War Baby (3 page)

As the jets roared for home, the soldiers rose slowly to their feet from behind the embankment. The firelight was over. The forest crackled and burned and the choking black smoke from the napalm drifted.

Webb found his camera. He looked at his watch; the whole thing had lasted less than twenty minutes. He would have guessed three to four hours.

And he hadn’t taken a single frame.

And I wanted to be a combat photographer?

The platoon sergeant was staring at him. ‘You hit, man?’

Webb looked down at his utility. There was a smear of blood on the sleeve. He let the sergeant strip off his flak jacket. Fresh blood had soaked into his shirt under his armpit. ‘Christ,’ Webb said.

‘You ain’t hit, man,’ the sergeant said. ‘Someone just bled on you.’ He pushed the flak jacket back over Webb’s shoulders and walked away.

McCague was still staring at the sky. The rest of his platoon moved around him, their eyes pointedly turned away.

In the distance he heard the chop-chop of the medevacs.

He walked up the line, looking for Ryan. He found him with his back against the embankment, smoking a cigarette. There was a blood-soaked wound dressing on his left shoulder.

‘You’re hit,’ Webb said.

‘My bloody oath. Look, I know this is your first war, and you want a good view of it, but if someone shoots at you, it’s better to lie down and get out of the way.’

‘What happened?’

‘Felt something thump me in the shoulder after I grabbed you. Medic gave me some mother morphine. Getting a nice buzz right now.’ He fumbled for his cameras with his right hand. ‘Make sure you get these to Crosby. He’ll ship them out for me.’

‘You still shot film?’

‘That’s my job.’

Webb felt even more ashamed of his own miserable performance. ‘I found this,’ he mumbled.

‘My lucky towel. See what happens when I drop the bloody thing?’

Two Hueys appeared through the haze of a purple smoke flare, each with a red cross painted on the nose. Webb turned away from the stinging dust storm as they settled in the dirt, then helped two corpsmen carry Ryan to the first chopper. He climbed in beside him.

‘Got a smoke, Spider?’ Ryan asked him. It was an Australian tradition, apparently. All whites were called Chalkie, anyone with ginger hair was called Blue, and anybody called Webb was Spider.

Webb pulled out his cigarettes, but his hands were shaking so hard he could not light one. Ryan grabbed the lighter from him and lit one himself. Webb sat back on his haunches with his back against the fuselage. He balled his hands into fists, in an attempt to stop the trembling, afraid that others would see.

They loaded McCague. He still had that surprised look on his face. Finally the crew chief grabbed a green poncho and covered him with it, leaving just the muddy jungle boots protruding.

‘It was my fault,’ Webb said aloud.

Ryan’s eyes blinked open, and he frowned, not understanding, lost to the morphine.

‘My fault,’ Webb repeated. He fumbled for his camera, and then, feeling like a pornographer, he kicked back the poncho and took the photograph: shaved blond head, staring eyes, the black tube flopping from his throat. Magically, his hands stopped shaking while he took the shot.

He wondered if McCague would still like a copy, wherever he was now.

Bien Hoa Air Base

The Huey dropped into a deep landing spiral, billowing oily black smoke. ‘Hold on to your assholes, ladies and gentlemen,’ the crew chief shouted. The machine bounced as it hit the LZ.

A knot of nurses, technicians and doctors raced towards the landing pad dragging gurneys between them. The pilot shut down the engines. Flames were licking back along the fuel lines towards the tanks. ‘Get everyone out and get clear,’ he screamed at the crew chief.

A chaos of panicked shouts and black smoke. Webb helped one of the doctors load Ryan onto a gurney and they dragged it back across the runway towards the hospital.

‘She’s going to blow!’ he heard someone shout.

He looked back. The crew chief was beside him, still in the heavy crash helmet, his fatigues soaked with sweat. Webb read his name,
Jensen
, stenciled on his left breast.

‘Oh, Christ!’ Jensen said.

‘What is it?’ one of the nurses shouted.

‘Where’s the head wound?’

Webb could read Jensen’s eyes. He knew what he was thinking.
I’m not going back.

