A Single Swallow

by Ling Zhang

  Ferguson wasn’t the only American brought along on this operation. He was also allowed to bring his military dog. The practice of sending military dogs into battle as a means of reducing casualties had been researched at length by military scientists, and Ghost’s training in America had been rigorous. This operation would be his first actual combat experience, and it would demonstrate whether those scientists were geniuses or madmen. They were going to travel along a mountain road with extremely challenging terrain. It was infested with bandits and had been occupied by a variety of unidentified troops. Ghost would walk in front of the team to detect road conditions and the enemy’s position. However, given his recent state, Ferguson worried about his responsiveness.

  It was an unusually gloomy night, with thick clouds hiding the moon and stars. Marching under such conditions was both a blessing and a curse. Visibility was extremely low, and most of the area was forest, with a thick humus layer muffling the sound of their footsteps. Unless someone was in close proximity to the marching troops, they would be almost invisible. But the darkness was a double-edged sword. Finding the way in complete darkness was dependent on muscle memory. Most of the Chinese soldiers were from the area and knew the mountain roads intimately, but even so, muscle memory wasn’t entirely reliable, so at certain key moments they would rely on Ferguson’s glowing compass from his days of covert training in DC.

  The darkness made their eyes useless, so their hearing was heightened in response. Ferguson’s right ear was trained on Ghost. If the mission had been during the day, Ghost would silently alert Ferguson to danger ahead by raising his hackles. In the dark, at any sign of abnormality, he would stop and sit in the middle of the road, preventing Ferguson from going any farther. Ferguson’s left ear, trained on his comrades, noticed one of the soldiers breathing heavier than the others. They’d nicknamed him Snot, since he suffered from severe rhinitis. The captain had given strict orders that there was to be no smoking on the road, no conversation, and no sound. In order to muffle the sound of his runny nose, Snot had plugged his nostrils with rags, so he could only breathe through his mouth, like a fish.

  To Ferguson’s left was the captain and to his right was the soldier Liu Zhaohu. Liu should have been in the middle, since he was the only one who spoke both English and Chinese. However, in a training session a few days earlier, the small, thin Liu Zhaohu had unexpectedly bested the tall, strong, proud captain. After that, Ferguson noticed they’d been avoiding each other. The captain because he was unwilling to admit defeat, and Liu because he didn’t want to gloat. In fact, their mutual avoidance was itself a sort of wrestling. Their stalemate seemed like it would never end, and the sour resentment they exuded sprouted poisonous mushrooms in the night sky. In such a small-scale military operation, with so many complex details, that sort of stalemate could destroy the unspoken understanding within the team. So Ferguson—whether consciously or not—walked between the captain and Liu Zhaohu, trying to keep them from a collision. That’s how Ferguson remembered it. Afterward, when he and Liu Zhaohu discussed it, Liu said they placed Ferguson in the middle to keep him safe from traps left by hunters along the mountain paths and irrigation gullies dug by villagers. Liu and the captain were far more familiar with the mountains than Ferguson was, and they knew to take small exploratory steps before putting down their full weight.

  From nightfall to dawn the next day, they walked more than a hundred li on mountain paths to a remote wharf. There, the captain’s brother, a well-known local pirate, had prepared sampans for them. Several locals who knew the rivers disguised themselves as fishermen and led them through the waterways to their target: a Japanese munitions and supply warehouse near the riverbank. Considering how far it was, the captain had limited what they carried to a rifle, a pistol, dry food for two meals each, and drinking water. The Chinese soldiers’ food was parched rice, which they carried in a bag slung over one shoulder and across the body. The munitions were carried in wooden boxes on shoulder poles suspended between two soldiers, with everyone taking turns. Ferguson’s load was a bit lighter because his food wasn’t parched rice, which was heavy, but compressed crackers that the Chinese soldiers called sawdust. Before departure, the captain suggested Ferguson put his Thompson submachine gun in the wooden box and let the soldiers carry it, but Ferguson resolutely refused.

