Red Sorghum

Granddad’s Iron Society soldiers, who were about to surrender, were cut down like sorghum; among them were longtime devil worshippers who had followed Black Eye for a decade and young recruits who had joined because of Granddad’s reputation. Neither their shiny shaved scalps, the raw rice steeped in well water, the iron ancestor riding his tiger, nor the mule hoof, monkey claw, and chicken skull shielded their bodies. The insolent machine-gun bullets streaked through the air to shatter their spines and legs and pierce their chests and bellies. The red blood of the Jiao-Gao soldiers and the green blood of the Iron Society soldiers converged to nourish the black earth of the fields. Years later, that soil would be the most fertile anywhere.
    Having suffered defeat together at the hands of a common foe, the retreating Jiao-Gao regiment and Granddad’s Iron Society were immediately transformed from sworn enemies into loyal allies. The living and the dead were cast together. Little Foot Jiang, wounded in the leg, and Granddad, wounded in the arm, were cast together. As Granddad lay with his head against Little Foot Jiang’s bandaged leg, he noticed that his feet weren’t all that little, but their stink overwhelmed the stench of blood.
    The machine guns opened fire again, their bullets smashing into the roadbed and the sorghum field, where they raised puffs of dust. Jiao-Gao and Iron Society soldiers tried to bore their way under the ground. The topography couldn’t have been worse: nothing but flatland as far as the eye could see – not a blade of grass anywhere – and the blanket of whizzing bullets was like a razor-sharp sword slicing the air; anyone who raised his head was finished.
    Another interval between bursts. Little Foot Jiang shouted, ‘Hand grenades!’
    The machine guns roared again, then fell silent. The Jiao-Gao soldiers hurled at least a dozen grenades over the dike. A mighty explosion was followed by shrieks and cries, and an arm wrapped in fluttering grey cloth sailed through the air. Granddad shouted, ‘It’s Detachment Leader Leng, that son of a bitch Pocky Leng!’
    The Jiao-Gao soldiers lobbed another round of grenades. Shrapnel flew, the water in the river rippled, and a dozen columns of smoke rose from behind the dike. Seven or eight intrepid Jiao-Gao soldiers charged the dike, but they had barely reached the ridge when a burst of fire sent them scrambling back, dead and dying jumbled together, until there was no telling who was who.
    ‘Retreat!’ Little Foot Jiang ordered.
    The Jiao-Gao soldiers lobbed another round of grenades, and at the sound of explosions, the survivors crawled out of the pile of dead and beat a hasty retreat northward, shooting as they ran. Little Foot Jiang, helped to his feet by two of his men, fell in behind them.
    Sensing the danger in retreating, Granddad stayed where he was. He wanted to get out of there, but this wasn’t the time. Some of his Iron Society soldiers joined the retreat, and the others were beginning to get the same idea. ‘Don’t move,’ he said in a low voice.
    Gunsmoke curled up from behind the dike, carrying with it the pitiful cries of wounded men. Then Granddad heard a familiar voice shout: ‘Fire! Machine guns, machine guns!’
    It was Pocky Leng’s voice, all right, and Granddad’s lips curled into a grim smile.
    Granddad, with Father beside him, joined the Iron Society. He shaved his forehead and knelt before the ancestor on his tiger mount. When he saw the mended spot where his bullet had made a hole, he smiled to himself. It was as though it had happened only yesterday. Father also had the front of his scalp shaved. The sight of the ebony razor in Black Eye’s hand chilled him, for he still had dim memories of the fight that had occurred more than ten years earlier. But Black Eye shaved his scalp without incident, then rubbed it with each of the freakishfetishes – the mule hoof, the monkey claw, and so on. The ceremony completed, Father’s body truly felt rigid, as though his flesh and blood had turned to iron.
    Granddad was welcomed enthusiastically by the Iron Society soldiers, who, urged on by Five Troubles, staged a revolt, demanding that Black Eye acknowledge Granddad as his deputy.
    Once the issue of second-in-command was resolved, Five Troubles then worked on their fighting spirit. He said that a thousand days of military training came to fruition in a single moment. Now that the Jap aggressors were wreaking