Darkroom

by Joshua Graham

  77

  PETER CARRICK

  Back in ’73 while I worked as a war photographer with Echo Company, all kinds of crazy stuff went on in the hills of Nam. You have to understand, those boys started out all right.

  Lieutenant Colonel Richard “Thundering Rick” Colson, Echo Company’s commanding officer, sent Privates Cooper and Ross on a reconnaissance mission to check out this one village in Bình Sơn, the village your mother was raised in, Xandi. He believed that the VC had infiltrated it and set up a guerrilla-warfare base amongst the population.

  A day late for his expected return, Private Ross just barely made it back to report. He and Cooper had been discovered lurking in the bush by some of the villagers. They looked friendly enough and welcomed them in for a meal. Many seemed happy to see American soldiers. The privates learned otherwise, only too late.

  Ross escaped, but he had multiple stab wounds and had been stripped down to his skivvies. The skin on his back had been ripped to shreds by God only knows what kind of torture devices. Apparently, there were two or three VCs living in that village. And they still had Cooper.

  Ross didn’t make it through the night.

  Colson treated his men like they were his brothers, and this affected him profoundly. But the soldiers under his command took it far worse. At first they wanted to light up the village, smoke out the damn Charlies, and do to them what they did to Ross. But he calmed them down, told them their first priority was to rescue Private Cooper.

  By then, everyone in the world knew about the Mai Lai massacre. I feared we might be standing at the brink of another such atrocity. But Colson kept a level head.

  At least, initially.

  Days went by as he made multiple plans and contingency plans, and backup plans for those contingency plans. But the soldiers were starting to talk. Some of them even questioned their CO’s ability to lead, since he appeared to be stalling.

  The tension was palpable. At any moment, I might be sent away so as not to witness the breakdown of a United States military unit. But they didn’t send me away. Instead, Colson confided in me. Probably because I was the only objective party around. That, and later I learned that there was no safe way to get me out of there without giving up our position.

  Tempers flared, fuses grew short. Lieutenant Marks stepped forward one day and got right in Colson’s face. “Sir, if you’re not going to lead, I’m going to have to find you unfit and relieve you of duty.”

  To my surprise, Colson remained calm. “Command decisions are not to be made in haste.”

  “Four days squatting in the bamboo is not my idea of haste; it’s indecision.”

  “Are you questioning my authority?”

  “I’m questioning your ability, or your willingness to make the tough decisions. Now, give us our orders, or step aside and let someone with a backbone do it!”

  A dark cloud had rolled over into the mountains, and in the distance, the rumble of thunder reverberated under our feet. I started taking pictures, but Lieutenant Marks shoved me aside. I don’t think he realized his strength relative to that of a young civilian. I fell and landed on my camera. Thankfully, the damage was not serious. To my utter disbelief, Marks pulled out a pistol and aimed it right at me. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  But at this, Colson stepped between us. “Stand down, Lieutenant.”

  “Do my ears deceive me, or did you actually issue an order?”

  “Stand down and take ten to cool off.”

  Marks scoffed. “We’re done here.” He pointed at four other soldiers, and they all came to his side. “Anyone who wants to do something better than sitting on your hands should come with us.”

  “Stay where you are, men.” Colson’s poker face could freeze molten lava.

  But Marks smirked, shrugged, and turned his back on him.

  “This is desertion. Stay where you are, that’s an order!” Which was followed by the clicking off of his gun’s safety and the pointing of the muzzle in the back of Marks’s head.

  “Oh, look who’s grown himself a fresh pair,” Marks said, stopping in his tracks.

  I could not believe my eyes. What happened next could not have taken more than half a second. Marks swung around, pointed his gun right at Colson’s chest. A gunshot went off. I ducked, covered my head, and remained that way until the echoing of the round dissipated, blending with the approaching thunder.

