Colin Harrison: Afterburn

There was some discussion in Vietnamese.

"What kind of jet you fly?"

In a near-whisper he said his name, rank, and serial number.

"We have seen the tag on your neck, yes. I ask what jet?"

He repeated himself.

"The jet. Say it."

"No." He looked at the interpreter. If they thought he would cooperate, they had the wrong guy. "I will not."

"We will wait some time, Charles Ravich. You think. Maybe think where you are now." The officer left. The question of the plane was only a beginning. They knew it was an F-4.

"Now," the interpreter said. "You talk soon."

A soldier brought him water and a pasty, fibrous gruel-mashed rice and bamboo sprouts. The soldier motioned him to eat, which he did, hungrily, with his hands.

Then he felt clearer. He knew where he was. His job was to endure all physical and psychological torture until he lost either his mind or his life. Resist making propaganda statements. When no longer able to withhold information, he'd lie or divulge innocuous data. Hard to judge the sophistication level. Some of the North Vietnamese had studied in French educational systems, some were opportunists, others Communist zealots. Tell them your parents were Iowa pig farmers. Where was he? Just north of the DMZ? Eastern Laos? Somewhere a North Vietnamese officer could go about in uniform, but southern enough that the Vietcong served as soldiers. He hadn't watched his direction in the last minute. A few degrees on the compass might mean the difference between liberation and long-term incarceration. No way to know. Insist on food and medical treatment. The better care he received, the better he'd withstand punishment. The Air Force trained pilots not to crack but assumed they would. Every man had his breaking point. All information and training could be divided into three categories: Most important were systems and weaponry capabilities-the USSR and China could find that information useful in other parts of the world; somewhat important were specific mission and strategy information; and least important-and first to be divulged under torture-were training techniques and Air Force policy. If a pilot was captured and not immediately taken to Hanoi, then the longer he survived, the better the chance of rescue by American or ARVN forces.

After several hours the officer returned. He opened a slim file.

"Captain Charles Ravich, we start."

He lifted his eyes.

"You see we move you to big trail soon when repair. Soon. Now you must listen-"

"I am a prisoner of war and an American officer. I-"

"Charles Ravich, you criminal! You criminal of war. I explain to you. We will teach you before difficult question. Show criminal of war Charles Ravich first photograph."

The soldier brought in three small albums bound in black.

"The first photograph is boy who stand by railtrain track when your jets strike. You look at it." The officer stood over him and put his hand around his neck, forcing his face to within inches of the color photos, which were small and square. "These pictures are what your bombs do to my country, Charles Ravich. Little proof, they are little, little proof. You are accountable. Many dead. Too many. Look at next photograph, look… sixty-two-year-old woman. She make fixing her own house when your jet attack. You see, this is the napalm. She live four day and then die. Now, you know Western philosophy. Man sum of action. Man accountable. This is Western, you believe. I say to you, as one human being to another, why you do this to us, why put the bombs on our children? People of my country die. You say maybe this is normal way to treat criminal pilot. No. I try to be civilize with you, Charles Ravich. But I say to you I want to kill you fast. My people are farmers. Now I ask you-do you have a young son? Young daughter? Ah, your face change. Daughter. Now I ask you

… Next photograph! Do you make this of your responsibility? This! Or, next photograph, this? These your acts. You Western man, you individual responsibility. Why you make yourself a criminal?"

After the first album, they showed him two more. He recognized background structures. Depos. Bridges. Truck camps, railyards. He'd seen them. He'd bombed them.

Dusk. Insects swarmed around a lamp hanging from the thatched roof. The officer dabbed at his mouth with a handkerchief. The hours passed. His back stiffened. A soldier came into the hootch, talking quickly. Some kind of emergency. They tied a crusty, gasoline-fumed rag around his head. He heard a whisking sound, a broom over dirt. "Down!" the interpreter yelled, striking Charlie in the face. He sank to his knees and felt the earth. "In!" the interpreter cried. A foot caught him in the ribs, pushing him into a hole-the fuckers were going to kill him in a hole. He didn't know his children yet, he hadn't had enough time with them. He crawled forward and then suddenly down into a chute. Someone pushed him from behind and he heard the whisking sound again. Now his shoulders rubbed the tunnel wall. He stumbled forward on his hands and knees as a voice behind him cried, " Nanh len! " Hurry. Adjusting, using his hands to guide himself, he learned the width and height of the tunnel. Surprisingly regular. The earth beneath his hands and knees was cool, packed. No light. Someone shuffled behind him, urging him on with a rifle. They crawled a long time. His hands ached. The crawling made his back worse-something was cracked or chipped or broken in the lower vertebrae. Periodically he crossed flat pieces of wood, distance markers perhaps. He tried counting paces between markers but lost count as the tunnel dipped and turned. Once he heard the rush of water. Other times voices, near, far, singsong, echoing eerily, laughing, whispering, perhaps even the cry of a baby, followed by the windy static of a shortwave radio. The Vietcong mountain cities. He came to divergent tunnels, judging by echoes and an odd feeling of the air moving around him. The rifle muzzle touched him, indicating which way to go. The air was fresh, then putrid, foul. Underground burial pits. That would be like the Vietcong. Removing their dead to conceal losses. Or just rotting fish? The tunnel rose and curved, branched off, fell. Then he heard a rumbling so portentous it seemed to come from the very center of the earth. The walls of the tunnel shook. By instinct he threw himself flat. " Nanh len! " the soldier behind screamed, punching him. He scrambled to his knees and scurried forward, roots tearing at him, the tumbling roar approaching, wavelike, bearing down, rippling the earth, gaining. He bumped into a tunnel wall. The soldier poked at him to go right but grabbed his shoulder. He could hear the soldier breathing, mumbling to himself in Vietnamese, perhaps counting intervals, listening to the explosions above the earth. They were close. How far underground were the tunnels? Moisture content of earth… detonation height… He tried to recall how deep a five-hundred-pound bomb cratered the earth. The B-52s also used thousand-pounders… The rumbling seemed almost above them now. The soldier sang to himself in terror, awaiting some answer. He understood-one tunnel cut away from the bombing vector and the other led beneath it. The earth shook. He hunched on his hands and knees, paralyzed, seeing nothing but black, feeling the hot, dank air.

" Nanh len! " the soldier screamed, yanking him to the left. He pitched forward, the roar on top of him followed by a rush of heat. Then silence. The two men rested before moving on.

Light. Smell of burning kerosene. The rifle touched him if he hesitated. Voices speaking Vietnamese. Something-a stick? — jabbed him in the ribs. Laughter. His hands brushed burlap, grains of rice. The smell of oil, the sound of metal being filed. Then dark. The shuffling of his guard was all he could hear, save his own breathing. Sweating heavily, feeling the dirt work into his hands and hair and flight suit, he crawled on his knees for hours. A mask of filth covered his face. The bailout from the F-4 seemed days prior. Adjusting already, Ellie, I am adjusting already, too fast.