The Sorrow of War

by Bao Ninh

  And they spoke of death.

  When they returned to camp it was to an unruly scene; the wind had whipped up and the distant storm had quickly found them. Blankets rolled off along the shore, sand blew in sprays and tents broke from their pegs, and just as the howling wind died down the heavens opened and the short-lived seaside vacation was washed out.

  That’s how the war started, with a storm. For Kien the storm continued for nearly eleven years and even after the war his mental skies were clouded for another ten.

  Now, twenty years later, he let the pictures flow back across his mental screens. He pictured himself and Phuong on the goods train, heading for Vinh. It was a crazy adventure. Kien was now a different man from then; Phuong was perhaps not so much changed.

  She had in those years accumulated a mountain of sins and an avalanche of innuendo on her reputation. Yet she remained for him an enigma, someone ahead of her time in so many ways, and strangely, eternally pure.

  Kien volunteered for the army in the summer of 1965, got his call-up papers in the autumn, and was soon posted to what was commonly called Long B, the military name for the battlefields of the south. Their goods train had not stopped at Phu Ly, as they expected. It turned a little east and rushed on towards Vinh, on the coast, blowing long, sorrowful whistles as it gathered speed in the night. Phu Ly, Nam Dinh, Ninh Binh, all flashed by and were left behind to the north. Everything seemed to be going so well.

  ‘Good for us,’ said Phuong, pleased the escapade was being prolonged. Her sense of adventure was heightened with every mile and she cuddled up to Kien, whispering to him, ‘The further we go, the more I’m lost, the better it is. We’ll see what war’s like.’

  Now, it seems like fiction, some imagined story on the fringe of his war memories. But it was real enough.

  The train howled on through the night, never stopping at stations. Once, on a straight run through some grain fields, it stopped for a few minutes. Several men furtively climbed aboard and the train started off again.

  As the newcomers moved in, everyone moved along and space became tighter and tighter. Who were they? Soldiers? Merchants doing quick deals? Highway thieves? More smoke, more stink.

  One of them imitated a station master shouting after their train speeding through his small station: ‘Doonnnngg Giiaooooooo-whosh!’

  Phuong laughed softly. ‘How far to the killing fields?’ she asked.

  ‘So, you can’t sleep either?’ Kien replied.

  ‘Sleepy, but can’t sleep.’

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  ‘What if there’s no tomorrow?’

  And so their intimate nonsenses had continued for the next hour, a period of delirious romantic joy in extraordinary circumstances.

  On the peace train returning home Kien had met Hien, the invalid girl. They had become friendly and on the last day they had shared a hammock. Hien, sad-eyed, sweet, the girl from Nam Dinh. She’d not been able to sleep either and kept whispering sweet nothings to him as the train clattered north, towards Hanoi.

  The first day of the war, with Phuong, passing Nam Dinh. The last day of the war, with Hien, herself from Nam.

  The peace train, as the soldiers called it – it was officially called the Thanh Nhat, the Unification Train – passed Thanh Hoa in the glow of dawn. Easing himself from Hien’s embrace he peered out through the window. Fields, roads, mounds, villages, dewy grass, river banks, bamboo clumps, coconut plantations, ponds, hills, cemeteries, rocks, creeks, all flashed past in the dim autumn morning sky. ‘Going home, going home,’ the murmur of the tracks began to change gradually to ‘Going south, going south.’ For an eerie minute he seemed to be with Phuong, ten years earlier, in her seventeenth summer, going south, south, south.

  They had clutched together in furious embrace on the floor of the rough goods car, surrounded by unseen but close, shadowy figures, snoring and smoking and murmuring.

  Yet they were a world apart and Phuong stretched herself invitingly against him time and time again as if lying on a soft bed in a first-class sleeping-car. Kien’s passion would rise and he would move in close, only to withdraw at the last moment, like a warrior half-drawing a sword from its sheath, then ramming it home again.

  She urged him on. ‘Come on, darling. Are you afraid?’

  Kien was about to respond, he recalled now. What would it have been? Finally, their pure spirits joining in true love in those strange conditions?

