Neither of them spoke; for some time they lay looking at one another with only the moan of the wind in their ears. In the end it was as it something outside of themselves drew them closer and when her slender arms tightened convulsively around him, Jakob clung fiercely to her. In the glow of the dying fire he saw her almond- shaped eyes grow bright with emotion as she looked at him — but she remained silent, saying nothing. As in his dreams, her limbs seemed to dissolve with an agonizing slowness around him and when at last their bodies joined, he gave himself joyously to the fierce animal heat of their embrace. In Jakob’s mind a brilliant point of radiance began to expand with great force, flaring brighter as it grew:
then a long rush of fire burned furiously through his heart and he cried out and crushed her tenderly against himself.
Outside, the wind buffeting the jagged peaks of the Great Snow Mountains rose to a piercing howl. The shelter shook and the restless mule snuffled and stamped its feet, but a foot or two away beside the hearth, the baby continued to sleep peacefully, wrapped in the skins and the rough wool blanket.
9
The straggling lines of famished, rag-clad men who descended unsteadily from the freezing heights of the Ta Hsueh Shan several days later looked more like fugitives from a natural calamity than soldiers. Suffering from frostbite and snow blindness, they shivered in their patched and tattered cotton uniforms. Some clutched sodden blankets or discolored sheepskins about themselves, huddling under tattered paper umbrellas, and as many wore round coolie hats of plaited bamboo as army caps to protect themselves from the steady rain drifting down onto the meadows and valleys of the desolate plateau that separated China proper from the mountainous highlands of Tibet. A lot of the exhausted troops had lost their rifles after scrambling through the unfamiliar ice and snow barriers and most of those who still carried arms wore bandoliers that no longer held cartridges. Lice-ridden and covered in scabies, thousands of the southerners accustomed to a rice diet were also suffering from bleeding dysentery brought on by having to ingest hard, half-cooked grains on the mountain heights and they were managing to stagger onward only with the support of their comrades.
By a special order of the General headquarters, all political instructors and Communist Party cadres who fell sick or became wounded were being carried on litters. Many infantrymen, transformed into unwilling stretcher-bearers, trudged miserably through the rain and mud with bowed heads and rounded backs, giving the depleted fighting units a raggle-taggle, disorderly appearance. Unnerved by the emptiness of the highlands ten thousand feet above sea level, the survivors surveyed the cold, misty meadows with eyes that were both hopeful and fearful in turn. The prospect of joining up soon with friendly troops of Chang Kuo-tao’s Fourth Front Army was being spoken of with increasing frequency by the political commissars but as the ragged columns shuffled down from the mountain, each successive valley revealed only eerily deserted yurt settlements from which all the Tibetan tribes people had fled. Fearing the approach of traditionally hostile Han Chinese, they had driven their cattle away and hidden their grain. But invisible tribal horns echoed hauntingly along the valleys and several times boulders had crashed down steep cliffs into the midst of isolated units, killing and maiming more soldiers.
“The men are desperately in need of a long rest,” said Lu Chiao wearily when he reported to Commissioner Chou En-lai at dusk in an abandoned yurt village at the head of the steep-sided Maokung River valley. “Hardly any are fit to fight. Lin Piao’s First Corps is down to three thousand men and Peng Teh-huai has about the same in the Third. The Twelfth Corps has only a few hundred! With the General Headquarters units, that makes fewer than ten thousand all told. The giant army that left Kiangsi has become a skeleton without muscles.”
In the light of a kerosene lantern hanging from the crossed poles of the yurt, Chiao could see that Chou’s pale, sickly face was covered in a film of feverish perspiration. Seated on an upturned ammunition box before a rough desk made of pine planks, the commissioner was sorting through a sheaf of radio signals. “How much ammunition do the men have?” he asked, smothering a cough.
“Not more than five rounds each on average. Many have no bullets at all.”
“And the machine-gun units?”
