The Last Mandarin Read online

  Yet this superman’s sight of China excited him; he almost shook. This was home. In his mind English faded away and the great Eastern voice rose: the voice of the Middle Kingdom, ancient and musical, the song of pied birds and fat gods, of archers and empresses, of the cardinal points and the eight winds, of moon gates and pagodas, and the same song a dirge for myriad upon myriad of men, women and children whose bones filled the Great Wall, and fertilized whole provinces, and paved riverbeds. The anthem of a land where civil officials of the fifth grade had formerly worn as a badge of rank not a star, thunderbolt, dagger or death’s-head, but a silver pheasant.

  The aircraft banked and swooped. Shanties bloomed below, and fields patchy with snow. Then a wall, a runway, a row of lights mute now at noon, a bump, a squeal. They taxied past the low terminal, crawled among fighters and transports and halted.

  Burnham clambered down the steel ladder and set foot once more in China.

  3

  Toward the end of 1937 the Japanese crushed the worm people along the Yangtze River. They left behind a pale and terrified Shanghai, millions of worm people—and better yet, thousands of paper-colored foreigners—trembling like moths. They swept west, all units—units with names like Nakajima, Hatanaka, Minoura, Inoki, and many more—and raced to the Purple Mountain at Nanking, two hundred miles in one month.

  Their impatience was understandable. They had waited decades. In 1931 they had finally conquered Manchuria (“self-defense,” they said). In 1932 they had invaded Shanghai and withdrawn when asked by the League of Nations (“statesmanship,” they said). Their moment came in July of 1937, when they took advantage of a minor incident outside Peking to vent half a century of frustration: they committed themselves to the conquest of all China, seized Shanghai firmly and started west (Asia for the Asiatics, they called it, and later the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere).

  On the road to Nanking Sublieutenant Kanamori Shoichi made a wager with Sublieutenant Kurusu Kiyoshi: that he would set foot first on the Purple Mountain and piss down on Nanking. Thus soldiers spoke and laughed and swaggered. With Kurusu he made another wager, and soon the whole division spoke of it, and later the Asahi and the Japan Advertiser and the whole world: the winner would be he who first killed one hundred Chinese in combat with the sword. Women and children would not count. For most Japanese officers this was the first campaign offering scope to the sword.

  The Chinese inflicted forty thousand casualties. Between Shanghai and Nanking, knowing themselves vanquished, fighting without transport, wielding kitchen utensils, firing obsolete, pitted and homemade rifles, they still felled forty thousand. A worm would peer over a mud wall, fire one round, and then be disintegrated by Japanese fire. But his one round would have killed or wounded a monkey. Some of the Chinese had been trained by Germans. This was perhaps an irony, but ironies were the way of Asia. German-trained Chinese machine-gunners would form a suicide squad and open heavy fire on a Japanese column or truck convoy. The squad would be wiped out. The Japanese advance was inexorable; why then did the worms resist? The Japanese became less jolly and more angry.

  It is crowded country west of Shanghai, many villaqes along the river and many small farms. The Japanese swept along the river and also overland, through martyred villages and towns and cities called Ch’ang-chou and Tan-yang and Chü-jung. The weather held clear for the most part, though there were days of autumn rain. As the Japanese advanced along the river the screen of rain would part and on the river would be a sampan or a small fishing boat, the fisherman at the sweep. These were fine targets, with the challenge of bad light, haze, rain and only the brief moment. Several shots would sound, and as the soldiers laughed the fisherman would seem to slide down his sweep and into the Yangtze like a fisher of pearls or an ungainly cormorant.

  On 20 November 1937, thirty miles from Nanking, Kanamori killed his first man with the sword. The man was trapped and had no choice. He stood panting and his eyes darted like mice, but he made an effort. Kanamori lunged and feinted left; the man parried like a child. Kanamori lunged and feinted right; the man lurched and hunched. Kanamori leaped forward, shouted “Ima!” (“Now!”) and sliced through the neck. This was Kanamori’s dance, to the left, to the right, and slash; and it became known as Kanamori’s three-step. Afterward he sat to bow his head and pray. He prayed thanks to his father, though his father, who had killed four Russians in one day with the sword during the battle of the River Sha thirty-three years before, was still alive. Until this first killing by sword Kanamori had in truth scarcely felt like a soldier. On the blade near the hilt was his name: Kanamori Shoichi.

