Fields of Fire (21 page)

“How do you know this?” the wife asked, already captivated by the melody of Dan's voice. Dan showed her a chieu hoi leaflet. There were many of them on the valley floor and in the mountains. The Marines dropped them from airplanes during psychological-warfare missions. They were safe-conduct passes for those who wished to surrender.

“There was a man in our company,” Dan told her. “A corpsman. Bac se. We talked many times of the futility of it. He told me secretly of his plans. He made very careful plans. And then one day he surrendered to a Marine unit here in the valley and they went to his village and took his family with them before the VC could kill them. They sent the Bac se and his family to Duc Duc. Duc Duc is where all such families go.”

His wife was not convinced. “How do you know of Duc Duc? Have you ever seen this village?”

Dan stroked the back of his youngest son, who had rolled restlessly on the bunker floor. “Some days I have duty on the southern riverbank. We hide in bunkers along the trees and stop the villagers from crossing the river to go to Duc Duc. Sometimes, after the Marines and the North Vietnamese have fought fiercely, there are dozens of people. They strap pans and clothes into bundles and put them on their heads—you've seen them that way—and they walk to the riverbank, hoping to find a boat that will take them across to Duc Duc. We stop them because they must grow rice. If they do not grow the rice, we cannot eat. If we cannot eat, we cannot fight.” Dan shrugged. “It is such a game. I do not like to fight. I like to farm. And be with my family.” He looked closely at his wife in the flickering light, stroking her back. “Would you leave your home?”

His wife had never been out of the valley. Once, when she was very young, she and three friends had walked for hours all the way to the eastern tip of the valley, over seven miles of paddies and ridges and treelines, and watched the bustle of Dai Loc across the river. It had awed her. It was the only time she had seen an automobile, although she had since watched tanks and amphtracs lumber past her village. And at night when they would dare to venture from the family bunker she sometimes stood high on top of it, and watched the strange bright lights hanging like low moons over An Hoa and Dai Loc. She had no comprehension of electricity. She could not envision life away from My Le (1). Her family had been in the village for five hundred years.

But she and Dan had long agreed that this war would not end in their lives. She would see Dan only like this, every few months, for his life as a soldier. If he survived, perhaps for fifteen years. She could not stand that thought.

She was terrified of Duc Duc. It was only four miles away, but it would be filled with strange faces from many villages, and there would be no land to own and work. What does a family do when there is no land? She looked at the little girl sucking on her dried teat and at the three others, suffering quietly on the bunker's boards. And what of them? They have suffered long enough. One child already dead. Who will be next? She decided she would go.

The youngest girl was finally asleep. Dan's wife laid her on a board and moved to Dan. Dan held her closely to him, feeling the strength in her back. He had missed her terribly. He had never been away from her before.

“I will escape this morning,” he told her. “We will leave the village just before dawn to return to the mountains. I will run from them at a good place on the trail and hide until the sun is high and find my way to the Marine perimeter. They will kill me if I try to surrender to a patrol. That is the nature of things. You must come to the perimeter, too. Can the children walk to the perimeter?”

“Where are the Marines?” his wife asked.

“There is a company at Tan Phouc. A mile.”

“We can walk to Tan Phouc.”

“Good,” said Dan. “Wait until the sun is high. If you walk before the sun is up the Marines will kill you. All people of the night are VC to them. It is the nature of things. When the sun comes up walk to Tan Phouc. I will meet you there.”

Then Dan loved his wife on the boards of the bunker, in between the sleeping baby and the restless boys. It was good love. They had missed each other. Their suffering from all things external to their relationship made the act a deep and desperately emotional grasping. There was only the family. And the land. But now they would lose the land. The love became a special signal of their coming isolation from everything but each other.

He slept fitfully. As the sky began to blue, just a deep touch low in the east, his cell leader called for him at the bunker's opening. He kissed his wife once more and picked up his M-14, fingering it slowly, remembering his brother as he walked out on the trail. His brother would have killed him for what he was about to do. Dan sighed. His brother had believed too strongly. Such is the nature of this game, he mused. That a brother would kill a brother who only wanted to be with his family and his land.

