A River in May

by Edward Wilson

  Redhorn finished his radiotelephone harangue and asked his new lieutenant to follow him into the underground accommodation bunker. Lopez winced when he saw Redhorn’s back. Half the flesh was ugly scar tissue – a huge shrapnel wound in the shape of an inverted S, which began at Redhorn’s left shoulder blade and ended just above his waist. Two parallel lines of bright pink suture scars, each an inch wide, seamed the curvature of the wound like an anatomical zipper, and gave the impression that the back could be unzipped for further repairs. The surgical plate that been bolted in to replace Redhorn’s shoulder blade made the upper half of his back seem taut and unnatural. Lopez suddenly had the impression that Redhorn too might be a corpse, one that had been repaired and sent back from some Satanic underworld forge.

  Redhorn led the way down the stairs out of the harsh light of day. Lopez half expected to find Cerberus the three-headed dog, Charon and the River Styx at the bottom. It was suddenly cool, dank and dark. Along either side of the corridor there were cubicles divided by plywood sheets. The officers and team sergeant had their own cells, like monks in a troglodyte monastery. ‘Here’s yours,’ said Redhorn flicking aside a door curtain. There was a pine desk, shelving, hooks for weapons and equipment, and a bed consisting of a thin mattress lying on two strips of perforated steel planking resting on ammunition boxes. Redhorn pointed underneath the bed. ‘Get under there if they throw satchel charges into the bunker. It’ll protect you against blast and the roof collapsing.’

  Lopez dropped his gear on the bed.

  ‘It’s nice and cozy down here. Sorry about the bullet holes.’ Redhorn pointed to places where the plywood was splintered.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘One night your late but not lamented predecessor went a little crazy. He came in and found that the rats had broken into a box of chocolate chip cookies that his mommy sent him. He emptied a whole clip from his .45, and missed every single fucking one. He nearly got Sergeant Mendoza though – Mendy was sleeping next door – and certainly made a mess of his mommy’s cookies.’

  ‘Are there a lot of rats?’

  ‘Thousands. Place is overrun with them. But we’re not permitted to poison them because the Vietnamese eat them when they run out of dog.’

  As soon as Redhorn had left Lopez began to unpack. He looked at the subterranean earth of the bunker walls and – for the first time in years – he felt totally happy. There’s nothing beyond here, he thought; this is the end. Here is zero. This was where he wanted to be, had to be. He had lost everything of value in his life and it was all his own fault. At first, Lopez had been frightened by the emotional void and had wanted to find something to embrace and put in its place. But he was now learning that it might be better to embrace the void itself.

  His first night at Nui Hoa Den, Lopez dreamed of Sergeant Monroe’s corpse. He dreamed that Monroe was smiling and winking at him as they carried his bloated body from the truck to the helicopter. He was only pretending to be dead, it was just a clever ruse to get sent home early. Lopez felt relieved. Just as he was about to whisper to Monroe that he promised not to let anyone know what he was up to, he woke up.

  The bunker smelled of earth – dank earth. There were the rustle of rats and almost always the cackle of radio noise – the communications bunker was only a few cubicles away. Lopez knew that it wouldn’t be so bad when day came, then he could look out over the valley that was fresh and beautiful.

  Nui Hoa Den was built on top of a mountain. The planners had wanted to avoid another Dien Bien Phu or Kham Due, but they failed to see other problems. The camp was easily cut off and only accessible by helicopter, the monsoon rains washed the sandbag bunkers and barbed wire down the slopes, and the entire camp was often lost inside banks of low lying cloud.

  It was most dangerous when the thick mist came at night. Enemy sappers then crept up close and threw grenades into the trenches. The sappers were naked except for loincloths – barbed wire snags on clothing, but not bare flesh – with tourniquet thongs around their upper arms and thighs to help staunch blood loss from the wire cuts, as well as shrapnel and bullet wounds. The job of the lead sappers was to dismantle the mines and the warning devices – in the case of Nui Hoa Den, mostly empty beer cans with pebbles in them – and then cut holes in the wire through which other sappers carrying grenades and satchel charges could follow. Redhorn told Lopez that after an attack at Lang Khe, they found bodies with tattoos on their forearms: ‘Born in the North to die in the South’.

