War Trash (12 page)

On the way back to my tent, I was delighted to see a brand-new copy of the Holy Bible in the parcel. It was the American Standard Version, leather-bound, with Jesus' words in red and a concise concordance at its back. Since it was too noisy inside the tent, I sat outside and began reading Genesis. The words made me slightly giddy, not because of the meaning of the Scripture but simply because I was reading something that wasn't just propaganda. I hadn't come across a real book for half a year; the deprivation had whetted my appetite. The English of the Bible was not difficult and I seldom came across a new word. This meant that from now on I could read some pages every day!

The next morning I met Ming again. I told him that I had been pressed to go to Taiwan and that soon everybody would have to make up his mind once and for all. He said he had also heard this. In fact, in Compound 76, which held Korean prisoners, an operation was already in the works. It was called "the screening," at which every POW had to declare formally where he would like to go, the Koreans to North

Korea or South Korea and the Chinese to mainland China or Taiwan. Ming also said that a few of our former comrades had been transferred to the company where Commissar Pei was now, because the Communists had regained power in the Third Battalion of Compound 86. Ming might go there soon, and the Communist leaders had offered the First Battalion of my regiment to exchange a pro-Nationalist for me so that I could join my comrades in Compound 86, but Wang Yong wouldn't let me go. This last piece of information unnerved me. Why would Wang keep me in his clutches? How could I be useful to him? Then it flashed through my mind that both the Communists and the pro-Nationalists were interested in me because I knew English.

In addition to preaching, Father Woodworth also taught the prisoners hymns at the education center on Wednesday afternoons. A burly Korean man played the accordion to provide music for him. More people attended the singing sessions than the sermons, perhaps just for the fun of it. Few of them, however, understood the contents of the songs; it was the music that attracted them. I liked the hymns very much. Whenever I heard the joyous, melodious tunes, my heart would leap. Regardless of the uncanny words about God and Christ, the music was the only beautiful thing in this hellish place. So more and more people went to learn to sing hymns.

On the last Wednesday in March, when the singing session was over, Father Woodworth called to me. Agitated, I walked up to him. He said in a sonorous voice, "I also want to ask you a favor, Mr. Feng."

A few inmates turned around to look at me while trooping out of the classroom, because usually a prisoner wasn't addressed as "Mister" by our captors. "Sure, what is it you want me to do?" I asked.

Fingering the lanyard of his pince-nez, Father Woodworth said, "Do you think you can put some of the hymns into Chinese?"

"I don't feel I can translate them well because I really don't know much about music. Even though I put the words into Chinese, they may be hard to sing."

"I don't mean to ask you to translate them into verse like the original. Just do a rough translation so that we can read it to the others before they learn how to sing them. I reckon that if they know the general meaning of a hymn, they can sing it better, don't you think?"

"That's true."

He unzipped his scuffed leather briefcase and took out a new notebook, a pencil, and some loose pages from a hymnal. "You can use these," he said.

I was moved and promised, "I'll do my best."

For a whole week I worked on the hymns, which were not difficult to translate – I was supposed to provide merely the gist of each song. From the next Wednesday on, I would sit in the front row when Father Woodworth taught us the hymns. Before we started singing he'd call to me, saying, "Number seven, There's a Wideness in God's Mercy,'" or "Number nine, 'Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me.'" I would stand up, turn to the audience, and read out my Chinese translation. My assistance to the chaplain drew people's attention in the compound. In the prison camp every company had at least one interpreter, who in most cases just knew a few words of English. So it was said that I spoke English better than any of those interpreters, perhaps because I had talked with Father Woodworth in front of hundreds of men without being outwardly nervous.

I broke the pencil in half and gave the part without the eraser to Ming when we met the next Tuesday. He was excited to have it and said, "I'll pass this on to Commissar Pei. We do need stationery badly. He'll be delighted to see this."

"How's he doing?"

"So far he's okay."

"Give him my greetings."

"I will. By the way, I've heard you're busy helping Woodworth, right?"

