The Summer Garden by Paullina Simons
“You wrapped it like a tourniquet,” said Alexander.
“The blood has to stop, Commander,” Ha Si said quietly.
“The blood will stop but I’ll lose my fucking leg.” Alexander loosened the dressing.
“You will have your life,” said Ha Si.
“I need my leg,” Alexander said. “He is down there and we have to get him immediately before someone notices she’s missing. And easy with the nitrate.”
They waited a few moments to see if the blood would stop. “How do you know he’s down there?” asked Ha Si. “I was bluffing her.” He paused. “But I told you. She would be dead before she gave anything away.”
“She gave it away,” Alexander said, holding his leg, his hands redgluey, sticky. “She couldn’t help what she is either. He’s down below.” He broke off, glanced behind Ha Si, breathed hard, stared down at his leg to retain his composure, stared down at his profusely bleeding leg to keep his voice and his face, so that he could speak his next words to the Yard. “Bannha,” Alexander said, with his head down, “could you— turn her away from me? Could you—turn her so her back is to me? Please.” He didn’t look up as Ha Si crawled across the straw. Alexander heard him flip Moon Lai’s pregnant body away. He breathed out.
“It is all right, Commander,” said Ha Si. “Do you want some morphine?”
“Get the fuck out of here, morphine. I won’t be able to get up.”
“You think you are going to get up now?”
“Just stop the bleeding, will you?” The room, so hot before, was not just hot now, the air was wet with floating red particles and the hooch began to smell like rust, like magnetic metallic compounds, like they were sitting in a blood smelt. It was suffocating. They were breathing in four quarts of Moon Lai’s iron—and some quarts of Alexander’s. Silently they held their bandages and clothes and hands and silver metallic poisons against the slick thigh, and waited out the seconds.
“You forgot there are no civilians on the other side,” said Ha Si. “They are all enemy combatants. It is war, and you forgot even as her vicious words were reminding you. Her pregnancy was such a powerful weapon against you. She knew Ant had to learn it from somewhere. You did get careless.”
“Wrong,” said Alexander. “Rather, you’re right—I wasn’t listening to what she was saying. I didn’t give a shit about her principles or beliefs or whatever other fucking thing she was telling me. And I’ve heard so many vicious things in my life, that frankly it’s just water off my back. I was listening for one thing and one thing only—whether I had been right in what I had observed of her, walking into this hut and walking out with lead on her shoulders. That lead was love. Every time she went down she was devastated from seeing him.” The opium vials told Alexander more than he wanted to know. “Once I knew she loved him, I knew she wouldn’t let him go into the Cuban Program. I knew he was down below.”
“Yes, but once you knew it, she had to kill you,” said Ha Si. “She sacrificed her own life, her baby’s life, to kill you.”
“Did she kill me?”
“I cannot stitch this,” said Ha Si. “The wound is deep. You need—”
“Ha Si,” said Alexander. “I know what I need. To get my son. Now stop my fucking leg from bleeding and let’s get to it.”
Ha Si held him tighter. The seconds ticked. One minute became two. “You are lucky,” he said. “She pulled the knife out too quick trying to kill me. Look, the blood is already thickening. Let us wait five more minutes.” He gave Alexander some water.
Gulping it down, Alexander said, “We don’t have five minutes. We don’t have five seconds. Let’s go.” He got up and fell down. He couldn’t stand on his numb leg.
“Oh, we are fucked,” said Ha Si. “We have to get out of here, ASAP.”
“No.” Alexander flipped on his radio. “Viper, viper,” he said into the VHF transmitter. “Come in.”
In a moment, Richter’s anxious voice sounded. “What’s wrong?”
“Back-up now,” said Alexander. “Mercer, Elkins, Tojo. Send them in, tell them absolute quiet. Now.”
Ha Si was staring at him as Alexander continued to gulp the water. “I’ll be fine,” he said.
“Five of us are going down this ladder one at a time?”
“Well, you heard her. Something out of her mouth had to be the truth, no? She said many guards. She said other POW. Who’s going to help them? Who is going to help Anthony? We need Tojo.”
