Highways to a War (30 page)

Some did; but other
bao
chi were beginning to ask more and more skeptical questions at the Follies, and were suggesting that the paper story didn’t always tally with the one they’d discovered outside. And this made Langford’s performance that evening of considerable interest to his colleagues.

The conference was held in a fully equipped auditorium. Coming in there from the noise and petrol-smelling heat of Nguyen Hue Boulevard, I was always glad of the imported air-conditioning’s icy fingers, and not inclined to sneer at American luxury. A hundred or so of us sat packed on tubular steel chairs, notebooks and press releases on our laps, like aging students: sullen or boisterous, as the case might be. I was sitting on an aisle opposite Trevor Griffiths; Langford was somewhere near the back. He’d come in late, as he usually did, since he used to go as well to the Army of South Vietnam’s four-thirty press conference in ARVN headquarters, a little further up the boulevard. Hardly anyone went to that, and I confess I didn’t either: the seating was poor, there was no air-conditioning, no microphones, no maps, and the press saw no point in it anyway. The ARVN weren’t news; the Americans were running the war.

Jokes and laughs and extended coughings went up now as we waited for the briefing to begin. An Army major in starched, knife-edged khakis took the stage, pointer in hand, coming up to the lectern in front of the charts and maps. He was tall and prematurely bald, with a fringe of foxy red hair; his intense brown eyes looked honest. An elderly colonel with a steel gray crew cut stood to one side, ready to intervene if the questioning got difficult.

The major got through his briefing fairly quickly, using the Vietnam militaryspeak we all had to master to understand anything. Among other things, he spoke of continuing U.S. military assistance to the South Vietnamese forces through strategic bombing. He claimed, as usual, that the raids were successfully containing Viet Cong expansion. It was all pretty routine, and I didn’t see a story this evening.

When question time came, and the soldier sitting under the stage with his tape recorder began pointing a microphone at the audience, I was surprised to hear Langford identify himself from the back. Photographers seldom asked questions, and Mike never. Turning, I found that he was on his feet, and still in combat fatigues: he must have come straight here from the field. He didn’t have his cameras; he’d probably left them in the ‘Telenews office over the way. He looked grimy and extremely tired, and his voice was very quiet: I had to strain to hear it. But his reputation, particularly through his pictures for
Newsweek
and
Paris Match,
was already becoming considerable, and the correspondents listened attentively.

“Major, I believe you said that the area south of Soc Trang has been pacified through air strikes,” he said. “You also said that the VC are giving no serious trouble there. I’ve just got back from a week in the field with an ARVN battalion down there. They’re the only forces opposing the VC on the ground in that area. No other correspondents were covering. I want to tell you that I saw no evidence that the air strikes are weakening the VC. Only that you’re killing large numbers of the rural population without any military gain.”

He paused, and there was a silence. People craned to stare at him, and I did the same. I was frankly surprised, and also embarrassed. Instead of asking a question, Mike was making a speech, like some novice correspondent with an antiwar line to push. It was entirely out of character, and so was his demeanor. His fists were clenched, and his eyes were bulging slightly, as though he were drunk. But he plainly wasn’t drunk; despite the softness of his voice, he seemed actually to be holding in check some sort of rage: I don’t think the word’s too strong. In someone so calm, the effect was eerie.

The major drew his reddish brows together, gazing at Langford as though having sincere difficulty in understanding what he was doing here. Perhaps the dirty fatigues bothered him. But when he answered, his tone remained polite. “Well, that’s one man’s observation, concerning a particular area. But our intelligence shows that in general our preplanned strikes to assist the South Vietnamese Government forces are working. In depriving the enemy of his village sanctuaries, we’re hurting his ability to function. Did you actually have a question, Mr. Langford?”

A flush mounted in Langford’s face: he went a profound pink. I’d seldom seen this happen in an adult, and it was both bizarre and distressing. But it went as quickly as it had come, leaving him very pale; and when he answered, his tone was even.

“Yes, Major, I do have a question,” he said. “Will you acknowledge that a pitched battle took place this morning between the Viet Cong and ARVN forces just south of Soc Trang, in which American air support was involved? And will you confirm that this battle ended with heavy losses to the ARVN battalion, and the wiping out of an entire company?”

