Feeling his chest tighten with tension, Chiao closed his eyes and for several seconds he deliberately relaxed all the muscles and sinews of his body as his father had first taught him to do when he was a small boy: in an instant the tension evaporated and he felt new energy rise within him. Swinging around, he concentrated all his attention on directing the three rafts in midstream to their moorings, ignoring the chains of light flowing down the hills behind him. When the rafts were safely anchored, the unbridged gap had narrowed to ten yards, but on turning back to the shore again Chiao saw that the five remaining bamboo pontoons required to complete the bridge still lay unlaunched on the sandy beach. Bending double in an effort to make himself a smaller target for the Kuomintang gunners, he ran back fast along the swaying wooden causeway, arriving beside the beached rafts at the same time as the young peasant boatman, who had been searching the wooded hollow for supplies.
“What’s happening?” demanded Chiao sharply. “Why haven’t the rafts been launched yet?”
“There’s no more rope, Comrade Commander! I’ve searched everywhere.” The young peasant’s face was a mask of despair. “All our spare ropes were in that sampan that was sunk. We can’t anchor the rafts.”
Chiao saw that the basket anchors were piled uselessly on the decks of the pontoons without cables or ropes; around them the group of engineers stood disconsolate and at a loss.
“Launch the rafts at once — and give me your puttees!” Chiao pointed to the leggings of the startled boatman. “Be quick!”
Taking the muddied strips of cotton cloth that the peasant unwound from his legs, Chiao quickly knotted them and twisted them together. Holding the puttees up to the group he stretched them tight to demonstrate their strength. “Every- one of you is wearing puttees. Take them off to make ropes! Run to the assault battalions and get two hundred volunteers to give up their leggings for the future of the revolution!”
The frightened faces of the young engineers lit up with delight and they let out a cheer of relief as they bent to tug off the bands of cloth bound around their calves. While the last few pontoons were being launched, the remaining engineers frantically plaited the cotton anchor lines. As each line was finished it was carried at a run along the floating bridge and thrown aboard one of be unattached pontoons to be fastened to their anchors.
Four of the five bridge sections were steered successfully into position and secured with the makeshift ropes made from leggings, but the last one spun out of control when a fusillade of machine-gun fire shattered the bamboo steering pole being wielded by the young boatman. The section changed direction in an instant and swung through the current, gathering speed, heading rapidly for the already completed bulk of the floating bridge. Realizing that the weight of the runaway pontoon would send it smashing through the fragile structure, Chiao snatched up a spare guiding pole and yelled to attract the attention of the boatman before hurling it like a javelin in the direction of the raft.
The pole bounced on the pontoon’s deck and the boatman grabbed it with one hand as it flew past him. Bending low on tensed legs and jabbing the bamboo deep into the river, he gradually slowed the speed of the careering section. The Kuomintang gunners, aware that the bridge was nearing completion, had begun firing continuous clusters of flares to light the scene and now they poured a deluge of machine-gun fire at the engineers. Just as the young boatman brought the runaway section under control, a line of water spouts marking the passage of machine-gun shells jumped rhythmically across the flare-silvered surface of the river and cut him, screaming, from its deck. He sank below the waves and did not reappear, and again the pontoon raced away toward the almost completed bridge. Chiao, seeing there was no other choice, flung himself headlong into the waves and swam swiftly into the pontoon’s path.
Although he reached out his arms to hold off the raft, the impact when it struck Chiao knocked the breath from him. Its momentum carried him back toward the floating bridge with dangerous speed but he kicked out furiously with his legs and managed to slow the raft’s progress. A dozen other engineers, encouraged by his example, flung themselves into the water from the bridge and swam to help him. Between them, with bullets frothing the water all around, they manhandled the raft toward the remaining gap in the bridge. As he swam Chiao felt a sickening pain strike his right shoulder and in the minutes that followed he sensed his blood, was thickening the water around him. Boat hooks grappled with the errant section, dragging it gradually into place, and when at last it closed the gap, Chiao yelled for the anchors to be dropped and for the sleepers to be lashed in place. Looking to the shore, he saw that the moving forests of torches were streaming down through the darkness in the direction of the beach. Under the ghostly light of the flares, a vast horde of Red Army men was assembling all along the eastern bank and the vanguard battalions were already moving Onto the beach around the bridge end.