The Huey was enveloped in clouds of black smoke, but for one moment the smoke cleared and they all saw him, lying on a stretcher besides McCague, unconscious, his head swathed in bloody bandages. ‘Oh, sweet suffering Christ,’ the pilot said. ‘There’s one still in there.’ He looked around at Jensen. ‘
Why the fuck is he still there?
’

‘It’s going to blow,’ Jensen repeated, his voice dull.

Webb saw flames billowing around the fuel tank. No one moved.

‘We can’t leave him,’ one of the nurses said.

‘Half his skull’s blown away,’ Jensen said. ‘He’s going to die anyway.’

For Christ’s sake blow, Webb thought. Before any of us have to make the decision. For pity’s sake, blow!

‘We have to get him,’ the nurse said.

‘He’s a dead man!’ Jensen repeated.

The nurse ran back to the Huey. No one else moved.

Webb had heard what happened when you got burned. It was something they told all the new guys, along with the legends of bad belly wounds. You didn’t die straight away, even ninety per cent burns wouldn’t kill you straight off. It was the bacterial infection that got you, a blue-green slime called
pseudomonas
that smelled so bad even the doctors and nurses couldn’t change the dressings without gagging. You sucked your life away through a tube. Even if you lived, the scars were so bad you wished you’d died.

But there she was, the little blonde nurse, running back there.

Webb found himself running too.

‘That’s fucking insane!’ someone shouted.

Webb sobbed with fear as he ran. He couldn’t see the nurse, and for one shocking moment, he thought perhaps she had changed her mind and he was heading in there alone. Then, as the veil of smoke parted, he saw her pulling at the wounded man’s fatigues. He was too heavy for her.

The fire was inches from the fuel tank, they only had a few seconds.

Webb grabbed the man’s flak jacket, dragged him to the door, and the nurse helped him hoist him on his shoulders. He was a big man and Webb felt his knees buckle under the weight.

‘Run!’ he screamed at her.

She could have gone ahead, she had done all she could, but she clung to his fatigues as he staggered away from the Huey, trying to help him. Every yard was an eternity, waiting for the shock, the blast, the heat, the pain. Another yard, another.

The curtain of smoke parted. He saw the knot of doctors and nurses and flight crew gathered around the gurneys fifty yards away, urging him on.

Another few yards.

‘Keep going!’

The Huey exploded with a hollow boom, and Webb found himself face down on the tarmac, the wounded man’s weight crushing his chest. Suddenly there were people all around, pulling him to his feet, ushering him away. The injured soldier was hefted onto a gurney and spirited away.

He put his hand to his face. Thick blood gushed from his nose where he had hit the concrete. He looked around. Just him and the crew chief left.

Jensen stared at him, his face twisted with reproach. Without a word he turned and walked away, and Webb was left alone, listening to the Huey burn.

* * *

He was sitting on the step outside the ER, staring at nothing, when she came out.

She was five foot three inches and maybe ninety pounds dripping wet. She looked like a bubblegummer who had grown up before she was ready. Her blonde hair was fixed out of the way with pins, but loose strands of it fell over her face. She had her fists in the pockets of her fatigues.

She did not seem surprised to see him. ‘Coffee?’ she said.

He nodded.

The Huey had burned itself out. A bulldozer was shoveling the charred remains out of the way. ‘That was the bravest thing I ever saw,’ Webb said.

‘Well, you too.’

‘No. If you hadn’t started running back, I wouldn’t have done it. You shamed me into it.’

‘You were the only one who ran after me.’ She folded her arms across her chest, as if she were cold. ‘I can’t believe I did that.’

‘How is he?’

‘The head wound? He died. Just like the man said.’

They walked the rest of the way to the canteen in silence. They got their coffees and sat down at a table. Webb held out his hand. ‘Hugh Webb.’

‘Mickey. Mickey van Himst.’

‘Van Himst. Good Irish name.’

‘My father’s Dutch and my mother’s French Canadian. My real name’s Dominique Michelle. But I’ve always been Mickey.’

‘I’ve never met an American Dutch French Canadian before. What kind of passport do you have?’

