The Door to Bitterness (11 page)

Excitement, I suppose. One thing about Ernie Bascom is that he was never boring. Ernie was a connoisseur of the insane. He loved people who didn’t give a flying fart about what others thought, who were full of rage or passion or madness. They entertained him. And as soon as they stopped frothing at the mouth, he’d poke them—either verbally or physically—curious to see how they’d react. Like a demented kid torturing a beetle.

But Miss Kim couldn’t get enough of Ernie Bascom. They’d already gone out together about a half-dozen times that I knew of. And maybe more, because when we weren’t working Ernie had a way of disappearing and showing up the next day with a satisfied grin on his face. I tried not to give him the satisfaction of asking what he’d been up to. At least not too often. But occasionally my curiosity got the best of me. He told me once that he’d spent the night with Miss Kim, and then went on to describe her long-legged, statuesque body. Before he delved into too much detail, I changed the subject. Torment, I don’t need.

I carried my hot mug of coffee back to my seat. Then I started going through my list of AWOL GIs.

Three out of the three dozen were in field artillery units. One at Camp Stanley in Uijongbu, another at Camp Howze near Pupyong-ni, and another at Camp Pelham near Munsan. I jotted down names. Of the three, two were typically Anglo-Saxon, and the third guy was named Jamal. I figured him to be black and crossed him off my list. That left two: Kevin S. Wintersmith at Camp Howze and Rodney Boltworks at Camp Pelham.

Which one to roust first? No way to decide. Geography was the tie breaker. Camp Howze was closer to Seoul, and if Wintersmith didn’t pan out, Ernie and I could drive farther north on the Military Supply Route toward the Demilitarized Zone to Camp Pelham and check out Private First Class Rodney Boltworks.

I stuffed my notebook into my pocket, finished my coffee, and told Ernie it was time to go. He rose from his chair, unconcerned, but Miss Kim frowned, sorry to see him leave.

Staff Sergeant Riley remained hunched over his paperwork, and even as we stomped out of the office, he continued trying to pretend that we hadn’t even been there.

T
he morning was wonderfully cool and overcast and in the open-topped jeep, as we sped north on the two-lane highway, a line of crystal blue hovered above brown rice paddies. Layered atop the line was a ceiling of churning gray clouds.

Camp Howze sat about a half mile off the MSR, on a hilltop overlooking a bar-spangled village. The Second Division MPs up here were more suspicious than their 8th Army counterparts back in Seoul and at the main gate they studied our identification and our vehicle dispatch carefully. Before waving us through, they radioed ahead to the Command Post to let them know we were coming.

As we pulled up to the sand-bagged bunker, a field-grade officer wearing a fur-lined cap stepped out to greet us. When we told him what we wanted, he marched us right into the Operations Center. In minutes, Private Kevin S. Wintersmith stood at attention in front of us. He had a short red crew cut, moist green eyes, and his fatigues, face, and hands were soiled and reeked of rancid lard from the grease traps he’d been cleaning. The major told us the story. Of his own volition, Wintersmith had returned to his unit two days ago and he’d been pulling KP—kitchen police duty—ever since.

Just to be thorough, I pulled out the sketch of the Caucasian GI and looked at it. So did Ernie. So did the major.

Not even close.

Wintersmith had never heard of the Olympos Casino in Inchon nor of Brothel Number 17 at the Yellow House. Nor of a teenage girl named Mi-ja whose arm had been lined with cigarette burns.

We thanked the major, returned to our jeep, and continued north toward the DMZ.

At the main gate of Camp Pelham, one MP and two uniformed Korean security guards studied our emergency vehicle dispatch. Behind them, a wooden bridge spanned a rock-strewn gully. Above the guard shack, a neatly painted arch said: Welcome to the Home of the 2/17th Field Artillery. Then in smaller letters: Shoot, Move, and Communicate! The MP tried to scratch his head, but his fingers were blocked by the rim of his black helmet liner.

“They’re in the field,” he told us, “the entire battalion.

Left this morning on a move-out alert.”

“How long ago?” Ernie asked.

“About zero six hundred.”

They had a four hour start on us.

“Where were they headed?” I asked.

The MP shrugged. “Don’t know. Classified.”

I thought about it. No military unit leaves their headquarters compound completely deserted. Somebody would know where the Second of the 17th could be found.

“Where’s your Operations Officer?” I asked.

This time the MP pointed. “The battalion head shed. Over there, on your right.”

