Word of Honor (77 page)

All Brandt could manage was, "Racist."

Tyson smiled. "I guess. And on the subject of morphine, I don't mind that you gave me more than my share, but I'd like to know what happened to the stuff that was missing.

Brandt qaid almost indistinctly, "Let me go."

"Yet, you were a good medic. You were no hero, but you were no coward, either. You knew your business. Lousy bedside manner, though. Those men who got hit were just meat to you. Just like the woman in the hammock with the electrode up her vagina. You are one of the least human beings I've ever come across. What do you do now? Orthopedic surgeon? Can I make any inferences

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from that? I guess not. That would be too psychoanalytical for me."

Brandt looked directly at Tyson for the first time. He said, "You never liked me from the beginning."

"I guess not."

"And I'll tell you why. Because you didn't like the competition. You liked being the honcho, the big college grad, with all your little adoring peons around you. I was an outsider, another college grad, and I had my own job separate from you and your lunatics. You all made such a thing about being infantrymen-First Cav troopers. What a laugh. If that was an elite unit, I shudder to think about the rest of the divisions."

Tyson looked into Brandt's eyes. "You may be on to something there, Doc."

"You see, I thought about that while I was there. I had a functioning brain, unlike the rest of them. You fancied yourself a knight, a tall handsome chivalrous knight with forty armed warriors at your side. I was the wizard, you see, the healer, whose presence you had to suffer and who reminded you-and your men---of death. And I watched for eleven months as men got chewed up and never said a word. But back in the aid stations and the hospitals, where my people were, they could at least cry together over the carnage. While I was with you, I shut my mouth. You hated me because the men looked up to me. But I wouldn't have competed for the approval of that bunch if they were the last human ' beings--or whatever they were--on the face of the earth."

Tyson nodded. "Doc, I'd be a liar if I said you were all wrong. But that doesn't change what you did or what you were. Or what I did or what I was, for that matter. But I did my duty up until that day. There's no stigma attached to me before February 15."

"You did your duty after you defined it for yourself. There were not many officers who would have reacted like you did to the ... the cordon incident. That was your white knight complex. You liked being morally superior to everyone. I saw you once, by the way, coming out of a whorehouse in An Khe."

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"How did you know it was a whorehouse?"

"Well," said Steven Brandt, "the past is the past, and we shouldn't stand here in the cold and talk about things that happened nearly two decades ago."

"No, and we shouldn't talk about them tomorrow eitheC9

Brandt said nothing.

Tyson said, "We are all flawed, Dr. Brandt."

Brandt said, "I'd like to go."

"In a minute, Doc. I'm still the warrior, and you're not in the best of physical shape, as far as I can see. I want to ask you one question while I have this opportunity. Why didn't you report what happened at Misdricorde Hospital?"

Brandt said, "Don't you know?"

"No. I thought about it. But I never understood why you, who had nothing to do with it, didn't report it."

"Well, then, I'll tell you. When I first realized you were actually going to cover up that massacre, I felt my fingers closing around your balls. And every morning I woke up with a smile, wondering if I should make that the day I gave them a yank. And every day that passed, without you making a report, I knew you were in deeper trouble. The first few days were a little edgy for me, because I thought you would finally come to your senses and beat me to it. I thought perhaps you'd made a secret report, and that we'd be taken into base camp one day for R and R and find ourselves under arrest. But I gambled and waited, and by the end of February, I was going to yank you by your nuts off your high horse. I was going to see you in jail and me back in Saigon spending the rest of my tour of duty with the JAG people at MAC-V headquarters. But then fate stepped in again at the Strawberry Patch." Brandt shrugged and smiled. "So here we are."

Tyson stayed silent a long time, then said, "You could have still reported it and reported me. Men have been served charges in hospital beds before."

"Yes, but after the ... the morphine ... I was a little jumpy. I waited a week to see if we got a communication about your death. Then we got word that you were being sent to Japan and wouldn't be back. I thought about it.

