He moved with thorough, automatic caution but very quickly. Too quickly for me. I lagged behind, panting to keep up. Ahn looked back over his shoulder, worried.
The man stopped abruptly and turned around. “Could I have another piece of candy, ma’am?”
“Sure,” I said.
“They’re all dead,” he said when he had bitten into the M&M. He kicked a log and, when it didn’t kick back, lowered Ahn to the ground and sat down himself. “My unit. I thought you was comin’ to find me when I saw that bird.”
“Dead?” I asked. “Who’s dead? You mean the chopper crew?”
“No’m. I mean my unit,” he said. Now that he’d started talking, his tone was conversational, ordinary. “We got overrun, I guess you’d call it. See, I was asleep in my bunk one night back at base and we was all in this, like Quonset hut, kinda, with a screen door? And somethin’ wake me up. I always been like that, since I was a little boy. I sorta know when somethin’ ain’t right, like. Anyhow, I wake up and I see this shadow with a gook hat go by the screen door. And at first that don’t mean nothin’ ’cause the gooks, you know, they all over the place in the daytime. But then it come to me—they ain’t s’posed to be no gooks there at night. And I’m just thinkin’ that and I just start, half-asleep, you know, rollin’ down under my bed when all of a sudden all hell breaks loose. Somebody starts afirin’ in the screen door and killin’ everybody. Everybody in there, all my buddies, all my friends, they get sprayed all over there, and when I crawl out, they all dead. Everyone dead and I ain’t even had a chance to warn ’em. And outside the door I see fire and I hear guns and I see gooks runnin’ this way and that and I crawl on my belly to the door and they’re all over the place, all them gooks. Ain’t s’posed to be there at night. Not at all. But they all over the place.”
He was shaking his head like an old man with palsy. I patted his arm, the gray and mauve mingling again, spreading into each other. I felt his fear suddenly, as I had felt my own the day before, sharp and acid and helpless.
“How’d you get away?”
“Crawled. I crawled down off that hill, through the fence, and tried to find somebody. But I just got lost. Then I saw your chopper and I thought, William, they have come lookin’ for you. Say, you really in the Army?”
“Army Nurse Corps,” I said.
“I ain’t never seen no Army nurse in Nam. They come for us with you here. We just got to keep out of Charlie’s way. Army won’t let you stay out here.”
“They don’t know I’m here,” I said, realizing miserably that it was true. “I guess, officially, by now I’m AWOL.”
“AWOL? And you a lieutenant? Whoo! That some kinda rich! Shake,” and he held out his hand. I tried to take it, but he did that complicated black handshake instead and I couldn’t follow.
“How long you been out here?” I asked him.
“I dunno. Two, three days maybe. You?”
“We spent the night in a tree.”
“Yeah, me too, till a snake chased me out. I hate them things.”
“Me too. But at least the VC didn’t spot us.”
“VC? Around here? Where?”
“All over the place last night. They’re gone now.”
“Fine with me.” His aura flooded with beams of yellow, blue, and a hint of purple that went with the sudden wide, self-deprecating grin. “I hate them things too.”
Seeing people as rainbows was a dizzying experience. Still, annoying as the side effects were, the edge the amulet gave me was too great to dismiss because it was a little disorienting. And the longer I wore the amulet and the more I listened to William and Ahn and had a chance to compare the feelings the colors gave me about them with their actions and words, the more eloquent the auras became. It was as if people had an extra feature to gesture with, one that expressed a whole side of them that mouths, eyes, and hands were unable to communicate. William’s grin, by itself, was somewhat enigmatic, but while the basic gray-brown of his aura told me that he hated and feared the VC deeply and was in a state of shock explained by what he had just told me, the yellow, blue, and purple said, in the same way a grimace or a twinkle in an eye might, that his hate was not a customary thing for him, that he was a very bright guy, and more used to caring about the people around him than hating them.
