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

by Pearl S. Buck

  “They passed through here this morning,” she said, “going north and east. How far from here they are now I cannot tell.”

  “If they were here only this morning,” he said, “then we ought to move quickly. But where? We’ve been running from them for days. They were behind us up there—” he nodded northward. “We thought that we were getting away from them.”

  “We must get out of this jungle,” she said. “We cannot see anything until we are out of it. I will call my friends.”

  She lifted her voice and called. “An-lan—Pansiao—Siu-chen—Hsieh-ying!”

  At the sound of her voice the women, who had until now been hiding behind the bushes came timidly out, Pansiao clinging to Hsieh-ying’s hand. They looked at each other, English and Chinese. The men, Mayli could see, were not too pleased. Women, they were doubtless thinking—women would be a burden.

  “We can walk as swiftly as you,” she said, “we are used to walking with the armies.”

  “Think of comin’ this far to find a lot of women!” the short one remarked.

  “Shut up, Rick,” the first Englishman replied. There was a long moment of shy silence, then he shouldered his gun. “Well, come along, everybody,” he said, “we’d better be on the march again.” He tramped off in the direction in which they had come, the men taking the lead and the women falling in behind, single file.

  Now these two kinds of people, men and women, light and dark, walked hour after hour in the sultry dusk of the jungle, each kind dubious of the other, and therefore continuing in silence. Once and again they muttered together concerning each other. Thus the Englishmen, glancing backward at the women, spoke in low voices:

  “The little one doesn’t look more than seventeen,” one said.

  And another one said, “They’d be pretty if you didn’t remember your own girls.”

  “They’re too yellow, too thin, and I don’t like their eyes,” the third one said.

  “Still they’re girls,” the first one said.

  “I suppose you’d call them that,” another answered.

  The women spoke freely, knowing the men could not understand them in their own language. “Are all Ying men tall and thin and bony like these?” Hsieh-ying asked Mayli.

  Mayli could still smile, hot and tired though she was. “Ying men come fat and thin as any other men do,” she said.

  “They scare me,” Pansiao said plaintively. “Their eyes are cruel blue, and their noses are like plowshares. Why need they have such noses? Do they smell as dogs do?”

  “They come from their mother’s wombs with those noses,” Mayli replied.

  “They looked like peeled fruit,” Siu-chen said. “Why should their skin be red?”

  “The sun burns them red instead of brown,” Mayli said.

  And then being women they fell into yet more intimate talk. “Are these men as other men are?” Hsieh-ying asked, for she was one who had a warmth toward men and this she could not help, although for shame’s sake she hid it as much as she could.

  “Certainly they are,” Mayli said with coolness.

  “My flesh pimples to think of sleeping with such gawks,” Hsieh-ying said.

  Mayli smiled drily. “I am glad to hear that,” she said and the women laughed.

  Yes, they could laugh, looking at these Englishmen and seeing their knobby bare legs and tall lean bodies and lank necks burned crimson, so young were these women even after the sorrows of the battle and the plight they were now in.

  “It is their hairiness which I cannot bear,” An-lan now said. “I never did like hairy things such as cats and dogs and monkeys, and these Ying men are covered with hair. Look at their beards!”

  “They could not shave for all these days,” Mayli said.

  But An-lan said, “How can they shave themselves all over? Look at their arms and their legs, as hairy as their chins, and did you see their bare bosoms? The hair was as thick on them as the hair on a dog’s breast. Have they hair all over their bodies under their garments?”

  “I have never seen a Ying man without his clothes,” Mayli said shortly. “Nor any other man. But I think white men are not as hairy as dogs.”

  With such talk they lightened some miles of walking, but it could not go on forever. They must think of food and shelter and as night came on of sleep. So when afternoon wore on to evening Mayli called to the Englishmen and she said,

  “Had we not better talk together and decide what we should do about food and shelter? There is no end to the jungle yet, and somehow we must eat and sleep.”

  The men stopped at that, and waited for the women to come up.

  They sat down on fallen trees and they wiped their faces with their sleeves and plucked broad leaves and fanned themselves. The gnats and midges were thick about their heads and they needed to keep the leaves moving against them.

  In a moment the short Englishman leaped up, “God, I can’t stand this,” he shouted. He slapped his bare legs and knees. In the orange red hair that grew on him there were entangled dozens of small insects. Now Hsieh-ying had been staring at him with large eyes, and she had smelled the leaf she held and it was very pungent, and she perceived when she crushed it that it gave out a yet stronger, hotter odor. So she went over to the man and motioned to him to rub the leaf up and down his legs, which he did, and the insects disliked the rank smell of the leaf and so he had a little peace from them.

  “You’re a good girl,” he told Hsieh-ying and Mayli translated it and it made Hsieh-ying laugh behind her hand.

  Yet so poisonous was that leaf that he had scarcely said this when his legs began to itch, and he began to scratch and yelled, “Damn, I believe that leaf was poison!” and they all looked at his leg and Hsieh-ying stopped laughing, and what between this and the insects, they all decided against staying and so they took up the march again. But now Mayli and the tallest Englishman walked side by side to talk, since they were the leaders and the others walked behind, together, too, and no longer separate.

