But it was this rift in her loyalties and loves which split Spider Girl right down the middle. Wounded her. And it was through this wound that that most un-Spider Girl-like of all emotions entered her spirit – despair.
Blackness. Blackness.
She shook herself vigorously. She must do something decisive soon. But what? Characteristically, she was waiting for that moment, that chink in the armour of Fate to offer itself. And as soon as she spotted it she would charge through it. But until then…?
A cold wind blew through the darkness. Shadowy figures darted past her but she ignored them. She carried her pistol.
It was the emptiness, the eeriness, the desolation of this city which unnerved her. The moans and wails of the first winds of winter keening through its streets.
It was as though the ghosts and spirits of all those millions who had so recently and so desperately attempted to journey to Wuhan and had perished on the way, often horribly, it was as though now, as the living left, evacuated the city, these same lost ghosts and spirits of the dead were invading, sweeping into this city, occupying every last deserted cranny and crevice and nook of each human home and habitation. The city seemed filled with the restless souls and creeping shadows of the dead – including the many dead of her own family who she had failed to save – shivering and whining, edging, easing their way in. The dead uncles and aunts and children and grandparents and parents. Whole families and villages of the dead. Their spirits even in death still desperately trying to mingle with, warm themselves, chatter among the living.
But then cities, even with the living in them, were such strange places. All that hurrying, scurrying about, everyone rushing nowhere, no one knowing anyone, all that blankness and anonymity. In the country, in a village, you knew everyone – every single person, their family history, their parents and grandparents, children and grandchildren – you saw things directly, in straight lines, things starting, things being done, things being created and finished. You saw distances, perspectives, futures.
But in this new world. Here.
Without realizing it Spider Girl had stopped. Suddenly, vividly, before her, she saw her father in his prime, returning from the fields in the evening, being consulted by the family, reaching decisions and making judgements, then relaxing on the verandah beneath the eaves, sipping his goat’s milk, singing a funny song.
In the dark Spider Girl ate bitterness.
But the old ways were the best. She shook herself, set herself again to her tasks, and walked on to the apartment.
20
It is about three in the morning. I cannot sleep. I sit out in the courtyard beneath my university window. I gaze up at the stars. Wuhan will fall today.
I sit on the bench beneath the boughs of the red persimmon tree. It is cold, but I do not need a coat. The tree’s boughs are heavy with its fruit. I have reached up and tasted some of them but for once their taste does not ensnare me. Too sweet, too cloying!
Again and again I ask myself the question, ‘What should I do?’ and get no answer. An equally nice university bedroom and study awaits me in Chungking. Jump on the next boat – I’ve already cancelled two reservations – or hang on here, to the last moment, hoping that a letter might appear from my wife at the post office?
I decide there is only one place to be on Wuhan’s last day. The Bund. The throbbing, inexhaustible, magical Bund. There I will make my decision. (And besides, I’m due to meet a friend there at midday.)
I climb back up to my apartment and gather my few belongings in a small suitcase, say farewell to the halls of my university, scuttle down to the ferry. The never-ending, ever-bustling ferries. How will their crews fare under the Japanese? With two robust hoots we set sail upon the black waters of the Yangtze, lights from either bank reflecting and bouncing up into my eyes.
We seem like a fragile saucer afloat on its vast, turmoiling energies and currents.
It is no easy matter leaving Wuhan. Why? A dirty, blackened industrial city filled with corrupt politicians and wretched bankers. But, in my time here…
I cry. Then stop when I see a fellow passenger look at me curiously.
I have never lived in such a place. The change, the constant flux. The joy – yes indeed, the exultation of living here. Not even the streets of Beijing when I was a penniless urchin nor the streets of London when I was a penniless scholar have given me such excitement as the wild streets of wild Wuhan. Round every corner lurks a new idea, a new invention, a new adventure waiting to attack you. Where the least likely thing to happen to you on earth will invariably happen to you sometime within the next six seconds.
