On Friday, most students used their afternoon of free time to stroll around the streets of Shangtan and its market square. They browsed secondhand stores and shopped for used books and clothing to replace what had worn out. They treated themselves to meals from sidewalk kitchens. The more devout offered incense at the town’s temples.
Shao and Lian left the barracks in ordinary clothes, nothing that marked them as students of Minghua. They loitered in the market, watched a fortune-teller shake his bamboo canister, customers crowded around intently as the wooden fortune sticks spilled out onto the cloth-covered table. Stalls all around echoed with spirited haggling. Shao nudged Lian toward the stall selling baskets. The lane beside it led out of the square toward the riverfront, where they would meet Sparrow.
The rattle of fortune-telling sticks started up again and abruptly stopped. The wail of air-raid sirens churned the air. The market grew chaotic as stallkeepers gathered up their wares and stores emptied. Shoppers dashed in different directions, some going straight to the shelters, others running to collect their families. Shao pulled Lian down the lane and they began running toward the river.
“What if they bomb the riverfront like they did the other day?” Lian asked, panting.
“Let’s find a place to wait and see what happens,” Shao said. They cut through an area of bombed-out buildings, a neighborhood destroyed during the first bomb attack. They stumbled over a wrecked house, carved shutters, and chunks of roof tile. The sirens’ howling continued unabated. Shao glanced up the hill for the warning beacons and saw both lights were extinguished. The planes would be overhead any moment. He pulled Lian into the shelter of a wide brick arch at the mouth of a long, low tunnel, its roof partially collapsed.
“What sort of bomb shelter was this?” she asked.
“Not a shelter. I think it used to be a kiln,” he said, pointing at shards of pottery scattered around the yard.
The planes roared above them, polished metal bodies gleaming, their red sun insignias clear and unmistakable. Almost immediately explosions rent the air from the direction of the marketplace. Bursts of flame shot up. Shao took Lian’s hand and they ran toward the river to where Sparrow waited. The river glinted bright gold, reflecting clear skies and a setting sun. He never doubted Sparrow would be there. Even if the riverfront were being bombed, she would be there. Still, he heaved a sigh of relief when Sparrow’s figure detached from a stand of willows.
Sparrow looked deceptively boyish. She had exchanged her dark-blue servant’s garb for khaki trousers and a short, padded jacket. She’d brought supplies with her in canvas bags she’d sewn straps onto, improvised rucksacks for their journey. They’d left their Minghua rucksacks behind to give the impression they were still in Shangtan.
It was Sparrow who had suggested doubling back to Changsha. The city was teeming with new arrivals. They’d just be anonymous faces in the crowd, not worth a second glance.
“Wei Daming goes back and forth between Wuhan and Changsha,” Shao said, when Sparrow brought up the idea. “He might be able to help us with transportation. If he’s in Changsha, he’ll be at the hospital.” The thought made him feel better, to get help from someone they could trust. It would be an adventure.
The three fugitives followed the riverbank away from the town, entering the heavily forested hills as soon as they could. They went in just deep enough to keep the road in sight while remaining unseen. Twice they heard voices and the snap of twigs. They froze and the voices moved on. Bandits roamed the woods, mostly just young men trying to avoid military duty. But they were also hiding out, hungry and desperate. The three continued through the night, Sparrow leading the way.
At sunrise, they concealed themselves in a copse of red pine, under the dense cover of wide, fragrant branches. They slept until noon, when Sparrow shared food from her bag, balls of sticky rice wrapped around pickled vegetables.
Lian opened a map. “I’m afraid it doesn’t show the roads all the way up to Changsha,” she said. “I wasn’t planning to travel in that direction when I bought these maps.”
“It’s all right,” Sparrow said. “If we keep the road in sight, we’ll get there.”
“We haven’t gone as far as I’d like. It’s slow when we have to beat our way through the underbrush,” Shao said. “Should we try the road for a while?” The rash on his skin still irritated him and he hadn’t slept much.
They peered through the trees. The road below was busy with foot traffic in both directions. At the sound of a vehicle horn’s repeated honking, the stream of people parted. A jeep came around the bend, followed closely by a second one.
“Saturday morning,” Shao said, “and that second car was the military police. They’re on their way to arrest you, Lian. Wendian did turn you in.”
“We have an advantage, though,” Sparrow said. “Yesterday’s aerial attack went on for a long time, the longest so far. A lot of students were in town when the planes came. People might think we’re missing because we’re injured. Or dead.”
They walked until the sun set, then sat down to eat while there was enough light to see. They continued through the night, following Sparrow, who never hesitated. Wherever the forest canopy parted, the sky above them was awash with stars. They reached Changsha in the early morning hours.
