Word of Honor

by Nelson DeMille

  Tyson turned to Mason and saw he was eyeing the contents of the trunk. Tyson said, “I don’t know why men keep junk like this.”

  Mason said, “I had a brother in Korea. Durin’ that war they was havin’ there. Only thing he came home with was underwear. Stole three duffel bags of underwear.”

  “Sounds like a practical man,” observed Tyson. He took a tied bundle of letters. “Well . . .” He hesitated, then threw it on the blazing mass of wax and watched as the flames licked around the edges. Item by item, beginning with the most combustible, he fed the fire until all that remained were the metal items, the boots, and the photo album. He picked up the boots and crumbled the dried mud in his fingers. “Southeast Asia. Instant Nam: just add water.” What a peculiar slime it was, he thought. Three thousand years of intense recycling: rice, dung, blood, rice, ash, blood, rice, dung. And so on. He dropped the boots back into the trunk, then leafed through the photo album. He extracted a single picture, a snapshot of him and Teresa standing in front of the Hue cathedral. There had been two more, but they were gone. He slipped the picture into his breast pocket and threw the entire album into the fire.

  Sweat ran down his face, and the smell of mustiness and ash clung to his nostrils. He closed the trunk, locked it, and gave Mason the key. “You can have the trunk if you want. The flashlight and the other odds and ends too. I’d like you to throw the boots and the rest in the garbage.”

  “Yes, sir.” Mason put his beer carefully on the coffee table. He stared at Tyson. “You feelin’ better, or you feelin’ worse?”

  “I’m not feeling.”

  Mason nodded.

  “Can you take the trunk by yourself? I have a few more things to do.”

  “Yes, sir.” Mason hefted the nearly empty trunk onto his shoulder.

  Tyson said, “I’ll meet you outside.” He reached into his hip pocket and drew out the small hide-bound logbook. He sat cross-legged on the floor and opened it, leafing through the pages with his sweaty fingers. A drop of perspiration rolled from his chin and fell upon a page already stained by sweat and water twenty years before. He came finally to the entry for 15 February and read the last lines: Platoon on verge of mutiny. Overheard death threats. Filed false radio report re: hospital battle this A.M. Investigate. God—

  He tried to recall how he felt after the massacre but could only remember the fear for his own life. He tried to imagine that he gave serious thought regarding the best way to report his platoon to Captain Browder or to the battalion commander. But his mind wouldn’t play the game. In reality he knew he had never once seriously considered swearing to murder charges against the men of his platoon.

  Tyson continued to turn the pages, noticing that the days after 15 February were represented by only a line or two of insignificant details, mostly grid coordinates and radio frequencies. He came to 29 February, the day he was wounded, and noted the only entry for the day read: Refugee assistance. Battle for Hue officially closed, as per radio message.

  The next entry was for 3 March. He read: USS Repose; South China Sea. Logbook returned today by orderly. Did anyone read entry for 15 Feb? Who cares? Nice to be alive. My hands look very clean. Knee giving me pain. Darvon only. No morphine. Doctor said, “You don’t take morphine well.” He wouldn’t take it well either if he’d been given a triple dose.

  Tyson lowered the logbook and let his mind go back to the Strawberry Patch.

  Ben Tyson lay on his back in a drainage ditch, actually the local honey pit, the place where offal was collected for sale to vegetable farmers. Green tracer rounds streaked over the ditch, lustrous against the dull gray sky. He could hear the muted chatter of automatic weapons and the occasional explosion of small rounds: 50-mm rifle grenades, 60-mm mortars, an occasional rocket. It was a desultory firefight between two spent armies, like two exhausted boxers, moving leaden limbs, taking a few obligatory swings at one another. A month before, he’d have taken this very seriously. But today, 29 February, he would describe the incident as light contact. The only remarkable thing about the day’s contact from his point of view was that he’d finally been hit.

  As the shock wore off, the pain became more severe, until finally it dominated his entire consciousness. The stench around him didn’t matter, neither did the bone-chilling water or the occasional thump of the enemy mortar trying to put a round into the ditch where dozens of civilians were leaping for cover.

