PROMOTION AND FAREWELLS
OF course we left Japan fully determined to turn into dust under the hoofs of His Majesty’s steed, saying, “Here I stand ready to die.” Our hearts were impatient, but the opportunity was slow in coming. More than one hundred days had passed since we had left for the front. Then hundreds of blossoms on home fields and mountains made our uniforms fragrant with their sweet smell, the spring breeze that wafted us to a strange land far away lightly kissed the sun-colors. Time flies quickly, and now we sit under the shadow of green leaves. At night, sleeping on our arms, or in the day, exposed to the hail-storm of bullets, we had never forgotten our desire to return the Imperial favor and beneficence with death, and death only. The time, however, was not yet full. Thousands of our comrades had died without the joy of seeing the final success; their spirits must be unconsoled and unable to find eternal rest. We were eager to avenge them, but ah! the opportunity had not yet come. We survivors lived in the stink of rotting flesh and crumbling bones; our own flesh wasted and even our bones seemed thinner. We were like a group of spirits with sharp, eager passions in miserable bodies, but still we were offshoots of the genuine cherry tree of Yamato. How was it that we were still alive after fighting one, two, three, already four battles, without having fallen like beautiful cherry petals of the battle-field? I had been fully resolved to die on Taku-shan, but still I was left behind by a great many of my friends. Surely this time, in this general assault, I must have the honor and distinction of offering my little self to our beloved country. With this idea, this desire, this determination, I started for the battle.
I was promoted to first lieutenant in the early part of August, but the news reached me just on this occasion. Colonel Aoki called me before him and told me most gravely: “I congratulate you on your promotion. You have carried the regimental colors from the very beginning. You are now released from that duty, but strive harder still, for to-morrow is assigned for our general assault. I have eaten and slept with you for a long time and am grieved to part with you, but I say good-by to you now because I am anxious for your success.”
Yes, I had eaten and slept with the dear regimental commander from our first arrival and had fought at his side. In the bivouac, exposed to rain and dew, the colonel had shared his mat with me so that I might sleep the better. Even his scanty food he divided with me, smiling as cheerily as if he were eating with his family at home. I had always feared that the colonel, who was used to sleeping on a comfortable couch at home, might contract an illness from this bed and pillow of grass. With three thousand lives in his hand, the life of the regimental commander is very precious, and the morale of the whole regiment depends largely upon his health. I had tried my best to serve him attentively and make him as comfortable as the uncomfortable circumstances of the battle-field would allow. Some time ago, while we were at Changchia-tun, I prepared hot water in a water jar and offered him the first hot bath he had had since leaving Japan. He was pleased with it from the bottom of his heart, and I shall never forget his glad countenance of that moment. Now I had to part with the colonel who was as dear to me as my own father, and my grief was without limit. Of course I still belonged to one of his companies and I was still his subordinate. It was not a real separation, but I felt as if I were going far away from him. When I heard these farewell words of his, I felt my throat choked with tears and could not raise my head for a while. It was also a great sorrow for me to part with the regimental colors that I had taken care of through thick and thin. When I looked at the faded, torn standard now hanging to the left of the colonel, I could not help feeling that among the three thousand men whose hearts all stir at the sight of that flag, I had a right to a special emotion in the presence of the regimental insignia.
After a moment of thoughtful silence, I sorrowing over my separation from the flag and the colonel, and the colonel apparently regretting his parting with me, I said earnestly: “Colonel, I will show you what a splendid fight I can make—” I could not say anything more and, turning on my heel quietly, walked off a few steps and then ran to my servant and said: “I am now ordered to go to my company. You, in consequence, must leave me, but I shall never forget your kindness. Remember me as your true elder brother to eternity. I cannot say anything more. Fight like a brave soldier.”
Bunkichi Takao, my servant soldier, wept bitterly and said he could never leave me. That, however, could not be. I soothed and comforted him, saying that he must obey his superiors’ commands faithfully and not be behind anybody else in doing and suffering, and that the box we had made together before the battle of Taku-shan was certainly to be used this time. I, too, was very reluctant to lose him, and my heart was full of emotion.
“Lieutenant, do you really think of me as your younger brother?” Takao said, in tears; and I too shed hot tears.
“We part now, but may meet again. If we die, let us die together a glorious death and talk over the past together in another world.” So saying, I started to go after he had brushed the dust off my uniform and retied the strings of my leggings.
“Well, then, lieutenant—” he began to say, but, too sad to look at me any longer, he covered his face and turned away.
“Takao, don’t forget what I have told you from time to time,” I said, and walked to the position where the Third Battalion was stationed.
Separated from the regimental flag, from the colonel, and from my own servant, I directed my solitary steps through the wild country. As I looked at the hills and valleys, now turned into the graves of my dear comrades, and watched the clouds gather and disperse in the sky, I could not help thinking of the inconstancy of earthly things. Suddenly it occurred to me that I must see Surgeon Yasui once more, and say good-by to Captain Matsuoka, my senior officer from my native province. At once I turned back and walked some distance to a ravine at the northern foot of Taku-shan. Captain Matsuoka was sitting alone in his tent and was glad to see me.
“I have not seen you for some time,” he said. “Are you quite well?”
“Thank you, I am, and I have been promoted to be first lieutenant. I am now ordered to join the Third Battalion. Please continue your favor toward me.”
