White Christmas in Saigon

by Margaret Pemberton

  Americans who were captured by the NVA were generally pilots shot down over North Vietnam. There, after being paraded through the streets like circus animals, they were imprisoned either in the huge Hoa Lo prison complex in Hanoi, or a smaller prison known to the Americans as the ‘zoo’, at Cu Loc.

  But he wasn’t in North Vietnam, he was in South Vietnam, and here there were no prison camps. He would just have to put his trust in the fact that the NVA were disciplined soldiers, soldiers that he, and the majority of his colleagues, had always regarded with respect.

  The boy who had treated his shoulder, though no more than sixteen, had been competent. He wondered why they were so far south. It was possible that they were a splinter group from the large contingent who had been attempting to ferry supplies in from Cambodia, the group he and his men had engaged earlier in the month. But if they were, why hadn’t they headed immediately back to their Cambodian sanctuaries?

  The two soldiers on guard moved towards him, one of them bending down to pick up the vine rope. As he approached with it, obviously about to re-tether him, Lewis said abruptly in Vietnamese, ‘If you wrench my arms behind me again, tying them at the elbows, I will lose my injured arm. It will die. Drop off.’

  For a second both men hesitated. They knew that many Americans knew some Vietnamese words. Words for ‘go’ or ‘come’, or words that were blasphemous. But they had never encountered an American who spoke their language.

  Their hesitation was minimal. His arms were seized and yanked behind him, and Lewis knew, through a sea of pain, that in the next few seconds blood would once more begin to trickle stickily down his chest. He was protesting vociferously when the young paramedic walked quickly into the hut.

  ‘No,’ he ordered his comrades. ‘Tie him by the neck and feet. Not the arms!’

  The vine rope was put around his feet, anchored on his right wrist and then looped around his neck. It was then run up to the bamboo rafters. If he tried to move more than an inch or two in any direction, the rope tightened around his neck, threatening to strangle him. While he was being tied like a hog, the paramedic was placing his left arm in a makeshift sling, which looked like a piece of dried banana leaf. Whatever it was, it served its purpose. He immediately felt better.

  Outside the hut the soldiers were beginning to gather, bowls in their hands, around the huge rice pot.

  If he were given a share of the rice, it would be a fair indication of the kind of treatment that lay ahead of him. He waited tensely. He needed food. The fever that had washed over him in waves on the trek to the camp was now subsiding, though he was damned sure it wouldn’t have done so if his shoulder hadn’t been so thoroughly cleaned.

  At the first opportunity he intended making his escape, and the fitter he was, when that moment came, the better it would be for him. He wasn’t daunted by the forests and swamps he would have to negotiate. He had been trained in jungle survival, and he had lived long enough in Van Binh to have come to terms with the water-logged, leech- and snake-infested terrain.

  The officer who had appropriated his boots entered the hut. Looking at the small size of his feet compared to his own, Lewis wondered how he would ever find them comfortable to march in.

  ‘You will come with me,’ he said brusquely. ‘You will answer questions.’

  The two guards at either side of the doorway moved forward, releasing the vine rope that tethered him from the rafters.

  Lewis abandoned all hope of a share in the rice. He certainly wouldn’t be fed immediately before an interrogation, and sure as hell wouldn’t be afterwards, when he had refused to tell them whatever it was they wanted to know.

  It was dark now, and he was led across to a table shielded by a protective awning of green camouflage parachute silk. On the table was a tiny oil lamp made of a small glass bottle with a wick stub sticking out the top.

  The officer sat behind the table, the two soldiers flanked Lewis, who stood before it, and the interrogation began.

  ‘Your name?’ he was asked again. ‘Your rank?’

  Lewis told him. He was still half naked and the evening chill struck through him, bringing goose flesh out on his arms and his legs.

  ‘Your company?’

  ‘Under the Code of Conduct for Members of the Armed Forces of tie United States I am required to give only my name, rank, service number, and date of birth!’

  The officer’s face tightened. ‘You will answer all questions or you will be given correctional period.’

  Lewis had no need to ask what he meant. Correctional period was a euphemism for torture.