  He was a warrior but he was not insensible to the humor of war. A fall day, overcast, and the fields dun, here and there a burnt-out farmhouse, a village leveled, smoking still, the women and children afraid even to beg for their lives. His platoon surrounded six Chinese soldiers obviously cut off and making their way like frogs along an irrigation ditch. “Up, up, up!” cried the Japanese, and the Chinese stumbled up from the ditch—raw young men, farmers and no true fighters—and stood shivering in the dank breeze. Already the Japanese were laughing, and Sergeant Ito called out, “Which one first, Lieutenant?”

  “Let them decide.”

  Ito knew some Chinese; he spoke. (Kanamori’s Chinese was fluent, but his men never learned this.) The Chinese did not understand; that is, they understood the words but not the proposal. Kanamori drew his saber; he slashed the air and thrust.

  The Chinese jabbered. Ito pointed. The shortest of the lot blinked up. His eyes darted and scurried like beetles. “Very well,” Kanamori announced. “We begin with the mouse and proceed by stages to the lion.” His men cheered.

  Ito placed a saber in the little one’s hand. The little one wagged it this way and that. Kanamori cried “Ha!” and placed himself on guard. The little one blinked, and spoke to Ito. Kanamori stepped toward him and raised the saber. The little one only squinted in wonder. Again Kanamori cried “Ha!” The little one raised his sword tentatively. Kanamori touched it once with his own: the proprieties. He lunged and feinted left; his men chorused “Left!” He lunged and feinted right; his men chorused “Right!” He then chopped the little one’s head half off; his men chorused “Ima!” The bones of the neck were obstinate; the little one’s head flopped to one side and lay along his shoulder. Only then did he fall. His knees bent and he hunkered for a moment before the collapse.

  Ito cleaned the saber and passed it to the next man. This one knew that he was to die, and that hope was foolish; he rushed Kanamori. A tough little rat. He rushed and swung for the neck. No time now for the Kanamori three-step. Kanamori ducked and parried in one motion, then brought his sword down across the kidneys. The man screamed, and would not turn; Kanamori walked around him, looked him in the eye and pierced him through. The man seemed relieved, and died upon the blade.

  They searched the bodies. Nothing, a few cash. Ito called out, “This one is a woman!”

  “Curse it!” Kanamori cired. “I cannot count her, then.”

  “We had better use for her,” Ito said.

  Kanamori said to the men, “I owe you a woman. You will remind me in Nanking.”

  And the men cheered: “We shall remind you!”

  The rain quit. The sky cleared. Cold promised. The Japanese swept on, stumbled, took casualties. Between the mountains and Nanking the Chinese stiffened and were stubborn. But the Japanese were wondrous in war. The earth trembled with the weight of them. They assaulted Chü-jung, and Chü-jung fell. Colonel Wakizaka of the 9th Foot honored Kanamori with a message: Prince Asaka himself had heard of the wager with Kurusu, and wished them both luck and glory. Prince Asaka! General Matsui commanded the entire force, General Yanagawa the Tenth Army, Prince Asaka the Shanghai Expeditionary Army. This last was to proceed directly to Nanking. The Tenth under Yanagawa was to take Wuhu first and then join the assault. All this was in accordance with the orders of General Matsui, “The Way of Capturing the Walled City of Nanking.” Kanam
ori read the orders again and again. They were a work of genius.

  He read them prickling, with an acceleration of the blood, as though Nanking were a dragon to be slain. Also in Nanking were foreigners. Westerners, large hairy creatures lacking passion and nobility. They spoke always as if to servants. In Shanghai Kanamori had accompanied his colonel to a social meeting with several British. These British were of an unpleasant sandpaper color. It was soon apparent that their only concern was the interruption of commerce. Only one spoke of the women and children, of the random bombardments, and declined to drink, and turned angrily and left. The others apologized for him. Kanamori could not have said which he disliked more. They had a way of laughing. There were French, too, and Germans, and Americans. Kanamori scorned them all. The Chinese were an inconsequential people, true; killing them was like crushing lice or burning ant hills. Yet they were of Asia.

