“We can’t be sure that the firing came from here, Hsiao Liang. Perhaps there’s some other explanation.” Jakob set off down the middle of the street, peering into the open doorways on either side as he went.
“Be careful, Ke Mu-shih! The soldiers could still be hiding somewhere.”
Balancing the carrying pole expertly on his right shoulder, Liang trotted close behind Jakob, scanning the Street protectively in all directions. Tough in mind and body, Liang was the second son of a mountain farmer who had lost all his land after falling badly into debt; before becoming a cook, Liang had served in the Chentai militia for a year or two. Jakob had hired him six months prior to marrying Felicity and in that time Liang had frequently volunteered to accompany Jakob on his itinerations through the remote hills and valleys, carrying Bibles and tracts for him in his shoulder-pole panniers. Through spending many hours traveling the rough mountain tracks together, the two men had developed a bond of mutual respect that did not depend on spoken words. Liang had registered as an inquirer, as all mission employees tended to do, soon after taking up his job and had willingly received instruction. He had eventually been baptized in the river flowing under the walls of Chentai and Jakob had given him a fine, leather-bound Bible inscribed with a personal message to mark their friendship. Liang’s devotion to Christianity, Jakob suspected, was more dutiful than inspired, an expedient pursued largely to protect his job at the mission, but he had developed an unusually strong sense of personal loyalty to Jakob which the missionary knew was instinctive and genuine.
“Look, Ke Mu-shih! Over there!” Liang called urgently to Jakob, pointing to a grain store set back from the street. Its doors were broken and outside split sacks of rice lay tumbled in profusion on the dusty ground. “There’s been fighting here.”
Drawing near, Jakob could see the crumpled bodies of several provincial soldiers sprawled among the spilled grain. Their distinctive blue cotton uniforms and gray puttees were spattered with blood and the lolling head of one man had been partially severed, apparently by a bayonet thrust. For a long moment Jakob stared aghast at the carnage: the bodies of these young Chinese troops were his first personal experience of violent death and he found it difficult to believe they were real corpses. Then he remembered the rudimentary medical training he had been given at his London missionary school and dropped to his knees beside one of the bodies, bending his head to the chest to listen for a heartbeat.
“I’m afraid they’re all dead, Ke Mu-shih,” said Liang quietly.
Jakob nodded in agreement and stood up, his face pale. After gathering himself, he lowered his head and murmured a short prayer. The eyes of the two coolies crowding behind Liang were round with fright. The cook boy, however, was absorbed, scrutinizing the bodies and the ground around them with great care.
“Their ammunition bandoliers have all been emptied. And their rifles have been taken. Look! There are cart tracks too. Whoever killed them has stolen rice from the granary.”
Fresh wheel tracks made by narrow handcarts were visible in the dust outside the granary. They led away down the Street which still lay quiet and empty in the bright afternoon sun.
“I think, Ke Mu-shih, it would be better got to stay long here.” Liang spoke softly, nodding toward the smashed doors of the granary which hung open, revealing several neat rows of rice sacks stacked inside. “Whoever killed these soldiers may return for the rest of the grain.”
“Before we go I must visit the house of the Hsiao family.”
Jakob led the way quickly back to the street; searching left and right for some sign to jog his memory, he hurried through the length of the village. A pillared house with a loft stood apart, close to the edge of the terraced rice fields, and on catching sight of it Jakob immediately recalled the warmth of his previous visit there. But now the farmhouse stood as silent and apparently deserted as all the other dwellings. No animals or barnyard fowl scratched in the dirt outside and when he approached Jakob found its gats and doors were shut and barred.
It was while he was unfastening one of the coolie’s packs of new Bibles, intending to leave a New Testament or two, that he heard a half-stifled sound of movement from inside. Motioning Liang and the coolies to silence he waited, listening intently,, but there was no further noise. Seeing a ladder propped against ne wall, Jakob climbed quietly to the loft, and pushing aside the rice straw covering its rough boards, he peered down into the earth-floored room below.
