by Don McQuinn
Earl’s face broke into a slow smile. “Now you’re losing your audience, right, Carl? Didn’t anyone ever tell you you don’t pick on officers? We’re above reproach.”
“Your ass,” Barline laughed. “Everybody’s fair game.”
Denby chuckled. “I guess we’ll have to warn all our high-living friends. I feel like someone out of English history, running through the streets shouting, ‘The Roundheads are coming!’ ”
“Very apt,” Earl agreed, “except you can start by racing through the halls of that palace your unit lives in. I hear you’ve got a couple of ranchers.”
“Only one to worry about. Allen’ll be gone in a little while. Our friend here won’t have time to get after him. It’s a good thing, too.”
Barline leaned forward again. “Now you’ve got my curiosity aroused. I know Allen. Who’s he shacking with?”
“Sure,” Denby laughed, looking to Earl, enlisting him in his resistance. “I tell you about him and you slaughter him. Forget it.”
Earl smiled complicity and Denby was relieved to see some sense of proportion being maintained.
Barline said, “OK, so it’s between us. For Christ’s sake, who’s he screwing? The President?”
“That’d be a switch,” Earl observed. “C’mon—who is it?”
“I won’t give you any names, but I guess I can tell you she’s married. Her husband’s stationed out of town so she shares an apartment with Allen. I’ve often wondered if someone didn’t set that up for him. He’s got some influential friends, you know.”
Barline twisted his face. “You bastard. Look what you’ve done to me. Sex, intrigue, corruption in high places—the whole fucking bag and I said I wouldn’t use it. What a prick!”
Denby said, “Breaks,” and felt the lightness of the mood dissolve at the instant he saw Earl’s expression. Immediately, he faced Barline again.
“I tried to put a stop to it, of course. Told the Old Man it was a bad situation, a terrible example for the troops. And what would the Viets think, if they knew, a Colonel’s wife, and all? Bad business, bad business.”
He was jabbering and he knew it. Clamping his jaws together, he determined to say nothing further unless questioned. He’d answer in monosyllables, he promised himself.
Earl saved him.
“It’s late,” he said to Barline. “I don’t want to keep Carl too long because I’m hoping he’ll want to join us again.” He turned to Denby. “I supply some of the food and wine and add a couple of bucks for the maid’s extra trouble. Why don’t we make it a threesome in the future?” He accepted Denby’s agreement as given, looking to Barline, who nodded approval.
“It’s settled then.” Even in Earl’s hospitality, Denby sensed something out-of-place, a feeling of misdirection. He knew it had something to do with Allen’s escapade but couldn’t convince himself that Earl could be so upset over what was merely another sordid Saigon incident. He swept the matter from his mind. The important thing was to let the matter die.
Earl pointed at the door. “There’s only one latrine,” he said. “You want to go first?”
Denby accepted the offer quickly, glad for the opportunity to get away from Earl’s peculiar mood. With the door closed behind him and the water splashing, he could hear the other two having a fine argument, although the words were lost in the liquid sounds. From the voices, he could tell Earl was the one speaking urgently and Barline seemed defensive.
He delayed until the commode was quiet in order to eavesdrop a bit and was rewarded by hearing Barline say, “Relax, will you? Even if I did check it out, it’s not the way I’d want to start, all right? What else can I tell you?”
That meant Earl had won the argument, whatever it was about. Denby grinned at himself in the mirror. Jesus, what a day! Up and down, up and down. But he’d handled all of it. No harm done the Unit and he was on the inside with both Earl and Barline. The scowl falling across the face in the mirror reminded him that the stakes had been very high and this was but the first pot. From now on, everything would be very close to the chest. No more gambling.
His last look at the mirror repeated congratulations.
Chapter 31
Duc stood at the base of the tree, turning slowly, inspecting the surrounding sandbag wall with the plump irritation of a child unable to find the soap in the tub. His uniform was already blotched by nervous perspiration. Taylor stood next to him, holding a black briefcase. He was prim in pressed utilities, and they made a strange picture, so different in appearance, and inside a circular wall of new, green sandbags arranged five high.
