Chapter Twenty-Two

  There was something in my heart that made me unaware of the pain in my legs when I limped outside Zenda City. In the rain, someone grabbed me and then supported me, or rather, leaned against me, and I didn't know who was leaning on whom as we walked step by step in the rain with Dr. Hao.

  Hao the veterinarian kept wiping away rainwater from his face, later I found out he was crying. "Eight heavily wounded! All of them are more seriously injured than you! Thrown into a house with no one to care for and left to rot! They said they would kill me, kill me. I don't have a gun, I told them I came to save you all, how could I kill people? I am a doctor! You guys also call yourselves doctors!"

  I ignored him and we struggled to pull each other out of the mud pit.

  At this time, I saw that huge dog again. It shot through the rain and the wild grass of the suburbs instead of running. The vast expanse of the rain made me unable to see its end at all, so I didn't know why it was running so madly.

  When I and Hao veterinarian squeezed in from that broken wall crack behind

  At this time, the ground in the temple had already begun to float away in pieces. The dragon and his new friends, a group of foxes and dogs, sat at a high place soaking their feet.

  "You'll be riding on two big fish when you come back. Then there will be fish soup to drink." The snake's butt was slapping the water with its feet.

  I exerted myself to get a bit drier, "when I saw a dog."

  Kang Ya slammed her mouth shut, "Dog meat is delicious too!"

  I wring out the clothes and say: "You go tell it."

  Kang Ya looked around anxiously, "Where is it? Where is it?"

  I didn't bother with him anymore because Hao Shouyi was anxiously asking almost everyone: "Has anyone checked the head? Has the hour been pointed?"

  "I said: 'Veterinarian, do you really think they know how many people are here?'"

  As I spoke, I heard the sound of water splashing outside the temple gate and He Shuguang's sneeze.

  "How many people are here?"

  He Shuguang replied uncertainly: "More than 70?"

  We crowded from the back to the front, looking out through the cordon of soldiers who were guarding the front but not the back. The car that He Shuguang was driving stopped in this desolate and godforsaken place, with muddy people sitting on top of a muddy vehicle.

  "Reporting to the officer, more than seventy."

  Then a bag of rice was pushed down from several bags on the car, and it splashed in the mud. The escort soldiers made way for us without shouting, we rushed over to pull out the rice from the mud by ourselves, Zhang Lixian started the car and splashed more mud on the rice and us.

  Zhang Lixian threw down a sentence from afar, "Stay put! The team leader has set off! There will be action soon!" Then he disappeared into the distance with He Shuguang's laughter.

  We gathered a few old steel helmets, looking for relatively dry hay to prepare dinner - who cares.

  The empty rice bag was placed on Dr. Hao's body, which is a way of showing respect for the oldest person.

  The damp hay crackled and popped as it burned, the wet smoke making our eyes red and teary even in deep sleep. Several steel helmets that had been used as cooking pots were thrown to one side, some of which we slept on as pillows in the muddy ground.

  I had a snake's buttocks padded on my knees, holding a broken paper head and a broken pen head to draw characters, "...son wants to be loyal, then it is difficult to be filial. This battle is uncertain, with more disasters than blessings. Son thinks of father's kindness, then feels sad..."

  We lingered here for another day, having two meals of thin porridge. In addition to the thin porridge, some of us were given official titles. Ai Yizhang became battalion commander, I became regimental commander, Li Wula and Kang Ya became company commanders, and Hao Shouyi was finally formally appointed as a junior medical officer. I'm sure we're really going to fight now, otherwise these ranks wouldn't be handed out so generously.

  Hao Shouyi painfully turned over, looked at me with a hint of blame on his face. I shouted back first: "I know you have rheumatism! Sleep, sleep!"

  The old man muttered: "Writing a will again? I'm fed up, is this proper? One letter after another, the wills are all over the house. If I were your father, I'd be scared out of my wits."

  "He's not you, you're not my dad, and I'm not his son."

  "Can't we just get along?" The old man said, unwilling to give up.

  "Sleep and sleep." I'm fed up already.

  The soldiers rushed in

  "Let's go! Let's go!"

