The Shadow of Arms

by Hwang Sok-Yong

  Yong Kyu went into the PX to meet the duty officer and check the types and quantities of the goods to be delivered to the Korean military forces that day. He also had to record the number of Korean soldiers and civilians coming and going and the details of their purchases. After spending the whole morning swimming through the shiny merchandise, Yong Kyu felt light-headed when he went outside, and an overwhelming sense of emptiness.

  He’d made a mistake about a week earlier. He had come out of the navy PX and was waiting to catch a bus to the MAC. A US Navy bus that he knew stopped at the MAC headquarters came by. He got on like he always did. The driver put up his hand to stop him.

  “You aren’t allowed.”

  “I work for the Allied Forces.”

  “This bus is for Americans only.”

  “We’re part of the same unit.”

  “I don’t know that. Now get the hell off.”

  Yong Kyu pulled the .38 revolver the sergeant had lent him from his back pocket. He held the muzzle against the bus driver’s freckled cheek.

  “We came here because you people asked us to.”

  A stir arose among the American sailors and marines on the bus, and a major rose from his seat, saying, “Careful, soldier. We’re all comrades-in-arms.”

  “I’m far from home too. Are you not going to let us on the bus? You expect us to go to Hanoi?”

  “Right. The driver was wrong. The North Vietnamese are your enemy, too. Come and sit down in this seat.”

  Yong Kyu lowered the revolver. Then, suddenly aiming out through the open window, he fired twice at the ground. The report was deafening inside the low-ceilinged bus and the Americans instantly ducked down behind the seats.

  “This driver is my enemy!” he had roared before leaping off the bus. From there he walked the entire way along the dusty road. When he had been with his company in some sandbagged hole or crawling in a trench just below the line of fire, he’d forgotten who he was. Now that he had come into the city, had mixed with others and stood in front of strangers, his self had emerged. Yong Kyu was starting to understand, a little too late.

  He was up to his neck in mud. He realized he would never make it back home with this rookie naive sentimentalism. He’d have to be a simple draftee in no way responsible for his own participation in this war; he would just finish his stint and go home. The black market was part of the accepted package when Korea decided to join the war. So then scruples meant nothing on his record since his dispatch to Vietnam.

  Yong Kyu killed time until the sergeant got there. The Coke on the table in front of him was already getting warm. Drops of sweat kept sliding onto his sunglasses. When on duty at the PX and out of the city, they wore the same jungle fatigue uniform as the Americans. With no sign of rank on the shoulders, no unit insignia and no weapon, his nationality was almost unidentifiable. From a distance he could be mistaken for an American. Closer up, he might be taken for a Vietnamese. But in an American uniform with his height and big, thick-boned frame he looked like a soldier from some third country. Some might think he was a civilian worker or a journalist. It was perfect for blending in with the passing uniforms at the PX. If stating his identity was unavoidable, all he had to do was flash his ID card with its red CID slash.

  He took off his sunglasses and wiped the sweat off his forehead with his sleeve. The greenish shadow cast by the marine PX had dissipated into the scorching white. The pink mountain, enveloped in dust, looked like an overripe mango in the scalding heat. Even the empty cans dangling on the wire fence around the scrap yard seemed crushed by the merciless sun. There was not the slightest breath of a breeze.

  Corporal Ahn Yong Kyu sprang to his feet. A beige station wagon was slowly gliding into the parking lot in front of the PX. It had Vietnamese license plates and tinted windows. Yong Kyu walked over at a deliberately slow pace so as to attract their attention. Once the smart and slick-looking car parked at the edge of the lot, it stood out conspicuously against all the neighboring military vehicles.

  An obese man in a Hawaiian shirt, white pants, and a wide-brimmed Burmese jungle helmet got out. He was chewing gum, his jaws slowly grinding. As though he had been watching Yong Kyu from inside, he headed straight over to him. His partially unbuttoned shirt revealed most of his chest. He scowled at Yong Kyu and said, “Are you Corporal Ahn?”