  A cold, wet drop hit my neck. It wasn’t blood. It was rain. Within seconds, the entire area was engulfed in a thunderstorm. I lifted my head and saw a scarlet stream of blood flowing past my foot. At the top of this stream was Lieutenant Marks’s head, or what was left of it. He lay dead on the ground, his men gawking in wonder.

  By the next morning, Colson got the would-be deserters to cooperate. Seems they didn’t have much of a spine after Marks was executed, which by law, he had earned. Until then, I hadn’t yet seen a drop of blood spilled. I wanted to take pictures, but Lieutenant Colonel Colson, who seemed depressed, said, “Trust me, Carrick, the world will be better off not having to see this. It’ll do for me to write the report. Dammit, what am I going to tell Larry’s old man?”

  I was young and impressionable. What he said seemed to make sense. So I let it go. Wasn’t sure I wanted pictures of American mutiny in my portfolio, anyway. Little did I know, the Graflex would capture things unimaginably worse.

  By the time the rain stopped, even I was getting cabin fever. You can’t imagine how awful it was, trying to sleep under a makeshift tent in the rain. The soldiers didn’t dare complain to Colson, but he knew they were murmuring behind his back. He also knew if he didn’t do something soon, they’d all turn on him. And this time, he would be the one on the ground.

  That night, when the sun went down over the hills of Bình Sơn, he laid out his plan to rescue Private Cooper. It was to be a quick, two-pronged attack. A diversionary strike on the eastern outskirts of the village and a quick raid with minimal collateral damage in the village itself. Get Cooper, blast their way out, and fall back into the depths of the Mekong Delta. There, they would rendezvous with Delta Company, which had arranged for a medevac to take their wounded back to Saigon.

  As dawn broke, I stayed behind in a hidden trench a couple of hundred meters away from the village. From there, I could remain unseen and wait.

  The first prong worked like a charm. Within five minutes, Echo Company surrounded and captured a couple of villagers who looked too untrained and scared to be actual Vietcong. They surrendered readily.

  What surprised me most was how quickly the second prong succeeded. We’d taken control of the village in less than thirty minutes. I was given the green light to come out.

  Apparently, there were only three Vietcong hiding in the village. The people seemed more frightened of them than they were of us. Private Cooper was in bad shape when they found him. But he had survived.

  The first Vietcong refused to surrender and came out wielding an AK-47 and swearing at our soldiers. They put him down with three quick rounds.

  The other came out with his hands up and was taken for questioning. I don’t know what exactly they did to him behind the doors of that hut, but from his screams, I imagined an eye-for-an-eye applied.

  “What manner of evil have they brought upon us?” a toothless man said, holding his hands over his five-year-old granddaughter’s ears, trying to block out the tormented cries. The screaming ended with a single gunshot, followed by deathly stillness all around the village. The eyes of the women, children, and elderly grew wide with fear.

  When Colson stepped out of the hut, he holstered his gun and wiped the sweat from his brow. He addressed the village while one of them translated: “There is one more of you in this village who is a Vietcong! Hand him over and the rest of you will be shown civility.”

  The entire village population, which numbered about twenty-five, gathered around and stared in disbelief. A boy whom I later learned was my wife’s brother called out, “Just those two! T
hey came and took over, forced us to hide them!”

  Colson spoke like Moses holding the two stone tablets. “You must cooperate in order for us to protect you. You know who he is. Hand him over.”

  The interrogations continued for the next two days, but to no avail. You could see the frustration mounting on the soldiers’ faces, even on their COs. More than anything, they had to find that last VC, make him pay for what they’d done to Cooper and Ross.

  But life just went on in the village as though nothing unusual had transpired. What else could those people do? They were innocent. It was a couple of Vietcongs who tried to set up a guerrilla base in their homes. Now the VCs were dead, and for all anyone knew at the time, there were only two of them. But Colson and his men did not believe that to be the case, which only added to their frustration when they could not find the third VC.

  Finally, Colson approached me in confidence. “Carrick, I’m going to have to send you to meet Delta Company tomorrow without us. If I don’t get some kind of resolution for my men … It’s safer if you go.”

