by Ha Jin
The Chinese officer said, “Why are you so eager to rejoin the Communists?”
“I’ve told you I dislike them, but I want to go home. I’m my mother’s only child.”
“Mr. Feng, you’re a graduate of the Huangpu Military Academy, a student of Generalissimo Chiang. Why won’t you go to Taiwan? We shall return to mainland China sooner or later. It’s just a matter of time.”
I lowered my head and couldn’t respond, unsure what he had up his sleeve.
Wright said, “We believe in deeds more than in words. If you hate the Communists, you must separate yourself from them. Let’s get this straight now. I won’t tolerate duplicity anymore.”
“Well, Mr. Feng, you have to decide where to go,” the interpreter added and uncrossed his legs.
It became clear that they would never let me return to Camp 8, so the only way out of this impasse was to go join the pro-Nationalists on Cheju Island. My head was reeling and aching and my windpipe tightened, but I forced myself to remain calm. After a moment’s silence I said, “All right, I’ll go to Taiwan with one proviso.”
“Name it,” Wright urged.
“I want you to write a letter saying I am going to Taiwan of my own free will.”
“I can do that.”
“Then I’ll go anywhere you send me.”
He picked up a squat fountain pen and began writing on a sheet of stationery. The interpreter meanwhile tamped tobacco into a black pipe and lit it. A puff of smoke obscured his slightly pitted face. The tobacco smelled sweetish, like creamy candy, so it must have been an American brand.
“Can I look at your books?” I asked Lieutenant Wright, pointing at the bookcase.
“Help yourself. Those are not mine,” he replied without raising his head.
I walked over and went through the titles—about twenty romance novels, half a dozen military manuals, and more than ten copies of the Bible.
“Here you are,” Wright said loudly and pushed the letter to the edge of the desk.
I returned to the chair, picked up the sheet, and read the slanted script.
March 2, 1953
To Whom It May Concern:
In the process of reregistration, we identified Feng Yan, who speaks English fluently, as someone who is unwilling to remain in the prison camp dominated by the Communists. He wants to go to Free China, and therefore we are sending him down to you. Please take good care of him.
Sincerely,
Second Lieutenant Timothy Wright
I was pleased by the letter, especially the last sentence. I folded it carefully and put it into my breast pocket while saying to Wright, “I can’t thank you enough for this.”
“I’m glad about the result too.”
The interpreter put in, “So you’re going to Cheju Island this afternoon. We’ve already made arrangements. You can board the boat heading that way.”
“How come I never heard there was another camp for Chinese prisoners on Cheju?”
“It’s on the southern end of the island, Camp 13,” explained Wright.
Then another thought came to me. I said to him, “One more request before I go, may I?”
“Okay, if it’s reasonable.”
“Can you give me a Bible? In the Communist-controlled camp they won’t let me read any religious books, but I want to study the Bible.”
His large eyes lit up. Smiling, he told me, “Pick one then.”
I went across to the bookcase and pulled out a chestnut copy, which was a Chinese-English parallel edition, vellum-bound and with a pink ribbon bookmark. I returned and put the book on the desk. “Can I take this one?”
“It’s yours.” He raised his chin and laughed. So did the interpreter.
“Thank you!” I said.
“Sure. You’re free to go now.”
When the guard had taken me out of the administration center, I caught sight of a young woman walking toward a medical ward. Viewed from behind, she looked familiar, and her russet hair, like a flaming torch, arrested my eyes as the memory of Dr. Greene flashed through my mind. I begged the guard, “Let me go and thank that doctor, all right? She saved my leg.”
He nodded. “You have two minutes.”
I ran to catch up with the woman, shouting, “Dr. Greene, Dr. Greene!” She turned around, but to my disappointment, she was a different person, with pink cheeks and wide-set eyes.
“I’m not a doctor, I’m a nurse,” she told me pleasantly.
Panting hard, I said, “Do you know Dr. Greene? She operated on my leg.” I moved my left foot forward as if this nurse knew my case.
“I’ve heard of her, but she’d gone back to the States when I came. Most doctors stay here only for a year.” She smiled, her lips twisting a little.
