War Baby

by Colin Falconer

  Smith stirred his coffee and seemed to be considering one of several replies. Finally he settled on one: ‘Guys like you make me sick.’

  Now they were getting down to basics. ‘That doesn’t bother me.’

  A smile: the effect was not pleasant. ‘Mr Webb, I don’t think the issues here are complex at all. Right now El Salvador does not have a perfect system of government, but you are not going to bring democracy to a country like this overnight. We are trying to do the best we can with what we have.’

  ‘And what do you have?’

  ‘We have a pro-American government fighting against externally supported guerrillas committed to turning El Salvador into a Marxist state. We just cannot afford another Vietnam right here on our doorstep.’

  ‘I agree with you. You can’t. That’s why I can’t believe you want to make the same mistakes you made last time.’

  ‘The only mistake we made last time was letting you guys lose that war for us. So we are asking you nicely to get on the team this time and support your adopted country.’

  ‘You talk about Vietnam as if it was a war we should have won. It was a war we had no place fighting, Mister Smith. There’s a difference there, but I wonder if it’s a little too subtle for you.’

  ‘What we are talking about here is fighting communism.’

  ‘No, what you are talking about is supporting fascism. You talk about democracy as if it’s some magical antidote to the Russians. Let me remind you what democracy is. It’s the right, enshrined in law, to speak out openly even if your opinion opposes that of the government of the day. In San Salvador, speaking out against the government is tantamount to signing your own death warrant.’

  ‘You don’t have democracy without stability. We have to save this country before we can free it.’

  ‘That’s like fucking for virginity. You don’t stand for democracy by violating human rights. Let me tell you something else: the reason the United States is a free and a democratic country is not because of the military. It is because of the free press. In short I am the one that stands for democracy here. You don’t.’

  A chill smile. ‘I’ll convey your remarks through the proper channels.’

  ‘You do that,’ Webb said.

  He had talked tough, but in truth he was scared now; scared of men like John Smith, scared of this country. He wondered what sort of pressures might now be brought to bear on the free and democratic press back in the United States that he had so ardently identified with a few moments ago. He threw some money on the table. ‘Coffees are on me. My contribution towards bringing democracy to the free world. Keep up the good work.’

  And he walked out.

  * * *

  When he got back to his hotel he took a phone call from his editor in New York. His last story was good, he said, but too emotive. It would have to be cut. Especially his remarks about Ricardo Beltran, which were possibly defamatory. Also any criticism of Reagan and the United States itself would not be received kindly, especially from a foreign-born journalist.

  And tell Daniels to tone it down a little. Most of his shots were too explicit for the national press. But you’re doing a good job. Just try and be a little more even-handed in your approach.

  When Webb hung up he tore the connection out of the wall and threw the telephone across the room.

  Chapter 28

  Webb and Daniels were sitting on the canopied porch of a Mexican restaurant in Escalón. The FMLN had blacked out the city again, and the candles on the table provided the only light. Both men only picked at their food, their attention focused on the Cherokee Chief with smoked glass windows that was parked in the Esso station across the road, its headlights extinguished.

  ‘I thought you ought to know,’ Webb said. ‘I think I was threatened this afternoon.’

  Daniels was on his fourth beer. The last few days he had been drinking too much and eating very little. In the guttering light of the candle he looked sallow and ill. ‘Threatened? Who by?’

  ‘A man who may or may not be called John Smith and who may or may not work for the United States government. In fact, he may or may not have threatened me. I thought about the conversation later and he made no direct statements to the effect that my safety was in question. I just got the feeling. You know?’

  Daniels shifted in his chair. ‘You think maybe it’s time we suggested a transfer to another assignment? I think we’ve done all the stories we can here.’

  Webb shrugged his shoulders and did not answer.

  ‘New York is mutilating your copy. Nothing we say or do is going to make any fucking difference.’

  ‘I don’t want to feel like I’m being chased out.’

  ‘You’re willing to risk our lives to prove a point?’

