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第二章 穿越大平原 |
CHAPTER II ACROSS THE GREAT PLAIN |
第八节 旅伴 |
8. Traveling Companions |
| 春天到来时，黄河与运河涨水，洪水浇灌了大片的低洼地整个华北平原就像是个一望无际的大花园，麦浪滚滚，绿树丛丛，千百万人民生息在这片大地上。
田野里展现了一幅动人的农村生活的图景，到处都可以看到身穿蓝布褂子的农民在勤奋劳作。夏天，太阳一个劲地曝晒，海上又没有风吹来，村舍泥抹的屋顶干裂了，第一场雨下来，就滴滴嗒嗒漏水。夏天骄阳当午时，其热难耐，人们部呆在自家土屋里．周围一片寂静。秋天，高梁红熟了，地里人又多起来，收割了庄稼，打谷场上喧闹欢乐。进入隆冬，寒冷的平原上不见人影满目荒凉，一片寂静。高高矮矮的树梢，在严冬白茫茫的天空下，像一根根灰色的电线杆。田野里只有几只野兔奔跑着，在无人行走的雪地里寻找安身之处。 |
IN SPRINGTIME, when the
Yellow River and the Grand Canal overflow their banks and the flood water
covers all the low-lying water meadows, the North China Plain is like a
vast garden where millions of people live, concealed by the softness of
green massed trees, islands upon a softly undulating sea of waving grain. In the fields an impressive picture of country life unfolds and everywhere you cast your eyes peasants in blue jerkins are at work, methodically, thoughtfully, contentedly. In the summer, the sun beats down with undiminished force and no wind comes from the sea and the mud roofs in the villages crack and the first rain trickles through in numberless rivulets. In the summer, even at noonday it is quiet, for every man has hidden from the glare of the sun in his mud-brick house. In the autumn, as the kaoliang turns brown, the fields are filled again and there is the sound of winnowing and threshing and the merriment of harvest activity. But in wintertime the plain stands completely deserted, bare, fettered in a cold silence. The serrated edges of the treetops show bleak as telegraph poles against the pallid, wintry sky. Only the rabbits move about the fields, finding a safe haven beneath the untrodden snows. |
我一站一站地穿越这个荒凉的平原，朝着西南方向，直奔晋冀鲁豫边区总部所在地邯郸。晚上投宿农民家里，访问地方官员，第二天换一部大车继续赶路。第三天，我来到边区政府的一个地方办事处，有一部美国军用的中型卡车等在这里载我去邯郸。我喜出望外，因为几天来坐着骡车，慢慢腾腾，一天只能走二十英里路，弄得我焦急难耐。 可是这部中卡已经破旧不堪。美国人开着它从印度经过缅甸来到中国；蒋介石的军队接收后把它开到华北；如今，它在作战中被缴获，落入共产党人之手。 这部车子真可谓历经战火，万里跋涉之后，遍体鳞伤。挡泥板已经撞坏，都快拖到地上了。车篷早已没了，后面的横木横七竖八地乱晃着，乘客要是不小心，眼珠就会被捅出来。为了开动这部老爷车，配备了整整四个人：司机、机械师以及两个助手。那两个助手像马车夫那样，袖手坐在驾驶室两旁延伸出来的车板上。 |
Across this barren plain, changing carts at every overnight stop, sleeping in peasant homes and with county magistrates, I continued on in a southwesterly direction toward Hantan and the headquarters of the Shansi-Hopei-Shantung-Honan Border Region. On the third day, I reached a suboffice of the Border Region government. Here - already sick of being pulled across the country by a mule at the rate of twenty miles a day - I was overjoyed to find a US Army weapons carrier waiting to take me on to Hantan. What an old war horse that weapons carrier was! The Americans had brought it from India across Burma to China; then Chiang Kai-shek's troops had taken charge of it and b ht it north; and now,having been captured in battle, it was in the hands of the Communists. |
| 一百多个老乡跑出来看我这个“洋鬼子”坐“汽车”。这是难得的瞧热闹的机会，大家看得十分带劲儿。当那位机械师摇车把，摇了五分钟还发动不起来时，老乡们大声起哄，好像是说：“干嘛不找一头骡子来拉呢？”
