Most Japanese officers were wildly ebullient. The pendulum that governed the psychological life of their manic-depressive nation was swinging high. But some staff officers reexamined their projection that their “lightning-storm attack” would sweep across China within three months. Negotiations between Communists and Nationalists to implement their prior agreement in principle to form an Anti-Japanese United Front were inching toward success. If the contending Chinese parties actually stopped fighting each other, Tokyo feared its “lightning storm” would be delayed—and sparse Japanese resources were already over-committed. Recognizing that it could not sustain a protracted campaign on the vast Chinese mainland, the Japanese command ordered a swift, decisive stroke. The preemptive attack on Shanghai would not only paralyze the Nationalists. It would undermine the Nationalist–Communist rapprochement and insure that the enemy remained divided.
The same urgency dominated Thomas Sekloong’s thoughts as he studied the map of the Japanese build-up around Shanghai at 8:15 on the morning of August 17, 1937. He was scheduled to brief the Generalissimo in fifteen minutes. At thirty-two, Thomas was trim in a high-collared khaki tunic crossed by a gleaming Sam Browne belt, and the two gold stars of a major general (junior grade) shone on his shoulder straps.
He owed his rapid advancement to both the Generalissimo’s personal preferment and the Sekloongs’ influence. Promotion in the National Army depended more upon connections, the traditional Confucian kwan-hsi, than upon ability or achievement. Thomas was wholly Chiang Kai-shek’s man, one of the “modern officers” the Generalissimo had promoted rapidly because of their personal loyalty to himself. Most were Whampoa graduates, the elite core of the armies the Generalissimo was building to grind down the Communists and the remaining warlords, the grand design he had been forced to postpone by the Japanese assault. Their unquestioning allegiance made those officers at least as vital to their commander as his three elite divisions, which were still trained by German advisers although the Nationalists were fighting Adolf Hitler’s allies, the Japanese.
His southern General further valued the young Major General because he was a southerner. Thomas’s Cantonese origins were apparent in his dark, intent features, which hinted of his European blood only in the slight arch of his nose and the brown tinge of his thinning hair. As Deputy Military Secretary to the Generalissimo, he was the exemplar of the new China his chief envisioned. Alert, disciplined, and trained in Western techniques, he nonetheless retained the Confucian virtues of absolute loyalty and obedience to his superiors. Even his devout Catholicism worked in his favor, for the Generalissimo, himself a Methodist convert, was deeply impressed by the moral force Christianity bestowed upon its adherents. Yet Thomas Sekloong was in reality no more than a single brick in a fragile façade made up of a few thousand Western-oriented officers and bureaucrats and buttressed by, at most, a half-dozen effective infantry divisions. Behind that façade lay the immemorial China, conservative in its thinking, traditional in its customs, divided by regional feeling, and grandly disunited. If the Japanese cracked the façade, they could dominate and exploit the inchoate mass of China.
At 8:26, Thomas again checked his papers and the wall map of the Shanghai area where cabalistic signs indited by junior officers showed the disposition of friendly and enemy forces. Just fifteen seconds before the stroke of 8:30, he rose and stood stiffly to attention. The door opened, and the Generalissimo entered alone.
“Sit down, Tom. Sit down.” Chiang Kai-shek smiled, and the skin drew taut over his high cheekbones. His black-brush mustache fluttered on his long upper lip as he sank into the green-plush easy-chair. Thomas Sekloong saw that the General was in good humor and decided to reinforce that mood before conveying information that might irritate his chief. He had learned the courtier’s art of pleasing by offering good news with a flourish before communicating bad news in subdued tones.
“Good morning, Your Excellency,” he said. “Shall I deal with the Shanghai front first?”
“Hao! Hao!” the Generalissimo replied with his habitual formula. “Good! Good!”
“The Eighty-seventh and Eighty-eighth Divisions are holding firm—here, here, and here.” The pointer in Thomas’s hand hovered over the wall map, alighting momentarily on the blue shading indicating the Chinese positions. “The Japanese are pushing—here and here. No action larger than platoon size. Intelligence feels the Japanese were surprised by the determination of our first resistance. They are not moving with their customary dash and aggressiveness. They apparently expected Shanghai to be as easy to crack as Peiping.”
