Ocean of Words

DRAGON HEAD

I met Dragon Head on our first evening in Guanmen Village, which is twenty li north of Hutou. After the Battalion Headquarters settled in a small adobe house, whose owner of the landlord class had been exiled inland because of the tense situation at the border, the commander of the First Battery, Lin Hu, brought over a militiaman. They stepped in and whisked the snow off their clothes with their fur hats. The militiaman unbuttoned his blue overcoat, and a pair of large Mauser pistols, probably captured from the Japanese, were revealed at his flanks. He was tall and broad shouldered. The room grew darker as the flickering flame on the kerosene lamp cast his huge wavering shadow on the white wall.

“This is Militia Company Commander Long Yun,” Lin Hu said. Then he turned to the militiaman. “This is our battalion commander, Gao Ping.”

“How do you do?” I held out my hand.

“Happy to meet you,” Long Yun said and put his mittens on the table. We shook hands. His palms and fingers felt like an emery wheel. “You can call me Dragon Head, Commander Gao. All my soldiers call me that, because my surname is Long — dragon, you know. Ha-ha-ha!” He laughed heartily, ruffling up his hair with his hand. Two rows of tea-stained square teeth were displayed under his straight nose and moistened mustache. His bulging black eyes glittered with the unrestrained candor that marks the men on the Northern Frontier. I smiled, amused by this young man who took the militia as the regular army.

“Commander Gao,” Lin Hu said, “my battery has been lodged entirely, all together in seventeen homes. Our cannons and trucks are stationed at the threshing ground of the Third Production Team. If not for Dragon Head’s help, some of us would have to sleep outside tonight and turn into frozen meat tomorrow morning.”

“Don’t be so polite, Commander Lin,” Dragon Head said. “You fellas are the people’s army, our own army. You came to defend our country and protect our homes and land. How can we let you sleep in the snow? Our houses are your houses, and our beds your beds too.”

“Well said, Comrade Militiaman,” Commissar Diao Shu said loudly as he came in from the next room. He stretched out his hand to Dragon Head and continued, “Chairman Mao instructs us: ‘The army and his people have united as one man; see who can be our match under Heaven!” ’

I moved forward a little, intending to introduce them, but Diao made a gesture to stop me. “We met two hours ago,” he said to me, and then he turned to Dragon Head. “I’m glad to meet you again, Comrade Long. Ah, how could I forget ‘Dragon Head’! What a thunderous name! From now on, we are friends and comrades-in-arms, am I right?”

“Right. We certainly are.” Dragon Head looked pleased, his mouth spreading sideways with a broad smile. He inserted his hands behind the holsters of his pistols.

After they left, Commissar Diao and I went out to see how well the three batteries had been settled. He was to inspect the western half of the village; I would go through the eastern half. It was snowing lightly. A large flock of noisy crows flew by and merged into the indigo air. Stars, scrubbed by snowflakes, were dangling in the murky sky while kerosene lamps burst forth one after another at the windows of the dwarf houses. A whiff of fresh corn cake mingled with the smell of cow dung.

There were some two hundred and thirty homes in Guanmen Village, and our battalion, three hundred and four men, was quartered in ninety of them. We were a newly formed unit, whose three batteries came from three different armies in Liaoning Province. With brand-new weapons and equipment we arrived at the frontier to reinforce the anti-tank firepower of the Fifth Regiment. It looked like a war was about to break out. We were prepared to fight the Russians, and every one of the soldiers had written an oath in his own blood to show his determination to defend the Motherland. Before coming to Hutou, I had sent a letter home, telling Guihua, my wife, that she should marry another man if I could not return, but that she must take good care of our two children. The soldiers never complained about the hardship we had to undergo — no barracks, not enough nutritious food, the severe cold of Siberia. As the head of the battalion, it was my duty to make sure that every one of them had a warm place to sleep for the night. That evening I ended up having dinner with the Fifth Squad of the Third Battery at the eastern end of the village. We ate sorghum and stewed frozen radishes.

To express our gratitude to the villagers, we had a movie shown the following evening. People assembled at the marketplace in the center of the village, waiting excitedly to see The Guerrillas on the Railroad. A small electric generator was whining away, and two bulbs were shining on the poles holding the white screen. Pulling on long pipes, old men and old women sat on small stools, muffled up in fur overcoats. Young mothers held babies wrapped in cotton quilts, and the large gauze masks that shielded the women’s noses and mouths exuded warm breath. Children were running around and through the crowds; some of them perched on naked trees, waiting for the movie to start.

As soon as our three batteries sat down, Dragon Head’s men arrived. They were singing “Carry the Revolutionary Guns” and marching in good order directly to the front ground below the screen. All together about seventy of them passed by, and every one shouldered a weapon — Russian 1938 rifles, American carbines seized from Chiang Kaishek’s troops, three light machine guns of Japanese make, a small sixty-millimeter mortar also captured from the Japanese, a pair of antitank mines, and — most advanced of all — one Russian bazooka. A few soldiers rose to their knees to have a better view of the militia. Having noticed our attention, Dragon Head kept his men marching in place at the front for a good minute. Then he ordered loudly: “Si-t down!” In a unified hop they sat down on the ground. To my surprise, most of the militiamen, including Dragon Head, wore army uniforms, though without collar badges or hat insignia. It seemed they had really got it into their heads to emulate the regular army unit.

Hardly had they sat down than they started a song, “Down with the New Czar of Russian Revisionists.” In their tuneless chanting, there was a deep, booming voice directing all other voices, as though dragging them to an uncertain end. I could tell it was Dragon Head.

When they finished, Dragon Head jumped up and shouted: “People’s Army — ”

“Sing us a song!” His men followed in one voice.

“People’s Army — ”

“Sing us a song!”

The Second Battery began to sing a song composed for Chairman Mao’s quotation: “Who are our enemies? Who are our friends? This is a question of the first importance for the revolution. To ensure we will succeed in our revolution, we must unite with our real friends in order to attack our real enemies.”

When our men finished singing, without a request from the army side, the militia started another song, which was also a quotation from Chairman Mao: “A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained, and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.” So they sang. But this time Dragon Head stood in front of his men, beating time with his big fists. The Mauser pistols were fluttering at his sides like a pair of hawks.

We had no time to sing another song back because the movie suddenly started. Soon, laughter and applause rose and fell in the hush of the night.

Both Commissar Diao and I were very busy. During the day he spent most of his time in the three batteries organizing the studies of Chairman Mao’s works and the documents issued by the Central Committee, while I was engaged in training the soldiers to operate the cannons more efficiently in the severe weather. We had to be well practiced. Guanmen Village was fifteen li from the Wusuli River, and the Russians’ tanks could cross the frozen river and arrive here within half an hour, so we had to be able to get ready in a very short time. My men were the best soldiers I had ever commanded; after three weeks’ drill, we could go into battle in twenty minutes.

One morning after breakfast I was about to set out with my orderly, Liu Bing, for the Second Battery for a training inspection. Suddenly Ma Yibiao, the battery’s commander, burst into the Battalion Headquarters. “Damn it, Commander Gao. Screw Dragon Head and his mother, damn it!” he shouted, panting hard.

“What’s wrong, Old Ma?” I asked.

“Six of my men lost their hats!”

“Calm down, and explain it slowly. What exactly happened?” As I was speaking, Commissar Diao came in from the adjacent room.

“Early this morning, after the running exercises,” Ma said, his face red, “some of my men went into the latrine to relieve themselves. Six of them were squatting there. Then a hooligan wearing a large gauze mask came in, picked up their hats one by one, and ran away.”

“What?” I couldn’t believe it. “Six men were robbed like that?”

“Yes, it’s damned shameful. They thought it was a joke and merely shouted, ‘A good man doesn’t jump at a squatting man.’ Once they realized it was serious business, it was too late and the hooligan had disappeared.”

“Who’s the robber, do you know?” I asked.

“It’s a louse on a bald head — everybody can see it. He must be one of Dragon Head’s men. Who else wants army hats?”

“I’m going to Dragon Head to question him.”

“Wait a minute, Old Gao,” Commissar Diao broke in. “Don’t be hotheaded. We have to think about the whole thing before taking any action.”

“Why is it so complex, Commissar Diao?” Ma asked.

“Because if we don’t handle it well, it will damage our relationship with the villagers, which is vital for us now.”

“Old Ma, I think Commissar Diao’s right,” I said. Then I turned to Diao and asked, “What do you think we should do?”

“I suggest we hold a meeting this evening. Discuss it first and see what we should do. For the time being, let’s keep quiet about it.”

We all agreed. Together with Ma Yibiao, I went to the Second Battery. On the drill ground made out of a small soccer field, the soldiers were practicing directed fire. In the line of six cannons, the third one stood under its canvas cover. Ma pointed at it and said, “See, four men in the Third Squad have no hats and cannot come outside in the cold, so this cannon is not operated.”

