Japan: A wistful note on a triumphant battle

Shiba Ryotaro is a master spinner of yarns, and “Clouds Above the Hill” is packed with entertaining and enlightening digressions: The Japan Times

When I was a boy, my father told me and my kid brother stories from the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) and taught us how to sing some of the threnodies that Gen. Maresuke Nogi composed in classical Chinese on the battlefield. My father was born three years after the war, but memories of it were still strong.