8

pocky cheng was finally set free by the japs after leading them to all the village sandalworkshops, each of which they blew up. ‘are there any more?’ chestnut wool cap asked sternly.

‘no,’ he asserted, ‘honest, there aren’t.’

chestnut wool cap looked over at the japanese, who nodded. ‘get the hell out of here!’ hesaid, cheng backed up a dozen or so steps, bowing and scraping, then nodding over and over, ashe spun around to get out of there as fast as his legs would carry him. but they were so rubbery,and his heart was pounding so hard, that he froze on the spot. the bayonet wound in his chestthrobbed, and the mess in his crotch had turned sticky and cold. as he leaned against a tree tocatch his breath, he heard ghostly sobs and screams from the houses around him. his legsbuckled as he slid to the ground, his back scraping the dry, brittle bark of the tree. clouds ofsmoke filled the sky above the village, the residue of exploding hand grenades, i suppose.

after lobbing hundreds of black muskmelon grenades through overhead windows and doors,the japanese encircled the sandal workshops while muted explosions tore them apart, making theground tremble as thick smoke rose from the windows, accompanied by the pitiful screams ofthose who had survived the blasts. the japanese soldiers then stuffed straw into the windows,muting the shrieks inside until you had to strain to hear them. with pocky cheng as their guide,the japanese blew up twelve workshops. he knew that three-fourths of the village men madestraw sandals and slept in those workshops, so there was little chance any of them could havesurvived. the enormity of his crime hit him suddenly. without his lead, the japanese wouldnever have found the workshop in the remote corner of the eastern section of the village; it wasone of the biggest, employing twenty or thirty men, who spent their nights there weaving sandalsand joking with one another. the japanese lobbed over forty grenades into that workshop alone,blasting the roof off the building, which, following the last explosion, became a flattenedgraveyard. a single willow pole that had supported the roof stood alone in the mud like a riflebarrel pointing to the crimson sky.

he was afraid. he was racked with guilt. all around, familiar, newly dead faces denouncedhim. he began to defend himself: the japs forced me at bayonet-point. if i hadn’t led the way,they’d have found the workshops on their own. the murdered villagers glanced at one another instupefaction, then left quietly. as he gazed at their mangled bodies, he felt like a man soaking inan icy pool, freezing inside and out.

after dragging himself home, pocky cheng discovered his beautiful wife and thirteen-year-olddaughter lying in the yard, naked, their intestines spread out around them. everything turnedblack, and he keeled over. he felt dead one minute, alive the next. he was running aftersomething, heading southwest. a red oval cloud floated in the rosy southwest sky, where hiswife, his daughter, and hordes of villagers were standing, men and women, young and old. heran as though his feet had wings, chasing the slow-moving cloud, his face raised skyward. thepeople in the cloud spat at him, even his wife and daughter. he hastily defended himself, but thespittle continued to rain down on him. he watched the cloud rise higher and higher in the sky,until it turned into a bright, blood-red dot.

for his beautiful, fair- skinned young wife, marrying a man with pockmarks had been adisgrace. but at the village inn he played his woodwind every night, making it weep and cry, andnearly breaking her heart. it was his woodwind she’d married. over and over he played it, untilshe grew tired of it; and his pocked face, which had repulsed her from the very beginning, nowbecame unbearable. so she ran off with a fabric peddlar, but pocky cheng went after her anddragged her back spanking her until her buttocks were swollen and puffy: a battered wife,kneaded dough. from then on, she put her heart and soul into domesticity. first she had a littlegirl, then a little boy, who was now eight. regaining his senses, pocky went looking for the boy,and found him, stuffed in the water vat, head down, feet up, his body as rigid as a pole.

pocky cheng tied a rope to the top of the door frame, made a noose in the end, then stood on astool, stuck his head through the noose, and kicked the stool out from under himself. a teenageboy happening on him reached up with his knife and cut the rope in two. pocky cheng crashed tothe ground.

‘uncle pocky!’ the boy fumed. ‘haven’t the japanese killed enough of us? why do their jobfor them? you can’t get revenge unless you’re alive!’

pocky cheng complained tearfully to the boy, ‘chunsheng, your auntie, little orchid, littlepillar, they’re all dead. my whole family’s gone!’

chunsheng walked into the yard, knife in hand, and when he returned his face was as white asa sheet and his eyes were red. ‘uncle,’ he said as he helped pocky cheng to his feet, ‘let’s jointhe jiao-gao regiment! they’re at the village of two counties recruiting soldiers and buyinghorses right now.’

‘but my house, my belongings?’ pocky cheng said.