‘Senegalese.’ Another long silence. Webb realized he was shaking again. He put his hands under the table and ignored his coffee. ‘What are you? Love the accent.’

‘British.’

She looked at the two cameras on the table. ‘Tourist, huh?’

‘They promised me five days and six nights in a warm climate. I’ll have to speak to my travel agent when I get home.’

Mickey put her head on her arm.

‘You okay?’

‘Hell, no.’

He reached across the table and touched her hand. To his surprise, she took it and squeezed, hard, her face still buried in her arms.

‘How long have you been in Vietnam?’ he asked her.

‘All my life. Six months. What about you?’

‘This is my fourth day.’

‘Pal, you’re not going to last the distance you keep doing things like that.’

Webb thought about the last twenty-four hours. He had always thought of himself as brave, decent and honest. He was no longer sure what he was. A day in the boonies and he had been alternately a coward, a fool and a hero. He had indirectly caused the death of one man, and saved the life - albeit temporarily - of another.

He remembered guiltily that he had forgotten to ask about Ryan. ‘How’s the shoulder wound?’

‘T&T - that means through and through. He’ll be okay. He’ll have bit less meat on his shoulder than he started out with.’ She suddenly realized she was still holding his hand and shoved it away from her as if it were a live snake.

Their eyes locked. She had the largest, saddest grey eyes he had ever seen.

‘I hope they give you a medal for what you did today.’

‘Hey, you too. The Correspondent’s Cross and bar.’

‘I’ll just take the bar, as long as it’s well stocked.’

A feeble joke, bravado and nothing else. She stopped, her head cocked to the side. Now Webb heard it too, the familiar
chop-chop
of Hueys parking on the apron near the hospital. ‘Incoming. I got to go to work.’

‘I’ll see you around.’

She stopped halfway to her feet. ‘Do that. You know where I live. Just don’t come in on a gurney all right?’

She ran off towards the sounds of the choppers.

* * *

The AP offices were on the Rue Pasteur, a stone’s throw from the Gia Long palace, in the ground-floor room of a three-storey apartment building. There was the clatter of teleprinters and typewriters. On one wall someone had taped some black and white photographs, the ones they couldn’t use; a navy SEAL with a necklace of human ears; a Marine hooch with a human skull on the tent post; two American soldiers staring at a severed human head as it floated down a river. Someone had scrawled in a speech bubble on the photograph: ‘He was with the AP - but he missed a big story.’

Webb wondered how anyone might find that funny.

Crosby came out the bureau chief’s office looking grim. ‘Sean got a front page on all the major dailies with those shots of the Ranger and the captured VC,’ he said. There was accusation in his voice.

‘Yeah, I saw them.’

‘You were with Sean. Where’re the pictures?’

‘I didn’t take any.’

‘Why not?’

‘I was throwing up in the grass.’

Crosby shook his head. ‘I’d say forget it and go back home, except for these.’

He tossed the black and white prints on the desk, just five of them, all he had after two days in War Zone D with the 173rd. Webb didn’t even remember taking them, a series, his finger pressed on the shutter; McCague on one knee, firing into the treeline; McCague dropping the M-16, a look of astonishment on his face; in the third frame he was slipping down the embankment, hands limp at his side; the fourth captured the expression of the two Marines closest to him, their faces essays in horror, as he lay gasping on the ground. The last was of McCague in the medevac, full frame, the black rubber tubing hanging from the incision in his trachea.

‘These are sexy,’ Crosby said. ‘But I don’t think anyone can run with this last one. It’s a little too graphic for the newspapers, I think.’

Webb blinked. Well, all I did was help a man to die. If that’s good, then I suppose I did my job. ‘I’m glad you like them, Croz.’

‘If you can keep your lunch down, maybe you’ve got a future.’

A future? He had promised himself he would never go out again, had made his pact with the divine, as he guessed many men had done before;
get me out of this, and I’ll never bother You again.

How could he entertain the thought of going back?

Crosby was still staring at the photographs. ‘Everyone else is turned the other way when this guy started firing.’ He looked up at Webb. ‘How did you know what was going to happen?’

Webb shrugged his shoulders. ‘Instinct,’ he said.

