by Meira Chand
Skirting a hill, they came into full view of the battle lines. Chinese and Japanese emptied their guns at each other across a narrow valley. The horizon was rimmed with smoke. In the distance dark clouds billowed from the blazing ruins of a town taken by the Japanese.
‘We’re fighting a losing battle,’ said the Captain. ‘All we can do is make the Japanese advance costly and slow. Already, they have taken Purple Mountain which commands all land and river approaches.’
‘Without planes for aerial reconnaissance you’ll always be outflanked,’ said Mariani, using his usual provocative approach, puffing on his eternal cigar. ‘Why you don’t give up? Maybe a Japanese government is good for China.’
‘We will never give up,’ replied the Captain.
As the Chinese spoke, a Japanese plane droned above. They ducked for cover as machine-gun fire splattered about them. Only Mariani stood erect by a bush and set his camera whirring. Several of the Captain’s men were wounded. Mariani took more photographs.
Back in Nanking Donald sent a long cable to The Times and left again. Within the city it was impossible to gauge the daily rhythm of battle. There was just the mounting tension, the rain of bombs and preparations for weathering the assault. The ragged remnants of the Chinese Army, retreating across the countryside before the Japanese, were left to fight as best they could. The city was swollen with refugees, renewing provisions or seeking rest before continuing inland. Like other journalists, Donald made the Panay his base, its neutrality an island in the war.
The smell of the river filled Donald’s head. A sudden memory of the Lotus Lake and that first evening with Nadya filled his mind. An image of her, naked, cross-legged on the bed, pushed itself before him. To thrust the picture away, he held his camera close, concentrating on the lens. The oily surface of the water, a clump of rushes and some water fowl were suddenly framed before him. Half-hidden by the reeds a body lay face down in the mud. Beside him Mariani squinted at the shoreline. The odour of cigars lifted comfortingly off him.
‘Do not waste film, Addison,’ Mariani advised. ‘In a war bodies must come in excessive quantity or bear some horrible scar to qualify for our cameras. This one, sodden, submerged corpse, what can it mean for the newspaper? Nothing. Death itself no longer shocks us now. Everything becomes normal when we see enough. This is a terrible fact, but it is true. Our compassion becomes fatigued. Now, I look only for the best corpses. Of course, before this war is finished, I may become one also. Now how about that beer?’
The Italian was insistent. Donald explained the need to type up a cable to London and Mariani ambled off at last, trailing the scent of cigars. The smoke of bombing still ringed the horizon like a smudged pencil line. What Mariani said was true. Now Donald must remind himself that, behind each plume of smoke, lay death.
The Panay’s engine purred suddenly now, vibrating beneath Donald’s feet. There were shouts as the anchor was hauled up with a cranking of chains. Soon, the boat began to move. Donald swore out loud. That morning shrapnel had showered the Panay. A decision had been made to sail up river and wait out the fall of the city in safe water near Wuhu. He had intended to report the taking of Nanking from the Japanese perspective, entering with the main troops. To be so far from action at a vital moment was not part of his plan, but he was already aboard the Panay when the decision to move was made. Perhaps, later, he could get ashore and make his way back to Nanking. In this last effort to breach the walls, the shell fire was intense. By the afternoon Nanking was expected to be in Japanese hands.
The boat slowed again and stopped in midstream. He stared down into the water. The dark forms of fish swarmed beneath the surface. Below them was the blackness of a hidden world. That world bore no relation to the reflective surface of the river stretching into the distance, golden with the morning sun.
The Panay made noises of movement again. The dark brood of fish, disturbed by the sudden kick of the engine, dispersed. He saw then that they fed upon the dismembered torso of a woman. Without the weight of the fish upon it, the lump of flesh rose slowly towards him. Before it could break the surface the fish returned, dragging it back into the gloom, covering it with their bodies. He shivered. Instead of a shining reflective path he saw an image of the river dried, its muddy bed cracked into patches, its hidden booty exposed. Amongst old pots, kerosene tins and broken chinaware, were the bloated remains of death. All the killing of the past months had been emptied into the Yangtze. He wondered how the river still flowed, clogged as it was with such debris. At night he imagined it released the anguish of those murdered spirits. He was not a religious man, and vowed his disbelief repeatedly. Now, he grew afraid of his thoughts.
