The Last Bridge

Chapter Fifteen 0655 Hours

Captain Eddie Kreizler’s face was a bitter mask. The narrow cell was crowded and smelled of many things. It had a small population of rats that had to be driven back into their holes periodically. The darkness was almost complete; there was only the small slot-shaped hole in the door. If a man listened above the snores and groans of other prisoners, the growling of their bellies, and the occasional exhausted whispers, he could hear a sound or two that came from outside and gave reassurance that the world still turned: the drip of rain on the roof, an occasional tramping of boots across the compound, now and then the rumble of a motor vehicle.

The others were North Vietnamese political prisoners, crowded in like corpses. A young man kept talking nervously to Kreizler until Kreizler spoke rudely to him. The young man spat on him. “Dey kok me-ey,” he said — “American imperialist.” The young man’s teeth were black from chewing betel nuts. He climbed over several prisoners, stepped on a rat and squashed its head, and hunkered down in a far corner.

Offensive smells assaulted Kreizler’s nose, and he wondered what the PANVN interrogators had done to his executive officer, Lieutenant Chinh. He rubbed his aching jaw. The North Vietnamese captain had bruised him painfully, prying his mouth open and extracting the cyanide pill before Kreizler had got a chance to work it out and swallow it.

Eddie Kreizler thought, They won’t get a thing out of me.

He was thick-chested, long-legged. A small premature bald spot showed at his scalp lock. He had shrewd eyes and a square, amiable face, very wide across the cheeks and forehead. His nose was hooked; his mouth was made for easy smiling.

When the PANVN soldiers brought Lieutenant Chinh back to the cell, Kreizler focused his full attention on the South Vietnamese officer. They opened the door and pushed Chinh inside and slammed the door; made of metal, it clanged like a Chinese gong. Lieutenant Chinh sprawled across a prone man too starved and sick to move away. Chinh picked himself up and stood there, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the gloom. He did not seem badly hurt. They had bandaged his wounded arm. Kreizler’s solemn features lost their weariness, and he watched with great care, trying to catch some hint of expression on Chinh’s cheeks.

Chinh threaded a path forward. No one moved aside; a hoarse voice cursed him. He sat down beside Kreizler and did not speak; his unrevealing eyes looked at nothing in particular.

Kreizler said, “What did you tell them?”

“Nothing.”

Lieutenant Chinh had a narrow, handsome face and a thin body, lithe and wiry. A trimmed mustache graced his upper lip. He held up his hands, and even in the false light Kreizler could see matted blood over the knuckles and cuticles. The fingertips were already beginning to swell over the nails. Chinh put his hands down with care and smiled with his teeth. “I tell them nothing.”

“You will.”

“No. Nothing.”

Kreizler said, “They’ll take me out and soften me up, and then they’ll throw me back in here to think about it while they take you out again. Next time they’ll go to work on your feet and maybe stick a red-hot iron up your ass. Then they’ll toss you in here again and let me look at you and stew for a while. They’ll take me out again and give me the same treatment. They’ll have us working on each other.”

Chinh’s glance came up. “What do they want?”

“They want to know what I know.”

“What do you know, Captain?”

“A few things I don’t want them to know.”

“You can lie to them?”

“Not for very long. They know how to bust a man up.”

“And you do not trust me. You think I will talk.”

“Sure you will,” Eddie Kreizler said.

Chinh’s proud eyes flashed. “Not before you.”

“Maybe. But today or tomorrow you’ll tell them anything they want to hear.”

“No. I tell nothing.”

“Sure you will,” Kreizler said again. “And so will I. I told you, Lieutenant. They know how.”

“Drugs?”

“Anything that’ll work. They’re adaptable.”

He gave Chinh time to think about that. Then he said, “You never know where loyalty ends and cowardice begins. Every man has a limit.”

After a while Chinh asked, “What must we do?”

Kreizler said, “If you can’t raise the bridge, you lower the river.”

“What?”

“They’re not getting any information out of me.”

“Then what you do?”

“When the guards come to take me out for interrogation, we jump their leader.”

“But they will shoot us. If we try that, they will kill us.” Kreizler only watched him calmly. Chinh said, “They kill us.”

“I know.”