To his astonishment he found himself staring at a dense throng of silent Chinese. Many of the peasants crowded inside with their mules and other livestock were gazing up apprehensively toward the crack in the floorboards through which he was looking at them. In the gloom the whites of their eyes showed clearly and their faces seemed to glisten with fear. Men, women, and children were pressed close together in the half-darkness among the animals; although they made no conscious sound, Jakob could hear the anxiety of their breathing. After climbing down quickly, he returned to the front of the house and knocked softly on the main door.
“Mr. Hsiao, it’s Pastor Ke from Chentai, “ he called softly. “It’s quite safe. I’ve come to bring Bibles for you and your daughter Lan-ko.”
Jakob thought he heard a flurry of whispers inside but no reply was made. Stepping back from the door he called again, more loudly — then reeled back in shock as a rifle shot rang out and a bullet whined close to his head. Hurrying to his side, Liang dragged Jakob around the corner of the house and the coolies swiftly followed. They waited, crouched together against the mud wall, but no further shots were fired and the doors remained barred.
“We should go, Ke Mu-shih,” breathed Liang. “These people have been badly frightened.”
Jakob stared, mystified, at the mud walls that sheltered the dense, silent crowd of fearful humans and animals; then he nodded reluctantly and followed Liang and the coolies out of the village. Several times before they went out of sight of the house he turned to look back but no sound or sign of life emerged. When they had gone about a mile along the flag stoned track that led down through the rice terraces, Jakob heard a shrill cry from behind and turned to find the slender figure of Lan-ko racing after them. She was clutching his big-character New Testament to her chest as she ran and as soon as she reached them she thrust it into Jakob’s hands.
“Take this, Ke Mu-shih,” she gasped tearfully. “And please don’t come back to our village ever again.”
“But why?” Jakob bent to put an arm around the girl’s shoulder, speaking soothingly to her in Chinese. “I thought you liked the stories.”
“The Red Bandits came! They stole all our food! They killed the soldiers guarding us! They said many more Red Bandits would be coming soon.”
“And did they tell you to stop reading this book?”
“They warned us, Ke Mu-shih, ‘Do not tell the Kuomintang soldiers anything,’ they said. ‘Do not speak to foreign missionaries if they come here, they are spies.’ “ Lan-ko fought hard to hold back tears that were already trickling down her face. “They said anyone who talked to foreigners would be dealt with very severely. They said their orders are: ‘Kill all foreigners! Kill all foreigners!’ “Coming close to hysteria, the Chinese girl repeated the phrase “Sha yang kaei tzu!” several times, then tore herself from Jakob’s grasp.
As Jakob watched her running blindly back toward the village, the chilling Communist order delivered in a piping voice continued to replay itself inside his head: “Sha yang kuei tzu! Sha yang kuei tzu!” Suddenly he remembered that Felicity and the baby were alone, unguarded, at the mission, and he turned and motioned quickly to Liang and the coolies.
“Come on! We must hurry back to Chentai.”
2
When Jakob opened the gate in the high mud wall and stepped into the outer courtyard of the Chentai mission compound, the evening light was fading fast. The first things he noticed were the bunches of red peppers newly hung up to dry by Liang’s wife. In the dying rays of the sun the peppers glowed like g
reat scarlet blotches of blood on the dun-colored walls, and the sight of them at once reminded Jakob of the bleeding bodies of the soldiers sprawled limp in death outside the pillaged grain store. Then he noticed that the desks and chairs of the little Bible school which Felicity had set up above the prayer room in one of the two-storied outbuildings were strewn around the courtyard. Some were tipped haphazardly on their sides and as he stared at them in puzzlement, Jakob became aware how quiet it was inside the compound.
