For a moment the two guards looked at one another — then the older of the pair shook his head. “We believe in the Chinese Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army,” he said defiantly. “We don’t need your prayers.”
Turning to Hsu, Jakob bent his head over his joined hands. Speaking aloud in Chinese, he prayed first for protection for all those who found themselves stranded in the desolate wilderness of the Great Grasslands; next he spoke Hsu’s name in a prayer of supplication, asking that he be granted strength and courage to endure the ordeal. When the prayer was finished Hsu thanked Jakob quietly. His expression was calmer and he was less pale. After wishing one another good night, the missionary and his three guards turned and propped themselves together, sitting back to back, and covered themselves as best they could with wadded quilts. In the damp, confined space they drew warmth and comfort from contact with each other’s bodies and gradually their heads fell forward one by one.
Jakob slept intermittently, conscious sometimes in his waking moments of Hsu shivering against him. Throughout the night the wind and sleet continued to lash the tent and from time to time he heard again the cry of wolves in the distance. In his confused, fitful dreams the quavering howls of the wild animals sounded like the wailing of human souls in torment and more than once they startled him into a fearful wakefulness. When the first streaks of gray light penetrated the dawn fog to rouse them, finally, Jakob found Hsu lying quiet and relaxed against his shoulder. But as the missionary shifted to chafe his own cold, aching limbs the young Kwangsi guard flopped soundlessly onto his back, his open eyes staring vacantly upward at the roof of the tent. Jakob touched his face with his fingers, then recoiled. The flesh of his swollen face was already cold and stiff: he had clearly been dead for some time.
14
By the seventh day the grasslands were taking a harsher toll of the Red Army marchers than even the Great Snow Mountains had done. Storms of freezing rain, sleet, and snow continued to obliterate the sun and without this sole navigational aid, even the old Tibetan hsiang tao lost his bearings. The trudging columns had to retrace their steps repeatedly, some units lost touch with one another, and confusion and disillusionment deepened. As men around Jakob became hungrier and weaker they fell more frequently into the swamps, and often their exhausted companions lacked the strength or the will to pull them out. Each man, intent on his own survival, walked with his eyes fixed on the next treacherous tussock before him, and many, Jakob noticed, closed their ears to the despairing cries for help unless they came from their closest comrades.
The medical orderlies had run out of medicines, and since the carrying of litters was fraught with additional dangers, the fallen were mostly abandoned where they lay. Several times Jakob stopped
to try to help stricken soldiers but their eyes were wild and staring in their ravaged faces, and all strength had left their legs. Unable to walk, they clutched frantically at the missionary like drowning men, and only with the greatest difficulty was he able to disentangle himself. Feeling sick at heart, Jakob pressed on through the quagmire, and like those around him, he began to ignore the dying men crumpled beside the muddy trail.
The vanguard units had carried bamboo screens with them to build shelters for those who followed, but the sight of these temporary hutments among the waving grass, instead of giving cause for rejoicing, came to have a sinister significance. Inside each one the survivors began to find growing huddles of dead bodies: men who had crawled inside seeking protection from the ferocity of the cold, the wind, and the snow were dying in increasing numbers. Often a few grains of chingko lay beside them, left by their comrades in the vain hope they might revive, and anticipating this, the starving marchers began shamefacedly racing one another to each newly sighted shelter to gather up the charred and blackened grain for themselves.
In their desperation for nourishment, they broke up the bamboo screens to build fires, and after scooping up bowls of the acrid swamp water they boiled and ate their leather belts, their ox hide sandals, and the harnesses of their already dead horses. They also boiled grasses and drank the bitter broth, since they found this more flourishing than water alone, and on that seventh day Jakob for the first time saw men stooping along the trail to pick grains of undigested chingko from the feces of their comrades and the dung of the few remaining pack animals. They washed and re-boiled the grains before wolfing them down and as they squatted beside the fires in the fog, their eyes glazed, their jaws working rhythmically, to Jakob they looked more like fear-stricken animals than men.
