Lee Ki-jo, You Again?
The morning after the accident, Major General Martin sat with the final report on the explosion, compiled through the night.
A thin sigh slipped out of him.
There was even a soldier about to be discharged...
He felt a pang as he ran down the list of the dead.
The truck had been hauling coils of concertina wire. It took a wrong road, and while the driver was turning it around it struck an antitank mine. Twenty-eight engineers, the driver among them, were caught in the blast. Twelve survived. Koreans had brought eleven of them in; a helicopter scrambled to the scene saved the last.
And the man who had saved the Americans was—
Lee Ki-jo?
Eleven of them, this time?
The thread binding Martin to Lee Ki-jo was a strange one. There had been Ki-jo's portrait hanging in the portrait shop in front of the post, and from the moment Martin laid eyes on it, the man kept turning up in the flesh.
Should I call him to the base and give him a commendation...?
The report said the Koreans had been repaid with a cup of cocoa and a set of cold-weather clothes. Martin couldn't help feeling it fell a little short.
While Martin read, Ki-jo was driving the blue truck toward Seoul. Kim Seogwang sat in the passenger seat.
"You drive awfully well, Village Head."
"Even so, you'll want to learn from Ma-ryang."
"Of course, Village Head. Ma-ryang gave me his word as a man. Said he'd teach me nice and gentle. Hahaha."
There was only one reason Ki-jo was hauling Seogwang along to Seoul: someone had to watch the truck while he parked it and went about his business. A military truck had no key of its own. Twist the starter lever and the engine caught, so leave it sitting long enough and someone would steal it.
He was bound for the offices of The Korea Times, the country's leading English-language newspaper. One way or another, he wanted the U.S. Army to know his name. With no money to be made just now from farming or from bricks, work for the 7th Division was his only source of cash, and for that he needed as many points of contact with the Americans as he could get. Even if he had saved those soldiers without a shred of calculation, it would have been a waste to let the fact lie quiet. People said a good deed brought its own blessing, but heaven sometimes looked the other way, and Ki-jo could not afford to wait until heaven decided to take his side.
An hour on the road brought him to Jongno. He stopped the truck in front of the Korea Times building and told Seogwang not to leave it under any circumstances.
"Go well, Village Head."
Beaming, Seogwang hooked one arm over the driver's window, set his other hand on the wheel, and played the chauffeur while he watched the people of Seoul go by.
About an hour later Ki-jo came out of the newspaper office.
"Did it go well?"
"Yes. Very well."
Ki-jo climbed into the driver's seat and turned back toward Yeoncheon.
What he had done was simple. He had met a Korea Times reporter, explained what had happened in Yeoncheon, and asked that it be written up. Empty hands, he figured, would get him nowhere, so he passed over an envelope with ten dollars in it by way of a fee for a sponsored piece—ten dollars out of the thirty still left from the payment for the cement bricks. These days an envelope like that would be a bribe, and illegal. In the 1950s such things were as common as water. Giving one and taking one was treated as courtesy, a little lubricant between people.
After he handed it over, he asked the reporter whether he knew anyone at Stars and Stripes.
Stars and Stripes. That was the English name. Rendered into Korean, the title sat a little strangely on the ear. It was the daily newspaper published by the United States Department of Defense.
"There's a reporter I got friendly with during the war. Why do you ask?"
"I'd like him to cover it with you. It's a human-interest piece about Koreans and Americans, so it won't do the 7th Division any harm."
"All right. I'll get in touch."
And that was that.
On the way back to Yeoncheon, Ki-jo checked the fuel gauge. Kim Doo-han had handed the truck over with a full tank, and there was still plenty of gas.
The day after Ki-jo went up to Seoul and secured the reporter's help, Major General Martin heard from his aide that Stars and Stripes had requested cooperation on a story.
"About this incident?"
Martin was uneasy. Of all the moments for a reporter to want in—right after something had gone wrong.
"What do they say the story is for?"
"I checked, sir. They mean to run it in the human-interest section."
"Human interest...?"
Stars and Stripes was a Department of Defense paper, but its editors answered to no one. Not even a general could touch the direction of a story. Refuse them, and he might well end up with an article fixed on the damage.
If it's going in the human-interest column, it isn't so bad...
"Let them in."
The division commander decided to grant the request.
By the time Major General Martin gave his permission, the Stars and Stripes reporter and the Korea Times reporter were already at the division gate. They had stopped in Yeoncheon first, and in front of the blue truck they had already photographed and interviewed the twenty good men who saved the Americans.
Ki-jo and Ma-ryang were with them. The four of them waited at the main gate until the 7th Division public affairs officer came out in a jeep to meet them. Following the schedule that had been arranged, he took them to the division aid station, where Ki-jo and Ma-ryang posed with the lightly wounded men who were cleared to be photographed. The article was as good as written. All they needed now were the pictures.
As they came out of the aid station, the Stars and Stripes reporter asked a question.
"You said the two of you saved an American soldier once before, didn't you? Let's get a picture with him as well."
He meant Roberts.
"Let's do that."
There was no reason to refuse.
Roberts, met again in front of the barracks, looked a great deal better. The moment he saw Ki-jo and Ma-ryang, the men who had saved his life, his face lit up.
"How's the head?"
"All healed."
Roberts smiled, bright as anything. He thanked Ma-ryang again for that day, but Ma-ryang had saved plenty of people in his time and found being thanked a nuisance.
"The three of you, arms around each other's shoulders. Yes, just like that. Taking it now. Three, two, one."
The shutter snapped. Against the backdrop of the American barracks, the reporter caught the three of them.
