The Last Bridge

Chapter Two 1945 Hours

Slashing knives of rain cut through the young Vietnamese’s thin fatigue shirt, drenching his flesh. A tangled knot of soaked hair hung down across his eyes, and he lacked the energy to push it away. He moved like a mechanism, listening to water spurt in his combat boots; he trod the street slowly with his head bent so that he did not see the glisten of lighted windows, except in their reflection on dappled pools among the cobblestones. A jeep emerged from the night and whipped past, flinging up a sudden cloud of water that struck him a blow and fell away; the jeep’s red taillight turned a corner and then he was again alone on the street. Squat, dark buildings made an obscure gorge of the Rue Catinat; the whorehouses down the street were closed except for their lonely beacon lights. Soon it would be curfew: pedestrians appeared now and then, hurrying on last-minute errands. With the peculiar dryness of watersoaked cotton, his socks rubbed his feet uncomfortably.

With nothing at all in mind, he stepped into the alcove of a shop doorway and stood in temporary protection from the warm, steamy rain. A light across the street flickered dimly in reflection on the glass show windows of the clothing shop. His eyes lifted to the uncertain reflected blankness of his own face, half obscured by a clothes dummy in a black ao-dai beyond the window. The dummy stared back at him, unruffled. Its face was as gray as the rain.

He took little notice of his own face in the glass. It was young, square, tough, weary. His dark hair was matted; his face jutted at cheekbones and jaw, wide across the eyes, thick at the neck. He wore sergeant’s stripes on his sleeves.

He inspected the luminous dial of his watch and stared again at the quietly pattering gray rain. He heard the grumble of a vehicle traveling a nearby street. Saigon was quiet: dimly in the distance he could hear the crump-crump of artillery fire from the offensive to the west.

A cyclo-pousse came in sight; the bicycle-driven rickshaw went by, moving silently and without lights. For a moment his attention was absorbed by sight of the squat driver’s pajama-like shirt, rain-pasted to the man’s back.

A jet fanned overhead. By the placement of its lights he made it out to be a Caravelle, and that seemed odd, for Air Vietnam did not ordinarily fly after dark; perhaps it was a high government official or a diplomatic mission.

He went back into the rain, ducking his head, ramming his hands into his pockets. He crossed the central market plaza, threading a thick crowd of refugees and shoppers; he went down a narrower street, passing a wall on his right crowned with bougainvillaea. Even through the oppressive rain he could scent the heavy fragrance of jasmine trees. He had another look at his watch and walked rapidly through an alley, emerging on a wide, tree-overhung boulevard.

Water dribbled down a rainspout and flowed in a rivulet across his path. He stepped over it and went on. From a window above his head a cigarette arced outward, glowed with a red button-tip for an instant and sizzled, and dropped lifeless past his face. The window slammed shut.

He turned the corner, glanced up at the street sign, and blinked when a raindrop touched his eye. His face dropped, turned, regarded the building fronts ahead of him. He counted doors and presently turned into a stone building that was gritty even in the downpour.

A yellow fifteen-watt bulb hung from the cracked plaster ceiling. The frayed carpet led forward to the foot of a narrow stair. When he put his weight on them, the steps creaked. Paint, once yellow, was worn off the centers of the wooden stairs. He went up two flights, came around the head of the stair, and saw a door standing open midway down the hall. A drooping hulk of a man stood in shirt-sleeves in that doorway; the man said, “Nguyen Khang?”

“That’s right.” Sergeant Khang spoke English readily, with a comfortable accent.

“I’m Captain Saville.” The big man stepped back out of sight. Nguyen Khang ran fingers through his drenched hair, shook water from his fingertips, and walked forward to the door. The shirt clung to his wide back and thick round biceps. He put his hand on the edge of the door and swung it shut behind him.

The room was narrow and gloomy. It had a few chairs and a scarred table, and a door standing half open, leading into darkness. Rain pebbled the window.

Sergeant Khang brought his attention back to the host. Black hairy arms hung from Captain Saville’s rolled-up sleeves; his biceps and torso were corded with knotty muscle. His bootlaces were untied. He was half bald, and in his hand he held an open bottle of Vietnamese beer. The beer hung strong in Khang’s nostrils.

Saville said, “Drink?”

“I could use something to eat,” Khang said, and added, “sir.”

“Sure,” Saville murmured. “Take a hot shower and put on my robe in there. It’s dry.”

Sergeant Khang stood with his feet planted wearily. “Maybe we ought to get to business first.”

“You’re in no condition to listen. Go on.”

