Ocean of Words

by Ha Jin

  Here’s a small incident, which I think you may be interested in: Last month I accompanied a delegation of our division to Russia to celebrate their Army Day. Vice Divisional Commissar Huang Hsing led the group (you may not know him; he is from the Second Regiment). After the banquet, we had coffee and tea and chatted. Commissar Huang took an envelope from his briefcase and handed it to the Russian officers. Guess what was inside the envelope? A bunch of photographs of Dragon Head! While the Russians were looking at the pictures, Huang explained, “He is the bandit who sank one of your gunboats seven years ago. It was a little unpleasant episode indeed, but we had him executed long ago.” I interpreted his words, and the Russians were delighted. Among the photographs there was one showing Dragon Head’s blasted face — his forehead was gone. In fact, only I knew that the bandit had been a militia company commander called Dragon Head, but I didn’t say anything.

  Commander Gao, let my pen stop here for the moment. I will write to you again when I have time.

  Please give my regards to your family. May you have good health.

  My Salute,

  A Soldier of Yours

  Niu Hsi

  March 29, Hutou

  Niu’s letter has made me think a lot about Dragon Head recently. He was a grand fighter, a dragon in Hutou County. He should have fallen on a battlefield.

  A CONTRACT

  Since the new soldiers came to my squad in February, Gu Gong had never stopped bullying them. Though it was an unstated rule that an older soldier could demand small services from a new soldier, Gu went too far — he would have the two boys wash his bowls and clothes, take his mail to the post office, and even fetch water for him in the morning, as if they had been his orderlies. The new soldiers complained to me twice, and I promised them that I would talk Gu out of his lording over the new comrades, but I didn’t have a chance to speak to him before I found myself resorting to force.

  It happened one night in early April. After studying the documents issued by the Central Committee on the Ninth Chinese Communist Party Congress, we were preparing to go to bed. Some men went to the washroom down the hall to bathe their feet, while others were taking off their clothes and spreading their quilts.

  “Feng Dong,” Gu said from the top of the bunk bed, “you forgot to dump the water in my basin.”

  Sitting beneath Gu, Feng didn’t reply and kept unlacing his boots. I hung my hat on a hook on the wall and turned to Gu, who lay on his bed smoking.

  “Feng Dong, you bastard of a new soldier.” Gu’s body jerked up. “Why don’t you dump the water?”

  “I’ve never looked after my grandfather that way,” Feng said, as if to himself.

  “I am your great-grandpa in this squad!”

  “Stop it, Gu Gong,” I said. “You’ve gone too far. It’s unreasonable to ask others to dump the water you washed your own feet with.”

  “Oh yeah? I want him to get rid of the water, or somebody will step on it going out to the latrine at night.”

  “Then it’s your duty to dispose of it.”

  Gu’s face turned red. “Who are you, Cheng Zhi? A big squad leader? So what? Do you think you’re an officer? How big are you anyway? As big as one of my balls?”

  The men around laughed. Enraged, I went up to Gu and pulled him off his bed, together with his quilt and sheet. He fell on the cement floor. Before he could get up, I gave him a kick in the jaw. He jumped to his feet and scuffled toward me, but a few pairs of hands restrained him.

  “You beat me,” he yelled. “You, a squad leader, beat your soldier.” He was struggling to get loose. “Let me go! Let me settle it with him!”

  Without a word I walked to the door. I thought it was better for me to stay out of this mess for a moment.

  “Cheng Zhi,” Gu shouted, “I screw your ancestors one by one! If you are your father’s son, don’t leave. Let’s fight it out.”

  The sky over Hutou was glimmering with thin mist pierced by stars. The chilly spring wind was rubbing my burning forehead as I went across the drill ground and reached the stream behind our barracks. The thawing ice sent out small noises on the water surface, while some birds were chirping and quacking in the dark. I was grateful to Liu Sheng, the vice squad leader, who had held Gu back before the whole thing could turn ugly. Whatever the reason, as a leader I shouldn’t have used force first. Besides, Gu was a stout man and the best fighter in my squad. He came from Shandong Province and had practiced kung fu since childhood. That was why nobody dared confront him. To tell the truth, I was not his match if we fought bare-handed.

