Chapter 112 Chapter 8 The Hero's Tombstone

After the meeting in Beijing, I went to Nanjing, where my classmate Zhang Fei from Class 4 and 3 received me.We are good friends at school. She has a bright and kind personality, and she never uses scheming.Her father is also a member of the cultural circle, so our attitude towards life and the content of our conversation are also similar. She was also the first person to write to me after Taiwan opened up family visits.When we met for the first time after more than 50 years, we could recognize each other immediately.She is still tall, optimistic, and steady, and seems to have a calm grace in the face of old age.

When I returned to Nanjing, I was in the mood of returning home.On the first day, we had a lunch meeting with four classmates. They were not close to me when we were in Nankai, so we couldn't talk deeply, there were few people, and we didn't sing.Then according to my plan, I went alone to find my former home on Ninghai Road.First find Santiaoxiang Ninghai Road, I don’t know anything except the name of the street.Shanxi Road Primary School is squeezed between two old buildings, and there is almost no place that can be called a playground.Gulou Primary School is only about a hundred feet away from the "Holiday Inn" where I live.I walked past its door, and I didn’t see the name of my alma mater on the dark and narrow broken door! The signs of the small shops on both sides almost covered it. I walked in and couldn’t believe it. Narrow, simple and dilapidated.Drum Tower Primary School in Nanjing is considered to be a primary school with a considerable history. If you have not seen its current situation with your own eyes, you will never believe that there will be such a big gap between memory and reality: before 1937, there was a "golden decade" The capital, Nanjing, which once had a grand plan to build a country, has completely disappeared.

The next morning, Zhang Fei and her wife Liu Shousheng came to show me what is now Nanjing.First go to the newly built Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall. When you enter the door, you will find a large yellow sand-paved front yard. The names of the city and the number of deaths are engraved with stones around it. The wide and thick bungalows contain relevant photos and information.The heavy pain is displayed in the simplest way.I still can't clearly remember how I got out of that room. I hope to see the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum next stop.When I was young, when guests came from the north, my parents often took me to accompany them up the endless stone steps.However, when the taxi arrived, I saw all kinds of miscellaneous hawkers among a bunch of miscellaneous trees, but I didn’t see the entrance of the stone steps. I got off the station and stood up to look at the white mausoleum. Some people were scattered around the stone steps. Up and down, there is no solemn atmosphere. .I was suddenly discouraged and didn't want to go up.When I got back to the car, I remembered the map of Nanjing I saw last night. I asked Zhang Fei if he knew there was an aviation martyrs cemetery in Zijin Mountain?She said she knew and wanted to see it, so she asked the driver how far it was and if she could go?He said that we can go south around the mountain for more than 30 miles, and he is willing to wait to take us back to the city.

When the car detoured on the mountain road, I seemed to be in a sleepwalking realm. Where the car was parked, the mountain road widened, and when I walked into the spacious and high gate of the stone archway.When I started to climb the stone steps, I still suspected that I was in a dream.This was an unexpected trip... It was not until I saw the big stone tablet of "Saving the Nation by Aviation" written by Sun Yat-sen, the father of the nation, in the pavilion that I began to believe that it was true.Going up again, halfway up the hillside, there is a large white platform, with a huge stone tablet and two statues of Chinese and American soldiers in flying suits in the middle. The monument reads: "Monument to the Anti-Japanese Aviation Martyrs".On the slope of the first floor are a group of light-colored monuments engraved with more than 700 American martyrs, some of which have bouquets of flowers in front of them (it is stated in the memorial book that descendants still come from the United States to pay homage to them).Going uphill, the second floor is a larger row of black marble monuments, engraved with the names of more than 3,000 Chinese Air Force martyrs. The trees on the mountain wall behind are sparse, and the sun shines in early May. The tombstone does not have a gloomy and chilling air.After walking the top few stone steps, I let go of Zhang Fei's hand.Said quietly, I want to find the tablet numbered M by myself.Before losing Beijing.Zhang Dafei's younger brother once sent me a brochure of the monument, saying that his name was engraved there.

Then all this is absolutely true. There are twenty names engraved on the stele of number M, and his column simply reads: Captain Zhang Dafei Born in Yingkou, Liaoning in 1918 Died in the line of duty in 1945 A man who aspired to "keep the flying generals of Dragon City in place and not teach Huma to go to Yinshan Mountain" died for his country with his flesh and blood, and his 26-year-old life was condensed into this line on the stele.Is it possible that this monument and this line of characters can become a kind of refuge for the soul? this day.The sun in May shines on me at the age of seventy-five, and it is as warm as his unforgettable gentle voice. Could it be that he led me here? It was like attending the first anniversary of his martyrdom in 1946, and Wasn't it all an accident? I sat on the small stone seat in front of the stele for a long time, until Zhang Fei took me down the mountain and returned to the city from Xuanwu Lake.Xuanwu Lake was originally a must-visit place for me, but at this time the sun is setting, the lake is gray and dark, and the colors of the trees are becoming difficult to distinguish. My childhood memories are all hidden in the twilight.

Among the rows of huge tombstones with no personal signs of life and death, I thought of the winter of 1936.In front of the fire at my house on Ninghai Road, I listened to him narrate his father's grief and encouragement when he was tortured and burned to death by the Japanese.That was the first time I understood why my father was often away from home. Since the September 18th Incident, he returned to the north and worked on the verge of death: I also understood why in Beiping and Tianjin, my mother took me with me constantly. Then he changed his surname to Wang, Xu, Zhang...Only then did I truly understand why the head of the little brother of the Gai family was hung on the city gate!

