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
The Japanese army are not only among the fiercest fighters the world has
ever known, but they are dainty in their appointments. With the army go
camp-followers who are allowed to sell fans, handkerchiefs, cigarettes,
tea, soaps, tooth-brushes, and writing-paper. For the officers are
carried great iron kettles in nets, two on a pony; these are used in
heating water for baths, as well as to cook the company mess of rice. A
few squares of straw matting make a bath-house, and a big stone jar is
the tub of comfort for the almond-eyed campaigner. Much time is also
spent in correspondence. The field post carried an immense amount of
mail every day between Antung and the front. Around the camp of
Oshima's regiment could be seen, in the quieter hours of the day,
hundreds of soldiers sitting cross-legged under the trees, painting
artistic epistles to their dear ones at home with brushes on rolls of
thin paper. Oshima himself had written two letters that day; one to his
mother and one to O-Hana-San, who was now a volunteer nurse under the
Red Cross at a large seaport of the new country. So he went fishing.
He caught three very small trout within an hour. Then he rose, rolled up
his line and deposited it in a neat packet, strung the fish upon a twig
and was about to return to camp when he noticed a Chinese coolie acting
very peculiarly. The man was dressed as a Chinese labourer, with a
helmet upon his head, a coarse blouse and thick-soled shoes, like all of
his caste. He was carrying two pails of water, which he had just filled
at the brook, a few rods below Oshima. This was no unusual occupation
for a coolie, although it was surprisingly far from camp; the
peculiarity lay in the keenness with which the man surveyed the outworks
of the fortifications, and his manner in glancing nervously over his
shoulder as he walked off. When he saw Oshima looking at him he almost
dropped his pails; then hurried down toward the camp at a pace that soon
carried him out of sight.
It was late in the afternoon when the captain--who had dined
sumptuously on rice and his three fish--caught sight of the coolie once
more. The man was walking past his tent, carrying water as before.
Oshima called to him sharply. Apparently the coolie did not hear, for he
continued on his way, with head bent and eyes cast down.
Oshima spoke a few words to his orderly, who passed an abrupt order to
two privates stationed near headquarters. They at once stepped after the
Chinaman, and clapping their hands on his shoulders, turned him round in
his tracks and marched him back to the tent.
Oshima viewed the coolie in silence for a moment; then said in Chinese,
"What is your name, my man?"
"Ah Wing, master."
"Your occupation?"
The man held up his water-pails, as if that were a sufficient answer. He
had not yet looked his interrogator in the face, but persistently gazed
down at the ground.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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