Summary
When the young man awakes, he is visibly terrified to the extent that Hana has to quietly implore him not to be afraid. He gasps that she speaks English, and she explains that she lived in America for a long time. She helps him eat from a small spoon, “not liking him and yet moved to comfort him.”
Sadao comes in and sees the young man trying to sit up. He admonishes him that he cannot do that or he will kill himself. The man, who now looks as young as seventeen, asks timidly what the doctor is going to do with him. Sadao sighs and says he does not know; he ought to give him to the police and he knows he is a prisoner of war. In fact, Sadao says, the man should not even tell him his name because he wants no part of all this. The man is surprised and upset but assents.
Hana tells Sadao that the servants do not want to stay. Yumi explained to her that they think Sadao and Hana like Americans and are not thinking of their own country first. Sadao is angry; he says that he knows Americans are their enemies but he has been trained not to let a man die. Hana understands but knows the servants cannot.
Time passes, and the servants are very watchful and anxious. The old gardener wonders aloud why Sadao did not let the man bleed out. The cook replies snarkily that the master is simply too proud of his skills to let that happen. Yumi adds that Sadao and Hana must think of the children, who will be doomed if their parents are found to be traitors.
All of this is said within earshot of Hana, and she knows that they are partly right. There is another part of her that, while not sentimental, is confused about the young man. He seems to want to be on friendly terms; he tells her his name is Tom, but she only bows to him. He is trouble in the home, she thinks.
Sadao writes up a letter for the chief of police with every detail of the matter, but he puts it in his drawer and does nothing. Seven days after Sadao writes the letter, two things happen. First, the servants leave. Hana is “dismayed and terrified” but does not want them to speak poorly of her and Sadao, so she pays them and is kind to them. Yumi grieves to leave, knowing she will miss the baby, but she departs as well.
Sadao and Hana do not speak of the servants leaving initially, but later, Hana asks him how the servants see more clearly than they do. She wonders if they are different than other Japanese people. Sadao does not reply. He tells Tom later that he must start to work on his strength day by day. Tom, whom Sadao begins to think of as a boy and not a man, murmurs his thanks to the doctor for saving his life. Sadao coldly tells him not to thank him too early. The boy’s eyes are filled with terror and Sadao notices his scars again.
The second thing that happens that day is that a messenger comes to procure Sadao. Both husband and wife are frightened that they are in trouble, but it is only the General calling for Sadao. Sadao can see how heavy this prisoner weighs on his wife, and knows he must do something.
At the General’s, Sadao tells the man all about the soldier. The General says he understands and believes Sadao when he claims he cares nothing for the man. The General does not want Sadao arrested or in trouble because he needs his care. He lies back weakly and wishes that they could “combine the German ruthlessness with the American sentimentality. Then you could turn your prisoner over to an execution and yet I could be sure you would not murder me while I was unconscious.”
The General then muses that he has his own private assassins and could use them. Sadao agrees, knowing this would be an easy enough end to their troubles. He decides not to tell Hana because she would not like knowing that assassins were in their home.
When he checks on his patient upon his return, he sees the boy out of bed ready to go into the garden. Sadao utters a gasp; Tom says he is feeling great but his muscles are stiff. Sadao immediately lapses into his physician’s mindset and looks at the patient’s side. Tom says that he knows if he hadn’t met a “Jap” like Sadao, he would not be alive today. Sadao bows in silence. Tom then similes that “if all the Japs were like you there wouldn’t have been a war”; Sadao murmurs, “Perhaps.”
Sadao sleeps badly that night, expecting the assassins. The next morning, the boy is still there, sleeping peacefully. On the second night, Sadao is also apprehensive; on the third night, he hears something that frightens him, but the next morning, the young man is still there.
Sadao sees Tom, healthier and in good spirits, and knows he cannot endure another night of anxiety. He tells Tom that there is an abandoned island not far from the coast. No one lives there since storms batter it, but if he gets to it, he can signal to a Korean fishing boat to escape. When Tom asks, surprised, if he has to go, Sadao tells him gently that his presence is known here. Tom comprehends what he means by this.
Sadao prepares a small boat with food, water, and quilts, working in the moonlight. He hesitates over giving Tom a flashligh,t but he decides to do so. He checks Tom’s temperature, wound, and pulse. Tom tells him he knows he is saving his life a second time. Sadao replies that it is inconvenient for him to be here any longer.
As Tom prepares to go, Sadao tells him to signal with two flashes from the flashlight at sunset if he runs out of food; if he is okay at night, one flash will do. Tom wordlessly shakes Sadao’s hand and heads into the night. There is one flash later, and Sadao finally sleeps.
