Chinese Literature

IV

I went out and telephoned the Commandant, and it seemed only a few minutes before I heard young Feng’s voice. “Those damned planes were after us all the way, and we’re nearly drowned in mud!” And in came Commandant Shen, his face beaded with sweat, and his whole body bespattered with mud. Tsui Yi was carried away with excitement when he saw him, and struggled to his feet, forgetting his crutch, and hopped over, one hand on the wall. Commandant Shen rushed forward to hold him up. Their silhouette against the bright sunshine which streamed in through the door merged into one mass. They greeted one another with affectionate arms and slaps on the shoulder, more like old friends and old comrades-in-arms, with common memories of risks they had shared, than people who had just met.

Then they settled down for a deep talk. One had the scientific background, and the other the practical experience. One talked while the other listened, all ears. One demanded an answer and the other pondered. The talk ranged from the peculiarities of time bombs in general, and of their automatic mechanism in particular, to the nature of dynamics. I knew nothing about this scientific mountain-top, but I could see they were finding plenty in common.

Finally, they seemed to have reached a measure of agreement over some action to be taken, and Tsui Yi said, “Is it O.K. then? Are you going to let me try?”

“Yes, I’m agreeable,” said the Commandant without hesitation. “But the thing will have to be worked out properly.”

By “worked out properly” he meant thorough security measures were to be taken. Commandant Shen’s ideas on the subject were a good deal more complicated than Tsui Yi’s—he quite simply wanted just to get on with it, and his plans were accordingly simple. In fact there was a considerable gap between the two ideologies.

“The bombs are delayed action bombs, but it doesn’t mean they’re going to delay themselves to suit our convenience’ was Tsui Yi’s line, while Commandant Shen was as reasonable from his point of view. “Without full and adequate preparations, there’s nothing doing.”

This did not seem reasonable to Tsui Yi, “I know I’m nothing com-.

pared with you,” he said, “in fact, I might be called only a Young Pioneer, but if you’ll excuse my saying so, Commandant Shen, we’re not proposing to mount a full-scale battle. And come to that, I don’t remember seeing all these preparations last night when you got up on one of the bombs!”

The Commandant didn’t rise to this. ‘“Let’s go along to the ropedoff area, and see what we shall need when we get there,” he said amiably.

No sooner said than done. We started off, borrowing some surgical instruments from the field hospital on the way, scalpels and forceps, which we took along with us.

62

Sa er edt te

Sara