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?????????????????????????????FURRY ORPHAN OF WAR???????????????Allen Ruffin
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We could not pronounce his name, so we called him Kim. Our
houseboy. Actually, Kim was a member of a group who had signed up
to work for the GI's to avoid being drafted into his own army. In
1952 Korea, that was as good as a sentence of death.
He did pretty well. He slept in a tent with the other Korean
helpers who had cots, blankets, sleeping bags, clothing, plenty of
food, and no combat duty. They were the kitchen K.P.'s, a task
loathed by all GI's, helpers who carried five-gallon cans of coffee
to each of our dugouts in the mornings and brought food and coffee
to those on duty, carried in the water and fuel cans--well,
usually, but not always and sometimes we had to lug these
ourselves--and did other useful chores such as washing and ironing,
and airing out sleeping bags. Very useful to have around. When any
shooting started, they vanished. Utterly. And who could blame them.
After all, as we often said kiddingly, "Hey, a guy could get killed
around here." Some did.
The Korean helpers were paid small sums from the company fund.
To have a houseboy, the twelve of us in the dugout chipped in about
a dollar a month equivalent in Korean Wan--which was like play
money to us--or maybe a little more if Kim got in a snit over
working too hard. He made more on the side by crafting personal
footlockers from scrap wood. They were beautifully made. He was an
artist with the crude, handmade pull-saw, bent nails, some leather
and sand. Yep, sand. We didn't have any sandpaper, so he rubbed the
wood surface smooth with damp rags and fine sand. Then he rubbed it
to a sheen with oil he scrounged from somewhere or other. I paid
him five bucks American for mine, which was a fortune compared to
the value of Wan, which was changing day by day.
He made our dirty, dreary, always-frightened lives more
comfortable over the months of summer. In time, I became temporary
Sergeant of the Guard, a post which rotated among all the new
arrivals who had been there longest without a regular assignment.
During night rounds, I often saw a scrawny, snarling Doberman
Pinscher stalking our perimeters. This was a trained military guard
dog that had become loose when his handler, a member of the
division mine replaced, was killed. Coming up this valley, that
division was ambushed from the mountains on each side and lost a
thousand men for every yard of ground taken. They were withdrawn to
Japan and replaced by the division I joined as a replacement, an
activated National Guard unit. Very laid back. They left food out
for the dog, but never tried to befriend it. They were afraid.
In time, I coaxed the dog into coming near. Then to accepting
bits of meat from my hand. Then to allowing me to rub its breast
and stroke its ears and muzzle. I knew Dobermans. The aunt back
home who raised my fiance had three of them. Yessir, I knew
Dobermans, but I couldn't make a friend of this one. Ever hear of
shell shock? Battle fatigue? This animal had it. Whenever there
was an explosion, even of distant artillery fire, the dog was gone
in a flash and didn't reappear for days. I always loved dogs, and
had a Dalmatian back home that I had trained to hunt. They are the
old bird dogs of Dalmatia, you know. Wished I'd had him in Korea,
too. There were pheasants and ducks all over the place.
One morning, I was astonished to see as the sun rose that the
rice paddies were covered bank-to-bank with mallards. At the first
break of light, they all started quacking at once. If I hadn't seen
them first, it would have scared the shit out of me. The Chinese
army we faced made queer noises before an attack. You never knew.
In Korea, the sun is up in an instant. You see a little bit of
the sun over the mountain with just ever so little light, and it
sort of hangs there for a while. Then in the blink of an eye, it is
up well above the horizon and everything is bathed in full light.
No sort of half-light like mornings at home when I was running my
trapline before school. Something to do with refraction over an
edge, that edge being the mountain. I looked it up.
Shortly after, the ducks would all take flight at once. It was
a marvelous sight, thousands and thousands of mallards from all the
paddies in the valley zipping up and down, the low sun glistening
on their twinkling wings. I could tell mallards from other ducks
from a distance ever after that by how fast their wings were
beating. And quacking. Duck music. It gets you if you are an
outdoors type. I'd give anything to hear that many at once again.
