"War Trash" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jin Ha)

4. DR. GREENE

I was shipped to the First Closure of the POW Collection Center in Pusan. The city, then the provisional capital of South Korea, had so many American military offices and supply stations that the bustling streets reminded me of the Chinese city Dandong on the Yalu River, though more automobiles rolled around here and ships in the foggy harbor loomed like small buildings. Besides, this was a much bigger city with an airport. The closure I was put in comprised a hospital and several large compounds, each of which held over a thousand prisoners. The Collection Center was a transit point, where wounded POWs received medical treatment. But most prisoners stayed here just a few days; after being processed – registered and interrogated – they would be sent to different camps in other places.

My left thigh was fractured. A piece of shrapnel had hit the area near my groin and shattered the femur. Because of my injury I didn't go to registration, which I heard was a tedious process – the waiting lines were long there, though the clerks, mostly North Korean prisoners, were sympathetic to Chinese captives. Nor was I interrogated like other POWs, some of whom collapsed under the torment.

Nonetheless, I was ordered to have my fingerprints taken and to provide the information needed for registration. A stout American officer and a Chinese interpreter came to our ward, in which over seventy patients, wounded and diseased, were lying on canvas cots. The ward was in a large iron-framed tent with a plywood floor and two entrances. The air was foul in here. The officer asked me my name, rank, education, my unit's serial number, and questioned me about my immediate superiors. I told him that my name was Feng Yan and that I was a new recruit, serving as a secretary in an infantry company in the 539th Regiment. The Americans must have known that regiment's serial number, so I told him the truth: 3692. He showed me a bunch of snapshots of Chinese soldiers who all looked like officers, and asked me whether I knew any of them. I didn't recognize a single one. I was still weak, having been operated on just three days before, so after a few more questions the officer and the interpreter left, saying they'd come again. Throughout the questioning, I didn't speak English, fearful that I might reveal my true identity.

Outside the compound fenced with barbed wire, forty yards away from the gate, stood a white-stuccoed building, two stories high, with a red-tiled roof and dormer windows. Before the war it had been a schoolhouse, and now it was occupied by the Operating Section, which the patients called the Butchery. Almost every day dead bodies were carried out of it and then stacked in front of the closure's admission center, to join those who had died en route to the hospital. I had spent four hours in that building three days before. After I was placed on a table, two doctors had talked in whispers about my leg. I couldn't understand their words completely, because I was still delirious and unfamiliar with their medical vocabulary. They sounded unsure about the procedure to come. An anesthetist injected some drug into my lower abdomen and the small of my back, and then they tied down my arms and calves. When a nurse had spread a white sheet over my belly, one of the doctors smirked, saying, "I never thought there'd be so many patients to cut when I was drafted. This definitely beats any residency."

"I guess I'll be qualified for chief surgeon after the war is over," said a tall doctor with blond eyebrows. Apparently he was in charge of the operation.

My heart shuddered as I realized they were two medical school students who probably hadn't completed their course work yet. I closed my eyes tight wondering if I should beg them to save my leg, but I decided not to talk and just endure it. Outside, a downpour lashed and blurred the windowpanes.

"Ow!" I yelled as one of them poked my wound.

"It hurts?" asked a concerned voice.

Before I could answer, the tall doctor said, "We should start."

The anesthesia hadn't taken full effect yet when they began cutting me. Bouts of pain radiated to my insides and to my neck and head. Despite gritting my teeth, I couldn't stop groaning and twisting while their instruments explored my wound.

The room turned foggy. All the objects – the intense lights, the bottles hung on a steel stand, the bluish caps on the human heads – all seemed to be floating and bobbing around. A moment later I blacked out.

When I came to, my left thigh was dressed with a wooden board tied alongside my leg and hip. "You're all set for the time being," the tall doctor said to me with a grin. "You'll keep your leg."

"Thank you," I sighed.

"You speak English?"

I shook my head and regretted having blurted that out.

"Do you understand what I'm saying?" he asked again.

I didn't respond, just stared at him. With a wave of his hand he summoned two orderlies to take me away on a stretcher.

Besides the American medical staff, there were more than three dozen orderlies working in the hospital. Most of them were Chinese who had cooperated with our captors and had been assigned to work in the building, carrying patients and cleaning. As "collaborators," they probably wouldn't be going back to mainland China, where they would be held accountable for their behavior here, so they treated us according to their own moods and whims. Sometimes they even beat patients. The two orderlies who carried me back to the ward made fun of me all the way, saying I was lucky the doctors hadn't sawed off my leg.