司机感到面子上难看，便从方向盘后的宝座上跳下来，戴上手套，从机械师手里夺过摇把，熟练地摇了几下，马达轰然发动起来了。周围的群众喝采叫好。那司机脱下手套，回到驾驶座上，踩下离合器踏板，挂上挡，神气十足地向群众招招手，松开离合器踏板。车子往前一冲，但走了一丈多路就熄了火。这样又折腾了几次，我们的车子才算开出村，走上了公路。这条路是日本人修的，虽然有很深的车辙，但路面冻得硬实，我们的车子很快加速到每小时二十英里。读者可能会说车速太慢，但连日来我已经习惯于每天走二十英里，现在这个车速就像是飞似的了。 “真快啊，太好啦！”我听到一个清晰的北京口音在说。 |
To navigate this monstrosity there was
a whole crew-driver, head mechanic and two subordinates who sat with folded
arms, like coachmen, on raised platforms on either side of the front seats. One hundred villagers came out to see the "foreign hairy devil" ride this "steam chariot." Unparalleled opportunity for sport! and they made the most of it, shouting like maniacs and seeming to say - Why don't you get a mule?" when the head mechanic cranked for five minutes without result. Unable to bear the loss of face, the driver descended from his august perch behind the wheel, donned a pair of gloves, seized the crank from his mechanic and, with a professional whirl, sent the motor roaring into life. The crowd cheered. Doffing his gloves, the driver again ascended to his post behind the wheel. Then he threw out the clutch, threw in the gears, waved gallantly to the crowd, let in the clutch again and raced forward - exactly five yards, where he halted in a stall. After several false starts, we drew away from the village and climbed up onto a highway built by the Japanese. Though deeply rutted, the road was frozen hard and we soon got up a speed of twenty miles an hour. You might think this slow, but accustomed to making twenty miles a day, I thought we were flying. "Very fast. Very good," said a voice in a clear Peking accent in my ear. |
| 说话的人是一位年轻的政工干部，他和我一样也是前往刘伯承将军总部去的。他身穿大褂，头戴呢帽，这种装束在这一带农村地区显得很不协调。事实上，他告诉我，这顶呢帽有时给他惹来不少麻烦。老乡们看他这身打扮很像乡间的劣绅或国民党统治的城市里来的骗子，常常耻笑他，骂他“汉奸”。但这人很固执，把这呢帽当宝贝一般坚持戴着。
为了遮挡风沙，他戴着一副风镜，还用一条大围巾兜住他那顶宝贝帽子，把面部和颈项包起来，活像本世纪初期美国驾驶汽车的人。 |
The speaker was a young
political worker, on his way, like me, to the headquarters of General Liu
Po-cheng. Dressed in a long gown and fedora hat, he looked quite out of
place in these country regions. As a matter of fact, he confided that the
hat sometimes caused him trouble. Peasants, seeing in his dress the likeness
of a village boss or a slicker from the Kuomintang-held cities, often hissed
at him and called him "traitor." Being stubborn, however, he clung
to the hat as to a talisman. As protection against the wind and flying dust, he donned a pair of goggles. Then he dropped a large scarf over his precious hat and brought it down across his face and neck like a veil. He looked exactly like an American automobilist of the early 1900's. |
| 我这位旅伴七年前是国立北京大学的学生。一九四〇年，他跟着一百多个青年同伴潜逃到游击区来。一路上，白天在麦地里藏身，夜间偷偷穿越田野，好容易来到太行山。当他第一次看到穿中国军装的人时，不禁高兴得热泪盈眶。但紧接着日本人进山扫荡，实行“三光”政策。几乎全部房屋被烧毁、牲畜被宰光，粮食被抢空。生活变得极端困苦，他常常产生跑回北平去的念头。他总算熬过来了，如今被派下乡从事政治工作。
我和他攀谈一阵后，便问他结婚了没有。他双手一甩，苦笑一下，急促地说：“哪有条件呢？哪有时间谈恋爱呢？我们不断转移，没有自己的房间，没有地方和女朋友幽会，没有时间找爱人，没有机会接吻。”接吻一词他是用英语说的，还用舌头拖长尾声，好像对一种外国佳肴回味无穷似的。 “这里的生活苦哇，”他沉思地说，“我们没有精力谈情说爱。最糟糕的是没有漂亮的姑娘。你找不到漂亮的女人干革命工作的。”他的话音带有一点情绪。他讥讽地说：“到处是小脚女人。” |
