The Shadow of Arms (5 page)

“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 affairs, 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.

“Your driving is amazing,” Yong Kyu said.

“It cost me twenty boxes of C-rations to learn this.”

“Who taught you?”

“Nobody. I learned on my own. Once I drove through a house and another time I ran over a guy. I used rations to settle the survivors' claims.”

The Jeep halted in front of the air force PX. It was quitting time for the employees, so the front gate was congested. Two guards, a male and a female, were conducting body searches on those leaving the PX. The MPs on duty were checking bags and bundles. Blue Jacket Kang exchanged a knowing bow with them and went inside. In back of the PX, in huge galvanized sheet metal Quonset huts, there were several warehouses and office compounds. An American staff sergeant emerging from the security office shouted a greeting as he ran into Kang.

“Hi, Sergeant Kang, nice to see you. I tried to call you. A little problem's come up.”

“What is it?”

“Come on in.”

Inside the guard office they found a Korean marine in a neat jungle uniform. A Vietnamese civilian was sitting next to him and a Vietnamese policeman was also there. When he saw them, the Korean soldier moved to stand up. Blue Jacket Kang glanced quickly around the office, spotted a torn box under their feet and looked inside. It was full of green cigarette cartons.

“Where's your unit?”

“I'm at Brigade, sir.”

“Son of a bitch, what the hell are you doing here, then? You're AWOL, aren't you?” Kang asked sharply.