Anthony Grey

by Peking- A Novel of China's Revolution- 1921-1978 (epub)

  Jakob bent over the handwritten pages and read carefully through the first few sheets. Beside him Braun began to shake with the intensity of his growing fever and out of the corner of his eye Jakob saw him take out a bottle of quinine tablets and swallow two down. After reading the passages a second time, grappling with Chinese terminology quite different from the Christian Gospels with which he was accustomed to work, Jakob looked up, ready to begin.

  “What does the resolution say?” asked the German impatiently, stretching himself on the plank beside the brazier and pulling a blanket up to his chin. “Read it aloud, every word of it!”

  “It says that . . . ‘in trying to defend the Central Soviet Area, the leadership under Party Secretary Po Ku and foreign adviser Hua Fu made many wholesale errors,’ “ reported Jakob, reading hesitantly from the text. “ ‘The Red Army was dispersed to resist attacks from all directions but in the end we were not strong enough to resist attacks from any direction. Hua Fu neglected the strategy of mobile warfare and because of his excessive fear . . . of the Kuomintang blockhouse encirclement . . . the Central Soviet had to be abandoned. . .

  Braun cursed softly as he shifted restlessly on his makeshift bed. “Go on, Herr Kellner, go on! What does it say next?”

  “It says, ‘Comrade Mao Tse-tung pointed out that if better military decisions had been taken, the Central Soviet could have been saved, the Fifth Encirclement could have been broken, and the strength of the Red Army could have been preserved. . . . In Comrade Hua Fu’s mind our breakout from the siege vas essentially a flight in panic, a house-removal operation, not a resolute fighting operation

  “‘A flight in panic’!” Braun sat bolt upright. “How dare they distort the truth with such lies? If it was a flight in panic, how is it that the key fighting units of the Red Army are still intact here in Kweichow, a thousand miles away? It’s a tissue of lies cooked together to discredit me and the party secretary.”

  He glared furiously at Jakob as though the missionary himself were responsible, then sank slowly back onto the plank bed, mopping his brow and panting with exertion. Jakob noticed that Braun’s eyes were becoming glazed with the fever, and he waited until the German’s breathing quieted before resuming.

  “‘Certain particular Comrade Hua Fu, displayed dictatorial tendencies and monopolized the work of the Revolutionary Military Commission. Differing views were unheeded or suppressed by all available means. Comrade Hua Fu exploited the authority vested in him by the Communist International and, using the material and technological superiority of Europe as an invisible weapon, abused his position to make a mockery of the Chinese Communist Party’s principle of collective leadership. .

  “‘Dictatorial tendencies,’ Herr Kellner,” whispered Braun hoarsely. “How could one European have developed dictatorial tendencies among a hundred thousand armed Chinese? How could one German adviser who has no formal power of command and no contact with the outside world single-handedly usurp the collective leadership of the Communist Party of China? How could one foreign adviser have done all that without speaking or understanding the Chinese language. . . ?“ His head rolled from side to side in delirious anger. “Comrade Mao Tse-tung is trying to disgrace me and reject the help of the Comintern. He wants to be a dictator . .

  The German’s voice faded into an incoherent groan and he closed his eyes. A moment later Mei-ling appeared silently beside the plank bed. Bending over him, she mopped his brow with a cloth soaked in cold water. Jakob realized then that she must have been listening from the shadows and he tried to read a reaction in her face, but her features remained blank.

  “You’d better leave now,” she said quietly to Jakob, speaking over her shoulder. “If he needs you again, you can return when the fever has passed.”

  Before Jakob could reply she summoned the guards and they led him out of the temple. At the doorway Jakob turned to look back and saw Mei-ling standing motionless beside the prostrate German:

  a vibrant, glossy-haired figure in the fire-lit cave of darkness, she looked to Jakob like some beautiful spirit-goddess, sent to enchant anew the watching circle of painted mud gods. But from their expressions the Chinese deities seemed to have long since grown weary of the ways of the earthbound world and they gazed down from the niches unmoved and indifferent to her presence among them.