‘you crazy old man! you just tried to hang yourself. who’d have got your house andbelongings then? let’s go!’

it was especially cold in the early spring of 1940. all the villages in northeast gaomi townshiplay in ruins. those who had survived were like marmots in burrows. the powerful jiao-gaoregiment was beset by the miseries of hunger and cold. from commander to common foot-soldier, the gaunt, thin men all shivered in their unlined jackets. after making camp in a tinyvillage not far from saltwater gap, they lay atop the battered wall when the sun came out, to picklice off their bodies and soak up the midday heat. all day long they conserved their energy; then,at night, they nearly froze in the cold. they were afraid that if they weren’t killed by the japs theweather would do them in.

pocky cheng was their most fearless fighter, a lionhearted man who had earned the completetrust of the commander, little foot jiang. hand grenades were his weapons of choice. in battlehe would rush to the front line, close his eyes, and hurl one grenade after another at the enemy.

even if they were only six or seven yards away, he refused to take cover; yet, strange as itsounds, with shrapnel flying around him like locusts, he was never hit.

commander jiang called a meeting of officers to grapple with the problems of cold andhunger. pocky cheng rashly burst in on them, a stern look on his face. ‘what do you think weshould do, old cheng?’ little foot jiang asked him.

pocky cheng held his tongue.

a bookish squad leader volunteered, ‘holing up here in northeast gaomi township is thesame as waiting to die. we should go to the cotton factories in southern jiao county to get someclothes. and since there’s plenty of yams there, food won’t be a problem, either.’

commander jiang took a mimeographed newspaper from his shirt and said, ‘according tonews reports, the situation in southern jiao is grimmer than here. the rail brigade was wiped outby the japanese. by comparison, northeast gaomi township is ideal for guerrilla activity. theland is broad, the villages are few and far between, and the japanese and their puppet troops areweaker here. since most of last year’s sorghum crop hasn’t been harvested, we have more placesto hide. all we have to do is solve the problems of food and clothing. the chance to attack theenemy will come as long as we stick it out.’

a gaunt-faced officer said, ‘where are we going to find any cloth? or cotton wadding? orfood? except for sorghum that’s sprouting buds, we’ve got nothing to eat. and that alone couldwind up killing us! i say we pretend to surrender to the puppet-regiment commander, zhangzhuxi. that way, we could get our hands on some lined clothes and stock up on ammo, then pullout.’

the bookish squad leader jumped angrily to his feet. ‘you want us to become a bunch oftraitors?’

the officer defended himself: ‘who asked you to become a traitor? i said pretend to surrender!

back in the three kingdoms period, that’s what jiang wei did, and so did huang gai!’

‘we’re resistance fighters. we don’t bow our heads when we’re starving, and we don’t bendour knees when we’re freezing. anybody who wants to give allegiance to the invader and cast offhis moral courage will do so over my dead body!’

not to be intimidated, the other officer said, ‘is the mission of resistance fighters to starve orfreeze? no, we must be flexible and resourceful. tolerance must be one of our stratagems. theonly way we’ll win this war of resistance is by conserving our strength.’

‘comrades,’ commander jiang said, ‘that’s enough bickering. if you have something to say,take your turn.’

‘i’ve got a plan, commander,’ pocky cheng spoke up.

when little foot jiang heard pocky cheng’s plan, he rubbed his hands in delight andcomplimented him profusely.

on the night when pocky cheng’s plan was implemented by the jiao-gao regiment, they ranoff with over a hundred dogskins my father and granddad had nailed to the crumbling villagewalls, and stole the rifles granddad had hidden in the dry well. having carried out this phase oftheir plan, they went out to hunt dogs for some needed nutrition, as well as the warmth of theskins.

that spring, as a freezing cold settled over the land, there appeared in the broad expanse ofnortheast gaomi township an army of intrepid ‘dog soldiers’ who fought a dozen or morebattles, major and minor, with the japanese and their puppets. that included zhang zhuxi’stwenty-eighth battalion, who trembled in their boots whenever they heard the barking of dogs.

the first battle occurred on the second day of the second month, by the old calendar – the day,according to legend, when the dragon raises its head. the jiao-gao regiment, dogskins drapedover their shoulders and rifles in their hands, slipped into ma family hamlet, where theysurrounded the ninth company of zhang zhuxi’s twenty- eighth battalion and a squad ofjapanese soldiers. the enemy’s headquarters was in ma family hamlet’s onetime elementaryschool, which consisted of four rows of blue-tiled buildings surrounded by a high wall of bluebricks and barbed wire.

the commander of the puppet ninth company was a brutal man from northeast gaomi with adeceptively gentle smile. since the onset of winter, he had begun a campaign to accumulatebricks, stones, and lumber to build new quarters for his company. as a result, his personal worth,all of it ill-gotten, increased dramatically. the locals despised him.