The minute I was returned to the tent I began shivering. The doctor hadn't prescribed any painkiller for me, so I sweated and moaned throughout the night and the next morning. Thanks to the fellow inmates who gave me water to drink and even fed me some rice porridge, I survived that night. Among the ward mates there was a man from the Guards Company of our division, Ding Wanlin by name, who had suffered a bullet wound in his left side, which had almost healed. His bed was next to mine. He had recognized me, having seen me with Commissar Pei a few times, but I didn't remember him. He was considerate to me and sat at my bedside for several hours that night, wiping the sweat and tears off my face now and then. Meantime, a Korean man, wounded in the chest, raved continually and flung his hands as though quarreling with someone.

Later Ding Wanlin told me that our divisional staff had been captured by the enemy two days after they had abandoned us in the valley strewn with the stragglers, but Commander Niu had managed to flee back to North Korea with his orderly and a few officers, because a squad of guards had run in the opposite direction and drawn the enemy away.

In spite of my weak condition, I could eat. My appetite was remarkably good, perhaps kindled by the hunger I had suffered in the wilderness. At long last there was food, though we couldn't eat our fill. I was given a bowl of dry milk every morning and sometimes a can of beef or tuna for dinner. Once we were each issued a fruit compote, which I enjoyed very much. At a regular meal each patient could have one bowl of steamed rice, usually with a ladle of vegetables, salty turnip or carrots or cabbage. Sometimes a half mug of soup was added as a side dish. The standard enamel bowl the prisoners used was not small, four inches tall, six inches in diameter at its top and four inches across at its bottom. To be honest, the food was better than I had expected. I told myself I must eat to get well so that I could return home in one piece.

Wanlin and I promised each other never to disclose our true names and identities to the enemy. He was twenty-one, two years younger than me, tall and bony, with a straight nose and thin eyes. When he spoke he often burbled a little, as if he were still an adolescent whose careless innocence hindered the clarity of his speech. His smile displayed his yellow, lopsided teeth (most of us hadn't been able to brush our teeth for months, so although we had tooth powder now, our teeth still looked awful). I was grateful to him, because he often helped me relieve myself and fetched meals and water for me.

In our tent there was an emaciated man with a fractured thigh, whose name was Zhou Gushu. He was from a different division and had been captured near Wonju the previous winter. His leg was encased in plaster and had been operated on several times. He hurt terribly and was bedridden. He often cursed Dr. Thomas, the tall, blond one in charge of my case as well, and said that man meant to experiment with his leg. Gushu wept a lot, at times tearlessly. I thought that he was too much of a crybaby and that he had better have more self-control, because the tent housed more than forty Koreans who might laugh at us Chinese and view us as weaklings.

Then one day his pain was so overpowering he couldn't eat his midday meal. Wanlin went over, moved the bowl of cabbage soup closer to him, and tried to persuade him to have some. As he spoke, Wanlin caught sight of a maggot wiggling on Gushu's bed. He opened Gushu's blanket and found more maggots. He put away the bowl and went out. In no time he returned with an empty vial and two thin sticks and told Gushu to turn on his side. After collecting the maggots into the bottle, he raised the tail of Gushu's shirt and saw a swarm of the grubs gathering on his lower back, at least fifty strong. Another two patients also lent a hand in rounding up the larvae. Though they had wiped the small of Gushu's back clean, more maggots were creeping out from the top end of the plaster cast. We were all horrified – there must have been an army of them deep in there eating away at his leg.

At the demand of the other patients, two medical personnel arrived with pliers the next morning. When the cast was pried off, balls and balls of maggots appeared wriggling and crawling about. The flesh around the wound was whitish and decayed, messy with pus and blood; the maggots had even bored into the adjacent areas too, where the skin had been intact originally. I turned my head away, my guts twinging.

For the rest of the day Gushu groaned without stopping; his breathing was labored, and from time to time he would tear at his chest. He cursed Dr. Thomas relentlessly, believing the surgeon had intended to mangle his leg. Most of the patients in the tent shared his belief that he had become a guinea pig for germ experimentation.

He was taken to the Operating Section the following day. A patch of skin was peeled off from his other thigh and grafted onto the wounded one. I wondered if the young doctors here were capable of skin grafting. Maybe this was the first time they had even attempted such a job.

