Pete Cawdron - Feedback

Lee struggled to keep his nerve. At any second, guards could burst around the corner, yelling and chasing him as they had in the village. He imagined spotlights blinding him as dogs were unleashed. Doubt swept across his mind. Each step seemed to be a step too far, a step that could never be undone or retraced in a slightly different manner to reach an alternate end. He was committed, regardless, and he knew it. If they caught him trying to escape, they’d kill him, but he knew he had to rescue the boy.

The fingers of his left hand trembled, betraying the fear welling up inside him.

Lee peered through a window beside the door to the administration block.

A light flickered from somewhere at the end of the hallway, casting a dirty yellow hue across the rough wooden floor. The step beneath him creaked as he moved to get a better look. There was a guard on a chair at the end of the hallway, his head propped up in the corner, asleep. He was slouching, slumping to the point that he had almost slipped off the chair. A rifle leaned against the wall next to him.

“What’s the layout?” Lee asked. He was trying to be brave, but the tremor in his voice betrayed his nerves.

Sun-Hee’s brother pointed to an open door just inside the hallway, saying, “That’s the reception area for the camp commander. His office is through there. The next two doors are storage and filing. The guard is outside the secretary pool. That is where they are keeping the boy, on a cot in the corner.”

Lee tested the door knob with his left hand. The handle turned.

“No,” the brother said, resting his hand on Lee’s shoulder.

Lee opened the door anyway. His eyes were glued on the sleeping guard in the distance. He pulled the door ajar, just wide enough to slip through and crept inside. The hinges on the door groaned briefly as he closed the door behind him, all the while keeping his eyes locked on the guard.

A floorboard creaked softly beneath his shifting weight. The guard stirred at the sound but didn’t open his eyes. He rocked slightly to one side as he fought to get comfortable and drifted back to sleep.

Lee cursed himself.

If he’d thought about his predicament logically, he would have backed out of the door and fled with Sun-Hee’s brother while he still could. If that guard woke, his bid for freedom was over. Even if he had a gun, he couldn’t use it. The sound of gunfire would have brought soldiers running from all over the camp. Lee wasn’t sure what he could do, but he felt compelled to do something. Two decades of rescuing drowning people from raging seas had given him steely determination in spite of the odds. He’d seen plenty of people survive when they should have died, and that same reverence for life drove him on to rescue the star-child. He’d risked his life before. This night was no different.

His fingers tightened around the rusted iron bar in the pocket of his coat.

Lee crept into the reception area, slipping quietly into the shadows.

Scattered clouds drifted by outside, allowing moonlight to brighten the room.

The furniture was austere. A plain wooden desk blocked the approach to the back office. There was something wrong with the desk, something out of place. It took Lee a second to realize he automatically expected a computer or a typewriter on the desk, but the polished wooden surface was bare. A couple of empty filing trays sat to one side of the desk, along with a cup holding a few pencils. Any unfinished paperwork had been cleared away.

Beside the desk, a coat and hat were perched on a rack. Gold trim wound its way around shoulder boards on the heavy woolen overcoat, while the broad military hat looked new. Lee was surprised by the hat, as nothing else he’d seen in North Korea looked new. Everything he’d observed within the camp looked tired and worn. Even the neatly pressed uniform of Colonel Un-Yong had shown signs of wear, as though it had been handed down over generations. This had to be the general’s coat.

Lee slipped off his own coat, placing it carefully on the coat rack, taking care not to make any noise as he slipped the general’s coat on. With a rush of adrenaline surging through his veins he barely felt the coat brush against his injured hand. He tried the hat. It was a tight fit, but he could pull it down low over his brow.

Lee peered into the night, looking for Sun-Hee’s brother outside. The distraught young man paced back and forth on the wet grass, clearly agitated, mumbling to himself, his head darting from side to side, evidently expecting to get caught at any second.

With only one good hand, Lee struggled to do up the belt on the coat. He slipped his wounded right hand into the pocket, hiding his bloody stumps from view and whispered to himself, saying, “No point in waiting. It’s now or never.”

He took a deep breath and marched out into the hallway, deliberately stomping on the wooden floor as he charged up to the sleeping guard in a rushed march. The rational portion of his mind screamed at him, telling him he was insane, that this would never work, but he had to try something. He had no time. There was no other way to get to the child. If he was going to free the boy, he had to have the audacity to try something insane. Would his bluff work? He was about to find out.

The laces on his boots worked loose as he stomped down the corridor, causing his boots to clump awkwardly as he thundered on.

The guard jumped out of his seat, knocking his rifle to the ground.

“Wake up, you drunken fool!” Lee ordered, his voice full of bluster.

He was shaking, and in his attempt to mask his fear he found he was yelling when he’d intended only to sound decisive. “I will have you court marshaled for dereliction of duty!”

The soldier was flustered. His cheeks were rosy, revealing the turmoil of emotions going through his mind. Lee could see he was struggling to decide whether he should stand at attention and salute or bend down and pick up his rifle. He struggled awkwardly between the two motions, stuttering in abortive attempts to do both. Lee knew he had him on the ropes.

“Pick that up,” Lee commanded, pointing at the rifle. “You are a disgrace!”

The soldier scrambled to pick up his rifle, knocking the chair to one side with his boot. He tried to stand at attention beside the door, but he was clumsy. His eyes looked down at the knots of wood in the floorboards, avoiding eye contact with the general.

The soldier’s jacket was twisted half off his shoulder from where he’d slept leaning against the wall. Lee reached out and pulled at one of the lapels, roughly tugging it into place, deliberately intimidating the young man with brute physical contact.

“I’m–“

“Silence!” Lee cried, cutting him off. He had to concentrate carefully on his pronunciation as he mimicked the North Korean slur. The guard kept his eyes low. “I’ve sent men to the mines for less than this.”

He was bluffing. Mines sounded good. He hoped the North Koreans had coal mines or some such equivalent as a labor camp for prisoners. A coal mine was the worst place he could think of, and he cringed at the possibility that they didn’t and he’d said something so obviously stupid that it would give him away. If the guard realized what was happening and reacted, he could easily overpower Lee. With his wounded hand, all Lee had was bluster, and he hoped his bluff was good enough.

In his haste, Lee had left the iron bar in his jacket pocket back in the reception area. He was defenseless.

“You are relieved of your post,” Lee said forcibly, pinning his shoulders back and trying to make himself appear bigger than he was.

The guard stood there stunned. His eyes began to rise, drifting across Lee’s overcoat. Had he spotted Lee’s bloodstained uniform beneath? No matter how Lee had wrapped himself, the cut of the coat made it impossible to hide his clothing beneath.