I was enraged again and went directly to the Third Squad. In a small farmhouse, six bareheaded men were sitting on three benches, studying Chairman Mao’s “On Protracted War.” When they saw me come in, they bent their heads lower. I sat down and asked them what the robber looked like.

“We couldn’t see his face, Commander Gao,” said the squad leader, Li Lin. “He wore a pair of sunglasses and a gauze mask.”

“How tall and how big is he?” I asked.

“About a hundred and seventy centimeters tall, I guess, and of slender build.”

“I saw a wart under his left ear,” said a short man, whose name I remembered was Ding Zhi.

“Yeah, I saw the wart too,” another put in.

“You mean here?” Commander Ma asked, pointing his finger at the spot beneath his earlobe.

“Yes.” They nodded.

“Damn his grandma, he’s nobody but Wang Si, one of Dragon Head’s bodyguards,” Ma concluded.

“Good, we have clarified that,” I said. “Did you write your names inside your hats?”

“No.” They all shook their heads.

“Tell everybody to put his name inside his hat,” I told Ma.

Not knowing what the next step should be, we left the squad and returned to the drill ground. I was not very satisfied with the Second Battery’s training in directed fire, but I didn’t say anything, because it took time to master the skills and we would mostly use point-blank shooting in fighting the Russians’ tanks.

That evening all the battery commanders and political instructors gathered at Battalion Headquarters. Commissar Diao presided over the discussion. In the beginning, most of us suggested holding a formal talk with Dragon Head and requiring him to return the hats with a promise that this sort of thing would not happen again. But Commissar Diao disagreed. He argued, “Comrades, we have to think about this matter in connection with the overall situation. If you view it this way, six hats are nothing — ”

“It’s not a matter of hats,” I interrupted him. “I would give him sixty if we had that many extras. Because of the loss of those hats, a squad can’t go into action in such cold weather. Say an emergency arises now; a cannon will be automatically disabled. Isn’t it absurd?”

“I fully understand your point, Old Gao,” he said. “Wait till I finish, and see if I can make some sense.” He turned to all the officers and continued, “We live in the villagers’ homes, and you all know what kind of man Dragon Head is. In a way he’s the head of the village. If we get on bad terms with him, we may turn the whole village against us. We came here to fight the Russians and have no time and energy to deal with Dragon Head. At this moment, the Russians are our enemy. Comrades, we have to learn how to unite with all forces that can be united to fight our chief enemy.

“Please think about our own situation again. In the Fifth Regiment we are the only new battalion and the only artillery unit; if a war breaks out, for sure we will have to play the major part in fighting the Russians’ tanks. We are not afraid of that, since our cannons are designed to destroy them. But what if the Russian foot soldiers launch an attack at our batteries? Do you think the Regimental Headquarters will send over a company beforehand to protect us? I don’t think so. You all know there is simply no infantry unit nearby. Do you think we ourselves have enough firepower to stop the Russian foot soldiers? I don’t think so either. Dragon Head has a company; though not well equipped, it’s the best available. As long as we’re on good terms with him, the militia will fight for us. He likes fighting; all right, we bring his enthusiasm into play. It’s true that the loss of six hats may disable a cannon for a while, but it’s a small matter compared with the overall situation. I think even if we lose a squad permanently, still it’s not as important as to have Dragon Head’s company in our service. Now, everybody can say whatever he wants.”

What could we say? Who could oppose such a balancing, calculating mind? We all agreed with him and were willing to drop this matter. I was very impressed by Commissar Diao’s good sense and was full of respect for this small man.

Although we did not bicker with Dragon Head, still my bad feeling toward him would not die away easily. Bandits, I would say to myself. If this were the Old China, no doubt Dragon Head would become a small warlord. One day at noon I ran into him on the road in front of the village grocery. He walked dashingly, with two bodyguards following. I couldn’t help staring at him, and he must have realized the resentment in my look. His eyes rolled toward me while his hand rose to his temple, saluting me in the mlitary manner. Instantly his guards saluted me too. I was forced to raise my hand in return. They passed by as if on patrol.

The Spring Festival was drawing near, and I was worried. All the three batteries were new, without any savings. How could we celebrate the holiday? Some soldiers would miss home, and their spirits would be low. How could we make them forget home and enjoy themselves, eating well and playing well? Surely we had to stay in combat readiness during the holiday period, but we also had to feast and make every man feel at ease in his own battery. The Regimental Logistics Department sent us four hundred jin of pork. Too little for three hundred men. What should we do? Both Commissar Diao and I were restless.

This time Dragon Head came to help us out. On the morning two days before the Spring Festival, a large group of militiamen arrived at our headquarters. In the front yard they were blowing suona, beating drums and gongs and letting off double-bang firecrackers. Commissar Diao and I rushed out. A broad red banner, with the golden words MILITIA OF GUANMEN on it, was flapping away in the north wind. Every one of them carried a gun on his back. Warm breath was puffing out from their mouths and nostrils. Dragon Head, standing at the front, raised his right hand while his left hand remained stuck behind his Mauser. Immediately the men moved to both sides and a pass was opened through them. Then ten pairs of men, poles on their shoulders, carried over ten boars, which were held upside down by hemp ropes tied to the hind trotters. They placed the frozen carcasses on the ground one by one in a line. The first boar was covered with a large piece of red paper on which a row of characters in black ink read: FOR OUR BELOVED LIBERATION ARMY.

I was moved and went to Dragon Head. We shook hands. Commissar Diao was also delighted; he held Dragon Head’s hand and spoke. “We are very grateful, Comrade Dragon Head, and we won’t forget the kindness and the trust of your people.”

“It’s our duty to bring our best wishes to our own army,” Dragon Head said, wiping the frost off his mustache.

“Dragon Head,” I said, “we won’t take these free. We must pay you. Tell us how much for each.”

“What?” He frowned. “Commander Gao, you’re not treating us as your own people if you say so. All right, if you want to buy, we won’t sell.” He was about to turn to his men.

“Wait, wait,” Commissar Diao intervened. “Commander Gao didn’t mean to take you as outsiders, Dragon Head. Chairman Mao has instructed us not to take from the people ‘a needle or a piece of thread.’ You know, we must always follow the Chairman’s instruction. Old Gao was not wrong to mention the price, but he forgot that these boars are not from common people but from another unit, from our comrade-in-arms Dragon Head’s company. Please don’t mis-undertand us; we do want to accept your kind gifts.”

“That’s the way of saying things. Ha-ha-ha!” Dragon Head threw his head back and laughed. All his men followed him guffawing.

So we accepted the boars. Each company got three, and the Battalion Headquarters kept one. The major problem had been solved: as long as we had enough meat, it would not be difficult to feed our men.

At my suggestion, we planned to give a banquet to the village heads and the production brigade leaders on the Spring Fetival’s Eve. We ought to find a way to pay them back for their kindness. For whatever reason, we should not take things from the people without giving them something in return. Those boars could by no means come from Dragon Head’s own home. Besides, we had caused a great deal of inconvenience to the villagers ever since we began lodging in their homes. This was the time to show our gratitude. Commissar Diao supported the idea.

The banquet was held at the meeting room of the production brigade, which was cleaned up and decorated for this occasion. A pair of colorful lanterns hung at the entrance, and a couplet written on two broad bands of red paper was pasted on the walls on each side of the door: THE ARMY AND THE PEOPLE ARE UNITED LIKE FISH AND WATER / WITH SOARING ASPIRATION WE WELCOME ANOTHER SPRING. I didn’t think Scribe Niu Hsi had done a good job in making the poetry, but we were army men and shouldn’t be fastidious about words. Inside the room twelve square tables were set in three lines, and at the center of each table four candles, as thick as grenades, stood burning. The room was ablaze with a swarm of flames.

On the army side, all the battery commanders and political instructors and the officers in the Battalion Headquarters attended; on the villagers’ side, all the local powers were invited, including the head of the blacksmith’s shop and the only doctor at the village clinic. All together there were about ninety people. The dishes were not fancy, but they were substantial: stewed pork, scrambled eggs, fried cutlass fish, horsemeat balls … Wine was plentiful — three full vats stood against the wall. After Commissar Diao and the Party secretary of the production brigade, Liu Ming, made their speeches, people started to enjoy themselves.

As the heads of the army, Diao and I were obligated to go to every table and to propose toasts, but Diao had little capacity for liquor, so we had arranged beforehand that I would carry out the obligation alone. Holding a green enamel mug, I made my way from table to table.

I met Dragon Head and his men at the eighth table, the noisiest one. They ate meatballs with their hands and had a large basket of cutlass fish in the middle of the other dishes. At the corner of the table lay a short braid of large garlic, which they had brought for the feast.

“Merry Spring Festival, Dragon Head,” I said with a smile.

“Happy holiday, Commander Gao.” He raised a huge bowl, which looked like a small basin, and took a gulp.

“Let us drink to our solidarity,” I proposed.

“Sure, glasses dry.” Seeing me hesitating, he said, “Why? You don’t want to? My bowl’s three times bigger than your mug.”

Without a word, I drank up the mugful of corn liquor and then held the mug upside down.

