Pathway to Japanese Literature

1. Pigs A herd of black-furred pigs was digging through a garbage-filled marsh with their tough snouts.

Hamada’s company was stationed in a Chinese village about a ri and a half away from the Taonan Railway line. It was early November. When they had departed Fengtian, patches of green grass were still visible across the plains of Manchuria. Now, not a single trace remained—everything had withered to brown.

The Heilongjiang Army's outpost unit was observing their positions from beyond the vast wilderness and hills. The company too kept a watchful eye on them while seeking both the right moment and a pretext to attack. On November 18th, their unit crossed the Chinese Eastern Railway and entered Qiqihar Castle. The Taonan Railway was completely seized. They then expanded their positions toward the Soviet Union’s border. This was already common knowledge. Now prior to that period—for about two weeks—the company had been encamped in the Chinese village like vultures eyeing prey.

During that time, the soldiers consciously strove to forget the war and brush it off. They found themselves irresistibly drawn to try playful pranks, reckless antics, and unruly behavior—acts completely unrelated to war that would never be tolerated in a strictly disciplined military during peacetime. The yellow, dull sun cast its light from the distant sky.

On the roof stood a watchtower for monitoring approaching enemy soldiers. Private First Class Hamada, who had climbed onto that roof, found himself gripped by an urge to pull some mischief. It was just past noon.

“Hey! Tasty bastards are over there in the marsh, rooting around!”

With that, he called down to the men loitering idly below.

“What?” The soldiers below gazed up at Hamada—perched on the roof scanning the distance—his eyes narrowed into a lecherous grin. “What? ‘Champi’?” What they craved most was women. “Ain’t no ‘Pee.’ It’s pigs.” “What? “Pigs? Pigs?… Hmm, pigs’ll do. Alright, let’s go.” Their meals consisted mostly of dried goods like dried radish, and with the occasional meat they were given being canned, they first imagined the pungent smell and taste of fresh meat from those filthy northern pigs. And then, they immediately planned a delightful game.

About five minutes later, six or seven soldiers, shouldering their rifles, advanced across the desolate wilderness toward the marsh. The imagined smell of pork already stimulated their appetites. To such an extent had they led lives where their desires remained unfulfilled. A short distance from the marsh, on withered grass, they stopped. There they assumed kneeling firing positions. The black pigs—whose owners had vanished after farmers fled—foraged intently across the area. They took aim and fired.

It was truly a satisfying feeling to shoot at targets that weren’t [enemies] but were certain to be hit. When they squeezed their triggers here, they could immediately see the pigs drop over there. It was truly amusing. They each took aim at one. However, for some reason, the pig that first-year soldier Gotō had aimed at didn’t go down. It let out a piercing, shrill snarl and thrashed about wildly in all directions like a spinning top.

“Oh, that one’s wounded!”

They stared for a while at the pig thrashing about like a mad thing. Gotō fired another shot. But this time, his shot at the moving pig missed. The pig thrashed about once again with even greater violence, desperate. Gotō fired again. But the bullet missed again. “If this were a human, we wouldn’t be able to watch,” someone muttered involuntarily. “It’s unsettling even with pigs.” “Guys like Ishizuka and Yamaguchi ended up like this too,” Superior Private Ōnishi said. “So… was that really how it happened?”

“It’s true.” “Ended up…” Eventually, they tied the still-warm pig to the center of a log, aligned its hind legs, shouldered it, and carried it back to the mess hall. From the mouth hung upside down, drops of blood trailed like threads and plopped onto the plain of withered grass.

“Didn’t any of you lot see Chinese soldiers coming here when you went out earlier?”

At the entrance to the quarters stood the Special Duty Sergeant Major, wearing a sullen, sulky expression. “Special Duty Sergeant Major, sir—did something happen?” “Well, you see…”

The Special Duty Sergeant Major looked sidelong at the blood-dripping pig. His lips twisted in distaste. They passed through the area. They placed the pig in the shadow of the Chinese house's earthen wall.

“Hey, Hamada, what’s going on?”

