Old Man

by David A. Poulsen

  “Sorry. I guess I shouldn’t have asked that.”

  “Nate, I can’t sit here and say I didn’t do some things I wish I hadn’t done. War brings out the worst … and maybe sometimes the best in people. It wasn’t like I thought it would be — them and us, good guys and bad guys, white hats and black hats. There was a lot of bad shit happened on both sides.”

  He paused, reached for the canteen but didn’t take a drink. “That doesn’t make My Lai right. I hate that those guys were on our side. I’m just saying there was stuff that happened that made me wish I’d never come here.”

  I didn’t answer at first. He drank, then handed me the canteen, and I took a long drink. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. “Even though I’m here I’m not sure I understand very much about what happened in that war. I mean you want me to know this so I can know you, know who you are. But I can’t say if that’s happening.”

  “I get that, Nate. I really do. I don’t know that I’ve figured out a lot of it myself. ”

  “How did it end?”

  “The war? We lost, plain and simple. America lost the stomach to keep fighting when most Americans didn’t know what it was they were fighting for.”

  “I meant here.” I looked around us. “Hill 453. How did it end?”

  It was a long time before he answered, so long that I thought we’d gone back to me asking about stuff and him not telling me. But that wasn’t it. I watched, and his face twitched a couple of times. He was looking away, into the trees. I figured he was seeing it again. But this time he seemed in control.

  Finally, he took a deep breath, let it out slow, looked back at me. “We hung on until help got to us,” he said. “That’s the short answer. They could have overrun us anytime they wanted to. But they didn’t. I don’t know why. I’ll never know why.

  “There was a thunderstorm that night. Real light show. They didn’t let up shelling, and it was the damndest thing, not being able to tell the difference between the thunder and lightning and incoming shells. Then, when the thunderstorm stopped, the shelling stopped. It was like it was all part of their battle plan.

  “In the morning, the sky cleared, and they probably figured help would be coming. So they really let us have it. An hour or more … it was the … the worst yet. A lot of people died right around here that morning. We were sure we’d be overrun, and that it would happen any minute. It’s funny but I wasn’t as scared anymore. I guess once you’ve figured out that these people are going to kill you, you just want to make them pay for the privilege.

  “We called again for close air support and this time a couple of Huns, F-100s, came in, blew the shit of the place.

  “The Hueys were able get in for dustoffs, and we got the wounded out. A company of marines was part of the same mission we were on — Operation Blue Water. They started out as soon the word got out that we’d been ambushed. They arrived about mid-morning. Army hates being rescued by marines, but I was just fine with it.”

  “So that was it.”

  The old man shook his head. “No, that wasn’t it. To show you how screwed up that war was, after all that we’d taken in that twenty-four hours, we got orders to move out. Take the summit; that was our orders, with the marines in reserve. We had sixty, maybe sixty-five guys left, and we were told to take the summit of 453.”

  “What did you do?”

  “We took the summit. The Huns made a few more passes, and we began an assault on the top. It took three hours, more guys died, maybe a dozen or so … a few others wounded. When we made it to the top, there were forty-seven people left in Delta Company.

  “Half what you started with.”

  “Yeah. When we finally got up there, there wasn’t a leaf left on a tree. It looked like something from a science fiction movie. A few blackened sticks poking out of the ground. That’s all that was left of jungle that was as thick as this until that day. And Charlie was gone too. We got up there, and we were by ourselves. There were eleven bodies from their side up there. I’m sure there was a lot more dead than that, and they’d taken the bodies with them when they left.”

  “You and Tal … you were okay, you weren’t wounded?”

  “We were … okay. I took shrapnel in the hand. I didn’t think it was bad, but it was bad enough that I spent the rest of my tour in Saigon. And Tal …”

  He was staring off into space again, and his face was contorted. Like it had been before. I knew this was something I couldn’t ask him about. But he told me anyway.

