Word of Honor

by Nelson DeMille

Again, no one spoke. Tyson said, “There may be no court-martial.”

  “Good,” said Beltran.

  Sadowski said, “Sit down. Have some coffee. Hey, this fort is something else. Looks like those old Frenchie forts around Quang Tri.”

  Tyson sat at an empty place, and everyone sat. He drew coffee from a silver urn.

  Beltran looked around the table as though he were at a board meeting. He said, “So this is it. Out of forty-five men, this is what is left of the first platoon of Alpha Company, Fifth Battalion of the Seventh Cavalry. Mi Dios, Custer had more survivors.”

  A few men laughed halfheartedly.

  Sadowski said, “Don’t forget Kelly and DeTonq. They’re out there someplace.”

  Scorello snorted. “DeTonq is dead, Ski. He never made it back. Kelly is probably dead, too.”

  No one spoke until Walker said quietly, “There’s Doc and Red, too.”

  The room was silent again until Beltran smashed his fist on the table. “Those maricones! Doc I could understand. He was not one of us. But Red—that I cannot understand.”

  Tyson watched them through the haze of blue smoke caused by Beltran’s cigar. He searched their faces for something, though he didn’t know what. Perhaps there was a little guilt there, but mostly there was defiance, self-justification. If you couldn’t justify the cold-blooded murder of babies, children, and women, then you died inside, or you died like Harold Simcox—inside and outside. Tyson said, “Smallpox was almost here.” He looked at Scorello. “He was a buddy of yours, wasn’t he, Tony?”

  Scorello played with his beard. “Didn’t hear from him much the last few years. He got fucked up.”

  Tyson took out a cigarette, and Kalane lit it with a gold Dunhill. Tyson said, “I guess you know how Moody died.”

  No one replied. Tyson had the impression that everyone was ambivalent about this reunion. Tyson asked, “How did Brontman and Selig die?” He looked around the table.

  Sadowski answered, “Freddie died at Khe Sanh. Got hit by one of those little sixty-millimeter mortars the gooks liked so much. Selig was killed in the A Shau Valley. What a fucking mess that was, Lieutenant! Fucking gooks had armor, quad fifties, all kinds of bad shit. Selig stepped on a land mine. They sent him home in an envelope.”

  Tyson drew on his cigarette.

  Kalane added, “You thought Hue was bad. Let me tell you, the A Shau sucked major cock. Khe Sahn was no picnic either. You missed the good stuff.”

  Tyson nodded. “I’ve always been lucky.”

  Sadowski continued the oral history of Alpha Company. “After you left, we got sent to Evans for rest and refitting. Some dork named Neely became CO. Then they sent four new second lieutenants out; bunch of fucking cherries right out of OCS; looked about sixteen years old. Then they send us a hundred replacements, all pfc’s, not a sergeant among them, and they’re still pissing water from infantry school. Well, fuck it, by that time I got transferred to the rear, and Hideaway rotated home. Ghost . . . where’d you go?”

  Walker replied, “Unloading ships at Wonder Beach.”

  “Right. And Tony . . .”

  Scorello said to Tyson curtly, “I shot myself in the fucking foot. Got court-martialed and did a month in Long Binh.”

  Tyson didn’t respond.

  They settled into a more relaxed atmosphere, telling a few war stories, talking about family and jobs.

  Beltran took a cigar out of his breast pocket and handed it to Tyson. “Real Habana. Got contacts there.” He winked in a conspiratorial way. Beltran liked to wink, Tyson remembered. Beltran expanded on the wink. “I still fight communists. I finance anti-Castro groups. I know how to fight those godless pigs even if the maricones in Washington don’t.”

  Tyson put the cigar in his inside pocket.

  Beltran said, “We killed a lot of communists at Hue, so what the hell are they complaining about now?”

  No one seemed to have an answer.

  Finally Walker spoke. “Lieutenant, we want you to know we . . . we were talking, and like we decided, it’s nobody’s business what happened. We’ll stand up for you, like you did for us.”

  Kalane said, “When you got evacuated . . . I told the guys you were going to squeal. But the MPs never came, and we’re not going to forget that.”

  Beltran looked around the table and declared, “If they tortured me, roasted me on hot coals, I would not betray this man.”

