Seize the Day. A M (Jack) Harris
General Macarthur’s Inchon landing which had cut Korea in half just above Seoul, the capital of the south. Now, the snow which had been so bitter and heavy in 1950 was melting away from the rugged Korean hills. The rivers were ice-green torrents and the trees were shooting out new buds to search for the sun. In the valleys and on the mountain slopes azalea flowers could be seen and many birds were singing. The land was alive with beauty, a place of peace and harmony.
After three years of bitter war a strange peace had settled over the wide valley holding the Samichon River for the armies facing each other across the Thirty-Eighth Parallel had reached a stalemate. The time of massive offences, of the movement of vast numbers of men and fleets of heavy tanks, had passed. Great armies no longer hurled each other back and forth across the narrow strip of land that was Korea. Instead they had settled down to a war of ambush, of wait-and-see, and the land, torn by conflict and stained by the blood of men of a score of nations, and the soldiers of North and South Korea, brooded with a curious acquiescence on the outcome.
Korea is a land of many rivers. Some are big and brawling, some quiet backwaters, many heavy with the yellow clay of the hills, others swift and green, a few so shallow, clear and cold above gravelly sand-bars that a man might walk across them without wetting his knees. Among them is the Samichon with its source high in the mountains of the north. In places it flows placidly, the water inching along over a sand-and rock encrusted bottom but when the convolutions of the land dip and sway erratically, the quiet stream becomes a white-crested torrent ripping and scouring its ancient bed. It winds a searching course between broken drifts of forest with bold sweeps and curves to where, somewhere close to the 38th Parallel, it slows and widens. In deep pools and shelving banks it runs through a flat plain under the shadow of the mountains; here from time unrecorded fertile paddy fields have lain a patchwork over the undulating ground on either side and supported the hard-working populations of small, scattered villages snug in their groves of old, green trees.
In the spring of 1953 after a winding stream of circumstance, I was attached to the headquarters of the Commonwealth Division to command the divisional agent detachment whose task was to infiltrate behind the enemy lines and gather intelligence. The officer in charge of the detachment was a Major Hurgaard, a sensible man who had briefed me well, so that I now knew the bowl of land and the hills about it, which looked barren and uninhabitable, was not. It was peopled, and if not by toiling farmers as it had been for centuries, then by hard men who spent their days in holes and tunnels and their nights in dangerous patrolling, for at this time whoever dominated the valley dictated also the pattern and conduct of a war which had blasted it through three bitter and unrewarding years of conflict. From what I could discern, the uncultivated paddy fields still retained their ancient symmetry but I knew they were crossed and recrossed by clinging strands of barbed wire, deadly webs spun over the holes and approaches of the men who lived in them. The valley floor was also set with land mines and an uneasy hush hung over it all, yet in the night, and sometimes during the day, it pulsed and stirred with the sounds of gunfire and the rumble of tanks. But usually the war fought in this place was the silent battle of night contact, of horror and sudden confusion, of cowardice and bravery, and seldom was there anything but the night to watch and pass judgment.
In the dusk four of us were huddled close, just outside the communication trench of a forward company. A tank on the reverse slope of a hill behind us, with only the muzzle of its gun visible, intermittently fired its cannon directly across the valley. The big gun smashed heavily, its tracer floating lazily along the trajectory of the shell; a red ball which blazed fiercely lessened gradually to a spark and was suddenly snuffed out. The tank, which was firing on fixed lines, also banged regular bursts of its heavy machine-gun, every few shots being interspersed with tracer. These too arched across the valley and died in the distance. Another tank, in support from a knoll on the right flank, took up the fire task when the first grew silent. Several mortars were firing, the spluttering whistle of their shells murmuring through the air. After dark the cacophony of war never really ceased.
With every whistle and smash of the shells each of us on the exposed ground near the trench instinctively hunched our bodies into a tight ball, then relaxed cautiously to watch the fight of the missiles. A slight mist was just then creeping sluggishly across the valley; the soldiers’ last light was at hand. At a word from me, the tallest in that group, the others stood erect and followed me down a designated and mine-cleared small track and through a disordered pattern of barbed wire entanglements. In a small pit at the base of the hill we had just descended, we squatted down. One man in our group began to whisper to another, but he ceased at a caution from me as I pointed back up the hill as I could hear the sound of approaching men.
We waited and in the dim light we could see an armed party of soldiers moving towards our position. I stood up and softly called a password. The lead man of the approaching file stopped momentarily, answered, then advanced again. An English soldier serving with the Durham Light Infantry, he came up close to me and peered into my face.
“Huh. It’s you, Sergeant,” he said. “They told me you might still be down here. Rather you than me, I reckon!”
“Yeah.” I responded as I squinted back into the gloom. “But I’m not going out this time. But we will be heading down to the river in a few moments. What are you blokes ambush or standing patrol?”
“Standing patrol. We’re just going beyond the mine-gap.”
“Good. Two of us will be returning later. We expect to be here at first light but if things go wrong we may have to beat it back. You be careful, will you?”
“Sure. We’ve been well briefed. We know pretty well what you’re doing.”
“Good.” Quietly cursing my nervousness, for I knew the soldier was correct, I turned to my three companions. “Let’s go.”
The four of us went forward and out through the mine gap, going into the deepening mist. Once beyond the gap we took up single file, about three feet apart. Keeping to the edges of the fields we made rapid progress directly across the valley. The shells and machine gun bullets continued to plough the night over our heads as our footsteps rustled and whispered among the brittle grass along the way. After about twenty minutes I halted and the others dispersed until one, a thick-set man moved forward from the rear, his face glistening wetly in the pale gloom.
“We’ll wait here for a while, Lim,” I told him.
Lim nodded his shaggy head before turning back for a whispered consultation with the other members of the patrol. We were motionless, except for the slightest movement of our hands as we brushed away the hordes of mosquitoes buzzing and circling about our heads. But for the sounds of shells thudding into the presumed enemy positions, and the incessant whirr of insects, quiet possessed the still, hot air. The deepening night slowly covered all of us waiting in its soft embrace and when I stood erect and gazed back in the direction of our friendly lines I felt partly ashamed as I allowed my thoughts to dwell on the security I knew lay there, in the comparative safety of my small headquarters, and in contrast with my present situation. It was something that some small part of my mind did of its own volition, when the main forces of my thoughts were engaged on a problem such as the one now facing me; it was something, some nagging shred of an old memory which made me prefer the warmth of the cave to the monster-peopled dark, and was now trying to enforce its preference on me. But of a sudden I focused all my thoughts on the present. I swung my head sharply about and stared hard at a large hill which loomed to my immediate front. I then gestured with my hands and the others got to their feet. We gathered together momentarily, not speaking, but each feeling the comfort of the others’ nearness, then once more we pressed forward.
Our advance was much more cautious now; we stopped frequently to listen intently to the noises of the darkness. Once, as large rushes loomed in the night, we went on hands and knees and pressed slowly through the dry, crackling undergrowth. Swarms of insects arose from our path, and once, with shocking suddenness, a pheasant flew up from a position directly under my hand, its wings whirring madly. The four of us halted and crouched down. I reckoned I could hear the heartbeats of all of us thumping like small drums.
“You bastard!” I whispered, while wiping an uncertain hand across my damp face.
I