Red Sorghum

his ankle like a strip of sausage casing. Trickles of black blood oozed from the spot where Granddad had shot him.
    It seemed to Father that both Granddad and Little Foot Jiang were trying to say something, but not a word was spoken. He sighed and turned to gaze out over the broad black plain, shrouded in a milky-white mist.
    More than eighty soldiers from the Jiao-Gao regiment and the Iron Society were tied to trees. One of Granddad’s men was sobbing, and the Jiao-Gao soldier next to him nudged him with his shoulder: ‘Don’t cry, Brother-in-Law. Sooner or later we’ll get our revenge against Zhang Zhuxi!’
    The old Iron Society soldier wiped his filthy face on his filthy clothes. ‘I’m not crying over your sister! She’s dead, and all the tears in the world won’t bring her back. I’m crying for us. You and I are kin from neighbouring villages who saw each other every time we looked up, so how did things turn out like this? I’m crying for your nephew, my son, Silver Ingot. He was only eighteen when he followed me into the Iron Society so he could avenge your sister. But before he tasted revenge your men killed him. He was on his knees, but you bayoneted him anyway! You mean, cold-blooded bastards! Don’t you have sons of your own?’
    The old Iron Society soldier’s tears were burned dry by flames of anger. He roared at the ragged Jiao-Gao soldiers, ‘Swine! You should have been out there fighting the Japanese. Or their yellow puppets! Why did you turn your weapons on the Iron Society! You lousy traitors! You foreign lackeys . . .’
    ‘Don’t go too far, Brother-in-Law,’ the Jiao-Gao soldier cautioned.
    ‘Who are you calling Brother-in-Law? Did you remember you had a brother-in-law when you were throwing your damned grenades at your own nephew?’
    ‘All you see is one side, old man!’ yelled one of the Jiao-Gao officers. ‘If your Iron Society hadn’t kidnapped Little Foot Jiang and demanded a ransom of a hundred rifles, we’d have had no reason to fight you. We needed the weapons to attack the Japanese, to give us a chance on the battlefield, to propel us into the vanguard of the resistance!’
    Father, whose voice was changing, felt compelled to enter the fray: ‘You started it by stealing the guns we’d hidden in the well,’ he said in a raspy squeak. ‘We kidnapped him because you stole the dog pelts we’d hung on the walls to dry!’
    He coughed up a gob of phlegm angrily and tried to spit it in the face of the Jiao-Gao officer, but it missed its mark and landed on the forehead of a tall, slightly hunchbacked Iron Society soldier, who lashed out as though he’d been shot: ‘Douguan, fuck your living mother!’
    The prisoners laughed, even though their aching arms were turning numb from the ropes and their future was clouded.
    But Granddad just sneered and said, ‘What the hell are you arguing about? We’re all a bunch of whipped soldiers.’
    While the sound of Granddad’s words still hung in the air, Little Foot Jiang, his face the colour of ashes, fell to the ground. Blood and pus oozed from his injured foot, which had swollen to the size of a winter melon. The Jiao-Gao soldiers, held back by the ropes around them, could only look helplessly at their unconscious commander.
    Just then the dapper Detachment Leader Leng strode out of his tent to join his men in inspecting the hundreds of rifles and two cases of wooden-handled grenades they’d captured from the Iron Society and the Jiao-Gao regiment. Twirling his whip, he walked smugly towards the prisoners. Father heard the sound of heavy breathing behind him, and he could picture the angry look on Granddad’s face. The corners of Detachment Leader Leng’s mouth curled upward, and the fine wrinkles about his cheeks wriggled like little snakes.
    ‘Have you thought about what I’m going to do with you, Commander Yu?’ he asked with a giggle.
    ‘That’s up to you!’ Granddad replied.
    ‘It would be a waste of a good man to kill him. But if I don’t, you might kidnap me again someday!’
    ‘Killing me won’t close my eyes!’
    With a swift kick, Father sent a road apple flying into Detachment Leader Leng’s chest.
    Leng raised his whip, then let it drop. ‘I hear this little bastard only has one nut. Somebody come over here and cut off the other one! That’ll keep him from biting and kicking!’
    ‘He’s just a boy, Old Leng,’ Granddad said. ‘Whatever you want to do you can do to me.’
    ‘Just a boy?