“We are the Chinese Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army!” chanted a chorus of voices, and Liang joined in eagerly as the shouted response was repeated over and over again in time with the jog-trotting pace of the troops.
A flash of lightning rent the darkness and for an instant Liang saw most of the men of the Third Company zigzagging upward along the narrow path, running in single file toward a high bluff that overhung the river. The white towels hanging from their packs shimmered in the glare, and among the infantrymen, Liang spotted a mounted officer battling to control a horse that had become terrified by the storm. The lightning also reflected for a fleeting moment on the steel helmets of half a dozen enemy troops crouching behind a sandbagged rampart near the top of the bluff. Before the darkness swallowed them again, Liang saw two or three of them rise up, swinging their arms stiffly above their heads in the familiar bowling action of trained Kuomintang grenade throwers.
“Watch out — grenades!”
Liang yelled his frantic warning, unslung his rifle, and dived for the cover of a shoulder of rock jutting from the cliff. Because they were closer beneath the overhanging bluff, the company vanguard had not seen the enemy strongpoint in the darkness and they were caught unawares as the grenades exploded among them. Violent orange flashes lit the night and the shouts of the wounded and dying rose above the terrified neighing of a horse and the rattle of machinegun fire that followed.
When a new lightning flash illuminated the top of the bluff, Liang raised his rifle and fired twice at the Kuomintang machine gunner. But the range was too great and in the next interval of darkness he slipped nut from behind the boulder, fixed his bayonet, and raced forward, bent double, up the slippery track, holding his rifle in front of him. The body of the officer’s dead horse lying across the path brought him crashing to his knees; its rider, who was still trapped beneath it, let out a grunt of pain as Liang fell heavily against him. Struggling to his feet, Liang pulled the officer clear of the dead animal and together they flattened themselves against the foot of the rock. Thunder continued to crash through the heavens overhead and with each flash of lightning the machine gunner on the bluff swept the track with a fresh burst of fire.
“Are you hurt, Commander?” asked Liang, his chest heaving.
“I don’t think so, comrade.” Lu Chiao massaged his right thigh furiously as they lay side by side in the mud, their heads pressed to the ground. “But my right leg’s numb from the weight of that brute.”
“Somebody’s got to climb the cliff and get around behind the machine gun, Commander,” said Liang, screwing up his eyes against the driving rain. “I’m willing to try.”
Chiao raised his head: scrub and brambles jutted from crevices in the sheer cliff face above them and the wet rock gleamed black in the glare of the lightning. “You’ll have to climb like a mountain goat, comrade!” Chiao waited for the next flash of lightning to pass, then slapped Liang on the shoulder. “Go, now!”
Liang leapt to his feet and began hauling himself upward by his hands, seizing the bushes and searching blindly with his feet for foothold crevices in the rock. When the next fork of lightning split the sky, Chiao was surprised to see that Liang had scrambled fifty or sixty feet up the cliff and had begun edging toward the top of the bluff. The Kuomintang machine gunner noticed him in the same moment and began raking the cliff with long bursts of fire.
Unable to see Liang in the intervals of darkness, Chiao held his breath. Another flash of light on the mountainside picked out the former cook boy moving in a crouch along the top of the ridge; his rifle hung loose in his left hand while with his right he unfastened the pouches on his belt. Then Chiao heard two grenades explode inside the sandbagged emplacement in quick succession and the stutter of the machine gun died away. In another blaze of lightning, Liang leapt onto what was left of the parapet, thrusting his naked bayonet threateningly downward, and when Chiao scrambled up to the strongpoint, he found Liang still pointing his rifle at two prisoners who were stretched out face down in the mud. The bodies of four other Nationalist soldiers lay still among the twisted metal of the wrecked machine gun, and after checking that they were dead, Chiao called up two other men of his company to bind the prisoners and
take them away. Then he picked up a flickering hurricane lamp from a niche in the sandbags and turned back to the cook boy.
“What’s your family name, comrade?”
“Liang, Commander.”
“You’re a brave fighter, Comrade Liang. You acted with great courage. How long have you served in the Red Army?”
