War Baby

by Colin Falconer

  Two hammocks were strung across the roof from the rafters. ‘A few pictures on the walls,’ Ryan said, ‘and it will look just like home.’

  ‘I’ll get you something to eat,’ Salvador said.

  ‘Two steakburgers. Hold the onion.’

  He went out. They looked at each other.

  ‘Gee, Ollie, this is another fine mess you’ve gotten me into,’ Ryan said. He swung his legs up into the hammock, lay back and groaned. He closed his eyes. ‘God Almighty.’

  Webb barely had the strength to raise his legs from the dirt floor.

  Suddenly Ryan’s eyes blinked open and he sat up, clawing at his calf. He rolled up one leg of his camou pants and slapped at something that was feeding on him. ‘Christ, fleas.’ He picked the bug off his skin and flicked it on to the ground, and then began a minute inspection of his legs for its companions. ‘By the way, who the hell is the girl?’

  ‘She was one of the nurses at Bien Hoa in ’70. She was there the day you were wounded in the shoulder.’

  ‘Shit, but you’ve got an amazing memory.’

  ‘Well, some people are hard to forget.’

  Ryan caught the edge in Webb’s voice. ‘Run the Union Jack up that particular flagpole, did you?’

  ‘Christ, you’re a crude bastard.’ He crawled into his hammock. His feet were numb, beyond pain.

  Ryan gasped as he removed his jungle boots and settled in the hammock. ‘I think I’d prefer a water bed. I’m getting too old for this.’

  ‘I wonder what the hell she’s doing here?’ Webb murmured. It was as if his eyes were full of grit. His belly growled with hunger but he was too exhausted to do anything but sleep.

  * * *

  When Webb woke the sun was high in the sky. His head ached and he felt as if he were suffering from a massive hangover. Ryan was still sprawled open-mouthed, snoring. Webb struggled out of his hammock, gathering the tattered memories of the last twelve hours into order. He went outside, saw the adobe ‘hospital’ fifty yards and made his way over.

  There were six rustic beds and a few hammocks slung from the rafters on the open veranda. Part of the roof was missing; there appeared to be no plumbing or electricity and the operating table was a wooden door supported on trestles. There were dark stains on the beaten earth floor.

  Mickey was examining an old man, a stethoscope pressed against his chest. He was so thin Webb could count his ribs, and his skin was sickly grey. He stood in the doorway and watched her. A doctor with a crisp thin moustache and a polished dome of skull watched him suspiciously from the other corner.

  Mickey looked up and saw him. ‘Salvador said you were both snoring like pigs.’

  ‘That was Ryan.’

  She returned her attention to the old man. ‘Marquez is fifty years old. He has congestive cardiac disease. For five dollars a month I could get him digitalis and diuretics and keep his heart beating for years. Hundreds of thousands of people in the United States have lived to old age with the same complaint. Marquez will not live until Christmas.’

  Marquez put his shirt back on. Mickey gave him a phial with some red capsules. He thanked her, in Spanish, and hobbled away.

  ‘Placebos,’ she said. ‘Sugar pills. I can’t let him go away empty-handed. He’ll think I don’t care.’

  She went out on to the verandah. Webb followed her.

  ‘I often wondered what had happened to you,’ he said. ‘I thought about you a lot when I got back to the States. I even looked you up in the phone book.’

  ‘Yeah? I was in the Yellow Pages. Under “E” for “Easy”.’

  ‘That’s what I couldn’t find you! I was checking under “D” for “Difficult.” ’

  ‘So,’ she said. ‘I wondered if you’d show up.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’ve read your byline. I knew you were knocking around here somewhere, staying in some fancy hotel and ordering champagne on room service, like all you guys do.’

  ‘Yeah. This is my first day away from the pool bar. Look what happens.’

  ‘That’ll teach you.’ She grinned. ‘So I guess you did something with that talent of yours. You’re not freelance anymore.’

  ‘I’m working with a news group called IPA. I’ve done okay.’

