Come up with SIX questions with explanations.
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A NOVEL
The Martyted
By
Richard E. Kim
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THE WAR CAME early one morning in June of 1950, and by the time the North Koreans occupied
our capital city, Seoul, we had already left our uni-
versity, where we were instructors in the History of
Human Civilization. I joined the Korean Army, and
Park volunteered for the Marine Corps—^the proud combat outfit that suited his temperament. In a short
time—^because junior cheers died very fast in the early phase erf the war—^we were trained and battle- tested, and we both became officers. We survived, but we were both wounded. The shrapnel of a mortar
shell had grazed my right knee during the defense of
Taegu, and a sniper had shot Park in his left arm in
the mopping-up opoation in Seoul after the Inchon
landing. We both spent some time in the hospital, were both promised medals, and were returned
promptly to our respective duties.
11
12
Park, who was then a first lieutenant, went back
to combat duty somewhere on the eastern front, but
I did not rejoin my antitank company. Someone in
the Army accidentally discovered that I had been a
university instructor and decided to transfer me to an
intelligence unit. When I came out of the hospital in
Pusan, I was sent to Seoul, where I was put in charge
of a section in the Army PoUtical Intelligence, and
was made captain, temporarily, in due conformity with
the table of organization.
In the second week of October, the United Nations
Forces captured Pyongyang, the capital city of the
North Koreans. We moved our headquarters to that city and estabhshed ourselves in a four-storied gray
marble building. My oflBce, which was on the third floor, looked across the street at what remained of
the Central Presbyterian Church. This was a strange
coincidence. It was Park's father's church; he had
been its minister for nearly twenty years.
I knew very little about him; although Park was a
close friend of mine, he had seldom talked to me
about his father. Which was to be expected. His father
had disowned him and, in turn. Park had denounced
his father. Mr. Park was, according to his disowned
son, "a man of fanatical faith," who had "harassed"
him "day and night with his self-righteousness, with
his exaggerated faith, and his obsession with his
13
equally obsessive God." On the other hand, Park had
become an atheist after his return from a university
in Tokyo, and abandoned the Christian faith in which
he had been brought up. I suspected that he would
not have denounced his father had not Mr. Park told
his congregation, one Sunday morning from his pulpit,
that his son had gone over to the Devil and that he
had asked the Lord His forgiveness for severing all
earthly ties with his son. That was about ten years
before the war.
Park was aware that his father was missing from
Pyongyang; I had informed him of the disturbing news
soon after I moved to the city, and I had done so in
an unsettled frame of mind. I had come to Pyongyang
in a good mood; for the first few weeks I was in a state
of buoyancy, partly because of the exciting novelty
of finding myself in an enemy city that our victorious
army occupied, and partly because of the irresistible
enthusiasm and affection with which the people of the
city greeted all of us, their liberators. Many of my
fellow officers were natives of Pyongyang and, in the
midst of that delightful emotional chaos following
the liberation, they were able to stage melodramatic yet
heartwarming scenes of reunion with their families,
relatives, and friends, or for that matter, with anyone
whose face they recognized.
I had no acquaintances in the city, and som.etimes
14
I felt vaguely envious of these oflBcers. It was at such
times that I felt an urge to go to see Park's father,
though I told myself I had not the slight6st excuse for
doing so. I thought of many reasonable ways in which
I might call on him, yet when I imagined myself actu-
ally knocking on the door of his home and introducing
myself as a good friend of his son's, I could not help
feeling a pecuUar sort of fright. Then I found out that
the Communist secret poUce had arrested him shortly
before the war; and when Army Intelligence let it be
known officially that "an unspecified number of North
Korean Christian ministers" was reported missing and
that the Army "beUeved them to have been kidnapped
by the Reds," I even felt relieved—shamefacedly, of course. So I wrote to Park about it at great length,
but his reply contained nothing but irrelevant matters
—just as I expected—things about his command, about his men, and even about his future plans, but
not a word about his father.
Across the street the church bell clanged. I opened
the window. From the white-blue November sky of
North Korea, a cold gust swept down the debris-ridden
slope, whipping up here and there dazzling snow
flurries, smashing against the ugly, bullet-riddled
buildings of Pyongyang. People who had been digging
in the ruins of their homes stopped working. They
15
straightened up and looked toward the top of the slope,
at the remains of the nearly demolished Central
Church, and then at the gray carcass of a cross-topped
bell tower where the bell was clanging. They gazed
at one another as though they understood the esoteric
message of the bell. Some old women knelt down on
the ground, and the old men removed their dogskin
hats and bowed their bare heads.
The beU was quiet now. The people were back at
their labor, working as silently and stubbornly as they
had day after day. Ever since I arrived in the city, I
had been watching these people. Occasionally, I saw
them drag out of the debris some shapeless remains of
their household goods or, sometimes, a dead body,
which they would quietly carry away on a hand-pushed
cart. Then they would continue digging in the crum-
bled mess of brick, boards, and chunks of concrete.
I closed the window and returned to my desk. The
potbellied, rusty, coal stove in the far comer of the
room gave off plenty of heat, but I shivered as I
settled down in my chair. It was as if a cold hand had stroked my nape as stealthily as the tip of a soft, soft
brush.
Park's father was dead; I had just learned of his
death from my commanding oflBcer.
1
l^l^^H^li^li^l^^l^li^l^l^;^ 2
COLONEL CHANG, the Chief of Army Political Intelligence, had summoned me to his oflBce on the
fourth floor. Seated in his swivel chair behind his desk
under a dusty chandeUer, he did not show any sign
of recognition when I stood before him. His subor-
dinates were accustomed to the way he kept them
waiting in his presence, sometimes for as long as five
minutes. He was a stout man in his late forties, with a
head as bald and shiny as a Buddhist monk's, and with
a bulbous nose that dominated his straw-colored small
face. He began rocking back and forth in his chair,
and peered at me through his glasses.
The junior ofiicers at headquarters were not in-
clined to take Colonel Chang too seriously, though
they admitted he was a baflaing character. Since it was
standard procedure in an intelligence unit not to keep
in the personnel file the record of its commanding
16
17
oflBcer, his past was obscure. Those who despised him
said he had been a sergeant in the Japanese Army
during the war in the Pacific; those who disliked him
said he had been a notorious soldier of fortune in
China; and those who did not care one way or the
other said he was just one of those professional mili-
tary men. No one seemed to know precisely how he
happened to be enjoying the rank of a full colonel in
such a young army as ours, though everyone assumed
he was longing for a star.
At last he motioned me to take a seat and, bringing
his swaying chair to a stop, said gravely, "I want you
to start an investigation of the missing ministers."
"I beg your pardon, sir?" I said, to cover my sur-
prise.
His thin lips curled. "You recall those Christian
ministers who were reported missing. We've had a
big break. Our CIC was able to round up a few Reds
who had something to do with the missing men." He
rummaged through the clutter of papers on his desk.
"They were all shot the day the war started."
"A mass execution!"
Casting me an indignant look, he said, raising his
voice, "I call it mass murder."
"Yes, sir."
"Now, there's a problem. The findings of the CIC
18
are conflicting. We are not so sure about the exact number murdered."
"Then they didn't shoot all of them."
"No, no, I am not saying that. However, one source
of information claims there were fourteen, the other
says twelve. Unfortunately, both sources of informa-
tion are no longer available. We seem to have an im- petuous CIC."
"You mean the prisoners were killed?"
Colonel Chang ignored my concern. "Now if we
are to assume there were fourteen ministers and all of
them were shot, and if we can't round up any other
sources of information, well then, it means there are
no witnesses. All we can say is that fourteen were
murdered."
"But, if I may say so, sir," I said, "we can't say they
were murdered, or how many. We can only say that an undetermined nurqbers of ministers disappeared."
"I am glad you said that, Captain. I knew you would
come around to it, and that's why I want you to work
on the problem. The Chief of Army Intelligence just
called to tell me that it belongs in the area of political
intelligence, and I can hardly disagree with him."
"You are suggesting that it may be good material
for propaganda," I said. "A grave case of religious
persecution by the Conmiunists. Of international sig-
nificance, if I may add, sir, particularly in America.
19
In short, we may be able to exhibit to the entire world
the Korean chapter in the history of Christian mar-
tyrdom."
"All right, all right. I am not suggesting anything,**
Colonel Chang said impatiently. "Now, let me return
to the problem. It's a simple matter of arithmetic. If
we assume there were originally fourteen ministers,
and if we take into account the claim that only twelve
were shot, then it is possible two have survived, is it
not?"
"Of course."
"As you know, it is impossible for us, at this early
stage, to check every single living Christian minister
in North Korea. But the curious thing is that there
are two in Pyongyang, right this minute, who were
imprisoned by the Reds. Actually they were still in
prison when we took the city. It is an interesting
coincidence, don't you think, however hypothetical it
may be?"
Something in his manner—perhaps it was the sud- den, quick gleam in his eyes, or the way he tilted his
bald head—impressed me that he knew more about the two ministers than he was willing to tell me.
"Well, what do you think of this possibility?" he
asked.
"Hypothetical, as you say, sir," I repUed.
He was pleased with my response. "Good. Now, I
20
want you to go and see these ministers. Shin and Hann,
and tell them about our problem. Be tactful about it,
because I don't want to create the impression that
I am handling Christians roughly. Christians in this
country are quite influential these days," he said with
a faint smile. Then, after a pause, he continued with
an undisguised tone of acidity. "Ever>'one seems to be
Christian nowadays; it seems fashionable to be one.
From the President to cabinet ministers, generals,
colonels, all the way down to privates. Why, even the
Army has to have Christian chaplains, just to please
the American advisors. Ah, well, you can see my dif-
ficult position."
"Yes, sir."
"I am not suggesting that these men had anything
to do with the murder, or that they were originally
included in the murder plan. Also, I have no intention
whatsoever of implying that I am suspicious of the
circumstances relating to their fortunate survival,
although it may be highly desirable for me to be so;
that is, from the point of view of an objective intelli-
gence analysis. Their fortunate survival, Captain Lee,
please note my word. Anyway, oflBcially speaking, I
am merely asking you to see them and inquire, yes,
inquire politely, if they would be kind enough to en-
lighten us concerning the exact number involved in
21
this mass murder; that is, if they know anything about
it at all, you understand?"
I felt confused, but I said, "Yes, I fully understand."
He seemed delighted. "Good. That's what I like
about you. Civihans seem to have a keener sensibiUty
in affairs of extreme deUcacy," he said, smiling. "Oh,
incidentally, one of them, Hann, I believe, is presum-
ably crazy."
"You mean—he is not well?" The colonel darted a sardonic glance at me. "For-
give my indeUcacy, Captain Lee," he said. Then he
stood up, grabbed a pad of paper from the desk, and
strode over to the window. "That is all," he fairly
shouted.
The church bell clanged.
Colonel Chang swore. "I can't stand that bell!
Clanking, clanking day and night! Intolerable!"
"Sir," I said, "the minister of that church . . ."
He cut me short. "He's dead."
^;^^l^;^^^^^^^;^l^ 3
I WAS WAITING for my driver to bring the jeep to the sentry box outside headquarters. Whenever a
whistling gust whipped past the box, spraying a sil-
very mist of pulverized snow, I could hear the bell
clanging, clanging over the slope, and I could visual-
ize Colonel Chang banging on his desk, swearing as
he glared out of the window. I asked the sentry to tell
my driver to wait for me, and walked toward the
church.
There had been an alley off the street between
houses and shops leading up the slope to the church.
Nothing was left standing now. Houses had been
smashed to bits in the bombardment, and their ruins
buried the alley; a wooden board that said Cameras,
soiled and cracked, hung lopsided from the remains
of a shattered shop. A trolley car crawled along the street, clanking, flashing cold, blue sparks. An Army
22
23
jeep drove past, its loudspeaker blaring out an unintel-
ligible message. Loose wires were lashing at a pros-
trated lamppost.
In the rubble, people were still digging, and when
I started up the slope, a few of them stopped working
and looked at me. An old man followed me, keeping
several paces behind, but when I came close to the
front of the church, he came abreast of me. We ex- changed perfunctory bows. He wore a black coat,
but he had no gloves, and he rubbed his hands to-
gether, blinking in the sun and in the wind that nifSed
his white hair.
The Central Church was rather small and was built
of red bricks. A flight of stone steps led up to two dirty marble columns, above which was the bell tower, with
a golden cross on its top. The exterior of the tower was
torn open and the black iron beU could be seen hang-
ing precariously inside, its rope swaying loosely in
the wind. Beyond the columns, two white doors, now
dusty and broken, stood wide open, one of them wob-
bling on its loose hinges as though it would collapse
at any moment. Through the open doors the interior
of the church was dimly visible. Either a bomb or an
artillery shell had blasted the middle section; the pews
had been tossed about, twisted and smashed, though
the altar had been left intact.
A shrieking wind swirled about us for a moment.
24
The bell clanged. I looked up at the tower and saw
the rope violently jerking, to and fro, up and down.
I turned to the old man, who shrugged his shoulders.
"What's the matter with the bell?" I asked him.
"The bell?" he muttered, squinting his blinking
eyes.
"Don't you have anyone to take care of it?"
"Why, I don't see anything wrong with the bell, do
you?" he said, rubbing his eyes. "Nobody touches it.
The wind comes and rings the bell."
"Why don't you church people do something about
it?"
"You can't get up there. The stairway is almost
gone, and it's too dangerous to use a ladder. The
tower may crumble at any moment."
"But I still think you ought to do something about
it."
"We're waiting," the old man mumbled. "We're all
waiting for our minister to come back to us. Any day
now, because we're wirming the war, they say. When
he comes back, maybe he can do something about the
church"—slowly he focused his bleary eyes on mine —"and maybe he can do something about the bell, too. Who knows?"
"You know what happened to him, don't you?" I
said.
"No, we don't," he said. "Yes, we do, but we aren't
25
sure, nobody is sure, what's happened to him. He was
taken away by the Communists some time before the
war broke out, and that's the last thing we've seen of
him. 'Don't worry,' we tell each other, 'he will come
back.' Any day now. Yes, any day now. He will come
back."
I hastily echoed his sentiments. "Yes, any day now."
I moved a few steps closer to the threshold of the
devastated church. It was then that I saw someone
inside. Though the pews were strewn about and the
debris from the broken roof was piled over them, the
rear white wall with its small, shattered stained-glass
window was still there beyond the altar. The left bal-
cony had fallen halfway down, and was hanging
loosely, almost touching the front edge of the altar.
It was there, directly beneath the twisted balcony,
that I saw the prostrate gray figure of a man, with his
bare hands stretched out over his head, clutching at
the edge of the barren altar. I looked at the old man
beside me, but he only shrugged his shoulders and
pointed a finger to his shaking head. "A madman,"
he whispered. "I don't know who he is."
"Well, you'd better tell him, I mean tell someone
to stop him from getting in there. He may kill himself."
"He comes around here once in a while," the old
man said. "I talked to him once. He just stared at me
—you know the way they look at you—almost fright-
26
ened me. You know what he said? *I come here to
pray.* That's what he said. Well, he didn't sound like
a madman to me. So I let him do whatever he pleased.*'
Then, suddenly, the man came out of the church,
saw us standing there, and leaped back inside, turning
to peer at us suspiciously through the doorway. I
stepped forward. The old man grabbed my ann,
whispering, "No, no." But I could not restrain myself
from shouting, "Listen! You'd better come out of
there. It's dangerous. You may kill yourself there!"
To my astonishment, he cried, "Go away!" There
was a pause and he said, "Go away!" once more and
disappeared.
I might have dashed mto the church after him,
had not my companion held onto my arm, begging
me to leave him alone. Then I heard the man laugh-
ing, and I was . . . yes . . . dumbfounded when his
laughter was followed, a moment later, by a wail like
that of a hungry, abandoned baby, a piercing cry that
mingled with the clanging of the bell. I told the old
man to inform the proper authority, though I had
not the vaguest notion as to who the proper authority
might be. He paid me no mind, and when I left he
was on his knees in the dirty snow.
I hurried across the street back to the sentry box,
dismissed my driver, and drove oflE.
^;i^;^^;j^;^;i^^^;^;^^;^ 4
THE SOLITARY HOUSE stood at the top of a hill
that commanded a wintry view of the city of Pyong-
yang and the Taedong River. I drove up the winding
road that ended halfway up the hill, parked the jeep
and walked the rest of the way. A gravel path, almost hidden in the snow, led to the front of the two-storied
gray house through shrubs, stubby, crooked pine
trees, and a dilapidated garden cluttered with piles
of dirty snow. A small balcony with iron rails was supported by two short pillars of gray stone.
I knocked on the white front door, which was finally
opened by an old woman, who let me into a dim
hallway. She peered at me warily, wiping her chapped
hands with her apron. She told me that Mr. Shin was
not at home for he usually spent his day at his church
downtown, that he was busy, very busy, and that I
could leave my message with her. She was blocking
27
28
my way, as it were, firmly planting herself in front
of me in the hushed hallway.
I asked her, then, if I could see Mr. Hann. "How
did you know he is here?" she said, surprised, and
even frightened, I thought.
"Are you from the police?"
I told her I was not, that I was an army oflBcer.
But why did she ask me if I was from the police? She
ignored my question.
"Anyway, he isn't feeling well. I ought to know,"
she said. "I am his nurse."
So I ventured to ask her if she minded my paying
my respects to him.
She gasped in protest.
"I promise you that I shan't take too much time,"
I said.
"Well, he isn't home either,'* came the prompt reply.
"But you told me he is ill."
"He isn't a sick man. He can go out for a walk,
can't he?" she said as though she were pleading.
I looked at her closely, but her eyes did not meet
mine. I decided to leave. I told her I hoped I might
have the pleasure of meeting the ministers some other
day. She gave me an appreciative glance and asked
me who I was. Would I care to leave any message?
When I said no, she seemed relieved and asked me
where I was from. Was I a Christian? I said I was
29
not, but I had gone, when I was small, to the Sunday
school of a neighborhood church in Seoul. I told her
that I was sorry I had disturbed her, and I turned to
go away. But as I touched the cold, brass doorknob,
I found myself impulsively swinging around, facing
her. "What would you say if I told you I saw Mr.
Hann this morning at the Central Church?"
'*No!" she said. "Not there!"
**Yes!" I was about to tell her what I had seen when
I heard someone on the stairway. I collected myself
and looked up.
A man garbed in a black robe stopped halfway down the stairs, waiting for the nurse to withdraw,
his dark eyes looking down at me. Then he came
straight to me.
"Mr. Shin?" I said.
"Yes. Forgive me. I could not help overhearing.
You wanted to see me?"
I took off my helmet and introduced myself.
As soon as we were seated in a bare, dusty room
—
there was no furniture other than a few brown wooden
chairs, nor any sign of heat—^he said quietly, "You say you have seen Mr. Hann?"
"Do you think I might have seen him?" I said,
feeling ill at ease.
"It is possible." Mr. Shin drew his garment tightly
30
around him. His Adam's apple twitched as he ad-
justed his long neck to the robe. There was a hollow
look in his unshaven face, and his large, feverish eyes
gazed steadily into mine. "Yes, it is possible."
He coughed—a dry, racking cough that convxilsed his thin frame. "I have been worried about him," he
said. "He went out last night and hasn't come home
yet. This is the first time he has stayed out so long.**
"Didn't you look for him?'*
"We couldn't go out last night. There is a curfew,
as you know. Unfortunately, I am ordered to be in
bed by my doctor, and I couldn't send the nurse out
for fear she might lose her way. So I have been waiting
for the janitor of my church, who comes here once
a day, but he hasn't come yet. I am only hoping that
Mr. Hann hasn't troubled the authorities and that he
will come home any minute.**
"The nurse told me he is ill,'* I said. "Is he seriously
ill?"
Mr. Shin did not reply.
"Is there anything I can do?" I did not know why
I said it.
"Why should you care for us?" he asked, frowning
sUghtly. "We hardly know you."
"Why should you be surprised?'*
"Aren't you here to . . . how shall I put it ... to
interrogate me?"
31
I did not like the tone with which he deliberately
stressed the word, interrogate. "No," I said.
"But you are from InteUigence."
'•Yes, but I am not an interrogator."
"Sorry. I did not mean to offend you," he muttered,
stirring in his chair. "What do you know about me?"
"Not very much and that only superficially."
His pale Ups formed a semblance of a smile. "Well?"
"You are forty-seven years old, and Mr. Hann,
twenty-eight. You were both arrested by the Com-
munist secret police on June eighteenth, seven days
before the war started; and on the same day, other
Christian ministers were also arrested." I told bim
what I had been briefed on by CIC. "You were about
to be shot when our Infantry arrived, and you were
set free from prison."
"Are you a professional inteUigence man?" he
asked. "If so, I don't mind telling you that I disdain
your profession."
I told him about my academic career, to which I
would return as soon as the war was over.
'*You interest me," he said. "But I suppose you
want to find out something from me, whatever it may
be?" He crossed his arms over his chest, hunching his
shoulders as he coughed.
"We are concerned about the other ministers," I
said. "I assume you know they were kidnapped by the
32
Communists." I paused and studied his face, which
remained expressionless. "1 can tell you that the Army
knows that much. There is no evidence about the
kidnapping, even about the fact—well, we established it as the fact—that they were arrested. We would like to know why they were arrested in the first place."
"Need there be any special reason for the Com-
munists to arrest Christians?"
"Were you with them?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"When you were arrested you were all together,
weren't you?" I suggested boldly. "As a group?"
"Yes," came the unhesitant reply, to my surprise. "Then you must know what happened to the
others."
"No, I don't."
"But you were with them."
"Yes. You want to know why we were separated."
He looked up at the white, cracked ceiling, from which
dangled a naked hght bulb, then back at me again. •That I wouldn't know."
"We know that you and Mr. Hann were moved to the prison on June twenty-fifth, the day the Commu- nists invaded the South," I said. "Why did they move just the two of you?"
"You are interrogating me, aren't you?"
"No. I am merely interested to know what has hap- pened to the other ministers."
33
"Why through me?" he said wearily. "You know-
that we were separated. Then how do you expect me
to tell you anything about them?"
"I thought perhaps you might be able to tell us
something about their fate."
"Don't you know enough about it already?" he said,
looking at me sternly.
"Kidnapped?"
"That's right."
"Do you believe it?" I raised my voice. "That they
were really kidnapped and that they may be aUve
somewhere?"
"Do you?" he said.
"No," I confessed. "No, I don't."
"Neither do I."
"Then you beUeve they were executed?"
"Yes."
"When?"
"I don't know."
"How many ministers?"
"There were fourteen of us."
"Then two survived?"
"And I suppose you want to know why we two were
not shot?"
I waited for his reply; but I was hardly prepared
for what he declared a moment later:
"It was through divine intervention."
I remained silent.
34
"You don't believe in God, do you?" he said, and
lowered his eyes.
"No."
'Then call it luck," he said resignedly.
Mr. Shin asked me if I had driven to the house, and
if so, would I mind giving him a ride into the city.
"Would you be kind enough to take me to the Cen-
tral Church? I don't want to impose on you, but I
would appreciate it."
He left me to get his coat, and came back wearing
a black overcoat and carrying a gray one on his arm.
We walked silently down the hill to my jeep, and drove into the city.
It was almost dusk when we reached the church.
The curfew was near and the streets were deserted
except for a few uniformed passers-by. A jeep prowled by, its loudspeaker reminding people of the curfew
and of the nightly blackout.
Mr. Shin did not want me to come with him inside
the church, and without a moment's hesitation he dis-
appeared through the dim, gaping mouth of the open
doorway into the dark interior.
In a Uttle while he came out with the man I had
seen that morning, who was now wearing the gray
overcoat. When they came down the steps, at the bot-
tom of which I was standing, the man saw me and
35
stopped. Mr. Shin said to him gently, "It is all right.
He is our friend. Would you like to meet him? Why,
of course," and he turned to me, his face serene.
"Captain Lee, I would like you to meet Mr. Hann."
The young minister looked at me blankly, with a
faint smile on his emaciated face.
I do not know what it was about him that pierced
my heart, but suddenly I felt again the same rage I
had experienced earlier in the war. A few miles south of Pyongyang we had discovered a cave on a moun-
tainside. Several hundred political prisoners had been
forced into the cave by the retreating Communists,
who then machine-gunned the prisoners and sealed
the mouth of the cave by dynamiting it. I was in
charge of a detachment to dig open the cave. For
hours we dug; spectators were gathering—farmers from a nearby village—photographers, Korean and foreign—radio - announcers, clutching their micro- phones. At last we made an opening barely large
enough for me to squeeze through into the black mouth of the cave. Something gave way under my boots—I had stumbled on a corpse. With a shiver I stood dazed in the darkness, nauseated by the hellish
stench of decomposition and excrement, aware of faint
groans and a whimpering that seemed no longer hu-
man. Something touched my arm; in a frenzy, I seized it, a human hand almost skeletal, and edged toward
36
the opening and out into the world, pulling, carrying,
dragging a man. And there he was, out in the flooding
sunshine, lying on his back, his hollow eyes wide open,
his spent flesh shrouded in tattered, rotting clothes, ob-
livious of everything around him as though his soul had
not been dug out of the cave with his body. And I, too,
was oblivous of everything, everyone around me as I
squatted down beside him. Then I came to and saw
them, those photographers, and heard the sharp,
metallic clicking of the shutters of their cameras. A strange, terrible shame seized me, and I crouched
over the man, staring into the limbo of his leaden
eyes, as if trying to shield with my body the mute
dignity of his suffering from the nonchalant prying
eyes behind the cameras. "Captain, would you mind,"
someone shouted, "would you move away so I can get
a better shot of him?" Out of the bloated toothless
mouth oozed dark, yellowish liquid, and flies, those
flies, swarming, buzzing, buzzing, eerily mingled with
the hysterical voices of the announcers, and "Cap-
tain, let me get a good shot of him." Then I thought
someone pushed me away, and blind with rage I
snatched a shovel from the hands of a soldier and
began smashing the cameras, chasing those cold eyes
from my man, the flies, those terrible flies. . . .
In silent humiUty, I touched Mr. Hann's cold, cold
hand.
37
He turned his face to Mr. Shin, who nodded to him;
then, suddenly he staggered, and ahnost collapsed.
I drove them back to the foot of the hill, and walked
with them to the house. The nurse came running out
of the front door and led the young minister inside,
Mr. Shin cordially shook my hand before I left.
But I had scarcely taken ten or so steps away from
him when I stopped and turned around.
He was still there, standing in the bleak garden, a
shadowy figure in the blurring twilight.
"Mr. Shin?" I called out to him.
"Yes?"
"The other ministers—they were all murdered shortly before you were moved to the prison. Did you
know?"
He was silent.
"Mr. Shin?"
"Yes?"
I hesitated for a moment, but I knew I had to ask
him. I said, "Your god—is he aware of the suffering of his people?"
He turned around without a word, and withdrew
into the dark, solitary house.
^l^^^^^^i^^^^^;!^ 5
THE BLACK, COLD November night shrouded the city outside. It was singularly quiet. I did not hear the
sound of the usual troop movements or of the con-
voys of supply, only occasionally the faint whining
of a lone jeep, or the distant humming of a formation
of bombers. Alone in my office I sat on the edge of
the camp bed near the coal stove that glowed in the
shadowy halo of the candlehght. The night was get-
ting deep, but I was in no mood for sleep. The win-
dowpanes rattled, and the faint clanging of the bell
slipped into the room, permeating my consciousness.
I picked up the crude iron bar from the coal box and
poked the lava-like coal in the stove, sending up a
hissing blaze. The undulating Ught and the enveloping
darkness gnawed at each other spasmodically, and
gazing at the hypnotic, wavering blue core of the
candlelight I knew only that I was at a loss; and that
was a pity.
38
39
That certainly was a pity because the next morning
when Colonel Chang exclaimed, "Divine interven-
tion! What does he think he is, a saint!" I could not
help laughing with him, however momentarily, half
amused and half uncomfortable.
"Divine intervention, eh? Oh, well, let him have his
way," he said, good-naturedly.
I was surprised and even puzzled by his extraordi-
nary geniality, for I had expected him to fly into a
rage over my report on the visit to the ministers. How-
ever, he behaved extremely well, and even managed
to put me off my guard by indicating that he was not
at all annoyed with the outcome of my interview with
Mr. Shin. I had anticipated some sort of violent re-
action from him upon learning that the two ministers
had been with the other twelve shortly before the
execution. Yet all he said was: "Yes, yes." Then he
swiveled in his squeaking chair and laughed again:
"You really must have scared the devil out of him!
So—he had to hide behind his god, eh? Well, well, young fellow, that's good work, very good work, in-
deed."
His confident manner and indulgent laughter dis-
turbed me. "I don't think I did anything to scare him,
sir," I protested. "Besides, I don't think he was scared
of anything. He looked more tired than anything else."
"Ah, you don't understand. Of course, he was
40
scared. But remember, he is a preacher and he knows
how to put on a good act—theatrical, if you know what I mean. Of course, he was scared," he said, with
a wave of his hand. "I knew it, I knew it."
"Sir, I hope you are not suggesting that they col-
laborated with the Communists," I said.
"Well, what do you think?"
"It is very difficult for me to suspect that they could
have betrayed the other ministers."
"Why not?" he asked, with a peculiar, cold smile
on his face that for some reason at the moment made
me think of him as a gambler. He leaned back in his
chair. "Well, why not? Because they are Christians?
You are not a Christian."
"No, I am not, but that's beside the point, sir. I
don't think the Communists needed any collaboration,
because they wanted to murder the prisoners anyway.
There wasn't anything really against the ministers, as
you know yourself, sir. What I mean is that there
were no justifiable charges against them. So, why
should the Communists have needed informants or
collaborators?"
"Of course the Reds had no charges," he said, as
though he pitied my naivete. "But that's beside the
point, if I may borrow your expression. When you
don't have charges, you manufacture them. It's as
simple as that. So they manufactured charges against
41
the ministers, then they needed someone to confess
—
that's right—confess and bear witness to the charges. It's all very simple."
"You mean the two ministers were forced to con-
fess?"
"Possibly."
"We don't have any evidence for that."
**No, we don't."
"Then what do you suppose we ought to do?"
"Just wait."
I was quite tense by then, and I felt as though I
were struggling to disentangle myself from a web.
"Wait for what, sir?"
"Confession."
"I don't understand."
"I am waiting for them to confess."
"Confess what, sir?"
"That they gave their confessions to the Reds."
"Then you really think that's how they survived."
"Can you think of any better explanation," he said,
"apart from his nonsense about divine intervention?"
"Good luck, perhaps," I muttered.
"More nonsense."
I felt desperate, without knowing precisely why. I
said as calmly as I could, "Then you ought to arrest
them."
42
Colonel Chang chuckled. "My dear fellow, you
don't think I am as stupid as that, do you?"
"No, I don't."
"Look here, I have no intention of downgrading
Christians. Why should I go out of my way to discredit
Christians, whose interests, after all, coincide with
ours in this war? On the contrary, I intend to do my
best to protect them, to boost their morale, and to
promote their interests."
"Then why do you have to have such a strong sus-
picion about the ministers?" I said. "After all, even
if they confessed to the manufactured charges, we can
reasonably assume that they were forced to do so, and
that it doesn't really constitute an act of treason. At
least, not in my opinion, sir."
Tilting his head, he gazed at me through his thick
glasses. "What about in the opinion of their god?" he
said.
I shook my head helplessly. "I wouldn't know about
that."
Suddenly dispelling the air he had been affecting
of harmless good nature, he snapped, "No, you don't.
But I do! I tell you, I do!" He paused, and pointed his
finger at me. "Put yourself in their place and think
about the martyrs—those twelve ministers who were murdered in cold blood. Can't you see what these two
must be going through? Well, we'll forget about the
43
crazy one. Now, don't misunderstand me. I am not
trying to hound this man, Shin. By no means. I want
to help him."
"Help him!"
"For the sake of justice, I want to hear his con-
fession. But I won't turn that against him. No, I won't.
I mean to protect him and I'll do all I can to keep it
secret. I am sure the Chief of Army InteUigence won't
have any objection to that. That's right. I'll protect
him, FU make him a hero, and I'll even cooperate with
him for the cause of Christianity in North Korea."
"But suppose, sir, suppose, he has nothing to say?"
Colonel Chang leaned forward, his eyes shining
darkly. "We shall then appeal to his conscience," he
said.
^;^;^;^;^^;^^^^^;^^ 6
CURIOUSLY ENOUGH Colonel Chang had not told me to see Mr. Shin again, nor had he intimated that
I should do so on my own initiative. In the next few
days, I saw the colonel several times but he gave me
no inkling as to the unresolved problem concern-
ing the ministers. His behavior puzzled me, finally
disturbed me. Meanwhile, I was busy with my routine
activities; I attended regular staff meetings, wrote
innumerable pamphlets for the Army's Troop Infor-
mation and Education Bureau, and prepared a few
speeches for the chief, one of whose jobs it was to
speak to groups of civic-minded people in the city.
As the month of November progressed, the Korean
Infantry and various U.N. troops on the western front
were busily engaged in the final stage of mopping-up
operations near the Yalu River, across which stretched
the endless expanse of the frozen plains of Man-
44
45
churia; on the eastern front, the U.N. Infantry and
the American Marines, encountering little opposition,
steadily made their way toward the Tumen River near
Siberia. The demoralization of the North Korean
Army was swift and complete; the war was virtually
coming to an end. Everyone was cheerful and hopeful,
and was convinced that it would be all over by Christ-
mas.
Then one cold and windy afternoon, I received the
following letter from Park:
I am still alive, in case you wondered. At least I
know I am alive right this minute. We are moving fast these days, too recklessly fast, perhaps. We hardly stop anywhere long enough to think about
where we are going. Well—I just survived my first hand-to-hand combat. But my CO was killed, so they made me a temporary captain and put me in
charge of the company. What happened is—we got into a bayonet fight with a company of North
Koreans in a valley. Both sides charged and it was
all right for a while—just a regular hand-to-hand combat. Then somehow everything got all mixed
up, and it was wild. The trouble was that it was
pitch-black night and that we all spoke Korean.
DevU only knew which side we were killi ng, Every-
one was shouting in the same language, "Who are you? Who are you?" For a while the bewilderment was simply staggering. Then, something—panic, ter- ror, you name it—snapped, and everyone was kill-
46
ing everyone else. All of a sudden, a hand grenade
exploded, and that did it We scattered in all direc- tions, throwing grenades behind us. But that was
nothing. Some idiot had called for artillery fire, and
shells started pouring down out of the black sky.
It was a deep, rocky valley, squeezed in by steep
cliffs, and I just wonder—if you had been up on top of one of those mountains and had been able to see
what was going on down there in the black bottom
of the valley—I just wonder how you would have felt? But why am I writing you all this? I don't
exactly know. Perhaps, I am frightened of myself.
It depresses me to suspect that I am the very source
of my horror. Will write again. Take care of your-
self
Park's letter had been written nearly two weeks
before, and it did not give me the faintest clue as to
the location of his unit. I wanted to write him, but I
knew my letter would take more time to reach him
than his letter had to find me. I thought I would take
advantage of my position and make use of the direct
telephone of the Intelligence Communication Service.
For this, I needed the assistance of the Marine Corps
liaison oflBcer assigned to our headquarters. I went
down to his office.
The officer, a husky, young lieutenant who limped
noticeably, made notes of Park's name, his serial
47
number and his unit's number, and assured me that
he would let me know as soon as he could how to
reach Park. He was usually cheerful and sociable,
with clear brown eyes and a quick boyish snule; but
while he attended to me that afternoon, he was quiet
and businesslike. I did not t^ him more than was
necessary, and he was scrupulous enough not to ask
me any questions.
When I thanked him for his help and turned to go,
he stood up from his chair and detained me. Then he
closed the door of his oflBce and came to where I was
standing. His behavior aroused my curiosity. He
looked at me for a moment, scratched the back of his
head and his cropped hair, and smiled sheepishly.
"Captain Lee," he said, "I really don't know if it's all
right to teU you this."
I returned his smile. "Well?"
"It's about this Captain Park," he said.
"Yes?"
"You are not the only one who wants to contact
him. Colonel Chang is also interested in him."
"Colonel Chang?"
"Yes. He was down here about four days ago and
asked me to locate Captain Park . . . well, he didn't know the oflBcer had been promoted then."
"What did he want?"
"That's the point. It was supposed to be very im-
48
portant. Of course, I don't have any idea what he was
up to. It wasn't that he wanted to call him, though."
The lieutenant frowned and went on to tell me that,
after he had located Park for Colonel Chang, the
colonel had communicated with the Chief of Naval
Intelligence. "It was, you know, sort of hush-hush,"
he concluded. "I really don't know if I should have
told you about this."
I told him it was all right, he was not violating any
security regulations.
"So, you see, when you asked me about the same
officer, I just couldn't help wondering about him,"
he said. "Who is he? Is he involved in something? Oh,
I talk too much. Never mind. Captain. I won't ask
you any more questions."
I assured him that it was all right with me, that
Park was a friend of mine, and that I wanted to call
him only for personal reasons.
He was relieved and said, beaming, "Oh, that's fine.
Tell you the truth, I do it myself sometimes, I try to
contact fellows I know all over the country. You
know, just to keep in touch." He told me how, out of
two hundred or so who had been trained and com-
missioned with him, only forty-seven were still alive;
they were, most of them, college students who had
volunteered. There was a feeling of kinship between
us; we both had been in an academic environment
49
before the war; we chatted, oblivious to our present
status, about our universities, and our future plans.
Then we talked about our experiences in the war; and
he was telling me how he had been wounded by "a
God-damned Russian mine," and how those "quacks" ,
—those medical students in uniform—had been scared to death at the first aid station and had almost
"chopped his knee off" and so on, when we heard a
knock on the door.
It was my orderly. I was wanted by Colonel Chang.
I thanked the Marine lieutenant for his help, and
headed for the colonel's office.
On my way upstairs, I could not help feeling that
I was like a helpless spectator, vainly conjecturing
about the elusive performance of a magician. At the
same time I was indignant, for I felt the colonel had
encroached upon my private life by deUberately by- passing me in undertaking affairs that had something
to do with Park.
Colonel Chang, upon seeing me enter his office,
gestured that I should take a chair and wait until he
was ready for me. I could not but think that he had
already guessed what was in my mind. For a few min- utes he engaged himself in a mute examination of
papers on his desk. Then, shoving the papers aside, he
raised his smooth bald head and said, as though speak-
ing to himself. "Well, well, how do you Uke that?"
50
"Sir?"
"This man. Shin," he said, shaking his head as if
he was overwhelmed by a sense of helpless resignation.
"I simply don't understand him."
"What's the trouble, sir?"
"I've had CIC do a quiet opinion poU, so to speak.
You know, just asking some Christians about the two
ministers. Well, they all say the same thing—that the two were separated from the others by the Reds, so
they had no knowledge of what became of the twelve
ministers. How do you like that, eh?"
"Perhaps it's the truth."
With a grin, he said, "It's not as simple as that. The
point is that this man, Shin, has told his congregation
in plain words that he and the other one. Harm, hadn't
seen the other ministers again after they had been
separately interrogated by the Reds. What do you
think of that?"
"I suppose his congregation, or for that matter, all
the Christians in the country, would like to know what
happened to the ministers and they would ask him
about it. It seems to me only natural under the cir-
cumstances."
"Natural indeed," he snapped. "And they would
believe whatever he tells them, wouldn't they? If they
are all good Christians, that is."
"I suppose, sir," I answered helplessly. "I don't ex-
51
pect they would seriously think their minister was
telling them a lie from his pulpit."
"Well said, Captain. Very well said."
I was not ready to leave. I stood up but lingered
for a moment, groping for the right word with which
to begin my own cross-examination, as it were, about
Park. Colonel Chang looked up from his desk at me,
as though he were genuinely surprised to see me still
there, and said good-naturedly, "That is all. Captain.
Thank you for coming."
I gave in and made to go, when he said casually,
"Tomorrow is Sunday, isn't it?"
"Yes."
"Oh, good. I thought you and I might attend the
service at Minister Shin's church tomorrow."
^l^i^^^i^i^^^^^^^}!^ 7
"BUT WHY ARE you telling me about it?" said Mr. Shin, slowly raising his head.
I had decided, after my supper at headquarters, to
go to see him. I had no clear idea why I wanted to see
him, except for a vague feeling of restlessness. I still
did not have the slightest notion, even when we were
sitting face to face, as to what had convinced me of
the necessity to drive all that way to the hill. So I sat
quietly, for some time, merely looking at Mr. Shin,
who maintaiued, to my great relief, an air of immeas-
urable serenity.
"I suppose I should be grateful to you for letting
me know where I stand," he continued slowly, "but,
frankly, I don't quite understand why you should go
out of your way to do me this favor." He looked at me
calmly, covering his mouth with a handkerchief. He
was coughing with much difficulty, with his lean
52
53
shoulders hunched and twitching; he looked weary
and his eyes were deeply sunken. The coughing
stopped and he said, "To be sure, I don't mean to say
that I am not grateful. It is just that I don't under-
stand you."
"Neither do I understand myself," I confessed,
"I expected to see you again, of course," he said,
"but not under these circumstances." He looked at me
as though he doubted the sincerity of my motive for
coming to see him.
I felt uncomfortable, and I said awkwardly, "I hope
you don't still consider me an interrogator."
"It makes little difference to me. I don't mind if
you question me." His manner was cool and deliberate
—at least it seemed so to me. "Is there anything more I can learn from you?" I
said, slightly vexed with myself, for I wished I had
not come. "Haven't you told me all you know about
the murdered ministers?"
He did not respond.
"I can understand your feeling toward those whose
business it is to interrogate, prosecute, and execute
people," I went on. "Perhaps you judge them all alike,
regardless of whether they are North Koreans or South
Koreans or what not. But I assure you that within our
organization, as far as I know, there are many decent
people who would like to be of help to others, well.
54
to others like you." I stopped and felt I was blushing
a little.
"Are you trying to help me?" he asked. "Why?"
"I don't know." I said. "Perhaps, I need your help
more than you need mine. Who knows?"
'To tell you frankly, I don't blame your colonel,"
he said, pausing for his coughing to stop. "On the con-
trary, I consider it his duty to form such opinions
about me. I should have done the same had I been in
his place."
"Are you suggesting that he has justifiable reasons
for suspecting you?" I said, frowning.
"But of course," he said. There was no indication of
sarcasm in his placid, matter-of-fact air.
"You don't really mean that, do you?"
"Why not? After all, do not forget that a Christian,
a clergyman, is also a human being. He should be
examined in the same light of human passion, and on
the same scale of human frailty as any other man
would be. I don't consider myself or any other clergy-
man necessarily capable of not succumbing to physical
and spiritual torture."
It was the first time I heard him speak so forcefully,
though his voice was subdued and his manner un-
ruffled; he spoke without looking at me, only staring
into the empty, cold space before him as though he
were addressing someone invisible, hovering over me.
55
"As you know," he continued, "Mr. Hann and I
were about to be shot when the prison was captured.
But that makes Uttle difference. We survived, and the survival of any poHtical prisoner in a Communist
prison is an extraordinary thing in itself. Particularly,
in our case, it was a near-miracle. But miracle is a
diflBcult word to understand these days, and when we
survived while twelve ministers were executed, the
meaning of the word becomes ambiguous. Therefore,
it is natural that a suspicion should arise."
"But you are innocent of the suspicion, aren't you?"
I blurted out. "I assume you have told me the truth."
He stirred in his chair. "I have told you all that I
can tell you."
*'You are innocent, aren't you?" I repeated.
"Yes."
"Then you told me the truth."
"I speak the truth of my conscience, Captain."
"Am I not capable of judging the truth?" "Don't you realize," he said gravely, "that you are
speaking of the fact of man, and I of the truth of my
faith?"
*Then you beUeve you are innocent in the eyes of
your god."
He seemed startled by my words, and he gazed at me intensely for some time; then he lowered his eyes
and said quietly, "It is for Him to judge me."
56
Mr. Shin came to the door with me. I asked him
about the young minister and was told that he was
well taken care of by a doctor and the nurse; beyond
that, he would say nothing. I wanted to do something
for him, and I was on the point of telling him that he
should not hesitate to ask me for help, when he said,
"Do you know, by any chance, a young man of your
age, Indoe Park?"
"Do I know him!" I exclaimed. "He is my best
friend."
For a moment, he stared at me as though he re-
gretted that he had asked me about Park. Then he
said quietly, "The last thing I heard of him was that
he was teaching in Seoul at the university where you
taught before the war. I thought you might have
known him."
"We were always together," I said. "We taught the
same subject. But how do you know him?"
"I suppose you must know about his father," he
said.
"Yes, I do."
"I knew both of them. You may say, I was a family
friend. How is he now?"
I told him about Park, adding that I had just re-
ceived a letter from him that afternoon.
"Does he know?" he asked.
"No. I haven't told him."
57
"I understand both of them," he said. "I understand
your friend as I understood his father. Very proud,
so passionately proud. Yes, I understand them." Then
he was silent; and I knew he did not wish to detain
me any longer. I was bidding him good night when
we heard a knock on the door. I looked at Mr. Shin;
he nodded, and I opened the door.
A man in uniform walked into the dimly lit hall- way and glanced at me in surprise, as though he had
not expected to find another man in uniform there.
