by Eric Helm
It was a car of indeterminate color and origin. It might have once been a Ford, or it might have been a Chevy, but so many parts had been replaced in such a mixture that it was impossible to tell. They squeezed into the back seat, Le Tran sitting on Lockridge’s lap, wiggling her bottom as if to get comfortable. Lockridge felt himself respond with an ache that spread from his groin to his stomach.
As they roared through the traffic, Lockridge lost track of the route. He occasionally saw the wide streets lined with beautiful buildings give way to mud tracks that were lined with ramshackle hootches cobbled together with plywood and cardboard stolen from the American bases. Some of them had tin roofs but many did not. Wires ran from poles into the structures to provide some kind of electrical power. An odor of stagnant water, dead fish and feces drifted on a hot breeze that rattled the buildings.
They came to an area that wasn’t quite as run-down, the hootches built from stone and brick. The taxi drew to a halt on a street with disintegrating pavement after Le Tran told the driver to pull over. She scrambled from the back seat, managed to press her breast against Lockridge and gave him a view of her legs all the way to the crotch.
She stood next to the driver’s door and whispered, “Please pay him.”
Lockridge pulled the MPC from his pocket and listened as the driver told him the ride would cost one thousand piasters. Lockridge didn’t care. He threw the money at the driver and followed Le Tran as she walked up the broken sidewalk to the front door. As she opened it, she stopped and smiled. “Well, come on.”
Lockridge looked at Jones and then nearly ran up the sidewalk. Jones moved slower, as if worried about a trap of some kind, but both entered the house. Like the exterior, it was rundown. The tiled floor of the entryway was dirty and scarred. The walls needed paint, and there was a musty smell in the air. To the right was a large room with old furniture. Lockridge entered and noticed that the house had once been expensive. There were hardwood floors and decorative carvings on the wood trim of the walls. A huge window dominated one side, but part of it was covered with plywood.
“You be seated,” said Le Tran, “and I will go talk to my sister.”
As Le Tran left the room, Lockridge turned slowly. There was an American record player in one corner with a selection of albums from the PX. Several small tables were scattered about, but only two held lamps. Lockridge sat on the couch and felt the springs against his back.
“What do you think?” he asked.
Jones stepped to the window and looked out. “They had money once, I think. But Christ, Jim, no one knows where we are. Hell, I don’t know where I am.”
“You afraid of Le Tran?”
“No, but I don’t like this. We’re not even armed. We started out for the little café across from the embassy and now who knows where the fuck we are?”
“Jesus, will you relax? We’ve fallen into a deal here, and you want to ignore it because you’re afraid of a girl?”
Jones turned from the window and leaned against the wall. “I’m not afraid of the girl.”
At that moment, Le Tran returned leading another young woman who held one hand in front of her face and who was looking at the floor.
“My sister is very shy. She does not speak good English like me and she does not meet many soldiers.”
Lockridge got to his feet. “Please tell her that we’re more than happy to meet her.”
The sister stepped out, dropped her hand and smiled. She looked more like a European than she did a Vietnamese. She had a narrow face, a long, slender nose and big eyes. They weren’t dark, but a washed-out gray. She was wearing a pink ao dai over black pajama bottoms.
“I glad to meet you all,” she said. Her voice was soft, almost impossible to hear, and although her words were right, she seemed to have no accent.
Jones stepped forward, his mouth open. He held out a hand. “I’m very happy to meet you, too.”
The woman looked at him, smiled broadly and then dropped her eyes. She didn’t take his hand, but moved closer to him.
Lockridge clapped his hands. “Now, Le Tran, if everyone’s ready, I thought we’d go find something to eat.”
“Oh, before we go, my sister, Tri Tran, would like to change clothes, if you do not mind.”
“Mind,” said Jones. “Hell, I’ll help her if she’d like.”
Tri Tran giggled, shook her head and fled from the room. Le Tran said, “If you will excuse me, I shall go help her make the proper selection.”
When the women were gone, Lockridge said, “Do you still want to complain about this?”
“No,” said Jones, shaking his head. “Not at all. I think you were right.” He moved closer and lowered his voice. “This is great. Did you see her? She’s a beauty.”
“And she seems to like you,” said Lockridge.
“Yeah, I noticed that.”
“So here’s the plan. We’ve got to separate them. Then I can head back here with Le Tran while you keep Tri Tran out. Give me an hour or so after we disappear and then you can come back here. But I’ll need an hour.”
“How come you get to come back here?”
“Because I started this, and it’s only fair that I reap the first rewards.”
With that decided, they both sat down to wait for the thrills that they knew would come.
Robin Morrow sat in the city room, her feet propped on her desk as she stared out the window. She couldn’t see anything except a patch of blue sky and the plain white front of the building across the street. She leaned to the right, opened a drawer and pulled out a handkerchief. Wiping her face with it, she looked at the smear of sweat, then tossed it aside.
Mark Hodges left his cubicle and walked toward her. He smiled broadly as he approached and then waved. His eyes studied the curves of her bare legs. He approved of the cutoff jumpsuits she wore.
