Word of Honor

by Nelson DeMille

  Karen Harper looked up from the book and met Tyson’s eyes. “Picard agrees that there was an enemy flag there, but he indicates that it might have been raised by the hospital staff for the reasons he indicates. Why did you assume, as you indicated, that enemy soldiers were there?”

  Tyson stubbed out his cigarette and replied with a touch of annoyance in his voice, “I didn’t have Picard’s book with me. I had no idea, Major, of what the hell was going on in Hue or its environs. When I saw an enemy flag, I made the logical assumption that I was approaching a fortified enemy position.”

  “Yes, of course. Please go on.”

  Tyson leaned back in his chair and thought. She is playing dumb, and she is imploring me to educate her. I am responding to this dumb woman by trying to teach her about war. Only she is not so dumb. She is using a very sophisticated method of interrogation. Careful, Tyson.

  “Mr. Tyson? You were saying something about the church and the square.”

  “Yes, we deployed on the near side of the square. There were, as I said, no villagers around to question. But it never occurred to me that I was looking at anything other than a large concrete building, a former French admin building or something, currently flying an enemy flag and in fact being used as a fort.” Tyson leaned forward. “You have to understand, Major, that you can’t be ethnocentric if you’re trying to understand this. Picard says hospital, and you think of a big, sleek building with nice blue signs directing you to visitor parking and all that. You think that mistaking a hospital for an administration building is hard to swallow, like mistaking a water buffalo for an elephant. Well, try to imagine, if you will, a country without neon signs, McDonald’s, or corner gas stations, a country where suburb doesn’t mean PTAs and lawn mowers but means a shithole village close enough to a rinky-dink city to have a few buildings with glass windows and no pigs in the street.”

  Karen Harper did not reply immediately, then said somewhat coolly, “I just spent a month in Japan and the Philippines, a good deal of that time in the countryside. I’ve been all over the world in the last four years. I am not ethnocentric, but your point is well taken.” She added, “Still, hospitals, especially in war zones, are somehow always well marked. But go on.”

  Tyson stared at her for some time, and their eyes met and held.

  She said with a note of near sarcasm, “Do you need another break?”

  Tyson stood and went to the side window. It was a soft gray day, damp and cool, an almost welcome relief from the bright sunshine and heat. He smelled rain in the air. Karen Harper, he decided, was ahead on points. He knew he should end the interview now, but his ego wouldn’t buy that. Like his father, a gambler, he believed you couldn’t win it back unless you kept playing. He turned from the window. “I don’t need a break.”

  She nodded. “You were saying you were on the near side of the square.”

  Tyson moved back to his chair and sipped on his coffee. “Yes. We moved into positions of cover and concealment around the church. Kelly, my radio operator, who had a good voice, shouted across the square in Vietnamese for anyone inside the concrete building to come out. No one replied. We fired a few probing rounds. No return fire. We waited, called out again, then fired again. No return fire. But we knew they were in there. We could smell them.” He looked at Karen Harper, but she did not challenge that statement.

  Tyson continued. “We increased our rate of fire, trying to get them to give themselves away, I was beginning to wonder if anyone was in there when it happened. Someone, probably some scared kid, fired back. Now we knew. We stepped up our fire, blasting the windows. The enemy began firing back, very intense fire. Mostly small arms, but a few rockets and propelled grenades. Then a machine gun opened up from the roof. We exchanged fire for about five minutes, then I decided to assault the building. The square was not completely exposed. There were trees and ornamental gardens, a few low walls, and also a pool and fountain. We began moving out, firing and maneuvering. We took one killed and two wounded before we reached the front doors of the building. That’s in the book—”

  “Yes, but the book says the main enemy force had withdrawn sometime before you even got there. The three casualties were the result of a solitary sniper on the roof. Picard says through his two witnesses—two men in your platoon—that you never fired on the building, that civilians in the hospital signaled to you and hung out a white bed sheet. You believed the building held no enemy troops, and apparently so did the hospital staff. Seeing their signal to you, you advanced directly across the square, and the solitary sniper opened fire from the roof. So here we have a further divergence between your account and the account in the book.”

  “Well, I’m telling you what happened as I recall it. The enemy force had not withdrawn. We met with intense fire and we returned it.”

  “All right. By the way, did your field map indicate a hospital? What is the hospital symbol? A square within which is a cross with equal-length arms, like the Red Cross.” Her eyes met his.

  He said slowly, “Well, there was a hospital symbol on my map . . . as I’m sure you know . . . but old map symbols in a country at war for nearly thirty years are somewhat meaningless. Try checking into the hotel that you see on a Vietnam map, or crossing a bridge that’s been down for twenty years.”

  “I understand that, but—”

  “More to the point, I was temporarily disoriented, and I thought I was on the other side of the village. I thought the building designated as a hospital on the map was to the north.”

  “I see.” She seemed to be mulling this over, then reached into her briefcase and drew out a plastic-covered map.

  Tyson felt his mouth go dry.

  Major Harper stood and came around the coffee table. Unexpectedly, she knelt beside Tyson’s armchair and unfolded the map.

