War Trash

by Ha Jin

  Sirens screamed, one after another. Within half an hour marines in tanks and personnel carriers surrounded the compound while a plane circled overhead, ordering the prisoners to release General Bell without delay. The enemy, too confused to deal with the situation, seemed unsure whether to contact the kidnappers or just stay put and wait.

  About an hour later an inmate went to the gate and presented a sheet of paper signed by General Bell to one of the American officers. The letter had apparently been composed by the Koreans. It read:

  I order you never shoot POWs, so we can prevent the expansion of this crisis and keep my safety. I agree to hold the conference that includes representatives of prisoners from other compounds. Also agree to discuss the possibilities and search for solutions of the problems. Let our troops leave Compound 76. Stay away, please!

  General Matthew Bell

  But all the vehicles and GIs remained where they were. Forty minutes later came another slip of paper, a genuine letter bearing Bell’s handwriting. He ordered them to have a phone line connected to the barracks of Compound 76 and to follow his instructions closely from now on. He gave a list of things to be delivered without delay. Among them were blankets, canned meat, rice, pencils, pens, writing pads, brand-name cigarettes, folding tables and chairs, and a few things he needed for his personal accommodations. The acting commanding officer, General Fulton, who had just rushed here to take Bell’s place temporarily, was Bell’s friend, both having graduated from the Virginia Military Institute, so Fulton granted whatever Bell requested. Several jeeps were dispatched to different compounds to fetch POW representatives. Then a truck arrived to deliver the personal items for General Bell—there were even some bottles of spring water and a toilet. Later in the evening a larger truck came, loaded with supplies for the conference.

  Behind a row of barracKs a special tent had been pitched for the general. In front stood eight self-made red flags rippling in the breeze, each carrying a red star in a white circle. Dozens of pickets were posted around the tent, toting clubs, sharpened bamboo poles, long picks, shovels. One man, obviously a team leader, wore a shiny sickle in his belt. Chaolin and I were allowed to go in and have a look inside. A guard opened the door flaps for us. My goodness! I was struck by the fancy interior, which was thoroughly furnished and partitioned into four or five separate spaces; the entire floor was covered with army blankets. Even the walls were lined with blankets too, since it could still get chilly at night. Toward the back of the tent, a white curtain shielded an area for the bathroom. In the center of the front section stood a glossy desk and four chairs; on the desktop was a beer bottle holding a bunch of wild lilies, white and saffron, so fresh that some of the blossoms were still closed. In a screened corner were a cot and a tiny cabinet, on which perched the general’s reading glasses and his cap. The curtain was not drawn. We could see Bell lying on the bed with his eyes closed, his face longer and flabbier than before. He looked old. Chaolin and I didn’t disturb him, though I was sure the general knew someone had come in.

  In meeting and mixing with the Korean soldiers, I had noticed that they did things more elaborately than we did. For instance, the distinction of rank among their officers was immediately visible, marked by the bars and stars on the shoulder tabs. Even their enlisted men’s ranks could be identified by the stripes on their sleeves. Their officers’ uniforms were much more formal than ours—peaked caps with cockades, jackets with brass buttons and large epaulets, high patent-leather boots, and green or blue breeches whose legs had red stripes along the seams. They imitated the Russians as much as possible. In contrast, our officers didn’t wear any insignia, and there was little sartorial distinction between them and their men. At most our colonels and generals donned woolen jackets and trousers and maybe leather shoes. As for the enlisted men and junior officers, our quilted uniforms, felt hats with tied-up flaps, and canvas-top shoes were so crude that the GIs on the front called us “laundrymen.” At least many of us looked less skinny in our winter outfits.

  General Bell was so impressed by his accommodations that the next morning he said to General Fulton on the phone, “I’m living like an emperor here.” Indeed, the interior of the tent resembled that of a royal Mongolian yurt, perhaps even more luxurious. What’s more, his cook was going to come three times a day to deliver his meals, and two American orderlies were allowed to do housekeeping for him here every morning. Bell looked as if he were on vacation, camping on a lakeside or a mountain, though his face was grim.