  Yong Kyu nodded. The man held out his hand.

  “Glad to meet you. Name’s Oh. Took some time to change tires . . . I’m a little late, huh?”

  “The sergeant?”

  “There’s a mahjong game going on back at my house . . . where are the goods?”

  Yong Kyu turned around and walked toward the warehouse behind the PX. The man followed.

  “Electric fans and refrigerators, right?” said Mr. Oh, looking down at a crumpled piece of paper he had taken from his pocket. Yong Kyu had no idea what sort of transaction this was. He didn’t know if the man was a soldier or a civilian, nor did he know the location of the house where the sergeant was playing mahjong. He had just been given an order that morning before leaving for PX duty.

  A vehicle from the brigade headquarters PX would be arriving between 1230 and 1300 to pick up some goods, he’d been told. When a fat man showed up in a station wagon, he was supposed to lead him to the chief of the Korean army PX, load the goods in the car and then help him pass through the three checkpoints on the way into the city.

  The staff sergeant, while lying in bed and gorging himself on the restaurant food he’d brought into the barracks, had threatened Yong Kyu:

  “Blue Jacket Kang did favors for me. When you head out into the marketplace, you’ll practically be running around in the palm of my hand. A single report from me and you’ll be hustled back home and straight into the stockade.”

  Yong Kyu had listened in silence. He would of course carry out the order without fail. But only until he figured out what was going on. After that he’d grab this sergeant by the throat. Kang’s warning had been imprinted on his brain: Trust nobody in the detachment. There’s no such thing as integrity or loyalty.

  A few more words rolled from the sergeant’s lard-greased lips. “Listen, no reason for Pointer to know about this. He’s an officer, we’re common soldiers, get it? Unless we stick together we’ll be nobodies in this place.”

  “Not easy to bring the car in,” Oh said as they walked up the narrow driveway. Yong Kyu went in the big half-moon-shaped Quonset hut. The office was chilly with three air conditioners running full blast and the typists made a racket. Asian civilian staff and American military administrators were rushing in and out of the office. The chief of the brigade PX stood beside a water cooler, drinking out of a paper cone.

  “Car’s arrived, sir.”

  “Is it a truck?” asked the master sergeant.

  “A station wagon,” said Mr. Oh, who was standing behind Yong Kyu.

  “How in hell are you going to load three refrigerators and ten fans into a wagon?”

  Oh whistled.

  “I didn’t know it would be so many.”

  “Look, so you take out a couple and split them for pocket money to buy peanuts?”

  The master sergeant lifted the embroidered flap of the right pocket on his jacket and pulled out the requisition invoice.

  “This is a memo from the staff sergeant,” said Oh, handing over to the master sergeant a sheet of paper.

  “It’s changed. Our car is ready, so let’s load the stuff and drive to the city,” said the master sergeant, showing Oh his requisition and crumpling up and tossing the memo in the trash without even looking at it.

  “It won’t be easy, sir,” Yong Kyu said. “Military vehicles need a trip pass to go into the city.”

  “That’s why you’re here.”

  “You ride shotgun,” Oh said to Yong Kyu with a frown. “A single trip is a five-hundred-dollar job.”

 
“The going rate is that low?” the master sergeant said in a dissatisfied voice.

  “That’s about right, sir.”

  “I’m not taking piasters.”

  “Piasters are better to start with. Then you change them into military currency. It’s safer that way.”

  While waiting for the US staff to sign off on the requisition, the master sergeant asked, “Will I get the cash today?”

  “Is this your first time on this business?”

  “Well, it’s the first time with you people . . . .”

  Oh glanced back at Yong Kyu and smiled. “You can’t do business in Da Nang without going through us. In the first place, we get better prices. We don’t go out into the market. For over a year we’ve been doing deals on credit with the best customers in the city. To tell you the truth, for us a small deal like this is barely worth the trouble. This stuff is bulky and it brings in only a small profit.”

