One Very Hot Day

by David Halberstam

  It was settling down now. It was so short that it was almost over, the CP said. There were no new instructions. Beaupre was to continue as usual; they might want him to slow down, but they would know later. The Colonel said for him not to change his position in the column, said it was bad luck.

  “Any pursuit?” Beaupre asked the CP.

  “Not really. Trouble enough getting the choppers to go in, and for a while nobody knew who the hell was in command there. All messed up pretty bad.”

  “Why no pursuit?” Beaupre asked.

  “I don't know,” the CP answered, “but I figure if they pursued, they're afraid the VC would zap their ass only more so.” Then the CP went out, and they were back with their own problems.

  “No more silk pajamas for Big William,” Beaupre said.

  “What's that, silk pajamas?”

  “Silk pajamas. It was just something he liked.”

  “Did you like him?”

  “He was better than most,” said Beaupre, leaving Anderson to wonder whether he meant better than most Negroes or better than most officers. Big William, he thought, I spoiled even that one. He had been on his way out of the mess hall this morning when Big William came toward him; it was a moment he had been trying to avoid since he returned to the Seminary from his long weekend. Big William was mumbling some kind of song, singing to himself and to anyone within ten feet of him: “bum bum bum de dum bum. Oh, she's so small. Dum dum dum. But she's so small.” Black music, Beaupre had thought.

  “Oh Lord, what a weekend. I mean Big William, he draggin' it today. Now that Mammasan, she is historic. That is a historic woman. Make a monument to that woman. Never been so tired. Under the monument just put these words. The Champion. That's all. The Champion. Finally I have to say to her, ‘Mammasan, you a Vietcong. You a damn VC, you tryin' to kill Big William.’ Oh Lord, she start tellin' me about some Frenchman he do it umpity-umpteen times, you know the French record, he held it. So I had to stay there until she forget about that Frenchman, and all of that France. Oh, that is some Mammasan.” He smiled at Beaupre. “Hey, Bopay, you all right? All the cats, they like you fine. They say for me to bring you back there. How you like it, huh, just like I told you. Big William don't shit his buddies. Big William take care of 'em.”

  “Oh, yeah, it was just like you said, man, just fine.”

  “I mean you liked it, right?”

  “Oh sure, best ever in Saigon.”

  But his voice was wrong and there was a new and different smile on Big William's face.

  “Hey, what's the matter with you, Bopay.” He looked again, for a long time. “Oh, you didn't now, did you. Oh Lord, ain't that one on Big William. Oh, don't that teach Big William not to screw with it. Oh Lord, I thought you was different. Oh, I do apologize. I do. You one, too. Ain't that somethin'. Oh, you mother.” And he had walked off, grinning bigger than ever, singing again, “bum bum, oh, she's so small, oh, poor Big William.”

  Now, he thought, Big William was dead. Beaupre wondered how much of his last day on earth Big William had spent laughing at him. You spend most of your life letting people down, he thought bitterly.

  * * * *

  Beaupre's uniform was wet, not from the rain this time, but from his sweat; the newest salt line on his fatigues went very deep under his arm, a white chalky mark which went deeper and deeper the longer he stayed in the country. In years to come if he wanted to show he had been in Vietnam, he would be able to hold up his fatigue jacket instead of medals. He felt his thirst again, but strangely, this time not so strong, as if for the moment his preoccupation with the war was quenching it. He was sure now they were in serious trouble, and what was coming awake in him was a deep sense of survival. For the moment at least he did not need the canteen; it was as if there were a great reservoir or survival instinct in him which was now being tapped. The troops, he noticed, did not seem to reflect any new tension: at the first village they had tensed up for a moment and acted like soldiers; they had stopped their babbling, even the radio man had stopped. When Beaupre had first arrived in the country and heard all the babbling, he had complained about it, and someone, he had forgotten now, but someone who was getting short, it was the kind of fact that came with getting short, had explained patiently to Beaupre that it was a tonal language and therefore a difficult language for radio communication, because the tone could easily be twisted and give a different meaning, and it was necessary to repeat and repeat and repeat. Fine, Beaupre had said, he was more ambitious and more determined then, and now tell them to make less goddamn noise, tell them to stop all that goddamn babbling. He was sure that the enemy traced and monitored and fixed all these babbles; the enemy after all could understand the babbles, had learned them at their mother's knees; at the Seminary when he bitched about this, they assured him the enemy did not have the capacity to monitor radios, but he did not trust the enemy and he did not trust the people at the Seminary.

