“Da Nang.”
“Are you insane? Look around, we can’t even transport ammo! You’re on leave?”
“Transferred.”
“No lifts except for operations.”
“It’s like this every day?”
“This is the first like this I’ve seen since I’ve been here, but I’ll bet it’s worse in the platoons.”
Yong Kyu pictured himself running for his life through a narrow alley in Hoi An.
“It’s nothing like Chu Lai,” said the owner of the trench.
“We’re in Da Nang’s throat.”
“Point is, you’re lucky. We haven’t even made it to Tam Ky, let alone Da Nang.”
It was true for Yong Kyu, too. In nearly six months the only things he had seen were dismal jungles, endless rice paddies, muddy swamps, and bloodied dust. Everybody envied Yong Kyu for getting to escape this hell.
“You’re damn lucky.”
Yong Kyu just nodded. Like a well-trained hunting dog with sharp reflexes, he had done nothing but climb, run, or crawl for months. And all the sudden, it was over. He saw the face of the trainer back at Special Operations Corps, with his dark glasses, hovering in front of him: “Got it? The primary objective of warfare training is to develop your animal instincts. A marine’s instinct to fight is a natural instinct.”
The hissing of shells split the wind.
“Incoming!”
The two soldiers dove and stuck their heads back in the water. The dry sound of the blast left them momentarily deaf. A rocket-launched 3.5 inch bomb. Yong Kyu imagined the Viet Cong slipping away, quickly and stealthily, their weapons on their backs. He could tell from the noise where the shells were being shot. The artillery emplacements launched 105s and high-explosive bombs. They would fire with every large-caliber weapon they had in order to reestablish transportation routes. The barrage continued until aircraft appeared overhead. Then came the racket of Caterpillars and armored vehicles as they passed by the heliport company. Yong Kyu crawled out from the trench. Water dripped from his soaked pants onto the parched ground. As he headed toward the deserted landing strip, the soldier he had been sharing the trench with shouted at his back.
“Hey! It’s dangerous!”
Yong Kyu pointed his rifle butt at the armored vehicles rolling away over the open terrain.
“It’s over. The operation is over.”
Yong Kyu sat down cross-legged on the wooden steps of the control post and stayed there until the radio operator and some American showed up. High up in the sky, off to the south, long-tailed American marine helicopters were flying in formation under escort of gunships. On the landing strip medics and supply corps soldiers were busy hauling away the wounded, patching holes and cleaning the debris from destroyed supplies.
“What are you doing here? Move!” the radio operator spat at Yong Kyu, who was blocking his way up the steps. Yong Kyu held out his ID card.
The red diagonal line was like a symbol of authority to the radio operator.
“Ah. You’re being transferred.”
“To Da Nang,” Yong Kyu added.
“All right. Get on board.”
The radio operator jumped past Yong Kyu and went in to the control post, followed by Anglico, the American marine in jungle fatigues. The two men seemed to be in charge of the transport operations for supplies and passengers. Yong Kyu stuck his head in and asked, “Isn’t there transport control to check in with?”
“Not for passengers. Just get on. Anyway, all helicopters land at the military heliport in China Beach at Da Nang.”
“But. .”
“Look, we’re having a hell of a time as it is getting supplies to the platoons. You expect us to find a chopper for an individual transfer?”
“It’s on you if I don’t make it to Da Nang.”
“Yeah OK,” said the radio operator, his forehead creased. He muttered his insults under his breath, but loud enough for Yong Kyu to make out the words “son of a bitch.”
“You can walk up Route 1 or crawl all the way to Hanoi, take your pick.”
Yong Kyu did not understand how administration worked. Even when he was wading through a marsh with only his head and rifle above water, it never occurred to him that he was wandering aimlessly, bound for arbitrary coordinates determined by negligent officers who, in some comfortable office with coffee in hand, had traced wavy lines on a map using a right angle and a compass.
C-rations and ammunition lay in piles at the end of the landing strip. Yong Kyu stood watching as they got loaded into helicopters.
“Hey you, give me a hand with this!”
A sergeant passed by carrying a huge plywood box under each arm. They were marked GOVERNMENT PROPERTY, the kind of boxes used for private purposes. Nobody but the owner of such a box knew its contents. It probably wasn’t worn-out underwear, army uniforms, or eating utensils that was inside them.
“Can’t help. I’m leaving with the helicopter.”
“What?. . Where are you going?”
“Da Nang.”
As he spoke, Yong Kyu got the feeling that Da Nang was some kind of mythical paradise he was never going to reach.
“I’m headed there too,” the sergeant shot back, undeterred. “Give me a hand with these.”
Yong Kyu had no choice but to take one of the boxes and hoist it onto his shoulders.
“Can we take off in this chaos?”
“I can handle it. I’ll take you up, as surplus cargo,” said the sergeant and quickened his pace, then stopped, as if something had occurred to him.
“You’re not AWOL, are you, private?”
“I have my transfer orders with me, sir.”
“What unit you with?”
“Criminal Investigation Division.”
Obviously impressed, the sergeant eyed Yong Kyu from head to toe. Yong Kyu could not help scrutinizing the sergeant back. He was wearing new American army jungle fatigues with a stiff, starched work cap. His jungle boots were coated with white dust, but a single wipe would reveal their shine.
“So you’re moving up in the world,” the sergeant said, extending his hand. “We should get acquainted. I’m Sergeant Yun, senior non-com at the recreation center.”
They shook hands.
“The rec center and the investigation division have tight connections,” Sergeant Yun went on, offering unsolicited information. “You’ll learn all about it soon enough.”
The sergeant led the way towards the helicopters lined up on the runway. He did not even glance at the transport chopper, but made a beeline for an armed gunship that had been escorting the convoy. There was a boyish-looking American soldier manning a machine gun at the door. The sergeant addressed him in broken English:
“Let me-ah on tha helikopta an I gib you whiskey one battuhl.”
The American soldier leaned forward and asked him to say it again. Once he understood the sergeant, he gestured for him to hurry on board. They had to practically shove themselves inside the gunship along with the boxes. They squatted in the corner. The pilot asked what was going on and the American gunner answered, “Special liaison men, sir.” Then the gunner winked at them, making a little circle with his thumb and index finger.
“Bastard. Damned pleased with himself,” the sergeant muttered in Korean.
“You know him?”
“Know him, my ass! He’s all cocky because I promised him a bottle of whiskey.”
The sergeant opened a box, took out a bottle of whiskey wrapped in paper and handed it to the American gunner. The latter looked over his shoulder at the pilot, an officer, then took the bottle and quickly hid it in a half-filled ammo box.
“Thanks very much. I’ll give you a lift back, too,” he said, smiling.
The sergeant smiled back at him and turned to Yong Kyu.
“Bastard. I make the trip once week. Fat chance we’ll ever run into each other again. You see, whiskey is a business asset.”