mountain range from south of the Song Vu Gia all the way north to the razorback below the Liberty Bridge. The rain started slowly, and the jungle’s triple canopy held it back like an umbrella until it strengthened and forced its way through to soak the jungle floor. From below, the water seemed to be originating from the branches themselves. And the trees would hold the water, dispensing it over hours, keeping the jungle alive with drips long after the storm passed.
The North Vietnamese kept moving until the relentless rain made the footing sloppy and the energy spent for distance traveled seemed a poor investment. They finally sought cover in the underbrush. Sentries slipped away from the group to prevent surprises while the rest covered their equipment with oilcloths and rubber-coated tarps. They huddled together, holding the covers over their heads as makeshift tents.
Nguyen squatted shoulder-to-shoulder with Pham watching their tarp shed water in sheets. Raindrops beat at the thick fabric like little pummeling fists.
“You don’t have to be here,” Nguyen said, feeling oddly uncomfortable being this close to Pham.
Pham seemed confused. “I could sit with the others.”
“I mean here in the South. It’s not your place. You should have stayed in the capital where you belonged.”
Pham’s knuckles whitened as he twisted his hat into a wet clump. His hair, plastered to his face, was feeding drips onto the bridge of his nose. “I spent the last six months digging bomb shelters by the Bao tang My Thuat. My only part in the war was to make it safer for citizens to visit the art museum. I wanted to do more. I was ashamed when I heard the guns around the railyards at Duc Noi and Yeh Vien and near the harbor. I didn’t want the war to be something that fell on me. I wanted it to be something I carried to the enemy.”
Nguyen smiled. “Well, you got your wish. You are now ‘carrying it’ to the enemy.”
“And when we reach our destination?”
“Then you will do what you are ordered to do.”
Pham hung his head.
“Don’t worry,” Nguyen said. “I’ve spent over three years in the southern provinces, and I can assure you that just being below the Seventeenth Parallel will provide you with many opportunities to ease your conscience.”
Nguyen was sitting with his arms draped over his knees, and Pham noticed a puckered scar on his hand where a bullet had passed through, leaving the little finger on his left hand permanently curled and a wrinkled mass of burn tissue below his sleeve that passed in mystery under the shirt to peek over the edge of his collar. “You must think me foolish,” Pham said, searching Nguyen’s eyes for some sign of understanding.
Nguyen smiled. “No. I think that you are a young man who didn’t want to tell his grandchildren that his weapon in the war was a shovel.”
Pham seemed to find some comfort in those words.
“Don’t misunderstand me,” Nguyen continued. “If you or Truong endanger this mission in any way, you will not return to your studies. You will obey my orders without question. If I say run, you will run. If I say hide, you will hide. If I say fight, you will fight. If you do not do what I say, you will die.”
After that the two men sat without speaking, listening to the cacophony of crashing rain on the leaves surrounding them.
A few meters away, Truong crouched with Co and Sau under a tarp stretched over one of the bamboo poles from the heavy machine gun. The corners were pulled taut like a tent and provided excellent cover for the three men and the gun. They were dry and comfortable and hoped the rain would last hours.
Sau was working a wad of betel nut under his upper lip, and his wide grin showed an expanse of blood-red teeth. Probing his mouth with a calloused finger, he tried to find a comfortable position to lean against the gun.
Truong dug into a canvas bag with a wide strap that hung across his neck and removed a square package wrapped in heavy plastic over white linen tied with a cord. He looked nothing like the hard-edged veterans he sat with. Like Pham, he had interrupted his studies at Hanoi University to move equipment south. When the urgent call for help before the Lunar New Year swept the city, he, like many others, was caught up in the fervor.
Co watched Truong untie the cord and carefully unwrap the plastic and the white linen folded around the treasures. “You might get them wet,” he warned.
Truong turned the small stack of books over in his hands, examining each in turn. “I wanted to check,” he said. The top book had a scuffed green binding with the printed lettering on the spine worn away. It was the classic Tale of Kieu by Nguyen Du, a precolonial tale of love and lust for power. The book was a gift from his mother, and Truong had committed many of the verses to memory. He loved the Vietnamese authors, but the present political climate in the North repressed the publication of anything that did not align with communist doctrine. The Lament of the Warrior’s Wife and Complaint of the Royal Concubine went from a prominent place on his parents’ bookshelf to a bottom drawer in a back room. When he’d studied in Paris, though, all expression was open and Truong read all the censored authors with abandon. These writers may have been caged at home, but their books flew freely in the West. And as his professeur de littérature had pointed out, his tastes went much further west than the curriculum had intended.
The two remaining books had garish dustcovers illustrated for the pulp trade in America. They were French translations, driven into that language by popular demand. The first showed a Sioux Indian on horseback with a feathered shield racing alongside a locomotive belching a trail of black smoke. Truong turned the book in his hands. The dustcover was worn, and small rips curled the paper at the edges. He held the book so Co could see the title. “The U.P. Trail, by Zane Grey,” Truong said with a certain reverence.
“U.P.”? Co asked.
“The Union Pacific. A railroad. They were a powerful force that drove the true Americans from their homeland for the sake of progress. The Sioux Indians, though proud and defiant, could not stand against a superior technology.”
Co gave a nod of commiseration.
The other book’s dustcover blazed orange and showed a cowboy astride a rearing horse on a rocky mesa. The title peeked below the cover’s curling edges: Frère de les Cheyennes. Thuong held the book up. “Brother of the Cheyenne,” he said, and pointed at the author’s name. “By George Owen Baxter. A name used by the famous Max Brand.”
“This Max Brand did not use his own name?” Co said.
Truong carefully stacked the books and began rewrapping them. “Even Max Brand was not his name. He was Frederick Faust.”
Co shook his head as though expelling unwelcome information by centrifugal force. “So, this American was afraid to use his real name?”
Truong seem offended. “He had no fear, but German family names were not held in high regard during the Great War in Europe and he wanted to sell his writing. But in World War II he used his fame to get assigned as a frontline correspondent, even though he was well beyond a suitable age. He didn’t have to go, but he went—and he was killed in Italy in 1944.”
“The Italians killed him?”
“No. The Germans did.” Truong seemed embarrassed.
Co covered his mouth with a hand, but a muffled laugh squeezed through his fingers. “Maybe he should just have used his real name.”
Truong pushed the books into the bag and closed the flap. “I see you are familiar with irony.”
Co’s shoulders heaved against his stifled amusement.
At the other end of the heavy gun, the steady breathing and sagging head showed Sau was asleep.
“The point is, the native people of America fought against the Europeans. They defended their homeland against overwhelming odds. They fought with bows and arrows against rifles. They matched horses against locomotives and spears against artillery.