“Did you just fall off the turnip truck? Why would I be sitting here in the dark if I had a flashlight? I’ve got squat.” She began mumbling to herself. “Why didn’t I just let them release the damn movie? A few bad reviews, a new husband, and I’d have my career back.” Then louder. “Let me give it to you again, soldier. I did my part. Stripped down and jumped out of the airplane. You and your pal were to be on the ground to meet me with Ho Chi Minh holding a dozen red roses. Instead, I hit on my ass, bounced twice and then the People’s Revolutionary Dickheads grabbed me and brought me here.”
“I thought that Ho Chi was supposed to be in love with you,” I said.
“What? Who told you that? He’s never even seen me.”
“He’s seen Barbonella, the film. The Cubans got a copy for him.”
“And he liked it?”
Gearheardt finally spoke up. “What’s with the People’s Revolutionary Dickheads? I thought you liked these people. Whose side are you on anyway, Barbonella?”
“Quit calling me Barbonella. That was what Elmer Fudd in the White House called me. My name is Betty.” The way she pronounced it, very dramatically, it came out “Butty.”
“Okay, Butty. Look in case you two haven’t figured it out yet, we’re not getting much done here. Butty, what do you know about all this? We’ve got to be honest with each other or we’ll just rot here.”
I heard her take a deep breath. In the silence I heard the clomp of boots on the floor above us.
“Come on, now. They may be coming back to get us. I’ll go first. The President sent Gearheardt and me up here to make a deal with Ho Chi Minh to stop the war. We understood that he had some kind of—of thing for you. You were to distract the locals while Gearheardt and I slipped into town. Unfortunately, we were shot down earlier today.”
“Jack,” Gearheardt growled, “you may be talking to the enemy.”
“At least he’s talking, you moron. And don’t think I don’t feel you sliding up next to me.”
“Gearheardt, I’m not going to warn you one more time.”
“Good.”
“Butty, you were going to say … ?”
“The President told me that I could have a part in bringing the war to a close. You two were to give me a package that I could give Mr. Minh if I got close to him, which he assured me I would.”
“Probably rubbers.”
“Ignore him, Butty. What did he say about us?”
“That you were going to try to negotiate something also. That I was to cooperate with you and help you get next to Mr. Minh.”
“’The four of us in bed. That’d be cute.”
“Anything else?” I asked.
“That I would get to shoot an anti-aircraft weapon.”
“At one of our own planes, you ditz.”
“Not if they would stay away from us and quit bombing, Almost Captain Gearheardt.”
“That’s the way you fight wars, Barbonella.”
“How about any other names, any contacts?”
“Whiffenpoof and Gon Norea. Whiffenpoof is British, I think. And Gon Norea is Mexican or from Panama or somewhere.”
“Whiffenpoof is British? I had the impression that he was an American agent,” Gearheardt said, making me think that he was more into this conversation than he let on.
“Never mind, Gearheardt. Look folks, we know two things. First, we’re here on the same mission, to stop the war. Second, our only chance seems to be to contact Whiffenpoof, or Gon Norea, or hope they contact us. And maybe, just maybe, Gunny Buckles will find them.”
“Gunny Buckles?”
“Jack, are you wearing a pith helmet?”
“No, Gearheardt, I am not wearing a pith—”
“Get your damned hands off of me.”
“Jack, she’s wearing a pith helmet and she’s fully dressed. You lying—”
“I never said I was naked, twerp.”
The door at the top of the stairs opened. In the light that came down, I saw Butty sitting next to me, her back against the wall, dressed in a North Vietnamese army uniform, complete with pith helmet. Gearheardt was close beside her.
“Mick Mou, you come.” I could only see a dark silhouette against the bright light.
“I’m sorry. I don’t speak Vietnamese,” Butty answered, her voice sweet and respectful.
“He means me, Butty. Mick Mou. I’ll tell you later.” She didn’t have to know everything. I began to crawl painfully toward the stairs. The soldiers hurried down and grabbed me, pulling me to the top.
