Our clothes were still saturated with water from the river crossing; there had been no time to wring them out. Unfortunately, it was an exceptionally overcast day and the strong wind was from the east. I squeezed the water from my outer garments and dressed again. Duncan, however, laid his things out to dry, clothing himself in his thin flying suit as a temporary measure. We were both feeling the effects of our long and tiring marches, the coarse food we had been given over so many months, and the uncooked maize which had done little more than ease our hunger pangs during the past three days. I decided that we must try to obtain food which would sustain us against the ten or twelve days of arduous marching that separated us from our destination, the coast. While Duncan was laying out the remainder of his clothes so that they would not be seen from the village below, I went off along the hill to select a house from which we might obtain sustenance
At the head of the valley that lay to the east of our hill I saw a small isolated house from whose one chimney smoke was rising. A path ran past the house, joining a wider track as it approached the village that stood on the valley floor—a village that was filled with Chinese soldiers. The advantage of the isolated house was that Duncan and I could descend the hillside under good cover to see who lived in it, and Duncan could watch the path for half a mile in either direction while I entered to seek food, if a civilian family were in occupation. We followed this plan exactly.
The moment came when I approached the open kitchen door, through which we had seen a young woman cooking at one of the pots. The kitchen darkened as I stood in the doorway, causing her to look up. I smiled and showed her that I held no weapon in my hands. Still watching me, she half-turned her head and called to her husband who was lying on a mat in the other room. She must have said something that alarmed them all, for the cries of the two children with whom he was playing ceased. For a moment all was quiet. Then he got up and came into the kitchen. From the doorway I looked down into their frightened brown eyes.
I made signs that I was hungry and pointed to the cooking pot. The man said something in Korean to me which I did not understand, adding,
“Migook?”—American?
I shook my head. “Yungook.”
They continued to stare for some moments; then the man pointed to my eyes, turned to his wife, and laughed. She smiled. They had probably never seen a man with blue eyes before. On this basis of humour, the man seemed to become friendly. He spoke to his wife, who began to scoop up their breakfast from the cooking pot. At the same time, he joined me by the door and pointed down to the village.
“Chungook,” he said. “Na pa.” I was encouraged to find that he had a poor opinion of the Chinese; I felt bound to agree with him.
By this time, his wife had removed everything from the cooking-pot. With a feeling of shame I saw that we were taking all their poor breakfast—nine cobs of boiled maize. They thrust them into my hand and urged me back up the hillside with many expressions of alarm as they pointed to the valley.
“God bless you,” I said in English, and left them, Duncan met me as I reached the cover on the hill.
At this point in our journey, I made a major error for which I can never forgive myself. As the soldier in the party, I should have known better than to have agreed to stay near one of the disused earth platforms on the hillside so that Duncan, who was chilled by the wind, could obtain shelter. Crouching against the hillside we ate our boiled com—still warm—and enjoyed it thoroughly. At least this would not pass straight through our systems. I was about to say to Duncan, “We really must go after you’ve eaten that corn cob,” when the sound of voices reached us. Within a few seconds five Chinese came through the trees from the direction of the village, searching for wood. They were unarmed, but two of them had long, thick sticks.
We had not time to hide properly—we were actually moving towards some bushes below a rock-face when they appeared.
“Lie still and they won’t see us,” I whispered to Duncan. The soldiers had certainly not seen us; they were fooling about, throwing stones at one another as they came towards us. Each minute seemed an hour as they picked up sticks or tore at branches hanging from the trees. I dared not turn my head to look at the three to my right from whom I expected at every moment to hear the shout which would herald discovery. The other two were now about twenty feet away, their backs to me as they ht cigarettes. I heard a whisper from Duncan, who lay six or eight feet to my left.
“What is it?”
“They’ll spot us for sure. I’m going to make a break for it.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” I said. “Keep still and they’ll never see you. They aren’t looking for us.”
“I’m not going to take a chance,” he said. “You stay if you want to. As I’m going, I’ll try to lead them away from you.”
He rose instantly to his feet and dashed away towards the corner of the platform we had just left; the sound of his feet on the leaves and dead branches seemed to crash upon my ears. The two men to my front whirled round, gave a mighty shout, and set up an excited chatter on seeing him; the other three came running across to join them. All five stood there, shouting and pointing. Duncan might have made good his escape, so long were they in recovering from their surprise, but he tripped over a root and fell. At that they gave chase and were closing on him as he disappeared round the shoulder of the hill.
If Duncan had done nothing else, he had kept his promise to lead them away from me. I did not intend to waste this opportunity now. Looking quickly about me, I made for the thick cover higher up the hillside, from whence I could observe the course of events.