Jimi Hendrix’s version of
‘The Star Spangled Banner’
wailed from the record player. Ryan sat in the chair by the window, his left shoulder heavily strapped, the arm splinted across his chest. In his right hand was a small bamboo pipe, in which he had mixed a concoction of tobacco and marijuana, soaked in opium.

For the pain.

The Hashish Hilton was deserted. Webb and Crosby were at the AP office, Prescott was in the Delta, Cochrane had flown up to Da Nang.

He stared at the traffic in the street below, the daily bedlam of taxis, motorized
siclos
, military trucks and jeeps. The air conditioner rattled away in the corner, fighting the steamy January heat.

‘Holy hell,’ Ryan muttered.

A
siclo
pulled up to the kerb. A young woman in a white silk
ao dai
got out. She had a parcel under her arm.

Soeur Odile.

There was a tentative knock on the door. Ryan swapped Jimi Hendrix for a a Bach fugue. He threw open the windows to disperse the dope fumes, and opened the door.

She couldn’t meet his eyes. She held the small cardboard box in front of her. ‘Monsieur Ryan. I was ... we were all concerned for you when we hear you are hurt.’

‘Soeur Odile. What a pleasure. Please. Come in.’

She hesitated, then stepped across the threshold. He took the box from her with his good arm. ‘What have you got in here?’

‘You always bring us so much. I think perhaps now you are hurt... we can do something for you.’

The box had been tied with string. As he hunted for his Swiss army knife, Soeur Odile looked around the room. ‘You have an air conditioner but ... the window is open. You always have it this way?’

‘They reckon it’s better for you.’

‘What a cute little monkey ... oh!’

‘Nixon, stop that! Dirty little bastard! Excuse me, Sister.’ Ryan chased Nixon off the bookcase. He scuttled away shrieking, and continued with his favorite game under the bed.

‘Nixon?’

‘We call him that because he’s a little w . . . well, because he’s always ... he has bad habits.’

Soeur Odile flushed the color of bronze. Ryan returned his attention to the box. ‘I didn’t expect to see you, sister. Good of you to look in.’

‘Your arm, it is very bad?’

‘It’s still attached, that’s the main thing, right?’ He couldn’t open the box, not one-handed. He threw the knife on the table. ‘Can I get you a cup of tea?’

‘No, I cannot stay.’ She picked up the knife and carefully cut through the string. Ryan looked inside. A Bible, and a small statue of the Virgin. ‘From the
canonesse
,’ she explained.

Ryan picked up the leather-bound Bible in one hand. ‘Well, give me something to read, I suppose. Has it got a happy ending?’

The flicker of a smile? Perhaps he imagined it. ‘I think perhaps it is a useless gift. You are not a Christian, I can tell.’

‘Now that’s where you’re wrong. I’m one of your lot.’

‘You are Catholic?’

‘My oath. There’s a lot of Micks where I come from.’

‘Micks?’

‘Roman Catholics.’

‘Where do you come from, Monsieur Ryan?’

‘Sit down and I’ll tell you.’

Ryan felt his pulse racing. A nun. A bloody nun!

She perched on a wicker chair, looking as if she were ready to break for the door at any moment. He sat in the other chair, and they weighed each other carefully like combatants in a chess match.

‘It’s all right,’ Ryan said finally. ‘I don’t bite.’

‘I think perhaps this is not... proper.’

‘Spending time with sinners is an occupational hazard, isn’t it?’

‘Are you a sinner, Monsieur Ryan?’

‘We all are, aren’t we? It’s just a matter of degree. Isn’t that right?’ When she didn’t answer, he said: ‘My old man was one of the biggest sinners of the lot. You might have heard of him. Ronald Ryan.’

‘The movie actor?’

‘You know who I mean, then?’

Her face glowed with unexpected enthusiasm. ‘Yes. I see one of his pictures, I think. He is a pirate. He is very brave.’

‘I don’t know if he was brave or not. When I was born he took the soft option and shot through. But that was before he went to America and became famous. Maybe he got a bit braver later on.’

‘You are a lot like him.’

