As 1939 began, an uneasy peace settled over the Yangcheng district. Although not many mule trains made it through from Tsechow, many things had returned to a familiar pattern. That is, until news filtered back that the Japanese army was on the march again and headed towards Yangcheng. This time, however, the Nationalist Chinese Army had a plan, although the plan was almost as terrifying as another Japanese invasion. The army instructed the mandarins throughout the area to follow what they called a “scorched-earth” policy.
Gladys listened in horror as the mandarin explained to her what the policy meant. “We have been instructed to flee into the hills and leave nothing behind that the Japanese would find useful.”
Gladys frowned. “Nothing?”
“Yes,” the mandarin nodded sadly. “Nothing is to be left behind. The animals that cannot be moved are to be slaughtered, and the crops are to be burned in the fields.”
“But what about the people?” Gladys asked. “Their crops are the only thing that will stop them from starving to death during the winter, and it’s almost harvest time.”
The mandarin looked grim. “I know it is difficult. But if we leave nothing of any value for the Japanese, they will not stay here. Where will they get food or shelter?”
“Shelter?” echoed Gladys.
“Yes, shelter,” he replied. “We have also been instructed to destroy the roof of every building within the city walls. The Japanese are not to be allowed a single place where they can find shelter for their troops along the way.”
Gladys shook her head with despair. It seemed amazing to her that the Chinese National government would ask these people who had been through so much to destroy their last few possessions.
Finally Gladys sighed. “Perhaps they are right. Who is to know what to do these days?”
The mandarin sat down beside her. How different their meetings were now than a year ago. He had been the high and exalted one in the district, and she had been the humble foot inspector. Now they sat as equals, both caught in a web of destruction and violence beyond anything either of them could have imagined.
“I have one particular worry,” the mandarin continued. “It is the Pagoda of the Scorpion.”
Gladys frowned as she pictured the pagoda, an ugly building near the north wall of town. No one she recalled lived in it, and she couldn’t imagine why anyone would be particularly concerned about pulling off its roof. “What is the problem?” she inquired.
“It’s said that many hundreds of years ago a giant scorpion roamed the hills of Yangcheng. He killed many people, and one day the townspeople decided to trap the scorpion. The story goes that while the scorpion was asleep, the townspeople brought stones and built a pagoda over him. When he woke up he was trapped, and he has been trapped in the pagoda ever since. It became known as the Pagoda of the Scorpion. As a result, I cannot get anyone to pull the roof off the pagoda, because they’re convinced they would be letting out the giant scorpion.”
“But surely you don’t believe that?” asked Gladys.
“No, I do not,” said the mandarin with a sad smile. “But you Christians would do me a huge favor if you would agree to pull the pagoda roof down, since I have not found anyone willing to do it. Everyone else is too afraid of the scorpion.”
“It would be our pleasure,” Gladys assured him.
“And,” the mandarin went on, “I wish to invite you to a feast. I have no doubt it will be the last feast I will host in Yangcheng, and I have one last thing to say that I particularly want you to hear.”
Gladys nodded. These were sorrowful days for China.
The next day as she and some of the Christians from Bei Chai Chuang ripped the Pagoda of the Scorpion apart, Gladys wondered what it was the mandarin was anxious to say. She found out soon enough.
Gladys was welcomed into the yamen and told to sit in the seat of honor at the right of the mandarin. She had never sat there before, but it gave her a good view of all the other guests. She noted that all the important people of Yangcheng were present.
The meal was a simple one, much more like one Yang would have served to the muleteers than the elaborate dinners the mandarin had given when times were good. When the meal was almost over, the mandarin pushed his bowl aside and stood to speak.
“You came to this feast today because I invited you, and I have something very important to tell you,” he began. “It has been nearly ten years since Ai-weh-deh first came into our lives. How well I remember the first time we met. I went to her house to ask for her help with the foot-binding problem, and she agreed to be my foot inspector. That was the first of many things Ai-weh-deh has done for me.”
Gladys felt her face growing hot with embarrassment as the mandarin spoke. The mandarin continued for about twenty minutes, listing all the things that Gladys had done for the city, such as stopping the prison riot, improving the prisons, attending births, adopting unwanted children, being a special advisor to the mandarin. The list went on and on. Gladys thought it would have made a fine speech for her funeral, but she couldn’t imagine the point of it while she was still alive.
Finally, the mandarin of Yangcheng seemed to run out of things to say. Very deliberately, he turned to Gladys and looked her directly in the eye. “Ai-weh-deh, my dear friend, Ai-weh-deh,” he said. “I have seen all that you are and all that you do, and I would like to become a Christian like you.”
A gasp of astonishment rose from the guests, but Gladys did not make a sound. She could not. She was too stunned. In the midst of all the violence and war, God had been quietly working in the heart of the mandarin. Tears of gratitude welled in Gladys’s eyes. Whatever happened to her next, it would be worth it just to have heard the mandarin ask to become a Christian.
Chapter 13
Read by Millions of People
Gladys wound the bandage around and around Francis’s hand. Then she patted her adopted son on the shoulder. “It’s looking better than last week,” she said kindly. “In two or three more weeks, you’ll be able to take the bandages off and learn how to use your hand again.” She tried to sound cheerful for her son’s sake, but inside Gladys was feeling very weary.
