Chapter Seven #2
The soldiers nodded solemnly. One of them took a pin off of his pocket—an insignia of some kind—and handed it to Frankie. “Thanks, ma’am.” He stared at Ruiz for a moment longer, then left.
Frankie pocketed the pin and looked down at her patient. “You have some good buddies,” she said, replenishing his IV.
By the end of her long night shift, it was all she could do to stand upright.
With barely a glance at Debbie John, the nurse who’d come in to replace her, Frankie stumbled out of the ward.
It was early in the morning and already the sun beat down on her.
She bypassed the mess hall—not hungry—and the O Club—no desire to party—and headed to her hooch.
She could tell by the sound of small arms fire and helicopters in the distance that there would be patients incoming soon.
She’d better sleep while she could. Thankfully, the hooch was empty.
Barb and Ethel worked days, mostly. For weeks she’d barely seen her roommates.
Grateful for the relative quiet, Frankie untied her boots, put them in her locker, and lay down on her cot. She was asleep in minutes.
“Rise and shine, princess.”
“Go away, Ethel. I’m sleeping.” Frankie rolled onto her side.
“Nope. Babs and I have talked about it and we are taking you under our wing. Wings?” She looked at Barb, who shrugged.
Frankie groaned and put the pillow over her head. “Cool. Starting tomorrow.”
“Starting today, Frank. You’ve been hiding out with the gorks for six weeks. We haven’t seen you in the O Club in weeks. Who comes to ’Nam and plays with no one?”
“I’m learning to be a competent nurse.”
“That’s what today’s all about. Now get up before I pour cold water on you. Put on your fatigues. We’re going on a field trip. Bring your camera.” Ethel yanked the blanket off of Frankie, revealing her bare legs.
Grumbling, Frankie stumbled out of bed and dressed in a T-shirt and fatigue pants that were still new-looking, unmarred by bloodstains. There weren’t a lot of bloody emergencies in Neuro.
Ethel and Barb waited for her outside the mess hall. “We’re off to see the wizard. Word is that no wounded are incoming,” Barb said, smiling. She handed Frankie an olive-green canvas boonie hat. “You’ll need this.”
Outside, the camp was blissfully quiet, no helicopters delivering wounded, no mortars exploding in the distance. Men were throwing a football back and forth as a water truck rolled past.
Ethel and Barbara led the way to a two-and-a-half-ton truck—a deuce and a half—that was parked near the gates of the hospital. They climbed up into the back, along with Captain Smith. Several men from an infantry unit stood among them, carrying rifles.
“Climb in,” Barb said to Frankie. “They’re not gonna wait forever.”
Frankie climbed up into the truck’s bed and took a seat on the metal floor, beside the gunner. The big truck rumbled to life, shook, started to roll forward.
“Where are we going?” Frankie asked.
“MEDCAP,” Ethel said as the deuce and a half rumbled past the guarded gates and out into the countryside.
Was it safe out here? “The Medical Civic Action Program. We provide medical care to locals. I’m sure you’ve seen them in the wards.
Captain Smith organizes these outings whenever he can, says they remind him of his practice back home. ”
They drove through a village that was not far from the hospital compound, saw fatigues and uniforms and olive-green T-shirts hanging from laundry lines.
And then they were out in the country, jungle to the left, dirty brown river to the right.
A bunch of kids floated downstream on a tire, laughing and shoving each other.
Frankie used her Polaroid and snapped a photograph of a young boy herding a black water buffalo along the water, and one of an old woman dressed traditionally in a long, split tunic over slim pants, which Frankie had learned was called an ao dai , carrying a woven basket full of fruit.
The soldiers standing in the back of the truck straightened, their guns aimed at the lush jungle in the distance. “Stay sharp,” one of them said, adding: “Snipers.”
Frankie stared out at the jungle, lowering her Polaroid camera to her lap. A team of enemy shooters could be hiding out there. She imagined men squatted behind stands of elephant grass, their guns pointed at the truck. She scrunched down, held the hat on her head, started to sweat.
The truck rumbled down a muddy, potholed road and through the green countryside.
Evidence of war was everywhere—burn scars on the land, sandbags, rows of concertina wire, explosions sounding in the distance, choppers flying overhead.