  He wished the troops would go faster, would move it out, and he wished he were a real officer, someone who could give commands and then see them obeyed, who could send a patrol here and another there, could make the troops go fast, go slow, be brave, be strong; wished to be hated, to be feared, even to be loved, but to be an officer and in charge. He wanted to go faster, but he could not push them; he tried and he only succeeded in crowding the man in front of him, so finally he moved toward the point. If he could not push them, perhaps he could pull them. He liked the point anyway and he did not think it was the kind of place which should be left to the Vietnamese. When he finally got there, he found a squat young Vietnamese; the Viet relinquished his position with obvious pleasure, smiling broadly and thanking the American. Beaupre was able to move the pace up, but he had to keep looking back to make sure he had not lost the rest of the column.

  After the ambush Thuong waited for Anderson to seek him out. It was inevitable. It was a ritual. If there had been a chance, if there were a patrol working the other side of the canal, he would have crossed over and taken charge of it in order to be away. He knew the outlines of the conversation, what he had come privately to call the funeral service: Anderson would express his condolences for the dead men, whereupon Thuong would express his condolences for the dead men; then Anderson would talk about the Vietnamese dead, a word or two about the Vietnamese officer (did he know him? he would praise him, did he not know him? he would regret not knowing him better), and then on to the sadness of war; Thuong knew it well. When Anderson praised the Vietnamese officers, Thuong had to respond, often in praise of men he despised. He had heard it, of course, from the other Americans before Anderson (though certainly not from Rainwater who believed fervently in the law of averages and gave signs, all too obvious, that if there were an ambush, he was glad it was someone else who was hit), but Anderson did it the best; he was the most sincere, which to Thuong meant he was the worst. Thuong, after all, did not want ceremonies like this held for him in other units. What was the name of the Vietnamese officer they got? Thuong. Thuong? Thuong. Which one was he, the one with the mustache? No, not that one. I think he was the little one. Which little one? That proud little one. Oh, that one, that Thuong. Arrogant bastard, but a good officer. Yeah.

  Anderson arrived during a break, which one Thuong no longer knew. He could measure them only by the pain in the foot which was worse when they were resting; the foot was hurting worse than ever now, and he wanted to get on, so of course they were taking a break. He wanted desperately to take off his boot and see how white and ugly and perhaps green the foot was, but didn't dare to, not wanting Dang to come by and see the foot and make a fuss, not wanting the Americans to see it either. He was wondering about the color of his foot when Anderson arrived.

  The conversation was typical. They took a bad one. They are all bad ones. There is so much killing of your people. The Vietnamese people are accustomed to it now, it is like the sun and the rain; perhaps they would miss it if it stopped. Then Anderson continued; he was so polite and kind and gentle. When
Thuong had first seen him, he had thought: ah, at last this is The American, so big and strong and clean, the hair on his arms so blond. Thuong had thought at once how much milk this young giant must drink (one of his first questions, the third time they met, was to ask Anderson, almost shyly, if in America it was true they were able to drink as much milk as they wanted. They had talked for an hour about American breakfast foods and milk, and it had been one of their best conversations). Now Anderson was talking on about the ambush and the dead, not differentiating between the Vietnamese and the American dead, and this angered Thuong who considered it a deception, how could he really care about the Vietnamese dead. Anderson was sorry about the death of Captain Ho Van Vien; the Captain, it turned out, fell into the category of Vietnamese officers that Anderson had known only slightly and wanted to know better. Ah, if you had known Captain Ho Van Vien better, you would have found out what I know and his troops knew and your big Negro friend knew, that Captain Vien was a merde. The French word is very good. He did not bother to learn about his men or this war, and he did not care for the soldiers. If the Vietcong have finally killed him, perhaps it was by accident. I am sorry, he said, to speak to an American about a fellow Vietnamese in this manner, a dead Vietnamese. You will pardon me. He watched the quiet surprise in Anderson's face, aware that their problems and tensions were his fault.

