Pathway to Japanese Literature

I As for what reasons lay behind the Russo-Japanese War—what oppression and humiliation Russia had inflicted upon Japan that made the government incite its citizens so fiercely, abandoning tens of thousands of compatriots' corpses across Manchuria's grasslands—none of this could have been grasped by me at seven years old. Yet one thing permeated even us children: "It's all the Russkies' fault! Those red-bearded devils are to blame!" This notion had been instilled through Mr. Village Head and the reservists' association chairmen, who roused the villagers—especially young men—to such fervor that we too marched about chanting through clumsy tongues:

“Russkies’ red beards! Kuropatkin!”

We used to march around shouting with our clumsy tongues. Even in fights between us children, "What the... you Russkie...!" To say this had become one of the worst insults—enough to thoroughly demean someone.

One day. Despite the fine weather, my father had spent two or three days wearing a troubled look, not going out to work but instead making the rounds to relatives in the neighborhood (he was a day laborer). My father—who had no skilled profession to speak of—and two or three others, like my uncle and grandfather, began drinking at the narrow entrance step of our house. Mother, still in her dirty clothes, poured drinks while making sniffling noises.

To me, such a scene was a first. My father, who normally never drank alcohol—let alone the sight of Mother serving drinks—was something I’d never witnessed before. I sat blankly on the wooden threshold, watching this scene, when suddenly Grandfather took my hand in his wrinkled one and pulled me toward where Father sat on the entrance step. So my younger sister, who had been playing with me, came sniffling after me.

Then Father made a face strangely different from his usual one, stroked my head and tried to say something, but I couldn't make it out. “Your father’s goin’ off to war now—so be good an’ play nice... That alright with ya?…”

Grandfather said this from beside me and made me nod. "I concluded Father was going off to subjugate the Russkies." I felt not the slightest sadness at parting from Father. But since Father carried neither sword nor gun, I felt vaguely dissatisfied.

Two or three days later, Father was no longer at home; he had likely gone off to war either early in the morning while we were still asleep or sometime in the dead of night. “Mom, where exactly is the war happening?” My elder sister, two years older than me, and I would sometimes ask this after we had gone to bed at night with Mother in the middle. After Father was gone, Mother, fearing she might use too much lamp oil, would finish her night work, immediately close up the house, and lay out our bedding. The youngest brother was held by Mother, then came my younger sister, next my elder sister beside her, and right behind Mother was me.

“The war ain’t here—it’s way over yonder, someplace called Manchuria!” However, whether Manchuria lay to the west or east of our house, even Mother didn’t seem to know. Elder Sister pointed, “That way? This way?” but Mother would give inconsistent answers.

“That way? Or this way?” But even then, Mother kept giving different answers.

Mother was a resolute woman. Raising four children, she kept a thin wisp of smoke rising each day. “You think we can survive on some one-go-per-person ration?!” Every time Mother saw the meager rice bags delivered two or three times a month from Mr. Ward Head’s office as bereaved family support for deployed soldiers, she would flare up as if deceived and hurl the bags away. Every day, Mother shouldered a large bamboo basket on a carrying pole and went to the Twenty-Third Regiment’s barracks to haul back leftover food. Every day she bid on and bought by the load the rice soldiers had left uneaten, the crusts burnt to pot bottoms, and leftover broth. Then she called over equally poor housewives from the neighborhood to distribute or sell it.

And so, after Father departed for the war, we never ate freshly cooked rice again. Still, even with leftover rice steamed two or three times over, we managed to get by without starving.

The following year, I entered elementary school at seven years old. At school, even during playtime, military songs were drilled into us for everything. A mere one sen per month and …………………

*12,800 tons* None in the world can rival her, they say, *American Boy* was her name. I don’t remember clearly, but these were the lyrics. I still remember the melody of the song. From first grade onward, we were charged one sen per month for naval warship construction fees.