  Sadowski said, “When that Major Harper called me on the phone, I nearly shit.” He laughed and looked at Tyson. “My lawyer explained why they’re nailing your ass to the wall and not ours. My fucking lawyer said to cooperate with the government.”

  A few heads nodded.

  Sadowski continued, “But I told him where to put that idea.”

  Tyson had the impression everyone wanted him to know they were doing him a favor. Or repaying the favor he did for them. But if they hadn’t obliterated a hospital full of people in the first place, there would be no favors to repay. Tyson looked at Scorello, who hadn’t offered any favors so far.

  Scorello looked away and said, “Let’s stop the bullshit here. We’re not going to talk because . . . because we have jobs and families and all. I work for a liberal city government. And things have been a little tough for me since this thing broke and my name got mentioned. Yeah, we’ll help the lieutenant. But we’re here to cover our own asses again, too.” He looked at Tyson. “I had a kid when I was sent to Nam. I’m divorced now, but that kid—a son—is twenty-one. He’s heard all the wild whore stories and all the times I shot it out with Charlie. Now he wants to know what the fuck I did there on February fifteenth.”

  Sadowski said, “I have a kind of sensitive wife. She cries a lot when she sees this shit on TV. When they say we killed the kids . . .” Sadowski cleared his throat. “This sucks.”

  Beltran rubbed his double chin. He said, “It does no good to speak of this. We all know what we have to do. Maybe you are doing it to save your reputations. In Miami I get no flak. So I am doing it only for Ben Tyson.” He nodded with finality.

  Tyson marveled that this was the same man who wanted to machine-gun him in the hospital. Well, he thought, people grow up.

  Sadowski suddenly blurted, “I’d like to kill that fucking Doc. And that shithead Red.”

  Everyone looked at Tyson as if they wanted a second to the motion. Tyson said nothing.

  Sadowski continued, “I know guys in Chicago who would break their fucking legs and arms . . . but I want them . . . wasted.” Sadowski turned to Beltran. “You got any guys who can do something about those two fucks?”

  Beltran sat back with his hands on his paunch. He nodded slowly and winked.

  Tyson looked at them, each in turn. Any five men who had not been to war would have been shocked at the turn the conversation had taken. But these were not any five men.

  Walker said, “Only Doc. Not Red.”

  Scorello cleared his throat. “It should happen before the court-martial.”

  Kalane looked at Beltran. “I’ll pay for it. You arrange it.”

  Tyson thought he ought to say something sane. “I don’t think that will make us feel any better.”

  Kalane leaned across the table. “We gave our word, Ben, on pain of death. We weren’t fucking around then. We’re not fucking around now. That fuck Brandt gave his word. What the fuck makes him think he can break it without something happening to him?”

  Tyson didn’t think this was the time to mention that Corva wanted him to tell the whole story if he were convicted.

  Kalane added, “Listen, Ben, I wanted you dead that night after the hospital thing. Not because I didn’t like you. I liked you a lot. But I liked me more. If I had shot my mouth off like Brandt, I would deserve to get wasted, too.”

  Tyson looked around the table. He spoke in a voice that he hoped still had some of the old command authority in it. “I covered for you once. I failed to do my duty once. But not again. If anything happens to Brandt or Farley, you might as well p
ut me on your list, too, because by God I’ll see to it that you all go to jail this time.”

  No one met his eyes and no one spoke. Finally, Scorello said, “Enough of this, for Christ’s sake. Enough of this kind of talk. We’re not killers.”

  No one seemed to know how to reply to that remarkable statement. Tyson stared at the blue smoke hanging above the table, and his eyes drifted upward to the concrete ceiling with the small circles of thick glass, like blue-green bottle bottoms.

  Tyson looked up at the pinpoint of light on the domed ceiling of the bunker and was reminded of a bright star in the night sky of the Hayden Planetarium. He guessed that an armor-piercing shell had once made a direct hit on the foot-thick rounded concrete top of the pillbox, probably during some long-forgotten engagement between the French and Viet Minh.

  Someone struck a match, and the sudden phosphorus flare gave several of the men a start. A candle was lit, and its wax was puddled on the floor, then the candle was stuck in it. The small flame seemed inordinately bright and cast shadows of the men along the round wall.

