Search for the Buried Bomber

by Xu, Lei

  Again we tried to force it upward. We cried out. I understood at last what had befallen Old Cat and the others. We were being plotted against. The door being blastproof meant it was basically soundproof as well. We could ruin our larynxes and still no one would hear. Unwilling to give up, Wang Sichuan twice bashed his shoulder into the door, very nearly wrenching his waist. The door was too heavy. Smashing against it wasn't going to do the least bit of damage to the bolt.

  Wang Sichuan let fly with a string of Mongolian curses. A burst of cold wind blew through, causing my teeth to chatter. If we didn't find a way out of here quick, we'd freeze to death. Old Cat and the others had been trapped for at least ten hours. Who knew if they'd ever managed to find a way out? Another burst of wind came blowing through, so fierce it took my breath away. Having no choice, the three of us set out with our backs to the wind, Wang Sichuan calling out for Old Cat and Old Tang.

  In today's cities these electrical canals are everywhere, often filled with stagnant water and fiber-optic telecommunications cables as well as electricity. At each intersection in the tunnel, there's a manhole leading up to the surface. For a while we encountered no such intersection. As we walked, we pondered whether we'd gone the wrong way. Should we turn around and face into the wind? Perhaps it would lead to the icehouse. But unlike inside that giant freezer, at least here the temperature was endurable. The farther we went in that direction, the more the temperature would drop and the wind increase. Something bad was sure to happen, and not one of us was willing to find out what. Avoiding cold and seeking warmth are bodily instincts, impossible to defy. Now that I think about it, people were in excellent physical shape back then. Despite the harshness of that environment, even someone like me was able to carry on.

  After walking through that icy channel for about half an hour, we came upon the first intersection. A shaft led upward. Wang Sichuan pushed several times on the iron door overhead. It didn't move an inch. It too was locked.

  "For fear that the enemy will take advantage of these tunnels," said Ma Zaihai, "regulations generally stipulate that all openings be locked up."

  Wang Sichuan cursed. "And if they're all locked, then what?"

  I patted him on the back. "Relax, there's always a way out."

  But in my heart I was unsure. Choosing a direction, we smashed several marks in the ice and continued on. I prayed, whether to Buddha or Tengri it didn't matter, to bless us and ensure our Japanese adversary had forgotten to lock just one or even half of an iron door.

  The tunnels were hardly complex, but they were very long. It seemed as if all the wires for the entire dam ran through here. It took at least half an hour between each intersection. After three hours we'd found only four doors, each locked more securely than the last. The path ahead was pitch-black. Our eyebrows were covered in a layer of ice. Crystals had spread throughout our hair. Our hands and feet had gone numb. We were in a whole lot deeper than we'd imagined. That's not idle talk . Wang Sichuan's iron club had frozen to his hand without his noticing. As he switched it to his left hand, he tore off a layer of skin. Old Cat and the rest had surely found themselves in a predicament just like this. I hoped they'd already found a way out. If they hadn't, then things didn't look good for us. We were running out of options. All we could do was keep going.

  Then, after we'd walked for a few more hours, a number of circular holes appeared in the concrete wall, each half as tall as a man. Not one of the power cables passed through them.

  "Air vents," said Ma Zaihai. We looked inside. There was light at the end.

  CHAPTER 48

  The Outer Edge

  The light was very dim, probably emanating from one of the emergency lights we'd seen earlier. Who knew what was on the other side? But this was our last and only hope. Even if it ran through a tiger's den or a dragon's lair, so long as it led out of here, we'd have to charge ahead. There was no need to deliberate over which tunnel to take. The three openings clearly led to the same place. We wriggled into the middle one and crawled thirty or forty feet to the end. A frozen iron grate was fastened over the opening. Ice covered the space between the bars and a faint light shined through, but it was impossible to make out what was on the other side. Ma Zaihai removed the bullets from his rifle, then smashed the butt of it against the four corners of the grate. The space was extremely cramped. He couldn't use much force. After working at it for some time, the grate finally opened and a powerful wind rushed in, stealing the breath from my lungs. I ducked my head at once and gasped for air. Covering my mouth with my overcoat, I looked out. It was utter blackness. Nothing was out there.

