“Can it, Bascom,” Riley told him. “The Provost Marshal gets a lot of mileage out of these golf dates.”
“Like what?”
“Like briefing the Chief of Staff on your excellent increase in black market arrests.”
“Two days’ worth,” Ernie said.
“You’ll get more.”
“Not today,” I interjected.
Riley glanced at his watch. “The commissary doesn’t close for another hour. You still have time.”
I stood up. “Black marketing isn’t the only crime we have to investigate.”
Riley said, “You’re not dumb enough to go back to Camp Stanley, are you?”
“No,” I said. “You can count on that.”
Ernie and I started out the door.
“Where are you going?” Riley shouted after us.
Neither of us answered.
The Western Corridor is sometimes called the bowling alley.
It is a natural invasion corridor running up and down the spine of the Korean Peninsula, mountains on either side divided by a long lush valley. Armies have trod down it since ancient times: Chinese infantry, Mongol hordes, Manchurian cavalry and, heading the other way, Japanese samurai warriors. Most recently Communist North Korean armored battalions backed up by two hundred thousand of Mao Tse-tung’s “volunteers” streamed down the Western Corridor until the ROK Army and American GIs managed to stop them and push them back at least as far as the Demilitarized Zone, some thirty miles north of Seoul. All in all, the Western Corridor has a colorful history, a history soaked in blood.
There are checkpoints along the Main Supply Route. American GIs and ROK Army soldiers, all holding rifles propped against their hips, all waving with gloved hands for the motorist to slow and then stop, peering into the jeep, checking ID cards, examining vehicle dispatches, then waving us on into the deepening fog-shrouded night. After passing the third Western Corridor checkpoint, there was nothing but countryside surrounding us. In the lowering gloom, I spotted it, a little white sign with an arrow pointing to the right.
“There,” I said. “Sonyu-ri.”
Ernie turned right. A half-mile in, we passed a VD clinic. I knew we were close. Three quarters of a mile further, floodlights shone atop the chain link fence surrounding the small American compound known as RC-4, Recreation Center Four. Beyond that, a neon strip lined the narrow two-lane road: the Sexy Lady Club, the Black Cat Club, the Kimchi Rose Club, the Playgirl Club, the Sonyu River Teahouse. The bars and nightclubs were interspersed with legitimate businesses: Mr. Cho’s Tailor Shop, Aimee’s Brassware Emporium, Fatty Pang’s Chop House. Business girls in short skirts and tight halter tops peered through beaded curtains. Rock and roll blared from tin speakers. Gaggles of GIs wearing blue jeans and sneakers and nylon jackets prowled from bar to bar, sniffing the air like small packs of jackals.
“My kind of village,” Ernie said.
After a quarter mile of non-stop debauchery, a well-lit wooden arch rose into the sky standing like a rainbow above a chain-link fence and a wooden guard shack. The arch was painted white with black lettering that said WELCOME TO CAMP PELHAM, HOME OF THE 2ND OF THE 17TH FIELD ARTILLERY, SECOND TO NONE.
We pulled up to the MP at the guard shack and showed him our dispatch. After checking our identification, he pulled the gate back, creaking on iron rollers, and we coasted into the dimly lit field of Quonset huts known as Camp Pelham.
We’d been here on an earlier case so Ernie knew exactly where to find the Battalion Ops Center. It was a big tin Quonset hut painted olive-drab like all the rest of the buildings on the compound. A fire light shone over the main entrance. Ernie parked on gravel and we climbed out of the jeep. The Staff Duty Officer was Lieutenant Orting. As we explained why we were here, he at first seemed concerned and then proved to be cooperative. Two of the Chiefs of Firing Battery were easily located. One was in his quarters, the other having a few beers with his buddies in the NCO Club. The interviews went smoothly and both seemed to have alibis that would preclude them from having been in Seoul on Saturday night. Once again, we didn’t have time to check out the details of their alibis but, for the moment, we’d take them at face value.
The final Chief of Smoke was from Charlie Battery. His name was Singletary and according to everyone we talked to, he lived off compound with his yobo. They had a couple of kids, we were told.
“A homesteader,” Lieutenant Orting told us. “He’s been here over five years.”
“Five years?” Ernie said. “I thought that was the max.”
Army regulation doesn’t allow any soldier to stay in Korea for more than one year at a time and if you want to stay longer a request for extension must be submitted and approved annually. Five years is the max.
“Singletary is an outstanding soldier,” Lieutenant Orting said. “His sixth year was approved by the Division Commander himself.”
And probably by 8th Army, I thought, but I didn’t say so. These Division soldiers think that God Himself has set up shop in the Division head shed and there’s no higher authority than Headquarters 2nd ID.
He didn’t have the address of Singletary’s hooch. Instead, Lieutenant Orting called the CQ runner, a young Spec 4, and told him to alert Singletary. Before we could object, the young man hatted up and trotted out the door. Lieutenant Orting grabbed a paper and pencil, drew us a map, and handed it to us.
“Singletary lives right off compound,” Orting explained. “He’s always the first in on an alert.”
Ernie studied the map. “It’s right outside the main gate.”
“Hang a left,” Orting said, “a few yards down past the Crazy Mama Club and then follow the path toward Shit River.”
Actually, it was called Sonyu River, but I didn’t correct him.
I stuffed the map into my pocket and we shook Lieutenant Orting’s hand. Ernie and I left the jeep on compound and walked back toward the main gate. Outside, as we walked along the strip, the rock and roll and the shouts of laughter and the cooing of the business girls assaulted our ears. A hint of marijuana smoke wafted on the air.
Ernie gazed admiringly at the long, glittering row of neon. “Everything a GI’s greedy little heart could desire.”
Before we left 8th Army we’d changed into our running-the-ville outfits: blue jeans, sneakers, nylon jackets with fire-breathing dragons on the back. Still, we didn’t blend in with this crowd. Everyone up here knew everyone else. The fact that we were strangers escaped no one’s attention. From deep inside the open doors of the barrooms I felt eyes assessing us, both GI and Korean.
Ernie studied the map. “It’s back here,” he said, pointing.
Behind the bright neon that lined the strip, the night was pitch black. No street lamps, not even any single bulbs that I could see. Only tightly packed tile roofs jumbled on top of one another, gently descending toward the river below.
We found a muddy path. It was only wide enough for us to walk single file. We entered the darkness. Walls made of rotted wood lined the alley. Through cracks, candlelight glimmered, and now I could make out an occasional single light bulb glimmering through oil-papered doors. The pathway veered to the right and then sharply back to the left.
That’s when we saw them, a herd of apes lurking in a jungle. There was no mistaking their height and bulk. GIs. A small squad. Whether they were black or white or Hispanic or Asian was impossible to tell. Like a dying comet, a flaming ember arced toward the mud, sizzled briefly, and died. The stench of burnt marijuana permeated the air.
One of the shadows growled. “Rear echelon mother fuckers.”
Another voice said, “Come to mess with us.” In the distance, yellow bulbs glimmered atop the concertina wire-topped fence that surrounded Camp Pelham.
Then one of them stepped forward and shouted, “Don’t mess with my people!”
In the darkness, I bumped into Ernie. If I’d thought fast enough, I could’ve grabbed him and told him not to say anything. But I wasn’t fast enough.