Chinese Literature

you are? A veteran? What the hell does length of service mean anyway? There are mules still pulling the guns today who were at Chingkangshan!”’* I knew one of the voices—it was young Feng. I went out to see what was going on, and found him at it with a squad leader from the Guards Company.

IT didn’t have to ask what the row was about! It must be some message for the Commandant which Feng was trying to intercept, so that the Commandant could get his sleep. I drew them off a little way, and tried to find out how urgent it really was, and if it really couldn’t wait. The problem came from our bomb area. There was a man there who would not obey orders, but insisted on going within the enclosure, to “listen.”

“Pooh! Everything turns into a craze, and now it’s a craze for listening to bombs.” Feng got his word in, indignantly.

I told the lad to shut up because I didn’t want another loud argument, and asked the squad leader why the Commandant’s orders were not being kept.

“Well, we've got the chap in custody,” he said.

“What on earth have you come round here for, then?”

“Our C.O. is afraid there’ll be trouble if we keep him shut up too

long.”

“Where does the trouble come in?”

“You see, the chap’s a wounded soldier, and he insists he knows how to deal with delayed action bombs. He’s managed to talk his way round the C.O. already, and that’s something!”

Of course I realized in a flash who it was. Even if there was no connection between him and Commandant Shen’s dream, I wanted to go and see this soldier anyhow, as I wanted to know more about him. I told young Feng that I’d go along to the Guards Company, and would phone back if I thought I ought to. If I did, he was to put me through to Commandant Shen and not try to interfere. He grinned rather sheepishly at that, like the good boy he was, and shook hands with the squad leader who, for his part, said that he shouldn’t have been so hasty!

Ul

We walked about half a mile, crossing a stream, round the brow of a hill, and skirting some marshy land, to reach the Company H.Q. I knew the C.O. and I was taken to see the “prisoner” straight away. Directly I got into the detention room I recognized him as “our”? wounded soldier of the night. Now I could see him clearly. He looked round about thirty,

* Revolutionary base on the borders of Kiangsi and Hunan Provinces, established by Mao Tse-tung in 1927.

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