“If she was telling the truth, there will not be enough of us. If she was lying, there will be too many.”
Alexander stared steadily at the Montagnard. “Ha Si,” he said, “you are going to pull up the cover, you are going to jump in, we’re going after you, we find Anthony, we get out.” He held his leg tightly. “The guards are likely sleeping. Day is night here, or haven’t you noticed? For the cave rats, too.”
Ha Si opened his mouth.
“Bannha,” Alexander said grimly, “this is absolutely not the fucking time to argue.”
Shaking his head, Ha Si raised his compliant hand. “Yes, Commander. Every time you move your leg, you are reopening your wound, is all I will say.”
“I have to get my son. You do understand that, don’t you?”
“I do,” said Ha Si, taking out his knives, his Ruger, his StarLight. “My son was killed by the Vietminh during the land reforms of 1956. He was twenty. And he was on their side. He was a Vietminh, too.” He paused, his black eyes blackening. “Like I was.”
Alexander and Ha Si stared at each other for an interminable moment and then Alexander closed his eyes, slumping against the wall of the hooch. “Was she right, Ha Si, my Vietminh friend?” he whispered. “Do we just believe in the wrong things to fight this war to victory?”
“She was right, Major Barrington,” Ha Si said. “We believe in different things.”
Seconds later, Elkins, Mercer and Tojo were inside the hut.
“Holy fuck!” said Elkins, seeing Alexander. He was quite a sight, his right leg soaked in blood from his thigh to his boot, his hands sticky red-brown, the rest of him spattered. Then Elkins saw the dead woman. “Please, please, don’t tell me that’s our girl.”
Alexander confirmed it was their girl.
“Is our boy under us?” Such excitement was in Elkins’s voice.
“We hope so. Our boy, other POW, maybe their guards. Now, all of you,” said Alexander, “stealth, silenced Rugers only, hand-to-hand, but no noise.”
“Got it,” said Mercer. “But we have to hurry. You need plasma, Major.”
Alexander took another drink of water. “I’m fine,” he said, and with enormous effort heaved himself off the ground. Losing blood was a little like remaining under ice too long—and Alexander had too much experience with both. Little by little you simply lost all sense of the imperative.
They got Richter back on the radio. Alexander told him what was happening. Richter, pleading all deliberate speed, said, “Our hook is already in Laos, just seven klicks away. As soon you are ready to move out, call me. It’ll be a klick away in thirty-seven seconds.”
“Please, all of you,” said Ha Si. “Quiet. I’m opening the lid, I’m going down.”
But no one moved. Alexander was having trouble standing. Blood was oozing out of his wound. He poured more silver nitrate on it, wrapped another dressing around it.
The four soldiers were looking at him with worry. “How are you feeling?” asked Elkins.
“I’m fantastic,” Alexander said, pulling the StarLight over his face. “Stop mothering me, and cowboy the fuck up. Let’s go.” His weapons were on him. Casting one last look at Moon Lai, he asked if anyone had something to cover her with. So Ant wouldn’t see her if they brought him through here.
Tojo took the trench from his pack and threw it over her.
They stood over the lid. “Ready?” said Alexander. “And be quick. If you find any of ours, get them up, get them out, tell them to run up the hill. Watch out for the tripwire. Go.”
Ha Si opened the lid and listened below. All was quiet. He took a breath, nodded to Alexander, crouched and jumped ten feet down; he didn’t even need the ladder.
Alexander listened, heart pounding, breath stalled, as Ha Si went down into the darkness. There was no fire, but there was a grunting whoosh, whoosh, there were two silencer shots, a sound of a blade tearing into flesh, and rapid breath. Alexander went next, with his knife in his mouth, lowering himself by his arms to favor his leg and jumping the rest of the way, quickly grabbing hold of his knife and his Ruger. His StarLights took a few seconds to adapt to the dark. Mercer, Elkins, Tojo, came down after him. Before Alexander’s eyes fully adjusted, a green figure with a bayonet jumped him from the side; he barely had time to raise his knife to parry him; but raise his knife he did. The man fighting him was smaller and weaker, it was not an even fight despite the equalizing bayonet; the man went down. After that, Elkins and Mercer stepped in front of Alexander and Tojo went behind him. Where was Ha Si? They were in a rectangular open area with four corridors spanning out. There was damp straw on the ground. Slick liquid pooled up in the corners.
