by James Dunn
I grabbed it and tossed it aside. "It won't take long to amputate this one," I said to the unconscious form in front of me. "The artillery shell did most of the work.
I didn't have anything to deaden the pain, and knew I had to saw through the shin-bone, so I figured that if I kept talking, it might distract him. I watched to see if he would scream or pull away as I used the serrated part of the blade. He never moved.
I had seen two other battlefield surgeries, and was basically faking it and trying to sound and seem like I knew what I was doing. But I knew that if I didn't perform the surgery now, he would never live long enough to do it later. Hell, he was nearly dead as it was.
I cut the remaining dangling tendons, completely freeing the foot and a small portion of the ankle. I left a long flap of skin to wrap over the stub, wrapped it in the blood soaked pant leg, and bound it with the rope I had been tied with.
"I have to get you some help," I said. I left him for a minute and quickly made a travois out of two tree branches. Using the backpack my uniform shirt and pants, I managed to make a passable device that I could use to haul him. I quickly dressed in the orange robe of the monastery and started dragging.
I knew that we were near a village, since I had recognized our campsite the night before. It couldn't be any more than a mile from the stream where we camped.
I glanced back at the crater and spotted the AK-47, looking miraculously unscathed in the bottom of the crater. I thought briefly about climbing down and retrieving it, but figured the guy might die if I took any extra time. So I turned back towards the village and pulled on the poles.
I hadn't gone more than a few hundred yards when I came upon the backpack the monks had given me, the same one that my captor had taken from me. I stooped and found a canteen half full of water and took a long swig. I poured some of it down the throat of the unconscious man in the travois. Surprisingly, he seemed to be swallowing most of it. My leg was throbbing and seeping blood, but I knew that if there was any chance of saving this guy, I had better keep moving.
I pulled on the poles for hours, checking every so often by glancing back at the unconscious form on the travois. Each time, I could see the slight rise and fall of the chest. As long as he was breathing, I knew I wasn't just dragging a dead guy on some sticks. That would be fun to try to explain to a bunch of Viet Cong.
A slight movement somewhere off to my right caught my attention so I stopped. A few seconds later the head of a small boy appeared in the tall grass. He looked at me with that same impassive face of my former captor. It occurred to me that they learned to mask their feelings mighty young around here.
Shortly, he stood up. He was maybe eight or nine years old. He stared hard at my cargo, and finally approached.
He stood there on the trail, studying me for a while. He kept returning his gaze to my face, then my oozing foot, and then to the travois.
"Is he your friend," he asked softly. I understood the question perfectly, but considered for a time before answering.
"Yes, he saved my life,"
"Is he Republican?" the boy asked, all businesslike.
I shook my head, "No, Viet Cong." I did not like where this was going. "You are American." It was definitely not a question. I nodded. I wanted to explain that I had been badly wounded, nurtured back to life by Buddhist monks. But I doubted if he was interested in the details.
"Could we just get him some help? He is very close to dying," I asked. "This way," he motioned. He darted off to the right, up a slight hill and towards an outcropping rock.
It was not really a trail, but maybe it was a shortcut. It occurred to me that he could be leading me into an ambush, but he took off so fast I just hurried after him. He disappeared from sight so I called out, "Please go slower! My foot will not allow me to run."
He reappeared tugging the hand of a small woman. Her black hair was starting to show twinges of gray and her face was stern as she checked the monk's robes out in detail. Then she went to the travois and put her hand on the man's brow.
A sob arose in her throat, and she covered her mouth. She spun to face me now, and her eyes were wide with rage. Without making a sound she lunged with both hands reaching for my throat.
Instinctively I dropped the poles of the travois and tried to duck off to the side. The man on the stretcher thudded to the ground in a heap. The boy yelled something I was too busy to understand as I made the bad mistake of putting my full weight on my bad foot, and collapsed in a heap myself. The woman fell right on top of me, missing my throat but wrapping her hands around my head.
