by Ha Jin
In late August a group of officials from Taiwan came to see us, but they were not allowed to enter any compound, so we met them only at the gate. Toward evening, through the amplifiers, they spoke to us, giving advice and warnings. One of them claimed that the Communists had already executed many returned POWs. The head of the delegation said to us:
“When we met today, it became clear to me that you had all been oppressed like slaves by the Communists. Why can’t we shake hands and hug one another today? Why are we not allowed to enter your barracks? Why do we have to strain our voices to speak through layers of barbed wire between us? All this is due to the Communists, who mean to keep you here forever. We must remember this and settle accounts with them one of these days . . . Brothers and friends, Generalissimo Chiang cares about your well-being deeply. You’re all anti-Communist heroes and pillars of our nation, so he sent us here to convey his best wishes to you. He invites you to come to Taiwan and join us in our great cause of fighting Communism. After you arrive, you all can follow your aspirations—you can attend colleges, or continue your military service, or pursue any honorable profession. I assure you that we will do everything to facilitate your way to success.”
He coughed dryly to clear his throat and continued: “Soon you will set out for the Neutral Zone, where the Communists will try every trick to lure you back to them. This will be the most crucial point in your lives, so please keep your minds clear and don’t agree to return to the mainland. To tell the truth, if you yield to the Reds, they will practice the Policy of Three Heads on you. What’s that? you may wonder. Let me explain. First, they will nod their heads smiling at you. Second, the moment you leave the Neutral Zone and enter their territory, they will make you hang your heads to confess your ‘crimes.’ Third, when you have crossed the Yalu, they will chop off your heads. That’s their Three Heads Policy, which is already being implemented. Brothers and friends, don’t be taken in by them. Come join us. We’ll always treat you benevolently like blood siblings. With our joint effort we shall prevail and retake China.”
The officials brought us a lot of gifts. Every prisoner got a picture of Chiang Kai-shek, a T-shirt with the Nationalist flag printed on its front, a woolen overcoat, a canvas satchel, a box of sugar cubes, two cans—one of stewed pork and the other of pear halves in syrup—and five ounces of green tea wrapped in a plastic bag. In addition, each enclosure was given basketballs, soccer balls, volleyballs, books, pens, magazines, drums, gongs, cymbals, bugles, horns, three dozen sets of playing cards, and chess sets. There were also four bolts of white cloth bearing over 100,000 civilians’ signatures expressing their support for the inmates’ cause.
Many of the prisoners were overwhelmed by the gifts. Some even wept while chewing bonbons and drinking hot tea, which we hadn’t tasted for more than two years. Some said they would never forget the generalissimo’s kindness and generosity. What a difference this was from the Communists, who just forced you to charge at the enemy while feeding you like cattle. The inmates talked on and on; everyone was intoxicated. Then to make themselves look more like the Nationalist warriors, some had their heads shaved bald. Within a week we all got rid of our hair.
I tried to remain levelheaded, knowing the Nationalists well, though I too enjoyed their gifts. The truth was that they badly needed men for their army, whereas the Communists had millions of troops and the largest reserve of manpower in the world. That made the two sides treat the POWs differently. I daresay it was the desperate straits the Nationalists were in that forced them to value the prisoners much more. By contrast, the Communists wanted us back mainly to save face.
If only I had known more about the business of the persuasion. Then I might have worked out a plan. Despite longing for my homeland, I was unsure if the Communists would ever absolve me from blame. How could I explain to them my return to this pro-Nationalist camp? I didn’t even know whether Commissar Pei and Ming were still alive. If they were dead, it would be impossible to defend myself. On the other hand, if I went to Taiwan, I wouldn’t be able to ease my guilty conscience either. How could I let my mother and my fiancée suffer for me while I lived abroad in peace and safety? The harder I tried to think of a way out, the more disappointed I became. My mind was in turmoil, though I had to appear cheerful. I spent more time reading the Bible to curb my apprehension, particularly the Book of Ecclesiastes, which I read repeatedly and which deepened my sense of human futility. These pages calmed me down and taught me that even though I couldn’t find a solution now, it didn’t mean there wasn’t one. I must be patient and learn to resign myself to waiting. There is a time for effort and a time for repose; a time for knowledge and a time for ignorance. At present all I could do was wait with an alert mind.