Jakob himself had eaten almost nothing since the guard Hsu died. He still had a few loose grains in the bottom of his ox hide ration bag but he fought down the impulse to eat them every time hunger pangs gnawed. Once when Little Liang passed him, hurrying for- ward with a message, he had given the Little Red Devil a handful or two of the grain to pass on to Mei-ling, but he had not seen the boy again. His own cold-blooded determination to survive had not in any way been diminished by the new hardships he faced, and after Hsu’s sudden death he had made up his ,mind to hold out as long as possible before consuming the last of his dry rations. In any event, the sight of the desperate marchers tearing down the bamboo charnel houses for fuel and grubbing for barley grains among the trackside dung had left him without appetite; although he was weak, his fierce will helped sustain him and he contented himself with chewing the roots of dried grasses that he gathered as he walked.
In the early afternoon a ragged cheer rippled along the moving columns after news spread that the pursuing Kuomintang units had turned back after penetrating only a mile or two into the grasslands. In an effort to heighten morale further, political commissars read out the full text of a radio message from rearguard units, but Jakob could see that this did little to disperse growing fears that the trackless wastes of the grasslands and the region’s ferocious climate might eventually succeed where the Kuomintang had failed and destroy every last one of them. Jakob heard men around him muttering enviously about the Kuomintang units as they eyed fresh banks of dark clouds bearing down on them from the north. Pressed close to the earth by a freshening northwester, the cloud banks threatened any moment to unleash another energy-sapping deluge of rain and they were already snuffing out the fading afternoon light with alarming speed. On the rising wind a faint commotion of shouting from up ahead also carried to Jakob’s ears, which from experience he knew meant that more unfortunate men and animals were again struggling for their lives in the quagmire. In the deepening gloom he saw a diminutive figure splashing back along the column, but in the poor light he did not recognize Little Liang until he arrived gasping for breath in front of him. His pinched face was taut with anxiety, and because of his exertions, he had difficulty getting his words out.
“Ke Mu-shih, Ke Mu-shih! Something terrible has happened,” he stammered at last. “Comrade Mei-ling’s mule trod on a snake and bolted. She’s fallen into a mud-hole.”
Jakob stared at the Chinese boy, aghast. “Is the baby with her?”
“Yes. They’ve managed to get a rope around the mule’s neck but they can’t pull them out.”
Little Liang was tugging agitatedly at Jakob’s arm, trying to drag him in the direction of the commotion, and without turning to look at his guards the missionary lunged forward, jumping rashly from one cluster of grass to another without waiting to test them with his bamboo pole. He slipped and slithered, feeling the unstable clumps swaying sickeningly beneath him, but his momentum carried him forward headlong in the wake of the nimble boy and within a few minutes he was pushing his way frantically through the dense crowd of men that had gathered on the fringes of a viscous pool of black mud.
Even before he could see what was happening, Jakob heard the terrified whinnying of the mule and, to his relief, mingled with it, the high-pitched wail of an infant. But when he broke through to the front of the crowd he saw to his horror that only the neck and head of the struggling animal were visible above the heaving surface of the mud-hole. The rope t
hat had been looped around its neck had drawn tight and the whites of the crazed animal’s eyes showed in fear as it thrashed helplessly in the morass. The writhing female figure clinging desperately to its back was not immediately recognizable as Mei-ling. Her clothes, her face, and her hair were all covered in a uniform film of black slime and in the crook of one arm she clutched a struggling, mud-drenched creature which Jakob realized with a shock must be his daughter. The child, grown stronger in the weeks since he had last seen her, was jerking her arms and legs furiously as she struggled in Mei-ling’s grip, but despite her obvious distress, Jakob felt a wave of relief sweep over him — at least she was still alive!
