by Martin Limon
A wrinkled forehead over a big red dress waddled toward us. She shrieked and waved her arms. Ernie put his notepad away, snapped his gum between his front teeth, and stalked off in the general direction of the rushing traffic on the main street.
“Not your typical Korean hospitality,” I said.
Ernie snorted.
Our next stop was SP51, 8th Army’s biggest supply point in Seoul.
We flashed our badges to a sullen corporal, thumbed through a small mountain of paperwork, and in a couple of hours had determined that the case lots in question had all been shipped north to the 2nd Infantry Division. After a few phone calls to the 2nd Division logistics office, we found out that some of the numbered spools had been issued to Camp Howze and some to Camp Edwards.
“Which one’s closer to the DMZ?” Ernie asked.
“Edwards. But they say it has a better NCO club. And besides, I’ve already been to the village outside Howze.”
“Then it’s Edwards?”
“Right.”
When we reported to the first sergeant, he stood in front of a metal urn of coffee tipping the last dregs into his big porcelain cup.
“What’d you get?” He didn’t look at us.
“The copper wire’s coming out of Camp Edwards,” Ernie said.
“All of it?”
“Yeah.”
“Then that’s where we’ll go.” The first sergeant mixed some cream and sugar into his coffee, returned to his desk, and took a sip of the lukewarm concoction. A grimace split his face. “When is that Miss Kim going to learn how to make coffee?”
“When you quit riding her,” I said.
The first sergeant shot a look at me, thought better of some remark, and took another careful sip of his bitter brew.
“One of you is going to have to go undercover up there,” he said.
“For a few spools of wire?”
“It’s more than just that. The Korean National Police are complaining that their construction sites have been flooded with US-made black market goods for the last few months. It’s cutting into the sales of their local industries.”
“The big shots are getting hurt,” Ernie said.
The first sergeant glared at him. “Which one of you is it going to be? For the undercover, I mean.”
Ernie touched his long bony fingers to his ribs. “Me, I’ve got to nurse my war wounds.”
“Yeah. That’s right.” The first sergeant turned to me. “Sueño, you’ll be the undercover man up there. We’ll have orders cut for you today. Tomorrow you’ll report to the Replacement Company up at the Second Infantry Division. Bascom, you’ll be his control. Keep him out of trouble.”
“I always get the hard jobs,” Ernie said.
We left the first sergeant’s office, clattered down the long hallway of the Criminal Investigation Division headquarters, and hopped in Ernie’s jeep. The two-story brick building loomed over us as the sturdy little vehicle roared to life.
“The only wounds you got from Vietnam,” I said, “are the scars on your liver.”
“Yeah,” Ernie said. “But they run deep.”
Snow speckled with coal dust swirled behind us as the little jeep lurched forward into the dark afternoon.
My name is George Sueño. My partner Ernie Bascom and I had been kicking around Korea for the last few months as army CID agents, solving a few cases, blowing a few others, getting in trouble.
The CID Detachment first sergeant wasn’t too happy with us, but that was because we had a bad habit of not knowing when to wrap up a case, even if some nefarious activities seemed to be pointing in the direction of someone with a little rank. At the 8th Army headquarters, rocking the boat is considered to be a mortal sin.
Even so, Ernie and I had managed to hang on. Barely.
I’m what you might call an orphan. The army’s my home now. My mother died when I was two years old—suddenly—and my father slipped south of the border into that endless cavern of mystery known as Mexico. I grew up in foster homes, in East LA, got luckier than most with the foster parents I drew, paid attention in school, and now I’m a highly trained agent for the Criminal Investigation Division of the 8th US Army in the Republic of Korea.
Beats low-riding Whittier Boulevard.
My partner, Ernie Bascom, had a stable youth and an adventurous adolescence, and then ran into the brick wall of Vietnam. After two tours in Chu Lai he acquired a number of bad habits. The breakable ones, like heroin, were behind him now. The unbreakable ones, like the United States Army and mouthing off, were probably going to stay with him for the rest of his life.