  A strange, whistling sound came to them from above, then other sounds, like the howling of engines high in the air. ‘Planes! Bombers!’ someone shouted and the mob in the car began scrambling in the dark.

  Jet planes had found the train. High above, in the very early morning, they were circling, then diving.

  Kien was slow to react. He was still dazed by the activity as he heard orders being shouted: ‘Stop the train. Alert, alert!’

  As the train was slowing, terror reigned. The compartment door was jerked open with a crash and men in panic began jumping from the braking but still moving car, hitting the tracks and sleepers with sickening thuds. Kien was standing up close to the door trying to get his bearings when the first direct attack came. ‘Kien! Kien!’ he heard a girl call. It must have been Phuong, but it came from a different corner of the car, and he couldn’t see anyone in the dark. The planes dived again, strafing with increasing accuracy as flares lit the scene.

  Blinded, he turned inward and saw in the blinding light the incredible sight of Phuong, lying prone on the floor, fighting a big man on top of her. She was struggling desperately, her hair flowing, her clothes being ripped from her, her mouth covered by a massive, brutal hand as he settled over her in a rhythm.

  A blast hit Kien and he was flung from the car onto the rail embankment and he rolled roughly, striking metal with such force that he fainted. When he came to his chest was burning, blood had begun seeping into his mouth, bringing a salty taste, and he felt sick. He looked at the train, with cars broken but basically intact, and heard a whistle. With some urgency the engine began puffing away and the cars one by one clanged as the slack was taken up and began moving slowly on.

  Kien jumped up and opened a compartment door. But Phuong was not there. Nor was she in the next, or the next. In panic, he jumped onto the steps of an escort locomotive, fearing he would otherwise be left behind. Two mechanics, wearing overalls smeared with oil, looked over at him with sympathy. Their faces were smeared with coal-dust and oil, their eyes shone chalk-white through these strange masks. One of them picked up a shovel and began stoking the furnace. The older man, the engineer, pulled on a cord and a screaming hoot was emitted. Kien sat there hardly taking any of this in. He began to fall sideways, into a faint. The young stoker supported him, wiping blood from Kien’s chin with the inside of his glove. Kien looked at the blood on the glove disbelievingly.

  ‘Cheer up, son,’ the old engineer told him. ‘This is kid stuff. The first whistle in the war. Nothing to it.’

  As the fog lifted Kien seemed also to regain his faculties. He suddenly remembered what he thought he had seen in the compartment, and what could still be happening there. He was to remember that as his first war wound, not the blood from his injuries now staining the glove.

  It was from that moment, when Phuong was violently taken from him, that the bloodshed truly began and his life entered into bloody suffering and failure. And he would understand true sacrifice; friends who would die to save others.

  On the morning of 30 April, in the dying moments of fighting, when his scout units were attacking the Lang Cha Ca building in Saigon, Kien had hesitated for a moment in his run. And that second’s hesitation was paid for with the life of the only other scout still alive in his unit. They were to have entered Saigon together.

  Kien had hesitated when, from the vault-like window of the ground floor of the building, he heard machine-gun fire. They had shelled the building so intensely it seemed unlikely any gunner was left alive. But there it was, machine-gun fire from inside.


  Kien slowed in his advance, crouching, listening. Tu, behind him, did not slow up. Kien crouched and moved cautiously but Tu raced past him and straight into the machine-gun fire. Tu’s back burst open and blood showered into Kien’s face.

  Back came the memories of Oanh, dying on the third floor of the Banh Me Thuot police station, when the policewoman – a girl really – had feigned death then shot Oanh, sacrificing her own life in doing so.

  And when Cu had laid covering fire to hold off an enemy regiment while Kien’s scouts escaped after a failed raid on the ARVN Airbornes near the Phuong Hoang pass, Big Thinh, Tam and of course Cu, who had given his life in order for them to get away, were lost.

  Kien and the only two others left from his scout platoon were fleeing from the southern forces who were pursuing them relentlessly in the Khanh Duong area. They were trying to reach the foot of the pass to catch up with their own units.

  It was broad daylight, which made movement more dangerous.

