The men of the Sima Battalion rushed the door like a tidal wave, their hard bodies knocking us out of the way. I fell, and Mother fell on top of me.
Chaos reigned in the mill house – wails, shouts, and screams all merged together. As men of the 16th Regiment were sent tumbling, Sima Battalion soldiers grabbed their weapons and bullets began to fly, shattering glass. Platoon Leader Ma was knocked into the ditch, where he cut loose with his tommy gun, sending ten or more Sima Battalion troops crumpling to the ground like toy soldiers. Their comrades rushed him, pushed him down into the water, where they punched and kicked him ferociously, sending sprays of water everywhere.
Units of the 16th Regiment came running down the street, shouting and firing their weapons. Sima Battalion soldiers scattered, but were cut down by a merciless fusillade.
In the midst of all this activity, we flattened our backs against the mill house wall and pushed away everyone who came close to us.
An old 16th Regiment soldier fell to one knee beneath a poplar tree, held his rifle in both hands, closed one eye, and took aim. The rifle jerked upward, and a Sima Battalion soldier fell. More shots were fired, the spent cartridges falling into the water, where they sizzled and created steamy bubbles. The old soldier aimed again, this time at a big, swarthy soldier who had already run several hundred yards to the south. He was hopping through a bean field like a kangaroo, heading toward the bordering sorghum field. The old soldier unhurriedly pulled off another round, the crack hanging in the air when the runner fell head over heels in the field. The old soldier pulled back the bolt of his rifle, ejecting a shiny cartridge that arched end over end in the air.
Amid all that was going on, Babbitt caught my eye. He was like a brainless mule in a herd of sheep. With animals baaing all around him, he pushed and shoved, eyes big as saucers, clomped through the mud with heavy hooves, kicking the sheep out of his way as he went. Speechless Sun was like an ebony tiger, swishing his sword over his head as he led a dozen fearless swordsmen to block the sheep’s way. Heads rolled, bloodcurdling screams blanketed the wilderness. Surviving sheep turned to run, seemingly lost, trying to escape any way they could. Babbitt froze and cast blank looks all around. He came to his senses as the mute charged him, and he bolted toward us as fast as he could run, gasping for breath, white foam filling the corners of his mouth. The old soldier took aim at him.
“Old Cao, hold your fire!” Lu Liren shouted as he bounded out of the crowd. “Comrades, don’t shoot that American!”
The men of the 16th Regiment formed a human net, closing ranks as they drew nearer. The prisoners were still trying to get away, but they were like fish caught in the net, and before long they had all been herded onto the street in front of the mill house.
The mute charged into the gang of prisoners and drove his fist into Babbitt’s shoulder, the force of the blow spinning him in a complete circle. Face-to-face with the mute again, he babbled something in his own language, which could have been loud curses and could have been a highly vocal protest. The mute raised his sword, which glinted in the sunlight. Babbitt raised his arms, as if to ward off the cold shards of light.
“Babbitt -” Sixth Sister jumped up from beside Mother and stumbled forward. But she fell before she’d taken more than a few steps, her left foot sticking out from under her right leg as she lay in the putrid mud.
“Somebody grab Speechless Sun!” Lu Liren commanded. Members of the mute’s fearless squad grabbed his arm. Savage grunts tore from his throat as he lifted the soldiers holding him into the air like rag dolls. Jumping across the ditch, Lu Liren raised his arm. “Speechless Sun,” he called out, “remember the policy on prisoners!” Speechless Sun stopped struggling when he saw Lu Liren, and his comrades let go. He stuck his sword in his belt, reached out and grabbed Babbitt’s clothes with fingers like steel pincers, and dragged him away from the other prisoners, all the way up to where Lu Liren was standing. Babbitt said something to Lu Liren in his foreign tongue. Lu Liren responded briefly in the same language, punctuated by slashing gestures. Babbitt quieted down. Sixth Sister reached out to him and moaned, “Babbitt…"
Babbitt leaped across the ditch and pulled Sixth Sister to her feet. Her left leg hung limp, as if dead, and he had to hold her up with his arm around her waist. Her filthy dress, which looked like a wrinkled onionskin, crept up as her pale buttocks began slipping toward the ground. She hung on to Babbitt’s neck, who hooked his arms under her armpits. The two of them, husband and wife, were standing – sort of. When Babbitt’s sad blue eyes fell on Mother, he hobbled toward her, carrying Sixth Sister, who could no longer walk. “Mama,” he said in Chinese, his lips quivering, large tears creeping out of his eyes.
Water sluiced down the ditch as Platoon Leader Ma shoved the corpse of a Sima Battalion soldier off of him and climbed slowly to his feet, like a gigantic toad. His raincoat was spattered with water, blood, and mud, the patterns on a toad’s back. His legs were bent as he stood up, quaking fearfully, pitifully, sort of like a bear, if you didn’t look closely, but like a hero if you did. One of his eyes had been gouged out and hung alongside his nose like a shiny marble. Two of his front teeth were missing and blood dripped from his steely chin.
A soldier with a first-aid kit rushed up to keep him from falling. “Commander Shangguan, this man is badly wounded!” she shouted, her slight frame bent over by the weight of his body.
At that moment, Pandi, with all her bulk, came running over ahead of two porters with a stretcher. A tiny army cap sat atop her head, the brim sticking out above her broad, full face; only her ears, which poked out from under her pageboy, retained the delicate beauty of a Shangguan girl.
Without a moment’s hesitation, she jerked Platoon Leader Ma’s eye loose and tossed it away; it rolled around on the muddy ground for a moment before coming to rest and staring up at us hostilely. “Commander Shangguan,” Platoon Leader Ma said as he sat up on the stretcher and pointed at Mother. “Tell Battalion Commander Lu that this old lady broke down the gate…”
Pandi wrapped Platoon Leader Ma’s face in gauze, round and round until he couldn’t open his mouth. Then she stood in front of us and called out to Mother tentatively.
“I’m not your mother.”
“I told you once,” Pandi said, “that the river flows east for ten years and west the next ten. Look at the mud on your feet when you step out of the water.”
“I’ve seen it,” Mother said. “I’ve seen it all.”
Pandi said, “I know everything that’s happened in the family. You took good care of my daughter, Mother, so I absolve you of all guilt.”
“I don’t need your absolution. I’ve lived long enough.”
“We’ve taken back our land, all of it,” Pandi said.
Mother gazed up at the scattered clouds in the sky and muttered, “Lord, open Thine eyes and take a look at this world…”
Pandi walked up and, with no show of emotion, rubbed my head. I could smell the disagreeable odor of medicine on her hand. She didn’t rub Sima Liang’s head, and I assumed he wouldn’t have allowed her to. He was grinding his feral little teeth, and if she’d tried to rub his head, he’d probably have bitten her finger off. She smiled sarcastically as she turned to Sixth Sister. “You’ve done well. The American imperialists are supplying our enemies with airplanes and artillery. They’re helping our enemies slaughter people in the liberated areas.”
With her arms wrapped around Babbitt, Sixth Sister said, “Let us go, Fifth Sister. You’ve already killed Second Sister. Is it our turn next?”
At that moment, Sima Ku dragged the body of Zhaodi out of the mill house, laughing hysterically. Moments earlier, when his soldiers had made their mad dash out of the building, he had stayed behind. Known for his meticulous dress, the buttons of his tunic always clean and shiny, Sima Ku had changed overnight. His face was like a bean that had swelled up in the rain and then baked dry in the sun, crisscrossed with white wrinkles. His eyes were lifeless, the hair on his large head spotted with gray. He dragged Second Sister’s bloodless body up to Mother and fell to his knees.