Garden of Lies

by Eileen Goudge

  “One Hundred Twenty-first Infantry,” Brian said, wiping the mouth of the bottle with the sleeve of his tartan robe before handing it back. “We were stationed about halfway between Da Nang and a village name of Tien Sung. Firebase Alpha.”

  The pint-sized Australian nodded. “Yup, I know the place right enough. Ought to ... I was there. Bloody hell of a mess. Looks like you got out just in time.”

  Brian felt himself stiffen, his throat constricting painfully.

  “You were there?” he echoed.

  Petrie gestured toward the sling-supported arm with the nearly empty bottle he’d clutched in his good hand. “That’s where I picked up this souvenir. Piece of shrapnel the size of a bloody doorknocker.” He grinned. “Cracked me elbow in half. Now I’ve got two funny bones instead of one. But I’ll be all right.” He stopped, screwing a tight gaze on Brian. “Christ, I’m not so sure about you. You look like an undertaker at your own funeral, mate.”

  Brian did feel queasy, a rolling seasickness taking hold of him. The lounge they were in—an ugly windowless room filled with plastic chairs and rickety cardtables where dull-eyed men in bathrobes and pajamas sat playing desultory games of gin rummy and five-card stud—tilted abruptly off balance.

  He gripped both sides of his chair, afraid for a second he might fall out of it. He was more looped than he’d realized. But not enough to keep from feeling the cold knot of fear forming in his stomach.

  “What happened?” he asked, a bitter chalky taste in his mouth.

  “I was in Da Nang, covering some SEATO muck-a-muck, that’s when we got word of this action. Time they got me there, party was nearly over. ... Charlie’d pushed your company back into the hills, infiltrated the whole area.”

  Brian’s throat tightened so, he couldn’t swallow. “There ... there’s a hospital. Catholic hospital. In Tien Sung. Corpus Christi. I was there before they shipped me here. Do you know if they were evacuated?”

  “I haven’t heard, but I doubt it. Good thing you got out when you did. Place is crawling with VC—they got all their wounded bivouacked there.”

  [263] Oh God, let him be wrong. Just this once. But Petrie was a top reporter. If anyone had the facts straight, surely he did.

  He thought of Rachel—she hadn’t been off his mind for more than a minute or two in the ten days since he’d left her. The acid burn of the whiskey backfired up his throat. He’d heard plenty about what the VC did to white women ... Christ, what about those two French nuns, found dead, tied to trees with their tongues cut out. God, he hoped they needed her as a doctor too much to inflict the horrors running through his mind.

  A small voice in the back of his mind said, She can take care of herself. She’ll get out if there’s danger. Who appointed you her savior anyway?

  Suddenly Brian felt stone-cold sober. The tightness was gone from his throat. He knew what he had to do. He leaned forward, and the room abruptly righted itself.

  “Petrie, I have to get back there,” he said, keeping his voice low. “Someone I know—a doctor—I want to make sure she’s all right. Get her out if she’s still there.”

  The journalist snorted in a half-laugh. “You and the whole bloody Armed Services. Sorry, mate, you’ve been watching too many John Wayne flicks. Besides, didn’t anyone tell you?—there’s a bloody war on.”

  Brian waited. After a minute or so the cynical grin faded from Petrie’s face. Then Brian said, “I don’t have much time. And I’ll need your help.”

  The Australian had told him about how when covering the Six-Day War he’d been taken prisoner by Syrians at Golan Heights, and how he’d managed to con his way out of getting his balls cut off. And even if half the tale was pure bullshit, the guy’s inventiveness was worthy of Robert Louis Stevenson. If Brian could win him over he’d be one hell of a useful ally.

  “Christ, who d’you think I am, the bloody Green Berets?”

  Brian could feel his mouth forming a smile he didn’t feel. The muscles in his face hurt with the effort. “They don’t give out Pulitzer prizes to Green Berets.”

  He could tell from Petrie’s suddenly riveted attention that now he had the man’s complete attention.

  “There’s a helluva story in this,” Brian went on, struggling to keep riding his momentum. “I was literally dead, and she ... she [264] cut me open, massaged my heart back to life. And besides that ...” He stopped.

  Besides what? What had he been about to say?

