Mo Yan - Red Sorghum

The dogs stayed away from the sight of the massacre for two days following the sneak attack, a time during which canine and human forces maintained strict vigilance as they made battle preparations.

Father and his friends, recognising the enormous power of the grenades, held a strategy session to find ways of putting them to even better use. When Wang Guang returned from a reconnaissance mission to the riverbank, he brought news that all that remained were a few canine corpses, a blanket of fur and dogshit, and an overpowering stench. Not a single living dog — which meant they’d moved to another bivouac area.

According to Dezhi, since the leaders of the routed dog pack had been spared, it would only be a matter of time before they closed up ranks and returned to fight over the corpses. Their counterattack was bound to be particularly ferocious, since the survivors now had rich battle experience.

The final suggestion was made by Mother, who recommended arming the wooden-handled grenades and burying them along the paths. Her suggestion met with unanimous approval, so they split up into groups to bury forty-three of the grenades beneath the three paths. Of the fifty-seven muskmelon grenades they’d started with, twelve had been used during the attack on the Black Water River shoal, so there were forty-five left — fifteen for each group.

Cracks developed in the unity of the canine forces over the two days as a result of casualties and desertion, which depleted their number to 120 or so. The three original brigades were reformed into a single unified force of crack troops. Since their bivouac area had been overrun by those four bastards with their strange, exploding dung-beetles, they were forced to move three li downriver to a spot on the southern bank just east of the stone bridge.

It was to be a morning of great significance. The dogs, itching for a fight, snarled and snapped at one another as they made their way to the new bivouac area, sneaking an occasional glance at their leaders, who were calmly sizing each other up. Once they reached a spot east of the bridge, they formed a circle on the shoal, sat back on their haunches, and howled at the overcast sky. Blackie and Green were twitching noticeably, causing the fur on their backs to ripple like ocean waves. Months of vagabond lives and feasting on rotting meat had awakened primal memories anaesthetised over aeons of domestication. A hatred of humans — those two-legged creatures that walked erect — seethed in their hearts, and eating human flesh held greater significance than just filling their growling bellies; more important was the vague sensation that they were exacting terrible revenge upon those rulers who had enslaved them and forced them into the demeaning existence of living off scraps. The only ones capable of translating these primitive impulses into high theory, however, were the three dogs from our family. That was why they enjoyed the support of the pack dogs, although that alone would have been insufficient; their size and strength, their quickness, and their willingness to martyr themselves by attacking with unparalleled ferocity all made them natural leaders. Now, though, they had begun to fight among themselves for sole dominion over the pack.

One of the battles occurred when a dog in Green’s brigade, an impudent male with thick lips, bulging eyes, and a coat of bluish fur, took liberties with a pretty spotted-faced female who was one of Red’s favourites. Infuriated, Red charged the motley male and knocked him into the river. After climbing out and shaking the water off his fur, Thick Lips launched into an angry tirade, which earned him the jeers of the other dogs.

Green barked loudly at Red to defend the honour of his brigade, but Red ignored him and knocked the motley cur back into the river. As he swam back to shore, his nostrils skimming the surface, he looked like a huge river rat. The spotted-faced female stood beside Red, wagging her tail.

Green barked contemptuously at Red, who returned the insult.

Blackie placed himself between his two companions of earlier days, like a peacemaker.

Now that the dog pack was reassembled at a new bivouac area, they busied themselves drinking water and licking their wounds as the ancient rays of the sun danced on the surface of the gently flowing Black Water River. A wild rabbit raised its head on the embankment; scared witless by what it saw, it quietly slipped away.

In the warm mid-autumn sun, an atmosphere of lethargy settled over the dog pack. The three leaders formed a seated triangle, eyes drooping as though reliving the past.

Red had led a peaceful life as a distillery watchdog. The two old yellows were still alive then, and even though there were occasional disputes among the five dogs, they were, for the most part, one big, happy family. He was the runt of the group, and once, when he developed a case of scabies, the other dogs drove him away. So he went straight to the eastern compound to roll around in the sorghum chaff, and his skin cleared up. But he returned more antisocial than when he’d left, and was disgusted by how Blackie and Green fawned over the strong and bullied the weak, and by their smarmy tail-wagging.

Red sensed that the violent upheaval of the pack was a power struggle, and since the conflicts had been shifted onto the three leaders, the other dogs grew relatively peaceful. But the mangy cur, who hadn’t mended his ways despite repeated warnings, was now trying to stir up trouble among the other dogs in the pack.

The flash point was reached when an old bitch with a torn ear walked up to Blackie and put her wet, icy nose up against his, then turned and wagged her tail at him. Blackie got to his feet and began cavorting with his new paramour, while Red and Green looked on. Red quietly crouched down and glanced over at Green, who sprang instantly and pinned the amorous Blackie to the beach.

The dog pack stood as one to watch the fang-to-fang battle erupting in front of them.

Green, enjoying the element of surprise, quickly gained the advantage by burying his teeth in Blackie’s neck and shaking him violently. The green fur on his neck stood straight up as a thunderous roar burst from his throat.

Blackie, whose head was spinning from the attack, jerked backward to free his neck from his attacker’s jaws, losing a chunk of flesh the size of a man’s palm. He stood up shakily, racked by spasms of pain and crazed with anger. He was seething over the perversely undoglike sneak attack by Green. Blackie barked furiously, lowered his head, and threw himself on Green, aiming straight for his chest, into which he sank his teeth, peeling away a huge flap of skin. Green immediately went for Blackie’s wounded neck, but this time, not content with merely biting, he was actually devouring the torn flesh.

Red got slowly to his feet and looked icily at Green and Blackie. Blackie’s neck was nearly broken. He raised his head, but it drooped back down. He raised it again, and again it drooped. Blood gushed from the wound. He was clearly finished. Green arrogantly bared his fangs and barked triumphantly. Then he turned, and was eyeball to eyeball with the long, cruelly mocking face of Red. Green shuddered. Without warning, Red pounced on Green, using his favourite trick to flip the wounded dog over on his back, and before Green could scramble to his feet, Red had buried his teeth into his chest and was pulling on the ripped flap of skin. With a powerful jerk of his head, he prised the skin loose, exposing the raw flesh beneath it. As Green struggled to his feet, the loose flap of skin hung down between his legs and brushed the ground. His whimper signalled the knowledge that it was all over for him. Red walked up and drove his shoulder into his barely standing victim, sending him tumbling to the ground, and before he could struggle to his feet, he was swarmed over by a dense pack of dogs, whose fangs quickly turned him into a bloody pulp.