A Single Swallow Read online

  She looked the captain up and down, then said, “I want to speak to the commanding officer. You’re not him.”

  The captain said, “Who says I’m not the commanding officer?”

  She pointed to the number on his uniform and said, “The commanding officer doesn’t have a number.”

  A few people snickered. No one suspected that a girl from the village would have such a sharp mind.

  The captain’s face tightened, and his voice grew thick. “The commanding officer has official duties.”

  She said, “That’s fine. I’ll wait here for him to finish his official duties.” She took a few steps and sat on the stairs. She guessed the commanding officer was in a meeting upstairs, having noticed the closed windows when she entered the courtyard. No one would close their windows on such a hot day unless they had something important to discuss. Almost as soon as she sat down, the men gathered in the courtyard suddenly scrambled to attention. With a rustle of clothing, they formed a line, stood erect at their full heights, pulled their heels together, and saluted. Stella turned and saw a tall man with a dark face standing on the stairs. He wore a uniform of tan fabric, like everyone else’s, and a tan cloth hat, but there was no number on his chest. She knew this was the commanding officer.

  “Your nerve is much greater than your years. You’re not afraid of being shot?” the man said.

  His words were hard, but there was some warmth in his expression. Stella stood up and bowed slightly, suddenly feeling her eyes grow hot. No matter what, you won’t cry in front of these pigs. She bit her lip, but it was no use. The tears didn’t heed her admonition, and two drops inched down her cheeks, stopping at the corners of her mouth, hot and stinging.

  “If you have something to say, say it. I really do have important things to do today.” The commanding officer took the watch from his pocket and glanced at it.

  “Is there anyone who isn’t afraid of being shot?” She choked on a sob.

  “So you have been wronged?” asked the commanding officer.

  On the way there, she’d planned everything she would say at this moment, but with everything that had happened since, it had disappeared. She clenched her fists, digging her nails into her palms, and the sharp pain gradually roused her, bringing the words back to her mind.

  “Sir, I have one question. Are your troops here fighting the Japanese?” she asked.

  “If we weren’t fighting the Japanese, what would we be doing in this hellhole?” said the officer.

  “If your family members and neighbors had been harmed by the Japanese, what would you do?”

  “Get revenge. If not, what kind of men would we be?” The commanding officer’s voice became louder.

  Stella turned and looked for someone among the crowd that had gathered in the courtyard. They were in neat rows, and all wearing the same uniform, hat, and belt. They looked like they had been cast from the same mold. But Stella quickly picked Snot out from the group.

  “That’s good, sir. Can you ask your man, Number 520, how he would get revenge?” Stella said.

  Snot was pulled out from the line and put in front of the officer, and he stared down at the toes poking out of his sandals, not saying a word.

  “Do you want to tell them, or should I?” Stella asked.

  The commanding officer raised Snot’s face with one finger. “You can’t hide. Tell the truth.”

  With a bitter expression, Snot hesitated before blurting out, “I . . . I was at the river this morning when . . . I saw her. It was her . . . she started . . .” He stopped.

  Hearing what he intended to say, Stella’s face turned red. “Pig! Sir, look at his hands and arms!”

  The commanding officer pulled up Snot’s sleeves and saw bite marks on the back of his hand and scratches on both arms and that they were fresh. The blood hadn’t even dried on some of them. A cloud came over the officer’s face, and the veins on his temple started to bulge, pulsing as if to the beat of a drum. The only sounds were Snot’s sniffing and the grinding of the commanding officer’s teeth.

  “Captain!” the commander shouted. “He’s one of yours. Take him to the gully behind the camp and shoot him. Have everyone watch, and we’ll see if anyone dares such a thing again!”

  The captain stepped forward, as if he had something to say. The commanding officer cut him off with a wave of his hand.

  “Your man has done this horrible thing, and you plead for him? You want me to kill you too?”

