Saigon (86 page)

“Darling, there’s ... been.. . a. . . purge.. . in.. . the. . . Lao Dong . .. Politburo,” she said, pausing deliberately after each word because of the crackling line. “A French journalist in Hanoi has been given the story by a very unusual source.” 

Joseph rubbed his bleary eyes and sat up in bed. “Very interesting,” he shouted back. “But why wake me in the middle of the night to tell me this?” 

“Please listen, Joseph! This is very important. It’s Tran Van Kim who’s been purged — he may even be dead. The journalist got the story from a distraught Vietnamese girl who came to his office. She asked him privately to contact you. She said her name was Trinh and she’s traveling south to Saigon in three days’ time. She said she needs your help.” 

Joseph sat bolt upright suddenly as the significance of Naomi’s words sank in. “Trinh, did you say? Tuyet’s daughter?” 

“Yes,” shouted Naomi, “it seems so. What do you want me to do 

I’ll do anything you say.” 

Joseph’s knuckles whitened on the telephone receiver. “Don’t ‘do anything,” he shouted. “Nothing at all.” 

“Why not?” asked Naomi in a puzzled voice. “Why on earth not?” 

“Because I’m coming to Saigon myself!” 

He slammed down the telephone, dressed quickly and ran to the study where he kept his passport. Without waiting to pack a bag or turn out the lights of the house, he hurried outside to the garage. Within ten minutes of receiving Naomi’s call, he was driving fast through the country lanes of Sussex heading for London to catch the First available flight to the Far East. The dawn of Friday, April 25, 1975, was breaking over the western reaches of the capital as he took off four hours later from Heathrow Airport on the first leg of his journey to the beleaguered city of Saigon that had only five days left to live. 

Three days later on the afternoon of Monday, April 28, 1975, a heavy pall of saturated air blanketed the capital of South Vietnam. The ominously dark clouds that heralded the first monsoon downpour of the new wet season had been growing blacker hour by hour since dawn, but although it seemed constantly to be on the point of explosion, the gathering storm stubbornly refused to break. As a result, an electric tension descended on the streets, and in the luminous, gray light three and a half million people caught fast in the tightening circle of Communist armor were able to see clearly the telltale lines of fear etched deep into one another’s faces. Hurrying on foot through the heart of the city towards Doc Lap Palace, Joseph could hear the distant rumble of an artillery barrage being laid down on the main South Vietnamese airbase of Bien Hoa, eighteen miles away. The noise of the barrage was interspersed from time to time with sounds of thunder that grew gradually louder, and Joseph noticed that the people he passed gazed up constantly at the sky, obviously wondering when the bombardment of the capital would begin. 

After weeks of growing apprehension the people trapped in Saigon had become openly fearful because they knew that with twenty-one Communist divisions ringing the city, the single remaining division of disciplined ARVN troops would have no hope of defending them. Faced with this hopeless military situation, South Vietnam’s tottering government was preparing to swear in its second new president in the space of six days in the hope that he might prove more acceptable to the Communists; but rumors of the move had already spread through the streets and few who’d heard it held out much hope that this last desperate political gamble would succeed in saving the city. Hanoi’s leaders had augmented their forces and maneuvered them into position with slow deliberation during the second half of April so as to give themselves time to destroy South Vietnam’s political leadership beyond repair; to ensure that President Thieu didn’t flee abroad and set up a government in exile which might compromise their eventual control of the South, they had given hints through their Camp Davis representatives at Tan Son Nhut that they might accept a negotiated settlement if he stepped down formally from the presidency. But after tricking Washington into forcing him to resign, they had immediately made new demands: they insisted that the vice-president who succeeded Thieu should in turn be replaced by the neutralist figure General Duong Van Minh, and because this seemed to offer a slender hope of preventing the total destruction of Saigon, the South Vietnamese had hastily agreed. 

The swearing-in ceremony for Big Minh had been set for the late afternoon, and Joseph reached Doc Lap Palace just after five o’clock in time to watch the ineffectual Buddhist general, who had played a leading role in the American-inspired overthrow of Ngo Dinh Diem, march sad-faced into the main reception hall. The brocade and plush chamber hung with huge crystal chandeliers was already filled with an audience of two hundred Vietnamese army officers and politicians who had records of opposition to the Thieu regime, and they watched with silent apprehension as President Minh stepped onto a podium decorated with his own personal crest — a representation of Yin and Yang, the symbolic harmonious opposites of Asian philosophy that emphasized his wish for reconciliation with his Communist enemies. Joseph pushed his way through the crowd of a hundred or so journalists at the back of the hall to where Naomi stood tense beside her camera crew, directing the filming of the proceedings. A steel helmet dangled from her left hand, and she still wore an olive green flak jacket like most of the other correspondents who were dashing to and from the front lines of a war that had moved to within a few minutes’ drive of their city center hotels. Together they listened to Big Minh in an agony of concentration, trying to assess whether this last-ditch change of leadership would give Joseph a few extra hours to find Trinh. 

