by Junghyo Ahn
“This cartridge is for the M-l rifle and this for carbines,” Chandol went on explaining elatedly.
“Where did you get all this stuff?” asked Mansik, feeling the shiny smooth M-l rifle cartridge, fascinated.
“We found them on General’s Hill and other places where the World Army had battles with the People’s Army. These are the leftovers from those battles. We find lots of things to play with on the battleground. And they make wonderful weapons, too.” Chandol grinned. “But you have to be very careful when you play with these things. You know what happened when some dumb kids got careless with this war stuff? There’s a junk dealer at the foot of Phoenix Hill in town who buys every piece of scrap metal you bring to him. Brass, steel, copper—you name it, he buys it. Last week several town kids went to Kongji Creek to fish and found a large piece of metal that looked like a grinding stone. Naturally they brought it to the junk dealer. The old man looked it over, but he was not sure if there was any brass inside. So he told the boys he would buy the brass if they’d extract it from the disk. The kids took it to their school playground and tried to dismantle it with an axe. And then, wham! it exploded. Those poor kids had no idea that what they were trying to break open was an anti-tank mine.”
“What is an anti-tank mine?” Mansik asked.
“It’s a bomb buried in the ground to blow up tanks. You can imagine what happened to those boys.”
“Do you have a mine?”
“No, we don’t have anything as dangerous as that. But you have to be very careful when you handle any kind of explosives. If you find a strange object in the woods or anywhere, don’t even touch it. You’re supposed to come to me and report first, understand?”
The next thing Chandol showed him was gunpowder. He demonstrated to Mansik how to extract gunpowder from a live cartridge. “Hold the rear end of the cartridge fast with your two fingers, place it on a flat stone, and tap the bullet-tip with another stone or a hammer lightly until it is loosened enough to pull out by hand. Just twist the bullet a little and, look, it slips out like magic. Then you tip the cartridge shell and, there, you have the precious gunpowder on your palm.” The gunpowder trickled out of the shell and formed a small pile like black millet grains on Mansik’s palm.
“Now take a look at this,” said Chandol, producing a small package and unwrapping it. In the package were little green sheets bound into tiny books. “This book gunpowder is used for the shells of big cannons. Taste it. Go on. It’s a little sweet, isn’t it? If you light it, it burns very fast. And there’s another kind of gunpowder.” He picked up a can stuffed with thin black sticks resembling pencils. “It’s soft and you can bend it. See? When you light it, it burns very fiercely, shooting out blue flames and making a hissing sound.”
Mansik was overwhelmed by the terrible and fascinating war playthings the boys had collected in the past two months. He said, “It must be exciting to play with gunpowder. What do you do with it?”
Chandol closely studied Mansik’s face as if he was trying to find some hint. “All right,” he said finally, “I’ll show you what games you can play with gunpowder.” He picked up the ammunition box, and stood. “Come.”
The two boys went over to the corner where the boys kept their swords. Chandol took out a used machine-gun shell and placed it vertically on the dirt floor. He filled the empty shell halfway with the black millet gunpowder they had just extracted from the M-l cartridge.
Handing a book of bengko matches to Mansik, Chandol said, “Strike the match and put the flame here.”
Kangho and Kijun and Bong moved back toward the wall for safety, but Chandol did not. Mansik was afraid of the gunpowder too, but tried to conceal his fear as he struck the match and brought the flame to the open top of the machine-gun shell. There was a sudden puff of exploding gunpowder and a blue flame shot out of the shell. The flame vanished instantly. A sickly smell filled the headquarters.
“It was fantastic, wasn’t it?” Chandol beamed.
“Well … yes,” Mansik said in an absent sort of way. He was not sure if it had been fantastic. “It was.”
“Now I’ll show you a real gun we made,” said Chandol, going over to the underground armory. He took out a pistol wrapped in a piece of torn army tent. “Kangho and I made it. You can touch it, if you want to.”