Noticing something was amiss, Ōnishi entered the quarters and asked Hamada, who was coming down from the watchtower. “Agile Chinese soldiers!” “Before we knew it, they’d gotten into the quarters.” “What kind of [intrusion] was it?” “Sergeant Toku took everything.” “If we call ’em out, we’re screwed.” However, after a while, Hamada took out a folded item from the rice-filled mess tin. “No matter what happened to Ishizuka and Yamaguchi, there’s properly our [informants] even among the Chinese around here! “What crafty bastards! With so many of us around, they slip in without anyone noticing, do their business, and then slip right out again without a trace!” “Crafty bastards.”

II Comfort Bags

The thick-walled, low-roofed Chinese house had an interior structured with ondol-style heating. The soldiers, who hadn’t bathed in twenty days, spread their blankets over sorghum-stalk mats and slept piled together there. One evening Hamada lay sprawled on his blanket with four or five others, still wearing their uniforms. The company officers had grown increasingly strict after discovering not only Chinese infiltrations but also contraband concealed in letters from Kikin’s hometown and even within comfort bags.

The ondol gently conveyed a mild warmth to their limbs. As the warmth seeped in, lice scurried restlessly across their skin.

It was already dark.

Five o’clock.

Northern Manchuria’s sunsets came early. The thick, white, opaque candles distributed from the accounting office had been placed on the edge of the shelf, a few drops of wax dripped beneath them to stand them upright.

The harsh, sterile life of men and the front lines' tense air manifested in the acrid gunpowder smell from rifle muzzles leaned against walls, and in the mud-caked uniforms of soldiers frayed at the seams. On the crumbling gray wall that threatened to collapse piece by piece, glamour portraits of Michiko Oikawa and Hiroko Kawasaki were stuck with rice grains. The officers took pleasure in seeing the soldiers find solace through such things. Past six o'clock came the feeble whinny of a branch stable horse and the clatter of wagon wheels. Clomping boots kicked against the floor tiles. A clamorous noise approached the entrance. Hamada and the others, who had been lying sprawled out, raised their heads. The group of about ten men—who had traveled one and a half ri along the railway to collect provisions and comfort items—had returned.

The quarters suddenly became lively. “Hey, where are the letters?” Wearing cold-weather caps, cold-weather undergarments, and gloves, the plump members of the receiving party opened the door and entered; those who had been waiting asked this first of all. “No luck.” “What’s going on?” “They’re encamped around Fengtian.”

“Why the hell?” “They’re being stripped bare and inspected.”

“Damn it! They won’t even let us read my old man’s letter as it is!” However, the comfort bags were distributed three per person. Even knowing they contained nothing but loincloths, hand towels, and soap, they still found themselves drawn to the contents anew. What could be inside? That anticipation delighted them. It was like a lottery draw, stirring fresh anticipation.

Of course, they were already familiar enough with comfort bags to judge their contents by the appearance of the white cloth bags. They disliked those that were too swollen, too bulky. In those bulky ones, useless things were inevitably packed. Again, it was hand towels, loincloths, and tooth powder. They grabbed them out, spread them in the air, and shook them. They had been expecting something other than such things. As they did so, folded paper pieces fluttered down from between them onto the sorghum-stalk mat.

“Ugh!” Under the candlelight on the shelf, one of them who had been cutting open a bag suddenly shouted “Tonkyō!” “What is it?” “What is it?” All at once, everyone’s attention focused in that direction.

“Wait, wait!” “What could this be?”

He quickly spread the piece of paper beside the candle and turned it over. “Shit?” “Wrong. It’s a kid’s letter written by their schoolteacher! Tch!” “It’s a kid’s letter written under their schoolteacher’s guidance!” “Tch!” At that moment, the door creaked, and the sound of spurs and a military sword clanging rang out. Everyone fell silent at once and turned their eyes to one person. The ones who showed their faces were the battalion adjutant and a newspaper correspondent wearing a quilted coat with a fur scarf.

