War Baby (10 page)

Seventh Regiment Armoury

‘So what happened to Ryan?’ Doyle asked.

‘They put him on a medevac to Pleiku and the surgeons picked thirty-four pieces of metal out of his butt.’

‘They didn’t get all the pieces,’ Cochrane said. ‘They say whenever he went through a metal detector he’d set the damn thing off he had so much shrapnel still in his ass. Caught a plane with him once at JFK down to Guatemala and damned if it wasn’t true.’

There were fond smiles around the table. The Sean Ryan legend always grew a little in the retelling.

‘And what about Odile?’

Crosby looked at Webb, and their eyes locked. They would both have preferred the other to have told this part of the story. Crosby reached across the table and took a cigarette from the packet Cochrane had left on the linen tablecloth. He lit it with Cochrane’s lighter.

‘We should have done something,’ he said, looking at Webb.

‘Like what?’

Crosby shrugged and looked at Doyle. ‘It wasn’t that he didn’t care for her,’ he said. ‘I think his intentions were always good.’

‘His intentions were always just to get laid,’ Webb said.

‘You’re not being fair.’

‘You’re breaking my heart.’

‘Ryan needed adrenalin like other people need oxygen. If he didn’t get a constant rush I swear he would have died. Some people said he was brave to the point of being reckless, but they missed the point. To be brave you have to be a little afraid to begin with. But Ryan got such a rush from all that shit, I swear I don’t think he could actually feel fear like the rest of us.’ He looked back at Webb. ‘If he really didn’t give a shit about Odile and the kid, he would not have stayed in Saigon.’

Webb shrugged. Maybe.

‘He was still with her when you went back, at the end?’ Doyle asked.

Webb nodded. ‘He spent most of the next two years covering the war in Cambodia, from Phnom Penh. But he kept an apartment in Saigon for Odile and Phuong. Every few months he’d fly back and see them. I think he was hoping that she’d find some American engineer or diplomat to take her off his hands. But she never did. She waited for him.’

‘Perhaps she did it to punish him,’ Wendy Doyle said.

‘Maybe.’

‘Where were you?’

‘I sold the photographs and the story of the Que Trang fight to Paris-Match, and they turned it into a six-page spread. On the strength of it, the AP offered me a job. Croz here set it up for me. Not long after they asked me if I wanted to transfer to the Washington office. Frankly, I couldn’t wait to get out. I kept thinking about what that Special Forces sergeant had said to me:
I hope you die
. I told myself I would never go back as long as I lived.’

‘But you did.’

‘Early in ‘75 Thieu abandoned the Highlands to the NVA and things moved fast after that. When Da Nang fell it was obvious to everyone that the communists were finally going to win. I felt I had to be there, for the end. My bosses at the AP okayed the assignment at the beginning of April and I flew back to Saigon.

‘And that was the last time I saw Odile.’

Saigon, April 1975

‘If you have not seen a battle, your education has been somewhat neglected. For after all, war has been one of the primary functions of mankind, and unless you see men fight you miss something fundamental.’

Herbert Matthews, war correspondent

‘I just figured what with guns going off and things blowing up, there’d be plenty of deep truths and penetrating insights.’

P.J. O’Rourke, Holidays in Hell

He had flown into Tan Son Nhut many times before, but never like this. The pilot came in high, then made a steep descent towards the airstrip. It was combat flying, and the 737 groaned at the maneuver. Minutes later the airliner’s wheels hammered onto the tarmac.

Webb looked out of the window. Heavily camouflaged bombers and transports choked the aprons. As the scream of the engines’ reverse thrust died away, the breathless voice of the air hostess announced their safe arrival in Saigon. Even she sounded a little surprised that they had made it, Webb thought. His fingers were clawed around the armrests, as if he were in a dentist’s chair. Welcome to Saigon. A little jolt of fear just to get you started, give you the taste again.

He stepped off the plane into a damp wall of heat. He was back.

* * *

But this was a different Saigon from the one he remembered. On the ride from the airport he saw acres of refugee slums mushrooming on the outskirts of the city, shanties made of cardboard and flattened beer cans. The government buildings bristled with barbed wire. There were checkpoints all the way along the road from the airport, keeping refugees out of the city. The roads were clogged anyway; his driver kept his hand flat on the horn almost the whole way. Whenever they stopped, small boys jabbed Coca-Cola bottles filled with petrol through the window of the cab.

‘Petrol very expensive now,’ his taxi driver explained. ‘One Coca bottle same price as maybe five litre last month.’

People seemed to be rushing everywhere. It was a city in panic. His cab crawled past sandbagged machine gun posts and the barbed wire barricades and makeshift tank traps.

‘Why you come to Saigon?’ the taxi driver asked him.

‘
Bao chi
,' Webb said. ‘Journalist.’

The man fumbled in the breast pocket of his shirt and produced a folded, crumpled letter. He shoved it in Webb’s hand. ‘You read,’ he said.

Webb unfolded the letter.
To whom it may concern. This is to certify that Tran van Minh, the bearer of this letter, served in the capacity of translator and adviser to the United States Army from April 1965 to February 1966, and proved himself a loyal friend of the United States. Please render him all assistance. Captain James Metherell. First Air Cavalry. Danang, 26 February, 1966.

