THE whole atmosphere in the compound had changed. Our attitude was one of impatience to depart, mingled with doubts that our captors would fulfil their part of the bargain. They had tricked us so often in the past, and we had looked forward to this day so much, that, now it had arrived, we could not bring ourselves to believe absolutely that it was all coming true. But day by day the Peking Radio news gave details of the exchanges at Panmunjon, describing the affecting scenes when their own men returned from the cruel United Nations Command—and the reluctance with which United Nations’ captives left Communist custody to return once more to the harsh capitalist world!
One of the popular subjects for discussion was the expected visit of the Red Cross representatives—a subject which interested the Chinese as much as us, apparently. Big Chu made several visits to the Company Headquarters to ask individuals and small groups, called up from the compound, what their views were on this matter.
“What will happen when the Red Cross people come?” asked Chu. “What will you say to them?”
These questions were put to us by Chang and other interpreters, also. It was plain that they did not want to lose face by having to listen to reports about the days when it had been of no concern whether a prisoner lived or died; and the days, not so far back, when the fate of a prisoner removed from the compound was very uncertain.
Big Chu had more to say on the Red Cross.
“You must admit to them that we have done everything to improve your living standards. Why, only recently, the General Commanding all Prisoners-of-War held a conference in Pyoktong to examine your demands for improvements in your daily life—you sent two representatives from each company.”
His listeners reminded him that such a conference was, indeed, “only recently”. Memories went back further than May 1953.
“And if the Red Cross should come—and we are not frightened of showing the Red Cross how we have treated you—what could they do for you?”
The question of Red Cross comforts was raised.
“Cigarettes? Candy?” asked Chu. “But the Chinese Peoples’ Volunteers can give you all you need of these things.”
Sure enough, not long after my return to the compound, cigarettes and other comforts were issued in quantity. We had been accustomed to receiving one packet of cigarettes at feast times, such as Thanksgiving and Christmas. On the signing of the Truce Agreement, two hundred cigarettes had been given to each man. Now we had five hundred apiece; and with the cigarettes, many other good things. Two days later, Chang said, very casually, to our compound leader:
“By the way, there are some Red Cross gifts for you to collect. You can send a detail down for them if you want them.”
The detail brought back American cigarettes by the crate, shaving gear, soap, matches, to wels—many, many items, the familiar names of which suddenly brought home really near to us.
On August 17th we left our compound forever. A convoy of trucks arrived in the morning rain; we climbed aboard and drove down along the rough track to the road, passing for the last time the few houses near the compound fence, and the schoolhouse where the track joined the road.
Outside the main gate of No. 1 Company Compound, the trucks stopped; we were told to dismount and go inside. The square was flooded after two days of rainfall and we waded round it to ascend the steps at the western end of the promenade. The first person I met inside the schoolhouse door was Sandy, the Rifles doctor.
“The Colonel’s back,” he said. “Came back last night—he’s over there.”
I pushed my way through the crowds in the old library, squeezing between little knots of excited people who were exchanging the news of the two compounds. Near the end of the room, I stopped for a second to look at the Colonel, before taking my place in a queue of men who were anxious to shake his hand. He was very thin; his face was drawn and his eyes tired. Seeing him there, I really began to believe for the first time that the Chinese intended to release us.
He had been in solitary confinement for nineteen months.
Our departure was delayed for two days by the heavy summer rains. Sections of the road eastward to Manpo-Jin—the entraining point—had been washed away.
On the night before we left, Ron—the Australian pilot with whom I had escaped at Pyongyang—came back from Pyoktong. He had been to see the Red Cross with an American from the compound and he had a most interesting story to tell.
Apparently, the Red Cross had been scheduled to visit our Camp in a few days time. They had now been told that the repatriation programme had been accelerated and that we were due to move to the staging point at Kaesong over a week before the date originally notified, thus making it impossible for them to come to see us. Having no immediate inspection on hand, the team volunteered to come at once; but the Chinese had regretted that this was impossible: the road from Pyoktong had been washed away, they said. It was so impassable that they had taken Ron and the American along it to visit the Red Cross Headquarters—and sent them back the same way by truck. In spite of Big Chu’s assertion, our opinion that the Chinese did not want the Red Cross to visit us was being steadily strengthened.
The two representatives from our Camp had been given a very limited opportunity to talk to the Red Cross team. Whenever a question was asked concerning conditions before the New Year 1953, the Chinese Red Cross representative insisted that the question was irrelevant, or that they had no time to conduct a long inquiry. It was plain that the characters of our captors had not changed in any way.
It now remained to be seen whether there had been a general acceleration in repatriation, or whether we were merely being moved south towards Kaesong to keep us away from the Red Cross.
On the morning of August 19th, the motor column moved out of Pyn-Chong-ni to the east.
It was an uneventful journey. The Korean people waved to us, apparently knowing that we were going home. No enmity was shown, except where this had been organized. In a few villages, small groups of youths had been assembled to shake their fists at us and throw stones as we passed. In the late afternoon we reached the rail centre of Manpo-Jin and, by dusk, a train was drawing us south.
On the platform at Manpo-Jin, where we entrained in box-cars, we saw Sam and others under sentence. Kept separately, they were put aboard the train under the arrangements of the Public Prosecutor, Chen Chung Hwei.
By the following evening we had reached Pyongyang, where we changed to another train. Next morning, we passed through the country across which I had escaped to the coast in the late summer of 1951—I noted the point at which I had crossed the railway line. In the afternoon, we drew up in Kaesong station, which I had not seen since I detrained there with my Battalion in November 1950, just prior to the advance north through Pyongyang.
