Apocalypse Then
Anson, Robert Sum
Apocalypse Then Like any good journalist, Time's Robert Sam Anson decided to get out of the office. But he didn't expect to have a North Vietnamese gun put to his head while he dug his own...
...Is he alive...
...I continued for the next several hours, mixing stilted encomiums to good will with details of everything I'd seen since getting picked up...
...In the event of capture, it was to be presented to "the detaining authorities," who, provided they could read English, understood the Geneva Convention and weren't troubled by the seal of the U.S...
...I can keep my journal, then...
...I was telling him that I was a journalist, but the words came out as a whisper...
...I learned it so I could write propaganda leaflets for your troops...
...Takeo," he said sharply...
...How much longer would it be...
...It was in the other chest, beneath some bolts of homespun fabric, that I uncovered the real treasure: a large blank ledger book...
...Did the other officer come with you...
...Maybe if I floored it, drove the car straight at them, they would scatter before getting off a round...
...My first impulse was composing a letter to my wife, telling her how I was and asking after the children...
...I looked over, then sagged against him...
...They would fight and continue fighting until the war was won, or more likely, given the horrendous casualties the North Vietnamese were suffering (only 50 percent of them even survived the journey down the Trail), until they were dead...
...My compliment seemed to please him...
...I screeched around the next corner and started picking my way along side streets...
...There should be more...
...They must be very worried, and I miss them very much...
...Why did you not inform us of what you did at Takeo...
...In Phnom Penh we were told you were operating in this area...
...When I finished, the Vietnamese filled up my plate again...
...Who are his parents...
...Thua, an amazingly realistic drawing of an A-6, complete with fragmentation bombs under the wings...
...While I wasn't thinking of trying to escape (that, I had decided, was something I'd consider only as a last option, and only after I was in better physical condition and knew more of the language), I wasn't sure what the Vietnamese would think of my discovery...
...By evening my tiny scrawl had filled up a dozen pages and become a source of wonderment for the soldiers, who sat around me oohing and aahing with every paragraph...
...he replied...
...They'll take them back...
...You must take us away or tonight they will kill the rest of us...
...Sensing my incredulity, he then placed his hand over his heart and said forcefully, "Vietnam...
...Ho Chi Minh was a poet...
...There were four dozen of them, all with Sihanouk badges pinned to their shirts...
...With half a bottle of wine under my belt, I took it easier than usual on the trip south...
...Last night, on trucks, after they killed them...
...I tried one day to extract an answer from Hoa, who appeared to have adopted me as his special charge...
...I tore up the card and buried the pieces by the side of the road...
...I slept fitfully all that day and, after a dinner of rice and vegetable soup, went back to bed for the night...
...He got up to go...
...Then they came with the trucks...
...What's that noise...
...GIs, at least, could count on air support and medevac and regular letters from home—none of which were available for my guards, Hoa, Thua, Huong, Tieu, and Ti...
...A few blocks later we saw a Catholic church...
...After the third helping the interrogation began...
...Whatever I wrote, the Vietnamese were bound to read it, which could be a problem...
...As soon as we glimpsed the soccer field pavilion, though, I knew that something was wrong...
...Will you take them...
...The Cortina's engine sputtered an instant, then caught...
...I hadn't said anything of finding the massacre, only that Takeo had been one of the Cambodian towns I had visited...
...Tim knelt beside an old man whose side had been torn open...
...They're shooting the Vietnamese...
...how I wanted to be shot in the chest, not the head, since somehow the latter would be worse...
...But enough for now...
...When it gets dark, the Cambodians will finish them...
...At the tree line, two older soldiers pushed me to the ground and took my wallet and watch...
...As I attempted a sort of triage, mentally dividing the least injured from the worst and paying the most attention to those who fell somewhere in between, Tim was on the other side of the room asking questions...
...The voice was Number One's...
...Right now we gotta take care of this kid...
...The Front has made its decision," he announced...
...I guessed I was in the midst of at least a company of troops, possibly even a battalion...
...Eat something...
...two dozen men and boys were still alive, lying in the midst of perhaps three times as many corpses...
...The youngster pointed his rifle at me, motioning me in the direction of the tree line, from which dozens of soldiers were rapidly appearing...
...how fucking scared I felt...
...They were in awful condition, and some, like a man of about 30 whose right eye had been obliterated by a bullet, didn't look as if they would survive much longer...
...Number One's features softened and he shook his head as if amazed by my stupidity...
