Chapter XLVI
COMRADES AT LAST.
AN INCIDENT OF BATTLE.
I tell the story as it was told to me by an officer of General Kuroki’s Staff. On a bare hill-top, strewn with the debris of war, lay fourteen wounded soldiers. Through the long, hot day they had fought, and now the tide of battle swept on, leaving them like wreckage cast up by an angry sea. Eight were bearded men and six were smooth-faced Japanese. The golden mist that glowed among the giant millet was tinged with crimson. Night was about to add her terrors to the stricken field. As the shadows stole up the mountain a strange fear crept into the hearts of these men. Their eyes grew wide with dread at the sights and sounds amid which they might sleep the sleep that knows no waking. Darkness could not hide the horrors that had burned into their brains. To each grim detail the waning light gave new and awful realism. Dead eyes looked out from under the peaked caps: the broken bayonets bled: grisly hands held the paper fans: crimson gashes gaped under the red shoulder straps: skeleton fingers turned over the stained page of pocket book and diary: fountains of blood welled out of rent garments and linen bands and strips of cloth that anguished hands had pressed into riven flesh: writhing forms covered the purple stains: livid arms rose from the red earth and beckoned to the common grave: the fragments of shell, the spent bullets, the empty cartridge cases and shattered rifles roared and hissed and spluttered and flashed—all the nameless horrors of the battlefield took shape and sound in the twilight.
A great fear fell upon the survivors and drew them together. It was a slow and painful muster. Shot through the legs, Sato crawled to Tanaka, whose foot had been shattered by a shell. With one arm hanging limp, Yamada tore a sleeve from his shirt and pressed it against a hole in his side. Nakamura had a bullet in his brain, and lay on his back sobbing out his life through frothing lips, about which the flies made dark, deep lines. A shot had entered Matsumoto’s right shoulder, passed through the muscles of his back, come out at the waist and lodged in his cartridge pouch. His foot slipped in a pool of blood, and he fell upon a Russian, kneeling with rifle clasped in his arms. The figure lolled over and rested at the feet of a soldier, with rigid arms stretched to Heaven, whose face was a crawling mask of buzzing flies. Kimura was mopping the blood from his brow, and had ripped up his trousers to dress a wound in his thigh.
At last the muster was complete, and the little group of Japanese began to attend to one another’s injuries. The Russians were less seriously hurt and assembled more quickly. Sato had taken off his putties and was binding them round his leg, when he saw the eight bearded men. Instinctively he looked round for a rifle, but Tanaka laid a hand on his arm. “Don’t you see that they too are wounded?”
Sato went on winding the putties and took no more heed of the enemy. The minutes dragged on: the golden mist vanished from the millet fields in the valley, and a thin line of crimson stretched along the horizon. An awful silence brooded over the hill—broken only by the sputtering of foam from the open mouth of dying Nakamura.
Having dressed their wounds, the men began to look about them, and presently the eyes of the two groups met. A few hours before they were seeking each other’s lives. They remembered the mad rush, the blistering heat of rifle, the thrust of bayonet, the wild shout, and the crimson wall that rose out of the earth and crushed them into darkness and oblivion. Long and earnestly they gazed, each striving to read the other’s thoughts. Many stories they had heard of atrocities—of murder and mutilation and horrors of which men speak in whispers. The Russians were eight and the Japanese only five, for Nakamura did not count, being as a dead man. Would they fight: would they wait until the night and steal upon them unaware: did they see how sorely stricken were their enemies: would they avenge the slaughter of their brothers?
To these inward questionings they sought answer in the faces turned toward them. “They look very fierce with their great beards, but their eyes are gentle.” It was Tanaka who spoke—he who had checked the impulse of his comrade.
“They are brave men,” added Kimura, who had bound his leg and was whisking the flies from the mouth of Nakamura. “Yesterday, when we stormed the hill, the Russians made a counter attack. They were led by a young officer who fought like a lion for his whelps. He fell, pierced by many wounds, and was about to hand his sword to Lieutenant Katsura, but our officer motioned to him to put back the weapon and said: ‘No, I cannot take from a Samurai his soul.’ The Russian understood. He was of the Samurai.”