  He repeated obdurately, ‘I am required to give only my name, rank, service number, and date of birth.’

  Some of the questions he was asked, and which he refused to answer, were oddly personal ones. Was he married? Did he have children? Whereabouts did he live in imperialist America?

  Despite everything he could do to prevent it, he began to sway on his feet as he repeated, time and time again, his name, rank, service number and date of birth. His arm and shoulder were hurting like hell. He was freezing. He was hungry. And his cut and bloody feet were attracting the attention of ants and land leeches and God only knew what else.

  . Before he disgraced himself by fainting, the interrogation came to an abrupt end, and with no violence. He was marched back to the hut and then, before he was re-tethered, one of his guards threw a pair of black pyjamas and a sleeping mat towards him. As he struggled one-handed into the pyjamas, another soldier entered and placed a bowl of rice and a bowl of leaf tea down on the floor beside him. The rice was flavoured with salt pork soup and was surprisingly appetizing. He wolfed it down, uncertain whether to expect such treatment in the future, or if it was merely the calm before the storm.

  He was re-tethered, a loop of the rope again going around his neck, making it nearly impossible for him to sleep. As he lay on the sleeping mat, shivering violently in the thin cotton pyjamas and with mosquitoes clustering on his unprotected feet, he wondered why the officer had accepted his noncooperation with comparative good grace. It had been almost as if he had not been really interested. And if that were the case, why on earth had he taken him prisoner?

  He was in torment from the mosquitoes, and he tried to think about Abbra. Abbra, who had so naively wanted him to tell her all about his life in Vietnam so that she could feel a part of it. It suddenly occurred to him that he didn’t know if Abbra had ever travelled out of the United States. If she had, it would have been only to Canada or to one of the more sophisticated Mexican beach resorts. Nothing she had ever experienced could possibly give her any idea of what Vietnam was like. It was beyond anyone’s imagination.

  He found himself thinking of Tam. Tam would know exactly what he was suffering. He hoped to God whoever was sent out to Van Binh to replace him would keep Tam on as cleaning girl. If she returned to her father, she would inevitably face beatings.

  Despite his agony a smile touched the corner of his mouth. He recalled how hostile and defiant she had been when he had first met her. She had hated him so passionately she had fairly sparked with animosity. Later she had cared for him with all the diligence of a devoted wife, laundering his clothes, cooking, cleaning. He was going to miss Tam. She had brightened up the last few months immeasurably.

  He had slept intermittently, waking at dawn to the sound of men drilling. The NVA’s reputation for rigid discipline was obviously one that was well deserved. About ten minutes later the paramedic entered the hut, two guards in attendance. He didn‘t remove the dressing from Lewis’s wound but bent his head towards it, sniffing it. It smelled clean, no sign of gangrene, and he gave Lewis an imperceptible nod before turning and walking away.

  Later, a dish of leaf tea was brought to him and held for him to drink.

  ‘I need exercise,’ he said to the guard who held the dish to his mouth. ‘I need to move or my blood will stop circulating.’

  His body felt as if his blood had stopped long ago. The method by which he wa
s tied was fiendish, the slightest movement causing pressure of his neck. The guard didn’t respond by releasing his bonds, but to Lewis’s even greater surprise, he took out a packet of Ruby Queens from his shirt pocket, lit one, and then gave it to him to inhale. It was the best cigarette he had ever tasted and one he knew he would never forget.

  When the drilling was finished, the officer who had interrogated him the previous evening entered the hut. ‘Good morning, imperialist American,’ he said almost affably. ‘You are to prepare to meet your new escorts.’ As he was speaking to him, the guards were freeing his bonds.

  Lewis stretched his cramped muscles gingerly. Escorts? Then he wasn’t just being held prisoner. He was being taken somewhere. But where? Cambodia?

  When he was led out into the morning sunlight, he groaned inwardly. Twenty or so black-clad Viet Cong were mining with the small group of NVA troops. He was going to be handed over. And in the hands of the less-disciplined Viet Cong there was no telling what might happen to him.

