The Shadow of Arms

by Hwang Sok-Yong

  Without ceremony, he sat down next to the fat man with a landing hard enough to make the bedsprings squeak. Then he lifted the towel to take a peek.

  “Given your willy a bath, have you?”

  “You need to be court-martialed, you son of a bitch. Take a look at that boy. Ten days of crawling and you’d be exactly like him.”

  “Hey now, don’t start that with me. The leader, sir, has to crawl first. My uniform comes off as soon as I set foot in Korea, but you’re a military career man, aren’t you?”

  “Apparently.”

  The fat man stood up.

  “Hey, what about the beer?”

  “I’ve got the two full pallets.”

  “Captain doesn’t know, does he?”

  “The fuck if I care. I’m outta here soon.”

  “You bastard, don’t drag me down with you.”

  “We share it all, the bad with the good. You really think I’d do that to you?”

  To Yong Kyu, their repartee was anything but military. The discipline was gone, sucked away leaving a vacuum.

  “Let’s leave it at that, but during the rest of your hitch, be sure to train the new recruit. And do a decent job on the transfer of duties.”

  “Not my responsibility. He’s the leader’s problem.”

  “You bastard, now . . . do something about the boy. Start with the hair and buy him some new clothes.”

  “Give me money. I’m not a private tutor.”

  The man being called “leader” kept on muttering, but he crumpled ten dollars in military currency into a ball and tossed it over.

  “All right,” said the man in civvies. “Let’s throw him a Korean barbecue at the Dragon Palace.”

  The leader stood up and stretched. “You scum, you’ve got five crates set aside and you still want more, eh? I’ve never seen anyone so poisoned by money.”

  “And you’re not . . .?”

  “Watch yourself, private. Now get the hell out of my sight. I’ll have to be at the office before the kids come back.”

  “I’m on my way to the Bamboo.”

  “You’ve got to have that boy report to his captain.”

  “Got it.”

  Yong Kyu followed the man out of the room.

  “They call me Blue Jacket Kang. I’m being discharged this month as soon as I get back to Korea. You’re a corporal, which puts you second from the top. Better learn to behave. Let’s get you out of that ratty uniform.

  Blue Jacket Kang took him to the privates’ room. There were two sets of bunk beds and another single cot. The room was quite spacious and had a bathroom and cabinet for stowing personal effects.

  “Get out of those rags and have a bath and a shave. No need for a haircut since you’ll be letting it grow long anyway. You’re to play the role of a civilian technician employed by the US Army. If you’re ever smelled out as a soldier, all your work is fucked.”

  Yong Kyu took off his jungle fatigues, tattered and soaked with sweat and mud.

  “Put your helmet and rifle in the locker over there.”

  Opening the locker Yong Kyu saw a number of rifles covered in a thick coat of dust. “Is the duty always unarmed?” he asked.

  “Buy yourself a .38 revolver.”

  “Buy a gun?”

  Blue Jacket Kang snickered at Yong Kyu’s puzzlement. “Think it’s better to pack a dumbbell-sized .45, do you? There’s nothing you can’t get at the market. You can get one for twenty bucks. I suppose I could hand mine down to you, but I’m taking it home with me. It’ll be my tough luck if it’s found and confiscated at entry.”

  For the first time in six months, Yong Kyu looked at himself in a full-length mirror. He saw a stranger. The cheeks were sunken, the skin tanned dark brown, and there was not an ounce of tenderness in the eyes. So skinny and dark he looked like a man from South Asia. Too tall for a Vietnamese, too dark for a Korean. Looked more like a Filipino, he thought. As he shaved, Blue Jacket Kang kept on babbling.

  “Everyone here thinks only about himself. Watch out and trust nobody. After all, it’s the lowest rank that takes the blame.”

  Yong Kyu turned off the electric shaver. “What did you say?”

  “If you’re replacing me, you’ll probably be a market inspector.”

  “Market?”

