Word of Honor (5 page)

canister popped, disgorging a stream of green smoke into the heavy, fetid air. Smoke canisters began popping all over the square as the survivors of his platoon comprehended that there might be a way out. Vivid plumes of red, blue, yellow, orange, and green smoke rose from the killing zone.

The enemy was temporarily blinded, and their fire lifted higher, as was natural in obscured conditions; they began cross-firing into each other's positions across the market square.

Tyson reached out and pulled the radiophone from the stiffening fingers of the dead radioman. He steadied his voice and called Captain Browder.

"Mustang Six, this is Mustang One-Six. We're backing out the same way we came in. Can you meet us halfway?"

The radio crackled, and Browder's voice came on with that practiced cool of a man who was used to talking and ducking bullets at the same time. "Roger.

We're heavily engaged at the momentstill at the edge of the village. But we'll try a linkup. That's your smoke, I guess."

"Roger. Guide on that. We've got to leave the dead. "

"Understand.

"How about air and artillery?"

"On the way. But don't wait for it. Get your asses moving. Papa's coming.

Good luck, partner. "

"Roger, over."

"Roger, out. "

Tyson rose to one knee and called out through the smoke and noise, "Pull back! Take the wounded and leave the dead and know the difference!"

The first platoon of Alpha Company began their withdrawal across the mud-slick square. They crawled, ran, and stumbled back through the smoke-shrouded marketplace to the first line of huts that bordered the open area.

They set the huts ablaze with incendiary grenades, threw the last of their 36 * NELSON DEMILLE

smoke canisters, and tossed tear-gas grenades in their wake. They blasted away with M-16s, machine guns, shotguns, grenade launchers, and pistols, expending ammunition at a rate that testified to their desperateness. They fought for each meter through the cluster of bamboo huts, leaving a burning swath through Phu Lai in their efforts to break out of the trap that had severed them from their main body.

The linkup with their company came on a small village lane that ran between a duck pond and a pigsty. The wounded were handed over to the less fatigued troops of the second and third platoons and passed down the line to a concrete pagoda where the four company medics had gathered. The enemy was still firing, but the battle lines had become so obscured that Alpha Company was not drawing effective fire at the moment.

Browder approached, a stocky figure covered with grime, moving nonchalantly along the path. He spoke to Tyson gruffly. "Well, you're out of the neck-deep shit, sonny, but you got me wading in the knee-deep stuff."

"Thanks for coming."

"Yeah. Well, we can either form a perimeter here, dig in and fight it out until they break it off. Or we can make a break now and beat feet across that rice paddy dike we came in on. Any thoughts?"

Tyson rubbed his bleeding ear. "I don't like the smell of this. Too many gooks with too much ammunition, acting too ballsy. I think we hit something bigger than we are. Time to go."

Captain Browder said, "But we've got nonambulatory wounded to drag out, and I've got some KIM.-

Tyson shook his head. "I don't think Charlie's going to break contact and disappear this time. I think if we stay, they mean to finish us off."

Browder considered a moment, then nodded. "Let's pull out before they get a fix on us again.

WORD OF HONOR * 37

Let the artillery and gunships pound the shit out of this asshole of a village."

Browder spoke into his radio and gave the orders for a withdrawal. The Cobra gunships arrived and were surprised to meet heavy-caliber antiaircraft fire. One ship crashed in flames into the village. The artillery began landing in Phu Lai, round after round of incendiary white phosphorus as Browder had called for, and the village began to bum as Alpha Company reached the rice paddy dike that marked the western edge of the village.

They staggered across the sodden paddies, carrying the wounded and a few of the dead, leaving a trail of abandoned equipment. Tyson saw a boot stuck in the mud. The enemy fired after them, but Alpha Company paid little attention. Their sole objective was to distance themselves from the village of Phu Lai.

The gunships and artillery covered their withdrawal, which was in reality a rout. The enemy did not follow them across the exposed paddies but took to their underground bunkers and tunnels to wait out the rain of fire and steel.

