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

by Pearl S. Buck

  He sat still, thinking, his hands outspread on his knees. He would echelon his men along the line of the Lashio road. At least he would protect that road, “since they never think of us,” he muttered, “let us think of ourselves.”

  He suddenly felt the impulse to weep and was surprised at himself. “It is this eternal retreat,” he told himself. “I must get into action. Well, I will act for myself.”

  He unbuttoned the collar of his uniform. It was very hot, day and night hot, and while he did not mind heat, for his own town at home was at the bottom of a valley between two mountain ranges, still it was not like this. The snakes alone were an enemy and the mosquitoes another. Two nights ago he had been bitten by a scorpion on his ankle and it was still swollen. Only the quickness of one of his men who had pulled out the sting with his thumb nails had kept it from being dangerous. He sighed and thought of his lost men. Sheng was lost, that great brave fellow from the Nanking hills! He thought of Sheng and then it occurred to him that he should tell that pretty girl about him—warn her, at least. If he was never to see his wife again, she need not be jealous. He shouted and an aide ran in.

  “Send Wei Mayli to me,” he said shortly. And then for an excuse he said, “Tell her I wish her to go as a messenger for me to the American. Her English is good enough—I cannot understand his Chinese.”

  He thought with a sparkle of pleasure that he would send Mayli and shame the American by saying that he could not understand his Chinese of which he was so proud. He smiled, and a little of his old quiet arrogance came back to him.

  … “Yes, of course I will come,” Mayli said. She wiped her hands on her apron as she spoke. “I will only change my coat—it is blood-spattered.”

  The messenger nodded, and she hastened toward the operating room where a moment before she had been helping Chung deliver a Burmese woman of a large fat boy. The woman’s husband was a Chinese merchant. He was waiting now at the door and stopped her as she passed.

  “Tell me,” he urged, “has the child a mole on his left ear lobe?”

  “Now have I time to look for that?” she said and laughed.

  But the man was grave. “You do not know these Burmese women,” he said solemnly in his old-fashioned Chinese. He had not been home for many years and he still spoke as he had when he was a boy before he set out to find his fortune. “How shall I know this is my son if there is not my mark on him?” he asked.

  He turned his head and there on his left ear lobe was a round black mole with hair growing out of it.

  “But not every child you have will bear your mark,” she cried. “What—will you test your wife’s virtue by a mole?”

  She laughed again but still the man would not laugh. “Look for it, for I do not want to waste any red eggs on another man’s son. She is pretty and young and I cannot always be at home.”

  She pulled away from him, promising, and in the room she found Chung carefully washing and polishing his instruments before he put them in the closed can which was his sterilizer.

  “Chung, the General has sent for me,” she said. She began to scrub her hands in the bucket of hot water which stood on a bench. “Oh, Chung, is it Sheng, do you think? Why else should the General send for me? I have not seen him for weeks.”

  “Sheng should be back by now, certainly,” Chung said. It had been strange to see so many men march away and not one return, no wounded, none living. This had been a strange pause, indeed—no orders to move, only waiting here now for nearly eight days.

  The women came in and lifted the stretcher on which his patient lay and took her away. He had been undecided whether or not to waste anaesthetic on her. Then he had done so. After all, it was a boy.

  Mayli reached for a clean uniform and he turned his back modestly. He was never sure whether or not she was immodest or only unthinking, but there was no need for him to find out. In a moment she was clean and at the door again, when suddenly the child wailed. He had been forgotten and was lying wrapped in a towel on some straw in a corner.

  Chung hurried toward the child and picked him up. “After all this trouble you are forgotten,” he remarked. Mayli paused, and ran back again. “Give him to me,” she said. “I will tell Pansiao to look after him until I come back.” She seized the plump little bundle and hurried toward the door once more. There outside was the patient father and seeing him she remembered what he had wanted. “Here,” she said, “see for yourself.”

  What small chance there was that the child had inherited a birthmark she knew, but she moved the end of the towel from the black head and there was the little left ear, perfect except for a tiny dot of black.

  “It is here,” Mayli cried with joy, “so small that it can hardly be seen, but then he is so small.”

  The Chinese merchant rose, felt in his bosom for his spectacles which he put on and then he examined the tiny lobe.

  “He is my son,” he said, solemnly. A smile came over his face. “My first,” he said. He put out his arms. “I will take him.”

  “But I was about to wash him and put on his clothes,” Mayli protested.

  “I will take him,” he repeated firmly. “I can wash him and put on his clothes.”

  She gave him the child and watched for a moment while he strode away, his robes swinging, the child laid across his two arms like tribute being borne to an emperor. He disappeared down the street and she came to herself. How foolish was life, she thought, that in the midst of war and death and evil news of every kind, one could forget for a moment all except that a son had been born to a man again!

  She hastened on, smiling and sad.

  … “Of Sheng I have heard not one word,” the General said. Mayli clasped her hands a little more tightly on her lap. He was not looking at her. “What there is between you two I do not know,” he went on, “but I ought to tell you that not one man of his command has come back. They went across the river of course with the allies, but by now I ought to have had Charlie Li here at least to tell me that they were rejoining us. It is in my mind to put my armies along the Lashio road, but how can I do this unless they return? The line will be too thin. Nevertheless I will do it.”

