9

machine guns behind the tall black water river dike barked for three minutes, then fell silent.

throngs of jiao-gao soldiers who had been shouting a charge in the sorghum field fell headlongonto the dry roadbed and the scorched earth of the field, while, across the way, granddad’s ironsociety soldiers, who were about to surrender, were cut down like sorghum; among them werelongtime devil worshippers who had followed black eye for a decade and young recruits whohad joined because of granddad’s reputation. neither their shiny shaved scalps, the raw ricesteeped in well water, the iron ancestor riding his tiger, nor the mule hoof, monkey claw, andchicken skull shielded their bodies. the insolent machine-gun bullets streaked through the air toshatter their spines and legs and pierce their chests and bellies. the red blood of the jiao-gaosoldiers and the green blood of the iron society soldiers converged to nourish the black earth ofthe fields. years later, that soil would be the most fertile anywhere.

having suffered defeat together at the hands of a common foe, the retreating jiao- gaoregiment and granddad’s iron society were immediately transformed from sworn enemies intoloyal allies. the living and the dead were cast together. little foot jiang, wounded in the leg, andgranddad, wounded in the arm, were cast together. as granddad lay with his head against littlefoot jiang’s bandaged leg, he noticed that his feet weren’t all that little, but their stinkoverwhelmed the stench of blood.

the machine guns opened fire again, their bullets smashing into the roadbed and the sorghumfield, where they raised puffs of dust. jiao-gao and iron society soldiers tried to bore their wayunder the ground. the topography couldn’t have been worse: nothing but flatland as far as theeye could see – not a blade of grass anywhere – and the blanket of whizzing bullets was like arazor-sharp sword slicing the air; anyone who raised his head was finished.

another interval between bursts. little foot jiang shouted, ‘hand grenades!’

the machine guns roared again, then fell silent. the jiao-gao soldiers hurled at least a dozengrenades over the dike. a mighty explosion was followed by shrieks and cries, and an armwrapped in fluttering grey cloth sailed through the air. granddad shouted, ‘it’s detachmentleader leng, that son of a bitch pocky leng!’

the jiao-gao soldiers lobbed another round of grenades. shrapnel flew, the water in the riverrippled, and a dozen columns of smoke rose from behind the dike. seven or eight intrepid jiao-gao soldiers charged the dike, but they had barely reached the ridge when a burst of fire sentthem scrambling back, dead and dying jumbled together, until there was no telling who was who.

‘retreat!’ little foot jiang ordered.

the jiao-gao soldiers lobbed another round of grenades, and at the sound of explosions, thesurvivors crawled out of the pile of dead and beat a hasty retreat northward, shooting as they ran.

little foot jiang, helped to his feet by two of his men, fell in behind them.

sensing the danger in retreating, granddad stayed where he was. he wanted to get out of there,but this wasn’t the time. some of his iron society soldiers joined the retreat, and the others werebeginning to get the same idea. ‘don’t move,’ he said in a low voice.

gunsmoke curled up from behind the dike, carrying with it the pitiful cries of wounded men.

then granddad heard a familiar voice shout: ‘fire! machine guns, machine guns!’

it was pocky leng’s voice, all right, and granddad’s lips curled into a grim smile.

granddad, with father beside him, joined the iron society. he shaved his forehead and kneltbefore the ancestor on his tiger mount. when he saw the mended spot where his bullet had madea hole, he smiled to himself. it was as though it had happened only yesterday. father also had thefront of his scalp shaved. the sight of the ebony razor in black eye’s hand chilled him, for hestill had dim memories of the fight that had occurred more than ten years earlier. but black eyeshaved his scalp without incident, then rubbed it with each of the freakish fetishes – the mulehoof, the monkey claw, and so on. the ceremony completed, father’s body truly felt rigid, asthough his flesh and blood had turned to iron.

granddad was welcomed enthusiastically by the iron society soldiers, who, urged on by fivetroubles, staged a revolt, demanding that black eye acknowledge granddad as his deputy.

once the issue of second-in-command was resolved, five troubles then worked on theirfighting spirit. he said that a thousand days of military training came to fruition in a singlemoment. now that the jap aggressors were wreaking havoc on the nation, he asked how long themen planned to practise their ‘iron’ skills without actually going out to kill the dwarf invaders.

most of the society soldiers were hot-blooded young men whose hatred of the japanese was inthe marrow of their bones, and the silver-tongued five troubles spoke like an orator, makingthem crave action on the battleield, to rage potent as an oil fire. black eye had no choice but toagree with him. granddad took five troubles aside. ‘are you sure your “iron” skills aresufficient to withstand bullets?’ five troubles just grinned slyly.

