Yes, smile: smile wider. And approach me smiling in your black-velvet slippers. What big pretty teeth you have, such incisive incisors, my dear Dr Prida, and such a way with wordlessness that perhaps we need never speak again . . .
MARK CHADBOURN
The Ones We Leave Behind
A WINNER OF THE BRITISH FANTASY AWARD, Mark Chadbourn is the author of eleven novels and one non-fiction book. His current fantasy sequence, “Kingdom of the Serpent”, continues with The Burning Man in early 2008.
A former journalist, he is now a screenwriter for BBC television drama. His other jobs have included running an independent record company, managing rock bands, working on a production line and as an engineer’s “mate”. He lives in a forest in the English Midlands.
“A few years ago,” recalls Chadbourn, “I had the pleasure of spending time in several conversations with the acclaimed Vietnam War photographer Tim Page for a magazine article I was writing.
“Tim’s pictures helped define that war, but his own personal story illustrated the horrors of the conflict just as clearly. Torn apart by an explosion, losing a significant part of his brain to shrapnel, he spent agonising years reclaiming his health and his life. His recovery was so amazing these days it’s hard to tell how much he suffered.
“He is the inspiration behind ‘The Ones We Leave Behind’.”
THE PAST CAN’T BE TRUSTED. Our memories play tricks with us, whispering lies to make us feel better or haunting us with images half-glimpsed in the shadows of our heads. I used to think photographs were different. They captured the moment so perfectly, more real than real because they saw things you never did. Subtle expressions barely noticed, a fugitive smile or nascent tear, rare light, odd juxtapositions, nature’s secret ironies. In photographs, old friends lived forever, just as you always knew them.
Or so I thought.
Outside the sound of the shells hitting the suburbs are almost lost beneath the screams of panic. A woman, face contorted by grief, throws herself off the building opposite. One of those who fled the north twenty years ago. Better death at her own hand than the slow killing of an unforgiving revenge.
I never thought I would see Saigon like this. The City of Smiles. The eye of optimism and tranquillity at the heart of the Vietnam storm. Everyone is running. For escape, for shelter. For food, for drink, for love and money. No point. The city is encircled by sixteen divisions – 140,000 men. In his resignation speech, President Thieu blamed the US for paying for the war in money while the Vietnamese paid in blood. He tried to get his betrayal in first, but he’d missed the boat by several years.
Anyone with half a brain would be attempting to buy their way out on one of the Hercules transports leaving the airport. As a photo-journalist and integral part of the Imperialist propaganda machine, I should be first in the queue. Once the Communists get here, they’ll have my head on a spike at the Presidential Palace faster than you can say Tan Son Nhut.
But in a way, I’m just like that poor woman committing suicide. Sometimes it’s not just about life or death; there are occasions when worse things enter the equation. I have to find an old man with a bitter heart before the past catches up with me. Before I fall off the edge of existence and can’t even claim a memory to my name.
The first time I saw Van Diemen was in the back of a tent, glowing with the seething light of a hissing lamp while shadows of jungle moths passed across his face. I remember the stickiness of the night, the way my shirt clung to my back, the sickening taste of fear that never left my dry mouth. You lived with all those things back then, and they are still as real as anything I know.
It was 7 January 1967, the evening before Operation Cedar Falls. The regular grunts had no idea they were on the brink of a KO punch into VC strongholds, designed to stop the Communists in their tracks and provide a springboard for US victory. At least that was the plan.
The Pack knew no more, cared even less. We saw ourselves as old-style adventurers, relishing the adrenaline rush of any danger zone. The scent of napalm or Agent Orange on the breeze was enough to get us grabbing our cameras. There were four of us, all in our twenties, young enough not to know the distinction between bravery and stupidity. Chet was from some dusty Arizona town; a lazy accent, a love of grass and a nice little commission from Life. Alain had given up documenting the tensions on the streets of Paris for what he saw as life on the edge in ‘Nam.
And then there was Justin and myself, childhood friends from the same dorm in some second-rate public school no one had ever heard of, both with too-rich parents and no real need to earn a living. Brits abroad with Empire-borne arrogance that neither of us recognised. Justin was brash, revelling in his aristocrat links, however far removed. I was quieter. And in the arrogance of our youth and our background and our job, we thought nothing could touch us.
That night we’d been smoking some grass, drinking a little bourbon, talking about where we would go once the current mess had blown over. The Middle East, maybe. Always good for a little mayhem. Or Africa, a leaking steam pipe waiting to blow.
The sound of the chopper coming in low over the tree-tops stirred us from our debate. We watched with stoned fascination as it landed in the camp to release a flurry of wild activity, soldiers free of the sweat and grime of the jungle coalescing around a smaller group, at the core a shock of silver hair shimmering in the glare of the lights. They ducked low beneath the whirring blades and hurried as one into the heart of the camp.
“Something is afoot,” Alain said.
“What do you say, Will?” Justin asked me. “Too high to creep down there to see if we’ve had a secret visit from the Prez himself?”
