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◈ The Hunting Genius of the Japanese Colonial Era

Chapter 72

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The Skirmish (2)

Of Typhoon 3383[1] that struck the Korean Peninsula in 1933, the records of the time speak as follows.

In Yeosu, twenty-three fishermen died. In Tongyeong, three hundred fishing boats were flipped over and turned into heaps of refuse.

The fishing villages scattered across a dozen-odd islands off the southern tip of South Gyeongsang Province were all cut off, every last one.

Samcheonpo Harbor was reduced to ruins.

The Gupo area and the lower reaches of the Nakdong River flooded, and a tidal wave came crashing in, driving five villages to annihilation.

A mountain between Punggi township of Yeongju County and Sang-ri township of Yecheon County collapsed, burying twenty-five people alive. All of them died.

Within the single administrative unit of Namhae County alone, damages were tallied at over seven hundred thousand won.

Of the seven hundred households that made up the six villages of Geoje Island, three hundred ninety were completely destroyed.

In Chirwon township of Haman County, turned into a wasteland, more than forty starving children picked up fallen ginkgo nuts and ate them without even roasting them, and two of them lost their lives, a tragedy on top of tragedy.

By August 18th, the Government-General announced its estimate of the scale of the damage: 3,398 vessels, 88 dead, 132 missing, 62 injured. But this counted only fishery and harbor damage, and did not include the losses on the islands and inland.

August 4th, 1933. Gangwon.

Dawn in Sebeom Valley did not belong to the world of the living.

Sshhwwoook—!! Kwaaaang—!!

The mountain howled. Rain and wind lashed like something possessed, beating down on the log cabins.

The downpour, pouring as if the sky had collapsed, became tens of thousands of arrows that gouged mercilessly at the flimsy fences and mud walls, and the gusts that never let up raged as if they'd peel the roofs clean off at any moment.

It was Choi Seo-bang's house in Middle Hamlet.

"Whaaaah... F-Father... I, I'm scared...!"

"H-honey! The house! Our whole house is going to fly away! The door, the door, do something, hold it tight!"

Manbok, who'd passed ten years old and been recognized early as a laborer and so carried himself more soberly than others his age, had turned back into a small child and was sobbing. His mother too, her usual toughness nowhere to be found, was shaking all over.

For some reason, Choi Seo-bang, whose hair had all been shorn clean off compared to a few days ago, took the cold rainwater full on his bared crown as he threw his whole body against the door that rattled and shook.

Deolkeong! Kwadadang!

The door threw a fit. As if some madman stood out there in the darkness, hacking away at it with an axe every which way, hollering to open up.

'No,' Choi Seo-bang thought, trembling. 'More than a madman...'

Woo—woooooo—!!

The wailing of the rain and wind sounded more like the growl of a beast.

'The Water Tiger[2]...!!'

Something he'd heard a few days ago in front of the Seonangdang[3] shrine tree flashed through Choi Seo-bang's mind.

[If later on someone gets genuinely afraid and wants to pray to the Mountain Lord Mama from the bottom of his heart, then let him come at that time to show his sincere devotion from the heart.]

Choi Seo-bang felt his heart might burst.

'Could this be my fault?'

Was the price of mocking Old Woman Wangdae, of mocking the Mountain Lord Mama, coming back to him now like this?

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry...!"

Choi Seo-bang trembled.

"Mountain Lord Mama, I, I was mad! I should have known, myself, that I mustn't run my mouth so recklessly...!!"

Gripping the door handle, incoherent repentance spilled from his lips.

The words he'd spat out and blabbered in front of the Seonangdang shrine tree flashed through his head. If only he could get through this horrible calamity, he felt he could gladly chew and swallow as many pebbles as the number of syllables he'd babbled that day...

'I sinned, but my wife and Manbok, what did they do wrong? If I go to the Seonangdang shrine tree even now, and pray, if I repent from the heart and beg forgiveness again and again and again...'

