Red Sorghum

havoc on the nation, he asked how long the men planned to practise their ‘iron’ skills without actually going out to kill the dwarf invaders. Most of the society soldiers were hot-blooded young men whose hatred of the Japanese was in the marrow of their bones, and the silver-tongued Five Troubles spoke like an orator, making them crave action on the battleield, to rage potent as an oil fire. Black Eye had no choice but to agree with him. Granddad took Five Troubles aside. ‘Are you sure your “iron” skills are sufficient to withstand bullets?’ Five Troubles just grinned slyly.
    The Iron Society’s first battle was small, a brief skirmish with the Gao battalion, a unit of Zhang Zhuxi’s puppet regiment. The Iron Society soldiers, who were about to stage a raid on the Xia Family Inn blockhouses, met up with the Gao battalion as it was returning from a raid on grain stores. The two armies stopped and sized each other up. The Gao raiding party, made up of sixty or seventy men in apricot-coloured uniforms, was heavily armed. Canvas cartridge belts were slung across the men’s chests. Intermingled with the troops were dozens of donkeys and mules carrying sacks of grain. The black-clad Iron Society soldiers were armed only with spears, swords, and knives, except for a few dozen with pistols tucked in their belts.
    ‘What unit are you?’ a fat Gao-battalion officer asked from his horse.
    Granddad reached into his belt and, as he drew his pistol, shouted, ‘The one that kills traitors!’ He fired.
    The fat officer tumbled off his horse, his head a bloody gourd.
    ‘Amalai amalai amalai,’ the Iron Society soldiers chanted in unison as they launched a fearsome charge. Frightened donkeys and mules broke and ran. The panicky puppet soldiers tried to escape, but the slower ones were hacked to death by the Iron Society soldiers’ knives and swords. Those who managed to get away began coming to their senses when they’d run about the distance of an arrow’s flight. Quickly forming up ranks, they opened fire –
pipa papa
. But the undaunted Iron Society soldiers, having tasted blood, raised their chant and launched a ferocious charge.
    ‘Spread out!’ Granddad shouted. ‘Crouch!’
    His shouts were drowned out by the sonorous chants of men charging in closed ranks, heads high, chests thrust forward.
    The puppet soldiers fired a salvo of bullets, cutting down more then twenty Iron Society soldiers. Fresh blood sprayed the air as the shrill wails of wounded soldiers swirled around the feet of their surviving comrades.
    The Iron Society soldiers were stunned. Another salvo, and more of them fell.
    ‘Spread out!’ Granddad yelled. ‘Flatten out!’
    Now the puppet soldiers mounted a countercharge. Granddad rolled onto his side and jammed a clip into his pistol. Black Eye raised himself halfway up and bellowed, ‘Get up! Chant! Iron head iron arm iron wall iron barrier iron heart iron spleen iron sheet keep away bullets don’t dare approach iron ancestor riding tiger urgent edict amalai . . .’
    A bullet whizzed over his head, and he hit the ground like a dog scrounging for shit.
    With a sneer, Granddad grabbed the pistol out of Black Eye’s trembling hand and shouted, ‘Douguan!’
    Father rolled over next to him. ‘Here I am, Dad!’
    Granddad handed him Black Eye’s pistol. ‘Hold your breath, and don’t move. Don’t shoot till they’re closer.’
    Then he shouted to his men, ‘If you’ve got a gun, get it ready. Don’t shoot till they’re almost on top of you!’
    The puppet soldiers rushed boldly forward.
    Fifty yards, forty yards, twenty, ten . . . Father could see their yellow teeth.
    Granddad jumped to his feet, guns blazing right and left.Seven of eight puppet soldiers bowed deeply, all the way to the ground. Father and Five Troubles fired with the same degree of accuracy. The puppet soldiers turned tail and ran, offering up their backs as inviting targets. Finding his pistols inadequate for his purposes, Granddad picked up a rifle abandoned by a fleeing soldier and opened fire.
    This minor skirmish established Granddad as the unchallenged leader of the Iron Society. The cruel, unnecessary deaths of so many of its soldiers had laid bare the folly of Black Eye’s sorcery. From then on they shunned the iron-body ceremony that had been forced upon them. Guns? Those were needed. Sorcery and magic couldn’t stop bullets.
    Pretending to be recruits, Granddad and Father joined the