XIV
There followed a few days of grateful inactivity for Soichi. The surgeon said he must rest and recover from the strain and exposure of his night’s work, and he found it very pleasant to lie in his blankets and smoke and receive the congratulations of his comrades. The story swept through the regiment and every man knew what he had done.
Kokan was not so comfortable. He was suffering from a mental difference with himself which urgently demanded adjustment. But pride stood in his way. He knew he had been wrong and he hated to admit it. His accusing self kept recalling to him the captain’squeer look that morning after Kutami had gone, when he turned to Kokan and said:
“I am inclined to think you are mistaken about him, Lieutenant Kudo;” then added, as if it were an afterthought, “it must have been someone else who alarmed the Russians.”
“Yamato Damashii,” the captain had said to Kutami, and it was true. He had acted with the spirit of theBushi, the soldier knights of the old feudal days. With the bitterness of deserved self-accusation Kokan admitted the justice of Captain Minami’s judgment. He, the Samurai, had failed, but Kutami, the Eta, had succeeded.
Soichi was lying on his back rereading O-Mitsu’s letter for the thousandth time, although he knew it already by heart, when Kokan came in without his sword. He sprang to his feet and saluted, then stood at attention. But Kokan said:
“Sit down. I am not here as an officer. I came to talk a little with you.”
Surprised and curious Soichi obeyed, wondering what it could be. His quarters-mates were all away and he and Kokan were alone. For some time they sat silent, the lieutenant uncertain how to begin. He had had a hardstruggle with himself, but his sense of right had triumphed. The last of the Kudos would not stain the family honor, kept spotless for so many scores of years.
“I blamed you unjustly,” Kokan said bluntly at last. “It was not you who aroused the Russians.”
“That is nothing,” replied the amazed Soichi, and bowed respectfully. “I am only glad that your expedition was successful.”
He cherished no animosity toward Kokan now, and it distressed him to see his lieutenant humbling himself in this manner. He had forgotten the things that had passed and his mind was set wholly on the future. His only hope was to die gloriously in action. But Kokan had made the plunge and now he was going through.
“I have been unjust to you at other times,” he went on. “It is not becoming the honor of an officer or a Samurai to act meanly, and I have come here to express my regret.”
Soichi was genuinely pained. His ready sympathy understood how hard it must be for the haughty Kokan thus to demean himself, and he responded quickly:
“I beg you not to think of it, or to say suchthings. I want only to do my duty, and you have helped me to that.”
“I?” exclaimed Kokan, surprised in his turn. “I helped you? Tell me how.”
“Please do not think me rude,” replied Soichi. “It is hard to explain to you. You were born a Samurai and have an inheritance of honor to maintain. It is natural to you. It comes without thought. It is merely to live in the old way. I was born a Commoner, but the son of one who had been despised as an outcast. The Emperor gave us citizenship. It is to him we owe everything. To win honor is our first duty, for surely that is what he meant when he promoted us. Honor lies in his service. To give him true service, therefore, is all my wish, and if sometimes I have felt that you—that someone was watching closely to catch me in failure, it has helped me to be a better soldier, and perhaps brought me nearer to winning honor.”
Kokan sat like one in a dream. This son of an Eta was telling him things he had heard from his father and read in the books of the Samurai of generations long agone. It was the old doctrine of theBushi, but he spoke it as if it were his own discovery.
“You talk like a Samurai,” he said, and rising abruptly, went away.
He had caught a glimpse of the soul of honor and it dazzled him. Here was honor for honor’s sake. No other thought, no consideration of self, no hope of reward, no seeking for gain of any sort, the simple effort of a faithful heart to show in loyal, devoted service its gratitude for a great gift. In comparison with the high standard of his life, the teachings of his long line of soldier gentlemen, it was a thing of wonder and amazement. Many hours he pondered it, and from his meditation rose with a new resolve. The service of the Emperor had profited by that talk with the Commoner.
