On the following day, we did not go down the hill, as usual, to our evening meal in a group with the ROKs. In the afternoon—about three o’clock—a non-commissioned officer and two soldiers collected us from our seat outside the bunker and took us into the centre of the village. There we were given as much kaoliang as we could eat, and an ample quantity of egg-plant soup. By the look of the kit that the guards had got together, we were going on a journey. The meal over, our escort led us out of the village to the headquarters where I had stayed five nights before. The interpreter who had torn up my letter met us.
“Come with me, both of you,” he said. “Remember you should call our commander, ‘sir’.”
Neither of us had the slightest intention of calling him anything, so we prepared ourselves for an argument. We were thus very surprised to meet a very mild little Chinese, dressed in a well-cut khaki suit, but wearing a cap several sizes too large for him, who neither insisted that we should address him in any special way, nor expected anything of us that we were not prepared to give. The interpreter treated him with great respect, as we talked in a large, comparatively well-furnished, bunker. It actually had a glass sky-light with a wooden shutter, and was furnished with a bed, two chairs, a table, and an old tattered carpet. It seemed he must be an important man to have items of property like this in such an area—even if they had been appropriated locally. I decided that he was at least the commander of a district on the line-of-communication—probably the equivalent of a brigadier or major-general.
The little man bade us sit down, asked our ranks, and said he knew we were English. We made no comment. He told the interpreter to give us a cigarette each—he did not smoke, he said but “this comrade” had plenty. “This comrade” turned out his pockets as fast as he could and lit a match for us. Emboldened by his geniality and obvious authority, I asked:
“Why was my letter to my family torn up, because I did not wish to answer your questions?”
The commander looked at me for a moment from his little bright brown eyes before he said:
“That is an administrative matter. I hope you enjoy the journey.” He got up to signify that the interview was over. We were hurried outside.
“Remember,” said the interpreter, as we made our way down the hill to pick up the reinforced guard, “if you escape again, you will be shot.”
We journeyed through the night to Pyongyang in an empty Chinese two-and-a-half ton truck, arriving at dawn, with many bruises from our frequent contact with its sides and floor as we passed over innumerable pot-holes and makeshift bridges, and round the edges of many bomb craters. The cut in my foot had opened after its pounding on the steel floor, and I found difficulty in walking from our debussing point to some houses in the extreme north of the city. After an hour’s sleep, we had a breakfast of rice, and were ordered to continue on our way. We had not been on the road very long before it became apparent that we were lost, with the result that we spent the remainder of the morning moving backwards and forwards, until we reached a very large village about a mile and a half from our original starting point. Our escort handed us over to the village garrison, where we were searched and stripped of every one of our few possessions, including our shoes and belts. After a short wait, we found ourselves locked in a very strong cell, lined with stout timbers, and offering, as cell-mates, a Chinese boy of fifteen years and one of the filthiest men I have ever seen.
Through constant protest we managed to secure the removal of our cell-mates—who were literally crawling with lice—the issue of a covering to keep out the growing chill of the October nights, and a small measure of freedom to sit for a little while in the sun each day. On two occasions, we were actually allowed to wash and we worked hard at delousing. Our luck seemed to be turning a little, and we hoped it would continue as we made fresh plans to escape. On the fourth day, however, Mike was removed from the cell, and we had but a few moments to wish each other good fortune before he disappeared with the guards who had brought up his possessions. Although we had been together only a short time, his companionship had meant a great deal to me. Moreover, escape would once again become an individual business. I passed a lonely evening, which was not improved when the guard commander strengthened the wire round my cell.
On the following night I was really pleased to find that I, too, was to be moved on. I was put into the hands of a very cheerful officer, who had evidently not long removed the Red Star of the Chinese regular forces from his cap—a gesture to international custom on crossing the Yalu River into Korea. He was extremely friendly, presenting me with apples and the Chinese hard-ration biscuit during our night truck journey, and borrowing a padded greatcoat for me from our driver to keep out the cold wind which had risen shortly after our departure. But his kindness did not relax his vigilance. I arrived at Sinanju as fast a prisoner as I had left Pyongyang.