“All right. Thanks.” Khang spoke with a weary twang. He crossed the room, reached through the door to find a pushbutton light switch, and went in. The kitchen, cramped and disorderly, lay ahead of him, and to his right was a narrow door into a bathroom.

He had his shower and found a comb for his hair. A long crack ran diagonally down the mirror, distorting his face. He slid into the Captain’s overflowing terry-cloth house robe and padded out to the kitchen. Sizzling cracks retorted from the stove, where Saville stood pushing bacon and potatoes around in a frying pan with a fork. Beaded sweat glittered on Saville’s brown forehead. He pointed to a wooden chair.

Khang sat, alerted by the strong, greasy scent of food in the close air. Saville turned off the burner and scraped the food into a plate, which he handed to Khang. The Sergeant ate from his lap. “You live here, Captain?”

“No. We just use the place now and then. It’s less public than the base.” Saville put his shoulder against the doorjamb and folded his huge arms. His eyes were half closed. “You’re still bushed.”

“I guess I am,” Sergeant Khang said. “We were marching three days and nights. I just got back day before yesterday. Been sleeping most of the time since.”

“I know,” Saville said. A little smile moved across his fleshy face. “This the first food you’ve had today?”

“Yes.”

Saville’s huge body moved. He opened a cabinet and brought out a ragged half-loaf of hard, crusty bread. He handed it to Nguyen Khang without comment, picked up his beer, and resumed his post, leaning against the door. “We’re waiting for another fellow. Sergeant Sun. Know him?”

“What’s his first name?”

“Nhu Van Sun.”

“I don’t think so. What does he do?”

“A little of everything. Like all of us. Sniper, bush tracker, judo and karate. Good with booby traps.”

“Then what do you need me for?”

“You know the country up there,” Saville said.

Khang’s lips, upturned in a courteous smile, went flat and lifeless. “Up where, Captain?”

“North of the seventeenth parallel.”

The Sergeant set his plate down and stood up. “Wait a minute, Captain. You can’t ask me to go back up there. That’s like cutting my throat with a dull knife. They want me up there — they want me real bad.”

“I know,” Saville said. “I thought you had backbone, though.”

“Funny thing about backbone, Captain — one end’s got your neck on it, sticking way out.”

“And the other end?” Saville murmured drily. “Look, Sergeant, we’re not just playing king-of-the-hill. You don’t call the game on account of rain. We need you.”

“I’m no use to you dead,” Khang said. “You know what they’ll do to me if they get their hands on me, Captain?”

“The same thing they’ll do to the rest of us, I imagine,” Saville said imperturbably.

Khang had no immediate answer. His eyes flicked casually across Saville’s face and then shot back to it; he said abruptly, “If I don’t volunteer, it proves all Vietnamese are cowards. That’s what you’re thinking.”

“Wrong. You’re not a coward.” Saville was a big-nosed brute, but his eyes were kind. He added gently, “But you can’t expect to fight just when you feel like it.”

The smell of the fried bacon continued to whirl in streaky currents around Khang. Saville said, “You don’t have to volunteer.”

“I am just a dumb slant-eye, Captain, but they taught me that much at Fort Bragg. Another thing they taught me was never to volunteer.”

Saville’s talk rubbed the air with deceptive deep-pitched mildness: “High command is in a hell of a flap, Sergeant. You’re not indispensable. Nobody is. We can do the job without you. But we can do it better and easier with you. You know the country — and that could save our skins. I won’t say that all our lives will depend on you. But it could come to that.”

Khang was still on his feet. He put his thumbs in the pockets of the robe. “What’s the mission, Captain?”

“The rail bridge on the Sang Chu River.”

A long sigh escaped Khang’s chest. “You’re not just fooling around, are you?”

“One team has already tried for it. They were cut to pieces about three hours ago.” Saville’s eyes were the color of rusty iron. “That’s right in the middle of the country where you used to live, Sergeant.”

“Sure. I know every track through there. You can’t get that bridge from the air, I guess — the cliffs get in the way. So you have to do it from the ground. When I left five years ago they had a squad guarding the bridge — that railroad line is part of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. I imagine they’ve got a whole company of crack troops around there by now.”

“A company of guards with a heavy weapons platoon, and another company of guerrilla squads broken down into constant area patrols. The whole area’s mined and boobytrapped. They’re not stupid — they know how vital the bridge is for them, and how much we want it destroyed. It would take them a good long time to rebuild it.”

Khang picked up the remains of the breadloaf and gnawed on it. His face displayed no curiosity whatever. The big Captain’s unblinking eyes lay against him heavily. Saville said, “A man who’s lost the pride to mind getting wet in the rain is a man who needs something to do.”

