P. O. W.

by Donald E. Zlotnik

  Garibaldi felt like puking.

  “Where are you from?” the actress asked Spencer.

  He looked directly into her eyes and then quickly down at the ground. She mistook the submissive act for shyness; actually, Spencer knew that if he continued looking at her he would punch out her capped teeth.

  Spencer continued studying the ground. “The United States of America.” The statement was complete and she didn’t push it.

  “Well, it was nice talking to you. I can see that you have been well cared for, but that is to be expected. The North Vietnamese are a civilized people. It is we who can learn from them. We are the aggressors!” She brushed a wisp of loose hair out of her eyes. “Is there anything you would like me to tell anyone back home?” She looked at Barnett and then at Garibaldi.

  Garibaldi hesitated and then decided it was more important for his wife to know that he was still alive than to say nothing to the woman. “Yes, would you tell my wife that I’m alive… I’m fine…. My name is Salvador Garibaldi.”

  “Oh… Italian… I’ll have to write that one down.” She searched for a pen and paper. Her manager pulled out his notebook and handed it to the colonel. He wrote his name, rank, and serial number down, and then he wrote Spencer’s name. He wanted someone to know that both of them were alive and were POWs.

  “How about you, young man?”

  Spencer shook his head.

  “Come on! There must be someone back home you want me to talk to!”

  Spencer shook his head again and saw that Van Pao was giving him a threatening glare. “I’m an orphan.”

  The statement was more of a shock to Garibaldi than it was to the celebrity. He had assumed Spencer had a family back home just like almost everyone else did. He felt embarrassed about all of the things he had told the boy about his family.

  The actress turned to leave. “I’m sorry about that.”

  Spencer smiled. The NVA general and Lieutenant Van Pao had their backs to them and were starting toward the gate. The starlet paused and turned back to face the POWs. Her manager stopped also and smiled at Spencer.

  “Have courage. The war will be over soon, and they will release you. I’m sure of that.”

  Spencer checked to make sure the general and Van Pao still had their backs to him and gave the movie star the finger. “Thank you so much for coming to visit us.” His voice was soft but he rammed his finger at her and then at the manager.

  “Oh… my!” She covered her mouth with the back of her hand.

  Van Pao turned to see Barnett genuflecting to the actress, and she smiled. He was learning humility.

  The camp staff and visitors left the small American compound and walked toward the NVA quarters. The general had never visited A Rum and requested through his staff that he be given a completed tour when he brought the famous American for a visit. A pair of North Vietnamese photographers had been taking pictures for a photo journal that would be issued worldwide, and the general wanted some shots of his soldiers and the way that they lived in the jungle while they served the Communist cause.

  What happened next was a totally serendipitous result of the senior general’s visit to the camp. The sergeant in charge of the guard detail had made an error on the roster and had one squad guarding the general’s helicopter that should have been assigned to POW duty. The guards who had been on duty at the American compound were instructed to accompany the visitors back to their barracks and to stand by for the general’s inspection. The error left both the American compound and the south side of the camp unguarded.

  The old Montagnard chief saw the error almost instantly from his longhouse porch. He reacted with the speed of an old mountain warrior who had survived the jungle for over sixty years.

  The nine-year-old boy ran up to the unlocked gate and pushed it open. His grandfather had told him they would have only a very few minutes head start, but that would be enough if they could reach the jungle. The boy had been instructed to lead them south for a short distance and then head west along the Rao Lao until they came to the first rapids, where they were to hide until some Montagnard warriors could be sent to guide them safely to the Americans in the A Shau Valley. The old chief knew the American boy couldn’t make it all the way to the A Shau without help.

  Garibaldi saw the boy’s head in the doorway and frowned. He couldn’t figure out why the small child was there at that time of day. The youth beckoned rapidly and spoke in a high-pitched voice filled with excitement. Garibaldi touched Barnett and pointed to the nine-year-old.