  “You might regret it,” the captain said. “Our children can walk a few hundred li when they’re only eight, but even your strong men in their early twenties drive for short distances. You’re not used to walking our mountain roads.” Liu translated, not softening it at all, even mimicking the captain’s tone and pauses. Even though there were hundreds of conflicts between Liu and the captain, their views on this were the same.

  Ferguson turned bright red, realizing far too late a mistake he’d made. Days before, Ferguson had said that even an eight-year-old American boy could fix a bicycle while a Chinese man in his twenties had never held a screwdriver. At the time, he hadn’t noticed that he had wounded their pride, and the captain had waited until just the right time to repay the barb. Ferguson felt the sting, but knew he could only pull this thorn out at the end of the road. He could not believe that an American of such superior size and strength would be outmatched by a scrawny Chinese fellow when it came to endurance.

  But it wasn’t long after they’d started that he felt the weight of the gun. He had been using it for several months and was familiar with every part. He could disassemble and lay the pieces on a table, then put it back together blindfolded. The gun was like a part of his hands, and he could command it with the flick of a finger. But now, slung over his shoulder, it became a heavy iron knot, and each of his muscles silently rebelled against its oppression. When his right shoulder began to feel sore, he shifted it to his left. But soreness has a long memory, so when his left shoulder began to feel sore, the right still hurt, and that pain was now doubled. Eventually, the weight seemed to spread from his shoulders to his legs. His boots, like the gun, turned to iron and started to feel heavy. He found he could hardly lift his legs, so he dragged his feet along the ground. He wondered what type of footprints these iron clods would leave on the fallen leaves, had there been any light to see them.

  He also hadn’t expected his mind to be so alert when his body was so tired. He could clearly distinguish the weight of each individual item he carried. The weight of the Thompson was not that of his revolver, just as the revolver was not that of his boots, his boots were not that of his belt, and his belt was not that of his canteen. Even the steel buttons on his plain khakis had their own unique weight that couldn’t be mistaken for any other.

  He looked back at the two small soldiers carrying the heavy box of munitions. He saw—or, rather, heard—that they were only a couple of steps behind him, the distance neither increasing nor decreasing since the march had begun. They breathed evenly, without straining, not excited or fatigued. He finally understood that the secret of these malnourished people of small stature for walking such long distances was the same as that which had enabled them to endure long-term poverty. They knew how to conserve their resources. They broke their energy into smaller units, using it sparingly, exactly the same way they managed their silver coins. They never used their energy on emotions like anxiety, excitement, depression, or despair. They didn’t think about how far they had traveled from their starting point, nor did they consider how far they were from their destination. They just focused on the next step. They calculated precisely how much strength was required for each step, using neither more nor less than required. This skill of conservation wasn’t something that could be taught in a course, but was a habit accumulated through repetition, day after day, year after year. Ferguson now knew he wouldn’t be able to remove the barb of the captain’s insult. That thorn would remain forever in his body, tingling slightly to remind him of his own ignorance. The mechanical skills he had from growing up in America and the walking skills they had gained growing up in China ended in a draw in this seemingly
endless march.

  Ferguson finally decided to put the Thompson in the munitions box. When the small soldier took it from his hand, he was glad it happened under the cover of darkness so no one could see his face. He was also grateful for the “no talking” order. This sealed the captain’s mouth, preventing him from saying, “I told you so.” Under the double protection of silence and darkness, he could quietly digest his shame on his own.

  After the operation was over, Ferguson wrote a seven-page journal entry detailing the physical and psychological experiences of it. Rereading it later, he was surprised to find feelings there that he hadn’t noticed when he was writing. Later, he edited it, removing the more emotional passages, and submitted it to the US military officer to be sent to headquarters in Chongqing as a battlefield report. Below is an excerpt of the original:

  We began marching as soon as it was dark and continued until dawn the next morning, a total of eight and a half hours. About four-fifths of the journey was on mountain paths through the forest, and the rest was through a no-man’s-land between two forests.