  ‘Still doing wars? See, I knew you wouldn’t get sick of it. I was right.’

  ‘Guess you were. I did presidents trading as criminals for a while but it wasn’t as much fun. Washington’s too dangerous for me.’

  ‘I’m glad you done okay,’ she said.

  ‘I’ve always wanted to say this: what’s a pretty girl like you doing in a place like this?’

  ‘It’s a good line. You should use it more often.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘It’s a long story.’

  ‘I’m sure I can edit it down. It’s my job.’

  ‘I don’t know I should be talking to a journalist. I want to end up another feel-good weekend magazine feature.’

  ‘That really wasn’t why I was asking.’

  She lit a cigarette and offered him one.

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t remember you smoked.’

  ‘I didn’t before I came here. It keeps the insects away. And you don’t feel as hungry.’ She leaned back against a verandah post. ‘Fate, huh?’

  He nodded. ‘Fate.’

  There was a burst of laughter. They looked around. Salvador and his men were squatting under a nearby tree, cleaning their weapons, their transistor radio tuned to Radio Venceremos. They started singing in tune with a pop song:

  I yes call to sigh I lof you ...

  Mickey turned back to Webb. ‘Salvador thinks you are a great public relations coup for the Front.’

  ‘Gllad to help out.’

  ‘I know you mean well. But do you really think anyone in America gives a damn? Or in Britain? People can sustain outrage for a week at the most. Then they get compassion fatigue. When the elections roll around they still vote for the government that offers them the lowest taxes.’

  ‘That didn’t happen in Vietnam. We made a difference there.’

  ‘Because it was Americans dying, because it was Americans killing babies. But who gives a damn about a few spics and wetbacks, right? Still, I think it’s good that you try.’

  ‘What about you? You didn’t get here by accident either.’

  ‘I can feel an interview coming on. Have you got your notebook out?’

  ‘This is strictly off the record.’

  ‘When you’re talking to a journalist, there’s no such thing.’ She threw her cigarette in the dirt. ‘I’d better get back to work. Ramon is giving me the evil eye.’

  ‘Ramon?’

  ‘He’s the doctor. I goof off too long he’ll accuse me of betraying the revolution. You’d better get something to eat. They do great crabmeat enchiladas with asparagus here. Tell the maitre d’ I sent you.’

  ‘Can I get a piña colada with that?’

  ‘Sure, just put it on my tab. I’ll talk to you later.’

  She went back inside.

  Chapter 31

  They were in what was known as a controlled zone; the death squads could not operate here, but the villagers still faced dangers of a different kind, prey to strafing and bombing from the air and the seasonal ground offensives by government troops. It was what the Americans called a ‘free fire zone’ in Vietnam.

  The compas, which was how the guerrillas referred to themselves, had fixed outposts that served as an early warning system against intruders, and used their radios and runners - young boys known as correos - to communicate with each other. The guerrillas were constantly on the move. Webb would sometimes see a group of FMLN camped under the trees at the edge of the village, their webbing belts and bandoleros slung from the branches, but by early the next morning they would be gone.

  Only Salvador, as regional commander, remained in the village. It seemed he was a figure of some importance in the guerrilla movement, and so his bodyguard was better arme
d than most of the other combat groups, who sported anything from modern Russian or Chinese-made AK-47s to World War Two Hodgkiss machine guns or even World War One Mausers.

  ‘If you want action, you will have to be patient,’ he told Webb and Ryan. ‘We don’t seek out the chuchos.’ Chuchos, or ‘little dogs’, was the FMLN’s contemptuous name for the government soldiers. ‘We let them come to us.’

  Ryan shook his head. ‘Jeez Spider, it’s like being with the VC this time around.’

  ‘The Cheech and Cong,’ Webb said.

  Ryan turned to Salvador. ‘There’s no point in us hanging around here if we’re not going to see any fighting.’

