Pathway to Japanese Literature

He started walking.

The rifle was heavy, the backpack was heavy, his legs were heavy—the aluminum bowl at his waist clattered against his sword.
The sound violently assaulted his agitated nerves; he tried adjusting it several times, but it kept clattering—clatter, clatter away.
He had grown utterly sick of it.

Because his illness hadn’t truly been cured, his breath came in ragged gasps.
Malignant heat and chills wracked his entire body without cease.
His brain burned like fire; his temple pulsed violently.
Why did I leave the hospital?
The military doctor had urged him so strongly to stay, saying aftercare was crucial—so why had I left the hospital?
Though he thought this, he did not regret it.
On the wooden floors of a filthy Western-style house abandoned by fleeing enemies—in an eight-tatami-mat room—fifteen sick and wounded soldiers had endured twenty days of decay, filth, screams, oppressive air, and a terrifying swarm of flies.
Barley rice gruel with a bit of salt—somehow, even that had staved off starvation.
He recalled the latrine behind the hospital and shuddered.
Because the hastily dug hole was shallow, the stench violently assaulted his nose and eyes.
A fly buzzed past.
The gray of lime, soiled and filthy, churned his chest with nausea.

Better than that... Better than being there, this open plain was preferable.
How much better this was!
The Manchurian plain stretched desolate and barren.
In the fields lay nothing but rows of sorghum that had nearly ripened.
Yet there was fresh air, sunlight, clouds, mountains—when a terrible sound suddenly pierced his ears, he stopped and turned toward it.
The train from before still stood there.
Hundreds of Chinese coolies swarmed around the long train stripped of boiler and smokestack, heaving and straining like ants dragging off some colossal prey.

The sunset stretched diagonally across like a painting.

The NCO from earlier was riding there.
That bastard was the one standing rigidly atop that elevated stack of rice sacks.
Because it was too painful to walk, he begged to be taken to Anshan Station.
Then that bastard shouted, “This isn’t a troop transport! Since when do infantrymen ride trains?!”
“I’m sick—can’t you see? I’m suffering from beriberi!”
“If I can just get past Anshan Station, the regiment must be there.”
There is such a thing as mutual respect among warriors—I pleaded with him to let me ride, begging earnestly, but he wouldn’t listen.
They call us soldiers, soldiers, then mock us for lacking backbone.
At Kinzhou and at Tokuriji, it was thanks to the soldiers that they won the war.
You idiots! You devils!

Ants, ants—they truly were ants.
That bastard still lingered there.
The train too had been ruined, left in such a state.
Suddenly—the train, the one that had departed from Toyohashi—passed before his eyes.

The station was buried in national flags.
The cheers of "Banzai" continued endlessly.
Suddenly, the face of his beloved wife appeared before his eyes.
It was not her tear-streaked face from their farewell, but that beautiful smile from when—though he couldn't recall the circumstances—he had found her utterly endearing.
His mother shook him awake—"Get up now, or you'll be late for school."
His mind had somehow slipped back into childhood.
At Ura-no-Irie inlet behind their house, the boatman stood shouting at a cluster of children, his bald head gleaming slick under the setting sun.
He too was among that group of children.

The vestiges of the past and the present pain and anxiety stood sharply divided, yet their edges brushed against each other.
The rifle was heavy; the backpack was heavy; his legs were heavy.
From the waist down felt like another's body; he couldn't even tell clearly whether he was walking or not.

The brown road—hardened like stone under artillery ruts, bootprints, and straw sandal grooves—stretched endlessly ahead.
He had long since lost all patience with these Manchurian roads.
How far must he go before this road vanished?
How far before he'd never need tread such roads again?
How he yearned for his hometown's pebbled paths, the rain-dampened shore trails—those smooth, comforting ways.
Though broad and wide, not a single level stretch remained.
Let rain fall a day upon it, and the earth turned soft as daubed clay, swallowing not just boots but shins halfway up.
On the eve of Dashiqiao's battle, they'd slogged through three ri of black mire.
Mud splattered from back to scalp hair.
Their mission then had been artillery support.
They pushed and shoved until they wrested the sunken gun carriage through the bog.
Had the Third Regiment's guns not advanced first to seize position, tomorrow's battle would've been lost before dawn.
After laboring through the night came that day's fighting.
Enemy shells and friendly shells alike whined overhead with loathsome noise.
A sun nearing ninety degrees seared down from the sky's zenith.
Past four o'clock, enemy and allied infantry drew close.
Rifles crackled like beans roasting.