THE HOSPITAL HAD run out of rooms and patients lined its hallways. Stretchers crowded the corridors. Some soldiers didn’t even have blankets or mats; they were just lying on the floor, crimson pooling on the tiles beneath them. The stench in the hospital was terrible, urine and putrefaction overlaid with the chemical tang of bleach. A row of patients sat slumped in chairs lined against one wall. A hospital worker was handing them mugs of hot water.
Lian apologized as she stepped over a bandaged soldier, then realized the man was unconscious. A nurse at the far end of the corridor was directing stretcher-bearers. Shao and Sparrow went over to find out if she knew Daming.
Lian wrinkled her nose and, with a sigh, decided to follow them. She stopped, feeling a tug on her trouser leg. A soldier on the ground reached out to her. His legs were bandaged stumps, his face drawn with pain. He tried to speak but could only point at his mouth and the teapot beside him. She kneeled down and held the spout to his mouth, pouring in a dribble of weak tea until he nodded and closed his eyes, exhausted.
She had to go outside, breathe in some fresh air. But as she passed the row of chairs, one of the patients clutched at the hem of her coat. She looked down at a swollen, discolored face. Both the man’s eyes were blackened and one hand was bandaged down to the fingers.
She recoiled. It was Mr. Lee.
“I must talk to you,” he said, standing up slowly. “Please, Miss Hu. Let’s talk where it’s more private.”
She jerked her coat away from him, ready to flee.
“Please. I don’t know what you’re doing in Changsha and I don’t want to know,” he said. “I just need to tell you something. About the dossier I have on you. On your family.”
She followed as he dragged his chair around the corner to another, narrower corridor. It was mercifully empty. He sat down, wincing.
“Don’t worry about the file on your father,” he said. “There’s nothing in there to incriminate him. Not anymore. Not for the past few years. I was just trying to frighten you.”
Mr. Lee kept records on as many students as he could. He always checked up on family backgrounds and when the files for Minghua’s scholarship winners arrived, Lian’s was unusually thick. Whether it was the work of an overzealous clerk or a lazy one who hadn’t bothered removing outdated documents, the file contained far more than he’d expected. He read her father’s history with interest. He’d been so intrigued he’d made inquiries of his own about the man who’d shot her father. He learned that the officer had been a lieutenant, the chief of police’s nephew. And that the young lieutenant had died three years ago.
But of more direct consequence to Lian and her mother, Tientsin’s all-powerful chief of police had been arrested for fraud. A litany of crimes and indiscretions had come out during the trial, including the cover-up over her father’s death.
“The trial was held behind closed doors,” Mr. Lee said. “It was an embarrassment to the police. They didn’t publicly confess to their wrongdoings, but they did update their records. Your father’s file is clean, his innocence documented.”
When Lian arrived at Minghua under her false identity, Mr. Lee guessed she didn’t know her father’s name had been cleared. Thus when Mr. Shen was killed and Lee needed another student informant, Lian’s secrets made her the easiest to intimidate.
“I had to improvise,” he said. “I’m very sorry.”
“Is there anything else?” she said. Lian didn’t know what she wanted to do more. To sink to the ground in relief or slap him.
“No. Nothing more.” He paused. “I’m sorry. Truly sorry.” He closed his eyes.
“If you really mean that,” Lian said, “forget you saw me today.”
“I gave them years of loyal service,” he said, eyes still closed, “and it meant nothing when an anonymous source sent in a false accusation. Don’t worry. You were never here.”
Lian couldn’t stay in the same building with Lee anymore. She ran out the hospital door. Outside, she sat on the stone steps, one refugee among hundreds milling about the grounds. She tried to still the roil of emotions churning her insides.
All those years of hiding. All those years of living in dread, of seeing her mother’s eyes cloud over with suspicion at every new face who entered their lives. She put her head between her knees. Once she found her mother, she would tell her there was no more need to worry. But how would her mother feel, to know all her precautions had been useless?
“There you are, Lian,” said Shao at her shoulder.
He and Sparrow sat down on the steps beside her. Sparrow had found a nurse who knew Wei Daming. They were expecting Daming at the hospital in two days with the next trainload of wounded.
“We should stay off the streets as much as we can,” Shao said. “Avoid running into anyone we know.”
“It’s already happened,” Lian said. She repeated her conversation with Mr. Lee.
Shao swore. “He can identify us.”
“I think we should keep to our plans,” Sparrow said. “Mr. Lee doesn’t know all three of us are here. And it doesn’t sound as though he’s eager to help the Juntong. We’re still better off in a crowd.”
They used some of Shao’s money to rent an overpriced room above an herbalist shop. Shao was irritable, restless. And scratching a lot. The herbalist sold Shao some balm for his rash.
“Just flea bites,” he said, inspecting Shao’s arm. “Nothing to worry about.”
They weren’t the only ones lodging above the shop, so Shao stayed in the room to watch over their belongings while Lian and Sparrow went out to buy food. Changsha had been the right decision. Its streets were congested with new faces, refugees and workers, soldiers and reporters. No one paid them any attention.
