Pathway to Japanese Literature

Preface

This passage is a paper sent by Dr. Orkus Cladel—a Finnish-born German Doctor of Medicine and French Literature currently operating a surgical hospital in Cairo, Egypt—to the author?
It is the section depicting the battlefield from *The Inner Aspect of War*.
The original text is in German, based on the aforementioned doctor’s personal notes, and remains an unpublished rarity never before released anywhere in the world.

Through this passage, esteemed readers shall bear witness to the blood-drenched, visceral cross-section of that monstrous German spirit—which, as the newly emerged mightiest power in Central Europe, glared back at the world’s cannons with a defiance mirroring present-day Japan.

Mr. Orkus Cladel had once come to Nagasaki after the conclusion of the Great European War, employed as a physician at a certain surgical hospital (Japanese-operated). That this role bore a military research mission could be discerned from other sections of this paper.

The author, having once been injured in a railway accident, was hospitalized at that surgical hospital and came to know Mr. Cladel.
My impression of Mr. Cladel was, to put it bluntly, that he was a truly enigmatic being; he once explained of himself, 'I am an oddity even among white people.
As if explaining, “I belong to a type of dwarf scientifically termed Hindro-Jutrophi,” his stature was strikingly short—comparable to a Japanese child of thirteen or fourteen—while his neck, developed to a bulk exceeding that of ordinary Westerners, often gave him the appearance of a hunchback.
However, in spirit, Mr. Cladel was the complete opposite of his appearance—a cultured intellectual of inexhaustible kindness, devoid of even an ounce of the narrow-mindedness typical of those with disabilities or the cunning often attributed to people from small Northern European nations.
And of course, he possessed astonishing skill in his professional field of surgery.

Finally, I shall add that despite his active service as a military doctor, when it came to the matter of war, he had consistently expressed nothing but horror and curses.

I

...Oh... Demon.
I curse war.

Just hearing the word "war" turned my stomach.

War is when lifeless physics and chemistry rage and roar without purpose.

War is when a procession of pallid corpses dances meaninglessly about, while within that vortex, swarms of living crimson humans—devoid alike of interest or passion—are mown down to thudding earth: limbs torn, flesh rent, bodies left to rot, transmuted into cadaveric toxins, transformed into tetanus.

Touch the monstrous flames of emotion that have been transformed into potent drugs… the noxious stench of morality that has been turned to poison.
Shudder.

...The end of January 1916.

At the dawn of my twenty-eighth year… I—who had been serving as a municipal physician at Berlin City Hall—arrived directly at a birch forest ten kilometers behind Verdun, relayed through cargo trains, trucks, supply wagons, and food distribution vehicles under orders issued in the Kaiser’s name appointing me medical lieutenant and dispatching me to the front.

This forest was a remnant of great woodlands scorched and buried by artillery fire, where the Medical Corps of our Western Front—a certain corps besieging Verdun Fortress—had established their camp. Vast quantities of medical supplies and cleverly camouflaged food provisions lay piled in scattered heaps across the terrain.

Of course, until the moment I arrived, I had no idea where I was being taken. I had been transported here at the direction of the transportation commander, guided by the incomprehensible symbols and numbers written on the transit pass handed to me at the city hall—so it was that for some time after arriving, I remained utterly unaware this place behind Verdun was... a mass corpse stockpile site. When I stood outside the small tent assigned as my quarters, agonizing magnesium-colored illumination flares—whether from enemy or ally—were being fired in relentless succession across the horizon visible just beyond. The glass-like gleam of birch trunks illuminated by that icy blue light... the undulations of desolate plains spreading around them... villages, streams, ponds—all uniformly scattered with corpses and plowed without respite by artillery shells into a scorched wilderness of mud and ice... this vision would suddenly rise before my eyes under magnesium light dripping from the heavens, glistening like a sea of phosphorus flames only to groan back into the abyss of prior darkness—an indescribably ghastly yet sublime spectacle—and I could only shudder with cold that pierced to my marrow, standing utterly dumbfounded. Even after returning to the tent and burying myself in bone-chilling straw and blankets while still in uniform—despite my prior resolve—I could only think: What a horrifying place I had come to. What kind of place had I come to, and for what purpose...? Such thoughts I pondered without reserve as I kept tossing this way and that.

However, soon after dawn broke, I felt everything fall into place through the account of my subordinate who had risen from the nearby camp to come greet me.

This subordinate of mine was a chief medic—a strikingly handsome man who stood in complete contrast to me, with a splendid bearing and a Kaiser mustache waxed sharply upward. His manner of speech affected a pretentious military tone, as if he knew everything there was to know.

“Our German Army will likely commence its final general offensive toward Verdun shortly after February begins. At present, newly recruited troops and freshly cast artillery shells are being transported to the front lines in an unbroken stream. And you... Lieutenant Orkus Cladel have undoubtedly been assigned to this camp as the final addition to assist in managing casualties during this impending offensive.”

“All transportation for our German Army appears strictly confined to nighttime operations. To obstruct our logistical movements—as you observed last night—the French forces launch powerful illumination flares at irregular intervals each dusk from tethered balloons shrouded in the sky’s darkness, using mounted cameras to exhaustively photograph every corner of our rear lines. Even minimal supply movements are instantly detected, drawing concentrated artillery fire that severely delays transportation. In fact, two engineer battalions with new large supply trains have remained immobilized for days within the ruins of a village barely undulating across the horizon two or three kilometers to our left.”

“So that direction where those illumination flares keep getting fired marks Verdun’s fortress position. Once they finally launch their attack, there’s no telling whether artillery shells might not reach even this far.”

"The newly recruited soldiers are unaccustomed to war; thus it has been fully anticipated from this point onward that casualties will reach astonishing numbers."
"And so on."

As I listened to this talk, my flank somehow began trembling uncontrollably.
No—it absolutely wasn't due to the cold.
I went to greet Colonel Waruderuzei, Commander of the Medical Corps residing in the large central tent five hundred meters away, and stood beside a massive crude oil stove—yet this trembling persisted.
Not only that—even as I gazed up at the commander's towering six-foot frame and his beard-covered ferocious crimson face while listening to his stern, solemn inaugural address, this trembling intensified until nausea overwhelmed me, leaving me utterly confounded. This was likely because I had already begun succumbing to the battlefield-specific neurosis.
Had I not known beforehand that such transient neurological disorders could occur, I might have panicked at that moment, thinking malaria and cholera had struck me simultaneously.

However, when the moment came, though I was neurologically impaired, I found myself able to muster unexpected courage. In the murderous cold of subzero temperatures over ten degrees below freezing, I could swing my arms with abandon—sweat oozing forth with such vitality.

I had forgotten the exact date in February, but it was certainly the day before the general offensive began. Colonel Waruderuzei, Commander of the Medical Corps who had come to inspect our camp, contorted his usual fierce, beard-covered flushed face into a grotesque grin as he made this pronouncement.