  The three of us looked at each other. Beyond this tunnel wasn't some room, it was the endless abyss. Looking out, we saw a stretch of nothingness. There was only the crazed wind pouring dizzyingly into the tunnel. The mist really had dispersed. Even our flashlight beams picked up nothing. Ma Zaihai yelled that he was going to stick his head out to look. We grabbed the hem of his coat. A gust of wind came from behind us as soon as his shoulders were outside, ballooning his clothes. He floated outward as if he were being pulled. His face turned pale with fright, but we held fast and he didn't fall. "Quickly now," said Wang Sichuan. "Take a look around and see what's out there."

  He lay flat and shimmied his torso out. He shined his flashlight all about. Then we pulled him back in. "This is the bottom of the dam," he said. "There's a cliff about thirty feet below us. Beside the opening is a ladder leading down to it."

  "Is there any sign of Old Cat and the others?" I asked him.

  "How am I supposed to make them out?" he replied. He could see the searchlight up above, but it was far away. This really was the very bottom of the dam, with only crisscrossing layers of cement and rock all around. The flashlight beam stretched only a short distance and nothing could be seen clearly.

  "Does the ladder go up as well?" asked Wang Sichuan.

  "It's a little unreliable," he replied. "The wind is too great, stronger even than it was atop the dam, and the ladder is already decayed. If we were to climb halfway up and it snapped, well…I don't think I need to say what would happen."

  I felt this was a risk we could take. It was just too cold in here. Even the fierce wind rushing in from outside felt comparatively warm. If we continued to search the electrical canal, we wouldn't be able to last much longer. Here at least we had a slim chance of survival. The bars on the ladder were thick as a thumb and very sturdy. What happened earlier with the deputy squad leader was likely a freak accident. As long as we took care while climbing up, we should be fine. The three of us talked it over. "Let's not decide yet," said Wang Sichuan. "We'll check it out and if it's not all right, we'll just head back."

  With that, Ma Zaihai rubbed his hands, reached one arm out, grabbed on to the ladder, and swung over to it, his coat flying open in the wind. Trying as best he could to stick close to the wall, he yelled out to us, but even from such a short distance we couldn't make out what he was saying. He could only signal that it was all right. Then he climbed up.

  I was next. I felt a stab of terror the moment I leaned out. It was like leaning into outer space. There was nothing beyond. Below me was the abyss. If I fell, who knew if I'd ever hit bottom? All I could feel was the gale-force wind. Grabbing tightly to the ladder, I swung over. For an instant I began to fly, but I adapted, adjusted my movements, and stuck myself to the wall of the dam. I climbed up enough for Wang Sichuan to come out. Shining my flashlight down, I watched him climb on. He was much heavier than us and therefore much more stable.

  With a solid grip on the ladder, I began to observe my surroundings. Before me was the dam. My flashlight beam illuminated a long, narrow strip of its concrete wall. Only a section of it was visible, the more distant areas merging gradually into the blackness. Its surface was extremely rough and covered in a layer of some dark substance, similar in color to the mist. The substance was on the ladder as well. I looked at my hands. They were coated in a thin layer of the stuff, like liquid but also like d
ust. I immediately wiped them on my coat and covered them with my sleeves for protection. The devil only knows if this stuff's poisonous, I thought.

  As for the space behind me, what was there to say? Nothing was out there. I felt like we were holding on to the very edge of the world. I began to regret my decision. Who knew how far we'd have to climb? It was impossible to say. Even now my heart clenches as I think back on it. As I shined my flashlight about, I saw this wasn't the only ladder. More appeared in the distance, a number of them in fact, each spaced a long ways apart. Between them jutted parallel rows of steel bars like the ones that had saved me earlier, each curved into a hook one could hold on to. They had evidently been placed to allow workers to travel from one ladder to another, stepping on the bars below, grabbing on to those above. They must have been used during construction and maintenance. Then something occurred to me: Here, at the bottom of the dam, what was there for them to inspect or repair?

