Korea

law because she hath no writing nor speciality thereof whereby they °wilt to be charp-ed - - - (Plea for writs sub pena) - - - Pledges : John Thomplynson of London, yeoman. Willm. Wyllym of London, yeoman - - in the quindene of Michaelmas next.

Elizabeth Squire, prioress A.D. 1489 to 1529.

(We are indebted to Mr. A. E. R. Dodds, now serving in Korea, for the following first-hand impressions.)

This is a sordid country and this war is a sordid business. All wars are, of course, but this one seems to be particularly so; chiefly, I suppose, because it is obvious that, whichever side wins, it is the Koreans who are going to be the main losers.

Any country after seven months of war must naturally look pretty sordid, but I do not think this one could have had very much to commend it even before its towns and villages were flattened by United Nations' bombers and its bridges and factories blown up or burnt by United Nations' troops. There is, it is true, a certain rugged beauty in the hills or near-mountains which rise up on either side of the road, especially after a fall of snow, and on a crisp, sunny morning one can almost appreciate this beauty; but for the most part one regards it with rather a jaundiced eye.

Few roads penetrate the hills and the main road keeps to the river valleys : this is only a road by courtesy and comparison, for no English motorist would risk his car on it. I travelled 375 miles of it within a week after landing and have since covered much of that again in the opposite direction, and it does not improve on acquaintance ! The Americans believe in the dictum "The faster you drive, the less you feel the bumps", but the more cautious British driver tends to take it slowly and try to avoid the more obvious irregularities—on the whole, the second course is preferable, mentally if not physically.

The villages—referred to by an imaginative "Times" correspondent, who, I can only presume, has never been East of Suez, as "picturesque as a Willow pattern plate" —consist almost wholly of huts with mud walls and thatched roofs, huddled together and impregnated with that indescribable smell, which seems to permeate all Eastern native huts—it has something to do with cooking, but is not unconnected with the sanitary arrangements. There is the occasional superior house, built of wood, with a Chinese-shaped roof, curving upwards at the corners (reputedly to prevent the devil from sliding straight into the garden after landing on the roof !) and sometimes even an upper floor. In this country of intense cold, though, 38

wooden houses are suspect, as they have a habit of gradually disappearing into the numerous fires keeping frozen soldiers warm. Now and again one is lucky enough to find a brick or concrete building—I am actually writing this in one, a former police station, equipped with sliding doors and real windows—luxury indeed !

Everywhere is, of course, filthy : the dirt and dust of generations cover everything and one soon gives up the unequal struggle to keep clean—a daily wash and shave (when it is not too cold) are the only concessions made by most people to social convention and self-respect.

The inhabitants are rather uninteresting; extremely primitive and extremely poor, they are all now refugees and pour in endless streams down the paths and roads to the South. Many must have been walking for months, as there is very little transport. Before the bridges were blown an occasional train would pass down the line, literally swarming with humanity, but no more trains will run north of Taegu for a long time. This refugee problem is very serious; some 750,000 are estimated to be on their way south. They hamper movement, provide excellent cover for infiltrating enemy, and cause immeasurable administrative difficulties in the rear areas—and yet one cannot help feeling sorry for them. All day long they trudge philosophically onwards, herded hither and thither by U.N. troops striving to keep their lines clear—aged men and women, many of the latter with children strapped to their backs in shawls, and a large number of men, mostly trying to escape conscription into the Communist armies, but many on their way to join the guerillas in our rear. Such is the result of "liberation".

The worst enemy is undoubtedly the cold and it can be indescribable. Fortunately it comes in spells of four to five days, starting usually with a bitter wind, which penetrates everything, no matter how many layers of clothing one wears—and, believe me, we wear a fantastic number ! Snow may come as well, but it is often too cold for that. This cold can undermine the most ardent spirit and it cuts an army's efficiency by half--one's hands and feet are permanently numb, and even one's brain often refuses to function; nothing matters any more but being warm, and many forests of wood must have been consumed on fires, round which men huddle and talk and dream of armchairs and slippers by their own fireside, or even of the torrid heat through which we passed on our way out here, when it was just as much of an effort to move as it is now. It requires great physical and mental effort to crawl out of a sleeping-bag into 50 degrees of frost, to pull on boots frozen solid and fumble with laces with fingers already numb and powerless, to grasp a rifle and find that one's fingers stick to the metal and then to go and stand-to in a slit trench in a frozen paddy-field, waiting for an enemy who probably never comes; after that, to wait an hour for breakfast (all the tins have to be thawed out) and to try and eat it before it freezes in the mess-tin—these are the things which men will remember of

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