Ha Jin - Nanjing Requiem

Minnie and I didn’t go to Hsia Gwan with them, knowing they would tarry hours there before the boat cast off. For the whole morning we were anxious, and not until it began drizzling in the afternoon did we feel relieved, because the rain could deter the Japanese bombers. The boat also carried four hundred boxes of art treasures from the Palace Museum, so it might have been dangerous for Dr. Wu and Miss Fan to be on board. By the next morning they would pass Wuhu. Beyond that small city the enemy planes would be less likely to attack them.

The previous evening Miss Fan had told Minnie and me the combination to the college’s vault, and we took out the cash and hid it in different buildings.

I WAS PLEASED that Holly had just joined our staff and stayed with us after her radio station had been dissolved. She was the only foreigner besides Minnie on campus and could play the piano and organ. This meant that our chapel service could resume as before. Holly was so energetic that she also took part in charity work outside our college. Lately she’d been going to Hsia Gwan to help wounded soldiers in the evenings. Sometimes I went with her, bringing along a couple of newly made garments and bedding. I had trained in a missionary hospital to be a nurse — that’s why I could speak English and would also help out at the school’s infirmary whenever they needed me.

On the evening of December 7, Holly drove Minnie and me to Hsia Gwan in her De Soto coupe. Minnie was shocked and also disturbed, as we had been on our first visit there, by the sight of more than three hundred soldiers lying about in the train station. Most of the men suffered from gunshot wounds, and many had lost limbs. The waiting hall brought to mind a temporary morgue, though moaning kept rising in there and some men cursed their superiors. One man raved “Kill, kill!” while flailing his arms. Most of the wounded were barefoot, which made me wonder who had stripped them of their footwear. Maybe they hadn’t worn real shoes to begin with, since a lot of the troops from the southern provinces had gone to the front wearing only straw sandals.

The three of us began distributing the half-dozen thin quilts we’d brought along. For the moaning ones we could hardly do a thing aside from saying they’d be shipped to the hospital soon. In a corner a man with a wound in the shoulder lay on a string stretcher gazing at Minnie and me. He smiled and said quietly with a Hunan accent, “Don’t let them take me away.”

“You want to stay here?” Minnie asked.

“I’m so tired, still drenched. They carried me through driving rain for three days, all the way from Danyang. So many men died on the road. I have to rest some before going to the hospital.”

I saw a small puddle on the terrazzo floor under his stretcher and realized he must have wet the cotton quilt underneath him. “I’ll be back in a second.” I stepped away and looked around for some dry bedclothes but couldn’t find any. Outside a storage room filled with undelivered parcels, I came across two used hemp sacks and, ignoring who might own them, brought them back. Minnie and I pulled the man’s stretcher a few steps away, placed the sacks beside it, and helped him move onto the makeshift bedding.

“Thank you, thank you,” the man kept saying as Minnie spread the soiled quilt on the stretcher to dry. “It’s so kind of you,” he added, and closed his eyes, as if about to fall asleep.

Minnie wordlessly adjusted his leg while I moved the stretcher alongside him so that he could get on it again once the thin quilt dried a bit. Before we could turn away, he opened his eyes. “I met another good-hearted foreigner,” he breathed, as if he couldn’t see that I had a Chinese face. Then his voice became a little louder. “A Canadian doctor dressed my wound every other day in Danyang. Every time I was in such pain that I yelped like mad, but he never lost his temper and always patted my forehead to calm me down. Once he wiped my face with a warm towel. Before I left, I told him that if I were younger, I would’ve wanted to have him as my godfather. Such a good man.”

I realized that this young fellow might be a Christian. Touching his forehead, Minnie said, “God will help you get well soon.”

I couldn’t say a word. As we stepped away, I wondered how we could console these men without lying to them. Most of them, infested with lice and fleas and depleted of strength, would soon join the yellow soil of China. An upsurge of sadness constricted my chest. Suddenly tearful and stuffy-nosed, I rushed out of the waiting hall to compose myself in the chilly air. Why would God let our land go through such horrendous destruction? Why did these innocent men have to suffer like this? When would God ever show his wrath against the violent aggressors? Those questions, usually lurking in the back of my mind, again cropped up and bewildered me.

Minnie came out and joined me. “This is awful, awful,” she said with a sob in her voice, her cheeks tear-stained. “I never thought it could be so bad.” Her brown hair was tousled a little and her lips twisted as if she were chewing something. In silence I patted her shoulder.

We went back in a few minutes later. A young man, actually a teenager, howled in a childlike voice, “Take me home! I want to see my mom and dad before I die.” His eyes were injured, and his entire face was bandaged save for his mouth.

Minnie touched his head and said, “They’re going to send you home soon.”

“Don’t lie to me! Liar, liar, all of you are liars.”

She turned away while I went to help Holly fill canteens with boiled water that had cooled down. At the far end of the hall, John Magee, the kindhearted minister, was praying. He came here every night to direct a team of young volunteers trying to help these men, and also to administer the last rites for the dying ones.

“Anling.” Minnie beckoned to me from behind a high-backed bench.

I put down the canteen I was filling, went over, and saw, lying on the floor, a man whose right leg had been shot off close to the hip. He was motionless, his gaping wound emitting a foul odor. Minnie whispered to me, “Do you think he’s still alive?”

As I was wondering, his hand twitched as if stung by something. “Apparently he is,” I said.

I bent down to observe his wound. The flesh had begun to rot; it was whitish and oozing pus. Thanks to the cold weather there were few flies, yet I saw four or five tiny maggots wiggling on the edge of the decayed flesh. The stench from the stump was so overpowering that I had to hold my breath. Obviously these men had been left like this for days.

“Do they have a list of their names?” Minnie asked.

“I’m not sure,” I said, surprised by the question.

“I’m wondering if there’ll be a cemetery for these poor men who have sacrificed everything for China.” Minnie turned tearful again.

Deep inside, I knew there might be no list of their names at all. Everything was in such disarray that their superiors wouldn’t bother about these useless men anymore. After they died, who’d be able to tell where their bodies were? Perhaps their parents would receive a “lost in battle” notice. These country lads seemed to have been sent into this world only to suffer and to be used — the spans of their lives depended on how much they could endure.

The more we observed the one-legged man, the more grief-stricken we became. Minnie went up to Holly and asked almost crossly, “Why can’t they cleanse and dress his wound?” She pointed at the man behind the bench.

“They have no medicine here, not even rubbing alcohol or iodine solution,” Holly said.

I was afraid that Minnie might fly off the handle. As I feared, she stepped across to a young woman in a white gown and said, “Look, I know the man over there might be a hopeless case, but why not dress his wound and let him die like a human being?”