“…Dr. Cladel.”
“Step over here.”
“I’d like you to keep this conversation confidential… Nothing more than that.”
“This may sound terribly rude, but those exquisitely kind methods you perfected in Berlin—your signature techniques—I must ask you to consider them unnecessary here on the battlefield.”
“I realize such words may cause offense, but I beg you to accept this as the battlefield’s custom.”
“The reason will soon become clear—when the time comes, regardless of other injuries, those still possessing both legs must be sent back to the front without delay.”
“For men paralyzed by frontline-specific neurological disorders—strike their buttocks mercilessly with a trench shovel.”
“Those who still cannot stand—leave them in the frozen earth awhile.”
“Should you find time for further ministrations, attend to other wounded.”
“Depending on circumstances, even those retaining only one eye and a right hand must be deployed along the front.”
“Is that clear?”
“Particularly this Verdun offensive… Though its commencement remains uncertain… represents the Western Front’s final desperate measure.”
“You must be prepared to drive even the souls of dead men back into the trenches, lest we fall behind… Clear? Ha ha…”

At that time too, I felt an inexplicably oppressive heaviness in my chest—a violent shudder ran through my torso, and nausea welled up within me...

And thus, the general offensive finally began.

The western horizon, which had been clear and chrome-colored until yesterday, revealed itself at dawnbreak as being entirely shrouded in a reddish-brown cloud of dust.
As he listened to the oppressive tremor—a deep *blun-blun-blun-blun* reverberation crawling up abundantly from below with a persistent, wingbeat-like rhythm—he felt as though the entire Earth were transforming into a single gigantic beetle.
With this, the reddish-brown clouds in the western sky swiftly thickened, rising to higher layers and intensifying in density.

From within those reddish-brown clouds, flashes of French artillery fire burst forth in parallel, flipping into sun-like hues with rapid bursts.
The air and the earth competed in their tremors, swelled up ceaselessly beneath the soles of our boots.
Simultaneously came an infinite spiritual shudder—invisible to the eye and inaudible to the ear—that not even our own aircraft's circus-like, breathtaking low-altitude flights shaking our tents could counter.

The continuing rhythm created by layers of booming sounds—swelling up from accumulated pressure in the earth’s deepest depths, ceasing only to overlap anew—resembled that mournful, ponderous festival rhythm played during Tokyo’s celebrations……

Clang-clang-clatter-clatter Boom-boom……

Could one possibly imagine... in such a manner... a melody hundreds of millions of times heavier and more sorrowful than that festival rhythm—expanding to fill the entire universe...?

When I first came to Tokyo, Japan, and heard that mournful festival rhythm, I nearly simultaneously recalled the tremors of every nerve along the Verdun front amidst the throng of people and shuddered.
I stifled the nausea welling up from the deepest pit of my bowels—just as I had that day.
The terror that has seeped into the hollow of my spine since that day and lingers still... The iron and fire and concrete of that mournful festival rhythm—shattering blood, flesh, bone, and soul alike while mocking them... The supreme nonsense orchestra giving form to the greatest terror upon this earth...

From within that orchestra came the evacuated scores—the sheer multitude of casualties. While daylight still lingered, the groans of souls half-departed or verging on nothingness spilled forth from the birch forest where we stood, enveloping me in infinite obsession.

The central large camp and the smaller camps encircling it were of course overflowing; those spilling out lay discarded upon the frozen black soil plain—frost-glazed at nearly twenty degrees below zero—under the late-rising half-moon.
In the beginning, I too commanded several subordinates, engrossed in treating each patient, but eventually became so consumed that I lost contact with my assistants, forcing each of us to take charge of hundreds of patients and make unilateral decisions.
No... in truth, the number I treated may well have reached thousands.
One after another, they slipped into oblivion within that infinite expanse...

After the war, I heard from various quarters that our German Army’s Medical Corps had been fully equipped, but every time I heard such stories, I felt my body shrink.
Truly, it was inhumane at this time.
Not only was there no disinfectant for sterilizing hands—there wasn’t even time to fetch water to wash away blood—so my fingers became immobilized by a glove of jet-black, congealed blood.
One reason was likely the extreme cold.
When the lukewarm blood gushing from a soldier’s flank flowed thickly over the back of my hand, I was overcome by an unbearable impulse to thrust both hands deep into the wound—straight through to his viscera.

The wounded soldiers I saw for the first time were also horrific.

Those missing a hand or leg were not at all rare.
An artilleryman cackled madly with entrails dangling from his flank.
A bearded infantry sergeant major—his optic nerves likely severed by a bullet through both temples—remained alive with eyes wide open, crying “Mama! Mama!” in an infant’s voice.
A transport soldier with his lower jaw blown off rolled tear-filled eyes—to our surgical knowledge, a miraculous monstrous horde surged back from the front like a flood, spreading around me as each screamed their agonies to heedless neighbors.
Some sang songs, others offered prayers, while some conversed with hometown families in dreamlike murmurs.
They gurgled their last breaths... A terror-world unimaginable as sharing earth with Berlin’s taverns, Parisian cafés, or London’s theaters... A reality more dreadful than death’s realm—had such a nightmare existed, that scene embodied it.

As the night grew deeper… as the number of wounded soldiers increased… the work became increasingly difficult.
The only illumination available for examining wounds came from the firefly-hued moonlight and the beam of a portable electric lamp tied to a forked tree branch and planted in the ground—yet even these were failing, their rays steadily dimming and tinged reddish-brown as the batteries weakened.
As materials had become nearly depleted, I unilaterally decided to cut up nearby tents to make bandages and proceeded to tend only to the wounded around me.
Due to the war raging fiercely, it appeared that all supply distribution had become severely strained.

As I was being overwhelmed with work in such a manner, a powerful portable electric lamp's light glinted from deep within the birch forest, weaving through the patients while steadily drawing closer to me. Compared to my flashlight with its dying batteries, I envied the sharp beam that appeared to come from a rechargeable battery. While half-expecting assistance and glancing repeatedly in that direction, I realized the light's owner was none other than Colonel Waruderuzei, the chief medical officer.

Colonel Waruderuzei appeared to be inspecting each and every wound of the wounded soldiers lying so densely packed that there was no space to set foot.
Beside him, lower-ranking soldiers who appeared to be engineers kept approaching in turns, taking hold of the wounded soldiers indicated by the colonel and leading them away somewhere.

I found myself impressed by Colonel Waruderuzei’s dedication.

During daylight hours, this same colonel had appeared as a disgustingly arrogant, cold-blooded man—like a scaled-down version of General Hindenburg.
I had assumed he would be far back in the rear, comfortably puffing on cigars brought by some supply truck in a shelter or camp by now—but I never imagined he would be applying such fervor to his duties.

As I observed Colonel Waruderuzei’s diligence, I simultaneously felt my conscience straining valiantly throughout my lung cavity.
And so, driven by desperate urgency at last, I rushed to treat one wounded soldier after another—when Colonel Waruderuzei, who had now drawn near me, began meticulously unwinding and inspecting the bandages of an officer candidate whose calf I had just treated.

Seeing this, I felt a degree of dissatisfaction.

……Any further treatment is impossible under the current conditions……

While mentally preparing that response and scrubbing the congealed blood from my palms, Colonel Waruderuzei’s flashlight suddenly swung toward me.

“Hmph.”
“Dr. Cladel, is it?”
“Step over here for a moment.”

The colonel’s tone unmistakably carried a hint of venom.
However, I bravely snapped to attention beside Colonel Waruderuzei and saluted.

Colonel Waruderuzei pointed his flashlight at the still-very-young candidate soldier lying on a slope half-filled with shell craters.

“Is it true this boy claims he can’t see?”

That candidate soldier was a beautiful, almost feminine-looking youth with patchy golden stubble sprouting beneath his nose and along his jawline.
The private’s uniform he still wore suggested some blunder after frontline deployment had stalled his promotion.
From face to chest he was smeared with gruesome nosebleed and mud; his hands and the knees protruding through torn trousers showed raw, scraped flesh—yet he stared wide-eyed with wax-figure-blue pupils fixed unblinkingly on the steel-hued sky.
His infantile expression seemed wholly absorbed in listening to our words.

