I slept well for the rest of the night, whereas neither of them could sleep a wink. When I woke up six hours later, they told me that I had snored like a pig. Before daybreak, as the stars were fading and a fine mist was rising from the ocean, we knocked on the wall. Instantly the other side responded. I got on Mushu's shoulders and talked to Ming through the hole. "This is Yuan," I whispered.
"Ah, I was so happy to see you yesterday." His voice was brisk but half suppressed.
"How's Commissar Pei, and yourself?"
"We're fine."
"Listen, we're planning to create a code for you to use to communicate with the camp. But first we want to get permission from Commissar Pei. Can you ask him for us?" We ought to inform the top leader beforehand in case a similar project was already afoot.
"Certainly," Ming said.
Both of us got down to give our bearers a breather. Two minutes later I stood on Mushu's shoulders again. Ming told me, " Commissar Pei is delighted. He appreciates your initiative in this matter. He says he'll wait for the news of your success. Can we do something to help?"
"We need a pencil. Do you happen to have one?"
"We do have a short piece here. Wait a second, I'll hand it over."
Seeing that a wet patch had emerged on Mushu's back, I asked him if I should step down for a moment.
"No, I'm all right." He patted my leg. Little Hou squatted down beside him and asked me to put my right foot on his shoulder, but Mushu pushed him away. They were both excited because a pencil was available.
A moment later another package was pushed over through the hole. This time it contained some rice together with a pencil. Little Hou grabbed the three-inch stub, kissed it, and pressed it against his chest.
Without delay we began to work. There were two parts to the project: first, the code, and second, the method of transmission, that is, a special way of sending and receiving encoded messages. According to Little Hou, the code wasn't very hard to make, and he had already started on it. Neither Mushu nor I had any clue how it was formed exactly, so we focused on the method of transmission, which was the difficult part, having to be invented entirely by ourselves. Alas, I couldn't be of any help. If messages could not be transmitted properly, the code would be of no use however ingeniously it was devised, but all the methods Mushu could imagine were unsuitable. For example, the semaphore of gestures employed among the compounds couldn't be distinguished from a distance of over three hundred yards. How about light? That wasn't feasible either. In the first place, we had no flashlights. Even if we'd had them, they would have been too dangerous to use, since the enemy could see the light and might fire at the signalman.
What should we do? Mushu began pacing the cell again while we were both thinking hard for a solution. Although I was a layman, I could tell we wouldn't find an adequate method very soon, so I suggested we focus on the code first, giving thought to the transmission part whenever we could. During the day I stood at the window most of the time keeping watch on the guards and the maintenance men. We had divided the safety measures among ourselves. If a GI or a custodian came in, I would go up to him and block his way by speaking to him, and Mushu would drop his pants and crouch over the toilet pail so as to prevent the intruder from searching the cell while Little Hou would put the piece of toilet paper he was writing on into his mouth. Little Hou always kept the penciled sheets underneath his shirt. With great caution we went on working at the code.
Day after day we racked our brains, but still couldn't find an adequate transmission method. Little Hou was truly a smart fellow and engrossed in the code work most of the time. When he was eating or taking a break, he would mention to us one possibility and another, but none of them would work. Then one morning he hit on a brilliant idea, namely to simplify the Morse code as much as possible, to the degree of letting one dot or one dash stand for a numeral. This would not only speed up the transmission but also reduce confusion. Based on this conception, he and Mushu created the Walking Telegraphic Method: the sender of the message would stand behind the window of the war criminals cell. If he walked to the left side, it meant a dot; if he moved to the right, it denoted a dash; if he hunkered down below the window, that indicated the beginning of a new group of numerals. One dot meant 1, one dot plus one dash – 2, two dots plus one dash – 3, two dots – 4, three dots – 5, three dashes – 6, two dashes plus one dot – 7, one dash plus one dot – 8, two dashes – 9, and one dash – o. As a rule, every four numerals represented a word. After the receiver jotted down the numerals, he passed it on to the code man, who could decipher them with the aid of the codebook Little Hou was making. In the reverse order to our cell, the war criminal's room had a window facing Compound 6, so they could send and receive messages from within the room. This method would definitely resolve the problem of transmission. How excited we were! We wanted to shout for joy, but we didn't dare. We only lifted Little Hou on our shoulders and walked a few rounds in the cell. Then he returned to working at the code.
When the lead in the pencil was worn down, Mushu would bite the tip sharp. As the main worker, Little Hou didn't get enough sleep, his eyes bloodshot. We were worried about him, but couldn't do much to help. Without a dictionary, we couldn't remember all the essential words, but we managed to come up with over eight hundred common characters. This wasn't bad. The code shouldn't be too elaborate; otherwise it would have been difficult to master. So we aimed at fewer than one thousand characters. Whenever an often-used word came to mind, we would tell Little Hou. The penciled pages looked complicated and incomprehensible to me, but Little Hou could trace what he had done to avoid repetition. We continued to work for five days.
Finally a booklet – loose sheets of toilet paper bound by a shoelace – was completed, which listed all the codes and gave instructions about the Walking Telegraphic Method. We put a title on the cover: The Pei Code.
The work done, we reported our success to the other side. Immediately came Commissar Pei 's congratulations. He wrote: "Dear Comrades – You have accomplished a spectacular deed, which demonstrates your sense of revolutionary duty and astonishing talent! It is hard to imagine how much the code will contribute to our future struggle. I hereby notify you that each of you is awarded the first-class merit citation. On behalf of the Community Party, I thank and salute you!" I could see the excitement in his vigorous handwriting, which was less formal than usual. I was amazed he had another pencil.
We hugged one another again, proud of our achievement.
Then came a problem we hadn't anticipated: How could we take this code back to the barracks? The original codebook was going to be handed over to the other cell; normally we would duplicate a copy, which wasn't hard to do. But none of us would be able to smuggle such a thing back into the camp, because we'd have to go through at least two searches before we could rejoin our comrades there. Looking at one another and clutching at our hair, we were at a loss. Silence filled the room.
Ten minutes later, Little Hou said, "I'll memorize the whole thing. They can't search my brain, can they?"
Jailed in the cell longer than Mushu and I, he might be returned to the camp before we two. I said to him, "There're more than nine hundred words and you may not have many days to stay here. Are you sure you can memorize them all?"
Despite my misgivings, I knew this was the only solution. Mushu slapped Little Hou on the shoulder and said, "Boy, if you can remember the entire code, I'll give my citation to you."
We all laughed. From then on Little Hou started to learn the code-book by heart. For two days he did nothing but memorize the numerals and words. He had to seize every moment because he could be sent back anytime. Except when he had to eat and sleep, he sat in a corner, now looking at the thick booklet and now closing his eyes to rehearse what he had read. His mouth moved continuously.