This song was indeed a celebratory anthem for Japan's first large warship built during the Russo-Japanese War. Ms. Tsuda, a female teacher with her heavily pregnant belly thrust sharply forward, taught us this game and song while raising her legs high and waving her hands. We formed a circle around our teacher, singing and dancing as we were indoctrinated with the idea that war was something noble, and that those born human yet not going to war were inferior even to the disabled.

In my child's heart, my father going to war was a tremendous source of pride, and among my playmates, I stood tall.

One morning in the schoolyard, after performing the deepest bow to the imperial portrait, the principal had students whose fathers were deployed soldiers come up to the podium and share their reflections. Of course, as elementary school students, there was no way we could have voiced such thoughts before everyone, but each homeroom teacher had made us memorize predetermined phrases the day before. As a first-grader, I was called second by the principal and climbed onto the podium. Though fearful, I spoke as loudly as I could manage, reciting exactly what I had been forced to memorize.

“My father is Tokunaga Isokichi of the Sixth Army Logistics Transport Battalion—a logistics transport soldier—” When I said this, the older students began snickering. I didn’t understand why but fell silent in shame—then the principal glared fiercely at everyone, “You will not laugh,” he commanded. “He went to fight in the Russo-Japanese War. I will study hard and become a soldier like my father when I grow up—go to war and serve His Majesty and our nation.”

Having said that, I returned to my seat. After returning home, I proudly told Mother all about it. Then my third-grade sister came home and exclaimed in frustration, “Because you had to go and say ‘logistics transport soldier,’ everyone laughed at me.” With that, she burst into tears. It was then that I realized—the upperclassmen had laughed because my father’s position as a logistics transport soldier was considered the lowest-ranking role among all soldiers.

Mother remained silent. I remembered that my friend Kii-kun’s father was a trumpeter soldier, and I thought how impressive Kii-kun’s father was. The war seemed like it would go on forever.

From our village, people kept going off to the war, one after another. Not long after I entered elementary school, an uncle living nearby went off to the war.

In our household without men, I went as the family representative with everyone to see Uncle off at the station. Uncle was on active duty, having returned home not many years before, and as a superior private in the 13th Regiment, he made an imposing figure. Uncle's household still had no children. My aunt—much younger than my mother—made everyone shout "Banzai for ×× Naohiko!" three times. As they tried to leave our narrow alleyway with Uncle wearing his reservist uniform at their center, she suddenly burst into loud sobs at the entranceway step.

Uncle passed through the station at the edge of our village the following morning alongside many others bound for the same war. Aunt, Grandfather, and my mother had all entered the station together early on and were waiting there. When the train arrived, so many people were sticking their heads out of the windows that it was nearly impossible to tell which one was Uncle. Aunt, who had spotted him first, clung to the window talking with Uncle. Soldiers wearing yellow-striped hats - in those days they didn't yet have red stripes - leaned out from windows looking around to see if anyone had come to visit them. The scene was so chaotic I found myself dazed.

Before long, the steam whistle blew and the train began to move. Aunt still did not let go. “Dangerous!” shouted the conductor as he rushed over and pulled her back from behind. Aunt was crying. Mother and Grandfather, separately from that, were frantically waving their handkerchiefs toward the hat Uncle was waving as he moved farther away.

About ten days later，my aunt came to live in my house.

Among my relatives, three people besides my cousin Sadasuke were drafted. From Senchi (I had recently learned the word "battlefield") came occasional military mail. My elder sister always read them. Everything was written entirely in hiragana and katakana. Mother went out daily shouldering "leftover food". My petite aunt laid out a straw mat under the eaves of the house and whittled bamboo chopsticks as piecework. Both my sister and I were made to help as soon as school was dismissed. I hated this "chopstick whittling" the most. Using a kogatana (knife) to split bamboo into small fragments and meticulously whittle them down was so tedious, so utterly tedious. I was always carrying the “Uchiokoshi” (sketchbook) in my pocket, yearning to draw, and whenever I found a chance, I would immediately dash out.