  Nui Hoa Den was supposed to be defended by three hundred Vietnamese CIDG (Civilian Irregular Defense Group) soldiers, but Lopez had the impression that they tended to come and go as they pleased. He didn’t blame them – they were only paid ten dollars a month. On the other hand, you didn’t need a lot of money to hire an army in that part of the world, so why pay more? There were also the Americans and their Vietnamese Special Forces counterparts, the LLDB – the acronym for Luc Luong Dac Biet, but Redhorn told Lopez it really meant ‘Low Lying Dirty Bastards’.

  Lopez calculated that the CIDG got paid even less than the eleven and twelve year old black boys who helped Tom with the haying. He’d liked working in the fields with those kids. They used to sing the ‘obshortnin’ bread’ song over and over again as if it held some hidden ironic meaning. He wondered if those kids knew that Rideout’s Landing, in any fair sense, really belonged to them. They liked coming to the farm but there was one place they wouldn’t go near, a row of derelict sheds between the house and the hay barn, which used to be the slave quarters. Everyone thought they were spooky, particularly in the moonlight with the broken and charred roof beams reaching up into the sky like fingers. There was something about the CIDG bunkers at Nui Hoa Den – perhaps an odor, a feeling in the air – that reminded Lopez of those old slave quarters. It was a presence, not just of suffering, but of the silent suffering of those who would never have a voice to tell their story.

  For most soldiers the army means early mornings. Lopez remembered almost fondly a winter of pre-dawn bayonet practice at Fort Benning. The sports stadium lights cast grotesque shadows as pairs of young officer candidates lunged, parried, learned to ‘butt-stroke’ – a rifle-butt smash to the face – and to ‘slice’, which involved slashing a bayonet blade through the angle where neck meets shoulder and slicing through the carotid artery and deep into the body. Then ‘lunge, parry, butt-stroke, slice’ all over again. After a while the movements were carried out with all the grace and precision of a corps de ballet. It was beautiful: the cadenced choreography of a death dance, each pair in the center of a penumbra of shadows.

  One morning, while they were still in formation waiting to pair off, Travis asked for permission to speak. The instructor, still only a bit startled, barked, ‘Granted.’

  ‘There is a long tradition of musical accompaniment to military drill, and this stadium has an excellent sound system. Might I suggest the March of the Montagus and Capulets, from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet?’ And he started to pom-pom-pom-pom pom-pom-pom-pom under his breath.

  For a second the instructor seemed stunned and confused, then he fixed on the lowly vermin of a candidate who had dared interrupt his routine. Just as he was poised to pounce on Travis, Lopez called out, ‘Surely the most apt piece is the fight scene between Tybalt and Romeo. It’s a danse macabre.’

  The bayonet instructor was now totally lost. He stared open-mouthed into space for several seconds, then turned to his assistant and said, ‘What the fuck’re these guys talking about?’ For a few precious seconds, grinning at Travis, Lopez had felt deliriously happy – a tiny evanescent flash of civilization had suddenly glowed in the dark.

  Redhorn was not an early morning soldier. He seldom stirred before eleven, and even then he tended to slouch around the camp half-dressed in shorts and sandals for hours. It was midday, and Lopez was going through the re-supply procedures and logistical record keeping when Redhorn appeared, wearing olive green jockey shorts and carrying his glass and a towel. Redhorn
pointed to the paperwork. ‘I’m glad I don’t have to do that boring shit. Get Sergeant Clarke to do it – it’ll make him feel important.’

  ‘It’s my job.’

  ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, don’t play at this boy-scout shit. Clarke’ll do it and that’s an order.’ Redhorn went quiet for a few seconds – then looked around furtively. ‘I have to tell you some real serious shit, but it’s sensitive stuff – the kind of stuff the non-commissioned swine can’t cope with and should never know.’ Redhorn put his finger to his lips and bent under the desk where there was a cast-iron safe bolted to one of the wooden beams that supported the bunker. Redhorn twirled the dial back and forth five times, then pulled the door open. Lopez glimpsed a half-dozen files bound with black string and yellow Top Secret labels, thick piles of dollars and thicker piles of Vietnamese currency and, sickeningly – for he’d heard rumors but didn’t realize they really existed – the white plastic tubes full of cyanide capsules.