“Even in cold Manchuria, the soldiers were living in such warm rooms…” “Ah, I see.” Before agreeing to the adjutant’s explanation, the correspondent had been repulsed by the unfamiliar filth inside the room. But he quickly concealed it and, scanning the room and soldiers, asked, “Was it this company that spearheaded the crossing of the Nen River?”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“Were there any interesting stories from that time?”

The correspondent continued surveying the soldiers. The soldiers exchanged glances and remained silent. The correspondent asked about the comfort bags that had just been opened, their contents, and what was written in the child’s letter. The soldiers were still exchanging glances with each other.

“Damn it! They’re tryin’ to use us as fuckin’ material for their article!” “Instead of makin’ us out to be some special scoop, they oughta tell us what’s goin’ on back home first.” After the correspondent snapped a photo and left the room, they all started grumbling. “Our old man and ma could be dyin’ back in Kikin for all we know—you think we give a shit about this?!”

3 Outpost

The iron hobnails of the military boots clinked against the frozen earth.

Seven soldiers led by Sergeant Fukayama stepped out from the village into the wilderness in full military gear. That was the scouting party. They were heading out to the outpost line. Both Hamada and Ōnishi were among them. They were advancing about one ri ahead of the main force. Trees only appeared sporadically here and there. There were no mountains either. Gentle hills spread out before them, along with marshes and fields dotted with sorghum stumps. They pressed onward. Before they knew it, the village housing the main force had vanished behind an ochre-colored hill. Loneliness, restlessness, and anxiety crept up on them unnoticed. But they maintained a stubborn front, refusing to let it show on their faces or in their words.

That the Chinese soldiers were all forcibly conscripted from coolies and peasants and made to bear arms under warlord coercion was something they fully understood. They were either farmers like themselves or else laborers. And they had hardly received any pay either. Yet the cruelty of bandits and mounted bandits they had heard about remained stubbornly stuck in their minds. When at a disadvantage, these outlaws would tuck tail and run, but when gaining the upper hand, they’d grow emboldened and unleash utter brutality. Such tales haunted the eight of them. The farther they moved from the main force, the more their fear intensified—until they felt entirely alone in the wilderness.

The wilderness of Northern Manchuria stretched endlessly.

In the vast expanse ahead, a single house came into view. Sergeant Fukayama, who had been feeling his way forward with a map in hand, now understood they had reached the designated point. Here and there lay remnants of trenches dug by the Heilongjiang Army. There too, all the earth was frozen. They entered an abandoned hut and, while sheltering from the cold, decided to observe the enemy’s movements from there.

The hut was constructed by piling up earth. The roof had sorghum stalks laid across the attic space, with a thin layer of soil spread evenly over them. The door had been torn off. Inside, there was no floor, no shelves, no stool—not even a single wooden fragment. There was only a relatively new piece of rush matting and the remnants of a bonfire. It had probably been looted by someone. “Well, well—there’s another house over there.”

After finishing his inspection inside, Ōnishi came out and turned around to exclaim. It stood in an ochre-earth ditch no more than fifty meters away, its protective coloration blending perfectly with the soil. “We should check that one out too.” Hamada took the lead and tried to advance boldly. At that moment, a single Zhongshan-suited figure popped their head out from the ochre-colored house.

“Whoa—Chinese soldiers!”

His heart pounded as he instinctively tightened his grip on the rifle. He hesitated for an instant—whether to immediately open fire or to observe the situation. The other seven also stood frozen, staring at the single Zhongshan-suited soldier. If the Chinese soldier was alone, dealing with him would be a simple task. However, if ten men with a machine gun were hiding inside, or if a large force from nearby came rushing in upon hearing the gunfire, it couldn’t be said that they wouldn’t all be slaughtered. The distance of one ri had stripped them of any reliance on the main force. And, from Sergeant Fukayama down to the first-year soldier Gotō, they all felt more acutely than ever that they were just eight men on their own.

When the Zhongshan-suited soldiers saw them, they grinned foolishly. Following that, another one poked their head out from behind. The other one also grinned foolishly with the same vacant, relaxed face. “What the hell—they’re laughing at us!” The tension that had them on the verge of opening fire eased. They couldn’t let their guard down. But they decided to stay as they were and observe the situation for a while.