  Within a few minutes the ditch had become crowded with Vietnamese: old men, a few young men who were ex-ARVN amputees, women, and children who did not cry. Only the babies cried.

  A pig had gotten into the ditch, and it sniffed around him, then licked the blood from his knee. Tyson kicked the pig in the snout with his other foot. About ten of his men had withdrawn toward the ditch, and they slid in, cursing the muck and the Vietnamese refugees. One of his men, Harold Simcox, spotted him and called, “Medic! Lieutenant’s hit!”

  Of the two remaining company medics, it was Brandt who answered the call. Brandt worked quickly and professionally, first examining Tyson for wounds more serious than the obvious knee injury. He checked Tyson’s pulse, felt his forehead, and looked at his eyes. It was only then that Brandt cut away the trouser leg and squeezed a tube of antibiotic ointment onto the open wound. He folded the flaps of flesh and stringy pink ligaments over the exposed patella. Tyson picked up his head to watch, but Brandt reached out and casually pushed his head back into the muck. “No peeking,” said Brandt as he always said when dressing a wound. “Don’t want you getting sick on me.”

  Tyson said irritably, “I’ve seen worse than this.”

  “Not on yourself. Just relax.” Brandt applied a pressure bandage, tying the strings loosely. “Pain?”

  “Some.”

  “Do you want morphine?”

  Tyson wanted something for the pain, but he didn’t want to become drowsy while there was still enemy contact. “Maybe just some APCs.”

  “Right.” Brandt put two of the aspirin compound tablets in Tyson’s mouth and placed the remainder of the bottle in Tyson’s breast pocket. He pulled out a red grease pencil and wrote on Tyson’s forehead, NM. No morphine given. He said, “They’ll give it to you on the chopper.”

  “Right.”

  The gunfire had slackened, and Tyson noticed more of his men rolling into the ditch as they made their way across the exposed area where they’d been pinned down. Brandt found a helmet in the water and put it under Tyson’s head.

  “Thanks.”

  Brandt stared at him, then lit a cigarette and put it in Tyson’s mouth. Brandt lit one for himself as there didn’t seem to be any more customers for him at the moment. Brandt said, “It’s a good wound. A good-bye wound.”

  “Million dollar?”

  “Eight hundred thousand. You’re going to limp. But you’ll be limping in New York.”

  “Right.” Tyson propped himself up on one arm and looked along the wide, shallow trench. About a dozen soldiers were kneeling, firing short bursts at the far-off line of fruit trees from where the rockets and gunfire had originated. But Tyson didn’t think they were drawing return fire any longer. The rest of Alpha Company had decided not to participate in this particular firefight and were hunched down, smoking cigarettes, eating C rations, bantering and bartering with the civilians. Farley had a chicken perched on his head, and the Vietnamese thought that was comical. Michael DeTonq was talking very seriously to a young girl, and Tyson guessed the subject without hearing a word. Lee Walker had the pig in a neck lock and was writing or drawing something in grease pencil on its face. The men around him thought it was pretty funny whatever it was. Tyson was glad everyone was relaxed.

  Tyson lay back on the helmet. The thought occurred to him, not for the first time, that he would miss this, miss the ability to indulge in eccentric if not actually atavistic behavior. Now that it was nearly over for him, he admitted to the excitement of combat, of living on the edge, of being free to release without constraint all of his aggressive energy.
And he would miss too the sense of community offered by combat, the sense of bonding between men that was as profound as any between lovers, if not more so. It was a bond, unlike marriage, that could never be broken by divorce or separation or by anything other than death.

  As he lay there in the slime, he thought again about that hospital and what they had done there. And again he felt no sense of failed duty, though by all legal, rational, and moral standards, he had failed miserably.

  Tyson turned his head toward Brandt. “Who else was hit?”

  Brandt replied, “Two guys from third platoon. Not bad.”

  “Did anyone call medevac?”

  “I guess Kelly did.”

  “Where is Kelly?”

  “Out there somewhere. But he’s okay. I heard his voice over the squawk box down the line. How’d you get separated?”