They brought Duncan back about ten minutes later. It was his fair beard I saw first as he came through the trees with four of the soldiers. The fifth had preceded them by several minutes to report the news of his capture to the village. As the main party arrived in the village street, I saw the entire garrison crowding the road to look at him, before he was taken into a large house which I guessed to be the local headquarters. A few moments after he had disappeared into the courtyard I remembered that all Duncan’s clothes were still on the hill-top.
CHAPTER FIVE
WHEN I returned to the top of the hill, Duncan’s clothes were dry; the morning wind had done its work. I gathered them in before returning to my observation post, where I sat down to think out the problem of getting the clothes back to him.
It was all-important that he had these. It was now September; the weather would soon be turning cold. The prospect of anyone spending a winter in North Korea in nothing but a thin summer flying suit was appalling; he would die. I decided that the best plan was to enlist the aid of the Koreans, by handing over the clothing bundle to them and trusting to their fear of the Chinese to have it delivered to the local headquarters. This also placed reliance in the Chinese to turn the clothes over to Duncan, but I faced that problem whatever I did—short of assaulting three armed guards in the centre of the village in daylight to return the clothes to him personally. I made my way to the edge of the village under cover of the trees and maize fields.
I spent many hours round the village trying to get some villager to come near enough to effect a hand-over, but without result. Gradually, very painfully, I accustomed myself to the idea that I should have to give myself up, hand over the clothes, and go through all the business of escaping again. In the late afternoon I was forced to a final decision, when I saw them marching Duncan out of the far end of the village. I stood up amongst the tall maize stalks, parted them, and stepped out on to the village path. Ten minutes later I was in the local headquarters, handing over Duncan’s clothes.
The Chinese were very surprised to see me, for we had travelled a long way from our original village and their communications were very poor. Their immediate reaction must have been that we were the survivors of an aircraft, shot down close by; but my Chinese shoes and our two towels, identical to their own, made them realize that we were not. Whatever they thought, they understood that I had Duncan’
s clothes and that the two of us were associated. They made signs that I would join him shortly; and this was confirmed when a very dark-skinned, rat-faced Chinese appeared who spoke understandable, if limited, English. As dusk fell, he accompanied me from the village with three soldiers, chatting happily as we walked along, pausing after each sentence to see if the soldiers were watching. They were very impressed by his ability to speak to the queer foreigner in his own tongue, and he played up to them admirably.
An hour later we reached the village to which Duncan had been taken. I was only allowed a few moments with him and had been warned not to speak. I just said:
“Hallo, Duncan. I’ve brought your clothes,” before they took me out again very quickly.
An interrogation followed, by a man whose English was so bad that I decided to give fatuous replies to his questions—the success of which so cheered me that I had quite recovered my spirits by the time I was taken to my lodging for the night. This was a straw stack in the barn adjoining a Korean house. I was told to he down and remain lying down throughout the night. Two guards were posted within six feet and flashed a light on me every minute or so. I realized that an escape attempt at this time would be foolhardy, and so made the best of my comfortable circumstances to enjoy a good night’s rest.
The following afternoon Duncan and I were marched west to Namchon-jom, a town on the western railway. The few houses that were left standing had been requisitioned by the Chinese who seemed to provide the entire garrison; not a North Korean soldier was to be seen, apart from the local gendarmerie. The little rat-faced English-speaker was in charge of our escort. As we passed through bomb-shattered streets, he turned to Duncan to say:
“How many Korean women you have killed with your aeroplanes!” Or, a little further on: “How many little Korean children are dead from your bombs!” His accusations increased so that, eventually, he uttered one every few paces. We became so tired of this nonsense that we began to reply:
“How many guns you have sheltered in these houses!” “How many tons of explosives you have stored in this town!” “How many soldiers you have put into these buildings!”
This was always a sore spot with the Chinese: we received the standard answer they were taught to give by their newspapers, and by their political officers.
“That is different! We have a right to be here.”
“If you do not want the Korean civilians to be bombed, why do you continue to occupy every village in the countryside?”
There was, of course, no answer to this; but he continued to repeat “That is different!” like a parrot. With soldiers and warlike stores all round us, in the houses and in caves dug into the hillsides around the town, he could not very well deny that his own forces had turned each village, each town, each city into a military target.
We left Namchon-jom in darkness, passengers in a truck half-filled with empty tins of various sizes lashed down beneath an old tarpaulin. The main western highway, that runs from the Chinese border to Pusan in the far south, was packed with motor vehicles of Chinese and Russian origin, those going south piled high with stores. Only sidelights were permitted, though drivers flashed their headlamps on, to negotiate the many traffic jams caused by accidents or lack of traffic control. I fumed inwardly at the thought of the targets which our aircraft were missing that night, although I knew their difficulties. And the Chinese were very alert for aircraft warnings. A rifle would crack from a hilltop where their spotters listened for the sound of aircraft engines. Even the sidelights on the vehicles would be dowsed; many vehicles would draw off the road into cover. The cry of “Fiji”, or “Piangi”, or “Fiji-lella” would be shouted from driving-cab to driving-cab. Where there were passengers, the cries would be chorussed. How I wished through that night drive that our air strength was even half of what our enemies attributed to us!