  People got up in a mess, some were making a last fire, and others were busy putting it out. Mi Long was yawning loudly, Ma Hei was gesturing with his feet, Kang Ya was wearing a steel helmet and scooping the remaining rice grains into his mouth, Hao Shouyi was wrapped in a sackcloth, hearing Dou Bing coughing uncontrollably, he put the sackcloth on Dou Bing's body.

  This is an army that is not only hungry and cold but also sleepy.

  What I worry most is that they will send the seventy plus of us as a company to the battlefield, this so-called company isn't even enough to fill the gaps between the teeth of a Japanese army squad. However, they promised that a standard company would be waiting for us at our destination and our weapons and equipment would also be there.

  We set off, but most people were crowded at the temple gate in a daze - today was heavily foggy, and the thick fog blocked out everything more than ten meters away.

  We struggled through the fog, the fog was so thick that we could only pull each other to avoid getting lost. Ah Yi was coughing, I was coughing, Ma was coughing, the bean pancake wrapped in a rice bag was coughing, and even Hao Shouyi, who had been given the rice bag by the bean pancake, was coughing. The dragonfly "Cough! Cough!" was making a loud noise with its coughing, but it was not actually coughing, it was just mocking others' coughs.

  We are an army of coughing that traverses the fog. Our leader, A-yi, is very nervous because someone told him yesterday that he was the regimental commander, the highest officer, and he had to command us in battle.

  A Yi crowded beside me, coughing made his terrified eyes more prominent, "What am I going to do? What am I going to do when I get there?"

  I looked at him sideways and asked, "Graduated from the military academy, can't you fight?"

  A Yi's face turned red, "Apart from drill commands and reciting slogans... when have I ever fought in a war!"

  I looked at him but didn't sympathize with him, we have many officers like him.

  I turned my head and didn't look at him, saying: "Do whatever the person who made you a battalion commander tells you to do."

  A Ya suddenly became anxious, "He asked me to supervise the troops! — What is supervising the troops?"

  This is a word that makes all of us who are about to go into battle feel disgusted. I gave him a look and walked away.

  My indifference made Ah Yi more anxious, "What is a supervisor?"

  The dragon intentionally bumped into him as he passed by, "Turtle Commander, ox-headed supervisor."

  A Yi was knocked to the side of the road. He looked at people who had always been indifferent to him, now even more indifferent than before, and he felt even more bewildered.

  The ground beneath our feet finally leveled out, and we stepped onto the obviously artificially flattened hard earth, listening to the massive engine roar coming from the fog, the fog hit by the propellers seemed like a tangible monster rushing towards us.

  "Dough cake shouted in horror: 'Japanese devils! Japanese devils!'"

  He suddenly rushed towards us, making the whole team even more chaotic. The escort soldiers and a few of us who still had guns took off their guns and pointed in the direction he was pointing - but we only saw the shadow of a huge object in the fog, its engine warming up, its propellers slowly pushing the fog towards us.

  Slap a palm on the head of the bean pancake who drilled into the crowd, "Stupid melon! Seeing an airplane shouting Japan!"

  Kang Ya excitedly jumped up and down, "Our plane! It's fighting the Japanese planes! Boom boom boom boom! Look at that big cannon!"

  He was cut off by Ah translating, "It's an American ally's plane."

  I looked at the big guy that Kang Yao called a fighter, he said the gun was a propeller engine, and the US Air Force insignia was clearly visible. I told them: "C-46 is a transport plane, this is the China-based Air Task Force."

  The dragon was so excited that it couldn't move, "Are we going up? Where's the butt? There must be a place to grab?"

  Look at this guy's attitude, as if he thought he was going to sit on the wings, but before he could jump up there, the escort soldiers hastily drove us away - that was a taboo that even they did not dare to touch.

  We trudged along in the fog, our numb nerves stirred up again by the wonders of modern industry. The "Rat-a-tat-tat" and "Boom-boom-boom" of simulated gunfire and the "Whoosh-whoosh" and "Zoom-zoom" of simulated bombing continued unabated among us. We had really been bullied by the Japanese for too long.

  "Are we going to conquer Tokyo?" A Yi asked me with a mix of fear and caution, yet also with a lot of longing.