Webb handed the letter back.

‘You help me get out of Saigon, okay?’ the man said.

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Webb lied. It was like he had never been away.

* * *

‘Well, look what the war dragged in,’ someone said.

Crosby and Ryan were sprawled in wicker chairs on the Shelf, both in dust-stained Saigon jackets. Ryan had two Leicas slung around his neck, as if he were in the field. The love beads and the curling seventies moustache were gone, but otherwise he appeared unscathed. A comma of dark hair fell over one eye.

‘You boys must be going soft,’ Webb said. ‘Sun’s been up nearly an hour. Why aren’t you in the front line?’

‘We are,’ Crosby said. He pulled a chair towards the table with his foot. ‘Sit down, and join the legion of the damned.’

Only Crosby looked older. His hair was still long but now there was a thin patch on the crown and several long silver strands in his moustache. Deep lines were etched around his eyes. He had lived his life hard and now it was starting to show. Webb wondered what made Ryan immune.

‘When did you arrive back in sunny Saigon?’ Ryan asked him.

‘Yesterday afternoon. What about you?’

‘We were in Phnom Penh until a few days ago. We decided to get out. Didn’t care for the Khmer Rouge.’

‘Butt still full of tin?’ Webb said.

Ryan patted his backside. ‘Last time I saw Spider,’ he said to Crosby, ‘I had an ass full of frags. I asked him to suck them out before they got infected, but he wouldn’t do it. Right bloody mate he turned out to be.’

The Shelf faced Lam Son Square and the hideous war monument, two giant Vietnamese soldiers cast in green cement. Loudspeakers had been hooked up around the statue, and martial music blared over the din of horns and traffic. ‘You look like shit, Spider.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Croz says you’re with his lot now.’

‘Yeah, Washington DC.’

‘How do you deal with all that shit? Shouting at press secretaries across the White House lawn, having Secret Service guys stick their elbows in your face.’

‘I did my time. I’m not a war junkie like you guys.’

‘Sure, you got Vietnam on your CV. That’s all that counts, right, Spider?’

‘What brought you back?’ Crosby said.

‘Same reason as you, I suppose.’

‘It’s like Monopoly for us,’ Ryan said. ‘We did the fall of Phnom Penh. Now we’re doing the fall of Saigon. All we need is the fall of Bangkok and we’ve got the set and we can start building hotels.’

There was a group of civil engineers at the next table, crewcut men talking too loud. Their Vietnamese girlfriends were with them, smiles frozen into place. They clutched at the men’s arms with something approaching desperation. This was their last drink in the Continental before Tan Son Nhut and a jet to America, Webb guessed. They were perhaps signed onto a flight as fiancées or spouses. It might not be everything these girls had once wished for themselves, but it was better than being left behind.

* * *

The white-jacketed waiter brought their breakfasts - boiled eggs, slices of paw paw,
café au lait
. Ryan took a hip flask from his pocket and tipped a little Mekong whisky into each of their cups. ‘Here’s health,’ he said.

‘How are things back in the world?’ Crosby asked.

‘Same. Sometimes I think the sixties never happened.’

‘I guess that’s why I don’t want to go back,’ Crosby said. He waved an arm towards the square. ‘Hell, I’ll sure miss the ol’ homestead,’ he said in a mock Southern drawl ‘This war’s nearly done, Hugh. Some people say weeks, others say just a few days. Lenin’s little slanty-eyed storm troopers are on their way. This time next month the old Shelf will be the Ho Chi Minh Inn.’

‘We’ll find another war,’ Ryan said.

‘Not like this one, baby. You never forget your first love.’

‘I have,’ Ryan said.

Webb stared at him. He had wanted to ask him about Odile as soon as he saw him, but he was waiting his moment. Ryan knew what he was thinking, of course, but he just sat there, smiling, giving no clues.

‘How’s Odile?’ Webb asked him, at last.

‘Who?’

Webb felt like grabbing him by the throat.

Ryan grinned. ‘Just messing with you, Spider. She’s fine.’

‘Is she still in Saigon?’

‘We’ve got an apartment in Cholon. Come round this evening. We’ll have dinner.’

‘Is Phuong with her?’

‘Where else would she be?’

‘Is she all right?’

‘Why don’t you take up social work, Spider?’

Webb had hoped Ryan had got them out of Vietnam by now, put them on a flight to Australia or the States perhaps. ‘When are you going to get them out of here?’

‘I thought maybe I’d piss off and leave them behind,’ Ryan said, a harder edge to his voice. ‘I’m a lot of things, mate, but I’m not as big a bastard as you seem to think.’

‘I wouldn’t count on it,’ Crosby said.

‘You should have got them out of Saigon a long time ago.’

Ryan made a face. ‘Ever see Pinocchio?’ he said to Crosby. ‘There was this character, Jimminy Cricket. He used to sit on Pinocchio’s shoulder and be his conscience. That’s Spider, in my life. Jimminy fucking Cricket.’

Webb ignored him. ‘What are you planning to do?’

