The Iron Sickle

by Martin Limon

  I entered darkness.

  A dark hallway stretched back toward one naked bulb. The reek of ammonia led to the co-ed byonso. I walked past it and found a hallway leading to the left. At the end was another doorway with no lettering on it. I tried the knob. It opened.

  A single green lamp illuminated a small wooden desk in the corner. Taking up most of the room were two stiff-backed couches on either side of a short coffee table. In the center of the table sat a hexagonal box of wooden matches and two large glass ashtrays. I sniffed the air. No smell of fresh smoke.

  A shadow loomed out of the darkness. I raised my fists and was about to punch the approaching figure and then I realized who it was. Ming.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, lowering my fists.

  “She’s gone,” he said. “When you came, I hid.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. Something’s not right.”

  “Is this her office?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why would she leave?” I asked.

  Ming shrugged. He didn’t have a reply to that. We walked back toward the byonso but now a double door just beyond it was open. I stepped toward it and discovered it was the loading area that led to a storeroom. It was piled high with wooden crates filled with brown OB Beer bottles and the smaller crystalline containers of soju.

  But there was no truck backed up to the door. One of the doors swung open on its hinges, creaking, as if someone had just departed. I stepped outside. A dark alley stretched before us, lined with walls of brick and cement block.

  “She’s running,” I said. “Come on.”

  “Better we wait here,” Ming replied. “I think maybe I shouldn’t have brought you.”

  I had no time for him. I was already trotting down the alley.

  There was only one reason Madame Hoh would’ve decided to drop her claim—if she had already begun to pursue the resolution of that claim in a different way; a way that she wanted to keep secret. A way that wouldn’t stand scrutiny from an agent of the 8th United States Army Criminal Investigation Command.

  I had already reached the end of the alley when I saw them, emerging from a cross street. Four men, until a fifth stepped from a shadow behind me. Two of them held clubs. The others had unusually large fists. Brass knuckles, I thought. They were all slender young Korean men. In the dim yellow light from the bulb in back of the Inn of the Crying Rose, I could see their grim expressions, their square faces and high cheekbones.

  I was toast, I thought. Unarmed. Alone. But I also knew the worst thing I could do was hesitate. I didn’t slow my stride. Instead, I marched straight at them, tossing back the edge of my coat as if reaching for a weapon. I shouted, “Freeze! Eighth Army CID!”

  Somehow, I don’t think they were impressed.

  -10-

  I plowed into them like I knew what I was doing. The guy directly in front of me with a cigarette dangling from his lips stared up at me wide-eyed and leapt out of my way. The two on either side of him didn’t back up but closed in. I landed a straight left to the jaw of one, pushed the other down, and started running. My goal was to make it back to the well-lit main drag of Mia-ri. The problem was this road didn’t lead back to it but veered off farther away. Still, I figured there’d be a cross street up ahead where I could hang a quick left, if I ever made it that far. Their feet pounded behind me.

  As I passed trash cans I knocked them into the middle of the road. Unfortunately for me, Koreans have been recycling for centuries, and there wasn’t much detritus to slow down my pursuers, just fish bones and apple peels and wilted cabbage leaves. I concentrated on speed. But running was for the little guys, never my forte. Instead, I usually chose to stand and fight but this time the odds were much too long. I spotted an intersection up ahead and churned forward, hearing the maddening clatter of footsteps behind me. Sweat poured into my eyes.

  I was a few steps from the road when one of the thugs landed on my back like a ravenous predator and wrapped his forearm around the front of my neck. Struggling to breathe with his weight bearing down on me, I bent forward as fast as I could, tossing him in the air. He flew straight over and then down, smashing on the cement with a crack that, even in my panicked state, I hoped wasn’t his neck. Two more thugs hit me, and I lost my footing and went down. I rolled on the filthy road, coming to a halt spread-eagled on the pavement. When the first one came at me, I lifted myself up and butted my head into his stomach. Clutching his arms, I was able to regain my feet, and then I pushed him into the other guy and started punching until another guy appeared at my side, and something poked into my left arm. I decided to punch him too. Both men went down but that’s when things got bad.