Gushu was carried back in the afternoon. He was given a soporific for the night, so he slept soundly. But from the next day on he couldn't stop moaning with pain. He said, "Why didn't they just finish me off? They can use my body parts any way they like once I'm dead." In fact, as I learned later on, the next year when he went through his seventh operation and his leg became numb, another American doctor insisted on amputation, but Gushu refused, saying he'd die rather than lose his leg. Eventually they did manage to save it, though he had to use crutches when walking.

His condition frightened me, because day by day my thigh was getting hotter and more painful. On the morning the bandage was removed, I saw that my wound hadn't healed at all. Actually it had festered some, though it began scabbing around the dark fringes. There must have been a lot of pus in it. Seeing the mess, I almost broke into tears. Wanlin lifted a mug of cold water to my lips. That kept me from losing my mind. Though I tried, I still couldn't move my bad leg, which felt disconnected from my body and kept shooting jolts of pain to my spine.

That afternoon I was given an x-ray. The film indicated there was another piece of shrapnel in my thigh, causing the infection. I would have to undergo another operation. On his visit the next day, Dr. Thomas told me with a boyish smirk, "If you want to save your leg, you'll have to get another cut. This shouldn't be a big job, though. The bone was set all right. I'm pleased with that."

I glared at him the whole time. Before the Chinese interpreter could translate his words, I yelled in English at the top of my lungs, "I don't want you to operate on me!"

Dr. Thomas was taken aback. "He speaks English," he said to the interpreter.

The patients in the tent were surprised too. I shouted at him again, "You're just a clumsy butcher who didn't even finish medical school."

He paused. "How can you be sure of that? Do I need to show you my diploma?" He looked quite innocent and screwed up his left eye, grinning.

"You said that last time when you were cutting me. You're just a pseudo-doctor in job training."

"Well, I'm impressed by your memory. You know what? I don't enjoy working here. I'm sick of cutting people day in and day out. These endless surgeries have ruined my spirit, not to mention my appetite. These days I hardly eat lunch. You're right – treating you guys makes me feel like a butcher."

"I don't want you to treat me."

"I'll see what I can do about that. Wait till tomorrow. You're not the one who calls the shots, you know."

I didn't say another word. He turned to the door, followed by the spindly interpreter.

The moment Dr. Thomas disappeared, the other inmates began gathering around me. "You speak English good," said a long-faced Korean man, who called himself Captain Yoon. He looked urbane and expansive; I had often seen him sitting by himself near the side entrance of the ward, thumbing through a thick book.

I was disconcerted. Now they thought of me as an officer. This might expose me to danger, and the enemy might interrogate me thoroughly. What should I do? Admit to these fellows that I studied in college? No, somebody would betray me if I told them the truth.

I managed to say in English to Captain Yoon, "I've almost forgotten my English. Just now I was angry, so some words came back to me."

"Did you go to college? Me went Seoul University, major in economics, but I joined the North Korean People's Army. I want liberate and unite my country."

"I didn't go to college," I said. "I learned some English from a missionary in my hometown."

"Good, me impressed." He gave a loud bray of laughter.

Six or seven Korean men cackled too. I wasn't sure if they understood our exchange. They must all have been loyal to the Communist army, otherwise Captain Yoon wouldn't have talked about himself so offhandedly. I had heard that the North Korean POWs were well organized in the prison camps. Some doctors and nurses at the hospital were Koreans too, captured by the U.N. forces, and the Korean Communists had penetrated many parts of the prison system. It was whispered that there was even a Kim Il Sung University established secretly in a camp.

The next day, when I was placed on the table for the second operation, I was terrified to see Dr. Thomas in the high-ceilinged room. He came over and patted me on the upper arm, smiling. "Look, Comrade Feng Yan, I may have to do the job today."

"I don't want you to touch me!" I said. "Send me back."

"Wait a minute. Let's be clear about this." The smile vanished from his face. "The other doctors have their patients to take care of, so I have to do the job."

"I don't want to be operated on today."

"Can't you see that I'm helping you, to save your leg?"

"I don't need any help from a pseudo-doctor like you."

"You Reds are hard to please."

"Send me back!" I shouted.

"Stop yelling!" jumped in a male nurse.

Another one added, "You shouldn't be insulting Dr. Thomas this way. He's doing his best for you."

