Once the repairs to the inn were made, Gladys set out to visit the mission in Tsechow and see whether she could do anything to help David and Jean Davies. She had been worried about them; they were housing hundreds of refugees from outlying areas.
When she arrived, Gladys found she needn’t have worried. The couple told her that the Japanese soldiers had been very well behaved in Tsechow and had not killed or tortured anyone. They always had candies in their pockets for the children, and many of them came to the mission’s church meetings. To the Davieses, the Japanese were nothing to be afraid of. That is, until one dark, moonless night soon after Gladys arrived.
Gladys had gone to bed early and was fast asleep by midnight when the screams began. She awoke with a start, and when she realized the screams were coming from the single-women refugees’ dormitory, she leapt out of bed and raced from the room. She ran to the dormitory and swung the door open. Inside were about fifty Japanese soldiers, yelling and poking guns at the terrified women. Some of them were ripping off the women’s clothes. Gladys took a deep breath and charged into the room. A Japanese soldier saw her coming and drew his rifle back. Gladys was about five feet into the room when the soldier brought the butt of his rifle down as hard as he could on the side of her head. There was a sickening thud as Gladys collapsed unconscious to the floor, with blood flowing from the gash in her head. It was several hours before Gladys regained consciousness, and when she did, Jean Davies told her what had happened.
David Davies had also heard the screams. He arrived at the women’s dormitory just as Gladys was hit over the head. He knew he could do nothing to fend off fifty armed men, so he yelled for all the women to pray. A few of them heard him and fell to their knees. A soldier swung his rifle butt at David, catching him across the cheek, ripping it open. As David sank to his knees, he kept yelling, “Pray, pray.”
This made the soldier who had hit him very angry. The soldier aimed his rifle at David’s head and pulled the trigger. The gun didn’t fire. He pulled the trigger again. The gun still didn’t fire. The soldier started pulling the trigger frantically, but his rifle would not fire. Finally he removed his gun from David’s head and backed out the door with great fear.
Meanwhile, the women were doing as they had been told. One by one, they fell to their knees and prayed. The soldiers didn’t know what to do. This attack was unlike any other they had made. While the soldiers were arguing among themselves over what to do next, their captain arrived and ordered them all back to barracks.
“Did any of the women get hurt?” asked Gladys.
Jean Davies shook her head, “Not one. And David will be okay, too. He had to have a lot of stitches in his cheek, though.”
Gladys sank into her pillow, hoping the war would soon be over. But things got worse. While she was away from Yangcheng, Less, her oldest son, had joined the Nationalist Chinese Army. Within a few weeks of his signing up, Gladys received the sad news that he’d been killed in the fighting.
Several months after the incident in Tsechow, Gladys had an opportunity to tell others what was happening in China. Theodore White, an American freelance journalist, had found his way to Shansi province. Once he arrived, everyone told him about a little English woman who was helping refugees in the mountains. Her name was Ai-weh-deh, and just about everyone he met told him he should interview her. Theodore White decided to take their advice and find this Ai-weh-deh.
He found Gladys in Yangcheng surrounded by orphans, bombing victims, and new converts. He was amazed at the work she was doing and at her choice to stay in a war zone instead of fleeing to safety. Theodore White asked Gladys many questions, which she gladly answered. Gladys hoped that what he wrote would be published so that people could read about the problems in China. She never dreamed the story would be published in one of the largest news magazines in the world: Time magazine. Time bought and printed Theodore White’s article about Gladys, and it was read by millions of people all over the United States and Great Britain and around the world.
Throughout this time, Gladys kept busy with her missionary work in the small villages surrounding Yangcheng. She traveled from village to village, encouraging the Christian converts and praying with them. The Chinese Army general stationed in the area decided that Gladys probably knew more than anyone else about Japanese troop movements in the countryside. He asked Gladys to tell him which way the Japanese soldiers were headed whenever she saw them. He also wanted to know how the soldiers were treating the local people. Gladys was glad to do this if it would help get the Japanese out of China. Without really ever using the word, Gladys knew she had become a spy for her adopted homeland.
The general began to ask Gladys questions about her work. He could hardly believe it when she told him she had nearly two hundred children in her care. He couldn’t understand how she fed them all each day. Gladys couldn’t explain it either, but somehow she was able to feed them all. The general told Gladys he’d heard there were many orphanages in Shensi province set up by Madame Chiang Kai-shek, the wife of the leader of the Chinese Nationalist government. The government had taken over colleges and temples and turned them into orphanages for some of the millions of children who had been orphaned by the brutal fighting. The general suggested that Gladys write to Madame Chiang and see whether she could find room in an orphanage for the children. Gladys wrote the letter, and the general saw that it was delivered.
A month later a messenger arrived with a letter for Gladys from Madame Chiang Kai-shek. Gladys ripped the letter open and read it. The letter said that if Gladys could find a way to get the children to Sian in Shensi province, Madame Chiang would find a place for them in orphanages. She would also send money back to help Gladys with her work in Yangcheng.
