Peter Cawdron - Feedback

Lee had no way of knowing the time, and he began to get nervous. He couldn’t see the moon from where he was as it had moved high in the sky, casting short shadows. At the point it reached its zenith, it would be midnight. If only he could see the moon. That one, small consolation of being able to tell the time, even if only as an approximate, would have lifted his spirits, but there was no such mercy. From where he was, it was impossible to estimate shadow lengths. It could be barely 11pm or already after midnight for all he could tell.

Rats scurried along the far wall, keeping to the shadows. Oh, how he envied those creatures, able to pass through the bars with ease, eking out an existence regardless of ideology. Life was simple, uncomplicated. They could forage or flee, mocking him with their freedom, sniffing as they crept through his cage. They could smell the blood, his blood. The thought of his fingers lying severed and cold in some garbage can, discarded like offal, caused him to gag.

“Get out of here,” he yelled, not so much as to rid himself of the rats as to distract himself from his anguish. With his left hand, he threw a handful of dirt and straw. The tiny flecks scattered across the floor. One of the rats darted away while the other turned and stared, its beady eyes locked with his, its whiskers twitching in the moonlight.

“Leave me alone,” he cried again, kicking at the loose straw with his feet and flinging another handful of debris at the rat.

Lee kept his wounded hand close to his chest. The muscles in his forearm spasmed as he sought in vain to protect his bloodied hand. His actions were a pathetic attempt at keeping the wound clean and he knew it. He could no more protect his hand than he could demand that the sun rise. Regardless of whether it was Eun-Yong or the revolutions of the planet beneath him, the cruelty of his captors or the rhythms of Earth, Lee came to realize he had no control over his own life, and that realization hurt. For a captain, someone that was in charge of a flight crew and a multi-million dollar helicopter, this was a sobering thought, bringing tears to his eyes. His heart sank in despair. This ache was a pain no other could ever inflict on him: it came from his own realization of helplessness.

“Please,” Lee said, pleading with the rat.

As a pilot, he had exquisitely tuned control over his world with just the slightest twist of his wrist. Rocking to the left as he sat there in the cockpit of his Sea King helicopter would cause reality to obey his slightest whim. Eight tons of steel would sway gently through the air in response to his touch, following his fleeting thoughts as though the craft were an extension of his body. Just the lightest of touches on the pedals would cause corrections, minute or sweeping, allowing him to perform aerial ballet. He’d been a god in the sky. Here in this prison, he had been cast down out of heaven, a mere mortal, naked and bleeding.

“Please,” he said again, his voice breaking, barely a whisper in the night. The rat seemed to understand. It turned and crawled away, its tail dragging on the ground as it disappeared silently into the shadows.

The guards continued their routine outside, and each time they marched past on the gravel Lee listened for an extra set of footsteps, but there was only the soft rustle of the breeze through the trees looming over the barracks.

Had something happened?

Had one of his rescuers been caught?

His mind raced in panic. They couldn’t have been caught, he reasoned, as there would have been a flurry of activity from the other soldiers in the camp. Instead, a few lonely guards trudged through the night. They were still coming, he told himself.

What was keeping them?

Peering out through the bars, Lee could see rain beginning to fall. The soft patter was soothing, filling the quiet of the night with a gentle rhythm.

One of the guards marched along the gravel, right on time, but this time he stopped beside the cell. In the dim light, Lee could see the man looking around as he stood there silently in the rain with an old carbine rifle slung over his right shoulder. Casually, the guard stepped off the gravel path and down the concrete steps leading to Lee’s holding cell.

Lee felt his heart pounding in his chest. His hand throbbed. The sound of the key in the lock teased him. He wanted to spring forward and out of the door, but he held his nerve, waiting for the guard to open the rusted lock.

“Come,” a voice said softly in Korean.

Lee crept out of the sunken basement, slipping the heavy overcoat across his shoulders as he stepped out into the rain. Although his left arm was in the coat, he struggled to get his right hand down through the sleeve. Just the slightest of touches against the rough wool sent pain shooting up his arm. He fought to curl his wrist and jimmy the coat on, trying not to let his wounded hand scrape against the inside of the sleeve.

Lee looked at his rescuer.

At first, he didn’t recognize him. The young man’s baby face looked slightly rounded and plain. His hair was hidden beneath a cap, warding off the rain. He didn’t smile. He barely acknowledged Lee at all, treating him with what seemed like disdain.

“I…” Lee began, not sure what he was going to say, but feeling an overwhelming sense of gratitude. Freedom lay a long way off, but to stand on the other side of those bars, no longer humbled by the filthy straw and the low wooden ceiling, made him euphoric, if only for a moment.

“We must hurry,” the soldier said softly.

As the moonlight lit the side of his face, Lee caught a glimmer in his eye, a glimmer he had seen briefly the night before in the light of a fire burning inside an old wooden cabin. This was Sun-Hee’s brother.

“We will help you, but you must help us.”

Lee nodded, walking alongside the young man.

Clouds passed in front of the moon and the ambient light faded.

Rain fell in a light drizzle.

Gravel crunched underfoot, revealing the distinct sound of two men walking slightly out of sync.

Lee stepped to one side and walked on the muddy grass to hide his presence from anyone sleeping in the rude buildings. He kept to the shadows that were cast by the huts, afraid of prying eyes peering out from behind their darkened windows.

“Sun-Hee and my grandfather are waiting by the coast. I will take you there. From there, you must take all of us to the south.”

“Won’t they stop us?” Lee whispered, gesturing at the gate, more concerned about getting out of the camp than getting back to South Korea. To Lee, Seoul seemed as unreachable as Mars or Jupiter. All he could focus on was the next step. Beyond that, chance would play its hand, but until then he wanted to take control of anything he could.

“Ha,” the young man laughed under his breath. “This is a North Korean army camp. We have rice, maize, fish and eggs. We keep peasants out, we don’t keep them in.”

“What about the boy?”

The soldier stopped in his tracks and turned to face Lee as he spoke. “We leave him.”

“No!” Lee replied, surprising himself with the vehemence of his response. “We have to take him with us.”

“He fell from the stars,” the guard replied, his eyes looking up at the clouds billowing across the sky. “If he can travel through space, he can care for himself.”

“He’s just a child,” Lee insisted, trying to keep his voice low. His mind brought back the eerie words the boy had spoken after his torture, speaking of his death. How could the child possibly know anything about Lee, let alone how he would die?

Perhaps he should leave him.

Perhaps he should run from such a dire prophecy?

Perhaps by running he could avert disaster?

There was something about the boy’s face, some innocence that demanded justice.