At dawn on the following day I reached Chinju. The guards handed me over to a headquarters in a village just east of the town and departed. Once again I found myself confined in a small, mud-walled room; and, this time, I was not permitted to sit out in the morning sun. I spent the day trying to scratch a crossword on the wall under the puzzled eyes of the sentry, who came in every few minutes to make sure that I was not scratching a hole through to the other side! An hour before dusk the guard commander brought me an excellent meal of rice and a soup of potatoes, which had a liberal quantity of cooking oil floating on the top. I ate my fill of this rich dish, before being taken back to the centre of Chinju town. Accompanying our party was a Chinese officer who evidently spoke good Korean, from the fluency with which he conversed with two North Korean tank officers on the journey. The reason for his presence became clear when I found myself outside the local police station: I was handed over to be kept in their cells. After several hours of darkness I was relieved to find that it was not the intention to keep me there for the night. I was already chilled through in my unheated cell, when a police officer and two sergeants came to escort me down to the main cross-roads, where they joined a group of Chinese attempting to stop a vehicle for a lift.
No one stopped; several of those giving signals were almost run over. Eventually, they decided to give it up for the night. As my policemen were about to return me to the local lock-up, the Korean-speaking Chinese came running-up, said a few words to them, and instructed the Chinese to bring me along the road behind him that led us back to the east. I caught the word “Mi-goor”—American—in their conversation as we left the cross-roads, and was just wondering whether they were referring to an impending airraid, when we came up to a small handcart in the middle of the road. Sitting on it, his crutches lying alongside his one leg, was an American. This was the “Mi-goor” to whom they had referred. His name was Tom.
When Tom and I left Chinju the following afternoon, it was a special occasion. Tom was leaving the area in which he had spent his entire six months’ captivity to date. The commander of an American F80 jet-fighter squadron, his aircraft had been hit by antiaircraft fire in a raid on the Chinju rail yards. Jumping clear of his cockpit, his legs had been caught by the tailplane and injured. Fainting from pain and loss of blood, he had drifted to earth to be picked up by North Korean soldiers. For five days he had been given nothing—not even water to quench his raging thirst. Then, by God’s grace, the local Chinese headquarters had learned of his whereabouts. Deciding that an Air Force Major was worth interrogating, they sent out a party to bring him into Chinju, but found that he was too weak to understand, let alone answer, their questions. They took him to a hospital—or what passed for one—a few miles away: a group of mud huts in a village filled with flies and filth that bred more flies and disease as the summer progressed. Fortunately Tom had a strong constitution. The Chinese feldshers amputated one of his legs in rough fashion, and, an hour afterwards, he had visitors: an interrogation team who plied him ceaselessly with questions about the organization of his squadron, group, wing and the Headquarters of the Far Eastern Air Force for ove
r nine hours. Evidently his captors were not pleased with his replies to their questions: his leg remained unattended for a month, by which time the wound had become terribly infected. He was leaving Chinju prematurely now: the amputation was still only partly healed, but he had refused to write a letter to the United States calling for the end of the Korean war and thus was not considered worthy of further treatment.
In the late afternoon we reached Sinui-Ju.
Our truck drew up outside the main gates of a large, brick-walled enclosure. Inside, we could see several stone buildings and a huge bunker from which radio-aerials protruded. Behind these ran the main railway line that came across the Yalu river from Antung, the Chinese city that sits on the north bank opposite Sinuiju. As we entered the gates a huge locomotive steamed past on the embankment drawing a long line of boxcars.
At first, I thought we had come to a North Korean Army Headquarters. As we stood in the courtyard, however, I realized that all the officers and men about us wore police uniforms; and the windows and doors of several of the stone buildings were barred in such a way as to leave me in no doubt: we were at the police headquarters and jail!
