Part 18 (1/2)

As usual he watched the flames with a detached feeling of satisfaction; the burning vessel looked like so many others that he had seen during nearly three years of combat flying. Now it was just like watching magic lantern slides appear on the gla.s.s of his winds.h.i.+eld; bullets and bombs exploded, s.h.i.+ps, tanks, trucks caught ,fire, oily smoke and flame billowed ferociously for a moment or two, then as quickly as they had come they were gone, and the winds.h.i.+eld of the swooping Warhawk was immediately redecorated with a fresh sheet of pale blue sky, darker blue sea, or perhaps the black cloak of the night blocked out all sight of the earth below.

Because of this feeling of detachment, it often seemed to Joseph that he had been fighting the war for much longer than three years. It was difficult to remember sometimes that he'd ever done anything else. He had been a.s.signed to Midway Island to fly P-40s of 495th Squadron in late May 1942 on finis.h.i.+ng his Right training; because of the emergency, the primary, basic and advanced stages of his training had been shortened from the normal seven months to less than six and he had difficulty identifying now with that dry-mouthed second lieutenant who had claimed his first ”kill” in the famous rout of the j.a.panese fighter escort that came with their ma.s.sive fleet to pound Midway in early June. He had surprised himself in the first place by volunteering for combat flying, and in the early days whenever he reached for the trigger of his wing cannon or the bomb release control, he had experienced the same deep repugnance of killing that he had felt when he held a hunting rifle in his hands earlier in his life. But in the end the fierce determination to overcome these instincts, born in him after Chuck's death, had helped make him one of the most successful combat pilots in the Pacific. The aerial mauling at Midway, which destroyed the myth of j.a.pan's naval invincibility and turned the tide of the Pacific War in America's favor for the first time, had been a baptism of fire for Joseph, and when American Marines finally drove the enemy's land forces out of Guadalca.n.a.l early in 1943, his squadron had been moved there to help force the j.a.panese onto the defensive. It was the constant sorties flown from the Solomons that had inured him to the devastation he and his fellow pilots inflicted almost daily on ground and sea targets, and because of his growing reputation, when j.a.pan launched its ma.s.sive offensive in China in the summer of 1944, he had been promoted to captain and rea.s.signed to the 308th Squadron of the Fourteenth, the force based in southern China that had been built around the nucleus of Major General Claire Lee Chennault's widely famed prewar group of volunteer aviators, ”The Flying Tigers.”

j.a.pan had thrown two million men into her China offensive, and the pilots of the ”Flying Tiger” squadrons had for many months been operating around the clock countering land and air attacks and striking at vital j.a.panese supply routes into China and Indochina. Joseph had already flown several sorties over Tong- king and Annam to attack bridges, railroads and supply depots being used by the Imperial Army, and the jungle-covered limestone crags of Tongking had become a familiar sight as he beat back and forth to his base at Kunming. But as he turned the nose of the P-40 northwest towards the Chinese border on that night in mid-December I9, there was no moon, and darkness was descending swiftly over the two-hundred-mile stretch of mountainous jungle that separated the pilots of 308th Squadron from their home landing strip. The early winter monsoon was strengthening too, and because of the bl.u.s.tery wind the squadron reformed itself more slowly than usual as the glow of the burning s.h.i.+ps outside Haiphong fell away behind them.

Joseph listened carefully as each pilot reported his presence to the squadron commander and when it became clear there had been no losses, little bursts of relieved banter began to crackle back and forth between the pilots. After a few minutes the engine-note of Joseph's Warhawk began to fluctuate, rising higher than normal then falling again, but at first he didn't worry unduly; several times in the past he had limped back to base with his engine misfiring, and he'd got used to finding, his wings and fuselage riddled with holes on landing. But when the engine faltered and coughed suddenly, he felt instinctively for the furry rabbit's foot that he wore on a chain around his neck along with his dog tag; he had never once taken off without the good-luck charm, and over the three years had developed a deep superst.i.tious attachment to it.

