RITE of BLOOD: Stories Buried in the Korean War

By Jerome H Cho

This story is based on the hero's real life. It depicts his personality and way of thinking, his love of his fatherland and brethren, His view-point of justice and sense of responsibility and moral principle is stressed and advocated. The modern warfare and advanced technique of reconnaissance are well exposed. The author is a witness of the Korean War. He holds an M A in English literature. He is the author of two other novels in Korean.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Sep 28, 2017
• ISBN: 9781483472195

Book preview

03/08/2018

CHAPTER 1

O n a peninsula on the coast of the northern Pacific Ocean in the Far East lay a puny hermit kingdom named Yi Dynasty. The kingdom was besieged by the land-hungry giant nations. It was bullied, intimidated, and pillaged by them. The courtiers and the ministers and the kings were engrossed in feud, disputes, and dogfights among factions to scramble for power without regard to the safeguard of the nation. The people were ravaged by the wicked corrupt government functionaries. Rancor sprouted from the people here and there. The nation’s fate was like a candle light in peril of being blown out anytime by the wind. The nation was finally conquered by the invaders from across the sea. It was annexed to their nation and ruled by them for 36 years. It was liberated from the slavery by the super powers. It was a sheer joy for the people to cast off their shackles. But the jubilation was soon replaced with the new tragedy, division of the nation by the 38 th Parallel. The people were forced to tolerate throttling agonies and persevere until the unprecedented carnage swept the nation.

The gray dawn began to recede reluctantly and the red sun peeped through the rifts of the red clouds in the eastern sky and shot its orange rays into the rear streets of Jongro. People made hustle and bustle as usual. There seemed to be something eerie in the air. They felt they had got up out of the wrong side of the bed when the blatant radio was announcing an emergency news that the war broke out along the frontline early that morning. The words of the news, however, died in the still air of the Sunday morning. Few people strained their ears to make sure what was coming out of the radio even if they were awake. They had never expected better words from it than the sugar-coated lies of the government. Groans were brewing in every pit of the poverty. Some military intelligence had suggested a danger of impending crises of the enemy’s military adventures designed. But the tottering government did not pay much attention to the warning. The politicians were intoxicated with the greed for power. The wretched people were not interested in politics. They focused their entire energy on their own subsistence. They were hard to put to it to make a living. Most of them scrambled for pittance. They lived for the moment with no thought of the future at all.

We’ve got out of the old slavery. But we are again in the same slavery as, or worse slavery than, the old one. The old one was the bondage harnessed on us by the exotic tribe, I mean the Japanese, while the new one is harnessed on us by our sham patriots. The sanitation worker hauling the rear-car filled with the trash from each trash can in front of the houses along the rear street of Jongro said to his helper pushing the rear-car.

Yes, they are wolves in sheep skins. Do you know who assassinated our true leader, patriot, Kim Goo?asked his helper.

Yes, he was An Duhee, an army lieutenant.

Word circulated at that time that Syng Man Rhee had been involved in the assassination.

That’s true. said the sanitation worker. He was the author of the collusion. That’s why we are blamed for electing a wrong person as our first President, Founding Father. We, the innocent sheep were totally chicaned, when he appeared to rule us right after the liberation from the Japanese slavery. My father was a champion of the independence movement during the Japanese Rule. He helped Kim Goo with financial support. He traveled to China and back to Korea providing him with fund.He did the service underground. He was wanted by the police.Unfortunately one day he was arrested on a train to Manchuria by a police detective, a Korean who knew my father by face, tortured, and tried for the independence movement. He was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment. The guy who worked as a Japanese police detective is now a judge in a higher court in Seoul after the liberation. My father passed away right after he served his sentence.

Then have you received any compensation from the government? asked his helper.

No, never.

Syng Man Rhee’s regime is immoral. Politics is not our fields to plunge into to get our daily bread. It is a dirty field in which the insatiable dogs fight for bones. You know we are pariahs. We are pushed away to the dark side of the community like this. I have no nerve to think of my nation. My father was thrown into jail after he was sentenced to life imprisonment for a fan for Communism. And he is suffering from an aftermath of torture in Sudaemoon Penitentiary System. I’m totally forced into our hardscrabble lives. grumbled his helper.

The main streets in the capital city were cluttered with fliers and morning papers. People scrambled after them. They were curious to know what was reported. Terrified, they felt the heart wrenched out of its place when it came to their perception that the enemy (the fraternal foe) had blitzed all along the 38th Parallel at the daybreak that day. The people who had accessed the rumor firsthand were puzzled about the trustworthiness. Some people got a big smile. They just gaped at the rumor revolving their eyeballs. They were reluctant to give their comments on the matter.And others listened with much eagerness to a newsboy who had fetched the rumor from a truthful source. People were lost in the flier, which contained diverse stories collected from diverse locations:

"Awakening to the din, the poorly trained and armed ROK army somewhere on the western frontline fumbled for muskets in somnolence and fought to death against the enemy. The army fired a volley at the galling enemy. But at the yelled words of command the enemy burst out like hungry wolves in maniac cry and launched the assault with overpowering weaponry. The ROK army was like the sheep swooped by the hungry wolves. The ranks neither adequately trained nor experienced were dodging and ducking their head and shoulder so as to shun the invisible fiends. Some fell bitten by them, and some fell amputated by the bursting shells. And some were wallowing in the dirt with their mouths filled with blood and dirt, some groaning and crying for water, and others lying unconscious on the mud with their blurred eyes dilated as if to get a final look at their mom and dad. Stiffened bodies were trampled over the gory field by countless feet.