  Tyson had never been more than an arm’s length from his radio operator, and he felt strangely powerless without Kelly and without the reassurance that personal radio contact with the outside world gave him. Tyson said, “When the firing broke out, a mob of panicky Viets got between us. You’re sure he’s okay?”

  “Yes, sir. No bullshit. You’re not hit bad enough for me to lie to you.” Brandt drew on his cigarette and threw it, still lit, to a Vietnamese boy a few yards away. The boy fielded it with expertise and had it in his mouth before Brandt exhaled his smoke.

  Tyson said, “You know . . . I feel a little better. Maybe I should take charge of this herd.”

  “No. You lay there. Your pulse is a little off, and if you could see the color of your face you wouldn’t be thinking about taking charge of anything.”

  Tyson tried to remember who the ranking man was, but his head felt strangely light. He said, “Do me a favor, Doc. Find out who’s the senior sergeant. Tell him to report here to me.”

  Brandt replied disinterestedly, “Okay. But I don’t think anyone wants the honor of leading Alpha Company.”

  Tyson said, “Also find Kelly. And if I don’t get a chance, tell everyone I said adiós. Okay?”

  “Okay.” But Brandt made no move to follow orders. Instead, he said, “We’re finished. Not an officer or senior NCO left. They’ll pull us in. Right?”

  “I guess so. Hey, good luck, Brandt.”

  “Thanks.”

  Tyson said, “I’m feeling kind of funny.”

  “Shock.”

  “No . . . very funny . . . woozy. . . .”

  “Really?”

  “Did you . . . you give me something . . . ?”

  His mind was becoming clouded, and things seemed to free-float around him. Michael DeTonq appeared from somewhere and was telling him something about deserting. Tyson thought he was hallucinating at first, but he realized DeTonq was real. Then Bob Moody, recently returned to duty from his wound at the hospital, was looking down on him. Moody said, “You’ll be back in a week, Lieutenant, just like me.”

  Tyson thought he answered him, “No, not me,” but he couldn’t be sure he spoke.

  Kelly was suddenly at his side, but he didn’t say much. Kelly called the battalion commander, Colonel Womrath, on the radio. The colonel spoke to Tyson, telling him what a fine job he had done and how good it had been to have him as Alpha’s acting company commander. Tyson replied in similar stock phrases, though somewhat disjointed, telling the colonel that it had been an honor to serve under him and to be part of the Seventh Cavalry and that he’d do it again if he was able. DeTonq said, “Bullshit.” Kelly said, “Amen.”

  Then a line of men came at him in a low crouch, each one taking his hand and shaking it, then, against field regulations, saluting him; Richard Farley was first, the chicken still on his helmet, then came Simcox and Tony Scorello. Scorello said, “Thanks for saving my life,” though Tyson didn’t recall saving the man’s life. Hernando Beltran came up to him and said, “Adiós, amigo. Watch out for those hippies in Frisco.” Selig said his good-bye, then Louis Kalane, then Paul Sadowski gave him a religious medal, and Kurt Holzman accidentally bumped his knee. Finally Lee Walker, a black man, came up to Tyson, still holding the pig. He turned the pig’s face toward Tyson, and Tyson saw that Walker had drawn slanty eyebrows and a mandarin mustache on the animal’s face. Walker said, “Charlie says good-bye too.” The pig squealed and tried to get away, but Walker held it tightly. Tyson’s eyes became clouded, and all he could see was the pig’s malevolent red eyes squinting at him, then everything went black.

  Tyson looked down at the book in his lap, then shut it. Sitting cross-legged on the floor had caused his knee to stiffen, and he stretched out his right leg. He vaguely recalled being carried to the medevac helicopter and the ride, like a floating dream, out to sea.

  After, when he woke on the hospital ship, he was told by the ward physician that he’d gone into shock, possibly morphine shock, and nearly died. The doctor questioned him about whether or not he’d received morphine in the field. Tyson had replied that he didn’t think so. But blood and urine tests showed high levels of morphine. He overheard a doctor using the words therapeutic accident. The consensus was that Tyson, who as an officer sometimes carried a Syrette of morphine, had injected himself to relieve the pain. Then one or both of the company medics, not aware of any previous dose being given, injected him again, and finally the helicopter medic had inadvertently given him the near fatal overdose. But that didn’t fully explain the NM on his forehead, they agreed. Tyson had the impression that they wanted to let the unfortunate incident pass without official inquiry since it had not happened before. Tyson had considered giving the doctors his own conclusion, which was that medic Brandt had tried to murder him. But why rock the Repose? Brandt had nearly committed a perfect crime, and it was no less perfect for Tyson having survived.