I caught sight of two orderlies passing the door, so I cried at them in Chinese, "Come and help me, brothers! Rescue your compatriot!"

The American medical personnel seemed puzzled, looking at one another without a word. I saw hesitation and worry in Dr. Thomas's eyes. I yelled in Chinese again, "Help me! Take me back to my tent! Brothers, we're still comrades-in-arms! Save me please!"

But neither of the orderlies came in. Eyes closed, I went on shouting for all I was worth. By now the doctor and nurses had stepped aside. They gathered by a window and whispered something I couldn't quite hear. Then a nurse left the room.

I continued yelling and kicking my right leg, sickened by the smell of putrefaction and rubbing alcohol. Two or three minutes later the nurse returned with a doctor I hadn't met before. The new arrival came up to me and patted my forehead. I opened my eyes fully and was amazed to see a female face. She was in her late twenties, slender with gaunt features, and the insignia on her cap indicated the rank of major. Her auburn hair, short but neat, stuck out from beneath the brim of her cap. Her clear hazel eyes gazed at me kindly as a smile displayed her uneven teeth. To my astonishment, she said in excellent Mandarin, "I'm Dr. Greene. Can I take a look at your wound?" She had a slight Shanghai accent, but she spoke so spontaneously that I wondered if I had heard her right. Dumbfounded, I just stared at her. She smiled again, this time coaxingly. "Can I look at your wound?" she repeated.

I nodded yes. As she bent down to examine my thigh, the other doctor and nurses also gathered around to observe. My wound was very close to my groin, so my sex was fully exposed, which made my cheeks burn with embarrassment. Wordlessly I shut my eyes tight. Her fingers were sensitive, touching and pressing my wound gently. I felt as if something cool and soothing were being applied to it, easing the pain somewhat.

After examining me, she drew herself up and said, "Your wound is very deep and was already festering when you arrived. We had to get rid of the gangrenous tissue first and wait for the inflammation to subside a little before we could take out the bone fragments and the shrapnel. I can assure you that Dr. Thomas did a good job in setting the femur last time, so today we can open the wound to remove the shrapnel and the bone fragments."

"Thank you. I was so worried," I sighed and turned to look at Dr. Thomas, who was a first lieutenant. He grinned at me like a big boy.

"I understand," she said.

After talking with Dr. Thomas briefly, she asked me with a smile, "Can I operate on you today?"

Eagerly I nodded my agreement. She ordered the nurses to give me an IV and put the ether mask on me. I felt calm in her presence, as if she had been sent over to save me. At the same time I heard some metallic clanks that were disquieting, and something warm was placed on my right leg.

Soon I lost consciousness.

I don't know how long I was out. It must have been three or four hours, because when I woke up I heard a male voice shout in the corridor, "Chow time." Then I saw beads of perspiration on the woman doctor's smooth forehead. Her large eyes observed me intently as she said, "Do you want to see what I got out of your leg?"

I nodded, so parched I couldn't utter a word. With forceps she lifted from a white enamel dish a splinter of shrapnel, black and bloody like a twisted button. She said, "It was this sucker that shattered your femur. We took out all the bone fragments too."

"Do you think I can walk again?"

"Of course, I'll make you walk. But for the time being you'll have to stay in bed. Then we'll have another operation to fix everything once and for all."

Another operation! Tears welled up to my eyes. Ashamed, I averted my face.

She patted me on the shoulder and said, "Don't worry. I'll put you back on your feet."

When I turned to look at her, she was heading for the door. Her white back was straight, her shoulders thin and delicate.

This operation alleviated my pain and I began to mend both physically and mentally, though I had grown more homesick, often fingering my half of the jade barrette at night. My captors had stripped me of everything except for this token of Julan's love and her snapshot, both concealed in my undershirt pocket. The smoothness of the jade reminded me of my fiancee's skin and often set me daydreaming.

Sometimes I also thought of other women – some Korean women who, from somewhere close by, would sing in chorus for an hour or two every evening. Their songs would drift in the dusk, sad and soulful. Sometimes the tunes were wistful as though complaining about a betrayal or a missed opportunity that wouldn't be offered again. Whenever they started their chorus, I would listen to them. As they sang, the air would seem galvanized and the men in the ward would stop chatting, their eyes turning more distant, brighter, and sometimes watery. How I wished I could have made out the women's words. Their fearless voices brought to mind the girls in the countryside of my home province, who often vied with one another in singing love songs when they were working in the rice paddies or picking tea leaves on the hills. If only I could have walked out of the tent and looked at those women across the barbed wire!

