the groaning black earth. Scattered across it were countless sons and daughters of Northeast Gaomi who had grown to adulthood on bright-red sorghum, and whose blood now formed streams that converged into a river. Scavenger birds were drawn to the spot by the smell of blood. Most were circling above the horses – like greedy children, they wanted the biggest pieces first.
Grandma’s coffin was pitted with pale bullet holes, having served as cover during the gunfight. The roasted chickens, ducks, pigs, and sheep from the roadside shrines had provided sustenance to the Jiao-Gao soldiers, several of whom now launched a bayonet charge but were mowed down by Leng bullets.
‘Hands up! Surrender!’ the heavily armed Leng troops yelled.
Granddad looked over at Little Foot Jiang, who returned his gaze. Neither said a word as they raised their hands.
The white-gloved commander of the Leng detachment strode out from his bodyguard and said with a sneer, ‘Commander Yu, Commander Jiang. Enemies and lovers are destined to meet. Now what do you have to say?’
‘I’m ashamed!’ Granddad said sadly.
‘I’m going to report you for the monstrous crime of disrupting the war against Japan on the Eastern Jiao battlefront!’ Commander Jiang said.
Pocky Leng lashed him with his whip. ‘Your bones may be soft, but your mouth is plenty hard! Take them into the village!’ he ordered with a wave of the hand.
The Leng detachment bivouacked in our village that night, after putting their Jiao-Gao and Iron Society prisoners in a shed, where they were guarded by a dozen soldiers armed with submachine guns. The moans of the wounded and the weeping of young soldiers who longed for their mothers, wives, and lovers didn’t let up all night long.
Like an injured bird, Father snuggled up in Granddad’s arms, where he could hear the beating of Granddad’s heart, fast one moment, slow the next, like the music of tinkling bells. He fell into a sound sleep, and dreamed of a woman who resembled both Grandma and Beauty. She stroked his injured pecker with hot fingers, sending bolts of lightning up his backbone. He woke with a start, feeling a sense of loss. The plaintive wails of the wounded floated over from the fields. He didn’t dare tell Granddad of his dream. As he sat up slowly, he could see the Milky Way through a hole in the shed roof. Suddenly it hit him: I’m almost sixteen!
At daybreak, the Leng detachment pulled down several tents, from which they removed thick ropes. After tying up their prisoners in groups of five, they dragged them over to the willow trees beside the inlet where the Iron Society had tethered its horses the night before. Little Foot Jiang, Granddad, and Father were tied to the tree nearest the bank. Big Tooth Yu’s grave mound lay beneath a solitary tree alongside the inlet. The white water lilies had risen with the water level, their new leaves floating on the surface. Cracks appeared in the dense layer of duckweed to reveal ribbons of green water disturbed by swimming frogs. On the other side of the bare village wall, Father saw yesterday’s scars on today’s fields; the massacred fragments of the funeral procession lay on the road like a gigantic python. Several Leng-detachment soldiers were chopping up the bodies of dead horses, the stench of dark-red blood permeating the chilly air.
Hearing a sigh from Little Foot Jiang, Father spun his head around and watched as the two commanders exchanged looks of misery, four listless eyes beneath lids heavy with exhaustion. The wound on Granddad’s shoulder had begun to fester, and the putrid smell drew red horseflies that had been feasting on the decaying corpses of donkeys and men; the bandage on Little Foot Jiang’s foot had unravelled and was hanging around his ankle like a strip of sausage casing. Trickles of black blood oozed from the spot where Granddad had shot him.
It seemed to Father that both Granddad and Little Foot Jiang were trying to say something, but not a word was spoken. He sighed and turned to gaze out over the broad black plain, shrouded in a milky-white mist.
More than eighty soldiers from the Jiao-Gao regiment and the Iron Society were tied to trees. One of Granddad’s men was sobbing, and the Jiao-Gao soldier next to him nudged him with his shoulder: ‘Don’t cry, Brother-in-Law. Sooner or later we’ll get our revenge against Zhang Zhuxi!’