Seven years ago, my companion had been a student in Peiping National University. In 1940, with one hundred youthful companions, he had run away to the guerrilla areas. Hiding in the wheat by day and crawling through the fields at night, he had reached the Taihang Mountains, filled with tears of joy at his first sight of a Chinese uniform. His tears had hardly dried when the Japanese came thundering into the mountains on one of their burn-all, loot-all, kill-all drives. Nearly every house was destroyed, the cattle slaughtered and the grain carried off. Life was so terrible that he often thought to run back to Peiping. Somehow, he had survived and now here he was doing political work among the peasants. After many questions, I asked him if he were married. He threw out his
arms, laughed bitterly and said hurriedly: This last word he said in English, rolling it around on his tongue as
if to savor a delicious foreign food. |
| 他向我坦白说他从来没有同女人谈过恋爱。他同我说话时声音很小、很快，老是弓着背，不停地用谦卑的眼光觑着我。
“将来恢复和平时，”他说，“我要去北平……”他没往下说。他的眼神流露看孤独哀伤，但又严酷得可怕，像一匹负伤野兽的眼睛似的，使我不忍心看他。他耷拉着眼皮，强作笑容，忽然脆口说出几个字： “月光……情人……接吻！” 我们的车子颠簸着走了不知多少时候。我的旅伴一会儿哼一支歌曲，一会儿长时间沉默，进入梦境。 |
Never, he confided, had he known a woman as a lover. He spoke to me softly,
hurriedly, all the time bunching his bowed shoulders, incessantly staring
across at me with humble eyes. He said these words in English as if he had heard them long ago in some
movie and stored them up in the secret recesses of his heart which now
opened and gushed forth his mournful longing. We jogged along through the interminable hours. Once in a while my companion would hum a song. Or maybe he would grow silent with dreaming. |
| 下午我们到了邯郸，这是座落在现已不通车的平汉铁路线上的一个有四万人口的城市，也是我离开国民党统治区以来所见到的第一个真正的城市。但是邯郸只有一半的生气。市长解释说：“美制”的飞机炸毁了发电厂，使得城里的电灯不亮了。
市长担心其他设施统统会被炸毁，所以把棉纺厂、铁工厂及其他一些小工厂连同五百工人迁移到山里比较安全的地方去了。与工业转移的同时，边区总部也进了山，所以我的旅行尚未完结。留守在城里招呼过往人员以及像我这类客人的，是一位姓蔡的交际处官员，待人很热情。 |
Sometime in the afternoon,
we reached Hantan, a town of forty thousand people along the now defunct
Peiping-Hankow Railway. Although the first real city I had seen since leaving
Kuomintang areas, Hantan was only half alive. "American" planes,
the mayor explained, destroyed the power plant and the city was without
lights. Afraid he might lose everything, the mayor had moved the cotton
plant the iron foundry and several small factories along with five hundred
orkers to safer regions in the mountains. Along with the industry, the Border Region headquarters had also taken to the hills, so that my journey was not yet ended. Left behind, however, to care for itinerant officials and traveling guests, like myself, was a charming Public Relations official, named Tsai. |
| “你好！我好。谢谢你！欢迎你光临邯郸。”他见了我，没等我开口，就一口气用英语说了这一串。