the iron society’s first battle was small, a brief skirmish with the gao battalion, a unit ofzhang zhuxi’s puppet regiment. the iron society soldiers, who were about to stage a raid on thexia family inn blockhouses, met up with the gao battalion as it was returning from a raid ongrain stores. the two armies stopped and sized each other up. the gao raiding party, made up ofsixty or seventy men in apricot-coloured uniforms, was heavily armed. canvas cartridge beltswere slung across the men’s chests. intermingled with the troops were dozens of donkeys andmules carrying sacks of grain. the black-clad iron society soldiers were armed only with spears,swords, and knives, except for a few dozen with pistols tucked in their belts.

‘what unit are you?’ a fat gao-battalion officer asked from his horse.

granddad reached into his belt and, as he drew his pistol, shouted, ‘the one that kills traitors!’

he fired.

the fat officer tumbled off his horse, his head a bloody gourd.

‘amalai amalai amalai,’ the iron society soldiers chanted in unison as they launched afearsome charge. frightened donkeys and mules broke and ran. the panicky puppet soldiers triedto escape, but the slower ones were hacked to death by the iron society soldiers’ knives andswords. those who managed to get away began coming to their senses when they’d run about thedistance of an arrow’s flight. quickly forming up ranks, they opened fire – pipa papa. but theundaunted iron society soldiers, having tasted blood, raised their chant and launched a ferociouscharge.

‘spread out!’ granddad shouted. ‘crouch!’

his shouts were drowned out by the sonorous chants of men charging in closed ranks, headshigh, chests thrust forward.

the puppet soldiers fired a salvo of bullets, cutting down more then twenty iron societysoldiers. fresh blood sprayed the air as the shrill wails of wounded soldiers swirled around thefeet of their surviving comrades.

the iron society soldiers were stunned. another salvo, and more of them fell.

‘spread out!’ granddad yelled. ‘flatten out!’

now the puppet soldiers mounted a countercharge. granddad rolled onto his side and jammeda clip into his pistol. black eye raised himself halfway up and bellowed, ‘get up! chant! ironhead iron arm iron wall iron barrier iron heart iron spleen iron sheet keep away bullets don’t dareapproach iron ancestor riding tiger urgent edict amalai?.?.?.’

a bullet whizzed over his head, and he hit the ground like a dog scrounging for shit.

with a sneer, granddad grabbed the pistol out of black eye’s trembling hand and shouted,‘douguan!’

father rolled over next to him. ‘here i am, dad!’

granddad handed him black eye’s pistol. ‘hold your breath, and don’t move. don’t shoot tillthey’re closer.’

then he shouted to his men, ‘if you’ve got a gun, get it ready. don’t shoot till they’re almoston top of you!’

the puppet soldiers rushed boldly forward.

fifty yards, forty yards, twenty, ten?.?.?. father could see their yellow teeth.

granddad jumped to his feet, guns blazing right and left. seven of eight puppet soldiers boweddeeply, all the way to the ground. father and five troubles fired with the same degree ofaccuracy. the puppet soldiers turned tail and ran, offering up their backs as inviting targets.

finding his pistols inadequate for his purposes, granddad picked up a rifle abandoned by afleeing soldier and opened fire.

this minor skirmish established granddad as the unchallenged leader of the iron society. thecruel, unnecessary deaths of so many of its soldiers had laid bare the folly of black eye’ssorcery. from then on they shunned the iron-body ceremony that had been forced upon them.

guns? those were needed. sorcery and magic couldn’t stop bullets.

pretending to be recruits, granddad and father joined the jiao-gao regiment and kidnappedlittle foot jiang in broad daylight. next they joined the leng detachment and kidnapped pockyleng.

the exchange of the two hostages for weapons and warhorses fortified granddad’s leadershipof the now- awesome iron society. black eye became superfluous, a man in the way. fivetroubles wanted to get rid of him, but granddad always stopped him.

following the kidnappings, the iron society became the most powerful force in all ofnortheast gaomi township, while the prestige of the jiao-gao and leng regiments was silencedonce and for all. peace having settled upon the land, granddad’s thoughts turned to the grandfuneral for grandma. from then on it was a process of accumulating wealth by whatever means,including the appropriation of a coffin and the murder of anyone who got in the way; the glory ofthe yu family spread like an oil fire. but granddad forgot the simple dialectic that a bright sundarkens, a full moon wanes, a full cup overflows, and decay follows prosperity. grandma’s grandfuneral would be yet another of his great mistakes.

