by Dennis Bock
The man stepped toward us out of the darkness. His high, pronounced cheekbones lengthened an already gaunt face. His thick head of hair, parted down the middle, was unkempt and much longer than you usually saw on men in this country. His appearance was rumpled and dishevelled, his large bright eyes were radiant in the half-light. It was immediately clear that we stood in a commanding presence. All these things I noticed as he stepped closer and gripped my two hands. He grinned widely as the interpreter, who’d just then emerged from the shadows, translated his first words to me. “A compote?” he asked.
I will never be able to transmit to you fully the mixture of confusion and pride I felt that night as I sat in the cave of the Chairman of the Central Soviet Government, Mao Tse-tung. But had he brought me there in the middle of the night to share his dessert? Mao was already a legend, as he surely is as you read this, perhaps decades from now—a man whose tactical brilliance had engineered the salvation of thirty thousand men and women from the Generalissimo Chiang’s noose in Kiangsi; a man whose vision, expressed through the “Rules of Discipline and Points of Attention,” acknowledged that a people’s revolution would earn their respect and support through education, not terror; a man whose will was a force to be used for the people, not against them. How, then, could this inspired revolutionary be summoning us to his cave after midnight for dessert?
“He’s saying he’d like to share his compote with us,” Jean told me.
“Please tell the Chairman I do not understand.”
Through his interpreter, he said, “There is no mistake, Doctor. We have lovely local sour plums.”
Still not convinced, I merely nodded. The translator walked to the back of the cave and returned a moment later with a small tray.
“He’s offering plums,” Jean said.
His aide placed the dessert on a small table set against the rock wall to my right and said, “Please, sit.” Mao Tse-tung gestured with his hand, as if bidding us to begin.
I dipped a wooden spoon into the bowl of plums before me, nodded and tasted the fruit. I smiled. “Yes. Tell him it’s very good. It’s lovely, thank you.”
The interpreter spoke. Mao listened, then smiled. I had imagined, were I ever to meet such a great man as this, weighty pronouncements on political economics, dialectical materialism and the social sciences. Yet what I saw here was a simple man, generous, almost light-hearted. We ate in silence for a few minutes, and he cleaned his bowl with the thorough attention of a thirsty cat at its milk dish. He dipped his head with quiet enthusiasm, indicating his satisfaction, and said through his interpreter, “Well, Doctor Bethune. Welcome.”
“It’s an honour,” I said. “My companion has travelled with me from America. She is an excellent nurse. Miss Jean Ewen.”
He welcomed us both, and when she said something in Chinese, his face lit up. Delighted, he slapped the table with his palm. After a short exchange he turned to me again.
“There is medical work here for you,” he said. “Our doctors will learn from you. This, and not the lovely plums,” he said, smiling, “is the reason you have been brought to me in the middle of the night.”
“We would like to begin immediately,” I said.
“There is time. Tomorrow you may begin. Tonight we will discuss your ideas on improving medical care at the front. You will have your perspective. I know something about your work in Spain. You will have ideas. It is not every day a celebrated battle surgeon comes to us from the West.” He nodded. Begin, he seemed to say.
“My ideas are simple,” I said. “Their implementation is not.”
“What are these simple ideas?”
“Front-line medical care. A mobile blood-transfusion unit.”
As I outlined the logistics of getting the idea off the ground—training staff, procuring equipment and funding—a different side of the man began to emerge. He was an eager student, a brilliant strategist who asked many questions. Cool and analytical in his thinking, he sometimes paused for long moments to consider something that had been said. I watched his mind working, his dark eyes moving between me and Jean and the depths of the cave. His questions were the very ones I’d asked myself when first setting up the unit in Spain, and even some I had not. His hands, folded before him on the table, remained perfectly still. “We must take cultural realities into consideration,” he said, “when talking of blood donations.” His head nodded slowly. “Such a thing is a very foreign concept for people here. Perhaps not so for Europeans. Here it is bordering on witchery.”
“Your army will follow your instructions.” I said, then I quoted from his First Rule of Discipline. “‘A soldier must without hesitation carry out all orders issued to him.’”
Again, he nodded. “Very good, but he must first understand the necessity of the order. He must be educated.”
Our interview lasted long into the night. Jean helped greatly with the interpreting and added much to the conversation. Mao listened respectfully, nodding, and thanked her for her thoughts each time she finished speaking.
He said, “And who now leads the people in Spain? I have heard of a man named Durruti.”
I reported that he’d been dead for two years. There was no true representative, I said. It was a weakness for the Spanish people. There was suspicion and ill will among the parties. I told him of Largo Caballero, leader of the Popular Front. They called him the Spanish Lenin. I said, “He has united the Communists and Socialists and the Republican Union Party. But the anarchists are outside this union.”
