Word of Honor

by Nelson DeMille

  The wailing stopped, and a tense silence hung over the burial mound. Kelly stood slowly and looked grimly at the group of Vietnamese. He said to Tyson, “These bastards are burying enemy dead.”

  Tyson thought he didn’t give a damn. He said, “Forget it.”

  “Like hell.” Kelly leveled his rifle, and the Vietnamese immediately huddled together, clutching at one another. Kelly shouted, “You die!”

  One of the young women fell to her knees and began crying, “No! No kill me!”

  Tyson snapped, “Knock it off, Kelly!”

  Kelly lowered his rifle. “Fucking gooks.”

  Tyson turned and motioned to Farley and Simcox.

  The two men climbed onto the mound. Tyson said, “Cut the wrappings open.”

  The men hesitated, then drew their knives.

  Kelly was staring at the two shovels. He said to Tyson, “Look at this shit. A GI entrenching tool.” He picked it up and swung it at the boy, who ducked. Kelly shouted. “Where did you get this, cocksucker? O dau?”

  The boy was trembling, but like survivors everywhere, thought Tyson, not only could he speak the lingua franca of the occupying army and not only could he duck quickly, but he probably had a good answer for life-threatening questions. The boy cried out, “Buy from GI! Black market. Buy. Eight hundred piaster.”

  “You’re full of shit,” said Kelly.

  Simcox called out, “Two more NVA.”

  Tyson said, “Throw them in the water.” He looked at the Vietnamese. “No bury.” He made a cutting motion across his neck. “Savvy? You biet?”

  They all nodded in unison, affecting contrite expressions. “Biet! Biet!”

  Tyson heard a splash and turned. The first enemy soldier floated face-down in the paddy. Farley and Simcox threw the second and third in after him. The floodwaters carried the corpses east, down toward the coastal plains, toward Hue, where they had begun their funeral journey. As he watched, a wake appeared at a right angle to one of the bodies, and Tyson saw a water rat scurry atop one of the corpses. The rat probed at the winding sheets with its long gray muzzle. Tyson turned away.

  Farley said, “I hope those three fucks were at Phu Lai.”

  Simcox nodded and looked thoughtfully at the civilians. He said tonelessly, “Let’s waste them.”

  “At ease, Simcox.” Tyson was feeling petty. Even if they had been at Phu Lai, the three men had been soldiers and deserved a decent burial. But in the field, in the absence of a functioning judicial system, Tyson felt obliged to administer summary justice to the living and the dead. He was wondering what to do with the Vietnamese when Kelly called out, “We ought to search this crew.”

  Tyson shrugged. “I suppose.”

  Kelly barked an order in Vietnamese, and the villagers, hesitantly at first, then more quickly, as Kelly leveled his M-16, began to undress.

  They stood there, naked in the cold rain, the five old men, the boy, the two older women, and the two young women, their silk pajamas and conical hats lying in the mud. Kelly, Farley, and Simcox walked around them, kicking at their black pajamas, trampling their laboriously woven straw hats into the mire.

  Tyson turned away and lit a cigarette. The radio crackled, and Larry Cane’s voice came over the speaker. “One-Six, this is One-Three. What are you guys up to over there?”

  Tyson took the radiophone from Kelly and looked out across the inundated checkerboard of rice fields, to the north where his platoon was strung out along the high dike. “One-Six here. Saddle up and move out. Head toward that tree line at four-five degrees. Try to stay on the dry dikes. We’ll intersect with you. Out.” He handed the phone back to Kelly, then stared at the miserable villagers standing over the open graves, naked and shivering in the winter rain. He remarked softly, “My God, Kelly, we’re Nazis.”

  Kelly nodded in agreement. “We’re shits, Lieutenant. I mean to tell you, we are shits.”

  Farley said, apropos of nothing, “Fucking gooks.”

  Simcox concurred, “Cocksuckers.” He glowered at the pathetic wretches who had instinctively huddled closer to one another for warmth, despite their obvious embarrassment. Tyson noticed that the women were shielded by the old men. The boy was in the forefront, ready to do some fast negotiating if he smelled a massacre, Tyson thought.

  Farley shouted, “You’re all fucking VC! VC!”

  This standard accusation brought forth the standard exclamations of protest and shaking of heads. “No! No! No VC! No VC!”