Touching it now made his thoughts turn for the first time in a long while to Tempe and his sons. He hadn't seen them for more than a year, and Gary and Mark, now seven and three years old respectively, knew little of their father. The long periods of separation and the exhaustion brought on by constant combat had seemed to dull his sensibilities, and there were times when he wondered whether he cared deeply for anybody, even himself. At thirty-four he was older than most of the other pilots in the squadron, but off-duty .he drank as much as the younger ones, although without getting drunk in their presence. He had always made a point of avoiding their wild squadron sorties in search of s.e.xual novelty, hut the tensions of facing death and physical danger daily had sometimes led him to indulge in discreet bouts of s.e.xual gratification from which he invariably emerged filled with self-disgust on account of his seeming lack of feeling and respect for his wife. During his rarer spells of home leave, his lovemaking with Tempe had become forced, without spontaneity, and although neither had left the marital bed, each of them had begun to retreat from the other. For that reason he hadn't returned home for his last leave but had spent ten anonymous days in Hawaii, drinking too much and waking to a succession of blurred, impersonal faces on the pillow beside him.

A moment or two after he pressed his fingers against the rabbit's foot, the Warhawk's engine settled to its normal steady drone again, and he smiled wryly in the darkness of the c.o.c.kpit; at least that still retained its magic powers. Then almost immediately a little red light began to glow intermittently among the luminous green dials in front of him to indicate that the engine was overheating, and for the first time a cold s.h.i.+ver of fear crawled up his spine. He remembered then the stray sh.e.l.l that had burst ahead of him as he began his second dive and guessed that shrapnel fragments may have penetrated the cowling and possibly damaged the propeller blades. Over the next fifteen minutes the P-40's speed quickly fell to less than one hundred and fifty miles an hour and gradually the rest of the squadron drifted ahead of him, disappearing one by one into the black, wind-filled night.

He flicked the ”transmit” switch of his radio and told the squadron commander tersely what was happening to him, then turned his full attention to trying to nurse the damaged plane home. Soon he was sweating profusely inside his flying suit from the effort of trying to hold the controls steady in the face of the rising wind. The red light that had been winking on and off became a bright, continuous glow only a second or two before he noticed the tiny tongues of flame licking around the engine's cowling. He considered feathering the propeller briefly in the hope that the fire might blow out and be could then restart the engine - but a renewed fit of mechanical coughing confirmed beyond any doubt that the P-40 had been fatally damaged by the close sh.e.l.lburst. He knew that if he lost power completely in the high winds he would plunge immediately into a downward spiral, and the plane would become a fiery coffin from which he would be unable to escape. In the few remaining moments that the afflicted engine would hold the plane in a level, head-up att.i.tude, he knew if he was going to survive, he had to haul open the canopy and go over the side into the roaring, black void.

At the bottom of that void, his maps told him, lay only jagged, jungle-covered mountains slashed through with steep-sided tributary streams of the Li Chiang River. He calculated he was around twenty miles from the Chinese border, perhaps a hundred miles north of Hanoi where a million years before, it seemed, he had spent two weeks poring over ancient doc.u.ments detailing the tribute paid by the ancient Annamese emperors to Peking. The prospect of pulling back the canopy that protected him from the hostile night outside filled him with dread, but the flames were spreading quickly, and the plane's progress had already slowed close to stalling speed. Feeling its nose begin to drop, Joseph grasped the canopy handle above his head and pulled sharply. When the release mechanism failed to operate, he sat staring at the white knuckles of his clenched fist in disbelief. He tried again with two hands, using all his strength, but it remained jammed, and in the next instant the P-4o rolled lazily onto its back.