His outward appearance was nearly identical to mine:
combat boots, a parka, a steel helmet, though he did
not wear a pistol nor any insignia. He did not seem
to have recognized my host, who was standing quietly
behind me. "I would like to see Mr. Shin," he said
gruffly. "I am Chaplain Koh of the Third Brigade.
I am an old friend."
I stepped aside so that he could speak directly to
Mr. Shin. The chaplain came forward and looked
closely at the minister. He was a tall, thickset man,
and his steel helmet, pressed down to his eyebrows,
blurred his profile with an uneven shadow, save for
his dented chin. He seemed only now to recognize
Mr. Shin and exclaimed, "Why, it's you! I could
hardly tell it was you! My Lord, what suffering you must have gone through!" He thrust out his hand,
but Mr. Shin did not respond, and the big, stubby
58
hand remained suspended in the air as if it were sud-
denly frozen. Then he grabbed the minister's arm,
and said, "Good Lord, you need a doctor to take care
of you!"
Mr. Shin violently brushed his hand aside. He
stepped back and said sternly, "Do not touch me."
He coughed violently. The nurse appeared in the
background.
"What's the matter? Are you ill?" cried the chap-
lain; and turning to me, "Is he all right? Is he ill?"
"I do not wish to see you," said Mr. Shin, agitated.
"I bid you leave my house. You know as well as I do
why I do not wish to see you."
I looked at Chaplain Koh with vague feelings of
hostiUty, but he did not seem to be shocked or angry.
Rather, he appeared to have anticipated Mr. Shin's
behavior. He was silent for a while, then said politely,
"Yes, I know. I understand how you feel about me.
But I have something very important to tell you and
as soon as I finish telling you about it, I'll leave."
"Then speak," commanded Mr. Shin.
The chaplain glanced at me as though begging me
to leave them alone.
I turned to Mr. Shin. "Is there anything I can do
for you?"
"No, thank you," he muttered. "Good night."
;i^^^^^^^^^^^li^fi^ 8
LATE SUNDAY MORNING, Colonel Chang and
I drove to Mr. Shin's church, which was not too far
from our headquarters. We parked the jeep in a deserted alley off the main street, and started to walk.
About thirty paces from where we left the jeep, there
was a narrow, gradually ascending path barely wide
enough for us to walk shoulder to shoulder. Along
both sides there were rows of shabby, flat houses of
gray stone and dirty plaster. Beneath the soft new
snow under our feet lurked the old snow as hard and
slippery as ice. Colonel Chang had much diflBculty
walking up the winding path.
When we looked back we could see first the snow-
covered roofs of the houses we had passed, then those
of the other houses farther away, and then the streets
down below. Soon we found ourselves in a clearing,
face to face with a small wooden gate, beyond which
59
60
a footpath led us to two flights of stone steps cleared
of snow. There, above the steps, on a massive expanse
of flat rock, stood the towering church of red brick,
with four ponderous marble pillars and large stained-
glass windows aglow in the sun. The cross-topped
belfry perched high above the blinding snow on the
roof, its many bells ringing, vibrating in the sunny
air. To the left of the church, near the edge of the
rocky clearing, ran an iron fence, and a steep precipice
swept downward. The bells stopped ringing.
We were late for the service. It was very quiet; not a sound from within the church, nor from the traffic
down below reached our ears. Perhaps the congrega-
tion was praying, I suggested to the colonel.
He turned to me. "Quite a church, isn't it? I under-
stand it can seat well over a thousand people."
"It is lucky to have survived," I remarked. "Nothing
seems to have touched it at all." I could not help
comparing the fates of the two churches in the same
city, the devastated church of Park's father, and Mr.
Shin's, which somehow had managed to survive the
tribulations of war.
"It has nothing to do with luck," Colonel Chang
said. "We saved it quite intentionally. Didn't you know
that this church saw one of the bloodiest battles? The
Reds had an antiaircraft battery up here, certainly a
very convenient location, although it's extremely vul-
61
nerable to aerial attack. Of course they had an artil-
lery observation post here, too, when we reached the
other side of the river. They knew we were not allowed
to do any damage to this church. It was an idiotic
decision when you look at it from a purely tactical
point of view, but the strategic value of saving the
church was greater than smashing it for an immediate
tactical gain. It was supposed to be a symbolic gesture
on our part. But the Reds could pinpoint their artillery
fire practically at any target, and that was too much
for us when we had to cross the river and take the
city. So we threw in a detachment of commandos,
who climbed up here—Heaven knows how—and took the post and held it, with our aerial protection, until
we crossed the river. So that's how this church was
spared. Can you imagine," he glanced upward, "that a
Red was right up there in that belfry, directing artillery
fire against us while we were trying to save the church
and by so doing save his life?" He cluck-clucked,
shaking his head. Then he said that we should go in
and join the congregation. We seated ourselves in one of the rear pews.
The interior was somewhat like that of a grand
theater, with rising rows of pews, plastered pillars that
supported the balcony, and many aisles leading to
the altar with an elevated pulpit. Under the expanse
of white ceihng, from which a dozen or so crystal
62
chandeliers were suspended with gilded chains, the
congregation was bowed in prayer, immobile as
though the freezing air had turned it into a multitude
of lifeless statues. I looked for Mr. Shin but I did not
see him behind the altar, where four white-robed elders
sat on high-backed chairs. One of the chairs was un-
occupied. I glanced at Colonel Chang, but his face
remained expressionless. I looked at the altar again,
in time to see one of the elders disappear into the right
wing of the church and come back.
Then the prayer was over, there was a rustling of
clothes and discreet coughing in the congregation, and
I saw the elder, who had returned, lean toward the
others. Presently, one of them mounted the pulpit, on
which a giant Bible lay open, and announced the sing-
ing of a certain hymn. Colonel Chang reached for the
rack on the back of the pew in front of us, and picked
out a hymnbook, which he opened and handed to
me, motioning me to stand up. We rose as the pipe organ began to play the prelude, but I did not join
in the singing although the Colonel urged me to, indi-
cating with his plump finger the proper passage. He
observed my behavior with obvious enjoyment; once
he even chuckled.
During the singing, the same elder went into the
wing again, returning to his seat only at the end of
the hymn. Colonel Chang reached out for the rack
63
again, picked up two small square envelopes, and
asked if he could borrow some money from me. I
gave him some change, which he put in an envelope,
explaining that these envelopes were for the use of
those who did not wish to reveal the amount of their
offering. He handed me one.
The service progressed, but Mr, Shin still did not
appear. An elder read a passage from the Bible, then
spoke to the congregation. It was with the greatest
regret, he said, that he had to announce the sad news
that Mr. Shin was unable to be present, due to a sud-
den illness. He proposed that the congregation pray
for the health and speedy recovery of the minister who
had suffered much at the hands of those who were
against the will of God.
Colonel Chang sprang to his feet and stalked out of
the church. I hastily followed him and when I had
closed the weighty front door behind me he was al-
ready approaching the gate. I ran down the path and
came abreast of him. Together, we descended the hiU
in silence.
It was only when we reached the jeep that he spoke.
"Too sick to preach!" he snorted.
^^^^;^^l^^^^^^^ 9
A SERIES OF conferences and briefings occupied the afternoon until well past four o'clock, when, at last
free and alone, I shut myself up in my office and gazed
out the window. In the last rays of the setting sun, the
tip of the cross over the gray bell tower glowed faindy,
and snow flurries swished about the ruins, some chas-
ing after the jeeps and trucks, some sweeping along
the edge of the streets. Shadows crept upward on the
slope, invading the mutilated church, then the bell
tower, and as the jagged silhouette grew darker, a
somber silence enveloped the city. The wind had
subsided, no sound came from the bell as the sun
swiftly disappeared, and then it was evening. I headed
for Mr. Shin's house again.
The nurse met me. Her hair was neatly combed and
her clothes unruffled, but she seemed weary and at a
loss as to what to do with me as she held open the front
64
65
door, neither letting mc in, nor shutting me out. Wc
looked at each other mutely in the dim hght for a mo-
ment, then she smiled shyly, shaking her head. She
let me into the hallway and hushed me. She opened
the door of the room where I had sat with Mr. Shin
the night before, and motioned me to follow her in.
Her manner flattered mc a little, though I felt uneasy.
I asked her if Mr. Shin was ill.
Her small eyes became smaller and narrower, wrin-
kles gathered about them. In the harsh light of the
naked hght bulb, her face looked, for a second, like a
shriveled death mask. "It's worse than that," she said.
"Did you send for a doctor?" I asked.
"What can a doctor do for him?"
"He was coughing badly last night."
"He's been spitting blood," she said, shaking her
head.
I felt alarmed, for I had not suspected that Mr.
Shin's illness was so critical. "You should have told
me about it sooner," I said. "We must do something."
"I don't know what we can do," she said. "He won't
take medicine. He only tells me it's not the doctor's
medicine he needs."
"Can I see him? You must let me see him at once."
"I can't. He's been praying since last night and
fasting too. I stayed up all night in case he needed
66
me; he hasn't slept, he hasn't eaten, he hasn't even
called me. He's still praying upstairs, I am sure."
We were both quiet for a while.
Then she said, "It's all because of that man!"
"You mean the chaplain."
"Yes, the man who came to see Mr. Shin last night.
They were shouting at each other after you left. I
didn't know what to do. Then Mr. Shin started cough-
ing. I could bear it even in the kitchen; he was
coughing ternbiy. I told the man to leave the house."
"Had you seen him before?"
"No, I don't know him personally, but everyone
knows what sort of a man he is," she said. "He had a
church here, but one night he ran away. He just
bolted, without telling anyone about it. That was a
year or so before the war."
"Didn't he have a family?"
"No, he was all by himself."
"Was he, maybe, in trouble with the Communists?"
"Who knows? The next day, the Communist poUce
took four young men of his church and nobody saw
them again. Now he's back as an Army chaplain and
all that. You see, Mr. Shin had good reason to get
upset and angry." She paused. "Anyway, after he
ran away, they asked my son to tend his church."
I interrtipted her. "Your son?"
67
She was taken aback by my sudden question, real-
ized what she had said, and became confused.
I muttered an apology. "You were saying?"
"Mr. Shin told me you know Mr. Indoe Park?"
"Do you also know him?"
"No, I've never seen him but I've heard much about
him. I knew his father well."
"Then you know what their relationship was."
"It was sad," she said. "Do you know how your
friend feels about his father now? Is he still angry
with his father, do you think?"
I hesitated for a moment. "No, I don't think he is,"
I said.
"I am so glad to hear that. You see, my son lost his
father when he was seven, so I had to work to send
him through school. He went to a missionary school
here and became a Christian, and was baptized by
your friend's father. My son wanted to be a minister, so Mr. Park helped him through the seminary. He was
always kind to us and when my son finished the semi- nary, Mr. Park himself ordained him. Then all of a
sudden this war." She broke into sobs.
I could not help saying, "You have been speaking
to me about Mr. Hann, haven't you?"
She covered her face with her chapped hands. "Yes,
I am his mother," she said.
^^^;i^^^^^;i^^;i^;^;^ 10
WHEN I RETURNED to headquarters, I was met by my orderly. I was wanted by Colonel Chang, who
had a visitor with him. After making a routine check
with the duty officer, I went upstairs to the chiefs
oflSce and found them standing near the stove. When
they both turned to me, I could not fail to recognize
the visitor; it was Chaplain Koh. I was not at all sur-
prised to see him there with Colonel Chang; I was,
perhaps, more amused. He appeared to recognize me
and I thought he looked puzzled as he scrutinized me
while the colonel introduced us. We shook hands. Neither of us spoke a word. The coal stove emitted a
stale air; it was stifling in the hot and smoky room.
"He is an old acquaintance of mine," the colonel
said, "and it might interest you to know that he is a
good friend of Mr. Shin's." He turned to the chaplain.
"Aren't you?"
68
69
Chaplain Koh smiled at me, and said, "A pleasant
surprise, indeed, that Mr. Shin is a mutual friend of
ours. He and I went to the same seminary and we
were ordained together. Have you been acquainted
with him long?"
"I wouldn't call myself a friend of Mr. Shin's," I
replied. "I don't know him well enough."
"I see," he said; then, after a pause, "I am afraid
he hasn't fully recovered from his past suffering. I
assume you know that he was in a Communist prison.
It seems to me my poor friend feels quite mortified
that he survived the Reds' persecution. ... I mean
that he . . . you know, the twelve martyrs ..."
I looked at the colonel.
"He knows all about it," the colonel said, to me.
Then to the chaplain, "That's a pity. He shouldn't
feel that way."
"Ah well, I can understand him," said the chaplain.
"I would feel the same way if I were in his place."
"You clergymen," the colonel said, shaking his
head.
"After all, my dear military friends," said the chap-
lain, "we clergymen share a stronger spiritual bond
than yours, if you don't mind my telling you so." He
smiled.
"I can hardly disagree with you there," the colonel
said. "I am sure Captain Lee feels the same way. The
70
fellowship in the service of God ought to mean more
than the fellowship in the service of a state—if you believe in God, that is."
I spoke to the colonel. "I was told that you wanted
to see me, sir."
With a nod, he said, "I want you to look after the
chaplain. He is going to be with us for a week or so,
and I want you to make sure he is comfortable here."
"I hope I won't be a burden to you," the chaplain
said to me.
"I asked him to represent the Army," said the
colonel.
"I beg your pardon, sir?" I said.
"The Christians are planning a joint memorial serv-
ice for the twelve martyrs, and several ministers who
are on the preparation committee asked me for help.
Of course, I promised them that I would do all I
can."
"But, Colonel, how do they know?" I said.
"About what?"
"About the twelve, sir."
"Oh, that. I've told them."
"You haven't made it public yet, sir. Are you going
to announce it officially?"
"Sooner or later."
"What about the two ministers?"
"What about them? Is there anything you want to
suggest?"
71
"Nothing in particular, sir. I merely wanted to know
what you propose to do with them." I turned to the
chaplain. "Excuse us, but we are talking about Mr.
Shin and Mr. Hann."
"Is there anything wrong with them?" the chaplain
said, frowm'ng.
"Nothing that I know of," said the colonel.
I could not help wondering what his game was now.
"Captain, you and the chaplain will represent the
Army for the memorial service," the colonel contin-
ued. "Of course, both of you will be on the prepara-
tion committee. He will cooperate with the ministers
in the city and you'll take care of, say, logistic prob-
lems. We'll discuss it in more detail later on."
"It will be my great pleasure to work with you,"
the chaplain said to me.
"I am sure it wiU be a very rewarding experience
for both of you," the colonel said.
"Is that all, sir?" I said.
"The chaplain is going to use my office for his tem-
porary stay, so why don't you get him a camp bed."
He looked at the chaplain. "I hope you don't mind
sleeping here. We'll try to get you a more comfortable
place in a day or so."
I asked the colonel, "Sir, do you think, perhaps,
I should contact, say, the local YMCA? I should think that they might be able to find a better place."
"Please don't trouble yourself about me," said the
72
chaplain. "After all, I am in the Army and I am used
to sleeping anywhere. I should hesitate to trouble
the Christians here. They have enough problems of
their own and I don't want to impose on them. Please
don't worry about me. I'll be most comfortable in
this room."
"Yes, we in the Army can take care of ourselves,"
the colonel said, "Not that Chaplain Koh doesn't know
anyone in the city. He had a church here before the
war, in case you didn't know, and that's how I got to
know him."
"Colonel Chang saved my life," the chaplain said.
"At that time—a year and a half ago, wasn't it Chaplain?—I was in charge of the Army's Intelli- gence network in the Pyongyang area, and my old
friend here was invaluable to our operation. Do you
realize that he was more daring than any of the men
I sent here? Why, I even had to slow him down!"
"Now, now, let's not get into that," said the chap-
lain. "I only did what my conviction dictated, that's
aU."
Colonel Chang chuckled. "Captain, do you know
that I had to have my men kidnap him? Can you
imagine my men spiriting him out of Pyongyang?"
"Now, really," the chaplain said, with a sudden,
severe frown.
Colonel Chang ignored his protest. "The truth of
73
the matter is that the Reds got wind of our operation.
We learned that from a double agent we had planted
in their Counterintelligence. They were about to take
a crack at our network. It all happened so fast I
barely had enough time to tell the chaplain to get out.
To my surprise, he refused to go underground. Too
proud, you know. So, I had to kidnap him, so to speak,
and whisk him off to the South."
Chaplain Koh iQxed an impassive gaze upon the
colonel.
Colonel Chang shrugged. "I couldn't let them shoot
you, could I? You were too valuable to be made a
martyr."
"Martyr? Were there any casualties?" I said.
Colonel Chang waved his hand. "Ah, enough of the
past."
Chaplain Koh looked angry, but he said quietly,
"Yes, Captain, we had casualties. I had to abandon
four men. They were all shot later by the Reds."
"Enough, enough," said the colonel. "I couldn't do
anything about it. I did my best." He turned to the
chaplain. "And there was nothing you could do
either. . . . Come, come, we should be more concerned
with what we have to do right now. And that reminds
me of the talk I've had with several Christian leaders
here. I regret to say that they don't have any con-
structive ideas. They don't seem to have the fighting
74
spirit. Now, that's why I asked you to come here,
Chaplain. They need a man Uke you to help them
stand on their own feet."
Chaplain Koh looked preoccupied.
"We must revive the Christian church here, and
they need our help," Colonel Chang went on. "They
need moral support from the South Korean Christians
and from the Army, too. More than anything else,
they need leaders who can initiate vigorous action.
You see, they are suffering from the loss of their lead-
ers. And I am sure the memorial service will help
them greatly. Let's understand this: after all, we are
all fighting Communists and in this joint operation,
you might say, we need each other. We help Cliris- tians, and they help us."
"It was very good of you to have initiated the idea
of the memorial service for the Christians," said the
chaplain matter-of-factly.
Colonel Chang continued placidly, "The twelve
martyrs are a great symbol. They are a symbol of the
suffering Christians and their eventual spiritual
triumph. We mustn't let the martyrs down. We must let everyone witness their spiritual victory over the
Reds."
"The Christians here are still suffering from the
sickness left by the persecution," the chaplain said
quietly, as though speaking to himself.
75
Colonel Chang tapped him on the shoulder, smil-
ing. "Ah, they need new wine to fill the old bottles."
Standing between them, with my back turned to the smoky stove, I had no other desire at that moment
than to go to bed.
The Marine lieutenant called me shortly after I
returned to my oflBce. Park had been transferred to
Marine Corps Headquarters a few days ago, but the
lieutenant could not locate him there. He was on leave.
No one seemed to know where he was.
lfi;^^^^^^^l^;i^^;i^^ 11
j
WHEN CHAPLAIN KOH came down to my office, a little past midnight, I had just finished working on
the weekly report and was about to retire. He was still
in his uniform. He apologized for disturbing me when
I offered him a chair near the stove. I asked him if
there was anything he wanted me to do for him. He
rephed that he was well taken care of. For a moment,
we looked at each other without a word, then he shook
his head and blurted out:
"You surprised me. Fve been thinking about you
ever since Colonel Chang left me in peace."
I could not help smiling. "So he left you in peace."
He grinned. "As you know, I saw you at Mr. Shin's
last night. Should I have recognized you in the colo-
nel's office?"
I shrugged.
"Why didn't you mention that you had seen me?"
76
77
"And why didn't you?" I asked.
"I was too busy speculating. I thought you didn't
want Colonel Chang to know that you were at Mr.
Shin's last night."
"I don't see why you should have thought so," I
said. "But, anyway, that was very considerate of
you."
"Oh, but it was you who were considerate of me.
After all, you saw me caught in an embarrassing posi-
tion at Mr. Shin's, and when I saw you tonight, I
needed time to think."
"We are very thoughtful of each other, aren't we?"
"Then we are friends," he said, smiling.
"Would you Uke to be?"
"Ah, you are a hard man," he said. "I understand
that you used to be a university instructor."
"Yes."
"I hope the Army hasn't succeeded in corrupting
you."
"Why do you say that?"
"What I mean is," he said, clearing his throat, "I
hope you are not yet capable of being too cynical or
too blindly professional."
I did not respond; somehow, he managed to sur-
prise me.
"I know, I know," he said, nodding. "You want to
know where I stand."
7S
"Perhaps." I said.
"I can see that you respect Mr. Sliin ver}' much.
Now, now, don't tr>' to deny it. 1 know you said you
hardly know him, but 1 know better. Or perhaps I
should say i know Mr. Shin better. I respect his judg-
ment and he seems to think highly of you. He told me
about you, by the way. I am not trying to flatter you,
nor am I trying to convince you that Mr. Shin
shouldn't have treated me the way he did. He was
quite justified in his evaluation of my past conduct."
"If you don't mind my telling you so," I said, "I
am hardly interested in your past conduct."
"Ah, you should be, you should be, with good rea-
sons. Many people used to think I was a Communist
informer. I don't need to say that they don't think so
any more. But they despise me. Some still think I was
a shameless coward who ran away from his church.
Some think I defiled the vocation of ministry by en-
gaging in intelligence activities—a spy, to put it more bluntly. And then some think I bet^-dyed my congre-
gation, generally speaking."
"Did you?"
"Yes, I did," he replied without hesitation. "Yes, I
betrayed them. When a pastor begins to be suspicious
of members of his congregation, even of his elders,
well, he is betraying them. I couldn't take anyone into
my confidence."
79
"Why couiatft you?"
"Fear, a simple fear."
"A justifiable one?"
"Unfortunately, yes. I spoke to you about the four
men I had to abandon. One of them was an informer,
and would you believe it, he was a son of one of my
elders?" He paused and studied my face. "You don't
have to believe me. As Colonel Chang told you, I
was forced to go underground, to run away from my
church. But I stayed in Pyongyang for two days be-
fore Colonel Chang's men could arrange our ren-
dezvous with a motorboat on the west coast, near the
port of Chinnampo. By that time. Colonel Chang, who
was a major then, knew who the informer was. He
didn't know his name, of course, because we used
code names for our agents. I knew who it was because
the code name was for one of my own men and I was
the only one who knew them all personally. I con-
tacted the three others to tell them to go underground.
Actually, what I intended was to take them to South
Korea with me. I had them meet me. A lieutenant, who was in charge of Colonel Chang's men, insisted
that we liquidate the informer. I had no choice. We arranged for the four men to meet us and we were
all set to go to the place of our rendezvous, when our
double agent informed us that the Reds had been
alerted. It was too late to warn the three men. We
80
found out later that the Reds had arrested all four,
but on their way to the police, they—our three men, that is—put up a fight and tried to escape. The Reds shot them, all four of them, on the spot, not knowing
that one of them was their own informer."
I interrupted him. "Why are you tell me all this?"
He ignored my question and went on. "Now, the elder believes that his son died a hero's death in the
cause. I saw the old man, you see. I went to the
service at my church—I should say, my former church. Of course, I wasn't welcomed; it's a miracle they
didn't turn me out. The old man didn't conceal his
hatred and disdain toward me, nor did many others.
Now, what would you do if you were in my place?"
I was startled by his abrupt and unexpected ques-
tion. "Why do you ask me?"
"To be frank with you, I don't care what others
think of me. I did what I had to do. I did what I
felt was the right thing. I am not in sympathy with
the notion of nonviolent resistance. I have no intention
of turning the other cheek to be slapped twice. Heav-
ens no! I am sorry but I don't admire those early
Christians who calmly—so the story goes—waited, praying, to be devoured by the howling beasts of
Roman emperors. I am more inclined to worship the
God of the Old Testament. I don't mind telling you
that most of those twelve martyrs really don't deserve
81
to be called martyrs at all. Why, they didn't lift a
finger to resist the persecution, they didn't do any-
thing to alleviate the suffering of the Christians in
North Korea. They were afraid, you see, so afraid
that they did not dare raise their voices. Their people
could not hear them, did not feel that their pastors
were waging a spiritual battle against the Reds, if not
a physical battle. And what sort of sermons did they
give? Pastoral, as though they were literally a bunch
of shepherds tending sheep, as though that would
convince the Reds that Christians were a harmless
bunch of sweet angels. And what happened? Fourteen
ministers are having a jolly good time at a dinner
celebrating the birthday of one of them, in come the
Reds to bag them all and shoot the twelve, all this
for no good reason, and one comes back alive as a
lunatic, and the other wishes he had been shot too so
that he could be a martyr. Sheer nonsense! But I am
glad that Mr. Shin survived because I still think of
him as my best friend, no matter how he despises me."
"Does he despise you?"
"He used to," he said thoughtfully. "Yes, he used
to."
"What do you mean?"
"As I said, I don't care what others think of me," he
said. "But there is one opinion I care for. Mr. Shin's.
I couldn't bear to think that he, too, despised me.
82
So, when I saw him last night, I told him aU about
myself and about the^lder, and asked for his advice.
"I told him the truth of the matter," the chaplain
continued. "You see, I was getting tired of playing
the role of a saint or a Judas, whichever way you look
at it. I thought I had enough of the conceited elder
and the others. So I told him I was going to expose
the entire situation. Not because I wanted to clear
myself but because I couldn't take any more of the
idiotic notion of meek suffering and false pride of
these North Korean Christians, who call me a coward,
a renegade, and what not. They are sick. Captain;
they are still paralyzed by the spiritual disease they
caught from submitting obediently to persecution.
And now that they are liberated, what do they do?
Nothing but talk.
"Well, Mr. Shin was angry. I don't quite know why.
Perhaps, he was angry at seeing me in uniform and
meddling with what he calls the affairs of those who
advocate violence in the name of justice. But I think
he was more angry at my intention to strip the elder
of his glorious illusion so that he should face the truth
about his damnable son. So he says, Think of what
might happen to the old man.' And I say, 'What do I
care?' He says, 'He is an old man and he needs what
you call the glorious illusion. How would you dare
to make the old man suffer more! He lost his son, no
83
matter for what reason, and that itself is an unbear-
able pain. But he has been able to overcome that pain
because he believes that his son died as a hero and
because others believe so too.' So I say, 'And what
do you want me to do? Do you want me to go on
conceding that his son was a real hero? Do you want
me to go on telling a lie, because not speaking out the
truth amounts to lying, a nice little lie so that the old
man and all of you can keep on despising me?' He
didn't know what to say to that. I pressed him hard.'*
"Did he say anything at all?"
"At last, he said I should leave him alone. I told
him I was confused. I am confused. I'd like to know
what to do. Do you know what Mr. Shin said? 'I am
as confused as you are, perhaps, more,' he said. I
asked him why. He wouldn't answer. He merely said
that he was praying, praying for an answer to his con-
fusion, whatever it is all about. 'You ought to pray
more,' he said. What do you think of all this?"
"I don't understand," I admitted. "Does Colonel
Chang know about the elder?"
He shook his head. "No, of course not. I wouldn't
dare tell him."
"Why not? Don't you think he could make it all
very simple for you?"
Chaplain Koh smiled. "My dear Captain Lee, I
84
want you to remember that I don't let him operate in
the domain of my private life."
"Then why are you revealing your private life to
me?"
"Because you interest me."
"I don't think I have done anything to deserve your
interest," I said. "I am getting as confused as you
are, although for different reasons."
He stood up. "No, you haven't done anything. It's
Mr. Shin."
I also stood up. "I don't follow you at all."
"As I said, I respect his judgment," he said. "I have
known him for many years and I was once his best
friend. I may disagree with him on certain principles
but that does not mean I don't value his advice."
"Did he give you any advice?"
"He suggested that you might be interested in hear-
ing about my personal problem and might even be of
help to me."
He touched my arm. "I suppose I may tell you this.
Mr. Shin said you must have been deeply hurt by the
terrible injustice and despair that break the hearts of
people.
"Well, good night. Captain," he said, when I failed
to respond.
We shook hands at the door. Footsteps echoed in
the dim hallway. Chaplain Koh said in a whisper, for
f
85
the duty oflScer was coming up the stairway, "May I
ask you again? What would you do if you were in my place?"
I met his eyes as bravely as I could. "Do you think
that was what Mr. Shin might have had in mind, for
you to put that question to me?"
He nodded.
"I would tell the truth. Chaplain," I declared.
"Truth cannot be bribed."
"How I envy you!" he said. "How I envy your
youth!**
;^^^^^^^;^^;^^^^ 12
NEXT MORNING, I attended the briefing at half- past nine, as usual, and was listening to the report
concerning the encounters of our patrols with Chi-
nese Communist soldiers on the western front, when
I was wanted on the phone. I went to the desk of the
duty officer at the entrance to headquarters.
"A call from K-10-9, Captain," said the Ueutenant
on duty. K-10-9 was an Air Force base across the
river.
"Captain Lee speaking,** I said.
"Can you come and pick me up, so I can report for
temporary duty—to you?" It was Park.
I called the chief to inform him that I would not
be in the office for some time, and told him of Park's
arrival, of which, apparently he had already been
notified by Naval InteUigence.
86
87
"I understand he is assigned to you, is he not?" he
said.
I repUed that I was grateful for his kind considera-
tion.
"Why thank me? You ought to thank the Navy,"
he said. "Anyway, tell your friend how sorry I am
about his father. I was well briefed on him and I
would like to meet him. Bring him up when you can,
wiU you. And take good care of him while he's with
us."
Putting the receiver down, I wished, for the first
time since the war, that I was back at my university.
Outside the window the gray morning hung low, blur-
ring the city. In the sky, dirty clouds flew over the
church. The beU clanged faintly.
Chaplain Koh walked in with a folded newspaper
in his hand, and thrust it into my hand. He shook his
head, muttering, "I simply don't understand."
I did not look at the paper. I wanted to be alone.
"I am talking about Mr. Shin," he said. "I don't
understand him. I knew Colonel Chang was suspicious
of him. But I trusted Mr. Shin. He told me he wasn't
there. He told me he knew nothing about it."
"What are you talking about?"
"I am talking about the execution of the twelve
ministers, Mr. Shin told me that he and Mr. Hann had
been jailed separately from the others, so they didn't
know anything about the execution. I know Colonel
88
Chang believes differently. But I trusted Mr. Shin's
words. Could he have lied to me? How could he, though?" He took the paper back from me, spread it
open, and put it on the desk. "Here. Read this. It's
all over the city."
On the front page of the Freedom Press, a local
paper, appeared the following article—a public an- nouncement by the preparation committee for the
joint memorial service:
It was announced by the Army Counterintelli-
gence Corps that the Army Intelligence Authority is
in possession of sufficient evidence that twelve North
Korean Christian ministers were murdered by the
North Korean puppet regime's secret police, on the
morning of June 25 at half-past twelve, only a few
hours before the outbreak of the Korean War. Eight
ministers from Pyongyang, including the Reverend
Park, an eminent leader of the Christians in North
Korea, and six ministers from the provinces had
been arrested by the Reds on an alleged charge of
"counterrevolutionary activities." It is believed that
the murder was planned by the Internal Security
Bureau of the puppet regime and was carried out by
the Pyongyang secret police.
Of the fourteen ministers arrested only two min-
isters survived. The Reverends Shin and Hann of Pyongyang were present as the murder took place,
and they witnessed the tragic last moments of the
twelve martyrs.
89
We, on behalf of the Christian churches of all
faiths of Pyongyang, now announce that prepara-
tions are under way for a joint memorial service to
commemorate the twelve martyrs. It is to be held at
the First Presbyterian Church at two in the after-
noon on Tuesday, the twenty-first of November. To
honor the families of the martyrs, transportation and
other facilities are being made available to them
through the generous cooperation of the Army au-
thorities, so that they will be able to be present at
the memorial service.
It is sincerely hoped that the citizens of this city
will attend the service, regardless of their religious
aJB&Uations, so that we can all share in the memory of
our martyrs, who, for the cause of our everlasting
freedom, shed their noble blood in glorious testi-
mony of the suffering Christians and their eventual
spiritual triumph over the Reds' persecution. Let
us all remember the twelve martyrs.
A dozen or so names of the members of the com- mittee followed the announcement. Among them were
Chaplain Koh as the chairman of the committee. Park
as the representative of the families of the martyrs,
and myself as the liaison officer.
Chaplain Koh glared at me, as if the article were
my doing. I put the paper in my pocket, walked out
of my office, and drove off to the air base, confused
and angry.
i^^^^^^^^^^;!^^^ 13
PARKA-CLAD OFFICERS and men, shuflaing to and fro and in and out, crowded the smoke-filled wait-
ing room of the air base operations building. Lx)ud-
speakers bellowed, red and blue signal lights flashed,
buzzers hummed, and the screech of jet fighters out
on the runways cut through the murmuring voices.
Park and I shook hands and examined each other
briefly; then he plunged into the matter on hand with
the flat declaration, "What is this all about?"
I produced the newspaper, suggesting that he read
the announcement of the preparation committee for
the memorial service.
He merely glanced at it. "I know, I know. I've read
it in Seoul." The article seemed to have been pub-
licized simultaneously in both South and North
Korean papers. "I knew it wasn't your doing. I know
you better than that." His left eye squinted sUghtly
90
91
as he tried to smile. "I must admit, though, I nearly
went back to Pusan when I read my name."
He had not changed much; he was as lean as ever,
and as austere in his manner. His lips were closed
tensely as I had always noted with a vague feeling of
compassion; only the haughty sparkle of his eyes had
given way to a brooding I had seldom observed be-
fore. For the first time I felt sorry for him.
He looked at me wearily and said, "Let's not talk
about it yet, shall we? All I want now is to take a
look at whatever is left of my home town. It has been
ten years since I saw it last."
We left the base; we did not speak much while we were driving into the city.
It was a little before noon when we arrived in my
office. We took off our helmets, parkas, and pistols, then settled down in the chairs around the stove. Park
Ughted a cigarette; his left hand was visibly unsteady.
"How's your arm?" I said.
"Oh, aU right," he said with a faint smile on his
weather-beaten face. "How's your knee?"
"Fine," I said, looking at the stamped emblem of an
anchor and the initials of the Korean Marine Corps
—
KMC—over the left pocket of his dark-green fatigue jacket. He stood up and went over to the window.
I joined him. Outside, it was as gray as ever. At the
92
moment, there was no traflBc; no people were working
in the ruins. It seemed hushed around the church.
"So, he is gone," he said quietly. "A martyr."
We stood there silently for some time, looking out. When we returned to our chairs, Park sat hunched,
his clenched fists on his knees. "You know, of course,"
he said, "I refuse to have anything to do with the
memorial service."
'Then why did you come?" I said. The harshness
of my voice surprised me.
He did not flinch. "Why did I come?" he said re-
flectively. "I knew you would ask that question."
The telephone rang. Colonel Chang wanted to know
if Park was there with me. "I would like to meet
him," he said, "but I am occupied at the moment and
I'll try to see him later on. Meanwhile, I suggest you
take him to Mr. Shin. I am terribly sorry about his
father and perhaps he is anxious to learn more about
the tragic death. I can't think of anyone who could
shed more Ught on it than Mr. Shin. Give my best
regards to your friend, won't you? And by the way,
do you know where Chaplain Koh is? No? Well, that
is all."
I turned to Park. "It was the chief," I said. "Colonel
Chang."
"I've heard about him," he said indifferently.
"He wants to see you."
93
"I couldn't care less. Do you want me to meet him?"
"Not for the time being. I'll take you to him when
I think you should see him."
There was a knock on the door and my orderly
came in. An old woman was waiting to deUver a letter
to me personally. I excused myself and went down-
stairs. It was Mrs. Hann.
I took her into the duty officer's booth. She broke
into tears as she handed me the letter, crying, "You
must help him! You must help Mr. Shin!"
The short note said:
Dear Captain Lee:
I should Uke to see you again. If you could come
to me at the earliest opportunity, I shall be most
grateful. I am hoping that you could help me in a certain matter that concerns your friend Park.
Yours truly,
Shin
"What does it say?" asked Mrs. Hann, drying her
face.
"He wants me to come to the house."
"Then you must come at once," she burst out, "and
do something about it." She was unable to control
her agitation; she was nearly hysterical.
I asked her to try to compose herself and tell me
what had happened.
"I don't know what's really happening," she said.
94
"But I've never seen so many people coming to see
Mr. Shin all at once. The house was full of people
this morning. They are stUl there, I am sure—people from the church. Newspapermen, too, taking pictures
of him and all that. It was maddening and he's cough-
ing terribly but he saw everyone. You read the paper,
didn't you?"
I nodded. "So you read it, too."
"Someone came to the house very early this morn-
ing. He brought the paper and after he'd gone, Mr.
Shin wanted me to read it. It's true. Mr. Shin told me
all about it."
"Did he?"
"He and my son were there and saw everything that
happened," she said, searching my face. "Then people
from the church started coming. That Army chaplain,
too. They all wanted to know why Mr. Shin had told
them before that he didn't know anything about what
happened to the other ministers." She paused, looking
at me meekly. "What do you think will happen? What
do you think will happen to Mr. Shin and my son?"
"Did he tell you anything about your son?"
"He only said that it was too much for my son, and
that's why . . ." she stopped and began to cry again.
I tried my best to comfort her. "Did Mr. Shin say
anything to the people from the church?"
She shook her head. "No, nothing. He just let them
talk."
95
"And he wasn't angry?"
"No. I wish he had been. He had nothing to say to
them. That's what he said. One man even asked him
why he'd been teUing them a he! Oh, I couldn't stand
it!"
I told her that I would drive to the house with her.
I had her take a chair and wait for me. I ran upstairs
to my oflSce, and found Park standing near the win-
dow, looking out. He turned to me.
"You asked me why I came," he said gravely. "I
want to see Mr. Shin. That's why I came."
"Why do you want to see him?" I said. "What do
you want from him?"
"Just one thing. I want to find out how he died,"
he said quickly. There was nothing in the tone of his
voice that I might have called sentimental or pious;
it was a.flat statement uttered matter-of-factly.
"I thought you wanted nothing to do with your
father," I said.
"I seem to surprise you," he said dryly. "I am sur-
prised at myself. He was a fanatic, as you know. And
I dislike fanatics. We had nothing in common. I sel- dom thought about him. But now that he's dead, I
am obsessed with his death. I don't care whether he is
a martyr or a hero. That is not my concern. I want to
find out if he died as a fanatic, as faithful as ever to his
image of himself as the most righteous servant of God
on earth. I believe that is what he thought himself to
96
be. And I want to know if he died witii his image un-
shattered.
"Am I too harsh?" he added gloomily. "He is a martyr now," I said. "You must remember
that."
"No matter. I only want to know if there was any-
thing in the last days of his life that I might share with
him." He paused.
"Go on."
"If there is nothing, then we remain strangers to
each other forever."
"But why such an obsession?"
His eyes were burning with intensity. "When we saw
each other for the last time, I told him that he, too,
was not infallible. The sooner he realized it, the better
for the true salvation of his soul, since that's what he
wanted. Yes, I told him that, and now the thought
possesses me. Can you understand that?
"I am not interested in the ordinary, mundane sort
of father-and-son relationship. I am not even inter-
ested in the fact that I am his disowned son. I am
concerned with him as a fanatic, a God-drunk man.
He never stopped to examine himself dispassionately,
not even when he felt he had to disown me. He
thought he was always right. He never doubted his
faith in his god and never, for one moment, suspected
that he and his god might not be in as harmonious a
97
state as he always believed." He turned to point to
the mined church. "That was his world."
"Have you ever examined yourself," I said, "well
. . . dispassionately?"
"Many times."
"Don't you think, then, that he might have before
the end?"
He swung around impatiently. "That's what I want
to see Mr. Shin about."
"Leave him alone!" I said. It shocked me to hear
myself shouting. "Just leave him alone for a while."
He looked at me in surprise.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I want to tell you about Mr.
Shin, but there's no time now. I have to go to see
him."
"And you don't want me to come along, do you?"
Park said.
"Not now," I said, ashamed of my outburst. "I will let you know when you can see him."
;^^^^^^;i^^^^;^;^;i^ 14
AFTER THANKING ME for my prompt response to his note, Mr. Shin said, "I was a bit surprised to
learn from Chaplain Koh that Park is here in the
city." Trying not to cough, he cleared his throat, and
forced a smile on his pale face.
I said that Park's arrival had taken me by surprise,
too.
"Then you did not plan it," he said.
"No."
"I didn't think you would have arranged for him to
come, shall we say, to play a role in the memorial
service. How does he feel about it?"
"He won't have anything to do with it. It is absurd
that he, of all people, should be asked to represent the
families of the martyrs."
"But it did not seem absurd to your colonel."
"He is anxious for Park to see you."
98
99
"Isn't that why he brought him here?"
"That you might have something to tell him?"
"Perhaps. Chaplain Koh feels that his appearance
at this particular time was arranged by your colonel
to embarrass me."
"Are you," I said with some hesitation, "embar-
rassed?"
"No."
"Do you have something you would like to tell
Park?"
He did not answer.
I pressed him. "Would you like to see him?"
"Do you think I ought to?" he said. "Or rather,
Captain, is he prepared to see me?"
An uncomfortable silence fell between us. Through
the dusty window, I could see that the sky had not
cleared. The snow-laden branches of the crooked pine
trees, seen through the uneven windowpanes, swelled
and shrank, wavering in the wind. Mrs. Hann tiptoed
in, served us tea, and withdrew.
Putting his cup down on the small table next to his
chair, he said, "What the newspaper said about me is
quite true."
I remained silent.
"I was there at the execution of the ministers," he
said firmly as though he wanted to make sure that I
100
would not disbelieye his words. "Your colonel is not
making it up."
"Meaning . . .?" I said.
"Meaning I lied to you," he said quietly.
"You lied to everyone."
"Yes. I do not insist that my conscience is impec-
cable."
"I should be angry," I said.
"With me or with your colonel? Don't be. He is
only doing what he has to do."
"You sound as if you felt grateful for what he is
doing to you."
Without hesitation, he said, "I am thankful to him."
"He has exposed you as a liar."
"Yes, he has."
"Now, everyone knows that you have been lying."
"Yes."
"And that is what you want?" I said. "It's a serious
matter, isn't it, Mr. Shin, for a man like you to admit
he has lied?"
"Yes. Very serious."
"You have managed to shock people. When they
recover from the shock and from the inevitable con-
fusion, they will come to you to ask why you have
lied to them."
"They already have."
101
"And you have nothing to say to them?"
"No."
"They ask you what it was that persuaded you to
he, and you have nothing to say to them."
"Nothing."
"So they can only think you must be guilty of some-
thing, isn't that right?"
He did not reply; he merely continued to sip his
tea, his calm gaze fixed upon me.
"But, Mr. Shin," I said, "those who know you well
may be convinced that you are not guilty of anything,
speaking in human terms, of course. You know that.
So they will come to the conclusion that there must
be something you do not intend to tell."
He lowered his eyes as if pained.
"Yes, you may be innocent," I said, "innocent of
the kind of guilt people like Colonel Chang can
imagine. But those who knew you well may come to
realize that what you do not intend to tell may be the
truth about the execution." I stopped, disturbed by
the tone of accusation in my voice, and above all by
what I was about to say; but there was no way to
retreat. "And that, Mr. Shin, is what you have been
hoping for."
"Enough!" he whispered.
"Isn't it true," I insisted, "that you have been
102
secretly wishing others might begin guessing the truth,
which you yourself do not want to tell?"
A flash of anger shot from his eyes; then he looked away.
I could not restrain myself. "What are you trying to
do?" I said. "Run away from the truth? Or, hide it
from the others?"
"Neither," he said in a weary whisper.
"Are you sure?"
"I am guarding it."
"Who are you to act as the guardian of the truth?"
Suddenly, I felt tired. "For whom are you guarding
it? For whom, Mr. Shin?"
He looked out the window. It had begun snowing.
"For the Church? For the Army?" I demanded.
He remained impassive.
"Or, for your god?"
To my surprise and uneasiness, a sudden, quick
convulsion seized him; his face and throat twitched;
his eyes were closed. When, a moment later, he turned
and gazed at me, I saw that his eyes were filled with
tears. In a hoarse whisper, he said, "Captain, please
do not force me to blaspheme."
A feeling of exasperation overwhelmed me. "Mr. Shin, they have asked for it. Why don't you tell them
the truth?"
He stood up, clutching at the cup and the saucer,
103
and in a voice that was at once stern and gentle he
said,
"My young friend, has it ever occurred to you that
they may not want the truth?"
^^l^l^l^^^l^^^^l^}^ 15
PARK HAD NOT waited for my return from Mr. Shin's. The note he had left on my desk said he had
borrowed a jeep from the Marine Uaison officer and
gone out to take a look around the city.
The snow was getting heavier, the sky darker.
Through the window I saw columns of medium tanks,
their guns prostrate, crawl past the ruins, trailed by
another column of howitzers, northbound. The snow
soon covered the tracks left by the heavy treads.
Silence returned to the streets, and with it the brood-
ing afternoon of a dreary northern city.
Hours went by monotonously. Alone in my office,
I took care of the routine business of my section and
administrative matters of headquarters. There were
reports to draft, papers to sign; and then ±ere was
the meeting with the officers of my section, during
which I had a telephone call from Colonel Chang. He
104
105
wanted to know where Chaplain Koh was. I could not
help him; I had not seen the chaplain all afternoon.
He hung up without a word, only to call me back a
few minutes later to say that he wanted to see me
immediately.