  Tyson lit a cigarette with the lighter his platoon had given him. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil for . . . for I am the meanest . . . for Thou art with me.

  Tyson leaned back against the clammy concrete and drew his knees up to his chest. He smelled, as much as saw, the wet canvas field gear strewn around the bunker. In the half light he picked out each of his men: Kelly to his right, Brandt to his left, both sitting with their backs to the wall. Spaced along the wall, also sitting, were Beltran, Scorello, Sadowski, Holzman, Brontman, Selig, Walker, Simcox, Kalane, Santos, Manelli, and DeTonq. Opposite him, about fifteen feet across the floor, was Richard Farley sitting between the poncho-wrapped bodies of Cane and Peterson. Moody lay on the floor in front of him and Brandt, moaning softly. Tyson leaned over to Brandt and said softly, “Is he going to be all right until morning?”

  Brandt replied in a whisper, “I’m just afraid of blood poisoning. Otherwise he’s okay.”

  Tyson leaned forward and spoke to Moody, “How you doing, kid?”

  Moody took a few seconds to answer, then spoke through a morphine-induced haze. “Oh . . . Lieutenant . . . feeling bad and good . . . send me home . . . checking out. . . .”

  “Okay,” replied Tyson. “Home.”

  “Sign the orders.”

  “Okay. Doc and I will both sign the orders.”

  “Browder too.”

  “Browder too,” said Tyson.

  “No fuckups.”

  “No fuckups.” Tyson whispered to Brandt, “Home?”

  “No,” replied Brandt. “Fit for duty in a few weeks. Superficial. Just worried about the blood poisoning.”

  Tyson leaned back against the wall again and drew on his cigarette. There were four long narrow gun slits at eye level, and DeTonq was now peering out of the one facing Hue, Sadowski out of the opposite one facing An Ninh Ha. Tyson could see the flames and flares of night battle flickering at the gun slits, and he heard the rumble of impacting artillery and air strikes. He thought it was a bad sign that the only two sergeants in the platoon were doing what they should have ordered their men to do.

  Scorello spoke softly, “Doc?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Are they going to stink?”

  Brandt replied, “Yeah. They’re dead.”

  “Can’t we put them outside?”

  Farley’s voice cut through the damp air. “No! The animals’ll get them.”

  Brandt said, “Double-bag them. Two ponchos each, twist-tie them at both ends. No guarantee though.”

  A few of the men moved toward the two bodies and did as Brandt instructed.

  Tyson stubbed out his cigarette on the floor and felt for the handle of his .45 automatic in his holster. He wondered if they knew Kelly had given it to him. He wondered, too, if he’d use it or if he’d even have a chance to use it. He heard whispering around him and had the feeling that the whispering could end in the crack of a rifle shot. He worked his logbook out of his back pocket, drew his legs up farther, and made an entry, then slipped the book under his shirt into his waistband.

  The night passed slowly. Boots came off, feet were dried, socks changed, and boots were put back on. A few heat tablets were lit, and canteen cups of water were boiled over them. The smell of tea, coffee, and cocoa competed with the noxious fumes of the tablets, the moldy concrete, and the stink of fear given off by seventeen bodies.

  A card game started but broke up quickly. A few other men took turns at the gun slits. A few men went out into the rain to urinate or vomit. The radio speaker, its volume turned to the lowest setting, still filled the bunker with a continuous electronic crackling. Every half hour, Browder’s radio operator would call the platoons for a situation report.

  Tyson noticed the acrid smell of the local marijuana, but he didn’t think he was in a position to make any arrests. In fact, he thought ironically, the more they smoked, the better he liked it. He pulled his fifth of Scotch from his rucksack, took a short pull, and passed it to Kelly. Kelly drank some and passed it to his right. By the time it went around the wall and reached Brandt beside him, it was empty. Someone said, “Hope Charlie don’t hit us,” then laughed. A few other men laughed, but Tyson thought the laughs sounded shallow.

  The radio came alive again. “Mustang One-Six-India, this is Six-India,” the voice said, identifying itself as Browder’s radio operator. “Put your Six on for my Six, please.” Kelly hesitated, then handed the radiophone to Tyson. The bunker fell silent as Browder’s voice came on in those low, distinct tones used at night in the field. “One-Six, this is Six. I need some details of your contact for Big Six.”

