Gardella 7

7   As she came closer, I could see that she was dressed just like the others, in a mixed-up uniform & a headband.  She was slender as well as short, weighing probably no more than a hundred pounds.  She was also young, &--as became clear at a second glance--very good-looking, with dark eyes, dark shiny hair & unusually prominent cheekbones.  She had a gorgeous smile & she smiled more openly than the others.   Her English was quite good--fluent, even sophisticated, though you'd never mistake it for American speech.  "How are you?" she asked, & when I said "Fine," she said, "You don't look fine."   Now I knew who she looked like.  You have to remember that I was just a kid & not much of a reader.  But I had read the comic strip "Terry & the Pirates," & to me this amazing woman looked just like the Dragon Lady.  When I blurted this out, she asked, looking amused, "Who is the Dragon Lady?"   "You know, in 'Terry & the Pirates.' "  "Who are 'Terry & the Pirates'?"   I must have looked embarrassed, but her smile reassured me.  "Oh, it's a long story," I said, "but there's a Dragon Lady in it & she could be you."   "Dragon Lady, a good name, I like that name."  Then her smile went out.  I was to learn how quickly she changed from one mood to another, but this time I was startled.   "Are anymore of you alive?" she asked.  "This girl is the only one;" I told her, "we had two scouts out, but they haven't come back."  The woman was looking down at Nancy.  "Who is she?" she asked.   "She was helping me escape from the Communists."  I didn't think I should say anything just then about the other group.  "You don't like Communists?" she asked.   "No, I don't."  "I don't like them either," she said sharply, making it sound both angry & businesslike.  Coolly, she asked, "Where are the others?"   "Dead," I answered, still wary.  "No, I mean the others."   I still hesitated.  "Who are you?" I asked.  "Where do you come from?"  She smiled again.  "From these mountains.  They are my home, they are my mountains."   Since she hadn't said what her name was, I asked, "Is it all right if I call you Dragon Lady?"  She appeared to think for an instant, then nodded briskly.  "All right.  Dragon Lady."  Looking me up & down, she noticed my leg.  "Are you hurt?"   "It's all right."  Actually the leg was hurting a good deal, but the bleeding seemed to have stopped.  "We'll fix it."  She spoke to a couple of men who sat me down & put a kind of cream on my leg, making it feel moist & cool, & covered it with a bandage.  "It will be better," she said.  "Now tell me where you are going."   Again I tried to dodge her question with another question of my own.  "How did you get here?"  This time she laughed out loud.  "I told you, these are my mountains."   "How did you know we were here?"  "We saw you coming over the mountain.  Then we saw the Communists attack you."   I would have liked to ask why they hadn't tried to warn us, but I didn't dare.  I was, I must admit, a little in awe of this woman.   Then I was distracted by the smell of meat cooking somewhere.  "That smells good," I said.  She shouted an order, & in a few minutes someone brought me a plateful of meat.  It might have been horse, buffalo or snake for all I knew, but it was delicious.  I carried the plate over to Nancy.  She was lying on her stretcher with her eyes open, & she smiled.   "Want some food?"  I pointed to the plate, & she nodded.  I tore off a few tiny pieces, propped her head up & fed them to her.  She ate slowly, but between us we had soon finished everything on the plate.  After that, a man brought a kettle full of hot water which I used to rinse the bandages on Nancy's hip & the wound itself.  It didn't look red or infected.  When I'd retied the bandages, I took off my shirt, wrung it out & bathed myself.  By the time I put the shirt back on, several of the Dragon Lady's men were laying out the bodies.  I went over & found Damon & White lying side by side.  They both looked so terribly pale, these two fellow marines whom I'd never really gotten to know, even though I'd been with them now for something like three weeks. The lieutenant must have been in great pain during that time, but he'd never complained.  Much of the time he'd been unconscious- -thank God for that.  I'd never found out why he'd taken on this mission, or whether he'd been hooked up in any way with Roberts & the other civilian.  He'd seemed a decent guy, not a sadist like Roberts.  White had been closer to my own age, & less of a riddle.  We'd at least had a few laughs together.   When I bent down & went through their pockets for identification, I found nothing except the little pills in their plastic cases.  They were now just two corpses, several thousand miles from home, with nothing on them to tell the history of how they'd lived & died.   "We must bury them now, soldier."  The Dragon Lady's voice made me jump.   I objected.  "There's nothing here but rocks."  "We shall cover them with rocks, we must do it."   I could feel tears rising, & I turned away, embarrassed to be crying in front of this tiny woman.  But here were these two men about to be covered with rocks--no coffin, nothing to mark their burial places, no word to their families.  I turned away trying not to shake.  But of course she knew I was upset.  & now her voice sounded soft.  "It's all right.  We will take care of it, soldier."   Marines don't use the word soldier, & I wanted her to know that.  "I'm not a soldier," I said.  "I watched you," she answered, "I saw how you were ready to die."   "Why did you wait the way you did, & then help us?"  "We cannot help everyone," she said.  "We cannot fight all the time.  There are too many Communists & not enough of us.  So we are careful.  But we believed we should not let you die."  Someone called to her & she answered & was gone.   I walked over to look at the other bodies:  Sam One & Sam Two, both brave men, & Harry, whom I'd just me.  How very easy it was to imagine my own body lying beside them!   I heard a commotion, turned & saw why the Dragon Lady had been called away.  About twenty captured Communist soldiers had been led into the area, & were now being herded into a circle.  The Dragon Lady walked around them & pointed to one who seemed from his uniform to be an officer.  She pointed to the rock wall where I had come so near to dying, & the rest of the captives were led there & lined up against it.  