“No,” Bufford shouted. “Assaulting a fellow MP out in the ville, for no apparent reason.”
Ernie groaned in disgust. “I bopped Weatherwax in the nose,” Ernie told him, “for a damn good reason. You ordered him to follow us. To keep tabs on us. To find out what we were doing.” Ernie pointed his finger at Bufford’s nose and took a step closer. “And that’s interfering with an official investigation.”
I dropped my hands from the top of my head and grabbed Ernie’s elbow, keeping him from walking into that loaded. 45.
“You don’t know that,” Bufford said.
“I don’t know that you sent him,” Ernie said, his voice taking on a mocking tone. “And maybe Weatherwax likes to spend his spare time following CID agents around because it makes for interesting entries in his diary. Give me a break, Bufford. You’re so damn transparent. Go ahead. Shoot! Do with our bodies the same thing you did with Private Druwood’s body. Pretend we jumped off the obstacle course tower and killed ourselves.”
By now, a few MPs had gathered in the reception area. They were elbowing one another, pointing, mumbling amongst themselves. Bufford lowered his gun and looked back at them and shouted at them to be at ease.
That’s all Ernie needed.
Before I could tighten my grip, he launched himself across the wood-slat floor at Warrant Officer Fred Bufford. Bufford heard the footsteps pounding, turned, and started to raise the. 45 but Ernie leaped at him. The two men crashed backward into the crowd of MPs.
All hell broke loose. Men were shouting and cursing and a few of them tried to pull Ernie off Bufford but failed. Ernie continued to pound away at him unmercifully. One of the MPs, thankfully, had the presence of mind to grab Bufford’s. 45. Kneeling on Bufford’s skinny forearm, he yanked the weapon out of Bufford’s grip. I ran forward, wrapped my arms around Ernie’s waist, and pulled with all my might. For a moment, Ernie held onto Bufford’s neck but then he let go and we tumbled backward onto our butts. Just as I was rising to my feet, someone shouted “Attention!”
Suddenly, all the MPs stood ramrod straight, their arms held tightly at their sides. Except for Fred Bufford who still lay on the floor, clutching his throat, trying to breathe. Apparently, Ernie’s headbutt had knocked the air out of him. I helped Ernie up. Colonel Stanley X. Alcott, in a civilian coat and open-collared shirt, strode into our midst.
“What the hell? Bufford, are you okay?”
Without being told, two MPs knelt and helped Fred Bufford sit upright. One of them yanked upwards on Bufford’s armpits to give his lungs maximum inhaling capacity. After a few seconds, he started to breath normally. He pointed at Ernie.
“He came at me,” he told Colonel Alcott.
“After your man here,” I said, pointing at Bufford, “pulled his. 45. For nothing more than standing inside the briefing room and reading this map.”
Alcott glanced back at Bufford.
“No, sir. I was arresting him for the assault on Staff Sergeant Weatherwax.”
Alcott glanced back at me. “That wasn’t good.”
“Weatherwax was following us,” I said. “Interfering with an official investigation. He had it coming.”
“That’s not what I heard,“” Alcott said. “I heard you two were drinking beer and chasing women.”
So Weatherwax had, in fact, been reporting his observations up the chain of command.
“It doesn’t matter what we were doing,” I replied. “Weatherwax shouldn’t have been following us. Besides, your man here,” I pointed at the still-seated Bufford, “failed to put in his serious incident report that Corporal Jill Matthewson had been involved in the Chon Un-suk traffic fatality.”
“That has nothing to do with her disappearance!” Bufford shouted.
“How the hell do you know that?” Ernie roared out the question so loudly that everyone, including the armed MPs, took a half a step backwards. “You been cherry-picking information ever since you arrived in Division, Bufford. Whatever, in your opinion, might have a chance of making the Division look bad, you exclude from your reports. Don’t you understand? That’s dangerous! Lives can be lost. For all we know Corporal Matthewson has been kidnapped and is being raped and tortured as we speak. And you want to dick around and tell me that something as big as the Chon Un-suk death has nothing whatever to do with her disappearance? Maybe some enraged Korean decided to take revenge for Chon Un-suk’s death and right now Jill Matthewson is paying the price.”
That was a long speech coming from Ernie and it was a measure of how much Division had pissed him off. I don’t think Ernie really believed that Jill Mathewson had been kidnapped, but it was a possibility and every possibility had to be taken into consideration. A few of the MPs started to mumble. Ernie was right about the danger of excluding information and they knew it.
“And now,” Ernie continued, “you pull a gun on me just because me and my partner are in here doing our jobs.” Ernie took a step closer to Bufford. “Well, I’ll tell you something, Mr. Fred Bufford. Me and my partner are going to do our jobs and I don’t give a shit if you or the provost marshal or the entire goddam Division tries to stop us. Whether you like it or not, Corporal Jill Matthewson was a soldier and an MP and we’re going to find her. We all have to stick together, or we’ll all go down together because there’s a lot of ass-holes out there and if we don’t stop them nobody else will!”
The MPs were mumbling louder now, in total agreement with my partner, Ernie Bascom.
Colonel Alcott must’ve known that he was losing control of the situation so he gestured for silence. As he did so, Bufford piped up.
“They were tired,” Bufford said.
“Who was tired, Bufford?” Ernie asked.
“Privates Elliot and Korman. They were ferrying cargo back from the Western Corridor. They’d been driving in the dark and under poor road conditions. When they approached those girls on the side of the road, they weren’t expecting such a big crowd. The truck slid, one of the girls was killed. It was an accident.”
Most of the MPs murmured in assent.
This was news to me. I’d assumed that at seven thirty in the morning, the truck had been leaving Camp Casey. Instead, they’d been returning to Camp Casey, with cargo no less. What sort of cargo would you pick up in the middle of the night? I needed to confirm what I’d just heard.
“The two drivers,” I said, “Elliot and Korman, left Camp Casey in the middle of the night, drove to the Western Corridor, and then were back in Tongduchon by zero-seven-thirty?”
Alcott shot Bufford a look, but the taller man was too busy talking to notice.
“Yes. They were exhausted. They were good MPs, but exhausted. You can’t blame them.”
And they were also MPs. Why hadn’t that been in the safety report? Or if it had, I’d missed it. Attention to detail, what the army always harps on. I cursed myself for not being more alert. But the more I thought about it, the more certain I was it hadn’t been mentioned anywhere in the safety report. It must’ve been in the court-martial transcripts but I had yet to read those.
Colonel Alcott found his voice. “At ease, goddam it. At ease!”
Everyone shut up.
“Bufford, you apologize to these two men for pulling a gun on them. Bascom, you’re going to see the desk sergeant and fill out a complete report on what happened between you and Weatherwax last night. Whether or not charges will be brought is still an open question. You’ll be informed later. Sueno, you make sure that Bascom here completes the report, answers all follow-up questions, and then and only then will you two be free to go. Is that understood?
“Understood, sir,” I replied.
“That’s it then. Bufford?”
An MP handed Warrant Officer Fred Bufford his. 45, butt first. Bufford grabbed it by the handle and, as he rose to his feet, slipped it into the leather holster hanging off his bony hip.