Sometimes they would whizz past his ears.
Someone in the ranks cried out.
When he snapped to attention and looked, blood streamed down, tinted crimson by the scorching sunset, and the soldier crumpled forward with a heavy thud.
A bullet had struck his chest.
That soldier was a good man.
He was cheerful, free-spirited, someone you never had to stand on ceremony with.
He was from Shinjomachi and must have had that youthful vigor.
Right after landing, we often went on requisition missions together, I recall.
We chased pigs around, I recall.
But that man was no longer in this world.
I just can't believe he's gone.
I can’t accept it—but he’s gone.

Along the brown road, carts laden with provisions trudged along in a line.
The sounds of mule carts, donkey carts, and an old Chinese man's shouts reached his ears.
A long whip glinted in the sunset, transmitting a peculiar sound through the air.
Because the road's ruts were severe, the carts lurched like waves, rattling along.
Painful. Suffocating.
There was no enduring this suffering.
Thinking to ask them to let him ride, he broke into a run.

The metal bowl clattered.
It clattered violently.
The miscellaneous items in his backpack and the bullets in his ammunition pouch leapt up deafeningly.
The rifle's stock occasionally struck his shins with such force that the pain made him leap up.

“Hey! Hey!”

His voice wouldn't carry.

“Hey! Hey!”

He summoned every ounce of strength to shout.
They must have heard him, yet none turned to look.
No doubt they knew it meant trouble anyway.
He hesitated briefly before breaking into a run once more.
This time, he managed at last to reach the final cart in the procession.

Straw rice bags were piled up like a mountain.
The Chinese old man turned around.
A round face with a disagreeable expression.
He leapt onto the cart without giving any chance to object.
And he laid himself down between the straw rice bags.
The Chinese man urged the horse forward with a resigned “Whoa-whoa.”
The cart went rattling along.

His mind swayed unsteadily, and heaven and earth seemed to spin. His chest ached. His head throbbed. The flesh around his calves felt crushed against something—unpleasant beyond endurance. Nausea kept rising in his chest. A torrent of unease assaulted his entire body. At once, a terrifying turbulence began anew—voices whispered from his ears, from his skull. He had known this dread before, but never so violently. He felt there was no place for him between sky and soil.

They seemed to have entered a village from the plains.
The dense poplar foliage swayed above him.
Sunset light piercing through the trees laid bare each minute leaf in turn.
Misshapen low roofs quaked past as if in seismic tremors.
When he suddenly regained awareness, the cart had halted.
He attempted to lift his head.

It was a spot shaded by poplar trees.
He saw about five carts lined up.

Something suddenly grabbed his shoulder.

A Japanese. My compatriot. An NCO.

“What the hell are you?”

He pushed his agonized body upright.

“Why did you get on this cart?”

He found it painful to explain the reason.
In fact, even speaking felt unbearable.

“You can’t ride this cart.
Even without that, the load’s too heavy as it is!
You’re from the 18th Regiment.
Toyohashi.”

He gave a nod.

“What’s wrong with you?”

“Because I’m ill—I was in the hospital at Dashiqiao until yesterday.”

“Has your illness already been cured?”

He nodded vacantly.

"It must be hard with your illness, but get down."
"We’ve got to move fast."
"Liaoyang’s started up, hasn’t it?"

“Liaoyang!”

This single word jolted his nerves to their core.

“Has it already begun?”

“Can’t you hear that artillery…”

He had thought that a kind of rumbling had begun at the edge of the sky since earlier, but still believed it wasn’t Liaoyang.

“Has Anshan Station fallen?”

“It fell the day before yesterday.”
“The enemy’s right before Liaoyang—they’re apparently digging their first trenches.”
“Rumor says it started today at six!”

A distant, faint rumbling—when he listened carefully, it was indeed artillery fire.
That familiar unpleasant sound was passing overhead.
The infantry threaded through those gaps to press forward.
Blood flowed.
Having thought this, he felt a kind of fear and yearning.
His comrades were fighting.
They were shedding blood for the Japanese Empire.

