Mo Yan - Red Sorghum

The hunters split up into three teams: Father and Mother, Wang Guang and Dezhi, Gimpy and Blind Eye. They dug trenches in the marshland and took up positions to watch the paths that had been scratched out by the dogs. Father cradled his rifle; Mother held her carbine. ‘Douguan, why can’t I hit what I’m shooting at?’ she asked.

‘You’re too eager. If you take careful aim and squeeze the trigger, you can’t miss.’

Father and Mother were watching the path in the southeast corner of the field, a two-foot-wide white scar in the earth. The troops emerging onto this path were led by our dog Red, whose thick coat shone after his rich diet of human corpses. His legs had grown firm and muscular from all the exercise, and the battles with humans had put a keen edge on his intelligence.

The fog-shrouded paths were quiet when the sun’s red rays began to light up the sky. The canine forces had dwindled after a month of seesaw battles, so that the dogs lying among the corpses probably numbered a hundred, and a couple of hundred others had deserted. Their combined forces now, in the neighbourhood of 230, tended to run in packs, and since Father and the others were becoming better marksmen all the time, the dogs always left behind at least a dozen corpses after each frenzied attack.

They were waiting for the dogs’ first sortie of the day, like people anticipating the arrival of food on the table. Noticing the rustling of distant stalks of sorghum, Father said softly, ‘Get ready, here they come.’ Mother silently released the safety catch on her rifle and laid her cheek against the rain-soaked stock. The rustling movement flowed to the edge of the marshland like an ocean wave, and Father could hear the panting dogs. He knew that hundreds of greedy canine eyes were fixed on the broken and severed limbs in the marshland, that the dogs’ red tongues were licking the putrid remnants caught in the corners of their mouths, and that their stomachs, filled with green bile, were growling.

As though on command, more than two hundred of them broke out of the sorghum field, barking madly. The fur on their necks stood straight up; bright coats glistened in the fog. Wang Guang and Gimpy opened fire as the dogs ripped the flesh from the corpses with single-minded ferocity. The wounded dogs yelped in pain, while those that had been spared continued to tear frantically at their prey.

Father took aim at the head of a clumsy black dog and pulled the trigger. The dog yelped as the bullet shattered its ear. Then Father saw the head of a spotted white dog explode and the animal crumple to the ground, a piece of dark intestine still in its mouth. It never made a sound. ‘Beauty, you hit it!’ he shouted.

‘Was it me?’ she squealed excitedly to Father, who had lined Red up in his sights. Hugging the ground as he ran, he streaked from one patch of stalks to another. Father pulled the trigger and the bullet whizzed past Red, barely missing his back. He picked up a woman’s bloated leg in his razor-sharp teeth and began to eat, each powerful bite making a loud crunch as the bone shattered. Mother fired; her bullet struck the dark earth in front of Red and spattered his face with mud. He shook his head violently, then picked up the pale leg and ran off. Wang Guang and Dezhi wounded several dogs, whose blood smeared the corpses and whose whimpers struck terror into the hunters’ hearts.

When the pack retreated, the hunters closed up ranks so they could clean their weapons. Since they were running low on ammunition, Father reminded them to make every bullet count, emphasising the importance of eliminating the leaders of the pack. ‘They’re as slippery as loaches,’ Wang Guang said. ‘They always slink away before I can reload.’

Dezhi blinked his rheumy eyes and said, ‘Douguan, how about a sneak attack?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, they have to go somewhere to rest,’ Dezhi said, ‘and I’ll bet it’s near the Black Water River. After stuffing their bellies, they probably go there for the water.’

‘He’s got a point,’ Gimpy agreed.

‘Then let’s go,’ Father said.

‘Not so fast,’ Dezhi cautioned. ‘Let’s go back and get some grenades. We’ll blow ’em up.’

Father, Mother, Wang Guang, and Dezhi split up to follow two separate paths made by the dogs in the muddy earth, which had turned springy from all the claws that had passed over it. The paths led straight to the Black Water River, where Father and Mother could hear the roar of water and the sounds of the dogs. The paths converged as they neared the riverbank to form a broad single path.

That’s where Father and Mother met up with Wang Guang and Dezhi. And that’s where they spotted more than two hundred dogs spread out over the weed-covered riverbank; most were crouching, although some were gnawing at shiny clods of black earth stuck between their toes. A few stood at the water’s edge, raising their legs to piss into the river, while others were drinking. Now that their bellies were full, they circled the area, passing dark-brown canine farts. The weeds were nearly covered with reddish or white dogshit, and the odour of the turds and farts was different from any Father and the others had ever smelled. It was easy to spot the three leaders, even though they were spread out among the others.

‘Shall we toss them now, Douguan?’ Wang Guang asked.

‘Get ready,’ Father said. ‘We’ll lob them together.’

They were each holding two petal-shaped muskmelon hand grenades. After pulling the pins, they banged the grenades together. ‘Now!’ Father yelled, and eight arching missiles landed amid the dogs, who first watched with curiosity as the black oblong objects fell from the sky, then instinctively crouched down. Father marvelled at the incredible intelligence of the three dogs from our family, who cunningly flattened out on the ground just before the eight superior Japanese grenades exploded, almost at the same instant, the frightful blast spraying dark shrapnel in all directions. A dozen or more dogs were blown to bits, at least twenty others gravely wounded. Dog blood and dog meat sailed into the air above the river and splattered on the surface like hailstones. White eels, blood eaters, swarmed to the spot, squealing as they fought over the dog meat and dog blood. The pitiful whimpering of the wounded dogs was terrifying. Those that had escaped injury scattered, some dashing wildly down the riverbank, others leaping into the Black Water River to swim frantically to the opposite bank.

Father wished he hadn’t left his rifle behind, for some of the dogs, blinded by the blast, were running in circles on the riverbank, whimpering in panic, their faces covered with blood. It was a pitiful, exhilarating sight. Our three dogs swam across the river, followed by about thirty others, and clambered up onto the opposite bank with their tails between their legs, their wet fur stuck to their skin; they, too, were a sorry sight, but once they reached solid ground, they shook themselves violently, sending beads of water flying from their tails, their bellies, and their chins. Red glared hatefully at Father and barked, as though accusing him and his friends of violating a tacit agreement by invading their bivouac area and using new, cruelly undoglike weapons.

‘Lob some across the river!’ Father said.

They picked up more grenades and heaved them with all their might towards the opposite bank. When the dogs saw the black objects arching above the water, they raised an imploring howl, as though calling for their mothers and fathers, then leaped and rolled down the riverbank, making a quick dash to the sorghum field on the southern bank. Father and the others weren’t strong enough to reach the bank with their grenades, which landed harmlessly in the river and sent up four columns of silvery water. The surface roiled for a moment, as a school of fat white eels floated belly up.