The Sorrow of War

by Bao Ninh

  The Sorrow of War

  Bao Ninh

  Frank Palmos

  Bao Ninh, a former North Vietnamese soldier, provides a strikingly honest look at how the Vietnam War forever changed his life, his country, and the people who live there. Originaly published against government wishes in Vietnam because of its nonheroic, non-ideological tone, The Sorrow of War has won worldwide acclaim and become an international bestseller.

  Kien’s job is to search the Jungle of Screaming Souls for corpses. He knows the area well – this was where, in the dry season of 1969, his battalion was obliterated by American napalm and helicopter gunfire. Kien was one of only ten survivors. This book is his attempt to understand the eleven years of his life he gave to a senseless war.

  Based on true experiences of Bao Ninh and banned by the communist party, this novel is revered as the ‘All Quiet on the Western Front for our era’.

  Bảo Ninh

  THE SORROW OF WAR

  A Novel

  ENGLISH VERSION BY

  Frank Palmos

  FROM THE ORIGINAL TRANSLATION BY

  Phan Thanh Hao

  ON THE BANKS of the Ya Crong Poco River, on the northern flank of the B3 battlefield in the Central Highlands, the Missing In Action body-collecting team awaits the dry season of 1976.

  The mountains and jungles are water-soaked and dull. Wet trees. Quiet jungles. All day and all night the water steams. A sea of greenish vapour over the jungle’s carpet of rotting leaves.

  September and October drag by, then November passes, but still the weather is unpredictable and the night rains are relentless. Sunny days but rainy nights.

  Even into early December, weeks after the end of the normal rainy season, the jungles this year are still as muddy as all hell. They are forgotten by peace, damaged or impassable, all the tracks disappearing, bit by bit, day by day, into the embrace of the coarse undergrowth and wild grasses.

  Travelling in such conditions is brutally tough. To get from Crocodile Lake east of the Sa Thay River, across District 67 to the crossroads of Cross Hill on the west bank of the Poco River – a mere fifty kilometres – the powerful Russian truck has to lumber along all day. And still they fall short of their destination.

  Not until after dusk does the MIA Zil truck reach the Jungle of Screaming Souls, where they park beside a wide creek clogged with rotting branches.

  The driver stays in the cabin and goes straight to sleep. Kien climbs wearily into the rear of the truck to sleep alone in a hammock strung high from cab to tailgate. At midnight the rains start again, this time a smooth drizzle, falling silently.

  The old tarpaulin covering the truck is torn, full of holes, letting the water drip, drip, drip through onto the plastic sheets covering the remains of soldiers laid out in rows below Kien’s hammock.

  The humid atmosphere condenses, its long moist, chilly fingers sliding in and around the hammock where Kien lies shivering, half-awake, half-asleep, as though drifting along on a stream. He is floating, sadly, endlessly, sometimes as if on a lorry driving silently, robot-like, somnambulantly through the lonely jungle tracks. The stream moans, a desperate complaint mixing with distant faint jungle sounds, like an echo from another world. The eerie sounds come from somewhere in a remote past, arriving softly like featherweight leaves falling on the grass of times long, long ago.

  Kien knows the area well. It was here, at the end of the dry season of 1969, that his Battalion 27 was surrounded and almost totally wiped out. Ten men survived from the Unlucky Battalion, after fierce, horrible, barbarous fighting.

  That was the dry season when the sun burned harshly, the wind blew fiercely, and the enemy sent napalm spraying through the jungle and a sea of fire enveloped them, spreading like the fires of hell. Troops in the fragmented companies tried to regroup, only to be blown out of their shelters again as they went mad, became disoriented and threw themselves into nets of bullets, dying in the flaming inferno. Above them the helicopters flew at tree-top height and shot them almost one by one, the blood spreading out, spraying from their backs, flowing like red mud.

  The diamond-shaped grass clearing was piled high with bodies killed by helicopter gunships. Broken bodies, bodies blown apart, bodies vaporised.

  No jungle grew again in this clearing. No grass. No plants.