The Korean-speaking Chinese who had brought us came out of the main office building, glanced at us, and returned to the truck with the Chinese guards. Our escorts were now North Korean police officers, who took us over to a wooden structure nearby and bade us sit down. Tom and I began quietly to discuss why we had been transferred to the Koreans when he had been told at the hospital that he was going to one of the main prisoner-of-war camps. We were probably very stupid not to realize that his failure to answer military questions in the hospital provided the answer.
As darkness fell, we were taken into one of the cell blocks. The heavy, barred door was opened, closed, and relocked behind us. We found ourselves in a wide passage containing a bench, a chair and a desk. In the thick outer wall there was one small window, now blacked-out for the night, and a door at either end of the passage. In the other wall were set small, barred doors, too low for a man to enter, without bending almost double. Above each door, and running into the wall on its right, was a long barred window. Behind the doors and windows were wooden-floored, cement-walled rooms, thirty feet long, ten feet wide. These were the cells.
As soon as we entered the passage from the cold, fresh air, the warm stench of unwashed bodies met us. Yet, though it was obvious that the block must contain a considerable number of human beings, there was no sound, except for an occasional muffled cough—the sort of cough one might hear in a public library, when the cougher is afraid of making too much noise. Three warders—a second lieutenant and two warrant officers of the police—met us and took us into their charge. They had unpleasant, cunning faces; I called them Weasel, Ferret, and Stoat, hoping that, as is so often the case, their expressions hid kind hearts.
Weasel and Ferret—the warrant officers—began to search us. They removed everything from us, including our footwear, the draw-strings in our underwear, and Tom’s rough crutches. A cell door was opened and we were put in. A bright, barred light shone down from high up in the roof ceiling upon the backs of twenty-one men and boys who sat on the floor, cross-legged, in absolute silence, their backs to the door and window in the passage wall. Not one man looked up as we entered; they seemed to be terrified of attracting the attention of the warders. From behind the barred window. Stoat spoke to two men who were sitting by—but not leaning on—the wall beneath the window. They scurried forward into two vacant places at the bottom of the cell, as we moved into their places, Tom hopping forward on his one leg, leaning on my shoulder. The cell door clanged to behind us; the key turned noisily in the lock.
CHAPTER EIGHT
WE soon learned the rules of the prison. At five o’clock in the morning the dense mass of bodies, overlapping one another on the wooden floor, responded like automatons to a single word of command from one of the warders. As one man, almost, without a second’s pause, they would rise into a sitting position, their legs crossed, their shoulders drooping in an attitude of contrition, their heads bowed. At dawn, one man was permitted to stand up, in order to remove the cardboard blackout from the tiny window in the top, left-hand corner, at the far end of the cell. He would climb on the little, knee-high, rickety wooden screen which afforded all the privacy allowed to prisoners when they were permitted to visit the cell latrine—a square hole in the floor at the far end under the window.
Two or three hours later, the heads of the prisoners would move—just slightly; a move that could not be seen by an observer in the passage behind. In some way unknown to me, they knew that food was coming. For perhaps another five or ten minutes my straining ears could catch no sound at all. Surely, I would think, they must be wrong this time! Not even the faintest echo of a clattering food tin, or rattling of our crude, metal bowls could I hear. Yet a few minutes later I would hear the sound of preparation; a few minutes after that the food would come along. As the warder reached our door, my cell-companions scattered to form a large circle, their backs to the cell walls. From inside their filthy, ragged clothing, they produced chop-sticks—two little pieces of unsmoothed wood per man—and their own preparations for the meal were complete. Bowls of millet, kaoliang or maize—mostly the latter—were passed into the cell: half a bowl per man. Occasionally, there would be a little thin bean soup, and in anticipation of this delicacy the saliva almost ran from their eager mouths. Tom and I were lucky. The only concession made to us as prisoners-of-war was that our bowls were half-filled with cold rice (left over from the police dining-hall) and, sometimes, a little fish. When we could do so secretly, we shared our fish with those that sat near us; for they looked at it with such longing eyes, poor wretches. When we had finished our meal, the bowls were passed back through the serving-window in the cell door, places were instantly resumed, and the pattern of motionless bodies was re-established.