They all looked petrified with fear.  Several dropped to their knees.  Now while I looked on in disbelief & horror, the Dragon Lady walked to one of her men, took his machine gun & calmly opened fire on the captives.  When she had emptied the clip of ammunition, she borrowed a second gun & emptied it.  With a third gun she walked up to the corpses & put a burst of fire into each one.   Her face could have been a mask.  Handing the last gun to someone, she approached the officer, now the only survivor.  His hands were tied & he had been pushed to his knees, where he huddled with his head bent over.  One of the Dragon Lady's men handed her a thick-bladed sword like a machete.  She walked up to the officer from behind, lifted the sword into the air & brought it whistling down, severing the man's neck with one blow.   I had to turn away.  When I looked back, her men had made a tripod of three captured rifles, & were putting the head on it.  Others were dragging the corpses of the Communists & arranging them around the tripod as though they were spokes in a wheel.  The Dragon Lady saw me flinch, & walked over.  "You don't like this?"   I shrugged.  "It's not up to me.  I guess you have to do it."  "You are a good soldier."   "I told you I'm not a soldier."  Somehow I couldn't quite explain about being a marine.  "You don't like being called that?"   "No, I don't."  "Then I call you...," she hesitated, "I call you Khan."   "Khan?  What does it mean?"  "Khan is Prince of Princes, someone who deserves respect, a leader."   "I'm not a leader."  She said, smiling, "I watched you.  You are."  Then came one of her lightning changes.  "I think we may be traveling in the same direction, & you can go with us."   I didn't know what to say because I still wasn't sure whose side she was on.  I wondered whether I should lead her right to Scotty's group--if there still was any such group by now.  "Which way are you going?" she asked.   I finally concluded, what the hell, if it hadn't been for her I'd be lying over there on the ground right now.  "This valley is supposed to lead to a fork, where we will meet some others."  She nodded.  "I know where that is.  We will take you."   She motioned to two of her men who picked up Nancy's stretcher.  As we moved out, I couldn't help feeling that someone up there must be looking after me.  I would have hated to be here with a wounded girl on a stretcher without the Dragon Lady.  I thought of the way she'd shot all those soldiers, & of the officer she had decapitated.  I supposed she had done that to remind her men of who was in charge; to kill that way took a strong stomach.   I asked, "How long will it take to get to the fork?"  "We will arrive late tonight."   "Thanks--Dragon Lady," I said.  & then, "I keep wondering, Dragon Lady, how old you are."  "Very old," she said--though of course she wasn't.  "Very old & wise."   "You're all so young, you--" I started to say girls, but stopped myself--"you ladies.  My friend Nancy, on the stretcher there, is only sixteen."  By way of reply she called out something in Chinese.  In a few moments two Chinese girls came running up to us.  "This one, Lee, is only fourteen.  & this one, Sue, is fifteen."  They looked no more than twelve--but they were both carrying rifles.    "They're so young to be fighting," I said.  The Dragon Lady replied, "The village they come from was wiped out by the Communists.  They were almost the only ones to escape.  After that they joined us."   I started to say something about the Nationalists, & she looked at me sternly.  Then she was silent for so long that I wondered what I'd said that was wrong.  "The Nationalists cannot win," she said finally, "they cannot handle the country, they waste many lives."   "But you're not a Communist--" I began, & this time I was sure I had said something wrong.  "No, & I am not Nationalist. "  After that she said nothing for so long that I decided to drop back with Nancy & her stretcher-bearers who had fallen behind us.  The two girls, Sue & Lee, were walking alongside her.   "These my friends," Nancy said to me.  I smiled to see her looking so much better.  "How is your wound?" I asked.   "Much better.  They put leaves on it."  She gestured toward the stretcher-bearers.  I smiled at her again, reaching down to squeeze her hand, & walked beside her for a while.  Then I heard the sound of planes.  The Dragon Lady was about fifteen yards ahead.  "I hear them," she told me before I could say anything.   "What do we do?"  "We keep going."   "Suppose they spot us?"  "They won't see us.  They are jets; they are too high & too fast.  The canyons are deep & narrow."   "What do you suppose they're looking for?"  I asked her.  "You.  Many soldiers are looking for you too because of what you did."   "What do you mean?"  "At the reservoir.  We were near.  We followed you & we saw some of the fighting."   Again, they'd been there & had done nothing!  Taking a chance, I said, "We sure could have used some help."  A fierce expression came over her face.  "I have my own people to care for & we do not fight unless we have to.  To try to save you there might have cost us more lives than all of you."  Then her face softened.  "But I saw that you Americans were good fighters."   I had not said anything about being American but had wondered if she knew that I was.  Now I shrugged & changed the subject.  "So you'd been with us a long time.  I thought you said you picked us up when we climbed that mountain."  "We saw you at the reservoir.  Then we moved away, & then we saw you again as you came over the mountain."   "& we didn't see you at all."  "Oh no, we know how to follow you so you can't see us."   I had never heard anyone more sure of herself & of what she knew.  So I asked, "Are the Communist soldiers following us?"  "Oh yes, they are very close.  That must be the reason why your group broke into two parts, I think."   I didn't want to agree.  Instead, I asked another question:  "Were those the same Communist troops who hit us just now?"  "No.  The ones we destroyed were from another division.  There are many troops around here.  That's why we have to keep moving."   "So the ones who were following us are still following."  "Oh yes."   Again, as if it had been timed, came the drone of planes.  This time I could see them flying at perhaps four thousand feet.  I took the Dragon Lady's word for it that they couldn't spot us, & kept moving.   