34. A GOOD COMPANION
That summer I grew attached to Blackie, a dog that roamed our compound. Though people began to think of me as his owner, I could hardly take care of him. A dog doesn’t eat grass like a chicken, so I couldn’t feed him and he had to look for food on his own. All I could do was fill a chipped crock with water for him. Whenever possible, he’d steal a bite from the kitchen, where some of the cooks would threaten him and even thrash him with a broom.
There were a good number of animals in Camp 13. Our kitchen raised a pig and a dozen chickens. We often heard hens cackle, but had never seen an egg drop in our soup. Apparently the leaders and the cooks ate them. Several inmates each raised a chicken themselves and bartered eggs for things they needed. One man even kept a small nanny goat that wasn’t old enough to give milk yet, but he didn’t have her for long—the animal got out of the camp one day and didn’t return. We guessed she must have been killed or shut away by some civilian. Her owner was devastated and for days waited in vain at the front gate, expecting her to reappear.
Blackie had wandered into our closure the previous winter and stayed. He must have felt safe in the camp, because he wasn’t a strong dog; somewhat stunted, he couldn’t fight the wild dogs in the marshes. Besides, the Koreans loved dog meat and wouldn’t think twice about catching and killing a stray dog. The prisoners called him Blackie on account of his dark coat. He was small in size and almost devoid of fur, scarred in places, but he had a fluffy tail and white eyebrows like a pair of moths. Some men believed he was a Japanese pointer and some said he was a Chinese retriever. I’m not sure what he was, maybe a hybrid. I often patted and stroked Blackie, who enjoyed being touched, and any expression of human affection seemed to give him intense pleasure. Sometimes I would beg the young cook named Nanshan to give him some leftovers—half a sweet potato or a ball of stale barley. Like the inmates, Blackie was undernourished, his ribs showed sharply, and he always seemed hungry, hanging around the mess lines at mealtimes and licking up spots of spilled soup.
As I spent more time with him, he seemed to acknowledge a special bond between us, following me whenever I was in his view. He’d trot beside me with an air of some importance. I was glad to have him around. Before Blackie, I had never really liked any animal, but now my thoughts would turn to him first thing in the morning when I woke up. I wouldn’t let him get out of the camp, fearing he might go astray. Whenever I returned from swimming, he would prance at me, whining with such happiness that I would be moved to caress his lop-eared head or squat down to play with him for a while. He would roll on the ground or lie on his back with his paws held back for me to poke his belly, which I would do. Sometimes he nuzzled my face and sniffed at my hand as though eager to get something tasty from me. He made me realize that none of us, the POWs, could ever have his kind of simple pleasure and genuine trust in a man. This realization made me treat him more like a friend, who evoked in me a tenderness that I dared not feel toward anyone around me for fear of embarrassment and betrayal. For this beneficent influence I was grateful. I promised him that I would feed him a lot of meat once we were free.
Most prisoners called Blackie by whistling, at which he would run to them, wagging his tail. If he recognized the man, he’d leap up and plac
e his paws on him, expecting to be stroked. He was such a friendly dog; he seemed to know only the goodness of man.
One night in early August Blackie sneaked through the fence and didn’t come back. I searched here and there within the enclosure but couldn’t find him. I was afraid some Korean might have kept him or even slaughtered him. Blackie was a grown male now and might have been in rut. To my knowledge there weren’t many dogs around the camp. He would have to go a long way to a fishing hamlet beyond a lagoon to find a bitch, and those fishermen wouldn’t hesitate to butcher him if they caught him. I waited and waited that night, but he didn’t return.
Some men said I had spoiled Blackie, who should have been gelded long ago. I told myself that if he came back, I must take measures to stop him from chasing bitches, or there would be endless trouble.
