Hold Back the Night

  “We have a saying,” Colonel Chu continued patiently, “a proverb written by our leader, Mao Tze-tung. You have heard of him, lieutenant?”

  “Of course.”

  “Our leader wrote a poem which has become famous. ‘Know enemy, know yourself. A hundred battles, a hundred victories.’ Good, what?”

  “Pretty smart,” Couzens admitted.

  This answer seemed to please Colonel Chu. He opened the top drawer of the desk and brought out a package of Luckies. “Smoke, lieutenant?”

  “Thanks very much.”

  The colonel lit one for himself. “We are well supplied. You Americans are really a remarkable people. You produce enough not only for yourself and your allies, but for your enemies too. Ha-ha. Not that we are enemies, actually. Not the people of China and the people of the United States. We have the same objective, actually, to remove from our backs the weight of the capitalists and the imperialists who would destroy us. Now, it is obvious that we have much in common, you and I. We enjoy good food, good drink, a Lucky Strike, and all these things we can have in abundance if we have peace. And you can go home to your wife. By the way, where is your home, lieutenant?”

  “Mandarin, Florida.”

  “Florida.” Couzens could see that Colonel Chu was mentally assembling a map of the United States. “Florida. One of the southern states, right?”

  “The most southern.” Couzens meant geographically.

  “My word!” The colonel sat upright and stared at Couzens, fascinated, like a naturalist who has turned up a rare grub. “Tell me, lieutenant, have you ever lynched a Negro?”

  Couzens was astonished. “Lynched a Nigra! Man, are you nuts?”

  “Oh, come now. You must at least have witnessed a lynching.”

  “I’ve never even heard of a lynching in Florida,” Couzens said truthfully. “What d’you think Florida’s like? Ever been to Miami?”

  “Well, perhaps you don’t personally know of such things,” Colonel Chu said. “No doubt news of such incidents is suppressed by your capitalistic papers. But the world knows of them. Asia knows. In a way, lieutenant—and now I speak as a professional in political warfare—you southerners have been our allies. Frankly, your treatment of the Negro has been our most consistent weapon. The lynching of a Negro, or any report of persecution, in—we won’t say Florida—we’ll say Georgia or Alabama—may be of no consequence to you, but to all with skin like mine it is the most important news of the day. It is flash news in Saigon and Singapore and Mukden and, yes, I should think even Tokyo. The Japanese have not forgotten your Exclusion Act.”

  Couzens was silent. He was thinking. He was learning something.

  “There are lynchings in the southern states, are there not?”

  Couzens didn’t think much of his chances of getting out of this building alive, in any event, so he might as well speak his mind. If the commissar wanted a debate, he’d get one. “Yes, there have been lynchings,” he admitted. “But they don’t happen often any more, and they don’t go unpunished. Decent people deplore them—just as you must deplore the murder of your countrymen who don’t agree with you politically, Colonel Chu.”

  Colonel Chu’s eyes were round and surprised behind his thick lenses. “Oh, my dear chap! Those are not murders! We simply execute enemies of the people.”

  “Oh, I see,” said Couzens.

  “Why, of course. It is an entirely different matter.”

  “Natch.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Natch, for naturally.”

  “I’ve always had trouble understanding your Americanisms. I’ve met quite a few Americans, you know, in Shanghai and Singapore. Haughty lot. Arrogant.”

  “So I’ve heard,” said Couzens. “A buck goes a long way in those places, and they have more servants, and liquor, and women than they ever knew existed back home, and it inflates ’em. They become Big Time Operators. But you’ve never been in America, have you? Or England, either?”

  Colonel Chu wriggled uncomfortably. It was not usual, or fitting, that a prisoner question the interrogator. Nevertheless he decided to answer, because the Marine was talking freely, and might yet confess something of real value. In the colonel’s safe were coded cables from Peking for any prisoner interviews that would show deterioration of morale among the Americans, and particularly in the American elite units, such as the Marines. The interviews would be valuable, not only for Peking’s propaganda, but for Radio Moscow. There was a large party in America which wished to abandon Korea, the cables explained, and this movement would be accelerated if it could be shown that American troops were demoralized, and out of sympathy with the war.