  The more the Englishman looked at Mayli the more he liked her. “It’s luck that we should fall in with someone who can speak English,” he said. “Perhaps we can help each other.”

  “It is not easy for women to travel alone in this inhospitable land,” she replied.

  “Shall we make a sort of plan?” he asked her next.

  “I have been thinking what we could do,” she said. “If we could strike the great road which leads into India, it might be best for us all to go in that direction for I know there are no main roads into China. But I have often heard that there is a great road leading into India.”

  He pressed his swollen lips together. “You are wrong,” he said brusquely. “There is none.”

  “No road to India?” she exclaimed.

  He shook his head. “That is why the retreat is so hard—” he said slowly, “the roads are narrow, old winding roads and they are clogged with people. Besides, nothing leads directly into India.”

  For a moment she could not answer, so astonished she was. She had heard many times of the fabulous road into India, a hundred feet wide, hard as a floor, fit for great armies to march upon. “What incredible folly of your generals,” she cried, “to bring into this country armies too few for victory, and knowing that there was no way for retreat!”

  “You don’t say anything that I do not myself say,” he told her. “I’ve said it over and over. But that’s the way it is. Dunkirk was easy compared to this. I was at Dunkirk, mind you. It was only a few miles of water we had to cross and all England turned out to help. We knew England was there, you see. But here—hundreds of miles of this horrible jungle—and England thousands of miles away. Even India—” he broke off and Mayli saw that he was fighting against tears.

  She asked herself, “What are we here for?”

  But he cried aloud, “What are we fighting for in this damned country? That’s what all the fellows said. If we win the war we’ll get this country back with all the rest of it. If we lose the war
we’ll not have this anyway. This isn’t the place to fight. Why, we can sink men into this hole by the tens of thousands and never win. It isn’t a fit battlefield for white men!”

  This she heard, and she did not answer. She looked around the jungle. No, it was not a battlefield. The trees trembled above their heads, and vines swung in the branches. Around them the underbrush spread in a thicket. Great grasses stood high above their heads wherever the trees parted enough for the sun, grasses wet with rain, and leaves as huge as plates. She paused now beside one such big leaf that held water from the last rain like a bowl and kneeling she drank the water from it. There had been three rains in the hours during which they had walked and they had drunk thus again and again. No, it was not a country for a battlefield. But how many had died upon it! She thought of the General and of Chung, and of all those others whom this morning she had left dead and yet she had not the heart to reproach this tired and confused man who walked beside her. He was no more to blame than she was. He had been sent here and he was here.

  They took up the march again and for a few moments they did not speak. Then she said gently, “Shall we march all night or dare we rest?”

  “Let’s keep going,” he said, “as long as our legs will move.”

  From then on they said nothing except what had to be said.

  At last it was dark and they could walk no more. “Let’s stop here where we are,” the Englishman said. “We’ll tramp down the grass. I don’t think we ought all to sleep. We three men will walk around the rest of you in regular beats and keep off the snakes that way, at least, and hear the beasts if they come near.”

  “We will all take our turns except Pansiao,” Mayli said. “Pansiao must sleep because she is young yet.”

  “No, nonsense, you women must sleep,” he protested, “I assure you—”

  But Mayli said, “We are used, we Chinese women, to doing as men do.”

  Thus passed that night in the jungle, between sleep and walking, and the dawn came early and they went on their way again.

  … Now what is there to tell of such a journey as theirs? The weariness numbed their brains and dulled the feeling in their flesh and bones. Fatigue passed into deeper fatigue and they grew drowsy while they walked so that the leeches stuck to their ankles and legs and they did not feel them until one saw another’s and plucked it off. Blood dripped down from such wounds and the danger was that they would bleed too much and they watched each other the more carefully for that. The skies were cruel today and the rain came down only once so that they were thirsty all day and faint, although they were too weary for hunger, and a great craving for salt fell upon them all more than for food. Today they did not speak to each other except the few words that must be said, for talk took breath and strength. The Englishman held Mayli’s compass and they pushed steadily westward and yet who knew whether this jungle stretched north and south or east and west? They could only press on, hoping that somewhere it would end.

  Late that evening they came upon a muddy winding river and looking down that river they saw a swinging bridge of bamboo. This cheered them greatly for it meant that men were near, and they went toward it. Yet all knew that the men might be enemies and so they approached the bridge and crossed it half fearfully. A small beaten path led through lower jungle along the other side of the river and this they followed until it came toward a village set beside the river, and on the other side of the river the jungle had been cut back to make small rice fields, now very green with new rice and yellow with harvests, too. For the whole year in this country was so warm and wet that men could sow rice in one field and harvest it in the next, and there were no seasons.

  They halted when they were in sight of the village, and talked together of what to do. “We men will go and scout,” the Englishman said.

  But this Mayli would not allow. “If you are captured or killed then what of us?” she asked.