It sank spinning slowly through the inky waters of the night like a dying fish, and the whirling of the aircraft whisked Joseph's senses into a froth of agonized perceptions. A cruel fate had obviously torn his P-40 from the sky over the Annamese lands with great deliberation! There his mother's betrayal had overnight changed the first elation of manhood to despair, and years later when he had at last surrendered himself to the joy of an overwhelming love, Lan too had in her turn betrayed him. With a blinding clarity he saw that the sense of emptiness and desolation that had always dogged him had sprung from the jungles and mountains below, and suddenly it seemed right and fitting that his life should end with those same jungles swallowing up him and his Warhawk, Sure that he was going to die, he was seized by a furious sense of regret that he would never see Lan again, and as the Plane spiraled downward trailing flames from one wing, this feeling expanded until it seemed to fill his whole body.

But even though these thoughts dominated his conscious mind, his hands and feet still struggled instinctively with the controls, trying to correct the Warhawk's spin. He had automatically hauled the stick back as far as it would go and because the plane was spinning to the right, he kicked the right rudder all the way forward. He knew that he ought to hold the P-40 through at least four turns like this, but because he had no idea in the inky blackness how near the ground was, after only three, he snapped the stick away from him again and hit the opposite rudder as hard as he could with his left foot. As a result, the fighter-bomber righted itself as it plunged towards one of the highest mountains in the region and went into a glide for a few seconds before scything into the treetops at a shallow angle. One blazing wing was torn off immediately, and burning gasoline from the ruptured fuel tanks showered in all directions, setting a broad swathe of jungle alight. A hundred yards farther down the mountain the second wing broke away, and the bole of a tall tree shattered the jammed c.o.c.kpit canopy. In that instant Joseph's conscious life exploded in a ringing burst of white light, and a few seconds later the remains of the P-40's fuselage came to rest on the lower slopes, with its nose buried in the moist earth and its tail snagged high in the branches of a creeper-choked tree.

5.

The little group of squatly built Nung tribesmen peered fearfully up at the Warhawk wreckage by the light of their burning gra.s.s torches, then began backing away, jabbering excitedly among themselves. They could see the white pilot's body dangling from the smashed c.o.c.kpit on its seat straps, and the gusting wind was making it twist slowly back and forth; as it turned, they saw that the pale face was hideously streaked with blood and one arm stuck out stiffly at an unnatural angle. Behind them, one of the tribal priests who had accompanied the group from their stilted village a mile away cut the air ritualistically above his head with a machete every few seconds to disperse the evil demons gathering around the crashed plane, and instinctively the group retreated to his side for protection.

”He has already joined the spirits of the mountains and the clouds,” whispered one of the tribesmen, rolling his eyes towards the Warhawk. ”We should go now.”

The priest lowered his machete and stood listening for a moment; the noise made by the six-man j.a.panese border patrol that had also watched the Warhawk come down in flames was growing louder as they approached the crash site.

”Dead or alive, the thin man of Pac Bo who promises to make us free wants all white flying men returned to him,” said the priest slowly. ”Cut him down!”

The authoritative tone of the priest's voice rea.s.sured the frightened tribesmen, and they climbed quickly into the tree to sever the seat straps with their machetes. It took six of the stocky mountain men to bear the burden back to their little group of thatched huts, and as they staggered under the weight, the priest walked beside them, chanting imprecations to appease the powerful spirits of fire, sky and thunder which the tribe believed had created the earth. When they arrived at the village, a wide-eyed throng of tribes people crowded into the smoke-filled hut of the priest and watched in silence as he prepared a little platter of betel leaves and a few rice grains to place in the mouth of the corpse in accordance with the tribe's traditional funeral rites. Before beginning the ritual, the priest signaled for water to be brought from the mountain spring outside, then cut away the blood-soaked cloth of the flying suit. In the act of swabbing blood from the exposed torso, the priest stopped suddenly and bent to press his head against the chest. When he straightened up, he beckoned quickly to one of his helpers.

”Prepare a bamboo litter at once - the white man is still alive! And send a runner to Pac Bo quickly to warn them to be ready at the river.”