这位蔡同志同我那位同车的旅伴一样和善，但他忙的不亦乐乎，毫无感到孤独的样子。他已婚，妻子年轻漂亮，他称妻子为“我的爱人”。他有个五岁的儿子，这孩子跟着妈妈学扭秧歌，又学唱反蒋歌曲。蔡同志夫妇是抗日战争时期在游击区相识和结婚的。他们的小孩生下没几天，日军就大举进攻他们所属的游击队。两口子都逃走了，走前把孩子托付给一个相熟的老乡，两年后才能回来接孩子。 我后来了解，有很多的八路军干部把自己的小孩藏在老乡家里，但日后并非所有的人都有幸能骨肉团聚。有时老乡惨遭敌人杀害了，有时逃往他乡了，孩子便从此下落不明。有的孩子只肯喊抚养他们长大的老乡为“爹”，而不认前来接他们的亲生父母。也有些老乡需要养子的劳动力，不愿交还这种孩子。最后，有的干部觉得拖儿带女干革命是个累赘，干脆把孩子送给老乡。 李根注：关于孩子送老乡，参见电影《小花》 |
"How do you do I am well thank you
welcome to Hantan." With these English words said all in one breath,
he had greeted me before I had a chance to open my mouth. Like my truck companion, Tsai was a gentle soul, but no loneliness clouded his busy days. He was married to an attractive girl, whom he called "my lover," and he had a five-year-old son whom his wife had taught to dance the Yangko (Planting Song) and to sing anti-Chiang songs. The Tsais had met and married in the guerrilla areas during the Japanese war. A few days after their son was born, the Japanese had closed in on their guerrilla band and both father and mother fled, leaving the child with a friendly farmer. Not until two years later were they able to return and reclaim him. I was to find that many cadres of the 8th Route Army hid their children in peasant homes, but not all of them had the luck to get them back again. Sometimes the farmer would be killed or he would move and the child could not be found. In other cases, the child, brought up to call the farmer "father," would refuse to recognize his real parents when they came to claim him. Or the farmers, wanting the labor of the extra sons, would be unwilling to give the children back. Finally, some parents, believing revolutionaries could not be burdened with children, surrendered them completely to the farmers. |
邯郸是铁路线上的重镇，又是平原的粮食和山区土特产的集散中心，城市有一定规模，因而有一些生活服务设施，于是我经过长途跋涉后第一次洗了个澡。 当我和市长从澡堂回招待所时，有个穿军装的人从一个房间里跑出来，十分激动地向我们打招呼。他指着我们右边那个房间，压低声音说：“法国人！”市长听了大吃一惊。他挨近我，用右手的食指在左手心里写了一个“法”宇。接着他诡秘地指着自己的嘴，摆了摆手指，示意：“不要说话。”过了一会儿，他匆匆走进我房间，带着歉意向我解释道，联合国善后救济总署的一位法国籍代表刚从南方来到这里，如果知道我是去刘伯承总部的，恐怕他也会要求一同去，那就难办了，因为总部所在地要保密，只有“十分可靠的外国朋友”才让去。 这个事件过后不久，蔡同志拿着两个玻璃瓶来到我房间里，瓶里装着像是血一样的液体。 他解释说：“联合国善后救济总署的一位叫哈里森的美国医生两天前在这附近的地方死去。这一瓶是他死前吐出来的，那一瓶是他死后吐出来的。” |
Hantan, having once been a railway metropolis and a collecting point for the grain from the villages on the plain and the local products from the mountains, and being a town of some size and hence able to offer a few amenities of life, I was afforded the first opportunity of my trip to visit a bathhouse. When I returned with the
mayor from the bathhouse to our hostel, a man in uniform rushed out of a
room and accosted us with great excitement. He pointed at a room on our
right, hissing out the words - "Fa kuo jen!" (Frenchman). The effect on the mayor of these words
was startling. Coming close to me, he held out the palm of his left hand
and on it with the finger of his right hand traced the character fa (France).
Then he mysteriously pointed at his mouth and waved his finger back and
forth several times as if to say: "Don't talk." A few moments
later, somewhat apologetic, he hastened to my room with an explanation.
