The Promise: A Novel of China and Burma (Oriental Novels of Pearl S. Buck)

by Pearl S. Buck

At these words Sheng sighed deeply and rested his sore shoulder against the wooden post that held the center of the tent.

  “I will go,” he said again. “I will be part of what must be spent—if so it must be spent.”

  “Stay here, after the others have gone,” the General said, “and I will give you maps and tell you what the road is.”

  “I will ask only one price,” Sheng replied. “I want this fellow to go with me,” and he put his hand on Charlie’s shoulder.

  The General nodded, and so the others went and they three were left alone. There for two more hours they talked together, the General talking, and the other two listening, and Charlie now and again putting his finger upon the map to point out a shorter road or a path. For since they would travel by foot without machines, they could go by small footways and reach the river sooner.

  “In a day and a half s hard march,” the General said, “you should be there. Rest until the daylight ends. Then plan your attack by night as I have told you. Scatter your men widely as you march and do not seem to be together. But instruct your men well. You meet at the given place at the given hour, and let none delay.”

  “None will delay,” Sheng said.

  “When can you start?” The General asked.

  Sheng did not answer for a moment. Under his uniform his shoulder throbbed with pain. But he had put the thought of it out of his mind and he would not heed it. No, he hesitated for another cause. Should he take a while to go back again to Mayli and tell her what he did? Suppose he told her, would she take it well or ill? Could he hide from her that his head swam with fever and that his eyes burned in their sockets, and that he felt his arm swelling inside its bandages? Then he knew he could not trust himself against the power of her will upon him. He had told her that it might be days before they met—let it be days, therefore.

  “I will start within the hour,” he told his General.

  “Since you risk your life,” the General said to Sheng, “I have no commands to lay upon you. Your own wits must tell you where your path is.” And then he told Sheng the news which until now he had held back. “I have chosen the best men out of our three divisions for you to command.”

  Sheng heard these words which at any other time would have given him joy. But though his ear now heard, his brain could not comprehend. He tried to fix his eyes on his general’s face, and he saw it double.

  “You hear me?” the General asked.

  “I will do my—very best,” Sheng stammered and he forced his right arm to salute and he turned and went back to his tent.

  XVII

  AT DAWN OF THE next day Sheng had not slept for the pain in his swollen arm. In impatience with pain he now ripped the sleeve of his uniform and felt a little comfort, for the skin was so red and stretched that the weight even of the cloth on it was too much. Then he took off the bandage and poultice and, with this off, the yellow pus streamed out of the wound and he let it flow and now he was very much eased and enough so that he went out and met his men. When the bugle called them, they came together, and five young officers led them under Sheng’s command.

  Sheng stood before them, and the clear still air of the dawning day calmed his feverish mind. He saw his men with pride. They were good men, thin and sun-blacked but healthy enough. Their uniforms were faded and gray of a hue that it would be hard to say what they were when new, and they wore straw sandals on their bare feet and carried each an extra pair over his back. Each had a gun of some sort and his small pack on his back and a hat for sun or rain made of rice straw.

  “Are you ready?” Sheng asked by way of greeting and the men shouted back in their various voices that they were ready, and so without more ado Sheng went at their head and they followed behind, swarming through the valley, and among them, although Sheng did not know it, was the Indian. Little Crab commanded the Indian to stay behind, but that one had waited until the march began, and then he had followed, to be near Sheng. Ahead of them somewhere had gone Charlie Li to gather together food and to spy out the enemy.

  So they marched for some miles, and when it was full light, Sheng stopped and put his men at ease. Then he sent down his command thus:

  “Now that it is day, we will scatter ourselves fanwise, but you are all to head for the Village of Three Waters, and that village is to the east of the river a hundred and two miles away from where we stand, and near it is a small lake of water which now is nearly dried. If each hundred of you part and walk a third of a mile and then walk due west, you will reach that lake. Then walk south if you now go north, and north if you now go south and cross the lake where you can, and in the middle on the other side is the village which you will know, for it has a lake on one side and a river too small for a map is on the other side and a narrow canal, which are the three waters. But do not keep together. Walk as though you were travelers or pilgrims or straying soldiers.”