  The weather was conducive to marching. It was late summer, so still burning hot during the day, but cool at night. There was a steady breeze throughout the march, and the sound of the wind and the thick layer of decomposing leaves on the ground all but silenced the sound of our footsteps but also made it difficult for Ghost to detect signs of an ambush in front of us. Ghost was extremely alert throughout the journey.

  The first hour and a half, we were in good spirits and confident we’d reach our destination on time. Later, I realized I’d made a mistake that any novice to these mountain paths might make. My strides were too big, and I lifted my feet too high. I was too enthusiastic, and my Chinese colleagues had to adjust their steps to keep my pace. The result was unnecessary physical exertion. A long-distance march is like running a marathon. You need to evenly distribute your strength throughout the journey, rather than exhausting it in the beginning.

  As we entered the second half of the second hour, I began to feel some fatigue. The first symptom was that I felt the weight of my weapons and boots. Because we were still quite far from our destination, the resulting feeling of despair outweighed the actual physical fatigue.

  In the third and fourth hours, I entered a period of severe fatigue, my mind unable to think clearly, with my hunger growing. As soon as it appeared, the hunger rapidly intensified, forming a sort of thick web from which my mind couldn’t escape. I began to think of all sorts of food from back home, wondering if my decision to enlist without my parents’ blessing was nothing more than a stupid impulse and fearing what my future would be after the war ended if I were injured during this mission. I even began to wonder if there was any point in war on foreign soil, especially in a country that didn’t even border America. The extreme physical fatigue led to a psychological dullness and gave rise to questions I’d never considered before.

  At nearly the halfway point in the journey, the captain ordered us to rest for twenty minutes. I loosened Ghost’s collar, which for him signaled the rest break. The moment the collar was loose, his body relaxed from its tense state, and he leaned limply against my thigh. I offered him some of my cracker. He sniffed it, but wouldn’t eat. I took a few bites myself, then crushed some and forced it into his mouth. Seeming to pity me, he forced himself to take a few swallows, but refused any more. I patted his head and gestured for him to lie down to restore his strength, but he wouldn’t close his eyes. Instead, he turned his head and silently licked my hand over and over. Thinking back on it, I think he’d foreseen his own death and didn’t want to waste his last few hours with meaningless sleep. He wanted to share all his remaining time with me. His tongue was soft and gentle, as if he were licking not my hand, but my heart. An almost desperate loneliness swept over me, like a beast lurking in the forest, suddenly pouncing and sending me reeling.

  If there had been no such place as Pearl Harbor and no such madman as Yamamoto, what would I have been doing then? It was noon in Chicago, so maybe I would be heading out for my lunch break, meeting Emily Wilson at the corner shop for a hot dog or a bowl of chicken soup and laughing about her boss and mine. Or maybe I’d be in the locker room with my colleague Andy, sharing a beer and talking about sports. Or maybe I’d be sitting on the closed lid of the toilet in the bathroom, eyes closed, composing a poem that would never be published.

  And Ghost? If there were no war, he’d probably be on a farm in Kentucky, getting up early and fiercely guarding a flock of sheep, then returning home at night to get a sausage as a reward from his master. He wouldn’t have met Millie, but he would have met other dogs, and he’d have litter after litter of puppies, each one inheriting his fine pedigree.

  I leaned on Ghost and closed my eyes. My body wanted to sleep, but my mind was fighting it tooth and nail. If Ghost and I both survived, I would request that Ghost come home with me when we were demobilized. I would take him back to Chicago, and together the two of us would gradually adapt from wartime to peace.

  The Chinese soldiers around me all seemed to be sleeping, aside from the sentry. Some leaned against tree trunks, some lay on the ground, and some leaned against the munitions box, snoring softly. Who were they? Since I had locked their recruitment forms in the drawer in my office, I couldn’t recall their names. I couldn’t even remember all their numbers. I didn’t know anything about their families, or whether they had women they loved, or what they hoped to do in the future. What sort of books did they read? What were their hobbies? If there were no war, I wouldn’t know any of them. We ate different foods, spoke different languages, wore different clothes, believed in different gods, and laughed at different jokes. We weren’t brought together by one love, but by one hate. Was hate a stronger bond than love, or weaker? When our common hatred no longer existed, would they remember me? Would I remember them?

