The Sorrow of War (25 page)

The black-and-white scenes from last night were confusing him; he held her shoulders between his hands. She bit her bruised lips, but no words came. She continued to stare, her eyes dull and eerie as though they wished to withdraw under Kien's questioning.

He too was terrified. "What's wrong with you? Don't be afraid, we'll get out. Nothing to be afraid of. But what happened to you?"

Phuong couldn't answer. Instead she shook her head, then looked down.

Kien began to close her blouse but there wasn't a single button left. Her bra had been snapped and a strap dangled loose. Her bare breasts were covered with a cold film of sweat. Kien felt himself unable to cope or to understand fully what had happened. He began to cry painful, salty tears which ran hotly down his cheeks, and he almost choked as he tried to comfort her with more words.

"Let's get out of here. Can you stand up?"

"Yes," she said softly, her first word. Grasping his arm she stood up slowly, then staggered. He bent to prevent her falling. He saw that her slacks had been torn open, and blood ran down her inner thighs to her knees. She covered the blood with her arms, but more ran over her knees and down her ankles.

"Why didn't you tell me you were injured? Sit down, sit down. We'll bandage it. Does it hurt?"

Phuong shook her head, No.

"Sit down. I'll make some bandages from my shirt."

"No!" she cried, pushing him away. "Can't you see? It's not a wound! It can't be bandaged!"

What was going on? He knew so little! Phuong lifted herself up and staggered towards the doorway. Although she was bleeding she showed no pain. Her clothes were in shreds and she was filthy.

She was preparing to jump down. Kien rushed to help her. As he did so a big, heavily muscled man wearing the top of a sailor's uniform vaulted into the doorway, blocking out the bright sunshine. Just then the train whisde shrieked, signaling departure.

"Where are you going?" the big man asked Phuong, standing in front of her and blocking Kien, whom he ignored. "The train's about to leave, you can't get offhere!" he said roughly. It was an order.

"Here, I've got a pair of slacks for you. Got some water, food. Who's this guy?" He talked nonstop, expecting her to obey, and looking greedily at her open blouse.

"Yes," she replied meekly. Neither she nor Kien appeared to understand what she had agreed to. She was at her wits' end and would agree to anything he said. Kien had never seen her as pale, or in fear before.

"Whaddayer want?" the man shouted at Kien. "You know this is a military transport." As he said it, the train they'd been waiting for started to run past them. They would be leaving in a few seconds. The whole car shook as it passed.

"Nothin' for you to stay for," he said. "Her'n'me are friends."

Kien shouted to Phuong, his voice angrily impotent, "Let's go, go! The train's here, Phuong, let's go!"

The big man shoved Kien away from Phuong and calmly put his hands on her shoulders, grasping her firmly with his strong fingers.

"Don't tell me you're gettin' off. Is this filthy-lookin' guy a friend of yours?" he asked her.

Phuong nodded, not looking at Kien.
1
see.

The big man was about thirty years old. He had a large, square face with a moronic forehead, a squat, fat nose, and a

thick chin, and he smiled with a cruel leer. He stared aggressively at them. Under the striped sailor's T-shirt his hard muscles bulged.

"I'd hoped you'd stay with me until Vinh. Otherwise I'll be bored," he said, expecting sympathy. "What's up? You don't want to? That's not fair. I stopped those other turds lining up for you again. It's my turn now. I haven't had my turn. I want some reward."

Kien stepped up to him, imploring, "Let us go! We'll miss our train."

Just then the freight car rocked and the earth all around them shook. A series of deafening explosions rent the air. There was shouting from the station. The sailor shouted, "That's a bombing raid, and A-A guns.We'll all be killed!"

Kien grasped Phuong's wrist again and made to jump. Jets shrieked overhead and anti-aircraft artillery pounded at them. Panic broke out, with people rushing all around the train and the station.

The sailor had calmed down a little. "Don't be scared," he said with authority. "They're attacking the Dragon Jaw Bridge. Stay here with me, darlin'. We'll sleep and eat well in here. As for you, piss off if you're scared. Go on, piss off!" he shouted at Kien.

