Word of Honor (4 page)

Ben Tyson walked up the flagstone path to his home, a prewar

with stately elms.

There was a good

feeling to the house

with its white cedar

shingles, shutters,

hipped roof, and Dutch

5 dormers covered with

reddish slates. Two

carriage lanterns flanked the bFac-k-paneled door, and through the fanlight above the door he saw the foyer chandelier.

He opened the mailbox and extracted a thick sheaf of mail, mostly third-class junk, which reminded him that he lived in a prestigious zip code and was on every mail-order hit list in the nation. It also tipped him off that Marcy was not yet home.

He tried the door and found it was unlocked, meaning David was home. He entered and called out, "Dave!"

A stereophonic sound emanating from the second floor 27

28 0 NELSON DEMILLE

reverberated through the walls and floor, about a 4 on the Richter scale.

Tyson threw the mail on the foyer table and went through the living room into the rear den, or as Marcy called it, "our office." The first time his father heard her say that he looked as if he was about to have another coronary.

Tyson threw his jacket over the desk chair and sat in an Eames recliner.

He surveyed the room whose original masculine flavor had been altered, neutered by Marcy into a sort of eclectic potpourri of things that struck her fancy. Things that did not strike her fancy were conspicuously absent from the room, most notably his Army memorabilia, which couldn't seem to find a home.

The remainder of the traditional home had undergone the same transformation. Only David's room, which contained Tyson's boyhood maple colonial furniture, circa 1953, had escaped Marcy's imprint. David had shown a strong sense of territoriality that Marcy could not crack, though Tyson was fairly certain that the boy didn't care either way about the bedroom furniture.

Marcy was, he reflected, a coercive utopian. Their house was run as though it were a commune. Decisions were shared, housework was shared, things and thoughts were shared. Yet, Tyson felt that he was somehow not getting his share. If nothing else, he thought, he made twice her salary and worked longer hours. Although Marcy would not use Marx's words, her philosophical rebuttal was: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs. Apparently his needs were less, though any suggestion that his ability was greater met with an icy silence. He often wanted to point out to her that he'd fought a war to keep a country -from being run the way his house was run. But that was a lost cause, too.

Tyson put his head back and listened to the stereo. Primitive. Jungle music. He couldn't identify the song, if in fact it was a song. But he could not deny its appeal on some primal level.

Tyson drew from his attach6 the two books that he'd purchased earlier, a paperback novel by Picard called The Quest, and Hue: Death of a City, which had set him back another $18.95, plus tax. At this rate, he thought,

WORD OF HONOR 0 29

he'd drive the book onto the Times bestseller list and make Picard rich.

He set the novel aside and opened the Hue book, scanning some of the pages that did not relate to the incident at H6pital Mis6ricorde. Picard, he judged, was not a terribly bad writer. The book was in the style and format favored by pop historians, stressing personal tragedy, anecdotes, and interviews with survivors--from peasants and privates to generals and provincial governors. And it was impressionistic-the big picture painted or suggested by a series of tiny points Re a Seurat.

He read from an early chapter:

Hue. The city had an almost ethereal nature to it. It was one of those small city-jewels of the world that transcended the meaning of city. It was the soul of Vietnam, North and South. It was a center of learning, culture, and religion; an historical and evocative place, the seat of the old Annamese Empire for twenty-one centuries. And like all great cities, it was a blend of the exotic and the sophisticated, the urbane and the bucolic. It was more Vietnamese than French, but the old caf6s on the south side of the Perfume River still had a colonial air about them, and the great Phu Cam Cathedral was a tribute to the city's ecumenicalism.

Hue was a m6lange of sights, smells, sounds, and sensations. It was vitality and otherworldliness all in one. It was the heart and embodiment of the nation, and as long as it existed, the Vietnamese people, from the simple villager to the corrupt Saigon politician, had reason to hope. .

. .

"Hi, Dad."

Tyson closed the book and looked up at his son. "Hello, David. "

"Whatcha readin'T'

"Try that again."

"What are you reading?"

