War Trash (37 page)

"Are you going to share the result of the investigation with us or not?"

"I shall do that only if you end the hunger strike."

"Is this a promise?"

"Yes."

"In that case our kitchens will cook again."

"When?"

"Today."

"Good, I'm pleased to hear that."

I didn't expect the dialogue to be so reasonable. Somehow Chaolin and the other chiefs didn't raise more questions. They should have asked the colonel approximately how long it would take him to finish the investigation and when we would hear from him, just as Kelly had pressed Chaolin for the exact time the hunger strike would be called off. I didn't remind them of this negligence because I wanted the crisis to end as soon as possible.

Before we left, the colonel even shook Chaolin's hand as though they had known each other for years. I was surprised by his cordiality, which made Chaolin so uncomfortable that he grinned at us tightly.

The three detained men had been returned while Wanren and I were away at the guards' headquarters. One had suffered a smashed hand and the other two had swollen faces. Although we agreed to eat dinner that day, that same evening we again shouted "Kill!" when Larsen dismissed us at the end of the head count. Crimson-faced, he got hold of Wanren and said, "Will you please stop this silly trick?" I translated the question.

Our chief answered, "You beat up my men and we must get even."

Larsen put on an innocent look and said, "I didn't touch them, I swear. It was those guys at the central office who mishandled them. I protested to them already and said they just made my job more difficult. Will you stop your men from shouting that silly word?"

His explanation seemed convincing to Wanren, who had heard from the three injured fellows that some strange Americans had whacked them. Slow of words, Wanren didn't counter with the fact that it had been Larsen who ordered their arrest. Instead, he argued, "We have freedom of speech, don't we? We've done nothing wrong."

I translated this a little differently, saying, "Captain, you shouldn't get annoyed. In our army we often use the word 'kill' as an exclamation, like 'hurray' or 'whoopee.' You wouldn't make us give up our language, would you?"

"That's not what I meant."

"You respect freedom of speech, don't you?"

"Sure we do."

"So no hard feelings."

He sighed, shaking his lumpy chin. From then on we would continue to shout "Kill!" whenever Larsen conducted the head count, and he would turn a deaf ear to it.

Colonel Kelly didn't keep his promise. We never heard from him about the result of the investigation, which perhaps hadn't taken place, and we knew for a fact that nobody was punished for the death of Wenfu. Wenfu hadn't had any close friend among the prisoners, so nobody mentioned him again.

27. A TALK WITH CAPTAIN LARSEN

One morning in early December Wanren came back from the guardhouse, holding a paper bag that contained a dozen cans of smoked sausages. At the sight of the cans the men at our battalion headquarters all got excited. Wanren told us, "Larsen gave me these."

"Why was he so generous today?" I said.

"I have no clue. He asked me to come into his office and then he let me take these cans."

This was bizarre. "He didn't want you to do anything else?"

"Nothing but a signature."

"For what?"

"For the cans."

His answer sounded odd, but I didn't question him further. The men around were disappointed that our chief wouldn't open a can of sausages for everybody to try. Instead, Wanren declared he would give the cans to the wounded men who hadn't recovered yet. When everybody had turned away, I said to him, "I have a question for you, chief, but it might offend you."

"Fire away. You know I don't like men who keep their opinions to themselves."

"All right then, on what kind of paper did Larsen have you sign your name?"

"A large writing pad."

"Was it blank?"

"No, there were some words on it."

"What did they say?"

"I have no idea. Probably a record of how he distributed the food."

"Are you positive about that?"

"No, I'm not. It could be a receipt too."

"Don't you think he might have made you sign an important document?"

He blushed, his lips quivering. "Well, he was smiling all the while, very friendly. To be honest, that thought never crossed my mind."

"He might have wanted your signature on something that he can use against us."

"It didn't look that serious. Every word was handwritten on a piece of lined paper."

"To the Americans as long as your signature appears on paper, it will be good legally. They don't use a personal seal like us."

"Well, what should we do now?" He looked a bit flustered, twitching his nose.

