Anthony Grey

by Peking- A Novel of China's Revolution- 1921-1978 (epub)

  He had attempted at once to rededicate himself to a new discipline of regular worship but two days later, Judge Yang had appeared scowling beside him on his horse as they marched through Lolo territory. He announced baldly that Matthew Barlow had been killed by bandits on the Yunnan-Kweichow border. “They say a ‘goodwill offering’ of ten thousand dollars in silver was stolen by the bandits,” he barked contemptuously. “That would not have been sufficient in any event to secure your release.” The judge had flourished a paper and demanded angrily that Jakob sign what amounted to a prewritten letter of confession that lie was a spy and that the full three-hundred- thousand-dollar fine was therefore justified. The letter also invited him to admit that he had further incriminated himself by trying to escape from the Red Army’s custody — but Jakob, appalled by the news of Barlow’s death, turned away in a daze without responding and trudged on, ignoring the judge’s shouts. Whenever the Communist official approached him during rest stops, Jakob remained mute, immersed in his grief at the violent death of the heroic figure who had long ago inspired him to come to China.

  His faith in prayer faltered again and over the weeks that followed his sense of desolation grew. The loss of Abigail so soon after rediscovering her and his separation from Liang and his sons left him feeling more acutely isolated than before among the marching horde of Communist soldiery. Liang had ceased to serve him immediately after the burial in the sorghum field; the cook boy had not come to see him again and no explanation had been offered by his guards, who resumed their practice of giving him his food wordlessly.

  Then, a few days later, Jakob had caught sight of Liang in the distance. He still wore his faded blue cotton jacket and trousers at that time but his carrying pole was gone from his shoulder, gray puttees were wound around his calves, and he had tucked a broadsword through his belt. When Jakob saw him the next time he had added a grey cap with a red star to his garb and within a fortnight Liang was fully outfitted in a gray uniform, ammunition bandoliers, a bedroll, pack, and rifle. Soon after”° among the Hung Hsiao Kuei, the Little Red Devils, Jakob recognized Liang’s sons. Big Liang was toting a satchel of posters and a bucket of paste, racing around behind the propaganda squads, who still plastered every village they passed with slogans; Little Liang was assisting a medical orderly, carrying a box with a red cross on its side and doling out iodine and cotton bandages to lightly wounded troops. The cook boy and his sons never looked toward the group of prisoners nor attempted to acknowledge Jakob; wherever he spotted them, they were going eagerly about their tasks as though no thought of the past remained in their minds.

  Despite his distractedness, Jakob could not fail to notice that the impoverished peasants of the western provinces greeted the Red Army with the same eagerness and enthusiasm he had witnessed earlier — in each village they cheered as the troops and Little Red Devils painted and pasted up slogans announcing that the Red Army was the fighting force of the poor and oppressed. They lined up eagerly to receive grain and clothes confiscated from the houses of the rich and poured bitter recriminations on those officials and landowners marched away as prisoners. Stirred by the fiery speeches of political commissars who urged them to rise against the exploitation by the “local tyrants,” young volunteers flocked to replenish the Red Army’s depleted ranks in many villages along the route. Nationalist troops taken prisoner were also donning the Red Army uniform in increasing numbers and the cheerful courage with which veterans and newcomers alike endured battle wounds and the hardships of the march impressed Jakob anew. Although there were some desertions, the infectious spirit of the columns spread to most of the young soldiers, bearing them onward in a mood of nigh optimism, and the realization that his Christian missionary in China had never inspired such a dramatic response dispirited Jakob further.

  The furious pace of the trek along the ravines above the Tatu also took a fresh toll on his fading strength. He still suffering intermittent bouts of fever and his swollen, callused feet, protected only by cloth and straw sandals, suffered fresh lacerations with each new march. The raw wounds of his back also pained him greatly, and because his hands were bound, he fell frequently. As his guards hustled him down the hill towards the Luting crossing, Jakob realized with a fresh stab of shame that almost his first thought on catching sight of the bridge was how easily he might seek release from his suffering by hurling himself over- the low side chains into the surging river. But his guards, conscious of the dangers on the unsteady crossing, seized the rope harness that still hung at his back and frog-marched him in close order across to the eastern bank.

