Shadows of War

The eyes moved, and he saw they were part of a small face — the girl he’d seen earlier.

Josh put up his hand but she darted off to the right, moving quickly away.

Worried that she might tell someone about him, he started in her direction. But after a few steps he realized he’d never catch her.

Josh went back along the road, skirting the area where the men were clearing the fields. A fire had been started to burn some of the brush. A pair of soldiers, rifles under their arms, patrolled along the road.

There were wide spaces between the trees, and Josh had little trouble weaving his way south, keeping a good distance from the road. There was a lot of traffic on it; big trucks or tanks kept rolling past every few minutes.

About an hour after leaving the village, Josh sat down to rest on a downed tree trunk. He leaned his head forward, chin supported by his hands and arms, which in turn were propped on his thighs. He stared at the ground, his mind taking a temporary respite.

Something moved just out of his range of sight. It rustled through the brush, moving slowly. It was quiet, somewhat softer than the chain saws and earthmoving equipment two or three kilometers away.

It sounded like an animal, a Vietnamese deer maybe.

Food.

He’d make a fire. That wasn’t a problem: he still had the matches he’d found the other day, and a lighter. There was plenty of wood.

He got up slowly, barely daring to breathe, and brought his rifle up.

Josh waited. His nose began to twitch — he felt a sneeze coming on. He reached his hand up, squeezing the nostrils to stifle it.

His prey was only a few feet away. Josh steadied the gun with his right hand, waiting.

Brown fur appeared, then gray. He pitched the rifle down to aim, letting go of his nose.

Not fur — hair. A person.

A girl.

The girl he’d seen earlier.

She turned and saw him. Shock was in her face, surprise.

Fear.

Then he sneezed.

The girl bolted and ran into the woods at her right.

He’d never seen anything so frightened. That must have been the way he’d looked when the police found him those many years ago. Maybe it was even the way he looked now.

“Hey,” he said in a stage whisper, not daring to talk much louder even though he was a good distance from the road. “It’s okay. Xin chao. Hello. Xin l?i. Sorry.”

It was the most polite, nonthreatening thing he knew how to say in Vietnamese, though given his extremely limited vocabulary, there wasn’t much of a choice. But the little girl either did not hear him or wasn’t persuaded. She continued to run.

Josh followed her for a short distance, but quickly realized it was hopeless. Even if she didn’t know the jungle here, she would be pretty good at hiding, and was unlikely to make the mistake of dropping her guard again.

“I wasn’t going to hurt you,” he said softly, hitching his pants and walking again.

8

Northern Vietnam

It turned, out to be ridiculously easy for Mara to find a truck; it even came filled with gasoline.

It did belong to the Vietnamese army, but that could be considered a plus — civilian-style vehicles were more likely to draw attention from the soldiers she was bound to meet on the way.

The truck, along with two others, was sitting at a curb near an intersection a mile from Mara’s Hanoi hotel. The building next to the curb was on fire.

It was far from the only one. City officials, after some confusion, were shepherding their limited resources to protect the government areas. It was likely that the soldiers who had parked the trucks here had done so thinking they’d be safe, but the shifting winds had been spreading the fires throughout the morning and early afternoon.

Mara pulled her motorcycle over, hopped into the truck, and pressed the starter. The engine cranked to life.

She didn’t want to give up the motorcycle, so she pulled forward a few feet, then got back out and wheeled the bike around to the back. Jumping up on the tailgate of the truck to lower it, she saw that she had an audience — two young teenage boys were standing across the street, watching her.

“Help me,” she told them in Vietnamese. She motioned to the bike, then switched to French. “I need to get the truck — we have to take the truck from the flames. Do you understand? Fire.”

The young men looked at each other. Neither one moved to help her — but they didn’t try to stop her either, which was her real concern. Mara jumped back down and grabbed the bike. It was heavier than she’d thought. She could barely get it off the ground; there was no way she could lift it high enough to get into the truck.

She put it back down, took a breath, then decided to try again. As she strained, the two teenagers came over and helped.

“Can you drive?” she asked them, switching to English. “The trucks — we have to get them down the road to the police.”

The teens shook their head. She repeated it in Vietnamese.

“Di th?ng. Go straight,” she told them, pretending she thought they had understood. Mara slammed the tailgate shut, then waved at them to take the other trucks. “We’re going to the police. I can talk to you there.”

Mara didn’t bother looking back as she got in. Most likely, she thought, she hadn’t fooled them. But the soldiers would be looking for their truck soon anyway.

She ran her hand through her hair as she drove through Hanoi, pushing it back on her head. She really needed a uniform, but it didn’t appear that the truck’s rightful owners had left one.

A few minutes later she came to a roadblock. Several bicyclists were stopped while soldiers went through their papers.

There was no place to turn around. Mara considered jumping and running, then noticed a church steeple and got an idea.

Rolling down the window, she climbed halfway out the cab and leaned on the horn.

“I need to get to the bridge!” she shouted, first in English, then in French, and finally in Vietnamese. “We have to get soldiers to the hospital! Men are dying.”

The bicyclists turned and stared. The two soldiers looked over at her as if she were crazy.

Which was not the worst assessment they could make.

“We need to move. The bridge!” she repeated.

One of the soldiers strutted over. Mara began explaining that she was a nun — she reached beneath her shirt and pulled out her cross, holding it up as evidence.

The majority of Vietnamese, especially those in the north, were not Catholics, but the Catholic orders had a long history of charity and relief work, and nuns were generally viewed favorably. Elsewhere, Mara might not have looked very nunnish, but the paucity of Westerners in the region helped her cover story.

Her cross was small, but her manner was emphatic, and after a few minutes of being harangued, the soldier decided to pass the buck to his companion. He pointed at the other soldier and told her to talk to him.

Mara, naturally, completely misinterpreted this as an okay to proceed — and made sure the other soldier did as well, smiling and waving at him as she drove past.

“Sister Jean, pray for my soul,” said Mara, offering up both prayer and apology to one of her old teachers as