  ‘Better to die than surrender my brothers! Better to die!’ the Battalion Commander yelled insanely; waving his pistol in front of Kien he blew his own brains out through his ear. Kien screamed soundlessly in his throat at the sight, as the Americans attacked with sub-machine-guns, sending bullets buzzing like deadly bees around him. Then Kien lowered his machine-gun, grasped his side and fell, rolling slowly down the bank of a shallow stream, hot blood trailing down the slope after him.

  In the days that followed, crows and eagles darkened the sky. After the Americans withdrew, the rainy season came, flooding the jungle floor, turning the battlefield into a marsh whose surface water turned rust-coloured from the blood. Bloated human corpses, floating alongside the bodies of incinerated jungle animals, mixed with branches and trunks cut down by artillery, all drifting in a stinking marsh. When the flood receded everything dried in the heat of the sun into thick mud and stinking rotting meat. And down the bank and along the stream Kien dragged himself, bleeding from the mouth and from his body wound. The blood was cold and sticky, like blood from a corpse. Snakes and centipedes crawled over him, and he felt Death’s hand on him. After that battle no one mentioned Battalion 27 any more, though numerous souls of ghosts and devils were born in that deadly defeat. They were still loose, wandering in every corner and bush in the jungle, drifting along the stream, refusing to depart for the Other World.

  From then on it was called the Jungle of Screaming Souls. Just hearing the name whispered was enough to send chills down the spine. Perhaps the screaming souls gathered together on special festival days as members of the Lost Battalion, lining up on the little diamond-shaped grass plot, checking their ranks and numbers. The sobbing whispers were heard deep in the jungle at night, the howls carried on the wind. Perhaps they really were the voices of the wandering souls of dead soldiers.

  Kien was told that passing this area at night one could hear birds crying like human beings. They never flew, they only cried among the branches. And nowhere else in these Central Highlands could one find bamboo shoots of such a horrible colour, with infected weals like bleeding pieces of meat. As for the fireflies, they were huge. Some said they’d seen firefly lights rise before them as big as a steel helmet – some said bigger than helmets.

  Here, when it is dark, trees and plants moan in awful harmony. When the ghostly music begins it unhinges the soul and the entire wood looks the same no matter where you are standing. Not a place for the timid. Living here one could go mad or be frightened to death. Which was why in the rainy season of 1974, when the regiment was sent back to this area, Kien and his scout squad established an altar and prayed before it in secret, honouring and recalling the wandering souls from Battalion 27 still in the Jungle of Screaming Souls.

  Sparkling incense sticks glowed night and day at the altar from that day forward.

  There were civilian souls loose in the wood, too. Quite near to where the Zil truck parked on this rainy night there was once a tiny trail leading to Leprosy Village. Long ago, when Regiment 3 arrived, the village had been empty. Disease and successive famines had erased all life.

  Still, it seemed the naked, warped and torn souls had continued to gather, emitting a stink that penetrated the imagination. The regiment sprayed petrol and set the village alight to cleanse it, but after the fire the soldiers were still terrified and none of them would go near the place again for fear of ghosts and lepers.

&nbs
p; One day ‘Lofty’ Thinh from Squad 1 courageously went into the village and there, in the ashes, shot a big orang-utan. He called in three others to help him drag it back to the squad huts. But, oh God, when it was killed and shaved the animal looked like a fat woman with ulcerous skin, the eyes, half-white, half-grey, still rolling. The entire squad was horrified and ran away screaming, leaving all their kit behind. No one in today’s regiment ever believed the story, yet it was true. Kien and his colleagues had buried her, making a little headstone for the grave.

  But none escaped her vengeful, omnipresent soul. ‘Lofty’ Thinh was soon killed. Gradually the entire regiment was wiped out. Only Kien remained.

  That had happened during the rainy season. Before marching to the South Wing to attack Buon Me Thuot, Kien’s regiment had been based on this very spot for nearly two months. The landscape was much the same and the roads over which they passed had not become overgrown.

  At that time the scout platoon had built its huts on the bank of this same stream by which they were now parked, but further along, where the stream hits the foot of the mountain, divides, then continues along as two separate streams. Now, perhaps at that branching of the stream, their old grass huts remained. Thatched roofs, side by side, near the rushes by the water.

