"It's yours." He raised his chin and laughed. So did the interpreter.
"Thank you!" I said.
"Sure. You're free to go now."
When the guard had taken me out of the administration center, I caught sight of a young woman walking toward a medical ward. Viewed from behind, she looked familiar, and her russet hair, like a flaming torch, arrested my eyes as the memory of Dr. Greene flashed through my mind. I begged the guard, "Let me go and thank that doctor, all right? She saved my leg."
He nodded. "You have two minutes."
I ran to catch up with the woman, shouting, "Dr. Greene, Dr. Greene!" She turned around, but to my disappointment, she was a different person, with pink cheeks and wide-set eyes.
"I'm not a doctor, I'm a nurse," she told me pleasantly.
Panting hard, I said, "Do you know Dr. Greene? She operated on my leg." I moved my left foot forward as if this nurse knew my case.
"I've heard of her, but she'd gone back to the States when I came. Most doctors stay here only for a year." She smiled, her lips twisting a little.
"Sorry, I mistook you for her."
"It's all right."
Embarrassed, I went back to the guard, sighing and shaking my head. He took me to a tent full of people, Chinese, Koreans, and Americans, waiting for trucks to take them to the docks or the airport. The officer in charge of the POWs looked through the piece of paper the guard had handed him, then told me, "Go join those guys lying over there. You're going to the same camp with them."
I went over and picked a spot where I could sit down. Lounging against a wooden box filled with assorted nuts and bolts, I began leafing through the Bible, but I couldn't concentrate on the words, because from time to time a miserable feeling overcame me. I was devastated by the prospect that I might never be able to go home to take care of my mother and live with the woman I loved.
32. BACK TO CHEJU
Pusan at that time was the provisional capital of South Korea. In spite of its asphalt streets and neon signs, the city was squalid and crowded; yet the sight of strolling pedestrians and the stands overfilled with merchandise intensified my self-awareness as a captive. The Chinese words on numerous shop signs evoked my memories of China, while the smell of home cooking, a mixture of sautéed scallions and pork, wafted up, bringing me intense hunger pangs. The moment we came out of the downtown area, refugees appeared. There were so many of them that even the bushes and trees were draped with laundered clothing and diapers. Rows and clusters of tents, shacks, and huts sprawled in every direction; even the nearby hills were scattered with them. Many of the civilians wore olive drab clothes made out of American blankets. I was amazed that the Koreans used the army blankets for so many purposes – insulating rooms, making mattresses, unraveling them for the wool with which they knitted socks, shawls, sweaters, mittens, baby clothes. Some men and women just wrapped themselves in blankets, moving about like small mobile tents. I had heard that the North Korean POWs bartered blankets with civilians for dried fish, pickles, alcohol, and medicinal herbs, but never had I imagined the business had reached such a huge scale.
There were automobiles everywhere, but many of them, especially those driven by Koreans, were just rattletraps assembled with parts from American and Japanese models. On the hood of a jeep, parked under an acacia, sat a small Korean boy in a steel helmet, laughing noisily as some GIs gave him Coca-Cola to drink while teaching him how to curse in English. The area smelled awful, the air thick with a stench, an amalgam of carrion and human excrement.
The trip back to Cheju was relatively pleasant. Once the ship pulled out of the harbor, the air became fresh and invigorating. Along the coast clouds of smog were gliding slowly, and some freight trains crawled about like gigantic worms spewing dark smoke. The sea was calm toward evening as the setting sun cast its last rays on the greenish waves. I leaned against the railing at the bow and spotted a school of sharks, each five or six feet long. A few POWs rushed over to watch them, whooping and jabbering as the fish dashed away, blazing a phosphorescent trail. Except for that moment I stayed by myself all the way, reluctant to mix with others. I just watched the ocean, from whose surface small silvery fish skipped out time and again. We were allowed to spend our time on deck, though we had to return to the cabin when it got chilly at night. Because we were all supposed to be anti-Communists, the guards treated us prisoners less severely than before.
Toward midmorning the next day we arrived at Mosulpo, a tiny isle about a mile southwest of Cheju Island. As we approached the rocky shore, I saw some women in black suits and caps and large goggles diving in the bay to gather mussels, sea cucumbers, scallops, abalones, conchs. About a dozen large gourds floated on the water, to each of which was affixed a string bag for the catch. I was amazed that there was no man among them. The women looked cheerful, calling out and waving at one another from time to time. Some of them were not young, close to forty; I noticed their wrinkled chins and necks when their weather-beaten faces popped out of the water.
"Haenyo," a Korean man said behind me, pointing at the women. The word, meaning "sea maids," must have come from Chinese originally. I was quite moved by the tranquil sight of the women, whose livelihood seemed unaffected by the war.
All of the twenty-seven Chinese POWs went directly to Enclosure 3 of Camp 13. I was struck by the enclosure's front entrance. It resembled a grand memorial archway, on top of which rose a pole like the apex of a spire. A Nationalist flag was flying high at the tip of the pole. All the four gate pillars, built of bricks and painted white, bore giant black words. The inner two declared STAMP OUT COMMUNISM and RECONSTRUCT OUR CHINA. Atop each of the pillars perched a weather vane, whose bar was spinning a pair of balls lazily. It turned out that the ten compounds in Enclosure 3 were ready to receive us. A few POW leaders stood at the front gate to meet the new arrivals. The American guards frisked us perfunctorily. I felt lucky that they didn't find the Bible in my satchel, though I knew they wouldn't necessarily confiscate such a book.
"Well, well, well, look who's here," said Wang Yong at the sight of me. He came over and held out his hand, smiling in a rather friendly way, his eyes half shut. Two beefy bodyguards stood behind him.
"How are you, Chief Wang?" I asked after shaking his hand.
"I'm good. Welcome back, Feng Yan."
The thought came to me that he must have requested his superiors to return me to his company. This realization unsettled me because he could be ruthless if offended. I had better take care to get along with him, or else he would make me suffer. I pulled Timothy Wright's letter out of my breast pocket and handed it to him, saying, "Here's my recommendation from the Pusan POW Collection Center."
He glanced through the letter and said, "I don't understand the foreign words. Tell me what it says."
"It's from Lieutenant Wright, who is in charge of registration at the Pusan center. He notifies you that I left the Communist camp because I want to go to Taiwan. He also asks you to take care of me." I forced a smile that tightened my jaw.
"Good. Keep this letter and don't lose it."
His bodyguards called him battalion chief now, so I congratulated him on his promotion, which he said was just in name. Later I found out that he led the same number of men as before and his battalion was basically the former company. Together we entered Compound 8, all of which was under Wang Yong's charge.
He didn't send me to one of his three companies but instead kept me at the battalion headquarters. I stayed with his orderlies, bodyguards, the secretary, and the mess officer. The compound was in good order. The yard, the barracks, and the outhouse were all clean, and there was no garbage anywhere in sight; apparently the prisoners here spent a lot of time improving their living conditions. Also, they ate better than the year before. I wondered if the Nationalists in Taiwan had subsidized their board, but this turned out not to be the case. The prisoners had grown some crops on their own. I felt it rather eerie to rub shoulders with these men, many of whom donned self-made uniforms and peaked caps similar to those worn by the Nationalist soldiers. On each cap was a large insignia of the raying sun.