Pearl Buck - Patriot

He roared out a laugh, and they had laughed too, and had gone home somehow cheered. Ruins had lost their meaning. He thought of it again and again.

All day the plane roared across the sky. The pilot was a young American, with whom I-wan had had no chance to talk. Madame Chiang had introduced them quickly, as the plane was ready to take off. “This is Denny MacGurk, Mr. Wu.”

“Pleased to meet you,” the American had said and had swung into his seat. And then Madame Chiang had handed them each a little bag.

“Your noon meal,” she told them.

He had not thought of its being noon until he saw Denny MacGurk eating with one hand while he steered. Then he opened the bag. Ham between layers of foreign bread, a brown creamy foreign sweet, and an apple — he had never eaten this food, but high up in the cold clear air it was good. MacGurk turned and nodded at him and shouted something which the wind tore to pieces before he could catch it, but he nodded as though he had heard. Why, he wondered, should this American boy be here, driving a plane for a Chinese general? But he had heard it said often enough in the Muraki business that none could understand Americans.And so he sat through the long afternoon until dusk, when the plane drifted down an aisle of cloud into a valley and dropped into a shaven field outside a village. Instantly it was surrounded by soldiers and then by a staring, pushing crowd of children and villagers. MacGurk leaped out, and I-wan, behind him, clambered out of his seat.

“We’ll sleep here and start at dawn and finish the trip after noon,” MacGurk said. Then he said in the pleasantest voice, “Say, tell these tin soldiers it’s their high monkey-monk’s plane, will you, and that I’ll lick the guts out of any of ’em that touches it? Tell ’em to watch the kids.” He locked up as much as he could, and I-wan, translating, told the soldiers, “It is the Generalissimo’s plane on official business, and it rests on your bodies tonight.”

“Yes!” they shouted, saluting, and as he followed MacGurk he heard them roaring at the awed crowd, “Put your fingers on it and see what falls upon you, you children of turtles! Your mother! Breathe on it even, and see what happens!”

“I guess it’s safe,” MacGurk said, grinning. “Gosh, but I’m stiff! And there’ll be only a board to sleep on tonight,” he grumbled, “and nothing but noodles to eat. Oh hell, if there aren’t too many lice, I guess I can sleep on anything!”

I-wan did not answer. He tried to smile, but it seemed somehow his fault that there was nothing but a country inn here.

“Ever been in the U. S. A.?” MacGurk asked abruptly as they walked along, side by side. Under their feet clouds of dust rose and spread, dry and alkaline, into their nostrils.

“No, I never have,” I-wan said, and added diffidently, “It must be a very pleasant country.”

“God’s own,” MacGurk said fervently, and then gave I-wan a great grin. “Why in the heck I can’t stay in it, I don’t know. But every time I go home I hanker to get away from it. I’m the damnedest—”

They laughed and marched through the deep cool gate of the earthen wall around the village. At their heels followed a procession of staring children and idle people. But MacGurk seemed used to them. He strode on into the doorway of an inn and then into a courtyard. The innkeeper rushed out to meet him, chattering with pleasure, and, seizing his hand, shook it up and down.

“Hello, you old son-of-a-gun,” MacGurk greeted him, and turned to I-wan. “I don’t understand a word he jabbers at me every time, but I’ve taught him to shake hands like a white man. It kind of makes me feel at home when I drop in here to spend the night.”

But to I-wan the innkeeper was bowing again and again.

“Come in, my lord, come in and drink tea, and wash yourselves and rest.”

He looked at I-wan and seemed ashamed.

“This white man,” he told I-wan a moment later, when he himself brought tea and MacGurk was in the next room, “he is of course a little—” he tapped his head and sighed. “But I humor him — I always humor him!”

“A good heart,” I-wan replied, not wanting to laugh.

“Oh yes, he has a very good heart,” the innkeeper agreed. And seeing the size of the coin I-wan laid in his hand, he grew instantly zealous and rushed at the crowd standing at the door, staring in to see what was going on.

“Be gone — be gone!” he shouted. “Isn’t this a man? Have you never seen a human being before?”

The crowd fell back and he slammed and barred the door made of rough planks.

“You must excuse them, my lord,” he told I-wan. “They like to see foreigners. What country do you come from, sir?”

“But I am Chinese,” I-wan said in surprise.

“Are you, sir?” the old man exclaimed. His wrinkled face was lively with his wonder. “Now I wouldn’t have known it — your clothes—”

“Many Chinese wear western clothes,” I-wan said. He felt somehow a little hurt.

“But your speech—” the old man began.

“It’s Chinese, isn’t it?” I-wan demanded.

“Well, I understand what you mean, but each word you say is not quite right,” the old man replied. Then lest he offend a good customer, he added quickly, “But I’ve heard there are many Chinese — and some are tall and some are short — that I know, being an innkeeper here for forty years. And now, do you eat meat or not, sir? I have good vegetable dishes, otherwise.”

“I eat meat,” I-wan replied shortly. He was still a little angry.

And he stayed a little angry, if for nothing else than that he could not complain. “We Chinese—” the old innkeeper kept saying, as he served them, “we Chinese are not so particular as the white men. It let my heart down, I do assure you, sir, when you said you were Chinese. Now this white man”—he tapped his head again over MacGurk’s red head—“he roars when his meat is tough, so I must chop it fine for him, like a baby, and put an extra quilt on his bed, and such a noise if it has a little small insect or two in it, such as we Chinese know must live, too. Do not insects also have their life, I ask him? But he never understands a word I say.”

It was true the meat was tough and the bed of boards stretched upon two heaps of dried clay was very hard, and in the night I-wan felt something creeping over his skin. He leaped up and shook himself and was about to shout out. Then he lit the small oil lamp and lay down again.

“We Chinese—” the old innkeeper had said.

But the night was over at last and they were up in the air again and MacGurk’s stubby profile was set toward the Northwest. They were going over mountains now, long reaches of barren clay-colored mountains. The roads were deep ruts across the land and ahead lay a mirage. I-wan had not known the trees and waters he seemed to see were a mirage until hour passed into hour and they came to no trees and no lakes. Their noon meal today was cold steamed-bread rolls filled with garlic which they had bought at the inn and stuffed into their pockets — different enough from the white foreign bread wrapped in clean white paper which Madame Chiang had given them. This bread was gray and solid and the garlic was strong. But it stayed hunger.

And then in the middle of the afternoon MacGurk suddenly shut off the engine and the plane began drifting slantwise to the earth.

“There it is!” he shouted.

And looking down, I-wan saw a square-walled village set like a block upon the plain. Outside were fields and inside the courts of houses there were trees growing thick and low. Down the plane drifted. And from the fields blue-clad figures shouted and dropped their hoes and came running to meet it.

“You’re in the heart of the Reds!” MacGurk shouted at him and then grinned. “They’re just like anybody else,” he remarked. The plane bumped gently along the earth. “Fact is, I kinda like ’em. This one you’re goin’ to see is a swell guy. The madame said I was to lead you straight to him. C’m on!” They climbed out and again he was following MacGurk.