Spring was full-blown. The sun shone with summer warmth and fields and meadows were clothed with green. The leaves hung thickly on the trees, and masses of rhododendrons robed the slopes of the hills in pink. Through all the army ran the whisper of coming action. In the afternoon the men were in their quarters. In the evening, silently and swiftly they moved out. They bivouacked for the night in the little pockets among the low hills close tothe water’s edge, and in the starlight ate cold rice from their ration baskets. Then, rolled up in their blankets, they slept, rifles by their sides.
The bark of a gun heralded the coming of the day, and the men rose to see the battle joined. All day they lay in their hollows and heard the hoarse, angry roaring of the guns and the vicious rush of shells, as if a mighty wind beat through the tops of a forest of pines. Darkness fell and the guns ceased their frightful clamor. Then came the order to move.
All night they toiled. As if by miracle they saw the pontoons thrown across the rushing streams, and the lumbering guns swing forward. In the soft sand of the islands they put their shoulders to the wheels the tired horses could not turn, and on the cannon moved into their new positions. The murky gray of early dawn found the Russian hills ringed in front with Japanese steel. The day had come at last when Kutami Soichi was to meet the test.
Fiercely through the lifting mist rang the challenge of the guns, and over the heads of the Guards, lying far out on the sandy island,screamed the deadly shells, searching the nooks and corners of the Russian lines. Soichi was in the first line. Across his breast hung his boxes of cartridges, and in the blue cloth tied over his shoulder were his two little baskets of rice. His rifle, polished and cleaned with arduous care, was ready.
For half an hour the shells flew over their heads, and then along the line rang a single shrill blast of a whistle. Instantly they were on their feet and surging ahead. One wild “Banzai!” rolled from their throats and they settled to their work. Suddenly the silent trenches along the hills leaped into life and the storm of Russian lead beat upon them. Steadily they went forward, not a rifle making answer to the fierce fire from the hilltops. Men went down, but only those stopped who could not go on. Into the last of the three broad streams they plunged, and under that unceasing sweep of bullets forged across. Then on the double they sprang ahead, while above them still hurtled the venomous messengers from their own guns. The earth shook with the concussion of the cannon, and the beautiful day smiled on hill and river red with war. Fairly at the foot of the Russian height theyhalted, and for a brief breathing space stood still.
At the left of the line, where the Guards were to charge, the enemy held the crest of the ridge with a double line of trenches terminating in a square redoubt. There were the red-mouthed guns belching their hail of iron death. In front, on the slopes, were fences and crisscrosses and tangles of wire, winding in and about among traps and pits and jagged stakes, and swept unceasingly by the murderous fire of the rifles and machine guns in the trenches.
Three things Soichi knew no soldier should remember on the battlefield—his home, his dear ones, and his own body. Calmly he surveyed the terrible ground over which he was about to undertake the desperate rush. Up there, on the heights, were the lines to which some of them must go through to plant the flag of the Rising Sun, as the Emperor wished. He wondered who would be the one to win that coveted honor. As for him, this was the hour in which he was to die his “glorious death.”
Almost before he knew it the whistle shrilled again and they were off, running steadily, inwide open lines, straight up the rugged hillside. They cheered once at the start, a full-throated, rousing “Banzai! Banzai! Teikoku Banzai!” but it took too much breath from the running, and they stopped, that the work might not suffer.
Now as he raced along, the young soldier found himself curiously taking note of things occurring around him. His right-hand man went down, and Soichi, seeing him fall, knew that he was dead. There was one, he thought, who had gained the prize of glory. It seemed strange that he, too, was not hit. And there was Lieutenant Kudo, perhaps a pace ahead of the line, running as hard as he could and somehow finding breath to shout to the men. He marveled at it, and with mind bent on that wonder, ran full into a tangled wire that stopped him with a jerk, almost throwing him backward to the ground. It filled him with sudden surprised rage, and he grasped the wire and tugged away at it as if to pull it away by main strength.