At that instant,

Kwaaaaaaa—!!

One side of the wall came crumbling down in a rumble, and a spray of water surged into the house.

"Uh, ohhh!!"

The waterway they'd led from Meokbawi Valley all the way to the front of the house. That very waterway they'd been so smug about came roaring in like a giant serpent, gurgling with a murderous sound.

"Honey! Manbok!"

The savage force of the current wrapped around their ankles and yanked, hard.

The floor covering was torn up and the household goods began to bob and float.

"Get up! Hold on! I'll, I'll do something! Somehow, with this body of mine, I'll try to block it!!"

With a superhuman strength he himself couldn't guess where he'd found, Choi Seo-bang thrashed his way over, wrapped his arms around his screaming wife and child, and tried to lift them onto a corner of the room, upward, anywhere higher, he didn't even know where.

That was exactly when it happened.

Flash—!!

Lightning struck. The pitch-black outside blazed clear as crystal for an instant.

A shout came.

"Uncle Hong-cheol, that side! The base of that rock! Strike it right there!"

"Got it, sajang! Hey, Hyeong-don! Jun-ha! Back me up!"

A powerful, ringing shout of exertion pierced through the driving rain.

Kwang!

Far off, right in the middle of the waterway, an explosive sound of impact suddenly rang out.

At the same time, a miracle occurred.

The current that had torn down the wall and thrashed madly through the room lost its momentum all at once and collapsed.

"Uh, huh?"

Before Choi Seo-bang could even come to his senses, the muddy water that had been writhing like a serpent burst off in that direction, like the blood of a slaughtered animal spurting out, and turned away from the house, draining into the ditch alongside instead!

"Th-this is..."

Coughing and barely catching his breath, Choi Seo-bang stared blankly past the collapsed wall.

His eyes fell on Chuk Hong-cheol, the head hired hand of the Han household, standing there catching his breath with a hefty steel pickaxe driven into the middle of the waterway.

And beside him, a face at once familiar and strange, a young man of the village who somehow, from a little while ago, seemed to have climbed up high, into a world apart from his own.

"S-San..."

Han San re-gripped the shovel in his hand and grinned.

Rat-tat-tat! The lashing downpour struck at them without mercy, but the black, thick, long garment wrapped around Han San's body oddly caused those fierce droplets to slide off in part and bounce away in part.

It wasn't only Han San. The hired hands he commanded wore the same garments, and Choi Seo-bang could see them carrying leather bags shut tight against the rain on their backs, gripping steel shovels and iron pickaxes firmly in their hands.

"Y-you... you saved our household, th-thank..."

"I get that you're grateful, but we're a bit busy right now."

Brushing aside Choi Seo-bang's thanks, Han San pointed upward, toward his own house.

"Uncle Choi. You know where our house is, right? Hurry and take your wife and Manbok over that way. We've got to move again right off."

"M-move...?"

"We've got other houses to save too, don't we?"

The young neighbor who said that, no, the savior, called out in a great voice.

"All right! Han's Myriad Commerce! Next we go to Uncle Park's place over there! Move exactly the way we scouted last time so you don't slip!"

The words had barely finished when Han San and his five-man hired crew flung themselves into the storm without hesitation.

Flash! When lightning struck once more and the world flickered, their figures had vanished like an illusion. Only the scar of the severed waterway remained, like proof that they had truly existed.

"L-let's go, honey... Manbok. To San's house, to the Han household, quick!"

He didn't remember much of what came after. Crawling his way out of the muddy water, he headed somehow toward where the Han household was.

The moment he stumbled, as if spellbound, into the Han household's yard.

"G-good heavens..."

Choi Seo-bang drew in a breath before he knew it.

The Han household, which not so long ago had been no different from his own place, a log cabin with a rickety brushwood fence that let the wind whistle right through, had turned into something like an outright fortress.

