The Yellow Papers (28 page)

‘She had her reasons. Would you have left Charlotte, in her situation?'

‘No, of course not, but I'm a man. MeiMei has a husband to look after her, but LiLi's on her own. And now I can't even be there for her. Can't get there for love or money.' He laughed. ‘Ironic, that – “For love or money …”.'

‘So what will you do?'

‘I really don't know. This Korean thing for now, of course. But when that's over, I don't know. The Brigadier hinted at a place at Canberra University College when I came back. Maybe. I've never thought of myself as an academic, but I suppose it's a possibility. It would be a change from the Museum. By then China might have relaxed its policies; I could go there as a tourist. Find LiLi …'

‘Maybe.'

The two men sat quietly watching the flowing water. Behind them, music and laughter mingled with the chirp of crickets. For Chen Mu, the day had been very pleasant, bringing forth a bounty of memories and new experiences – Charlotte had even insisted he dance with her. He did not, of course, know how to dance – had never had the opportunity – but she'd laughed and said it was easy, and placed one of his hands on her waist and held his other as she'd led him round and around in time to the music. As soon as that dance ended he'd claimed dizziness to hide his discomfort, and returned to his chair under the tree.

Later, he'd decided he could well enjoy dancing.

For Edward, this was a day of endings. For the first time ever, he'd seen his daughter not as his little girl but as a grown woman. Now, before he'd even had time to get to know this new person, she was leaving the country. Walpinya Station had been sold and the new owners were taking over next week. He'd told Chen Mu this had never been his dream, and that was true. He'd never seen himself working on the land, but this was the place he thought of when he thought of home. He'd grown up here, come back to it again and again when things had not gone well in his life. It had meant peace and quiet. Room to breathe. But it had also meant betrayal. And now it would be gone. No one had forced him to sell, though he would have liked to be able to show it to Ming Li one day.

Ming Li. He didn't want to think about her today, because to think of Ming Li also meant considering the possibility that he might never see her again. That even if he could get into China again, which was highly unlikely, he might never find her. That she had died – no, not that. Surely he would have known – would have
felt
something. He pushed that thought away. That, he refused to even consider. Better to believe her trapped behind a bamboo curtain.

And now there was Korea. He felt a sense of foreboding about Korea that he'd not felt when part of Tulip Force. He'd been told he would first have to recruit from POW compounds those he thought suitable for the work – many Chinese and North Korean prisoners had not volunteered for the armed forces, but had been forced to enlist under threats of what would happen to their family if they didn't join up, along with warnings that they wouldn't be allowed to earn a living if they refused. Intelligence believed that amongst these would be some willing to become agents. But what if his decisions were wrong? He had to lead them across the 38th parallel into the Samichon Valley, a green stretch of land reaching deep into North Korea. It would be a bit late, then, to realise his mistake …

Edward tried to convince himself that this sense of foreboding stemmed from his lack of confidence in his ability to choose these recruits, or from feeling too old for the job, or even from the lack of adequate news reports about the war, due to the press being censored. But deep down, if he were true to himself, he knew the real reason he didn't want to go to Korea was that he didn't want to have to face the Chinese – perhaps even the very men he had helped train – as their enemy. How could he treat them as the enemy when China was been such a big part of his life? When he loved a Chinese woman, and considered Chen Mu one of the most important people in his life? He knew he could, of course – he wasn't that naïve, and war was war – but would he be able to face Chen Mu on his return?

‘They've gone to change; they'll be leaving soon.'

Edward turned to the young woman who'd sought them out. Her soft lacy bridesmaid's dress and the flowers in her hair were such a contrast to his thoughts that it took him a moment to react.

‘All right,' he said at last. ‘Thank you.'

Chen Mu wiped his feet with a handkerchief and put on his shoes and socks. Edward helped him rise. Together they walked slowly back to the festivities. Edward would farewell his daughter, and return to Sydney to close up his house. Within a week he'd be in Korea. He'd miss Christmas, of course, but then, who would he have celebrated it with?

22

Korea, February 1951. The early morning sun outlined the misty contours of the snow-covered rocky pinnacles, and Edward shivered in the raw morning air. He lay near the entrance of the cave where he'd spent the night with two of his agents, well north of the 38
^th
parallel. He reached out and scraped just enough leaves and twigs and ice over his body to disguise his shape. Through field glasses he followed the path he knew Bae and Hana were taking, but couldn't see them – he'd been right, they were a good team.

They were meeting a villager who'd contacted them with information about enemy weapon stockpiles. Though he always accompanied his team on these missions, Edward never entered the villages – Bae and Hana would bring the man to him. He may be wearing a Chinese uniform, but he could do little to disguise his features. He knew that capture would mean imprisonment or death as a spy.

He had recruited them, as he had all his agents, from one of the POW compounds in the first two weeks he'd been here, just over a month ago. Bae was a South Korean who, together with his younger sister, had been conscripted into the North Korean Army – these forced conscriptions were common whenever a village stood in the path of an advance. He hadn't said so, but Edward suspected one of the reasons Bae had agreed to join Edward's detachment was that he hoped to find his sister again. Hana was North Korean and her reasons were more sinister – she was here purely for revenge. Though she'd refused to give many details, Edward knew Hana's husband, children and father had all been killed by the People's Army. They'd suspected her village to be collaborating with the South Koreans, and so had rounded up the villagers and shot them. She'd only escaped the same fate by being away at the time, only to be forcibly recruited shortly after. Edward had been hesitant to take on a woman, but something about her intensity persuaded him. That, and the fact that both she and Bae spoke some English. So far, neither had given him reason to regret his decision.

