Amid deafening, earth-shattering noise, dust, and screams that signaled the NKA’s advance on his sector, a strange calm visited Tae. It was as if now that the worst, certainly his worst, prediction had come true, a great weight was slipping from him. Now, whatever the danger, the terrible, nerve-eating suspense of all his years on the DMZ was finally over. His persistent requests that U.S. radar stations not be lit up at night against the American assertion that the whole point was to let the North see what they were up against, his part in the long, hard battle, almost lost, against Carter’s intention to pull out altogether from Korea — all had been to no avail. It was the end.
“Sir!” The lieutenant was pointing outside.
Tae turned his hopeless gaze from the turbulent sky to the brown, dusty window of his office. Across the white cement strip that marked the old demarcation line and where several U.S. marine guards lay dead, he saw NKA assault troops, green-mustard-splotched figures fanning out a hundred yards off, encircling the hut. He cocked the M-60 and opened the canvas bag of grenades, motioning to the lieutenant to help himself. The lieutenant, a much younger man in his early thirties, was drained of color, a mere ghost in khaki, trying to talk, his throat dry as leather with fear. Tae adjusted the sights, knowing this was it — as ready as he ever would be. All the names of the ROK’s informers were in Seoul headquarters, Tae keeping only situation reports from the forward OPs in his sector. The names of the ROK’s top five counterinsurgency agents, two each for Pusan in the southeast and Kwangju in the southwest, one for Taegu, were in his head — too important to put on any piece of paper. Not that they’d seemed to do much to thwart NKA sabotage. So intense was his calm that Tae felt as if he would momentarily nod off even as the lieutenant, almost apoplectic with fear, continued racing from window to window as if a different view would present a more comforting reality. The thing that kept Tae from total surrender to the impending catastrophe was the thought of his family.
There was a crash of glass. The lieutenant spun around and fired a long burst at the far window, the hut ringing with the sound of the bullets piercing the corrugated metal. It hadn’t been the NKA at all but a piece of loose guttering giving way. The lieutenant, sweating profusely, tried to stuff more grenades into his pockets, fumbling, dropping two, scrabbling frantically for them under the desk as if they were gold. Tae felt sorry for him, but it was the detached feeling of an observer, as one felt for a trapped fish, that is, until the major thought once more how neither of them would see family again, of how none of those trapped would ever see loved ones again — unless they could somehow hold. Hold until the U.S. Air Force out of Japan two hundred miles to the east, out of the Yellow Sea to the west, out of anywhere, could launch air strikes on either side of the DMZ and drop ammunition and supplies to the beleaguered troops until ground relief was possible. It was a fantasy for his sector and he knew it, but any delay he and the lieutenant could inflict on the NKA might save someone further down the line.
Outside there was an increase in the din of the battle all through the joint security area, clouds of dust from grenades exploding — whose, he couldn’t tell. He caught a glimpse of a mortar being set up two hundred yards off, opened up with his M-60, and saw the bullets kicking up dirt about the mortar crew. The NKA soldiers disappeared in a small depression. For a second or two all Tae could hear was the steady thumping of artillery. Then came the high-pitched rattle of AK-74s, their rounds going too high to do any damage, only raking the hut’s eaves but frightening the lieutenant very badly. The next bursts were lower but still too high to be dangerous. Next Tae could hear the pomp… pomp… pomp of either T-55s’ or lighter PT-76s’ multiple grenade ejectors spitting out smoke bombs that quickly covered the entire joint security area with a dense white cloud. The NKA platoon nearest the hut was obviously waiting for one of the tanks to save them the bother and simply roll through the Quonset — probably not even bothering to waste a shell.
For some inexplicable reason, Tae found himself noting the time, seven minutes to ten, and it struck him how it was an illusion that such situations as he was now in take a long time to resolve, that, in fact, most of the firefights over the relatively open ground would be over quickly — it was only in the hills and mountains, where the terrain lent itself naturally to defense, that a single engagement could stretch into hours, days, and even months. He heard a flapping noise, then more thunder in the distance — artillery or real, he couldn’t tell. It began raining heavily and the flapping noise ceased. It had been the huge 100:2 scale map of Korea in the hut’s briefing room, shredded by the wind but now sodden with rain and flattened against the wall, a large strip, where the Yalu River had marked the border between China and North Korea, missing.
“They’re gone!” said the colleague in astonishment. “I don’t see anything mov—”
“Soryong?”
It was coming from where die NKA had set up the mortar, but like the lieutenant, Tae couldn’t see anything, and there was something odd about the voice. For a moment Tae’s ears, ringing from the sounds of battle, couldn’t tell what it was.
“Tae Soryong! Major Tae!”
“How…” began the astonished lieutenant. “How do they know your name?”
“Everyone knows my name,” said Tae.
The lieutenant wasn’t sure whether to laugh or to be more terrified than he was, for it suddenly dawned on him that in the battle swirling about them, presumably all along the DMZ, this brief pause about the lone Quonset hut might have been a conscious decision by the NKA. They wanted Tae. Tae admitted it was possible. It would explain the poor shooting, the AK-74s going high into the hut — merely to keep heads down until the political officer reached their position. But how about the roof? the lieutenant asked Tae. “The mortar shell?”
“A lucky shot,” said Tae. “Or unlucky. Depends on your point of view.”
The NKA officer’s voice was starting up again, and Tae realized what was strange about it — it was coming over a battery-operated megaphone, or some kind of loudspeaker mounted on a vehicle. The voice was explaining in English to any U.S. or ROK soldier within or without the hut that the Army of the Democratic People’s Republic had no wish to hurt Major Tae. They simply wanted to talk to him. “Comrade to comrade.” And if his friends cared about him, and themselves, they would stop “all resistance.” It was all quite hopeless anyway, the voice told them — the entire sector was surrounded.
“Give us the major, Comrades! There will be a big reward. The major will be safe. Otherwise…”the voice warned, it would be “very bad” for everyone.
Inside the Quonset the lieutenant laughed nervously. “I could earn a few won,” he said, adding just as quickly that, of course, he didn’t mean it — it was only a joke. Tae nodded understandingly. He knew it was a joke.
Tae heard something clattering above them on the roof and lifted the M-60, ready to fire.