The Iron Sickle

— 10-

I plowed into them like I knew what I was doing. The guy directly in front of me with a cigarette dangling from his lips stared up at me wide-eyed and leapt out of my way. The two on either side of him didn’t back up but closed in. I landed a straight left to the jaw of one, pushed the other down, and started running. My goal was to make it back to the well-lit main drag of Mia-ri. The problem was this road didn’t lead back to it but veered off farther away. Still, I figured there’d be a cross street up ahead where I could hang a quick left, if I ever made it that far. Their feet pounded behind me.

As I passed trash cans I knocked them into the middle of the road. Unfortunately for me, Koreans have been recycling for centuries, and there wasn’t much detritus to slow down my pursuers, just fish bones and apple peels and wilted cabbage leaves. I concentrated on speed. But running was for the little guys, never my forte. Instead, I usually chose to stand and fight but this time the odds were much too long. I spotted an intersection up ahead and churned forward, hearing the maddening clatter of footsteps behind me. Sweat poured into my eyes.

I was a few steps from the road when one of the thugs landed on my back like a ravenous predator and wrapped his forearm around the front of my neck. Struggling to breathe with his weight bearing down on me, I bent forward as fast as I could, tossing him in the air. He flew straight over and then down, smashing on the cement with a crack that, even in my panicked state, I hoped wasn’t his neck. Two more thugs hit me, and I lost my footing and went down. I rolled on the filthy road, coming to a halt spread-eagled on the pavement. When the first one came at me, I lifted myself up and butted my head into his stomach. Clutching his arms, I was able to regain my feet, and then I pushed him into the other guy and started punching until another guy appeared at my side, and something poked into my left arm. I decided to punch him too. Both men went down but that’s when things got bad.

The rest of the herd was on me now. Kicks rammed into the back of my thighs, but covering my head with my forearms, I moved blindly, punching as I twirled toward the cross street, fighting my way to the safety of a soot-smeared brick wall. Just a few yards ahead, I spotted the bright lights of Mia-ri, which gave me hope. I lunged at one of the attackers, hitting him and knocking his head so hard he reeled backward, and I pushed past him and through their line and started to sprint once again for civilization. The bright lights were no more than ten yards away when it seemed as if two one-hundred-pound sacks of rice landed on my back. I collapsed to the ground, rolling from the kicks, and I managed to wedge myself between crates of empty liquor bottles that had been stacked against a wall in the alley. I grabbed splintered wood, yanked the top crate free from its stack, and threw it as hard as I could at the thugs. The crate swirled through the air, and crystalline bottles flew out and crashed to the dirty blacktop. The hoods backed off enough for me to push myself up against the wall and stand, then I was running through them again, only a few yards now from the main drag. They took more shots at me, but I stumbled into the glare of flashing neon. Through sweat-smeared eyes I saw people were staring at me, their mouths open in horror. Half-crawling, I dragged my body fully into the light.

Grumbling and cursing, the thugs backed away, leaving me to collapse face down in front of a growing crowd of scantily clad cocktail hostesses and red-faced Korean businessmen. Some of the men pointed and laughed, figuring this was part of the adventure of their night on the town. Still, no one was punching me or kicking me anymore, for which I felt inordinately grateful. Briefly, I wondered where Ming was and then I passed out.

“What the hell happened to you?” Ernie asked.

“What do you think happened?” I said.

“You head-butted a rhinoceros?”

“No. I finally decided to have a little plastic surgery. Alter my nose; tighten the wrinkles around my eyes.”

“You look divine, dahling,” Ernie said.

I lay in an elevated bed at the 121st Evacuation Hospital. Earlier this morning when I roused myself from a pain-killer-induced haze, I took inventory of my body parts. Everything seemed to be working, although everything hurt. The nurse told me I’d been shot full of antibiotics, and I’d received almost a dozen stitches in various parts of my body. They’d been monitoring for internal bleeding, but so far there didn’t appear to be any.

“Can I leave now?” I asked.

“Not until the doctor says it’s okay.”

“When will that be?”

“Morning rounds,” she said primly and walked out.

I returned my attention to Ernie. “Where’s Ming?”

“Who?” Ernie said.

“The Chinese guy I went to Mia-ri with. What happened to him?”

Ernie looked puzzled. “According to the KNP report, they found you alone, face down on the main drag of Mia-ri, passed out. At first they thought you were just drunk and then they saw the blood.”