the machine guns behind the dike roared again. granddad could tell there were only two of themnow, the others obviously taken out by the jiao-gao regiment hand grenades.

granddad’s attention was caught by movement among the dozen or so jiao-gao soldiers whohad been mowed down by machine-gun fire on the dike. a skinny, blood-covered little mancrawled in agony up the slope, slower than a silkworm, slower than a snail. granddad knew hewas watching a hero in action, another of northeast gaomi township’s magnificent seeds. thesoldier stopped halfway up the slope, and granddad watched him strain to roll over and remove ablood-stained hand grenade from his belt. he pulled the pin with his teeth, then ignited the fuse,sending a puff of smoke out from the wooden handle. holding the armed grenade between histeeth, he dragged himself up to a clump of weeds growing on the dike. the green-tinted machine-gun barrels were dancing above him, sending puffs of smoke into the air.

regret was what granddad was feeling. regret that he’d been so softhearted. when hekidnapped pocky leng, all he’d asked as ransom was a hundred rifles, five submachine guns, andfifty horses. he should have demanded these eight machine guns as well, but his years as a bandithad instilled in him a preference for light weapons over heavy ones. if he’d included thesemachine guns, pocky leng wouldn’t have been able to run amok today.

when the soldier reached the clump of weeds, he lobbed his grenade. the crack of anexplosion sounded behind the dike, sending the barrels of the machine guns soaring into the air.

the grenadier lay face down on the slope, not moving; his blood kept flowing, painfully,agonisingly, and very slowly. granddad heaved a sigh.

that took care of pocky leng’s machine guns. ‘douguan!’ granddad yelled.

pinned down by two heavy corpses, father was playing dead. maybe i really am dead, hethought, not knowing if the warm blood covering him was his own or that of the corpses on topof him. when he heard granddad’s yell, he raised his head, wiped the blood from his face withhis sleeve, and said between gasps, ‘i’m here, dad.?.?.?.’

pocky leng’s troops came pouring out from behind the dike, like spring bamboo after a rain,rifles at the ready. a hundred yards away, the jiao-gao soldiers, clearheaded once again, openedfire on the charging troops, the submachine guns they’d got from five troubles’ mounted troopscrackling loudly. the leng soldiers tucked in their heads like a herd of turtles.

granddad pulled the corpses off father and dragged him free.

‘were you hit?’ he asked.

‘i don’t think so,’ father said after checking his arms and legs.

‘let’s get out of here, men!’ granddad shouted.

twenty or more blood-spattered iron society soldiers stood up by leaning on their rifles andstaggered off towards the north. the jiao-gao soldiers didn’t fire at them. and although the lengdetachment fired a few shots, their bullets went straight up in the air.

a shot rang out behind granddad, and his neck felt as though someone had punched him; allthe heat in his body quickly flowed to that spot. he reached up and pulled back a palm coveredwith blood. when he spun around he spotted black eye, whose guts had spilled out onto theground, his large black eyes blinking heavily – once, twice, three times. two golden tears hungin the corners of his eyes. granddad smiled at him, and nodded slightly, then turned and ledfather slowly away.

another shot rang out behind them.

granddad heaved a long sigh. father turned and saw a little black hole in black eye’s temple.

as night fell, the leng detachment surrounded the jiao-gao and iron society soldiers, who hadwaged a desperate fight from the midst of grandma’s funeral procession. their ammunitionexhausted, the two detachments were huddled together, clenching their teeth and staring withbloodshot eyes at the relentlessly advancing leng detachment, recently fortified by a squad fromthe seventh army. the setting sun lit up the evening clouds and dyed the groaning black earth.

scattered across it were countless sons and daughters of northeast gaomi who had grown toadulthood on bright-red sorghum, and whose blood now formed streams that converged into ariver. scavenger birds were drawn to the spot by the smell of blood. most were circling above thehorses – like greedy children, they wanted the biggest pieces first.

grandma’s coffin was pitted with pale bullet holes, having served as cover during the gunfight.

the roasted chickens, ducks, pigs, and sheep from the roadside shrines had provided sustenanceto the jiao-gao soldiers, several of whom now launched a bayonet charge but were mowed downby leng bullets.

‘hands up! surrender!’ the heavily armed leng troops yelled.

granddad looked over at little foot jiang, who returned his gaze. neither said a word as theyraised their hands.

the white-gloved commander of the leng detachment strode out from his bodyguard and saidwith a sneer, ‘commander yu, commander jiang. enemies and lovers are destined to meet. nowwhat do you have to say?’