“Almost no ammunition left. And only eight mortars got over the mountains with a few crates of shells.” Chiao placed a written report on the desk before Chou. “We must hope that we join up with the Fourth Front very soon.”
“If we’re as weak as you say, meeting up with the Fourth Front Army may not be such a simple pleasure.” Chou coughed painfully again: his face was strained, his features sunken, and the stubble on his unshaven cheeks was becoming an untidy beard. “Our radio contacts suggest they may be much stronger than us.”
“How many troops do they have?”
“Nobody knows for sure. Between fifty and a hundred thousand, we think. They’re all fresh, well armed, and well fed — and they’ve done very little fighting recently.”
“But surely that’s all to the good,” protested Chiao. “They’re our allies. Didn’t General Chang Kuo-tao help found the Kung Ch’an Tang with Commissar Mao in Shanghai in 1921? He’s been a member of the Central Committee and the Politburo ever since.”
“Precisely. He’s a strong, ambitious leader — but he’s a very different man from Commissar Mao. He’s the son of a rich landlord and he spent three years studying in Moscow. He sees the Kung Ch’an Tang with different eyes. Unlike Commissar Mao, who’s always stayed close to China’s peasants, General Chang has organized workers in the cities. But most important of all, General Chang is now in command of a strong, loyal army of his own. He’s set up successful soviet areas in Hupeh, Honan, and Anhwei and now he’s moved into Szechuan — so he’s used to giving orders, not taking them. . .
“But do you think cooperation is impossible?”
Chou passed a hand shakily across his face. “Many emergency decisions have been taken without General Chang’s knowledge while the Central Committee has been on the march. At Tsunyi, at Hweili. . .“ Another fit of coughing wracked Chou and he broke off to mop his perspiring face. “There’s been no contact with the Fourth Front Army for a very long time. We have a new leadership, and Hua Fu and Moscow have been excluded from our inner councils since Tsunyi. Commissar Mao is concerned that there might be strong disagreements about these matters with General Chang. A contest for the leadership between them is inevitable.”
“But should disagreements among fellow Communists be settled by fighting?” asked Chiao in a disbelieving voice. His face too was gaunt with strain, and his uniform was as muddied and disheveled as those of the men passing outside the yurt. “Surely any differences can be resolved by discussion.”
Chou drew a long breath. “We’re outnumbered by eight or ten to one. General Chang’s troops are well equipped and ready for combat. Ours are starving, ill clad, with, as you say, only five bullets apiece. It would be foolish to ignore the possibility Chou’s voice trailed off into another bout of coughing.
“I can’t believe we could march twenty thousand li, fighting the Kuomintang every day, to wage another civil war with the Fourth Front.” Chiao shook his head in bewilderment. “And just for the sake of the selfish ambitions of two leaders.”
Chou looked sharply at Chiao, his eyes carrying a silent warning to be circumspect. “It’s more than a matter of personal ambition, Comrade Lu. The future course of the revolution is at stake. We must hope we can avoid conflict, but as a precaution Commissar Mao has ordered that we disperse all units except the General Headquarters guard battalions before we meet the Fourth. We shall settle them in farms and villages over a wide area for a rest. That way it will be more difficult for General Chang to gauge our numbers, and surprise attack will be virtually impossible.” Chou glanced down at the written report Chiao had handed him, rereading it quickly, and when he spoke again his voice carried a warning note. “Keep our real strength a close secret, Comrade Lu. We must always talk
in terms of thirty thousand men at least. Don’t mention our lack of ammunition until we’ve replenished our supplies from the Fourth Front.”
“Very well, Comrade Commissioner.”
From outside, the steady scuff of marching feet and the tap of staves were audible. Many of the troops were barefoot or wearing only tattered ts’ao hsieh — straw sandals — that clung in wisps about their ankles. Although they were glad to have survived the highest of the ridges in the Great Snow Mountain range, they were too exhausted to sing or shout and they continued to shuffle down the valley through the steady rain in near-silence, leaning heavily on one another.
