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while the machine guns continued to strafe the area, the trucks’ wheels began to creep up ontothe stone bridge. flying bullets kept granddad and his troops pinned down. a few men stucktheir heads above the dike, only to pay for their recklessness with their lives. granddad’s chestswelled with rage. all the trucks were now on the bridge, raising the machine-gun-fire trajectory.
‘men,’ he shouted, ‘attack!’ he pulled off three quick shots, downing two japanese soldiers,whose bodies fell across the cab, their dark blood staining the hood. with the echo of his shotsstill in the air, a cacophonous burst of fire erupted from behind the dikes lining the road. seven oreight more japanese soldiers were cut down; two of them fell off the truck, arms and legschurning desperately as they burrowed into the black water on either side of the bridge. the fangbrothers’ cannon roared, spewing a torrent of flame from its muzzle. steel pellets and balls toreinto the second truck in line, with its load of sacks, sending plumes of smoke skyward. white ricestreamed from countless holes.
father crawled on his belly from the sorghum field back to the dike, anxious to talk togranddad, who was urgently reloading his pistol. the lead jap truck revved its engine to getacross the bridge, but the front wheels ran over the rake barrier; loud hissing sighs escaped fromthe punctured tyres. the truck rumbled grotesquely as it dragged the linked rakes along, and tofather it looked like an enormous twisting snake that had swallowed a hedgehog it was trying todislodge. the japs on the lead truck jumped to the ground. ‘old liu,’ granddad shouted, ‘soundthe bugle!’ the sound of bugler liu’s horn chilled the air. ‘charge!’ granddad commanded,leading the charge and firing without aiming, cutting down one japanese soldier after another.
the troops on the west side of the road joined the attack, engaging the japs in hand-to-handcombat. granddad watched as mute leaped up onto the bed of the lead truck. the two remainingjaps on the truck lunged with their bayonets. he warded off one with his knife, then neatlyseparated the soldier from his helmeted head, which sailed through the air, trailing a long howlbefore landing heavily on the ground, the thud driving the remnants of the scream out of itsmouth. father, amazed by the sharpness of the knife, stared at the stunned expression on thejap’s face. the cheeks were still quivering, the nostrils still twitching, as though it were about tosneeze.
mute dispatched the other jap, and when the man’s headless torso fell against the truck’srailing, the skin on his neck shrank inward around pulsating gushes of blood. the japs in the reartruck lowered the barrel of their machine gun and fired a hail of bullets, mowing downgranddad’s soldiers like so many saplings, which toppled onto the jap corpses. mute sat downhard on the cab, blood seeping from a cluster of chest holes.
father and granddad threw themselves to the ground and crawled back to the sorghum field.
when they cautiously peeked over the top of the dike, they saw the rear truck chugging inreverse. ‘fang six,’ granddad shouted, ‘the cannon! nail that son of a bitch!’ the fang brothersturned their loaded cannon in the direction of the dike, but as fang six bent over to light the fusehe was hit in the belly. green intestines slithered out of the hole. ‘shit!’ he blurted as he grabbedhis belly with both hands and rolled into the sorghum field. the trucks would soon be off thebridge. ‘fire that cannon!’ granddad screamed. fang seven picked up the smouldering tinderand touched it to the fuse with a shaky hand. it wouldn’t light, it simply wouldn’t light!
granddad rushed up, grabbed the tinder out of his hand, and blew on it. it flared up. he touched itto the fuse. it sizzled, smoked momentarily, then went out with a puff of white smoke. thecannon sat silently, as though dozing. father just knew it wouldn’t fire.
the jap truck had already reached the bridgehead, and the second and third trucks had startedmoving backward to join it. in the river below, several jap corpses floated eastward, seepingblood that attracted frenzied schools of white eels. after a moment of silence, the cannon belchedthunderously, and its iron body leaped high above the dike as a wide swath of fire immolated oneof the rice trucks.
the japs aboard the first truck jumped down onto the dike and set up their machine gun. theyopened fire. a bullet slammed into fang seven’s face, shattering his nose and splattering fatherwith blood.
two japs in the cab of the blazing truck opened their doors and jumped out, straight into theriver. the middle truck, unable to move either way, growled strangely, its wheels spinning. therice rain continued to fall.
the jap machine gun abruptly stopped firing, leaving only carbines to pop off an occasionalshot. a dozen or so japs ran at a crouch past the burning truck, heading north with their weapons.
granddad ordered his men to fire, but few responded. the dike was dotted top and bottom withthe bodies of soldiers; wounded men were moaning and wailing in the sorghum field. granddadfired, sending japs flying off the bridge. rifle fire from the western side of the road cut downmore of them. their comrades turned tail and ran. a bullet whizzing over from the southern bankof the river struck granddad below the right shoulder; as his arm jerked, the pistol fell from hishand to hang by its strap from his neck. he backed into the sorghum field. ‘douguan,’ he criedout, ‘help me.’ ripping the sleeve of his shirt, he told father to take a strip of white cloth fromhis waistband to bind the wound. that was when father said, ‘dad, mom’s asking for you.’