The main building where the family lived, and the kitchen, had all grown a size larger. The storehouse beside them and the rows of guest quarters lined up in a cluster, maybe because they were packed close, were each modest in scale on their own, yet solid beyond words, like flawlessly interlocked bedrock.

'Is it just me, or did the moment I stepped into the yard, even the sound of the rain seem to die down a little...'

In truth, it wasn't just him.

Water makes the loudest sound when it strikes water. But in this yard, though the earth kept spurting up under the raindrops, the water itself never pooled, sliding away smoothly along carefully cut drainage channels.

In the relative quiet that brought, Choi Seo-bang and his family recovered that "feeling of safety" they had all but blackly forgotten since yesterday.

"Honey... Manbok, let's go. Over that way... there, some folks are gathered."

In one corner of the yard was a space where a tarp cloth, slung at a slant, however clumsily, kept the rain off. Inside it he could see a few neighbors huddled together, catching their breath.

Just then, Ham Ssang-sim came out of the kitchen carrying an earthenware pot. She had thick, solid gloves on her hands.

"Aigo! Choi Seo-bang! Mrs. Choi and Manbok made it safe too, well now! Frozen stiff, you're frozen stiff.

Here, come and have some of this... no, no. First, get out of those wet clothes. There's a towel over there, so dry off the water on your bodies first. Then eat and warm yourselves up."

"Ah, e-even this much for us..."

At the savory, salty smell wafting from that pot, the throats of the Choi family bobbed with a gulp.

Han Man-seok had chopped up hunks of the wild boar meat he'd said he brought down with the new hunting gun his son had gifted him. Salt and doenjang had been used without stint.

Various grains had been added and boiled down thick, an earthenware pot full and nearly without broth, a meat porridge packed solid in the truest sense.

"L-let's eat. Honey, Manbok... no, no. Like, uh, Auntie Ham said, dry off first, and then..."

The Choi family set the pot in the middle with trembling hands and picked up their spoons.

As the hot, thick meat porridge went down their throats, something hot spilled over from the corners of their eyes before they knew it, and they didn't know why themselves.

They only knew that, as heat rose from within their toweled-dry bodies, their hearts eased.

Gulp, slurp, gulp.

While they were spooning up the meat porridge without a thought and warming their bodies, the gate flung open and a few more people came into the yard.

Choi Seo-bang recognized right off that it was the Park household who'd lived in the house next to his, and Park Ssi too looked at Choi Seo-bang with eyes that said, 'Me too! I recognized Mrs. Choi's family right off!' They too, like the Choi family, dried their wet bodies the same way, received meat porridge, and caught their breath.

By the time the chill had left everyone's bodies to some degree and their wits had returned.

Tang, tang!

Ham Ssang-sim struck the cauldron with an iron ladle to draw everyone's attention.

"Now, now! If you've all eaten and come to your senses, let the young ones and the injured rest a bit more. You older sisters, give me a hand!"

Every bit the heroine they called one of the three wicked ladies of Sebeom Valley, Ham Ssang-sim turned to the neighbor women.

"More folks'll be coming in from outside, so we've got to wash the bowls and boil more soup, haven't we!

Sister Choi and Sister Park! That well out back, our San built it up sturdy so it doesn't overflow much, so let's wash the dishes there. The rainy path's slick, so mind yourselves going back and forth!

And Sister Yi and Sister Kim, wring out the water from those cloths over there and set them straight! Even if we can't dry them, if you wring the water out good, at least a few more folks can dry off, right!"

Of course, where would you find a mountain-village woman with no head for work?

They'd only been a little dazed by the madman fury of the storm, and the moment clear orders came down, a light snapped on in the eyes of Sebeom Valley's mistresses of the house.

"Got it, Sister!"

"Leave it to me!"

They divided up the tasks in a rush and started to move.

Move your body and the stray thoughts flee on their own. With concrete work in hand, a boisterous vitality began to circulate through the yard.

