As time went by, I noticed that he looked at the codebook less and less often. Toward the end of the third day he said to us, "I'm done, you can test me now."
We all moved close to the window, since it was already dusk, and began checking his memory. At first his response was rather slow, but accurate. As we continued, he matched the characters with the numerals much faster. Indeed, he had memorized the whole thing. There wasn't a single mistake. We were amazed!
Mushu said to Little Hou, "I always thought you were a bit flighty. Now I know I can't judge a man only by his appearance."
We two raised Little Hou above us, imitating the Americans and the Koreans, shouting Hurray! and Mansai! The moment we put him down, he fell asleep.
Before Little Hou was released from the troublemakers' cell, we passed the codebook on to Commissar Pei. From then on Ming became both the signalman and the code man in the war criminal's jail.
Later Mushu often told the story of our devising the Pei Code to other inmates. Little Hou also bragged about it. He made a codebook with kraft sheets, which nobody but he could use in the camp. Yet he wasn't happy about Mushu's claim that he – Mushu – had conceived the idea of the Walking Telegraphic Method alone; Little Hou often accused him of stealing his "patent." In any case, our success became a legend, a major piece in the inmates' story repertoire.
The code worked effectively. Now our Sixth Battalion had become the hub of communication, because we alone had transmission contact with the prison house, which directly faced our compound. All the messages going to the top leader would be transmitted by our staff. To illustrate the efficiency of the Pei Code, let me give you an example. One day an inmate in the Eighth Battalion working at the wharf chanced upon a page of Liberation Daily, a major Chinese newspaper published in Shanghai. On the page was a brief report on how the Chinese People's Volunteers in Korea helped the civilians till their fields, rebuild their houses, repair the bombed dams and dikes, and dig irrigation canals. The article was about 120 words long. Within a day it was transmitted in its entirety to the prison house through the Walking Telegraphic Method, though we had to skip seven words the code didn't include.
Now that the Pei Code had been established, the commissar resumed his command of the six thousand men in the camp. Actions among the battalions became coordinated, and there was more certainty and purpose in our dealing with the enemy.
The Americans had been trying to suppress our communications all along. I heard from a South Korean officer that an expert code breaker had once been flown in from Hawaii, who had boasted that he could crack our "bush code" after seeing three messages. There were a number of messages in the enemy's possession, but the American expert, after perusing all of them and racking his brains to unravel the logic of the codes, simply couldn't do a thing. He didn't even know there were two codes in use now – one was for intracamp communication and the other was the Pei Code. He kept saying, "This is so messy, absolutely unprofessional." Indeed our codes were highly irregular, following our code men's own whims and improvisations. So they remained uncracked.
23. THE VISIT OF A YOUNG WOMAN
One evening, two days after Mushu was returned to Compound 10,1 was alone in the troublemakers' cell. It was drizzling and the sea had disappeared from view, buried in gray mist. My fingers were twisting the pencil stub, though I wasn't scribbling anything so as not to waste the lead. From behind the house came the drone of a motor.
I put the pencil into my pants pocket and went over to see what was going on outside. To my surprise, a jeep driven by an American officer and carrying a young woman skidded to a halt before the prison house. On the beach stood Ming and the cook. I wondered why they had been let out again; two hours ago they both had done their daily exercise in the open air.
The woman and the eagle-nosed officer got off the jeep. After he whispered something to her and patted her on the shoulder, she headed toward the door of the war criminal's cell alone. She looked under thirty, with long, loosely bound hair, wide eyes, and a heart-shaped face. At first I thought she was Korean. But when she came closer, I could tell she was Chinese, though definitely not from mainland China. She was petite with a slender waist, wearing an orange silk skirt and a cream-colored wraparound top. In her right hand she held a tiny brown leather bag, which looked overstuffed. Her backside swayed a little, throwing ripples down the skirt, while her high-heeled sandals kicked up a bit of white sand. As she turned the corner of the house, her profile displayed the fine curvature of her bust and hips. She wasn't pretty, but attractive in a coquettish way.
Gazing at her, I felt my neck going stiff and the blood pounding in my temples. I hadn't seen a young woman for half a year, and the excitement set my heart throbbing. Why did she come to see Pei? Obviously the guards had purposely taken Ming and the cook out so that she could meet with our commissar alone.
I hurried to the southern end of the cell to get close to the rift in the corner. I turned over the empty bucket and stood on its bottom so that I could hear them better. The tide had subsided on the beach and it was windless, but at first I couldn't catch all they were saying. I attuned my ears and little by little began to pick up their words.
"My, you're mending your shirt!" she said with a soft lilt in dulcet Mandarin.
"A serviceman has to do many things by himself," Pei replied lukewarmly. "In fact I'm doing this for my cook."
"It's very hard, isn't it? This kind of needlework doesn't suit a man like you. It's a woman's work. Can I help you with it?"
"No, you're a guest. I mustn't let you touch this smelly thing, infested with cooties. I'm already grateful that you came all the way to see me."
"I've wanted to visit you for a long time."
"I'm sorry I don't even have a seat for you, and I let you stand like that."
"It's all right. Can I take a photo of you?"
"No, don't waste your film. No, no, if you raise your camera I'll have to cover my face with this shirt."
"All right, I won't do it then."
"Tell me, why did you want to see me? I don't think we've ever met."
"Nothing special, I just came to see how you're doing. Don't you miss home?"
"Of course I do. But thousands of my men miss home too."
"You want to go back to China?"
"Yes."
"Can't you go to another place?"
"Like where?"
"The Free World."
"Where's that?"
" Formosa or America or Europe. How about this? We go to the Free World. I mean you – you and me together."
"What do you mean exactly?"
"I'll accompany you wherever you go as long as you don't return to Communist China."
"But I am a Communist. Where else should I go?"
"You can always change."
"You mean to be a traitor?"
"Uh-huh."
"Then my parents would disown me and even my kids wouldn't call me dad." He chuckled and resumed, "I knew you didn't come here for yourself. You represent the Americans and Chiang Kai-shek. Please go back and tell them that I'm too old to be malleable. They'd better give up on me, just to save them all the trouble."
" Mr. Pei, you're too narrow-minded."
"How do you mean?"
"The world is so vast that you can go anywhere. I don't care where I'm buried as long as I'm happy when I'm alive. A real man should set his mind on distant seas and lands."
"How about this, you come with me back to China?"
"No! How can you say that?"