War Women, page 9
“You better believe they do,” Strange said.
“So how did she get past that?”
“The storage hold. Full of ice to be chopped up and preserve the catch once they start taking on fish. She and her family carved out little caverns in the bottoms of the big blocks. She held on to the baby, and she and her mother and the two kids lay down while the fishermen dropped canvas and then straw mats on top, nice and cozy like, along with rubber tubes so they could breathe. Then they fitted the ice over her. When the inspectors came aboard, they looked around, but they didn’t lift up the blocks. Both the baby and the smallest girl were almost dead by the time the fishermen made it out to the open sea and finally pulled Yoon-ah and her family out of the hold, but everybody eventually recovered.”
“And they sailed toward South Korea?”
“Yeah. Slipping past ROK Navy patrol boats in the middle of the night. Eventually the ship made it to shore and let them off at an old broken-down pier.”
“And the fishermen?”
“She’s not sure what happened to them. But she hopes they made it back to international waters, continued their fishing, and eventually returned to Hamhung with a hold full of seafood.”
“But she doesn’t know.”
“She never will.”
Ernie leaned forward on the steering wheel, flashed his bright lights, and then stepped on the gas and swerved around a slow-moving convoy of ROK Army trucks.
“So why’d these North Korean fishermen risk their lives just for this Yoon and her family?”
“Because her late husband had risked his life for them. On more than one occasion. She tells me that people up there never talk about it because they’re afraid, but there’s a silent resistance to the government, conducted by like-minded people almost as if by telepathy. They don’t do anything revolutionary, exactly, nothing that directly opposes the government. They just look out for one another.”
“Based on old family ties?” I asked.
“Yeah. Some of those people have been in the same fishing villages since way before the Korean War. Generations before.”
“So she made it to freedom,” Ernie said.
“Yes. Once she left that pier, she and her family surrendered themselves at the first KNP station they found.” The Korean National Police. “After a few months of debriefing and rehabilitation, they were allowed to enter South Korean society.”
“And then she met you.”
“That’s right.”
“What a setback,” Ernie said.
-8-
The alert had been called on a Friday, and by Saturday out at the new base camp, everybody was grousing about having to set up tents and suffer the intermittent rain and put up with the long cold nights when we should’ve been enjoying a weekend in the neon-spangled environs of Itaewon’s nightclub district. Instead, with each step, we were forced to hoist rubberized overshoes out of sucking muck. To top it off, Ernie and I had landed the extra duty of the midnight-to-four perimeter guard.
Just when we thought things couldn’t get worse, they did. Saturday afternoon, Staff Sergeant Riley found us in the mess tent, standing at a five-foot-high feeding table and shoveling something resembling mashed potatoes and meatloaf into our mouths.
“Chief of Staff wants to talk to you two,” he said. “Now!”
Ernie finished the last of his spuds, chewed, swallowed, and said, “What’d we do?”
“It’s what you didn’t do.”
“Like?”
“You’ll find out when you get there.”
With a wad of bread, I wiped the last bit of gravy out of my mess kit, wishing the flaccid white dough were a wedge of tortilla de maiz and the gravy were a dollop of pico de gallo. Shoving such wistfulness out of my mind, I dropped my spoon inside the metal kit, fit the two sides together, and clicked shut the clasp. There were big corrugated drums of hot soapy dish water outside with wooden-handled wire brushes and a couple of tubs of rinse water beyond that, but there was so much crud already floating in the insipid fluid that I decided I’d clean my eating utensils later. Hooking it back to my web belt, I told Riley, “That’s a lot of rank to be talking to a couple of low-level schmucks like us. Wouldn’t the Provost Marshal want to talk to us first?”
“He’s there. With the Chief of Staff. Waiting on your sorry butts.”
On the walk over, Ernie said, “Knock off the crap, Riley. What in the hell is this about?”
“It’s about your girlfriend.”
“Which one?”
“The one whose camera you were supposed to confiscate and stomp on.”
Katie Byrd Worthington.
Riley continued, “Somebody got ahold of an advance copy of tomorrow’s issue of the Oversexed Observer.”
Ernie groaned.
I did too, inwardly, feeling the noxious mess hall meal bubble ominously at the base of my esophagus.
We were made to wait outside the command tent for about twenty minutes. I spent the time using a stick to wedge crusted mud out from the ridged soles of my combat boots. Finally, a female lieutenant peeked through canvas flaps and motioned for us to enter. We did. Naked bulbs were strung from rafters, and the flooring was an expanse of wooden pallets. In the center on a metal folding chair sat Brigadier General Hubert N. Frankenton, Chief of Staff of the 8th United States Army. Protecting him like a barricade was a long green field table stacked with various documents and folders and three-ring binders. Our boss, Colonel Walter P. Brace, 8th Army’s Provost Marshal, somberly slid some of the paperwork toward the Chief of Staff.
Ernie and I were about to salute when General Frankenton—the man Katie Byrd Worthington called “Frankie Baby”—motioned for us to take a seat. We did, angling our chairs toward the two men.