  The rest of the herd was on me now. Kicks rammed into the back of my thighs, but covering my head with my forearms, I moved blindly, punching as I twirled toward the cross street, fighting my way to the safety of a soot-smeared brick wall. Just a few yards ahead, I spotted the bright lights of Mia-ri, which gave me hope. I lunged at one of the attackers, hitting him and knocking his head so hard he reeled backward, and I pushed past him and through their line and started to sprint once again for civilization. The bright lights were no more than ten yards away when it seemed as if two one-hundred-pound sacks of rice landed on my back. I collapsed to the ground, rolling from the kicks, and I managed to wedge myself between crates of empty liquor bottles that had been stacked against a wall in the alley. I grabbed splintered wood, yanked the top crate free from its stack, and threw it as hard as I could at the thugs. The crate swirled through the air, and crystalline bottles flew out and crashed to the dirty blacktop. The hoods backed off enough for me to push myself up against the wall and stand, then I was running through them again, only a few yards now from the main drag. They took more shots at me, but I stumbled into the glare of flashing neon. Through sweat-smeared eyes I saw people were staring at me, their mouths open in horror. Half-crawling, I dragged my body fully into the light.

  Grumbling and cursing, the thugs backed away, leaving me to collapse face down in front of a growing crowd of scantily clad cocktail hostesses and red-faced Korean businessmen. Some of the men pointed and laughed, figuring this was part of the adventure of their night on the town. Still, no one was punching me or kicking me anymore, for which I felt inordinately grateful. Briefly, I wondered where Ming was and then I passed out.

  “What the hell happened to you?” Ernie asked.

  “What do you think happened?” I said.

  “You head-butted a rhinoceros?”

  “No. I finally decided to have a little plastic surgery. Alter my nose; tighten the wrinkles around my eyes.”

  “You look divine, dahling,” Ernie said.

  I lay in an elevated bed at the 121st Evacuation Hospital. Earlier this morning when I roused myself from a pain-killer-induced haze, I took inventory of my body parts. Everything seemed to be working, although everything hurt. The nurse told me I’d been shot full of antibiotics, and I’d received almost a dozen stitches in various parts of my body. They’d been monitoring for internal bleeding, but so far there didn’t appear to be any.

  “Can I leave now?” I asked.

  “Not until the doctor says it’s okay.”

  “When will that be?”

  “Morning rounds,” she said primly and walked out.

  I returned my attention to Ernie. “Where’s Ming?”

  “Who?” Ernie said.

  “The Chinese guy I went to Mia-ri with. What happened to him?”

  Ernie looked puzzled. “According to the KNP report, they found you alone, face down on the main drag of Mia-ri, passed out. At first they thought you were just drunk and then they saw the blood.”

  “Nice of them to be so observant.”

  “They called the MPs, who called an ambulance, and they carted you back here.”

  I sat up. “What time is it?”

  “Zero nine hundred,” Ernie said.

  “How long have I been here?”

 
“Since just after curfew.”

  “That long? And what took you so long to get here?”

  “Nobody told me about it until I walked into the office this morning.”

  Normally, the MPs would’ve found Ernie whether he was in the barracks or out in the ville to tell him his partner was in the hospital. Apparently they were still pissed about Dexter being locked up.

  I tossed the sheet back and started to slide out of bed.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “We gotta talk to Strange.”

  “Strange? What’d they knock your pervert screw loose?”

  “No. Last night, I learned about a file, a secret file containing claims against Eighth Army that have been suppressed, claims that were never processed.”

  “Wait a minute.” Ernie placed his hand on my shoulder. “You better stay put. Let me talk to the doctor.”

  “To hell with the doctor.”