‘Yeah, everyone reckons I look like him. I can’t help that.’ There was a heavy silence. Soeur Odile sat there poker-straight, as if she were being interviewed for a secretarial position at a bank. Why is she here? he wondered. At the instruction of the
canonesse
, or on a whim of her own? ‘So - you are a Catholic?’ she asked him.

‘Not a very good one.’

‘You go to Mass?’

‘Haven’t been to Mass since I was thirteen. I got thrown out.’

‘But who will throw you out of a church?’

‘The priest. He had no option, I suppose, me and my mate drank all the altar wine.’

‘Why?’

‘We wanted to get drunk.’

She stared at him as if this were quite incomprehensible to her.

‘We got our own back, though. It was only a small church and they couldn’t afford a proper bell. So they had a record player and an amplifier hooked up to the bell tower. The priest had this LP with bells playing and he used to put that on every Sunday morning. We waited until Christmas Eve and we broke into the church and put on an Elvis Presley forty-five and turned the volume up full blast. Three o’clock Christmas Eve and the whole population of Miller’s Creek were in their front gardens, scratching their heads listening to “You Ain’t Nothin’ but a Hound Dog” coming from the sky.’ He wondered why he had told her that particular story. Had he been trying to shock her? She was staring at him with an expression of utter astonishment. Then, unexpectedly, she smiled. She put her hand over her mouth.

‘Well, that’s better. I don’t think I’ve seen you smile before.’

She looked embarrassed. ‘
Desolé
. This is not a funny story.’

‘Well, I laughed at the time.’

‘You must be very ashame now.’

‘Not a bit of it. If I could have taken a picture of it, I’d have it hanging on my wall.’

‘Instead of these pictures?’ She looked around, at the black and white glossies tacked to the wall, GIs in jungle fatigues, pictures of the dead and the living, victors and vanquished juxtaposed.

‘I’m not ashamed of them either. It’s what I do.’

‘Why do you like to take picture about wars?

‘I don’t really know. Always had a fascination for it, I suppose. I was born the day they dropped the big one on Hiroshima. My mother always used to say I was a war baby, as if it was something special. I don’t know why I do it. I guess I’ve never wanted to do much of anything else.’

‘It is worth all this risk?’ she asked him, looking at his bandaged shoulder.

‘This? You can’t help bad luck. I only got this because the bloke I was with was new, and didn’t know how to duck.’

‘You do not mind if you are killed for a photograph?’

‘If there’s no one here snapping away with a camera, how will anyone outside Vietnam know what a shitty little war this is? Pardon my French.’

She did not seem disturbed by this mild obscenity. She leaned in: ‘You think photograph can stop this war?’

‘Yeah, I do.’

‘I will pray you are right.’

‘Yeah, well, it won’t happen overnight. Look, I’ve answered your question. Will you answer one of mine?’

‘You wish to know why I am in the convent?’

‘You said it wasn’t a proper question to ask you. But I never ask proper questions. That’s why I’m a journo.’

She sighed. ‘You must understand. I am not Vietnamese, I am not French. It makes life ... difficult.’

‘So, you’re saying ... it’s like a ... sanctuary?’

‘Perhaps. Yes. But also, I have great faith.’

‘What came first? The faith - or the sanctuary?’

She studied her hands, one thumb stroking the other as if it were a small, wounded bird. ‘My mother wish it.’

‘Religious, was she?’

‘How long do you live here in Vietnam, Monsieur Ryan?’

‘Three years.’

‘Then you will know that here we have very conservative, very formal, society. A woman has her place,
n’est-ce pas?
’ No Vietnamese man will marry me, because I am not Vietnamese.
Un Americain
looks at me, he sees a “gook”. Yes? A prostitute. So my choice is the Church or the Tu Do. Before she die, my mother prefer I go to the convent. Me also, I think.’

Ryan leaned forward. ‘When I look at you, I don’t see a “gook”. I see a very lovely young woman.’

She stood up, abruptly, as if he had slapped her face. ‘I must go now.’

‘Sorry. That was the wrong thing to say, right? I seem to be making a habit of it. Please. Sit down.’

‘No, really. I must go.’

