Then an explosion woke me. “What a catastrophe,” I muttered, shaking my head. I sat up, fumbling my feet into my shoes. I reached out for the floor lamp, then realized there was no electricity anymore — our college had a generator, but it hadn’t started producing power yet. Tears blurred my eyes as I stood and made for the door.
While I was plodding to the front gate, the eastern sky was already aglow with rust-colored clouds, and all was quiet on campus. Luhai greeted me and said that groups of Chinese soldiers had passed by, some begging for civilian clothes. The men at the gate had given them whatever they could spare.
Along the front wall were clumps of uniforms tossed over by the soldiers, and there were also some rifles, daggers, and cartridge belts. We gathered the clothes and set fire to the pile. As for the weapons, I told Luhai to drop them into the pond behind the Library Building.
When it was light, scores of neighbors appeared at the front entrance, begging the guards to let them in. Minnie went over and told them through the steel bars of the gate that since their homes were already within the Safety Zone, they would be safe and should give the space to the refugees who had no place to stay. The neighbors groused some more, then left unhappy. A few men who had offered to work started swearing, because we could use only two of them as water carriers. Jinling had its own well for tap water, but drinking water had to be delivered to the people who stayed in the open. By now the camp was full, with more than twenty-five hundred refugees.
On December 13, the day that the Japanese took full control of the city, the porridge plant, a doorless shanty about seventy feet long, was finally set up beside the sports ground. It sold porridge to those who could afford it, at three cents a bowl, but it also gave free meals to those without money. The refugees went to the food stands building by building, one group after another. Even so, at mealtimes, crowds swarmed there with bowls and mess tins in their hands. That outraged me, and I couldn’t help yelling at them. Breakfast lasted more than three hours, until half past ten. After that, the kitchen staff could take a breather for two hours and then would serve porridge again in the midafternoon. They provided two meals a day for the camp.
When breakfast was under way, many women washed laundry and toilet buckets at the four ponds on campus, mothers now and then calling to their children. A bunch of boys ran around as if eager to explore this new place, a few small girls following them. For the rest of the morning the camp was quiet, but around noon a clamor broke out at the front gate. “Japs, Japs are coming!” a boy hollered. Minnie and I went over and saw an officer slapping Luhai, and a soldier, rope in his hands, about to tie him up.
“Stop! Stop!” Minnie shouted, and hurried up to them. “He’s our employee.”
The squat lieutenant turned to her in amazement, saying something none of us could understand. He then motioned dismissively to the soldier behind him, and the man let Luhai go.
As the platoon of soldiers was moving away, a voice called out, “Save me, please!”
We rushed over and recognized Hu, the janitor of the Library Building, his arms clutched by two soldiers, one of them carrying Hu’s new serge parka in the crook of his elbow. Minnie grasped Hu’s belt from behind and forced the two soldiers to stop in their tracks. “He works for us,” she shouted at the stocky officer. “Coolie, coolie, you understand?” Her brown eyes were smoldering with rage. “You cannot arrest people without any charge.”
The officer looked at the Red Cross badge on her chest as though unable to make head or tail of it. Then he waved at the two soldiers, who released Hu.
“Save me too, Principal Vautrin!” another voice cried. That was from a boy named Fanshu, who was also being dragged away. He was struggling to break loose while still holding a basketball under his arm.
We ran toward Fanshu, but a soldier spun around and held out his rifle, its bayonet pointed at Minnie. She had no choice but to stand there watching them pull the boy away, together with three other Chinese men we didn’t know, though one of them looked strong, like a soldier. Fanshu worked for an old American couple who had just left town. He was supposed to stay and watch over their property, but he had snuck here to play basketball. He was merely fourteen, though tall and big for his age, so the Japanese caught him as a potential soldier.
“Thank you for rescuing me, Principal,” Hu said, bowing to Minnie and showing his splotched scalp. “I spent a whole year’s savings on that parka they robbed me of.”
“Damn them!” Minnie stamped the ground, puffs of dust jumping up around her feet. “Ban, Ban, where are you?”
“Here, I’m here.” Ban, a skinny boy of fifteen, who was our messenger, came over.
“Go tell Mr. Rabe that the Japanese took people from our college.”
“I don’t speak foreign words, Principal.”
“Mr. Han, his secretary, knows English. Let him translate for you. Ask them to come and help us stop the soldiers.”
Ban broke into a trot, sticking out his elbows as he ran, his police boots too big for him. He was short for his age, about five foot one. I wondered if it was wise to send him on the errand, but I didn’t share my misgivings. Even if Rabe was notified, what could he do? Such random arrests must have been happening everywhere in the city.
Around two p.m. Rulian arrived; she was nicknamed Lady Fowler thanks to her love of Emily Brontë and because she kept our domestic fowls. She panted, “Some Japs are on the hill.” She pointed at a hillside to the west, beyond our Poultry Experiment Center, which was in her charge.
“Do you think they’ll break into the fowl house?” Minnie asked her.
“Sure they will.”
“Let’s go have a look,” I said.
Minnie had to remain at the front gate, so Luhai, Holly, and I hastened west with Rulian. I looked askance at the young woman; she was wearing a countrywoman’s dark blue jacket, her smooth face smeared with soot. She was thirty-one and comely, but had deliberately made herself look dirty and diseased. She even walked slightly bandy-legged to reduce her height. Yet there was no way she could conceal her prettiness altogether. I wanted to tease her by saying she couldn’t possibly rusticate herself so rapidly, but I refrained.
Chickens, ducks, and geese were squawking like mad in the poultry center. We entered the enclosure and saw two soldiers there, one gripping a goose by the neck, the bird treading the air in silence, and the other man chasing a long-tailed rooster. He tripped and almost fell in an attempt to catch the cock, which landed on top of a shelf, shaking its red and black feathers while peering at him with one eye. The man cursed the rooster and spat on the ground.
“Hey, hey,” Holly shouted, “they’re not for food!”
The soldiers stopped and came up to us. The taller one pointed at a hen and rapped out some Japanese words none of us could comprehend. Then the shorter one said in Mandarin, “Eat … chicken … meat.”
“No, no,” I said, glad he knew some Chinese. “These are for experiments, not like the birds raised by your mothers. Don’t eat poison, all right? If you eat any of them, you will bleed from every orifice.”
“Poison?” the man asked, then mumbled something to his comrade. They both looked puzzled.