One Very Hot Day

by David Halberstam

  It happened quickly ahead of them, a thin sliver of the horizon had suddenly become darker. Then minutes later they could see the land ahead of them, places where it was raining, and places where it was still sunny, and then suddenly it was pouring down rain, a rich tropical downpour, total rain, really, and they walked into it; even as they did, the rain seemed to reach out and move toward them. He walked in just as he might have walked into a shower. He could see about fifty yards to the left of him where it was not raining. He had done this, walked into rain showers like this many times before in Vietnam, and it had never ceased to awe him, and, indeed, there were moments like this when he wished he were a child so that the sense of awe could be even greater. He knew the particular agony which would surely follow: his uniform would be completely soaked with water, heavy with water, like a towel which has fallen into a bath, and then the sun would come out, stronger and more determined than ever, drying the rain off his uniform and giving him a terrible steam bath in the process; then probably more rain and more sun and steam, and so on. It was a form of torture which might be fashionable in some woman's beauty salon, but it would be agony here. Nonetheless, he would suffer it: joyously he cursed the rain. He continued to walk in the same manner, but he tilted his head up and opened his mouth to the rain, and the palms of his hands were, for a brief moment, extended open to the sky.

  The rain had made the footing more difficult for Thuong; he was putting his weight forward and it was the kind of ground now where you should dig in the heels. The foot continued to bother him, but the pain for the moment was not as bad as he had feared; it would be worse the next day, and worse the day after that, he thought.

  Behind him he could hear the troops laughing over the village: one was saying that the only Vietcong there were pregnant women, and the other answered that he had visited these villages so often that he was the father of five Vietcong soldiers, and then the laughter of several of the troops and finally the first soldier saying that when they entered the village, the women said: “Here comes the company with Private Thanh, the billy goat company.” They all laughed.

  The village had bothered Thuong while he was there, but curiously it was bothering him more now that he had left; there had been something there he hadn't found out, there was an attitude there that he had begun to sense only after leaving and which he hadn't picked up in time. It was not only that they were hostile, and even a bit contemptuous of him, but that they were almost too cool, too sure, as if they knew something that the Arvin didn't; it was as if his visit there had been expected, the interrogation had been expected, and they had even been able to rehearse their lines. Their reaction to him and to the troops had been too sure and certain.

  He had not liked this operation from the start, not so much at first for what it was, but for what it might have been. He was tired of walking everywhere in the sector without finding the enemy, and without wanting to find the enemy, and this operation he was sure was designed to hide from the enemy while allegedly still seeking him. Captain Dinh, who was the intelligence officer, and one of the few staff officers that Thuong trusted, had reported a company moving southwest of My Tho and believed the company was pinpointed about fifteen kilometers south and that chances for contact were good. Dinh was a shy little man which explained why he was an intelligence officer, shifted there at a time when no one thought intelligence was important and when there was a certain quality of rejection and failure in being assigned to handle it. But Dinh himself had been relieved by the selection; he had confessed to Thuong of mortal terror at the possibility of being given troop command:

  “Suppose I give them an order and they just don't do anything, they just stand there. I know it will happen, that they will look at me, and then do whatever they like. They are all older than me.”

  Freed from the nightmare of giving orders to hundreds of his countrymen who would then surely disobey them in unison, Dinh had applied himself diligently to the role of intelligence officer and had turned out to be very good, a success which proved to be somewhat annoying to many of his superiors. Thuong had enjoyed the inevitable scenes where Dinh, at first innocent and unknowing and indeed dangerously enthusiastic, would spout off his intelligence without realizing that no one wanted to hear it, that the more he talked, the less he was listened to, the silences which greeted him growing longer and more audible by the minute. Finally Dinh had learned some sophistication and was less enthusiastic, but he had a handful of good village informers, and he was stubbornly loyal to them; if they were going to take the risk of living in what was often alien territory, he, Dinh, was going to make sure they got a hearing in the great councils. Thuong found the byplay amusing; of all the men in My Tho who would never make major, Dinh was the leading candidate (besides himself). On this occasion he had rather quietly outlined his reports, though not with the rigid certainty he had shown a year ago. When he had finished, Colonel Co, the Division Commander, had praised him, and then outlined his own operation, known in the code book as Operation Happy Green Flower. Dinh was not enthusiastic about Happy Green Flower; it was, he told Thuong privately, something of a political operation planned long in advance, and settled perhaps ten days earlier; it had bothered him enough that the original intelligence was old and somewhat dubious, coming from sources he didn't entirely trust, and pumped up by the province chief who was a friend of Co's. There was something else a little troubling, he said; in the last twenty-four hours there had been a second wave of intelligence, fresh bits here and there, inklings from agents' reports, including agents he trusted, which indicated some sort of movement in the area; he was not sure what the movements were or what they meant, but he had duly reported it. Co, at first, had looked somewhat surprised and uneasy, but then had smiled broadly and had said that it showed that the province chief was certainly right and that Happy Green Flower would kill many Vietcong.