  “Well, no, not actually,” Colonel Chu replied to the question. “But I received part of my education at a British school in Hong Kong.”

  “You speak English perfectly,” said Couzens.

  The colonel inclined his head. “Thanks so very much. You are very flattering. And, in addition, I have read American books, and I have seen many American cinemas, which are most enlightening.”

  “What books?” asked Couzens.

  “Oh, I have read The Grapes of Wrath. Conditions are pretty dismal among your farmers and farm workers, aren’t they? And I’ve read God’s Little Acre, and some of the works of Jack London and Upton Sinclair.”

  “And movies?”

  “I’ve seen a great number of them. Some in Yenan, and some in Peking. In Peking on several occasions I was privileged to attend the cinema with our leader.”

  “Yes, but what movies did you see?”

  The colonel squirmed, impatient. “Oh, a good cross section, I should say. The gangsters and the cafes and the gambling casinos and the music hall shows and comedians and life in your West with the pistol fights.”

  “You didn’t, by any chance, see Battleground, or The Sands of Iwo Jima, or The Best Years of Our Lives?”

  “Are they new?”

  “Not so new.”

  “I haven’t heard of them. Your blockade, I fancy.”

  “Well, Colonel Chu, you really ought to see them. Yes you ought. That is, if you want to really know your enemy.”

  Colonel Chu considered that he had wasted enough time. Either this arrogant young man would answer the questions in the desired way, or he would not, and he would be sent to rot in the stockade. It would be best to lubricate his tongue. “Have a spot with me?” the colonel asked, rising. “Scotch or bourbon?”

  “Scotch,” said Couzens.

  “How is it,” the colonel inquired as he poured the drinks, “that bourbon is supposed to be the American drink, but whenever you Americans have your choice, you usually take Scotch?”

  Couzens started to tell the colonel that he had been living in the same shipboard cabin, or foxhole, or tent, with Mackenzie’s bottle of Scotch for months, and that Scotch had become an obsession with him. But he decided not even to say the word, Mackenzie, or Dog Company, because that might be information for the enemy. Instead he said, “Scotch is more expensive.”

  “Do you Americans evaluate everything by money?” said the colonel.

  “Since when have the Chinese been adverse to money?” Couzens said, grinning. “I always thought your wars were won with silver bullets.”

  “Chiang’s way,” said Colonel Chu. “Not ours. This war of the People’s Liberation Armies will be won by lead, and blood.”

  “How about uranium?” asked Couzens innocently.

  “Perhaps uranium too,” said the colonel, his face dark under its smooth ivory texture.

  Couzens noticed that his drink was stronger than a drink of Scotch should be, and he figured that Colonel Chu was trying to get him tight, and worm from him some fact. If the commissar wanted to try to get him tight on Scotch, that was all right with Couzens. This was the first drink of Scotch he’d had since they left the States. And the colonel was unaware of a flaw in Couzens’ constitution. Couzens couldn’t hold much whiskey. It made him sleepy, and he was sure he would pass out long before
he said anything of value to the enemy.

  Colonel Chu brought out a pad, and a long pen with wide point. “Now,” he said, “there are a few questions. None of them military, you understand, lieutenant. Just things I’d like to know personally. I’m always interested in you young Americans. It’s always strange to me that a country so obviously degenerate can produce, on occasion such fine, frank young men.”

  “Proceed,” said Raleigh Couzens, taking another pull at his drink.

  “Firstly, I wish to put a broad question. What do you think of this war?”

  “It stinks.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “It stinks. It’s unbelievable that America should be fighting China. You’re our traditional friends in the East. You ought to know better.”

  Colonel Chu made a note in his pad. It was brief. “But we’re not fighting America. America is fighting us.”

  Couzens shook his head. “No. America is fighting Russia. The Russians don’t have the guts to fight us, man to man, bomb for bomb, so they send you against us. Ever think of that, colonel?”

  “Ridiculous. The aims of the Chinese People’s Republic and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics are the same, and identical. We fight for the liberation of all oppressed peoples, including those in the United States.”