  The morning rounds in a big over-crowded military hospital could take hours. I stood up, the soles of my feet cold on the tile floor. I stepped toward the open closet where I saw my clothes hanging, and when I was about halfway to my destination, an earthquake must’ve hit. The floor rolled, and I remember thinking this was strange because Korea doesn’t have many earthquakes and then the room grew dim, and the lights popped out, and the next thing I knew I was diving through the eternal ether. Everything was dark. Very dark.

  Strange sat with both elbows on a Formica covered table in the 8th Army snack bar. A black plastic holder with an unlit cigarette dangled between his thin lips. Cruelly bloodshot red orbs bulged behind his green-tinted shades.

  “Had any strange lately?” he asked.

  “Can it, Strange,” Ernie told him. “We’re here on important business.”

  “The name’s Harvey.”

  “Okay, Harvey. You heard my partner’s question. Now answer it.”

  The doctor at the 121 had held me a couple more hours for observation, but in the end he decided I had not received a serious concussion and had probably only been dizzy because of blood loss. He told me to take it easy for the next few days, to drink a lot of fluids, and to refrain from heavy lifting. If I experienced any pain aspirin couldn’t help, I was to report immediately to sick call.

  “They need the bed,” Ernie told me as we walked out of the hospital.

  Military doctors aren’t worried about being sued, and they figure most of us healthy young GIs are about as rugged as plastic soldiers anyway. We take a beating and keep on ticking. I was stiff and sore but otherwise functioning.

  “What was the question again?” Strange asked.

  “Eighth Army Claims,” I said. “They have a file of every claim for damages made by Korean civilians against the Eighth United States since the end of the Korean War. However, it has come to my attention that there is another file, a secret file of suppressed claims. Claims that have been deemed too embarrassing to the Command or too damaging to see the light of day.”

  Strange’s lips tightened. His cigarette waggled. “Who has this file?” he asked.

  I slammed my open palm down on the table. “Christ, Harvey. That’s what I’m asking you.”

  He glanced around the snack bar, making sure no one was listening. They weren’t. The place was bustling with almost a hundred GIs in uniform and a smattering of Department of Defense civilians on their lunch breaks. Conversation was pitched at a controlled roar.

  Strange leaned toward me. His long brown hair was oiled and slicked back neatly over his bald spot. “SOFA,” he said.

  “What?”

  “The Status of Forces Committee,” he said a little louder, more insistent. He glanced to either side again before turning back to me. “They review those types of reports before deciding whether or not to turn them over to the Eighth Army Claims Office.”

  I’d known the SOFA Committee, which was made up of ROK Army and US Army personnel, arbitrated the appeal process for rejected claims, but I hadn’t realized they also secretly vetted the claims before they were even allowed to go to the Claims Office. “How do you know this?”

  He leaned back. “How do I know anything that goes on at Eighth Army? I pay attention.”

  “You snoop,” Ernie said.

  Strange’s cigarette drooped. He looked offended. “That’s a dirty word.”

  “Your favorite kind.”

  “So this Status of Forces committee,” I said, “they’re the ones who make the decision to suppress certain claims.”

  “Who else?” Strange replied. “The Commander doesn’t get involved. He wants deniability in case the shit hits the rotating wind machine.”

  “Has it ever?”

  “No way.” Strange scoffed. “Mr. Cool who runs the country would never allow it.”

  Ernie said, “Where do they keep these files?”

  Strange looked around the snack bar, almost swiveling his head in a complete circle, to see if anyone was watching or listening. Luckily for us I don’t believe anyone was, because it would have been obvious Strange was about to tell us a secret. Strange liked everyone to know he knew more than they did.

  Well, usually. “I don’t know,” he whispered.

  “What do you mean you don’t know?” Ernie asked. “You run the classified documents distribution center. You’re always bragging you know everything that’s going on in Eighth Army.”

  “I do,” he said.

  “But you don’t know this?”

  “I know what I don’t know,” he said, tapping the side of his head.

  “Can you find out where the documents are?” I asked.

  “It depends.”

  “Depends on what?”

  “Have you had any strange lately?”

