Ha Jin - War Trash

I translated this a little differently, saying, "Captain, you shouldn't get annoyed. In our army we often use the word 'kill' as an exclamation, like 'hurray' or 'whoopee.' You wouldn't make us give up our language, would you?"

"That's not what I meant."

"You respect freedom of speech, don't you?"

"Sure we do."

"So no hard feelings."

He sighed, shaking his lumpy chin. From then on we would continue to shout "Kill!" whenever Larsen conducted the head count, and he would turn a deaf ear to it.

Colonel Kelly didn't keep his promise. We never heard from him about the result of the investigation, which perhaps hadn't taken place, and we knew for a fact that nobody was punished for the death of Wenfu. Wenfu hadn't had any close friend among the prisoners, so nobody mentioned him again.

One morning in early December Wanren came back from the guardhouse, holding a paper bag that contained a dozen cans of smoked sausages. At the sight of the cans the men at our battalion headquarters all got excited. Wanren told us, "Larsen gave me these."

"Why was he so generous today?" I said.

"I have no clue. He asked me to come into his office and then he let me take these cans."

This was bizarre. "He didn't want you to do anything else?"

"Nothing but a signature."

"For what?"

"For the cans."

His answer sounded odd, but I didn't question him further. The men around were disappointed that our chief wouldn't open a can of sausages for everybody to try. Instead, Wanren declared he would give the cans to the wounded men who hadn't recovered yet. When everybody had turned away, I said to him, "I have a question for you, chief, but it might offend you."

"Fire away. You know I don't like men who keep their opinions to themselves."

"All right then, on what kind of paper did Larsen have you sign your name?"

"A large writing pad."

"Was it blank?"

"No, there were some words on it."

"What did they say?"

"I have no idea. Probably a record of how he distributed the food."

"Are you positive about that?"

"No, I'm not. It could be a receipt too."

"Don't you think he might have made you sign an important document?"

He blushed, his lips quivering. "Well, he was smiling all the while, very friendly. To be honest, that thought never crossed my mind."

"He might have wanted your signature on something that he can use against us."

"It didn't look that serious. Every word was handwritten on a piece of lined paper."

"To the Americans as long as your signature appears on paper, it will be good legally. They don't use a personal seal like us."

"Well, what should we do now?" He looked a bit flustered, twitching his nose.

He was slow-witted, an able warrior but not an exceptional leader. How could the enemy take him in so easily? I was quite sure that the signature was intended for something else. Captain Larsen must have sensed Wanren's inadequacy, so he dealt with him exclusively. Still, I felt for Wanren, who obviously had been so eager to get the sausages for the wounded men that he hadn't thought twice about putting his name down.

For the whole afternoon he and I considered what to do. Should we discuss this matter among the officers in our battalion? Or should we report it to Commissar Pei and request instructions? Or should we just go ahead and make amends by ourselves?

Wanren, at a loss, said we probably should let Chaolin and Commissar Pei know right away I didn't feel it was a wise idea. "Look," I said, "don't you think they may take you to task? Besides, we're not clear what Larsen has been hatching exactly."

"Tell me what we should do, Yuan." He looked dejected, rubbing his stubbly chin with his palm.

I was just an interpreter, the compounds spokesman, and should not be advising him in such a matter. But I believed we shouldn't let too many people know or there might be another battle, with more men butchered. What Wanren had signed must be something about the incident a month ago – perhaps Captain Larsen felt uneasy about the death of our former orderly and wanted to clear himself by making it look as though we were to blame for the loss of life. If this was the case, it implied that Colonel Kelly had indeed started an investigation. At least Larsen must have thought Kelly would act on his promise, so he had taken steps to protect himself. I said to Wanren, "I can give you some suggestions, but you're the chief and have to decide what to do on your own."

"Sure, let me hear your opinion."

"To me, the fewer people we let know of this, the better the outcome. We should resolve it by ourselves quietly."

"But how?"

"How about this. Tomorrow we'll go to Larsen and invite him to inspect the sanitary conditions of our compound. If he comes, we'll have him detained and demand that he return your signature to us."

"Shouldn't we inform our men of this plan?"

I gave thought to that and said, "I don't think so. Just let our Security Platoon know and prepare to detain him. That should be enough. Besides, Larsen may not take the bait. Even if he comes, we may not be able to hold him if the situation isn't favorable to us. We should be flexible. Above all, we mustn't lose any life."

"You're a smart man, Yuan."

I felt uncomfortable that he used my real name. He was the only man who did that in our compound; apparently he had come to know my name through Commissar Pei. I said, "Don't tell others that I'm involved in making the decision. I should serve as your interpreter only."

"Sure, this is just between us."

At nine o'clock the next morning he and I went to the guardhouse to see Captain Larsen. We were led in without waiting. Larsen was sitting behind a metal desk, smoking a cigar and reading a magazine, on the back of which was the picture of a young woman in a frilled swim-suit and high heels. I was amazed to see a plaster bust of Larsen himself on the utility shelf behind him. The figure resembled him on the whole, a full forehead, a heavy chin, bell cheeks, and downcast eyes, but there was something distinctly Mongoloid in it – the face was a bit too round and the lids too thick. I remembered that Dr. Wang was fond of sculpting human figures in his spare time. A medic had once told us that an American officer had asked the doctor to make a plaster bust of himself. That officer must have been Captain Larsen. In contrast to most of the Americans, he looked urbane and often wore a sneer on his lips, but I hadn't thought he was so vain and narcissistic. Then I sensed something more about the statue, something juvenile, a boy's longing to become somebody, a significant man or a hero. This realization touched me a little; I guessed that deep inside, Larsen might be similar to many of our men, most of whom hadn't mentally reached manhood yet.

Wanren bowed and thanked the captain for the sausages he had received yesterday, then asked for a box of corned beef or any kind of canned meat. I translated his request to Larsen, who lifted his eyebrows in disbelief. Wanren pressed on: "There're dozens of wounded men suffering from malnutrition in our compound, and some still have festering wounds. A man is what he eats, you know. The regular prison food can't help them recover. The sausages you gave us were great, but not enough to go around among the wounded men. Please let us have some more."

"No way," Larsen said. "You took away a dozen cans yesterday."

"Captain," I said, "we mean to cooperate in any way you want us to. We understand you'd like to make our compound a model for the entire camp, so we cleaned our quarters thoroughly yesterday, just to show our gratitude to you."

"Well, how clean are they?" He grinned, the corner of his mouth tilting. "No flies in the latrine?"