  Tyson felt that if he turned his back, Farley, Simcox, and perhaps even Kelly would mow these people down with no more regard than they had for slashing a machete through a troublesome vine. And the incredible thing, he thought, was that Farley attended the company Bible study group, and Simcox was always giving little GI luxuries like soap and ballpoint pens to village schoolteachers. Kelly had a good rapport with village elders and old mama-sans. But that was last month and the month before. That was when the sun was shining, before the green-gray body bags began filling with Alpha Company.

  Today, Tyson understood, the war completely possessed their minds, had insinuated itself deeply into their hearts, and had sickened their souls. To say that war brutalized men was like saying that famine made people hungry.

  Tyson felt suddenly old, tired, and demoralized. Surely, he thought, there was a spark of decency left in them. He said softly, with no expression on his face, “Make them lie in the graves and shoot them.”

  Kelly looked at him quickly. Farley’s eyes widened. Simcox lowered his rifle. No one spoke, no one moved. A full minute passed, then Tyson snapped, “Okay, heroes, confiscate the shovels. They can bury their dead with their hands.”

  Farley picked up the Army entrenching tool, and Simcox, the long-handled grave digger’s shovel. Kelly motioned to the Vietnamese to get dressed, then said, “Chao ong. So long, suckers. Look me up when you get to the States.”

  Farley laughed.

  Simcox kicked a clod of mud that splattered on the boy’s groin.

  The four soldiers moved down the opposite side of the burial mound, and Tyson took the lead along a narrow, bush-choked dike. He saw the main body of his platoon moving onto a submerged path in order to intersect with them.

  Kelly walked directly behind Tyson. He said softly so the other two couldn’t hear, “Are we going to that hospital?”

  Tyson replied without turning, “Maybe.”

  “Don’t push it, Lieutenant.”

  “Don’t push me, Kelly. In fact, shut the fuck up.”

  They walked in silence awhile, then Kelly said, “Hey, I’m looking out for your ass.”

  “Look out for your own ass.”

  “I’m doing that too. What would I do if you got greased? I’d be a rifleman again.” Kelly affected a laugh.

  Tyson bent his head forward and lit a soggy cigarette with his Zippo lighter. He looked at the stainless-steel lighter, given to him at Christmas by his platoon. One side of it had the First Cavalry shoulder patch engraved on it. Etched on the other side was a ribald version of the Twenty-third Psalm: Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for I am the meanest motherfucker in the valley.

  Tyson dropped the lighter in his pocket and passed the cigarette to Kelly. Tyson said, “We’ll give it a peek. I’m curious. If it looks dicey, we’ll bypass it or call artillery on it. If it looks okay, maybe we can set up there awhile. They might have showers, hot chow, toilet bowls, and who the hell knows what else. Hot and cold running French nurses.”

  Kelly laughed. “Okay. We’ll take a peek. I’m not real anxious to get to Hue anyhow.”

  “You said that.”

  “And I’ll say it again tomorrow.”

  The four men intersected the other fifteen troops of the platoon at a place where two dikes crossed.

  Moody said to Tyson, “What the hell was going on there, Lieutenant?”

  “Burial detail. Local gooks planting some NVA. We took their shovels away. Mission accomplishe
d.” Tyson said to Kelly, “Report to Browder later; three confirmed NVA bodies. Okay, let’s move.”

  The platoon began moving along the straight dike that pointed toward An Ninh Ha. Simcox called to Tyson as they walked, “Where are we heading now, Lieutenant?”

  “Hue, sonny. Hue.”

  “Fuck Hue.”

  “Fuck Hue,” agreed Tyson. He added, “There’s a little Frenchy café on Tihn Tam Street with halfbreed honeys, Simcox. They serve Martel brandy and croissants.”

  “Not anymore, they don’t. What’s a . . . ? A what?”

  “A croissant. That’s French for a blow job under the table. It comes with the brandy.”

  “No shit?”

  “No shit.” After a minute he said to Brandt, Simcox, and a few others within earshot, “Intermediate objective: a hospital about two clicks from the Citadel’s west wall. Pass that on.”

  The platoon trekked slowly east through the rain and mud. The distant tree line loomed larger, and the muted sounds of explosions grew more distinct. Hue, Tyson thought. Hue sounded like a meat grinder. What other species of living thing on God’s earth would go willingly or unwillingly into a meat grinder? There was a lesson to be learned here, he reflected, but he was damned if he knew what it was.

