bury the food,” I said. We dug a hole in a corner of the garden and threw rice, soybeans, and canned foods into it. Then we took out the futons and put them down next to the bicycle. At that moment there was an explosion like a hundred claps of thunder as countless incendiary sticks burst out from their parent bomb.

The sounds of explosions, falling firebombs, and burning houses mingled with a howling wind that blew smoke in our eyes. Now the eight-mat room at the back of our bungalow was on fire. An incendiary bomb had fallen in through the roof. We picked up buckets and were just about to go in when there was a deafening explosion, a white flash and a rush of wind. Wefires were already burning on both sides of the road, they seemed oblivious and walked around or stepped over bodies on the ground without apparent concern. We must have been walking through the flames, smoke and hot wind for about five minutes when the people at the front came to a sudden halt. Soon they had turned round and were coming back towards us. In their shock, people around us cried out and tried to stem the reverse flow. Somebody shouted, “Aoyama Cemetery is a sea of fire!”

What were we to do? When the returning crowd got back to the Jingumae crossroads, we collided with another stream of people who had fled up the road from Shibuya Bridge, forming a swirling mass of humanity in front of Jingumae