“What we do now?” Duc spoke with resignation.
“I want all the prisoners but Tu brought out here.”
Duc relayed the order to one of the guards. Within minutes six men in shorts and sandals were marched out of the building, squinting in the unaccustomed daylight. As they shuffled along in single file, one twisted his head eagerly and Taylor wondered how long since he’d seen sunshine. When they arrived at the circle he had them seated inside, their backs against the sandbags. From the briefcase he produced a roll of wide adhesive tape and used it to secure each man’s wrists to his ankles. They watched him with the vague interest of hens seeing the farmer sharpen a hatchet.
“Now I want Tu and a folding chair,” Taylor said. The guard trotted off.
Tu preceded him out of the building, took in the scene at a glance, and swaggered toward Taylor. A livid bruise puffed one eye almost shut. Hatred gleamed from the slit as powerfully as from the undamaged one. At Taylor’s gesture, he stepped over the wall almost eagerly. The guard placed the chair where Taylor pointed and left the circle.
“Sit.” Tu did as he was told. Taylor wrapped tape around his ankles. “Stand.” With Tu on his feet, Taylor circled him, taping the left arm to the body, the wide bands glowing white against the dark skin, circling above and below the elbow. Then he drew another double loop around the body and the tree, leaving approximately a three foot clearance, effectively leashing the man to the trunk.
“Are you afraid I may strike back while you beat me?” Tu sneered. Proud approval discreetly altered the faces of the six men trussed against the sandbags. Taylor said nothing, turning his back and pulling Tu’s free right arm straight, pinning it with his own. Then he bent over, still keeping Tu’s arm clamped to him, and fished in the briefcase momentarily. One of the prisoners hissed surprise as he caught a glimpse of the object in Taylor’s hand and Tu squirmed to see. Taylor leaned back, his weight forcing the smaller Vietnamese against the tree trunk. A few quick wraps of the tape and Taylor faced Tu again. Before the smaller man could react, Taylor lifted him by the waist and boosted him to a standing position on the chair, then stretched on tiptoe to force the taped right hand against an overhanging branch. The reach to the branch was such that Tu could touch it without excessive strain. Folding the hand in his own, Taylor smiled into Tu’s face.
“I will wait here with your friends. We will have a holiday, sitting in the shade.” He indicated the other prisoners with a move of his head. “These dogs have lived too long. You think I hate them, but that is not true. I do not care about them at all, so you may kill them if you want.”
Raising his other hand, Taylor pulled something away from Tu’s, against the limb. Tu’s eyes widened as he recognized it. Taylor dropped both hands and gazed at his handiwork. A grenade nestled in Tu’s upraised palm, irrevocably taped to it, the pin pulled and the spoon pressed against the branch. Tu registered it as if seeing a cancer.
Taylor sat on the wall next to the prisoners. “You tire me,” he said. “You will stand with these dogs’ death in your hand until you agree to tell me what I want to know. Choose to die instead and they will die with you. That is their misfortune. We will probably have to release them eventually. I would prefer they die in an accident.”
“These men are not afraid of death!”
“Not even you are such a fool. Look at their faces. And can you be sure they are not still v
aluable to your cause?”
The prisoner who had blinked so rapidly in the sunlight licked his lips and turned to stare at the man next to him. Another stared at his kneecaps. The rest watched Tu’s hand with the intensity of snakes contemplating an egg in a nest.
Taylor pivoted to the outside of the wall. “Get chairs and coffee for Major Duc and myself. Bring chairs for any other guards who wish them.”
It was more than an hour before Tu moved. He balanced on one foot and rubbed the calf of his leg. In a few minutes he reversed the process. His eyes never left Taylor.
One of the prisoners called out to the guard for a drink of water. The guard told him to be quiet and Taylor countermanded him.
“They may have water or tea.” In response to the man’s questioning look, Taylor added, “That pile of shit in the chair gets nothing until it talks.”