That was part of the problem with acquiring an object of power without having studied its ramifications. I thought then that the amulet was giving me guarantees, that I could trust what it told me as absolute. From being a nonbeliever I was rapidly coming to rely on that one talisman as my salvation—rings of power and singing swords, as in Tolkien and King Arthur stories, aren’t supposed to lie any more than just and wise rulers. The amulet abolished any reservations I would normally have had about William. But that was partly my fault, I guess. I desperately needed something to believe in right then.
In basic, the sergeant had given a little speech I thought was amusing at the time. “Those of you who are going to Vietnam will need a god. We do not care which god you pick. Your god can be Buddha, Jesus, Allah, or Pele the volcano goddess. Your god can be sex or money if you so desire. But you will need a god. If you do not have a god, go to the quartermaster and he will issue you one.” I began to see what that was all about.
“So,” I said. “Have you got any idea where we are now?”
William scooped Ahn up with another smooth motion and started loping through the jungle again, which at that point was easy. The jungle floor was flat and the ground cover was mostly more elephant grass, though shorter than that in the field because the trees hogged the light. “Umm hmm.”
“You do? Where?”
“In deep shit, woman. We in deep shit. Thass where.”
14
John Wayne would have probably just shot me, but William stopped when I said I couldn’t go any farther.
“Thass cool. Ol’ babysan here ain’t no lightweight. They feed you too much Da Nang hospital, babysan.”
“No way, GI,” Ahn protested. “Feed me tete. Ahn beaucoup hungry.”
“Yeah, William beaucoup hungry too.” William shrugged Ahn from his back and shrugged his shoulders together to take the stiffness from them. “You hungry too, mamasan?”
“I sure am. But I don’t want to make my meal out of sweets. You haven’t seen any rats around, have you?”
“Nah, why?”
“Didn’t you guys get that speech in basic about what you do if you’re starving and you only have a raw rat and a Hershey bar?”
“Oh yeah. You mean where you eat the rat and chase it with a piece of Hershey bar ’cause you ain’t even gonna barf up the Hershey bar? It don’t work, lady. I know a guy tried it. Says it just make you hate Hershey bars from then on.”
“Well, maybe it’s better with peanut M&M’s,” I suggested hopefully.
“Mmm,” he said, lowering his voice a decibel or two. “Well, we ain’t even gonna have to worry about it ’less we carefuler than this.”
I took a quick look around and spotted no particular glows besides the amulet-enhanced phosphorescence of the greenery. “There’s no one close,” I said. “I think we’re safe.”
“Then you musta bumped your head in that chopper crash, woman. We not safe by a long shot.”
“No, but there’s no one close.”
“You can’t see ’em, lady. Thass the point.”
“I think I could,” I said, and then wondered how I would explain it to him without sounding like a superheroine refugee from Teen Titans comics.
“Yeah? An’ how’s that? Some special info only officers get?”
“Well, maybe you could say I have unusually good vision,” I said. I decided I wasn’t up to explaining about the amulet right then and William didn’t look as if he was in the mood for listening to such explanations if I was willing to make them.
“Umm hmm. Well, find us some food, then, if you that good.”
“I didn’t have that much survival training,” I said. “What have you been
eating? If I were home right now I’d be having steak at the mess hall.”
“Steak? Jesus, lady, you been on the gravy train for sure. What make you get your dainty steak-fed little ass into somethin’ like this, taggin’ along after some one-leggity child?”
“Someone has to look out for these people,” I said.
William gave me a look that said it was too bad I was brain-damaged. “I been lookin’ out for ’em okay. I lookin’ real hard, and if any one of ’em come ’cross me, they ain’t gonna need no more lookin’ out for, and that, girl, is puttin’ it polite ’cause you’re a female and all.”
Recalling what he’d just been through, I didn’t argue with him but changed the subject. I didn’t want to stop the conversation. As long as we talked, I felt less afraid.
“Where are you from, William?” I asked, only a little breathless from trying to keep up with him.
“Cleveland,” he said, still mad at me, his aura bristling dull red.
“I’m from Kansas City. That’s where my folks and my brother live. You have brothers or sisters?”