  Redhorn pulled out one of the top-secret files and closed the safe. ‘Let’s go someplace where they’re aren’t any ears – ears still attached to people, I mean.’ Lopez followed Redhorn up the steps and into the hard glare of midday sun. It was siesta time and the camp seemed dead. Redhorn padded barefoot across the hard baked ground and climbed over the parapet of the .81mm mortar pit. Lopez followed him. The mortar pit was a five feet deep well of local stone and concrete surmounted by a parapet of sandbags. Redhorn stripped off his shorts and lay down next to the mortar tube, his cock lolling against a pale white thigh, the top-secret file next to him. The pit was a furnace of white heat – it must have been a hundred twenty degrees. Redhorn took his glasses off and basked in the bright dry heat. They might have been in the Sahara.

  Lopez sat down and leaned back against the wall of the mortar pit. He remained fully clothed and the sweat began to pour off. The naked Redhorn, sprawled on the white concrete, looked like a homoerotic pin-up: the mortar tube, a phallic prop of blue green steel, tilted southwest at .45 degrees beside him. There was a certain counterpoint between the flawed vulnerability of Redhorn and the perfect beauty of the mortar – its lean athleticism, the delicacy of its aiming sights, its honed perfection of lubricated parts and readiness to respond – like an icon of some strange cult. Lopez closed his eyes and started to doze.

  ‘Are you still there?’ Redhorn had put his shorts and glasses back on and was sitting cross-legged. His lean body reminded Lopez of a photo-image of Gandhi.

  ‘Why are we in this pit?’ said Lopez.

  ‘It’s my Turkish bath. I come here to purify myself and sweat out all the poison of this shitty war.’ Redhorn paused and bowed his head, then went on, ‘To purge my hate for the cowardly generals and candyass politicians who have no stomach, no cojones, for killing and conquest. And you’re here because I need to give you a counter-intelligence briefing – and this is the best place to do it. It’s as far as we can get from the bunkers and there’s something about this pit that absorbs sound. If you want to tell someone a secret always bring them here.’ He handed the folder to Lopez. ‘Look at this fucking stuff.’

  Lopez undid the black string and pulled out a thick batch of documents. All the reports were marked TOP SECRET, NEED TO KNOW ONLY and NOFORN (access forbidden to foreign nationals). In the upper left hand corner of each document was a passport size photo of a Vietnamese soldier.

  ‘This is the most heavily infiltrated camp in I Corps. And these are the fucking traitors – we know twenty-three of them, but I think there might be six or seven more.’

  Lopez leafed through the pile and studied a few reports at random. ‘I don’t see anything that says these guys are definitely communist agents; they’re described as suspects.’

  ‘What’s the fucking difference?’

  ‘If you’re so sure, why don’t you arrest them? Or shoot them?’

  ‘Why, Lieutenant Lopez? Why indeed? Because these little shits are the best soldiers in the camp. If we got rid of them, this camp would be a totally useless no-body-count waste of taxpayer’s money.’ Redhorn picked out a report. ‘Take this little turd, for instance – Ho Cuc.’

  Lopez looked at a face that seemed carved out of seasoned teak. The CIDG soldier had sunken eyes and badly cut hair.

  ‘This guy has the highest individual body count in the camp. He got five in one day – fantastic. If Ho Cuc were an American, LBJ would’ve given him the Congressional Medal of Honor on the White House lawn, and Cuc would now be a redneck hero poking whole trailer parks of white-trash pussy.’

  ‘Maybe he’s genuine.’

  ‘No way. This devious little shit was a scout with the 173rd when they lost that battalion at Dak To. He claims he was captured after his company was cut to pieces in a crossfire. Bullshit – Cuc led them straight into it. Next, we have the great escape lie, about how he got away during a massive bombing raid, about traveling only at night, following watercourses towards the coastal plain and living on a diet of insects and roots until he met up with a patrol of ARVN paratroopers. His cover story isn’t even a good lie, lousy pulp fiction; it’s about as credible as promising Peggy-Lou and Charlene you’re not going to come in their mouth.’

  Lopez had another look at Ho Cuc’s report. ‘He originally defected to An Hoa.’

  ‘That’s right. He’s a homeboy, a local. Cuc comes from a little village called Son Loi, up by the river gorge. Except Son Loi, as the froggies say, n’existe plus. It used to be an important river crossing for ferrying supplies. Now it’s nothing but Agent Orange defoliation and craters: the most beautiful scenery in this fucking valley.’