  The bloated, putrid carcass of a water buffalo lay on the dike, its belly full of rats and its hide covered with wiggling maggots. The platoon detoured around it, into the chest-deep, leech-infested rice paddies, holding their noses and swearing at this further outrage.

  Tyson climbed back onto the slippery dike, Kelly pulling him up by his rifle muzzle. The platoon stopped for a leech check. Tyson glanced at his map and saw the little square with the cross nestled in the village of An Nihn Ha. Nha Thuong. Literally, house of love. He hoped so. They could all use some love.

  Tyson looked at Major Harper. “Excuse me?”

  “To recap, you said you moved out at first light. You received radio orders from Captain Browder to proceed to the village of An Ninh Ha, a sort of suburb of Hue that was reportedly controlled by the enemy. An Ninh Ha was along the main enemy supply route into Hue. A helicopter spotted a large concrete structure in the village. The structure flew an enemy flag. Your radio orders were to assess the situation in An Ninh Ha and determine if the concrete structure was in enemy hands, and if so, to occupy it and pull down the flag. Correct?”

  Tyson nodded. “Correct.”

  She thought a moment, then said, “There’s no way to verify that, of course.”

  Tyson shrugged.

  She continued, “Picard’s book says you heard of this hospital from some local peasants who were burying their dead; that it was you who decided to go to the village and to the concrete structure which you knew was a hospital.”

  “Not true,” he lied. “I was ordered to go there and make contact with the enemy. Intelligence reported that the . . . the structure—I didn’t know it was a hospital then—that the concrete structure was in enemy hands. No one said anything about a hospital.”

  She nodded. “So you were psychologically prepared to meet the enemy?”

  Tyson thought a moment, then replied, “Yes, that’s a good way to put it.”

  “You advanced on this village. . . .” She glanced at her notes. “An Ninh Ha . . . am I saying it right?”

  “Close enough for government work.”

  “Did you meet any resistance on the way?”

  Tyson replied cautiously, “No . . . but we could see signs of them.”

  “Who?”

  “Chuck, Charlie, Mr. Charles, VC, Viet Cong, Victor Charlie. Whom are we talking about?”

  “What sort of signs?”

  “Well, the usual stuff: strung-out commo wire, spider holes—those are gook-size foxholes—smothered cooking fires, hoofprints—what we called hoofprints: fresh VC sandal prints; they made their sandals out of old tires. And North Vietnamese Army boot prints—actually black sneakers. There was evidence of a large number of enemy troops moving in the same direction we were. Toward Hue.” Tyson lit a cigarette. “We also saw unburied dead—VC and North Viets. I think Picard confirms all of this. We were not in friendly territory.”

  “Apparently not. And you knew the enemy was to your front?”

  “Right. We suspected he was stalking us from behind as well. I think we all felt like lost lambs in a clearing, getting a little nervous about all those slanty yellow eyes staring out of the dark woods.”

  She cupped her chin in her hand and regarded him for some time, then smiled. “Did you? I saw a group photo of you and your platoon. To paraphrase the Duke of Wellington, I don’t know what effect these men had on the enemy, but by God, they frightened me.”

  Tyson suppressed a smile. “Well, they looked mean; but they were pussycats.”

  “Anyway, you approached this village?”

  “Yes. Like most villages, it was heavily treed, and we moved carefully across the dike to the tree line that marked the edge of the village. According to my map, the village was nestled in a bend of a small river: a tributary of the Perfume River. The western wall of the Hue Citadel was about two kilometers farther—off my map. At this point I called for air recon, but the weather was awful and whatever was flying was committed elsewhere. So we did what soldiers have done since the beginning of warfare—we called out to the inhabitants to assemble where we could see them. But no one appeared. Intelligence had indicated that the village had been abandoned in the first days of the offensive. So we began probing fire—”

  “You fired into the village?”

  “Yes. That was standard procedure after a warning. But we drew no fire, so we moved cautiously along two parallel dikes, toward the tree line. This is always the worst part because when you come within, say, ten or twenty meters, if they’re in there, then they chop you up.”

  “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?”

  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, well-kept 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 wife?’” 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 d
eserted? No civilians? No enemy?”

  “No civilians to be seen. No sign of a government presence 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.”

  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 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?