...Dig deeper, they gestured...
...Tim asked in French...
...The disparity left no doubt about who was in charge...
...Some of them had leafy branches stuck in their helmets...
...There'd been a battle here, all right, and the other side had won...
...Instead of answering, Tim began to run...
...Obviously there were more profound differences I wasn't witnessing, none more inexplicable than what it was that kept them going...
...field...
...Vaguely, I recalled some mention of Skoun at the morning briefing, but what exactly was said about the market town 40 miles to the northwest I couldn't remember...
...I guess I'll go down there, too...
...the convoys were nowhere in sight...
...They appeared startled but waved back...
...Only a soldier in the revolution, as we all are...
...I couldn't stay here, and to get back to Phnom Penh I would have to retrace my route, which meant running the picket line down the road...
...Then they started firing...
...How many more days...
...He looked at it lovingly, then held up four fingers—one for each of the years since he'd seen them last...
...But there weren't any faces...
...Then the others took their turn: Tieu did a precise rendering of an F105...
...There was no more sign of them the rest of that day, and when they failed to turn up the next morning, I concluded that they had gone off to see if my story checked out...
...Anson covered the Vietnam war for Time magazine...
...The doctor looked insulted...
...Grabbing my arms, the soldiers pulled me to my feet and started shoving me in the direction of a freshly dug foxhole...
...But I could think of nothing...
...The smaller one to my left seemed to be for cooking and storing supplies...
...One who looked no more than 15 landed at my feet...
...This was soft duty for them...
...Tim called back...
...Tim nodded, and gently I slid my arms under the boy's body...
...He paused, as if waiting for me to supply whatever I had omitted...
...They weren't threatening me in any way, and though they were still keeping me loosely bound, they were letting me have the run of the house—provided I didn't approach their weapons, the doorway, or the windows...
...I asked...
...Finally everyone would drift off to sleep, oblivious, except for me, of the far-off rumble of the nightly B52 strike, which with clocklike regularity came just before 3:30 a.m...
...I cursed and skidded the car to a halt...
...At last, I thought, the Lon Nol troops...
...Two more kilometer posts passed...
...We have our ways...
...The rain last night, you must have gotten drenched, huh...
...His second reaction came when I informed him I worked for Time...
...As my former guards marched back in the direction from which we had come, the platoon leader motioned me up the stairs of the farthest-away house...
...We are French...
...What will happen to me...
...only twice did he make any comment...
...The only immediate difference I could note was that the Vietnamese took better care of their weapons, which they disassembled, oiled, and cleaned twice a day, despite the fact that they never left the house to use them...
...But as we mounted the pavilion steps, nearly slipping on the congealed globs that had washed over them, I saw several forms move and heard the sound of moaning...
...Huong, a sloppy though still identifiable version of an F-4...
...They walked around slowly, shooting us...
...In America, we call this rice...
...Presently a doctor appeared...
...I stretched and considered taking a dip...
...Do not concern yourself," he answered...
...We moved out again a few minutes later...
...Down at Takeo," I panted...
...It was a long shot, but I couldn't come up with anything better...
...The officer jotted down my replies in a notebook...
...The soldiers had seemed nervous...
...And they most certainly didn't wear Ho Chi Minh sandals...
...A blood debt After lunch I showed Hoa the ledger and gestured at the ballpoint pen that was poking up from his shirt pocket...
...Once was when I told him the full name of my daughter, Christian Kennedy Anson...
...I couldn't get my hands to stop shaking...
...The officer wanted a complete record of everything: background, family history, education, names and ages of children, extracurricular activities in college, occupation and hometown of wife, stories I had worked on before coming to Asia, and in as much detail as possible the identity of all the places I had been to in Indochina and the dates I had visited them...
...They say we are all Viet Cong, but we are only shopkeepers...
...Another soldier moved forward and shouted at me to stop...
...Skoun, I guess...
...Because it's the truth...
...Please eat...
...Tim was holding on to the boy's hand...
...Then I would like to return to my family...
...There had been two arrivals overnight...
...But, yes, I suppose you could say I was an officer...
...The Front gives you its thanks...
...Even at this distance I knew they were North Vietnamese...
...In addition to the AK-47 and several grenades each was carrying, they had a light machine gun, a small mortar, and three B40 rockets...
...Within a hundred yards the truth began to dawn...
...The only immediate sign of life was a few chickens scratching in the dirt beneath one of the houses...
