The Promise: A Novel of China and Burma (Oriental Novels of Pearl S. Buck) (24 page)

And without knowing it she began to sob, not aloud, but with deep inward sobs, and her throat was as tight as though an iron band were about it, and her hands trembled, and she saved all the poor bits of paper which had served to those men as symbols of what they loved best on earth.

She would not weep aloud, for well she knew this was only the first day of many days that would be like this, but she was new and untried and for this day at least there was no glory worth such sorrow. Her women were far more calm than she, for they had done these same tasks before and for men of their own kind, and these were strangers. But Mayli had seen young men like these living and full of merriment and noise, and she had seen them in their own countries, careless, well beloved in comfortable homes. She had danced with such young men and let them make a little love to her and they were not strange to her. It was piteous to see them here, outwitted and betrayed, cut off and trapped, and she felt no scorn for them but only sorrow. Most piteous of all was to see their gratitude when they heard her speak to them in their own tongue.

“I haven’t heard—a woman—speak English—in a thousand years,” a blond young lad sighed. He closed his blue eyes and clutched her hand. “Couldn’t you—sing?” he whispered. “Just—something?”

And she, her throat still so tight that she could scarcely breathe enough to sing, nevertheless forced herself and sang the first song that came to her lips, the song she had been singing a few nights ago,

          “
Drink to me only with thine eyes

          
And I will pledge with mine
.”

She sang it low at first but the singing eased her throat and in a moment her voice came more clear and the dying boy smiled.

“Why—it’s an English—song,” he whispered. “How did you—”

His voice ceased and his hand loosened and yet she held it, her tears streaming down her face as she sang, until the song was ended. And then she put the heavy hand down, such a young hand, still bony and thin with youth, the nails worn down and blackened and the grime black in the fair skin. And then she put her head on her knees and wept indeed, careless of who saw or heard her, for it seemed to her that there was only misery and woe in such a world as this.

At that moment she felt herself lifted up. Two hands upon her arms grasped her and pulled her to her feet and she turned.

“Sheng!” she whispered.

“It was you, then,” he said. “It was you I heard the other night—singing that same song!”

T
HUS BESIDE THE BODY
of the dead English boy did Sheng and Mayli meet. Had these been other days they might have taken time for surprise, but surprise of some sort came to them every day in this strange land. When anything could happen and none could foretell what he would be doing or where he would be an hour ahead, not Mayli nor Sheng felt surprise beyond the first outcry. Each took the other’s two hands, and they stood, their hands thus strongly clasped, their eyes searching each other’s faces, and each felt now what the other felt, a comfort that was beyond speech. Gladness there could not be, for they stood in the midst of defeat and death, but courage poured through their hands to their hearts and in that instant he forgot his jealousy and his doubt of her.

He saw her face streaming with sweat, her hair hanging wet upon her forehead and at her neck. She had on a rough straw hat such as farmers wear and the fading green twigs were twisted about the crown. She was bone-thin, he saw, and her blue cotton uniform clung to her thinness, wet, too, with her sweat. Her feet were bare in straw shoes, and her sleeves were rolled above her elbows.

And she saw a tall gaunt young man, hard as leather, in a dirty uniform. Down that dark face of his the sweat poured in lines like rain and dripped from his chin. Indeed the sun was merciless upon them both. There were no trees except the squat growth of the jungle and the wounded had crawled to these small spots of shade and lay panting for water. Near them a shadow-faced Indian began to moan softly for water,

“Pani-pani—” he moaned.

They turned at the sound of his voice, and saw that his shoulder was torn away and that he was bleeding to death. Now Sheng even before he spoke to Mayli, dropped her hands and went over to the dying man and opened his own bottle of precious water and put it to the man’s lips, and he lifted the man’s head upon his right hand so that he might drink more easily.

“Oh, he will die anyway,” Mayli cried in a low voice. “Save the water for yourself—”

But Sheng let the man drink and drink until the last was gone. Then he put down the man’s head into the hot earth, and even as he did so the man died.

