Wuhan

by John Fletcher

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Wang Mingzhang passed Wei his message.

  Wei and the general and all the senior officers left the inn. Wei set off, wobbling a bit, southwards, with his rifle slung across his back. The staff officers, plus the guard outside, resplendent in full dress uniform, swords drawn, set off to meet the enemy and die.

  *

  Wei just made his escape. On occasion he had to hide in ditches and woods as Japanese patrols past. But even in total darkness he knew which direction to take. At his back, to the north, all the skies were filled with the flames of a burning Tengxian. Of his burning colleagues.

  He arrived in Lincheng the next morning, exhausted, and delivered his message from General Wang to General Sun. It was a farewell.

  General Sun looked at Private Wei for quite a while. Then he ordered him to see a medical orderly to get his wound disinfected and properly dressed. When that was over a junior officer handed Wei a railway pass to travel south to Taierzhuang, where he would be reassigned to a fresh regiment for training for the coming battle of Taierzhuang.

  Wei saluted and, still with his rifle on his back, set off on his cycle for the station.

  The Battle of Tengxian lasted for four days. For four days the 22nd Army Group, the Deplorables, had held up Rensuke Isogai’s 10th Division in its march on Taierzhuang. Those four days were to prove vital to the upcoming battle.

  Fifty miles to the east, at Linyi, the birthplace of China’s greatest soldier, Zhuge Liang, a similar number of Chinese troops managed to successfully halt the Japanese 5th Division – the second part of the pincer that with the 10th Division was meant to encircle and crush Taierzhuang – and drive them back. Only 5 per cent of them survived.

  There were no survivors of Tengxian – except for Wei, who is a fictional character. The defenders did not stop their attackers – they were just meant to hold them temporarily. So by the time General Rensuke got his army beyond them, he would be advancing on Taierzhuang alone.

  11

  General Feng has generously lent us one of his army lorries so that my students and I can travel fifty miles into the countryside to put on a play by Tian Boqi.

  My students stand debating among themselves – working out and memorizing lines, arguing between each other on particular points of ideology and dialectic – while the driver and I load the backdrops and props into the back of the lorry.

  We drive off, the students in the back still arguing ideology, the driver and I in the front. The driver spends the journey explaining to me precisely how much he hates rickshaw drivers, bicyclists, cart drivers and all other road users.

  We arrive. Nobody seems to know anything about us. I locate the village stage and we start to set up our backdrops and curtains. The students are still arguing. A few curious children and two dogs turn out to watch them. The dogs start to fight. For the first time Tian Boqi looks nervous. I suggest that perhaps, in their costumes, they could go into the village and invite the people to attend their performance. Their costumes have been designed in the latest German expressionist style. George Grosz bankers, Kandinsky policemen and a landlord who looks like Nosferatu set off into the village. They certainly attract an audience. Tian Boqi, dressed as himself, gives me a triumphal look.

  As a curious audience gathers I mix with them, chat with them. I put on my best Mandarin accent and am relieved that they at least understand what I am saying. Hopefully they will be able to understand the actors as well. I explain these young people are from the government.

  ‘That’s very kind of the emperor. I hope there’s lots of dancing.’

  On that inauspicious note the play starts.

  It is about a youthful but rather shy peasant boy (played with some disassociation by the young anarchist with the interesting linguistic theories) who is in love with a beautiful young peasant girl, played by Shan Shuang, the revolutionary poetess. She has removed her glasses for the play and is consequently somewhat short-sighted. They want to marry but before they can the Nosferatu-like landlord turns up with a whip and a rich banker. The banker wants to sleep with the girl. The boy tries to explain he and the girl are in love. The landlord starts to whip the boy. The boy cringes and backs away.

  This puzzles the audience.

  ‘Why doesn’t he fight back?’

  ‘Punch him!’

  ‘He should get out his sword.’

  ‘He doesn’t have one.’

  The fact that he doesn’t carry a sword clearly baffles the audience, who then start to ask further questions.

  ‘Where is the king?’

  ‘Why is there no king or emperor?’

  ‘I hope there’s going to be a princess who suffers terribly and then gets married. Or commits suicide.’

  ‘Why is there no music?’

  ‘Or dancing?’

  ‘I think,’ ventured one would-be expert, ‘that this is a comedy. That’s why they’re all talking in such funny voices.’

  A sigh of understanding goes up from the audience.

  On stage the rich banker is trying to drag the young peasant girl away but she starts to fight back and refuses to go with him, while her peasant lad continues to cringe before his betters. The landlord starts to beat her with his whip. Most cruelly.

  Which is met with roars of laughter from the audience. The more Nosferatu lashes the damsel and the more she suffers the louder they laugh.

  Shan Shuang, the short-sighted revolutionary poetess playing the peasant girl, puts on her glasses to see what on earth is going on. More gales of laughter. She is not amused.

  ‘Shut up, you ignorant fools. How dare you pollute this revolutionary drama with your coarse laughter. Sit down and learn something, you rural imbeciles.’

  This only increases the laughter.