“Nice of them to be so observant.”

“They called the MPs, who called an ambulance, and they carted you back here.”

I sat up. “What time is it?”

“Zero nine hundred,” Ernie said.

“How long have I been here?”

“Since just after curfew.”

“That long? And what took you so long to get here?”

“Nobody told me about it until I walked into the office this morning.”

Normally, the MPs would’ve found Ernie whether he was in the barracks or out in the ville to tell him his partner was in the hospital. Apparently they were still pissed about Dexter being locked up.

I tossed the sheet back and started to slide out of bed.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“We gotta talk to Strange.”

“Strange? What’d they knock your pervert screw loose?”

“No. Last night, I learned about a file, a secret file containing claims against Eighth Army that have been suppressed, claims that were never processed.”

“Wait a minute.” Ernie placed his hand on my shoulder. “You better stay put. Let me talk to the doctor.”

“To hell with the doctor.”

The morning rounds in a big over-crowded military hospital could take hours. I stood up, the soles of my feet cold on the tile floor. I stepped toward the open closet where I saw my clothes hanging, and when I was about halfway to my destination, an earthquake must’ve hit. The floor rolled, and I remember thinking this was strange because Korea doesn’t have many earthquakes and then the room grew dim, and the lights popped out, and the next thing I knew I was diving through the eternal ether. Everything was dark. Very dark.

Strange sat with both elbows on a Formica covered table in the 8th Army snack bar. A black plastic holder with an unlit cigarette dangled between his thin lips. Cruelly bloodshot red orbs bulged behind his green-tinted shades.

“Had any strange lately?” he asked.

“Can it, Strange,” Ernie told him. “We’re here on important business.”

“The name’s Harvey.”

“Okay, Harvey. You heard my partner’s question. Now answer it.”

The doctor at the 121 had held me a couple more hours for observation, but in the end he decided I had not received a serious concussion and had probably only been dizzy because of blood loss. He told me to take it easy for the next few days, to drink a lot of fluids, and to refrain from heavy lifting. If I experienced any pain aspirin couldn’t help, I was to report immediately to sick call.

“They need the bed,” Ernie told me as we walked out of the hospital.

Military doctors aren’t worried about being sued, and they figure most of us healthy young GIs are about as rugged as plastic soldiers anyway. We take a beating and keep on ticking. I was stiff and sore but otherwise functioning.

“What was the question again?” Strange asked.

“Eighth Army Claims,” I said. “They have a file of every claim for damages made by Korean civilians against the Eighth United States since the end of the Korean War. However, it has come to my attention that there is another file, a secret file of suppressed claims. Claims that have been deemed too embarrassing to the Command or too damaging to see the light of day.”

Strange’s lips tightened. His cigarette waggled. “Who has this file?” he asked.

I slammed my open palm down on the table. “Christ, Harvey. That’s what I’m asking you.”

He glanced around the snack bar, making sure no one was listening. They weren’t. The place was bustling with almost a hundred GIs in uniform and a smattering of Department of Defense civilians on their lunch breaks. Conversation was pitched at a controlled roar.

Strange leaned toward me. His long brown hair was oiled and slicked back neatly over his bald spot. “SOFA,” he said.

“What?”

“The Status of Forces Committee,” he said a little louder, more insistent. He glanced to either side again before turning back to me. “They review those types of reports before deciding whether or not to turn them over to the Eighth Army Claims Office.”

I’d known the SOFA Committee, which was made up of ROK Army and US Army personnel, arbitrated the appeal process for rejected claims, but I hadn’t realized they also secretly vetted the claims before they were even allowed to go to the Claims Office. “How do you know this?”

He leaned back. “How do I know anything that goes on at Eighth Army? I pay attention.”

“You snoop,” Ernie said.

Strange’s cigarette drooped. He looked offended. “That’s a dirty word.”

“Your favorite kind.”

“So this Status of Forces committee,” I said, “they’re the ones who make the decision to suppress certain claims.”

“Who else?” Strange replied. “The Commander doesn’t get involved. He wants deniability in case the shit hits the rotating wind machine.”

“Has it ever?”

“No way.” Strange scoffed. “Mr. Cool who runs the country would never allow it.”

Ernie said, “Where do they keep these files?”

