Still there was the silence.
“Will one say he goes, or shall I choose which one must go?” the General asked when at last he saw that none would speak first.
Pao Chen spat into the dust and did not speak. Yao Yung thought of his young wife and little sons and did not speak. Chan Yu did not speak for he knew beforehand that the General would not let him go, for it was his duty to support the General and be always near at hand.
Then Sheng looked around upon them all and he remembered his promise too. So he flung back his head. “Why, since all of you cannot speak,” he cried, “and only I have my voice left, I will speak! I will go, sir, and I and my men will open the path for the white men. But let me know first why they are trapped so that I may feel the task a duty.”
“I know nothing,” the General said. “Nothing is told me. The orders are sent down. My choice is only whether or not I will obey. So far I have obeyed. If you go, I still obey. If you do not go—”
Then was Sheng secretly very torn indeed. It was true that nothing was told to them. What the white men did, or why, none knew. They fought to hold a line decided on by the white men, and without telling them the white men went back perhaps a day’s march of thirty miles, or more or less. Now they were again entrapped and how it came about, who knew? His arm ached and pain shot into his shoulder and down his back as he stood and pondered all this.
“If it were not for the Chairman and his pride in us,” the General said slowly, “then would I give the command for us all to turn our backs upon this lost battle — lost before we ever set foot upon the soil of this country. But how can I face the Chairman unless I have spent all he bade me spend?”
At these words Sheng sighed deeply and rested his sore shoulder against the wooden post that held the center of the tent.
“I will go,” he said again. “I will be part of what must be spent — if so it must be spent.”
“Stay here, after the others have gone,” the General said, “and I will give you maps and tell you what the road is.”
“I will ask only one price,” Sheng replied. “I want this fellow to go with me,” and he put his hand on Charlie’s shoulder.
The General nodded, and so the others went and they three were left alone. There for two more hours they talked together, the General talking, and the other two listening, and Charlie now and again putting his finger upon the map to point out a shorter road or a path. For since they would travel by foot without machines, they could go by small footways and reach the river sooner.
“In a day and a half s hard march,” the General said, “you should be there. Rest until the daylight ends. Then plan your attack by night as I have told you. Scatter your men widely as you march and do not seem to be together. But instruct your men well. You meet at the given place at the given hour, and let none delay.”
“None will delay,” Sheng said.
“When can you start?” The General asked.
Sheng did not answer for a moment. Under his uniform his shoulder throbbed with pain. But he had put the thought of it out of his mind and he would not heed it. No, he hesitated for another cause. Should he take a while to go back again to Mayli and tell her what he did? Suppose he told her, would she take it well or ill? Could he hide from her that his head swam with fever and that his eyes burned in their sockets, and that he felt his arm swelling inside its bandages? Then he knew he could not trust himself against the power of her will upon him. He had told her that it might be days before they met — let it be days, therefore.
“I will start within the hour,” he told his General.
“Since you risk your life,” the General said to Sheng, “I have no commands to lay upon you. Your own wits must tell you where your path is.” And then he told Sheng the news which until now he had held back. “I have chosen the best men out of our three divisions for you to command.”
Sheng heard these words which at any other time would have given him joy. But though his ear now heard, his brain could not comprehend. He tried to fix his eyes on his general’s face, and he saw it double.
“You hear me?” the General asked.
“I will do my — very best,” Sheng stammered and he forced his right arm to salute and he turned and went back to his tent.
XVII
AT DAWN OF THE next day Sheng had not slept for the pain in his swollen arm. In impatience with pain he now ripped the sleeve of his uniform and felt a little comfort, for the skin was so red and stretched that the weight even of the cloth on it was too much. Then he took off the bandage and poultice and, with this off, the yellow pus streamed out of the wound and he let it flow and now he was very much eased and enough so that he went out and met his men. When the bugle called them, they came together, and five young officers led them under Sheng’s command.
Sheng stood before them, and the clear still air of the dawning day calmed his feverish mind. He saw his men with pride. They were good men, thin and sun-blacked but healthy enough. Their uniforms were faded and gray of a hue that it would be hard to say what they were when new, and they wore straw sandals on their bare feet and carried each an extra pair over his back. Each had a gun of some sort and his small pack on his back and a hat for sun or rain made of rice straw.
“Are you ready?” Sheng asked by way of greeting and the men shouted back in their various voices that they were ready, and so without more ado Sheng went at their head and they followed behind, swarming through the valley, and among them, although Sheng did not know it, was the Indian. Little Crab commanded the Indian to stay behind, but that one had waited until the march began, and then he had followed, to be near Sheng. Ahead of them somewhere had gone Charlie Li to gather together food and to spy out the enemy.
So they marched for some miles, and when it was full light, Sheng stopped and put his men at ease. Then he sent down his command thus:
“Now that it is day, we will scatter ourselves fanwise, but you are all to head for the Village of Three Waters, and that village is to the east of the river a hundred and two miles away from where we stand, and near it is a small lake of water which now is nearly dried. If each hundred of you part and walk a third of a mile and then walk due west, you will reach that lake. Then walk south if you now go north, and north if you now go south and cross the lake where you can, and in the middle on the other side is the village which you will know, for it has a lake on one side and a river too small for a map is on the other side and a narrow canal, which are the three waters. But do not keep together. Walk as though you were travelers or pilgrims or straying soldiers.”
Then Sheng himself took with him a very young lad who had joined them at the borders and he chose this boy because he was silent. For now Sheng’s arm was painful again and his head was hot and giddy and he wanted no talking. Throughout that day he walked in silence, saying not twenty words to that lad, who was afraid of him indeed and stayed behind him ten feet or so, and he did not speak at all except to say, “Yes, Elder Brother,” whenever Sheng so much as turned his head.
Of half that day Sheng remembered afterward nothing at all except that he put one foot in front of the other. He did not stop for food or rest, but he did stop whenever he saw water and he drank whatever that water was. Villages they passed around, and it was easy to see them, for the large villages were fenced about with bamboo walls and the small ones were plain enough, since their houses were set high on wooden posts, and in a village there were seldom fewer than ten or twenty houses. But Sheng and the lad kept to the fields and where there were hills then behind hills. This was easy, for the paths were crooked and led it seemed wherever they willed. Sometimes where the rice was high they followed the paths between the fields, and sometimes they did not.