A hellish battleground came to mind.
The spectacle of bombs rose before his eyes.
But in this Manchurian wilderness separated by seven or eight ri, only a desolate autumn wind blew through the sunset, and the peace of the village that had been swept away like a tidal wave by the great army remained no different from usual.

“This war will be a major one.”
“That’s right.”
“The outcome won’t be decided in a single day.”
“Of course.”

The NCO was fervently discussing something with his fellow soldiers while listening to the artillery fire.
Five carts loaded with provisions stood nearby; the Chinese coolie old men had formed a circle and were chattering away about something.
The sun shone on the donkeys' long ears, and from time to time their piercing braying split the air.
Beyond the poplar trees stood five or six Chinese houses with white walls in a row, their gardens dominated by tall pagoda trees.
There was a well.
There was a storehouse.
An elderly woman with tiny feet walked falteringly onward.
Through gaps in the poplars stretched a vast desolate wilderness.
A succession of brown hills rolled into the distance.
Beyond them wound purplish-tinged mountains that seemed to scrape the sky.
The artillery fire came from there.

The five carts had gone.

He was left alone again.
From Kaijō to Higashi Entai and Kansenpo—the next logistics base was called Shintaishi, still about one ri away.
Unless he went that far, there would be no houses to take shelter in.

He resolved to go and began walking.

Though it was grueling because he was utterly exhausted, this was still better than the carts.
His chest remained agonizing, but there was nothing to be done.

Again, the same brown road, the same sorghum fields, the same sunset light—on the rails, that familiar train passed by once more.
This time it was a downhill slope, and the speed was tremendous.
It raced across the valleys with dizzying speed, nearly outpacing even the steam locomotives.
The national flag fluttering on the last car appeared and disappeared among the gaps in the sorghum fields, and even after it finally vanished from sight, the rumbling of those cars could still be heard.
Mingling with that rumbling, the artillery fire resounded without cease.

Along the highway there were no villages for a long time，but to the west，somewhat dark clusters of poplar trees gathered everywhere，and between them glimpses of white and brown houses could be seen.
No human figures could be seen no matter where he looked around，but blue wisps of cooking smoke rose like desolate threads.

The sunset had grown long enough to stretch all shadows.
The tall shadows of sorghum covered the two-ken-wide road and further overlapped upon the sorghum on the other side.
The shadows of the small roadside grasses stretched out immensely long; the eastern hills stood out clearly as if emerging into view.
The lonely, sorrowful dusk pressed in with an indescribable kind of shadowy force.

He came to where the sorghum fields ended.

Suddenly, he saw before him a shockingly enormous shadow of himself.
The shadow of his rifle lay upon the grass of the distant field.
He was abruptly struck by profound sorrow.

In the grass thicket, insects chirped.
Their voices bore no resemblance to those heard in his homeland's fields.
This strangeness and the endless plain somehow pierced his heart.
The tide of nostalgia he had long suppressed now surged up like a torrent.

The faces of his mother, his young wife, his brother, and a woman swirled like images on a revolving lantern. The old house in his village encircled by zelkova trees, the peaceful family gathered in harmony—then came memories of his own youthful energy when he had gone to Tokyo for his apprenticeship. The nighttime bustle of Kagurazaka materialized before his eyes. Beautiful flowers, magazine shops, newly published books—turning a corner brought lively variety halls, teahouses, the twang of shamisen strings, women's voices laced with theatrical charm—those days had been joyous. The woman he loved lived in Nakamachi, and he would often visit her there. She was a round-faced, lovely girl whom he still yearned for even now. As the young master of a prosperous country household who never wanted for money, he had indulged in all manner of amusements. What's more, every one of his friends from those days had found success in society. Just recently, he had crossed paths with some fellow who'd become a captain in the Sixth Division and was strutting about Gaihei.