A gasp of excitement rose from the crowd of villagers, and they pressed closer around then priest as he began to bind leaves and jungle herbs tightly around the wounds that Joseph had suffered in the crash. One of Joseph's legs, as well as his left arm, was obviously broken, and when the priest had finished treating the wounds, he wrapped one of his own ceremonial robes about the American, then tied his legs together with twisted creepers and bound him firmly to a bamboo litter. The same six bearers who had carried him from the wreck hoisted him onto their shoulders again, and with an escort of a dozen villagers armed with machetes, they set off immediately down the mountainside.

The j.a.panese border patrol finally traced the blood trail to the village half an hour later, and when they found no sign of the pilot's body, they opened fire in their anger. The priest and two other tribesmen were killed instantly and ten other villagers were wounded. Before they left, the Nipponese soldiers set fire to all the huts and dragged half-a-dozen Nung girls screaming into the forest with them, A detachment of French troops riding short- legged mountain ponies from the border post of Soc Gian three miles away located the Warhawk wreckage an hour later; like all the French colonial forces in Indochina they were also under orders to seize and intern all American pilots shot down in the peninsula, but because of the resentment they felt at having to take orders from the j.a.panese, the Frenchmen simply shrugged their shoulders and turned their horses' heads towards their home base again when they found the c.o.c.kpit empty. By that time, Joseph was drifting eastward along a steep-sided tributary of the Li Chiang River on a flimsy bamboo raft piloted by Dao Van Lat and two other young Communist guerrillas.

The fervent revolutionary who had led the ill-fated march on Vinh in 1930 had poled the raft rapidly upstream from the Indochinese Communist Party's secret guerrilla base at Pac Bo on receiving the Nung message that an American pilot had been rescued alive. One of his two young companions knelt on the front of the frail craft holding a blazing torch aloft to guide them through the frothing rapids, while the second guerrilla crouched beside Joseph's litter at the rear, cradling an ancient flintlock rifle in his arms. The stream began to run more swiftly as it approached the main river, and it was the sound of rus.h.i.+ng water that first penetrated Joseph's concussed brain; but only partial consciousness returned, and the blurred images of their rapid pa.s.sage through the noisy, firelit darkness were terrifying to him. He began to shout incoherently and strain against his protective bonds, arid Lat, fearing that he would capsize the craft, order the Annamese beside him to hit him with the b.u.t.t of his flintlock.

Joseph immediately lapsed into unconsciousness once more, hut the sound of his voice had reached a second j.a.panese patrol on the limestone bluff high above the river, and a moment later their opening shots were kicking up plumes of spray all around the raft. Lat drove his long pole frantically into the bed of the shallow river and sent the craft careering wildly through a long channel where the water boiled white between rocky reefs. He yelled frantic orders to the young guerrilla guarding Joseph to fire back at the j.a.panese. but in the act of raising his flintlock to his shoulder, the youth was. .h.i.t in the chest and he toppled sideways into the water without a sound.

For a few brief moments the body of the Annamese rushed through the foaming water beside them, keeping pace with the raft; then abruptly it was sucked Out of sight by the current and didn't reappear. When they sped out into the main river seconds later, Lat ordered the surviving guerrilla to extinguish his torch; immediately the shooting died away behind them, and the youth, white-faced with shock at the loss of his comrade, moved gingerly back to the litter to check that it was still secure. The raft slowed gradually in the gentler flow of the broader river, and with a long sigh of relief Lat lifted his pole clear of the water and rested on it, his chest heaving.

”Why do we take so many risks to rescue one foreign pilot?” asked the young Annamese in a horrified whisper when Lat had regained his breath.

”Because America is powerful and her forces are going to win the war,” said Lat patiently.

”But if America's so powerful, why does it need our help?” asked the youth in a puzzled voice. 'There are so few of us and we're poorly armed.”

”America doesn't need us at all,” replied Lat quietly. ”But if the Americans drive the j.a.panese out of our country, they'll be the conquering heroes to our people - and if we're seen fighting beside them, we'll be heroes too. When the j.a.panese are gone we will be able to get back to the real fight-- against France. Helping American flyers escape from the j.a.panese or even rescuing their bodies will help us win the friends.h.i.+p of America - that's why we're risking our lives.”