  “I do not like your Green Flower,” Dinh told Thuong later.

  “Thank you, but it is your Green Flower,” Thuong said. “I only go where my intelligence officer wants me to go.”

  “Ah,” said Dinh, “you are the most arrogant officer at My Tho, so arrogant that you allow yourself to be different from the others. They are simple men compared to you.”

  “I will ask Co for permission to take you along with us and put you in command of the troops,” Thuong said.

  Thuong was interrupted from these almost happy thoughts of Co planning an operation long in advance only to learn at the last minute that there might be Vietcong in the area (an angry Co, because to change at the last minute would lose him face with the Americans, the province chief and most of the staff officers), when the forward elements brought in a thin old man they said was moving south.

  The old man immediately began to kneel and mumble something, and Thuong told him to stand up, for God's sake, he wasn't a priest and this wasn't confessional; but this only scared the peasant more, and he remained kneeling; Thuong repeated, for God's sake, stand up, no one's going to kill you, we're all too tired for that. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the American Lieutenant approaching and he immediately waved the American away; at least the fat American, who was disagreeable and who cursed the Vietnamese in public, was bored by interrogations which he did not understand and did not like. Thuong smiled at Anderson, almost a wink, really, and said under his breath, why can't you be like your fat friend? He turned to the peasant and began the inevitable: you walk quickly for an old man, the old man saying he was old and not important and if he did not walk quickly he would be a poorer man. They sparred some more, and the old man said he was leaving because all the people from Ap Chinh Be were leaving their village that day. No, it was not his village (said with surprise, did he look like someone from Ap Chinh Be?), it was the next village, his village was larger. Had the Vietcong come to his village? No, he was not a Vietcong. Thuong said he was sure, but had the Vietcong come to his village? No, they had not. Then why had the people from Ap Chinh Be left the village? Oh
, he didn't know, that is another village, and they do not talk to us, the people from that village are very strange. You would not want to trust people from that village? Thuong asked. Yes, that was it (and a smile, impressed with the Lieutenant's knowledge of the two villages). No Vietcong there? No, no Vietcong. We could put you at the head of the column and let you test for us. You are the officer.

  Thuong wondered what small percentage of the truth this old man was telling. Perhaps 20 per cent, perhaps not even that. But in this country what was the truth any more, could you find it, and if you did, did it matter? You told the truth and you were killed for it, you lied and hid the truth and perhaps you survived; the truth was a terrible luxury. A man wanted to live, that was the truth and he would lie to do it; and anything he said was designed not for honor but simply to gain the next day. So there was the great truth, he thought, living, more important than anything else. So the old man was telling his truth, he had seen no Vietcong, heard of none, would speak of none; perhaps he had told the same truth the night before when the Vietcong had arrived and he had said no, he had never seen a government agent, never paid them taxes, never heard of the government.

  “Why do you tell me so many lies?” Thuong said to the old man. “Do you think I am stupid, do you think I am more stupid than you?”

  He wondered what he could do; he could put the old man at the head of the column, or he could bind him up and trail him behind, or perhaps he could tie a rope around his neck and lead him along like a dog, the Vietcong did that with government officers and captured Americans, tied their hands behind their backs and put ropes around their necks and led them around for the villagers to see; but if you are going to do that, he thought a little bitterly, you need something more spectacular than this, this thirty kilos of peasant.