In his cavernous room, silent behind the desk, Colo-
nel Chang sat crouched, immobile; only the hissing of
the stove and its flickering light that flitted about his
glasses and his monkish head appeared to have no-
ticed my entrance. He did not look up at me; I might
just as well not have been there. Finally the telephone
on his desk roused him. He took the call with a few
grunting words of approval and disapproval, then
slammed the receiver down. Rising briskly from his
chair, he came around the desk toward me, exclaim-
ing, "Well, we've got him!"
"Got whom, sir?"
"It was CIC," he said, shoveling more coal into the
stove. "I've been waiting for this. They reported the
capture of a Red major who had been with the Pyong-
yang secret police." He paused to wipe his hands with
a handkerchief. "He confessed that he knew some-
thing about the murder of the ministers."
The colonel was unmistakably excited.
"Well, don't you have anything to say? Do you
realize what it may mean to us?"
I congratulated him on the lucky turn of events.
106
"We shall soon find out more about your friend,
Shin," he said, holding his hands over the stove.
"What do you say to that?"
"I don't know what more we can leam about him,
sir," I said.
"Ah, you will be surprised. I promise you that!"
"I presume you think this prisoner can produce in-
formation that will astonish us all . . . that is, in re-
spect to Mr. Shin."
"You imply that you know enough about Shin."
"Don't you, sir?"
"No."
"I am afraid I fail to understand you, sir," I said.
"After reading the announcement of the preparation
committee, I assumed that you had already made up
your mind about him."
"It's not as simple as that."
"I beg your pardon, sir, but I thought it was."
He ignored my remark.
"I saw Mr. Shin this afternoon," I said. "So did
others, including many Christians in the city, of
course."
"I know."
"He had no comment on the announcement except
to say it was true."
"So I heard," he muttered, and repeated it in a
voice that echoed weariness unusual for him. "So I
heard."
107
"Doesn't that satisfy you?" I said. "He has admitted
that he had been telling a lie. That's what it all comes
to, isn't it, sir?"
He said quickly, "I knew that!"
"I didn't. It came to me as a surprise."
He glowered at me. "I am very sorry, Captain."
"Don't mention it. Colonel," I said. "After all, one
can never be too sure of anything in our line of busi-
ness."
"You are being rather humorous."
"Not at all, sir."
"Then I take it that you are dead serious."
"Yes, sir."
He looked away and stared at the stove. For a
while, he was silent, hands clasped behind him. The
red light, wriggling out of the stove, darted at his
shadowy profile. He turned to me with a faint smile.
"All right, Captain. If you are as dead serious as I
am, then I assume that you are now ready to come
out in the open and tell me what you think of Shin."
I said straight away, "Yes."
"Good! But before you tell me what you think of
him, you may do well to speculate upon the possible
causes for his silence."
"What would you expect him to say, sir? Or, should
I say, what did you expect him to say?"
"I have never met him, but I know him well. I
have heard enough about him; indeed, so much so
108
that I am reasonably convinced he is a pious man, a
good Christian, that is. I am also convinced he has
always been a man who enjoyed the unconditional
reputation of having an immaculate conscience. Now,
a good Christian shouldn't tell a lie, should he? But
he did. So we are now beholding a pious Christian
with an immaculate conscience who pubUcly admits
that he has been a liar. The curious thing is that he
neither justifies himself nor indicates any sign of
remorse. What we see about him is nothing but a
glorious halo of supreme confidence, and I daresay
I must give him some credit for that, although he
gives me no other choice than to line up two possible
explanations for his remarkable behavior. First, his
conscience is as clear as it can be, despite his lying.
Second, his conscience is as corrupt as it can be. Of
course, I am not simpleminded enough to exclude any
other possible explanations. For the moment, however,
these two seem to provide me with enough to specu-
late upon. Now, you wouldn't accept the second ex-
planation, would you?"
"No."
"Ah, it was stupid of me to ask you that," he said
with a grin. "It may interest you. Captain, to know
that neither would I accept it. Don't be surprised to
hear that. It's a perfectly natural reaction on my part.
It is difficult, after all, to believe that a Christian min-
109
ister's conscience could be as stinking as a dead fish.
Mind you, I don't mean to say that it could never be
so. But let us assume, for the time being, that Shin's
conscience is quite clear. Are you satisfied?"
"Quite."
"Good! So we carve out a crystal-clear conscience
for him and, let us say, v^e intend to guarantee it for
him. We then have this business of his lie, which may tarnish his beatific conscience, and we can't let that
happen, now can we? We must insist that the fact
—
yes, the fact that he lied cannot spoil the purity of his
conscience, and that his act of lying has nothing to
do with the quality of conscience. But that may lead
us to an intriguing question as to what sort of con-
science we have just adorned him with. What do you
say?" He looked at me as though he were waiting for
my reply, but it was plain that he enjoyed his talk too
much, savored every word of it too much to allow me
to interrupt him. "How shall we justify the purity
and admirable tranquility of his conscience when we
have to admit, at the same time, that an act of lying
is, in principle at least, no credit to any man's con-
science?" He paused, then answered his own ques-
tion. "His is the sort of conscience that is immune to
this particular act of lying. Ah, there we are! That's
what we'll have to say."
I said, "If I recall, sir, you were to appeal to his
110
conscience. To which one did you mean to appeal,
granting that there are several kinds of conscience as
you seem to imply?"
"To the one that is not immune to this act of lying,
naturally. There is something you must always remem-
ber about him. He is a minister, a shepherd, as Chris-
tians call him. He can't go around telling his flock
that he is a poor shepherd, now can he? Or, should he?
Of course not. Well, there you are. He must let his
flock remain in its happy behef that he is not the sort
of shepherd who will take to his heels in the face of a
pack of wolves and leave the flock defenseless."
"Do you still insist that he gave in to the Commu-
nists and betrayed the other ministers?"
He did not answer.
"If you still do, sir, you have exposed the notion
to his flock that he is a poor shepherd," I said. "At
least from your point of view."
"I have indeed," he said.
"Are you disappointed that he does not, may I say,
confess his alleged guilt?"
"Yes! But not the way you think!" He walked away
from me to the window, where he stood looking out
into the snow-filled late afternoon. "I am disappointed
because he doesn't justify himself. Why doesn't he say something to clear himself?"
Why, indeed, I thought.
Ill
'Til tell you why,'* he said. "The conscience he is
relying on now tells Him that he is guiltless and,
therefore, he needs no defense for himself."
"In that case," I said, "you shouldn't be at all dis-
appointed."
"One minister alive is better than twelve ministers
dead! Is that what he thinks?"
I could not restrain myself. "Perhaps, he has some-
thing he doesn't want to say. Not for the sake of his
own interest, as you seem to be convinced, but for the
sake of others' interest, including yours, if I may say
so.
'"Nonsense! By what inscrutable magic could he
have survived the lions' den!"
"Sir, I repeat, I believe Mr. Shin is innocent."
He swung around. "Of course, he is! Of course he
is innocent! How can he be anything else?" He re- turned to the stove. "Are you surprised to hear me
say that? Don't be. If he isn't, he would not have been
able to enjoy the protection he now receives from his
conscience. He believes that he has done something
right by telling a lie and is still doing the right thing by
not saying anything more. It's this notion of self-
righteousness that gives him the halo of serenity, even
of pride. Ah, that's what gets on my nerves! I am not
accusing him, you understand. The real villain, Cap-
tain, in this whole business is neither he nor his act
112
of lying. On the contrary, it is what forced him to lie and yet allows his conscience to remain as spotless as
the soul of an angel—as Christians would say. Am I clear?"
The colonel was getting out beyond my depth.
"So you tell me Shin is innocent," he said. "And
you are sure, absolutely sure about that?"
"He is, sir," I insisted, but I had to add, "from our
point of view."
"Are you including mine?"
"Yes."
"Don't, because he is not from my point of view."
I reminded him that he himself had just declared a
moment ago that Mr. Shin was innocent.
"Ah, I didn't say he was innocent from my point of
view."
Perplexed, I burst out, "But you say you are not
accusing him and yet you don't think he is innocent.
You must be accusing somebody—the real villain, as you say."
He greeted me with a placid grin. "You are quite
right, Captain."
"May I ask what it is?"
"Why, my dear Captain, I am surprised that you
ask me what it is rather than who it is."
"Then, may I ask you who it is?"
"Don't you know?" he said, returning to his chair
113
which squeaked under the weight of his body. "Who
else but his god?" He chuckled. "Can't you picture
him on his knees, telling his god what he has done?
And his god, gently patting him on the back, says,
'It's all right, my dear boy. To err is human, to forgive
divine.' Well, what do you think of that?"
I had to laugh in spite of myself.
^^;^^^^;^;j^^^;^^^ 16
WHEN I LEFT Colonel Chang's office, I hoped to find Park in my room, but he was not there. There was
little I could do but stand in front of the window and
watch the gray North Korean afternoon swiftiy fade
into a bleak night. It had become windy. The snow
was turning into a blizzard, and I could hear the
church bell clanging now faintly, now violently. Foot-
steps echoed in the hallway, down the stairs, perhaps
toward the mess hall. My orderly came in; first, to clean the room, then with a bucketful of coal for the
night. Park still had not come back. I felt helpless
without him. I had decided, while listening to Colonel
Chang, to take him to Mr. Shin; the sooner the bet-
ter—I thought. Colonel Chang telephoned me from his office to ask
if I had seen Chaplain Koh. "Where on earth is he!"
he shouted. "I haven't seen him since last night. And
what about Park? Has he been to see Shin?"
114
115
I told him that, at my discretion, Park had not yet
met the minister.
"Ah, hang your discretion!" he grunted.
About half an hour later he called again, this time
from CIC. Again he asked after Chaplain Koh. He
swore. "The trouble with that man is he's too damned
sure of himself. Ah, I don't trust him."
There was nothing for me to say.
"I am waiting for a call from the Chief of Army
Intelligence," he said. "Have it transferred to CIC if
it comes through." After a pause he continued, "I
promised you a surprise from our new prisoner, didn't
I? I have something you might like to know and I
want you to think about it. The prisoner was quite
stubborn but we do have an efificient CIC, if you know
what I mean. From what he said, it appears that the
commandant of the Pyongyang secret police was liqui-
dated, presumably by the same firing squad that mur-
dered the ministers. Not only the commandant but
three top aides of his. The most curious angle is that
they were shot the day after the ministers were mur-
dered. Why? The prisoner insists he doesn't really
know, except that they were arrested immediately
after the murder and were shot by an order from
someone high up in their secret police. Now this is what astonishes me. The charges made against them
were counterrevolutionary activities in general and
116
insubordination in particular. How do you explain that? But what interests me most is that it took place
immediately after the murder of the ministers. Try
to figure that out. The prisoner is reviving now and
I am sure he has more to enhghten us with. If you
see Shin, and I expect you will, you might ask him
if he knew anything about this most significant event."
He hung up.
I felt bewildered. I could not see any possible con-
nection with the execution of the ministers, even
though the colonel apparently did, or at least was
trying to find such a connection.
By the time Park returned I was feeling pretty
glum. His face was haggard. I helped him out of his
frozen parka, and he slumped down on a chair. I poked
the stove.
"He's gone," he said, unbuckling his gun belt.
Alarmed, I said, "Who is gone?"
"Mr. Shin. He and Chaplain Koh have vanished.
Rather, the chaplain kidnapped Mr. Shin and the
young minister."
"Kidnapped?" It didn't make sense. I pulled up a
chair near the stove next to him.
"I just came back from Mr. Shin's house," Park
said. "It was too late. He had already gone."
"But where?"
"I don't know. After you left the office, our liaison 1
117
officer came in. He had been instructed to take care
of me. He said I could use his jeep while I was here.
So I started driving around. I thought I was feeling
a bit nostalgic, you know, having returned to my home
town after so many years of, let's say, exile. I was
wrong. I wasn't nostalgic at all. The place depressed
me. It was no use telling myself, 'Well, my dear, good
old home town, here I am. I am back.' I wasn't in a
mood for that kind of nonsense. Instead, I began
looking up the ministers I had known through my father. All I got from them was a pile of stock eulogies
for my father, a great martyr, a hero—and some pious sympathy for me. I was visiting one of them
—
Mr. Sung—when I ran into Chaplain Koh. I used to be well acquainted with the chaplain. The three of
us talked about Mr. Shin. Mr. Sung was worried
about him because of the rumor that some hot-blooded
members of the congregations of the murdered min-
isters were demanding justice. They were getting out
of hand, threatening either to confront Mr. Shin or
bring him to their churches and make him tell the
truth, that is, make him repent or confess his sins.
Ah, those Christians! While we were talking, a group
of them came to see Mr. Sung. They were heading
for Mr. Shin's house and they wanted him to come
with them. He tried to talk them out of it, but they
wouldn't Usten, even though they were from his own
118
congregation. They said others were joining them and
they were all going together. Chaplain Koh was
alarmed and wanted me to come with him to Mr.
Shin's at once. I knew you had something on your
mind when you asked me not to see him for a while,
so I stayed behind."
The telephone rang. It was Colonel Chang again.
He was still at CIC, and wanted to know if the chap-
plain had returned yet.
"No, sir," I replied. "I haven't the slightest idea
where he is. I would appreciate it. Colonel, if you tell
him that I would very much like to see him, that is, if
you find him before I do, sir."
"You are getting more and more humorous," he
grunted. "Never mind! I only wanted to have him
gather the ministers on the committee for a meeting.
Ah, hang him!"
"Can I do anything about that, sir? About the meet-
ing, I mean, I am the liaison oflBcer, after all."
"Forget it. I want you to go to see Shin. Tell him
I want to see him. Either he could come down to head-
quarters or I could go to his house. You arrange it."
My silence irritated him. "Did you hear what I said?"
"Yes, I did," I said. "Sir, have you been able to
learn anything more from the prisoner?"
"Damn it, no! He's taking a long time off. Ah, we'll
beat it out of him soon enough."
119
I decided to break the news. "I am afraid you are
too late."
"What are you talking about?"
"You won't be able to see Mr. Shin," I told him.
"He has left the city, Colonel."
There was no response from him for a few seconds.
Then he shouted, "A damned fool! A coward!" With that outburst, he hung up.
"The colonel seems to be upset," I said, but Park
merely shrugged.
"To go on with what I was telling you," he said,
"after the chaplain left in a hurry, I got to worrying
about Mr. Shin and decided to go an>^ay, I was too
late. The mob was there, even if Mr. Shin wasn't, or
the young minister, only the old woman. They de-
manded to see Mr. Shin and when they were told he
wasn't there they broke into the house. Those good
Christians searched the whole house. Then they got
mad and began to smash the furniture, windows,
everything they could lay hands on. I found the old
woman outside in the snow, hysterical, while they
were literally tearing down the house inside. I tried to
talk them out of it, but nobody hstened to me.
"Meanwhile more people, mostly women, \sere
coming up the hill. They milled about the house chant-
ing hymns and screaming, 'Judas! Judas!' It was un-
canny. There they were, imagine, in the blizzard,
chanting crazily and screaming, 'Judas,' beating their
120
bodies, their poor ragged bodies—pouring out all their sorrows, all that had been simmering in their darkened
souls during the years of persecution. What passion!
What self-lacerating passion! I tell you—I didn't know whether to despise them—or love them. Ah, the lambs disfigured into a wailing mob!
"I tried again to send them back to wherever they
came from but they wouldn't listen to me. Finally I
fired a few shots in the air. That broke the spell. I told
them who I was. Well, who was I? The son of my
father, of course. Ah, my father's name—it was a magic word. Suddenly everything was hushed. They
listened to me, they literally adored me, the son of
the great martyr, who was one of them, one of the
persecuted. What did I tell them? I don't know. I just
talked, and after a while they went back down the
hill, still chanting, in the slashing snow and the wind.
"I was left alone with the old woman. She looked
nearly insane. She insisted she didn't know where Mr.
Shin was. At last, she told me the chaplain had come
to the house shortly before the Christians came and
had a big argument with Mr. Shin, about what, the
poor woman didn't know. Mr. Shin then told her he
was taking the young minister to a place where he
could be well taken care of. He told her he would
come back for her. Then the three of them got into
the chaplain's jeep and drove away. I think she knows
121
wHere they went. She might tell you. You seem to be
in her confidence. She pleaded with me that I bring
you to her."
I called my orderly and told him to get a box of
rations from the kitchen and come to my office, armed,
with his bedding; he was going to stay with the old
woman. We were ready to leave when Colonel Chang burst in. It was the first time he had ever come down
to my office to see me.
;^^^^^^^l^;^^^^^ 17
"I AM DUMBFOUNDED, I must confess," ex- claimed Colonel Chang. "You are Captain Park,
aren't you? I am happy to see you here, especially so
because I have always admired your father." He
paused to wipe his wet face and his glasses. "The
prisoner testified that he was one of those who had
interrogated—I mean tortured—the ministers. He swore that they all conducted themselves like heroes."
He turned to me. "Have you told Captain Park about
the execution of the commandant and his three aides
of the Pyongyang secret police?"
When I said I had not, he explained to Park, "Do
you realize that they were shot just because they had
murdered the ministers? Apparently, the Reds had
arrested the ministers for possible future use as hos-
tages. They were not supposed to be murdered—not without a special order from the chief of the secret
police."
122
123
"Then, why?" said Park.
"Ah, it's all beyond me," said the colonel. "The
commandant and his aides have a party one night and
get drunk. They come down to the jail, order some
prisoners out into the torture chamber, and beat them
up. They are not satisfied with that. They remember
they have Christians in the jail. They order the min-
isters out of their cells, beat them and herd them out
into a truck and off they go and murder them. Of
course, we can't really trust every single word the
prisoner said. For all I know, he might be trying to
win our favor. But that's what happened, according
to him. Next day, the chief of the secret police is
scandalized. He gets abused by his superiors. He gets
furious. He orders that the commandant and his aides
be shot—by the same firing squad that murdered the ministers the night before. Ah, it's all damned bloody.
And do you realize how they murdered the ministers?
One after another!"
He continued. "And how did Mr. Shin and the
young minister get out of it alive? I still don't under-
stand. The prisoner insists he telephoned the chief of
the secret police when he realized what the com-
mandant was up to. He says he never liked the com-
mandant. I asked him why. He just didn't like him, he
says. Anyway, he gets the order from his chief to stop
the commandant and if he resists the order, well, either
124
arrest him or shoot him on the spot. The prisoner goes
after the commandant with a squad of Red guards,
but he is a bit late. By the time he got around to
arresting the bloody butcher, only two ministers were
still alive."
"Divine intervention," I said.
Colonel Chang turned his tired face to me. "Cap-
tain Lee, I must see Mr. Shin immediately. You real-
ize how important it is for me to see him at once."
"He is not here, Colonel," I said. "I have told you
that."
"I know, I know," he said in agitation. "But
—
why?"
Park briefed him on what had happened at Mr.
Shin's house.
"But why?" Colonel Chang asked again, frowning.
"Why would he disappear like that? Why should he
run away?"
"I don't think he ran away. Colonel," I said.
Colonel Chang scrutinized me narrowly. "What do
you mean. Captain Lee, you don't think he ran away?
All right, what would you call it? Or maybe you know
something that I don't know?"
"I doubt that. Colonel. You already know I talked
with Mr. Shin today shortly before he left the city. He
didn't tell me he was going to leave; he hadn't even
thought of it, as a matter of fact; I'm sure of that. He
I
125
had nothing to say about why he had lied, I asked him
to tell the truth, which I suspected, with your permis-
sion. Colonel, concerned the circumstances involving
the execution." I paused and took a chair. "I presume
that the truth about the execution is what everyone
wants to know, including you, Colonel."
"Of course," Colonel Chang said. "So does Cap-
tain Park, I am sure."
Park paid no heed to his remarks.
"And so do I, sir," I said. "But, Colonel, are you
so sure that you want to know the truth about the
execution?"
"Now, come, come!" he said. "What are you talk-
ing about? We already know the truth. So it doesn't matter whether we want it or not, does it? We already have it. I have just told you how magnificently all the
ministers conducted themselves in their most diffcult
time. That's the truth, and I am sure anyone would be
proud to know it, except the Reds, of course."
I could not restrain myself from bursting out, "Sir,
are you saying Mr. Shin is a Red?"
He laughed. "Certainly not! What makes you think
that?"
"If the truth about the execution is as you described.
Colonel, if we should be proud of the executed min-
isters, then why did Mr. Shin tell me that we may not
want the truth? I assume that *we' includes everyone
126
concerned, you and Park and the Christians. Why,
Colonel, should a man like him beUeve that such a
glorious truth about the mmisters as you have pictured
may not be welcomed?"
Colonel Chang responded impatiently, "Did he say
that?"
"I am surprised, sir, that you still seem to suspect
Mr. Shin even when you insist that the truth about
the ministers is so magnificent. Or, are you excluding
Mr. Shin from their company?"
Tilting his head he stared at me.
Park said, "What I want to know is why everyone
should assume that the twelve were all such martyrs.
Is there any evidence that they were all good and
saintly, while the survivors were not? All we have is
your word, Colonel."
Colonel Chang retorted in a deliberately calm voice,
"Yes, you have my word. The martyrs were all good
and saintly."
"What about the survivors, sir?" I said.
"They were good and samtly, too," he said. Then
he suddenly exclaimed, "What you don't understand
is that there should be no doubt about the glory of
the martyrs. They were good and saintly. Why? Be-
cause they are martyrs. Because they were murdered
by the Reds. It is as simple as that. Now, what about
the survivors? Well, they are good and saintly, too.
127
Why? Because they too have been imprisoned by the
Reds. Because they too have been tortured by the
Reds, and above all, because they are Christian min-
isters. Don't you see? That is how everything ought
to be. They all deserve to be praised. They must all
be good and saintly, do you understand?"
"Even if someone was guilty?"
"Naturally. But you must understand this cleariy.
No one was guilty of anything. Every single minister
was as heroic and saintly as any heroes and saints we
know of. Every minister in this case is and must be
as immune to any charges of impurity as fresh snow.
And that's that!"
"I do not understand you, Colonel," I said. "May
I then assume that you no longer suspect Mr. Shin?"
"Yes, you may," he said and added placidly, "I
have never suspected him of anything."
I looked at him, amazed.
"But whai aDout his words?" said Park. "What are
we to make of what he said—that we may not want the truth?"
Colonel Chang ignored the question.
Park turned to me. "What do you think?" he said.
"Is the truth about the martyrs so ugly that he thinks
we would rather not hear it?"
"Captain Park! I implore you to refrain from utter-
ing such an impious statement," said Colonel Chang.
128
"Sir, I wish to know the truth," retorted Park. He
turned to me. "Why do you think Mr. Shin left the
city?"
I remained silent; I did not know what to say.
Colonel Chang said, "Now that I have the truth
about the execution of the martyrs, and how all the
ministers carried themselves, I do not feel it is im-
portant for us to know the reason that he left the city."
His statement vexed me. "Colonel, I am confused,"
I said. "You were anxious to find out why he had dis-
appeared from the city. In fact, you accused him of
running away. And now . . ."
"You completely misunderstand me. What I meant
was that, in view of the truth about the entire situ-
ation, I could not comprehend why he should vanish
as he did, only to increase and intensify suspicions
and misgivings directed against him by a certain seg-
ment of the Christians. He is not guilty of anything.
Why should he, then, leave without a trace, especially
when the Christians want to see him? I am extremely
unhappy about his act, which as I said, may inad-
vertently prompt some hot-blooded Christians to form
a hasty and misguided conclusion. Do you understand
me now?"
Park said gloomily, "I think he has a certain secret
which he believes may be harmful to the Christians."
"What secret?" said the colonel, frowning.
129
"That not all the twelve ministers were martyrs."
"Do you share the same opinion. Captain Lee?"
the colonel turned to me.
"I only know that Mr. Shin believes that we may
not want the truth," I said.
"And that means," said the colonel, raising his
voice, "that you don't accept my words as the truth."
"I must admit, with your permission, sir, that your
truth may very well be only a part of the whole truth.
I caimot evaluate the entire situation until I know
what Mr. Shin has in mind."
"And what does he have in mind?" Colonel Chang
said, now pacing about the room.
"I don't know, sir. He has not told me. All I know,
because he told me so, is that he is guarding the truth."
"Guarding it? Well, for whom?" Colonel Chang
said, visibly annoyed.
"For us, sir. For the Christians, for the Church, for
the Army."
With an immense frown. Colonel Chang cluck-
clucked.
"And for his god, too?" said Park.
"Ah, no use bringing god down into this," said
Colonel Chang. "If what you say is true, Captain Lee,
I am afraid Mr. Shin is trying to be too humble. We should understand him, of course. We understand that a man like him is not willing to publicize his sufferings
130
and his triumph. It is very Uke him that he should want
to efface himself. But I think he is going too far in
not letting the others share the glory of the martyrs.
The living should not deny the dead their suffering and
their ultimate victory."
Park and I stared at him in silence.
Unperturbed, Colonel Chang continued: "The mar-
tyrdom of the twelve ministers is an established fact,
which does not need to be questioned but needs only
to be made pubUc to render full justice to their hero-
ism and saintliness. And there is no one better quali-
fied than Mr. Shin for testifying to the glory of the
tnartyrs. And that's that."
I looked at him, and when his eyes challenged mine,
I said, "Colonel, what do you know about the execu-
tion of the ministers that I don't know?"
But he simply turned away and stalked out of my
oflSce,
^i^^;i^ii^^^}^;i^i^^^^ 18
THE NEXT MORNING, the Freedom Press carried an article, headlined "Christian Intrepidity," about
Chaplain Koh. There was a picture of the chaplain,
dressed in combat fatigues and wearing a steel helmet
on which was painted a white cross, leaning out of
an Army jeep against the background of an artillery
battery. The article quoted extensively from the testi-
mony of Colonel Chang, who extolled the chaplain's
"heroic virtues" in his reminiscences of how signifi-
cant and valuable Chaplain Koh's contributions had
been to the cause of the Army, how courageous a
Christian hero he was on the front line in the grim
days of the early battles, and so on. The testimony
was augmented with recollections proffered by several
Christian ministers in the city in praise of the chap-
Iain.
At Colonel Chang's request, I drove with Park to
131
132
see the ministers on the committee; the colonel planned
to have a meeting in his oJQBce that afternoon.
The blizzard of the night before had quietly left
the city, leaving behind it a thick layer of fresh snow
over the battle-scarred earth. It was cold. In the blue
sky streaks of white vapors from combat planes
stretched beyond the northern mountains; on the
ground, convoys of supply trucks from the southern
side of the river plowed through the streets. The news
from the front was gloomy. We had been receiving more and more intelligence reports concerning the
increasing activities of the Chinese Communists. Some
units on the western front had even captured some of
their soldiers; it was beginning to look as if we might
expect an extensive operation on the part of the
Chinese on North Korean soil.
We reached the colonel's oflEice shortly before two o'clock.
Five ministers had already arrived, and were sit-
ting around the stove, Ustening to Colonel Chang, who
was narrating the history of the intelligence operations
in which Chaplain Koh had been involved. Park and
I stood by the window. The ministers were old men,
some with thin, white hair, some with gray hair; they
were uniformly dressed in ash-colored, cotton-padded
winter robes, on the left sleeves of which they wore
i
133
black bands. They sat rigidly on olive-green metal
chairs, nodding politely to the high-pitched voice of
the colonel. After a while I left the room to tell my
orderly to serve tea to the ministers.
When I came back Colonel Chang was saying,
"Well, now, what's the use of reviving the past? The
war is going to be over soon, and we have more than
enough to do now and in the future."
His guests nodded pensively in agreement.
Another minister arrived. He, too, wore an ash-
colored robe and a black armband. He was much
younger than the others, perhaps in his mid-forties.
After muttering an apology for being late, he said to
no one in particular, "I am afraid there isn't much we
can do about them."
Someone said, "Yes, I know."
"Are you talking about your people?" asked the
colonel.
The younger minister said, "I have to admit that
they are becoming rather unruly and uncontrollable."
Someone sighed and cleared his throat.
"I have said this already but I feel obUged to em-
phasize it again," said Colonel Chang, "that what
happened yesterday at Mr. Shin's must never happen
again. I may be forced to take certain measures which
may be embarrassing to everyone concerned. I don't
mean to say that I don't understand how they feel,
134
but we can't afford to allow them to be swept away
by their emotions. Besides, I assure you that you will
soon discover how utterly disgraceful it would be for
you or for your people to do anything rash, as far as
Mr. Shin and Mr. Hann are concerned. Any doubt you
might have felt about the two ministers, about Mr.
Shin especially, is, I assure you, completely ground-
less."
Park and I exchanged a quick glance. The minis-
ters stirred uneasily.
The younger minister came to the window, nodded
to Park and me, and motioned us to look outside.
"There they are," he said for everyone to hear.
The others joined us.
The sky was still bright and clear but down below,
the uneven shadows of the buildings had already dark-
ened nearly half of the street, reaching out for the gUt-
tering whiteness of the ruins across the street and the
church over the slope. About half a block to the left
of our headquarters was an empty square, not yet
touched by the shadows, illumined by the sun that
glistened upon mounds of snow here and there; and
out of the square filed a silent procession of people,
coming slowly toward our building; then it turned to
the left and went up the slope to the battered church.
The snow atop the belfry reflected the sunshine bril-
liantly.
"They have been out since morning, going to the
i
135
churches of the martyrs," someone behind me said.
"It's a kind of pilgrimage, I suppose."
"Poor souls," another muttered.
The crowd of about three hundred had by now
gathered in front of the church; some men were stand-
ing on the steps, facing the people.
"What are they up to now?" said the colonel.
I opened the window.
One of the men on the steps was gesticulating. The
congregation kneeled on the snow. The face of the
man speaking to them was cast heavenward, his arms
upraised. Then, he, too, knelt down. Presently, we
began to hear the murmur of voices, now rising high
and loud, now subsiding and tremulous in the wind.
Gradually, the voices ebbed. The man stood up. His
hands cut the cold air several times. The congregation,
now standing, began to sing a hymn
—
"till we meet
again beyond the River Jordan . . ."
The black shadow of our building had already crept
across the street, and now was spreading unevenly
upward on the slope over the ruins. A cold wind blew in through the open window.
Colonel Chang closed the window. "Well, well," he
said.
The ministers returned to their chairs.
Colonel Chang stood by the stove. "I must say they
seem indeed inspired."
"I have never seen anything quite like it," said one
136
of the old men. "In all my life as their pastor, I have never been able to move them Hke this."
"I have seen many revivals. I myself have conducted
them many times," said another. "But this is the great-
est of all. I am deeply touched by it as you all must
be, I am sure."
"The most miraculous thing about it is," said a third
old minister with a gray beard, "they are doing it
entirely on their own. I am certain that none of us
here started it or even suggested it."
"It puts us all to shame," said the younger man.
"Ah, but it is a heaven-sent opportunity for them
and for us," said another. "They have received the
blessing. I dare say it is ordained by our Lord. We have needed it, let us admit. We needed an event mighty and divine enough to awaken us and free us
from years of bad dreams."
"Inscrutable shall ever be the holy will of our
Lx)rd," someone said.
"Amen," echoed the others.
"We must not let the martyrs down," Colonel Chang
said. "I have been saying it all along."
"Yes, our people know the martyrs died for us and
saved us from the sins of our meek suffering and sub-
mission to the forces of evil," said a minister who ap-
peared to be the oldest of the company. "Yes, we
know it and they know it. We have sinned much,
137
Colonel Chang, and we are ashamed that we have
allowed our spirits to suffer from despair. It shall
never happen again. I fear the Church needed the
sacrifice offered by our martyrs, God bless their souls."
He paused and looked about him. "I would like to
ask everyone here to join me in a prayer. Would you
mind, Colonel Chang?"
"Certainly not!"
My orderly came in, followed by a private; they proceeded to serve tea. The proposed prayer was
delayed until they withdrew.
The cups and saucers clattered as the ministers put
them down on the wooden floor. They bowed their
heads. Colonel Chang, sitting hunched on a chair,
gazed down into his cup. Park looked out of the win-
dow. I watched the ministers in their devotional
posture.
"Lx)rd, we ask Thee to forgive our many sins. We have just witnessed the spiritual agonies of Thy chil-
dren. They cried out from the bottom of their penitent
hearts, offering Thee their sinful souls, their spirits
aflame with renewed zeal and vigor, through the in-
spiration of our holy martyrs. Lord, forgive us our
many sins and show us the way, show us, Thy sinful
children who have suffered much from the evil forces
of Satan, show us the way to reach Thy light and Thy
blessing. Hear us, Lord. We were weak, but we know
138
we have not sinned beyond all hope. Lord, forgive our
many sins and receive us into Thy everlasting king-
dom. Amen."
"Amen," came the murmured response.
Colonel Chang broke the silence. "Now gentlemen,
I asked you to join me here today because I want you
to meet someone who was close to our martyrs during
the last few days of their hves. Needless to say, I take
great pride in what he wants to tell you about them.
I won't talk about it now. You shall hear it directly
from him. It is only a small service I can render you
in my limited capacity as the officer in charge of this
establishment. He will be here presently." He pressed
a buzzer on his desk.
PoUte nods and murmurs responded to his remark.
Suddenly Park stepped forward. "I am sure you all
know who I am," he said. "I am glad you are all here,
because I wanted to tell you that I do not wish to be
included on this conmiittee. I do not wish to have
anything to do with the memorial service."
Colonel Chang interrupted, "Captain Park, I must
ask you to restrain yourself from being overwhelmed
by your grief. We all understand how unhappy you must be!"
Unperturbed, Park went on, "I am leaving the city
as soon as I can. I am sorry that I cannot represent
the famiUes of your martyrs, but I have never asked
for the honor. That is all I wanted to say."
139
Indifferent to the frowning and bewildered faces of
the ministers, Park was about to stalk out of the room
when there was a knock on the door. Two officers
came in with a white-robed man between them. I rec-
ognized the lieutenants; they were from CIC.
The prisoner's head was shaven; his swollen, blood-
shot eyes set above high cheekbones glanced about
the room. His hands were heavily bandaged.
Colonel Chang held his arm. "Gentlemen, I would
like you to meet Major Jung, formerly in the service
of the Pyongyang secret police of the Peoples' Repub-
lic of Korea. Major Jung, I want you to meet these
gentlemen, distinguished ministers of the Christian
church of this city, and, of course, dear colleagues of
the martyrs. It was very thoughtful of you to agree
to come here and personally tell my friends about the
martyrs. My friends. Major Jung saw much of our martyrs and he was one of the few who witnessed their
unforgettable last moments. Now, Major Jung, will
you kindly tell these gentlemen what you have told
me about them." He released his grip on the prisoner
and stepped aside.
Major Jung's eyes lingered over the faces of the
ministers. He was thin and tall. He moistened his lips;
his cheeks twitched; his Adam's apple jerked up and
down his long throat. His hoarse voice said quietly,
"So you are ministers."
Colonel Chang said, "Incidentally, gentlemen, al-
140
though we must admit that he has committed many
sins in the past, Major Jung has given us invaluable
help and has fully repented his ignoble past. And that
means he shall be a free man—after certain adminis- trative measures have been taken, that is."
Major Jung turned to the colonel. "You're a Har,"
he said.
The lieutenants seized his arms.
"I know your kind," the prisoner went on calmly.
"We knew enough about you. You and I are in the
same trade. Don't think you can fool me. I know what
you are up to. You don't have to hide from these gen-
tlemen the fact that you are going to shoot me. When?
Tonight? Tomorrow morning?"
"What is this!" shouted the colonel.
The lieutenants tried to drag the prisoner out.
"Let him stay!" the colonel ordered; then to the
prisoner, "Look here, you must be out of your mind.
I warn you to behave yourself. I may indeed be in-
clined to shoot you, you understand!"
"Have mercy on him, Colonel," someone whispered.
Major Jung faced the ministers. He shook his bald
head and grinned. "Yes, have mercy on me. Have
mercy on me? But you make me laugh. You are too
forgetful. It was I who had mercy on you, don't you
remember? I had a chance to shoot aU of you but I
didn't because I foolishly thought you weren't worthy
141
of our bullets. Ah, but I should have shot you all. I
realize it only too late."
"Take him away!" Colonel Chang shouted.
I saw the door open behind the lieutenants; Chap-
lain Koh entered.
Major Jung said, "You don't have to send me away
before I can tell these friends of yours about your great
martyrs. Isn't that what you wanted me to do? I must
say you have a sense of humor, though. Gentlemen,
you wish to know how your great martyrs died. It
gives me great pleasure to tell you that your great
heroes and martyrs died like dogs. Like dogs, whim-
pering, whining, wailing. It pleased me to hear them
beg for mercy, to hear them denounce their god and
one another. They died Uke dogs. Like dogs, do you
hear! Ah, I should have shot them all!"
"Why didn't you!" the sharp voice of Park cut in.
"Why? You ask me why?" the prisoner whirled
about to face Park. "Because one went crazy. Crazy,
like a mad dog. I am not a brute. I don't shoot mad
men."
"And why didn't you shoot the other one!" boomed
the voice of Chaplain Koh. He strode toward us.
"What is this!" shouted the colonel.
"He was the only one who put up a fight. I like a
good fight. He had guts. He was the only one who had
enough guts to spit in my face. I admire anyone who
142
can spit in my face. That's why I didn't shoot him. I
should have shot him, though. I should have shot you,
too, when I had a chance. I know you, a phony pas-
tor."
Chaplain Koh stood facing the prisoner, then
swiftly knocked him to the floor with his fist. He spat
out, "Monster!"
The CIC lieutenants dragged the prisoner out of
the room.
"What is this?" said the colonel to the chaplain.
"Indeed, what is this?" Chaplain Koh looked at the
ministers. "What are you all doing here?"
"Where is he?" said the colonel. "Where is Mr.
Shin?"
"Where is he now?" asked the oldest minister. "You
must tell us if you know where he is. We must know the truth. He is the only one who can now tell us the
truth about all this."
Chaplain Koh did not speak.
"What are you up to?" Colonel Chang said angrily;
he glared at the chaplain.
"I won't allow you to disturb Mr. Shin," said the
chaplain. He spoke to the ministers. "Now that you
are all here, to whom shall I have the honor of de-
Uvering the message from Mr. Shin?"
"I feel obliged to warn you. Chaplain," said the
143
colonel, "you are under my authority, you under-
stand."
"Ah, hang your authority! Is that all you can think
of? Speaking of authority, I have already talked with
the Secretary of Defense, who is a very good friend of
mine, my cousin, to be exact, as you know. Perhaps,
you didn't know. It doesn't matter. I have been given
a certain authority, the nature of which I shan't bother
to explain. You can call him, if you hke."
I stepped forward. "Chaplain, you said you have
a message from Mr. Shin."
He nodded. "But I frankly don't know to whom I
should deliver it." He glanced at the ministers.
"Please speak to us all," said the oldest. "Our lead-
ers are gone but we shall try our best to be worthy
of our duty as the interim representatives of our
churches."
"Very well," the chaplain said. "Mr. Shin has al-
ready notified his congregation that he wishes to be
reheved of his duty as their pastor, and a similar notice
has been sent to the congregation of Mr. Hann."
No one spoke; no one stirred.
"Mr. Shin," the chaplain said, "wishes to resign
from the ministry."
"Fool!" Colonel Chang exclaimed, "Bloody fool!"
^^;^^^;^^^^^;^^^ 19
FOR SOME TIME after the ministers had left in an atmosphere of confusion and uneasiness, a heavy
silence prevailed among the four of us. Park and I
stood by the window; Chaplain Koh sat quietly near
the stove; while Colonel Chang leaned back in his
swivel chair behind the desk, gazing at the ceiling. It
was getting dark outside. The wind blew hard. A streetcar clanged by, spattering pale sparks in its wake.
Colonel Chang at last broke the silence by sitting
up abruptly in his chair. "Captain Lee," he said, "you
asked me what it was that I knew and you didn't
about the execution of the twelve miaisters. Do you
remember?"
Park and the chaplain looked at the colonel, who
now sat with his hands clasped on the desk.
"It's true, I do know something that all of you here
do not know. I had hoped that I would never have to
144
145
tell you what I know, but now I feel I have no other
choice. The prisoner was telling you the truth about
the ministers, although he exaggerated and under-
standably so. Among the twelve there were some who
betrayed their fellows; they were unable to resist the
Reds and allowed themselves to be manipulated into
denouncing the others. I needn't say anything about
Mr. Shin or about the young minister. You have heard
the prisoner's words."
"Colonel, how long have you known all this?" I
asked.
"Ever since I was assigned to the case. Of course
I didn't know everything in detail. But that there were
betrayers I knew for certain prior to the capture of
Major Jung. Under the circumstances I had no other
choice than to suspect Mr. Shin and Mr. Hann. I now
know they are innocent. We have Major Jung's word for the fantastic and compUcated but true circum-
stances regarding the last moments of the execution.
It was only when I got his confession that I was able
to understand why Mr. Shin at first denied any knowl-
edge of the execution. He decided to tell a small he
rather than a big he about the martyrdom of the
twelve, rather than reveal the truth about the shameful
frailty and infidelity of some of them.
Colonel Chang's thin lips curled with disdain.
"Now," he continued after a pause, "Mr. Shin has
146
vanished in the face of angry Christians who accuse
him of an alleged betrayal. He wants to resign from
the ministry and from his church. What are we to
make of this? Consider for a moment that you are in
his position, that you are falsely accused of a shameful
act which you did not commit; consider also that you
are subjected to unspeakable humiliation—such as having your house smashed by those for whose sake
you are keeping silent. Captain Lee, I accept what you
said—that Mr. Shin is guarding the truth, that the others may not want the truth. But I am afraid of what
he might do, of what he may be thinking of doing."
Chaplain Koh said, "Mr. Shin did not say anything
about his intention of resigning until this morning.
He hasn't explained why he wants to resign, or what
he plans to do afterward."
"That is why I am disturbed," Colonel Chang said.
"Are you afraid that he might speak the truth?" I
said.
"The truth which you don't want?" said Park bit-
terly.
Colonel Chang scowled at Park.
"Colonel, are you sure," the chaplain said, "that
what you have just told us is beyond question?"
"Yes, I am sorry to say I have all the details—the names of the ministers, what they did and said, what
confessions they gave to the Reds. I regret to say that
I have the evidence."
I
147
"Colonel, may I . . .?" said Park.
Colonel Chang interrupted him. "I know what you
would like to know. Captain Park," he said gravely.
"You can be proud, as we all are, that your father was
the bravest man of them all. He was magnificent, Cap-
tain. Even Major Jung admitted that your father could
inspire a certain kind of awe and respect among the
Red torturers. Rest assured, Captain, he is a great
martyr."
Park, with eyes closed, remained silent.
Colonel Chang said, "Chaplain, where is Mr. Shin?"
And when there was no response, "It doesn't matter
whether you tell me or not. I shan't disturb him. But
tell me, do you have any idea what he is thinking of
doing?"
The chaplain shook his head. "No."
"Does he know what happened to his house?"
"He knows what they did."
"How did he take it? Was he angry?"
"Yes!" shouted the chaplain, jumping up from his
chair. "Yes, he was angry. What did you expect? I've
never seen him so angry. He didn't want to go away.
I forced him to go. I admit that it was my way of
revenge. I hated those petty Christians who behaved
like mice yesterday and today are howling like hun-
gry beasts!" He stopped for breath. "All right, he is at
the service headquarters of my brigade in Chinnampo.
I thought I could keep him over there for a while, at
148
least until the memorial service is over. But is there
going to be a memorial service?" Chaplain Koh
glanced furiously about him. "For whom? To com-
memorate whom?"
Colonel Chang brought his fist down on the desk.
"Yes! There is going to be a memorial service. To
commemorate whom? The twelve martyrs, of course,
the twelve glorious martyrs! What do you think! Never
mind what I told you. You've heard it, and now forget
what you know. I told you only because I wanted you
to help me, to help the Christians."
"To help your propaganda, too?" said the chaplain.
"Yes! To help the Army's propaganda, too. Why
not, after all! I am not going to let anyone defile our
cause. I am not going to let anyone give the Reds an
upper hand. Understand that. I don't care who be-
trayed whom. All I care is that the betrayers and the
betrayed alike were murdered by the Reds. That is
what you must remember. That is what we must em-
phasize. And that is the most important thing to tell
the whole nation. Army Intelligence has been com-
piling the data about the inhuman practices of the
Reds, we are especially interested in collecting evi-
dence on how the Reds treat Christians. The murder
of the twelve ministers cannot be dismissed lightly just
because there were a few weak human beings among
them. What counts is they were murdered by the Reds,
and don't forget it!"
149
"Aren't you overlooking something?" cried the |
chaplain, "We are dealing with martyrs, religious mar-
tyrs! If you wanted a hundred heroes out of a hun-
dred Army deserters, very well, you should have them.
But, by God, you are not going to manufacture reli-
gious martyrs. It would be the most despicable blas-
phemy. Martyrs serve the will of God, not the
ephemeral needs of men!"
"Leave your god out of this. Chaplain," the colonel
said. "You know I don't give a damn for your god."
"You are unnecessarily blasphemous. Colonel," the
chaplain said indignantly.
"Am I? How do you know that what I am going to do—manufacture martyrs as you say—well, how do you know it is what your god may not want? How do you know that I may not be doing a greater service to
your Christianity by presenting twelve martyrs than
by exposing all the dirty linen under the holy gar-
ments of those miserable ministers?"
