Valleys of Death (24 page)

“What happened Elliott? How did you get away from the bridge?”

He gave me a sheepish grin.

“I started to run back to the other side and about halfway I realized I would never make it and jumped off the bridge,” he said. “I went up the riverbed to get away from the bridge and I ran right into the Chinese and that was that.”

“Goddamn, that was thirty feet to the ground, you're lucky you could walk, let alone run.”

“Yeah, Sarge,” Elliot said.

I asked if he'd seen Roberts or Vaillancourt. Since he was a brand-new replacement, I should have known that he wouldn't know either of them.

I had started to walk back to my house, when I heard Roberts call my name.

“Rich,” he said. “Rich. Is that you?”

He didn't look like the man I'd watched kiss his beautiful wife good-bye. His face was thin and his eyes dark. He gave an awkward smile, but I could tell he hadn't had a lot to smile about. I could tell he was looking at me and thinking the same things. I no longer looked like the cocksure corporal who knew how to cut corners at the Fort Devens map course. We'd walked through hell and came out changed men.

“Boy am I happy to see you,” Roberts said. “Val and I were both wounded and captured the first night the Chinese hit us. We were wondering what happened to you.”

“Well it's a long story. I was just asking about you two. How's Vaillancourt?”

“Not too good, Rich,” Roberts said. His shoulders sagged when he said it. Almost as if admitting it hurt.

“He's in bad shape. Hit in both legs. They both probably need to be amputated.”

“What about you?” I asked.

“I got hit in my left arm and left leg,” he said, rubbing his arm. “The arm is okay, but my leg is infected. But I'll be all right.”

Roberts pointed out a cluster of houses down the valley where he and Vaillancourt were staying. He'd come up with some others to get water out of a well.

“Goddamn, you don't want to drink out of that well, it's contaminated,” I said.

“It's okay, Rich,” Roberts said.

“Bullshit. I'm telling you don't drink it,” I said.

He laughed and waved me off.The others had the water in a few buckets and called Roberts over to carry a pair. They had been gone a long time and they needed to get back to their house.

“Well tell Val I was asking for him. I'll try to get to see you both later,” I said.

It amazed me how fast our clothing deteriorated. Our boots just seemed to be falling apart. The seam on my rear belt line split down to my crotch, and the guys would laugh about my ass hanging out in the breeze.

Smoak pulled me aside one afternoon. “Rich, do you think you could get a couple of the boots before the Chinese get them?”

“What for? Most of them are no better than what we are wearing,” as I looked at his boots.

“Just get a couple and I'll show you.”

I worked my way around to where the Chinese had piled the clothing. I realized there was no use in thinking too much about how to do it; I just walked up, grabbed two of the boots and kept right on moving.

I headed right back to our hut and told Smoak.

“Goddamn, that was almost too easy. We need to think about stealing some of the clothes.”

“Yeah,” Smoak said as he grabbed the boots.

They were falling apart, and Smoak tore into them and pulled out two pieces of spring steel. Each one was about one inch wide by seven inches long. Eventually some of the steel was honed sharp enough to shave with and trim our hair. My hair had grown long and hung over my neck. It, like my beard, was matted with lice. Shaving off the filthy hair made me feel human again.

Letter dated March 9, 1951, reaffirming my missing in action status.
Author's collection

It amazed me where I found and cherished little pieces of humanity in the camp.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

THE MORGUE

In early spring of 1951, the Chinese were building small docks on the river and I was unlucky enough to get put on the work crew.

The guards would march us out of town and up the surrounding hills to pick up huge timbers cut out of the forest. The timbers were used as pilings. In our physical condition it took twelve men to carry the thick logs back to the river. When we got them down from the hill, we had to move them three to four miles back to the camp. The work was hard, but it was better than the burial detail.

We'd been at it for about ten days. One afternoon, a group of us were carrying one of these timbers up a hill when someone in the center stumbled and the timber fell, pinning me to the ground. I screamed out in agony as the others tried to get the timber off me. The guards were raising hell, yelling and thrashing about. They seemed to think that I had caused the accident. The other prisoners managed to get the timber off me, and as soon as I stood, a guard struck me in the small of my back with his rifle butt, dropping me to my knees. The other prisoners quickly surrounded me, trying to protect me from other blows, but the damage was done.

I struggled to my feet and took my place under the timber, but my back was screaming in pain. I could feel the muscles tightening, and the shrapnel wounds across the small of my back were bleeding again. With every step, my back got more stiff. Soon, I couldn't turn or stand up straight. By the time we got back to camp, it was almost impossible for me to walk.

During the night, my legs from the waist down were hard as a rock and my lower legs were drawn up until my calves were touching the back of my thighs. My Achilles tendons swelled up as big as my thumbs and turned black, then blue and finally a sickening green color. The guys from my room carried me back and forth to the formations, and it was not long before the Chinese realized I could not walk. The guards came late in the afternoon a fews days after the accident. They marched into our house and hooked me under my arms and carried me out the door.

They were taking me to the hospital. We called it the morgue. We had never seen anyone return from there.

