The Shadow of Arms (2 page)

 

 

1

The heavy pounding from an M102 howitzer on the other side of the river never let up. White rays of a scorching sun enveloped the sandy terrain, the barbed wire, and the cactuses. The few clumps of jungle scattered about looked like they were floating, like ships on water. A narrow road flanked by sandbags and barbed wire wound its way around them, connecting the battalion and the troops. Shots—warnings fired from the watchtowers built at every traffic control post—rang out in the silence between the blasts.

Sand rose up in dense clouds behind the hill. It mushroomed up into the air and then rolled down over the slope, swirling out across the field. The supply trucks had already come through by then. Then a Jeep veered sharply and sped into a narrow passage between two rows of sandbags.

For an instant, the field disappeared in the cloud of sand. A soldier standing guard out in front of the barricade yelled out, “Vehicle, headed this way!”

“Where's it from?”

“Headquarters looks like, sir.”

The exchange between the squad leader and the lookout caused a stir among the soldiers. Those who had been squatting in the trenches cleaning their weapons were now up, leaning over the barricade to see what would happen.

“It's definitely from headquarters, must be coming for somebody.”

“A liaison officer, maybe.”

“That new guy just got here. So someone's got to be leaving.”

The Jeep came to a sudden stop in front of the defense post. The sentry pushed the barricade to one side. As the dust settled the passenger in the Jeep became visible. He was not in jungle uniform, but in simple, black cotton Vietnamese clothing and a Special Corps jungle cap with a broad visor. The driver was dressed the same way. An unmanned, unloaded machine gun was mounted on the back of the Jeep. It hung diagonally on its stand and swayed for a few seconds before coming to rest.

“What is it?” the company commander asked the two men dressed as civilians, as he emerged from his bunker. They did not remove their dark sunglasses.

Without saluting, the passenger handed a piece of paper to the commander and said, “CID
2
. We're here for the transferee.”

The commander took a quick look at the paper. The soldiers stopped all activity and turned to look at him.

“Corporal Ahn Yong Kyu. Corporal Ahn!”

The soldier whose name had been called hesitantly rose from the trench. He glanced around. Visibly perplexed, he walked toward the company commander. Except for a missing helmet, he carried a fighting man's standard issue of arms and equipment. Like most infantrymen in the dry season, Private Ahn had cut his jungle pants into shorts, revealing his knees above his boots. Ragged threads from the unhemmed edges dangled over his calves.

Waving the orders in the air, the commander griped to the man in civvies, as if he were in charge of personnel, “It's tough, you know. If you take all my veterans, who's going to fight? We won't have a single man.”

The man took off his jungle cap and fanned himself with it. “Everyone who's faced death is a veteran.”

“What matters is combat experience,” the commander went on. “We have only a couple who've done six months of duty. You can't send them into the field before eight months, and the new recruits are a problem. It's only after three months that you could call them infantrymen, barely. Any earlier . . . they get carried off in body bags by helicopters.”

The commander handed the paper over to the senior sergeant and cast a helpless look at the soldiers standing around. The driver turned the Jeep around to head back and the man in black shouted at the confused soldier, who hadn't moved from his spot: “Let's go! Get in!”

“I have to report, and there's my things.”

“Fuck your report, this is an order. You can come naked for all I care. Let's go!”

The soldier looked at his commander, who stared coldly back at the man who was already a member of another unit.

“Go. Get the hell out of here.”

The soldier saluted as his superior turned toward his bunker. The sergeant nodded. Of all the soldiers, only the platoon leader held out his hand, saying “Good luck. You've been through hell here.”

After shaking his hand, Private Ahn climbed into the Jeep. It sped away, giving him barely enough time to take a last look at the little hole he had been stuck in for the past six months. Through the dust, the heads of soldiers watching from behind the sandbags appeared blurry, and then disappeared. Once it had emerged from the company's defense zone, the Jeep accelerated. With one hand Private Ahn grasped the body of the unsteady machine gun to keep it from hitting him. Then he leaned forward and asked the man in the front seat, “Am I being transferred to headquarters?”

