Hwang Sok-Yong - The Shadow of Arms

Yong Kyu gulped down the saliva in his throat. “So what is this war of yours about? The Americans and we came here for no reason?”

“You people have no part in it. This is an American taxpayers’ war.”

“Cut the bullshit. For six months I was crawling in the mud where you’ve never been.”

Toi glanced at Yong Kyu then turned away and spat, apparently angry. “I’ve lived twice as long as you. So I know life. I’m from a family of merchants who have made their living in the Le Loi markets for three generations. All merchants have a good understanding of world affairs, big and small. Once there was a merchant who saw a man violently beating his wife, so he went into their house. He beat the husband for the sake of the wife. Then the brothers of the husband all came out and they beat the merchant. Then the merchant called on his neighbor for help. His neighbor knew that the merchant would reward him, so over he came too to intervene in the family fight. So? Have I said enough?”

Yong Kyu said nothing. Their Land Rover was pulling inside the headquarters compound of the American naval base.

Footnote:

8 US Agency for International Development

A flock of doves soared up through the palm trees. Dozens of trucks rolled in and out of the heart of the Quang Nam Province government. In the center of the yard in front of the building, where a fountain had bubbled during the French colonization, the national flag was flying from a pole. A decapitated statue displayed its awkward, naked form. The iron-barred front gate was permanently closed, fortified with sandbags that ran along the edges of what used to be flowerbeds.

Two heavy machine guns had been mounted on low watchtowers behind sandbag walls twice as tall as a man. Fully armed guards sat upright and attentive at two other spots. Out in front of the barbed wire barricades additional bunkers were manned by soldiers with automatic weapons. In the square directly in front of the building a pair of armored personnel carriers were on standby. When the director left for the day, one of the armored personnel carriers escorted him and the rear of his personal convoy was protected by two armored Jeeps equipped with.50 caliber machine guns. The provincial government building was now nothing but a fortress. Each window was covered with metal mesh to repel grenades. The terraces were practically sealed off by sandbag walls. A security force the size of a company was on rotation duty day and night.

Originally, in the early colonial period, the structure had been the home of the French governor. The architecture was in the southern French style, with orange-colored tiles adorning the roof and each level of terracing and neatly trimming the windows. Exotic ivy still crept up the walls to the highest windows, which at one time had been hung with shutters. Geranium pots perched on windowsills here and there. But the walls were ordinary plaster painted white. From a distance, the coarsely textured walls made the building look like a villa on some Mediterranean seashore. The only ugly intrusions on this idyllic scene were the sandbags, the machine gun nests, and the armored personnel carriers.

The iron gate on the side of the provincial government building stood wide open and a soldier was directing the truck traffic in and out. When they entered, the trucks drove into the front yard and made a loop around the flagpole, heading around to the back of the building. Once in the back and unloaded, the trucks made a U-turn to go out through the same gate and then sped off in the direction of the beach.

“What’s all that ruckus about?”

The question startled the lieutenant and he jumped up from the desk where he had been busy typing. He went over toward his superior, Major Pham Quyen, who was gazing down through the window with his hands clasped behind his back.

“God-damned fertilizer,” the major spat.

The lieutenant did not bother going all the way to the window and instead returned to his desk and flopped back down in his chair.

“Today is the day, sir.”

“Ah, what a pain. . ”

Quyen stretched. As his solid shoulders extended, the back of his crisply pressed American jungle uniform grew so taut that it looked about to rip at the seams.

“It’s already lunch time,” he muttered, glancing at his watch. “Still no word from the general?”

“No, sir. He stayed at Bai Bang last night, sir.”

Quyen understood. General Liam, a military high commander and the military governor of the province, had a villa on the beach at Bai Bang. It was on the northeast shore of the cape that the Americans called Monkey Mountain, overlooking Da Nang Bay. That the general had spent the night in Bai Bang meant that his arrival would be postponed until after the siesta hour.

“Did you notify the general that a dedication ceremony is to be held today in An Diem?”

The lieutenant hesitated and frowned. “. . I’m not permitted to communicate with Bai Bang, sir.”

“Call him.”

The lieutenant’s pleading look made Major Pham Quyen impatient and angry. “Call him, I said! We got a message from AID and the advisory group. The general must attend the ceremony today.”

“Yes, sir.”

The lieutenant cautiously rang the switchboard and when the other party was on the line, Quyen snatched the telephone.

“Ah, it’s me. Has the general been up? What? Not yet? Sure, all right, I know. I’m coming. Yes, it’s a very important matter.”

Pham Quyen banged down the receiver in a rage. “Damn, I’ll lose my lunch hour again. Hey, hand me that cartridge belt.”

“Are you planning to go to Bai Bang, sir?” the lieutenant asked, handing him a pistol holster and a leather ammunition belt that had been hanging on the wall.

“Yeah, I’ve got to drag the old man out. We have to make a living, don’t we?”

He was about to leave but paused to give an order to one of the second lieutenants. “When they finish with the fertilizer, the cement will be arriving. Verify the quantities and countersign the invoices.”

“Sign, sir?”

“Right.”

“After that, there will be no more storage space left, sir.”

“No need for you to be worrying about things like that,” Major Pham Quyen said with a smile.

When he came outside, the trucks were still circling in and out around the building. He adjusted the fancy silver buckle on his holster belt, took out his gold-framed sunglasses, and put them on. Within a few seconds, a fierce-looking late-model US Army Jeep rolled up in front of him. It was a convoy escort Jeep, fully equipped for battle. The front windshield was lowered flat onto the hood, and the top was covered with loose pieces of olive-colored nylon for camouflage. A pivoting machine gun was mounted on the rear of the Jeep was. It was manned by a slim soldier wearing the maroon beret of a Ranger with an M16 slung over his shoulder.

Major Pham Quyen got into the front seat. Whenever the olive drab sedan of the general was on the street, escorted by an armored personnel carrier and followed by a Jeep like this one blazing its headlights, every vehicle of the Allied Forces pulled over. Every officer who had any nodding acquaintance with the general would jump out of his vehicle to give him a salute. That kind of battlefield protocol looked ridiculous on the streets of Da Nang. At the sight of such a solemn parade, however, some civilians might actually feel that their governor, the man behind the walls of that castle, that fortified island in a sea of slaughter and provocation, was protecting their lives, lives for which the future promised no certainty.

As the Jeep pulled away, the driver asked, “Where to, Major?”

“Bai Bang, and hurry.”

“Shall I use the siren, sir?”