  ‘It is your choice. But the air raids are becoming more frequent and d’Aubuisson has boasted on the radio that he will send the Ramon Belloso battalion to annihilate us, that we will all be dead in six months. If you stay with us a little longer, I guarantee you will see all the action you want.’

  ‘I’m not waiting six months for one firefight.’

  ‘Well, you are free to go at any time. Unlike us.’

  They decided to stay.

  They settled into the rhythms of the village, a cadence that kept time with the women sitting around the blackened griddles slapping the maizillo into tortillas, the thwack-thwack from the river as they beat their washing on the rocks.

  The campesinos accepted them without curiosity. They did not ask questions about them, did not seem interested in where they had come from nor how long they would stay. Resignation had set into them like rust. There were no toys for the children, no books for the adults. All thought, all energy, was attuned to survival. Sickness, particularly malaria, took such a toll that thirty was considered the onset of old age.

  Even the children appeared lethargic, their bellies swollen by malnutrition. Invading government soldiers had burned the previous season’s corn harvest and now the villagers were living off their reserves of sorghum.

  Wood smoke continually stung his eyes, the flies harassed him, tiny fleas and mosquitoes made life a torment, the stench of rotting vegetation and human waste made him continually nauseous.

  And then there was the food.

  On that first day Salvador brought them their first meal: two brown-green tortillas topped with red pinto beans and a little salt. Ryan stared at it, depressed.

  ‘In another month,’ Salvador said, ‘there won’t even be this.’ He scowled and walked out.

  They chewed their tortillas. They were half an inch thick and made not from corn but from sorghum. They tasted foul.

  Ryan ate half and threw the rest out of the window into the undergrowth where the children and the dogs squabbled over it.

  The nights were a different kind of torment. The only light came from candles, and after an hour or two of darkness these were extinguished and everyone slept. The compos simply put a piece of plastic on the hard ground, lay down, and tucked themselves in with a thin blanket. Every part of the body had to be covered because at night the bats would descend, looking for a meal. Their saliva contained an anesthetic as well as an anti-coagulant, so you could not feel their bite. They simply opened a vein and lapped up the flow. If you weren’t careful you would wake in the morning to find yourself covered in fresh blood.

  Salvador said the bats preferred animal blood, but the chuchos had killed all the livestock during the last invasion so now life was even difficult for the parasites.

  Every night before he slept Webb balanced in his hammock, then shook out his jeans and socks to get rid of the fleas. After checking his clothes by the light of his torch he would carefully put them back on, taking care not to let them touch the dirt floor and become re-infested. Then he fastidiously tucked a blanket around his body and pulled it up over his head.

  Then he lay there in the dark, listening to the bats stretch their wings in the rafters while the malarial mosquitoes hummed around his head.

  It was almost a relief when the first attacks came, breaking up this torturous regime.

  * * *

  He heard the chopper coming from about a mile out. In Vietnam the sound of rotors always meant a friend; extra firepower or more supplies or a medevac. Here, helicopters meant death.

  He ran outside and watched the Huey closing in, a full-tilt treetop boogie with machine guns blazing. If you were caught out in the open there was no time to do anything except pray. He had been on board a Cobra as it had done this same thing in a ‘free fire zone’ in Chu Lai province; the pilot had come in low, hitting every target he could see, like he was playing a frenetic arcade video game. Here was another camouflaged Huey doing the same thing.

  He heard the heavy-calibre bullets thud across the compound, kicking up devils of dust. Several rounds slapped into an adobe wall just behind him. And then it was gone, the chop-chop of the rotors disappearing beyond the forest canopy before the compas’ small-arms fire could do any damage. Webb stood quite still, gasping with shock, amazed to find himself unharmed.

  Then he heard the screaming.

  * * *

  A woman lay on her side in front of one of the houses. There was blood on her blouse. She was holding a small child. She held out her hand, crying out to him in Spanish.

  Ryan ran towards her with his camera. He focused the lens, but hesitated. He could take the shot, or he could take the child.

  He made his decision.

