The Shadow of Arms

by Hwang Sok-Yong

  “Very well,” the man said to Yong Kyu, “you’ll be needing an inoculation.”

  “A what?”

  “A shot.”

  “Fine. Toi, go on up and stay there. I’ll take a short break.”

  “Will you be all right?”

  “Look, it’s not like I stepped on a mine.”

  Toi spoke with the boy, who then led him upstairs through the inside steps. The woman placed a glass of juice on the table, saying something in Vietnamese. Yong Kyu took off his bloodstained shirt and dropped it on the floor by his chair.

  “If that’s what it was you would’ve done better to request my cooperation through the police. Come to the hospital tomorrow and I’ll have them give you a shot.”

  “It’s all right. And I’m sorry. Your veranda just happens to be a perfect lookout spot. We made a mistake.”

  The boy came back down. Then another person walked in from the front hall facing the living room. It was a Vietnamese girl wearing a black ahozai. She was very slender and barefoot, with her long hair combed back.

  “This is the first time a foreigner’s been in my house,” said the hospital director. “This is my family. That is my wife, this little boy is my son, and the girl who just walked in is my daughter.”

  Yong Kyu bowed to each of them in turn. The boy held out his hand with a smile but the girl just fixed her eyes on Yong Kyu with a stern glare. The mother spoke to her daughter, seemingly explaining what had happened. The boy spoke in English.

  “I’m Huan, and I attend the Catholic Middle School. My father is Dr. Tran Van Thieu. My sister Phuoc, a senior at Pascal High School. My mother is Mrs. Hue.”

  “I’m Sergeant Ann.”

  “In our family, Father and I can communicate with you. In the old days, we had an American staying with us.”

  “A medical officer, a surgeon, once worked at the Red Cross Hospital to help us. Thanks to him Huan speaks English pretty well. Where do you stay?”

  “At the Grand Hotel.”

  “Aren’t you a soldier?”

  “Yes, as I said I’m a sergeant.”

  Huan’s sister, Phuoc, sharply spat something out and walked out of the room.

  “What is it?” Yong Kyu asked the boy. “Your sister seems to be in a bad mood.”

  “The Da Nang students don’t care much for foreign soldiers. For you people kill children, that’s why.”

  “Ah, don’t mind that,” Dr. Tran said, “Viet Cong propaganda . . . Well, I’m sure mistakes of that kind happen on the battlefield often enough.”

  Yong Kyu made no response to that remark. Instead, he said, “Thank you for the use of your veranda. Please lock the upstairs door after we go out. When we finish our mission we’ll leave quietly the way we came.”

  “As you like.”

  Dr. Tran and his wife exchanged bows with Yong Kyu and then Huan showed him the way upstairs. As he walked up the steps, the boy said, “Thank you for letting Gene stay.”

  “Who’s Gene?”

  “The dog that bit you.”

  “Ah, it’s all right. It just slipped my mind to bring something tasty he’d like.”

  “He’s big but he’s not even one year old.”

  Huan turned on the upstairs light. The upper floor was less spacious than the downstairs. There were two rooms and an old fan hung from the ceiling. They opened the sliding glass door and saw Toi sitting out on the veranda.

  “Thanks. You can shut the door now.”

  “Come and visit us again later. I’m always home after siesta.”

  “I will.”

  Huan closed the glass door.

  “Unloading has started,” Toi said. “Two pallets of beer were just moved into storage over there.”

  “Has the Hong Kong Group showed up?”

  “No, not yet. And no supply corps truck either. Look over there. See the full pallets of beer lined up? A different truck came by and carried away two of them.”

  Yong Kyu sat down beside Toi. Just then, a forklift made a U-turn in front of the guard station and then rushed over. Two other forklifts were busily going in and out of the wide mouth of the landing ship and another one was moving pallets from the unloading line over to another spot down on the civilian side of the pier.

  “You mean that one?”

  “Yes, that’s the third trip completed.”

  “One truck can hold four pallets.”