And somewhere on the mid-western part of the front, the din of the sudden spatter of firing of machine guns and blowing shells of artillery scared the ROK army away. The stunned soldiers fleeing in the paddy fields were strafed from the enemy fighters, which winged toward the capital city, a few minutes away. The vulnerable line of ranks was broken into pieces and totally messed up. The invaders’ growling, roaring war machines lurched through the paddy-fields smashing south. From the top of a distant hill came sound of piping and drumming and bugling in the air.

Word leaked out from the refugees that as it was Sunday the ranks who hadn’t taken weekend off or furlough were lazy on guard duty, which led to the blitz. We cannot but cite a deserter’s story which is reckoned as trustworthy. The anonymous deserter detailed the situation which he witnessed firsthand. He said the enemy had been closely watching our sentry boxes. And they found, as it were, the Achilleas’ heels of our soldiers. So the war was not a contingent occurrence but a premeditated strategy. He added he had witnessed a slew of good-for-nothing men had said confidently before the fight that they would fight to death for their fatherland, but when actually the time came, they turned mute and shrank. And he added again he had seen some dauntless ranks with burning patriotism and greed for victory run headlong into the enemy’s tanks holding artillery shells under their arms and others have head-to-head scrimmage against the enemy. He said they evidently thought it more noble to dedicate their lives to their country than to live in dishonor with their failure to defend it against the attack. But eventually the frontline lay flat by the overpowering flood.

In passing, here is an American war correspondent’s report: In an eastern part of the front, the sky over the East Sea had a red patch like a rug spread out for the feet of the admired sun to walk upon. Against it, loomed flapping red flags borne by the rampant youth on the meandering road of the coast. They were marching with triumphant stride chanting their ‘Song of Revolution’ as if they were war heroes."

The depiction on the flier engulfed the readers in a sheer terror. Spontaneously a guy who scanned it with dilated eyes ejaculated: I’ve got to go fight against the enemy.

Someone said he sounded like a patriot. He appeared to be a dutiful soldier at a glance. Some others thought he was out of himself. He was thought to be of hanky-panky.

What! My goodness! Are you serious? Are you a soldier? asked the landlady of the inn where he sojourned.

Yes, I am. If I don’t go back to my troop, I might be arrested and put in jail. I’ve got a furlough. I’ve got to go get my stuff and leave right away. He showed his granite resolution. His landlady followed him to help him check out.

Cho, Dong Yun who was standing beside them felt shudder on the back. He briskly walked back to the inn and wolfed down his breakfast and stowed his stuff in a haversack. He bade a goodbye to the landlady and made a no-look-back exit. Dumbfounded people on the streets were walking hurriedly to and fro. The haversack bobbed on his back wildly.

The stores on the sidewalks were closed down. Some of the showwindows were nailed down with panels.

The station was about five blocks away from the inn. He was due to take a train back to his hometown, Suncheon on the southern tip of the peninsula. Unfortunately the only express train which was scheduled to leave at 10 a.m. was canceled. A notice that all the passenger trains were canceled was put up on the bulletin board. He was at a loss what to do. Crowds of people gathered in front of the station and were worried about what to do next. But there was a freight train which headed to Busan. Many people thronged on the platform pestering the station master to allow them to ride on it. But it was chartered by the military authorities. MPs stood guard over it. Shortly many green-topped army trucks and ambulances arrived. It was guessed they were from the frontline because they were covered with dust. They dumped out soldiers on the stretchers covered with blood stained blankets. Most of them were wrapped with white linen and blood-soaked rag. Different parts of their bodies were wrapped: head, arm, torso, leg, and so on. Some were covered with white bedsheets, who looked dead. An officer bellowed at the rubbernecking crowd standing in the way of the bearers to move aside. There were many others limping along leaning on the orderlies. There was nobody looking at them without frowning. Those were the outcomes of the war. Anyway they were lucky to be evacuated from the front. There were too many of the wretched guys left unattended on the battle ground. All of them were supposed to be borne to a military hospital in Busan. The locomotive was ready to start puffing out steam from its nose.

In the meantime, the mob rushed into the booking office and demanded the station master to refund their tickets because the bulletin board said no train would be available. The mob said they had been waiting for three hours without getting refund for their tickets. The people lost their cool. They began to fume with rage and shrieked. Loud name calling altercated between them. The ado delayed their long journey on foot. It seemed stupid to spend time and energy on triviality. Finally they calmed down and got out of the office. Lost children were crying here and there looking for their moms. Besides, there were left unattended brand new babies wrapped in soiled blankets on the sideway. Some were lucky enough to be picked up on the ox-carts.

"Soldiers are thrown away like trash, much less people. They devoted their lives to save their