English (Core) · Ch 17 — The Enemy
Summary of the Lesson
Summary of the Lesson
The discovery on the shore
Dr Sadao Hoki, a celebrated Japanese surgeon, lives with his wife Hana in a house on the Japanese coast during the Second World War. One misty evening the couple, standing outside their home, notice a man struggling out of the sea and collapsing on the sand. Hurrying down, they find that he is a wounded, half-drowned white man — and, from his clothing, an escaped American prisoner of war. He has a fresh bullet wound in his back and is close to death.
The decision to operate
The two are immediately frightened. To shelter an enemy is a crime against the state, and their servants and neighbours would be horrified. For a moment they consider pushing him back into the sea. But Sadao, a doctor to the core, cannot bring himself to let a wounded man die when he might be saved. He and Hana carry the unconscious soldier into their house and lay him in an empty bedroom. Sadao operates on him, extracting the bullet, while Hana, overcoming her revulsion and fear, assists by administering the anaesthetic with her own hands.
The servants rebel and leave
The household servants are appalled that their master is nursing an enemy under his own roof. They mutter, disapprove, and warn that no good will come of it. When Sadao refuses to give up his patient, the servants abandon the house in protest, leaving Sadao and Hana to tend the recovering American, whose name is Tom, entirely by themselves.
Sadao reports the man to the General
Torn between saving the man and protecting his own family from the charge of treason, Sadao decides to inform the authorities. He goes to an old, ailing General whom he serves as personal physician and quietly reports that an escaped American prisoner is hidden in his home. The self-absorbed General, more anxious about his own health and his need for Sadao's surgical skill than about the enemy, promises a discreet solution: he will send his private assassins by night to kill the man silently in his bed and remove the body, sparing Sadao any public blame.
The assassins never come
Sadao leaves his outer partition open on the promised nights so that the killers can slip in, and each morning finds the American still alive and steadily improving. The assassins simply do not appear — the General, absorbed in his own illness and fears, has forgotten the whole matter. As Tom regains his strength, keeping him hidden becomes ever more dangerous.