  Exhausted, they broke for a rest on the lower edge of a bamboo thicket. Tam tore a sleeve from his shirt to dress Thinh’s head wound. Kien, leaning against the bank of a ditch, rested his head between his knees. He had unslung his AK and placed it beside him. Behind them to the east the southern forces were now using artillery, setting their sights with ranging shots at the northern forces to the west, who were returning the artillery fire, also using trial shells to calibrate their sights. They were at each end of the Khanh Duong valley with the three surviving scouts in no-man’s-land between them. The whole area was alive with small-arms fire and the increasing thunder of artillery shells as each side bracketed their targets.

  Tam was tending Thinh’s head wound. Kien, sitting close by, was upset at having to leave Cu behind. They would not have escaped without him giving his life for them. ‘Just the three of us left from the entire platoon,’ Kien moaned.

  ‘You can worry about that later, Kien,’ said Tam, dressing the wound. ‘Thank your lucky stars there’s three of us still alive. It was bloody close.’

  Without warning a black shadow passed over them, passing through the bamboo tops and landing with a whump! right in front of them.

  A paratrooper had landed above their hideout; he stood over them on the top of a small bank looking down at the startled trio and covering them with his AR15 rifle. Their own three AKs were still on the ground near them, but they were now useless.

  The paratrooper was a tall young man with flowing hair. His red beret was tucked under his epaulettes. The rest of his uniform was spotted with dark red splotches of earth indicating he had been very active in this battle. Kien stiffened as the paratrooper put his finger on the trigger, expecting bullets to burst his chest cage open, rip his face and send explosions of his blood around the jungle floor as he had so often seen it happen to others.

  ‘Don’t shoot, sir,’ said Tam quickly. ‘I surrender. We surrender.’

  The southerner laughed. Gesturing with his free hand he gave orders. ‘Get up, quick! Sons of bitches, the three of you.’

  They rose, in fear of imminent death. Tam, in front of Kien, started to clamber up the small embankment as he’d been ordered. Suddenly, he lunged and grabbed one of the paratrooper’s legs, pulling him sharply. He started shooting but the shots went harmlessly into the air. Tam and the paratrooper tumbled back down into the ditch and Thinh shouted to Kien, ‘Run, quick, run!’

  Kien was torn between going to Tam’s aid and following Thinh. More paratroopers were landing and others were now crashing through the thicket close to them. They took the only course and began running along the ditch away from Tam and the first paratrooper. The new arrivals starting shooting at them, too, and the bullets sprayed around Kien’s head and behind him as he ran zig-zagging.

  ‘Oh!’ cried Thinh.

  That was all he heard. Just a small cry as Thinh lifted into the air and buckled and died.

  Kien continued through the bamboo cover. The paratroopers were throwing everything at him including bazooka fire, but they were wide of the mark.

  Kien ran until he fell from exhaustion. As he crawled on towards his lines his emotions were storming; excruciating pain at having left and lost his mates, ecstatic elation at having survived death once more.

  Strangely, that was not his most memorable escape. The most tragic, heart-rending and dangerous escape concerned Hoa. It was during the retreat after the Tet Offensives in 1968, an unfortunate time for them. For the infantry scouts even the sky was dangerous in those two weeks of withdrawal, carrying the wounded, dragging their feet through the jungles heading west towards the Cambodian border. In less than a fortnight they had been encircled twice, and twice in utter desperation had broken out of the traps, fighting fearlessly.

  Kien’s unit was in total disarray and badly beaten up. They fought a rearguard struggle as they headed west and together with three men from another company crossed the Poco River and wormed their way to Black Hill, which had been ground to powder by B52s. From that relative safety they ran for their lives into the sunset.

  As they were crossing some low-lying jungle areas at the foot of the Ngoc Bo Ray mountain, the group came across a team of stretcher-bearers heading for Cambodian territory. Against his better judgement, Kien and his men joined the stretcher-bearers from the Sa Thay river area and went along with them. They were all short of food and their units had been torn to shreds. They were exhausted and weak and seemed lost, although they were being led by a female guide. But she was not one of the Thuong minorities who knew the borderlands territory. She was from the north.