  As Chaolin and I were wondering whether we should go forward or withdraw, General Bell opened his eyes. But he didn’t get up and seemed lost in thought. He closed his eyes again and we stepped closer. His large body weighed down the cot noticeably. Two top buttons on his jacket were missing, and his right epaulet, with one star on it, was ripped, barely attached to his shoulder by a few stitches of thread. How different he looked from the spruce general who had spoken with us just a few days ago.

  “We should talk with him,” whispered Chaolin.

  We stepped over, but the general still didn’t stir. I tried to guess why he acted this way. Out of anger? Or out of arrogance or contempt? More probably out of uncertainty. Like his men outside the compound, he too must have been at a loss how to deal with his kidnapping. Chaolin and I looked at each other again. He smiled and stuck his tongue out, which was heavily furred. He tilted his head, meaning I should start. I bent down a little and said, “Hello, General Bell, we came to see you.”

  “Oh, thank you, thank you.” He opened his eyes, whose whites were bloodshot. He sat up, combing his sparse hair with his fingers, and shifted his legs out of the bed so as to get to his feet.

  “Please remain seated,” I said. “We are the representatives of the Chinese prisoners. We met four days ago.”

  “Really? Oh yes, I promised you I’d solve some problems.”

  I was surprised that he hadn’t recognized us. Chaolin said through my interpretation, “Now we want to see your deeds. We don’t want the same result again—where the problems remain unsolved while your men pitch gas grenades into our barracks and even fire at us.”

  “That has never happened here.” Bell wasn’t wrong; that kind of violence had occurred in some camps on the Korean mainland, not on this island.

  “But your men often beat the inmates,” Chaolin pressed on.

  “In that case, I should have kept better discipline among my troops.”

  “What do you think of the way we treat you here?”

  The general looked puzzled, not having expected that the Korean prisoners represented us Chinese as well. I too was a little surprised by the collective pronoun “we.” Then Bell realized the meaning of the question and muttered, “Yes, I can say the Communists have accommodated me well.”

  “We’re glad you understand this. If only General Ridgway were here to take the same lesson.”

  “I can pass the message on to him and—” Catching himself, Bell looked abashed.

  “We’ll talk more about the treatment of the prisoners at the conference tomorrow. Meanwhile, take it easy and rest well.”

  “I will.”

  “Good-bye now.”

  “Bye.” He stood up, and his hand moved but didn’t stretch out.

  The moment we came out of the tent, Chaolin burst into laughter, holding his sides with both hands. I joined him in laughing too. A Korean officer, who had been at the entrance to the tent during our meeting with Bell, remarked in English, “American general is just so-so, a paper tiger, like Stalin says.”

  I don’t know where Stalin said that. Amused, I translated his words to Chaolin. That brought out more laughter. Without further delay the Korean officer led us to a tent at the back of the barracks, where we were to meet their top leader.

  At the sight of us Mr. Park got up from a reed mat and came to hug us. He said in barely comprehensible Chinese, “Ah my friends, welcome!”

  He gestured for us to sit down on the mat. I noticed that unlike the ot
hers, he sat on a sheepskin, its white fur mottled with black blotches. With ease we entered into conversation. The slim Colonel Lee sat beside the leader, serving as his interpreter, so I could relax now. Mr. Park showed deep concern about our living conditions and asked us how well we were organized in Compound 602. Chaolin reported to him briefly on the newly founded United Communist Association. Mr. Park was impressed by the intention to include as many people in the organization as possible while maintaining the Party’s leadership and principles at the core. He said, “I always admire the Chinese Communist Party. You have more experience and more strategies. I’m sorry we haven’t given enough support to your struggle.”

  Chaolin seemed touched and replied, “Under your leadership the Korean comrades captured General Bell. This is an extraordinary event in the history of warfare, and it dealt a crushing blow to our common enemy. It has also inspired us tremendously. We must learn from our Korean comrades’ courage and bravery.”

  “Well, without your help we couldn’t have done it at all,” said Mr. Park, smiling. “So half of the victory belongs to you. The Chinese comrades showed us how to stage a hunger strike and how to lure Bell to our compound, otherwise we couldn’t have brought him in. This victory is only a part of our two peoples’ joint struggle.”