Neither side sent messengers to their rear headquarters nor opened fire, and so the day passed. However, the anxiety did not subside. That night was, for Hamada and the others, a strange, restless, oppressive night during which they could not sleep at all until morning. The next day too, the Zhongshan suits remained inside that house. When they showed their faces, those inside likewise revealed theirs at the window. And then, just as yesterday, they displayed those vacant grins. Yet against this, they found themselves unable to retaliate with anger. Before they knew it, they too were grinning foolishly. This state of affairs continued for some time.

In the afternoon, they ate rice cooked in mess tins and ham—prepared from pork by Yoshida, who had been a cook—which they cut open with a can opener knife. Hamada wrapped the leftovers in a new hand towel and threw it toward the Chinese soldiers. “Here’s something tasty for ya!” he shouted in Chinese. “Alright!” The other side replied. When the piece of ham wrapped in the hand towel fell short of reaching the Chinese soldiers’ house, three of them came tumbling out at once, gleefully cursing as they picked it up. This time they showed something wrapped in tattered cloth.

“Here comes the liquor!” They shouted from across.

“What?” The rapid-fire Chinese they spoke made comprehension impossible. As we wavered uncertainly, a tattered cloth bundle sliced through wind currents and thudded before Hamada. Within lay a bottle of sorghum liquor.

Sergeant Fukayama did not welcome this. When Hamada removed the bottle’s stopper,

“There’s poison in it!” he said with an insinuating look. “No way.” “I’ll check for poison myself.” From beside him, Ōnishi reached for it. “No—I’ll do it.” Hamada was the first to take a swig, gulping it down. Then he handed the bottle to Ōnishi. Ōnishi tasted it, “Nah! Poison? No way—this is damn good liquor!” He smacked his lips. The liquor was poured from the bottle into a trumpet-shaped cup and made its rounds from mouth to mouth among the eight men. Seeing the soldiers’ delighted expressions, Sergeant Fukayama finally reached out. And in the end, he got drunk. His eyes grew bloodshot.

By the next night, anxiety no longer assailed them. They lit a bonfire with deadwood and sorghum stalks they had gathered nearby. At times like these, the one who always became the center of their idle talk was Ōnishi—a snub-nosed, bold foundry worker who used to make iron kettles. Ōnishi repeated the story about his old mother and older sister back home being hounded by their landlord.

“Not only does me being in Manchuria not help my family one damn bit—they’re saying we’ve gotta pay rent just to keep a roof over our heads.” “Spouting all that nonsense about doing it for ×—whether they’re ×××ing China or ×××××ing Russia, they’ll ×××× us over good and proper—not one damn yen less than what they take from us, they’ll strip us bare.” “Hmph, as if!” “No matter how much Mantetsu pays in dividends, they won’t give a single yen to the likes of us who don’t hold any shares.”

Sergeant Fukayama, who had been instructed by the Special Duty Sergeant Major to monitor the soldiers’ ideological leanings, tried to shift the conversation elsewhere. “Cut it out, cut it out.” “Enough of that.” He spoke in a scolding tone.

“We ain’t tellin’ any lies,” “We’re just tellin’ it like it is.”

Ōnishi paid no mind to the ××. To them, having left the main unit, there was no distinction of × or ×. There was no need to fear. Even as ××, before ××, they had no value except as individual human beings. And the ×× could be used whenever they wanted. By past nine o’clock, the firewood had nearly run out. Hamada invited first-year soldier Gotō to collect the deadwood he had spotted during the day. “We’ll bring rifles in case anything happens, so why don’t you come empty-handed?” Hamada said to Gotō. “On days when we’ve got rifles, not a single stick of firewood gets left behind.”

“You sure about this? Just the two of you?” Ōnishi made a worried face. “Yeah, it’s fine.” However, Kawai—a strong man who worked on a bonito boat—immediately stood up with only his bayonet.

