by Xu, Lei
This time there was no escaping it. I turned to tell some corpsmen they'd better tie some rocks to the raft anchors to weigh them down, but Chen Luohu was already instructing them. I jumped down into the water. It didn't reach my knees, but the cold struck at my heart and seeped into my bones. I took in my surroundings: the walls were all limestone. Seeing Wang Sichuan, I walked up behind him. He was concentrating intently on one of the cliff walls. He noticed me as I walked over and motioned for me to take a look at something. I shined my flashlight on a portion of rock. The wall seemed polished, as if it were covered in a layer of wax. He then used his flashlight to point out several other spots that all bore similar markings. I stared at it for a moment, then glanced up at him, that "Now what do you think that means?" look in my eye.
"What you're looking at is glazing," he said quietly. "Meaning that, at some point, there was most likely a violent explosion somewhere in this cave."
CHAPTER 7
A Few Clues
Rock glazing most commonly occurs during a volcanic eruption when rivers of lava hit masses of rock. There can be violent explosions and fires. Wang Sichuan's inference was basically correct, but whether it was in fact an explosion or a severe fire that caused the glazing still remained to be seen. He figured it was an explosion because he knew that, as the Japanese were departing, they would have wanted to seal off the cave. The most common way armies did so was by demolishing the mountain around it. I personally believed that a prolonged fire had left the damage. With an explosion of that size, there was no way the mountain could have maintained its current form. But if it was a fire, then this cave must have been continuously scorched for over forty hours to leave such an impression. Who knows what they were burning?
We waded twice around the length of the cavern. The river didn't keep to a consistent depth—one step might be deep and the next shallow. The bottom was covered in pebbles. Shining my flashlight in the water, I could see many small fish swimming about. Had this been in the South, it would have made an excellent place to visit during summer vacation. A pity that the North is simply too cold. Even wearing galoshes, the chill pierced my bones.
The rest of our party continued to descend one by one. Some of these were guys I knew. We exchanged cigarettes and talked about the situation in the cave. It was the corpsmen's job to make the final preparations. There was no reason for us to interfere. We talked about the Japanese troops that had been stationed here. Back in those days, everybody had heard the rumor that Japanese soldiers who'd never withdrawn had been captured in the mountains, some of them already little more than savages. They had no idea World War II had ended. Who knew if any lived in this cave, but if some did, our situation would get a lot more interesting.
Two hours later everyone had descended into the cavern and all eight rafts—two per group—were fully inflated and ready to go. We were all feeling a little anxious. A few people kept up a nervous chatter, and the whole cave echoed with noise. Then the colonel descended into the cave. He had switched into battle garb and, seeing him like this, I realized who he was. He had been my bootcamp instructor, though he clearly no longer recognized me. He gave us a pep talk, the main point being to take care and be safe, then shouted, "Do you have what it takes to complete the mission?" We were well trained. We responded as one: "Yes!" We took a deep breath, slipped on our waterproof gear, climbed into the rafts, and with that our adventure officially began.
According to our analysis of the geological-imaging film, following this river would lead us to the plane. Of course, the river didn't go straight down. It meandered this way and that as it flowed underground. Though its total length was impossible to pin down, it was certainly going to be more than thirty-six hundred feet.
We waited a minute after the first group's two rafts launched before pushing off ourselves. The corpsmen rode the raft in front, their light switched on to help lead the way. We propped the oars out on either side to keep the raft from running into the cave walls. The cavern shrank and the sounds around us hushed. The light dimmed until only the boat and our most immediate surroundings were visible. Sweeping the water with our flashlights, we discovered it had already become quite deep. These changes were characteristic of tectonic caves, but here it was both sudden and very pronounced. The cave was far from wide—perhaps only thirty feet across—but it was quite tall. Though we craned our necks upward, we couldn't make out the ceiling. It felt like floating through a deep and narrow gorge. Shining our flashlights above us, we could see the roots of plants climbing down the walls. It was a magnificent sight and we paused for a moment to take it all in. Chen Luohu even pulled out a camera and snapped two pictures using a magnesium flash.