“Good man!” they cried in one voice.

Dragon Head raised the bowl to his mouth and started drinking. A purple vein was quivering on his neck. I watched him with admiration.

When he finished, one of his men said, “Brother Dragon can swallow a sea.”

We shook hands, and his eyes shone with happiness. When I returned to my table, Commissar Diao awaited me there. We agreed that everything had gone well. He wanted to leave early to visit the men in the batteries. I told him that I wouldn’t hang around for long and would go to the Third Battery soon. Apart from wishing the soldiers a happy Spring Festival, we would also make sure that everything was in good shape, because our battalion had been ordered to stay in first-degree combat readiness during the holiday. For a whole week everybody had to sleep with his clothes on.

The village’s show team arrived and started performing in the front of the room. A man in light green silks and a woman in pink, both with painted faces, were wheeling around, singing in turn the local opera The Couple’s Twirl. The woman sang:

Watermelons here are big and sweet,

We club roe deer in our backyard,

Pheasants sneak in to steal wheat,

Fish jump into pails and splash hard.

But take me with you, my sweetheart,

On your three-horse cart.

We shall journey, never apart,

Never apart, never apart …

I was about to leave, but Dragon Head came to my table with the large bowl in his hand. Behind him came Wang Si, carrying a plastic gasoline can containing white spirits. “Commander Gao,” Dragon Head said, “I like … like your way of drinking. Let’s have a-another.” He held out his bowl and Wang Si filled it. A wart protruded beneath Wang Si’s ear like a squashed fly.

“Dragon Head,” I said, “you shouldn’t drink more. We’re in combat readiness now.”

“This stuff won’t hold us back.” He drank up the whole bowl, then looked at me with his bloodred eyes. “We set out tonight … and drive … drive the Russian Tartars down … down into the Arctic Ocean. Give us orders, Com-Commander Gao.”

“Dragon Head, you need a rest.”

“No.” He held out his bowl again, and Wang Si refilled it. “All the northern land, from Sakhalin … to Mo-Mongolia, is ours. The Russians took it … from us. We must take it back! Screw their ancestors, they killed my … my gre-great-grandpa in Vladivostok. He was … doing business there — ”

“You need some sleep, Dragon Head,” I said. “Wang Si and you, Ma Ding, take him home and put him into bed.”

“It’s Spring Festival,” he mumbled. “I’m happy, ha-ppy —” His men supported him away.

After having told Niu Hsi to take care of the banquet, I left for the Third Battery. It was snowing outside, and the wind had slacked off. Firecrackers sputtered here and there in the sky; the air was filled with the smell of gunpowder. Every chimney was puffing out sparking smoke. The merry cries of children were drifting about, reminding me of home. Guihua must be making dumplings now, and Hong and Tiger must be following the dancing processions in the streets. When the dinner’s ready at midnight, they’ll set a seat for me and place an extra pair of chopsticks on the table …

Later I heard that Dragon Head’s great-grandfather had indeed died in Vladivostok. It was said that he had been a very handsome man, wearing a long, glossy braid. When the Russians took the city, they set about seizing women everywhere. Dragon Head’s great-grandfather was captured because he looked so beautiful that the Russians mistook him for a woman. They brought him to their billet, but when they groped between his thighs, they felt something there, so they thrust a sword into his throat. This must have been the reason why Dragon Head would not live with the Russians under the same sky.

We had a good Spring Festival, and all the men felt refreshed. After the holiday period, we could sleep again in our underclothes. But we could not relax our vigilance, because it was still winter, the season when the Russians’ armored vehicles could cross the frozen river. With the intention of maintaining our combat effectiveness, we decided to have an emergency muster on the last Wednesday night of February.

In fact, this was the first night action we had ever taken at Guanmen. At eleven o’clock sharp, Orderly Liu Bing blew the bugle in the sleeping village. All the battery leaders had been informed in advance, but they had to order their men to act as if a battle had broken out at the front. No light was allowed; everything had to be done in the dark, because the Russians could locate our position and shell us if they saw a light. In no time, the tranquil night was teeming with the noises of dogs, footsteps, horses, orders, and starting trucks. A few chimneys began spouting smoke — the cooks of each battery were heating water, with which the drivers would start the frozen vehicles. I set off for the bank of the Husha Brook, beyond the western end of the village, where we had planned to assemble the three batteries.

Not until half an hour later did all of the three batteries arrive. Without lights on, a few trucks were still nosing about like whales on the surface of a white ocean. The long barrels of the cannons all pointed to the northeastern sky. Some artillerymen even went about digging pits to set in the spades. “Stop digging!” I shouted at them. They didn’t know this was just a drill.

The battery commanders all came over and reported to me and Commissar Diao. Although we both thought it was not too bad for the entire battalion to pull out in half an hour in such severe weather, neither Diao nor I was satisfied, because according to the requirement we should be able to complete the action in twenty-five minutes. I told the leaders to return to their batteries and lead their men back to the village. “Tomorrow we’ll sum up our experiences and see if we can make it quicker,” I said.

As I was speaking, Dragon Head and his men came running toward us. He came directly to me, bareheaded, puffing out warm breath and fanning himself with his hat. “All my men’re here. Are we leaving for the front now?”

“No, these are exercises.” I glanced at Commissar Diao, whose face fell.

“Exercises!” Dragon Head yelled, and he put his hands on the Mauser pistols. “Exercises at midnight? Why the hell didn’t you inform me before? Damn you both!”

“Comrade Dragon Head,” Commissar Diao said, “please do not misunderstand us. Night fighting is our army’s tradition, you know that. We didn’t notify you beforehand because we didn’t want to disturb you. This is not a real action, and we just had the cannons pulled out. Please forgive us.”

“Damn it, see what you’ve done.” He turned in the direction of the village, his hand pointing at the glimmering sky above the waves of the thatched roofs. “See, every family lit a fire for cooking, and I’ve ordered them to send the food here.” He raised his voice, shouting to the crowd of his men. “Hey, Ma Ding you run back to the village and tell them to stop, no more cooking, and no more killing sheep and pigs.”

I felt awful. But it was not our fault. Even all of our platoon leaders had not been told of the muster in advance; why should we inform the militia? Dragon Head had made the mess himself; yet it would be senseless to blame him. “Dragon Head,” I said, “we apologize. I mean it sincerely. Tomorrow I’ll go with you to apologize to the people, home by home.”

“Drop your apology. Who wants it! We take you fellas as our own army. Then you have your secret plans and make asses of us all. We’ve been wronged, you know. You treat us as outsiders.”

“Comrade Dragon Head,” Commissar Diao said loudly, “you’re mistaken. I swear by my Communist Party membership that we always regard your company as our own troops. Your company is our infantry force, but you see tonight we have purely artillery exercises. Even so, we should indeed have notified you in advance. Please accept our sincere apology and pass it on to the villagers. I promise, from now on, we will let you know all our plans of action.”

“You always speak well, Commissar.” Dragon Head looked somewhat pacified. “All right, it’s not a big thing. Nobody’s lost his head yet. I’ll talk to them and they’ll understand. But no second time.”

“You have my word,” Diao assured him.

After Dragon Head led his men away, Diao turned to me and said, “It’s negligence on our part.”

“Why? I don’t think so. The exercises are a military action; how come we have to tell him beforehand?”

“Old Gao, you forgot the action is also political. It could damage the relationship between the army and the people if it’s not done appropriately.”

“I agree, my comrade commissar. Only because we live here, we have to share everything with him. Fine, it’s all right with me. I must say, it’s a pity that those sheep and pigs were not butchered for a holiday. Next time I’ll order Dragon Head’s company to make a forced night march to Hutou Town. See how he’ll enjoy that.” We both laughed.

Although I said that, we dared not have another emergency muster for the rest of the winter. It would be unwise to wake up the whole village at night without giving a genuine reason. Besides, if we had done it too often, the villagers would have got used to it; when a real emergency arose, they might have ignored it as exercises. So we wouldn’t try again. Dragon Head had our promise that he would always be informed. All right, he could have our word, but there was no need for us to carry it out.

2

Spring came, and the Wusuli River thawed. The tension on the border eased up. Since the deep water could obstruct the Russians’ armored vehicles, a large battle was unlikely. As soon as the weather allowed, we set about constructing our barracks, which were located on the slope of a hill three li west of Guanmen Village. Every day we busied ourselves felling pines for lumber, trucking bricks and cement from Hutou, leveling and digging the ground, and quarrying rocks. The whole battalion turned into a construction brigade. Our artillery skills were out of practice, and many soldiers went about without uniforms on all the time. But we had to have our own barracks, the sooner the better, for it was impossible to live with the villagers for long without a bicker or a row. Besides, it was difficult to impose discipline on army men who rubbed shoulders with civilians every day. My men were chosen fighters from three renowned armies, and certainly they would attract the attention of the womenfolk. Affairs were reported one after another. A young widow even sneaked into the brick bed shared by three soldiers in the First Battery. We had to move out of the village as soon as possible.