The captain said, abruptly, “Then this is our last chance of meeting in this world!”
I told him that I, too, expected to die, and expressed my desire that we might die together on the top of Kikuan. When I rose to go, the captain tapped me on the shoulder and asked, “What have you there at your belt?” Whereupon I smiled faintly and said, “It is my coffin.” “Well, indeed! You are well prepared!” That was our farewell, and I left the ravine. Soon this separation in life was to be followed by the separation of death.
I then went over to the headquarters of the First Battalion, which were hidden behind the rocks near Chuchia-tun, and found Surgeon Yasui. Soon after my arrival there, a few of the enemy’s shot fell with a tremendous noise in front of the tent. Four or five more followed, but we were so accustomed to such things that we paid little attention to it. This position, I was told, was frequently a target for the enemy’s fire. I was grieved to hear that the commander of the First Battalion had been slightly wounded in the battle of Taku-shan. When I told Surgeon Yasui of my promotion, he took me aside to where the powder-boxes were piled and said that he had been longing to see me; that, though we were in the same place, we had had no chance of a friendly chat, and that every day and night he had been waiting impatiently to hear from me. I was deeply moved and said to him that it was strange that both of us had been spared so far, but that this time I was fully prepared for death, and that I had come on purpose to see him once more and take a last farewell. I also reminded him of our promise in that ruined house at Hwangni-chuan, and said that if both should die that would be all, but if he should survive me he was to cut off a part of my bloodstained uniform and keep it as a memento. We grasped each other’s hands firmly, saying that this was our eternal farewell in this world, and, praying for each other’s success, we parted in tears. Reluctantly I left his tent, crossed the river Taiko, climbed the mountain slope facing the enemy’s fortress, and went to the headquarters of the brigade to pay my respects to the brigadier-general. Just at the time when I arrived at headquarters the adjutant was relieved from duty on account of illness, so, as a temporary arrangement, I was put in his place as aide-de-camp. Later I was put in charge of the Twelfth Company.
On the night previous to the beginning of the general attack of the 19th, I received two letters brought to me by the cook. Of course no mail was expected to reach us in such a place and under such circumstances, but these two letters had been miscarried and mislaid for some time before finally reaching me. They were both from my elder brother, one inclosing a fountain pen and the other a photograph of my two little nieces, one four and the other three years of age. They seemed to say “Dear Uncle” to me from the picture. Such sweet little faces! If, however, the little babies in the photograph had had eyes that could see, they would perhaps have cried at my changed, emaciated features. Night and day I had been seeing nothing but unkempt soldiers or shattered flesh and broken bones. Even the flowers that had smiled from the grassy fields were now trodden down and crushed. In such a battle-field, and on the night before a great fight, I was honored with the visit of these dear nieces. How it softened my wild heart! What joy they brought to me! I could not help kissing their dear eyes and mouths and murmuring to myself: “You brave little ones, that have left your dear mother’s lap to cross the broad sea and wild waves to visit me in this place of powder-smoke and shot-rain! Your uncle will take you with him to-morrow and let you see how he chastises the enemy of dear Japan.”
The cloud of smoke had passed away for this night and bright stars were twinkling in the sky. I slept in the camp with my two little nieces by my side. Nelson’s last words came forcibly to my mind, and I also repeated over and over again the couplet that I had written and given my father when leaving Japan, in which I had spoken of “the glory of death in battle, loyalty for seven lives.” To leave my skull bleaching in the wilderness and become a patriotic spirit returning to life seven times—was this to take place on the morrow or on the day after? My time was almost full!
There was a lance-corporal by the name of Yamamoto, who about this time sent clippings of his nails and hair to his mother and brother, together with a farewell letter and poem; and this letter proved to be his last. It ran thus:—
“Twice already I have joined a forlorn hope, and still I am keeping my head on my shoulders. I am filled with grief when I think of my dead comrades. Out of over two hundred men who advanced before the others of our company, there are only twenty left who are able-bodied. Fortunately or unfortunately I am among this small number. But the life of man is only fifty years. Unless I give up that life betimes, I may have no proper opportunity again. Sooner or later I must die, as all must die. So I prefer being broken to pieces as a jewel to remaining whole as a tile. Shot or bayonet or whatever may come, I can die but once. My comrade is shot at my right hand, my officer’s thigh and arm are blown up into the air at my left—and I in the middle am not hurt at all, and I pinch myself, doubting whether it is not a dream. I feel the pinching, so I must be alive still. My time for dying has not come yet. I must brace myself up to avenge my comrades. You proud, impudent Ruskies! I will chastise you severely.—Thus my heart is ever impatient though I am lacking in brilliant parts. Born a farmer’s son, I shall yet be sung as a flower of the cherry tree, if I fight bravely and die in the battle-field, instead of dying naturally but ignobly in a thatched hut on a straw mat.
“Banzai, banzai, banzai to H. M. the Commander-in-chief!
“Taketoshi Yamamoto,
“Late Lance-Corporal of the Infantry of the Army.”
You notice that he used the word “late” before his title, showing beyond any doubt his resolve to enter the death-ground with a smile. Such a resolve was held by all at that time, and Yamamoto only gave a clear though unsophisticated expression to the general sentiment.
Ch XXIV.