Proving Ground
By Laura Schiller
Based on: Mulan (1998)
Copyright: Disney
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General Li often said that a good officer knew his men as if they were brothers, both on and off the battlefield. It was sound advice, but Captain Li Shang still found it difficult to follow. He felt distinctly foolish as he clutched his meal tray and steered his way through the mess hall tent, more like a schoolboy than the confident leader he was supposed to be.
Don't be ridiculous, he told himself. You have no problem standing in front of the entire company, giving orders. Why should having lunch with only four of them be any different?
But it was. Instructing them on how to string a bow or throw a punch had a logic to it that ordinary conversation did not. Besides, authority was not the same as comradeship. The first came automatically with his rank, but the second had to be earned.
With that in mind, he decided to tackle what he privately called the misfit table first. As he approached, Ling was trying – and failing – to balance a chopstick on the end of his nose. The other three were laughing at the spectacle: Yao raucously, Chien Po quietly, Ping hiding a giggle behind one hand with surprising daintiness.
"May I join you?" asked Shang.
Ling squawked with surprise as the chopsticks fell off his nose. "Y-yes, sir! Of course, sir! C'mon, Ping, shove over. Give the Captain some room."
Ping blushed as he scooted over to the farthest edge of the bench, almost falling off in his effort to respect his captain's personal space. Shang wondered if he might have shouted at the boy a little too often to make him so nervous, but being shouted at seemed to agree with him. Ping had gone from a walking disaster to the most improved recruit in the camp.
An awkward silence descended as Shang sat down. The stir fry, made from the same fish the recruits had caught that morning during survival training, smelled delicious, but no one seemed to have an appetite except Chien Po, who went on eating placidly as if nothing had happened.
"So … tell me a little about yourselves," Shang began. "How did you all come to be here?"
Yao snorted. "We got drafted, didn't we? None of us had a choice … sir."
"What my good friend means to say," Ling jumped in, "Is that we consider it an honor to serve. And if anyone tells you I volunteered to impress the ladies back home, well ... what can I say? I'm impulsive."
"Really?" asked Shang. "Being gone for the duration of the war doesn't strike me as the best way to get a girl's attention."
"I didn't say it was a good plan." The skinny young man grinned ruefully, showcasing several missing teeth, which seemed to break the ice at least a little bit.
Yao let out a deep, rumbling laugh like a small avalanche. "Yeah, well, I've got a bit of a temper on me, as you might have noticed. My family sent me here so I could learn to control it."
"Pretty smart of them," Ling added, patting Yao on the back. "Here's an idea, Captain. As soon as we run into the Huns, just say something rude to Yao here and point him in their direction. He'll explode like gunpowder and the battle will be over by teatime."
"I'll make your head explode if you don't shut up, beanpole," Yao grumbled, but he seemed to mean it in a good-natured way, because Ling laughed without a trace of fear.
"Thanks for the suggestion. I'll consider it," said Shang, deliberately blank-faced. To his secret satisfaction, everybody laughed.
"Hey, what about you, big guy?" Ling nudged Chien Po, who loomed like a small mountain, taking up half the bench by himself. "How'd you wind up in the army?"
"I wanted to be a monk when I was younger," said Chien Po, in that gentle tenor of his that always sounded odd from a man his size. "I decided it could wait."
Shang was not surprised. Chien Po was the resident peacemaker; he seemed to have a calming influence on Yao in particular. For all his natural strength, he didn't seem to have an aggressive bone in his body. "So … you joined the army instead?"
"From what I've read about war," said the big man, this time with an edge of steel underneath the gentleness, "It doesn't stop at the gates of a temple. Sometimes if you want peace, the only way is to fight back."
"I quite agree," said Shang, nodding across the table with respect.
He thought of all the rumors he'd heard so far about Shan Yu, the enemy commander. The man's reputation preceded him. Even if only half the stories were true, that would still make him a ruthless warlord with no thought for civilian lives. Chien Po had a point; pacifist ideals only took you so far. If your enemy didn't share them, your only options were to defend yourself or be killed.
Still, when the war was over, Shang couldn't help hoping that Chien Po would have his chance to live the quiet life he was meant for.
Glancing over at Ping to see what he thought, Shang found their youngest recruit listening intently, eyes shining like obsidian. He really was too pretty for his own good. He was also, Shang realized, uncharacteristically quiet today. How long had it been since his last ridiculous outburst?
"What's your story, Ping? Something tells me it's a good one."
For a moment, something flashed in the younger man's eyes that Shang could only describe as fear, and he wished he hadn't asked. What could have happened to the boy, to make him so secretive?
A moment later, though, Ping pulled himself together and smirked, with such bravado that Shang wondered if the fear had only been in his imagination to start with. "If you insist, sir, but there's not much to it. You already know I took my father's place, right? I figured, why let the older generation have all the glory?"
Shang clenched his jaw. This boy was more annoying than the rest of the company put together. He had so much potential, but if he didn't stop crowing like a half-grown rooster to prove his manhood every chance he got, he was going to land himself and his fellow soldiers in deep trouble someday.
"If that's what you think, you're even more of a child than you look," Shang retorted. "There is no glory in war for its own sake. The only glory is in what we fight to protect."
He picked up his tray and rose to his feet, deciding he'd better retreat to his private tent before he let the men see him losing his temper any further. From the corner of his eye, he saw Ping's face fall, and Chien Po reach across the table to pat the smaller man's shoulder. With a sweep of his cloak, Shang turned away.
Badly done, he told himself. He could almost hear his father's disappointed voice in his head. If he couldn't control a harmless social situation, what would it be like on the battlefield? And why did it have to be Ping who got under his skin like this?
Because they had too much in common, that was why. How could he blame the recruit for being overeager to prove himself when all he'd ever wanted was to do the same?
General Li was out there right now, leading from the front, risking his life alongside those of his men. If – when – he came back, Shang prayed that he would be able to meet his father's eyes with a clear conscience.
The only way he could do that was by never giving anything less than his best.