Chandol handed him a pistol made of a pipe mounted on a piece of wood that served as its hilt. “Kangho found that pipe in the bengko dump,” Chandol added, to flatter Kangho, too. Fixed at one end of the pipe was a nail sharpened by a whetstone; when a rubber band was pulled back and then released by the trigger the nail-tip would slam forward.
“The nail-tip is called the hammer,” Chandol said. “When that hammer hits the snap cap, gunpowder explodes and the bullet is fired. Do you want to know how we make the bullets for this pistol?”
Mansik nodded.
“After you remove the bullet from a live cartridge, you mount in its place anything you want to shoot—a small stone or a barb or anything. You can mount it with kneaded candle wax. Then fit the cartridge’s neck into this end of the pipe. And you’re ready to shoot,” Chandol said.
“It looks like a toy to me,” said Mansik doubtfully. “I can’t believe it really works.”
“Oh, it works all right,” Chandol said. “Tell him how we killed a magpie with it, Toad.”
Kijun, who had been crouching by the door, could not remain inconspicuous any longer. “On the very day when we finished making this gun, we went to Eagle Rock to test its power. We snared a magpie with a horsehair, tied the bird on a tree branch and shot it at point-blank range. Ugh! You should’ve seen the mess.”
“You can even kill a man with it,” Chandol said proudly, “if you use a bullet made of lead.”
“Are you planning to use this gun in the war against the Castle village boys?” Mansik asked. “Somebody might get hurt.”
“We will bring this gun, the bayonet and the rifle with the missing stock to the battle. But we won’t use them in the first phase of the war. Now that you’re back with us, I think we can win even if we fight the old way. We’ll take these weapons with us just in case. You never know what new weapons they’ll surprise us with this year. You’re coming with us, aren’t you?”
Mansik nodded his head. “Yes.”
An expression of relief flashed over Chandol’s face.
The five Kumsan boys and the seven Castle boys fought like blind dogs on the sand around the dump, wielding their swords, tumbling, kicking, butting, clutching, hurling things, yelling, snarling.
“Surrender!”
“You’re goners, pissing frogs!”
“Attaaaaaack!”
Mansik was happy. He was delighted even when he was hit by a Castle village boy. Even if he bled from his nose or broke his arm, he would not care. He was glad that Chandol had allowed him to fight Sinil, the enemy captain, who was one of the best fist-fighters in the county. He was afraid of nothing. He did not feel any pain from Sinil’s punches. He did not even hate Sinil. He wanted to laugh and hug everybody around him.
“Beat ‘em! Beat ‘em!”
“Watch out! Someone behind you!”
“You dog-fucker!”
Jun, who had camouflaged himself like a real soldier with withered oak leaves and branches, brandished his sword at nobody in particular while Bong hid behind Mansik. Sinil tried to go after Chandol to avenge his nosebleed but his repeated attempts were blocked by Mansik. Mansik noticed Chandol was avoiding a confrontation with Sinil and was determined to fight with all his might to defeat the enemy captain on behalf of his own captain. Mansik did not care which village owned this miserable bengko dump. He did not care if his village won the war or not. He was just happy to yell and fight side by side with his old friends.
“Look out! Bombs!”
Several pebbles, missing their targets, fell on the sand around Chandol and Mansik. Mansik threw himself into a sunken hollow in the sand and let himself slide down feet first. Chandol jumped i
nto the hollow immediately after and crawled to Mansik’s side.
“Are you all right, Chandol?”
“Sure. I’m fine.”
The boys were no longer grappling with one another. Hiding here and there on opposite sides of a sand dune, scattered boys hurled stone missiles and fired slingshots, uttering war cries and yelling.
“Surrender, you driveling bed-wetters!” Sinil hollered over the dune.
“You surrender, crap-licking dogs of Castle!” Chandol snarled back.
“Attaaaaaack!”
“Attaaaaaack!”
The boys from both villages charged out of their hiding places, waving their swords, and began to grapple with one another on the sand again. A Castle village boy with shaven head hit Kangho on the shoulder with a club and Kangho collapsed on the sand, groaning. Bong, frightened at seeing Kangho fall, whipped the air with his sword in all directions to keep everybody away from him.