  The actors are looking at each other in bewilderment. But the show must go on! The peasant girl, glasses removed, is being dragged offstage by the lascivious banker when suddenly onto the stage springs a Japanese officer of the Imperial Japanese Army, shouting threats that he will massacre every innocent Chinese civilian he finds and waving a large sword around his head.

  ‘At last, a sword!’

  ‘Let’s hope the peasant has a sword and can kill him and win the girl.’

  But the anarchist/linguist peasant boy continues to cringe. The banker and the landlord run away and the Japanese officer drags the young peasant girl off to do his worst.

  ‘I shall defile your pure Han flesh with my foul imperialist blade.’

  The young peasant, alone on stage, starts to bewail his lot.

  There are shouts from the audience of ‘Get after him,’ ‘Fight the bastard,’ and ‘Get your sword out and win back your girl.’

  But suddenly onto the stage – he’s obviously worried enough by the audience to have borrowed the Japanese officer’s sword – leaps Tian Boqi, sword in hand, as a young militant revolutionary student dressed – well, dressed as himself.

  A sigh of relief sweeps the audience. Another sword on stage. That obviously means there’s going to be a sword fight.

  Tian addresses the cringing peasant:

  ‘Oh ignorant beast of burden, weighed down by the neo-feudal reactionary landlords and bankers of the imperialist and capitalist classes. Quit your craven lackeydom! Cast off your subservient shackles and stir your proud loins, stiffened by the resolve of pure Marxist-Leninist ideology and revolutionary materialism to smash the bourgeois fascist…’

  This speech goes on for some time. The audience grows restless.

  ‘What is all this rubbish?’

  ‘Why aren’t you running after your girl and saving her?’

  ‘Who unlocked these lunatics?’

  ‘Where’s the dancing?’

  Tian Boqi, looking more than a bit desperate, raises his voice above them, shouting full into the peasant boy’s face.

  ‘Break the foul bonds of your reactionary servitude and march with the proud steps of dialectical materialism into the promised land
of revolutionary praxis!’

  Suddenly the peasant boy leaps to his feet. Tian Boqi’s words and arguments have convinced him at last.

  ‘Yes, I will avenge myself against the Japanese imperialists, the Western capitalist bankers and the reactionary landlord clique!’ he cries, thrusting his fist to the skies.

  An elderly member of the audience has managed to clamber on stage. He starts to complain that the presence of a female actor on stage is a threat to public morals.

  Meanwhile another villager has also climbed up and is shouting that these actors are foul Japanese propagandists sent secretly to destroy the morale of the noble Chinese people.

  A third mildly tries to point out to everyone that the Japanese, like the Chinese, are a Buddhist people – therefore the ordinary Japanese soldier must be as equally gentle as the ordinary Chinese soldier. They are being driven to these atrocities by their evil Bushido officers.

  The stage has become flooded with villagers expressing their various opinions and general outrage at the play and the young hooligans who dared put it on. One old lady particularly unloads her bile on Tian Boqi, who sits by himself on the stage staring manically ahead of himself. A man berates him.

  ‘To think we wasted time on your stupid play. We could have been in the fields working!’

  The other actors have retreated to the lorry.

  Gradually the villagers, grumbling and gesticulating, climb down off the stage and, still complaining, walk back into the village, leaving the wrecked stage behind them.

  Tian Boqi sits alone. Utterly alone. Utterly humiliated. I go up to him. Sit down beside him.

  There is silence. Then Tian speaks.

  ‘You know what always used to scare me more than anything? That I would never be accepted by the working classes because I was upper class.’

  Silence.

  I try to comfort him. ‘Look, Tian…’ I say.

  ‘Fuck off,’ he says.

  ‘Why are you always so angry?’ I ask him.

  He stands up, starts to walk into the village. I follow. The other actors, still bewildered, climb down from the lorry and follow us.

  It is when we reach the village square that everything changes.

  There are still groups of villagers standing around, complaining about our play. Some are preparing to return to the fields. Old people drink tea in the tea house. Suddenly, into our midst, marches a troupe of young children. Half-starved, dirty-faced, dressed in rags, no more than seven, eight years old. One of the many bands of young parentless children roaming our country. They’re led by a young girl of about ten years old. She has a determined, single-minded look to her.

  The villagers make sympathetic noises as they see them.

  The children walk to the centre of the square. The eldest steps forwards and addresses us all.

  ‘All but one of us are from the village of Xiazhuang in Shandong Province. We do not have any parents any longer. They were all killed by the Japanese when they came to our village. We hope you will listen to our story, feel pity for us, and give us some alms so we can continue our journey to safety.’

  Everyone falls silent. Gathers round. Stands or sits on walls or benches so they can follow and listen.

  Six of the children, with the eldest, stand in a line before us. The seventh, the smallest, only three years old or so, wanders around as the others speak, staring directly at each member of the audience, smiling sweetly, then frowning and moving on to the next. All the six in the line suddenly speak.

  ‘Listen to our story, dear people.

  Listen to what happened to us, dear people.

  Listen to what you must do, dear people, if you are to help us.’

  The eldest girl steps forwards.

  ‘Listen to my story, dear people. I am Su. My father was a shepherd.