In a huge patch of jungle, leaves were dying and had turned orange; Frankie knew it meant that the U.S.
had sprayed the area with an herbicide, Agent Orange, to kill the vegetation and limit the enemy’s ability to hide.
She saw Vietnamese women moving through the rice paddies or walking in the tall grass, wearing their flowing ao dais and conical straw hats, carrying babies and toddlers as they worked beneath the hot sun.
They drove upward onto a mountain and, at last, came to a village tucked on a small, flat plain cut into the lush hillside.
Neat gardens were carefully fenced and homes built of bamboo stood on stilts.
In this remote village, the people lived as their ancestors had—hunting with crossbows and rice-farming.
The village appeared to have been built around a beautiful, but decaying, stone building, a relic of Vietnam’s contentious French-occupation past. The villagers—mostly small, hunched-over old men and women with thin necks and narrow wrists, their teeth blackened by constant chewing of betel seeds—came out from their huts to stand in front of the deuce and a half in a straight line, their hands clasped, their heads bowed respectfully.
Ethel started to rise.
“Be careful,” one of the armed infantrymen said. “The VC are everywhere. They plant bombs on kids and old women. They could be in the bush.”
Frankie looked around. Bombs… on kids? How would you know? How could you tell these people from the Viet Cong, whose hidden bombs had blown up so many soldiers? How did you know who was an enemy and who was an ally?
She took a hard look at the line of villagers, in their flimsy black clothes, noticing there were no young people, male or female; only the very old and the young children. Were there swords hidden in sleeves, guns tucked in waistbands?
“Come on, guys,” Barb said. “No use worrying.”
“Let’s get to work,” Captain Smith said. The medical team jumped down from the truck.
Frankie was the last to step down into the red dirt. How were you supposed to protect yourself from invisible enemies?
Captain Smith moved in close, patted her arm. “You’re a good nurse, Frankie. Go show them.”
She nodded as he walked toward an elderly man, who was no taller than a ten-year-old American boy, with dark skin and black teeth.
He smiled at the medical team; deep lines crinkled his face.
He drew them toward him with a crooked finger, then turned and led them up into the broken-down French villa.
The stone walls were riddled with bullet holes; in several rooms the walls had crumbled.
Woven grasslike mats lay on the floor. A fire glowed in a large fireplace.
In it, a black pot bubbled and popped, sending a rich scent of spices into the dank room.
The old man picked up a large earthenware jug and held it up to Captain Smith. He said something that sounded like,“ Bac-si, Ca mon, ” in a rickety voice. He took a long drink and handed the jug to the doctor.
He wasn’t going to drink it, was he? What was it?
“It means ‘thank you, Doctors,’ I think,” Barb said. She was the second to take the jug after the doctor, and drank deeply, then handed the jug to Frankie, who took it slowly.
She eyed the crockery lip and slowly lifted it to her mouth. She took a small sip, surprised to find that it tasted sweet and sharp, a kind of wine.
The old man smiled at her, nodding, said something in his language.
Frankie smiled back uncertainly, took another sip.
After the welcoming ritual, the team set up stations to help the villagers.
Everything was communicated by hand signals.
None of the villagers spoke a word of English.
The medical team set up a makeshift clinic with a portable exam table in a bare hut with a thatched roof; another table was set up outside with a tub full of soapy water for scrubbing lice out of children’s hair and washing sores on their skin.
Flies landed on everything, on hair, on lips, on hands.
The driver of the truck handed out candy to the children, who gathered around him, clamoring for more.
For the next several hours, Frankie administered to the villagers in the living area of the old villa.
The villagers, young and old, waited patiently to be seen for a variety of ailments.
Frankie dispensed worming pills, antacids, aspirin, laxatives, and malaria tablets.
She checked teeth and looked in ear canals and listened to heartbeats.
She was nearly at the end of her line of villagers when a small boy, not more than five, sneaked in to stand beside her.
He wore a short-sleeved shirt and shorts, and had dirty feet and unevenly cut black hair that he’d plastered back from his face with red mud.
He didn’t speak or tug on her sleeve; neither did he leave her side.
“What do you need, little one?” she asked when the last in her line of patients had been treated.
He smiled up at her in a way that melted her heart.
She lifted him up into her arms. He wrapped his arms and legs around her and gazed at her questioningly, said something in his language.
“I don’t—”
The boy slipped out of her arms and took hold of her hand, pulling at her.