It all sounded straightforward. Shensi was the next province to Shansi, across the Yellow River to the west. One of the new converts, Tsin Pen-kuang, offered to escort the first hundred children to Sian. He would also collect the money for Gladys and bring it back. Then he would make another trip to Sian with the rest of the children. That way, all the children would be safe, and Gladys would be free to stay and work among the people of the district.
Gladys hugged every one of the hundred children good-bye and promised to pray for them until she heard they were safe in Sian. The children had a long journey ahead of them. It was more than two hundred miles from Yangcheng to Sian. The children would travel over mountain trails and have to cross the Yellow River. The whole journey would take them about fourteen days, and along the way, farmers would help to feed them. But long as the trip was, Gladys knew it would be worth it for the children. They would be moving away from the war zone and would be much safer in Sian.
Once they had left, Gladys waited impatiently for word they’d arrived safely. Five weeks later, to her relief, word came that the children had all made it to Sian. Now Gladys anxiously waited for Tsin Pen-kuang to return for the rest of the children. Gladys promised herself she would go to Sian when the war was over and visit all of the children. In the meantime, she had much to do. The Christian converts in the area continued to need support and encouragement, as did most of the people in Yangcheng. And then there were the sick and the wounded, who needed to be tended to and cared for.
As Gladys waited anxiously for Tsin Pen-kuang to return and take the second group of children to Sian, two very important things occurred that she didn’t know about. Tsin Pen-kuang wouldn’t be coming back for the other children, ever. He had been robbed and killed by Japanese soldiers on the return journey. And a copy of the Time magazine article about Gladys by Theodore White had fallen into the hands of the Japanese. Ai-weh-deh was a marked woman.
Chapter 14
A Price on Her Head
A hail of small pebbles pinged against the rice paper screen in the window of Gladys’s room. Gladys’s heart beat loudly as she lay still, trying to decide what to do. Finally, she called out to see who was trying to get her attention. Much to her relief, it was a Nationalist Chinese soldier. He was a Christian, and Gladys knew him well. She slipped on her jacket and went downstairs to let him in.
As she closed the door behind him, he looked around nervously. “You must come with the soldiers,” he began. “The Japanese are coming back, and we do not have enough men to hold them off. We are leaving Yangcheng, and it will fall back into enemy hands. The Japanese are becoming more desperate. You will not be safe here. You must come with me now. The general orders you to. The children can come, too. He has sent you a letter.”
The soldier thrust a large sheet of parchment into Gladys’s hand. Gladys held the paper close to the lamp and read it. It echoed what the soldier had just told her. As she read, anger rose in her. Who did the general think he was to give her orders? She might be his spy, but she most certainly wasn’t in his army. She was under God’s orders, and no one else’s! So Gladys took a pen, and with a flourish, she wrote “chi tao tu pu twai” (Christians never retreat) on the back of the letter and signed it. Feeling pleased at having made her point loud and clear, she handed the letter back to the soldier and told him to give it to the general.
The soldier shook his head. “You don’t understand. You must come. You are in great danger,” he pleaded.
“Rubbish,” replied Gladys, ignoring the fact she had gone to bed with the same impression only an hour or so before. “I am a Chinese citizen, just like everyone else who is going to stay. So I am in the same danger as anyone else in Yangcheng. No more and no less. I would be grateful, though, if you would take the children with you to safety, but I will stay here where I can do the most good.”
Shaking his head at Gladys’s reply, the soldier pulled a second sheet of paper from his pocket and handed it to Gladys. He spoke gently. “I do not mean to scare you, Ai-weh-deh, but you are mistaken. These are already posted on every side of the city wall in Tsechow and will be on the city wall of Yangcheng as soon as the Japanese arrive.”
Gladys unfolded the paper and held it close to the lamp. It was a poster with “Reward” written in large letters across the top. Then the poster read: “Any person who gives information that leads to the capture (dead or alive) of the below mentioned people will receive a one hundred dollar reward from the Japanese High Command.” Three names were listed on the poster. Gladys knew them all. The first was the mandarin of Tsechow. The second was a well-known businessman in the region. The third name read, “Ai-weh-deh, also known as the Small Woman.”
Gladys stared at the poster as if she expected her name to disappear at any moment. The soldier interrupted her thoughts. “The general said the Japanese found some news article from America. You said bad things about them in it. They will have no mercy when they find you.”
Gladys tried to let the information sink in. She had a price on her head, and a large one at that. Everyone within a hundred miles of Yangcheng knew who she was, and one of them, she felt sure, would give in to the temptation to make easy money off that knowledge. She needed some time to think about what to do.
“Thank you,” she said to the soldier. “I will tell you my decision in the morning.”
The soldier bowed and disappeared into the darkness. With trembling hands, Gladys bolted the door behind him.
An important choice lay in front of her. Should she run away or stay and face possible torture and death? Gladys didn’t shrink at the idea of staying, yet she wondered whether there would be any point to her dying at the hands of the Japanese. She thought of a Chinese prayer Mrs. Lawson had taught her years ago. “If I must die, let me not be afraid of death, but let there be a meaning, O God, in my dying.”