The youth nodded slowly as Lat stabbed his pole into the river again and steered the raft into a tiny inlet where another band of half-a-dozen crudely armed guerrillas were waiting. They took the litter willingly on their shoulders, and Lat led the way up through a series of steeply terraced rice fields into another high valley enclosed by sheer limestone crags. Fast-flowing streams had gouged deep caves from the limestone over the centuries, and in one of these deep fissures behind a waterfall, the bamboo litter was finally Lowered to the sandy floor.

Noticing that Joseph had begun to s.h.i.+ver with fever, Lat ordered the other guerrillas to light a fire beside the litter while he made a pillow of folded garments and covered the American with two ragged blankets. As he was finis.h.i.+ng these tasks a thin, aged-looking Annamese appeared silently on the edge of the circle of light cast by the fire: he appeared bent and feeble in the shadows, but when he stepped towards the litter his stride was brisk, and the firelight revealed that his gray goatee and his thinning hair were still streaked with black. His eyes shone with an unusual brilliance in an emaciated face, and there was a peculiar controlled stillness in his manner which caused the other men in the cave to fall respectfully silent and draw aside from him.

When Joseph opened his eyes for the first time he found the thin Annamese bending over him; because of the delirium brought on by fever and the agonizing pain of his injuries, the sunken face with its wispy goatee seemed unreal to him in the flickering orange glow of the Fire, but when a tin mug of warm coconut milk was pressed to his lips, the American drank greedily from it. During the rest of that first long, cold night on the mountain, each time Joseph swam up to the surface of consciousness the same hand invariably offered soothing liquid or mopped his streaming brow; the same startling face with its calm, knowing gaze also seemed to materialize and dissolve constantly before his feverish eyes, as though it belonged to a benign and paternal mountain spirit, and as he hovered on the brink of death, the sight of it became strangely comforting and rea.s.suring to Joseph.

6.

”I've personally always admired the United States of America, Captain Sherman,” said the sibilant Annamese voice, speaking English confidently in a singsong accent. ”It was the first colony in the modern world to win independence through a revolution, and I hope one day our little country will be able to emulate your great deeds of courage and endurance. All of us here have much to learn from the fort.i.tude of Americans - that's why we have taken risks ourselves to save you from the j.a.panese.” The face with the whispy goatee that for three days had appeared only hazily to Joseph through the mists of his delirium was clearly defined now, and it smiled at him for the first time; the expression lit up the gaunt features, and to Joseph, in his pain-wracked state of exhaustion, it conveyed a rare feeling of warmth and concern.

”Perhaps you think our two countries have little in common - but maybe you weren't aware that the emperor of Annam begged for help from your government eighty years ago when the French first began to plunder us.” He looked up again and smiled ironically. ”Yes, believe it or not, a message was sent to Abraham Lincoln from Hue proposing a treaty of friends.h.i.+p - but I suppose Mister Lincoln can be excused for ignoring our little cry for help. He was quite busy at the time, I believe, dealing with the small matter of your own Civil War.”

The Annamese was crouched barefoot by the fire, dressed in a shabby khaki tunic and baggy trousers; from time to time he stirred the embers thoughtfully with a twig, obviously not antic.i.p.ating any response from .Joseph who lay enfeebled and wasted with fever on a makes.h.i.+ft bed of palm leaves. While the fever had raged, Joseph had been dimly aware that other Annamese were moving in and out of the cave; Dao Van Lat had tended him constantly round the clock and a doctor whom the guerrillas had abducted and marched blindfolded to the hideout from the nearby town of Cao Bang had splinted his broken limbs and bandaged the most severe lacerations on his head and body. Using a burned forest root called nua ao, they had also made up herbal infusions which they forced past his burning lips every hour, and during the third night, the fever had finally reached its climax. At dawn the thin Annamese had hurried into the cave with a little dish of maize and mashed banana and dismissed the others while he fed him personally with a spoon; then he had squatted down by the fire and begun to talk.

