The Wandering Ghost

Начало книги

Stray flakes of snow swirled around the fur-lined edges of the MP’s parka. He kept his M-16 rifle clutched close to his chest, glaring at us, and snatched the clipboard out of Ernie’s hands.

“Emergency dispatch,” Ernie said. “Good for anywhere Eighth Army operates, at any time of day or night.”

“This ain’t Eighth Army,” the MP answered.

He was right. We were twenty miles north of Seoul sitting in a jeep at a checkpoint on the MSR, the Main Supply Route. Naked poplars lined the road, quivering in the cold wind of February. Five miles farther north stood Tongduchon, the city that straddles the front gate of Camp Casey, the headquarters of the United States Army’s 2nd Infantry Division.

“You’re a subordinate unit,” Ernie said.

The MP tossed the clipboard back to Ernie and said, “We ain’t subordinate to nobody.”

Ernie studied the MP and the armed hon-byong, Korean Army military policeman, standing only a few feet away. Then he glanced at another American crouched behind an M-60 machine gun, muzzle pointed our way, safely ensconced behind sandbags in a reinforced concrete gun emplacement. Apparently, Ernie decided against raising hell. Instead, he grinned at the MP, shrugged, and handed the clipboard to me. Then he shoved the jeep in gear. Slowly, we zigzagged our way through rows of crosshatched metal stanchions strewn across the roadway like jacks discarded by a careless giant.

Читать дальше →