I mean, who on earth would choose to live in London under the leaden spirit of Neville Chamberlain? In Europe under Daladier, Hitler, Mussolini or Franco? In the United States, with its squalor and corruption and gangsters? Who would leave this Chinese Athens or Florence or Manchester? A single precious beacon of light in a lightless world.
I really must stop being so enthusiastic. This is a terrible time, I face a terrible dilemma. Death is indeed everywhere here in Wuhan… But life is even more terrifyingly and extraordinarily alive here!
Somehow or other I, an artist, someday, am going to have – should I live – to distill, recreate this spirit, this fire, this insanity. Not just what is happening here but throughout China. Flattened under a century of civil war and foreign invasion, but once again its corpse, as so often before in history, is rising from its grave. How can I create art to match, to celebrate, immortalize this moment we have together lived through?
Just at this moment, suddenly, all the lights of Wuhan go out. We are pitched into deepest darkness.
How Wuhan!
Our ferry approaches the Bund, its lights illuminating a chaos and frenzy of escaping refugees.
There is no place like it.
21
Freda Utley and Agnes left first thing in the morning, Freda to catch the ferry to Shanghai – foreign nationals were still allowed to travel through Japanese-occupied China – and Agnes to catch the ferry to Wuchang, where she would commence her journey southwards.
Agnes said farewell to Donald and Hu and The Drab – insofar as you could say goodbye to The Drab – and lastly to Spider Girl.
Both being practical women their conversation was brief and to the point.
‘You don’t want any money?’
‘No. You need it yourself.’
‘If I was to give the money to The Drab?’
‘She would not know what to do with it.’
‘Look after yourself, Spider Girl.’
‘You too, Agnes. You do not take care of yourself nearly enough. You eat too much rice. Eat more vegetables – ones which will cleanse you, ones which will nourish you.’
‘Thank you, Spider Girl,’ said Agnes, ‘that is very helpful.’ (Though she didn’t have the least intention of doing it – she couldn’t wait to get back on the iron rations of a route march.) ‘You would make an excellent trade union negotiator,’ she added.
‘What’s a trade union?’
‘Stop stealing cheap detective novels from booksellers and start stealing socialist pamphlets.’
Agnes went. Everyone else (except The Drab) then travelled together to the aerodrome to wish Donald and Bob McClure a fond farewell. Before Spider Girl left Donald gave Wei a strong dose of opium. He also reassured Spider Girl that she was doing the best she could for him.
They drove in the ambulance that the Chinese Laundryman’s Association of New York had presented to the Chinese people. The sombreness and quietness of the vehicle reminded Spider Girl of the special carts she used to sit in when the family were going to a funeral. Spider Girl still did not know how they would get out of Wuhan, but she refused to allow herself to feel down to ensure she would be alert enough to exploit any opportunity to escape.
At the aerodrome they climbed out. A cold and misty morning. The savage clump of artillery shells fell quite close. There were bomb craters the length of the runw
ay but an adventurous pilot could still wind his way around them as he took off.
Bob’s and most of Donald’s baggage had been sent ahead by steamer. Donald still clutched his surgeon’s portmanteau. He was harbouring a hangover and was minus his bow tie, which had unfortunately parted company with him during last night’s bacchanal.
They looked dumbly at each other – all except for Donald, who looked at the ground as he was ashamed of last night’s drunkenness.
‘Remember, Hu,’ said Bob, ‘there will always be a place for you in any hospital I or Donald work in.’
‘Here, here,’ mumbled Donald.
‘If you come to Chungking, look us up.’
‘I will,’ said Hu.
At last Donald looked up at Spider Girl.
‘And if you want work, there’ll always be a place for you as my housekeeper and helper, and plenty of space for your father, if he is…’
‘Thank you, Donald,’ said Spider Girl, looking at him, ‘that is very kind of you. We will try to get there.’