As I gazed upon his profile, my heart stirred considerably.
Born with such an unsightly appearance that I stood no chance of being loved by women and had always been prone to scorn from men, I must have gradually developed a warped disposition akin to that of a cripple.
Whenever I beheld such beautiful young men, I was invariably seized by an irrational urge to grow close... driven by a blind impulse to tenderly care for them—an impulse I found nearly impossible to resist.

“Yes.”
“This candidate soldier was shot through the calf by a friendly bullet while advancing.”
“Then, as he crawled back, an enemy illumination flare exploded about ten-odd meters before his eyes.”
“At that time, he seems to have miraculously avoided injury, but the moment the intense flash struck his face, he apparently lost his vision.”
“He can distinguish between light and dark, but regarding other colors, he only perceives gray objects moving hazily before his eyes. He stated that aiming a rifle is naturally impossible… and his eyelashes appear singed and shriveled…”

“Hmm.”
“And how did you diagnose it?”

“Yes.”
“I believe it is likely an acute paralysis affecting part of the nervous system commonly seen on battlefields, and if possible, I would request he be sent to the rear.”
“With time, it should naturally recover… though his vision may lag behind the restoration of his gastrocnemius muscles…”

“Hmm.”
“I see, I see.”

Colonel Waruderuzei kept nodding vigorously, but I did not miss how a look of restless resentment flickered across his facial muscles—an indescribable turmoil.

The Colonel then pondered for a moment, bent down, and directed the beam of his portable electric lamp toward the candidate soldier’s eyes.
With thumb and index finger as bloodstained as my own, he pulled open the candidate soldier’s eyelids, pallid from anemia.
He repeatedly flashed his flashlight at the candidate soldier’s eyes and flipped over the buttons on his tunic to read the name sewn there—but what startled me was when he suddenly struck the haggard youth’s soft cheek with a full-force slap… *smack*…
After receiving two or three more violent blows—unable to even cry out, keeping both hands pressed to his face and limbs curled up—the colonel grabbed the collar of the candidate soldier’s uniform with his right hand while—

“Stand up... That’s it.”
“I said stand up… Damn it, won’t you stand?!”

The colonel bellowed.

I recalled Colonel Waruderuzei’s words from yesterday afternoon.
It was his declaration:

“……Drive even the souls of the dead back to the front lines!”

This had been his declaration, but even given the battle situation’s desperate extremity, I found myself trembling at such cruelty—and then came fresh astonishment: that candidate soldier clutched his knee with both hands caked in mud and blood, contorting his beautiful face to its limit as he wobbled upright under excruciating agony.

Colonel Waruderuzei looked down at the candidate soldier’s motionless posture—so pitiful it could be described as misery itself—and declared with a face contorted with rage.

“Alright… Follow me.”
“Your bones aren’t shattered—you should be able to walk here.”
“Dr. Cladel… you’ll come along as well.”
“It’ll be educational…”

“I—I will just finish attending to the wounded soldiers first…”

“Very well.”
“The others will manage it somehow. …Come along.”
“I’ll show you the inner aspect of war that no German citizen outside us military doctors knows.”
“It’s a crucial secret that reveals why the German Army is so formidable.”
“A pure-hearted military doctor like you needs to see it at least once.”
“…This is an order…”

“...Hah...”

Having answered, I assumed a rigid stance.

Colonel Waruderuzei left behind a phantom of a sneer—bitterly sour, ineffably mystical—before my eyes as he snapped off his portable electric lamp’s light. He swung the hilt of his sword behind him with a clang and strode leisurely out of the birch forest.

From behind him, the candidate soldier began dragging each footstep—every movement equivalent to excruciating pain. Exhaling ghostly pale, labored breaths down onto the earth—huffing and puffing... Overcome, I followed from behind without thinking and seized his right arm. I slung his arm over my shoulder and tried to support him, but being too short, it didn’t seem to be of much help.

“Thank you... very much.”
“Dr. Cladel…”

The candidate soldier spoke in a voice so dark, low, and anguished it seemed to seep into the earth.
He exhaled a white, steamy breath—long and hollow—beneath the moonlight, but already seemed to be weeping.

II

Our journey was exceedingly difficult.

An endless expanse of black earth stretched endlessly—a relentless succession of icy mud pits formed by countless artillery craters.
Birch abatis lay strewn haphazardly in every direction.
Artillery limbers.
Massive clumps of uprooted thickets.
An overturned brick wall.
Corpses of military horses.
This hellish gauntlet of obstacles—bathed in the jagged light of a rat-gnawed crescent moon amid illumination flares and artillery flashes—flashed five-hued reflections across half a mile: shifting from crimson to azure, azure to violet, violet to sulfur-yellow, then bleaching into pure white—all under bone-cracking cold of -20°C.

The candidate soldier walking with me fainted twice from pain along the way, nearly toppling my less-than-sturdy frame in his collapse, but through the peppermint schnapps I administered, he managed to regain his strength and stagger forward with labored gasps.
Without either of us understanding the meaning of Colonel Waruderuzei’s orders, we continued our breathless three-legged journey toward where the moon hung.

Yet both of us could not keep pace with the Colonel.
The Colonel looked back at me twice along the way,

“Leave him be.”
“Hurry up.”

he said in a cold tone that seemed to bite and spit out, but upon seeing my stubborn attitude, he must have given up.
He continued striding swiftly away from us.
Witnessing the Colonel’s utterly cruel and unreasonable attitude, I all the more firmly hoisted up the candidate soldier.

The candidate soldier truly seemed to be unable to see.
In the double eyelids staring fixedly at the subzero air nearing minus twenty degrees before those eyes, and in the blue, clear pupils, not a flicker of expression stirred.
Only those slender, delicate, woman-like eyebrows trembled—likely due to the pain.
They did nothing but twitch... twitch... incessantly.

I gazed up at the candidate soldier’s elegant, Raphaelesque profile—alternately illuminated by navy-blue illumination flares scattering across the distant horizon and the light of a slate-gray moon gliding upward through midair—and once again felt my chest constrict into a single, suffocating mass. When I thought of this youth with such a beautiful, innocent face dragging his leg—so agonizing it could make him faint—for ten meters, only to be sent back into that eightfold hell of iron and fire, I felt as though my own ribs were being carved out and tormented.

The candidate soldier also seemed to sense something, for through the moonlight, I could see tears trickling down from those large, unfeeling eyes staring wide open.

I grabbed the remaining absorbent cotton from my coat pocket and wiped away his tears.
...Because they would soon cause frostbite... Then the candidate soldier, with trembling fingers, groped for my right hand, snatched away the cotton, and—still wiping the fresh tears that continued to well up—came to a halt.
He seemed to be listening to the receding clatter of Colonel Waruderuzei’s sword—his left leg trembling violently, the pain clenched between his teeth—but soon asked me in an extremely small, insect-like voice.

“Have we become sufficiently distant from Colonel Waruderuzei now?”

“…Yes… We’ve become about a hundred meters distant.”
“Is there something you need?”

The candidate soldier did not answer, turning his empty eyes toward the starry sky. He parted his bloodless white lips vacantly, seemed to ponder something for a while, but eventually retrieved a small oilpaper package the size of an envelope from his tunic’s inner pocket, gropingly placed it into my hand, and made me grip it firmly.