"What have you done to him? What happened to his foot?"
With some effort, I dislodged her and held her above me. She clawed the air like a feral cat. I shook her until she stopped writhing.
"Can we just get him into a bed? He will bleed to death unless we can stabilize his wound! I can explain everything after I know he is safe."
She seemed startled that I could speak her language, and startled that I should care about the man on the stretcher. She looked right through me before deciding that what I said made sense.
I guided her to the earth beside me and she stood up, straightening her black cotton clothes and her dignity. Then she was all business. "You take the poles, Bon Nghe!"
The boy grabbed them and lifted the travois. He was surprisingly strong for his size. Now the woman turned to me. "You follow behind us, but stay outside of my home!"
I nodded, got to my feet and fell in behind the travois. I started to realize how exhausted I was as I trailed the sorry procession through a clearing and up to a small hut.
When we reached the hut I helped them put the unconscious form onto a cot. As soon as he was on his back she shoved me outside. I looked around at a couple of other huts, and slid to the ground with my back against the wall, took a deep breath and fell asleep.
I woke once during the night to feel someone cover me with a blanket. My neck ached and my butt hurt from sitting on the hard earth, so I stretched out flat under the blanket and slept.
Chapter 7
I awakened with the bright sun streaming in my face and the pressure of my K-bar knife against my spine. My foot was throbbing and my belly was tender and sore. I wondered what I was doing here, and then remembered the freckle-faced man who used to be my captor. I wondered if he had made it through the night. Maybe he still was my captor.
I gingerly got to my feet and looked at the door of the hut, and then at path leading to the jungle. If I was ever going to get back to some friendlies, this was about as good an opportunity as I would get. I started towards the woods, surprised to see that no one was watching.
Each time I set my right foot down and then quickly hobbled onto the stronger left one. The going was slow, and I paused at the edge of the jungle and closed my eyes, hoping to hear the voice of the Abbot tell me it was all right to seek my freedom. Nothing.
So I sighed and then turned again towards the east. I had gone maybe ten steps when I heard a horrible scream from the hut. I stopped in my tracks.
In my mind I thought I heard Truong's voice saying, "You know the drill." Did it seem like he was smiling or chuckling? I turned around and hobbled back to the hut and opened the door.
My captor was sitting up on the cot, and the old woman and the boy were trying to wrestle him back down. When he saw me, he stopped, and the woman and the boy turned to stare.
In English I said, "If you try to walk, you'll probably be dead in ten minutes. Lay back down."
He focused his eyes as if he was seeing a ghost. For a short moment he just stared, then he sighed, and lay back down.
I turned to the woman and the boy. I said in Vietnamese, "I need medicine…morphine ... A medical kit." The boy nodded and scooted out the door. The woman looked at me without saying a word. She picked up a damp rag and wiped the brow of the man on the cot.
Soon enough the boy reappeared with another man in black with an AK- 47 and a US Army field medical kit, the kind the
Medics carried. He studied me for a minute but didn't offer the kit.
The boy said, "Auntie Mai. This is the same monk who brought uncle to me." The man frowned, and glanced at the woman. She nodded.
The soldier grunted. "If he dies, so do you," he said as he pushed the kit at me.
The boy looked at the man with the weapon and turned and left the hut. I wasn't sure whether I should take the medical kit or not. My captor was barely alive, and I wasn't trained as a medic. If I were a betting man, I'd put all my money on his dying.
"I am not sure I can save him," I said, "he's nearly dead now."
The man in black raised his weapon to the middle of my chest, and pushed the kit at me. "So are you."
I thought I'd try another tact. "He has lost a lot of blood, and I had to remove his foot yesterday to drag him here. I will do what I can." I took the kit and opened it. It was intact.
I found the morphine and handed it to the woman, "Please see that he drinks all of it," I asked. She nodded and took the yellow liquid.
