Message from Nam (38 page)

And in between transmissions to her, the RTO at the base was talking alternately to the guys in the brush, and the medevac unit.

“We see you, Delta Delta. They’re coming in to pick you up.” And after that, the men in the control room stood and waited, while Paxton lay where she was, as the helicopter came down, right where Bertie had been killed. She saw them put his body in the chopper and then two men with a stretcher ran into the trees where she lay with the three men who’d been wounded.

“You okay?” They glanced at her as she nodded, and they rapidly put the first man on the stretcher and then ran back for the two others, and then beckoned to her. “Come on, quick …” She ran through the enormous dust cloud they had caused, and the wind from their chopper blades, and without saying a word, they dragged her into the chopper and took off, and flew the short distance to the 159th MDHA unit on the base where they had a helipad all set up, and a cluster of nurses and corpsmen waiting.

“This is Mother Goose … come in TWO One Alpha Bravo, you got her?”

“We got her,” the pilot said calmly. “She looks okay. How are they doing downstairs?”

“Fine so far. You’ve got all their wounded.”

“Over and out, Mother Goose. We’re coming in now.”

Paxton was still clutching the radio to her as they came down, and her whole body had started shaking. The radio still had the RTO’s blood on it, but he was doing fine in the hands of the medics. Paxton let them unload the wounded first, and then she thanked the pilot again, and climbed gingerly out of the chopper. And almost as soon as she did, she felt herself grabbed and swung around so hard, her helmet fell off her head, as her golden hair spun around her.

“What the fuck were you doing out there?” She didn’t even understand who it was at first. He was shaking her like a child, and for a minute she thought he was going to hit her. “Don’t you know you could have been killed? Why the fuck did you go out there? The whole fucking area is restricted!”

“I …” And then she saw him, his black eyes blazing at her in fear. It was Tony Campobello.

“Don’t you follow rules? Or do you think you’re too important for that? You could have gotten yourself killed, and everyone with you!” But all of a sudden she couldn’t take any more, and she wasn’t going to take it from him. She’d been through this before, and he wasn’t going to make her feel guilty again. It hadn’t been her fault this time, and maybe it wasn’t her fault when Bill died either.

“Don’t give me that shit!” she shouted back at him, her green eyes blazing into his like M-16 rifles. “I didn’t do anything! And no one got hurt because of me! You’ve got the whole goddamn NVA out there, mister. And if you guys aren’t smart enough to keep them out of your own goddamn base, don’t yell at me! All I did was walk ten feet past where I was supposed to be, and I got shot at!”

“What the fuck do you expect out here? Ladies serving tea? This is a goddamn war zone!” The two of them were standing there screaming at each other, and the wounded were long gone, and the chopper had taken off again, and they were still screaming, and the men around them figured it was a personal gripe, so they didn’t interfere. And it was. It went back a long time, and now the air needed clearing.

But as she shouted at him, her eyes filled with tears suddenly. They were tears of anger and frustration. “
Don’t shout at me!
” she railed back at him. “It wasn’t my fault those boys got hurt!”

“No, but it could have been!” he shouted back as Ralph and the lieutenant drove up in a jeep and watched the two yelling and waving their fists, and Ralph groaned in irritation.

Tony backed off when he saw his lieutenant arrive, and Ralph glared at him in totally unconcealed fury.

“You at it again?” he asked with open anger.

But he wasn’t afraid to tackle Ralph either. “She could have gotten her ass blown off,” he said to him by way of explanation.

“Thank God she didn’t,” the lieutenant said. He was older than Bill, and he looked shaken by the events of the morning. “Maybe I was a little premature inviting the press in to look at that tunnel.” Their photographer was dead, Paxton could have been, and Ralph looked gray as he contemplated what had happened.

Ralph looked at her pointedly as he spoke. “Maybe we need to be a little more careful. What in God’s name made you walk out there?”

“I don’t know. Bertie said he wanted to get a few quick shots, and I wanted to see what he was doing. I guess I was just following him, and the next thing I knew, someone opened fire on me.”

“If you hadn’t taken the radio, young lady, you’d still be in there,” the lieutenant said with respect. “You kept your head, and you probably saved those boys’ lives.” She glanced angrily at Tony, still fuming as he said it.

“The sergeant here thinks I tried to kill them.”

The lieutenant smiled at what she said. Campobello was one of his best men, although a little hot-blooded.

“I didn’t say that,” he growled. “I said you almost got yourself killed.” … and he had accused her of killing Bill … but that was another time, another story.

“That’s closer to the truth,” Ralph said, and as Tony and Paxton got into the jeep with them, still glaring at each other, Ralph talked to the lieutenant about getting Bertie’s body back to Saigon. Everyone had loved working with him, and it would be a real loss now that he was gone. Another man gone. Another death. It was hard to live with.

“I’d like to thank your RTO at the base,” Paxton said quietly before they left. And the lieutenant introduced her to him. And there were suddenly tears in her eyes when she met him.

“I just wanted to thank you …” She didn’t know what to say to him. He had saved her life with his transmissions and cool action.

“Anytime, Delta Delta,” he drawled. He was also from the South, but she didn’t ask from where. “Sorry we got you into a hot spot.”

“You got me out of it. That’s more important.” She knew by then that the other guys were okay. Only their friend Bertie wasn’t. And Ralph was very upset about it as they drove back to Saigon.

They hadn’t seen Tony again before they left, but Ralph was still furious with him, and he vented some of his frustration by shouting at Paxton. It had been a tough day for all of them, an ugly day in an ugly war, and they hadn’t even gotten the story they came for. Ralph said he’d come back another day, but he had to get back to Saigon and report back to the AP and make some arrangements.