A French representative of UNRRA had just arrived from the south. If he
learned that I was going to Liu Po-cheng's headquarters, he might want to
come along. That would be embarrassing as the location of the headquarters
was secret and only "trusted foreigners" were taken there. |
| 蔡同志举着两个瓶子叫我看，他的表情十分严肃。事情有些蹊跷，市长暗示，哈里森之死恐怕是一宗谋杀案。
后来我查阅了哈里森的日记，才弄清真相。不久前他押运一车皮的物资前来开封，打算送往解放区。国民党官员故意把他这个车皮调到黄泛区一条偏僻的支线上去。货车厢里不能烤火，也没有吃的，那里又前不着村后不着店，求助无门。整整一个礼拜时间，他蜷缩在货车厢里，又冻又饿，可又不敢离开他所押运的物资。朋友们听到他所处的因境，终于说服国民党官员把他这个车皮拉到开封。这时哈里森患了病，身体己很虚弱，但他决心完成自己的任务，于是把这批物资用渡船运过黄河，送到了共产党地区。由于挨凉受饿过度，他倒毙在那里。 押运物资来解放区的许多“联总”人员都遇到蒋介石官员的这类捉弄，但哈里森是我所听到的被用这种手段整死的唯一的人。我在邯郸住了一宿，第二天一大早乘一辆烧木炭的日本卡车离开这里。同车的有一个女青年，她的八路军制服像一只麻袋似的套在她身上。她的名字叫任琪，英语讲得很不错。同车的还有一个带着好几百万元的押款员，他把这些钱放在一个松松垮垮的白布袋里。这一带治安情况较好，用不着担心会遇到土匪或强盗。即使碰上了，个把盗匪也无法背着这么一大袋钞票跑掉。 |
Holding the bottles for
me to see, Tsai looked grave. It was rather gruesome and the mayor hinted
that there might be foul play behind Harrison's death. Later, when I read Harrison's diary, the reason for his death became clearer. Not long before, he had contracted to bring a freight car of supplies to Kaifeng, intending to ship them from there to the Liberated Areas. Kuomintang officials, however, had his freight car shunted onto a lonely siding in the Yellow River flood areas. There was no heat in the car, no food and no populated villages in the area from which he could obtain help. For a week, he huddled in the car, cold and hungry, but afraid to leave his supplies. Friends hearing of his predicament, finally persuaded officials to send the car on to Kaifeng. Weak and ill, but determined to finish his job, Harrison ferried the supplies across the Yellow River to Communist areas. There, however, suffering from exposure and malnutrition, he collapsed and died. Many UNRRA officials carrying supplies to the Liberated Areas were given the run-around like this by Chiang Kai-shek's officials, but Harrison was the only one I heard of that died because of these tactics. Stopping only overnight I left Hantan early the next morning on a charcoal-burning Japanese truck. Among the passengers was a girl dressed in an 8th Route Army uniform that fitted her like a potato sack. Her name was Jen Chi, and she could speak a lot of English. With us also came a messenger with several million dollars that he carried wrapped loosely in a white cloth. Conditions being peaceful in the area, there was little cause to worry about bandits or robbers, and even if there were, a robber could scarcely have run off with such a bulky bundle. |
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我们的车子很快驶出了平原，进入太行山麓，开始嘎嘎作响地缓慢爬坡，车后面拖着烧木炭产生的青烟。这一带傍山梯田里种的冬麦苗露出了冰冷的地面。石子铺的公路，有时笼罩在峭壁的阴影里。一堆堆残雪湿漉漉的，产生一股寒气。但是人们一见那生气盎然的青翠麦苗，寒气不觉为之一消。 一路上我们遇到一队队满载山货下平原去的骡车。在山间隘道错车，减绥了我们的车速，也给那些赶车的老乡造成麻烦。牲口听到我们汽车马达的轰隆声，一受惊就乱了套。有一回，我们的车与迎面而来的一辆骡车相错，双方的轮子勾住了。我们的司机不顾任琪的劝说，还一味往前开，结果把人家的骡车弄翻了，骡子也被拽倒在地。两位知识分子——任琪和我那位北平大学生朋友——尖锐批评汽车司机，这样做不对，会使政府脱离群众。但那位无产阶级司机却直咕哝。 |
We left the plain immediately, turned into the foothills of the Taihang
Mountains and chugged upward at a slow pace, our truck trailing a thin