“You must have realized that the situation is very critical,” Minh began, speaking in a voice that cracked frequently with emotion. “Tragic things are occurring minute by minute, second by second in our country, and we’re paying dearly for our mistakes with our blood, I’m deeply distressed by these events and I feel a responsibility now to seek a cease-fire and bring peace on the basis of the Paris Agreements The coming days will be very difficult. I cannot promise you much 

Joseph shook his head in frustration and Naomi, glancing around, saw that his face was gray with fatigue. During the forty-eight hours since his arrival in Saigon, he had barely slept. Day and night he had roamed the city, searching out the haunts of old Viet Minh and Viet Cong contacts among the maze of back alleys and shanty slums lining the canals. He had begun by offering substantial bribes to the venal waiters and doormen at the Continental Palace, the Caravelle and other big hotels; these men, he knew, were Viet Cong informers of long standing, and he promised them more money if they could tell him how he could contact Dang Thi Trinh, an important new cadre of the Provisional Revolutionary Government who had left Hanoi five days ago to come south to take up special duties in Saigon. He had slipped hundred-dollar bills unobtrusively into their hands and sometimes discreetly showed them copies of his old OSS photographs taken with Ho Chi Minh and Vo Nguyen Giap in 1945. In his desperation to find Trinh, he lied blatantly without any sense of shame. He was a writer sympathetic to the Communist cause, he said, and he had reason to believe that Comrade Trinh bore important confidential information that the leadership of the Lao Dong in Hanoi wished him to receive; it was of vital importance to the party that she contact him the moment she arrived from the north. 

The waiters had watched and listened with suspicious eyes, then after holding out for further bribes, had supplied names and addresses that took him with agonizing slowness along secret chains of command that led through the muddy lanes and into the reeking boat dwellings of the city slums. Wary eyes and monosyllabic grunts had greeted his inquiries everywhere in the dark and dingy meeting places. Careless of his own safety he even went at night into villages beyond the city limits when contacts were arranged there, certain he was moving higher up the secret Viet Cong hierarchy; but frustratingly he came to a halt on the second night at what he judged was the middle level of command — and none of the contacts admitted to any knowledge of Trinh’s existence. 

On Sunday he had ostentatiously attended all the services at Saigon Cathedral, where over the years Viet Cong go-betweens had made surreptitious contacts with foreign journalists whenever it suited them; but not once had he been approached. On Monday morning, growing ever more desperate, he had driven out to Tan Son Nhut airport and visited Camp Davis, the fortified compound where as a result of the 1973 Paris Agreements a representational contingent of two hundred troops of the People’s Army of North Vietnam was stationed along with a smaller group of Viet Cong officials of the Provisional Revolutionary Government. In theory they were there to supervise the 1973 cease-fire, but it was common knowledge that the North Vietnamese officers were disguised political cadres from Hanoi, and for two years they had given bizarre press conferences every Saturday morning to promote Hanoi’s propaganda line. On his way there Joseph saw for the first time the growing crowds of Vietnamese waiting for evacuation flights on big U.S. Air Force C-I3os that were lifting off the run*ay at regular intervals. The gymnasium of the American Defense Attaché’s Office had been turned into a refugee processing center, and the sight of anxious men, women and children clutching bags of possessions as they waited to leave the country had heightened Joseph’s own feelings of alarm. On an impulse he had decided to reveal the real nature of his interest in Trinh to the Hanoi colonel who commanded Camp Davis, and he sent in a short note with his OSS photograph giving Trinh’s full name and his reasons for wishing to find her. The narrow- eyed officer who received him half an hour later had listened impassively to his story, then shaken his head. “I have no knowledge of any of these things of which you speak,” he told him coldly, then summoned an aide to show him out. 

The ranks of refugees lining up to leave had been swollen considerably by the time Joseph left Tan Son Nhut, and the small contingent of United States Marines that had been flown in a week before to police the evacuation was having difficulty persuading panicky Vietnamese not to block the approaches to the airport with their abandoned vehicles. On his way back into Saigon, Joseph had become trapped in an impenetrable traffic jam of army trucks and other military vehicles and had parked his rented car and begun to walk. Before long he found himself in Bui Phat, one of the areas where Communist rockets had struck the city at dawn that day, leveling a whole street of huddled tin roof shanties; smoke was still rising from ruins which had been swept by swathes of fire, and dead bodies and the mutilated living were still being unearthed from the wrecked homes. Small groups of sobbing relatives and stunned onlookers stood watching, and as he approached the corner of the ruined street, Joseph saw one badly burned victim of the raid being dragged from beneath the shattered remains of a corrugated lean-to hut. 