About an hour later she signaled a stop.  "We rest here for a while," she said.  "We eat & you will get to take a real bath--a swim."   We pulled in near the canyon wall.  Among the rocks I saw several pools of water.  I walked over to one & put my hand in; it had been pleasantly warmed by the sun.  I thought of my last "swim" in training with machine-gun bullets whizzing overhead.  What day had that been?  Exactly a week had passed since we were dropped into Manchuria.  For the two weeks before that we'd been in training, with that daily exercise in the water.  Could it have been only three weeks ago that I'd been given the choice of "volunteering" or being discharged for not mentioning my asthma?  My God, I thought--the blood, the death since that day!  Three weeks ago who could have dreamed I'd be meeting Scotty, & now this woman?  With people I hadn't even known then--Damon, White, Sams One & Two--it was as though I'd already been through a lifetime & had seen them die!   "You take off your clothes & swim," said the Dragon Lady.  "Then I shall bring you clean clothes."   I stood there waiting for her to walk away.  Finally I said, feeling awkward, "You must have a lot of work to do."  "First give me your clothes."   I didn't know what to do except plunge in with my clothes on.  The pool was small, maybe ten feet across & four feet deep.  A couple of strokes took me to the far side where I sat down on the edge.  The Dragon Lady went on standing where she was, laughing.  "Now give me your clothes," she said.   "First bring me the new ones."  I saw Nancy being helped to the pool by the two girls Lee & Sue; I turned around quickly when they began taking her clothes off, & the others started to laugh.  After a few moments Nancy said, "It's all right, Ricky, you can turn around now."   I did, & saw her sitting down in the water, with only her head above it, while the other two held onto her.  Taking off my shirt & pants, I threw them to the nearest rock, keeping on the underwear I'd been issued in training--something that was a cross between a loincloth & a diaper.  I stayed under the water, hearing laughter from the others, until one of the Dragon Lady's men came running up, & what he said brought on another of those sudden changes of mood.  The laughter stopped & she hurried off.  In a moment a man brought me some clothes & told me to hurry.  When I asked him why, he said "Hurry" again as though it was the only English word he knew.  I had started after him when I remembered something.  Running over to where my old rags were & reaching into the pocket of the pants, I found my little pill in its tight plastic container & transferred it to the pocket of the new ones.  I spotted Nancy limping along, helped by Sue & Lee, & yelled at her, "Get on your stretcher!"   "This is good," she said.  "But you may break that wound open!"   The girls propped her into a sitting position on the stretcher, & I moved on past them to find the Dragon Lady.  She told me there were Communist soldiers not far ahead of us.  I asked what she was going to do, & she replied, "I am thinking about it.  I don't like to go around.  We'll see how many there are."   People kept running up to her, shouting, & then running off again.  The stretcher-bearers brought Nancy up near me.  "They talk about fighting," she explained, "she tells them what to do."   Now the Dragon Lady herself came back to speak to us.  "You will not come with us, this is not your fight.  I shall leave some men here with you."   I had had enough fighting for the moment & wasn't inclined to argue.  I asked, "How far away are the Communists?"  "You see that ridge?"  She pointed.  "They are just on the other side."  She shouted more orders, & four men came up to join us.  They nodded & smiled as, with barely a look behind, the Dragon Lady moved away toward her troops.  The men began talking to Nancy, who translated for me.  "They say they take us to safer place."  "Where?"   "Higher on mountain.  They say we have more protection there, can see down below, where is fighting."    The men lifted the stretcher & began moving up the mountain.  After a few hundred yards they stopped among some huge boulders & one of them handed me a pair of binoculars.  Nancy explained, "They are gift from the Dragon Lady to you."    I was going to have Nancy tell them to thank her.  Then I thought I would thank her myself, & realized that I might never see her again.  It was as though we were living in another century, in this place where killing & getting killed were everyday occurrences that everyone accepted.   Using the binoculars I spotted the soldiers.  "My God," I said to Nancy.  "There must be a couple of hundred of them!"   For half an hour we waited with no new developments, until the Dragon Lady's fighters opened up.  They'd gotten within fifty feet of the Communists before firing.  I could see the Dragon Lady & her people moving out across open ground, with no protection, while the Communists stayed hidden among the rocks.  Then before the Dragon Lady & her force could see them, I spotted four tanks coming from a trail that ran along the canyon, all firing regularly.  The Dragon Lady's people in the hills began dropping mortar shells among the Communists, but they did not have the range of the tanks.  I was certain now that she would be killed.   Finally a mortar stopped one of the tanks, but there were still the other three.  I couldn't stand to watch.  Turning to one of our bodyguards I barked, "Machine gun!  Give me machine gun!"  He didn't understand, so I turned to Nancy:  "Tell him--" she was already explaining.  In a moment he had handed me his weapon & I was sliding down the mountain, mostly on my butt, feeling the raspberries form on my skin as I went toward the three tanks.  The men in them wouldn't be expecting anything from the rear.  Near the bottom I almost tripped over the bodies of two of the Dragon Lady's men.  Seeing that one of them still had four or five hand grenades hooked to his belt, I stopped to grab them.  As the last of the tanks moved slowly by, I ran toward it, climbed up the back & pulled the pin from a grenade.  I tossed it into the open turret, jumped & headed for cover.   There was a loud boom behind me & the third tank stopped dead.  I'd had the advantage of surprise, & once the grenade went off, the men inside would have been crushed like chunks of meat in a grinder.  