  He tried to follow the conversations taking place around him. The NVA troops were continuing westward, back to their Cambodian sanctuaries after apparently bringing in a convoy of supplies. He was unable to discover where the VC were heading, though it was obvious from their behaviour that they were in transit and that they were not going to remain long in the makeshift camp.

  In an agonizingly short space of time he was rebound though this time his arm was allowed to remain in its sling. His right arm was wrenched behind him, and tied to vine rope that was threaded through over his bent left elbow. His left wrist, lying flat against his chest, was also tied so that he could not slip his arm out of the sling and ease the pressure of the rope. Then, as before, the rope was passed around his neck and down and under the right arm rope. It was an ingenious method of bondage, making his neck answerable to nearly every movement that he made.

  There were no formal farewells as the troops divided and went in two different directions. The NVA westward, the VC heading towards the densest part of the U Minh forest. The ground was so waterlogged that it became impossible to follow any land trails, and a kilometre or so from the camp Lewis was ordered at gunpoint into one of a half dozen waiting sampans.

  Travelling on a web of narrow canals, hemmed in by dense vegetation, they penetrated deeper and deeper into the U Minh. It was hideous, swamp-infested terrain, thick with snakes and poisonous spiders. Escaping, without a weapon of any kind, would be no picnic.

  Lewis wondered again why he was being kept alive. Presumably it was, believed he would give them information. And even when they found he wouldn’t, he would still retain a certain value. Prisoners were highly prized commodities at peace negotiations, though not all prisoners were given their freedom when negotiations were complete. He remembered being told at West Point that thirteen French prisoners captured at Dien Bien Phu were not released by Hanoi until sixteen years later.

  As the late afternoon merged into dusk a flight of B-52 bombers screamed overhead. They were probably from Guam. He wondered what their mission was, where they were heading.

  Homesickness, strong and pungent, caught him by the throat. He’d been trained in jungle survival techniques and had been prepared both mentally and physically for captivity. But the reality was far worse than anything he had anticipated. The loss of dignity affronted him the most. He couldn’t go for a pee or a shit without having a VC standing over him with a loaded AK-47, and the salt pork soup had affected his bowels adversely.

  It was dark when their journey at last came to an end. He could discern small huts on stilts, their numbers indicating that this camp, unlike the previous one, was semi-permanent. He was given a half coconut shell of sickly-sweet palm sugar juice to drink and a minute portion of rice to eat. Then he was tied for sleep as he had been tied by the NVA.

  The pain in his shoulder had begun to ease slightly, but his left arm had swollen to alarming proportions. He wondered if infection had set in and hoped to God that it hadn’t. If it had, a couple of penicillin shots would be an easy cure, but he wasn’t going to be given any penicillin shots, and he had a suspicion that the VC answer to the problem would be swift, and amateur, amputation.

  He had been given a mosquito net for protection, and despite the numerous bugs that managed to circumnavigate it, he slept, lightly and restlessly. At dawn he was awakened by having the muzzle of an AK-47 prodded against his chest. He was taken to a latrine trench to relieve himself, and then marched back to the hut.

  During the short journey he was able to verify his suspicions – the camp had been in existence for some time. He wondered how often US aircraft flew over it. Or if they did? If helicopters flew that way, he might be able to attract their attention. Even as the thought came to him, he knew that any such chance was minimal. The camp would not have survived as long as it apparently had without being skilfully camouflaged. He knew there wasn’t a hope in hell of foot troops penetrating so deep in to the U Minh. It was an area that the Saigon military left alone. So as rescue seemed to be out of the question, the only alternative was escape.

  He pondered how escape in such a hellish region might be achieved, when the two Viet Cong who had been standing guard at the door of the hut ordered him abruptly to his feet. He was led out into the heat of early morning and marched to the centre of the compound, where a Viet Cong officer, the black material of his pyjamas of much better quality than those of the guards, stood waiting.

  Lewis took a deep breath. It looked as if he was about to suffer his first interrogation at the hands of the Viet Cong. And he doubted if it would bear much relation to his brief interrogation with the NVA.

