Ha Jin - War Trash

"Yes. He's a friend of mine, a good, humble man. He nursed me in the hospital. Why do you ask?"

"The Americans took him away four days ago, interrogated him, and returned him to his tent the day before yesterday. His face was battered, this big." Ming raised both hands around his head showing a doubled size.

"He's still going to repatriate, right?" I asked.

"Yes. But two days ago, just an hour after he was sent back, some GIs went to take Commissar Pei away."

"Where did they take him?"

"First to the Second Battalion's headquarters in Compound 86. They interrogated him there for a whole night. Afterward they put him into the water jail, and now he's in solitary confinement."

"So you think Wanlin informed on him?"

"He's a suspect."

"How could he be a traitor? If he betrayed Commissar Pei, why would he still want to go back to China? It doesn't make any sense."

"I'm just saying he's one of the suspects. Don't worry." Ming kept clicking the heels of his high-top shoes, which were the same kind worn by GIs. But his pair didn't look like mates, one with its tongue hanging inside out.

I described my conversation with Woodworth. Ming was pleased to hear that I had no contact with the chaplain anymore.

It was a cold morning, the ragged grass crusted with hoarfrost and the north wind billowing, and nobody basked in the sun outside the tents, so we two talked longer than usual. He told me how the enemy had treated Commissar Pei. Pei had been interrogated by Frederick Johnson, an American colonel known in the camp as the Sinologist, because he spoke standard Mandarin and had a scholarly demeanor, never losing his temper or showing his true emotions. Johnson had been a college professor in Virginia before the war. In this prison camp he often had copies of ancient Chinese classics delivered to important POWs as a gesture of "goodwill." But we knew all along that he must have a special mission here. Now he had finally come to the forefront, personally interrogating Commissar Pei. Yet no matter how hard they pressed him, Pei refused to admit his true identity, insisting he had been a cook. This was futile because the enemy had a file on him. Owing to his high rank, they didn't physically abuse him at this point. After the interrogation he was put into a single-room hut. Toward the evening five Chinese men came, pulling a hand truck loaded with a huge earthen vat, and they put the vessel in his room. Then another three men arrived, each carrying two buckets of hot water, which they poured into the vat. Following them was another man, who held a folded towel and a change of underclothes and a shirt. The head of this group told Pei, "Phew, you don't know how dirty you are. You stink like a wild goat. Colonel Johnson wants you to take a bath."

"I don't need a bath," Pei said.

"You're ordered to get into the water," said the leader, a small rotund man.

"Who gave me the order?"

"Colonel Johnson."

"Tell him I don't take orders from him."

"Screw you! You still think you're a bigwig here, eh?" With a wave of his hand the man told the others, "Dip him into the water and scrub him!"

They hauled Pei to the vat, began tearing off his clothes, and tried to heave him up and drop him into the steaming water. But the commissar gripped the rim of the vessel and wouldn't let go, shouting, "My soul's clean, I don't need a bath!"

They began slapping him, kicking his buttocks, striking him with the shoulder poles, and pulling his hair. Still he wouldn't give in. In the midst of the scuffle an American sergeant arrived and helped them tear off Commissar Pei 's pants. Pei turned his head and bit the GIs hand. This brought more blows on him; yet he wouldn't budge, clasping the rim of the vat like a life ring. He kept shouting, "Even if you kill me, I won't bathe myself. Hit me, yes come on, see if your granddad will ever use this bath!"

After another round of punching and kicking, they gave up and decided to take the vat away. Two men scooped the water back into the buckets, all the while cursing Pei, saying he was a mean ass, an expert in histrionics. One of them stabbed his finger at him and said, "We spent a whole afternoon preparing this bath for you. We should've boiled you alive instead."

The enemy took Pei 's blustery response to the bath for some kind of hydrophobia, so the next afternoon they put him into the water prison, which was molded after those built by the Japanese army. I had seen a few such cells in China; the one here was a similar type. It was in a cellar set half underground, in which there were two pools, a large one and a small one, both encircled by barbed wire attached to steel bars and containing three feet of murky, foul water. The small pool was for solitary confinement, whereas the large one could hold five people at a time. In either pool you had to remain on your feet constantly. Eventually you were too sleepy to stand up, fell on the barbed wire, and had your flesh torn. In winter the cold water soaked you to the bones and made you shiver with a livid face; in summer insects bit you without cease and your skin began to rot within half a day. Usually a regular POW was put in the larger pool for five or six hours at a stretch, but Commissar Pei was jailed in the small pool for a whole night. They moved him out only after he tried to drown himself. The next day they resumed interrogating him. However hard they pumped him, he wasn't responsive and often fell asleep, having to be kicked again and again to remain awake. One of the officers threatened to send him to the torture chamber, but Pei replied, "Why not take me to the execution ground? I don't care, I've had enough." Convinced that they could get nothing from him, they put him away in solitary confinement.

In the art of inflicting pain, the Chinese and the Koreans were much more expert than the Americans. When GIs beat you, they would kick and hit you, and they would break your ribs or smash your face, but they seldom tortured you in an elaborate way. This isn't to say that they were not cruel. They did burn some inmates with cigarettes and even tied a man up with electric wire and then cranked a generator. But the Chinese prisoners, especially some of the pro-Nationalist men, were masterful in corporal punishment and even took great pleasure in inflicting pain on others. They knocked your anklebones with a special stick that had a knurl on its end; they shoved a water nozzle into an inmate's anus and then turned on the hydrant (one man was killed this way); they tied your hands up and rubbed chili powder into your eyes; they forced you to kneel on sharp-edged opened cans; they slashed your flesh with a knife and then put salt on the wounds, saying this was a way to prevent infection; they sharpened matches and inserted them under your fingernails, then fit the other ends; they kept you upside down in an empty vat while scratching your soles with brushes; they tied you to a bench and filled your stomach with chili water; they tore off your clothes and put you into an oil drum containing broken beer bottles, then sealed the drum and rolled it around. In contrast to the pro-Nationalists, the Communists were less creative and more blunt. If you were in their way, they either beat you half to death to teach you a lesson or just killed you. They would knock you down and drop a sandbag on the back of your head to smother you. They did everything secretly, perhaps because they were in the minority and had less power in the camp.

One morning, about a week after Commissar Pei 's torture, a party of prisoners was dispatched to load rocks onto trucks at a quarry, which was just a mile to the north. The men of our compound were sometimes detailed to do urgent jobs at the wharf and nearby construction sites, usually at a moment's notice. Although escorted by South Korean guards, who were rougher with us than the GIs were, we enjoyed leaving the camp to work; it gave us the feeling of a change and some freedom. Though my leg couldn't stand heavy weight yet, I had begged our company chief, Wang Yong, to let me go out once in a while. By now I felt I was strong enough to do some light work and had grown restless, eager to test my leg. Wang had said there was no job that suited me and that he ought to follow the doctor's instructions and not to count me as a worker, but today somehow I was included in the group heading out. I was glad for this opportunity. To be fair, Wang had treated me decently, not in the way he handled the other prisoners who wouldn't follow him to Taiwan. To date I had never been made to do anything against my will, and I didn't even have to ask permission if I wanted to go to another tent within our compound. Wang allowed me to run slowly in the yard so that I could build up the strength of my injured leg, though with our poor diet I didn't have the energy to exercise every day. Several times he had invited me to share food (mainly bread, canned fruits, and sausages) and a drink with him. I did join him in his office, but I wouldn't stay more than half an hour. I would accept only a cigarette or a candy he offered me. I hadn't touched any of his alcohol or food, though I was very much tempted.