Our war games were the most popular of our make-believe play, and we would beat each other mercilessly. On moonlit nights, crowds of children would gather and vie to capture "positions" around the village shrine at the outskirts. Though strong, I lacked agility and often came home with lumps rising on my head. Around that time too, "uchiokoshi" sketchbooks filled with war scenes and portraits of generals became wildly popular. It was then that I memorized the names and faces—General Kuroki, Ōyama, Nozu, Nogi, Vice Admiral Uriu.

Extra editions would occasionally come clamorously ringing their bells. When they heard the bell, Aunt and Mother, though unable to read, would turn pale, panic, and rush to buy them. I often chased after extra edition sellers barefoot. "We won, we won at Jiuliancheng!" I think it was long before Mukden, but when Jiuliancheng fell, all the villagers went wild with joy. Whenever we won at "capturing positions," we would invariably bellow "We won, we won at Jiuliancheng!" clap our hands, and dance.

Atop the great camphor tree of the village shrine, a large national flag was raised. It was Mr. Jin-san the Tree Climber from the village who, with a death-defying resolve, climbed to the perilous summit and secured the great flag there. It was said that this was a prayer: “May the war be victorious, and may the village’s deployed soldiers return safely!” However, reports of war deaths arrived in relentless succession.

"Sadasu's been killed in action!"

One evening, Grandfather came stumbling in tears under the eaves of my house, clutching a red-striped telegram. Even when hearing reports of relatives outside the family being killed in action, Mother and the others hadn’t been so shaken, but ever since Sadasuke’s death, they had been constantly on edge, as if a crack had opened beneath their feet. Even though Sadasuke had died, there wasn't even a funeral. If even a lock of hair hadn’t been sent back, there would have been no way to hold a funeral. With their son having died young and their last hope—a grandson—also killed in the war, Grandfather’s house seemed desolate.

I felt an irrational hatred for the Russkies. News came that the landlord’s eldest son, Mr. Yaichi, had also been killed in action. Military mail still came occasionally from Father, but from Uncle’s side it stopped arriving altogether. Both Mother and Aunt chanted the daimoku every night, praying for their uncles’ welfare. After I got into bed, Mother and Aunt would—like madwomen— “Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō, Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō” There were times when they would pray so late into the night—shouting at the top of their lungs, beating the fan-shaped drum as they chanted—that I would drift in and out of sleep hearing their invocations through my drowsy half-sleep.

I somehow became a little afraid of war. I somehow found myself wanting to see Father.

Mukden fell.

I no longer remember the exact month or day, but when I chased down an extra edition seller and bought one, it was during a hot summer—a midday hour when the scorching sun made the road's sand seem to sear through our soles (as we children mostly went barefoot). The school had only the principal give a speech about Mukden's fall and the Japanese military's great victory for the celebration; that day became a holiday. In the village, ceremonial sake was offered at the guardian shrine. Aunt rejoiced as if Uncle might return from the battlefield as early as tomorrow.

Russian prisoners of war were brought in. When word spread that the red-bearded Russkies captured by the 13th Regiment would be placed in temporary huts at the drill ground, we went with the villagers to see them. The Russkies were all tall. As I had imagined, they had red beards, eyes like glass, and an air of dull-wittedness. They all wore black basket-like hats. And all the prisoners of war looked at us children, chattering away with smiles as they passed by.

“The Russkies are laughing!” We thought the Russkies were utterly spineless. They’d had their guns and swords taken away, yet there they were smiling. I found it somehow strange. We would take a detour on our way home from school and go see the prisoners of war nearly every day. “You spineless red beards—” “Where’s your sword now?” We spent about an hour outside the bamboo fence, hurling insults and throwing stones at the Russkies sardined inside.

But the Russkies never got angry. While tousling their long red hair, they would chatter away about something and smile at us. The Japanese guards pacing back and forth in front of the hut's fence with rifles on their shoulders only came up to their chests in height. Those hulking Russkies would obediently—even cheerfully smiling—be herded from behind by the small Japanese soldiers’ bristling, combative orders, striding leisurely to places like the latrine.