However, I did not accept it.
I asked while gripping both his hand and the oilpaper package.

“Are you... giving this to me?”

“...No...”

The youth shook his head vigorously.
He pressed the dirty absorbent cotton against the fresh tears that still welled up.

“I beg of you. Please deliver this package to my wife in my hometown.”

“Your... wife...”

“...Yes. My wife’s documents, your travel expenses—they’re all contained within this.”

“What is inside?”

“It is the key to the vault where we keep our property.”

“...The vault key...”

“That’s correct. I’ll explain everything... please... please... listen to me.”

Even as he spoke, the youth pressed both hands—still clutching the absorbent cotton—against his face and began bowing continuously like a beggar, bobbing his head up and down... up and down...
I was beginning to feel somewhat at a loss.

“Anyway… go ahead and tell me.”

“……Ah… Thank you very much…”

“There, there… Don’t cry…”

“I’m so sorry.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s just... this is how things are.”

“……Hah…”

"...My ancestors belong to an old Saxon noble house."
“My family still possesses wealth surpassing even the Saxon King’s.”
"My father—who shared both my surname and given name—served as a professor at Munich University."
“I am their only son, Pōeru Hainrihhi.”
"My current mother is my stepmother—Father’s second wife—though she’s scarcely ten years my senior."
“Ever since Father died suddenly of apoplexy last summer, my stepmother has been entertaining our family lawyer at our Munich residence—a most unsavory character.”
“Do you follow…?”

“I see. I understand perfectly.”

“The reason I was persuaded by my stepmother to abandon music—which I loved more than three meals a day—and forced into promising military enlistment appears to have been part of that lawyer’s scheming.”
“To put it plainly, there are grounds to suspect this lawyer—conspiring with my stepmother while my new wife and I remain childless—of plotting to embezzle the estate.”
“That lawyer enjoys extensive social connections and carries a reputation as a sort of societal manipulator.”
“Even my thoroughly calculating stepmother—who spares no expense regarding this lawyer—is said to be having her funds relentlessly drained by him alone, you see.”
“I’ve reached the point of suspecting my assignment to the Verdun fortress engagement might well have resulted from that lawyer’s covert machinations.”

I exhaled a thick, long, trembling sigh from the depths of my belly.
At first, I had intended to listen with reluctance, but before I knew it, I found myself wholeheartedly sympathizing with the candidate soldier.

“Indeed… Such a story seems all too plausible in present-day Germany.”
“After all, those who interfere with schemes are best sent to the battlefield.”

“You must be right… That’s why I brought the vault key to the front lines—the key containing everything: the will bequeathing all my property to my wife Ippolita, various certificates, and all the family heirlooms like jewels.”
“Just when my wife was away visiting her parents in Italy, my conscription order suddenly arrived.”
“What struck me as particularly suspicious was how my stepmother—who normally absolutely detested anything that pleased my wife—had with strange enthusiasm urged her to return to her hometown and even seen her off at the station in unusually high spirits.”

“Indeed. I understand perfectly.”

“That’s not all.”
“After I was deployed, my wife returned home only to be pressured by my mother and the lawyer to marry into another family—and her parents are agreeing to this as well… That’s what the letter from my wife said.”

“That’s utterly unforgivable.”

“It’s utterly unforgivable… However, my wife insists she won’t leave the house even a single step unless she receives a letter of separation from me… for we trust each other absolutely… absolutely…”

The candidate soldier explained the circumstances with swift efficiency, as though begrudging every second. He seemed to be repeating explanations he had painstakingly refined amidst iron, fire, and poison gas—and perhaps because of this, his cloyingly naive entreaty carved out a fragment of life as icy and urgent as the battlefield itself, bearing down upon every one of my nerves.

“Please,” he begged, “hand this key to my wife in strictest secrecy. For there are many scheming to steal from her both the position as mistress of Count Hainrihhi’s household and its vast fortune...”

I instinctively straightened my collar.
It was not due to the cold that crept in and pervaded as I stood there.

While utterly astounded by Candidate Soldier Pōeru Hainrihhi’s characteristically sheltered-young-master-like naivety and rashness in entrusting such a crucial item to a complete stranger, I nevertheless steadily accepted the oil-paper package in silence.

“……Thank you very much.”
“……Please… I beg you… I… because of this torment… twice attempted to desert the front lines.”
“……Both times I was dragged back to the front lines. But during my third attempt to desert—this morning—in the pitch darkness before dawn, twenty meters behind the frontline trenches before Verdun’s X-shaped fortification… my superior shot me in the calf… I couldn’t die in peace until this package reached my wife.”

“……………”

“But… but you are so exceedingly kind… a godlike person.”
“I know perfectly well that you are someone who unconditionally believes my words to be true.”
“……Please… I beg you…”
“Dr. Cladel.”
“Please allow me to die for my homeland with peace of mind and gladness.”
“Though my eyes cannot see, I can discern the enemy’s direction by sound alone.”
“Please let me fire at least one earnest shot.”
“Please let me die fulfilling my duty as a German soldier.”

Amidst this, Candidate Soldier Pōeru groped his way closer and firmly placed both hands upon my shoulders. He stared intently downward at the visor of my military cap, scrutinizing it searchingly, but no matter how hard he gazed or how many times he blinked his eyes, being unable to see my face filled him with intense frustration.

“I cannot see.”
“I cannot see.”
“I cannot see your godlike face… Ah… How regrettable…”

I couldn’t help but blush.
I know the grotesqueness of my own face.
That is not much of a splendid god... This kind of face is better left unseen... I thought.

“Oh, you’ll be able to see it soon enough... so you won’t be disappointed.”

The Candidate Soldier gently lifted my bearded cheeks with his ink-black frozen hands.
He firmly closed both eyes and lowered his head.
Each new teardrop falling from his eyelids glistened with the silver light of illumination flares before vanishing into the black earth.
The youth spoke in a prayer-like tone.

“I will die very soon. Sooner or later, I will become Verdun’s soil. Before that… I want to see your face just once before I die, Doctor. I want to commit your face to memory and descend into hell. There’s no other way for me to express my gratitude… I no longer… need to see the sun… the moon… the stars… or even my wife’s face. I have already imprinted those images too deeply in my mind. Just one glance… at your kind face… Ah… How regrettable…”

I had nearly lost my composure.

The deathly magnesium light illuminated a desolate plain of black soil… Within the icy silence carved out by a symphony of murderous machinery… a boy stripped of all hope yearned with desperate longing to see just a single glimpse of his benefactor’s face before dying… This supernatural emotion attested to the storm-like destruction of war… a tempest of iron and fire raging at hundreds of meters per second—typhoons, whirlwinds, gales, cyclones—threatening to scatter, obliterate, and plunder even the last vestiges of human emotion clinging to the abyssal depths of tormented souls.
The boy’s pitiful effort—amidst the infinite destructive power of this terrible war—to cling to even a single fragment of beauty, joy, or spirituality, no matter what… A drowning soul trying to carry a small bouquet to the seabed… When I finally realized that this “something” was none other than my own “ugly face,” I no longer knew what to do.

However, the Candidate Soldier—who had been listening intently to the vibrations of Verdun Fortress beyond the horizon, their pounding edging closer to madness—soon shook his head violently from side to side.
He staggered unsteadily back from me.