“You get anything at that briefing?” he asked.
Morrow leaned the other way, pawed through her camera bag and came up with a notebook. She flipped through it and found the beginning of her notes on the briefing. “It was one of those nonbriefing briefings. A little activity around the area and a suggestion of more to come.”
“Sounds like a load of crap.”
“Yeah, well,” said Morrow, “I got the impression that the guy was talking around something. He kept coming back to these small incidents. A mortar attack here and an ambush there. Couple of people kept coming back to the fact that nothing major is going on.”
Hodges scratched his knee. “That’s just these military boys trying to justify their existence. If there’s no war, then they all go back to the States and the promotions and opportunities slow down.”
“I don’t know about that,” countered Morrow. “There seems to be something in the air.”
“That’s the humidity,” said Hodges. “Or dead fish. Listen, this thing’s about over. The writing is on the wall. With nothing happening, the war can be turned over to the South Vietnamese.”
Morrow dropped her feet to the floor. “You know, Mark, you keep saying that. Everyone keeps saying that, but the military seems to be waiting for something.”
“Politics pure and simple. These guys are trying to justify their jobs, just as I said.”
Morrow shook her head. “I don’t know about that. I can feel something.”
“Okay, you’re such a hotshot photojournalist, you tell me what’s going on. What does your Green Beret captain have to say about this?”
Morrow smiled. “I haven’t been able to reach him today. He’s in the field.”
“Probably looking for the enemy that you think is running all over the place.”
“There was something—”
“Robin, I’ll let you in on a little secret.” Hodges looked around as if afraid there were spies in the newsroom. “I received a message from home suggesting we think about cutting the staff here. With the winding down of the war, too much effort is being expended. That’s the general feeling at home.”
“I think everyone is overlooking something. That Major Hobbs who briefed us refused to say outright that the war was almost over. He seemed to know something we didn’t and was trying not to deceive us.”
Hodges stood and raised his hands as if surrendering. “I’ll tell you what. You think that something is coming, you put it in the form of a memo to me and I’ll forward it, but I’ll tell you right now that you’re going to look like a jerk.”
“Thanks for the encouragement,” said Morrow.
“Robin, don’t take it the wrong way, but this is your first war. You haven’t seen them end, and I tell you, all the signs are there. The enemy’s in disarray. He’s making harassment raids to improve the terms of surrender, but there’s nothing he can do. He’s shot his wad. It’s all over but for the shouting and the parades.”
Morrow nodded slowly, as if listening carefully, but in the back of her mind she remembered reading about the Battle of the Bulge. The German army had been all but defeated. It had been in disarray and retreating on all fronts. Then, suddenly, an army that no one had known about had appeared and everyone was caught by surprise. For some reason Morrow believed that history was about to repeat itself.
Santini sat in Major Madden’s office, concentrating on the Vietnamese girl as she ate the sandwich that Santini had gotten for her. She didn’t speak and didn’t look up. She just concentrated on the meal.
Madden studied her for a moment, then turned toward Santini. “What in hell did you bring her here for?”
Santini shrugged. “What was I supposed to do, Major? I told you what the Vietnamese were doing.”
Madden straightened the papers on his desk, tapped the ends together so that they were neat and then set the whole mess into his out basket. He looked at the girl again and saw the faint stains from her blood. “I don’t know. I can tell you that it’s a domestic problem, one that we shouldn’t get involved in.”
“Right,” said Santini. “Just let the Vietnamese murder one another because they’re Vietnamese.”
“Knock it off, Sergeant,” snapped Madden. “You know what I mean. This is something the Vietnamese should handle internally, without interference from us. You’re just making problems, and in the end we’ll be told that it’s none of our business.”
“Granted, Major. But I just couldn’t allow those animals to get their hands on her. We have the opportunity to create an ally.”
“Our job isn’t to create allies.”
Santini remembered the new policy of winning the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese people, a policy designed to create allies, but he knew better than to say anything about it to Madden.
The girl wadded up the paper and held it in her hand. She looked from one man to the other. “I go now?”
“You didn’t tell me she could speak English,” said Madden.
“Hell, Major, I didn’t know.”
“I go now?” she asked again.
Santini moved from the couch and crouched before her. He looked up into her eyes. “I’m afraid we can’t let you go right now.”
“But I help you. I give you… give you… help and you let me go.”
“What’s your name?” asked Santini.
“I am Co.”
“Well, Co, I’m afraid you made a mistake by bringing the explosives onto the base.”
She shook her head. “But I did not know about the explosives. A man gave me the case to carry. It is my first day. I do not understand.”
Santini shot a look at Madden. “Major?”
He held up his hands. “She was caught bringing the explosives in. It’s an open-and-shut case and there isn’t much we can do about it.”
“But we could move her over to one of our compounds, tell the men there the story and have them keep an eye on her.”
The woman seized on that. “Yes. I do that. I work for you now.”
“Sergeant…” said Madden.
