After losing Aston, Qin Siyu applied to join the war.
As Lin Suyu had told Aston, Qin Siyu had never been neutral about the war. Now his actions finally matched his convictions.
For fear of leaving Aston bereaved, Qin Siyu had never been able to make up his mind to join the fighting. Now he no longer had that concern.
The nurse had told him what she had heard, and newspapers everywhere reported that the surgery had succeeded. The “wealthy businessman’s son” was said to be Dr. Freeman’s most successful patient, perfectly suited to the procedure, now an entirely “normal person” living and working exceptionally well… There were even photographs.
Qin Siyu had refused to give up, waiting and waiting. Naturally, nothing ever came.
He no longer knew what he was waiting for, or whom.
He suffered terribly and endured as best he could, but gradually something became clear: Kingsy was no longer waiting for him, but China truly was waiting.
He was now Chief Resident and had more or less completed his surgical training. He could treat wounded patients independently.
Qin Siyu was among the first Chinese residents of San Francisco to apply for military service.
Though he was among the first, he was by no means alone.
During the Second World War, roughly twenty thousand Chinese Americans served in the United States military, around twenty percent of Chinese American men, far higher than the proportion among white men. Moreover, unlike many others, a considerable number of Chinese Americans volunteered.
From then on, he threw himself completely into the war.
America was now fighting on two fronts, but Congress still paid greater attention to the Atlantic and German forces. So, hoping to be sent to the Pacific to fight Japan, Qin Siyu checked only one box in the “preferred branch of service” section of his application: the Marine Corps.
If he entered the Marines, he would most likely be sent to Asia, to those islands in the Pacific.
This special branch alone could conduct combat operations at sea and on land, precisely the capability needed on those small Pacific islands.
But the conditions and environment there were also the harshest imaginable.
Qin Siyu wanted to fight for the country he believed was truly his homeland. Until the day of victory, or the moment he fell in battle.
He wanted to fight Japan.
He was no longer afraid of death.
If he died, then he died. But his death must mean something, must serve some purpose.
After all, now that Aston had forgotten him, he did not particularly want to live anymore.
Just as Qin Siyu had hoped, he was assigned to a Marine Corps medical unit. On February 4, 1942, the Beginning of Spring, he departed for Asia aboard a transport ship.
At last the brutality of the battlefield temporarily drove his own troubles from Qin Siyu’s mind.
He truly had little time to think about them. Yet in every moment of rest, images still returned: Aston being taken away on Christmas night, the two of them meeting on the beach, the two of them promising themselves to each other on the beach… Again and again the memories came, each piercing his heart.
The very proud Americans had been caught completely off guard.
They were on the defensive against Japan in the Pacific, suffering defeat after defeat.
Throughout the first half of 1942, Allied forces kept losing.
Between March and May, Burma fell. The Chinese Expeditionary Force and the Allies had failed to hold the Burma Road, allowing Japan to cut China’s supply route. Meanwhile, Oregon on the American mainland was attacked by Japan again.
To preserve supply lines, China and the United States opened the “Hump” air route in April. The Chinese side explored and tested the route, while Americans handled the bulk of transport. The Himalayas were filled with danger and hardship, and the aircrews suffered heavy casualties.
Then there were the Philippines.
After Thailand surrendered, Japanese forces had entered Malaya, and Guam had fallen. MacArthur declared Manila an “open city,” saying that he wanted to protect civilians and its historical and cultural heritage from bombing. The Japanese launched air raids anyway.
Filipino and American troops withdrew to Bataan and eventually surrendered. Once again the Japanese committed atrocities against prisoners, forcing them onto the “Death March.”
Roosevelt got MacArthur out and sent him to Australia.
Hong Kong also fell, on December 25, 1941, “Black Christmas.” British forces in Singapore surrendered, and Singapore was lost. The Dutch East Indies fell to Japan as well, leaving the Dutch powerless. Worst of all, there was oil there. Would the Japanese have oil again?
New Zealand was finished too. Its people were brave, with a tenth of the population serving, but at one point it had fewer than ten fighter aircraft, leaving it almost unable to do anything.
Only Australia remained.
By midyear, the Allies finally gained a moment to catch their breath.
The Battle of the Coral Sea ended in a stalemate, each side destroying an aircraft carrier. At last, at long last, Japan’s seemingly unstoppable advance had been checked.