  The forklift came back and carried off another pallet, but it did not come back again to the military sector.

  “What’s the conex number?”

  “I marked it. It’s the one on the end in the first row. Let’s wait for the Hong Kong Group to make an appearance and then go down.”

  “You brought a camera with a flash, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, I have it with me.”

  The two of them sat there on the veranda, looking down at the hectic bustle of unloading on the docks below.

  “How’s the arm?” Toi asked.

  “It should be all right since the Doc himself dressed the wound.”

  “The director of the Red Cross Hospital is a pillar of Da Nang. It’s a good thing you were bitten by the dog.”

  “Is he in the military?”

  “Maybe in the past. He probably knows the mayor and the provincial governor.”

  “I’m tired. Let’s take turns getting some sleep.”

  “You go first, sergeant.”

  “OK, wake me if anything turns up.”

  Yong Kyu leaned back in the corner of the veranda by the glass door. It was dark since the bright lights of the pier were well screened by the sycamores. From the outer harbor came occasional steam whistles and plunks of signal flares. Every so often heavy guns, sounding like thunderclaps, were audible in the distance. Yong Kyu felt a tingling ache from his arm as he lay flat on his back on the cold cement floor.

  “Hey, sergeant, wake up.”

  Yong Kyu opened his eyes.

  “What time is it?”

  “Four. The wagon is here.”

  Yong Kyu sprang up.

  “Think they’ve come to pick up the goods?”

  “No, at this hour they can’t transport beer without a pass. They’re probably here to pay. They’ll pay for the goods and for the use of the conex. Let’s go down.”

  They climbed down from the veranda onto the wire-reinforced wall of the customs house.

  “Once we snap the picture our duty is finished,” Yong Kyu said.

  “The guy may sense something when the flash goes off,” Toi murmured.

  “Don’t worry. Once the photo is taken I’ll arrest the bastard,” Yong Kyu snarled as he took the camera.

  Yong Kyu took the lead with Toi following. Near the guard station an American soldier and a Vietnamese sentry ordered them to stop. Toi presented his ID and said a few words. Since there was no war materiel on the pier that night the inspection was not very strict. The ammo and military hardware were coming in mostly through MAC 36. Yong Kyu saw the Pig standing with a Vietnamese clerk at the end of the conex. They approached slowly from behind. The conex door was wide open and the two men seemed to be doing a count of the goods.

  Yong Kyu raised the camera and said in a loud voice, “Come to buy a little beer?”

  Pig turned around with a surprised look on his face and just then Yong Kyu snapped the shutter. The flash went off. Pig was stunned and quickly moved away from the conex. The clerk, who also recognized Yong Kyu, stealthily fled from the scene.

  “What’s this all about? I’m here because your chief sergeant told me to come.”

  “Don’t make me laugh. Thanks to you we’ve spent the whole night here. I should put in a requisition for hotel expenses later,” Yong Kyu replied and then turned to Toi.

  “Check out the inside of the conex,
Toi. Bring one box for evidence.”

  Toi went inside and came out with a case of beer in his arms.

  “Four pallets in there.”

  “Bite off more than you can chew?” Yong Kyu said to Pig. “Afraid you’ll have to come with me.”

  “And I suppose you grunts never help yourselves to nothing, I’m sure. Cut me a little slack and I’ll cut you some slack. No point in doing this to each other in a foreign land, what do you say?”

  Pig was pleading desperately with his face right up under Yong Kyu’s own chin. Yong Kyu mercilessly gave him a kick on the shin.

  “Watch your mouth, you son of a bitch! Do I look like your grunt? You bastard, maybe you think our boys are crawling away their lives in the jungle for your sake, is that what you think? As of today, you’re out of here!”

  “You cracked my leg, uh? You bastard, you don’t know who we are, do you?”

  Yong Kyu had Toi hold him while he took handcuffs from his belt and cuffed him.

  “Stay cool. All your family members’ll be gathered together soon enough.”

  Yong Kyu pulled a couple of cans of beer out of the case, tossed one to Toi and drank the other himself.

