Striking the Balance

“Have you decided which course would be most expedient for you to take?” Nieh asked. Looking around the Japanese camp, he thought that should be obvious. The eastern devils were ragged and hungry and starting to run low on the munitions that were their only means of coercing supplies from the local peasants. The arrival of the little scaly devils had cut them off from the logistics train that ran back to Japan. They were better disciplined than a band of bandits, but not much stronger.

But after their major nodded, he did not give the reply Nieh had hoped to hear: “I must tell you we cannot join what you call the popular front. The little devils do not formally stop their war against us, but they also do not fight us now. If we attack them here, who can say what that will provoke them to elsewhere in the world?”

“You join with them, in effect, against the progressive forces of the Chinese people.”

Major Mori laughed at him. He stared. He had thought of many possible reactions from the Japanese, but had not expected that one. Mori said, “You have made an alliance with the Kuomintang, I see. That must be what transforms them from reactionary counterrevolutionary running dogs into progressives. A nice magic trick, I must say.”

A mosquito buzzed down and bit Nieh on the back of one wrist. Smashing it gave him a moment to collect his thoughts. He hoped he was not turning red enough for the Japanese to notice. At last, he said, “Compared to the little scaly devils, the reactionaries of the Kuomintang are progressive. I admit it, though I do not love them. Compared to the little devils, even you Japanese imperialists are progressive. I admit that, too.”

“Arigato,”

the major said, giving him a politely sardonic seated bow.

“We have worked together against the scaly devils before.” Nieh knew he was pleading, and knew he should not plead. But the Japanese, man for man, were better soldiers than either the troops of the People’s Liberation Army or the forces of the Kuomintang. Having Mori’s detachment as part of the local popular front would give the little scaly devils a great deal of added grief. And so Nieh went on, “The artillery shells with which you supplied me were put to good use, and caused the little devils many casualties.”

“Personally, I am glad this is so,” Mon replied. “But at the time you got those shells from me, the little devils and Japan were at war with each other. That does not now seem to be the case. If we join in attacks against the scaly devils and are identified, any chance of peace may be destroyed. I will not do that without a direct order from the Home Islands, no matter what my feelings are.”

Nieh Ho-T’ing got to his feet. “I will return to Peking, then.” Unspoken was the warning that, if the Japanese kept him from returning or shot him, they would find themselves rather than the little devils the focus of Chinese efforts from then on.

Even though he was but an eastern devil, Mori had enough subtlety to catch the warning. He too rose, and bowed once more to Nieh. “As I say, I wish you personal good luck against the little scaly devils. But, when set against the needs of the nation, personal wishes must give way.”

He would have phrased it differently had he been a Marxist- Leninist, but the import was the same. “I bear you no personal ill-will, either,” Nieh said, and left the Japanese camp in the countryside for the hike back to Peking.

Dirt scuffed under his sandals as he trudged along. Crickets chirped in the undergrowth. Dragonflies skimmed by, darting and twisting with maneuvers impossible for any fighter plane. Farmers and their wives bent their backs in fields of wheat and millet, endlessly weeding. Had Nieh been an artist instead of a soldier, he might have paused a while to sketch.

What he was thinking about, though, had nothing to do with art. He was thinking Major Mori’s Japanese had lingered close by Peking too long already. The little scaly devils. If they ever thought to do it, could use the Japanese against the popular front in the same way the Kuomintang had used warlord forces against the People’s Liberation Army. That would let the little devils fight the Chinese without committing their own troops to the effort.

He had nothing personal against the Japanese major, no. But, because he respected Mori as a soldier, he found him all the more worrisome: he had the potential to be more dangerous. With the razor-sharp logic of the dialectic, that led to an ineluctable conclusion: Major Mori’s pocket would have to be liquidated as soon as possible.

“It might even work out for the best,” Nieh said aloud: no one to hear him but for a couple of ducks paddling in a pond. If the little scaly devils were subtle enough to understand indirect hints, the disappearance of possible allies would give them the idea that the popular front would not only prosecute a campaign against them, but would do so vigorously.