Lian and Shao even bought tickets to a film the next evening. It was one they had seen months ago in Nanking. But that didn’t matter. In the darkened theater, they shared a paper bag of salty dried plums and for an hour, Lian forgot she was a fugitive. When she gasped during a suspenseful moment in the film, Shao put his hand over hers. She didn’t pull away.
DAMING WAS DELIGHTED, then confused, to see them. He would have more time to talk after he’d made sure his patients were settled, and they arranged to meet later that evening at a food stand around the corner from the hospital.
“But don’t tell anyone we’re here,” Shao made him promise. “You’ll understand when we tell you, but it’s a life-or-death situation. I’m not exaggerating.”
When Daming arrived, Shao had already ordered large bowls of noodles with spicy tofu sauce. Lian and Shao looked around guardedly from time to time. Sparrow was her usual serene self, quietly spooning up the spicy soup.
“Shanghai,” Daming murmured, drumming his chopsticks on the table. “Shanghai, Shanghai. Let’s see. What’s the best way to get there? I’ve heard the fastest route is to the coast and then by boat to Shanghai.”
“But how?” Shao said. “Isn’t Hangchow Bay under Japanese blockade?”
“Yes, but you can get on a foreign-registered ship,” Daming said. “A lot of Chinese companies have reregistered their ships to fly foreign flags. And there’s always smugglers. We use them regularly.”
“Our military does business with smugglers?” Lian couldn’t hide her shock.
Daming snorted. “How do you think our inland cities get their imported goods? How does this hospital get the supplies and medicines we need?”
“So let’s go to Wen-chou, Young Master,” Sparrow said. “Your family owns warehouses and ships there. Your brother Tienming is there.”
“I never considered going around the coast,” Shao admitted. “Only overland and as directly to Shanghai as possible. But you’re right. Tienming goes back and forth regularly from Wen-chou to Shanghai.”
“Wen-chou is still Chinese territory,” Daming said, “so I might be able to get you on trucks heading that way. Or at least get you partway there.”
“But wouldn’t we have to travel through some occupied areas?” Lian said.
“It’s a matter of reconnaissance and intelligence,” Daming said. “And it really depends. The boundaries keep moving, as you know. Civilians can bribe Japanese soldiers to let them through. In other places, the enemy is spread so thin it’s possible to slip past patrols.”
“Sounds too easy,” Sparrow said.
“And in other places you’ll be shot on sight,” he admitted. “Let me see what I can do. Let’s meet tomorrow at the hospital, same time.”
“We understand the risks,” Shao said, clapping Daming on the shoulder. “If you can get us a ride even partway, we’re forever in your debt.”
AT THE HOSPITAL gates the next evening, Daming looked pleased with himself.
“We don’t have any transports that go all the way to Wen-chou,” he said. “But I got you a ride to Kian. If you can walk from there to Foochow, I’ve a friend at the hospital there. He can try to get you a ride out of Foochow. It’s all here in this letter of introduction, just give it to him.”
“Anything is better than walking the whole way,” Lian said. “We’re very grateful.”
“I still have a few things to do,” Daming said, “but there’s plenty of time before the trucks get here. They won’t set out until it’s dark. Come with me on my rounds, Shao.”
Shao followed Daming as his friend moved between rows of stretchers, wounded men lucky enough to be transferred to a hospital far from the fighting. The soldiers were quiet; some even looked up and smiled when Daming walked past.
“I haven’t any real medical training, as you know,” he said, so softly Shao could barely hear his words. “I feel like an imposter. I worry that men have died because of me. But now I’m not sure how much of a difference I’d make even if I were a real doctor. Sometimes all you can do is sit with them and hold their hand, so they’re not alone when their souls depart.”
Daming crouched down over an unconscious solder. He picked up the young man’s wrist and touched it, checking for a pulse. He did this so gently, with such gravity, that Shao felt as though he were intruding on a sacred ceremony.
Outside, two covered trucks pulled up to the hospital gates. The driver of the second truck jumped out and shook hands with Daming, then took down the tailgate. They helped Sparrow and Lian climb into the back of the truck.
“Be careful, Shao,” Daming said. “I signed you a pass but it doesn’t mean every soldier on patrol will honor it. There’s always the risk you’ll be captured and forced to enlist. And you may need to hand out a few bribes. I hope my doctor friend in Foochow can get you closer to the coast.”
“Thanks so much, Daming,” Shao said, shaking his hand. “You take care of yourself.”
“I’m off to Wuhan tomorrow,” Daming said, “then I’m heading for the front. I’ve told my uncle I can’t do this shuttling back and forth anymore. We’ve lost too many medics on the battlefields and that’s where I should be. Good-bye, old friend.”
Daming stood on the hospital’s front steps as the truck pulled away. His straight back and slow wave of the hand made Shao think of his grandfather, the way the old man always insisted on seeing guests off, waving courteously until they were out of sight.