The day slipped away. Yonghui suddenly found himself in piercingly cold water. He tried to climb out of it, but he couldn’t move. He shouted. Then he opened his eyes—it had all been just a dream. It was pitch dark all around him, but in the sky he could make out the Southern Cross glowing dimly. He wondered what time it was.

  His companions all lay nearby. He fumbled for something with which to cover himself, but could find only dry grass and stones. They were outdoors and it was cold, really cold. He hugged himself, drew his legs up under his chin, and curled up on his side facing south.

  Through his clothes he could feel the secret pocket he had sewn in his underwear. The pocket contained a photo of his wife, Azhen, and four of her letters as well as the letters he had written to her but he had not posted. The men had received no letters from Taiwan in six months. His secret pocket was his only contact with his family and home. He knew Azhen’s four letters by heart, and when he closed his eyes, he could visualize each poorly formed character. Her letters were short, written in pencil, and full of eraser marks. And although they were badly smudged now, he would always be able to read them.

  Light was beginning to show in the east, and his companions were waking one by one. Xie was still sleeping at his feet.

  Yonghui gently prodded him with his feet. “Hey, you’d better get up!” Xie remained motionless. “Xie …” Yonghui shook him by the shoulder.

  Xie’s skin was stiff and cold. Yonghui hurriedly knelt to listen to his chest.

  Dead! Yonghui felt a sharp pain in his heart. Another companion from Fanzai Wood was dead. Yonghui placed Xie’s head on his thigh and stared off into the distance. Zhou tried to persuade him to let go of Xie’s body, but Yonghui seemed numb and impervious to his words. Finally Zhou pulled Xie away from Yonghui. At that moment, Foul Mouth ran to them in a panic, yelling that the Japanese were back.

  Three Japanese soldiers suddenly appeared—it was Yamada, Tsuguchi, and Otaki, three squad leaders of the Labor Corps. They were armed with hand grenades and rifles.

  “Aren’t you going to evacuate with the army?” asked Yamada as he gestured to indicate that they should remain at ease.

  “We couldn’t keep up,” replied Foul Mouth.

  “If you had kept up, you’d be lying dead on the beach at this moment,” said Yamada gloomily.

  “The enemy attacked?”

  “Our transport ships were torpedoed, and then there were the American heavy machine guns.”

  “Are you here for us?” asked Yonghui, feeling uncomfortable.

  “Come for you?” asked Tsuguchi with a knowing smile.

  “The commander has ordered all of you to report,” said Yamada.

  “You mean?”

  “All of you …” Tsuguchi sighed and looked at them without finishing his sentence.

  The three Japanese soldiers huddled together to speak. Their expressions were even grimmer that when they beat someone. No one dared move. They suddenly seemed to reach some conclusion, and Otaki announced, “We have come to carry out the commander’s orders.”

  “To prevent the enemy from obtaining any intelligence information,” said Tsuguchi smiling weakly, “we have orders to clear the battlefield.”

  “Clear the battlefield?” Yonghui’s voice trembled.

  “We are supposed to eliminate you,” said Tsuguchi, pointing to a hand grenade.

  It had to be a dream. How could such a thing happen? Were they, the few fortunate survivors, to be killed by soldiers on their own side?

  “Is that final?” asked Yonghui.

  “The commander made the decision a long time ago.”

  “But what do you think?”

  “You understand,” said Yamada as he fumbled with a grenade.

  “You can let us go.”

  “Is what you are planning to do right?” Yonghui’s throat was so dry he could scarcely speak.

  “We know …” said Otaki.

  “Please! We beg you!”

  “Let us go.”

  “A good deed will be rewarded.”

  Otaki and the others hesitated. The men from Taiwan continued pleading with them, and even knelt before them.

  “Will a good deed really be rewarded?” asked Tsuguchi, smiling bitterly.

  “It will! It will!”

  “Okay, okay,” said Otaki, laughing. He motioned with both hands that they should keep quiet. “Actually, we had come to the same decision on our way over. Six hundred of you labored against the odds of ever surviving here on Cebu. You have done enough.”