Strange looked around the snack bar, almost swiveling his head in a complete circle, to see if anyone was watching or listening. Luckily for us I don’t believe anyone was, because it would have been obvious Strange was about to tell us a secret. Strange liked everyone to know he knew more than they did.

Well, usually. “I don’t know,” he whispered.

“What do you mean you don’t know?” Ernie asked. “You run the classified documents distribution center. You’re always bragging you know everything that’s going on in Eighth Army.”

“I do,” he said.

“But you don’t know this?”

“I know what I don’t know,” he said, tapping the side of his head.

“Can you find out where the documents are?” I asked.

“It depends.”

“Depends on what?”

“Have you had any strange lately?”

Ernie groaned. We knew what that meant. Strange wanted to be told an elaborately obscene story of illicit sex in graphic detail and in return he’d spill his guts concerning the secret 8th Army claims file. A pervert in charge of classified documents. Somehow, it made sense.

This was my cue. I rose from my chair and hobbled over to the snack bar serving line. Taking my time, I grabbed a sturdy porcelain mug and pulled myself a cup of steaming hot java from the stainless steel coffee urn. At the register, I paid the middle-aged Korean lady twenty-five cents. She didn’t hand me my receipt. I was about to open my mouth and ask for it when she said, “No more free refill.”

“When did this start?” I asked.

“Today.”

The price of everything was going up. I glanced at the table. Apparently so was the price of Strange’s cooperation. He was leaning forward to hear the elaborate story Ernie was making up. From time to time Strange frowned and asked a question. Ernie sighed and kept talking. I stood off to the side and waited. I didn’t really want to hear all this. Finally, when my coffee was about half gone, Strange rose and slunk out of the Snack Bar. I rejoined Ernie at the table.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Nothing a hot shower won’t fix.”

I had just finished my coffee when a siren went off, a huge wailing sound, then stopped. Everyone in the Snack Bar had frozen. And then a cannon fired and the wailing started again, louder this time.

“Alert!” someone shouted. More voices joined the chorus. Virtually everyone in the snack bar, especially those in uniform, was on their feet, grabbing their hats, wrapping toast and doughnuts in napkins and shoving them in their pockets, gulping down final glugs of orange juice or milk or coffee, slipping on their field jackets, and heading for the door, some at a trot, most at a flat-out run.

The wailing of the siren had taken on a pattern, three long bursts and one short.

“Move out,” someone said.

A regular muster alert was one thing. Every soldier assigned to the 8th Army headquarters was required to report immediately to his post of duty. Once there, the time he arrived was logged in, and once the entire unit was accounted for, the unit strength was phoned in to the higher headquarters. A move-out alert was worse. We were to assume our unit was already on a war footing, and we were to first put on our combat gear and check out our weapons at the unit arms room before reporting to either our posts of duty or our assigned defensive positions. Once there we’d be given the order as to whether or not to move out-load up our trucks or jeeps and whatever vehicles our unit was assigned, leave Yongsan Compound, and head to the boonies.

“At least there’s no incoming,” Ernie said. That is, no rounds being lobbed by Communist long-range artillery from the northern side of the DMZ.

“Not yet,” I said.

Pandemonium had broken out and then subsided, and by now the snack bar was virtually empty. Slowly, Ernie stood up, slipped on his jacket, and said, “After you, maestro.” I nodded in thanks. He walked and I hobbled up the hill toward the 8th Army Criminal Investigation Detachment. Riley was waiting for us.

“Where the hell you guys been?”

We were on night guard duty again, patrolling the shadowy perimeter of the 8th United States Army Headquarters South (Provisional). At least that’s what the hand-painted sign above the main entrance said. What we were really patrolling was three or four acres of jumbled canvas tents in a punchbowl of mud. If we had elephants and tigers, we’d be a circus. We already had the clowns.

One of them emerged from the darkness, stepped beneath the glow of a yellow bulb dangling from a wire, and approached us as we made our rounds.

“Look lively there,” he growled. “Don’t stand around like a bunch of Marines.”

It was Staff Sergeant Riley. He had his M-16 rifle slung over his shoulder. He was wearing baggy fatigues, combat boots and a field jacket two sizes too large for his narrow shoulders. His camouflagenetted steel pot sat on his head tilted at an angle.

“Who appointed you king of the guard post?” Ernie asked.

“Somebody’s gotta make sure you pukes maintain the integrity of the perimeter.”

“Maintain the integrity of this,” Ernie replied, showing Riley his favorite finger.