  “Tal was in a foxhole up the hill a ways from me. There were two other guys, his buddies, one on either side of him. They were in foxholes too. The next morning when the NVA really sent a lot of shit at us … there were some incoming shells, and we all ducked down … tried to somehow get into that dirt just a little further. When the shelling let up a little, Tal looked out and both of those guys were gone. Not just dead. Gone. Tal fought like hell the rest of that day … was the first one to the top, but he was never … the same after that.”

  The old man stood up, looked around, pointed up the slope. “I have to go for a walk, Nate. I have to go up there a ways. By myself. You stay here. You’ll be fine. I won’t be long.”

  I nodded, but I wasn’t real sure I liked being left behind. But I also knew I might not be able to go much further up that hill. I was just too tired.

  “You’ll be fine,” he said again.

  “Sure, yeah … I’ll be right here.”

  He turned and started scrambling up the hill, slipping in the mud but making some progress. He got to a bunch of thick undergrowth, started whacking with the machete. Eventually, he disappeared into the jungle. I couldn’t see him or hear him. I leaned my head back against the tree behind me.

  6

  I slept. I don’t know how long. Dreaming. It was one of those strange dreams, way too real. There was war noise in my dream, no not war, different noise. And not in the dream.

  I opened my eyes. Blinked for a few seconds, heard the noise again. A man, Vietnamese, stood over me. Just up the hill from me. He was holding a dog on a chain. The dog was huge; it was snarling and growling, its jaws not more than a metre from my face.

  The man was grinning and talking. I didn’t understand what he was saying, but I heard the word “dog” and the word “kill” and a lot of what sounded like Vietnamese.

  I slid down so I was lying flat on the ground, trying to get lower somehow, to get away from the dog. But there was nowhere to go. The tree behind me kept me where I was. I tried to make myself smaller, to get further down into the foxhole I’d been sitting in.

  The man was screaming now. I wanted to say something … tell him I hadn’t been doing anything. I was just waiting for someone.

  But I couldn’t. I couldn’t say anything. I was too scared to get words out. Too scared to do anything. I pushed my face further into the ground … still trying to get away. I was sure the dog would take a hold of me any second, rip into me with those teeth, those jaws. The man moved down the hill a little … the dog was even closer. I could feel his breath … smell it….

  I was scared, so scared.

  I never knew a person could be as scared as I was.…

  The noise was the worst.

  Then it got quiet. I heard a voice, a different voice this time.

  “It’s okay, Nate … you’re okay. You can get up.”

  I waited a few seconds more, then turned and lifted my head a few inches and turned it far enough to see.

  The old man was standing a few feet away from the dog, the machete raised over his head. He was looking at the man with the dog. The man was still grinning. The dog had at least stopped growling, snarling.

  The old man spoke in a voice that was soft and terrible.

  “Caca dau. Caca dau. I’ll kill you, right here … right now. First I kill your dog, then I kill you. Caca dau, you piece of shit.”

  I was pretty sure as I looked at the old man that he meant exactly what he said. He’d kill them both. T
he guy with the dog didn’t seem even a little bit worried.

  “You friends die here, fucker American. You friends die here. You shit pants here while they die. We kill lots fucker Americans here. We kill lots you friends.”

  “The war’s over, asshole. But there’s gonna be two more dead on this hill if you and your dog don’t back off now.”

  The Vietnamese stepped back maybe two steps and pulled the dog back far enough that I felt I could get to my knees. I tried to shake some of the dirt out of my mouth. The dog growled again. I gagged and threw up. I wiped my face to get the tears and the puke off me, but mostly I just added dirt to what was already on my face.

  The Vietnamese was still grinning. He looked at me. “You scared, little boy, little American. You cry, you puke like baby. Brave like fucker Americans we kill here. You shit pants, little scared American?”

  “Last time I’m saying it.” The old man took a step toward the dog. “You move out now or you die.”

  The Vietnamese laughed. “Like old times, eh, American? You scared that day, scared like you little boy.”