A mile beyond Sinmak, we turned down a track which led to the east. Our speed was now greatly reduced, as the surface of the road was exceptionally poor, and we were often ascending or descending considerable gradients among the mountains. Two of our guards were getting so sleepy that I was weighing up my chances of warning Duncan for a leap over the side into the pinewoods that ran right down to the road, when the truck halted with a jerk, the sentries woke up, and we were ordered to dismount.
In the beam of a flashlight I began to climb a winding path that led up the side of a hill, Duncan following. Half-way up, we came to two bunkers, in the doorways of which we saw iron bars set in stout pine-logs. We seemed to have arrived at a very secure prison.
A non-commissioned officer and two sentries were on duty at the bunkers, the doors of which faced one another at a distance of about four feet. One sentry opened the doors while the others covered him with their weapons. A moment later I was inside one bunker; Duncan was in the other. The doors were closed behind us and fastened with stout padlocks. Our escorts’ footsteps died away along the path.
From the light of the sentries’ torch outside, I saw that I was in a cell whose walls, ceiling, and floor were covered by thick pine logs which would take a great deal of cutting through. Two Chinese were returning to their rest after being disturbed by my entry. From their clothing and fear of the guards, I presumed them to be prisoners serving sentences. I, too, lay down to sleep.
Normally, I am a restless sleeper, turning constantly from side to side. I quickly learned that such habits were not tolerated here. At the slightest sound from the straw mats on which we lay, one of the guards would shine his torch through the bars of the door, while the other poked at the offending body or bodies with a sharp steel rod. My shoes having been removed, I received the point of this rod in the sole of my foot about ten minutes after I had entered the cell. For the remainder of the night I lay as still as I could, but turned involuntarily several times, to be awakened by the chastisement of the guards. It was an unpleasant night.
In the morning, we were allowed out to visit the latrine once, at the time when breakfast appeared—a breakfast of millet, accompanied by some hot, dirty water containing a cabbage leaf. Duncan had only one Chinese in his cell but, like mine, his fellow-prisoner was terrified of the guards, almost jumping out of his skin when they addressed him. We were not permitted to lie down, or even to doze in a sitting position during the hours of daylight. I contrived to sit with my back against the wall in the deepest shadows of the bunker to catch upon my night’s sleep. Fortunately, after a time, the guards got tired of trying to see whether I was awake or not, and I had a good nap, until one of my cell-mates reported me to the guard commander, when he came in to make the regulations clear with the toe of his boot. The informer got a dry biscuit from the guards for his trouble.
The evening meal of millet appeared; we made our second latrine run of the day. Another uneasy night was passed in the timbered cell. On the following morning, I began to feel that my escape might take rather longer than I had intended. At breakfast time, I managed to pass a few words to Duncan and we agreed that, if the opportunity arose, each must escape without waiting for the other. The morning and afternoon passed as before. The evening millet arrived, accompanied by a thin fish soup that was excellent: though it was tasteless, there was a distinct aroma of whiting as one bent down to the dish.
As I prepared to go back to my cell—Duncan had already been returned to his—a Chinese came down the pathway from the hilltop, carrying a paper which he handed to the guard commander. At the same time he indicated that I should remain where I was. Duncan was released from his cell and, with two other soldiers who appeared, we were marched away. Two more soldiers joined us, at the point where we had dismounted from the truck two nights before, and we set off in a party along the track. Soon we left this for a narrow path which we followed for about two miles, travelling north-west. Another Korean village received us; another company of Chinese soldiers took us over. Duncan and I were placed in separate bunkers, oil drums were rolled into the doorways, and we were left for the night. I was so tired that I fel
l asleep almost immediately.
The sun was up before I awoke. This was partly due to the fact that it was exceptionally dark inside my bunker, the only light coming in through a narrow space at the top and down one side of the oil drum in the doorway. I examined my surroundings. The bunker had been dug into the hillside at an angle of about forty-five degrees. The sides were unrivetted, but the roof had branches across it to prevent a fall of earth; on the floor a small amount of straw had been scattered. Its chief drawback was that I could not sit up in it; the ceiling was too low. I could either lie down, or half-sit, resting on my elbows. It was just wide enough for me to draw my knees up, which was a blessing; and long enough for me to stretch out full length, if I followed the slight curve of the wall towards the entrance. The absence of light was not entirely a draw-back; it meant that the guard could only look in to see me by drawing the drum right back from the doorway—an act which gave me ample warning of his intentions. I peered through the crack at the side of the oil drum to watch the sentry’s behaviour, and then made a closer inspection of my cell, with a view to finding a way out of it.
The Edge of the Sword Page 15