As it had been divided between us, I was in charge of constructing the barracks, whereas Commissar Diao organized all political studies and handled our dealings with the local people. I would leave at dawn for the building site and return at night, so for three months Dragon Head was almost out of my mind.

Then one summer morning Scribe Niu Hsi and I went to Wudao Commune Administration to hire some experienced masons. When we were coming out of the Leopard Mouth, a pass between two steep hills, we heard some gunshots. On our right, a group of militiamen stood at the edge of a graveyard, aiming their rifles and firing at the foot of the hill. Some of the shots whined away in the air and hit nothing. Dragon Head stood with arms akimbo. He saw us and waved. We got off our bicycles, laid them at the roadside, and went up to him.

“Hey, Commander Gao.” He held out his hand. “Haven’t seen you for a long time.”

We shook hands and began to chat. He told me this was their practice range. There were two targets erected against a deserted quarry a hundred meters away. Numerous tiny white balloons, tied to the boles of young birches by threads, were fluttering in the warm breeze.

“It’s a good idea to shoot balloons,” I said. “A good way to practice how to shoot paratroops.”

“You think so?” Dragon Head asked with a broad smile. “It’s no fun to fire at dead objects, you know.”

“Maybe we should use balloons in our practice too. Where did you get these?”

Dragon Head and the men around laughed. “It’s easy, from the Commune’s Family Planning Office. Free. Ha-ha-ha.”

I shook my head and smiled. There was no way that we could get condoms free for our firing practice. At this moment, Wang Si, bareheaded, ran over and reported to Dragon Head, “Big Brother, everything’s fixed now. We can start again.”

Dragon Head turned to me and Niu Hsi. “Want to shoot down a paratrooper, eh?”

“All right,” I said.

They gave each of us an old Russian rifle and five long cartridges. We loaded the guns and started to fire away. After every shot we pulled back the bolt lever to throw out the shell. Niu hit one “paratrooper,” while I got four.

“Not bad, Commander Gao,” Dragon Head said. “I can tell you’re an old hand with guns. Not bad.” Then he took a rifle from Ma Ding and fired rapidly at the floating targets. With five shots he brought down five.

“Good job!” I said. “Dragon Head, you’re a marksman.”

He narrowed one of his large eyes. “If I have a semiautomatic rifle like those used by your army, then I can wipe out all the paratroopers in seconds.”

In fact, now only three were left bobbing in the distant air. A man holding a bunch of fully inflated condoms was about to leave to set up more. “Wait,” Dragon Head ordered. “Wait a minute, Li Wu. We haven’t done the real work yet.” He turned to me and asked, “Don’t you want to try the machine gun?” His hand pointed at a light machine gun of Japanese make that perched at the edge of a sunken grave.

I hesitated, because I had never touched a machine gun that old. “You know, Dragon Head, I’m not good at machine guns. I can handle any artillery pieces but not this kind of gun.”

“Don’t be modest,” he said. “I know you’re an old hand. You shoot at the right target and leave the left one for me, okay? We’ll do it just for fun.”

Without my agreement, Ma Ding skillfully loaded the gun. “You have fifty rounds,” Ma said in a nasal voice.

Somehow I did feel like giving it a try; so, lying prone at the side of the grave, I began shooting away. Clouds of dust were thrown up below and above the target as if I was raking the quarry. The recoil was so tremendous that the gun jerked and jolted in my arms like a struggling beast. A straight line of misty balls jumped up from the ground twenty meters ahead of me, stretching beyond to the top of the hill. The last few shots were sent into the faraway clouds.

“Damn it!” I shook my head, which was still ringing inside. “This gun fires like a machine cannon. I wasn’t prepared for it.” The men around were laughing.

Dragon Head smiled as though to himself and said, “I can tell you’re not familiar with it. It’s not so hard to handle once you’re used to it.”

In the meantime, Ma Ding loaded the gun with another fifty rounds. Dragon Head pulled the visor of his cap around to the back of his head, jumped into the grave, and started shooting at the target on the left. The gun was honking in fixed fire — every three or four cracks formed a beat. Wooden splinters flew about the green human silhouette, behind which bullets were whistling off rocks in all directions. The target quaked as if it would fall down. I could tell that most of the shots hit the mark. Wry smiles trembled on his face as Dragon Head fired away, until he split the target’s wooden leg and swept the whole thing out of sight.

All the men shouted “Bravo.” Li Wu ran off toward the quarry to count the hits. A black dog was dashing ahead of him.

“A great job, Dragon Head!” I said, stretching out my hand. “How did you learn to use guns?”

“Through hunting when I was a boy.” He grinned at me. “But shotguns are no good, and we have sold all of them.”

“How about these brothers?” I moved my hand around. “Do they also shoot so well?”

“No,” Wang Si broke in, “only Brother Dragon can do it.”

“Some of them are good gunmen, I must say,” Dragon Head said.

“Hey,” Li Wu shouted from the quarry, raising the fallen target, “forty-six hits.”

“I wish they were forty-six Russian bastards,” Dragon Head grunted.

Then, pointing at the standing target, Li Wu announced in a cry: “Se-ven.”

All the militiamen laughed again. I felt embarrassed. It was the worst record in my life. If I had known the gun was so difficult to control, I would not have tried it or at least would have been more careful with it, and I wouldn’t have made a fool of myself like this.

We had no interest in lingering any longer, so Scribe Niu Hsi and I left them for our bicycles on the roadside. I told Niu not to tell anyone in our battalion about the shooting, and he promised he would not. To be honest, I did not take the slightest offense at the experience, for Dragon Head was indeed a superior shooter. A superb marksman, I had to admit. Actually, nobody in my battalion could be his match. It was said that he could shoot eggs from fifty paces off with his Mausers in both hands. What made me so cautious was that I was the head of the army unit. If my men had known I participated in the militia’s range practice, they would have followed me and started messing with those men.

By the end of August, we had finished the construction work. Four rows of brick houses were put up on the slope beyond the western hill. A small drill ground was flattened out halfway up the slope, where we would put our trucks and cannons. The major virtue of the barracks was that it was behind the hill, so the Russian lookout towers could not see us and their gunfire could not bombard us. Now the three batteries were busy packing up and pulling down all the temporary dining sheds, storehouses, and latrines that we had built in the village. For four months I had not taken one day off, so on a Saturday evening I accepted Commissar Diao’s advice to have a break and go to Hutou the next morning, where I would take a hot bath in the town bathhouse and eat sautéed beef liver at a restaurant. Then I would pay a visit to an officer at the Regimental Headquarters who was from my hometown.

In Hutou everything went as I had planned. Around three o’clock, I walked back to the bus station at the town center, still a little hungover from the three bottles of brandy I had drunk with my fellow townsman. There I came across Dragon Head again; he was also waiting to take the bus home. With him was a familiar-looking girl.

“Hello, Dragon Head,” I said. “Why are you here?” We shook hands.

“Went to Hsiufen’s grandpa’s home in Garlic Village.” He pointed at the girl and introduced her. “This is my fiancée, Hsiufen.”

“I’m happy to know you two are engaged. Congratulations.” Then I said to the girl, “See how important you are? Dragon Head, the commander of the militia company, follows you around as your fully armed bodyguard.” She smiled, and her clear, large eyes rolled toward her betrothed.

“Commander Gao,” Dragon Head said, slapping his Mauser pistols. “I’m not carrying these fellows as presents for my in-laws, am I? Who knows when the Russians will come. We must keep them warm all the time.” By “them” he meant the guns. The girl looked at me rather seriously and seemed to expect a positive response.

“You really have high vigilance,” I managed to say. He smiled, and so did the girl. I felt awkward, because I didn’t have my pistol with me. It was unnecessary to carry a gun when you were off duty in the summer. Truly, in the winter you could see many people bear weapons in the streets of Hutou; if you ate in a restaurant, very often some militiamen sat nearby, drinking and rejoicing, with their loaded guns propped against their tables. But other than in winter, few people carried weapons in town.

The bus arrived, and people were lining up to get aboard. I deliberately stood at the end of the line, not wanting to sit with Dragon Head and his fiancée, because I must have reeked of alcohol. As they moved slowly to the bus, I had a good look at the girl. She was tall, with a neck as white as that of a young goose. Her narrow nose pointed upward above a mouth shaped like a water chestnut. Her pink shirt and sky blue pants bulged a little around her breasts and hips. A pair of plastic sandals revealed her large feet. In a way, she seemed to match Dragon Head well in size and stature.

On the bus Dragon Head greeted a man behind him, then chatted with another man on his right. He appeared to know everybody. The conductor began to sell tickets. When she came to Dragon Head’s seat, he handed her a one-yuan bill and said, “Two for Guanmen.”

The driver in the front turned around and said aloud to the conductor, “Dragon Head doesn’t need to pay.”

“What?” Dragon Head said. “Don’t try buying off a revolutionary, Old Zhao. I have to pay, because the bus is our country’s. If you owned it, I’d take a ride directly to my brick bed at home.” A few passengers laughed. The conductor accepted his money and gave him two tickets.