stream of charcoal smoke behind. At intervals along the road we ran into mule-cart convoys carrying mountain products to the plains below. Meeting them in narrow ravines slowed us up and caused the carters inconvenience and the animals took fright at the sound of our motors and became tangled in their traces. Once we ran down a cart, caught its wheels in ours, and despite the plaintive protests of the girl, kept on going so that the cart turned over on its side and pulled the mule down on his back. The girl and my Peiping student friend, being intellectuals, complained bitterly to the truck driver that such actions, being unjust, would alienate the civilians from the government, but the proletarian driver merely grunted. |
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我们继续前进，这位司机的某些古怪动作增添了旅途的乐趣。他不时把车挂到低档，扳下手闸，然后跳出驾驶座，从地上撮起一摔雪，跟着汽车跑几步，把雪撒入车首边上的一个水箱里。这是为了把燃烧水炭产生的热度冷却呢，还是想往散热器里注水，直到今天我还没弄清楚。 我们的车子一路上吞着雪冒着烟，开进了武安，这是位于山麓高地上的城镇，再往西就是壁立的大山了。城中心有一座天主教堂，教堂的尖顶和附近一座古代宝塔的塔顶耸立在全城房屋之上，好像互相争夺这一带居民的侍奉似的。我们的汽车对天主教堂和佛寺都不屑一顾，却驶离大路，开进一个基督教堂的院子里。从前这院里一定是收拾得很整洁的，现在到处是破汽车和机件，还停放着四、五十辆大车。骡、马和人横七竖八躺在满地的草料和粪便之中。 |
As we went on, our journey was enlivened by some peculiar antics of this driver. Every now and again, he would put the car in low gear, pull down the hand throttle, and jump from his seat to the road. Then, picking up handfuls of snow, he would run alongside the truck and throw the snow in a small tank at the side. Whether this was to cool off the charcoal fire or to put water in the radiator was something I have not discovered to this day. Gulping snow and belching charcoal smoke, we drew into Wu An, a town
set on a plateau between the foothills and the mountain wal1s further
to the west. From the center of the town, a Catholic church and an ancient
pagoda raised their spires high above all the other buildings as if competing
for the religious affections of the people living thereabouts. |
| 我们的木炭车马力不足，前面的坡爬不上去，于是我们换乘一辆吉普车。车上要坐五个人，还安装上全部行李。任琪挤在后座两个行李卷中间，我坐在一个行李卷上，她拽住我的大衣，使我不致掉下车去。
任琪有一段极不平凡的经历，后来我逐渐与她相熟，对她颇为钦佩。在刘伯承总部期间，她一度当我的译员，我常常问起她的身世，这里不妨介绍一二。 |
Our charcoal truck lacking the power to make the grade ahead, we changed into a jeep, loading all our baggage into it and five people besides. Miss Jen sat in the back seat, squeezed between bedrolls on one of which I sat. She held onto my coat so that I would not fall off. Though almost too good to be true, the girl was not without her interest, and later, as I came to know her better, I even achieved a kind of admiration for her. For a while she was my interpreter in Liu Po-cheng's headquarters and I used to question her about her life, some details of which may be mentioned here. |
| 她本是邯郸城里人，父亲是一个地主。一九三七年日本发动侵华战争时，她刚十五岁，在北平念初中。她不愿在日本人统治下读书，而当时蒋介石的教育部长号召所有大中学生撤到内地去，那里可以免费上学，于是她回到家里，带着弟弟妹妹逃离日占区。她在华中流浪了好几个月，尽管教育部许了愿，但她一再发现，没有钱还是上不了学。后来她坐船离开汉口前往重庆，逆长江而上，全程九百英里。船上挤满伤兵和难民，也有一些逃难的富人。但只有任琪一个人不嫌肮脏而主动照料路上的伤兵。有几个记者赞许她这种见义勇为精神，给她作了推荐，她才进入南开中学。
据她介绍，南开是个“贵族”学校，她在那里为那些有钱有势的少爷小组看不起，很难找到朋友。学校中缺乏自由空气，三青团特务看到谁读进步书报，抡起棍挥手枪就打人，任琪对此非常气愤。她听到关于共产党、八路军总部所在地延安的情况，十分向往，便在抗战第四年投奔延安。到延安后，她学习英文，现在英语讲得不错，只是慢一些。她在那里结识了一位刚从英国留学回来的年轻工程师。此人已经娶了英国老婆，并且生了孩子，但是一九三七年抗战爆发后，他抛下了妻子，奔回中国，参加了共产党。任琪很同情这位工程师，对他一见钟情。 抗战结束后，工程师随部队开往东北。任琪想跟着去，从西北跋山涉水一路走到内蒙古，企图穿过长城去关外。但是蒋军封锁得紧，她过不去，于是又辗转几个月，回到家乡邯郸。当她历尽千辛万苦，风尘仆仆，身穿破军装，踏进家门时，她母亲惊喜交集，喃喃半天才进出一句话，“儿呀，你也该找个婆家啦！” |