Early the next morning, my eyes still heavy with sleep, I heard a dog yapping. I jumped out of bed and rushed out. There was Blackie, his scanty fur soaked with dew, prancing around Nanshan, the round-faced cook, who was kicking a shuttlecock like a schoolboy at recess. I whistled and Blackie stopped short, then scampered all the way to me, wagging his tail and whining loudly. He reared up and put his paws on me, licking my hand and belly while his expressive eyes glistened. I noticed a gash on his rump, about two inches long, though the bleeding had stopped. The wound must have been inflicted by a pitchfork. Without delay I took him to the medic, who sterilized the cut with iodine solution and applied some antibiotic ointment to it.
I didn’t have the dog neutered, of course. I just couldn’t do that, although a fellow who had once been a goat castrator volunteered to do the job. Instead, I got a rope, about thirty feet long, and tied it around Blackie’s neck so that I could keep him from running out of the compound. But for the protest of some shed mates who said Blackie had fleas, I would have cut a hole in our door to let him in and stay with me at night. Every night before going to bed, I would tether him to a young poplar. Asleep with his head resting on his front legs, he seemed at home within the confinement. Also, I set a large wooden box on its side against the tree and roofed it with a piece of asphalt felt held down by two rocks. When it was windy or rainy, Blackie would lie curled up in the straw in this makeshift kennel. If I forgot to leash him at night, he would invariably sneak out of the prison. He was a clever dog and always managed to return soon after daybreak.
As we were preparing to leave for the Korean mainland for the final persuasion, I began to worry about him. We were not allowed to bring any animals with us, but if I left him behind he might soon perish, because he’d have to go to the civilians’ homes or the airfield to steal food. I wouldn’t have minded if a GI had adopted him; the Americans could always feed their pets. Wang Yong told me to abandon the dog. “It’s just a dumb animal,” he said. “Let it go, all right? We have enough humans to take care of.” I knew he’d get rid of Blackie without a second thought.
Desperate, I went to the kitchen and talked to Nanshan, who was in the habit of feeding the dog. I begged him, “Can you take Blackie along when we’re headed for the Neutral Zone?”
“I’ll try, but what if he barks?”
“I don’t know. I just want to keep him as long as I can. If that happens, I won’t blame you.”
“Officer Feng, you have a kind heart like the Buddha’s. Whatever you say I’ll do.”
His effusive words amazed me.
Nanshan kept his promise. He got some sleeping pills from the medic and ground them. Before we boarded the ship, he hid Blackie in a field cauldron. He broke a potato in half and smeared both pieces with the sleeping powder and fed them to Blackie. Soon the dog dropped off to sleep. Nanshan covered him with an empty gunnysack, and so Blackie passed the guards undiscovered.
35. IN THE DEMILITARIZED ZONE
On September 10, 1953, we arrived at Pusan, and from there we headed for the Neutral Zone, which was also called the Demilitarized Zone. It was in an immense enclosure outside a small town named Munsanni, just a few miles south of Kaesong. The town had been partly leveled by bombs; a few houses still stood with naked walls, but most of the roofs were gone. When we entered the camp on the sixteenth, the persuasion had been under way for days. The zone was guarded by Indian troops, and the governing body comprised people from other countries as well, such as Poland, Sweden, Czechoslovakia, and Switzerland. There were many representatives from the United Nations, North Korea, and mainland China. We were told that we should expect to stay at least twelve weeks in our new barracks, Compound 21.
Why so long? We were upset and bewildered.
The camp here consisted of about forty compounds, thirty-three of which held the Chinese POWs. We ate better food now: breakfast was barley porridge boiled in dry milk, and for lunch and dinner we had rice mixed with peas or soybeans, and there were also potatoes and cabbages. Each man now received more cigarettes, one pack every other day.
