One Very Hot Day

by David Halberstam

  He talked with Dang while the young Vietnamese lieutenant who was Anderson's counterpart came up and started talking with Anderson; they seemed at ease, speaking first in English, and then as they walked away together, changing to Vietnamese; they seemed to Beaupre to be normal and young, and, for a moment, he envied them speaking Vietnamese and envied them speaking English, envied them being friends, envied them being young.

  He turned back to Dang and they talked again, each telling the other that it would be hot, very hot that day.

  They got in a jeep with Dang and went to the head of the file, and suddenly the trucks were on the road and the Americans in the jeep were leading the convoy; if there were a mine, they would touch it off. Along the road there were the stirrings of the coming day, civilization, the highway markets were being set up, and the children were already selling the cut sticks of pineapple. They stopped at a bridge, and what seemed like hundreds of children poured out from one little stand, waving pineapple sticks. The troops began to bargain, and laugh and shout at the children, one saying that he would buy the pineapple stick and the boy's sister for five piastres. They bought a lot of pineapple and Beaupre looked at it for a moment, lush and thick, translated its price to American currency, two cents, and then his discipline held him, but in the process he thought of the heat.

  Then they were past the bridge, and down the sideroad, and soon they stopped, and left the trucks; and even that little strip of civilization, small as it was, the civilization of bareass boys selling pineapple, was behind them, and they were in the interior.

  They moved out in single file. They were little men in big helmets, carrying big weapons. Curiously, the first time Beaupre had seen them in action, coming in on a helicopter, he had been surprised how big they seemed; he had expected them to be some sort of miniature soldiers, armed Boy Scouts, but from above it had been difficult to tell them from the American advisers until the last minute except for the difference in the way they walked — the Vietnamese had clearly not seen as many westerns as the Americans. But on the ground they looked small again, with the helmets mocking them and the war, neither soldiers nor Boy Scouts; somehow because of the helmets, it was not serious; the Colonel sometimes referred to them absentmindedly as “the kids.” It was a beefed-up unit of the Eleventh Regiment, really a headquarters company plus another company, not a full battalion, and it seemed somehow, 150 men, more like a company than a battalion.

  He watched while Dang talked to the Vietnamese Lieutenant, and then Dang said something to the troops, and they began to move, cheerfully.

  He fell in at first behind Dang, determined, as he was most mornings, to try and start right, to try and work with his counterpart, an ambition which usually faded by mid-morning.

  “You think we'll have any action today, Captain?” he asked.

  “Ah action,” Dang said, “yes.”

  They walked side by side for several minutes and Beaupre tried to start other conversations; at times he had felt Dang spoke good English, but at times it was like this, Dang's way of isolating him from the unit. He had to go through Dang, he could not talk to the troops directly because of the language problem, and he sensed that Dang was pleased by this, that Dang was very sensitive to any direct contact with the troops; thus, given only Dang to talk to and more than 100 little men who smiled every time they saw him, he often did not feel so much like an adviser but rather a tourist in a foreign country. He was on a tour and he simply had more guides than most tourists; he could see it but he could not really touch it. At first this feeling had bothered him, he worried if he alone were the outsider; then he had noted that most of his American colleagues carried cameras with them, simple Japanese cameras which they used to record Buddhist temples, dead Vietcong, Vietnamese friends, and then one pose, shot by a friend, of them with the old black-teeth woman.

  He looked at the troops: they had begun the day wrong by sitting in the trucks so that they could not respond to the ambush; he was sure that most of their weapons were filthy (Beaupre prided himself that he was not a great man for chicken shit, but in a combat situation he believed in clean weapons, and weapons that were always checked). Now they were making too much noise, they were always making too much noise. He did not share the affection of most of his colleagues for the Vietnamese troops. The other Americans, he thought, were always babbling self-consciously about how good the Viets were, how well they behaved in spite of mediocre officers. But Beaupre disliked them, he thought they made too much noise, did not take care of their weapons and, worse, did not take care of their buddies (though their buddies, of course, would not take care of them). It was reciprocal.

  He had, he thought, behaved well: he had never really had a fight with Dang, barely the hint of an argument, and he had never lost his temper at Dang. He had learned over a period of time not to ask for too much, to ask for little and of course get less; not to make too many suggestions, so that first Dang would lose face for not having thought of these things or done them earlier, and then he Beaupre would lose face because they were not to be carried out.

  They had been going for about thirty minutes when he decided that the time had come to make the first pitch. He was always careful: when he had an idea he did not simply voice it, but he thought about it, weighed it, and then decided whether or not it was worth making. They had been bunched up from the beginning, but he had held back, not wanting to begin the day with the most basic, most insulting, of requests, not wanting to use up what little credit he had. God only knew, perhaps just by chance there might be something serious later in the day, and there was no sense in being a smart-ass American right at the start. But they were bunched up and he was being employed by the United States' taxpayers for the specific purpose of keeping them unbunched, that was his salary, though it was little enough. One grenade, his first sergeant in Korea, an old and stolid man named Schauss, had said repeatedly, one grenade will get fifty assholes, if you keep bunching up: me Sergeant Schauss, I throw that goddamn grenade.