He suddenly thought nothing compared to military life's constraints in cruelty.
Yet today strangely, no thoughts of resistance or sacrifice arose as usual—instead terror blazed fiercely within.
At departure I swore dedicating this body to nation and sovereign left no room for regret.
I declared never returning again and gave a bold speech at the village school.
Back then I brimmed with vitality—my body robust.
Even saying those words meant no true intent to die.
In my heart's depths I'd dreamed of glorious triumphal returns.
Yet now suddenly arose death's foreboding.
The conviction I'd never return alive struck me violently.
This sickness—this beriberi—even cured—the battlefield remains a vast prison.
Struggle and panic all I might—escape proves impossible from this great jail.
The Tokuriji-fallen soldier had once told him:

"It’s an inescapable trap anyway—might as well die bold-like," he recalled him saying.

He was assailed by fatigue, illness, and terror as he contemplated how he might escape this terrifying calamity.
Desertion?
That might be fine—but if caught, he’d suffer ultimate dishonor before meeting the same death!
Even advancing meant inevitably becoming one of war’s countless casualties.
To enter war’s slaughterhouse required preparing for death.
He now realized—keenly, in his heart—the folly of having left the hospital.
He should have gotten himself evacuated from there… he thought.

I'm done for. All is lost—no path remains.
A passive pessimism assaulted his chest with terrifying force.
Then all courage to walk vanished completely.
Tears streamed ceaselessly.
"If God exists in this world—save me—show me a way out!"
"I'll endure any hardship from now on!"
"I'll perform any virtuous deed!"
"I'll never oppose anything!"

He burst into loud, wailing sobs.

The chest heaved without cease.
Tears streamed down his cheeks as if he were a child.
The fact that his own body would cease to exist in this world was acutely sorrowful.
Countless times before, in his chest had burned thoughts of his homeland.
On the ship’s deck, when he had sung military songs, a sense of tragic resolve had filled his entire body.
When enemy warships would suddenly appear, and we were sunk by a single artillery shell to become seaweed scraps on the ocean floor, he had felt no regret.
On the Kinchou battlefield, he had advanced bravely while prostrating himself amidst the deathly screams of machine guns.
There had indeed been moments when the sight of his comrades drenched in blood struck him to the core, but he had told himself this too was for the nation—an honorable sacrifice.
But the blood that had flowed was others', not his own.
When faced with death, even the bravest warrior would shudder.

Legs heavy; body listless; chest churning.
Ten ri from Dashiqiao; two days' journey; night dew; chills—indeed, his chronic beriberi had worsened.
The epidemic gastrointestinal fever had subsided, but acute beriberi had struck.
Realizing the terror of beriberi heart, he shuddered.
He wondered if escape was truly impossible.
Unable to sit or stand still, his body went numb and his legs stiffened—he walked on, sobbing.

The plains were peaceful.
The large red sun hung poised above the horizon, the sky half golden and half dark jade.
A lone cloud shaped like a gilded bird's wing drifted across.
Sorghum shadows layered upon shadows as an autumn wind swept through the desolate fields.
The artillery from Liaoyang that had roared incessantly now fell utterly silent.

Two superior privates overtook him.

They passed each other and moved five or six *ken* ahead, but one of them turned back.

“Hey, you, what’s wrong?”

He realized.
He felt ashamed that he had been walking while sobbing aloud.

“Hey, you?”

The voice called out again.

“It’s beriberi, you see.”

“Beriberi?”

“Yes.”

“That must be tough.”
“Is it that bad?”

“It’s painful.”

“That’s a problem. If beriberi affects the heart, it’ll be serious.”
“How far are you going?”

“I think the regiment is beyond Anshan Station.”

“But you can’t make it there today.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, you can make it to Shintaizi. There’s a logistics base there, so go have a doctor examine you.”

“Is it still far?”

“It’s just up ahead. You can see the hill over there. There are railway tracks in front of the hill. See the national flag flying there? That’s Shintaizi’s logistics base.”

“Is there a doctor there?”

“There’s one military doctor.”

He felt as though he had been revived.

And so he followed the two soldiers and walked on.
The two soldiers took pity on him and carried his rifle and backpack.

The two soldiers walked ahead, talking as they went.
It was talk of that day’s battle at Liaoyang.

“Can’t tell how it’s going?”

“They’re still at it.
I heard in Yantai that the enemy’s holding a position one ri short of Liaoyang.
They called it something like Shoushanbao.”

