In our compound few men bothered me, because they knew Wang Yong had taken me under his wing. In return for Wang's protection, I had to do what he asked. I even wrote official letters for him. Compared with the pro-Communists, the pro-Nationalists cared more about formalities, so an official missive had to be elaborate and ostentatiously elegant. They always addressed a superior with his full title; among themselves they used various fraternal terms, like Elder Brother (even if the person addressed was a generation younger), Respectable Brother, and Benevolent Brother. I disliked this sort of decorum, which was feudalistic and ludicrous, but I was familiar with it and could compose the letters with ease. What's more, now that I was here, Wang Yong often took me along, instead of Dajian, when he met with the Americans. Once in a while he would lend me to the regimental headquarters, especially when foreign officials came to inspect the prison. I didn't want to hurt Dajian's feelings, but I had to obey the chief.
Crude and fearsome though Wang Yong was, he worshiped knowledge, especially that from books. Whenever he saw me reading the Bible, he'd cluck his tongue admiringly. He even got me a pocket English-Chinese dictionary, which helped me in my reading. We didn't have any money, so we couldn't buy a dictionary, but Wang Yong had obtained one from a Nationalist officer working for the United Nations here. The book had been published in Taiwan just two years before and had hardly been used at all. I signed my name on its title page and cherished it.
My reading speed had picked up, and now I could read ten pages of the Bible an hour. The progress pleased me greatly. I marked all the new words in pencil and reviewed them later on. Intuitively I felt I would benefit from my ability to use English, so I worked hard.
Outside the barbed wire, in the west, a few cherry trees were crowned with pinkish, fluffy blossoms. Beyond them stretched a dwarf orange grove whose fruit grew more visible week by week. Sometimes cuckoos would cry from the depths of the trees. Frequently as I tried, I never caught a glimpse of the birds. On occasion when I gazed at the grove, a few Mongolian ponies, piebald and bay, would appear, grazing and galloping at will. They were probably wild horses.
Though life was relatively safe here, it was not insulated from political struggle. Our peace of mind was often interrupted by sessions designed to intensify our hatred for the Communists, those Red Bandits. Study groups met regularly, and we were made to read Chiang Kai-shek's China 's Destiny and Sun Yat-sen's booklet The Three People's Principles (referring to nationalism, democracy, and the people's livelihood). Every week we spent a day airing our grievances against Red China and the Soviet Union. The prisoners sat in rows, and one by one we talked about the crimes perpetrated by the Communists. Someone said his uncle had been executed only for selling a bit of opium on the streets. Another claimed that his parents' house, a stone mansion, had been confiscated by the village government, which later had it torn down, its stones used to build a dam at a reservoir. A man, obviously fond of drink, went so far as to claim that the Communists had shut down all the wineries in his hometown. The secretary of our battalion said his father, who had owned just ten acres of land, had been executed by the Communists as a landowner while he himself was serving in the Red Army. His superiors didn't tell him about the execution – they even changed the contents of a letter his sister had written him so as to keep him in the dark.
Story after story, the prisoners indeed had endless grievances. During these sessions, organized mostly by the Oppose-Communism-and-Resist-Russia Association, everyone had to say something to condemn the Reds. A thickset man once argued that on the whole the Communists were villains, but they had done a few good things, for instance banning opium, containing inflation, and treating women equally. The other inmates were furious, saying he was sympathetic toward the Commies, and at night some men got hold of him and beat him up. I felt that these men, though opposing Communism, had been so affected by the Red Army's indoctrination that they couldn't help acting like the Communists in some ways. They had banded together mainly because of their fear of the uncertain future. They had traveled too far on the anti-Communist road to retrace their steps. I suspected that in the eyes of the Nationalist government, they might not be trustworthy either, because they had served in the Red Army, thus having betrayed their original Nationalist masters.
One afternoon in the "airing grievances" session, the medic said something almost incredible, though there must have been some truth in the story. He told us: "When our former division suffered heavy casualties near Wonsan, we rushed over to evacuate the wounded men. There were hundreds of them lying on a hillside. I was naive and just went ahead bandaging those crying for help. But our director told us to check the insides of the men's jackets first. If the insignia of a hammer crossed by a sickle was there, that man must be shipped back immediately and given all medical help. So we followed his orders. All those men who had the secret sign in their jackets were Party members. We left behind lots of ordinary men like ourselves."
The audience remained silent for a good minute after he finished speaking. I knew the medic and didn't think he had made up the story. Wang Yong broke the silence: "The Reds used us like ammo. Look at the GIs, they all wear flak vests on the battleground. The U.S. government cares about their lives. How about us? What else were we wearing besides a cotton jacket? How many of our brothers could've survived if they'd put on the vests like the GIs? Recently I came across an article. It reports that General Ridgway says the U.S. forces could absolutely push the Communist armies all the way back to the Yalu, but he won't do that because he doesn't want to sacrifice thousands of his men. Just imagine: what if the People's Volunteer Army could drive the Americans down to the Pacific Ocean? Wouldn't Mao Zedong sacrifice every one of the Volunteers to accomplish that goal? You bet he would. Didn't he already send us here to be wasted like manure to fertilize Korean soil?"
"Down with Communism!" shouted a man.
The audience followed in one voice and thrust up their fists.
"Reseize the mainland!"
Hundreds of men roared in unison again.
Wang's analogy of us as human fertilizer revived thoughts I had been thinking for a long time. True enough, as Chinese, we genuinely felt that our lives were misused here, but as I have observed earlier, no matter how abysmal our situation was there were always others who had it worse. By now I understood why occasionally some Korean civilians were hostile to us. To them we had come here only to protect China 's interests – by so doing, we couldn't help but ruin their homes, fields, and livelihoods. From their standpoint, if the Chinese army hadn't crossed the Yalu, millions of lives, both civilian and military, would have been saved. Of course, the United States would then have occupied all of Korea, forcing China to build defenses in Manchuria, which would have been much more costly than sending troops to fight in our neighboring country. As it was, the Koreans had taken the brunt of the destruction of this war, whereas we Chinese were here mainly to keep its flames away from our border. Or, as most of the POWs believed, perhaps rightly, we had served as cannon fodder for the Russians. It was true that the Koreans had started the war themselves, but a small country like theirs could only end up being a battleground for bigger powers. Whoever won this war, Korea would be a loser.