3father finished his fistcake as he stood on the withered grass, turned blood-red by the settingsun. then he walked gingerly up to the edge of the water. there on the stone bridge across theblack water river the lead truck, its tyres flattened by the barrier of linked rakes, crouched infront of the other three. its railings and fenders were stained by splotches of gore. the upper halfof a japanese soldier was draped over one of the railings, his steel helmet hanging upturned by astrap from his neck. dark blood dripped into it from the tip of his nose. the water sobbed as itflowed down the riverbed. the heavy, dull rays of sunlight were pulverised by tiny ripples on itssurface. autumn insects hidden in the damp mud beneath the water plants set up a mournfulchirping. sorghum in the fields sizzled as it matured. the fires were nearly out in the third andfourth trucks; their blackened hulks crackled and split, adding to the discordant symphony.

father’s attention was riveted by the sight and sound of blood dripping from the japanesesoldier’s nose into the steel helmet, each drop splashing crisply and sending out rings ofconcentric circles in the deepening pool. father had barely passed his fifteenth birthday. the sunhad nearly set on this ninth day of the eighth lunar month of the year 1939, and the dying embersof its rays cast a red pall over the world below. father’s face, turned unusually gaunt by the fiercedaylong battle, was covered by a layer of purplish mud. he squatted down upriver from thecorpse of wang wenyi’s wife and scooped up some water in his hands; the sticky water oozedthrough the cracks between his fingers and dropped noiselessly to the ground. sharp pains rackedhis cracked, swollen lips, and the brackish taste of blood seeped between his teeth and slid downhis throat, moistening the parched membranes. he experienced a satisfying pain, and even thoughthe taste of blood made his stomach churn, he scooped up handful after handful of water,drinking it down until it soaked up the dry, cracked fistcake in his stomach. he stood up straightand took a deep breath of relief.

night was definitely about to fall; the ridge of the sky’s dome was tinged with the final sliverof red. the scorched smell from the burned-out hulks of the trucks had faded. a loud bang madefather jump. he looked up, just in time to see exploded bits of truck tyres settling slowly into theriver like black butterflies, and countless kernels of japanese rice – some black, some white –soaring upward, then raining down on the still surface of the river. as he spun around, his eyessettled on the tiny figure of wang wenyi’s wife lying at the edge of the river, the blood from herwounds staining the water around her. he scrambled to the top of the dike and yelled: ‘dad!’

granddad was standing on the dike, the flesh on his face wasted away by the day’s battle, thebones jutting out beneath his dark, weathered skin. in the dying sunlight father noticed thatgranddad’s short-cropped hair was turning white. with fear in his aching heart, father nudgedhim timidly.

‘dad,’ he said, ‘dad! what’s wrong with you?’

tears were running down granddad’s face. he was sobbing. the japanese machine gun thatdetachment leader leng had so magnanimously left behind sat at his feet like a crouching wolf,its muzzle gaping.

‘say something, dad. eat that fistcake, then drink some water. you’ll die if you don’t eat ordrink.’

granddad’s head drooped until it rested on his chest. he seemed to lack the strength to supportits weight. he knelt at the top of the dike, holding his head in his hands and sobbing. after amoment, or two, he looked up and cried out: ‘douguan, my son! is it all over for us?’

father stared wide- eyed and fearfully at granddad. the glare in his diamondlike pupilsembodied the heroic, unrestrained spirit of grandma, a flicker of hope that shone and lit upgranddad’s heart.

‘dad,’ father said, ‘don’t give up. i’ll work hard on my shooting, like when you shot fish atthe inlet to perfect your seven-plum-blossom skill. then we’ll go settle accounts with that rottenson of a bitch pocky leng!’

granddad sprang to his feet and bellowed three times – half wail, half crazed laughter. a lineof dark-purple blood trickled out of the corner of his mouth.

‘that’s it, son, that’s the way to talk!’

he picked up one of grandma’s fistcakes from the dark earth, bit off a chunk, and swallowedit. cake crumbs and flecks of bubbly blood stuck to his stained teeth. father heard granddad’spainful cries as the dry cake stuck in his throat and saw the rough edges make their way down hisneck.

