Ha Jin - War Trash

"No."

"No lice and nits in the seams of your underclothes?"

"Of course not. We deloused everyone last week."

"I'm not a fool, you know."

"You can inspect our barracks right now, but on one condition. If you're satisfied with our cleaning, you will give us a box of corned beef, twenty-four cans."

"I don't cut deals with my prisoners."

"Look, we're not requesting this for ourselves. You can go ask the wounded men in our barracks whether they ate sausages yesterday."

A doubtful smirk emerged on Larsen's face. His glossy eyes blinked; his brown pupils contracted a little and then relaxed. I could see that he took us to be a bunch of corrupt officers, so I added, "On our word of honor, we didn't take a single bite of the sausages. If you are fair, you're obligated to come and ask the wounded men. Your doubts about our officers' integrity are an insult to us."

I felt I couldn't continue any longer, because I was just an interpreter and shouldn't take over the role of the requester. Wanren meanwhile seemed content to let me do the persuasion and remained silent. To our relief, Larsen stood up, stubbed out his cigar in a stainless steel ashtray, and put the unused half into his breast pocket. Together we all left the office. But Larsen went in another direction, toward the PX, saying he'd arrive at our compound in an hour or so and personally question some wounded men.

Without delay we returned, told some prisoners to begin cleaning the yard, and deployed the Security Platoon inside the shed where the wounded men lived. After midmorning Captain Larsen came, accompanied by a first lieutenant who carried one shoulder higher than the other. They sauntered through the gate, both in good spirits, chewing gum and bantering with each other. A few prisoners, as instructed, smiled and waved at them. Everything seemed normal, and some men lounged around, sunning themselves. I went up to the two officers and said, "Thank you for coming to inspect our barracks. Would you like to see the wounded men first?"

They nodded and followed me to the shed beside whose door hung a Red Cross sign. The second they stepped in, the door was shut behind them. Larsen took alarm, but before he could say a word, our battalion chief shouted, "Hold them!" More than ten men sprang at them and twisted their arms behind their backs.

"Hey, hey, what's this about?" cried the spindly lieutenant.

"Jesus!" Larsen hollered. "I'll give you five crates of corned beef, all right? Just let us go!"

Wanren went over, about to slap him, but I held the chief back, whispering, "This isn't what we have them here for." That cooled him off a little. I turned to the American officers and said, "We invited you here just for a serious talk. Yesterday morning, Captain Larsen, you misled our chief into signing his name on a piece of paper. It was dishonest of you to take advantage of his ignorance of English. Now we demand you return his signature. The moment we get it back, we'll let you go."

"I have no clue what you're talking about."

"Of course you know."

We took them into the inner room that served as our office. Both of them sat down, still sputtering. Calmly we began questioning Larsen. At first he dodged the issue, saying, "Officers, you're too paranoid. Let Charlie and me go, okay?"

"Not until you give us the signed page." I pointed at him, trying to isolate him from Charlie, the lieutenant.

"I already dumped it along with the trash," said Larsen.

"Then we have to keep you here."

"You're too greedy. I shouldn't have given you the sausages to begin with."

"This isn't about the cans, Captain. We want the signature back."

"I've lost it, all right? It's gone. You want me to plow through the entire trash dump outside the camp? You can go do it yourselves. You have my permission."

"In that case we'll have to keep you here."

"Jeez, how can I make you understand? This is nuts!"

By now the GIs at the front gate had sensed that something had gone awry. They called their central office, which sent over a platoon within twenty minutes. All of a sudden the situation turned more dangerous than we had anticipated. It was impossible to keep the inmates in the dark anymore, so I said to Wanren, "Please tell our comrades the truth and get them to help us."

"That's a good idea." He went out immediately. In a hoarse voice he summoned all the men in view and ordered them to stop the GIs from coming in to rescue the two officers in custody. He told them that Larsen had stolen our document, which we must get back. At once about two hundred men swarmed to the front gate, confronting the armed troops.

Inside the shed I said to Larsen, "If your men open up on us, we can't guarantee your safety."

He and the lieutenant looked at each other, both faces misshapen. I said to Larsen again, referring to his fellow officer, "Let him go tell your men to retreat so that we can resolve this peacefully."

"I can see that you're scared, Officer Feng," he said to me. "Our men can storm in and level the whole place."

"Keep in mind that I'm just a spokesman, not a real officer. But frankly, if your men attack us, we can't guarantee your life. You don't want to get killed first, do you?"

He hung his head. I went on, "Captain, we don't need any bloodshed for such a trifle. Just let Charlie go tell them to withdraw so that we can talk this out."

He thought for a moment, then told the lieutenant to deliver the message to the GIs outside. Meanwhile, some officers of our battalion came into the shed. They had no idea what had happened, so Wanren explained. He kept saying, pointing at the captain, "That bastard roped me in!"

I said to Larsen again, "At all costs we must head off bloodshed. It's unfair that you played a trick on our chief. Please return the signature to us. The sooner you do that, the better it will be for both sides and for your own safety as well."

Wanren banged his fist on a desk and yelled at him, "I'm running out of patience. If you don't cooperate, we can't let you leave unharmed."

Larsen sensed the volatility of the situation and seemed lost in thought. A moment later he said to us, "Okay, I'll give it to you. But you must promise to release both of us once you get that piece of paper."

"You have our word."

The moment the lieutenant came back, Captain Larsen handed him a bunch of keys. Holding a small brass one between his thumb and forefinger, he said to him, "Go to my office and unlock the left drawer of my desk. There's a writing pad in it. Rip off the top page with a Chinese signature on it and bring it back immediately."

"Yes, sir." Charlie turned and went out again.

While we were waiting, I explained to the leaders of the three companies why we had chosen such a drastic course of action. I insisted that we were still unsure what Larsen had done and that we had just taken preemptive measures. Maybe it was nothing serious at all, so there was no need to let everybody know of this beforehand. Most of the men looked suspicious and some complained that they should have been notified nonetheless. Wanren, red-faced and wordless, was smoking in a corner. He shot sullen glances at me time and again. I too felt embarrassed about this operation that seemed to be getting out of hand. We should have taken into account all the possibilities and made some backup plans.

Ten minutes later the lieutenant returned with the page. I looked through it and was glad it indeed bore a false statement, which said: "On November 22, the Chinese prisoners in my compound attacked the guards and bit Captain Larsen without any provocation. As a consequence, we suffered several casualties, including one death. I, as the chief of Compound 6, am responsible for the incident." Then came Wanren's squarish signature. Several men asked me to translate the words, which I had no choice but to do. Listening to me, some of them gasped. A few went up to Larsen, intending to teach him an indelible lesson. I stopped them, then turned to Wanren and the company leaders, saying, "We promised to let both of them go unharmed the moment we got this page back. We should make good on our word."