The Promise: A Novel of China and Burma (Oriental Novels of Pearl S. Buck) (29 page)

Now those who followed Sheng followed him as though he were a god, and when they saw his madness and rage, they became mad, too, and they plunged their bayonets into the enemy wherever they found them. First they fired, but the weapons of many were old and could not fire more than once without delay for reloading, and rather than delay, they stabbed and cut and tore the enemy, and they choked men with their bare hands and gouged out their eyes with two thumbs digging into their eyeballs, and they jerked off men’s ears and ground their heels into their bellies and mauled them and threw them dying into the river. And ahead of them all was Sheng like a demon, his eyes red and burning and his square mouth open and yelling without stop. All who saw him were filled with fright, and his own men swore to each other that never had they seen any man so fierce as Sheng was in that battle. He used his wounded arm as though it were whole, for now his entire body was filled with pain as a vessel is filled with dark wine, and he was drunk.

Thus led, his men swept aside the enemy, and into the breach the weary white men poured, and the Indians with them, and they escaped from the trap in which they had been held. Those of Sheng’s men who were in the rear, holding fast, saw white men stream by on foot, wounded, some in broken machines, some in whole machines. A few waved their arms and shouted to their deliverers, but they were few. The many went on without heed to any except themselves and to save their lives. Six and seven times, pushing and pressing each other, some fell into the swirling muddy water of the river, but none stayed to help whose who fell.

Now at the head of his men Sheng had pushed on after there was need, and in his feverish strength and confusion he had forgotten why he was here, except that he was sent to defeat the enemy. He led on and behind him pressed the ones who followed, and they fought until suddenly Sheng felt himself laid hold on by a hand, strong in his girdle.

“You fool!” he heard Charlie shout. “Do you plan to fight straight through to India this day? Turn—turn—your men are being murdered at your rear! The enemy is counter attacking from the south, you son of a dog!”

Then Sheng turned, staggering and panting, “Have we—have we passed the bridge?” he gasped.

“The bridge is a mile-and-a-half behind you!” Charlie shouted. He gave Sheng a great push as he spoke, and Sheng began to run back and with him his men whom he had led too far, and they ran like hounds that mile-and-a-half along the river bank to the place where the bridge had been. There they stood, and they stared across the river.

The span of the bridge was broken at the other end and the river rushed between. The current caught the hanging farther end and twisted it hard, and before their eyes yet another piece of the bridge was wrenched off and carried it in triumph away.

“The bridge—” Sheng stammered, “the bridge—” But his giddy brain could not finish. It was the silent lad who finished for him. His young voice rose in a clear and piercing scream. “Oh my mother, my mother!” he wailed. “The white men have cut the bridge!”

At these words Sheng’s blood rushed upward and filled his head. He laughed in a great howl of laughter, “Our allies,” he howled—“our allies—”

He felt his head burst and split in two, as though an ax had cleaved it and he knew no more.

H
E WOKE, HOW MANY
days later he did not know or where. He was enveloped in a soft green light which he could not understand, for it was neither the light of day nor of night. For a moment he thought he was under water. His body felt clean and cool and thin. He lay on his back and above him and about him there was nothing but the green. Then he heard a sharp clear whistle made from some one’s lips, and a voice began to speak in English. But he could not understand English and these strange harsh sounds made the place more strange to him. Where had he waked out of death? He could not lift his head to see, and he opened and closed his weak eyelids.

Again he heard the sharp harsh sounds. Now some one answered, and this voice he knew. It was Charlie’s voice. Still he could not make a sound. He forced his eyes open and lay staring up into the green. Then a face came between him and the green and it was the dark face of the Indian. This fellow shouted with joy and now his face changed and it was Charlie’s face, looking down at him from very far up above him and he heard Charlie’s voice, speaking now words which he understood.

“Sheng, you are awake?”

Sheng could not make his voice come. He opened his lips but only breath passed through them. Charlie’s face came nearer. He had dropped to his knees.

“Sheng, can you hear me?”

Sheng made a mighty effort and his voice came small like a boy’s voice.

“Yes.”

“Do you know me?” Charlie asked.

