"Then I will shoot you for your clumsiness," Dai screeched.
Phong said nothing. The pressure of the barrel was more maddening than frightening. He had stared down the barrel of a loaded weapon before and seen Captain Dai's hate-charged face behind it. This way, looking at the red soil of Vietnam and not into the face of death itself, oblivion could be accepted.
Dai pulled the trigger. Phong flinched at the click. But there was no pain, no other sound. Instead, his voice strangled with inarticulate rage, Captain Dai threw the rifle to the ground and picked Phong up bodily. He flung him into the conex container and the door slammed with a ringing finality.
Inside, the men disentangled themselves and each found a place of his own along the walls. After years of shared captivity, their most basic instinct was to seek a place to call their own.
No one said anything. The truck started up. Other engines joined it. Finally the T-54 tank grumbled and rattled into life. The convoy had started.
No one slept. The novelty of being moved absorbed their attention.
Youngblood's rumbling baritone broke their private thoughts.
"Wherever we're going," he said, "it's gotta be better than where we've been. "
"Could be worse," Pond said. "They might be ready to execute us."
"They wouldn't break down the camp to do that, fool," Youngblood scoffed.
"You will not die," Phong said. His voice was distant, stripped of all emotion.
"Yeah?" Youngblood said. He shifted closer to the trembling Vietnamese.
"Dai tell me he need the Americans. I am not needed. You will not die."
"What else did he say?"
"Nothing," Phong said.
"Okay, then. We sit tight. Whatever happens, we just go along. Just like always. We go along and we'll get along."
"You always say that, Youngblood," Pond grumbled. "But what's it ever got us?"
"It's kept us alive," Youngblood said. "I know it ain't much, but it's something."
"I'd rather be dead than kowtow to these stinkin' gooks another day."
"I hear you. But what do you wanna do? We can't cut and run. Charlie owns the whole country now. They're in Cambodia too. There's no place to run to. 'Less you long to go swimming in the South China Sea."
It was a joke but no one laughed.
"They will have to open the door to feed us," said Phong without feeling.
"What're you sayin', man?" Youngblood demanded.
"I am dead man. Dai will kill me if he not break me. He will kill me if he break me. Either way, I am dead man. I have nothing to lose. So I escape."
"Hey, Phong, don't be a stupid gook," Boyette said. "It can't be done."
"No. Mind made up. Listen. Youngblood right. Many men escape, that no good. But one man-not white man-has chance. Leave Vietnam. Go Cambodia. Then Thailand. Is possible for me. Not for American soldier. I go. I tell world."
"That's a laugh," Boyette said bitterly. "If anyone cared, don't you think they would have done something by now? Hell, my kid's gotta be a teenager now. My wife could've remarried three times in the years I've been rotting here. I got nothing to go back to. Face it, we're going to die here."
"No. Show proof. Americans come back. Rescue."
"Sure, Phong. Why don't you just whip out your Kodak and snap our pictures? What? You say you don't have a flashbulb? Aww, that's too bad. Maybe if we ask nice, Captain Dai will shoot more holes in the side of this box to let in a little light."
"Can it, Boyette," Youngblood grunted. "Keep talkin', Phong. How you gonna prove we're here? Tell me. Give us a little hope. I ain't had hope in so long I forget what it tastes like."
In the darkness, Phong reached into the waist of his dirty cotton trousers. He took Youngblood's thick wrist in hand and placed a slim metallic object in his big paw.
"What's this?" Youngblood asked.
"Pen. "
"Yeah?"
"I find on ground. Has ink."
"Paper?"
"No. No paper. Have better than paper. Paper get lost."
"Keep talkin', Phong," Youngblood said. "I'm starting to get a whiff of something I like."
The conex stopped at midday. They knew it was daytime because light streamed in through the air holes on one side-air holes that had been made with short bursts from an AK-47.
Someone threw a stone against the side of the conex container and the sound inside rattled their teeth. They all recognized the signal to back away from the door. They crowded to the far end of the dumpsterlike container. All but Phong. The wiry Vietnamese crouched at the door, his body taut, one fist gripping the silver pen like a dagger.
The corrugated door opened outward.
There was only one guard. His rifle was slung across his shoulder. He carried a large wooden bowl of soup-forest greens mixed with red peppers.
Phong sprang on him like a cat.
The guard dropped the bowl, his mouth gulping air. Phong tripped him, kicked at his windpipe, and yanked the rifle from his shoulder. The guard made a feeble grab at the pen-which was suddenly sticking from his sternum like a protruding bone. Then his rifle butt collided with his head. He sat down hard, his head slamming the ground a moment later.
"Atta boy, Phong!"
"Go, man, go!"
"Shut up!" Youngblood snapped. "Phong, close that door. Then get moving! And get rid of the body."
Phong took a last look at his frienas, huddling in the rear of the conex, and waved good-bye. Then he swung the conex door closed and dragged the guard's body into the bush.
He stripped the man of his clothes and tied them into a ball. In the guard's pockets were a wallet containing nearly two hundred dong, a military ID card, and a clasp knife. There was a little bag of betel nuts tucked into his right boot. It wasn't much, but it was food. Phong left the boots. They would only slow him down.