Message from Nam

by Danielle Steel

  “The first of many,” he said cryptically as he kissed her.

  They went to Martha Raye’s Christmas show that afternoon, and everyone enjoyed it. Bob Hope was in Da Nang that day, being applauded by ten thousand servicemen and women. Ann-Margret was the hit of the show even though Paxton felt that showcasing sex symbols only teased the men. But they loved it anyway. And at the end of the show, General Abrams pinned the Outstanding Civilian Service Medal to Hope’s shirt and the audience gave him a standing ovation.

  Paxton and Bill ran into Tony Campobello at Martha Raye’s show and Ralph was covering it for the Associated Press. He had even brought France and her little boy, An, who was adorable and looked just like her. Bill and Paxton chatted with Ralph and France for a little while, and then they moved on. And they didn’t see them again after that. The crowd was enormous. And they didn’t see Tony or any of Bill’s men after that either. And he had been pointedly cool when he ran into his captain with Paxton. He still hadn’t gotten over his feelings about her, and he made no effort whatsoever to be pleasant. And it didn’t really matter anymore. She and Bill would be going home in a month. They talked frequently now about how strange it would be to be in the same city and not be together.

  “It won’t be for long,” he kept saying, but Paxton kept wondering what would happen when he saw his children again, and was really home. She had a strange feeling that he wouldn’t be quite so ready to leave them, no matter what he said now in the heat of passion.

  They spent a quiet New Year’s Eve at the officers’ club and then finished it off with a drink at the penthouse. And then they made love in her room and saw the new year in with tenderness and passion. And they were still lying in each other’s arms and kissing and whispering the next morning. They slept most of the afternoon, and at nightfall he had to go back to Cu Chi to report for duty. He was due back in Saigon again in two days, and she had a story to write for the Sun again. Her column, “Message from Nam,” was doing extremely well and was bringing in a lot of favorable letters, some of which they sent her in Saigon. She was giving people honest reporting of what was happening over there. And her honesty and integrity seemed to shine through her writing. Ed Wilson was especially pleased, and he now took full credit for sending her to Viet Nam in the first place. In an odd way, he felt what she said had avenged his son, and Peter hadn’t died for nothing. She had gone there to tell his story, and that of half a million boys like him. And she was touched by the letters she got in answer to her column. Sometimes she tried to answer them, but most of the time she was just too busy.

  The story she had to write the next day was about street beggars in Saigon, and another piece she had done about Hue. And then there was the one about Martha Raye, and the Bob Hope show. She had a busy couple of days, and she was still at her typewriter at eight o’clock the night Bill was due to arrive. He was late, but she knew that sometimes it was hard to get away. And if Tony Campobello knew he was meeting her, he would often do everything he could to delay him. It was a game he liked to play, and Bill was patient about it, but his constantly hostile attitude still irritated Paxton.

  She glanced at her watch again at ten o’clock, and she was mildly worried about it, but she still knew that as the officer in charge, he often couldn’t totally plan his departures. Especially lately. There was so much to do before he left in three weeks, and he was trying to break in a new CO fresh from the States, and Paxxie knew it wasn’t easy.

  At eleven o’clock she looked at her watch again, and began to pace the room. And by midnight, she was seriously worried. She decided to go down to the lobby then, and she told the operator where she would be in case Bill called her. She thought maybe he’d been waylaid by someone he knew on the way in, and she might find him at the bar, which had happened once or twice. But she didn’t see anyone she knew there tonight, not even Nigel. And she knew Ralph had gone away with France and An, to relatives of hers in Hau Bon over the New Year weekend.

  She wandered aimlessly around the lobby for a long while, and he didn’t show up. And there was nothing more she could do. It was too late to try to call the unit. She went back to her room, and sat up most of the night, wondering if some problem had come up that made it impossible for him to leave but it hardly seemed likely.

  She finally fell asleep at four o’clock, and she woke up again with the dawn. And there was still no sign of him. She had somehow hoped he might turn up during the night while she was asleep, and slide into bed beside her, since he had the key and had done that more than once, when he was able to get away unexpectedly and surprise her.