The man did not turn around but muttered testily, “Wherever it is, you're one lucky son of a bitch.”

“How long've you been crawling?” the driver asked.

“Five months and fourteen days, to the day.”

“Looks like a reconnaissance was sent out.”

At these words from the man in black, apparently a corporal, the driver laughed.

“What for? The entire city of Hoi An has been taken.”

“So, it's an offensive, then.”

“The counteroffensive begins this afternoon,” Ahn Yong Kyu interjected.

“We're now entering Hoi An. Here, it's different than in Chu Lai. It's the Regular Army here.”

It had been over a month since the brigade headquarters left Chu Lai. Ahn Yong Kyu belonged to the second regiment that arrived. Twice he'd been sent out to lay ambushes in the outskirts of Hoi An, and he'd been a part of a company-level operation at least once. Like everyone, he knew street warfare would mean heavy casualties for the city. But an infantryman didn't talk about operations to come. He'd keep his mouth shut and not speak of his dreams from the night before. Only check his equipment one more time.

Ahn Yong Kyu wasn't thinking about where they were taking him. Every time the Jeep took a sudden turn he had to either quickly duck or catch the swinging machine gun. One thing he knew for sure was that he had to refill his canteen the next time they stopped. With a little luck he might find a well with potable water that didn't taste of chlorine.

Private Ahn Yong Kyu had a thin and tanned face. His eyes were narrow and penetrating, his lips, parched and pale, his cheeks hollow. His hair had grown out a little over the nape of his neck and his bony chin was covered in a sparse and prickly stubble. Even when relaxed, the small brown man remained alert. He seemed without emotion. No anger nor agony. His feelings had been charred by the scalding sun. Just two weeks of carnage, of thirst and heat had transformed the fighting men into burnt-out tin cans.

The Jeep slowed down. It was entering the sector of brigade headquarters. After they passed though an MP
3
checkpoint, a camp compound of plywood and sheet metal came into view. Behind it there was a double fence of barbed wire and a watchtower with a high ladder. Up on the tower the guards were eating C-rations. They had set their guns down, barrels aimed at the ground. A prison camp. Inside the wire about a dozen POWs, exhausted by the heat, were sleeping in the shade of folded tents. One of them stood up and made a sound—
uuk
,
uuk
—gesturing for a drink of water, but a guard spat out, “
Kong deok
!”

The prisoner sat down again. The driver walked off toward another set of barracks, and the man in black went into the building alone. He told Private Ahn to wait for a second, but minutes passed and he didn't reappear. Camouflaged MP vehicles passed through the checkpoint. It must have been time to relieve those on road patrol. Ahn took off his helmet, put it down on the sand and sat on it, and lit a cigarette. One of the guards climbed down the ladder from the watchtower and approached along the fence.

“What are you, new recruit?”

“Temporary transfer from my platoon.”

“Where to, field MPs? Prisoners' camp?”

“Don't know yet.”

“Who brought you here?”

“Some man in black.”

“You're damn lucky. They must be sending you to the investigation division. If not to Da Nang or Saigon, at least to Hoi An or Tam Ky.”

Yong Kyu looked vacantly at the live enemies inside the wire fence.

“Let me borrow a light,” said the guard, reaching for Yong Kyu's cigarette to light his own. He seemed envious of Yong Kyu's assignment.

“In the investigation division there's two corporals, two master sergeants, and a first lieutenant, and each is temporarily assigned to a battalion. But those posts are all filled now. As for investigation, the detachment at Da Nang is the biggest.”

The guard kept wiping sweat and dust from his face with his sleeve. After lighting his cigarette, he glanced back over his shoulder at the POWs behind him, and muttered, “Shit, I've been at this four months already and it's driving me nuts. Even field duty days in the platoon were better than this, you know.”

“So, you crawled, too.”

“Nothing but crawling for two months, then transferred to this shit-hole,” said the guard, adding in a whisper, “Think hard, I mean, you must know somebody in a high place in Korea. Or your family pulled some strings?”

“I don't know . . . no chance, then, that I'll be sold back to the platoon, huh?”