  Beaupre halted and moved back to talk with Dang. The Captain smiled; he always smiled even when Beaupre was sure he was furious; Beaupre caught himself smiling; maybe, he thought, Dang thinks Americans are always smiling, even when they are pissed, smiling even when they ask the impossible.

  Dai wee, he began, it was the Vietnamese word for Captain, and one of the few Vietnamese words he knew; so he used it a great deal, almost as a ritual; it was somehow supposed to say that he, Beaupre, liked his, Dang's, country and people. The word embodied his sense of futility about the country. One of the reasons that Beaupre disliked Anderson, besides his youth, his eagerness, the fact that he would make captain in two years and major shortly after, was the fact that the Lieutenant spoke the language well, and knew, or claimed to know, what the Vietnamese were saying and thinking, spent more time with them and was able to laugh with them, even with the troops.

  Dai wee, he began, and then speaking his own language, so much for international brotherhood, and speaking now almost apologetically, as if it were his, Beaupre's, fault that the troops were jammed up: “The troops are very close to each other.” He smiled. The Captain smiled.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Perhaps,” Beaupre said, “it would be better if they spread out a little. They are asking for the ambush."

  The Captain nodded, and said something in Vietnamese. The word was passed back. Nothing will happen, Beaupre thought. There was an appearance of something happening; for a few minutes there was some juggling in the line, some rearranging. But within minutes they were all jammed again, ready for First Sergeant Schauss and his one grenade.

  Beaupre moved up to the front of the line. He did not like being around Dang in general, and because Dang was next to the radio man, the VC often directed their first burst of fire there, hoping to get an officer and a radio man. There was no sense in giving them an American as well. Besides, he liked being the point, or next to the point if possible.

  By eight o'clock
it was hot. He had judged his enemy correctly. When he had first arrived, he had set out to discipline himself. One canteen of water a day. The first sip after eleven in the morning. Not half finished before three in the afternoon which was the break-even point of the day, the cresting of the sun. No local fruit before noon. He had been very frightened by the heat and because of his fear, very determined. The rules had been very strict. Within two weeks he had begun to cheat; he had proved more human than frightened; within two weeks too much of his war was fighting the sun instead of the enemy, walking along dry rice paddies in the sun, and thinking not of where the enemy was, but whether he could hold out on water, where the next water was. At first he had cheated, saying to himself that his own discipline would improve, it was only a matter of time, a little longer in the country, and he would conquer the heat, he would become leaner and tougher, he would be in better shape. The miracle was not forthcoming: he was too old for this country; he did not bounce back. He had not changed or become leaner; he had remained the same and sometimes he had gained weight. On bad days, his uniform stained dark in his own sweat, long operations and strong suns, he would lose as much as ten pounds, but then there were always two or three days between operations and he would drink it back, in the morning, lunch, evening and bar (the Colonel, who knew what happens when a man starts to slip and was gentle, claimed that it was the orange juice and tomato juice which did it, told him the bar was all right, but to skip breakfast). When he realized that he was not winning his war, he had begun to cheat, drinking from the canteen a little earlier, and then earlier than that, hoping that some fruit would appear early enough in the day, or that there would be some other benefactor, a chance and generous helicopter pilot arriving with a full and cold canteen. So far his luck had been good; only once had there been any real trouble, and then at the last minute, when he had feared that he must finally go to Anderson and ask for a drink of water, humble himself for water, the troops had found a coconut grove. He had sat there and sucked in the sweet juice, letting it splash over his face and neck, most of it running down his uniform, while Anderson had fumed because the troops would not move; Beaupre had been tolerant of the Viets that day.

  With him at the point were two Vietnamese; he recognized one, a short squat man with a mustache, a Nung tribesman he had heard, who Anderson claimed was the best NCO in the company, and another slim Viet, one of the hundred. The three of them alternated moving in front; one would take the lead for a brief time, and then if it looked tricky ahead, one would take up a position of covering fire, another would flank the main path. They kept changing, and not a word was spoken; they could not speak English, he could not speak Vietnamese, but in this, if nothing else, sheer soldiering paid off, and there was no need to talk; instinct carried them.

  They were joined after a while by the young Vietnamese lieutenant who nodded to Beaupre. He became part of their ballet for a few minutes, and then as if by signal, he and Beaupre dropped back.

  “The Captain seems to worry about the way the soldiers march,” the Lieutenant said.

  “Doesn't bother you?” Beaupre said.

  “They are very close together,” he said, “it is true.”

  “Why don't you do something about it?” Beaupre said.

  “Does the Captain see generals' stars on my shirt?” he asked.