  I wandered along the stream and through the birch woods until the chilly air began making my skin tingle in my cotton-padded clothes.

  When I returned to our room, it was quiet except for several men snoring away. Everybody was fast asleep. I undressed myself and slipped into my bed. Gu stirred, gnashed his teeth, then resumed snoring.

  The next day everything went as usual. In the morning we practiced throwing antitank grenades; in the afternoon we worked in our company’s vegetable cellar, peeling off rotten cabbage leaves. Gu remained rather placid. I knew the matter was not over, so for an entire day I racked my brain for a solution. Though I did not have a definite idea how to resolve the issue, without doubt it would be better to talk it out than fight it out.

  To my surprise, Gu proposed a talk. That evening, when I returned to our room with newspapers and mail, he came to me and said, “Squad Leader Cheng, I need to chat with you.”

  “All right.” I tried to remain calm. “When do you think we should talk?”

  “Now.” He smiled awkwardly. “Can we go outside?”

  “Sure.”

  All the men watched us in silence as we walked out. Since I had agreed, I had to follow him to any place he thought suitable. The dark evening was a little warm, and the smoky air was motionless. We crossed two rows of poplars and reached the area for gymnastic exercises. He stopped, resting one hand on a parallel bar.

  “Cheng Zhi, I never thought you were so fierce.” A mysterious grin spread on his egg-shaped face.

  “Gu Gong, we joined the army in the same year, and I didn’t mean to embarrass you in front of the new soldiers —”

  “You beat me! Damn you, even my parents never kicked me like that.”

  “Listen to me —”

  “You were so wild last night. Now, let yourself run wild again.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I want to settle it with you now. Let’s go a few rounds.” His small eyes were shimmering in the dark while his hands were rubbing each other, as if he were preparing himself for a wrestling contest.

  I tried hard to stay coolheaded. “Listen, Gu Gong, we are revolutionary soldiers and don’t play games like hooligans. I’m not good at doing things in your style and can only fight in the soldier’s way, so I refuse to ‘play’ with you.”

  “You chicken. All right then, let your grandpa teach you manners.” He was moving toward me.

  “Halt!” a few voices shouted. Vice Squad Leader Liu Sheng, Zhao Min, and Wang Longyun emerged. They stopped Gu, pacifying him and hauling him back to the quarters. Though his elbows were struggling, Gu’s legs seemed ready to give in as he followed them away.

  Meanwhile he kept cursing, “Chicken, chicken. You dare not fight. All you dare do is steal a blow when others are unprepared. Chicken, how come you lead us men?”

  They were out of the drill ground now. I stood there alone, feeling my blood boil. What should I do? Fight bare-handed with him? If I could not beat him, what was the use of fighting that way? They had all seen us just now and must have believed I was afraid of him. What should I do? I had to find a way to stop him. How?

  Ten minutes later I rejoined my squad. When I entered the room, the men suddenly stopped talking. Feng Dong was gaping at Gu Gong, who smirked silently while exhaling smoke. I picked up a poker, drilled a few holes through the cinders in the stove, and added three shovels of coal to the flames, which began crackling. Rai
sing my head, I saw Gu standing erect against the pillar of his bed, his chin up and his eyes peering at me. Nobody had made a sound since I came in.

  I sat down at the desk, took out a sheet of paper, and started writing. I wrote as follows:

  This evening, Soldier Gu Gong challenged Cheng Zhi, Leader of the Eighth Squad of the First Company, to fight bare-handed with him. All having been considered, we realized that a melee does not suit the style of revolutionary soldiers, so we have decided to do it with weapons. Also having considered bullets must be saved for the Russians, we have chosen to use bayonets. When we begin, the whole squad will be present, and we will not stop until one of us cannot resist anymore. If either of us gets wounded or killed in this practice, the victim himself is solely responsible for such a mishap. This contract, drawn on April 15, is here signed by both

  Cheng Zhi Gu Gong

  I signed my name but couldn’t find red ink paste for a fingerprint, so I used a black ink stick instead and put my thumbprint beneath my name. Then I handed the sheet to Liu Sheng. “Read it out to the whole squad.”