The men who saw it couldn't stay still either. Choi Ssi and the rest, the Middle Hamlet husbands with their hair all shaved bare, shuffled forward hesitantly.

"W-we'll do it too."

"That's right. No matter how much surer a woman's hands are, wringing out cloth takes a man's strength more..."

Just as the men were about to roll up their sleeves.

"You lot, this way."

A low, heavy voice came from one side of the yard. The men recognized the one standing there as Han Man-seok, the bearded hunter whose face had started to fill out a little of late.

"Come."

Han Man-seok walked, leaning on his staff. The men, halting, exchanged a glance and followed after him without a word.

Where they arrived was the Han household's storehouse.

The door opened with a creak.

"Wh-what, this is..."

"Hunter Han, what are all these...?"

The men's mouths fell open.

Inside the storehouse were dozens of the water-repellent waterproof coats, the very same ones Han San and the hired hands had been wearing.

And beside them, piled high, were pickaxes and shovels that looked hefty at a glance, along with ropes and leather bags.

"Put them on. Take them up."

As always, Han Man-seok's words were few. Following those few terse orders, the men moved as if spellbound.

A little while later, standing in ranks before the Han household's storehouse were no longer the shabby backwater husbands of moments ago, but laborers clad in rain gear, shovels or pickaxes in hand.

That was when the yard gate opened and Han San's party returned.

"Hwah! Coming home wakes a man right up!"

Han San came in dripping rainwater and caught his breath. Behind him the Chuk Brothers came panting, propping up a few new neighbors.

At the sight of the village men drawn up in the yard, a smile hung on Han San's lips.

"Nice! My mother and my father, ah, really, this is it. I swear our family was just born knowing how to get things done."

The angle of Han Man-seok's chin tipped up ever so slightly.

Without a beat, Han San stood in the middle of the yard. He called out to the neighbors in ranks.

"All right! You've all dried off and eaten, yeah! Got your strength back!

Now we've got to head out a good ways! Starting from the outskirts of Middle Hamlet, and if there's room to spare, we'll circle through Lower Hamlet too, sweep the whole thing clean, you hear?

For that, me and my hired hands alone don't have enough hands. So you uncles have got to do your part too!"

Even in the storm shaking all of Seorak, the voice of the eighteen-year-old youth rang out like a thunderbolt.

"Don't worry! I won't have you do anything hard! Just follow me! Strike where I say! Dig where I say! That's all! These are things you uncles already know how to do, aren't they!"

The men swallowed dry gulps and gripped their shovels and pickaxes tight.

Han San smiled brightly and thrust one hand up.

"Let's go save our village, with our own hands!"

The next moment, without being told, a thunderous response burst out.

Cho Seo-bang shouted.

"Waaaaah!"

Choi Seo-bang shouted too.

"That's right! I recognized it right off myself, the fact that we've got to save our village with our own hands!"

Park Seo-bang shouted too.

"Me too! I recognized it too!"

Yi Seo-bang, well, went ahead and shouted anyway.

"The song of unity ringing out across the Han household's yard...!"

The Water Tiger? The Seonangdang shrine tree?

Reverence for the Mountain Lord Mama and devotion to the exorcism rite?

That sort of thing was gone now, or rather, to be honest, it didn't even cross their minds. The Middle Hamlet Husband Youth Corps, formed without the members even knowing it (composed of old men, bald men, and honest-to-goodness husbands, hence the Husband Youth Corps), marched off into the storm behind Han San and the hired hands.

[1] Typhoon 3383 refers to the destructive August 1933 typhoon that struck the Korean peninsula, named by its year and sequence number in the era's meteorological record-keeping.

[2] The Water Tiger is a folk name for a fearsome flood-spirit or drowning-demon blamed for river and storm deaths in Korean village belief.

[3] The seonangdang is a village guardian shrine, typically marked by a sacred tree or stone cairn, where locals prayed to the mountain or village deity for protection.

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