He was slow-witted, an able warrior but not an exceptional leader. How could the enemy take him in so easily? I was quite sure that the signature was intended for something else. Captain Larsen must have sensed Wanren's inadequacy, so he dealt with him exclusively. Still, I felt for Wanren, who obviously had been so eager to get the sausages for the wounded men that he hadn't thought twice about putting his name down.

For the whole afternoon he and I considered what to do. Should we discuss this matter among the officers in our battalion? Or should we report it to Commissar Pei and request instructions? Or should we just go ahead and make amends by ourselves?

Wanren, at a loss, said we probably should let Chaolin and Commissar Pei know right away I didn't feel it was a wise idea. "Look," I said, "don't you think they may take you to task? Besides, we're not clear what Larsen has been hatching exactly."

"Tell me what we should do, Yuan." He looked dejected, rubbing his stubbly chin with his palm.

I was just an interpreter, the compounds spokesman, and should not be advising him in such a matter. But I believed we shouldn't let too many people know or there might be another battle, with more men butchered. What Wanren had signed must be something about the incident a month ago – perhaps Captain Larsen felt uneasy about the death of our former orderly and wanted to clear himself by making it look as though we were to blame for the loss of life. If this was the case, it implied that Colonel Kelly had indeed started an investigation. At least Larsen must have thought Kelly would act on his promise, so he had taken steps to protect himself. I said to Wanren, "I can give you some suggestions, but you're the chief and have to decide what to do on your own."

"Sure, let me hear your opinion."

"To me, the fewer people we let know of this, the better the outcome. We should resolve it by ourselves quietly."

"But how?"

"How about this. Tomorrow we'll go to Larsen and invite him to inspect the sanitary conditions of our compound. If he comes, we'll have him detained and demand that he return your signature to us."

"Shouldn't we inform our men of this plan?"

I gave thought to that and said, "I don't think so. Just let our Security Platoon know and prepare to detain him. That should be enough. Besides, Larsen may not take the bait. Even if he comes, we may not be able to hold him if the situation isn't favorable to us. We should be flexible. Above all, we mustn't lose any life."

"You're a smart man, Yuan."

I felt uncomfortable that he used my real name. He was the only man who did that in our compound; apparently he had come to know my name through Commissar Pei. I said, "Don't tell others that I'm involved in making the decision. I should serve as your interpreter only."

"Sure, this is just between us."

At nine o'clock the next morning he and I went to the guardhouse to see Captain Larsen. We were led in without waiting. Larsen was sitting behind a metal desk, smoking a cigar and reading a magazine, on the back of which was the picture of a young woman in a frilled swim-suit and high heels. I was amazed to see a plaster bust of Larsen himself on the utility shelf behind him. The figure resembled him on the whole, a full forehead, a heavy chin, bell cheeks, and downcast eyes, but there was something distinctly Mongoloid in it – the face was a bit too round and the lids too thick. I remembered that Dr. Wang was fond of sculpting human figures in his spare time. A medic had once told us that an American officer had asked the doctor to make a plaster bust of himself. That officer must have been Captain Larsen. In contrast to most of the Americans, he looked urbane and often wore a sneer on his lips, but I hadn't thought he was so vain and narcissistic. Then I sensed something more about the statue, something juvenile, a boy's longing to become somebody, a significant man or a hero. This realization touched me a little; I guessed that deep inside, Larsen might be similar to many of our men, most of whom hadn't mentally reached manhood yet.

Wanren bowed and thanked the captain for the sausages he had received yesterday, then asked for a box of corned beef or any kind of canned meat. I translated his request to Larsen, who lifted his eyebrows in disbelief. Wanren pressed on: "There're dozens of wounded men suffering from malnutrition in our compound, and some still have festering wounds. A man is what he eats, you know. The regular prison food can't help them recover. The sausages you gave us were great, but not enough to go around among the wounded men. Please let us have some more."

"No way," Larsen said. "You took away a dozen cans yesterday."

"Captain," I said, "we mean to cooperate in any way you want us to. We understand you'd like to make our compound a model for the entire camp, so we cleaned our quarters thoroughly yesterday, just to show our gratitude to you."

