by Tatjana Soli
Rumors were that the handful of remaining soldiers had called down strikes on their own position, hoping that if they missed a direct hit, they might escape in the chaos.
To Gary she insisted on covering the story--they were her soldiers and her area--but when she went to the bathroom afterward, she could not stop her hands from shaking. Foreknowledge a curse.
"You don't have to go," Linh said.
"I want to. The soldiers don't get to choose." What she meant was that she needed to, that the tension she felt was the thing she had been missing in California. That adrenaline coursing through her.
"You've already proved you're brave."
"Every good war picture is an antiwar picture. Why am I here otherwise?" She laughed at Linh. "Stop worrying. Anyway, I've become one of the charmed, haven't you heard?"
_______
The Vietnamese called them the Tay Nguyen, the Western Highlands, because in their minds they still saw the country as a whole, not accepting the artificial divisions of north and south.
Names were important.
Names, finally, were the only thing the Vietnamese had left. For a whole period of history, Vietnam existed only on the tip of someone's tongue, forbidden to be said out loud.
Geography became power.
Names given to pieces of land or sea or mountain told who was in control. The Vietnamese were irritated by the Americans' sense of place. Especially irksome was the name South China Sea, locating their Eastern Sea in relation to their traditional enemy, China. Another irritant, the Far East--far east in relation to what? They had had this problem before.
The French referred to the Highlands as the Hauts Plateaux, a sensible descriptive name for the plateau stretching from the southern border of North Vietnam to within a hundred miles of Saigon, from a thin strip of cultivable land on the east to the fierce mountains of the Annamese Cordillera. Annamese another slap in the face--a French colonial fantasy meant to obliterate the original Vietnam. They called their mountains the Truong Son. Why, they asked, should Vietnamese use foreign words to rename their own land?
Helen had her own geographies. She knew the land by its colors--the Mekong always greens and golds and blues, the light soft, opaque from the water on the earth and in the air. Soldiers inevitably covered with dirt, the dirt of the delta heavily mixed with clay along the waterways so that it dried whitish on the faces and bodies of both the living and the dead. The Central Highlands were a land of chiaroscuro, sharp shadows, subtle gradations so that green could range from black to the most delicate shade of moss. Forests of browns and blacks, hardwood torn up by B-52s, moonscape tracts of gray, uprooted trunks and roots creating surreal sculpture. The soil a deep, rich laterite red that rouged uniforms and faces of the soldiers and faded over time to the rusted color of dried blood.
Her geographies, too, were full of dangerous curves and valleys; she had to remain constantly in flight, never alighting in one place too long, never putting weight on the crust of the earth that might give way. A line from Tacitus was continually in her mind: In his sorrow he found one source of relief in war.
They made their way up on ammunition drops and convoys until they reached field headquarters in a dusty, barren valley in the foothills. The press tent was in chaos, and in the command tent radio reports came in that helicopter after helicopter was being shot down. No evacuations in the last twenty-four hours. Calculations had ammunition on top of the hill running out by morning.
Infantry companies would go on foot through the jungle and fight their way to the pinned-down men. The surrounding hills echoed with NVA regiments, a nonstop barrage of weaponry.
Food was served to the departing soldiers but because of conflicting departure orders, they got a mix of breakfast and lunch. The men piled the food up on their plates, carrots against scrambled eggs, prime rib coupled with pineapple cake and grits. All fuel, it seemed like a good idea to fill the belly, another armor to survive. The food flown in that morning cheered up the young, scared faces; they took it as a demonstration of their value. Helen grew queasy at the sight of the bounty, knowing the perversity of military thinking, that the best food was reserved for the doomed. Literal last meals, but even with that knowledge, Helen chewed her food, not tasting, but sure that days or even hours from then, the idea of not eating would torment her. She chose to be full only in order to have the issue of hunger not interfere.