  “All right,” I said, having grown weary of sitting around taking pictures of soldiers giving me the finger and villagers carrying about their business. Frankly, I wanted to go home.

  Later that afternoon, Colson walked me out to the woods. His eyes darted around as he spoke cautiously. “I have good reason to believe that this area is about to heat up. VCs from the north will be here soon, and unless Delta Company gets here first, we’re sitting ducks.”

  Frightening, but this was just the kind of event I came here to photograph. “I can take cover somewhere until it’s safe.”

  “You should get closer to the rendezvous point. On the other hand—” Gunshots and the sound of women screaming interrupted.

  With my camera ready, I turned and started for the village.

  “No!” The CO gripped my arm so hard I gasped, had to bite my lip not to cry out like a child. “Whatever you do, stay out. You hear? Wait for my signal that it’s safe.”

  I nodded, and he ran back into the village. He turned and pointed over me into the woods. “Take cover!”

  78

  Of course, no self-respecting photojournalist would allow personal peril to deter him. With my Graflex strapped and prepped, I waited until the CO entered the village. Then I followed.

  I stood behind a thicket of tall grass and peered into the village through the viewfinder. What I saw went beyond horrifying, but what I heard was worse.

  Pop after pop, men young and old fell to the ground, their heads ruptured, their brains splattered red and gray against the wooden plank walls and on the ground. The soldiers of Echo Company were lining them up and executing them.

  Some of the soldiers even held crying children’s faces and forced them to watch their parents meet their bloody demise. One little toddler screamed as the blood of his father splashed over his face.

  I wanted to shout, “Stop it!” but I froze, trembling with outrage and, I’m ashamed to admit, fear. Then they lined the children up and gunned them down.

  These were my fellow Americans! Once men of honor fighting for a cause, now soulless barbarians bent on vengeance. I snapped off as many pictures as my shaky hands could manage, though I thought I’d never want to look at them again.

  But I hadn’t yet seen the worst. I heard women and girls screaming, some behind the doors of the wooden huts, some of them out in the open. They were begging, pleading.

  “Please!” one said, “take me, she’s only ten!”

  How could this be happening? It was Mai Lai all over again. Where was Colson? What was he doing about this? Surely he’d stop these cowards who dared to wear the uniform of the United States Marines. I wanted to call out for him but knew I’d be shot on the spot if one of them found me.

  Then I saw him.

  Lieutenant Colonel Colson, Echo Company’s commanding officer, stood in the middle of the village, his hands on his hips, gun in his hand. Instantly, hope rose. Surely he’d put an end to this madness.

  But when he removed his sunglasses and looked at one of the soldiers who dragged a young girl, kicking, screaming, with blood streaming down her bare thigh, I saw for that fateful instant something in Colson I could never have imagined: approval.

  The soldier flipped off a smug salute and dragged the girl into a hut.

  A scream. Then muffled.

  The screaming stopped.

  Disconcerting silence.

  Then a gunshot.

  Colson stood there, surveying the havoc wreaked by the soldiers under his command. Another one stopped by, removed his shirt, and flung it into a pile of blood-stained uniform shirts. Barely looking through the corner of his eye, Colson nodded, and the soldier ran off whooping like a banshee, ready to shoot or rape his next victim.

  If ever hell had spilled over onto the earth, it was now. I stood there unable to do anything about it. Sinking to the ground, I covered my face and wept bitterly.

  I nearly jumped when a young black man, Corporal Wilkins, barely out of high school by the looks of him, collapsed next to me, clutching his rifle to his chest. “Oh, dear Jesus!” He grabbed my arm and shook it desperately. “Tell me!”

  “What?”

  “Just tell me!”

  “Tell you what, soldier?”

  “Tell me I’m dreaming, man. Please, tell me this is just a nightmare!”

  I couldn’t. If only it were.