  He turned aside and whispered to an aide. Lee winked at us and said, “Mr. Park would like to invite you to dinner.”

  “Please don’t treat us like guests,” I said.

  “You are our honored guests,” replied Lee, smiling meaningfully. He got up and went out, apparently to make arrangements for the dinner.

  I wondered what kind of food Mr. Park could offer us in such a place. Maybe a bowl of white rice and a bit of kimchee, at most accompanied by a few pieces of dried fish or some baked squid. My thoughts were interrupted by the hearty laughter from both Chaolin and our host. Mr. Park inquired after Commissar Pei and sent him his regards, which Chaolin promised to convey. I forced myself not to think of the promised dinner so as to remain in the conversation.

  Then a young man stepped in, carrying a large cauldron lid filled with steaming dumplings made of wheat flour, quite thick. We were flabbergasted—this was the best Chinese food a host could offer! Where on earth could they get the stuff for such a meal?

  Mr. Park smiled and opened his arms almost mischievously, saying, “Help yourselves, please.”

  “Let’s eat together,” said Chaolin, motioning for them to sit closer.

  “No, we already ate.”

  “How can we thank you enough for this?”

  “Stop talking and eat. You don’t have to thank us. Everything came from the Americans. If they hadn’t delivered the flour and the meat, we wouldn’t have known what to come up with. So enjoy yourselves. Excuse me for a moment.” Mr. Park stood up and went into a corner to discuss something with a group of officers.

  We each picked up a wooden spoon and began eating. The fillings were made of corned beef mixed with young cabbage. There was so much meat in the dumplings that they dripped oil whenever we took a bite. I tried hard to eat slowly while Chaolin grinned at me and went on licking his lips. He said, “After we go back home, I’ll tell my wife to make dumplings every weekend.”

  “This is the best meal I’ve had since we crossed the Yalu,” I said with a catch in my throat.

  “I know. Come on, don’t be too emotional, Yuan. They’re watching us.”

  I checked my tears. Despite enjoying the food, I wasn’t happy exactly. My emotions were mixed, evoked by Chaolin’s mention of his wife. I remembered the crabmeat wontons my mother and my fiancée had cooked for me the day before I left home. But I broke my reverie and forced myself to smile and not to think about my family in a situation like this. It was embarrassing to let your personal emotions interfere with your work. From now on I must build a closet in my heart, in which I would lock up my personal thoughts and feelings so that they couldn’t crop up at the wrong time.

  What happened after dinner was even more astonishing. We were led into a secret basement in the back of the tent. It was like being inside a bunker, but it was well lit, and on a small dais of earth covered with a piece of hardboard sat a radio—a glossy case made of grained oak, about two feet long and one foot high. Colonel Lee told me that they had exchanged canned food and blankets for this machine with a grocer and had it smuggled into the compound. As I was wondering if they had radio contact with the North, Mr. Park placed his hands on Chaolin’s and my shoulders, saying, “My dear comrades, only because we seized General Bell could we invite you over. But we have nothing special to entertain you with, so I thought perhaps you might like to listen to the voice of Beijing.”

  Heavens, they could hear broadcasts from China! We hadn’t heard a single sound from our homeland for more than a year. Hurriedly we bent over and turned on the radio. Through the rasping static came a female voice, crisp, clear, and warm. It announced:

  More donations were received lately. To support our army on the Korean front, two and a half million people participated in the public assemblies held in the capital last week, condemning the American invasion of Korea and championing the anti-imperialist cause. The actress of Yu Opera, Chang Hsiang-yu, donated a large sum for a jet fighter. The painter Huang Ran offered five of his paintings. A party of famous writers sold their manuscripts. All the proceeds are going to our army in Korea . . .

  The news seemed as distant as if it were coming from another planet. At the same time it was so close that it was tightening my scalp, contracting my chest, and shaking my heart. Tears were coursing down Chaolin’s and my faces. The air was so charged that nobody made a sound for a long while. Noiselessly we let our tears drop on the damp, yellow, foreign earth. Colonel Lee wept too.

