by Martin Limon
We turned.
Estella stood behind the rocking chair, having twisted it to face us. From beneath the felt blanket, the old man had pulled out a pistol. An antique, maybe a German Luger. But whatever it was, its barrel looked just as deadly as that of any other pistol. Slowly, Ernie and I raised our hands.
“You’re not going anywhere,” he said in perfectly accented English.
Estella stepped forward, keeping out of the line of fire, and deftly collected first my .45, then Ernie’s.
We sat on the wooden floor, Ernie and I glancing anxiously at one another. Outside, the gunfire had grown more intense, the sporadic report of tank blasts rumbling up the hillside. Katie continued to write rapidly in her notebook, occasionally asking me a question about Korean history and Japan’s colonization of the country. Often, she’d follow up with, “Are you sure?”
I always answered the same way: “Look it up.”
I told her that the last Korean king had had numerous wives and many offspring. Most had been taken to Japan during the annexation. After World War II, only a tiny fraction had returned. Most had stayed in Japan, but others had gone elsewhere in the world.
“This guy,” I said, nodding toward the old man holding a pistol on us, “might be a crown prince, or he might be a third cousin twice removed. Either way, all General Bok wants is a figurehead.”
“A symbol of Korean unity?”
I nodded.
Katie continued to scribble.
After a half-hour of cooling our heels, Ernie said to Estella, “How about some chow? A guy could starve to death around here.”
“Be patient,” she said.
“Oh, sure, the world’s falling apart around me, and I’m supposed to be patient.”
“The world is not falling apart,” she said. “It’s being rebuilt.”
“How’s that?”
I hadn’t expected an answer, but she began to explain, her soft, melodic voice filling the cramped room.
According to her, the ascendants of Korea and Japan had been part of a massive empire called Koguryo. They had dominated Manchuria, what was now northern China, along with the northern reaches of the Korean peninsula. Proof of this was the hundreds, maybe thousands of mound-like tombs spread throughout what was now wilderness, reaching deep into Siberia. Eventually, Koguryo broke into factions, and some of its people moved south into the Korean Peninsula, a small portion going as far as to settle on the island of Honshu, eventually spreading throughout the Japanese archipelago. This was so long ago, she said, that many of the customs and art and language had since changed, becoming distinctly different from the Korean mainland. Though both languages, Korean and Japanese, shared a common grammatical structure, they had deviated profoundly and were now unintelligible to one another.
Ernie’s eyes glazed over. Katie stopped taking notes. Only I was alert, peeved that she was repeating an old Japanese line: that they were the true inheritors of the great Koguryo Empire. A warlike state that had once been so powerful it threatened the existence of China itself.
The old man had been listening intently to Estella’s speech. She switched from Koguryo to telling us how her father, the son of the armed man in the rocking chair, had been invited during the fifties to go all the way to Monaco to attend the wedding of Crown Prince Rainier and Princess Grace.
“It was there that he met my mother,” she said, smiling as if she had personally experienced the moment. “She was royalty, too, from Spain. Basque country. It was love at first sight.”
The old man’s eyes closed. The hilt of the Luger slipped from his fingertips. The moment I’d been waiting for. I launched myself from my sitting position and leapt.
Estella screamed.
The old man was surprisingly spry. He reeled backward, the gun falling away, but then recovered and clutched the side of my neck, digging his fingers deep into my flesh and squeezing. I jerked away and fell backward, but as I did so, I kicked forward with all my strength. The rocking chair tilted wildly. I scrabbled on the floor for the Luger, but didn’t find it, and when the old man hit the ground, I pinned him with a thud.
The bony old man beneath me lay still. I rose slowly, not feeling right about manhandling such a frail person.
Ernie threw the felt blanket aside, searching for the pistol. I was standing now, and Estella pushed us out of the way to get to Yi Il. “What have you done?”
“Where’s the goddamn gun?” Ernie said.