“Attaaaaaack!”
“Beat the Castle sissies to pulp!”
Mansik fought joyfully, not bothering to find out which side was winning. Stones hit him on the knee and the shoulder, but nothing could hurt him now. The Castle village boys began to retreat to the ferry.
The Kumsan Army won the Autumn War. The new powerful weapons they had buried at secret spots in the sand remained buried. Laughing and shouting and swearing, Kijun and Kangho and Chandol and Mansik and Bong chased the fleeing boys over the dazzling golden sand.
Lying on the ground exhausted, his face stained with sand and blood and sweat, Mansik laughed. The other boys laughed too.
“You were just great,” Chandol said with a big grin, kneeling beside Mansik. “You fought like hell and that Sinil certainly learned a good lesson.”
“We won this war completely owing to you, Mansik,” Kijun chimed in. “One boy was so scared that he leaped into the river and swam away.”
“It was a good fight for both sides,” said Kangho, cleaning his swollen lower lip with river water.
“Can we go to the dump now?” Bong asked Chandol. Dust covered the little boy’s whole face and whitened his eyelashes but he was unhurt.
“Sure, you can. You don’t have to worry about the Castle boys for some time because they won’t dare to show up.”
Kijun and Bong dashed to the dump and soon disappeared in the pit. Kangho massaged his shoulder and tentatively twisted his waist to the right and then to the left twice. When he decided he was all right, Kangho also went over to the pit. Mansik raised himself to join the garbage hunt. His left knee smarted very sharply but he would not have cared if every single joint in his body ached for a month.
“Wait, Mansik,” said Chandol, who had been stalling. “I’ve got something to tell you.”
Mansik felt his heart sink when he saw Chandol’s expression. “What is it?”
“Well, you know, I’m really sorry to say this to you,” said Chandol, stealing a quick sidelong glance at Mansik. “I hope you’ll go home now. I mean, without joining us for the garbage raid.”
“Why?” Mansik asked. Then he smiled, for he understood what Chandol had meant perfectly well, though belatedly. “Oh,” he said. “You don’t have to worry. I won’t keep anything good I find. I’ll give it all to you. There’s lot of C-rations and stuff like that at my home, you know. Bengkos bring them to my mother. New ones. So I won’t need anything I find.”
Chandol hesitated a moment but decided he had better say it honestly. “You see, we’ll be in a difficult spot if our parents find out that we’re playing with you again. Sooner or later they’ll have to know, but I don’t think this is a good time. So I hope you’ll go home now. If we return to the village by ourselves later, nobody’d notice that you’ve been with us here. It’s all right for you to join us when we play in the woods or any place far from the village, but we should be careful not to be seen together near our homes.” He stole another quick furtive glance at Mansik. “Do you mind?”
Mansik knew he was not in a position to argue. “I don’t mind,” he said in a faked, casual voice. “I’ll go home now. It’s okay.”
“Thanks,” Chandol said with a relieved expression. “I’ll send Kangho for you when we go somewhere to play. See you soon.”
Mansik trudged along the shore to get back to the Imugi House boat he had moored on the bank of the river. The shore looked like an endless desert. The river flowed noiselessly. Texas Town was also dormant because the people came alive at night and slept through the daytime there. The early winter sky was bleached pallid and there was not a patch of cloud in the brittle cold space of blue emptiness. He could no longer hear the laughter of the boys at the dump.
Mansik trudged across the desolate sand.
FIVE
Sokku came out of his room and sat cross-legged on the stoop to look over the low earthen fence of Paulownia House at the snow-covered village. Four boys were making a huge snowman under the old ginkgo tree and a playful dog hopped along the road to Hyonam. Then swirling snowflakes came down and covered everything in sight, erasing all the colors and shapes. The contours of the Inner Kumsan huts were blurred by the dizzy flurry of white moving spots and the hills in the distance had vanished. All human traces were hidden. The snow fluffed onto the branches of the paulownia tree like cotton flowers, and landed on the slushy mud by the sewer hole, on the plough leaning against the earthen wall, on the jar stand, on the stepping stones, on the worn-out rubber shoe abandoned in the yard, on the roads and rice paddy dikes, on the thatched roofs, and on the log bridge over the stream. The snow was making the world cleaner and cleaner, but Sokku was depressed. Kumsan village, crouching in the gathering dusk, looked to him like a gentle cow peacefully waiting for its death.
