Bao Ninh - The Sorrow of War

How deeply moved he was, and how he trembled at the joy and the pain the memories brought. He wanted to etch into his heart these memories, and wondered how he could have forgotten this tragedy for so many years.

It was almost dark that same day before they found the commandos’ hiding-place. They had not killed the three girls on their own farm, but had chosen to take them down the valley, away from the farm. The rain had erased their tracks and it was by total chance that Kien’s platoon had discovered the seven commandos at the foot of a hill.

They had ambushed the commandos, killing three of them in the first attack and capturing the remaining four at gunpoint.

‘Lofty’ Thinh, one of the lovers, was killed in close fighting, getting a bullet through his heart. No time for tears or for vengeance. He fell, his face to the earth, without seeing Ho Bia again.

Kien stood before the captured men. They were not tied up, but they were exhausted from their lost battle, their clothes torn, filthy with mud and blood, offering no further resistance. They stood still and silent, shuffling their feet but indifferent to questions.

‘Where are the three girls?’ he asked calmly.

No answer.

‘Well, where are they? If they’re still alive, you might live.’

The biggest of the four commandos, his left eye torn away by a bullet, looked over at Kien with his good eye. Blood and mud ran down his cheeks. He laughed scornfully, showing white teeth.

‘The girls? We sacrificed them to the Water Spirit, sir. We used their bodies as an offering. They cried and carried on like crazy.’

Kien’s scouts drew their bayonets. Kien held them back.

‘Stop! Don’t. Perhaps these guys might also want to cry like crazy as the girls did before they died. They won’t want to die immediately, will they?’

‘Motherfucker! Kill us if you like!’ another of them shouted. ‘Look at my hands, look, red from the bitches’ blood!’

‘Shut up!’ Kien said. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll do as you wish. I just want to know something. You came here to track us, the regular army, right? So why attack them? Why kill three young girls so brutally?’

No answer.

Kien cursed himself for wasting his time on them. Worse, he’d even been polite.

He ordered them to dig their own graves.

The four of them dug a common grave, digging quickly, enthusiastically, as though they were on contract.

‘It doesn’t have to be so deep, it’s just for lying down in so that arms and legs won’t show,’ said Kien. ‘And hurry up! It’ll soon be dark.’

Each of the four had a shovel, the usual collapsible multipurpose sharp tools. They were all healthy, muscled men. They dug violently, digging, scooping, throwing. The hole widened, deepened, then began to fill with reddish water.

‘That’s enough, get out!’ Kien ordered. He explained: ‘You have to get out before you throw in the bodies of your three friends. You don’t want to leave them to stink up the forest, do you?’

They asked permission to wash and have a last cigarette. Kien agreed, but his troops were not satisfied.

One said, ‘Why string it out? Give them some bronze candy!’ It was the troops’ slang for bullets.

‘I can’t stand these four arseholes either,’ said Kien. ‘They’ll be treated like dogs before they die, but there’s something I have to know.’

The four southern commandos went down to the stream and washed their hands slowly, carefully. They also washed the blood from their uniforms, then returned.

‘Please have a cigarette, sir!’ said the youngest of them, a round-faced, pale-skinned boy who spoke with a sweet northern accent. He politely offered the Rubi cigarette, offering it in cupped hands to Kien.

‘Keep it!’ Kien waved him away. ‘Offer it to your pals when you’re under the ground.’

The young commando sighed, then looked imploringly at Kien, lowering his voice. ‘Sir, the one who has been impolite to you is our commander. Yes, he’s a lieutenant.’

‘Is he? Well, he’ll just be an ordinary soldier below ground. Not your commander, so forget it, don’t worry.’

‘Please don’t kill me,’ the young man said. ‘I didn’t rape any of those girls. I didn’t stab them even once. I swear I didn’t. I’m a Catholic.’

‘You don’t have to swear to me. Back in your line!’ Kien replied.

But the young man, tears running down his cheeks, kneeled down in front of Kien. ‘Please take pity on me, sir, I’m still so young, sir. I have an old mother. I’m going to get married. We love each other, I beg you!’

Trembling, he took a leather purse from his pocket and from it produced a small coloured photograph which he placed in Kien’s hands. Kien held the photo, looking at it. A young girl wearing a black swimming-costume stood with her back to the sea. She smiled happily, her wavy hair surrounding her face and covering her shoulders. She held an ice-cream in one hand and waved with the other. A tiny, graceful wave from a girl so beautiful that he could look at her forever. Kien wiped the raindrops from the photo and handed it back to the boy.

‘She’s beautiful. Nice photo. Put it away or it’ll get wet.’

The commando gasped, his mouth dry. His eyes shone with hope. ‘You mean you’ll let me live? Really? Oh, thank God!’

‘Back to your hole!’ shouted Kien. ‘Son of a bitch! Light your last smoke, or your time is up! You others too, be quick!’

The young man joined the three others who now sat on the edge of the grave dangling their feet over the bodies of their three mates who had been tossed into the hole. Around the scene light blue cigarette-smoke, warm and pleasant, drifted lazily into the drizzle of rain. Darkness was descending from the slopes and the stream gurgled around them.

‘Now!’ said Kien, pulling the AK from his shoulder. ‘Line up!’

The four pale faces looked up, afraid and intense.

‘Stand up, in one row,’ Kien repeated casually, pressing his thumb into the trigger guard in the sub-machine-gun. ‘Move!’

‘Sir, let us finish our cigarette!’ It was the same young man with the northern accent.

‘Stand up!’ Kien shouted again.

‘Let them finish, Kien,’ a scout whispered hoarsely into Kien’s ear.

The condemned men stood up, leaning against each other. Imminent death had left them fearless, their faces hardened. They looked with hatred at Kien, who became angry as he looked at them sneering at death.

‘So, you don’t mind dying? I’ll satisfy you, with as much blood as you want. Like you did the girls.’ Kien was shouting, then laughing grimly.

He fired. Over their heads.

The young northern Catholic began crying. He rushed forward to Kien and knelt, his face on Kien’s feet. Whining, praying, sobbing, he writhed close to the ground, but no words came.

‘You’re volunteering to go first?’ asked Kien, placing the gun-barrel against the boy’s forehead.

‘No, please, let me live, I beg all of you! Let me live, I pray, sir, I beg you!’ Kien shoved the barrel hard on his head and the young commando fell back. The blow seemed to bring him to his senses and he stopped crying. Still kneeling, he raised himself slightly, looking wearily around first at Kien, then the others. His hands wandered over his wound. A cut on his forehead had started blood streaming down his nose.

‘I volunteer to fill in the grave,’ he said. ‘You don’t have to tire yourself doing it. I’ll also tell you all the information I know. Your Party’s policy is to punish those who run away and forgive those who return, so you have no right to kill me. No right! Please, I beg you, beg you!’

Someone behind Kien touched his arm, whispering to him in a trembling voice. ‘Kien, why don’t we forgive them for now and send them to our superiors to decide?’