“I’ve never even heard of a lynching in Florida,” Couzens said truthfully. “What d’you think Florida’s like? Ever been to Miami?”
“Well, perhaps you don’t personally know of such things,” Colonel Chu said. “No doubt news of such incidents is suppressed by your capitalistic papers. But the world knows of them. Asia knows. In a way, lieutenant—and now I speak as a professional in political warfare—you southerners have been our allies. Frankly, your treatment of the Negro has been our most consistent weapon. The lynching of a Negro, or any report of persecution, in—we won’t say Florida—we’ll say Georgia or Alabama—may be of no consequence to you, but to all with skin like mine it is the most important news of the day. It is flash news in Saigon and Singapore and Mukden and, yes, I should think even Tokyo. The Japanese have not forgotten your Exclusion Act.”
Couzens was silent. He was thinking. He was learning something.
“There are lynchings in the southern states, are there not?”
Couzens didn’t think much of his chances of getting out of this building alive, in any event, so he might as well speak his mind. If the commissar wanted a debate, he’d get one. “Yes, there have been lynchings,” he admitted. “But they don’t happen often any more, and they don’t go unpunished. Decent people deplore them—just as you must deplore the murder of your countrymen who don’t agree with you politically, Colonel Chu.”
Colonel Chu’s eyes were round and surprised behind his thick lenses. “Oh, my dear chap! Those are not murders! We simply execute enemies of the people.”
“Oh, I see,” said Couzens.
“Why, of course. It is an entirely different matter.”
“Natch.”
“What’s that?”
“Natch, for naturally.”
“I’ve always had trouble understanding your Americanisms. I’ve met quite a few Americans, you know, in Shanghai and Singapore. Haughty lot. Arrogant.”
“So I’ve heard,” said Couzens. “A buck goes a long way in those places, and they have more servants, and liquor, and women than they ever knew existed back home, and it inflates ’em. They become Big Time Operators. But you’ve never been in America, have you? Or England, either?”
Colonel Chu wriggled uncomfortably. It was not usual, or fitting, that a prisoner question the interrogator. Nevertheless he decided to answer, because the Marine was talking freely, and might yet confess something of real value. In the colonel’s safe were coded cables from Peking for any prisoner interviews that would show deterioration of morale among the Americans, and particularly in the American elite units, such as the Marines. The interviews would be valuable, not only for Peking’s propaganda, but for Radio Moscow. There was a large party in America which wished to abandon Korea, the cables explained, and this movement would be accelerated if it could be shown that American troops were demoralized, and out of sympathy with the war.
“Well, no, not actually,” Colonel Chu replied to the question. “But I received part of my education at a British school in Hong Kong.”
“You speak English perfectly,” said Couzens.
The colonel inclined his head. “Thanks so very much. You are very flattering. And, in addition, I have read American books, and I have seen many American cinemas, which are most enlightening.”
“What books?” asked Couzens.
“Oh, I have read The Grapes of Wrath. Conditions are pretty dismal among your farmers and farm workers, aren’t they? And I’ve read God’s Little Acre, and some of the works of Jack London and Upton Sinclair.”
“And movies?”
“I’ve seen a great number of them. Some in Yenan, and some in Peking. In Peking on several occasions I was privileged to attend the cinema with our leader.”
“Yes, but what movies did you see?”
The colonel squirmed, impatient. “Oh, a good cross section, I should say. The gangsters and the cafes and the gambling casinos and the music hall shows and comedians and life in your West with the pistol fights.”
“You didn’t, by any chance, see Battleground, or The Sands of Iwo Jima, or The Best Years of Our Lives?”
“Are they new?”
“Not so new.”
“I haven’t heard of them. Your blockade, I fancy.”
“Well, Colonel Chu, you really ought to see them. Yes you ought. That is, if you want to really know your enemy.”
Colonel Chu considered that he had wasted enough time. Either this arrogant young man would answer the questions in the desired way, or he would not, and he would be sent to rot in the stockade. It would be best to lubricate his tongue. “Have a spot with me?” the colonel asked, rising. “Scotch or bourbon?”
“Scotch,” said Couzens.
“How is it,” the colonel inquired as he poured the drinks, “that bourbon is supposed to be the American drink, but whenever you Americans have your choice, you usually take Scotch?”
Couzens started to tell the colonel that he had been living in the same shipboard cabin, or foxhole, or tent, with Mackenzie’s bottle of Scotch for months, and that Scotch had become an obsession with him. But he decided not even to say the word, Mackenzie, or Dog Company, because that might be information for the enemy. Instead he said, “Scotch is more expensive.”
“Do you Americans evaluate everything by money?” said the colonel.
“Since when have the Chinese been adverse to money?” Couzens said, grinning. “I always thought your wars were won with silver bullets.”
“Chiang’s way,” said Colonel Chu. “Not ours. This war of the People’s Liberation Armies will be won by lead, and blood.”
“How about uranium?” asked Couzens innocently.
“Perhaps uranium too,” said the colonel, his face dark under its smooth ivory texture.
Couzens noticed that his drink was stronger than a drink of Scotch should be, and he figured that Colonel Chu was trying to get him tight, and worm from him some fact. If the commissar wanted to try to get him tight on Scotch, that was all right with Couzens. This was the first drink of Scotch he’d had since they left the States. And the colonel was unaware of a flaw in Couzens’ constitution. Couzens couldn’t hold much whiskey. It made him sleepy, and he was sure he would pass out long before he said anything of value to the enemy.
Colonel Chu brought out a pad, and a long pen with wide point. “Now,” he said, “there are a few questions. None of them military, you understand, lieutenant. Just things I’d like to know personally. I’m always interested in you young Americans. It’s always strange to me that a country so obviously degenerate can produce, on occasion such fine, frank young men.”
“Proceed,” said Raleigh Couzens, taking another pull at his drink.
“Firstly, I wish to put a broad question. What do you think of this war?”
“It stinks.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“It stinks. It’s unbelievable that America should be fighting China. You’re our traditional friends in the East. You ought to know better.”
Colonel Chu made a note in his pad. It was brief. “But we’re not fighting America. America is fighting us.”
Couzens shook his head. “No. America is fighting Russia. The Russians don’t have the guts to fight us, man to man, bomb for bomb, so they send you against us. Ever think of that, colonel?”
“Ridiculous. The aims of the Chinese People’s Republic and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics are the same, and identical. We fight for the liberation of all oppressed peoples, including those in the United States.”
“We don’t feel oppressed.”
“You are oppressed, although perhaps you don’t know it. You have been hypnotized, drugged by material things. You’re fighting for washing machines and television wireless and Coca-Cola and Standard Oil and Buicks.”