by Martin Limon
Bandit Lee, the commander of the Manchurian Battalion, wore his wool uniform draped with metals from the campaigns against the Japanese colonialists and the war against the Yankee imperialists. His name had been acquired when he fought the Japanese Imperial Army in the vast wilderness of Manchuria and in the northern mountains of Korea. In those days, his enemies had thought of him not as a revolutionary but as a bandit.
He had broad shoulders and a thick waist, but at the knees his legs stopped. He stood on two wooden stumps. Doc Yong had told me earlier that he could’ve replaced the wooden stumps with more expensive prosthetics, or simply covered them with his trouser legs, but Bandit Lee eschewed both options. He wanted the world to see what had been done to him.
But the worst damage was not done to his legs. After all, war veterans without limbs were commonplace throughout the world. The most hideous part of his body was his face. Every inch of flesh had been charred, melted by American-manufactured napalm. North Korea—from coast to coast, from the DMZ to the Chinese border—had been saturated with the burning chemical during the Korean War. Bandit Lee had been one of its tens of thousands of victims. One who had survived. His face was not capable of expression. His nose was like a charred lump of coal, his mouth a wrinkled ebony slit. Red eyes stared out at the world as if from behind a mask. When he spoke, the words seemed burnt, escaping from a charred throat. His tongue flicked red, like a serpent emerging from a blackened hole.
“Beikyang,” he said
The sound was so rough, like a reptile hissing, that at first I didn’t understand him. He repeated the word and then said, “According to your report, the Red Star Brigade will rendezvous there prior to the final assault.”
I nodded.
“We need to know which units will be proceeding where so we can attack them after they leave Beikyang. Have you been able to remember anything else?”
I had, and I pulled the notes out of my pocket. The names of a few petroleum refueling points and which units would be using them.
“Are you sure of this?” he asked.
“The petroleum points, yes,” I replied, “but not of which units will be where.”
Bandit Lee turned away and started giving orders to his waiting officers. Reconnaissance units would be sent out to gather information. Doc Yong was one of the officers who’d be going. The meeting was about to end when I spoke up.
“I will go with her,” I said.
“No,” Bandit Lee said. “You are too important. When the time comes, we will need you to relay information to the Americans.”
I knew better than to argue with him directly. Instead, I said, “My memory is coming back to me gradually. If I can see the units, if I can see the terrain, maybe I will remember more.”
One thing we all knew for sure was that if an order of battle was devised in Pyongyang, the Red Star Brigade would not dare to deviate from it. In the North Korean Army, commanders are given no discretion for independent action. The guidance of the Great Leader is everything.
“If you can remember,” Bandit Lee said, “that would be helpful.” He turned to one of his subordinates. “See that he’s properly outfitted.”
It was an infantry unit with a few armored personnel carriers. They were refueling at a North Korean Army depot two kilometers outside the village of Jong-chol. Doc Yong and I stayed low, hidden behind rocks and shrubs on a hill overlooking the narrow valley. We had been traveling all night across rough terrain, and although Il-yong had been left behind in good hands, Doc Yong seemed more worried about him than she was about the enemy. Now, just after dawn, we counted the soldiers and the vehicles.
“Three platoons,” I said.
Doc Yong stared through binoculars. “With climbing gear,” she said. I took the binoculars from her. She was right. Two soldiers were pulling metal hooks and ropes out of the back of one of the vehicles, checking them, and stuffing them back inside.
“That’s why they have so little armor,” I said, “and no big guns. They’ll try to assault the Manchurian Battalion from the rear.”
Doc Yong jotted down a few notes. “Maybe this is the 7044th Mountain Platoon you mentioned.”
“I’m not sure about the number.”
“Don’t worry. The point is we will have someone waiting for them when they make their way behind Mount O-song.”
We pulled back from our position. We were halfway over the hill when the first shot rang out. I dived for dirt. Doc Yong did the same, landing beside me. We low-crawled toward nearby boulders.
