William Boyd - Sweet Caress

At night, though, the mood changes and the war comes calling, but distantly: we can hear the thud of far-off mortars, see multicoloured flares falling beyond the invisible perimeter. The dugga-dugga-dugga of helicopters passing over, low, wakes you in your ‘rack’. Lily Perette has dysentery and is being flown back to Saigon to hospital. So I’m on my own.

I climb into the Huey helicopter and squeeze in behind the gunner. A section of ‘D’ Company, 1st Battalion, 105th Infantry Brigade, joins me. My hair is tucked up under my helmet and I’m sitting on my pack and my two cameras — a Nikon and a Leica — are in my musette bag along with six rolls of 35 mm Ektachrome film. We are going to a ‘Country Fair’, so called. ‘D’ Company choppers into a village in the Que Son Valley, surrounds it, searches for suspected Viet Cong amongst the inhabitants and any caches of weapons or ammunition that might be hidden, and then departs. Country Fair operations, as their name suggests, are routine and usually safe, which is why I chose to come along. The village is called Phu Tho, anglicised to ‘Pluto’. ‘Is there life on Pluto?’ some joker asks as we take off. It is 5.45 a.m.

In the pearly morning light, mist evaporating from the meandering rivers and the creeks, the sky hazing into blue, Vietnam looks very beautiful. Only the scars, the bulldozed brick-coloured scabs on hilltops and ridge-ends of abandoned firebases and observation posts, mar the abundant, lush greenery. Looking closer I see areas of felled or flattened trees, and occasional clusters of rimey, water-filled bomb or shell craters, like pustulant ulcers. The green landscape seems primordial, untouched — but of course it isn’t.

Arriving at Phu Tho village, Que Son Valley, 1967.

Soon we swoop down with our reverberating clatter towards the rice fields around Pluto. The men leap out of the Hueys that then soar up and peel away, having disgorged their human load. As we hover closer to the earth I lean out past the gunner and — click — grab my first photo. Pluto’s Country Fair has begun.

The men fan out, sloshing through the rice fields, plodding along the low causeways, and the village is quickly surrounded. Captain Durado goes into the village with the interpreter and the 200 or so villagers are led out — women, old folks and children are separated from the young men. They settle down on their haunches, patiently, uncomplainingly, waiting for this rude interruption to their daily lives to be over. The men of ‘D’ Company occupy the village, the dog handlers set their German shepherds loose, sniffing out tunnels and buried bunkers, for any sign of VC or NVA presence.

Off to the Country Fair. Que Son Valley, 1967.

Midday. It’s hot and wet. Clammy and hot. All the village haystacks have been set on fire and the smoke curling from them seems reluctant to climb into the sky.

I ask Captain Durado why he gave the order to burn the haystacks as doesn’t that rather signal our presence in the valley? He says he gave no such order — the men did it themselves, it’s something they seem to like to do, almost a habit, a rite de passage , I infer. I wander away and sit on the edge of a drainage ditch and eat my C-rations — ham and lima beans and a can of fruit cocktail — then smoke a cigarette.

‘Excuse me, ma’am, but — if you don’t mind me asking — what the fuck are you doing here?’ A GI sitting along from me cannot contain his curiosity.

I explain that I’m a journalist. It’s my job. ‘Just like you,’ I add.

‘Yeah, but I didn’t ask for this job.’

General laughter at this.

‘No, what I mean,’ he goes on, ‘is that aren’t you a little bit—’

He never finishes his predictable question because all heads turn to look, turning to the sound of popping gunfire from the treeline across the rice fields from where we are sitting. Everyone starts swearing and grabs their weapon. I jump into the drainage ditch and scurry along it, heading for a wooden culvert. Shouts and orders ring out. Captain Durado is standing on the culvert ordering his men to take cover. Whump! Whump! The first mortar shells explode and Captain Durado leaps into the ditch beside me. The villagers begin to scream and scatter aimlessly, heading for obscuring vegetation — nobody tries to stop them. Now there’s a steady rattle of enfilading fire from the treeline. Now we are firing back with more intensity. I think I can see where the shooting is coming from but I can’t spot the enemy. Suddenly I’m back in Villeforte in the Vosges mountains.

Captain Durado is joined by his radio operator who twiddles with dials and switches on his machine. Hiss of static, voices.

‘Maybe we shouldn’t have set fire to the haystacks,’ I say to no one in particular.

Captain Durado is young — twenty-five or twenty-six, I’d say — with a light moustache. He is swearing profanely as he unfolds a map and peers at it. Squinnying over his shoulder I see that it has various coordinates and names scribbled on it in capital-lettered blue biro: ANIMAL, ABODE, JUDY, BEER, PARIS, CITY.

‘Twenty-five Judy,’ Durado calls into the handset handed to him by his operator. ‘Proximity to enemy three hundred yards. Twenty-five period one. D-three period two. Zone fire.’ He blinks and shakes his head as if he’s suddenly remembered something. He stands up and yells at his sergeant: ‘Get some guys round the back by the bridge!’

The mortar shells are coming over with more frequency but landing short in the wet rice fields which robs them of their effectiveness, flinging up columns of muddy water, and spattering us with mud droplets.

I move away from the captain, heading further up the ditch, now filled with ‘D’ Company grunts answering fire with fire, blasting away with their CAR-15s at the invisible enemy in the treeline. Back by Captain Durado’s position by the culvert the mortar fire appears to be more accurate. There are shouts of alarm as the blasts creep closer and erupt on the causeway. Stones and earth begin to fly around. A pebble pings off my helmet.

Then I hear our artillery going over, called in by Captain Durado from some distant firebase — a brake-screeching sound mingled with a vibrating swooshing in the air — and, in one giant rippling volley, the whole treeline across the fields is obliterated by the exploding shells. The mortaring stops abruptly. There’s a few popping rounds from AK-47s then another salvo erupts. Smoke drifts away. There are no more trees. Silence. ‘D’ Company begins to whoop and shout; men stand up, light cigarettes, the mood one of sudden, relieved jocularity. Fuck, shit, hell, motherfucker, gooks, way to go, man.

The Country Fair operation at Pluto hasn’t been quite the saunter in the park that was envisaged. I climb on to the banked causeway between the rice paddies and feel my legs trembling. My mouth is dry and I crave the syrupy sweet fruit cocktail that had been in my C-ration. The last accurate mortar rounds had caused casualties, it transpires. Three wounded in action and one killed in action. I walk over to join the group looking down on the dead man — the dead boy, I see — as we wait for the corpsmen to arrive. He has been blown out of his refuge in the ditch and his body lies awkwardly at the fringe of the paddy field. The blast has ripped his clothing and webbing from his body, leaving only his trousers and boots, and his skinny white torso is revealed. He has vivid ginger hair and this is what makes his body look so incongruous. A pale, freckled redhead lying by a paddy field in South East Asia, his back a small crater of mangled ribs, flesh and protruding organs. I think about taking a photograph but the idea revolts me. Somebody throws a poncho over him. I make a decision — no more combat missions. The men are right: I’m too old. One visit to Pluto is more than enough warfare for me.