On the fifth day of the battle for Iwo Jima, the test faced by the Japanese garrison had only just begun.

In particular, the inner test of the soldier is quite obvious.

Honda Shimoki and some of his comrades retreated from the periphery of Mt. Oriba, expecting that the situation on Mt. Oriba in the rear would be better, but the situation was even worse.

Although this place has not yet been attacked by the enemy's ground attack, the mental outlook of the people here is even worse.

Shimoki Honda saw several soldiers belonging to the Navy Garrison who were gathering to discuss.

The soldiers of the naval garrison planned to bypass Mt. Origa to the other side, and then find a way to tell the mainland about the situation on Iwo Jima.

In their opinion, if they don't have contact with the country, how can the country know what the battle on Iwo Jima is like, and what kind of environment all the soldiers are fighting against the enemy.

There is only one way to get out of Mt. Oriba, and that is to swim and hope to swim across the sea to reach Japan.

That night, Shimoki Honda saw these soldiers of the naval garrison, came to the beach, grabbed the wires that fell into the sea, and began to swim in the direction of the motherland.

In their words of self-encouragement, if they are lucky, they may be able to drift to their homeland with the currents.

This behavior continued a total of two times, and Honda Shimoki could see that these people tried quite hard each time, but after a while, they were washed back to the shore by the sea.

It is not only these few people who can think of people crossing the sea, but unlike these few people, there is also a group of people, who are a little more planned.

Their thinking is relatively clear, and they know that it is simply impossible to return to their homeland from Iwo Jima across 1,250 kilometers of sea without ships.

However, it is not necessary to return to your home country after leaving Iwo Jima, and you can go to other islands near Iwo Jima.

Chichijima, the Ogasawara Islands, where the Susaki airfield and naval water base of the 7th Base Force Headquarters of the Japanese Fortress Command are located, is about 270 kilometers away from Iwo Jima.

There are also some small uninhabited islands around Iwo Jima, about 80 kilometers north of Iwo Jima, and about 60 kilometers south of Iwo Jima.

At this time, there were also many fewer enemy ships surrounding Iwo Jima than during the landing operation.

There are many soldiers who are thinking about taking advantage of the night to quietly break through the enemy's sea encirclement network, leave the underground trenches, and get out of this hellish life.

On the night of the sixth day, Honda Shimoki once again saw a wave of people leaving the tunnel, and it was almost nine o'clock in the evening, a wave of more than two dozen people, left.

Someone asked these people where they were going, and these people did not hide it, and directly said that they had prepared a raft and were going to the Ogasawara Islands.

The people who asked did not have the idea of following, but persuaded them not to do it, saying that this method was not realistic, but these people did not listen at all, and they lost their basic judgment, and the only thought in their minds was to leave Iwo Jima.

On the battlefield where there is no survival, these naval garrisons that do not belong to the army are desperately looking for this hope, but more soldiers who cannot find hope will give up their lives in despair.

Honda didn't laugh at this ridiculous approach, nor did he despise such a stupid plan.

He knew very well that in such a situation, these people were already much better off than most, at least their brains were still thinking, and they were not lying in the pit like dead people.

In the past three days, Honda has seen a number of suicides, many of whom have chosen to commit suicide with grenades in the tunnel.

Rather than being shot by the soldiers of an enemy country, or even by their own soldiers, it is better to end their own lives with their own hands, many soldiers think so. Suicide can be said to be the last freedom that the remaining soldiers of the Iwo Jima garrison can choose for themselves.

However, suicide also requires knowledge and knowledge, Honda Shimoki saw a soldier who failed to commit suicide, the grenade exploded, but because of the distance and pressure, the soldier was not killed directly, leaving a half-crippled body, and he breathed for a long time before he slowly swallowed.

This kind of death is very painful, and he doesn't even have the strength to pull out a bayonet to end himself, and the soldiers around him, no one to help him end this pain, it's not that the soldiers don't want to help, but the officers don't allow it.

Without killing ten enemies, suicide is forbidden.

After that, many soldiers who wanted to commit suicide with grenades also understood how to blow themselves up in one fell swoop.

If you don't hold the grenade tightly, there is a high probability that you will not commit suicide, and you will not be able to die if you hold it in your hand.

The best way is to sound the fuse and press the grenade with the moon chamber, which will surely die.

What is even more tragic is that not every soldier on the island has grenades, and only a few soldiers have grenades.

Honda has two grenades under the tree, which is a means to prevent suicide after being arrested by the enemy, before suffering various insults, and it is also a means to kill and injure the enemy as much as possible.

There are also people who come to Honda Shimoki to borrow grenades, but Honda Shimoki refuses all because he cannot be an accomplice in killing his companions.

And a lot of non-combatants, not even weapons.

When committing suicide again, three soldiers used a grenade together, but this kind of situation where multiple people use grenades is often difficult to die, but they break their hands and feet, and then let flies bite and cockroaches eat, which is quite tragic.

The smell of blood fills the entire underground tunnels and trenches, and everyone hiding in them has long been accustomed to it.

Shimoki Honda believes that people who can still survive at this moment have something in common, and more of them belong to biological instincts.

Most people believe that even at the end of their rope, they still believe that they have no problems and that there is a way to survive.

This also includes Honda going down the tree and coming to Iwo Jima in the past few days, and he has not felt comfortable thinking once or twice that he may die in this place, and often thinks that since he is dead anyway, why not give himself a bullet to end this torment and pain.

After all, compared to most soldiers, he is quite good, with bullets and grenades.

However, the instinct of living beings can save this dangerous thought in time every time, and the most thought is to change the status quo, and even evolve to the point of thinking about how to eat stones to survive, and strengthen their determination to survive.