So when we received the order to go to Camp Edwards we both saw it as an opportunity to screw off for a while. Get away from the flagpole. Run the village. We would go through the motions, but if we arrested somebody for black marketing army-owned building supplies, they would have to be trying to get caught.
Of course, a lot of people were.
After a couple of days at the “Repo Depot,” the 2nd Infantry Division’s Replacement Company, I had gotten the shortest haircut of my life, sewn two dozen Indianhead patches on the sleeves of all my uniforms, and stood about a million useless formations. When the bus marked “Western Corridor” pulled out of Camp Casey and wound through the snow-covered hills, I took a deep breath and watched the smoke curl from straw-thatched farmhouses. We passed the occasional cart pulled by an ox snorting through wet nostrils, hot breath billowing toward the gray Asian sky.
Camp Edwards was a large compound. It sprawled for half a mile along the Main Supply Route leading north to the Demilitarized Zone and was composed mainly of boxy concrete buildings, curved roof Quonset huts, and barbed-wire-enclosed storage areas. Everything that didn’t move, plus some things that did, was painted the army’s favorite shade of green: olive drab.
I processed in through the orderly room of the Headquarters Company of the Seven-Oh-Deuce Maintenance and Supply Battalion. I received grunts from the company clerk and indifference from the supply sergeant, and then picked up a small pile of linen and blankets. An old Korean man in slippers, cutoff fatigue pants, and a black pullover sweater led me to my bunk. He told me it would be twenty-five bucks a month for him to do my laundry and shine my shoes. I paid him in advance and then we shook hands. Of all the people I’d met that day, he was the first to give me a personal greeting.
Another warm welcome from the United States Army.
The setup was that I’d process into Headquarters Company just like any other new trooper and set about working every day, keeping my eyes and ears open until I found out who was diverting the supplies into the black market. Ernie would be my control, and we had set up predetermined times for me to call him or, if possible, meet him at the Recreation Center 4 Snack Bar, about four miles to the north, to give him my reports. I also had a number where I could reach him at night in case of emergency: the RC4 Enlisted Club.
The Camp Edwards supply point filled the basin that sat in the center of an asphalt loop. I squatted on a raggedy patch of grass behind the barracks overlooking the basin and watched.
A trash collection truck painted bright blue pulled through the gate in the chain link fence that surrounded the supply point. A bunch of Korean workmen in faded and soiled fatigues jumped off the bed of the truck, pulled off some empty metal drums, and replaced them with those that were filled with trash. The truck pulled out of the supply point and continued on its rounds, picking up trash behind the mess hall and the NCO Club and the dispensary.
At the main gate, before the trash truck left the compound, an MP climbed up on the bed and used a long wooden pole to rummage through the trash drums, checking for any sort of contraband the workmen might be trying to smuggle off post.
While I was watching the trash collectors, a two-and-a-half- ton army truck rolled into the supply point. A group of slick-sleeve privates loaded the bed of the truck with something that from this distance looked like lumber and cement. When they were finished, the bed of the de
uce-and-a-half sat low on its tires. Then everything was covered with a canvas tarp and tied up neatly.
Later I wandered down the hill toward the supply point and, when I got close enough, jotted down the bumper number of the truck. It was hard to read. Everything’s done in dark letters—camouflage—so in case the North Koreans ever invade again, maybe they’ll just sort of overlook us.
Except for the cooks in the kitchen, the NCO Club was deserted this time of day. I found a phone at the bar and dialed the number of the RC4 Snack Bar. The Korean who answered told me she didn’t know anybody named Ernie Bascom.
“He’s the guy with the round glasses,” I said. “Chewing gum and playing the pinball machine.”
“Oh.” She set the phone down, and after a couple of minutes, Ernie came on the line.
“How’s it hanging, pal?”
“Loosely. I got a bumper number for you. Ready to write?”
“Shoot.”
“Seven-oh-two MB on the left side and then SP fourteen-twenty-three on the right.”
“A truck?”