We were tired. It was 8th Army’s second day in the field, and we’d been out walking guard duty all last night and tonight since evening chow. It was almost midnight.

“You’re supposed to be spread out,” Riley said. “Not standing around shooting the shit.”

“We already chased away all the Commies,” Ernie said. “They’re sixty miles north of here up on the other side of the DMZ.”

Eighth Army’s field headquarters was set up in this rural area about thirty-five kilometers south of the city limits of Seoul. Theoretically, on this side of the Han River, we’d be less vulnerable to an initial North Korean assault-if the Communist regime up north ever actually decided to invade. Once our brave forces repulsed them-and no one thought we wouldn’t-we were still close enough to Seoul to return to Yongsan Compound and continue normal operations.

“What about infiltrators?” Riley asked.

“What about ’em?”

“North Korean commandoes can sneak across the DMZ and attack our positions at any time.”

“Hey, Riley,” Ernie said, “this is not a real war, okay? We’re not in ’Nam anymore. All this is make-believe and as soon as the brass has had enough of playing tin soldier we’ll be allowed to pack up and go home.”

And maybe I’d be able to continue my investigation, I thought, but I knew better than to say anything to Riley, especially about the secret claims file. For now, we had to keep our suspicions to ourselves. If I told Riley, he’d tell the Provost Marshal. Maybe the PM didn’t know about it-he probably didn’t-and maybe he wouldn’t take any action to thwart our plans if he did find out. Maybe. But I couldn’t take that chance. I had to see that file without 8th Army’s knowledge. I couldn’t take the chance they would see the death of Mr. Barretsford and even the murder of Corporal Collingsworth as the acceptable price of keeping their secrets.

In the mess tent yesterday, Ernie’d found out from Strange that the file we were looking for was called the Bogus Claims Register, and it was held in the classified file cabinet of the Status of Forces Committee’s Secretariat. We knew where their offices were, not far from the 8th Army headquarters building itself, and Strange said the files were locked in secure cabinets in the Secretary’s office, which in turn was locked behind an iron-barred door. And of course, the entire complex was protected at all hours of night and day by armed guards. That was all Strange would tell Ernie.

Staff Sergeant Riley was about to open his mouth and point out another defect in our military bearing when footsteps tromped through mud.

An MP approached, wearing the same fatigues and steel pot we were, his M-16 slung over his left shoulder. He was a big man, and I thought I recognized his silhouette. As he came closer, moonlight shone in his face. Moe Dexter, freed now from his brief incarceration and cleared by the Provost Marshal of any charges stemming from the vandalizing of the pochang macha or threatening the use of a firearm against us. He’d been warned to watch his conduct, but all punishment was withheld, and he was returned to full duty.

“Well,” Ernie said, bristling, “look who got a clean bill of health from his parole board.”

“Better than having the creeping crud like you, Bascom.”

“At least I don’t stick it to my asshole buddies,” Ernie replied.

I thought the two men were about to come to blows, but Dexter stopped his advance, stared hard at Ernie for a moment, and turned and aimed his gaze at me. “You better get your butt in gear, Sweeno, and take this asshole with you.”

“I only see one asshole around here, Dexter,” I said.

“We’ll see about that once you’re finished with this little detail. The Provost Marshal is screaming for you two back in the Command tent.”

“What happened?”

Dexter pointed to a hill that loomed on the opposite side of the valley. “There’s a signal truck up there.”

In the dim moonlight, I could just make out the shape of a boxy truck holding up an antenna.

“Yeah?” I said.

“And apparently while you guys have been standing around with your thumbs up your butts, our signal troops have been having themselves a party, brought in a girl and everything.”

Outside the perimeter fence, from dawn until well after dark, enterprising farm families had set up wooden stands selling fruit and bottled soda and ramyon packaged noodles and half-liter bottles of soju. GIs weren’t allowed to leave the concertina wire that surrounded the compound but somehow transactions were made. In addition to the innocent stuff, at night some pimps and mama-sans brought in girls. They were mostly hidden out in the weeds, waiting for GIs to sneak through the wire or, if they were authorized to drive out of 8th Army bivouac area on a supply run, to stop beside the road.

Riley squinted at the moonlit hill. “Up there?” he asked.

“Whaddid I stutter? The Provost Marshal wants Sweeno and Bass Comb to investigate, immediately if not sooner.”