“Eight weeks, Commander.”
“But you have the speech of a man of Hunan.”
“Yes, Commander. Before I was cook boy to your foreign prisoner. I carried his infant daughter in my baskets. I followed the Red Army all the way from Chentai to Kweichow. During that time I saw many Kuomintang prisoners change sides and put on your uniform. .
Liang hesitated, dropping his eyes for a moment. “After the foreign prisoner’s baby died I volunteered to join the Red Army. My two sons who came with me have become Hung Hsiao Kuei — ‘Little Red Devils.’
In the glow of the hurricane lamp, Chiao looked hard at Liang’s strong peasant face: he had lost his cap in action and the rain had. plastered his hair flat against his skull. Despite the arduousness of his climb and the exertion of the single-handed attack on the strong- point, he had already regained his breath. His manner was respectful but he looked calmly back at Chiao with steady eyes.
“You may have been a cook boy, Comrade Liang, but you’ve learned to fight somewhere.”
Liang nodded. “I served two years in the Chentai militia.”
“And what made you want to join the Red Army?”
“I’ve seen you confiscate land many times from the t’u bao, and return it to the families they stole it from,” answered Liang quietly, using the Communist term of abuse for despotic landlords. “The t’u bao stole my family’s land. One day I hope the Red Army will help me get it back.”
“The Red Army will confiscate the land of the t’u bao everywhere one day, Comrade Liang. All land will eventually be restored to its rightful owners, even in Chentai, But now we’re fighting for our lives. We need thirty brave volunteers to seize the Luting bridge. It will be very hazardous. Do you wish to volunteer?”
“Yes, Commander,” said Liang without hesitation. “I’ll volunteer.”
The Sudden drum of hooves on the cliff path made both men turn and they watched a messenger from the Army Group Headquarters rein in a big black horse covered in lather. Jumping from the saddle, he pulled a sealed envelope from a leather satchel at his waist and hurried over to Chiao.
“I bring new orders from the Revolutionary Military Commission, Commander,” said the messenger and thrust the package into Chiao’s hands. Without waiting for a response, he ran back to his horse, swung up into the saddle, and spurred the animal back down the track the way he had come.
Chiao lifted the hurricane lamp to read the order, then looked at Liang again. “Our mission has become even more hazardous, comrade. Enemy forces are racing up from the south along the far bank of the river. We must double our speed and attack the bridge at dawn thirty hours from now.” He smiled ruefully. “We still have two hundred forty li to go. We must cover two days’ march in one.”
3
Strung out over many miles along the forested heights above the Tatu, the Central Red Army rushed headlong toward Luting throughout the second night of their forced march, stopping neither to eat nor sleep. Ambulance carts, baggage animals, mortars, and other heavy weapons were left trundling far behind in the care of slow-moving caretaker platoons, while troops in the vanguard corn- panics, faced with the task of covering eighty miles in twenty-four hours, dumped their packs and their ration bags at the side of the mountain trail and ran on more rapidly, carrying only rifles and ammunition pouches. The news that invisible Kuomintang regiments were racing northward somewhere on the far bank dropped a blanket
of silence over the marchers, and only the tortured breathing of men and animals sounded in the smoky darkness as they pressed on rapidly over the precipitous trails, carrying a few blazing reed torches to light their way.
In the middle of the serpentine column the army and Party leaders had also dismounted to hurry forward on foot in front of the bodyguards who were leading their horses to the rear of the General Headquarters column Lu Mei-ling was hastening ahead of her own mule, turning frequently to cast an anxious glance at the animal and her female orderly who was leading it. In the slippery mud of the narrow track the mule stumbled frequently, its hooves sometimes sending a shower of stones scudding noisily down the sheer drop into the river. Whenever the pannier basket on its back was jolted or shaken, a whimpering sound came from inside, but the woman orderly, without turning, made consoling noises over her shoulder as she plodded on.
“Although you’re no longer Hua Fu’s close companion, comrade, you don’t seem to stray far on the march from the child you bore him.”
