by Xu, Lei
This time when I awoke everyone was already up. Water for tea and food was being boiled on three vigorously burning bonfires. Several of our group sat around the flames tending their wounds. Our clothes had also been toasted more or less dry. Old Cat was over by the fire, sitting across from Pei Qing. Wang Sichuan was there too. Rubbing my eyes, I walked over and joined them.
Wang Sichuan clapped me on the back. "Goddamn if you don't enjoy a life of ease and comfort!" he said. "You passed out at just the right time, giving me, your close comrade in arms, a chance to render great and meritorious service! Do you know who hauled your ass all the way up here yesterday? It was me. So remember to tell the higher-ups I deserve a third-class merit when we get back!"
I nodded my head in embarrassment. It's not like I wanted to faint, I thought to myself. I was born this way. To be honest, my body was never suited for this line of work. When it came time to enlist, I forced myself to drink three big bottles of water and just barely managed to make weight. The recruitment officer thought I had contracted some stomach-swelling illness. Normally I was so thin my ribs stuck out like piano keys. But whenever I was ordered to go all out, whatever I lacked in physical power I made up for in spirit. This is where my strength has always lain. Fortunately my body has also become much hardier.
Fainting from exhaustion was very shameful. I tried to change the subject and asked what they'd been talking about. Pei Qing said Old Cat had drawn a contoured map of the cave. Now they were figuring out what the rest of the river might look like and how best to proceed. Hearing this, I was perplexed. "Why are we continuing?" I asked. "Aren't you all the rescue team?"
They were silent. Old Cat continued to smoke his cigarette, the ember glowing brightly in the dark. Then he sighed. I asked again. At last, Wang Sichuan responded. His voice was dry and constricted. "Old Cat said we're not the ones they're here to rescue."
CHAPTER 21
The Real Rescuees
The bonfire flickered before me, crackling as a light breeze fanned the flames. The firelight distorted the faces of those sitting around it, Old Cat's most of all. I could make out no more than a dim outline of his features, their expression a mystery to me. We weren't the ones they were here to rescue?
At first I didn't quite understand, but when I thought of Yuan Xile, a slow realization crept over me. Still, I had to be sure. "Then who are you here to rescue?" I asked, looking over at Old Cat, hoping he would give a clearer explanation.
The two new prospectors had been chatting a short ways away. As soon as they heard my question they stopped talking and turned toward us. Wang Sichuan and Pei Qing stared into the flames, not making a sound. Evidently, this question had already been asked.
Old Cat regarded me from across the fire. Tossing his cigarette butt on the ground, he said in a low voice, "It's not up to me to say. You'll know when we find them."
Silence descended once more. No one spoke. At last, Wang Sichuan whispered, "This time, I don't agree with the military."
Old Cat responded brusquely. "It's a soldier's duty to obey orders. If you have a problem, take it up with Rong Aiguo after we're out of here."
We all sighed. It wasn't that Old Cat didn't want to tell us. He just couldn't reveal such confidential information in front of so many people. That kind of slip could lead to a court-martial. In any case, we were all military men. Though we might serve in a relatively unusual capacity, we had to obey orders. Every aspect of the military relies on this basic tenet, and we knew that when we enlisted.
So Wang Sichuan cursed once and said no more. The two prospecting specialists who had been looking over at us went back to their conversation. To lighten the mood, I spoke up again. "Well, never mind all that. So what have you figured out so far? I'd like to hear it."
Pei Qing also wanted to ease the tension. He handed me the map Old Cat had drawn. "We just showed him where the iron door was located," he said. "We were discussing what might be hidden beneath the door."
I thought once more of that strange door. By now, it must be deep underwater. Old Cat's map was a long, hastily sketched passageway. It was easy enough for me to identify the places we'd been. Old Cat had drawn a big question mark where the iron door was. Pei Qing said they'd asked the engineering corpsmen about it. The engineering corpsmen had replied that there were two possibilities. The first was that it wasn't a door at all, but rather the cement base of some temporary crane. Should it be necessary to lift some relatively large airplane component—an engine, for example—a heavy-duty crane would probably be required. The iron door might very well be a remnant of the crane's concrete-and-steel base.
I paused for a moment to recall the place. Bullshit, I thought. It was definitely some kind of door.
"What about the second possibility?" I asked.
"Now this one is interesting," said Pei Qing. "The corpsmen said that if it's not a concrete base, then it's definitely a precisionblasting site, meaning it's filled with explosives. They're certain that in the space behind the door deep holes were drilled into the load-bearing layer of cave rock, then filled at key points with an extremely large quantity of water and shock-proof explosives. That way, if the situation ever became critical, the Japanese could seal the cave off at a moment's notice, buying themselves some time. Only a select few higher-ups would know the detonation codes required to carry out this 'sacred' task. For some reason, however, the Japanese sealed the iron door shut when they left. Clearly they hadn't wanted to block the cave off entirely. Or maybe the only people who knew the detonation code had already died."
"You're saying that we were standing on a heap of dynamite?" I asked.
"No," interrupted one of the corpsmen behind us, "a huge heap of dynamite."