“Let us beckon to them to come over,” suggested Tanaka. “They will then know that we have no evil design.” The signal was given, and the eight bearded men came without hesitation. Gravely saluting, they seated themselves on the ground by the side of their friends—the enemy. Of one another’s language they understood not a word. But speech is a habit, and is not to be suppressed merely because it is useless. The men talked, and their voices grew louder and louder, as voices are apt to do when they produce no impression. When your words are simple and clear it is hard to distinguish between ignorance and deafness. After a time the visitors fell back upon signs, but to the Japanese signs are as unintelligible as Sanscrit. Then they began to examine one another’s wounds, and shook their heads over the prostrate body of Nakamura, whose breath came in sharp gasps through bubbles of foam. Kimura put his hand into the pocket of his tunic and drew forth a book. It was a manual of conversation in Russian and Japanese—a collection of formal phrases and stilted sentences, such as no sane lips would ever frame. Yet they served, for presently Kimura and one of the Russians were busily turning over the pages and putting their fingers on words that seemed to embody the wisdom of the ages and the needs of the moment.
Before night came these men were comrades, sharing their black bread and rice. Sympathy gave them understanding, and though they spoke in unknown tongues it was established beyond doubt how many had left wives and children to pray for them in distant homes. Tanaka, with much labour and many searches through the manual, asked one of them if he was not glad to be wounded, seeing that he might return to his family and escape the perils of war. But Sato reproached him for suggesting that their Russian comrade was wanting in patriotism and would shelter himself behind a wound.
Thus the hours wore on, and night spread her veil over the ghastly forms that lay scattered over the hill-top and in the trenches. Very soon the wounds began to grow stiff, and fever ran like fire through their veins. Nakamura’s sobbing had ceased, and his face was rigid in death. Kimura rambled in his talk and cried for water to quench the fires within. Sato lay back, and would have groaned in his agony but for the presence of his comrades—the Russians. They understood, for one of them rose, and taking three wooden bottles, pointed to the valley. He would fetch water for his comrades—the wounded Japanese.
Now every man in that little group knew the risk of such an enterprise, for he was aware that the hill was in dispute, and that Russians and Japanese were watching for any sign that might betray the presence of the enemy. The Russian soldier walked to the brow of the hill, and looked cautiously about him. Nothing was to be seen save the forms of dead men and the blackness of the valley. Though he stepped warily, his feet often slipped in pools of blood, and stumbled into holes dug by high explosive shells. His comrades watched him disappear over the crest, and waited. The minutes passed with painful slowness. Not a sound broke the stillness. He must have reached the foot of the hill. Even now he might be filling the water bottles from the shallow stream below. Perhaps he was returning, and this terrible thirst would end.
They strained their ears to catch the first sound of a footfall. What was that? A shot rang out, and pierced the darkness like an arrow that quivered in their hearts. Then all was silence again. The wounded men held their breath and listened. No sound came from hill or valley, and they feared greatly for the brave man who had risked his life. Long they watched and waited, none daring to give voice to his fears. He would never return, for in the valley he lay close to the stream, with a bullet through his heart.
Kimura’s ravings had lapsed into unconsciousness, and Sato moaned aloud. From the little group rose another figure, stalwart and bearded. Without a word or a sign he departed. His comrades seemed unconscious of his movement, yet they felt that he had taken upon himself the agony of their thirst. He passed from the hill and vanished in the darkness, following the steps of his comrade. Hope revived in the breasts of those who watched and waited. Surely, he would return. Harm could not come to a brave man who risked his life for his enemy. Again that terrible note—sharp and clear—the note of a Russian rifle. He, too, would never return. The bullet of a comrade had dyed the stream with his blood, and the half-filled water bottles floated by.
The survivors on the hill watched no more. Night hid their suffering and their sorrow. At dawn some Japanese scouts moved cautiously up the slope, and from the brow of the hill saw the six Russian soldiers. Two shots whistled over their heads—three, four! The Japanese knew the sound, and shouted to their comrades. The firing ceased, and the story was told.
Two nameless Russian soldiers rest in one grave, and on a wooden cross is written in Japanese:
“Comrades at Last!”