Marti Leimbach - The Man from Saigon

Where are you from? she asked.

New York , he said quickly. Then told her how he’d grown to prefer Danang to Saigon, how he really didn’t like it down here any more.

You’re married, aren’t you? Her question, injected into the conversation as it was, made him lose his train of thought.

Currently , he answered.

She didn’t mind. Not at first. In the circumstances in which they found themselves, it didn’t make all that much difference.

Marc was what Son politely called “not so cautious,” by which he meant the guy had a death wish. Susan’s and his was a misguided amorphous, sprawling kind of relationship with no obvious direction or end in sight. In other words, perfect for the time being. They met between stories, holing up in his hotel or anywhere else they could find, disappearing for a day and then emerging again, rushing out to get another story. It was exhausting and addictive. And among many other things, it had the effect on Susan of knocking away whatever remnants of common sense and perspective she had. She went out on more missions. She took more risks.

I’m thinking you might get killed soon , Son said one night. They were sharing a meal at the Eskimo, sitting shoulder to shoulder, eating off each other’s plates and talking about something else entirely—how the Americans had brought over enormous pigs from the States in an effort to increase the size of Vietnamese pigs, a silly operation that had resulted in no demonstrable gain as the smaller pigs ran away from the atrocious, slow monsters from the West. In the middle of laughing, Son had suddenly gone quiet and then issued his concern. If something happens to you —he began.

Nothing will , she interrupted. That was on the eve of an assault mission they covered. And she’d been right that time. Nothing happened—or rather, nothing happened to them.

Another telegram:

EXCELLENT STORY BUT FEEL YOU PRE TAKING TOO MANY RISKS STOP MAGAZINE CANNOT BE RESPONSIBLE FOR RECKLESS REPORTING STOP BE MORE CAREFUL STOP

She could imagine her editor sitting in her houndstooth skirt with its matching jacket, the vein at her temple throbbing, her skin itching as though she had fleas, sleeves pushed up away from the clutter on her desk. Cursing Susan for making her sweat like this, she would dictate the wire to some trembling young secretary. The cost per word of such a wire was too high to include the expletives, which the secretary would understand must be deleted from the final dictation. That’s it! she’d say when she had completed the message. Now bring me a fresh pack of matches. Then she’d ball up some paper as the girl fled tfrom he office, the dictated cable in hand.

Susan was fond of the woman; she did not want to cause her an early stroke, so she returned as follows:

BEING MORE CAUTIOUS STOP FOLLOWING SUPPLY CONVOY TO REFUGEE CAMP STOP HOPE THIS COMPLIES WITH REQUEST STOP STOP WORRYING STOP

She and Son were traveling with the 9th Infantry to what she thought would be a safe enough place in the Delta, an area where huge camps were being set up for what were being called “refugees,” that is, people emptied out of villages thought to be enemy strongholds. Her reason for choosing the story was simple: she wanted a story that did not require her to walk miles or sleep on the ground or sit in a hole in the rain. Besides, there was her editor to consider. This was meant to be easy, the refugee story, with photographs of children and mothers and smiling soldiers. She wore a pair of utility trousers, a T-shirt and field jacket. The rain was easing off so that she could flip back the hood on her poncho, enjoying the cool air, talking to the guy next to her on the armored personnel carrier about his collection of fighting fish that—so she learned—were a species that originated in Vietnam. They’d been traveling over an hour now, a slow, uneventful journey; it might have been a tractor ride on a wet summer’s day.

She’d run out of water and was drinking from Son’s plastic bottle, the canvas flaps jigging with the movement of the track, her sunglasses making her nose sweat. She was handing him back the bottle when she heard gunshot. The bottle dropped. She wheeled toward the sound, the air cracking around her as though blocks of wood were being exploded close by, then a huge booming explosion that made everything shake.

It was as though the world was erupting beneath them. Great spouts of earth rained down as the ground, blasted with mortars, sent mud flying as though an enormous force was kicking it straight into her face, over her head. The M60 mounted on the hull of the track burst into life; she was deafened by the gun’s noise, which soared through her, lifting her up, making her weightless as though she were floating. She had always thought she was protected if only by the firepower of the men with whom she traveled. By the guns, the boxes of ammunition, the ever-squawking radios, the sheer volume of artillery. Joining the convoy, so heavily armored, hadn’t given her any concern, not a moment of worry; they were heading for a refugee camp, not trying to take a city. And now, this.

The first few blasts destroyed the vehicles in front and the ensuing attack came straight at those who stalled. She was traveling on the open back of the APC; there was no place to take shelter, and she realized suddenly that the feeling of floating was due, in part, to how hard she had to work just to hang on to the vehicle. They were reversing now off the road, bouncing over uneven ground, churning up mud, scraping against the brush, which itself sparkled with gunfire. The track was tipping one way, then another, lunging into the jungle, then reversing up again, the men above her yelling to each other, firing madly, the spent casings dancing on the track’s deck. She saw tracers to the rear, flashes from the enemy guns. She looked at Son, indicating wildly the attack which was coming from behind, hoping he could somehow alert the gunman. Instead he grabbed her arm, pulled her down and together they jumped off the track, running, wheeling and diving, tripping, getting up again. It was a crazy thing to do, to run blindly toward the bush, away from the approaching gunfire, but there were soldiers on the ground now, too, and they didn’t know what else to do.

They survived the initial, lethal minute. That was the first thing. They missed the ammo log that exploded, the fragments of burning metal, the small-arms fire that rang out around them. It was the right thing to run. They might have made it, too, but there was a kind of disorientation; the jungle seemed to swallow them whole. The fighting continued, went on and on. They didn’t know which way to move. They heard screaming; they heard the long cracking sound of machine guns. But they were out of voice range and never heard the call to mount up. The convoy moved on without them while they were still trying to figure out where the road was, where the shots were coming from. All around them was jungle, elephant grass and vines, the air full of carbine, the heat like someone holding a blanket over her head.

She didn’t feel frightened. When she saw the ammo log blow she imagined that the blast would roll toward her. The burning metal tumbled through the air so cleanly, she thought it would fly straight to where she was sitting on the track. One of the crew on the track had already been injured. She saw him crumple in a single, smooth motion, as though someone had suddenly removed all his bones. He fell on top of the track, amid the burning copper shell casings which would blister your skin if they touched you, then he slid toward the edge. She might have hoped the soldier wasn’t dead, but she couldn’t hold on to such a simple, humane thought. She’d seen him fall, his body halfway off the edge of the vehicle. She’d seen the people running and crouching, throwing themselves this way and that, falling, dying, all of this happening beneath the heat of a rising sun. It seemed impossible that they had been so effectively ambushed and, then, that she had survived by running toward the jungle. In the thick of the jungle, she felt amazed to be standing, to be whole, stunned so that for a minute she ran her hands over her arms, her legs, then turned to Son and did the same to him. To think that she was still alive! Even her friend, too, even him. She was not afraid, but grateful. Grateful to every animal and bird in this harsh land, to the sun and wind and to everything she observed, suddenly free, standing, breathing, sweating, living.