The winter wind whistled drearily through the rigging as the transport
came to anchor, and the men shivered with cold in spite of their heavy,
fur-lined coats. The business of war was begun in earnest now, and Soichi
and his fellows bustled about the ship making the final preparations
for debarkation. At last, with kits tightly packed and every article
carefully stowed, so that nothing should be lost, they stumbled down the
gangway and into the boats. The transport lay far off from the shallow
beach and it was a long hard pull for the shore. A great bonfire was
their beacon, for they were landing late at night, and the search lights
of the war ships that had convoyed them lighted up their course. With
his cap pulled down on his head as far as it would go and the fur collar
of his overcoat turned up about his ears, Soichi stood wedged among his
mates. The keel touched and into the icy water they plunged waist-deep to
wade ashore.
That was but the foretaste. They stood around the fire they soon had
blazing, warming their aching feet, drying their clothes, and talking of
what was ahead. They had said good-by to transportation. Now the miles
they had to cover would be made on their feet, and many a man looked
ruefully at the heavy, unaccustomed boots and wondered how he should
endure the march. Soichi found his muscles put to a new test. It was one
thing to drill for hours in the barracks square and quite another to
march for hours along a frozen road carrying his heavy kit.
It was bitter cold, far colder than he had ever known it in Japan, and
the big fur-lined overcoat, although it kept his body warm, hampered his
legs in walking and made him very weary. It was with the utmost effort,
when he went on sentry duty after a hard day on the road, that he could
keep awake, and he thought regretfully that he was not doing his full
duty, because only the fear that Kokan would catch him kept his eyes from
closing.
No, it was not at all like barrack life. There the rice and fish and
pickles were always ready when the day’s work was done, but often now
they had to wait for hours, far into the night sometimes, for the big
kettles to come up and the rice to be boiled. And now there was no sake.
Such supplies as that could not keep up with the march, and though
occasionally some of his comrades managed to get a bottle of beer or two
from some terrified Korean as they passed or camped in a village, Soichi
dared not risk it. It was only another chance for Kokan.
That young man busied himself with seemingly increasing vigor, watching
to trap his victim in any slip. But day by day he saw Soichi’s own
prediction being verified, and the sturdy young fellow becoming always
a better soldier, until other officers began to remark it and Kokan was
obliged to conceal his wrath under a smiling assent.
They left many weary miles behind, and now excitement began to grow
among the men, for each day brought them perceptibly nearer the enemy
and the actual clash of arms. Daily the rumors from ahead grew in size
and portent. The scouts were in contact with the enemy’s advance. There
had been a brush. The first shots had been exchanged, and the sight of
two or three wounded men carried by on stretchers set the whole regiment
to shouting “_Banzai!_” and put fresh vigor into their steps. They sang
the war songs they had learned in barracks back in Tokyo, the precentors
striding along at the side of the column chanting the lines, and the
whole regiment roaring them out after the leaders.
They were going over the ground from which the men of their regiment,
now awaiting their call in the Second Reserves, had helped to drive the
scrambling Chinese in the war that had been the forerunner of this one.
Every day brought them to some new point of interest that set tongues to
wagging with increasing volubility and gave new impetus to the march.
Each night the kindly surgeon looked them over and gave a helpful bit of
advice here, and a friendly word of warning there, showed how to bathe
and bandage the blistered feet or massage the aching limbs, added sober
caution about the use of water and told how to avoid taking cold.
So half the long march was covered. Far ahead, they knew, was the wide
river where the enemy was expected to make his determined stand. There
would be their first battle, and they pressed on toward it eagerly as
toward the goal of a life’s ambition. But one morning, when the regiment
had the head of the column, all unexpectedly the sound of rifle fire a
little ahead drifted back to them, and immediately the order to double
brought a roaring cheer as they sprang forward. The enemy had made a
dash with cavalry, and the advanced guard was checked. Up they swept
with flashing eyes, hot for the fight. Through Soichi’s brain whirled a
wild vision of a charge in the face of the foe and the heavy pack grew
lighter as he rushed forward. But it was no charge. Deployed under cover
of a long stone wall they had barely tasted the joy of using their rifles
when the enemy fled, leaving behind only four or five of his dead to
mark the place of his defeat. It was hardly a skirmish, but it served
to fire the blood of the men, and serenely they promised to wipe out the
disappointment when at last the great day should come.
The winter wore away and spring came on. Still they were tramping
steadily toward the river. Work was much easier now that they had settled
into it, and they made more miles with less waste of energy. The grass
turned green in the valleys, and along the streams the first wild flowers
put forth their blossoms. Fur-lined greatcoats gave place to wool, and
with these rolled on the shoulders instead of flapping about the legs the
men stepped along lightly and gayly.
Now they learned a new exercise. Hardly would they get into camp before
half of them would be turned out for instruction in field intrenchment.
The short-handled shovel Soichi carried strapped to the side of his
knapsack was not very large, but he learned how to dig a wide, deep hole
with it in remarkably short time. Morning after morning as they moved on
toward the north they left beside their camp ground proof of their work
in samples of the different kinds of trenches they might come to need in
the field.
They saw very little of the enemy. After that one brief clash he seemed
unwilling to venture another encounter and kept out of the way, except
that now and then a little group of his horsemen appeared for a few
minutes on some far-off hill. It was march and dig and sleep, and do it
all over again. But all the time they were nearing the river, and at
last, when they had been almost two months on the road, they came to the
range of bold hills that flanked the stream and concealed the enemy’s
country from their view.
Here they camped several days. The scouts and advanced guards had driven
the Russians back to the islands in the stream and the near shore was
their own. But before they could go over the range and down into the town
that lay in the pockets of the hills on the river bank, another kind of
work was to be done. In little squads they scoured the near-by country
with axes and ropes and brought in great bundles of pine boughs from
the scrub-covered hills, and piles of mats and long cornstalks from the
huts. Then at night they crossed the hills and flanked the river side of
the road with tall screens which shut off the view of the enemy’s scouts
on the high cross-river ridges. Where the way led straight toward his
camps they built huge arches, whose broad tops made a great curtain that
covered the road entirely. Then, sheltered by arches and screens, so that
no enemy could tell their strength, they marched on into the town and
were quartered once more in comfortable houses. Soichi dropped his pack
with strange exaltation. When they left this place it would be to go to
battle, and perhaps that fight would bring the opportunity he desired.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]