“Hao! Hao!” the Generalissimo repeated. “Good! Good! I planned that. What else significant in the military picture?”
“It’s little changed, Sir.” Thomas ventured onto shaky ground. “As you anticipated, the dwarves are bringing in ground reinforcements. In addition, two cruisers and six destroyers of their China Fleet are steaming toward Shanghai. Their bomber bases display unusual activity. Intelligence feels they’re building up their air strength and will soon bomb Shanghai. But the bombers must make long flights over our territory from their northern air fields. No precise figures on air yet.”
“As I anticipated, Tom,” the Generalissimo mused. “An order of the day to the Eighty-seventh and the Eighty-eighth: Tell them I am proud of their valor—and I count upon them to fight to the death.”
“Sir, Operations recommends that we alert the Divisions’ Commanding Generals to implement Plan Phoenix within the next two weeks.”
“Phoenix? You mean withdrawal?” Chiang snapped. “We will not withdraw. The Eighty-seventh and the Eighty-eighth must hold.”
“The Generals understand, Your Excellency,” Thomas persisted, his tone deliberately neutral. “But Operations warns that our position is untenable in the long run and fears we could lose both divisions. Your pardon, Sir. I have been asked to recall to the Generalissimo that those divisions are the core of our loyal Central Government forces.”
“They will hold until I say otherwise.” Chiang Kai-shek’s lips compressed resolutely. “Hold until I give leave to withdraw. If they retreat after token resistance, I cannot unify the country behind me—and the dwarves will be even more dangerous, drunk with their easy victories. You understand, Tom, I must hazard those units. They are expendable.”
“Yes, Sir. I shall draft the signal for your approval.” Thomas paused in perplexity and rubbed the bridge of his nose; he was caught between his near adulation for his chief’s genius and the training that required him to inform the Generalissimo fully. “I must also tell you that the German advisers recommend preparation for withdrawal. The Cabinet has also expressed anxiety.”
“I command, I—not the Germans or the Cabinet!”
Chiang Kai-shek’s cheeks mottled with rage, and Thomas braced for an explosion of wrath. But the Generalissimo’s rage subsided as abruptly as it had risen.
“I command,” he said meditatively, “and I shall do so until we triumph—or I am removed. No more resignations, you understand. I shall not resign again. If the politicians turn against me, this time they must throw me out. Only I can save China.”
“Yes, Sir,” Thomas replied cautiously. “And the Communists? What are we to say to them?”
“Why,” Chiang smiled broadly, “we’ll accept their terms—in the spirit in which they’re offered. Let them believe, if they’re foolish enough, that we’re foolish enough to believe them. Do you think for an instant they’ll do as they say? Will they really put their armed forces under my command and subordinate their Soviet Government to the National Government?”
“No, Sir,” Thomas replied. “But why, then, public collaboration with the Communists?”
“Because I have no choice. Because they have no choice. We are fighting the Japanese, but the prize is control of China. The people demand resistance to the Japanese. We must show that we can fight better than the Communists.”
“And afterward, Sir?”
“Not afterward, but now w
e must maintain our vigilance. The troops blockading the Red Areas will resist the Japanese—when they encounter the Japanese. But their primary mission remains unaltered—holding the Communist bandits. We must destroy the Communists. The Japanese are a disease of the skin, painful, irritating, and disfiguring, but not mortal. The Communists are a cancer of the bowel, a mortal affliction. We shall let the cancer ripen, then cut it out. When we have destroyed the Communists, the Japanese will be no threat.”
For the first time in five years, Harry Sekloong came to Hong Kong to participate in the family councils. The Sekloongs were preparing for the readjustments required by his father’s impending retirement as comprador for Derwent, Hayes and Company. Just past eighty-five in late June 1938, Sir Jonathan was finally relinquishing the compradorship to which he had clung so long. Even creating an independent commercial empire that rivaled the Wheatleys, the Old Gentleman had not wished to see another man occupy the position that had been his for more than fifty years. If his father had been a lesser, weaker man, Harry reflected, he might have been moved primarily by the emotional security represented by the title that had for more than a decade been largely ceremonial. But Sir Jonathan was the Sekloong, a major power in his own right. His son finally concluded that he had hesitated to relinquish compradorship for two quite different reasons: malice and patriotism.
