Instead, Ernie stepped forward and said, “Fuck your people.”
And then something flew at us from out of the dark.
Ernie dodged and launched himself at the pack of men, as if he were born to assault vermin. One by one, the GIs stepped back, shadowed faces registering surprise, resentment. I hurried after Ernie down the alley, scowling, my shoulders hunched, my fists clenched but luckily none of the men reacted. They were too startled by Ernie’s bold action. We scurried toward where the alley opened on the pedestrian walkway and then turned to parallel the narrow channel of the Sonyu River. It wasn’t much of a river, nothing more than a creek really, running about knee-deep through clay. We were clear of danger, or so it seemed.
Ernie marched down the path, whispering over his shoulder to me, “pussies.” Just as he said that something clattered out of the darkness-a chunk of plaster, or a brick. It tumbled through the air and landed ineffectually in the stream, splashing against pebbles.
They hurtled down the alley, the entire pack of them, emerging out of darkness into moonlight. Some of them held what looked like clubs in their hands. Ernie swiveled and crouched, scrabbling in the creek bed until found what he wanted-a rock the size of his head, which he tossed at them. I scrambled toward a chunk of driftwood.
“Use your forty-five,” Ernie said, pulling out his brass knuckles, slipping them on splayed fingers. The GIs kept running toward us, screaming like banshees.
“Not yet,” I said.
One of them plowed into me. I absorbed the shock, sidestepped, swung my driftwood bat and clunked him on the head. He went down. Another came at me and I swung again, missing. And then he was inside my defenses, clawing at my face. I warded him off and popped him with a left jab and then a sharp right. As he staggered, another GI flung himself on me. We grunted and wrestled and struggled, ankle-deep into the muddy creek, until finally a voice bellowed out of the darkness.
“At ease!”
Reflexively, I froze, holding my fist cocked in mid-air, my left hand still clutching the ripped shreds of somebody’s shirt. Everyone else froze also. In the middle of a fight, in the middle of a blood ritual familiar to every young man, we froze. Why? It was our training. Each one of us had spent hours responding to shouted orders-on the parade field, during physical training, as part of combat simulations-and when a command was bellowed at us with enough conviction, enough un-self-questioning authority suffusing the voice, all of us-me, Ernie, and the nameless GIs hassling us-immediately responded to the order.
A pair of combat boots tromped rhythmically through the mud.
“Who’s that?” the same voice shouted. “Is that you, Quigley?” When there was no answer the voice said, “Is that you, Conworth? What the hell you doing back here? Smoking that shit again? Let me see your face.”
A flashlight shone. The pale, beard-stubbled face of the GI called Conworth stood illuminated in the light. Hairy nostrils. Blood-shot eyes.
“What’d I tell you about that shit?” the man holding the flashlight asked. “Didn’t I tell you about getting burned in the next piss test?” Thick black fingers gently slapped the white face. “Didn’t I?”
“You told me, Sarge.”
“And still you come out here smoking that reefer.” The light lowered and then rose back to the face. “You taking any other kinda shit?”
“Nothing, Sarge.”
The light switched to the next GI, this one with a longish face the color of swirled milk chocolate.
“And you, Quigley? You out here thinking you’re going to kick some rear echelon ass? What I tell you about fighting? Come on, what I tell you?”
“You said to take it to the gym, Sarge.”
“That’s right. They got gloves down there. You practice hard enough maybe you get out of the artillery into one of those Special Service units. Didn’t I tell you that?”
“You told me, Sarge.”
“All right.” The light lowered to the mud. “Now apologize to these two gentlemen.” No one said anything. “They come all the way up here from Seoul just to do something good and you treat them like this. Come on, now. Apologize.”
A few surly voices mumbled something that sounded vaguely like the word “Sorry.”
“Anybody hurt? Anybody need to go to the aid station?” When no one responded, the man with the flashlight said, “All right now. Nobody has an overnight pass. I know that. Get your butts out of here and back to the barracks. And put down that reefer. You hear me?”
Again, a few more mumbles. Something like, “We hear you.”
Their heads down, hands shoved deep into their pockets, the GIs filed past us. Five of them, I counted. There were a few cuts and bruises and at least one of them would wake up tomorrow with a serious knot on his head, but apparently there were no serious injuries.
When they were out of sight, the man with the flashlight said, “How about you two? Either one of you hurt?”
“Not a chance,” Ernie said. “Lucky for them you stopped us when you did.”
In the reflected light, a large black face smiled wryly. “Yeah, they lucky. Come on then, follow me.”
He turned and, fanning the beam of the flashlight in front of him, tromped off down the pathway. Ernie and I followed. The narrow walkway rounded a bend and the floodlights from Camp Pelham suddenly illuminated our way. The man in front switched off his flashlight and kept walking, head down.
“Lucky you came along,” Ernie told him, repeating himself, still angry. “I was about to kick me some serious ass.”
The man didn’t respond. He was thick-shouldered and broad-hipped and walked with a pronounced bow-leggedness; it would be impossible to knock him off his center of gravity. He wore fatigue pants and combat boots but no headgear and only a green t-shirt covering his upper torso.
At a wooden gate facing the river, he stopped and knocked and shouted out, “Rodney Ohma.” Rodney’s Mother.
Footsteps pounded on earth. A small door in the gate creaked open. The man motioned with his flashlight for us to enter.
“Who the hell are you?” Ernie asked.
The man seemed surprised. “I’m Singletery. The CQ runner told me you was looking for me.”
“That’s why you came looking for us?” I asked.
“Dangerous town,” Singletery said. His face kept its flat, earnest expression as he spoke. There was no hint of irony in his voice. Immediately, I understood why the officer corps thought so highly of Sergeant First Class Singeltery and why his tour in Korea had been extended beyond five years. He knew how to handle the troops, which was more than most of the officer corps could say, and he got the job done without the customary smirk of superiority or taunting tone of voice that many NCOs used to mask their resentment of authority.
Ernie crouched through the small door first. I followed.
It was a surprisingly large courtyard for the crowded village of Sonyu-ri. The wall on the left was lined with earthenware kimchi pots and the wall on the right featured two cement-walled byonso, outdoor toilets. One wooden door was slashed with black paint spelling yo, woman, and the other nam, man.
In the center of the courtyard was a small swing set, rusty but sturdy with shiny new bolts at the metal joints. In front of us were two hooches forming an L shape and running along their front was a low, varnished wooden porch. In the awning overhead, bright bulbs shone, illuminating the entire scene. Behind the porch some of the oil-papered doors had been slid open. A small pack of children squatted on a warm ondol floor watching cartoons with various anthropomorphic creatures squawking and growling in high-pitched Korean.
A woman emerged from one of the hooches. She was Korean, wearing a thick woolen housedress, long, unkempt hair sweeping back from a high forehead. She was a big woman for a Korean, husky. She flashed us a crooked smile that moved only the lower half of her long face and then she bowed slightly, motioning for us to enter the hooch opposite the one where the children were watching television.