by Ha Jin
We were divided into ten units, each having about six hundred men. Shanmin and I were put into Compound 6, whose conditions were not as bad as I had feared, its facilities new and adequate on the whole. The compound was at the northeastern end of the camp. In it, eight long sheds stood in parallel, all built of dark volcanic rocks with asphalt-felt roofs. At its southeastern corner stood the kitchen, with a dwarf chimney, and at the southwestern end was the latrine, similar to the residential sheds in shape, though smaller in size. What made the privy unusual was that its urinal had been installed outside, a long concrete trough slanting alongside the fence at an angle of fifteen degrees. In between the kitchen and the outhouse was the recreation area, a small playing field as large as four basketball courts placed together. All the other nine compounds basically had the same layout.
Although each shed here held more than seventy men, it was much less crowded than the tents in the camp on Koje Island. In it two long plank beds had been installed along the walls; on either bed forty people could sleep. This was not bad at all. Shanmin and I were assigned to the first shed, near the kitchen. The moment I unpacked my bedroll, a commotion rose from outside. I went out to take a look. Oddly enough, Commissar Pei strolled into our barracks, smiling and waving at the men around. At once people broke out shouting, “Long live Chairman Mao!,” “Long live the Communist Party!,” “Fight the American imperialists to death!” Those slogans were their way of expressing their joy. About two thousand men were still waiting in the field to be assigned to their compounds; they saw our top leader and began shouting too. Immediately the commissar gestured for them to hush for fear of attracting the enemy’s attention. The guards must have forgotten General Smart’s instructions that Pei must be kept separate from us. How else could they have let him come back like this? A GI walked over and handed two cans of Spam through the barbed wire to a prisoner in our compound, saying, “Those guys over there asked me to give you these for the brass.” He was referring to Pei and the inmates outside Compound 7 waiting to be led into their quarters. Evidently Commissar Pei’s appearance had boosted the prisoners’ morale. Some men even shed tears, as though a god, or a guardian angel, had suddenly appeared among us. They regarded Pei as the embodiment of the Communist Party here. These men had no gods to worship, so they could only project their religious feelings on a leader, a human being, whose return to us might have been a fluke. And even Commissar Pei himself said to me, “I don’t know why the Americans let me come back.”
When he had settled in, he sat down beside me, and putting his large hand on my knee, praised me for speaking to General Smart on his behalf. “You’re a brave man, Yuan,” he said, and slapped at a horsefly landing on his face. “If you hadn’t intervened yesterday, they would’ve kept me on Koje Island for sure. Then heaven knows what would have happened to me.”
“It was Zhao Teng who told me to deliver the message,” I admitted.
“But you spoke well to Smart. I was impressed by your composure. You made me realize our Party needs many more intellectuals like you. Don’t you think you’re a tough soldier now?” He tossed his head back and laughed heartily.
“Maybe. I feel I’ve developed a little.”
“More than a little. It’s remarkable that adversities have toughened you so much. To be honest, I used to consider intellectuals unreliable, but you’ve made me think differently.”
I was pleased by his praise, but didn’t know how to respond. He then told me that the Party had awarded me another merit citation, first class this time, in addition to the one I had earned for stealing the pistol. I felt proud of myself. Actually I could see that people respected me more than before. By now I had been imprisoned for almost a year and had indeed become a stronger man, though sometimes I still felt isolated and lonely.
Toward midafternoon, a squad of GIs came in and took Commissar Pei away to the prison house on the beach, into which the camp authorities had originally intended to put him. That was the top jail on Cheju Island, where Pei was to be confined from now on.
21. COMMUNICATION AND STUDY
In mid-July a GI on a guard tower was struck in the head by “a message stone” hurled by an inmate from our compound. A gun was fired in response, but the fellow dashed into a shed nearby and was not hit. The stone, with a message tied to it, had been aimed at Compound 7, which was eighty yards away. Because of the long distance, such a stone could be hurled only with a string attached to it, whirling it first, and as a result it often flew astray. Yet since our arrival at Cheju Island, this sling-a-stone method had been the main channel of communication between most compounds.