The engineering corpsman who spoke up was relatively old, perhaps even older than the deputy squad leader. He pushed his way in between us. Old Cat introduced him as Tang Zeding, company commander of the engineering corps and a veteran just returned from the Chinese-Indian border. Obviously the two of them knew each other. Old Tang had a completely different personality from the deputy squad leader, and perhaps due to his higher rank, he never hesitated to engage with us. After sitting down, he began to speak: "They say that back then, the Japanese generally used Type 97 explosives, a synthesis of TNT and some shit I can't remember—benzene or something. They're hugely powerful in water." He added that we shouldn't worry. The Japanese had plenty of experience rigging explosives. They weren't going to go off by accident. He also believed that the location of the explosives showed that the Japanese considered the cavern a key strategic point. The explosives were a fail-safe in case the Japanese lost control of the cavern. If this assessment was true, then the rest of the underground river should be comparatively safe to travel.
"I'm glad you think so," Wang Sichuan said sarcastically, patting Old Tang on the back.
"So that's what we've been discussing," said Pei Qing, "but there's something else we need to address. I'm talking about the issue of Yuan Xile and Chen Luohu."
What is he talking about? I thought to myself.
"What issue?" I asked. "Aren't they still waiting for us upriver?"
Pei Qing shook his head. "Old Cat said that when his group arrived, they found our equipment and the corpse of the martyred soldier, but Yuan Xile, Chen Luohu, and the engineering corpsman were nowhere to be seen."
How could that be possible? Pei Qing said they had two hypotheses: either Old Cat somehow missed Yuan Xile and the other two, or the three of them realized the water was rising, came to rescue us, and ran into some sort of trouble. "In any case," he said, "we can't go back and look for them now. All we can do is pray they're all right."
My heart was overcome with worry. Chen Luohu and Yuan Xile were both unable to care for themselves. Would that young soldier really be able to look after them?
The discussion moved on to the course of the river. Some suggested we use mise-á-la-masse (a contour map created by measuring how electrical current passes through
minerals) to map the area around us, but this data was only approximate and we needed detail. Then a noise suddenly echoed across the cave. We turned our heads. Two of the engineering corpsmen had walked a great distance away from the camp along one of the terraces. All we could see were the beams of their flashlights bobbing in the dark. The deputy squad leader yelled for them to return, but they waved for us to come over, pointing with their flashlights at the roof of the cave.
Wang Sichuan's eyes lit up and we jumped to our feet. Everybody ran over to see what it was. There, on the ceiling, amid a profusion of stalactites, was the U-shaped form of a power cable. It was thick as a man's arm, extending down the cave in one direction and to the foot of the cave wall and into the water in the other. As I stood beside the cable, I began to hear the sound of fingernails scratching on stone, just as we'd heard through the rocks atop the iron door. This time, however, the noise was the static produced by electricity coursing through the cable. The corpsmen became very excited. The existence of this cable meant there was some kind of electrical equipment nearby. Whatever generator the Japanese had used, it wouldn't have produced enough power to go very far. A power cable thus meant we weren't far from our goal. But how could an electrical cable here still have power? Could the generator still be running? Old Tang had several of the corpsmen form a human ladder to raise him up. The cable was decayed from decades of water erosion, and calcium carbonate had formed thickly around it, pinning it to the stalactites. It could not be pulled free. Old Tang ordered the deputy squad leader into the water to see what the cable connected to.
The deputy squad leader removed his clothes and followed the layers of rock terrace to the river's edge. With one hand tracking the course of the cable, he dove under. We watched as he swam out, submerging one moment, coming up for air the next. Soon enough his flashlight beam was swallowed up by the dark of the cave. We hurriedly launched one of the rafts and paddled out after him. In a moment we'd rowed to the middle of the river. We could see the deputy squad leader's flashlight shining from beneath the water. We watched as the beam moved back and forth, then stopped and began to float toward the surface. Seconds later there was a splash of water and the deputy squad leader emerged, gasping for breath. In one fell swoop he hauled himself into the boat.
We anxiously helped him sit down and gave him a towel to dry his face. Unable to bear the suspense, Wang Sichuan asked what was down there. It took the deputy squad leader a minute to regain his breath. Then he stammered out, "A plane! The wreckage of a plane is lying on the river bottom!"
CHAPTER 22
The Night Fighter
Aplane? Could we have reached the end of the cave, thirty six hundred feet underground? Impossible! According to the barometer, we weren't even halfway there. And if the mysterious bomber really was lying on the river bottom, at least some of it would break the surface. Our flashlights would definitely have been able to illuminate the cross of its shadowy hulk, but here the river was a sheet of darkness. We could make out nothing.
"Is it the bomber?" asked Wang Sichuan.
The deputy squad leader shook his head. "It's a little puddle jumper," he said. The plane, he said, was sturdily chained to an iron track running along the river bottom and seemed to have been completely destroyed.
