Ha Jin - War Trash

I have often thought of this scrawny man. Over the years, his smooth face and close-set eyes have grown more and more distinct in my memory.

Winter was short on Cheju, though it wasn't over in February yet. Nothing newsworthy had happened since November. It was peaceful on the island, but the peace was not easy for our leaders to take. We had learned that the truce talks at Panmunjom had broken off some months ago and hadn't yet resumed. One day in late February, Colonel Kelly informed us that four of our officers must go to Pusan to get reregistered. Among them were Hao Chaolin and Chang Ming. We all thought they would be interrogated again, and that probably the Americans meant to put them away before the repatriation began. Ming was still with Commissar Pei in the prison house; it might do him good to get out of the confinement for some time, though the reregistration sounded treacherous. I often saw him moving left and right behind the window of that cell, transmitting messages. His movement was slow. His health had deteriorated, and I had heard that he suffered from arthritis. The inside of that prison was extremely damp; it was on the edge of the beach, and sometimes at high tide, seawater would reach the base of the exterior wall.

A message regarding the reregistration was sent to Commissar Pei. The next afternoon he replied: "Feng Wen cannot leave his job. Ask Feng Yan to go for him. The four officers should contact the underground Party at Pusan and build a channel of communication." Ming's listed name was Feng Wen and mine Feng Yan – we shared the same family name. That must have been one of the reasons I was ordered to take his place. Before we received Pei's message, a returned "troublemaker" from the prison house had delivered to us Ming's POW ID tag, which was a card six inches by three, bearing information on his birthplace and date of birth, family members, education, rank, conscript time, and the serial number of his former army unit. At the top of the card was his POW number: 720143. Plainly Pei wanted me to take Ming's tag with me.

Having read the message, I was overtaken by anger and fear. I left my shed without a word and walked along the barbed-wire fence alone. The yard was slushy in places and the mud felt sticky under my boots, but I didn't care and just let my feet go anywhere they wanted. My face was hot, as if I were running a temperature, and I kicked whatever was in the way, pebbles, tin cans, bottle caps, twigs, mule droppings. Soon my boots, caked with mud, felt twice their normal weight. The wind tossed up a couple of tattered leaves, whose ribs and veins hadn't rotted yet; the leaves now tumbled around and now dropped flat. Outside the camp, the ground looked fecund, already pierced by the sprouting grass. In the southeast, nutmeg trees were green with tiny leaves, and their thick boles brightened, whitish in the last sunlight. I was angry about the commissar's decision, my throat aching. Indeed Ming was his interpreter, secretary, code man, and signalman, yet I could easily have replaced him without interrupting the regular work and communication. With a little training, I could learn how to use the Pei Code and how to transmit and receive messages from that cell. At most it would take me two days to master the skills. Why did I have to go in place of Ming?

Then the thought crossed my mind that probably this was because I was not a Party member; I was, like a regular soldier, dispensable. Perhaps the commissar believed that the repatriation would start soon, and wanted to save his own men. Had he gotten enough use out of me? Was he ready to discard me now? What did Ming think of this decision? Had he been involved in making it? I wondered if he too meant to do me in, just to protect himself.

It also dawned on me that since we were in a relatively safe situation on Cheju Island, none of us wanted to leave this oasis alone, at least for the time being. The less you met the enemy individually, the safer your future was likely to be. When we returned to China, every one of us might face the problem of clearing himself. As long as you had stayed with your comrades constantly, you might avoid the Party's suspicion, because your fellow inmates could testify to your role and activities in the camp. This might explain Ming's preference for remaining with Commissar Pei – he wanted to keep his credentials impeccable for the Party.

When I returned to the barracks, my comrades already knew of Pei 's decision. Our battalion chief, Wanren, came up to me and shook my hand with genuine feeling. He didn't even bother to ask if I would go, knowing I had no choice but to obey the order. I handed him my ID tag, which he would surely pass on to Ming. I said, "I'll set out tomorrow."

At those words, Shanmin broke into tears, rushed over and hugged me tightly. "I'll miss you, elder brother!" he said.

A few men sighed. Someone suggested they throw me a send-off party that evening. So after dinner, about thirty men gathered in the headquarters, mostly officers, my two friends, and a few shed mates. The refreshments consisted of a jar of watered-down saki and half a washbasin of roasted sunflower seeds, which I had no idea how they had come by. I tried to remain calm and taciturn, though the air at the party was depressing. They treated me as if they would never see me again. Indeed this could be our last gathering. I didn't say anything and just listened to them talk; some said they'd always remember me, and some advised me not to lose heart. There was always a way out even though you seemed to have reached a dead end, they assured me. Then a tall man started a Russian song, "The Anthem of the Communist Youth League." All the other men joined him in singing and I did the same. Together we belted out, "Good-bye Mother! Don't grieve over my departure. Just wish me a safe voyage." Tears trickled down our cheeks.

Finally I gave way to my emotions, sobbing convulsively, and buried my face in my hands. Shanmin passed me a towel. Then Weiming straightened his neck and recited loudly an ancient couplet, "The wind howls while the river is about to churn; / Our warrior sets out, perhaps never to return." He glowered, as though he were crazed, his round eyes blazing.

This sobered me up some. I was surprised by the indignant edge in his voice, which seemed to convey his understanding that I was being treated as an expendable item. Manpu, our political instructor, interposed, saying that I shouldn't lose hope so easily and that the reregistration might be just a routine thing, so I would come back for sure. If not, we'd meet again in our homeland. He told us, "How could the Americans tell Lu from Liu, or Chiang from Chang? For them, we're all Chinese, so Feng Yan, don't be upset ahead of time. As long as you keep your mind clear, you'll know how to navigate through the process safely. You must take courage."

A man laughed at the back of the room. Manpu's words had cooled us down, though I still believed that in the enemy's eyes the four departing officers were not regular POWs but war criminals.

The party ended at nine. Most of the men left after slipping a few sunflower seeds into their pockets. Together with my two friends I returned to our shed.

That night I handed my work over to the new interpreter, a man who could speak some English but couldn't read it, having not begun to learn the language until he was taken prisoner. After giving him the file of newspaper clippings, I lay down on my pallet and thought about my family. How I missed them. Heaven knew if I would ever see them again. I sat up and fished a pencil out of my pocket, tore a sheet of writing paper in half, and wrote a note on both pieces – one addressed to my mother and the other to my fiancee. In the one for Julan I said:

February 27, 1953 Dear Julan,