Free Burial in the Clouds by Hiroyuki Agawa Page A

excuse me for writing out my scattered, incoherent thoughts at such length. As for the place where we may receive visitors, after many changes, they decided on Himeji Station, and the time appointed for it is tomorrow morning. My father should be there to see me. He is the kind of man who deeply reveres the Emperor and the Imperial Army and Navy, while he also respects you and Professor 0. It makes me a little anxious, but I think I will ask him to deliver this letter to you. If the instructors watch us so closely that I can’t carry out my plan, I will burn it in the toilet on the train. If this letter does happen to reach you, please destroy it after reading it through, as I said earlier.
    Together with a few other students in his outfit, Yoshino is playing an old child’s game with a handkerchief. Sakai is in another car. I can’t see him from where I sit.
    Professor, now I must bid you goodbye until I can write again. With best wishes for your good health and happiness.

    Izumi Naval Air Station
    June 3 (Continued from Yoshino’s diary)
    Flying is becoming the be-all and end-all of our lives.
    Each of us has already received an air log and a flight record. Outfitted with an oil-stained flying suit, aviation cap, half boots, a pair of goggles, and a life jacket, every last one of us is, to all appearances, an imposing “warbird” of the Imperial Navy.
    The schedule is exacting. Reveille is at 0530, and we assemble within two minutes after that. Seconds count if you must fold your blanket neatly on your bunk, tie your shoelaces tightly, and line up, all in two minutes flat. We are constantly on the run. Once I saw a newsreel about young trainee pilots. Watching them dash like madmen from one task to another, I thought the scene simply had to have been staged. Nothing could be further from the truth.
    We are told that pilots must always keep a clear head. Should so much as a wisp of a cloud pass through a pilot’s mind, he will inevitably lose control of his plane. They say pilots with fiancees back home have more accidents.
    We live on a kind of tangent with death. We have to shout at the top of our lungs whenever we give account of ourselves, and if we let our guard down just a bit, we draw a storm of slaps before we cause an accident. The 13th Class of student reserves, now already commissioned, has stayed on as assistant division officers for the sea-plane units. They are a rough, bloodthirsty lot, and stick it to us the second they find us derelict. “Hold it right there, student of the 14th Class!” they will say, and over they come at a clip with a beating to complement the scolding. “Do you want to disgrace the Student Reserve Corps?!”
    We were separated into boarding groups. I was assigned to group ten and took my first orientation flight today with Instructor Yamaguchi. The command to “Commence!” came at 1045, and off I sprinted to the aircraft. I thought I acted with composure and celerity, but obviously I lost my calm, since it wasn’t until we were up in the air that I realized I wasn’t wearing gloves. We flew at an altitude of 200 meters. That’s about eight times the height of the Marubutsu Department Store in front of Shichijo Station, but it didn’t feel particularly high, it just felt as if my body were suspended in air. There was something gratifying about the experience, making me wish very much to congratulate myself. Ahead of us was Instructor Ejiri’s plane, floating along with Sakai aboard. I was pretty much disoriented as to our bearings, but as I steadied myself and took a close look, I noticed our position gradually shifting against the green background of the mountains. Beneath us ran streams. A grid lay over the land, with its roadways and airplane hangars, and that clear geometric pattern was dotted with men who looked like black beans. The barley in that lower world is ripe for harvest. We soon reached the turning point