His anxious mind immediately equated this silence with the eerie stillness that had greeted them in the mountain village, and leaving the outer gate open for Liang and the two coolies, he dashed to the moon gate which led into the inner courtyard. The old dwelling which they had adapted for the use of the Anglo-Chinese Mission had once belonged to a wealthy Chentai landowner: its high, spacious halls were crisscrossed with intricately carved beams and the eaves and windows were decorated with classical three-color designs. The main door to their living quarters was made of polished teak, and when Jakob threw it open he found the central hail empty. The traditional Chinese furniture carved from dark, heavy wood normally gave the house an austere, spartan atmosphere but in the gloom of approaching nightfall the scene seemed suddenly to have taken on an ominous quality. There was no sign of Liang’s wife or any of the other house servants in the downstairs rooms, no lamps had yet been lit, and no sound came from the upper floors.
Feeling his apprehensions grow, Jakob bounded up the shadowy staircase two steps at a time and rushed into one of the sleeping chambers that served as a nursery. From her seat beside the lace covered crib Felicity turned to look at him with startled eyes; her face was pale and strained, and on seeing him she quickly raised a silencing finger to her lips. With a feeling of relief flooding through him, Jakob walked quietly to the crib and peered in. The sleeping face of his baby daughter was peaceful and composed. A few wisps of fair hair, as fine as silk, sprouted from the crown of her head and one hand was clenched in a tiny fist by her cheek. Felicity was rocking the crib gently to and fro, and Jakob, releasing a long, thankful sigh, dropped his hand affectionately on hers on the rim of the wickerwork crib.
“She’s only just fallen asleep.” Although Felicity spoke in a whisper, her voice was tight with anxiety. “The town’s been full of soldiers today. There were hundreds of them.”
“Were they government soldiers?” asked Jakob quickly.
Felicity nodded. “Yes, of course.”
“And did they scatter the school desks all over the yard?”
“Yes. They arrived out of the blue early this morning. They commandeered quarters everywhere. They didn’t ask me if they could use the school. They just marched in, threw out all the furniture, and turned it into a barracks. They were making a terrible noise. Abigail has been crying nearly all day.”
“Where are the troops now?”
“This afternoon a bugle call suddenly sounded from the hill outside the town wall. They started to pack their equipment straightaway — and half an hour later they’d all gone. The town militia units marched out behind them.”
“So Chentai has been left completely unguarded?”
The urgency of Jakob’s question betrayed his inner concern and Felicity straightened warily in her seat. “Yes, I suppose so. Where do you think the soldiers were making for?”
“I don’t know. I’ll go and see the district magistrate to find out what’s happening.”
Jakob turned to leave the room but Felicity plucked nervously at his sleeve. “Why did you ask me if they were government soldiers? Who else could they have been?”
Looking down into Felicity’s worried face, Jakob felt a sudden surge of compassion for her: although her cheeks were rounder and her slender body had become more voluptuously maternal in the month that she had been nursing their child, her wide gray eyes had often betrayed a sense of unease. For their wedding, in a Chinese garden at the central station compound in Changsha, she had worn a long, wide-sleeved dress of pure white Chinese silk and her hair had been crowned with a veil of fine Brussels lace. Her shy modesty had led her to avert her eyes while they exchanged their vows, but when at last she turned to smile at him her face was illuminated suddenly by a shining, once-in-a-lifetime radiance, and in that moment she had seemed truly beautiful. During an idyllic spring honeymoon at a hill station, they had strolled amid pines and foaming waterfalls, avidly discussing their future plans to make Christ’s teachings known in the wild region around Chentai. But even then Jakob had fancied that he sometimes detected in her expression shadows of uncertainty about how she would face up to the hardships and dangers of life in a remote district without roads, hospitals, doctors, or proper communications. She had rarely given voice to her fears, but when she returned to Chentai with the baby she had borne in the Changsha missionary hospital, he sensed that her apprehensions had grown. Feeling increasingly responsible for having turned her radiant wedding-day smile into an anxious frown, he had undertaken no preaching journeys at all since the child’s birth — but the sudden arrival in the walled town of large numbers of government troops during his absence on a domestic errand had obviously unnerved her further, and he realized he would have to tread very carefully in describing what he had seen and heard earlier in the day.