The second or third morning after the ducks arrived, I was
doing an early turn to check the guards and make sure nobody was
asleep in case some gung-ho officer decided to leave his warm bunk
and sneak around to find somebody he could chew out and give
company punishment. In the first weak light, I thought I saw
something funny down by the paddies, and so I hopped into a
machine-gun pit with the guard where there was a telephone. I had
to hold the bells so to make no sound when I cranked it. I cranked
and cranked before the operator woke up and cussed me when I wanted
to get through to the duty officer. He wasn't there, and so when
the sun popped I could see what was going on and it was just as
well I hadn't gotten through and been responsible for a mortar
attack.
There weren't supposed to be any civilians where we were. Some
would show up every once in a while, of course, and usually get
shot. Never knew but they might have a basket full of grenades or
a machine gun strapped to their backs. It happened. Around the rice
paddies there were hundreds of them. As soon as the sun became
bright, half of them jumped up and began to run in one direction
with paddy-size nets, while the other half ran in the other
direction yelling, screaming, and waving their arms. It was over in
minutes, and only a couple of hundred ducks were left to fly around
quacking their distress.
Where all those Koreans and the ducks disappeared to so fast,
I never found out. They needed the protein, and were starved for
meat. I once saw a tired, thin old horse die in the traces on a
street in Seoul, and before you could say Jack Robinson there was
a crowd with knives, saws, sharp scrap metal, screaming at each
other in that funny way that sounds like clearing your throat, and
even eating the meat warm, bloody-raw. The meat was gone in moments
and nothing but bones left steaming in the roadway. Minutes more,
and only a bloodstain remained. Can't blame them. War is tough.
I never saw that poor Doberman again.
One morning, after I had finally left the guard unit and
gotten my regular assignment, Kim woke me early, shaking me and
whispering, "Dog-u, Dog-u."
I thought he meant that the Doberman was back. I dressed in a
hurry, grabbed my grease gun and made sure I had the double-clips
taped together stuck in it, snagged my helmet just in case, and
followed him wearing only the floppies he had made me of bits and
pieces of leather and chunks of tire tread for soles since he was
rushing me too much to put on combat boots and do GI lacing. Kim
led me away from the dugouts and up the side of the mountain, and
I began to get a little scared. After all, he was a Korean and we
were never sure which side any of them were on. I did radio work
among other things, and I heard that they knew plenty of us by our
nicknames. Kim could have been a Commie leading me into an ambush
as easy as not. I wanted to go back, but he kept motioning me on
and I couldn't let him see I was scared. Until I heard a puppy cry.
Kim led me to a little hole under one of those tiny, scraggy
pine trees that grow on the mountains. It looked like someone had
started to dig a foxhole or maybe a tunnel there, had hit a rock or
big root or something, and given up. Pine boughs had fallen over
the top and needles collected on the top of that to make a
sheltered spot. Down in the back was a nest made of leaves, bits
and pieces of cloth, what looked like white wool. Kim reached in
and picked up the bit of wool, which turned out to be a tiny, tiny
little puppy. Its eyes were still closed, and its ears sealed to
the sides of its head. But, its mouth was open and the lungs worked
fine. It was hungry and wanted its mother. There were signs in the
hole that she had tried to bury this pup, but maybe had to leave in
too much of a hurry. Usually the bitch never abandons a pup
without good cause. Maybe she had gone hunting and had gotten
killed.
I dipped the twisted end of my handkerchief into my canteen,
and gave it to the pup to suck which it did again and again. Water
helps, but is no substitute for food. I gave Kim another five
dollars American--he refused to take Wan--to get some GI canned
condensed milk by whatever scheme, and some eggs. Milk was
plentiful, but eggs were a little harder. We could only get them if
we were allowed to eat apart from the mess hall because of our
strange duty hours with the radios, and they were counted
carefully.
I fed that pup with the rag twist and condensed milk for
days and days, and washed its bottom to get it peeing and shitting
just like a bitch would do. For a long time, it wouldn't touch eggs
even cooked in butter, but it would lick butter off my fingertip.
In time the eyes opened, a pale, pale blue. I kept it in a .50
caliber ammunition box in which I'd punched air holes, and lined
with socks and pieces of blanket. Wherever I went, so did the box
and the pup. I had considered a number of names, but decided on
Cal. You see, on the side of the box was stencilled Ammunition,
cal. .50 M2 Ball. I had considered Ball, since she was a little
ball of fur, but Cal seemed better. Yeah, she was a bitch.