  Nothing you haven’t thought a thousand times, he answered himself.

  Petrie waited, hat off now, running short square fingers through the stubble of his crewcut. His quick blue eyes were fixed on him as if Brian were about to deliver the Sermon on the Mount.

  “... I’m going to get her out of that place and marry her,” Brian finished.

  Was that true? He didn’t know. But, Christ, it had felt good saying it. And it would make a helluva story.

  “Shit.” Petrie slapped his knee, grinning wider than ever. “Now, that is a story. Maybe even a movie. Hell, I’ll bet you could even get John Wayne to star in it. She pretty, this doctor of yours?”

  For a second, Brian didn’t know what to say. He’d never thought of her in those terms. Pretty was a bare-shouldered girl with long tanned legs passing you on the sidewalk in her summer dress. But things like that couldn’t begin to describe Rachel.

  “She’s like no woman you’ve ever seen,” Brian said.

  Dan Petrie drained the last drops of whiskey. There was a high flush in his cheeks, and a sparkle in his eyes.

  “Take you a month of Sundays to get your orders changed, if they’d ever let you, which is about as likely me winning the Pulitzer,” Petrie said.

  “I’ll go AWOL if I have to. So never mind about me. What about you? Can I count you in on this?”

  “I’ve been accused of being reckless, but never a bleedin’ idiot. Next time it could be m’head that gets shot.”

  “What about Golan Heights? That wasn’t exactly a Sunday picnic.”

  “That was different.”

  “How?”

  “At least out there in the desert, you usually see ’em coming. They’re not shooting at you out of trees. That’s if you even get that far. First, how you plan on getting sprung from ’ere?”

  “I figure it won’t be the hardest thing ... there aren’t too many of us fool enough to go AWOL back into that hell. It’s the last place they’d think to look for me. But, dammit, I’ll need your help.”

  [265] Petrie thought for a moment, pulling on his chin. “I’d have to call in some favors. A mate of mine, works for Stars and Stripes, he might be able to get us in. Can’t make any promises, though.”

  Brian, desperate now, coaxed, “I’ll give you an exclusive on this, Petrie. Hell, I may even make you best man at my wedding. What do you say?”

  Christ, he thought, what am I saying? What wedding? If we can even pull this off it’ll be a fucking miracle.

  But for Rachel, he knew he would have promised anything.

  Petrie gave a slow nod, his expression still dubious. “I’ll see what I can do, mate.”

  The boy looked no older than fourteen, fifteen maybe. But in his scarred face and slitted black eyes, Rachel saw something she’d never seen before.

  Hatred. Pure and murderous.

  She felt as if she’d just swallowed something cold on an empty stomach. An ache flared above her right eyebrow. The flesh on her arms shrank with goosebumps.

  She sensed that the boy lying in the bed, staring up at her with those burning eyes, would have killed her without a moment’s pause if he had the strength.

  I am the enemy. He doesn’t care that without my help he’d die. He’d just as soon, than have me touch him.

  Rachel shuddered, a spasm that caused her hands to shake. The IV needle she was holding slipped from her grasp, clattering to the concrete floor.

  Get a hold of yourself, she commanded. You’re a doctor, not a soldier. Your job is to heal. It’s as simple as th
at.

  She tore open a cellophane packet containing a fresh needle, and grasped the boy’s limp, blood-smeared wrist, searching for a vein. He might need four pints of blood, but it looked as if his wounds weren’t as bad as she’d first thought. Perhaps surgery wouldn’t even be necessary. She’d clean and debride, sew him up. Then—

  Something wet struck her cheek.

  Rachel, horror-stricken, looked up and saw he was grinning, [266] his lips drawn back in a rictus of triumph, flecked with bloody spittle.

  Shaking, Rachel grabbed a clean strip of gauze and wiped her cheek where he’d spit on her. Oh dear God, this isn’t happening, it can’t be happening. I’m in control—

  There was a spiraling sensation in her head, and everything went gray and wavy, as if she were looking through dirty gauze curtains. She felt that if she didn’t lie down, she would pass out. She hadn’t been off her feet in twenty-four hours.

  Now the boy was shouting, clearly a stream of venom aimed at her.

