War Trash by Ha Jin

liked those songs best. Contrary to the strident fighting airs, the folk songs sounded gentle and nostalgic, at times almost angelic. One morning I caught sight of two toddlers, a boy and a girl, playing with tin cans and wooden sticks in the women's compound. They looked dirty and wore rags, but they laughed and ran about nimbly. With their mothers jailed here, they too had become POWs.
    Not far away from our compound was the First Closure's admission center, where the prisoners were registered and processed. In front of that hut there were dozens of corpses stacked together like firewood. I wondered why the Americans didn't immediately get rid of those nameless bodies, which gave out a fetid odor – made even worse as it combined with the smell of the open-air public latrine. The latrine was fenced with a tarpaulin wall and had four hundred pits in it.
    One afternoon as I was limping along the fence, I saw a tall man in the adjacent compound whose large, bony body and shoulders, viewed from the side, looked familiar. He was smoking beyond the four rows of barbed wire. I walked over. His hair was disheveled and his face emaciated, marred by a curved scar; his right forearm was bandaged. My heart began kicking as I recognized him – Commissar Pei!
    He turned to face me. His eyes brightened, but he didn't say a word, just smiled. Quietly I stopped before him and said, "How are you, Commi – "
    "Shh, I'm Wei Hailong now and used to be a cook. Call me Old Wei."
    "Sure, I'll do that in front of others." I had to raise my voice a little because we were about fifteen feet apart.
    "Always say you didn't know me until we met here," he said.
    "I'll remember that. My name is Feng Yan now. I told them I was a secretary in an infantry company."
    "Good."
    While we were talking, we both kept glancing right and left to make sure we were alone. He had been captured a month ago, together with the only three men left with him. To date his identity hadn't been disclosed, though he jokingly said this was just temporary. He was certain somebody would betray him soon, because there were so many prisoners who had seen him as their commissar. I reported to him on my situation. To my surprise, he had heard of my association with Dr. Greene and encouraged me to get along with her so as to obtain information on the outside world. I told him about the Panmunjom talks, of which he had also learned. Though in disguise, he was apparently still a leader here, well informed and full of plans. He wanted me to remain loyal to our country and to pass on to him any news I heard.
    To me his words were orders, so I became more at ease during my later meetings with Dr. Greene. I gave some of the paper she had left with me to Commissar Pei, which he needed badly.
    About half a month later, Dr. Greene found a lump in my thigh. She felt it with her fingertips for a long while, then told me, "It looks like I should give you another operation."
    My heart trembled. "Do you have to?"
    "Yes. But it'll be a small procedure."
    She let me feel the lump in the back of my left thigh. True enough, it was hard and as large as an egg. She said, "I was worried that the muscle damage was so massive that some extravasated blood might form a lump. At the last operation I cleaned everything, but even so, a lump has now grown inside. If we don't get rid of it in time, it may develop into a tumor. I don't want to leave it to chance."
    Knowing that another doctor might not be so willing to help me, I said, "I'll follow your decision."
    The morning after the next I had the surgery. And because I lay prone on the table this time, Dr. Greene assigned a male nurse to hold my chin so that I wouldn't suffocate. This time Dr. Thomas again assisted her. He seemed more skilled than before; perhaps I had that impression because I no longer hated him. I didn't wear an ether mask, so I remained conscious the whole time. While Dr. Thomas was giving me stitches, Dr. Greene replaced the nurse and held