The Chinese staff lieutenant led him into a small room. What furniture there was seemed comfortable. If this building had been a factory, the furniture probably came from the office of the Japanese or European manager. There was a polished desk and a matching executive chair, and a smaller chair with somewhat lowered seat facing it. Behind the large chair were three lithographs of equal size, Stalin, Lenin, and Mao Tze-tung, all idealized, with compassionate expressions on their faces, as if they were about to give a blessing. Covering most of one wall was an operations map, with the Chinese and North Korean formations marked in red, and the United Nations outfits in blue, just like the maps on the other side of the line. There was a steel safe, and atop the safe a tray with bottles and glasses and a decanter. “You will please sit down here,” said the young officer, indicating a chair.
“Thanks,” Couzens said. He relaxed in its comfort, the nerves of his legs jumping pleasantly. The Chinese officer left. Couzens thought it curious that they would leave a prisoner unguarded, but there was probably a guy with a burp gun just outside the door, and besides there was no place to go, even if he could jump out of the window, and there wasn’t any window. The room’s light irritated him. A large bare bulb, behind the chair opposite, was reflected directly into his eyes. He realized that whoever occupied that chair could observe every muscle twitch in his face, while the interrogator’s own face would be shadowed, and they would have him at a disadvantage. Couzens shifted his chair quietly towards the end of the desk, changed its angle, and the glare wasn’t so bad.
The door opened and a man came in. He was a stocky man, in his middle forties, his ivory face unlined. His thinning hair was freshly clipped close to his head. Heavy, steel-rimmed glasses enlarged his eyes, and endowed his round face with an expression of naïveté. He wore a dark blue woolen uniform of excellent cut, the tunic buttoned high on the throat. Couzens had never seen a Chinese uniform, or any uniform, like that before. He wore one decoration, a small red star of shining porcelain. As he closed the door behind him Couzens rose, which was correct military courtesy, but he didn’t know whether to salute or not. The round man stepped towards him and held out his hand, and it was then Couzens decided to salute. He certainly couldn’t shake hands.
The man returned the salute, casually, and said, “Do take off that heavy coat, lieutenant. You’ll find it uncomfortable in here.” He pronounced it “left’nant,” in the British manner.
Couzens took off his coat, and found a hook for it. It was a relief.
“Now,” the round man said. “Have you eaten?”
“I ate on the way,” Couzens said, the memory of his degradation acid in his mouth.
“Doesn’t appear that you enjoyed it much,” said the round man, perceptive. “Well, our field rations are quite spartan, compared with yours, as you know. We aren’t so rich.” He smiled, but as if nothing were funny, and then he looked at Couzens’ chair, and carefully placed it back where it had been, in the full glare of the light. “Please be seated, lieutenant.”
Couzens sat down and waited, and the round man took the chair behind the desk, adjusted his bottom until he was perfectly comfortable, folded his soft, clean hands over his middle, and said, “I’m Colonel Chu. I’m political officer for the Fourth Field Army.”
“I’m Raleigh Couzens, lieutenant, United States Marine Corps. Number O-7980655.”
Colonel Chu tilted his head, and smiled, and this time he really seemed amused. “Name, rank, serial number. Oh, I say, you Americans should be able to do better than that!”
Couzens didn’t say anything.
“You don’t have to worry, lieutenant. I’m not going to ask you about the disposition of your forces, or how to make an atom bomb, or anything military whatsoever. I just simply wanted to have a chat with a Marine. Remarkable force. Remarkable tradition.”
“That’s very nice of you,” said Raleigh Couzens, glad that he knew practically nothing about the strategic situation. He was certain that this was a polite prelude to torture, and he wasn’t at all certain how he would behave under torture. It was fortunate that he had nothing to tell.
Colonel Chu swiveled his chair. “If you look at that map, you will see there is nothing about your army that we do not know.”
Couzens inspected the map, and shivered inside. Couzens didn’t know much about the positions and deployment of the United Nations units and headquarters, but everything he knew for sure was accurate on the map. They had the CP’s of the three Marine regiments pin-pointed, and there was a neat blue circle around Ko-Bong, with red arrows thrusting into it from two directions. The Division’s line of communications and supply from Wonsan was accurately plotted. The vulnerable territory between Ten Corps and Eighth Army, held by shaky South Koreans, was indicated, and this territory was split by a broad red arrow. Also on the map were secret things, like headquarters of the Joint Tactical Air Staff way back at Taegu. And there were things of which he had not even heard scuttlebutt, like the commitment of the Turkish Brigade, the Twenty-seventh Anglo-Australian Brigade, and the British Twenty-ninth Brigade to plug the breakthrough. Raleigh Couzens kept silent.
“You see, old chap,” said Colonel Chu, “there’s hardly anything you could tell me.”
Couzens remembered a story of how German interrogators pumped captured American fliers during the last war. They’d convince a man they knew everything. They’d tell him the name of his group commander, and his squadron commander, and the date his outfit left the States, and how many aircraft it had lost since. And when the American was satisfied the Germans knew everything anyway, then he’d talk freely, and perhaps supply one small bit of information that the Germans had despaired of ever getting. So Couzens didn’t say anything.
“We have a saying,” Colonel Chu continued patiently, “a proverb written by our leader, Mao Tze-tung. You have heard of him, lieutenant?”
“Of course.”
“Our leader wrote a poem which has become famous. ‘Know enemy, know yourself. A hundred battles, a hundred victories.’ Good, what?”
“Pretty smart,” Couzens admitted.
This answer seemed to please Colonel Chu. He opened the top drawer of the desk and brought out a package of Luckies. “Smoke, lieutenant?”
“Thanks very much.”
The colonel lit one for himself. “We are well supplied. You Americans are really a remarkable people. You produce enough not only for yourself and your allies, but for your enemies too. Ha-ha. Not that we are enemies, actually. Not the people of China and the people of the United States. We have the same objective, actually, to remove from our backs the weight of the capitalists and the imperialists who would destroy us. Now, it is obvious that we have much in common, you and I. We enjoy good food, good drink, a Lucky Strike, and all these things we can have in abundance if we have peace. And you can go home to your wife. By the way, where is your home, lieutenant?”
“Mandarin, Florida.”
“Florida.” Couzens could see that Colonel Chu was mentally assembling a map of the United States. “Florida. One of the southern states, right?”
“The most southern.” Couzens meant geographically.
“My word!” The colonel sat upright and stared at Couzens, fascinated, like a naturalist who has turned up a rare grub. “Tell me, lieutenant, have you ever lynched a Negro?”
Couzens was astonished. “Lynched a Nigra! Man, are you nuts?”
“Oh, come now. You must at least have witnessed a lynching.”