down, listening to someone.
Moon pushed past her. A small young man was sitting on the floor in the bathroom closet, matted black hair, the side of his face black with clotted blood, holding a grenade launcher pointed at Osa.
He shifted it to point at Moon.
“Hello,” Moon said. Not Vietcong, he thought, or he wouldn’t be hiding here. An ARVN deserter. He might understand some English. Would he understand the grenade launcher? if he shot it in here, they were all dead. Moon bent forward, reached his hand back, felt his palm press against Osa’s bare stomach, pushed hard, was aware she was falling out through the doorway, heard her body hit the floor.
“You’re hurt,” he said to the man.
“You are an America,” the man said. lie said it very slowly, mouthing each word carefully, not sure of his English. He grinned at Moon a pained grin, carefully put the grenade launcher on the closet floor, leaned against the doorjamb, and coughed.
Through his open shirt, Moon saw more dried blood, part of a tattoo, and dark bruises.
“There’ll be a first aid kit around here somewhere,” Moon said. “What happened to you?”
“Yes,” the man said, and something else which Moon didn’t understand.
Moon picked up the grenade launcher. The same model, he noticed, that they’d trained with at Fort Riley. He leaned it in the corner of the closet.
“Can you stand?”
The man looked puzzled. “Stand?”
Moon helped him up, helped him into the bedroom, helped him sit on the rumpled bed. Mr. Lee was standing in the bedroom door. Osa reappeared beside him, still barefoot but wearing her khaki pants now and a bra, with her shirt over her shoulders.
“Thank you,” she said to Moon, looking slightly embarrassed. “I guess neither of us have any secrets now.”
“No,” Moon said.
She smiled at him. “But you didn’t have to push me so hard.” She went into the bathroom, turned off the shower, and came out with a wet towel.
“First we need to clean off the cut places,” she said to the man. “Mr. Mathias here will go and find the medical box, and then we will see what we can do for you.”
He found four of the kits the U.S. Army issues to its aid men in the kitchen cabinet over the sink. Mr. Lee was standing behind him, looking pleased.
“I think we may have some help now, finding a boat,” Mr. Lee said. “Our man is one of the Sealord sailors.”
“I thought a soldier,” Moon said. “He was carrying a grenade launcher.”
“Did you notice the tattoo on his chest?” Mr. Lee asked. “It said sat cong. That was the slogan of the river sailors of the Republic’s navy from the very first. So I think he’s one of the men from the base down the river.”
“Sat Cong,” Moon said. “Means what?”
“It means Kill Communists,” Mr. Lee said. “I think that VC officer with his ear cut off would like to capture this one.”
WASHINGTON, April 28 (UPI)-President Ford today ordered the emergency evacuation of all Americans remaining in Vietnam. The plan called for picking them up at assembly points in helicopters and flying them to carriers lying off the coast.
Afternoon, the Nineteenth Day
IF OSA VAN WINJGAARDEN’S DIAGNOSIS was correct, Nguyen Nung had suffered two cracked ribs, concussion, multiple wounds caused by some sort of shrapnel on his face, neck, chest, and scalp, plus assorted bruises and abrasions.
By Lum Lee’s analysis, based on cross-examining Nguyen Nung before the shot of morphine from a U.S. Army aid kit took effect, these damages had been caused when a Vietcong rocket hit the superstructure of the LST where his PBR was based just as Nung was scrambling up a ladder. He remembered being hit by something and flung from the ladder to the deck. The next thing he remembered was awakening in a PBR somewhere out on the river and being aware that they were being shot at.
The last time he revived, he’d found himself on the bottom of the boat, with the legs of a dead man across his own. He had extracted himself to find that the PBR had been run aground on the bank of a very narrow, very shallow creek. He had walked. He had come to the warehouse compound about dawn, found the gate unlocked, and entered. When he heard voices, he’d hidden himself in the closet. Could he find the boat again? Of course. How far was it? Nung was too hazy from the morphine by now to answer that coherently.
Osa picked bits and pieces of debris from various wounds, washed everything with soapy water, applied copious amounts of antiseptic, and swathed his face and neck in U.S. Government Issue bandages. Finally, with Moon holding the groggy Nung erect, Osa wrapped his chest in strips torn from a bedsheet.
“We let him down now,” she said, glanced up at Moon, and instantly looked away.
“I shouldn’t have screamed like that,” she said. “I am embarrassed.”
“I would have screamed a lot louder,” Moon said. “You open a door and see a guy pointing a grenade launcher at you. I might have fainted.”
They lowered Nung gently to the bed and were rewarded with a grimace, followed by a dopey smile. Nung said something that sounded to Moon like “tenk,” closed his eyes, and surrendered to the morphine.
Osa, leaning over him, closed a long gash on his cheek with the careful application of an adhesive bandage. She stood straight, stretched her back, shook herself.
“We should leave him to sleep a little,” she said. “I will go now and take that shower.” She laughed. “This time I look in the closet first.”
“Good idea. Nothing to do now but wait until we find out if our friend here can help us.”
“That tattoo on his chest,” she said. “You saw it?”
“Mr. Lee said it means Kill Communists.”
“That’s what I thought,” Osa said. “Poor man. What does he do now?”
Moon hadn’t given that much thought. He watched her close the bathroom door behind her and went back into the office. Through the doorway he saw Mr. Lee prowling the warehouse, checking bales and sacks. He had no desire to talk to Mr. Lee at the moment. What could they say? That they were lucky in connecting with this sailor? Probably it was great good luck. Now there seemed to be some chance, at least. He stood at Ricky’s window looking out at the armored personnel carrier parked by the hanger. An M-1 13, the same model they’d used in training at Fort Riley. The ARVN soldiers had left the hatches open, which meant it would be wet inside. Halsey had done that once, leaving Lieutenant Rasko’s bedroll to serve as a blotter, soaking up the rainwater from the metal floor.
Moon smiled, remembering how Halsey had talked his way out of that one. What would Halsey suggest to get out of this situation? He’d say something like
“Why not?” Halsey would say. “Maybe they can kill you but they can’t eat you.” He’d say, “Not my type, Gene.” And Halsey, who enjoyed the role of philosopher, would say, “Like hell they’re not. Unlike myself, a pragmatist happy with the attainable, you are a victim of divine discontent. You yearn for the perfect. But you ain’t got no