30 NELSON DEMILLE

"A book. You didn't take the mail in."

"I took the garbage out."

"You left the door unlocked."

"I took the milk and paper in. Where's Mom?"

"That was my question."

David smiled.

Tyson regarded his son. The boy dressed well, but then s#rtorial splendor was in vogue at the moment. His hair was of a length that would offend only a master sergeant, and the boy was good-looking, though in Tyson's opinion too lean, like his mother. But also like his mother, his coloring was dark and rich, and he had her striking green eyes.

David drew closer and glanced at the book in Tyson's lap. "Hew?"

"Pronounced 'way.' The French gave the Vietnamese the Latin alphabet, then misspelled every word for them."

"Oh. It's about Vietnam."

"Right. Jeet?"

David laughed. "No. What's for dinner? You cook tonight. I have K.P. Mom serves."

"Is that so?"

"Check the chart." He said it with barely concealed disdain. David picked up The Quest. "What's this?"

"Another book. I'll bet you've seen them in museums or on television.

They make movies out of them."

David ignored the sarcasm and studied the cover art, then read the flap copy. "The Holy Grail. I read something about that. King Arthur. Is that a true story?"

"It is a legend, and a legend is like the truth, but a legend is also like a myth, and a myth is like a lie. Follow?"

"No." His eyes drifted back to the Hue book. "Is that a true story?"

Tyson did not reply.

David put the novel down on the end table, then said, "What's wrong,

-Dad?"

Tyson thought a moment, then replied, "I'd rather not discuss it at the moment."

"Are you and Mom getting divorced?"

"Not to my knowledge."

WORD OF HONOR 0 31

David smiled. "Okay. We can hold a family council later. "

Tyson again detected a note of mockery in David's voice. "There are some things, David, that do not lend themselves to solutions by family councils. There are things in this world that children should not be privy to nor burdened with. "

"Tell that to Mom.

"I will. But I will speak to you privately about what's troubling me without giving you all the details."

"Okay." The boy hesitated, then said, "You want me to call out for dinner?"

"Yes. Please. Make it a surprise. No pizza."

David nodded and moved toward the door. Tyson could see he wanted to say something more, but Tyson did not encourage him. David left, and Tyson stood, moving to the bar in the shelf unit. He poured himself a small Drambuie.

. Tyson sometimes wondered if they should have had more children. He was one of four children, the other three, girls. Conversely, Marcy had three brothers, and he suspected that she had been somehow traumatized by the experience. He, on the other hand, had been treated affectionately by his sisters. David would know neither sibling affection nor rivalry. The decision not to have more children had been made eight years ago when Jenny was born, lived, suffered, and died, all within a week. Marcy said it was a result of the LSD she took in college. Tyson offered that it could have been Agent Orange. His minister, Reverend' Symes, said it was God's will. The doctors had no opinion.

Yet, David was healthy in every way, and Tyson sometimes thought it was worth another try. But neither of them had the temperament to cope with a deformed child who lived.

Tyson put this out of his mind and picked up the Hue book. He looked at the index to see if his name appeared anywhere other than the pages dealing with the H6pital Mis6ricorde incident. There was a page reference near the front of the book and one near the end. He turned to the earlier page and read while standing:

32 NELSON DEMILLE

The soothsayers had foretold that the Year of the Monkey would bring bad luck, and never had the prophets of doom been proved so right so soon. The year was not three hours old when the enemy offensive began.

But notwithstanding this dire prediction, a festive mood filled Hue that day. It was a time of traditional family reunions, feasting, and street festivals. It was like Christmas, New Year's Eve, and Mardi Gras rolled into one. Ancestors were honored at family altars, and religious ceremonies were held at the city's many pagodas and temples. Paper dragons snake-danced through the streets, and, forebodingly, fireworks and skyrockets reverberated throughout the city.

There was a declared truce, but the military was uneasy. American troops were on normal alert, and the South Vietnamese had canceled holiday leaves for some, but not all of their troops. Nearly half the Vietnamese armed forces and a high percentage of key commanders were not on duty. And of those who were, it can be assumed that many were engaged in some sort of celebration.