“I see that you report the death of Judge Yang on the first ridge,” said Chou without raising his head. “And request guidance regarding the remaining prisoners.”
Chiao nodded. “None of Judge Yang’s assistants survived the crossing. The guards are asking whom to turn to for instructions.
Another three captives died today - that leaves only two, a Luting landlord and the foreign missionary. I recommend that the landlord be turned loose.”
“Agreed.” Chou nodded. “And the foreigner?”
“Judge Yang was still negotiating with the Shanghai headquarters of the mission for his release. The judge’s orderly had kept a file of papers — I have it in my saddlebags outside. It seemed best to refer the matter to you for a decision, Comrade Commissioner.”
“Why did you reach that conclusion?”
“The missionary had been sentenced to death for spying before Judge Yang took over the case. The judge was originally demanding fines from Shanghai of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars to commute the death sentence. Later he asked for medicines, radios, and weapons. There were many changes of plan — perhaps because of the confusion of the march. The missionary escaped once and Judge Yang imposed a new fine for breaking the laws of the Central Soviet. He threatened to carry out the death sentence unless the mission headquarters paid a total fine of three hundred thousand dollars. The British ambassador in Peking has made appeals to the governors of Kweichow and Yunnan for help. There have been reports in all the newspapers. Some of the clippings are in the file.”
“Flow have the headquarters of the mission in Shanghai reacted?”
“They’ve refused to pay the fine. But they say they sent their director-general to negotiate. They say he was killed by robber- bandits on the Kweichow border. He was bringing ten thousand dollars in silver as a goodwill payment .
“When was the missionary captured?”
“In Hunan in early November — in the town of Chentai, with his wife and child . .
Chou looked up sharply. “Then he has been marching with us for eight months?”
“Yes.”
“What’s his condition?”
“He’s very weak. His guards thought he would die op the Ta Hsueh Shan. But it seems he has a very strong will.” Chiao frowned. “It’s just possible the missionary is known to me. My family met many missionary families in Shanghai. My sister, Mei-ling, saw him marching among the other prisoners in Kweichow and told me she thought she recognized him as someone we had once met.”
Chou nodded. “What happened to his wife?”
“She was executed after a public trial at Paoshan. They were both sentenced to death but the execution was interrupted by Nationalist forces.”
Chou coughed and mopped his brow again. “Bring the papers for mc to look at, please.”
Chiao hurried outside to his horse and returned a moment later with a crumpled file. He placed it on the plank desk before Chou and the commissioner leafed quickly through the pages of notes, reports, and yellowed news clippings from provincial Chinese newspapers. He paused now and again to read more closely, then he closed the file and looked up at Chiao once more. “I see one of the guards reports that Comrade Hua Fu summoned the prisoner to his quarters one night in Kweichow. Why was that?”
“I don’t know, Commissioner. it would be necessary to ask him.” Chou frowned and looked absently at the file again. “Do you know who pronounced the original death sentence for spying?”
“The trial was organized by a political commissar who was killed at the Hsiang crossing. His report says the people demanded the death of the missionaries and some local t’u hao — by acclamation.”
“Did anyone plant agitators in the crowd?”
“The file has no information on that. Many such trials were held in Hunan and Kweichow.”
Chou lapsed into silence, staring thoughtfully at Chiao. “I shall review the case. Slanderous newspaper reports constantly depict us as common bandits, so it’s important that we’re seen to act on principle in the case of the foreigner. If the executioner is still alive, find him and put him under close arrest and have him interrogated.”
“Yes, Comrade Commissioner.”
As Chiao turned to leave the yurt, a youthful messenger breathless from a hard ride burst in, his tunic black with rain. His face was alight with excitement and he didn’t wait to be invited to speak.
“Commissioner! There’s good news! Our vanguard scouts have made contact with a company of the Fourth Front Army — about forty li down the valley. Shots were exchanged at first before they recognized one another — but both sides blew their bugles and they all ran to embrace!”