  “You think this beer came across the sea tax-free for you to do business with?”

  Yong Kyu went over to the guard station and made a phone call. The chief sergeant, roused from slumber, took the call at the Dragon Palace.

  “Notify the captain and come over here with a car. We should book him at the police station.”

  “Well, it’s kind of a bind for me . . . if it’s the Pig, you know, it’s going to put me in a fix.”

  What the chief sergeant meant was that his close association with Pig put him in an awkward situation.

  “So what are you saying? You want me to take him with me on foot? In the army there’s no such thing as a friend. Put on a new face. Anyhow, if we don’t cut them down to size now our position in Da Nang really will be awkward.”

  By the time Yong Kyu came back after making the call, Pig was obviously distressed. He had flopped down on the ground.

  “Sergeant Ahn, give me a break, please. Take the two pallets of beer. And please, take these cuffs off. I’m no robber, am I?”

  “Don’t make me spell it out for you. It’s time for you people to clean up your act. You’re a serious pain in the ass for us.”

  When the car arrived, Pig was furious at the chief sergeant.

  “So this is how it’s gonna be, uh? Didn’t you yourself work with us? The money is going to be floating around here whatever we do. And it’s foreign money for anybody to snatch and take back home. We didn’t steal anything, did we? This is a clean business we do, you know. I say it’s just like other exports. All right, if this is how you people are going to be, we sure won’t take it quietly. Headquarters here or down at brigade, they’ll sure be hearing our complaints.”

  Yong Kyu signaled to Toi with his eyes and Toi got in the back seat. The chief sergeant drove the car away without a word.

  “Shut up, you,” Yong Kyu said. “Wake up, you’re not in Pusan or down on Tsushima Island back in Korea. Maybe you think you can run wild in these markets and do as you please? If you don’t shut your mouth, when we get there I promise you’ll have a taste of a club.”

  These words from Yong Kyu left Pig downcast and the backtalk ceased. The Jeep sped along the main roads of Da Nang and they pulled up to the police station. Pig wouldn’t get out of the car.

  “It’d be better for you to come on out,” Yong Kyu warned.

  “I see no reason why I should. This is a police station, isn’t it? I’m a foreign civilian in this country.”

  Pig refused to budge and so Yong Kyu nodded, saying, “Fine. If you want to be difficult, I’ll force you out. You’re under our jurisdiction and you’re supposed to observe the domestic laws in Vietnam.”

  Yong Kyu didn’t lift a finger. Instead he called over to Toi, “Hey, get the Vietnamese police and have them put him in the lockup.”

  Toi went in the front door and before long two policemen hurried out. They held Pig by the arms and dragged him out of the car. Savagely they twisted his arms behind his back and pushed him forward. The police officer in charge of the night watch came out to observe. Yong Kyu and the chief sergeant exchanged salutes with him.

  “The superintendent gave us an order to cooperate,” the officer said. “Do you need an office, sir?”

  “No, thank you. Around seven this morning we’ll be bringing in a few more. Then we’ll request an office when tomorrow’s duty begins. Will you sign this receipt for taking over custody of this detainee?”

  Pig looked dispirited and was docile by the time they took him inside. After finishing the procedure for transfer of custody they left the police station.

  “Well, the night’s almost over,” said the chief sergeant. “It’s five-fifteen, doesn’t the operation begin at six?”

  “Let’s head back to the hotel. We’ll hang around there and wake up the captain.” Then he asked Toi, “Wouldn’t you rather go home and get some rest?”

  “No, I’ll work, too. When we’re done, I’ll go home and take the whole morning to rest. That way I can ask the captain for an extra duty allowance.”

  They drove the Jeep down Doc Lap Boulevard and arrived at the hotel. Staff who had just come in to relieve the night shift were milling around the lobby drinking coffee. They joined this group and drank coffee from paper cups. About half the people in the lobby were civilian and the other half military. Out on the street a good number of Jeeps and cars were being started and noisily pulling out. At ten to six the chief sergeant went upstairs to roust the captain. The two of them came down with two privates in tow, the captain still rubbing his sleepy eyes. All four were dressed in jungle fatigues and the two privates were carrying M16s and cartridge belts.

