Jill waved her palm in the air. “Not to worry. I’ll take care of that.” She started to leave. “See you tomorrow.”
“Where are you going?” I asked.
She smiled. “You don’t have a need to know.”
“Where will we meet you?” Ernie asked.
“At the same place everyone’s going to be tomorrow,” Jill said, walking away into the darkness.
“Where’s that?” Ernie hollered.
“At the demonstration.”
After she left, I realized that she still hadn’t revealed what she’d learned from Staff Sergeant Weatherwax.
“Looks like we’re back where we started.”
After sleeping late the next morning, Ernie and I once again sat on the floor of Ok-hi’s hooch, a room on the third story above the Silver Dragon Nightclub. The Thousand Crane Vase stood alone in a corner. Ok-hi, as happy to see us as ever, served us tea on a foot-high varnished brown table, then switched the radio to AFKN, the Armed Forces Korean Network. There was nothing on the news about student demonstrations or the KCIA or the murder of Pak Tong-i. Nor about the death of Private Marvin Druwood nor about two 8th Army CID agents gone berserk north of Seoul. Plenty about the latest shenanigans in Washington and, of course, plenty of sports.
“Not back where we started,” I told Ernie. “We know what we have to do next. Bust a bunch a black- marketing field grade officers.”
“If we find the proof.”
“Jill will help us find the proof.”
“How?”
“She told us where to find the proof. In Colonel Alcott’s safe in his quarters. And she promised us that we’d be able to bust onto the compound.”
“Over some MPs’ dead bodies.”
Ernie and I sat silent for a moment, both pondering the implications of what he’d just said. Was today’s demonstration going to be violent? I mean truly violent? Not just a few stones thrown by overexcited students. But arms, Molotov cocktails, explosives? Ok- hi told us that most of the business girls had gone to the bathhouse early today because they’d heard about the student demonstration and they expected it to be bigger than any of those Tongduchon had seen in the past. I asked her why.
Her eyes widened, as if the answer was obvious.
“Chon Un-suk-i die,” she said. “GI supposed to go monkey house. Instead, GI go stateside. Everybody taaksan kullasso.” Everybody very angry.
Ernie seemed to have been listening to my thoughts. “The Division MPs must know there’s going to be a demonstration,” he said. “They’ll be prepared for anything.”
Ok-hi tilted her head. At first I thought it was to show off the hoop earrings she was wearing. Then I realized she was listening to something. Something faint and far away.
“You go,” she said finally.
“What?”
“You go compound. Alert.”
Ernie switched off the radio. The wail of a siren, coming from the direction of Camp Casey. Alert. All GIs were to report back to the compound.
“You’re right,” I told Ernie. “They are taking this demonstration seriously.”
Thirty minutes later, Ernie and I stood on the roof of the Silver Dragon Nightclub watching tanks, two-and-a- half ton trucks, and armored vehicles-by the dozens-roll out of the front gate of Camp Casey.
“Move out,” Ernie said. “Division wide.”
A Division-wide move-out alert meant everyone goes to the field, even the headquarters staff, as if an actual war had broken out. Still, since an alert is only training and not war, some people would be left behind to guard and maintain the compound. Even though all MPs in the Division area are considered to be combat MPs-that is, they can assume a combat role if actual hostilities break out-you could bet that enough MPs would remain behind to protect the compound from the student demonstrators. Even now, we could see bunches of MPs milling around the towering MP statue in front of the Provost Marshal’s Office, slipping on their riot-control helmets, playing grab ass, donning their protective vests.
“Probably glad they don’t have to go to the field,” Ernie said.
Field duty-days and even weeks in the rain and the mud- grows old fast. Still, it seemed odd to me that a move-out alert had been called only an hour before a well-publicized student demonstration was to begin. Who had called the alert? Eighth Army? The United Nations Command in Seoul? I had no way of knowing. Maybe someone thought that calling an alert at such a time would replicate real-world situations and therefore provide realistic training. After all, war can break out anytime, even when it’s inconvenient. Maybe. But I didn’t believe it. My mistrust of coincidence made me think that something was up. Maybe something bigger than anyone imagined.
More troop transports full of infantry soldiers rolled out of the main gate of Camp Casey, followed by heavy artillery pieces and jeeps and commo vehicles and mess trucks and vehicles of all shapes and descriptions.
“Look.” Ernie pointed down the MSR about a mile at a gas station near the outskirts of town. Buses pulled in. Vans, taxicabs, all sorts of civilian conveyances. Students wearing black armbands and carrying picket signs written in both English and Korean were starting to gather. A steady stream of vehicles snaked down the MSR, heading toward Tongduchon. As we watched, the crowd grew larger. To the west about three blocks, at Tonduchon Station, the local train from Seoul pulled in. When it stopped, like a centipede shedding eggs, a jillion students popped out of the ten or so cars. Leaders with megaphones formed them into groups, shouting instructions, handing out black armbands and signs.
“Christ,” Ernie said, “half of Seoul is coming up here.”
“And a train is due every thirty minutes.”
“They’re really serious. Not like that paltry little group last time.”
We went back downstairs. Ok-hi fed us: steamed rice, kimchee, bowls of dubu jigei, spiced bean curd soup. She also found us two strips of white cloth that she helped us tie around our heads. Then, while we kneeled in front of her, she used red paint-mimicking blood-to write in hangul the name Chon Un-suk. Thus outfitted, Ernie and I thanked Ok-hi and, though she tried to refuse, I paid her for her time and the food and the effort she’d expended to help us. She promised to guard the Thousand Crane Vase with her life.
Ernie and I bounced out into the street, keeping a wary eye out for both the MPs and the KNPs. It was easy enough to avoid them. The Korean National Police were preoccupied with protecting the TDC police station and with setting up an assault position near the railroad tracks across from Camp Casey’s main gate. The American MPs were on compound, bracing for trouble.
Ernie and I slipped through a narrow alley between the bar district and the Main Supply Route. Once on the MSR, we strolled casually into the stream of protestors shouting and marching toward the main gate of Camp Casey. Picket signs saying YANKEE GO HOME and JUSTICE FOR CHON UN-SUK competed with the dozens of black-edged blowups of the deceased middle-school girl. Soon, the stream we were in joined other streams and, as we approached the line of MPs guarding the main gate, we became part of a mighty river.
15
Ernie and I pushed through the crowd, occasionally raising our fists and shouting indecipherable remarks that blended in with the periodic shouts from the crowd. This type of activity had ingratiated us to the protestors at the previous demonstration. Many of them had smiled and said “komapta”-thank you-and some of them had patted us on the back. But this group was much larger and much more sure of their power, and, therefore, more surly. For our efforts, Ernie and I received dirty looks and for once I didn’t feel safe amidst a crowd of Koreans. We kept moving. Not only because we were nervous, but because we were looking for a way to slip onto Camp Casey.
All that had happened for the first few minutes were a bunch of monotonous speeches shouted through
