The leader said nothing.
They came to a point where the Japanese-built highway bridge had been. Its stone piers were still in position, but the steel I-beams had been pushed off into the river and the wooden superstructure presumably burned up as fuel. They left the road and followed the stream. Soon they came under the power lines. The wires between two pylons had been bunched together and a suspension bridge, one plank wide, had been hung from them.
The chief gestured for Dugan to go first, so as to remain covered. Dugan held back. "I am afraid of the electricity."
"No electricity in those wires. Go along."
"The bridge is not strong," Dugan whined. "Show me how to walk across it."
For answer he got a nudge with the Luger barrel.
It was not bad going, so long as he did not look down at the racing water forty feet below. The Chinese all crowded on the bridge after him. They had absolute reliance on the strength of the Japanese power cables overhead.
Once across, they went back upstream to return to the road.
Dugan panted, "Comrade, why is the big-road bridge destroyed?"
"We tore it down to keep the Fascists and Americans from invading us. You must know that the Americans want to enslave us even worse than the Japanese."