A mile south of Ningming, the barbed-wire enclosure Mellin and the other POWs had landed near was about two hundred yards long by one hundred yards wide. Rolls of German concertina razor wire formed another, inner perimeter five feet in from the outer rectangle. There were no buildings or tents, only ten-foot-high hills of cement bricks beneath blue plastic covers about a hundred feet apart, and between them a dozen or so pallets of bamboo either lashed or nailed together — it was difficult to tell from a distance — to look like long, fifty-by-twenty-foot rafts.
“Don’t like the look of this,” Murphy said. “No bloody cover. What if it starts pissing rain?”
“You’ll get wet,” Shirley answered.
“Yeah,” Murphy responded. “So will you, luv.”
“Don’t call me luv.”
“Sorry, Shirl.”
“And don’t—” She stopped. Upshut was looking their way. Danny Mellin noticed that the big barbed-wire enclosure to which they were being directed had been erected on higher ground above the marsh, and he commented to no one in particular among his fellow POWs that “we’re going to have to build our own accommodation. Sooner we do, sooner we’ll get cover.”
“I suppose now we’re bloody hostages for that friggin’ strip,” Murphy said, nodding north toward the airfield.
“Yes,” Mellin answered. “Well, let’s try to get along with them, Mike. Okay?”
“You serious? Listen, mate, if you think I’m going to cooperate with this fucking—”
“Lower your voice,” Mellin said sharply. The helos were taking off. He added softly, “No point in getting them riled up for nothing. B’sides, I don’t see we’ve got much option. They’ve got all the guns.”
“Yeah,” Murphy answered. “But we don’t have to bloody well kowtow to—”
“Be quiet.” It was Shirley, indicating Upshut and several other guards coming their way, dividing the POWs into squads of ten prisoners each. Suddenly the sun was swallowed by cloud, and the marshlands, the higher ground, and the airfield were cast in a depressing gray metallic light that took the sheen of the long elephant grass. It made the airfield, now caught in a shower of rain, look farther away than it really was.
A dark column of three-ton, khaki-painted trucks was coming from the airfield. When it pulled up at the edge of the marsh about three hundred yards from the POWs, an officer alighted from one of the trucks with a PLA flunky a pace behind carrying what looked like a soapbox, but which in fact was a depleted ammunition box of sturdy construction.
The major waited for the flunky to put down the box, then mounted it as if he were Alexander the Great. Though somewhat dated in his phraseology, his English was near perfect. “I am Major Chen. You are prisoners of the People’s Liberation Army.”
“No shit!” Murphy murmured.
“You are here to work. First you will be so good as to construct your accommodation. Thirty bodies will be in each brick house. You will be pleased to build your accommodation quickly and well. Guards will direct you.”
“I’ll bet,” one of the prisoners said.
“You will behave well,” Major Chen said. He pointed northward. “After, you will assist in enlarging Ningming airfield. Anyone, man or woman, who refuses to work will be shot” He waited some seconds for the last bit to sink in. “Questions?”
Murphy had his hand up. The major pointed to him. “Speak!”
“We’re not soldiers, we’re civilians. We shouldn’t even be prisoners.”
Danny Mellin added to Murphy’s comment. “Even if you do consider us prisoners of war, under the Geneva Convention you’re not entitled—”
“Quiet!” Major Chen shouted. “I want nothing about Geneva. You are in China. The Geneva Convention is bourgeois propaganda.”
“When will we be fed?” an Englishman asked. “We haven’t eaten.”
“Rice,” Chen replied, thinking the Englishman had asked him what they would be fed. “And some fish — perhaps.”
“Medical care?” another shouted.
“The same as our soldiers,” Chen said.
“That means sweet fuck-all,” the Aussie said. Someone told him to shut up. “Up yours,” came his response.
The major said, “Troublemakers will be shot!”
None of the POWs, including Murphy, said anything. A few of them moved uneasily.
“Build well!” the major urged. “Remember the three little piggies.” Despite the tension, a prisoner, unable to contain himself, burst out laughing.
The next instant the major was walking back toward the truck, his flunky trotting after him.
“What about the three fucking piggies?” Murphy asked no one in particular.
“Do you think,” Shirley Fortescue said angrily, “that it’s possible for you to utter one sentence without using the F word?”
Murphy screwed up his face. “Not fucking likely.”
“No speaking!” one of the guards shouted, making his way toward Mellin.
“It wasn’t him,” Murphy said. “It was me.”
“No speaking!” The guard lifted the butt of his Kalashnikov threateningly. No one moved. The guard, though still glaring at Murphy, lowered the rifle. Finally he turned to Mellin. “You boss number one squad — yes.” It was half command, half question.
“All right,” Danny agreed, not seeing any alternative. Then the guard, seemingly ignorant in all other respects, made a decision that, even though he couldn’t have known, was as brilliant as any that King Solomon made. He designated Mike Murphy as “boss number two squad — yes.”
“No,” Murphy said. “I’ve got no bloody intention of helping you—”
The guard didn’t understand all the words, but he knew refusal when he heard it in any language, and he kicked Murphy in the shin, then slammed the rifle into his chest, knocking the Australian down. “Boss number two — yes.”
“Yes,” Mellin said. “He’ll do—”
“He say!” the guard shouted, lifting his rifle menacingly again.
“Yeah, all right,” Murphy gasped, pushing himself up. “Boss number two.”
The guard gave a curt nod and grunt of approval before moving on and designating eighteen more squad bosses.
“Look,” someone said, nodding toward two trucks stopping at the edge of the marshy ground, steam rising from the covered rear of each truck. The first two trucks contained boiled rice for the guards, with a helping of fish paste. The prisoners received only a bowl of rice each from the last truck, and worn-looking red plastic cups of green tea.
“And about fucking time,” Murphy quipped out of the guard’s earshot.
Mellin moved over to Shirley Fortescue as they were lining up for the meager rice ration. “Shirley, look, I know Murphy rubs you the wrong way, but try to ignore his bad language.”
“Hmm,” she answered coldly, and stopped as Upshut appeared on the scene from one of the truck cabins with a twenty-six-ounce bottle of Tsing Tao beer. He was taking the top off with his teeth, and Shirley told Mellin, “It’s like trying to ignore a bad smell.”
“C’mon,” Mellin said. “He’s okay underneath. He was the only one with guts enough to help me when I was first cap—”
Upshut was now by the tailgate of the truck, arrogantly drinking his beer. It started to rain. Upshut went back to the truck’s cabin and through the windscreen watched Ningming airfield turn to a watery blur.
As Murphy’s turn came to receive his dollop of rice and mug of green tea, he said, “Thank you,” out of habit, and returned to where the other forlorn-looking POWs were huddled in the rain.
“You’re right,” a fellow prisoner said to Mellin, checking that none of the guards was looking in his direction. “Sooner we lay those bricks, sooner we get out of this damned rain.”
There was a low murmur of approval, except for Murphy, who commented, “Fuck the bricks. Where the hell are we? This Ning-bloody-ming — how far’s it from the Chinese-Viet border?”
“ ‘Bout fourteen miles,” another Australian said, “as the crow flies.”
“Yeah,” Murphy responded. “Well, I’m a fucking crow. Anybody else? Danny?”
No one answered. More guards were headed their way, shouting at them to get up and start working. “Quickly! Quickly!”