Once the eyes opened, she started getting curious and wanted
to get out and try moving on her legs instead of swimming. Before
long, Cal was eating eggs and sugar, and then bacon and Spam, which
was about all I could get except C-rations, and though I'd eat them
when I had to, I wouldn't have fed them to a pig back home. She
started to grow and grow. As soon as her ears perked up, I could
see that she was going to be a sturdy animal something like a
short, wide-model Husky, all white with some brownish places. She
was smart as a whip, and learned from me quickly. I took her
everywhere with a leash and a red collar Kim had found somewhere.
We were having some pretty busy shooting matches about then,
but the noise never bothered Cal. One morning though, early, when
she was about four months old, we were awakened by a terrific
noise. Scared the pea out of everyone, and we went diving to the
ground scrabbling for guns and helmets. During the night, a unit of
self-propelled eight-inch howitzers had moved into prepared
positions right behind us and began firing over our heads. It
wasn't just the concussions, though they blew the roofs of the
dugouts around and raised dust a foot above the floor, but the
shells sounded like boxcars going overhead. Sideways. And every
once in a while, a shell would lose the bearing ring which went
anywhere it wanted, tumbling and making a peculiar "whupping"
sound. Scary.
It lasted an hour. Cal was trembling and wouldn't stand when
it was over. She had been mostly under me during the shoot, and now
wanted to dig her way under my blouse. But, she was too big and
puppy claws are sharp. I put her down with a yell and she ran off.
I hunted for her for hours and hours. So did everyone else who knew
I was hiding an forbidden pet.
I'm not going to say that I cried myself to sleep, but maybe
I did and maybe I didn't. I had a couple of bottles of Korean
whiskey, Lion Brand or maybe Tiger or somesuch nonsense, that I had
left from a case I'd bought from a Yale educated Korean colonel who
had come walking up the railroad tracks one day when I was guard
sergeant. Later he came back in a jeep with the booze, and was
amused to find I was from Connecticut and had been a lunch guest at
Yale a number of times. That stuff was vicious, unaged and made
from whatever would ferment with some added coloring. The hangover
started before you got drunk. And I remember I got as drunk as I
could before passing out. I don't recall much after that. I woke up
with a terrible thirst, a worse head, and found myself laced into
my sleeping bag.
This was a prank we'd sometimes play on a replacement, lacing
him in and yelling, "Raid" in the middle of the night. I thought
the guys were joking me, but this big feller that was my best buddy
came and sat on my chest and talked with me until he was convinced
I was sane.
I drank myself into oblivion while hunting for Cal. Toward
dark, Kim came to the dugout rubbing his stomach and said, "Dog-u
numbah one chop-chop-u."
I snatched the skinning knife I'd brought from home from my
belt scabbard and went for Kim. The guys dragged me off. Told me it
had taken four of them and a lot more whiskey forced down my throat
to subdue me; that I had the strength of ten.
Kim was never seen again. Neither was my Kabar knife with the
white ivory handle. In fact, we had a hell of a time getting
another houseboy and then had to pay double and promise I would be
gone when he had to work at the dugout. Just as well.
Since then I have learned that Korean men believe that eating
dogs at certain times of the year improves their sexual prowess.
In one of the litters of German shorthaired pointers I've
raised was an almost white male with a familiar personality. So
smart. He was learning his commands as soon as he could walk. Had
a sense of humor, too. Some dogs do, you know. Don't tell me you've
never seen a dog grinning at you? Named him Cal. I told my wife I
liked the name Calvin. She doesn't know this story. Don't talk much
about the war, except maybe some of the funny things.
Shorthair Cal, he was gunshy from birth and I had to sell him
cheap. He was purchased by an accented foreigner who called a few
days later and told me that Cal had gotten away from his garage and
run off, and that he wanted to buy another puppy. I told that man
that if I ever saw him again, I'd skin him. Slowly. I might have,
too.
My wife and I believe in reincarnation. And in heaven. And I
figure that if I don't meet up again with all those fine, loving
dogs I've owned, heaven is a damned poor place.
-end-
Copyright (c)1993 Allen Ruffin
Allen F. Ruffin, Writer, can be contacted in any P&BNet conference
or by snailmail: P.O. Box 241, Middletown, MD 21769