I suppose it’s only natural that living together in a small group is likely to cause some friction. I have left the dormitory and moved back to my tent to collect my thoughts. Corporal Yatsusuki has continued to grow. We get complaints from the French from time to time saying that he is blocking the road and they can’t budge him. Still the weirdness goes on around me. The major general has taken to crossing the river most nights. He returns disheveled with the scent of cheap women on his uniform. And he always carries a sack. It’s empty when he leaves but full to bursting on the way back. One morning he’d had a little too much to drink and forgot his sack on the boat. I took a peek. It was full of objects old and new, some valuable, some still wrapped in plastic. I have a feeling he steals those things, but I cannot prove it.

Captain Jame is almost always naked now, day and night, and he’s not a pretty sight. How am I to concentrate on our shogi games with him sitting opposite me like that? Taigou the dog came to the tent last night and he had a deep wound on his side. And, oddly, he had another broken tea kettle on his head. He bit my hand when I freed him and he ran away. One day I saw Second Lieutenant Tetsukimo Souben jump out of a tall tree. I thought perhaps he was trying to kill himself but his descent was so slow it was like watching a kite come to ground. Warrant Officer Ukabane Orimimi’s breath is worse than ever. You can still smell it an hour after he’s left the room. Sometimes I can smell his stink in my tent, although I don’t see that anything’s missing. I went into the latrine one day and found Private Oshiira licking the officers’ toilet bowl. I was disgusted. He sleeps there now and never comes to the mess tent. His skin is grey, and he has infections all over him. Lance Corporal Hokofugu Hama is back on the alcohol with a vengeance. He drinks beyond the bounds of his salary. With a week still to go before payday he’s in the town knocking on doors, begging for booze. But nobody ever seems to get angry at him. And I may be mistaken but he appears to be turning into a woman. Nothing makes any sense to me.

8/14/45

The Arrival of General Shosen Umiji