Hantan was her native city and she had been born the daughter of a landlord. In 1937, when the Japanese. invaded China she was fifteen years old and a student in a lower middle school in Peiping. Not wishing to study under the Japanese, and Chiang Kai-shek's minister of education having issued a call for all middle school and college students to come to the interior and be educated free, she went home, picked up her younger brother and sister and fled the Japanese areas. For many months she wandered through central China, most often finding that, despite the promises of the Education Ministry, she could not get in a school without money. Evacuating Hankow on a ship with wounded soldiers and refugees on their way nine hundred miles up the Yangtze River to Chunking, she alone, among a horde of rich refugees had been willing to dirty her hands to care for the soldiers. Some Chinese correspondents taking interest in her case recommended her to school authorities and she was able to enter Nankai Middle School. This, as she described it, was a school for "young nobles,"
and she had a hard time making friends, constantly being snubbed by the
sons and daughters of the rich. Soon she became disgusted at the lack
of freedom in schools and at the spies of the Chiang Kai-shek Youth Corps
went around with clubs and pistols beating up students caught reading
any "liberal" books. Attracted by what she had heard of conditions
existing in Yenan, the headquarters of the Communist party and the 8th
Route Army, she had made her way there in the fourth year of the war.
In Yenan, she had, among other things, studied English, which spoke correctly,
but slowly. There she met a young engineer, just from England. He had
an English wife and child, but he had abandoned them in England at the
outbreak of war in 1937 and returned to China and become a Communist.
Miss Jen, thinking this sad, promptly fell in love with the engineer. Dirty with the marks of travel and looking like a tramp in her ragged uniform, she had entered her mother's house. The mother was shocked by her daughter appearing in uniform and, not able to summon up any word of welcome, she blurted out: "You ought to get married." |
| 那时邯郸已开始进行土地改革，任琪动员她妈把地分给贫农。妈妈听了不对味，回答说：“穷人有穷人的命，我怎么可以违抗天意？”但是任琪非常坚决，一连劝说两夜，做娘的流了不少泪，最后屈服了，把大部分土地分给无地农民。
任琪已经二十六岁了，她决心参加反蒋战争。她还不是一个共产党员，但很显然她是迫切要求入党的。她希望干一番惊天动地的事业，当一个女英雄。她从来没有与男人接过吻，她觉得这很没意思，不懂得为什么外国人总是喜欢这一套。她曾经看过一部电影，影片里的女人花了很多时间梳装打扮，还坐在一种古怪的机器里不断摇晃她们的屁股。她觉得这些美国女子太无聊、太愚蠢。她常问我：“她们怎么能这样胡闹？”她很喜欢读小说，特别是关于战争和英雄人物题材的。我问她对托尔斯泰的《战争与和平》一书有何感想，她说她不喜欢女主角安娜（她弄混了，误以为是安娜·卡列尼娜），因为她太“软弱”。 任琪现在到总部去，希望找到办法去东北寻她的情人。所以，尽管她满嘴豪言壮语，对美国妇女表示鄙夷，可是她自己不也是害了相思病吗？我们相处三个星期后就分手了，她骑着一头毛驴，直奔一千英里外的哈尔滨去了。我祝她一路顺风，希望她安全通过封锁线，找到她的情人。 |
The land reform was just starting in Hantan and Miss Jen told her mother
that they should give up some of their land to the poor. Shocked by this
strange daughter, the mother replied: "Tt is destiny for people to
be poor, can I interfere with fate?" But the daughter was persistent.