‘good boy!’ granddad said. ‘come help dad kill every last one of those sons of bitches!’ hereached into his belt, removed the abandoned browning pistol, and handed it to father, just asbugler liu came crawling up the dike dragging a wounded leg. ‘shall i blow the bugle,commander?’
‘blow it!’ granddad said.
kneeling on his good leg, bugler liu raised the horn to his lips and sounded it to the heavens;scarlet notes emerged.
‘charge!’
granddad’s command was met by shouts from the west side of the road. holding his pistol inhis left hand, he jumped to his feet; bullets whizzed past his cheeks. he hit the ground and rolledback into the sorghum field. a scream of agony rose from the west side of the road, and fatherknew that another comrade had been hit.
bugler liu sounded his horn once more; the scarlet blast struck the sorghum tips and set themshaking.
granddad grabbed father’s hand. ‘follow me, son.’
smoke billowed from the trucks on the bridge. gripping father’s hand tightly, granddaddarted across the road to the west side; their progress was followed by a hail of bullets. twosoldiers with soot-streaked faces witnessed their approach. ‘commander,’ they cried throughcracked lips, ‘we’re done for!’
granddad sat down dejectedly in the sorghum field, and a long time passed before he raised hishead again. the japs held their fire. the crackling of burning trucks was answered by periodicblasts from bugler liu’s horn.
his fear now gone, father slipped off and moved west, carefully raising his head to peepthrough some dead weeds. he watched a japanese soldier emerge from under the still-unburnedcanopy of the second truck, open the door, and drag out a skinny old jap in white gloves andblack leather riding boots, a sword on his hip. hugging the side of the truck, they slipped off thebridge by shinnying down a stanchion. father raised his browning, but his hand shook like a leaf,and the old jap’s ass kept hopping up and down in his sights. he clenched his teeth, closed hiseyes, and fired. the browning roared: the bullet went straight into the water, turning a white eelbelly up. the jap officer dived into the water. ‘dad,’ father yelled, ‘an officer!’
another explosion went off behind his head, and the old jap’s skull splintered, releasing a poolof blood on the surface of the water. the second soldier scrambled frantically to the far side ofthe stanchion.
granddad pushed father to the ground as another hail of jap bullets swept over them andthudded crazily into the field. ‘good boy,’ granddad said. ‘you’re my son, all right!’
what father and granddad didn’t know was that the old jap they’d just killed was none otherthan the famous general nakaoka jiko.
bugler liu’s horn didn’t let up. the sun, baked red and green by the flames from the trucks,seemed to shrivel.
‘dad,’ father said, ‘mom’s asking for you. she wants to see you.’
‘is she still alive?’
‘yes.’
father took granddad by the hand and led him deep into the sorghum field, where grandmalay, her face stamped with shadows of sorghum stalks and the noble smile she had prepared forgranddad; her face was fairer than ever. her eyes were open.
for the first time in his life, father noticed two trickles of tears slipping down granddad’shardened face. granddad fell to his knees beside grandma’s body and closed her eyes with hisgood hand.
in 1976, when my granddad died, father closed his unseeing eyes with his left hand, fromwhich two fingers were missing. granddad had returned from the desolate japanese mountains ofhokkaido scarcely able to speak, spitting out each word as though it were a heavy stone. thevillage held a grand welcoming ceremony in honour of his return, attended by the county head. iwas barely two at the time, but i recall seeing eight tables beneath the gingko tree at the head ofthe village set with jugs of wine and dozens of white ceramic bowls. the county head picked upa jug and filled one of the bowls, which he handed to granddad with both hands. ‘here’s to you,our ageing hero,’ he said. ‘you’ve brought glory to our country!’ granddad clumsily stood up,and his ashen eyeballs fluttered as he said, ‘woo – woo – gun – gun.’ i watched him raise thebowl to his lips. his wrinkled neck twitched, and his adam’s apple slid up and down as he drank.
most of the wine ran down his chin and onto his chest instead of sliding down his throat.
i recall our walks in the field; he held my hand and i led a little black dog with my other hand.
his favourite spot was the bridgehead over the black water river, where he would standsupporting himself on one of the stone pillars for most of the morning or most of the afternoon,staring at the bullet holes on the bridge stones. when the sorghum was tall, he would take meinto the field to a spot not far from the bridge. i suspected that was where grandma had risen toheaven – an ordinary piece of black earth stained by her blood. that was before they tore downour old home.