As the Panay began to move again, the fish were left behind. He drew back from the rail and made no further attempt mentally to plumb the river’s depths. The shelling from the shore was reckless. In spite of immunity under the American flag, painted on its bows and deck, the Panay could be caught in cross fire.
Donald made his way to the upper deck to type up his report in the temporary newsroom. A tier of iron bunks and shelves of medicine bottles still confirmed the room’s original use. A couple of desks and typewriters had been squeezed into the cramped space. There was already a queue for the typewriters. Donald sat down on a bunk and took out a pencil and small pad and scribbled the beginning of a cable for The Times.
The first Japanese detachment to enter Nanking broke through the Kunghwa Gate shortly before 5 o’clock yesterday afternoon. Stubborn resistance was met inside Nanking. Field radio reports from Japanese headquarters outside Nanking at 9 a.m. this morning reported that during the night the Chinese launched two violent counter-attacks against the Japanese at Kunghwa Gate. Both attacks were repulsed but the Japanese suffered serious losses. It is said the Chinese made profuse use of gas shells.
Eventually, a machine was free, and Donald sat down to type. At last the Panay had reached a quieter stretch of the Yangtze and dropped anchor. Nearby were two vessels of the Standard Oil and Asiatic Petroleum, which had been fitted out as temporary floating hotels to accommodate four hundred Chinese and a number of foreigners, including several diplomats. All wished, like those aboard the Panay, to return to Nanking as soon as was safe. Nobody visualised more than a few days of inconvenience, until the city was in Japanese hands and order restored. The Standard Oil vessels hooted a welcome to the Panay.
The drone of approaching planes streamed over the clank of typewriters and passed. Donald looked up, but could see nothing from the porthole. Harvey Quest of the Herald Tribune met his eye. Donald watched him turn back to the typewriter and pause for thought before a last word. The noise of planes returned, flying low above the Panay. As Harvey pulled his sheet from the typewriter, an explosion burst through the boat. The Panay rocked violently. Water slapped the portholes and men were thrown from their chairs. A sharp pain stabbed Donald’s ears. He hung onto the frame of the bunk beds. Then, steadying himself, he rushed upstairs.
Johnson of the American Embassy was already on deck with his binoculars. He thrust them into Donald’s face. The boat still rocked sickeningly. ‘Tell me I’m not dreaming. Tell me those are not Japanese planes,’ Johnson yelled.
Donald raised the glasses to the red circles on the departing aircraft. ‘How can they hit us? The American flag is plastered all over us.’
‘You tell me,’ said Johnson. ‘They’re coming back for more. Get down.’
The boat shuddered from a new blast. Water showered the deck, drenching them. Donald stumbled awkwardly along the wet and listing deck back towards the makeshift news-room. As he stumbled through the door, another explosion rocked the boat, igniting the pain in his ears. The vessel heaved about alarmingly. He had a vision of it keeling over, trapping them beneath it. There was the sound of breaking glass and the heavy frame of the bunk beds came down on top of him, pinning him to the ground. Everything went black.
When he opened his eyes the sound of planes was still overhead. Broken woodwork an
d smashed glass littered the floor. Harvey Quest lay in a pool of blood. Donald listened to the spit of machine gun bullets still hitting the hull of the ship. The iron wall of the room was ripped open by shrapnel. A pale finger of sky appeared in the rent. Someone bent over Harvey, trying to wake him. Donald had seen enough bodies to know Harvey was dead. He struggled clear of the fallen bunk beds and stood up; there was nothing he could do.
He ran back towards the companionway. The metallic rain of bullets continued to pound the ship. Looking up at the narrow stairway to the upper deck, he saw the machine guns of the Panay, manned by sailors stripped to the waist, stuttering with fire. Another explosion threw Donald halfway down the stairs. At last he burst into the petty officers’ mess and found it full of crouching people. A man was groaning loudly, and he saw it was Marco Mariani.
‘I’m hit. I’m dying.’ He clutched at Donald’s shirt. ‘Help me Addison. Find doctor, find priest.’ Mariani bent double in agony, as blood spilt from his waist over his knees.