“Ah. I’ve said something so pointless.”
“Come, let us go.”
“Colonel Waruderuzei is waiting… We must not arouse suspicion…”

I wanted to tightly embrace the Candidate Soldier there and somehow comfort him.
Though it was a supernatural emotion born of excessive excitement, in this time and space shackled by subzero temperatures and murderous intent, I wanted—more deeply and strongly than anything else—to imprint this one sublime moment, in which I had been trusted and thanked so profoundly by such a beautiful, pure youth, as the sole and greatest memory of my entire life.

However, the Candidate Soldier—seemingly in some haste—had already left my shoulder and started staggering unsteadily forward.
Moreover, what was astonishing was that each of the boy’s steps now contained a profound strength unrecognizable from before.
That was not entirely my imagination.
His gait was one of complete reassurance from the depths of his heart by the truth, emboldened with courage.
A gallant, youthful resolve radiated brilliantly from his entire being, and not even a trace of pain remained upon his cheeks or shoulders.
In those unseen eyes burned the brave hope unique to a youth marching toward the battlefield.

Struck by a sublime feeling as though commanded by God, I staggered and caught up to the Candidate Soldier.
Silently lending my shoulder to him, I guided him around yet another artillery crater looming ahead.

III

By the time I estimated we had come about two kilometers, we reached what appeared to be village ruins visible directly beneath the half-moon.

Amidst the intermittent concrete and brick walls remaining at heights ranging from a mere two or three shaku to four or five shaku, objects resembling piles of sacks—mottled patches of white, black, and gray—were heaped up to the height of a shooting range embankment. I had thought they were either large baggage left behind by the Engineer Corps or piled-up provisions, but as I gradually approached, an intense, unbearable petroleum odor began wafting from that direction. Finding this strange, I continued drawing nearer and scrutinized them closely—only to realize that those sack-like heaps were all human corpses with limbs attached. What had appeared as white patches were faces, limbs, and the skin of corpses exposed through tears in their clothing—whether they numbered in the thousands or tens of thousands was impossible to discern. Some had likely been transported from the birch forest where we had been until now, while others had died en route and been discarded directly here. The stench of petroleum suggested it had been doused with the intent to incinerate those mountains of corpses in one swift blaze.

The pale blue moonlight, the piles of corpses, the unbearable petroleum stench… the stench of death….

My nerves, already utterly paralyzed, seemed to feel nothing even upon witnessing such a horrific spectacle.

With the Candidate Soldier still on my shoulder, I pressed onward into the midst of those piles of corpses.
Relying on the clattering sound of Colonel Waruderuzei’s saber…

That place appeared to have been the school playground that had existed at the village center until before the war. One could tell by the pale poplar and eucalyptus trunks—broken or torn apart—that stood in rows around them. Centered around each of those trees, corpses were piled like ramparts four to five meters high on three sides, with only the western horizon—the direction facing Verdun—opening out in a U-shaped formation.

Near the center of that square, dozens of wounded soldiers lay sprawled as though tossed haphazardly in all directions—yet I could not discern why these wounded had been isolated from the birch forest and contained amid such gruesome ramparts of corpses.
Moreover, these men appeared to consist mostly of relatively minor casualties, and when the Colonel—who had been waiting at what seemed to be the village entrance near a stone bridge—joined us as we advanced toward the center, there were those who saluted while still lying down, lifting their upper bodies halfway.
It was a salute that did not appear to be one of those pitiful strategies typical of wounded soldiers—attempting to attract special attention from medical officers in hopes of receiving quicker treatment.

However, Colonel Waruderuzei merely glared in that direction and did not return the salute.
He immediately turned back toward me,

“Dump that brat over there.”

he said—but the terror of that beard-covered face… Perhaps because he stood with the moonlight at his back.
He looked as terrifying as some blue demon dispatched from hell.

When I gently laid the Candidate Soldier down on the ground, Colonel Waruderuzei—maintaining a bitter expression—beckoned me closer.
He clicked on his portable flashlight and began inspecting each wound of the wounded soldiers sprawled about the area alongside me, all while starting to question them in a jumble of Russian, Latin, and German peppered with medical terminology—languages incomprehensible to these uneducated men.

“What do you make of this wound… Dr. Cladel…”

“...A penetrating gunshot wound to the right palm.”

“Does it differ from an ordinary penetrating gunshot wound?”

“There are burns around the gunshot wound.”

“So... what does that imply?”

I finally understood the meaning of Colonel Waruderuzei’s question.

However, I could not respond.
...To state that he had shot his own palm with his own weapon... felt too cruel...

The Colonel bared his white teeth through his beard in a grin.
He immediately turned to the next wounded soldier.

“Then what do you make of this non-commissioned officer’s wound?”

“...A penetrating gunshot wound to the upper arm.”
“There appear to be no burns...”

“Even so, don’t you notice anything different?”

“The comparison between the bullet’s entry and exit points differs from those of the other wounded soldiers. It does not appear to be a French bullet... I believe it is a penetrating gunshot wound from a bullet fired at close range.”

“Hmm... You have a keen eye, Dr. Cladel.”
“So what conclusion does that lead us to?”

I was once again at a loss for a reply.
For the same reason as before...

“What do you make of this leg wound?”
“Regarding that Candidate Soldier you’ve brought here now...”

“The bullet’s entry wound is at the rear.”

“So... what does that signify?”

“……………………”

“Then you… come here.”
“Do you recognize this arm wound?”

“I understand.”
“The bullet’s caliber is different.”
“I extracted it.”

“What kind of bullet was it?”
“It was…”

“……………………”

“Wasn’t it a pistol bullet from an allied officer?”

“……………………”

“...Ha ha ha... I’ve mostly grasped it now.”
"The nature of these assembled wounded soldiers..."

“Yes... Well... Understood.”

I began trembling uncontrollably for no apparent reason.

However, Colonel Waruderuzei still did not cease his "research."
He continued dragging me from one to the next—inspecting the wounds of what must have been nearly a hundred injured soldiers, interrogating each before moving on—yet every last injury proved to be of a kind that culminated in questions I could not answer.

As I meticulously inspected each wound—those disgraceful wounds, no, wounds surpassing mere tragedy, wounds that defied all reason—all while contemplating the disciplinary judgment soon to befall this platoon of living souls isolated amid mountains of wretched corpses and petroleum stench... contemplating their unknowable fate... my entire back became drenched in cold sweat that transcended the freezing temperature. From the rough breathing brought on by the anticipation of intense fear, each strand of my beard became covered in pure white frost. Both my kneecaps and the roots of my teeth began to rattle and chatter simultaneously. And as my entire nervous system became transfixed by the somehow haunted, resentful, powerless gazes of nearly a hundred wounded soldiers—as I gradually began losing consciousness—the moment all examinations and research finally concluded, Colonel Waruderuzei led me to a slightly elevated mound some distance away and swung his military sword forcefully behind his back. He removed the coverings from both ears and began vigorously rubbing his own face with gloved hands.

“...Now then, Dr. Cladel.”
“Regarding the defining characteristics common to all categories of these wounded soldiers—what do you perceive?”

“Ha...”
“They have all been injured by either friendly bullets or bayonets.”
“There are no injuries from artillery shells, poison gas, or ‘pencils’—a type of short metallic dart scattered from French aircraft at high altitudes—not a single one.”

“...Very well...”