Having floated not ninety feet farther, we reached a fork in the cave. We waited here for the last two groups, then we all went our respective ways. At last we'd entered the truly fearful portion of our journey. When it came to cave exploration, working on a fiftyperson team and a five-person team are different matters entirely.
Both rafts floated a few radio buoys beside them. If the raft ahead hit something unexpected, we'd see the movement of the light and the buoy signal would change. At least we'd know in advance that something wasn't right. The current was still slow. As we watched the lighted buoys and the corpsmen's raft slowly drift ahead, we relaxed and followed in the wake. The dangers of cave exploration have often been exaggerated in novels. Really, as long as you stick to the correct procedures and remain cautious and alert, it's actually relatively safe. The greatest danger comes from the instability of the rock itself. If the cave collapses with you inside, then you're dead. Simple as that. To see all the corpsmen up ahead—tense as could be, knuckles white, gripping their rifles— made us laugh to ourselves.
Everything went smoothly for the first four hours, and soon we'd floated over two kilometers. Then the current began to pick up. We were rushed around bends and down short staircase waterfalls. Stones had been piled below the surface, and various objects, presumably left by the Japanese, were wedged into cracks in the walls. Indistinct Japanese characters were painted on the sides of these wooden crates and rusted barrels. None of us had any idea what they were trying to tell us.
Just as our attention was being drawn by these old signs, the raft in front of us suddenly skidded to a halt. We knocked into it and one of the men perched on its side nearly fell out. Our raft spun head to tail, pressing up against the raft ahead. We couldn't see anything from the surface. Why had we stopped? Was something hidden underwater? We swept about with our paddles, hit something, and with a good, forceful yank, pulled a sheet of wire netting from underwater.
"Damned Japs left a trap for us," the deputy squad leader cursed. He commanded two corpsmen to hop in and cut away the rest of the netting.
The two soldiers immediately stripped off their clothing, clenched their flashlights between their teeth, and dove in, splashing us with water so cold it made us shiver. You had to admire their nerve—told to jump, they did so without a second thought.
The two men were back up not three seconds later. "Squad leader," said one of the men, shivering with each word, "there's a dead man down there, caught on the river bottom."
CHAPTER 8
The Dead Man
The deputy squad leader removed his clothing, jumped n, and the three of them dove to the bottom once more, the force of their exertions stirring up the surface. Wang Sichuan is an impetuous man. He stripped off his clothing and was about to jump in, too, when I pulled him back. Three people was enough.
All the movement underwater caused the wire netting to jerk our raft back and forth. I lay flat across the bottom and did my best to keep it from flipping. The deputy squad leader soon emerged, towing some blue-green object. The other two soldiers broke the surface after him. With a great tug followed by a spray of water, the three of them pulled the thing up from the depths, splashing it directly onto our raft.
We all leaped in surprise. At first glance it really did seem to be a dead person,
but on closer inspection it became clear it was no such thing. It was a decomposing green-black gunnysack with holes torn all along its length by the netting and filled completely with rusted iron wire. Propped up, it did bear a remarkable resemblance to a rigid corpse. The gunnysack was disgusting. It covered our hands in watery rust. It was also extremely heavy. As soon as they set it down, the tail of the raft pulled up out of the water. Chen Luohu immediately shrank to the back of the raft. Any farther and he would have cowered right off the side. Luckily, Wang Sichuan stepped over and grabbed hold of him. The three corpsmen climbed, huffing and puffing, back onto the raft. The deputy squad leader stared for a moment at the gunnysack, his brows wrinkling. Then he turned to his two subordinates, rapped them once each atop the head, and cursed, "What the hell is this? A corpse? Is this what the corpses of your family members look like?"