  5

  From his hiding place in a high gully overlooking a thickly wooded hillside on the Kweichow-Szechuan border, Big Liang watched weary units of the Central Red Army preparing a bivouac beside a rushing stream. A freezing drizzle was falling and the troops were obviously close to exhaustion after marching all day and skirmishing with advance units of Szechuan’s most powerful warlord army, which was ranged against them along the southern bank of the Yangtze River. Newly wounded men groaning on stretchers or supported between their comrades were still struggling into the camp, medical orderlies with symbolic red crosses on their satchels were tending the worst afflicted, and many of the troops were treating each other’s blistered feet.

  Big Liang was crouching among a tall clump of rush grass on which the rain had frozen like slivers of glass, but the keen young eyes of the thirteen-year-old boy missed nothing. Some of the fitter soldiers and Young Vanguards were busy tying squares of looted cloth between the trees to form rough shelters and waterproofing them with strips of oiled paper; others were splitting bamboo to weave into coverings or peeling bark from pine trees to reinforce the roofs of the makeshift awnings. Those lighting fires were having difficulty because of the rain, and more smoke than fire was swirling across the hillside. Squads of Little Red Devils, Big Liang noticed, were also busying themselves digging channels around the bivouacs to drain away the rain.

  The rattle and clank of iron cooking pots and pans rang up the hillside as cooks lowered their carrying poles to the ground and set about the task of building stoves, cutting fuel, and boiling water from the stream. One cook, who had staggered into the camp under the heaviest-laden pole, unloaded a small millstone, a sieve, and a winnower, and squatted patiently on the wet ground, grinding a small heap of unhusked rice. A group of Little Red Devils gathered around him, chattering excitedly and husking their own little heaps of the grain between broken shards of roof tiles that they carried in their packs. Some washed meager piles of wild vegetables and Big Liang could see that food supplies were running low.

  As always, the activities of the Little Red Devils occupied more of his attention than was strictly necessary, because he found himself fascinated by the uniformed gangs of boys his own age who were always rushing back and forth on seemingly vital errands. Inside his jacket Big Liang carried a peaked Red Army cap with a five-pointed red star that he had picked up from the silent battlefield at the Hsiang River a few days after the fighting. He had occasionally worn the cap to pass himself off as a Young Vanguard when searching close to the column, and every time he spied on the camps he found himself envying their cheerful camaraderie.

  The Chinese boy had become practiced at mentally noting all the details of the camps he observed so that he could report back accurately to his father each night. For some two weeks he and Little Liang had been searching anxiously among the different regiments and divisions of the Red Army as they maneuvered back and forth along the mountainous Kweichow-Szechuan border, seeking a way across the Yangtze and onward to the north to link up with troops of the Fourth Front Army. Day and night the two Chinese boys had strained their eyes for a glimpse of the tall, bearded, fair-skinned figure of Pastor Ke — but so far they had seen no sign of him among the tides of marching Chinese faces.

  To the young sons of Jakob’s cook boy there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the constant feints, retreats, and forward rushes of the Central Red Army units. Often the boys and their father found themselves tracing and retracing their steps repeatedly as they shadowed the Communist troops through the mountains and valleys a hundred miles south of Chungking. Moving amid the confused man- swarms on the ground, they had no way of knowing th
at Chiang Kai-shek was mustering a great array of anti-Communist forces for yet another new encirclement of the Central Red Army and had issued an edict proclaiming that “the fate of the nation and the Kuomintang depend on bottling up the Reds south of the Yangtze.”

  In Szechuan, civil war had raged unabated since the last emperor was overthrown, in 1911: half a dozen warlord armies had been fighting for control of the rich province, but Chiang had persuaded the strongest warlord, the provincial governor, to appoint two hundred Kuomintang officers to his regiments to help promote better discipline. These strengthened forces were now barring the Red Army’s way north. All three southwestern provinces — Kweichow, Yunnan, and Szechuan — had remained independent fiefdoms, beyond the direct control of the Kuomintang government in Nanking, but their common interest in seeing the Communists defeated had encouraged them to cooperate with Chiang. While the Communists had been resting and hammering out new political and military strategies, the Kweichow provincial armies had regrouped to press northward toward Tsunyi, the Hunan army had begun moving westward again in pursuit, and provincial forces from Kwangsi had also moved, from the southeast, to begin tightening yet another noose around the Central Red Army.