  “It looks like he wants us to follow him.” Spencer stepped over to where the boy stood and touched his shoulder and then tapped his own chest. “You want me?” Spencer pointed back at the boy, and he nodded his head vigorously. “Yes! He wants us to follow him.”

  Garibaldi rushed over to the door and looked out. “The guards are gone!”

  The next few minutes were all reaction without much thinking. Garibaldi ran back to his cot and removed the knives. Barnett grabbed a couple of the new blankets off the beds and a set of the eating utensils. He ran after Garibaldi and the boy and followed them through the open gate into the jungle. Spencer ran with the blankets rolled up under one arm and the knife, fork, and spoon clenched in his other hand. The two American POWs were functioning off pure adrenaline and the energy the food had given them from the night before; neither of them had any idea where they were going in the jungle. They had placed their trust in a nine-year-old boy.

  The narrow path they were on was used almost exclusively by Bru hunters and messengers. The NVA rarely discovered one of the Bru secret trails—and when they did, the paths looked like they led to nowhere. The boy slipped down the path like a will-o’-the-wisp and had to stop frequently for the Americans to catch up. His grandfather had told him they would be weak and tire easily. He felt no fear. His grandfather had told him to take the Americans to the first rapids, and he would obey him. The NVA meant nothing to him. He had lived his whole life with the NVA soldiers coming and going from the villages his tribe built. He did not like them, because they had hurt his grandfather, but he didn’t fear them. They were like the big cobras: something always there in the jungle, simply to be avoided.

  The escape to the river was easy, because it was all downhill. The boy found the river path and pointed in the direction they would take. Both Garibaldi and Spencer noticed that they were heading south, away from the South Vietnamese border. A second’s worth of fear slithered down the colonel’s spine. The Montagnards might be stealing them, for another purpose—to be used as slaves. The colonel had read Conrad’s Heart of Darkness in college, and the idea of human slaves in the twentieth century had bothered him, especially the part where they had blinded the man so that he couldn’t escape, and then they used him to grind grain.

  Barnett hissed to gain the colonel’s attention and gestured that he should follow the boy. Garibaldi blinked and started walking; it was too late to turn back now. He had one of the knives and decided that if the Montagnards intended on using them as slaves, he would kill himself.

  The jungle was much different from how Spencer had seen it before. The animals became quiet as they passed but started their normal noise almost immediately when their backs were to them. The boy moved down the narrow path dodging and weaving, leaving hardly a leaf rustling. He carried a youth’s crossbow that would kill a man at very close range but had been designed for shooting birds and small game.

  Spencer heard the rapids and knew they were approaching the Rao Lao River, but he didn’t know which part of the landmark they were at. The river ran from the west down the mountain range and emptied into the A Shau Valley. With the river as a guide, Spencer knew that he could find the Special Forces camp in the valley.

  The boy paused and pointed up at the side of the cliff overlooking the rapids. He started up the mist-covered rocks and paused again to encourage the Americans to follow him. He smiled and waved. Garibaldi started up the cliff using the same handholds the bo
y had selected and carefully moved along the narrow ledge a step at a time. The boy stopped when the ledge widened and pointed at a natural cave that was hidden from view from below.

  Spencer joined them. “Nice place.” The lip of rock kept the majority of the mist from entering the cave, and even though it was damp inside, it was comfortable.

  The boy used sign language to tell them to stay there and wait for him to return. Spencer sat down next to Garibaldi and the two of them sighed almost in unison. Spencer laughed.

  “Damn, am I tired!” Spencer leaned his head back against the rock. “Here…” He handed Garibaldi one of the blankets.

  “We’ve been traveling for at least three hours, maybe four.” Garibaldi wrapped the blanket around his shoulders and lay down on his side. He fell into an exhausted sleep almost instantly.

  Spencer curled up next to the colonel and was sleeping within a minute. He was scared, but free.

