“Banzai!”
He saw his fellows swarming about him and knew they had won. Then something struck him a terrible blow on the shoulder and he fell unconscious on the rampart.
XV
Lying on a board in the field hospital at the foot of the hill up which he had charged, Soichi opened his eyes to see the slow sun dropping behind the ridge across the river they had won. The long line of carts and pack horses filing by, told him the victory was complete, the transportation was coming up. His head and arm and shoulder were wrapped with bandages, and when he turned slightly on his hard bed a sharp pain warned him to lie still. A man in a long white apron, with his sleeves rolled up and a red cross on his arm came toward him, and he recognized the spectacled, kindly face of the surgeon. With a pleasant smile the doctor looked him in the face and touched his wrist a moment.
“You’ll do now,” he said.
Then two men came with a stretcher and carried him to a soft bed of blankets in a big white tent, and told him to go to sleep. It was very comfortable in the warm bed, and he lay there quietly, trying to recall the events of the day. After a little, he turned his head slowly and stared into the eyes of the man in the next bed. It was Lieutenant Kudo.