one day granddad picked up a hoe and began digging beneath a catalpa tree. he picked upsome cicada larvae and handed them to me. i tossed them to the dog, who chewed them upwithout swallowing them. ‘what are you digging for, dad?’ asked my mother, who was anxiousto go to the dining hall. he looked up at her with a gaze that seemed to belong to another world.
she walked off, and he returned to his digging. when he’d dug a pretty deep hole, he cut througha dozen or so roots of varying thicknesses and removed a flagstone, then took a misshapen tinbox out of an old, dark brick kiln. it crumbled when it fell to the ground, revealing a long, rustymetal object taller than me, which was showing through the rotting cloth wrapping. i asked whatit was. ‘woo – woo – gun – gun,’ he said.
granddad laid the rifle on the ground to soak up the sun, then sat down in front of it, his eyesopen one minute and closed the next, over and over and over. finally, he got to his feet, pickedup an axe, and began chopping up the rifle. when it was no more than a pile of twisted metal, hetook the pieces and scattered them wildly around the yard.
‘dad, is mom dead?’ father asked.
granddad nodded.
‘dad!’ father shrieked.
granddad stroked father’s head, then drew a small sword from his hip and chopped downenough sorghum to cover grandma’s body.
a blast of gunfire erupted on the southern dike, followed by sanguinary shouts and the soundof exploding grenades. granddad dragged father over to the bridgehead.
at least a hundred soldiers in grey uniforms burst from the field south of the bridge, driving adozen or so jap soldiers onto the dike, where they were cut down by bullets or run through withbayonets. father saw detachment leader leng, a holstered revolver hanging from his wideleather belt, surrounded by several burly bodyguards. his troops were flanking the burning trucksand heading west. the sight drew a strange laugh from granddad, who planted his feet at thebridgehead, pistol in hand, and just stood there.
detachment leader leng swaggered up. ‘you fought a good fight, commander yu!’
‘you son of a bitch!’ granddad spat out.
‘we almost made it in time, good brother!’
‘you son of a bitch!’
‘you’d be done for it if we hadn’t arrived!’
‘you son of a bitch!’
granddad aimed his pistol at detachment leader leng, who flashed a signal with his eyes.
two ferocious bodyguards quickly forced granddad’s arm down. father raised his browning andfired into the ass of the man holding granddad’s arm.
the other guard sent father reeling with a kick, then stepped on his wrist, bent down, andpicked up the browning.
the bodyguards tied up granddad and father.
‘pocky leng, open your dog eyes and take a look at my men!’
the dikes on both sides of the road were strewn with the bodies of dead and wounded soldiers.
bugler liu was still sounding his horn intermittently, but blood now flowed from the corners ofhis mouth and from his nose.
detachment leader leng removed his cap and bowed towards the sorghum field east of theroad. then he bowed to the west.
‘release commander yu and his son!’ he ordered.
the bodyguards let them go. blood was seeping through the fingers of the man who washolding his hand over his wounded ass.
detachment leader leng took the pistols from the bodyguards and returned them to granddadand father. his troops were rushing across the bridge, past the trucks and the jap bodies,gathering up machine guns, carbines, bullets, cartridge clips, bayonets, scabbards, leather beltsand boots, wallets, and razors. some jumped into the river, where they captured the jap hidingbehind the stanchion and raised up the old jap’s body.
‘this one’s a general, detachment leader!’ one of leng’s officers shouted.
detachment leader leng excitedly looked over the railing. ‘strip off his uniform and pick upeverything that was on him.’ he turned back and said, ‘we’ll meet again, commander yu!’
the bodyguards fell in around him as he headed to the southern edge of the bridge.
‘stop right there, leng!’ granddad bellowed.
detachment leader leng turned and said, ‘commander yu, you’re not planning on doinganything foolish, are you?’
‘you won’t get away with this!’ granddad snarled.
‘tiger wang, leave commander yu a machine gun.’
a soldier walked up and laid a machine gun at granddad’s feet.
‘you can have the trucks and the rice they’re carrying.’
detachment leader leng’s troops crossed the bridge, formed up ranks on the dike, andmarched east.
the trucks were nothing but charred frames by the time the sun was setting; the stench fromthe melted tyres was nearly suffocating. the bridge was blocked by the two undamaged trucks ateither end. the river was filled with water as black as blood; the fields were covered withsorghum as red as blood.
father picked up a nearly whole fistcake from the dike and handed it to granddad. ‘here, dad,eat this. mom made it.’
‘you eat it!’ granddad said.
father stuffed it into granddad’s hand. ‘i’ll get another one,’ he said.
father picked up another fistcake and savagely bit off a chunk.