Ernie rolled his eyes but started to march toward the Command tent. I pointed at Riley and Dexter. “You two,” I said, “are now officially on guard duty.”

“I can’t do that,” Riley sputtered.

“Yes you can,” I replied. “The perimeter is yours.”

Without waiting for further argument, I turned and trotted away.

Rain had held off all evening, but as if to punish us for our sins, it started up just as we were ready to leave the perimeter of 8th Army Headquarters South. The dirt road to the signal truck was extremely steep and difficult to drive under the best of conditions, but now it was much too slippery. We had no choice but to hump it up the hill.

“Did you bring a rain parka?” Ernie asked.

“Naw, it’s still in my duffel bag. Didn’t think we’d need it.”

“Me neither.”

The rain soaked my fatigue jacket and pant legs. Water trickled off my steel pot and dribbled down the back of my neck. The mud, meanwhile, sloshed over the top of my boots. After a half hour of steady climbing, we were three-quarters of the way up the hill. We stopped for a breather.

Below, the canvas tents that looked so buoyant in the afternoon breeze were now weighted down by the rain and looked like a field of soggy mushrooms. A few lamps flickered here and there but for the most part 8th Army headquarters was fast asleep.

“How did they get the girl up here?” Ernie asked.

“Probably picked her up in a jeep, drove up during the day when the road was still passable.”

According to what we’d been told at the Command tent, the signal truck on Hill Number 143 was tasked with relaying communications from Seoul down to 8th Army Headquarters South. They had just made their routine hourly commo check when the radio man in the Command tent heard a woman’s voice in the background. Shortly afterward all communications were cut off. The communication boys down in the valley hadn’t been able to raise them since. What the Provost Marshal was worried about was that the two signal men assigned up there had brought the girl and maybe a few bottles of soju, and figuring everything would be quiet, they were now passed out drunk and not relaying military communications. The Chief of Staff was hopping mad and so Ernie and I had been dispatched to check out the situation.

Other than the rain and the mud, it was nice to have a diversion from the boredom of guard duty. After a five-minute rest, Ernie and I resumed our climb up the hill.

When we came to the last rise, the rain had slowed. I couldn’t see over the edge, so I signaled Ernie to stop. The only sound was the steady plop of rain into mud. No birds. No wildlife scurrying through the brush. I thought I heard some sort of humming background noise and figured that to be the generator. We crossed the rise. The signal truck was still not readily apparent. A few small lights blinked but they seemed to be coming from a bramble of trees.

“Camouflage nets,” Ernie said, pointing at a peaked shadow. At that moment lightning flashed and we crouched low, holding onto our steel pots. The lightning had hit somewhere on the opposite side of the valley, but in that split second of light I could see the boxy truck and the cut brush leaning up against it. Huge nets hung overhead, held up by aluminum poles.

Thunder rumbled across the valley and, as if the lightning had been some sort of key to the locked sky, the rain clouds opened, dumping an angry torrent on the muddy hills.

I leaned toward Ernie. “The main lights inside the truck are off.”

“They must be asleep,” he said, “or passed out.”

“Come on.”

It wasn’t easy reaching the truck because of the brush, and I had to duck under the camouflage netting, holding it aloft for Ernie so he could get through too. Meanwhile, of course, the rain seemed to be doing everything it could to thwart our progress. Drops hit the ground like pellets, splashing mud two or three feet high. Finally we reached the canvas overhang on the side of the truck.

“Just like back home in the trailer park,” Ernie said.

Things weren’t right; it was too quiet. Ernie and I both sensed it, which was why we were being cautious. We had expected to find the lights on, two guys drinking and laughing and maybe a Korean business girl squealing, and we’d barge in on them and slap them sober and call back to the Command tent. Later the two pukes would face either court-martial or at least Article 15 non-judicial punishment. But that wasn’t how things were looking.

Fold-down metal steps led to a door at the back of the truck. I placed myself to the left and reached for the handle. Ernie stepped off to the right, unslung his M-16, checked the safety, and when he was ready, he signaled for me to go ahead. I twisted the door open so as not to make any noise. Inside the truck it was dark except for the low ambient glow of red and yellow lights coming from a communications control panel. Without walking up on the steps, I leaned forward and peeked into the truck. Too dark to see anything. The smell was metallic and burnt, like the smell from a soldering iron. I stepped up on the steps, and as I did so I slid my hand along the inside wall, searching for a light switch. I didn’t find one. Instead, I reached in my pocket and pulled out a flashlight. I didn’t switch it on right away because I didn’t want to make myself a target. I stood inside the doorway, letting my eyes adjust to the darkness. I made out shapes. Two rows of electronic equipment, metal stools, supplies piled on the ground.

