Saigon (57 page)

The pilot slid the Huey down a slow, slanting track, dropping almost to the ground behind the tiring Vietnamese boy, and the gunner rapidly traversed the four big Gatling-style machine guns mounted on either side of the landing skids. The controls were finger-light, and the ammunition belts linked to the storage holds in the rear of the aircraft jumped and quivered like living serpents as the four guns began roaring again. Minh, twisting and turning with increasing desperation, looked around fearfully as the helicopter swooped down at his heels, and to his horror he saw that this time he wasn’t going to be able to avoid the great torrent of bullets kicking up a wake of spray behind him. A second later he felt himself lifted bodily from the ground and then he fell limp in the muddy water, cut almost in two at the waist. As he lay there, vaguely conscious that parts of his bleeding body littered the ground all around him, he experienced through the burning pain an even deeper agony. Could his life really be ending? Could it really be over before he’d even started to become a hero of the liberation struggle like his father? 

As Tuyet Luong slid down into the moist darkness of her escape tunnel she was astonished to find Ngo Van Dong himself waiting at the foot of the shaft. His face was tense and pale, and she stared at him, at a loss for words: such a senior commander, she well knew, normally stayed in a secure area far away from the action; and his presence there could only mean that something had gone badly wrong. 

“Where is Minh?” He shouted the question loudly, his face disfigured by his anger and anxiety. 

“Wasn’t he supposed to stay hidden in the tree?” 

“He joined the assault against my orders. One of the messengers saw him go. He must still be in the field.” 

“I didn’t see him,” said Tuyet Luong slowly. “But I think there was somebody who was cut off by the helicopters 

Dong pushed past her up the exit shaft before she had finished speaking, and when he crawled out into the bright sunlight of the field, all was ominously quiet. For a second or two he crouched motionless in the tunnel mouth, his head cocked towards the sky — then he ran out into the paddy, scanning the few black-garbed bodies that lay half-submerged in the muddy water. 

Only thirty yards from the edge of the field, he found Minh, his face and body reduced to little more than shapeless offal by the 7.62-millimeter rounds. He recognized him chiefly by the lovingly polished Garand rifle that was lying beside him, but it too, like the captured Armalite and everything else within a radius of several yards, was now stained with Minh’s blood. As he stooped to pick up his son’s mangled corpse, Dong heard the sudden beat of another HU 1-B’s rotor beyond the trees of Hamlet Three; it had let down there in response to Staudt’s last radio order to lift out the British television crew, and he saw it rising into view above the trees as he began stumbling back towards the tunnels bearing his wretched burden. 

Inside the Huey, the co-pilot manning the attack weapons saw only an anonymous Vietnamese peasant in black pajamas hauling one of the dead bodies away towards a hole in the ground, and Naomi and her camera crew felt a fierce surge of heat as the twin rockets burst from the pods slung beneath the helicopter’s skids. The gunner had targeted the weapons with unerring accuracy, and all those inside the Huey watched them explode with a hollow roar in the hank of the rice paddy. Ngo Van Dong was in the act of dragging his dead son into the mouth of a tunnel when he was hit, and the rockets blasted both their bodies to fragments in an instant. A great geyser of white smoke and black earth spiraled upwards, obscuring the point of impact, and the tunnel that collapsed around them became their tomb. 

“The pride of a man can sometimes be his greatest asset, Comrade Tuyet— but too often it’s his worst enemy!” Dao Van Lat muttered the words fiercely in the quiet of the deserted command post, hut there was a break in his voice, and before he turned away from her, Tuyet Luong saw that his eyes were misting with tears. “If Comrade Dong hadn’t been so determined to make his son a hero before he was ready, they might still both be with us here now!” 

Tuyet sat white-faced at the table beneath the map, watching Lat pacing agitatedly back and forth across the beaten earth floor of the cellar; the ground above their heads shook occasionally with the impact of bombs that American T-28s, called in by the dying Captain Staudt, were still dropping, and the acrid gasoline stench of the blazing napalm was already seeping deep into the tunnel network. The two Liberation Army platoons that had taken part in the ambush had already dispersed safely through the subterranean escape shafts into the jungle, but Lat and Tuyet both knew that the dozen or so women and children who had been ordered to remain above ground in Hamlet Four could not have survived the saturation bombing. 

