Chapter 21 Chapter Four (6)

The first time the sound of muskets was heard from a distance, it was as soft as a child's toy pistol.Then the sound came closer, and there was the return sound of a volley of guns fired from the battlement.There was a sound of footsteps passing through the barracks compound. "Savages!" cried someone, but I thought he must be mistaken.The alarm bell rang amidst the noise. I knelt there and put my ear to the door trying to hear what was going on. The noise in the square changed from uproar to clamor, without a single tone.At this moment, it must be all over the city to welcome the thousands of soldiers who returned happily.The muskets were still crackling.Then the tumultuous tone changed to excited cheers.From time to time, there was a faint sound of bugles.

I just can't help it.What else do I have to be afraid of?I opened the door.In the bright light, I had to squint my eyes and cover my forehead with my hands.I walked out the gate across the yard and into the crowd at the back.The roar of cheers and volleys of gunfire continued.An old woman in black beside me grabbed my arm and lifted herself up on tiptoe to look forward. "Can you see it?" she asked. "Yes, I can see the man on the horse," I told her, but she wasn't listening. I could see the long procession of horses approaching.They carried their banners through the city gates to the center of the square, where they dismounted.There was a cloud of dust in the square, but I saw them smiling and laughing: one of them waved his arm in a victory sign, another waved a bunch of flowers.They pushed forward slowly, the crowd surrounded them, reached out to touch them, threw them bouquets, patted their heads with delight, and twirled themselves in ecstasy.Children slid past me, slid into people's crotches, and emerged near the protagonists of the day.A salvo of bullets was fired at the battlement wall, followed by cheers from the crowd.

Another troop of sergeants on horseback came.The lead rider in front was a young corporal with a solemn expression. He held high the green battalion flag trimmed with gold velvet, passed through the crowd to the far end of the square, and then circled the field again. He calmed down as soon as the cheers touched them. down.Shout out and pass on: "Barbarians!" The flag bearer was followed by a guard, waving guns to open the way for the team.Behind him is a cavalryman holding a rope: the rope is tied with people tied around the neck one by one-a whole group of people, a group of savages, naked and dirty, all of them are covering their cheeks with their hands. Vice looks like they're both suffering from a toothache.I was quite puzzled by this posture. I stood on tiptoe and looked across the soldier's body. A flash of wire made me understand.A loop of iron wire passed through the palms of each person, and then through the small holes punched in their cheeks. "That way they obey like lambs." I remembered what a soldier who had seen this trick told me: "Tell them to have no idea but to be obedient." I felt sick in my heart.I shouldn't have left my cell and come here.

Two men approached, and I hurriedly turned my back to avoid meeting the two escorting officers on horseback at the back of the line: the one without the military cap was the young officer who had just tasted the fruits of victory, and several months of fighting had made him look thinner than before It got a little darker, and walking alongside him was Colonel Joel, a military police officer. The prisoners stood in a circle, and each could see the twelve hapless captives, pointing to them and telling the children that they were indeed savages.After a while, I was surprised to realize that I was surrounded by the surging crowd and squeezed towards the gate.The soldiers guarding there formed a half-moon shape to prevent the crowd from approaching, and the onlookers crowded back and forth and could barely move.

"What's going on?" I asked the person next to me. "I don't know," he said, "will you give him a lift, please?" I helped him lift the child in his arms onto his shoulders. "Can you see it?" he asked the child. "Saw." "What are they doing?" "They made the savage kneel. What are they going to do to the savage?" "I don't know either, just wait and see." With all my strength, I slowly turned around and squeezed out the crowd. "Sorry...sorry..." I said, "it's too hot—I can't take it." This made many people turn their heads and point their hands at me.

I should have gone back to my cell.There's nothing wrong with me slipping out like this, nobody even notices.If it was just for my own sake, I should go back to that cold and dark cell, lock myself in the door, bend the key, shut my ears to the patriots' passionate clamor, shut up and say a word that has nothing to do with me if.Who knows, maybe my opinion of my fellow countrymen is a little unfair, maybe at this very moment, there is a shoemaker who puts the last stud on the sole of a shoe in his own home, humming a ditty and immersing himself in the joy of completion; maybe some housewives Beans are being peeled in the kitchen, and stories are being told to calm the children; perhaps some farmers are mending ditches in the fields with a relaxed look—it would be a pity if I never knew my folks in such a normal state!It was of the utmost importance that I was now free from the crowd, neither complicit in the impending brutality nor encumbered by my own impotent resistance.I can't save those prisoners, so let's save myself.Just let the wind blow over this matter--if there will be any wind blowing.If anyone in the distant future had an interest in our lives, the old man, seen through the eyes of an imperial outpost, would feel that he was not a savage at heart.

I walked across the barracks compound into the yard where my cell was, and there was a sink in the middle of the yard, and I found an empty bucket and filled it with water.The water in the tilted bucket swayed out from time to time. I carried the bucket to my chest and walked behind the crowd. "Sorry," I said, pushing my way inside.The people gave way to me while swearing, and I crawled into the crowd all the way, the water in the bucket splashed out all the way, and suddenly I was in the front row of the crowd, and I saw the backs of the soldiers, and they formed a circle with batons in their hands. A circle blocked the crowd of onlookers.

Four prisoners were on their knees, and the other eight, still chained together, crouched in the shadows in the corner, their hands still in their faces. Four kneeling prisoners were bent over and lined up, and a long, heavy wooden pole was hung with a thin rope that passed through the looped wire that tied the cheeks and palms of the men—this thin rope was from the first one. The iron ring around the mouth of the person passes through, goes around the pole and passes through the iron ring of the second person, wraps around the pole again, passes through the ring of the third person, wraps around again, and passes through the ring of the fourth person.I watched a soldier slowly tighten the string, and the kneeling prisoners lowered their backs and almost kissed the bar.One prisoner writhed and groaned in pain.The others remained silent, their consciousness all focused on any slight tug of the string, praying that it would not tear their flesh and blood apart.

Directing the soldiers with an unassuming gesture was Colonel Joel.Even though I was among thousands of people, and even though he still covered his eyes with glass sheets as before, I stared at him with such presumptuous eyes, and the questioning expression on his face was so undisguised, I believe that when I look at him At that moment he also saw me. Behind me, I heard a voice very clearly: "Executive Chief." Is it my imagination or the person standing next to me calling me? The colonel stepped forward.He bent down to examine each prisoner, grabbed a handful of sand and rubbed it on the prisoner's back, and wrote on their back with charcoal.I read the letters from top to bottom: "Enemy...Enemy...Enemy...Enemy" and then returned to the original place, folded my arms.He and I looked at each other, only twenty paces apart.

The gauntlet begins.The soldiers swung the thick green batons and cracked the prisoner's back and half of the buttocks, and red bloodstains immediately protruded.The prisoners were beaten until they fell to the ground gradually, except for the one who moaned non-stop at first, gasping for breath every time he was beaten. Black charcoal and brown dust, mixed with blood and sweat, flowed down.I watched the trick and knew they weren't going to stop until the skin peeled off their backs. I saw a little girl standing in the front row of the crowd, holding her mother's skirt tightly.Her eyes were wide open, her thumb was in her mouth and she said nothing, watching those naked people being beaten with fear and curiosity.Looking at the faces around, some of them are even smiling, they all have the same expressions as the little girl: no hatred, no desire to kill, only extremely curious expressions, as if only the eyes are still active in the whole body, enjoying the novelty there A rare visual feast.