  Lieutenant Van Pao was happy. The general had complimented her on the operation of A Rum and hinted that she might be promoted soon. He had been taken separately to see Mohammed James and had been very pleased with the information James was supplying to the NVA cause. He had given Van Pao the credit for James’s extreme cooperation and had informed her that the American movie star’s visit was worth ten North Vietnamese divisions in the field. The propaganda value of her visit was immense and would be a tremendous demoralizing factor for the American troops fighting in Vietnam.

  Van Pao heard the rapid beat of a pair of Ho Chi Minh sandals slapping against the ground and the heavy breathing as the soldier reached her hooch. The sergeant stuck his head through the doorway without asking permission and ruined her day.

  “The Americans have escaped!” His words cut through her like a wire whip.

  “Both of them?”

  He answered with a curt nod.

  She removed her pistol and pointed it at his head and then lowered it and rushed to the door. “Find them!”

  The NCO tried squeezing past her and she hit his back with the barrel, knocking him down on all fours.

  “Find them or you will be fed to Mother Kaa!” The threat was a real one, and the soldier knew it.

  The Montagnard boy returned with three Bru warriors from one of the dozen small Bru villages that lined the Rao Lao River. The men brought food and mats to lie on. A small warming fire was built in the safe cave, and the men spent the night there. Spencer and Garibaldi slept the sleep of the exhausted, and both of them were stiff the next morning but happy. They were free, and if their luck held out, they would be in the Special Forces camp in three or four days of walking.

  The Montagnard warriors guided them almost due east along the mountain ridges, using hidden paths and jungle trails. A couple of times they heard rifle shots from NVA search parties, but they were always far to the north of them. The trip would become much more difficult once they broke out of the high mountains. There they would be forced to travel through the low hills in the A Shau Valley, where there were numerous NVA scouts and patrols.

  The boy stopped frequently as they traveled to check on the condition of the Americans. He had to ask the warriors to help Garibaldi and Spencer up steep inclines. The Americans were losing their strength very fast, and the pace had to be adjusted almost every hour.

  The second day of traveling after leaving the cave brought them to the source of the stream they had been using as a guiding landmark. The three warriors spoke to the boy and then shook hands with Spencer and the colonel before disappearing into the jungle.

  “Do you know what’s going on?” Spencer asked the colonel.

  “I think they’ve gone as far as they’re allowed to go by their village chief.” Garibaldi looked around. “Let’s climb to the crest and look for a landmark.”

  Garibaldi took the lead, with the boy bringing up the rear. He wondered how close they were to the border. The crest of the mountain was covered with thick jungle, and it was impossible to see anything unless you climbed one of the large mahogany trees. Barnett volunteered to make the climb and slipped down to the ground a couple of times before he found the right handholds in the vines that were attached to the trunk of the tree. He climbed a good fifty feet off the ground before he could see over the tops of the second-canopy trees down in the valley below them.

  “Can you see anything?” Garibaldi called up in the loudest voice that he dared use.

  Spencer’s chest muscles tightened and pressed the air out of his lungs when he saw the Special Forces camp cut out of the tall grasses that covered the valley floor about six miles east of their location. The fog was gone and the dark greens twinkled in the bright light, contrasting against the red clay that outlined the fighting camp from the constant bulldozing of the fire lanes around the camp. It looked small from where Spencer was, but he could recall almost every single one of the bunkers and the faces of the Special Forces team. Safety was so close, yet so very far away.

  “I see the SF camp down in the valley.” Spencer scurried back down the vines and dropped the last ten feet—a mistake, he realized the second his feet touched the ground. They were still very tender and the long walk down the trails had opened up some of the cuts.

  “How long do you think it’ll take us to get there?” Garibaldi was actually accepting the idea that they just might make it to safety.

  “I’d say about a half-day, maybe less if we’re lucky. It’s mostly downhill all the way, but the camp will be watched by the NVA, and I’d hate to almost make it there and then get killed. We’ll have to be really careful the last couple thousand meters.” Spencer thought a second and added, “We might be lucky enough to run into a patrol from the camp.”