  He signaled to one of the men and told him to let the peasant go. He knew it was the wrong thing, that by the rules he should have kept the man, and that he might get in trouble for it, but he felt tired; and he didn't feel up to the rules of the war, taking this old man and draining the truth out of him, crushing him until all that remained was the pulp of the man and a few drops of Thuong's fine truth. The old man knelt before him and began to talk and pray and thank Thuong all at once, and the Lieutenant, angrily now, shouted at the soldier, “Get him out of here. Out of here. Now!”

  Five minutes after the prisoner was released, Dang arrived. Dang said he hoped the peasant had brought good news, news about the Vietcong.

  “What kind of good news,” Thuong asked (I am an arrogant bastard, he thought).

  “That they are waiting and we will smash them,” Dang said.

  Thuong looked at him and wondered whether the man knew the difference any more when he was talking to Vietnamese or Americans: even when they were talking to other Vietnamese they were making speeches, he thought; they surround themselves with themselves; Colonel Co is surrounded by lots of little Cos, one of whom is Dang, and so he is making speeches to himself; and the Dangs in their turn surround themselves with younger and more subordinate Dangs, lieutenants, and make the same speeches, though perhaps somewhat more modest.

  “What did he say?” Dang was repeating the question.

  “He said he had never seen a Vietcong in his life, and that he did not trust the people in the next village.”

  “Was he a Communist?” Dang asked.

  “Perhaps. He pretended to be afraid of us. I don't know. Perhaps he was. Perhaps he wasn't.”

  “You took him prisoner?” and Thuong shook his head; Dang knew damn well that the man had been released, it was all a game. And now Dang barked out angrily, why had this been done. A Communist who would report on them, where they were, how many weapons they had (and where, thought Thuong somewhat cheerfully, the company commander stood in the file).

  “I didn't want to collect old men. If we took him prisoner, he would slow us down, and I thought he was too old to kill. And they probably know where we're going anyway. Three different government forces are moving toward one point. They would have to be stupid not to guess where we are going.”

  Dang was furious now. His voice was sharp and angry, and Thuong listened, almost amused by Dang's anger; he no longer minded provoking him. He heard the words pouring out, insubordination, disregard for my men, and he noticed how shiny Dang's face was, it glistened. He wondered whether Dang would change his place in the file now. He heard Dang promising to take over all interrogations. No more tea and medicine, Dang was saying.

  Thuong let the Captain finish, and he wanted to say something arrogant, but all that came out was, I know you will do well, my Captain, and I thank you.

  “Did you learn anything from the peasant, Captain Dang?” Beaupre asked a few minutes later.

  "No," said Dang, “he was an old man on the way to the market so I let him go.”

  Anderson moved forward to see Beaupre a few minutes later to tell him what he sensed and half understood (he had watched the conversation between the two officers, and had watched Thuong's face, cool and almost happy, and Dang's obvious anger).

  “Dang is most highly pissed off at Thuong over the prisoner,” he said.

  “Who's Thuong?” Beaupre said.

  “The Vietnamese lieutenant,” Anderson said.

  “Oh, that one,” Beaupre said, “the cocky one. Your counterpart.”

  “Someday,” Beaupre told Anderson, “if we are lucky and brilliant and brave, we will capture an entire Vietcong headquarters, and we won't find any young men. No sir, we'll find nothing but thin old men and these old women. Nobody there under fifty. Then we'll find out that each day we've been releasing nothing but VC commanders and generals, that every time we find some raggedy ass peasant trying to repair a bike, why it was a VC general.”

  “You mean you think Dang is right?”

  “That little prick is never right. He could end the war tomorrow or even better have me shipped home tomorrow and he'd still be wrong. All be wants is another goddamn statistic. He's probably pissed they didn't kill the poor bastard farmer. He'd even claim they captured a rifle.”

  “That lieutenant say anything back to Dang?” Beaupre asked.

  Anderson shook his head.

  “Too bad,” Beaupre said, “the Lieutenant's a lot better than that bastard.”

