Red Sorghum

wheels spinning. The rice rain continued to fall.
    The Jap machine gun abruptly stopped firing, leaving only carbines to pop off an occasional shot. A dozen or so Japs ran at a crouch past the burning truck, heading north with their weapons. Granddad ordered his men to fire, but few responded. The dike was dotted top and bottom with the bodies of soldiers; wounded men were moaning and wailing in the sorghum field. Granddad fired, sending Japs flying off the bridge. Rifle fire from the western side of the road cut down more of them. Their comrades turned tail and ran. A bullet whizzing over from the southern bank of the river struckGranddad below the right shoulder; as his arm jerked, the pistol fell from his hand to hang by its strap from his neck. He backed into the sorghum field. ‘Douguan,’ he cried out, ‘help me.’ Ripping the sleeve of his shirt, he told Father to take a strip of white cloth from his waistband to bind the wound. That was when Father said, ‘Dad, Mom’s asking for you.’
    ‘Good boy!’ Granddad said. ‘Come help Dad kill every last one of those sons of bitches!’ He reached into his belt, removed the abandoned Browning pistol, and handed it to Father, just as Bugler Liu came crawling up the dike dragging a wounded leg. ‘Shall I blow the bugle, Commander?’
    ‘Blow it!’ Granddad said.
    Kneeling on his good leg, Bugler Liu raised the horn to his lips and sounded it to the heavens; scarlet notes emerged.
    ‘Charge!’
    Granddad’s command was met by shouts from the west side of the road. Holding his pistol in his left hand, he jumped to his feet; bullets whizzed past his cheeks. He hit the ground and rolled back into the sorghum field. A scream of agony rose from the west side of the road, and Father knew that another comrade had been hit.
    Bugler Liu sounded his horn once more; the scarlet blast struck the sorghum tips and set them shaking.
    Granddad grabbed Father’s hand. ‘Follow me, son.’
    Smoke billowed from the trucks on the bridge. Gripping Father’s hand tightly, Granddad darted across the road to the west side; their progress was followed by a hail of bullets. Two soldiers with soot-streaked faces witnessed their approach. ‘Commander,’ they cried through cracked lips, ‘we’re done for!’
    Granddad sat down dejectedly in the sorghum field, and a long time passed before he raised his head again. The Japs held their fire. The crackling of burning trucks was answered by periodic blasts from Bugler Liu’s horn.
    His fear now gone, Father slipped off and moved west, carefully raising his head to peep through some dead weeds. He watched a Japanese soldier emerge from under the still-unburned canopy of the second truck, open the door, and drag out a skinny old Jap in white gloves and black leather ridingboots, a sword on his hip. Hugging the side of the truck, they slipped off the bridge by shinnying down a stanchion. Father raised his Browning, but his hand shook like a leaf, and the old Jap’s ass kept hopping up and down in his sights. He clenched his teeth, closed his eyes, and fired. The Browning roared: the bullet went straight into the water, turning a white eel belly up. The Jap officer dived into the water. ‘Dad,’ Father yelled, ‘an officer!’
    Another explosion went off behind his head, and the old Jap’s skull splintered, releasing a pool of blood on the surface of the water. The second soldier scrambled frantically to the far side of the stanchion.
    Granddad pushed Father to the ground as another hail of Jap bullets swept over them and thudded crazily into the field. ‘Good boy,’ Granddad said. ‘You’re my son, all right!’
    What Father and Granddad didn’t know was that the old Jap they’d just killed was none other than the famous general Nakaoka Jiko.
    Bugler Liu’s horn didn’t let up. The sun, baked red and green by the flames from the trucks, seemed to shrivel.
    ‘Dad,’ Father said, ‘Mom’s asking for you. She wants to see you.’
    ‘Is she still alive?’
    ‘Yes.’
    Father took Granddad by the hand and led him deep into the sorghum field, where Grandma lay, her face stamped with shadows of sorghum stalks and the noble smile she had prepared for Granddad; her face was fairer than ever. Her eyes were open.
    For the first time in his life, Father noticed two trickles of tears slipping down Granddad’s hardened face. Granddad fell to his knees beside Grandma’s body and closed her eyes with his good hand.
    In 1976,