  ‘Not your life, Mike. If you want out, go. I mean it.’

  Daniels considered this offer. ‘Okay,’ he said, finally.

  There was not much more to say after that. It was what he suspected. He was disappointed in the guy, anyway.

  They paid their bill and left, caught a taxi back to the Camino Real. Several times they saw the driver glance in his rear-view mirror and cross himself. The Jeep Cherokee was following them, still without lights.

  When they got out of the taxi at their hotel, the Cherokee parked a hundred yards back up the boulevard. When they were inside the lobby, Daniels grabbed his arm. ‘Fuck this. Come out with me. You can’t fucking stay here.’

  ‘No wonder you’re a photographer,’ Webb said. ‘Your language is terrible.’

  * * *

  The highway to the airport snaked through lush hills green with jungle and banana groves. Children prodded cows along the side of the road with sticks; squads of brown-skinned men labored over roadside culverts. Every few miles there were army checkpoints where National Guardsmen in tight tunics and high leather boots waved down his car to paw through his passport and check his COPREFA credentials.

  El Salvador’s international airport was barely two years old, a legacy of Molina’s National Transformation, a glass mausoleum carved out of the raw jungle. Webb parked the Avis Golf and went inside. The arrivals hall was all marble, the air conditioning frigid. Two soldiers, armed with M-3 machine guns with flash suppressors, did not take their eyes off him.

  An Escalón matron cruised the airport gift shop, trying on silk scarves.

  Daniels had flown out the previous evening. When Webb had got back to the Camino Real there was a message for him from the IPA office in New York telling him that his replacement would be arriving this morning. Webb was confident he could do the job just as well on his own - after all, he had earned his spurs as a photo-journalist in Vietnam - but it was agency policy that two was the minimum staffing for any bureau, for safety reasons. Webb hoped Daniels’ replacement was someone he had worked with before, preferably someone who knew a little more Spanish than he did.

  The morning flight from Miami disgorged its human cargo; wealthy businessmen looking for investments for their coffee or cattle money, or their designer-dressed sons and daughters who had spent the last two weeks in Florida spending it. Webb’s new photographer did not fit in with this crowd; he was taller, not as well dressed, and without the regulation gold ropes at his neck and his wrists.

  He glimpsed an horrendous Hawaiian shirt, worn over lavender-colored slacks and accessorized with an expression of complete enchantment. Here was a man immediately enamored with the sight of so many soldiers and police with guns.

  ‘Fuck,’ Webb muttered.

  * * *

  Webb and Ryan drove north along the Suchitoto highway. Ryan wanted to get some photographs of government soldiers in action, and COPREFA had just issued a communiqué describing an offensive under way in Chalatenango province. That morning they headed in that direction, despite warnings that the area was strictly off limits to foreigners.

  After an hour they saw smoke rising from the hills as US-made A-37s swooped overhead. ‘Here we go,’ Ryan said. ‘Just like old times.’
<
br />   There was a roadblock just ahead. Webb pulled the Golf to the side of the road, and they both reached into the pockets of their jackets for their passports and COPREFA cards. They did this very slowly; it was not considered wise to startle a teenager holding an M-16.

  Both soldiers wore crucifixes, wrapped with green yam, and their olive-drab uniforms were stained with sweat and ochre dust. The younger of the two, a boy with badly pockmarked skin, indicated they should get out while the car was searched for weapons.

  When they were done the scar-faced boy handed them back their papers and shook his head to indicate that they would have to turn back. ‘You are not allowed past here,’ he said.

  Webb nodded to Ryan. Up ahead he could see a handful of farmers - campesinos - running down the road. He thought at first they were dragging a sack, but it was actually an old man with blood on his shirt. They were shouting in Spanish.

  ‘What are they saying?’ Ryan asked him.

  ‘They say they were being bombed by government planes.’

  ‘What do you want to do?’

  ‘I want to see for myself.’

  ‘That’s the spirit, Spider. Wave goodbye to the nice soldiers and let’s see what we can do.’

