"I have no clue what you're talking about."
"Of course you know."
We took them into the inner room that served as our office. Both of them sat down, still sputtering. Calmly we began questioning Larsen. At first he dodged the issue, saying, "Officers, you're too paranoid. Let Charlie and me go, okay?"
"Not until you give us the signed page." I pointed at him, trying to isolate him from Charlie, the lieutenant.
"I already dumped it along with the trash," said Larsen.
"Then we have to keep you here."
"You're too greedy. I shouldn't have given you the sausages to begin with."
"This isn't about the cans, Captain. We want the signature back."
"I've lost it, all right? It's gone. You want me to plow through the entire trash dump outside the camp? You can go do it yourselves. You have my permission."
"In that case we'll have to keep you here."
"Jeez, how can I make you understand? This is nuts!"
By now the GIs at the front gate had sensed that something had gone awry. They called their central office, which sent over a platoon within twenty minutes. All of a sudden the situation turned more dangerous than we had anticipated. It was impossible to keep the inmates in the dark anymore, so I said to Wanren, "Please tell our comrades the truth and get them to help us."
"That's a good idea." He went out immediately. In a hoarse voice he summoned all the men in view and ordered them to stop the GIs from coming in to rescue the two officers in custody. He told them that Larsen had stolen our document, which we must get back. At once about two hundred men swarmed to the front gate, confronting the armed troops.
Inside the shed I said to Larsen, "If your men open up on us, we can't guarantee your safety."
He and the lieutenant looked at each other, both faces misshapen. I said to Larsen again, referring to his fellow officer, "Let him go tell your men to retreat so that we can resolve this peacefully."
"I can see that you're scared, Officer Feng," he said to me. "Our men can storm in and level the whole place."
"Keep in mind that I'm just a spokesman, not a real officer. But frankly, if your men attack us, we can't guarantee your life. You don't want to get killed first, do you?"
He hung his head. I went on, "Captain, we don't need any bloodshed for such a trifle. Just let Charlie go tell them to withdraw so that we can talk this out."
He thought for a moment, then told the lieutenant to deliver the message to the GIs outside. Meanwhile, some officers of our battalion came into the shed. They had no idea what had happened, so Wanren explained. He kept saying, pointing at the captain, "That bastard roped me in!"
I said to Larsen again, "At all costs we must head off bloodshed. It's unfair that you played a trick on our chief. Please return the signature to us. The sooner you do that, the better it will be for both sides and for your own safety as well."
Wanren banged his fist on a desk and yelled at him, "I'm running out of patience. If you don't cooperate, we can't let you leave unharmed."
Larsen sensed the volatility of the situation and seemed lost in thought. A moment later he said to us, "Okay, I'll give it to you. But you must promise to release both of us once you get that piece of paper."
"You have our word."
The moment the lieutenant came back, Captain Larsen handed him a bunch of keys. Holding a small brass one between his thumb and forefinger, he said to him, "Go to my office and unlock the left drawer of my desk. There's a writing pad in it. Rip off the top page with a Chinese signature on it and bring it back immediately."
"Yes, sir." Charlie turned and went out again.
While we were waiting, I explained to the leaders of the three companies why we had chosen such a drastic course of action. I insisted that we were still unsure what Larsen had done and that we had just taken preemptive measures. Maybe it was nothing serious at all, so there was no need to let everybody know of this beforehand. Most of the men looked suspicious and some complained that they should have been notified nonetheless. Wanren, red-faced and wordless, was smoking in a corner. He shot sullen glances at me time and again. I too felt embarrassed about this operation that seemed to be getting out of hand. We should have taken into account all the possibilities and made some backup plans.
Ten minutes later the lieutenant returned with the page. I looked through it and was glad it indeed bore a false statement, which said: "On November 22, the Chinese prisoners in my compound attacked the guards and bit Captain Larsen without any provocation. As a consequence, we suffered several casualties, including one death. I, as the chief of Compound 6, am responsible for the incident." Then came Wanren's squarish signature. Several men asked me to translate the words, which I had no choice but to do. Listening to me, some of them gasped. A few went up to Larsen, intending to teach him an indelible lesson. I stopped them, then turned to Wanren and the company leaders, saying, "We promised to let both of them go unharmed the moment we got this page back. We should make good on our word."
They nodded. So the two American officers were taken to the front gate and released. That afternoon we received messages from the other compounds, inquiring about what had happened. We were obligated to inform them truthfully. After dinner the battalion headquarters held a meeting, at which Wanren was mildly criticized by the other officers. But we all felt lucky that we had forestalled the potential trouble peacefully by ourselves. Because the secret operation had been exposed to the whole compound, Wanren seemed mortified and a bit ornery. Probably he feared that he had revealed his incompetence to his men, or that I had stood out as a more capable officer in handling this case. Afterward he was reluctant to talk with me as casually as before.
A week later Captain Larsen was demoted and transferred to a different prison camp. By order of Commissar Pei, a meeting was held among the leaders of our compound, presided over by our political instructor, Manpu. Wanren made self-criticism at the meeting and admitted that his vigilance had slackened. He said he was grateful to all the comrades who had helped him get the signed sheet back, otherwise the enemy would definitely have utilized it to sabotage our victory in defending our flag. But he didn't mention me, because Commissar Pei had awarded me another citation, second class this time, which I didn't really care about anymore. By contrast, Wanren got a disciplinary warning, though he remained in charge of our battalion.
After the detainment of Captain Larsen, Wanren and I could no longer get along. But now and then we still played chess together, with pieces we made out of cement, each bearing a handwritten name on its face, such as Horse, Elephant, Cannon, and Carriage. He was highly skilled at the game, and I was among the few who didn't have to receive the handicap of a carriage or a cannon as his opponent. Although I was still indispensable to him when he had to deal with the Americans, he wouldn't come to me for advice anymore. He was an honest man, probably above small maneuvers; still, I took care not to give him any handle against me.
28. ENTERTAINMENT AND WORK
Unlike Compound 602 on Koje Island, in this camp any large-scale cultural project, such as a full-length play or an art show, was out of the question. The singers, actors, painters, composers, and calligraphers had been scattered among the battalions, and there was no way to assemble them. At first this state of isolation caused us some difficulties, but soon every compound formed its own cultural staff. As a result, there were ten groups of "artists" in the camp, around whom many prisoners gathered.