"The top jail" confining us was a standard prison house surrounded by a high stone wall capped with rolls of barbed wire. Inside the jail it was dark, cold, and damp; the cells were guarded by GIs around the clock. All the new arrivals were shut in solitary confinement here. We were not allowed to stand up or lie down in the daytime. All day long each of us had to sit on a reed mat, four by seven feet, that almost covered his entire cell floor. I was given a tattered blanket, which I wrapped around my legs during the day. Having nothing else to do, I often rubbed the wounded area in my thigh to help the blood circulate.
I was afraid I might develop arthritis in such a damp, cold place, so I often sat on my heels. Some guards would snarl at me when they found me in this posture, and would order me to sit down fully on the mat. Sometimes when they were not around, I would do a few squats.
Although we were "high-ranking prisoners" now, our food was the same – two barley balls a day, with a ladle of soy sauce soup in which sometimes floated a few bits of cabbage leaves or mustard greens. In a corner of my cell sat a toilet pail with a lid on it; the pail was collected every morning by a Korean man. There was no lamp in my one-windowed room, so as soon as dusk fell, I had to go to bed with my head on my shoes stacked together as a pillow. The cell was teeming with fleas, which would torment me viciously until around midnight, after which they'd subside. I guessed they must have become sluggish after they were engorged. But little by little I grew accustomed to them and could go to sleep soon after I lay down.
My enthusiasm about the collective struggle had begun to wane. At heart I was starting to doubt the wisdom of abducting General Bell. True, we had created a piece of international news and provided ammunition for the Korean and the Chinese governments, but at what cost? Our living conditions had definitely deteriorated, and hundreds of men in Compound 76 had been killed or wounded. Why hadn't we thought about the consequences beforehand? Was any news story worth so many lives? Who would get credit for the "victory"? Of course the Communist leaders here, not those men buried underground. The enemy was brutal, yet we could have avoided being hurt by them. The real task for the leaders here should have been to make sure that all the POWs survived unharmed. Any effort other than that must have had ulterior motives. Lonesome and miserable, I felt I had been used too, though compared with the dead and the wounded, I was lucky.
In this special jail corporal punishment was commonplace. I often heard prisoners scream while GIs hit them with sticks and belts. I was not often beaten or kicked like others, because I didn't talk back. One morning I was taken out for interrogation. I wouldn't tell the Americans how we communicated with the Koreans, so they led me into a windowless room. In came two strapping GIs, one toting a rifle while the other hauled a fire hose. "We're going to do some cleaning today," said the one holding the nozzle, smirking. He then turned it on. A column of water hit my stomach and hurled me backward. My head banged into the wall so hard that I blacked out instantly.
When I came to a moment later, the water was still hitting me. I huddled into a ball by embracing my knees, with my back toward the men. The water struck my spine and lower back until my pants were ripped from behind. They laughed and wound up the session by giving me a few kicks in the buttocks.
"Get up, gook!" ordered one of them.
I was shivering, my chest and head aching. I managed to turn over but couldn't stand up.
They pulled me to my feet, dragged me out of the house, and left me in the small courtyard to dry my clothes for a while. I sat in the warm sun, still queasy, watching the seagulls sailing beneath the clouds. My face felt puffy and my eyes smarted. I wanted to weep but checked myself, aware that some eyes were observing me. Far away in the east, toward the beach, a bell was tolling, and a group of men were chanting a work song in Chinese. I turned my head to listen closely, then I caught sight of Mr. Park behind the grilled window of his cell. He was waving at me, raising his thumb and clasping his hands to congratulate me for having thwarted our enemy's attempt to extract information from me. A Korean officer in the next cell even saluted me. I waved back, trying hard to smile.
That evening the one-eyed Korean man doling out food handed a bowl of barley to me through the steel bars on the door of my cell. I forced myself to eat some. To my surprise, beneath the coarse grain were about a dozen small meatballs made of pork and onion. Hurriedly I turned away from the door so that the guards couldn't see the meatballs while I ate them. Evidently there were agents among the Korean workers here. Mr. Park may often have been given this kind of meal. Although grateful to him for having the meatballs smuggled in for me, I was bothered by the fact that even in this prison for "war criminals" he still enjoyed privileges like a top official. It was simply impossible for our captors to take full control.
One morning a tall American officer passed by my cell, and I recognized him – Lieutenant East, who had commanded the guards at Compound 602 when I was there. I had once relayed to him our demand for negotiating with General Bell in person. He seemed in charge of nothing here. As he returned from the other end of the corridor, I moved to the door of my cell. Dressed rather slovenly – half of his buttons undone and one of his shoes unlaced – he shuffled along the hallway as though deep in thought.
"Lieutenant East," I said.
"Yes." He stopped.
"Do you remember me?"
He shook his head, his gray eyes staring at my face. Then he recognized me. "Yes, you were the Red spokesman at Compound 602."
"No, I was just an interpreter. How come you're here?"
"None of your business. Damn you Reds, why did you help the motherfucking Koreans kidnap General Bell? You got me into trouble too."
"Like I said, I was just an interpreter, not involved in any decision making. As a soldier I didn't have a choice, I just obeyed orders."
"Let me tell you something," he said with sudden anger, jabbing his forefinger at my face. "General Bell is a good man. He played baseball with us. He's a powerful pitcher. Many guys here miss him. He treated you Reds well, didn't he? When you wanted to talk, he came to meet you. After you complained about barley and night blindness, the next day he called around to get more rice and vegetables for you. But what did you do in return? You conspired with the Koreans. You abducted him. You ruined him! That man is a husband and a father and had an honorable career. Now he's totally humiliated, busted to colonel. How come you Reds pulled such a dirty trick on him?"
I hadn't expected this lean-faced man would defend his superior so passionately, and I was a little bewildered by his judging the general on the basis that he was a good baseball player. What did Bell 's character have to do with sports? This fellow in front of me hadn't grown up, like a big boy. Still, somewhat touched by his words, I mumbled, "I'm sorry for him. Also for the hundreds of Koreans killed in Compound 76 and for the villagers whose homes were burned down."