‘dad,’ father said, ‘go drink some water to soak up the cake in your belly.’

granddad stumbled along the dike to the river’s edge, where he knelt among the water plantsand lapped up the water like a draught animal. when he’d had his fill, he drew his hands backand buried his head in the river, holding it under the water for about half the time it takes tosmoke a pipeful of tobacco. father started getting nervous as he gazed at his dad, frozen like abronze frog at the river’s edge. finally, granddad jerked his dripping head out of the water andgasped for breath. then he walked back up the dike to stand in front of father, whose eyes wereglued to the cascading drops of water. granddad shook his head, sending forty-nine drops, largeand small, flying like so many pearls.

‘douguan,’ he said, ‘come with dad. let’s go see the men.’

granddad staggered down the road, weaving in and out of the sorghum field on the westernedge, father right on his heels. they stepped on broken, twisted stalks of sorghum and spentcartridges that gave off a faint yellow glint. frequently they bent down to look at the bodies oftheir fallen comrades, who lay amid the sorghum, deathly grimaces frozen on their faces.

granddad and father shook them in hope of finding one who was alive; but they were dead, all ofthem. father’s and granddad’s hands were covered with sticky blood. father looked down at twosoldiers on the westernmost edge of the field: one lay with the muzzle of his shotgun in hismouth, the back of his neck a gory mess, like a rotten wasps’ nest; the other lay across a bayonetburied in his chest. when granddad turned them over, father saw that their legs had been brokenand their bellies slit open. granddad sighed as he withdrew the shotgun from the one soldier’smouth and pulled the bayonet from the other’s chest.

father followed granddad across the road, into the sorghum field to the east, which had alsobeen swept by machine-gun fire. they turned over the bodies of more soldiers lying strewnacross the ground. bugler liu was on his knees, bugle in hand, as though he were blowing it:

‘bugler liu!’ granddad called out excitedly. no response. father ran up and nudged him. ‘uncleliu!’ he shouted, as the bugle dropped to the ground. when father looked more closely, hediscovered that the bugler’s face was already as hard as a rock.

in the lightly scarred section of field some few dozen paces from the dike, granddad andfather came upon fang seven, whose guts had spilled out of his belly, and another soldier,named consumptive four, who, after taking a bullet in the leg, had fainted from blood loss.

holding his bloodstained hand above the man’s mouth, granddad detected a faint sign of dry, hotbreath from his nostrils. fang seven had stuffed his own intestines back into his abdomen andcovered the gaping wound with sorghum leaves. he was still conscious. when he spottedgranddad and father, his lips twitched and he said haltingly, ‘commander?.?.?. done for?.?.?. whenyou see my old lady?.?.?. give some money.?.?.?. don’t let her remarry.?.?.?. my brother?.?.?. nosons?.?.?. if she leaves?.?.?. fang family line ended.?.?.?.’ father knew that fang seven had a year-old son, and that there was so much milk in his mother’s gourdlike breasts that he was growingup fair and plump.

‘i’ll carry you back, little brother,’ granddad said.

he bent over and pulled fang seven onto his back. as fang screeched in pain, father saw theleaves fall away and his white, speckled intestines slither out of his belly, releasing a breath offoul hot air. granddad laid him back down on the ground. ‘elder brother,’ fang pleaded, ‘put meout of my misery.?.?.?. don’t torture me.?.?.?. shoot me, please.?.?.?.’

granddad squatted down and held fang seven’s hand. ‘little brother, i can carry you over tosee zhang xinyi, dr zhang. he’ll patch you up.’

‘elder brother?.?.?. do it now.?.?.?. don’t make me suffer.?.?.?. past saving?.?.?.’

granddad squinted into the murky, late-afternoon august sky, in which a dozen or so starsshone brightly, and let out a long howl before turning to father. ‘are there bullets in your gun,douguan?’