  Yonghui felt the blood surge through his heart.

  “There aren’t even forty of you left. Nearly all of those who were evacuating with the army were killed on the beach.”

  “Heaven will not allow us to carry out our orders.”

  “Go home. We will pray for you.”

  “We will always be grateful to you for sparing us.” Yonghui and the others thanked them repeatedly with tears in their eyes. They went their separate ways.

  Suddenly an explosion was heard from where they had just escaped with their lives. They stood motionless, in shock.

  “Otaki must have used his grenades.”

  “How could they go back and deal with their commanding officer?”

  They were now confronted with a new problem. The Americans were nearing Cebu from the south and perhaps had already landed. Would it not be certain death to go in that direction? But if they stayed where they were, might they not run into more grenade-wielding Japanese? And chances were that other soldiers wouldn’t be so compassionate.

  “Let’s get out of here,” said Foul Mouth.

  “Who knows which way the Americans will be coming?” said Yonghui.

  “Let’s head north and try our luck there.”

  They argued for a long time. In the end they decided to head north, sticking to low ground. There was no path to follow, and they simply made their way along where the grass had been trodden down earlier. As Yonghui reached the top of a rise he couldn’t figure out which way to go.

  Suddenly Yonghui was overwhelmed by terror; it was an instinctual reaction from deep within. He turned to go back down to where his companions were waiting. At that moment a horrifying sight appeared before him: human feet hanging in a bush. He crouched down instantly. Apart from the breeze it was silent on the hill. The slanting sun turned the dried grass a soft, dreamlike golden color. As he approached the horrible sight under cover of the vegetation he discovered two corpses lying on their backs not far away. On closer inspection he saw that they were each missing a foot, and both were dressed in the same kind of khaki work clothes he himself was wearing.

  He wondered if it might not be a trap set by the Japanese, so he immediately lay prone on the ground, motionless.

  Suddenly he heard someone groaning. One of them was still alive. He crawled swiftly toward the bodies. What he saw next was even more shocking: a third body lay below him in a grassy hollow. All three were the same—their left legs had all been chopped off below the knee. It was clear that whoever had cut off their legs hadn’t intended to kill them, because the stumps had all been bandaged. Emboldened, he crawled forward. Two of the men were lying motionless, but the third was moaning and tearing at his hair.

  “Who are you?” asked Yonghui in Hakka.

  The man moaned.

  “You must be a native.” The man was blind in his right eye. Who was blind in his right eye?

  “Are you Murakawa Tadao?”

  The man moaned again.

  “Is it really you, Murakawa, you animal?”

  “Peng Yonghui!” said Murakawa, recognizing him.

  “Who cut off your feet?”

  “Nishihama and Safu. They overtook us on the path and did this to us.”

  “Cut off one of your feet,” said Yonghui, sneering.

  “Please take me back to Taiwan.”

  “If it had been me, I’d have sent you to hell with one blow.”

  “No, don’t kill me.” Murakawa’s one good eye stared at him while the other rolled in its socket. “Don’t kill me. Take me with you.”

  “Take you with me?”

  “After all, we’re both imo.”

  Some say that Taiwan is shaped like a banana leaf, but because the island produced potatoes—which are called imo in Japanese—the Japanese began to refer derogatorily to the Taiwanese as imo, or potatoes. Although the potato didn’t look as nice or taste as good as rice, it was still a filling and nourishing food. Also, potatoes could survive even in the harshest conditions, flourishing and multiplying beyond anyone’s expectations. As a result, the Taiwanese took no uncertain pride in referring to themselves as imo.

  “Are you still an imo?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “You’re just saying that to save your skin, you stinking, rotten imo.”

  “Stinking or rotting, I’m still an imo.”

  Yonghui gritted his teeth and cursed the man and his way with words.

  “Take me with you and I’ll be forever in your debt.” Murakawa’s one good eye misted over and he began to cry.

