by Mike Jenne
Thanh read a terse missive from Hanoi. Until his situation was clarified, Lieutenant Commander Scott would remain a guest of Camp # 4. Thanh was dismayed by the distraction and desired nothing else but to wash his hands of the American. Worse yet, since Hanoi was swamped with the details of the ongoing prisoner reparations, they tasked Thanh to resolve the situation with Scott. Glancing into the flimsy plastic pouch that contained the documents, he saw that Hanoi had at least had the foresight to send him some resources to assist in the process.
Gazing at the ceiling fan slowly spinning above his desk, he groaned in frustration. Apart from being confounded by the American’s stubbornness, there were other aggravating issues as well. To look after Scott, he was compelled to routinely allocate at least three guards from his understaffed security contingent.
That left him barely enough to adequately guard the South Vietnamese prisoners; he was sure that if they ever recognized the lapse, they would quickly seize control of the camp. To make matters even worse, he expected another influx of at least one hundred prisoners at the end of the week, and the current crop had proven themselves considerably more hardy than most, so he already had a backlog to contend with.
Thanh was weary with the grim drudgery of administering the camp, and he didn’t relish any additional duties. If anything, he wanted to be far away from here, to be assigned to an infantry or tank regiment preparing for the impending last invasion of the South. He scratched his nose and took off his glasses; the ponderously thick lenses were a constant reminder why he had been rejected for the glories of combat duty.
He finished the letter from Hanoi and formulated his plan. As serendipitous fortune would have it, he had been dealt a unique card. At the same time Scott was delivered, a badly wounded infantry lieutenant was evacuated to the camp’s infirmary. The lieutenant—Bao Trung—had been captured by the American rescue team, but valiantly escaped after being tortured. Since he knew English and was too badly injured to return to combat duties, Thanh had arranged for him to remain at Camp # 4 to assist with the handling of the American.
Thanh had been extremely impressed with Bao Trung’s tenacity and dedication. Even though the American commandoes had brutally smashed his jaw, Bao Trung volunteered to assist with interrogating Scott even before he was able to speak. During the questioning sessions, he sat in as a recorder, which enabled the interrogator to more effectively use his time and energies.
As Bao Trung recuperated, he spent more time with the American, becoming his de facto caretaker. He talked to him daily, making patient inroads to hopefully learn more about Scott’s background and training. Additionally, since he had sustained such serious injuries and would not return to his infantry duties, Thanh requested that he be permanently assigned to Camp # 4 to oversee the guard force. In fact, Bao Trung had been authorized a furlough to go to his home, in far western Lai Chau province, to collect his family and bring them here to his new posting.
“Corporal!” he yelled to the soldier standing guard outside his office door. “Bring me Bao Trung! Now!”
Ten minutes later, Bao Trung appeared at the door. Although his jaw had healed, his face was still badly swollen and discolored. His right arm was still in a sling and would likely remain so for several more weeks.
Thanh gestured for the lieutenant to take a seat and then quickly described his dilemma with the American. Waving the letter, he concluded, “And so long as we don’t kill him, we are authorized to do whatever is necessary to determine his true identity.”
“You mean that we’re authorized to torture him?” asked Bao Trung quietly. “I thought that only the interrogation team was permitted to employ physical measures on him. I’m not questioning your word, Comrade Major, but Hanoi has actually cleared us to beat him?”
Thanh nodded. “Whatever it takes,” he clarified. “Provided that he can be healed up sufficiently afterwards so that he can be sent to his country.”
“Well, sincerely, I don’t think you can pound the truth out of him, Comrade Major,” observed Bao Trung candidly. “I’ve witnessed him being interrogated, you know. He has an immense threshold for physical pain.”
“I know that you spend a considerable amount of time with him. You’ve become friendly with this American?”