Donald looked in his surgeon’s bag.
‘Spider Girl,’ he said, ‘thing is, I’ve got something for you.’
He took out a small empty bottle and a larger one filled with red liquid, then placed the portmanteau back on the ground.
‘Been a bit short of money recently. Haven’t we all? But there’s this new really good anti-bacterial drug on the market. Antiseptic sulfonamide. It releases a process of bioactivation inside the body, especially against streptococci infections. I didn’t have the money but I telegraphed my rugger chums in Wiltshire – decent chaps, all farmers – and they held a whip-round at the local pub and airmailed it to me.’
Spider Girl looked at him.
‘Thing is,’ he continued, ‘I can’t give you all of it. I must take it to Chungking for the many patients who will need it there.’
He started to carefully decant a small amount of the liquid into the small bottle.
‘And, Spider Girl,’ he said looking directly at her, ‘it will not save your father’s life. The infection, and other infections, are too deep set into him.’
Spider Girl looked at him.
‘But he will revive for a short while. You must give him three drops through the rubber bicycle valve into his chest three times a day. Here you are.’
He handed her the small bottle. She continued to look straight at him.
‘Thank you, Donald,’ she said. ‘You are a noble soul. Please thank your friends in England for this wonderful gift. I understand entirely why you can only give me some of it. It is noble that you will use it to save all sorts of other peoples’ lives.’
Silence.
The aircraft was getting ready for take-off.
‘And I’ve got something for you, Donald,’ said Spider Girl. She took from her pocket his bow tie. She’d rescued it from the floor of the Last Ditch Club as she left. Never had it been so astoundingly laundered, so skilfully ironed, so lovingly folded. Its colours gleamed and glowed. It had blossomed.
‘My lucky mascot,’ murmured Donald. ‘Well done, old girl.’
Spider Girl stepped forwards and tied it around his neck as a military general might pin a medal on a gallant soldier.
Donald touched her arm.
‘Thank you, Donald,’ said Spider Girl.
The pilots were starting the aircraft’s engines. Time to leave.
Donald and Bob turned towards the plane.
It was at this moment that everything changed.
A bicycle courier (they must have passed him on their drive out to the aerodrome) puffed up with a message for Dr Robert McClure. He started waving it, shouting ‘Dr McClure, message for Dr McClure.’
Bob indicated who he was. The messenger brought the telegram towards him. This interested Spider Girl. She asked Hu to translate for her what was being said.
Bob read the telegram.
‘Damn,’ he said. Then, as a pious Methodist, corrected himself. ‘Jumping Jehoshaphat!’
‘What is it, Bob?’ asked Donald, slightly alarmed.
Hu and Spider Girl leant in to listen.
‘That iron lung we ordered from America. It should have gone straight to Chungking. Instead it’s just been delivered to the hospital workshop. They want to know what to do with it.’
Bob signalled to the pilot of the plane to hold on.
Donald and Bob stared at each other.
‘We can’t let it fall into the hands of the Japanese,’ said Donald.
‘If they could get it down to the Bund,’ said Bob, ‘there’s a warehouse there for emergency freight. But there’s only two of them at the workshop and one of them’s just leaving.’
‘I suppose it should be destroyed.’
Spider Girl’s eyes glinted. She stepped forwards.
‘Is the donkey and cart that brought it to the workshop still there?’
‘Must be,’ replied Bob. ‘They won’t unload it til they hear from us.’
‘If me and Hu take it from the hospital to the warehouse, can we keep the donkey and cart?’
‘The hospital won’t have any further use for them. Why not?’
‘We’ll do it.’
After that it was only a matter of seconds while Bob scribbled instructions to the workshop staff, the address of the warehouse for Spider Girl and Wei, and a brief letter to the warehouse staff emphasizing to them the importance that the iron lung reached Chungking.
The airport staff were meanwhile frantically trying to herd Donald and Bob towards the plane, whose engines were roaring.