Kien tried once more to get Phuong to leave, but the big man's hand held her firmly.

"If you're scared, get out. There's a fucking war on, y'know. If we have to die, then let's die. Isn't that right, darlin'? Stay here with me. Have pity on me, darlin'. With you gone the rest of the trip's going to be ratshit," he shouted directly to her, over the roar of the battle.

Another squadron of American jets started to descend upon them. Kien screamed, "Let her go, leave her alone, damn you!"

Frustrated, he rushed at the big man, but the sailor had no

trouble in pushing him away. Phuong stared at the two men, seemingly not taking anything of this in, even the sounds of the bombing and the anti-aircraft fire. She seemed in the sailors spell. She would not move towards Kien, or the door.

As Kien was picking himself off the floor the sailor leaned out of the door. "Shit! They're targeting the train now. Come on, sweetheart, out we go!"

Kien had fallen on something heavy, cold, and flat. In his anger—and fear—he tried to get up but fell back again, this time on top of the object. The sailor was dragging Phuong to the door to escape. Anti-aircraft guns banged like huge drums, submachine guns chattered, and the jets screamed overhead.

He left the door and came back to Kien, putting out his hand to pull him up."Be quick.What the hell are you doin'? We've got to get to the shelter. Listen, I was only going to screw her until Vinh. You could have had her back after that. Hell, you're really soft. A little bourgeois softie, aren't your

Kien got up, still holding the object, an iron bar, behind him. As he stood, the sailor stumbled, shouting as he fell.

The shout was drowned out by the screaming of a diving jet. Kien lifted the bar, then brought it down with a crack on the sailor's arm. As he was trying to get clear, the sailor howled with pain. Kien went for him again, but the sailor shoved him away, and the movement caught Phuong's attention. Kien struck again. Crack! The sailor whimpered with pain.

Phuong grabbed Kien's wrist, yelling at him, but her voice was drowned out by the jets. Kien swung around, angry that she should try to stop the attack; he was infuriated, surging with hatred, and his face became deformed as he grabbed her and shouted, "Get away, you whore!"

Phuong's move had given the sailor a breathing-space and he kicked out at Kien, delivering an incredible blow to the groin which forced Kien to double up and cry in agony. But he quickly recovered and attacked again, bashing ferociously at the man's head, drawing blood that flowed as slippery as soap across him.The sailor didn't move again. Kien, his hands bloodied, looked up as one of the jets strafed the car, ripping open the roof, blasting open their little hell.

Phuong, now kneeling near the door, had the look of a madwoman. "Don't touch me!" she screamed as he came over, the sailor's blood dripping from his hands.

He wiped the blood on his trousers. "Stand up. We're going," he said calmly and quietly.

He flung the door open wide, looked up into the sky and, seeing no aircraft, bent down and lifted her up, then dropped her outside. "Let me go," she shouted angrily. But she was already down and he was beside her.

The station had been razed like a demolition site. Kien took hold of Phuong's wrist and firmly led her over bent rail tracks and debris towards a path out.

They had not gone far when Kien dropped to the earth and pulled Phuong with him. "Down!" he shouted as a jet screamed in on a long dive, strafing the train. And among the tracer bullets he could detect something else: a silver napalm canister, glittering in the sunlight, its long shiny sides giving off a gleam as it came in at horrifying speed. Then another, and another.They hit the engine and the station almost soundlessly. Kien saw a black cloud, then the air cracked like broken glass and the earth seemed to be heaving under them, then falling again. Then another raid, another bomb. Explosions punched into their faces and several times Kien was certain these were his last moments. Pressure waves shuddered through them as they lay there,

helpless to defend themselves. Kien grasped Phuong's hand and their cold, quivering fingers intermingled.