We stopped looking around, then realized that Katie had backed up against the wall. In her small hand she held the Luger, pointed right at us.
She motioned with it. “Check him!”
I did, kneeling and touching the side of the old man’s head, feeling for a pulse and at the same time leaning forward in front of his mouth. Then I felt it. Both a pulse and warm breath emitting from his throat. I stood back up. “He’s okay.”
Estella straightened the rocking chair, and Ernie and I helped the old man back into it. While Estella adjusted his sweaters and shook out the felt blanket, Ernie and I turned to Katie.
“Put the gun down,” I said.
“Not yet.”
“What? You want to help these people take over the ROK government? Is that it? More Korean soldiers dead? Maybe a civil war? Maybe North Korea taking advantage of the chaos and launching another invasion? Millions going off to sacrifice themselves, like in the first Korean War? Is that what you want?”
I was angry, and I knew it. Katie kept the pistol aimed directly at my chest.
“What I want,” she said, “is the story.”
“What story?”
“All this,” she said, waving her hand. “The horror and pain and unbearable wounds. I want it all. I want to be the only one. The first reporter who scoops the world and lets them know what the great powers have wrought in this tiny country. I want them to bow down to me.”
We both stared at her. For the first time since I’d known her, moisture seeped around the edges of her eyes.
After a pause, Ernie surprised me. He spoke in a gentle voice. “You want to come with us,” he said.
“Yes,” Katie replied. “I want to see all of it.”
Ernie and I glanced at one another. We both turned to her and nodded at the same time.
“Deal,” I said.
She grinned, wiped her eyes with the back of her free hand, and flipped the pistol around, expertly I thought. She offered the handle to me.
“Keep it,” I said.
We ordered Estella to tell us where she’d stashed our .45s. She did, crying all the while and begging us to consider the fate of the country, as if that weren’t what we were doing. Neither of us spoke as we strapped the shoulder holsters back across our chests. We checked the weapons. Both loaded. One round in the chamber, seven in the magazine.
“Enough to stop a coup?” Ernie said.
“Can do, easy,” I replied.
As we left, Katie followed, gun still in hand.
-24-
Ernie pointed his .45 at the temple of the kimchi cab driver. “We go,” he said.
Perspiring, the man nodded rapidly.
At zero-four-hundred hours, the end of the midnight-to-four curfew, the first kimchi cabs had appeared on the street. These were the go-getters, the intrepid few. Most of the city remained indoors, and the buses—as far as I could tell—weren’t running. Everyone had heard the gunfire that night, and even though things were quiet now, whispers of a military attack against the city must’ve spread from home to home like a virus. But these cab drivers had bills to pay, children to support, families to feed. Even if you were part of the invading army, they’d be out trying to hustle a fare from you.
Ernie sat up front in the passenger seat, his .45 trained on the driver. Katie and I sat in back.
“Odi?” the driver asked. Where?
&nbs
p; “Gukbang-bu,” I said. The Ministry of National Defense.
“Gukbang-bu?” he said, swallowing.
I confirmed.
He started the engine and the little Hyundai sedan rolled forward.
“Why there?” Katie asked, already writing.
“You heard where General Crabtree and Screech Owl were going,” Ernie said.
“I know,” Katie said. “I’m not stupid. But I wanna hear it from your mouth.”
“For the record?”
“Yeah, for the record. You got a problem with that?”
“Will you two knock it off?” I said.
“Tell her to knock it off,” Ernie replied.
“He’s a butthole,” Katie responded.
If we hadn’t been in such a precarious position, I would’ve told them to get a room.
A ROK Army checkpoint waved us to a halt. I wondered if they were Bok’s or ours. As we approached, I was relieved to see that according to their insignia, they were local constabulary troops, not ROK Army III Corps.
As Americans, we were neutral here. After all, the coup was an internal Korean problem, and both sides would be doing their best to curry American support. Shooting a couple of CID agents along with a freelance reporter wouldn’t do much to advance that cause. That was my reasoning. But of course, I could be wrong.