“What is it with you? Every time I see you two together, you’re screaming at each other like lunatics.” He was annoyed at her, or appeared to be. But in truth, he’d been scared to death, and now he was so relieved she was alright that he was angry at her.

“He accused me of trying to kill those guys by being careless.”

“You were careless with yourself, which is worse. You’re here to write about this war, not get killed to prove a point. And I don’t know what his problem is, but I think he’s crazy.”

“He is.” She confirmed it with a venomous glance. She was filthy dirty again, and covered with the RTO’s blood. It reminded her of other missions she’d been on, and why she had come back to Saigon. It wasn’t that she loved it. But she knew she had an obligation to be here. But an obligation to whom? To herself? To her country? To the paper? Or Ralph? Or Peter? Or Bill? It was an interesting question. And as they drove back to Saigon, they didn’t speak again. It had been a stinking day for both of them. And even for Tony, who had gone for a long walk, fuming to himself, and trying to figure out just exactly what it was he felt for Paxton.

C
HAPTER
21

R
alph was still annoyed with her when he saw her at the AP office the next day, but she took him to lunch, and after a couple of drinks he relented.

“You jerk, I thought you’d had it when you were lying out there in the brush with those guys. I figured they’d pick you off next. I could just see the story.”

“So could I,” she admitted, drinking a
café sua.
It was strong coffee sweetened with condensed milk from cans, and a year before, she’d thought they were disgusting. Now she loved them.

“Were you scared?” he asked in an undertone, and she smiled.

“Afterwards, I was. Right then, I’m not sure … for a minute I started to panic, wondering what would happen if they grabbed me and didn’t kill me. That really scared me more.” It had already happened more than once, journalists who were taken prisoner, but usually they were released. The North Vietnamese wanted to give them a little propaganda to write about, but there was always the possibility that next time they wouldn’t be as friendly. And the stories of torture and beatings at the hands of the Vietnamese were legend. “Right then, all I could really think of was getting those boys out before they died.”

Ralph nodded, thinking. “Poor Bertie.”

“Was he married?” Paxton didn’t know him that well, although she’d always liked him.

“No. He had a girlfriend here. A girl from Cholon, I think. Other than that, I don’t think he had anyone. No wife, no kids. I called the embassy for him. They’re sending him back to London tomorrow.” She nodded, thinking of when Bill had been sent back to Debbie. And then Ralph looked at her, and for a moment he looked very tired. “Don’t you get sick of this? The dying, I mean. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to live in a place where people only die from things like cancer or falling off ski lifts.” She smiled, knowing what he meant, although she’d been away from it for a while. But it was still hard. It still hurt you. And yet none of them seemed to be able to leave it. They couldn’t go home and leave unfinished business. That was what had happened to her when she’d gone back. It all felt so wrong being home again, because in her heart, she knew it wasn’t over.

“Yeah. I get sick of it. We all do.”

“It worries me sometimes …” he said to her honestly. His third drink had taken a toll on him, which was rare. She didn’t see him drunk very often. “I think about France having the baby here. It’s a hell of a world to bring up a child in.”

“You could go home, with them,” Paxton said softly, but she wondered if he could. Maybe he’d been there too long to feel comfortable anywhere else again. There were journalists like that, who had lived in places like Turkey and Algeria and Viet Nam for so long that they could never go back to New York and Chicago and London. She wondered sometimes if he was one of them, or if she was.

“She doesn’t want to go home with me. She wants to stay here. She knows what it was like when she was married to the GI who was An’s father. The army treated her like shit, his family hated her. She thinks that if she goes back to the States with me, people will stone her in the street, and you know what, Pax? I’m not all that sure they wouldn’t. I’m not all that sure I have a right to take her away from here. And this is one hell of a sad place to grow up in. If we were in the States, there’s so much I could do for An. But here, I’m just happy if I can keep him safe and decently fed and out of trouble.” An was hardly more than a baby himself, but Paxton knew there were five-year-olds selling heroin on the street. Even though An was nothing like that. France took beautiful care of him, and kept him at home with her. He went to a French Catholic nursery school that had once been very exclusive, and his mother was every inch a lady. But they lived in a dying world, and into that world, they were going to bring their baby.

“How’s she feeling, by the way?” Paxton asked.

“Fat.” He laughed. “She’s cute.” And he was excited about the baby. He’d never had a child before, and he was going to be a father at thirty-nine, and despite the cool indifference he tried to portray to his friends, he was very excited.

He went back to the office after that and Paxton went to the Hotel Catinat on the Nguyen Hue for a swim, and then she went back to the Caravelle to write her story. She still hadn’t composed her thoughts after what had happened at Cu Chi the day before, and she was lost in thought as she walked across the hotel lobby. She jumped when someone touched her arm, and she looked up in amazement to see Tony.

“I …” She didn’t know what to say to him, and she wondered if he was going to start shouting at her again. It seemed to be his favorite form of conversation. “What brings you here?”

He blushed crimson as he looked at her this time. It was easier dealing with her when she was wearing an undershirt and combat boots and fatigues, and the remarkable golden hair was hidden in her helmet. But suddenly, here, she looked very beautiful and very womanly, and he felt foolish as he looked at her, and sorry he had come at all, but he’d felt he had to.

“I owe you an apology again.” The dark brown eyes looked into her green ones, and for a moment he seemed almost boyish. “I shouldn’t have shouted at you yesterday. I … I was scared for you, and relieved that you were okay, and … it was hard seeing you there again. It brought back memories.” As he said it, his eyes were damp. He still missed Bill Quinn, more than he did a lot of men, but he was sure she did too. And he wasn’t someone who could hide his feelings. “It must have been hard for you too.”