Ha Jin - War Trash

The front gate was opened and we started out for the quarry. It was a warm day, the whitish sky a little overcast. On the roadside, grass sprouted here and there like tiny scissor blades. The rice paddies, deserted by the villagers who had been forced to leave the island to make room for the prison camp, were coated with a layer of algae. Some mallards were busy eating insects and plants in the fields. The air smelled of manure, stinging my nostrils. I was excited, nervous as well, unsure if I could work normally. As we were rounding the southern corner of the prison stockade, the procession suddenly grew disordered; several men turned their heads to the barbed-wire fence and whispered, "Someone's dead." A guard shouted "Kasseyo!" ("Move!"), but we stopped to watch.

There on a thick fence post hung a man, bony and bareheaded. His tongue fell out all the way to his chest. One of his sleeves was missing and displayed his bruised arm, whose blood vessels and tendons were visible under the yellow skin. As I lifted my eyes to gaze at the face closely, I recognized him – Wanlin! I collapsed in a swoon.

Two men helped me to my feet. Heedless of the orders a guard was shouting, I rushed toward the dead man, unable to reach him because

of the fence between us. I burst into tears. "He was my friend. He nursed me in the hospital!" I kept telling them.

Nobody tried to hold me back. Instead, they watched in silence, a few men lowered their eyes, and some sighed. They respected anyone who cherished friendship and mourned the dead with abandon, especially in the presence of many people. The four guards reassembled the fifty inmates and the whole team continued on their way, leaving me behind alone. The Korean sergeant in charge had ordered me to rejoin them at the quarry, which was already in sight, about seven hundred yards to the north. The reason I had suddenly given way to my emotions was complicated. I felt betrayed. I knew that the Communists must have masterminded the murder, but I doubted that Wanlin had been a traitor. Even if, under torture, he had revealed Commissar Pei 's true identity, they didn't have to kill him. He was a good man with a kind, innocent heart and would never hurt anybody on purpose. The Communists must have meant to make an example of him.

I observed Wanlin again. His bluish face was slashed and even his eyelids were swollen. There was no doubt that they had beaten him up before hanging him. His hands were bound from behind, and his bare feet, on which bluebottles were crawling and feeding on blood clots, swayed a little.

About fifteen minutes later I resumed my trip to the quarry. Now I was alone, free to go anywhere I chose. None of the guards had bothered to stay with me, not in the least afraid that I might escape. In fact, the Chinese POWs, once outside the prison camp, had always been docile, so there was little guarding for the GIs and the South Koreans to do. A few months ago a trainload of Chinese captives had arrived at Pusan from the front without a single guard on it, accompanied only by an American doctor. The truth was that most Chinese were so gregarious and so dependent on one another that very few of us tried to get away. We could not endure the loneliness. We believed that as long as we stayed together, we would be less vulnerable. Unable to speak Korean, we had no idea where to get food or how to disguise ourselves. So even though we talked a good deal about escaping, few of us could summon up the courage to put the idea into action individually. By contrast, the North Korean prisoners wouldn't think twice about running away whenever an opportunity came up. That was why they were seldom allowed to work outside their compounds. Like any ordinary Chinese, I was also afflicted with timidity, so I dared not steal away.

I walked slowly toward the quarry near the seaside, my mind laden with questions and grief over my friend's death. Passing Compound 81, I saw the North Korean prisoners doing morning drill; they were shouting slogans as they marched. Some of them carried thick bamboo poles whose ends had been cut on the slant, pointed like javelins; some held wooden sticks and pitchforks; a few shouldered spades sharpened into halberds; the four men at the front of the column toted aluminum spears made from stretcher poles. They were so spirited that they didn't look like prisoners at all, more like a detachment of militia. No wonder Ming had told me that the Koreans were much better organized than we. Their secret force had infiltrated the camp and controlled many parts of it. I had heard that most compounds holding Korean inmates had a smithy and a security unit of hundreds of men armed with self-made weapons. Commissar Pei had once instructed us to learn from the Korean comrades, who had demonstrated more mettle.

But we were in a situation different from theirs. Besides having no difficulty in communicating with the civilians, they had secret contact with the guerrillas who operated in the mountains. Even though many Koje inhabitants had been removed elsewhere, there were still numerous prostitutes around, who were indispensable to the GIs. These women kept the channel of communication open between the Korean POWs and the guerrillas. Moreover, some of the South Korean guards served as agents for the North. As a result, the Korean prisoners had become rather at home here, even more so than the Americans.

When I arrived at the quarry, the work was well under way. Two trucks were being loaded while the other ones had left. My fellow inmates knew I had a bad leg and was in mourning, so they let me carry smaller pieces of granite. They also told me not to step on the rocks, which were slippery. Yet whenever I lifted a rock, I felt a numbing pain in my thigh, as though I was about to collapse. I regretted having asked for such hard labor, fearful that I might snap my femur. Some of the boulders were too large for two men to lift, so a thick board was leaned against the back of a truck, and several prisoners together pushed a giant rock from behind while with a jute rope another four men pulled it upward from within the back of the vehicle. The boulder went up little by little until it got settled in a corner on the truck. I couldn't help but marvel at the men's strength. If only I were as strong.

Fortunately the shipment was small, and we finished the loading in an hour and a half. Then twelve men were assigned to go with the two trucks, six on each, to unload the rocks at a construction site. The rest of us were allowed to stay on the beach to have a smoke. This was the best reward for the work, something that made you feel a little like a free man. I lay down with my back against a large boulder and closed my eyes, inhaling the sea air deeply while my mind again turned to my friend's mutilated body. Tears stung my lids and cheeks.

A few barefoot boys loitered around us, each carrying a shoeshine box with a canvas strap across his shoulder. Their calves, mud-spattered, were as thin as sugarcane. They accosted the guards but left us alone, knowing we had no money. Annoyed, a Korean soldier yelled at them, "Carra! Carra!" That probably meant "Go away." Meanwhile, the prisoners just lolled about, enjoying the fishy air and watching the boats on the sea.

"Why did they kill Ding Wanlin?" I asked Ming when we met the next morning.

He was taken aback, then forced a smile that creased his face. "He betrayed Commissar Pei," he muttered.

"How could you be so sure it was he?"

"We analyzed all the suspects and concluded that he must've been the one."

"Who are the 'we' you're talking about?"

"I can't tell you that, Yuan. I know Ding Wanlin was your friend. I'm sorry."

"He was tortured by the enemy. Why didn't you take his suffering into account? Who wouldn't have cracked under that kind of torture? You should've at least given him a chance."