Ha Jin - War Trash

Some men said I had spoiled Blackie, who should have been gelded long ago. I told myself that if he came back, I must take measures to stop him from chasing bitches, or there would be endless trouble.

Early the next morning, my eyes still heavy with sleep, I heard a dog yapping. I jumped out of bed and rushed out. There was Blackie, his scanty fur soaked with dew, prancing around Nanshan, the round-faced cook, who was kicking a shuttlecock like a schoolboy at recess. I whistled and Blackie stopped short, then scampered all the way to me, wagging his tail and whining loudly. He reared up and put his paws on me, licking my hand and belly while his expressive eyes glistened. I noticed a gash on his rump, about two inches long, though the bleeding had stopped. The wound must have been inflicted by a pitchfork. Without delay I took him to the medic, who sterilized the cut with iodine solution and applied some antibiotic ointment to it.

I didn't have the dog neutered, of course. I just couldn't do that, although a fellow who had once been a goat castrator volunteered to do the job. Instead, I got a rope, about thirty feet long, and tied it around Blackie's neck so that I could keep him from running out of the compound. But for the protest of some shed mates who said Blackie had fleas, I would have cut a hole in our door to let him in and stay with me at night. Every night before going to bed, I would tether him to a young poplar. Asleep with his head resting on his front legs, he seemed at home within the confinement. Also, I set a large wooden box on its side against the tree and roofed it with a piece of asphalt felt held down by two rocks. When it was windy or rainy, Blackie would lie curled up in the straw in this makeshift kennel. If I forgot to leash him at night, he would invariably sneak out of the prison. He was a clever dog and always managed to return soon after daybreak.

As we were preparing to leave for the Korean mainland for the final persuasion, I began to worry about him. We were not allowed to bring any animals with us, but if I left him behind he might soon perish, because he'd have to go to the civilians' homes or the airfield to steal food. I wouldn't have minded if a GI had adopted him; the Americans could always feed their pets. Wang Yong told me to abandon the dog. "It's just a dumb animal," he said. "Let it go, all right? We have enough humans to take care of." I knew he'd get rid of Blackie without a second thought.

Desperate, I went to the kitchen and talked to Nanshan, who was in the habit of feeding the dog. I begged him, "Can you take Blackie along when we're headed for the Neutral Zone?"

"I'll try, but what if he barks?"

"I don't know. I just want to keep him as long as I can. If that happens, I won't blame you."

"Officer Feng, you have a kind heart like the Buddha's. Whatever you say I'll do."

His effusive words amazed me.

Nanshan kept his promise. He got some sleeping pills from the medic and ground them. Before we boarded the ship, he hid Blackie in a field cauldron. He broke a potato in half and smeared both pieces with the sleeping powder and fed them to Blackie. Soon the dog dropped off to sleep. Nanshan covered him with an empty gunnysack, and so Blackie passed the guards undiscovered.

On September 10, 1953, we arrived at Pusan, and from there we headed for the Neutral Zone, which was also called the Demilitarized Zone. It was in an immense enclosure outside a small town named Munsanni, just a few miles south of Kaesong. The town had been partly leveled by bombs; a few houses still stood with naked walls, but most of the roofs were gone. When we entered the camp on the sixteenth, the persuasion had been under way for days. The zone was guarded by Indian troops, and the governing body comprised people from other countries as well, such as Poland, Sweden, Czechoslovakia, and Switzerland. There were many representatives from the United Nations, North Korea, and mainland China. We were told that we should expect to stay at least twelve weeks in our new barracks, Compound 21.

Why so long? We were upset and bewildered.

The camp here consisted of about forty compounds, thirty-three of which held the Chinese POWs. We ate better food now: breakfast was barley porridge boiled in dry milk, and for lunch and dinner we had rice mixed with peas or soybeans, and there were also potatoes and cabbages. Each man now received more cigarettes, one pack every other day.

In the east, toward the Imjin River, stretched an orchard, whose apple and pear trees had all shed their leaves, their branches often bearded by hoarfrost in the morning. In the west rose a hill, treeless but covered with tall grass and teeming with ring-necked pheasants. We often gathered along the barbed-wire fence to watch the birds fly up and away with fluty cackles. From the distance the males' iridescent plumage glittered in the sunlight like tiny explosions and often brought out shouts among us. How we wished we could have gone hunting for them. The soil was dark and rich here, but the fields were deserted, pockmarked by bombs. Still, there must have been some grains, grass seeds, and berries in the wilderness for the birds to eat. The pheasants, unlike human beings, seemed to have multiplied thanks to the war.

Our compound had obviously been inhabited by troops before, because there were bunks instead of plank beds inside the tents. The Indian guards, often armed with lathis, treated us decently on the whole. On the day of our arrival, they even offered us each a cup of coffee and a chocolate. But they guarded the gate so strictly that nobody could get out of the compound without official permission. As a result, all the battalions were isolated from one another. If somebody was sick and had to go to the hospital, which was within the Demilitarized Zone, two or three guards would escort him. On the other hand, the Indian authorities allowed the representatives from China to broadcast to us for three hours on end every day. Some of the persuaders went so far as to threaten us, saying, "Think about your families, who are all on the mainland. You should at least come home for them." Their words intimidated the prisoners so much that many men in our battalion refused to meet with the Communist persuaders. Wang Yong got furious and assigned some men to pound on two upended oil drums with sticks to drown out the broadcasting, but this just produced more din and we still could hear snatches of the speeches. So he ordered his bodyguards to smash the amplifiers at the tips of the tall poles, and they knocked them out with stones. The Indians never had them repaired.

Wang Yong was desperate to communicate with the other compounds after several attempts had failed. One day someone suggested using Blackie to carry messages to Compound 22, which was about one hundred yards to the south. So they got hold of the dog, tied a letter around his neck, and pushed him out through a hole in the fence near the gate. Blackie was a successful messenger, since some prisoners in Compound 22 knew him and he would respond to their whistling. But the guards noticed his missions from the very beginning. I was worried about his safety and begged the secretary not to write any more messages on white paper, which was too eye-catching.

Nanshan had by now replaced me as the owner of Blackie, which I didn't mind, because I might not be able to bring the dog along if I ended up being repatriated. The boy could take better care of him; he could feed him and had already persuaded the other cooks to let Blackie snuggle in a corner of the kitchen. I was pleased that Nanshan loved the dog so.

One night Blackie went out on an errand and didn't return. I thought he might have gotten randy again, but he couldn't possibly have escaped from the zone, in which, to my knowledge, there wasn't another dog. Both Nanshan and I waited late into the night for him to come back. At about two a.m. I was too exhausted to stay up any longer and went to bed.