“The truck, I think.” Tyreen’s eyes were sunken and fiery. He put his bowl aside. “Lin Thao. How many men with weapons have you got?”
“We have fifty in the village, but only eight are here now.”
“Smith, what kind of weapons have they got?”
“Small arms and grenades, sir. One light mortar.”
Tyreen examined the girl like a man studying the entrails of an oracular goat. He put his finger on the map. “How long would it take your people to walk from here to the electric power station?”
“Thirty minutes, if there are no patrols on the path.” Her answer was quick and positive.
“Is there a heavy guard on the power station?”
Smith spoke up: “One machine gun squad. Three guns.”
The girl said, “You would have us sabotage the electric station?”
“To draw the army out of Chutrang.” Tyreen rubbed his eyes with forefinger and thumb. “Can your people do that?”
“If it will help Captain Kreizler, we can try, Colonel.”
Tyreen cut off a curse. “I feel like a fool talking to a woman like this.”
“There is no one else. The people will listen to me.”
He looked cross and sulky. “Make a lot of noise. Throw grenades and do a lot of shooting. Try to knock out the city power cables. Make as much noise as you can, but tell your people not to take risks. They don’t have to be brave. It won’t help for anybody to get killed.”
Lin Thao said, “The army will come up from the city.”
“When they do, your people disappear.”
She spoke to Corporal Smith. Smith answered in the Montagnard dialect, and Lin Thao said to Tyreen, “We shall do as you say.”
He looked at her feet. Her sandals were cut from automobile tires. She probably did not weigh one hundred pounds. She offered him a jar and said, “Rice whisky,” and Tyreen shook his head. J. D. Hooker reached for the jar, and Tyreen said, “No.” The girl withdrew the whisky. Hooker straightened, but did not speak, and the girl said:
“There is an alley near the soldiers’ compound.” She touched the map. “If you wish to use the truck again, you should hide it in the old garage where tractors and wagons were repaired. The garage is not used now. The mechanies are in jail. Go with care, because there are many patrols. They move their stations all the time. Watch for them in the shadows. They are frightened of the light.”
“Like rats,” said Theodore Saville.
“No,” Lin Thao said, “they are poor men with families. They only earn their food and try to keep alive.”
Tyreen stirred; his eyes were intolerant. “Death is the same whether you fear it or not.” He picked up the map and got to his feet; he was not steady and fought briefly for balance. He resented the way the girl looked at him, with sudden concern; she had no right to it.
But all she said was, “They have an electric alarm fence around the jail. It has its own generator, and if we cut off the main power cables that will not turn the alarm off. I tell you this because they may move Captain Kreizler back into the jail.”
“Thank you,” Tyreen said with reserved courtesy. He passed the map to Saville and went toward the door; he stood there with his back to them and clasped his hands behind his neck and tipped his head back, closing his eyes briefly.
Saville said, “We’re all zombies, David. We ought to get an hour’s rest, at least.”
“No,” Tyreen said. He touched his jaw; the sound of scraping stubble was loud in the hut. He marked the blank, unnatural calm of Saville’s expression, and put it away in his head as something worth remembering. And J. D. Hooker lifted his head alertly:
“What’s that?”
Corporal Smith said, “Nothing. I don’t hear nothing. You’re getting the spooks, Sarge.”
Tyreen said, “Check it out,” and nodded to Sergeant Khang. Khang ducked out of the building. Tyreen spoke to the girclass="underline" “It’s ten-twenty. Get your people moving. I’ll expect the power to be cut off at eleven. Can do?”
“I think so.” She gave him a sober glance and went out, and Theodore Saville said:
“She’s not a line lieutenant. Quit treating her like one. What do you expect out of these people, David?”
Tyreen only looked at him. Saville said, “I wouldn’t want to get stuck with the blame for it if she got herself killed up there. It wouldn’t feel too red-hot.”
“Only the commanding officer can take blame or credit, Theodore,” Tyreen said. “That’s the way you wanted it, remember?”
It was not like Saville to air his grievances in the presence of noncoms; it was a measure of the strain on him. But now Saville swung past Tyreen and went outside, and after a moment Tyreen followed him. Saville was waiting by the corner of the hut. “What in hell happened to your conscience, David?”
“Maybe old age has a few advantages.”
“You don’t care what happens to anybody, do you?”
“If you don’t want to get burned, Theodore, you ought to stay away from fires.”
Saville shook his head ponderously. “We’re riding on a tiger’s back, David. I’m not kidding. But where does the Goddamn ride end?”
Across the clearing a Montagnard appeared on the edge of the trees. The girl Lin Thao was over there with a group of men. She spoke to the Montagnard; his hands moved in gestures. Tyreen heard the faint clatter of a vehicle, a jeep or an old car. Tyreen drew back to the doorway. The girl stood where she was until the noise died away; she came across the clearing and said, “A police patrol on the road. They did not see your truck — but they may return.”
Saville came up, and Tyreen said, “That’s what was bothering you.”
“I couldn’t hear it, but I knew something was there.”
“Hooker heard it. Hooker’s got damn good ears.”
The air was sharp with a damp chill. The girl folded her hands and said, “We will leave now.”
Tyreen lifted his hand and opened his mouth to speak to her. She said, “I shall see you again.”
“Good luck,” he said lamely.
“Afterward,” the girl said, “I shall meet you at the garage in Chutrang to guide you out of the city. Wait for me there.”
“Don’t risk that,” said Saville.
She made no answer. Tyreen said again, “Good luck to you.”
“The world must be made of our hopes,” she said to him. She went away with proud strides. Tyreen’s regard came around toward Saville. Above the high bones of his cheeks, Saville’s powerful eyes were two symmetrical slits. “I wonder what makes these Montagnards fight on our side. What’ve we ever given them?”
“Hope,” Tyreen answered. “All the Ho Chi Minh crowd ever does for them is march up here once a year and confiscate most of their opium crop.” He shook his head, as if it were unimportant. “Let’s get back to the truck and get this thing organized.”
Sergeant Khang came into the clearing. “Jeep,” he said. “Light machine gun on the back. I don’t guess they were looking for us.”
Saville poked his head into the hut to talk to the others inside. The dark bulk of his body loomed in the lamplit door and made a strange, wavering shadow. Nguyen Khang said, “Getting late.”
They walked through the woods to the truck. Tyreen said, “I wonder where that girl learned English.”
Saville grinned briefly. “Ah so, you ah surplised.” His face turned angry. “Damn it.”
“What?”
“We’ve all got to die, David. But first you’ve got to live. I feel like we’re just — throwing it away.”
Tyreen stepped immediately off the path and waited for the others to go by. Saville stopped by him. When they were alone in the jungle Tyreen said, “I don’t have to explain this to you, but it ought to make sense. I’ve got orders, Theodore.”