“Sorry, I mistook you for her.”
“It’s all right.”
Embarrassed, I went back to the guard, sighing and shaking my head. He took me to a tent full of people, Chinese, Koreans, and Americans, waiting for trucks to take them to the docks or the airport. The officer in charge of the POWs looked through the piece of paper the guard had handed him, then told me, “Go join those guys lying over there. You’re going to the same camp with them.”
I went over and picked a spot where I could sit down. Lounging against a wooden box filled with assorted nuts and bolts, I began leafing through the Bible, but I couldn’t concentrate on the words, because from time to time a miserable feeling overcame me. I was devastated by the prospect that I might never be able to go home to take care of my mother and live with the woman I loved.
32. BACK TO CHEJU
Pusan at that time was the provisional capital of South Korea. In spite of its asphalt streets and neon signs, the city was squalid and crowded; yet the sight of strolling pedestrians and the stands overfilled with merchandise intensified my self-awareness as a captive. The Chinese words on numerous shop signs evoked my memories of China, while the smell of home cooking, a mixture of sautéed scallions and pork, wafted up, bringing me intense hunger pangs. The moment we came out of the downtown area, refugees appeared. There were so many of them that even the bushes and trees were draped with laundered clothing and diapers. Rows and clusters of tents, shacks, and huts sprawled in every direction; even the nearby hills were scattered with them. Many of the civilians wore olive drab clothes made out of American blankets. I was amazed that the Koreans used the army blankets for so many purposes—insulating rooms, making mattresses, unraveling them for the wool with which they knitted socks, shawls, sweaters, mittens, baby clothes. Some men and women just wrapped themselves in blankets, moving about like small mobile tents. I had heard that the North Korean POWs bartered blankets with civilians for dried fish, pickles, alcohol, and medicinal herbs, but never had I imagined the business had reached such a huge scale.
There were automobiles everywhere, but many of them, especially those driven by Koreans, were just rattletraps assembled with parts from American and Japanese models. On the hood of a jeep, parked under an acacia, sat a small Korean boy in a steel helmet, laughing noisily as some GIs gave him Coca-Cola to drink while teaching him how to curse in English. The area smelled awful, the air thick with a stench, an amalgam of carrion and human excrement.
The trip back to Cheju was relatively pleasant. Once the ship pulled out of the harbor, the air became fresh and invigorating. Along the coast clouds of smog were gliding slowly, and some freight trains crawled about like gigantic worms spewing dark smoke. The sea was calm toward evening as the setting sun cast its last rays on the greenish waves. I leaned against the railing at the bow and spotted a school of sharks, each five or six feet long. A few POWs rushed over to watch them, whooping and jabbering as the fish dashed away, blazing a phosphorescent trail. Except for that moment I stayed by myself all the way, reluctant to mix with others. I just watched the ocean, from whose surface small silvery fish skipped out time and again. We were allowed to spend our time on deck, though we had to return to the cabin when it got chilly at night. Because we were all supposed
to be anti-Communists, the guards treated us prisoners less severely than before.
Toward midmorning the next day we arrived at Mosulpo, a tiny isle about a mile southwest of Cheju Island. As we approached the rocky shore, I saw some women in black suits and caps and large goggles diving in the bay to gather mussels, sea cucumbers, scallops, abalones, conchs. About a dozen large gourds floated on the water, to each of which was affixed a string bag for the catch. I was amazed that there was no man among them. The women looked cheerful, calling out and waving at one another from time to time. Some of them were not young, close to forty; I noticed their wrinkled chins and necks when their weather-beaten faces popped out of the water.
“Haenyo,” a Korean man said behind me, pointing at the women. The word, meaning “sea maids,” must have come from Chinese originally. I was quite moved by the tranquil sight of the women, whose livelihood seemed unaffected by the war.