  Although they knew nothing of these strategic initiatives, the two Sons of Jakob’s cook boy were daily becoming more aware of their practical effects. The tempo of the Red Army’s movements was increasing, a greater sense of urgency was evident in the actions of all the marchers, casualties were mounting, and signs of fatigue among the troops were again becoming visible. Liang’s sons themselves were also growing leg-weary and footsore once more as they trudged long stretches day after day under their father’s directions. They had rested after reaching Tsunyi, unable to gain any clue to Pastor Ke’s whereabouts in the seething streets of the old town, where almost daily they saw batches of landlords tethered to execution posts and shot. This brief respite from their dogged shadowing of the Red Army had refreshed them physically, but now they were again beginning to feel the strain of hurrying on day after day through the mountains. Caught up once more in the tensions of the marching columns, they were searching with a growing sense of desperation for the tall figure of the English missionary, who had eluded them for so long.

  Among the massed ranks of the Red Army men Big Liang had never once so far caught sight of a civilian prisoner. From time to time he had seen groups of captured Kuomintang troops in their distinctive khaki uniforms with shoulder flashes depicting a white sun on a square of blue sky. Sometimes they still wore their steel helmets and often they were roped together in long lines running behind a Red Army man’s horse. Whenever he saw groups of military prisoners, Big Liang obeyed his father’s strict instructions to follow the unit guarding them until he was sure there were no civilians attached, and it had been the sight of forty or fifty listless Kuomintang captives standing on the edge of the bivouac beneath him that had caused him to stop and hide in the high gully.

  The prisoners of war stood dejected and ignored around a long string of pack mules to which they had been roped all day. They were still tied at the neck to one another and from his hiding place Big Liang made himself inspect every one of the captured soldiers in turn, shifting his eyes slowly from man to man and scrutinizing every face minutely. A guard commander ‘was moving among them and Big Liang heard him bark out orders, ‘whereupon all the bound prisoners sank gratefully to the wet ground to rest. Again, to be doubly sure, Big Liang cast his gaze slowly over the seated men and when he was satisfied that there were no non-Chinese prisoners among them, he turned away on all fours, preparing to creep off down the gully without being seen.

  It was in the moment of turning that he caught sight of a bedraggled group of half a dozen civilian figures; dressed mainly in black, brimless caps and the kind of padded ankle-length gowns habitually worn by landlords and mandarins, the first group of nonmilitary prisoners the boy had seen was standing behind the captured soldiers and had become visible only because the soldiers had been ordered to sit down. The clothing of all the civilians was worn and travel-stained, and most had their hands tied. Only one among them appeared to be unbound, although the boy could see that a long rope dangled down his back from a kind of shoulder harness. But it was not just the freedom of that prisoner’s hands that attracted Big Liang’s attention. The unbound man, who was taller than the average Chinese, was wearing a wide conical hat of woven bamboo to keep off the rain, and to Big Liang’s great delight, when he removed the hat, he revealed himself to be the possessor of the same strange, straw- colored hair as Pastor Ke! Most of the man’s face was concealed by a thick beard the same color as his hair and although his skin was obviously pale, from where he was hiding, Big Liang could not be sure he was really looking at Pastor Ke. But the resemblance was strong and the Chinese boy crawled back into the clump of tall grass with a fast-beating heart to keep the little group of civilian prisoners under close observation.

  For some minutes the prisoners remained standing where they were, obviously awaiting orders. The Chinese civilians hung their heads, their shoulders sagged, and they eyed their captors apprehensively as they came and went around them. Only the European held himself upright on the banks of the stream, emanating a sense of calm dignity despite his disheveled appearance. When several guards divided up the group and herded the Chinese toward a separate bivouac, the European walked quietly ahead of his own two guards without any urging; even when one of his captors jerked roughly at dangling rope to halt him beside a small shelter, he still managed to retain his composure. With coarse shouts and gestures the guards commanded their prisoner to enter the shelter and one guard squatted on a rock a few feet away, cradling his rifle on his knees, watching him with narrowed, intent eyes.