Near the end of our meeting I informed Mao Tse-tung of the supplies we had brought with us from America, and the additional supplies that had been promised by Chu Teh, Commander-in-Chief of the Eighth Route Army. Our field hospital would pass through Nationalist-held territory on its journey here from the south. It was my argument that the Yan’an Border Region Hospital, consisting of nothing more than a vast series of cold damp caves, would be the safest destination. Of primary concern was the fact that the Nationalists had stipulated that our supplies, in order to pass through their territory, must be utilized only on the civilian population, not the Communist Army. The danger of the Nationalists closing their territory to future shipments was indeed high, I insisted, and that would doom any mobile blood unit in Shensi Province to failure.
“Chiang Kai-shek,” said Mao, “will manufacture other reasons to close the supply routes when he learns of our successes.” He rose then and crossed the narrow room to a desk on which sat a candle and writing paper and pens, returning with two small booklets. “You may find time for this. Perhaps the lady will translate this for you, Doctor Bethune. Do you read Chinese characters, mademoiselle? Your Chinese is very good.”
“Not many,” she said.
They shared a brief exchange in Chinese, and then the Chairman said, through his assistant, “Well, then, Doctor, you will have to find another translator for these writings.”
I saluted. Chairman Mao extended his hand to us and said, “Your day has now begun. Welcome to Yan’an.”
We accepted his gift, shook his hand, saluted and were then led out by the assistant. When the cave door opened, fresh, cold morning air rushed over us and the bright sunlight startled our eyes. Blinking, and refreshed by the sharp air in our lungs, we started down the narrow rocky path toward the guest house.
“What was that last bit about?” I said.
“He said if I weren’t such a talented nurse, I might be used as a translator. It’s a rarity, foreign Chinese-speakers.”
“We all have a part in this,” I said, “whichever role you choose to play.”
As we walked down the pebbled hill a curious sense of freedom enveloped me, and I felt more purposeful than I’d ever been. It was as if on this glorious morning of hope I had been absolved of all frailty and self-interest. I would devote myself exclusively to the fight ahead. It was a duty now, pur
er than religion or blood. Seeing only a Chinese future, I yearned to immerse myself in the conflict that surrounded us. The great man’s passion had taken hold of me.
Envelope Five
We are at the front near Ho Chien, Hopei Province, with the 120th. No sleep tonight. Just listening to the silence. I’ve always loved that, generally. I would love to share a silent night like this with you, sitting on some front step somewhere, or in a garden, just listening. How I loved hearing spring rain splashing against the new leaves. Do you know that sound? The guns will start again, soon enough. Can I put them out of mind, if only for an evening?
You will suspect by now that there must be a reason, apart from the war itself, that in my fiftieth year, I find life here so essential. Naturally I’m not referring to the abundant lilies and the wild beauty of this landscape. Certainly I refer to neither the food, so inadequate and unvaried, nor the conversations, for I stand alone, isolated in this language but for the help of my interpreter, the good Mr. Tung. What, then, could the attraction be, other than the denial and sacrifice that surround me? I can almost fool myself into believing the rumbling of my stomach is a soft purr of contentment, not the cry of hunger. Or that the pain in my head and the deafness in my left ear are the welcome reminders of greater agonies I have eluded. This is not a question of half empty or half full. The world here, to arrest any misconception, is almost entirely used up, broken, lost. There is no joy. No pleasure. Nonetheless, I cannot help but feel that beyond all the obvious destruction, something else is off kilter, that something—perhaps disguised in the noble drapery of self-sacrifice, yet there in my own deepest reaches—is in full downward spiral. My beliefs, I assure you, are sound. What’s troublesome, as Parsons was so eager to point out, are my motivations.
I do have my work, and isn’t that enough? If not loved by the daughter I’ve never met, at least I have a place where I’m necessary—and, more than most, I know the importance of belonging. My life has never seemed so crucial. To date I have performed more than seven hundred operations and examined well over a thousand who were sick, injured or wounded. I have written three textbooks to be used for medical training. Last year in these rough lands I travelled some three thousand miles, every step of which heightened my commitment and quickened my blood. But still I regret the bias and greed of this world, its blind eyes, its false pretenses, its first and second and third conditions layered one atop the other like a teetering Pisa of compromised ideals. I resent the deceptions of Madrid—or, to be clear, the lies—that have reduced this country to little more than the second, desperate chance of an embattled man.
*
I have been thinking to ask Mr. Tung to deliver these pages to George Hatem in case anything happens to me. I believe he’d prove a reliable courier. What a great and useless abstraction all this typing would be if chucked in the incinerator with some dead doctor’s bloody smock!
*
In Yan’an last year, I lay awake at night, turning, those weeks we spent waiting for our travel status to be clarified. We worked sixteen hours a day but made little progress. The war seemed eager to demonstrate that it would not so quickly recognize my efforts, or even my presence. Its appetites were astonishing. And the conditions of the cave hospital were like nothing I had ever seen. April rains muddied the world around us, reminding me of the nightmare of Belgium. Anxieties only worsened when word came that our supplies had been stalled in Sian. After a few days I decided Jean should return there in order to speed their safe delivery to Yan’an. With her command of the language, she was the obvious and logical choice. She departed on April 25.