  Having seen Wang Sichuan firmly on the ladder, Ma Zaihai put his flashlight between his teeth and began to climb. The two of us followed his lead. It was impossible to think amid the blasts of wind. Just to breathe required all of my focus. I had no concept of how many rungs I climbed or how far we'd come. In a situation like that, you're neither calm nor agitated. Your state of mind becomes very unusual. As I looked back at the interminable blackness behind me, I realized this was probably the feeling of awakening. My body and soul seemed to comprehend some message, one that had arrived from somewhere miraculous. Had I continued to feel this way, I doubtlessly would have been converted straightaway to Buddhism or some other religion, but this mood was cut short by Ma Zaihai's boots.

  I looked up. He had stopped, and my head had smacked right into his boots. I looked around. At once I saw it: Off to the right, about sixty feet from us, was some colossal thing of concrete and steel bars, like a great, spiny hedgehog perched on the wall. Its massive round body was made of concrete, and the bars were its spines. The whole thing was enormous, roughly the size of a three-story house. From this distance it appeared to be nothing less than some monstrous creature.

  Ma Zaihai gazed at it for a moment. Then, climbing onto one of the steel bars next to us, he began making his way across. My principle has always been "Don't look for trouble." The moment I saw him step out I felt anxious. I climbed a little higher and yelled over, "What are you doing?"

  He turned around, the sound of his voice drifting in and out as he called back. "That's the antenna!"

  "Why are you worrying about that now?" I shouted. "Our first priority is getting out of here!"

  Some idea seemed to have taken hold of him. "Wait right there," he told me. "I'm going to check it out."

  Wang Sichuan tapped me on the leg from below. He asked what was going on. I didn't know. This private was too capricious, too undisciplined, but the more I thought about it, the more I felt bewitched into following him across. I climbed onto the steel path. The wind was much more powerful as I made my way along the wall. Even keeping upright was a struggle. I was still only halfway across when, forcing my head up, I watched Ma Zaihai prepare to step over the final gap. Suddenly a great gust of wind rushed forth, pressing me against the side of the dam. I closed my eyes and held on tight. When I opened them, Ma Zaihai was gone.

  My heart skipped a beat. Had he fallen? In a flash I saw him. He was hanging on to a steel bar some twenty feet down the face of that convex structure. He must have lost his grip when the wind came blasting through. I signaled down to him, asking if he was hurt, but he had no free hand to respond with. Kicking against the wall, he tried with all his might to pull himself up, but he seemed to be injured. After climbing for only a moment, he could exert himself no more and hung back down.

  Not wasting a moment, I climbed toward the antenna and yelled for him to hold on. As I reached the final gap, I realized why he'd fallen. From here, the distance to one of the steel spines was considerable. My fingertips only brushed the bar. I brought my arm back and adjusted my position. I needed to swing over. I cursed the Japs for their corner cutting. A distance like this, and still they wouldn't place just one more bar?

  Wang Sichuan was right behind me, his nerves as frayed as mine. Leaning back, I took a deep breath and swung out. In an instant the bar was in my right hand and my left was behind me, still hanging in midair. The rush of it covered my body in a cold sweat. Had there been another burst of wind just now, I would have been a goner. I lifted my feet up onto a nearby steel bar, stabilized myself, and climbed down. I leaned over and grabbed hold of Ma Zaihai. "You goddamn idiot," I yelled at him, "what the hell were you thinking, climbing over here?"

  Holding my hand, he used all his strength to pull himself back up. He turned to me, panting. "The antenna. The antenna is here."

  I looked at the steel bars all around us. As a matter of fact, they were different from the ones that had led us over here. Not only were they thinner, they were without a trace of rust. I was rather startled. This thing was so big and its steel forks so numerous, its reception strength had to be immense. But by no means was that why he'd climbed across.

  I continued to scold him. "So it's an antenna. That's still no reason for you to take such a risk."

  He laughed at me and scratched his head. I assumed he was embarrassed, but he reached behind him and brought his rifle around. He pulled back the bolt and leveled it at me. "I'm sorry, Engineer Wu," he said, "but I'm going to have to inconvenience you for a moment."