“Together with Hsiufen?” the driver asked, giggling without turning his head.

“Damn you, Monkey Zhao,” Dragon Head retorted. His fiancee flushed a little and turned her head away. Some people chuckled, looking at the girl.

The bus pulled out. On the roadside, cement wire poles fell behind one by one, and bulletin boards, wider and taller than a soccer goal, moved past one after another. A white line of Chairman Mao’s instructions paraded on a brick wall: DIG DEEP HOLES, STORE GRAIN EVERYWHERE, DO NOT LORD OVER THE WORLD! From the side I peered at the girl who sat beyond Dragon Head by the window. Against the breeze her curly bangs were fluttering on her smooth forehead. Her chin set forward a little, giving a clear contour to her face, while her eyes were half closed.

Somehow she felt me observing her. She turned around and gave me a childlike smile. All of a sudden I felt pity for her, not because of her beauty, which was in no way extraordinary, or because of my amorous attention, but because of the man she was engaged to. Dragon Head was not a bad fellow, but he was unreliable and could never be a good husband. Marrying a man of his kind is like building a home below a dam. I would have no child rather than allow my daughter to be such a man’s wife.

The bus jolted to a stop at Guanmen Village. About a dozen passengers got off. Before I could wave good-bye to him and his fiancée, Dragon Head stopped me. “I want to have a chat with you, Commander Gao.” Then he pointed to an aspen.

We moved a few steps to the tree, leaving the girl standing alone at the bus stop. “You can do me a favor, can’t you, Commander Gao?”

“What favor?”

“We need a pair of transceivers.”

“What for?”

“We often go to the Wusuli River to keep an eye on the Russians. But we can’t go all together. You see, those of us on the river and those at home must find a way to keep in touch. I know you just got a bunch of new transceivers. Can you give us two of the big ones?” He was referring to some old three-watt transceivers that had just been put out of service.

“No, Dragon Head, I can’t,” I said firmly. “We do have some old ones, but they have all been listed and numbered, and we have to return them to the Regimental Logistics Department.”

“Why do they want them back? They won’t use them, will they?” He looked quite cross.

“I have no idea. According to the rule, we have to send back every one of the machines. Forgive me, Dragon Head. It’s not personal. Say, if you wanted a transistor radio of mine, I would give it to you, but this is a matter of discipline.”

“All right, I understand discipline all right. We won’t ask you for them again.” Without saying one more word, he turned around and walked away to the girl. His large shadow, cast by the setting sun, covered a long strip of land ahead of him.

That night Commissar Diao and I had a drink. I took out a packet of sliced pork head that I had brought from Hutou, and he told Orderly Liu to get a bottle of corn liquor from his room. “Old Gao,” he said, “we two should really get loose tonight. Ha! Pork head, I haven’t tasted this since we came here.” He picked a chunk and put it into his mouth. “Hum, so good. Delicious!”

I smiled and poured the liquor into my green mug.

Two mugs later, I told him that I had met Dragon Head in Hutou and that he had asked me for two transceivers. “Crazy. He’s more vigilant than we are,” I said.

“He’s just that kind of man. You cannot do anything about it — it’s easy to change a mountain or a river but not a man’s nature.”

“He’s too warlike,” I said. “It’s the busy farming season now. Fields need hoeing and vegetables must be sown, but he and his men patrol around carrying guns and banners. It looks like he can’t live without war.”

“I agree with you, Old Gao, a hundred percent.” Diao’s tongue was a little thick. I didn’t advise him to stop drinking; today we were off duty and should relax.

“I know his type well,” he said again, and stuck a piece of the meat into his mouth. “What do you think would be his best end, O-Old Gao?”

“I’ve never thought about it. What do you think?”

“His best end is to be killed by our enemy.” He chuckled. “I can see you’re shocked, but I told you the truth. My granduncle was like that too, the same … same type.” He raised his mug and drank.

“Same as Dragon Head?”

“Yes. My granduncle used to be a landlord, a ri-rich one. He overrode the entire village. Nobody dared oppose him, and he took care of everybody’s business. For instance, a cart driver stole a chi-chicken from a farmer’s house; he led the farmer to … to the cart driver’s home, carrying a big stone, and they smashed the only caldron on the kitchen range. The family couldn’t cook for many days. Everybody said my granduncle would be avenged sooner or later. My dad told me that he would have been e-executed by the Communists, if — if he had lived longer.”

“How did he die?” I was curious. Diao would never talk like this when he was sober.

“How?” He giggled, shaking his head. “He was beheaded by the Japanese devils. The Japs surrounded our village and brought all the folk to — to the marketplace. They ordered them to tell where the guerrillas hid themselves. The folk didn’t know. The Japs set two straw cutters in the front of the crowd and said they would chop off some heads if the folk didn’t tell them. My granduncle stepped out and said he knew, but he wouldn’t tell. The Japs were mad and or-ordered him to go down on his knees. He refused. They beat him to the ground with gun butts, and … and put him under the blade. Still he wouldn’t tell, and never stopped cursing, so they cut his head off.”

“What happened then?”

“The villagers all said that only my granduncle knew … where the guerrillas were, and that he was the liaison man of the guerrillas. In fact he was not. Since he had been killed, the Japs let the folk go in the end.”

“That’s a heroic story,” I said, a little moved.

“A funny one.” He giggled again, but his eyes looked teary. He turned his face to the gloomy wall. After a few seconds, he resumed. “The truth is that all the folk hated his guts, but nobody dared touch him, because he was the lolord in the village. If the Japs had not killed him, the folk would have buried him alive when the Communists came to start the Land Reform. Beheaded by the Japs, he became a hero, a famous one. People in the nearby counties would men-mention his name as a true Chinese. All the villagers were grateful and thought… he had sacrificed himself to save their lives. He didn’t love them a bit, to say nothing of sacrificing his life for them. I don’t think the idea of sacrifice had ever entered his head. Who knows what the devil was in him … that drove him to step out. The funniest part is that — when the Land Reform was about to begin, the head of the Work Group told my grandpa, in secret, to sell all our land. Promptly my grandpa sold it and told everybody … that my granduncle had left a large debt, and that we had to sell everything to clear the debt. So when the reform began, the villagers voted the Diaos’ class status to be middle peasant, since we were indeed as lan-landless as any of them. Isn’t it funny that the richest landlord turned into a middle peasant overnight?”

He giggled huskily. “You see, if my granduncle had been alive, we would’ve been classified as a landlord family. The folk would never have let us Diaos go. They would have wiped us out. If so, I couldn’t be here, commanding the Communist troops.”

“Old Diao, you cannot deny that your granduncle’s deed is a revolutionary part in your family history.” Although I said that, I felt his family’s class status should have remained as landlord.

“Humph, what’s history?” He emptied his mug, giggling again. The tiny flame on the kerosene lamp flickered on the table. “History is a mess of chances and accidents. It’s true that my granduncle was killed by the Japs for his own good, for the villagers’ good, and for our family’s good. But while lying be-beneath the blade of the cutter, he couldn’t know the meaning of his death, could he? It’s all the later occurrences that made his death meaningful, isn’t it?”

“You may be right, I’m not sure.” I was somehow puzzled by his way of thinking. “Then how do you compare your granduncle and Dragon Head?”

“Old Gao, you’re really a simple, honest man. My granduncle died in the hands of our national enemy. That’s why we Diaos are still a Revolutionary Martyr’s Family. Likewise, if Dragon Head is killed by the Russians, or by anyone who happens to be our enemy, he’ll be a hero. Don’t you think so?”

“I’ve never thought of it that way,” I admitted. “I don’t like Dragon Head much, but I can’t tell how he’ll end. He’s so young, probably not thirty yet. Maybe he’ll live longer than I. Who knows?”

“How humorous!” He laughed, his round eyes shining a little in the dim light. “I didn’t know you had a sense of humor, Old Gao. Let’s forget Dragon Head. Cheers.”

We drank the last drop. He returned to his room. I went to mine, leaving the mugs and the chopsticks on the table for the orderly to clear away.

At four o’clock the next morning, I was woken up by a call from the Third Battery. Commander Meng spoke on the phone. “Our storehouse was broken into.”

“What’s lost?”

“I don’t know exactly at this moment. Commander Gao, I’m leaving for the storehouse now, and I will inform you immediately after I know.”

“I’m coming. See you at the storehouse.” I put on my clothes and pistol and set out for the western end of the village.

The dawn was just breaking, and it felt rather chilly walking through the moist air. Five minutes later, I was at the storehouse, where Commander Meng, Political Instructor Wang Hsin, and two soldiers on sentry duty had already gathered. There was a hole, as large as a jeep wheel, in the back wall. “Commander Gao, two of the transceivers are missing, so far as we can tell,” Meng reported.

“Fortunately,” Instructor Wang said, “our ammunition has been moved to the new barracks — ”

“Son of a rabbit,” I cut him short. “It’s Dragon Head! Yesterday afternoon he asked me for transceivers. I refused him, so he had them stolen at night. I’ll go and question him.”

