Explore "An Awfully Big Adventure" by Bartimeus on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The railway terminus at Tokyo was gay with bunting and thronged by a great crowd of people. A brass band somewhere out of sight broke into crashing martial music. "Banzai! " roared the khaki-clad figures in the closely packed carriages, and in response the women and children waved little hand-flags that bore the national emblem on a white ground.
Japan had declared war on Germany, and the occasion was the departure of a Reserve Division which was shortly to operate against the German fortress of Tsingtau. The windows of the carriages were blocked by grim, fighting faces: men from the North. Among them was Tani, sometime maker of sandals; and on the platform beneath his window, like a painted butterfly hovering round the cannon's mouth, stood Su Su O, eyes suspiciously bright.