William F. Buckley Jr. (18 page)

“Please call me Koo.”

“As you know, I am a journalist. My magazine,
Time
, is preparing a cover story on the Vietnamese situation and I want to spend four or five days inspecting the progress of the strategic hamlet program. I got a couple of memos—hell, you don’t read English?”

Than Koo shrugged his shoulders.

“Well, I’ll go over the suggestions that have come in on a few sites we ought to pay special attention to. But the army is cooperative, I know. On the other hand, I want to go to at least as many hamlets not recommended by ARVN as to those that are—you get my point?”

Than Koo nodded.

And that was it. The next hour was devoted to preparations for the trip. They set out the next morning for Thon Hai Cac, on the west bank of the Perfume River.

Hai Cac was twelve kilometers from Hué. There were seventy or eighty villagers there, a dozen families plus the retired elderly. Heavy coils of barbed wire surrounded the hamlet, almost a half mile of barricade, Henry calculated. Entrance to the hamlet was effected through an opening guarded by two men armed with rifles. Twenty yards behind the gate, a third guard sat behind a
second barricade that shielded his machine gun. In the morning, the gate would open and in the early, yellow light, the farmers, as old as seventy, as young as thirteen, would file out and attend to their fields and paddies. Rifles were stacked nearby, readily accessible to a half-dozen farmers trained to use them. In the late afternoon they would file back to the security of their hamlet.

That was the idea: to give the little farming communities security from the Vietcong killer squads. Henry questioned the arthritic senior councilor and weighed carefully what Bao Tin said. It was to the effect that 15 percent of the hamlet’s working force was now for all intents and purposes fully occupied in providing security, which meant a proportionate decrease in the produce that sustained the village. “If, monsieur, one year ago I had been told that we would produce fifteen percent less than the year before, I would say: Hai Cac cannot afford to do that. Take from us our production—take from us the little revenues we get from the one, two hundred sacks of extra rice—and you have truly doomed our little village.” He acknowledged that the army had promised to supply soldiers from its own reserves. “But that was eight months ago, monsieur, and where are they?”

Had there been enemy action during that eight-month period?

Bao shook his head. “But maybe we have just been lucky. We do not let down our guard.”

Successive hamlets, most of them larger than Hai Cac, told pretty much the same story. Henry sensed the fatigue brought on by the stalemate. The peasants seemed to have no confidence that the danger was diminishing, that the Vietcong, day after day, were growing weaker and tomorrow would be extinct. Almost every night the radio blared out news of military operations that had resulted in heavy losses to the enemy, but there was no corresponding relief, no letting down in the precautions required by those who secured the hamlets.

Thon An Van Thuong sits twelve kilometers east of the eastern mountain range that flanks the Ho Chi Minh Trail and the same distance south of the DMZ, the line that separates North and South Vietnam. It was the last of the hamlets Henry had scheduled himself to visit. At the gate, Than Koo got out of the jeep to
show the guard his identification. From where he sat in the jeep, Henry could see him exchanging what, with all those gesticulations, could only be heated words with the guard. He hopped down from the passenger seat and approached the gate. “What’s going on?”

“He says after what happened last night, his instructions are to take extra precautions. He wants me to give him my identification and then radio in to the military to confirm our identity.”

“What happened last night?”

“Somebody—somebody
in
the hamlet—got into the quarters of the chief councilor, put a steel wire around his neck and garroted him. He left a note: ‘One less imperialist lackey.’ ”

“Oh God.” Henry drew in a breath. “Koo,
quick
—find out if the body is still there.”

Than Koo asked the question, and turned back to Henry: “He says they’ve left him the way they found him because a police constable is coming from headquarters.”

Henry paused. He spoke in very low tones, against the possibility that the guard understood French. “Look. A picture of this situation would be very useful to
Time.
Tell him that if he can arrange to get us where the … body is, so that I can take a picture, it would be very valuable to the war effort, and to Vietnam’s … allies. Offer him two thousand piastres.”