For a moment Chaplain Koh was too furious to
reply. Then he said, "Something must be said to ex-
plain Mr. Shin's act, to explain that he has nothing
to be ashamed of. You must tell the truth, Colonel, or
I shaU!"
"Well, Captain Lee," said the colonel, "you have
been quiet. What is your opinion? Do you also insist that I tell the truth?"
There was in the tone of his voice an unmistakable
150
challenge. Feeling upon me the silent gaze of the
chaplain and Park, I said, "With your permission, sir,
let me say I don't understand why you are all so dis-
turbed. What I would like to remind you is that we
are talking about your truth. Colonel. We have your truth before us and we are arguing what to do with it.
But it seems to me you have forgotten about Mr. Shin.
What about him? What is he going to do? What is
Mr. Shin's truth? That is the heart of the matter."
"I don't understand you," said the colonel.
"Sir, the Christians will be more willing to believe
what he tells them than what you tell them," I said.
"Hm, don't be too sure of that. But I am glad you
brought Mr. Shin up. Why does he want to resign?
I'll tell you why. I am afraid he has become rather
emotional about the whole damned affair. I fear he has
come to a decision to speak out the truth, all the filthy
truth about the betrayers. Otherwise, why resign from
his calling? It is not a simple thing for a minister to
accuse and expose the crimes and failings of fellow
ministers. So he quits to make a clear way for his con-
science."
"And if he states the fact," Park said, "that there
were betrayers, what do you propose to do about it?"
"He won't say that," Colonel Chang said angrily.
"But suppose he does."
"I will do my best to deny it."
151
"And claim that he says so because he wants to
hide his own guilt?" said Chaplain Koh.
Colonel Chang glared at him. "We must persuade
him not to lose his head and do anything rash. That's
why I said I need your help. We must do our best to stop him from resigning, first of all, and then persuade
him to tell the Christians that no minister was guilty,
including himself and Mr. Hann, of course. And I
will back him up."
"With enough evidence, I hope, sir," I said.
"I don't want to hear any more nonsense from any
of you," he shouted. "And I remind you that you are
not to divulge any part of this confidential information,
you understand."
"You assume," Park said quietly, "that he will
either speak the truth or distort it for your benefit, or
even maybe his own. But why not assume that he just
might say nothing, as he has not so far? Suppose he
continues to keep an absolute silence? What then?"
"Nonsense! Sooner or later, he has to clear him-
self. Otherwise, everyone will be convinced that he is
really guilty of something terrible, as many have al-
ready begun to think."
"It is imperative that Mr. Shin's innocence be estab-
lished," said the chaplain.
"How would you accomplish that, Chaplain?" the
colonel asked.
152
"Tell the truth," the chaplain said in anger. "How
else? I am a Christian and a chaplain and I was once
a pastor myself, but that does not mean I should com-
promise the truth, however painful it might be to the
cause and interest of Christians. Truth cannot be hid-
den away. Perhaps, it was God's will that such a
painful truth as this should have come to Christians."
"And you. Captain Park? What do you say to that?"
said the colonel.
Brooding, Park did not reply.
"And you. Captain Lee?"
"I cannot agree with you, sir," I said. "I cannot
twist the truth to suit it to the purpose of our propa-
ganda. Besides, sir, as Chaplain Koh has pointed out,
the truth has to do with the religious nature of martyr-
dom, a matter which must be dealt with by religious
authorities."
"You then refuse to understand my position," said
the colonel.
"Colonel, my only argument is that truth must be
told for the sake of its simply being the truth. I must
make it clear that I have no other motives. If Mr. Shin
were to be found guilty of betrayal, I would insist that
he be brought to account for his crime. That's all,
Colonel."
"Why must truth be told?" Exasperated, the colonel
sprang up from his chair and began pacing the room.
153
"Truth can De buried and still be the truth. It doesn't
have to be told."
"The problem in our case, sir, is that you are
obUged to say something about the execution of the
ministers," I said. "You have created the situation as
it stands now, and I am afraid there is no way out of
it for you, no way other than either to teU the truth or,
as you insist, to distort it. It is your choice. Colonel."
"And what is your choice. Captain? Suppose you
were in my position, what would you do?"
"I would tell the truth," I repUed.
"And make the damn Reds happy and bring all the
disgrace to us, eh?"
"I would have no other choice,"
"Enough!" Colonel Chang cried impatiently. "We
must persuade Shin to cooperate with us."
"You mean, cooperate with you," said the chaplain.
"Suppose he refuses to be persuaded or to cooperate
with you?" I said.
"Then I won't have any other choice. I will have to
force him, no matter how much I may be disinclined
to do so."
"Do you reaUy think he is the kind of man you can
force to do something against his principles?" the
chaplain said.
"Ah, that we shall see."
154
"How would you force him, may I ask?" retorted
the chaplain.
"I would rather not say anything about it at this
stage."
A long moment of silence followed. At last the chaplain turned to me. "Captain Lee, do you remem-
ber, some time ago I told you of a certain problem
which is exclusively my own?"
"Yes, I remember," I said. "Why do you ask?"
"You remember I asked you what you would do if
you were in my place?"
I nodded.
"What are you talking about?" said the colonel,
darting a vexed look at me and at the chaplain.
"I am merely trying to pose a question," the chap-
lain said. "You asked Captain Lee what he would do
in your position. What would you do. Colonel, if you
were in Mr. Shin's place?"
"What would you do?" said the colonel, frowning.
"I confess," Chaplain Koh sighed, "I wouldn't know
what to do."
"I would tell the truth," I said.
"Enough!" cried Colonel Chang once again.
"Enough of this nonsense."
i^^^^^i^^^n^^n^^^ 20
CHAPLAIN KOH, PARK, and I withdrew to my
office when Colonel Chang left headquarters to attend
a meeting at the Pyongyang Area Command. I had
my orderly bring us a pot of tea, and we sat quietly
around the stove and sipped the tea, reUeved not to
be arguing and shouting any more.
It was Park who spoke first. "Cnaplain, tell me," he
said with his head bowed, "has Mr. Shin said any-
thing to you about my father?"
"No, he hasn't, only that he has something to tell
you. I know he wants very much to see you." The
chaplain turned to me. "Captain, did you see those
Christians out there in front of the church—Park's father's church?"
"Of course I saw them," I said. "Why do you ask?"
"I wonder if you understand them," he said, glanc-
ing at Park.
155
156
"Do you?" I said.
"I don't have to," he said softly. "After all, I am one of them. Perhaps what I felt as I watched them
was something deeper than what we call understand-
ing."
"Maybe," I shrugged. "I'm not much for mysteries.
Incidentally, Chaplain, what you told Colonel Chang
about your talk with the Secretary of Defense—was that true?"
He laughed. "I've been too busy to call him. He is
my cousin, that's a fact, and Colonel Chang knows it.
So you see, I wasn't exactly telling a fib." He got up
from his chair. "Well, I think I should be on my way.
Don't worry about Mr. Shin and Mr. Hann. They are
comfortable. I'll tell Mr. Shin about our discussion
with the colonel."
Park did not look up to bid the chaplain good night.
He seemed to be intensely preoccupied with his own
thoughts. After a while he said softly, almost as if he
were speaking to himself, "I said I suspected I was the
very source of my horror. I don't suspect it any more.
I know it. I don't know any other way to explain all
the misery in this world, generation after generation."
Suddenly he exclaimed with surprising bitterness,
"So my father is a great martyr. The colonel says so.
Even the Red major said so. He won as he always has.
And I lost as I always have. I can't hide it any longer.
157
I must tell you what I have been secretly hoping for, so
you will know how base and wretched a man can be.
Do you know I wished my father hadn't been a mar-
tyr? I wanted him to have failed at the last moment. I
hoped he had been defeated, yes, crushed, so he would
know what it was like to be weak in spirit. What it
was like to doubt—to doubt his god, his faith, every- thing—to taste the horrible injustice and suffering of this life. But he didn't fail. He was a great martyr.
How like him! I can see that proud face of a fanatic,
possessed by his conviction that he was right, so that
nothing could defeat him. How he must have said to
himself, 'Well, you hoped I would fail, but I was right
and just and I won!' I can see his blazing eyes and
triumphant smile, hear his roaring voice, that magnifi-
cent voice thundering down from his pulpit, 'You
—
apostate!'
"
Park brought his clenched fists down on his knees.
"I can't—I can't weep for him. I could have if he had failed. I could have wept for him if he had experi-
enced at least a moment of human weakness. That's
why I sometimes weep for Christ."
"You shouldn't torment yourself so," I muttered.
"How would you judge Christ?" he cried. " 'My
God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me!' How would you listen to that cry of anguish! That cry from
the dying Christ—a pathetic figure of a pale, death-
158
stricken yet divinely mad young man, nailed to a
cross, jeered at and hated, riddled by bloody Roman
spears, helpless in the face of his enemies—the pitiful body of the alleged son of God, gasping, panting,
sweating, bleeding, without a miracle to save him.
Who knows what terrifying doubts he might have felt
at that last moment that all his life and work had
been an utter waste! Even the son of God, even Christ,
had a moment of doubt."
I got up to shovel some more coal into the stove.
"I have no use for fairy tales," I said.
"You may not, but are you so sure that others, per-
haps including myself, have no use for a fairy tale, as
you call it? And don't look so surprised to hear me
say it!"
Park came over to me and gripped my arm. "Those
wailing, chanting Christians at Mr. Shin's yesterday,
and today at my father's bombed-out church. What
do you think it was they wanted, that they need so
desperately? Tell me, would you despise them? Or
would you perhaps love them?"
I felt too disturbed to reply immediately. I could
only stand there staring into his flaming eyes. At last
I said, "I do understand them. That's all I can say.
Yes, I understand their suffering and their despair."
He let go of my arm and cried out impatiently, "Ah,
your kind of understanding is not enough. That's what
159
Chaplain Koh was trying to tell you. You only say you
understand them. You view their suffering and their
despair in a detached, intellectual way precisely be-
cause you are merely a sympathetic observer."
His passionate words struck me with relentless
force, piercing deep into my heart.
Park strode over to the window and looked out into
the dark, cold world. "I love them," he said quietly.
"It's as the chaplain said: 'After all, I am one of
them.' " He turned to face me again. "That's why I
wouldn't know what to do if I were in Mr. Shin's
place."
Late in the evening. Chaplain Koh called me from
Chinnampo. Upon arriving at the service quarters of
his brigade he had found neither Mr. Shin nor Mr.
Hann. He was worried about them. I promised him
that I would come down to Chinnampo at the earliest
opportunity. Meanwhile he would do his best to find
the two ministers.
^;^l^^^i^l^\i^\i^^^}i^^ 21
NOTHING COULD CHANGE Park's determination to leave Pyongyang immediately. Shortly after eight
o'clock the next morning, I instructed our transporta-
tion officer to secure him a seat on a flight to Ham-
hung on the east coast. Park and I did not have much
time to speak to each other; I had to prepare for a
meeting at headquarters of the U.S. forces. But first.
Colonel Chang wanted to see me.
When I entered his office, I found him seated be-
hind his desk, drinking tea. He had just finished eating;
a small tray with an empty plate was pushed to one
side. His orderly came in to remove the tray and
Colonel Chang asked me if I would like to join him
in a cup of tea. When the orderly brought in a cup
and a pot of fresh tea, the colonel asked me to pull
up a chair.
I informed him that Park was leaving the city.
160
161
"So he meant what he said," he said indifferently.
I then told him that Chaplain Koh had called to say
he had been unable to find the ministers at Chinnampo
on his return.
To my surprise, he took the news calmly. "Now,
that's going too far, don't you think?" he said off-
handedly. "What do you think should be done?"
I told him that I would like to drive down to Chin-
nampo as soon as I could.
He nodded, "Of course, you should go and find
them," he said. "But I am afraid I shall have to detain
you here for a while. Well, shall we get down to our
business?"
"As you wish, sir."
"I had a call from the Chief of Intelligence last
night. I had talked with him some time ago, in fact;
I asked for a transfer. He is at last convinced that I
have had enough of political intelligence, which isn't
my specialty anyway. I asked for a job in a field intel-
Ugence operation, in which I am sort of an expert, if
you'll allow me to say so. So I am going to be trans-
ferred. I have asked that a replacement be sent here
immediately, but it will take some time and, besides,
according to the chief, there isn't anyone available
at the moment. Meanwhile you are to run this outfit.
I have no doubt that you can do it—better than I have, I am sure. I am glad I am going back to my
162
old kind of job. It is beyond my power to deal with
another man's conscience. You must have guessed
that."
I was touched by his confiding in me; I was seeing
another side of Colonel Chang.
"There is something else I want to tell you but, of
course, it will have to be kept confidential," he said.
He then described to me the nature of his new assign-
ment and his plans for carrying out the project that
went with it. He had received instructions from the
Army's Chief of Intelligence to go underground in
order to establish an inteUigence network in the
Pyongyang area. He was to be aided by agents per-
sonally selected by the Chief of InteUigence.
"I shall have to disappear," Colonel Chang said.
"We'll be setting up a secret base from which we will
be operating later on."
"But why are you telling me about this. Colonel?"
"You know what my assignment means, don't you?"
"Yes. I know what you are supposed to do. But I
don't understand why it is necessary."
"Neither do I understand it," he said, "nor does the
chief. All we know at this stage is that it has been
decided at some very high quarters that, if the Chinese
strike us, we won't fight. We'll pull out. Ah, it's all
very disgusting."
"We aren't even going to hold onto Pyongyang, I
163
suppose, sir," I said, "since they made it clear you are
going to be left behind here."
"I am not the only one. I stay because I want to
and because I am ordered to. But think of all those
people." He shook his head.
Gazing toward the window at the gray world out-
side, Colonel Chang said quietly, "If there really is a
god who can observe from high up in heaven what we
down here are doing, it surely must look rather child-
ish." He paused for a long moment. "Do you know
that I am a baptized Christian? Accidentally, that is.
My grandfather was an incorrigible believer in magic, any kind of magic. He had a friend who was a Bap-
tist or Methodist—I forget which. One day my grand- father took me along to a church with this friend of
his who had a baby in his arms. Well, there was a
ceremony of baptism going on that day and my grand-
father got curious about it. You see, the minister was
sprinkhng drops of water on babies, and that inter-
ested the old man. But what interested him most was
the invocation of the Holy Ghost. He didn't under-
stand the Father and the Son, but the idea of the Holy
Ghost certainly fascinated him. You must remember
that he was devoted to magic and ghosts and all that.
So he had me baptized right then and there, firmly
believing that any ghost was better than none. That's
how I became a baptized Christian. The most amazing
164
part of this ghost business was that my grandfather thought I would never be thirsty because the ghost
blessed me with water."
I told him that I, too, was a baptized Christian, a
Presbyterian, to be exact.
"Are you really?" he said. "Not an accidental one
like me, I suppose."
"An involuntary one, if you Uke, sir. My parents were Christians."
"They died in this war, I understand."
"It was a bomb."
"Mine starved to death in Manchuria. You are the
only one left in your family, aren't you? So am 1. 1 had
two brothers, but they both were killed by the Jap-
anese. So we are both orphans," he said, "and bap-
tized Christians."
"Apostates, if you like."
"I would say sinners."
Colonel Chang dismissed me. As I got up from my
chair he said angrily, "The prisoner, Major Jung, was
shot last night."
When I returned to my oflQce my orderly told me
that Park had gone to see the Marine liaison oflBcer.
I called the transportation officer, and was told that
there was no flight to Hamhung in the morning but
one might be available late in the afternoon. After a
165
brief meeting with the oflBcers of my section, my or-
derly brought in a batch of mail, in which I found a
bulky envelope from Chaplain Koh. Inside the en-
velope was another one to which was attached a note
scribbled by the chaplain:
I discovered the enclosed in my quarters soon after I called you last night. I have learned from
several persons here that Mr. Shin and Mr. Harm
were seen heading for a village about six miles from
where we are. I then recalled that Mr. Shin had an
old friend of his who was pastor of the church in
that village. I don't know if the pastor is still there.
Anyhow, I can't lose any time and I am going to the village myself. I will caU you if and when I find them
there.
The enclosed envelope was addressed to me by Mr.
Shin, and within it I found this letter:
Dear Captain Lee:
Though I have always been a family friend and
have always regarded his father as my closest friend and mentor, I do not know the young Park too well,
and it has been nearly a decade since I saw h\n\
last. You have been close to him and you are his
best friend, so I entrust my letter to him with you, hoping that you will pardon my reliance on your best judgment and discretion. I beg you to read
what I wrote to Park and if you believe that he is
prepared to read it, then give it to him, but if not.
166
then please destroy it. I am taking the liberty of assuming that you will do me this favor. From what
I have learned through you and Chaplain Koh I
must teU Park what you are about to read. I would
like to have talked with him in person, but the situ-
ation I now find myself in prevents me from seeing
the son of my dear departed friend and venerable
teacher.
Truly yours,
Shin
Mr. Shin's letter to Park read:
From out of the city the dying groan,
and the soul of the wounded cries for help;
yet God pays no attention to their prayer.
Job 24:12
On the fourth night of our imprisonment, your
father, who had been separated from the rest of us,
was brought into our cell by one of the interrogators.
There were five of us in that small cell and we were
grieved to see him; he had been tortured much; his
swollen face was smeared with blood, he had lost
most of his hair, his nails were broken, and he had
diflBculty opening his eyes. He was nearly uncon-
scious when he was thrown into our cell. We tried our best to cleanse him but he was in pain and we
did not know what to do. Gradually his breathing
relaxed and we thought he was falling into a deep
sleep. In that dark, malodorous cell, with the stifling
heat benumbing our senses, we knelt around him and
167
prayed. Presently one of us began to recite a passage
from Job. It was then that your father stirred and
made an effort to raise himself. In the dim light that
projected the iron bars against the concrete wall, his
face, with his eyes closed, pained our hearts. For
a while he listened to the hushed voice that spoke
the words of Job. And then suddenly, when the voice
came to the passage I have quoted at the beginning
of this letter, your father, to our bewilderment, cried:
"Stop! No more!" I say "to our bewilderment" be-
cause we did not understand him at the time. But I
understood him later. I wonder if you can. So it was
that we passed the night in silence, to be disturbed
only when they came during the night to take away
and return the five of us, one by one.
I stUl remember the night when you came to see
me before you went away from Pyongyang. Do you remember? You had just left your father. You were
quite young then. I remember your angry face, your
harsh voice, and your defiance. You accused your
father, saying that he was a self-righteous fanatic.
You told me you had told your father that he, too,
was not infallible. Strange, now that I recall your
words, how they have come to mean so much to me.
Should you still maintain your accusation of your
father, I say you are partly wrong and partly right.
You are wrong when you say he was a self-righteous
man; he never was, as you surely must know. But
you are right; he was a fanatic to the very end of his
life, one way or the other. You may insist that a fanatic is a self-righteous man, but with your father
168
you must remember and understand that he had
never said that he was right, but that his God was right, that his God was just. Do you understand this about him? You must, for he understood you.
It is true that he had never mentioned your name,
as far as I know, until a few days before our im-
prisonment. But I knew he was well aware of what
you were doing, where you were. I recall our con-
versation, in which he said that he was glad to hear
you had become a historian. I asked him why. "If
one is a good historian, he must transcend the par-
ticulars in human history to discover the general and
once he does that he will inevitably come to the large
question of whether or not history must have an end
one day. Thus he will have to face another, larger
question—not as a historian but simply as a man. If he does that some day, then I shall have to admit
that we are not so far apart from each other as it
might appear." I remember saying to him that, per-
haps, he had some sort of teleologjcal question in
mind. No, he said, it was an eschatological question.
I do not know whether or not I was right in con-
jecturing that this was his way of saying he felt rec-
onciled with you.
I am not sure what you really wish to know about
him, about his last days on earth. I confess that I
was surprised to learn of your particular wish. How did he die? I understand that you do not want to
hear any more about his heroism and his martyrdom.
I would have Uked to talk with you but I can hardly
expect to see you at the moment. I can give you what
169
you wish to know, but I must make it clear to you
that what I am about to tell you came to your father through the terrible agonies of a wounded soul.
That night, which became the last night for those
twelve, we were taken to the bank of an upstream
branch of the Taedong River. We knew we were going to be shot. We were given one minute to say whatever we wished: to pray. "I cannot pray!" These
were your father's last words, and now I pass them
on to you in his name, in his memory. Your father
did not pray; he died in utter sohtude.
Yours truly in Christ,
Shin
I called the transportation officer and told him not
to bother with arranging a flight for Park. I then rang
up the Marine liaison officer, asked for Park, and was
told that he had gone out. It was getting late for the
meeting. I had to go, I left Mr. Shin's letter with my
orderly to give to Park and left my office.
When I returned at noon I found Park in my room,
waiting for me. I greeted him and suggested that he
join me for lunch.
"I have decided to stay here for a while," he said.
"You have read the letter from Mr. Shin," I said.
He nodded. He walked over to the window and
stood there, looking out. It was windy; the window-
panes rattled; the bell across the street clanged faintly.
170
He muttered, "Why don't they do something about
that beU?"
"It's too dangerous to get up to the belfry,*' I said.
Abruptly he swung around and came back to me. "I
can't bear to look at that church!" he cried out. "It's
as if . . . as if . . .*'
Under the gray sky the skeletal remains of the bat-
tered church stood lonely over the snow-covered slope
littered with ruins. I turned to Park and for the first
time since I had come to know him I saw his eyes
glisten with tears.
"Come," I said, holding his arm. "Don't ^>eak. I
understand.**
^l^;^^^^;^^^;!^;^^^
MATTERS CONCERNING THE transfer of Colonel Chang and my new duties as acting commanding offi-
cer of the detachment prevented me from leaving
headquarters for Chinnampo. I had not received an-
other call from Chaplain Koh nor had I been able to
reach him at the service headquarters of his brigade.
Meanwhile, the local papers had been carrying vari-
ous articles of a grandiloquent nature about the hero-
ism and martyrdom of the twelve ministers. The
articles were often sensational in their headlines and
melodramatic in their tone, so much so that I went to
Colonel Chang and asked him if he was the source of
inspiration.
He did not hesitate to admit that indeed he was.
"But why?" I protested.
"I gave the papers what they wanted," he said
calmly.
171
172
"But you did not give them the truth," I insisted.
He did not respond to my charge, but launched di-
rectly into the business of the transfer of our duties.
I interrupted him and reminded him that he had
not yet replied to my protest.
With a weary look, he stared at me. "Captain Lee,
when you finally take over my job, do you know what
you wiU be asked to do? Or forced to do, if that
suits your taste better? My dear professor—lectures, speeches, and all sorts of moral talks. Propaganda,
if you insist. Do you think you can do it? Can you
tell all sorts of people we are fighting this war for the
glorious cause of our independence, our liberty, and,
to make the matter more complicated, for the interest
and preservation of our democratic system of govern-
ment? Can you tell a bevy of sweet old ladies and
housewives or a flock of young students here who are
dying to know what is going on in the South—well, can you tell them all their sufferings are worthwhile
because this is a noble war we are fighting, that peo-
ple, many, many people will have to be sacrificed in
order to make sure that the cause of individual lib-
erty, the duty of man and free social, political, and
economic life will survive and be maintained for us
and for our posterity? Well, what do you say?"
I was dismayed at the prospect.
Colonel Chang went on. "Or, would you rather teU
173
them this war is just Uke any other bloody war in the
stinking history of idiotic mankind, that it is nothing
but the sickening result of a blind struggle for power
among the beastly states, among the rotten poUticians
and so on, that thousands of people have died and
more will die in this stupid war, for nothing, for abso-
lutely nothing, because they are just innocent victims,
helpless pawns in the arena of cold-blooded, calcu-
lating international power politics? Well, now?"
He paused to examine me. "Let me tell you what I
think. I don't give a damn what you beUeve in. Is
that clear? It is none of my business whether you are
an out-and-out patriot or a noncommittal intellectual.
The important thing, as far as I am concerned and as
far as this job goes, is to tell them what is necessary
for them to know, and what is demanded of them by
this collective body called the state. As I said, I don't
care what you beUeve in deep down in your guts, but
when you say something in that uniform of yours to
the people, heaven help you if you go around making
those miserable people more miserable by going
against the stand taken by your country, telling them
what they already know but don't want to think they
know. Do you understand that?"
Though I tried to control myself, I could not help
speaking out. "Sir, I think I know what I am doing
and what I will do; I will hang onto my truth and will
174
not compromise it. As the acting commanding oflBcer
of this unit, I shall do my best to stop immediately any
more manufacturing and dissemination of false in-
formation."
Colonel Chang gazed silently at me for some time,
then he shook his head. "I envy you, Captain Lee,"
he said wearily. "So stubborn, aren't you? At least you
are committed to that stubbornness. I am glad to see
that. After all, it's better than nothing. Truth. What is
truth? Well, you are right. I am turning my duties over
to you and you will do what you think is best. I am
sure you know what you will have to do."
"Yes," I said, preparing to go.
Suddenly he raised his voice and shouted in fury,
"Well, are you so sure, so damned sure? Are you so
sure of your conscience in this bloody war? You have
Ucked the sweat and sucked the blood of this war,
haven't you? Well, haven't you?"
I retorted, "Yes, I have killed plenty, enough and
more than enough."
"Then what makes you think you are so righteous!"
he cried. His forefinger shot out of his clenched fist
and pointed at me. "You have killed, I have killed!
We are all murderers! Don't you ever forget that! We are all up to our necks in our bloody doings. I am
guilty, and you, professor, you too are guilty!" He
stopped, then said resignedly, "We only do what we
have to do for our country, don't you understand!"
175
That evening when I was alone in my office, Chap-
lain Koh came to see me unexpectedly.
"I did not have time to call you to tell you that we
were returning to Pyongyang," he said. "We just came
back. I left them at the house and came straight here."
He had found the two ministers in a small village near
Chinnampo, where they had stayed at the house of
the local pastor. "The pastor was an old friend of Mr.
i Shin's, as I might have told you. We were there, all ; three of us. It's unbelievable the way things are in that
village. People are literally starving, and sick. Almost
half of the village is gone, not just the houses but the
people. And what despair! People there are tired, so
tired of war and life. The poor pastor! He doesn't know
what to do. He is worn out himself, with so many of
his people starving and sick and then he has to lead
services practically every evening. Ah!
"Yesterday afternoon I left Mr. Shin and Mr. Hann
and went back to our headquarters to collect alms,
you might say; and when I went back to the village,
Mr. Shin insisted that we return to the city. Why? I
don't know. Of course I have told him everything
that happened here—what Colonel Chang confessed." I informed him of the colonel's transfer.
He shook his head. "I don't envy your position."
"Why not, Chaplain?" I said. "I know exactly what
I am going to do. But tell me. What can I do for you?"
176
"I came to see you because Mr. Shin wants to have
a few words with you. Can you come?"
"Is he still determined to resign?"
"Yes."
"Do you think he is going to teU the truth?"
"God only knows," sighed the chaplain as we left
the office.
When I stood face to face with Mr. Sbiii I did not
know what to say. His pale face was shaven and his
hair trimmed; he stood erect and serene in his black
robe in the bare room chilled by a cold draft.
"How are you, Captain Lee?" he said quietly, smil-
ing.
"Quite well, thank you. And you?" I had not seen
him smile before; his tranquility disturbed me.
"Oh, fair, though I wish I could say I felt splendid.
I have taken a short trip down to Chinnampo, as you
know. The driving was rough and the chaplain is a
reckless driver, I am afraid. But it was well worth the
trouble. I had a good bath and the chaplain found me
a barber who shaved me and cut my hair and then
there was an old friend of mine to visit with and chat,
r haven't had that much luxury for a long time."
I stood there in front of him with Chaplain Koh,
like an idiot, speechless at his matter-of-fact attitude.
Shghtly raising his voice he said, "Captain, I was
177
oing to ask you to take me to Colonel Chang but
low you are in command. So I ask you to do me a
avor. Would you mind making arrangements so that
tie Christian ministers in the city can come to your
leadquarters? I have given the names of the ministers
the chaplain."
"Why would you like to gather them? And why at
leadquarters?"
"I would like it all to be oflBcial," he said quietly.
Tomorrow afternoon?"
"If you wish," I said. "Mr. Shin, I know everything
;hat you know."
He nodded.
"What are you going to tell them?"
"I have returned, Captain Lee," he said, "because
[ know I can no longer guard the truth."
"Then you are going to teU them," I said.
"Are you?" exclaimed Chaplain Koh almost joy-
fully. "I knew you would, I knew you would!"
"Captain Lee, did you also know that I would tell
the truth?"
"I don't know, Mr. Shin," I said. "All I know is
that the truth must be told."
He gazed at me. "Is it your official wish, Captain?'*
"I have only one wish," I said. "My wish."
"And you want me to tell the truth," he said.
"Yes. But it is your choice and not mine."
178
^ "Would you tell the truth," he said, "if you were in
my place?"
"Yes," I declared. "There is no other way."
"What if I didn't?" he said. "Would you despise
me?"
I did not reply.
"Good night. Captain," he said gently. "I will see
you tomorrow." He took my hand. "I shall tell them
the truth."
I searched his face, only to be met by his smile and
calmness. I bowed to him and withdrew.
His serene voice followed me. "Yes, I will tell them
the truth of my faith."
I challenged him. "The truth does not belong to you
alone or to Colonel Chang, Mr. Shin."
ii^l^li^i^^^;!^^^ii^^;i^l^ 23
AT FOUR IN the afternoon the next day, I had as- sembled the ministers in one of our conference rooms,
including those who were on the preparation commit-
tee for the memorial service. Colonel Chang and Park
were also present. Before long, Mr. Shin arrived, ac-
companied by Chaplain Koh. Everyone stood up hur-
riedly.
I went to meet Mr. Shin. When we were alone to-
gether for a moment, I said, "Whatever you are going
to do, please don't do it for the sake of someone other
than yourself."
He looked at me intensely.
"Not for this estabhshment," I said. "Not for our
propaganda, Mr. Shin . . ."
Impulsively he seized my hand. "Captain, Cap-
tain!" he whispered.
"... or for your god."
179
180
Almost violently, his hands gripped mine, trem-
bling; he gazed into my eyes feverishly, and whispered,
"For my faith, Captain! For my new faith!"
With a bow I left him.
Standing in front of the assembled ministers, tran-
quil and somber in his black robe, Mr. Shin greeted
everyone in silence; then he began to speak slowly:
"Gentlemen, I am guilty. It was I who betrayed our
martyrs."
Suddenly, taking everyone by surprise, a minister,
a young man of about thirty, leaped forward, pushing
the older ministers aside. "I knew it was you!" he
shouted. "I knew it!" He glared furiously at Mr. Shin,
as though he were about to pounce upon him and tear
him apart.
Chaplain Koh rushed to Mr. Shin's side and so did
Colonel Chang.
The young minister hissed. "Judas!" He then stalked
out of the room, quickly followed by a few of the
younger men.
Then it happened; I might have spoken out to con-
tradict Mr. Shin, to defend him in spite of what he
had decided to do and to declare the ugly truth, had
I not been too astonished by what took place immedi-
ately after the outrageous performance of the young
accuser. All the remaining ministers hurried over to
Mr. Shin, embracing him, touching him, begging him
181
to speak no more for he had said enough; they prayed
then and there; they blessed him; they confessed and
repented their past complacency and meek submission
to the enemies of their god; and they took him into
their hearts as one of them, as their sacrifice. Nothing
more was said by Mr. Shin, who stood dazed—so it seemed to me—silently shedding his tears; and they all left together, Chaplain Koh and Park with them,
leaving Colonel Chang and me alone and speechless.
^^;^^^^^;^;^^^^^ 24
LATER IN THE evening Colonel Chang invited me to his room for tea.
"Well, here we are," he said with a slight shrug of
his hunched shoulders. "You and I."
Yes, here we are indeed, I thought.
"I suppose you would rather I talked," he said.
"More tea?" He replenished my cup. "I have been thinking what I would have done, how I would have
behaved, if Mr. Shin had not said what he said this
afternoon. When Chaplain Koh reported that Mr.
Shin was gomg to resign from his ministry I felt the
whole affair was outrageous. Ah, but I am a simple-
minded idiot! As if a man like him could turn into a
coward."
"I don't understand what you mean," I said.
"I thought he was going to tell the truth to defend
himself. That would have been cowardly in my book.
I was quite sure that was what he intended to do."
182
183
"What would your reactions have been if he had
defended himself?"
"I would have denied his words. You knew I was
determined to do that. But he didn't defend himself,
he didn't justify himself. If he had, at the expense of
his colleagues, I would have lost all my respect for
him. I don't have anything to say, really, about what
he should have or shouldn't have done. He did what
he had to do this afternoon, and that's that. When I
had the sorry facts about the twelve ministers, my atti-
tude toward him changed, naturally. So when the
chaplain announced that he wanted to resign, I
thought he was going to do something utterly fooUsh
that would completely upset my plans. I thought he
was going to claim his innocence. You remember that
I had once hoped he would clear himself? Well, I
didn't want that any longer because I had found out
there were betrayers among the ministers. Instead, I
made up my mind to defend him. I wanted him to keep
silent, then I would get the others to accept him as a
man as heroic and saintly as all the twelve ministers
were supposed to have been. I confess I underesti-
mated Mr. Shin."
"No doubt," I said, but Colonel Chang was im-
pervious to my sarcasm.
He continued, "I saw the other ministers here this
afternoon, those guilty men, and now I realize why
184
they embraced him. Do you understand why? I am
sure you do. I thought I would help him to be a hero.
Instead, he appeared here as a Judas, and lo and be-
hold, they accepted him. It was not for me to help him
or them. They did not need the kind of help I thought
I could offer. I understand what he did and I dare say
I understand why he felt he had to do it." He stood up.
"Now that it is all over, I must say I shouldn't have
worried about Mr. Shin, you know, about what he
was going to do, what he should or shouldn't do. I
should have known better. He had his church and its
reputation to protect and I had my state and its cause
to guard. What I failed to realize was that he and I
had a legitimate common interest to look after in this
little affair, whose happy ending we are now cele-
brating. I think you and I can congratulate ourselves
that it all turned out to be the way we wanted, don't
you?"
I thanked him for the tea and started toward the
door.
"Do me a favor, will you?" Colonel Chang called
after me. "When you see Mr. Shin, will you tell him
that it was my honor to have met him?"
I turned to face him. "With your permission, sir,
may I suggest you do that personally?"
He stared at me, then he shook his head wearily and
turned away.
185
About an hour or so later, when I was getting ready
for the night, Park burst into my room, panting.
"I need your help," he gasped. "The Christians
stormed up to Mr. Shin's house and demanded to see
him. He wanted to meet them, but we didn't let him
go out for fear he might get hurt. They were throwing
stones, shouting, threatening to break into the house.
They are still there. I went out with a few ministers
and we did our best to send them away, but it was no
use. I think they are led by the young minister who was
here this afternoon. There is the curfew and I don't
know how they got there at this time of night. Look!
Can you round up some of your guards here, or call
the Military PoUce? The mob is getting out of hand."
I lost no time calling up a detail of guards. We drove to Mr. SMn's house and stopped at the foot of
the hiU, when we heard the burst of a submachine gun
in the midst of eerie chanting in the darkness —
"Judas!
Judas! Judas! Judas!" A squad of Mihtary PoUce had arrived before us and was trying to disperse the crowd.
Our guards joined them, lining up in front of the
house, facing the mob. Flashhghts crisscrossed. Park
and I urged them to go away, but their shouting, wail-
ing voices drowned ours. Young voices kept on screech-
ing, "Judas! Judas! Judas! Judas!" A roaring voice boomed, "Come out, Judas! Repent, Judas!" I could
not tell how many of them were there in the dark
—
186
perhaps forty or fifty. Suddenly I heard Park's voice
commanding, "Who is your leader! Who is respon- sible for this mob!" I saw him snatch a submachine
gun from a guard and fire into the black sky. The
crowd grew silent briefly, but Park lost his chance to
speak as several voices screamed out, "There he goes!
Catch him!" "KiU him! Kill him!" Some men were
running toward the left wing of the house into a
thicket bleakly laden with snow. Feet crunched on
gravel, hysterical voices shouted—and then there was a wailing, piercing cry like that of a terrified beast.
Part of the mob broke away to join the chase, crying,
"There he is, down the hill! Get him!"
Suddenly the front door opened wide and I saw
Mr. Shin standing there framed by the dim hght be-
hind him. Then a woman shrieked, "Judas!" and an
answering roar of "Judas! Judas!" went up from the
crowd. I ran over to Mr. Shin and tried to push him
back into the house.
"Please, Captain Lee," he said in desperation. "Let
me go. It's Mr. Harm. He is out there! I must find
him!"
"Go back into the house," I said. "I'll go and find
him. Please go back inside!" Park approached, bran-
dishing a carbine now. I told him that I had to go
after Mr. Hann. "Stay here," I said. A sergeant in charge of the Mifitary PoUce came up to us. "Captain,
187
what's going on here anyway? Any gathering of a
crowd hke this at this time of night is against martial
law, sir. I'll have to arrest aU or shoot at them if they
don't go away." I told him to be patient and do his
i best to disperse them. "I sent for more men and
trucks," he said, "Then we can handle the idiots!"
Stones flew out of the dark, smashing against the wall
and the windowpanes. Glass broke. Park fired his car-
bine into the air. "Get inside!" I cried to Mr. Shin and
closed the door after him. Then I ran down the lull to
where I had left my jeep. Two men ran past me.
"Where is the man? What did you do to him?" I
shouted after them. "We beat him up!" one of them
flung back. "But he got away," the other cried. I
searched the hill for Mr. Harm but in vain. Trucks
were roaring up the hill, Hghting up the darkness with
their searchlights. A platoon of MPs joined the others and our guards. The mob broke up; many tried to run
away but were checked by the cordon of soldiers.
Within ten minutes or so all was quiet.
I had not been able to find Mr. Hann.
Park and I searched the area once more. We drove down the hill slowly, stopping here and there to hsten
for footsteps or to explore the hushed lanes between
the silent houses; we inquired of nearly half a dozen
patrols; nothing. We were already on the dark, de- serted main street.
188
Park suggested, "We should go back to the house.'*
I shook my head. "Come. Let's go," I said. "Let's
try your father's church."
"Why? Why there? How could he have gone there?"
"I'll explain later," I said.
I could not tell how he had managed to run all that
way so quickly and without having been stopped by
the patrols. We found the young minister at the devastated church, his face cut and bruised, his mouth
swollen and bloody, as he lay unconscious, sprawled
over the stone steps outside the silent, desolated
church.
By the time Park had brought Mr. Shin and Chap-
lain Koh to our headquarters, I had had Mr. Hann
moved to the office of the dispensary, where he lay
covered with a blanket on a cot. I had called an am-
bulance to take him to a field hospital across the river.
Mr. Shin, flanked by the chaplain and Park, gazed in
grief at the grotesquely battered face of the young]
minister, who was hardly breathing.
"The shouting of the mob frightened him," whis-
pered the chaplam. "It is my fault. He could not con-
trol himself and I had to hold onto him to quiet him j
down. A stone broke the window upstairs where wej
were and I let go of him for a moment to open thel
189
dooT to take him down to the basement. Then he ran
off and . . ."
"Enough, Chaplain," said Mr. Shin.
A few minutes later, Mr. Hann began gasping for breath. His eyes suddenly opened wide and his whole
body trembled under the dark-brown blanket.
"I am here!" Mr. Shin said softly. "Can you see me?
Can you hear me?"
The bloodshot eyes stared into empty space; the
Ups quivered.
Mr. Shin held the young man's bony hand. "I am
here with you. Can you hear me? I am here with you."
The young man's eyes rested on Mr. Shin for a
second; then his head rolled to the right; his mouth
twitched.
A second later, we heard the faint, broken voice: "No . . . God . . . no . . . God ..." A series of convul- sions seized his body, then suddenly stopped. The
body lay still under the raw light of a naked light bulb,
shrouded in the silent gaze of those present.
A moment later, Park said quietly, "He is dead." Mr. Shin, his face pale, with a strange faraway
look, stood motionless, as though paralyzed in the
presence of death. "I have killed him," he muttered.
"I have kiUed him."
^;i^^l^^^^;^^;j^;^^^ 25
MRS. HANN WAS determined to bring the body of her son back to her village, where she wanted to bury
him, near the graves of his ancestors. Mr. Shin, Chap-
lain Koh, and Park accompanied her and the body to
the village a few miles west of Pyongyang. I was un-
able to join them; I could only provide transportation
for the journey, from which they returned a day later.
Mrs. Hann, however, did not return.
The day after they were back. Chaplain Koh came
to headquarters early in the afternoon to infonn me
there was to be a special service that evening at Mr.
Shin's church; he said he hoped he would see me
there. The announcement had been sent out to other
churches and the chaplain expected many from their
congregations would attend. Of course, Mr. Shin
would be present.
"Very much present," the chaplain added.
190
191
"After what happened the other night?" I said. "I
should think he'd be afraid to risk it."
"He's not easily frightened," Chaplain Koh said.
I remained in my oflBce for an hour or so before I
attended a staff meeting. Around five o'clock, as I
prepared to go out, Colonel Chang telephoned me to
say that he had been told by Chaplain Koh about the
special service, which he wanted to attend; he invited
me to join him. However, he was unable to leave for
some time as he was working on a report concerning
his transfer. I told him that I would wait for him in
my oflSce.
When we were at last ready to leave, the howling
Siberian winds were blasting the city with gusts of
slashing snow.
The service had already begun; even before we had
struggled to the top of the steps we could hear the
singing of the congregation mingled with the wind and
the snow. When we passed through the small gate
Colonel Chang said, "Do you remember what I said
about this church when we were here last time?"
"About how it was saved from our bombing?"
"Yes. You know, I am beginning to wonder if it
would have made any difference whether this build-
ing was destroyed or not. Do you understand me?"
"I suppose the only thing that could have mattered
192
was how long it would have taken the Christians to
rebuild it, either here or somewhere else."
"Precisely. In the meantime, they would be meeting
someplace. It doesn't matter where."
"That's how Christianity in this country has man-
aged to survive."
"Do you realize that ever since Christianity came to
this land, these people have never had a peaceful day?
After aU the persecution by Chinese, Koreans, Jap-
anese, and now Communists, they are still here. Where
do they get this abiUty, even liking, for suffering?
Listen to them singing!"
"With the promise of heaven and eternity, perhaps,"
I said.
"Is that aU? Anyone can promise that," he said,
"one way or the other. Buddhist, Shintoist, Commu-
nist, Hindu, you name them."
'There is one thing pecuUar to Christianity, Colo-
nel," I said. "Someone died for their sins, for their
salvation, and this someone happens to be the son of
their god."
"A very strange notion," he said. "Sacrifice, mar-
tyrdom."
We opened the door and entered the church, where we were met by Chaplain Koh, who was acting as an
usher.
"I have been expecting you," he said. "I am glad
you came. Follow me."
193
Colonel Chang said that we would stay in the back.
"Oh, no. You two are our guests of honor. Cap-
ain Park is up there with Mr. Shin already. So come
long."
"I suppose I am in your house," said the colonel.
Well, coming, Captain?"
We followed the chaplain up the aisle, flanked by he congregation that still sang, standing. Only a few
)f the chandeliers were lighted. A cold draft chilled ny bare head, though I felt the warmth of human
)odies surrounding me. Halfway up the aisle, I looked
ip toward the altar, behind which stood the elders,
^ark and a few others, and Mr. Shin. Soon Colonel
Zhang and I were with them, facing the congregation.
Vlr. Shin stepped forward. The candles on the lectern
lickered. The congregation sat, hushed.
"Dear brethren," he began quietly. "You all know
who I am, and I know you. I know you, yes, I know
iyou so well that I do not hesitate to say that I belong
to you and you belong to me. I am you, you are me,
and we are one. And I stand here in the shadow
of my inglorious past, and say to you, welcome to the house of our Lord. This house of our Lord is filled
tonight, and I am out there with you and you are up
here with me. We are here together as one to worship our God and praise Him. Amen."
Scattered voices in the congregation said, "Amen."
194
"I know you well, so well that I know you did not
come tonight to this house of our Lord to worship
Him. You came to hear me. And I shall speak to you
and you shall hear me. I am you and you are me. But
who am I?" He paused. "I am a sinner."
He paused again for a long moment; then, sud-
denly, his powerful voice boomed. "You came to hear
me, a sinner, and you shall hear me, a sinner! Open
your eyes! Bare your hearts! And hear! It was I who
betrayed our martyrs!" He stopped, his hands clutch-
ing the lectern, his body bent slightly forward. He
had stressed "I" so strongly that the high-ceilinged
interior of the church rang with a vibrating "I" in a
tremulous echoing that pervaded the dim, cold air
—
". . . I . . . I . . ." Not a soul stirred.
He said quietly, "On the eighteenth day of June, as
you all know, the Communists imprisoned fourteen
ministers, and I was one of them. On the twenty-fifth
day, twelve ministers were murdered. For seven days
and nights, they tortured our martyrs. My dear brethren, I say to you that they tormented the flesh
of your martyrs for seven days and nights. I say, 'flesh
of your martyrs,' for they could not harm their spirits.
But how did they torture your martyrs?"
To my surprise—and uneasiness—Mr. Shin, for the next twenty minutes or so, described to the congre-
gation in the minutest detail how each minister was
195
tortured, one after another, all twelve of them. Mr.