  In the first fifteen minutes after we started up again, I felt more fatigued than before, because using the muscles again after relaxing them took extra energy. After a few minutes, the benefits of the short break became evident, and my body began to experience a strange feeling that’s hard to put into words. Almost like numbness. My brain no longer directed my body, but my feet seemed to move in a spontaneous, mechanical repetition.

  In the final hour, I felt the same ease I had at the beginning of the trip, probably because I was more keenly aware that each step brought me closer to a conclusion. I could see a faint glow at the end of the tunnel. This sort of psychological suggestion is a powerful force that cannot be ignored. When we finally arrived at the destination, my body even experienced a sort of illusion, convincing me I still had some energy and could’ve carried on through a longer journey.

  When he rewrote the above journal entry as a report, at the end, Ferguson included several suggestions to headquarters in Chongqing. They read:

  1. In the future, when training soldiers for the battlefield in the Far East, it is necessary to strengthen the training in long-distance marches. It is not as simple as physical endurance but also involves complex variables such as lifestyle and mental habits, the distribution of energy, and so forth. Otherwise, it’s impossible to explain why Chinese soldiers who are far weaker than American soldiers have such a great advantage over their American counterparts in long-distance marching.

  2. When designing military boots for the Chinese battlefield, consider reducing the weight. In a country where there is no real transportation and walking is the basic mode of travel, military boots that are too heavy prove to be a hindrance.

  3. Silence will exacerbate the feeling of fatigue during a long march. The Communist army in Yan’an sings while they march. They are leading the world in psychological warfare, so it makes sense to adopt some of their habits. Unless sound renders the mission unsafe, it is advisable to use song or storytelling to shift the attention away from fatigue.

  The sampans arrived after dark the next day, and the men disembarked a few hundred yards from their target. The thick c
louds had finally dispersed, revealing a faint crescent moon and a scattering of stars. Where the night wind blew, reeds rustled and insects chirped, while the frogs on the beach beat their last round of drums before sleeping. The clear night and the late-summer sounds were coconspirators, providing cover for their footsteps while lighting their way.

  Through his telescope, Ferguson had a clear view of the target. It was a temporary single-story structure, with two windows in a long wall covered with shards of broken glass to deter intruders. There was a watchtower at the front, its lights visible from fifty yards away. Two guards with submachine guns stood back to back in the watchtower so that they had an almost three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view. There were tons of supplies in the munitions and supply warehouse, most of which were winter clothes and rain boots. The Japanese planned to transport them to a transfer station, then distribute them to various military camps along the railway line. They were waiting for the truck convoy from Hangzhou, and the five trucks parked at the gate were the earliest arrivals. The intel had come from a cook in one of the Japanese guards’ kitchens. According to him, there was also a back gate manned by two soldiers, but no watchtower. The Japanese troops stationed in the warehouse were a small unit, but armed with more than ten machine guns and about twenty submachine guns.

  The officers had formulated a plan based on the intelligence they had. The light from the watchtower and the firepower disparity made storming the facility essentially a suicide mission. So the sniper, Liu Zhaohu, would hide beyond the reach of the lights and shoot the sentries at the watchtower. The commotion would provide an opening for Snot to run up and toss explosives over the wall. Snot was the runner because he was lightest on his feet and the strongest jumper. The soft explosives were armed with a delay, giving Snot and his comrades time to retreat to a safe distance before the explosion. The explosives had been packed into the body of a rabbit, and the rabbit’s belly was sewn up and covered with mud on the outside, so if anyone found it, they wouldn’t know it was an explosive device. Amid the chaos, there was a strong chance the Japanese wouldn’t even notice it, and even if it were discovered, it would just be kicked aside. By the time the team had retreated to the water, three sampans would be waiting. The boatmen knew every bend and rock in the river, so they could hug the banks, then shoot away as quick as arrows, fleeing from the searchlights.