Word of Honor (24 page)

"But no one fired?"

"No. But then another trick they had was to suck you into the village, then spring the door shut behind you. That's what happened to us at Phu Lai on the first day of Tet.

"So you were all . . . jittery?"

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Tyson replied, "Cautious, but not trigger-happy."

"Please go on."

"The village was quite picturesque. It was, as you said, sort of a suburb of Hue, and it had some Western influence. There were some French-style villas, paved paths, wellkept gardens, and a few shops around a market square. Very different from the really rural villages that were all bamboo and buffalo shit. Anyway, on the concrete walls were painted VC and NVA slogans-"

"in Vietnamese?"

"Most of them."

"You could read them?"

"No . . ."

"Then how did you know they were VC and NVA slogans and not government slogans?"

"Well, they were painted in red. The enemy used red. Commies--Reds. Get it?"

"You said most of the signs were in Vietnamese?"

"Yes, there were a few in English. Routine crap-'Throw out the imperialist running dogs of American adventurism,' or something catchy like that." He added, "There were also these red silk banners strung between the trees with more slogans. It was obvious to me that the place had been under enemy control for some time."

Karen Harper nodded, then asked, "Were there any signs in English directed specifically toward American soldiers?"

Tyson replied, "Yes, I remember one in particular. It said, 'GI, who now sleeps with your wifeT " Tyson smiled. "I think Charlie hired Tokyo Rose as a media consultant."

Karen Harper nodded, then asked, "Any threatening sort of signs?"

"Sure. One said something like, 'GI, Death will come today.' "

"Did that sort of thing have any effect on your troops?"

Tyson considered a moment, then replied, "Sure, the signs and banners and brochures we found got to us a little. Why?"

"Just wondering. Anyway, notwithstanding the slogans and psy-warfare messages, the village was deserted? No civilians? No enemy?"

"No civilians to be seen. No sign of a government pres-188 0 NELSON DEMILLE

ence either. As for the enemy, he was usually unseen. Anyway, we saw this small concrete church and moved toward it. It was there that we discovered another open square, a place as they say in French. It was paved with concrete slabs and surrounded by stucco buildings with red tile roofs. On the far side of the square, at about fifty meters' distance, was a large concrete structure. It was two stories high and had two wings projecting from the front, forming a courtyard. There were a few smaller buildings to each side in the same style and painted the same cream color as the main building. I took it for a government complex of some sort. From the main building, on a flagstaff over the front doors, flew a Viet Cong flag, or perhaps a North Vietnamese flag. It was hard to tell the difference, and the difference didn't matter. Now, banners and slogans are one thing, but an enemy battle flag is another. They don't leave their flag behind any more than we do. An enemy flag equals enemy people. "

"Was there a Red Cross flag on a pole in the courtyard, as the book indicates?"

"There was no such flag. No red cross, only a red star flag. I I Karen Harper reached into her briefcase and took out Picard's book. Tyson looked at it but made no comment.

She said, "I read the entire book. In fact, I just finished it on the plane."

"Good for you."

She opened the book to a marked page and, without preamble, read: It was common at the time of the countryside offensive to run up the enemy flag as a sign of surrender, a gesture that the building and the people should be spared. In Hue, however, a number of students and Buddhist groups were sympathetic to the communist cause, and certain Europeans in the city had similar sympathies. Hue was cosmopolitan, sophisticated, liberal, and generally antiwar. When the enemy took possession of most of the city during the general offensive, these elements in the city's population sometimes hoisted

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the communist flag in a victory celebration. As the battle lines changed, however, so did the flags. To be fair and accurate, the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong often ran up their own flags over captured buildings. So in this case it was not known if that taunting red flag was raised over the hospital by the enemy or by the hospital staff. If by the staff, was it for reasons of protection, surrender, or in sympathy? Or was it perhaps some combination of the three?