Being freshly injured, I had to stay out of the water. Although I was burning with excitement, I could only watch as those around me jumped into the river one after another, each vying to be the first to the bottom. They had been inspecting the wreck for about an hour when Old Tang called us back to shore. Once on dry land, the swimmers breathlessly described the underwater scene while they dried themselves off. We made a sketch according to their description of the plane. It wasn't until much later that we learned this was a very rare model indeed. An aerodynamics engineer at the Air Force Academy recognized it as a smaller version of the Ki-102 series. If we'd really discovered one down there, the professor said, it would demonstrate how seriously the Japanese regarded this place. Back then the Ki-102 was still a relatively new model of night fighter.
At the time, though, we'd seen only a small number of planes, and our understanding of them was limited. All we knew for sure was that the power cable led to the wreckage of a small plane lying atop an iron railway at the bottom of the river. There was also some strange piece of machinery wedged into a crevice in the rock. Presumably it was the control for the mining track. The wings of the plane had been snapped completely off and the nose was smashed beyond recognition. Perhaps it was the victim of some crash landing. The real question was, however, what was it doing here? To keep finding things where they shouldn't be is the definition of strange. "Strange." That still seems the right way to think about the whole situation.
Wang Sichuan went so far as to ask whether the Japanese might have constructed an underground arsenal here, storing the planes that they didn't have time to transport. Should they ever have to repel an assault on their position, they would be ready.
I couldn't see the point of spending so much effort storing a bunch of planes in a cave. The Japs might do things a little strangely, I said, but they weren't fools. We shouldn't turn them into stereotypically idiotic movie villains who could do nothing more than run around cursing "bakayaro" all the time.
Those who'd stayed behind wanted to take a look for themselves, but Old Tang didn't want to take any further risks and sternly denied them. They had no choice but to crowd around Wang Sichuan and implore him to keep talking about what he'd seen. He was only too happy to oblige, continuing to brag and boast about the experience.
Old Tang and Old Cat were also excitedly discussing what had just happened. Now that we'd located a power cable, they guessed the path ahead would be much smoother. The existence of the iron track also suggested that the terrain should begin to even out. Rather than waste any more time here, they decided to continue on immediately. As soon as the order was given, we quickly organized our belongings, dressed, and set out once more.
We followed the cable along the cave wall, advancing slowly, and before long came upon an emergency light. This part of the cave had once been highly developed. It would be a smooth road ahead. Now Old Cat felt there was no need for delay. We floated for two or three kilometers without break, finally coming across a giant tangle of power cables converged on the roof of the cave. Old Tang inspected it for a moment and said there was definitely a generator somewhere nearby. Turning the next corner, we saw a large twostory concrete scaffold erected on the side of the cave wall. Just a little farther down from this scaffolding, level with the river, gaped the black maw of a sinkhole, fenced on all sides by iron railings. A chaos of power cables emerged from within. Old Tang said this was a power distribution center and that the generator was located somewhere inside. He was positive one of the power cables snaking their way out of the sinkhole would lead to the end of the cave. I noticed a guard post perched atop the scaffold. It had a searchlight and was covered in iron netting. Then someone cried out and we all snapped to the direction he was looking. On the lower level of the scaffold were two army tents, along with packs and sleeping bags of the kind we were used to. With one glance we knew this gear didn't belong to the Japanese. It had been set up only recently.
Old Cat immediately stood up. "Get closer," he said to Old Tang.
Even though it was built by the Japanese, I nonetheless felt a sense of comfort climbing onto the concrete base. After all, we'd been traveling through barren and inhospitable terrain for some time now. Painted on the scaffold were partially rubbed-off characters that read: " saki Heavy Industries Joint Unit 076." The first floor of the scaffold was dry, and we discovered that, sure enough, these were PLA tents. This was someone's temporary campsite. As suspected, another prospecting team had entered the cave before us. Even though I had long been sure that this was the case, to have the proof right in front of me set my mind much more at ease. None of our groups had brought tents. That this team had kept theirs suggested there were women among their number, a
nd most likely more than one. Yuan Xile and the rest of her unit must have made it all the way here.
Old Cat ordered a search of the area. After climbing the ladder to the scaffold's second floor, we found a bunker concealed behind a pile of sandbags. The small lounge inside stank of mildew and mold but was otherwise in fairly good order. Crisscrossing electrical wires ran throughout the room. There was a bed, an army-green writing desk, a military-use candlestick telephone, and even a gun rack with a single rifle, so rusted it resembled an iron club. Had there been spiders here, this room would have long since become a snarl of webs. A pity there were none. The place felt almost too immaculate—no dust or dirt, just a collection of mildewed furniture. The whole scene gave me a terribly creepy feeling, as if the Japanese had only just left.
On the writing desk was a mess tin and canteen identical to our own. Evidently the people Old Cat was looking for had held a meeting in here. Nothing else grabbed our attention. After thinking it over, we decided the engineering corpsmen should station themselves here and continue to search the area. A number of daily necessities had been left at the camp, so we figured whoever was staying here wouldn't have gone far. Then, just as we were about to leave the bunker, a shrill ring reverberated from behind me. The noise was clear and sharp, as abrupt as a clap of thunder sounding within the bunker. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. We all turned around. There, on the wall at the back of the room, the ancient telephone was ringing.