  But the European did not obey immediately: instead he unslung the bundle of belongings from his shoulder and lowered himself to his knees beside the tattered awning. Pressing his palms together in front of his chest, he bent his head reverently to pray and in his place of concealment at the top of the ridge, Big Liang had to stop himself from leaping into the air with a loud whoop of triumph. Seeing the man with the straw-colored hair assume the attitude of prayer removed the last shadow of doubt from his mind. After many hundreds of weary miles their long search was finally over! Taking one last lingering look at the kneeling missionary to reassure himself, Big Liang bounded away up the wooded hillside in a crouching run, frantic to convey the good news to his father.

  6

  I see you’ve got a foreign devil for a prisoner,” said Big Liang, sidling alongside a pock-faced Young Vanguard boy dressed in an outsize Kuomintang greatcoat that overhung his hands and brushed the ground around his ankles. “What’s he like?”

  “He comes from a country forty thousand Ii away across the sea. All the people there have long noses and red or yellow hair like him.” The Young Vanguard spoke without pausing in his task of gathering fallen pine branches for the campfires; his voice was partly contemptuous but also a little awestruck. “He says he has an invisible friend who looks after him all the time. That’s who he prays to.”

  “Did he tell you that?”

  “Yes. He calls his friend Yeh-su. He says Yeh-su used to make sick people well again just by touching them.. I think he’s cockeyed.”

  Big Liang stooped and added another branch to the growing bundle of wood in his own arms. His faded Red Arty cap from the Hsiang River battlefield was pulled well forward over his face, and he spoke gruffly in an offhand m2nner though his interest in the foreigner was only superficial. “Why is he a prisoner?”

  “He’s a spy for the Kuomintang traitors and the foreign armies who want to invade China. His crazy stories about his magician Yeh-su are just an excuse to travel deep into China to spy on us.”

  “Will he be killed?”

  “I expect so. The Red Army has demanded a big payment for his freedom. But nobody will pay it.” The pock-faced boy laughed jeeringly. “Not even his invisible friend Yeh-su, who’s supposed to be
the foreigners’ Son of Heaven.”

  “I’m glad it’s not me in the shoes of the Big Nose.” Big Liang laughed in his turn, glancing toward the row of deserted mud-walled houses at the foot of the hill where he had seen the guards quartering their captives half an hour earlier. The fair-haired figure of Pastor Ke was visible, seated before the doorway of one cottage, resting from the day’s march, and Big Liang’s mind raced, trying to think how he might pass him the note written by his father that was burning a hole in a pocket of his wadded jacket. Since first spotting the missionary, he and his brother and father had been shadowing the group of civilian prisoners for two days, studying their movements and watching for a chance to try to make secret contact with him. When at the end of the second day his father had seen the Young Vanguard mess boys, buglers, and messengers fanning out across the hill above the mountain village to gather firewood, he had urged his son to mingle among them and try to get into the camp. One of the Little Red Devils had asked which unit he was from, but Big Liang had mumbled and pointed over the hill toward another Central Red Army regiment camped nearby; to his relief, his reply had not been questioned.

  “At least he’s not a coward, like the landlords and local despots,” said the boy as he turned back toward the village with his arms full of firewood. “He’s been beaten with bamboo canes — a hundred stripes .— and didn’t cry out once. And he dived into the Hsiang to rescue one of his guards. Nothing seems to really frighten him, He says he’s not afraid because he knows Yeh-su is always there beside him.”

  “Is his nose really very long?” asked Big Liang, turning deliberately down the hillside beside the boy, carrying’ his own bundle of sticks. “I’ve never seen a foreign devil close up.”

  “Yes — as big as this mountain.” The ‘Young Vanguard grinned mischievously and nodded toward the crest of the hill where a jagged outcrop of granite reared upward to a point. “And his eyes are really strange too — blue, just like the sky. Come on! I’ll show you. He’s sitting outside that cottage, look. We’ll run past and I’ll drop some of my sticks so you can get a good look at his nose.”