Red Sorghum

moistening the parched membranes. He experienced a satisfying pain, and even though the taste of blood made his stomach churn, he scooped up handful after handful of water, drinking it down until it soaked up the dry, cracked fistcake in his stomach. He stood up straight and took a deep breath of relief.
    Night was definitely about to fall; the ridge of the sky’s dome was tinged with the final sliver of red. The scorched smell from the burned-out hulks of the trucks had faded. A loud bang made Father jump. He looked up, just in time to see exploded bits of truck tyres settling slowly into the river like black butterflies, and countless kernels of Japanese rice – some black, some white – soaring upward, then raining down on the still surface of the river. As he spun around, his eyes settled on the tiny figure of Wang Wenyi’s wife lying at the edge of theriver, the blood from her wounds staining the water around her. He scrambled to the top of the dike and yelled: ‘Dad!’
    Granddad was standing on the dike, the flesh on his face wasted away by the day’s battle, the bones jutting out beneath his dark, weathered skin. In the dying sunlight Father noticed that Granddad’s short-cropped hair was turning white. With fear in his aching heart, Father nudged him timidly.
    ‘Dad,’ he said, ‘Dad! What’s wrong with you?’
    Tears were running down Granddad’s face. He was sobbing. The Japanese machine gun that Detachment Leader Leng had so magnanimously left behind sat at his feet like a crouching wolf, its muzzle gaping.
    ‘Say something, Dad. Eat that fistcake, then drink some water. You’ll die if you don’t eat or drink.’
    Granddad’s head drooped until it rested on his chest. He seemed to lack the strength to support its weight. He knelt at the top of the dike, holding his head in his hands and sobbing. After a moment, or two, he looked up and cried out: ‘Douguan, my son! Is it all over for us?’
    Father stared wide-eyed and fearfully at Granddad. The glare in his diamondlike pupils embodied the heroic, unrestrained spirit of Grandma, a flicker of hope that shone and lit up Granddad’s heart.
    ‘Dad,’ Father said, ‘don’t give up. I’ll work hard on my shooting, like when you shot fish at the inlet to perfect your seven-plum-blossom skill. Then we’ll go settle accounts with that rotten son of a bitch Pocky Leng!’
    Granddad sprang to his feet and bellowed three times – half wail, half crazed laughter. A line of dark-purple blood trickled out of the corner of his mouth.
    ‘That’s it, son, that’s the way to talk!’
    He picked up one of Grandma’s fistcakes from the dark earth, bit off a chunk, and swallowed it. Cake crumbs and flecks of bubbly blood stuck to his stained teeth. Father heard Granddad’s painful cries as the dry cake stuck in his throat and saw the rough edges make their way down his neck.
    ‘Dad,’ Father said, ‘go drink some water to soak up the cake in your belly.’
    Granddad stumbled along the dike to the river’s edge, wherehe knelt among the water plants and lapped up the water like a draught animal. When he’d had his fill, he drew his hands back and buried his head in the river, holding it under the water for about half the time it takes to smoke a pipeful of tobacco. Father started getting nervous as he gazed at his dad, frozen like a bronze frog at the river’s edge. Finally, Granddad jerked his dripping head out of the water and gasped for breath. Then he walked back up the dike to stand in front of Father, whose eyes were glued to the cascading drops of water. Granddad shook his head, sending forty-nine drops, large and small, flying like so many pearls.
    ‘Douguan,’ he said, ‘come with Dad. Let’s go see the men.’
    Granddad staggered down the road, weaving in and out of the sorghum field on the western edge, Father right on his heels. They stepped on broken, twisted stalks of sorghum and spent cartridges that gave off a faint yellow glint. Frequently they bent down to look at the bodies of their fallen comrades, who lay amid the sorghum, deathly grimaces frozen on their faces. Granddad and Father shook them in hope of finding one who was alive; but they were dead, all of them. Father’s and Granddad’s hands were covered with sticky blood. Father looked down at two soldiers on the westernmost edge of the field: one lay with the muzzle of his shotgun in his mouth, the back of his neck a gory mess, like a rotten wasps’ nest; the