Now that the enemy had a message of ours in their hands, our leaders were afraid that they might crack our self-made code. Fortunately, our code men, following the rule of changing the code monthly, had altered it a week ago by partly substituting three numerals with alphabetic letters, which made the code more irregular and harder to break. Unable to identify the slinger of the message stone, the guards took away Zhang Wanren, the chief of our compound, and interrogated him for a whole day, but Wanren played the fool and insisted he was unaware of any attempt to contact another compound. He kept wagging his head at the message they showed him and saying he didn’t know what to make of it. In the end, the Americans told him that from now on they’d view stone hurling as an act of provocation and would react with gunfire. So we had to abandon the sling-a-stone method and rely more on signaling by semaphore.
Each compound had two or three signalmen who could perform the semaphore, so all the battalions could communicate with their neighbors. A system of hand signals had been invented recently, corresponding to numbers, which worked as follows: right hand on the chest meant 1, left hand on the chest—2, both hands on the chest—3, right arm akimbo—4, left arm akimbo—5, both arms akimbo—6, right hand touching the ear—7, left hand touching the ear—8, both hands touching the ears—9, and both hands covering the face—0. After a set of numerals was transmitted, both hands would fall down to mark a pause; if there was a mistake, the sender would shake his right foot to indicate a restart. Four numerals always formed a unit standing for a word, which could be deciphered through the code.
Though the semaphore was ingeniously designed, it was too slow, too arduous, to handle long messages. Besides, it couldn’t be used between the compounds divided by the central field, the distance in between being too far for the signalmen to read the gestures. Soon another semaphore system was invented, called the Large Gesture Telegraph, which required more extended movement of the limbs and was used only between the east and the west sides of the field, though it tended to draw the guards’ attention.
Whenever there was a long message to send, the night soil teams were employed. Those latrine men were allowed to go to the seaside only one group at a time, but they dumped the excrement at the same spot. On the way they’d take a breather at a patch of wattle bushes and could leave a message for another team under a rock or some other object there. The secret spot had been specified beforehand to the other barracks through the semaphore, so the message could be picked up smoothly most of the time.
Although there had always been communications among the compounds, we couldn’t find an effective way to contact Commissar Pei. He wasn’t far away, in the prison house on the beach, and we could see him whenever he was let out for exercise or was basking in the sun in the afternoon. He usually stayed in the open air for twenty minutes, walking by a long sandbar, against which nestled a shack that served as several Chinese men’s living quarters. Those men were also POWs but willing to collaborate with the Americans, so they had been detailed there to maintain the prison house and keep watch on the special prisoners jailed in it. In addition to confining “the war criminal,” the prison also took in “troublemakers.” At times Commissar Pei and we waved at each other, but the long distance prevented him from hearing our voices. If only we could have communicated with him more.
This absence of communication with Pei also m
eant that there was no paramount leader in the camp. Zhao Teng, designated as Pei’s successor long ago, was now in the Fifth Battalion, at the southwestern corner of the camp, beyond the reach of the men in the compounds east of the field. Owing to the absence of the Party’s central leadership and any rival pro-Nationalist force, for weeks the camp was peaceful, though many prisoners had grown restless, as if they’d lost their bearings.
Zhao Teng, who was a good warrior but a poor strategist, just ordered us to carry on the three tasks stipulated three months ago in Compound 602 on Koje Island: unite, struggle, and study. Now that we had been isolated into groups, the first task was out of the question. Nor had we any clue how to “struggle,” since there was no pro-Nationalist force here. So the only feasible task was “study,” to which the inmates devoted themselves earnestly. A slogan began circulating among the battalions: “We must make ourselves more useful for the revolution.”
