through cryptography, highly classified codes. Actually, neither Ernie nor I were cleared that high. We had Secret clearances, that was it. But what Oliver didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.
He slid back the curtain.
Arrayed before us was a massive, wall-sized map of the area known to the world as the Korean DMZ, the Demilitarized Zone. On the left flowed the blue Han River Estuary, leading into the Yellow Sea a few miles north of the Port of Inchon. On the right was the Korean coastline bordering the Sea of Japan-in between, the DMZ-its thick body wriggled through the Korean Peninsula like a burrowing python.
On the left side was a black dot for the city of Munsan, and close to that, less than three kilometers away, a bright red star that said “Camp Pelham.”
Major Oliver pointed to the star. “We’re here,” he said. He traced his finger toward the East, along a road that divided a ridge of hills. After about twenty-five miles, his finger turned north, traveling another twenty miles until it reached a blue line that wound south of the DMZ. “They crossed the Imjin here,” he said, “at Liberty Bridge, about zero seven thirty this morning.” His finger continued north, toward an area adjacent to the DMZ, with no black dots representing cities or towns. “They’re up here now. Exactly where, I can’t say. The Second Division G-2 is simulating an all-out North Korean attack, so Charley Battery and the rest of the battalion are doing what they do best. They’re north of the Imjin River, moving, shooting, and communicating.”
“Can you pin-point their location for us?” Ernie asked.
“When I receive another radio call. But right now they’re on the move. So far this morning, they’ve set up and fired live rounds three times. Each time, they break down all weapons and equipment, load them up on their trucks, and move out to the next firing position.”
Sounded like a lot of work. Oliver grabbed a wooden pointer and used it to indicate an area higher up on the map, adjacent to the southern edge of the DMZ.
“It’s clear where they’re headed,” he said. “Closer to North Korea. By tonight, they’ll probably be operating in the largest military firing area in country.” He slapped the pointer against the map. “Right here.”
“So we can find them there?”
“It’s a large area, but yes.”
“Then that’s where we’ll go.”
Ernie started to leave, but I stopped him and made Major Oliver give us the coordinates of the firing area he had just referred to. When I jotted them down, I said, “Do you have a map we could borrow?”
“You won’t need one.”
“Why not?”
“When you cross Liberty Bridge there will be checkpoints, plenty of them, all on the lookout for North Korean intruders. They’ll guide you to the firing Operations Center. Don’t bother with the coordinates. Just tell them you’re looking for Charley Battery of the Second of the Seventeenth. And tell them they’re at Nightmare Range.”
“Nightmare Range?”
Oliver grinned. “Garden spot of the Orient.”
Liberty Bridge was a low cement bridge with no railing to speak of, the roadway just a few feet above the churning waters of the Imjin River. MPs armed with M-16 rifles lined the bridge, on the look out for anything sinister floating downriver from the headwaters in North Korea. As we crossed, waves of cold water from the rapidly flowing Imjin splashed our tires. On the far side of the bridge, we followed the road upward, winding past granite cliffs and through tunnels hewn out of solid rock. Finally we emerged onto a long plateau. For a moment it almost seemed as if we’d left Korea. No rice paddies, no straw-thatched huts in the distance, no farmers leading ox-drawn carts to market. Only wilderness. The uncultivated wilderness of the militarily controlled areas south of the DMZ.
Occasionally, a big deuce-and-a-half or a box-like chow truck passed us, heading south toward Liberty Bridge, returning to civilization for re-supply.
Signs written in English and hangul guided us toward the Range Operations Center. Again, a sheet-metal Quonset hut, this one painted in darker shades of camouflage green. Inside were ROK Army officers. One of them, a Lieutenant Park, spoke English. When we asked him where we could find Charley Battery, 2/17th FA, he frowned.
“Moving,” he said. “Far north. Where they stop, nobody know right now.”
The war games were still on-going. They could last for many hours, until the generals back in their bunkers had enough data to keep themselves busy analyzing it for the next couple of weeks.
“Where are they now?” Ernie asked.
Lieutenant Park led us into a room filled with a topographical map spread out on a flat table. South of a red line, tiny tanks and artillery pieces were arrayed in a line facing north. Even more tanks and artillery pieces were arrayed north of the line, facing south. Lieutenant Park grabbed a wooden pointer and slapped the brass tip into the center of a broad valley surrounded by jagged hills.
“Charley Battery,” he said.
Ernie and I studied the map. The valley was about fifteen kilometers from our current position. At the southern edge of the valley sat a village known as Uichon.
When I asked Lieutenant Park the name of the valley, he answered in Korean. I didn’t understand, so he repeated the name in English.
“Nightmare Range,” he said.
We thanked him and left.
Uichon was a dump.
One paved road, right down the center of town, wide enough for two big military re-supply trucks to rumble through without slowing down. Toddlers wearing wool sweaters, but no pants, stumbled through the muck on the side of the road, chasing chickens and an occasional small pig. Adults with wooden A-frames strapped to their backs hoisted hay, firewood, and gunny sacks full of cabbage toward the village’s open-air market. On the outskirts of town, a few farmhouses were visible but not many. Some roofs were tile, like the whitewashed police station, but most of the hovels settled for the traditional straw-thatched roofs that had been used in Asia since the beginning of recorded time.
About a hundred yards on the far side of the village we came to a road that Lieutenant Park had told us we’d find. An arrow-shaped sign pointing north said USFK firing range No. 13, north 2km. The road was made of hard- packed mud and gravel and sat a few inches above the swampy grasslands surrounding it. Ernie shoved the jeep into low gear and made the turn.
“Hold onto your hat,” he said.
He was enjoying this a lot more than I was.
Was all this effort really worth our time? What would the members of Charley Battery have to tell us? If the sketch we showed them wasn’t Boltworks, all would be for naught. If it was him, we still wouldn’t learn much. Since he’d been AWOL for over a month, it was unlikely that anybody in the unit would have any idea about where to find him. Still, we had to ask. That’s what police work is all about.
Major Oliver back at Camp Pelham told us that Nightmare Range had been the site of a series of ferocious battles between the 8th United States Army and what was called, in those days, the CHICOMs, the Chinese Communist People’s Army. Known to GIs as “Joe Chink.” In the foreboding terrain we were traveling through now, I could imagine what it must’ve been like. Explosions everywhere, bayonet charges, hand-to-hand combat, men screaming, rolling through the cold mud and hot blood. And the mountains around us made things worse. They looked primeval: jagged, muddy, ringed with low-lying clouds that blocked the afternoon sun.
I shivered and hugged myself, wishing we were back in the cozy alleyways of Itaewon.
It took us ten minutes to drive the two kilometers the little sign had been talking about. When we arrived, we found a flat swampy area, but no field artillery unit.
“Charley Battery’s moved out,” Ernie said.
Fresh tire tracks were everywhere. I climbed out of the jeep and studied them.
“They’re heading north, up this road,” I said.
“Good work, Tonto.”
You didn’t exactly have to be an Apache tracker to see where they’d gone. The mud and gravel had been plowed up everywhere.