One of his men bent over to pull Chiao from the river but the Red Army captain waved him away instead to help complete the plankway. The pain in Chiao’s shoulder was turning to a numbness which seemed to affect his whole body; soon he was able to hang on to the rocking pontoon with only one arm. When the last door had been nailed in place, he ordered all his men to jump into the water, and they clung to the sides of the pontoons as he sent his orderly racing to the bank to announce that the bridge was finished.
Seconds later the flimsy bamboo structure began to rock and sway to the rhythmic beat of running, straw-sandaled feet. First onto the pontoons were men of the Special Course Battalion: trotting rapidly, three abreast, amid a thickening hail of gunfire, they passed close to Chiao’s pain-contorted face in a moving blur. For a minute or two Chiao hung on, seeing as through a mist the dazzling silver flares, the glittering bayonet tips, the fearful expressions and pounding feet of his Red Army comrades. The artillery bombardment became a fearsome cacophony of shrieking shells and deafening explosions but in Chiao’s ears these terrible sounds grew steadily fainter until only a ringing silence reigned inside his brain. Feeling his hands slip from their hold on the bamboo pontoon, he yielded consciously to the river’s fierce current, but as it dragged him away, he struggled to hold his mouth above the waves. Still fighting inwardly to summon the instinctive disciplines that his father’s early teaching had made second nature to him, he allowed the river to bear him rapidly away from the focus of the fighting and into the anonymous darkness.
23
Dawn was breaking by the time Jakob came in sight of the floating bridge of bamboo pontoons. The young missionary caught his first distant glimpse of it from a mountain pass a thousand feet above the river plain, and even the drifting rain and the gray morning light could not conceal the turmoil of the battle continuing around the bridge. The steep hillsides rising from the western bank were wreathed in drifting clouds of dark smoke from which lethal buds-of-red-and orange fire blossomed every few seconds. The shriek of shells, the roar of exploding grenades, and the din of machine-gun and artillery fire were blending into one furious storm that made the mountainside shake beneath Jakob’s feet. The bridge itself was swollen with men and animals inching across the flood, and from Jakob’s high vantage point, they looked like an army of ants struggling to traverse a shivering puddle on a fragile stalk of grass.
Through holes in the smoke Jakob and his apprehensive fellow prisoners could see Red Army and Kuomintang troops swarming over the broken trenches and fieldworks that scarred the high parts of the far escarpment. Merging in repeated flurries of fierce hand- to-hand combat, both sides were advancing and retreating in waves, capturing and recapturing fortified hillocks and strongpoints in a desperate effort to control the winding tracks that led up from the riverside bridgehead. The sand-bagged emplacements through which the troops of both sides darted and ran were littered with the motionless dead of the night’s battles and it was clear that with the coming of daylight, the Kuomintang infantry regiments were launching a massive counterattack to try to recapture the precarious fortified corridor wh
ich the Red Army vanguard had secured under cover of darkness.
While the battles raged, transport and baggage detachments were shifting steadily up the steep hillside. In their wake Jakob could see gun-making machines that required ten coolies to lift them edging across the bridge with painful slowness. Printing presses and other heavy equipment, mounted on pine-log shafts slung between pairs of mules, were also being moved toward the eastern end of the bridge, blocking the advance of the infantry. The natural funnel of land immediately below Jakob that led down through the pine woods to the beach was becoming more congested every minute with fighting units, and seeing this, the Hunanese guard commander ordered his detachment of prisoners off the track with an angry shout.