  “What do you think?” Anderson asked.

  “Shit, boy, you remember what I told you last week? That's what I think, I told you to buy that extra insurance, young hero.”

  So under that hot and relentless sun, they kept walking; the morning slipping back into the boredom which commanded so much of their time and their resources. The sun weighed on them; they did not talk to each other, there was nothing to say. Complaining about the heat would not solve it or drive it away, and the heat was too strong, it drove other thoughts out of their minds, until they continued on in an almost insane rote march, the time slow and heavy for them. Step followed step now, not because they thought of it, but because it was automatic, they did not even know they were walking.

  The heat was there, nothing could be done about it. When Beaupre was new in the country, he had joined a group of advisers pressuring the Colonel to try a night operation; his motivation, however, had been largely different from that of the others. They were intense younger officers who argued that since the enemy always moved and fought at night, it was time to challenge him. For Beaupre all this made sense, but his thoughts were not of catching little VCs stamping around overconfidently in the night — not that, he thought of the cool of the night and moving around without dying so many hot deaths from the sun. So when the Colonel had asked his opinion, he had said yes, why not? The Colonel, good officer, had his doubts and kept saying things like, do you think they’re really ready for it, bad thing if it backfired. But the young officers were sure of it, they had all talked with their counterparts and their counterparts all wanted it; everyone seemed to want it except the Colonel (which hardly explained why it had never been tried before), and so the Colonel fin
ally surrendered and worked on Co, and Beaupre got his chance to walk in the cool of the evening. It turned out that the Colonel was right, they were not ready for it; it was a disaster; the darkness of the night only magnified all their flaws; battalions strayed from regiments, companies separated from battalions, platoons from companies. For days afterward soldiers straggled in; and the rate of defection was the highest ever. It was a terrible evening of units stomping around blindly in the pitch black, and one battalion adviser, new to the area, when asked where he was, answered that the sign said the village of Ap Chien Luoc; this was duly passed on to the Colonel, who having kept his calm through all these other failings, and sensing that when this disaster was reported to Saigon it would be his disaster and not that of the young officers, exploded and yelled to the radio man, tell that silly sonofabitch that it's like being in the States and being in the village of Drive Carefully, every goddamn village here has a sign saying Ap Chien Luoc, it means strategic hamlet. It was not a success from the Colonel's point of view, and it was not a success from Beaupre's either; the absence of the sun turned out to be too little reward, he was tired, he was eaten by endless mosquitoes, and he was in terrible fear of being shot from behind by accident, or of being shot by Raulston or someone else if they stumbled into another government unit; the night operation made the day a little more bearable.

  He was not the only one who suffered from the heat. Anderson felt it too, but for Beaupre there was a quality of terror in the simple act of walking; he continued to sip from his canteen, drinking too frequently now, losing all sense of discipline, paying no attention to his own rules. The heat had finally begun to make him uneasy, not yet dizzy but no longer sure of himself, worried now about the outcome of the day. They came between villages to an intricate network of canals, and he began to feel some of the fatigue, his own reflection of the sun's power. There were no bridges over these little canals, simply thin little trees laid across, their surfaces slim and slippery; it was a part of the march that Beaupre always hated. The secret on the narrow bridges was to walk quickly and have your momentum carry you across, and if the canals were a little too wide for that, the Vietnamese would stick a pole into the canal midway alongside the one span and they would then use it as a cane support while crossing. Beaupre had always detested these bridges; he lacked the build to do them gracefully (“all you have to do, Captain,” said the Colonel who had mocked him when he had first come to the country, “is think of yourself as a ballerina. If you think of it that way, you won't have any trouble"); and Beaupre had slipped and fallen in several times. It was humiliating and demeaning he had thought, even at the beginning, a man his age, straddling these damn things and trying to walk gracefully and then falling flat on his ass into the water in front of the giggling troops (the little bastards, he thought, had a lower center of gravity; they wouldn't laugh so much if they weren't so damn small). A man his age ought to be allowed to make a fool of himself, he had thought, but he ought to be able to choose the time and place and type of fool he wanted to be.