...and finally Hoa, who paused a long while before beginning a beautifully shaped dove...
...he was holding on to it with his left hand to keep his intestines from falling out...
...At least now, though, I had a general idea of where I was...
...Number One's expression was noncommittal...
...From over there, from behind the walls...
...The Front will decide," he said, "after we have found proof for what you have told us...
...Rice...
...I didn't know Americans liked to sleep so much," he said in English...
...As we got out, I heard a strange buzzing sound...
...It was useless...
...The next day at breakfast I started in on language instructions...
...Each time there was shooting...
...By the time dawn began to break, we were miles from the nearest paved road...
...I scanned the ruined town, searching for a friendly face...
...Baochi," I protested...
...No," I said...
...Rice," he said with difficulty...
...He beamed when I said, "Oui...
...As the ropes binding me were loosened and I was directed to the bed, I guessed that I would be, too...
...Skoun 15...
...Me Bob...
...Di," he commanded, telling me to go...
...I liked the car, which reminded me of the first one I'd had as a teenager, and it wasn't often that I had the chance to drive it without Tim along bugging me to slow down...
...Do you know this boy has a gun wound...
...There was just the touch of a hand on my shoulder and a voice saying, "The soldiers permitted you this...
...I told Tim to bring the Cortina back to Takeo as soon as he knew the boy was going to be all right, then ran the few blocks to the Royal...
...Perhaps a friendship could be struck...
...I crouched behind the Cortina's fender and tried to think...
...As we came closer, two mixed platoons of Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge suddenly stepped from the tree line backing the wat...
...When I lifted him from the floor, he let out a groan and reached his arm around my neck...
...In one of the chests, I found a large store of bandages and pill bottles with French language labels, potentially valuable items...
...To judge from Number One's demeanor, however, holding back had been a mistake, possibly a serious one...
...by truck first, heading north, then after an hour or so, on foot, in a westerly direction through thick forests and creeper vines...
...We covered the distance back to Phnom Penh without stopping...
...They told us to lie down, that it was time to sleep...
...When I reached the pavilion, Tim was leaning over one of the walls...
...In the next instant I felt a warm stream of urine go down my leg...
...Bao-chi...
...Bob," I said, pointing to my chest...
...He seemed as terrified by me as I was by him...
...a third yanked off my shoes and socks...
...He picked up the journal...
...a covered pavilion not unlike the one at Takeo, though half the size...
...With a squad of Vietnamese ahead of and behind me, I started toward the trees, away from the car, away from the hole, away from everything I'd known...
...I quickly explained the circumstances, adding that there were two dozen other wounded at Takeo who needed treatment...
...I felt arms reaching down and pulling me out of the hole...
...Then I remembered I'd left my bathing suit behind...
...how I'd let down my kids and my wife...
...He brought his palms together in supplication...
...There was some bickering about who would pay for the boy's care, but finally the nurses allowed him inside...
...all of them were armed with AK-47s...
...He was studying me, as if trying to decide whether I meant it...
...What do you wish to happen...
...I guess it just didn't occur to me," I said nervously...
...In the time I had to myself now I thought a lot about the way my colleagues and I covered the Indochina story...
...for all the energy we expended, none of us had a glimmer of what was going on in little villages like this one where, far more than on the battlefield, the war was actually being decided...
...We gotta get this kid outta here," I yelled over...
...Reaching into my wallet, I pulled out the laminated "noncombatant" card I'd been issued by MACV...
...One day, Tim and I dawdled over lunch, and it wasn't until half past two that we finally got under way...
...Yet something made them persist...
...John Kennedy had sent the first combat advisers to Vietnam...
...The position of my government is that it has no troops in Kampuchea...
...You speak very good English...
...would come dinner, after which Radio Hanoi would deliver the day's maddeningly incomprehensible news...
...I stopped the car a few dozen yards from the pavilion...
...Then something strange swam into my head, the memory of a movie I'd seen months before with my wife in Singapore...
...Then, after what I presumed was a propaganda pep talk and what seemed to be a textbook self-criticism session, the radio would blare out an hour or two of doleful Vietnamese music...
...Rice," I said, pointing at the food we were eating...
...But he didn't expect to have a North Vietnamese gun put to his head while he dug his own grave...
...Hoa-binh," I whimpered...
...Instead he began examining each word...
...After an hour he reached the last page, where, below the pictures the soldiers had drawn, I had composed a few lines of verse...
