Japan -- History -- Meiji period, 1868-1912 -- Fiction
Just here I hung my head out of the window to ask the cook what time
it was. He called back, "Me no know! clock him gone to sleep. He no
talk some more."
I think I shall follow the example of the clock.
HIROSHIMA, October, 1904.
Dearest Mate:
I have been to the hospital at last and I can think of nothing, see
nothing, and talk of nothing but those poor battered up men. Yesterday
the authorities sent word that if the foreign teachers would come and
make a little music for the sick men it would be appreciated. We had
no musical instrument except the organ, so Miss Lessing and I bundled
one up on a jinrikisha and trudged along beside it through the
street. I got almost hysterical over our absurd appearance, and
pretended that Miss Lessing was the organ grinder, and I the
monkey. But oh! Mate when we got to the hospital all the silliness was
knocked out of me. Thousands of mutilated and dying men, literally
shot to pieces by the Russian bullets. I can't talk about it! It was
too horrible to describe.
We wheeled the organ into one of the wards and two of the teachers
sang while I played. It was pitiful to see how eager the men were to
hear. The room was so big that those in the back begged to be moved
closer, so the little nurses carried the convalescent ones forward on
their backs.
For one hour I pumped away on that wheezy little old instrument, with
the tears running down my cheeks most of the time. So long as I live
I'll never make fun of a baby organ again. The joy that one gave that
afternoon justified its being.
And then--prepare for the worst,--we distributed tracts. Oh! yes I did
it too, in spite of all the fun I have made, and would you believe it?
those men who were able to walk, crowded around and _begged_ for
them, and the others in the beds held out their hands or followed us
wistfully with their eyes. They were so crazy for something to read
that they were even willing to read about the foreign God.
It was late when we got back and I went straight to bed and indulged
in a chill. All the horror of war had come home to me for the first
time, and my very soul rebelled against it. They say you get hardened
to the sights after a few visits to the hospital, but I hope I shall
never get to the point of believing that it's right for strong useful
men to be killed or crippled for life in order to settle a
controversy.
Before we went into the wards the physician in charge took us all over
the buildings, showed us where the old bandages were being washed and
cleaned, where the instruments were sharpened and repaired, where the
stretchers and crutches, and "first aid to the injured" satchels were
kept. We were taken through the postoffice, where all the mail comes
and goes from the front. It was touching to see the number of letters
that had been sent home unopened.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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