Hann, said Mr. Shin, collapsed after three days and
nights of torture and became ill. At first it seemed that
the silent congregation was spellbound by the blood-
smeared description, but gradually it began to bestir
itself; the rustling of clothes, coughing, and concen-
trated heavy breathing disturbed the cold air.
Suddenly a woman shrieked. Cries went up. The
entire congregation stirred with agitation. Some of the
elders rose to their feet. Chaplain Koh hurried over
to Mr. Shin, who stood unmoved, rigidly facing the
crowd.
A voice in the back shouted, "Away with you!" and another voice, "We don't want to hear from you!"
Then a woman hissed, "You—a sinner! How dare you defile our martyrs!"
Colonel Chang jumped up from his chair, as did I.
There was a murmur of voices. Here and there women
were sobbing. The two candles on the lectern flared
up. A woman was being carried down the aisle toward the door. Many were standing. Several men came up
the aisle. I stepped forward, followed by Colonel
Chang, and we stood at the edge of the platform fac-
ing the congregation. "Do you think we should get
him out of here?" the colonel whispered. I was about
to say yes, when Mr. Shin, taking everyone by sur-
prise, struck the lectern fiercely with both palms. He
196
lifted his face toward the ceiling, his eyes closed; his
fingers gripped the front edge of the lectern. Then he
lowered his dark, angry face, opened his eyes, and
gazed sternly at the congregation.
He spoke in a hushed voice. "My brethren, what is
the matter with you?" He paused, looking about him at
the congregation as if he wanted to distinguish each
individual. Then he shouted, "Sinners! Weaklings!
Can you not share with your martyrs their suffering!
Do you not want to share their suffering! Do you not
want to taste the blood they shed, hear the agonies of
their voices, hear the breaking of their bones! Can
you not, do you not want, to hear the voices of your
martyrs, their last prayers! Can you not share the
heavy load of their sacrifice, their sacrifice for you!"
The congregation had grown deathly silent.
He continued, now quietly, "I—do you hear me?—
j
/ could not. / was a sinner. / was a weakling. / was
defeated. / submitted to the forces of evil. And / let
myseff be paralyzed by the ^thering breath of de-
spair!" He paused, then his voice rang out, "Blessed
be the names of your martyrs! For they forgave me.
And they died in the name of our Lord, for His glory
and in His glory. They died, and / Hved. Glory to your
martyrs! Blessed be their memories in your souls. Hal-j
lelujah! Amen!"
"Amen!" responded the congregation.
197
Colonel Chang and I returned to our chairs. The
long, dark shadow of Mr. Shin stretched in front of
me. Robed in black, he stood erect and firm.
He told the hushed congregation how the martyrs
resisted their captors. The Communists wanted them
to issue a public statement that the Christians in North
Korea supported the Communist regime, that they
upheld the "liberation" of South Korea by the North
Korean Communist regime and urged everyone to
join and help the "Army of Liberation." The ministers
were offered, in turn, a promise that a post in the gov-
ernment cabinet would be given to a representative of
the Christians, that those Christians held by the Com-
munists as political prisoners would be freed uncon-
ditionally, and the property of the churches would not
be confiscated by the regime. They refused everything,
and they were tortured. Their captors then demanded
that the ministers sign a petition to the Communist
Pany that they be admitted to its membership. This,
too, they refused to do, and were tortured. Then the
Communists commanded them to sign a proclamation
which stated that they "wholeheartedly obeyed and
cooperated with the government," and urged fellow
Christians to do the same. The ministers refused to
sign and were tortured again.
"And they laughed at us," said Mr. Shin. "They
said it did not really matter whether or not we signed.
198 .
They laughed at us, my brethren, saying it did not
really matter, because the Christians in the North did
obey and did cooperate wholeheartedly with the Com-
munist regime. They said they did not hear any com-
plaints from the Christians, did not hear any voices
of protest. Christians must be contented and happy,
they said. Christian children joyfully sang hymns of
praise for the Communist heroes, they said. Chris-
tian young men happily donned the uniform of the
Red Army, willing to die for the Communist paradise,
they said. Look at your churches and count how many
of your Christians are still there, they said. Your
churches are becoming emptier and empti». Chris-
tianity was dying out in the North, they said. But your
martyrs were not defeated; they defied the torturers.
But, my brethren, / could not, / did not!'*
After a long moment of silence, he said, "When I
succumbed to my torturers, they brought me to your
martyrs and said to them, 'Look, here is a man who
is sensible, practical, and able to live by the wisdom of
'
this earth. This is the man who truly represents your
,
Christians. Look, we shall let him Uve and be free,
but you shall die unless you follow his wisdom.* My brethren, what did your martyrs do?" He stretched hisj
arms upward and raised his voice. "Blessed be yoi
martyrs! Hallowed be their names! They forgave me^
/ was forgiven, do you hear! / was forgiven. And the]
199
embraced me and shed tears and said to me, 'Do not
be discouraged. We will pray for your soul. Do not despair, do not despair, for the Kingdom of God is
near and we shall triumph. Do not despair, do not
despair!' Do you hear me, my brethren? Do not de-
spair! These were the words with which your martyrs
forgave me. And they died . . . for me . . . and for you.
"And on their last night on earth, as they were
standing by the dark water of the Taedong River,
waiting to be martyred, they offered their last prayer
to the Lord. They prayed for me—and for you; they loved me and they loved you till their last moment.
And they turned to me, and your martyrs said to me,
'We pray for you and you shall pray for us. TeU your
brethren when you return to them that we love them
and care for them, that we shall soon relate to our
Lord the agonies of their sufferings, the heavy burden
of despair. TeU them we do not die in vain, that we
die in the name of our Lord, in the glory of our Lord,
we die gladly for our brethren, for their sufferings
and for their sins. Tell them that we shall meet again
soon in the glorious, everlasting Kingdom of God, the
paradise of our Lord. Go and tell them that we shaU
watch over them.' Then the enemies came and took
me by the arms and made me stand there and watch
the murder of your martyrs." He lowered his arms,
and spread them wide; he lifted his face, and said,
200
"And, my bretbren, our enemies murdered your mar-
tyrs one after another and as volley after volley of
murderous bullets shattered the dark night, a mighty
hymn rose high into the dark heaven from the souls
of your martyrs, and behold, the black clouds were
suddenly :>haken asunder by the moon and in the
silvery light I saw, yes, I saw the heavenly smiles on |
the faces of your martyrs and I heard, yes, I heard, a
thundering voice from the heavens, *You are my chil-
dren in whom I am well pleased. Do not despair, do
not despair, for you have won the battle!' And I stood
there like a stone, and I stretched my arms toward
the majestic voice of our Almighty Lord, tears rolling
down my cheeks, and I cried out from the bottom of
my soul, 'Father, forgive me!' And I heard the mighty
voice say, 'Repent! Repent and enter ye into my King-
dom. Repent!' And I fell down on my knees and cried
out, 'Father, I repent. Forgive this sinner, for I shall
not, I shall never, never again despair!' And my soul
was suddenly light and clear, and I stood on my feet,
I opened my eyes, and I blessed your martyrs, yes,
I blessed—/ blessed them for you. Glory to your mar- tyrs! Glory to our Lord! Hallelujah! Amen!"
"Hallelujah! Amen!" echoed the voices of the con-
gregation.
Mr. Shin cried out, "You! Sinners! Down, down on
your knees and repent! I say unto you in the name of
201
your martyrs, repent, ye sinners, for my sins and for
your sins. Repent!" He stopped for breath, and whis-
pered in a strange, tremulous voice, "In the name of
the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, Amen."
I woke as from a spell and looked about me. Every-
one—everyone but Mr. Shin, who stood with his head lowered—everyone but Colonel Chang, who had risen from his chair, and Park, who still sat staring into the
shadowy space above him—everyone was on his knees. The surge of their voices engulfed my senses.
I looked at Park; our eyes met, and he looked away.
Colonel Chang drew near to Mr. Shin.
"Mr. Shin, I must leave now," he said, "but I wanted
to tell you before I go that it is an honor to know you."
The minister's face, expressionless, turned to the
colonel; he bowed.
I asked Colonel Chang to wait for me, and went up
to Mr. Shin. His dark eyes looked deeply into mine.
I had to say it; I could not help saying it. "Mr. Shin,
is your god truly aware of their sufferings?"
He closed his eyes for a second. He held my arm
with one hand and, with the other, he pointed to the
kneeling congregation. His face was bathed with tears;
but he did not speak.
^;^;^^;^^^;^^^^^^ 26
THE NEXT MORNING, Colonel Chang left Pyong- yang for Seoul to work out with the Chief of Intelli-
gence the details of his future operation. Before he
left headquarters, he called me to his ofl&ce, where
I found him stuffing a brown briefcase with papers.
It was cold in his room; the stove had not been kindled.
As soon as I closed the door and approached him,
he said, "Well, let's have it. What is your estimation
of the situation last night? What do you think of it?"
I did not know what to say. I had parted with him
the night before when I had driven him to his quar-
ters; we had not mentioned Mr. Shin on our way back
from the church.
"Well, how do you estimate Mr. Shin's conduct?"
he said. "He gave them what they wanted, don't you
think?"
"Yes, he did what I hoped he would," he said, when
202
203
I remained silent. "Only in a different way from the
one I had in mind, that is, not as a man with an im-
peccable conscience but as a sinner." He closed the
briefcase with a faint cUck, then locked it. "It's a
strange notion beyond my comprehension that some-
body dies for your sins and for your salvation. I don't
believe in their god and their doctrines; the notion
that those twelve martyrs—well, they are martyrs now, aren't they?—that they died for me is meaning- less; actually, the notion would never occur to me.
But that seems to be the only way these Christians
could accept and worship the ministers as their mar-
tyrs." He studied my face for a moment, "Captain,
I hope you don't think I am too curious, but you asked
Mr. Shin a question last night, didn't you? Something
about his god. Do you mind my asking about it?'*
"I asked him if his god was aware of the people's
sufferings."
"I could have asked the same question," the colonel
said. "I suppose it's because we are outsiders."
"Outsiders?"
**Nonbelievers, that is. If you believe in a god, you
wouldn't ask that question. You would rather ask what
you have done wrong against him to deserve your
suffering. Well, I think I'd better be going. Good luck.
Captain, and I hope it won't be long before you can
return to your university. I don't think I'll be back
204
in the building again. When I return from Seoul, I
will be underground."
"Wni I see you again, sir?"
"Oh, yes," he said, smiling. "I will be at the me-
morial service. Of course, I shall have to be incognito.
What's the matter. Captain? You look dubious. You
don't think there is going to be a memorial service. Is
that it?"
He smiled as we shook hands. I saluted Him and left
his office.
So, at last, **this little affair*' was over. With bitter-
ness, I reflected on the recent events and realized
that I had been tricked into a sort of nice little game,
in which both the pursuer and the pursued skillfully
staged a clever play of intrigues, of plots and counter-
plots, all this only to reveal that they were fellow con-
spirators, after all. I felt cheated. In a moment of
fury, I promised myself that I would have nothing
further to do with them. And yet I could not help
thinking of Mr. Shin. I could not forget his sorrowful
face or that he had not uttered a word in reply to my
question.
For the next few days I did not see him, nor much
of Park or Chaplain Koh either, not because I was
too busy to see them, but because they were always
205
together as they moved from one church to another.
Mr. Shin was conducting a series of revival meetings,
which the local papers reported fulsomely. They told
of the zeal and magnitude of those meetings; each day
the number of people who were converted to Chris-
tianity was printed together with a substantial excerpt
from Mr. Shin's sermon. Urged by the chaplain, I
attended one meeting and found that it was merely
an extension of the service I had attended at Mr. Shin's
own church; I left the meeting just as I had left the
one before, seeing his face everywhere, stem and
imperious, as he gazed at the prostrated congregation
while he stood erect behind the lectern. He had not
resigned from his ministry; the Christians would not
hear of it; and he deUvered his words from every pul-
pit in the city, constantly surrounded by a troop of
ministers, who sat demurely in his shadow during
those meetings.
Meanwhile, preparations for the memorial service
were in progress. Following the departure of Colonel
Chang, Chaplain Koh had assumed sole responsibility
of overseeing the arrangements. I had reached an
understanding with him that the Army, or rather its
Political Intelligence section, should not underwrite
the memorial service. I had no difficulty in getting
him to agree with me, explaining that we should not
commit the error of giving the pubUc an impression
206
that the propaganda machinery of Army Intelligence
was masterminding the service. I might have added
that I did not wish to be an accompUce in placing
haloes on false martyrs, had I not seen plainly that the
chaplain was anxious not to touch upon that subject.
Everything was going according to plan, he said; Park
had consented to represent the families of the twelve
ministers at the service, at which he was to be one of
the speakers; Mr. Shin, of course, would be the main
speaker.
Left alone, I devoted my time to operations. Soon
after Colonel Chang left for Seoul, we received in-
structions from headquarters to prepare ourselves se-
cretly for a probable evacuation from Pyongyang.
We were also instructed to devise and carry out later certain measures against possible alarm and panic on
the part of the civilian population when the withdrawal
should become apparent. The massive Chinese inter-
vention in the war had definitely been established by
higher headquarters. We anticipated that the people would be shocked and fearful to learn that we did not
intend to defend them; and higher headquarters did
not allow us to give out any intimation of the impend-
ing general retreat not only from Pyongyang but from
all of North Korea.
The weather had been unusually severe; the snow
storms continued day after day and on the bleak
207
northern streets that had not seen the sun for days
few people walked in the knee-deep snow past the
shattered windows and nailed doors. Our morale was
low; a damp, conspiratorial hush pervaded the rooms
and halls, where we who knew what the others did
not spent those gray days and cold nights waiting for
the order to pack our things and run. The oflScers
were asked to contribute to a fund, which the local
YMCA and YWCA were raising, to enable orphan- ages to celebrate Christmas; they gave what they
could, knowing full well that there would doubtless
be no merry Christmas for those who would be left
behind. I felt sick to find myself forced into taking
part in this grand deception, as it were; and I was
ashamed.
It was, then, in such a mood that I saw Chaplain
Koh in my oflBce a few days before the memorial
service. He stood with his back pressed against the
window, his large body framed in the frosty window-
panes. Outside, snow flurries bleached the gray sky.
After briefing me on the progress of preparations
for the service, he asked me if I had seen Mr. Shin
lately.
••No, I haven't. You know that."
••He has asked me about you on several occasions."
•Tve been busy," I said.
He scrutinized me. •'! suppose you have been.**
208
"You will be leaving Pyongyang after the service,
I assume?" I asked him.
"Yes. I'll have to join my brigade, if I am not per- mitted to have my way."
"What do you mean?"
**I have sent in my resignation to the Army," he said.
"Then you intend to stay here?"
"Of course, I'll have to wait and see what the Army
is going to do with me."
I could not tell him about the Army's plan for gen-
eral retreat nor about the instructions we had received.
He was not allowed access to classified information.
"I have been asked to return to my old church
here," he said. "Remember the old man I told you
about, one of the elders? He came to see me the other
day and we had a pleasant chat. Can you beUeve it?"
"Did you tell him the truth about his son?" I said.
"Of course not."
"I thought you were determined to tell the truth."
He looked hard at me, "I couldn't do that."
"So you told him a lie," I said, "a nice Uttle he."
He came over to me and confronted me. "Why?
Why are you so bitter. Captain? Don't you understand
what Mr. Shin has done? Don't you realize what he
has done for the Christians?"
When I did not respond he said gravely, "I owe him
209
so much. I have learned so much from him. My own faith has been strengthened through him, through his
acts, and through his words of faith, an incomparable
faith! He has helped me to examine the condition of
my faith and my relationship with my God and, above
all, with my fellow Christians." He gripped my arm.
"Captain, is it possible that you despise Mr. Shin?"
He added quietly, "And me?" He shook his head. "I
am sorry." After a moment of silence he said, "The
elders of my old church were happy to have me back.
I tell you I was grateful that they wanted me to come
back to them. My Lord, they are even proud of me . . . me, someone who deserted them once!" He let my
arm go. "Perhaps it was what I secretly wished for
when I came to Pyongyang."
"To forgive the old man?" I said. "To forgive
them?"
He shook his head, smiling. "No. To be forgiven."
I turned away from him. "Good-bye, Chaplain," I
said.
He held onto my hand. "Captain, Captain!"
Slowly shaking his head, he said in a voice unmis-
takably tinged with pity, "You do despise us, don't
you?"
That evening. Park, who had been staying at Mr.
Shin's, came to see me. He was in a hurry and apolo-
210
gized that he could not stay long, for he was on his
way to the house of an elder of his father's congre-
gation.
Declining the chair I offered him, he said, "It seems
that the elders got together and talked about me. They
thought I should come and stay with them. I will stay
at this elder's I am going to tonight, then at another's
tomorrow.'*
"I am glad to hear about that," I said.
"It was strange to see all those famiUar faces,*' he
said. "I had thought they had forgotten about me. I
must admit that I was not too sure whether they would
want to see me, after all. Frankly I was surprised when
they invited me. You know—the elders gathered quite a few people and gave a feast, you might say, in my
honor. Can you believe it? Have you noticed the tent
in the back of the church?"
"No, I haven't."
*They have a tent there," he said, "and that's where
they meet for service. Mr. Shin has spoken to them
there, and —
"
I interrupted him. "When do you plan to leave
Pyongyang?"
He looked at me as though startled by the question.
"I haven't really thought about it," he said. "Why do
you ask?"
"I want to make arrangements for your transporta-
tion," I said. "I have to know your plans."
211
He remained silent.
"I understand you agreed to represent the families
of the twelve at the service," I said.
Still silent, he gazed at me, nodding only slightly.
"Are you going through with it?" I said.
His gaze became intense. "Yes," he declared. "I
am. I had a talk with Chaplain Koh. He has been to
see you today, hasn't he? It seems to me that you are
dehberately refusing to understand what we are
doing."
"I am sending you back as soon as the service is
over," I said. "To Pusan. You will report to the Ma-
rine Corps headquarters there."
"Why to Pusan? Our liaison officer told me the same
thing," he said, unmistakably agitated. "I have to join
my unit."
I had already arranged with the Marine liaison offi-
cer to have Park return to headquarters in Pusan;
I had also asked him not to mention the general re-
treat, since Park was not an inteUigence officer. I said,
"It may be difficult for you to locate your company by
the time you are ready to leave Pyongyang. Even
now, we can't locate it. You must have been told
about that."
"Yes."
"There you are. I will arrange it so that you can
leave the day after the service. After all, you came
here to fulfill a certain function at the service, which
212
you will be doing. After that, I have to send you back
as soon as I can."
"Yes, I understand," he said quietly. "But I would
like to stay here a few more days, weU, as long as
possible. The elders are talking about raising funds to
rebuild the church. I would like to do something for
them before I leave."
"I am sorry."
Suddenly he strode over to me and glared at me.
"What is the matter with you? What is it? Do you
despise me, too?"
I was agitated beyond control. "No! I don't despise
you or anyone," I almost shouted. "It is what you all
are doing that I despise!" Then trying to moderate my
voice, I went on, "You say you give them what they
want, what they need. But why deceive them? Why
deceive the people who have been cheated countless
times already? Why add more Ues to their miserable
lives? You say you give them what they want? How
do you know that a pack of lies is what they want?
Are you sure that is what they need? They need truth.
It may be painful but truth is what they need and what
you must give them. You say you do all this for them,
for their happiness. But no! You do it because you
want your propaganda. You do it because you want to
save your church from being scandalized. You do it
because you want to deceive the people into believ-
213
ing that everything is all right, everything is going to
be all right, that a god in heaven takes good care of
them, that a state sincerely worries about their lot,
and all this in the name of the people. I am tired, I am
sick of all this pretension, all these noble lies, all in
the name of people, for the people. And meanwhile
the people continue to suffer, continue to die, deceived
from birth to death."
"Listen to me!" Park cried out. "Would you like
to know what really happened to my father?"
"I know," I said. "Fve read the letter Mr. Shin
wrote you."
"I know that. But that isn't all," he said impatiently.
"Let me tell you about it, instead of arguing about
what you just said. When the ministers were taken to
the riverbank to be shot, the Communists gave them
two minutes to say whatever they wanted for the last
time. My father was their leader, as everybody knows. The ministers gathered around him. They asked him
to pray for them."
"Including the betrayers?"
"No. Ah, it infuriates me to think of what they did.
Mr. Shin wouldn't tell me at first but I forced him to
tell me. Those betrayers were wailing, they were beg-
ging the Communists for mercy, crying out to remind
the Reds what they had done in their service, remind-
ing them of the bargain. That's when the other minis-
214
ters knew about the betrayers for the first time. So
they asked my father to pray, to pray for their souls
and for their salvation, for their courage, to pray for
the last time on earth. And my father, that blazing
fanatic—^he didn't pray, do you imderstand? He didn't pray. 'I can't pray for you,' he said. *I can't even pray
for myself.' Then he cried out 'I do not want to pray
to an unjust God!' So he died, as Mr. Shin said, in
utter solitude.
'That's when the young minister broke down. Did
you know that he had been my father's protege? He
had beUeved in my father, beUeved in everything the
old fanatic said to him about his God, and his faith.
And what he had been taught, molded into, and made
to beUeve in—all by my father—that was what sus- tained him in those terrible days and nights in cap-
tivity. His body broke down but his spirit survived
the ordeal because of his faith in God, because of the
brave resistance the old fanatic offered his enemies.
And then, at the last moment . . ."
He stopped abruptly and turned away, then quietly
said, "Good night. I must be going now."
I saw him out of the room. "Do you pray?" I said.
"Can you pray?"
"I can't," he whispered. "Do you understand me?
I can't!"
"Do you want to pray?"
215
"Yes. Yes, I do," he said. "I wish I could."
I held his arm. "Are you returning—or have you already returned to the Christian God?"
With an intensity that disturbed me, he said, "It
seems that I have never really left Him. He has been
my God ever since I was bom. How can I explain it
to you? He has been always with me. Otherwise
how could I have been fighting against Him all these
years?"
"Are you still fighting Him?"
He cast me a defiant look but he did not speak.
"Good night," I said.
"Listen! I must tell you," he said. "I am not going
to this elder's house or any elder's because / want to.
Do you understand that? I am not fulfilling a certain
function, as you said, because / want to."
"I don't understand you," I said.
"It is Mr. Shin, don't you see?" he said. "He per-
suaded me to go to the elders of my father's congre-
gation. 'Go to them,' he said, 'and let them welcome
you—the return of a prodigal son. Go to them and tell them that you have returned, you have returned
to your father to be forgiven, returned to the faith of
your father, their faith. Go and comfort them, because
they have suffered much, and you can give them what
they want to see—the return of a repentent son.' He also persuaded me to be of use to the memorial serv-
216
ice. Many will think that my return to my father, to
my father's faith, is a miracle, as it were, bom of the
sacrifice of my father and the ministers."
"Why didn't you tell him you couldn't do it? How
can you, when you don't believe in what you are
doing?"
" 'Then, pretend,' he said to me," Park whispered.
"Pretend!"
"But why! Why!"
"For the people, don't you see?" he said passion-
ately. "For the poor, suffering, tortured people, can't
you see?"
We parted in silence.
^^ii^^l^;^^^l^^;i^^;j^ 27
IN DUE COURSE, headquarters sent us detailed in- structions to evacuate the detachment from Pyong-
yang and return to Seoul. Colonel Chang's replace-
ment would join us there; until then I was to super-
vise the evacuation, and upon its completion I was
ordered to report for a new assignment at Army head-
quarters. According to the instructions, we were to
leave Pyongyang four days after the memorial service:
November 25, 1950.
Meanwhile the enraged and frightened populace
took to the streets of the tense city for a series of mass
demonstrations. The people were protesting against
the Chinese intervention; they were reminding us of
the hope and promise we had brought to them at the
time of their liberation; and they were demanding
that we counter the Chinese invaders with a full-scale
offensive. In the bombed-out square and in the snow-
217
218
covered stadium massive rallies went on; loudspeakers
set up at various street comers carried angry voices,
impassioned caUs to arms, invoking the spirit of lib-
erty. Under the gray sky in the interminable snow,
colunm after column marched through the streets; the
wet snow shrouded the banners hoisted on bamboo
poles, blotted out the inked messages on the cardboard
placards.
We disposed of our possessions, burning stacks of documents and papers and crating office equipment
and propaganda material. By noon on November 21,
we were ready to dispatch an advance party by rail to
Seoul.
At 11 A.M., I went to the station to supervise the
departure of the advance party, but the train could
not leave on time; it was delayed by emergency trains
—two southbound, laden with tanks, trucks, and field guns, and one empty hospital train bound north. By
two o'clock I was able to leave the station and return
to headquarters, where I had to preside over a staff
meeting. According to intelligence reports, the battle
situation was becoming tense; our forces were pre-
paring for an offensive along the entire front. A little before three, I managed at last to leave for the me-
morial service.
I was not too late; an usher who greeted me at the
door told me the service had begun only a short time
before. He gave me a copy of the program, whispering
219
that the short, stocky man in the black suit who was
addressing the congregation was the mayor of the
city. Mr. Shin had akeady spoken briefly, as had the
commanding general of the Korean troops in the city,
who represented the President of the RepubUc, and a
representative from the U. S. Army Command in
Pyongyang. After the mayor would come the delegate
from the Federation of Christian Churches in South
Korea; the representative of the foreign missions; the
chairman of the Anti-Conmiunist Youth Association;
Chaplain Koh, representing the Christians in North
Korea; and then Park as the representative of the
martyrs' famihes. The eulogies were to be followed by
the posthumous presentation of Freedom Medals to
the martyrs, hymns by a mixed choir from the YMCA and YWCA, and a benediction by Mr. Shin. On the wall above the platfonn hung twelve large
black-ribboned portraits of the martyrs, dimly Ut by
twinkling candles on the altar. On both sides of the
platform sat dignitaries, famihes of the martyrs, and
others. The mayor left the lectern; the next speaker
came forward. The delegate from the Federation of
Christian Churches in the South bowed to the por-
traits, to the martyrs' famihes, to the honored guests,
then to the congregation, and bejan, "My dear fel-
low Christians, my dear brethren in the north . . ."
It was during the impassioned oratory of the young
chairman of the Anti-Communist Youth Association
220
that I heard someone whisper to me: "I say, you
missed hearing Mr. Shin." I turned my head and saw
on my right a gray-haired old man in a cotton-padded
dirty white robe. I did not recognize him until he
whispered, "How are you, young man?" It was Colonel
Chang. He had shed his glasses and was leaning on a
cane.
"He did a marvelous job," he whispered. "No one,
I am sure, could glorify the martyrs as well as he did."
"Indeed."
"Yes, sir, he made a lot of us weep."
The young chairman concluded his speech,
"There comes the Reverend Koh now," he said.
"He is going back to his old church, you know."
"Is he going to stay here?" I said.
"Only his god knows."
". . . and sons against fathers, brothers against
brothers," Chaplain Koh was saying, ". . . reveling in
their senseless murder . . . forever thirsty for the blood
of vengeance . . . eternal captives of their mortal
hatred . . ."
"Ah," Colonel Chang sighed. "Now I've lost him."
The door squeaked open and one of my officers
slipped in. I edged along the wall toward him. We went
outside.
"It's the train, Captain," he said. "I thought I should
let you know."
221
The train carrying the advance party of my detach-
ment had been blown up, presumably by mines, sixty
miles south of Pyongyang.
"Guerrillas?" I asked.
"Yes, sir. Our choppers spotted them in the nearby
hills. We are tracking them down." "Any casualties?"
"Two killed; seven wounded; four, seriously. The
rest of the party is all right. The Ueutenant in charge
has called for your instructions."
"Tell him to proceed to Seoul according to the
original instructions. And you get hold of a truck and
drive down there. The road is safe, I suppose."
"It's heavily patrolled."
"All right. Do what you think is best. I'll be back
at headquarters as soon as I can. Any further news
from the front lines?"
"A couple of regiments have been attacked by the
Chinese on the west. Much infiltration there. Nothing
from the east."
He left and I went back into the church.
Chaplain Koh was reading from the Bible:
". . . though we hve in the world we are not carrying
on a worldly war, for the weapons of our warfare are
not worldly but have divine power to destroy strong-
holds. . . ."
"Anything bad?" Colonel Chang whispered.
222
"Sabotage by the guerrillas. Blew up our train."
He swore.
"Rather hectic on the front," I said.
". . . that in due time he may exalt you. Cast all
your anxieties on him, for he cares about you. Be
sober, be watchful. Your adversary, the Devil, prowls
around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to de-
vour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the
same experience of suffering is required of your broth-
erhood throughout the world. And after you have
suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has
called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself
restore, establish, and strengthen you. To him be the
dominion for ever and ever. Amen."
Chaplain Koh finished reading from the Bible and
withdrew.
I glanced at Colonel Chang.
"No one seems to be content with speaking eulo-
gies today," he said. "Everyone has been preaching."
Park came forward and stood stiffly in his dark-
green Marine uniform, his hands gripping the lectern
tensely. "As one speaking in behalf of the famiUes of
our martyrs," he began, "I don't know how best to
express my gratitude for this opportunity. The grati-
tude of all of us for your sharing with us our sorrow
and our loss. I stand before you, penitent and recon-
ciled, but I cannot speak as well to you as my heart
223
desires." He paused and reached into his breast pocket
and took out a small book. "This is the Bible my
father gave me when I was old enough to read, and
I would like to read from this Bible, to which I have
now returned once again after many years of
exile "
Colonel Chang and I exchanged a quick glance.
Park began to read: "Why are not times of judg-
ment kept by the Almighty, and why do those who
know him never see his days? Men remove landmarks;
they seize flocks and pasture them. They drive away
the ass of the fatherless; they take the widow's ox for
a pledge. They thrust the poor off the road; the poor
of the earth all hide themselves. Behold, like wild
asses in the desert they go forth to their toil, seeking
prey in the wilderness as food for their children. They
gather their fodder in the field and glean the vineyard
of the wicked man. They lie all night naked, without
clothing, and have no covering in the cold. They are
wet with the rain of the mountains, and cling to the
rock for want of shelter. . . ."
Colonel Chang whispered, "What is he reading?"
"Job."
". . . among the olive rows of the wicked they make
oil; they tread the wine presses, but they thirst. From
out of the city the dying groan and the soul of the
wounded cries for help; yet God pays no attention to
224
their prayer." Park stopped and put down his Bible;
then, looking out at the people, he recited from mem-
ory, "From out of the city the dying groan, and the
soul of the wounded cries for help; yet God pays no
attention to their prayer." "
Mr. Shin came over to Park and put his hand on
his shoulder. Park looked gratefully at the friend of
his father's, then continued to recite;
". . . and the Lord said to Job: 'Shall a faultfinder
contend with the Almighty? He who argues with God,
let him answer it.' Then Job answered the Lord: 'Be-
hold, I am of small account; what shall I answer
thee? I lay my hand on my mouth. I have spoken once,
and I will not answer; twice, but I will proceed no
further.* Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirl-
wind: 'Gird up your loins like a man; I will question
you and you declare to me. Will you even put me in
the wrong? Will you condemn me that you may be
justified? Have you an arm like God, and can you
thunder with a voice like His?' Then Job answered
the Lord: 'I know that thou canst do all things, and
that no purpose of thine can be thwarted . . . therefore
I have uttered what I did not understand, things too
wonderful for me, which I did not know.' 'Hear and
I will speak; I will question you, and you declare to
me.' 'I had heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but
now my eyes see thee; therefore, I despise myself, and
225
repent in dust and ashes.' " Park was silent and stood
with bowed head in the sea of silence around him.
Then he stepped down and returned to his chair, fol-
lowed by Mr. Shin.
Colonel Chang touched my elbow. "I am afraid I
must leave now."
I held his arm and led him out of the church. It had
begun snowing again; the soft, thick snow fluffed
down over the gray city. We stood by a pillar. "Well, here we are," he said; and looking back
toward the door, "and there they are. How does it feel
to be an outsider. Captain?"
I did not know how to reply.
He touched my arm. "Good-bye, Captain."
"Take care of yourself, Colonel. I hope to see you
in Seoul some day," I said, taking his hand.
"Yes, let's hope so."
I watched his stooped figure slowly receding as he
limped away from me, leaning on his cane. When he
disappeared through the small gate I turned to go back
inside the church. But I stopped, turned around, and
returned to where I had just parted with Colonel
Chang. Alone, I stood there for a while, looking down
at the sorrowful city, listening vaguely to the hymns
of praise sung within by those who had their god.
Soon I left and trudged down the hill in the wet snow.
^^H^^i^^l^^^l^l^^^;^ 28
THE DAY AFTER the memorial service, at 1 p.m., I was ready to drive Park to the air base. We were standing outside headquarters, waiting for my jeep to
be brought from the motor pool. For the first time in
several days the sun shone through patches of white
clouds. There was no wind. The snow-covered city
glistened in thin, tremulous mirages. The special trans-
port plane of the Intelligence Service, which was to
carry Park to Pusan, was not leaving until 2 p.m., so
when the jeep came, I told him he did not have to
hurry. "You have about half an hour to spare," I
said. "Would you like to drive around the city for a
last look? It will be a long time before you get a
chance to come back here."
He shook his head. "I would rather take a walk,"
he said, "if you don't mind. Would you like to come
along?"
As we walked down the street, he said, "I didn't
226
227
see you yesterday at the service. Were you there?"
"I left before it was over. But I stayed long enough
to hear what you had to say."
He looked at me. "I didn't plan to read from the
Bible. I had many things in my mind that I wanted to
say, but when I got up there and faced the congrega-
tion I forgot all about them."
"Aren't you glad you read those passages?"
"I am not," he said sharply, stopping his walk.
"You know I don't, I can't believe in what I read
yesterday. I can't aflfirm as Job did.
"Do me a favor," he said suddenly. "Would you
come with me to my father's church?"
We crossed the street and walked up the slope. "When I read Mr. Shin's letter," he said, "I couldn't
fail to understand what must have been in my father's
mind at that last horrible moment. Perhaps it was the
same thing that had made me leave the church and
him. It has been my obsession ever since. Why must
we have so much injustice and misery in the world?
Why must we suffer?" We paused to stand now in front of the church. "It seemed to me, when I was
younger, that it was too easy and too simple to say
that we suffer because of our original sin or because
we have to suffer to prove our faith in God." Gazing
at the battered building, he added, "I am not so sure
any more."
"You are then coming around to Job's affirmation."
228
"I don't know. I can't yet. I resist it. Do you under-
stand me? I resist it consciously. Then why did I read
Job's words? As I stood there facing the people, look-
ing into those thousands of human eyes that have seen
horror and injustice, hunger and sickness, and sudden,
meaningless death, all waiting for me to utter the next
word, I felt Mr. Shin's hand on my shoulder as if to
say, 'Go on, go on. They are waiting for your words.
Don't stop here. Go on, and say it!' The next thing I
knew—I was giving in to God. No! I wasn't. It was Job!"
"I understand," I said.
"I grew up here and lived here for twenty years," he
said, looking at the ruins about him. "And now it is
no more."
The beU overhead clanged once, faintly.
"Come along," I said. "We'd better go."
Later when we were driving out to the air base he
said, "I have been thinking of what we said the other
night about a fairy tale. Do you understand that a
fairy tale can be an integral part of our lives? Then it
ceases to be a fairy tale. It becomes real. It becomes
something that is meant to be. What those Christians
wanted and needed was not merely a nice little story
that would give them comfort and confidence but
something that would make their lives meaningful,
something that would make their sufferings worth-
229
while. Do you recall this, I forget from where? Deeper
truth lies in the fact that the world is not meaningless
and absurd but is in a meaningless state/ Never before
have those words meant more to me than they have
during the last few days. Yes, those Christians have
something that sustains their lives in a worid that is in
a meaningless state. But we don't. Why should we
call what they have a fairy tale?"
"Because we can understand it but we can't believe
it," I said.
"The wall between our fairy tale and their reality,
if you know what I mean, sometimes seems very thin."
"But the wall is there, isn't it?"
He shook his head. "You are a stubborn man," he
said.
We arrived at the air base ten minutes before two. When Park had checked in and was about to board the
plane I told him about the plans for the general re-
treat. "We are not going to defend Pyongyang when
it comes to that," I said.
"Why didn't you tell me about it before?"
**I am sorry. This is an official secret."
With an impatient gesture he said, "And here I am,
flying out!" He added, frowning, "What about those
people? What about Mr. Shin? What about the chap-
lain? Are you going to tell them about it?"
He held my arm. *'Will you look after Mr. Shin?
Will you do that for me? He has no money, nothing
230
much to eat left in the house. Yesterday I did my best
to collect supplies for him but they won't last long.
He has been selling clothes and what not for some
time. He wouldn't take anything from his congrega-
tion. I tried to stop him from selling things but I know
he has been to the market several times."
"Why didnt' you tell me about it before?" I said.
"I didn't think you would be interested in hearing
about it. You despise him, don't you?"
Park had to go. "Listen!" he said. "It doesn't matter
what you think of him but do this for me. Will you see
to it that he gets to Seoul before it is too late? Once he
gets there, I will look after him."
I shook his hand. "Good-bye and good luck," I
said. "I will look after Mr. Shin."
"Thanks. Go and see him. Talk with him."
"I will," I promised. 'T^ke care of yourself."
The plane left five minutes after two, and I drove
back to the city.
When I reached headquarters I was told by my
orderly, who met me at the entrance, that Mr. Shin
was waiting for me in my ofl&ce.
As soon as he saw me he said, "I thought it was
about time I came to see you. I haven't seen you for
some time."
"I was at the service yesterday, Mr. Shin," I said.
231
"I arrived too late to hear you, but I understand you
did a marvelous job of glorifying the twelve martyrs."
His serene gaze did not waver. "I hope so," be said.
"You satisfied everyone."
"You too, Captain?"
"I have nothing to be satisfied or dissatisfied with,
Mr. Shin," I said. "It was your decision to glorify all
the twelve ministers and save your church from shame-
ful scandal. It was your decision. Not mine."
When he did not reply I told him that I had been to
the air base to see Park off to Pusan.
His continued silence made me uneasy. "Was there
anything special you had in mind?" I asked. "I mean
He stood up. "I must have had something in mind
to come to see you, but I seem to have forgotten what
it was." He paused. "I would rather not remember it
now. Good-bye, Captain. It was nice to have seen you
again. I am sorry I troubled you."
I tried to detain him but he rushed past me to the
door and disappeared.
I knew I had hurt him, and I hated myself for it.
That evening we had the first air raid in Pyongyang.
^^l^^^^;^^^^;^^^ 29
THE NEXT MORNING, while the feeble sun mtered through the sky plastered with gray clouds, jeeps with
loudspeakers prowled through the streets, grinding
out martial music and a young woman's hysterical,
shrill voice that appealed to the populace to be cahn
and steadfast in their trust in the United Nations
Forces; it was only a matter of a few days before the
Chinese invaders would be beaten back across the
Yalu River. Armored cars were patrolling the city
and for the first time since the liberation, antiaircraft
guns were taking up positions here and there; heavy
machine guns were set up on rooftops and street
comers; and from the air base across the river sortie
after sortie raced toward the northern sky.
While I was still in my oflBce, around eleven o'clock,
our communications officer sent up a special cable
232
233
message he had just received from Army headquarters.
It was addressed to Chaplam Koh and I was to deliver
it to him.
The message, sent by the Office of Chaplains, stated
that there had been an administrative error and that
Chaplain Koh was to report to the Chief of Chaplains
immediately; it also requested my cooperation in the
speedy departure of the chaplain from Pyongyang.
At half-past eleven I went to Mr. Shin's church,
where I knew I would find him. When I went inside,
the scanty congregation was singing a hymn. I took a
seat in the back. Between where I was and the con-
gregation there were nearly forty or so empty pews;
the grand interior of the church looked hollow with
so many seats unoccupied. The congregation sang
without the accompaniment of the pipe organ or the
choir; their voices were subdued, as if smothered by
the cold air and the empty space. When they had
finished singing and sat down, Mr. Shin emerged
from the shadows on the platform and mounted the
lectern. The sun shone through the stained glass, mak-
ing a slanted path of dusty air and hazily illuminating
Mr. Shin's right cheek. He closed his eyes for a mo-
ment, and when he opened them he said quietly, "My
dear brethren, I have nothing to say to you today.
What I would like to say and what I feel deep in my
234
heart are beyond the power of my words." He paused.
"Come. Let us offer our silent prayers."
I tiptoed out of the church and waited for the serv-
ice to be over. I heard nothing from within for some
minutes, then the congregation sang a hymn, followed
by a silent pause, presumably for Mr. Shin's bene-
diction. Presently people began to come out and
quietly drift away. The bells started clanging overhead.
Mr. Shin appeared, accompanied by three elders. They
stood at the threshold and talked to one another for a
few minutes. One of the elders glanced at me occa-
sionally, perhaps at my uniform, my pistol, and my
steel helmet. Then Mr. Shin was left alone. He came
to me. "Come, let us take a walk," he said. We went down the steps and walked over to the cliff that over-
looked the city.
Resting his hands on the iron fence, he gazed into
space.
"Mr. Shin, I would like to get you out of Pyong-
yang," I said. "I would like to take you with me to
Seoul."
"I do not understand you, Captain." He folded his
arms, frowning. "Why should you take me to Seoul?
You surprise me. Is this official?"
^'No, Mr. Shin. Please don't think the Army has
anything to do with it. It is my idea, more precisely
Park's wish, that you should leave Pyongyang. The
235
sooner you leave the better." Then I told him about
the impending general retreat of U.N. Forces from
North Korea.
"Do you mean to say that you are going to abandon
us?" he said.
"We are not going to make a stand in North Korea.
We may even give up Seoul if necessary, temporarily, of course. But I doubt we will try to come up this far
north again." I explained to him the overall situation
on the battlefront, adding that I had already dispatched
one third of my detachment to Seoul.
He listened to my words but his thoughts seemed to
be elsewhere.
"We are an intelligence detachment, an administra-
tive one, more or less. So we are evacuating now ahead
of time. But it won't be long before combat troops will
pull out of Pyongyang. The withdrawal will be sudden,
I assure you; it has already been planned."
"That doesn't leave one much of a choice does it?"
"Then will you agree to come with us?"
"I shall have to think about it," he said, "although
from what you have told me there seems to be no
alternative."
"I have a small house in Seoul, Mr. Shin. It has
survived the war so far, fortunately. I will be glad if
you will use it, since I won't be using it anyway."
'That's very considerate of you, Captain. I have a
236
few friends in Seoul and also in Pusan. I suppose I
won't be without something to do."
We then talked about people we knew in the South. I told him what it was like in Seoul and in the South in
general and what had gone on there since the end of
the war in the Pacific. He told me of his acquaintances,
most of them ministers who had studied with him at a
seminary in Japan years before. He had a sister who
was married to a man who owned an orchard on a
small island off Pusan. She had been asking him to
come and live with her family ever since he had lost
his wife several years ago. "I am ready to accept her
offer," he said, "and retire. I am looking forward to a
quiet life."
"We are leaving Pyongyang on the twenty-fifth. I
am sorry we will have to hurry," I said. I told him
about the sabotage by the Communist guerrillas. "We
are planning to leave by truck, armed, of course. It
may take longer to get to Seoul by truck but it will be
safer, I think."
He was quiet. I felt he was hardly listening.
"There is one thing I would like you to promise
me," I said. "I would like you not to tell anyone about
it."
"I understand," he said. "Of course, no one should
know what the Army is going to do."
I told him I would come to his house in the morning
of the twenty-fifth.
237
"Captain, I haven't really made up my mind yet
about leaving," he said. "I will have to think about it.'*
*T>on't thinV about it," I said a little impatiently.
"There is no time to think, no time to lose. When the
combat troops from the North and from this area
begin to pull out it will be chaotic. Unless you are
escorted by our troops you won't be able to get too
far."
We stood there, side by side, listening to the distant chiming of church bells. The sky was becoming cloudy.
A cold wind began to blow. We walked back to the church and stood at the bottom of the steps.
"Good-bye, Captain," he said, offering his hand.
I took his cold bony hand. "Mr. Shin, what was it
that you wanted to tell me yesterday?" I asked.
He did not answer, but turned away and walked up
the steps and disappeared into the empty church. I
heard the hollow interior of the church resound with
his harsh coughing. The door closed with a metallic
click.
At 10 P.M., I had the following telephone conver-
sation with Colonel Chang:
Colonel: Now, don't ask me where I am calling
from. Have you seen the chaplain yet?
I: Colonel—^I have sent word to him that I would like to see him tomorrow mom-
238
ing. The cable message from the Office
of Chaplains—did you arrange it? I think it was very thoughtful of you.
Colonel: Kind of you to say so, Captain. You do
understand why I did it, don't you?
Excessive humility can often turn into
excessive pride.
I: I think it came just in tune.
Colonel : I didn't want to see him taking a chance
of becoming a martyr. I think we have
had enough martyrs for a while, don't
you agree? What about Mr. Shin?
I: I can't say anything definite yet. I saw
him today.
Colonel: Get both of them out of here. Do what
you can but get them out before it is
too late. Well, I wish you a safe jour-
ney, Captain.
I: Thank you. Good luck to you sir. Take
care of yourself.
Colonel: You too. Give Mr. Shin and the chap-
lain my best regards.
I: I will, sir. How is your project coming
along?