  Lopez looked at Redhorn and tried to find a note of irony, of jokiness. There was none: he really meant, really believed, every word he said.

  ‘The S2 section spent four days interrogating this little fucker. They didn’t believe his story – even S2 aren’t that stupid – but they thought Cuc might be useful here, local knowledge etcetera, provided we keep an eye on him. I put him in the Combat Reconnaissance Platoon, thinking he’d get killed in a few weeks and end the security risk problem. But the little shit just won’t die. Do you know about the CRP? We pay them $2 extra a month to get killed quick. The CRP are the ones who walk point, who take the first AK burst and get blown up by the first mine. The slopes in the other platoons are scared shitless of the CRP, but they also like having them there. Our gooks are all mathematicians. They’ve worked out the odds and know that the CRP are buying them time, postponing the inevitable. Even the stupidest CIDG knows that sooner or later he’s going to get it: ambush, sniper, fucked-up airstrike, booby trap, mortar. And even if he survives all that shit, this camp has always been a doomed and expendable write-off. This place is just another untenable fuck-you-Jack joke like Kham Due. When the marines were here they were overrun twice.’

  Lopez put Ho Cuc back in the folder and continued flicking through the reports. ‘What about the rest of these guys?’

  ‘What about them? They’re just a bunch of murderous gooks waiting around to shoot us in the back or frag us while we’re asleep.’

  Lopez picked out a report and held it up. ‘Shit, look at this one – he’s an LLDB. I thought they were supposed to be the Presidential Guard of Honor.’

  ‘The redoubtable Sergeant-major Dieu. He’s a real honey.’

  Lopez studied the photograph. There was something leathery and ancient about Dieu’s face, like the preserved bog corpses from Denmark and Ireland.

  ‘Dieu’s the oldest guy in the camp, he’s fifty-three. Lucky bastard, he’s been through all three wars and never been wounded or captured. In fact, that old fuck even managed to survive Dien Bien Phu. He and three or four other gooks escaped somehow and made it back to the French lines.’

  ‘Could that be just a cover story?’

  ‘No, that bit’s true. Dieu didn’t become a Communist until ’56, but then he shot up through the party ranks. He’s an important guy. In fact, I don’t know what the fuck he’s doing here. Who knows – maybe this
shit-hole is more important than it looks. In any case, Dieu’s not an expendable piece of shit like these other agents. He’s even got connections: his wife’s brother’s a minister in the Hanoi government. Let me have that.’ Lopez handed over the report. Redhorn looked closely at the photo. ‘I’m afraid of this bastard; Dieu’s the only one in the camp that scares me. I’d really like to kill him.’

  ‘Why don’t you?’

  ‘Because Sergeant Carson, the intel NCO, would go ape. By the way, Carson is the only other fucking creature who has access to these files. You realize – if Mendy and some of the other crazies knew about these guys, they’d just kill ‘em. But, as officers and gentlemen, we of course see the broader picture.’

  ‘Why’s Carson on Dieu’s side?’

  ‘I think he loves the guy – they’re both alcoholics and they’ve both been through as much bad shit as you can pack into one incarnation. Other stuff too. Aside from the friendship crap, Carson argues a good case for Dieu. One, Dieu is too important to waste and probably won’t break cover until the final offensive, which could be five or ten years from now. Two, Dieu is irreplaceable. He’s the most competent Vietnamese in the camp. Without him, the whole place would collapse – even the cooks would mutiny.’

  Lopez had once heard someone say that when you go to Vietnam, ‘you step through the looking glass.’ He was beginning to understand just how true that was.

  ‘But I’ll tell you something else – if I get Carson out of the way, Dieu, irreplaceable or not, is going to be dead meat.’

  ‘You’re going to shoot him, personally?’

  ‘You mean a field lobotomy with a .45 caliber scalpel? No, I’m doing this one by the book. The Group S2 is a good pal of mine and I don’t want him to miss out. There’s a name for the procedure – it’s called “termination with extreme prejudice”. I’ll trick Dieu into leaving the camp, get him away from anybody that might help him; don’t want a bloody gun battle like that one at Mai Loc when Louis Bowman fell out with his counterpart. No, we’ll jump Dieu in some quiet place down by the river, put the handcuffs on him and call in a chopper.’