‘You don’t have to do what you don’t want to.’

She looked at him as if he had just told her the world was flat. ‘Perhaps not in your country, Monsieur Ryan. But in Vietnam only the men do what they want.’

‘You have to listen to your heart. You’ve only got one life.’

She stared at him. She had that look on her face, the look he had seen countless times before on the faces of other women just before he kissed them for the first time. If she was any other woman he would not have hesitated.

She turned away. ‘I must go.’

‘You’re lovely,’ he whispered.

She looked stricken, as if it were the most terrible thing anyone had ever said to her. ‘I hope you are well soon.’ She held out her hand. It was soft and cool.

‘Goodbye, Sister. Thanks for coming.’

She stopped at the door. ‘Monsieur Ryan, there is something you should know about me.’

‘Yes, Sister?’

‘I am not a nun. Not yet. I do not yet take my final vows.’

‘You’re a novice?’

‘Yes. A novice.’ She gave him a look that could have meant anything, and then she was gone. He heard her footfall on the concrete stairwell.

He stared at the open door, wondering.

* * *

The
Cercle Sportif
was on Hong Thap Tu Street, a handsome French villa whose gardens served the recreational needs of the American and European community. General Westmoreland played tennis there. Men played
boules
under the tamarind trees, while their wives, their bodies glistening with Ambre Solaire, sunbathed by the swimming pool.

Ryan signaled the waiter for two more gin and tonics. ‘Christ, the Frogs know how to host a war,’ he said.

Webb shifted in his wicker chair. He hoped this was on Ryan’s tab, he was almost broke. ‘I shouldn’t be here,’ he said.

‘Well, you are. Relax. Enjoy yourself.’

The waiter arrived with their drinks and set them on the table. Webb pulled at a piece of wicker on the arm of his chair.

‘Christ, you’re like a cat with a cracker up its ass.’ Ryan took a long swallow of gin and sighed. He fished out the piece of lemon and ate it whole. ‘You can always go back home, Spider.’

‘I don’t have the money for the ticket. Even if I did, I wouldn’t go.’

‘Why not?’

‘There’s nothing to go back to.’

‘So, what’s the problem?’

He heard a woman laughing by the swimming pool, the silky splash of water. Impossible to imagine that a few miles away men were screaming and dying.

‘You thought it was going to be fun?’

Webb lowered his voice. ‘I was scared.’

‘I remember the first time I got caught in a firelight. Scared
shitless
. Told myself if I got out of it, I was never going back again. But it’s like falling off a horse. You got to force yourself to get back in the saddle.’

‘I don’t think I can do it.’

‘You don’t have a choice.’ He studied Webb with frank, blue eyes, as if he were seeing him for the first time. ‘You’re a desperate little bastard. You’ll do anything to break out of the mold, won’t you?’

Webb looked away, over the lawns.

‘You know how I know that? Because you’re like me.’

‘I don’t have your guts.’

‘That’s not what I heard. There was this nurse at Bien Hoa, told me how you ran back to the medevac when it caught fire and pulled out some lieutenant with a head wound. Now I couldn’t have done that. Not unless there was a picture in it.’ He finished his drink, massaged his injured shoulder. ‘It’s not a question of balls. Your trouble is, you want to be a journo and you want to be squeaky clean. You don’t want the grunts seeing you take snaps of dead bodies, them telling you how you’re a bloody parasite. But you know what, they’re happy enough to have you up there with them when they’re in a contact. If they die they feel like at least it’s not for some anonymous shitfight no one will ever see or hear about. Understand?’

Webb was not sure he did understand.

‘Like you said, I promised myself I’d never go back out there.’

‘You can always go home. I’ll lend you the cash, if that’s the problem. It’s up to you, Spider. It’s up to you.’

* * *

The next day Ryan arrived at the orphanage with two cartons containing medicines, soap and tinned food.
Soeur Marie
, the old French nun, opened the gate. A few days later he went back, and the old nun was there once more.

He asked for
Soeur Odile
and was told she was at her prayers.

He had spent a week’s retainer on food and medicine and he was getting nowhere. He would have to try another way.