Ninety-Five Sheets: The Garrison Death Squad

“Hey, gorgeous, still mad? You’ve got less sense of proportion than your little sister. Why pick a fight with a kid like me? Come on, come on, let me smooth your temper out. Hey, about that thing I mentioned to you last time, have you thought it over? Look at the outfit you’re wearing now, with a strap so wide you could feel it with your hands. The design I’m talking about, I’m telling you, the strap is only as thick as a shoelace, and once you put it on... Ow! Let go! Are you a dog or something? Turning on people without warning! Auntie... help me!” After settling his aunt on that side, Hong Tao wandered into the room where the hair salon was and saw Han Xue sitting alone on the shampoo bed, stewing in silence. Besides the three female customers waiting there, the other two women were still in the chairs getting their hair set.

He sidled up to Han Xue, talking as he went, and used his hand to rub her back as if he were helping push the anger down. But then his fingers brushed a wide strap on the woman’s clothing, really as wide as a belt, and he leaned close to Han Xue’s ear to whisper about that thing he had mentioned. He had only meant to get a little verbal advantage, but Han Xue clamped down on his ear in one swift grab, and the pain made him cry out to the customers for help.

“Hey, sis, there are guests here. What are you doing? Let go, let go!” The customers were all too busy laughing to help Hong Tao. They did not know what the relationship between these two really was, whether they were just fooling around or serious.

The first to rush over was Han Yan. She pried Han Xue’s hand open with a tugging, restraining grip, then stepped in front of Hong Tao to shield him.

“What, you’re helping him now? Let me tell you, that kid’s full of rotten schemes. One day he’ll sell you out and you’ll still be helping him count the money! You silly girl! Your head’s full of paste!” Han Xue warned her younger sister in a fierce whisper, teeth clenched.

“That’s not nearly as bad as you make it sound. You’re slandering me. I’m telling you, you’ve pinched my ear twice now, and I remember it. Just wait till I grow up. No need for long, sixteen will do. By then I’ll collect it all back from you, with interest. Go ahead and try me!” Hong Tao hid behind Han Yan, rubbing his ear and bristling back at her.

“Fine, I’ll wait. Just don’t go acting cowardly then!” Han Xue pointed at Hong Tao, then turned and headed for the door.

“Why do you always make my sister mad? If you didn’t pick on her, she wouldn’t pinch your ear!” Seeing that her sister had been driven off again by Hong Tao, Han Yan turned back and began to scold him. And “again” was the right word, because over these past few days, whenever Hong Tao ran into Han Xue and she happened not to be busy, within five minutes Han Xue would be flushed red with rage, breathing hard.

“She’s your sister, of course you side with her. By the way, what was on TV just now? So many people were crowded around watching. Isn’t that deep-sea one already over?” Since Han Xue had been driven off too, Hong Tao had no one left to torment, and only then did he suddenly remember the TV program he had just glimpsed. It seemed to be a foreign film.

“Something called the Daredevil Squad, I think. It’s a war thing, foreign film. I don’t like it!” Han Yan thought for a moment, gave a vague title, and went back to her work.

“The Daredevil Squad? Foreign film? War? ...Garrison’s Daredevil Squad!” Hong Tao quickly remembered the name of an American television series from Han Yan’s words.

“Heh heh... so it is. Perfect, I’ll watch it first myself. How many years has it been? ...Memories from more than thirty years ago!” Hong Tao went back into the tailor’s room, carried the TV away from the window, and set it on the cutting table at the back of the room where his aunt cut cloth. When he switched it on, sure enough, it was the very American series he had remembered.

Looking at those faces on the screen, familiar yet strange, Hong Tao seemed to have been carried back into the memories of the past. Back then their family did not own a TV yet, so they had to go to the neighbors’ house to watch. A whole crowd of adults and children would sit on little stools, watching the people, costumes, and stories on the screen with an awe and delight that was almost intoxicating, eye-opening beyond words.

Garrison’s Daredevil Squad was the second American television series to make a sensation in China after the deep-sea one. It ran for twenty-six episodes, one each Saturday night. The story was set in the later years of World War II. A U.S. lieutenant named Garrison found a mobster, a thief, a con man, and a robber from an American prison, added himself, and formed a five-man daredevil unit. They penetrated deep behind German lines to rescue comrades, bomb radar stations, kidnap a German field marshal, steal secret intelligence, pilfer military supplies, sabotage enemy plans, and strike at gangsters, leaving the Germans dizzy and bewildered.