  “Right. The Da Nang marketplace is the biggest black market in central Vietnam. Market intelligence is more important than information on tactical movements. When you get sick and tired of writing up reports, that’s when you start feeling disgusted. Headquarters will assign you to different fountainheads of black market supply so you can familiarize yourself with the distribution channels of the economy. Once you get acclimated, you’ll be living deep among the merchants and dealers. Don’t ever forget the advice of your predecessor. I mean, don’t waste your time opening up your textbook of ethics. We’re in a dump here. You’re up to your neck in filth. If you swim in it, you’ll survive. But if you struggle, you’ll get sucked down deeper and deeper and you’ll drown.”

  “I’ll do as I’m ordered.”

  Blue Jacket Kang stuck his head into the bathroom and shouted, “I’m not saying you shouldn’t do as told. Our duty is limited duty. Our position here is different than that of the American army or the Vietnamese army. An order on a grand scale moves step by step, and if you write in your report that it wasn’t like that, what you saw was like this, what you heard was like that and the result of your investigation was such and such, and so forth, you’ll be the one getting into a jam. I’ll give you an example. You know the commander of the Vietnamese First Army, General Liam, don’t you?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Three stars. He may become a cabinet member, you never know. He has a villa out on the North Cape, overlooking the Monkey Mountain. It serves as the safest warehouse for black market dealings. Now, do you know what the American bastards do?”

  Blue Jacket Kang tried to drive his point home. “You see, we’ll just serve our time, go back home, and forget all about this. There’s no business greater than a war. Those American bastards, they have all kinds of teams formed solely for economic operations, concentrating only on black market dealings. Those few crates of TVs and refrigerators we think of as loot as we carry them off are drops of water in the ocean. Never dig deep, never assume you’re in the know.”

  Yong Kyu listened absent-mindedly. Noticing the vacant look on his face, Blue Jacket Kang stopped wagging his finger at Yong Kyu.

  “Stuck in the middle, I’ve been ground to pulp. I’ve crawled on field operations a few times, but it’s much more relaxed there than here.”

  “You’re being discharged, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, it’s over and done for me.”

  “I appreciate what you’ve told me,” Yong Kyu said.

  Blue Jacket Kang rummaged through his personal locker, pulled out a white shirt and a pair of pants and threw them to Yong Kyu. As Ahn changed, Kang said, “You look fine, black as any Vietnamese.”

  “I don’t look like a soldier?”

  “When your hair grows out a little you’ll be all set.”

  Kang threw a pair of tennis shoes over, and Yong Kyu finally felt free of his platoon.

  “Let’s go to the office and make a report to the command. The detachment leader is a captain.”

  “How about our non-com chief?”

  “One’s a pointer and the other a snake.”

  If the captain was the pointer, the chief had to be the snake.

  “We get three vehicles.”

  Kang went over to the motor pool and drove out in a Jeep with civilian markings. The engine stalled as he let out the clutch, and he muttered, “Piece of shit car. I never drive this one. There’s a place where you can rent one for a couple thousand piasters. We use their cars. They have new model US military Jeeps
, freshly repainted, all purchased on the black market.”

  As they sped down Doc Lap Boulevard Blue Jacket Kang taught Yong Kyu the names of various streets and intersections. They drove into the back of a run-down two-story building at the mouth of Puohung Street. Several company Jeeps like their own were parked there.

  As they entered the building they heard the chatter of wireless radios sending and receiving messages in English and Vietnamese. Civilians flowed between the rooms. Once in a while a military uniform could be seen inside an open door. The clacking of typewriters was noisy. They walked into the Korean office where a Vietnamese girl was sitting at the front desk, typing away in English.

  “This is Miss Jiang Hoa, and this here is a new member of the family, just arrived.”

  “I’m Corporal Ahn.”

  They bowed to each other. Her eyes were big and bright but her nose was stumpy.

  “Where’s the captain?”

  “He’s gone out to meet Krapensky but he’ll be back soon.”

  “Let’s go over there. Major Krapensky is our general commander,” Kang said.