All of the twenty-seven Chinese POWs went directly to Enclosure 3 of Camp 13. I was struck by the enclosure’s front entrance. It resembled a grand memorial archway, on top of which rose a pole like the apex of a spire. A Nationalist flag was flying high at the tip of the pole. All the four gate pillars, built of bricks and painted white, bore giant black words. The inner two declared STAMP OUT COMMUNISM and RECONSTRUCT OUR CHINA. Atop each of the pillars perched a weather vane, whose bar was spinning a pair of balls lazily. It turned out that the ten compounds in Enclosure 3 were ready to receive us. A few POW leaders stood at the front gate to meet the new arrivals. The American guards frisked us perfunctorily. I felt lucky that they didn’t find the Bible in my satchel, though I knew they wouldn’t necessarily confiscate such a book.
“Well, well, well, look who’s here,” said Wang Yong at the sight of me. He came over and held out his hand, smiling in a rather friendly way, his eyes half shut. Two beefy bodyguards stood behind him.
“How are you, Chief Wang?” I asked after shaking his hand.
“I’m good. Welcome back, Feng Yan.”
The thought came to me that he must have requested his superiors to return me to his company. This realization unsettled me because he could be ruthless if offended. I had better take care to get along with him, or else he would make me suffer. I pulled Timothy Wright’s letter out of my breast pocket and handed it to him, saying, “Here’s my recommendation from the Pusan POW Collection Center.”
He glanced through the letter and said, “I don’t understand the foreign words. Tell me what it says.”
“It’s from Lieutenant Wright, who is in charge of registration at the Pusan center. He notifies you that I left the Communist camp because I want to go to Taiwan. He also asks you to take care of me.” I forced a smile that tightened my jaw.
“Good. keep this letter and don’t lose it.”
His bodyguards called him battalion chief now, so I congratulated him on his promotion, which he said was just in name. Later I found out that he led the same number of men as before and his battalion was basically the former company. Together we entered Compound 8, all of which was under Wang Yong’s charge.
He didn’t send me to one of his three companies but instead kept me at the battalion headquarters. I stayed with his orderlies, bodyguards, the secretary, and the mess officer. The compound was in good order. The yard, the barracks, and the outhouse were all clean, and there was no garbage anywhere in sight; apparently the prisoners here spent a lot of time improving their living conditions. Also, they ate better than the year before. I wondered if the Nationalists in Taiwan had subsidized their board, but this turned out not to be the case. The prisoners had grown some crops on their own. I felt it rather eerie to rub shoulders with these men, many of whom donned self-made uniforms and peaked caps similar to those worn by the Nationalist soldiers. On each cap was a large insignia of the raying sun.
That evening I ran into my friend Bai Dajian, who had by mistake remained here. He was a little sturdier than before but had bloodshot eyes. We shook hands and I even shed a few tears, but he didn’t seem overjoyed to see me, though his eyes were also wet with emotion. He said, “I heard you were coming this morning. How have you been since you left?”
“I’m all right.” I meant to tell him how the Communists had sent me to Pusan in place of their own man, but I held my tongue, unsure how much he had changed. “Have they treated you well here?” I asked instead.
“Yes, they’ve been good to me.”
There was some coldness in his manner. I couldn’t tell whether it stemmed from his resentment at my leaving him behind at the screening the year before, or from our long separation, or from his association with these pro-Nationalists whose cause he might have adopted now. He seemed to have grown mentally and become more reserved, more independent, more sure of himself. Later I came to know he had often served as the interpreter of the battalion. His English was functional now; he had hardly been able to speak a coherent sentence when we parted. I was surprised that Wang Yong hadn’t found a better English speaker. Perhaps Bai Dajian feared that my presence here might jeopardize his position.
I still dreaded Liu Tai-an, the vice chief of Compound 72 on Koje Island who had cut out Lin Wushen’s heart. My fear was eased when I heard that he had left the prison the previous summer, having fulfilled his task of fighting the Communists in the camp. Ironically, he was in the Communists’ hands now. The Americans had sent him on a special mission. After three months’ training in Tokyo, he was airdropped into North Korea as an agent in the disguise of a Chinese officer, but no sooner had he landed there than the militia caught him. They handed him over to the headquarters of the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army, where the interrogators identified him easily because they had kept a file on him. He was taken back to China and imprisoned in a suburb of Fushun City. Five years later, on June 24, 1958, he was executed publicly for murder, treason, and espionage for the United States. Some inmates in Enclosure 3 believed that it had been Han Shu, the chief here, who’d had Liu sent on the suicidal mission, because the two leaders hadn’t gotten along and Han Shu had no longer needed Liu Tai-an’s help after the pro-Communists were removed. Now with Liu’s absence from the camp, I felt less frightened. As long as I stayed on good terms with Wang Yong, I should be safe.