In later years, a plot like that would have been utterly corny, but in China in that era it was basically invincible. Back then, every Saturday night the streets were deserted. At homes with televisions, the courtyards were packed with people. From big cities to small towns, from townships to villages, wherever there was a TV, there were bound to be crowds three and four layers deep. If ratings had been measured then, this series would probably have been the highest-rated show in the world. It was on a completely different level from later hits like Longing, The Grand Mansion Gate, or Empresses in the Palace; they could not even be compared in the same breath.

Beyond its huge audience, this series also became the first American television show to be banned in China. After sixteen episodes, the authorities abruptly stopped it. The screen showed only a single line: This program has concluded. But most people could tell the series had not actually finished; there was still plenty of story left untold. Yet in that age of closed-off information, no one knew why it had been cut short, and there was nowhere to ask.

Though it aired for only a little more than half its run, the series influenced several generations in China, and it was even tied to a major event that happened two years later. For in this show there was not only warfare but also a lot of individual heroism, especially among the robber, the thief, and the mobster. Their specialties were throwing daggers, petty theft, and lock-picking, and they were presented as positive characters.

That was where the trouble began. In those days, films and television were sharply divided into black and white: good people were good, bad people were bad. Good people had to do good deeds, and bad people could only do bad ones. But this show overturned that notion entirely. Here, bad men were doing good things, and they were using the methods of bad men to do them. That sent the young people of the time straight into confusion. They no longer knew what counted as a good deed or a bad one, and they were even more bewildered about whether it was better to be a good person or a bad one.

On top of that, this was also the crucial year when China began its reforms. All kinds of outside influences were already battering people’s old assumptions, and then Garrison and his men became the fuse. As the series aired, fights, brawls, and lock-picking burglaries surged across the country, growing more and more severe.

Hong Tao still remembered his youngest uncle and his classmates running all over the place looking for bandsaw blades to break apart and grind into all sorts of little throwing knives. Any wooden object they saw had to be peppered with a few throws. Some children with even richer imaginations had actually begun hurling them at people, claiming they had learned it from TV. In truth, just throwing around crude knives made from broken steel scraps was not such a huge issue, but there were even more troublesome kids who started sneaking into houses and stealing from buses, because that was how it was done in the series.

In the end, even the restless little thugs found something in the show that suited their status: triangular daggers made by filing down a steel file. Beijing kids called those things by a special name. Though they did not look as terrifying as a trident, they were extremely deadly because their triangular cross-section, combined with the blood grooves, meant that once they pierced the human body, the tightening muscles would hardly trap them at all, so they could be pulled out easily.

Anyone with medical training knew that if a blade entered the body and was left there, and if it had not struck a vital organ, the victim would not necessarily be in immediate danger. The muscles around the wound would contract, pressing the blood vessels shut, while the body remained sealed and pressure was maintained, so there would be no major blood loss. Even without prompt rescue, the person could last quite a while. But if the blade was pulled out, and the wound was not a neat shape, the body’s self-protective mechanism would no longer help. Internal pressure would keep the blood flowing from the vessels, and if treatment was delayed, the person would truly be in danger.

Yet hospitals at the time had a clear rule: for injuries of unknown origin, they could not be handled casually. Treatment could only begin after police officers arrived. That made things miserable for the little thugs who got stabbed. Once they were skewered by one of those daggers and failed to receive timely treatment, the odds of death shot up fast. And so the enormous blame for people being stabbed to death while watching TV ended up being pinned on Garrison and his crew, much like later generations blaming bad grades on Internet cafes.

Another advantage of this kind of dagger was how easy it was to carry: less than a foot long altogether, just slip it into a trouser pocket and it was ready to go. It became the best tool for thug gangs of that era, whether for staying at home, traveling, or going out to work.

But Hong Tao did not hate the series. On the contrary, he was now thinking of several clothing styles that would become fashionable along with it, such as military-style jackets, long trench coats, and patterned shirts. Although the show had only just aired its first episode, it never hurt to plan ahead. Jackets and shirts did not need the kind of exact fit trousers did, nor did they need custom tailoring. You could simply scale them down one size from the standard measurements used later on. People in this era were generally shorter and thinner; a man of one meter seventy was already considered tall, and one meter eighty was rare.

“Auntie, tomorrow morning put your work aside for a bit and come with me to draft a few new patterns first. We’ve got new styles to sell again! Heh heh heh!” Hong Tao switched off the TV and ran to his aunt, grinning like a fox that had just stolen a chicken.