by Virginia Pye
“An order has come from the American legation in Peking. They are all leaving, sir.”
“What’s that?” Caleb asked, though he had heard the boy.
“Your family and the others will start their journey back to America today,” Han shouted to be heard above the sound of the rain. “They will travel by train across the north to Peking, then down to Shanghai, where they will leave on a Swedish ship, the Gripsholm. They are fortunate to have booked passage. Some foreigners are not so lucky.”
The rain continued, loud and insistent and pure. Caleb wished he could listen to it and keep daydreaming. He had imagined a reunion at the mission, his family amazed by the miracle of his return. But now his family was leaving China for good without him. Han had brought word.
“Ah,” Caleb finally said.
“You are not surprised by this news, are you?” Han asked. “This is what you wanted, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is. Of course.”
“The Japanese front continues to expand, but we are ready. Our leaders say the whole country must fight against them together.”
“That’s a good plan.”
But Han did not appear convinced by Caleb’s reply and repeated, “Your family, Reverend, must leave quickly to escape. No one will be spared. You understand?”
“So it must be.”
But in his heart, Caleb longed for more time. For the rains to have held off longer. For his legs to have regained more strength. For the searing pain in his back to not cripple every part of him, even his mind. He understood it would be impossible for him to join them after they had left the mission. He would never make it to Shanghai to board the same ship. Later though, he would travel alone across dangerous territory and eventually make his own passage to America. But he could not possibly make that journey by himself, when still so fragile and the conditions so harrowing. His mind went white with confusion and doubt as he realized he would never get home.
“Thank you for telling me,” he made himself say. “I pray they make it out without incident. With all my heart, I pray for that.”
Caleb felt tears leave his eyes again and roll down his cheeks. He could not bear his own selfishness. That any part of him wished they would stay for his sake was wrong, and he knew it. He cried at his feebleness of spirit. He was a flawed man who had given up caring that he opened like a faucet, the tears pouring from him as naturally as the rain outside. He could not bear his own company any longer.
He began a prayer in his mind that his beloved wife and son be escorted away from him and into a new life. They must leave this hard and disastrous land and return to America, where everything was easier. They deserved to be free of China and of his tired, broken bones. How could he have imagined burdening them with his wounded self? If they were to make it out alive, they did not need to be toting along a cripple who would only impede their progress. They needed to go on without him. That was only right.
“It is good,” he said more firmly.
The boy crouched closer and nodded. “Yes, very good.”
Then Han stood and bowed and left Caleb’s side.
Part Three
Twenty
Captain Hsu had brought only one mule, not an ancient one but not a sprightly one, either. He climbed on first, then offered a hand up to Shirley. She pulled herself onto the animal’s back, more awkwardly than she had hoped, her skirt and linen riding coat tangling in her legs before she finally settled into position.
“You will fall sitting that way,” he said.
“This is how we do it at Vassar. We call it sidesaddle.”
“Traditional Chinese ladies sit that way, too. You need trousers instead. How can a woman carry a pistol in her belt or hop onto a horse at a moment’s notice in such a frilly outfit?”
“My outfit isn’t frilly,” she said and smoothed her skirt. “And besides, I hope to never do such things.”
“In China, everyone should have these skills.”
He kicked the mule with his heels, and Shirley grabbed his belt as they lurched forward. In trousers, she could have dug into the animal’s sides with her legs to stabilize herself. And she had to admit, he was right that learning to shoot a rifle or hop on horseback or even do occasional manual labor would be good for any woman’s character—and perhaps hers in particular.
They headed out of town on rocky paths through the fields to the east. A cool breeze, bearing the first hint of autumn, came steadily from across the plains. She wrapped her riding coat around her and wondered if the damp air meant the possibility of rain, though no clouds obscured the moon as it rose over the distant mountains receding behind them to the west. The mule seemed to know the way over the terrain, the rhythm of its steps steady even in the dark. Shirley and Captain Hsu did not speak. The sky overhead was blacker than any she had ever seen before, and more filled with stars. Shirley shivered and couldn’t help wrapping her arms more tightly around him as they pressed on.
After some time, they reached a butte surrounded by a tangle of rock outcroppings. The mule wove up the narrow trail until they came upon a hidden enclave of tents that, to Shirley’s surprise, reminded her of the summer camp on Lake Erie she had attended as a girl. Several large, open-sided structures defined the perimeter, with smaller makeshift canvas ones dotted all around. Captain Hsu stopped the mule and called out. A young soldier trotted over and offered a quick bow, but when he lifted his lantern and noticed her seated behind the captain, the boy let out a giggle.
“Help Nurse Carson,” Hsu instructed him. Then, in English, he said to Shirley, “These country boys have never seen a white person before, and certainly not a lady.”
Shirley let the young soldier take her hand and did her best to slip down gracefully. Captain Hsu headed directly into the camp, and she had to hurry to keep up. They entered an area where some injured soldiers had been placed in rows, their feet facing a low-burning bonfire. A few were wrapped in thin blankets, but many lay directly on the rocky ground.