Day and night, the electric light shone down on us from the ceiling. At dusk, the cardboard black-out was replaced. The evening meal was brought along at five, the prisoners long since aware of its proximity; and at ten o’clock the second command of the day was shouted. Before the echo had died in the passage, the cell floor was covered with recumbent bodies, so closely packed that, even when lying on one’s side, one’s legs overlapped another prisoner. In this press Tom and I, almost lice-free on entry, speedily found ourselves crawling again, our clothes and hair providing fresh nests for the quickly multiplying creatures.
One of the prisoners is to be punished. The Weasel, creeping up and down the passage in his usual way, hoping to find someone disobeying the rules and regulations, thinks that he has discovered a man whispering to another in our cell. It is useless for the man to protest his very real innocence. He moved, and his clothing, rubbing against that of another man, has caused a slight noise. The Weasel believes—or pretends that he believes—that the prisoner is guilty of talking. He stands behind the passage window, rapping out questions, and what sound like threats, to the cringing prisoner, who, standing at the Weasel’s order, is facing him, terrified. After a few minutes, he is sent to the end of the cell. Tom and I do not understand what is happening. He is raising his arms above his head. The Weasel shouts at him and he raises them higher; he is stretching them to the utmost. Slowly, the nature of his punishment becomes apparent to us. His back is now turned to the passage. He cannot tell whether or not he is still watched by his tormentor, and so, as his arms become tired, he cannot rest them, fearing worse punishment if he moves without orders. An hour passes. Now and again, Tom and I can just hear the Weasel’s footsteps as he comes back; or sometimes we hear him cough slightly above us, and we realize that he has returned silently. Four hours pass. When the Weasel calls out to the defaulter, we see that his cheeks are wet with tears of agony as he turns to answer. Only when darkness falls, only when the tormented man is about to faint, does the Weasel give him permission to lower his arms and return to his place.
No one moves in the cell. No
eyes are lifted in sympathy. No hand is raised to give him a friendly, comforting pat, as he resumes his cross-legged posture. From further up the cell block, there comes a swishing sound, followed by a cry of pain. The Weasel has transferred his centre of operations. I think it is a woman whose cries we hear.
Now and again, as the days passed, we were allowed to wash. That is to say, every third or fourth day, the door was opened about an hour before our first meal, and six men or women were allowed out from each cell in pairs to wash their hands and faces. Twice I was permitted to carry Tom pick-a-back down the passage, to the little room at the end where our feeding bowls were kept, and where there was a single tap from which ice-cold water constantly flowed. On those days when we were not lucky enough to wash, we were able to exchange a few words with our cell companions; for Stoat, Weasel, and Ferret were always busy on such occasions and could not watch all the cells. Besides, the next pair had always to be ready at the door, waiting their turn to run up to the washroom as soon as the previous pair came back. In this way, we had warning of the warder’s approach.
There was a boy in our cell who spoke a little English learned at a Korean high school. He was seized by a high fever two or three times a day, but received no medicine for it. He told us that he came from a town called Pyoktong where there were many prisoners, closely guarded by the Chinese. Mi-gook, Yun-gook—every kind of prisoner. He had been arrested for speaking to them as they passed. We asked him what his sentence was; he had no sentence. Arrested five months before, he had had no trial. How long would he be here? He did not know. Maybe till he died. This was a political prison. There were men there because they had been Christian leaders; men who had been members of the Communist Party, but had fallen from favour; others who had been arrested for no reason known to themselves—perhaps on the old system of a lettre de cachet. Trial? They had not been tried. They would not be tried. They would stay here until some powerful friend could get them released, until they were moved to another prison, or until they died. Tom and I tried to comfort them from our horror-stricken hearts, but though they were grateful, they were comfortless. They knew better than we did what the future held.
The Edge of the Sword Page 18