  Kanamori’s head count was sixty-five and his blade was nicked. A tall Chinese officer had fought back. Kanamori’s men formed the customary circle, and offered this officer the customary sword, of the same length and weight as Kanamori’s though surely inferior in workmanship. The Chinese took up the sword, slashed the air, examined the edge. His behavior was exemplary; he bowed, as did Kanamori. The Chinese offered to remove his helmet if Kanamori would do the same. Kanamori declined, and allowed him to remain covered. This officer’s helmet was little more than a cooking pot; Kanamori laughed aloud. He remembered tales of the Chinese army twenty, even ten, years before, swarming to battle with a teapot and a paper umbrella hanging from the belt.

  But this one fought. He danced and parried. He was larger than Kanamori and heavier, though surely not as strong. His gaze did not falter, nor his wrist tire. Kanamori’s men fell silent. Kanamori panted but maintained a victorious air. The Chinese too huffed and puffed. Kanamori feinted, let his left foot seem to slip; the Chinese leaped and thrust, but Kanamori was already out of range, and as the weight of the sword carried the Chinese through his stroke Kanamori flew at him with the two-handed chop. The saber sliced through the Chinese helmet, skull, neck and some of the breast. It was the finest stroke Kanamori had ever delivered. The thrill of it raced through his arms, and to his heart. Even years later he felt it. But the helmet, or an angry human bone, nicked his blade. In the forging the steel of that blade had been folded double twenty times; a million bondings and more! And yet that nick!

  Nevertheless Kanamori did not omit his prayer of thanks. As if to forgive the nick he uttered thanks to Yamato. There was no sword like a Yamato sword.

  That was number sixty-five. Kurusu was on the right wing and they were too busy fighting, with no time for diversion and gossip. Kanamori would of course believe whatever figure Kurusu reported; Japanese officers did not lie.

  This village was deserted. The Japanese had been cheated. They stormed through every house, even the reed huts. They smashed chairs and pots. Ito and Kyose set fires. In one house they found painted tiles of old men with wispy white beards. They smashed them with rifle butts. The men carried Arisaka 38’s. Kanamori carried the carbine, the type 44. Two men tended a type-99 light machine gun. It was useless half the time, on the march, but in the occasional true skirmish it was invaluable. Supply was always a problem. The trucks and ammunition trains tried to keep pace, and each evening units tried to find them and restock.

  In one hut they heard a cry. All came running, eager and ready. They heard movement then, and waited. Beside Kanamori, Ito hissed and hissed. He was a burly man who carried hissing too far, but Kanamori’s breath too came thin and quick.

  A creature emerged. The men shouted in rage and bafflement, and then all guffawed. It was a pig, a scrawny but brave pig. He charged two steps, then halted, then lunged this way and that. He shrieked. Kyose stalked him in the evening light, a scene from the comic opera, and the men cheered him on as he flung himself upon the animal. Tateno, a former apprentice butcher, cut the pig’s throat. Bleeding copiously, the pig walked a few steps more. He walked calmly, even reflectively, like a skinny old gentleman out to enjoy the sunset, and then fell. Kanamori ordered Tateno to quarter him. They would not stop here; there was still twilight; when they did stop, they would cook pork. Fresh pork! It was little enough. The men’s impatience was noticeable now. A mood was rising day by day.

  Chü-jung was perhaps thirty kilometers from Nanking, and the assault on it offered more scope to conquerors. Here they found food, porcelain, buried silver, men to kill and women to enjoy. Kanamori’s head count reached eighty-nine. He was scrupulous. There were many boys of uncertain age. None below sixteen fell to his sword; those went to his men. Kojima preferred other sport: he released young men and shot them running. Day by day he increased the handicap; at first he caught them quickly, for the efficiency of it, but soon he gave them fifty yards, or a hundred, for the sport of it. The men held impromptu games. They released three at a time, left, center and right, and three would wait for Kanamori’s signal, then fire. Success was not their object. If the three fell simultaneously, the game was won; if one missed, the target was allowed to escape. It seemed fair.