The war had been dragging on for nearly a year and half now, and the scorched-earth policy had only seemed to make things worse. Every time the Japanese army marched into a village that had been deliberately destroyed, terrible consequences followed. Airplanes would fly low over the area, dropping bombs and machine-gunning anything that moved.
That was how Francis came to have his right hand bandaged. He had heard the buzz of aircraft and started running as fast as he could towards the cave, but he hadn’t been quick enough. A burst of machine-gun fire peppered the ground around him. He was hit in the hand, and three of his fingers were blown off.
Many others in the district lost much more than their fingers. One such person was Hsi-Lien, the first muleteer ever to stay at the Inn of Eight Happinesses. Hsi-Lien had untangled his hand from the reins and fled the night Gladys dragged his mules into the courtyard of the inn. Yang had gone after him and convinced him to return. From that time on, Hsi-Lien had stayed at the inn whenever he was passing through Yangcheng. He had also become a strong Christian.
One day as Gladys was dressing the wound of an injured person in her makeshift hospital, she heard a commotion at the entrance to the cave. She turned to see what it was, and a joyful smile spread over her face when she saw Hsi-Lien.
“Welcome, Hsi-Lien. It is an honor to have you visit us,” Gladys called out.
As she walked over to him, she sensed something was very wrong. He looked like the Hsi-Lien she knew, but he wasn’t acting like him. Instead of excitedly greeting Gladys as he usually did, he just stood at the cave entrance, staring. His eyes looked sad and dull, and though his lips moved, no sound came out of his mouth.
“What is it, my friend?” asked Gladys. “Come and have tea with me.” She took him by the arm and led him over to where a pot of water was boiling over an open fire.
They sat on some rocks, and Gladys dropped some leaves from a nearby bush into the water. The mixture tasted nothing like tea, but it was the best they could do in such trying times, and it warmed their stomachs. As they sipped the tea, Gladys spoke soothingly to Hsi-Lien. Then slowly and painfully his story came out.
Hsi-Lien lived in Chowtsun, halfway between Yangcheng and Tsechow. As they had done with Yangcheng, Japanese soldiers had invaded his town. When the Japanese finally found out he was a muleteer, they ordered him to prepare his mule train to carry ammunition and guns for them. But Hsi-Lien refused. He explained to the Japanese that he was a Christian man and would not carry weapons to be used to kill his fellow men.
At first the soldiers laughed at him, thinking once he understood they were serious, he would gladly carry their weapons. But they were wrong, and Hsi-Lien continued to refuse to carry guns and ammunition on his mules.
Gladys poured some more tea into Hsi-Lien’s cup. “Go on,” she urged. “What happened next?”
“Once they saw I was serious, they dragged me outside my house and tied me to a wooden stake.”
That’s it, thought Gladys. No wonder Hsi-Lien is so upset. He was badly tortured by the Japanese.
Hsi-Lien grew silent for a long time, as though he were drawing the courage to go on with his story.
“I thought they were going to torture me,” he finally went on, “but they did not touch me. Instead they began to board up the doors and windows of my house. My wife and children were inside…” his voice trailed off.
Gladys put her hand on his shoulder for comfort.
“Fire,” he said in a whisper. “They set the house on fire.”
Gladys wiped away the tears that were now falling down her cheeks.
“Later some neighbors untied me, but there was nothing left. They are all gone. All gone.” With his tale told, Hsi-Lien sat in silence, staring at the ground.
There was nothing Gladys could do to undo the terrible evil the Japanese had inflicted on such a kind and gentle man as Hsi-Lien, but she could make sure his family received a Christian burial. She and some of the Christians from Bei Chai Chuang went to Chowtsun and pulled the charred remains of Hsi-Lien’s family from the rubble of the house. They dug a large grave in the cemetery, said prayers, sang a hymn, and buried the bodies. Hsi-Lien was grateful for their help, but he never fully recovered. For the rest of his life, he spent long periods of time staring aimlessly, and sometimes he would go for days without talking.
The war was horrible. Not a day went by without somebody else arriving at Gladys’s cave with a sad story to tell, just like Hsi-Lien’s. China was in an uproar. The Nationalist soldiers were fighting their old enemy, the Communists, who had been trying to seize control of China for a number of years, and both armies were trying to rid the country of the Japanese. As the war went on, thousands of children were either separated from their parents or orphaned. From over a hundred miles away, some of these children found their way to Ai-weh-deh. They had heard she would take care of them. And she did.
Gladys gave up counting at one hundred fifty children, but still they flowed in. Each day was a strain to find enough food and clothing for them all. Eventually the good news that the Japanese had retreated from Yangcheng all the way back to Tsechow reached Gladys and the children at the cave. Gladys satisfied herself that the report was true and moved back to the Inn of Eight Happinesses with the children. Most of the other citizens of Yangcheng who had survived the war also trickled back. Sadly, Gladys’s old friend the mandarin was no longer there. In an attempt to consolidate their control over the area, the Japanese had captured many mandarins and executed them. To avoid capture, the mandarin had fled Yangcheng with his family soon after he’d become a Christian.
Some major repairs needed to be made to the inn. The walls had to be shored up, and a replacement roof had to be constructed, not to mention a new floor upstairs. Soon the old building was filled with life and the voices of children.