Mei-Iing recognized the friendly voice of Chou En-lai even before she made out his shadowy features; standing in the gloom with his back to the cliff, he had been staring across the river into the darkness on the far bank and as she passed he fell into step beside her.
“Am I right?”
Although there was no mistaking the warmth of Chou’s interest, the directness of his question took her aback. Bending her head, she fixed her eyes on the muddy track before her as she struggled to frame her reply.
“There’s no need to think of him as the child’s father any longer, Commissioner Chou,” she said at last, speaking with quiet deliberation. “A woman’s emotions can sometimes lead her in the wrong direction for a time — but I want you to know that my enthusiasm for the revolution still comes first.”
“Your loyalty to the revolution has never been in question, Mei-ling,” said Chou reassuringly. “Perhaps in some ways you’ve even been too dutiful.”
“Leading a mule through the western mountains with such an infant on its back is a major revolution in itself — for someone from a privileged world of arranged marriages and self-sacrificing wives. But I didn’t plan things this way, Comrade Commissioner.”
Chou, born himself of a privileged mandarin family, grunted in a way that indicated his sympathy. While marching beside her he had been scanning the far cliff top intently: now he looked at her again and smiled. “You’re right. You already have much to be proud of. Giving women more freedom is an important part of breaking the chains of the past. You are among a handful of pathfinders. . . .
Your work for me and the Military Commission has already shown great imagination and dedication. . .
“I might have been more farsighted,” said Mei-Iing ruefully.
“You gave up a life of ease and you’ve endured the hardships of the soviet areas and this march with courage as great as any man’s. No one woman can break through all the barriers overnight.”
“Perhaps the trouble is that women in China have suffered too long from bound minds as well as bound feet. I think the bindings will have to be unraveled with great care. Many old traditions need to be discarded — but traditions should not be confused with those aspects of a woman’s nature that are eternal and precious.”
Chou looked hard at her. “You express your feelings well, comrade. Perhaps you should write down your thoughts for the benefit of others. There will be a great need to help explain the sweeping changes taking place in China.”
“I keep a journal almost every day when we stop to rest.” Mei-ling smiled for the first time. “I intend one day to write something of all I’ve seen and experienced . .
The commissioner nodded distractedly. He had halted suddenly in the middle of the track and Mei-ling saw that he was staring again into the darkness across the river. The Tatu was narrowing between its high rock cliffs, and following his gaze she caught sight of a line of flaming torches on the far bank, closing toward the ravine edge.
“They can’t possibly be men of our First Division,” whispered Mei-ling. “We had radio messages from the First two hours ago, remember, Commissioner? They’ve been blocked forty li down- river.”
“Then that must be one of the Kuomintang regiments racing us to Luting,” said Chou grimly.
Mei-ling glanced ahead and saw that the course of the Tatu continued to narrow. Although the river foamed some three hundred feet beneath them at the foot of the gorge, the trails along the cliff tops on either bank were converging to within a hundred yards of each other: soon the two armies would be close enough to be able to hail one another — or open fire.
“If a battle develops here it might be impossible for us to reach Luting in time,” said Chou in an anxious tone. “They’ll be close enough to identify us soon.”
“Bring up some Szechuan prisoners,” suggested Mei-ling quickly. “I’ll make the bugler identify us as their own men.”
“An excellent idea.” Chou instructed a messenger to hurry down the line to where the prisoners were marching and bring up several Szechuanese captives, including a company bugle boy. His hurried orders to march in total silence were passed along the entire column and while she strode on beside Chou En-lai, Mei—Iing watched the moving lights on the far bank grow steadily brighter.
More and more torches appeared in a lengthening chain as the troops marched closer to the rim of the ravine, and soon it was obvious that at least a regiment was on the move, marching rapidly toward Luting. The Kuomintang units had clearly assumed that the few torches they could see on the western bank belonged to allies, since they made no attempt at concealment. The sound of ragged singing became faintly audible, then a bugle sounded, it’s clear, high notes echoing across the gorge: a moment later a hoarse Szechuanese shout rang out.