They went.
They leapt into the plane.
Spider Girl and Hu waved wildly.
The greatly overloaded aeroplane wobbled and staggered on a zigzag course down the runway, finally lurching into the air and almost immediately disappearing into the mist.
Spider Girl turned to Hu.
‘We’ll get the ambulance to drop us off at the hospital workshop.’
*
By midday it’s turned into quite a nice day in Wuhan. The mist has lifted from the river and the swallows, zithering joyfully across the waters, do their final dances and pirouettes and death dives before heading off south for the winter.
I’ve paid my daily visit to the central post office to see if there is any post from my wife. Nothing.
In the river the imperial warships hold their usual smart line in the water, each with the flag of their respective nation painted on their deck so the Japanese hopefully do not bomb them. Past them hurry some of the last ships of the evacuation – jam-packed with families and soldiers, merchandise and heavy machinery.
Within hours Japanese warships will slip silently between the foreign warships, their wakes jostling and unsettling them, the new menace succeeding the old.
I sit outside a tea house on the Bund, smoking a cigarette and sipping my tea.
I see him coming from a distance, surprisingly light on his feet for such a heavy man.
‘Lao She!’
‘Feng Yuxiang!’
He is wearing his customary peasant clothes.
‘How are you?’
‘Alive.’
‘Not many people can say that these days.’
It is really good to see him. He radiates bon courage.
‘The wife sends her regards. She’s in Chungking, setting up new schools.’
‘Good for her.’
He orders tea and sits down. Looks about.
‘You know the people who’ve done really well out of this war?’
‘Japanese, American arms manufacturers?’
‘No. Coolies. The Bund’s still swarming with them. I mean look at them. How well they’re dressed compared to the wretches they used to be. Strong, expensive fabrics, solid sandals. See that line of women over there, queuing for the boat?’
He points over to a line of quite prosperous-looking young women, some with babies and infant children.
‘Yes?’
‘I went up and talked
to them. Know who they are?’
‘Young bourgeois?’
He laughs.
‘Coolies’ wives. The wretches are doing so well they can even afford wives. And to dress them.’
‘That’s progress, comrade.’
We laugh.
‘How’s the war going?’ I ask.
‘Not the person to ask. I’m totally excluded from any sort of access to high command or decision-making. As are Generals Bai Chongxi and Li Zongren. They served their purpose, holding the Japanese at Taierzhuang, and afterwards they were immediately demoted. So they can’t in any way threaten our great Generalissimo.’
I look swiftly around but can see no men with glasses or without glasses trying to listen in on our conversation. People are too disturbed and in a hurry to linger over their teas.
‘Our leader is again promoting mediocrities?’
‘Makes him feel safe. And at least we achieved our objectives. To check the Japanese. Give them a bloody nose. So in future they treat us with more respect, caution. Taierzhuang gave us the time to withdraw in good order, move our factories and steel mills upstream, rebuild them and modernize and expand them where they are safe, where our people are safe. Our leaders had little to do with it. Our people had everything to do with it.’
His tea arrives. He smells it and congratulates the tea boy just to encourage him. Tomorrow he will be serving Japanese officers. Or dead.
‘Sorry I missed your great open-air play,’ says Feng. ‘I was in Chungking. But I’m sure it was adequately appalling.’
We both smile mordantly.
‘You’re probably the bastard who recommended I write it.’
He ignores this.
‘Everyone thinks you’ve made a great success of your teaching. Our country is now filled with patriotic actors persuading the ordinary folk to rise up and murder the enemy.’
‘Someday I will write decent novels again.’
‘Someday we will all do good things again.’
‘You think so? Chiang Kai-shek doesn’t seem at all eager to win this war.’
‘We all know that the man has an aversion to competent generals. We retreat to the south-west and other mountain fastnesses and then wait it out until stronger countries defeat the Axis powers.’
Wuhan Page 70