  Webb turned the car around and they headed back up the road towards San Salvador. He reached the bend a hundred yards from the roadblock and stopped the car. They both jumped out and ran into the forest and headed back the way they had come.

  It took them three hours to circle around the roadblock through the thick jungle, and rejoin the Suchitoto road. Then there was nothing for it but to walk the rest of the way.

  * * *

  As the day wore on the heat sucked all the moisture out of them, the dust from the road found its way into their eyes and throats. The jets were still patrolling the skies far in the distance.

  ‘Christ, it’s hot,’ Ryan said. ‘Reminds me of Queensland.’

  ‘Do you get bombed in Queensland?’

  ‘Every Saturday night, mate.’

  There was corn stubble and deserted bean fields on either side of the road. They passed the smoking ruins of several houses. A cow lay in a ditch with its feet in the air. They held their noses until they had passed.

  ‘The air force have done a job here,’ Ryan said. He finished a roll of film and began to load another.

  Webb grabbed his arm. ‘I don’t like the look of that,’ he said.

  The metal skin of the A-37 flashed in the sun against the dark backdrop of the volcano. It banked sharply and began a low swooping dive towards the road. Webb had known too many jet jockeys in Vietnam who had boasted to him about strafing civilians for fun on the way back to base after an operation.

  This time it could be our turn.

  ‘Shit,’ Ryan said. There was another ruined farmhouse about fifty paces away, right on the edge of the jungle. They reached it just in time and threw themselves inside. The jet roared overhead, treetop high, before wheeling away.

  ‘Bastard,’ Ryan hissed.

  Webb sat up. He looked over his right shoulder and found himself staring into the stubby muzzle of an Uzi sub-machine gun.

  Chapter 29

  There were six of them, an FMLN patrol sheltering from the same A-37 that had sent Ryan and Webb scurrying for shelter. They wore an odd assortment of uniforms, a mixture of cowboy hats and forage caps, UCLA sweatshirts and olive utilities, but they were well armed, each of them carrying a Galil or Uzi assault rifle.

  The commadante introduced himself in English as Salvador. He was grossly fat, his belly protruding over the leather belt, and his eyes were no more than slits above his plump cheeks. He wore aviator sunglasses and a beret with a little red star. His vast chest was criss-crossed with banderillos.

  He grinned at them with bad teeth. ‘Tourists?’ His voice belied his size; it was high-pitched, almost feminine.

  ‘Yeah. We’re looking for the local Club Med,’ Ryan said.

  Webb handed Salvador their press credentials and passports. Salvador shook his head. ‘Gringos. You crazy?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Ryan said. ‘Aren’t you?’

  Salvador considered the situation, tapping the passports against his palm. ‘You must come with us,’ he said at last.

  Webb looked at Ryan and shrugged his shoulders. ‘In the circumstances I think it might be churlish to refuse.’

  They set off through the jungle, along a narrow, winding trail that snaked north-west towards the volcano. Occasionally they passed small settlements, caserios, several of the adobe houses still smoldering from the recent aerial attacks. The air was hazy with smoke.

  ‘You want to take photograph now?’ Salvador said to Ryan, pointing to the ruins of a caserio.

  He sounded as casual as a tour guide. Ryan nodded and dutifully moved through the smoking ruins, documenting the results of the bombing with his Leica. Flies rose from a decomposing body inside one of the houses. A child.

  ‘We were seen here. So they bombed the village.’ Salvador spoke casually, as if the logic of this was irrefutable.

  When Ryan had finished they moved off again, single file. The guerrillas spoke little, to them or to each other, and there were few rest stops. Dusk fell quickly but the pace did not falter.

  An impenetrably black tropical night descended. To keep from getting lost they had to hold on to the pack of the man in front. Around midnight a fat yellow moon rose over the volcano and the march became easier.