“Will the old bastard never die?” Iain Wheatley, himself sixty-five years old, had exclaimed over a last unneeded brandy in the sacrosanct Hong Kong Club six months earlier. The waiter told the barman, who told the doorman, who passed the word to a chauffeur, and Sir Jonathan was informed of the two-tiered insult the next morning.
“Yes, he will die, but not quite yet, my esteemed step-brother,” Sir Jonathan had murmured to himself. “Not quite yet.”
However, a force stronger than righteous malice had kept Sir Jonathan from giving up his formal connection with the firm his grandfather Kwok Lee-chin had virtually created. As long as he was the comprador, the Wheatleys were constrained. They could not overtly seek to destroy the Sekloong empire, a purpose almost as important to Iain Wheatley as increasing Derwent’s swollen profits. Neither could Iain cement his alliance with Mitsubishi, which was chief among the great Japanese conglomerates called zaibatsu, though Derwent’s branches in China and Southeast Asia were already cooperating closely with the Japanese. Iain Wheatley had picked his winner in the Sino-Japanese War. He was waiting only for Sir Jonathan’s departure to place all his resources behind the Japanese war effort. It was, after all, only good business.
“But, Father,” Mary argued, “by retiring now, you can veto—or even force—Iain’s choice of your successor. If you wait too long, he’ll be free to pick his own man—and there’ll be no check whatsoever on his alliance with Mitsubishi.”
Sir Jonathan had yielded in principle, but had delayed his formal resignation for three months. Mary surmised that leaving Derwent’s was, in his eyes, a symbolic surrender to death, the foe that stalked him during his sleepless nights.
“He doesn’t fear death,” Charles replied. “He’s ready for death, and he knows he’ll be reunited with Mother. Despite all the concubines over all the years, he always loved her best. And he’s not used to giving in. Besides, even his death must serve his own purposes. He’ll die when he decides to die.”
Harry smiled appreciatively at Charles’s perception of their father’s motivation. The Old Gentleman had become a living symbol of stubborn, undefeatable China. He would, indeed, go when he was quite ready, and he might not be ready until China had overcome this latest and most dangerous menace—the Japanese. But the Old Gentleman’s resolute will would be tested to the utmost by that endurance contest. Harry’s own certainties had been shaken by the torments of the decade from 1927 to 1937 and by the anguish of the past year, but he was sure of one thing. It would be a long war, an agonizingly long and destructive war unless an act of God ended the conflict.
“The Japanese have done something very foolish this time,” Mary contended. “The more strenuously they pursue their foolishness, the worse off they’ll be.”
Harry looked appraisingly at his sister-in-law. At fifty-seven, Mary Philippa Osgood Sekloong was not merely what the gallant Edwardians would have described, with respect for past glories and admiration for their preservation, as a “damned handsome woman.” Always beautiful in his eyes, although she had never been conventionally pretty, she had become more beautiful. Her violet eyes had grown softer as experience taught her compassion. Her red-gold hair still glowed as brilliantly, perhaps aided by discreet artifice. Despite her many years in the debilitating subtropical climate, her skin was still fair and virtually unlined. The few strokes time had drawn upon the canvas of her face accentuated her strongly molded cheekbones and jawline. Behind her beauty lay the assured self-confidence of a woman who had learned not merely to command herself, as well as others, but had made herself mistress of an alien world.
Mary still stirred him physically and emotionally as his wife Mayling had never done, and he was almost equally drawn by her intellectual powers. He acknowledged that she was at least his intellectual equal and, perhaps, his superior. Mary’s strong-minded perception was stiffened by her pragmatic North Country common sense, while he knew himself a dreamer reluctantly compelled to play the man of action.
