XV
Lying on a board in the field hospital at the foot of the hill up which he had charged, Soichi opened his eyes to see the slow sun dropping behind the ridge across the river they had won. The long line of carts and pack horses filing by, told him the victory was complete, the transportation was coming up. His head and arm and shoulder were wrapped with bandages, and when he turned slightly on his hard bed a sharp pain warned him to lie still. A man in a long white apron, with his sleeves rolled up and a red cross on his arm came towardhim, and he recognized the spectacled, kindly face of the surgeon. With a pleasant smile the doctor looked him in the face and touched his wrist a moment.
“You’ll do now,” he said.
Then two men came with a stretcher and carried him to a soft bed of blankets in a big white tent, and told him to go to sleep. It was very comfortable in the warm bed, and he lay there quietly, trying to recall the events of the day. After a little, he turned his head slowly and stared into the eyes of the man in the next bed. It was Lieutenant Kudo.
“Oho,” said Kokan, and his eyes danced. “It’s you, is it, Samurai? They say you won the charge.”
But because he was a good soldier and it was the order, Soichi calmly closed his eyes and went to sleep.
Next morning stretcher men came again and carried Soichi and all his tent mates into the town they had helped to capture the day before, and there, in a fine, big room in a solid house, he found another bed of blankets ready for him. Kokan was not with them; the officers had a different hospital and there the Samurai boy was taken. Wrapped in his softblankets Soichi rested and dreamed and slept. One morning when the surgeon came to see him he brought some officers of the staff, and one of them, a grizzled colonel, with the star of a great decoration blazing on his breast, spoke to him and asked his name. Soichi tried to stand up, as was proper for a man answering an officer, but the colonel forbade him and he lay still. Then the colonel said in a loud voice, so that all the room could hear:
“The general sends his compliments to Kutami Soichi-san, first-class private, and grants him akanjofor his extraordinarily gallant conduct in the charge of the Guards and at the redoubt.”
Before Soichi could think, his wounded comrades were shouting “Banzai!” the grizzled colonel joining with all his voice. For a moment he could not speak. He was overwhelmed with the unexpected honor. Akanjo, that certificate of merit and honorable service more dearly prized than life itself. He had never dared to dream of winning that. The staff officers saw his confusion and smiled in kindly encouragement, and the surgeon beamed at him through the big spectacles.He lifted his head a little and tried to reply to the colonel.
“It was only a little,” he said feebly; “nothing at all. I thought it was the Emperor’s wish!”
He fell back on his blankets, and with flashing eyes the staff officers saluted him and stalked out of the room.
“Ha!” said the colonel, as he mounted his horse, “there is a soldier!”
His comrades were miles away, daring the Russians to renewed conflict, when Soichi had recovered enough to walk about a little and write to his father.
“I had hoped to win a glorious death,” he said in his first letter, “as was fitting for the first Kutami to be a soldier of the empire. But now I have received this honorablekanjoand I am happy to live and to come back to see you and my mother again. I shall be quite well in a little time, but my service is ended. The surgeon says my rifle arm will not stand that work again, and a better man must take my place. I tried to do my duty, but now it is finished.
“For one thing I am very glad. Kokan and I are friends. We are coming home verysoon, as soon as we can travel, but Kokan will return when he is quite well. He calls me Samurai now, and says I ‘won it with the redoubt.’ We have talked much about the old days and our homes, and even about O-Mitsu. Perhaps if you send someone to ask Kudo-san for her now he would not refuse.”
It was a different letter that Lieutenant Kudo sent to the house in Timber Street. Himself he spared not at all, and in long detail told the story of the midnight scout and described the day of battle.
“You do not know this Kutami,” he said. “He may have the name of an Eta, but he has the heart of a thousand Samurai. He has taught me a great lesson. O-Mitsu will be honored, and we too, if he still wishes to marry her.”
When Jukichi read the letter he sat a long time in silence, but O-Mitsu put her face in the cushion and wept for joy.
Two gray-haired men stood together on the landing watching the hospital ship swing into her moorings. Together they stepped down to the launch that puffed out into the bay, and as the steamer’s anchor rattled down, together they stood up and shouted “Banzai!” TogetherJukichi and Chobei climbed the gangway to greet their soldier sons. That day the Gentleman had accepted the Commoner’s proposal for his daughter, and in the house in Timber Street a happy girl was awaiting the return of her lover.