“Yes,” Sheng said again.

“Now I know you will live,” Charlie said gently.

He took out of his bosom an egg and cracked it carefully so that the meat inside ran out of a hole. This he put to Sheng’s open lips. “Drink,” he said, “I have been saving this hen’s egg for you.”

Sheng felt the soft smooth flow of the egg slip down his throat. He swallowed twice and thrice and drifted off again into the green and floating light.

Charlie Li sat on his heels for a moment watching him, holding the empty egg shell in his hand. Sheng’s face was still a pale yellow, but the yellow was clear.

“He will get well,” he said to the Englishman.

“Thanks to you,” the Englishman said.

“It was you who gave him the sulfa,” Charlie replied gently.

The Englishman smiled slightly. “I wish I had a cigarette,” he remarked.

“If there were a Jap around I would kill him and take his cigarettes for you,” Charlie said.

“Why do all Japs have cigarettes?” the Englishman asked lazily.

“Because they all have guns also,” Charlie answered. He stared down into the empty egg with one eye, broke the hole somewhat larger and then, putting the egg to his lips, he thrust his tongue into the hole and licked the inside clean.

“I have not tasted an egg for months,” he said. “But this morning God was with me. I stumbled upon a black hen in her nest in the edge of a rice field. She had not laid the egg yet, but I persuaded her.”

“Midwife, eh?” The Englishman grinned. “What fellows you are, you Chinks!”

Charlie glanced up sharply at the word “Chink.” No, the Englishman’s haggard young face was kind. He had used the word without thought. Charlie rose from his heels and crushed the egg shell in his hand.

“Here is the trouble with you damned English,” he said in his pleasant voice, “you do not even know when you insult us.”

“Insult you?” the white man asked amazed.

“You insult us as naturally as you draw breath,” Charlie said. His face was quite calm but his eyes were cold.

“But how?” the white man asked still amazed.

“I don’t even know your name,” Charlie said.

The Englishman sprang to his feet from the bank on which he had been lounging. His blue eyes were honest, though a little stupid. “Sorry,” he said, “I’m Dougall.”

“I am Li,” Charlie said quietly. Neither put out his hand. They stood looking at each other, Charlie at ease, the Englishman embarrassed.

“We have been together two days and a half,” Charlie went on, “but you have not asked my name. Because you did not ask mine, I did not ask yours. You see I am not a real ‘Chink’—as you call me. A real one would have been polite to you whether you were polite or not. But I’m a new kind of ‘Chink’—I’m not polite to a man just because he is a white man. You can call me a communist.”

“I say,” Dougall murmured. His good-looking face blushed under the blond unshaven beard.

“I know you don’t mean anything,” Charlie said. “It is that of which I complain.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” Dougall said stiffly. His flush was receding and his blue eyes began to blaze mildly.

“I know you don’t,” Charlie said. His voice had not changed or lifted. The pleasant level was like quiet green fields. “And I am sure you don’t think it is your fault that you cannot understand anything.”

“Really—”

The young Englishman was biting his lips. They were cracked with heat and his fair skin was dirty. “You are so honest,” Charlie said. “You are so wonderfully honest, all of you!” He laughed suddenly and rubbed his hands over his stubbled black hair. “Oh God, deliver us Asiatics from the honest white men!” he prayed as suddenly as he had laughed, and feeling something breaking inside him, he turned and tramped off into the green jungle.

When he was quite hidden by the great ferns and low brush, he cleared a small space about a fallen log, watching sharply for snakes, and picking off two leeches, and then he sat down. Where were the rest of the men? When he saw Sheng fall he had seized him under the arms and even as he ran a lithe dark figure had sprung out of the bush and had shared the burden of Sheng’s body. It was the Indian. But how could he ask the man how he had come there? They had plunged away from the river bank into the forests beyond. They had not stayed a moment for two hours. Sheng’s inert body had hung between them. He wondered if Sheng were dead but he had not dared to stop and find out. The Indian was tireless and silent and easily forgotten. Behind them he knew very well what was happening. Caught between the river and the enemy, Sheng’s poorly armed men were simply cut to pieces and thrown into the river. If any had escaped it would be only by the chance he himself had taken. They had put Sheng down at last, and Charlie knew the moment he looked at him that he would die unless there was aid. But where could there be aid in this foreign country? Nevertheless, bidding the Indian to keep watch and not let the flies consume Sheng, he had crept to the edge of the jungle, which was now half a day away, and he had stared out into a burning countryside. Fires blazed on the horizon like volcanoes, and he knew what they were. The Burmese, in madness, were firing their own towns and villages. Why he could not imagine, but so he had seen them do, as though they were delirious with the chaos around them. He had stared awhile and then he turned and made his way back again.