  Then Sheng himself took with him a very young lad who had joined them at the borders and he chose this boy because he was silent. For now Sheng’s arm was painful again and his head was hot and giddy and he wanted no talking. Throughout that day he walked in silence, saying not twenty words to that lad, who was afraid of him indeed and stayed behind him ten feet or so, and he did not speak at all except to say, “Yes, Elder Brother,” whenever Sheng so much as turned his head.

  Of half that day Sheng remembered afterward nothing at all except that he put one foot in front of the other. He did not stop for food or rest, but he did stop whenever he saw water and he drank whatever that water was. Villages they passed around, and it was easy to see them, for the large villages were fenced about with bamboo walls and the small ones were plain enough, since their houses were set high on wooden posts, and in a village there were seldom fewer than ten or twenty houses. But Sheng and the lad kept to the fields and where there were hills then behind hills. This was easy, for the paths were crooked and led it seemed wherever they willed. Sometimes where the rice was high they followed the paths between the fields, and sometimes they did not.

  More than once a Burmese farmer stared at them and when Sheng saw this he pointed to his wounded arm, as though he were in search of a doctor somewhere, and the farmer nodded and some looked at him with pity and so they went on. Only once were they stopped and this time by an old man with energy in his look and in his bright black eyes, and when he saw Sheng’s arm he shouted and pulled Sheng by his other hand and Sheng, not wishing to make a quarrel here, went with him into a village near by. There was but one street in that village and along it were open shops selling small things and a blacksmith shop or two and at the end of it a monastery. Through its gate the man led Sheng without delay and into a room where an old man sat, a venerable good old man in a robe, and the man pointed to him and said loudly to Sheng, “Pong yi—pong yi!”

  But how could Sheng understand this word? He could only look stupid and so the man spoke quickly to the older one, and that old one lifted the torn sleeve from Sheng’s arm and stared into the wound and shook his head and sighed a few times as if to say it was very grave, and then he rose slowly and moved slowly away into another room and he came back with a little pot of white porcelain and in it was a smooth black ointment. This he dipped up with his long thin forefinger and he motioned to Sheng to hold out his arm and he smeared the ointment over the angry wound. At first Sheng thought he must cry out with pain for the ointment was like fire on the wound. But he held himself silent for decency’s sake and soon the fire changed to coolness and then his arm felt numb and then in a little while more there was no pain at all. How grateful was he for this, and he took out his purse from his girdle to pay the old man, but no, the old man would take nothing nor would he who had brought him here. That one led him back to the entrance of the village and though Sheng pressed him yet again, still that man would take nothing. And so Sheng went on his way, wondering that even here in this enemy country there was one to be found who could be kind and for nothing.

  Now that the pain was stopped for
awhile he could go with ease and this he did, and he bethought himself that the boy behind him must be hungry and indeed so was he and he said,

  “The next time we see food we will stop and buy rather than eat the little we have with us.”

  So they went on again awhile and now Sheng could look about him and see the country and indeed it was as rich and fertile a land as could be found anywhere, and he saw what he had never seen elsewhere, seed rice and rice harvest at the same time, for there was no winter and no summer here as in his own country, but the land was always green.

  After while they met a man carrying a food stand and he sold fried rice balls, and they bought each four or five of these hot balls, and they sat down beside the road under a tree that had very fine leaves and flowers of a delicate purple so fragrant that all the air about its top was busy with insects and bees. Under this tree Sheng sat down and the lad at a little distance sat in respectful silence. Sheng thought to himself that he ought to ask the lad a question or two out of courtesy but indeed he could not. The fever in him made him drowsy and it was now the heat of afternoon and the sweetness of the flowering tree above him was heavy, and after he had eaten a little and yet less than he thought he was hungry for, he lay back and fell asleep.

