The Girl Who Played Go

14

At last! After a month of arduous tracking through the mountains, we have trapped the terrorists. We have cornered them on the edge of a precipice, with no escape unless they can fly.

We finished the bulk of our provisions a long time ago, and while we waited for new supplies, we shared what little we had. We can each count on the fingers of one hand the biscuits that have been handed out, and which we eat with mouthfuls of snow.

Yesterday at noon, with all our ammunition spent, we decided to charge straight on at the Chinese with fixed bayonets.

This morning a strange feeling of calm has settled on the mountain. There is not a breath of wind and only the cries of pheasants stand out against the silence. I am writing my will-the words of farewell calm my nerves.

I slowly draw the saber from its sheath, and wipe the blade with my handkerchief. This steel forged at the beginning of the sixteenth century has never shined so bright. In the past it has sliced off countless heads in the service of my ancestors. Today it is a mirror, reflecting the menacing purity of death.

Suddenly a bugle sounds. I bound out of the trench and hurl myself towards the enemy with a fierce war cry. Up on the mountaintop nothing moves: not one shadow, not a single man. The terrorists have flown away! A soldier is waving to us from the edge of the precipice. About a hundred meters below, the snow is dotted with bodies. The gunmen must have thrown down their weapons, their dead and their wounded, before hurling themselves over the edge. Now I understand why at about midday yesterday, after a violent exchange of fire, their guns fell silent.

The ammunition in both camps ran out at the same time, but neither knew of the other’s plight. We were all on the verge of collapse.

The Japanese had chosen to be glorious in their action, and the Chinese in their deaths. The pathetic heroism of their collective suicide is tainted by a sad irony: killing yourself too soon is a shameful form of surrender. The Chinese civilization is several thousand years old and has produced untold philosophers, thinkers and poets. But not one of them has grasped the irreplaceable energy of death.

Our more modest civilization is the only one that has grappled with this essential truth: to act is to die; to die is to act.