  While Liu was reading in a metallic voice, I went to the gun rack and picked up a semiautomatic rifle. The bayonet was pressed down between my forefinger and thumb. Its blade drew a semicircle in the air, and with a clatter it settled firmly on the muzzle. Wiping the bluish bayonet with a rag, I looked at Gu Gong, whose face had turned sallow. Tiny beads of sweat were breaking out on his forehead, and his eyes fixed on the floor. My heart was fluttering.

  “I’ll wait for you fellows on the drill ground.” I opened the door and went out.

  Once in the hall, I heard Gu cry out inside the room, “He’s an orphan, but I have my old parents at home!” What he said was true.

  The gun seemed weightless on my back as I paced about under the poplars, rolling cigarettes and smoking. The breeze was fanning my face and hair. It was good to feel and smell the approach of the spring, which day and night was creeping from the south to the north — to us, and then to Siberia. The purple sky, so vast, curved in every direction toward the serrated hilltops in both China and Russia. I waited at the drill ground for half an hour, until Vice Squad Leader Liu appeared from the dark.

  “Gu Gong has buried his head in his quilt,” he said with a smile.

  “I’d better not go in now. You stay with the squad. If you want me, go to the study room for me. All right?”

  “Sure.”

  I thought that our company leaders would reprimand me and order me to write out self-criticism for impairing our solidarity, but when I reported the incident the next day, they didn’t look worried at all. Secretary Ling Ping screwed up one of his eyes and said, “Comrade Cheng Zhi, remember: Never strike the first blow.”

  Two months later, I was promoted to command the Second Platoon.

  MISS JEE

  After we cleaned the classroom and spread rice straw along the wall to make a large bed, we — the Thirteenth Squad — had our first meeting. Sitting on the squared timber nailed to the floor to contain the straw, we were introducing ourselves. The squad leader said his name was Lu Hai. Unlike us recruits, he had served in the Fifth Regiment for two years.

  Then we introduced ourselves, each in two or three sentences. Jee was the last to speak. “I’m Jee Jun, nineteen, an orphan, from Yushu County, Jilin Province. I joined the army because I’m grateful to the Party and the people who brought me up. The Russian Social-Imperialists have massed over a million troops along our border and attempt to invade our country, so it’s my duty to come and defend the Motherland with my blood and life!”

  None of us had expected this slender lad to speak so well. His thin lips quivered after he stopped, and his long eyes gleamed.

  Impressed, some of us struck up a conversation with him after the meeting. I thought Jee must have been a high school graduate, unlike me, who had gone through elementary school only. I wanted to get close to him but didn’t know how.

  In the evening we studied newspapers together, Guan Chi and Jee Jun by turns reading out a long editorial, “Resolutely Punish the Russian Chauvinists.” After the study, we were preparing for bed. Wu Desheng smiled to himself, still sitting on the timber. “Jee Jun, you sounded funny when you read aloud, you know.”

  “How?” Jee asked, unlacing his boots.

  “You sounded like a girl.”

  “Damn your mother!”

  We all laughed. Wu’s eyelids were flapping. “It has nothing to do with my mother. You really sound like a girl. Don’t you think so, Fan Hsiong?”

  He asked me, but before I could answer, Wang Fukai cut in, “Look, he looks like a girl too.”

  “I look like your grandpa!”

  We laughed again. Jee indeed resembled a girl, with a pale face, curved eyebrows, pink cheeks, slim hands and feet. “What a discovery,” Song Ang said. “We have a young lady among us.”

  “Miss Jee, nice to meet you.” Guan Chi stretched out his hand.

  “Miss Jee, how do you do?”

  “Welcome to our squad, Miss Jee.”

  “Can I help you, miss?”

  “I screw all your mothers!”

  Squad Leader Lu intervened. “Enough, men.” He turned to Jee. “Don’t take it to heart, Jee Jun. They were just joking, no hard feelings.”

  We didn’t sleep well the first night. At eleven sharp, a horn burst out honking in the corridor like a crazy goose, and we all jumped up groping for our clothes in the dark. The electricity was out. Squad Leader Lu said in a subdued voice, “Emergency muster! Pack up your stuff, take your weapons, and follow me out.”

  We were fumbling in the large straw bed. Zhang Min cursed and couldn’t find his socks; his large body knocked me about. Jee moaned weirdly while struggling to put on his clothes. A mug dropped on the floor. “You took my hat, Song Ang.” That was Wu Desheng’s thick voice.

