumboed in my room, waiting only for the moment when at last he rose, stretched, and suggested that there were several cases in the civilian hospital he would like my opinion on.

Leaving the hospital after our brief visit, I did not ask, I only hoped. But, sure enough, he took the turn that led to the Buddhist park. Once again we walked our bicycles across the railway track and headed up the green, still slope.

Up to this point I had not analyzed my interest. Nevertheless, I pushed ahead of Iino, up to the glade, leaving the little man panting behind. On this occasion I did not loll on the grass. I headed straight for the Buddha, walked around it, printed its every curve on my mind and gradually felt contentment sweeping through me. A sense of peace. But there stirred in me, too, something long repressed, deep and powerful as a hibernating bear, incessant as all the dark forces we have within us.

Iino was most complacent that afternoon. Probably he had been full of sake the night before and for a while he droned away about the superiority of Germanic science compared to the Anglo-American variety, until he fell asleep.

For an hour I was completely free. Lying on my back in the soft, green grass, idly noting the drifting passage of cloud wisps in the blue above, the swaying tracery of the leafy boughs, I had only to turn my eyes a little to see the shadow of the Buddha, lying as though prostrate in worship at the feet of the towering idol. At such times one does not wish for the soft touch of a happy past, nor feel the tiny shocks of fear for a future probably ending in a blood-stained shambles. One is just grateful for the oasis of the moment, the simple warmth and smells of nature that remain unchanged forever.

When Iino suddenly grunted and sat up, I felt no regret. It was only an interlude. All the way back to camp, foot up, foot down, I scarcely saw the turns, my mind slumbering at ease in memory of the still afternoon.

We arrived back in time for me to bolt my bowl of maize just as the work party tramped through the gate and drew up

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