Брайан Гарфилд - The Last Bridge

“A couple jeeps coming after us, Colonel.”

The girl spoke quickly. Tyreen said, “What?”

Khang said, “She says turn off to the left down here.”

It was a narrow, rutted track, twining into the jungle. Tyreen slid the jeep into it. They rushed breakneck across jagged lifts and drops. Matted treetops shut out the sun. The girl spoke instructions, and Tyreen took a left fork, another left fork, a sharp right turn. At every fork the trail became narrower and rougher. The tires clawed across foot-high roots. Branches scraped the canvas at both sides. The dark speckling of light made everything hard to see. At a tight bend in the road, Tyreen swiveled the jeep hard against a tree. He jammed the shift lever around, hunting for reverse gear. The engine roared and quit.

In the sudden silence Theodore Saville said, “I think we ran out of gas. Must be another puncture down low in the tank someplace.” He got out to have a look. Tyreen stood in the mud rubbing his face. Saville said, “All dried up, David. We’re out of gas.”

Tyreen held up his hand for silence. He was listening for the sound of vehicles in pursuit. “Hooker.”

“Sir?”

“Hear anything behind us?”

“No sir. Not right now.”

“Maybe we lost them,” said Theodore Saville.

Tyreen said, “It won’t take them long to find our tracks in the mud.”

The girl climbed out of the jeep. She had lost her hat. Her dark hair hung tangled over one shoulder. She said, “We could not have driven much farther. The path becomes thin. I will show you the way to the caves.”

Hooker said suspiciously, “What caves?”

“We use them for hiding,” was all she said.

Hooker was in the back seat with Captain Kreizler’s head in his lap. “What about him?”

“We’ll carry him,” Tyreen said. “Let’s go.”

“What about all this demolition equipment, Colonel?”

“We lug that too.”

“Jesus,” said Hooker.

Tyreen’s eyes were lacquered with fever when he lay down. There was a deep, drained ache in his legs. He had a stitch in his ribs from climbing. He hardly noticed the shape of the cavern. It was dry and dark. Sleeplessness surrounded him with a semitransparent glaze; people and objects and voices seemed distant and not altogether in the present. Saville was talking to him: “Eddie’s still knocked out. The Seconal won’t wear off before tonight. He’s got some burns and cuts — we’re patching him up the best we can. What do you figure about that bridge, David?”

Tyreen’s voice was drowsy and slow. “If Eddie talked, they’ll expect us to try again. They’ll have everything within miles zeroed in on that bridge, and they’ll expect a night raid. We’ll hit them tomorrow in daylight.”

“How? From where?”

Tyreen made an understatement: “A tired brain doesn’t plan very well, Theodore. Let’s sleep on it.”

The girl was nearby. He could not see her. He heard the sound of her voice. “Rest well, Colonel.”

He closed his eyes. Her whisper to Saville reached him faintly. “He is ill.”

“Acute fatigue,” Saville judged dispassionately.

Tyreen’s tongue caressed the hollow poison tooth. He lay back, wrapped in coats. There were many things to think about. McKuen and Shannon — what of them? What of Eddie Kreizler? And the bridge on the Sang Chu. But his mind was sapped by lethargy; his spirit had abandoned him.

He fell into a sleep as profound as a drugged coma.

He suffered a nightmare in which he was unable to step out of the path of an onrushing locomotive.

Somewhere in the course of the afternoon he awoke drenched with sweat. His fevered flesh felt like molten glass. He thought he saw Lin Thao spreading blankets over him; perhaps he smelled or felt her. A chilling ague shook his extremities. He thought he heard himself speak. In time he lost consciousness.

He came awake in complete blackness, sharply alert. “What?”

Saville’s voice came out of the obscurity: “Nothing. Must have been a dream, David.”

“What time is it?”

“After dark. Maybe eight o’clock.”

In the full darkness, fear brushed Tyreen’s eyeballs. Breath heaved in and out of him. Saville said, “How do you feel?”

“Tired.” He stretched out and went back to sleep.

He lay drawn up, foetal. An annoying light flickered against his eyelids. He opened them. His eyeballs seemed to scrape their sockets. A candle burned; Saville crouched over a prone, blanketed man. Tyreen got up and walked across the uneven floor of the cave. He felt chilled through; he carried his blankets with him, huddling.

Eddie Kreizler’s eyes were open. Saville glanced up. Tyreen sat down as though genuflecting. “Eddie.”

“Colonel.” Kreizler’s voice was pitiably weak.

Hooker and Khang were sprawled some distance apart. Hooker snored. Tyreen said, “Where’s the girl?”

“Standing watch,” Saville said. “Eat some of this.”

“What is it?”

“Snake. Khang killed it.”

The meat was sweet and tender. “How are you, Eddie?”

“Mouth so dry I can’t spit,” said Kreizler. “So you still want to knock out that bridge.”

“That’s the order.”

“David, you’d charge hell with a bucket of water.”

Saville said, “Better not talk too much, Eddie. Save your energy.”

“I’m pretty good at talking,” Kreizler said. “Pretty good.”

Tyreen said, “Take it easy.”

“Next time you send somebody on a job like this, get a guy with spine all the way up.”

“Let’s talk about it,” Tyreen said.

“Trung was a pretty smart boy.”

Saville said, “David—”

“Never mind, Theodore.”

Eddie Kreizler said, “First they beat you up a little. Not too bad. Just enough to sting. Then they give you a needle. Ten percent solution of sodium pentothal.”

“That’s a big dose,” Tyreen said unemotionally.

“It is what the medics call a massive dose, David. It’s supposed to produce narcosynthesis. It didn’t. I guess I’m tough, up to a point. Always had a lot of resistance to drugs. It takes six or eight aspirins to get rid of a headache when I get one.”

Rreizler’s face was shadowed. Tyreen thought he was smiling a little. Kreizler said, “Trung beat me up some more, and then he got a little impatient, the way that kind does. He threw a little tantrum, and then they tied me down and he started poking around at my balls with the lighted end of his cigar.”

Kreizler’s voice was lifeless. He stopped talking. He did not seem to be looking at anyone. Tyreen heard Saville swallow. Saville said, “Looks like we got you out just in time, Eddie.”

“No. Not in time. Not nearly in time.” Rreizler stirred in his blankets. Tyreen, looking away bleakly, heard him say, “Give me half a cap of morphine, will you? It’s pretty bad just now.”

Saville reached for the medical kit. Kreizler said, “David.”

Tyreen’s head came around. Kreizler said, “I was tough. It took me a long time to crack. I’m sorry, David. I spilled my guts out to the little bastard.”

Saville plunged a needle into his arm. He had to move the candle. The light fell on Kreizler’s face — hollow and vacant-eyed. Kreizler’s right hand was broken, splinted up. His nails were burned away. He said, “I guess it’s cut the heart out of me. I just want to sit by myself and listen to the tears splash down my face. You know what I was thinking when I talked to Trung? I didn’t know what the hell it was all about, David. I didn’t care one shit for these Goddamn Vietnamese, North or South. But I’ve got Marie and the four little girls, and I care about them. That’s all I was thinking about. I’m no soldier. I guess I’m pretty corrupt.”