...Let's get going," I said...
...Reflexively I started counting...
...A force of three paratroop battalions had been sent to the province, and all of Takeo's Vietnamese men and boys, a group of perhaps 250, had been placed under guard in a pavilion immediately adjacent to a large soccer field...
...I dug for perhaps 20 minutes, but it was hard to keep track...
...As I got back into the Cortina, I stole a quick glance down the road...
...I asked...
...I laid my hand on his chest...
...Yes," the Old Man said, smiling...
...I got out and looked back in the direction from which I had come...
...It also, I hoped, diminished the possibility that any of them would want to shoot me...
...But there is something you did not tell us...
...Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster...
...I didn't know you spoke English," I said, trying to seem unperturbed...
...They took them away," the old man gasped...
...You must be hungry...
...Army...
...By the time I got the door open, the car was surrounded by Vietnamese waving their rifles at me...
...Please, you must take US...
...I looked up startled...
...Rice, cum...
...Now tell me the Vietnamese word," I said, pointing at the rice again...
...in a way, I suspected, they almost welcomed my presence...
...Tomorrow would be the 12th day of my captivity, a blink of an eye as the Old Man and the Vietnamese marked time...
...Not so important, perhaps, as The New York Times, but more so than Newsweek...
...Half a mile down the road I could see the soldiers, who were now strung out in a picket line across the highway...
...The soldier poked his rifle into my stomach, then pointed in the direction of a trail that lead into the jungle...
...as if that explained it all...
...Skoun 9. At Skoun 6 I began looking for the Pepsi-Cola truck convoys of the Lon Nol army...
...It made me feel more at ease with them...
...Number One wasn't interested in banter...
...It is good that you told it," he said...
...I began saying the Hail Mary...
...A poem...
...the larger one to my right contained a pair of battered wooden chests, a low, straw-mattress bed set up against the wall, and several hammocks strung from support posts...
...Something's not right," I said as I swung onto the From War News by Robert Sam Anson 0 1989 by Robert Sam Anson...
...I ducked beneath the dash as a burst of full-automatic blew over the roof...
...Robert Kennedy, that is From the doorway of the house's second story I saw two rooms...
...That is very good...
...I laughed, imagining what Arnaud [de Borchgravel's reaction would be if I ever had the opportunity to tell him...
...I approached the squad leader, a man in his late twenties with smooth pale skin and what, for a Vietnamese, were unusually large eyes...
...They came at 8:30 last night," a man told him weakly...
...Are you an officer...
...Tim was grateful for the slower pace, and with the even temper the Cambodians had been in the previous day, there didn't seem any need to rush...
...Mostly how fucking scared...
...Then, when they were perhaps 50 yards away, I punched the accelerator...
...I guessed what they intended and started struggling...
...Cum," another guard answered...
...As I raised my hands, several soldiers I hadn't seen came swinging down from the trees on vines...
...That's what I would do: keep a diary, a journal that would be not only a record of events but, if I was lucky, a ticket home...
...he used it to make a drawing of a B-52...
...Both were substantially older than the other Vietnamese, and from the deferential way they were being served breakfast, I presumed they were officers...
...But if I chose my words with care, I might be able to turn their inspection to my advantage...
...Lon Nol's army didn't wear pith helmets...
...After nearly two hours the officer, whom I had decided to call "Number One," to distinguish him from his colleague, whom I'd mentally christened the "Old Man," asked me: "Do you know who we are...
...Lice," one of my guards mimicked...
...he asked...
...I didn't know you'd gotten back...
...The Khmer Rouge were equipped only with bolt-action Czech-made SKSs...
...The sound of a cock crowing and the smell of cooking awakened me in the morning...
...The bodies were piled one atop the other in huge pools of coagulating blood...
...The rains came early that night and with unusual strength, beating the roof and making it difficult to sleep...
...He waved his hand toward the spot where I was crouching...
...Some kind of battle up there...
...There was a long way to go before we could talk to each other except in the roughest sort of pidgin, but at least we had started to communicate...
...Bao-chi," I tried to say...
...I reached out for his arm...
...I'll pay, but there may be trouble with the government...
...He's already lost a lot of blood...
...At the edge of a large paddy field divided by earthen dikes, a village appeared...
...The younger of the two—he appeared to be in his late forties, while the gray hair and deeply lined face of his companion put him in his sixties—spotted me watching him and walked over with a plate of rice...
