The Last Bridge

by Brian Garfield

  Through a thin pattern of branches Tyreen made out the fragile ribbon of the railroad embankment, a parapet lancing upward along the inner side of split rock thighs. The single delicate track curled up the mountainside at a steep grade, perhaps twenty degrees of climb. It threaded in and out of timber patches and shot across rock slopes, supported on brittle cantilevered foundations, a breathtaking piece of engineering; it climbed gingerly onto the face of the western slope, poised itself a thousand feet above the white-water rush of the river’s cascades, and soared boldly across a slender arc of steel to the face of the eastern cliff; there it made a small, hesitant bend before it plunged out of sight into the dark mouth of a tunnel.

  At the western pier of the bridge stood a tiny plateau of rock, supporting a switch and a stub of a siding, and a fortified cluster of structures half-visible where they loomed above the brink of the gorge. Above them the peak soared upward, curving in to meet its mate across a narrow band of cloud. The snouts of mountain howitzers reared around the bridge piers. Sentries moved slowly back and forth across the bridge, pausing at intervals to sweep the country with field glasses. An armored half-track waited at the western end, the helmeted figure of its observer just visible on his perch. The district was overseen by a cement-block command post hanging on the upper cliff as if suspended from a wall peg. Antiaircraft guns bristled along the crest of the mountain higher up; there was a circling radar scanner at the tip. And descending the line of the silver tracks was a regular spotting of blockhouses guarding the roadbed.

  The bridge across the Sang Chu gorge was an arch of wrought iron. It appeared to be less than three hundred feet in length. Cement-block piers at either end supported guard and observation towers; the weight of the bridge hung from twin parallel arches that had their anchors in the block piers well below the roadbed. From the anchors the arches curved out, intersecting the roadbed from underneath and then rising above it to arch over the center of the bridge. The truss was reinforced by zigzag lacings of iron.

  It reminded Tyreen of the bridge across Sydney Harbour in Australia: a bulky cross-hatching of metal, heavy but somehow delicate, imposing but fragile.

  He had time to see the gorge, the railroad, the bridge, the sentries, and the guns; and then the road took the truck up a steep tilt of earth that blocked it all from view. They climbed north, circling away from the river, slowing to a gear-meshing crawl on the high pitch of the road. Tyreen swung out on the running board and crawled through under the tarpaulin into the bed of the truck. He said to Theodore Saville, “Did you get a good look at it?”

  “Good enough. It’s a crackerbox—if we can get at it.”

  J. D. Hooker said, “Wrought iron, Colonel. Put a small charge on one pier and a big charge in the middle. It’ll break in half like a puking doughnut.”

  Tyreen broke open his clasp knife and tore a shredded hole in the forward hang of the tarpaulin. It opened his view through the small window in the back of the truck cab; he could see Sergeant Sun’s shoulder and had a view of the road through the windshield. Sergeant Sun turned his head and shot a swift, expressionless glance through the glass.

  Corporal Smith crawled anxiously out of his corner, bracing himself against the lurch and sway of the truck. His face was flushed. “Permission to speak, Colonel?”

  “What is it?”

  “I got no right to another chance, sir. But I’m all right now. I’m okay. I can feel it. I’m okay now.”

  J. D. Hooker said, “Why don’t you sit down before you fall down, kid?”

  “All right, Corporal,” said Tyreen. “We’ll see.” He caught Saville’s speculative squint. He said to Corporal Smith, “Suppose you climb up front and ride with Sergeant Sun. You know the route.”

  “Yes, sir,” Smith said. He climbed outside with grateful alacrity.

  Theodore Saville said, “You can’t depend on him, David.”

  “What do you want me to do? Shoot him?”

  J. D. Hooker said, “He’s dead weight, Colonel.”

  Sergeant Nguyen Khang sat at the back of the truck with one hand on the jouncing machine gun. He spoke up: “Once a guy cracks up, you’d have to be out of your cotton-picking gourd to trust him again, sir.”

  Hooker turned on him: “Nobody asked you to put in your two cents, peckerhead.”

  Khang got his feet under him. It was the first time Tyreen had seen him angry. Tyreen said, “Settle down, both of you.”