  But there was no surprise that night. The other half of the bed was empty when she awoke, and she went to the AP office at seven-thirty. She checked the Teletypes to see if anything had come up during the night, but other than a plastique bomb in a bar, and a street fight in Cholon, everything had been peaceful.

  And she knew Ralph was due back late the night before, so she called him at home, from the AP office, an hour later.

  “I know this sounds crazy …” She felt foolish calling him but she didn’t know who else to call. “But Bill didn’t show up last night. I’m sure nothing’s wrong, but I just thought …”

  “Oh, Christ, Pax,” he said, turning over in bed with a groan, “and you want me to call them out there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why don’t you call them yourself? Hell, you’ve got the same credentials I do.”

  “Bullshit. Everyone knows I’m involved with Bill.” In spite of the initial caution, it had become one of the worst-kept secrets in Saigon.

  “So what?”

  “So it looks like I’m playing nosy girlfriend. I just want to know he’s okay, and then whenever he shows up is fine.” It hadn’t even dawned on her that he might be out with someone else. Their relationship was nothing like that, and they were so much in love that the issue of anyone else had never arisen between them.

  “Okay, okay, I’ll call. What do you want to know?”

  “That Cu Chi Base is still standing, hasn’t been attacked during the night, and Bill’s okay.”

  “Listen, kid,” he said, sitting up in bed and smiling at France. He was both happy and worried about her. She had just told him the night before that she was pregnant, and she wanted to have his baby. “If Cu Chi Base has been blown away, we’re all in deep shit. That place is bigger than New York, for chrissake.”

  “Never mind the wiseass cracks, Johnson, just call them.”

  “Okay, okay, I’ll call.” He hung up and leaned over to kiss France, still lying beside him.

  “Is she alright?” France asked. She liked Paxton too. And although she didn’t know her well, she had always felt a silent kinship with her.

  “She’s fine. She’s just getting short and she’s getting nervous. Everyone gets like that before they go home. They all drive me crazy.”

  “And you?” she said, looking at him almost sadly after her news of the night before. “When will you go home, my love?”

  “Never. Unless you come with me.” But she said she never would. And she meant it. She was too proud to be treated like a whore in the States. She was going to stay in Saigon, and she would love him forever.

  He sat on the edge of the bed and called Cu Chi. He had a contact or two there, but the most important one was Bill, and he asked directly for his unit. He got a young guy he didn’t know, who stalled him when he asked for Bill, and then he went through the other names and got nowhere. And suddenly he wondered if Paxton’s instincts were right, and there was something wrong. He had a thought then, and asked for Sergeant Campobello. There was a long pause, he was told to hold on, and then he was left there, hanging. And it was almost ten minutes later when Tony came on the line. And Ralph had been smart enough not to hang up. By then he was convinced that she was right and there was a problem.

  “Tony?” Ralph said, as though they were old friends, but they weren’t. Tony didn’t like him because he’d introduced Paxton
to Bill, and Campobello was a guy who could hold a grudge forever. “Ralph Johnson, AP in Saigon.”

  “I know who you are, man.” The voice was coarse and cold, and he wasn’t interested in the call. “What do you want?”

  “I … we … unofficially, we were wondering if anything happened yesterday … I mean …” Shit, if it had been anyone else, he could have asked him straight if Bill was okay. But he didn’t want Campobello to know he was calling for Paxton. And he felt like a kid now, playing games. “Look, we just heard some rumors that you might have had some trouble out there. Everything A-okay?”

  There was an endless pause. “I guess you could call it that. We only had one casualty all weekend. Just one. Pretty good, huh?” But he sounded brittle and bitter.

  “That’s great.” Ralph wasn’t quite sure where to go from there, but Tony solved the problem for him.

  “Only problem, of course, is that it was …” He almost snapped as he said the words “our commander. Remember him? Great big tall guy. Real nice-looking. Bill Quinn.” Oh my God. Ralph’s blood ran cold. What the fuck was he going to tell her?