  Webb reached what he considered the point of exhaustion, but there was no choice but to keep going. By the early hours of the morning putting one foot in front of the other required all his concentration. He even slept as he walked - there were a few bright, vivid dreams that were over in seconds - before he stumbled and was jarred back to reality.

  He wondered how long it would be before their Golf would be found abandoned on the Suchitoto road. It would be assumed that they had been kidnapped by death squads; the agency might even distribute their obituaries. The prospect excited him. The story they might get from this could lead to a major feature. Only a handful of Western journalists had reported on the war from the FMLN viewpoint. The title came to him: Back from the Dead. His editor in New York would like that.

  It might even make them famous.

  All they had to do was stay alive.

  * * *

  They saw their first tiled roof, just as the sun rose at their backs.

  ‘We’re here,’ Salvador said. ‘La Esperanza.’

  La Esperanza was thirty or forty adobe huts clustered under the broad canopies of oak and ceiba trees that provided shade as well as camouflage against the government jet bombers and helicopter gunships. As they got closer, Webb could see that they had not always been successful; several of the huts had shell holes in the roofs.

  He smelled wood smoke and human waste.

  As they entered the village half-naked children emerged from everywhere, and clustered around, staring in frank curiosity at these yanqui strangers. Webb was too exhausted to do more than give them a cursory glance.

  Salvador stopped in front of one of the huts. It appeared to be some kind of aid station; mouldering dressings, discarded syringes and broken glass ampoules were strewn on the ground outside.

  ‘Our hospital,’ Salvador announced, lending the building more grandeur than it perhaps deserved. ‘We have a gringo nurse. Perhaps you will like to meet her.’

  He went inside and reappeared a few moments later with a slender and fair-haired American girl.

  Webb stared.

  ‘Mickey,’ he said.

  Chapter 30

  ‘Jesus,’ she said.

  She wore a khaki workshirt and shorts, her hair was unkempt and tied back in a ponytail. She looked thin, gaunt with fatigue and, probably, malnourishment. Twelve years since he had last seen her, by his own reckoning.

  ‘Fuck.’

  She shook her head. ‘Fuck.’

  ‘You haven’t changed,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah. I looked like hell
in Vietnam as well.’ She put her hands on her hips. ‘You still chasing ambulances?’

  ‘These days I try and get there first and let the ambulances follow me.’

  She looked at Ryan. ‘You brought your pal.’

  ‘Colleague. Let’s get it right.’

  ‘Sean Ryan.’ Ryan nodded, too tired to do more. ‘I’m sure I’d remember you if we’d met before. If you were in Vietnam you probably picked some metal out of me some time or another.’

  ‘In fact you did. He was on the chopper that first time we met.’

  Ryan looked at him. ‘You’re kidding me.’

  Mickey turned to Salvador and asked him, in Spanish, where he had found the two gringos.

  ‘These idiots were just walking up the road,’ he said in Spanish. ‘We were going to shoot them.’

  ‘I bet you couldn’t hit a cow with a shotgun if it was standing on your foot,’ Webb said back to him, and Salvador looked flustered and his men laughed. Even Mickey smiled.

  ‘He didn’t know you spoke Spanish.’

  ‘Obviously.’

  ‘So I suppose you and your colleague are here looking for a story?’

  ‘Looks like we found it.’

  ‘One thing I’d like to clear up,’ Ryan said to her. ‘Are we prisoners?’

  ‘Of course not,’ Salvador interrupted. ‘Why? Do you want to leave?’

  ‘I guess not.’

  ‘Good. Come with me.’

  Webb looked at Mickey. He had a hundred questions to ask her, but he guessed they’d have to wait.

  Salvador led the way to a hut at the edge of the village. There were shellholes in the roof and in one of the walls. The floors were hard-packed dirt. ‘You can sleep here.’

  ‘Nice place,’ Ryan said. ‘Is there a bond?’

  ‘The last family who lived here was killed by the same bomb that made the hole in that wall,’ Salvador said. ‘We don’t bother to fix the houses any more. Now it looks just like any other ruin so they don’t bother to bomb it.’