  Tyson looked down at the colored Army ordnance map. The map was trilingual—French, Vietnamese, and English. It suddenly seemed very familiar: the rice paddies, the trails, the burial mounds, the rivers and streams, the woods and hills. After nearly two decades, he still knew the place. His eyes focused on An Ninh Ha.

  Major Harper asked, “This was the standard issue map, was it not?”

  “Looks like it.”

  She seemed to be studying it, her finger sliding across the Plasticine coating, stopping at An Ninh Ha. “Here it is.”

  “Yes. There it is.”

  “You see here . . . you said you saw a church on the near side, the west side of the square. Here’s the church on the map, a box clearly marked with a Christian, or Latin, cross. The only church in the village. And across the square on the east side is the hospital, marked with the cross of equal-length arms. That seems clear. What I’m wondering is where you thought you were.” She glanced over her shoulder at Tyson.

  Tyson’s eyes went from the map to her face, and they stared at each other in silence. Her proximity was somewhat unsettling. He could smell her scent, an unusual spicy fragrance. He saw that her hair had highlights he hadn’t noticed. Between the buttons of her blouse, there was a gap, and out of the corner of his eye he saw the curve of her breasts and observed she was wearing a half-cut bra.

  She said again, “Where did you think you were?”

  Tyson drew a deep breath through his nostrils and leaned over the coffee table. He scanned the small village quickly. In the north end, near the bend in the river, was a pagoda whose symbol, a box with a projecting line, could conceivably be mistaken for that of a church. Some distance away, perhaps a hundred meters, was the symbol for a school: a black box with a pennant flag. Tyson said, “There. I thought I was there.”

  Major Harper nodded as though she accepted this. “So you thought the Catholic church you passed was a pagoda, and the hospital across the square was a school? You said you thought it was an administration building.”

  “Well . . . I meant a public building. . . .”

  “I see.” She looked at him with an expression meant to convey that she was a little confused.
She said, “But the juxtaposition of these two sets of buildings is quite different. Also . . . here you have an open square, a place. Here, between the pagoda and the school, you have tiny black boxes which I presume are houses, and the distance is greater—”

  “Look, Major, I don’t need a course in map reading. You know, it’s easy to sit here in a dry room with a nice new map and play devil’s advocate. But my map was bent and folded so many times the plastic coating was cracked, and water had seeped into the paper. An Ninh Ha was nearly obliterated on my map.” Tyson’s voice was sharp. “Let’s forget maps. Okay?”

  Major Harper folded the map. Still kneeling, she handed it to Tyson. “These are hard to come by. I assume you don’t have yours. My compliments.”

  Tyson took the map. “Thanks for the memories.”

  She stood. “Look it over when you get a chance. It may jog your memory.”

  Tyson did not reply.

  She returned to her side of the coffee table. Still standing, she said, “All right. Where were we?”

  “I was attacking the building. Do you want a blow-by-blow account of the assault? Or do you want to wait until they make it into a movie?”

  “Actually, I’d like us to back up to when you’re deployed around the church. You’re looking at the building, fifty meters across the square. It’s flying an enemy flag, and you’re focusing on that. But did you see any written signs on the building, in English or in French? Do you know French?”

  “As you know from my file, I have a working knowledge of it. There were no signs—written or otherwise.”

  She handed him a slip of paper. “What does that mean?”

  Tyson looked at the Vietnamese words. Nha Thuong. He threw the paper on the coffee table. “I told you I didn’t know the written language. I spoke a few words and phrases, most of which had to do with getting me laid.” He smiled.

  Major Harper smiled in return and sat. She said, “Well, that means hospital, of course.”

  “Does it?”

  She pointed to the map on the coffee table and observed, “The maps were trilingual and were therefore like a Rosetta stone.” She nodded to herself, as though arriving at a truth, then continued. “The legend on that map included the words ‘Nha Thuong, hôpital, hospital.’ You saw this trilingual legend day in and day out as you consulted your map. So of course you know ‘Nha Thuong’ when you see it written. The question is, Was it written on the concrete building?”

  Tyson did not reply.

  She seemed lost in thought for some time, stroking her chin with her finger. At length she said, “The question of whether or not you knew that building to be a hospital is pertinent but not crucial to the central issue. Let’s assume you did not know it was a hospital.”

  “Right.”

  “You deployed, fired at a building with an enemy flag, drew fire in return, and began an assault. Believe it or not, I rather like a good war story. I saw A Walk in the Sun about ten times. Please continue.”

  Tyson leaned back in his armchair. He wanted a cigarette but decided this was not the time to display what could be construed as a nervous habit. He said, “We began by laying down heavy suppressing fire. You know—we blasted all the windows and doors with automatic fire to keep the enemy down. Then we began our final assault—”

  “Excuse me again. The book said someone hung a white bed sheet from a window to indicate surrender or all clear. Apparently the two witnesses told Picard they saw this.”

  “Why the hell would the enemy hang out a surrender flag? They had an avenue of escape. Why the hell would I begin an assault if I or anyone in my platoon saw a white flag?”