“No, but I admire him for his toughness, Comrade Major,” answered Bao Trung. “But since he is secluded from his own kind, he’s terribly lonely. It’s obvious that he enjoys talking with me in his own tongue, but I must caution you that he’s still very cagey. In all the times we’ve conversed, he has divulged nothing of significance about his background, military or otherwise. I don’t think it would suit our interests to coerce him physically.”
“Here,” said Thanh, proffering the thick packet that had been dispatched from Hanoi. “Use these items as you see fit.”
Bao Trung opened the packet to find two mimeographed copies of the reconciliation list—one printed in English and the other in Vietnamese—along with a glossy American news magazine. Frowning, he flipped through the magazine. Although it covered some news items, its slick pages seemed largely devoted to disgusting advertisements for automobiles, cigarettes, liquor and other products of America’s excessive culture. “Why on earth would Hanoi send this capitalist propaganda?” he asked, closing the journal and slapping it on Thanh’s desktop.
“I don’t read English, but I think it’s to help convince him that we’re sincere about the prisoner repatriation.” Thanh pointed at the cover, which showed former POWs arriving home. “I rely on your judgment in this matter. If you think it’s not wise to show it to him, then don’t.”
“And I can show him this list?” asked Bao Trung.
“You can let him see the English version. The other is strictly for our use.” Thanh explained that the other list was annotated with a distinctive code next to each name if the man had already been identified as a POW to the American authorities. In other instances, a different code reflected the man’s ultimate disposition. A sizeable portion of the names bore no codes at all, indicating that their status was truly unknown.
“I don’t understand,” said Bao Trung. “Would it not be enough for him to just identify himself correctly? If we find a corresponding name on the list, wouldn’t that suffice?”
Thanh slapped at a mosquito and answered, “No. First, our superiors in Hanoi strongly suspect that Lieutenant Commander Scott may have been sent here to deceive us.”
“How so?”
“The overall timing is very suspect,” explained Thanh. “It has to be more than a coincidence that we captured an American pilot who refuses to correctly identify himself just weeks before the American negotiators provided us with this list of names. Surely, their intent might be to trick us into releasing someone whose name is not on the list. Then they could claim that we are not cooperating or that we’re holding more prisoners than we’re admitting to.”
Thanh continued. “And even if you convince the American to give you a name, it must still be vetted against this list to ensure that he is not trying to pass himself as someone already identified to the Americans as a POW.”
“Or someone else,” noted Bao Trung, scrutinizing the other codes on the list. “So what happens if the American correctly identifies himself and he’s legitimate?”
“Then he will be sent directly to Hanoi for repatriation with the other prisoners. That simple. The arrangements have already been made. All you need do is motivate him to give his correct name. Can you do that, Hero Bao Trung?”
“I will do my utmost,” stated Bao Trung. “But, Comrade Major, you should be aware that my furlough has been granted by Central Headquarters. I depart for home on Monday.”
Thanh nodded. “How long has it been since you’ve seen your wife?”
“Not since I was wounded.”
“But that was only in December.”
“Not since I was wounded the first time,” clarified Bao Trung, rubbing his stomach. “That was down South, over two and a hal
f years ago. And I’ve never seen my son.”
“Then you will go on your furlough,” asserted Thanh. “I cannot ask you to do otherwise.”
“Thank you, Comrade Major,” replied Bao Trung. “I greatly appreciate your kindness.”
“Do you think you can persuade him to reveal his true identity?” asked Thanh. “In the time available before you leave on furlough?”
“I think so, comrade,” replied Bao Trung, nodding. He tucked the lists and magazine into the packet. “And you are authorizing me to do anything that I see fit?”
“Anything,” affirmed Thanh, nodding.
“And what happens if I fail in this task?”
“Then he will remain here, Bao Trung,” answered Thanh, gazing out a window towards the dusty cemetery. “With the others.”
