thought that messing with an irate American would make their officer-in-charge unhappy, so they ignored us. After about forty minutes we started moving again.
When the train finally pulled into the big cement bulwark of the Pusan Train Station, it was already after eleven. Less than an hour until curfew.
We were both worn out, and at the moment I didn’t give a damn about Shipton or Whitcomb or the murder case-all I wanted to do was get my butt off that damn rattling platform. We slung our AWOL bags over our shoulders and plowed through the milling crowds to a long row of kimchi cabs outside. The drivers loitered in front of their cars, smoking, exchanging banter, hoping for one more good fare before the world closed up at curfew.
“Where to?” Ernie said.
It wasn’t as cold down here but still our breath billowed before us.
“Probably too late to get billeting at Hialeah Compound. Best we find a yoguan.”
Across the broad road that ran in front of the train station were rows of two- and three-story cement and brick buildings, some with blinking lights advertising warm floors and baths.
“Over there,” Ernie said. “Maybe they offer girls, too.”
“Maybe.”
Always thinking, that Ernie.
We trotted across the big road against the light and entered the maze of alleys between the buildings. Soju houses and soup joints were still doing a good business at this hour. Sandwiched between a teahouse and a dumpling shop was a doorway that led upstairs to the Hei-un Yoguan. Upstairs, an old woman sat on the floor in a little room watching a Korean comedy show on a TV that was turned up way too loud. She lowered it when she saw us.
I greeted her and asked about rooms, and she said she had two. After setting the price, we gave the money in advance and she gave us keys and pointed down the hallway.
Our rooms were small but comfortable enough. Each had a flat hard bed and a cylindrical bead-filled pillow and a bathtub with a nozzle on a long rubber hose for a shower.
Luxurious accommodations for a former field soldier.
Neither of us felt like going outside and elbowing amongst the natives for some chop, so we ordered Chinese food from the old woman. In about twenty minutes a boy brought a tin box filled with fried rice and sweet-and-sour pork and a plastic pot of barley tea.
After we ate, we shoved the plates and utensils out in the hallway. Despite Ernie’s protestations of wanting to find a girl, he didn’t do anything about it.
Shortly after midnight the city quieted down and I lay beneath my half-open window, moonlight streaming in, and pulled the covers over my head. A few minutes later, I passed out.
Something pounded on my door.
“George! Reveille! It’s oh-dark-thirty.”
Ernie’s voice. I looked around. He was right. It was still dark.
I climbed out of bed, unlatched the door, and let him in.
“I don’t know about you,” he said, “but I want to get out of this roach coach, make it over to the compound, and find some real chow. You know-coffee, toast, all that shit. And read the Stripes.”
“Yeah. Let’s do that.”
We had a lot of work ahead of us. No sense putting it off.
Ten minutes later we were outside. When we found a cab, I told him to take us to Hialeah Compound. The driver roared through broad, wide-open streets, not nearly as crowded as those in Seoul. The compound was farther inland than I thought. About five miles from the Port of Pusan.
The Japanese Imperial Army, for some reason, had been big on cavalry. The compound that is now Hialeah had been used by them to race horses. When the U.S. Army took it over, some wiseacre decided to call it Hialeah Compound, after the famous racetrack in the States. The name stuck.
A narrow road lined with shops and bars led straight into a dead end that was the front gate of Hialeah Compound. A big cement MP guard shack sat on the side, and barbed wire ran along the top of the closed chain-link fence. We got out, paid the driver, and marched into an open door marked “Pedestrian Entrance.”
A bored MP wearing a gleaming black helmet liner sat behind the counter. A stenciled sign behind him instructed us to show our identification and pass upon entering or leaving Hialeah Compound, by Order of the Commander.
Friendly place.
We showed him our ID’s and he gave us directions to the billeting office. Just outside the MP shack sat the NCO Club. Not open yet, but reassuring to know that it was there.
“Ice cubes and cold beer,” Ernie said. “Who could ask for more?”
The Korean clerk at the billeting office had us fill out a couple of forms, took copies of our temporary duty orders, and finally gave us the key to a section of a Quonset hut. He told us there were two bunks in there and we’d have to share. It didn’t bother us. We didn’t plan to spend much time there anyway.
After dropping off our bags in the room, we forgot about breakfast and went straight to the PX.
It was a good-sized building, which made sense because although the population of the compound was small-only about two thousand-there was still a big demand for the PX products off base, so everybody bought their full ration every month.
The front door was locked. We walked around back and found a door open at the loading dock. After wandering around for a while we found an administrative office and a Korean secretary sitting at a desk in front of a door marked “Manager.”
The manager was a small American man, a slight paunch under his business suit, and prematurely balding on top. He nodded enthusiastically when we told him why we were there. No, he said, the courier hadn’t picked up the ration control data cards from last night.
He took us into a storage room marked “Layaway,” cleared a table for us, and plopped down three oblong boxes of computer punch cards.
“You’ll keep them in order, won’t you?” he asked. “If they are out of order it cause’s them a terrible time up at Data Processing in Seoul, and I always receive a nasty phone call from their officer in charge.”
“We’ll do our best,” I said.
“Got any coffee?” Ernie asked.
“Of course. Just ask Miss Lee. She’ll be happy to get some for you.”
I wondered how happy Miss Lee would be about serving two strangers, but I didn’t say anything. The manager left, and Ernie followed him out and came back a few minutes later with two steaming cups of coffee in mugs marked “Army amp; Air Force Exchange Service.”
“That Miss Lee is one fine-looking mama,” Ernie said.
I was worried that he’d disappear on me but instead he took off his jacket, draped it over the back of one of the folding chairs, and rolled up his sleeves.
The coffee wasn’t bad. Strong and hot, which is what I needed.
We went to work. We compared the printed numbers across the top of each card in the boxes with the four numbers we had that we expected Shipton to be using. It was tedious work. Every few minutes I had to take a break, sip on some coffee, and let my eyes uncross. Ernie took off his round-lensed glasses and set them on the table next to him.
A couple of PX employees-Koreans-wandered in, staring at us curiously. They took off their coats, hung them on the rack, and went back out onto the floor.
While we worked, the store opened, soft music was turned on out in the main room, and we heard the buzz of consumers doing their part to keep the international economy humming.
When I finished my coffee I decided to go after some more, but Ernie said he’d do the honors. Trying to keep Miss Lee all to himself.
It took us another hour and a half to go through the cards but in the end we had nothing. Not one card matched any of the numbers that had been provided to me by Herbalist So. I had the nagging feeling we’d screwed up somewhere. Maybe missed one of the cards. But we’d been careful as we went through them, pulling each one out, holding it up to the light, passing it across the table for a double check. There was no sense going through them again.