  “We’ll have to be careful about that too… and keep an eye on the boy. He might get shot by accident.” Garibaldi placed his hand on the youth’s shoulder and squeezed gently as he had seen the boy’s grandfather do. He was careful not to break a Montagnard taboo, like pat the boy’s head. The Montagnards thought that a person could pat the evil spirit Tang Lie into the heads of children.

  The boy smiled up at the colonel and pointed in the direction of the Special Forces camp.

  “I think he has already decided on taking us there.” Garibaldi smiled down at the boy. “He’s been there once—to take that photograph I found to the Americans.”

  She growled a warning at the noise and the smell of the invaders. It was a soft, almost bored growl, but it carried along the jungle floor the hundred meters from her cave to the large mahogany tree Spencer Barnett had climbed. Garibaldi and Spencer had missed the sound, but the Montagnard boy heard it, and his reaction was almost instantaneous. There were few things in the Asian jungles that brought uncontrolled fear to a Montagnard; one of them was the growl of a hungry tiger. The boy knew instantly from her low, throaty, guttural cough that she was both irritated and hungry. He hit Barnett across his rear with the crossbow and pointed for him to get back up the tree, and then he ran over to Colonel Garibaldi and repeated the act.

  Spencer paused. “What’s wrong with him?”

  “I think he wants us to climb the tree….” Garibaldi looked at the boy, trying to understand why he was so excited all of a sudden.

  The nine-year-old pushed Garibaldi against the tree and then ran over and shoved Spencer before he started climbing as fast as he could. They had been warned, and if they were stupid enough to stay on the ground—well then, he would have to tell his grandfather that they had been too stupid to help themselves and had been eaten by a tiger.

  Spencer felt the boy’s fear and looked around the jungle that hugged the narrow path. He felt a primeval survival shiver run along his spine. “I think we’d better just trust the kid, Colonel.” Spencer started climbing up the vines. The boy had already reached the first fork in the branches and had turned back to encourage the Americans to climb faster. “Come on, sir.”

  The colonel stood on the jungle floor and looked up the trunk for a better avenue to the large branch the boy sa
t on. He could see the fear in the child’s face and decided that he should just start climbing.

  Spencer reached the branch and straddled it. The boy started talking rapidly in Bru and pointed down at the ground. Barnett smiled at him and then looked where the kid was pointing. She was directly under the tree, looking up at Garibaldi struggling with a loose vine. The colonel lost his grip with his left hand, and all of his weight was transferred to his right hand. He swung against the tree and dug his toes into the matting of vines to regain his balance. He fought not to fall the fifteen feet back down to the ground.

  “Colonel… don’t fall… hang on!” Spencer leaned forward on the branch with his arm held out.

  “I don’t think I can make it up this way; I’m going to climb back down and come up the side you did….” Garibaldi looked up to where the boy and Spencer sat.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Colonel….” Spencer tried keeping the fear out of his voice; he didn’t want the colonel to panic.

  “I can’t make it up this way, Spence!”

  “Look down over your shoulder and see if you change your mind….”

  Garibaldi flashed an angry look at Spencer and looked over his shoulder. She was huge. The tufts of fur sticking out around her face made her head look as large as a wash-tub as she studied the live meat in the tree. She had gained a few more pounds with her pregnancy, which filled out her sides a little more, but she was huge anyway.

  “Oh shit…” Garibaldi whispered the words.

  “Come on!” Spencer didn’t need to encourage him again.

  Suddenly Garibaldi found handholds in the vines he hadn’t seen before, and he scurried up the tree with a newfound energy. He straddled the branch behind the Montagnard boy and leaned back against the trunk.

  “Oh shit!” Garibaldi exhaled so hard that he could have extinguished a match twenty feet away.

  Spencer had been watching the tiger circling the tree as she looked for a way up. “There’s something wrong with her hip.”