But while he was on his way back he had come upon the Englishman hiding in the jungle, too. He had almost stepped on the fellow, and for a second he saw nothing but the muzzle of a gun. In that second he had leaped on it and saved his life, for Dougall had taken him for a Jap, and had thrown his long arms about him and borne him down. They fell together, and there face to face, the white face not six inches from his own Charlie Li, had cursed and sworn and gasped out that he was Chinese. Dougall had released him instantly.

“Good God!” he said. “I nearly killed you. I thought you were a Jap.”

They had gone on together then, and with few words, until, finding Sheng still alive, Dougall had reached silently into his pocket and brought out a small sealed packet which he unwrapped. Inside were a few drugs and from these he chose some flat white pellets.

“He’d better take these,” he remarked. The Indian had found a wet hollow while they were gone and had scraped it out and water had seeped into it, dark jungle water. This Charlie scooped with his hands and poured into Sheng’s open mouth, and Sheng had swallowed the medicine with it.

That had been yesterday morning. Dougall had been kind again and again. He had made a better bed for Sheng to lie upon, breaking ferns and laying them into a mattress. He had washed his handkerchief clean and filtered clear water for Sheng to drink, and he had sat holding Sheng’s wounded arm to the sunshine that fell in stray slanting beams through the green arch of the teak far above them and watchful against a midge or a fly. “The sun will heal this sort of thing,” he remarked. “We learned that, over and over again.”

Of the retreat neither had said a word.

Charlie rose, sighing. He hated these forests. In the stillness small noises were beginning to stir about him. The beasts were stealing out to see him. A lizard crept from under the log at his feet, glanced up and, seeing him, darted across the crushed grass in a panic, its sky-blue tail like a comet behind him. Midges twirled about his head. There was no peace for man in the jungle and no safety. What now? They must get out of it somehow and move west again until they found the General. At least what they had been sent to do was done. They had delivered the English.

He followed the path by which he had come, through already it was nearly lost. The twigs he had bent were straightening themselves and the crushed grasses rising. In another hour it would look as though no human foot had ever walked that way. But in less than that hour he came into the small clearing they had made for their hiding place. He found Sheng awake, his eyes sensible and clear. The Englishman had propped him up against a pile of small branches, and he was standing there, his hands on his hips, looking down on Sheng.

“I was just hoping you’d be back soon,” he remarked to Charlie with great cheerfulness. “This beggar came to when you’d only just gone. I expect it was the egg. But he doesn’t know a word of English, does he?”

“Not a word,” Charlie said.

And then as though the Englishman were not there Sheng began to talk in his own voice, weak enough but resolute again.

“Where are my men?” he asked.

For a moment Charlie thought to himself that he must shield Sheng a little longer from the truth. But he decided quickly that the truth must be told. Let Sheng bear it as he could, and get his strength together for the return.

“Those men are destroyed,” he said.

“Destroyed?” Sheng repeated.

“The white men cut the bridge after they had crossed,” Charlie said. “You remember that?”

Sheng nodded, his black eyes fixed on Charlie’s face. “The enemy came out from the village at the same instant and with them were yellow-robed priests,” Charlie went on. “I saw them plunging at us and at that moment you fell, and I caught you. Suddenly the Indian was there—he had followed us. And he helped me and we escaped here but how do I know where the others are beyond that? I saw the enemy fall upon them, their guns blazing and their bayonets shining and plunging. But I and the Indian were bearing you away into the forest. We did not stop even to rest for half a day.”