Nevertheless, he could not share her facile confidence regarding the Japanese threat. Her attitude reflected the detached optimism of the treaty-ports, where the foreigners who called themselves Old China Hands contemplated the nation through plate-glass that shut out both the tumult and the stench of the conflict. For more than thirty years a participant, Harry knew the sour-sweet reek of corruption and fear, the agonizing shrieks of strife and terror as no spectator could. Emotionally exhausted, he was on the verge of despair. Even should the Chinese ultimately triumph, he recognized that a nation already torn by a century of civil wars would be decimated by another decade of foreign war. His imagination could not conceive of scenes more grisly or more pathetic than those he had already seen, but his analytical intelligence warned him that greater tragedies must inevitably occur.
One of the worst wounds had been self-inflicted. Desperate in early June 1938, the Nationalists had cut the dikes restraining the Yellow River, which was called without hyperbole China’s Sorrow. Two hundred thousand had drowned when more than thirty thousand square miles were inundated. Eight million had been rendered homeless, their homes, livestock, and meager possessions swept away. The prelude to that fearful and unsuccessful attempt to stem the Japanese tide by a counter-flood of raging waters had been almost as scarifying. Harry and his chief Wang Ching-wei, once again at odds with Chiang Kai-shek in the intrigues of the Kuomintang, had watched the inexorable tragedy, powerless to affect its course.
After a three-month siege, Shanghai had fallen in mid-November 1937, and the Japanese had immediately driven northwest toward Nanking. Each time the Germans relayed new peace proposals from Tokyo, Wang Ching-wei, once more prominent in the councils of the Kuomintang, had urged their acceptance. Since neither he nor Harry could discern any prospect of a Chinese victory, they preferred to negotiate regarding those harsh conditions. They were even prepared to surrender a portion of China’s sovereignty, rather than continue a conflict that must inflict fearful suffering; destroy China’s armies; bring her to her knees—and render her incapable of negotiating at all. The warhawks in the Generalissimo’s entourage had played on Chiang Kai-shek’s irresolution to prevent any positive act—of either acceptance or rejection. The Communists had also firmly opposed peace talks, since a long war of attrition would weaken the Nationalists and strengthen their own forces for the ultimate conquest of China. To demonstrate that Chinese could defeat Japanese, Mao Tse-tung diverted some of his units from the confrontation with the Nationalists. At Pinghsing Pass in northern Shansi Province in late 1937, General Lin Piao ambushed a full Japanese brigade to give the Chinese their first clear victory and arouse hopes of greater victori
es.
Suddenly it was too late for anything but war. The Japanese had themselves destroyed any prospect of negotiation, and China was doomed to fight alone, deprived of German assistance, while the Western powers sold Japan oil and steel, the indispensable sinews of modern warfare.
On December 12, 1937, the Imperial Army took Nanking, and the mixed Japanese—Korean force indulged for three days in a mass orgy, which was disingenuously described by one Tokyo apologist as “a few regrettable, but fortunately minor transgressions occasioned by the soldiers’ justified high spirits.” No such devil’s festival of slaughter, rapine, and devastation had actually occurred since the Middle Ages. With calculated cruelty more atrocious than spontaneous medieval brutality, Japanese officers ignored their code of chivalry, which they called bushido, the “way of the warrior.” Their soldiers wreaked vengeance upon the people of China’s capital for the hardships, the hazards, and the loneliness of war. During three days of unrestrained looting, the drunken Imperial troops killed more than a hundred thousand civilians. No female older than six was too tender to avoid repeated rape, and none under seventy was too grizzled for violation. Soldiers and male civilians were impaled upon Japanese bayonets, thankful for the release of death after hours of brutal torture.
Fleeing in one of the last motor-vehicles to leave the burning city, Harry Sekloong coughed in the searing acrid smoke of the flaming oil tanks. Tears streamed down his begrimed cheeks from his inflamed eyes, and his automobile swerved to avoid disemboweled corpses. On the southern bank of the Yangtze, James Sekloong’s guerrilla unit peered incredulously at the gray pall over the Southern Capital. Like his father, James wept—and swore himself to revenge.
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