Chapter 22: Chapter 21 – An American Soldier Has Saved Me from Being Bombed to Bits

I meet up with Mom after our business errands, and we have lunch at a sidewalk coffee shop. She has black coffee and two tamarind cupcakes, and I get a chocolate strawberry milkshake and a slice of butter pecan pie.

Mom says, "I heard on the radio that there's major fighting in the Mekong Delta area today, and bombing has destroyed many big farms. Refugees are leaving their homes and coming to Saigon City. We'll go by the Saigon Central Railway station, and look around to see if we can spot Aunt Bebe, or Aunt Nina and Cousin Nam among the refugees."

I peer up the tracks toward an oncoming Saigon Express train, its wheels rolling fast. The train slows down and stops by us.

The passengers carrying their belongings on their heads get off the train and onto the platform. Mom and I follow them into the train station. 

I walk up to the girl from the Jungle View Farm where I bought a pig and tap her on the shoulder. "Excuse me, is your family farm still there?"

"No, it's gone," she says, crying.

Above the gate of platform 9, a sign says REFUGEES. We crowd through this gate, get inside the train station, and come to a lounge where people sit beside their strapped suitcases and bags.

I look toward the far corner of the lounge. "Oh, there they are, Mom. Cousin Nam, Aunt Nina. And yay, Aunt Bebe."

I run ahead of Mom toward them. Cousin Nam puts his arms around me, lifts me off the floor, and whirls me around. Mom and the aunts embrace one another, chattering and laughing.

Cousin Nam pulls me by the hand into the concession area. He buys all kinds of food and drink. I gobble two sandwiches and drink up a bottle of refreshing sweet pennyroyal juice. 

Mom says, "Why don't you all come and stay in our house until the bombing is over? Nam can keep Mai company for a while. They get along well."

"Mom, our house is not good enough for them to stay in. And we have no extra beds," I say.

"It's OK, Mai. I brought along sleeping airbags," Nam says.

The bridge crossing the Gold Nuggets River at the Skyscraper Tree is ruined by a bomb, and part of the bridge fell into the river. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is building a dirt causeway for a makeshift bridge. They let us go on the partly finished causeway, to go to our house.

As we enter our neighborhood, Hoa runs up to us. "Refugees are fleeing the Mekong Delta countryside that's being bombed, and moving into the woods behind your house."

"What're our neighbors doing?" I say.

"They're digging trenches in the ground, and building bomb bunkers for the coming bombing," Tin says, showing up behind Hoa.

"But the DMZ is a no-fire zone where bombing and shooting are prohibited," I say.

Hoa says. "Helicopters flying over the DMZ have announced that the VCs have removed the tires from the trucks parked in the American Army Depots and that the VCs shot at the guards while getting away with the tires into the tunnels under the DMZ ground."

Tin says, "Now the VCs are being hunted. The Allied Command Operations center has ordered the people to build bomb bunkers, and get into them before bombs start falling on the DMZ."

Refugees are still moving into our neighborhood. On a motorcycle, a man sits in the front with his hands on the handles, a woman holding a baby sits behind him, and then a little girl, and then a little boy at the end. Their belongings are piled into the sidecars of the vehicle. The loaded motorcycle moves into the woods behind our house.

Nam, Tin, Hoa, and I run into the woods. On a patch of land surrounded by a barbed wire fence, evacuees pitch tents with rice sacks, bedsheets, and sheaves of palm leaves, and fasten the tents to the pegs stuck in the ground with ropes. Mantle Lamps are hung from the tents' ceiling, and loofah gourds containing drinking water hang on posts supporting the tents.

My neighbor kids and refugee kids get together and play, and catch rabbits and fish for meat. Refugees are cooking food in the makeshift camp. Meat vendors bring the cows charred by bombing fire in a van to the refugee camp. The van is parked in front of the haunted house. The refugees buy the burned cows. Nearby, a truck lies on its side, with its tires missing and its metal water tank lying against a hedge. 

So many people crowd the neighborhood, but markets are not open because of the coming bombing. It's difficult to get enough food to cook for a large crowd. The beef noodle soup called Pho can be cooked in large batches, but we need big cooking pots.

Mom says, "We should cook Pho with the burned cows, using the abandoned water tank as a cooking pot."

Welders cut an opening on the tank, and make a lid with the cut-out metal sheet. People dig a ditch in a clearing in the woods and set the empty tank on it. They put dry wood logs into the ditch and make a fire. They put beef bones and meat into the tank, and fill it with water from the hoses connected to the water tank in my backyard.

American and Vietnamese Marines march into our neighborhood and stop in front of our house. A soldier reaches his water canteen toward me. "Please fill this up with water for me."

Other soldiers reach their canteens out to other kids.