  Khang said, “Maybe you feel like letting him get away with that, Colonel, but not me.”

  Tyreen said, “If I had time, Sergeant, I’d be pleased to let the two of you fight it out of your systems. I haven’t got time.”

  Hooker stood bent over beneath the tarp, fixing Khang with a bellicose stare. Theodore Saville pushed him down roughly. “You heard the Colonel. You’ve hocked your stripes already—don’t start fooling with a guardhouse term, Hooker.”

  Khang settled back slowly and braced one foot against the machine gun. After a moment he lighted a cigarette and grinned brashly. He looked like a man who did not believe in tomorrow—or if he did, he didn’t care.

  Tyreen turned his attention through the forward window. The road was a rutted path scudding across a rock-strewn mountainside. Distant peaks were dark suggestions through the drizzling cold rain. The obscurity of the weather was a blessing, but Tyreen had to fight off irritation with it. His face was glazed and dour. Once he raised his head sharply, thinking he saw a light far ahead, but it did not reappear. The air was layered in misty velvet, and he might have been an island in the midst of a silent, hostile ocean. The truck clattered through a short, high-sided defile, and Theodore Saville said, “Can’t be far now.” A sluggish current of air curled in under the shredded hang of the bullet-torn tarp; it chilled Tyreen’s sweaty skin. He wanted to swallow a quinine capsule, but he put it off. He felt blindfolded by the pressure of the tarpaulin. Feeling crowded, he disliked the feeling with unreasonable impatience. He felt Saville stir, as though scenting imminent trouble, but there was nothing in sight or earshot. The road turned, sidling against timbered hillsides, descending a series of switchbacks into the violet half-light of the rain forest. Every shadow seemed to conceal a threat hiding from discovery. Nguyen Khang’s shadow at the back of the truck was gray and indistinct. Tyreen peered ahead and said abruptly, “Take your posts. I see some houses ahead.”

  There was a scrape of movement behind him. He cleared his gun. Seen closer, the jungle huts sat perched on hillsides as if they were about to fall off. Here and there smoke lifted sluggishly through a thatched roof. Theodore Saville peered through a pushed-back corner of the tarp; his steady eyes watched everything, and Tyreen could not escape the conviction that every detail was being indelibly absorbed into the big man’s memory.

  The truck came to a slow halt. The morning was deep and still. Sun’s voice and Corporal Smith’s voice ran through it softly, apprehensively. Tyreen spoke from the window. His words sprawled softly and easily: “It’s nothing, just a bunch of poppy farmers crossing the road—I think they’re a little drunked up.” The truck started moving again, and he put down the gun. They passed the village. The Montagnard tribesmen gave as little attention to the army truck as they might have to a buffalo cart.

  The smell of the jungle was oppressive. Saville moved close to Tyreen and spoke quietly. “Smith ain’t the only one.”

  “Everybody’s scared,” Tyreen said.

  “What are you scared of?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’re scared to give in, David. Scared to admit it when you get too sick and too beat-up to fight. You used to be the best fighter there was.”

  “I still am.”

  “No. But you’re scared just the same.”

  Tyreen said, “I’ll tell you something, Theodore. Not one of us would have come on this mission if we hadn’t been scared of something.”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  1005 Hours

  UP front, Nhu Van Sun’s foot wa
s reaching for the brake, and Tyreen pitched forward with the abrupt stop. He heard J. D. Hooker’s “Jesus H. Christ!” All Tyreen could see was dark jungle on both sides of the road. No one was in sight. Tyreen flapped back the tarpaulin.

  Corporal Smith leaned out of the seat. “Almost missed it,” he said. “Sorry we shook it up, Colonel. This is where we get off the road. End of the line. Chutrang’s just over the ridge, there.”

  Tyreen said, “All right. Let’s pull off the road.”

  The truck backed and jockeyed and rammed into the rain forest. They stopped after thirty feet of travel, and when he looked back Tyreen could not see the road.

  Corporal Smith got down and said, “Hang on a minute, sir.” He cupped his hands to his mouth and spoke rapidly in a singsong tongue, calling toward the south.

  Tyreen got out of the truck. “Everybody out.”