Then came the turning point at Midway in June.
U.S. naval intelligence broke the Japanese codes and learned that an operation was coming, but could not identify what “AF” meant. So they sent a false message saying Midway was short of fresh water. When they intercepted a Japanese report that “AF may be short of water,” they confirmed Midway was the target and prepared accordingly.
In August, Qin Siyu was transferred to Guadalcanal.
He would never forget the hellish scenes he witnessed there.
Japan was building a new airfield on the island, and the Allies had to seize it. Whoever held the airfield would have air superiority and could more readily control the surrounding sea.
The sight seemed unreal, absurd as a nightmare.
The little island was beautiful, like a film set, with lush green plants and brilliant tropical flowers. But its rainforest was oppressively hot and humid, earthquakes shook Guadalcanal again and again, and a foul sulfurous smell filled the air. Everywhere were marshes and mud capable of swallowing anything.
Gradually the sulfurous smell gave way to the smell of blood.
On the second day, they spotted no enemy troops, yet the American and Australian forces lost four cruisers. Then the Japanese began landing in an unending stream, attacking them.
Washington sent reinforcements too. MacArthur and others made vehement appeals for resources, but Roosevelt remained clear that the war against Germany mattered more.
Every reinforcement seemed painfully squeezed out. Wave after wave of men arrived, and wave after wave died.
On an island of barely five thousand square kilometers, the fighting went on for six months.
Before he reached the actual battlefield, even along the way, Qin Siyu had still experienced plenty of discrimination.
The military segregated Black and Japanese American personnel. Perhaps because China was an ally, Chinese Americans faced no such formal requirement, but prejudice was still common. Aboard the transport ships, for example, the Chinese men were given the worst work.
Qin Siyu’s position as a doctor made things a little better, much as at school. His colleagues could cooperate with him on the surface.
Even so, some questioned his education and experience, asking Qin Siyu, “Did you really study medicine in America? Did you really train at a major hospital? You only graduated a year and a half ago, and you’re already Chief Resident?”
But the battlefield taught people hard lessons. For perhaps the first time in their lives, “status” seemed less important in everyone’s eyes.
All around were cries and groans.
Soldiers arrived in conditions no human body should have to endure, eyes wide open and full of desperate hope.
Guadalcanal was muddy everywhere. If soldiers lacked enough dry socks, they developed trench foot. Their feet could swell until their boots had to be cut away, and sometimes amputation was necessary.
Everyone quickly began to see Qin Siyu in a different light.
When someone needed surgery, three layers of curtains were hung around the medical tent, along with a white gauze net to keep out insects. Guadalcanal was unbearably hot, and it was August. Most people could barely stand the conditions, but Qin Siyu could operate for long periods inside, remaining calm and professional throughout.
Qin Siyu gave the very best care he could, and the mortality rate among the officers and soldiers he treated was consistently lower than in others’ care.
He kept his environment cleaner, so infection rates were lower.
He could also arrange and manage everything in an orderly way.
Tropical ulcers and malaria were rampant, but after Japan occupied Java and cut off the supply of quinine, the hospital had no effective medicine.
Military regulations said men with temperatures below thirty-nine degrees Celsius could not leave the front line. At one point there were more than two thousand men with fevers above that threshold alone.
Medical staff ran themselves ragged, but Qin Siyu remained exceptionally calm and gentle. His manner soothed everyone, even the senior physicians.
Some medical workers asked Qin Siyu, “Dr. Chin, you’re always so rational. Have you ever panicked in your entire life?”
Qin Siyu merely smiled and said, “I have.”
He thought of himself lying on the floor like a dog, struggling to breathe when he learned his lover was about to be sent into surgery.
He continued growing at a tremendous pace. Gradually, his technique reached a level where he could accomplish things other doctors could not.
Once, a soldier arrived with an injured femoral artery. Another doctor applied pressure and bandaged the wound, but it was already too late. The soldier’s pulse was weakening.
The other doctor declared that nothing could be done. But Qin Siyu suddenly said, “Open the abdomen.”
The others: “What?”
Qin Siyu immediately examined the soldier. His judgment was correct. He said gently, “He has another wound in the abdominal cavity. When he arrived, he was focused on his leg. That must hurt badly, but… his abdomen… it’s a little more swollen than when he was brought in. He’s bleeding internally.”