Life here was simpler than in the pro-Communist camp. From time to time a fight would break out among the prisoners, but it was usually over trifles, such as a lost towel, a missing cigarette holder, a magazine torn accidentally. Not staying with the regular inmates, I didn’t have to consort with them every day. Wang Yong gave me a desk and a chair made by the carpentry house in the enclosure, which were as good as those you could buy from a regular furniture store. He also issued me a washbasin, a crude iron bowl painted beige. it had been manufactured in the camp too, but it was handy and made me feel privileged. I was allowed to use the radio set in the battalion headquarters. Most prisoners would listen to the Voice of Free China in the evening, when it often commented on the situation in Korea. Several times it addressed us POWs directly, admonishing us to cooperate with our captors and remain loyal to the Nationalist cause. Once I heard Chiang Kai-shek speak on the radio and call on people in mainland China to rebel against the government.
Most prisoners here spent their days gambling, playing chess, cards, and mah-jongg. Some read booklets distributed by the Civil Information and Education Center and the Red Cross. Unlike the Communist-controlled camp, here you could read anything except books about Marxism and the Communist revolution. I spent more time reading the English part of the Bible, and the Chinese translation printed in the left-hand column on each page enabled me to figure out the meaning of any new word. The reading improved my English rapidly. I was glad I didn’t have to peruse any newspaper in its entirety to glean information anymore. Newspapers were in regular supply here, mainly back issues of Stars and Stripes, and we had several Chinese magazines. Sometimes I came across a copy of the New York Times, always five or six weeks old. The prisoners were very fond of the Chinese mag
azine entitled America, which circulated widely in the enclosure. However, the most popular reading materials were the Montgomery Ward and Sears Roebuck catalogues. Besides the fancy merchandise advertised in them showing how Americans lived, there were also photos of women and girls in various outfits and postures. I guessed that this must account for the popularity of the catalogues. Every week a movie was shown in our battalion, and it was always enthusiastically received. I saw Abe Lincoln in Illinois, Gone With the Wind, King Kong, The Good Earth, and others.
At the education center there was a noncirculating album containing hundreds of newspaper and magazine clippings. Many inmates thumbed through this bulky book and talked about General MacArthur and General Ridgway. Some of them were impressed by the smooth-faced MacArthur, who, when visiting his troops, had often worn civvies, patent leather gloves, sunglasses, and even a woolen neck scarf; but some preferred General Ridgway, who had combat clothes on all the time, a first-aid kit attached to his left shoulder and a grenade to the right side of his chest, and a pistol and a pair of binoculars on his belt. As for myself, I disliked MacArthur, who often smiled complacently in the photos and obviously enjoyed the war, in which he seemed quite at home and comfortable—as if he were sitting in a stadium watching a game. Dressed in civvies, he looked like a nonparticipant in any battle, like someone who sat high above his men, reluctant to get his hands soiled. He seemed more like a senator than a warrior. The prisoners who worshiped him would disparage Ridgway, who they said was like a hick with a corrugated face and tired eyes. One day I got so impatient I asked them, “Look, as a soldier, under whose command would you like to fight, MacArthur’s or Ridgway’s?” None would choose MacArthur.
Although Ridgway looked like a peasant, he seemed like a very careful man who understood the soldiers’ minds. The way he dressed demonstrated enormous care, confidence, and responsibility. It signaled to his men that he was one of them and would rush to the front when needed. The grenade at his chest emphasized his effectiveness as a warrior, whereas the first-aid kit at his left shoulder suggested his awareness of fatalities—the issue of casualties on his mind all the time. This kind of attention to minute details indicated that he was a responsible, conscientious commander. I never saw a picture in which Ridgway was smiling. His somber face seemed to betray a certain distaste for war.