by Xu, Lei
Wang Sichuan stared at Chen Luohu, but I stopped him before he could say anything. This time Chen Luohu was correct. The engineering corpsmen thought differently than we did. We should take pains to say little in their presence that might make them think we were having second thoughts. “No matter what,” I said after thinking about it for a moment, “we can’t go anywhere until she wakes up and we ask her what’s going on. Even if we only find out a little, that’s better than nothing. At the very least, she should be able to give us some sort of explanation.”
CHAPTER 14
Madness
A range of thoughts and opinions were swirling about camp that night. None of us had seen a woman in a long time. To have one sleeping in our midst with her underwear toasting by the fire made it tough to fall asleep. I was exhausted, but wild fantasies kept me up. At last, I fell into a deep sleep.
After sleeping for who knows how long, I was nudged awake. I raised my head and looked around, but everything was blackness—the fire had been extinguished. Sitting up, I turned on my flashlight and shined it into the darkness. The sentry must have fallen asleep. I turned my head to see who had shaken me. It was Yuan Xile. She was squatting beside me, completely naked. I felt a jolt of fear. “You’re awake?” I asked her.
She made no reply, but moved closer and crawled onto my chest. A strange odor filled my nostrils. I felt dizzy. Yuan Xile was a northeasterner, and like most girls from that region she was voluptuous, her figure incredibly alluring. Though I wanted to push her off , my hands pulled her closer. The soft, smooth feel of her skin beneath my fingers made my hair stand on end, but I dared do nothing more. Unable to go further, unable to go back, I lay paralyzed. Suddenly, she opened her mouth wide. I watched as slowly, very slowly, a long piece of wire emerged from the black recesses of her throat.
I yelled in surprise and sprang off the ground. In a flash everything disappeared. I was still lying in my sleeping bag, the firelight glowing brightly. Chen Luohu, Pei Qing, and two of the soldiers were already awake. Wang Sichuan was nearby, snoring loudly. Yuan Xile had awoken as well and was already sitting by the fire, fully clothed and devouring a plate of food. Her hair was matted and one look at her movements was enough to know that something was wrong.
Laughing to myself, I reached down and felt the crotch of my trousers. Fuck, my old dad was right. The quicker I got married the better. Rubbing my eyes, I rose from bed, washed my face in cold water, and glanced over at Pei Qing. “How is she,” I asked him.
Pei Qing shook his head. “Looks like she’s had nothing to eat for a very long time.”
“Has she said anything?”
He sighed. “You’d better ask her yourself.”
Seeing Pei Qing’s expression and hearing his tone of voice, I could tell that no pleasant surprises awaited me, but it wasn’t until I went over and attempted to talk to her that I discovered how dark the situation actually was. She was curled up into herself and scarcely aware of anything. She seemed absent, her entire being deeply distracted. As soon as I spoke, she turned to stare fixedly at me, but no matter what I asked she never responded. The look in her eyes was somehow dispersed, unable to focus. She’d been wandering in the dark for far too long and was now struggling to adjust her eyes to the light. Still, her face remained delicate and lovely. Just looking at it was enough to make my heart ache. To think what had become of this poor woman.
At last I gave up. Pei Qing brought me some breakfast and sat down. He gave a deep sigh. “It’s just too pitiful,” he said. Pei Qing reckoned it had been the lights of our camp that had drawn Yuan Xile to us out of the darkness. He said he’d gone through her clothes and rucksack and all her food was completely gone. Who knew how long she had been wandering through the caverns? Had we arrived just a little later, she would almost certainly have been dead.
I turned to the rest of the group. “We’re bound to run into trouble the deeper we get into this cave,” I said. “Since at this point we know absolutely nothing about what lies ahead, maybe we should first head back to the surface.”
The nature of both the assignment and our team had changed. We now knew the road ahead would be dangerous and that our superiors were hiding something from us. To continue at this point would not be some positive manifestation of stoicism but a foolhardy move, demonstrating a poor understanding of when it’s best to adapt to the circumstances.