  The woman’s hand, dark stains in the dust, face creased in anguish, eyes big as saucers.

  Frame.

  Bullet holes behind her in the adobe wall. The child’s jaw slack, arm hanging limp.

  Frame.

  Someone brushed past him. Salvador knelt down beside the woman, put his arms around her. He looked around at Ryan - and at the camera - appealing for help. He had blood smeared on his forearms.

  Frame.

  ‘Help me here,’ he shouted in English. ‘For the love of God help me with the child!’

  Frame.

  A woman, another of the compas, rushed past him and grabbed the child. Salvador picked up the woman.

  Ryan ran backwards, kept them in focus as they stumbled up the path towards the hospital.

  Frame, frame, frame.

  * * *

  Webb ran over to the hospital. They were dragging the first casualty in by his arms. It was Marquez, the old farmer he had seen Mickey treating when they first arrived. His shirt was sodden with blood. Ryan stood to one side, his cameras around his neck.

  ‘Get the shots,’ he said.

  Everyone was shouting. The doctor and two of the nurses, the sanitarios, helped two compas carry the old man inside. Ryan ran beside them with the camera. Mickey tried to push him away but he kept firing off one frame after another.

  ‘Get out the way!’ she shouted at him.

  Ryan backed against the wall, finished one roll, changed the film, put the used roll into his pocket. He was in close, there was good light. This would sell to Time or Newsweek or one of the Sunday newspaper magazines.

  They laid Marquez on the makeshift operating table. There were three entry wounds in his chest, but most of the blood was coming from his back. Ramon felt for a pulse, shone a penlight into the old man’s eyes. He shook his head and the sanitarios lifted him back off the table and dropped him to the floor, like a heavy sack.

  High-pitched screams, like those of a child. Ryan looked around. A teenage boy hobbled in, supported by two campesinos, his left leg dangling, attached by just the sinews. Ryan started shooting again.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, get out of the way!’ Mickey screamed at him.

  She shoved him back against the wall.

  He saw Webb at the doorway, watching. He nodded: keep going.

  Ryan finished the second roll and stumbled outside. Webb sat on the steps waiting for him. There were gouts of blood in the dirt.

  Ryan fumbled in his pockets for his cigarettes.

  ‘You okay?’

  Ryan shook his head. ‘Sometimes,’ he said, ‘I feel like a right shit.’
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br />   Chapter 32

  Mickey sat on a stool beside the bed, holding the boy’s hand. He lay quite still, staring at the ceiling. He could have been dead except for the slow blinking of his eyes. The Huey’s strafing run had been productive; an old man, a child, and one of the correos had been killed; a woman and a young boy had been badly wounded. Ramon had been forced to amputate the boy’s leg.

  The only light came from a candle in a corner of the room. Grotesque shadows danced on the bare, stained walls. Ryan stood in the doorway, watching.

  ‘What Salvador cannot understand,’ she said at last, ‘is how a man like you can become indifferent to human suffering.’

  ‘What does he think I should have done?’

  ‘He told me that Marguerita held her arms out to you, pleading with you to help her.’

  ‘My job’s to record what happens here for the outside world. One photograph could help a thousand Margueritas.’

  ‘Is that how you see it?’

  ‘I’m not a doctor. I’m a combat photographer. It’s what I do. If I don’t take photographs I might just as well be a tourist.’

  He watched her, in profile. She looked so pale in this light, almost opaque. Even her voice was thin. ‘I remember a few years back, I was in Biafra. There was this woman. She looked ancient, but she couldn’t have been that old because she was nursing a little kid. She followed me around for hours while I took photographs, just kept touching me on the shoulder, on the arm, whispering something, Christ knows what. I knew I wanted to do something for her but I couldn’t think of anything that would make that much difference. I gave her something in the end, though.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Her picture on the front page of Time. Then it wasn’t just me she was following me, it was the whole world.'

  Mickey shook her head.

  ‘You don’t like me very much, do you?’ he said.

  ‘Not really. Where’s Hugh?’