  “Do we have an extra vehicle?”

  “Yes, sir. But don’t you think we’ll need a couple more cars?”

  “No, one’s enough. We’ll only be arresting four people.”

  When Yong Kyu asked who they were, the captain replied, “Lieutenant Colonel Pak, the guy with a crew cut, another of our bastards, and one Vietnamese.”

  To this the chief sergeant added, “The crew cut is the group chairman’s right arm. His name is Lee, discharged from the service as a master sergeant. The third man is the chairman’s brother-in-law, and the Vietnamese is Phan, their chauffeur who also acts as a broker for contacts with the dealers in the city. Toi knows all about it.”

  They split up into two teams and started off in Jeeps with Philco markings. The captain and the sergeant left first with the two privates. Yong Kyu and Toi followed. They went down Le Loi Boulevard and entered the residential district off Puohung Street. They stopped in front of the house with the low wooden fence where they had left a man on stakeout the night before. The private jumped out from behind the reed screen. He had a poncho over his shoulder.

  “Anything happen?” Yong Kyu asked.

  “No, sir. A wagon left the house before dawn and then came back. Since then there have been no lights on. Looks like everybody is asleep.”

  “Well, let’s go,” the captain said. All together there were seven of them. They crossed the street and approached the white wrought-iron gate of the house.

  “You stay here and keep a lookout for anybody who tries to jump the wall,” the captain said to one private. “Wait a second, the warehouse is on this side and the house is over there? Somebody has to go over the wall and open the side gate.”

  The captain turned to Yong Kyu. “What happened to your arm? Did you get hurt?”

  “Bitten by a dog. Last night during the ambush.”

  “Went through a lot, didn’t you? Hey, Chief Sergeant, you climb over.”

  The sergeant gave the captain a dirty look behind his back and then reluctant
ly put his hands up on the wall and struggled trying to climb over it.

  “Give it up. And stop eating so much. If you were in the US Army they’d have drummed you out for being overweight.”

  Yong Kyu said something to Toi and without a second thought Toi stepped up on the chief sergeant’s shoulders and leapt lightly over the wall. The side gate opened and they all crouched down and entered quietly one at a time. The yard was smoothly paved over with cement. Every now and then a drop of water fell from the wet leaves overhead.

  “Let Toi watch the warehouse and the rest of us will go on in.”

  They walked toward the front foyer. The captain and the chief sergeant stayed behind and Yong Kyu stood in front of the entry with the armed soldiers behind him. The private who had been on stakeout across the street was sent to the rear of the house lest gang members try to escape through a back window. At the captain’s nod, Yong Kyu knocked on the door. A door opening was heard from within and then someone came to the door and said something in Vietnamese. Without replying, Yong Kyu knocked harder. Someone else must have come out inside, for there was another sound of a door opening followed by a voice in English.

  “Who’s there?”

  “I’m here to see Mr. Pak, the chairman. Open the door.”

  With a click the door was unlatched and instantly Yong Kyu pushed it open and forced his way inside. A long-haired Vietnamese woman and the Korean youth, who had to be the brother-in-law of Lieutenant Colonel Pak, stumbled backward. They pressed on into the living room, where Chairman Pak and his crew-cut associate, dressed in pajamas, were peeking out from their rooms to see what was happening.

  “Out here, both of you,” the captain said.

  “What’s all this? What d’you think you’re doing?” Pak asked the captain as he came into the living room.

  “Can’t you see? We’re searching the house.”

  “A search? What crime have we committed? And you don’t even have a search warrant.”

  “Warrant, my ass. There’s a war on here, in case you haven’t noticed. We’re going to deport you for your black marketing,” the captain said, then added to Yong Kyu, “Hey, go through every room with a fine-toothed comb.”