They moved uncertain and slow. Finally they found Ha Si, just inside one of the corridors, struggling with a large guard who was hanging on to Ha Si’s back and choking him. So someone was awake. Elkins yanked the guard off; Mercer shot him. But Ha Si was right—the noise of the silenced Ruger was too large for the cave.
“Don’t shoot anymore—if you can help it,” whispered Alexander. “Just find Anthony.”
They were in a pack now with Ha Si at point; it got very quiet. Alexander thought it might be false quiet. Water was dripping somewhere. They went down one corridor without flashlights, just their StarLights, their .22s cocked, their blades drawn, the five of them, whispering, Anthony, Anthony. That was their only refrain around the putrid cramped burrow in the sweating earth. It was Alexander’s only refrain. Anthony, Anthony.
He heard someone moan. “Ant, is that you?”
Another groaning sound.
“Anthony? Anthony?”
They found five unguarded U.S. soldiers huddled together in one messy pile on the floor of a locked bamboo cage. Five soldiers, a miracle! The men were bloodied and beaten. Ha Si broke open the lock; they rushed to the prisoners. Anthony, Anthony.
None of them was Anthony. Elkins and Mercer helped them up. One of them was dead. Should they leave him? He was someone else’s Anthony. Alexander said not to leave him. “Quick, get the rest of them up and out.”
Which of them was strong enough to carry a dead man? One PFC volunteered, crying.
“Tojo, help them up the ladder,” Alexander ordered, “and if they can hold a rifle, give them a rifle, and come right back. But don’t call Richter yet... not until...” He asked the POW: Anthony, Anthony?
They knew nothing. Three of them, including the dead man, had been captured just two days earlier. The other two had been here a week. They looked and sounded as if they could barely recite their name and rank for the captors.
“They were not at all well guarded,” Ha Si said. “Fucking Moon Lai. Lie is right. The men who charged me were sleeping near the ladder. It seems to be all there is. I don’t think they are expecting trouble.”
“Don’t get casual, Ha Si. The Sappers are sleeping but if we wake them, that’ll be it for us.”
Anthony, Anthony.
Ha Si went forward down a corridor, and disappeared in the darkness. Alexander tried to keep up, but had to walk deeply hunched through the tunnel and much slower. The corridor was coming to an end about forty feet in front of him. Alexander saw four guards leaning against the wall before a small bamboo cage. They were slumped in sleep. Alexander and Ha Si took a stealthy step, then another. But even damp straw crunched; they could be only so quiet on it. One of the men opened his eyes and, well trained, instantly reached for his weapon. Ha Si, also well trained, hurled his knife in the dark into the man’s throat. The other three were already on their feet. One blowgun shot from Ha Si—because it was accurate and quiet—two Ruger shots from Alexander—accurate but not as quiet. They ran up close; Ha Si retrieved his knife. The blowgun victim grabbed Alexander’s wounded leg and yanked him forward. Alexander grappled with him, his gunmetal knife blade slashing up and down in the dark like lightning. Finally Alexander threw him off while Ha Si was already unlocking the cage.
He opened the bamboo door, stood in front of it like a post—but didn’t go in. Alexander tried to get around the Yard.
“Move, Ha Si!”
Backing away, breathing out in struggling breaths, Ha Si said to Alexander in a stilted whisper, “I am going to call Richter and tell him we found Captain Barrington. I will be right back with Tojo to help you. See if you can get him up.” He didn’t look at Alexander again as he hurried away.
His head tilted under the low ceiling, Alexander walked in. In the small cage he saw Anthony, lying on his side on the black and bloodied straw. Alexander instantly saw that something was wrong, but what?
“Ant?”