"Yes, it was he who gave me the pencil. He wanted me to translate some hymns for him."

Ming knitted his thick eyebrows. "You did that, didn't you?"

"Yes."

"You're too naive, Yuan. According to our information, Woodworth is also involved in persecuting our comrades, just like Priest Hu. You must be careful."

"Really? He seems kindhearted."

"Only in appearance. He's behind many things. In fact, Commissar Pei wasn't very happy when he heard you were helping Woodworth."

"I don't see why he should be unhappy." I was surprised that Pei knew so much about my activities.

"Religion is just spiritual opium. Woodworth means to weaken our men's resolve to fight."

"Perhaps he can help us."

"No. Never reveal anything to him. Be careful. He's not our friend."

"Okay."

"I want you to promise me not to tell him anything. This is a matter of principle."

"All right, I promise."

Some inmates were strolling nearby and we dared not remain together too long, so we parted company.

Ming's words made me think a good deal, though I wasn't convinced that Father Woodworth had been involved in persecuting the prisoners who wanted to repatriate. On Wednesday afternoon, after the singing session, while the audience was filing out of the hall, I went up to Woodworth and asked him about the meaning of "communion" in the line "the new community of love in Christ's communion." He explained to me the sacrament at which people drink wine and eat bread. He said he would have included that part in the service on Sundays, but most of us were not Christians, so it was unnecessary. I couldn't understand the Eucharist fully, never having attended one. Seeing that I was still bemused, he added, "Communion also means fraternity. Put it like that."

As we walked toward the door, I said again, "Father Woodworth, I have had a question on my mind for a long time."

"You can let me know it if you wish."

"You see, according to the teaching of the Bible, all the prisoners here are sinners, so we should be equal. Why are some inmates more privileged than others?"

We were now in the open air, which was warm with the feel of spring. He stopped short and said, "What do you mean exactly? Be more specific. There's something behind your question."

I pointed at the large tents and then at the small ones. "People are not treated equally here. The men living at the back are not even given their share of food."

"And you're one of them?"

"Yes."

"I'm sorry, but this is the way things should be done."

"Why?"

"Because most of you are Communists. To me and to my God, Communism is evil."

"But most of us are not Communists at all. We stay with them mainly because we want to go home. As sons, we have our duty to our parents. Some men are husbands and fathers and ought to return to their families."

"I can understand it's a tough choice, but life is full of choices."

"For most of us there's no choice."

"Mr. Feng, you should know there are different kinds of duties. The highest kind is your duty to God and to your own soul."

"But we haven't been converted yet. Do you think those who are going to Taiwan are Christians?" There was an angry edge in my voice now.

"Listen, I'm not just a clergyman but also a soldier. I came with both the book and the sword."

Realizing the argument was getting nowhere, I muttered, "I thought you might help us because we're all fellow sufferers."

"Every man here can choose his own way of suffering."

He straightened his back and walked away. I had thought of asking him, "Then why do you teach us the hymns that praise the wideness of God's mercy?" But I didn't bring that out. Probably he taught us just to earn his salary and to convert a few pagans. My conversation with him upset me profoundly and shattered my illusion that there might be shelter in God's bosom for every person. Now I was inclined to believe what Ming had told me.

I mentioned to Bai Dajian my exchange of words with Father Woodworth. He and I were very close now, friends. I treated him like a younger brother, because he respected me and was two years my junior. "Woodworth isn't a kind man," he assured me, and his large eyes flashed.

"How do you know?" I was surprised by the certainty in his voice.

"The other day when they flogged a man with water-whips in the front yard, Woodworth happened to be passing by. The man cried, 'Father, Father, help me! Save me!' But Woodworth gave him a look, then walked away without a word. One of the hooligans told the man, 'Call him God, then he'll sure come back and save your hide.' They all cracked up."

The water-whip was a punishment invented by the pro-Nationalists here. They would tie a man to a stake and flog him with bands of canvas soaked in a bucket of water. The flogging would continue until the whole bucketful was used up.