After two nights, during which many tears were shed, the mother finally
capitulated, signing away generous portions of her land to peasants who
had none. Now she was on her way to headquarters, hoping to find some way to get to her lover in Manchuria. So, despite all her pronouncement about heroics and the silliness of American women, she, too, it seems, was slightly infected with the virus of love. After spending three weeks with me, she did leave, trotting away on a donkey on a trip of over a thousand miles toward Harbin. I wish her luck; I hope she got through the lines and found her sweetheart. |
| 现在言归正传。我们的吉普车越往前走，石子路越崎岖不平。后来根本没有路了，车子开进一条于涸河床，七弯八拐，来到一个树木稀疏的山谷里。这一带的村子都有石墙，像碉堡一样，外表比山下平原衬庄的土坯房屋深沉一些。
傍晚时我们到达冶陶。这是晋冀鲁豫军区总部所在地。刘伯承将军这时不在家，上鲁西视察部队去了。 |
By now we were on a very rocky road.
At last, it gave out altogether and we turned into a dried-up river bed.
then through a series of narrow defiles until we came out into a thin valley
where all the villages, built of stone, and looking like forts, presented
a grimmer aspect than those of the mud villages on the plains below. At dusk we arrived in Yehtao, military headquarters for the Shansi-Hopei-Shantung-Honan Border Region. General Liu Po-cheng, at the moment, was not around, being off with the troops in west Shantung. |
| 军区副政委薄一波将军带着他的能讲英语的秘书李棣华先生来迎接我。寒喧几句后，他问我对解放区有何观感。我对他说，一路上不许我拍照，这位我很恼火。他请我原谅。
“地方干部不懂得新闻记者的任务。你放心好了，在我们解放区，你要照什么都可以。我们没有什么秘密。我们欢迎任何记者来解放区参观。你要看什么都可以，看到任何东西部可以写。” 我对这种痛快表示有些半信半疑，但是后来共产党真的让我看了很多东西，并且向我介绍他们自己的情况，好的坏的都讲，很使我出乎意料。我发现只要通过军区或政委的渠道办事，就可以享有意想不到的自由去参观并调查边区的任何东西。只有当我脱离共产党的渠道，落到非党人士，即所谓进步学生——特别是能说英语的沙文主义学生——手里的时候，才会遇到麻烦。 不过暂时还没有碰到这种倒霉事。我被安排在一所石屋的一间干净的房间里住，自己睡一个炕，室里生着一盆炭火，有一个从阎锡山部队里俘虏过来的战土当我的勤务兵。室里还有一面镜子、一张桌子、一把椅子，以及一幅杜鲁门的画像。 |
General Po Yi-po, vice-commissar of the
Border Region came to greet me with his English-speaking secretary, Mr.
Li Teh-hua. After a few cursory words of welcome, he asked me my impressions
of the Liberated Areas. I told him that I was annoyed at being stopped from
taking pictures along the way, and he begged me to forgive them. "The local officials don't understand what a reporter is. Rest assured that you can take pictures of anything you want in our areas. We have no secrets. We welcome any journalist who comes to see the Liberated Areas. You can write about anything you see and see anything you want." I was a little skeptical of this carte blanche, but later I was to be amazed at the things the Communists did let me see and the stories, both good and bad, they told me about themselves. As long as I operated in army or commissar channels I found that I had unbelievable freedom to see and investigate anything in the Border Region. It was only when I got out of touch with Communist channels and in the hands of non-Communist, so-called progressive students - specially the English-speaking, chauvinistic ones - that I had trouble. For the moment, however, there were none of these difficulties. I was given a clean room in a stone house, with a kang to myself, a pan of charcoal, an orderly who had been captured from Warlord Yen Hsi-shan, a mirror, table, chair and a picture of President Truman. |