...My plan was to take a brief look around the town, buttonhole whatever correspondents were on the scene, then head back in time for dinner...
...He didn't seem to understand at first, but after I pointed to myself, said "bao-chi," and made a notetaking motion, he handed it over...
...After a few minutes of conversation I was turned over to the village garrison...
...After his brother Robert, who wanted to end the war...
...Did you name her after John Kennedy...
...I would like to stay with you for a time and tour the liberated zone, perhaps interview the leading personalities of the Front," I said at last...
...Waiting until the soldiers went into the other room to prepare the midday meal, I ripped up the nameplate and swallowed it...
...It was going to have to be a quick trip...
...For the next several days, Anson is forced to march with his captors, with only short rest periods...
...The Old Man came back the next morning...
...Bao-chi...
...Department of Defense emblazoned on the card's face, were supposed to "afford the bearer the same treatment and privileges as a major in the U.S...
...Then we'll talk...
...He was still clinging to me when I laid him in the back seat of the Cortina...
...He was right...
...The last time, it was the middle of the night, they came inside...
...The Ninth Division, I imagine...
...The VOA man didn't look up...
...Di, dimau...
...Then louder: "Hoabinh...
...Tim ran in and got a French priest who directed us the rest of the way to Calumet, a French-run hospital not far from the Royal...
...He had a stern look on his face...
...I retreated to my bed and smoothed my hand over the first page, debating what to write...
...Oh, my God," I said...
...To the river, I think...
...Cautiously I turned the car around and headed toward them, slowly at first, as if I were planning to stop...
...We should be seeing something moving...
...Didn't you hear about it at the briefing...
...The Cortina's tiny engine began to whine...
...how fucking stupid I'd been...
...Number One whispered to the Old Man, who did not seem happy about what he had heard, then turned back to me...
...Just step on it," he answered...
...Of course, you're North Vietnamese...
...From the jokes they cracked during the nightly indoctrination sessions, it was also apparent that they regarded some of the party rhetoric with the same seriousness GIs did lectures on motherhood and the flag...
...One by one I began checking on the other wounded...
...In reply he'd pulled out a crinkled photograph of his wife and infant daughter...
...he asked, an edge in his voice...
...Where are the others...
...In Saigon...
...the ferry across the Bassac shut down at six, and with Khmer Rouge and NVA in the area, I didn't want to be stuck on the wrong side of the river after dark...
...I'd seen enough to know that they were neither automatons nor supermen, that they had bitches and shortcomings—particularly Ti and Huong, who always seemed to be screwing up something—just like Americans...
...Ti seemed especially captivated, and when my hand was too cramped to -write further, I gave him the pen...
...Shit," I muttered...
...It was then that I saw them: a dozen or so men dressed in dark green fatigues, pith helmets, and rubber sandals in the tree line on the left side of the road...
...My mind was filled with a jumble of things—how I wished they'd kill me on the road so my body could be found...
...No," I said...
...Nor, unlike the grunts, who could tell you down to the exact hour the time left on their 12-month tour, was there any prospect for them of going home...
...What about the others...
...Five other Vietnamese followed me in...
...I was not so much weary as depressed...
...Hours later I felt my back being shaken...
...It would be refreshing after such a long lunch...
...A second later I slammed on the brakes...
...His face was chalk-white...
...Now there was no activity...
...Would you not say that is correct...
...From the look of things, the Vietnamese had been here for a while...
...Yes...
...The work took several minutes...
...The soldiers who had been left to guard me seemed relaxed...
...Instinctively, I waved...
...At first I thought that everyone was dead...
...RRR-ice...
...You are to be released...
...We'll get the reporters in Phnom Penh...
...The Old Man nodded and handed it back...
...I asked...
...I asked...
...Get the others...
...The VOA guy shrugged...
...Since none of the victims were Northerners or Communists, I hadn't thought that the Vietnamese would be interested...
...Anson, get up...
...My fat/they say/laughing, poking/ is like Saigon...
...I could barely feel it rising and falling...
...At a government checkpoint on the city's outskirts one of the soldiers fired his gun in the air in warning...
...Around 6 p.m...
...I looked at them curled peacefully in their hammocks...
...Christ...
...It was something I found in the house...
...Who are you...
...Vietnamee...
...Bent over writing, I didn't notice him when he entered the house or hear him as he padded across the floorboards to my bed...
...Since I'd given my driver Seng the rest of the day off, I'd have to take the Cortina, but that was okay...
