Chapter 244: The Situation Seems Reversed
Wutai County, Shanxi Militia Field Hospital.
Unlike the front lines filled with the roar of artillery, the air here was permeated with a special scent mixed from strong carbolic acid, alcohol, and blood.
The pained groans of the wounded, the hurried footsteps of doctors and nurses, and the crisp clatter of metal instruments formed the main daily rhythm here.
Song Mei, dressed in a white coat stained with blood, had her beautiful, flowing hair neatly pinned up in her nurse’s cap, with only a few wisps of sweat-soaked hair clinging to her smooth forehead.
After just completing a complex thigh amputation surgery, she stepped down from the operating table, preparing to take a sip of water and catch her breath when a young nurse rushed over.
“Dean, Commander Li has sent a batch of new… uh… new people,” the young nurse said with a somewhat strange expression.
“Wounded? Send them to the triage area and process them according to their injury severity,” Song Mei said, unscrewing her water bottle without looking up.
“No… not wounded, they’re prisoners,” the young nurse hesitated, then added, “To be precise… they are Japanese female nurses.”
Song Mei’s action of drinking water abruptly stopped.
She turned her head and saw that under the guard of several militia soldiers, over a dozen Japanese women dressed in dull yellow nurse uniforms, looking fearful and uneasy, were slowly walking towards them, appearing like a flock of startled quails.
These Japanese women were all young, and their faces, still bearing a trace of childish innocence, were now smudged with gunpowder and dust, their eyes filled with fear and confusion about the unknown.
Among this group of women, one nurse stood out.
She was about twenty years old, with a delicate appearance. Although her figure was hidden by the loose nurse uniform, her graceful curves were still discernible.
At this moment, she was clutching a medical bag tightly, her body trembling slightly.
Song Mei looked at them, her beautiful willow-leaf eyebrows furrowing slightly.
To be honest, she held no good feelings towards the Japanese, especially after experiencing the catastrophe in Nanjing.
However, as a doctor who graduated from St. John’s University and had taken the Hippocratic Oath, her professional ethics prevented her from taking any drastic actions against these women who were also medical personnel.
Killing them was out of the question.
Releasing them was even more impossible.
Make them work?
But they didn’t understand the language; what if they tampered with something while treating the wounded?
For a moment, even the usually decisive dean found herself in a predicament.
As she was pondering, a gentle and calm voice sounded behind her.
“Dean, if you trust me, please hand them over to me.”
Song Mei turned back and saw a familiar and beautiful face.
The person who had arrived was one of the hospital’s head nurses… Yu Mo.
Yu Mo was also wearing a white coat, but her innate classical elegance, as if she had stepped out of the misty waters of Qinhuai River, could not be concealed.
She was not as fiery and captivating as Song Mei, but rather like a cup of rich, aged tea that needed to be savored.
“You speak Japanese?” Song Mei asked, somewhat surprised.
Yu Mo smiled faintly, “When I was in Jinling, I learned some to entertain foreigners from different countries. Conversational fluency should not be a problem.”
Song Mei looked into Yu Mo’s clear and determined eyes, and the worries in her heart immediately dissipated by more than half.
She knew Yu Mo too well; this woman, who appeared delicate on the outside, possessed extraordinary resilience and wisdom within.
“Good! Then I’ll leave it to you!” Song Mei sighed with relief. “Pick any staff you need, use any supplies you need. I have only one request: make them work honestly for me and don’t cause any trouble!”
“Don’t worry, Dean,” Yu Mo smiled and nodded again.
As it turned out, Song Mei’s decision was correct.
Yu Mo did not employ any coercive or high-handed tactics. The first thing she did was to have the soldiers release the Japanese nurses from guard duty, and then she personally led them to wash and change into clean clothes, and prepared hot meals for them.
When Haruko and the other nurses held the steaming bowls of white rice and soup, they were stunned. They had expected to be abused, humiliated, or even worse, but they had never imagined that such humane treatment awaited them.
After eating their fill, Yu Mo gathered them together in fluent Japanese with a hint of the Wu dialect.
She didn’t preach any grand theories, but calmly told them, “War is a man’s affair, but saving lives and healing injuries is the common sacred duty of us medical professionals. In our hospital lie heroes defending our homeland on the battlefield; they are severely wounded and require professional care.
You are also nurses; you should understand how much a wounded soldier relies on a nurse.
I will not force you, but I hope you can temporarily set aside national hatred and use your hands to help those in need.
This is also atonement for yourselves.”
Yu Mo’s words dispelled more than half of the fear and unease in the hearts of these Japanese female nurses. Although they couldn’t completely let go of their feelings of hostility and awkwardness for the time being, for them, the current outcome was already very good.
Especially Haruko, who couldn’t help but recall her original intention for choosing to become a nurse: wasn’t it to save lives and heal injuries?
Under Yu Mo’s management, which combined grace and power, strictness and gentleness, these initially terrified Japanese female nurses, who had expected to be beaten or even raped, were soon completely subdued.
They were assigned to various wards and, under the supervision of the field hospital’s female nurses, began to perform basic nursing duties such as changing dressings, cleaning wounds, and feeding patients.
