Finding Moon

“I thought a soldier,” Moon said. “He was carrying a grenade launcher.”

“Did you notice the tattoo on his chest?” Mr. Lee asked. “It said sat cong. That was the slogan of the river sailors of the Republic’s navy from the very first. So I think he’s one of the men from the base down the river.”

“Sat Cong,” Moon said. “Means what?”

“It means Kill Communists,” Mr. Lee said. “I think that VC officer with his ear cut off would like to capture this one.”

WASHINGTON, April 28 (UPI)-President Ford today ordered the emergency evacuation of all Americans remaining in Vietnam. The plan called for picking them up at assembly points in helicopters and flying them to carriers lying off the coast.

Afternoon, the Nineteenth Day

IF OSA VAN WINJGAARDEN’S DIAGNOSIS was correct, Nguyen Nung had suffered two cracked ribs, concussion, multiple wounds caused by some sort of shrapnel on his face, neck, chest, and scalp, plus assorted bruises and abrasions.

By Lum Lee’s analysis, based on cross-examining Nguyen Nung before the shot of morphine from a U.S. Army aid kit took effect, these damages had been caused when a Vietcong rocket hit the superstructure of the LST where his PBR was based just as Nung was scrambling up a ladder. He remembered being hit by something and flung from the ladder to the deck. The next thing he remembered was awakening in a PBR somewhere out on the river and being aware that they were being shot at.

The last time he revived, he’d found himself on the bottom of the boat, with the legs of a dead man across his own. He had extracted himself to find that the PBR had been run aground on the bank of a very narrow, very shallow creek. He had walked. He had come to the warehouse compound about dawn, found the gate unlocked, and entered. When he heard voices, he’d hidden himself in the closet. Could he find the boat again? Of course. How far was it? Nung was too hazy from the morphine by now to answer that coherently.

Osa picked bits and pieces of debris from various wounds, washed everything with soapy water, applied copious amounts of antiseptic, and swathed his face and neck in U.S. Government Issue bandages. Finally, with Moon holding the groggy Nung erect, Osa wrapped his chest in strips torn from a bedsheet.

“We let him down now,” she said, glanced up at Moon, and instantly looked away.

“I shouldn’t have screamed like that,” she said. “I am embarrassed.”

“I would have screamed a lot louder,” Moon said. “You open a door and see a guy pointing a grenade launcher at you. I might have fainted.”

They lowered Nung gently to the bed and were rewarded with a grimace, followed by a dopey smile. Nung said something that sounded to Moon like “tenk,” closed his eyes, and surrendered to the morphine.

Osa, leaning over him, closed a long gash on his cheek with the careful application of an adhesive bandage. She stood straight, stretched her back, shook herself.

“We should leave him to sleep a little,” she said. “I will go now and take that shower.” She laughed. “This time I look in the closet first.”

“Good idea. Nothing to do now but wait until we find out if our friend here can help us.”

“That tattoo on his chest,” she said. “You saw it?”

“Mr. Lee said it means Kill Communists.”

“That’s what I thought,” Osa said. “Poor man. What does he do now?”

Moon hadn’t given that much thought. He watched her close the bathroom door behind her and went back into the office. Through the doorway he saw Mr. Lee prowling the warehouse, checking bales and sacks. He had no desire to talk to Mr. Lee at the moment. What could they say? That they were lucky in co

Moon smiled, remembering how Halsey had talked his way out of that one. What would Halsey suggest to get out of this situation? He’d say something like “Que sera sera, so don’t sweat it.” As good advice as any. And what would Halsey think of Osa van Winjgaarden? He would have been impressed. She was the kind of woman Halsey always wanted him to chase. He’d point them out across the dance floor when they dressed up and went to the classier places. The tall ones wearing pearls. The ones with the long patrician faces, Bermuda tans, and the high-fashion jackets. The ones who handed the parking lot attendant the keys to the Porsche, who knew exactly how to walk, and hold their heads, and tell the world they owned it. The ones who, when they caught him staring, examined him with cool, disinterested eyes.

“Why not?” Halsey would say. “Maybe they can kill you but they can’t eat you.” He’d say, “Not my type, Gene.” And Halsey, who enjoyed the role of philosopher, would say, “Like hell they’re not. Unlike myself, a pragmatist happy with the attainable, you are a victim of divine discontent. You yearn for the perfect. But you ain’t got no guts.”

But in fact, they really weren’t his type. He knew it and they knew it. He learned it when he was younger. The hard way. He had been calmly and efficiently rejected. The duck rebuffed by the swan. He’d learned fairly fast, because Moon Mathias was unusually sensitive to the pain of humiliation.

But the water was still dripping into the M- 113 armored perso

The rubber cushion on the driver’s seat beside the engine was soaking wet, but by then so was Moon. He sat on it and looked around. Basically it was identical to the ones they had driven at Fort Riley. The ARVN outfit had installed racks for GI gas cans, welded a mount beside the second hatch for an M60 machine gun, and covered the floor with bags. Moon widened a tear in one of them and checked. Sand. Something to stop the shrapnel if the treads triggered a mine. He switched on the ignition. The fuel indicator showed two-thirds. He shifted into low gear, drove the APC into the hangar, tugged the big door closed behind it, and went to work. He’d refuel it, get it ready to go. It was good to feel competent again.

Nguyen Nung became more or less awake about four P.M., about thirty minutes after the rain slackened into a drizzle and gradually faded away. When Moon came in from the hangar, the clouds were breaking, there were signs of watery sunlight here and there, and Nung was sitting stiffly in Ricky’s office being cross-examined by Mr. Lee.

“He says the boat is about an hour’s walk down the river,” Mr. Lee said. “It was run up a creek and into heavy brush in a growth of mangroves. He estimates it’s about two or three hundred yards down the creek from this road we’re on.”

“What happened to the crew?” Moon asked.

Mr. Lee spoke to Nguyen. Nguyen shrugged, then produced a lengthy response.

“He doesn’t know,” Mr. Lee said. “But they came ashore in his boat, the boat he was a gu