Tu smiled grimly. A prisoner ducked his head forward to wipe sweat from his brow onto a kneecap.
At the end of another hour one of the men declared a need to relieve himself. The tape was cut and he was led away, brought back, and repositioned.
Sweat now drained steadily from Tu’s body, rainwater on smoked glass, dying a band at the top of his shorts and creating a triangle in the crotch. When it dripped into his eyes he shook his head violently, always focusing again on Taylor.
The sun edged to directly overhead. Food was brought to the prisoners. One man’s hands were freed at a time, the feet remaining bound. Two prisoners took advantage of the general laxity and whispered to each other. The guard casually cuffed them both.
“Let them talk,” Taylor said. “I think they will die soon. Their talk now means nothing.”
The man on the end of the line looked at the grenade and sucked a grain of rice from some cavity in his teeth. He chewed it contemplatively.
The meal passed uneventfully, the sibilance of rice and broth being ingested replaced by comfortable belching. Duc took it on himself to send the guard for beer, with orders for the rest of the security force to join them, except for two men on the gate. The new arrivals grouped in the shade of a flowering shrub, drank their beer, and gossiped animatedly.
Tu’s stomach muscles drew taut. He began shifting his weight with increasing frequency. Suddenly there was a new sound, high-pitched and metallic. All attention rushed to the grenade before everyone recognized the disturbance for what it was. A golden stream gushed from Tu’s groin to ring merrily on the metal chair seat. A prisoner’s giggle scratched the hot air and for the first time since leaving his cell, Tu tore his eyes from Taylor. He glared at the offending hysteric, who stopped instantly. His laughter was replaced by guffaws from the guards. Taylor sat, cold-eyed, and waited for Tu to come back to him.
Even with his bladder emptied, Tu’s muscles were wearing away. A long cord jerked spasmodically in his upraised arm. Veins bulged in his ankles and knees, in the raised arm, across his pectorals, routes carved through a geography of pain. His knees trembled in a delicate vibration, scarcely greater than the stroke of flies’ wings.
A beetle stalked off the limb and across the grenade with brainless dignity and picked its way through opals of sweat on the wrist. Tu twitched his arm to dislodge it, his wince generating a muted chorus from the six. He sneered at them. The arm continued to pulsate irregularly. The beetle ignored the peculiarities of his walkway, forging downward and then angling nearer the horizontal to follow the bicep toward the shoulder. Tu watched until it was within range and blew it into the air. It caught itself with wildly beating wings, its departure marked by pendant complaint that hung in the shade of the tree long after it was gone.
The men at Tu’s feet resumed normal breathing and the guards went back to their chatter.
By mid-afternoon Tu shivered as though he stood naked in snow.
The prisoners virtually took turns requesting to relieve themselves. The guard had to hurry to keep pace as they left and shove them along as they dawdled on their return.
At four o’clock Lieutenant Colonel Tho called and asked if Tu had started to talk. Taylor replied that he had not, but that he expected him to in another two hours. Tho asked his reasons and Taylor evaded a direct answer. Tho arrived at the interrogation house at four-forty.
Tu had been in the same position nine hours and forty minutes.
Tho took one look at the scene in the courtyard as he stood in the lobby with Taylor and said, “Is that a grenade?”
Taylor explained what he had done and why.
Tho said, “What do you expect to accomplish?”
“He is a man who will die, but I do not think he will kill those other men.”
“And if you are mistaken?”
“Seven more men will wait for me in hell.”
Tho lapsed to a thoughtful silence and Taylor knew he was evaluating the residue of information that might remain in the six prisoners. Uncertainty picked at his eyes when he looked to Taylor again, but his question was direct.
“You think he is about to break?”
“Yes, Trung Ta. I think he might last until six, but I expect him to break sooner.” As he spoke, Tu’s bicep bulged in a cramp and his face warped with the pain.
Tho raised his arm in a slow arc and examined his watch. “I think he is coming to us on schedule.”