“The water is wasted,” Mayli said in the same low voice.

“It would have choked me had I refused it to him,” Sheng replied. He corked the empty bottle and slung it to its place and then he turned to her again and took her one hand and held it in his.

“Where have you been?” he asked.

“Here,” she said, “with my women.”

“And I have been dreaming of you in that little house with the foolish small dog you love better than you do me,” he said.

“And I thought you were anywhere but near me,” she said, her cracked lips smiling.

“It was you I heard singing that night we marched,” he said, “and I thought it could not be you.”

These few words they said to each other in the midst of the men who lay wounded and dying and sunstruck, and each knew that even this moment must end because of their duty to these others. Indeed the women were stealing curious looks at them already and so they unclasped their hands.

“I will seek you out tonight,” Sheng said.

“I shall be watching for you,” she said. And then it seemed to her she could not wait until night of such a day as this, for who knew at the end of the day who would be living and who dead?

“Take care of your life,” she said to him and her eyes pleaded. “Be sure that the night finds you safe.”

His hot dark face seemed suddenly to flame. “Do you think I could die? Tonight, after the sun sets.”

He turned and strode off among the men who strewed the ground and she watched the tall thin figure for seconds, until she felt a small hand creep into hers.

“Who is that tall man, sister?” She heard Pansiao’s voice whisper this at her shoulder. For now Pansiao had begun to call her sister, and this Mayli allowed, knowing how lonely the young girl was. She turned her head and stared down into Pansiao’s wondering eyes. Then she began to laugh.

“How could I have forgotten you!” she cried. “Well, I did forget you, you little thing. Why, that is your brother, child—your third brother! We have found each other.”

Now Pansiao did stare after the young man but he was already gone among the men. “Shall I run after him?” she asked.

But Mayli shook her head. “There is no time now,” she said. “We have our work to do. But tonight he will come back, after sunset,” she said, “and you must help me to watch for him.”

She drew Pansiao with her as she spoke, and together they stooped over an Englishman who was crawling on hands and knees to find the small shadow of a wrecked truck. His head was hanging so she could not see his face.

“How can I help you?” she asked.

With mighty effort he lifted his head at the sound of her voice and at her English words. Then she saw that which put out of her mind everything except the man’s misery. The lower part of his face was gone. He had no mouth to speak with, no jaw nor nose. Only his frightful eyes stared up at her in agony.

She bent and Pansiao helped her and they took the man under the shoulders and dragged him to the hot shade of the truck. She laid him down so that at least his head was in the shade and she took a hypodermic from her little case she carried with her and she shot the needle into his arm, and let him clutch her other hand. Then when she felt his hold weaken and saw his blazing eyes grow dim and dull, she put his hand down upon the dry earth and left him. There were others whom perhaps she could save.

… Here was the misery of that day, that while they did their work the great retreat went on. Living and dying, they had to move and move again. She knew that battle was roaring about her, but she gave no heed to it and worked steadily on with her women helping her and the doctor operating in a truck under an awning. Yet even so the order would be cried out over their heads that they must move still farther to the rear. For a battle is not a thing which can be seen whole. It is made of many small movements and many men and women and each is a part of a whole which he cannot see or understand. He must move when the order is cried at him, and he moves in the direction he is told, but why he does not know nor can he ask.

All through that hot day Mayli turned from wounded men to wounded men and new ones were brought continually to die or to struggle on with life. When she grew faint with weariness she looked at Chung and knew that still she must not rest because he did not. He had tied a towel around his head to keep the sweat out of his eyes, but the sweat poured down his cheeks and down his bare arms and it dripped off his fingers as he cut and sliced human flesh and tied veins and arteries and as they followed to bind where he had cut, bandages were wet with the women’s sweat, but who could dry himself in this most pitiless heat? They drank whatever water they saw, and into buckets that were brought from some drying filthy stream Chung poured a bottle or two of stuff and some salt and let them drink. Only with recklessness could life be lived now in the midst of death and when at any moment death might come out of the skies or out of the bush about them, why hold back from water for which they were famished?