“Yeah. I don’t think they’ll be going anywhere tonight. They’d be too conspicuous out after curfew. Probably leave first thing in the morning.”
“I’ll be there.” Ernie sipped on something. Coffee, I figured. “What’re you gonna do tonight?”
“Run the ville.”
“That little pissant village right outside the gate?”
“No. The one where the officers and senior NCOs hang out. Kumchon. About a mile and a half down the road. Tomorrow night, I’ll meet you at the club there at RC4 about six, so you can tell me about the truck tomorrow morning.”
After retreat formation I went to the chow hall and ate supper and then over to the orderly room and signed out on pass. The pass stipulated that I had to be back on compound before the beginning of the midnight-to-four A.M. curfew. I wouldn’t get my overnight pass until after I received my venereal disease orientation from the first sergeant. They’d already given us one at the Repo Depot, but no matter how many times GIs are warned about the dangers, they still end up poking around in places where they shouldn’t.
I flashed my pass and ID to the MP at the gate. There were a few paltry bars in a village across the MSR, that’s where most of the GIs went, and a lot of them were shacked up in the hooches that sprawled off into the surrounding rice paddies. The senior NCOs and officers frequented Kumchon—a real town, not just a GI village. I figured that the number of supplies being diverted indicated more than just a little low-level pilfering, so I flagged down a Kimchi Cab and told the driver to take me to Kumchon.
When we arrived, he asked me where I wanted to get out. I didn’t know, but after about two blocks, downtown Kumchon petered out and we were winding through frozen rice paddies again. I told him to stop, paid him, and wandered back toward the bright lights. The road through town was only two lanes, and the shops on either side were pushed right up against the narrow sidewalks. Kumchon had what all towns have: pharmacies, restaurants, a place for milling rice, a stationery store, and a few bars. I peeked through the windows of the bars but saw only ROK soldiers in uniform, toasting one another and laughing too loud. Finally, at the other end of town, I saw a bar with a little more neon than the others. The sign in Korean said KUM GOM—golden dream. The smaller English lettering beneath it said GOLDEN NIGHT CLUB.
There’s a difference between a golden dream and the golden nightclub, but it looked like the Koreans who worked there weren’t going to let the GIs in on it.
I walked in. It was a big club, bigger than the others, and there were already a few GIs in small clusters sitting at the tables. Korean waitresses—young, pretty girls all—served them, and a few sat at the tables, slapping the groping GI hands and laughing. The music was loud, but not so loud that you couldn’t talk, and it tended to be a little more sedate than what I figured I’d find in the clubs across the street from Camp Edwards.
Two grizzled old NCO types sat at one end of the bar, talking to a smiling barmaid. I sat at the other end of the bar, and when she stood up and walked toward me, I saw that she was a big woman. Broad shouldered. Ample dimensions everywhere. Gorgeous.
I ordered my beer in Korean and that made her smile and then she came back to see how well I could really speak the language. After a while, she told me that she was twenty-four, divorced with a daughter, and had originally come south with her family when she was an infant during the Korean War. Her hometown was Hamhung, far to the north in that area of the world that the Cold War mapmakers were still painting in red.
The guys at the other end of the bar grew antsy at the lack of attention and she had other orders to fill, but as soon as she had everybody smiling again she came back to me. I had a couple more liters of beer and we talked as if we were old friends. Her eyes lit up when I told her that I had just arrived in country, on my second tour in Korea. Opportunity for both of us. Her name was Miss Ma.
Someone kicked the door in. A group of shouting, hooting Americans trundled inside the Golden Nightclub. Officers. Even in civilian clothes they were practically wearing signs around their necks. First of all, they were acting like jerks. Also, they had whitewall haircuts and blue jeans and sport shirts that, although wrinkled, had been neatly pressed before they left the compound. They acted like they owned the place.
They pulled a couple of tables together and started ordering and grabbing at the waitresses, and one of them peeled away from the group and lumbered toward the bar. Miss Ma moved away from me quickly.