  They went to the last room at the end of the corridor. Three civilians were sitting inside. An American wearing a black T-shirt was busy typing and an Asian, apparently the detachment leader, was in a plain shirt. Sitting next to him was an American in a white suit with no tie. Yong Kyu saluted stiffly, but looked awkward, as his hand did not reach all the way to the brim of his hat. Fortunately, before he started shouting, Kang spoke in Korean.

  “This is the new man who arrived today. He’s my replacement, sir.”

  The Korean captain was a man in his thirties with a short crew cut and a broad-shouldered, sturdy build.

  “If you’re replacing Blue Jacket Kang, you’re going to have a lot of responsibility. Do your best. Kang, when are you going back down to brigade?”

  “In a week, sir.”

  “Until then, teach him all the detailed tactics of his assignment.”

  Then he turned to the American in the white suit and said in English, “Here’s our new man. He arrived today.”

  As Yong Kyu saluted, the man got up and extended his strong, hairy hand.

  “I’m Major Krapensky, welcome.”

  The hand clasped Yong Kyu’s. The major with the Slavic name continued, “I was in Korea for two years. I know the country well.”

  The man had an authoritative way about him, Yong Kyu noticed.

  “Let me also introduce you to Lucas,” the captain said.

  Behind him, Yong Kyu heard a voice speak in Korean: “My name is Sergeant Lucas. I’m a marine like you.”

  “Hello,” Yong Kyu replied in English, momentarily bewildered. Each was speaking the native language of the other.

  “I went to Korean language school in Washington and in Hawaii.”

  “Have you ever been to Korea?”

  “No. I hope to in the future.”

  “Well, let’s head out,” the captain said, getting up.

  When they got back to their office, the captain said more familiarly, “You saw it, didn’t you? In this building you have to watch what you’re saying even in our language. After all, we are only guests. Kang, show him around the PX.”

  “Which one, sir?”

  “All three of them. Starting tomorrow, put him on duty at each, one by one, and take him through the market the day before you leave.”

  “We’ve got big trouble brewing at the supply warehouse.”

  “But we have Sergeant Shin posted out there.”

  “The guy is incompetent,” Kang said.

  The captain nodded and they all left the office. It was already almost evening.

  “Let’s go to the Air Force PX first. That’s the most important one.”

  They turned the Jeep toward the airfield. Yong Kyu glanced quickly in the rearview mirror. Amazingly enough, the odor of death seemed to have left him. Already he was transformed from a man-killing soldier into a tourist.

  Blue Jacket Kang was a diligent teacher. “Loads of goods are pouring out from the air force PX because it has no checkpoints and is closest to downtown. There’s a new sergeant now, and I haven’t had the chance to make friends with him. I made some good deals with the last one.”

  Kang ignored the traffic signal and sped straight across the intersection.

  “Do the Americans do stuff like that too?”

  Blue Jacket Kang snickered at the naiveté of the question.

  “Haven’t you been listening? Didn’t I say that they do economic operations? They get assigned here with official operational orders from their headquarters. You’ll run into them often enough in the future. Stay out of their way. Our job is to identify whether the partners of the black marketeers are operational teams or just money-grubbing bastards.”

  “Then . . . what about Korean soldiers?”

  Kang answered the question with a feeble laugh. “On principle, we’re not allowed. We’re here to fight, not make money.”

  “Have we really come to fight?”

  “You’re going to get on my nerves. We’re a poor country. We have to eat. Everyone does what they can. You gulp down one case and let somebody else help himself to the other. Or you can team up with them . . . there are no rules for that kind of thing. As for civilians, there’re a few Korean technicians, but let them be since they are only small fry going after a little pocket money for drinks or women.

  “The big fish are elsewhere. The soldiers discharged on-site and the entrepreneurs running companies specialized in black market trading. There are three such Korean companies in Da Nang. Of them the strongest is what they call the Hong Kong Group. Its president is a former lieutenant colonel. His right-hand man, known as ‘Pig,’ used to be a smuggler who ran goods between Busan and Tsushima Island. A crafty man, that one, so be careful not to get taken in. Then they have half a dozen men for a suicide squad. All of them are magicians in underground trading. They rent houses in the Vietnamese residential districts and live with Vietnamese women. Hang around Dragon Palace or the Bamboo and you’ll learn about them.