I ate the leftovers meant for the Russkies. It was millet rice soaked through with seed oil. "Those Russkies sure do eat greasy stuff, I tell ya!" Mother said while clearing the basket, her cheeks bulging with a wad of millet rice. When I realized this was what the Russkies ate, I stopped at once. And then I thought—did we really have to eat their leftovers too? Though I never told Mother, being poor turned into something sad and shameful that day, and I stopped going to see the Russkies altogether.

II I had come to feel ashamed that my parents were poor. Unlike a child of seven or eight, I grew reserved in all matters and prone to self-consciousness. Moreover, my relatives' family was among the lowest class of poor people in the village. When the village farmers' children saw my face, “Leftover-eater! Leftover-eater!” they taunted me. I came to be beaten even by Shiroji, the landlord’s youngest son—a boy far more cowardly than myself.

Even when beaten，I didn't cry. Even if I cried，I didn't cry when I returned home where my mother was. If I cried where my mother was，I would have to be beaten by her again.

There had been a time when I came home crying. Then Mother grabbed my hand and dragged me to the house of Gen-san, the bully who had beaten me, to confront Mrs.Genko,

“How could you pretend not to see a poor child beaten until blood seeps like this!” Mother said, her face flushed crimson, but Mrs.Genko the tenant rice collector dismissed her with a sniff and paid no attention. My mother, trembling with bitter frustration, struck me violently in a fit of spite right there. I wailed and cried from the pain. Yet Mrs.Genko did not even attempt to intervene.

I began to play alone more often. And I always thought that when Father came home, we would surely become rich. I went strawberry picking, snail catching (snails are sweet when roasted), and gathering bamboo grass seeds, sometimes with my sisters, but otherwise alone. Father still had not returned. People were beginning to return from war, but neither Uncle nor Father had come back yet. Around this time, I came to have a lover.

Having left the group of boys, I began playing with girls along with my sister. That girl’s name was Emi.

Across the road from my house, atop a high stone wall, stood a large tiled-roof home with a storehouse—an old-money family counted among the village's wealthiest households. Emi was their youngest and only daughter. She was a spoiled child, yet possessed a precocious spiritedness. I remember she was eight years old, one year older than me. At around seven years old, I couldn’t possibly have had anything like sexual desire, yet I was distinctly aware of romantic feelings. Emi, of course, seemed to feel the same way. The two of us gradually began to play in hiding from both the groups of boys and the groups of girls.

That was once discovered by a group of boys. The two of us were playing in the storage shed at Emi’s house. The group of boys who discovered us surrounded the shed before we knew it. “Ooh! Ooh! Ooh!” The gang of mischievous boys jeered loudly.

I was bewildered and shrank into myself. Then Emi abruptly threw down the doll she'd been holding and went to the door.

And then, though she was shouting something back, before long she called for Kuma, who had been lying in the inner garden, and sicced her on them. The large shaggy dog Kuma was an aged female, but at her master’s command, she let out a fierce bark, and even those rowdy boys couldn’t hold their ground for a moment before scattering in retreat. The two of us had been close for about a year, but as we gradually began to discern the distinctions between wealth and poverty in various matters, we naturally grew apart.

What's more, I was the first to grow timid, though I couldn’t say why. Emi was mature in all manner of external matters, but she didn’t know that I was a "leftover-eater" or that a logistics transport soldier was the lowest-ranking soldier. Moreover, she didn’t understand why I disliked playing on the second floor of her house. From there, looking down below, I could see directly beneath me the thatch roof of my family’s four-house tenement—leaning and patched with straw mats over the rain-leaking spots.

Three

Father returned from the war.

Almost simultaneously, Uncle also returned. Our neighborhood, the tenements next door, bustled with celebrations for the triumphant returns from war. For over three days, our house resounded clamorously with water drums and an old shamisen clanging away. The father I saw after two years had grown much darker-skinned and gaunt. Yet he somehow behaved toward us children with exaggerated kindness, like a stranger paying a formal visit. Father wore an old but presentable black haori coat bearing family crests. Sitting at the center of guests, he did nothing but guffaw loudly at the villagers fawning over him. Esteemed visitors came calling. First came Mr. Village Head—though only staying an hour—who intoned, "You've endured such hardships..." "After all, a triumphant return deserves celebration!" "This too flows from His Majesty's august benevolence," they proclaimed to my bowing father before departing. Villagers who'd never before acknowledged us now arrived with elaborate flatteries and congratulations. Even Emi's grandfather paid a visit. I felt a happiness beyond containment.

