“Oho,” said Kokan, and his eyes danced. “It’s you, is it, Samurai? They say you won the charge.”
But because he was a good soldier and it was the order, Soichi calmly closed his eyes and went to sleep.
Next morning stretcher men came again and carried Soichi and all his tent mates into the town they had helped to capture the day before, and there, in a fine, big room in a solid house, he found another bed of blankets ready for him. Kokan was not with them; the officers had a different hospital and there the Samurai boy was taken. Wrapped in his soft blankets Soichi rested and dreamed and slept. One morning when the surgeon came to see him he brought some officers of the staff, and one of them, a grizzled colonel, with the star of a great decoration blazing on his breast, spoke to him and asked his name. Soichi tried to stand up, as was proper for a man answering an officer, but the colonel forbade him and he lay still. Then the colonel said in a loud voice, so that all the room could hear:
“The general sends his compliments to Kutami Soichi-san, first-class private, and grants him a kanjo for his extraordinarily gallant conduct in the charge of the Guards and at the redoubt.”
Before Soichi could think, his wounded comrades were shouting “Banzai!” the grizzled colonel joining with all his voice. For a moment he could not speak. He was overwhelmed with the unexpected honor. A kanjo, that certificate of merit and honorable service more dearly prized than life itself. He had never dared to dream of winning that. The staff officers saw his confusion and smiled in kindly encouragement, and the surgeon beamed at him through the big spectacles. He lifted his head a little and tried to reply to the colonel.
“It was only a little,” he said feebly; “nothing at all. I thought it was the Emperor’s wish!”
He fell back on his blankets, and with flashing eyes the staff officers saluted him and stalked out of the room.
“Ha!” said the colonel, as he mounted his horse, “there is a soldier!”
His comrades were miles away, daring the Russians to renewed conflict, when Soichi had recovered enough to walk about a little and write to his father.
“I had hoped to win a glorious death,” he said in his first letter, “as was fitting for the first Kutami to be a soldier of the empire. But now I have received this honorable kanjo and I am happy to live and to come back to see you and my mother again. I shall be quite well in a little time, but my service is ended. The surgeon says my rifle arm will not stand that work again, and a better man must take my place. I tried to do my duty, but now it is finished.