  “Our rule is this. We more or less close our eyes to the black market dealings by Koreans. But we don’t allow them to do any big deals—those we take over for ourselves instead. Of the deals done by Korean civilians, we only watch and keep records. When we uncover a big transaction, we allow it to run its course to the last stage of the delivery before we move in on them. Don’t ever take a bite of theirs yourself. If we show any weakness to them, we’ll be scarecrows before long, so drag them straight to the headquarters.

  “As for deals by Americans, if the economic team is involved, make a list of the exact content of commodities, the names of the dealers and the date of the transaction and report it to headquarters. That’s where your duty ends. Those are matters to be negotiated between our captain and Krapensky. We can, however, ambush the petty deals by American soldiers and feel free to take a cut of their profit. Sometimes we even snatch the whole thing out of their hands. The goods confiscated from third-country nationals, we split fifty-fifty.”

  “Third countries?”

  “I mean civilians from the Philippines, Malaysia, or India. Once in a while you also run into the Japanese.”

  “What about the Vietnamese?”

  “That’s the most important and delicate part of our duty. It took me two months just to begin to understand that side. Roughly, you can divide goods into three groups: luxury goods, daily necessities, and war materiel. The luxury goods and the daily necessities are the two categories we are allowed to interfere with. The war materiel gets covered by the Vietnamese army and the National Liberation Front. As for our records of the Vietnamese, we share nothing with the Americans. We may be comrades-in-arms, but in this one matter we’re all tight-lipped. This is crucial, because as long as we’re on the inside of Vietnamese affa
irs, we can get in on any black market deals. It’s as fundamental for the American army as for the Vietnamese army. Understand?”

  Blue Jacket Kang was sweating. Hands on the wheel, he kept wiping the sweat from his forehead on his shoulder. A sweltering heat was rising from the asphalt. The Jeep turned up a road with high wire fencing on both sides. Scooters and Honda motorcycles performed acrobatic tricks, weaving from side to side. Keeping his speed, Kang was forced to do some fancy maneuvering himself.

  “I asked if you understand . . .”

  “I’m not sure I do.”

  Kang heaved a long sigh. “No way you could. You’re lucky, though, to have run into somebody with my experience. I wasted three months riding the circuit and drinking Cokes out in front of the PXs. There’s no integrity or camaraderie among short-time duty personnel. Everybody is trying to be tactful so as not to come off as an idiot. Once you become an “advisor” you’ll be chased to the main body. You know what duty you’ll pull when you get assigned to the main body, don’t you?”

  Yong Kyu nodded. It meant standing guard at the prison camp, if lucky, or acting as an orderly for a superior officer or in the mess hall. He had seen a few of them wandering about in markets or in refugee camps in operations zones, trying to communicate with their bad Vietnamese and sign language under the contemptuous gaze of the infantrymen.

  “Nine times out of ten you’re dead meat. An infantryman at least has some peace of mind. That bastard, Sergeant Shin, he’s going to be kicked out. You heard what the captain said a little while ago, didn’t you? Once you’re marked as unreliable, they’ll pack you up and send you back down to brigade. Even then you’ll be lucky to be sent back to your old unit. Otherwise you get pushed all the way down to platoon.”

  Yong Kyu still had a vivid memory of the waterlogged trenches and the swarms of mosquitoes back in his old defense emplacement. And of the cooking that involved indiscriminate butchering of chickens, pigs, even dogs. And the migration of the flies with the movement of the sun . . .

  He did not want to think of it anymore. At any rate, he had escaped, hadn’t he? Someday when he returned to civilian life, some night when he got good and drunk, his experiences in those days might return to haunt his dreams. Or, would he try hard to recall those days when his body becomes too exhausted even to dream them anymore? Yong Kyu looked out the window. A Phantom was taking off with an ear-splitting roar. The Jeep was threading its way through the crowd and the bicycles.