The Frozen River

On the frozen Amur, Japanese soldiers wait for a way home. Kurimoto envies the wounded men whose injuries promise escape from the fighting—until a partisan attack brings him into the same hospital.

Outside, sleighs carry the dead across the river. Inside, the men count down to a hospital train, pinning their hopes on a departure that grows close enough to imagine.

First published in 1928, Kuroshima Denji’s story of the Siberian intervention moves between bodily suffering, bitter humor, rivalry, and anger at the officers who hold ordinary soldiers’ lives in their hands.