Chinese Literature

Back again at our quarters, the Commandant was deep in thought. I knew him too well to think that when he was working out a problem he was ever concerned with his own prestige or advantage. Finally he made his mind up, and ordered young Feng to take the jeep and fetch Tsui Yi from hospital. He gave him a letter for the director, and ordered Feng to bring the soldier back at all costs. His two aides, who knew all about the whole business from young Feng, were ragging him. “Tell them that the Commandant says he’s wrong,’ one said, while the other pulled a shocked face at the Commandant as though he had really committed a crime.

“Tf I have made a mistake,’ the Commandant said frankly, “I'll tell Tsui Yi so to his face, and I’ll quite openly criticize myself before all of you.”

We waited to see what would happen. It was getting on for two o'clock, and the Commandant would have usually had his first meal of the day by noon. He seemed to be preparing for it now, though, as he told the old cook to prepare for a guest, and to get out the two boitles of wine. This wine had a history attached to it. Some time ago his wife had sent him a parcel of wine and a book. He had written to thank her and had said, “There is gold in the book and love in the wine.’ He ' tried to keep both. He often read the book and he hardly drank the wine. In fact, he had only broken into it twice, once on New Year’s Eve, to celebrate the victory of the Third Battle, and once at a fraternization dinner with the Korean villagers. I knew it was not because he begrudged drinking it, but because of its sentimental value. Now, when he told the cook to get out the last two bottles, 1 knew he had some very special guest in mind.

However, we were foiled again. Young Feng telephoned to say that he had not only failed to find the soldier in hospital, but that he had been properly ticked off by the matron for being the first to break their rules! The Commandant told him to try the guardhouse, in case Tsui Yi had got himself arrested again, but we heard then that he wasn’t there either.

The Commandant then ordered him to go with the Guards C.O. back to

the bomb enclosure, “And if that’s where he is, you jolly well bring him back.”

He put down the receiver at this, and turned to speak to me. “I think he must be there, don’t you? He struck me as being the ideal scientist for the job, and I think he’ll probably get away with it. But it’s his condition I’m worried about. With that bad leg, how’s he going to dodge if anything happens? But I’m not going to take that line with him any longer. If we can get him here again, I’ll just see what’s the maximum safety measures he’ll agree to take, and leave it at that.”