‘yes.’

father handed his pistol to granddad, who released the safety catch, took another look into thedarkening sky, and spun the cylinder. ‘rest easy, brother. as long as yu zhan’ao has food to eat,your wife and child will never go hungry.’

fang seven nodded and closed his eyes.

granddad raised the revolver as though he were lifting a huge boulder. the pressure of themoment made him quake.

fang seven’s eyes snapped open. ‘elder brother?.?.?.’

granddad spun his face away, and a burst of flame leaped out of the muzzle, lighting up fangseven’s greenish scalp. the kneeling man shot forward and fell on top of his own exposed guts.

father found it hard to believe that a man’s belly could hold such a pile of intestines.

‘consumptive four, you’d better be on your way, too. then you can get an early start on yournext life and come back to seek revenge on those jap bastards!’ he pumped the last cartridge intothe heart of the dying consumptive four.

though killing had become a way of life for granddad, he dropped his arm to his side and letit hang there like a dead snake; the pistol fell to the ground.

father bent over and picked it up, stuck it into his belt, and tugged on granddad, who stood asthough drunk or paralysed. ‘let’s go home, dad, let’s go home.?.?.?.’

‘home? go home? yes, go home! go home?.?.?.’

father pulled him up onto the dike and began walking awkwardly towards the west. the coldrays of the half-moon on that august 9 evening filled the sky, falling lightly on the backs ofgranddad and father and illuminating the heavy black water river, which was like the great butclumsy chinese race. white eels, thrown into a frenzy by the bloody water, writhed and sparkledon the surface. the blue chill of the water merged with the red warmth of the sorghum borderingthe dikes to form an airy, transparent mist that reminded father of the heavy, spongy fog that hadaccompanied them as they set out for battle that morning. only one day, but it seemed like tenyears. yet it also seemed like the blink of an eye.

father thought back to how his mother had walked him to the edge of the fog-enshroudedvillage. the scene seemed so far away, though it was right there in front of his eyes. he recalledhow difficult the march through the sorghum field had been, how wang wenyi had beenwounded in the ear by a stray bullet, how the fifty or so soldiers had approached the bridgelooking like the droppings of a goat. then there was mute’s razor-sharp sabre knife, the sinistereyes, the jap head sailing through the air, the shrivelled ass of the old jap officer . . . mothersoaring to the top of the dike as though on the wings of a phoenix?.?.?. the fistcakes?.?.?. fistcakesrolling on the ground?.?.?. stalks of sorghum falling all around?.?.?. red sorghum crumpling likefallen heroes.?.?.?.

granddad hoisted father, who was asleep on his feet, onto his back and wrapped his arms –one healthy, the other injured – around father’s legs. the pistol in father’s belt banged againstgranddad’s back, sending sharp pains straight to his heart. it had belonged to the dark, skinny,handsome, and well-educated adjutant ren. granddad was thinking about how this pistol hadended the lives of adjutant ren, fang seven, and consumptive four. he wanted nothing morethan to heave the execrable thing into the black water river. but it was only a thought. bendingover, he shifted his sleeping son higher up on his back, partly to relieve the excruciating pain inhis heart.

all that kept granddad moving was a powerful drive to push on and continue the bitterstruggle against wave after murky wave of obdurate air. in his dazed state he heard a loudclamour rushing towards him like a tidal wave. when he raised his head he spotted a long fierydragon wriggling its way along the top of the dike. his eyes froze, as the image slipped in andout of focus.

when it was blurred he could see the dragon’s fangs and claws as it rode the clouds and sailedthrough the mist, the vigorous motions making its golden scales jangle; wind howled, cloudshissed, lightning flashed, thunder rumbled, the sounds merging to form a masculine wind thatswept across a huddled feminine world.

when it was clear he could see it was ninety-nine torches hoisted above the heads of hundredsof people hastening towards him. the dancing flames lit up the sorghum on both banks of theriver. granddad lifted father down off his back and shook him hard.

‘douguan,’ he shouted in his ear, ‘douguan! wake up! wake up! the villagers are coming forus, they’re coming.?.?.?.’

father heard the hoarseness in granddad’s voice and saw two remarkable tears leap out of hiseyes.