  The captain choked back the words in his throat. Snot fell to his knees. Everyone could hear his knees scraping the ground through his thin pants.

  “Sir, I know I’ve committed a crime, but I didn’t actually do anything. Really, she was too fierce. If you don’t believe me, ask her.”

  Stella felt a thousand caterpillars all over her body—the eyes of the crowd. Everyone knew that the only person who could save Snot at this moment was not the bodhisattva or the Christian God. It was her. On the way to the camp, she’d thought about the possible consequences of her words. She might be treated as a madwoman or a laughingstock or be tossed out like trash. They might give Number 520 a perfunctory reprimand. They might also whip him as a lesson or even lock him up for a few days as a warning to others. But she hadn’t expected execution.

  “I fought him off before he could . . . ,” Stella said softly.

  The commanding officer kicked Snot brutally. “You should die for even having that intention. You’ve destroyed the reputation of your whole unit. Who else dares to plead his case?”

  No one dared to say a word.

  Suddenly, Stella knelt in front of the commanding officer.

  “Sir, please don’t have him die like this. It’s too easy, too cheap.”

  The commanding officer was taken aback. He looked at Stella in confusion. “How do you wish him to die?”

  “I want him to fight the Japanese devils before he dies,” she said.

  Snot’s mind had already turned to putty, but Stella’s words revived him. He bowed before the commanding officer until his head was on the ground. “Mr. Ferguson said that it cost a lot of money and lives to support us. If I die like this, it’s doing the Japanese a favor. Sir, let me die on the battlefield. Let me take a few devils with me.”

  The commanding officer thought for a while. Sighing heavily, he summoned the captain before him. “After tonight’s mission, you turn him over to me. If he escapes, you’ll pay the price for him.”

  The captain saluted the commanding officer, then dismissed Snot back into the line.

  “Girl, tell the captain where you live. I’ll have them carry water for you for a month in compensation.” The commander helped Stella up, then turned to go upstairs.

  “Wait, I have something else to say,” she called after him. “I come from Sishiyi Bu, a little over forty li from here. Last year on Qingming, my father was killed when we were bombed by Japanese planes. On the seventh day after his death, the Japanese approached my village. My mother had her body slit open, and I was . . . I was . . .”

  She closed her eyes. She didn’t want to see anyone’s face in that moment. She wanted to plug her ears too, but it was no use. Even if her two ears had been cut off, she could have still heard a voice floating above her. It was a voice she didn’t recognize, as if it were talking about someone else’s life.

  “I was taken advantage of by the Japanese.”

  She knew the tears were on their way again. This time she was prepared. She clenched her teeth, stopping the tears in her throat.

  “After I went home, they disowned me. They thought since the Japanese had taken advantage of me, they could too.”

  She opened her eyes. The hardest part was done. The rest would be easy by comparison.

  “After that, I left Sishiyi Bu and came to Yuehu. I thought I could live a peaceful life, but someone still spread those rumors here.”

  Stella found Liu Zhaohu in the crowd. He didn’t meet her eyes, but kept his head lowered, picking at a callus on t
he palm of his hand from his gun.

  “Why do you injure me? Why don’t you settle accounts with the Japanese instead?”

  She only realized she was shouting when she felt pain in her throat and ears. She heard her voice reverberate off the cistern and the walls.

  “Assholes! You’re a bunch of assholes!” the commanding officer said. His voice was hoarse, and when he leaned against the staircase railing, he looked as if he had shrunk.

  “That’s all I have to say. Find something else to wag your tongues about now.” Saying that, she swept out of the courtyard.