  The area had been used then to house front-line soldiers called back to the rear for political indoctrination. Politics continuously. Politics in the morning, politics in the afternoon, politics again in the evening. ‘We won, the enemy lost. The enemy will surely lose. The north had a good harvest, a bumper harvest. The people will rise up and welcome you. Those who don’t just lack awareness. The world is divided into three camps.’ More politics. Still, the scouts were treated lightly, not being pressured as much as others to attend the indoctrination sessions.

  They had plenty of time to relax and enjoy themselves before returning to the battlefields. They hunted, set traps, caught fish and played cards.

  In his entire life Kien had never developed such a passion for cards as he developed here. They played all the time. At dark, straight after dinner, the game started. In the warm air which smelled of sweat and mosquito repellant the gamblers gathered enthusiastically, concentrating on their cards. The kitty was usually stinking ‘Compatriot’ cigarettes, made from wild leaves. Or, if the stakes were higher, it would be snuff, or pieces of flint, or the roots of rosa canina plants, which were smoked like marijuana. Or dried food, or photos; photos of women of all kinds, foreign or Vietnamese, ugly or beautiful, or anyone’s sweetheart. Any photo was valid currency. When the kitty was gone they used to get lamp-black and paint moustaches on each other. Some played, others watched, joyfully, noisily, sometimes all through the night. It seemed a period of happiness and calm. An easy, carefree time.

  They were really happy days because for most of that rainy season they didn’t have to fight. The entire platoon of thirteen was safe. Even ‘Lofty’ Thinh spent a happy month here before being killed. Can hadn’t yet deserted. His mates Vinh, ‘Big’ Thinh, Cu, Oanh and Tac the Elephant were all still alive. Now, only the torn, dirty set of cards, fingerprinted by the dead ones, remained.

  Nine, Ten, Jack.

  ‘Lofty’, ‘Big’ Thinh and Can,

  Queen, King, Ace!

  Cu, Oanh and Tac!

  Sometimes in his dreams these cards still appear. He shouts their names and plays Solitaire. ‘Hearts, diamonds, spades…’ They had bastardised the regimental marching song and made it a humorous card-players’ song:

  ‘We’ll all be jokers, in the pack,

  Just go harder, in attack.

  Dealing’s fun, so hurry back,

  Enjoy the game, avoid the flak.’

  But one by one the card players at their fateful table were taken away. The cards were last used when the platoon was down to just four soldiers. Cu, Thanh, Van and Kien.

  That was in the early dawn, half an hour before the barrage opened the campaign against Saigon. On the other side of an overgrown field was the Cu Chi defence line. The Saigon defence forces then started returning fire with artillery and machine-guns and they registered some lucky hits. In the trenches and in shelters the infantry were trying to enjoy last moments of sleep. But for Kien’s scouts, who were going to lead the attack as the advance guard, it was going a bit too fast. They were spooked by their cards, not at all liking how the hands fell as they played the game called ‘Advance’.

  ‘Slow down a bit,’ Kien suggested. ‘If we leave this game unfinished Heaven will grant favours, keeping us alive to return and finish the game. So, slow down and we’ll survive this battle and continue the game later.’

  ‘You’re cunning,’ said Thanh, grinning. ‘But Heaven’s not stupid. You can’t cheat Him. If you play only half the game the Old Chap up there will send for all four of us and we’ll torment each other.’

  Tu said, ‘Why bother to send all four there? Send me with the cards. That’ll do it. I’ll play poker, or tell fortunes from cards for the Devils in charge of the oil urns. That would be fun.’

  The dew evaporated quickly. Signal flares flew into the air. The infantry noisily came to life and began to move out. Armoured cars motored to the front line, their tracks tearing the earth, the roar of their engines reverberating in the morning breeze.

  ‘Stop, then!’ Kien threw the cards down, adding petulantly, ‘I just wanted to slow down for good luck, but all of you rushed the game to the end.’

  ‘Hey there,’ ‘Thin’ Van slapped his thigh happily, ‘I didn’t know until now just how much I enjoyed playing cards. I’ll have to learn to play better. If I die, remember to throw a deck of cards on my grave.’