  Oh kept on talking as they followed the master sergeant outside.

  “We know the kind of stuff you could load in a wagon, things that are valuable and easy to transport.”

  “Well, since this is the first deal, I can’t tell until I see the cash flow,” said the master sergeant.

  “It’s only for the purpose of establishing relations that we didn’t turn this down and came for the goods. You wait and see how we take care of this.”

  “We’ll see.”

  The three men went to the PX warehouse. The door was wide open and inside was bustling with people receiving and moving around goods. The master sergeant gave the requisition to an American soldier and talked with him. Crates and packages were stacked to the ceiling. The electronic goods and bulky appliances like stereos, TVs, tape recorders, refrigerators, and washing machines were piled up in separate groups. Cameras, watches, and jewelry were in another section, behind a counter in one corner of the warehouse. Daily commodities were in the middle of the floor, and special items like cigarettes and beer were in a connected annex outside. Only the expensive liquors were in the main storage. There were three similar warehouses nearby.

  Only goods that had been inspected and inventoried were released for consignment. The requisition was validated easily enough. The master sergeant gestured from inside the warehouse and a truck from the brigade motor pool came around and inched up to the loading dock. A forklift came and lifted the strapped crates onto the truck.

  Looking at his watch, the master sergeant said, “We’ll be back in an hour for a shipment of our own goods. Keep a truck on stand-by for further orders.”

  “We’ll have to return to the base before Route 1 is closed.”

  “I’ll lead,” Oh said to a hesitant Ahn Yong Kyu. “You sit next to the truck driver and the chairman will ride with me in the wagon.”

  Yong Kyu got into the truck. The driver seemed satisfied after giving him a quick glance.

  “How many times a week you do this?”

  As he started the engine, the driver turned to Yong Kyu and asked, “You a soldier?”

  “CID.”

  The driver pulled the truck away from the warehouse dock.

  “Sometimes once a week, sometimes twice. Usually the bulk of the cargo is beer and cigarettes. There’s always a demand for them.”

  Pushing and pulling the gearshift, the driver kept talking. Yong Kyu put his sunglasses back on and pulled his hat down.

  “You know that guy well?”

  “Who? You mean the civilian? I’ve seen him a couple of times at the Dragon Palace Restaurant. Don’t know him well, but the sarge said he’s the one they call Hong Kong Pig.”

  The truck stopped. The master sergeant and Oh were waiting to exit the PX compound. The truck was supposed to cross Route 1 after passing through the division sector and head toward Dong Dao. Just past Dong Dao began the camp satellite villages with their rows of barracks, with Route 1 running sideways across the far end of the private residence area. On the way up from Dong Dao there was a checkpoint.

  The American guards at the checkpoint left the gate down and watched from behind a wall of sandbags. The wagon stopped at the blockade, and the truck right behind it. A guard opened the trunk of the wagon, checked inside, then approached the truck.

  “What are you bringing in back?”

  “Ten electric fans and three refrigerators. We’re delivering them to the PX at brigade headquarters.”

  “The requisition?”

  The driver showed him the paper.

  “There’s a discrepancy in numbers.”

  “We’re moving only part for the staff members stationed in downtown Da Nang. We’ll get the rest in an hour.”

  The guard craned his neck around to check the back of the truck one more time and wrote something in the vehicle log.

  “Let’s see your trip pass.”

  Yong Kyu had already taken out his ID and held it out so the prominent red slash was visible. “It’s fine. I’m escorting them downtown.”

  The guard nodded and lifted the gate. As he pressed the gas pedal the driver muttered, “Nosy bastards. We didn’t have to go through here. If we go out the South Gate and say we’re heading home, they don’t even bother to check.”