“I know secret,” said Co. “I do not tell. I keep secret because Vietnamese hurt me. I tell you.”
“All right, Co,” said Santini. “What do you know?”
“The Viet Cong will attack your base. They come for Tet and destroy all around here. They say that base going to be gone after Tet. All Americans will be dead.”
Madden stood and moved to the front of his desk. “That’s very interesting, but if you know nothing of the enemy and the explosives you carried in, how do you know that an attack is coming?”
“I hear them talk. I not stupid. I listen, but I do not talk. They do not think I understand them.”
Now Santini turned on Madden. “Well, Major?”
“I’ll call and see what I can arrange.”
“You’ll have to call the provost marshal and coordinate with him, too. Let him know that we’ll take responsibility for the prisoner. While you’re doing that, I can see about finding a place for Co.”
“Great, Sergeant. I’m real happy that you’ve got us involved in this.”
CHAPTER 6
OUTSIDE AP TAN HOA FOUR
“I’m not sure that driving through the village is such a hot idea,” said Gerber.
“Neither am I,” responded Albright.
Gerber climbed out of the jeep, then checked the safety on his weapon. Fetterman jumped over the side and stood behind him.
“Okay, Sergeant,” said Gerber, “why don’t you ease through the ville and we’ll follow you?”
“I don’t know.”
“If you move slow enough, we’ll be there to lend support if you need it. I just don’t want us all grouped together until we get back into the open.”
Albright nodded as he reached over and picked up his M-16. He slipped off the safety and set the weapon on the passenger’s seat. Finally he felt ready and slipped the jeep into gear. He let out the clutch slowly; the engine coughed once then caught.
Fetterman hurried to the other side of the track, his M-3 grease gun in his hands. He started after the jeep, his head swiveling slowly from side to side as he scanned the ground around him for the enemy.
Open fields surrounded the village of Ap Tan Hoa Four. There were swamps and rice paddies with only a couple of clumps of trees visible more than half a klick away. The road curved through the village so that the scattered hootches hid what was around the bend.
And still there were no people. It was as if they had hidden from the heat of the afternoon, although Gerber knew that the Vietnamese didn’t have a tradition of siestas. They worked in their rice paddies throughout the afternoon because nearly everyone was afraid to be out when darkness fell. After sundown, the soldiers came out and shot at everything that moved. If the farmer had to get something done, he did it during the day.
Gerber entered the ville. The first structure, a mud hootch with a thatched roof, sat to his right, set back from the road. A mud fence reinforced with woven branches surrounded part of it. On one side was a family bunker and on the other was the pen for the water buffalo.
As he passed the hootch, he tried to see into the interior, but couldn’t. He listened closely, but there was no sound. The village was deathly quiet. The only noise was the idling of the jeep’s engine as Albright waited for Gerber and Fetterman to close the gap.
They rounded the bend and now the open fields on the west side of the village were visible. Standing on a wide portion of the road was another jeep, sitting low on one side as if it had a flat tire. Albright stopped his jeep, and Gerber caught up to him. There was no sign of the missing man.
“Approach it slowly,” cautioned Gerber.
“Yes, sir.”
Gerber glanced at Fetterman. The master sergeant nodded and began moving forward slowly. Gerber wiped the sweat from his forehead with his shoulder, leaving a wet, ragged stain. His heart began to race, the blood pounding in his ears. There wasn’t much that could cause someone to desert his jeep without radioing in.
Then, as he got closer, he noticed what seemed to be a shape partially hidden by a rice paddy dike. The object looked
like a misshapen head without a hat, and part of a shoulder. The top of the dike appeared wet, and Gerber was suddenly sure that he could hear flies buzzing over the sound of the jeep’s engine.
Fetterman leaped from the track to the wetness of the rice paddy opposite them, his eyes moving, searching. Albright slowed the jeep for a moment, staring at the ground near his vehicle. Slowly he reached for his weapon and got out of the jeep. He walked around the front and slipped in the mud on the side of the dike. He regained his balance quickly and stood upright.
Gerber approached carefully. The others had found a body. Albright turned to Gerber. “It’s Sergeant Thompson. But his face is all wrong.”
Gerber shot a glance at Fetterman to make certain the master sergeant had them covered. Satisfied he moved forward and dropped into the paddy. He rolled the body over and saw the problem. Thompson’s face was distorted because of the pressure created by a shot to the back of the head.
Gerber’s gaze drifted to the immediate surroundings. The ground around the front of the jeep was littered with empty brass casings. The forward section of the vehicle was riddled with bullet holes, and a couple of empty magazines lay under the jeep. Gerber looked at the rear section, but there was no radio.
The captain swallowed, his thoughts racing. It was obvious. Thompson had been ambushed on the open road. He had held the enemy off until he’d run out of ammo and then they had captured him. The bloodstain on the grass at the side of the road showed that he had been shot there before his body was dumped into the rice paddy.
Gerber checked the corpse and found the bullet hole in the back of the head. There was a tattoo effect around it, which suggested that the barrel of the weapon had been only inches from Thompson’s head. He had been executed.