When Sadao meets with the General again, it is to carry out an operation which Sadao is not sure the General will survive. He does survive, however; a week later, when the General is well enough, Sadao brings up the prisoner. Within that week, the servants had come back, and things were well. Sadao tells him the prisoner escaped. The General realizes he had promised to take care of the prisoner and says matter-of-factly that he forgot.
Sadao nods and says he had wondered whether the General had forgotten. Then, the General says with conviction that it was not for lack of patriotism and dereliction of duty that he did not take the man out; at that point, Sadao realizes “the General was in the palm of his hand and that as a consequence he himself was perfectly safe.” Sadao states that he would of course swear to the General’s loyalty and zeal against the enemy. The General calls him a good man and says he will be rewarded.
That night, Sadao finds the reward he really wanted: there are no flashes and the island appears empty, meaning the prisoner got on the Korean fishing boat and left. As Sadao stands on the shore, he thinks of other white faces from his past, such as his dull professor, the professor's chatty wife, a kind anatomy teacher, a slatternly, rude landlady, and other Americans who were rude and prejudiced against him. It was hard to be around so many repulsive people when he knew his own superiority to them. It is a relief to be at war with them. Finally, the prisoner’s white face comes to him once more; he thinks it “white and repulsive” but wonders why he could not kill him.
Analysis
The simple brilliance of Buck’s story is made manifest by the time it ends: the “enemy” could be the Japanese and it could be the Americans; both sides claim to be in the right and to have entered World War II for noble reasons, but both sides are led astray by their ideology, nationalism, and desire for power. On the individual level, Buck stresses that Sadao and Tom are connected, despite all of their differences, by their humanity—humanity that supersedes (or should supersede) all other impulses. This does not mean these characters are perfect or vastly superior—Tom holds racist and simpleminded views of Japanese people and Sadao fixates on the “repulsiveness” of white people—but both of them realize (albeit mostly intuitively) that life is more important than ideology.
Sadao’s decision to save Tom’s life and keep him at his home for a while is full of risk, but his particular position as a noted doctor who is treating a prominent General keeps him safe. At the first meeting with Sadao, the General implies that he would not have Sadao punished because he needs him. He says frankly that there are no other surgeons he trusts and that he will take care of Sadao’s problem for him. In their final meeting, the General obliquely admits he had too much on his mind—his ill health and surgery—to remember to send the assassins. His complete self-interest and worry about being considered unpatriotic puts him “in the palm of [Sadao’s] hand” and provides Sadao a respite from the intense anxiety he has been suffering. Both men have done something “wrong” and are trying to preserve their reputation and safety; in this context, they find each other's discretion to be useful.
Though the General promises Sadao a reward, the real reward for him is seeing Tom escape. It is not due to any affection for the young man, but rather due to his relief at having this problem out of his home. Earlier in the text, though, it was suggested that Sadao and Hana were uncomfortable with what they had heard of the prisoner-of-war camps (and Tom’s glowing red scars unnerved them), so while Sadao may not have had any affection for the boy, he does seem to be relieved that Tom is not going to be apprehended again and subject to torture.
The end of the story sees Sadao standing on the beach thinking about his relief that Tom is gone but also flashing through the numerous white people with whom he came in contact in America. There is some complexity here, for it is clear that Sadao was very invested in Tom’s safety, watching nightly for a sign that he was still okay and did not need anything, but he is also quick to return to his foundational belief that Americans are repulsive and fundamentally the enemy. He feels “relief to be openly at war with them at last,” a sentiment that is not hard to understand given the litany of obnoxious Americans he remembers. He rests on his understanding of himself as superior and wonders why, knowing that, he could not kill Tom.
Scholar Tammara Or Slilat attempts to explain the end of the story: “How can we explain that quick change in his personality and attitude towards the POW and the role he played in saving him? The answer is that once Tom is gone, the dilemma is resolved, Sadao has to go back to his normal life, and his normal life is in the traditional Japanese society. So Sadao MUST go back to his traditional, Japanese mode of thinking and to the values that it holds. The patriotism and the prejudice against white people are all part of that side. There is no place there for human compassion which makes him save his enemy. In order for Sadao to live at peace with himself and his country, his family, his career, and his commander, he has to suppress what he has done and deny that he did it because he wanted to save the man's life. Now, when he's in his Japanese side, he can't admit to himself that he saved his enemy's life, so he tells himself it's strange that he couldn't kill him—because killing him is what he should have done according to Japanese tradition.” This is an apt description of Sadao’s complicated, complex feelings about what he’s done over the last few weeks.
