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’s queer 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 the _Bushi_, 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
hard struggle 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 such things. 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 the _Bushi_, 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 to the 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 they halted, 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, in wide 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 the mother 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
Kokan were 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 he saw 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 scrambled
up, waving his banner and roaring “_Banzai!_”
[Illustration: “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.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]