‘i’m ashamed!’ granddad said sadly.

‘i’m going to report you for the monstrous crime of disrupting the war against japan on theeastern jiao battlefront!’ commander jiang said.

pocky leng lashed him with his whip. ‘your bones may be soft, but your mouth is plentyhard! take them into the village!’ he ordered with a wave of the hand.

the leng detachment bivouacked in our village that night, after putting their jiao-gao andiron society prisoners in a shed, where they were guarded by a dozen soldiers armed withsubmachine guns. the moans of the wounded and the weeping of young soldiers who longed fortheir mothers, wives, and lovers didn’t let up all night long.

like an injured bird, father snuggled up in granddad’s arms, where he could hear the beatingof granddad’s heart, fast one moment, slow the next, like the music of tinkling bells. he fell intoa sound sleep, and dreamed of a woman who resembled both grandma and beauty. she strokedhis injured pecker with hot fingers, sending bolts of lightning up his backbone. he woke with astart, feeling a sense of loss. the plaintive wails of the wounded floated over from the fields. hedidn’t dare tell granddad of his dream. as he sat up slowly, he could see the milky way througha hole in the shed roof. suddenly it hit him: i’m almost sixteen!

at daybreak, the leng detachment pulled down several tents, from which they removed thickropes. after tying up their prisoners in groups of five, they dragged them over to the willow treesbeside the inlet where the iron society had tethered its horses the night before. little foot jiang,granddad, and father were tied to the tree nearest the bank. big tooth yu’s grave mound laybeneath a solitary tree alongside the inlet. the white water lilies had risen with the water level,their new leaves floating on the surface. cracks appeared in the dense layer of duckweed toreveal ribbons of green water disturbed by swimming frogs. on the other side of the bare villagewall, father saw yesterday’s scars on today’s fields; the massacred fragments of the funeralprocession lay on the road like a gigantic python. several leng- detachment soldiers werechopping up the bodies of dead horses, the stench of dark-red blood permeating the chilly air.

hearing a sigh from little foot jiang, father spun his head around and watched as the twocommanders exchanged looks of misery, four listless eyes beneath lids heavy with exhaustion.

the wound on granddad’s shoulder had begun to fester, and the putrid smell drew red horsefliesthat had been feasting on the decaying corpses of donkeys and men; the bandage on little footjiang’s foot had unravelled and was hanging around his ankle like a strip of sausage casing.

trickles of black blood oozed from the spot where granddad had shot him.

it seemed to father that both granddad and little foot jiang were trying to say something, butnot a word was spoken. he sighed and turned to gaze out over the broad black plain, shrouded ina milky-white mist.

more than eighty soldiers from the jiao-gao regiment and the iron society were tied to trees.

one of granddad’s men was sobbing, and the jiao-gao soldier next to him nudged him with hisshoulder: ‘don’t cry, brother- in- law. sooner or later we’ll get our revenge against zhangzhuxi!’

the old iron society soldier wiped his filthy face on his filthy clothes. ‘i’m not crying overyour sister! she’s dead, and all the tears in the world won’t bring her back. i’m crying for us.

you and i are kin from neighbouring villages who saw each other every time we looked up, sohow did things turn out like this? i’m crying for your nephew, my son, silver ingot. he was onlyeighteen when he followed me into the iron society so he could avenge your sister. but before hetasted revenge your men killed him. he was on his knees, but you bayoneted him anyway! youmean, cold-blooded bastards! don’t you have sons of your own?’

the old iron society soldier’s tears were burned dry by flames of anger. he roared at theragged jiao-gao soldiers, ‘swine! you should have been out there fighting the japanese. or theiryellow puppets! why did you turn your weapons on the iron society! you lousy traitors! youforeign lackeys?.?.?.’

‘don’t go too far, brother-in-law,’ the jiao-gao soldier cautioned.

‘who are you calling brother-in-law? did you remember you had a brother-in-law when youwere throwing your damned grenades at your own nephew?’