10:00 p.m., Monday, March 12, 1973
In what had become a nightly ritual, after lying down at dusk and sleeping only a few hours, Carson rose, stretched, and went to the solitary window of his cell. With the exception of a few guards who patrolled the grounds with flashlights, periodically pausing to peer into shadows, the camp compound was pitch black at night. He would stand there for hours, looking up through the tiny portal, gazing at the stars as he contemplated his circumstances.
Although he could only glimpse a sliver of the night sky, the tableau progressively changed as the stars traced their arcs through the heavens. Even though the transition occurred at a snail’s pace, it was motion and change nonetheless, so much different than his present environment, painted in immutable and immoveable shades of gray.
In the course of his brief captivity, Carson had discovered much about himself. He learned that he could bear loneliness. He could tolerate confinement. But after spending most of his adult life travelling at speeds not even imaginable to most mortal men, he hated the sensation of being motionless. So this became his special time, when his world did move, if but gradually.
As the hours passed, old friends came to visit. For most of his life, they had largely been strangers until Ourecky introduced him and taught him their names and their stories. Now, there was King Cepheus, husband to Cassiopeia, who herself would arrive shortly afterwards. Cepheus was also the father of beautiful Andromeda, who unfortunately would remain outside his limited field of view. The familiar stars beckoned to him, reminding him of the days when he and Ourecky rode into orbit together.
As he watched, a meteor streaked across his narrow patch of sky, etching a bright trail across the heavens. The fleeting celestial event triggered a distant memory. He was reminded of his childhood, in the years after his father died in a crash and his mother killed herself—and another motorist—while driving drunk. He was sent to live with his uncle, a pilot like his father, who was aggressively engaged in climbing the Air Force career ladder. His uncle was a confirmed bachelor who didn’t have the slightest clue about how to raise a young boy, nor did he appreciate the potential interference with his social life. His solution was to pack young Carson off to a string of military schools.
With the exception of their names and locations, the boarding schools were essentially the same: headed by pompous retired officers, they universally featured apathetic teachers, sadistic drill instructors, bland food, an abundance of teenaged bullies, and a corresponding profusion of the vulnerable boys who were their prey.
As his uncle ascended the ranks and transferred from one base to another, Carson likewise migrated from one dismal academy to the next, and became incredibly adept at swiftly fitting into their regimented lifestyles and interchangeable cultures.
He ridiculed the kids who couldn’t similarly adjust and adapt. He recalled how ruthless he had been, and remembered a pathetic eleven-year-old boy at a military school in rural Alabama—Lyman Ward—who had received his greatest scorn. A new arrival, the dreadfully homesick kid lay atop his GI wool blanket on his Army surplus bunk, crying as he stared out the window. Feigning sincerity, Carson had asked him what he was looking for. The gullible kid admitted that he longed to see a shooting star that he could wish upon; he ached for his parents’ broken marriage to be healed so that he could go home again. After that night, for the next several months, Carson and his mates had rendered the hapless kid’s life into a living hell, until he was finally taken in by his merciful grandparents.
Now that he had a greater insight into that homesick kid’s anguish, Carson looked at the falling star’s fading trace, closed his eyes, and wished that he could also go home again.
5:35 p.m., Thursday, March 15, 1973
Smelling the cooking odors wafting from the kitchen, Carson’s stomach rumbled in anticipation of his evening meal. It was a long time since breakfast, and he was ravenous. He cocked his head to listen for the footfalls of the approaching guard who would deliver his repast.
Unexpectedly, the door creaked open and Bao Trung stepped inside the cell. “Rise up,” he ordered. “Come with me, Drew. I’m taking you to eat with the others.”
Shielding his eyes from the unfamiliar glare of the late afternoon sun, Carson clambered to his feet and replied, “The others? Americans? I’m finally going to see Americans?”
“No. There are no other Americans here. You are the only one.”
Walking gingerly on bare feet, Carson ambled behind Bao Trung into the bare earth courtyard adjacent to the communal kitchen. The courtyard was crowded with Vietnamese prisoners, obediently waiting in line to be served their evening meal.