Karen Harper looked up from the book and met Tyson's eyes. "Picard agrees that there was an enemy flag there, but he indicates that it might have been raised by the hospital staff for the reasons he indicates. Why did you assume, as you indicated, that enemy soldiers were there?"

Tyson stubbed out his cigarette and replied with a touch of annoyance in his voice, "I didn't have Picard's book with me. I had no idea, Major, of what the hell was going on in Hue or its environs. When I saw an enemy flag, I made the logical assumption that I was approaching a fortified enemy position."

"Yes, of course. Please go on."

Tyson leaned back in his chair and thought. She is playing dumb, and she is imploring me to educate her. I am responding to this dumb woman by trying to teach her about war. Only she is not so dumb. She is using a very sophisticated method of interrogation. Careful, Tyson.

"Mr. Tyson? You were saying something about the church and the square."

"Yes, we deployed on the near side of the square. There were, as I said, no villagers around to question. But it never occurred to me that I was looking at anything other than a large concrete building, a former French admin building or something, currently flying an enemy flag and in fact being used as a fort." Tyson leaned forward. "You have to understand, Major, that you can't be ethnocentric if you're trying to understand this.

Picard says hospital, and you think of a big, sleek building with nice blue signs directing you to visitor parking and all that. You think that mistaking a hospital for an administration building is hard 190 * NELSON DEMILLE

to swallow, like mistaking a water buffalo for an elephant. Well, try to imagine, if you will, a country without neon signs, McDonald's, or comer gas stations, a country where suburb doesn't mean PTAs and lawn mowers but means a shithole village close enough to a rinky-dink city to have a few buildings with glass windows and no pigs in the street. "

Karen Harper did not reply immediately, then said somewhat coolly, "I just spent a month in Japan and the Philippines, a good deal of that time in the countryside. I've been all over the world in the last four years. I am not ethnocentric, but your point is well taken." She added, "Still, hospitals, especially in war zones, are somehow always well marked. But go on."

Tyson stared at her for some time, and their eyes met and held.

She said with a note of near sarcasm, "Do you need another break?"

Tyson stood and went to the side window. It was a soft gray day, damp and cool, an almost welcome relief from the bright sunshine and heat. He smelled rain in the air. Karen Harper, he decided, was ahead on points. He knew he should end the interview now, but his ego wouldn't buy that. Like his father, a gambler, he believed you couldn't win it back unless you kept playing. He turned from the window. "I don't need a break."

She nodded. "You were saying you were on the near side of the square."

Tyson moved back to his chair and sipped on his coffee. "Yes. We moved into positions of cover and concealment around the church. Kelly, my radio operator, who had a good voice, shouted across the square in Vietnamese for anyone inside the concrete building to come out. No one replied. We fired a few probing rounds. No return fire. We waited, called out again, then fired again. No return fire. But we knew they were in there. We could smell them." He looked at Karen Harper, but she did not challenge that statement.

Tyson continued. "We increased our rate of fire, trying to get them to give themselves away. I was beginning to wonder if anyone was in there when it happened. Someone,

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probably some scared kid, fired back. Now we knew. We stepped up our fire, blasting the windows. The enemy began firing back, very intense fire. Mostly small arms, but a few rockets and propelled grenades. Then a machine gun opened up from the roof. We exchanged fire for about five minutes, then I decided to assault the building. The square was not completely exposed.

There were trees and ornamental gardens, a few low walls, and also a pool and fountain. We began moving out, firing and maneuvering. We took one killed and two wounded before we reached the front doors of the building.

That's in the book-"

"Yes, but the book says the main enemy force had withdrawn sometime before you even got there. The three casualties were the result of a solitary sniper on the roof. Picard says through his two witnesses-two men in your piatoonthat you never fired on the building, that civilians in the hospital signaled to you and hung out a white bed sheet. You believed the building held no enemy troops, and apparently so did the hospital staff. Seeing their signal to you, you advanced directly across the square, and the solitary sniper opened fire from the roof. So here we have a further divergence between your account and the account in the book. "

"Well, I'm telling you what happened as I recall it. The enemy force had not withdrawn. We met with intense fire and we returned it."