Because Qin Siyu had recognized it correctly, the soldier survived.
Another time, several soldiers were brought in with high fevers, vomiting, and severe weakness.
Malaria was rampant in the area, but Qin Siyu looked at where their camps were located and noticed that they were close together. He suspected the drinking water in that area had been contaminated and the military had failed to purify it properly.
It was not malaria but an infection.
They eventually discovered a problem with that water source, preventing soldiers in several camps from falling ill together. This time Qin Siyu had not saved them one by one, but in whole groups.
By 1943, America began its strategy of “island hopping.”
The Allies realized they did not need to retake every occupied island. By bypassing some and isolating others, they could cut off the enemy’s supplies. They could concentrate their forces on selected objectives, while Japan had to garrison every island.
In November 1943, Qin Siyu was sent to the “meat grinder” at Tarawa.
Japan had built a fortress there, with bunkers and barbed wire, seemingly impregnable.
Their casualties were horrifying.
By this point Qin Siyu was well known.
He had performed many major operations and saved some critically wounded patients whom experience had suggested were almost certain to die.
Whenever a difficult case came in, the others in the medical unit would shout, “Where’s Sean?” “Get Dr. Chin over here!” “Where’s Dr. Chin? Dr. Chin!”
And only Dr. Chin could establish a new route for transfusions through the bone’s marrow vascular network when ordinary transfusions were impossible and intravenous access could not be obtained, for example when a casualty’s veins collapsed or he had suffered severe burns.
He could use the tibia or humerus. His technique was extraordinary.
It was also at Tarawa, during a retreat, that Qin Siyu suddenly discovered the medical unit had left something crucial behind.
In the haste of withdrawal, a case of blood plasma had been forgotten.
Worse still, the notebook containing everyone’s blood-type records had been left behind too!
A major battle had just ended. Without plasma, many soldiers could only wait to die.
And without the blood-type records, no one could tell which kind of blood each man could safely receive. Everyone would be affected.
“You go ahead,” Qin Siyu said. “There’s still a little time before the Japanese arrive. I’ll go back and get them.”
“That’s too dangerous!” several people protested. “You might not come back.”
Qin Siyu looked at the wounded and said, “I’ll get them. The plasma and records are too important. If casualties increase sharply, morale will suffer. We might even lose this place.”
“The Japanese are coming,” the others repeated. “You may never return.”
Rationally, Qin Siyu believed that with his speed and stamina, he could make it back. Yet for some reason what came out of his mouth was, “If I really don’t make it, then I don’t. Don’t be sad. There’s nothing I’m particularly attached to anymore.”
The words startled him. Rationally, he could scarcely believe it. He had lost Kingsy a full two years earlier. Usually he was too busy even to think about him, yet deep down he still did not much want to live.
After a pause Qin Siyu added, “I just want this war to end sooner, and the Japanese invaders to go to hell.”
Then he went back.
He really did move fast. The artillery was already nearing the hospital when Qin Siyu found the case, packed away the records, and hoisted the plasma onto his shoulder.
When he caught up with the medical unit, countless wounded men were indeed waiting for plasma and the records.
At the sight of him, the team cried out in delight. “Sean!” “It’s Sean!” “Sean’s back!”
Qin Siyu set the case down. He was utterly exhausted, but merely raised his eyes. His back remained straight as a flagstaff, his voice as calm and gentle as ever. “The plasma and records. They’re all here.”
Then the year turned to 1944.
Qin Siyu had long since become a pillar of his medical unit, while Japan’s decline was becoming unmistakable.
In the Pacific, American industry had surged into full production. Aircraft carriers, warships, planes, guns, artillery shells… more and more arrived without end, far beyond Japan’s capacity to wear down.
Meanwhile Japan was deeply trapped in China as well. The ground it controlled kept shrinking, and it could do nothing about it. Defeat had become inevitable.
As it neared its end, the Japanese military grew more frenzied and increasingly given to atrocities.
The Marines’ task now was to advance toward the Japanese home islands: Saipan and Guam, then Iwo Jima and Okinawa. MacArthur’s Army would return to the Philippines.
One night on Saipan, the Japanese launched another atrocity.
They severed telephone lines, shot the sentries outside a hospital, and attacked it ferociously.