“A lot of reserves are heading there, huh?”

“We’re short on troops.
I hear the enemy’s defensive positions are something fierce.”

“Looks like this’ll turn into a proper war.”
“There was artillery fire all day.”
“D’you think we can win?”
“Losing would be hell.”
“The First Army’s been deployed too, yeah?”
“Course they have.”
“I’d give anything to cut their supply lines clean.”
“This time we’ll do it right.”
They fell silent, listening.
The artillery roared up again with renewed fury.

The logistics base at Shintaizi was now in utter chaos.
Because a regiment from the reserve brigade had arrived, military caps and bayonets were strewn everywhere—on the rails, in the shadows of houses, near provisions.
On either side of the rails stood about five buildings of the enemy’s railway support barracks, but at the logistics headquarters where the national flag fluttered, chaos compounded—soldiers swarmed like a black mountain, and numerous officers with long swords at their hips kept coming and going.
At the logistics base, fires blazed vigorously in three large cauldrons, and smoke billowed thickly into the twilight sky.
Since one of the cauldrons had already cooked its rice, the mess sergeant raised his voice loudly, barked orders at his subordinates, and kept busy distributing meals to the gathering soldiers.
However, since these three cauldrons could not possibly distribute dinner to this multitude of soldiers, the majority received white rice in their mess tins and scattered into the fields to prepare their own meals.
Before long, here and there across the field, numerous sorghum fires were lit.

Beyond the houses, they worked through the night loading boxes of ammunition and bullets bound for the battlefield into the train’s freight cars.
The frantic rushing of soldiers and transport workers flickered intermittently in the faint twilight glow.
An NCO stood high atop the freight car’s cargo, constantly directing the operation.

Even when the sun set, the war did not cease.
The saddle-shaped mountain near Anshan Station darkened as intermittent artillery fire rumbled from beyond it.

He sought out the military doctor there.
But this was no time to be bothering with a military doctor.
This was no time to question whether some common soldier lived or died.
Through the efforts of two soldiers, he had barely managed to obtain a single mess tin of rice.
There was no helping it—he would have to wait a little.

“If this regiment’s soldiers advance ahead, we’ll find a military doctor and take you with us—just stay put for now.”
“Go straight from here three or four blocks—there’s a Western-style building.”
“You’ll know it right away—the canteen at its entrance has been open since morning.”
“Get inside to the back and lie down—that’s what they said.”

He no longer possessed the will to walk.
When he took the rifle and backpack from the two men, their weight nearly made him collapse as he shouldered them.
His vision swam violently.
Nausea clawed at his gut.
His legs hung like dead weights.
His mind whirled in frenzied circles.

But he couldn’t collapse here.
To die required finding a hideout.
That’s right—a hideout...
Any place would suffice.
I need to get into a quiet spot—need to sleep, need rest.

The dark road stretched on interminably.
Here and there, soldiers were forming groups.
He suddenly recalled the Toyohashi barracks.
He would go to the canteen, hide, and drink copiously.
He had once drunk sake, hit a sergeant, and been sentenced to heavy confinement.
The road stretched impossibly far.
No matter how far he walked, he couldn’t see anything that looked like a Western-style building.
They had said three or four hundred meters.
Not just three or four hundred meters—he had already come a thousand.
He wondered if he had made a mistake and looked back—the logistics base was a chaos of lamplight and bonfire glow, black masses of soldiers passing each other in the dark, shouts of men hauling ammunition boxes splitting through the night air.

This area was quiet now.
Not a single human shadow could be seen in the vicinity.
Suddenly, the chest tightened painfully.
If there was no hideout, he would die there—with that thought, he slumped down.
But strangely, he wasn’t as sad as before, nor were there any memories.
The flashes of stars in the sky entered the eyes.
He raised the head and furtively glanced around.

He was astonished to find a single Western-style building—unseen until now—standing right before him.
Inside the house, lamplight could be seen.
A round red lantern could be seen.
Voices reached the ears.

Using his rifle for support, he barely managed to stand up.

There indeed stood what appeared to be a canteen at the house's entrance.
Though darkness obscured details, something resembling a pot sat in an outdoor corner where firewood embers glowed red.
Faint smoke grazed past the lantern, drifting languidly.
Despite the excruciating, unbearable agony in his chest, his eyes clearly registered the lantern's inscription: "Red bean soup - 5 sen per bowl."