‘all you see is one side, old man!’ yelled one of the jiao-gao officers. ‘if your iron societyhadn’t kidnapped little foot jiang and demanded a ransom of a hundred rifles, we’d have had noreason to fight you. we needed the weapons to attack the japanese, to give us a chance on thebattlefield, to propel us into the vanguard of the resistance!’

father, whose voice was changing, felt compelled to enter the fray: ‘you started it by stealingthe guns we’d hidden in the well,’ he said in a raspy squeak. ‘we kidnapped him because youstole the dog pelts we’d hung on the walls to dry!’

he coughed up a gob of phlegm angrily and tried to spit it in the face of the jiao-gao officer,but it missed its mark and landed on the forehead of a tall, slightly hunchbacked iron societysoldier, who lashed out as though he’d been shot: ‘douguan, fuck your living mother!’

the prisoners laughed, even though their aching arms were turning numb from the ropes andtheir future was clouded.

but granddad just sneered and said, ‘what the hell are you arguing about? we’re all a bunchof whipped soldiers.’

while the sound of granddad’s words still hung in the air, little foot jiang, his face the colourof ashes, fell to the ground. blood and pus oozed from his injured foot, which had swollen to thesize of a winter melon. the jiao-gao soldiers, held back by the ropes around them, could onlylook helplessly at their unconscious commander.

just then the dapper detachment leader leng strode out of his tent to join his men ininspecting the hundreds of rifles and two cases of wooden-handled grenades they’d capturedfrom the iron society and the jiao-gao regiment. twirling his whip, he walked smugly towardsthe prisoners. father heard the sound of heavy breathing behind him, and he could picture theangry look on granddad’s face. the corners of detachment leader leng’s mouth curled upward,and the fine wrinkles about his cheeks wriggled like little snakes.

‘have you thought about what i’m going to do with you, commander yu?’ he asked with agiggle.

‘that’s up to you!’ granddad replied.

‘it would be a waste of a good man to kill him. but if i don’t, you might kidnap me againsomeday!’

‘killing me won’t close my eyes!’

with a swift kick, father sent a road apple flying into detachment leader leng’s chest.

leng raised his whip, then let it drop. ‘i hear this little bastard only has one nut. somebodycome over here and cut off the other one! that’ll keep him from biting and kicking!’

‘he’s just a boy, old leng,’ granddad said. ‘whatever you want to do you can do to me.’

‘just a boy? the little bastard’s got more fight in him than a wolf cub!’

little foot jiang, who had regained consciousness, struggled to his feet.

‘commander jiang,’ detachment leader leng said, ‘what do you think i should do with you?’

‘killing me will only bring you trouble, detachment leader leng,’ commander jiang saidwith bold assurance, but with his face bathed in cold sweat. ‘the day will come when the peopleliquidate you for your monstrous crime of slaughtering noble fighters of the anti- japaneseresistance!’

‘you can pass the time here until i’ve had something to eat. i’ll deal with you then.’

the leng soldiers sat around eating horsemeat and drinking sorghum wine.

suddenly the sentry on the northern wall of the village fired a shot and ran into the village.

‘the japs are coming – the japs are coming!’

detachment leader leng grabbed the sentry’s sleeve and asked angrily, ‘how many japs? arethey real japs or lackeys?’

‘i think they’re lackeys. their uniforms are yellow. a whole line of yellow, running towardsthe village at a crouch.’

‘lackeys? kill the sons of bitches. company commander qi, take your men up to the wall,and hurry!’ he ordered.

then he turned to two guards with machine guns. ‘keep an eye on them,’ he commanded.

‘pop ’em if they act up!’ surrounded by his bodyguards, he ran at a crouch towards the northernedge of the village.

less than a quarter of an hour later, fighting broke out. the opening salvos of rifle fire werefollowed by machine-gun fire, and before long the air was filled with the shrieks of incomingprojectiles that exploded in the village, sending shrapnel slamming into the village wall and thetrunks of trees. amid the din of shouting came the jiligulu of a foreign tongue.

it was real japs after all, not lackeys. detachment leader leng and his troops put up astubborn defence, but abandoned their positions after half an hour of fighting and fell back to thecover of toppled walls.

japanese artillery shells were already falling into the inlet. the anxious jiao-gao and ironsociety soldiers stomped their feet and ducked their heads. ‘untie us!’ they bellowed angrily.

‘fuck your living mothers! untie us! if you came out of chinese pricks, untie us. if you came outof japanese pricks, then kill us!’

the guards ran to the stack of rifles and picked up two swords, with which they cut theirprisoners’ ropes.

eighty soldiers ran like madmen to the stack of rifles and the pile of hand grenades; then,ignoring the numbness of their arms and the hunger in their bellies, they charged the japanese,yelling wildly as they ran straight into a hail of lead.

several dozen columns of smoke rose from the village wall following the explosions of thefirst salvo of hand grenades thrown by the jiao-gao and iron society soldiers.