”I visited your country myself many years ago,” he said, gazing reflectively into the flames. 'I left Indochina when I was twenty and sailed to Europe and America working as a s.h.i.+p's galley hand. I stoked furnaces and shoveled snow in London and worked for a time as a waiter in Harlem and Boston. It was sad for me to see the contrast between the lives of the rich clients in the hotels and the poor people who had to slave in the kitchens to feed them. I also saw how many Negroes were living in the direst poverty in Harlem.” He sighed as he stared into the fire. ”I admire very much the great democratic ideals of America, Captain Sherman, but unfortunately the light from the Statue of Liberty's torch doesn't s.h.i.+ne equally on all Americans, does it?”

With difficulty Joseph raised himself onto one elbow. He still felt weak and light-headed in the aftermath of the fever, and the slightest effort made his senses swim. ”Where am I?” he asked shakily. ”How did I get here?”

Again the Annamese smiled his seraphic smile. ”Don't worry; you're among friends, captain. I came myself to a.s.sure you of that. These are the caves of Pac Bo in northern Tongking. We're only one kilometer from the Chinese border. You were pulled from the wreckage of your plane by mountain men of the Nung tribe. They saved you from a j.a.panese patrol and from the French who also have orders to take you prisoner. They contacted us and helped us bring you here. As soon as you're well enough to travel, we'll smuggle you past the j.a.panese border guards into China again and take you safely back to General Chennault and your famous 'Flying Tiger' friends.” He smiled again when he saw Joseph's look of consternation. ”I know your name, captain, because I read the 'dog tag' around your neck.” He rolled the colloquial American phrase off his tongue with obvious pleasure. ”And those ferocious teeth painted on the nose of your crashed Warhawk told us you were a 'Flying Tiger.'

Joseph raised his head to stare at the Annamese in the flickering firelight, and then sank back into his bed of palm leaves. ”Who are you? And why are you helping me?”

”All of us here are nationalists of the Viet Minh. Like America, we're fighting against j.a.pan. We're waging guerrilla warfare against the outposts in this region.”

”What's the Viet Minh?”

”Viet Minh is the short way of saying the Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh Hoi - the League for the Independence of Vietnam.

It's an alliance of patriots fighting to liberate our country. First we'll drive out the j.a.panese - then someday the French too. Pac Bo is our temporary headquarters.”

Joseph grimaced and closed his eyes. The mental effort of absorbing the simple information tired him, and changing his position even slightly on the palm-leaf bed filled his body with pain. Noticing this, the Annamese hurried across the cave and knelt solicitously beside him. Despite his seeming fraility, his grip on Joseph's shoulders was sure and strong as he helped him into a more comfortable posture.

”Rest now, captain,” he said soothingly, pulling the blankets up around Joseph's shoulders. ”I think we'll have plenty of time to enjoy talking together. I wanted only to a.s.sure you that you're in safe and friendly hands.”

By the morning of the next day Joseph had recovered sufficiently to be carried out of the cave. He groaned loudly as Dao Van Lat and three companions lifted the litter, and outside, it took several minutes for him to accustom his eyes to the blinding glare of the morning sun. A thick growth of reeds hid the entrance to his cave beside a waterfall, and once he was settled on a broad ledge close by, he gazed in astonishment at the tall limestone cliffs towering above dense tracts of rain forest; in the distance across the border in China, other spectacular sugar-loaf mountain formations were materializing as the early mists cleared.

”So this is where I landed up,” breathed Joseph. ”You've sure chosen a beautiful spot to hide away from the j.a.panese.”

Beside him Dao Van Lat stared too - but not at the spectacular scenery; on the sunny ledge, Joseph's face was more clearly visible to him than it had ever been inside the cave, and the Annamese was gazing down at him wide-eyed. ”Have you ever been to our country before, captain?” he asked, speaking his halting English in a surprised voice.

Joseph turned to Lat with renewed interest. ”Yes. I know Saigon and Hue - and I've been in Hanoi once. Why do you ask?”