Wanlin and I talked about them, but he couldn't figure out who they were either. In the evening he often went out; once he saw a few Korean women who were all civilians, though they seemed to be detainees too. Our Korean ward mates certainly knew more about the singers, but there was no way for us to communicate with them on such a subject. I felt too awkward to ask Captain Yoon about them.

In the meantime, Gushu's leg, unlike mine, was deteriorating. Seeing that I was recovering rapidly, he pleaded with the hospital to let Dr. Greene treat him too, or to give him Colonel Osman, who was an experienced surgeon from Florida, known to the prisoners as a kind-hearted man.

Two weeks after my operation, Dr. Greene and Dr. Thomas came to our tent, both wearing white coats. At the sight of them I tried to sit up, but she stopped me and said in English, "Lie down. We just came to see how you've been doing."

She and Dr. Thomas must have been making their ward rounds. She checked my wound. "Excellent, it's healing very well," she said, her eyes lighting up. "Tomorrow we can operate on you to repair the bone once and for all."

"Thank you, Dr. Greene," I said.

I was still excited after they left. At last I believed I would walk on both legs again.

The following day I was taken to the Operating Section for the third time. Again Dr. Thomas was present in the room. After I was laid on the table, Dr. Greene bent forward a little, putting on gloves. She asked me, "You very much want to walk without a crutch, don't you?"

I nodded.

"After this operation," she said, "you should be able to walk soon."

My eyes misted, so I shut them immediately. She didn't see my face, since the chubby anesthetist was putting the ether mask on me. Soon I was unconscious.

When I woke up, I saw Dr. Greene leaning against the wall with her eyes closed. She looked pale and exhausted. I wasn't sure whether she was taking a breather or was already done with the operation. The front of her white gown was stained with my blood, but she didn't wear gloves. Seeing that I had come to, she gave me a half-smile and said, "Everything went well." Her words set my mind at rest.

Every three days after the operation, she came to check on me and the other orthopedic patients. It was getting cold: cicadas had stopped chirring in the willow crowns and all the bumblebees had vanished. In the early morning I often saw little frost clouds hanging above my ward mates' faces. We had been issued more used clothing. Each man now had a felt coat, another blanket, and a set of olive fatigues. On each jacket were painted two white letters, P on the right sleeve and W on the left one. A few men had the P and W on the breast pockets of their jackets instead. As for the overcoats, the two letters were stenciled on the backs. I couldn't put on my pants yet and had to cover my legs with two blankets all the time. During the day, when Wanlin had no need for his bedding, I used his blankets too.

I remember vividly the day when Dr. Greene came to take out my stitches. It was on October 31, 1951, six days after the first anniversary of China 's entering the Korean War. Having removed the twelve stitches with scissors and tweezers, she helped me get out of bed, then said, "See if you can stand on your feet now."

I began trembling, both hands gripping a tent pole, a piece of rough-hewn timber. I dared not let go of it at first. Then slowly I shifted all my weight to my legs and released my grip. She came around and stood in front of me, saying, "Ah, you can stand by yourself now, very good. I'm impressed. Come on, a step toward me."

Several inmates were watching us. Although I pulled myself together, I couldn't move. It was as if my feet had rooted into the floor. She urged me, "Come on, take a step. Be brave, soldier."

Too ashamed to disappoint her, I clenched my teeth and slowly stretched forward my left foot. But after having lain in bed for more than three months, I couldn't keep my balance. As my body lurched forward, she reached out and held me by both shoulders. She said, "Come, try again. Don't be afraid. You can do it."

Her face was so close to mine that I smelled her sweetish perfume and I felt myself blushing. I made my utmost effort to straighten up my back and then advanced a step. Miraculously, I didn't fall!

"Good, try another step," she said.

So I did one more, which marked a new beginning in my life. Clapping, she smiled like a child. If she had not been in uniform, nobody would have taken her for a soldier, let alone one on the enemy's side. When she had helped me come back to my bed, I was sweating all over. She sat down too.

"What's your name?" she asked.

"Feng Yan." I was surprised by her question.

"I know. I mean what two characters do you go by?"

I had no pen, so she pulled out her ballpoint and handed it to me, together with a prescription pad.

I wrote out the words "Feng Yan" in a cursive script. I had practiced calligraphy for years, so the characters came out handsomely.