Sokku could not understand exactly how the war was going. Some people said the Chinese Army had begun to infiltrate North Korea in October. The National Army was supposed to have advanced as far north as Wonsan, Pyongyang, and Hamhung. The Migook Yankees were supposed to have reached Hyesanjin by the Yalu River in early December but 750,000 Chinese volunteer troops were operating in wide areas south of the same river. Some town folks said that the World Army had begun to retreat. These rumors made him believe that the war was far from over. The Communists might come back to rule before this year was over. When the Migook Army first arrived, they brought battle to West County and raped women. Now another horde of foreign soldiers from China was surging south like a human sea. The war was growing bigger and bigger, and its irresistible wave would crash over this village soon. The villagers, who were only too well aware of what the friendly forces of the Liberators had done to them, shuddered in anticipation of what the enemy forces of China would do.
When his friends Moksu and Chiwan came from Hyonam village to encourage him to volunteer for military service because they would soon be drafted, without any volunteer privileges, anyway, Sokku told his father that he wanted to enlist. Old Hwang’s reaction was far from what Sokku had expected.
“You mean you’re going to the war to try to end it?” the old man said. “Are you out of your mind? Now even the Chinese are in the war. If people keep joining the army this way, we will have so many soldiers on both sides that it will take decades for them all to get killed and for the war to end. The bigger armies you have, the longer a war will continue. It’s human nature. One wants to stab someone when he has a sword in his hand, so the killing will continue as long as someone has a weapon. If you join the army, it’s to continue the war, not to end it. I will order Moksu and Chiwan not to go to the war. And you, do not dream, ever, of enlisting.”
Moksu and Chiwan listened to the old man’s lecture out of courtesy, but they left the village early next morning and joined the National Army anyway. Sokku knew there was another reason, a very practical one, for his father to stop him from going to the war. The old man did not want to lose his only son.
Sokku glanced over at his father’s room. Through the whirling snow he saw the rice paper on the latticed door glow a warm orange color
; the old man had lit the lamp early in the afternoon, perhaps to spend some winter hours reading a Confucian classic. Old Hwang had been ailing on and off since the cold season had set in, and Sokku believed his failing health was aggravated by his gradual but steady loss of will. He’s running short of breath, Sokku thought.
Young Hwang often had the impression that his father was sinking into a mire of despondency. Everything around his father, the old man’s whole world, was crumbling. Sokku had felt this same sense of distress when he had returned home from the town and heard from the miller that his father had gone to the Chestnut House to buy back the snake hunter’s shack but had been ridiculed by Mansik’s mother in the presence of many amused onlookers. Sokku pitied his helpless father and loathed that ungrateful insolent woman, Ollye, but he could not do anything either. It was his father who was supposed to do the talking. Sokku was not entitled to speak with Ollye or anybody about anything concerning his father. Like a shadow, he always followed his father. Old Hwang never encouraged him to do or say anything of his own, and Young Hwang had never demanded an opportunity to make his thoughts known. It often occurred to Young Hwang that his father simply wanted his son to be with him wherever he went as a symbol. For Old Hwang his son existed only conceptually, as his potential successor. Perhaps Old Hwang hated to admit that Sokku was an independent individual. Or perhaps the father was aware of his own emasculation but hated to expose it to his son.
The wealth and authority of the Hwangs had begun to decline under his father. Sokku wondered if the Hwangs no longer maintained geomantic harmony with this land. Should they have moved, taking the remains of all the ancestors buried here with them, to a new place before the family fortune had been dissipated?