“Tomorrow’s news today,” General Frankenton said, and slid an advance copy of the Overseas Observer across the tabletop.
Ernie and I studied the front page. To our surprise, there was no semi-nude photo of General Frankenton. Instead, a group of female soldiers was arrayed in front of an antiaircraft gun, glaring at the camera and giving the finger to a huge red-and-white cloverleaf patch—the symbol of the 8th United States Army.
The headline blared: war women.
The byline, as expected, said Katie Byrd Worthington.
I started to read the article, but General Frankenton interrupted and said, “Do you know where that bitch is?”
Ernie and I looked at each other. Then I turned to the general.
“She keeps a room at the Bando Hotel,” I said, “in downtown Seoul.”
Colonel Brace broke in, “We’ve already searched there, sent an MP patrol over this morning. They say she checked out yesterday.”
“No forwarding address?”
“None.”
Ernie and I exchanged another glance, shrugged, and then I said, “No idea, sir.”
He studied us. “Do you think you could find her?”
Again, like Laurel and Hardy, Ernie and I gaped at each other. And once again, Ernie let me speak. Although I almost expected him to grimace and rub the top of his head.
“I suppose so, sir,” I answered. “How quickly, I’m not sure.”
General Frankenton had grown impatient. He checked his wristwatch. “How about by twenty-two hundred hours? You will find her skinny little ass, slap her in handcuffs, and have her thrown into the Yongsan Compound lockup before midnight? Does that sound doable?”
I gulped. He didn’t wait for an answer.
“We’re pulling this rag off the shelves of the PX.” He leaned forward, snatched the newspaper out of my hands, and then raised the loose pulp of the Overseas Observer and shook it in the air. “Not one military base in this command will be selling this tomorrow. I might catch hell from some bleeding-heart congressman or those blood-sucking civil liberty lawyers at the ACLU but, frankly, I don’t give a shit. A story like this”—he flicked the paper with his forefinger—“is detrimental to the good order and discipline of the Eighth United States Army. And right now, those North Korean sons of bitches are watching our every move. They hate these joint South Korean–US exercises, and they hate them with a passion. They claim that Focus Lens is ‘provocative.’” He paused for a breath. “Provocative, my ass. Them having seven hundred thousand soldiers massed along with artillery and battalion after battalion of tanks shoved right up along the DMZ, that’s provocative. Not us. We’re just trying to make sure that, if and when the time comes, we can defend this goddamn country from their Commie aggression. And then this . . . this . . .” He struggled for the word. Finally it erupted out of his mouth. “This bitch comes along and tries to destroy the cohesiveness of our forces by lying about a few rapes and assaults that have already been properly dealt with.”
Rapes and assaults? Neither Ernie nor I knew what he was talking about.
“So you two,” General Frankenton said, “you don’t just have to try to find her. You have to get your asses in gear and find her tonight. Take her into custody.” He waved both hands in the air. “I don’t care how you do it, just do it. And then I want her held at the Yongsan Compound MP Station, like I said, until I have time to go down there and explain the facts of life to her.”
Katie Byrd Worthington was a civilian. Her legal fate fell well outside of 8th Army’s jurisdiction. The US military could pull her press pass and deny her access to our bases—if we had justification—but arresting her would be strictly illegal. Illegal not only under American law, but also Korean law. Colonel Brace, who knew this only too well, remained silent.
General Frankenton seemed to be reading our minds. “Oh, I know what you’re thinking. You’ll get in hot water for arresting a civilian. So use that buddy of yours downtown. That Korean cop who’s always asking for your help. What’s his name?”
“Mr. Kill,” I said.
“Yeah, him. Just tell him I don’t want this Katie Byrd broad getting murdered. Not yet, anyway.” He looked back and forth between us. “Any questions?”
Ernie remained quiet. He’d been in the army long enough to know better than to mouth off to someone as powerful as the Chief of Staff of the 8th United States Army, even when he was issuing an illegal order. General Frankenton glared at us. Searching, I thought, for any hint of insurrection.
Finally, I said, “No questions, sir.”
“Good. Take this piece of shit,” he said, shoving the copy of the Overseas Observer back toward us. “And when you find this skinny-ass so-called reporter, you notify my adjutant immediately. Is that understood?”
“Understood, sir.”
He flicked his wrist, and we were dismissed.
“Is he out of his freaking mind?” Ernie asked.
We were in the jeep, our gear already loaded in the back, driving through lengthening shadows on the narrow country road heading west toward Seoul. A convoy of ROK Army tanks approached, the girth of the massive war machines so wide that they enveloped most of the blacktop. Ernie pulled to safety on the side of the road, stopped, and turned off the jeep’s engine.
As the armored behemoths rumbled past us, he said, “If we arrest Katie Byrd, we could go to prison. It’s a federal offense.”
“Even if he ordered us to do it?”
“Even if. It’s a crime to carry out an illegal order.”
“I don’t remember them teaching us that in Basic Training.”
“It’s not something the army likes to advertise.”