  Tyson licked his lips and spoke into the phone, “Roger. Can’t it wait until morning? We’re trying to be quiet here.”

  “Roger, that. I’ll advise Battalion. You people okay?”

  “Roger. But I’ve got listening posts out there. Hear lots of movement. If we make further contact, you’ll hear from us loud and clear. Meanwhile, negative sit rep,” said Tyson in what he hoped sounded like an impatient tone.

  “Roger. Keep cool. Dawn’s coming.”

  “Right, over.”

  “Roger, out.”

  Tyson handed the phone back to Kelly. Kelly said, “As we approached the hospital, we took heavy fire. Peterson and Moody were hit. We took cover and returned the fire. There was a sizable enemy force in the building. We didn’t know it was a hospital. Lieutenant?”

  Tyson spoke in the quiet bunker. “There was a sizable enemy force in the building. I decided on an assault. We fired and maneuvered toward the structure. We got inside and engaged the enemy in room-to-room fighting. Sadowski?”

  “We got inside and engaged the enemy in room-to-room fighting. DeTonq?”

  “We got inside and engaged the enemy in room-to-room fighting. Beltran?”

  “We got inside and engaged the enemy in room-to-room fighting. Kalane?”

  The litany continued as Tyson listened. When it came around to him again he added another line and again the congregation responded.

  The hours passed, partly in silent thought, partly in restructuring the details of what had happened inside the hospital. Tyson noticed that the ponchos that shrouded the two bodies were bloating like balloons. He noticed, too, that the men had become lethargic—a natural result of fatigue, marijuana, and post-stress behavior. They also seemed receptive to anything he said. Hour by hour he was regaining control.

  A false dawn, peculiar to the tropics, broke through the east-facing gun slit, then it became very dark, the darkest hour. Tyson said, “The structure was completely burned, and there are no weapons or bodies to turn in. But I estimate an enemy body count of twelve.”

  Kelly said, “That sounds about right. Ski?” Sadowski actually seemed to think about it before replying, “Are you counting the two that Kalane killed with the frag?”

  Kalane said, “I reported those two, didn’t I, Lie
utenant?”

  “Yes,” replied Tyson. “I have those two.” Tyson lit his cigarette and drank some tepid canteen water. He said, “We pursued the fleeing enemy toward Hue but lost their trail.”

  “Right,” said DeTonq. “I spotted this old bunker half covered with growth, and we decided to check it out.”

  “We moved toward it carefully,” said Beltran. “Walker, he throws a concussion grenade inside, then we rush it.”

  “It was empty,” said Walker. “So we decided to hole up here ’cause we were pretty beat.”

  Tyson watched the gun slits. The fires of the night faded as the sky lightened with the new dawn. The rain had stopped, and there was an odd stillness outside as the enemy made their usual dawn withdrawals.

  Tyson stared at the sputtering candle awhile, then moved in a crouch to the center of the bunker near the candle. Kelly, then Sadowski, drew toward him, followed by DeTonq, then the remainder of the men. Tyson put his hand out, and Kelly put his on top of his lieutenant’s. Tyson watched as each man put his hand into the circle, and Tyson looked at each face in the light of the wavering candle. He did not know precisely what he felt for these men, but the overpowering emotion seemed to be pity. Tyson spoke in measured tones. “We give our word as soldiers, as brothers, as comrades in arms, as men, as friends, as fellow sufferers, and maybe as Christians. And we know what we are giving our word about. And it is forever. Kelly?”

  “I give my word. Doc?”

  “I give my word. Sadowski?”

  “I give my word. DeTonq?”

  “I give my word. Beltran?”

  Hernando Beltran said, “Any one of us could have gone running to the colonel and told on the others. But we gave our word that night. And our lips were to be sealed to our death. I told no one, not even a priest. So I have this mortal sin on my soul . . . this killing of nuns. . . . And I must pray each day that God will forgive me when I meet Him. If He does not, then I am damned for eternity. This I did for us.”

  Tyson listened for a while as they spoke, then said abruptly, “Enough. We’ll discuss Brandt at another time.” He switched to a mundane subject. “Where are you all staying?”