For about half a year after the war ended, there were various celebrations held to honor triumphant returns. I was often taken by Father to receive bottled sake and boxed meals to bring home. When there was a triumphal celebration at the sacred garden of Lord Kato Kiyomasa enshrined in Honmyo-ji Temple, I went together with Father too, who wore the White Paulownia Leaf Medal and Campaign Medal on his chest. When women with drink-reddened faces, disguised as soldiers and dragging long swords that clattered noisily behind them, tumbled into the banquet hall shouting "Banzai! Banzai!", even the great officers stroking their long beards abandoned their dignified postures and clung to the women.

To Father - holder of the Eighth Class Order of Merit and Eighth Grade of Merit - a lump sum of 150 yen was granted by the authorities. Father, who had been unable to secure steady day labor since his return from war, decided to use that money as capital to start a horse-drawn cart business. Father, who knew no other trade, had this business started through the horse-cart driving he learned during the war.

A chestnut-colored, one-eyed aged mare was led in late one night by Grandfather—who had worked as a horse trader in his youth—and Father, the two of them together. And behind the tenement, a small makeshift shed was built, and the horse was put there.

Not even a year had passed since the war ended when a tremendous depression arrived. Although he had started a horse-drawn cart business, Father spent most days idle. “You’d be better off quitting this horse-drawn cart business." “You’re just lazing around all day, you and that horse eating us out of house and home…” Mother would always say this and reproach Father, who since his return from the war had become even more mentally foggy than before.

“Naoki, go ask if there’s any cargo moving today.” Every time this happened, my sullenly silent father would call me and send me to his usual client Masukiya to ask, “Is there any cargo?” At the edge of the village, on the border with town, stood Masukiya, where dozens of white-walled rice warehouses stood lined up. In prosperous times, these warehouses would be emptied until they resembled hollow halls as rice was carried out from their vaults. Hundreds of horse-drawn carts would line up, their drivers shouting boisterously as they ceaselessly traveled back and forth between Kamikumamoto Station and Kumamoto Station. The warehouses of this joint-stock company Masukiya—controlling the distribution artery for Higo rice from Yamaga, Kikuchi, Otsu and Aso’s rice-producing regions—housed branch offices of the Rice Inspection Office along with Higo Bank and Hokutaku Bank.

I had been there often enough to know my way around. On my way home from school, whenever I passed in front of these warehouses, it had become a habit to always check attentively yet discreetly whether any cargo was being moved or if Father was present.

And lately, days when cargo moved were rare. Moreover, the amount supplied from farmers had not changed in the slightest. In quantities of five or ten bales, the amounts of rice that farmers sold—mixed with other grains—were always left piled up in front of the warehouses on countless carts, precisely because this was prior to the anticipated bumper harvest.

The rice that couldn't fit into the warehouses was piled up all the way to the shopfront. And not a single grain of rice from the warehouses was transported anywhere. My father, who wasn't a regular employee, had no work for ten or even twenty days.

Mother, who went to carry "leftover food," did nothing but fight with Father day after day. My expectation that "When Father returns he'll surely become rich, and we won't be called leftover-eaters anymore..." came to nothing. When I was in second grade, my elder sister was in fourth grade. Being a girl and more attuned than I to the household's circumstances down to the smallest detail, my elder sister consulted Mother on her own initiative, left school, and became a factory girl at the Tobacco Monopoly Bureau.

Falsifying her age from not yet thirteen to fifteen, my elder sister would rise at five each morning and hurry eagerly to commute the one ri distance to the Monopoly Bureau, all to earn her daily wage of sixteen sen. Though mature for her age, my elder sister stood about as small as I did. With a soiled lunch bundle tucked under her arm, she bustled home through the evening dusk. That she could earn sixteen sen in wages made her move with such eager joy.