I focused again on the leg. I had seen a battlefield amputation once when I first came to Nam. It was not pretty, and it was not a success. Two medics had worked for nearly an hour, and the kid died on the table the next day anyway.
Auntie Mai poured the pale fluid down my captor's throat, and he coughed twice and drifted off. "Keep at it until the bottle is empty." I said, "He will need it all."
She frowned but forced his mouth open and trickled more into him. I pulled back the blanket and surveyed the leg.
The pant-leg that I had used as a bandage was soaked with blood, and it had started to coagulate into the material. I asked the woman to get hot water and rags and did my best to clean it.
I found the needles and sutured the flap of skin snugly against the raw bone, washing it in iodine as I worked. I hoped to stop the loss of blood, and kill any infections, but had no clue as to whether it would work. Mostly I was just going through the motions, trying to mimic the medics I had seen.
I looked up once to check on the patient, and saw a face so pale that the freckles under his eyes stood out like brown ink dots on parchment paper. It occurred to me that I was trying to save the life of a Vet Cong soldier, and would probably be shot for treason for it. "Oh well, I thought, "I would probably be shot today for sure if it all didn't work out.”
When I again focused on the leg, it looked hopeless. The guy looked like he was a goner. He had all the same signs as that kid I had seen the two medics try to save. With the same deathly white skin, shallow breathing and a high temperature I wondered how long until he gasped and died like the young soldier.
It occurred to me that I had better watch my thinking. The Abbot used to tell us not to expect anything, but not to be surprised either. The man with the gun stood passively by, watching my every move.
Sweat was starting to show on the ashen face of my patient, so I grabbed a wet rag and wiped his forehead. Just then the door opened and three more men in black pajamas walked in. Each had his weapon in his hand.
"I need more medical supplies," I said to the closest one. "I am out of morphine and almost out of Iodine, and I need more thread for the sutures."
Four weapons came up, each aimed at my face or chest. Four sets of eyes focused intently on my face. The oldest one spoke, "Who are you?"
I paused with the stitching, and studied their faces. I guess all Vietnamese are taught to mask all of their emotions as a rite of passage.
I sighed. "I am a Buddhist monk." For some strange reason it sounded almost like the truth. Maybe it was. For a tense moment the weapons remained pointed at my chest. One by one they lowered them. A quick nod from the one who obviously was in command, and a young soldier opened the door and left.
More medical supplies appeared within minutes. I took them and bowed to the soldier when he handed the package to me. Surprisingly, he returned the bow.
I did what I could for the man, and as I worked I thought of the Abbot. He had lectured on the idea that our work was to be continuously in the moment. Each moment was to be the entire focus of our effort, our total concentration. I nodded to myself and tried to be totally the medic.
I focused on the sutures. I forced myself to let go of any thought that was not about sutures, not about the now. I made myself stay in the present, watching each time the needle entered the skin and exited at the other side. I watched the black thread to make sure it didn't catch or knot or anything. I constantly patted the area around the sutures with a clean cloth, daubing up the seeping blood.
At one point I grabbed a bucket and thrust it into the face of one of the soldiers. "Hot water. Now."
He nodded and glanced at the older one, who nodded also. Within ten minutes he returned with some hot water. I took it and bowed slightly and thanked him. Without a pause, he returned the bow.
I finished up and washed the blood off my hands in the last of the cooling water. I surveyed my handiwork, and didn't see any signs of seeping blood. I hoped I had remembered all the steps.
The oldest of the soldiers watched me impassively. After I had washed and checked the wound he spoke. "Who are you, long nose?"
The barrel of his AK-47 moved again to a position just inches from my nose. "Long-nose" is an insulting way of describing someone who is not from Asia.
"I am a Buddhist monk. I received my training at the Golden Lotus Monastery by Abbot Ngyuen. Before I was a monk I was an American soldier."
The man turned to the boy, who was standing near the woman. "Bon Nghel, go and find those monks that were near the rice paddies. Bring them here. Now!"