“When I take the news to his family I know exactly what I’ll find,” said Lat, stopping before Tuyet and gazing down at her with a helpless expression in his eyes. “His younger son, ‘Little Slug,’ will be doing his duty ‘looking after’ his mother and sister and waiting happily for news of the battle — until now it’s all been like a game to him. But then he’ll see his mother begin weeping inconsolably and the rest of his life will be warped by what happened here today. His heart will grow heavy with hatred and the poison will have been passed to another generation.” He stopped and raised his head to listen as the distant rumble of the air attack began to die away; then he began pacing again. “I worked with Dong’s father in the early days of the revolution and spent many years in prison with him. They’re a courageous family who’ve suffered greatly, and it pains me to see their suffering continue.” His voice rose in exasperation and he punched his right fist angrily into the palm of his other hand. “Especially as it all could have been avoided if I’d been more alert.” 

“But what could you have done, Comrade Pham?” asked Tuyet in surprise. “You couldn’t have foreseen what would happen to 
Minh.” - 

“I ignored a danger signal. I should have overruled Dong when I found out that he was letting pride cloud his judgment about his own son.” Lat swung around and came to stand in front of her, again. “It’s vital that we dedicate ourselves to our cause — but we shouldn’t let it blind us to our own human needs. If we do, we could lose something more important than this war.” 

“But there’s nothing more important than the war,” protested Tuyet in an incredulous voice. “How can you say the war isn’t important?” 

“Of course the war’s important — but we should always try to strike a balance with the other things in our lives.” Lat fell silent and walked distractedly back and forth in front of her. Then he stopped and spoke again in a gentler voice. “A long while ago, Comrade Tuyet, I did something very foolish because I was too vain and too proud. I thought there was nothing more important to me than our cause, and I was foolish enough to think I could put myself beyond all normal feeling. As a result, I hurt somebody like you very deeply 

He let his right hand fall until it rested on her shoulder; at his touch she stiffened in her seat, holding herself rigid, and she didn’t relax even when he began speaking again. 

“I’ve rarely spoken of this, Comrade Tuyet, but I’m telling you because something about you reminds me of her. . . . She was beautiful and brave in just the way that you are.” His voice broke with emotion and sank to a whisper. “I thought my love for her was distracting me from the revolution, you see, and I mutilated myself with a knife to put an end to what I thought of as my wasteful desires. But ever since then my dreams have been haunted by the faces of sons and daughters who might have been ours. Having no children, no offspring, I realize now, was too great a sacrifice to make. I regret what I did with all my heart and I always will.” 

Tuyet felt his hand tighten convulsively on her shoulder, and turned to find him gazing down at her with a look of deep compassion in his eyes. “But why do you speak to me of these things at a time like this?” she asked in a mystified voice. 

“Because, comrade, I sense that you are making the same kind of mistake as I made. You have lost a beloved husband and your pain has been great. But without realizing it you are destroying yourself. In trying to stifle the pain, you’ve stifled all human feeling. If you continue to do that, you’ll forget how to feel love and kindness. Hatred can devour you from within. Soon your life will become as arid as mine.” 

“Since my husband, Luong, was murdered I haven’t dared allow myself to feel love for any living creature,” said Tuyet savagely. “If I let myself weaken, somehow I know I’ll only suffer some terrible new loss.” 

“Don’t your children deserve your love, Comrade Tuyet?” he said carefully. “Don’t they need you?” 

“They are well cared for by their grandmother,” she said fiercely. “If I let myself think of them I wouldn’t be able to do what I have vowed to do — avenge Luong’s death.” Her eyes flashed and her voice rasped in her throat. “And I wouldn’t be able to do what I did today!” 

“What was that?” He moved around to face her again. “Tell me about it.” 

“I killed the Diemist lieutenant in cold blood — but if I’d let my feelings get in the way I might not have been able to do it.” 

“Why?” 

Suddenly her lower lip was trembling. “Both his legs had been blown off at the waist by one of our mines. He was still conscious and as I bent over him to take his pistol he tried to speak. But no words came out — he could only make a gurgling noise. He was like me, Comrade Pham — a métis. I took his pistol and turned away, but then I heard the gurgling sound again. I looked around and saw him pointing to the pistol. I’ll never forget the awful pleading look in his eyes. In battle you expect to find only hatred in the face of the enemy — but he really wanted me to help him die.” She closed her eyes, and Lat saw tears squeeze from beneath her lids. A moment later her shoulders began shaking silently. “I shot him in the head with his own pistol just before the helicopters came. He didn’t make any sound at all — he just rolled over on his side.” 