‘Where’s the doctor?’ yelled Donald.
‘Try the engine room. All the wounded have been taken there,’ somebody shouted.
He groped his way down corridors and stairs. The boat listed badly, making speed impossible, and he wondered how long they had before it began to sink. At last he found the engine room, deep in the belly of the boat, reeking of oil and blood. There was only the light from a small generator for the doctor to work by. The wounded were laid out on the metal gratings; the rattle of guns was far away. Here the groaning of men, limbs mangled by bullets and shrapnel, filled the airless iron room.
‘This is crazy. We’re American. We’re not supposed to be hit. What are the devils playing at now? I’m not equipped for this kind of emergency,’ Dr Grazier exploded as he followed Donald back to the newsroom.
‘His stomach is full of bullets,’ he said after a glance at Mariani.
‘I’ll get him down to the engine room. Do something,’ Donald insisted. The doctor pursed his lips and shook his head.
‘Leave him here, I’ll give him some morphine. I’ve still a drop left. Lieutenant Anders has been hit in the throat, but he is still in charge of his vessel. Soon we’ll have to abandon ship.’ He administered the morphine to Mariani and hurried to the upper deck and Anders.
Donald crouched beside Mariani and saw the pain ease in his face as the morphine took effect. Mariani reached out and gripped Donald’s shirt, pulling him close. His voice was hoarse.
‘Addison, in these moments I have been thinking. I understand God is not pleased with me, in spite of my going so regularly to mass. Very rarely I miss it, you know. This has happened to me because I no longer take notice of death. I am so fed up with corpses I no longer see them even as human, with life once, and love and family. Only they are corpses for me to photograph, to make me famous Italian war correspondent. They must be burnt black, like chicken you roast for too long, or perhaps without head to qualify for my camera. I feel nothing any more. This is God’s punishment to me. Now, I am dying and I tell you, that corpse you looked at with your camera, that one I told you to ignore, he is important. He is like me, one small man with life and feelings. I do not want to die.’
‘Shut up Marco. You’re not going to die.’ Donald did not like the dried up smell of Mariani’s breath or the way he hung on to his shirt. A putrid odour filled his nostrils. His own throat had constricted with terror. Perhaps he too would be in Mariani’s state before the day was finished. Already, his shirt was red with Mariani’s blood.
‘We’re sinking, Addison. We’ll all go down with this boat, you know,’ Mariani screamed suddenly.
‘Listen, I’m going to get a pillow, to make you more comfortable.’ Donald stood up.
‘Get me priest, not pillows,’ Mariani sobbed. The boat gave a sudden lurch and listed further starboard.
‘We’ve no chaplain or priest aboard,’ said the doctor when Donald found him, kneeling beside Lieutenant Anders.
A bloody bandage was wound about Anders’ throat. He was writing emergency commands on a pad of paper, which were then chalked up upon the white paint of the Bridge. The sky was clear now above the Panay, and the planes had disappeared.
‘They’ll be back,’ said the doctor, following Anders’ gaze. ‘They’ve not finished with us yet. Nobody knows what the buggers are playing at.’
Leave the ship. Send the boats back. Stay near the shore. Word by word the new message was chalked up. Lieutenant Anders grimaced above his bandage. In the distance the drone of planes returned.
‘You’re unhurt. Help get the wounded to shore,’ the doctor ordered Donald.
The grey surface of the river stretched out, the sun picking up each ripple. It was roughly a quarter of a mile to shore, Donald gauged. How would they make it to safety before the planes returned or the Panay was sucked below? Panic gripped him.
He went down to the engine room. Every few moments the ship groaned and shifted beneath his feet, tilting further. Manoeuvring up and down the narrow stairs beneath the weight of wounded men was not easy. Donald was thrown against walls. The men howled in pain and cursed. Most of the lights had gone and he groped his way in semidarkness. In spite of the cold he was sweating. His clothes were now sodden with the blood of the wounded. A sour metallic smell rose off him and made him want to vomit.