Colonel: Excellent! It couldn't be better. We've
got every comer covered. All we have
to do now is to wait. I've been polishing
239
up my Chinese, ha, ha, ha! Good-bye, Captain.
I: See you in Seoul.
Colonel: We will see.
s& j& y|'^%ft Sft9vS* S*9999 30
THE NEXT MORNING Pyongyang Area Command notified me that, following the evacuation of my de-
tachment, the building would be turned over to the
Field Hospital Command; I was to meet an oflficer
from the Hospital Command to work out the details
of the transfer. A little after two that afternoon, he came to see me. Major Minn, a tall man of about
fifty, graying at the temples, had been a general
practitioner in Seoul before the war. I showed him
around the building, accompanied by my supply oflB-
cer, who explained what we could and what we could
not leave behind.
When the three of us returned to my office. Major
Minn said, "Splendid, splendid! Just leave every single
bed and whatever bedding you can spare. That will
be luxury enough for us for the time being. I tell you,
I couldn't do a damn thing on the line. We kept our
240
241
patients in those miserable tents all night. Why, they
died before you could get around to taking care of
their wounds. It was too damn cold. Ah, this wiU be
splendid! The patients will be coming in by the hun-
dreds but they will be lucky. We will find places to receive them. But what are we going to do with those
refugees who are pouring down this way? I hate to
fhinV about it. God, where will they all go in this
cold? What will they eat?" He paused and I could see
the pain in his eyes. "They keep following us but we
are pulling out too fast for them to catch up with us.
What a mess we are in!"
He got ready to go. "I keep telling myself to shut
my big mouth and just do whatever I can to save as
many lives as possible. But I can't forget the morning
in June I woke up to find that the Army had simply
vanished from Seoul overnight, blowing up the only
bridge, without even saying a word to the people
about it. I couldn't believe it! Now how do you like that, eh? You go to bed feeling secure because the
Army told you it would never give up your city, and
you wake up the next morning and see thousands of
Red soldiers and Russian tanks milling about in the
streets. And where is your trustworthy army? Way down in the South, having sneaked out like a thief in
the night. I tell you I didn't know what to do. So now
I am in the Army myself, a major and all that, and I
242
am supposed to understand the hush-hush ways of the Army—strategic, tactical, and so on. But, my God, why shouldn't we do something at least for those poor
people who are determined to follow us, starving in
this cold? I just hope it won't happen here as it did in
Seoul."
I wanted to warn him that it was exactiy what was
going to happen, but I had to keep silent.
"On my way down here, I noticed our troops were
digging in. I don't know a damn thing about how to
fight a war but it was reassuring to see them in posi-
tion. Lots of guns are out there. I guess we wUl make
a stand. Even I can guess that."
My supply officer looked at me, excused himself, and walked out.
**Maybe I shouldn't be talking like this with you in-
telligence people," Major Minn said. "I guess I am
still not used to the strange ways of the Army. You
don't know how pleased I am that this building is
being turned over to us. I say that as a doctor, you
know. I will be able to relax and do a better job on our
men once we settle in here. So, you are leaving to-
morrow?'*
*Tomorrow morning," I said.
"Back to Seoul?"
"Yes."
"Glad to hear that," he said, nodding. "You've had
your share. I can see that. I can tell you have a bad
243
knee or something there. You limp, though not too
noticeably. Wounded, I suppose?"
"Mortar," I said. "Shrapnel."
"Damn! When are we going to stop this idiotic
soldier game?"
"It has been going on since the time of creation,
hasn't it?"
He shook his head. "I tell you—there is something wicked in mankind. Ah, well."
We shook hands. "When this war is over and if I am still ahve," he
said, smiling, "maybe we will run into each other in
Seoul."
"Who knows? Perhaps we will."
"And if you get sick or something, come around to
my place. I will give you good treatment." He scribbled
his address on a piece of paper he tore from his note-
book and gave it to me. "Free of charge."
"I'll be in Seoul in a few days," I said. "Can I do
anything for you? I could look up your family if you
would like me to."
"No, thank you anyway," he said matter-of-factly.
"My wife got bombed out. We didn't have children, fortunately."
I had expected to see Chaplain Koh in the morn-
ing but it was only in the late afternoon, a few hours
after Major Minn had left, that he came to see me.
244
It was strange to see him out of uniform; he was wear-
ing a double-breasted dark suit.
He was in a cheerful mood. "I take it that you know
my resignation has been accepted," he said. "Ah, I can
see you are not interested in my new status."
"I regret to say I am not. Chaplain," I said.
"You'll get used to seeing me like this soon enough,"
he said with a grin. "Let me first give you the message
from Mr. Shin, then you can tell me why you wanted
to see me."
"When did you see him?"
"An hour or so ago," he said. "I told him I was
going to see you and he said I could tell you that you
didn't have to—you shouldn't, rather—bother to come for him tomorrow morning. I am glad you saw him,
for whatever reasons, and I don't want to pry into your
business. But what is the matter with both of you?
Did you have a quarrel?"
"No, of course not."
"Then why does he refuse to see you now? And
what is the significance of this date tomorrow morn-
ing?"
"Chaplain, we are leaving Pyongyang. Will you
come with us? To Seoul."
"Why? Why are you leaving? I can't leave my church now. But why?'*
"I am going to tell you an oflBcial secret, and you
245
know what you are expected to do with it," I said. I
explained to him about the general retreat and about
the evacuation of my detachment. "So I am escorting
you back to Seoul. You will join us, of course."
He did not hesitate at all. "I have no intention of
leaving Pyongyang with you. Not because I don't
welcome your company. But you understand. I have
my church and my congregation to look after."
"Are you sure, Chaplain? Are you determined to
stay here? You realize what that means, I hope."
I handed him the cable message. "This is for you.
Forgive me for keeping it with me so long."
He read it, looked up at me, read it again, then
handed it back to me. "When are you leaving, Cap-
tain?" he said quietly.
"You will come with us then," I said. "Tomorrow
morning."
"Tomorrow morning," he said. "So that is why Mr.
Shin doesn't want to see you. You asked him to come
with you?"
"That's right."
"He is not leaving," he said, "and I am not leaving
either, Captain."
I gave the cable back to him. "This is your order,
Captain. You are not going to ignore it."
He tore it up. 'There!" he said. "You can say you
couldn't find me."
246
Then, "Good-bye, Captain," he said. "I must hurry
to my church. We are having a special service to
baptize children bom since the war. And this evening
. . ." He stopped, glared at me with his enormous
eyes, and suddenly shouted, "So we are going to
abandon the people! My people! What did you think
I would do? Run away? Again? Betray them again?
Don't you understand I couldn't do that?" He put his
hand on my shoulder and made an obvious effort to
control himself.
"Captain, Captain," he said, "there is a loud voice
in the dark comer of my heart that says, 'Go! Why let
yourself suffer here? Go! You will be more useful else-
where, in the Army, on the battlefield. So—Go!' But I have seen, I have leamed how much my people
suffered while I was away from them. Yes, I suffered
too, but mine was easier to bear because it had the
halo of glory, hope, and promise. But theirs—it's a silent, hopeless, ugly suffering, weary and despairing."
He left me and went over to the window. "Undoubt-
edly, when it comes to the worst, there will be many
from my congregation who will leave, but I know there
will be more who will not be able to leave. Where will
they go, those old people and starving people? How
far, without food, without money, and without hope or
promise they will be cared for? The whole country
is at war. . . . This is where I must be. This is my
place, at the side of my people."
247
The telephone rang; it was from the commanding
officer of the CIC. He had put in a special request to
the Chief of Army Intelligence that an officer from
my unit be attached to him temporarily, and the re-
quest had been granted.
"It appears I am not leaving tomorrow morning
after all," I said to Chaplain Koh when I hung up. "I
have been ordered to stay here as long as I can."
He looked at me searchingly.
"I understand you, Chaplain," I said. "Perhaps,
more than you think I do. Come. I am on my way to
see Mr. Shin. If you are going that way, I will give
you a ride."
"No, thank you," he said. "I don't think you can
see him anyway now. He is out of town. He had to go
to a wedding. An elder's daughter is getting married.
You see, life goes on. He will be back tonight."
He made as if to go, yet seemed hesitant. "I'm
puzzled, Captain. You seem to have a certain kind of
influence over Mr. Shin and he over you. What is it?
I have followed him to all those revival meetings and,
you know, at each meeting he always asks me if you
were there. You weren't except at one. Why should
he have to know if you were there or not? When I
told him you weren't, I couldn't help noticing that he
seemed relieved. Why? I dared ask him one day. Do
you know what he said? He said there is something,
a question, you asked him when you first met him.
248
and whenever he sees you he is reminded of it and
that he has not answered yet, so much so that it makes
him uneasy. 'Pray for me,' he said, 'pray for my soul, and pray for him, too. His question has been terrifying
me.' That's all he said. What is it? What is it Captain?"
I did not, I dared not, reply.
"I pray for him, I pray for his soul, though it is he
who should pray for me," Chaplain Koh said. "I pray
for you too, Captain."
At ten past five, the commanding ofiBcer at CIC
called to tell me that he and I had been requested by
G-2 of the Area Command to attend a special in-
telligence meeting in his oflBce at seven.
Before going there I stopped by CIC to be briefed
on the latest intelligence reports, particularly on those
concerning the guerrilla activities south of Pyongyang.
As of 6 P.M., my detachment had officially ceased to
operate and our communications facilities had stopped
functioning.
The commanding officer, a red-faced, short, squat
lieutenant colonel, briefed me personally. After that
he said, "I am grateful that you are going to be with
us for a while. Captain. As you know, we used to
depend greatly on your detachment for information
analysis and interpretation, but now you are leaving.
The point is that there has been increased infiltration
249
in this area and we've been capturing quite a few
enemy agents and propaganda material.
•*Your new instructions are," he went on, "to dis-
patch your detachment as planned under the super-
vision of an oflSicer you designate and to stay with my
detachment imtil we evacuate. Everybody else is get-
ting out. CIC will be the only unit remaining here
that is directly controlled by Army Intelligence. We are supposed to stick it out until the last minute, then
get out. I want you to read and analyze every single
intelligence report and whatever information we can
squeeze out of enemy agents."
I drove him to the meeting and on the way, we
decided that I would continue to stay in my oflBce, if
the Hospital Command agreed.
**I am glad you don't mind staying where you are
now," he said. "You wouldn't particularly enjoy stay-
ing at CIC. There are a few things going on which
you might not want to hear or see."
Early the next morning, I drove to Mr. Shin's house.
The detachment was to leave the city shortly, and I
wanted to try once more to persuade him to leave with
them. Armored cars patrolled the hushed streets; a
man pushed a cart across the empty, wide avenue; a
Military Police jeep, blinking red lights, its radio
antenna swinging, screeched around a comer. A cold
250
wind whipped about, fluttering torn pieces of war
posters on the shop windows.
Mr. Shin was not home. An old man, who intro- duced himself as the janitor of the church, seemed to
recognize me.
"I am sorry, officer," he said, ''but he said I am not to show you in. Anyway, he isn't here. He has been
out since four in the morning."
I asked him if he could tell me where Mr. Shin might be found.
**! don't know," he said. "All I can say is somebody
is dying and the pastor had to be with him."
At 8 A.M., my detachment left Pyongyang under the command of my executive officer. From my office window I watched the trucks and jeeps leaving the
once-liberated city. The wind blew relentlessly, lash-
ing at the men and at the vehicles, and from across the
street I could hear the clanging of the bell. The
silence in our deserted headquarters seemed ominous.
I felt depressed beyond all hope.
^^^H^I^f^^^^H^^}^^ 31
I TRIED TO shake off my mood of depression by busying myself at rearranging my temporary quarters.
My supply oflficer had left half a dozen boxes of field rations, a cot, and sufficient bedding, and my orderly,
who had left with the detachment, had stored several
cans of fresh water, a pile of coal in a large wooden
box, and a few odds and ends—candles, boxes of matches, cooking utensils, and the like, aU neatly ar-
ranged on my desk. It was strange to find myself in
the midst of all these things, as though I were about
to start on a long, soUtary journey. Yet I was not
totally alone; I had a telephone directly connected
with the CIC detachment and a field-radio set. By
nine o'clock I was ready to drive over to CIC, where
I spent the rest of the morning perusing a stack of re-
ports, preparing an inteUigence analysis and estimates.
Around noon, as I did not feel well and since there
251
252
was no more work to be done, I left; I felt I had a
slight fever. I returned to my room and found that a contingent from the Hospital Command had already
begun to convert the building into a transient field
hospital. Several trucks were still unloading beds and
bedding. I went up to my room, took a few pills, lay
down on the cot, and immediately fell asleep.
When I woke, I found myself covered with blankets.
I turned my head toward the stove and saw the dim figure of a man, sitting quietly in the warm, dusky
room. It was Mr. Shin.
"Go back to sleep," he said. "Don't get up."
Though I felt a bit weak I got out of the cot. "Have
you been here long?" I said. My watch told me that it was half-past five. "I slept all afternoon."
He said he had been told by Chaplain Koh that I
was staying in the city; he had thought he would stop
by to see me on his way to a church where he was to
conduct a special service that evening. "I was surprised
to find that you now have a hospital in here," he said.
"But I asked for you anyway. An oflficer came out to meet me and took me up to your room. He told me
that you were running a fever. He had found you here,
alone and in a deep sleep. He took your temperature
and gave you a shot but with all that going on you
didn't stir a bit. Do you remember anything?"
I shook my head. "No, I don't. That was very kind
of him."
253
"You must have been exhausted, Captain. You
seem to be in need of a good, long rest. How are you feeling now?"
I confessed that I felt slightly dizzy.
"Then you must go back to bed and be still," he
said.
"It could be that I am hungry."
"Have you eaten anything since morning?"
"No."
"Well, then, you must have something,*' he said.
"Shall I call someone for you?"
I told him not to; I had canned food and I could
make some tea. I invited him to join me, if he did not
mind tasting canned American food. "What time do
you have to be at the church?"
"Half-past six," he said. "I am to have dinner with
the minister after the service, but I will be dehghted
to join you for a cup of tea."
Later, we sat quietly by the stove in the candlelight,
sipping tea. It was dark outside and the wind was
howling. I drew the curtains over the window.
"As you may know, I have to stay here as long as
I can," I said, "but I will be ordered to leave before
our combat troops begin their withdrawal. Mr. Shin,
when I leave, please plan to come with me."
He did not reply.
"I have promised Park that I will look after you,"
I said. "Do you have anyone to help you in the house?"
254
**Yes. I am well taken care of," he said. "The jani-
tor of my church and his wife are staying with me. Yes, I am quite comfortable."
"Give them my name and address, just so that if you need me for anything or if they need me they will
know where to find me."
"That's very kind of you, but I am sure we won't
have to trouble you."
I poured more tea into his cup. "Mr. Shin, why did
you come to see me?" I said.
But he had again withdrawn into himself. His si-
lence disturbed me. "Why did you come, Mr. Shin?" I
asked again.
He stood up. "I must leave you now. Captain.
Thank you for the tea. I think you should go back to
bed and get some rest."
I detained him, holding his arm. "What is it that
you want to tell me? Why do you hide it from me?"
He looked away, then looked into my eyes. "Help
me!" he whispered. "Help me!"
"Help you? Why? How!"
"Help me!"
I let his arm go. "You haven't been able to answer
my question, Mr. Shin. Why? Why!" I cried out.
"Your god doesn't care how you sujffer, does he!"
Feverishly his eyes remained fixed on mine. "Go
on!" he said. "Go on!"
255
**Your god, any god, all the gods in the world
—
what do they care for us? Your god—^he does not understand our sufferings, he doesn't want to have
anything to do with our miseries, murders, starving
people, wars, wars, and all the horrors!"
"Go on!" he said, now nearly delirious. "Go on!"
"All right," I cried. "I'll tell you. I despise what
you have done, what you are doing to your people!
Lies, Ues! Why? Why do you do it! Your twelve min-
isters—they were butchered for no good reason. They didn't die for the glory of your god. They were mur-
dered by men and your god couldn't care less. Tell
me, then, why glorify your god! Why glorify him while
men are murdered by men! And why betray your
people?"
We both fell silent. "Mr. Shin, Mr. Shin! Why all that?" I said in des-
peration. "Why all that, why deceive your people,
when our sufferings here and now have no justice to
seek for beyond this life?"
He clutched my arms and whispered compassion-
ately, "How you must have suffered! How you must
be suffering. I, too. Captain! I, too, suffer!"
Hardly knowing what to say I looked at him in
wonder. "Then you, too," I said at last, "you, too,
don't believe . . .?"
256
He interrupted mc with an agonized gesture. "Don't!
Don't say it!" Tears filled his eyes.
"Then . . . why!"
"All my life I have searched for God, Captain," he
whispered, "but I found only man with all his suffer-
ings . . . and death, inexorable death!"
"And after death?"
"Nothing!" he whispered. "Nothing!"
The searing anguish in his pale face was overwhelm-
ing.
"Help me! Help me love my people, my poor, suf-
fering people, tortured by wars, hungry, cold, sick and
weary of life!" he cried. "Help me! Sufferings seize
their hope and faith and toss them adrift into a sea of
despair! We must show them Ught, tell them there will be a glorious welcome waiting for them, assure them
they will triumph in the eternal Kingdom of God!"
*To give them the illusion of hope? The illusion of
life beyond the grave?"
"Yes, yes! Because they are men. Despair is the
disease of those weary of life, life here and now full
of meaningless sufferings. We must fight despair, we must destroy it and not let the sickness of despair
corrupt the life of man and reduce him to a mere
scarecrow."
"And you? What about you? What about your de-
spair?"
257
'That is my cross!** he said. "I must bear that
alone."
I took his trembling hands. "Forgive me!*' I cried
out. "Forgive me! I have been unjust to you!*'
"There is nothing to forgive,'* he said. "You, too,
you, too, because you know, bear your own cross!"
"And others?"
"Many will not be able to bear it," he said, sud-
denly tender. "Those are the ones who need Christ.
We will give them their Christ and their Judas." "And the resurrection of the flesh?"
"Yes, the resurrection of the flesh!"
"And the eternal Kingdom of God?"
"Yes, the eternal Kingdom of God!"
"And justice?"
"Yes, justice—oh, how one craves for justice! Yes, justice! The ultimate justice in the name of God!"
"And you?"
"I must continue to suffer. There is no other way,"
"How long! How long must you suffer!"
*Till we die and never meet again!" he whispered.
And for the first time since the war, I abandoned
myself to uncontrollable tears, my tears, my contri-
tion—^for my parents, for my countrymen, and for those many unknown souls I had destroyed.
"Courage," he said gently, laying his hands on my
shoulders. "Courage, Captain. We must hope against
258
hopelessness. We must dare to hope against despair because we are men."
Soon after Mr. Shin had left, someone knocked on
the door and Major Minn entered. I was in bed; I
tried to get up. He drew a chair near the cot, motion-
ing for me not to rise.
"I saw him leave," he said, "so I thought I would
come in and take a look at you. How are you feeling?"
I told him I felt a bit tired but otherwise fine.
"I told your relative you will be all right by tomor-
row," he said.
"My relative?"
"Isn't he someone in your family?"
^TSTo."
"Oh, I though he was," he said, shrugging his shoul-
ders. "I asked him if he was related to you and he
said, 'Well, in a way.' Anyway, I was surprised to find
you were still in town."
I explained the circumstances.
"I was told that an officer attached to CIC was
going to be staying in the building," he said, "but it
never occurred to me that it could be you. Glad to
have you with us. I am a man of foresight, am I not?
Do you remember my promise to treat you free of
charge?"
I thanked him for what he had done for me.
259
"Don't mention it. You were exhausted. Nothing
too serious. I think you should rest for a while. You
are fortunate, you know, being right in the middle of
my hospital. We aren't quite settled in here yet; we will be by tomorrow."
I asked him when he was expecting patients.
He frowned. "Tomorrow evening. It's getting worse
on the front. We don't even seem to have a front and troops are pouring down this way. I am supposed to
receive nearly two hundred patients tomorrow eve-
ning and God knows how many more the next day."
"Are you keeping them here or are you sending
them soutii?"
"We are sending them off as fast as we can but there
are just too many," he said, shaking his head. "What
a mess!" He took my temperature, checked my pulse, and said I would be feeling well soon.
"I am sleeping in the next room. If you need me,
just call. I told my orderly to look after you, so don't be surprised to see someone come in during the night
and tinker with the stove."
I thanked him.
"You are most welcome," he said; then, pausing on
his way toward the door, "By the way, and I hope
you don't mind my being nosy, but are you a Chris- tian?"
"Why do you ask?"
260
"Just being curious. My wife was one, a very devout one, too. You know . . . it's a strange thing. When she was alive, I sort of tolerated her religiosity, if you
know what I mean, but I never understood her sense
of commitment to her god. Now I am beginning to understand it in some vague way."
"Could it be because you have seen so many men
die?"
"In my profession I have seen many men die. As a doctor I can explain why or how my patients die. But
God knows I can't explain the reason for all these
men dying in war. There is no rational explanation
when you get down to the bottom of it. It doesn't
make sense. Yet somehow it must make sense."
"So you begin to understand your wife," I said.
"To be more precise—^her need, her desperate need for her rehgion, for her god. Well, I didn't mean to
keep you up. He was a minister, was he not?"
I explained to him briefly about Mr. Shin.
"He came here around two o'clock," he said. "He
asked me if it was all right for him to stay, so I left
him alone with you. I came back about two hours
later and of course, by that time I had forgotten about
him. Then I heard a low voice coming from this room.
I though you were up. I opened the door and saw
that you were still asleep."
"Was there anyone else here besides him?"
261
"No. He was praying. I left as quietly as I could.
Well, good night, Captain. Get some sleep now." He
shook his head again, smiling, "You must be a ter-
rible sinner," he said. "I think he was praying for your
soul."
^^^^v^^^^^^^^^ 32
MY TEMPERATURE WAS erratic. It rose slightly during the night but was down again in the morning.
The major ordered me to stay in bed. The command-
ing officer at CIC was kind enough to telephone me
to say that he would send a Ueutenant with my work
so that I would not have to leave my bed. I did not
think I was that iU but I was content to stay indoors.
The day began with another dreary morning, cold
and windy, and with reports from the front which
were anything but cheerful. The heutenant, who had
come with a briefcase full of captured enemy docu-
ments and propaganda material for me to study,
stayed with me for an hour or so. At noon the major's
orderly brought me a lunch tray and later the major
himself came in, took my temperature, and assured
me that I was getting better.
Alone once more, I drew up a chair near the win-
262
263
dow, and spent some time looking out. Several army
trucks, their canvas tops crusted with snow, were
plowing their way toward the bridge across the Tae-
dong River. Here and there I saw people hurrying
through the street, alone and in groups, some empty-
handed, some carrying bundles. An ambulance sped
by, its siren shrieking. The church over the slope be-
came more and more indistinct in the waning after-
noon. A plane, seen above the dim belfry, flew in a circle, blinking red and green lights. It quickly became
darker outside.
After a while Mr. Shin came in. He could not stay.
He had been to a funeral and then to a meeting with
the ministers of the city. "I was just passing by and
thought I would stop by and see how you are doing,"
he said. "I am glad to hear that you are feeling better."
I put the teakettle on the stove and persuaded him
to have a cup of tea with me. "You shouldn't be walk-
ing around in the cold," I said. "How is your cough?"
"I feel fine these days. I don't think I have ever felt
better since before the war."
"You ought to see a doctor, though, Mr. Shin," I
said. "Are you sleeping well?"
"Oh, yes. I sleep too much, in fact," he said, smil-
ing. Steam rose from his wet shoes and damp overcoat.
"You don't suppose your detachment has reached
Seoul yet, do you?"
264
I told him they had stayed overnight at Sariwon
and that they should arrive in Seoul by the next morn-
ing.
"The city is becoming crowded with refugees from
the North," he said. "The ministers met today to find
out what we could do for them. We are offering them our churches for shelter. But I don't know how we can
feed them. My church already has five, six hundred.
Many of them came all the way from the border. What
will happen to them?"
"Do you find many Christians among them?"
"Yes. Where will they go from here?" he said.
"Where can they go?"
The tea was ready; I poured him a cup.
He gazed thoughtfully into the steaming cup. "We
buried a boy, twelve years old," he said. "His father
had been taken away by the Communists shortly
before we were Hberated, and we have heard that he
died on the way to the North—one of those death marches. The boy was dying; I stayed with him all
night. Before he lost his strength the boy asked me
if, when he died, he would see his father in heaven.
I said. Yes, he would see his father. Would there be
any of those Conmiunist poUcemen in heaven who
would take his father away from him again? Of course
not, I said. And his mother? Would he see her there
some day? Yes, I said to him, Yes, he would, of
265
course, he would. And you know the boy looked at
his weeping mother with eyes so full of longing and
love, I too, wept. And today the white coffin, the snow,
and the black, wet dirt—no more, no more. All these years as a pastor I have prepared many men to die
peacefully. Yes, I prepared that boy to die in peace.
But I failed twice, Captain; I betrayed twice."
Again the terrible anguish in his eyes. I have never
seen such anguish. "I married late in life," he said,
"only to bury my first child, a boy, and my wife within
the same year. My wife died a few weeks after the boy. She became ill. She blamed the loss of our child
on herself, on her sins, and she spent all her time pray-
ing, fasting. And I—I was sick with my grief but I had my life to Uve here and she had hers and I resented
her slavish devotion to her god, her pitiful prayers.
And I dared—I dared to tell her that when we were gone from this life we would never meet again, we
would never see our children again, that there was no
afterlife. My unhappy wife, my terrified wife—she could not bear the thought, she was not strong enough
to live with my terrible truth. She could not live with-
out her hope and promise that in the life hereafter she
would meet her lost child. She became a hving corpse
and she died in despair." Mr. Shin groaned like a soul
in torment. "I promised," he went on painfully, "I
promised myself that I would never, never again re-
266
veal my truth, my secret truth—a maddening truth coming from a servant of God. But I failed again with
Mr. Hann. The last moment of Park's father had al-
ready wrecked the soul of that poor young man, and I,
overcome by temptation, revealed to him the secret of
my hfe, and despair seized his young body and soul and tore them up into shreds." Too agitated to remain
seated, Mr. Shin jumped up from his chair and began
to pace the room.
"And then you came and at one fatal stroke you
pierced the core of my secret truth."
I was too moved by Mr. Shin's confession to say
anything.
"I must go now," he said after a while. "I have to
be at the church and do what I can. Do you have any
idea when the city is going to be abandoned?"
"No, I don't, but Til find out soon."
"What is it Uke on the front?"
I explained the battle situation.
"Then it won't be too long," he said.
"No," I said. "A matter of a few more days, per-
haps."
The teakettle hummed softly, occasionally oozing
out sizzling drops of water on the stove. Footsteps and
voices mingled in the hall. The floor squeaked under
my feet. Major Minn came in and told me that he
267
and his men were going to the railway station to re-
ceive patients. When I stepped out of my room, no one
was in sight; the building was deserted. Somewhere
downstairs a telephone rang, unanswered. I left the
buildmg on foot for Mr. Shin's church, drawn there
as if by a magnet, to be in his presence.
Within the freezing church there hardly was room to
move. Pews were piled on top of each other and were
stacked against the walls. Refugees were crowded on
the bare, wooden floor, some sitting up, hunched over
their bundles, many lying curled up. The church
smelled of bodies and food; the odor of vegetable
soup hovered in the damp, cold air. Here and there
a baby cried. Children ran about, the high-ceilinged
interior echoing their shouts and laughter. An old man,
waving his hand for attention, was shouting the name
of a woman. Hazy dust hung low above the multitude
of shadowy bodies in the dim light of the chandeUers.
I edged toward the altar, where Mr. Shin was busy
doling out food to a line of refugees. A little girl, bun- dled up in a torn piece of quUt and chewing on a dried
fish, gazed at me, then moved to the side of a woman
who was suckling a baby. The child hid behind the
woman's back, then buried her stained face in the
woman's skirt and began crying. The woman lifted
her weary eyes and stared at my uniformed figure.
268
I stayed there for an hour or so, long enough to
hear Mr. Shin speak to the refugees, but not long
enough to hear the end of the service. It was when he
was reading from Psalms that I suddenly felt a shiver
and began to tremble; my fever had returned. Mr.
Shin, framed in the quavering Ught of two candles on
the lectern, was saying:
. . . The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge,
my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my strong-
hold. I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be
praised, and I am saved from my enemies. The cord
of death encompassed me. . . .
I felt dizzy, and I left the church. When I returned
to the hospital I saw that it had been filled with
wounded soldiers. Ambulances came and went. Voices
echoed in the halls; doors banged; telephones rang;
stretcher-bearers carried men up and down the cor-
ridors. I managed to drag myself up the stairs to my
room.
"Oh, you fool!" Major Minn exclaimed when he
came to my room later. "To go out in weather like
this. Now stay quiet and get some sleep. You may
hear lots of noises tonight. We are operating on them
as fast as we can. Don't let it bother you. I'll send my
orderly with some pills."
I thanked him.
269
"You can't afford to get sick now," he said.
The telephone rang when the major was about to
go to his room next door. He brought me the tele-
phone.
The call was from the CIC. When I hung up,
Major Minn replaced the telephone on the desk. "Any-
thing new?" he asked.
"The Chinese have just smashed our entire front,"
I said.
^^^^;^l^l^;i^;i^^^;i^^ 33
I WOKE UP the next morning, around seven, and discovered that someone was sleeping in a bed at the
other end of the room. I thought it was the major's
orderly. It was dark in the room; the only light shone,
flickering, through the vent of the stove. My head ached, I felt weak, and I would have liked to go back
to sleep. I lay still on my cot, listening vaguely to the
murmuring voices outside the room, the soft crum-
bling of the burned-out coal in the stove, and occa-
sionally the heavy breathing of the man in the other
bed. A little while later I heard the door of the next room open; then my door opened and Major Minn
tiptoed in. I sat up and he came over to me, looking
back toward the other bed.
"How do you feel?" he whispered.
I told him I thought I could get up.
He nodded. "That's your Christian friend over
there," he said. "Did you notice?"
270
I
i
I
271
I did not understand him.
"He is the minister who came to see you the other
day. We brought him in here last night—around eleven, I think." Major Minn explained that a man
had come to the hospital about half-past ten at night,
asking for me. "He said he was the janitor of the
church. His minister had collapsed during a prayer
session. Apparently he had been instructed to come
to you if anything happened, so he came here. Well,
you were in no shape to help anyone. I drove over to
the church, since I had just been reUeved after a few
operations and I had nothing to do at the moment.
That church was a mess. You probably know. What
are they going to do with all those refugees they have
there? I got your minister out and drove him back
here and put him in your room. Hope you don't mind.
There simply isn't any other room available just now.
He was running a high fever. His heartbeat was ex-
tremely irregular, and he was dead-tired. I couldn't
do much, except give him some sedatives and a vita-
min shot. I'll look at him when he wakes up but I am
afraid he has TB. He coughed a lot and spat some
blood."
"Is it bad?"
"I can't tell until I examine him more thoroughly."
He peered at his watch. "He should be sleeping till
ten, eleven. Well, what about you?"
272
I told him that I slept well and that I thought I
could go to CIC.
"You have a bad cold and you are quite run-down
but I think you can get up and go out if you think you
should. Just don't stay out too long and don't over-
work." He then suggested that I come over to his room
and have breakfast.
As I was leaving my room, I looked at Mr. Shin; he
was breathing softly, with his face turned to the wall.
I did not return from CIC until two in the after-
noon. Mr. Slun was up. His unshaven face looked
bluish. He was sitting near the stove, wearing a white
robe over bis pajamas; alone in the room, he had been
sipping tea. He greeted me with a wan smile.
I sat down on a chair opposite him.
*1 never imagined that I would come here in such
a situation and in such a state," he said. "I am glad
to see you are up. You worried me last night when
you left the church rather abruptly."
I told him that I had not been well. "I didn't mean
to walk out on your service."
"I understand," he said. "I noticed that you looked
ill. You shouldn't have come. I feel much better now.
I must have been a bit tired yesterday."
"You should stay here, Mr. Shin, until we leave
the city. You need a good rest and a doctor's atten-
1
273
tion, and you can have both here, at least for the tune
being."
"But I feel fine, Captain," he said, smiling. "I think
I will go back to the church as soon as I see the major.
Last night we received a hundred or so more refugees
from the North. Where can they all go from here?"
After a pause he said, "Those refugees who came last
night—they suddenly opened up my memories of the villagers I had seen when I went down to Chinnampo.
I thought the time had come at last for me to sur-
render to the temptation that had been harassing me
all my life as a pastor. My despair was too great to bear and there were moments when I could not muster
enough strength and courage to love my people. But
then I went to visit my friend, an old pastor of a small
village church. And there, in the few days I spent
with him and with his people, I saw how despair para-
lyzed their spirits, how it snared them into the dark
prison of their weary lives. The village had been
bombed, shelled, sacked and nearly razed to the
ground twice in three months; they had suffered, Cap-
tain. Their young had been lost in the war; their
daughters, sisters, wives, mothers had been raped;
nothing to eat, nothing to cure their sickness—a hell on earth. I saw how men can come to be beasts with-
out hope, how men can come to be like savages with-
out the promise, yes, the illusion of the eternal hope,
274
Men cannot endure their sufferings without hope,
without the promise of justice, if not here and now
—
and there is none—then somewhere else, in heaven, yes, in the Kingdom of God. And so I returned to the
city."
"And your hope? Your promise?"
*That many wiU have lived without having been
enslaved by despair, that many will have endured their
worldly sufferings with a sense of purpose, that many
will have died in peace, in faith, and with a blissful
vision."
Later in the afternoon Mr. Shin's temperature rose
and stayed liigh. He was too weak to insist on going
back to his church. Major Minn told me that he had
not been mistaken; the minister was in an advanced
stage of tuberculosis.
Around seven in the evening I asked the major to
have his orderly stay with Mr. Shin, as I had to go
out.
At half-past ten, when I returned to my room, I
found the orderly supporting Mr. Shin, who was sit-
ting up in his bed panting. He had just coughed up a
great deal of blood. When he recognized me leaning
over him, he took away the handkerchief he had
pressed over his mouth and tried to smile. The dark
275
hollows under his eyes frightened me. I took his hand.
"Your hand is cold," he whispered. "You must have
been out."
I nodded.
"I thought I was dying," he said. "Wasn't that fool-
ish of me?"
The orderly and I laid him down and covered him
with blankets. Then I told the orderly to go and bring
the major if he was not occupied.
Mr. Shin opened his eyes and said, "I was terrified
for one moment."
"Try to sleep."
"Can you hear the patients? I heard them crying
and moaning. I keep hearing them."
"Please don't let them bother you," I begged. "Try
to sleep."
"Are they dying?" he whispered. "Are many of them
dying?"
"No, Mr. Shin," I lied. The major had told me that
fourteen wounded soldiers had died in two days;
twenty or so were in critical condition; half of them
would probably die.
He did not speak after that and closed his eyes.
The orderly came back and told me the major was
operating at the moment and could not come.
I sat by Mr. Shin's bed for a while then went to my
cot and lay down with my clothes on, unable to sleep.
276
Some time later I heard Mr. Shin's weak, hoarse
voice calling me, and I went to him.
"Should anything happen to me, will you pray for
me?*'
For a moment I did not know what to say.
"Have you ever prayed?" he asked.
'To the Christian god?" I said. "Yes, when I was
a child."
"That will do," he said. "Your voice might be
heard."
"I will try," I said. I did not know what else I could
li^;i^^^^li^^^^^^^^ 34
UPON ARRIVING AT CIC the next morning, I dis- covered that nearly one-third of the detachment had
left for Seoul during the night. The unexpected and
sudden collapse of our front lines had resulted in cha-
otic communications between units and between the
front and the rear; there were hardly any intelligence
reports from the front-line combat units. The atmos-
phere was tense. I was instructed by the colonel to
stand by for our withdrawal at any moment.
When I was able at last to return to the hospital in
the late afternoon, I was informed by the major that
Mr. Shin had left the hospital in his absence. Accord-
ing to him, a group of ministers had come to see Mr.
Shin in the morning and stayed with him for about
an hour. Then, shortly before noon the janitor and
his wife had come. "I was here when the old couple
came," he said, "but then I had to go to the Hospital
277
278
Command. When I got back the minister was gone.
My idiotic orderly, who hadn't lifted a finger to stop him from leaving, said there were lots of people, be-
sides the janitor and his wife, wanting to see the min-
ister, all waiting outside. They were from his church,
I think."
The major had sent a sergeant and the orderly to
church to bring him back to the hospital. Mr. Shin
was conducting a service and the men waited for it to
be over, but they were not able to persuade him to
come with them.
"So I went there myself," Major Minn said, "I
don't really know how I got into this and why I am
going out of my way for your minister friend. I can
only guess that I must always have been partial to
ministers because of my wife. Her minister used to
come to our house quite often; he was a jolly fellow
and I became a good friend of his, though I never
went to hear his sermons. Ah, well. Your friend wasn't
at the church, which was packed with those refugees.
I am afraid there are lots of sick people there. I found
out where he Uved from an old gentleman—one of his elders, I think, and went to his house. He was there
all right, but the janitor insisted that he didn't want to
see anyone. I sent in my name anyway, but it was no
use. He simply refused to see me. I asked the janitor
what his minister was doing. Praying, he said.
279
"You'd better go there right now and bring him
back here. If he is left alone like that he won't live
long. Praying isn't going to help his lungs."
Before I left I asked the major if there would be a
hospital train going to Seoul and whether he was
sending his patients to the South. He said there was
one leaving Pyongyang early the next morning. I told
him that I would like to send Mr. Shin on that train,
if the major could make arrangements.
"I don't see why not," he said. "He can travel with
one of my doctors." He looked at me searchingly.
"You don't think we are going to defend Pyongyang,
do you?" he said. "You don't have to tell me an oflQcial
secret."
I told him that, if the worst came, the Army might
not defend the city.
"If the worst comes . . ." he said. "And you think
the worst will come soon."
I nodded.
"I have twenty patients who mustn't be moved
around," he said. "God knows what I am supposed to
do with them,"
I drove to Mr. Shin's house, hoping that he would
see me if no one else. Yet the only reply I received
from the janitor, who obliged me by informing Mr.
280
Shin of my visit, was that his minister did not wish to
see anyone at the moment.
"Please come back," the old man said tearfully. "I
know he trusts you. He is sick but I can't find a doctor
around here. There isn't anyone left. I don't know
why he made me bring him back here but I do what
he tells me to do. I shouldn't have told him people
from the church were waiting outside the hospital,
wanting to see him. I know he is terribly sick. But the
others don't know he is, and that's what worries me."
"You should tell them he's too sick to see them,"
I said.
"They have been meeting practically every day and
night at the church and they want him there. They
even come here for special prayer meetings. And then
those ministers—^well, they come here almost every' night, staying so long, talking, talking, when he ought
to be in bed. But what can I do? I tell them he is sick,
so leave him alone, but they just don't listen to me.
They are all scared, you see, so they want him to tell
them not to be scared. What can I do?"
I told him he was to keep everyone away until I
returned, and I left a note for Mr. Shin about the hos-
pital train for Seoul.
I went to CIC, where I stayed for an hour or so,
and then drove back to Mr. Shin's house.
281
He still would not see me nor give me any reply
to my note.
"He said have courage so you can give him cour-
age," the old man said. 'That's all he said. I am sorry."
^^;^^^;^;^;^;^^^^^ 35
I DID NOT see Mr. Shin for the next few days. The atmosphere in the city became tense, the mood of our
men gloomier as each hour went by.
One afternoon, on my way back to C3C from a
meeting at the Area Command, I was driving by the
city hall, where in the wide square I ran into a pro-
cession of marchers. They had held a rally in the
square and were starting on a tour throughout the
city. It was an organized popular demonstration, ex-
pressing the peoples' protest against the Chinese inter-
vention and their entreaty to the United Nations for
a speedy retaliation. A Military Police man, who directed the traffic, had stopped my jeep, and I was
thus able to observe the marchers as they came by.
Though sunny the day was brisk with a cold wind
blowing. Banners of all colors fluttered in the wind.
A group of teachers came abreast of my jeep, foUowed
282
283
by a long line of high school students, in their black
uniforms, who chanted rhythmically: *T)own with the
Chinese Conmiunists! Long Live the Republic of
Korea! Long Live the United Nations!" The group fol-
lowing them represented the Pyongyang Federation of
Labor; and then the Anti-Communist Youth Associa-
tion group snake-danced by, shouting incoherently;
children trotted along, most of them bewildered but
some of them giggling, waving Korean flags, American
flags and a few U.N. flags; a high school brass band
marched by, blaring out-of-tune Korean Army march-
ing songs; women, old and young, quietly followed
the band. And then came Mr. Shin.
Ahead of him, two young men carried a banner that
read: The Federation of Christians of Pyong-
yang. Directly behind them, twelve men, all wearing
black robes, carried upon their breasts black-ribboned
portraits of the martyrs. In the center, somberly
flanked by the twelve portraits, Mr. Shin walked
slowly, his body erect in a black overcoat. The glasses
of the framed portraits reflected the sun in blinding
patches of light. Above Mr. Shin and slightly behind
the portrait-bearers were two placards held aloft by an
old man and Chaplain Koh, reading: In the spirit of
THE twelve martyrs, Arise! and Christian breth-
ren, unite and pray for victory! Then came the
ministers, some of whom I recognized, and their fol-
284
lowers. The procession halted briefly. The band now
played a Sousa march. They began to move again. I
could not see Mr. Shin anymore. A helicopter ap- peared overhead and sprayed the people and the street
with leaflets. The sun flashed. The wind scooped up the
leaflet<i, then hurled them down at the pavement. I got
out of the jeep and picked one up; its headline said:
Victory soon! our forces begin counterattack!
Later in the afternoon, while I was at CIC, I had a
telephone call from Colonel Chang. He had known
that I was still in the city.
"I saw Mr. Shin today," he said, "and the chaplain."
I told him that I, too, had seen them.
"What on earth are they doing here? And why are
they marching down the street like that!"
I explained to him briefly what had happened so
far.
"So you don't think they will go, do you?" he said.
I said I could not tell.
"It seems Mr. Shin is now the undisputed leader of
the Christians here," he said. "That makes it hard for
him. Now, mark my words. The CIC will be getting
out of here tomorrow morning. I know that for a fact.
Get them out with you by all means. Get them out,
will you?"
I told him that I would do my best.
285
"If they won't go," he said, "well, 111 see what I
can do."
That evening, at CIC, I received oflBcial instructions
to leave Pyongyang the next morning. I went again to
Mr. Shin's house and learned that he had gone to his
church.
I found him there, standing in front of his congre-
gation with an open Bible in his hands, flanked by two
candles on a small table. The congregation knelt be-
fore him. Behind them were crowded the refugees. He
saw me as I stood there quietly, and put the Bible
down on the table and came to me.
I told him that I was ordered to leave Pyongyang
the next morning.
"Then what those leaflets said is not true," he
whispered.
He slowly looked about him at the congregation
and at the refugees.
It seemed as though all the eyes in the church were
riveted upon me. "We lost the battle," I confessed.
"Good-bye, Captain," he said. "I wish you a safe
journey." He offered his hand, which I did not take.
"Good-bye. I must get on with the service."
He turned away but I detained him, conscious of
the people's eyes following our every move.
286
**Help me!" he said. "Give me courage! Give me
com^ge to say good-bye to you!"
*Tell them to leave," I said. 'Tell them we are not
wimiing. Tell them we are not going to defend the
city!"
*They all know that," he said.
"If they know, why don't they leave?"
"How far can they go? How long can they endure
tiieir sufiEering? The young people have already left
But the old and the sick, the women and the children
—they are too weak." "And you?"
"My place is at their side. If no one else, then I
must make them believe God cares for them and I
care for them. Good-bye, Captain Lee."
I gave in to his serene gaze. I took his hand. "Good-
bye, Mr. Shin," I said. "Is there anything I can do for
you before I leave?"
His pale face seemed to smile. He held both my hands in his. "Help me! Help my work wherever you
may be."
I could not bear to leave him like this.
He whispered, "Love man, Captain! Help him! Bear
your cross with courage, courage to fight despair, to
love man, to have pity on mortal man."
He left me to rejoin his followers. "My brethren, let us pray," he said.
287
The congregation bowed their heads. Mr. Shin
gazed at me and nodded slightly.
I bowed to him and withdrew. I closed the door,
leaving behind me the murmuring voices of those who
had their god and the one who loved them.
I stopped by CIC to receive provisions for my jour-
ney; I was issikd a submachine gun and ammunition
to be prepared for possible encounters with enemy
guerrillas on the way.
I could not find Chaplain Koh; he had returned to
the camp a few miles west of Pyongyang, where he
was setting up a refugee post maintained by the
Christians.
I returned to the hospital and saw that it was being
evacuated; ambulances were being loaded with pa-
tients. Major Minn, who met me at the entrance,
informed me that he had shipped out most of his
patients. "But I still have twenty or so who are criti-
cal," he said. "K I move them, they will die. I am supposed to use my discretion about them. My dis- cretion, indeed! My God, why don't they just tell me to leave them behind! Isn't that what they want me to do!"
I held his arm. "We will do our best," I said. I did
not know what else I could say to him.