When I saw, to my amazement, that the two other tanks hadn't even paused, I went for the second one.  Scrambling up onto it, I saw the turret was closed.  After puzzling for an instant over what to do, I pounded on the top of the hatch.  & damned if the thing didn't open!  I flipped the grenade in & then headed for the lead tank.  But this time I was out on open ground, & in an instant the tank commander had popped his head up & spotted me while I headed for the nearest cover, which happened to be the tank I'd just stopped.  Looking back to see how far away the moving tank was, I saw two of the Dragon Lady's men already on top of it.  They dropped their grenades, leaped, & then came the explosion.   Heavy gunfire was now coming from the hills above me.  Diving for cover I looked back & saw what looked like hundreds of the Dragon Lady's men swooping down on the Communist position.  It was only then that I realized what her tactics were:  she had brought her attack force out into the open, risking all those lives including her own to get the Communists to commit themselves.  She now had them trapped between her attack force & the reserves in the hills.   I could see they didn't need me anymore--if they ever had!--& I made my way up to Nancy who asked, "Are you hurt?"  I'd forgotten about the raspberries on my rear & on the backs of my legs--until just then when I tried to sit down.  But I answered that I was all right.   Then the Dragon Lady came striding up & stood there looking at me.  "You see, you fought like a Khan."   "You fooled me," I told her, "I didn't know you had that reserve force."  "We had to draw them out.  In a battle you have to expect to lose some people.  If you do not understand that, you eventually lose very many.  But the tanks were a surprise.  My scouts did not see them.  We took care of them--with your help, Khan."   I was embarrassed but before I could begin to blush the Dragon Lady said, with one of her sudden shifts of mood, "We have much to do," & began issuing orders.  The bodyguards picked up Nancy's stretcher & we moved toward the main body of the Dragon Lady's force.  Nancy wanted to walk, but one look from the leader kept her from leaving the stretcher.   We went by the shambles left by the fight, passing more corpses.  I had seen many by now but hadn't gotten used to them.  Soon we were making our way along a series of narrow passageways in the canyon walls.  I was about twenty yards behind the Dragon Lady, & I kept thinking how smart, beautiful & feminine she was, as well as a warrior, leader & strategist.  Tough as steel, she could march with the strongest man, she could execute prisoners in cold blood & then sit & laugh like a girl while I tried to take a bath.  & here I was, walking with that long shiny hair, those slim shoulders & boyish hips right before my eyes.   After about an hour of walking, we came to a low valley.  A sickening sight was waiting:  bodies, many of them hacked to pieces, lay everywhere.   When I asked what had happened, the Dragon Lady said nothing.  Then I could see for myself that these were not the bodies of soldiers.  They were civilians, village people.  The men had had limbs hacked off.  Many of the women had been staked to the ground, spread-eagled & obviously raped.   It was all I could do not to spill my guts.  When I saw the children, I couldn't look any more.  I dropped to my knees & started to vomit.  They had been tied in bundles & used for target practice.  When I saw the Dragon Lady, her face was expressionless.  "Why?" I asked her.  "Who did this?"  "Probably the Communists," she answered.  "Probably it happened this morning just before we met them."   "But why these innocent people--those children, little babies?"  The Dragon Lady touched me on the shoulder.  "They were not on either side.  The authorities destroy them to frighten other villages, to say, 'If you do not join our side, you see--this is what happens.' "   Men & women were burying the bodies & I knew they needed help, but I also knew I couldn't do anything.  I saw that Nancy had been crying & in a way I was glad.  At least I wasn't the only one who was so badly shaken.  I took her hand & she gave mine a squeeze.  I squeezed hers back & she started to cry again.   We stood there until the Dragon Lady came up to us & said, "We go now."  We traveled for three hours & then stopped for the night on a high ridge.  I hadn't eaten since morning but I had no appetite after what I'd seen.  I lay down with Nancy beside me, neither of us saying anything, & looked off through the clear night at the hills in the distance.  After a while the Dragon Lady walked up & sat with us.  Seeing how shaky I still was, she said, "You must get your mind under control.  You must not be weak.  Weakness will destroy you."   I raised my head to look at her.  "I've been here for about a week," I said, "& I can hardly believe all the things I've seen & that I've done.  Nobody in the world would believe me if I told them."  She said again, "You must practice controlling your thoughts."   Nancy, who'd been lying there silently, suddenly said, "Look!" & pointed to the sky.  "A star, going very fast."  "We call it a shooting star," I told her.  "You should make a wish."  Nancy seemed mystified until I explained, "Where I come from, people believe that if you make a wish when you see a shooting star, it will come true."   Suddenly she sounded like any girl anywhere.  "I wish--"  "You mustn't tell," I said, "or it won't come true."   When I looked down at Nancy a little later, I saw that she had fallen asleep.  "It is good that she sleeps," the Dragon Lady said, "you should sleep also."   "But my mind keeps racing," I told her, "& I can't."  "First you should close your eyes & think of nothing.  Then think of something that is good, & you will sleep."   "The only thing that's been good about all this is the people I've been with," I said. "Then think of that.  Learn to wipe the bad thoughts from your mind.  Then you will be in control & you will be strong."   I put my head down on my hands, closed my eyes & tried to follow her advice.  It must have worked; at any rate the next thing I knew the Dragon Lady was shaking me awake.  She gave me one of her smiles & then she said, "We must go."   I shoved some dried rice into my mouth.  It had been hard to take at first.  Back then I guess I hadn't been hungry enough.  But by now I was used to it; it's what I had for breakfast & most other meals as well.    