  Stories of the Luting bridge assault had spread quickly along the marching columns as they headed more lowly through the fertile highlands of western Szechuan, free at last from close pursuit by the Kuomintang. Jakob’s guards had taken perverse pleasure in informing him that his former servant had fought heroically in the battle, and he had endured their taunts in silence. Liang’s espousal of the Red Army cause had not in fact come as a great shock to Jakob: the peasant cook boy, he understood, had much in common with the soldiers of the Red Army. Yet the readiness of a man who had lived with Christian missionaries to risk his life for a new, alien cause seemed to Jakob in his misery to cast even greater doubt on the value of his Christian teaching in China.

  As they marched on through the strengthening summer sunshine, Jakob scanned the valley and forest tracks in front and behind for a glimpse of Liang but he did not catch sight 0f him until two weeks after the Luting battle, when he appeared therefore a rally of thousands of troops on a hillside in sight of the dazzling peaks of the Ta Hsueh Shan — the Great Snow Mountains. The assembled regiments sitting on the grass roared their approval as the aged Army’s commander in chief, Chu Teh, presented new caps, new cotton tunics, enamel eating bowls, and chopsticks to the survivors of the Luting crossing. To Jakob’s dismay Liang, like several of his fellows, still wore heavy bandages about his head and on one arm; his face had obviously been burned and he walked with difficulty onto a makeshift platform to receive his honor from Chu Teh. It was announced that special Gold Star medals for valor would be presented to the Luting heroes at a later date and renewed cheering greeted this news.

  “Heroism is an ancient concept, comrades,” shouted Chu Teh when the cheering had died away and Liang and the other Tatu heroes had retreated to the side of the platform. “In our past history heroes rose from among the ordinary people- They became generals and emperors and often came to despise the masses. Sometimes they tried to enslave the mass of the people. But today the Red Army is creating a new concept of heroism. We are creating a mass of heroes of the revolution who have no selfish interests, who are willing to die for the revolution if necessary, but who above all wish to live and fight until the mass of the people is liberated!“

  Chu Teh swung one of his big hands in the direction of Liang and his group. “These few brave fighters survived the heroic struggle to seize the Luting bridge. Equally brave comrades met their deaths in the flames and the raging waters of the river. Others who survived were too severely wounded to be here today. For a few minutes the fate of the Red Army rested with them and they triumphed over great odds. For that we honor all of them — and to the survivors we offer both medals and gifts suitable to the Chinese Workers’ and Peasants’ Army — a new food bowl, chopsticks, a new battle tunic!”

  A fresh roar of approval arose from the great throng covering the hillside, interspersed with chants of “Long live the heroes of Tatu Ho!” but before it died away Chu Teh lifted his right hand to point toward the snow-decked peaks shimmering above the hillside to the north.

  “But now, comrades, ahead of us lies a route that is even more difficult than the one behind us. A route for new heroes. If we are to join up with our comrades in the Fourth Front Army in northern Szechuan and achieve our objective to fight and defeat the Japanese invaders, we must cross some of the highest mountains in the world, mountains bristling with glaciers and covered in eternal snow. We may have t
o break our own trails, comrades, and many of us are lowlanders who have never seen snow and never experienced extreme cold. . .

  The massed regiments seated on the hillside grew quiet and turned their heads as one man to look up at the towering peaks of the Great Snow Mountains. Jagged and glittering like a forest of silver spear tips, the mountains stretched ominously into the far distance; glaciers sparkled like mirrors on the crags and deep chasms that divided the range shone with fresh snow.

  “Szechaunese people will tell you those mountains are so high that birds can’t fly over them, comrades! They call them the magic mountains. They’ll tell you that the gods of the mountain will strangle you if you speak on the high passes — because the air is so rarefied. They’ll tell you that only immortals can fly over them. . . but the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army of China will march over them, comrades — by making careful preparations! The enemy might expect us to detour to the east or to the west and that’s where they’ll be looking for us with their bombers. But we shall do the unexpected as we’ve always done, comrades, and march straight over the top . .

