Noticing JungHo’s seriousness, Loach rounded his eyes and nodded. “Whatever you say, Chief.”
When the pale pink sun rose like an eye over the quiet city, all fifteen boys and one dog left the camp together. Some of the boys wanted to do their usual routines and shows, but JungHo would not let them. Nothing was out of the ordinary beyond the swell of visitors from the countryside, waiting to attend the emperor’s funeral, four days hence. The streets teemed with merchants, vendors, laborers, and students, and their shouts and footsteps made humming sounds on the roads packed brightly with snow. A tantalizing fragrance of roasted chestnuts wafted through the crisp, cold air. All the boys and the dog felt their mouths water and tried to forget their hunger as they wandered through the streets.
When the sun was past its highest point, they stumbled into a wide plaza, which was filled with hundreds of people, many of them students wearing uniforms.
“Hey, JungHo, look at this crowd! I bet we could make a lot of money if we did our act here,” Loach shouted gleefully. But JungHo shook his head; his eyes were gazing far out to the pagoda at the edge of the plaza, where a student was standing, facing the crowd. He was wearing a black newsboy cap and a long winter coat, and looked to be eighteen at most. He raised a fist, and as one the crowd fell silent.
“Today, we declare that Korea is an independent nation and that Koreans are a free people,” the student began, reading from a broadsheet in his hands. His voice should have been lost in the distance; instead, the cold air seemed to magnify it through the plaza, which was filled with an eerie silence.
“We seek to announce this to the whole world in order to illuminate the inviolable truth of human equality, and for our posterity to enjoy the rights of sovereignty and survival in perpetuity. This is in keeping with the conscience of the world, the ordinance of the heavens, and the ethos of our modern era; thus, no power in the world will be able to stop us.
“It has been ten years since we’ve been sacrificed to Imperialism, that dark legacy of the past, suffering immeasurable pain under the oppression of another people for the first time in our five-thousand-year history. All of our twenty million people hold freedom as our most sacred desire. The conscience of all humanity is on our side. Today, our army is Justice, and our spear and shield are Humanitarianism, and with these we shall never fail!” He threw his fist up as though punching the sky, and the crowd roared.
“Today we seek only to build ourselves, not to destroy another. We do not want vengeance. We only seek to right the wrongs of the Japanese Imperialists who oppress and plunder us, so we can live in a fair and humane way . . . A new world is coming. The era of Force is past, and the era of Righteousness is here. After a century of preparation, Humanitarianism has begun to shine its bright light all over the world, and a new spring is giving life to every being on earth. We have nothing to fear . . .”
JungHo didn’t understand much of what was said, but he saw around him the rapturous faces, many wet with tears, and was surprised by the hotness welling up in his own eyes. JungHo had never had a day of schooling. What he now understood was that the world was a desperately dark place, not just for his family and for the beggar boys, but for everyone standing there. Their shared pain reverberated through his body like a common heartbeat.
Finished with the speech, the student held up a flag, white with a red and blue symbol in the center. “Korean Independence manseh!” he shouted, and after the first time the crowd also joined in.
“Manseh! Manseh!” It felt as though their voices could be heard all across Seoul, carried by that same cold wind. The crowd had more than tripled in the plaza by this point, and somehow they were each holding a flag over their heads. The thousands of white flags waving and shimmering in the wind resembled a flock of cranes about to take flight.
Soon the crowd began to move, marchers standing shoulder to shoulder as they walked westward across the city. JungHo and his gang joined in, making their way down the entire length of Legation Street, from the American Consulate at number 10 to the French Legation at number 28. A slender female student walked up to the ornately carved front gates of the Legation and knocked as people shouted, “France! France! Friend of liberty! Liberty, equality, fraternity! Help us!” But it remained shut, and no sound or movement could be perceived from the curtained windows of the limestone mansion.
A whole minute had passed with enthusiastic chants of manseh before JungHo realized that the French would not open their doors. The strange whisper returned to his ear—a sound as soft as snow falling on snow. He turned to his right and left, and saw Loach, YoungGu, and all his blood brothers shouting with the crowd—and felt the stretching and slowing of time.
“Guys! We must leave. Now!” he yelled. The boys looked at him, mouths open.
He grabbed Loach and YoungGu by the arm and ran as fast as he could. The dog was barking madly, as though it had seen a ghost.
As JungHo slid into an alley, the chanting died down and turned into shouts on one end of the avenue. A Japanese squadron had arrived, led by cavalry officers. Within seconds, the marchers began running from that end, pushing the others farther into the avenue. Loud cracking noises erupted just ahead of piercing screams; the troops were firing into the backs of the people as they fled.