  “I … oh my God … how did that happen?” Ralph’s voice was faint at his end, and Tony sounded like he was crying.

  “How did that happen? Real simple. He fell in love with this fucking bitch a few months ago and stopped paying attention. He started to fall in love with the whole fucking world, and wanted to play Prince Charming … Sir Galahad … you want to know how it happened, mister? Our guys were too fucking afraid to go down a hole yesterday, and you know who went? That’s right, the captain. He thought he could outshoot the guy at the other end because he always had before. And you know what, mister? After four tours, he was wrong this time, he was too big for the hole, he was too slow, too old, his head was too full of other shit because he was going home with her in a few days to tell his wife to go fuck herself probably, and his kids, and little old Charlie at the other end of the hole, he blew his head off.” Ralph felt sick as he listened to him, sick from the anger and the sorrow and the bitterness and the irony of what had happened. He had less than two weeks to go, and they’d killed him. And it had happened to thousands of others. But not this one. Bill Quinn was such a nice guy. And he was so much in love with Paxton. “Did you get your story, Mr. Johnson?” Tony asked him bitterly, making no secret now of the fact that he was crying. “Did you take notes, or would you like to come out and view the body? He won’t be going home till tomorrow afternoon. And I guess now he won’t be going home with his girlfriend.” He wasn’t the first man who had fallen in love while he was there, nor the first man who had cheated on his wife, but somehow all along the sergeant had been outraged. And he had predicted this all along. Again and again, he had seen men get involved with the women there and get so taken with them, they got careless. He was convinced that Bill had died because of that and nothing would ever change his mind. In his mind, Paxton Andrews had killed Bill Quinn, and that was the end of the story.

  “This is going to kill her,” Ralph said more to himself than to Campobello. And at his end, Tony wiped his eyes with his sleeve.

  “Good. I hope it does. She deserves it.”

  “You don’t really believe that, do you?”

  “Yes, I do,” he said frigidly. “She fucking killed my captain.”

  “He was a grown man.” Ralph felt honor bound to defend her to this man, and he was getting angry. She hadn’t killed anyone. If anything, she’d hurt herself. And she’d taken a chance on him. And she’d lost. Just as she had once before. But that was the way the war was. If you gave a damn about anyone there, a dog, a soldier, a child, you ran the risk of losing. “He made his choices, Campobello, just like she did. And he knew what he was doing. If he bought it yesterday, the guy at the other end must have been pretty goddamn slick. I don’t believe Bill Quinn would ever get careless.” He was too fast, too sharp, and he knew too much about what he was doing. And there was a lot of truth to that, but Tony Campobello didn’t want to hear it.

  “Bullshit. He should never have been down that hole.”

  “Then why did he go?” Ralph pressed him. “Maybe to prove something … maybe because he was thinking of her …”

  “He wasn’t that sloppy, or that dumb, or even that brave.” Even though all the generals said, and Bill had even said himself, that to be a tunnel rat you had to be a little bit crazy.

  “He was crazy nuts in love with her.”

  “Yes, he was,” Ralph agreed in deference to both of them, “but that was his business, and I don’t think he’d let that interfere with anything. I just don’t believe that. And if you’ve got an attitude about it, Campobello, I suggest you bury it right now. If you cared about him at all, why don’t you just shut up your fucking opinions and keep them to yourself. That girl is going to be devastated over this and she doesn’t need you mouthing off at her if your paths should happen to cross sometime, which I sure as hell hope they don’t.”

  “So do I.”

  “For his sake, do me a favor, if you do run across her, be a gentleman, keep your mouth shut.”

  “Go fuck yourself, mister,” Tony Campobello spat into the phone, tears welling up in his eyes again. “That bitch killed my captain.” He was like a child standing beside his dead mother, wanting to kill everyone who came near her. And when he slammed the phone down a few minutes later, Ralph sat for a long moment, staring unhappily out the window. What the hell was he going to tell her?

