Wuhan

by John Fletcher

  The Chinese commanders understood the Japanese would be waiting to the north, just on the edge of the flames, ready to envelop them the second the flames quietened. What could they do? From experience fighting in Shanghai, in Tengxian, and here in Taierzhuang, they knew that Japanese infantry preferred waiting at a distance while aircraft, artillery, tanks and poison gas did their work, and then sweeping in to mop up their already mainly destroyed, completely disorientated enemy. It was what they had been trained to do. And the Chinese commanders knew that what their enemy disliked above all else was close combat, face-to-face fighting, fighting at night. Anything that was intimate, personal, inescapable in the darkness.

  So the Chinese troops sent forwards through the hurricanes and the heat had congregated even closer beneath the flames than the Japanese troops and then, as the Japanese shielded their faces and eyes against the heat, had charged them out of the flames and fallen upon them. Simultaneously, using the tunnel systems which they had dug and still used while the Japanese occupied the ground overhead, Chinese troops rose behind the Japanese troops and attacked them from the rear. Figures from hell. The sky thundered. The earth thundered. Soldiers thought their hearts would explode, the skin on their backs would burn up. The earth cracked, everything cracked, the skies roared. Everything swayed back and forth in crazy hallucination. Oaths, stabs, screams, sudden ambushes, frenzied stiflings, gougings and guttings. The only thing of value was water. Water to gulp down and water to drench your clothes with so they didn’t burst into flames. Many soldiers, on both sides, spontaneously combusted in blazing torches.

  Such resistance did not last, however. The Japanese simply brought forward their heavy artillery and, at point blank range, blasted all the fighters – Chinese AND Japanese.

  How could the Japanese do this to their own people? Where did this obscene madness come from? It came from the science of Social Darwinism, of eugenics. All members of the master race were but pawns and ants, expendable in the struggle of the race for supremacy. And so this English disease of Herbert Spencer and Francis Galton, Darwin’s cousin, and possibly even Darwin himself, was unleashed by the Japanese upon the Chinese, by the Germans upon the Russians and Poles and Jews and Gypsies. And all in the saintly name of science!7

  A few Chinese survived. They came out from beneath the flames, immediately drank all the water they could find. Amid the ashes of central Taierzhuang the Chinese lines held. They were swiftly reinforced.

  *

  With their advance through central Taierzhuang denied, the Japanese reverted to their southward attacks in the eastern city. Only three members of Wei’s platoon were still alive. Even Huang was gone, taken out by a sniper. One second he was drawing deeply on a cigarette and complaining about having inherited Grand Arse’s fleas, the next he was no more. Brains blown clean out of his head. Which went to show, Wei reflected, that sleeping long did not necessarily mean living long.

  With troops continuously being killed and incapacitated and complete strangers arriving all the time to fill the ranks – all from different units and from different parts of China, trained in different ways to fight and speaking endless different (and often incomprehensible) dialects – how did the Chinese soldiers still manage to maintain cohesion and common understanding and cooperation between each other in the fighting? One thing certainly united them. In the continuous charging and counter-charging in this battle, their bloodcurdling battle cry ‘Hit the Hard!!!’ clearly not only terrified the Japanese (their ‘Banzai’ was small beer in comparison), but unloosed in the Chinese huge surges of euphoria and energy and togetherness just as they hit the enemy lines. It made them one.

  But in the end the sheer firepower of the Japanese wore down the Chinese. After several more hours of to-and-fro insanity, with bodies banked all around, they were finally forced to retreat from the line of one row of demolished houses back fifty yards to the next line of demolished houses, holding them and their associated maze of trenches and tunnels as tenaciously as they had held their previous line.