We fill their canteens with water from our water tank. A soldier drinks water from his canteen, and as he closes the lid, a monkey flings itself down from a guava tree by my front wall, and perches on his shoulder, its front paws rummaging in his hair.

"It's looking for lice to eat," I say.

"Oh, you speak English very well. Can you get the monkey away from my hair?" he says.

I get a ripe banana and dangle it in front of the monkey. It reaches a paw toward the banana, but I throw the banana away, and the monkey scurries after it.

Straw mats are set on the ground, and the soldiers and civilians sit in groups on the mats and eat Pho.

The soldiers march away in the direction of the Assassin Jungle.

Military airplanes are flying in a line, and bombs are falling from the bomb bay doors at the bottom of the planes.

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A paratrooper jumps out of a helicopter and the parachute carrying him swings and comes down toward my rooftop. The kids push me to lead them to climb onto the rooftop. We wave at the descending paratrooper. He comes down so close overhead that when he stamps his feet down, I react by dodging my head. But the parachute swings away toward the Assassin Jungle. We climb down from the roof and run to the jungle.

The ground soldiers have marched away from my neighborhood, and come to the jungle. the paratrooper lands on the ground and joins them. Together they march forward, but the paratrooper backs away from the group and ducks under a bush.

We follow the track of the paratrooper. Moments later, the sound of gunfire comes from the bush, followed by shouting, "Help! An alligator bit me." 

When we pull him out of the bush, one of his pant legs has a bloody hole in it. We put him in his parachute, and carry the loaded parachute to the field hospital.

The doctor at the field hospital has fixed him up. "Your wounded foot is OK now, Captain Webfoot."

Captain Webfoot sits with his back leaning against a tree trunk. The kids sit in a semi-circle in front of him.

A boy says, "Captain Webfoot, why did you back away while your platoon marched forward?"

Captain Webfoot says, "Uh…I saw the bush and thought the VCs must be hiding under it, so I dived into it to catch them."

Tin says, "Weren't you trying to desert, so you jumped into the bush to hide?"

Captain Webfoot says, "Okay, here's the deal. I jumped into the bush because it was where I used to play as a kid."

I say, "So you were reliving your childhood memory, and parachuting into a kid playground, and jumping into the bush. I understand."

"But what happened to your foot?" Hoa says.

Captain Webfoot says, "An alligator bit me, and I touched my gun and it went off."   

His platoon comes back for him, and Captain Webfoot struggles to his feet, saying, "Good evening Sergeant Major."

The Sergeant Major scowls at Captain Webfoot, saying, "Soldiers, perform running exercise with Captain Webfoot so that he can test out his foot. I'll put him first in the front line as soon as he can at least hobble."

After the exercise, the soldiers march toward the Gold Nuggets River. When they reach the river, they stop at the water's edge.

Carrying his backpack loaded with army equipment, Captain Webfoot jumps into the water. Holding his rifle above the water with one hand, he paddles and kicks his way to the opposite bank in a flash. The rest of his group wade across the river in the shallow water, with their rifles raised over their heads. They take a long time to wade across to the other side.

A siren sounds to signal impending bombing, and searchlight beams reach across the sky. A helicopter is broadcasting an order for the citizens of the DMZ to get into bomb bunkers. The kids run back to the DMZ.

My neighbors have finished making bomb bunkers with sandbags. I want to be in the bunker where the teens stay. They have iPhones and portable game consoles, so we can listen to music and play games.

The bombing comes while I'm searching for a bunker that I like. I jump into a bomb bunker crowded with old women playing mahjong and sipping teas.  I look out through an opening between the sandbags and the bunker's roof and see the sky glowing with fire.

"Oh my God! The doom of the end of the world," a woman says, making the sign of the Cross.

I move toward the entrance to get out, but the woman reaches her hand across in front of me, saying, "You can't go out yet. The bombs are falling."

"But I want to be with other kids," I say.

She hands me three French baguettes, saying, "Share these with your friends. And be careful. Duck into any bunker when you have to."

I gather the bread loaves into my arms, shouting, "Thank you," and dash out of the bunker.

Cousin Nam hangs out with his friends. It's so humid inside our bunker, so Tin and Hoa, and I drag my bouncy mattress out and lay it in the open air. We lie down on the mattress. I hear cracks of gunfire and the whizzing sound of flying bombs and feel the ground shaking with the exploding bombs.

A shadow of a body plunges toward us, and the three of us are shoved down a sloping embankment. A bomb explodes at our mattress, blowing it to shreds.

Moments later, neighbors come to us. "Are the three of you OK?"

"We're OK. Who pushed us?" Hoa says.

"I did," A voice says.

Someone lifts a lamp toward the voice, and the lamplight reveals his face.

"Captain Webfoot," Tin says.

Captain Webfoot takes us to a ventilated bunker. "You three sleep in there tonight," he says, walking away.

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