“Every time I go out. Wouldn’t be normal if you didn’t. No one wants to say it, but husband, father… none of that stuff is important in the war. Otherwise, why are we here?”
“We’ll take the next plane out. You said yourself you’ve been here too long.”
Darrow nodded his head and stubbed out his cigarette. “We might,” he said, then softened it. “We could. Soon.”
ELEVEN. Bao Chi
Journalist
On the morning Helen was to go out on patrol with Olsen, she woke and packed, ready for Linh to pick her up at three-thirty in the morning. She opened the door to a soft knock.
“I have a problem,” Linh said, standing there. “Family. Sister-in-law, her baby has croup. She is new to Saigon. I must help her find a doctor.” He had never talked of family before, and she was surprised.
“Sure. Can I help?”
“No. Can you go without me?”
“Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”
Darrow struggled out of bed in the darkness behind her. “What’s wrong?”
Helen picked up her camera bags. “Linh can’t go.”
Darrow rubbed his eyes and put on his glasses. “Come with me instead to My Tho this afternoon.”
“I promised to cover this. Besides, I’ll be with my old buddies, Captain Olsen’s unit. I haven’t seen him since the Captain Tong pictures.” She felt confident that she could handle herself and also a small excitement proving she could go it alone. Now that it had been decided that they would leave soon, these final missions took on a feeling of nostalgia.
Darrow frowned and looked at Linh. “You sure you can’t go with her?”
“I’m fine.” She resented his treating her like she wasn’t competent enough to go alone and now was more determined than ever. Besides, giving him some of his own medicine might make things move faster to leaving.
After Linh left, Darrow sat in the bed and watched her pack the additional equipment she would have to carry alone. “Don’t go,” he said.
“You’re being silly.”
“For me.” He hadn’t intended it, but now it was a kind of test.
A test she wouldn’t take. “Remember asking why the people supposed to love us the most are the ones who try to stop us doing what we love?”
He had met his match and didn’t much care for it.
Problems plagued the assignment immediately. At Bien Hoa, one helicopter after another was diverted or canceled so that she didn’t make it to the small village where Captain Olsen’s unit was stationed until late afternoon.
The village hugged the edge of the jungle; it had been evacuated and bombed the month before. Nothing remained but piles of rubble and stone, a few freestanding walls pocked with bullet holes. From the first soldier she encountered, she heard more bad news-Captain Olsen had a recurrence of malaria and had been evacuated five days before. No one had bothered to inform her. His replacement, Captain Horner, fresh out of officer’s training, had been in-country only two weeks.
Samuels came around the corner of a wall. “I heard chow and our good-luck charm had arrived. Need any leeches burned off those pretty ankles?”
Helen hugged him, glad to see a friendly face. “How’s it going?”
Samuels wagged his head toward the soldier standing next to her. “He fill you in? Hornblower. Already lost three men since he’s been here. An idiot.”
Helen tried to ignore the shiver climbing up her back. The first chink in her confidence. Her smile filled with doubt. Should she have listened to Darrow?
“We’ll be lucky if he doesn’t get us all killed. Bastard. Think about turning around and catching that ride out. Come back when Olsen’s here.”
“Then you won’t have anyone to complain to.” She wished it hadn’t been Samuels in front of her; otherwise, she might have jumped back on the helicopter.
“Be careful is all I’m saying. Work us some magic like you did last time.”
“I could do with some myself.”
A patrol was coming in along a path, and at its middle was a scraggly, lanklimbed man who towered over the others, sweating profusely and swearing.
“That,” Samuels said, putting his arm around her, “is our leader.”
The captain walked straight up to Helen as if she were one more obstacle to be overcome before the long day was accomplished.
“Meet my girlfriend, Captain,” Samuels said.
Horner had a long, thin neck with a prominent Adam’s apple that jerked as he swallowed. “I guess you’re the reporter I’m supposed to allow.”
Helen slapped Samuels’s arm off. “That’s right.”
“They just told me Adams.”
“Not a very complete description.” She already felt weary of the coming fight.
He puckered his face as if he had bitten something sour. “I guess they really do start you at the bottom. Second-rate soldiers and women reporters.”
Helen was too distracted by what Samuels had said to take full offense. Everything told her that she had made a mistake not turning around and leaving.
“You’ll have to keep up on your own. And no fraternizing with the men.”
“Who am I supposed to talk to, then?”
“You’re a photographer. Why d’you need to talk?” He turned his face slightly to spit, then walked away.
“Told you,” Samuels said. “A charmer. You still have time to leave.”
Helen dropped her pack. “It’ll torture him more if I stay.”
That night, Horner ordered plastic ponchos strung in a triangle against the crumbling wall so that Helen was “protected” from the rest of the soldiers. She lay down in the darkness, wearing full uniform and boots. Stars pulsed overhead like the small spots of fire she remembered from bonfires on summer nights along the beach back home. After the hamlet, the night sounds-screech of birds deep in the jungle and hum of insects-felt familiar and soothing. The two sides were not fighting the same war. For the Vietnamese, everything was known, was home, even if they came from the north. For the Americans, even the sounds before going to sleep were strange and menacing.
The thought nagged at her that she had missed an opportunity with Darrow, insisting on going alone. But he took it for granted that she would give up anything for him. Unlike him, she hadn’t been in Vietnam too long; she had barely started.
The plastic liner squeaked, and a man rolled in underneath it. “Shhh!”
Helen squinted, unable to make out a face but recognizing the voice. “Samuels, get out.”
“A little Laos heaven? Or how ’bout a sip of dago red?”
“No thanks.” A rotten smell came from him; they had been out for days, while she had showered that morning.
“Talk to me. Tell me about the big lovely world.”
“If Hornblower finds you here, he’ll can me.”
“He’s snoring away. And I have a lookout.”
“Not a good idea.” She was indulging him like a child, but it was too dangerous.
“So good to see you again… you have no idea. Just to touch something soft.” He reached out