  There was to be a preparatory meeting at the Koreans’ headquarters attended only by the key leaders. Chaolin stayed on for the meeting, so for the rest of the night I was free. As I walked out of the tent, large emotions were still surging in my chest. The salty breeze stung my still-wet face, and my heart was filled with homesickness and love. If only we could be heading home tomorrow! If only the moon were a transmitter that could send a telegram to my mother and Julan! But I curbed my fantasies and walked on, taking care not to get near the barbed wire, beyond which a group of GIs stood. They were smoking and jabbering, their guns emitting flecks of bluish light, their shiny helmets dulled by the string nets over the steel.

  Somehow in my mind echoed the words of the Russian revolutionary novelist Nikolai Ostrovsky: “The most valuable thing to man is his life. Life belongs to him only once and should be spent this way: when he recalls his past, he will not regret having wasted any time or feel ashamed of having accomplished nothing. Thus he can say on his deathbed: I have devoted my whole life and every bit of my energy to the most magnificent cause of humanity—the struggle for the liberation of mankind.” Like many others, I had committed to memory this passage from How the Steel Was Tempered, but now it was resonating more in my mind. I felt for the first time that I was a useful man, and that my life had finally been shaped by a goal. How small an individual was. Only when you joined a cause greater than yourself could you expand your individual role by a “multiplier.” For the time being, maybe the struggle against the American imperialists was the “multiplier” I had been seeking. Even though my role at this conference made me feel rather aggrandized, I was, after all, a mere translator and didn’t even play second fiddle to Chaolin. I got so carried away that I even considered applying for membership in the United Communist Association again.

  I found a place in the tent reserved for the representatives and went right to bed. Tomorrow was going to be a long day, and I’d better rest well for it.

  For breakfast all the representatives had jook, a Korean dish, which was somewhat like porridge but with meat and diced turnip in the rice. The word jook, I thought, must be derived from the Chinese word zhou, which means porridge. Every one of us was served a full bowl of it, and a plate of kimchee sat in
the center of each table for everybody to share. The Koreans couldn’t live without kimchee, which was obviously a rarity here. We ate almost ceremoniously; everyone seemed to make an effort not to rush. Chaolin and I didn’t care for kimchee; the chili was too hot for us. But I liked the smell of the cabbage and ate a few cloves of garlic pickled in the sauce. The jook, however, was tender and tasty; the meat was from canned beef stew. Again I was impressed by the Koreans’ resources.

  The conference started at 9:00 a.m. in a large tent. In the middle of the room stood eight long tables grouped together and covered with blankets; chairs were arranged around the tables. At the end near the entrance was the defendant’s seat, and at the opposite end was a chair for the head of the conference. On the wall behind this seat spread a Chinese and a Korean national flag. The enlarged committee meeting of the previous night had elected Colonel Choi the chairman and Hao Chaolin and another man the vice chairmen. So Choi took his seat at the head of the table; on his left Chaolin and I sat together. The three Korean women were seated next to me. In all, there were forty-two representatives and witnesses from seventeen compounds.

  After everybody sat down, we began to discuss the agenda of the conference, which was approved unanimously. Then we sent for General Bell.

  Bell came in with a ponderous gait and sat down in the defendant’s seat. Colonel Choi announced that the conference had begun, and that the first major item on the agenda was to allow Bell to listen to the representatives’ accusations and condemnations. He told the general in English, “You can defend yourself, but you must respect facts.”

  Then the representatives began to speak by turns. The Koreans had prepared a good deal of evidence for the abuse and violence they had suffered, and even claimed that some of their comrades had been coerced into joining the South Korean army. They described how their men had been tortured and killed just because they wanted to return to the North. A number of them had vanished, nobody knowing their whereabouts; had they been shipped away by our captors to some remote place as guinea pigs for the experiments in biochemical weapons? General Bell sat vacantly, perhaps because he couldn’t understand much of what they were saying despite the joint effort of two interpreters, who spoke English with abrupt inflections and misplaced accents like beginners.