Ch 19 Interrogation

As Wang Yao had his two arms tied behind and escorted to the German commanding office located at a farmhouse, he swore at the bottom of his heart never to answer a word to any questions.

"Calm down, Wang Yao. You must remain calm." as he silently murmured to himself.

But, as the enemies started searching over his body and ripping off his clothes for interrogation and torture, a strong sense of disgust caused his body to experience an irresistible shudder. If it wasn't that his two arms were tied behind, he would had taken off his clothes and show them every pocket himself, just so they wouldn't touch him—before departure, he had already left behind all letters, photos and identifications according to the rules for scouts anyway.

No. In the shirt pocket in front of his chest still hid a most precious thing—the pouch Lerika sewed for him, along with his ecological observation notes written on scrap paper. His memory before the war and his dream of the life afterwards all pressed against that soldier's heart dearly. When the stitches infused with the girl's whole tenderness and affection were ripped open, causing the months' worth of diary to fall on the ground and trampled under army boots, it was then that Wang Yao's heart suddenly began to ache.

When they started to take off his shirt, Wang Yao finally opened his mouth after the long silence:

"Enough!"

The German major who was questioning him apparently knew some Russian and stared at him with mockery, "Are you embarrased? You don't seem to understand your situation. If we don't take them off, they'll stick onto the wounds and give you a hard time."

"Beat me as much as you want." Then, lowered his eyes after he spoke, hidden all emotions behind the bushy eyelashes as not to let them discover his violent feeling of humiliation suppressed deep at heart.

But the sense of humiliation only lasted for a second. A soldier pulled Wang Yao's collar and gave him a fierce slap in the face. Several men of bulky build kicked and thrust, pressing him down onto a bench facing down. The whip made a screeching sound in the air, then ferosciously bit on his back. They thrashed him as they questioned him with icy voice of his name, which troop he belonged to and where his accomplices hid. He lay there without raising his face counting the whipping "…eleven, twelve, thirteen…"

He remembered the location of every single trench, every bundle of bush and every firebase. He remembered every kind face of his comrades. He worried of that German major's mocking eyes, that perhaps could see through his mind of those places and those people. Quick! Think of something else. Yet, the bunker, trenches, old gramp's cabin and Ivan's lonesome figure by the woods all surfaced in his memory.

"…thirty-nine, forty, forty-one, forty-two…"

—How could he not think of them! Ever since he fell into the enemy's hand, that familiar and affable entirety gave him the utmost solace and courage. In the extreme fire-like pain, every trench, every bundle of bush, every firebase and every comrade swirled rapidly before his eyes and inside his heart, eventually overlapped and unified into an image of the tall handsome young man by the woods. Those violet eyes filled with worry and lingering peered right into his heart…

Wang Yao tried even harder to keep his eyes close shut. Now, to him who sank barehanded into the enemy's hand without an inch of steel, his close shut eyelids were the last line of defense; of everything and of that lingering young man in his eyes.

The whipping stopped when he counted sixty. A large hand pulled his sweaty black hair, forcing him to raise his lowered pale face. He opened his eyes defenselessly and saw the major scanning him from up high with obvious loathe and derision.

"I suggest you to think it over. Don't end your own life and hurt someone's heart. You have lover too…"

The major swung something in front of Wang Yao's eyes…it was his cherished pouch made by Lerika, now helplessly hanging down from the enemy's hand.

"You have lover too…"

Lerika's dark brown curvy hair and rosy cheeks flashed in front of his eyes, causing a moment of sweet and bitter pain ringing inside his heart. But the girl's delicate face quickly changed, into something more extensive, more brave and more handsome, like another person he was familiar with. But who was that person? He was nearly muddleheaded from extreme pain and couldn't remember.

"You have lover too…"

He felt that this sentence was as if a call of condolence from faraway, from their own people—the people in the base and in the woods—to tell Wang Yao, that he had loved…

Wang Yao laughed happily.

"Yes, I do have lover…and I love very, very much. So don't expect me to tell you anything…"

The enemy pulled his hair and threw him from the bench onto the ground. The whip was no longer for the questioning now, but more out of an aggravating revenge, smashing onto him frantically. He silently counted until one-hundred-and-twelve when he could see or hear no more. The heavy leather boots that had stomped his ecological notes were fiercely kicking his unconscious body.

When Wang Yao woke up, the sky had lighted up. There seemed to be infinite numbers of little hammers striking madly inside the blood vessels of his temple. The inner layer of shirt and pants were ripped into pieces from the whipping, now stuck onto the wounds that covered his back and limbs, causing tremendous burning pain with every small movement. The icy cold forced him to try surrounding his arms around his body, but the two arms were solidly tied behind by coarse hemp rope.

He knew it clearly. He would not had the strength to escape after the interrogation, even if he wasn't tied up. Then why did they tie him up anyway and locked him inside this bleaky cold storage room?

Because they feared him. When he was still the free flying "white crane" on the snow field, the German soldiers in the Rogachevo—Bereza region talked about the "white ghost" with hatred and dread. When he was isolated and besieged, he finished off three men with great precision before a few more went up together and disarmed him. Even when he was interrogated as a captive, they didn't know what to do with him.

"Who would've thought that you end up like this." The bitten lips stretched into a cynical smile. He, Wang Yao, the best scout at taking captives, could had fallen into the terrible state such as this! But he could had escaped! He parted with Egorov and quickly found out the farm house in which the command center located in. But just as he was about to turn back, the firing sound from the end of the village told him that Egorov encountered the Germans. Wang Yao had no choice but to hide himself in the bush behind the commanding center and decided to retrieve after the commotions. In fact, the German soldiers running out of the commanding center could never had thought that he was in the very heart of their area.

—If it wasn't a scream of a young woman, the enemies would never had found him! Perhaps, some silly girl of the village caught sight of him by accident, screamed without thinking and forfeited his chances. No, he could had fleed even then. Just step away and throw that hand grenade tied on his belt into the commanding center and all the smoke and chaos from explosion could entirely cover his escape.

But he didn't do that. He wouldn't do that if given him another chance… When he was out scouting, he saw the owners of this farmhouse—an old couple of some fifty years old in the yard holding each other's arms. The lady prayed with a whispering voice, "Almighty and gracious Lord, please have mercy on this old mother's heart and bring the children home safe and sound. My Tonya, Vanya and Natasha…" The old man comforted her in a low voice, "The children are going to be fine. If they came home and found out their mother blinded her eyes from crying, they would be heartbroken. Come, let's go inside and work. Who could've helped that the Germans picked us Braginsky's as their base…"

No, he couldn't blow up the commanding center and thus gave up his last chance of retrieve.

"I'm not a good scout afterall..."