  “Does that mean we move?” she asked.

  “It means we move at once,” he replied. “And I want you to go for me, as my private messenger, you understand, and speak to the American in his own language so that I can be sure he understands and tell him that I move, regardless of all others. I am wearied of this constant retreat. I will retreat no more. I will take my own stand and guard the borders to our own country and let the white men do what they like.”

  He was very tired, she could see that. His bony face, always thin, was now a series of hollows and cups, the temples hollow, the cheeks hollow, hollows under the jawbones and under the ears. But the retreat had been swift. She had been troubled enough at it herself, moving every few hours as the orders came down. How could Sheng find her? She was a hundred miles from where he had left her.

  “Shall I go to the American now?” she asked.

  “Now,” he answered, “for tomorrow we march.”

  She rose, and he lifted his haggard eyes to regard her. “I think I shall never see my wife and children again,” he said abruptly.

  “Do not give up hope,” she said quickly.

  “I have not given up hope,” he replied, “but hope has been torn away from me.” He hesitated and then went on. “And I am afraid,” he said, “that this young man—this Sheng—whom you—”

  “Oh no,” she said. “Don’t speak of him—I do not give up hope. You have no idea how strong he is—he cannot be killed.”

  “Yes,” he said. “He is strong. But then—so am I.”

  “Shall I go?” she urged. She was uncomfortable. This man was deeply moved and desperate. She was not afraid of him, but he was clutching at anything, at anybody. “I will go and come back quickly,” she said, and went away.

  She knew of course where the American was. They all knew that he lived in a little tent l
ike any common soldier’s tent. It was under a banyan tree for coolness, and through the arches of this great tree with its hundred trunks she now walked. She was not afraid of the American, although she had never spoken to him. Gossip had made him known, the talk of men and the talk of women. She knew that he made friends easily with the common soldiers and not so well with the officers. “The old dislike of equality,” she thought with scorn. “The white men want us all to be common folk so that they can continue to be our lords.”

  When she came to the white guard at the entrance of the tent she said curtly in English, “I come as a messenger from the Chinese General.”

  “Righto,” the guard replied, without saluting, and went inside. In a moment he came back. “The boss says to come in,” he said. She went in and there she found the American sitting on a folding stool, eating a green-skinned melon. Inside the melon the meat was a clear golden yellow. He looked up, smiled and rose, the half-melon in his hands.

  “I can’t shake hands,” he said in his slow pleasant voice, “but I’ll give you a piece of this.”

  “No, thank you,” she said. She sat down on a second stool.

  “It’s rather good,” he remarked, sitting down again.

  “It looks so,” she agreed, “but I have only a message to give you from our General. He wishes me to say that he will march tomorrow and move to the Lashio Road.”

  The American swallowed a mouthful of the golden juice. “I’ll be sorry if he’s made up his mind,” he drawled, “because if he does what he told me he wanted to do, he’s planning too narrow a front and he is putting his units at a disadvantage. Try to persuade him, young lady—I can’t. He doesn’t take my orders.”

  “He is discouraged,” she said warmly. “We are all discouraged.”

  He put the melon down on a small folding table and wiped his hands on a surprisingly white handkerchief.

  “I know,” he said gently—“I know.”

  She waited but he said no more. She could feel little separate withdrawals of his whole being, the eyes retreating first, the lips next, pressed firmly to silence, the shoulders stiffening, the hands busying themselves with folding the handkerchief.

  “You all defend each other, you and the British,” she said suddenly.

  He gave her a swift look from under his lids. “We’re strangers in a strange country,” he said.

  “Are not we?” she replied.

  “You are not so strange as we are,” he said.

  She was suddenly ablaze with anger. “You white people,” she cried. “You sacrifice all other human beings on your own altars for yourselves.”

  “I was twenty years in your country,” he reminded her.

  “Always being a white man,” she retorted.

  “For so I was born,” he replied.

  She turned away her head, and rose, having fulfilled her mission. But he delayed her a moment more. “In spite of all that you are thinking,” he said, “I have never seen braver men than these British. They have known that they would have no reinforcements—that planes were not being sent, nor ships, nor additional troops—nothing. They have been fighting what is called a delaying action. Their lives are the scraps thrown to the advancing wolves that others might be saved.”

  “You always make heroes out of yourselves,” she said harshly. “You forget that we should have had allies here in Burma instead of enemies, had white men been human beings all through these decades of your possession instead of always white heroes among dark savages.”

  “Do not forget I am American,” he reminded her.

  “I can only remember that you are white,” she retorted, and she bent her head away from him and went away.

  She hastened, winged by fury, and was almost back to her own quarters before she remembered that she must return to the General. But when she reached his quarters he was busy with his commanders, and she was not taken inside. Instead he came out to her and she told him, standing in the presence of soldiers and guards, “I have delivered your message and he advises against it.”

  “I will not heed his advice,” the General replied.