They also don’t teach American soldiers about the Nuremberg trials after World War II, where the legal precedent was established that saying, “I was just following orders,” wasn’t a valid defense.
“So we’re in a bind,” I said. “But look at the bright side. At least we got out of the midnight-to-four perimeter guard.”
Ernie thought about it. “There’s that.”
“Do you think we should notify the base camp security officer that we won’t be there tonight?”
“Nah. He’ll figure it out when we don’t show.”
The last tank in the convoy passed by, and the thunder of the iron treads faded into blissful silence. A magpie flitted across the road. Ernie started the jeep’s engine again and pulled back out onto pavement. We drove through winding mountain passes toward the glimmering twilight that hovered above my own personal Oz: what I thought of as the Emerald City of Seoul.
Ten minutes later, Ernie asked, “Did you read that article yet?”
“I can’t now. I get carsick.”
“This isn’t a car, it’s a jeep.”
“Even worse.” The independent suspension in jeeps meant that they wobbled more than regular cars, or so it seemed to me.
“So what did old Katie Byrd come up with that pissed off Frankie Baby so much?”
“Whatever it is, it’s worse than being caught half-naked dancing with a bunch of kisaeng.”
“I wouldn’t mind if she put a picture like that of me in the newspaper.”
“Nobody gives a shit if you’re dancing with kisaeng.”
“They do too.”
“Who does?”
“The kisaeng. They like me.”
“How do you know?”
“They tell me so.”
“They say that to every customer.”
“They laugh at my jokes.”
“They probably don’t even understand your jokes.”
“You’re bursting my bubble.”
“Don’t cry.”
“I’ll try not to.”
I pulled the Overseas Observer out of my jacket pocket, unfolded it, and began to read.
“Pull over,” I told Ernie, “in case I have to barf.”
“Go ahead and barf. I’ll just hose it down when we get to the motor pool.”
It was dark enough now that I had to use a flashlight to read the article. As we rolled ever closer to the outskirts of Seoul, Ernie asked, “What does it say?”
“Katie Byrd really outdid herself with this one.”
“Apparently.”
“It’s about this transportation unit. They have a lot of female soldiers. You know, because technically they’re not a combat unit.”
“Unless they get shot at.”
“Right. They function along the DMZ, and in an actual war-footing situation, they would perform close support to various combat units. Like that antiaircraft battery that Katie Byrd had them pose in front of.”
“They look like tough broads.”
“They oughta be. According to the article, they spend more than half their time out in the field doing various combat support operations. River crossing, mostly.”
“Across the Imjin?”
“Yes.”
Ernie whistled. The Imjin River flows south out of North Korea, crosses the Military Demarcation Line, and then runs parallel to the DMZ west toward the Yellow Sea. It’s known for its narrow channels, rapid currents, and frigid water. Water that’s close to freezing even during the summertime, since it’s composed mostly of mountainous ice-melt.
“If you fall off that river-crossing barge into the Imjin,” Ernie said, “you’re toast. Even Mark Spitz would be dragged under.”
No matter how good a swimmer you are, when your body temperature plunges and you’re being pulled down and around and backward by colliding currents, nobody expects you to last more than a few seconds in the turbulent waters of the Imjin.
“So what’s their beef?” Ernie asked.
“According to the article, they’re being sexually assaulted.”
“How serious?”
“Very,” I told him. “One of them was beaten and raped. Ended up at the 121 Evac. Her injuries were so severe that she was shipped off to Tripler Medical in Hawaii. She’s still there, according to this.”
Ernie whistled. “How come we never heard about it?”
“You got me.” When the brass wants to keep something quiet, they classify the incident as confidential, and it doesn’t appear amongst our regular crime reports.
“So was somebody arrested?”
“An attacker was identified, but according to Katie Byrd, the army claims there’s not enough evidence to charge him with anything.”
“The old consensual sex thing?”
“Yeah. Apparently, she gave her consent for him to beat the crap out of her.”
“Typical,” Ernie said.
“Sure.”
“Are the attacks still going on?”
“Not anymore. According to this, these war women don’t go anywhere alone, and they arm themselves. If not with rifles, with bayonets and clubs and mace.”
“Mace is illegal in the army.”
“Don’t I know it. Like your switchblade and your brass knuckles.”
“That’s different. I’m in law enforcement.”
We crossed the slow-flowing Han River, which led us into the environs of Seoul. After passing Walker Hill on our right, Ernie followed Hangang Road, until he swerved north toward Dongbinggo, and shortly thereafter we reached our destination of Yongsan Compound.
“First we change out of these monkey suits,” Ernie said, meaning our combat fatigues. “Then we head down to the Bando to find Katie Byrd.”
“General Frankenton said she checked out.”
“Which meant that she planned on going somewhere.”
“Where?”
“We’re about to find out.”
“If the MPs couldn’t beat a forwarding address out of the Bando Hotel staff, what makes you think we can?”
“Brains,” Ernie said.
“Whose brains?”
“Yours,” he told me.
“Mine?”
“Yeah. I’m sure you’ll think of something.”
About five minutes later, I did.
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