Shirley hurried to join Captain Hsu, who stood now with a group of officers. They hardly acknowledged her but seemed concerned with some important business. When Captain Hsu finally introduced her to the men, she bowed low and listened attentively for their names, some of which struck her as familiar. Several were among the Red leaders who had brought men, and even some women, all the way across the vast country in a mass military exodus. She had no doubt that her husband, and those who had joined their cause along the way in the Long March, admired these thin and ragged-looking men before her and considered them brilliant strategists and brave heroes.
Captain Hsu motioned her to follow, and they wove through an outdoor clinic area where several more injured lay on cots. While their condition appeared stable, and not requiring urgent care, no one was attending to them. A good many of the soldiers seemed in need of proper clothing. Some wore no shoes, and to Shirley, their cut and swollen feet were the saddest sight of all. Captain Hsu stopped just outside a tent and nodded for her to enter.
“What’s this about?” she asked. “Where are you sending me?”
“He wishes to see you.”
“Who?”
“Our leader.”
“I see,” she said and looked back at the rows of injured soldiers. “I’m honored to meet him but would much prefer to help as a nurse. Couldn’t I do that instead?”
“No. You will see him now.”
“But won’t you come with me?” she asked. “I would feel more comfortable if you did.”
Shirley searched for something in Captain Hsu’s far-off expression. Was she right to think that he, too, considered her his charge and wanted to keep watch over her? To her surprise in that moment, his hand reached out and awkwardly brushed a stray curl off her forehead. He had never done anything so forward before, nor so gentle and kind.
“You will be all right,” he said. “Everyone knows that you are the brave Nurse Carson.”
A high, thin laugh escaped her lips. “Everyone except yo
u. To you, I will always be a frivolous American woman.”
His even gaze met hers, their eyes perfectly aligned, and she thought she saw a glimmer of warmth she had not seen before. “I do not praise you, if that is what you mean. But you have worked hard.”
Shirley let the glow of his words wash over her. All her life, men had complimented her on her appearance or her cleverness, but she never valued their praise half as much as Captain Hsu’s stingy assessment now.
“All right, Captain, I’ll do as you say.”
“Good,” he said and held open the flap of the tent for her to enter.
In the dimness, Shirley did not notice the soldiers at attention just inside the door until one gestured for her to continue deeper into the shadowy room. She stepped around books stacked high on the threadbare Chinese carpet. On a rickety table lay maps and more piles of books. A young soldier poured tea from an earthenware pot. Shirley thought she was alone with the soldiers and wondered if she would have to wait long for Captain Hsu’s leader. But as her eyes adjusted, she saw a reclining figure stretched out on a military cot tucked against the sloping back wall of the tent. A crackling red burst of light came as the reclining person lit a pipe.
“Please sit, Mrs. Carson. Thank you for coming to this remote camp.”
She bowed but could not tell if he was even turned in her direction. His English was good, she noticed, though mostly she felt distracted by his peculiarly high voice. It had the reedy timbre of a young woman’s. She looked about for a chair, but, not finding one, decided to kneel on the thin carpet instead. She spread her skirt over her legs and hoped that seemed respectful.
“What can you tell me about the noninterventionist movement in America?” he asked. “Do they hold much sway?” His pipe glowed again.
Shirley cleared her throat. “I know very little about politics, sir. My husband was more informed and involved than I am.”
“We have reports that students are starting to rally on campuses, calling themselves America First.”
“I’m afraid I never bothered with the news,” she said. For a long moment, he did not reply, and she waited for him to ask something else, but when he didn’t and went back to puffing on his pipe, she ventured to continue. “I believe, though, that if Americans had any idea what was going on here, they’d want to put a stop to the Japanese atrocities immediately.”
He sat up, his high forehead catching the lamplight. She recognized his distinct profile from the papers. “You think so?” he asked.
“Absolutely. We have never cottoned to dictators. We can’t abide countries marching in and oppressing their neighbors.”
Still in shadow, the leader of the Reds reached for his cup and slurped from it. Then he let out a delicate belch.
His high voice cut through her thoughts again. “I understand that you are a nurse.”
Shirley pulled back her shoulders and prepared for the real reason for her visit. “I have been honored to care for the people of my province and the good men who serve in the Red Army. They are fine boys, not educated, perhaps a bit simple,” she said, and immediately regretted it, “but brave. Very brave. I’m sure you are exceedingly proud.”
She could hear him bite down on his pipe stem and belch softly again.
“Now that I have seen the conditions closer to the front, I am prepared to help here as well, if it is needed,” she said. “I hate to see patients go uncared for.”
He stood. Shirley blinked in the dim light but felt quite certain that she was looking at his pudgy bare feet on the old rug. His pant legs were frayed, and he wore no uniform, just dark pants and shirt, like a shopkeeper in a poor provincial town.
“Help if you are asked to,” he said, “but I do not think you are needed here.” Then he bowed. “Thank you for coming, and good evening, Mrs. Carson.”
She rose to her feet, too, and realized she was supposed to bow now, but she couldn’t help feeling that nothing of significance had been said between them. “Is there anything else I can offer you or your men?”
