SOLDIER HUANG was adding frantically to the defences of his foxhole – putting stones on the two layers of logs, and more pine branches on the stones. Everything was wet, the trees were dripping, and the mud stuck to his shoes. As he looked out nervously, he could see one of the Nationalist blockhouses, or ‘turtle-shells’ as they called them, 600 metres away. It was a solid brick building like a round granary with gun slits, stronger-looking than anything he had seen in the villages. They had been preparing themselves for a week and he wondered when the fighting would start. But he did not want to dwell on it, so he tried humming one of the songs he had learned in the last few days:
Comrades! Ready with your guns!
Charge with one heart, Struggle and fight to kill! Comrades! Fight for freedom! Fight for the Soviets!
He struggled to remember the next line. A faint light on the horizon was visible through the rain, which had been falling steadily ever since they had reached the front. As dawn broke, he could hear birds singing. Suddenly, they went quiet and a heavy growling noise took over. He leapt into his foxhole. A few seconds later the sky was black with planes, like huge flocks of crows, and the crump of bombing began. The din became deafening. One bomb dropped close by and his foxhole collapsed, leaving just his head free. He dug himself out, and glanced round: two-thirds of the foxholes his company had built were flattened, and the trench was destroyed.
The captain ordered the men to take position. Huang put his rifle down and lay next to it in the wet soil of what was left of the trench. Looking to left and right, he could see quite a few men missing – the bombing had taken its toll. And then the artillery began. The ground shook and flowers of earth blossomed and fell on him, almost burying him. Within ten minutes a quarter of the company was dead or wounded.
When the shelling stopped, Soldier Huang was still kneeling on the sodden ground. A man rushed to pull him up, shouting that the infantry would soon advance on them. He only had five bullets. The captain shouted, ‘Don't fire until they are three metres away.’ Huang could see their white cap badges and the sun flashing on their weapons. They fired and he missed his target. A few fell, but within seconds the enemy was on them.
It was bayonet to bayonet, kill or be killed. He accounted for two of them. He was barely thinking, too numb even to feel fear, and screaming like a madman to release the panic bottled up in his chest. Before long, the Nationalists retreated, and the captain ordered his men to do likewise. As they staggered away, their feet fighting with the clay earth, the shelling began again. This was the daily pattern.
At dusk, everything fell quiet. There were piles of bodies within 70 metres of their trench, enough to form a human barricade. He shuddered to see an officer walking around, finishing off those who were still groaning from their wounds. He was told it was to stop them from surrendering and giving information to the enemy. Once they had buried the dead, they gathered around the mess-tent. He had little appetite although he had eaten nothing the whole day. The cook had prepared food for over 100 but there were only thirty left in his company. After the meal, they retreated five kilometres in the dark, to dig another trench. This was Soldier Huang's first battle and he was only 14. The Guangchang battle in April 1934 lasted eighteen days and the Red Army lost 6,000 men, with 20,000 wounded. It was the heaviest blow the Red Army had suffered up till then, and it was the turning point in Chiang's campaign.
I found Huang through the pensioners' office of the Ruijin county government, which, in the Communist tradition, had excellent records of the Long March survivors and anyone they wanted to keep tabs on. ‘I'm not sure how much he can tell you,’ the clerk said slowly after he had finished the newspaper he was reading. ‘He is only a peasant. You should really talk to old Wu. He used to be the Prime Minister's bodyguard. He knows things, but he is in hospital. Last year we still had a dozen. Now there are only eight left.’ Two lived in the mountains with the nearest road five miles away, three were in hospital, and one was away visiting relatives. ‘Why don't you start with old Huang? If he is no use, come back to me.’
I should have felt discouraged but I did not. I knew what he thought: it was only worth talking to the heroes and the big decision-makers; but their stories are already in our history books, told and retold until they have become symbols, the eternal refrain. Perhaps for him, Huang was not enough of a committed revolutionary, but his ordinary life as a foot soldier on the March was just what I was missing. With luck it would tell me the unadorned truth about what the rank and file really experienced.
I took a rickshaw – there were no taxis – and set off for Huang's village on the outskirts of Ruijin. We went past the farmers’ market, through the houses of the old quarter with their tiled roofs and curling eaves, and over the sandstone bridge across the Mian River, swathed in mist. There was a grace and tranquillity to the scene. Suddenly we turned a corner and the illusion was dispelled – we were in a huge square of incongruous pink concrete houses and shops, with a fountain in the middle – a giant steel ball on a tower. The rickshaw driver turned proudly towards me, ‘This is our new town centre. Our Party secretary got a promotion for building it.’
I was relieved to leave the theme-park square behind and go back to the green countryside with its endless paddy-fields. It was next to one of them that I found Huang's village. All its 1,000 people shared the name of Huang, and the clan's ancestor shrine stood prominently in the middle. I was directed to find him there, listening with a huge crowd, not to the village head relaying the latest Party instructions, but to an eager salesman preaching the benefits of Heart K, which was supposed to give you more blood. Huang was a convert, taking two ampoules every day. ‘I want to live as long as possible,’ he told me, waving the small box of magic potions he had just bought. He did not look as though he needed them. He was short, hard and lean, with a piercing gaze. He walked upright, faster than I could easily follow. On the way to his house, he introduced me to his cousins, nieces, nephews, grand-nephews, great-grand-nieces, three brothers and two sisters-in-law. It was still a closely knit clan.
Huang's house was in the middle of an open courtyard, with his eldest son occupying the house in the front, his youngest brother at the back, and his two nephews from his third brother on the left and right. The house was bare apart from a bed with a mosquito net, a table with a small black-and-white TV, a few benches, and the stove. He had few visitors and spent his day listening to local operas. ‘I can't see properly because of the snow-blindness I suffered on the Long March,’ he explained as he turned on the set. ‘Her voice is so sweet. But is the actress as ugly as my wife said?’ he asked, with a mischievous smile. His wife was right: she was so ugly I was glad he could not see her properly.
‘I'll keep the treat to myself then,’ Huang said with a good laugh, and switched off the TV. He suggested we sit outside instead to enjoy the autumn sun. He handed me a stool, and a sweet, while popping one in his toothless mouth. ‘I cannot complain, really. This is a good life,’ he said, sucking on the sweet noisily. Looking at Huang, I thought of the Chinese saying: ‘A wife, children, a patch of land and a warm bed make a happy peasant.’ Huang seemed to be its living proof, but the pensioners’ office had told me he joined the Red Army when he was only 14. He must have been very enthusiastic.
‘They kidnapped me,’ he said, raising his voice.
‘Kidnapped?’ It was the first time I had heard the word in this connection.
‘Thunder will strike me if I tell you one false word,’ Huang said. ‘At first they only wanted the strong and handsome ones. The Red Army deserved the best. Then they took the old, the sick, and even a couple of opium addicts. And then it was children. The Party secretary in our village forced everyone with a dick to sign up, whether they were 15 or 50. The Nationalists did not force children to join, but the Red Army did.’ Huang shook his head.
He was the oldest of five boys and two girls. He was 14 in