Mayli watched her women narrowly to see how they bore the day and they bore it well, or so she thought. Pansiao, whom she had feared for most, bore it best of all. In the midst of all the heat and blood and dead, Pansiao came and went, fetching and carrying this and that, her small face cheerful however hot. Once she came near to Mayli and Mayli saw her smile.

“I keep thinking of tonight,” Pansiao whispered.

She was a child indeed, and Mayli smiled back without speaking. In all this horror Pansiao could think of her own joy tonight. Her little mind had chosen to see no meaning in horror any more. She watched a man die and could feel nothing because she had seen it too often before, and death was part of life for her now. Blood and wounds and stench she let pass by her and she fixed her mind on something of her own. Today it was the thought of her brother, but yesterday it was a bit of sweet stuff she had found in a shop and bought for a penny and the day before that a kitten lost on the roadside. Tomorrow it would be something else.

Siu-chen, the young girl who had been a student in an inland school, and who was an orphan since the attack on Nanking, was crying as she worked. Now and again she lifted her hands all soiled with blood and dirt and wiped her eyes and her face, always ruddy, was splotched with blood not her own. But Mayli did not fear for her so long as she could weep. Nor did she fear for Hsieh-ying who cursed and swore as she lifted the heavy bodies of men to her back and carried them across the battlefield, or took the light ones in her arms like children. Mayli could hear her cursing and swearing to herself as she came and went.

“Oh my mother and my mother’s mother, and look at all this waste of good men! Oh, these devils and may their fathers be turtles and their mothers’ private parts rot away.” Then she screamed, “Why, I know him, this one with his legs gone! Captain!” she cried to Mayli, “he is the man who drove the truck—do you remember? He was such a hearty good man. Come here, my poor one, and let me get you to the doctor—”

Chung shouted at her not to bring him such men as this for how could he put two legs on a body? But Hsieh-ying bawled back at him that though her own mother were cursed she would pick up any man that looked at her with living eyes, were his skin white or black, and did he have legs or not, and the only ones she left were the ones already dead and would she leave this one whom she knew? But the man died as she spoke.

It was a strange thing that in this dreadful day when the enemy did not cease for one moment to harass them from the sky and from the jungles, in their frantic weariness they took time and strength to quarrel together, now Chung and Hsieh-ying and now bitterly any two who must come together as they worked. As often as the enemy weapons burst upon them, so often men’s tempers, or women’s, burst out in too much fear and weariness and heat and hunger. And worse than anything was the pitiless glare of the angry sun that grew steadily more fierce as the day went on.

But so long as they could shout and swear at each other or weep Mayli felt her women safe. Only when they were silent did she keep watch of them, and the two silent ones were An-lan and Chi-ling. These two worked without let all day, and when at late noon a little food was sent around, Chi-ling shook her head and would not eat.

Mayli went to her. “Eat,” she said to Chi-ling, “I command it.”

Chi-ling shook her head. “I cannot,” she said, “even though you command me. I would vomit it up.”

At that Mayli let her alone, and only watched her sharply as she and An-lan worked side by side, for between these two had grown up a sort of friendship, as though in their silence they found comfort.

So the long day drew on, and always more heavily, for by mid-afternoon all knew that the battle was being lost. Defeat was in the smell of the air, in the dust, in the heat. None spoke the word, but all knew, and the mounting of that knowledge swept through them like an evil wind.

The General knew it without waiting for his messengers to tell him. He had led his own men that day, endeavoring with all his heart to clear the road for their retreat. But so evil was the enemy, and so clever in his evil, that whenever a road was cleared in one place it was blocked again in another, and it was this endless blocking that held them constantly in trap. Now the General cursed the foreign machines indeed, for these machines were useless when their engines stopped, and like the heart in a human body, it was the engine which was most delicate and vulnerable in them. Again and again the enemy dragged the dead machines together across a road and made a fort behind them and sprayed the road of retreat with fire.