When Helen made her request to accompany one of the relief companies, the PIO flatly denied her. "This is critical stuff. Way too dangerous to allow a woman."
"I've covered these companies before--"
"Don't bother. I can't spare a man to escort you."
"I've been covering combat for two years--"
He made a long, sour face. "Regulations."
"Not for me. I covered this area in--"
"Regulations, understand?"
"--in 'sixty-six, before you even knew where Vietnam was."
"We don't need a dead woman."
From behind her, she heard a loud voice and felt a heavy hand clap down on her shoulder. "Helen Adams."
She turned and came face-to-face with Captain Olsen. Unchanged from two and a half years before, as if that dreary day in the Mekong were only yesterday.
"You must have made a deal with the devil," she said. "You look younger than when I last saw you."
"Just a little malaria and desk work."
"I went out with your replacement, Horner."
"That was a cursed mission. A damned shame."
Helen didn't mention Samuels, but he didn't need mentioning. She could see the responsibility for it in Captain Olsen's eyes. No Dorian Gray after all.
"This man here"--Helen pointed at the PIO--"is denying me clearance. My company is already moving out."
"Lowen, you giving this girl a hard time?"
"He said I'd be demoralizing dead."
"A real lady's man, huh? This is the girl who made me a hero. The eight-hundred-pound gorilla of picture takers. Let her have what she wants."
The PIO made a face. "Go. Get a .45."
"I won't carry a weapon," Helen said.
The PIO paused, his face scrunched up. "If she's your friend, I'd brief her."
Captain Olsen took Helen's arm and moved off toward the mess. Helen motioned Linh over. "I want to cover this," she said.
Olsen nodded and shook Linh's hand. "Lowen's an ass, but he's right on this one. Things are bad up there. Take the gun."
Helen shook her head.
"Serious. No one is going to help you up there."
"I'll carry it," Linh said.
When they came back, the PIO was smoking a cigarette.
"Smoking's bad for you," Helen said.
"If we're carrying weapons," Linh said, "I want an M16 and the .45."
The PIO turned red. "Shit, I don't believe this." He glared at Olsen, who ignored him. "You ever shot one of these?"
Linh didn't hesitate. "Many times."
Hours later, climbing from dense jungle to hardwood forest then back to jungle, they reached the base of the mountain at dusk. They squatted in place along the path, Helen resting her back against a tree. Usually, they'd set camp for the night, but time was essential; in the morning there might not be anyone left. Artillery barrages and air strikes on the surrounding hills deafened them; ground shook as they climbed over fallen trees blocking the narrow, steep dirt path.
As they approached the crest where the company was pinned down, parachute flares illuminated the landscape in an eerie light. As far as the eye could see, trees splintered and burned, a whole forest of devastation. Heavy smoke forming a fog. The flare died into a deeper, more eerie darkness.
As the company marched the final distance of several hundred yards in the dark they passed fallen logs, singly, then in clusters, then in mounds, discovering to their horror in the illumination of another flare the shapes were not logs but bodies. Stripped of uniforms, boots, weapons, resembling splayed and disfigured trees.
After they briefed the new troops, the men devoured rations, then fell asleep on the bunker floor. One of the men, grimy faced, still held a spoon as he slept. Helen attached a flash and took his picture. Another picture of the sign made from the top of an ammo crate at the bunker entrance: WELCOME TO HELL
.
A black soldier, PFC Simmons, stood next to Helen. "Looks like we're none too early."
"They hung them out, sending them up here alone," she said.
"Then what about us, lady?" he asked.
Nothing for Helen and Linh to do until daylight but sit and wait, the air rotten with the smell of bodies in the woods around them, smoke from the fires dotting the surrounding hills. Her eyes stung. She tried to wash them out with water, but it was no use, so she closed them and tried to rest, pressing against the damp dirt wall of the bunker. She dozed through the night, grabbing fistfuls of minutes, only to be startled awake by the slamming of rockets, the hiss of metal shards driven into what ever they came into contact with, the overhead dirt roof slowly trickling down on them.