...Hoa-binh...
...It was hard to keep from laughing...
...a score or so of houses built on pilings and arranged around a large courtyard, just as at the previous village, and at the base of the courtyard the inevitable whitewashed wat...
...I passed him up the trenching tool and closed my eyes...
...It was about the war and its title was Hoa-binh, the Vietnamese word for "peace...
...In the vicinity, the government was taking no chances...
...Dig deeper and die One afternoon several weeks later, at the Royal Hotel in Phnom Penh, with the exception of a mournfullooking Voice of America reporter, whom I found lounging poolside, the hotel was deserted...
...The Old Man pursed his lips as if trying to decide what to make of everything...
...Number One went outside with the Old Man...
...Ah," he said, "a very important American publication...
...I asked...
...What I tried not to think of, those stifling hours each afternoon in my bunk, was how much longer I'd have this opportunity for thinking...
...They talked briefly on the stoop, then disappeared down the stairs...
...The Vietnamese, however, were substantially better armed...
...When the speedometer touched 120 km, I kept it there and started counting the red and white kilometer road markers the French had erected decades before: Skoun 18...
...The sound I had heard was the beating of flies, thousands and thousands of them...
...I felt the heel of his foot against my chest, pushing me against the edge of the hole, then the coldness of his AK being pressed against my forehead...
...the pavilion seemed abandoned...
...Hoa-binh," I said again, pleading...
...The Vietnamese seemed to enjoy the monotonous regimen, and in some ways so did I. It was fascinating to observe them at close range, and even more fascinating to see that, at least in the way they went about their daily ordinaries, there was so little to separate them from American GIs...
...I lay awake for hours thinking of everything that had happened since the afternoon in Skoun...
...I recalled seeing the same name on a Cambodian military map, somewhere to the northwest of the capital, though exactly where and how far from Phnom Penh I couldn't remember...
...Pulling back a bloodied sarong from around his torso, I saw a line of half a dozen holes extending from his hip to his ankle...
...I saw one of the soldiers begin to swing up his AK...
...By now I was kneeling next to a boy of about eight...
...They had been perfectly concealed...
...I opened my eyes and looked into the face of the soldier who a moment before was going to kill me...
...The coldness against my forehead disappeared...
...Where's everybody gone...
...I knew what lay behind it...
...Before, we had always seen the Vietnamese milling about, stretching themselves or leaning over the building's low walls...
...An attempt at one...
...Ho Chi Minh was a poet, was he not...
...by Robert Sum Anson One of Lon Nol's internment centers was at Takeo, a provincial capital 60 miles south of Phnom Penh and scene of some of the bloodiest opposition to him in the spring of 1970...
...Hoping it would lessen the possibility of anything happening to the Vietnamese, my stringer Tim and I made it our business to visit the detainees every day after the morning briefing...
...We have a tradition in Vietnam...
...he demanded...
...The Old Man didn't answer...
...On the ledger cover I wrote the words "Journal Hoa Binh," then, on the first page, the date: April 11, 1970...
...There was some Khmer writing on the cover, a year-old date, and in Roman letters the words "Kompong Phleung...
...Above me I heard the metallic click of a weapon being locked and loaded...
...Three times more during the night they came back...
...Why, then, did you say we were North Vietnamese...
...Skoun 12...
...I took the plate and started pushing down handfuls of rice and salty-tasting bits of smoked fish...
...You will need your strength...
...Of course we will take them...
...Number One regarded me a moment, then whispered again to the Old Man, who smiled this time...
...My second, writing a story about what I'd experienced thus far, was only slightly more practical...
...I asked...
...The soldiers hadn't budged...
...They pitched me feet first into the hole, then threw a small trenching tool in after me...
...No, Hoa," I mumbled, "let me sleep...
...In the half-light I could make out what seemed to be a school...
...Someone who saves the life of one of our children is owed a blood debt...
...The man, whose legs were nearly severed, apparently from automatic weapons fire, reached out for Tim's arm...
...the ground beneath his feet was carpeted with cartridge casings...
...The rest went off with the Khmer Rouge...
...Oh, ah, hello," I said, sitting up...
...With Hoa's permission, I spent the rest of the morning exploring my little domain...
...Hoa-binh," I heard a voice above me repeat...
...They're all Vietnamese...
...But except for the last time, always from behind the walls...
...The officer patted my knee...
Vol. 21 • October 1989 • No. 9