Another shot rang out.
“Sniper,” I said.
I peeked around the boulder, searching for someone on the promontory above us. I saw nothing. Doc Yong looked. After she pulled her head back to safety, she said, “There, at the very top. Beneath some shrubs.”
I looked where her finger pointed and saw him. Just as I pulled back to safety, a third shot rang out.
It was then that it all came back to me.
“Quick,” I said. “Paper!”
“What?”
“Paper! Pencil!”
Quickly, she rummaged through her canvas backpack and pulled out a short pencil and a pad of tattered pulp. I started jotting furiously. It was all there in my mind: unit designations, personnel strength, number of guns and armored vehicles, and, most importantly, which routes they would be taking up into the Kwangju Mountains.
Two more shots rang out.
“There’s more of them now,” Doc Yong said. “Come on. We have to go.”
“Fire back,” I said. “I’m almost done.”
Doc Yong unstrapped the Kalashnikov from her back, lay down next to the boulder, aimed, and fired. Then she sat back facing me. “Not even close. That won’t hold them long.”
I continued to scribble.
“You’ll be able to read that?” she asked.
“When we get back, I’ll recopy it.”
“If we get back.”
Finally, I was done. The firing had stopped.
“They’re trying to get closer,” I said.
We hurried off, crawling through the brush. Unfortunately, not being able to stand up, we weren’t sure where we were going. Only when it was too late did we discover that we’d gone in the wrong direction. A cliff loomed before us.
“We have to go back,” I said.
Doc Yong grabbed my arm. “Too late,” she said. “They’re too close.” She pointed through the shrubbery. In the early morning gloom, I spotted two dark shapes sliding down the slope behind us, no more than a hundred yards away. “If we crawl, it will take too long,” she said. “If we run, they will pick us off.”
I looked down over the cliff. After about twenty feet of rock, a sandy slope tapered steeply to the ravine below.
“We have to jump,” she said.
I glanced back at the snipers. They took turns changing positions, so the stationary one could provide covering fire.
“Okay,” I said, “I’ll go first.”
“No, me.”
I wanted to argue with her, but before I could speak she was already over the edge. She dropped along the jagged rock and landed with a thump on the sand below, immediately tumbling down the hill. A shot rang out, missing me by a few feet. No time to wait. I slid over the edge. All I remember is slamming into about a thousand protuberances until I finally hit the sand. Fifty yards later, I rolled to a halt, stunned but still conscious. I sat up, searching for Doc Yong.
She hissed at me, waving her arm. “This way.”
I stood up unsteadily and staggered toward her. This time I didn’t hear anything. All I knew for sure was that someone must’ve swung an iron rod with all his strength, slamming it into the side of my calf and knocking me down.
And then Doc Yong was firing, her Kalashnikov on full automatic, and the next thing I knew, her hand was in my armpit and she was pulling and screaming at me to get up. I did, leaning on her, and we stumbled forward. Another round zinged past my head and then we were behind a rock.
It took us the better part of that day and into the late evening to make it back to the first guard post surrounding the Manchurian Battalion. I’d lost a lot of blood. All I remember is being carried by stretcher up a steep pathway. Then I passed out.
Il-yong sat on the floor next to me, playing with a ball of yarn. Doc Yong squatted next to my bedding, holding my scribbled notes in her hand.
“I can make out some of the numbers,” she told me, “and some of the words, but do you think you’re well enough to decipher it now?”
I held the paper unsteadily in my hand, staring at it. My eyes wouldn’t focus.
“Never mind,” she said, taking it from me. “We’ll try again after you rest.”
In the distance, an artillery round boomed.
“They’re getting closer,” I said.
“Never mind. You rest now.”
I did.
It had only been a shard of rock that hit my leg, kicked up by the round fired by the sniper. Fortunately, an artery hadn’t been severed, and what with antibiotics and the bandages being replaced regularly by Doc Yong, I felt alert by the next day.