  He was wakened by the pain in his arm beginning to throb again and he stared about him, not knowing for a moment where he was, but his body was heavy as though his veins were full of hot lead. He struggled up and there the lad sat still.

  “Have I slept long?” Sheng asked.

  “Not very long,” the lad said, “but I was beginning to wonder if it were my duty to wake you.”

  Sheng did not answer, but he pulled himself from the grass and rubbed his face and his head with his good arm and he took up the march again and the lad fell in behind him.

  And of that day there is nothing more to be told except that at dark they came to the lake, now dried into a big pond, and they walked around the water upon its bottom of curling cakes of dried clay, and there on the other side they found their comrades waiting, not together so that men could see they were indeed an army, but a hundred here and a hundred there among the low trees. To his pleasure Sheng saw Charlie among them, and Charlie came forward and held out food to Sheng. Upon a green lotus leaf he had put hot rice and egg mixed with it and on the ground near by was a teapot full of hot tea and Sheng sank down with a great sigh that all so far was well. When he saw that teapot a mighty thirst fell upon him and he picked it up in his right hand and put the spout to his lips and drank as long as his breath held, and Charlie stood there watching him and waiting until he had drunk his fill.

  When at last Sheng put the pot down Charlie said quietly: “Now I can tell you the news. You must make a forced march and it will not do to rest tonight. The white men will all be dead unless we reach them by another day and night. This I know and can swear by. Let us eat and be on our way.”

  This Sheng heard but while he listened his arm began to throb again and he gave one grunt for answer.

  But he sent word to his men that they were only to rest and not to sleep. When he had so sent his command he went alone to the side of the lake and he put his head into the muddy water to cool himself, and he dipped up water in his hands and over his garments for coolness. But so great was his fever that when in an hour it was time to march he was dried and hot again.

  … All that night the division marched, stopping only to rest at the end of each two hours. Sheng had marched many times before this through day and night, and well he knew that the only way to keep the pace was to rest at given times, whether in day or night. They marched together through the darkness, but when dawn came they scattered again and chose the village where they must meet once more. There in the fields they would sleep for three hours before they made attack.

  Now all went well enough, except that by noon the next day his wound began to ache beyond bearing. Whether the showers of rain which fell now and again had washed away the ointment or whether his constant sweat had washed it off, Sheng did not know, but the old throbbing agony came back and his head began to swim and he wished he could find another old man like that one who had given him the black ointment but how could he delay? There was nothing he could do except to go on and so he did.

  And yet there was some good in that day, for the low hot jungles through which they traveled gave way at noon to great trees of teak forest and the leaves upon the ground made a carpet very comfortable for their tired feet. By now all had worn out their sandals and many were walking barefoot and so they were grateful for the new comfort. Yet there was this hardship in that great forest and it was that the paths were many and when Charlie had looked at the footprints on the worn earth he said, “These are the feet of elephants where they have been pulling out the trees and we must be careful for to be lost in one of these trails may mean days before we find its end.”

  So they watched their compasses closely and they came to the end of that wood.

  But since the night was near Sheng commanded them that they would take their long sleep here. And so they lay down where they could, upon their blankets or two sharing a blanket, and only Charlie did not sleep.

  “Do you never sleep?” Sheng asked.

  “I sleep upon my feet,” Charlie said with his grin as wide as ever. When all was quiet and he had eaten and drunk he said to Sheng, “Before you wake I will be back to tell you where the enemy is closing in and where the white men are.”

  And he went with his long silent step through the forest, taking with him only the silent lad.

  … Sheng would have said he did not sleep, so vivid was the pain in his arm, and yet he did sleep for it was out of sleep that Charlie waked him at the end of three hours. Sheng felt Charlie’s touch on his wounded arm lightly enough, but he leaped to his feet with a yell, and stood for an instant in the hot darkness shaking with agony.