The cell of eight men walked quickly up the trail under a half-moon, the sky now dark blue over them. The trail bent close to a streambed and Dan broke suddenly from it, sprinting through a dozen yards of jungle thickness, and ran along the streambed. He knew the streambed as a man knows the rooms of his own home. He had grown up playing along it. He first made love to his wife beside it, when they were fourteen. They would not find him by the streambed. There were muffled shouts when Dan broke from the trail, then two quick shots. They would not shoot wildly. They did not have the ammunition to waste. And too many shots would bring the Marines.

Dan found a mudhole and lay flat along the streambed in it. The cell swept past him. He listened to the angry whispers as they fought the jungle growth. They would not bring him back to the mountains if they caught him now. They knew he did not do this to return to farming. He had been too friendly with the corpsman who surrendered earlier. He had not spoken well to his own people the night before. They would kill him if they found him. For the sake of discipline.

But they must leave soon, he reasoned, feeling the mud soak through his blue pajamas as he hugged the streambed. Soon it would be light and the Marines would be patrolling. They will be trapped if they do not make it to the foothills. They know that, he fretted. They must leave soon.

Then in the distance, down the trail, a half-dozen shots. Perhaps a few more. They came from My Le (1). He became bewildered. They would not do that. They will wait until nightfall and return, he thought. The way they did when the Bac se surrendered. They do not have the time to do that. They must make the foothills by first light.

He hesitated, shivering in the mud. Then he could no longer bear the tension. He crawled noiselessly along the streambed, remembering each bend, staying off the bank and away from the trail. He reached My Le (1) and the sky was gray. Soon it would be hot and blue. The cell would be well toward the mountains now.

He left the streambed and walked through mounds of jungle growth, finding his hootch from the back way. He crossed the still-unplanted seedbed, reaching the family bunker before he came to the thatch. It was silent in the bunker. A dog bolted from under the thatch as Dan walked toward the entrance. Around the trail, on the other side of the banana trees, a rooster crowed. The village was awakening with the sun. Dan could smell the cook fires from the other hootches.

But there was no movement inside his family bunker. Dan walked slowly, unwillingly, to the bunker opening. Perhaps she has already begun to walk to Tan Phouc, he hoped, knowing she had not.

He walked inside the bunker and the soft gray light that filtered in from the two openings confirmed his apprehension. The close air of the bunker was rich with the heavy odor of wet blood. His two sons lay dead where they slept. Their heads were blown apart. His wife had been driven into the corner of the bunker by the blast of a rifle. She still held the baby girl tightly to her breast. One of the bullets had passed through the baby and then Dan's wife. His eldest daughter lay dead at his feet. One of his former compatriots had ripped her earrings from her earlobes. There were two straight tears of red where the earrings had been.

Dan was sick with rage and grief. He could not bear to look closely at them. He ran out of the bunker and over the dust of the seedless seedbed and through the brush, already hot and close from the morning sun. He found the stream again and lay inside another mudhole, shuddering with misery.

Now there was nothing. The land was gone. The family was gone. Some dead of cholera. Some dead of war. There was no difference. But slowly the rage grew. There was a difference. They did not have to do that, he thought, again and again. They are wrong to think that any belief is worth doing that. What they believe cannot be right if it does this to them.

But the difference did not matter. He could not go back to them even if he believed they were right to do it. They would now kill him, too. For the sake of discipline.

The sun moved high over the trees, and the water in the shallow hole became hot. Dan climbed up the stream-bank and began to walk to Tan Phouc. He carried his rifle for a few steps along the bank. Then he stopped, holding it in front of him, studying it. If I surrender with my rifle they will believe my story more easily, he thought. But if they see me walking toward them with a weapon they might kill me. They are like that. They have much ammunition and they shoot very quickly.

He threw his rifle into the stream. They would believe his story. He was good with stories.

