The North Pacific: A Story of the Russo-Japanese WarAllen, Willis Boyd
History
The North Pacific: A Story of the Russo-Japanese War
Allen, Willis Boyd
Russo-Japanese War, 1904-1905 -- Fiction
Dick was duly disciplined for absenting himself beyond leave, but,
considering the hard experience he had undergone, his punishment was
made nominal, with a not very severe reprimand from the commander. The
dog was named "Junk" and became the rival of the black kitten--though
very friendly with her--as the mascot of the _Osprey_.
CHAPTER XVIII.
OSHIMA GOES A-FISHING.
Captain Oshima (promoted from lieutenancy for bravery on the field), of
the 10th Regiment in the Second Japanese Army, under General Odzer, was
fishing. Like most of the Japanese soldiers he had brought from home,
among other effects, a small fishing-line and several hooks. There were
hours and even days when he was called upon to perform no active duty
beyond routine drills, and in memory of the days when he and Oto used to
tramp the brook-sides of dear old Japan, displaying their trophies at
night to gently admiring O-Hana-San and the other prim little maids of
the village, he had determined to try his luck in this strange,
war-swept Manchuria. The hill-tops might be wreathed in battle-smoke and
the plains heaped with dead and dying; but in obscure valleys and down
slopes which had thus far escaped the tread of martial forces, the
ploughshare of the steel shell and the terrible harrow of shrapnel,
streamlets laughed and flowed blithely along their pebbled courses, and
tiny trout darted to and fro as merrily as in the dreamy days of peace
and plenty. So Oshima went a-fishing.
Unrolling his line and attaching it to a neat little pole, cut in a
near-by thicket, he took his seat on a boulder and dropped his baited
hook in one of the quieter pools of a brook that fed an upper branch of
the Faitse River. It was warm, and Oshima took a fan from his pocket and
fanned himself gravely as he fished. Every Japanese soldier is provided
with a fan. Oshima had often looked back on his company, and on the
column trailing behind, on a long march under the scorching Manchurian
sun in June, and had seen a thousand little fans fluttering beside the
heads of the men.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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