“Animals! Animals!” medical workers cursed as they evacuated. “Attacking medical personnel! Only beasts would target a hospital and slaughter wounded men and the people caring for them!”
“They’ve been beasts for a long time,” Qin Siyu said. “Hurry and evacuate!”
“What is there to be surprised about?” another military doctor said. “Go! Do you want to be captured by the Japanese, castrated, and have your foreskin sewn onto your mouth?”
It was all the more horrifying because it had actually happened. At the time, the Japanese had even hung a sign on that Australian soldier that said, [He struggled in agony for a very long time before he died.]
Outside the hospital, rifle fire was rapid and close. Medical workers carried out everything in orderly fashion: medicine chests, plasma, oxygen cylinders, surgical instruments…
The wounded were loaded onto stretchers.
But two emergency operations were still underway, and the gravely wounded were extraordinarily difficult to move. Their injuries had not healed and could easily reopen, so it took several people each time to shift a patient and carry away a stretcher.
One of those undergoing surgery was the highest-ranking Chinese American officer there.
His name was Gordon. He was a colonel and the commanding officer of a destroyer. Gordon had been brought in after being wounded, and Qin Siyu had spoken to him several times.
Gordon had told him he had joined the war in response to the Nationalist government’s appeal to overseas Chinese: “Fight for China.”
The gunfire outside was drawing closer.
At that moment, another critically wounded man whom Qin Siyu had just transfused suddenly spoke. “Don’t worry about me… carry the others… in the time it takes to move me, you could move several… I probably won’t survive anyway…”
He murmured, “It takes too long to move me… don’t waste time on me… save the others first…”
Several medical workers hesitated, then left him and went to carry the others, as he had asked.
It truly was the more sensible choice.
The wounded man was one of Qin Siyu’s recent patients.
Qin Siyu knew that before the man left America, his wife had been pregnant.
His wife, carrying their child, had begged him to come home alive.
After being “abandoned,” the soldier began singing softly.
It was the national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner,” which had only been designated the anthem in 1932 and was about the American War of Independence.
Elio’s Notes: “The Star-Spangled Banner” became the official U.S. national anthem in 1931, not 1932. Francis Scott Key’s poem was inspired by the War of 1812, not the American Revolutionary War. The author’s narrative statement remains unaltered. Sources: Smithsonian National Museum of American History, USAGov.
He sang terribly off-key, and his voice broke in and out. After a few lines he grinned. “Impossible to sing… this song. I don’t like it… twelve years and I’ve never once got it right.”
“But the song likes you.” Gunfire was close now. A nurse beside him knew he could not be moved. “It’s honored to have you.”
The soldier grinned once more.
Qin Siyu had never truly felt that he belonged to this country. It seemed much more Kingsy’s country than his own. Yet at that moment he could not help feeling grief.
Gunfire had reached the doors, and the evacuation was not yet finished.
Many soldiers and medical staff had still not been moved. Medical equipment and large quantities of lifesaving drugs had also yet to be carried out.
They were all his patients. Gordon’s surgery was still underway.
They also belonged to an elite fighting force tasked with moving toward Japan itself and forcing a surrender as soon as possible.
Next would come Iwo Jima and Guam, then the landing on Okinawa.
Would Japan really surrender once they landed on Okinawa and reached the home islands?
That was why Saipan could not fall.
Wasn’t Japan attacking the hospital as one last desperate attempt?
Seize the hospital, kill the medical workers, make the enemy afraid of being wounded, sap their courage and break their resolve.
And if the hospital truly fell this way, justice itself would seem to have been struck in the face once again. Medical workers represented the saving of lives.
The wounded soldiers’ firearms and ammunition had been gathered together off to one side. Qin Siyu went over, selected the only heavy machine gun among them, a .50-caliber Browning M2HB, and said, “I’ll go up onto the roof. I’ll try to buy more time for the evacuation.”
The hospital was a two-story building.
Everyone looked at him.
If he covered the hospital’s withdrawal, he would almost certainly die.
Someone whispered, “But medical personnel are absolutely forbidden to kill. The hands that save people must not kill. If the Japanese violate the conventions, should we violate them too?”