  Ernie groaned. We knew what that meant. Strange wanted to be told an elaborately obscene story of illicit sex in graphic detail and in return he’d spill his guts concerning the secret 8th Army claims file. A pervert in charge of classified documents. Somehow, it made sense.

  This was my cue. I rose from my chair and hobbled over to the snack bar serving line. Taking my time, I grabbed a sturdy porcelain mug and pulled myself a cup of steaming hot java from the stainless steel coffee urn. At the register, I paid the middle-aged Korean lady twenty-five cents. She didn’t hand me my receipt. I was about to open my mouth and ask for it when she said, “No more free refill.”

  “When did this start?” I asked.

  “Today.”

  The price of everything was going up. I glanced at the table. Apparently so was the price of Strange’s cooperation. He was leaning forward to hear the elaborate story Ernie was making up. From time to time Strange frowned and asked a question. Ernie sighed and kept talking. I stood off to the side and waited. I didn’t really want to hear all this. Finally, when my coffee was about half gone, Strange rose and slunk out of the Snack Bar. I rejoined Ernie at the table.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “Nothing a hot shower won’t fix.”

  I had just finished my coffee when a siren went off, a huge wailing sound, then stopped. Everyone in the Snack Bar had frozen. And then a cannon fired and the wailing started again, louder this time.

  “Alert!” someone shouted. More voices joined the chorus. Virtually everyone in the snack bar, especially those in uniform, was on their feet, grabbing their hats, wrapping toast and doughnuts in napkins and shoving them in their pockets, gulping down final glugs of orange juice or milk or coffee, slipping on their field jackets, and heading for the door, some at a trot, most at a flat-out run.

  The wailing of the siren had taken on a pattern, three long bursts and one short.

  “Move out,” someone said.

  A regular muster alert was one thing. Every soldier assigned to the 8th Army headquarters was required to report immediately to his post of duty. Once there, the time he arrived was logged in, and once the entire unit was accounted for, the unit strength was phoned in to the higher headquarters. A move-out alert was worse. We wer
e to assume our unit was already on a war footing, and we were to first put on our combat gear and check out our weapons at the unit arms room before reporting to either our posts of duty or our assigned defensive positions. Once there we’d be given the order as to whether or not to move out—load up our trucks or jeeps and whatever vehicles our unit was assigned, leave Yongsan Compound, and head to the boonies.

  “At least there’s no incoming,” Ernie said. That is, no rounds being lobbed by Communist long-range artillery from the northern side of the DMZ.

  “Not yet,” I said.

  Pandemonium had broken out and then subsided, and by now the snack bar was virtually empty. Slowly, Ernie stood up, slipped on his jacket, and said, “After you, maestro.” I nodded in thanks. He walked and I hobbled up the hill toward the 8th Army Criminal Investigation Detachment. Riley was waiting for us.

  “Where the hell you guys been?”

  We were on night guard duty again, patrolling the shadowy perimeter of the 8th United States Army Headquarters South (Provisional). At least that’s what the hand-painted sign above the main entrance said. What we were really patrolling was three or four acres of jumbled canvas tents in a punchbowl of mud. If we had elephants and tigers, we’d be a circus. We already had the clowns.

  One of them emerged from the darkness, stepped beneath the glow of a yellow bulb dangling from a wire, and approached us as we made our rounds.

  “Look lively there,” he growled. “Don’t stand around like a bunch of Marines.”

  It was Staff Sergeant Riley. He had his M-16 rifle slung over his shoulder. He was wearing baggy fatigues, combat boots and a field jacket two sizes too large for his narrow shoulders. His camouflagenetted steel pot sat on his head tilted at an angle.

  “Who appointed you king of the guard post?” Ernie asked.

  “Somebody’s gotta make sure you pukes maintain the integrity of the perimeter.”

  “Maintain the integrity of this,” Ernie replied, showing Riley his favorite finger.

  We were tired. It was 8th Army’s second day in the field, and we’d been out walking guard duty all last night and tonight since evening chow. It was almost midnight.