The guard summoned his relief and motioned Henry and Than Koo to follow him. In a few minutes they were at a straw-thatched cabin elevated on stilts ten inches from the ground. They heard voices inside. Henry motioned to Koo to go up the little companionway and explain to whoever was there what was planned while he gathered his camera equipment. In moments a short, grizzled elder dressed in a cream-colored smock emerged. He addressed Henry in French, told him to proceed; they shook hands.

The dead man was lying on his stomach, dressed in pale blue pajamas. The telephone cord around his neck had left a mauve, puffy collar. He had died from the classic commando strangle. At each end of the executioner’s cord a wooden dowel was attached. The cord had been crossed, giving the assassin the leverage he
sought. No doubt his knee had ground against the small of Bui Minh’s back while he tightened the stranglehold.

Henry raised the pajama top. He bared a large mauve area. Minh’s bare arms dangled over the edges of the cot. The sheet of paper bearing the VC’s epitaph had been stapled into the nape of the neck. Henry looked up: On the little desk alongside he saw the chief councilor’s stapler.

The note had been written as if by a child, the letters incompletely formed. Henry took six pictures.

They retreated to an empty hut maintained for visiting military, assigned for this night to Henry and Than Koo. The deputy chief, succeeding now to the position of chief councilor, had verified by radio their bona fides and was glad to learn that the American newsman and his translator had brought their own provisions; he would not want the American people to be informed that An Van Thuong was inhospitable, but in fact supplies were very scarce, in particular of specialty foods.

The provisions from the jeep were hardtack and canned fruit. Henry removed his sweat-soaked T-shirt, lay down on one of the cots and let his head rest on the bedroll that passed for a pillow. Than Koo sat on the wooden floor, his own shirt dry, intact.

“You yellow-skinned prodigies never get hot, Koo. What is your secret?”

“We grow up in the wet heat, Mr. Henry. It takes a little training. In ten, fifteen years, you will become accustomed to it.”

“I’m beginning to think it’s going to take about that long … 
merrrrr-de
—in English, Koo, that’s
sheeyit
—what a bloody situation. Let’s just think about it. You got a hundred and eighteen people here according to the new boss-man, and one of them sneaked into that hut last night. Made himself right at home. Used the stapling machine to leave his message. The killing area is
congested
with clues. A couple of pros from L.A. or New York could track down the killer in what, a couple of hours? Especially—if you will permit me, Koo—availing themselves of some techniques of interrogation in your country that are frowned upon by Mr. Earl Warren. Earl Warren, Koo, is the head of our Supreme
Court. He is very protective of the rights of—Oh, never mind. Just—Shit. The fact is,
they’re
not going to find him. And it’s creepy that they don’t know who he is. Is he the guy next door? Or maybe he is one of the guards?”

Henry shook his head. “This is not a good situation. Koo, be a good boy and go to the jeep and bring me my typewriter. And yeah, bring a couple of beers. Nothing like steamy hot beer. Hell, may as well bring the overnight gear, yours and mine. We can’t leave here now until morning.”

A few minutes later, Henry Chafee had propped up the Hermes on a wooden drawer turned upside down and resting on his lap. He typed slowly, decisively, page after page, pausing to wipe his face and to sip his beer. Finally he finished. He had fifteen pages.

He got up off the cot and went to his seabag, where he foraged and came up with his plastic bottle of brandy. He looked about him at the bare quarters. “What in the hell are we going to use for cups?” Than Koo motioned to him to wait just a minute. He slipped out of the hut and was back with two thick drinking glasses.

“They—we—use these for tea also.”

Henry poured himself two generous jiggers and then looked over at Than Koo. “You want?”

No, he said, the beer was enough.

Then why did he bring two glasses? Henry wondered. But he had long since decided that there was no purpose in choking up on alien inscrutabilities. He would simply designate them as such when he wrote his articles.

Henry leaned back with his brandy glass, clutching the sheaf of papers with one hand. “Wish to hell you could read English, Koo.” He brightened. “Hey, I have an idea. Would you like me to read it to you in French—translate my article for you?”

Than Koo said he would like that very much. But Than sensed Henry’s general restiveness. The heat, the general oppressiveness of the climate, the isolation. Than felt an obligation to come up with some kind of relief.… Would Mr. Henry like it if Than Koo sponged him with some cocoa oil? It was abundant in this
part of the world and he had brought in a small bottle of it when he went in search of the glasses. It would cool him off and make him feel a great deal better, something the French military had taught the Vietnamese.