She looked at the two words for a moment, then said, "You're an excellent calligrapher and a good-tempered man, I can tell. Can you teach me how to write the characters?"

Unsure whether she asked that as a lark or in earnest, I answered, "You speak Chinese very well, so you must write it well too."

"Not at all," she said. "Although I grew up in China and graduated from Tongji Medical School, I've never been able to write the characters well. When I was a child, I didn't spend time doing calligraphy.

Later in college when I took notes in class, I just scribbled everything down and didn't pay attention to my handwriting."

Now I understood why she spoke Chinese so fluently and treated us so kindly. I didn't ask about her parents, who must have been missionaries. The medical school she'd attended in Shanghai had been well known for its Western-style education, where most courses had been taught in English and some by foreign professors. After the Communists took over the country, that school had been closed down. I couldn't contain my curiosity and said to her, "May I ask you a question?"

"Of course you may."

"How come you've become an army doctor here?"

"It's a long story."

"Did you volunteer?"

"Yes and no. Last year, after graduation I went back to the States to see my biological mother. On my way back I stopped in Japan. The Korean War had just broken out and army doctors were in short supply, so I was recruited by the Far Eastern Headquarters. Then I came to Korea."

"Don't you hate China because we came to fight the U.S. Army?"

"When I joined up, I'd never thought China would take part in this war. Later China rushed in, but I still can't hate China, to be honest. I was raised in China, which is my second country." She turned thoughtful, then continued, "I have a question for you too. You have no airplanes, no warships, and no tanks; how can you possibly win this war?"

I said sincerely, "MacArthur's army would have crossed our border and seized Manchuria if we hadn't come to Korea. We had no choice but to fight the better-equipped aggressors. But with justice on our side we will win this war."

"You're very idealistic," she said. I could tell she was dubious.

By now several inmates had moved closer to listen to our conversation, so I switched the subject. "Do you really want me to teach you calligraphy?" I asked.

"Of course."

"But how can I do it?"

"That's easy. Tomorrow I'll bring you some paper and a pen. You write a sheet of characters as models, like in a copybook. I'll take it back with me and copy the words. This will be a good way to spend my off-hours."

I agreed readily, determined to do what I could to repay her.

Toward the next evening, she came with a shiny black fountain pen and a sheaf of white paper. On the top page were three big characters, Ge Su-Shan, which looked stiff and slanted toward the right. Obviously her handwriting had been affected by her sloping English hand. She said, "Here's my Chinese name. You see, this is the best I can do. Can you teach me how to write my name well first?"

I began to explain to her how to inscribe the individual strokes, the horizontal one and the vertical one. Then with the pen I illustrated the left-falling stroke, the hook, the dot, and the right-falling stroke. She tried to write a few, but couldn't do them well. I was surprised that this was difficult for her, but I also could see that she had attempted calligraphy before, just as every pupil had to practice it in a Chinese elementary school. Frustrated, she asked me to hold her hand to inscribe the strokes so that she could feel how the pen was supposed to move. This was a common method in teaching calligraphy, we both knew. Yet I hesitated, reluctant to touch her hand, in part because I was a prisoner but mainly because of the inmates gathering around to observe. Their eyes unsettled me.

"Come on," she said. "Don't you Communists believe in equality between men and women? At this moment I'm your student."

Her words embarrassed me, so I held her hand. Together we began writing the strokes. Her hair and her clothes exuded a whiff of tobacco; she must have been quite a smoker. I had noticed that the tips of her index and middle fingers were slightly yellow. Although her hand had silky skin and slim fingers, it was quite strong, its muscles tight and its bones sturdy. I was surprised to find her fingernails rather stubby. Her hand felt more like a male laborers. This put me somewhat at ease, and we concentrated on the hook and the right-falling stroke. In a way I was moved by her letting me hold her hand to practice. I smelled of DDT, which had just been sprayed on me for delousing.

After half an hour's practice, she could do most of the strokes decently. She was happy about the progress.

When we stopped for the day, she asked me to write some words she could take back and copy in her spare time, since she couldn't come every day. I thought for a few seconds, then carefully wrote down this ancient poem:

Sand dunes are glimmering like snow Beyond our camping ground. Behind us, moonlight Is frosting a frontier town.

Whence comes the tootling pipe? For a whole night The soldiers think alike Of the distant fireside.