  “I don’t want a collaborator’s gratitude. You’re shameless. If you were to die, even the King of Hell would be afraid of you.”

  “I know I’ll never make it back to Taiwan. Just don’t leave me.” Murakama took no notice of Yonghui’s curses or sarcasm. “If you stay with me, I won’t be afraid.”

  “No, Murakama. You can just go stay with the Japanese Imperial Army.”

  “Yonghui, I want to die among people from Taiwan.” Murakama was sobbing now. “It’s a request you can’t deny.”

  Yonghui’s heart was pounding violently. Murakama—or Chen Zhongchen—was a worthless animal. Looking at his pale, bloodless body, which was more like a skeleton, Yonghui figured he couldn’t be scheming anymore but was indeed speaking from the bottom of his heart. Yonghui was reluctant to help the collaborator, but he couldn’t take revenge; nor could he save him. He made up his mind.

  Weeping and moaning, Chen continued pleading with him. Yonghui took two gulps of water from his canteen and handed it to Chen. He looked at him with mixed emotions and turned to leave.

  “Fine, Yonghui. Thanks,” said Chen in a distant, indifferent tone of voice.

  “What?” said Yonghui turning abruptly.

  “Thanks for the water. Let bygones be bygones. Since I’ll be buried here on Cebu, forget me when you get back to Taiwan.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Let everyone forget a Taiwanese like me; erase all memories of me. There will never again be people like me on Taiwan; we should all be forgotten.” That look in his eyes—how it flickered and dulled as he gave up all hope of living.

  Yonghui tightened his belt, rubbed his hands, hoisted the thin, maimed body over his shoulders, and hastened back along the path on which he had come.

  The sun was setting, red and bright; the wind blew, stirring the desolate grass. As the wind rose, Yonghui had difficulty locating the way back to where his companions were waiting.

  Suddenly he heard the whiplike sound of a gunshot. He saw the shapes of several men running toward him—they were his companions.

  “The Americans are behind us. Run!”

  Amid the sound of machine-gun fire, bullets whizzed past in the air. Each man ran, trying to save his own skin. They ran about like mindless animals; their shouts were scarcely human.

  “Peng Yonghui, you want to get killed? Run for it!” shouted Foul Mouth as he rushed by.

  “Put me down!” Chen struggled from Yonghui’s back. Holding his bleeding leg, he rolled away from Yonghui’s grasp.

  “Hurry and run. I’m staying.”

  The machine gun continued firing. Someone at Yonghui’s side was hit, and the hot blood splattered Yonghui in the face. Chen had rolled away from him. The blood on his face quickened Yonghui’s instincts for survival. He bent forward and rushed off.

  Yonghui heard a soft explosion as a flare burst overhead in the sky. Several more flares exploded, bathing the area in light. He caught sight of Chen, who was sitting in the open waving his arms. Yonghui felt bad about having deserted him.

  His thoughts turned to his parents. He had to escape and return to Fanzai Wood. Then he thought of Azhen; he wanted to see his wife and daughter again. He told himself that he could get away from the American soldiers.

  Another flare burst in the sky; a machine gun roared; a grenade exploded. Yonghui found himself hurling through the air. He fell in a grassy hollow. He shook himself, climbed out of the hollow, and crawled forward, scurrying in heaven only knew which direction.

  Yonghui now recalled that when he had hurtled through the air, he had seen a man’s head blown from his body and dashed against the trunk of a tree. Who was it? It looked like Chen, but maybe it wasn’t. Was it Zhou, Xie, Xu, Zhuang, or a native man? Perhaps it was he himself. No, he was still alive and thinking. He had to keep running.

  Fire rose to his left, and he saw a lot of people. He was being pursued by soldiers and they were yelling for him to surrender. No, he couldn’t stop. He saw no fire or people to his right, so he half crawled and rolled in that direction. His mind was very clear; he felt no panic. He seemed to see himself running and crawling madly ahead. There before him were his parents, his wife and daughter, the houses, streams, and plants of Fanzai Wood. He saw everything, even his childhood, in a flash. He seemed to live in all those different moments of his life at once. As Yonghui rushed toward the open slope, bullets fell thickly around him, and the soldiers drew nearer and nearer….