Chou looked searchingly at the messenger, his haggard face expressionless. Then he forced a smile. “Thank you, comrade. Go and tell Commissar Mao — but make your announcement quietly.”
10
On a rain-drenched afternoon in late June, bedraggled Central Red Army troops standing shoulder to shoulder along both sides of a banner-decked village street stared enviously at the columns of fit, well-equipped soldiers of the Fourth Front Army who were marching jauntily into the village between them. The bandoliers and cartridge belts of the Fourth Front men gleamed with ammunition, their ration bags bulged, and the uniforms and red-starred caps they wore were cut from strong new cloth. Strings of donkeys, mules, and horses swayed under the weight of crated munitions and stores, and the smiling, confident faces of all the marching men, unlike those of the roadside sentries, were round and well fed.
Above their heads, blood red banners strung between the mud- brick houses had been emblazoned with white characters proclaiming “Long Live the Unity of the Fourth Front and First Front Armies!” and “March North Together to Fight the Japanese Invaders!” Similar slogans had been painted on the walls of the houses and in a field adjoining the road a platform of farm carts had been decorated with banners so that short speeches could be made to mark the historic joining of the two forces. Beneath a temporary tarpaulin shelter erected at the roadside nearby, Mao Tse-tung and Chu Teh waited tensely, darting glances from time to time at the advancing troops of the Fourth Front Army who were streaming down the road toward them from the north. Around the shelter were clustered about a hundred Party and Central Red Army leaders, and among them stood Lu Chiao and his sister, Mei-ling.
“If you wanted proof of the friction that’s building up between us and the Fourth Front, there it is,” said Chiao quietly to his sister, nodding in the direction of a bobbing red banner being carried into the village by the marching troops.
Mei-ling followed his gaze. The banner said “Let Us Together Expand the Revolutionary Northwest Federation of Szechuan and Sikang.”
“We’re saying we must all hurry north to fight the Japanese — but General Chang Kuo-tao wants to take us all farther west into the wilderness to build his ‘Northwest Federation.’
“Why does he want to do that?”
“He thinks the vast spaces of the Tibetan-Chinese borderlands are the best place to set up a new soviet. He wants to build up our military strength here. Three quarters of his troops are Szechuanese — and they’d rather stay in their home province. But nobody who has marched fifteen thousand Ii from Kiangsi wants to hide on this high plateau. It looks more and more like an occupied zone than a liberated area. We’ve discovered that the Kuomintang has spread lyi
ng propaganda saying the Chinese Communists were coming to kill the tribes people and eat their children. So it’s not surprising they’ve all fled from their villages and hidden their cattle and grain.”
Mei-ling screwed up her eyes and peered northward into the rain. She had pinned her hair beneath her uniform cap and she wore the Mauser machine pistol in her belt. “Is General Chang keeping us waiting so that we can have a good long look at his well turned out battle formations?”
“Probably.”
The Fourth Front battalions were continuing to march into Fupien, a small village a mile or two north of the town of Lianghokou where the Central Red Army had set up its temporary headquarters. Two weeks had passed since scouts of the two armies had first met after the crossing of the Great Snow Mountains and some units had already held festive gatherings in villages along the route. Food confiscated from landowners by the Fourth Front had been shared at modest banquets and there had been singing, dancing, and theater shows put on by troops of both armies. But as the Central Red Army leaders continued to move northward and the Fourth Front command headquarters shifted south to meet them, communication between their top leaders had been confined to formal radio messages. The ceremonial reunion between Mao Tse-tung and Chang Kuo-tao, who had not met since the Third Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, in 1923, had been arranged by agreement to take place finally in Fupien — but the appointed time had come and gone and still there was no sign of the Fourth Front’s commanders. Beneath the tarpaulin shelter, the waiting Central Red Army leaders were becoming increasingly restive and Chiao could see that the faces of Mao and Chu Teh were growing more taut as the minutes ticked by.
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