The boy darted out the door, leaving me with my captor, Auntie Mai, and four Viet Cong soldiers. Suddenly this hut seemed way too small.
"May I sit?" I asked as I nearly fell to the floor. I was totally exhausted. The man in charge nodded. "You may as well sit, you are not going anywhere."
I sat on the floor, crossed my legs into the lotus pose and closed my eyes. I thought I would demonstrate how well trained I was as a monk, but I just fell asleep sitting there.
The smell of food woke me up. I opened my eyes to see that darkness was coming. I tried to remember my last meal, but couldn't think of it at all. The woman had tidied up the place, and the four men were sitting with their backs against the wall. All were eating from small white bowls.
The woman noticed that I was awake and handed me a bowl of fish and rice. I thanked her automatically and closed my eyes to offer a silent blessing on the food. While my eyes were closed, she snatched the bowl away. I opened my eyes to see what happened.
"I am so sorry," she said. "I have forgotten my manners. I know monks are not going to eat meat or fish. Please forgive me."
"I took no offense, and so there is nothing to forgive," I said.
She quickly removed the fish and handed the bowl back to me. I didn't tell her that I probably would have eaten the fish without thinking, even though Buddhist monks are all vegetarians. I bowed to her and silently thanked her for probably saving my life.
I could taste the rice that had contacted the fish, and it sure seemed to taste good. I remembered that suffering comes from wanting, and so I decided I didn't really want any fish. I pushed that thought of fish out of my mind and focused on the rice and the vegetables, remembering to be grateful for the food. I ate slowly as I had been taught to do. I savored each bite and focused entirely on the act of eating. As a result, everyone else finished eating long before I did.
After the meal I got to my feet and checked on the patient. The four men watched impassively. His fever had gone down and maybe his color was coming back a little. His breathing was shallow little gasps, but at least it was regular. The wound and the sutures looked okay. At least there was no seeping blood or swelling.
The door opened and a man and a boy entered. They bowed and sat against the back wall, scooting close beside the four soldiers. No sooner were they seated than the door opened again and a farmer and his wife and a very old woman,
probably the farmer's mother came in. They too bowed and sat.
This hut seemed way too small for so many people, and I thought I might want to step outside and give them more room, since it looked like a village meeting was about to take place.
Auntie Mai stood up and produced three candles from some fold in her clothing, and a match and three tiny plates. She lit the candles, dripping some wax onto each plate and then set the candles in the cooling wax.
She turned to me and said, "Brother Monk, where would you like these placed?"
"Oh God! I thought. "All these folks are here for instructions!" I bowed and tried to mask my surprise, and waived my hand in the direction of a large wooden crate that stood on its side. Auntie Mai reverently placed the candles on the crate, backed away and bowed and sat down.
I wished I had told them that I was just an acolyte, a monk in training. I sure as hell never meant to imply I was an elder. But I just followed the same routine I had seen so many rainy days in the monastery, except instead of sitting at the edge of the circle, I sat in the center.
First there is a long silent prayer, then the leader (in this case me) calls on the spirit of Buddha, the Compassionate One, and all the Bodhisattvas (that'd be all the awakened masters) to be present and speak through my voice to impart wisdom. Noble Truths?"
I nodded and bowed slightly. In certain sects the most senior layman would offer a question, and the monk would direct his discourse to the question asked. I had been told that while this was often true, when a revered monk was present, the group would defer to him by letting him choose the discussion topic.
I wondered if the old man was testing me, or simply following his tradition. Either way, it would probably not have been a good idea to upset a man with so much authority, and a loaded gun.
So I half closed my eyes the same way the Abbot did when he was about to begin a lecture. If a lecture was wanted, I would give it to them.
The Abbot often said that the best way to learn something is to teach it, and this looked like a great time to start. I began with the opening words of the lecture I had heard at least ten times; the one called the Four Noble Truths.