Pei Qing nodded. “To be honest,” he said, “I’m very curious about what happened down here, but I admit that based on the current situation, heading back would be the correct decision. Still, to simply pick up and go back wouldn’t be right. If there are others still stranded, we’d just be letting them die. A few of us should advance with a small amount of gear and look around a bit. Maybe we can get some closure on the matter.”
He really had a point. My God, this guy was a leader. It made me a little envious. When Wang Sichuan and the rest of them awoke, I told them what we’d discussed. No one had any complaints. In any case, said the deputy squad leader, his orders had been to listen to us.
After everyone finished eating breakfast, we began to discuss how we’d split our ranks. We couldn’t bring Yuan Xile. Someone would have to stay behind and look after her. Chen Luohu immediately raised his hand. “I suddenly don’t feel so well anymore,” he said. “I request to stay behind.” No one objected. It was impolite to say it, but he’d been a burden from the start. Worried that Chen Luohu might run into trouble by himself, the deputy squad leader left behind one of his soldiers. Then Wang Sichuan, Pei Qing, the deputy squad leader, two of his soldiers, and I hoisted our lightened packs and set out.
Because we planned to return to the surface after finishing our search, we no longer had any misgivings about wasting our lantern fuel or batteries. We all switched on our flashlights, and at once the cave became bright. The landscape here appeared more or less unchanging, but we didn’t have time to take a closer look. With our lightened packs, we were able to practically fly across the rocks. Soon we could no longer see the firelight behind us. The deeper we went into the cave, the bigger it seemed to become. The more we walked, the more we felt strength filling our bodies. It was as if we’d permanently cast off the gloom that weighed us down in the days before, trudging slowly along, burdened by heavy loads. Soon we discovered the crushed stones covering the ground were becoming smaller and smaller, a sign that the shoal was beginning to recede. After walking another two thousand feet or so, we ran into a steep drop-off. The shoal descended for over nine hundred feet. Twenty-foot sheets of iron mesh were stuck patchily across the rock slope. Exercising great caution, we began to pick our way down. Before we reached the bottom, Wang Sichuan suddenly cursed aloud. As expected, the pitch-black river had appeared once more at the foot of the hill, but it was just a short section. As we shined our flashlights along the water, we could see that, some several hundred feet on, it ran into another shoal, this one composed of small, shattered stones.
“What now?” asked Pei Qing. “Do we really have to head back and get the rafts?” Of course, we all knew this was out of the question. The deputy squad leader scanned the water with his flashlight. The bottom was clearly visible. “We can wade across,” he said.
He made to leap in, but Wang Sichuan held him back. “Wait a moment!” he said.
He swept the beam of his flashlight back and forth across a secluded corner of the river. There, deposited at the water’s deepest point, were a number of iron cages, their interiors hidden in dark shadow.
CHAPTER 15
The Water Dungeon
We had reached a water dungeon. We’d all seen them before in the structures the Japanese built all across Manchuria. The cages were designed so the water would just cover the bars across the top. The prisoner was thus forced to hoist himself up and stick his nose through the gaps if he wanted to stay alive. In the freezing water of the underground river, prisoners would have had to maintain this posture for several days. If they gave up, they drowned.
Iron cages had been sunk all along the length of the river, creating a dense mass beneath the surface, but unless one looked closely, they were undetectable. Bringing the beams of our flashlights together, we could see dim shapes floating within many of the cages. A shiver ran down my spine. Wang Sichuan told us he’d sometimes heard the older generation talk about these things. They said that when the Japanese sealed you inside, there was more than freezing water and exhaustion in store for you. He was sure that leeches and other things also lurked within the river. We couldn’t just jump right in.
Hearing this, our hearts dropped. The deputy squad leader protested that it was too cold for leeches, but Wang Sichuan replied that temperature had nothing to do with it. The Mongolian grasslands were filled with mountain leeches, he said. They would stick to the underside of fallen leaves and come out as soon as it rained. We were well aware of the dangers posed by these creatures. They weren’t fatal, but they nonetheless elicited feelings of intense disgust and their bites could sometimes lead to malarial infections. They were one of the principal dangers of prospecting. We pulled our pants and shoelaces tight. Leeches are extremely small before they fill with blood. Even the tiniest crevice is enough of an opening. We lined any tears in our pant legs with gauze. Once our preparations were complete, we inspected each other to make sure we hadn’t missed anything. We then entered the water one by one. Lifting his belongings overhead, the deputy squad leader led the way. The rest of us followed behind him, our hands in the air like those of surrendered soldiers.
