Chinese Literature

building an open-air workshop-laboratory. They had cleared and levelled a plot of ground—that was the workshop site—and had dug a large hole, in which they had planted a delayed action bomb, the size of a barrel, with its top sticking up. That is, the machinery had been installed. There were even security measures, too. They had poured a quantity of sand round the bomb’s “nest.” The shop was all tooled up, into the bargain, with the famous scalpels and forceps, and where they lay, was, we supposed, the lab. bench. By the time we got there, the capital construction of the project had just about been completed, and the toiling masses were retiring to a viewpoint some twenty yards away, to wait for the formal commissioning of the factory. No one seemed surprised to see us. At the sight of the Commandant, they greeted him as the director of the outfit, and came over to take him to the best “front seat.” Shen didn’t seem entirely pleased with the lay-out of his workshop. It seemed to him that the security measures would not stand up to too close an inspection. There it was, however, and what could he do about it? He didn’t feel that he could now raise any objections to Tsui Yi, nor did he see just how the workshop could stop being commissioned. In fact, if he did try, he saw no way of preventing everyone from criticizing him for innate conservatism. At the same time, he could not really cavil overmuch at the arrangements, and could in fact not at all withhold his admiration of the organizer! In fact he whispered to me, “He is not only an engineer but a good organizer.’ But where, indeed, was the “organizer” in question? So far we had seen everyone but him. It turned out that he was reconnoitring in the woods. When he had put himself into the picture, he came hopping back towards the amphitheatre. When he saw the Commandant, he shifted his crutch to his left arm and gave a ceremonious salute, the salute of a soldier before he steps out on an important duty at the front.

“Reporting for your orders!” he said, in soldierly tones. The: Commandant smiled, as though to intimate that nothing he could say would alter the way things were turning out. Then he thought better of it, and said, “You’ve won the battle so far. I am sure you will win the next engagement.”’

Tsui Yi’s answer was brief: ‘Salute!’ His voice, his salute, his

whole bearing breathed of the immensity of his task and the solemnity

of his approach to it. No one stirred in the crowd, as we watched Tsui Yi, a little stooped now, hopping forward. He seemed like a new-fledged university graduate starting his first important job—excited yet solemn, apprehensive but confident in his capabilities, sure that he could fulfil the task which lay ahead and win through. Thus he set his hand to the work.

Like an old artilleryman, his mouth was slightly open. This he must have learnt from his first day in the unit, when you are warned to do this to save your ear-drums when the guns are fired, I realized what

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