"All right. By the way, did your field map indicate a hospital? What is the hospital symbol? A square within which is a cross with equal-length arms, like the Red Cross." Her eyes met his.

He said slowly, "Well, there was a hospital symbol on my map . . . as I'm sure you know ... but old map symbols in a country at war for nearly thirty years are somewhat meaningless. Try checking into the hotel that you see on a Vietnam map, or crossing a bridge that's been down for twenty years. "

"I understand that, but-"

"More to the point, I was temporarily disoriented, and I thought I was on the other side of the village. I thought the building designated as a hospital on the map was to the north. "

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"I see. She seemed to be mulling this over, then reached into her briefcase and drew out a plastic-coated map.

Tyson felt his mouth go dry.

Major Harper stood and came around the coffee table. Unexpectedly, she knelt beside Tyson's armchair and unfolded the map.

Tyson looked down at the colored Army ordnance map. The map was trilingual-French, Vietnamese, and English. It suddenly seemed very familiar: the rice paddies, the trails, the burial mounds, the rivers and streams, the woods and hills. After nearly two decades, he still knew the place. His eyes focused on An Ninh Ha.

Major Harper asked, "This was the standard issue map, was it not?"

"Looks like it."

She seemed to be studying it, her finger sliding across the Plasticine coating, stopping at An Ninh Ha. "Here it is. "

"Yes. There it is.

"You see here . . . you said you saw a church on the near side, the west side of the square. Here's the church on the map, a box clearly marked with a Christian, or Latin, cross. The only church in the village. And across the square on the east side is the hospital, marked with the cross of equal-length arms. That seems clear. What I'm wondering is where you thought you were." She glanced over her shoulder at Tyson.

Tyson's eyes went from the map to her face, and they stared at each other in silence. Her proximity was somewhat unsettling. He could smell her scent, an unusual spicy fragrance. He saw that her hair had highlights he hadn't noticed. Between the buttons of her blouse, there was a gap, and out of the comer of his eye he saw the curve of her breasts and observed she was wearing a half-cut bra.

She said again, "Where did you think you were?"

Tyson drew a deep breath through his nostrils and leaned over the coffee table. He scanned the small village quickly. In the north end, near the bend in the river, was a pagoda whose symbol, a box with a projecting line, could conceivably be mistaken for that of a church. Some distance away, perhaps a hundred meters, was the symbol for a

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school: a black box with a pennant flag. Tyson said, "There. I thought I was there."

Major Harper nodded as though she accepted this. "So you thought the Catholic church you passed was a pagoda, and the hospital across the square was a school? You said you thought it was an administration building."

"Well . . . I meant a public building . . . ...

"I see. - She looked at him with an expression meant to convey that she was a little confused. She said, "But the juxtaposition of these two sets of buildings is quite different. Also . . . here you have an open square, a place. Here, between the pagoda and the school, you have tiny black boxes which I presume are houses, and the distance is greater-"

"Look, Major, I don't need a course in map reading. You know, it's easy to sit here in a dry room with a nice new map and play devil's advocate.

But my map was bent and folded so many times the plastic coating was cracked, and water had seeped into the paper. An Ninh Ha was nearly obliterated on my map." Tyson's voice was sharp. "Let's forget maps.

Okay?"

Major Harper folded the map. Still kneeling, she handed it to Tyson.

"These are hard to come by. I assume you don't have yours. My compliments."

Tyson took the map. "Thanks for the memories."

She stood. "Look it over when you get a chance. It may jog your memory."

Tyson did not reply.

She returned to her side of the coffee table. Still standing, she said,

"All right. Where were we?"

"I was attacking the building. Do you want a blow-byblow account of the assault? Or do you want to wait until they make it into a movieT9

"Actually, I'd like us to back up to when you're deployed around the church. You're looking at the building, fifty meters across the square.