“Go yourself. I’m not your lackey.” I felt obliged to offer the lip service protest, but we both knew it would be me. I was too curious by far and everyone else always took advantage of it.
“The Prez,” Chet said dreamily. “Now that would be a picture. Maybe . . . maybe it’s Ann-Margret.” He drifted off into a reverie.
“Are we going to do this or not?” I said before I lost them further. With foul-mouthed protest, they shuffled into a seated position, Alain propping up Chet. I made Justin stop skinning up and then checked the camera. Through the lens they looked like a bunch of idiots on holiday. I set the timer and threw myself into the middle of them. In the white flash, the whole world disappeared.
I slipped away a few minutes later, past the stinking latrines, skirting the tent where Love were singing that “Seven and Seven Is”, until I found myself at Ops, where the officers regularly pored over their maps, drinking beer and reminiscing about life before they went In Country and mutated into a different species.
The coterie of guards in pristine fatigues had melted away. Through the tent flaps I could see three officers, two men in civilian clothes – spooks, I guessed – and that shock of silver hair. It was on a man with a face like an Easter Island statue, impenetrable, mysterious, aloof. He must have been in his seventies, but he didn’t look frail; there was a gravity to him that turned all the others into satellites. He wore small, wire-framed glasses that reflected the light like flares as he examined a map spread out on the trestle table.
“Where, exactly?” His voice had European precision, jarring to hear among all the lazy speech and expletives.
One of the spooks leaned over and tapped the map. “Intelligence says here. Whatever happened, they’re scared.”
“And you are certain my presence is justified?” The silver-haired guy didn’t look up from the map.
“Absolutely Professor Van Diemen. If there’s any truth at all to the reports we’re getting back, you’re probably the only one who could help,” the spook replied.
“The Pentagon said you were the man for the job after you consulted the State Department on that San Francisco business.” A general I’d never seen before.
“You know how serious things are, Professor,” the spook continued. “If things fall apart here, the entire world will be next. We need to stam
p our authority on the situation, and anything that can help us is absolutely justified.”
Van Diemen nodded slowly. Finally he did look up at the faces turned towards him. “Tomorrow, then?”
“Operation Cedar Falls begins at eight hundred hours,” the General said. “The 1st Infantry Division’s 2nd Brigade will move into Ben Sue. It will distract the VC so we can fly you along the Saigon River to the heart of the triangle with the 242nd Chemical Detachment. There’s a small window of opportunity before the 173rd Airborne move in from Ben Cat.”
Back with the others I could barely conceal my excitement. “Who is it?” Justin had shaken off the dope haze with the speed of someone who always keeps his eye on the main chance.
“A professor. Sounded like he was from the Netherlands or Belgium.”
“Not Ann-Marget?” Chet said wistfully.
“Come on, Will,” Justin urged. His eyes had that hungry gleam he always developed when he sensed an opportunity – for good pictures, good sex or any kind of drugs.
“There’s something big kicking off tomorrow.” I hunkered in among them, whispering. “A push into the Iron Triangle. Operation Cedar Falls. But that’s not the interesting thing.”
I proceeded to tell them what little I had overheard, but it was enough to get their news senses tingling. Not knowing what lay ahead, we were very excited.
Back then we’d never have imagined Saigon falling. Or a lot of things that happened since. I’m tempted to take out the photo from that night, but I know it’s just a nervous habit, imbued with the desperate wishful thinking of a child. It’s taken me weeks to get to this point, following a trail that was not only two years out of date but had also been obscured by the old man himself.
He didn’t want to be found. Maybe he felt guilty.
From the outside the room looks non-descript. BLACKWALL IMPORTS-EXPORTS, the sign says. A front for the secret service and their employees. I never used to care about any of the grubby games the’ ‘adults” played; it had no bearing on my life. Now I’m building up a hard core of hatred in my heart for the lengths to which people will go. Yet I still can’t decide if I want to save myself or if I just want revenge.
My first glimpse of the room is a shock. Religious symbols everywhere: crucifixes, Stars of David, a Buddha, a shrine, the Bible, the Koran. But no Van Diemen. I don’t allow myself to get disappointed, not after everything I’ve been through.
I never took Van Diemen to be a spiritual man. Far from it. What I’d seen of him suggested he was completely mired in the stinking mud of the real world. Realpolitik, not prayer. He’s a symbol of everything that’s going wrong at the moment: frightened, old, white men trying to stop the world turning, going to any lengths to crush youth, hope, innocence at home, to eradicate different ways of thinking abroad. Men who see threats where there is only change. Men who want to seal the planet in a block of ice.
This is the room of someone obsessed. Beyond the religious artefacts are other, more disturbing items: occult books, signs scrawled on the walls in a frantic hand. The distant echoes of what we found that day in the Iron Triangle.
I remember, I remember . . . I spent a couple of hours that night developing the roll of film. The photo taken earlier that evening perfectly captured the moment, carefree grins, lazy, king-of-the-world expressions. Nature’s secret ironies.