  One night he was out in the fields tending a sick sheep while the rest of us were all at home.

  Suddenly, into the house, into the candlelight, he staggers in.

  Blood is running from his head.

  “Help me,” he says, “these soldiers attacked me.”

  He falls. My mother and we children cry out. Neighbours rush in to see what has happened. But as they do there are other cries from elsewhere in the village.

  Screams, shouts, the sounds of guns.’

  She steps back. A young boy steps forwards.

  ‘Listen to my story, dear people. My name is Park.

  I am asleep. Suddenly my mother leaps up.

  Someone has set light to our house. The thatch roof is burning. Bits of burning straw fall upon us.

  My father rushes to the door.

  Standing outside – I can see him in the light of the flames – is a Japanese soldier.

  He forces his bayonet into my father.

  All the rest the family are pressing out, scared of the flames. He bayonets them all.

  I escape through a hole in the back wall of the house.

  I see flames all about me in the village. Hear screams. I run into the darkness.’

  He steps back. A girl slightly older than him, quite nervous, moves forwards.

  ‘Listen to my story, dear people. My name is Jiang.

  Soldiers come into my house.

  They are rough, shouting. They shoot my daddy.

  Then grab all the rest of us, even my old gran, and pull and tug us towards the centre of the village.

  All around us are the flames from all the burning houses. Shouts and screams.

  And in the centre of the village I see all the villagers being herded,

  surrounded by the soldiers with their swords and bayonets,

  and just at that moment I trip, and the soldiers behind me tread over me without seeing me,

  trample me.

  My family walk on surrounded by soldiers.

  Dear people, what do I do?

  Do I run on to join my dear family,

  my dear sisters and brothers and mother and gran,

  or do I run into the darkness?’

  For a second the girl hesitates. A stricken look comes over her face.

  ‘I leave them. I leave my family. I run away into darkness.’

  Lost in the horror of the moment, Jiang hesitates, then remembers herself, steps back into the line. A boy slightly older than her steps forwards. He has a slight limp.

  ‘Listen to my story, dear people. My name is Ma.

  The soldiers drive my whole family out of our home, beat us with their rifle butts, then drive us towards the centre of the village

  where like sheep we are driven into a group of all the villagers.

  We are surrounded by soldiers aiming their guns and bayonets at us.

  The soldiers are drinking.

  Drunk and singing.

  They see my eldest sister and drag her out

  and before us all, dear people,

  they defile and shame and then bayonet her.

  They all start to fire their guns into us.

  People started stumbling and pushing and falling and screaming

  I fall over

  then all sorts of people, people bleeding, people screaming, people writhing

  start falling on me

  and above me, through the bodies,

  I hear the fire continuing until it stops

  and there is silence,

  and then I hear the soldiers start to walk among the people killing those still alive.

  I am beneath three grown-ups and I lie very still and they miss me.

  I lie there for hours, not moving, peoples’ blood running all over me,

  sticking and hardening all over me,

  the bodies on top of me are very heavy but when I can hear no more,

  when there is silence,

  at last, very slowly dear people, I start to push my way out from underneath my village.

  The last man I get out from underneath is my uncle. I can’t see any soldiers. I run away.’

  I stand there and listen to their stories. Th
e hair on my head rises. Though it is not warm I start to sweat. I breathe with difficulty. All around me is that terrible silence which occurs in a play when every single member of the audience is rapt, entrapped in each syllable and word that is uttered.

  But the most haunting, disorientating aspect of the children’s performance is the behaviour of the youngest child, the toddler. She continues walking round and round the audience, looking into the face of each adult, her face momentarily lighting with recognition, smiling with delight, only for it to relapse into a frown, almost a scowl, as she turns and walks on to the next.

  The children having finished their various stories, Su, the eldest, starts to speak. She tells us how they, the surviving children, hid in a cave they used to play in before the soldiers came. They wondered whether they should return to the village. They all thought that was too dangerous. So they had to set off. The soldiers came from where the sun rose so they set off to where it set. They walked and walked and when they came to villages they told their story and begged for food and shelter. They became travellers.

  At this point Su, the eldest girl, walks forwards to where the young sweet-faced toddler is still searching from adult face to adult face. I note that Tian Boqi especially stares at the toddler with terrified fascination.

  ‘And so, dear people, we come to the story of the last of us,’ she says. ‘This tiny infant came to us when we were in a forest. She just walked up to us. She smiles a lot but speaks very little, but when she came to us I asked her what her name was and she said she could not remember. So we called her Lim, which means “From the Woods”. One night, when she and I were talking, she said she wanted to find her parents. She knew they were somewhere. So everywhere we go, every village we come into and speak to, she wanders among you, searching for her parents.’

  The toddler is standing near me, looking into a farmer’s face. I see something. Something terrible. Fear. Insecurity. She is doing what any lost child of that age would do – she is using the one tool of communication God has given her, her smile, to desperately win affection and nourishment and love. To somehow conjure up her forgotten, mysterious parents in the faces of those she looks so earnestly into. But always as she looks some distant ghost memory of her actual parents returns, her smile hesitates. and disappointed she turns smiling to the next.