Alpha Company regrouped on a high and dry piece of ground dotted with burial mounds: the village cemetery. They picked off the rice paddy leeches and began digging in. Bones were turned up, and they littered the reddish earth as the men dug deeper. Skulls were set on the edges of the foxholes, facing outward, a circle of grinning death's-heads stark white against the upturned earth. Someone dug into a fresh grave, and the stench caused the man to vomit. The grave was quickly closed again.

Casualty lists were prepared by the platoon sergeants. The officers read and tallied them: five known dead, present and accounted for.

Thirty-eight wounded, ten critically. Fifteen were missing, and Browder reported by radio to battalion headquarters that the presumption of death 38 * NELSON DEMILLE

was strong, but this did not save him from a fierce dressing-down for leaving Americans behind.

Under normal circumstances, Tyson thought, both he and Browder would have been relieved of their commands for the Phu Lai fiasco. It was, after all, a defeat, and a defeat equaled a blunder of some sort. But on that particular night of January 30, in the words of Roy Browder, the feces hit the rotary blades, and they were spared the humiliation of being fired. In the general confusion and panic that gripped the battered nation over the following weeks, trivialities such as the Phu Lai fuckup were forgiven and forgotten. After all, said Browder with a wink, everyone from the chiefs of staff to the chief of Army intelligence was a fuckup for not having noticed what was coming.

Browder, when he had a free moment some days later, put himself in for a Silver Star and told Tyson to do the same, though Tyson did not.

Alpha Company spent a restless night among the bones and pungent earth.

A breeze from the South China Sea carried the sounds of explosions from the east, and they could see parachute flares and signal rockets in the vicinity of Hue. A sergeant on his second tour of duty commented,

"That's just Hue celebrating. It's called Tet. The gook New Year. Happy New Year."

But it wasn't Hue celebrating. It was Hue dying.

At dawn the remamder of Alpha Company moved east toward the now besieged city, a journey of six kilometers that would take them nearly two weeks and, for many of them, a lifetime to complete.

"Ben!"

Tyson opened his eyes and focused on Marcy sitting in the club chair across from him, a drink in her hand. He cleared his throat. "Hello."

"Tough day?"

WORD OF HONOR e 39

Tyson sat up. "I've had worse."

Marcy considered him for a moment. Then she said, "David ordered Chinese food."

"I smell it."

"Do you want to eat, or do you want to talk?"

"I want to drink." He held out his glass.

She hesitated, then stood and took it.

"Drambuie. Neat." He picked up the Hue book and slid it across the coffee table between them. She handed him his drink.

. He said, "Have a seat, my love. I have good news and bad news. The good news is that your husband is famous. The bad news is the reason why. Page two-seventeen. "

She took up the book and began reading. She dressed well, and for all her feminism, she favored frilly white blouses and cameo chokers. Her skirt was hot pink and fit tightly, with a slit up the side, She wore her dark brown hair in a short shag that framed a light olive complexion. She looked vaguely Semitic or Mediterranean, though her genetic pool lay in the north of Europe. Her eyes were what people noticed first; those large watery green eyes that were able to flash anger, sensuality, and iciness with equal intensity. Ben Tyson studied his wife as she read. Finally, she sensed his gaze and raised the book.

Tyson shifted his attention to the window. Bluebirds were feeding on the back lawn, and the sun was nearly gone, leaving long purple shadows over the terrace. The room was dark except for the circle of lamplight around Marcy.

"Is this true?"

He turned back toward her. She'd rested the open book in her lap and was staring at him, intently, expectantly.

Everything that came to mind sounded evasive. "As far as it goes, and in substance, yes, it is accurate."

She said nothing for a long time, then asked, "What more is there?"

"Much, much more."

"In your words, Ben. How is this book inaccurate?"

"It's a matter of perspective. It depends on where you were standing."

"Where were you standing?"

40 * NELSON DEMILLE

He ignored the question and said, "Also, after a long time it's hard to distinguish reality from fantasy from nightmare. "

"It says here"- she tapped the open book --it says you and your men massacred sick and wounded people. You shot men, women, children, and babies. Burned people alive. Did that happen?"