  “You’re dead right, asshole. I was scared that day. But I’m not scared right now. And I’d love to shiv that goddamn dog from one end to the other. And you right after him. So what do you say, how about this American make you dead? Caca dau.”

  The Vietnamese laughed a high-pitched cackle kind of laugh and pulled his dog back. They started past us down the hill, but we could hear him talking — then yelling as he went.

  “We scare Americans. Like before when we kill them. They shit pants, then die. Here.”

  I didn’t move until they were far down the hill. Then I turned my body so I was sitting up, leaning back against the tree again.

  The old man bent down beside me. Pulled a cloth out of the backpack, poured canteen water out onto my face and washed me off. I spat out some dirt and finally drank some water.

  “You okay? That dog, he …?”

  I shook my head. “No, he didn’t bite me. Just scared me awful … awful bad.”

  “I know,” the old man said softly. “I know.”

  “I didn’t know what to do. I … couldn’t do anything.”

  “You did fine here, Nate.” He put a hand on my shoulder. “You’ve been through a load of stuff. And you got through it all.”

  “No, I didn’t. I was so scared I cried … and threw up. How’s that doing fine?”

  “What that gook … ” he hesitated. “What that … piece of crap said … about us shitting our pants here that day. He was right. Some guys might have done that. I didn’t, but only because I was loaded up on what we called cork. It was a drug they gave us to keep us from having to crap in battle. If men shit their pants, it’s because they were scared just like you were. But they were brave men.”

  “I wasn’t brave. I didn’t fight back. I didn’t do anything.”

  “We can’t always fight back. There was nothing you could do. That dog would have torn you apart. You did the right thing. You stayed alive, in one piece … for another day. You survived.”

  I thought about what he’d said. Shook my head.

  “I just don’t — “

  “Every guy who was on this hill that day was thinking one thing. Please, God, let me survive this day. Some did, some didn’t, but we prayed for that … just that. I prayed harder than I ever have in my life. Please let me live through this day.

  “And I did. I lived through it. So did you.”

  “What … what do you think would have happened if you hadn’t come back? Would he have …?”

  The old man shrugged. “I don’t know, Nate. Hard to know what someone will do if they hate enough.”

  I stood up. My knees weren’t right. I wasn’t sure they’d hold me up. But I didn’t want to be in that foxhole anymore.

  “Let’s go. It’s time we were leaving.”

  I brushed some of the dirt off my shirtfront. Tried putting weight on one leg, then the other. Seemed okay.

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  7

  We never looked back at the hill. We slipped and slogged our way to the bottom, but we didn’t look back. Not once. I was kind of surprised by that. I didn’t want to look back. I didn’t want to ever see that place again. But I figured the old man might stop and glance back that way, at least one last time.

  He didn’t. By the time we got back to where Mr. Vinh was waiting for us, it was raining again. The cloud had settled down low over us, maybe like it had been that day of the … what had the old man called it … the alpha-bravo? The ambush on Hill 453.

  Mr. Vinh had everything packed up and was wearing his slicker, ready to go. He and the old man didn’t say anything. The old man nodded once, and Mr. Vinh took the lead just like he had most of the way here.

  And we walked out of the A Shau Valley. Not much to say about the hike out. Except it was pretty funny when we got back to the rice paddy. I mean, I’m not kidding — that lady was really old, even older than Mr. Vinh, and weighed maybe ninety pounds with her shoes full of paddy mud. And here were three guys, yes, I was one of them, sneaking through that waterlogged field of rice like we were all scared of her.

  That’s because we were all scared of her. When we got back into the jungle on the other side, we all tried to act totally normal, like nothing had happened. But all of us, even Mr. Vinh, had been holding our breath hoping she wouldn’t show up. I bet if she had we all would have run like hell.

  It was funny, but nobody laughed. Not then anyway. After what had happened on Hill 453, I’d had all the laughter knocked out of me. And I think it was the same with the old man. And Mr. Vinh, well, he just didn’t laugh much … ever. Unless somebody fell in a swamp.