After several hours, she slid down until her head was in Linh's lap, and he placed his hand over her ear to muffle the sound so that although she still could hear the barrages, the noise was distanced by the thickness of one hand. His cupped palm gave her the buzz of blood, the pulse of the ocean, the childish certainty that nothing could happen to her while she was protected in this way.
At four in the morning the frequency of the mortars increased, and a sergeant ordered Helen and Linh to move to the deeper back bunkers. Unfamiliar with the area aboveground, they asked to take their chances and stay put, but the sergeant wouldn't argue the point.
They crouched and scuttled across the broken, debris-strewn ground. The opening was supposed to be only ten feet from the observation bunker, but they traveled at least thirty feet until they ran into the tree line. They retraced their way back and veered to the left, finding a larger entrance than the sergeant described, but the shriek of incoming made the decision for them. Helen threw herself onto the ground inside, Linh at her back, the fall of several feet knocking the wind out of her while a mortar exploded twenty yards away. Underneath, in the darkness, she felt something smooth and clammy and realized she was sinking into human flesh.
Helen jumped, taking her chances outside rather than trapped in the ground. She doused herself with her remaining water, took her soiled shirt off over her T-shirt. She huddled against a low wall of sandbags. Mortars rang in her ears, strangling sound, and she could make out Linh's words only when he came close.
"Go back." He pointed to the observation bunker.
Nervous tears ran down her face. She couldn't stop them although she didn't feel afraid, didn't feel anything at all. The constant bottoming fear of being hurt or worse gone. But the biggest danger was after the fear left. She yelled at Linh, "Go ahead. I'm better out here."
He sat down next to her, and she shook her head, pushing at him to go away, but he stayed at her side. Later, when she calmed down, they crawled to another empty bunker for the rest of the night. The shelling continued until dawn. At first light they made their way back the observation bunker. The sergeant took a look at Helen and handed her his cup of lukewarm coffee made with a packet of instant and a heat tab.
Half an hour later, in the gray foggy light of morning, she saw American soldiers approaching through the trees. The sergeant took out his binoculars. Helen felt relief that the ordeal was over; her head dull, she felt something was wrong, but still no fear. Linh said the soldiers were coming from the wrong direction, not from the trail they had used. The sergeant trained his binoculars through the fog. When the soldiers were less than fifty yards away, Helen saw a lead soldier raise his machine gun. Her thoughts slowed. She felt cool and divorced from what was happening in front of her. Maybe the soldiers thought that Vietnamese were in the bunkers? The soldier opened fire, a spray of bullets, and Helen frowned, unable to comprehend the sight before her eyes. The sergeant screamed words to the other men in the bunker who opened fire on the men walking through the trees.
When the fog burned off, B-52s dropped canisters of napalm that set the surrounding hills on fire, the sky swirled gray and blue. Next came gunships, and this time they were able to get in and out unharmed. They had either broken the enemy or he had retreated.
Helen stood outside the bunker, looking at the area that she had only been able to grope her way through in the dark. In the white light of fog and smoke, she could make out the charred remains of trees and bodies. She brought her camera up to her eye, a relief. She followed the soldiers through the trees and took pictures of the dead Vietnamese in American uniforms. Those wounded lying silent, uncomplaining, resigned to their fate. Not expecting any help. Helen was struck by the foreignness of this reaction, the extreme capacity for hardship, and she couldn't help feeling a disagreeable respect. The Americans hated the enemy's willingness to use civilians, to dress in the enemy's uniforms, and yet playing by conventional rules would have lost the war.
American soldiers crawled out from beneath the ground, faces lean and dark, eyes like sharp knives from being afraid too long, uniforms molded to their bodies, patinaed by sweat and dirt. As they stretched stiff, cramped bodies and moved through camp, they grew more animated until Helen captured a shot of two soldiers lobbing a C-ration can like a football, a moment of relief at surviving the night.