  I took a glance at him and said, "Shanghai can't even fly without running out of oil."

  But I was laughing, and that laughter wasn't entirely at A Yi's shame, I was excited just like everyone else.

  When I was a student, I wrote an essay on filial piety, brotherly love, loyalty, honesty, propriety and sense of shame as the soul of the nation. By the end, it was all mixed up and unclear. The part about the nation's blood being oil, its bones being steel, and its nerves being technology was well-organized and antithetical, because my father was one of the early people to study mechanics abroad.

  Yu Xiaoqing's military display didn't impress me much, because close combat requires a messy and complicated soul. However, the fleet of machines in the fog excited me, like an amputee touching their first prosthetic leg for the first time.

  Many of us stared at the woman with paint on her side, not just their throats reacted, we were taken to one side, now in the fog is the huge ass of C46 aircraft.

  A military officer who appeared to be in charge of ground operations rushed over and shouted, "Strip! Take off all your clothes!"

  "Time to change into new clothes!" "We're going to change into new clothes!" "Fire the guns!" "Right, and fire the guns too!" "Damn it, I want to fire the flower machine!" "What's the flower machine? What's that thing called?" "The mother-firing thing! Right, the mother-firing thing!" "You stupid kid, you're going to get a face full of tiles." "Let me show off my skills." We chattered excitedly, whispered, and rushed to take off our clothes, stripping off our pants.

  I squeezed towards that officer and handed over the paper note I had written in the ruined temple, "Officer, officer, can you help me mail a letter?"

  That guy was just a second lieutenant, but he stood in front of me, a first lieutenant, as if he were a major general. "What the hell are you sending?"

  I nodded, "It's a ghost letter. A will. The address is written on the back."

  He glanced at me and accepted it, "You're going to win. What's the point of writing a farewell letter."

  I nodded and bowed my way back into the crowd, watching as that guy casually stuffed my letter into his pants, no idea if he'd actually help me send it. After I took off my pants, the bandages wrapped around my thighs were exposed, so I retreated into the crowd, pulling Ming Long and Kang Ya in front of me, and Hao Shouyi also kindly covered for me - but soon I realized that nobody was paying attention to this little matter. So I could focus on using the extra length of rope from my pant leg to tie up the sulfonamide bottle in my hand.

  The officer walked through us without looking at anyone, scribbling something in his notebook, the only thing he noticed was the Hanyang rifle still slung over my shoulder.

  "Put it down! What's with the gun on your back?"

  "...beat Xiao Dongyang..."

  "Americans send guns, British send clothes, what's the point of carrying this piece of scrap metal? Put it down!"

  It was hard to part with the guns, which were put together in a heap with those tattered clothes. The others who had managed to keep their own firearms followed suit, even putting down their bayonets and snake-shaped knives.

  The officer shouted at several figures outside the ranks that we couldn't see clearly: "Fire! One each!"

  "Equipment is here!" "Line up! Line up!" We stood in line voluntarily and waited excitedly for our new gear.

  Then we started to get them, one for each of us. We were already cold and now even colder. Our bodies, some red, some pale or dirty, many with dark red new scars, shivering, holding the things we newly possessed, which replaced our clothes and weapons - a paper bag printed with English words.

  "Vomiting bags?"

  "What about clothes?" "What about guns?" Such questions began to appear between us, and finally there were some complaints.

  "Our officer started to get angry, 'Are you deaf? Are you rotten wood? Were you listening when we were talking just now? The Americans are distributing weapons over there, the British are sending clothes! Right at that airport! What's the point of wearing clothes and carrying guns?"

  The strongest complaint among us came from a faint voice, "It's cold, sir."

  The officer puffed out his chest, scanning our shivering group. "Am I not cold? This is an order from above! The country is in crisis! Even the Chairman's breakfast has been reduced to a glass of water and a dry biscuit! You are the best-equipped troops, you must think about conserving for your comrades fighting domestically!"

  We all fell silent, the officer patted our shoulders, and those who were patted on the shoulder climbed up the simple ladder of the cabin door with their frail bodies.

  The officer is much friendlier now, "Be careful, you'll vomit on your first plane ride."