“What about us?” Butty asked plaintively. “I’m not staying down here in the dark with Romeo.”
As the soldier closed the door to the basement, shutting off the light, I heard Gearheardt. “So what’s your sign?”
“Shut the fuck up, you moron.”
“Oh, a spirited wench.” He was giggling.
18 • Hanoi—Torture Lite
I was taken to a room in the back of the building. The room was dark except for a light shining on a chair in front of a plain wooden table. At the table sat three grim men, two in uniform and one in a Mao jacket that was about three sizes too big for him. No one said anything, so I took my place in the interrogation chair. I was prepared not to piss anyone off, since so far I hadn’t really been treated too badly. The light was only moderately bright, and I could see the faces of the three Vietnamese. We stared at each other for a moment and then the civilian spoke.
“What you leg?”
I wasn’t too sure what that meant, but pointed to my leg. After they had a short whispered conference, he asked again in a slightly elevated voice.
“What you leg? Mick Mou?”
“Oh are you asking my name? Sorry, I thought you said, ‘What my leg.’ My name is Almost Captain Jack—no, make that Almost Captain Tom Dexter. Shit, pardon me, you already have my I.D. I was right the first time, Almost Captain Jack Armstrong.”
The interteam conference was slightly longer and seemed more heated.
“Mick Mou come Ho Chi Minh?” the civilian said, moving his head as if his collar was tight. Not likely in that suit, which must have belonged to the largest Vietnamese in the world.
“You’ll have to pardon me again. See, I don’t speak Vietnamese. I’m not Mick Mou, I mean Mickey Mouse. He is actually a cartoon character. The thing is that my girlfriend, Penny, works as Mickey Mouse part time at Disneyland. Maybe I shouldn’t be telling you all this, but I can’t see how you would get much military intelligence advantage by knowing that. But yes, we have come to see Ho Chi Minh. That part is right, if that’s what you’re asking. Do you suppose that I could have some of that water?”
I leaned forward to reach for the bottle of water sitting next to the larger of the military interrogators. He jumped up and knocked over his chair.
“Whoa. You don’t need that gun. I’ll get a drink later.”
When everyone was seated again and I had leaned back in my chair, the civilian called a conference and the three put their heads together and began whispering. The military duo seemed upset at the civilian, who had assumed a very defensive posture, if body language was the same in Vietnamese. He cleared his throat.
“Chicago bad car?” he demanded.
I looked at him with my most sincere look, as if I truly wanted to answer him.
“Yes, the traffic can be bad in Chicago, or they do have bad cars there if that’s what you mean.”
“Chicago me,” he said pointing at himself.
“You’ve been to Chicago?” I pointed to him and raised my eyebrows.
“Chicago,” he said. He smiled at me and at the two military men. I took that to mean, “Now we’re getting somewhere.”
“What you leg?” he asked, his voice gruff again.
“Look, don’t any of you speak English? This interrogation is not going to get us anywhere if we can’t find a common language. ¿Habla español?”
“Chicago you leg.”
I sighed and leaned back again. This was get
ting us nowhere.
“Parlez-vous français?” ventured.
Now everybody smiled and spoke at once. They all seemed to know French. Unfortunately I didn’t.
“No speakee. No oui, français.” Even to me that sounded stupid. “English solemente.”
We sat in silence for a long moment. The smaller of the military men began to pick his nose. It irritated me. This was my first interrogation after all.
“I’ll try again. I am here on a mission to see Ho Chi Minh. It is very important that I be taken to him. Could you find someone who speaks ENGLISH? I think that would speed things up. SPEAKEE ENGLISH. I don’t mean to be rude, but people are dying. This is very, very important. From the President of the United States. Are you getting any of this?”
I pointed at the water bottle and slowly moved my hand toward it. No one objected, and I opened the bottle and chugged it down. The non-nosepicker picked up the empty bottle when I sat it down, looked into it and held it out to the other two, beginning another long conference. I felt guilty, knowing that Gearheardt was probably still in the basement, dying of thirst. For the first time I noticed that there was a tape recorder on the table, the tape slowly revolving—the only working thing in the room. It was almost funny. I was in a shabby building in downtown Hanoi in my flight suit and sandals that hurt my feet. This did not seem a historic moment.