Standing behind a rough wooden table, two prisoners doled out the meager rations, ladling each man an exacting share of rice, some weak broth, and a damp lump that resembled boiled cabbage. At the end of the line, two other men—apparently the ranking officers amongst the South Vietnamese—inspected each bowl to ensure that the portions were strictly uniform. Carson was amazed at the disciplined approach, and speculated why it might be necessary.
As they approached the entrance to the kitchen, Bao Trung shouted something in rapid-fire Vietnamese. A prisoner scurried inside and returned with a covered metal pan that he carefully handed to Carson.
As a malnourished prisoner shuffled by, Carson stole a glance into his bowl. The bottom was scarcely covered by rice. “There’s not much in their bowls,” he noted, looking toward Bao Trung. “I guess that they’re fed more at breakfast?”
Bao Trung sniffed, shook his head, and answered, “This is their only meal for the day, Drew. As meager as it is, that is all that they eat every day, unless they are fortunate enough to catch a rat, a bird or some insects.”
Carson realized that the gaunt Vietnamese prisoners subsisted on rations that scarcely kept them at the fringe of starvation. Suddenly consumed with guilt, he lifted the lid of his pan and looked inside; it overflowed with a heaping bed of brown rice garnished with glistening chunks of pork fat and fresh vegetables.
“Here,” said Bao Trung, pointing at a spot in the shade of the kitchen. “Have a seat.”
“Can’t I just go back to my cell to eat?” asked Carson self-consciously.
“Not today.”
Carson sat on the hard ground. As he uncovered his dinner, he noticed that the emaciated Vietnamese men were glaring at him. Drooling at the tantalizing odors emanating from his pan, they looked more like animated skeletons than human beings. Most wore only simple loincloths; their exposed skin was afflicted with expanses of festering sores and scaly patches of ringworm.
Despite their shared misery, there was no fighting or bickering over the meager rations; instead, the men consumed only what they had been given, and the more able-bodied fed the weak. Not too far from Carson, two men sat facing one another, picking lice from each others’ scalps.
“I brought you out here for a reason, Drew,” explained Bao Trung. “Most of these men will never go home. That’s one reason why they are not fed very much. Starving men are more—what’s the word?—compliant.”
Carson gestured at his pan and asked, “Can I give this to them? Please? I don’t feel very much like eating anymore.
”
“No. That meal is yours, not theirs. Besides, Drew, they would literally die if they were permitted to eat food that rich. And if you feel so guilty that they have so little and you have so much, do you intend to donate all of your meals to them? Now, eat, and then we’ll go back to your cell and talk.”
Averting his eyes from the suffering, burning with shame and no longer hungry, Carson devoured his meal quickly. Bao Trung sent a prisoner to return the empty pan to the kitchen, and then escorted Carson out of the courtyard.
The two men entered the cell. Carson took a seat on the straw mat that served as his bed. Still and humid, the air smelled of clay dust. Birds chirped in the distance.
“Drew, may I ask you something?” asked Bao Trung, placing a gray plastic envelope on the cement floor.
Carson nodded.
“I’ve asked you this before, but do you have a wife? Do you have a family?”
Carson said nothing.
Bao Trung held out a small black-and-white photograph. “This is my wife and son.”
“Your wife is beautiful,” observed Carson, looking at the woman’s hauntingly sad face. “Thank you. My son was still an infant in that picture, but he’s three years old now. He was born after I departed to fight in the South. I have not been home since.” Bao Trung tucked the picture away. “I don’t know if you have a family, Drew, and I’m not going to continue pestering you about it. I will tell you this, though: if you ever want to see your family or go back home, you need to listen to me very carefully.”
Bao Trung continued. “Drew, the war between our nations, is over. Right now, as we speak, my government is repatriating American prisoners of war to your government. This has been going on for several weeks. In fact, we are very close to releasing the last of the prisoners.”