The two soldiers hung their heads in embarrassment, then quickly jumped back in to finish cutting the wire. The deputy squad leader felt he'd lost a little face. "Those two new-recruit knuckleheads," he explained, "they're a pair of cowards." In fact, we'd all been given an awful fright. Seeing the thing thump down on the raft was terrifying. Thinking back on it, I'm pretty sure the corpsmen thought us a little soft and were trying to thicken our skins a bit.
Wang Sichuan shined his flashlight on the bag. "You think this thing was left behind by the Japanese?"
I was sure it was. This kind of gunnysack was called a buffer bag, I told the group, and was used as a provisional form of cover during explosions. I was sure it had once been filled with sand. The thing had probably been lost over the side at some point back when the Japanese were transporting equipment along the river. Indeed, it had begun to look as if the Japs really had set off a large explosion down here.
Wang Sichuan suddenly cut me off. He yanked on the rotting bag. "Wrong, Old Wu," he said. "This really is a corpse."
He tore open the soft, rotting bag, and we could see the remains of a human wrapped in the iron wire. The wire was wound around the bones and desiccated skin. The person had struggled violently before dying, tearing holes in the gunnysack's exterior. The corpse was already partially decayed, though the person had been so thin there wasn't much to decompose. Seeing his face distorted in suffering, we all shuddered involuntarily.
What I'm telling you is the truth, real as could be. I haven't exaggerated it at all. Indeed, once I saw that corpse laid out on the raft in the dark of the cave, my hair stood on end, and there was no way I would ever forget it. Not having witnessed it with your own eyes, it would be impossible to fully understand the gravity of such a sight: that the Japanese, in their frenzy, were capable of lining buffer bags with the bodies of still-living Chinese people, for use as protection against explosions. For a long time we stood in silence, Wang Sichuan the most obviously affected, his expression dark as night. When the two young soldiers finished cutting the wire and clambered back aboard the raft, they didn't know what to make of us—the looks on our faces must have been baffling. We pushed the corpse back into the water and continued downriver.
We didn't speak the rest of the way. To joke about anything seemed inappropriate. To divert our attention from what we'd seen, we watched the stone walls pass silently by. As the tunnel descended, the structure of the cave began to change, and our surroundings became increasingly bizarre. Features typical of a watery limestone cave began to replace those of a tectonic one, with waterfalls running down the rock walls and spouts seeping through the stone. We all put on our waterproof gear.
It was difficult to say if the limestone cave system had formed earlier than the tectonic features or the other way around. Tectonic caves are usually at least 100 million years old, while limestone cave systems can vary from 100,000 to 200 million years old. Perhaps 100 million years ago a mountain rose swiftly from the ocean and the geological activity stemming from this occurrence first resulted in a tectonic cave. Then, once an underground river had formed, it eroded the limestone around it, after which the characteristics of a limestone cave began to manifest. Generally speaking, the systems of large river caves that exist within karst terrain are netlike, with one layer on top of another and stringlike tunnels extending in all directions. With no prescribed rules or routes to follow, navigating such caves is not some sightseeing cruise where you just follow a river directly to its bottom.
Because of the water seeping through the walls, the surface layer of limestone was carried deeper into the cave, and the level of erosion should become increasingly severe as we proceeded downstream. Nonetheless, we estimated that once we reached a certain depth, our surroundings would become tectonic again. The pressure at that point would be too great for a karst-formed limestone cave to bear. We discussed each of these guesses, but what really captured our interest was, where did the river end? Was there an underground lake somewhere far downriver? It would be hard to imagine all of this water somehow dissipating through cracks in the rock and becoming groundwater.
Calculating approximately how much time we'd need to reach our destination, we accounted for the river's gentle slope, and estimated we were about sixteen kilometers from a thirty-six-hundredfoot depth. So long as nothing unforeseen occurred and we made camp that night on schedule, we figured we should arrive by ten the next morning. Of course, the prerequisite was the assumption that we had taken the correct branch in the river and that there were no more forks up ahead. Otherwise the map was blank, and the devil only knew where we would end up.