He watched with a growing sense of horror as two soldiers tugged at a pair of charred ankles and the rest of the body came free with a faintly audible groan. Convinced suddenly that the victim was a young girl, he ran forward with an involuntary cry; the trunk and limbs were black and blistered, all the hair had been burned from the head, and clear brown eyes, wide with agony, were rolling uncontrollably. The charred lips were moving without making any sounds, and Joseph grabbed a water bottle from one of the soldiers and made them lower their burden while he poured a few drops of liquid into the scorched throat. There was another faint moan of agony as a spasm of pain shook the body, and Joseph saw then that most of the victim’s clothing had been burned to nothing in the all-consuming fire. What he had imagined were black trousers were in reality blistered skin, and he saw then that the dying Vietnamese was a male youth, and despite his deep feelings of horror, a flood of relief swept over him. A moment later the youth shuddered and moaned one last time before he died, and the two South Vietnamese soldiers, who had been waiting with expressions of impatient hostility on their faces, continued their gruesome task of disposing of the anonymous corpse. 

Joseph stood for a long time among the ruins created by the rockets, as stunned suddenly ‘as the local people all around him by the realization that the war was closing inexorably at last on the city that for most of the past thirty years had led a charmed existence amid the bloody battles being fought all around it. With the exception of the Tet Offensive seven years earlier and an isolated rocket attack in 1971, the capital of South Vietnam had always remained an island of relative peace in a restless sea of war, but as the day wore on and the monsoon clouds darkened over the city, the certainty that the end was near seemed to become something tangible in the air. The vision of that charred male corpse returned to haunt Joseph’s memory hour by hour as he continued his search for Trinh, and it gradually became a recurring symbol of fear and dread. He began thinking of it again as he listened to Duong Van Minh’s despairing speech because it was soon clear from what he said that the mind of South Vietnam’s new president must also be filled with similar thoughts. Addressing the “Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam” directly by its own declared name for the first time, he said that all the people now wanted “reconciliation” above all else; but the tone of his voice suggested he held out little hope that he Viet Cong or the North Vietnamese would make many concessions now that outright military victory was within their grasp. 

“Reconciliation requires that each element of the nation respect the other’s right to live,” said Minh, struggling to inject conviction into his words. “We should all sit down together and work out a solution. I propose from this podium that we stop all aggression against each other forthwith.” The burly general paused and drew a long breath without looking at his audience, well aware that he was speaking via the live television broadcast to many ears beyond the hall. “I hope with all my heart that this suggestion will meet with approval 

At that moment the whole palace was shaken by an elemental explosion; brilliant Hashes lit the sky outside and curtained doors leading to the patios were blown open. A mighty rush of wind lashed rain into the chamber as the first monsoon storm broke with great violence, and when the doors had been secured again President Minh had to raise his voice to make himself heard above the continuing crash of thunder. 

“In past days, fellow citizens,” he said, his face more stricken than before, “you may have noticed that many people have been quietly leaving the country. Well, I want to remind all our citizens that this is our beloved land. Please be courageous; stay and accept the fate of God Thunder crashed and rolled deafeningly once again, and Minh had to wait until it died away; then he raised his eyes beseechingly to the audience once more. “Please remain and stay together — rebuild South Vietnam! Build an independent Vietnam, democratic and prosperous, so Vietnamese will live with Vietnamese in brotherhood.” He paused one last time and gazed around the hail, a brave man fully aware that he was about to be engulfed by one of history’s irresistible tides. “Thank you very much,” he added quietly at last, but the words never reached the ears of his listeners because they were drowned in another thunderclap. 

As the gathering began to break up, Naomi moved to Joseph’s side and squeezed his arm consolingly; his face was drawn and he raised his shoulders in a resigned shrug. Many times since his arrival he had quizzed Naomi about the message she had received From the French journalist, and she had gone over it patiently again and again for him: a girl called Trinh had contacted the Agence France Presse representative in Hanoi to tell him of Kim’s disappearance after his dismissal from the Politburo. In exchange for the information, she had asked that he contact Joseph Sherman in confidence and say that her great-uncle had arranged for her to be infiltrated to the South as a cadre of the Provisional Revolutionary Government; she feared for her future in the North, she had said, with Kim in disgrace. As the North Vietnamese army was likely to win victory in the South any day, she had felt she would have no future there either; that was why she wanted Joseph to help her get out of Vietnam. There had been no party announcement about Kim, but the French journalist had later learned from a reliable informant that he had died in a car crash.