“Yeah. And a wife and two babies. An’ I’d like to stay alive to see ’em again. Look, lady, it real nice talkin’ to you and all, but I don’t want no VC catchin’ us shootin’ the breeze.”
I shut up, at first a little resentfully—after all, if we were all stranded out there, it seemed pretty lousy not to be able even to talk to each other. Before long, we were climbing the side of a ridge, pushing through vines and shrubs that tore at my poncho and stands of elephant grass that made a ripping sound as we brushed through it, so it sounded as if our clothing were being shredded. Any VC in the area should be able to hear us for miles before we ever saw them. I remember Duncan, who was a hunter, telling a story in which he said something similar to klutzy hunting companions when they complained of not seeing deer. “Nope, you haven’t seen them, but they’ve sure as hell heard you,” Duncan would quote himself. Unlike the deer, the VC would not be scared away by hearing us. With that to think about and the work of climbing to occupy my energy, I was fresh out of conversation anyway.
Not that William was hurrying—he just sort of oozed up that slope like so much oil compared to me. He did let Ahn down, and the boy made good use of his foot, both hands, and, though I winced for him, his stump, as he climbed. He stopped and rubbed his stump occasionally, but didn’t complain, and twice grinned at me as I stood panting for breath, trying to keep up. Nursing involves a lot of walking, stooping, bending, lifting, and running, but it’s blessedly short on scrambling up steep muddy hills in dripping, steaming rain. The exertion more than made up for the slight drop of temperature caused by the wind and rain. Whereas in the clearing I’d been cold, within the heavy cover of jungle growth with big leaves overlaying bigger leaves, I felt like a pig at a luau. Sometime in late afternoon we broke through the thick cover into light rain sprinkling the top of the ridge. Here the trees were tall but the undergrowth was rocky and relatively free of tangly growth. I leaned against a rock and almost slid off it, I was that slippery from my own sweat. William looked like a ghost, wrapped in his own cloud of congealing moisture.
My head roared and my eyes weren’t focusing all that well. The rain was warm but it was water, and I raised my head and let it trickle into my mouth. Ahn crawled over to me, dug into his shorts pocket, and offered me a Baggie of salt tablets. William was already on his stomach, lapping from a hollow rock. He gave me a turn, as he might at the drinking fountain in some park, and after a few laps I popped the salt tablets and lapped some more. It helped, but I couldn’t knock it back and reach the most parched part of my throat. Still, I knew the systemic effects would save my life anyway.
When my eyes and mind had cleared a little, I looked at Ahn, who was pocketing his tablets again.
“Babysan, where’d you get those?” I asked him.
“I find them, mamasan. Numbah one, huh? I think maybe I sell when I fini hospital.”
The Vietnamese version of free enterprise had for once proved useful. I had my own salt tablets, but having two supplies was better than having one. I had no idea what a salt lick looked like and doubted we would just run across one every time we got dehydrated. William had swallowed a couple of tablets too, but he had been in the bush long enough that his body had adapted somewhat. My sweat glands were spouting like Old Faithful and his just seemed to flow gently, like the Danube, adding a polishing gloss to his skin. Of course, he stank like a billy goat, but then, I was building up quite a pungent fragrance myself. The grunts were all warned against using scented American hygienic products like toothpaste and deodorant and after-shave. I wondered if it mattered. I’d heard that Americans smelled bad to Orientals, that eating red meat gives us a special odor they find objectionable. I wondered if the VC would kill you quicker for smelling good from toothpaste and after-shave or smelling bad from stinky pits, toe jam, dragon mouth, and crotch rot.
We walked along the ridge and over onto another one, with just a slight dip between hills. Once I stopped and removed the amulet for a moment, to see the country with normal eyes. I thought how much my mother with her love of nature trails and bird-watching would have loved this. Fields of elephant grass rippling like summer wheat were the only resemblance between this country and Kansas. The country was spined with ridges protecting low-lying areas of grass, paddies, and more jungle. Atop these ridges, spindly trees clawed their way out of rocky ground strewn with explosions of thin green tongues. The hillsides and valleys brimmed with forest green, emerald green, peridot green, bright, light, medium, dark, and drab olive green, lime green, chartreuse, and other shades of green I had no name for. Through the valley to the east of us, a stream glinted between the trees like fragments of Christmas tinsel.