The old Iron Society soldier wiped his filthy face on his filthy clothes. ‘I’m not crying over your sister! She’s dead, and all the tears in the world won’t bring her back. I’m crying for us. You and I are kin from neighbouring villages who saw each other every time we looked up, so how did things turn out like this? I’m crying for your nephew, my son, Silver Ingot. He was only eighteen when he followed me into the Iron Society so he could avenge your sister. But before he tasted revenge your men killed him. He was on his knees, but you bayoneted him anyway! You mean, cold-blooded bastards! Don’t you have sons of your own?’
The old Iron Society soldier’s tears were burned dry by flames of anger. He roared at the ragged Jiao-Gao soldiers, ‘Swine! You should have been out there fighting the Japanese. Or their yellow puppets! Why did you turn your weapons on the Iron Society! You lousy traitors! You foreign lackeys…’
‘Don’t go too far, Brother-in-Law,’ the Jiao-Gao soldier cautioned.
‘Who are you calling Brother-in-Law? Did you remember you had a brother-in-law when you were throwing your damned grenades at your own nephew?’
‘All you see is one side, old man!’ yelled one of the Jiao-Gao officers. ‘If your Iron Society hadn’t kidnapped Little Foot Jiang and demanded a ransom of a hundred rifles, we’d have had no reason to fight you. We needed the weapons to attack the Japanese, to give us a chance on the battlefield, to propel us into the vanguard of the resistance!’
Father, whose voice was changing, felt compelled to enter the fray: ‘You started it by stealing the guns we’d hidden in the well,’ he said in a raspy squeak. ‘We kidnapped him because you stole the dog pelts we’d hung on the walls to dry!’
He coughed up a gob of phlegm angrily and tried to spit it in the face of the Jiao-Gao officer, but it missed its mark and landed on the forehead of a tall, slightly hunchbacked Iron Society soldier, who lashed out as though he’d been shot: ‘Douguan, fuck your living mother!’
The prisoners laughed, even though their aching arms were turning numb from the ropes and their future was clouded.
But Granddad just sneered and said, ‘What the hell are you arguing about? We’re all a bunch of whipped soldiers.’
While the sound of Granddad’s words still hung in the air, Little Foot Jiang, his face the colour of ashes, fell to the ground. Blood and pus oozed from his injured foot, which had swollen to the size of a winter melon. The Jiao- Gao soldiers, held back by the ropes around them, could only look helplessly at their unconscious commander.
Just then the dapper Detachment Leader Leng strode out of his tent to join his men in inspecting the hundreds of rifles and two cases of wooden-handled grenades they’d captured from the Iron Society and the Jiao-Gao regiment. Twirling his whip, he walked smugly towards the prisoners. Father heard the sound of heavy breathing behind him, and he could picture the angry look on Granddad’s face. The corners of Detachment Leader Leng’s mouth curled upward, and the fine wrinkles about his cheeks wriggled like little snakes.
‘Have you thought about what I’m going to do with you, Commander Yu?’ he asked with a giggle.
‘That’s up to you!’ Granddad replied.
‘It would be a waste of a good man to kill him. But if I don’t, you might kidnap me again someday!’
‘Killing me won’t close my eyes!’
With a swift kick, Father sent a road apple flying into Detachment Leader Leng’s chest.
Leng raised his whip, then let it drop. ‘I hear this little bastard only has one nut. Somebody come over here and cut off the other one! That’ll keep him from biting and kicking!’
‘He’s just a boy, Old Leng,’ Granddad said. ‘Whatever you want to do you can do to me.’
‘Just a boy? The little bastard’s got more fight in him than a wolf cub!’
Little Foot Jiang, who had regained consciousness, struggled to his feet.
‘Commander Jiang,’ Detachment Leader Leng said, ‘what do
‘Killing me will only bring you trouble, Detachment Leader Leng,’ Commander Jiang said with bold assurance, but with his face bathed in cold sweat. ‘The day will come when the people liquidate you for your monstrous crime of slaughtering noble fighters of the anti-Japanese resistance!’
‘You can pass the time here until I’ve had something to eat. I’ll deal with you then.’
The Leng soldiers sat around eating horsemeat and drinking sorghum wine.
Suddenly the sentry on the northern wall of the village fired a shot and ran into the village. ‘The Japs are coming – the Japs are coming!’
