The Man From Saigon by Marti Leimbach

Author:Marti Leimbach [Leimbach, Marti]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780007350636
Google: OlLCVmbG_R8C
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
Published: 2010-05-14T16:00:00+00:00

“Man, Charlie is ingenious down here. The suicide squads strap themselves with dynamite and dress up like trees. They got Chicoms and AKs, sure, but also all this other shit: flying mace, spear launchers, arrows, crossbows—”

“Russian fucking rockets, that’s what you got to worry about—”

“—all kinds of knives, not to mention the traps, like punji—”

“Punji, fuck that, this marine—this riverine—he stepped into a bear trap. And that was it from the knee down.”

“There are no damned bears in the Delta. Chinese flamethrowers, they got. Plenty of them around.”

“I said trap, man, just the trap.”

He listens to the soldiers, sitting inside a small hut in a row of others beneath some palms, the only shade in the camp other than beneath the open-sided marquis-style tents set up for the refugees. He stares out the entrance of the hut, his eyes crossing the humid, swimming air to the command tent, empty for the moment, like most of the tents. No sign of Halliday, and there hasn’t been since he arrived. Just scores and scores of Vietnamese peasants, looking aimless and bewildered. There must be hundreds, thousands, in the camp. He has no idea.

The refugees don’t think much of the tents, which trap heat. The insides of these newly erected structures have the same smell as a terrarium, with hot, unmoving air like a henhouse in summer. Though the tents provide some shade, there is more shade within the bordering jungle; its trees and creepers and broad shadows of larger leaves block out the imposing sun. Some of the people want to go there, but are prevented from finding the natural shelter of trees by the perimeter which has been set up all around, rolls of concertina wire arranged untidily on the ground, guarded by ARVN soldiers who look tired and bored. Marc feels any minute the atmosphere could shift from this sleepy steamhouse to one of violence, not by the peasants, who appear too disheartened even to raise their voices, but from outside the camp. He keeps waiting for the explosions.

“Bear paws are considered a delicacy. You know, they eat them. Hey, you,” a soldier says to Marc, “I’m just saying bear paws are a delicacy, you know that?”

“No,” Marc says. “I didn’t know that.”

“What’re you, a reporter?”

“That’s right.”

“You seen any bears in the Delta?”

He shakes his head.

“How long you been in country?”

“Twenty-three months.”

“No shit? Twenty-three months? I don’t believe it. And you seen no bears?”

“No. None.”

“See, there you go, no bears in the Delta. What did I say?”

There are half a dozen of them there, escaping the sun outside. It is as though the earth has taken a fever and all of them have to wait through these elongated afternoon hours until it recovers. He has seen toads baked in such sun so that they became hardened rocks that the children played with like toys, making the stiff bodies hop as though still alive. He has seen the heat dry up the soldiers so that the thinnest skin between their lips tore away when they opened their mouths.

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