Yet even as he watched, the rope, looped around several men who were bracing themselves on a clump of firm ground, pulled taut and snapped. For a moment the mule, freed from the tension of the rope, ceased to struggle and lay exhausted and motionless, half-submerged in the encroaching mud. Because they lay still, animal and rider no longer sank so rapidly and the watching crowd clearly began to hope that the hooves of the mule had found a firm foundation beneath the ooze. But little by little they settled deeper and the mule stretched its neck toward the lowering clouds in one last feeble effort to hold its mouth clear of the swamp. At that moment torrential rain began to beat down, driven slantingly by the fierce wind, and it stung the faces of the men crowding helplessly around the mud-hole. Jakob saw that only the smallest clumps of grass dotted the broad expanse of slime, none large enough to support a man’s weight, and Mei-ling and the mule were obviously beyond the reach of anybody who might stretch out with a bamboo pole.
Spread-eagled along the length of the mule’s back, Mei-ling lay horizontally in the mire, trying to hold the kicking baby above the surface with one arm. Her other hand clutched the mule’s mane in an effort to control its head, and her mud-spattered face was a mask of concentration as she tried to prevent herself and the child from sinking farther; but she could see that her efforts were futile and Jakob heard a little moan of despair escape her lips.
“Quickly, gather up some quilts and as many rifles as you can from the men,” shouted Jakob to Little Liang, who had pushed through the throng to his side. “I’m going to try to reach them!”
Slipping his pack from his shoulders, Jakob unfastened it, took out his own quilt, and flung it out over the edge of the mud-hole. While it settled across the mud and sparse clumps of grass, he snatched two rifles from the soldiers nearest to him and bent to place them on top of it in the form of a diagonal cross. Then he crawled out onto them and called to Little Liang to pass him more bedding and weapons. The Young Vanguard did as he was told and in quick succession Jakob spread three more quilts ahead of himself and placed crossed rifles in the center of each one. As he inched forward on his hands and knees he felt the quilts slipping down into the mire and he knew that within a short space of time his flimsy raft would be swallowed up — but crawling forward steadily, he pushed this thought from his mind and kept his gaze fixed on Mei-ling and her precious burden.
In succumbing to the swamp, the mule thrashed wildly as its head went under, heaving the girl clear of its back. Feeling nothing but the liquid mud beneath her, Mei-ling showed her first real signs of panic: her mud-blackened face contorted suddenly as the lower part of her body sank rapidly downward and her mouth opened to release an involuntary cry of terror. She was trying to lift the wailing baby clear of the surface but her frantic movements were accelerating the rate at which she was sinking. Seeing this, Jakob threw himself forward in a desperate dive to clutch at the collar of her tunic with one hand. He felt himself begin to sink as he tried to drag her closer to himself — then strong hands circled his ankles and he realized somebody had crawled onto the sinking quilts and was beginning to draw him toward the firm ground. He managed to slip his other hand under Mei-ling’s arm, and twisting with all that remained of his fading strength, he lifted her toward the flimsy pontoon on which he lay.
The momentum of her body rising jerkily from the mire turned Jakob’s head and shoulders far enough for him to glimpse fleetingly the face of the man who had risked his life by venturing onto the quilts behind him. Even though his deep-set eyes were almost closed with the effort of trying to drag the combined weight of two bodies from the slime, there was no mistaking the swarthy, southern features of Felicity’s executioner — but in the instant that Jakob registered the identity of his helper, gasps of dismay rose from the throats of the men crowding the bank of the mud-hole. Turning his head again, Jakob saw to his horror that the act of snatching Mei-ling from the ooze had torn the baby from her arms: wailing and struggling, Abigail was sinking into the mud again a few feet beyond his reach. With his strength gone and Mei-ling clinging blindly to him, Jakob realized he was helpless to intervene.
A sudden weight on his own back pressed Jakob deeper as a blurred figure trod on him, using his back as a stepping-stone. For a second or two the slime before Jakob’s eyes churned in a great turmoil; then a blackened head and powerful shoulders heaved themselves clear of the surface in the middle of the morass. Jakob heard a choking grunt of exertion as the tiny, muddied figure of his daughter was hurled in the direction of the bank, and he turned his head in time to see a soldier gather her up.