There were some small exclamations, and the major hesitated. Before he could reply, Langford was going on. “I was attached to that company throughout the engagement-and I’d like to ask something else. Will you confirm that the commander of the company, Captain Le Tan Trung, was killed by American fire because a U.S. helicopter pilot got his coordinates wrong? And will you also acknowledge that the VC downed two U.S. helicopter gunships, with a loss of six American lives?”

He sat down, and people began to converse loudly with one another. I should point out that the stir wasn’t really about the fate of the ARVN company: an ARVN defeat in the Delta, even of this dimension, even with American losses involved, wasn’t really big news, since the ARVN weren’t big news. The current American battles in the Highlands were what mattered most. What was interesting was the fact that we hadn’t been told about it.

The major glanced quickly at the colonel. The colonel stepped quickly to the microphone, hands crossed neatly over his groin, and cleared his throat.

“Yes, we can confirm that this battle took place,” he said. “I know nothing about the circumstances of a company commander’s death by friendly fire, but I sincerely regret that, if it’s true. And yes, I can confirm the downing of two UH-1 Iroquois gunships, with a loss of six American lives.”

He stepped back again abruptly, as though the matter were over.

But it wasn‘t, of course. The briefers had been forced to admit to losses they hadn’t informed us of-and that would be the story for journalists like Griffiths, who was smiling with delight, and scribbling hard in his notebook. The defeat itself, and the death of Mike’s friend Captain Trung, were of small interest.

A correspondent from the
New York Times
was on his feet. He was a heavily built man called Kramer, with a. dark, receding crew cut, and one of those deep bass American voices that command attention. His colleagues held him in high esteem, and MACV followed his stories with particular concern.

“My question is this, Colonel. Since your briefers left this battle out, I’m wondering what else you left out? And what credibility do we now attach to these official briefings?”

The colonel’s lips tightened; he paused before replying, and I turned around again to look at Langford. But I found that he’d left the auditorium; his chair was empty.

 

 

I came out under the teak-lined awning of the Rex. I’d left as soon as I saw Mike had gone; I wanted to catch up with him. I knew that in a few moments, other correspondents might follow: they’d want to get his story.

The orange-tiled steeples of the old Town Hall at the top of Nguyen Hue were casting baroque shadows, and the tide of bicycles and motor scooters was running faster with the promise of evening. Opposite, the neon sign saying
Sanyo
winked on the ferroconcrete Eden Building, just above our office window, and I suddenly knew I was saying goodbye to Saigon; it hadn’t really sunk in until now. I looked among the crowds for Langford.

I soon caught sight of his yellow head, but he was a little way off, moving south on the pavement in the direction of the river. He was going at a fast pace, in spite of his combat boots, and I hurried to try and catch up with him.

But I failed. He suddenly turned right into Le Loi Avenue, and then crossed the road among the traffic, dodging a small swarm of bicycles and cyclos. A passing convoy of military trucks and Jeeps hid him from me, and by the time it was past, he’d disappeared.

I caught a cyclo down Tu Do to the Texas Happy Bar, hoping he’d come there too. He wasn’t here, but I bought a beer and settled on a stool. Dmitri Volkov was away on assignment in Cambodia, but Jim Feng and Trevor Griffiths would arrive soon: we’d arranged to meet here.

When they came, they wanted to know where Langford was: they’d assumed he’d join us, on my last evening here. So had I; but I no longer felt certain of it.

Griffiths was simmering with glee over Mike’s performance; his eyes gleamed in the lamplight in the way they did when he was profoundly gratified or incensed. He’d already got his story off to the Guardian, and now he leaned sideways on his stool to look at me with the air of an athlete who’d run his race well.

“Superb performance of Langford‘s,” he announced. “A clear exposure of Macvee’s whitewash and evasion. I didn’t know Snow had it in him. The man’s a rebel, underneath, in spite of his eccentric devotion to the cause of the South Vietnamese.” He drew fervently on his cigarette, savoring American disarray. “The VC will take the whole Delta soon, and Saigon next. But you won’t see it, will you, Harvey? Name your drink, my son: tonight we’ll toast your departure for Blighty, and buy you a fine Italian meal.”

