Red Sorghum

had a will of its own. What was at first a clean wound showing nothing more than a gleaming white piece of bone, gruesome and deathlike, soon began to spurt fresh red blood, alternating between gushes and a slow ooze, droplets shining like so many strings of bright cherries. One of the cavalryman’s legs was pinned beneath the horse’s belly, the other was draped over its head, the two forming a large obtuse angle. Father never dreamed that a mighty warhorse and its rider could be brought down so easily.
    Just then Granddad crept out from among the sorghum stalks and called out softly: ‘Douguan.’
    Father got uneasily to his feet and looked at Granddad.
    The Japanese cavalry troops were making another whirlwind pass from deep in the sorghum field, filling the air with a mixture of sounds, from the dull thud of hooves on the spongy black earth to the crisp snapping of sorghum stalks.
    Granddad wrapped his arms around Father and pressed him to the ground as the horses’ broad chests and powerful hooves passed over them; groaning clods of dark earth flew in theirwake, sorghum stalks swayed reluctantly behind them, and golden-red grains were scattered all over the ground, filling the deep prints of horseshoes in the soil.
    The sorghum gradually stopped swaying in the wake of the cavalry charge, so Granddad stood up. Father didn’t realise how forcefully Granddad had pushed him to the ground until he noticed the deep imprints of his knees in the dark soil.
    The Japanese cavalryman wasn’t dead. Shocked into consciousness by excruciating pain, he rested his good arm on the ground and awkwardly shifted the leg resting on the horse’s head back into a riding position. The slightest movement of the dislocated leg, which no longer seemed to belong to him, made him groan in agony. Father watched sweat drip from his forehead and run down his face through the grime of mud and gunpowder residue, exposing streaks of ghostly-pale skin. The horse hadn’t died, either. Its neck was writhing like a python, its eyes fixed on the sky and sun of the unfamiliar Northeast Gaomi Township. Its rider rested for a minute before straining to free his other leg.
    Granddad walked up and yanked the leg free, then lifted him up by the scruff of his neck; his legs were so rubbery the entire weight of his body was supported by Granddad’s grip. As soon as Granddad let go, he crumpled to the ground like a clay doll dunked in water. Granddad picked up the glinting sword and swung it in two arcs – one down and one up – lopping off the heads of a couple of dozen sorghum stalks, whose dry stumps stood erect in the soil.
    Then he stuck the point of the sword up under the man’s handsome, straight, pale nose and said in a controlled voice, ‘Where’s your arrogance now, you Jap bastard?’
    The cavalryman’s shiny black eyes were blinking a mile a minute as a stream of gibberish poured from his mouth. Father knew he was pleading for his life as he reached into his shirt pocket with his trembling good hand and pulled out a clear plastic wallet, which he handed to Granddad as he muttered: ‘
Jiligulu, minluwala
 . . .’
    Father walked up to get a closer look at the plastic wallet, which held a colour photograph of a lovely young womanholding a pudgy infant in her milky-white arms. Peaceful smiles adorned their faces.
    ‘Is this your wife?’ Granddad asked him.
    The man jabbered brokenly.
    ‘Is this your son?’ Granddad asked him.
    Father stuck his head up so close he could see the woman’s sweet smile and the disarmingly innocent look of her child.
    ‘So you think this is all it takes to win me over, you bastard!’ Granddad tossed the wallet into the air, where it sailed like a butterfly in the sunlight before settling slowly, carrying the sun’s rays back with it. He jerked the sword out from under the man’s nose and swung it disdainfully at the falling object; the blade glinted coldly in the sunlight as the wallet twitched in the air and fell in two pieces at their feet.
    Father was immersed in darkness as a cold shudder racked his body. Streaks of red and green flashed before his tightly shut eyes. Heartbroken, he couldn’t bear to open his eyes and see what he knew were the dismembered figures of the lovely woman and her innocent baby.
    The Japanese cavalryman dragged his pain-racked body over to Father, where he grabbed the two halves of the plastic wallet. Blood dripped from the tips of his yellow fingers. As he