The rocks beneath our feet were bumpy and uneven. As we continued, the frigid water soon rose to the middle of our chests, soaking through our clothes, stealing our body heat, and causing our teeth to chatter uncontrollably. Wang Sichuan was freezing at the back of the line and pressed us to hurry up, but no matter how much we wanted to quicken our pace, we could go no faster. The combination of the freezing cold and the deep water greatly hindered our progress. It was all we could do to keep moving forward, each step requiring an ever-greater effort.
Two of the engineering corpsmen proved more resistant to the cold. They waded on up ahead, sweeping the beams of their flashlights back and forth across the surface of the water. It wasn’t long before we found ourselves amid the iron cages. They were much closer here and their details far clearer. As the corpsmen shined their lights upon the rusted underwater bars, our hearts froze. Hair hung from them in wispy clumps and the outline of twisted limbs slowly rocked beneath the surface.
“Terrible,” Wang Sichuan said through chattering teeth. “To drown in a place like this… Even in death these men will not find peace.”
“Indeed,” added Pei Qing, “and how unexpected, to come across a water dungeon this far below the surface. This was one of the tricks the Japanese used to threaten Chinese laborers. The Japanese must have stayed in these caverns for some time. I bet we’ll find some long-term fortifications up ahead.”
None of us spoke. At last, Wang Sichuan mumbled, “In any case, anything the Japs liked can’t be good.”
We continued on in silence. All that could be heard was the swishing of water and the men in front and behind gasping for breath. This section of river wasn’t long. Soon enough we’d reached the middle. I was already so cold I couldn’t feel my feet. My mind swam through a vague tumult of sensations, the swaying flashlight beams appearing like flowers of light blooming in the darkness. I relied purely on reflex to keep going. Whether or not leeches lurked beneath the surface—I had no strength left to care.
Then the sound of swishing water changed. Someone seemed to have stopped. I squinted ahead into the darkness. It was the deputy squad leader. Shining his flashlight at the water just in front of him, he was leaning forward, searching intensely for something. We asked him what was wrong. When he raised his head, we saw his face was pale. “Something down there just grabbed hold of my foot,” he said.
“Don’t talk nonsense!” cried Wang Sichuan, but I could see the color drain from his face. To say that kind of thing in a place like this was no laughing matter. A moment before we had been merely trudging along, our minds empty from the cold. Now everyone’s energy immediately returned.
“I’m not joking,” said the deputy squad leader. “There’s definitely something in the water.” The deputy squad leader was a serious man not given to making friends. No way would he have waited until this moment to finally tell a joke. We all began scanning the water with our flashlights.
“Could it be a cave fish?” asked Pei Qing. “This same water flows all the way from the top of the cave. There would have to be at least some living in a river of this length.”
“You find one and I’ll believe you,” said Wang Sichuan. Then, in the bright spot lit by our flashlight beams, we saw something very long sweep past, moving fast as lightning.
Everyone gasped. Wang Sichuan was the first to react. Panicking, he turned, splashed over to one of the cages, and climbed on top. The rest of us rushed to copy his example. In a chaos of waving arms and sloshing water, we clambered atop the other cages. Only the deputy squad leader thought to hoist his rifle. The click of a gun being loaded resounded throughout the cave.
We were all soaked to the bone, cumbersome and clumsy under the weight of our dripping clothes. Pei Qing, the smallest in our group, was unable to steady himself. He slumped down heavily onto the cage, his face even paler than usual, and sat staring numbly at the water. Several people began scanning the river with their flashlights, but nothing could be seen. Small waves and concentric ripples covered its surface, the results of our frantic rush to reach the cages a moment ago. What if the shadowy image had been nothing more than an illusion conjured by our nervous minds? No one was brave enough to jump back in and find out.
