‘Where are you?’ shouted Nat. The groan went up a decibel. Nat swung round to see the massive frame of Staff Sergeant Foreman lodged in the trees, only a few feet above the wreckage. As he reached the man, the groan rose yet another decibel. ‘Can you hear me?’ asked Nat. The man opened and closed his eyes as Nat lowered him on to the ground. He heard himself saying, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll get you home,’ like some schoolboy hero from the pages of a comic book. Nat removed the compass from the staff sergeant’s belt, looked up at the sun, and then he spotted an object in the trees. He would have cheered if only he could have thought of some way of retrieving it. Nat dragged himself over to the base of the tree. He somehow jumped up and down on one foot as he grabbed at a branch and shook it, hoping to dislodge its load. He was about to give up when it shifted an inch. He tugged at the branch even more vigorously, and then it moved again and suddenly, without warning, came crashing down. It would have landed on Nat’s head if he hadn’t quickly fallen to one side. He couldn’t jump.
Nat rested for a moment, before slowly lifting the staff sergeant up and gently placing him on the stretcher. He then sat on the ground and watched the sun disappear behind the highest tree, having completed its duty for the day in that particular land.
He had read somewhere about a mother who had kept her child alive after a car crash by talking to him all through the night. Nat talked to the staff sergeant all night.
Fletcher read in sheer disbelief how, with the help of local peasants, Lieutenant Nat Cartwright had dragged that stretcher from village to village for two hundred and eleven miles, and seen the sun rise and fall seventeen times before he reached the outskirts of the city of Saigon, where both men were rushed to the nearest field hospital.
Staff Sergeant Speck Foreman died three days later, never discovering the name of the lieutenant who had rescued him and who was now fighting for his own life.
Fletcher followed every snippet of news he could find about Lieutenant Cartwright, never doubting he would live.
A week later they flew Nat to Camp Zama in Japan, where they operated on him to save his leg. The following month he was allowed to return home to the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington DC to complete his recuperation.
The next time Fletcher saw Nat Cartwright was on the front page of the New York Times, shaking hands with President Nixon in the Rose Garden at the White House.
He was receiving the Medal of Honour.
15
Michael and Susan Cartwright were ‘bowled over’ by their visit to the White House to witness their only son being decorated with the Medal of Honour in the Rose Garden. After the ceremony, President Nixon listened attentively to Nat’s father as he explained the problems Americans would be facing if they all lived to the age of ninety and were not properly covered by life insurance. ‘In the next century, Americans will spend as long in retirement as they do in work,’ were the words LBJ repeated to his cabinet the following morning.
On their journey back to Cromwell, Nat’s mother asked him what plans he had for the future.
‘I can’t be sure, because it’s not in my hands,’ he replied. ‘I’ve received orders to report to Fort Benning on Monday, when I’ll find out what Colonel Tremlett has in mind for me.’
‘Another wasted year,’ said his mother.
‘Character building,’ said his father, who was still glowing from his long chat with the president.
‘I hardly think Nat’s in need of much more of that,’ was his mother’s response.
Nat smiled as he glanced out of the window and took in the Connecticut landscape. While pulling a stretcher for seventeen days and seventeen nights with snatches of sleep and little food, he had wondered if he would ever see his homeland again. He thought about his mother’s words, and had to agree with her. The idea of a wasted year of form-filling, making and returning salutes before training someone else to take his place angered him. The top brass had made it clear that they weren’t going to let him return to Vietnam and thereby risk the life of one of America’s few recognized heroes.
Over dinner that night, after his father had repeated the conversation he’d had with the president several times, he asked Nat to tell them more about ‘Nam.
For over an hour, Nat described the city of Saigon, the countryside and its people, rarely referring to his job as a requisition officer. ‘The Vietnamese are hard-working and friendly,’ he told his parents, ‘and they seem genuinely pleased that we’re there, but no one, on either side, believes that we can stay for ever. I fear history will regard the whole episode as pointless, and once it’s over it will be quickly erased from the national psyche.’ He turned to his father. ‘At least your war had a purpose.’ His mother nodded her agreement, and Nat was surprised to see that his father didn’t immediately offer a contrary view.
‘Did you come away with any particular abiding memory?’ asked his mother, hoping that her son might talk about his experience at the front.
‘Yes, I did. The inequality of man.’
‘But we’re doing everything we can to assist the people of South Vietnam,’ said his father.
‘I’m not referring to the Vietnamese, father,’ Nat replied, ‘I’m talking about what Kennedy described as “my fellow Americans”.’
‘Fellow Americans?’ his mother repeated.
‘Yes, because my abiding memory will be our treatment of the poor minorities, in particular the blacks. They were on the battlefield in great numbers for no other reason than that they couldn’t afford a smart lawyer who could show them how to avoid the draft.’
‘But your closest friend...’
‘I know,’ said Nat, ‘and I’m glad Tom didn’t sign up, because he might well have suffered the same fate as Dick Tyler.’
‘So do you regret your decision?’ asked his mother quietly.
Nat took some time before he responded. ‘No, but I often think of Speck Foreman, his wife and three children in Alabama, and wonder what purpose his death served.’
Nat rose early the next morning to catch the first train bound for Fort Benning. When the engine pulled into Columbus station, he checked his watch. There was still another hour before his meeting with the colonel, so he decided to walk the two miles up to the academy. On the way, he was continually reminded that he was in a garrison town, by how regularly he had to return salutes from everyone below the rank of captain. Some even smiled in recognition when they spotted the Medal of Honour, as they might with a college football hero.
He was standing outside Colonel Tremlett’s office a full fifteen minutes before his appointment.
‘Good morning, Captain Cartwright. The colonel told me to take you straight through to his office the moment you arrived,’ said an even younger ADC.
Nat marched into the colonel’s office, stood to attention, and saluted. Tremlett came round from behind his desk, and threw his arms around Nat. The ADC was unable to hide his surprise, as he thought only the French greeted their fellow officers in that way. The colonel motioned Nat to a seat on the other side of his desk. After returning to his chair, Tremlett opened a thick file and began studying its contents. ‘Do you have any idea what you want to do for the next year, Nat?’
‘No, I don’t, sir, but as I’m not being allowed to return to Vietnam, I’d be happy to take up your earlier offer, and remain at the academy to assist you with any new intake.’