  “Elder Brother, what is the matter with you?” Charlie whispered in amazement.

  Now Sheng was awake indeed and he licked his dry lips. His whole body was as dry as bone, and his skin was tight and burning.

  “Nothing,” he said shortly. “I was dreaming of an evil thing.”

  “Well, then, put it aside,” Charlie said. “For I have found the white men. They are caught in a trap indeed. The devils are between them and the river, and between them everywhere. But they are too strong to the south and the east and the only hope is toward the west and the bridge. There you must attack. The enemy are stretched thin there in a line not more than a half a mile along the river. I say that if you press through that half mile you can relieve the white men, and they will push to the bridge. But it must be suddenly, so that the devils do not destroy the bridge, for then shall we all be trapped. The river is swelling with the new rains, and there are no boats.”

  “No boats?” Sheng asked. “It is very strange to see a river with no boats.”

  Charlie wiped his sweating face with the tail of his coat.

  “The white men are leaking away from their leaders,” he said. “But they are not all white—some are men of India. Yet they all know that they are caught, and who can blame them? Every time one bribes a Burmese with his gun for a boat, why, the boat is soon gone, and it drifts down the river on the current when the men leap out on the other shore.”

  “Do they give their good guns to these Burmese traitors?” Sheng cried. For a moment his head cleared with rage.

  “What have they else to offer as a bribe?” Charlie said. “They are human, as other men are, white men and brown.”

  “But a good gun!” Sheng groaned, “when we have no good guns!”

  His throbbing head caught these words and his hot brain spun them into a twist—“a good gun—” he muttered, “a good gun—a good gun—”

  “Are you drunk?” Charlie shouted.

  Sheng’s brain cleared again for a moment. “No,” he said.

  But he thought to himself that he was drunk with pain, but could he heed pain now? He laughed out
loud. “I am only drunk with what lies ahead of me this day,” he shouted to Charlie, and he went back to his men and roared at them and he bellowed that they were to delay for nothing but they must follow him.

  He did not stop for food and they followed him without food, frightened at the sound of his voice. He ran ahead of them and they ran, and he felt his whole body filled with strength and fire, and his brain whirled, and his eyes burned, and he ran on, and there was strength in him beyond anything he had ever known.

  Behind him he heard men gasping and muttering, but he paid no heed, but he kept them to the utmost speed of forced marching. Before the dawn broke, he saw ahead the low tents of the encamped enemy. But still he would not rest, and he bellowed like a bull when he saw them, and he shrieked to his men to bellow with him and roaring together they fell upon the enemy while they were still half asleep and expecting no attack.

  Now those who followed Sheng followed him as though he were a god, and when they saw his madness and rage, they became mad, too, and they plunged their bayonets into the enemy wherever they found them. First they fired, but the weapons of many were old and could not fire more than once without delay for reloading, and rather than delay, they stabbed and cut and tore the enemy, and they choked men with their bare hands and gouged out their eyes with two thumbs digging into their eyeballs, and they jerked off men’s ears and ground their heels into their bellies and mauled them and threw them dying into the river. And ahead of them all was Sheng like a demon, his eyes red and burning and his square mouth open and yelling without stop. All who saw him were filled with fright, and his own men swore to each other that never had they seen any man so fierce as Sheng was in that battle. He used his wounded arm as though it were whole, for now his entire body was filled with pain as a vessel is filled with dark wine, and he was drunk.

  Thus led, his men swept aside the enemy, and into the breach the weary white men poured, and the Indians with them, and they escaped from the trap in which they had been held. Those of Sheng’s men who were in the rear, holding fast, saw white men stream by on foot, wounded, some in broken machines, some in whole machines. A few waved their arms and shouted to their deliverers, but they were few. The many went on without heed to any except themselves and to save their lives. Six and seven times, pushing and pressing each other, some fell into the swirling muddy water of the river, but none stayed to help whose who fell.