Although Woodworth had never punished any inmate publicly, Dajian's account of his indifference disappointed me. It was rumored that he had even presented a dagger to Liu Tai-an, the chief of our battalion. I had seen the knife with a white jade handle, which Liu often put against an inmate's throat.

Soon Dajian and I both stopped attending the sermons and the singing sessions, though I still read the Bible every day as a way to improve my English.

7. BETRAYAL

At our next meeting Ming told me that someone had betrayed Commissar Pei. Surprised, I refrained from asking him to inform Pei that I had quit Woodworth's sermons and singing sessions. "There must be a traitor," Ming said. "Have you heard of Ding Wanlin, who was the bugler in our division's Guards Company?"

"Yes. He's a friend of mine, a good, humble man. He nursed me in the hospital. Why do you ask?"

"The Americans took him away four days ago, interrogated him, and returned him to his tent the day before yesterday. His face was battered, this big." Ming raised both hands around his head showing a doubled size.

"He's still going to repatriate, right?" I asked.

"Yes. But two days ago, just an hour after he was sent back, some GIs went to take Commissar Pei away."

"Where did they take him?"

"First to the Second Battalion's headquarters in Compound 86. They interrogated him there for a whole night. Afterward they put him into the water jail, and now he's in solitary confinement."

"So you think Wanlin informed on him?"

"He's a suspect."

"How could he be a traitor? If he betrayed Commissar Pei, why would he still want to go back to China? It doesn't make any sense."

"I'm just saying he's one of the suspects. Don't worry." Ming kept clicking the heels of his high-top shoes, which were the same kind worn by GIs. But his pair didn't look like mates, one with its tongue hanging inside out.

I described my conversation with Woodworth. Ming was pleased to hear that I had no contact with the chaplain anymore.

It was a cold morning, the ragged grass crusted with hoarfrost and the north wind billowing, and nobody basked in the sun outside the tents, so we two talked longer than usual. He told me how the enemy had treated Commissar Pei. Pei had been interrogated by Frederick Johnson, an American colonel known in the camp as the Sinologist, because he spoke standard Mandarin and had a scholarly demeanor, never losing his temper or showing his true emotions. Johnson had been a college professor in Virginia before the war. In this prison camp he often had copies of ancient Chinese classics delivered to important POWs as a gesture of "goodwill." But we knew all along that he must have a special mission here. Now he had finally come to the forefront, personally interrogating Commissar Pei. Yet no matter how hard they pressed him, Pei refused to admit his true identity, insisting he had been a cook. This was futile because the enemy had a file on him. Owing to his high rank, they didn't physically abuse him at this point. After the interrogation he was put into a single-room hut. Toward the evening five Chinese men came, pulling a hand truck loaded with a huge earthen vat, and they put the vessel in his room. Then another three men arrived, each carrying two buckets of hot water, which they poured into the vat. Following them was another man, who held a folded towel and a change of underclothes and a shirt. The head of this group told Pei, "Phew, you don't know how dirty you are. You stink like a wild goat. Colonel Johnson wants you to take a bath."

"I don't need a bath," Pei said.

"You're ordered to get into the water," said the leader, a small rotund man.

"Who gave me the order?"

"Colonel Johnson."

"Tell him I don't take orders from him."

"Screw you! You still think you're a bigwig here, eh?" With a wave of his hand the man told the others, "Dip him into the water and scrub him!"

They hauled Pei to the vat, began tearing off his clothes, and tried to heave him up and drop him into the steaming water. But the commissar gripped the rim of the vessel and wouldn't let go, shouting, "My soul's clean, I don't need a bath!"

They began slapping him, kicking his buttocks, striking him with the shoulder poles, and pulling his hair. Still he wouldn't give in. In the midst of the scuffle an American sergeant arrived and helped them tear off Commissar Pei 's pants. Pei turned his head and bit the GIs hand. This brought more blows on him; yet he wouldn't budge, clasping the rim of the vat like a life ring. He kept shouting, "Even if you kill me, I won't bathe myself. Hit me, yes come on, see if your granddad will ever use this bath!"