Embarking on the first stage of exile, from Nanjing to Hankou, the boys from the high school of Sun Yat-Sen Middle School were my family’s life and death companions.My seriously ill mother and three young sisters were all carried and hugged by them, and they were able to board the car and board the boat.These boys, all under the age of twenty, grew up to be protectors in the midst of life and death.When the boat arrived in Hankou, the student team carried a hundred guns for self-defense and was assigned to live in the auditorium of a primary school.On December nights, clothes and quilts were not enough to keep out the cold, and Japanese planes bombed day and night. The bombs burned day and night in the city and along the river. Among them, more than a dozen people over the age of 18 crossed the river to report to the Temporary Admissions Office of the Central Military Academy. By name, Zhang Dafei reported to the Air Force.He said that in life, there are no tears from now on, only fighting, only defending the country.

Thereafter, he entered the new heaven and new earth of the protector with one heart and one mind.Strict military training, from winter to summer, made him completely reborn, and he had to walk with a big chest.After the flight education started, he entered another realm.On his twentieth birthday, he wrote to his mother, brother and me, excitedly saying that he had read the biography of the patriot Gao Zhihang and was determined to work harder to improve his technology. Machine, reduce the casualties of compatriots. "With one Gao Zhihang dead, there are still countless Gao Zhihangs in China!".At the same time, you must develop the ability to judge calmly, witty, and accurately. In air combat, with extremely sharp eyes and extremely vigorous skills, you can expel and shoot down enemy planes in order to survive.

When we were young at that time, how much we admired the heroes who flew destroyer fighter jets! This kind of worship, only at that age, can be found in real wars. It is pure and sincere, and there is no need for propaganda or ridicule.People who have been running and avoiding amidst the wailing sirens all the year round, for the heroes who can repel death in the sky, besides admiration, they also have gratitude and shame.A stronger sense of indebtedness.When we ran on the ground to avoid enemy bombs, they stepped forward and went to space to destroy enemy planes.When we were formally educated under the policy of continuous singing, they were in a sea of ​​bones and blood, and they didn't know what to do today.

But he said again and again in his letters that, in his heart, the chants of hero worship strengthened his spiritual battles.The dream of being a military chaplain has never been shattered. When I went to the United States for training in 1942, I spent a long time with the chaplains at the base in Colorado, and attending their meetings strengthened this idea.After returning to China, he joined the local church at the Kunming base, and gained the warmest peace in the Lord in his life.Later he probably also knew that the Chinese army There is no system of chaplains, but this desire sustains him.If you don't spend time in wine and beauties, you can have the hope of living and get the real salvation of your soul.He was the first person to talk to me about the soul, the Bible.Psalm 23 is a famous psalm for peace, but he recited the passage "reviving my soul".In our family and school education at that time, no one mentioned the question of the soul. This is a question that I have read and pondered deeply throughout my life.

Among my mother's relics, I found two photos of him in military uniform, promoted to captain and lieutenant, with a gentle smile on his face that didn't match the stiff military uniform. Over the past fifty years, I have rediscovered him in many war memorials and died with his life. of that era. In 1998, his younger brother sent a report from Henan Xinyang Daily, recounting the place where he died: "In May 1945, a plane landed on the river beach below Xishuanghe Old Street. A lot of people came to watch curiously, one wing of the plane was up, and the other wing was stuck in the beach. After a few days, the higher-ups sent people to unload the plane, and transported it down the river to Xinyang with salt.” In the 3,000-word report, there was no phrase that mentioned the pilot's body. The plane caught fire, and his body must still be intact. Where did the villagers bury him? No one seems to know for more than 50 years, and will never No one will know that the soul who once suffered from the destruction of his family and the ups and downs, has only ten years of life after believing in religion, and wandered from the ground to the sky, has he ever really found the rest of the soul?Or are they still wandering on the land where the body was supported, blood-stained and wandering souls unable to return? In the middle of the night when I received this "Xinyang Daily" and the hustle and bustle of the market subsided, I took down the "Bible" he gave as a parting gift in 1937, as if asking for guidance, telling me how I should look at him half a century later My whole life, my whole life without hindrance, turned out to be the third chapter of the Old Testament "Ecclesiastes": There is a time for everything, there is a time for everything in the world, a time to be born, a time to die...: a time to seek, a time to lose: a time to keep, a time to abandon; a time to tear, a time to mend; a time to be silent, a time to speak: a time to love, a time to hate ; A time for war, and a time for peace. All of this seems to be the road I have walked for sixty years. Under his blessing, it has now come to my "abandonment (birth) It's time for life's time". So the final book of Ecclesiastes reminds me that the happy days of childhood are past, and the days of decay are near; and my favorite reading is its symbol of life's "giving up a time": The sun, the light, the moon, and the stars turn into darkness, and the clouds turn back after the rain...  Almond trees bloom.Grasshoppers are a burden, and a man's wishes are nullified, for a man goes to his eternal home, and mourners go to and fro in the streets.The silver chain is broken, the gold pot is broken, the bottle is broken by the spring, the water wheel is broken at the well head, the dust returns to the earth, and the spirit returns to the God who gave it.Vanity of vanity, says the Preacher, all is vanity. I read it again after returning from Nanjing, and saw the name "Zhang Dafei" on the black marble.There seems to be some specific agreement on the date of birth and death.In some days when even the memory is buried in reality, gradually I can rationally conclude that the teachings in the Bible are "wisdom", and only when people awaken from all emptiness can they be wise. Zhang Dafei's life is in my heart.Like a man flower, it blooms in the darkest night, closes quickly, and falls to the ground.So brilliant and clean, so indescribably noble.