Lieutenant Yonehara didn’t stay with the platoon. Officers had cabins of their own. Things were crowded even for them; junior officers like the platoon commander had to double up. Corporal Shimizu didn’t particularly resent their better fortune. Shigata ga nai, he thought-it can’t be helped.

At last, soldiers stopped coming. Had they crammed the whole regiment into the Nagata Maru? Shimizu wouldn’t have been surprised. The engine began to thump. The ship began to throb. The deck above Shimizu’s head thrummed. Army dentists had given him several fillings. They seemed to vibrate in sympathy with the freighter.

As soon as the Nagata Maru pulled away from the pier, the rolling and pitching started. So did the cries for buckets. The sharp stink of vomit filled the hold along with the other odors of too many men packed too close together. Green-faced soldiers raced up the ladder so they could spew over the rail.

Rather to his surprise, Corporal Shimizu’s stomach didn’t trouble him. He’d never been in seas this rough before. He didn’t enjoy the journey, but it wasn’t a misery for him, either.

No one had told him where the ship was going. When the authorities wanted him to know something, they would take care of it. Till then, he worried about keeping his squad in good order. The men who could eat went through the rations they’d carried aboard the Nagata Maru: rice and canned seaweed and beans, along with pickled plums and radishes and whatever else the soldiers happened to have on them.

Every morning, Lieutenant Yonehara led the men topside for physical training. It wasn’t easy on the pitching deck, but orders were orders. The gray, heaving waters of the Sea of Okhotsk and the even grayer skies spoke of how far from home Shimizu was.