We soon found one of our guesses about the cave structure borne out perfectly: the erosion really was getting more severe. After we reached a depth of approximately 960 feet, the characteristics of a limestone cave burst into view. On both sides of the river the walls were transformed into a scrolling mural of complex and terrifying shapes. Falling all around were waterfalls with bases like plates of bone. Thin strands of rock interlaced crookedly like sharp teeth in a dog's mouth. Above the river there stretched a high stone bridge, seemingly suspended out of nowhere. From the roof of the cave, several waterfalls fell straight down, their force great enough that when we passed beneath them we had to curl into the raft for protection. Besides the Japanese, no one had seen this place for a million years. Now all of its secrets were being exposed to us. I felt as if we were drifting through the skeleton of some giant animal, and I didn't know whether to be frightened or excited.
Soon enough our theories encountered a serious challenge. After we'd passed beneath a giant waterfall, huge boulders appeared before us, blocking our path and encircled by rapids. We were sucked through the whitewater right into one of the rocks, our raft wedging itself into a crack.
"Fallen rocks," said Pei Qing, motioning with his flashlight. "They must have ripped from the ceiling during some cave-in."
"Anyone can see that," Wang Sichuan shouted. "Goddamn it, who's going to help me climb up and take a look?"
We climbed onto the rock to survey our predicament. We were shocked. A rocky shoal spread out before us, the river flowing on beneath the stones. The shoal was made of irregularly shaped rocks, the largest as big as the hood of a truck, the smallest the size of a fist, the ground extremely uneven. Black gunnysacks, just like the one we'd dredged from underwater, filled the gaps between the rocky chaos. The sight flooded our eyes. Many of the bags had almost rotted away and the twisted corpses within them jutted out in every horrid pose imaginable, still bound tightly in wire. We were looking into hell.
CHAPTER 9
The Underground Shoal
The gunnysacks were piled five or six layers high. Many of those trapped within had struggled to free themselves, their arms and legs now protruding. In the end their iron fetters had simply been too strong. The corpses were desiccated, their expressions frozen in torment and pain. To examine them in detail was too much to bear.
As soon as we tried to move some of the bags, the wires would twist together and hold tight. Chen Luohu was terrified, utterly scared out of his wits. If he hadn't taken a piss when we
first arrived, I suspect his pants would have been wet through. Pei Qing said nothing, his expression very composed. We dropped anchor. The deputy squad leader clambered up some rocks to have a look at our surroundings. The body-filled shoal continued for a long way. If there weren't a thousand corpses, then there were at least seven or eight hundred. It was a mass grave. As a prospector, a dead body is something you rarely come across. To see that many, suddenly and all at once, was chilling.
After discussing it as a group, we decided that these had to be workers captured by the Japanese. Moving a bomber deep underground piece by piece would require a huge amount of labor. When it came to negotiating this sort of terrain, there was no more nimble a transportation tool than a human being. Because these activities were strictly confidential, the workers had to be silenced once the job was done. This was the method they had used. Still, there was something strange about it: Why had they stacked the bodies in this specific location? No way could these "corpse bags" have been used as anything other than buffer bags. Was this the site of an explosion? What if the cave-in that caused these boulders to drop and shatter was actually manmade?
But after taking a look around, we couldn't find the slightest evidence of such a blast. Pei Qing said that deep in the crevices between the rocks you could see where the boulders had been made glossy and smooth by running water. Stones required tens of thousands of years to be scoured to that level of polish. The cave-in must have occurred long, long ago. Moreover, this location wasn't suitable for demolition work. It would be far too easy to cause a chain reaction across the layers of rock. And the buffer bags had been heaped in a very careless manner. It seemed likely they'd simply been abandoned here. What if these bags were merely extras?