ma family hamlet was in the northwest corner of jiao county, bordering on northeast gaomitownship, about thirty li from the jiao-gao regiment headquarters. the two hundred jiao-gaosoldiers waited until nightfall to set out from the village, dogskins draped over their shoulders,fur on the outside, tails dragging between their legs, and the multicoloured fur shining brightly inthe fading sunlight. it was a beautiful, bizarre army of underworld demons on the march.

their commander, little foot jiang, wore a huge red dogskin – it had to have been red, thedog from our family – and as he walked at the head of his troops, the fur on his pelt waved in thewind. the bag hanging over pocky cheng’s chest was stuffed with twenty-eight hand grenades.

cold stars filled the night sky when they slipped into ma family hamlet. a couple of dogsbarked in friendly welcome, and a mischievous young soldier answered them in kind. an orderfrom the front swept through their ranks: no more barking! no barking! no barking!

they took up positions a hundred yards outside the main gate, where bricks and rocks werepiled in readiness for springtime construction.

‘pocky,’ little foot jiang said to pocky cheng, who was sticking close to him, ‘let’s getmoving!’

‘number six, chunsheng, you two follow me,’ pocky whispered.

he removed the bag of hand grenades to lighten his load. after tucking one grenade in hiswaistband, he handed the bag to a tall soldier and said, ‘when we’ve made it to the gate, bringthis to me.’

with stars spreading their weak light over the ground and a dozen or so lit carriage lanternshanging from the barracks, it looked like dusk in the compound. two puppet sentries patrolledthe gateway, casting long shadows on the ground. an ageing black dog ran out from behind thepiles of bricks and stones, followed by a white dog, then a spotted one. they snarled and rolledon the ground, their profiles merging as they approached the gateway. in the shadows of awoodpile no more than a dozen paces from the gate, the dogfight turned nasty. from a distance itlooked like three mutts fighting over a choice morsel of food.

commander little foot jiang watched the masterful performance conceived by pocky cheng,and was reminded of the benumbed, cowardly man who had shown up to join the army,snivelling at the drop of a hat, like a useless old woman. pocky and his comrades continued theirdogfight ruse in the shadows as the distracted sentries stood shoulder to shoulder and listened.

one picked up a rock and threw it at the dogs. ‘mangy damned mutts!’

pocky cheng yelped like a dog hit by a rock, and commander jiang had to stifle a laugh, itsounded so much like the real thing. the jiao-gao soldiers had been practising their barkingsince the assault plan for ma family hamlet was first drawn up. pocky cheng, a peking-operabuff and woodwind player, had wonderful breath control and a loud, booming voice, not tomention a lively tongue; he easily became the regiment’s champion ‘dog’.

growing impatient, the sentries moved cautiously up to the woodpile, where the dogs werereally getting into it. rifles ready, bayonets fixed, they were only three or four steps from thewoodpile when the dogs stopped barking and began to whine, as though afraid.

the sentries advanced another slow, cautious step.

pocky cheng, number six, and chunsheng jumped up, fur shimmering in the dim yellowglow, and charged the sentries like bolts of lightning. pocky cheng smashed his grenade downon the head of one; number six and chunsheng buried their bayonets in the other’s chest. bothcrashed to the ground like sacks of cement.

the jiao-gao soldiers looked like a frenzied pack of dogs as they charged the enemy barracks.

pocky cheng, who had retrieved his bag of hand grenades, ran like a madman towards the tiledbuildings.

rifle fire, exploding grenades, shouts, and the screams of japs and their puppet allies shatteredthe winter calm at ma family hamlet. the local dogs were barking like crazy.

pocky cheng lobbed twenty grenades into a window, and the pathetic cries of the japaneseinside reminded him of the day years earlier when they had hurled their grenades into the sandalworkshops. but instead of satisfying his sense of vengeance, this re-enacted scene caused himsuch anguish that his heart felt as though it were being sliced open.

this was the most intense battle fought by the jiao-gao regiment since its formation, and itended with the most brilliant and complete victory anywhere in the binhai region, for which aspecial committee bestowed a commendation upon the entire regiment. the dog soldiers werecaught up in wild joy, until two occurrences caused them great distress: first, the store ofweapons and ammunition that fell into their hands after the battle was allocated to the binhaiindependent battalion. commander jiang knew that the special committee’s decision was theright one, but his soldiers grumbled with resentment, and when battalion soldiers came to collectthe weapons, looks of shame covered their faces. second, pocky cheng, who had sodistinguished himself in the battle at ma family hamlet, was found hanging from a tree at thehead of the village. all the evidence pointed to suicide. from the back he looked like a dog, butfrom the front a man.