선무당이 사람 잡는다

A novice shaman kills their patient.

Tanch'on, August 25th, 1947

Lee Chang-ok did not have a good sense of smell. When a Japanese grenade explodes only 5 meters away from you in a village raid, after all - your senses get dulled. When you 'graduate' from an imperialist prison, only eating a single bowl of rice a day - your senses get dulled. At least, that was the way Lee Chang-ok told it.

Yet the smell of Komdok Mine was almost overpowering. The zinc and lead mine was one of the largest in the world, with hundreds of miners bustling through the shift change. Before the war, they had railway carriages to carry them on their shift change. Now you were expected to walk - railway carriages were needed further south. Such was the price of progress, he thought as he stamped a cigarette under his boot.

"Thugs!," the mine manager raged, as he had been for the last twenty minutes, at Lee's back. "Gangsters! Criminals! Bandits! With the blessing of the party!"

"How many were there?," asked Lee's adjutant, Yoon Si-U.

"Two dozen! They had a couple of old rifles with them, but mostly farming implements. All loud and drunken and-"

"And you're sure of what they called themselves?," Lee asked. His sun-strained eyes and unbuttoned holster were enough to transform the manager's indignity into timidity.

"Yes. The Revolutionary Guard of Hamgyŏngbukdo."

Lee Chang-ok turned to leave, disgusted. Yoon Si-u made a quick bow and rehearsed, correct words of worker's encouragement before following his charge up the dusty mineroad.

"The sixth such report," Yoon said as they crested the hill and boarded the lorry that had brought them from the train station - there were no staff cars in North Hamgyong. "Same as the mines at Sohung, the ironworks at Hwanghae, the farmers in the south... All, groups of bandits, some with weapons, most with simple implements, going around the countryside, demanding bribes, threatening violence against any who resist in the name of the revolution... A factory director was shot in Haeju..." He leafed through the relevant reports.

"What has happened, Si-u?"

"The Revolutionary Guard have taken on their own will."

"And it must be destroyed."

To be continued...