She walked the camp and took pictures, simply a matter of composition and aperture and shutter speed. This was a bigger battle, with more casualties than she had ever before witnessed, and yet she felt less, actually felt nothing.
PFC Simmons walked beside her. "You here to make us fucking famous?"
She tried to sound normal, although she felt like a ghost floating above the scene. "Yeah. Sure."
"Fucking A. Ought to be some kinda reason for this. Besides you getting your pictures to Danang and having a scoop, talkin' about how brave you were."
After Helen had the film she needed, she sat on a rock and waited. She had not eaten for twelve hours, had not slept in twenty-four. Sound still came to her muted, as if she were underwater. Linh photographed a mortar crew who had been there the whole three days. Since her return, a new dynamic to their professional relationship: Linh, a photographer now in his own right. They traveled together, but when they reached their destination they went through the professional courtesy of pretending to be invisible to each other.
As they made their slow way back down the hill, following the wounded, they passed living soldiers with dead eyes who did not even glance at them; Helen felt reinforced in her ghostliness. The piles of the dead had not been moved but were powdered in lime, which hid the features, making the bodies anonymous, making the living feel they were moving through a bizarre kind of catacomb.
They waited hours while the wounded were loaded and flown away.
As the infantry stretched chain-link around the LZ secured only hours before, peasant girls drifted in singly or in pairs from the nearby hamlets. They stood barefoot, dressed in faded cotton tops and black pajama bottoms, shifting their weight from one leg to the other, wordlessly soliciting. When a helicopter came in they forgot themselves, rushed up to the fence and poked their fingers through in their thrill to see the flying machines. Their fingers were as tiny and delicate as children's, a few with chipped nails painted in gaudy pinks and reds.
One of the guards went up to the fence and said something to a young girl with jet shoulder-length hair and a shiny turquoise shirt too large for her slight frame. Curious, Helen raised her camera as he took something out of his pocket, and as he unwrapped it, she saw it was a roll of Life Savers. He pushed his fingers through the fence
and fed the candy to the girl, placing it directly on her tongue.
That was the shot. Helen had endured the previous hours of terror to reach it, and yet when it came it satisfied her that the sacrifice had been worth it. Only in her stripped state would she have noticed something so small and so fraught. Later it turned out to be a cover and then led to her first award, but for her the value of the picture was that it returned her purpose--to find small glimmers of humanity.
Helen and Linh caught the last helicopter out and were dropped at a supply base that was supposed to be running more cargo flights from Tan Son Nhut. By the time they landed, the last flight had left, and they had no choice but to spend the night. The whole Highlands was in a state of emergency, and press seating was not a priority. Soldiers waiting to go in joked that the military powers were trying to get as many of them killed as possible before the rumored troop withdrawals.
The next day they waited again, Helen in the mess tent nursing a coffee, Linh stationed next to the air traffic controller, supplying him with cigarettes and sharing a flask of bourbon.
Their location was in a depressed bowl with ragged foothills all around, allowing only a short runway. The jungle seemed to bear down on their small patch of denuded territory, its tinsel of concertina wire, its hastily scratched-out bunkers. The jungle stood dense and majestic and unapproachable. The land itself against them; rice paddies and jungle and plateaus and mountains, all conspiring and waiting for their demise and disappearance.
Linh came in the mess tent and walked over to her table. "You doing okay?"
"What do the flights look like?"
"No one getting in or out now. We could be days."
The wind was knocked out of her. She had to admit she was more shaken up than she thought; she needed to escape, although escape was getting harder to come by.
"The good news is that nobody else is getting in or out, either. The pictures are still in play."
She could not blame him--this was their life--but the private's words about a scoop echoed in her head in a nasty way. By late afternoon, she despaired that they would get out that night, but Linh came running into the mess after having talked his way onto the last cargo plane headed for Tan Son Nhut.