She arrived on the run, flailing through a clump of bushes to one side of the lorry. Before the North Vietnamese officer realized it, she was on him, and the two of them went sprawling to the ground in a tangle of arms and legs. From her squeals, she must not have seen him either and was as surprised at the collision as he was.
I sprang up and dived on top of both of them, seizing the opportunity to turn the tables on him. But I wasn’t quite fast enough. My arm was locked around his neck in a stranglehold, all right; but his pistol was at the girl’s head, and it was plain that if I persisted in my grip he intended to shoot her.
Releasing him quickly, I fell back to my previous position. Now I had the bayonet at the Cong girl’s throat while he held the pistol at the Saigon secretary’s head. Once again we were stalemated.
A new tableau had been established, but it was also a more dangerous one. The mortar shells being lobbed into the courtyard were coming closer and closer to the clusters of lorries. The Cong was getting the range. It was plain that if we didn’t move-—and move fast!—--all four of us would be dead.
Circumstances, however, had tied us together. I was afraid that if we split up, the North Vietnamese officer would kill his hostage. It was obvious that he had the same fear regarding me.
The feeling was that neither of us could come unstuck from his satellite without sealing his doom. At the same time, to maintain the status quo meant we would all be destroyed by the bombardment. Life doesn’t just imitate art; sometimes life imitates life!
By mutual agreement, and without words, the two of us prodded our captives toward a building about a hundred yards from the lorry. The force of one of the explosions had blown open a door to the place. It was a large, square structure, obviously a storehouse of some sort.
Once inside it, we could see that it was half-filled with large crates. We could also see that the structure was pretty flimsy and didn’t really afford too much protection from the shells falling around us. Seeking greater security, we located a staircase leading to a basement under the building. Down here we were relatively safe.
By the flame of my cigarette lighter we located and turned on the light switch. The larger cellar was filled with a variety of beds and bedding. There was everything from folding cots to king-size bedframes. There were sleeping bags and innerspring mattresses. There was even a circular bed and mattress, doubtless slated for some VIP with the pull—-and push—-to gratify his rounded boudoir tastes. It seemed that nothing in the way of modern sleeping accommodations was missing.
For a long time the four of us just sat there. I kept the bayonet at the throat of the Cong girl. My adversary held his pistol at the temple of the South Vietnamese secretary. None of the four of us seemed able to think of anything else to do. And outside the fighting and the bombardment continued.
Finally the Viet Cong girl made a suggestion as to how we might break the deadlock. “If you both throw your weapons out that cellar window at the same moment,” she suggested, “this situation will deescalate.”
“All right.”
“Okay.”
We both agreed, albeit both reluctantly.
“I’ll count to three,” she said. “When I say ‘three,’ you each hurl your weapons out the window. Agreed?”
“Yes.”
“Yeah.”
“One. . . two . . . three . . .”
He didn’t throw his pistol out the window. So I didn’t throw the rifle and bayonet out either. .
“What’s the matter?” the Saigon girl asked. “She counted to three.”
“He didn’t throw his gun. He cheated!” I said accusingly.
“It’s an American trick,” he responded. “You had no intention of disarming yourself. It’s just like the 1954 treaty. We sign a truce and turn around and there’s an American with a knife at our throats again!”
“You agree to peace, and there you are with a gun at our countrywoman’s head again!” I responded.
“Look,” the Saigon girl said. “I have an idea. Each of you give your weapons to her and me, and we’ll throw hem away.”
“How do we know we can trust you any more than each other?” I asked.
“We have more to lose than you.” The Viet Cong girl surprisingly agreed with the Saigon secretary’s suggestion. ‘It’s our existence that’s at stake.”
“Okay,” I agreed.
“Agreed.” The North Vietnamese okayed it.
“One . . . two . . . three . . .” The Cong cutie gave the count.
And there I was with the sharp tip of a bayonet at my throat. There was some consolation-—but not much—in he fact that the North Vietnamese officer was flinching under the pressure of the pistol muzzle at his temple. The girls, however, were decidedly more comfortable in the new situation.
“Yankee coward!” The curvy Cong pinked the skin in the area of my jugular.
“Commie chicken!” The Saigon sexpot cocked the pistol against the head of the North Vietnamese.
“Hey! Wait a minute!” I protested. “Now you’re supposed to throw them away.”
“Yes,” the Red officer added, “that was the agreement.”
“I don’t know. It’s sort of nice to be in control for a change,” the South Vietnamese secretary mused.
“That’s true.” The Cong girl concurred. “It is nice not to have to depend on anyone else for power.”
“Maybe we should kill them,” Saigon suggested.
“Maybe we should,” the Cong agreed.
“And then kill each other,” I interjected hastily. “Once we’re out of the way, you’ll have no other choice but to turn on each other. You’re both committed to that.”
“He’s right,” the Commie officer concurred. “The only way you can make it work without us is if you’re both disarmed.”
I think we were both surprised when they finally agreed with this logic and did indeed toss their weapons out the window. I know we both sighed with relief. Also, in spite of ourselves, we found that we were grinning at each ether.
“Now what?” the Saigon secretary said.
“Yes. What happens now?” The Cong girl was also at a loss.
Make love, not war2 . It was at that instant that the phrase popped into my head once again. Make love, not war. It had worked out before with the Viet Cong girl; why shouldn’t it work for the four of us? Make love, not war!
I explained to the others what I had in mind. The discussion that followed was prolonged and hairsplitting, but in the end there was agreement of sorts. Death might be imminent, and we weren’t the first to equate sex with life under such circumstances. Also, we were stuck down here and we had to do something to make the time pass. Add that the Cong chick and I had already been turned on, that the North Vietnamese had been in the womanless jungle for a long time, and that the Saigon secretary was having a hard time hiding the fact that she had eyes for him, and it wasn’t really‘ so surprising that we all agreed to have an orgy.
But agreeing on the orgy was one thing and settling the protocol of it was something else again. Outside men were dying, and in here we were all hung up on just which-—or which combination—-of the many beds available should be used in the proceedings. It wasn’t just a question of who was going to be screwed by whom, but also of which furniture should be used in accomplishing the screwing.
“A sleeping bag is the bedding of the agrarian revolutionary!” the man from Hanoi was insisting now.
“Separate bags!” the Saigon loyalist retorted. “I’ll go to bed with you, but I’ll never share my pallet with the Cong!”