  East American Chinese Herald: In Commemoration of the Seventieth Anniversary of the Victory in the War of Resistance Against Japan

  Third Feature Profile: A Story of Righteous Ardor

  Ian Ferguson was born to a family of Chicago brewers in 1921. He turned twenty on Sunday, December 7, 1941. After attending church, his family took him to an Italian restaurant to celebrate his birthday. Seventy-four years later, Ferguson still recalls the dark sky that day, which looked as if it might snow at any time. The restaurant was chilly, and the family, seated and still wearing their coats, had just opened their menus when the music on the radio stopped. The announcer’s voice came on, low and sorrowful, and it took several moments for Ferguson to understand what he was saying. The US naval base in Pearl Harbor had been bombed by the Japanese, and there had been heavy losses.

  The restaurant was crowded that day, but no one spoke. The silence shaped the air into a thin piece of glass that seemed on the verge of shattering. Eventually, someone stood and slowly walked to a stranger in the room, and they embraced. Ferguson heard his mother sobbing softly. That day forever changed Ferguson’s destiny. At the time, he was an apprentice at an auto repair shop on Chicago’s south side, studying mechanics part time. He was hoping to save enough money to open his own shop after he graduated as a mechanic. Ten years after the war, he realized that dream, moving his family to Detroit in October 1955 and opening an auto repair shop. For over twenty years, he ran a successful business, with three additional branches opening across the city. But on December 7, 1941, he didn’t have mechanics on his mind.

  That spring, twenty-year-old Ferguson joined Naval Group China. Gunner’s Mate Ferguson knew when he enlisted that he would be going to China on a secret mission. But he didn’t know how classified his mission truly was until he was pulled from his dorm in the middle of the night, put into a military vehicle covered with black tarp, and whisked away for the intensive training. On a base outside Washington, DC, he spent four months in specialized training for short-range weapons, special explosives, sniping, hand-to-hand combat, cryptography, aircraft identification, evasive tactics behind enemy lines, night navigation, and more. He also had an accelerated course in Chinese language and customs. During her interview with this ninety-four-year-old veteran who assisted China in its War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, senior reporter Catherine Yao learned that he still had in his possession the Chinese textbook and the handbook from the training course. The Chinese textbook included the following description of the oratory principles of Mandarin:

  The first tone is even.

  The second tone rises as spoken.

  The third tone falls and stops with a hesitation.

  The fourth tone is cut off quickly.

  The handbook contained the following rules:

  Don’t call the local people Chinamen.

  Don’t call local laborers coolies.

  Don’t comment on the Chinese way of reading from right to left.

  Don’t comment on Chinese eating habits or call the American diet civilized.

  When you are unable to use Chinese to communicate, as much as possible avoid the use of pidgin English.

  After training, he went to a munitions depot in Southern California for a three-month attachment, then traveled by ship from San Francisco to Calcutta, where he waited for the crowded transport line of the Hump to find room for him. When he finally caught a plane to Kunming, then traveled to Chongqing by oxcart, it was already 1943. From Chongqing, he was sent to a series of camps along the Yangtze River to offer special training to Chinese soldiers. In China, he was quickly promoted to gunner’s mate first class, in no small part because of his ability with remote-controlled blasting devices. His final posting was in a village called Yuehu, in southern Zhejiang province. This village formed the backdrop for many of his Chinese adventures.

  When our reporter met Ferguson in the long-term care unit of the veterans hospital in Detroit, he’d been bedridden for years, but his mind was still agile. In a weak voice, with his nurse’s help, he told us about a mission at the Yuehu training camp. Perhaps because of the confidential nature of this work, the US Navy has received less attention for its aid to China than the army and air force. Ferguson’s story, as told to Catherine Yao, is a touching example of the US Navy’s joint effort with the Chinese military and civilians in the Far East theater.

  Ian Ferguson had been standing on the hill for some time, silently watching Ghost and Millie play. Ghost and Millie couldn’t have been more different. Ghost was a well-trained military dog, while Millie was a little white terrier that had been adopted by a nearby church. Still, they scrunched their bodies together into a ball and rolled down the slope to the bottom of the gully, then stood stock-still for a moment, shook, and licked the dirt that hadn’t been dislodged from their fur before joyfully running back up the hill again. Ghost’s pace was three to five times greater than Millie’s, but Ghost lay down halfway up the slope and waited for her. When she caught up, they’d sprint to the top, again turn into a ball, and roll down the slope. They did this over and over.