Ernie showed his badge to the Sergeant of the Guard.
“Odi ka?” he asked gruffly.
I leaned forward. “Gukbang-bu,” I replied, hoping that was an answer that wouldn’t lead him to arrest us.
His stern face showed no reaction. He fondled Ernie’s badge, then tossed it back. He wriggled his fingers, and I turned over my badge and Katie her passport. Taking his time studying them, he asked, “Wei Gukbang-bu ka?”
Why are you going to the Ministry of National Defense?
This was a little trickier. It was possible that these guys weren’t local troops at all. Maybe General Bok had gotten hold of some of their patches and had them sewn onto the uniforms of his own troops. It would be a good ploy to ferret out those opposing the coup. I decided to make our mission seem as innocuous as possible.
I told him in Korean that we’d gotten stuck in northern Seoul last night during curfew and were supposed to return to our compounds as soon as possible. But we were afraid to go there directly due to the gunfire we’d heard and wanted to stop at the Ministry of National Defense first to make sure it was safe to proceed.
He was surprised at my language ability, though he struggled not to show it. I also knew he was putting on a show for the troops standing behind him. He was the man in charge, and as such, he had to look decisive and all-knowing. My tone, I hoped, had been properly obsequious.
Apparently, it had. He turned to his men, grinning slightly, and then back to us.
“Musop-da?” Are you afraid?
“Aju,” I said. Very.
Then he said, “Tambei isso?”
I knew we had him. The damn thing was that since neither Ernie nor I smoked, we didn’t have a cigarette between us. Katie sensed what was happening. She reached into the folds of her loose jungle jacket and pulled out a pack of Kools. She handed them to me. I in turn handed them to the Sergeant. He returned my badge and Katie’s passport. Sticking the valuable American tobacco in his chest pocket, he stepped back, cradled his M16 rifle in the crook of his arm, and waved us forward.
The cab driver stepped on the gas but had apparently forgotten to put it into first, and we stalled. Still perspiring, he twisted the key in the ignition, grinding metal gears against metal gears, and finally coaxed the little cab into starting. Slowly, we rolled forward.
“You don’t smoke,” I told Katie. “Why’d you have a pack of Kools?”
“Old trick I learned in ’Nam,” she replied. “Always have something with which to offer a bribe.”
“We owe you,” I said.
Ernie snorted.
The Ministry of National Defense was under siege, surrounded by what must’ve been an entire battalion of tanks. Across the street, we crouched behind a window on the third floor of an office building that had been hastily abandoned.
“No way we can get in there,” Ernie said.
“Nor do we want to,” I replied.
“I thought you wanted to tell them about this royal family card Bok’s playing?”
“I do. But we won’t do anybody much good if we’re blown to pieces by a tank round.”
“Don’t worry. They’d use small arms fire on us. They wouldn’t waste a tank round.”
“Reassuring.”
“Thought so.”
Katie crouched next to us, her notebook and pen out. “So what are you guys going to do?”
Ernie turned toward her. “Any suggestions?”
“Yeah. You could help General Bok overthrow the Park Chung-hee regime. It’s brutal, the elections are rigged, and there’s no freedom of speech here. About time somebody kicked them out.”
“No way I’m getting involved in that,” Ernie said. “All I really want to do is convince these jokers to stop shooting at each other. South Korean soldiers killing South Korean soldiers doesn’t do anybody any good.”
Before Ernie finished his sentence, a volley of tank rounds was unleashed. Mortar and brick dust exploded from the ten-foot-high walls surrounding the Ministry. The front gate, made of reinforced steel, twisted like an arthritic claw and folded inward. After another volley, the tanks rolled forward, knocking down the gate, firing at the soldiers inside the guard shack. A half dozen of them ran outside, trying to get away. Mercilessly, the tank pursued, spitting machine gun fire. Rounds hit their mark. One by one the soldiers went down, their backs ripped open, blood spilling into the dirt and dust.