Having declared this as if having grasped my meaning, Colonel Waruderuzei abruptly ceased rubbing his face. He nodded repeatedly with satisfaction and stood at the center of a small elevated mound, the moonlight at his back. Once more, he vigorously thrust his saber’s hilt behind him and cleared his throat once. When I looked back, the flames of Verdun were fiercely crawling up into the great sky, surging and flickering as they robbed the starlight.

At that moment, Colonel Waruderuzei—having straightened his posture—surveyed the three surrounding mounds of corpses and exhaled a pure white breath before letting out a prolonged roar.

“...All of you... stand up—Egh—”

The wounded soldiers who had been lying here and there all sprang up unsteadily as if propelled.
Among them, two or three lay stretched out as if frozen to the ground, but they had apparently fainted upon comprehending the Colonel’s order all too quickly.

The three surrounding mounds of corpses, giving no echo, permeated the entire grounds with an indescribably terrifying atmosphere.

“All of you—line up in a row before me.”
“Line up quickly—what are you doing?”
“Drag up those who’ve collapsed.”

In response to the voice, two or three wounded soldiers gathered around and tried to lift their stretched-out comrade—but in the end, it was futile.
Like drunkards who had lost all semblance of self, they went limp and flaccid, slipping time and again from their comrades’ arms.
As they appeared genuinely unconscious—and thinking they mustn’t freeze to death—I tried to approach, but the Colonel stopped me.

“...Leave them be... Let them be... Let those who’ll freeze to death freeze.”
“Forget those ones! Line up quickly! ... Attention! ... Form ranks! ... Number off!...”

“Two… three… four…… eighty…… eighty-one!”

“Eighty-one...”

“Yes, sir.”
“The total is eighty-one men, sir.”

Candidate Soldier Pōeru, standing rigidly at the line’s end while facing forward, answered.

“Very well.”
“Three unconscious ones… making eighty-four men in total.”

“Yes, sir.”

This time, the middle-aged sergeant positioned one place ahead of the candidate soldier answered.
The man had been shot in the arm with a pistol.
The sight of an arm suspended from the shoulder with a white bandage and splint, wrapped in cotton, appeared dreadfully extravagant in this context.

“...Very well...”

Colonel Waruderuzei cleared his throat once more.

“Fools... Who told you to rest?... I’ll have you shot.”
“You fools! ...Attention!...”

Against the backdrop of piled corpses, every last face in the line of wounded soldiers facing the pale moonlight had lost all living color.
Their expressions held less vitality than corpses... appeared more insubstantial than phantoms.
That procession of living death masks would remain burned into my retinas for a lifetime, never to leave.

“...Do you know why you’ve been separated from ordinary wounded soldiers and made to stand here in formation?”

Before Colonel Waruderuzei had even finished speaking, two or three more men appeared to faint.
They collapsed with heavy thuds like felled logs.
At last, they seemed to have comprehended their situation.

A slick bead of cold sweat raced down my spine, and then I too began perceiving the scene before my eyes as though it were some distant event occurring twenty or thirty miles away.

Not only was there no one foolish enough to look back at their fallen comrades—there was not even a soul who so much as budged.
They stood in perfect silence under the pale moonlight, frozen solid like ice... What state of mind they maintained at that moment—I could not begin to imagine.
I could only vaguely conjure the image of a procession of bouquets encased in decorative ice.
A procession of men standing dead... A platoon of self-injured soldiers awaiting death sentences...

“If you don’t understand, I’ll ask another question.”

Colonel Waruderuzei took a step forward and pointed behind himself.

“Open your eyes and look straight ahead.”
“Behold that monstrous roar of gunfire and swirling gunpowder.”
“Can you see it?”
“What in God’s name do you suppose that is... Do you comprehend...”

“……………”

No one answered.
Instead of answering, two or three more men collapsed with heavy thuds.

“...Very well... Then... Right face!...”

They turned resolutely, like machines.
So vigorous was their movement that some even collapsed outright….

“Good! Look at the piles of your comrades’ corpses heaped behind you… What in God’s name is this? For what purpose do your comrades accept such a tragic fate… Do you understand…”

Four or five of them lowered their heads as if remembering something.
Pressing their uniform sleeves to their faces, two or three men began to sob quietly...

The illumination flares… The French Army’s magnesium light trickled down across a line of pale napes and vanished instantly.

“...Very well...”
“Right face!... Dress ranks!...”
“If you don’t understand, I’ll pose another question.”
“Understand?”
“…Do you know for what purpose we military doctors have come to this battlefield?”

“……………”

“...If you think we came here solely to tend to your wounds, you’re gravely mistaken.”
“Discovering and disposing of unpatriotic wretches like you—traitors in all but name—is our primary, secondary, and tertiary duty as military doctors.”
“Do you not know that treating wounds is merely our fourth or fifth priority?!”
“What—?!”

Amidst this, four or five men collapsed with heavy thuds.
The line of soldiers, now gapped like a row of missing teeth, was once more starkly illuminated by magnesium flares.

Colonel Waruderuzei cleared his throat even more forcefully.
Perhaps because his voice had grown slightly hoarse, his tone grew even more incisive and grave.
Even I, standing nearby, found myself compelled to listen so intently that I forgot to lose consciousness.

“Understand?... Listen well... The foremost lesson taught in military medical science is the identification of self-inflicted wounds.”
“It is how we examine the cowardly wounds you inflict upon yourselves in your desire to retreat from the battlefield.”
“We military doctors have named these self-inflicted wounds... abbreviated as S-W.”
“In other words, the defining characteristic of S-W is their prevalence in hands and legs where there’s no immediate threat to life.”
“Wounds made by either having a comrade shoot you or shooting yourself at close range develop burns around the penetration site due to the proximity.”
“Sometimes the gunpowder residue leaves black speckles embedded in the flesh. Even failing that, the wound conditions differ so markedly between French Army bullets and our own—owing to their differing tip shapes—that they can be distinguished at a glance.”
“Wounds from pistols of differing calibers are even more unmistakable.”
“Do you not know that even a three-year-old could distinguish between injuries sustained by deliberately thrusting a leg or hand beyond the trench and wounds received while advancing with rifles at the ready?”
“Do you think military doctors could fulfill their duties without being able to discern such self-inflicted wounds?”
“If we military doctors were to be deceived by such cowardly, shameless wounds and arrange for each of you to receive Iron Cross medals and pensions, what do you imagine would become of our nation’s future?”
“Any fool with common sense could grasp this... Whether it’s feigned illness, fraudulent injury, or simulated madness—any physical defect a soldier inflicts upon himself becomes glaringly obvious. We’ve drilled even the lowliest medics to recognize such things at a glance... We—”

“……………”

“...At this very moment... the homeland of your parents stands besieged by every nation on earth—nations that fear and despise the glorious development of national character your forebears envisioned and manifested.”

“Against our German nation—which radiates an exemplary pioneering spirit in scholarship, technical arts, and economic policy as we aim to plunder the world—the cowardly, barbaric savages across the globe apply every possible form of inhuman violence.”

“Britain, France, Italy, Russia, America, and all others—they are outdated barbarian nations that fear our culture and aim to destroy our justice… Do you understand…”

“……………”

“Enraged by this, the Kaiser now leads us in battle against the entire world.”
“Your parents, your compatriots—he wages this war staking the very survival of the German nation.”
“For the advancement of human culture... Do you understand...”

“……………………”

“The turning point of this war’s outcome… The fate determining life or death for all Germans now hangs upon the Verdun fortress battle—roaring, howling, burning, and churning directly before you!”
“The brave corpses shattered as human bullets in that hair’s-breadth conflict… Look! They lie piled high behind you as you can see… Do you not feel ashamed looking upon those corpses?”