Taylor trotted to the front entrance, then strolled casually to the wall. Tu’s face remained contorted, sweat seeking the channels in the flesh, coursing over and around the lips to form a rapid dripping stream off the chin. Taylor stepped to the wall and leaned across the heads lined up beneath.
“Drop your hand, Tu,” he coaxed. “One man is missing. You will only get five if you drop your hand now. Maybe you will save the most important one. You have demonstrated to everyone that you are a true hero, although I never saw a hero take so long to be heroic. A brave man would have held the grenade to his own chest hours ago. A brave man would have thought to take the explosion himself, cheating me and saving the lives of his friends. Now you cannot control your arm and the chance is gone.”
The guard hurried up with the missing prisoner, practically throwing him into place and re-binding him with shaking hands before vaulting over the wall. Another prisoner immediately clamored.
“No more,” Taylor said. “You will empty yourselves soon enough.”
“Help me!” Tu’s plea was a scream crushed to a whisper. “Help me or they die! I can hold it no longer.” His head sagged and saliva drooled over his lower lip to mix with the sweat. Taylor hopped over the wall as the grenade shifted. The spoon raised slightly. Tu found the strength to raise his head. “Get them out of the circle! Hurry!”
Taylor turned and Duc had already started to work with one of the guards. They had an efficient system. They flanked a man, grabbed him under the knees and elbows, and rolled him backwards over the top. The first two hit rolling, putting as much distance between themselves and the grenade as possible. The rest bounced against the wall, flattening themselves to the ground. Except for the impact of bodies and the slither of flesh on grass, none uttered a sound.
Taylor reached for the grenade at the same time Tu pitched forward.
He screamed, “Death to the imperialists! Long live the People’s Government!”
The spoon arced over Taylor’s head making a tinny sound that absorbed the world around it and became a carillon peal. Through it, Taylor heard the hoarse shouts and yipping cries of the guards scrambling for cover. He caught the falling man and stared at the victory in the eyes before him.
A hollow silence smothered the panic. Tu blinked and forced his head to turn toward the grenade, his eyes locked with Taylor’s until the last possible instant. They flicked to the ugly, ribbed shape and back again. Triumph drowned in the huge tears that plummeted down his cheeks.
“You fool!” Taylor’s scorn slashed across the entire courtyard in a lightning-crack. “Did you really believe I would let you go so easily? Of course the grenade is fake!”
One of the distant prisoners t
imorously peeked over his shoulder at the tableau under the tree. He looked from it to the bush where the guards cowered and met the eye of one of them. The prisoner essayed a smile. The guard returned it with a nervous chuckle. The prisoner giggled and another rose to see over the wall. He laughed. The other prisoner giggled again, higher and louder. In a second they were all shouting laughter and comment. Men insulted each other for their dives for cover, the prisoners laughed at their own displays of fear during the long day. Duc circulated, cutting bonds, and one prisoner rose stiffly, raising an arm and glaring, aping Tu’s pose. The laughter rose to a crescendo.
Drawing his knife, Taylor slashed the band of tape holding Tu to the tree, catching the body as if shouldering a rolled rug. He walked quickly to the building, his long strides bouncing the inert form. Sobs wrenched through Tu’s slack jaws at each step.
In the cell, Taylor lowered him to the edge of the mattress and carefully arranged him at full length. After stripping the tape and the inert grenade from the unresisting body, he massaged the arm and shoulder. Tu groaned continually as the bricklike muscles and tendons loosened. When he could manipulate those joints with relative ease, Taylor went to work on the legs. Duc opened the cell door and looked in. Taylor frowned at him, gesturing for silence. Duc nodded and left.
When the legs loosened a bit and the blood vessels looked less likely to burst, Taylor fetched water. He pressed the tin cup against the down-curved lips. They resisted, then loosened, letting the liquid trickle through. Dribbles ran from both sides of the mouth, joined shortly by more tears, the streams dividing the face into sectors.
“I have won,” Taylor said softly. “Understand that.”
A long sigh broke from the figure on the bed.