  As a result the Japanese tanks now had to advance slowly, cumbersomely, and vulnerably across even more mounds and pits of rubble to close on their enemy. Supplies of food and water and ammunition for them were likewise becoming more difficult to deliver. A modern army equipped with trucks could no longer access those areas they were meant to. Regular soldiers had to be withdrawn from the front line in order to transport food and ammunition for other troops in the front line. Fuel for the tanks also had to be carried by hand in large jerry cans. The Chinese had never bothered or been able to afford much mechanized transport. A coolie would go anywhere – provided you paid him enough (which was virtually nothing).

  The waves of Japanese frontal assaults continued. The dead continued to pile up all around. In this frenzied fighting Wei developed a useful skill. Untrained in sword play, in fighting he tended to take a position in the second rank, picking off with his bayonet those Japanese who broke through. But he soon realized that simply shooting them with his rifle was more effective. Even back on his farm with an ancient musket, the crows and pigeons had quickly learnt to keep a respectful distance from him. But in this fighting the Lee Enfield proved a godsend. Its high-quality British-forged steel meant its barrel did not warp in the heat and it never jammed. No matter how much he fired and however hot the metal became, as the whole gun was encased in wood he could keep firing it for as long as he needed.

  An officer noticed Wei standing there in the second rank blazing away. The accuracy of his fire. He immediately ordered him back behind the ridge to continue his firing. After all, why waste a good sniper in hand-to-hand fighting? Other officers noted his competence too.

  In the next lull in the fighting Wei was ordered back to battalion HQ. He made his way back, having to ask directions all the time through a maze of alleys and tunnels. He passed soldiers being shaved by barbers and simultaneously dictating farewell letters to professional scribes, handymen repairing water and food canteens, cooks filling them, telephone lines being laid, the dead being stacked, the wounded moaning, cigarettes being bartered, even the odd whore plying her trade to those about to die. He found it amazing walking upright again instead of having to crouch and scuttle all the time.

  In the solid black stone building in which the battalion had made its latest headquarters Wei passed commanding officers listening to reports, issuing orders, a radio operator frantically trying to contact regimental headquarters, a drunken sergeant being prepared for execution.

  Wei was directed to the back of the building to some stables. The battalion armoury. He produced a note an officer had given him and the armourer, having admired Wei’s Lee Enfield, read it. He walked back into his stores and came back holding a large and very clumsy-looking rifle. It was a crude Chinese copy of a Japanese Type 97 anti-tank rifle. The Russians had captured some from the Japanese in their border skirmishes with them in Siberia in 1936. They’d passed one on to the Nationalist Chinese who, not having any of their own, copied it. The specially trained detail that were due to fire it had been wiped out by a random shell before they managed to get to the front but their weapon was intact. The armourer gave Wei a hurried thirty-minute course on how to load and fire it, apologizing for its inaccuracy and general unreliability. He also handed him a satchel full of ammunition. He emphasized that it was necessary to get as close as possible to the enemy tank before firing this weapon at it and that reloading it could take a while. Finally he said that if the weapon cracked or fractured itself in any way when firing Wei was to bring it back so he could try to repair it. It was the only one they’d got. He gave Wei a note permitting him to retreat.

  On his way back to rejoin his section Wei thought about this, all the time handling and balancing the weapon as he would a new-bought hoe or scythe, clicking and opening and closing the breech and firing chamber and pin. Back at the line his new anti-tank weapon prompted a lot of cheerful comments.

  ‘That rubbish won’t never work.’ />
  ‘How do you get a punch out of a thing like that?’

  ‘A suicide bomber’s got better chances of living than you.’

  One nervous young recruit ventured to ask:

  ‘But how do you actually fire it?’

  ‘That’s the difficult part,’ replied Wei. ‘I’ve been thinking about it.’

  ‘You’d better think about it fast,’ replied one veteran of at least eight hours. ‘That’s fresh Japanese troops we’ve got in the line opposite us. They’re readying for an attack. And they’ve got lots of tanks.’