"Is the red bean soup already gone?"

The one who had spoken was a soldier standing before him.

“The red bean soup’s already sold out.”

A voice came from inside.

When he peered inside, there was a clear light—two Western candles burning bare—and at the center’s raised platform where jarred provisions and sundries were piled mountain-high sat a fat, thick-mustached, smiling thirty-year-old man.
At the store, a soldier was unfolding a towel and examining it.

When he looked beside him, though dark, a low stone staircase caught his eye.
Here it is, he thought.
At any rate, the mere thought that he could rest first filled his heart with indescribable satisfaction.
He quietly stole up the stone steps.
Inside was dark.
He couldn't quite tell, but it seemed to be a hallway.
He tried pushing what appeared to be the first door, but it wouldn't open.
He took two or three steps forward and pushed the next door - still locked.
The left door wouldn't budge either.

He proceeded further in.

The corridor came to a dead end.
There was no path to the right or left.
In desperation, he pushed rightward, and suddenly darkness split as a door opened.
Though he couldn't clearly see the room itself, faint starlight seeped through somewhere ahead where a glass window must be.

He set down his rifle, lowered his backpack, then abruptly collapsed sideways.
A leaden breath escaped him.
Well now—he'd finally found sanctuary, he thought.

Satisfaction brought new anxieties rising.
Weariness and fatigue—feelings verging on despair—pressed down upon his whole body like molten lead.
Memories splintered into fragments—now lightning-swift flashes, now plodding ox-slow drudgery.
His chest seethed without respite.

That his heavy, leaden legs were experiencing a kind of pressure and throbbing pain was something he himself understood all too well.
In various places, his calves throbbed with pain.
It was not ordinary pain—it felt exactly like when a calf muscle cramps.
His body began to writhe involuntarily.
Even a body exhausted like cotton could not withstand this pressure.

He thrashed about involuntarily.

It wasn’t that he didn’t think of his hometown; it wasn’t that he didn’t grieve for his mother and wife. It wasn't that he didn't lament—must this body perish like this? But grief, memories, fantasies—none of that mattered anymore. Pain, pain—he had to fight its overwhelming power.

It surged in like a tide. It raged like a storm. He planted his legs on the hard board only to collapse them, thrashing his body right and left. “It hurts…” escaped his lips unbidden.

But in reality, he wasn't truly feeling such pain.
Undoubtedly painful as it was, the very effort of convincing himself he must endure even greater suffering had at least lessened that pain.
A primal force surged through his entire body like a tidal wave.

More intense than grief over dying was the resolve to conquer this agony.
On one side welled up a passive, tearful, utterly spineless despair—while on the other lay a potent active force resembling humanity's right to survive.

The pain surged in and receded like waves, receded and surged in again.
Each time it surged in, he bit his lip, clenched his teeth, and grabbed his legs with both hands.

He thought a different kind of sensory power beyond the five senses had been added.
The dark room became clearly visible through it.
A high table stood along the dark-colored wall.
The white object atop it was unmistakably paper.
Half the glass window lay shattered, revealing stars that glittered as they sparkled across the vast sky.
In the right corner lay a disordered jumble of something.

He could no longer perceive the passage of time.
He thought it would be good if the military doctor came, but he had no time to dwell on that.
A new pain intensified.

Near the floor, a cricket was chirping.
While writhing in agony, he thought—Ah, a cricket is chirping…
He felt that sorrowful insect’s melody somehow seeping into his entire body.

Pain, pain—he thrashed about even more.

“It hurts! It hurts! It hurts!”

He let out another shrill scream in quick succession.

“It hurts… Isn’t there someone…? Isn’t there anyone?”

After a short while, he cried out again.

The fierce will to survive had already greatly diminished.
Rather than consciously seeking rescue, he was now almost in a frenzy.
The rustling of leaves assailed by natural forces, the roar of waves, the screams of humans!

“It hurts! It hurts!”

