The first half of September had already passed and Frank, Alfred and about 1000 other volunteers were waiting in the military base of Mito for the trip to the front. Meanwhile, the two men from Lithuania were sick of the monotonous in the camp. Particularly, their desire to fight had noticeably decreased and they did not know, what the future would bring.
The Japanese television showed really atrocious pictures and also continuously war propaganda. The news about the situation on the fronts in the south and the north, were spoken with blaring voices. The Japanese army always seemed to be brave and successful, as the propaganda machine pointed out.
The foreign volunteers, who did not understand anything except for “Matsumoto” and “Nihon”, were tortured every day by the resounding television and radio reports which came from the loudspeakers. Victory here and victory there, victory everywhere! Frank and Alf began to hate it.
This morning, there had been a bigger controversy between some volunteers. A man from India and a Pakistani had tried to stab each other after a longer dispute. Three Japanese officers had restored order by beating them down with some clubs. Frank and Alf still did not know the reason for the quarrel.
Yesterday they had received an unexpected visit. Mr. Taishi and his wife had come to the camp to bring the two Europeans a delicious cake.
The elder Japanese businessman had told them, that his son was meanwhile stationed in Kobe. But the war had not reached the city yet, as Taishi said. Apart from that, the situation in the south let not much room for optimism. A few hours later, the “Nihon no Yari” unit had been called to the drill ground. A Japanese officer had explained the volunteers, in hardly understandable English, the decision of the high command. Tomorrow, the unit should be brought to Sapporo to strengthen the western defense ring around the city. This did not sound good.
Frank and Alfred called Mr. Wilden in the evening and told him the news. The village boss just congratulated them, because he regarded it as extremely important that Sapporo was not conquered by the GCF – and he was also far away from this war.
However, the two men from Lithuania worried about the fact that the GCF had formed a giant army in front of Sapporo. So the day slowly passed and Frank brooded until he was tired enough to sleep. Finally his nightmares came back again...
Between Frank and the strange, dark shadows on the opposite side was a broad river with deep, black water. From the riverbank, the young rebel could only recognize a cloud of hazy entities that hatefully stared at him. It were the vengeful souls of those who had been killed by his bomb in Paris.
When they recognized Frank, they started to shout: „There is the murderer Frank Kohlhaas!“
The young man became frightened and answered: „Who are you?“
„We are your victims! In our earlier lifes, we have been policemen, politicians, journalists…“
Frank was silent for a short moment and winced. „What do you want from me?“
The souls cried: „We want to haunt you! Our faces shall anguish you in your sleep. We will come over you, again and again, to drive you insane! Murderer! Murderer! Murderer!“
The young man was suddenly seized by anger and he replied: „You call me a murderer? You have killed my father and my sister! You have tortured me and millions of people have already died because of you!“
The souls of Frank`s victims hissed and howled. They did not want to hear that and a malicious murmuring resounded. „You are a murderer, Frank Kohlhaas! Nothing else, only a dirty murderer!“
„It is your fault!“, yelled Frank furiously at them. „You have made me to the man, that I am now!”
„No, the murderer has always been inside you, we have just unlocked the cage which has held it back!”
Kohlhaas clenched his fist and spat on the ground: „No, you are liars, all of you! I was a good person, until my life was destroyed by you! I was good, before you have tortured me!”
The dark cloud of souls began to swell and was screaming like a suffering child. Kohlhaas plugged his ears and closed his eyes.
“You love to kill, and you can not deceive us!“, cried the souls with shrill voices.
„You have started all that bloodshed. I`m not afraid of you! I hope you burn in hell now! This is the place, where you belong!“, he screamed.
„We are here, behind the river, in the realm of the dead. And we will wait for you, Frank! All too soon, we will welcome you here!“, they murmured with gleeful voices.
„Burn in hell!”, shrieked Frank again.
„Murderer! Murderer! Murderer!”, howled the souls.
“Liars! It is your fault!”
“Murderer!”
It continued in this way. The sleeper rolled restlessly on his bed and flailed around. First, Frank did not awake and just whispered incomprehensible things. Suddenly he startled up like a rocket and opened his eyes.
One of the soldiers beside him was woken up by Frank`s talking in the sleep and his screams. He got out of his bed and shone Kohlhaas in the face with his flashlight. The German stared at him and stammered: „What? What do you want?“
„Hey, man! What is wrong with you?“, asked the soldier, annoyed about the fact that Frank had robbed his sleep. Kohlhaas blinked and yawned quietly: „Nothing! It`s all right!”
„We all want to sleep, man!“, hissed the strong man, whose dark eyes looked threateningly. Probably he was an Arab. „Okay…“, gasped Frank and rolled to the side. It was 3,00 o'clock in the morning. Today, their own war would begin.
Three hours later, the Japanese officers awoke the men in the billet and put on the lights everywhere. Frank hummed confusedly and rubbed his eyes.
„Stand up, soldiers!“, it resounded in Frank`s ears.
With a silent grumble the German tumbled up from his bed. Today they would be brought to Sapporo. Where the hell was Alf?
Kohlhaas` friend was already in the wash room and brushed his teeth, around him were about fifty tired men from all countries. Outside they heard the officers roar: „Nihon no Yari unit! In ten minutes!“
Moments later, the soldiers went to the armory and got steel helmets, rifles, grenades and other gear. A short speech of the camp leader followed, in which the Japanese praised the outstanding courage of the foreign volunteers. Finally, all went to the transporters which left Mito at full speed.