  “We don’t feel oppressed.”

  “You are oppressed, although perhaps you don’t know it. You have been hypnotized, drugged by material things. You’re fighting for washing machines and television wireless and Coca-Cola and Standard Oil and Buicks.”

  “Some guys may figure it that way,” said Raleigh Couzens. “Not me. Know what I’m fighting for? I’m fighting for the principles of Thomas Jefferson. He wrote something called the Bill of Rights. You can see the original draft in the place where I went to school, in Charlottesville. He lived there. That was his college. Drop in and take a look at them, sometime.”

  Colonel Chu regarded Raleigh Couzens, to see if he was serious, and then made another note in his pad. “Now,” he said, “do you think the other nations in the so-called United Nations are giving you sufficient help?”

  “Hell, no.”

  “Well, why do you Americans maintain them as allies?”

  Raleigh Couzens shoved his glass across the desk. “Mind filling it up again, colonel?” he asked. “Then I’ll answer your question.”

  The colonel rose, and made another drink on top of the safe, and brought it to Couzens, and then took his own chair, but he was not comfortable, nor did he rest his hands across his stomach. He was eager for the answer.

  “I can’t talk very well,” said Raleigh Couzens, “with that light blinding me. Mind moving it, colonel?”

  “Why, not at all,” said Colonel Chu, and shoved the reflector aside. “Now, you were about to say something, old chap?”

  “I sure was. I was going to say I didn’t think we were getting enough help here in Korea. Except, of course, I understand that the British have got to keep considerable forces in Hong Kong, and the French have got to keep most of their army in Indo-China because unless there were big forces there they might be attacked like the South Koreans. Still, they could give us more help. That’s the way I figure it, until you figure Europe. You see, colonel, Europe’s the crucial place.”

  “That so?”

  “That’s so, buster, and don’t ever forget it.” Couzens now realized he was feeling his liquor. He didn’t care.

  “I shan’t,” said the colonel, and then wondered what he was saying. He had to bring this interview back to normal. “Now,” he said, with authority, “as regards your own country. I’d like your opinion about certain political personalities.”

  Couzens took another swallow. “Shoot.”

  “What do you think of Henry A. Wallace?”

  “Corn.”

  “Eh?”

  “Corn. I think he should stick to raising corn. He was probably an all-right guy, but he got taken.”

  Colonel Chu started to write something, and then didn’t. “Well, what do you think of President Truman?”

  “I don’t think he knows which end is up,” said Couzens.

  “What’s that you said?” Colonel Chu demanded, his cropped head projected across the table.

  “Why, I said I wasn’t sure Truman knew which end was up,” said Raleigh Couzens, but not with the same emphasis. Something in the back of his mind told him he shouldn’t be saying things like that. It was like a family. You could damn your family to hell and gone so long as there was no one else around except other family. But you didn’t do it in front of strangers, and Colonel Chu was definitely a stranger.

  The colonel wrote busily, his head bobbing up now and then to take a good look at Couzens, as if he were describing him. Couzens felt uncomfortable. He wanted to explain about Truman. He wanted to explain that he was only thinking of Truman’s crack about the Marines a few months before, when the President had said the Marines had a propaganda organization like Stalin’s. He wanted to tell the colonel not to take his crack about Truman so seriously. But he kept silent, because he feared anything he said would only make it worse.

  Colonel Chu finished writing, and said, “Lieutenant, you’ve been quite helpful, quite helpful indeed, and most co-operative. How would you like to go back to your own lines?”

  Couzens was speechless. He couldn’t believe that he was hearing right.

  “I said, would you care to go back to your own lines?”

  “Why, sir, I’d like to.” Couzens, like everyone else, had heard the poop of how sometimes the Chinese returned prisoners, well-treated, after indoctrination, but he hadn’t believed it.