Other helping hands closed around Jakob’s ankles again, starting to drag him toward the firm ground, and he locked his own arms tighter about Mei-ling’s slender shoulders. He felt the suction of the swamp pulling at her and she clutched at him wildly, fearing she would slip from his grasp. On his own he was not capable of lifting her free but he continued to cling to her with all his fading strength, and slowly the Red Army soldiers hauled them both to safety.
Beyond anybody’s reach, Abigail’s rescuer was sinking deeper into the center of the mud-hole. From where he lay exhausted on the bank beside Mei-ling, Jakob could only watch helplessly as the face of Executioner Wang tightened into a mask of horror. His eyes were blinded by the foul liquid and his mouth gaped despairingly for a last breath as the mire rose around his neck. But in the instant of submission to death, the mask of horror suddenly faded and the brutal features relaxed into a blank expression devoid of all emotion. No cry of protest or fear escaped his lips, and in the moment that the swamp claimed him in the baby’s place, he lay motionless in its slimy embrace, passively accepting his fate.
15
It has been decided,” said Lu Chiao slowly, “that you will be released tomorrow morning.”
Jakob looked down at the seated Red Army officer in silence. The words that he had wanted to hear more than any others for almost a year did not set his pulse racing wildly: standing between his guards in the ground-floor chamber of a watchtower at Tungwei, in southeastern Kansu, he felt only a dull sense of relief that he was still alive and had survived long enough to hear them.
“You will leave the column tonight with two guards. We’ve arranged for you to rest in an ordinary peasant -household outside Tungwei. At dawn the guards will leave you there. Half an hour after their departure you’ll be free to go.”
“Free to go where?” asked Jakob wearily.
“You’ll be provided with a mule to ride and five silver dollars with which to buy food.” Chiao paused and pointed to a map of northern China spread before him on a trestle table. “The money should meet your needs until you reach the foreign mission here at Sanmo, where you will be expected. It’s a half-day’s journey.”
“Does this mean that the Anglo-Chinese Mission has agreed to pay the ransom you demanded?” asked Jakob in a surprised voice.
“We’re no longer seeking payment of fines.” Chiao kept his eyes on the map, avoiding Jakob’s mystified gaze. “Since Commissioner Chou En-lai recovered his health we’ve had the opportunity to undertake a thorough, final review of your case. We’ve decided from now on to treat all foreigners on their individual merits.”
“And what are my merits?”
“We note from your file that your father was born in Switzerland and that you possess dual
Anglo-Swiss nationality. We’ve taken full account of the fact that Switzerland is not an imperialist country. It hasn’t forced unequal treaties on China or set up concession areas as the imperialist nations have done — that’s why we have decided to set you free.”
“Does that mean all charges against me have been withdrawn?” asked Jakob, still puzzled.
“No. The review showed that you broke our soviet laws and we’ve drawn up conditions for your release.” Chiao picked up a piece of paper and scanned it. “You’ve been guilty on your own admission of preaching the Christian Gospel and escaping from the custody of the Central Soviet authorities. Therefore you are released on the condition that you don’t break our laws again.”
“But it’s not against the law to preach the Gospel in China,” protested Jakob.
“In our soviet areas the Communist Party reserves the right to ban the propagation of all religious ideas,” replied Chiao firmly. “You and others of your calling should remember that. That is the second condition.”
“And if I refuse to promise not to preach the Gospel?” asked Jakob in a hardening voice. “What happens then?”
“You’re not being asked for any undertakings,” replied Chiao quietly. “We’re informing you of the conditions of your release. Commissioner Chou further asks you to bear in mind when speaking of the Red Army that we always act on principle and are not the common bandits depicted in your press. He also hopes you will not forget to relate how we help the poor of China and punish only tyrants who oppress the poor. . .
“I’d like to ask you a question, Commander Lu,” said Jakob, “about Comrade Lu Mei-ling. . .
Chiao lifted one hand to silence Jakob and glanced at the missionary’s two guards. Standing at his shoulder, they were listening intently to the exchanges, and after a moment’s reflection Chiao motioned for them to leave. “Go and prepare the mules, comrades — for the prisoner and yourselves. Be ready to leave in half an hour.”
Anthony Grey Page 44