She read the lines silently, her lips opening and closing, revealing her strong teeth. Then she told me, "Actually I studied this poem in middle school. But it means more to me now."

Lifting her head, she said to the patients around, "You should all take good care of yourselves. When the Panmunjom negotiations are over, you can all go back to rejoin your families." A few men sighed. She glanced at a man's handless arm and added, "I hope this is the last war of mankind."

I wanted to say something, but words deserted me.

From that day on Dr. Greene came to see me once a week, handed in her homework for me to correct, and took back a page of sample characters I had inscribed for her. When she was here, she also checked my wound, which was healing fast. The inmates would gather around to see her homework and often praised her progress. Gushu was quite attached to her, saying she was a saint, because she had managed to stop his wound from suppurating.

Although our ward accommodated over seventy patients, most beds were unoccupied during the day. I found that a good number of the men were ambulatory and were actually fairly healthy; they were probably remaining here because the hospital offered better board and lodging than the regular prison camps. I wondered why the doctors didn't discharge them. There was so much deliberate confusion of identities among the POWs, who often destroyed their ID tags and changed their names randomly, that the doctors could hardly keep track of all the patients. Beyond question, some of these men were malingerers, good at faking illness. The hospital seemed to have become a vacation place for many POWs.

Now that I was able to move around with the aid of crutches, I often left the tent. It was already early winter and most trees had shed their leaves. Naked branches made the yellowish land appear more drab; even the sea to the south had turned gray. But in the north the hills were still green, scattered with patches of junipers and cypresses. I often watched seagulls flying in the sky draped with ragged clouds. The birds had no walls or fences to confine them. How precious the idea of freedom was to a prisoner! I couldn't help but compare myself with almost every creature my eyes fell upon. Even my worms-eye view of American airplanes often set me imagining how free the pilots must feel up in the air.

One day I heard some women singing a Russian song, "The Evening of Moscow Suburbs," which had also been popular in China; afterward Captain Yoon told me that that compound, number 12, contained only female prisoners. I could see a corner of their barracks, which must have held hundreds of Korean women. The reason we had mistaken them for civilians was that some of them had been guerrillas and still wore long-sleeved white dresses, black skirts, or baggy slacks. Later I heard that there was only one Chinese woman in that compound. I had known her, Zheng Dongmei. She had served in our division's song-and-dance ensemble and worn a pair of short braids. She was full of life and so cheerful that wherever she was, you could hear her singing and laughing. But she wasn't a good soldier and could pitch a grenade only fourteen yards; in a live throw she got one of her front teeth cut in half by a splinter of shrapnel from a grenade she herself had flung.

From where we were, I could see only a small portion of the women's quarters across a broad dirt road. Beyond their compound was the TB ward, which housed hundreds of consumptives. Somehow tuberculosis was still endemic to Koreans. In the evenings I would stand by the barbed wire and listen to the women singing. Though far away, I could hear their songs clearly because they always sang in chorus. Their voices transported me into reveries. They chanted all kinds of songs, sometimes passionately and sometimes lightheartedly, such as "Spring Is Coming," "Marshal Kim Il Sung," "The Anthem of the Korean People's Army," and "The Anthem of the Chinese People's Volunteers." Later I heard them sing "Defending the Yellow River!," "Solidarity Is Power,"

"The East Is Red," and some other Chinese revolutionary songs, which Dongmei must have taught them. They also chorused Korean folk songs, whose names and words I couldn't know. I liked those songs best. Contrary to the strident fighting airs, the folk songs sounded gentle and nostalgic, at times almost angelic. One morning I caught sight of two toddlers, a boy and a girl, playing with tin cans and wooden sticks in the women's compound. They looked dirty and wore rags, but they laughed and ran about nimbly. With their mothers jailed here, they too had become POWs.

Not far away from our compound was the First Closure's admission center, where the prisoners were registered and processed. In front of that hut there were dozens of corpses stacked together like firewood. I wondered why the Americans didn't immediately get rid of those nameless bodies, which gave out a fetid odor – made even worse as it combined with the smell of the open-air public latrine. The latrine was fenced with a tarpaulin wall and had four hundred pits in it.

One afternoon as I was limping along the fence, I saw a tall man in the adjacent compound whose large, bony body and shoulders, viewed from the side, looked familiar. He was smoking beyond the four rows of barbed wire. I walked over. His hair was disheveled and his face emaciated, marred by a curved scar; his right forearm was bandaged. My heart began kicking as I recognized him – Commissar Pei!

