Grenade

Hideki joins the tens of thousands of Okinawan refugees and Japanese soldiers moving south in the heavy rain. Mournfully, he compares the image of Okinawa before in his mind—coral sand roads, palm trees, and women in beautiful kimonos—to the current muddy mess and destruction.

When something moves in the corner of Hideki’s eye, he recognizes Ray’s ghost and explains to it that he needs to find Kimiko. As an American plane swoops low over the crowd, Hideki sees Japanese soldiers running and understands that the plane is radioing their location to a battleship offshore. Hideki jumps into a ditch on the side of the road just as shells land and explode on the road in deafening bangs, killing and injuring many.

Once the bombing stops, Hideki keeps moving south.

Hideki, exhausted, crawls into a tomb. The family the tomb belongs to—the Miyagis—are also hiding in there; they allow Hideki to rest. Hideki gives them some food and tells them that they should surrender to the Americans, who are not the monsters they were depicted as. After Hideki wakes up from a nap, the Miyagis ask him to take them to a US camp; Hideki leads them there, even though it requires him to backtrack north.

The Miyagis wave a white flag and approach loudly; American soldiers take them to safety. Mother Miyagi hugs Hideki and thanks him; he continues south.

Hideki is starving. He follows some Japanese soldiers to a command post in a cave hoping for food. He finds nurses there—it is also a field hospital—and asks if they know Kimiko, but they do not.

When an American voice calls into the cave that the occupants must come out with their hands up, Hideki implores them to surrender but the Japanese soldiers refuse. Hideki and many others run to the ventilation shafts at the back of the cave, hoping to climb out and escape, but American soldiers are pouring gasoline down these shafts.

As US forces throw grenades and flamethrower flames into the cave, Hideki pulls a metal cabinet down onto himself and a nurse. They shelter behind it as the fire rages. Finally, when the fire stops, they climb out. Everyone else is dead. They run to the back of the cave.

The nurse, Masako, was conscripted from a high school in Naha to work in a field hospital. Masako describes the horror and stress of working in a field hospital while supplies run out and American bombs fall.

In the distance, they see that Shuri Castle is on fire. They find cans of food in a bunker and eat. Japanese soldiers come across them and insist that they need to rejoin the army, so Hideki and Masako accompany them to a bunker filled with Japanese soldiers, Okinawan nurses, and refugees. Suddenly, Hideki hears a familiar voice scolding a child—it’s Kimiko.

Kimiko is overjoyed to see Hideki, but scolds him for coming south, where he will almost inevitably die. The Japanese army plans to aggressively attack the Americans; they are going to use Okinawan children as human shields and take as many American lives as possible.

Hideki tells Kimiko that their brother, mother, and father are dead. Kimiko responds with the story of how she got the white stripe in her hair that marks her as a yuta: As a child, she hit her head on a rock in the ocean and stopped breathing. Having already died once, she does not want to die again. Kimiko knows the only way out of the cave.

To escape the cave, they need to sidestep an unexploded American bomb which is sitting right at the cave entrance. It could detonate at any moment. Kimiko goes first. Masako is reluctant. Then, in a moment of high tension, she accidentally slips and falls onto the bomb as she tries to sidle past.

The bomb does not explode from Masako’s contact with it. Hideki coaxes a group of Okinawan children, who they brought from the cave, to carefully sidestep the bomb. They are fearful.

A Japanese soldier arrives, threatening to shoot them if they leave. Hideki invites him to shoot, pointing out that if he misses or if the bullet travels through Hideki’s body, it will detonate the huge bomb. Angrily, the Japanese soldier does not shoot. Hideki urges the last child through and follows.

They begin traveling north, toward the front lines and Hideki and Kimiko’s home.

The group comes across a Japanese machine gun nest. Masako suggests that Hideki could use his grenade to kill the two Japanese soldiers manning it, but he is reluctant. Instead, Hideki goes in and distracts the soldiers, lying that he has been sent by Lieutenant Colonel Sano with a message that the Yamato (a Japanese ship which was actually destroyed) is coming with reinforcements to take the soldiers home. The men are overcome with the news.

Hideki offers them cigarettes, and they watch as he goes through the pack. In the meantime, Kimiko, Masako, and the children sneak past unseen. When the Japanese soldiers see Hideki’s pile of photos, he explains that he took some from an American soldier that he killed and that others were given to him for safekeeping. The soldiers give Hideki their own family photos to protect as well. Hideki senses that they know that the Yamato is not coming for them, and that they will die.

Hideki catches up with Kimiko, Masako, and the children. When they reach a US camp guarded by armed soldiers, Masako suggests that Hideki use his grenade. Hideki knows that they will die if he does this—the Americans will turn into monstrous “lion-dogs” (230), angry and violent because they are afraid. In any case, the war is not Okinawan, but is between America and Japan.