Somehow in early August both Hao Chaolin and Chang Ming were shipped to Camp 8 too. I was delighted to learn of their arrival. I didn’t see Ming in person, but Chaolin went to Compound 7, adjacent to ours, so we waved at each other from time to time. He wrote a message in uncoded words and had it passed on to us by the night soil teams. From it I learned that Ming had been sent to the Fourth Battalion, west of the field. With both of them in the camp now, the leadership would become effective again. They were much more capable than the rest of us. Since it was difficult for Zhao Teng to communicate directly with every one of the six compounds east of the field, Chaolin assumed the leadership of this side of the camp while Zhao Teng was in charge of the four western compounds. The two leaders would communicate first, and then if necessary each would contact the other battalions on his side. Chaolin fully supported the study movement, knowing we might have to stay here for a long time.
More than half of the prisoners in my compound were illiterate, and several educated men, like myself, began teaching them how to read and write. There was no paper, but this problem was easy to solve. Some construction was still in progress outside the camp, so whenever we went out to work, we brought back scraps of cement bags, which we could use in class. Pens were hard to come by, but some men made nibs out of strips of tinplate cut from cans. For ink they used diluted tobacco tar or juice squeezed out of grass. Rain cloths were nailed to walls as blackboards, on which you could write with a toothbrush soaked with the solution of tooth powder. Without enough Kraft paper, some men practiced their writing in a layer of sand spread in cardboard boxes. We, the instructors, set a basic goal: every one of the illiterate men should know at least five hundred written characters in three months. This seemed implausible at first, but to our amazement, most of these men were bright and eager to learn. Intuitively they understood literacy would improve their lives, so they applied themselves avidly. In our battalion there was a copy of James Yen’s Thousand Character Lessons distributed by the U.N. Civil Information and Education Center on Koje Island. This Chinese primer, intelligently compiled, was very handy and served as the basis of the lessons we prepared for the illiterates. James Yen was a Yale graduate and a leading expert in mass education. He had taught Chinese coolies in Europe in the early 1920s and obtained funding from the United Nations for his education project. In fact, Mao Zedong once briefly attended his class in Changsha City, but Yen was barred from entering China after the Communists came to power. In addition to the literacy class, we also offered courses in arithmetic, geography, history, calligraphy, and general knowledge.
As for the literate prisoners, the instructors taught them mainly through telling heroic stories and explicating lines of ancient poetry. I didn’t join them very often in the story sessions, which were usually held between noon and two o’clock, when the guards were relaxing or napping. But I was impressed by the number of talents among us. One man, Yiwen, transcribed from memory chapter after chapter of the Russian novel How the Steel Was Tempered, and also The History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union; another man, Minshen, could recite most of the pieces from the classical anthology Three Hundred Tang Poems; another fellow, whose name I cannot recall, knew dozens of folk songs and taught others how to sing them; a man with only one eye left, who had been a political instructor of a machine-gun company, even wrote a booklet on the history of the Chinese Communist Party. But I was most impressed by my young friend Shanmin.
Shanmin was sixteen and had been an artillery fire-direction man before he was captured. Although illiterate, he was quick at learning things and had good eyesight, so his battalion had trained him to observe the enemy’s positions. He often climbed to hilltops alone, carrying a twelve-power telescope, a pistol, and a two-watt walkie-talkie that weighed thirty-five pounds. One day a senior officer in the U.S. Twenty-fifth Division announced to his men that he would give a week’s leave to anyone who caught an enemy soldier alive. So a lot of GIs went out hunting for Chinese orderlies and stragglers. They would cut a telephone wire, wait for a repairman to appear, and catch him. They also ambushed cooks going to the front to deliver meals and hot water. A black GI spotted Shanmin, who was busy reporting to the commander of a mortar battery from the crest of a hill. The black man knocked him out from behind, threw him on his shoulder, and carried him down to their headquarters to claim his vacation. Because he had left behind Shanmin’s pistol and walkie-talkie, his superior at first couldn’t believe that this fifteen-year-old was a soldier. But the telescope with a coordinate axis and numerals on it helped them identify him. They didn’t beat the petrified boy; instead they tied him to the side of a tank heading for their rear base. He was frozen half dead, unable to speak, when they got there.