The trip to Aomori, in the north of the central island of Honshu, lasted several hours and many of the soldiers used the time to make another nap. The atmosphere in the truck was tired, but full of expectation.
„They send us directly to hell!”, muttered Alfred and nervously chewed the collar of his uniform jacket, while the other soldiers looked at him with a smirk.
„The GCF has conquered Wakkanai, as expected. I have heard it has been a very brutal fight”, said Frank.
Alfred increased his chewing activity, while more and more other volunteers stared at him.
“Sapporo is a real fortress, but the GCF army is about one million soldiers strong. I hope our enemies will have a tough time with us...”
„We will kill the GCF!“, exulted a very young man with Italian accent and raised his forefinger.
„We will see!“, remarked Frank unemotionally.
After a while, the transporters had reached the coast and were brought to the island of Hokkaido by ship. It seemed to last an eternity until all soldiers had been loaded on the cargo boats and had stowed their luggage.
Meanwhile, Frank and Alfred played a card game with three Russians to kill time. The men from Moscow had already heard about that Freedom Movement of the Rus too, as they told them. The described themselves as “Russian patriots” and seemed to have some sympathies for the mysterious dissident Artur Tschistokjow. Frank and Alf found the conversation very interesting
From the coast of Hokkaido they drove to Hakodate and finally reached Sapporo. The silhouette of the northern metropolis looked futuristic and impressing.
„It still seems to be quiet here. Thank God!”, sa
id Frank, when the trucks drove through the city center. Bäumer hardly listened to him. He stared at the pretty Japanese women and girls who welcomed the volunteers with shrill voices and Japan flags.
„Hey, Alfi! I`m takling to you!“, shouted Frank and gave Bäumer a nudge.
„I heard it. Wow, look at these nice girls!“, answered the tall man.
“As I have already said, you need a girlfriend, dude! No doubt, Alf. I have heard, the girls in Japan like sexy school uniforms, he, he!”, teased Kohlhaas.
“Good idea! Come to uncle Alf, he will protect you!“, bawled Bäumer over the street.
Now the women threw some flower bouquets at the trucks and the soldiers tried to catch them. Frank did not join the horseplay and just thought of Julia.
„I will call her this evening...”, he promised himself.
The largest city on Hokkaido was an unusual sight. Many of the enormous skycrapers in the city center were multicolored, what looked strange. Red, brownish and even yellow skycrapers could be seen here!
The architecture was likewise different from Frank`s rotten hometown Berlin, it just looked modern and partly even futuristic.
Furthermore, beautiful avenues and large parks were here in great numbers. The young man was astonished. Such a clean and tidy city he had never seen before. But it was to be feared that these beautiful streets would soon be covered with corpses and debris.
In the background, grey mountains, wrapped by clouds, could be recognized. Sapporo had each year a traditional snow festival, because the winter here was always very cold. In the year 1972, the olympic winter games had taken place in this city. However, for the volunteers from Europe, Japan was a completely unknown world.
The native mentality was still unusual for Frank. But the different nations, cultures and races on earth were simply different by nature. A truth, the Lodge Brothers avoided like the plague. Nevertheless, it was a fact. The transporter convoy finally stopped in the late afternoon in the northwest part of Sapporo, an outskirt of the city. Now the two young men could see miles-long trenches and emplacements. Tanks were waiting for the enemy and the long gun barrels of some highly technicalised anti-aircraft guns seemed to reach for the sky.
All this did not look peacefully anymore. What a difference to the center of the city. The volunteers who had been transported to Sapporo today, were friendly welcomed by the officers of the Japanese army, and later accommodated in large tents. After a meager dinner most of the soldiers went to bed.
However, Alfred had the idea to go back to the inner city, in order to meet one or two of the pretty Japanese girls, but Frank told him that such things were strictly forbidden by the high command. Finally both men went to bed too. This night remained quiet.
It was 7.00 o'clock in the morning. The “Nihon no Yari” unit had mustered on an asphalted place in the proximity of the trenches, and was listening to the words of general Katsuya Takeuchi who had welcomed the volunteers before.
„In the next days, maybe today or tonight, the GCF will begin their attack on Sapporo!“, he shouted and walked up and down in front of the soldiers.
The Japanese appeared old and had almost white hair, his face looked embittered and at his belt Frank could recognize a samurai sword.
„Brave volunteers, we thank you very, very much that you risk your life in the fight for a free Japan! I`m sure, that one day, even your homelands will be liberated from the terror of the World Government!”, he continued. “We have already lost Wakkani! I`m general Takeuchi, and I swear on my honour, that we will never lose Sapporo! We must not lose Sapporo!”
Some of the men murmured and appeared impressed by the veteran. Takeuchi explained at least that about 300000 GCF soldiers stood opposite to the northwest of Sapporo. He swore the men to hold the line and insured that they would fight together with numerous and well trained Japanese comrades. Frank and Alfred breathed deeply and looked at the sky, which was filling with gray clouds. To bleed for Japan was really a “great” idea.
But the day passed, perfectly quite again, and the most exciting were the strategic instructions of the Japanese officers. However, the soldiers just played cards or tried to challenge their Japanese comrades in a baseball game.
But the locals were clearly superior, because baseball had a long tradition in Japan. Finally, everything was still all right. On that day, there were no quarrels among the volunteers and no enemy appeared.
All Quiet on the Sapporo Front...