  The vehicle passed through the campside villages around Dong Dao. Originally these were just rice paddy hamlets, but when the military base and airport were built nearby the area became criss-crossed with wide streets and refugees converged there from all directions.

  They turned onto Route 1 heading straight for the airport. In this area the highway wasn’t paved, but it was wide and even and deserving of its reputation as the finest national highway in Vietnam. Once you came into a garrison sector the road was either paved or oiled and no longer dusty. A couple of American soldiers, who looked to be fresh from a shower, crossed the road in nothing but towels.

  There was another checkpoint at the entrance to the airport, but there they only checked for explosives and the truck was let through immediately. A formation of Phantom jets was taking off for a sortie, the loud roar painful to the ears. Their mission could have been to hit the Ho Chi Minh Trail deep in the jungle beyond the Atwat Mountains.

  The third and last checkpoint was at the fork where the roads from the airbase met with those from downtown Da Nang. This checkpoint was the reason they had brought Yong Kyu along. It was under the joint control of the Vietnamese police, the MPs, and the US Army. After the guards combed through the wagon, the master sergeant got out of the car and waved for Yong Kyu to come. He got down from the truck and went over to an American guard with the requisition sheet.

  “We’re transporting a portion of goods for the PX at brigade headquarters to staff members posted downtown.”

  “Is this cargo the whole consignment?”

  “No, it’s only a partial shipment.”

  “We don’t let goods pass downtown when the quantity doesn’t match the requisition.”

  “Are you telling me I’m supposed to bring the whole order and leave part of it here?”

  “The destinations are different,” interrupted a Vietnamese policeman standing to one side. “The requisitions should also be different. This is a requisition for Hoi An, so how come you’re going downtown?”

  “Do you think we’re taking this stuff downtown to deal on the black market?” growled Yong Kyu, taking his CID identification card from his pocket. “I’m escorting this vehicle. I’ll take full responsibility.”

  The guard and the policeman together examined his ID card and then lifted their arms. Slowly the gate was raised. The wagon and the truck turned toward Puohung Street. The plan was for Yong Kyu to be dropped off just past the last checkpoint and then return to his duty post.

  The two vehicles passed through the marketplace and crossed Le Loi Boulevard, heading north into a residential neighborhood with palms and wisteria vines lining the streets. The wag
on stopped in front of a huge iron gate painted white and honked. The gate opened and three men came out. One was a thin Vietnamese with long hair and the other two were Koreans, both looking sturdy and wearing T-shirts. They let the car pass inside and shut the gate.

  There was a small flowerbed in the yard, but it was clear that what was once a garden had been paved over with cement. Two broadleaf trees had been left standing to shade the windows of the house, but the earth was turned up near their roots. On the right side of the yard a storage building had been built with cinder blocks. The Vietnamese opened the door. Inside there were piles of goods.

  “Welcome,” said a Korean with a crew cut to the master sergeant from the PX. “Let’s go inside, the president has been waiting for you.”

  They started unloading the crates from the truck. The living room of the house was almost too cold from the air-conditioning. The only furniture in the spacious room was a black sofa and a table with chairs. A map of downtown Da Nang was tacked on one wall, and next to it a list of vehicle numbers. The vehicles were divided into civilian and military and details were recorded on their size, color, etcetera. For example, according to the list the mayor of Da Nang had an open Jeep with such-and-such license number and Colonel Nguyen Tanh Bhatt drove a black sedan with license number such-and-such.

  There had been a game of mahjong; tiles and money were scattered over the table. Snake, the staff sergeant with the CID detachment, was among the group. The chairman had his hair greased and neatly combed back and was wearing the white linen suit favored by high-ranking government officials in Vietnam.

  “I’m Lieutenant Colonel Pak,” said the chairman without extending his hand. The master sergeant snapped to a position of attention.

  “I’ve heard a lot about you, sir.”

  They all sat down. The chairman, supposedly a lieutenant colonel in the reserve, asked, “Mr. Oh, what are the goods?”