  American troops were all round them in this area and their ragged unit saw traces of them having passed earlier at various points, and other signs of their presence. They expected to run into them at any time, especially near water-holes; it was the dry season and there were precious few fresh water sources left, so they were natural ambush sites.

  Overhead there were the spotter planes and bombers to contend with. After some unexpected encounters with the enemy they took more wounded, including the stretcher-bearers. They reformed with groups of three carrying two stretchers each. They dragged and wormed their way along, heading west for the Sa Thay river. It seemed they had been wandering aimlessly around the base of Ngoc Bo Ray mountain, for they listened in vain for the welcome rippling song of the river which would spell relative safety for them.

  Hoa, the guide from the north, replied confidently to Kien’s comment that they were lost. Having no compass or map he was forced to rely upon her. But his intuition told him they were lost, and by the third morning their situation had become desperate. Instead of arriving on the east bank of the Sa Thay near Cambodia they arrived on the bank of an immense, unnavigable lake.

  ‘Heavens! Crocodile Lake!’ Hoa wailed in disappointment.

  Kien was disgusted; he stood moodily looking over the reedy lake watching the stinking vapours rise, and seeing several lurking crocodiles slithering around in the green, wet scum along the banks.

  ‘What’s this? A sightseeing tour? You’ve led us to this stinking Crocodile Lake. Great!’

  ‘My mistake,’ the guide said humbly.

  ‘It’s not a mistake, it’s a fucking crime,’ Kien muttered cruelly. ‘You ought to be shot, but bullets wouldn’t be good enough.’

  Hoa’s eyes filled with tears and her lips trembled. ‘I’ll pay for my mistakes, please, let me repay. I’ll find the way,’ she blubbered.

  ‘So, we’ll have a wash in the mud here, shall we, while we wait for you?’ he asked.

  ‘No. It’s not that bad. Crocodile Lake is close to the Sa Thay. I’ll backtrack and look for the turning. It’s not far. For now, let’s get back under cover near the foothills we’ve just passed. I’ll find the road and we’ll march again at sunset.’

  She spoke rapidly, eager to redeem herself.

  Spotter planes were circling overhead. Enemy mortars pounded another target on the other side of the lake, with increasing intensity. The shock waves began arriv
ing on their side of the lake’s shoreline.

  ‘It’s my fault, comrades, I’ll find the way. But first let’s get the wounded under cover,’ Sue repeated eagerly.

  Kien by this time had no confidence in Hoa but saw her as the only hope, for none of them knew the area. The lives of scores of wounded men and their stretcher-bearers depended on her confidence in finding the way to the safety of the border. The wounded were ashen-faced, their bodies now wasted from starvation and exhaustion.

  They withdrew from the lake shore to a creviced area where protective rock slabs shielded them from the harsh sun and the spotter planes. An unexpected and ominous calm fell on the area. The mortars had stopped, the roar of the jets could no longer be heard. The crackling sound of sporadic rifle-fire was heard, but apart from that only the groans of the wounded broke the silence.

  The heat and humidity oppressed them all. Kien scowled at Hoa as he spoke threateningly: ‘If you don’t lead us to the riverbank… you understand the consequences…’

  ‘Yes. Now, let me go now,’ she said.

  Kien unslung his AK and handed it to a stretcher-bearer. ‘If the Americans come, use this. Not many rounds left. Take this pistol too. Still got four in it. I’ll use grenades.’

  Kien handed another pistol to Hoa. ‘Avoid fighting. We’ve got to find the way out, not get into firefights, understand?’

  ‘Let me go alone, you rest here,’ she said to Kien.

  ‘No. I’m coming with you.’

  ‘You don’t trust me. I’ll find it, don’t worry.’

  ‘I don’t trust you. I’ll believe it when I see it. Our only duty is to these wounded; we have to find a way out at any cost,’ he said.

  ‘Understood,’ she said, looking at her boots.

  They backtracked for some time. When a head-shaped rock appeared before them Hoa whispered urgently: ‘That’s it. We turn here. This is where we missed the turning, couldn’t see the rock from the other side as we came in.’