‘Don’t worry, Spider. I’ll get her out before the godless goons burst into Saigon.’

‘How long are you going to wait? Until you see them running across the square?’

Ryan raised an eyebrow. There was a long silence. ‘She won’t go.’

‘Won’t go?’

‘Not without me. And I’m not going yet. So - her choice, mate.’

‘You could make her go.’

Ryan leaned forward, impatient with Webb’s interrogation. ‘What fucking business is it of yours?’

‘Just don’t let her down.’

The grin returned as suddenly as it had vanished. ‘When have I ever let anyone down?’

* * *

Ryan’s apartment was on the top floor of a two-storey house in Cholon, in a warren of alleys about half a mile from the Arroyo Chinois. Once it been the home of a minor French administrator, but it had long ago fallen into disrepair; now the whitewash was flaking off the walls and the green-louvered windows hung from their hinges. The alley outside smelled of camphor and fish.

Webb pushed aside a sliding gate and went up a narrow wooden staircase. He rapped twice on the door. ‘Viet Cong. Special delivery.’

Ryan opened the door. He was dressed in his own inimitable style, with a startling red and black paisley shirt over his jeans. Whatever women see in him, Webb thought, it’s not his dress sense.

‘Spider, you made it.’

‘Sorry I’m late. I had to cross three front lines and two border posts to get here. Tell me, what made you decide to live in the country?’

‘Jesus, it’s not that far. Humble journo like me can’t afford to keep apartments in two different cities.’

The apartment was large, a spacious living room and two bedrooms leading off the main hallway. Some of Ryan’s less macabre photographs hung on the walls: monks, smiling street kids, several of Ryan himself in his field gear. There was a candlelit altar in one corner, incense burning under a crucifix high on the wall.

Odile emerged from one of the bedrooms, holding Phuong.

She was accompanied by a heady rush of expensive French eau de toilette. She wore a violet
ao dai
, and her hair was long and fell about her shoulders. She even wore pale pink lip gloss - to please Ryan, he guessed.

She seemed pleased to see him. ‘Hugh,’ she said, and conferred a broad smile.

‘
Bonjour, Odile
.’ They all waited for him to say something else, but he couldn’t find the words. So the three of them stood in shuffling silence, until Odile turned to the child clinging tightly to her left hand.

‘You remember Phuong,’ she said.

The plump little girl with sprouts of straight black hair was gone. This older Phuong was reed-thin with long glossy hair like her mother’s, the same round eyes and creamed-coffee skin. She was dressed, like her mother, in a soft violet
ao dai
. ‘What a beautiful little girl she is. Gets her looks from her mother, thank God.’

Ryan studied his daughter with genuine affection. ‘Great kid,’ he said. ‘Speaks English and French as well as Vietnamese. But sometimes she mixes up her words so you have to know bits of all three languages to get it all.’

Webb had brought Phuong a present, a doll he bought at the Central Market. He held it out to her, but she turned away and hid her face in her mother’s
ao dai
.

‘You always did have a way with women,’ Ryan said. He took the doll and crouched down. ‘
Little Phuong,
’ he said, from the comer of his mouth, pretending it was the doll speaking. ‘
Little Phuong, why don’t you come out to play? Little Phuoooong!
’

She giggled, at him, then at the doll.

‘
Your daddy feels pretty stupid making this funny voice, so you’d better come and get me!
’

She snatched the doll and returned to sanctuary, behind her mother’s legs.

‘Say thank you to the
monsieur
for the pretty doll,’ Odile told her.

‘
Merci
very much,’ Phuong mumbled.

‘She is just a little shy,’ Odile said.

‘How do you reckon she’ll go in Sydney, mate?’ Ryan said.

‘I’m sure they’ll love her.’

He raised his eyes. ‘Yeah, I’m sure they will.’

* * *

Odile had prepared a three-course dinner. There was spring rolls; rice paper filled with minced pork, crab, vermicelli and mushrooms, fried until they were crisp and brown;
cha ca
- fish slices braised over charcoal with noodles, roasted peanuts, lemon and
nuoc mam
, served with green salad; and for dessert,
bank daui xanh
, mung bean cake accompanied by green Chinese tea, much more expensive than Vietnamese tea, only for special occasions. Webb felt flattered.

Odile was quiet, as always. Occasionally she asked Webb questions about his new life in America, and if he was married.

‘No, no wife,’ Webb said.

‘Who’d have him?’ Ryan said.

Ryan, as usual, dominated the conversation, talking about Cambodia, the barbarity of the Khmer Rouge, how fiercely the government soldiers had defended Phnom Penh, how they had been defeated through lack of supplies and ammunition. ‘Nixon got them into that war, and Kissinger said the Americans would back them. Then they pulled out and left them high and dry. Just like here.’

After the meal, Odile left the table to put Phuong to bed. Ryan and Webb went out onto the balcony with a bottle of Bushmills.

‘I’m going to miss this place,’ Ryan said. ‘Be it ever so humble and the rest of it. I suppose your pad in Washington is a little better than this.’

‘But it takes me an hour and a half to get to work.’

Ryan poured two glasses of whisky and raised his in toast. ‘Bet you thought Sean Ryan had left her.’