  France had been listening to him all the while, and when he stood up to get dressed, she came and put a gentle hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry about your friend.” She had a wonderful French accent, and a gentle touch, and a wise heart, and he turned around and held her. “I’m sorry for both of them.”

  “So am I. I tried to warn them a long time ago.”

  “Why?” she asked softly.

  “Because I thought they were wrong. The price is too high if you lose over here. I tried to tell them that. But they didn’t listen.”

  “Perhaps they couldn’t.” She was wiser than he was in the end. And she watched while he dressed. And an hour later he was at the Caravelle, knocking on the door of Paxton’s room with a grim look in his eyes. But when she opened the door, she was dressed in jeans, a shirt of Bill’s, and her combat boots, and she looked painfully pretty.

  “Did they tell you anything?” she asked nervously, and stepped back so he could come in. She had made the bed herself and after not eating dinner the night before, she hadn’t eaten breakfast that morning.

  “Yeah,” he said noncommittally as he stepped in and looked around. He wanted desperately to avoid this moment.

  “Well?” she asked, and he sat down heavily in a chair. The same chair Bill had so often sat in. “What the hell did they tell you?”

  What did you say? How did you tell her? He had done this a thousand times before, and suddenly he couldn’t do it one more time, he just couldn’t do it anymore, or he thought it might kill him. He was thirty-nine years old and he had seen and heard and smelled and written about more death than he ever wanted to see in a hundred lifetimes. He dropped his face into his hands and then looked at her. There was nothing left to do but tell her. “He was killed yesterday, Pax.” His voice was a drumbeat in the room and for a minute she thought she was going to faint. And all she could see was Ed Wilson’s face when he came to tell her about Peter, and the sound of her heart crashing to the floor and breaking. She sank slowly onto the bed this time and stared at him, refusing to believe it.

  “He wasn’t.”

  “He was.” Ralph nodded. “He went down into one of the tunnels, and Charlie got him. It was quick. He didn’t suffer. The rest doesn’t make any difference.” And he didn’t know if it was true or not, but he felt he owed her that much. He reached out a hand to her from where he sat, but she just sat there staring at him and didn’t take it.

  “Can I see him?”

  He hesitated while he thought about what Tony had said abou
t Bill having his head blown off by Charlie. “I don’t think you should. They’re sending him home tomorrow.”

  “Two weeks early,” she said, almost without thinking. She was sitting there, staring into space, deathly pale, in his shirt, feeling as though there was nothing left in the world for her. She was nearly twenty-three years old and she had lost the only two men she’d ever loved to this miserable war, and now she felt as though her own life was over.

  “I told you this could happen, Pax. You knew it yourself. It’s the chance we all take just being here. It could be me this afternoon, or you … it was him. It could have been anyone.”

  “But it wasn’t.” And then slowly, the tears began to run down her cheeks, and Ralph moved over to the bed and sat next to her and held her in his arms while she cried for what seemed like hours, grief that rolled on relentlessly like thunder.

  “I’m sorry … I’m so sorry …” But she was beyond words, beyond thinking, beyond consolation. She had nothing left. She had nothing. She had lost him. Gone. Like a memory. And all she had left from him was the bracelet he’d given her for Christmas. She looked down at it emptily, and then suddenly she realized that the army would send all his personal effects to Debbie in San Francisco. The books she’d given him, inscribed by her, the trinkets, the photographs they’d taken of each other in Vung Tau, the letters.

  “Oh my God … they can’t do that …” Ralph thought she was still grieving for him, but then she explained what she was thinking. “We have to stop them.”

  “It’s happened before, Pax, to other guys. She’ll just have to understand that he was in a war zone. He’d been here for a long time. People change.”

  “But that’s not fair. Why should she have to live with that now?” She thought of her mother, when her father had died with the other woman. “And the kids. Can’t we stop them?”

  “I don’t know.” He thought about it for a while, and he admired her for thinking like that, but he wasn’t sure how to do it. The army was pretty circumspect about sending home a man’s effects. They sent home everything right down to his underwear and his postcards, which proved she had good reason to worry.