I decided that you were bright enough to figure out what I'd done to you and bright enough to know you didn't have a

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shred of evidence. So I considered us even. Or even enough for the time being." He stared at Tyson a very long time, then said, "I came from a good family, like you did, and I was always told I was special, like you were. I developed a big ego, like yours. So, to have you throw me in a leechinfested rice paddy and humiliate me in front of all those people, then have to face them and you every day. . . . and you wonder why I answered that locator ad?

You find it hard to believe anyone can hate so charming a man as Ben Tyson.

I assure you, I hate you." Brandt's eyes met Tyson's. "I still have nightmares about those leeches. I wake up sometimes feeling them pulsating against my skin."

"Do you? I'd recommend my shrink, but he killed himself. "

Brandt said, "Can I go now?"

Tyson nodded. "Sure, Doc. But you have to remember one thing. Payback.

Tomorrow won't end this."

"Well, it might for ten to twenty years. Good night." He took a tentative step, saw Tyson wasn't going to stop him, and hurried off.

Tyson continued on his way without looking back.

M "Steven Brandt," said Colonel Pierce, "you swear that the evi-CHAPTER dence you shall give in

the case now in hearing shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God."

"I do."

"Could you state

your residence and oc

46 cupation?"

"I live in Boston, Massachusetts, and I am a medical doctor. "

"Could you state your former grade, organization, and duties while you were a member of the armed forces serving in Vietnam?"

"Yes, I was a specialist four, with the Fifteenth Medical Battalion, and I served as a combat medic with Alpha Company, Fifth Battalion of the Seventh Cavalry, First Air Cavalry Division. "

Tyson looked at Brandt as the preliminary questions con-600

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tinued. Brandt was dressed in the expensive bad taste that seemed to be common in the medical profession. He wondered if they all bought their clothes from an AMA catalog.

Tyson looked into the first pew and made eye contact with Marcy, who smiled somewhat enigmatically, he thought. They had been strange to each other for some weeks now, but there had been no open arguments. He had taken Corva's advice and put the marriage on hold while the trial was on fast forward.

As he scanned the pews, he observed that everyone who had come for act one had returned for act two. The weather was still nice, too, and that always brought people out, he thought.

Brandt's testimony began to move to more specific, though still peripheral, matters. Tyson turned his attention to the board. The combat veterans-Colonel Moore, Lieutenant Colonel McGregor, and Major Bauer-looked more relaxed with Brandt's testimony than with Farley's going on about gooks and human minesweepers and soldiers who took what they wanted. Of course, Brandt was saying similar things, but his choice of words was better.

Tyson looked again at Pierce and Brandt and listened. Pierce was proceeding very slowly, very logically, and very cautiously, unlike he'd proceeded with Farley. Brandt was articulate and answered the questions well, as though he were used to this sort of thing, and Tyson suspected he'd probably been involved in some way in civil cases of compensation claims or medical malpractice. Tyson glanced at Corva, who was scribbling notes as he listened to Brandt and Pierce sing their duet. Corva hadn't objected to anything so far, and there was little to object to, except that Pierce was referring to Brandt as "Doctor" in violation of a pretrial agreement. But Tyson thought Corva was smart not to draw attention to the point.

Pierce said, "How far were you from the burial mound, Doctor?"

"About two hundred meters."

"And you saw these people taking off their clothes?"

"Yes."

"Did you observe any actions on the part of Lieutenant Tyson, Farley, Simcox, or Kelly that you would construe

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as threatening gestures toward these approximately ten civilians?"

"Yes, though I couldn't say with certainty who made the gestures. But there was some pushing of the civilians, rifles were pointed at them. And I saw one of the soldiers kick mud at them."

Tyson glanced out over the pews again. The spectators were attentive, but it was not the rapt attention that Farley's testimony had engendered.