  “Quiet!” the squad leader said.

  I forgot how to tie up a field pack. Trying twice without success, I gave up, simply binding my quilt and pillow into a roll. Thank Heaven, I found my mittens in the straw. With the baggage on my back, I rushed to the rack for my rifle.

  Following Squad Leader Lu, we ran into the starry night. The ground was slippery and the air piercingly cold. “Put on your nose cover,” he ordered. That was a narrow piece of fur buttoned to the earflaps of a hat to prevent the nose from freezing. We executed the orders while running. Many squads were already gathered on the playground. The second we reached there, Squad Leader Lu ran to Company Commander Su to report our arrival. Meanwhile, two more squads were coming, their boots drumming the icy ground.

  “Comrades,” Commander Su called out, “we just received orders. A fight has broken out at the border. The Regimental Headquarters ordered us to reach the front within an hour.” He paused, then shouted, “Right face!”

  We turned. He ran to the head of our lines. “Squad One, follow me!”

  A moment later we were running in a single line along a path toward Hutou Town, which was five li away from the middle school where we were quartered. The night was glimmering slightly, and a few waves of snow dust were shoving one another in the lazy wind. In the northern sky the Big Dipper, silvery and blinking, stretched to the distant hills. It was quiet everywhere except for our boots treading the snow and the words passed in muffled voices, “Close up!” or “Watchword: Victory.”

  To our surprise, we did not continue to run north toward the border after we entered Hutou Town. Instead we circled around a few blocks, then dashed back to the school. My eyes were fixed on Jee Jun’s field pack in front of me, as though his baggage were able to pull me forward, while my legs went weak and no longer felt like my own.

  When we returned, all the lights were on in the schoolhouse. Our room was a mess. On the floor were scattered mugs, canteens, pillows, toothbrushes, socks, photographs, ammunition belts, notebooks, mittens, shirts.

  “What’s this, Fan Hsiong?” Zheng Yuan asked me and slapped my back. “Is this a field pack or a hay bundle?�
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  Seeing my baggage roll, some of my comrades whooped and a few applauded. I was annoyed but said nothing.

  “Look!” Song Ang cried, “look at Jee’s butt.”

  We all turned and found the fly of Jee’s trousers gaping on his behind. The entire squad broke out laughing. Jee swung around and dropped his hips on the radiator beneath the window. “I, I had no time to, to put it right.” He flushed.

  “You don’t need the fly anyway,” Song Ang said, blowing his broad nose with a handkerchief. We laughed some more.

  Soon afterwards, a couplet began circulating in the Recruit Company. It went:

  Miss Jee toured the borderline

  With the fly open on her behind.

  The doggerel at once established Jee’s nickname among the soldiers. He had no choice but to accept it. Calling him Miss Jee, we bore no malice against him; the recruits’ life was hard, and we needed some fun.

  In the beginning, whenever we talked about weapons and wars, Jee would join us, but he was ignorant of military science. Though he said he wanted to fight the Russians, he was not cut out to be a soldier at all; he couldn’t even tell a tactic from a strategy — he used the two words as if they were identical in meaning. Unable to contribute anything to our discussion of battles and weaponry, he soon withdrew to a corner to read alone or write in his green notebook. He kept a diary.

  Despite his fondness for books, Jee was not learned. In fact, he had gone to middle school for only one year. Quite a few of us were better scholars than he was. For example, Song Ang, a sprinter who could do the hundred-meter dash in 11.9 seconds, was the most knowledgeable about weaponry and wars. Because his father was a commander on a missile destroyer at Port Arthur, Ang had read a lot of the navy’s classified books and documents. He provided us with information on different types of artillery and warships, especially the Russians’ nuclear submarines carrying intercontinental missiles. Guan Chi also knew a lot. He looked scholarly and would put on steel-rimmed glasses when reading. In addition, he was an experienced fighter. He told us that at home he and his pals had once driven a T-34 tank on the streets and fired its two machine guns at the buildings occupied by those revolutionary rebels who held a different theory of revolution from theirs. They had also raided restaurants at midnight and carried back fried dough sticks and roasted chickens on their bayonets.