He kneeled by him. He looked unconscious, but he was alive! He was barely dressed: prisoner pajama bottoms and an old Viet Cong shirt thrown over his torso. Alexander yanked off his green-eye and removed the shirt covering Anthony.
Then he saw. Anthony’s left arm was gone. It had been severed just a few inches below the shoulder and was now poorly bandaged with clean gauze—Moon Lai had just been here. Trying not to gasp, Alexander turned Anthony on his back and in the dimness saw his other arm, the inside of the elbow and the forearm a solid black from pierced needle marks. If Moon Lai kept him alive, it was by penicillin and opium alone. He was unclean and had savage wounds over the rest of his body.
Alexander looked away. He could not bear it. And when he looked again, he was blinded. “Ant...” he whispered, his hands on his son’s chest. “Ant.” He shook him.
Anthony opened his eyes and stared dully into his father’s face, and Alexander saw himself, a quarter century ago, lying in his own filthy straw, bloodied and without hope—waiting for the guards and the trains and the chains to come and take him, in his despair having refused food for days—and then opening his eyes and seeing his father, Harold Barrington, bending over him and whispering, “Don’t be proud, Alexander. Take some bread.” And he had said to his father, “Don’t feel sorry for me, Dad. This is the life I made for myself.”
And the ghost of his dead father, so close, his voice barely audible over his audible heartbreak, whispered, “No, Alexander. This is the life I made for you.”
And now Alexander—not a phantom—was kneeling over his own son, the same age, in the same straw, near the same death, in the same absence of hope, waiting for the same people, and he said, his voice barely audible over his audible heartbreak, “Anthony, I’m here. You’re going to be all right. I’ll help you. But get up, because we have to go right now if we’re going to make it.”
Anthony blinked. His eyes were glazed and cloudy. He was heavily drugged. But what a clearing when he said, “Dad?”
“Get up, Ant.”
Anthony started to shake. “Oh my God. I’m hallucinating again. Please go away. I know it’s not you. God, what’s happening to me?”
“You’re not hallucinating. Get up.” Alexander was trembling. Anthony’s legs were in irons, his remaining arm roped and tied to a ring in the wall. Alexander cut off the rope, and Anthony, lying on his side, reached out with his hand and touched his father’s very real face. He groaned. “Oh God. No, Dad. No . . . You don’t understand. You have to get out of here.”
“I understand, and we’re both getting out of here.” Alexander was fumbling with the key ring for the leg irons. He was having no luck. Coming back to Anthony’s head, he leaned over him; his arms went around Anthony, leaving bloodied prints.
“I can’t move,” said Anthony. “Look what they’ve done to me.”
What would Tania say?
“Anthony, Anthony . . . ” Alexander whispered, pressing h
The boy didn’t move.
He gazed at his father, his suffering eyes filled with incomprehension, confusion, pain, and then he turned his face away. “My mother can’t see me like this,” he whispered.
“Your mother,” said Alexander, “saw me like this in Sachsenhausen. Your mother wrapped her sister’s body in a sheet and buried her with her bare hands in an ice hole. Your mother will be fine, I promise you. Now get up.” Alexander kissed him. “Don’t worry about anything, just stand up.” When Anthony didn’t move, he said, “You know who else is here for you? Tom Richter.” Now Anthony turned his head. In his eyes flared a brief concession to regret and rapture beyond those two proper nouns.
Alexander, having no time to acknowledge anything, nodded. “Yes, that’s right. Tom Richter. First time in the jungle since 1962 and he’s here—for you. Elkins is here. Charlie Mercer is here. Ha Si is here. And Tojo, who is going to carry you on his back.”
Anthony whispered something.
“Son, I can’t hear you.” Alexander bent very close.
Without saying a word, Anthony pulled the Ruger out of Alexander’s front holster, and without moving his shoulders or legs, or straightening out his listing body, he cocked the weapon with one hand, aimed and fired twice behind his father. At the door of the bamboo cage, there was the thud of a falling man. Alexander turned around to look.
“There’ll be more where he came from,” Anthony said croakingly, giving the pistol back. “I’ll need another weapon. One I can shoot from the hip and change the cartridge myself. Single-handedly.”