At last all the wounded were brought up from the engine room. The worst cases were carried on makeshift blanket stretchers and lowered into the lifeboats like rolled-up carpets. Donald knelt by Mariani, who had also now been brought up on the deck. In the distance Donald could make out a desolate stretch of muddy shore up which the wounded were being hauled to safety. Mariani had not gone ashore in the earlier boats. His entrails spilled over his trousers, gleaming like offal in a butcher’s shop. He waited for the doctor to bind up his wound, securing his insides under a corset of lint.
Don’t leave me, Addison,’ Mariani whispered as he was lowered into the last boat. Donald embarked beside him.
At water level their vulnerability was overwhelming. The small boat was overloaded with men, the water inches from the top of the craft. The river was icy. The shadow of the boat hung beneath them, dark and still. A water bird screeched. There was no sign of habitation along the frozen riverbank. Mariani groaned again as more men jumped down into the boat, rocking it precariously.
Then, suddenly, they were moving. The oars cut through the water with quick swishing sounds. Waves slapped the sides of the boat, splashing upon him. It seemed they must sink, so low were they in the river. Donald squinted up at the sky. He felt like a duck stalked by the gun of a hunter. If he survived he would never again shoot a water bird.
‘I promise. Dear God, I promise. Only let us get to safety.’ Donald mumbled the words aloud.
‘What you are promising, Addison? You think God is listening to you in these circumstances? If you die there is no time to keep your promise, and if you live you will anyway not keep it. Even though I have been a good Catholic all my life, I am now seriously wondering about God for the first time in my life. There are terrible thoughts in my mind. Perhaps there is nothing there.’ Mariani leaned heavily against him. Far away the black dots of planes became visible again against the clouds.
The roar of aircraft burst above them in a sudden crescendo. The planes dipped, speeding towards them. Donald could see the rivets on their undersides. They swooped down above the tiny lifeboats. In a cockpit Donald glimpsed the small goggled head of a pilot. Bewilderment and anger surged through him. He had seen a human face. Suddenly, everything took on a new meaning.
‘Why are you doing this?’ he yelled at the departing plane, shaking a fist in the air. The surprise of seeing that one small face overwhelmed him.
Bullets hit the water, spitting like stones across the surface. Men shielded their heads with their arms. The boat rocked violently. A bullet thudded against the far side of the boat, passed an inch from Donald’s knees and lodged itself in the wood beside him. Water no
w spurted into the boat through numerous holes.
The planes returned yet again, diving low. Their shadows winged over the water, like savage, prehistoric birds. Mariani moaned. Donald hid his head beneath his arms as the next hail of bullets began. He muttered the prayer his mother had made him say each night as a child, kneeling at his bed. His lips formed rustily about the words. Once more the planes lifted and were gone. The lap of water about the bows filled the sudden silence. He raised his head and felt the adrenaline burst in his chest. Looking up he saw the sky was clear. He was not dead.
Somebody handed him a tin hat and he began to bale water that was seeping quickly into the boat through bullet holes. After a moment he stopped to prise out a bullet from where it was lodged in the side of the boat. He tested its weight, observing the gleam of metal as it lay in the palm of his hand. Then he closed his fist about it, and slipped it in his pocket. The oarsmen began to row again. Slowly, the grey line of the shore came closer. At last there was a shudder as the boat hit ground. Before them was a forest of impenetrable-looking reeds.
Several men had been hit in the attack, including the Panay’s storekeeper, who lay dead in the bow of the lifeboat. Donald took hold of Mariani, half-carrying him over his shoulder, and staggered towards the bank. Thick, icy mud sucked at his feet, pulling him down. If he stayed more than a moment in each spot he knew he would sink to his knees in the stuff. The weight of Mariani and the gluey mud made negotiations difficult. He pulled each foot free with difficulty, then stumbled suddenly. Mariani pitched out of his arms with a scream of agony.
Far away was the hum of planes once more. Panic gripped him and he began to mutter old prayers again. He reached Mariani and took hold of the Italian, dragging him forward by the armpits. At last the tall rushes surrounded them. Donald could see between the high, dense mass of stalks the crouching shapes of those who had landed before them. The noise of the planes grew louder. He wriggled further into the reeds, pulling Mariani with him. Mud now covered him in an icy poultice. A late afternoon sun spiked between the reeds. Mariani appeared unconscious.