The larger military man got up and walked behind my chair. It made me a little nervous but I tried not to look at him. I could hear him breathing and smell whatever he had had for dinner. I hadn’t eaten in at least a day, but it still didn’t smell very good.
They tried a new tack.
“Bom hospiter.” It sounded like an accusation.
“No bom hospiter.”
“BOM HOSPITER.” He was working himself up.
“NO BOM HOSPITER.”
I decided that was a mistake at the same time that dinner man whacked me on the side of the head. It hurt like hell, but I didn’t look up at him. He whacked me again, and my ear started ringing. The nosepicker was smiling, and I realized this was the part of the show that he had come to see. I wanted to rub my ear but didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.
“Bom hospiter?” the civilian asked. It sounded hopeful, and the civilian raised his thick black eyebrows as he asked it.
“Name, rank, and serial number, pal. I know my rights. Jack Armstrong, Almost Captain, 087862. That’s it, if that’s the way you want to play it. Name, rank, and, OUCH. Holy shit. That hurts.” Now I looked up at dinner man, and he backed away. “Give me a damn break! You wouldn’t know what the hell I was answering anyway.” I scooted my chair farther away from him. He drew his revolver and pointed it at me. “Don’t look them in the eye” came back to me from long-ago training.
I ignored him and looked back at the civilian. His lower lip was trembling. He began a long tirade during which I heard Chicago, hospiter, Mick Mou, bomb, and a lot of ngyning and nahnging. I wished Gearheardt were with me so I could strangle him.
Finally the civilian, who had gotten to the point that his spit arched through the light regularly, stopped and slammed the table with his fist.
“Yes,” I said. I didn’t give a damn. “Yes, I have done all those things and more.” They had broken me with stupidity, and it had only taken fifteen minutes. Probably a new record for a POW interrogation. If there were a POW Hall of Fame, I was sure to be in it. At least I still had my fingernails.
Dinner man took his place behind the table to what I took to be congratulatory smiles from his colleagues. Nosepicker pushed back, rose, and came around the table, stopping beside me.
“Don’t even think about it, asshole,” I said.
I wasn’t sure whether it was my tone or that he understood “asshole,” but his fist in my eye was harder than the blows thrown by his larger friend. I fell off of the chair and had to grab the edge of the table to get back up. I sat and scooted my chair again.
“Give me something to confess to, you prick!”
When nosepicker drew back his fist, I scooted the chair away. He stepped forward, and I scooted again. My eye was swelling shut, but I could see out of my good one that he was becoming agitated at my scooting. He began to mutter, and I assumed that I wasn’t supposed to be scooting my chair.
As I was deciding whether or not to just let him close my other eye and be done with it, the door opened. A tall thin man wearing evening dress stepped confidently into the room.
“Hello. What have we here?” he asked with a deep British accent. “These chaps are knocking you about a bit, it seems.”
He launched into what I assumed was Vietnamese although it looked like lip-synching in a bad movie. Quang nign gyen yuen, throat clearing sound, nguen, hey, nonny ding dong, and so on. It had the desired effect. Nosepicker retreated behind the table and stood silently with the other two junior goons, looking the Vietnamese version of sheepish. Through my one good eye I saw all three bow their heads slightly.
The well-dressed fellow turned and addressed me.
“Well, now, you must be Almost Captain Gearheardt.”
“If I were Almost Captain Gearheardt, I would strangle myself. That’s how much I am not Almost Captain Gearheardt,” I replied, gingerly feeling the swelling under my left eye. “Almost Captain Gearheardt is in the basement with Butty. Who are the three stooges here with us? That’s the better question.”
“Yes, well, these gentlemen are apprentice interrogators, I believe. Not all that experienced but hoping to move out to the main POW prison at some point.” He sighed. “I’ve tried to explain to their superiors that a basic understanding of English really is a necessity in these proceedings. By the way, you didn’t confess to anything did you?”
