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 die 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.
“They will take us,” Doc Yong said. “We must swim. Now!”
“Right,” I said. “I’ll take the boy.”
Doc Yong hesitated but quickly realized that I was the stronger swimmer. She untied Il-yong from her back and strapped him to me, spread-eagle, facing my chest.
“Keep his head above water,” she said.
“Okay.”
“You go first. I will cover you.” She still held the pistol.
I slipped down behind rock to the edge of the water. It was freezing. Quickly, we rubbed black grease on our faces, arms, and the lower calves beneath our pants. Doc Yong gently slathered Il-yong’s face and arms and hands. We should’ve covered our entire bodies but there wasn’t time.
A rifle shot pinged above us. We crouched. She kissed Il-yong and then shoved me forward into the water.
The shock of the cold sucked all breath out of me. It had the same effect on Il-yong. He leaned away from me as far as he could, his eyes wide open, but he didn’t cry. There wasn’t enough air left in his lungs for him to cry. I floated on my back, keeping Il-yong’s head above water, the current carrying me quickly toward the tunnel. Another shot rang out, water splashed as we entered enveloping darkness. Safety. But now I was worried about the stone ceiling above me. Only about three feet of clearance, then two, and now one. Suddenly I realized that the entire tunnel was flooded. There would be no air. We would drown. But the current was much too strong for me to resist. I’d never manage to swim back. I focused on what Doc Yong had told me. The tunnel stretched for maybe fifty yards, and I’d already covered half that distance. Once we were underwater, if we could just hold our breath long enough to traverse the rest of the distance, we might survive. Before I could think about it further, my skull bumped rock, I took my last long breath and went under.
Il-yong squirmed in panic. I craned my neck and pulled him up and placed my mouth on his. Gently, I breathed air into his lungs. He sputtered and coughed but then came back for more. We were still drifting downstream but not fast enough. I started grabbing rock outcrops above me to pull myself along. Il-yong wanted more air. I kept hoping that we’d reach the end of this tunnel any second, but when I realized that we wouldn’t, I bent forward and tried to blow more air into his mouth. It didn’t work. He was squirming now in total panic. The last of my air escaped upward and bubbled away. I clawed forward-cursing the people who’d written that ancient manuscript, cursing Il-yong’s mother for taking me down here, cursing Eighth Army for sending me to North Korea- and then finally, grasping forward for the next handhold, I missed. No rock. I panicked, but then I realized that there was nothing left to grasp. The tunnel had ended.
I kicked forward and finally got my head above water. It was pure darkness, but at least I was breathing. I rolled on my back, floating. Il-yong wasn’t moving. Desperately, I swam toward the side of the current and finally hit rock again. I pulled myself up as far as I could, tilted Il-yong’s head back, and gently blew air into his mouth. Nothing.
Something splashed behind me. I stuck out my leg, a body rammed into it, and then hands clawed up my pant legs. I couldn’t see her face, but from the feel of her body I knew it was Doc Yong.
“Light,” I shouted. “Quickly. We have to get him on shore.”
She clambered over me, kicking and shoving, not worrying about hurting me. I heard her hands shuffling through her backpack and a light switched on. At first I was blinded, but I recovered quickly.
“Here,” I said, “take him.”
She reached down and pulled him up. I clambered after them and reached a gravel-strewn beach. I ripped Il-yong out of Doc Yong’s hands and held him by the ankles upside down. Water cascaded out of his throat. Then I cradled him in my arms and gently blew air into his lungs.
Nothing.
“Do something,” I said.