“……………”

“Are you still human?”
“Are you the glorious German nation?”
“Do you imagine yourselves warriors sent by parents and siblings to fight for justice against the world?”

“……………”

“...Behold lower creatures—ants and bees.”
“Even these base lifeforms lack your cowardly instincts!”
“You exist beneath even maggots.”
“Shameless wretches hated by gods and men alike... Traitors.”
“Enemies of the state.”
“Living vermin corroding our army’s morale.”
“Betrayers surpassing Bolsheviks...”

“……………”

“You cannot join the ranks of the war dead.”
“Of course... prepare yourselves for the fact that no support payments will reach your parents, wives, or children back home.”
“Let this be your supreme honor and glory—that your cowardly acts will never be disclosed to your parents, brothers, or comrades… will never reach a court-martial… will be buried in secrecy lasting only until this very moment. Accept my judgment.”

I had begun trembling so violently I could no longer stand.
I found it so strange that the line of wounded soldiers before my eyes stood perfectly still without moving a muscle.

Colonel Waruderuzei pressed his right hand to his lips and blew his whistle resoundingly the moment he finished his speech.
The cold, sharp sound penetrated to the very marrow of my bones, and just as I was about to lose consciousness again, ominous bootsteps surged forth from beneath the moon behind me—making me snap back to alertness.
I gulped down the remaining menthol liquor I’d hidden in my pocket in one breath, then exhaled a hot “Haaah” as a full-body shudder crept up my spine.
I clenched my trembling knees and retreated sideways along with Colonel Waruderuzei.

It was thought that a detachment of the Engineer Corps attached to the supply unit's heavy baggage train had been lying in wait nearby.
Seemingly having arranged this beforehand, a platoon of approximately one hundred chin-strapped soldiers lined up facing the wounded soldiers.
They shouldered their rifles and began loading them with metallic clatters the moment they formed ranks.

From the rear emerged a young officer who appeared to be a platoon leader, his long boots and saber chain clanking swaggeringly as he ran forward.
Upon halting before the colonel, he dramatically arched his back, drew his saber with a cold glint, and rendered a salute.

At that very moment, a powerful illumination flare glided up into Verdun's sky, casting its ghostly blue light over the ranks of comrade soldiers facing each other—illuminating them with such transparent clarity that it exposed every gruesome detail.

...together with the mountain of corpses behind them...

Four

The young platoon leader lined them up along the incision line while holding his unsheathed blade aloft.

“Frankenstein Engineer Corps Regiment, 11th Company, 2nd Platoon—Lieutenant Kāru Kenmerihi…”

“Unnecessary.”
“Your service is acknowledged.”

Colonel Waruderuzei raised his right hand sheathed in massive fur gloves to return the salute.
With that same hand, he drew a cruel... yet perfectly controlled horizontal line from left to right.

“Liquidate these canine vermin.”

“Sir! By the Kaiser’s sacred mandate, Lieutenant Kenmerihi shall immediately execute these national traitors by firing squad.”

The young, loyal Lieutenant Kenmerihi, who had been restless from rear duty, seemed to have been eagerly awaiting this mission. Once more presenting his sword to us two, he snapped into a brisk about-face with resounding bootsteps.

The illumination flare vanished against the corrugated iron, and suddenly everything plunged into blue-black darkness.
Into the deepest abyss of gray darkness conjured by the retina, everything plunged and vanished.

“...Doctor... Colonel Waruderuzei...”

A heartrending cry rose from the line of wounded soldiers as the illumination flare vanished.
It was a hoarse voice laced with terror dredged from the bowels' deepest depths.

As I stood transfixed, the non-commissioned officer with the shoulder wound—the unforgettable one from the far right flank—staggered out from the bluish darkness and collapsed limply at our feet.
Writhing as he tried to rise, he lifted half his face—contorted in agony—askew beneath the moonlight.
In that state, he spoke with frantic speed, mustering every shred of his desperation-forged resolve.

“I... I speak on behalf of everyone.”
“H-here... Rather than being executed here... I... I beg you, send me back to the front one more time.”
“J-just... Let me fire even a single shot at the enemy... Let me die that way!”
“Let me join the ranks of the war dead... Ah—”

Before anyone realized, Lieutenant Kenmerihi—who had come running up—appeared terribly enraged. With the flat of his unsheathed blade, supple as a leather whip, he struck the back of the sergeant’s uniform with full force... Crack... Crack... beating down the non-commissioned officer who was supporting himself on his half-raised torso.

“Wha—”
“Coward!”
“Now that it’s come to this… you dare show your shame? Damn you damn you damn you—!”

“Agh... Ah... Ah-ah... I-I’ll show! I’ll show!”
“I... It’s just... my elderly mother back home... A mother who might die... An old mother wanting just one glimpse... Because she’s there... Because she exists... I... I hurt myself...”

“Wha—”
“Pathetic worm... What drivel are you spewing—?!”

“Ah—!”
“Ah—!”
“Understood.”
“…I get it now.”
“I’ve given up on everything.”
“I’ll go into Verdun’s fire… gladly… Agh… Ah-ah-ah-ah-agh!”

The moonlight-drenched sword gleam of the Engineer Corps lieutenant flexed and quivered through the air.

“Wh... What nonsense are you spouting?”
“Coward! Traitor!”

“A-A-A-Agh!”
“Ah—!”
“Ah—! Wait... please wait...”
“The others... the others feel the same as I do.”
“They feel the same.”
“Please… please spare us here… spare us… Ah… Ah… Ah-ah-ah… Eeeek—!”

Pitifully, the sergeant had fainted under the sword-whip of Lieutenant Kenmerihi, who was in a frenzy.
Impulsively, I rushed over and brought the menthol spirits bottle to the sergeant’s lips, but realizing it was empty, I stood up in dismay.

At that moment, Colonel Waruderuzei, the chief medical officer, interrupted and stopped Lieutenant Kenmerihi, who was still desperately brandishing his military sword.

“...Stay your hand.”
“Stay your hand.”
“Lieutenant Kenmerihi… If they all share this sergeant’s sentiments, then having them die pointlessly here would be something to reconsider…”

On one cheek of Colonel Waruderuzei who had spoken those words, I thought I saw something like a sneer forming... yet perhaps it was merely an illusion born of my frayed nerves, or a trick of the pale bluish light.
With his saber clanging, Colonel Waruderuzei strode out between the two facing lines.

Lieutenant Kenmerihi, sulking with puffed cheeks, and I, relieved, followed behind him.

When he reached the center between two lines facing each other across about ten meters, Colonel Waruderuzei—with the light of two or three more rising illumination flares at his back—surveyed the assembly with resolute bearing.

Tears streamed down the cheeks of all the wounded soldiers who stood motionless in identical postures.
Those tears reflected the flickering illumination flares, glistening palely.

However, among them, only the beautiful profile of the candidate soldier standing at the rear of the line remained dry.
...not only was his face unmarked by tears, but he wore a peculiar beaming smile as he stared straight ahead, appearing as divine as an apostle beholding heaven's glory.

Yet the Colonel seemed not to have noticed the candidate soldier's smile.
With a clear, faint sneer now etched on one cheek, he surveyed the assembly once more.

“What.”
“Is everyone crying?”
“You fools… Why don’t you wipe them away quickly?”
“You’ll get frostbite… At ease…”

The wounded soldiers all lowered their heads in unison and began to sob quietly.
As each began wiping their cheeks with hats or sleeves, the air of the scene—until now stretched taut with tension—suddenly grew calm.

