Pham Minh mentioned the meeting with Kiem. Then, unable to restrain himself any longer, he spat out more. “Sir, do you not trust me?”
Nguyen Thach was wide-eyed and at a loss.
“What do you mean, do I distrust you? You and I make a good team. We are one and the same.”
“Then why didn’t you let me know about the offensive to commence with the rainy season, or the assault on the air base in Da Nang by the reinforcement troops. The members across the river had the information before I did.”
A cold look returned to Thach’s face. “Ah, that was because Comrade Pham has a crucial mission to carry out.”
“I, too, will join the offensive. I cannot loiter in the markets any longer.”
“That mission is in fact to take part in the operation.”
“Sir?”
“It will not be the Fourth Reinforcement Company which will attack the air base. The main force is a regular army commando unit coming down out of the mountains. Our fourth company will be conducting a diversionary operation elsewhere near the air base. Comrade Pham, you will have to guide the commando unit as it infiltrates through Dong Dao to an advantageous spot for the attack. You should know that area better than anybody else, since you, Comrade, are in the air force, are you not?”
“I am to guide them, sir?”
“The route and point of attack will soon be fixed. This is an important mission. We may suffer annihilation.”
“The target?”
“Enemy Phantom jets. While the Paris talks drag on, we must keep up military pressure on the enemy. And now you, a cell member, are angry because you had no explanation from above?”
“Ah… I was wrong, sir.”
Pham Minh hung his head very low, then suddenly, as if he had just remembered something, he looked up and said, “I know a safe house very close to the air base, sir. We can make it inside the house without anybody noticing and wait there for nightfall.”
“Good idea. What’s its location, roughly?”
“In Son Dinh village.”
“That’s. .”
“Right. It’s the residence of our teacher, Trinh.”
Nguyen Thach evaded Pham Minh’s glance.
“No, not there.”
“Do you know him, sir?”
“He was the principal of our grammar school in the old days. I was a member of his Buddhist Students Association.”
“But, why not? Don’t you trust him?”
“It’s not that. Many of the senior officers in the NLF also greatly respect him.”
“Then, let’s drop it.”
“Who said anything about dropping it?” Thach shouted. “If you had not brought it up, I might not have remembered. I don’t know “
Thach stopped himself. Then he sat silently with his eyes trained on the newspaper. Minh spoke.
“Correct me, please.”
“What’s wrong with you today, anyway?” Thach asked, his face concealed behind the paper.
“I got rather agitated over a personal matter, sir.”
“What sort of personal matter?”
Minh tried his best to speak in a calm voice. “I ran into a student from school who said the other students are saying that I’m a coward who deserted the NLF. And then she told me that Shoan is getting engaged to somebody else.”
Thach put down the newspaper. His eyes were bloodshot. “It can’t be helped, really. I, too, had a similar experience. Your mention of Shoan made me recall a certain girl I knew when I was in the Buddhist Students Association. Congratulate them from the bottom of your heart, that’ll make you feel better. After that, promise yourself that the children they bear will inherit a proud and free country, and with that, go out and fight bravely. That is what I meant when I said that love and revolution share the same path.”
“I’d better go back to the fish market, sir,” Minh said, heaving a long sigh.
“I appreciate your telling me,” said Thach. “Neither of us seems to have the time for marriage. Go and speak with Mr. Trinh. And also check out the situation in Son Dinh village.”
All day long the clouds had been heavy and low, and that night the rain began to pour down. From the mountains in the distance came the sound of thunder, a sound not at all like that of bombs. When the lightning flashed, it was more beautiful than the light from a flare rocket. The monsoon season had begun. Along the coast, the weather was cooling off and the fog was getting heavier.
In accordance with orders, at 2200 hours Pham Minh went outside to get an emergency communication line ready. As a precaution, he was wearing an air force work uniform. The infiltration route for the commandos had been planned to begin from Phu Hoa, passing from there through the forest between Dong Dao and Ap Dai La, and then they would rendezvous on the hillside just west of Son Dinh. The meeting signal was to be made by striking a wood block: two sets of three beats with an interval in between, followed by many rapid beats in a row. The response would be a single beat followed by a pause followed by many rapid beats.
It was raining hard and in the pitch darkness you could not see your own hand in front of your face. The cold rain seemed to soak through your entire body, making you feel numb. Pham Minh scaled the hill from the village and crawled through the bamboo. Lizards could be heard scurrying about nearby. He stretched his legs out between some bamboo stalks and lay there on the mushy ground. The place reminded him of Atwat, up by the Ho Chi Minh Trail. He thought of the young men who had died namelessly in the jungle, their bones left there to rot.
Ah, and he thought of Shoan, engaged to an elderly merchant. Her parents must have felt greatly relieved. Like his own father, who died of a heart attack in a bathtub in the midst of the struggle against France, would they also lead happy existences disconnected from larger history? No, what Nguyen Thach said had been right, he should congratulate them, and fight so their children can grow up in a better nation. No, that was nonsense. What he ought to have done is tell Shoan his true feelings and persuade her to take the same path he had taken. But that was an ideal only for those with that destiny. Shoan — her name, recalling the jasmine of old Tonkin, was most fitting — had been to Trinh’s house just the day before he came. Hadn’t the doctor’s daughter made a joke of it? “Shoan was here just yesterday, so did you two make a date to come separately?” That was it, Shoan had wanted to go there the day before her engagement.
That night before Minh left for Atwat, that gorgeous night with its beautiful stream of shooting stars one after another, would never come again. When he had gone out to the backyard with a desolate heart, he had found a white ramie handkerchief lying inside the air raid shelter, filling it with the fragrance of canna. From ancient days, the women of Turen have been renowned for loving only one man in their lives. When their beloved set out; on a journey to a distant place, they would make a kerchief from their torn slip and give it to him as a memento.
Pham Minh was suddenly startled. Through the shish of the rain pouring down through the bamboo he heard the sharp, clear sound of a wood block being struck. In the jungle, a bamboo stick and wood block took the place of wireless sets as the main means of communication. Pham Minh became all ears. The signal was repeated. Quickly he sat up and struck his own wood block. Again there was silence. Minh stared into the darkness to try to make out something moving through the bamboo. Then there was a click and something jutted into his back.
As he turned around to look, a man lifted his gun up and growled, “Don’t move. Your name and unit?”
“Pham Minh, assistant agent with Third Company, 434th Special Action Group.”
“Any changes?”
“None.”
“The safe house?”
“Son Dinh, just down there.”
“Well done, Comrade.”