  Eventually, after an hour or so, all the screaming and crying and shooting stopped. Amidst the morbid quiet, bird songs returned, the sun shone warmly on my shoulders. I lifted my eyes to the hills, where palm fronds stretched out like a mother’s soft fingers touching clear skies.

  Echo Company vacated the village, though only momentarily, as I would soon discover. That’s when I started taking the pictures of the bodies. Discreetly, while no living soul was around. Horrible as it was, this must not be forgotten.

  The pictures I took of that massacre refused to leave my memory. The images of the children’s broken and violated bodies, the gaunt, white-haired elders on the ground, their dead eyes wide in disbelief, they have haunted me every night since this happened.

  I finished the film roll and switched it out for a new one. Who would have thought that roll of film in my vest would alter my life forever?

  “I thought I told you to keep out!” Colson’s thundering voice startled me out of my stupor. I turned and found him standing, his face haggard, but tall and dignified. His entire demeanor exuded absolute justification and self-righteousness.

  “You just stood by.”

  “There was no stopping them, Carrick.”

  “You stopped Lieutenant Marks. For simply walking away.”

  “That was different.”

  “How?”

  He put a heavy hand on my shoulder. “I don’t expect you to understand the intricacies, the psychology of war. But I’ll tell you this, these men are on the brink. If they fall apart before Delta Company arrives, we’ll all die out here when the VCs attack.”

  “You can’t possibly believe—”

  “This goes beyond personal beliefs and comfort. You see what those pinko dogs did to Ross? There’s not enough of him left to send back to his family for a funeral.”

  “But still …”

  “Want to tell a story? Take some pictures of his remains! Show the world what those animals did to him!” He sniffed and wiped his brow. “These boys are tighter than family. They need closure.”

  It seemed Colson spoke from his true convictions. I felt nauseous. “Killing innocent women and children, old men and women, raping ten-year-old girls, you call that closure?”

  “It’s barbaric, I know. And for the record, I never touched one of them.” He paused and squinted as he stared out at the blood-covered ground. Then in a calm voice: “It was for the greater good, don’t you get it?”

  I didn’t. But he spoke with such sincerity, I actually started to wonder if my objections were naive. After all, I wa
s a recent college graduate who’d barely experienced life as a civilian. What did I know of war and human nature?

  He put his arm around my shoulders and led me away from the center of the village. As we continued, the soldiers of Echo Company began piling the bodies in a trench at the edge of the community.

  “It’s tragic what’s happened here, Carrick. It truly is. But this is war. Soldiers get a little lost when they can’t see their enemy. When a good man, a brave soldier, is caught off guard because these damned Commies dress like rice farmers and shred his body into minced meat—it’s enough to make the toughest marine crack!

  “If I don’t allow them to release some of that stress, we risk losing ground. And if that happens, everything we’ve fought for, all the lives of brave men like Private Ross, will have been lost in vain. I’m sure you can understand that.”

  Disputing his argument would have made me feel stupid. “I don’t know.”

  “You’re an American, dammit, think like one! We don’t claim to be perfect, we’re only human, all of us. But one thing we do—we put our country and her interests first. And you’re going to do the same.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He nodded toward my camera. “Take the film out.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. No one must ever know about this. Give me the film.”

  I couldn’t even think of a reply. It was like asking a priest to destroy a sacred scroll. This was the physical manifestation of my entire purpose as a photojournalist: to bring the truth in pictures to the world in a way that words alone could never do.

  I knew where this was going, though, and feigned compliance. With the film full of photos of the mass grave actually resting in my pocket, I removed the unexposed roll from the Graflex.

  He snatched it out of my hands. “I’m sorry to do this, but it’s our duty to protect the honor of our nation.” With that, he tossed it into a wood-burning stove.

  At the edge of the filling trench, one particularly enraged soldier howled and tossed the body of a small boy into the pile. I swear, if my camera were a bayonet, I would have given that soldier the business end of it.