  So it was decided that she and the tall Englishman would go forward and the others would stay behind. If they came back, all would be well, if they did not, then the others must go on as best they could. Yet when Pansiao was told this she would not stay behind and so she went, too.

  “Your sister?” The Englishman asked, glancing at the slender girl who put her hand in Mayli’s.

  Mayli was about to answer no, and then she thought of Sheng, of whom she was always thinking now, and she said, “Yes—my sister.”

  The villagers in that place were only some six or seven families, and they had lived here in great peace and knew nothing of the war except that they had heard of a disturbance beyond the jungle. Not one of them could read or write and they heard nothing from the outside even of the war, nor did any come to them, and so they did not know enough to hate one kind of man and love another. So remote was the village from all the world, that not once a year did a man leave this place to go out nor did a man come here from elsewhere, for what was there to come for since these people only lived to raise food for themselves and there was nothing to buy or sell?

  Here Mayli and Pansiao and the Englishman came with steady steps and watchful eyes. It was late afternoon, and the men were in the fields, and the women, too, except a few old ones and children, and when they saw the strangers they let out cries and others came running from the fields, and for a moment they all stood staring at the strangers and making a few sounds of speech to each other, which the three could not understand. But they were kindly looking people, cheerful and childlike, and healthy except for some festering insect bites, and some sores on the men’s legs from standing too long in watery rice fields. The more Mayli looked at their faces the easier she was.

  “I believe these are only peasants,” she said to the Englishman. And she put on a hearty smile and opened her mouth and pointed into it to show she was hungry. Immediately there was a chatter among the women and they climbed the ladders into their little houses set on posts above the river edge and they brought down cold rice and fish in large leaves. This they offered to the three, who when they saw the food felt their hunger grow intense and they took the food and ate it in a moment. At this the villagers laughed out loud.

  “We can stay here safely,” Mayli said.

  “Looks like it,” the Englishman said.

  And Mayli pointed up the river and held up five fingers to show there were five others and they went back again toward where the others were and the villagers followed them at a little distance. When they saw the five then great talk burst out, and they circled them as they went back to the village, laughing and talking and staring very much at the guns the three Englishmen had, but seemingly without knowledge of what these were.

  Then the women brought out more food, and all ate and they drank cold fresh water which was very sweet, and in a little while there was great friendliness among them all. The children pressed near to stare and the women laughed and talked together in their own language and the men handled the guns. Now it could be seen that not one of these men had ever seen a gun before and the short Englishman grinning and wanting to amuse them lifted the gun to his shoulder and shot a small bird that sat on a branch and it fell dead. At this the villagers screamed in sorrow and terror and they ran back from the visitors.

  “Oh,” Mayli cried. “Why did you have to show what you could do with your gun?”

  “I was only in fun,” the short Englishman stammered. “I thought they’d like to see it.”

  “Not everybody is as ready to kill as you are,” she retorted and she said to the tall Englishman, “Quick—pretend you are angry—pretend to punish him!”

  So the tall Englishman strode forward and slapped the other’s cheeks. “Take this,” he said, “don’t utter a word. I’ve got to do it—she’s right.” He shouted at the man and jerked his gun away from him and he took the gun and offered it to the oldest man of the village. But this man would not have it and all the villagers backed themselves away from the dreadful thing, and so the Englishman took all three of the guns and set them in a row ag
ainst a great tree that was there. When the villagers saw this they made much talk among themselves and no one went near the tree, and so at last the danger was past.

  Now night came down again, and again food was eaten and a fire was built in the center of the village against the mosquitoes and the men brought out mats and slept near it but the women slept in their houses. No one asked the Chinese women into the houses and Chinese and English slept on the ground to the windward of the fire, on branches they broke from the trees. And they slept as well as though they were on beds for they were fed and the smoke drove the insects from them.

  … Now they stayed at this village three days in all until they were rested and washed, and all tried to help the villagers as best they could. Mayli used her skill to tend the festering sores the villagers had, and this made them grateful. She had no medicines, but she boiled water and washed out the sores and used a sort of wine they made from soured cooked rice, and she motioned to those who had these sores that they must wash them with boiled water and then with wine and allow the sun to shine into them every day, and they understood her and even in three days she saw these sores begin to heal. Be sure the mothers brought sick children to Mayli, and an old man pointed to his chest and rumbled a deep cough to show her what was wrong with him, but she could not heal them all.

  Yet in less than three days she began to be anxious to be gone from the village, for the two white men could not contain themselves but must act as though they were lords of the village. And one began to follow about a pretty girl of the village and Mayli was frightened when she saw this and went to the tall one.

  “You must tell this fellow to stay away from the girl,” she warned him. “These people will not allow it.”

  “I’ll tell him,” he promised.

  But of what use is the promise? She saw that these white men without meaning ill, nevertheless angered the villagers in a score of small ways. They did not believe such small brown men were altogether human as they themselves were, and the brown men soon saw this and grew sullen, and on the morning of the third day Mayli said to the tall Englishman, “It is time that we went on before trouble breaks out between them and us.”