"Well, how clean are they?" He grinned, the corner of his mouth tilting. "No flies in the latrine?"

"No."

"No lice and nits in the seams of your underclothes?"

"Of course not. We deloused everyone last week."

"I'm not a fool, you know."

"You can inspect our barracks right now, but on one condition. If you're satisfied with our cleaning, you will give us a box of corned beef, twenty-four cans."

"I don't cut deals with my prisoners."

"Look, we're not requesting this for ourselves. You can go ask the wounded men in our barracks whether they ate sausages yesterday."

A doubtful smirk emerged on Larsen's face. His glossy eyes blinked; his brown pupils contracted a little and then relaxed. I could see that he took us to be a bunch of corrupt officers, so I added, "On our word of honor, we didn't take a single bite of the sausages. If you are fair, you're obligated to come and ask the wounded men. Your doubts about our officers' integrity are an insult to us."

I felt I couldn't continue any longer, because I was just an interpreter and shouldn't take over the role of the requester. Wanren meanwhile seemed content to let me do the persuasion and remained silent. To our relief, Larsen stood up, stubbed out his cigar in a stainless steel ashtray, and put the unused half into his breast pocket. Together we all left the office. But Larsen went in another direction, toward the PX, saying he'd arrive at our compound in an hour or so and personally question some wounded men.

Without delay we returned, told some prisoners to begin cleaning the yard, and deployed the Security Platoon inside the shed where the wounded men lived. After midmorning Captain Larsen came, accompanied by a first lieutenant who carried one shoulder higher than the other. They sauntered through the gate, both in good spirits, chewing gum and bantering with each other. A few prisoners, as instructed, smiled and waved at them. Everything seemed normal, and some men lounged around, sunning themselves. I went up to the two officers and said, "Thank you for coming to inspect our barracks. Would you like to see the wounded men first?"

They nodded and followed me to the shed beside whose door hung a Red Cross sign. The second they stepped in, the door was shut behind them. Larsen took alarm, but before he could say a word, our battalion chief shouted, "Hold them!" More than ten men sprang at them and twisted their arms behind their backs.

"Hey, hey, what's this about?" cried the spindly lieutenant.

"Jesus!" Larsen hollered. "I'll give you five crates of corned beef, all right? Just let us go!"

Wanren went over, about to slap him, but I held the chief back, whispering, "This isn't what we have them here for." That cooled him off a little. I turned to the American officers and said, "We invited you here just for a serious talk. Yesterday morning, Captain Larsen, you misled our chief into signing his name on a piece of paper. It was dishonest of you to take advantage of his ignorance of English. Now we demand you return his signature. The moment we get it back, we'll let you go."

"I have no clue what you're talking about."

"Of course you know."

We took them into the inner room that served as our office. Both of them sat down, still sputtering. Calmly we began questioning Larsen. At first he dodged the issue, saying, "Officers, you're too paranoid. Let Charlie and me go, okay?"

"Not until you give us the signed page." I pointed at him, trying to isolate him from Charlie, the lieutenant.

"I already dumped it along with the trash," said Larsen.

"Then we have to keep you here."

"You're too greedy. I shouldn't have given you the sausages to begin with."

"This isn't about the cans, Captain. We want the signature back."

"I've lost it, all right? It's gone. You want me to plow through the entire trash dump outside the camp? You can go do it yourselves. You have my permission."

"In that case we'll have to keep you here."

"Jeez, how can I make you understand? This is nuts!"

By now the GIs at the front gate had sensed that something had gone awry. They called their central office, which sent over a platoon within twenty minutes. All of a sudden the situation turned more dangerous than we had anticipated. It was impossible to keep the inmates in the dark anymore, so I said to Wanren, "Please tell our comrades the truth and get them to help us."

"That's a good idea." He went out immediately. In a hoarse voice he summoned all the men in view and ordered them to stop the GIs from coming in to rescue the two officers in custody. He told them that Larsen had stolen our document, which we must get back. At once about two hundred men swarmed to the front gate, confronting the armed troops.