“Bastards,” Ernie said.
Katie peeped over the ledge of the window, wide-eyed.
More tanks poured through the opening, accompanied by crouched infantry soldiers with their rifles pointed straight forward. Automatic fire erupted from within the Ministry. Attacking soldiers went down. More tank fire erupted out of steel barrels, and great gaping explosions of dust and brick and metal smashed into thick protective walls. More rounds spit from second- and third-story annexes flanking the main edifice. More soldiers fell face first onto pavement. More tank treads rolled across twisted metal and fallen bodies. The infantry filtered in past the tanks and fanned out, entering the building from all sides.
Katie gripped my arm. “Isn’t General Crabtree in there?”
“I think so,” I replied. “And Sergeant Major Screech Owl.”
She turned to me. “They’ll be killed!”
I nodded and turned away.
“We can’t just sit here and let them die,” she protested.
“What the hell do you expect us to do?” Ernie said.
“We have to do something.”
“You’re the one who kicked Screech Owl in the balls.”
“I’ve had a change of heart,” she said.
I spotted something. “Look! Over there. Out of that side gate.”
On the western edge of the walled compound a pedestrian gate had been opened, and Korean soldiers were streaming out. Amongst them, identifiable in the pre-dawn light with their height and olive drab uniforms, were General Crabtree and Sergeant Major Screech Owl Tapia. They headed down a side alley near the building we were in.
“Come on!” I yelled. We ran toward a window at the end of the hallway. From there, we could see the gaggle of loyal troops regrouping and one of the Korean officers shouting orders.
What the men on the ground couldn’t see, but we could from our vantage point, was another squad of General Bok’s infantry approaching from the far side. They were about two blocks away, advancing carefully, afraid of an ambush.
“They’ll be trapped!” Katie grabbed my arm again. �
��We have to save them.”
“Come on.” We ran down the cement stairwell and out of the building. Once we emerged onto the narrow street, Ernie didn’t even slow down. He knew that he’d only beat the approaching assault troops if he sprinted at full speed, which he did. When he rounded the corner, we lost sight of him.
By the time Katie and I reached the same intersection, Ernie had spotted Lieutenant General Crabtree and Sergeant Major Screech Owl. They were about a hundred yards away, jogging toward us, Ernie waving them in. Katie punched my arm.
“Look!” she said, pointing down another alley. “Bok’s soldiers.”
There was no time for hesitation. Within seconds, those troops would emerge out of the narrow pathway and take us all into custody, if they didn’t shoot us outright. The alleyway was a few feet up from where we stood, so if Ernie and the other two could reach this corner and sprint down the road we’d come from, they’d have a straight shot at freedom. But if the ROK troops arrived first, they would have a straight shot at all of us, and I had no doubt that they wouldn’t miss at such short range.
“I have to slow them down,” I said.
“How?”
I slipped off my shoulder holster and handed it to Katie along with the .45. “You still have the Luger. Can you use this, too?”
“What do you think I was doing in ’Nam? Knitting?”
“As soon as Ernie and the others reach this corner,” I told her, “get them the hell out of here.”
“What about you?”
Before she could finish the sentence, I was already running toward the mouth of the alleyway. When I entered it, I had my hands straight up and walked directly into the phalanx of General Bok’s ROK Army III Corps troops.
They frisked me, quickly realizing I wasn’t armed.
“What are you doing here?” the lead officer asked me in English.
“I’m lost,” I told him. “I need to go back to my compound.”
He squinted at me, furious. With the back of his hand, he shoved me aside. “E sikki,” he said. “Na ka!”
It seemed rude, ordering me around like a dog. Also, I didn’t particularly like being pushed, but at least I hadn’t been shot. And I’d accomplished what I wanted to do, which was stall them until the others could get out of their way.