He turned to face me. His eyes brightened, but he didn't say a word, just smiled. Quietly I stopped before him and said, "How are you, Commi – "

"Shh, I'm Wei Hailong now and used to be a cook. Call me Old Wei."

"Sure, I'll do that in front of others." I had to raise my voice a little because we were about fifteen feet apart.

"Always say you didn't know me until we met here," he said.

"I'll remember that. My name is Feng Yan now. I told them I was a secretary in an infantry company."

"Good."

While we were talking, we both kept glancing right and left to make sure we were alone. He had been captured a month ago, together with the only three men left with him. To date his identity hadn't been disclosed, though he jokingly said this was just temporary. He was certain somebody would betray him soon, because there were so many prisoners who had seen him as their commissar. I reported to him on my situation. To my surprise, he had heard of my association with Dr. Greene and encouraged me to get along with her so as to obtain information on the outside world. I told him about the Panmunjom talks, of which he had also learned. Though in disguise, he was apparently still a leader here, well informed and full of plans. He wanted me to remain loyal to our country and to pass on to him any news I heard.

To me his words were orders, so I became more at ease during my later meetings with Dr. Greene. I gave some of the paper she had left with me to Commissar Pei, which he needed badly.

About half a month later, Dr. Greene found a lump in my thigh. She felt it with her fingertips for a long while, then told me, "It looks like I should give you another operation."

My heart trembled. "Do you have to?"

"Yes. But it'll be a small procedure."

She let me feel the lump in the back of my left thigh. True enough, it was hard and as large as an egg. She said, "I was worried that the muscle damage was so massive that some extravasated blood might form a lump. At the last operation I cleaned everything, but even so, a lump has now grown inside. If we don't get rid of it in time, it may develop into a tumor. I don't want to leave it to chance."

Knowing that another doctor might not be so willing to help me, I said, "I'll follow your decision."

The morning after the next I had the surgery. And because I lay prone on the table this time, Dr. Greene assigned a male nurse to hold my chin so that I wouldn't suffocate. This time Dr. Thomas again assisted her. He seemed more skilled than before; perhaps I had that impression because I no longer hated him. I didn't wear an ether mask, so I remained conscious the whole time. While Dr. Thomas was giving me stitches, Dr. Greene replaced the nurse and held my chin until the entire procedure was over.

The operation was a complete success. From then on I could walk steadily, though I still needed a crutch for the time being. Whenever Dr. Greene came to check my condition and hand in her homework, I would ask her whether there was new progress in the Panmunjom negotiations, which we knew had run into difficulties. Then I would pass any new information on to Commissar Pei the following afternoon.

Three days after the Spring Festival of 1952, Dr. Greene came into our tent and said gloomily that there would be a group of patients going to Koje Island soon, and that I was on the list. So was my friend Wanlin. She took out a sheet of paper and told me, "I wrote a doctor's note for you. It says you shouldn't do any heavy work at least for half a year. If they want you to work, you can show them this."

I took the note but was nonplussed. All I could bring out was "Dr. Greene, I will remember you for the rest of my life. Thank you for saving my leg!"

"That's a doctor's job." She smiled and went on, "You can keep the pen as a souvenir. Maybe someday I'll go to China to take calligraphy lessons from you again."

I must have looked teary, because she said with genuine feeling, "Don't be upset. We'll meet again. All my friends and former classmates are still in China. They're waiting for me to go back."

She pulled out a large manila envelope and handed it to me. She said, "Remember to give this to the doctor in the camp."

The envelope contained my medical records and x-rays. In a way I wanted to leave the hospital, because I could move around quite well now. Also, our ward had grown spooky lately. A week ago a legless man, a Korean officer, had hanged himself on a tent pole. I couldn't imagine that he could have done that alone – some of his comrades must have given him a hand.

Dr. Greene stood up to leave. As she walked out, both Wanlin and I went to the door and watched her moving away with slightly lurching steps. We shouted, "Thank you, Dr. Greene! We'll remember you. Good-bye."

She turned around and waved at us, then proceeded with her ward rounds. In no time she disappeared beyond the gate guarded by two South Koreans. It was snowing, the wind whistling and howling by turns. Fat snowflakes were fluttering down like swarms of moths.

"I'll miss her," Wanlin said to me and grimaced in an effort to smile.