I wanted to fight back, but I couldn't. The guards opened the door to one of the rooms in the cluster of houses that served as the hospital and threw me in. It was dark and I could not see anyone. I landed on top of the wounded and sick lying on the dirt floor. They immediately started kicking and cursing me. The stench from the wounds and the human feces was unimaginable. I started to gag.

There was not enough room for the men who were already there, let alone me. As I wiggled around trying to find a space on the floor, a loud voice from the rear of the room boomed.

“Let him in, give him some room. Do you all hear what I said? Leave him alone.”

The others made room and I finally sat down.

“What's your name?” the loud voice said again.

“Richardson,” I said.

“I'm King.”

King of the room or what? I wondered.

I was trying to cope with the odor and wondering if I was going to get enough space to lie down, when my diarrhea kicked in. But I was determined that I would not relieve myself right there.

“Where can I find somewhere to take a crap?” I said in King's direction.

“Out the door, go left to the end of the building, left again, and twenty-five yards on a knoll you'll find the latrine.”

The temperature was freezing, but I welcomed the fresh air. I dragged myself out on my buttocks, pushing myself along with my hands. I reached the latrine, a trench a foot and a half wide and ten feet long. The trench sat just outside a strand of wire that separated our camp from the black prisoners.

The human waste was like pudding and almost reached to the top of the trench. I managed to get my pants down and had worked my way to the edge, when the side caved in. I fell into the trench, finally catching my shoulders on the edge. The waste was at my chin as I clawed at the dirt trying to pull myself free. My paralyzed legs, like an anchor, pulled me toward the bottom. I yelled out and kept clawing, but every second I slipped deeper and deeper into the trench.

Two black prisoners on the other side heard me. They crawled through the barbed wire, grabbed me by my arms and pulled me out. A second later, and I would have slipped under the surface.

The guards heard all of the commotion and were closing in. My saviors scrambled back through the fence just as the guards arrived. To this day, I have no idea who saved me. Fearing I was trying to escape, they started to beat me with their rifle butts. I covered my head and tried to protect myself. As I lay there covered in shit, I lost control of my bowels.

That was it, I thought. I was done. But giving up meant death. I had lived with death every day since coming to Korea. The battlefield was like a movie in fast forward. There was so much going on and I couldn't dwell on death very long. Call for the medic, possibly hold the wounded man in my arms, or say a word or two as he passed from life to death.

It was different as a prisoner. I had no way of defending myself other than using my mind and what physical capabilities I could muster. I realized my mind had to be my strength.

For a split second, all of the pain and suffering could have ended.

“No!” my mind screamed.

I couldn't give up. I'd come this far and in that second I set my mind to doing something no one had done. I was going to come back from the morgue. As the Chinese soldiers landed blow after blow on my back and legs, I banished death from my mind. Never again did it enter into it.

The guards finally stopping hitting me and called over two more guards, who threw two buckets of water on me. The two buckets of water didn't do much to clean me up. Then the guards dragged me by my arms back to the morgue.

When they threw me in, it was a repeat performance. First the smell and then the kicks and protests of the other sick and injured. It didn't last long, since I now fit in perfectly and I no longer gave a damn. Once I carved out my spot, I tried to clean up. The shit was caked on and I tried to scrape it off my skin or shake it off my pants. This was my new home, at least until I could figure out how to get out.

It was not long and I was one of the longest residents of this stinking hellhole. As fast as the men died, new individuals were thrown into the room. We were dying thirty and forty a day. Most men just waited until their number was called. I was eating with, sleeping with, talking to living corpses and could do nothing about their dying except to comfort them and show them a little compassion. King seemed to hang on and I believed he would make it.

After a while, I made it around the room and set up next to him. He was a massive black man with a barrel chest and thick arms. I learned that he was a boxer. He'd been the heavyweight boxing champ for the Army in Europe and later the all-Army champion. King had pneumonia.

King had done his best to keep the men in the room in order. His size and booming voice alone commanded respect, and he was healthier than the other dying guys. As I got better, I was able to assist him in keeping as much order as possible considering the situation we were in. First we tried to clean up the room, but getting water was hard. As hard as it was, we no longer let soldiers defecate on themselves and helped those that could make it to the latrine. Overall, we tried to keep the mood up, and new prisoners were no longer greeted by insults and kicks.

I had no idea what was going on outside of the morgue. I still couldn't stand or walk. I dragged myself outside and around to the back of the building, where I could sit against the wall in the sun. It's amazing how the sun warms you no matter how cold it is. It seemed to go right through my body and warm me inside. One day, while I was trying to get some fresh air, I ran across a prisoner who was voluntarily helping the sick and wounded in two of the other buildings. He sat down to have a smoke and we started to talk about conditions at the camp. I asked about my house and Doyle, Smoak and the others. He didn't know anything about them, but he did tell me stories that shocked me about how men mistreated one another. The strong were picking on the weak, taking clothes and food. He told me how one prisoner had kicked another to death. They weren't fighting, the soldier said; one guy did it just because he could. Two days later, the attacker died too.