In the east, toward the Imjin River, stretched an orchard, whose apple and pear trees had all shed their leaves, their branches often bearded by hoarfrost in the morning. In the west rose a hill, treeless but covered with tall grass and teeming with ring-necked pheasants. We often gathered along the barbed-wire fence to watch the birds fly up and away with fluty cackles. From the distance the males’ iridescent plumage glittered in the sunlight like tiny explosions and often brought out shouts among us. How we wished we could have gone hunting for them. The soil was dark and rich here, but the fields were deserted, pockmarked by bombs. Still, there must have been some grains, grass seeds, and berries in the wilderness for the birds to eat. The pheasants, unlike human beings, seemed to have multiplied thanks to the war.
Our compound had obviously been inhabited by troops before, because there were bunks instead of plank beds inside the tents. The Indian guards, often armed with lathis, treated us decently on the whole. On the day of our arrival, they even offered us each a cup of coffee and a chocolate. But they guarded the gate so strictly that nobody could get out of the compound without official permission. As a result, all the battalions were isolated from one another. If somebody was sick and had to go to the hospital, which was within the Demilitarized Zone, two or three guards would escort him. On the other hand, the Indian authorities allowed the representatives from China to broadcast to us for three hours on end every day. Some of the persuaders went so far as to threaten us, saying, “Think about your families, who are all on the mainland. You should at least come home for them.” Their words intimidated the prisoners so much that many men in our battalion refused to meet with the Communist persuaders. Wang Yong got furious and assigned some men to pound on two upended oil drums with sticks to drown out the broadcasting, but this just produced more din and we still could hear snatches of the speeches. So he ordered his bodyguards to smash the amplifiers at the tips of the tall poles, and they knocked them out with stones. The Indians never had them repaired.
Wang Yong was desperate to communicate with the other compounds after several attempts had failed. One day someone suggested using Blackie to carry messages to Compound 22, which was about one hundred yards to the south. So they got hold of the dog, tied a letter around his neck, and pushed him out through a hole in the fence near the gate. Blackie was a successful messenger, since some prisoners in Compound 22 knew him and he would respond to their whistling. But the guards noticed his missions from the very beginning. I was worried about his safety and begged the secretary not to write any more messages on white paper, which was too eye-catching.
Nanshan had by now replaced me as the owner of Blackie, which I didn’t mind, because I might not be able to bring the dog along if I ended up being repatriated. The boy could take better care of him; he could feed him and had already persuaded the other cooks to let Blackie snuggle in a corner of the kitchen. I was pleased that Nanshan loved the dog so.
One night Blackie went out on an errand and didn’t return. I thought he might have gotten randy again, but he couldn’t possibly have escaped from the zone, in which, to my
knowledge, there wasn’t another dog. Both Nanshan and I waited late into the night for him to come back. At about two a.m. I was too exhausted to stay up any longer and went to bed.
Nanshan went to the gate alone the next morning to talk to the Indian guards. He couldn’t speak English but pleaded with a lieutenant in Chinese, “Please, please tell me where Blackie is!” The thick-bearded officer kept shaking his head as I approached them. In desperation the boy, assuming they really couldn’t make out what he was trying to say, began barking and got down on all fours like a dog. The Indians burst out laughing.
I went up to the officer and asked him if they had seen Blackie. He rolled his gray eyes and told me matter-of-factly, “That dog was a secret courier, so we had him executed.”
I told Nanshan, “They killed him.”
At those words the boy sprang at the officer, wielding his small fists, but I restrained him in spite of my own tears and dragged him back to our barracks. Together we wept in the kitchen.
When the same bearded lieutenant came in to do the head count that evening, two inmates suddenly lunged at him, each holding a brick. The officer tore away toward the fence while more men pursued him, some brandishing short clubs. They all looked murderous. I was so shocked that I didn’t know what to do. I wouldn’t have minded if they’d roughed him up some, but killing him might bring disaster on ourselves. Fortunately, before they could corner him, a squad of Indian guards rushed over from the other side of the fence, raised their rifles, and pulled the bolts. So the prisoners let him go.
Blackie’s death disrupted our communication with the outside, but except for Nanshan and me, most inmates forgot the dog in a matter of days. Their attempt on the Indian officer’s life in fact had little to do with vengeance. Uncertain of their future, most of them were desperate and irascible; they had seized the occasion to vent their emotions.