  Rachel backed away slowly, the eighteen-gauge needle still in her hand.

  Her glance caught the Viet Cong soldier who stood guard at the entrance to the ward. Something in his eyes chilled her to the bone ... he looked at her as a snake might regard a rabbit while deciding whether to make a meal of it or not.

  I was useful to them four days ago, with their wounded overflowing the ER ... but it’s tapering off now ... and Lily said she heard their commander talking about bringing in their own doctors. So who knows how much longer before I’m expendable to them? And then what?

  Now Lily was taking over. “Yên lang chó!” she scolded sharply. Silence, dog. She plucked the needle from Rachel’s grasp, and jammed it into the NVA’s arm. Lily looked as exhausted as Rachel felt. Strands of oily black hair that had come loose from her bun trailed down the ivory stem of her neck. Her eyes were glassy and threaded with capillaries. The front of her uniform stiff with dried blood.

  When had any of them last slept? The four days since Tieng Sung was taken seemed like three years. The village now full of VC. How could she have known it would turn out like this, when she’d volunteered to stay behind, during last week’s evacuation, to care for those few too sick to be moved? Now the worst of it was over, but skirmishes still brought a trickle of wounded in every day.

  She thought of Brian, and for a brief instant, she felt stronger, more alive than she had in days. Thank heaven at least he’d gotten out in time.

  Then the gray despair swallowed her again. God, how she missed him. She saw him in her mind, his silvery eyes, the gaunt [267] blade of his face. The look of infinite sadness he had given her as he was hoisted aboard the chopper to Da Nang.

  Gone. And probably she’d never see him again. And, oh, that hurt. It hurt so much more than she could have imagined.

  But she mustn’t let herself collapse. Not now. These VC were human beings, and they needed her. And as long as she helped them ... they surely would let her alone.

  Rachel moved on to the next stretcher. “Bác-si,” she said, by way of introduction, to a wizened little old man who gazed up at her with flat obsidian eyes. Doctor. It means I’m here to help you, no matter how much both of us hate the idea. Get the message?

  Apparently he didn’t. His eyes remained blank as spent cartridges. He looked a hundred years old, and the expression on his shrunken monkey’s face said he could live another hundred and see nothing more that would surprise him.

  Not badly wounded, compared to the others. A deep lateral gash in his leg, looked like a knife wound, a deep one, from knee to groin.

  But that face ...

  “Anh bao nhieu tuoi?” she asked him in her halting Vietnamese. How old are you?

  In a voice as flat as those eyes, he answered, “Muói chin.”

  Nineteen.

  Oh dear Christ ...

  Rachel fought the hysterical urge to giggle. She thought that if she didn’t get out of here soon, she was more likely to lose her mind than her life.

  Brian clung to the edge of his seat as the jeep plunged through a pothole big enough to sink a water buffalo. He braced himself against the spine-snapping jolt. Christ. And he’d thought the main road was bad. Compared to this, that had been a freshly paved expressway.

  “You sure he knows where he’s going?” Brian yelled at Dan Petrie over the roar of the engine, while keeping his eyes fixed on Nguyen, on the back of their Vietnamese driver’s head.

  They weren’t on any Rand McNally road map, that was for [268] damn sure. They’d seen no signs of civilization for at least five kilometers. This was what Dorfmeyer, a platoon buddy, used to call Cold Sweat Country. Nothing but towering teaks and mangroves wreathed in liana vine, waist-high ferns and elephant grass. Perfect for ambush.

  “Haven’t the foggiest,” Dan yelled back cheerfully. “But why worry, we’ll know soon enough.”

  Brian watched Nguyen steer, with remarkable agility, around another enormous pothole. The road, more of a path really, was barely wide enough for the jeep, and the swerve sent them lurching and fishtailing over the berm, leaving a trail of flattened grass and churned mud in their wake.

  Why worry. The hundredth time he’d heard Petrie say those words over the past two days. As if they were riding the D train to Sheepshead Bay. Christ. At any moment they could be killed. But Dan Petrie, God only knew how, had gotten them this far safely.