There had been countless delays throughout the night as the prisoners moved haltingly toward the river amid a growing multitude of soldiers and pack animals, and each new delay only served to add to the prisoners’ unease. Jostled roughly by the guards, they cowered down now, squatting numbly on their haunches on a boulder-covered scree, their eyes dilated, their lips drawn back from their teeth as though already anticipating the dreadful agonies that might await them down in the river valley. As they waited, a Kuomintang biplane appeared from the north, winging low over the heaving surface of the river, its single engine inaudible beneath the noise of the guns. It dipped rapidly toward the makeshift bridge and released its clutch of twenty-pound bombs, which exploded instantly, throwing up tall columns of water all around the pontoons. A long train of squealing pack mules was hurled into the river and every single animal was quickly dragged under and drowned within moments by the heavy loads and tangled harness lines that joined them. Troops and muleteers tumbled from the bridge into the water in the confusion, and although the bamboo pontoons immediately settled back into place unscathed, the heads of the soldiers continued to bob frantically in the waves as the men fought to disentangle themselves from the melee of broken crates and thrashing animals.
All the Chinese prisoners stared transfixed at the horrifying scene below and only Jakob turned aside to sink to his knees in silent prayer. But when he opened his eyes again, he was taken aback to find himself staring at the curved blade of a broadsword held close before him. Still kneeling, he raised his head and found himself looking up into the face of the young peasant guard who had executed the Kiangsi boy so cold-bloodedly. The guard was holding the unsheathed sword pointedly in both hands, resting its tip on the muddy ground between his feet, and his face was as implacably hostile as ever.
“Turn around, imperialist spy!”
The guard rapped out the order in his usual peremptory tone and lifted the sword tip menacingly to emphasize his authority. Jakob, alarmed at the sudden appearance of the youth with a naked sword, hesitated, trying to read some hint of his intention in his expression.
“What do you intend to do?” asked the missionary slowly.
“Don’t ask questions. Turn around!”
Reluctantly Jakob obeyed, turning on his knees to face the river. He steeled himself for a sudden blow from the sword and felt the hair on the nape of his neck tingle unpleasantly. But the press of the cold blade, when it came, was against his left wrist and Jakob felt the guard saw roughly back and forth with the weapon for a moment or two before stepping away from him.
“Now stand up!”
Again Jakob obeyed and he felt the rope binding his wrists drop to the ground. He stared down in surprise at the frayed ends of his bonds lying in the mud; it was the first time his wrists had been unbound on the march and he turned to face the guard with a puzzled frown.
“Why have you done this?”
“We’ve received orders from the Red Star column. From now on you are to be allowed to march with free hands. But it’s not our wish.” The youth glowered at Jakob and quickly slipped another length of rope around Jakob’s shoulders in the familiar harness that left a free end dangling down his back like a restraining rein. “Although your hands are free, you must always remain close to your guard — close enough for him to take this rope in his hand if he wishes!”
Jakob eased his stiff, aching arms from behind his back and chafed his wrists to ease the fierce pain caused by the returning circulation. “What is the Red Star column?”
“There’s no need for me to answer your questions. Just make sure you obey orders!”
The guard scowled and walked away, leaving Jakob staring after him in mystification. All of the Chinese prisoners were still bound and some of them looked at Jakob curiously — but they soon turned their frightened eyes back to the river again. When half an hour later the Hunanese commander gave the order to move on, Jakob noticed that the young guard instructed the comrade who had dug the Kiangsi boy’s grave to walk close behind, while he himself moved away only a pace or two ahead.
Under their close escort Jakob was hurried down the mountainside behind the other prisoners, but although he still hobbled painfully on his torn and blistered feet, he rejoiced in the new sensation of being able to swing his arms freely on the move after being bound for nearly three weeks. Able also to hold his balance better, he slipped and fell less frequently and because he was less afraid of falling, he moved more quickly downhill. Despite the pain in his feet, he even began to run with confidence, glorying in a wider sense of freedom and wholeness that came with the unbinding of his arms. Because of all these things, although the fierce fighting on the far side of the river toward which they were rushing headlong had not slackened, Jakob illogically felt his spirits begin to rise.