  A handful of figures appeared in the forest, a knot of men in white Oriental pajamas. Corporal Smith’s talk rattled at them. Saville muttered at Tyreen, “Must be a Montagnard dialect, hey?”

  A soft, light voice uttered a command, and the white costumes flapped a little in the rain. One figure moved forward—a woman, slight and supple. Her voice was young. “Les Américains?”

  Smith talked quickly, using his hands. Tyreen heard his own name. Saville said, “What the hell?”

  The young woman advanced, carrying a carbine. Her face was shaded by a conical hat of woven straw. “I am Lin Thao. It is all right, Colonel. I speak English.”

  She did not smile. Tyreen wished he could make out her features. What did a name mean? The rain was slow and cold. Tyreen said, “Corporal.”

  “Yes, sir. Her brother’s Ngo Kuy Thao. He runs the village.”

  The young woman said, “My brother is dead, Corporal.”

  Tyreen heard Smith’s slow intake of breath. Under Lin Thao’s loose blouse the shoulders lifted and fell, a tired gesture. “The Vietminh …”

  “Your brother was killed?”

  “Eventually.”

  “I’m sorry,” Tyreen said. He felt awkward and irritable.

  “We found him in the jungle. This morning. He had been beaten. He was returning from Chutrang to tell us about Captain Kreizler.”

  Tyreen put his submachine gun over his shoulder on its sling. He scraped a hand across his mouth. “You’ve been expecting us, Miss?”

  “Yes. I have come to meet you because there is no one else. The village has not yet elected a new leader. I will tell you what my brother would have told you, and try to do what he would do.”

  “Do you think they made your brother talk?”

  Saville cleared his throat. The girl’s face was invisible under the hat. Tyreen said, “I’m sorry. We ought to know. If he was made to talk, then they’ll be expecting us.”

  “My brother did not talk.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I am quite sure, Colonel. My brother was their prisoner twice before, and he did not talk then.”

  “All right,” Tyreen said.

  The girl turned. “Please follow me.” She walked into the rain forest.

  There was the odor of food cooking in the jungle clearing. Boiling rice steamed in big pots over open fires sizzling in the rain. A dark, humped water buffalo stood in an open shed beside a hut thatched with rushes. There were three small huts and a pagoda. A tribesman stood outside the pagoda, armed with a semiautomatic rifle. He wore khaki pants and a loose black Oriental shirt. Crossed ammunition bandoliers hung from his shoulders. Tyreen caught the smell of burning joss sticks in the pagoda. Under a shelter two old people sat crosslegged: an old woman smoking a cigar, and an old man, scrawny with a potbelly. By them on a platform lay the shape of a human body wrapped in a sheet, the face covered by white paper. Incense smoldered in pots. The young woman spoke quietly, and the two old people got to their feet. They placed their palms together and bowed slowly toward the covered corpse and then toward Tyreen’s party. Lin Thao said, “These are my father and my mother, and that is my brother.”

  Corporal Smith spoke very low into Tyreen’s ear:

  “Her brother’s lucky. The last village chief here was tied up to a stake in front of the pagoda. The Vietminh ripped his belly open and left him hang there with his guts spilled out.”

  Theodore Saville’s face was wet with rain. He blotted his face into the crook of his elbow. Tyreen said, “Let’s have a look at the map of Chutrang, Theodore.”

  Saville had been watching the girl. He flashed angry eyes at Tyreen. “It’s a bad thing about your brother, Miss.”

  She said, “He has nothing to fear now.”

  J. D. Hooker’s eyes were hooded. “You act real busted up, don’t you? What’s with you people?”

  She answered coolly. “Haven’t you heard of the stoic Oriental, Sergeant? We do not cry.” Presently Hooker looked away.

  Tyreen said, “Theodore.”

  Saville wheeled on him. “Just hold your Goddamn horses, David.”

  “Tell that to Eddie Kreizler,” Tyreen said bleakly.

  Saville said to Corporal Smith, “Where can we get out of the rain for a minute?”

  “I will take you,” said Lin Thao. She made a gesture and walked toward a hut thatched with rushes.

  It was like an Indian jacal Tyreen had seen in New Mexico. The girl turned up an oil lantern. The flame wavered on low oil, filling the hut with flat yellow light. Tyreen’s attention lay wholly against the girl.