  He was right. All the information demanded of him was military. No one in the U Minh was interested in whether he was married or not, or where he was born.

  He replied to the questions as he had to the previous ones. He gave his name, rank, service number, and date of birth and claimed that under Article 17 of the Geneva Conventions, no other information could be demanded of him.

  The Viet Cong officer disagreed. ‘You will be punished,’ he said, and his eyes nicked towards the banana-leaf sling.

  Lewis felt his stomach muscles contract. It was what he had expected from the first moment he had been captured. From the number of Viet Cong standing in a semicircle around the edge of the compound, everyone else had expected it too. The officer nodded towards two of the guards, and they approached Lewis, lengths of nylon cargo strapping in their hands. Lewis gritted his teeth. Damn his injured shoulder. Damn, damn, dammit!

  ‘Have you changed your mind?’ the officer asked him in Vietnamese. ‘Do you wish to cooperate?’

  Lewis swallowed hard and repeated his name, his rank, his service number, and his date of birth.

  ‘And that is all?’ the officer said when he had finished.

  ‘Under Article 17 of the Geneva Conventions and under the Code of Conduct for Members of the Armed Forces of the United States, that is all.’

  The officer did not seem disappointed. He merely nodded towards the guards and then stepped back a yard or two. In the few seconds before the guards laid hold of him, Lewis realized the officer had moved so that he would be well clear of any splattering blood. And then the banana-leaf string was ripped away and he didn’t think of anything else except agonizing pain for a very long time.

  Before the torture began he had been determined not to let even a groan of pain pass his lips for the onlookers’ enjoyment. He didn’t groan. He screamed. His shoulders were lifting out of their sockets, his chest was exploding, his ribs projecting like drawn bowstrings. Unconsciousness was a black pit he hurtled into gratefully, only to be wrenched back into agonizing consciousness by having cold water thrown over him.

  The pressure was relieved. He was asked if he would answer the questions put to him. With his jaw clenched so tight that it felt permanently locked, he gasped out his name, rank, service number, and date of birth. And then he remained silent.

  The pressure not on
ly resumed, it intensified. He began to vomit and choke on his vomit. He lost control of his bowels and his bladder. He was no longer Lewis Ellis, West Point graduate, captain, husband of Abbra. He was an animal. A thing. A creature with no control over his bodily functions.

  Each time he was asked a question he gaspingly told his questioner to go to hell. He told him in English, in French, and in every Vietnamese dialect he knew. And his suffering continued.

  He didn’t know whether the officer in charge finally ordered him to be released from the straps because of the possibility that he would die, and never be of any use, or because he had grown bored with the proceedings. Either way, the end finally came. Lewis couldn’t walk back to the hut. He had to be dragged, leaving a trail of blood, bile, and faeces in his wake.

  He knew it would happen again. It would happen again and again until he was broken and until he not only gave them all the military information he possessed, but until he also agreed to sign statements admitting that he was a war criminal, and that his country had perpetrated war crimes against the Vietnamese people.

  He had to escape. Even if he just crawled away to die in the swamps. He had to escape and he couldn’t even move.

  All through the rest of the day he lay on the floor of the hut. At one point someone brought him water and a bowl of rice. He tried desperately to eat, but he only gagged and brought back every mouthful that he succeeded in swallowing. The wound in his shoulder had crusted over with dried blood. His left arm was useless. Unlike the rest of his body, he couldn’t feel pain in it. He sniffed at it, wondering when signs of gangrene would begin to show, wondering what would happen to him when they did.

  The guards at the door of his hut had changed. Dusk fell. He heard a radio. Over a roar of static, Radio Hanoi’s ‘Hanoi Hannah’ was describing how massive US forces had been ‘decimated’, how innumerable US ships had been sunk and aircraft shot down.

  As Lewis listened to the two obligatory American pop songs that followed the news item, included in the hope of persuading American servicemen to tune in to Hanoi, Lewis became aware that the new guards had moved some distance from the door of the hut, presumably to listen to the radio better, and that he was unmanacled. He was being given his chance, and even though his limbs were swollen and racked with pain, he had to take it.