The whole column was jog-trotting as they came down onto the river shore and a hundred yards ahead Jakob caught sight of the furled Red Army flag carried by the guards’ company. Only its tip was showing out he could see that the canvas painting of the nativity was still wrapped around it. As he watched, the standard-bearer reached the bridge and stepped up onto the first pontoon. The flag rose higher and turned in the bearer’s hands so that the silver Christmas star which had previously been facing away from Jakob became visible, bobbing above the heads of the marchers. The Communist troops clustered close around it, bending low to begin the dash across the narrow bamboo causeway, and seeing this symbol of his faith being carried over the Hsiang sent a surge of exhilaration coursing through Jakob.
The renewed shriek of artillery shells filled the air, augmented by the dull, staccato roar of heavy machine-gun fire, but instead of shrinking from the bridge which lay across the first military battlefield that he had encountered in his young life, Jakob felt himself drawn forward irresistibly into the unholy vortex. The new sighting of the star symbol so soon after the unexpected freeing of his wrists had seemed to hint at the intervention of a divinity on his behalf, and together these two events produced in his mind a sense of euphoric certainty about his destiny. All the fears that had been gathering in him through the night suddenly evaporated and he ran forward faster, feeling light and buoyant, giving not the slightest thought to his life being in danger in the heart of the battle for the Hsiang crossing.
With part of his brain, however, Jakob also registered the stark horror of his surroundings: countless dead and mutilated men and animals lay sprawled in the gray slime of the shore on either side of him as he ran, the bloodied shards of their torn flesh washed a vivid red by the incessant rain. The mouths of soldiers and mules alike, agape in their fatal anguish, revealed the same screaming crescents of yellowed teeth; arms and hoofs, tangled and frozen in the paralysis of death, clawed equally vainly at the misty dawn air. Abandoned supplies and ammunition, broken open and soaked with blood, lay scattered wantonly among the corpses and the dying, all trace of the normal habits of careful husbandry having been abandoned in the mad scramble for survival. Screams of agony and shrieked pleas for help rang in Jakob’s ears, but these terrible cries were ignored by the flood of still-surviving Red Army men which swept him on swiftly toward the bamboo bridge.
All around him the Chinese prisoners were stumbling and shouting, their eyes bulging, their mouths opened w
ide. As he moved up onto the bridge, Jakob was perhaps yelling too; he could not be sure. The gunfire became deafening and amid the frantic press of bodies on the swaying bamboo platforms men kicked and pushed one another, cursed obscenely, yelled, pleaded, and shouted orders which nobody heeded. In the middle of the bridge, Jakob saw that flotillas of rafts filled with armed troops were also battling toward the western bank farther downstream, followed by volleys of rifle and automatic- weapons fire. As he watched, two Kuomintang biplanes rose into view above a hill on the far bank and swung lazily down toward the water. One unleashed its bomb load directly above the raft flotillas and several of the flimsy craft rose spinning into the air, shrugging Red Army troops down into the water as a dog might shake fleas from its back.
Both planes flew on toward the bridge, ‘where Jakob was trapped by the congestion of troops and baggage coolies ahead of him. But the leading plane released its bombs too late and they sailed low over the heads of the terrified troops to kick up harmless geysers of water upstream. The second plane swung westward before it reached the bridge and the leather-helmeted sergeant observer manning the rear cockpit swiveled a Lewis gun in the direction of the pontoons.
His first long burst of fire scythed down a dozen or more guards and prisoners all around Jakob. Some collapsed into the water over the unprotected sides of the pontoons, others slumped bleeding to the boardwalks made from the dismembered cottage doors. The panic-stricken survivors flung themselves into the river to begin swimming to the western bank or pushed forward blindly, stumbling and trampling over the fallen. Immediately in front of Jakob, the young guard who had so enthusiastically executed the Kiangsi youth spun around and fell to his knees, his eyes wide with shock. The left shoulder of his tunic was turning crimson with his blood and he clawed uselessly at it with his free hand. Pushed violently from behind by soldiers and prisoners desperate to pass, Jakob cannoned into the young guard, knocking him backward into the river. Frantic troops and the other prisoners rushed on heedlessly toward the western bank and as the peasant boy sank, his wild eyes registered his fright and disbelief.
Anthony Grey Page 24