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answer he got. “I don’t know if there are that many regiments in Japan,” he said.
    “I don’t, either, Sergeant-
san
,” Hayashi answered somberly.
    And what was Fujita supposed to do with that? A sergeant punished defeatism wherever he found it. And a sergeant had the right—the duty—to beat the snot out of his underlings when they didn’t live up to his expectations, or sometimes whenever he felt like it. But the only thing the senior private had done was ask a simple question. They went back to Mongolia together, too.
    Instead of belting Hayashi, then, Fujita said, “If you open your big yap any wider, you’ll fall right in.”
    Hayashi got the message. “I’ll be careful, Sergeant-
san
,” he promised.
    “You’d better,” Fujita growled, but he didn’t sound angry enough to frighten a nine-year-old, let alone a combat veteran.
    Then they got something to be frightened about: an order to attack the Red Army positions in front of them. Fujita was a combat veteran, all right, and he was scared green. He spent half an hour sharpening his bayonet. He didn’t think that would keep him alive, but it gave him something to do so he wouldn’t have to worry—too much—about what lay ahead.
    No artillery preparation. That, the officers said, would warn the Russians. And so it would, but it would also kill a lot of them, and flatten some of the wire in front of their trenches. What could you do? Live—if they’d let you.
    He couldn’t even tell his men the Red Army soldiers would have loot worth taking. In Mongolia, Russian gear and rations seemed luxurious to the Japanese. Not here. The Russians around Vladivostok had beenunder siege for months. Even by Japanese standards, they didn’t have much.
    The only covering fire the attackers got came from machine guns. Ever since the fight at Port Arthur, the Japanese had handled those aggressively. If the gunners shot a few of their own men in the back … Well, to everyone but the luckless victims, that was only a cost of doing business.
    Mouth dry, Fujita ran forward, hunched over as low as he could go. The Russian Maxim guns needed only a few seconds to snarl to life. Bullets coming toward him, bullets snapping past him from behind … He’d been places he liked more. Less? Maybe not.
    He tripped over something and fell full length in the snow. Two bullets, one coming and the other going, slammed together about where he’d just been. They fell beside him, sending up a small plume of steam. He hardly noticed, and had no idea how lucky he was.
    He got up again and stumbled on. Not all the Japanese soldiers who’d gone down would get up again. If you lost a regiment taking a stretch of ground not very wide and even less deep … He called down elaborate curses on Shinjiro Hayashi’s learned head.
    Some soldiers had wire cutters. Some of them stayed unwounded long enough to get up to the vicious stuff and cut it. More Japanese soldiers, Fujita among them, pushed through the gaps and rushed the Russian trenches. A Red Army man popped up like a marmot. He aimed his rifle at the sergeant. Fujita fired first. He missed, but he made the Russian duck. With a cry of
“Banzai!”
Fujita leaped into the trench after him.
    The Russian shot at him from almost point-blank range. He missed anyhow. Fujita lunged with the bayonet while the Russian was working the bolt. The point went home. The white man screamed and dropped the rifle. Fujita stuck him again and again, till he finally fell over. Even then, he kept thrashing on the cold hard ground until the sergeant shot him in the head. People could be awfully hard to kill.
    Little by little, paying a price, the Japanese cleared the Russians from three or four rows of trenches. No, not much left in the dead men’s pockets, though Fujita did get some Russian cigarettes—a little tobaccoat the end of a long paper holder. He lit one. The smoke was harsh as sandpaper, but he didn’t care.
    Senior Private Hayashi