“No, you should not.” Commissar Diao emerged from behind. “Old Gao, don’t act rashly. We have to think about this.”

At this moment a clatter of horses’ hooves came from the east. We all turned to watch. A group of fully armed militia riders were ambling away from the village. Their broad red standard was waving slightly in the pink dawn. One rider was carrying a dark box on his back. No doubt it was a transceiver. Dragon Head rode at the front on a large black horse, leading them northward to the Wusuli River.

“Damn them all,” I cursed. “I hope they’ll be put out of action by the Russians.”

“Old Gao, calm down, please,” the commissar said. “We’ll get him sooner or later. One cannot eat up a fat man in one bite.” Then he turned to the others. “You can all go back now. Commander Gao and I will handle this by ourselves. No one else is to know of this.”

After they left, the commissar and I made our way back to the Battalion Headquarters. I couldn’t help cursing, but Diao remained quiet.

“I’ll grab hold of him this evening and recover those machines,” I assured Diao.

“Don’t do it. Please listen to me, Old Gao. It’s not time yet to settle things with him. Don’t you remember the saying that goes: ‘Today you caper about swaying your butt, tomorrow we’ll rip out your guts’?”

“I know that, but if we don’t stop him now, tomorrow he’ll steal our trucks and cannons.” We turned at the corner of the village millhouse.

“No, they don’t know how to drive a truck. They are horsemen.” He looked somewhat mysterious. “To tell you the truth, Dragon Head is on the list, and he will be dealt with eventually.”

“What list?” I stopped.

“I don’t know exactly. Anyway, we two cannot handle him. He’s too big for us. As a matter of fact, I have to call Regimental Commissar Feng Zhi and report on the whole thing. We shouldn’t do anything before hearing from the Regimental Political Department.”

This was entirely new to me. I had never thought Dragon Head was so important that some secret eyes kept him under surveillance. That morning Diao called the regimental commissar and was told to wait for a decision.

The order came after lunch. When Scribe Niu Hsi was cutting my hair in the middle of the yard, Commissar Diao came in and told me, “Old Gao, I just received a call from Commissar Feng. He told us to be quiet, as if nothing had happened.”

“All right, I’ll be as quiet as a deaf-mute,” I said, keeping my head low for Niu Hsi to shave the hair on my nape. I felt Diao looked rather unnatural, perhaps because of what he had divulged to me the night before.

“I’ve got your word, Old Gao. So the case’s dropped now.” He was about to leave.

“Hold on,” I called him, and he turned back. “Old Diao, from now on, I don’t want to have anything to do with Dragon Head. I cannot endure him, and I may wind up calling him names and making a scene. So please deal with him yourself.”

“That’s not a bad idea — I mean, to avoid clashes. He’s not so difficult to persuade. Fine, from now on I’ll stroke the dragon’s whiskers.”

A week later, we all moved into our new barracks, and for the rest of the year I didn’t see Dragon Head again. It seemed that I had indeed washed my hands of whatever he did.

3

Because the Chinese and Russian governments had started to negotiate, the situation at the border was much less intense than it had been the previous year. Except for three days’ combat readiness in early March, it was rather peaceful throughout the winter. We spent most of the time carrying out drills and criticizing Lin Biao, who had plotted to assassinate Chairman Mao. It seemed the Russians had changed their minds and would not invade our country anymore. Over seventy of our older soldiers were demobilized in January. By now we had completely dissolved our contact with Dragon Head and his men. Even Commissar Diao no longer believed that we might need the militia as foot soldiers to defend our cannon emplacement.

When spring arrived, I gave orders that each battery must open up wasteland as much as it could and sow soybeans and vegetables. That was the way to improve our food quality. Soybeans were vital, for out of them you can make oil, tofu, and soy milk. The next step was to raise pigs; every battery had to get thirty piglets. I told the soldiers, “Now we must learn not only how to fight but also how to live.”

Dragon Head had not changed a bit. His men would still ride to the Wusuli River to keep watch on the Russians. Very often, when hoeing in the fields, we could hear gunshots — they never stopped practicing. Because we lived in our own barracks, we had no dealings with them. I ordered my men not to be mixed up with the militia without my or Commissar Diao’s permission.

One summer afternoon we were planting cabbages near our barracks. As I was fetching water from a ditch with a pair of buckets, an explosion thundered in the north. Then some shells landed randomly, and numerous dark smoke pillars rose in the woods and in the fields. Large fireballs bounced along on the plain. One shell whistled by over our heads and exploded two hundred meters away in a valley. This is war. The Russians are bombarding us. I dropped the buckets and ran back to the barracks.

Orderly Liu blew the bugle, and all our men dashed to the cannons. But I had no idea what orders I should give next. I called the Regimental Headquarters, and they didn’t know what was going on either. “What am I supposed to do? Wait to be shelled in the barracks?” I yelled at the staff officer on the phone.

“Old Gao” — Regimental Commander Zhang Yi spoke now — “it’s not war. Remain where you are. We’ll know the truth soon.” The phone was hung up.

Carrying my binoculars, I scrambled to the top of the hill to have a view of the northern land. There they were. Through the glasses I saw Dragon Head and his men, about twenty of them, riding desperately back along a path through the birch woods. Two Russian gunboats on the river were firing at our side aimlessly. To my surprise, another boat, full of smoke, was motionless, and its crew were leaving it. They jumped into the water, swimming to the other boats.

“Damn it, it’s Dragon Head’s men,” I told Commissar Diao, who had just come up, gasping for breath.

“Let me have a look.” He took the binoculars from me and watched.

“It seems that the militia had a skirmish with the Russians on the river,” I said.

“A gunboat is sinking, but I can’t see the militia.”

“Let me have a look again.” I got the binoculars and watched. Now the disabled boat had disappeared, while the other two were retreating to their base. The gunfire had stopped. Everything had returned to normal.

Half an hour after we came back to the barracks, Dragon Head and his cavalry arrived. Commissar Diao and I went out to meet them. All the horses were sweating, and some of the militiamen stood by their horses, bareheaded. Dragon Head couldn’t help laughing. “Record a merit for us, Commander Gao and Commissar Diao,” he shouted. “We got rid of one of the Russians’ river rats.”

“Who gave you the orders to do it?” I asked.

“We did it ourselves. What an experience. Bang, just one bazooka shot, and it crept no more. We lost nothing but some caps.”

“You should not have done it, Dragon Head,” I said loudly, “The surface of the river is a neutral zone. This may cause a war.”

“War? Sure, we’re fighting a war with the Russians, aren’t we? That’s why you’re here.” He looked irritated. “Tell me, Commander Gao, which side are you on?”

“Cool it, Comrade Dragon Head.” Commissar Diao intervened. “I will report the victory to the Regimental Headquarters. I assure you that the Party and the people will not forget this heroic deed. Now you fellows return home and have a good rest. We will inform you of the merit soon.”

“On your horses!” Dragon Head ordered. They all leapt into their saddles. “Commissar Diao, I’ll wait for your word,” he said from the back of his black horse.

“Sure, you wait,” Diao returned in a low voice.

They all dashed off, leaving behind a dusty cloud. I turned to Diao and asked, “Why did you call it a victory?”

“Don’t be angry, Old Gao. Is a name so important?”

“I don’t know how to play on words, Comrade Commissar. Neither do I bear a grudge against Dragon Head personally. He’s a brave fellow, I agree. But this is a matter of principle — we must never fire the first shot.”

“I won’t argue with you, because what you said is absolutely right. But we had to find a way to dismiss him, didn’t we?”

I didn’t answer, although I had to admit to myself that he was not wrong. We went separately to the batteries to explain to the leaders what had happened.

The final decision arrived two weeks later. No merit citation was awarded to Dragon Head, but his militia company received an internal commendation which said: “Let the Invaders Come but Not Return.” I was bewildered. Why should the higher-ups praise the militiamen? Did they intend to encourage them to provoke the Russians again? Then why did we have to obey the orders not to fire the first shot? When I raised these doubts with Diao, he smiled and said, “You wait and see. It’s not over yet.”

As he predicted, a month later the Military Department of Hutou County issued an order that required all the militiamen to turn their weapons over to the Military Department. From now on, private possession of these weapons would be dealt with as a crime. Because every piece of arms had been listed and numbered, each militiaman had no choice but to hand in whatever happened to be in his hands. Even a dagger or an ammunition belt had to go. At once, Dragon Head’s company was disarmed.

“In a way, I feel sorry for them,” I told Commissar Diao one day. “They have had guns for quite a few years, then suddenly everything is gone.”

“You have a good heart, Old Gao,” Diao said, laughing.

I laughed too. “It must feel like you had a tidy sum in the bank yesterday, then overnight you’re penniless.” Although I said this, I did believe it had to be done that way. It was not safe to have so many civilians armed with guns when the Russians didn’t seem eager to attack anymore.

