The boy had never imagined he would smoke his very first pipe in the middle of a pile of corpses. He copied Sergeant Major Li, breathing in the smoke and exhaling. He hoped the sergeant was telling the truth and smoking really would get him going.
‘If someone has no water, they’ll die in three days. With water you can live for a lot longer,’ the sergeant major went on.
It took them a long time to finish their pipes. By that time, Li knew that he could not abandon Wang Pusheng. But he still had no idea how he was going to make his escape carrying a soldier whose guts were spilling out, when one of his own legs was out of action. While he had been smoking, he had considered their options. High ground hemmed in the shore on three sides, and only one slope looked possible to climb. The Japanese had chosen this particular patch of riverbank as an execution ground with great care. It had one more advantage: to dispose of the corpses they only had to push them into the water, and the river would carry them away.
Li found a first-aid kit in the pocket of a dead company commander. He tore it open and extracted bandages and swabs. There was a tube in the bag as well; and Li guessed it must be an antiseptic cream. He covered a swab with it and pushed the swab into the cavity in Wang Pusheng’s abdomen. The boy howled with pain.
‘Look at the sky, our planes are coming!’ said Li.
Wang Pusheng looked up at the night sky through tear-drenched eyes and Li quickly poked back in a piece of intestine which was spilling out.
Wang Pusheng did not make a sound this time. Instead he fainted.
It was lucky Wang Pusheng had not eaten in two or three days and his gut was completely empty, Li thought. That meant there would be less danger of infection. He waited for him to regain consciousness before he carried him away. If by any chance the boy did not come to, then Li would go alone.
Wang Pusheng’s breathing was shallow and ragged. Several times, Li could not feel any warmth on the finger that he held over the boy’s mouth. But he felt his chest carefully and discovered his heart was still beating.
Li knew that the longer they waited, the fewer their chances of escape. The enemy would be back eventually to deal with the corpses, perhaps by daybreak. But the boy soldier would not wake up. Li realised his fists were tightly clenched, not from the pain in his leg but from the anguish of having to wait.
Li may have been in two minds as to whether he should leave this boy behind and make good his own escape. But when he was telling this part of the story to Major Dai, he did not acknowledge it. Instead, he said that he really could not be so immoral as to abandon the seriously wounded boy, because, after all, Wang Pusheng had undone his wrists for him. He watched over Wang Pusheng all night until the sky began to lighten.
At dawn, Wang Pusheng regained consciousness. Bright, dark eyes opened in a face as ashen as a corpse. He looked at Sergeant Major Li lying beside him, both of them sharing a greatcoat which was stiff with blood. ‘We’d better go, my lad,’ said Li.
The boy said something, but so faintly that Li could not hear.
‘What?’
The boy repeated it and Li understood this time: he could not walk and would rather be left here to die. He could not bear any more pain like that.
‘You mean, you’ve made me waste all night waiting for you?!’ said Li.
‘Wait a bit longer till my belly stops hurting,’ Wang begged him, ‘then I’ll go with you.’
Li watched as the sky grew lighter. Then he draped the boy’s arm over his shoulder. He was a well-trained soldier, after all, and could drag himself along on one leg even with someone slung over his shoulder. One good thing was that the boy weighed no more than a shoulder-pole of grain.
The mist rose from the river and would give them some cover. That was another good thing, a very good thing.
They had only moved a few feet when they heard the sound of footsteps. Li’s heart was in his mouth, but they were both still hidden by the mist and he could squeeze them in between two corpses.
The footsteps were coming from the hilltop, but did not sound like army boots. Then came the words: ‘There must be thousands of them here!’
They were speaking Chinese!
‘We haven’t seen them all yet. It’s still misty. Those fuckers, to kill so many Chinese soldiers!’
‘Fucking Jap devils!’
The men were talking Nanking dialect and must have been in their forties or fifties.
‘There are only a few of us. How long is it going to take to get rid of all these corpses?!’
‘Fucking Jap devils!’
Down the slope they came, cursing and complaining.
‘They’ll clog up the river if we throw them in!’
‘Hurry up, otherwise those fuckers’ll be after us!’
The men, ant-like amid this scene of devastation, got to work.
Li reckoned it would be best to show themselves now, without waiting any longer. The Japanese might be here any moment. Even if the Chinese men were willing to help them, they could not do it under the noses of the Japanese.
‘Brothers, please help us!’ he shouted.
In an instant, the men’s chatter stopped and silence fell. It was so quiet that they could hear the loud slapping of waves against the corpses in the water.
‘Help us!…’
One man made his way towards them, planting his feet carefully in the cracks between shoulders, heads, legs and arms.
‘We’re here!’ Li shouted, to guide the man through the mist.
Emboldened, the other men followed, threading their way through the mountains of bodies until they reached Sergeant Major Li and Wang Pusheng. As one, their arms went down and Li and Wang were lifted up and carried up the slope to the top.
‘Don’t make any noise!’ ordered the man carrying Li. ‘We’ll find a place to hide you and then figure out what to do when it gets dark again.’
Li found out that the little group all dressed in black waistcoats had been commandeered by the Japanese as labourers. Their task was to dispose of the Chinese prisoners who had been secretly executed.
Nine
When, three hours after Fabio had sent Ah Gu to look for the pond, he still wasn’t back, Fabio could stand it no more. He went down to the cellar and asked Yumo whether she had given Ah Gu clear directions to the pond. Yes she had, she said, and in fact Ah Gu said he knew it: it was in the grounds of a clan memorial hall, and the family used it in summer to grow lotuses.
‘He’s been gone more than three hours!’ exclaimed Fabio.
He changed into the newer of his two cassocks and gave his face a wipe with a towel. If he was to rescue Ah Gu from the Japanese, he needed to have an air of authority about him. He had to find Ah Gu. Without him, there was no one to carry water. George Chen could not go—the Japanese would definitely round up a young man like him.
Fabio headed north along the narrow street which passed their entrance, according to Yumo’s instructions. When he reached the second alleyway, he turned into it and walked right down to the end. It all looked different from the last time he had come this way: the walls were blackened and some buildings had disappeared. Half a dozen dogs scrabbled out of his way as he passed. The dogs had grown fat in the last few days and their coats gleamed. Fabio averted his gaze whenever he saw a pack of curs gathered around something.
He was carrying a tin bucket in his right hand and was prepared to hurl it at the dogs to fend them off if necessary. Once they had gorged on human flesh, they might switch to eating the living too. As he emerged from the alley, he saw an old wall of hard-fired, grey bricks in front of him. Through a gap where it had collapsed, he could see a pond glittering in the morning light. There was no sign of Ah Gu. Fabio realised he would have to give up his search.