Ernie slammed the jeep in gear, and we rolled across the rickety wooden bridge, beneath the stenciled arch, onto the blacktopped roads of Camp Pelham, home of the Second of the 17th Field Artillery. The MP was right. The place did look deserted: rows of Quonset huts, striped camouflage green, their big double doors padlocked shut. Occasionally, a lone firelight shone through the morning mist.

The battalion headquarters was larger than the other buildings. Three Quonset huts arranged in a T-formation, hooked together by covered walkways, the entire complex splashed with paint of the Army’s favorite shade: olive drab.

We parked in the gravel parking lot. Only one door was open, on the side of the stem of the T. Inside, the long corridor was quiet. We stood still, listening. Finally, toward the cross of the T, we heard a toilet flush. We walked up the hallway toward the sound.

At the back of a large office filled with desks and tables and filing cabinets, a uniformed soldier was just walking out of the latrine. He glanced at us, still adjusting his fly.

“Can I help you?”

His eyes widened. Maybe it was the coats and ties. Maybe it was the fact that we were Americans and not wearing green fatigues like every other American up here near the DMZ.

Ernie and I approached him and showed him our identification. His name tag said Oliver, and the rank insignia on his collar indicated that he was a major. A stout man, he wore square-lensed glasses and an otherwise bushy hairline that was beginning to recede. We told him who we were looking for.

“Boltworks? He’s the one who’s been AWOL, isn’t he?”

I nodded.

He walked over to a screen hanging on the far wall and pulled it back, revealing a green board with rows of names written in multi-colored chalk.

“Boltworks,” Major Oliver mumbled to himself. He stopped at the right side of the board and pointed. “There he is. Charley Battery. Still being carried as AWOL.”

“Did you know him?” Ernie asked.

Oliver shook his head. “No. There’re a lot of troops in the battalion. I stay pretty busy here.” He held out his arms to indicate the operations office surrounding us. Desks, chairs, and filing cabinets were surrounded by walls covered with charts, maps, and bulletin boards. In the corner, a squat olive-drab field radio blinked ominously with one red eye.

Ernie pulled out the sketch of the fugitive we’d been calling “the Caucasian GI.” Oliver studied it, then shook his head.

“No. I don’t know this person.”

“But it could be Boltworks,” Ernie said. “You don’t know either way.”

Major Oliver nodded.

Ernie pulled out the other two sketches and received the same reaction.

“Anybody else here,” I said, “who might be able to identify Boltworks?”

“Not here,” he said. “Division-wide move-out this morning. They’re all in the field.”

Ernie walked over to the chalkboard. “How long had Boltworks been assigned here?”

Oliver studied the list. “Almost ten months,” he said. “Strange to go AWOL when you’ve only got a couple of months left on your tour.”

“Maybe he didn’t want to return Stateside,” Ernie said.

Oliver looked at him blankly. Such a thought, apparently, had never entered his mind. I didn’t want Ernie to go off on some odd tangent—comparing GI life in Korea to civilian life in the States—so I interrupted quickly.

“Boltworks will be known at the unit,” I said. “Charley Battery, right?”

Oliver nodded.

“Then we need to talk to some folks in his unit. Where can we find them?”

Oliver shook his head again. “Long way from here.”

“Show us.”

He walked to the other side of the Ops Center, to another curtain. Before pulling back the curtain, he stared at Ernie and me.

“What’s your clearance?” he asked.

“Top Secret,” I said. “Crypto.”

Cleared on a need-to-know basis for access to top secret information, including information generated through cryptography, highly classified codes. Actually, neither Ernie nor I were cleared that high. We had Secret clearances, that was it. But what Oliver didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

He slid back the curtain.

Arrayed before us was a massive, wall-sized map of the area known to the world as the Korean DMZ, the Demilitarized Zone. On the left flowed the blue Han River Estuary, leading into the Yellow Sea a few miles north of the Port of Inchon. On the right was the Korean coastline bordering the Sea of Japan—in between, the DMZ—its thick body wriggled through the Korean Peninsula like a burrowing python.

On the left side was a black dot for the city of Munsan, and close to that, less than three kilometers away, a bright red star that said “Camp Pelham.”