Lieutenant Kenmerihi turned to the Engineer Corps behind him and issued a command.
Still in a voice thick with discontent...

“Raiseee rifles… At eease!”

“Atten…tion…”

The Colonel barked the command at the wounded soldiers.
Two soldiers from the right flank emerged, hoisted up the unconscious sergeant, and carried him off.

“Do you all understand?”

“…Understood…”

The entire group answered as one.
Their voices burned with feverish intensity, like men resurrected.

The Colonel too seemed swept up in the momentum.
As if pulled by invisible strings, he thrust out his elbows and planted his feet wide—a practiced orator’s stance.

“…Splendid…Most splendid…In Germany today, a single bullet bestowed upon you all holds far greater worth—so precious it verges on extravagance—than hundreds of carats of jewels.”
“Likewise, whether half your lives remain or merely a quarter matters not—flinging you against Verdun’s fortresses constitutes our sacred duty as medical officers…Do you comprehend…?”

“Understood.”

The Colonel’s gesturing during his speech gradually became more exaggerated.

“...Splendid... I shall tell you more... Soon, the German fleet will sweep the British-French Allied Fleet from Dover and rush into the Thames Estuary.”
“Then London will become a deserted ruin within twenty-four hours.”
“On one front, Verdun will fall and the Kaiser’s imperial train will arrive in Paris.”
“The Allied Forces, having lost their escape route, will be utterly annihilated within the Pyrenees and the Alps.”
“The dawn will come when Germany’s tricolor flag comes to dominate the world’s culture.”
“At that time, every last one of you must die in battle.”
“Anyone who dislikes that will be shot right now.… Whether you die reducing our bullets or theirs, death remains the same.”
“But the honor is as different as heaven and earth… Do you understand…?”

“Understood.”

The Colonel abruptly ceased his oratorical gestures and returned to a rigid stance of strict attention. He raised his right hand and pointed toward the rear of the line.

“You there… Go… That small sergeant on the left flank… Your wound is likely the lightest—a through-and-through upper arm injury.”
“You… lead them back to the battlefield.”
“Tell your unit commander that you’ve returned because the injuries were light… Is that clear…?”

“Haa… I—Army Infantry Sergeant Mekkel—will lead eighty-four wounded soldiers back to the Verdun front lines.”
“I will have each unit commander report that we returned because the injuries were minor.”

“...Splendid... I’ll keep tonight’s affair silent forever... Do you grasp this...”

“...Understood.”
“My gratitude.”

“Ah… Lieutenant Kenmerihi.”
“You’ve done well.”
“Have the soldiers taken back and let them rest.”
“As you can see, it’s all settled… Hahaha…”

The moment I heard the Colonel’s abruptly casual laughter—suddenly warm and relaxed—my entire body shuddered with goosebumps.
Every hair on my head stood rigid.
...Could everything that had transpired until now have been some sort of extreme theatrical performance? Such a groundless suspicion flashed through a corner of my mind.

This might have been a faint yet intensely sharp hallucination—or perhaps delusion—perceived by my brain, which had been battered to utter exhaustion after being forced through Colonel Waruderuzei’s overly earnest, supernatural trials until this very moment by that medical officer with his steel-forged brain……

...Could it be that Colonel Waruderuzei was fundamentally an arch-villain?
Could it be he constituted an unprecedented demon who had spun a vast web across the Western Front's hidden dimensions, draining the vital blood of frontline soldiers through these methods?
Could it be the Colonel received payments from soldiers' hometown families to fulfill various illicit requests?

The fact that war renders nihilistic, makes immoral, and twists evil the hearts of its people lurking behind it—this becomes immediately clear even when consulting our German national history. Moreover, given that this war has erupted in an era where our Germany’s domestic morals—once a traditional pride of the Germanic people through legal supremacism—are being systematically dismantled by nihilism born of modern materialist views, it is inevitable that such domestic infidelity and immorality along this path of collapse would be reflected within the German military’s inner workings.

...I wondered how many young men intermingled among these deployed soldiers bore fates necessitating their deaths due to family circumstances like those confessed by that beautiful cadet.
To ensure those pitiful sacrificial candidates would never be wounded and evacuated...or that such men, overly preoccupied with hometown affairs, might not escape the front through self-inflicted injuries...hadn't the Colonel been lavishly bribed and securely commissioned from the outset?

Could that be why he made his rounds examining patients so thoroughly? Is he not lumping those men together with common self-injured soldiers, threatening them in that manner, and forcibly sending them back to the front lines?… Could it be that the cadet who exploited me to undermine that strategy is now smiling so brightly…

A monstrous suspicion—unthinkably evil and beyond all reason—swelled within me, rising from my bowels’ depths alongside a visceral shudder that convulsed my entire body. Then—as if jolting awake from that ludicrous nightmare steeped in agony… that fleeting relief—my chest suddenly churned with nausea so violent I nearly retched. The stench of corpses and petroleum, which I’d long since ceased to notice, abruptly assaulted my nostrils with renewed intensity… yet… maintaining a facade of composure, I stood rigid behind Colonel Waruderuzei.

As if to dispel such doubts of mine, the two single-rank lines that had been facing each other transformed before our very eyes into single-file columns headed in opposite directions. One column marched off with vigor, heads held high in triumph... while the other hung their necks low like sheep to the slaughter—or like shadows of death—lifting up their unconscious comrades again and again as they parted ways beneath the stark moonlight. As I stood staring fixedly at the columns of soldiers receding in separate directions, I found myself sinking once more into a new, fundamental doubt.

……What on earth are they going to do?

…Is war by nature such a thing?
Do they truly go to war knowing the meaning of war?
They go to war not for the country’s sake, nor for their families’.
Could it be that they are merely leaving toward Verdun out of fear—threatened by Colonel Waruderuzei—to avoid being executed?

Before I knew it, I had returned to that lonely, hollow, solitary self of old—the self without nation, parents, or family; the self that had lived with science as homeland and only books, instruments, and chemicals as kin.

...When I departed Berlin, I did come having sworn loyalty to the Kaiser.
However, even so—to speak my true feelings—I am not truly of the Germanic people.
I was of an entirely different race from both those soldiers and Mr. Waruderuzei standing before my eyes.
I myself—a mere speck of life who cannot even discern what race I belong to… nothing but a tiny maggot welled up between heaven and earth, one that understands medicine and music.

Where does the cause lie that even this single maggot—utterly detached from the three realms—now trembles so profoundly, stands aghast, and suffers such ineffable pangs of conscience?

…What on earth am I doing here?

Here, within this fortress of corpses, I had plunged once more—profoundly, irrevocably—into that nihilistic, bottomless skepticism I remembered falling into during my middle school years. With my current exhausted mind, I could not hope to swim across this infinite, bottomless sea of doubt...

The more I dwelled on this, the more rapidly I was sucked into the infinite vortex of doubt swirling at the very nadir of this war philosophy.
The endless black earth plains… Verdun’s flares… the roar… piles of corpses… the shattered schoolyard tree line… and that beautiful cadet… all of it had come to seem nothing but projections of that doubt.

As I kept thinking this, I suddenly looked up at the vast sky.

Wasn't that waning moon—jaggedly fractured and shining white in the vast sky—the very light of doubt solidified against such war...the light of doubt at minus 273 degrees...