“Or a man who’s worn out, Captain. Shot to shingles.” Khang’s jaws worked regularly on the bread.

“You’re young and you’re tough.”

“Well,” Khang said. The last mouthful of bread disappeared. Yellow lamplight glimmered faintly on his eyes. They moved in a slow arc to the window; he watched large round drops of water sliding down. His own breathing became a loud sound in the room. He said, “My brother and I used to play on that bridge. When I was seven, I saw a kid fall off the thing. It’s a long drop, three or four hundred feet. You bounce off the outcrops a few times on your way down. My brother wasn’t that lucky — he had to wait and grow up before he got killed. They decided he was a traitor to the People’s National Liberation Front. I forget exactly why.”

“They shot him.”

“Sure.”

“And that’s when you defected to the south.”

Khang shrugged. “All right, Captain. Let’s blow up your bridge.” He was very tired; he sat down and tilted his head back against the wall.

Saville changed into his dress greens and shouldered into his raincoat. “Get your clothes on and be ready to move out. I’m going out to round up a few other people. Sergeant Sun will show up sometime soon — I want you to keep him here until I get back. Help yourself if you get hungry.”

“And the condemned man ate a hearty meal,” said Sergeant Nguyen Khang. “Okay, Captain.”

Saville went out, closed the door, and stood peering at it in thought. He was not quite satisfied with Sergeant Khang. He went down the stairs, and habit made him tread the insides of the steps where they did not creek.

He slipped the transparent plastic rain-cover over his service cap, pulled it low over his eyes, and stepped into the soggy downpour. His jeep was parked behind the building; he drove through the city paying scant attention to the crowds of refugees lining the shelters along the wide streets of the old section. Red Cross workers and South Vietnamese soldiers passed among them distributing goods. Bars of onceused soap kindly donated by Hilton Hotels. Bowls, clothes, rice, cooking pots. A child almost ran in front of his jeep; a woman snatched the child back. Saville drove without hurry. He turned into the gaming quarter and parked the jeep by a South Vietnamese M.P. post and spoke in Vietnamese to the guard corporal:

“Watch the jeep for me.”

The corporal saluted, and Saville walked a block and a half through the rain. A large Vietnamese stood on guard at the door of the Coq D’Or club, a bouncer with the savage dark face of a jungle hunter. Saville came in through the double doors and turned in his hat and raincoat at the cloakroom. A young American lieutenant came by casually and asked the checkroom girl for a pack of cigarettes; the lieutenant glanced at Saville, and Saville said, “When I leave here, Colonel Ninh will probably have a man following me. Get them off me when I’ve gone — I don’t want to be followed.”

“Anything special, Captain?”

“No. But I don’t like being followed by the fat fellow’s errand boys. They’d do better to trail Vietcong sympathizers. It’s a matter of protocol.”

“All right, sir.” The lieutenant’s lips hardly moved as he spoke, and he had only glanced at Saville once. He moved away, unwrapping his cigarette pack.

Saville moved slowly through the crowded room, peering idly through the cloud of swirling smoke hanging under the low ceiling. A trio of musicians played on a small bandstand at the far end of the room. Most of the customers wore officers’ uniforms. A group of girls sat around a table desultorily playing dice games; a young man spoke in one girl’s ear, and she left the table with him, giving the young man a calculated smile. Saville reached the bar and studied each face down its length.

A fat Vietnamese colonel made a place beside him and smiled with his teeth. “Good evening to you, Captain.”

“Colonel Ninh,” Saville said, dipping his head slightly.

Colonel Ninh seemed in no hurry to speak. At the green table in the center of the club, dice raced the length of the felt and the croupier spoke: “Sept, messieurs.” Two Vietnamese officers sat at a small table playing Nim with ivory markers. A girl moved past in a high-collared black dress; Colonel Ninh reached out and pinched her arm. The girl turned a brief professional smile on him, a dip of long eyelids. Colonel Ninh’s belly pushed against the matted creases of his uniform blouse. Saville heard the steel ball spin under the rim of the roulette wheel and the monotonous voice of the man beside him talking in French.

Colonel Ninh gave him a long scrutiny. “A drink, Captain?”

“Whisky. Thank you.”

The fat Colonel was an oily man with a fowl’s neck and an immense mouth; he was unpleasant and seemed to take pleasure in it. The drinks were set before them. Saville lifted his glass in toast: “Cheers!”

“What?”

“Nothing,” said Saville, and pushed back his sleeve to look at his watch.

Colonel Ninh pounced at him: “An appointment, Captain?”

