CHAPTER 20
R&R
By the time I awoke, the roar of water was gone and all around me was quiet. Wrapped in blankets, I felt warmth like I hadn't in days. Wang Sichuan and the rest had fallen fast asleep. They were pressed close together and looked much more comfortable than they had ever been sleeping alone. I carefully sat up and looked around. Through the hazy lamplight, I discovered I was sitting on a pebbly shoal. Blankets had been laid to suck up the groundwater. Nearby a very small fire flickered in the dark. Several indistinct shapes sat beside it, evidently the sentries on watch. As soon as one of the figures saw I was awake, he came running over. It was one of the engineering corpsmen Old Cat had brought along. "How are you feeling?" he asked.
Stretching out my limbs, I noticed my hands and feet felt unusually stiff . Reaching down, I discovered they'd been tightly bandaged. Except for this I felt all right. I'm fine, I told him.
The corpsman helped me to my feet and I walked with him over to the campfire. "Where is this place?" I asked.
He told me we were still beside the river, on a piece of jutting rock. We had floated for four hours after I fainted. He wasn't sure where exactly we were either. Saying this, he handed me a plate of food. I looked around the cave as I ate. The ground was terraced like rice paddies, like steps climbing out of the river till they met the steep walls. Originally, the rock would have been smooth and sloped at a gradual angle, but over the last ten thousand years it had eroded into these angled formations. We were camped in the middle of one of the terraces. The upper levels were driest, so that's where our belongings were stacked. Though the terraces were not wide, they ran for a very long way. The rafts had been run aground off to the side. I discovered that the bumps beneath my feet were not pebbles, but rather tumorlike protrusions in the rock that jutted sharply upward. It was lucky we'd been able to fall asleep at all. I shined my flashlight across the water, but it failed to illuminate the cave wall opposite. The river had widened significantly. Those still awake staggered about in a daze, while snores from the sleepers rose and fell. Except for the sound of our voices, everything here was quiet. Even the burble of the river had been silenced. It was rare to come upon such a tranquil place. It would be a waste to not rest up here. Gradually, I felt myself relax. After eating my fill, I took a piss and curled up beside Wang Sichuan. After a moment I was in dreamland once more.
This time when I awoke everyone was already up. Water for tea and food was being boiled on three vigorously burning bonfires. Several of our group sat around the flames tending their wounds. Our clothes had also been toasted more or less dry. Old Cat was over by the fire, sitting across from Pei Qing. Wang Sichuan was there too. Rubbing my eyes, I walked over and joined them.
Wang Sichuan clapped me on the back. "Goddamn if you don't enjoy a life of ease and comfort!" he said. "You passed out at just the right time, giving me, your close comrade in arms, a chance to render great and meritorious service! Do you know who hauled your ass all the way up here yesterday? It was me. So remember to tell the higher-ups I deserve a third-class merit when we get back!"
I nodded my head in embarrassment. It's not like I wanted to faint, I thought to myself. I was born this way. To be honest, my body was never suited for this line of work. When it came time to enlist, I forced myself to drink three big bottles of water and just barely managed to make weight. The recruitment officer thought I had contracted some stomach-swelling illness. Normally I was so thin my ribs stuck out like piano keys. But whenever I was ordered to go all out, whatever I lacked in physical power I made up for in spirit. This is where my strength has always lain. Fortunately my body has also become much hardier.
Fainting from exhaustion was very shameful. I tried to change the subject and asked what they'd been talking about. Pei Qing said Old Cat had drawn a contoured map of the cave. Now they were figuring out what the rest of the river might look like and how best to proceed. Hearing this, I was perplexed. "Why are we continuing?" I asked. "Aren't you all the rescue team?"
They were silent. Old Cat continued to smoke his cigarette, the ember glowing brightly in the dark. Then he sighed. I asked again. At last, Wang Sichuan responded. His voice was dry and constricted. "Old Cat said we're not the ones they're here to rescue."
Search for the Buried Bomber
Xu Lei's books
- The Search for Artemis
- The Search The Secrets of Crittenden Cou
- A Brand New Ending
- A Cast of Killers
- A Change of Heart
- A Christmas Bride
- A Constellation of Vital Phenomena
- A Cruel Bird Came to the Nest and Looked
- A Delicate Truth A Novel
- A Different Blue
- A Firing Offense
- A Killing in China Basin
- A Killing in the Hills
- A Matter of Trust
- A Murder at Rosamund's Gate
- A Nearly Perfect Copy
- A Novel Way to Die
- A Perfect Christmas
- A Perfect Square
- A Pound of Flesh
- A Red Sun Also Rises
- A Rural Affair
- A Spear of Summer Grass
- A Story of God and All of Us
- A Summer to Remember
- A Thousand Pardons
- A Time to Heal
- A Toast to the Good Times
- A Touch Mortal
- A Trick I Learned from Dead Men
- A Vision of Loveliness
- A Whisper of Peace
- A Winter Dream
- Abdication A Novel
- Abigail's New Hope
- Above World
- Accidents Happen A Novel
- Ad Nauseam
- Adrenaline
- Aerogrammes and Other Stories
- Aftershock
- Against the Edge (The Raines of Wind Can)
- All in Good Time (The Gilded Legacy)
- All the Things You Never Knew
- All You Could Ask For A Novel
- Almost Never A Novel
- Already Gone
- American Elsewhere
- American Tropic
- An Order of Coffee and Tears
- Ancient Echoes
- Angels at the Table_ A Shirley, Goodness
- Alien Cradle
- All That Is
- Angora Alibi A Seaside Knitters Mystery
- Arcadia's Gift
- Are You Mine
- Armageddon
- As Sweet as Honey
- As the Pig Turns
- Ascendants of Ancients Sovereign
- Ash Return of the Beast
- Away
- $200 and a Cadillac
- Back to Blood
- Back To U
- Bad Games
- Balancing Act
- Bare It All
- Beach Lane
- Because of You
- Before I Met You
- Before the Scarlet Dawn
- Before You Go
- Being Henry David
- Bella Summer Takes a Chance
- Beneath a Midnight Moon
- Beside Two Rivers
- Best Kept Secret
- Betrayal of the Dove
- Betrayed
- Between Friends
- Between the Land and the Sea
- Binding Agreement
- Bite Me, Your Grace
- Black Flagged Apex
- Black Flagged Redux
- Black Oil, Red Blood
- Blackberry Winter
- Blackjack
- Blackmail Earth
- Blackmailed by the Italian Billionaire
- Blackout
- Blind Man's Bluff
- Blindside
- Blood & Beauty The Borgias
- Blood Gorgons
- Blood of the Assassin
- Blood Prophecy
- Blood Twist (The Erris Coven Series)