“I may have confessed to bombing a hospital.”
The gentleman laughed. “Oh, no problem there. Everyone confesses to that one. No, I’m referring to those ‘women and children’ missiles and the like. One Air Force major confessed to dropping a gas that caused women to grow enormous bosoms. Had the male populace tossing their wives into the street willy-nilly during air attacks, I’m afraid. Beat him bloody silly when the hoax was discovered. No, a hospital bombing or two is quite acceptable. Here, let me look at that eye of yours. Rather a nasty bruise.”
“Who the hell are you?” I asked as he bent toward me, probing my left cheek. “You seem awfully familiar with the North Vietnamese.”
“Lord, I am forgetting my manners. Whifferly Nelson Poofter, sir. At your service. Take my kerchief and hold it against that cut, and I’ll instruct these buggers, if you’ll excuse the language, to summon your friend.”
Dinner man and the civilian came forward and wanted to shake my hand, which I reluctantly agreed to. Nosepicker sensed correctly that I would not extend that courtesy to him. They left and I heard them bickering angrily in the hall.
“Are you Whiffenpoof then?” I asked. “We were told to look for a Whiffenpoof when we arrived in Hanoi.
Whiffenpoof, if it were indeed him, perched one leg on the edge of the table and after straightening his pant seam, smiled and took out a cigarette case. He offered a cigarette to me, and I accepted.
“Yes, that would be me. I have been expecting the contact for some weeks now. You no doubt know that I have been representing, unofficially of course, your government in Hanoi for some time. A rather curious set of circumstances finds me perhaps the only Westerner allowed to operate openly in Hanoi. A long-ago love affair with a Vietnamese girl had me speaking the language like a native while I was still at Oxford. I was in the area arranging a gin distribution situation when. the war began to heat up, so I just passed myself off as a Vietnamese, and, well, here I am.”
“You passed yourself off as a Vietnamese? Could I point out that you must be over six feet tall, blond, with a large mustache?”
He smiled. “You don’t know these oriental chaps very well, do you, Almost Captain? Polite to a fault. Wouldn’t think of actually coming out and calling me a liar, no
w would they? Since I speak their language extremely well, I’m afraid they must take me at my word or cause us both a great deal of embarrassment. Rather unorthodox, I’ll admit. Once the first few accepted my Vietnameseness, the others had little choice, actually. Are you feeling better now?”
Before I could frame a reply the door opened and Gearheardt waltzed in, his arm around a smiling Butty.
“Hey, what the hell happened to you?” Gearheardt asked, dropping his arm from Butty’s shoulders and coming to me. “You been fighting again?”
“I held out as long as I could, Gearheardt, but I finally had to ram the guy’s fist with my face.” I lowered my voice. “What’s with you and Miss Hanoi?”
“She held out as long as she could, too,” he said. He noticed Whiffenpoof, who was beaming like a professional matchmaker. “Don’t tell me,” he said, offering his hand, “you’re the Poof.”
Whiffenpoof’s jaws tightened, but he smiled quickly.
“That would be me, sir. Almost Captain Gearheardt, I presume.” Enormous show of teeth.
“You presume correctly, my friend. Now we’re getting somewhere. Jack and I are on a mission, you know. Time’s wasting. Got a war to stop. Presume yourself over to the Main Minh’s quarters and set up a meeting for us. And get our boots back while you’re at it. These sandals must be the reason the Viets feel cranky all the time. And chow would be nice.”
“I’m not sure that you’re cognizant of the potential peril of your situation, Captain Gearheardt. I was asked to be of assistance to you and your friend, but given no instructions beyond that. What exactly is your plan?” As he spoke, the Brit was staring at Butty, who was looking quite comely in her North Vietnamese uniform now that the top buttons of her tunic were undone and her pith helmet was cocked jauntily. She was humming a vaguely familiar tune and studying her fingernails.
Whiffenpoof’s lower lip was trembling, and I felt it was not on account of the comeliness of Butty. Something was bugging him.
Gearheardt stared him down.
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