“Sure,” said Henry. “You want me on my stomach?”

“Yes,” said Than Koo. “And you should remove your shorts. The oil is for the whole body.” Henry paused, then decided that any prolonged hesitation would send the wrong signal, as if he had detected an impropriety. He pulled down his shorts and removed his socks.

Than Koo worked on his back, traveling from neck to toes slowly, consuming four or five minutes.

“Now turn around.”

Henry did so, and Than began at the neck, worked on each arm, back to the chest and, slowly, down to the waist, and headed south.

Henry clasped a hand smartly over the sponge and the hand that held it.

“You can skip over that. Go down to my legs.” He paused. Perhaps he was upsetting some convention for a body massage done with cocoa oil. He felt a need to mollify Than Koo, and so he said, “I’m a little sensitive there—in between.”

Than Koo said nothing, but began again the massage, on Henry’s thighs.

“That feels real good, Koo. Real good, thanks.”

Two minutes later it was done, and Henry admitted that he did indeed feel better. He put on his shorts and a fresh T-shirt, took a swig of brandy, lay back on his makeshift pillow, holding the little gas light in his left hand, and began to read, pausing here and there to reach for the appropriate French word.…

“In the … steamy hamlet of An Van Thuong, a half hour’s walk from the heavy-laden trail down which arms travel from the Communist expansionists in the north to the insurgents in the south, a … mere half hour’s walk from the border of North Vietnam, the natives did not sleep soundly on the night of July 12. Early that morning they had been given a … grisly reminder that the enemy wasn’t … safely outside the barbed
wire surrounding them. The enemy was also inside their … enclosure. That morning, Bui Minh, the august chief councilor of An Van Thuong, was found face-down on his cot, strangled by someone who had professional training in the … discipline. Behind the body there was a convenient stapling machine. The killer used it—to pin to the back of the neck of the chief councilor the Vietcong’s calling card. It proclaimed in a childish scrawl that, now, with the death of Bui Minh, South Vietnam was relieved of one more … ‘imperialist lackey.’

“The killing of Bui Minh is the story of a whole country, six hundred miles, from the DMZ to the Gulf of Thailand, a country tormented by tens of thousands of killer germs that, undetected, undetectable, swim about the organism with their little poison darts, wearing the body down.…

“—You sleepy, Koo?”

“Forgive me, Monsieur Henry. I think I did close my eyes. Please, go ahead.”

Henry drained the last drop from his glass. “No, I’ll do the rest tomorrow if you want. I think we should leave the gaslight on, low. Good night, Koo.”

“Good night, Monsieur Henry.”

O
N OCTOBER 3, Oliver Simpson checked in at the Trafalgar Hotel in Los Angeles. The reception desk was standard Trafalgar. The men and women attending it, as also the Cashier and Reservations section, all wore the Trafalgar blue—blazers with gray pants for the men, V-necked light suits for the women. Every month the legend changed on the little pin they wore on their lapel. This month it read, “Go Trafalgar!”

Oliver Simpson, an unsmiling middle-aged man with close-cropped hair, spectacles, and a heavy briefcase in hand, had a reservation for two nights. He handed over his American Express charge card before filling out the register.

After a minute or two he said, “Well? Where is my room key?”

“Oh, sorry, sir. We seem to be having some difficulty with your Express card.”

“What do you mean you’re having a problem with my Express card? I use it every day.” He grabbed it from the hand of the clerk. “What’s the matter with it?” He held it to the light and scrutinized it. “Must be something wrong with your verifying machine.”

“Well, sir, would you by any chance have any other credit card on you?”

Impatiently, Simpson brought out his wallet, pulled out a wad of cards, spread them out on the counter, stopped, picked up an Express card, looked at it. “Hmm. It appears I gave you my son Ollie’s Express card by mistake. An old one, it must be.” He tossed the correct card to the clerk, who picked it up.

“No problem, Mr. Simpson. It does get confusing, all these cards.” The verification was done, and a young porter took the two bags and led Simpson to his small suite.