  In Chü-jung they allowed themselves a foretaste of delights to come. The able-bodied men had fled. The Japanese felt justified in believing that they had fled to fight again, and therefore punished the remainder. Old men and old women were shot or bayoneted. Infants and young girls were bayoneted or spared capriciously. Women of a proper age—the definition was generous—were raped. Kanamori’s platoon had only the one night. They took their pleasure for some hours, both doing and watching. Some women screamed and thrashed and had to be clubbed. Others lay like statues. Others wept. They were faceless. Ito claimed that those who resisted gave more pleasure. As if their beans were jumping, the vulgar phrase for a woman seized by sexual excitement. Ito would shout it at them: “Mame wa pinpin desu ka?” and then plunge and rip.

  In the morning they were a tired but happy band. The surviving adults had to be killed, including all those women. They were the enemy. One knife, one hidden pistol, could cost the life of a Japanese soldier.

  It was at Chü-jung that Kanamori felt the first swell of true conquest, of the deep inner meaning of war. There seemed a mysterious connection, a correspondence, among land, sky, houses and people. A village taken was a further patch of sky for Japan. A woman raped was a house burned. Stolen food tasted richer. Degrees and distinctions vanished. What had been Chinese became Japanese, and was thus ennobled. To suck at the Japanese root was for these women all they would ever know of strength and valor, was to rise above the squalid nullity of their swarming insects’ lives. Kanamori and his men shared a vision: the Imperial Armies sweeping west, an eternal invincible cavalry thundering across China as the Mongols had, subduing endless fetches of primitive land, countless villages, rivers, pagodas, shrines, stamping the decayed civilization everywhere with the sharp indelible seal of Japanese might, Japanese style, Japanese will, Japanese vigor, Japanese accomplishment!

  Also, they would be the first to resist absorption, corruption, mongrelization. They would rule, purify. Out of this cesspool, this swamp, a new China, a new Asia!

  Later they heard that the winter crop around Chü-jung had been destroyed, and the spring seed was not sown because there was none to sow, and bodies clogged the streets and alleys for some weeks. The population had been fifteen or twenty thousand. The Japanese boasted that the city had been seventy-two percent destroyed. No one ever knew precisely what this meant. Seventy-two percent of all buildings? of all commerce? of all labor? of all food and water? of all lives?

  4

  Not one to pester customs and immigration, Burnham made his discreet way among the hangars and assorted aircraft. Duffel bag on his shoulder, he proceeded to the main terminal, a low, functional, ugly building, nothing Oriental about it. Inside, he saw Chinese air force officers, unexplained women of style and beauty, maintenance men. In a corner two wiry, ragged porters squatted, puffing alternately on one cigarette. Wooden folding chai
rs stood scattered; he thought of missionary congregations in the open air.

  “Mr. John Ames Burnham, by any fortune?”

  The man was scrawny. Tight features, clean-shaven, a few gray hairs. In a gown he would have been ordinary, but he was wearing a gray sharkskin suit. Burnham noted the white shirt, the dark-blue silk tie knotted by a miniaturist, the waistcoat, the trouser cuffs. Politely he answered in English, “Yes. I’m Burnham.”

  The man bowed a hair’s-breadth. “Welcome. And I am name Inspector Yen of Peking police.”

  “Your fame has preceded you,” Burnham said in Chinese. “Is your esteemed name the Yen of the nine divisions?”

  Yen gaped, then blinked. “No,” he managed. “My unworthy name is the Yen of two fires.”

  “Ah, the Yen of glowing fiercely,” Burnham said, bowing now in his turn and making, he hoped, spaniel’s teeth. “Of yen yen hei hei.”

  “But this is a pleasure. The last one had many orders to give and was deficient in the proprieties.”

  “My deficiencies are those of ignorance, and it is a mean guest who instructs his host.”

  “Those are fine words,” Yen said slyly, “and your appearance is agreeable.”

  Burnham was ready: “‘Fine words and an insinuating countenance are seldom associated with virtue.’”

  “Yü!” Yen was overjoyed. His eyes gleamed. “Now this is a wonder! My life has taken a sharp turn for the better!”

  Burnham went on gravely: “‘The progress of the superior man is upwards; the progress of the mean man is downwards.’”