Jeff Shaara - The Frozen Hours

THE ROOM WAS QUIET, all eyes on the older man, who kept his stare downward. Sung could feel the impatience around him, the younger officers chafing at the drudgery of yet another meeting, more clarification of orders they had expected to receive days before. Sung had been through all of this before, long before, the acceptance that the army’s resources were so often inferior to the enemy they faced. He had served alongside several of the men in this room, the senior commanders who had learned to endure sacrifice and privation. But others were young, knew little of what it had taken to fight the Japanese, or the great struggle against the Nationalists, the vast armies of Chiang Kai-shek.

Sung glanced to one side, saw the young colonel, Li, drumming his fingers on the arm of his chair. Sung tried to hold in his smile, thought, You were not with us when these things were decided in tents, in shacks, when the enemy was shelling us. Now there is luxury, soft chairs, warm quarters. Of course you are impatient. You have learned none of the lessons that come from struggle. Or pain.

Across the wide desk, the older man’s head rose slowly and he scanned the room, his eyes meeting Sung’s for a brief moment, no smile from either of them. He spoke now, the words coming out in slow rhythm, precise, well rehearsed.

“Chairman Mao has been very explicit in his orders. We shall be efficient in our obedience of them. It is not the time for hasty judgments, or questions that have already been answered.”

Sung glanced again at Li, the younger man responding with silence, a bowed head. Good, Sung thought. It is not the time for unwise protest. He looked at the older man now, said, “General Peng, we will obey. The mission will be one more great accomplishment for our leader. His army shall not disappoint him.”

Peng looked at him, still no smile, a short nod. It was the game they had played for many years, a performance meant for the younger men, a script that could have come from Mao’s own hand.

Peng Dehuai was the overall commander of the Chinese military forces now, a position granted him by Mao Tse-tung as much a reward for loyalty as anything to do with Peng’s expertise as a leader of troops. Sung was grateful for Peng’s authority, respected the man as much now as he had two decades ago, the first time Sung Shi-lun had worn a uniform. In the mid-1930s, Sung had served with Peng during the Long March, a year-long military struggle that had become celebrated by every schoolchild in China. Then it was civil war, the beleaguered army under Mao fighting for survival, escaping destruction from the far superior arms and equipment of the Nationalists. The march had taken Mao’s troops nearly five thousand miles, allowing them to regroup, resupply, and eventually make war once more against the disorganized ranks of Chiang’s army. When the tide turned for good, Mao’s success had elevated him to supreme leadership over the entire Chinese mainland. His authority now was unquestioned, fueled by his fierce claims of dedication to the people he ruled, to their history and ancient culture, and more important, their new place in a changing world.

The peasants were told in unwavering terms, great boisterous speeches, that the entire world would become theirs, that the great revolution that had crushed Chiang and the Nationalists would continue beyond China’s borders. Most of China’s enormous population were peasants, a great sea of humanity that had produced Mao himself, as well as many of the most successful generals from the war, including Peng Dehuai. No one in China was allowed to forget that Mao’s glorious triumph had been accomplished by an army that had labored so long under the boot heels of the wealthy. It was that revolution that Mao insisted would spread to the peasantry of other lands, the message so very clear that no amount of Western corruption could stifle their voices, that everywhere the capitalists ruled, there would be uprisings, spreading power to the powerless. For the experienced military officers who had finally defeated Chiang’s vastly superior army, Mao’s glorious predictions were embraced publicly, if not always in private. The officers understood what many of the peasants did not, that despite Mao’s insistence that power rested with all the people, Mao was firmly and absolutely in charge. And with the wars now past, the old veterans, warhorses like Peng Dehuai, understood that survival meant loyalty to Mao.

Sung knew that Peng was as close to Mao as any man in the army, two old friends who shared the struggles of so many brutal campaigns. Sung had been through that as well, though he was much younger. He had earned respect for his command of troops in the field, catching Mao’s eye and Peng’s as well. Now he commanded an entire army, the reward for his loyalty to the revolution, and more important, to Mao himself. But Sung’s affections for Peng came from something deeper than mere obedience. He valued the older man’s experience and wisdom in the political world as much as the military. He admired Peng’s obvious dedication to Chairman Mao, that if Peng had ever disagreed with Mao’s orders, it would never be revealed to any subordinate. The younger men around Sung had not yet fully grasped the value of that, some of their brashness seeping through when silence and discretion were far more useful. If there was a nagging uneasiness clouding Sung’s own affections for General Peng, it was that some of the strategies that came down from Mao seemed to contradict experience, that the great dreams had clouded military necessity. Peng refused to acknowledge what Sung could see for himself, that as Mao’s power solidified, Mao himself was changing. With the kind of absolute power that Mao enjoyed, the unquestioning obedience of all who served him, Mao had seemed to embrace his own infallibility. The most powerful man in China had also become the most wise. But many of them had memories of those days when Mao’s judgment had been flawed, poor planning, poor strategies employed in the struggle against Chiang Kai-shek. It was a curious mystery to Sung that Mao’s authority was so completely accepted, when the haphazard military decisions continued. Even as Peng’s army maneuvered closer to the Yalu River, poised just above their border with North Korea, delays were ordered, betraying the uncertainties in Peking over just how they were to deal with events to the south. There were contradictions, awkward orders, the kind of hesitations that made military men nervous. For the officers it was an exercise in patience, and a wisdom of their own that kept them silent. When Mao’s intentions were made clear, the military would respond.

The questions were there, of course, spoken quietly in private places, many of the officers around Sung puzzled by Peng Dehuai’s rapid rise to the top command. Peng was respected, certainly, but his predecessor, Lin Biao, had long been Mao’s favorite to command the army. In late September, as the first orders had come to maneuver closer to the Yalu River, Lin had suddenly disappeared. The official report claimed that Lin had fallen ill, and more surprisingly, had been sent to a hospital in the Soviet Union. Very soon, Lin had returned, named to command one of Mao’s vast field armies. But he was subordinate now to Peng, no one in Peking offering an explanation. There were softly spoken rumors, of course, that Lin had made the deadly error of arguing with Mao, rejecting Mao’s strategies for dealing with the problems that had erupted in Korea. The utter collapse of the North Korean army was a surprise, to be sure, but no one had expected that the Chinese would move into Korea to stand alongside Kim Il-sung as an equal partner. Now the public pronouncements barely mentioned the North Koreans at all, as though the Chinese troops were preparing only to defend their own border. With Peng now firmly in command, Sung would follow the orders he had been given, organizing his troops in their new camps along the Yalu, until Peng told him differently.