  “That goes back to the original point. The enemy had already withdrawn, according to the book. It was the hospital staff who hung the bed sheet from the window, also according to the book account. They waved to you from the windows. But you don’t agree with any of that. So please continue.”

  “Right. So we began to fire and maneuver, working our way toward the building. We continued to draw heavy fire—”

  “I’m sorry. It’s just that I’ve done some basic infantry tactics research. I spoke to an infantry colonel who was there. A friend of mine. I sort of anticipated that, if I had the opportunity to hear your version, it would probably be that some sort of firefight took place. Excuse the comparison, but that’s what was said about My Lai—”

  “What’s your point?”

  “The point is that this colonel said a frontal assault on a concrete building was not something he would ever expose his men to.”

  “Maybe he’s a wimp.”

  “Hardly. He did say he would fire some sort of incendiary devices into the place and burn the insides, which would be mostly wood, I guess. Then, he said, he might move in for an assault.”

  He regarded her for some time, then replied, “We didn’t have any incendiary ordnance that could be fired from a launcher. We had only hand grenades—fragmentation, white phosphorus, and concussion grenades. So we had to move in close.”

  “Why didn’t you call in air strikes, aerial rockets, mortars, or artillery? Isn’t that standard operating procedure in American infantry tactics? Send bombs instead of men?”

  “Yes, that’s standard procedure. But there was no fire support available. Nothing was functioning right at that time. So we moved in for an old-fashioned frontal assault. Fire and maneuver. We broke into the ground floor, just like in the war movies that you seem to like—”

  “Where and when did the casualties occur? Was it before or after you got into the . . . the building?”

  “I . . . we took two wounded on the initial assault. Peterson had a sucking chest wound . . . both lungs were involved . . . the bullet passed from side to side . . . he was drowning. The other man, Moody, was hit in the thigh . . . he was all right. . . . The third man, Larry Cane, was killed inside the building.”

  “Oh, I thought you indicated earlier that all the casualties occurred outside. That’s what Picard’s book said also, except he said they were caused by a single sniper. Anyway, there were remarkably few casualties for an assault on a fortified structure.”

  “Everyone’s allowed to get lucky once in a while. I’m sorry I can’t report more dead and wounded.”

  “I was just wondering. Please continue.”

  “There was no one on the first floor and still no indications that the place was a hospital. There were offices, a chapel, a lobby, some sleeping quarters, and a kitchen and dining room. We found two staircases. We reached the second floor and got into a room-by-room fight. It was then that a few phosphorus hand grenades were tossed around. The place started to burn—”

  “How many enemy do you estimate?”

  “Maybe thirty or forty—we were outnumbered.”

  “But you didn’t know how many men were in there when you attacked. There could have been two hundred.”

  “Well, I could tell by the amount of fire coming from the windows that there weren’t two hundred.”

  “And you lost one killed in that room-to-room fighting? A man named Cane?”

  “Yes.”

  “But a while ago you said all three casualties occurred outside, during the assault. Picard agreed, though his account of the severity of the fight is somewhat different from yours. Now you say Larry Cane was killed inside.”

  Tyson lit a cigarette. He drew on it, then replied, “Well, that’s a result of having read Picard’s book. You see, what’s happening is that my memory is being jogged by all this, but Picard’s book has put some false recollections in my mind. Cane was killed inside the hospital. I’m positive of that. I saw him get hit. Upstairs, in the main ward.”

  Karen Harper nodded. “I’m sure we can clear that up if it becomes necessary. And I understand what you mean about false recollections as a result of having recently read the book.” She added, “Nonetheless, Mr. Tyson, I find it all a little hard to believe. I mean, nineteen very fatigued men making a frontal assault on a building held by a significant n
umber of North Vietnamese regulars. And why didn’t you surround the building so the enemy couldn’t escape? That, I understand, would have been standard procedure. And what, may I ask, prompted you to such acts of heroism? If you couldn’t get fire support to level the building, why not just bypass it? Pretend it didn’t exist? Am I being cynical, or did American troops sometimes avoid a fight?” She leaned forward. “I don’t expect you to answer any of these questions because they presuppose that you are lying about the whole assault business.”

  Tyson looked at her.

  Karen Harper continued, “In most murder investigations we look for motive. In cases of war-related massacres, investigators tend to overlook motive because motive, in the hands of the defense, becomes extenuation and mitigation. In other words, defense argues that the motive was a good one. For instance, you mentioned Phu Lai a few times, and I was wondering if perhaps your men were looking for revenge. . . .” She stared at him. “That would be understandable.”

  Tyson did not reply immediately, then said, “I would be lying if I told you that all of us were not looking for revenge. Killing breeds killing, as you may know. But combat deaths do not—should not—breed murder. We were looking for revenge on the battlefield, and we found it at Hôpital Miséricorde. In fact, there’s your motive for my assault on the building, and there’s the reason my men followed me. A payback for Phu Lai. But it had to be quid pro quo. Slaughtering civilians would not even the score. But taking that concrete building from the enemy would. Did.”

  She nodded. “You’re a very bright man.”

  “Am I blushing?”

  She said, “Still, your account is . . . not . . . not a good war story. In fact, it’s unbelievable.”