The camp was small-you could walk around it in ten minutes-but it still managed to house the battalion’s three batteries of six guns each. The big howitzers of Alpha and Bravo Batteries pointed to the sky, their barrels snugly sheathed in plastic behind protective bunkers. Charlie Battery was out in the field again but scheduled to return that afternoon.
We heard distant thunder and ran to the chain-link fence. Across the narrow river, rows of dilapidated wooden shacks sat jumbled behind a main street lined with nightclubs and tailor shops.
Charlie Battery rumbled down the two hundred yard strip. A small jeep maintained the lead while six big two-and-a-half ton trucks barreled after it as if trying to run it down. A half dozen 105-millimeter howitzers bounced behind the big trucks like baby elephants trotting behind their mothers.
The men of Charlie Battery stood in the beds of the trucks, shouting, their winter headgear flapping wildly in the wind.
An M-60 machine gun crowned the cab of each truck, partially hidden behind bundles of neatly tied camouflage netting. Rolls of razor-sharp concertina wire, draped over stanchions on either side of the truck bed, swayed lazily with the rattling of the trucks like huge and sinister gypsy earrings.
Some of the villagers of Sonyu-ri waved happily at the unstoppable convoy. Others scurried to get themselves and their children out of the way.
When the Camp Pelham gate guards swung open the big chain-link fence, the men yelled and laughed and the drivers gunned the truck engines. Diesel fumes billowed into the air.
The jeep sped by and headed for the Battery Orderly Room. The truck turned in the other direction to get hosed down at the wash point and topped off with diesel at the fuel point.
We finished our beers and walked down the road. In front of the Orderly Room a disheveled-looking little man rummaged through the back of the jeep trying to locate his gear. I spotted his name tag. Sergeant Pickering, the Chief of the Firing Battery.
“Chief of Smoke,” I said.
He looked up and squinted, a crooked-toothed weasel who hadn’t shaved in a couple of days. “Who are you?”
I showed him my identification. “George Sueño, Criminal Investigation Division. This is my partner, Ernie Bascom.”
He looked at the badge and turned back to his gear. “Why ain’t you wearing a coat and tie?” he asked. “I thought you guys always wore a coat and tie.”
“Not undercover,” Ernie said.
The Chief of Smoke ignored us and continued to rummage through his things, sticking his hand way down into the depths of his dirty green canvas pack.
“Here’s the son of a bitch,” he said. “Kim! Kim! I found it.”
His Korean Army driver came running out of the Orderly Room as the Chief of Smoke wrenched his hand free from the enveloping material. He held up a dirty, unwrapped white bread sandwich and they both beamed. He tore it and handed half to the Korean. They munched contentedly and the driver, smiling, returned to the Orderly Room.
“Kimchi and bologna,” the Chief of Smoke said. “Made it myself.” His mouth was open. The odor of the hot pickled cabbage flushed the diesel fumes from my sinuses. He didn’t offer us any.
“The last field problem you were on,” I said, “you were at Nightmare Range.”
The Chief looked at me, still chewing with his mouth open, but didn’t say anything.
“There was a problem,” I said. “Somebody from your unit went a little too far with one of the girls outside the wire.”
He closed one eye completely. “What do you mean, ‘too far’?”
“He killed her.”
The Chief of Smoke chomped viciously on his sandwich. Cabbage crunched. “Probably deserved it.” He continued to chew, turning his head to squint at the brilliantly outlined hills in the blue-sky distance. “I know my first wife did.”
“Did you notice anything unusual that trip? Anything that might have …”
“Had to be Bogard. Only one mean enough to do it. And he was always messing with those girls out in the field. Didn’t pay ’em, I don’t think. Never had enough money anyway what with all the trouble he’s been in.”
“Trouble?”
“Yeah. Article Fifteens for not making formations, over-purchasing on his ration card, shit like that.”
“Where’s he at now?”
“Don’t know.”
“He’s not in your unit anymore?”
“Well, we’re still carrying him on the books. They say he’s down in the ville.” The Chief of Smoke swallowed the last of his rancid sandwich, turned away from the hills, and looked at me. Bread and bologna still stuck to his teeth. “He’s been AWOL ever since we came back from Nightmare Range.”
She propped her half-naked breasts atop my belt and rubbed her nipples against my stomach. She wore only shorts and a halter top, and her straight black hair swung back as she looked up at me and smiled through a mask of makeup.
“Where you stationed?” she asked.
“Starlight Club,” I said.
She pulled back and punched me in the stomach with her small fist. “You not stationed Starlight Club. I stationed Starlight Club.” She turned to Ernie. “You buy me drink?”
He pulled his beer back a few inches from his mouth and looked at her as if she were out of her mind. She left.
We were leaning against the bar of the Starlight Club and this was the fifth joint we’d been in. The place was packed with GIs, mostly playing pool, and Korean girls, scantily dressed in outfits designed to inflame the male hormonal system. Some of them gyrated their bodies on the small dance floor, moving to the beat of the overpowering rock music. Various colored lights flashed on and off around the club, stabilized by the steady glare of the fluorescent bulbs above the pool tables.
“Tits and ass,” Ernie said.
“Yeah. It’s not easy being a hunter.”
A group of GIs walked in and one girl shuffled and squealed across the room, throwing herself into the arms of a young man with a wispy mustache and blond hair parted in the middle of his head.
The tallest member of the group stood aside and surveyed the club from the doorway. He was exceedingly thin but energy seemed to emanate from his body. Even though he stood still, some part of his anatomy seemed always to be quivering and about to explode into movement.
His name was Duckworth. The Chief of Smoke had pointed him out to us as he sped by in his deuce-and-a-half, the first driver to finish his chores at the wash point and make it to the motor pool. “They’re all into whacko weed. He’ll know where Bogard is.”
Duckworth and his buddies entered the club, mingled with some of the pool players, and soon he was leaning against the jukebox, sparring and flirting with one of the girls. His buddy was still enveloped by a feminine bear hug and had to hold his elbows high to tilt back his beer. The group was in constant motion, all with seemingly little adult motive, like children frolicking on a nursery room floor.
Ernie took a sip of his beer. “Shouldn’t we roust him out back?”
“I don’t think there’s any need. As ornery as the Chief of Smoke said Bogard is, these guys probably will be glad to be rid of him.”
We ordered two more beers. One of the girls walked up, and this time Ernie grabbed her. We weren’t in any hurry.
Duckworth and his buddies around the jukebox yelled into one another’s ears. The wall of music between us stopped any sound from getting through. They took some of the girls with them and walked past the men’s latrine and out the back door.
We gulped down our beers, not even giving the suds time to settle in our stomachs. Ernie let go of his sweet and rotund young girl and followed me out the back door.
The group stood in the mud in the dark and narrow alley. They didn’t move when the light from the club followed us outside, just stared at us with hugely dilated cat’s eyes. A joint came toward me and I reached out my hand. The GI hesitated and looked at Duckworth. When he nodded, the small, burning ember was passed to me.