Jim Feng looked at me soberly, passing me a Scotch. “This is a sad thing for Mike,” he said. “He and Captain Trung were friends: that is why he blew up. We should look for him.”

I’d already phoned the Telenews office and the villa; he wasn’t in either place, I told them. After a time, we left the Happy Bar and set out to check other bars where he might be. But we didn’t find him, and went on to dinner at La Doice Vita without him.

 

 

 

Afterwards, at about eleven-thirty, with curfew near, Griffiths went off to his hotel, and Jim went home to Villa Volkov in the Budgie. He’d expected me to come too; but I decided to linger on Tu Do for half an hour more. I still wanted to say goodbye to Langford.

I couldn’t be sure that he’d turn up at the villa that night; his comings and goings had become less and less predictable lately. And I wanted to say goodbye as well to the carnival of Tu Do at night, which reached its crescendo now, in the hour before curfew. I wanted to say goodbye to Saigon: a city which might well fall before I ever got back here.

Saigon, the Pearl! It was exhausted now: debauched; doomed; threatening. Mostly I’d detested it; but now that ‘[ was leaving, I knew I’d perversely miss it. Certainly I’d miss the Soldiers Three, and Villa Volkov; I suspected I might even miss the war, and the endless hushed beating of chopper blades and the high thunder of F-4 Phantoms and Super Sabres that was the war’s music. So I went on searching, with drunken obsessiveness. I’d consumed a good deal of wine, and time had got lost down a funnel.

Amplified pop music from bar doorways beat in my head like ten radios playing in a room at once. A crude canvas poster I can’t forget waved above a bar, strung from bamboo poles: a Vietnamese girl got up as an American Playboy bunny. She wore the required tights and rabbit’s ears and tail, but her face seemed full of woe: an ambiguous lure for the American troops who lurched across my path. All for them, these parodies of American pleasure, flowering on the grave of rue Catinat! The limbless beggars who were the war’s children crawled on the pavement, trying to impede me as usual, holding up their bowls; small boys in T-shirts and shorts made ancient obscene gestures and shouted their suggestions for the last time. “You want to boom-boom my
sister?”

I still had a conviction that Langford was here somewhere. I drifted on towards the river, wading for the last time through the swamp-dense air at Tu Do’s ground level. Meanwhile, in the dark brown upper air, off beyond the fluorescent green of the tamarind tops, an occasional distant parachute flare lit up the sky: the war going on, ignored. Windows and doorways fitted with wire guards against bombs framed figures that seemed to be locked in cages. A row of GIs sat on stools with tiny Vietnamese girls on their knees. The girls were wearing the demure white tea dresses dating from colonial times; they looked like children at a party, and they stroked the Americans tentatively, as though petting unpredictable animals. I passed La Pagode and the Melody Bar and the Sporting Bar and still I couldn’t find Langford.

Then I sighted him. About twenty yards ahead, he was pausing under an awning where a very old man in a coolie hat sat beside a little glass cabinet of cigarettes; Mike was buying a pack. He had his throng of child beggars with him, and he was still in his combat fatigues.

A few doors further on was the neon of the bar called La Bohème, which was known to double as a brothel. As I watched, Langford began to walk away towards it, and I saw that he was very drunk: much drunker than I was. He was weaving along as though scarcely able to stand, supporting himself with one hand on the shoulder of a sturdy boy in a ragged green T-shirt, while the Newspaper Boy, still clutching his bundle of papers, held his other arm. Even at this distance, I could see that the children wore expressions of concern. They were shouting up at him vehemently“ as though trying to persuade him to do something—or not to do it, perhaps.

Before I could catch up to him, Langford began to turn into the doorway of La Bohème. I heard the voices of the children rise in remonstration at this; the boy in the green T-shirt and the Newspaper Boy both tugged at one of his arms to hold him back, while a small girl in a ragged white blouse and shorts grasped his shirt. Mike paused, looking down at them; then he gently freed himself, and squatted to bring his face to their level, his expression solemn, his eyelids drooping. All of them stared at him intently, as though trying to understand something. He spoke to them for a moment; then he got up again, raised a hand in farewell, and staggered inside La Bohème.