“Which units are you, fellow footsloggers?”
Three Szechuanese prisoners who had been captured on the march from Anshunchang had been hustled up the track to Mei-ling’s side — two had their arms bound behind them and a third, a young bugler, had one arm free.
“Tell him to sound the answering call,” ordered Mei-ling and the guard commander jabbed his Mauser into the ribs of the bugler, holding it there until the unfamiliar call floated out across the river. Turning to one of the bound prisoners, Mei-ling spoke quietly beside his ear. “Shout the name of your own unit — and make it natural.”
“We are the Fourth Division of General Liu Wen-hui,” yelled the prisoner, feeling the Mauser pushed sharply against his back. “We’re heading for Luting to kill Red Bandits!”
After a brief pause the bugle on the far bank repeated its call in acknowledgment and the voice shouted back cheerily, “Good luck, Fourth Division — but leave some Red Bandits for us to kill!”
As the twin lines of troops hurried north side by side, Mei-ling looked down and saw the double row of torches glowing red in the turbulent waters of the Tatu below. For two hours the dancing reflections of the torchlight vied with one another on the surface of the river; then around midnight another storm broke. Lightning flashed and thunder rolled as new squalls of rain drove down onto the marchers. The storm gave way to heavy persistent rain and across the river Mei-Iing saw the line of fiery lights come to a halt.
“The enemy are making camp to rest,” she whispered urgently to Chou En-lai, who was still marching at her side. “This is our chance!”
Chou nodded; in a crisp voice he issued fresh orders to move on faster. The messengers at once set off up and down the column and the pace was stepped up. As the marchers hurried past her, Mei-ling took the bridle of her mule from the female orderly and checked and tightened the girths of the saddle pannier. When she was satisfied that the basket was secure, she turned and bent her slender shoulders once more to the task of dragging the mule on more quickly through the downpour toward Luting.
Running with the spearhead companies of the Second Division, who had pressed forward for a whole day and a night without rest, Liang felt himself growing lig
ht-headed with fatigue during the hours before dawn. Time and again on the narrow mountain tracks he stumbled into men more exhausted than himself who were falling asleep on their feet. “Keep going, comrade,” he yelled each time, pushing them bard from behind to waken them; then he ran on, searching in the darkness for the white towel on the next backpack ahead.
Once he saw a young soldier in front of him stagger like a sleepwalker for a few yards and pitch headlong over the edge of the track:
he disappeared soundlessly into the darkness and only a faint splash in the Tatu far below marked his disappearance. Seeking out Chiao, the horrified Liang suggested that every man should unwind the puttees from his legs, join them, and tie himself to his comrades in front and behind. Chiao gave the order at once and the vanguard troops hurried on, linked together in a long chain that helped those who faltered and jerked back to wakefulness any man among them who fell asleep.
Often the leading troops had to hack new paths through the thick underbrush of the forested mountainsides. Detours were forced when it was found that the trail had collapsed into the river on sheer cliff faces, and twice bridges over fast-rushing tributaries of the Tatu that the enemy had destroyed were rapidly rebuilt by engineer companies with trees felled from the forests. By the time the first pale signs of dawn relieved the darkness, the rains had stopped and thick mist wreathed the high trails. Moving quietly like insubstantial ghosts in the half-light, the Red Army men jogged down through a sleeping mountain hamlet where terraced potato fields blanketed with white flowers surrounded neat stone-walled houses: in the orchards the fruit trees were heavy with pink blossoms and through gaps in the mist the troops saw a massive range of snow—capped mountains rearing to the west, Then they plunged into a deep forest again and climbed a long, steep path to the top of a pine-covered crag. As they reached the crest the first low rays of the sun penetrated the mist and Liang caught a glimpse between the trees of the black iron chains of Luting far below. Strung in one giant skein between two ancient towers that flanked the gorge, they were swaying slowly in the wind, high above the river. In an awed silence the men of all the leading companies stopped and gazed down at the centuries-old bridge, their exhaustion momentarily forgotten.
Anthony Grey Page 36