  A lot of it gets hazy after that. As we slogged through the rain in the jungle, I was wishing I was four years old so someone would carry me. I didn’t even think about the unexploded ordnance. I guess by then I was pretty much programmed to walk in the line of whoever was ahead of me.

  We stayed overnight in the same place we had the night before. Mr. Vinh’s wife had something cooked up when we got back, but I didn’t eat any of it. Not because it looked or smelled bad or anything. I was just too tired to eat.

  I probably would have fallen asleep just sitting there except the old man and Mr. Vinh got in a big shouting match. It was the same as all of their conversations, only louder. Some Vietnamese, a little English and a bunch of hand gestures.

  The old man was real pissed off. Eventually, he threw his hands in the air and came over to where I was sitting on a stump. He sat down on the ground next to me.

  Then Mr. Vinh got into it with Mrs. Vinh. Big-time argument. No English this time. Just foreign language yelling. Lots of it and loud.

  “What’s all the hollering about? Just in case I decide to sleep at some point tonight.”

  The old man shook his head. “The guy on the hill, the guy with the dog, turns out he does that shit a lot. Likes to hassle vets who come back here. Two of his brothers were killed there.”

  “You mean in the ambush that you —”

  “Yeah. It’s his way of getting even. Mr. Vinh says he doesn’t think he’s ever let the dog attack anyone. I gave him hell for not warning me. Says he wasn’t sure the guy would be there. Dumb son of a bitch.”

  I wasn’t sure who he was calling a son of a bitch — the guy on the hill or Mr. Vinh. Maybe both of them. Right at that moment, I didn’t really care.

  As soon as the tent was set up, I stumbled inside and fell asleep in maybe fifteen seconds tops. Too tired to take my boots off.

  Saigon, the Second Time

  1

  The next morning we started the drive back to Ho Chi Minh City. I slept most of the way back. I don’t know how long. I woke up with the old man shaking my shoulder. I sat up and looked around, expecting to see the Rex. I was actually looking forward to seeing something that looked familiar. At least, a little normal.

  What I was looking at definitely wasn’t the Rex. Or nor
mal. Not really.

  Instead we were facing these narrow apartments, I guess that’s what they were — the one right in front of us was four storeys high. When I say narrow, what I mean is narrow. One room wide, so I figured the rooms must run one behind the other with some little hallway connecting them. Or maybe just little doors between the rooms.

  Up to now I’d only seen the tourist stuff and the countryside. This was my first look at how the average Vietnamese person lived.

  “Tube houses. They’ve been around a long time,” the old man said.

  “What?”

  “That’s what they’re called … tube houses.”

  “Why?”

  The old man shrugged. “Maybe because they’re as narrow as a tube. Or maybe there’s some kind of tube hallway that connects it all together.”

  Which is just what I’d thought. Maybe I was getting smarter about this country. “I take it we’re back in Saigon.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And we’re here why?”

  “This is where our hotel is.”

  “No, I mean here here.”

  “Because this is where Mr. Vinh lives. We’re dropping him off and keeping the Land Rover for a few more days.”

  On cue, Mr. Vinh climbed out of the driver’s seat. He went around to the back of the Land Rover and opened the door to take out a pack that I hadn’t really noticed before. I guessed it had his stuff in it. Light packer, Mr. Vinh was.

  The old man climbed out too, and I followed him. I wanted to at least say goodbye to Mr. Vinh. He came back around to where we were standing and stopped in front of the old man. It didn’t look like they were back to being buddies yet.

  We had to be careful, because I swear to god we were engulfed in people on motorbikes. Hundreds of them. Most of them were on the street behind us, but some veered off and went around the Land Rover and up on the sidewalk to get around us. Save time. These were kamikaze bikers, and there were a hell of a lot of them. Lots of hollering and motorbike horns sounding too. Like non-stop.