Elio’s Notes: Medical personnel and hospitals are protected under the law of armed conflict. It is not an absolute rule that medical workers may never defend themselves or their patients; modern humanitarian-law commentary recognizes defensive use of individual light arms, while crew-served heavy weapons raise different protection issues. The novel’s debate remains verbatim in sense, without rewriting the characters’ understanding in 1944. Source: International Committee of the Red Cross.
That meant that even if he died, he might not be treated as a hero. Instead of a medal, there could be a trial.
The surgeon in charge of the unit, a lieutenant colonel, reached for the gun. He said gently, “Sean, you’re still young. I’m married, and I have children. It’s the most wonderful feeling. You haven’t experienced it yet. You shouldn’t die here.”
But Qin Siyu would not hand it over. He said, “They certainly need you to lead the evacuation, and they’ll need you afterward too. As for me—”
He hesitated, then finally said, “I’m never going to marry, and I’ll never have children. I… don’t absolutely have to survive.”
He lifted the gun. It weighed a full thirty-eight kilograms. As he headed toward the stairs, he pointed to two men. “Please help me carry the tripod, barrel, accessories, and ammunition box.”
From the roof he could see that only the final defensive line remained in the distance. A few guards were still resisting.
With his eyes lowered, Qin Siyu placed the Browning M2’s tripod at the edge of the roof, mounted its barrel, turned, locked, and adjusted the weapon so the muzzle projected past the ledge.
Qin Siyu placed the ammunition box beside him, opened it, drew out the belt, guided the first round into position, closed the mechanism, and pulled the charging handle. With a sharp click, the first round moved into firing position.
He loaded it calmly.
He was a physician, but during the military’s loading and marksmanship drills he had always been among the fastest and most accurate.
He had never killed anyone. But he knew how.
He lay prone on the roof and quietly waited for the final moment.
The sea wind swept over him carrying the smell of gunpowder.
Saipan was beautiful, with its blue waters, white coral sand, towering cliffs, jagged reefs, and tall coconut palms.
Beautiful.
It ought to have been paradise, shouldn’t it? Husbands and wives, lovers strolling beside the sea, children running to meet the waves on the beach. But now the water was stained red with blood, and corpses lay heaped on the reefs.
Many soldiers had failed to make it ashore. Their bodies lay across the rocks.
The last defensive line broke. Japanese soldiers surged toward the hospital entrance, howling and brandishing their weapons.
An officer with a mustache was leading them. Qin Siyu’s right index finger tightened on the trigger.
The heavy machine gun roared deafeningly, rat-tat-tat-tat.
Muzzle flashes burst forth. The gun barrel whirled as shell casings sprayed out, and Qin Siyu gripped the weapon, sweeping the hospital entrance with fire.
Elio’s Notes: The Browning M2/M2HB is a recoil-operated machine gun, not a rotating-barrel design. The book’s description of the barrel spinning is preserved as written rather than silently reengineering the scene. Source: U.S. Army M2/M2A1 equipment portfolio.
Beneath the Browning M2’s muzzle, flesh burst apart and bloody mist filled the air.
Men fell in rows. Those still standing looked up. Bullets began flying toward the rooftop amid shouts and roars.
They kept charging, shouting something about the supreme glory of dying for their emperor.
The Browning M2’s recoil was astonishing. His shoulders, collarbones, and chest had all gone numb from the shock, but Qin Siyu braced against the gun, holding the tripod in place. His ears rang until the whole world seemed submerged under water. He clenched his teeth, kept the muzzle aligned, and continued firing.
By now he was killing with a frenzy.
He thought of so many things Japan had done to his homeland over the last thirteen years—the things in the newspapers, the things relatives and friends wrote in letters, and things that had happened even earlier.
How he hated them.
Let them all die.
Kill every last one.
How long had he held on? Qin Siyu did not know.
Was the evacuation finished?
Were the people from the hospital safe?
He knew none of it. He could only go on.
A bullet struck his left shoulder. Blood poured out, bursting into a red spray, but the machine gun’s fire never faltered.
He did not know how long he had kept firing or how many rounds he had used. Finally, through the haze, he thought he could sense that friendly reinforcements had arrived. Perhaps.
The ammunition box was empty. The enemy had moved within grenade range. Qin Siyu let go of the gun and rolled toward a corner of the rooftop. But one grenade still landed nearby, and its blast knocked him sprawling.