  Anderson, who was tougher with Thuong now than he had been a month ago, looked at him for a long moment, and said, “Whatever you say, Lieutenant Thuong.” The Vietnamese, Anderson thought, was a strange one: when he had first come to Vietnam and had been assigned to Thuong, he had been warned: Thuong is a good officer, maybe the best young one, but difficult, doesn't like long noses. Anderson had been delighted, it was exactly what he would have asked for, a good officer who was difficult. When he first met Thuong, he was even more pleased: Thuong was obviously intelligent, and soon after that, just as obviously brave. He was sure that this was what he had come to Vietnam for, and he visualized the friendship, visits back and forth to each other's homes, Thuong would come to Benning and stay with the Andersons, perhaps children named for each other.

  They had known each other ten days when Anderson decided to invite Thuong to dinner, but even here he was careful not to rush it, and he waited for a month to pass before he made the invitation, deciding not to corner Thuong and push him too fast. He had made the invitation lightly and informally; there was room for Thuong to reject it, but the invitation had been accepted quickly, without hesitation, though with a certain amount of formality, yet even the formality had only served to please Anderson. It made Thuong seem more Asian. The dinner had been a curious one: Anderson decided not to eat at the Seminary, afraid both of the food, which he sensed was too heavy and greasy for a Vietnamese, and afraid also that someone might say something improper about Asians (Beaupre might talk about gooks at dinner). So they had gone to the local Vietnamese-Chinese restaurant where the Americans went, nicknamed “The Purple Plague” in honor of either its lavatory walls or the post-dinner problems. No one was quite sure. When they finally arrived there Anderson had a moment of doubt that he had chosen correctly, and that perhaps this was a restaurant shunned by Vietnamese, which it was; but Thuong skillfully guided him in (having eaten there before with Americans and being very dubious about the political loyalty of the owner, who was excessively friendly with Americans and spoke English very well). Anderson had gone there with the specific idea of getting Thuong to talk about the country and the war and his own life. Thuong, relentlessly polite and courteous, did not talk about his own life or his country. Finally it was Anderson who did all the talking. It was not quite a monologue; Thuong kept punctuating the conversation with just enough questions to keep it going: about America, about West Point, even Germany. Tell me, do the German soldiers really wear the helmets that we see always in the movies? The questions were very polite, but sometimes Anderson had the feeling that he was talking with a much older person, someone's grandfather who had no interest at all in the subject at hand, but who was well trained in the art of being polite. Thuong left Anderson completely bewildered, not knowing whether Thuong had been completely bored or whether he was anxious to soak up every bit of knowledge possible (Anderson periodically asked a question, such as: do you think the helicopters are helping the war, and he would be answered, ah, but Lieutenant Anderson, you know better than I. The helicopters are from your country). Thuong, of course, was a polite man and so he reciprocated the dinner. He waited several days and then asked Anderson to dinner. Anderson was pleased and proud, perhaps, he thought, the first evening had gone better than he thought. Perhaps it only took time to know someone like Thuong. They were shy, that was it. It took time to show Thuong that you were different, you were sincere, that he was not a gook.