  Chu Teh raised his eyes toward the sun: burning out of an azure blue sky, it was bathing the hillside in a fierce warmth. Even in their thin cotton uniforms the men sweated whenever they moved.

  “But although it’s high summer down here, comrades, don’t be misled. Commissar Mao instructs you to gather as many hot chilies and as much root ginger as you can. Boil them and fortify yourself well with the liquid before each day’s climb. In the Great Snow Mountains it will be colder than any winter you’ve ever known. But the sun will still glare down — so take strips of cloth to tie around your eyes to ward off snow blindness. Take enough food and fuel in your ration bags for ten days, wrap rags around your feet, walk steadily without pausing, and never stop or speak on the heights —“

  The commander in chief paused and his face relaxed into its famous simian grin, which creased his features with countless concentric lines. “I wish you luck crossing the magic mountains, comrades! Long live the Chinese Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army!”

  Jakob’s guards hauled him to his feet and turned him to face the glittering peaks. Within minutes the whole of the Central Red Army was moving toward the icy mass of rock and snow that reared up along the borderlands between China and Tibet.

  6

  Don’t sit down to rest! If you do, you may never get up again!” The quavering voice of one of the guards regiment’s political instructors echoed along the sheer ice walls of a snow gully close beneath the first peak in the Great Snow Mountain range. The path leading up to the pass was solid, frozen snow which Jakob’s rag- bound feet could not grip and often he fell to his knees and continued scrambling upward on all fours. The intense cold close to the sixteen-thousand-foot summit had rimed the beard around his mouth with white icicles and turned his lips and hands blue. As the column climbed higher, the jaws of an invisible vise seemed to be tightening slowly around his chest, constricting his lungs: from time to time his hearing seemed blurred and faint and his breathing began o rasp noisily in his throat. The lack of oxygen was also making him dizzy, and the billowing sea of snowy peaks stretching endlessly westward into Tibet swam before his eyes whenever he turned his head in its direction.

  “Don’t try to talk . . Just keep moving!”

  The voice of the political instructor was faltering badly from exertion and even he could not entirely conceal the sense of shock which had spread rapidly through the ranks of all the regiments as they struggled against the fierce, strength-sapping extremes of the mountain heights. Starting the climb at dawn on a clear morning after a day of rest, the whole Central Red Army had begun singing lustily as it wound in single file up the narrow goat tracks leading toward the snow line. The staves carried by every man rang on the stony trails as the columns moved smartly out of the green valleys into the barren foothills, but hour after hour of arduous climbing seemed to move them no nearer to the shining passes high above them. Soon the laborious effort of dragging their feet through the deep drifts of the lower snowfields had begun to take its toll on their morale, and all singing quickly died away.

  Before they had ascended to halfway, the first storm had blown up with frightening suddenness — dark clouds scudded across the mountain face and furious winds began to whip the ground snow into blinding flurries all around the marchers, blotting out the sun. Among the shouts of alarm and the neighing of terrified horses, Jakob heard the screams of a squad marching just ahead of him as they plunged into a deep chasm beside the track. The guards had halted the prisoners while attempts were made to lower ropes into the chasm but heavy snow had begun to fall; driven by the rising wind, it swirled in drifts around the rescuers, and orders were quickly given to abandon the rescue attempt and resume the climb.

  Many troops, shivering in thin cotton uniforms, had tied blankets and padded bedroll quilts about their bodies in an effort to keep the cold at bay and whole companies joined hands to climb the sheer paths in footholds hacked from the ice by pathfinder units. During one of the early rest halts below the snow line, Chu Teh himself had appeared, moving quickly through the units, weighing each man’s pack in his hands to check that none was too heavy. When he came to the prisoners — only about a hundred Kuomintang troops and half a dozen dejected landowners remained under guard besides Jakob — the commander-had paid as much attention to them as he had done to the Red Army men.