  First, the flight to Saigon. Petrie somehow had wrangled a phony set of orders passing Brian off as another reporter from his news service, and then had gotten them on a C-130 full of raw recruits. Amazing luck, until a lieutenant-colonel from Brian’s division asked to see his papers. Jesus, how he had sweated blood then! But the CO, looking right at him, had passed him through. Brian realized what he must look like. He probably wouldn’t have recognized himself. Forty pounds lighter, maybe more. The cherry he’d been six months ago must’ve looked as much like him now as Ho Chi Minh.

  Six hours later, Petrie’s buddy from Stars and Stripes had popped into the airport officer’s lounge and led them to a Chinook chopper. Soon Da Nang, a bird’s-eye view of blue water and khaki-colored beaches fringed in green, pretty as any postcard. No one would have known that right nearby people were killing each other.

  Their luck ran out, or so it seemed to Brian, when Dan tried to con a motor pool sergeant into loaning them a jeep. But Dan just pulled another rabbit out of his hat, this time in the form of some brand-new girlie magazines and a pack of opium-laced cigarettes, and the jeep was theirs.

  And then hiring this driver, Nguyen, was another Petrie inspiration ... or so Brian had thought at the time.

  [269] Back where they’d turned off the highway, Brian thought, was for sure where their luck had ended. He’d agreed with Petrie then, it would be safer taking a back way to Tien Sung. Not so traveled or heavily patrolled. But now he feared they’d taken the wrong route. ...

  They were in Charlie territory, he could feel it. His scalp felt tight, shrunken. And if his balls climbed any higher, they’d be lodged in his throat.

  “Second thoughts?” Petrie asked, those bolted-in blue eyes of his peering at Brian from under the brim of his cap.

  “No,” Brian answered. This might well get them all killed, but he had to at least try and get to Rachel.

  “She must be something then.” Petrie began whistling the theme from Bridge on the River Kwai.

  Brian concentrated on the narrow track ahead. Any second they might hit a mine. Or get picked off by snipers. Christ, he wished he had his M-16. Or even just a pistol. But in Da Nang, Dan had insisted no weapons. Civilians—here, he’d pushed his face in front of Brian’s—that’s how they were going in. That was their protection, and their only hope, lousy as it was. Besides, even with a couple of rifles, against VC snipers they wouldn’t have a prayer.

  Petrie’s words had given Brian an idea, though. There could well be other weapons besides guns. On the afternoon of the day before they were to leave Da Nang, he had visited a Catholic church
in the heart of the city. He recalled now how the priest, a slender Eurasian who spoke English with a French accent, had led him through a warren of narrow stone corridors, then outside to a small enclosed garden. Stone walls blanketed in morning glories and honeysuckle, some kind of mossy grass that grew in hummocks amid carefully placed rocks, a small pond studded with water lilies set in the middle of it all like a jewel. The loveliest garden Brian had ever seen. On a teak bench under the shade of a hibiscus tree, Father Sebastian served him bitter Chinese tea, and afterwards Brian knelt with him in the soft grass and prayed. He’d felt far away from God, but the ancient words and cadences had comforted him, as if his mother had laid her hand on his brow. Afterwards, the priest sent him on his way with a blessing and the thing Brian had come for [270] ... the thing that might ensure their safety, he hoped. Under his jacket now. He had it hidden. Not even Petrie knew.

  Throwing Brian forward against the dash, the driver braked to a sudden halt.

  About thirty yards ahead, someone was blocking the road, a kid in black pajamas and thongs. He looked about sixteen, and could have been a villager on his way to the rice paddies ... except he was carrying a rifle. A Soviet AK-47.

  “Dùng lai!” the boy commanded.

  Brian watched, feeling helpless, every muscle wound tight, as Nguyen leaped nimbly from the driver’s seat and trotted over to him, mud sucking at the heels of his sandaled feet.

  A burst of singsong Vietnamese followed between the two, with lots of wild gesturing back and forth.

  “Don’t make a move,” Dan whispered, laying a hand on Brian’s arm. “Just smile. Smile like you just got picked runner-up in the bloody Miss America pageant.”

  Brian did. He smiled so hard he thought his face would forever freeze into this position. And all the while, he held the rest of himself rigid too, his muscles cramping, sweat dribbling off his forehead, terror knotting his insides.