  *

  From their observers stationed in their network of tunnels and trenches and positioned high and precariously in wrecked buildings, the Chinese were well aware of this gathering of heavy Japanese reinforcements. Originally intended for the expected offensive into central Taierzhuang following the devastating firestorm, when that enterprise failed this massed Japanese force was redeployed to the eastern side of the city. This took some time and losses. The streets were narrow, many of the interconnected houses continued to contain pockets of Chinese troops and suicide bombers, many Chinese fighters continued to lurk in the tunnels and trenches and even the primitive sewers, letting off mines and explosive devices beneath tanks, throwing grenades into troop carriers from high windows. But they finally made it.

  When they arrived two companies of Japanese shock troops – fanatical followers of the emperor and the cult of Bushido – were positioned in the front line, along the ridge of demolished houses which the Chinese had once occupied but which had now been taken by the Japanese. These fanatical storm troopers had been ordered at dawn to charge directly at the Chinese line of defence. They were told that anyone retreating back to their own lines, unwounded or wounded, would be shot on sight. They would take the lines or die. These troops applauded enthusiastically when they heard of their fate.

  That night, in the centre of the Japanese lines, other soldiers laboured to build clear gaps in the rubble of the line of ruined buildings they held so that their tanks could get a clean run at the Chinese defence line. This activity gave Chinese skirmishers an excellent opportunity, under cover of darkness, to sneak in among these toiling Japanese, knife them, throw grenades, assault them cheek by jowl, unnerve the whole Japanese line with bloodcurdling screams, play very loud music from loudspeakers – all the psychological tricks of night fighting that disorientate and demoralize your enemy, rob him of sleep and peace of mind before he attacks.

  Meanwhile, armed with his anti-tank rifle, Wei used the confusion to sneak up to a burnt-out tank, positioned on the right-hand side of the gap out of which the Japanese tanks were due to emerge. He carefully slid underneath it and concealed himself beneath debris and stones. To the left of the gap a lot of partially destroyed dwellings reached from the Japanese lines up towards the Chinese lines. During the night a substantial number of Chinese troops – including the remnants of Wei’s company – concealed themselves within these ruins and in the trenches and tunnels which still ran in the area.

  Just before dawn the Chinese arose and emerged from these positions and attacked the left flank of the Japanese lines. The fighting was fierce. It distracted the Japanese storm troopers for a while and forced them to deal with the Chinese marauders. They did this fairly quickly and efficiently. Wei was now the last remaining survivor of his company. Twenty minutes later the Japanese storm troopers redeployed themselves in their original positions, the cries of ‘Banzai’ rang out and the suicide troops charged.

  They charged straight past Wei, concealed beneath his burnt-out tank, and disappeared into the dust and smoke which concealed most of the battlefield. Shouts and screams and roars of ‘Hit the Hard’ were heard in the distance as they met the Chinese counter-charge. In murk and obscurity huge streams of humanity flowed back and forth in madness and slaughter.

  Closer to Wei, from just beyond the Japanese line of rubble, came the familiar grumble of tanks being started and roaring as they warm up. Clouds of diesel plumed out from behind the lines and added to the murk and confusion. Wei understood he was likely to die very soon. He thought of his family and his ancestors. Then he set himself, calmed himself to fight.