We hit the trail still carrying Nancy on a stretcher, though by now she was more & more eager to walk on her own.  The path went uphill & downhill until I wondered once again whether these mountains would ever end.  We didn't stop for a rest until three or four hours later, when there was a change of point men, & the ones who were being replaced came to report to the Dragon Lady.  After talking with them she came over to Nancy & me.  "We are three hours away from the fork," she said.  "We have not yet spotted your men, but we have seen a Communist force.  We are watching them, but we have to be careful."   The trail here was even rockier than it had been.  We had gone down into a valley when two scouts came running, & I began to hear what sounded like firecrackers in the distance.  The Dragon Lady told me in a moment that the Communist advance guard had made contact with my friends, but that the main force was still two hours behind.   Soon we climbed to the top of a ridge where it appeared to me from the location of the firing that the Communists had Scotty's group pinned down.  I was ready to go & shouted to the Dragon Lady that we had to do something.  "We wait," she said.   This time I was loaded with grenades & clips & had my own machine gun slung over my shoulder.  I yelled, "I'm not waiting for anything!" & went storming down the slope as fast as I could go on that trail.  I knew that by moving a bit to my left it might be possible to surprise part of that Communist force from the rear.  It was a foolhardy notion but I was in no mood to stop & weigh my chances.   The noise of firing made it possible to get within a hundred yards of the Communists without being seen.  Four men had their backs toward me.  I hit one of them with a burst that blowled him over, then fired at the others as they turned.  Now of course the advantage of surprise was gone.  Before I could decide on my next move I heard firing from behind me & off to both sides.  When I looked around, fearful of being surrounded, I saw the Dragon Lady & her troops.  Whatever it was that had made her change her mind so quickly I can't be sure.  Had she been waiting to see how brave I would be?  Had she planned to be right behind me all the time?  anyhow, it was a relief to see her there; we now had a fullscale attack in progress on the enemy rear.   At the moment I was not planning tactics.  My blood was up, I was in a kind of animal rage.  I remember pulling the pin on a grenade & toosing it, & at the same time charging downhill so fast that I got caught in the explosion I'd set off.  In fact it knocked me off my feet & left me momentarily dazed.  Then I was firing again & I went on until my clip was emptied.  As I was looking for a safe spot to change clips, two Communist soldiers stepped out from behind a boulder about three yards from me.  Once again I'm sure it was surprise that saved me.  If they hadn't been just as startled as I was they could have cut me down.  In the second while they froze I threw my gun at them.  It hit one of them square while the other ducked a little.  Then I was simply charging into them.  I weighed 190 or 195 pounds, or maybe a little less just then because of my new diet, as compared to their 120 or 130; so for them it was a little like a small American boy being hit by a pro football tackle.  I grabbed the knife from my belt & drove it into the neck of one man just above the collarbone, pulled it out & went for the neck of the other.  Then I was on my feet, grabbing one of their guns, firing until it was empty & lofting it in a high arc toward where I thought the Communists were.   I felt a hand on my arm & saw one of the Dragon Lady's men.  The fighting had stopped & I didn't even know it.  My clothes were drenched with my own sweat & splashed with other people's blood.  For the next few minutes I was still too dazed to be quite sure what was happening.   Gunny & Scotty had been there talking to me but I have no recollection of what anybody was saying, & I'd made no move to hug them or show any sign of welcome.  I remember seeing Charlie smile at me & I remember Gunny putting his hand on my shoulder.  Then the Dragon Lady was saying, "The main force is not far.  They are coming quickly.  You people had better go."   Gunny was saying, "We've got a lot to thank you for," & she was answering, "Don't thank me, thank Khan."   All at once things came together & I was out of the fog.  "Khan!" I said, "that's me, you dumb bastard!"  Gunny grinned & grabbed me & then Scotty came over & grabbed me too.  & Charlie.  I looked around for Holden & Craig.  "When are the others getting here?" I asked.  Scotty had stopped smiling.  "I have some bad news, Rick."   "Bad news," I said, dreading what I would have to hear.  Holden killed, & Craig.  & Sally.  Scotty ended, "& most of my people."   Now I felt myself coming apart--until I looked at the Dragon Lady & felt her staring straight into my eyes.  I tried to make my mind a blank, but then Gunny asked, "What about the rest of your group?"    I told him that Nancy & I were the only ones left.  "The lieutenant, White, Same One & Two, Harry, Joe, they all got it."  I looked over at the Dragon Lady.  "& if it hadn't been for her we wouldn't be here either.  I had my knife at Nancy's throat & the little white pill in my hand when they came along."   Scotty was eyeing her in a very cautious way & she was looking at him in the same manner.  "Do you two know each other?" I said, jumping in as only a kid can.  "Scotty, you know the Dragon Lady?"  It was Scotty's turn to be puzzled.  "Where did that name come from?"   "It's the name I gave her, from 'Terry & the Pirates.' "  "I don't know who Terry & the Pirates are," he said, "but it's a good name all right."   "Are you two really on different sides?" I asked.  Each looked guardedly at the other, waiting, until finally Scotty spoke.  "We follow different paths.  Once we tried to get her & her people to join us but they wouldn't do it."   The Dragon Lady said simply, "We must be leaving.  We must say good-bye."   "Where are you going?" I asked, feeling still more shaken.  "Up there."  She gestured toward the mountains.   I was realizing for the first time how dependent I'd become.  I'd felt safe with her & her people.  "Why don't you come with us?" I said.  She hesitated.  "One moment, please," she said, & walked off to confer with three of her men.   