Yes, Bae and Hana were good agents, but Edward wondered once more whether he could really trust them. Trust any of the team he'd recruited, for that matter. He knew enough about agents to know they took up the game for a variety of reasons – patriotism, idealism, hate, revenge and, of course, greed. Of all, it was those who were there because of hate or revenge that Edward trusted the most. Patriotism and idealism could quickly be shattered, and how could you trust someone whose main motivation was money? But someone motivated by hate or revenge would not be so easily swayed.

The sun rose higher and its warmth on his back made him aware of the cold from the ground seeping through his clothing. He knew he should move. He had a long day of waiting before they returned, and the temperature was still below zero. As he brushed the branches and leaves from his back, the quiet of the early morning was shattered by a cacophony of whistles and bugles far down the valley. The sound echoed and reverberated up the gargantuan mountains, and a murder of crows burst out of the pine forest, their black plumage contrasting against the snow dusting the rugged granite ranges. Edward knew the story of the Morrigan, that Irish phantom queen who would wait on the edge of battlefields to feed on the carnage. Sometimes she would fly above the warriors in the form of a crow, a presage of the violent deaths that were to follow, and for Edward, ever since coming to Korea, crows had become a symbol of war.

He trained his field glasses towards the village and watched Communist soldiers begin their day. There were few villagers left in the settlement, for the months of war had driven many to live in caves or set up camps in the forests, and there were no men except for the very old, as most would have been conscripted. Edward watched cooking fires being lit, a soldier washing himself, another urinating by a bush. Tiny little figures, unaware of being watched. He rose and went back into the cave.

He checked his equipment to pass the time – the Russianmade ‘burp' gun, a submachine gun so called because of the sound it made, the Chinese-made grenades, and his favourite weapon of all – a long slender-bladed knife, favoured because it killed without a sound. How many men had he killed with this knife? He'd become so efficient with it that he could hit any target at ten metres, throwing with either hand. Not that he'd ever risk his knife in combat that way – apart from the risk of leaving himself without a weapon and arming his enemy, he knew the velocity and power behind such a slim knife was too low to do much damage. Better to slit their throats instead. But still, he liked to practise.

The noise of engines from down in the valley reached him. From the entrance of the cave he watched the Communist army pull out of the village. He followed their trucks with his field glasses as they wound their way along the road until they disappeared over a ridge, then aimed his glasses back to the huddle of reed-thatched roofs in the valley. Before long, others appeared out of the forest surrounding the village – women and children hiding from the soldiers, scavenging for anything left behind that would make their camps more comfortable.

A movement amongst the trees, on the mountain ledge across from where he lay, caught his attention. It was a Tibetan wolf, white chested and thin legged, its greyish winter coat shaggy even from this distance. Edward scanned the area behind the animal – there, partially hidden by trees, was its mate. This was an easy winter for them, for as long as men continued killing each other food would be plentiful. The wolf stopped and raised its head, its ears pricked. It listened for a moment then turned, and as one the pair ran back into the forest. Edward scanned the area but could see nothing that could have frightened the animals. Then he heard it, the drone of strategic bombers.

They appeared in formation, pregnant with napalm. He saw them fly overhead, bank and turn. Fly low over the valley. Saw the lazy fall of the canisters, the trailing of cloth tails that fluttered behind like the tails of obscene kites. The pure white flash of phosphorous. The eruption of black-orange smoke rising, coiling upon itself before the blanket of fire that spread hundreds of feet in diameter. Even this high up he felt the sudden surge of heat. Felt he couldn't breathe though he knew he was too far away to suffocate from lack of oxygen. He closed his eyes, not wanting to see more but still he saw the bodies cooking, the skin curling away, crisp and brown like crackling on a Sunday roast. Saw the tongues of blazing jellied kerosene cling to the walls of huts, caress the scalps of infants screaming whilst fragments of phosphorous from burster tubes burrowed deep into their flesh, only to burst into flames later when exposed to air, and though they burned still some would live.

Back in the cave he flicked his knife into a log. Retrieved it. Flick, retrieve. Flick, retrieve. He had no idea how far down the valley Bae and Hana had been when the bombers attacked. Their chances of survival were slim. Flick, retrieve. He could only wait. Flick, retrieve. Flick, retrieve. He would wait till nightfall. Flick.

He paced the cave. He didn't want to watch the final effects of the bombing – he'd seen it all too often already. How he hated this war! All wars were heinous, but this was beyond heinous. The US was dropping an average of 250,000 pounds of napalm a day, and he'd passed many a spot that was no more than a violet pile of ash to indicate that here was once a village. Civilians fleeing war zones were also purposely napalmed under the pretext that they may have enemy infiltrators amongst them. But this war was no different to any other, so why did he hate it so?

Because this time, waiting outside villages for his agents, working mainly on his own, he had time to think. Here he couldn't hide behind the myth of war. Alone with his thoughts, waiting in a cave or a forest, he couldn't hide behind the idea of a just war, of men being heroes, defeating evil for God and country. Because it wasn't just men that were in this war – it was women and children and babies too.

But wasn't that the same with every war? Collateral damage, they called it …

So why had he come? He'd said he'd had no choice, but for centuries men had chopped off their own limbs, faked insanity, gone into hiding or to prison rather than to war. Was there some dark flaw in his psyche? Did he have some perverse need to destroy? To kill? Because kill he had. He could argue that most of his involvement had been to teach others how to survive or be killed, but who was he kidding? What was it Chen Mu had read to him once? Something along the lines of
to lead the people to war without having taught them is to throw them away –
was this his rationale? Because if it was, he was kidding himself. Ironic, really, war. Kill a man in everyday life and you're an assassin. Kill thousands under the pretext of war and you're a hero …