The disarmament delivered a considerable blow to Dragon Head. A month later I ran into him in Guanmen Village, where I had my leather shoes repaired. I stood at the door of the cobbler’s shop, watching with amusement a group of kids forcing a bear cub to climb to the top of a flagpole that rose in the middle of the village square. “Up, up,” they shouted. Two long bamboo poles were poking the young animal from beneath. A boy catapulted a pebble at the rump of the bear, which at once sprang up two meters.

Here came Dragon Head. He walked alone, his feet kicking away horse droppings now and then. His head drooped forward, as though he were watching his own shadow. The front of his gray jacket was open, revealing a large red character “Loyalty” on his white undershirt. He saw me standing by and turned his head away. His right hand moved unconsciously to his flank, which one of the Mausers used to occupy.

“Dragon Head, how are you doing?” I walked up to him, holding out my hand.

“Not bad, still alive,” he muttered. We shook hands. His large face was expressionless, and his eyes were ringed with yellow.

I felt somewhat uneasy and managed to ask, “When will I drink your wedding wine? You’re going to get married soon, aren’t you?”

“Not soon.” He shook his head. “Maybe at the Spring Festival. I don’t know.”

“Don’t forget to invite me, and we’ll have a few.”

“Sure, I’ll have you over.” He smiled, his large eyes glittering a little.

“Anything I can do for you, please let me know, all right?”

“Sure. Thank you for saying that, Commander Gao.”

Although I had said that, I had no idea how I could help him. In fact, I could not, because what he really needed was nothing but weapons, without which he could not be the former Dragon Head again. Since the disarmament, the militia company had been literally disbanded. Now Dragon Head’s men would be carrying hoes and spades to the fields instead of riding with arms to the river.

Fall came. We were busy getting in crops, felling trees for fuel, and digging vegetable cellars. For a month the three batteries had not taken the canvas covers off their cannons. Everybody worked hard; even the cooks could not go to bed until midnight, because they had to pickle a lot of vegetables — cabbages, turnips, eggplants, green peppers, garlic, and the like. By the end of September, we had finished most of the preparations for the winter. Now we could spare some men and sent them to help the villagers in Guanmen with their harvest and their threshing and winnowing.

On the evening of October 1, National Day, right after the holiday feast, the leader of the mess squad, Mu Lin, burst into the Battalion Headquarters. At the sight of Diao and me, he cried, “Our guns are stolen!”

“What?” I jumped to my feet. “What guns? How many?”

“Two semiautomatic rifles,” he said, panting hard. “They just disappeared this afternoon, when we were busy cooking the dinner.”

“Damn it, it must be Dragon Head again. Let’s go.” I put on my pistol and went out with Mu. Commissar Diao and Scribe Niu came along with us, but they didn’t wear their pistols.

No trace of the crime could be found at the mess squad. Two guns, which the cooks had seen on the rack at noon, were missing. No doubt it was the work of Dragon Head’s men. But without any evidence in our hands, what could we do? I couldn’t help swearing.

“Commander Gao,” Scribe Niu interrupted me, “I saw Ma Ding fooling around in the bushes this afternoon. He must have pretended to cut firewood there.”

I turned to Diao. “We must send a squad to Guanmen and bring Ma Ding here.”

“Why the hurry?” Diao asked.

“This time it’s not transceivers but guns, my commissar.”

“They won’t shoot us with the stolen guns, will they?” Without waiting for my answer, he continued, “Let them keep the guns warm in their hands for a little while. It won’t hurt us. Dragon Head has done enough now, and he won’t get away with it this time. I’m going to report this to the Regimental Political Department. For sure, they will start an investigation immediately.”

What he said made sense, for Dragon Head was not our enemy and would never fire at us. There was no point in acting rashly. Besides, we did not have any evidence yet. That night Diao called the Regimental Political Department, and he was told that an investigating group would be sent over soon. At the same time he received an order that required either Diao or me to check in, within a week, at the Divisional Headquarters in Longmen City for a two-month program of studying Engels’s Anti-Dühring. We were told that the study was designed for officers with a rank above battalion leader.

We talked, and neither of us wanted to leave the battalion at this moment. Diao tried hard to persuade me. “Old Gao, it’s a good bargain. The board expenses are one and a half yuan a day; there will be six dishes at lunch. Longmen is a big city, where you can go to sports games, movies, and operas. In addition” — he smiled and blinked his eyes — “girls there are pretty, with long braids.”

“Old Diao, I appreciate your letting me have such an opportunity, but it’s no fun to study there. I can’t understand a book like that, no matter how hard I rack my brains. It will be torture. I don’t want to make a fool of myself at the Divisional Headquarters. Besides, so many things have to be done here at home. The garages are not roofed yet, and the winter drill will start soon. No, I won’t leave at this historic juncture. Old Diao, it’s your duty to sharpen your mind. You’re the brain of our entire battalion. You’re the very person who should go.”

We could not persuade each other. Strange to say, next morning a call came from the Regimental Headquarters which ordered me to leave for the study. All right, I didn’t complain, because to obey orders is the first principle for an army man. Niu Hsi helped me pack up, and that Saturday I set off for Longmen. Before leaving, I talked to Commissar Diao about Dragon Head’s case. “This time,” I said, “we must not let him go. We must teach him a lesson so that he will think ten times before doing this sort of thing again. I don’t mind if they put him in jail for three months. It seems he should postpone his wedding for a short while. The Dragon’s whiskers have to be plucked.”

“Old Gao, trust me. I’ll handle everything well. Now it’s not a matter of hair and skin but a matter of eyes and teeth.”

4

Longmen was a good city indeed, very clean. Except that not many girls wore long braids there, everything appeared as Commissar Diao had described. There was fish and meat at lunch every day, and we could even have beer on Saturday evenings. Staying indoors and being fed well, I gained twenty jin in those two months. But Engels’s book wore us down. The two professors from Longmen City College lectured well and tried hard to make every point plain to us. Still, we couldn’t penetrate the book. Shameful as it was, we had to admit that we were too old to become pupils of Marx and Engels.

As soon as the study was over, I returned to Hutou with two other officers in a jeep. At the Regimental Headquarters, I found the chief of the Officer Section, Liu Mingyi, my fellow townsman, and talked to him about Scribe Niu Hsi, for I had heard in Longmen that our regiment was going to send a junior officer to the Second Military Foreign Language Institute to study Russian for three years. Niu Hsi was a good lad and deserved to go to college. He had cut my hair every month for over two years; I was grateful, though I had never mentioned it. Chief Liu seemed to be convinced that Niu Hsi was a proper choice.

“We’ll look into his file and make sure that his family background is clean,” Liu said.

“Of course it’s clean; otherwise how could he be the scribe of my battalion?”

“Old Gao, I know that. This is merely a procedure.” He chuckled. “You’ll never change a bit and always have a temper like a firecracker.”

I took a carton of Peony cigarettes out of my bag and handed it to him. “Here, it’s for you, Old Liu.”

“Good stuff.” He took it with a smile, smelling the end of the carton. “Want to have a drink tonight?”

“No, I have to go back this afternoon.”

He narrowed his small eyes and waved his hairy hand, signaling me to come closer. I moved my chair a little forward and rested my elbows on his desk. A young officer was filing something on top of a metal chest five meters away.

“By the way,” he said mysteriously, “how do you get along with Diao Shu?”

“Not bad. He’s a smart man who knows how to use words.”

“Old Gao, we are country boys and don’t have many tricks in our heads. Be cautious about Diao.”

“Why? What have you heard?”

“Don’t ask me why. I cannot tell you. Have you ever thought of going home? I don’t mean for a break.”

“You mean to be demobilized?”

He smiled, blinking his eyes, and put his index finger across his lips.

I stood up and said, “Old Liu, thank you for the talk.”

“I thank you for the cigarettes.” He got to his feet. “You can tell Niu Hsi to prepare himself to go.”

Coming out of the headquarters at about two o’clock, I strolled to the bus station. I was surprised by what Liu had told me. It seemed that Diao had got up some little maneuvers against me. What did he do? And why did he do it? I could not tell. According to Chief Liu, I might be demobilized. I had never done anything irresponsible or offensive to Diao. How come he held a grudge against me?

The streets were covered with gray snow trampled hard by footsteps and vehicles. Some Korean women went by pulling handcarts, and each cart was loaded with a huge rectangular block of ice. They sang work songs and cracked jokes, which I could tell by their hearty laughter. Trucks blew horns some blocks away; the iron wheels of bullock carts clanked here and there.

At the corner of the movie house, the only one in Hutou Town, about fifty people gathered looking at something. Since the bus would not depart until three, I went over to see what was there. On the bulletin board was a large notice, and some people at the back were pushing forward in order to read its contents. From a distance of twenty meters, I felt that the first picture on the white sheet looked like Dragon Head, so I elbowed my way through the crowd to have a closer view.