His eyes were still on her as Scotty told me, "Lad, you could not have found a better person to help you out of trouble in these mountains."  "Her people saved my life," I said.  "They're not bandits, are they?"  "No, lad, they just don't want to choose sides, the way we have chosen ours."   After a couple of minutes the Dragon Lady beckoned to Scotty & he sat down cross-legged on the ground next to her for what seemed a long time, but might have been five minutes.  At one point I saw him look toward Gunny & me.  Finally he signaled to us & to Charlie.  "She says she will go with us," he said.  "But there cannot be two leaders.  She says she should lead us because she knows the mountains better than I do.  &--"   "Wait a minute," Gunny interrupted.  "You led us all the way.  We can't change that now."  But Scotty held up his hand.  "As I was about to say, I agree with her.  She does know the mountains better than I do."   Gunny looked toward me.  Not wanting to offend Scotty, I said, "She's very smart, she seems to know her way around & I respect her."  Gunny still didn't seem crazy about the idea.  "But where's she going to lead us?"   "Get ready for this, lads," Scotty said, "I have a wee surprise for you."  I told him, "I'd like to know what the hell could surprise us now."   "She & I have been going over our plans.  Port Arthur is our destination, but it seems to me we cannot head toward it directly because the Communists are looking for us & will be expecting us to go that way.  I haven't been able to make contact with people who would help us, so we have to go in another direction.  That is why I agree with her plan.  It is also why I think she should be the leader.  Are there any objections?"   Clearly any objection now would be from Gunny.  I stared at him & waited.  He looked unhappy but he kept quiet.  "It is settled, then," Scotty said, turning to the Dragon Lady.  "You are the leader."   She was instantly on her feet.  "Excuse me, please," she said, & then whipped around & began to call out orders.  In a few seconds six of her men had taken off.  Her unquestioned authority still amazed me & I turned to Scotty to ask, "What in the world did she say to them?"   "She has sent them on ahead to the Great Wall to find a place where we can cross.  Once they find it, they'll backtrack & rejoin us."  Mystified by everything, I heard her explain that we would begin by going west to the Changchun.  She described this as an open area of low hills & valleys, more fertile than the country we'd been traveling in.  We would see trees & fields of wheat.  But there would not be the same protection that the mountains had given us.     "Oh great!" Gunny broke in.  "So we go off in the opposite direction from where we're heading--& lose our cover to boot."  "& if we do not go in my direction," the Dragon Lady said, with a slashing motion across her own throat, "perhaps we lose our heads."   Gunny hadn't thought she knew enough English to pick up what he'd said & answer it like that.  Now for the first time he actually nodded & said, "Okay, she wins."  "We have to reach the Khinghan Mountains," she went on.  "They're west of here, in Inner Mongolia near the Russian border."  "The Russian border?" I said.  "I don't want to go there!"   "Not into Russia," Scotty explained.  "We'd be going west because that is the one direction they would not expect you people to go."  "& so what do we do when we get there?"   "We cross the plain of Changchun, then the Liao River.  We stay on the north side of Chihfeng & we go into the Khinghan Mountains, then we turn & head south to the Great Wall, which we cross between Kalgan & Changteh.  We stay west of Peking & head toward Chengting.  We stay west of that too, pass it, turn east & go to Laichow Bay.  There we try to get a boat to go to Weihai, which is about two hundred miles from Seoul in Korea."   All this left me in something close to a state of shock & Gunny looked to be in the same condition.  "It's going to be a long trip, lads," Scotty said.   "It's already been a long trip," Gunny said.     "But not compared with what's ahead."   The Dragon Lady now said, "Across the Changchun plain is three hundred miles.  The entire trip might be a thousand miles, but it is probably less."  "A thousand miles--on foot!" Gunny exclaimed.  But the Dragon Lady only shrugged.  "Well," I said finally, "maybe we'll get to see some Cossacks over there."   Scotty laughed.  "No, no Cossacks but you may be seeing Mongolians, & they live about the way they did when Marco Polo went to China."  "No kidding," I said.  Gunny said nothing but he didn't look thrilled.   "We cannot wait," the Dragon Lady told us now.  "The Communists are an hour away."  She turned to Gunny & me.  "Do you come with us?"  "You bet we're coming!" I said.   She gave her orders, two of her men picked up Nancy's stretcher & we were on the trail again.  The rest of her people--there were about a hundred altogether, twenty-five or thirty of them women I would guess, simply faded into the countryside.  Scotty, Gunny & I hit the trail together & it was a while before I could bring myself to ask what exactly had happened to the others in his group.  He told me that they had all died in an attack by fighter planes--the ones we'd heard passing over.  "The bastards!" I heard Gunny mutter.  I asked, "What happened to the prisoners?"   "We took care of the Communist soldiers as soon as we left the cave.  We couldn't drag them along."  Scotty's face left no doubt what he meant.  "We kept Roberts with us.  In the second attack the fighters got him."  "Did he ever say anything?"   "Not much.  Only something about showing the Chinese we could give them trouble behind their borders."  "But if he was some kind of agent, what was he doing carrying around a card that identified him that way?  & what in hell was he doing with Communist Chinese troops?"   Nobody knew the answer then & I don't know it to this day, nearly thirty years later.   But now it was my turn to relive all the deaths I had seen--Damon, White, Sam One & Sam Two & all the others.  & then it was time to prepare for what was ahead.  Scotty told us that we'd be coming to mountains higher than any we'd yet had to climb, & seeing people who still used bow & arrows.  But at least we'd only get into the foothills of those mountains.  We wouldn't have to cross them.   Up ahead the Dragon Lady was waiting for us.  