We woke to a dawn of fiery reds and hateful purples. Justin was already up, loading his camera bag, checking lenses and stashing film. Alain helped me drag Chet out of his crib; he was bad-tempered and sluggish and it took a shot of Jack in a stained mug to get him moving.
At a five-minute briefing, the captain told us we could accompany the troops into Ben Sue. It was a big day, the start of the war’s turning, and we were there to capture the moment the US became the winning side.
We’d already made our plans, bribed the right people with a small sack of prized grass, and slipped into the back of the chopper just before it took off. Ben Sue was far behind us when we were discovered, and by then what could they do? We were threatened with losing our accreditation, told we’d be shipped out of ‘Nam the minute we got back to camp, ordered to remain with the chopper ready for dust-off. We made the correct contrite noises and then laughed among ourselves when the Captain went back to his seat.
Van Diemen sat with the brass and the spooks as if they were afraid of allowing him contact with the regular grunts. I watched him carefully, thought how troubled he looked, how deeply sad; wondered what he had done in San Francisco that made him such a vital resource for the Government.
We came down in a clearing not far from the silver-gleaming river. The troops fanned out to clear the area; there were about twenty of them, with a further twenty Tunnel Rats from the 242nd Chemical Detachment, for whom I had the ultimate respect. In a country of nightmares, theirs was the worst, crawling into the Viet Cong tunnel system with nothing more than a hand gun, a knife and a flashlight to flush out the enemy.
Finally Van Diemen and his shiny, stiff shadows ventured out and we followed close behind. Nobody told us to get back, and we knew why the minute we were on solid ground and the chopper’s engines were stifled.
When you’d been In Country for a while, you started to develop what the grunts called “Jungle Sense”. You knew when danger was rolling towards you like a tropical storm on the horizon. This was worse than that feeling. I could see it in everyone’s faces the same: an expression of distaste overlaying dread.
The air was dead. No birdsong. No animal sounds. No evidence of human life. It felt like we were trapped in a bubble.
“Is this part of it?” the spook said to Van Diemen ahead of us.
“I think it possibly is.” Something odd had happened to the old man. Once he stepped into that disturbing atmosphere he appeared to come alive with strength and purpose in his movements.
The point man followed the Captain’s directions deep into the trees. It was already growing hot and humid. Nobody spoke. All eyes remained on the green world pressing tight on every side.
After fifteen minutes we reached a makeshift shelter. Smoke drifted up from the embers of a small fire over which hung a pot of water. In the shelter a rifle lay on a blanket next to an oily rag as if it had been dropped in the process of cleaning. A dead radio stood on a splintered fruit crate.
“Where’s the resistance?” The Captain looked like a surfer, sun-bleached blond hair, blue eyes, still younger but ageing faster than time allowed.
“Maybe they ran when they heard us coming,” Chet ventured.
The spook whirled as if he’d only just realised we were there. “No pictures! Of anything! This is a top-secret mission! Any problems and you’ll be shot for treason.”
That sounded a little extreme, even for ‘Nam. The Captain suggested we be escorted back to the chopper, but the spook’s attention had already wandered uneasily back to the shelter.
“The entrance should be around here somewhere.” He motioned to the zone around the shelter. The Captain ordered his men to scour the area and the trapdoor was found within a minute.
“How good is your intelligence?” Van Diemen peered into the hole despite the attempts of those around to drag him back.
“As good as can be expected from within the Iron Triangle,” the spook said. “We have details . . . but there are gaps.”
“So you are not sure if there is a degree of control?”
“We believe there to be.”
“You believe it can be controlled?”
The spook’s jaw tightened. “That’s your area, not mine.”
Van Diemen turned to the surfer. “Captain, you plan to have your men secure these tunnels?”
“That’s the general idea.”
“But what if the source of our mission is down there?”
The captain looked blank for a moment. “I’m not aware of the source of our mission, sir.”
Van Diemen glanced at the spook. “Need to know basis,” the spy replied.
&n
bsp; “Then I suggest I go in with you,” Van Diemen said to the captain.
You have to admire the professor’s balls. Half the grunts in ‘Nam wouldn’t have willingly ventured into that hole with the Tunnel Rats.
They tried to talk him out of it with lots of gruesome descriptions of booby-traps and hidden snipers, but he was having none of it.
“If he’s going in there, we should too,” I whispered to Justin.
“Are you mad?”
“Will is right,” Alain said. “Whatever they’re looking for, must be down there.”
“Well, why don’t we just wait here until they bring it out?” Justin said as if we were both stupid.
“Under a blanket or in a box?” I replied. “Nice photo. Make the cover of Life, that will.”
Two of the Tunnel Rats dropped down the hole before Van Diemen shouldered his way forward to go third. I steeled myself and jumped in immediately afterwards. It felt ludicrously dangerous, but I told myself that was what we were about.
A horizontal tunnel barely big enough for a dog ran out about six feet below ground level. I almost turned back then, but with another Tunnel Rat behind me I had no choice but to proceed. It was oppressively hot, the air thin and filled with the choking smell of soil and vegetation. Vermin scurried in the dark ahead of us.
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