A man from the sea

'The Enemy' is a story by Pearl S. Buck, set in Japan during the Second World War, when America and Japan were enemies.

Dr Sadao Hoki is a famous Japanese surgeon and scientist. He had studied medicine in America, where he met Hana, a Japanese girl also studying there. They married back in Japan, and now live with their two children in a stone house on the coast, near a beach where Sadao had played as a boy. Because he is working on a discovery to make wounds clean, he has not been sent abroad with the troops; he stays to look after the old General.

One foggy evening, Sadao and Hana see a man come out of the mist, staggering, and fall on the sand. The waves wash over him. They run down and find that he is wounded: his back is bleeding, and the sand around him is red. He is a white man, and on his cap are the words 'U.S. Navy'. He is an escaped American prisoner of war.

What should they do? If they hide him, they will be arrested as traitors. If they hand him over to the police, he will surely be killed. They even think of putting him back into the sea, but neither of them can do it.

Sadao, a doctor first, sees how badly he is bleeding. He presses his fingers on the wound to stop the bleeding. Then he and Hana carry the man up into the house.