“What you stoppin’ for?” William asked.
“I bet you can see all of Vietnam from here,” I said.
“I bet all Vietnam can see us too; think ’bout that and move your ass.”
He didn’t have to tell me twice. I slipped the amulet back over my head and followed. Although the footing was easier, and the wind and rain felt fresh against my face and arms, my feet burned as if I were walking on hot coals and my legs ached to my waist. William dumped Ahn onto the ground and rolled his shoulders back to relieve the tension. Ahn looked at me expectantly, but I shook my head, and without whining, he picked up a long stout stick and used it for a crutch.
The sky darkened from pale silver to the color of a new cast-iron skillet. The raindrops grew larger and the ground boggier. Below the ridgeline, the jungle covered us again. We slid down a slick embankment on our rears and dropped onto a spongy dead tree trunk that supported two more trees sprouting from its corpse. William stepped down from this and scuffed the ground cover up with his feet. Several lizards and spiders scuttled away, including two or three pretty large spiders. I wanted to ask if those were tarantulas but felt stupid for not knowing already, so I tried to look nonchalant as if, oh sure, I knew they could be tarantulas but I wasn’t scared of anything like that.
“We better post sentry tonight,” William said. “Which watch you want, first or second?”
“I’ll take first,” I said. “I’m beat but I don’t think I’m going to be able to sleep—I hurt too much. What do we do if they do come? Spit at them till they drown?”
“No, but if we see them first, we’re warned, we can hide. We don’t see them and they see us, nicest thing they could do is slit our throats while we’re asleep, but I don’t think they’d let us off that easy, specially with you along.”
“Thanks, William,” I said, shuddering. “Any inclination I had to sleep is definitely gone now.”
He nodded as if he thought I really was grateful and curled up between the tree and the lip of the ridge to sleep. Ahn was dead to the world as soon as the spiders were gone. I sat with my back to the cliff, my arms curled around my knees, and watched the auras of my companions dim with sleep, like private sunsets damping to dusky rose and slate blue.
Every once in a while I’d uncurl enough to peek up over the ridge, alert for the telltale glow of enemy auras. But I didn’t think I’d see them in time if they overran us.
I rolled my head and shoulders and rotated my feet, feeling the deep pain in my shoulders and neck, my legs, arms, hips, my feet especially. I wanted to take off my boots. I knew I should or I’d get jungle rot, but who cared about that kind of thing when you could be shot—or worse—at any time? I understood how the grunts came in with some of the complaints they did. I didn’t want to take off my boots. I wanted to be able to run if I needed to. I did not want to be captured.
Officers’ basic at Fort Sam was pretty much a lark for my class of nurses—they needed us too badly to harass us. Unlike the men, many of us could have quit. Those of us who had contractual obligations could get pregnant and get out if need be. They did not want to bug us too badly. So when they took a group of us into a small classroom and closed the door behind the instructor and a Special Forces—type sergeant, I thought they were just being melodramatic.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the instructor said, “what we are going to tell you here is not to go outside this room. If you repeat it, we will deny it.” Oh boy, I thought. “Mission: Impossible.” The others showed varying degrees of concern—with most of the women it was polite. The male nurses responded a little differently. I saw Jamison, a fellow I’d chatted up at the O club, lean forward and look suddenly very intense. There were several male nurses in our group, but two or three, including Jamison, were already veterans before they got their R.N.s. As soon as they got their diplomas, they were eligible to be redrafted. Jamison told me he’d enjoyed Nam as a corpsman, had felt he’d really done some good on the medcap missions, but wanted the expertise he thought nurses’ training would give him. He hadn’t been redrafted, but from the expression on his face, I wondered if he wasn’t having second thoughts.
The Healer’s War Page 21