Tyson let a few seconds go by, then replied evenly, "It happened. It did happen. But not quite the way Picard says. "

"Then tell me what you remember. What you know."

Tyson considered a moment, then answered, "No."

"Why not?"

"I made a promise never to speak of this."

"Whom did you promise?"

Tyson looked off at some indeterminate point and said distractedly, "We all promised. We swore to each other."

She showed a flash of anger. "That's absurd. I'm your wife. "

Tyson stood and poured himself another liqueur. He turned and looked at her.

Marcy stood and tossed the book on the coffee table. "I think I have a right to know, and I don't really care about some vow you made ... and obviously someone broke that vow. X and Y squealed, didn't they?"

"You weren't there! You were here! Don't ask me to explain to you what happened in that shithole eighteen years ago. Who the hell knows what happened? Who cares-?" Tyson got himself under control and sat back in his chair. "I don't remember what happened."

Marcy drew a deep breath and looked at him closely. "That's not true." She added, "I can remember what happened to me eighteen years ago-"

"You should. It was reported in a national magazine."

"Cheap shot, Ben." She moved to the door as if to leave, then walked to where Tyson was sitting and put her hand on his shoulder.

He took her hand and said, "Just give me some time to sort it out. I'll tell you. But I want to tell you the truth. And that's not possible now."

She didn't reply.

WORD OF HONOR 9 41

Tyson added, "Look, if this book triggers some sort of . . . investigation, then there will be different versions of the truth . . . and it's best if you wait-"

"What do you mean 'an investigation'? Can they . . . bring charges . . . ?"

"According to Phil Sloan they can."

She shook her head, then said, "You went to him? Before you spoke to me?"

"He has a law degree. You don't. He was available. You weren't. The subject was murder, not marital difficulties."

Marcy disengaged her hand from his. "Just tell me this: Did you ... kill anyone? I mean, it doesn't say you killed anyone yourself . . . . ..

He replied, "An officer is responsible for the actions of his men."

"Nonsense! That's so typically macho. Such egotistical military bullshit .

. . Every sane person is responsible for his or her own actions."

He interrupted, "I'll tell you something else: Not only am I responsible for the actions of the men I commanded, but I'm liable for crimes they may have committed. That's the law."

"Idiotic.

"Be that as it may, you have to take into account military law, institutions, custom, and logic. Not your own personal philosophy. "

"All right. I understand that, Ben. Just don't decide to be noble or stupid. If you didn't kill anyone, you're innocent of murder. And you'd better say that, if anything comes of this. "

Tyson didn't reply but walked to the window and threw open the sash. A scented breeze came into the room, and the big sycamore tree rustled in the light wind. Children were playing in the next yard. It was an incredibly beautiful twilight, he thought. One of those evenings whose smells come back to you years later. "What is that? Honeysuckle?"

"I suppose.

"Why can't it always be May?"

"You said you liked the changing seasons."

"Right. But sometimes I like it to be always May."

42 0 NELSON DEMILLE

Marcy stared at his back for some time, then spoke softly. "I'm frightened for you, Ben."

"I'm okay."

"No, you're not. That's the point. I know what's going through your mind: duty, honor, country, God. Or something like that. You've got a martyr streak in you-"

"Do I?-

"You may have survived combat, but you won't survive this. Not unless you-"

Tyson turned and faced her. "That's enough."

"All right. But I'll tell you this: As far as I'm concerned, everything that had to do with that war was criminal. But that's no reason to offer yourself up as the chief criminal, out of some misguided sense of responsibility, guilt or-"

"Enough! I don't need a lecture."

"What do you need from me?"

Tyson leaned back against the windowsill. He thought she would probably be more understanding if he'd come home and announced that he was an embezzler or a dope addict. Or better yet, that he'd machine-gunned a roomful of Republican fund-raisers. But this particular crime touched a raw nerve in her. He said, "I just wanted you to know."

"Thanks. I could have learned more at the supermarket."

He forced a smile, then spoke musingly. "Maybe I'm overreacting ... maybe this will fade away. Probably I shouldn't have even gone to Phil's office."