  “Very well, I’ll have you back tonight. You see, lieutenant, we are not fang-toothed barbarians, are we now?” The colonel smiled, to show his carefully kept teeth, with the gold inlays. “I want you to go back to your companions, and tell them what you have seen here, and tell them how you were treated. We do not want war with you boys, lieutenant. This war was not of our making. It was your capitalists, and Wall Street, that instigated the South Korean attack upon the people of North Korea, and the imperialists seized upon the fighting here to attempt a general war. But we do not want war. After your forces have gone back to Japan, or surrendered, we will not attack you. We are, most of us, simple farmers. We wish to return to the land.”

  “Me too,” Couzens agreed, hoping this wasn’t a joke, or a trick.

  “Ah, yes. Now no doubt you need rest, and when night comes I will have you escorted back to the American lines.” Above them the ack-ack began to throb, steadily, and then the cellar shook with the shock of bombs setting their teeth deep into the earth, the concussions bringing little spurts of dust from between the stones of the outer wall. Colonel Chu waited until the clamor subsided. “It is not safe to travel by day,” he explained.

  All that day Couzens slept on a straw pallet in another room of the building, and when night came the young Chinese officer who had escorted him into the colonel’s office gave him food, and then they got into a Russian jeep, and started back the road by which he had come. On the previous night all the traffic had been towards the front, but on this night there was considerable traffic headed away from the reservoir. There were horse-drawn ambulances, and walking wounded, and empty ammunition carts. Whatever had happened to Dog Company, it had put up a fight, Couzens could see. He spoke as little as possible to his companion. If they really meant to return him, he didn’t want to say anything that would jeopardize his chances.

  At last they came to the ridge of a hill from where Couzens could see the village of Ko-Bong, and the Russian jeep stopped. The tall young Chinese said, in his missionary-school English, “I will let you out here. From here you will go to your own people.”

  “Who owns the town?” Couzens asked.

  “I do not know. We don’t. Perhaps there are Americans in the town.”

  Couzens got out of the jeep and unkinked his joints and muscles. “Okay,” he said. “Goodbye, lie
utenant, and thanks.”

  “Goodbye, Yankee,” the other lieutenant said. “Goodbye, and good luck.” He whispered it, and he held out his hand, and Couzens clasped his hand. Couzens started walking towards the village, alone, and before he had gone a hundred yards a weight seemed to remove itself from his shoulders. He was free again, a free man. Whatever happened to him now could not be as bad as what had happened before, because there is nothing so bad as captivity. From here in, he could make a fight of it. He would not be taken again, ever. Nobody would ever piss on his legs again.

  In the moonlight almost like the moonlight of the night before, he approached the line of houses. He walked steadily down the street until he came to where he had been ambushed. Then he stopped to think, and felt in the pocket of his battle jacket, and found his pack of cigarettes, miraculously unopened, and the lighter, and stepped in the lee of a wall for a smoke. While he smoked, he listened, and he learned from his ears that Ko-Bong was not deserted by all its sorrowing people, and neither was it occupied by troops.

  Ahead of him was the American line. It would be a perimeter now. Obviously it was unbroken. The Second Platoon had not been penetrated. Couzens felt proud of that. They would be jittery, there in the line. They would shoot anything that moved. If they saw him at the foot of the street they’d know damn well he wasn’t a ghost. They’d let him have it. Additionally, if he knew Mackenzie, Sam would be sending out a patrol. Sam never let the enemy rest, and Sam was never lax in his tactical intelligence. If the patrol found him, they’d shoot first and discover that he was an American lieutenant later.

  So Raleigh Couzens decided, as a fact of survival, that he must spend the night in Ko-Bong, and approach Dog Company in the light of day. He ground out his cigarette and crept silently into the nearest doorway. Braced to spring, he illuminated the single room with his lighter.

  A woman sleeping on a mattress of rags and straw, with a child curled under her arm, opened her eyes in quick terror. Before she could scream he lifted his finger to his lips in the signal for silence, and made a smile. The woman shut her mouth. She was a young woman. She was the same woman, he believed, that Beany Smith had tried to rape. He didn’t move, for fear of frightening her into panic, and for a few seconds they examined each other. It seemed, then, that she understood she would not be hurt, for she motioned with her free arm towards the other side of the hut. There was a pallet there, empty. Once, no doubt, she had had a husband.