“With compulsory education extended to six years now, you really must send her to school,” came repeated demands from Mr. Village Head and the Principal, but Mother paid them no heed. Elder Sister didn’t so much as glance back.

IV The following year, I was promoted to third grade as third in my class. Among us elementary school students too, there was talk circulating between us that teachers were intentionally manipulating grade rankings through bribes from students' parents.

But such matters were of no concern to me. There were classmates who tried to flatter me by saying things like how the class leader Ueno was academically inferior to me, but none of that mattered to me. After all, since I wouldn’t be going on to middle school anyway and thought I’d have to quickly go work at some factory once I graduated fourth grade to earn my keep, such matters were utterly irrelevant to me.

That year, Mother gave birth to a baby. We became five siblings.

To care for the newborn boy, I began missing more school days than before. At times, I would end up taking about a week off straight. Even so, I did not dislike school. I enjoyed carrying my youngest brother on my back with a cloth sling and standing near the back gate while reading various books. Whether national language textbooks, rental kodan storytelling books, or old women’s magazines—I read them all voraciously from whatever I could scrounge up. Moreover, I excelled at reading aloud. When it came to kodan storytelling books, I would read them with various rhythmic styles—whether it was Iwami Jūtarō’s Great Serpent Slaying, Hakkenden, or Kanei Sanbajutsu—and whenever the neighbors came to listen, I would proudly recite them.

When night came, without fail, I was made to read three or four installments. When the second helping of leftover food was brought in, it became customary for the neighbors—scrub brush seller O-Kichi, ash buyer Jūdon, one-armed Mr. Kuma, and others—to gather around. Some would return after taking their rice home first, while others lined up sitting on the entryway step, serving themselves rice and soup into the chipped bowls they kept stored there. As they ate, they would listen enthralled to the kodan stories I read aloud.

By the time I reached fourth grade, I had become known throughout the school as a kodan expert. I remember there was once such an incident. Chikamatsu, a boy in our class who was the top dog, drew a picture of Kato Kiyomasa and Kiyama Danjo grappling and falling off a cliff, which he proudly showed to everyone. However, Yonemura, the fifth-grade class leader, claimed that it was not Kiyama Danjo but Shitenno Tajima-no-kami. They could no longer determine whether it was Kiyama Danjo or Shitenno Tajima-no-kami, and with Chikamatsu's class of about thirty students opposing Yonemura's class of about twenty-five or twenty-six, they insisted it was Kiyama—no, Shitenno—until they nearly came to blows in a major fight. So a quick-witted kid came all the way to my house to fetch me since I had been absent that day, asking me to settle the dispute. With my brother still strapped to my back, I went to where everyone was gathered and explained, "It's Kiyama Danjo," asserting that Kiyama was actually stronger than Kiyomasa. Though Kiyomasa had initially pinned him down during their grapple, when they fell off the cliff, Kiyama’s helmet caught on a vine, allowing him to end up on top and finally defeat Kiyomasa. In the end, my class emerged victorious, and everyone joyfully rallied around me. But on my way home alone, I was surrounded by Yonemura’s faction and beaten mercilessly.

V

In our house there were people like one-armed Mr. Kuma, Mr. Yutaka of the red loincloth, scrub brush seller O-Kichi, ash buyer Jūdon, and others.

They were unforgettable people in my life. The more I grew and became able to judge things clearly, the more I found myself unable to stop remembering these people. Mr. Kuma was missing an arm and had a limp. Every night, he would spread empty straw bags on the dirt floor of my house and sleep there together with my dog named Hachi. He had no futon or anything—just a red half-blanket that he would pull completely over his head and sleep holding Hachi, as was his custom.

When noon came, he would walk to various houses, running errands and helping sick people with their shopping to scrounge up money for buying "leftover food." Whenever he earned a little extra from odd jobs, he would immediately go buy himself a drink. At such times, the usually silent man would become quite the chatterbox. He was a large man with prominent cheekbones—one who would develop an exceptionally large number of deep wrinkles across his forehead and around his mouth whenever he laughed.