“There are such things,” Saville agreed. “Thanks for the drink, Colonel.”

The fat man said suddenly, “You are a dangerous man.” “Only a soldier, Colonel. Like yourself. No creature is dangerous if you don’t offend it.” He moved away from the bar and heard Colonel Ninh’s voice:

“Bon soir, Captain.”

Two Americans sat at a far table under a wall fixture with its bulb surrounded by the leaves of a potted rubber plant. They both wore the wings of Army Aviation pilots. Saville made his way to their table and said, “Evening, George.”

The smaller of the two men lifted a cognac snifter lazily. “Captain. A thousand welcomes. Have a seat. Mister Shannon, make room for the good Captain Saville. Oh Captain, my Captain—”

The young Warrant Officer pushed his chair back under the rubber plant, and Saville took a chair from an empty table beside them. Lieutenant George McKuen regarded him with a bemused smile. Saville said, “How drunk are you, George?”

“Not very. But I just started.”

“Good.”

“Good? My dear Captain, don’t tell me you’ve joined the temperance movement? If I’d known, I can assure you I’d never in my wildest fancies thought to invite you to join our select company. And besides—”

“I’d like to talk to you,” Saville said, glancing at the young Warrant Officer.

“Oh,” McKuen said. “Beg pardon. Captain Saville, meet my new co-pilot. Philip Shannon. I told them I wouldn’t accept any assignment whose veins didn’t flow with the blood of the auld sod. Somehow, you see, the usual red tape got entangled, because miracle of miracles, I got just what I asked for — an Irishman down to his boots. Philip, me lad, show the good captain a sample of your inimitable brogue, that’s a good lad, now.”

Saville said, “What happened to Barney Stein?”

“A wound,” Lieutenant McKuen said sorrowfully. “Aye, a terrible wound. We were flying into the valley of death, Captain, and the bullets flew thick as hornets.” McKuen gesticulated wildly. “Verily and poor Barney Stein took a nine millimeter right through the shoulder. They’ve shipped him home to the States. To bloody Brooklyn, in fact. Now, Barney was a nice lad, a fine lad, but as you see he plainly lacked the necessary brand of faith and good fortune which sustains us in our great hour of need. Which is why I found it necessary to demand that Barney’s replacement be as thickly Irish as me self — although as you see he’s not quite so redheaded.”

Warrant Officer Shannon’s hair was brown. McKuen’s was brick red; it stood straight up from his head like a curry brush. Saville said, “You were born in Cincinnati, George, and I haven’t got time for yarns.”

“Well, in that case, let’s us be getting to business,” McKuen said with high cheer. He turned and waved to a waitress. She stopped by Saville’s shoulder. Warrant Officer Shannon said, “Three cognacs, mademoiselle.”

“And I’ll have the same,” McKuen said.

“Belay that,” Saville growled. He waved the waitress away. “No more for these two, Miss.”

“Oh, for God’s sake!” McKuen exploded.

Saville studied Shannon’s face: reserved, young, good-humored in a quiet way. And bold enough. Shannon said, “When you get through, Captain, tell me if you like what you see.”

“I haven’t got much choice,” Saville said. “I need you two.”

“It’s nice to be needed,” McKuen observed. “What for?”

“A parachute drop in the Sang Chu valley.”

“Where?” McKuen’s hands became still. “The Sang Chu? Captain, correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s so far north that if we overshot by two minutes we’d be over Red China.”

“Not quite, but close.”

“You’re off your bloody head,” McKuen said.

“This is a volunteer mission,” Saville murmured. “You volunteer, or you get me for an enemy.”

McKuen stared at him without humor. “I’ve my choice of you or Ho Chi Minh, have I? I think I’d prefer Uncle Ho.”

“Uncle Ho can’t get his hands on you as easily as I can, Lieutenant.”

McKuen sighed. “What’s the craft we’re to fly?”

“The gooney bird we captured last week.”

Warrant Officer Shannon glanced quickly at McKuen and then turned an angry glance on Saville. “I’ve seen that crate in the hangar, Captain. I wouldn’t ask my worst enemy to fly that thing. It’s falling to pieces.”

“It flew down here. It’ll fly back. And remember this — the plane’s unmarked. The Reds won’t turn their antiaircraft on it if they think it’s one of their own planes.”

McKuen said, “How much time do we have to think about it?”

“You don’t,” Saville said. He stood up. “Let’s go.”

Shannon looked at McKuen. McKuen’s shoulders lifted, and he pushed his chair back. “Anything for kicks,” he said. “After you, my Captain darling.”