It was Dragon Head! His face, crossed by two red strokes, was swollen, and there were some dark patches and small cuts on his forehead and cheeks. His eyes resembled those of a dead fish, while his lips were much thicker than they had been. His long, disheveled hair stuck out in all directions, which made his head seem twice its normal size. Somehow the photograph, once looked at closely, appeared less like Dragon Head than what I had seen from farther back. Beneath him stood a line of characters in boldface: “A Criminal Who Stole Military Equipment.” I was shocked and read the charge:

Long Yun, male, 29, from a poor peasant family, has stolen numerous pieces of military equipment, including army clothes, two transceivers, two semiautomatic rifles, etc. The stolen objects have been recovered, and Criminal Long could not deny his crime in the face of the ironclad evidence. For three years, Criminal Long, also called Dragon Head, has commanded his men as a group of idlers, disrupting the agricultural production and sabotaging the national defense. He lorded over several villages and is known in Hutou County as a local tyrant. In order to quiet the anger of the common citizens and to secure the iron bastion of our country’s border front, this court has decided to sentence Criminal Long to death. The execution is to be carried out promptly.

With Dragon Head there were three other men to be executed. One had raped two women, another had embezzled twenty thousand yuan, and the third had stolen fourteen bicycles.

I started cursing Diao in my mind. Whatever the reason, Dragon Head did not deserve capital punishment. He used to be our friend and would fight any battle for us; now, two years later he was dispatched as an enemy. Even a dog shouldn’t be treated this way. During my stay in Longmen I had called Diao a few times and asked about Dragon Head’s case at least twice, but each time Diao had assured me that he would handle it properly and advised me to concentrate on the study. Now Dragon Head had been executed; how could Diao call this outcome proper!

When I got back to my battalion, I went to the commissar’s office directly. Diao sat at his desk writing something. At the sight of me, he stood up, holding out his hand. “Old Gao, you’re back. How was the study?”

“Not bad.” We shook hands. “Commissar Diao, I saw the police notice in Hutou Town; so Dragon Head is dead. Why did you do this? It’s too despicable!”

“Old Gao, how the hell can you blame me for it?” he said in a high voice. “I didn’t want him dead either. I told all the villagers the same thing last week, and now I must repeat it to you: If I could have saved him I would have done it. It was a matter of human life; I want nobody to be killed. He had bad luck and was caught in the middle of the campaign cracking down on crimes. One man who stole bicycles was executed too. But Dragon Head stole guns! If you were here, you couldn’t have done anything either.”

I went out and flung the door shut. Diao always talked well, but I could not believe him anymore. With his tongue he could take in the villagers from Guanmen but not me this time, although I didn’t know how to argue with him.

Having considered what he had said for a short while, I had to admit his words were not totally groundless. Even if he had tried, Diao could by no means have stopped the whole plot. At most, he had served as a secret camera and an official informant on Dragon Head.

Before dinner I got hold of Scribe Niu Hsi and asked him what he knew. We walked out of the barracks. Hard snow squeaked beneath our feet while we were climbing the hill. “The day after you left,” Niu Hsi said, “the investigating group arrived, three officers and two policemen. They arrested Ma Ding first. Without much trouble, Ma admitted he had stolen the guns.”

“Then how come Ma Ding was not sentenced?”

“They did not allow him to go home that night. The next morning, Dragon Head came, riding the black horse and wearing the two rifles across his back. He asked the investigating group to release Ma Ding and claimed he was responsible for everything. He said he had ordered Ma to steal the guns. They let Ma Ding go and took Dragon Head into custody. Dragon Head confessed that he had been behind everything, including the six hats and the two transceivers. I wrote down what he said during the interrogation, which was very short. He didn’t bother to hide anything.”

“Do you still have the notes?”

“No. They took them away the next day, together with the two guns. Dragon Head went with them too.”

“How did the villagers respond when they heard of his death?”

“They came over, crying and cursing. Wang Si and those militiamen pounded their chests and heads, shouting, ‘Brother Dragon’s wronged!’ The girl, Dragon Head’s fiancée, fainted and was carried to our clinic. Commissar Diao spoke with tears in his eyes and calmed them down. He told them that he had a heavy heart over the misfortune too, because he had lost a good friend. But our battalion wasn’t involved in the charge and the execution. We had no idea how this had happened. What he said seemed true, so after two hours they went back home.”

Gray mist was spreading above the two hundred thatched roofs of Guanmen Village below us. Kerosene lights and candles flickered timidly through the dim curtain of the evening air. A dog was barking. The voices of the children racing about in the streets sounded like birds’ chirping in deep woods. I did not want to talk more about Dragon Head. Niu Hsi might as well remain ignorant of the iniquitous reality. So I changed the topic and told him that I had arranged for him to go to college to study Russian. He looked hesitant.

“I know what’s in your mind, Little Niu,” I said. “You’re unsure of yourself.”

“No, Commander Gao. I think I can be a good student, as long as I work hard. To be honest, I’m thinking if I should go to college, since I’m already an officer.”

“Look at it this way.” I smiled. “In a person’s life, what part is longer — war or peace?”

“Of course peace is longer.”

“Then you need a skill and some knowledge to live in peace. When you’re old, do you think you can make a living by carrying a gun like I’m doing now?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Then you should go, must go.”

He nodded his head. We turned around and were about to go down the hill. Niu stopped and said, “Commander Gao, I want to tell you something that I don’t know if I should.”

“What? Tell me.”

“Commissar Diao said he had you sent to Longmen.”

“What did he tell you exactly?”

“He didn’t tell me anything. After the villagers left, I overheard him on the phone: ‘Fortunately, we sent Gao Ping away beforehand.” ’

“Oh, I understand it now.” I was surprised, as the series of events started linking together. We began going down the hill. Now the whole thing became clear in my mind. By ordering me to go to Longmen, the Regimental Political Department had intended to prevent me from interfering with Dragon Head’s case; at last, I figured out why among the officers in the study program I was the only battalion leader; the others all had a higher rank. I had not been trusted. Why? Why did Diao treat me as his rival?

Suddenly it dawned on me that Diao Shu was determined to get rid of me, because I happened to know the true history of his family. Anyone with that knowledge could turn him in at any time, so I accidentally became a time bomb in his political and military career. For his own survival, he had to remove me, and the first step to achieve this purpose was to make me appear untrustworthy to our superiors so that nobody would believe what I said. He must have been working on this scheme for quite a while. Undoubtedly, the regimental leaders had already taken me for a troublemaker.

As Chief Liu had revealed to me, three months later I was demobilized.

5

Seven years have elapsed since I left the army. Life has been awfully kind to me. For all these years, I have worked as the chief of the Military Department in our commune. One of my children has gone to college in Tianjin, and the other is doing well in the middle school. In the evenings, I can have a few cups of liquor and chat away with friends till midnight. What else should I ask from life?

Diao Shu is the director of the Political Department of the Third Division now. He is an able man and probably deserves his series of promotions. Niu Hsi, who is still a lad in my eyes, returned to Hutou after graduation and has served as an interpreter in our Fifth Regiment for three years. Last month I received a letter from him. The letter reads as follows:

My Most Respected Commander Gao:

Please forgive me for my delay in writing to you. How are you now? How are your wife and children?

Recently I have been terribly busy, for the border is open now. Sometimes I work twelve hours a day. There are so many trade delegations, tourists, and business people that Russian interpreters are in great demand. Many of the local companies and factories turn to me for help when they have business to do with the Russians. Hutou is a peaceful town now — a city, I should say. You can see Russian travelers and shoppers in the streets every day, since there is a daily bus service across the border. Though I’m busy, I won’t complain. I have made a lot of money and got nine pairs of leather shoes and two dozen Western suits for free. In fact, I’m thinking of leaving the army now. There’s no need to worry about a job. Last month, Harbin Normal College contacted me and asked me if I would like to teach Russian in their school.

Dear Commander Gao, how grateful I am to you! Seven years ago, when you wanted me to go to college, I hesitated. It was you who made the decision for me. My family and I will never forget you — our great benefactor.

Here’s a small incident, which I think you may be interested in: Last month I accompanied a delegation of our division to Russia to celebrate their Army Day. Vice Divisional Commissar Huang Hsing led the group (you may not know him; he is from the Second Regiment). After the banquet, we had coffee and tea and chatted. Commissar Huang took an envelope from his briefcase and handed it to the Russian officers. Guess what was inside the envelope? A bunch of photographs of Dragon Head! While the Russians were looking at the pictures, Huang explained, “He is the bandit who sank one of your gunboats seven years ago. It was a little unpleasant episode indeed, but we had him executed long ago.” I interpreted his words, and the Russians were delighted. Among the photographs there was one showing Dragon Head’s blasted face — his forehead was gone. In fact, only I knew that the bandit had been a militia company commander called Dragon Head, but I didn’t say anything.

Commander Gao, let my pen stop here for the moment. I will write to you again when I have time.

Please give my regards to your family. May you have good health.

My Salute,

A Soldier of Yours

Niu Hsi

March 29, Hutou

Niu’s letter has made me think a lot about Dragon Head recently. He was a grand fighter, a dragon in Hutou County. He should have fallen on a battlefield.