  Tyson stared down at the small logbook in his hands, then without further thought he threw it in the fire. He picked up a bellows and pumped air onto the fire until it blazed furiously, consuming the last scraps of his wartime reminders.

  Tyson stood and began walking through the house. There were memories here too; ghosts in every chair, friends and family around the dining room table, people around the piano, bridge games in the den, making love to Marcy in front of the fireplace. There was the living room chair where his father had always sat, the place near the front windows where the Christmas tree always went, the corner in the kitchen where David’s high chair had been, and the place in the foyer where David took his first step.

  He went upstairs and wandered into David’s room and stood there awhile, then looked into the two guest rooms and the spare room used as a second-floor sitting room. On the third floor was the garret with another whole suite for the maid’s quarters, which were standard when this house was built. But these days, as Tyson was fond of saying, the live-in help slept in the master bedroom, so the third floor was totally unused. “What did we need all this space for? Were we trying to avoid each other?”

  He recalled the house where he grew up, ten blocks away. It was about the same size as this one, but it was filled with people: his parents, his three sisters, his mother’s mother and occasionally a spinster aunt, and a succession of mongrel dogs. “We are too selfish to have children anymore. We farm out the elderly, and indigent relatives know better than to ask for a place to stay. No wonder we’re all alone at the end.”

  He went into the master bedroom and picked up the telephone. He dialed. Marcy answered, “Hello.”

  “It’s me.”

  “Hello, you.”

  “I want a baby.”

  Marcy replied, “Okay.”

  “Maybe two. And a dog.”

  “Whoa. How’s the house?”

  “Empty. Lots of nurseries.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. Mason is with me. I like Mason.”

  “He’s probably a Democrat.”

  “He’d be a fool not to be.” He said, “I don’t think either of us is a nominee for the spouse of the year award this year. But I want you to know
I love you.”

  Marcy said, “I love you. Very much. Hurry home. You’re to be back at nine o’clock. I think I like the Army keeping you on a short leash.”

  He hung up, bounded down the staircase, and took his sport jacket from the foyer, activated the alarm, and left the house.

  Mason opened the door of the running car, and Tyson got in. Mason slid behind the wheel. Tyson said, “We have a lot of stops. Got the time?”

  “If you got the stops, I got the go.”

  Tyson laughed. “Okay. First stop, the country club.”

  Mason drove to the club, Tyson got out, went inside to the club secretary’s office, and resigned his membership. They stopped next at the Men’s Club, and he did the same. He got to his bank before closing and withdrew most of his savings in cash. He glanced in the side-view mirror a few times and said, “Mason, we’re being followed.”

  “Know that.”

  “No sweat. Just my guardian angels.”

  “Okay.”

  The limousine went up Franklin Avenue and stopped at the suburban branches of Bloomingdale’s, Saks, Lord & Taylor, Abraham & Straus, and smaller chain shops in between. At each place, Tyson paid his charges off in real money, which caused some consternation, and he canceled all his accounts, which gave him a sense of acting out a long-held fantasy.

  He directed Mason to some of the local merchants where he settled up all house accounts and canceled them. He took care of the last merchant, a florist, and got back in the limousine with a box of long-stemmed roses. He passed the box over to the front seat. “These are for Mrs. Williams from Mrs. Tyson and me. Tell her we hope she’s feeling better.”

  Mason lifted the lid of the long box. “Why, thank you, Mr. Tyson. Thank you.”

  Tyson sat back in his seat. “Let’s just drive around town for a while. Fifty-cent tour.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Tyson lit a cigarette and watched the familiar landscape from his window: the cathedral, the hotel, the churches, the clubs, the parks, the wide tree-lined streets, the shops, the schools, and the little railroad stations. He said, “Do you know what this is called, Mason?”