288
'The patients will die anyway," he said. "That's the
way my superiors figure."
Snowflakes whirled about, swishing in and out of
the Ught beams of the vehicles. One after another, the
ambulances whined away into the dark night.
^^^l^^^n^^l^i^ii^l^^ 36
I WAS IN my room when, sometime after midnight, I looked out of the window and saw that the general
retreat had begun.
Tanks and guns were rumbling into the city from
the North, then clattering through the streets to the
bridge across the river to the South. From the southern
side of the river, an endless line of empty trucks, with
their headlights blazing, crossed the bridge into the
city, grinding their way to the North to evacuate the
troops. By 3 a.m., two-way traflBc, to the South and
to the North, reached its highest flux. Trucks from
the North began to pass through the city, loaded with
troops. The air base across the river hummed on as
planes screeched up into the cold, windy darkness;
searchlights pierced the black sky, clashing with each
other, crisscrossing. More field guns rolled out of the
city, their dark long shapes dimly revealed in the
289
290
lights of the passing trucks. A Military Police jeep zigzagged through the traffic, red lights blinking. In
another hour I began to hear the distant rumbling of
artillery barrages; the black horizon of the northern
sky continuously flashed and boomed. Infantry troops
began to appear, slogging along, and now and then a
machine gim chattered. Suddenly the whole sky over
the city was illuminated by flares. Shadowy buildings,
tanks, trucks, guns, troops, lampposts, bleak glass
windows in deserted shops, the belfry over the slope
were lit up in a cold phosphorescent brightness; search-
lights fought with each other; fireballs burst in the
sky; the air shook with the hammering barrages of
antiaircraft guns; jet fighters swished overhead. Dark-
ness returned once again and with it a sudden hush,
then the whining, purring of motors and heavy shuf-
fling footsteps of the troops—all flowing toward the bridge.
I got ready to leave. I rang up CIC to report my de-
parture but received no answer. I cut the wire and
destroyed the telephone and the field-radio set and left
the room. My footsteps echoed in the dark, empty building as I went down the steps. When I reached
the ground floor, I heard a door squeak open from
the direction of our former briefing room; a voice
whispered, "Captain Lee? Is that you?"
"Yes. Who are you?" I whispered back.
291
A beam from a flashlight shot out of darkness. "It's me." It was Major Mum.
"Are you still here?" I said. ''What are you doing?"
*T. am staying as long as I can," he said, coming
close to me. "I have twenty-two men dying in there."
He pointed to the former briefing room. "I have gotten
everyone else shipped out."
"You'd better get out of here," I said, "as fast as
you can."
"So we are sneaking out," he said. "Just as we did
in Seoul when the whole damn thing started."
"Come, Major, I think you have stayed long
enough."
"What has happened to your minister-friend?"
I told him Mr. Shin was staying in the city.
"You never can teU what these ministers are up to,"
he said. "I can understand what they must feel. My wife's minister stayed in Seoul and got kidnapped by
the Reds. I told him to hide or do something but he
wouldn't. He just wouldn't run away."
"Now it's my turn to tell you to get out of here," I
said. "Come, Major. Come!"
"I am not trying to be holy or brave. I am just
trying to be decent."
Suddenly we heard a jeep screech to a halt at the
entrance.
292
•Turn off the light!" I said to the major and pushed
him behind me.
Someone kicked the door open and ran into the
building, shouting my name. I got the flashlight from
the major and stepped out.
It was a sergeant from CIC. "We tried to reach you
but the line was cut off. The colonel told me to make
sure you had left. We are getting out, sir. We are going to blow up the bridge in a few hours. So you'd
better hurry."
After the sergeant left I said to the major, "I think
you have been decent enough. Major. We ought to go now."
"Yes, I suppose," he said. "Give me a few minutes.
I want to write a letter."
I did not understand him.
"I want to leave a note to my counterpart on the
other side. I don't care if he is a Chinese or a North
Korean or a Russian. If he is a real doctor he will
read it and know what I feel. I have aU the records of
those men in there and whatever medicine I could
scrounge up."
He wanted to take a last look at his patients. I
volunteered to come with him but he did not want me
to. "You'd better not. At least I can spare you from
that. I won't be long." He walked into the room.
When he came out he said, "Six died. Four may
293
survive. I can't tell." He added wearily, "You know, I
wanted to pray for them but I couldn't. I felt so
damned blasphemous. Treat them decently—that's all I could say."
We left the building in silence. He drove ahead in
his jeep and I followed him in mine. The streets were
deserted. The withdrawal seemed to have been almost
completed. When we reached the bridge, vehicles and
troops were still crossing in a congested file. Jeeps,
mounted with machine guns, patrolled the streets near
the bridge. Refugees had gathered, and Military Police
were fending them off the streets. Feet shuffled; motors
roared; and voices shouted in Korean, "Civilians to the
downstream! To the downstream bridge!" English
mingled with Korean. Planes flew overhead in the
dark heavens.
Suddenly Major Minn's jeep swimg out of the line
of vehicles. He shouted to me, "Good-bye, Captain
Lee!" Before I had a chance to speak his jeep lurched
forward, then roared back into the city. "Hurry up!
Hurry up!" an American MP cried, waving a dimmed flashlight. I drove onto the creaking bridge.
While I was still on the bridge explosions down the
river to my right shook my jeep; fireballs soared up
into the black sky; the downstream bridge was being
destroyed. I drove on, squeezed in between the trucks
of American xmits and those of Korean units. We
294
moved slowly. About half an hour later, barely two
miles beyond the bridge, we were at a standstill, when
we heard a series of shattering explosions. A few parka-clad American soldiers in the truck ahead of my
jeep were looking out of the canvas cover. A voice cried out, "There goes the God-danmed bridge!"
Another shouted, "Oh, Jesus! Look at that!" I got
out of my jeep and looked back toward Pyongyang.
The doomed city was in flames.
;j^^^^^l^;^^^;i^l^;^l^ 37
WHEN I REACHED Seoul I was assigned to a special section of Army Intelligence that maintained direct
communications with our agents in North Korea; I
was thus able to follow the activities of Colonel Chang,
among others, through the clandestine reports he con-
tinued to send us from Pyongyang.
Park was somewhere on the eastern front, pre-
sumably near Hungnam, where our forces, having re-
treated from the Manchurian-Siberian border, were
estabUshing a bridgehead, awaiting their evacuation.
As for Major Minn, the Hospital Command, which
had set up its temporary headquarters in Seoul, could
tell me only that he had been officially hsted as miss-
ing.
Two days before Christmas our troops were suc-
cessfully evacuated from Hungnam, thus completing
our general retreat from North Korea. The next day
295
296
my request for transfer was granted and I began to prepare myself for my new assignment; I was to report for duty to a Korean Infantry regiment deployed just
north of Seoul.
On that Christmas Eve I withdrew early to my quonset hut, where I had a solitary supper of American
rations. I was reading a Japanese translation of Au-
relius' Meditations, when I had an unexpected visitor,
an Army captain of about my age, fully equipped for combat.
Following our mutual introductions the captain re-
moved his helmet and rubbed his hands over his
sunken cheeks. "I just got back from Pyongyang a
few days ago," he said. "I have something for you
from Colonel Chang." He produced a small envelope
and handed it to me. He explained that he had been
engaged in a secret intelligence operation in an area
about fifty miles northeast of Pyongyang, which had
been overrun by the Chinese shortly before our general
retreat had begun. Instructed to return to Seoul, he
managed to reach Pyongyang, which he found had
already been evacuated, and got in touch with Colonel
Chang. He stayed in Pyongyang for two days in a
hiding place arranged for him by the colonel, left for
a small fishing village on the west coast, then eventu-
ally went to an off-shore island held by our Marines;
he spent a day there before he was taken to Inchon by
297
a Korean Navy transport ship. "Colonel Chang gave
me that," he said, pointing to the envelope in my
hands, "and asked me to deliver it to you. So there it
is." He stood up; he was in a hurry to go.
When he had left I read Colonel Chang's note:
I am about to send this man through one of my
routes, a very safe one. I saw Mr. Shin, whom I
could not persuade to go with this man. No reason-
ing is possible with him; he is determined to stay
here, and so is the chaplain. I tried my best, assur- ing them that my secret passage is absolutely safe.
They are still safe; the Reds haven't touched them
yet. I'll try again, since it is such a pity not to take
advantage of my route, which is guarded by my own guerrillas. Pyongyang is a mess. It has become a
Chinatown. Pity! Good luck. Chang.
P.S. Just after I wrote this I learned that the chap-
lain has vanished from the city. Well, good for him,
I say! His followers had forced him into hiding.
^^l^^^;^^^;^^^^^ 38
ON THE FOURTH day of January, 1951, a few days after the Communist forces had launched an all-out
offensive, we scorched and abandoned Seoul, then
retreated further south beyond the Han River. Our
counteroffensive began in the latter part of January
but it was not until March 14 that the devastated
capital city was again in our hands.
I was wounded during the battle of Seoul when my
company, having participated in smashing the enemy's
bridgehead east of the Han River, engaged in street
fighting in the city. I was temporarily accommodated
in a field hospital, until I was shipped to Taegu and
then finally to Pusan in the second week of April to
an Army hospital for convalescents.
Preceding the fall of Seoul all the major govern-
mental agencies had been evacuated to Pusan, which
served as the temporary capital; apart from Army
298
299
headquarters, which remained in Taegu, everything
seemed to be concentrated in that city. It was there,
while I was still in the hospital, that, one sunny after-
noon, Colonel Chang visited me unexpectedly.
Placing a bulky paper bag on the edge of my bed,
he said, "It took me some time to locate you, par-
ticularly because you had left Intelligence. Well, here
we are. I brought you some apples. I thought you
might like some." He had traced me through the
Adjutant General's Oflfice in Taegu, and decided to
pay me a visit, since he was coming to Pusan anyway
for a conference with someone at the Korean Marine
Corps headquarters. Army Intelligence had decided
to evacuate him from North Korea to put him in
charge of a new operation. "They sent a PT boat to
get me out," he said. "When I got back they told me
I was to direct a sort of hit-and-run guerrilla operation
against the coastal installations in North Korea and
Manchuria. I have North Korean volunteers, Army
agents and Marine cormnandoes in my operation and
of course I have the Navy to help me."
I was eager to ask about his operation in Pyongyang
but he showed no inclination to touch upon that sub-
ject. For a while we discussed the nature of his new
operation. Then after he had peeled the skin off an
apple for me he stood up and went to the window that
300
looked out over the sprawling city to the sea. He re-
marked that I had a marvelous view.
When he returned to his chair he began peeling an
apple for himself and said, "I am afraid Mr. Shin is
dead." He added hastily, "Of course I can't be too
sure about that. All I know for certain is that he was
arrested and thrown into jail in Pyongyang. As you
know I saw him soon after the Chinese came in. He
was stni allowed to conduct services at his church dur-
ing the next few weeks." He cut up the apple, munched
on a slice. "I tried to see him again. It was too late.
He had already been taken away. I found out that
the Reds came to his church one Simday and broke
up the service, then took him with them. By that time
they had banned all religious meetings. A few other ministers who were still there were also taken away.
I had no trouble finding out what happened to them
and where they were held. I had my men pass the
word around to the Christians as to the whereabouts
of Mr. Shin and the other ministers. At least that was
something I could do for them.
"Then on Christmas Eve a group of Christians went
to the prison where the ministers were and in spite of
the Reds who threatened to arrest them, they sang
Christmas carols for more than half an hour. The Red
guards apparently thought the singing was harmless
and let the Christians sing and leave. But the secret
301
police didn't think so at all, and the next day the
ministers were moved to another prison, then a few
days later, they were sent off to the North. That's the
last thing I know of Mr. Shin and the others."
Colonel Chang sheathed his knife, gathered up the
apple peels, and put them in the bag. "He was quite
ill when I saw him last. That's why I am afraid he is
dead. He couldn't have survived the ordeal. The Reds
closed down all the churches and arrested practically
everyone else they thought was influential among the
Christians. Not only the Christians, of course. So-
called peoples' trials and public executions went on in
every square in the city. We could have blown up a few places and even the secret police headquarters but
then more innocent people would have been perse-
cuted. So we couldn't do too much to retaliate except
to shoot up several high-ranking Reds."
We sat quietly for a while. Colonel Chang asked me about Park. I had no news
of him. He then asked me if Chaplain Koh had been to
see me.
"What about the chaplain?" I asked.
"Oh, I am sorry. I thought you knew what happened to him," he said. "He was kidnapped from Pyongyang,
as you know. No, no, don't look at me like that. I didn't do it. The people of his congregation did. They
forced him to hide, then slipped him out of Pyongyang
302
—heaven knows how. He went back to his brigade after that. Well, he is out of the Army now. Obviously
he doesn't know you are here. He is in Pusan. That's
why I thought you knew. I am on my way to see him,
as a matter of fact. I'll tell him you are here."
According to the colonel, the former chaplain had
resigned from the Army after the battle of Seoul and
had settled down on a small island just outside the
harbor of Pusan, where he tended a church in a
refugee camp. Nearly two thousand refugees from
North Korea were accommodated there; the colonel
thought there were many Christians among them.
"Ah, those Christians," he said, "wherever they
may be, they will have their church, even in a refugee
camp, and there is always someone to look after them.
"Speaking of their church, by the way," he added,
"do you remember the one across the street from our
detachment in Pyongyang? The one that clanged its
bell all the time? It's gone now and so is the building
we were in. Our bombers did a thorough job on
Pyongyang the day you got out of it, when the
Chinese were pouring in. Yes. That block is nothing
but rubble now." He rose from his chair. "Well, I
must leave you. Captain. I am glad to see you are
recovering well and I hope the Army will let you go
back to your university when you get out of here."
^l^;i^li^lj^;i^^^li^l^l^^^ 39
THOUGH MY CONDITION improved I was not recovering fast enough and I had to remam in the
hospital. Then one day, about two weeks after Colonel
Chang's visit, Mr. Koh came to see me. When he was
shown into my room I did not recognize him immedi-
ately. His mustache was gone and he had lost con-
siderable weight. He stood near me at the open
window. I asked him if he had seen Colonel Chang.
"Yes. He came to see me at the camp," he said. "I
wanted to come to see you before this but I have been
unable to leave the island." He had about two hundred
Christians among the refugees in the camp and new
refugees arrived nearly every day. "They come from
all parts of the North. How they managed to escape
from there is beyond my comprehension but they
keep coming, alone or in small groups, by land and by
boat. I am afraid, though, it won't be too long before
all the escape routes are sealed off by the Reds."
303
304
A cool breeze from the sea rustled the curtains. He looked out of the window and pointed to the eastern
side of the harbor. "Our camp is out there," he said.
"It is now called the Tent Island because we all live in
tents. I hope you will come and visit us. We have quite a few Christians from Pyongyang and they all knew
Mr. Shin, of course. But I haven't been able to learn
anything definite about him. No one seems to know
for sure what happened to him."
"You have heard from Colonel Chang about him
haven't you?" I said.
He came back from the window and faced me
gloomily. "Colonel Chang is dead!" he said, and his
voice broke. When he was able to compose himself
he handed me a letter.
The letter read:
... It grieves me to inform you that Colonel Chang
has been killed in action while performing his duty
for his country and for his people. I know you two
have been close to each other through many an
ordeal and I know, therefore, how this news will
sadden you. As an oflBcer in charge of the operation
he did not have to participate in person in the raid
in which he met his death. He died somewhere on the
coast of southern Manchuria. I am sorry I cannot tell you more than this. But I can tell you that his
death was a noble and brave one. When he zmd his
men were ready to withdraw from the beach they
305
were met by a heavy attack from the enemy and it
became impossible for the entire raiding party to
withdraw safely. Colonel Chang and a few others
stayed and held the enemy, while the others made
their way to the landing craft that evacuated them.
A few days later, through our agents, we learned that the enemy had captured one of our men who
died of his wounds later, but Colonel Chang and the
others had been killed in the battle. It was a sacri-
fice on the part of the colonel beyond the call of duty
and I have taken necessary measures to see to it that
his heroic sacrifice be property commemorated. I
would like you to come to Taegu to see me at your
convenience, for I have a certain smn of money that
was left by Colonel Chang for you. I have had my oJBBcers, those who worked with the colonel, con-
tribute, and I hope you will come to Taegu, so that
I may have the pleasure of seeing you again and
personally entrusting you with the money. It was
Colonel Chang's wish that you use the money to
purchase Bibles for your church at the camp, for he
had seen that you had very few of them available for
your people. . . .
l^^^\!^^;^;^^^^;j^^^ 40
BY THE SECOND week of May I was well enough to be allowed to leave the hospital for occasional brief
visits to the city. One afternoon, shortly after I had
returned from a walk, a doctor came to my room,
accompanied by a young Marine sergeant.
The sergeant had come from Chinhai, a naval town
about three hours drive from Pusan to the west. He
was an assistant to the chaplain at the naval hospital
there.
"You have been sent for by the chaplain," the doc-
tor explained.
"It is about Captain Park, sir," the sergeant said.
"His records said we should notify you in case of
emergency. He was wounded on May second on the
eastern front. We finally located you down here, sir, and we would appreciate it, Captain, if you would
come to see him."
306
307
"I think it would be all right," the doctor said. "You
can make the trip."
The sergeant would drive me to Chinhai and back
to Pusan.
Twilight was slowly approaching when we arrived
at the Naval hospital in Chinhai. The chaplain was not
in his office; he was visiting Park. The sergeant took
me to the doorway of Park's room, where I saw the
chaplain seated beside the bed in the dim Ught, quietly
praying. Beyond his silvery head, I saw Park's dark
profile, half buried in the white pillow. I waited for
the chaplain outside the room. Presently he came out
to meet me.
After thanking me for coming, he said that Park
had been unconscious for the last two hours and sug-
gested that we come back later. He was an old man
with many wrinkles in his pale face. We walked out of the hospital, side by side, into a spacious garden that
looked out onto the bay, where gray warships lay
quietly moored. The distant horizon glowed with the
lingering rays of sunset. We sat down on the grass. "I am afraid he won't last long," he said in a low
voice. "I heard that they removed three bullets from
his chest before he was sent down here. He was all
right when he came. One day he sent for me and said
he was a sinner as ancient as mankind is. A strange thing to hear from a Marine officer, don't you think?
308
I understood him, naturally, when he told me that his
father was a Christian minister. Just that and nothing
more. I have talked with him off and on. Meanwhile,
his condition became worse and this morning the doc-
tors told me that he might not survive. So I sent for
you. I would have sent for you sooner but Captain
Park's records came here only yesterday.
"I saw him this afternoon and told him that you
were coming. He was hardly able to talk but managed
to ask me to write this down for you." He gave me a
sheet of paper. "I don't quite understand it but I hope
you do."
The words read:
I have been clinging onto the precipice of History,
but I give up. I am prepared to take leave of it.
A cool breeze drifted toward the land from the darkening sea. The long shadow of a flagpole stretched
up the sloping garden. The grass felt chilly against my
palms.
"If he dies," I said to the chaplain, "will you give
him a Christian burial?"
"Yes, of course," he said. "That would be quite
proper for a minister's son." He lighted his pipe. "Will
you do me the honor of being my guest at the officers'
club? After dinner we will go to see your friend."
I thanked him and followed him across the garden
to the club.
309
Park did not regain consciousness while I sat beside
him that night and he died quietly around three
o'clock in the morning.
Late in the afternoon he was buried in the Naval
cemetery on a hill that rose gently behind the town of
Chinhai, facing the glistening, dark-green expanse of
the Korea Straits. The chaplain read from the Bible
and prayed. The white cross on the grave shone
harshly in the hot sun. Someone had placed a few
sprigs of blooming azaleas on the moist, dark-brown
earth of the grave. The chaplain's low voice whispered,
"Amen."
A few days later, the Marine Corps headquarters sent me three medals of Park's, together with a cita-
tion posthumously awarded to him by the Chief of
Naval Operations, which read, in part:
. . . ordered to execute a rearguard action so as to
insure a safe completion of the tactical redeploy-
ment of his battalion, he led the survivors of his
company in a heroic defense of a critical mountain
pass, superbly demonstrating his ability as an in-
spiring Marine officer, mercilessly repelling the re-
peated assaults of a battalion of the enemy, until the
last man and the last piece of equipment of his bat-
talion were established in a new position of
strength. ...
;^^^^^;^^^;^^^^^ 41
ONE LATE SUNDAY afternoon, a few days before I was to be discharged from the hospital I took a feny
and went to the Tent Island to visit Mr. Koh. In the
midst of the rows and rows of dark-green tents on the
flat, barren island. North Korean children ran about
barefoot in the choking dust imder the glaring sun of
the South, sUpping in and out of the dark mouths of
the sweltering tents, leaping over and crawling under
the network of ropes that held the tents together.
Voices hummed within the shelters, women hung
clothes on ropes between the tents, and a group of old
people were gathering in front of one that had a Red
Cross sign.
I found Mr. Koh hammering in nails, putting boards
together in the oppressive humid interior of one of the
tents. He took me outside. "This is my church," he
said, pointing to the tent with his hammer. "I am try-
310 ^
311
ing to make a JBcx)r for it before the rainy season be-
gins." He suggested that we walk down to the beach,
where, he said, it might be cooler. "You don't see
many men now," he said as we were walking toward
the beach. "They all work in Pusan during the day,
even on Sundays."
We sat on a flat rock that jutted out above the water. A freighter was gUding out of the harbor. Be- hind us in Pusan, motors bustled and cranes clanked.
The water lapped quietly beneath us.
I told him about Park's death.
He nodded slowly without a word.
After a long silence, he said, "You know, I have
been puzzled by this and I am glad I have you here to
talk about it. As you know we have many Christians
here from practically every comer of the North. I
have come to know them all, of course, and I have
asked them if they knew anything about what hap-
pened to Mr. Shin." He paused rolling up the sleeves
of his khaki shirt. "I have been asking that at every
service and of every newcomer. The word got around
the entire camp that I was asking about Mr. Shin.
The strange thing is that, so far, I have talked with
nearly a dozen people who claim to have seen him.
There are about three or four from Pyongyang who
say that they saw him very much aUve. They don't
surprise me. For all I know they may be telling the
312
truth. But then, of course, we know what Colonel
Chang told us. What puzzles me most is that there
are many people not from Pyongyang who say that
they have seen him. Some say they have seen a man
of his description in a small town on the Manchurian
border. Some say they have seen him on the west
coast. Some insist that they have seen him on the east
coast in a fishing village. It is hard to believe them.
But they all insist that the man they claim to have
seen fits my description in every single detail. What
do you make of that?"
I did not know what to say.
He tapped the rock with the hammer. "Could it be
that the Communists have been sort of dragging him
around?" he said, frowning. "You know, as an enemy
of the people and the state and so on. Most of those
refugees say that he was free. Can you imagine? Not
only alive but free? If I were to beheve all of their
stories, well, Mr. Shin is everywhere in North Korea.
Of course, in such circumstances as we find ourselves
here, refugees are naturally more incUned to remem-
ber or imagine many things they have left behind."
"Such as their memories of suffering?"
He nodded, gazing at me. "But last night I talked
with a man who just came here. He had left Pyong-
yang about a month ago. He is not a Christian but
he had known of Mr. Shin through newspapers and
313
such. Captain, this man is the only person on this
island who told me that Mr. Shin is dead. According
to him he was publicly executed in Pyongyang some-
time in April."
I asked him if the man had seen the execution.
He shook his head. 'That's the trouble. He is not an
eyewitness. So . . . which story should one believe?"
"How odd, that people from different provinces
should think they all have seen Mr. Shin."
'•Yes, and who am I to contradict or doubt what
they claim? They have heard the description of Mr.
Shin and they think they know him." He struck the
rock with the hammer again.
Later when we came back to his tent church he
asked me to stay a little longer. I accepted his invita-
tion and said I was sorry that my visit had interfered
with his work on the floor for the church.
"Oh, I am not in a hurry," he said. "There is always
tomorrow."
I helped him put the boards and nails away, then
clean the church. We then sat out in the sun, facing the tents, watching the children play, and listening
to the humming voices around us. He was smoothing
the rough surface of a wooden cross with a pocket-
knife. "I made it this morning," he said. "I thought
the church ought to have a cross."
314
Gradually the air began to cool and the shadows of
the tents traveled toward us over the ground. Ferries
began to brmg the refugees back to the island from
Pusan. Voices, footsteps, children's shouting mingled
with the tooting and chugging of the ferries. People
appeared from all directions, many of them heading
for the beach where we had been; and there they
cleansed themselves. Offshore the gray figure of a
destroyer loomed. Wiping the cross with a handker-
chief, Mr. Koh invited me to supper. We went into a tent adjoining the church and shared some canned
food. Outside, from the other tents, came loud voices,
occasional laughter, and the tinkling of pots and pans.
He got up. "I'll go and see if I can get some hot
water," he said. "Then we can have some tea."
The dusk fell slowly.
After the meal I went to the church with him and
helped him set up folding chairs for the evening serv-
ice. On the right hand side of the entrance he placed
two chairs on which he stacked Bibles and hymnbooks.
A young barefoot boy appeared in a white cotton shirt and rolled-up khaki pants. Mr. Koh gave him a
brass bell with a wooden handle. The boy went out-
side and began to ring the beU. After hghting two can-
dles, Mr. Koh took his position behind a table that
served as an altar; he held a Bible in one hand, the
315
cross in the other. I sat on a chair near the entrance.
Christians were arriving.
So it was that I found myself in the tent church,
beneath the dome of tarpauhn in the warm, thick air,
in the midst of a congregation of North Korean refu-
gees, Ustening to their murmured prayers and ecstatic
chantings, hearing the impassioned sermon delivered
by their minister. I gazed at the two candles twinkling
on the table, behind which stood the minister, now
with both hands gripping the wooden cross; and I
whispered to myself that I had indeed come a long,
long way from Pyongyang, while the scenes and the
events of the recent past illuminated themselves in my
memory like the pictures on a revolving lantern.
The congregation bowed their heads silently.
A latecomer opened the flaps of the entrance and sUpped in. The candles flared up and, for a second,
the white wooden cross looked red.
Minister Koh said, "Let us pray ... let us pray for
our brethren in the North."
Murmuring voices, rising and subsiding, began to
envelop me.
"Our Father," he began.
"Our Father," voices echoed him.
How long, I wondered, how long will the people
listen to the voices whispering to them, one from
within history, the other from far beyond history.
316
each promising them salvation and justice, each ask-
ing them to pledge themselves to its promise? And
suddenly, I remembered that night of violence at Mr.
Shin's; I saw again, in the Ught that seeped through
the line of guards and Military Police, the cluster of
old women kneeling in the snow, heard again their
sorrowful dirge, laden with the world's grief. But . . .
until it was time for them to chant a dirge for me . . .
I left the church and stood outside, listening to the
voices of those who had their god and could say
"Amen."
Soon the service was over and the boy came out of
the tent to ring his bell again.
I walked away from the church, past the rows of
tents where silent suffering gnawed at the hearts of
people—^my people—and headed toward the beach, which faced the open sea. There a group of refugees,
gathered under the starry dome of the night sky, were
humming in unison a song of homage to their home-
land. And with a wondrous Ughtness of heart hitherto
unknown to me, I joined them.
Introductory Comments
and
Notes
by
Wang-Rok Chang
Introduction
sjH 4A7l7l- -?-^J^l >1MM :^B^ ^ 4^ '<J^*J: ^-If-^ Richard E. Kim(t:,i.S)f^ <?6lt5c^>(®^ : The Martyred) 7f x-j ^c| 4.
.ri47Mi^ -He^T °^°JiHl, tl-l-H ^^°J°d J-7} 4^7j:^ ^^A5. nl-^E^*V ^<Hlr t"4*V^ ^-I^^ ^^i -^m "V-d -r4^ $ftff* ^
^^]E. 3.7)1 7iH^ °^*I4. ^1^ °l *-^-& "yr^Jr^ ^1 "^4 ^^1 ?*'
^^.^<H, °^-^^ -§- -Hi Til 4-^<HHi Hl^^J:<^l 4AJL 514^ ^4.
4^ ^^'^d-irSl X7MJ-I: ^ -^ 01 i^ ^^1tPl: ^i-^ '^H^i ^V ^ JiL-fe- ^"^l 4<d7V i\:iL ^}^}t\7] ^ 4. 4^1 oil ^ SI stYf <^^> (Grass Roof. 1931)°l ^^^^ ^ 3i ¥A f^ <f,l^ir-^ 3L^4> (Yalu Fliesst, 1932)-£- ^^ 4- a.el 4 <?6ll^*>^ *t]-4T ^«.^^1 ^S.^ «l-t 4-<<d7j:&l ^J-T^>.1- #1^1> -^^^-inl ^^d<Hl ^1V4.
""^I^ ^i^tUl 4^ °J:°-^ -H^i 7V^1 ^^^ °ot>ye.l S14JL ^ ^ 7^^^ >^J-^d^ 4i^ ^Hl ^l^tV^l^-i-^l 4?j(To which one did you
mean to appeal, granting that there are several kinds of conscience
as you seem to imply? p. 110).
'"'HMI7V ^si^UVai i4iel(^f^S)*l-^l ?*^4-^ ^oflJi4i ^^1
°1^ iJ-E^l-Hl Sl4-t 5j<Hl ti ^A-^ ^vlBl7l- 5i 4. (Deeper truth lies in
the fact that the world is not meaningless and absurd but is in a
meaningless state, p. 229)
.
3
^^ xi^^ a^s] sV4^1 4^-1: 4l^*l-i 5l^l°J: -^'5! ^4^ ^d'O-^i oi 11^1 T^llr ^-^^^A^ 5}-:2- -& m^.m^.l /J^i^^lel-JL ^ -^ 514.
^-1-4 ±^\^ ^-l-f-oil^i ol *Jii- ^'-fl 2- 4^1 ^)^1 d)-^d4:i^ 5114. -^1
i). 4^sfoi (Efoj)!* (2^ 27 BM) •fP'Hl^it -^-l^^^l ^^t\jL 5i4. ""^cil 4i^io)l -i-^o'-sl-^ ^jil--^ ^'Hl #1*1: 4^>-i:'^l 4^1 &1- ^Nft
^-1:. ^ ^1^<H1 4-=^ ^-li\JL SlA^^ii ^S^^l-s^lt ^-fi-A^ ^d *11^i 4^1- "i:;! Sl^ 4 ^'--1:^14. ^1:^ 4 ^J-'H) ^i 7I- o}.u1 e.|. ^n^
<H1^1 *J^ -^AH ^-1: 44^ ?Ei^^l ^ *i 4°o'-^ 'll^^tj-'d^i ^-1:
^*J: ^uj4^1 ^°d^°,l 51-^14. ^ i^* 4 "^l -^l^-^ 44^1 4 ^-1:4 Hii^^ ^ ^4. 44 4 «l *Ji-^ 44°il^l^1 <^*o'=^ 1>a{:A H a.<Hl7ll 6] ^ -i: til-;ilji Si 4. (The saints of modern fiction are
not the God-drunk but the nonbelievers- men racked with doubt but
cursed with the will to survive, They find their strength not in
faith but in despair, their heroism in acknowledging the prospect
of their own extinction.
Such a man is the hero of this somber and remorseless first
novel. As an examination of the theme, it can stand with the works
of Camus, by whom it was inspired and to whom it is dedicated. )
^^ -^4 El-°ii . ^ . el-H- 2n 16BM1: ^^ , ^ ^1 °^^<Hl ^^ .H<Hl 4e) 4-^(44 ^]^t\7\] ^^^1 ?) ^4^ ^^14*}: 444 tJ-^l <4^ ^-Hli 4^^ 'si^S)°14^ 4^A^ 444 4 ^ "=1 4N Si^ iHl n. ^tHeHl^i o^n] n^vsj-i 014.
"H^-^ ^^14 4H4-gr -§- • i^-i.^) =^^1,'k^'Hl 2. • 44 4 4^ ^ 5."^^ ^ ^J el 4 11 4-1-^1 ^i ^*14 4^A^^i -f-4-l- 4 4M) i SI4. <^l <?Sjl^#>-b 44 'Hi Til 4*^^i ^014. o] ;^ -^ aii ^ ^^ 4: 4f-'^H Aelli-s- U--I- ^014. (In any case, Mr, Kim's book
stands out as one written in the great moral and psychological
tradition of Job, Dostoevsky and Albert Camus, to whose memory
"The Martyred" is dedicated.lt is a magnificent achievement, and
4
will last.
<^n^>^ ^5 4 21 -b ^-^y^^ Y'f^]^] M- 4^1 <^a ^ ^ 21-b ^m 1- 4^011471- ^e|7i- ^Ai iJSL ^^ ^^ ^-=1 ^-fe*- rj^^y-jdi- lusion) -<^l ^^<Hl <'^^^e1-g: :^i>f-> (glorious illusion)*!^ "^i 4 ^^|„j. o\] ^14^1 t>jL n 61.^0] r;tjxj._j( reality)^ 4-r 4=- 4-t ^-i: HlJfiUA^ K^tyjL o|4. 7l^iil ^^^ch^l ^iv ^m^^^ ^^y} ^^7} ^^7} t]-^ ^^ °-^]o^ ^ 4xj 7lEl7V slElel-i °J ^4. ^^ef-^Hl oVwi4 4^ S-^o'- °>lf:-i-, "^^V^"^ i&#°d ^^ m, n±m. i^^^fe, ^^m -s-<^i ^ ?6)i^#-ir^ ^^ ^^y^-i-^ti^ 4^-}- ^-1:^ ^4-^°J 4*,}-^ &^*Vi 51-^ ^, <^>1 ^4^<HH1 H 4^V -1-^^ SV^ll: "-iH ^4.
<^ '=11'^^ m^ ^"^14 ^^ -t ^-^^ -^41- -8r <7M^>(like dogs) ^^^4 sV4'd^ H^^l-'d^i ^5dAwl mm^^"^ 7]^-MtM. 4-i:<^lel-JL 4 ^ ^4. ^^^ "^4 y-^ ^ -^-41: ^m^Mjl -f •i: ^ 2l^^4 ? |$<feeip-t ^^4 ^^i^^^i ^i^-^-l ^^^Awl f:^^ ia4 4^1 * l: ^4i ^ifeeip-^ 44^1 ^4*0: 4 '^ -1: ^1*)14 -b ^ ^-1- ^sj^uv^i °>-^ 4^'-4-^^ ?6)Kc#^l ^i7f 51 7)-^ *V4h!:^
-b i 44-£ "^f}^-^! sV4y-i: °tl^l U^^^ 4^^^ ^l-^iB. T^ni 45^-^^ -I- ^ §14. :i^^4'^ <^:iL4>4:n. o|i--i--gr 4 ^^1 ^-2- <^Jf- •f'^ Ti2-4t sl-4i al4-t 4«M''l^^ ^-?r<Hl itlV4. ZL ei4 ^4 %V4^ 7l^jiLi7)- 44-^4 i-=4 4 el i.^ iol- y]-^}^^ ^^^V ^iiL4^ #fSli[s]4o): PKV51-4. ^'^-H ^4 44«Hl 5)5l-<^ mar- tyr(^ia4)ai -y:^!. ^4^^l ^-^ ''471^1 4°o^ ^-^ iS* i^i 51-ir.ul 4el-el JI4-I: t^l 'kM 4 ^4^ ^^1*1-^ 4 ^J-j (a person who chooses to suffer or die rather than give up his faith or his
principles. )-^^ s) 4 514.
>11?-]4 ^^ :E.il4-& *l-4-£ ^4-i: "^4 ?s'al4-^ 4-^51- <^«tl: 4 i-lr-gr -i:^ ^oH^, 4^^1, --l<M)^l. °l4i^ -1-i *14<^ zi-i- STil
5
•y-^ ^7l 4l«fl +^^1: ^7l «fl-S:o11 ^iil4i^i£l iS^ 71-^1-t iH
^V^-i: ol ^^^^ °|^ fi^, |^fi#-i:<Hl7fl ^4-ej. ^;M)^ti;s^ ^
o| s!| oj -1:311 -t *fl °l ^1 <:>| 5. -f-^J! ^ °Jr# 7j-^ sj-jl. o)l c^ 5V4. —1.
v-i6v)°J ^^^ol&l-Ji -^4 ? °1^<HH1 4^7j- fijf^ c^^% ^ ^-1-71- °1 "J: # i§|i&5|- |t^o| 4t*}: 5l ^H^At^^ii i2.i5V:2- T^^J^l ^'U*1-4..S
^ -H^-2.^ ^ -^1 ^-]-i-8r -fel^ *1-^^ ¥«-!- ^^«V:n- ilS^ i^
i-4 'd^-i:<^l i-f- -i-^ si^ ^v^°d-ir«l7i "ii^oii, Ai^-^^ -f
e^ij(The Living Reed)!: ^^^1 ^mm "O^-^ h el 1: °J:-& 4 $1
^-§7 44* iv4)jL si 4.
is^^^oj ^-fi-^a^- ^^^4 4-c- -^i^4 4.^^ 4^4 :n.4-f .^^^V4-t ^-8: ^u"-"^^ 4e=i-S: "^^^Kl-. :iel4 ^^1-t 4^ <=l ^ -§- ''j4 4^4j(To take one incident and, through it express the uni- versal need of the human heart for God the agony of doubt
combined with the longing to believe, is difficult- indeed. Mr- Kim
has accomplished just this. )
mm. 4-1-^1 4 4 ^,@.^^l -^4 ^«lil4 'yr'Hl aUW ^^1-^ 1932
#
SJcH ^^S«M 8-15 »fl my. 1950 ^<H1 ^i-i:^^<Hl °J*i-111-^4 6-25 -f-e^o] 0^0^44 °l*3l- ^^<Hl^i i^ ^E| ^J-^a ^-& -f^A^ ^ -?-tf47f 1954^<Hl mm. °l-i-'*i ^^['HHi ^J^l*}-, ^-^^J^^^S oMiAii)- ^^Jc»)tv, ^VHH^ ^*,H^i "^-Sr^i- 'U ^^-l^'t 'd^tJ 4. :iel:ii ^^H ^ - ^] ^ ^^J ^ «]-<HHi ^-S:«^3iV %v;o-^^ ^^^\tyjL 514. 4^^i o)^ ^1°)^-|- '^^l U^ ^H ^^H ^ti"^ 4^ ^tj-
,4^ *J:4. ^^1 51- Ji4 €: 'y:^d-|- «l-^ °i--i- 7i^i44.
1964 ^ 4 ^ 6 B -^Tceip^l IH=4- -IrAH
B£ f*
NOTES
P. 5. Albert Camus (1913-1959) s.^}±.^ *#±«&^ ^^iy\, ^-^7K ^--^71, 1957^d<Hl NobeU^:t-i: «>^, UEtranger
(The Stranger)(1942), Lc Pes/eCThe Plague)(1947), Vho-
mmc Revoke (The Rebel)(1951),
P. 9. Holderlin Johann Christian Friedrich Holderlin (1779—
1843)^'^^^] ifA. <^1 '^^-i-i^^d'^1'^^ shee]-^ ^-^ the grave
suffering land (of mine)-|- 7|-s^<L4.
P. 11. 8. junior officers tj-^^^h^
9. battle-tested ;^d-^ 7j-^o] o}^
14. Mopping-up operation ^^'-^•--j.
16. (we) were both promised(to be conferred) medals
P. 12. 1. a first lieutenant ^^\
2. the eastern front -f-r-^d-li
3. antitank company ftHi$4^^
8. Army Political Intelligence(Bureau) -^^^^ ^1 ^J i'T.
9. in due conformity with the table of organization. ^\.
22. Which was to be expected. ^11 -^i Which^ zl ^i^^J-^l
he had seldom talked o] ^\^- til-i-4.
27. his obsession with his equally obsessive God n^il ti] ^
P. 13. 5. had not Mr. Park told his congregation, - if Mr.
Park had not told his congregation
23. the liberation(^<^o^^^<^l 7]--^ 4 ^)«]]tij- P. 14. 14. the Reds '^7^0]
22. the debris-ridden slope 3>5^^^ ^1 ^ <d <^ ^^ . debris
8
CdebriO ridden = dominated, oppressed
24. bnUet-riddled buildings W&^^^ <=! ^ 41: P. 15, 2". my commanding officer i4-&| ^,^^ P. 16. 5. His subordinates were- -five minutes. zL-a] -^t]-^
-& ^^-l- ^^ "M ^i «^ ^^ 5^^ <^1 vf- 7l 45.] 71] ^]-&4^ zLo\ ^^o\\ ci^^ sa^4.
p. i7. 4. a notorious soldier of fortune ^^^7] ^ ^^^4
17. a big break €^4^ 18. Our CIC was able to round up- -the missing men. 4-5^1
^^ ^ 3lSd4. CIC^ Counterintelligence Corps^ i§5*.
21. They were all shot---^^^ 4^3 o] ^] ^-]-4 ^^r ^^ ^^^ ^5tJ4.
P. 18. 12. round up i^4 P. 19. 18. however hypothetical it may be <^\^^] fS-iS6^^J.
:^ o] 4 *£^] 4^ P. 20. 1. Shin and Hann tf3 4 ^. -^ ministerC-^4)^ o] ^.
9. From the President to- -privates. ci]-|-^\£.^-^e^ ^j-^,
^J-*, ^ ^ '^l ^i 4^1] ^ ^^ 1:^] <^] =-7] 44 ^- 11. Christian chaplains ^^1: 17. I have no intention whatsoever of-oi]x-j whatsoever-fe^
whatever^] ^^.MM, ^^ 3l^ mMH^\ r^^:£J, T^ 4 J, of any kind, at all^l ^. f5ij. There is no doubt whatever. Is there any chance whatever?
P. 22. 5. I could visualize Colonel Chang- -4^ ^^-cfl^'^l
-r- al^4.
9
P. 23. 14. A flight of stone steps led op 1^ -=1 ^A^ ^ ^:^11: AS ^ ^7^^ ^^^^ z^^^A 7l-l-oi]7f;=cl o]
22. at any moment <=d>^l <H A-rf] (^^1 «>ll ^S.)
P. 24. 19. any day now <^^^1-^ ^^A ^^j jl (^ -|- 11^14.)
P. 25. 12. its small, shattered stained-glass window zl -^
23. I mean tell someone U----Ayl ^^1-^ ^-^ ¥^=^-^]^l '^
P. 2e. 21. though 1 had not -be. ^^ ^^*1: ^J^^^^h ^^-l^ ;^H1 cfl€^:]x>^^ ;^j^5^ U ti]-7]- §i$].;^l^J: cf. I have not the slightest notionCidea) of what he means.
P. 27. 3. I drove up the winding road -4^ ^i^^=^1 -i ^ 4-^ T^^i"^1> ^J-l- ^1-* -t4 ^^^^4.
P. 30. 1. His Adam's apple twitched as he- -zl-s^ 4 n-'^l -f-
13. for fear(that) = lest
P. 31. 14. what I had been briefed on by QC CIC 5.^5^
18. If SO, I don't mind-^J:^-]^ ::l^4^ 4^ ^4l^ "^=^(^ <^^^<^^ ^^ A4<^ 7l-)-t- ^^*>4a -J:t>t ^.-i: ^^tM ?> ^^.
P. 32. 4. we established it as the fact ^^l^n^l^ ^4 *> 4^^^ ^1^J12 4.
P. 33. 27. divine intervention #^ jThA P. 34. 4. Then call it luck. iL^^-i n.^^^ Mi5[,s.'fW^l ^^ ^
16. A jeep- • -nightly blackout, zl ^^^y]3. A'='1^'^\A %M
10
^m^ 'M^1=SIJ1: >Q-7l^l7l^^ ^^V li'^^V ^^^1 t^SJ: 4.
P. 35. 13. who then machine-gunned- -dynamiting it. zl5]
^ ^-1:-^ ^ ^^^1*^ i^^oi] 7l^^ ^#t^ 7HfjL a- ^ ^^ <y ^^ 40] 4n}-o| ^^ t^ ^^ A^^ iL^ ^ -i-5li 4.
15. detachment ^]-^i^
21. Something gave way under my boots. -f-'5^ ^A 4 ^ n^
p. 3^ 1. pulling, carrying, dragging a man^ ^<H ^ a human hand
3. lying on his back ^ ^ ^o^afl ^^ ^<\ , cf . He on one's stomach. "^3.5^ -^4.
13. as if trying to shield-behind the cameras «|-^1 zlv]-
16. would you move away so I can get a better shot of
Mm? iL5^ 4^14- * ^i ^^ ^1-1- ^ OlS-^ # ^]^^^1^1 ?iA^ v] 4 ? get a shot 4ll^ ^A ^4.
P. 3S. 5. a formation of bombers ^^7] ^€i\
P. 39. 6. let him have his way 4^1 4^ il-?r ^^ 44^]. 12. to put me off my gruard t^ ^^l^j-i: ^"5]^] 1]:4. on
CofOone's guard C:^[^)^^4^
P. 40. 24. But that's beside the point, n.^ 4 ^^ ^ ^^i ^ ^<HaJ:4, beside (away from) the point = off the point
to the point .S-^alTfl
P. 41. 2. confess and bear witness to the charges. 4^^^ '^}^
P. 44. 8. regular staff meetings ^j ?il ^is] ^ 16. the Yalu River fii^ttC
11
p. 45. 3. the Tomen River ^j^iX
16. hand-to-hand combat [^jfiii;
16. CO commanding officer -r-^^ ^^
P. 46 23. the Marine Corps liaison officer- -headquarters. -o.^]
^-fo:1 H^^^ ^^^ =^^ ^iH P. 47. 24. to locate Captain Park «-| ^^y]- al^ ^-r ^^-^y
P. 48, 1. I don't have any idea what he was up to. il7\-
6. sort of hush-hush "i^z}: 41 ^ t'^^ ^] ^J <^^1 ^t]-4.