You are correct. She did not return.
Three days later, the supplies arrived. It was a great surprise when Ho appeared and began tugging at my sleeve. He kept injecting my arm with a make-believe needle and holding his head in his hands. After the confusion—followed by handshakes and back-slaps—I sent word to Jean that she was to return immediately. Twenty-four hours passed with no word of confirmation, so perhaps she was already en route. I waited another day and sent a second telegram, gruffly worded, perhaps. I wonder if she ever did get it.
On the fourth day I set out for the front without her.
Some small part of me was still hopeful, though. My desire to see her again perhaps had to do with the fact that I felt I needed to berate her for a failure of conscience, or soft ideals. A doctor finds his students’ weaknesses and turns them into strengths, and a delicate stomach should be trained to tolerate all manner of bile. Of course, I wondered where she’d gone, and why. Somehow appalled by me, or still moping about Parsons, or caught up in a situation more demanding than she’d expected?
In early May I completed the final stage of my long journey to the Border Regions with Richard Brown, an Anglican doctor I’d met in Sian. We were just six miles west of the Yellow River, some seventy miles south of the Great Wall. Dr. Brown had arrived in Yan’an sometime mid-April, on loan from the Mission Hospital in Sian. I’d found him a quiet and patient man, admirably handy and self-reliant. Such was his dedication to the cause that he had decided to devote his two months’ leave to our work in Shensi Province. I imagined his colleagues bemoaning his absence hourly. We didn’t speak of Jean, though I suspected he felt my mood. I was surly, agitated, short. Neither did I let him know of my admiration for him, but it was refreshing to watch his talents and abilities display themselves as our journey continued. When a lorry broke down, he tended to it. He would walk fifty yards off the road, disappear for ten minutes, then return with a hare in each hand. He read the stars for directions, spoke the language and commanded the respect of our escorts on a personal level that seemed unimaginable to me. That he showed no interest in my moods seemed even more impressive.
I began to suspect he knew what had happened, for it was no secret that I’d been travelling with a nurse who’d failed to return to duty as instructed. Could this be of a personal nature? A lovers’ spat? It would do no good that a pretty young nurse had affected the great doctor so thoroughly, causing him to behave so unprofessionally.
One night we encamped on the pebbled bank of a small stream. Our escort of twelve fighters, two guides, two orderlies and a cook were already pulling out their woollen sleeping bags. Dr. Brown and I stayed by the fire. As the stream crackled and splashed in the dark, I said, “If she showed up now I’d have her shot as a deserter.” He looked at me but said nothing.
The following day’s drive was slow, impeded by rain and mud. The roads of Spain were racetracks compared to these of packed dirt, ungraded and often washed out and treacherous. We followed the Yen River upstream before our road veered off into the Loess Hills. We crossed tributaries of the Yen at three points, and each time the wheels of the big trucks spun wildly in the silt as if suspended in mid-air. The first night we spent in a hamlet not far off the road and gratefully accepted the offerings of what little food the locals possessed. Before departing in the early morning we treated a case of pneumonia, a leg wound, a bloody abscess and two influenzas. The second night, after a full day of slow driving, we reached an isolated village of perhaps a thousand souls, many of whom hadn’t tasted meat in months. A diet so lacking in protein had left its mark on this small population—gaunt, pale, some of them suffering from advanced malnutrition. I wondered for the first time, driving into the heart of the war, how a people so generally undernourished, so weakened by famine and these incredibly harsh surroundings, could defeat an adversary as efficient and ruthless as the Japanese.
It was there, that very evening, this puzzle was solved. Dr. Brown and I were told about a young child who’d been trapped in a collapsed building, far above ground level, pinned by rubble too precarious and heavy for anyone to help her.
“How long has she been up there?” I asked.
“Twelve days.”
The woman led us to her daughter, whose head was clearly visible beneath a large rock five times her size. She was unconsc
ious. The village had studied the problem, we were told, and after a week had determined, mercilessly, that the girl would die there. Early on a crowd had gathered every morning, but no onlookers remained. Retreating out of guilt and helplessness, people had returned to their own misery. Alone, the mother had used brick and wood planking harvested from the fallen building to fashion a platform rising to the height of her daughter’s ordeal. She now lived with her up there, twenty feet above the village. All night she spoke and sang to the girl, caressing her hair and promising her she’d be freed from that prison, and during the day she brought her water and whatever herbal medicines she could scrounge that might help her sleep.
She led us through a narrow dirt lane to the building, whose north side was collapsed but for a single exterior wall. I saw the girl halfway up, pinned by an enormous slab of rock and mortar. Only the top of her head was visible. Her mother wasn’t crying. She was concentrating as she called out to her that, as Dr. Brown translated, the foreign doctors had come. Foreign doctors. Imagine. Special men from the West.
