Брайан Гарфилд - The Last Bridge

“Watch the jeep for me.”

The corporal saluted, and Saville walked a block and a half through the rain. A large Vietnamese stood on guard at the door of the Coq D’Or club, a bouncer with the savage dark face of a jungle hunter. Saville came in through the double doors and turned in his hat and raincoat at the cloakroom. A young American lieutenant came by casually and asked the checkroom girl for a pack of cigarettes; the lieutenant glanced at Saville, and Saville said, “When I leave here, Colonel Ninh will probably have a man following me. Get them off me when I’ve gone — I don’t want to be followed.”

“Anything special, Captain?”

“No. But I don’t like being followed by the fat fellow’s errand boys. They’d do better to trail Vietcong sympathizers. It’s a matter of protocol.”

“All right, sir.” The lieutenant’s lips hardly moved as he spoke, and he had only glanced at Saville once. He moved away, unwrapping his cigarette pack.

Saville moved slowly through the crowded room, peering idly through the cloud of swirling smoke hanging under the low ceiling. A trio of musicians played on a small bandstand at the far end of the room. Most of the customers wore officers’ uniforms. A group of girls sat around a table desultorily playing dice games; a young man spoke in one girl’s ear, and she left the table with him, giving the young man a calculated smile. Saville reached the bar and studied each face down its length.

A fat Vietnamese colonel made a place beside him and smiled with his teeth. “Good evening to you, Captain.”

“Colonel Ninh,” Saville said, dipping his head slightly.

Colonel Ninh seemed in no hurry to speak. At the green table in the center of the club, dice raced the length of the felt and the croupier spoke: “ Sept, messieurs. ” Two Vietnamese officers sat at a small table playing Nim with ivory markers. A girl moved past in a high-collared black dress; Colonel Ninh reached out and pinched her arm. The girl turned a brief professional smile on him, a dip of long eyelids. Colonel Ninh’s belly pushed against the matted creases of his uniform blouse. Saville heard the steel ball spin under the rim of the roulette wheel and the monotonous voice of the man beside him talking in French.

Colonel Ninh gave him a long scrutiny. “A drink, Captain?”

“Whisky. Thank you.”

The fat Colonel was an oily man with a fowl’s neck and an immense mouth; he was unpleasant and seemed to take pleasure in it. The drinks were set before them. Saville lifted his glass in toast: “Cheers!”

“What?”

“Nothing,” said Saville, and pushed back his sleeve to look at his watch.

Colonel Ninh pounced at him: “An appointment, Captain?”

“There are such things,” Saville agreed. “Thanks for the drink, Colonel.”

The fat man said suddenly, “You are a dangerous man.” “Only a soldier, Colonel. Like yourself. No creature is dangerous if you don’t offend it.” He moved away from the bar and heard Colonel Ninh’s voice:

“ Bon soir , Captain.”

Two Americans sat at a far table under a wall fixture with its bulb surrounded by the leaves of a potted rubber plant. They both wore the wings of Army Aviation pilots. Saville made his way to their table and said, “Evening, George.”

The smaller of the two men lifted a cognac snifter lazily. “Captain. A thousand welcomes. Have a seat. Mister Shannon, make room for the good Captain Saville. Oh Captain, my Captain—”

The young Warrant Officer pushed his chair back under the rubber plant, and Saville took a chair from an empty table beside them. Lieutenant George McKuen regarded him with a bemused smile. Saville said, “How drunk are you, George?”

“Not very. But I just started.”

“Good.”

“Good? My dear Captain, don’t tell me you’ve joined the temperance movement? If I’d known, I can assure you I’d never in my wildest fancies thought to invite you to join our select company. And besides—”

“I’d like to talk to you,” Saville said, glancing at the young Warrant Officer.

“Oh,” McKuen said. “Beg pardon. Captain Saville, meet my new co-pilot. Philip Shannon. I told them I wouldn’t accept any assignment whose veins didn’t flow with the blood of the auld sod. Somehow, you see, the usual red tape got entangled, because miracle of miracles, I got just what I asked for — an Irishman down to his boots. Philip, me lad, show the good captain a sample of your inimitable brogue, that’s a good lad, now.”

Saville said, “What happened to Barney Stein?”

“A wound,” Lieutenant McKuen said sorrowfully. “Aye, a terrible wound. We were flying into the valley of death, Captain, and the bullets flew thick as hornets.” McKuen gesticulated wildly. “Verily and poor Barney Stein took a nine millimeter right through the shoulder. They’ve shipped him home to the States. To bloody Brooklyn, in fact. Now, Barney was a nice lad, a fine lad, but as you see he plainly lacked the necessary brand of faith and good fortune which sustains us in our great hour of need. Which is why I found it necessary to demand that Barney’s replacement be as thickly Irish as me self — although as you see he’s not quite so redheaded.”

Warrant Officer Shannon’s hair was brown. McKuen’s was brick red; it stood straight up from his head like a curry brush. Saville said, “You were born in Cincinnati, George, and I haven’t got time for yarns.”

“Well, in that case, let’s us be getting to business,” McKuen said with high cheer. He turned and waved to a waitress. She stopped by Saville’s shoulder. Warrant Officer Shannon said, “Three cognacs, mademoiselle.”

“And I’ll have the same,” McKuen said.

“Belay that,” Saville growled. He waved the waitress away. “No more for these two, Miss.”

“Oh, for God’s sake!” McKuen exploded.

Saville studied Shannon’s face: reserved, young, good-humored in a quiet way. And bold enough. Shannon said, “When you get through, Captain, tell me if you like what you see.”

“I haven’t got much choice,” Saville said. “I need you two.”

“It’s nice to be needed,” McKuen observed. “What for?”

“A parachute drop in the Sang Chu valley.”

“Where?” McKuen’s hands became still. “The Sang Chu? Captain, correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s so far north that if we overshot by two minutes we’d be over Red China.”

“Not quite, but close.”

“You’re off your bloody head,” McKuen said.

“This is a volunteer mission,” Saville murmured. “You volunteer, or you get me for an enemy.”

McKuen stared at him without humor. “I’ve my choice of you or Ho Chi Minh, have I? I think I’d prefer Uncle Ho.”

“Uncle Ho can’t get his hands on you as easily as I can, Lieutenant.”

McKuen sighed. “What’s the craft we’re to fly?”

“The gooney bird we captured last week.”

Warrant Officer Shannon glanced quickly at McKuen and then turned an angry glance on Saville. “I’ve seen that crate in the hangar, Captain. I wouldn’t ask my worst enemy to fly that thing. It’s falling to pieces.”

“It flew down here. It’ll fly back. And remember this — the plane’s unmarked. The Reds won’t turn their antiaircraft on it if they think it’s one of their own planes.”

McKuen said, “How much time do we have to think about it?”

“You don’t,” Saville said. He stood up. “Let’s go.”

Shannon looked at McKuen. McKuen’s shoulders lifted, and he pushed his chair back. “Anything for kicks,” he said. “After you, my Captain darling.”

Brigadier General Martin Jaynshill was a powerful man with a blunt head and cropped iron-gray hair. His face, elegant and arresting, had the texture of a honing stone. He stood by his desk with the resigned expression of a man who had not been permitted to go to bed when fatigue demanded it of his body. His eyes flicked across Colonel David Tyreen’s face. “I was expecting to see you yesterday.”