  When Ghost licked Millie, he was very careful, using only half his tongue and a tenth of his strength, as if Millie were a delicate glass that could shatter at the slightest touch. Millie had to stand up just to reach Ghost’s belly. Her tongue was a tiny toothbrush, and his body was a huge carpet. Even if she licked for a lifetime, she might not reach every spot on his body. But they didn’t care about energy or efficiency, just the feeling of tongue on fur. Ferguson couldn’t bear to interrupt their affections. At that moment, he was feeling a bit sentimental. In the human world, one used words, smiles, flowers, wine, poetry, philosophy, and even money to obtain what in the dog’s world required just the use of one’s tongue.

  The sun was already low, and the clouds had turned a dark tomato red. The days were still long in September, so sunset took some time, but as soon as the sun dipped below the horizon, it grew completely dark in a matter of moments. He didn’t have much time. His comrades-in-arms must be ready to start by now. With his fingers in his mouth, he whistled loudly. This was the signal the dog trainer in Chongqing had taught him to indicate for Ghost to “report.” Ghost shook his ears, as if he was surprised. He hadn’t heard this call for a while. He hesitated for a moment, looked at Millie, then reluctantly tore himself from her and ran to his master.

  “Attention!” Ferguson commanded.

  Whenever this command was used, the dog knew he was about to be assigned a task. Of course, in dog terms, it’s not standing but sitting at attention. Ghost sat straight, his body upright, eyes fixed on Ferguson, but with a look of guilt in his eyes. He knew his recent behavior had disgraced the pedigree he’d inherited from his parents. There was almost no intelligence left in the heat of love and what little remained was only enough to make him aware of his own confusion. He tightened his body, which had been relaxed for too long, preparing to receive a reprimand. He didn’t expect his master to take a tin of canned beef from his military bag. It was a gift Ferguson’s mother had sent from America. He scooped out two big pieces, put them in his hand, and offered them to Ghost. Ghost hadn’t smelled anything like that in a long time, and his stomach growled shamelessly. The last time he had tasted beef had been at the base in Washington, where it had been a reward for completing a difficult task. That was a lifetime ago. Ghost knew his recent behavior didn’t merit a rewa
rd, so he looked at his master in confusion, not daring to eat. Ferguson patted Ghost’s head and said, “Go on, eat. This might be your . . .” Ferguson couldn’t finish the thought: This might be your last bite of beef.

  The master’s warm expression delighted Ghost, especially after being reprimanded so much recently. He tried to maintain a respectful manner, slowly eating the beef in small bites, then licking Ferguson’s palm for a long time, as if trying to get every trace of meat hidden in every line of his hand. Ferguson waited for Ghost to finish, then put a collar around the dog’s neck. This was the signal that they were ready to go. Once the collar was on, Ghost knew all his other identities—pet, clown, lover—no longer existed. From that moment on, he was a military dog, and his only task was to obey orders.

  The team set off after dark. It consisted of sixteen Chinese students who’d displayed special talent during their training. Their leader was one of the training camp captains, and Ferguson was their advisor. This was the first time an American instructor participated in field operations alongside Chinese students. The previous smaller-scale operations had been conducted by the Chinese trainees alone. To be allowed to participate, Ferguson had fought a battle with the camp commanding officer that could only be described as fierce. In consideration of their safety, the Chinese commanding officer had strongly resisted allowing American instructors to participate in action. Ferguson’s view was that if he couldn’t see the effects of his teaching in combat application, he couldn’t properly judge the effectiveness of the program. They each had their own view, and neither could convince the other. In the end, they had to refer the matter to headquarters in Chongqing. The one-word telegram from Chongqing arrived just two hours before the start of the mission: Approved.