When the picture was done, Roberts turned to Ki-jo.
"I'll come find the two of you before long."
"Sure. See you later. Haha."
Once again Ki-jo and Ma-ryang let the words go in one ear and out the other. They absolutely should not have. The two of them kept underestimating Roberts.
"I want to repay you. If there's anything you need, don't be shy about it..."
"We're busy today, so let's talk another time."
Next on the schedule was a photograph with Division Commander Martin. With the 7th Division construction work on his mind, Ki-jo had no choice but to fix his attention there.
Roberts watched the two of them disappear with the reporters and could not hide his disappointment.
There's so much I could do for them... and they don't want a thing. Honestly.
Regretful, he went back to the barracks.
Ki-jo and Ma-ryang were shown into the division commander's office and, with the reporters, met Major General Martin.
"I'm glad a story will get out about the people of our two countries helping each other."
Martin said it in the hope that the most favorable article possible would land in a paper read by the upper ranks. In America or in Korea, ability alone rarely carried a major general up to lieutenant general. You needed star quality, or connections, or to catch the eye of those above you. Failing that, the least you could hope was that news liable to displease the high-ups never got out at all.
Ki-jo listened in silence and found himself thinking that a human-interest piece of this size fell a little short.
Koreans saved a number of American soldiers. These Koreans had saved an American before. Koreans and Americans are helping one another. How beautiful a thing that is. The end.
Stories like that were common enough. A warm little piece, yes, but the ending felt unfinished. It would be better with some brighter future stirred in.
While the reporters were talking between themselves, Ki-jo leaned toward Major General Martin and spoke low.
"General, why don't you make an announcement while we're here?"
"What kind of announcement?"
"That the village that saved the American soldiers and the 7th Division will form a sister relationship."
"A sister relationship?"
"Yes. You don't actually have to form one. Just tell the reporters you will. The article will come out richer for it."
"Hm..."
The division commander thought for a moment, then turned to the reporters, who had finished their own conversation.
"Splendid, General."
With more to write, the reporter smiled and set the commander's words down in his notebook. The interview closed on a photograph of Ki-jo and Major General Martin shaking hands, both of them smiling bright.
When the pleasantries were over and Ki-jo turned to go, Martin stopped him.
"Could we talk for a moment?"
He wanted to do the man a small favor. It was Ki-jo who had turned an explosion that might have ended as nothing but tragedy into a human-interest story, and Ki-jo who had put more flesh on the article.
"It looks as though there'll be construction on the 7th Division base before long."
Martin let the information slip, almost casually.
"Is that so?"
Ki-jo's face lit up. This was the chance he had been waiting for.
"General. Our company would like to take on even a portion of the base work."
"Submit your firm's construction license and its record of contracts to date. It has to go to headquarters."
Damn. The conditions were stricter than he had expected. During the war everything had been so urgent that American construction jobs were handed out by private contract, left and right. Now that the war was over, it seemed they had switched to competitive bidding and grown particular about it. A man who had come back to 1953 with empty hands could hardly possess a construction license or a record of work awarded. Even so, he had to win the contract somehow and earn dollars.
"By when should the papers be in?"
"As early as you can manage. The processing will take time."
"Understood."
Sink or swim, Ki-jo meant to try. Without nerve and grit, a man could not get through the 1950s. He used his wits on the spot.
"General. Draw up an MOU for me."
"An MOU?"
"Yes. I need a single memorandum of understanding bearing your signature and the unit seal."
"What for?"
"I have to show it to my partners and my investors."
He had neither partners nor investors. He could make them later. If he held even one memorandum stamped with the seal of the 7th Division, he felt he could make something of it. Already a face was taking shape in his mind—a man he would approach with that paper and an offer of partnership.
"That's no trouble. I'll have one made up."
A memorandum with not a shred of legal force was something Major General Martin could knock out in a moment. Ki-jo took it and let out a breath. The bare minimum chance of bidding on American construction work now rested in his hand.
But he was not a man to be satisfied with that. There was more he wanted from the division commander.
Two trucks still sat abandoned at the explosion site in Eundae-ri. One had been broken clean in two, and the lower frame of the other was bent, but they were resources too good to throw away. Every part on the blue truck Ki-jo owned was interchangeable with the American trucks. Even a single bolt cost money if you had to buy it. He wanted those trucks for parts.
"General, may I take the trucks at Eundae-ri?"
"Ah, those. The accident investigation is finished, so take them."
They were equipment that would have to be scrapped anyway. Better to give them to Lee Ki-jo than to hand them to some other Korean scrap dealer.
"Thank you, General."
Ki-jo left the commander's office, parted from the reporters in front of the division, and headed back to Yeoncheon with Ma-ryang. At the wheel of the blue truck, he spoke.
"Brother-in-law, the brick plant still comes first, but I think we've got to take a run at the American construction work too."
"Anything that'll make money, we've got to try."
"Right. Let's push it as far as our strength will take us."
The two of them were of one mind.
The moment they reached the Cheongsan plant, they loaded the twenty driver-trainees onto the truck and set off for the accident site at Eundae-ri. The American explosive-ordnance team had already cleared the ground, and the place was safe. Ki-jo hitched the wrecked trucks to the blue one with rope and hauled them back to the plant.
There the trainees drained every last drop of gasoline left in the American trucks, then washed and sorted the parts they had picked up at the scene. There was nothing worth throwing away—not a crumpled sheet-metal door, not a single bloodstained bolt. Since the accident the trainees had grown steadier. They worked in silence, without one complaint.
Watching them remade into the elite hands of the Cheongsan plant, Ki-jo felt a deep, quiet pride.