A peculiar scene soon appeared in the hospital: a group of Japanese female nurses in militia nurse uniforms, using their meticulous nursing skills learned in their homeland, were carefully attending to Chinese soldiers who were once their enemies.
…………
Nakata Katsuhiko felt as if he were living through an absurd dream.
Just as Haruko was being violated by Japanese soldiers of the same Imperial Army, they were actually rescued by Chinese troops.
Facing the dark muzzles of guns, he readily raised his hands, repeatedly muttering in broken Chinese, “I surrender! I surrender!”
The subsequent experiences were even more fantastical.
He was blindfolded and taken to a place, where he underwent a simple interrogation by the so-called “Military Intelligence Department.”
The interrogation process was not filled with torture and beatings as he had imagined. They merely asked him some basic questions about his unit number, troop deployment, and the names of his superior officers.
Driven by the instinct for survival, Nakata Katsuhiko revealed everything he knew, pouring out all the meager information he possessed.
After the interrogation, he was led to a dilapidated courtyard. This was the so-called “prisoner-of-war camp.”
The courtyard was not large, surrounded by half-height earthen walls. A rudimentary guard post stood in the corner, where four militia soldiers armed with M1 Garand rifles were idly leaning and chatting.
In the courtyard, more than a dozen “Imperial Army” soldiers dressed in similarly tattered uniforms sat or lay dejectedly. The entire courtyard was permeated with an atmosphere of defeat and despondency.
When the black cloth covering Nakata Katsuhiko’s eyes was removed, he immediately spotted two familiar faces in the crowd.
It was those two guys!
His pupils contracted instantly, and a mixture of humiliation, anger, and fear surged into his heart.
It was these two who, along with a group of stragglers, had violated Haruko. Had they not been rescued by arriving Chinese soldiers, he and Haruko would have likely been silenced by them.
The two soldiers who had violated Haruko were named Watanabe and Kobayashi. They clearly recognized Nakata Katsuhiko as the “cowardly deserter.”
They exchanged glances, and cruel smiles simultaneously appeared on their lips. In their eyes, this newcomer, a greenhorn, was perfect for passing the boring time in captivity and venting their anger from defeat.
Watanabe stood up, cracking his knuckles with a “click, click” sound, and walked towards Nakata Katsuhiko with a sinister grin.
Nakata Katsuhiko’s face instantly turned ashen. He subconsciously took a step back, thinking he was about to face even more terrifying torment than during the interrogation.
However, at that very moment, a dramatic scene unfolded.
The militia captain escorting Nakata Katsuhiko, a young man who appeared shrewd and capable, suddenly cleared his throat and, in a pronounced Japanese with a peculiar accent, loudly announced to all the Japanese prisoners in the courtyard:
“You… all listen to me!”
All eyes were drawn to him.
“From today on, you will undergo labor reform here! Through labor, you can earn work points! With work points, you get food, cigarettes, and hot showers! Without work points, you’ll have to eat the wind!”
The captain paused, a mischievous smile appearing on his face, then he pushed the trembling Nakata Katsuhiko forward to everyone.
“And this man, Nakata Katsuhiko! From now on, he is your overseer!”
The announcement stunned everyone present.
Watanabe’s advance halted, the cruel grin frozen on his face.
Kobayashi, who was about to stand up, sat back down heavily.
The other prisoners looked on with astonishment and disbelief.
Even Nakata Katsuhiko himself was completely bewildered. He pointed at his own nose, wondering if he had misheard, and couldn’t help but exclaim:
“Nani?”
The militia captain ignored everyone’s reaction and continued, “From now on, your daily labor assignments, disciplinary maintenance, and most importantly—the recording and distribution of work points will all be handled by Nakata! Whoever he says has work points, has them! Whoever he says goes hungry, will starve!”
To make the show more convincing, the captain, as if performing magic, produced a black, thick, and shiny rubber club from behind and, with a “smack,” shoved it into Nakata Katsuhiko’s hand.
“Nakata-kun, this is your symbol of authority. Take good care of it!”
The captain patted his shoulder and looked at him with a meaningful gaze, “Do a good job! We’re watching you! Anyone who is disobedient or doesn’t follow your management, use this to whip their bottoms hard!”
With that, the captain turned and left with a few militia soldiers, leaving behind a courtyard full of petrified Japanese prisoners, and a bewildered Nakata Katsuhiko holding a rubber club, his mind a blank.
The air was eerily quiet.
All eyes were focused on Nakata Katsuhiko and the thick, black, gleaming rubber club in his hand, as thick as a child’s arm.
Watanabe and Kobayashi’s faces turned from red to white, and then from white to green, a transformation as dramatic as a Sichuan opera mask change. They looked at the junior whom they had considered an ant not long ago, now holding their “life and death power” in his hand. The feeling was worse than eating a fly.
Nakata Katsuhiko looked down at the rubber club in his hand, then up at the two grim-faced veterans.
A strange, unprecedented feeling arose from the bottom of his heart.
The situation seemed to have… completely reversed?