Now after a year’s imprisonment, Shanmin was bonier than before, like a bundle of firewood, but he had grown taller, to almost five feet four. He looked younger than his age, as though in his early teens, and had a pallid face and large sensitive eyes. Often underfed, he was languid most of the time, lying with his hands clasped behind his head. When he walked he seemed too tired to lift his feet. However, he came to life with the study movement. He was bright and spared no effort in learning how to read. He enjoyed the story sessions immensely and simply worshiped the raconteurs. I liked seeing his enchanted smile, which was innocent and heartfelt, revealing his crowded teeth. From the first day when we became shed mates, he had been fascinated by my reading Stars and Stripes. He once asked me, “Is it hard to learn American words?”
“No, Chinese is harder,” I replied.
“How many years have you studied the foreign language?”
“More than ten years.”
“Ah, if only I could be so well learned.”
“Of course you can. Besides, I’m not as knowledgeable as you think.”
“I hope I’ll go to school when we’re back in our country again.”
His words saddened me. At such a tender age, he shouldn’t have been here. His parents had lived in the countryside in Henan Province and had been too poor to send him to school, so he had joined the army and ended in Korea. He had three younger brothers and one elder sister, he told me. None of them had any schooling.
Shanmin never asked me to teach him anything, as though such a request would offend me or diminish his respect for me. One day in late July I offered to give him lessons individually. He was overjoyed and said he would be my student all his life. From then on I taught him ten words a day and also the ways phrases and sentences are formed. He had a remarkable memory and never forgot what he had learned. I soon noticed that his appetite for knowledge was quite voracious, though he seldom showed it. One night I overheard him murmur the words “combustion” and “momentum,” which I had taught him that afternoon. As I knew him better, I began to add two or three idioms a day. I also taught him multiplication and division. Having served as a fire-direction man, he had a little rudimentary arithmetic, but his knowledge was fragmentary. In just two days he memorized the entire multiplication table. His ability astonished me and made me wonder what he could have accomp
lished had he had the opportunity to attend school and college. I told him to keep a diary, and he wrote it dutifully every day, sometimes three or four sentences and sometimes a long paragraph. I would check the homework and correct the errors. I also taught him how to use an abacus, which we had made by stringing together some broad beans and then dividing all the strings horizontally with a split chopstick.
He helped me whenever possible. He’d clean mud off my shoes, wash my clothes, and sometimes pour hot water into my mug. He made no secret of his respect and affection for me. He also resoled my shoes with four strips of rubber cut from a discarded tire; he had learned to do this from a prisoner who had been a street cobbler. I enjoyed teaching him; it made me feel like a more useful man.
The other inmates were all fond of Shanmin too, treating him like a younger brother. I don’t mean the prisoners were all kindhearted. No, many of them were hardened by the miserable life they had led and were almost unfamiliar and uncomfortable with tender feelings. Quite a few, whose paths I avoided crossing, were plain scoundrels. Yet Shanmin had such a lovable nature that no one could help being brotherly to him. In the beginning his jacket had been too long, almost reaching his knees like an overcoat. A bearded man, whose place on the plank bed was next to Shanmin’s, cut the bottom of the jacket with a razor and hemstitched it for him. Weiming, a round-headed fellow from Canton Province, came across a half-filled, soft-covered notebook while cleaning the GIs’ quarters, and brought it back for Shanmin. He wrote on the first page, “Little Brother: May wisdom always accompany you!” Another man gave him a used pencil, which the boy cherished so much that he never left it anywhere except in his pocket. When the pencil was worn down to an inch, another man folded a piece of tinplate into a short pipe for him so that Shanmin could insert the stub into “the cap” and continue to use it. During his imprisonment on Cheju, for the progress he achieved in his study he received two medals: a pair of large stars made of iron sheet and coated with red paint.