“It is an embarrassing problem,” he began as he stepped out of the shadows and set his pipe and cup on the table, “but I seem to have developed indigestion. No one must know that I would consider a Western remedy for my discomfort, but any suggestion you make is appreciated. We will keep it just between us.”
This couldn’t be the reason he had called her here, she thought.
“You have advice for me, Mrs. Carson?” he asked again.
“I’m sorry you’re uncomfortable, sir. I don’t suppose you can get your hands on antacid tablets?” she asked. “Plain baking soda would do. Sodium bicarbonate. Do you know it?”
He shook his head and poked out his bottom lip. “Not much is available here.”
“Then the best solution is the old Chinese one. Ginger, finely chopped and taken in a cup of tea.”
He clapped his hands. “Excellent. That remedy does me little good, but at least there is nothing better.”
Shirley refrained from contradicting him. “But there must be something else I can help you with?”
He lifted a book from the table and began to leaf through it. “No, I don’t think so. I assume you are going back to America soon?” he asked.
Shirley paused before answering. She had promised her son earlier in the evening that she would depart with him and the others when they left the mission for Shanghai. That plan remained her intention, but seeing the injured boys at this Red Army camp, not to mention having in mind those who might still arrive at her own clinic, made her waver yet again in her decision.
“That is my plan,” she said. “But, to be honest, I’ve come to find the work deeply rewarding. I do still wonder if I can be of assistance here in North China, perhaps to continue my success at the clinic?” Her voice rose into a question, the pleading, unsure tone hard to mask. She wanted him to decide for her, this leader of the Reds so accustomed to issuing orders. But his nose remained buried in a book, and she wasn’t sure he had even heard her.
“No,” he suddenly said and slammed the book closed. “Absolutely not. You must go back to America right away.”
Shirley took a step back. “I must, sir?”
“Stop calling me ‘sir,’” he practically shouted. “Say ‘comrade.’ That is what we are. Comrades. Do you understand the difference?”
For the first time, she felt frightened by the force of the man.
“You must go back to your people in America,” he said and started to pace. “Visit your churches, and neighbors, and politicians. Tell them not to listen to the noninterventionists. Tell them we need America here and on our side. Now! Do you understand?”
Shirley nodded.
“You can do much more there than here,” he said. “Now, go.”
Shirley tried to compose herself. Whenever she had pictured herself stateside, she saw her stultifying childhood home in Cleveland, pointless lunches with her mother and her friends at the country club, or shopping with Kathryn and her mother at dull department stores. Going home meant a certain death of spirit, she was sure. But this Red leader was offering an altogether different vision of her future that seemed difficult to fathom.
“I’m not sure I understand,” she said.
“You are an upper-class lady,” he said. “You do not belong in the midst of all this. A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery! It is work.” His voice remained jarring and loud and commanding. “Those superficial pastimes are all you know how to do, am I right?” he asked. “Not this.”
She gathered up her courage and said, “Well, I am a trained nurse, you know. And proud of it now.”
“All right, then, be a nurse. But in America, not here,” he said. “First, though, go to your university president, your bank-owner friends, your fat-cat acquaintances. Raise money, and send it to us!” He rose onto the balls of his bare feet on the carpet. “Why are you here when you could be doing so much more for us there? Go!”
he shouted. “Go back to America. You have a job to do!”
Her hand trembled as she brushed back hair from her brow. “Yes, of course, you’re right, sir. Awfully right,” she added, “I mean comrade.”
He shook his head and said in a more measured tone, “Good evening, Mrs. Carson. Now, off you go.” He waved her toward the door, snatched another book from the table, and threw his heavy frame down onto the cot.
She backed away but stumbled over a stack of books and then another. “I’m so sorry,” she mumbled and knelt down to put them back in order.
“Leave them,” he barked from the shadows. “I am finished with those, anyway. I have read them already.”
Shirley stood and glanced around at the hundreds of volumes in piles all around her. “You have read all of these?” she couldn’t help asking. “That’s remarkable.”
He let out a pleased chuckle. “Yes, it has been a productive summer. Earlier, we had skirmishes with the Japanese Imperial Army and won over the people by fighting an enemy they despise.” His voice softened even more, as if they were old friends. “But of course, Mrs. Carson, the many wounded and dead Red Army soldiers seem a tragedy to you.” He sucked air between his teeth and offered an apologetic sigh. “Yet it cannot be helped. We have let the Nationalists take over the battle with the Japanese, and they lose ten times more men than we do while we sit tight here in the North. But soon enough, we will reengage according to a new policy.” He cleared his throat and raised the book into the air as if it could light the way forward. “I will declare that Chinese do not fight Chinese! We will act as a true United Front, not just in name. Together we will rid our country of the dwarf barbarians. Peasants and landlords must fight side by side to throw off the imperialist yoke!”
He fanned himself with the book. “But in this miserable heat, my men learn to read and write and train to be better soldiers. An army without culture is a dull-witted army, and a dull-witted army cannot defeat the enemy. So we farm a little. We raise goats. And I read in order to become a more educated man. All in all, a most satisfying summer.”