It was hot and there was no breeze. The mudhole water in Dan's clothes dried quickly and was then replaced by his sweat. He left the stream and walked steadily across a wide paddy toward the Marine perimeter. The scarred hill before him was covered with a mass of green ants that became tanned, shirtless figures dressed in green as he came nearer. Some sat languidly near hootches made of sticks and ponchos. Others walked or worked or roughhoused. Dan was afraid, but he did not consider turning back. They were his last hope. There was nothing to turn back to.

They watched his approach from the hill. He was a lone, steadily striding, stolid figure who was soon recognizable by his clothes and haircut as VC. They sent a patrol down to the paddy with an interpreter and apprehended him outside the perimeter.

Dan squinted his eyes from the sun, still walking with steady, measured steps, and walked up to the interpreter. He was relieved to see a Vietnamese face. He stopped abruptly in front of the interpreter and slapped his muddy chieu hoi leaflet into the man's hand. Then he spoke with melodious tones, looking stonily at the dirt of the paddy.

“It is such a game,” Dan said.

“What did he say?” the Marines asked anxiously.

The interpreter smiled. “He say, ‘VC full of shit.’ ”

Everyone laughed and the Marines slapped him on his back. They were very big and very friendly. Dan was surprised at their humor. One of them gave him a cigarette and lit it for him. Dan smiled softly, thanking him.

The Marines brought Dan to the company command post, in the center of the perimeter. He was amazed at the little city of fighting holes and poncho hootches and whip antennas from the many radios. And there was so much food, cans of it scattered about each hootch and hole. That is why they are so big, he thought to himself. So much food.

He squatted respectfully in the dust, where the patrol left him. The interpreter asked him if he was hungry. The interpreter was tall for a Vietnamese, and spoke with a nasal laziness that marked him as a learned man. He did not look like a soldier, Dan noted. He wore his uniform uncomfortably. Somewhere he has a business. Or perhaps he teaches. He is not meant to be a soldier. But, then, neither am I. I am like the water bull. I am strong but I prefer to use my strength in the fields. I am happiest with my children. And I startle when the gun fires. Like the water bull. But there are no more children and no more fields.

“Yes,” Dan responded. “I am hungry.”

He ate greedily, unheated C-ration meat straight from the can. He had not eaten meat in a very long time. Perhaps a year, he thought, trying to remember. A little fish, but no meat. Much rice. Without the rice we would all die.

Another Vietnamese approached Dan while he was eating. He was short like Dan, but heavier. He greeted Dan warmly and asked him many questions about the VC in the valley. He was quite familiar with their operations. He told Dan that he had served with the VC in the valley for two years. He was from Phu Loi, to the north. He served the Marines now, as a Kit Carson Scout. He seemed very proud of it.

“What do you do?” Dan studied the man's thickness. It was muscle. The man ate well. He seemed happy, too. Dan could not remember feeling the way the man seemed to feel.

The man's name was Hai. Hai smiled warmly, sharing his secret. “I do not do much. It is a good life. Sometimes I lead patrols. Sometimes I talk to villagers. Sometimes I do nothing.” He spoke with a sense of self-importance. “There is nothing better to do. They pay me as a Sergeant. Fifty piasters. It is so much better than serving in the Army. In the Army they would hate me because I was VC. Here I feel important. And there is so much food.”

Dan shrugged miserably, confiding in the man, appreciating his openness. “It is such a game,” he said softly.

“You should join us,” Hai urged. “There are supposed to be two of us. There is nothing better for you now.”

“I have had enough of war,” answered Dan. But the vision of his family lying dead inside the bunker would not leave him and already he was pondering Hai's invitation.

Hai shrugged. “There will always be war. You should make the best of it. You will fight in the Army if you don't do this. Or spend forever in a prisoner camp. Why did you surrender?”

“Because there was nothing left.”

DAN spent the rest of the day in the Marine perimeter. The Marines were very friendly, accepting him as one of their own now that he had surrendered. They are so naive, he thought. The world is so simple to them. Yesterday I served the VC. Today I serve them. I would rather serve neither. They do not understand that. But, he thought, hating the increasing redundancy of his conclusions, that is the nature of things. And they seem kind. Strange to find them friendly after fearing them and hating what they have brought.