She choked on her last words and buried her face in her hands, wracked by a Fit of sobbing. Lat watched her for a moment, then reached out his hand and patted her shoulder consolingly. “Comrade Tuyet, this war will see many more tragedies yet before it’s won — but you’ve done enough here. Let your agony pass now — today’s horror may have been a blessing in disguise. With your education you could serve the Front better doing intelligence work. Take your children with you and go away from this region. I’ll arrange a new post. Put the past behind you and try to look to the future.” 

She looked up at him, nodding mutely, then without warning she seized his hand in both of her own and pressed it against her tearstained cheek. “This is the first time I’ve wept since the day Luong died,” she whispered. “The very first time.” 

The. early morning sun of Tuesday, June it, 1963, flooded the streets of Saigon with dazzling yellow light. Without discrimination it illuminated the elegant, tree-shaded French boulevards, which were old, the high-rise, air-conditioned American apartment buildings that were brash, new and still rising, and the crowded shack and shanty slums huddled in the timeless habit of Asia along the city’s narrow canals and waterways. It shone, too, on yet another marching column of Buddhist demonstrators, and its radiance turned the saffron robes of the priests to shimmering mantles of gold. It was barely nine o’clock, and in the early glare, the bowed, shaven heads of the monks and nuns were indistinguishable as they shuffled along, pressing their palms together in the traditional pose that reflected the passive, contemplative roots of their ancient faith. 

Because most of them were barefooted, the four hundred demonstrators padded noiselessly out of the dusty lane that led from their pagoda onto Phan Dinh Phung, the central, north- south boulevard known under the French as the Rue Richaud Marching four abreast and carrying cloth banners attacking the Catholic government of President Diem, they headed for the heart of the city, hut although they passed through streets filled with rush-hour traffic, their demonstration did not. excite special attention. Such demonstrations had become almost commonplace following an incident in Hue in early May; then, government troops had killed several Buddhists protesting against a government ban on the flying of their flag, and the sense of outrage among the normally quiescent Buddhist monks had sparked off a wave of protests throughout South Vietnam.. Only one timing distinguished the demonstration of June it from hundreds of others like it — half-a-dozen senior Buddhists were not marching on foot like the others but rode at the head of the column in a battered green Austin saloon car. Among them on the rear seat sat Thich Quang Duc, an unassuming monk in his early seventies whose pinched, bony features reflected the austere, ascetic life he had always led; straight-backed and unmoving, he stared fixedly ahead through the windshield, his face composed in an expression of blank concentration, and to the few onlookers who stopped to watch the marchers go by, he appeared no different from the other bonzes seated beside him. But in the privacy of his thoughts Thich Quang Duc was preparing to endure voluntarily several minutes of the fiercest physical agony a man can suffer — an agony that he knew would be relieved only by his death. 

As the procession moved slowly along Phan Dinh Phung, to calm his rising panic he reminded himself that he had spent his whole life practicing Thien, a philosophy and mode of living which gave a man the power to master his inner self and make his will implacable. Without being conditioned by any set of dogmatic beliefs, Thien demanded of its adherents rigorous techniques of diet, breathing, meditation and concentration, and became he had always been a devoted priest and practitioner, Thich Quang Duc knew that at that moment he was closer than ever before to attaining Satori, the cosmic awareness that was the goal of his religion. Hadn’t all his deeds and thoughts since childhood been aimed at achieving this elusive state of perfection? Hadn’t every act of devotion taken him another step along the path towards the ultimate moment of fulfillment that was now at hand? Mustering all his considerable powers of concentration, he willed his mind to dwell only on this thought to the exclusion of all else, and gradually his apprehension began to diminish. Fingering a string of fifty-Four holly oak seeds, he repeated over and over again the whispered mantra “Nam Mo Amida Buddha” — Return to Eternal Buddha — and as his lips formed and reformed the sacred phrase, a sense of peace and joy began flooding through him and eventually became so profound that he ceased to be aware of his surroundings. 