The three men stepped out of the hut. The frost-covered wilderness was pure white under the moon. The frozen ground was still freezing over. As the three walked, it crunched and shattered beneath their boots. When Hamada straightened up from gathering deadwood by a ditch about a hundred meters ahead, he noticed across the ditch on a slightly elevated stretch of plain a herd of twenty or thirty calf-like animals clustered together, sniffing noisily as they watched the three men.

“Hey, Mongol dogs!”

He cried out instinctively. As first-year soldier Gotō flung down the bundle of deadwood he had gathered—before he could even fully raise his head—the pack of dogs descended upon the three men like an infantry unit launching an assault, barking ferociously. Hamada immediately took his rifle. Kawai and Gotō drew their bayonets. The Mongol dogs, as large as calves and fiercely aggressive, howled savagely and charged forward, their bodies pressed low to the ground. They attacked not only from the front but also sought openings from the right, left, and rear. And they lunged for armpits and throats. Hamada had until then witnessed on multiple occasions Chinese soldiers abandoned on the battlefield being devoured by Mongol dogs. It was a horrific spectacle reminiscent of primitive times.

He kept firing as fast as he could while falling back toward the hut. But the dogs had already blocked their escape route. Under the fuzzy white moonlight, what first looked like twenty or thirty dogs turned out to be fifty or sixty when he checked again. Kawai and Gotō cursed their lack of rifles while desperately slashing at any dog within reach. Yet more kept coming faster than they could swing their blades. This was no half-hearted attack - these beasts meant to tear them apart. That's when Hamada caught an unfamiliar gunshot mixed with the chaos. Not the sharp crack of a Type 38. Peering through moon shadows, he spotted four or five dark shapes near the Chinese hut pouring steady fire into the dog pack.

The six men who had remained in the hut peered outside through the shadow of the torn reed screen hanging over the window. The fierce dogs surrounded the hut at a distance, writhing and growling like a wave. In the moonlight, they could see only eyes gleaming keenly. Immediately, they took up their rifles. And they spilled out of the hut. The pack of dogs showed no sign of retreating. When a dog attempted to attack the humans and was struck down by bullets, another dog came from behind, trampling over the corpse, and charged forward ferociously. They could not help but feel tense, as though they had encountered a formidable enemy they could not defeat.

The chaotic entanglement of dogs and humans in fierce combat continued for some time. The gunfire was not just the booming reports from the rifles of Japanese soldiers; another, distinctly different type of gunfire intermittently mingled with it in a complex cacophony.

Hamada and his men, who had narrowly escaped being devoured by the Mongol dogs, joyfully charged headlong toward where their comrades had appeared. “Whoa! Thank you—you saved us!”

“……” A sound that wasn’t Japanese resounded.

When he suddenly peered into the moonlight, it was the Chinese soldier who had given them liquor during the day.

“Thank you! “Thank you!” He kept repeating it. Then for another ten minutes, the shooting at the dogs continued. The pack moved with their black shadows cast upon the white frost—under the hazy moon, it became impossible at times to distinguish dogs from shadows. The Chinese soldiers chased down the dog pack with tenacity, just as they would have when facing any common enemy alongside them. Now there was no longer any wariness between them.

Three days later, on November 17th, the Japanese Army simultaneously began advancing along the entire front.

The company they belonged to also advanced. And soon, they reached the location of the hut at the outpost line. The Company Commander turned crimson upon discovering that the scouting unit he had sent to the outpost had grown so familiar with the ×× sentries that they were chatting amiably, sharing rice cooked in mess tins, receiving millet buns from them, and had essentially become comrades. “What are you doing?!”

The Company Commander suddenly barked.

“Who the hell are these men?! Kill ’em all! Seize them!” In response to the order, one might have expected them to immediately seize their rifles and rise to atone for their negligence—yet on his subordinates’ faces, a bitter, ×× emotion appeared vividly. “Fire! Wipe ’em out!” However, at that moment, Superior Private Ōnishi and Private First Class Hamada—who had taken up their rifles—released the safeties and immediately took aim at ×××××××××× and pulled their triggers.