The voice drifted dreadfully through the silent room.
Until a month ago, Russian railway support officers had been quartered in this room.
When Japanese soldiers first entered, a soot-blackened image of Christ hung on the wall.
Last winter, those officers had drunk vodka while gazing through this glass window at blizzards raging across the Manchurian plains.
Soldiers wearing fur winter coats stood guard outside.
They derided the Japanese troops as incompetent and spat words with rainbow-hued fury.
Now, in that same room, a dying soldier’s screams resounded.

“It hurts! It hurts! It hurts!”

It was quiet.
The cricket kept chirping in the same gentle, lonely tone.
Over the vast Manchurian plains, a late-rising moon had apparently ascended, brightening the surroundings until the world beyond the glass window was already bathed in its light.

Screams, shrieks, despair—he thrashed about the room.
The military uniform’s buttons came undone, the area around his chest was clawed raw, his military cap—chin strap still fastened—lay crushed flat against him, and vomit clung thickly from his face down to his cheeks.

Suddenly, a clear beam of light shot into the room, and there at the doorway appeared the figure of a man holding a Western candle, carved in stark relief.
That face.
It was the face of the canteen worker with a bushy mustache.
But on his face, the cheerful charm from earlier was gone; a solemn, bluish-dark hue had risen.
He entered the room silently and illuminated the sick soldier groaning and writhing there with his candle.
The sick soldier’s face had turned pale, appearing like that of a dead man.
Clumps of vomit lay scattered there.

“What’s wrong? Are you sick?”

"Ah... It hurts... It hurts..."

He thrashed about, screaming violently.

The canteen worker stood by helplessly for a while watching; then, after dripping wax from the candle and setting it upright on the table, he hurried out through the door.
The candlelight made the room as bright as day.
In the corner, his own backpack and rifle came into his view.

The candle flame flickered.
Wax streamed down like tears.

After some time, the canteen worker from before entered with a soldier.
He had gone to wake a soldier from the march who had been sleeping in the house across the way.
The soldier first looked over the sick soldier’s face and surroundings, then carefully examined his shoulder straps.

The conversation between the two men clearly reached the sick soldier’s ears.

“He’s from the 18th Regiment.”

“I see.”

“When did he get here?”

“I had no idea at all. When did he get here? I’d fallen sound asleep around ten o’clock—then suddenly woke up to groaning and voices crying ‘It hurts! It hurts!’ I wondered what was happening—there shouldn’t be anyone back there—so I listened suspiciously for a while. Then the cries got even louder—‘Won’t someone come?!’ When I heard that shout, I came to check. It’s beriberi—beriberi heart.”

“Beriberi heart?”

“There’s no saving him now, you know.”

“That’s... pitiful.”
“There must be military doctors at the logistics department, right?”

“There are doctors… but at this hour, they won’t come out.”

“What time is it?”

He took out his own watch, made a face that said “That makes sense,” and put it back in his pocket.

“What time is it?”

“Two fifteen.”

The two men stood in silence.

The pain swept over him again.
Groans and shouts gave way to unbearable screams.

“What a pity.”

“He truly is pitiable.
Where could he be from?”

The soldier searched his pockets.
He could see the soldier pulling out his military notebook.
In his eyes appeared the soldier’s dark, sturdy face and the figure approaching the candle on the table to read the military notebook.
A voice continued reading, “Mikawa Province, Atsumi District, Fukue Village, Kato Heisaku...”
The scenes of his hometown floated before his eyes once more.
His mother’s face, his wife’s face, the large house surrounded by keyaki trees, the smooth beach stretching out behind it, the blue sea, the familiar faces of fishermen…

The two men stood in silence.
Their faces were pale and dark.
Occasionally, they exchanged words of sympathy for him.
He was already clearly aware of his death.
But he did not find it particularly painful or sorrowful.
The two men’s concern wasn’t about him personally—it felt as though some separate entity occupied their attention.
All he wanted was to escape this pain, this unbearable agony.

The candle flickered.
A cricket continued to chirp with the same desolate tone.

At dawn, a military doctor from the logistics department arrived.
But one hour before that, he had already died.
By the time the first train departed for Anshan Station with shouts of "Clear the way! Clear the way!", the waning moon had grown thinly pale and hung lonely in the sky.

After a while, the sound of artillery began to roar fiercely.
The September 1st Liaoyang offensive began.