  SIX

  •

  Good-byes on the Grass

  December 20, 1944 (Showa 19)

  Just after midnight a heavy rain started falling; it showed no signs of letting up at seven in the morning when it came time for their departure. Manila was entirely shrouded in rain. Two days earlier, rumors that the decisive battle for the city was imminent and that some of the personnel were being evacuated to northern Luzon were bruited about.

  Liu Mingji was sitting motionless on his bed. He held a piece of plywood above his head to shelter himself from the rain that was dripping through the roof. The plywood was soaking wet and the water ran down his arm to his armpit. Mingji seemed to be oblivious and sat there without moving.

  Liu Mingji was combating an identity crisis. Wang the Eel and Crooked Mouth Li were sitting back to back, also motionless without speaking. Old Man Jiang had died a few days earlier in an air raid. One of his arms and half his back had been blown off and never found. Later his broken body had been buried in a mass grave. Wang and Li were Liu’s only acquaintances who were still able to work. Nozawa’s wounds had healed and he seemed less combative than before. Whenever he ran into Mingji and the others, he would smile in an embarrassed fashion and lower his head.

  The sky was growing lighter and the rain fell less heavily, but still it didn’t look like it would stop anytime soon. The order to fall in had been given, for all personnel were asked to prepare their weapons and gear and make ready to leave.

  The ground crew had never been issued any weapons, just a blanket, a canteen, and an old helmet apiece. When the orders were given that morning, each man was also given a five-pound bag of rice as rations along with a package of biscuits and salt. They were ordered to assemble in full gear with their rations and personal belongings stowed in their packs.

  They were already soaking wet before they even stepped out of the barracks. No one said anything, and no one was in the mood to complain. A large group of men could barely be made out through the rain in the dim light. The commanding officer was shouting through a megaphone because the public address system was on the fritz.

  The mustered men began to move in formation. There were a few new faces in the ranks. Second Lieutenant Masuda appeared. Now they could make out some of what was being said: they were being put in the Kose Regiment under Major Kose Kenzo. The regiment consisted of 640 men, including the ground crew. The regiment was divided into four detachments, each of which was broken into four units with four squads of ten men. Nozawa was again made their squad leader; Aoki commanded their unit, which was part of Masuda’s detachment. Mingji found himself with the same superiors; they were still alive. He felt something between fear and foreboding.

  “Mr. Liu, here we are together again,” said Masuda.

  “Sir, I await your orders,” was all Mingji could say in response.

  “We are ordered to retreat,” said Masuda, smiling wryly and shaking his head.

  Masuda and Aoki had been issued new rifles; everyone else was issued two hand grenades and given strict instructions that they should protect them as they would their own lives. Losing one would result in a court martial.

  The temporary force was soon on its way. The men left Nichols Field through a bombed wall on the north side. Traveling north on the highway, they passed through the northern suburbs of Manila. The road was filled with Filipino refugees, groups of soldiers, and noncombatant military personnel.

  The heavy rain had let up and a muddy yellow sun hung in the gray eastern sky. The water on the road was knee-high. The road had been badly damaged and was heavily cratered. The craters were filled with muddy water, making them into fearsome traps: if someone in the fleeing crowd fell in, they often went unnoticed, or were rescued with much difficulty.

  The column Mingji was part of continued north; although at one point they found themselves in the middle of a massive air raid, they suffered few casualties. At the Pampanga River they found that the bridge had been largely destroyed, and only two piers remained. It was dusk by the time all 640 men managed to cross the river. The commanding officer decided he would rather face guerrilla attacks than air raids and ordered the men to march at night.

  They reached Clark Air Base, which was the hub of the air force of the southwest Pacific, but their destination was Bamban Field, twenty kilometers north. Fortunately they met with no guerrilla activity or air raids. They arrived in Bamban Field on the morning of December 24, 1944.