  “Then tomorrow?” she inquired.

  “At dawn,” he replied.

  She nodded and made haste indeed now. For the severely wounded must be left behind, scattered as safely as could be in the homes of Chinese wherever they could be found, and those who were a little wounded must be made ready to be moved. Chung must be told first and then her women. All the hundred small things must be done when they marched again.

  She frowned and the careworn look that was now natural to her came over her face. This time at least it would not be retreat. She was eager to be gone—yes, the General had decided wisely. They would form their own lines. How she had talked to the American! When she and Sheng met she would tell him, and he would say he was glad. But whether she had been right or wrong she did not know. The American was an honest man. But when honesty was blind, was it still honesty? She saw the honesty and Sheng saw the blindness. Sheng was right, Sheng was wiser than she.

  “Oh, will they never see?” she muttered between her teeth. No, she knew they never would. These white men, retreating before the Japanese, would still not see. They would be planning even while they retreated, that they would come back again and be as they had always been, White Heroes.

  She ground her even teeth together and pressed her red lips and felt her eyes grow hot. Upon the wings of her scorn she sped to do what must be done, and she bustled and hastened as she went, driving Chung at last to rebuke her thus, “You are as bad as a foreigner sometimes.”

  She paused at this and after a moment she said, “Well, perhaps you are right.” And as though he had given her a medicine, she grew quieter, her step moved as swiftly but the haste was gone. Her voice lost its sharpness and was calm again. Now Pansiao, who had stayed out of her sight, came near her.

  “Are we moving?” she asked in her soft voice.

  “Yes, but this time nearer home,” Mayli replied. She thought as she spoke that the girl would be comforted, but instead a look of dismay came over Pansiao’s face.

  “Doesn’t that please you?” Mayli asked. She was folding uniforms into a wicker basket.

  “Yes, but—” Pansiao began and stopped.

  “But what?” Mayli asked.

  “Sheng,” Pansiao faltered, “how will he find us?”

  Mayli paused for one instant. “I have been thinking of that,” she said. “See, we will leave a letter here with the woman who had the baby today. We are sending her home tonight and her husband is coming for her. I will give a letter to him and tell him he is to look for anyone Chinese coming here. It is natural that when Sheng finds us gone he will go to the Chinese.”

  Still Pansiao was not satisfied. She hung her head and twisted her fingers and looked sidewise at Mayli now and then as she worked.

  Mayli watched this for a while and then she said, “Speak what is behind your eyelids, for I can see something is there.”

  “There is nothing behind my eyelids,” Pansiao said warmly. “Nothing, that is, but something that doesn’t matter. That is, it matters nothing to me. But if we leave a letter for Sheng—”

  A guess darted into Mayli’s mind. “We ought to leave one for Charlie Li,” she said laughing.

  She sharpened her two forefingers at Pansiao as though they were knives in the old childish gesture of derision by which girls tease each other, and Pansiao threw the end of her jacket over her face and ran away.

  And Mayli, left behind, ceased laughing suddenly and sighed, and stood motionless for a long moment, her busy hands resting on the edge of the basket. It was possible that she and Sheng would never meet again.

  XX

  THAT LAST NIGHT MAYLI wrote a letter to Sheng. She made it short and plain, for she did not know whose eyes would fall upon it, and what she said was this:

  “Sheng:

  “We leave tomorrow morning at dawn, under orders. The American will tell you where we go, if yo
u cannot find out otherwise. If you can follow, I shall be watching for you day and night and so will your sister. I believe you live. Would I not know it if you were dead?”

  When this short letter was written, she sat for a while thinking whether she ought to write to any other. Well she knew that from this campaign which the General planned she might never return. She knew that the General must be obeyed and yet she could not forget the American’s warning, that what the General planned to do was folly, since he had not enough men left to do it. If she were to die in this campaign, for the enemy spared no woman or man, then to whom should she now write?

  She thought of her father in America. Surely to him she should write? And yet she could not. He seemed far away, he was ignorant of her life and its necessity, and how could she begin now and explain to him where she was and why? She had been silent so long that now silence could not be broken.

  Was there no one to whom she cared to say that this was the last night before a great campaign? And as her mind wandered, she thought of Sheng’s family in the village near Nanking, and she knew that to them she could write. They would know what battle meant and what the enemy was and what the danger would be tomorrow.

  So in quick clear characters she wrote one of her letters to Jade and she told that one exactly what was the truth—that Sheng had not returned but she would not think of him as dead and that she went with the others tomorrow to a new camp and battle front. When she had written this she sat pondering if there were anything else she ought to tell. The night around her was very dark, the air thick with heat. She was in her small tent, and the light she wrote by was a paper lantern. Around it a cloud of moths and beetles circled and swarmed and fell bruised upon the paper. She brushed them away with her hand, and then she wrote, “I ought to tell you—our allies have not upheld us here. Do not have great hopes, for we are in retreat. I tell you this—those whom we came to deliver have betrayed us. Tonight is dark—who can see tomorrow? But I send good wishes to you all. If we live, Sheng and I will come home again some day.”