Major Oliver pointed to the star. “We’re here,” he said. He traced his finger toward the East, along a road that divided a ridge of hills. After about twenty-five miles, his finger turned north, traveling another twenty miles until it reached a blue line that wound south of the DMZ. “They crossed the Imjin here,” he said, “at Liberty Bridge, about zero seven thirty this morning.” His finger continued north, toward an area adjacent to the DMZ, with no black dots representing cities or towns. “They’re up here now. Exactly where, I can’t say. The Second Division G-2 is simulating an all-out North Korean attack, so Charley Battery and the rest of the battalion are doing what they do best. They’re north of the Imjin River, moving, shooting, and communicating.”

“Can you pin-point their location for us?” Ernie asked.

“When I receive another radio call. But right now they’re on the move. So far this morning, they’ve set up and fired live rounds three times. Each time, they break down all weapons and equipment, load them up on their trucks, and move out to the next firing position.”

Sounded like a lot of work. Oliver grabbed a wooden pointer and used it to indicate an area higher up on the map, adjacent to the southern edge of the DMZ.

“It’s clear where they’re headed,” he said. “Closer to North Korea. By tonight, they’ll probably be operating in the largest military firing area in country.” He slapped the pointer against the map. “Right here.”

“So we can find them there?”

“It’s a large area, but yes.”

“Then that’s where we’ll go.”

Ernie started to leave, but I stopped him and made Major Oliver give us the coordinates of the firing area he had just referred to. When I jotted them down, I said, “Do you have a map we could borrow?”

“You won’t need one.”

“Why not?”

“When you cross Liberty Bridge there will be checkpoints, plenty of them, all on the lookout for North Korean intruders. They’ll guide you to the firing Operations Center. Don’t bother with the coordinates. Just tell them you’re looking for Charley Battery of the Second of the Seventeenth. And tell them they’re at Nightmare Range.”

“Nightmare Range?”

Oliver grinned. “Garden spot of the Orient.”

Liberty Bridge was a low cement bridge with no railing to speak of, the roadway just a few feet above the churning waters of the Imjin River. MPs armed with M-16 rifles lined the bridge, on the look out for anything sinister floating downriver from the headwaters in North Korea. As we crossed, waves of cold water from the rapidly flowing Imjin splashed our tires. On the far side of the bridge, we followed the road upward, winding past granite cliffs and through tunnels hewn out of solid rock. Finally we emerged onto a long plateau. For a moment it almost seemed as if we’d left Korea. No rice paddies, no straw-thatched huts in the distance, no farmers leading ox-drawn carts to market. Only wilderness. The uncultivated wilderness of the militarily controlled areas south of the DMZ.

Occasionally, a big deuce-and-a-half or a box-like chow truck passed us, heading south toward Liberty Bridge, returning to civilization for re-supply.

Signs written in English and hangul guided us toward the Range Operations Center. Again, a sheet-metal Quonset hut, this one painted in darker shades of camouflage green. Inside were ROK Army officers. One of them, a Lieutenant Park, spoke English. When we asked him where we could find Charley Battery, 2/17th FA, he frowned.

“Moving,” he said. “Far north. Where they stop, nobody know right now.”

The war games were still on-going. They could last for many hours, until the generals back in their bunkers had enough data to keep themselves busy analyzing it for the next couple of weeks.

“Where are they now?” Ernie asked.

Lieutenant Park led us into a room filled with a topographical map spread out on a flat table. South of a red line, tiny tanks and artillery pieces were arrayed in a line facing north. Even more tanks and artillery pieces were arrayed north of the line, facing south. Lieutenant Park grabbed a wooden pointer and slapped the brass tip into the center of a broad valley surrounded by jagged hills.

“Charley Battery,” he said.

Ernie and I studied the map. The valley was about fifteen kilometers from our current position. At the southern edge of the valley sat a village known as Uichon.

When I asked Lieutenant Park the name of the valley, he answered in Korean. I didn’t understand, so he repeated the name in English.

“Nightmare Range,” he said.

We thanked him and left.

Uichon was a dump.

One paved road, right down the center of town, wide enough for two big military re-supply trucks to rumble through without slowing down. Toddlers wearing wool sweaters, but no pants, stumbled through the muck on the side of the road, chasing chickens and an occasional small pig. Adults with wooden A-frames strapped to their backs hoisted hay, firewood, and gunny sacks full of cabbage toward the village’s open-air market. On the outskirts of town, a few farmhouses were visible but not many. Some roofs were tile, like the whitewashed police station, but most of the hovels settled for the traditional straw-thatched roofs that had been used in Asia since the beginning of recorded time.