  “They're your people,” Beaupre said. “I don't have to write letters to their widows.”

  “We do not have the luxury of writing letters, in Vietnam,” he said. “That is your luxury.”

  “They are your people,” Beaupre repeated.

  “So are the Vietcong,” said Thuong.

  Beaupre wanted to answer him, to say that the Vietcong did not bunch up, did not need advisers, but he restrained himself. As if by the signal, the Lieutenant walked away and worked back in the file. Beaupre, angry, found himself thirsty; he was tempted to drink right then, but he decided he would hold, he would wait until after the first village. They should be entering the first village soon, within the half hour if they moved well, if they didn't pause too often for refreshment, and he would drink afterward. He hoped to leave the second village, just before noon, with a canteen half full of water.

  Thuong dropped back from the point angry at the American captain and angry at himself. On the way he tried to break up the tightness of the formation.

  “Stay away from each other,” he said, “don't be so close. Would you walk like that if you knew the Vietcong were two hundred yards away? They are only going to shoot at privates today. No officers. Only privates.”

  He was in a very bad mood, and he was suffering considerable pain; he sensed that it was going to rain soon, and that would make his day even more difficult, his footing, already tough, would be more difficult. It was his day for stupidity; he had been walking for only ten minutes when he had felt his foot slip and sink into the hole, he knew even as he felt the foot descend and before the pain reached him what had happened; he had done this before, when he was younger and his clumsiness would have been more understandable. He felt the stake jab sharply and deeply into him and felt almost immediately the terrible pain in the fleshy part of his foot. He had said nothing. For an instant he was off stride, and the soldier behind him went on past, but another stopped to look and then realized what had happened to the Lieutenant. The soldier was about to move or to say something, but he happened to look into his officer's face and saw Thuong's stony look, which told him to move on, and the soldier, startled by the ferocity of that look, had not only obeyed but had seemed to leap ahead. Thuong would show no pain, he wanted no one to know; stepping on a punji stick he felt was something recruits and Americans did; the recruits were slapped in the face for doing it, and the Americans gave themselves medals, the heart of purple for doing it. He could have called a halt, even a temporary one, but he did not. He did not want his own men to see it, and he did not want the Americans to see his mistake and to know that he could have made it.

  He had knelt down, and quickly disengaged himself. He had felt the spike slip through the rubber of his boot, a military tennis shoe really, the pain worse as it was going out, and then a sudden flash of additional pain, so that for a moment he thought that part of the spike had stayed inside. He was almost sure of this because five years ago when he was a young and foolish aspirant, part of the spike had stayed inside him; it had been taken out weeks later from a green and swelling and evil-looking foot, only because he had been operated on, and then only because he was about to become an officer; the doctor, a Frenchman who had operated on him and had saved his life, had told him, in a very matter of fact manner, that had he been an enlisted man, he would certainly have died “comme tous les autres.” The doctor then had given him a cigarette, pointing out that it was rare since he rarely gave cigarettes to the ones who were going to live.

  He was sure this spike was infected, probably with buffalo turds, a VC favorite, they came cheap after all, and the more subtle forms of chemical warfare were not so readily available. He did not want to stop and clean it. He put his foot down and felt the pain stab back, and he knew that later in the day it would be very bad, and probably the next day even worse. He stepped ahead, carefully, and found that he could walk without a noticeable limp. He looked back and saw there was not even a dab of blood where he had stepped. He walked on the balls of both feet so there would not be a limp. He did not want the Americans to see him limp, to send a helicopter for him (it was their way of giving chewing gum to officers) or even to argue about sending a helicopter for him; it was, after all, an evacuation he could always prevent. He could keep going all day today and if he were lucky they would not spend the night in the field; it appeared to be a daytime operation only, so that he would be back in My Tho that night and he would be able to use some of his own piastres and send Dinh, the orderly, out for raw alcohol, failing that the local brandy which was raw alcohol with color, to dress the foot, and then hopefully see the doctor before the week was up. The alcohol would
probably save the foot, but he was sure the money would end up with the Communists.

  Behind him now as he moved back from the point he heard the troops talking and laughing. One of them was playing a transistor radio and singing along with it; a song about a girl who was rich and loved a boy, but the boy was poor, and so the boy, who was honorable, refused to love her in return, and so, of course, it was the girl who was forced to commit suicide; he wondered whether the song wasn't suspiciously like Communist propaganda.

  “Binh,” he said to the soldier, “do you know any rich girls?”

  “Yes, Lieutenant,” the soldier said. “A soldier has many rich girlfriends.”

  “They fall in love with you?” he said.

  “Oh yes, certainly, Lieutenant, it is natural of them.”

  “But you did not marry them.”

  “I would not want to marry them, that would be wrong, my obligation is to be poor. If I were rich, I would find it hard to defend my country and I would be tempted not to serve my country.”