He didn’t order anything. Instead, he leaned over and whispered something in Miss Ma’s ear. At first she didn’t move, but then she spoke to him and he seemed to become angry and she spoke again and then she had him convinced of something and they were both nodding and finally he walked away. She got busy filling orders from the waitresses, and it was another ten minutes before she returned to me.
“You go back compound tonight?”
“Yes. I won’t have an overnight until tomorrow.”
She exhaled slightly—relieved—and then her shoulders rose and she smiled. “Maybe I will see you then?”
Playing hard to get is a ploy that has never entered my repertoire.
“You will,” I said.
After a couple more beers and a few dirty looks from the officer who had talked to Miss Ma, I stumbled out the door and made it back to Camp Edwards. Once I jumped in the rack, visions of her smiling face danced before me. Later that night I tried to struggle free from miles of unraveling copper wire, spinning off its spool, entrapping me in an ever-shrinking web of shimmering metal.
After watching the overloaded deuce-and-a-half pull out just before dawn, I spent the day trying to adjust to the routine of my new job as the assistant company clerk. The first sergeant was a little young, as first sergeants go, and seemed to be in over his head. The company clerk, Specialist 5 Flourey, didn’t seem overly efficient, either. Basically the whole place was a mess. I did what I could, straightening out some files, typing some supply requests for the first sergeant, but mainly I concentrated on finding out who was who. After work I showered and shaved, signed out on my new overnight pass, and took a cab north to the RC4 Enlisted Club.
I pulled Ernie away from the bar, and we sat at the most isolated table we could find, which is sort of difficult in a one-room Quonset hut.
“The guy who drove the truck,” I said, “was Sergeant First Class Rawlings, NCO-in-charge of the supply point.”
“That’s a lot of stripes for driving a truck.”
“Depends on where he was going.”
“And what he was carrying.”
Ernie stopped the waitress and ordered us a couple of Fal-staffs. “He went up north to the DMZ, Camp Kitty Hawk. A group of GIs unloaded the truck, and after he left I checked out the supplies.”
“Find anything?”
“Nothing but lumber and cement,” Ernie said. “I lead-footed it down the MSR and caught up with him.”
�
��No other stops?”
“None.”
“They must be getting the wire off post some other way.”
We sipped on our beer for a while.
“They must be covering for him back at Camp Edwards,” I said. “That amount of supplies couldn’t be disappearing without somebody higher up noticing it.”
“Who’s the logistics officer?”
“Captain Calloway. All I have is a name so far. I’ll match it to a face tomorrow.”
“You need to get into the supply point and check their invoices.”
“I think I can manage it,” I said. “But not tonight.”
“Why?”
“We might as well make this all-expenses-paid trip last for a while.”
Ernie nodded.
“And besides, I have a date tonight.”
The waitress brought our beers, smiling at Ernie. “So do I,” he said. “With the entire village of Sonyu-ri.”
A couple of hours later, Ernie wandered out into the village and I caught a cab and made it back to Kumchon. Ten minutes before the midnight curfew, Miss Ma took me by the hand and led me down long rows of narrow, dark alleys until we arrived at her hooch. Lying on the warm floor I discovered that she was more wonderful than I had imagined.
Her five-year-old daughter slept on the mat beside us.
In the middle of the afternoon a neatly uniformed officer stormed into the orderly room and chewed out the first sergeant for putting his supply point people on the duty roster. The first sergeant patiently explained that he was only trying to comply with army regulations, but the captain didn’t appear at all satisfied. When he stomped out of the office, he shot a quick glance at me, and I realized that he was Miss Ma’s paramour from the Golden Night Club. The one who had leaned across the bar and whispered in her ear. I also saw his nametag. Captain Calloway. The logistics officer.
I wedged the crowbar into the back window of the big Quonset hut, and after I pried in three different spots, it slammed open. I crawled through the window and closed it behind me. The place was typical GI issue. Rows of gray desks, filing cabinets, and a disbursing counter in the middle of the big cylindrical barn. I pulled out the flashlight I had bought at the PX and rifled through some of the files.