Martin Limon - Joy Brigade

“I had no choice.”

I expected her to be angry and she was, but not at me. “She’s notorious. And now she follows us down here. But not for her country.”

“She’s a North Korean officer.”

“Yes. But she never does anything for her country. Not if she can help it.”

“Then why did she follow us?”

“Because she wants to escape too.”

“Into South Korea?”

“Yes. Or better yet, America. She will use you. Do you understand that?”

I did. There was no need for her to tell me.

“And she will kill me. Do you understand that too?”

“I won’t let it happen,” I said, suddenly angry.

“And,” she said, gesturing toward Il-yong, “she will get rid of him.”

“Never,” I promised. “Not while I’m breathing.”

“Neither one of us will be breathing, once she knows the way out of here.”

“Surrender, Captain Rhee shouted, “or we will attack!”

Armed men scurried from boulder to boulder.

“They will take us,” Doc Yong said. “We must swim. Now!”

“Right,” I said. “I’ll take the boy.”

Doc Yong hesitated but quickly realized that I was the stronger swimmer. She untied Il-yong from her back and strapped him to me, spread-eagle, facing my chest.

“Keep his head above water,” she said.

“Okay.”

“You go first. I will cover you.” She still held the pistol.

I slipped down behind rock to the edge of the water. It was freezing. Quickly, we rubbed black grease on our faces, arms, and the lower calves beneath our pants. Doc Yong gently slathered Il-yong’s face and arms and hands. We should’ve covered our entire bodies but there wasn’t time.

A rifle shot pinged above us. We crouched. She kissed Il-yong and then shoved me forward into the water.

The shock of the cold sucked all breath out of me. It had the same effect on Il-yong. He leaned away from me as far as he could, his eyes wide open, but he didn’t cry. There wasn’t enough air left in his lungs for him to cry. I floated on my back, keeping Il-yong’s head above water, the current carrying me quickly toward the tunnel. Another shot rang out, water splashed as we entered enveloping darkness. Safety. But now I was worried about the stone ceiling above me. Only about three feet of clearance, then two, and now one. Suddenly I realized that the entire tunnel was flooded. There would be no air. We would drown. But the current was much too strong for me to resist. I’d never manage to swim back. I focused on what Doc Yong had told me. The tunnel stretched for maybe fifty yards, and I’d already covered half that distance. Once we were underwater, if we could just hold our breath long enough to traverse the rest of the distance, we might survive. Before I could think about it further, my skull bumped rock, I took my last long breath and went under.

Il-yong squirmed in panic. I craned my neck and pulled him up and placed my mouth on his. Gently, I breathed air into his lungs. He sputtered and coughed but then came back for more. We were still drifting downstream but not fast enough. I started grabbing rock outcrops above me to pull myself along. Il-yong wanted more air. I kept hoping that we’d reach the end of this tunnel any second, but when I realized that we wouldn’t, I bent forward and tried to blow more air into his mouth. It didn’t work. He was squirming now in total panic. The last of my air escaped upward and bubbled away. I clawed forward-cursing the people who’d written that ancient manuscript, cursing Il-yong’s mother for taking me down here, cursing Eighth Army for sending me to North Korea-and then finally, grasping forward for the next handhold, I missed. No rock. I panicked, but then I realized that there was nothing left to grasp. The tunnel had ended.

I kicked forward and finally got my head above water. It was pure darkness, but at least I was breathing. I rolled on my back, floating. Il-yong wasn’t moving. Desperately, I swam toward the side of the current and finally hit rock again. I pulled myself up as far as I could, tilted Il-yong’s head back, and gently blew air into his mouth. Nothing.

Something splashed behind me. I stuck out my leg, a body rammed into it, and then hands clawed up my pant legs. I couldn’t see her face, but from the feel of her body I knew it was Doc Yong.

“Light,” I shouted. “Quickly. We have to get him on shore.”

She clambered over me, kicking and shoving, not worrying about hurting me. I heard her hands shuffling through her backpack and a light switched on. At first I was blinded, but I recovered quickly.

“Here,” I said, “take him.”

She reached down and pulled him up. I clambered after them and reached a gravel-strewn beach. I ripped Il-yong out of Doc Yong’s hands and held him by the ankles upside down. Water cascaded out of his throat. Then I cradled him in my arms and gently blew air into his lungs.

Nothing.

“Do something,” I said.

Doc Yong ripped him out of my arms, turned him over, and pressed her fist into his stomach. More water poured out. She blew into his lungs, again and again. After what seemed like a lifetime, he coughed.

Then he was crying.

Doc Yong hugged him and cried and finally reached out one hand and enveloped me with her arm around my neck and we were all crying.

The cavern was honeycombed with tunnels. There were dozens of dead ends that fell precipitously into rushing waters, tunnels that climbed up and then down and appeared to have no end, and tunnels made of loose rock that could fall and crush the unwary explorer. In fact, many people had been mangled in this nightmarish underworld. We spotted skeletons, probably half a dozen of them, some surrounded by brass studs and amulets that must once have been fastened to leather garments. When we swiveled the beam of our flashlights, skulls grinned up at us. Daggers and swords lay rusting. One of the skeletons was so ancient that when I touched it with a stick, it crumbled to dust.

Before leaving the underground river, we had dried ourselves as best we could and changed into the dry clothes Doc Yong had kept wrapped in plastic. Despite the darkness and freezing cold that enveloped us, Doc Yong’s mind was as sharp as ever. She had committed to memory the instructions contained in the ancient manuscript and slowly, painfully, we made our way through that unholy pit. The turns never seemed to end. Sometimes we were climbing up, sometimes sliding down. I wondered if we’d lost our way, if she was just afraid to tell me. With an effort, I pushed such thoughts away. We trudged forward in silence.

Occasionally we stopped to rest. And when we did, I watched and listened. No sound behind us. No traces of light. Senior Captain Rhee Mi-sook and her minions hadn’t followed us into the underground river. None of them wanted to commit suicide. She probably assumed we were dead. When I was sure no one was following, we resumed our trek.

Finally, we saw starlight, glimmering through a small opening. It took us two hours of steady work, hoisting jagged rocks and tossing them aside, to finally expose a passageway wide enough for Doc Yong to climb through. Once she was out, she started pulling away rocks from her side. When we thought it was safe, we shoved Il-yong through, and I followed.

At last, the three of us stood on steady ground, breathing fresh air.

“Mount Daesong,” Doc Yong said.

Above us loomed jagged granite. Below, a valley glowed with a thousand lights. Electricity everywhere. A ribbon of road snaked off into the distance, automobiles and buses crawling along it like illuminated insects.

South Korea. We’d made it. We were safe.

Il-yong cried for a while, but eventually, tied securely to his mother’s back, he fell asleep.