  She looked at him as she might look at a man under sentence of death. Her face was small and fragile. She was brown and oval-eyed; she appeared very young, but not frightened. Her mouth had a strange shape, as though she had been biting the lips. Tyreen locked eyes with her for a studied interval, but there was no break in her composure; she did not blink.

  A narrow, bony man entered, a graceless tribesman with voracious eyes. He carried several bowls of stew. The girl apologized: “It is not our best, but you must eat.”

  “Nuoc mam,” said Corporal Smith.

  Theodore Saville said, “Thank you, Miss.” He sat down and began to eat.

  Tyreen said, “Let’s see that map, Theodore.”

  Saville’s eyes came up slowly. He drew the oilskin map pouch from his jacket and spread the map on the floor. Tyreen squatted beside it, deep in study. “That’s the guardhouse?”

  “Eat,” said Lin Thao. “One of our people watched the city with glasses. He saw them take Captain Kreizler out of the jail and into the headquarters.”

  “How long ago?”

  “It has not been an hour.” She waved a small brown hand at him. “Is the food bad?”

  Tyreen tasted it. “It’s fine. What about Lieutenant Chinh?”

  “The guards killed him outside the jail. But they did not shoot Captain Kreizler.”

  “Sure,” murmured Theodore Saville through a mouthful of stew.

  Tyreen tasted the fermented sauce and bolted the food while his eyes traveled around the map. Saville said, “Figure to slog it, or use the truck?”

  “The truck, I think.” Tyreen’s eyes were sunken and fiery. He put his bowl aside. “Lin Thao. How many men with weapons have you got?”

  “We have fifty in the village, but only eight are here now.”

  “Smith, what kind of weapons have they got?”

  “Small arms and grenades, sir. One light mortar.”

  Tyreen examined the girl like a man studying the entrails of an oracular goat. He put his finger on the map. “How long would it take your people to walk from here to the electric power station?”

  “Thirty minutes, if there are no patrols on the path.” Her answer was quick and positive.

  “Is there a heavy guard on the power station?”

  Smith spoke up: “One machine gun squad. Three guns.”

  The girl said, “You would have us sabotage the electric station?”

  “To draw the army out of Chutrang.” Tyreen rubbed his eyes with forefinger and thumb. “Can your people do that?”<
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  “If it will help Captain Kreizler, we can try, Colonel.”

  Tyreen cut off a curse. “I feel like a fool talking to a woman like this.”

  “There is no one else. The people will listen to me.”

  He looked cross and sulky. “Make a lot of noise. Throw grenades and do a lot of shooting. Try to knock out the city power cables. Make as much noise as you can, but tell your people not to take risks. They don’t have to be brave. It won’t help for anybody to get killed.”

  Lin Thao said, “The army will come up from the city.”

  “When they do, your people disappear.”

  She spoke to Corporal Smith. Smith answered in the Montagnard dialect, and Lin Thao said to Tyreen, “We shall do as you say.”

  He looked at her feet. Her sandals were cut from automobile tires. She probably did not weigh one hundred pounds. She offered him a jar and said, “Rice whisky,” and Tyreen shook his head. J. D. Hooker reached for the jar, and Tyreen said, “No.” The girl withdrew the whisky. Hooker straightened, but did not speak, and the girl said:

  “There is an alley near the soldiers’ compound.” She touched the map. “If you wish to use the truck again, you should hide it in the old garage where tractors and wagons were repaired. The garage is not used now. The mechanies are in jail. Go with care, because there are many patrols. They move their stations all the time. Watch for them in the shadows. They are frightened of the light.”

  “Like rats,” said Theodore Saville.

  “No,” Lin Thao said, “they are poor men with families. They only earn their food and try to keep alive.”

  Tyreen stirred; his eyes were intolerant. “Death is the same whether you fear it or not.” He picked up the map and got to his feet; he was not steady and fought briefly for balance. He resented the way the girl looked at him, with sudden concern; she had no right to it.

  But all she said was, “They have an electric alarm fence around the jail. It has its own generator, and if we cut off the main power cables that will not turn the alarm off. I tell you this because they may move Captain Kreizler back into the jail.”