It was Ernie who saw it first. He tugged on the bottom of my fatigue pants and pointed to the puddle on the floor just in front of the door. Water, I thought, and then I saw it was dripping off the edge of the doorframe too slowly. I inhaled. Blood.

Without thinking, I hopped out of the truck. Ernie snatched the flashlight from me, switched it on, and aimed the beam into the depths of the truck. What I had thought were supplies were two soldiers in fatigues, on the floor, covered in blood, not moving.

Beneath the truck, something splashed. It scrabbled through the mud, then I caught the sound of squelching footsteps on the far side of the truck.

Ernie backed out and slammed the door shut. He darted to his left, I ran to the right. As I did so, I slipped my M-16 off my shoulder and, hands shaking, moved the bolt forward, chambering a round. At the edge of the truck, I crouched again, but only briefly. Whoever had run from under the truck had dashed into thick brush. Rain-laden branches quivered at his passing. I darted forward, Ernie crashing into the brush on my left, scanning ahead with the flashlight, but soon I motioned for him to turn it off because I could hear the footsteps moving across the plateau of Hill 143. We both stood still in the darkness and the rain. The rainfall was just a steady patter now, and footsteps sloshing through mud could be heard clearly, but they had stopped about twenty yards from me, as if whoever was ahead of us realized we were listening. Keeping the flashlight off, Ernie and I moved forward like two hounds stalking their prey.

The footsteps moved away from us, stealthily, as if hoping we wouldn’t hear.

Ahead beyond the brush was a field of boulders. There were at least two dozen of them scattered across a checkerboard pattern. Briefly I wondered about glaciers moving across the Korean peninsula eons ago, pushing up hills, leaving behind massive chunks of granite. We moved forward, crouching at each boulder to wait and listen. When I heard nothing, I’d burst around the huge rock, aiming my M-16 straight ahead.

The first two times I saw nothing but empty air. What if this guy was escaping? If he was moving quietly enough, he might already be on the far side of this field and running downhill toward freedom. To hell with safety, I thought. I started moving forward faster, taking my chances, ready to swivel at the slightest sound and fire a round into the face of whoever this bogeyman was.

Ernie and I had both spontaneously decided to chase the culprit, but what if one of the GIs back in the signal truck was still alive? What if one of them was breathing his last at this very moment? What if a well-placed tourniquet could have saved his life? I didn’t think so. There had been such a huge pool of blood on the floor and the bodies had seemed lifeless. But what if we’d been wrong?

I shoved these doubts out of my mind and pressed on, stepping past the huge rocks quickly, swiveling from side of side. But it was this worry, this self-doubt, that led to my momentary lapse. Lightning struck. It came from behind me, many miles away, but it was enough to make me flinch and turn my head slightly and just as something darted through the rocks off to the left of my field of vision. I swung my rifle, opened my mouth, and shouted “Halt!” But as I did so, the thunderclap struck, rolling across the valley and drowning out any sound a mere human could have made. After the first flash of movement, the lightning had left me blind, but I darted forward anyway, ramming into the side of a rock, and then I saw it, dark and venomous, like a snake flying through the night, heading right at me. I crouched, feeling a whoosh of air from the reptile wing as it passed my face. Something metallic clanged into rock. I turned and fired my M-16 into the darkness. And then footsteps churned, panicked, through the mud.

My eyesight came back as I pulled myself up.

Ernie was tromping through the mud toward me. “What happened?”

I pointed to the rock next to my head. He switched the flashlight on. A dusting of freshly ground rock clung to a three-inch gouge.

“Christ,” Ernie said. “That would’ve taken your head off.”

Footsteps tumbled away through the rocks. “Come on.”

We ran.

We had finally reached the edge of the boulder field, the sloshing feet only a few yards ahead of us, when I heard a thump. Someone whimpered. I stood still, listening, and then I took two steps forward. The whimpering again.

Whoever was out there had stopped, and they were so terrified at our approach that they were incapable of keeping quiet. Ernie closed in. I pointed to where I thought the sound was coming from and motioned for him to shine the flashlight on it. He did.

