“Why?” he asked again, more fiercely.
“He doesn’t know,” said another voice, also from the ground, and at the same time, another, still lower: “He’ll find out. ”
He had uttered the second question very loudly. The hesitancy of the crowd was terrifying-both in itself and because almost all these men knew him: the menace hanging over that wall weighed upon them all, but particularly upon him.
“Lie down again,” said one of the wounded.
Why did no one call him by his name? And why did the sentry not interfere? He had seen him, awhile ago, knock down one of the wounded with the butt of his gun, when he had tried to change places. He approached the last one who had spoken and lay down alongside of him.
“That’s where they put those who are to be tortured,” said the man in a low voice.
Katov understood. They all knew, but they had not dared to say it, either because they were afraid to speak of it, or because no one dared to speak to him about it. A voice had said: “He’ll find out. ”
The door opened. Soldiers entered with lanterns, surrounding stretcher-bearers who deposited several wounded, like packages, close to Katov. Night was corning on, it rose from the ground where the groans seemed to run into one another like rats, mingled with a frightful stench: most of the men could not move. The door shut.
Time passed. Nothing but the pacing of the sentries and the last gleam of the bayonets above the thousand sounds of suffering. Suddenly, as if the darkness had made the fog more dense, the locomotive whistle sounded, more muffled, as if from a great distance. One of the new arrivals, lying on his belly, tightened his hands over his ears, and screamed. The others did not cry out, but terror was there again, close to the ground.
The man raised his head, lifted himself up on his elbows.
“Scoundrels,” he screamed, “murderers!”
One of the sentries stepped forward, and with a kick in the ribs turned him over. He became silent. The sentry walked away. The wounded man began to mumble. It was too dark now for Katov to make out his features, but he heard his voice, he felt that he was becoming coherent. Yes-“. don’t shoot, they throw them alive into the boiler of the locomotive,” he was saying. “And now, they’re whistling. ” The sentry was approaching again. Silence, except for the pain.
The door opened again. More bayonets, now lighted up from below by a lantern, but no wounded. A Kuo- rnintang officer entered alone. Although he could no longer see anything but the bulk of the bodies, Katov could feel each man stiffening. The officer, over there, incorporeal, a shadow between the flickering light of the lantern and the twilight behind him, was giving orders to a sentry. The latter approached, sought Katov, found him. Without touching him, without saying a word, with respect, he simply made Katov a sign to get up. He got to his feet with difculty, faced the door, over there, where the officer continued to give orders. The soldier, with a gun on one arm, the lantern on the other, came and stood on his left. To his right, there was only the free space and the blank wall. The soldier pointed to the space with his gun. Katov smiled bitterly, with a despairing pride. But no one saw his face, and all those of the wounded who were not in the throes of death, followed him with their eyes. His shadow grew upon the waU of those who were to be tortured.
The officer went out. The door remained open.
The sentinels presented arms: a civilian entered. “Section A,” shouted a voice from without, and thereupon the door was shut. One of the sentinels led the civilian towards the wall, grumbling as he went; when he was quite close, Katov, with stupefaction, recognized Kyo. As he was not wounded, the sentinels upon seeing him arrive between two officers had taken him for one of the foreign counselors of Chiang Kai-shek; now recognizing their mistake, they were abusing him from a distance. He lay down in the shadow beside Katov.
“You know what’s ahead of us?” the latter asked. “They’ve been careful to advise me-l don’t care: I have my cyanide. Have you yours?”
“Yes.”
“Are you wounded?”
“In the legs. But I can walk.”
“Have you been here long?”
“No. When were you caught?”
“Last night. Any way of getting out of here?”
“Not a chance. Almost all are badly wounded. Soldiers everywhere outside. And you saw the machine- guns in front of the door?”
“Yes. Where did they get you?”
Both needed to get away from this death wake, to talk, to talk: Katov, of the taking of the Post; Kyo, of the prison, of his interview with KOnig, of what he had le^ed since; even before he reached the temporary prison, he had found out that May had not been arrested.
Katov was lying on his side, right beside him, separated from him by the vast expanse of suffering-mouth half-open, lips swollen under his jovial nose, his eyes almost shut-but joined to him by that absolute friendship, without reticence, which death alone gives: a doomed life fallen next to his in the darkness full of menaces and wounds, among all those brothers in the. mendicant order of the Revolution: each of these men had wildly seized as it stalked past him the only greatness that could be his.
The guards brought three Chinamen. Separated from the crowd of the wounded, but also from the men against the wall. They had been arrested before the fighting, summarily tried, and were now waiting to be shot. “Katov!” one of them called.
It was Lu Yu Hsiian, Hemmelrich’s associate.
“What?”
“Do you know if they’re shooting us far from here, or near by?”
“I don’t know. We can’t hear it, in any case.”
A voice said, a little beyond:
“Seems that the executioner, afterwards, pilfers your gold teeth.”
And another:
“I don’t give a damn. I haven’t any.”
The three Chinamen were smoking cigarettes, puffing away stubbornly.
“Have you several boxes of matches?” asked one of the wounded, a little farther away.
“Yes.”
“Throw me one.”
Lu threw his.
“I wish someone could tell my son that I died bravely,” he said in a low voice. And, even a little lower: “It is not easy to die.”
Katov discovered in himself a lusterless joy: no wife, no children.
The door opened.
“Send one out!” shouted the sentry.
The three men were pressing close to one another.
“Come on, now,” said the guard, “make up your minds. ”
He did not dare to make a choice. Suddenly, one of the two unknown Chinamen took a step forward, threw down his scarcely b^urn cigarette, lit another after breaking two matches and went off with a hurried step towards the door, buttoning as he went, one by one, all the buttons of his coat. The door again shut.
One of the wounded was picking up the broken matches. His neighbors had broken into small fragments those from the box Lu Yu Hsi.ian had given them, and were playing at drawing straws. In less than five minutes the door again opened:
“Another!”
Lu and his companion went forward together, holding each other by the arm. Lu was reciting in a loud voice, without resonance, the death of the hero in a
famous play; but the old Chinese solidarity was indeed destroyed: no one was listening.
“Which one?” asked the soldier.
They did not answer.
“Well, is one of you going to come?”
With a blow of his rifle-butt he separated them. Lu was nearer to him than the other; he took him by the shoulder.
Lu freed his shoulder, stepped forward. His companion returned to his place and lay down.
Kyo felt how much more difficult it would be for this one to die than for those who had preceded he remained alone. As brave as Lu, since he had stood up with him. But now his manner of lying on the ground, like a hunting-dog, his arms held tight around his body, loudly proclaimed fear. In fact, when the guard touched him, he was seized with a nervous attack. Two soldiers took hold of him, one by his feet, and the other by his head, and carried him out.