All the time he heard the soft voices of the bullets flying close by his head, the little half whisper like the cheep of tired chicks nestling at dark under the protecting feathers of themother hen. The wire would not yield, though all along its length the men had laid hold as he had, and were putting forth all their might. As he looked, Soichi saw a line of his comrades who had fallen by the fence, struck down on the measured range. He drew back his rifle and brought the sharp bayonet down on the wire with a savage swing, all his weight in the blow. Clean to the ground it went, through all the strands, and the way was open.
On he dashed, not even looking to see whether any followed. Blindly he knew that Kokan was near him, still calling. He was so tired he could hardly lift his feet, and yet he kept on running, running, always running up that death-swept slope. Now the men knew the secret of the wires and there was little delay. Soichi heard the machine guns rattle as he had heard the typhoon rains beat on the iron roof of his father’s warehouse. The Russian guns sent their shells shrieking over the slope and carrying away his mates in groups. He saw men fall into the pits, stumble and throw forward, crumple up and drop, go down all about him. Still the prize was not his. He went on.
Then, without warning, the world came to its end. The whooping and whistling, the shrieking and singing of shells and bullets ceased, and with a far-off, muffled roar, the solid earth rose beneath him and hurled him headlong forward, him and Kokan together. He wondered, curiously, as he was in the air, if it were to be the trick of fate that he and the lieutenant were to win death together. Then he fell, and for an instant neither saw nor heard nor felt nor thought. A voice calling in tones he knew, brought him back to himself and the riot and din of the horrible maelstrom. He struggled to his feet to hear Kokan shouting to him:
“Come on, Kutami! Now show if you can fight!”
The quick blood leaped in him at the challenge and he sprang forward. Over his shoulder, as he turned, he caught a glimpse of the great hole where the mine had exploded, and beyond it, down the slope, he saw men going back, Guardsmen, his own Guards! The horror and shame of it filled him with rage, and he began to run again, on up the hill. Something was the matter with his head, he did not know what, nor did he care. He and Kokanwere left, and if all the rest failed they two would go on. He shouted in answer to the lieutenant’s call, and strove to overtake him. With the sword of his fathers flashing over his head the Samurai boy ran, shouted, staggered, went down. Of all the charge Soichi alone was left.
Yet he went on. The Russians in the trenches cheered him and held their fire, too brave themselves to murder the brave. And, in the sudden hush that fell on the awful day, Soichi heard Kokan calling again:
“Come here, Samurai! I am wounded! Take me back!”
Samurai! Kokan had called him Samurai! All in a daze Soichi obeyed, thrust his arms under those of the wounded lieutenant, heaved him up on his back and staggered slowly down the hill. He walked like one in a dream, neither seeing nor caring where he stepped, and yet by miracle not falling. And when some of the men in the trenches, more ruthless than the others, fired again, he shifted Kokan in front of him lest he be thought to shield himself by his burden.
He was halfway down when suddenly the trenches burst into flame once more, and hesaw his Guards coming back. The reserves were up! The charge was renewed! Methodically he looked about him, found a pit, carefully laid the wounded officer there out of danger, wheeled and headed the new assault. Oh, how tired he was! How hard it was to keep his legs from doubling under him! And yet he must! This was the day he was to die a glorious death.
Back again by the mine-wrought hollow, the fresh men up with him now, and some of them ahead. One he saw with the colors, the clear white banner with its broad red sun. A bullet hit his rifle and struck it violently from his hands. He paused, confused, and saw the color bearer pitch forward on his face and the colors fall. A voice seemed to shout in his ear:
“It is the Emperor’s wish!”
He sprang forward, grasped the staff and waved the flag over his head. Under the awful fire the line was beginning to falter, but the flag caught their eyes and a cheer rang up the hill behind him. He filled his lungs and shouted “Banzai!” It was as if new strength came to him with the call. He dashed on, reached the wall of the redoubt and scrambledup, waving his banner and roaring “Banzai!”
“Banzai!”
“Banzai!”
He saw his fellows swarming about him and knew they had won. Then something struck him a terrible blow on the shoulder and he fell unconscious on the rampart.