The Heat of the Sun

papers!
    ‘For a long time there was no sign of the VIPs. The photographers got to work all the same. One came and let off his flash in my face; it was as much as I could do not to snatch his camera
and fling it to the asphalt, but after all it was a Seiki-Kogaku, and I respect a Seiki-Kogaku. Guards patrolled between us, guns at the ready; the POW doctors and nurses, also under armed guard,
stood on a podium at one end. I inspected my fellow captives.
    ‘That’s when I saw him: Wainwright.
    ‘There was no doubting it: the fellow across the tarmac was skinny as a rake like me and dressed in a different uniform – Australian, for Christ’s sake, slouch hat and all
– but I’d have known him anywhere. I almost laughed. How could I doubt that Wainwright would come through it all? He was a cat with nine lives. What stories he must have to tell! And if
Wainwright could survive, so could I. But had he seen me yet? He’d made no sign.
    ‘The VIPs arrived at last. We heard the whip of mighty blades and a roar; a shadow passed over us, and a Mitsubishi carrier fighter came bumpily to its rest in fields beyond the tents. The
guards, on their mettle now, patrolled between us, guns cocked, bellowing at us in Jap. I could hardly believe anyone too important would visit this far-flung corner, but it seemed we would
pretend. Crackly loudspeakers blasted out the Jap national anthem.
    ‘Now came the official party: a fat general, decked with ribbons; a bearded admiral; a doddering old man in a scarlet sash – and a younger fellow, upright and handsome, who walked
ahead of the others. For a crazed moment I thought he might be Emperor Hirohito himself, but whoever he was, he was important.
    ‘As the VIPs passed between us, we were supposed to salute. I raised a hand to my temple: Wainwright did the same. I winked at him and grinned. I don’t think he saw me, so I tell
myself that what happened next wasn’t my fault.
    ‘We’d been in the sun a long time. Wainwright must have been light-headed; years in hellholes had done their worst. Either way, his brain was addled, though I think his last gesture
had a touch of Wainwright about it all the same. He stepped out of line, turned on his heels – and thumbed his nose at Hirohito.
    ‘There were gasps, cries. A guard struck Wainwright with a rifle butt. His slouch hat rolled across the tarmac, and he slumped to his knees and swayed.
    ‘Now Hirohito stood before him. He pulled up Wainwright’s head by the hair, slapped his face, then turned away, barking out an order. A shot rang out.
    ‘They left the body, face down, where it fell.
    ‘I trembled, as if in a fever again. To think that Wainwright had been through so much! To think that all of it should end like this! The heat was fierce. Already, insects would clamour
for his blood, swarming in black rivers over his eyelids, nose, and lips. The VIPs proceeded towards me. I didn’t care what happened to me now. They’d killed Wainwright and they could
kill me. Hirohito’s eyes flickered, wryly I thought, over the faces next to mine.
    ‘Then he stood before me.
    ‘“Murderer,” I said, and spat in his face.
    ‘The moment that followed seemed suspended, unreal. Blackness welled before me. I had so expected to be shot that I almost believed it had happened already, but when my vision came back I
was alive, a guard pinched the back of my neck in the one truly vice-like grip I’ve ever felt, and Hirohito, with the same supercilious eyes, dabbed his face with a handkerchief and issued
quiet orders to his retinue.
    ‘I would have cursed him if the words would leave my lips. How could it be that I was not yet dead? It was cruel, for at once, like a scene change at the opera, everything was altered: no
VIPs, no band, no guards, no prisoners ranged in shabby lines; only Wainwright, lying dead where he had fallen, and the man who had spat at Hirohito shackled to a flagpole, six feet away, in the
full glare of the tropical sun.
    ‘No one watched me. Night fell, as it falls in those latitudes, with the quickness of a theatre curtain coming down. Rain, in syrupy drops, soaked me to the skin. Hours passed. I shivered;
I raged with hunger; I pissed and shitted myself, but still nobody came. Perhaps, I thought deliriously, I had died after all. I talked to Wainwright: “Can you hear me, old pal? No need to
lie doggo now! Here we are in the afterlife, and the Japs can’t get us.”
    ‘The rain eased, though