Ian Slater - WW III 08 by South China Sea

Author:South China Sea [Sea, South China]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2012-02-21T13:19:45+00:00

An hour later General Freeman called on Marte Price. He couldn’t tell whether she’d been crying or whether she was being deliberately cold.

“I apologize for losing my temper. I apologize for telling you to—to ‘piss off.’ That was ungentlemanly of me and I regret it.”

“And the rest, General?”

“I don’t withdraw a word of it. It’s true. I wouldn’t trust you people as far as I could kick you.”

The road to Lat village, or rather the nine hamlets that constituted the population of just over seven thousand, was in bad repair following heavy rains, and Raymond Baker was glad that Ha Ha had got him the jeep for the seven-and-a-half-mile journey. He was stopped twice by police who demanded to see the required permits and who, in the second instance, argued that the date stamp on the Dalat permit was for tomorrow and that therefore he should not be on the road and should be fined one million dong, about ninety dollars U.S.

Exasperation barely under control, Baker told them about the clerk at the hotel and that perhaps what he should do is have the U.S. legation in Saigon ring the officials of General Vinh in Hanoi. That did it. Albeit grudgingly, he was allowed to proceed, and once in the first hamlet, in the early afternoon, he let it be known that he was looking for information about U.S. MIAs and POWs from ‘Nam, appealing to their patriotism, telling the village headman that “our soldiers and your soldiers are fighting side by side to repel the imperialistic ambitions of the Chinese,” and that therefore the Vietnamese people and all those who had been exploited by the Chinese no-gooders had a patriotic duty to help him find any missing MIAs or POWs from ‘Nam. Then they could rejoin their comrades in the fight against the Chinese invaders. Baker had particularly balked when it came to using terms such as “imperialist,” “no-gooders,” and “patriotic duty,” but then again, why not use anything he could? He added that there would also be a substantial reward for helpful information leading to any POW or MIA.

A lot of villagers on their way back from market stared at him as they had stared for thousands of years at barbarians who smelled like dog and often, to the Asians’ disgust, grew facial hair. But beyond that, no one took much notice, other than a crowd of boys who, despite the village’s relative prosperity, soon clung about him, their hands out for money or whatever he might have had to give. The only thing he wanted to give was hope to at least some of those parents back in the States who simply did not know for sure whether their kin were alive or dead. If they were dead, then at least they would know for certain, and the grieving could begin. Police, he noticed, were everywhere in Dalat, and suddenly in the beautifully rich, clean air that had followed the downpour he realized how futile it all was.

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