The Japanese officer took off one white glove and traced a circle on George’s forehead with his forefinger. He was feeling for the slight indentation made by an army cap, but George thought he was marking the best place to shoot him and instinctively ducked out of the way. Infuriated, the officer drew his sword with a swish. George covered his head with his hands and made a run for it. There was a shot, and he fell to the ground.
‘Leave him alone, he’s innocent!’ shouted Major Dai. ‘I’m a Chinese soldier. Take me away!’
Fabio tried to help George up. The cook was jerking spasmodically, although increasingly feebly. The bullet had hit him in the back and come out of his chest, piercing his windpipe. With each breath, the air wheezed through the bullet hole and his plump body gradually deflated.
George’s thrashings brought him up against one of the ventilation shafts. Shujuan pressed the back of her hand to her mouth, to stop herself crying out as Sophie had. One of the other, more courageous girls held Sophie tightly in her arms and gently stroked her as if she were her mother.
The Japanese officer looked intently at Dai. A professional soldier could always smell another professional. He felt this Chinese man did indeed seem to have the bloodthirsty air of a good soldier.
He turned to Father Engelmann and said complacently through the interpreter: ‘So, Father, don’t talk to me about American neutrality here. Do you still maintain that you are not sheltering enemies of our army?’
‘I didn’t ask his permission when I broke in. Leave the Father out of it,’ said Dai.
‘He’s not an enemy of the Japanese Army,’ said Father Engelmann. ‘He’s completely unarmed now, so of course he counts as an innocent civilian.’
But the officer signalled abruptly with one white-gloved hand, ordering his men to take the three surviving Chinese men away.
‘You said you were only taking two away!’ shouted Fabio. ‘You’ve already killed one of our employees!’
‘If we discover we’ve got the wrong men, we’ll return them to you,’ replied the officer.
‘And if you kill them in error?’ said Fabio.
‘In a war, there are always many people killed in error.’
Father Engelmann stood in front of the Japanese officer. ‘I’m warning you one more time, this is American territory. You’ve killed a man here and are taking innocent men into detention. Have you thought of the consequences?’
‘And do you know how our superiors evade those “consequences”? They maintain they are only the uncontrolled actions of individuals within the armed forces, and those individuals will be subjected to military discipline, although in fact no individual is ever investigated. Do you understand, Father? Individuals lose control all the time in wartime.’ The officer spoke easily and, just as easily, the interpreter rendered his words into Chinese.
Father Engelmann was silent. He knew the officer was telling the truth.
Major Dai spoke up. ‘I must apologise, Father, for trespassing and causing you unnecessary trouble.’ He raised his right arm in a salute.
A Japanese soldier started kicking Wang Pusheng and shouting, ‘Get up! Get up!’
The boy moaned in agony.
‘I’ve never seen soldiers behave as brutally as you!’ Father Engelmann protested, attempting to pull off the soldier whose foot was poised to kick Wang Pusheng in the belly. ‘For God’s sake, spare this child’s life!’
The officer brandished his sword to keep Father Engelmann at arm’s length. At this, Sergeant Major Li, who was standing close by, was suddenly galvanised into action. He hurled himself on the officer, his left arm hooked around the other’s neck, his right hand reaching for the officer’s windpipe. For a moment, no one moved. The Japanese soldiers dared not fire in case they hit their commanding officer. Then they launched themselves at Li with their bayonets. Again and again, the officer’s subordinates twisted their bayonets in Li’s guts, but with each terrible stab, his grip on the officer’s neck tightened. The officer was crumpling, almost unconscious, but this climactic effort was Li’s last—then it was over.
His hands stiffened, and his eyes glazed over. Only his teeth were still bared, the strong, uneven teeth of a Chinese peasant used to coarse, humble fare. The sort of teeth which, clenched on a curse, were enough to make the officer quail.
The officer gave a hoarse command and his soldiers began a search. The compound was filled with criss-crossing torch beams. Father Engelmann remained where he stood uttering a passionate, silent prayer. Fabio watched panic-stricken as the beams searched the printing workshop. Upstairs, sixteen beds all stood in place, and they, as well as sixteen choir robes, would all offer clues to the Japanese. If they made the connection between these black gowns and the young bodies which they clothed, the consequences would be unimaginable.
It was not hard for the searchers to spot the trapdoor to the attic, and Fabio soon saw the torch beams filter through the gaps between the blackout curtains.
The soldiers who went to search the kitchen and refectory had returned empty-handed. Fabio sighed in relief. He had placed a brazier over the cellar entrance and jammed all their cooking implements into the kitchen so there was scarcely room to move.
In fact, the soldiers had been distracted by something else: they had broken open George’s locked store cupboard and pulled out a bag of potatoes and half a bag of flour. Hundreds of thousands of the invading forces had endured hunger and thirst along with the Chinese, so there were cheers when they found the food.
Down below, eyes of all shapes and sizes stared unblinking at the ceiling, and watched the torchlight which filtered down through the edges of the trapdoor.
Several of the girls were moaning in terror. Yumo hissed in her fiercest voice: ‘If you young misses make another sound, I’ll come over and kill you!’
Nani smeared her face with coal dust. Jade looked at her, then groped around until her hands too were covered in cobwebby dust, which she smeared all over her face. Yumo smiled wryly to herself. Had they not heard that the Japs were making ‘comfort women’ out of seventy-year-old grannies? Only Hongling ignored the light coming through the trapdoor. She sat staring into the darkness, giving occasional sobs. She could hardly believe that George had just been transformed from a living being to a bloody lump of flesh. She had been with countless men, but only this one, with whom she had snatched a few moments of pleasure amid the horrors of war, had aroused such tenderness in her. And now George, with his protruding ears and his wordless smiles, was gone. It was too much for her to take in. George used to say: ‘Better a rascally life than a good death.’ But now not even this cheerful, obdurate and single-minded ‘rascal’ was to be granted his desire. My poor George, Hongling thought numbly.
Yumo’s heart was pounding for Major Dai. The night before, she had climbed the church’s ruined bell tower with him. They had scrambled up the bomb-damaged steps with Dai stretching out his hand to steady her in the darkness, saying, ‘Let’s explore as if they were ancient ruins.’
The wind up in the tower was different, colder, but somehow freer. The destruction had created a jagged space into which humans had to mould themselves. Dai brought out a pair of pocket binoculars. He looked around, then passed them to her. In the moonlight, she could see the dark streets; alleyways branched off them, sprouting with dwellings like leaves. All these houses looked as if they were burned out. It was only the intermittent gunfire that told them this was not some desolate, long-abandoned city devoid of human habitation, and that there were armed prowlers on the hunt out there.