  The dinner had been preceded by chance by one of the unit's rare major battles, an attack in which they had first faltered and then performed disgracefully. It had been a day and a night and a day again of terrible and hysterical bitterness and fear and death — of fear being passed among them in the confusion like a great contagious disease, of men groaning and dying and screaming in both languages, of Americans shouting to get those sons of bitches moving, the Vietnamese saying again and again it was not the right time, they must pick the right moment, the Americans saying, no goddamn it now, or we'll all die in this stinking wet hellhole, and the Vietnamese saying not now, we must wait, take cover, and the Americans shouting, there is no goddamn cover, and always the wailing and the shivering in the background. Forty-eight hours later with the anger and the bitterness of the battle still very much alive (even the Colonel, that model of good relations, had told Co, the remark had been repeated and repeated, for finally it had been said and there was great relief that someone had been so tough, the Colonel had said, you just call me whenever you want a helicopter, Colonel Co, you just call me). Thuong had arrived, exactly to the minute. Anderson had halfway expected him to call the dinner off, but if anything Thuong appeared pleased with himself. It was as if he had scheduled both the battle and the dinner together. Anderson had first taken him around the Seminary, to the bar, introduced him to the other officers, and it was as if you could see the words freeze as they came out of the mouths of the Americans. The colder the words, the more polite Thuong was, deliberately lingering, in no hurry to leave. Finally they had left, at Anderson's urging, and Thuong had taken them to a different part of My Tho, far from the normal commercial side, to a tiny little restaurant with four tables and about six chairs.

  There was no menu, no refrigeration, and several times throughout the evening the owner dispatched his son on a bicycle to a neighboring bar for ice cold beer. Thuong talked briefly with the owner, who appeared very proud to have the Lieutenant in his restaurant and proud to have Thuong too. The owner was contrite: there were no fresh shrimp, and shrimp were the specialty of the house, but he had been to the market that day and he had not liked the look of the shrimp. So they ate fish with a rich sauce and pork in thin strips, and a paste made out of dried shrimp and wound around a sugarcane stalk. It was an impressive meal, interrupted from time to time by the owner smacking his son if he found that their beer was running low. The conversation was even more difficult this time: Anderson had talked for more than thirty minutes about everything except Vietnam; finally he mentioned Vietnam and talked about everything but the battle. It was Thuong who interrupted him.

  “But the battle, Lieutenant Anderson?” he asked.

  And Anderson, poor, gentle Anderson, began by making excuses and implying the enemy force was larger than it was.

  Thuong interrupted him and said: “Lieutenant Anderson, you are the most polite American I have ever seen, more polite even than the Vietnamese are supposed to be. When we are polite, we are not honest, and I think it is the same with you. It is not your great talent to be the liar, I think, and even your face is red. It was terrible, the battle, not even the snabu.”

  “The what?” Anderson asked.

/>   “The snabu,” Thuong said, “you know, what you call, I think, the fucking-up.”

  “The snafu,” Anderson said.

  They both laughed, tentatively.

  “I am sorry,” Thuong said. “It was not even the snafu. So I will be honest with you for the once and say what you know and that it was the great disgrace, and except for your American airplanes and American chopters, an even greater disgrace with hundreds more of the Vietnamese soldiers dead.”

  Anderson protested, somewhat feebly.

  “No, no, you have been to the West Point, and I have not, not even Saint Cyr, or even the Vietnamese Saint Cyr, but I know that it was a disgrace, and, Lieutenant, it was not our first, and, it will not be our last. I wish I could tell you why it happens that way and that it will not happen again, but I cannot.”

  Anderson interrupted him to say that things were improving, the discipline was better, there were the helicopters, but Thuong looked at him, and smiled, a rare friendly smile, it was kindly.

  “You came to save us, you Americans,” he said.

  “Not to save, to help,” Anderson said.

  “No, save, save is the better word, but I am afraid, Lieutenant, that you will find that we are not an easy people to save.”

  For once Anderson did not protest, and Thuong continued, his voice lower, his eyes almost closed, speaking as though he were talking to himself, “We cannot even save ourselves. That is the worst thing. We cannot save ourselves. I am sorry.”