  Jakob’s guards had tied a food pouch made from cloth about his shoulders which contained buckwheat, two or three red peppers, some root ginger, and a cake made of chingko, a form of highland barley. His hands, however, unlike those of the civilian landowners and officials, remained lashed together behind his back, and when he saw this, Chu Teh had gestured smilingly toward the Hunanese guard commander for him to have one of his men unfasten then.

  “If the foreign spy wished to escape in this wilderness, he would be very welcome, wouldn’t he?” Chu had chuckled, but on glancing down at Jakob’s swollen feet and the cloth and straw sandals he had been allowed to plait for himself, his face had grown serious. “You’d better give him a stout staff and find him some rags to bind around his toes as well — or he won’t even be able to keep up with our slowest mule.”

  When the storm struck, Jakob had found the staff invaluable. Often the blinding blizzard blotted out the track ahead and he prodded drifts and rocks cautiously with the staff before proceeding. Once he knocked snow from a Ledge onto which his guard was urging him to step and withdrew in time to watch tons of snow and rocks cascade downward into a yawning gulf. Back on the correct route, they found that the track led up cliff faces where footholds cut by others became virtual ladders in the frozen snow; Jakob climbed these clinging to the staff of the guard above while hauling up the guard below on his own. No words were exchanged but gradually Jakob became aware that the hostile atmosphere which normally surrounded him had given way for the first time to something different: battling side by side in the most extreme conditions they had faced, captors and captives were suddenly united by their common desire to survive.

  After an hour the winds eased, the snow ceased to fall, and the dark clouds that had cloaked the mountain during the blizzard faded to haze and mist — but the marchers’ alarm increased when they found how many of their comrades were succumbing to the combined effects of severe cold and lack of oxygen. Those enfeebled by dysentery and fever fell quickly, but hardier men respected for their physical strength and stamina were unaccountably dying in their tracks too: crouched or curled up in the drifts beside the path, they made no response when others seized their frozen hands and tried to haul them upright. Jakob, coming on a scrawny soldier of the guards regiment half-buried in deep snow, knelt to lift him to his feet, but the youth’s head lolled loosely backward, his eyes frozen open, his body already chilled and stiff in the missionary’s arms. Jakob recognized the features of the guard who had so eagerly carried out the brutal execution of the young Kiangsi prisoner in t
he early days of the march, the same guard he had rescued from the Hsiang River, and he automatically murmured a prayer and began trying to scoop out a shallow grave in the snowdrift. But the exertion made his head swim and another guard, coming up from behind, pulled Jakob to his feet and gesticulated silently for him to leave the corpse and hurry onward.

  Before long, clear signs of panic began to show in the faces of the soldiers and guards marching around Jakob. The vague sense of awe which snow-covered mountains had always inspired in China’s peasants had become a palpable fear and they stared up at the massive ice walls towering around them with frightened eyes. The suddenness with which their comrades were falling dead in the snow also made the surviving troops realize how weak and debilitated they had become after eight months of nonstop, marching and fighting. Noticing this reaction, the political instructors made new efforts to re-inspire them as they neared the pass straddling the summit.

  “Just keep walking steadily, comrades,” called the guards regiment chief commissar hoarsely, as they pushed on. “Loosen your tunics and your belts a little to help your breathing. Chew some ginger — but don’t stop to eat or relieve yourself. It could be fatal.”

  Jakob unslung his food pouch from his shoulder and tried to eat some ginger as he continued the climb, but in his exhausted condition the pungency of the root made him cough and retch and he could not swallow it. His head felt heavy and his legs seemed to lose their strength for no reason. Seeing the bodies of Red Army soldiers scattered like chaff beside the track, he began to wonder whether he too was close to death: the rags which the guards had found for him to bind around his feet on Chu Teh’s instructions were sodden and worn through already, his feet were numb with cold, and he shivered constantly inside his sodden gown which hung torn and threadbare about his limbs. When the sun came out to shine blindingly on the snow again, he found he could not focus his gaze and he began to sway from side to side on the narrow track. Beneath him the icy mass of the mountainside seemed to heave like the deck of a ship in a storm and despite repeated warnings of the political instructor, he had to stop frequently to control his ragged breathing.