Search for the Buried Bomber

CHAPTER 35





Vanished



The sudden darkness caught us all unawares. In the blink of an eye we could see nothing. Chen Luohu was so shocked he fell over. The rest of us were left stupefied for a moment. I heard Ma Zaihai curse "gousheng" from within the darkness. Whatever this meant, it wasn't polite. The deputy squad leader sighed. I could hear him laugh bitterly to himself. I felt a sudden annoyance. We'd already been at an impasse. Was it necessary that we be more thoroughly screwed? At least it fit our profession to die in the dark.

After about five minutes, I heard what sounded like small broken objects being fumbled about. Not long after, a flashlight beam shot across the room. The sudden brightness left us unable to open our eyes. Ma Zaihai had flipped it on. He brought the iron chair underneath the emergency light and stood on it, examining the lighting case. I knew this sort of emergency light—and especially one so rarely used—wouldn't ordinarily break. Even after being left alone for dozens of years, its simple design meant it should still be good as new. Breaking open the power storage box underneath the light, Ma Zaihai discovered there'd been a short in the old electrical line.

We had none of the tools or parts required for its repair. Using his bare hands, Ma Zaihai fiddled about with it, burning himself as a result. He swore again from the pain and was berated by the deputy squad leader. Neither recklessness nor cursing is encouraged in soldiers. Ma Zaihai was very submissive toward the deputy squad leader and apologized for his mistake at once.

We were all greatly disheartened and felt at a loss. Being knocked down over and over like this wears on a person's willpower. Our sole source of consolation was that, now that the chamber was dark, we could see a very faint ray of light shooting into the room through the aperture in the door. Before it had barely been visible, but now it was quite conspicuous. The light in the ready room was still on.

The deputy squad leader had Ma Zaihai turn off his flashlight to preserve the batteries. It was already low on power, the beam very dim. Ma Zaihai waved it gloomily about, lit at last upon that old-fashioned emergency light, then turned it off. Watching the light sweep around the room, I had the sudden feeling that something strange was afoot. I seemed to have caught sight of something, as if the room had somehow changed now that the light was off. Though I couldn't be sure what it was, a cold sweat broke out across my entire body, as if by reflex.

What was it? I wondered. I yelled for Ma Zaihai to turn his flashlight back on and shine it around the room. Ma Zaihai jumped in surprise, then immediately switched on the flashlight and scanned the chamber. This time all of us could see the problem. The deputy squad leader began to cough violently. A backpack was all that remained in the corner where Yuan Xile had been. She was nowhere to be seen.

Without wasting a second we jumped up and circled the room, shining about with the flashlight. We checked the corners, under the desk, even the ceiling, but Yuan Xile had disappeared! How much time had passed since the light went out? I counted it out on my fingers and was sure it hadn't been more than ten minutes. In that dark time, we'd sunk into such a state of gloom and depression that no one had paid any attention to the sound of Yuan Xile's movements. Logically, however, I knew that no matter what she did, there was no way she could have left this sealed-up chamber.

At first we couldn't believe it. Ma Zaihai's light was already dim. We were sure we must have simply missed her. Chen Luohu took out his flashlight and we searched the room for nearly twenty minutes. The chamber was not large. After I'd scanned it once and then again, my whole body was soon soaked in a cold sweat. "She's really gone," groaned Chen Luohu.

I had a sudden splitting headache—none of this made any sense. What the Japanese had done down here was already abnormal to the extreme, and now someone had inexplicably vanished from within a darkened room? It was more than I could take. I put my head in my hands and shrank against the wall. Was I having another nightmare? I suddenly wondered. Even this question felt beyond me.

The deputy squad leader was deathly pale. Each of us turned from one man to the next, our expressions dumbfounded. Ma Zaihai and the deputy squad leader both squatted down and looked back into the air vent. I felt as if I were losing my mind. There was absolutely no way a person could wriggle into a space that small. It was truly preposterous. But the iron chamber was far from large, and besides the main door, there was no other way out. We'd just watched Ma Zaihai attempt to squeeze inside before the light went out. Our eyes were all drawn to this spot. I thought of Yuan Xile's build. People back then were generally quite slight, especially young women, though I didn't know exactly what kind of physique she had. Still, no way was she petite enough to fit into a space like this.

Ma Zaihai was first to lie flat in front of the opening. He switched on his flashlight. Sweat ran down his face. We watched in silence, our attention concentrated on the beam of light. Rather than fading, the sudden terror we felt had only increased. My heartbeat was like thunder. I'd felt like this only once before: the first time I stole an egg from the production brigade. Still, we never would have expected that the moment Ma Zaihai shined his light down the shaft, he would suddenly scream out in fear.

It was a terrifying sound. Ma Zaihai jumped up as if he'd been given an electric shock, his face ashen. He stumbled and fell back down. Despite being scared half to death, I quickly scooped up his flashlight and crouched down to take a look. My mind was buzzing. Goose bumps ran from the top of my head down to my heels. My whole body was so cold it was like I'd fallen into a giant icehouse. While the emergency light was on, we'd been unable to see anything past the mouth of the air vent. Now the beam shot into the air vent, illuminating its deepest recesses. Then it appeared. It was a face, crushed and terribly deformed—whether it belonged to a person or to some "thing," whether it was that of Yuan Xile, I couldn't tell, but in my heart I found it impossible to believe that whatever was stuffed back there could really be human.