“Not a chance. Goodbye to that rifle till the day you head home.”

The guard walked away from the wire fence. Once in a while you could see infantrymen moving toward the outskirts of the city in formation. As they marched, a fine dust lifted up around their calves.

The corporal in black came out of the building and shouted at Yong Kyu.

“Hey, you! Come in!”

Yong Kyu followed the corporal inside. Suddenly he was in total darkness. He heard a voice.

“Private Ahn Yong Kyu, your serial number?”

Yong Kyu shouted out his number loud and clear then continued, “Rank, private! Branch of service, army infantry! Home . . .”

As his eyes gradually adjusted to the darkness, Yong Kyu was able to make out a metal desk in front of him. A skinny man in a civilian T-shirt and dark sunglasses was sitting at it. He was holding a file containing the full record on Yong Kyu. After running item by item through all the questions about his education, family background, blood type, military service record and so on, the man said, “Good. One of the staff at the joint investigation headquarters in Da Nang is returning home. You're transferred today to take over his duty, effective immediately.”

Everybody at the brigade headquarters seemed to be out on assignment. Only the skinny officer, the corporal, and a few privates were there. The corporal left the office with Yong Kyu.

“You know the second heliport?”

So he would not be giving Yong Kyu a ride this time. The corporal gave Yong Kyu a copy of his transfer orders and a newly issued investigation staff ID card. Everything was in English. The letters “CID” and the red diagonal slash on the card stood out.

“Show this and they'll give you a boarding number.”

“I'm going right now?”

“You think we're kidding here? The orders for your transfer to Da Nang came from investigation headquarters. The controllers in the intelligence unit will keep in contact with you until you get to your new unit.”

“Yes, sir.”

Without acknowledging Yong Kyu's salute, the corporal grinned and looked away. “Listen, when I come up to Da Nang, you'll show me around. I usually make it up there once a month.”

Yong Kyu walked toward the military operations road as directed. He trudged on through the dust raised by the transports that occasionally went by. None of them would stop for him even when he held out his thumb. That particular road was completely exposed to the deep jungle and a stopped truck made an easy target for rockets. As he did on patrol, Yong Kyu kept to the edge of the road and walked holding his rifle up.

A truck sped past him leaving another cloud of dust in its wake. About a hundred yards farther along, there came a sound of
sss
.
.
.
saaa
.
.
.
aang
and Yong Kyu instinctively hurled himself down and rolled up against the sandbags lining the road. He lay there flat on the ground. There was a crash, like an enormous glass plate shattering, and he felt sand shower down on his back.

He waited for the second explosion, but from the long delay he figured that the target had been hit. Yong Kyu raised his face and through the mixture of dust and sweat looked up the road. A pillar of flames was shooting high up into the air, streaming dark smoke, and the truck was flipped on its side in the middle of the road. A direct hit on the front of the cab. The driver who had looked out at Yong Kyu a minute earlier had to have been killed instantly. The enemy's rocket projectiles and mortar rounds began raining all along the sandbag walls and more struck the roadbed. It was a full-on attack. Despite the sun shining over the vast dune that separated the jungle from the lines of defense, it was impossible to tell what was what. A Jeep sped by and an officer inside yelled to Yong Kyu, “Are you trying to get killed? Take cover, quick!”

Yong Kyu propped himself against the sandbag barricade and took a swig from his canteen. Aggressive attacks seldom lasted longer than twenty minutes. By then the shells, normally two to each guerrilla, would have run out. This attack seemed to be on the entire company. An airstrike must have been initiated before the fighting broke out on the ground; two of the old-style fighter-bombers could be seen looping and rolling overhead.

The second heliport was in a state of pandemonium. The asphalt landing strip had been hit four times by bombs. The wounded were writhing in pain beneath the rancid chemical smoke. There was no trace of anybody in the bunker next to the strip and the barracks were empty, too. To the west could be seen a line of infantrymen, their backs to the wall, firing .50 caliber machine guns set up on swivel stands. Further, beyond the open terrain, superbombs were going off over the thick jungle in a hellish din. It seemed to rip open the eardrums.