She now explained her strategy for eluding the Communist soldiers.  "Do you see that mountain?"  She pointed ahead of us, "There is a tunnel through it & that tunnel leads to another tunnel.  They will not see us, they will not follow us.  After we go through we shall have a chance to rest."   We arrived at the tunnel entrance while it was still daylight.  Inside we moved through pitch-darkness.  For some reason the Dragon Lady said there were to be no torches; instead we each held onto the belt or sash of the person directly ahead & groped along in single file.  Once our eyes became accustomed to the darkness it was not as total as it had seemed at first.  But it took us two hours to get through, & when we emerged the daylight was almost gone.  We came to a stone bridge where the Dragon Lady was waiting.  She urged us to hurry.  "It is safer in the second tunnel," she said.   We moved past her, once again in single file, holding only belts & sashes as before.  The Dragon Lady moved past almost at a run, still urging us on:  "Move quickly, move quickly."  How she could be so surefooted in such dark I had no idea, but by now I was less & less surprised by anything she did.  All at once the leaders brought the column up short.  We could hear scraping sounds up ahead.   Curious about what was happening, I slipped from between Gunny & Scotty, linked the two of them up, & worked my way toward the head of the line where I began to see light.  I could make out Charlie & the Dragon Lady moving a boulder away from an opening.  Pretty soon we were all rushing through a narrow downhill passageway that led outside.  I hung back until everyone but Charlie & the Dragon Lady had gone through, since it occurred to me that they could use some help in moving back the boulder; I weighed nearly as much as the two of them put together, after all.  But they signaled for me to go ahead.  How they got the boulder back into place I don't know.  Maybe it had been balanced in such a way that moving it was easy, or maybe they used a chunk of timber as a lever, I'm still not sure.   We had come out into a clear night & we seemed to be in a bowl-shaped valley, walled in by mountains on every side.  "We stay here for the night," the Dragon Lady said.  "No fires."   Once we'd settled down, Gunny, who was trained in first aid changed the dressing on Nancy's wound.  It was looking a lot better, he said.  After we'd been sitting for a while talking of nothing special gunny said as though he couldn't help himself:  "When the planes first attacked & we started to run for cover, Sally fell--I don't know if she tripped or was hit.  Holden ran back to help her & they were both sprayed, cut apart.  Craig saw this & just jumped into the open & started firing & running toward the two of them, & the planes tore into him too.   After a pause Scotty said, "Yes indeed, & Gunny here would have done the same foolhardy thing if I hadn't held him down."  Scotty was not offering praise either.  "It was stupid," he declared, "just plain daft, you may be sure you cannot survive long doing that kind of thing."   "But those Chinese," I said, "those friendlies back at the tunnel walked into Communist fire deliberately for our sake!"   "That was quite different.  They were trading their lives for yours, for they felt what you were doing was important.  Holden & Craig sacrificed their lives for nothing.  If Sally had just lain there she would have had a better chance than she did after Holden drew attention by running to her.  The same was true of Craig.  He gave his own life without helping the other two at all.  If you hope to get home alive you two had better learn never to do such a thing."   & now it was just us two, Gunny & me, out of the eight who had started training together only a little more than three weeks ago.  A little more than a week ago six of us had made the jump.  Now two of us were left to tell the story--if we ever got to tell it.  Whether anyone would believe it was something else again.   "Another thing we'd better all do," Scotty said now, "is get our sleep while we can.  We have a long way to go."   I woke in the morning to the sounds of the Dragon Lady's people preparing to hit the trail.  Sometimes I wondered if they ever slept; they were still awake when I settled down, & here they were up before me.  I felt stiff & achy, as I did nearly every morning, but I knew that after a little walking I would begin to loosen up & feel better.  Dried rice was the menu again.  This time we moved so fast that I was shoving it into my mouth as I started along the trail.   After we'd walked for a while I asked Scotty the question that was still puzzling me:  "Why isn't the Dragon Lady a Nationalist? "   "She was once," he told me.  "But finally she couldn't stand the betrayal, the corruption, everybody stabbing everybody else in the back.  She believes, as I do, that the Ntionalists would have won if it hadn't been for the black market, the profiteering, all the crookedness that undermined them.  Do you remember the weapons we found in the tunnel?"   "With all those 'Made in USA' signs?  You bet I do!"   "There is little doubt about where those weapons came from.  Originally they must have been supplied by the United States to the Nationalists. "  "& then captured, to be used against us," Gunny said, glowering.  "Captured--or sold," Scotty said, & Gunny's face got even darker.   "I suppose," I said, "the Dragon Lady knows who we are."   "You mean that you're Americans?" Scotty laughed.  "It would be hard for her not to.  As for your status, what branch of the service you're in or if you're in the CIA, that hardly matters.  If she wanted to betray you, she could have done it easily & long before this.  There's no need to worry about her.  Worry about getting through the journey you have ahead of you."   I shook my head.  I was worried all right, but what occupied me most right then was wondering if all the canyons were ever going to end.  We'd go from one into a valley with a small river running through it, follow the river for a while, & then we'd see the valley deepen, narrow & turn into still another canyon.   Suddenly one more time I heard the sound of planes.  Gunny was obviously nervous, but I knew we were deep enough that we couldn't be spotted.  The difference between my reaction & Gunny's wasn't really that I was an old pro & he was a rookie, but simply that he'd seen some of his close buddies destroyed by planes right before his eyes only a couple of days ago.  