The artillery rounds now fired almost every minute. I rewrote the entire order of battle, explaining it to Doc Yong as I did so. She seemed worried.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. “This should help us.”
“Yes.” She nodded. “But the Red Star Brigade has made quicker progress than we hoped. Most of these places,” she said, pointing at the slip of paper, “have already been overrun.”
Nevertheless, she took the newly reprinted order of battle with her and told me she’d be back. While she was gone, I slipped into my clothes. Il-yong looked up at me and gurgled—as if he knew more than I did.
I was ushered into Bandit Lee’s presence. He wasted no time.
“We need ammunition,” he said.
I sat before him on a simple wooden chair, Doc Yong next to me.
“You must enter the tunnel,” Bandit Lee told me. “Our good Doctor Yong In-ja has memorized every word of the ancient manuscript. She will be your guide. It will be very dangerous. You might die. But if you survive, you must ask the Americans for resupply: ammunition, medicine, food. We will accept that from them, but we will accept nothing from the Japanese collaborators.”
To Bandit Lee, the Japanese collaborators were the colonels and generals, including President Park Chung-hee, who now ran the South Korean government. In fact, many of them had been young officers in the army of the emperor when the Japanese had ruled Korea. Bandit Lee might have been engaged in a deadly competition with the Dear Leader, the son who would replace his former comrade, Kim Il-sung, but he was mortal enemies with the men who ran South Korea. Americans, although enemies in the past, could be negotiated with.
“I have allies throughout the country. They are silent now, and afraid to act, but if the Americans help us, they will rise up and support the Manchurian Battalion. We will take over this government and a peace treaty will be signed. We will renounce Soviet-style communism and create a democratic socialist government with free elections. Then we will cooperate with the Western world. But only if you help us now, in our hour of need. That is your mission. You must convince the Americans to help us, or die trying.”
I bowed to the inevitable. He ordered us to depart within the hour.
As Doc Yong and I stood to leave, artillery roared in the distance. Units of the Manchurian Battalion were already on the attack, assaulting elements of the Red Star Brigade in the lowlands before they could fully deploy.
The entrance to the cave on the side of Mount O-song was well hidden. “This is why it has remained intact so long,” Doc Yong told me.
We had to climb for an hour to reach it and even then it was concealed by a rocky overhang no sane person would have any reason to explore. But the ancient manuscript, the one Doc Yong had memorized, gave exact directions to the cave.
Crawling flat on our bellies, we entered. I carried the heavier backpack, with a full day’s ration of beef jerky and my favorite traveling food, ddok. Doc Yong and I each held a flashlight and I had two spares in my pack, along with spare batteries and extra clothing wrapped in plastic. We didn’t carry water. According to the manuscript, there’d be plenty. Maybe too much. Doc Yong carried the most precious cargo strapped to her back: our son.
He was quiet as we entered the cave, his eyes wide, studying everything. Doc Yong and I also had claw hammers, looped metal nails, and ropes tied to the front of our chests.
We had left the compound of the Manchurian Battalion alone, no escort. Bandit Lee wanted the secret of the tunnel held closely.
The first part of the tunnel was fairly easygoing. It was about four feet high, sloped downward gently, and by crouching and watching our footing, we descended what I estimated to be a couple hundred feet. At the bottom, we had to scale a ten-foot-high cliff, crawl across shale, and then slide through an opening that was filled with a universe of freezing air. Doc Yong stopped and pulled out an extra blanket to cover Il-yong and ordered that we both slip on canvas coats we’d brought along. When we were warmed, I aimed the flashlight at the opening beyond.
It was a vast cathedral, with twenty-foot stalactites and stalagmites projecting like dragon’s teeth. It was so vast that the light didn’t reach the far end. We sat quietly for a moment. In the distance something rumbled, like the voice of a giant.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“The underground river.” Looking worried, she adjusted Il-yong on her back.
