Red Sorghum

including Black Eye, who was struck in the hip. Covering the bleeding wound with his hand, he screamed, ‘Fulai – Fulai –’
    But Fulai, who was about Father’s age, was beyond answering, beyond coming to his aid. The night before, when Father had given Fulai the physician’s green marble, he’d put it in his mouth as though it were a precious gem and rolled it around with his tongue. Now Father saw the marble anchored in the fresh blood flowing from Fulai’s mouth, as green as jade, as green as anything could ever be, emitting a radiance like the legendary fox-spirit that spat out the elixir of life.
    A piece of shrapnel hit the jugular vein of the funeral master, and he fell to the ground, his bronze wine vessel crashing beside him and spilling its contents onto the black earth, where it turned into a light mist. The great canopy tipped to one side, revealing Grandma’s black coffin.
    ‘Fellow villagers,’ came another shout, ‘on your bellies!’ Another salvo of grenades. With his arms wrapped around my father, Granddad hit the ground and rolled into a roadside ditch, where dozens of feet trampled on his injured arm. At least half of the Iron Society soldiers had thrown down their weapons and were fleeing helter-skelter. The rest stood mesmerised, quietly waiting for the grenades to explode. Finally, Granddad spotted a man whose face he knew throwing a grenade. It was the Jiao-Gao regiment! Little Foot Jiang’s men!
    Another salvo of violent explosions. Gunsmoke rolled up and down the roadway, dust flew into the sky, and chunks of shrapnel shrieked in all directions, as people were cut down like harvested grain.
    Granddad drew his pistol, awkwardly, and aimed at the bobbing head of the Jiao-Gao soldier. He squeezed the trigger, and the bullet hit the man right between the eyes, popping his green eyeballs out of their sockets like a pair of moth eggs.
    ‘Charge, comrades, get their weapons!’ someone shouted from the crowd.
    Now that the shock had worn off, Black Eye and his Iron Society soldiers turned their guns on the crowd. Every bullet that left a barrel bit into flesh; every shell passed through atleast one body and either embedded itself in another or gouged a lovely curving scar in the black earth.
    Granddad scanned the faces of the Jiao-Gao troops. They were struggling like drowning men, and the looks of rapacious brutality hit Granddad like a knife in the heart. One after another, he smashed their faces with awesome precision, confident that he hit no innocent bystanders.
    In the village, a bugle sounded the charge, and Granddad saw a hundred or more shouting Jiao-Gao soldiers running towards them, waving rifles, swords, and clubs behind their leader, Little Foot Jiang. In the sorghum field to the south, Five Troubles smacked his dappled horse on the rump and took off at full speed, leading his troops. The Iron Society soldiers reformed ranks on Granddad’s shrill orders and, taking cover behind the cover of funeral flags and memorial tents, fired at Little Foot Jiang’s men.
    Granddad’s Iron Society recruiting exploits had seriously depleted the Jiao-Gao strength; yet the poorly armed soldiers advanced courageously, filled with the spirit of sacrifice, and even as their comrades were cut down by bullets, they charged, brandishing primitive weapons good only for hand-to-hand combat. They came in waves, awesome in their display of defiance as they overran the Iron Society soldiers. As soon as they were within range, the Jiao-Gao soldiers hurled grenades, routing the panicky Iron Society soldiers, who were pursued mercilessly by shrapnel that ripped their flesh.
    As he watched the rout of his soldiers, Five Troubles grew anxious and confused. Angrily, he hacked at the men around him, while his horse bit anyone within range, like a dog. He led his cavalry troops onto the road, only to be met by a salvo of wooden-handled grenades lobbed by the Jiao-Gao regiment. Years later, Granddad and Father would recall the practised way the Jiao-Gao soldiers used their grenades, much as a chess master recalls his defeat at the hands of an inferior opponent who has employed a trick move.
    As they retreated towards the Black Water River that day, Father was hit in the buttocks by a reconditioned bullet from a beat-up old Hanyang rifle fired by a Jiao-Gao soldier. Granddad had never seen a bullet wound quite like it. Since theJiao-Gao regiment was so short of ammunition, they collected their spent