On the evening of 30 January, seven thousand soldiers of North Vietnam's 4th, 5th, and 6th regiments marched boldly, in parade formation, across the bridges that spanned the canals in Hue's Southem suburbs. And no one stopped them.

Within the city, thousands more Viet Cong had infiltrated and mingled with the holiday revelers. Other enemy formations were poised around the city, waiting to strike. Hue's time had come.

But the battle of Hue actually began earlier in the day, though at the time no one realized the significance of those opening shots. Alpha Company, Fifth Battalion of the Seventh Cavalry, First Air Cavalry Division, was patroling an area six kilometers west of the city in the late afternoon. The company, nearly two hundred strong, was commanded by Captain Roy Browder of Annis-WORD OF HONOR 33

ton, Alabama. Alpha Company began a standard sweep through the supposedly deserted village of Phu Lai when it encountered a unit of well-armed enemy troops, later identified as the Ninth North Vietnamese Regiment, whose strength was estimated at over a thousand men. The enemy regiment was hiding in the village in preparation for their midnight assault on Hue.

The first platoon of Alpha Company was led by Lieutenant Benjamin Tyson, of whom we will learn more later. Tyson's lead platoon was actually inside the village when, according to a survivor, whom I will call Pfc X for reasons that will become clear later, "All of a sudden the place started to move. I mean haystacks opened up, and gooks came out of the wells and holes in the ground. Gooks were standing in the windows and doors of the hootches around the village square, and we were in the middle. It was like a nightmare. I couldn't believe my eyes. No one fired for a really long time. But maybe it was a few seconds. Then it exploded."

Tyson found he was sitting in his chair again. He nodded to himself. It was curious to discover after all these years that his company was one of the first to make contact with the enemy before the Tet offensive actually began. But then the grunt in the field rarely saw the bigger picture. And though he never knew that he'd tangled with a thousand enemy troops, he could believe it. It was for people like Picard to supply the regiment designations and other details that,seemed unimportant then, but which allowed others, veterans such as himself, to interpret what had happened.

If they cared to.

He put his head back and yawned, feeling very drowsy. The book slipped from his hand onto the floor.

"What the hell are we going to do? What? What? What are we going to do?"

Tyson lay in the village square between the dead radio operator and the dead squad leader. He turned

34 * NELSON DEMILLE

to the rifleman lying wounded beside him and replied, "We're going to die."

Machine-gun fire raked the square, and rocketpropelled grenades burst among the living and the dead. Tyson had never heard or seen such sustained and heavy enemy fire and had never been in so exposed a position to fully appreciate how quickly a cohesive military unit could wither and die. He knew of no tactics that would extricate them from this massacre in the muddy square. One just had to wait one's turn to die, or stand up and get it over with.

A rocket-propelled grenade landed in front of his face and splashed filthy water into his eyes. Tyson stared at it, half submerged in the brown puddle, realizing it was the last thing he'd ever see. But it did not explode, and he would learn later from other men who had stared that khaki egg-shaped death in the eye that many of those Russian-made grenades were faulty. Some unmotivated, vodka-soaked munitions worker in Volgograd had done something wrong, and Ben Tyson was alive for the time being.

A bullet nicked his right ear, and he yelled out, more in surprise than in pain. He saw men stand and run, only to be cut down, and he wondered where they were running to because the fire was coming from all sides of the square. They were cut off from the rest of the company, and they hadn't the men or resources to break out. He prayed earnestly for a quick death and drew his .45 automatic as insurance against being taken alive.

Then, as if God answered someone else's prayer, a bullet struck a smoke-signal canister hooked to the web belt of a dead man, ten meters to Tyson's front. Tyson watched as the red smoke billowed up slowly from the dead body as though the man were bleeding into a zero-gravity environment.

Tyson tore a smoke canister from his own belt, pulled the pin, and rolled it a few feet away. The

WORD OF HONOR * 35