When he woke up the next day, after eating a large piece of chocolate last night, Honda Shimoki woke up with great strength, dug up the dirt behind him, found a deeply buried kettle, and took a shallow sip.

The day of boredom and waiting to die began again.

And just as he woke up, a soldier with a haggard face wearing a tattered military uniform was walking out of the trench on foot, and under the shouting of persuasion outside, he threw down his weapon and all the equipment outside the uniform.

Shimoki Honda knew this soldier, a very ordinary junior infantryman.

For this soldier's choice, Honda Shimoki silently sent his blessings in his heart.

However, just as the soldier walked out of the trench five meters, suddenly an officer and a junior officer burst out of the hole, neatly dressed and without any vegetables on his face, and was very healthy.

There is no messy beard on his face, his hair is very clean, and the military boots on his feet are shiny.

Facing the junior soldiers who were about to go out and surrender, this young man took out his pistol and shot without hesitation.

Honda Shimoki was startled for a moment, but he quickly calmed down.

Isn't that why he never surrendered?

Not letting his subordinates surrender was originally one of the tasks of the officer, just to kill the soldiers who surrendered, and Honda Shimoki saw it for the first time.

From surrendering being shot, to the officer himself shooting those who surrendered, a deep fear binds everyone, but not including Honda Shimoki.

Shimoki Honda really wants to end this damn war, he is not a samurai brainwashed by a katana, he is a highly educated elite who knows a lot of political and military darkness.

But he couldn't do that, because he still had his family back home, and he knew very well what his family would be treated at home if he surrendered.

In Japan, soldiers captured by the enemy were treated as 'traitors' and were marked with a red pen in their family registers. This is what Honda Shimoki received.

In the afternoon, the surrenderer who surrendered yesterday reappeared in the trench, and the first one came to look for Honda Shimoki, probably because he felt that Honda Shikiki was different from others, and he was meticulous at any time.

During the short exchange, Shimoki Honda asked, "Aren't you afraid that Shaozo killed a soldier who was about to surrender in the morning?" ”

"I want to save more people, none of us should die in this place, Iwo Jima is no longer a battlefield, the Red Police Empire has captured the Philippines and British Indonesia, and also captured the Ogasawara Islands, I heard that their target has been set on Okinawa."

When Shimoki Honda heard the news, he was shocked, but he didn't ask, because these were too far away from him, like the unreachable Tokyo and his family in his homeland.

The surrenderer didn't talk much to Honda Shimoki, left two pieces of chocolate, secretly stuffed Honda Shimoki with a bottle of mineral water and a canned meat, and then began to persuade others to surrender.

Honda quietly put away these things, buried them, and watched him negotiate with other people, and after each negotiation, all those who refused, he would leave some to eat

Half an hour later, the surrenderer was about to leave, and at his persuasion, seven or eight more soldiers left the trenches and surrendered outside.

But just as the surrenderer left a piece of chocolate in his hand to the last soldier, as he left the trench, the soldier who took the chocolate fired a shot in the back of the surrenderer.

The bullet penetrated the chamber of the surrenderer, and the person who fired the shot tore open the chocolate and ate it, and Honda Shizuki could hear what he said while eating: "Just let him go back like this, he will become a traitor, he is very pitiful." ”

The bullet penetrated the surrenderer's chamber, but it should have missed the fatal point, he insisted on climbing out on the ground, returned to the observation port of Honda under the tree, and saw two enemy soldiers, coming out of the bunker at the exit of the trench, bringing back the wounded capitulator.

Shimoki Honda had time to aim and shoot, but he didn't, because not just for him, but for all the Japanese soldiers in the entire trench, he had accepted from his heart that the war was over.

In the next few days, people came every day to persuade them to surrender, and more and more people chose to surrender.

Shimoki Honda understands that most of the fear of surrender is fading, because he is the same, at first he was afraid of surrender, and now he has the idea of surrendering.

This shift has led to a reversal of many things in the trenches.

Last night, in the trench, which had been quiet for several days, there was a gunshot, and two hours later, Honda Shimoki knew that the only Shao Zuo in the trench was killed by a soldier who had a broken heart.

The soldier who killed Shao Zuo was still Shao Zuo's neighbor, because Shao Zuo resolutely did not agree with his surrender, and even sent the news back to China, so that the soldier's family would become a disgrace to the empire.

Then the soldiers forcibly killed this Shao Zuo, and in the trench where Shao Zuo was staying, the other soldiers found a large number of cans and drinking water, and many things that could keep them alive.

However, the attraction of these things is becoming very weak for everyone, there is no looting, and there is no gunfire.

Because in the trenches, the remainder of the people, there are no more than a hundred, and every day there are surrenderers who come in and bring them food.

It was also on this day that Honda laid down his weapon, put down everything, took his notebook, and walked out of the trenches.

It was also on this day that a group of Red Guard soldiers entered the trenches, and all the remaining Japanese soldiers consciously threw down their weapons.

Walking into the camp, Honda was taken to a clean mobile home, and after entering the bathroom, washed, shaved, and changed into the training uniform prepared for him by the Red Police, he became a prisoner of the army, and he was treated very well because of the notebook he handed in.

He was not placed in a large group of prisoners of war, and after being taken to the canteen to eat a lot, he met a colonel of the Red Police.

The colonel gave him a certificate that from now on he was not a prisoner of war and that he could return to his homeland at any time after the war, or he could choose to take a new job in the occupied zone.

Honda Shimoki made a choice, and after boarding the ship to Australia, he looked back at the island that will always be remembered in his heart, and slowly closed his eyes as he looked at the trenches and tunnels that were being disinfected and cleaned.

The sound of the whistle sounded melodiously, and the tanker left the floating dock of Iwo Jima, slowly moving away, and finally disappeared into the sea level.