Day after day we racked our brains, but still couldn't find an adequate transmission method. Little Hou was truly a smart fellow and engrossed in the code work most of the time. When he was eating or taking a break, he would mention to us one possibility and another, but none of them would work. Then one morning he hit on a brilliant idea, namely to simplify the Morse code as much as possible, to the degree of letting one dot or one dash stand for a numeral. This would not only speed up the transmission but also reduce confusion. Based on this conception, he and Mushu created the Walking Telegraphic Method: the sender of the message would stand behind the window of the war criminals cell. If he walked to the left side, it meant a dot; if he moved to the right, it denoted a dash; if he hunkered down below the window, that indicated the beginning of a new group of numerals. One dot meant 1, one dot plus one dash – 2, two dots plus one dash – 3, two dots – 4, three dots – 5, three dashes – 6, two dashes plus one dot – 7, one dash plus one dot – 8, two dashes – 9, and one dash – o. As a rule, every four numerals represented a word. After the receiver jotted down the numerals, he passed it on to the code man, who could decipher them with the aid of the codebook Little Hou was making. In the reverse order to our cell, the war criminal's room had a window facing Compound 6, so they could send and receive messages from within the room. This method would definitely resolve the problem of transmission. How excited we were! We wanted to shout for joy, but we didn't dare. We only lifted Little Hou on our shoulders and walked a few rounds in the cell. Then he returned to working at the code.
When the lead in the pencil was worn down, Mushu would bite the tip sharp. As the main worker, Little Hou didn't get enough sleep, his eyes bloodshot. We were worried about him, but couldn't do much to help. Without a dictionary, we couldn't remember all the essential words, but we managed to come up with over eight hundred common characters. This wasn't bad. The code shouldn't be too elaborate; otherwise it would have been difficult to master. So we aimed at fewer than one thousand characters. Whenever an often-used word came to mind, we would tell Little Hou. The penciled pages looked complicated and incomprehensible to me, but Little Hou could trace what he had done to avoid repetition. We continued to work for five days.
Finally a booklet – loose sheets of toilet paper bound by a shoelace – was completed, which listed all the codes and gave instructions about the Walking Telegraphic Method. We put a title on the cover: The Pei Code.
The work done, we reported our success to the other side. Immediately came Commissar Pei 's congratulations. He wrote: "Dear Comrades – You have accomplished a spectacular deed, which demonstrates your sense of revolutionary duty and astonishing talent! It is hard to imagine how much the code will contribute to our future struggle. I hereby notify you that each of you is awarded the first-class merit citation. On behalf of the Community Party, I thank and salute you!" I could see the excitement in his vigorous handwriting, which was less formal than usual. I was amazed he had another pencil.
We hugged one another again, proud of our achievement.
Then came a problem we hadn't anticipated: How could we take this code back to the barracks? The original codebook was going to be handed over to the other cell; normally we would duplicate a copy, which wasn't hard to do. But none of us would be able to smuggle such a thing back into the camp, because we'd have to go through at least two searches before we could rejoin our comrades there. Looking at one another and clutching at our hair, we were at a loss. Silence filled the room.
Ten minutes later, Little Hou said, "I'll memorize the whole thing. They can't search my brain, can they?"
Jailed in the cell longer than Mushu and I, he might be returned to the camp before we two. I said to him, "There're more than nine hundred words and you may not have many days to stay here. Are you sure you can memorize them all?"
Despite my misgivings, I knew this was the only solution. Mushu slapped Little Hou on the shoulder and said, "Boy, if you can remember the entire code, I'll give my citation to you."
We all laughed. From then on Little Hou started to learn the code-book by heart. For two days he did nothing but memorize the numerals and words. He had to seize every moment because he could be sent back anytime. Except when he had to eat and sleep, he sat in a corner, now looking at the thick booklet and now closing his eyes to rehearse what he had read. His mouth moved continuously.
As time went by, I noticed that he looked at the codebook less and less often. Toward the end of the third day he said to us, "I'm done, you can test me now."
We all moved close to the window, since it was already dusk, and began checking his memory. At first his response was rather slow, but accurate. As we continued, he matched the characters with the numerals much faster. Indeed, he had memorized the whole thing. There wasn't a single mistake. We were amazed!
Mushu said to Little Hou, "I always thought you were a bit flighty. Now I know I can't judge a man only by his appearance."
We two raised Little Hou above us, imitating the Americans and the Koreans, shouting Hurray! and Mansai! The moment we put him down, he fell asleep.
Before Little Hou was released from the troublemakers' cell, we passed the codebook on to Commissar Pei. From then on Ming became both the signalman and the code man in the war criminal's jail.
Later Mushu often told the story of our devising the Pei Code to other inmates. Little Hou also bragged about it. He made a codebook with kraft sheets, which nobody but he could use in the camp. Yet he wasn't happy about Mushu's claim that he – Mushu – had conceived the idea of the Walking Telegraphic Method alone; Little Hou often accused him of stealing his "patent." In any case, our success became a legend, a major piece in the inmates' story repertoire.
The code worked effectively. Now our Sixth Battalion had become the hub of communication, because we alone had transmission contact with the prison house, which directly faced our compound. All the messages going to the top leader would be transmitted by our staff. To illustrate the efficiency of the Pei Code, let me give you an example. One day an inmate in the Eighth Battalion working at the wharf chanced upon a page of Liberation Daily, a major Chinese newspaper published in Shanghai. On the page was a brief report on how the Chinese People's Volunteers in Korea helped the civilians till their fields, rebuild their houses, repair the bombed dams and dikes, and dig irrigation canals. The article was about 120 words long. Within a day it was transmitted in its entirety to the prison house through the Walking Telegraphic Method, though we had to skip seven words the code didn't include.
Now that the Pei Code had been established, the commissar resumed his command of the six thousand men in the camp. Actions among the battalions became coordinated, and there was more certainty and purpose in our dealing with the enemy.
The Americans had been trying to suppress our communications all along. I heard from a South Korean officer that an expert code breaker had once been flown in from Hawaii, who had boasted that he could crack our "bush code" after seeing three messages. There were a number of messages in the enemy's possession, but the American expert, after perusing all of them and racking his brains to unravel the logic of the codes, simply couldn't do a thing. He didn't even know there were two codes in use now – one was for intracamp communication and the other was the Pei Code. He kept saying, "This is so messy, absolutely unprofessional." Indeed our codes were highly irregular, following our code men's own whims and improvisations. So they remained uncracked.
23. THE VISIT OF A YOUNG WOMAN
One evening, two days after Mushu was returned to Compound 10,1 was alone in the troublemakers' cell. It was drizzling and the sea had disappeared from view, buried in gray mist. My fingers were twisting the pencil stub, though I wasn't scribbling anything so as not to waste the lead. From behind the house came the drone of a motor.