For a moment we were unsure how to proceed. Then Wang Sichuan spoke up. “Switch off the goddamn flashlights,” he said. “Let’s get to the far bank. Then you can look all you want.” He stood and began sprinting across the cages toward the shore. We watched him run for a moment. Then some nameless terror overtook us. Unable to think for another second, the rest of us took off after him. The cages were packed tight together, the tops of them relatively flat and only a finger’s length away from the water’s surface. I had just been wondering how the Japanese had managed to stick their prisoners inside. Now I could see they’d simply walked atop the cage tops. If only we had realized this earlier, I thought, there would have been no need to wade through the water. The old saying was true: only when the situation becomes critical does a solution ever appear.
We ran like the wind, all of us terrified of falling behind. Soon we could see the opposite bank. There were no more cages in the final section of river, and we watched as Wang Sichuan reached the edge of the last one. He leaped like a bear into the water. After struggling to the surface, he took a few short steps and climbed onto the bank. The rest of us followed closely behind. Pei Qing was now in the lead. I was the next man behind him. Then, all of a sudden, he was gone. I gasped and sprinted to the spot where he’d disappeared. The water where he fell began to seethe violently, but I couldn’t make out what was going on beneath the surface.
My heart skipped a beat. For a moment I hesitated, then my mind went blank and I leaped into the water. I swam over to where the surface was still churning and dove under. Everything was concealed in a dense swirl of bubbles. Somewhere in front of me, two giant shapes appeared locked in violent struggle. My nerves went haywire. I pulled out my dagger and shined my flashlight into the murk.
It was not at all what I had expected. Once my eyes acclimated to the underwater light, I saw no monster awaiting me. It was Pei Qing. Somehow he’d gotten himself trapped inside one of the iron cages. He was a poor swimmer, incapable of opening his eyes underwater, and though he struggled with all his might to free himself, he was far too agitated. His efforts did no more than vainly stir up the water. After Wang Sichuan ran across the cage’s severely rusted top bars, they needed no more than the weight of Pei Qing to snap i
n half. He was skinny enough to fall through the gap that had opened, and once underwater, he panicked. Since he was unwilling or unable to open his eyes, all he could do was knock about from one side of the cage to the other.
I had no idea how severe his water phobia was. Some people can drown in public baths. I swam toward the cage, reached my hand between the bars, and tried to calm him down. As I grabbed hold of him, his entire body erupted in a fit of fright. His feet pedaled violently. He smashed them against the sides of the cage. I swam to the surface, climbed atop the broken cage, and reached my hands into the opening to pull him out. At this point, the deputy squad leader and Wang Sichuan both rushed over to help. Wild with fear and adrenaline, we forced apart the bars of the cage and attempted to hoist the half-dead Pei Qing to the surface.
The poor guy was in a terrible way. As soon as we got his head above water he vomited violently, was racked by coughing, and then went completely still, his body soft and limp as clay. Despite all our efforts, we could only get the top half of him above the surface. His legs still dangled in the freezing water below. After attempting to pull him up several more times without success, Wang Sichuan stopped and said that his legs were probably hooked on something below the surface. Someone should go under and investigate. At once everyone turned to me. I alone was entirely soaked from head to toe. There was nothing to say, so I cursed silently and jumped back in.
The water was much clearer now that Pei Qing was no longer tossing about. Treading water, I saw the cages were wound together with coils of iron netting. The Japanese had probably been afraid the strongest prisoners might be able to lift the cage from where it sat and flee while still within its bars. It was this netting that was now hooked around Pei Qing’s pant leg. I dove underwater, grabbed his pant leg, and yanked on it with all my might. I was almost out of breath by the time his pants ripped free of the wire. When I released my hand from his leg, Wang Sichuan and the rest were at last able to drag Pei Qing’s whole body out of the water. I exhaled deeply, sending forth a river of bubbles. Reaching out of the cage, I was about to kick to the surface, when my flashlight lit upon some shape to the right. There, from out of the darkness, emerged the most hideous face imaginable.