22. out of two hundred or so who- -with him n.$^ ^^^i ^
P. 49. 4. a God-daroned Russian mine °>^ ^^ iL^^l
7. the first aid station -%-^ ^] S-^
17. encroached upon my private life ifl %L^i^-%: ^n"^^
4.
p. 50. 19. for that matter =as far as that goes n. ^^]<>\]
P. 51. 5. groping for the right word- • -about Park. "^^V^
^ «l-o]l x:i\i^ ^ 44 °1 ^^^ ^14^^ ^^Pj-*> n^^ i.il-<H
p. 52 14. why you should -this favor. ^o]]7\] o]^ J:^^
*'1#<H ^7i ^fi] ^i-4ci ^x^-i- ^^o> 4^ 4|V P. 55. 3. To be sure n.o]z ^^, 4=^
i^J, To be sure, she is not perfect, but,
24. regardless of whether- -or what not. n.^o] -^tb'lL*!
^ ^^It^d^l^ ^-^ ^^^\ ^'i^]^± 7^Hl i]-4 §1^1 p. 54. 18. in the same light of human passion <lL^^ ^^^J^
12
P. 55. 27. It is for Him to judge me. 41: ^2 ^4^ ^^ ^
P. 56. 5. I was on the point of telling him- -4^ zlc>\]7\]
15. I thought you might-"4 ^^4^] ^^ ""^^ Sl^.^^^l
P. 57. li. was nearly identical to •••s^l t]^] -f-<^^^^4.
P. 59. 6. a narrow, gradually -shoulder to shoulder, -t-^1
7V <^-^'i\^ 4^J:-^1 431 7^^ ;^147^ ^ oj^ pV^^ ^:^ ^.j.
16. in a clearing "11 e^<^l
P. 61. 1. artillery observation post i ^^^ 6. the strategic value of- -gain. n. ^i]^ e^lt ^^"^^A 4^14t ^Jr^l ^4-^d^^ <^]°-]-|: 4-1 «^^ ^"^.^ 4^-b ^^4 ^i ^4.
9. But the Reds- --and target O-v^^l '^7-^^]^^ o.^^] ^4
P. 62. 5. white-robed elders sj ^^^>7l 1: H] ^ :i:^^ 16. reached for the rack- --the pew s^'A ^\-] ^^^<^1<=^1 -^
-I: ^^4. P. 64. 16. She seemed---with me ol^^ jl^^jl 4-1: <H ?|
71] r^l-t4 -1:4 ^^ n}|jL oj^ ^^^^ i^4. P. 65, 19. You should have told me about it sooner, n.^
P. 67. I. She was taken aback by- • zii^ ^-cH] ^^^^ ^5t4.
19. Mr. Park helped him through the seminary. ^^^1(-^
4)-^ o-l: 5.4 ^-^^^-l: 4-1- ^ al7)l n ^5514.
13
P. 68. 3. After making a routine check with the duty of-
ficer ^l^A ^}^ -J-^^ ^M^A^'l Sfi^-I- It ^Hl
P. 69. 11. my poor friend feels quite mortified that he survived the Reds' persecution ^ yHi-^ ^T'-t 'a^goj-i-
^ ^I^^l^i -k^^V^-^ ^^] ^«fl ^^ J^^^^tfjL 014TL ^3 4-
P. 70. 14. a joint memorial service ^^-^ ^5. <5^1 ^
P. 71. 13. you'll take care of, say, logistic problems. ^\
vil ^ °^tf4^ ^th ^^1 * °^<^1- i^l . C'^'l ^ ^ -T- You will^ You are to5]- n}-^J:7|-^] ^ 4^^1 ^ ^-^ ^^1 i%H <H al^O
P. 75. 2. a double agent ^l ^- 7^^^
6. go underground ^t>l -^i itkTM®)"^4.
7. so to speak = as it were '^t}-^'^
P. 74. 22. We mustn't let the martyrs down. 4-^1 ^ ^^ 4^h: ^-l^t-p^-^i-^ "ib^H^, let down slower, disappoint,
fail.
P. 77. 12. We are very thoughtful of each other. ^^1 ^ A^ ^M^'M ^i^^^i ^^^-r^ ?^^1 4^ aI4.
21. clear his throat V^A^^^ *J:4.
P. 78. 14. a Communist informer ^1it^i^4^ ^It °5li4
P. 75. 15. we used code names for our agents. 4-^] ^ -r-^l
21. A lieutenat insisted- -no choice. ^^^^^ -t-41^ ^^ "^ ^1^ a).^ 1> ^^^ -f^l4 ^ °^:il41: ^<^H iH5^4 *>4 jL ^^J-^JL, 4^ 4-& ^^14 ^5i4.
P. 80. 3. put up a fight ^y^t\7\] 4^4. 6. "Why are you tell me all this?'o11^i telH ing4 ^4
8. his son died a hero's death in the cause. ilb\ o|-^o]
14
18. I did what I felt was the rigt thing. 4^ ifl y} %^ ^l^]^!r^ ^5^i-*l ^.^ ^4. I felt^ nAW.
19. I am not in sympathy with the notion of nonviolent
resistance. ^-^ ^mtl&*ji ^}'-M ^^ ^M ?^^4. 21. turning the cheek to de slapped twice. :£ tb ^ li^] ^]n^ «f^ ^^4- cf. New Testament (4"^^ ^^^i) 4^ (St, Matthew) is^g' S^J- o9^A<^] fThat ye resist not evils : but
whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him
the other also. J (<^-]-*]: 4-1: ^^^^1 "^4. nrn^^^l ^^1 -^^
^ «v-|. ^]7]^ 4:1^2- ^^ i=i]H,)4^ aI4. 21. Heavens no! ^^^.m] } <>1%1^ ^^^ ^e]!
P. 81. 7. if not a physical battle = even though they were
not 'vaging a spiritual battle against the Reds.
14. in come the Reds to bag them all and shoot the tw-
elve ^t73o]-i-o] Iro) *H ^Ir-I- i-f- ^1^4<^ <t ^ ^^ 4^:11:4. the Reds come in-"4 MWJi'^, bag-fe- <^ 7] >] cap-
ture^! ^.
P. 82. 5. a Judas =^:1^-1: '^ll 4*1 -n-44 -U-& «11 44, 3i4 ^J 4 ^i-^l -|:-€r ^7ESf5]oll ^4
.
8. Not because I wanted to clear myself but because- •
and what not. ^^ nr^^ ^^1 4s1|^i4 4^14 ^4^ ± ^^i 441:'^1^ ^^]^A-^ 44^K 41: ^l^tt 4H "h^^^ v], 4v] 4jl ^il:<Hri]^ 0] «-«> 71^514-1:4 t]^ 4-f
^J-^ <=>! ^14 i^i 44 1:4 ^ ^^1 «fl-&'^14. 18. Perhaps, he was angry- -in the name of justice. 44
5. ZL^, ^^7} ^4-i- ^J:n- ^lai, ^^ -^011 c^44, ^jo^^
4^-^^^ ^-^-^ ^1.4-b 441:^ 4-^1 4-=^ 4:2- 4-t ^ -I- :fi.aL -ii:.^4. in uniform 4-4"5: '^^^2. al-^ meddle with
15
^^11:4. it^l ^^y] ^1 4. what he calls r^4 o] ^ ti|-J^ |^ Afff. in the name of f-^ ^^A^J cf. in the name of (God) rC^l-4^)'^l ^^^^I^Mjr^ 0] ^A^j (under the na- me of) r^ ^ ^1 ^J (on behalf of)
P. 83. 7. not speaking out the trnth amounts to lying. ^ ^0^4- "^^H ?i^ ^^ 7^^*^tf^ T^jr]- tii:g-tV4. amount to = be equivalent to f?ij. This answer amounts a refusal. *]
5]^-g, 7l^d3.v 4^^ 4. 10. I pressed him hard. 4^ zl^ ^?-|il4.
P. 84. 11. I don't follow yon at aU. 4^ ^^4 "t^ ^dt^ <^1 *fl-^ ^ L-H-^ 4. cf. Can you follow me? vfl 7]- t}^ ^^ <=^ 4 ^^^?
17. He suggested- • -of help to me, 3.^ 4-11 <^1 4 ^fl <i[ ^;?i]
4^2- H:^-a-^4. of help = helpful cf. of use = useful of
importance = important.
P. 85. 2. What would you if you were in my place? ^t] <^j
^M ^14^^ 44-^<H^7il 451-H-M4? "I would tell the truth. Chaplain, " I declared. "Truth cannot be bribed.
*
r^^^J, 4^^^A^ ^^--fl^ 't^V^-t-H4J 4t ^^^4 tm
P. 86. I. the briefing ^.5-13^(^^01 7,] ^j s-1 *> 714-s]: ^^^) 2. the report concerning the encounters of- -the western
front ^i-f ^d^d^i]^-! oj-^ ^%^7V 4^itj?4 ^^*^ 7^1 oi|
7. the lieutenant on duty 4^ 4i(^)4 cf. off duty ^1^# P. 87. 7. I was well briefed on him. ilo\] vi\f^A] ^^ jjljl
-1: H>^4.
P. 88. 6. Freedom Press 4-n- 4^(4^ =>! -I-)
16
7. a public announcement by the preparation committee
11. Army Intelligence Authority ^t ^d ^ ^ch'-n" 14. North Korean puppet regime -^^t :=i s] ^ ^ 17. Reverend Park =-: ^<}. Reverend^Rev. )^ ^j^^f^ ^%i.
20. on an alleged charge of "'counterrevolutionary act-
ivities. " "51^-0] siji ^^^^f-^ Pg-^^ 22. Internal Security Bureau of the puppet regime j^s]:^
P. 89. 2. preparations are under way ^«1 yV ^*| ^6] tf.
7. transportation, and other facilities are being made
available to them :^-i:^ ^f^ ^V^]- il^^£-] ^^y} ^}^s\
^il. City water is not available in this neighborhood. I'm
available over the telephone.
13. regardless of their religious affiliations zl^^ ^M<=^]
^^] ^^]
P. 90. 1. Parka-clad officers and men, •••the air base ope-
rations building. ^\f}% ^-^ -^ ^^^^l 4^ ^^] <=^ 7] ^y]
^^J: ^^4<Hl^i ^^^-k <^]^3L %l^4.
P. 91. 6. the haughty sparkles of his eyes had given way
to a brooding- ••T^Hr4^1 Ht^'^l Ri ^^ ^ 3.-^<^) ^^1 ^^ 44-^ S-^^JlS. ^^ 'a^4. give way to <='o^i*V4.
9. Let's not talk about it, shall we?'>l] ^] ^H ^1 -Sl tag question<^l ^-^l . Let's not^-^i:?] 4 Let's----£] tag question-gr shan't we? c] 4.
24. his dark-green fatigue jacket n.^] ff|#.fe f^^^g ^:£b1
P. 92. 15. I am occupied- • -later on. 4-^-tr 4^^ 4^'Hl 4
17
19. I can't think of anyone who could shed more light on
it than Mr. Shin. 4^ 4^1 (-^4)^4:^ ^ ^^^ ^i ^^
P. 93. 1. I couldn't care less, s.^^] ^}-^^] ^^]^] °^^}.
19. "What does it say?''---her face, f^ ^^]^] ^]€\-jl^Jo]
A?J n.1^^ °1^^ ^Ir-I- -4A^^i ^5i4.
25. compose oneself ^l^iT!:4.
P. 95. 4. I couldn't stand it. ^] ^i standi endure^^ ^. b]-
-1-4 standi o]«4-oil P^ ^1>4JCface), M ^^ ^41]:4J (bear the expense of)-£] ^^1 ^jL, ^ stand a chance-b P"^!
17. it was a flat statement uttered matter-of-factly. a.
^-^ ^1^4:^1 °^^4 ^-^44 '^147] ^4. 25. I want to find out- -on earth. 4^ ^4 4 44^i 44 s]^^ 44-a^ ^^14^ ^ 44^ <^]^]^]o\] <^4o1 f^4 *> ffilS^^^i ^^^^1 ^^^4^^ 44.
P. 96. 15. The sooner he realized it, the better for- -wanted.
o-yy n.^^ 77}] P^^ ^0] 4H.T^ 4*T=-^ o.^ <^^^] 44 ^ T-^1 * 4 ^^ ^i #4. "=i *^ n^^l 4"^^ I2.7V ^^ 4 ^
19. the ordinary, mundane sort of father-and-son rela-
tionship i.-!-^ ^.l^^-^4 ^^1^ 22. a God-drunk man 44M'^1 ^Irlt 44
P. 97. 6. Don't you think, then, that he might have (exa-
mined himself) before the end? zl^ 4 1:^1- 4^1 ^1 4'^1 ^ -^<^1 44^ 4'^^4^i^^ls. 5-^4^ ^^44^1 ?-4^4?
P. 58. 6. take (a person) by surprise C<H 4 44l-)7l^t!: 4Ccome upon unawares) 44 e-4^1 44(astonish).
18
13. He won't have anything to do with it. 12.^ zl ^^] oi]
4-M ^1-^1 ^^^ ^ *14. C?i^ ^ ^] 4). He will have noth- ing to be with it. to have (anything, something) to do
with ^i 4-^1 al4.
P. 99. 2. That you might have something to tell him? P^
4? J That^ a. oVci\ so^ ^o]zl ^ ^^^4 '^^^1^ ^S ^n^- ^ ^, . so that may(might) -£] "§ -^ .
P. i(?i. 6. be guilty of-^ 5] 7]- aI4. (16 fx^ be innocent of-^1 S\7]- ^4>]- ^^.
12. speaking in human terms 'iL-tb-^^'lL ^4<=^l-^i h:"^1-<=^ . cf . in terms of-^ by means of, concerning, from the stand
point of^ ^.
^ij. He sees life in terms of money. a.-fe- "iL-^^-l: -&--S] ^;^1
6\\A\ icf,
P. 102. 10. I am guarding it (the truth). r4^ ^^(^-1}-)^ :^]7]JL $1 1 7] A. J run away from the truth t}^ ^S. ^} i^JL hide the truth from the othersS. <^>vl ji, zl :^^^^-%r ^1
P. 103. 3. has it ever occurred to you that ? 4^ ^S7-,H ^^^ ^i^] al^4? 'B'lJ, His name does not occur to me at present. zi-S] 6] -|-
^] ^1^ -3 44^1 ?^^4.
P. 105. 10. I might just so well not have been there, f^
7\ iL^^] ^<H5- ^ 4^i4^1^-i- ^<^14.J may (as) weU
i^^ij. We may as well begin at once, f-r-^l ^ ^ ^1 ^*fl 5. # I: ^^14.
J
P. /Off. 8. in respect to = as, with respect to <^] ^-sfl^i-fe-
19
P. m. 2. That's what it aU comes to. {il^ ^] ^] s.^ :^ 3\ ;tj4ol4. J come to = amount to. to-^ ^d^l ^>
18. If yon are as dead serious as I am<^1>| dead^ utterly,
absolutely-2] ^. M, dead tired, dead certain ; I'm dead
broke till next pay day.
P. 108. 11. I daresay = I dare say = probably
.
I^ij, This is the best of the kind I dare say.
12. give credit to ^ 4-§-*>4. (^^4. '^'^-^l ^-i:)~<M]7l] 1:^^-. credits belief, trust, good reputation, honor-£l ^.
22. No. ZL^s\ ^4-^6] -f^j-^o]^^ r^^^v|4.J-S. n^A
p. 109. 9. tarnish his beatific conscience ^4 ^1-^ ^o^^J^ ^-]^j*14.
24. His is the sort of conscience- -Ah, there we are. [o.
^ ''M-^ ^] -^^H: ^^A^i ^^^^ ^'^(^^>1 ^<H al^ ^^ ^^^ "^l^^^l^. 4-S. iir^^Hj
P. 110. 10. he is not the sort of shepherd- -the flock defe-
nseless. -L^ o]El 4^ ^i^-i: ^ '='o^^l-ir^ -^tij-til i]-Bl]^
p. Ii2. 3. Am I clear? ^fl "^^^^^1 <=>] ^UH -^7]- ? (= Am I clearly understood?)
4. The colonel was getting out beyond my depth, i^ ^ -^
Q^yy oj^^^M ^^y -^-t- ^v^^^) 4-1- ^^jcii 4-5.]:iL
P. 113. 1. Who elseCcan it be) but his god? [:i£] ilCW^ ^ ^ n^T-^ ^7}-? J Rhetorical question^ ^ij^^i f^^ zi:^
2. Can't you picture him on his knees, telling his god
what he has done? r^-y} ^*^ ^jl 4^1 7} «Sl]: ^^-i: #
20
4^^1 "t-^y^ ^°o^-|- ^M^l ^ ^^7]-? J picture = imagine. 5. 'To err is human, to forgive divine', f^^^ ^^^1 ^^ A14'=']-S-, -§-^i^^^#^ «h^<^14.J ^1 i^4^ Alexander
Pope C1688-1744, "^ ^ ^1 <y.)^ An Essay on Man (1733) ^ I, 2^] A.
7. I had to laugh in spite of myself 4:^ s.3.7\] -^^] ?>
P. ii4. 16. where on earth is heM a] on earthy ^^, -^
^j ^ "^MM. M, What on earth is the matter?
P. 115. 3. "Ah, hang your discretion!" r4^1^ ^ ^^<H "^ -i: ^'<\^} "^'IL^ ! J :i fl<^l^i I told him, at my discretion.
r^l ^UM-S- '^147]ia^^^4.j5^^ "^<^1 ^*J: ^4^0-. Oh,
hang it (all)! ^^*^ «fl -^ ^(swear)4^ ^^. 10. Have it transferred to CIC if it comes through. r4
44 A'd ^^^ (CIC)^ ^^ ^7\] . J come through^ J. -l-Pi^1]:4J, r^44J^ ^.
18. the firing squad #-^^-|r ^«|4^ 4^4. 26. The charges made against them- -in paiticular. a.-!:
6\] cn*v 3]^^ ^l^^-Ao_^ °^4^ S®<=1H 3i^d<H 'y:4'd
P. 116. 4. to figure out <=^I'^tt4. = solve, understand, asc-
ertain, i^]. Just figure it out yourself.
P. il7. 26. He tried to talk them out of it. o.^ zl^o]] ?]]
^^4 4^1 ^^4^ 4-^4 5^ fS4. to talk (a person) out of 4^1 e^s.-^ 4-^1]:4. 4^^1^J.4.
P. 118. II. I would appreciate it, if I do, sir. T^ll^'d, ^ 71- ZLl: ^ 44:ii ii^1]:43L ZL<Ml7ll ^i^ ^A]r^ 7j-44^
21
^*J^4«^r.J it^ if 10 :^^]% 1}^4. appreciate = feel gra-
teful for.
27. We'll beat it out of Mm^l -i beat = search
P. 119. 1. I decided to break the news. 4^ ^ ^4-^1: ^ •5-]- 7]^ ^1]1I4. break the nevrs to-'-S] news-^ ^-f- l)<l|g.
8. he hung up (the receiver). n^3]-7l -f- ^^4. 11. To go on with what I was telling you. P^^l'^^l^l ^1-^
12. I got to worrying about Mr. Shin. r4^ 4^1(^4)^1 rfl ^ 2^ -^ 4^1 4 4f. 4. 1 get to = begin
P. 220. 5. Ah, the lambs disfigured into a wailing mob!
r4, %:^t^ ^^^ ^% ^ € ^o^-l: ! J 9. That broke the spell. Yn.^c] n. 4^-|- :^:=^4.J (zl
P. 72/ 1. You seem to be in her confidence. zix^Ctb -n-4
HtHvi)^ 4---^lH ^4)1: 4s] 4^ ^ ^^^i^i^. P. 123. 2. it's all beyond me. 7^^-'^ ^ ^^ 44 ""^ ^ §^4.
J
= That's beyond my intelligence.
11. For all I know, ^j-n}...*^;;^]^ ^^4^ cf. For all I care. ^yy ^^ 4 41^4.
24. when he realized what the commandant was up to.
r4^4^l -T-"^^ 45^^^V-t ::3^4 %^aJ:-|- 4_.o^]^^ up to= about to do, 6] ^o\] capable of doing, engaged in, occupied
with ^^ ^o] <5l-i-. cf. P. 135. 7, P. 140, 12, -^J, He is not up to his job. What have you been up to?
P. 124. 3. get around to ^^1 %V^4.
P. 125. 7. So does Captain Park^ Captain Park also wants
to know the truth about the execution-S] ^.
P. 126. 18. you have my word, i+l "^^-1-^4. one's word =
22
one s promise
M, I have his word for it that she is very clever.
P. 127. 13. That's that! n^A^ n^^fK^]-. .= That is settled. Cor decided).
P. 129. 20. cluck-clucked !^7l^J*14. (ovu ^-. ^^.jo] ^
P. 136. 1. It is very like him that he should vrant to efface
himself. 0.7}- 441- °fl ^-^V^l ^ ^*>4^ ^-^^ zlo] ^j- 4. efface oneself 44^ °l]^c]-^J:4. (3.^=^11 ^i) ^5^44.
4. The living- -ultimate victory. ^^^} 31^ 4%^^;^ ^^ ^M^''] ^^JL44^-ir4 ^-^4<^J. ^5-]*-f4^^i^ 4
9. (The established fact) needs only to be made public
to render full justice to their heroism and saintliness.
Cn. ^^^^ 44-?r) 3-^4 ^-^4<^l:iL ^j^41- ^5411: ^j
4^M] ^447] 41^4 ^a4 7l4 t\^ ^4. make public ^3.44. do (render) to a person (or thing) =do a person
Cor thing) justice. 4<^-&l 4^^^ ^-€r 4^J4^ 45K-£^ 41:)-i: ^J ^^^Ml ^ ^*>4.
12. testify to---4 -n-5]4: ^4-|- 44. cf. testify against- ••<^^]
^5-14: ^4^ 44. P. 132. 14. it was beginning to look-- -on North Korean soil.
-^4 4<H14 ^^^'^l ^^^A^^-l 44-1: '^'^^ ^5^-1: -fs-l 7V 7I
i^H^4 ^ ^4^j i^l^l 4 4li4. P. 133.13. he said to no one in particular <H 4 ^^J4 44
o\] ^4 ^s- 4hi "^^4- ^4. P.134.2o. out of the square filed a silent procession of
people. ZL 4-4A^-fE^ 44"^^ ^4-4 %« ^4"^! ^^4*1 4. file = move in a line
23
P. 135. 15. His hands cut the cold air several times. C^A^l
17. "till we meet again beyond the River Jordan-' T-^^ 7j- 7lv\7Y ni-4e]J 71-s-iL ;L^^7^ 505^j- T^^^i^ ^i l]--€r ^J(There"s a Land That is Fairer Than Day)^ ^^ '^^-^.
P. 136. 5. I am deeply touched by it as you all must be. <^
^^ R.^7]- 70-^515^.-1: ^x^Bj 4:^ ZL^Cthe revival -f^ 3-1)011 i4- ^0-^^ 1>aJ:4.
18. Inscrutable shall ever be the holy will of our Lord.
r^Uo^ y]^€y ^^ c^,fl4 ^l^t*^ ^ ^£.4. J ilJS?E^^ ttJ-M. inscrutable = impenetrable, mysterious.
P. 137. 8. Certainly not. =1 certainly would not mind.
P. 140. 10. you and I are in the same trade. <^Hi trade
=
occupation, calling.
18. You must be out of your mind. I warn you to behave
yourself, u] -^ ^j 40] ^7^ i^j^ol ^4. ^^-f-oi] ^4^. P. 141. 17. cut in = interrupt ^^2] ^^-^ 7|-^^<H "t^^^.
P. 143. 5. the Secretary of Defense m^M'^. Clt-^^^l ^i t minister of Defense^ ^4.)
25. Bloody fool = Damned fool
P. 145. 13. But that there were betrayers I knew for certain
prior to the capture of Major Jung, ai] ^\::^}7]- Sli m 4^ ^ ^ 4^ ^j J^a)-^ ^li <=14<Ml ^^^^ <^^^4.
P. 146. 24. beyond question = past question = without question =
certainly, undoubtedly cf. cut of the question = impossible,
not to be considered
P. 148. 5. Colonel Chang brought his fist down on the desk.
^J- ^^^ ^"^ A-g. 7^ ^o^-i: ^ 4. 15. give the Reds an upper hand. <HMi an upper hand = sup-
24
remacy.
22. the inhuman practices of the Reds -e7^<il-i:^ ^] 'IL^
^'tI ^l-rl practice = performance, habit.
P. 150. 9. the heart of the matter 4^^ ^ ^J
.
P. 151. 24. It is imperative = it is essential (authoritative, per-
emptory), It is imperative that- • -(should)- -"^l^i that|5-£l
should 7}- ^3 ^1=5] ^ ^ 7}- ^4. It is imperative that vve (should) act at once.
P. 156. 6. I'm not much for mysteries. v}-i- iL^ltt '^l '^V'^l
^ ^^ ^0}^}^] ?>^4. for = in favor of, approving, supporting.
P. 157. 24. "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me!" cf. 4^ (Matthew) 4-^, XXVn.46, T^^l #4^^, 4-^1 t} 4^, H^ltH 4-1: ^-1^.4-^1 4?
J
P.15S. 26. He let go of my arm. n^ ^^ -^^ ^4 ^5^4. P. 161. 12. get down to i-§-*l ^1^^*14.
P. 162. 4. I was touched by his confiding in me. 4^ —4 4<Hl7i] 47]^ til ^^4- ^^4^r^l 7j-^«^4. confide = put trust (in someone), share secrets or discuss private affairs.
9. his plans for carrying out the project that went with
it. ^^4 ^^54^ y]^^ 4^^ ^1^'. 25. We'U pull out. -f^l %4^*^ ^<^14.
P. 163. 22. the Father, and the Son, the Holy Ghost.
m^, ^iF, mm.
p. 166. 1. I am taking the liberty of assuming that you wiU do me this favor. 4-^ 4vi] 7]- 4^ -^^^-i" 1:<H % ^i: ^ ^'^-^ 4^J4'--11. cf. May I take the liberty of calling on you?
5. in person = in one's own (proper) person. 4'i'^]» -^^i^.
17. onr cell -f^l y^^}.
20. some sort of teleological question g ii^Om^-J ^^1
.
21. an eschatological question rt$^Jm&^ -5:^1
.
P. 173. 11. I don't give a damn, =1 don't care at all.
27. I will hang onto my truth and will not compromise it.
4^ ^ -14^ olp]4^14 JL^tyjL a.^-1- ^^^7\] *M
P. /74. 7. At least you are committed to that stubbornness.
^A<^S. 4''il ^ ^^^4: 7M^^ ^bV5]^4^ 24. We are all up to our necks in our bloody doings. ^
s-1^ ^J:<=J.1t -^^-l- '='1^1 ^i^ ?#<^1 Si 4.
P. 176. 6. CJod only knows. oj-vl^Jnlo] 01-4^ ^l^S. 5.^4.
P. i7P. 13. not for this establishment. 0] 7] 4:^ ^^^i J-^
P. 183. 24. Colonel Chang was impervious to my sarcasm.
^J- >^ ^ ^ ^ 4 H 22.^ -Jro^l A^l ^-^o] ^ 4. P. 185. 14. out of hand= unruly.
15. I lost no time calling up a detail of guards. 4^ '^ * ^^1^1 ^JL ^^^£-] ^^^^4^ 1-^4.
P.m. 13. Get him! = Capture him! P. 187. 13. one of them flung back, zl^ 444 "t^^l^^. P. 190. 17. GVIr. Shin would be) very much present. 444
^] 3.7\] %-^^ ^ <^1 4.
p. iP2. 11. Where do they get this abiUty, even liking, for
suffering? jl^^ ^jl n.:i-%: 7]^o] ^v^ ^= %l^-5^^ -1: ^1:^ -Ht^^i ^^ ^i*^4?
16. Shintoist Q ;^^ #;I-fr ^it 4^^^.
15. Is that all?" -you name them, f^^ ^"^^14? J ^4 °^
26
mmm, ^It^K ^1^5., y]-^} ^^yl ^l^-l: ^1 ^ al-^ <H
p. 194. 9. Bare yonr hearts. 4^-sl ^-1: <^ ^1 -^.
15. Not a soul stirred. *> 4%i-^ .2-^ ^^-^l^l $e%!:4.
P.m. 13. Away with yon! yl^ \ , i^^H P. 197. 10. The ministers were offered, in turn, a promise
that n. rH4 ^xv-t-^ ...^ ot^c^ ^]c^ =. «^voV4^
P. 198. 26. Hallowed be their names! = May their names be
hallowed, n^^ ^1 -1-^ -^^^H #-i-^^i. P. 199. 3. the Kingdom of God Oleaven) ^^. P. 204. 5. I shall have to be incognito, vf^ 4^^ ^^ ^>
& ^<^1^-. incognito = with true identity unrevealed or dis- gxiised.
P.W5. 2. Mr. Shin was conducting- -fulsomely. Efa^xi^ ^l
^£\ ^^S\^ <^dS-#3L alai^^l ^1tij- ^1-&^<^1 11:^-1- ^1 4^1711 i^^l-^4.
8. it was merely an extention of the service- -Mr. Shin's
own church, o.^-^ ^y} 4l -^4 4''d^1 ^^1<^1 %^-ilS^
iL (^5.) ^]^^ ^^M 4 4^1 ?i<^.^4. 23. the Army, -the memorial service. -^^ Sl^ A^ s^ o.
^j^l y^^^y} n. ^^ c^]^^s\ ^5]4^^i *1-1-^ H^-^i^ 4^4.
P. 2195. 2. I might have added that -that subject. 4^ ^4 ^^^] ZL ^4^ 4^5-1 ;^-l ?>711: 7^:4*^4^ ^-i: -^^^1 ^^^] ^aJ:^i4^ 7l^ ^^4*<^1 ^^^ -irsl^i^^l ^•^47>
P. 297. 10. they gave what they could, n*-^ zlIto] ^ ^ al^ i-& ^-i: ^^4. what^ as much (many) as s\ ^, M, Lend me what money Gxwks) you can.
27
P. 208. 13. He was not allowed access to classified infor-
mation. 3.^ til^y. :^^^6\] :q^^^ ^*>o] ^6]:,^ o|;,] t5l4. P. 210. 14. the elders gathered quite a few people, ^^h^^
<=1 'l^^^-5-l ?i4- 4%^^^ -^%t4. quite a few = a good few, some few, a fair number of.
P. 214. 10. That's when the young minister broke down, ^j-
^ ZL^ f^-^ -^4(^^®)7V ^1 ^j4^ |^5d4.break down = collapse, give way.
P. 217. 1, In due course ^^}% ^^^ IJ-^^^, «^1 4 ^H-^i 10. Meanwhile the enraged-"mass demonstrations. 3.&1^
7] 4l*fl^i TlB-l H. ^o>^ v]-^4.
11. take to = go to
P. 218. 3. impassioned calls to arms ^^=^1 jL^tt]-^^ |gpj|-.
P. 221. 9. The lieutenant in charge ^-^} ^C^)4l. the min-
ister (teacher) in charge ^"^^ -n-^C^^^J ^4). 14. It's heavily patrolled. il^(:e.^)-^ 4l-'^i^tl-7ll y^^]s\
^ ?a4. 23. "• -though we live- -strongholds- ••" of. U'^^^j^^ ^'^:e.
'^mC H Corinthians) lO^o^ 3, 44 P. 222. 1. Sabotage by the guerrillas. Blew up our train.
3. Rather hectic on the front, ^d^d^ ^ ^5^ 4^1-14. P. 223. 8. *Why are not times of- - for want of shelter- •"
of. i^4^i^-l ^7] Gob) 24;f 1-84
24. "---among the olive rows--- their prayer." Iw|24^ch 11,
124
P. 224. 9. "•• and the Lord Said to Job : Shall a faultfinder
contend with the Almighty? ^7] ji^^ 24'=>il-^i "man'o]
faultfinder^ t^H^H^-l-.
11. Then Job answered the Lord : Behold, I am- -a voice
like His?' -i-7] 40^j- 2-9^^.
20. Then Job answered the Lord••• and repent in dust
and ashes.' 4-^1 42^^- 1—6li.
P. 230. 11. Will yon see to it that- too late? 4y]- ^^ ^
23. I thought it was abont time I came to see you. ^^1
-f «> Bi t.L.4 ^eJ,
-I- «fl 7}- 5| ^^_^JL ^i --i-iS^.
P. 232. 13. from the air base--- the northern sky. a. ^^
P. 235. 24. It has survived the war so far. ^^^t ^ ^^^4 n^ ^d^3"i: '^1 -H-J15. ZLcfl-?- ^-'^}- '.14. so far = up to now
P. 238. 25. Excellent !••• my Chinese. ^laL^V, o]^v]. ^.^ ^ ^^^1. 4-^i Mil- Si-^l C^^ i^^-i-) ^ ^<H . '^J.^i -fBl7V^ o> ^v oj^ 7145.]^ ^Tr:<^14. 4^ ^ ^^<Hlr ^^ 41-
P. 240. 8. a general practitioner ^1 ^1 3^-^ ^i> dUK. 17. I couldn't do a damn thing on the line. r4^ e^d ^M-^l^d ^d^o^, 4^ ''IS- ^iX^.A^y]^-] line^ frontline -1: ^^^. line-^ Sl telephone lineal ^5. :^
.
P. 241. 10. They keep following to catch up with us. n.
-i:C3tl4Hl>l ^^ 4-^llr ^4s]-A^14 4-^14 ^i^ "g:^! ^-^tV^^ iL-&^ 4-e-ll- 444- ^4 ^4.
P. 242. 9. I noticed our troops were digging in. 4^ -r-^] ^'^4 %^^ 4-b ^-1- ial:4.
11. it was reassuring to see them in position. /|^pf4^ oj^ ^^^ _y_u] oj-<iol s]^, 4. position-gr P'F-ilii.
14. excused himself 45^1*1:4^1 °^t]-3. y\ *|^4.
29
16. you intelligence people ^}Al^^] ^j^:^]-!- -^}^^
27. You've had your share. ^}^ls. «>^5Si^5^. Cr^l:^--]^
P. 243. 12. run into = meet by chance
18. Free of charge -f-^^
P. 244. 3. take = assume as a fact
0|J, I take it that you will be there.
P. 260. 17. Well, I didn't mean to keep you up. ^Kl. ^
P. 262. 10. anything but cheerful = not cheerful at all, far
from being cheerful
15. took my temperature vfl ^l-$r-|- ^>I5a4- P.268. 8. * The Lord is my rock encompassed me.--'
cf. ^1^ 18^J- 2, 3, it^ "-^'l ^^ ^ ^. P. 279. 23. hoping that he would see me if no one else. t>}
% 4%^^ Hh ^i^i4 *i^]4^ 4^i^ -^4^ ^^ 44^-i 25. obliged me by informing Mr. Shin of my visit. 4 4 C^4>1^1 ^4 t4 ^ ^^ "^^^ ^-e ^J.%-i: 4^]^1 «il 1-'=^ ^m4. oblige = favor
P. 285. 23. I must go on with the service. 4^ ^=^1*^11-1: 4.^J ^1^45!l^.
P. ^8. 1. That's the way my superiors figure. :i^*l 4 4^^'^1 ^3 44-^ 4^=^1-4- figure = reckon
P. 297. 15. Pyongyang is a mess. ^ 4-cr 4-44'='l 4. mess =
disorder, confusion
P. 302. 20. Our bombers did a thorough job on Pyongyang.
5^ -f^i40 P.SJ5.14. a revolving lantern. ^MM
30
p. 8. 9. Empedocles 490?—430? B. C. zls-]^^ %^M, ^J^l 7K Etna lU^ ^^-^o\] -=--8: Ri^i ^^4^ ^4<^] al^.
P. 189. 16. A second later, we heard the faint, broken voice: "No- • -God- • -No- -God--' ^\-^ ^7^ ^-e]^ r^^-^^-'-
P. 194. 11. He had stressed-" •I- ••I-' O-^ "i+'s^^ ^^^\
^i-T- -J-fr ^-H ^^^^7] r^^6[] ^-^ ^^J^ 7f^l ^5] ^ -¥-4 IB]^ r4j2]-^ "^-s. ^^y^U] pilc]-5-]^4. ^e-l3L O.
^]^ 4^^4.
P. i55. 5. but gradually it began to bestir itself; ~l^ 4 44 s\^^ ^^A^]7] ^14114.
26. taking everyone by surprise i.-f-^ ^^4 e"47ll 4H surprise = astonishment
P. 203. 10. The notion would never occur to me. zlb^ ^g zv
23. You would rather- your suffering. 4^11^ 4^^1 4 fif
44 4^4 4^ ^-^-l- 4^1 i ^ ^4. P. 204. 12. I reflected-after all. 4^ 3]^^ 4^-1:^ Ht
^4^ ^^ ^t^4. ^ ^^<^1^ 1^71 i- 4^<^] i-f- ^ B-1 4 -i-i4 ^1 ^^^ l[ltl: ^:3-4^1 4-§-5S-^4, <^1 i-& ^^ ^-^ 12.1:01 #h|^^e].- :5j^ ^gJi^^i^ ^4 ti]-oil 51^1 ?lal:4.
13. I had been tricked into-Uttle game, 4^ <*^^^1 4 :n. ^4 Tiloi-i- tv^4.
31
P. 206. 16. We were also- -become apparent, -r-^l^ %n^7|-
P. 225. 20. the return of a prodigal son ^i^^l ^^. cf. ^ ^KLuiie) 4^ 5^j- 11-32^^
P. 227. 11. Job -i--^ ^1^>V<^1 :2^ftA-g- #^ ^A^] °a^4. -^ ^^ :n-\l^ %JL :^ti Ji^ S^^ ^3%-^ ^^-^^i^] MM ^^^]JL Si 4.
P. 242. 12. Lots of guns are out there. I guess we will
make a stand. :^7]^ S.^o] ^'^] 4^ aI4. -f^^^-l^j- ^^ ^A^ ^^-|-1]:4.
P. 2^7. 17. You see, life goes on. O-^ s]-A. (oj ^ ^d^3 -1-
P. 248. 12. G-2 ^-^ -^-^ril
17. As of 6 P. M. ^^ 7^^] ^^fl ^ P. 2^. 8. We are supposed to stick it out until the last
minute, -f 5-1 ^3] 41^^ ^^^14^1 tH^l7l^s]<H =J.4. 11. Whatever information we can squeeze out of enemy
agents. M^ M^^]^,-"^ 4^ ^ alt it ^Ji P. 250. 16. once-Uberated city "l^ ^^}^^^i S-4C^<=o^) P. 25i. 3. half a dozen boxes of field rations (^ ^, ^o^4^
8. and the like tt P. 252. 2. a contingent a transcient field hospital. Ȥ
^^^^ 7fli47i ^1--|^4. 23. you were running a fever. ^^iL-cr "==>] ^1 n^s] :5i $1$^
4.
32
P. 255. 10. they were butchered for no good reason, n.^-^
P. 25<?. 17. The illusion of life beyond the grave ^^i ^v\
19. Despair is the disease- •• ^J^J--^ -f--^°l'^J: ^^--5-^ y]-^-
P. 257. 6. bear your own cross ^J- v 44-2] ^^44-1: 44. . 9. Those are the ones who need Christ, n.^ C^±.^ ^J 4 4* ^4 ^ Si^ 4^^-i:)<='14 -^-=- -5-l^:L7f 4^^J: 4%^- -i:'^14.
11. the resurrection of the flesh ^^1^ ^% P. 259. 8. We don't even seem to have a front ^A^ ^
16. checked my pulse °-^^ M-H -«-a5:4. P. 260. 23. I thought you were up. v|-^ t^I-^o] r'\o\ a),^^
P. 264. 19. one of those death marches n. tl-vf^l ^-%-^ «5
P. 2155. 12. She blamed the loss of our child on herself, n.
M^ -f^1^ 4'='1* 1^^ ^-i: 4^1 4a^ 1:^4. blame = lay the responsibility of
M, We cannot blame the accident upon him. P. 266. 1. a maddening truth coming from a servant of
God. 44^^ K^4)^ ''^o\]^] 4-2-^ °lt ^l> ^i4 10. at one fatal stroke ^1'^^-^'lL e}-^a^ 44-cr Ml «!
^^oj ^^nvo] «H^J-i: ^^4.
P. 267 4. I left to be in his presence. 4^ ^ 4t-i: 44 ^1- ^y] ^n 4^1 4^-i'^l ^B]^ :5j^^ 4 ^4^^
33
JoLsl^ ^4. as if -^ C^zif]^ '^^-i-. 7. there hardly was room to move. -b-I: -5-^ '^^ 4^1 5- "^
P. 2lff5. 1. Yon can't afford to get sick now. ^1^-^ <^]-4
^^ "T^] ^A^ 4 7]- 4^-14.
cf. I cannot afford holidays. He cannot afford (to keep^
a car. I cannot afford the loss of a single hour.
P. 271. 20. except give him some sedatives and a vitamin
shot. n.^]7\] ^^^^1^1 ^14^,1 ^41: ^^ ^ ^=^1 22. TB. -Tuberculosis ^ t^
P. 272. 20. I didn't mean to walk out on your service, t:^
4<='l '^]A^^ s-^'^d 44 ^^ ^^4-^ ^,'d-a-^14. P. 273. 12. My despair was my people. 4 44'^! 4^.
19. The village in three months; n. 44^^ ^^4 S.^ 4: ^i^L 4^4^!-^ H4^44 ^ 4"-1^14 4:-d^l 444 5i 4. raze a town to the ground S.^] -f: 444 44 4:4-
P. 274. 1. Men cannot endure- -in the Kingdom of God. 4.
-^il^ 4^ =^1*4 ^.4:iL *i 4 ^^A4 44 4-t- ^s. ^4 4— ^^444 4^ <H4 * 4^4, ^^14, 44-4 ^^^114 44 4 44 ill-[i4 7l4<^1 ^44, 4^j-ir-^ ^^-i:
15. an advanced stage of tuberculosis ^^1444 ^4 4"nl P. 283. 2. Down with the Chinese Communists! -f"^^ h]-
5. ! Down with -1: 4S-44.
M, Dov/n with the tyrant!
3. Long Live the Republic of Korea! ':}14:4^ 44 !
34
5. Pyongyang Federation of Labor ^ °^ ic^ :5l^. 6. Anti-Communist Youth Association «]:^ ^^^Rt.
P. 290. 11. phosphorescent JM^^ P. 292. 22. scrounge up = take something without permission
P. 296. 7. AureKus' Meditations Marcus AureliusC121—180)
^^\s\ ^^. ^^0} ^y3\s\ %tv^v. {m^^M}^ m^' p. 297. 15. It has become a Chinatown. ^ ^^^ ^^^J.^ 2-
^l7f£ljL -^C;14. C^^^-^-l -i^li7] «fl^0ll)
p. 301. 11. So-called peoples' trials. ^^ "iL^I^ll^J:. P. 308. 3. off and on = now and then, irregularly, intermit-
tingly, irregularly.
M, It has been raining off and on.
P. 309. 17. -ordered to execute -his battalion, n.^ tflrfl
m.^ ^^^\^^ ^^^ i>jL- 21. superbly demonstrating" of strength. ^A^ I^flrfltl]^
?a^ ;.j.dl^ t]-4s. 's^^J^o] x^^^ 4^]^ o]-^ i;.J^?11 -^v
P. 3i2. 9. But they all •• every single detail. What do you
make of that? zl&14 ^"1: -2.-^7}- 3.^0] ^^v^jl ^^^^\
t iL 45}-^ ^AA\% 4-^4^1 47]- "^4^ ^-^(4 -^4)^
13. Could it be that the Communists have been sort of
dragging him around? ^4^^1 4-i:<^l °^^]-4't ^ ^-1: ^jL 44 ^.<5l <^l-^4-S-? sort of 47J:, 'y:44'd
P. 3i5. 3. So it was that- So^ ^J^^^V ^.
35
25. How long, I wondered its promise? «^^^ S^A-S.5.
^44 ^^l -1-0]- AlB^^^ n.^^]7i] ^4<^ At -a-^Jl:- #4t cdx]- oj-oiix-^, s t|-4t c^xv u-1t>| ^^\a\ ah, 7^1-
*. 316. 17. the open sea ^^l^] 3.^-1 ^l^-.
19. in unison i ^^A e.
19. a song of homage to their homeland n.^-^ 3l'^<^] ^
^7j-4>As. 7|-n^5]t zx^7v 459^J- r<^^tH ^HJ'^^ ^<y.
20. And with a wondrous lightness- •• a. B-JjL ;^o]] ^o] ^l^yl
^-t- 'i^ 7H^ 4-i--2.-= M-t o.^ x|.oi<Hi 7^15^4.
THE MARTYRED
O
m ^]
ih
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i
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