Whenever we spotted Mr. Kuma heading out on errands with medicine bottles dangling from his left hand, children would gather behind him,

“Lame Mr. Kuma, “What time is it now...” they would habitually call out in loud voices. Then Mr. Kuma would show those characteristic wrinkles of his, “Fifteen o’clock, doodle-doo!” he would answer, strike a strange pose, and perform a dance. Mr. Kuma was an ardent critic of war. The faint wisps of beard he still kept were a remnant from his military service. He had fought in both the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese Wars, with the injuries that took his arm and leg being ones sustained at the Battle of Port Arthur.

The Blue Paulownia Leaf Medal and lump sum payment of over a hundred yen had become compensation for his wife of many years and missing arm, leaving Mr. Kuma—a man with few relatives—now truly a disabled person without wife or child. The taciturn Mr. Kuma once spoke with Father about such a story. That occurred four or five days before the Battle of Port Arthur. It was when they were marching through the night to reinforce the Third Company of their regiment that should have been on the front lines. As they advanced along the railway tracks through sorghum fields, they heard the unceasing din of gunfire in the distance.

It was at that moment when, after four or five days of forced marching and food shortages had left their minds as exhausted as cotton, they heard the gunfire growing fiercer the closer they approached. A tension that pulled taut gripped them, until even their own footsteps seemed to reverberate through their eardrums. “Halt!” the platoon leader's sharp voice was heard. The moment everyone stopped in bewilderment, a charge-like shout of “Waaah!” rang out from the distant front lines, momentarily drowning out all gunfire and other sounds.

The platoon leader seemed deep in thought for a while but immediately ordered five scouts ahead before commanding the entire unit to advance. The charge—whether enemy or ally—appeared to have temporarily stabilized the situation as the gunfire gradually subsided. After pressing through the sorghum fields for some time, they reached a gently sloping yet severely uneven plain that stretched slightly wider. To their right, railway tracks glinted desolately while beyond a shadowy depression lay more undulating sorghum fields.

Then, from over two hundred meters ahead, the loud shouts of a large crowd—"Waa! Waa!"—began to be heard. And then, the platoon leader immediately— “Take cover!” Because he had given the order, they assumed prone firing positions and waited for the next command. However, "Waa... waa..." The shouts grew increasingly strange as they drew nearer. It was clearly not a charge, but if these were Japanese forces, they likely wouldn’t need to raise shouts while retreating; the platoon leader was deliberating. Just then, two scouts came running back and reported.

“The front line had been occupied by the enemy.” “Both X Company and X Company appeared to have all their members wounded...”

The platoon leader, while observing the approaching black shadows of approximately one company's strength, appeared to reach a decision. He commanded "Assume prone firing positions," then regripped his command sword and dropped prone himself.

From two hundred meters they drew closer—one hundred meters...—yet the platoon leader issued no further command. What made it truly bizarre were those shouts themselves; while unremarkable at a distance, as they neared, the cries became utterly lifeless—"Waa... waa..." It sounded precisely like a Buddhist sutra chorus.

The platoon leader tried several times to move his command sword but hesitated. And finally, when those numerous black shadows had drawn within over a hundred meters, one of the scouts came running back and reported.

“Lieutenant, sir! The troops ahead are from the wounded X Company and X Company currently in retreat.” “Over.” Everyone was startled, and when they drew closer, those shouts turned out to be something unimaginable! It was the crying voices of retreating wounded soldiers. It was the hollow crying voices of grown men.

“In that company, nearly everyone had been wounded.” “I’ve forgotten the name of that place now, but it was a fierce battle.” “Even now, that bizarre crying still lingers in my ears, but I hadn’t realized until I got hit myself at Port Arthur that those lunatic-like wails were from our own men.”

Mr. Kuma could not hold a bowl. And he was rather clumsy.

“It would have been far better to have died in battle than to linger on like this.” With that, I remember Mr. Kuma covering his face with his left hand – the one holding chopsticks – as he wept.