To the bystanders at the curbside that morning, however, Thich Quang Duc remained anonymous and unremarked in the shadowy interior of the car — and even the car itself attracted little attention. The Scottish television cameraman working with Naomi Boyce-Lewis at first didn’t bother to film the vehicle at all. Walking backwards at the head of the parade, still limping slightly from his Moc Linh punji wound, he concentrated instead on holding the brightly garbed figures of the marching monks in tight focus as they moved towards him, and at the junction where Phan Dinh Phung met Le Van Duyet, he dropped the camera from his shoulder briefly to rest. As he hand-cranked its clockwork mechanism, Naomi Boyce-Lewis moved up close beside him and spoke quietly in his ear. 

“Be sure, Jock, won’t you, to get a good shot of the car driving over the crossroads.” 

The Scot turned his perspiring face towards the reporter and rolled his eyes in exasperation. “The car? I’ve been doing my damnedest to keep it out of shot up to now. A broken-down British jalopy like that doesn’t exactly conjure up the timeless rituals of Buddhism, does it? In fact it beats me why we’re filming this parade at all. It looks just like a hundred other Buddhist demos we’ve seen.” 

The reporter sighed and shook her head. “Jock, a Buddhist bonze doesn’t come to my room in the Continental at six AM. every day to tell me ‘something very important is about to happen.’ Let’s just take him at his word and film everything carefully, shall we? There are monks in the car too.” 

“Okay, Naomi, as long as it’s understood I’m not paying for wasted footage.” The Scot glanced at the soundman, who was busy picking up street noises on his directional microphone, and raised his eyebrows in a good-natured expression of complaint. Then he turned and began filming the march again, taking care this time to include the car. 

The small crowd that gathered to watch the demonstration cross the busy intersection was mainly Vietnamese, but here and there among them, Naomi recognized some of the American wire service and newspaper journalists then resident in Saigon; it was obvious that hers had not been the only name on the Buddhist visiting list that morning, but she rioted with a little surge of satisfaction that no other television crew had shown up, so whatever the promised sensation turned out to be, her coverage would be exclusive. Inwardly she congratulated herself on the time she had spent cultivating the English-speaking monks at Xa Loi, the main Saigon pagoda, and to encourage jock to greater efforts she moved to his side again to point out that his would be the only television news camera present. As she stepped back onto the pavement, she felt a hand on her elbow and turned to find herself looking into the face of a smiling, dark-baited American who was holding out his hand in greeting. 

“I’m Guy Sherman, foreign service officer, American Embassy — you must be Naomi Boyce-Lewis, the famous survivor of Moc Linh.” 

She studied the face intently for a moment; lean tanned, with a hard, determined mouth, it belonged to a man in his late thirties who made no secret of his high degree of physical self-assurance, and because she sensed instinctively that such a man must hold a responsible post at the embassy which gave him access to high-level political information, she smiled warmly in response and allowed him to take her hand. “I’m surprised the safety of a mere English television journalist should even have come to the notice of someone like you, Mr. Sherman,” she said lightly. “I thought you had your hands full trying to run a war and prop up your friend President Diem.” 

“You’re right — the workload’s killing lesser men. But perhaps you remember Lieutenant Gary Sherman? He’s my nephew, and he talked a lot about ‘this devastating English blonde’ who kept her cool when all around her were losing theirs.” He smiled directly into her eyes as he spoke, letting her see that she had aroused an immediate sexual interest in him. “And let me say for the record that I go along with every word of young Gary’s description of you.” 

Holding his gaze coolly, she inclined her head an inch in acknowledgment of the compliment. “Gary never spoke of his uncles — there wasn’t time. But if he had I would have imagined them as older men.” 

“I was only twelve when Gary was born — I was a late twinkle in my father’s eye, I guess.” Guy Sherman’s lean face creased in another grin. “But let’s save my family history for another time, shall we? I happened to overhear you talking with your cameraman about how the bonzes gave you newspeople the nod today on this march. I’d like to have the opportunity to buy you a drink and hear some more about that sometime.” 

“Why does that interest you?” 

Still smiling, Guy Sherman made a little dismissive gesture with his hands. “Would you believe that we’re having a helluva job at the embassy making any contact at all with the Buddhists? We can’t do it openly because President Diem and his family see it as consorting with the enemy.” He paused and glanced around quickly to see if they were overheard, then laid a hand on her arm. “It won’t be a one-way trade, Miss Boyce-Lewis. Maybe I can give you one of two pointers in return to ease the chores of news gathering.” 