Clear of the town, we passed between the green rice paddy and looked eagerly towards the south. There, unmistakable in the afternoon sunlight, was the huge, jagged range that lies between Kaesong and Seoul; a range that lies south of the Imjin River.
We were looking at territory held by our own side.
The staging area consisted of a series of tented camps south-cast of Kaesong, set on the sides of the small, rolling hills that lie between the jagged peaks round the town and the river-shore. After one night in the first camp we entered, we were moved to another over the hill, but left the sergeants behind. In the new camp, Sam and the others, hitherto held apart, joined us. At last, we were all together.
The standard of the food deteriorated as the days passed, and it did not increase our happiness to discover that we had been brought south merely to mark time within sight of our own lines. The stratagem to keep the Red Cross from seeing us had worked. Our only advantage lay in the fact that we were near enough to have a better chance of escape if something went wrong.
After eight days, repatriation began from our camp. Every night, about ten of our number would go out; a proportion being taken from each nationality represented. Every day one hoped that one might be lucky that night, and after each disappointment, there was always the hope that to-morrow might bring better luck.
The Colonel was taken out one afternoon. We awaited his return anxiously, discussing what action we should take if, at the last moment, they tried to hold him back. He returned after about an hour and a half, however, to tell us that he had been taken over the hill to the sergeants’ camp for an interview with Wilfred Burchett, correspondent of the newspaper L’ Humanite, who had reported from the Communist side of the line for some considerable time. The interview had been designed to obtain the Colonel’s views on his captivity—in particular his solitary confinement. The Colonel had given him a very concise reply:
“The food was rotten, and I was damned bored!”
That was not the story, however, which the Communist Press printed. Nor did they describe Burchett’s reception by the sergeants. He had been booed from the moment of his entry through the gate just as he had been booed by our soldiers when he attempted to lecture them many months previously in Camp I on the Yalu River. On that occasion, they had had prior notice of his arrival and had prepared miniature hangman’s nooses, which they swung to and fro as they sat on the ground beneath the platform from which he spoke.
The Padre held a Church Service for the Protestants each Sunday in the mat and timber structure which served us as a dining-hall. On the second Sunday, we read Psalm 126:
“When the Lord turned again the captivity of Sion”
“Then were we like unto them that dream”
“Then was our mouth filled with laughter”
“And our tongue with joy.…”
I looked south to the hills beyond the Imjin River, and felt that I ought to remember the words; and to remember all my many prayers that had been answered during my captivity. Returning to the increased tempo of life which awaited me once I crossed into Sion, it would be so easy to forget.
It was Randle of the 8th Hussars who told me the news one evening. He came running up from the dining-hall as I came down the path from the hill above.
“They’re calling the names,” he said, “and they’ve called yours! They’re sending out a really big bunch to-night and you’re in it.”
I was with the Colonel and Denis; Sam was just ahead of us; Sid was coming back from the crowd in the dining-hall, who were listening to Chang reading out the names.
“l’m down for repatriation, Sid,” I said. “I can hardly believe it.”
“Neither can I,” said Sid. “I’m coming with you!”
We collected our belongings and said our farewells. A truck took us into Kaesong, where we were accommodated for the night in an old temple. Many of our sergeants were already there, and some of our men. I thought that I should find it difficult to rest but I fell asleep almost as soon as I had pulled my blanket over me.
We rose at dawn and, by seven-thirty, were ready on a square outside the temple walls to embus in the convoy of trucks drawn up nearby. Before they were brought forward from the park to collect us, however, we had to have a final speech, reminding us of our good treatment, of our close bond of friendship with the Chinese Peoples’ Volunteers, and our debt to them in being returned home safe and sound.
The trucks were called forward, drawing up a few feet from us. Steps were brought forward to save us the effort of clambering over the back. Chang got into a truck with Carl and me; he was very affable on the surface, and gave us the information that we were due to be handed over at nine o’clock exactly. Beneath his affability, I could see that he was very nervous. I have an idea that he feared that we might do him violence on the last lap of the journey.
The convoy drove through Kaesong and out on to the road that leads to Panmunjon. At a quarter to nine we stopped at a last check-post, run jointly by the Chinese and North Koreans. A Chinese inquired in a honeyed voice if we would care to refresh ourselves with some hot water. We declined. The truck moved on and entered a one-way circuit.
We passed the huge building in which the Truce Agreement had been signed; passed the area where, for over two years, the negotiators had discussed the terms of the Truce. Chang began to point out other places of interest, but my eyes did not follow his directions. Some little way ahead, and growing nearer every second, I saw an area into which helicopters were descending. The truck halted for a moment before turning right on to the main Panmunjon road, littered with good American boots and clothing which the returning Chinese and North Korean prisoners had cast off as they returned to their own side. Now I could see tents and the unmistakable white hats of American military police. Before I could realize it, we had pulled up near the tents, Chang had jumped off, and a pair of steps had been put against the back of the truck. An American began to call out our names as he and a Chinese checked them against a list.
I did not need my bundle of belongings any more. It remained by the seat on which I had been sitting. I suddenly realized that it was a very hot morning as I came down the steps into the sunlight to be clapped on the back by an American soldier who led me towards a wooden arch marked:
“Welcome to Freedom.”
I passed underneath.
It was nine o’clock on the 31st of August 1953.
THE END