Farley had laid the rough groundwork, now Pierce and Brandt were building on it, block by block, mortar and brick, until an unshakable structure would stand for Corva to try to take apart.

Pierce asked, "Were you often called on to assist in these strip searches of civilians?"

"Always. It was general policy. This type of search could only be done under the direction of an officer or senior NCO. They were to be conducted with as much tact as the situation allowed. It was my duty to perform the intrusion aspect of the search."

"What is the intrusion aspect?"

"The intrusion into the anus and vagina. Enemy documents were sometimes rolled into an aluminum tube and transported in that manner."

"Based on past experience, do you believe that what you observed was a necessary or legitimate search?"

"I don't think so. It seemed to me to be nothing more than . . . how shall I put this ... ? A quasi-sexual event."

Corva and Tyson simultaneously looked at each other. Corva said, "This guy has more balls than a bull."

Pierce glanced sharply at the defense table, then said, "I'd like to ask you now your opinion of the desecration of the dead bodies of the enemy soldiers who were wrapped for burial."

Corva stood. "Your honor, the defense objects."

Colonel Sproule turned toward Corva with the look of a man who was rudely interrupted while listening to something interesting. "What is the nature of your objection?"

"Your honor, the defense fully understands that the prosecution is attempting to show a link between the alleged events at the burial mound and the alleged events later in the day. We have not objected to some of this testimony,

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but I think it has gone on long enough. It is, in fact, taking on a prurient aspect which might hold some interest to some people, but has little relevance to the case at hand."

Sproule thought about this a moment, then said to Pierce, "Colonel, we've spent nearly an hour at that burial mound listening to the testimony of a witness who was two hundred meters from the scene. Now, I will allow you to go on, but I expect, as I told you in an earlier session, that what you present has some relevance to the charges you have sworn to. Objection overruled. "

Pierce nodded as though Colonel Sproule had made an interesting point, then turned around and continued the questioning of Brandt on the desecration of the bodies of the enemy soldiers.

In excruciating detail, the first platoon of Alpha Company continued its patrol toward the village of An Ninh Ha and Mis6ricorde Hospital. Tyson's own recollections of that rainy day coincided with Brandt's, and he was surprised at how good a memory Brandt had. And when Brandt didn't remember, he said so.

Pierce said to Brandt, "Doctor, the events that I am about to question you on concern your platoon's approach to this hospital. These events are discussed at some length in a book titled Hue: Death of a City, by the author Andrew Picard. Did you, in fact, supply any information for that book?"

"Yes, I did."

"Have you read the book?"

"Yes, I did."

"Generally speaking, how much of Mr. Picard's reporting was based on information that you gave him?"

"A good portion of his written account was based on my oral account to him, though I saw details and facts that I could not have given him."

"Such as?"

"The names of some of the hospital staff. He told me that he had interviewed a survivor of the incident-a nun named Sister Teresa, whom he later credited in the book. "

Pierce pursued the provenance of the story for a while, then asked, "As the platoon medic, what was your usual physical location in the platoon formation?"

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"Normally, on patrol, I traveled with what we called the platoon command group. This would consist of the platoon leader, one or two radio operators, and the medic. When the platoon halted for the night, the platoon sergeant would join us in the center of the defensive perimeter and form the command post."

"So you were usually close to the platoon leader, Lieutenant Tyson, day and night?"

"Yes. I I

"You knew him well?"

"As well as you can know a man you spend ten months with, night and day.

There was, of course, a barrier to any real intimacy due to the fact that he was an officer and I an enlisted man. But we did at times confide in each other."

"How would you describe your relationship with him?"

Brandt turned and looked at Tyson. He gave Tyson a smile that Tyson and anyone who saw it would think idiotic.

Brandt turned back to Pierce and said, "There were differences between us, but we generally respected each other. He often praised my work."

"Did you often praise his?"

Brandt smiled again. "I was sometimes impressed with his ability to lead.

He seemed a natural leader. I may have praised him on occasion."