The lips of the English journalist parted in a little conspiratorial smile. “That sounds like a reasonable deal.” 

“Okay, how about eight o’clock this evening, then? On the terrace at the Continental? And please call me Guy 

At that moment her soundman touched her arm and interrupted them. “Look, Naomi — something odd’s happening.” 

She turned to find that the car carrying the Buddhist bronzes had halted unexpectedly in the middle of the intersection. The marchers were moving past it, walking suddenly with greater purpose, and they quickly formed themselves into a ring that effectively cordoned off the junction. At the same time the monks alighted gravely from the green Austin and one of them raised its hood. Leaning inside he lifted into view a five-gallon plastic container filled with a dark liquid, then walked slowly towards the center of the intersection beside Thich Quang Duc. Another monk carried a cushion, and when they reached their chosen spot he placed it reverently on the asphalt surface of the road. 

Thich Quang Duc lowered himself slowly onto the cushion in the yogic lotus posture, and when he had composed himself with his legs folded beneath him, he placed his hands, one on top of the other, in his lap. For several seconds he remained immobile, lost in the depths of meditation, then he opened his eyes and nodded once towards his helpers. The monk holding the plastic container immediately began splashing its contents onto Thich Quang Duc’s head, and the liquid coursed down his neck and shoulders, darkening his saffron robe and spreading out in a puddle all around him on the roadway. The faint morning breeze wafted the pungent fumes of the gasoline swiftly towards the crowd of onlookers on the pavements, and when they realized what they were about to witness, little muffled gasps of horror broke from several throats. 

“May the saints preserve us,” breathed the Scottish cameraman as he continued filming beside Naomi. “This time they really mean business.” 

In an electric silence Thich Quang Due’s helpers placed the empty plastic container on the ground a few feet away from him and retreated to join the circle of onlookers. For several seconds Thich Quang Duc himself remained perfectly still, sitting stiffly upright, then the crowd saw his lips move to frame one final mantra before his hands fluttered briefly in his lap. 

The flames that spurted from his body as he struck the match smote the morning air with a hollow thump; twisting and fluttering in the breeze, they seemed at first to be dancing on the head and shoulders of the impassive monk without harming him, and only gradually did his face and robes begin to char and blacken inside the pillar of fire. But even then no utterance escaped his lips, and he remained unmoving in his cross-legged posture on the ground. 

All around the circle, the other monks and nuns pressed their hands together in prayer and stared transfixed at the blazing figure; from time to time moans of anguish rose from their ranks, and when the sickly sweet smell of burning flesh became recognizable amidst the reek of gasoline, there were sounds of weeping among the Vietnamese crowds behind them. Some white- uniformed Saigon policemen with tears streaming down their faces tried to break through the cordon of monks to put out the flames but they were held back. 

“Do you want to try voicing a piece to camera, Naomi, with the flames behind you?” asked the cameraman in a strangled whisper as he stopped to put in a fresh magazine of film. “These pictures are probably going to go right around the world.” 

For a second or two she stared at him aghast; the awful spectacle of the fiery suicide had left her dry-mouthed with horror, and the odor of roasting human flesh was beginning to bring on a feeling of nausea. “I can’t, Jock — it’s too damned awful, just film it straight and I’ll do a ‘voice-over’ commentary later.” 

“But we may never get a better story than this in our whole lives, Naomi,” he hissed, refocusing the camera with shaking hands. “This could make your face famous in five continents.” 

She turned round to stare with anguished eyes towards the blazing figure of Thich Quang Duc; the puddle of gasoline on the ground all around him that had ignited at the outset to produce a broad pyramid of fire had almost burned out, and the flames were now concentrating all their fury on the body of their victim. In their midst, the monk’s blackened head made him look more like some primeval, mummified totem than a man, but still the rigorous self-control exercised by his living mind held his agonized body erect. 

“Don’t worry about what you’ll look like or sound like, Naomi,” persisted the cameraman in an undertone. “It won’t hurt to be a bit emotional — the main thing is to be seen here.” 

“You’re right, Jock!” She nodded towards the soundman, and when he handed her a microphone she moved swiftly to a position where the blazing body of the monk could be seen over her shoulder. Closing her eyes to compose her thoughts, she waited until she heard the whir of the camera, then opened them again and gazed steadily into the lens.