Swiftly, as though coming to her senses, Phuong rolled clear, then jumped up and ran for the station. A break in the bombing allowed her to get clear of the lines safely, with Kien in hot pursuit. A breeze was carrying locomotive smoke into their faces.When the smoke cleared they saw the up-line train for Hanoi was still intact and beginning to make a run for it away from the station, a locomotive at each end, one pulling, one pushing. In the foreground their own train, completely destroyed, was just a pile of smoking ashes.

"Phuong!" he shouted, taking hold of her.

She turned to him, her eyes burning with pain and bitterness. A pent-up scream began to surface, but no sound came.

The train sped up, heading north, but as it did so four anti-aircraft batteries started firing and Kien knew instinctively the jets were back. Phuong used the chance to rip herself clear of him and ran off once again. And once again he ran her down, trapping her and deliberately landing on top of her to keep her pinned down.

Bomb after bomb exploded, darkening the day. One series behind them, one in front of them, and one right on target, hitting the rear locomotive—a direct hit. It blew up with tremendous force, and for a long time it rained burning charcoal and hot water. Another jet emerged from the cloudless sky and emptied its cannon into the railcars, setting most of them on fire. The next one was for them, thought Kien, already astounded they could have lived so long, through two bombing raids.

Kien hugged Phuong closely despite her struggles. She fought crazily, like a woman possessed, and as the raid continued he lost his temper, pressing into the back of her neck

and holding her in an armlock. Then he embedded his ten fingers deeply into the flesh of her shoulder to keep her down. They were both terrified now, numb, and gasping, like animals wrestling.

Their frenzied fighting lasted only a few seconds more; then one last bomb came. It was the explosion to end all explosions that day. With the rear locomotive already blasted away the jets now attacked the center of the train. The last bomb scored a direct hit, lifting the railcars high into the air and splitting the train in two. Half the train, pulled by the one remaining engine, kept moving north. The second half of the train, which had already lost its rear engine, now lost its entrails.

During the explosions Kien wondered which of the freight cars the sailor's body was in. Had he been incinerated by napalm? Or just ripped to pieces by the strafing?

Who cared? No one had any time for others at times like these, with an immense roaring enveloping them and thick white smoke and fire.There was little charity or mercy in moments like these.

Unsteadily, Kien helped Phuong to stand, surprising himself with his remaining strength. He slung her onto his back and began clumping away from the heat of the burning ruins. He put her down and they leaned on each other to grope their way through more thick smoke near what remained of the station building. There were cries for help from various directions but at first they saw only corpses.

The bodies lay scattered all around. Then some people emerged, running mindlessly, falling into more debris. Kien began stepping through the bodies as though it were an everyday event for him. This was his newfound strength, to stay cool under fire. No one really knew; they could suspect, but would never really know until they faced the real

test. Scores of bodies lay in all imaginable twisted positions; there was nothing to scream or take fright about.To him, in his hardened state, it seemed perfectly normal.

He was about to put Phuong down for a rest when he spotted a bicycle lying by the roadside. As he picked it up he noticed it was an old but top-quality Phoenix, in remarkably good condition. Astonishingly, it had good tires, chain, pedals, even brakes and a bell. A black sack, nearly full, hung from the handlebars. Kien guessed the bike's owner was one of the corpses lying nearby on his back or his belly, burned and stripped naked by napalm.

Kien got on and tried the bell. A light refined tinkling sounded, the only elegant noise in the air now crackling with frying flesh and little obscene popping noises.Then he rode it slowly for a test. Phuong, almost catatonic the whole time, uttered not a word. When he stopped beside her she offered no resistance, slipping onto the bike's rear carrier seat as skillfully as she'd done in her school days when they'd ridden to school together.

Kien zigzagged through burning houses and wrecked buildings, fallen trees and power lines. There were bomb craters right down the middle of the road, so every now and then he had to stop and walk the bike through. Phuong sat silently on the back all through the strange journey.

As the station receded the settled, steady pedaling action suddenly reminded him that only twelve hours earlier he'd been giving Phuong a ride in a stolen cyclo pedicab. Surely that had been one of the most dramatic entrances imaginable into the theater of war.