When I told him to relax he looked at me doubtfully, a little annoyed to be given advice by a seventeen-year- old kid, until Scotty backed me up.   "They can't see us," he said.  "We've had the good luck that they didn't catch us out in that valley we just went through."   The path began to go uphill which made it harder on the legs, & for a while we just ramped along without talking.  Then Scotty began talking again about the Mongols--their bows & arrows, their huge swords--& about how there were tigers in China.  "Saber-toothed tigers?" I asked, quite seriously.  with a straight face, Scotty said, "Yes, & some dinosaurs too."   At that Gunny burst out laughing, & I said to Scotty, "Well, you never heard of 'Terry & the Pirates.' "   He admitted this was so, but before I could fill him in on what it was about, we heard the planes again.  Then came the sound of small bombs exploding.  It wasn't likely that they could see us, but they were making some very close guesses about where we were!  The Dragon Lady signaled with her arms for us to pick up speed & follow her, & we broke into a run.  The problem was that in this narrow canyon there was no place to go except along the path.  We ran about a hundred yards & then followed the Dragon Lady as she scrambled up rocky ground to a cave in the side of the mountain where we sat out the barrage.   I called out, "Is Nancy here?"  "Here, Ricky."  She was doing a little better on the pronunciation but it still came out closer to "Licky."   Then I yelled for Scotty & he answered.  I asked whether making a light was permitted & was told to go ahead.  Like most of the friendlies I had a cache of my own.  I tore a strip off my sleeve which was too long & baggy anyway & set it afire.  In the moment while it flared I wished I'd skipped the idea because of what I saw--bones everywhere along with dozens of human skulls.   "Did you see that, Scotty?" I said.  "Lots of people in China lived in caves," he told me.  "Some still do, this may have been a burial place."   The discovery snuffed out conversation for a while.  It wasn't long before the sound of the explosions had stopped, & the Dragon Lady was saying one more time, "Let's go, quickly."   Almost at once we were on our way out of the cave & scrambling back onto the path.  At this point it was rocky, narrow & steep.  A few hundred yards farther along we came to the crest & started down over a stretch that was rougher & more treacherous than anything so far.  One side was close against the mountain; on the other there was a steep drop-off.  When the front stretcher-bearer stumbled & fell, landing on both knees, my heart all but stopped at the thought of Nancy, stretcher & stretcher-bearers all tumbling down the mountain.  But the bearer at the rear dug in his heels & got his end onto the ground quickly enough to keep control of the stretcher.  I pushed my way forward, which wasn't easy because the path was so narrow, & could see that Nancy was okay.  The knees of the man who'd fallen were badly cut & bruised.   The Dragon Lady came back up the trail as I was helping him up.  Her face had a set look & she wasted no time or sympathy on his injury.  I couldn't understand what she was saying, but from the way she gestured it was clear that she was warning him he would have to do better or he & the girl would end up at the bottom of the canyon.  She shouted up the line & at once another man appeared to replace the injured one who hugged the side of the mountain & let people slip past him.   Falling in behind Scotty I learned that the injured man had simply been sent to the rear of the column where he could be helped if he needed it.  "It could have happened to anyone," I said.  "But those it happens to don't live very long here," was Scotty's answer.  "Because she showed him no sympathy he'll be a lot more careful from now on."   The Dragon Lady had obviously been living this way for years.  I'd been here ten days & considered myself lucky to be alive.   After trudging for a long time in silence, I found that the path was beginning to be less steep.  Then we crossed a low ridge & the Dragon Lady signaled a stop.  I could see people, a lot of them, lying on the ground.  After an instant I knew that people wasn't the right word, those were corpses.   As we got closer I could feel my stomach going queasy, & sweat beginning to stand out on my face.  There were people who had been staked to the ground, limbs had been torn off, women had been raped.  I turned away & retched.  Nancy, who was now walking part of the time, came over & put a hand on my shoulder.  I heard the Dragon Lady asking, "Where are the children?"   A number of her men fanned out to begin a search, while others gathered the bodies so they could be buried.  Someone came running to the Dragon Lady & I hurried after the two of them though Nancy was calling after me, "You wait."   On the other side of a low rise, the Dragon Lady stood with a couple of her men.  Each one was holding a tiny corpse.  "You should not have come," she said.  I asked, "What happened?"  "They were buried alive.  They are not alive any longer."   They'd all been thrown into one pit, maybe forty of them.  Just to make sure they were dead her men were uncovering them one by one & then burying them again.  What I couldn't understand was what made people go out of their way to be so cruel, above all to yung children.  Even Scotty was shaken up, & he'd been fighting here for eighteen years.  Nancy was crying--that is, tears were rolling down her cheeks, though she didn't shake or utter a sound.  I put an arm around her & said, "It's going to be all right"--not that I had any real reason to think so.   I told Scotty, "I can understand Communists killing Nationalists, & Nationalists killing Communists.  But why these villagers?"   "The Communists think they're teaching a lesson to the countryside.  Their message is:  Don't dare be against us!  Be with us or else!"  "Does it work?"   "People don't want to die.  they don't want their children to die.  So when they see something like that"--Scotty jerked his head toward where we'd been--"it takes a brave person to dare to fight the Communists."   I thought of us here fighting the Communists, & of the little pill in my pocket.  Then once again I heard the drone of planes & there was no time to think about anything.