“Will we have to cross it?”
“We’ll only be in the water for a short distance. We will have to swim. That’s why we brought the extra clothing wrapped in plastic.”
Doc Yong was a brilliant woman who’d risen from poverty in South Korea to become a medical doctor by dint of her quick thinking and ability to anticipate all possible scenarios. I had no doubt that she’d thought of everything we’d need.
I rose to my feet and held out my hand to help her to stand. I lifted the edge of the blanket and kissed Il-yong on the forehead. He gurgled with delight. Still holding hands, we started across the floor of the cathedral.
The river was more formidable than I imagined.
“The runoff is greater than described in the manuscript.” Doc Yong played the beam of her flashlight over the rushing waters. “The wild man and his pursuers must’ve come when the flow wasn’t as violent.”
I imagined they had. This river was a raging torrent. There was no way I was going to allow Doc Yong and Il-yong to enter it. I’d rather face the wrath of the Red Star Brigade artillery than face this.
We searched along the rocky shore, looking for a narrow spot to cross.
Finally, the river disappeared into a tunnel.
“Here,” Doc Yong said. “This is where we must enter.”
“What do you mean?”
“You assumed that we’d cross. I never said that.”
“If we don’t cross it, then what will we do?”
“We dive in here, as the wild man did when he was being pursued.”
“Dive in? Are you out of your mind?”
“I’m not out of my mind,” she snapped. “We must reach the Americans in the South. You’ve seen the Manchurian Battalion, you’ve seen how desperate we are. You’ve seen that we are willing to lay our lives on the line to oppose the tyrant who has taken over our country. Only you can testify to what you’ve witnessed. Only you can convince the Americans to send us ammunition. To send us what we need to fight and to win. If we don’t go now, the people of the Manchurian Battalion will perish.”
“If we go now, we all might perish.”
“Maybe.”
I swiveled on her. “What do you owe them?”
“Everything. My education. My life.”
“Your parents were members of the Manchurian Battalion,” I said.
“Yes. But what difference does all that make now? If we turn back, without American assistance, we will di
e anyway.”
I wasn’t so sure of that. When the fighting broke out, I thought there might be enough confusion for Doc Yong and me to slip south with our son, and with luck, make our way across the minefields of the Demilitarized Zone. If I could just reach one South Korean patrol, we’d be safe.
I was about to tell her all this, to reveal my plan, when somewhere behind us rocks clattered. We turned. From her belt beneath her jacket, Doc Yong pulled out a Russian-made pistol. Without hesitation, she fired into the darkness.
“Come on,” she said, and pulled me to shelter.
The voice that emerged from the darkness was that of Senior Captain Rhee Mi-sook.
“Where are you running away to?” she asked in Korean. “Why are you so anxious to leave your homeland behind? Have you no loyalty?”
Crouching behind rock, Doc Yong clutched my arm. “Did you tell her about this tunnel?”
I lowered my eyes. “I started to. They were torturing Moon Chaser.”
She nodded solemnly and then tilted my head back up with her hand and stared into my eyes. “There was something between you two, wasn’t there? That’s why you were naked.”
“I had no choice.”
I expected her to be angry and she was, but not at me. “She’s notorious. And now she follows us down here. But not for her country.”
“She’s a North Korean officer.”
“Yes. But she never does anything for her country. Not if she can help it.”
“Then why did she follow us?”
“Because she wants to escape too.”
“Into South Korea?”
“Yes. Or better yet, America. She will use you. Do you understand that?”
I did. There was no need for her to tell me.
“And she will kill me. Do you understand that too?”
“I won’t let it happen,” I said, suddenly angry.
“And,” she said, gesturing toward Il-yong, “she will get rid of him.”
“Never,” I promised. “Not while I’m breathing.”
“Neither one of us will be breathing, once she knows the way out of here.”
“Surrender, Captain Rhee shouted, “or we will attack!”
Armed men scurried from boulder to boulder.