The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1904-07-03
.STOICISM OF
THE WOUNDED
EXTRAORDINARY NERVE SHOWN
BY JAPANESE WOUNDED ON RE
TURNING HOME.

KOKURA, Japan, May 1S.-The
wounded Japanese from the Yalu, in
Guiding three officers and 1OS non-com-
missioned officers and men, arrived at
Mojl on the Red Cross ship Koru Maru
this morning. The few who were so
badly disabled as to be unable to walk
were taken to the railway station on
filters, but most of them insisted on
walking. AS the strange silent band
of men, all dressed in pure white XII
monos, straw sandals and blue service
caps with yellow bands, hobbled and
crept painfully through the crooked
streets of Moi, escorted by a dozen
men of the Hospital Corps, they seemed
the very ghosts of the strapping fellows
who marched out through the town two
months ago.
A score or more of them were bare
headed, their faces and heads swathed
in white bandages criss- crossed in
every direction. As many more car
ried one or both arms in sings or rigid
ly bound in plaster casts. Others, who
had been shot through the body, strug-
gled hard to walk erect, supporting
themselves with an arm around the
neck of a hospital corps man. Two
mere boys each of whom had been shot
through the leg hoped on one foot
each the whole distance of half a dozen
blocks, resting one hand on the should
err of a nurse.
The marvel of it was that there was
not a crutch or a cane in the whole
white company. The gritty fellows
disdatned such evidences of weakness.
Shot to pieces as they were, and with
green wounds received only about two
weeks before, they refused to ride on
litters, but struggled painfully to
march as of old, in column of tours
with heads erect. 1 doubt if there is
another civilized country in the world
where such a spectacle could be seen.
In honor of their homecoming four
thousand children from the public
schools of Moi and Shimonosiki Ca mile
away, across the inland seal all in uni
form, marched slowly and in silence
ahead of Them as a guard of honor.
Along the narrow streets bareheaded
men and women by the thousand
stood, also in absolute silence, watch
of war There was no waving of flags
no emotion expressed, no banzais.
Whatever the people may have felt,
they hid it under that inscrutable mask
of stoicism which in Japan is so seldom
removed in public.
Many of the wounded soldiers were
greeted by their mothers, sisters and
sweethearts as they entrained at the
station, but there was no handshaking
no kisses, no tears. Only series of
profound bows and a few low-spoken
words. When the train pulled out per
haps twenty ladies lined up on the plat
form, in their pretty, many-hued XII
monos, bowed low and in unison to the
whitehead figures at the window. No
one uttered a word. The few army
officers who came to see them off also
bowed and retired in silence.
rode in the compartment occupied
by the three wounded officers and two
staff officers from Kokura, and here I
witnessed another amazing exhibition
of cheerful stoicism. They sat erect
in the car smoking cigarettes, and oc-
casionally exchanging a few remarks,
Nothing about them save the hospital
garb and their pale drawn faces, in
dicated the pain they were enduring
on the hospital cots, l saw
them writhe under the surgeons hands |
as the location of each wound was dis |
closed for the inspection of Lieutenant
General lhiANido and then reqlized |
what agony the march and the jOlting |
of the train must have caused them.
Captain Condo of GO. Z, Twenty |
seventh Regiment had a bullet wound |
through the body just above the left |
hip, First Lieutenant Mayasaki, of |
the same company had been shot |
through the left leg below the thigh, |
while the right knee of Second Lieute-
nant Yoshida of Co. s, had been shat |
tered by a Russian bullet, making one |
Of the most eXcrutiatngly painful |
wounds known to surgery. l may re-
mark in passing that of all the Ill |
soldiers whose wounds l saw examined |
Yoshida was the only one who exhibited |
more than a momentarv evidence of |
the agony that was theirs. Yoshida, |
mis- face working in terrible contortions |
as the splintered knee was examined, !
bit mis- lips till the blood came in his |
effort to keep from disgracing himself |
before his general by crying out, until |
he white-cepped musume-nurse merci-
July covered the sufferers face with a
handkerchief. And yet this man had |
refused an ambulance. That think. |
s what NAV with propriety be called |
nerve.
BREAKS WITH THE VATICAN.