  CHAPTER 49

  Control Room

  We'd all been through boot camp. We'd all been told countless times before target practice never to point our guns at anyone else. How many stories had we heard of someone dying when a weapon accidentally went off ? Even an empty gun could eject a firing pin fast enough to kill a man. So I found looking into the black hole of the gun muzzle stupendously irritating. At once I brought my hand up, yelling, "What are you doing? Put the weapon down. You want it to go off and kill me?"

  He didn't seem concerned in the slightest. "It's fine," he said. "I unloaded all the bullets and the safety is on." He handed it to me.

  I grabbed the rifle and looked it over. The bullet magazine really was gone. I was amazed. When had he taken it out? Then I remembered that he'd taken all the bullets out before he knocked out the iron grate with the butt of the rifle. "You need my help for what?" I asked him. "What is it you really want to do? Did you stop caring about your life when you saw the antenna? This thing isn't going to lead us out of here."

  He undid his Sam Browne belt and tied one end to the rifle strap. "Company Commander Tang said the whole reason they came down here was to find this antenna. If they took the same route we did, then they too would have come across it and would surely have climbed over to check it out. If they went a different way, I still want to take a quick look at it. Then, once we find them, we can all leave straightaway and won't have to come back down here.

  "And you should let me go," he continued, "because I'm an engineering corpsman. Although you two are, of course, much more learned than I, there are nonetheless some details that only I will understand. Let me take a look at the antenna. I might be able to figure out where Company Commander Tang is right now."

  He said this so sincerely, so solemnly, that I couldn't help but trust him. Wang Sichuan jumped over, landing just beside me. "What's going on?" he asked. "Looking for trouble again, are you? What's this place got to do with anything?"

  By the time I explained it, Ma Zaihai had already tied the other end of the Sam Browne belt to the belt around his waist. Then, having me hold tight to his gun, he began to climb down toward the underside of the antenna's bowl-like concrete base. The nearer he climbed to the bottom half of the bowl, the steeper it began to slope toward the wall. Footholds became increasingly few, until at last he could do no more than hang on with his arms as the lower half of his body dangled helplessly in midair. Fortunately Ma Zaihai was both strong and agile. There were only a few places where I had to steady the gun in m
y arms and help him swing across. Soon enough he'd disappeared from view. A few moments later, he yelled back. Then the sound of some object striking the antenna rang out. After several more such knocks, he called out to us to climb down after him. I pulled on the line. He seemed to have fixed the other end to something, so I wedged the gun into a section of the antenna and began climbing down the attached lengths of rifle strap and Sam Browne belt. Wang Sichuan followed closely behind.

  After descending about thirty feet, I saw a damp hole in the rock, so water-washed it appeared covered in wax. I had no time to take a closer look, for just then, at the spot where the base of the round antenna met the wall of the dam, I noticed a square window, about three feet high and wide. Power cables ran down the concrete bowl and into this opening. It was around one of these cables that the Sam Browne belt was tied. Ma Zaihai was kneeling inside the small window. "Behind here is the telegraph room," he said.

  "I thought the telegraph room was in the cavern Old Tang found," said Wang Sichuan.

  "I saw the transmitter he brought back," said Ma Zaihai. "It was too small, definitely not the transmitter of a primary telegraph room. And no way would the main transmitter and the antenna have been placed so far apart. If they were attacked, the cables might be cut, so the primary telegraph room would be near the antenna. Underground bunkers are designed with the main transmitter in the primary telegraph room. All others are merely small-scale transmitters built into temporary command posts. If the dam were overrun, right here would be the hardest place to cut off from the antenna."

  "You son of a gun, how come you didn't say this before?" asked Wang Sichuan.

  "To tell you the truth, when Company Commander Tang said we should find the antenna, I figured what he really wanted was to find this primary telegraph room. He's much more experienced than I, so I didn't think it my place to say anything." Ma Zaihai scooted deeper into the tunnel, giving me space to climb in.