“War all finish I go. Nogi-San need me I stay.”
Then with great eagerness he told me how he wanted to get back into the fight and for the first time in all our acquaintance his eyes lost their dreaminess and the clasp of his hand became taut with energy.
I did not tell him how I that morning had learned from the General himself that never again should Nurimiya be subjected to the supreme test.
“Is it not pleasant here at headquarters, with the band, and the foreigners, and the nice cooking, and the easy work?” I asked.
He was not interested in what I said. He waved an indefinite arm toward the front and replied:
“By-m-by they make plenty die off there. Then I go back.”
He had not yet learned that he was the General’s Pet.