  We climbed up the gangway one by one, Hao Shouyi and Mi Long were swallowed by the cabin door in front of me, and Ah Yi behind me bumped his head against my buttocks.

  We clutched our VOMITING BAGS tightly, as if vomiting would be the most terrifying thing on our journey.

  I was climbing up a ladder that was almost vertical, when I heard a commotion behind me. I turned my head and saw the officer blocking everyone including Li Wula and several others who were following him.

  The officer stretched out his hand to stop them, "Next one! Next one! Wait for the next one!"

  Ma stood below and shouted: "Not spicy! Bean pancake! - Not spicy you come down, let's go together!"

  He is not far from me, he is a bit hesitant, apparently, he wants to be together, but he doesn't want to go down.

  The officer pushed him away, "Next time we'll go together! What are you shouting? Where did you come from and where are you going?"

  We suddenly fell silent, as if they were being shooed away into the fog that we couldn't see clearly, and we were swallowed up by the cabin.

  No matter if this plane is used for cargo, with only a few portholes, and in order to fit as many people as possible, it has removed various cabin equipment including seats, making us squeeze together like canned goods, sticking to each other's cold skin.

  An American pilot looked at us from the partition of the cockpit and turned his head back to scold the ground crew below: "Is this what you call cargo? Damn it! You have me transport people in such weather!"

  The engine was warming up, and the rumble in the cargo hold was especially loud. We couldn't hear the ground crew's explanation at all. I looked around at the tense faces surrounding me - Ah Yi's face, Hao Shouyi's face, He Lao's face... even Miao Long now had a tense face. Our skin was almost sticking together, and in this unfamiliar environment, none of us spoke a word.

  The pilot, busy with pre-takeoff checks, suddenly remembered something and furiously complained to those below the plane: "Where's my escort? Am I flying a Japanese transport plane? The fighter planes in the sky are all Japanese devils! Where's the Flying Tigers?"

  I was sweating, although I was cold, I was still sweating. At a very close distance, A stared at me straightly, "What did he say?"

  I deceived him, "He said it would arrive in the blink of an eye."

  The pilot slammed his cockpit and cursed loudly: "The landing gear wasn't fixed! Worse than the landing gear is China's fog! Worse than the fog is America's landing gear!"

  A Yi stared at me, no matter what he knew it wasn't an expression of happiness.

  I no longer looked at him, I turned to face Hao Shouyi's pale face, at this time the preheated engine started roaring, and as it roared Kang Ya began vomiting, he vomited so hard that the sky and earth were overturned. La Nuo and Dou Bing frantically pounded on him.

  Kang Ya cried out while vomiting: "I don't want to fly anymore! Mom, I want to get off!"

  "I said: 'You haven't even taken off yet, what are you yelling about! You have to taxi before you can take off!'"

  Kang Ya lifted his head from the vomit bag, "Ah?" When he found himself still on the ground, his vomiting miraculously stopped immediately. He and Bu squeezed to the porthole, which was only slightly larger than a human head, and looked at the ground moving outside the window as C-46 took off. He relaxed instantly, "It's just like sitting in a car."

  "Not so spicy to say: 'Can't fly? Americans are nothing special either.'"

  And at this time, the pilot threw down his last sentence towards the ground. When he said it, he also knew that no one heard him, "They are not frozen meat!"

  Then the plane accelerated and slid on the simple runway, vibrating and roaring. My little superficial theoretical knowledge was not enough to deal with such reality. Kang Ya and Bu La were thrown to the ground, scratching and rolling, while people on board crowded and rolled all over the place.

  Deputy Squadron Leader Kang Ya scolded the pilot: "Can you drive or not, damn it?"

  Neither the driver nor the co-driver paid attention to him, our world suddenly tilted, and Kang Ya crashed over and hit my temple with his forehead. The few of us hugged each other in the cabin, rolling and crawling around.

  A humble beacon flickers in the fog, this plane carries us, breaking through the fog and taking off.

  We took off, and supposedly at the airport where we would land, we would receive weapons, clothes, a complete set of equipment, everything. The vomit bags that were issued to each person were hardly used, although it was the only detail that our superiors had thought of for us, but vomiting was actually the least of our worries on the way there.