🚀 go-pugleaf

It is a thick tome, bound in black cloth.  The title is printed
in gold, small on the spine, large on the cover.  The font is
Roman and faintly antique.  The pages are faintly glossy paper,
thin; they rustle in the hands.  They have acquired the faint
yellowish-grey tint that such paper is prone to, but otherwise
show no marks of age or use.

_Soviet Military Power in Asia_, Vol. III, is printed by the
Defense Publications Agency.  The copyright date is 1963.

No author is listed.

The text, though, has a certain continuity of tone and style.
It contains no jokes, wit, stories, or eccentricities of
language, but occasionally one finds a dry twinge.  Nothing
overt; nothing blatant; nothing that one would notice without
looking for it.  

Yet enough to hint at humanity.  A mosquito-bite humanity; a
scant drop, stolen in secret, with the stealthy grace of fear.
But one cannot quibble with the salamander in such a fire.

It is like finding a rose pressed between the pages.

"The T-34," it notes, "can climb a 45-degree slope, cross
ditches of up to twelve feet in width, navigate in six feet of
water, and move at sixty miles per hour on level terrain.  But,
due to faulty filtering on its air intake, it cannot traverse
a rice paddy."

It is careful to remind us that "since the information herein
provided is not obtained through official diplomatic channels,
it cannot be guaranteed that the location or composition of
forces is reported correctly," and it politely requests us to
"report any more accurate information that may be discovered,
to the appropriate agency of the United States Government."

And it points out that "Vladivostok... is said to be renowned
among the enlisted men for the quality of its beer."

It is difficult to maintain one's fear of history after reading
such a book.

c