Hwang Sok-Yong - The Shadow of Arms

“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.”