  The first tank waddled through the gap. Then another and another. Wei pushed a grenade into the barrel of his gun and aimed. He waited and he waited. The tank waddled towards him. Two others behind it. Closer and closer. He must not fire too soon or the first one would shelter the other two. Or too late as the first one would be behind him. He was relying on the second two to hesitate when the first one was hit, so he had time to hit them too. The first one was almost beside him. He fired through the broken tracks of his tank into the wheels and tracks of the Japanese tank. There was a huge flash as his gun fired, his face seared with pain and he was temporarily blinded. Five seconds later, when he could see again, he pushed another grenade into his barrel, saw the first tank’s tracks shearing off, flames spreading, and hears screams from inside as he turned and saw, as he’d hoped, the other two tanks stopped. He aimed at the second tank, at an angle to him because when it stopped it was positioned to pass his tank. He fired, a flash, pain, his grenade flew beneath the tank’s hull and hit the tracks away from him on their inside. Again it twisted them off their wheels, flames, screams. But there were bangs and ricochets from above him. The third tank had spotted where his fire was coming from and was advancing on him, its machine gun raking his place of concealment. It was approaching from an angle so, withdrawing behind the shelter of his tank’s twisted tracks, he hastily rammed another grenade down his barrel ready to fire. But how to get into a satisfactory firing position without being first shot down himself? The machine gun rounds continued to hammer into the body of his own tank. He waited for a pause. Any pause. It came. He stuck his head out, aimed and fired. This time his gun half exploded, the grenade flew out, his face was seared with flames, he was knocked on his back, the grenade hit its target. It took him thirty seconds to recover his wits, his eyesight. He looked. A track had come off the third tank and it was sheering round sideways, partly blocking the gap through which the rest of the tanks were meant to come. But Wei was not going to be able to stop them when they came. He couldn’t even fire at them. His anti-tank rifle had split down most of its barrel. What should he do? He thought. As he thought about his situation, his options, Wei was completely calm. As calm and rational as when he had once surveyed his fields, deciding which crops should be planted where, which members of his family should plant them, on what day the family pig should be slaughtered and butchered into all its constituent parts, what the family’s ancestors should be told and in what order they should be told it. Wei was always calm. Should he stay and fight? No. He had no effective weapon to fight with. Should he withdraw? The armourer had given him explicit instructions: if the weapon malfunctioned and could not be repaired, it must be brought back to him. It was too valuable to lose. He had given him a note to cover his retreat.

  Wei picked up his weapon and headed into the dust cloud and smoke where the infantry were still fighting. He passed through a ghostly, silent place. Almost everyone was dead. Bodies piled everywhere. Silent, disassociated as the grave.

  At the Chinese front line he was challenged. An officer recognized him. He gave him a brief report on his actions then said he must return his gun to the armourer for repairs. He walked back behind the rubble, unearthed his Lee Enfield which he had buried so, if he did not die, he could still fight with it, then made his way through the lines.

  He was challenged at a Chinese military police checkpoint which was stopping and shooting deserters.

  ‘You are a deserter,’ they said.

  Wei showed them his anti-tank rifle with its split barrel, explaining that the armourer had ordered him to return it if it misfired and needed repairing.

  ‘You’re lying.’

  Wei showed them the note from the armourer.

  None of them could read.

  But, like most illiterate people, they mai
ntained a superstitious fear of anything written down. The sergeant in command ordered his corporal to escort Wei back to the armourer. If he tried to run away – shoot him. If it was found that the paper was a lie – shoot him.

  Wei and the corporal disappeared back into the gloom of the eastern part of the city. On the way they met officers marching men forwards to the front line. So desperate was the situation in the east they were commandeering clerks, cooks, orderlies, servants, jankers men, even criminals, rushing them forwards to plug the gaps. They commandeered the corporal. They read Wei’s note and let him continue. Wei wished the corporal good luck. The corporal cursed Wei.

  *

  The Battle of Taierzhuang, at shocking human cost, was fulfilling the task the Chinese High Command had required of it. Like some gigantic insect Rensuke Isogai’s 10th Division – the most brutal and destructive of all Japan’s armies – had rushed headlong into the city and its head was now locked immovably into ten thousand different skirmishes and actions and feuds within Taierzhuang’s black granite buildings and fortifications, unable to move or free itself. Meanwhile the flanks and rear of this colossal beast, tasked with supplying the head, were laid open to pincer attacks by other divisions of the Chinese Army. Like ants, all along the 150-mile length of the railway from Jinan, armies of country people blew up the trains and cut the tracks and roads, shutting off Isogai’s supplies. But the arrogance and hubris of Rensuke Isogai, stung by the resistance of such untermenschen, howling for fame and glory in the eyes of his god-emperor, could focus his mind only on the crushing and utter destruction of Taierzhuang.