Ha Jin - War Trash

"Please, it's a present from a doctor," I said.

"How can I believe you?" He took the pen out of his pocket and pointed at the tip of its cap. "See this? 'Made in U.S.A. '"

"Give it back to me, please!"

"Why should I? You snatched it off of an American, didn't you?"

"Come on, it's a keepsake from Dr. Greene at Pusan. You can call the hospital and ask her."

"Stop wasting my time. Move on!"

"This is robbery."

"What did you say?" He punched me in the face and blood instantly filled my mouth; one of my front teeth had been knocked loose.

"I'm going to complain to your superiors."

"Oh yeah? Tell them to jail me or shoot me, you Red gook. You stole stuff from our dead."

Some POWs were gathering to watch from inside the compound, amazed that a prisoner dared to argue with a GI. I realized the pen was gone, so I walked away without another word. I wasn't certain whether the guard really believed I had robbed an American soldier of the fountain pen. He might have. I had heard that a Chinese captive was once beaten half to death by some GIs who had found in his cap a wedding band with an American name engraved on it.

Once I was inside the compound, my first impression was that I had returned to the Chinese Nationalist army: everywhere I turned, I saw people wearing the sun emblem of the Nationalist Party. My heart sagged. The Americans were only guarding the entrance and wouldn't set foot in the compound. Everything in here was left in the hands of the prisoners, many of whom had served in Chiang Kai-shek's army. With the help of the men still loyal to the old regime, the pro-Nationalist force had gained complete control. The elected officers among the POWs resembled those in the Nationalist army too, though they wore the same kind of fatigues as the other prisoners, with the same letters PW on their sleeves or breast pockets.

The eight thousand inmates had been organized into a regiment that consisted of four battalions, within each of which there were companies, then platoons, and then squads. In theory the leaders at all levels except the chief of the compound had been elected by the prisoners, but in reality most of them had been handpicked by Han Shu, the regimental chief, who had gone through an American training program in Tokyo and had been appointed the head of the compound by our captors. As was the practice elsewhere in the prison system, those who could speak some English usually served as interpreters and spokesmen for their units here.

I was assigned to the Third Company of the First Battalion. The company had about five hundred men and was led by Wang Yong, a former Nationalist army corporal. The First Battalion had a police force, composed of more than two hundred men, who were all POWs themselves. They were directly under the command of Liu Tai-an, the battalion chief. These policemen toted clubs wherever they went. I even saw some of them nap with the weapons held in the crooks of their arms. Whenever I ran into this mob of enforcers, my stomach would lurch.

Though crowded, Compound 72 on the whole was well equipped. It had three pools of water in the front area, a bathhouse, an education center, a large yard for laundry, a giant warehouse, a number of cottages serving as churches, a Buddhist temple, and a mosque. Most inmates were free to go anywhere within the compound, but someone like me who hadn't become a pro-Nationalist yet wasn't allowed to move around freely.

On my first evening in the camp, I ate my dinner, which was a bowl of barley mixed with pinto beans, and then lay down on a straw mat and covered myself with a blanket I'd just been issued. As I was dozing away, Wang Yong came into the tent, roused me, and ordered me to follow the others to the company's office and sign up for going to Taiwan. This meant I must refuse to go home to mainland China. I was shocked, but dared not protest. On the way there, I sidled off to the privy and didn't rejoin the others at the company headquarters afterward, so I avoided putting in my name for refusing repatriation.

At daybreak the next morning, Wang Yong came again and told me to pick up my bowl and belongings and follow him. Together he and I went out into the chilly air. My injured leg was still weak, and I couldn't walk as fast as he did. He slackened his pace a little. He was a thick-boned man, of medium height with bulging eyes. He reminded me of a butcher. He said to me, smiling tightly, "Feng Yan, you look like a well-educated man. To be honest, I like learned fellows. I won't force you to do anything against your heart. But if you're determined to follow the Commies back to the mainland, I must let you suffer some."

I remained silent. True, I had sided with the Communists, but this was only because I wanted to go home. Wang led me to the back of the compound and into the small tent that housed the Fifth Platoon. "All right, from now on you stay with them," he said, then left without giving me another look.

I realized that all the small shabby tents held only the inmates who wanted repatriation. We were obviously in the minority here. The pro-Nationalists, who were determined to go to Taiwan, believed that whoever intended to return to mainland China must be a Communist or a pro-Communist. In fact, most of us wanted to go home not for political reasons at all; our decision was personal. In the front part of the compound stood many rows of large tents with iron structures, all inhabited by the pro-Nationalists, each of whom had a mat for himself. By contrast, over seventy men lived in our small tent, crowded into a space of about nine hundred square feet. In the middle of the room a shallow ditch stretched across the dirt floor to drain out rainwater, and on both sides of the ditch every bit of space was occupied. Worse yet, every two men here had to share a mat made of cornstalk skins.

At night we lined up on the ground like packed fish – every pair of mat mates slept with their heads at opposite ends of their mat so that they wouldn't breathe in each other's faces. Even so, you had to place one of your legs on your mat mate's belly or shoulder; otherwise it would have been impossible for both of you to he on the mat. During the night the air was so putrid and dense that the door had to remain ajar. As for food, we also got less. At every meal the officers at company headquarters would eat their fill, and the prisoners living in the larger tents could have a full bowl of boiled barley, whereas we each got only half a bowl. At first, although forbidden to get close to the front part of the compound, we could move around our tent. We could chat when basking in the sun; we could visit the other small tents, where we could play cards and chess with the men who wanted to return home. But soon Wang Yong revoked this limited freedom. We were not allowed to visit the other small tents anymore and were even prohibited from leaving our own area. When you wanted to relieve yourself, you had to report to your squad leader first, and sometimes you had to wait until you could go with a group. This kind of maltreatment gradually made some men change their minds and sign up as nonrepatriates so that they could move to the larger, more comfortable tents.

I always slept with my left knee raised at night. My leg hadn't fully healed yet and I was afraid someone might step on it in the dark. On the opposite side of the ditch, there was one man who was a pinwheel sleeper, often pushing and kicking others, who would then shout curses at him. Before I went to sleep I would massage my injured leg and caress the scar.

Once in a while I could still feel the touch of Dr. Greene's fingers on my thigh, the cool, soothing touch that had left a kind of sensation on my skin and muscles. I even fantasized that I would become a doctor someday so that I could operate on patients too. If only I had gone to a medical school instead of a military academy. But that was pure fantasy, just as I used to dream of being an architect who would put up grand buildings in our hometown. My parents hadn't been able to afford to send me to a regular college, so I had attended the military school for free. What made Dr. Greene different from others was that she had treated me with genuine kindness, which must have stemmed not just from her professional training but from real humanity. Whenever I was with her, I had felt her goodness flowing out like water from a fountain, constant and effortless.