  ‘We have only one deck and Van wants it for himself. Selfish bugger!’ Thanh shouted back as he moved out. Before an hour was up Van was burned alive in a T54 tank, his body turned to ash. No grave or tomb for them to throw the cards onto.

  Thanh died near the Bong bridge, also burned in his tank together with the tank crew. A big, white-hot steel coffin.

  Only Tu had fought, together with Kien, to Gate 5 of Saigon’s Tan Son Nhat airport. Then Tu was killed. It was the morning of 30 April, with just three hours to go before the eleven-year war ended.

  Late in the night of 29 April and into the 30th when the two of them met for the last time at the airport, Tu had taken the deck of cards from his knapsack and given it to Kien. ‘I’ll go in this fight. You keep them. If you live on, gamble with life. Deuces, treys and fours all carry the sacred spirit of our whole platoon. We’ll bring you permanent luck.’

  Kien sinks into reminiscence.

  Whose soul is calling whom as he swings gently and silently in his hammock over the rows of dead soldiers?

  Howls from somewhere in the deep jungle echo along the cold edges of the Jungle of Screaming Souls. Lonely, wandering noises. Whose soul is calling whom this night?

  To one who has just returned the mountains still look the same. The forest looks the same. The stream and the river also look the same. One year is not a long time. No, it is the war that is the difference. Then it was war, now it is peace. Two different ages, two worlds, yet written on the same page of life. That’s the difference.

  Kien recalled: At the time of our first stay here it was late August. Between the jungle and the forest along this stream, rosa canina blossomed in the rain, whitened everywhere, its perfume filling the air, especially at night. The perfume vapour permeated our sleep, fuelling erotic, obsessional dreams and when we awoke the perfume had evaporated but we were left with a feeling of smouldering passion, both painful and ecstatic. It took us months to discover that our nightly passion-frenzied dreams were caused by the canina perfume. Those diabolical flowers! Kien had seen them in the jungles along the western ridge of the Ngoc Linh mountains and even deep inside Cambodia around Ta Ret, but nowhere did they grow the way they did here, with such powerful scent.

  The canina here grows close to creek banks, within reach of the mountain carp, who nibble at their roots, so when caught th
eir taste is exquisite but instantly intoxicating. The local people say canina thrives in graveyards or any area carrying the scent of death. A blood-loving flower. It smells so sweetly that this is hard for us to believe.

  Later, it was Kien’s scout platoon, taking a break in some idle moments, who decided to try drying the canina, slicing the flowers and roots, then mixing them with tobacco, as a smoke. After just a few puffs they felt themselves lifted, quietly floating like a wisp of smoke itself floating on the wind. The tasty canina had many wondrous attributes. They could decide what they’d like to dream about, or even blend the dreams, like preparing a wonderful cocktail. With rosa one smoked to forget the daily hell of the soldier’s life, smoked to forget hunger and suffering. Also, to forget death. And totally, but totally, to forget tomorrow.

  Smoking rosa canina Kien would immerse himself in a world of mythical and wonderful dreams which in ordinary moments his soul could never penetrate. In these luxurious dreams the imagined air was so clean, the sky so high, the clouds and sunshine so beautiful, approaching the perfection of his childhood dreams. And in those dreams the beautiful sky would project pictures of his own lovely Hanoi. The West Lake on a summer afternoon, the scarlet flame trees around the lake. Once in his dream-picture he had felt the waves lapping the side of his tiny sampan and looking up he had seen Phuong, youthful, innocently beautiful, her hair flying in the Hanoi breeze.

  The soldiers each had their own way of smoking canina and ridding themselves of their shared harsh realities. For Cu, cassava alcohol or rosa canina conjured up images of returning home. Cu could relate the scenes vividly, making them sound so joyful that tears fell from everyone’s eyes as he unfolded the scene in soft words. Vinh dreamed only of women, describing his imagined and planned love affairs with youthful enthusiasm. As the affairs dragged on the women became more voluptuous and the affairs more complicated, the descriptions more erotic and explicit. As for ‘Elephant’ Tac, he dreamed mainly of food. He spoke of long tables laden with wonderful and exotic dishes and of sitting down to savour the moments, morsel by morsel, dish by dish.