“On our way back we heard shooting in the valley ahead of us,” said Jakob, making his voice sound casual. “It was twenty miles or so from here. When we got to the village some rice had been stolen. The villagers thought the thieves might have been Red Bandits — I’d better check with the district magistrate to see if he’s heard anything.”
Felicity stared at him, her expression of alarm deepening. “You mean they were Communists — and they might be coming here.”
“It’s just possible, yes.” Jakob smiled and laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. “But there may have been only a handful of them. If there’s the slightest hint we’re in danger, I’ll arrange for us to have military escorts. We’ll go and stay at the central station till it’s all blown over. There’s no need to worry.”
Dropping to his knees, he stroked her cheek gently until he coaxed an uncertain smile from her; then he hurried out into the darkening main street of Chentai and set out toward the yamen, where the district magistrate had his official residence.
3
Although I am a humble man of deficient rank and too little learning, Pastor Ke, I can assure you the Red Bandits at present pose no threat to Chentai. Indeed, I am quite confident there is no significant number of Communist soldiers within three hundred Ii of our ancient town.” The pouchy face of District Magistrate Yao creased into a practiced smile of elaborate politeness. “I understand your concern, Pastor, and might perhaps have been tempted to share it if! had not myself received the very same reassurance by telegraph in the last few hours.”
Using a little pair of pointed wooden tongs, the Chinese official plucked a few wisps of black tobacco from a jade jar at his elbow and distributed them evenly in the bowl of a brass and porcelain water pipe placed before him on his lacquered desk.
“Then may one who has no real right to ask respectfully inquire why several hundred government soldiers were suddenly sent to garrison the town for most of the day?” Jakob, seated before the desk, spoke his Chinese slowly, taking care to match the magistrate’s elaborate formal courtesy.
“The explanation, as a missionary of such high intellect as yourself will doubtless have anticipated, is quite simple. The bandit extermination campaigns of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek are on the brink of total success. An important bandit stronghold in Kiangsi has been overrun and captured. Surviving remnants of the Red Bandit forces are fleeing for their lives and it was thought yesterday a few stragglers might have begun heading toward Chentai. New information, however, shows that the doomed fugitives are panic- stricken and have been reduced to moving erratically in circles in a region nearly a hundred miles to the east. The force that garrisoned Chentai briefly today has therefore been ordered to adva
nce rapidly to help in the final encirclement and destruction of what remains of the bandit armies.”
The magistrate held a taper to the single flickering oil lamp that illuminated his private studio at the rear of the yamen. The only things visible in the resultant gloom were a number of gaudily painted miniature mud gods seated on wall niche thrones. Beneath each one a single joss stick smoldered in a tiny bowl, and having lit the pipe, the magistrate held the stem to his lips and inhaled with closed eyes before expelling a white cloud of water-cooled smoke.
“The information I’m about to speak of, Magistrate Yao, might already be in your possession,” said Jakob slowly. “But even so I feel that in the interests of the people of Chentai I should tell you. . . . A village about sixty Ii from here was attacked this afternoon. I arrived there soon after the raid. Grain was stolen and all the government soldiers guarding the granary were killed. The village people are convinced the attackers were Red Bandits who intend to return in greater numbers.”
The magistrate smoked his water pipe in silence, the insincere smile frozen on his fleshy face. He wore a close-fitting satin cap on the crown of his shaven head, which gave him an unpleasantly pugnacious air, and his wide-sleeved gown of dark blue silk did not quite conceal the swell of a glutton’s paunch. Behind the oily self- deprecation of the magistrate’s formal manner, Jakob felt he had long since detected a personal coldness and their contacts during his stay in Chentai, although perfectly correct, had been marked by reserve on both sides.
“Pastor Ke, as someone of your keen perception knows well enough, floods have again ruined the rice harvest in many parts of the region,” said the magistrate at last. “Grain is scarce once more. Robbers and thieves who have preyed upon the people for many years are unfortunately only too ready to pose as Red Bandits to cover their tracks.”
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