Brush rattled. Then someone was running again. I broke into a full-out sprint, crashing through the brush, shouting “Halt!” in English, forgetting for the moment how to say the word in Korean. Whoever was in front of me went down in a heap. I was holding the M-16, aiming at the sopping pile of rags in front of me, shouting for him to put his hands up, not caring whether he could understand me or not, ready to blow his freaking head off.

It was Ernie, strangely enough, who motioned with his open palm for me to lower the rifle. And then I saw what was in front of me. Bare legs poking out of a huge Army field jacket. The sturdy calves and creamy thighs were hairless, the rear end covered only by a wrinkled miniskirt.

The person huddled inside the jacket whimpered again and then a small hand appeared through the loose green material. It held a short-handled sickle. Ernie snatched it away, handed it to me, and then grabbed the small hand and hoisted the person upright. Long black hair hung down loosely, covering her face. Sweat matted strands were back-handed from cheeks, and then we saw her face. Full-cheeked, smooth, wide frightened eyes. She was about nineteen, I figured.

I examined the sickle. The razor sharp tip was dented in front, boulder dust still clinging to it.

I looked back at the girl. She was staring at her hands, clutching and pulling on her fingers. Her feet were crossed, her shoulders hunched. She was completely ashamed of herself. She ought to be. She’d just come about three-quarters of an inch from chopping my fool head off.

By the time the truck arrived, the sun had reached halfway toward its highest point of the day. The rain had stopped, but the mud was still so thick that there was no way an ambulance could make it up the hill. They had to send a two-and-a-half ton truck and the only one available was loaded in the back with wooden crates of high explosive artillery rounds. A couple of medics and a few MPs had marched up earlier, and they helped us roll the two dead GIs into body bags and hoist them up onto the ammunition crates in the back of the deuce-and-a-half. The rest of us clambered in back and in as low a gear as possible the driver started back down the hill. We slid about halfway down the road, but the guy at the wheel was expert enough to turn into the skids and we managed to reach level ground without rolling over.

The KNPs had already taken the girl.

Before they arrived, I’d had plenty of time to interview her. Her name was Shin Myong-ok. At least that’s what she told me. Even though Korean citizens are required to keep their national identification cards with them at all times, she didn’t have hers. She’d left it down in the valley with her mama-san, who’d brought her and five other girls out to the field to make some money from the small legion of 8th Army GIs who’d suddenly plopped down in their midst.

Ernie offered her water from his canteen, which she accepted gratefully along with a stick of ginseng gum. We sat beneath the awning on iron stools I’d brought outside of the signal van. Even in the huge field jacket, she shivered in the cold.

I asked her why she’d tried to kill me.

She bent at the waist and buried her face in her knees for what seemed like five minutes. Finally, she sat up, eyes moist and started to explain that the kind gentleman had told her American soldiers were coming to take revenge. Her only chance, according to him, was to protect herself with the iron sickle. He’d left it with her for just that purpose.

I slowed her down and made her start from the beginning. She did.

Just before sundown, the mama-san had bought them all bowls of noodles in the local village, and after dark they’d carried their blankets and a thermos of warm tea out into the brush on the far side of the perimeter of the 8th Army encampment. They sent two girls at a time to linger near the concertina wire and call for GIs to join them in the brush. When a GI worked up the courage to wriggle through the wire, he would disappear with the chosen girl and another girl would take her place. So it would go through the night; the mama-san collecting the money, the girls lying on the blankets, pulling up their skirts, and spreading their legs for the smelly Americans.

Except this night it was different. Early in the evening, before they’d laid out their blankets or sipped on their first cup of green tea, a “kind gentleman” arrived.

“Why do you say he was kind?” I asked.

“Because he smiled at me,” she said. “And because he gave me this.”

She reached into the pocket of her miniskirt and pulled out a coin. I asked her if I could examine it, and she said yes. It was bronze. I twisted it in my fingers and shone the flashlight on it. It was an old coin, from the Chosun Dynasty, according to the inscription. On it was a picture of Queen Min, one of the last members of the royal family to resist the plans of the Japanese Emperor to colonize her country.

“She was a brave woman,” I said, handing the coin back to her.

“Yes. And the kind gentleman told me to be brave.”

“Did he give you anything else?”

“Yes,” Miss Shin replied. “He gave me that.”

She pointed to the iron sickle, which Ernie had wrapped in plastic and placed on a metal stool.