January 28th, 1943
On the Mekong River, south of Luang-Prabang - An old motorboat moves on the river. Japanese officers, exhausted by the heat, lean against the railings. Two large rafts covered with a roof of mats follow the big boat, pushed with poles by requisitioned Laotian peasants. Their passengers wear the khaki-brown uniforms, the caps with a golden star on their heads and the bands of the Japanese soldiers - one company in all. Two dugouts carrying machine guns and mortars complete the small squadron.
The river patrol has been advancing without difficulty for two days, led by the expert hand of local fishermen who know how to avoid the sandbanks without a hitch and, despite the mosquitoes and the heat, the Japanese soldiers feel almost on vacation. The immense Mekong, sometimes four hundred meters wide, is dominated by a humid forest of a brilliant green.
On the banks, the rare clearings are occupied by villages - Laotians on one side, Siamese on the other - launching landing stages to the assault of the water. We also discover forestry exploitations where elephants used to work, before the war, at the skidding of the precious teak wood.
At each sign of human presence, the expedition stops to control the activities and to search the houses - mostly on the Laotian side, of course - in order to flush out "terrorists and troublemakers" and "henchmen of the colonialists" who want to "cut off the people of Asia from the Japan they supported with all their heart". Propaganda is not the last motivation for this expedition, which was led by Major Nakajima himself. He took position with captain Fujimori and the lieutenants Fujishima and Yasuda in the motor boat, the second lieutenants Kakuta and Kishiro following on the rafts.
New village, new stop.
Without hurrying, the soldiers spread out on the bank, a good opportunity to stretch their legs. As it is not raining - for a change - they leave their raincoats in the rafts and make do with the summer shirt and the canvas roll that serves as an assault pack. Most of them are armed with the 7.7 mm model 99 rifle, only a dozen or so are equipped with the 6.5 mm machine gun model 96 with its magazine holder and two of 30 bullets. The officers, of course, carry katana, boots and pistol.
While some of the soldiers gather the villagers in the central square, the others break down the doors of the huts that their inhabitants have not left open, in search of the the famous terrorists, weapons, compromising documents... or precious objects.
Commander Nakajima, captain Fujimori and lieutenant Fujishima examine with a disdainful eye the silent villagers, women in embroidered sarong and with the black hair in headbands, old men, almost naked children, very few adult men. They are in the fields and have dispersed into the forest since the arrival of the Japanese. Nakajima launches into an energetic speech - but incomprehensible for the villagers - while walking up and down, punctuating his sentences by waving his katana in its richly decorated scabbard. The Laotian who travels with the Japanese to serve as their translator then begins to translate the bellowing of the commander into a "friendly request to the friends of the Great Japan".
But the villagers never heard the end of the speech. A gunshot is heard and the collaborator collapses, wearing a third scarlet eye on his forehead.
Kakuta's platoon deploys into the undergrowth, without finding the shooter. However, even without a translator, Major Nakajima knows how to make himself understood. Threatening to cut all the inhabitants to pieces, he succeeds in making them point out another village, nearby, on the bank of the Mekong, "a village of terrorists". The Japanese retreat, leaving the villagers behind to bless the invisible gunman - he could have shot the Japanese commander, but by now there would no longer be a living soul in the village.
No sooner had the Japanese come into sight of the new village, a hamlet rather, than the first shots whistle in their ears. The company's machine guns opens fire and silences the enemy fire in a few moments. Under the whistles of their officers, the soldiers disembark at full speed. The huts, pierced like skimmers, are abandoned. In them, they find empty magazines of French rifles.
