Fortunate Sons

Chapter 14: The Only Easy Day was Yesterday

Than Ahn, once a thriving city that sat at the edge of the Mekong, now lay in smokey ruins. Streets were torn apart, buildings destroyed and vehicles had been blasted to smoldering smithereens. But what no one could account for was the loss of life that had occurred in the city in a single day and night.

Taylor, Dix and Mitch made their way through the shredded streets, shocked and left in a state of numb disbelief at the scene before them. A tomblike silence fell upon the city and all who had lived there. The only sound to be heard was the crunch of dirt and rubble beneath their boots and the terrible wailing of the bereaved.

All three of them felt the crippling pain in their chests, overcome not just by the loss of their comrades who had perished, but of the people who lived here. A single stray tear fell from Taylor's eye as he listened to ten thousand voices crying out for their loved ones, fathers, sons, mothers, daughters, elders, nieces, nephews, aunts and uncles who had become nothing more than ghosts.

The further into the city they went, the worse it had become. People everywhere had been stricken with terrible wounds, some so terrible they averted their eyes. Near the ruined wall of the embassy building, a civilian woman was tirelessly bandaging soldiers' wounds, her face covered in black ash and her hands covered in reddened, oozing blisters.

All along the sidewalks people sorted through dust, debris and mangled bodies of fallen Northern soldiers to search for family members or friends. A Buddhist nun wept for two of her friends, kneeling beside them where they lay on the ruined sidewalk and her face buried in her hands. A man stood guard over two unidentified soldiers killed in a grenade blast, their uniforms covered in white dust from a collapsed building wall.

All around were scenes of utter devastation. Taylor and the others had never seen an entire city so crippled by these attacks. Now more than ever had they begun to hate the communists. They were used to seeing things that no man or woman should ever have had to see, but never like this.

They had gotten about as far as the next street over when Taylor spotted a small child sitting on the broken steps of one of the stores. She was small, barely up to Taylor's knees with her plaid school dress covered in dust and shaking badly.

She flinched away when Taylor knelt in front of her, afraid of what he might do. "It's ok, it's ok" he said, hoping that hearing her native language would put her at ease. "I'm not here to hurt you."

He unscrewed the lid of his canteen and handed her his water. The small girl took a long swig as though she hadn't had any water in months. "Cám ơn," she said in her tiny, birdlike voice.

She handed the metal canteen back to Taylor, giving him a curious look when she noticed his arm in a blood stained sling as well as the dried, crusted splotches on his shoulder. "Dau?" she asked.

Taylor nodded.

Without hesitating the girl flung her small arms around his neck and told Taylor that she felt sad he had hurt himself. With his one good arm, he picked her up and carried her away to try and find anybody who would take her. He didn't need to know what had happened to her parents. He had already sensed that they were gone.

"Dix?"

"What's up?" Dix asked, barely looking up from the soldier he had been tending to.

"You see Uncle anywhere?"

"No, haven't heard head or tail out of him."

Damnit!!!

"If you do can you let me know?" Taylor asked. "I'd like to at least let him know if his niece is alive."

"Sure thing," Dix replied. "What's with the kid?"

"What do you think?"

Dix would have tried to guess but there was no need. There were probably hundreds of orphaned children all over the city by now.

Taylor set the small girl down and sank to the sidewalk, trying to clear his mind of everything that had happened. It was damn near impossible, but he still tried. The little girl sat down beside him and rested her head on his knee, the both of them relieved that the worst was over....even if it were just for now.

She lifted her head and suddenly took off running down the street as though something had scared her. Taylor scrunched his eyebrows together, curious as to what this little girl was running towards. He stood up and started jogging after her, trying to keep up with her rabbit-like bounds over debris and rubble. His arm throbbed with a dull pain and his energy was wearing down fast from the fight that was still fresh in his mind.

Taylor halted when he saw the tiny girl leading a familiar figure by the hand. Sue looked like a mess, her eyes rimmed red and her fatigues stained with other people's blood. They locked gazes for all but a second before Sue ran to him and nearly squeezed the life out of him.

"I didn't think you survived," she sobbed.

"I know," he said. "I know."

"You hurt badly?"

"Arm is throbbing like the veins in LBJ's forehead but I think I'll live," Taylor chuckled.

Sue laughed a little, her fears vanishing and glad that she had found Taylor alive. The rest of their day was spent tending to the wounded and the bereaved, searching for those who were missing and sorting out casualties. It was exhausting work, but no one seemed to complain. The little girl, who went by the name of Tri, even proved her worth by fetching Sue any bandages or medical tools she needed. She may have been small, but there was no doubt that she was a smart kid.

"You might need stitches but other than that it's nothing overly serious," Sue concluded when she inspected Taylor's bloody shoulder. "We'll need to inspect for bone fragments just to be on the safe side."

"Thanks Sue," Taylor said. "How bad is the hospital?"

"Triage was a mess," Sue replied. "We almost ran out of painkillers, bandages and sutures. Rosemary and Robin had to use the shoelaces on their boots for tourniquets."

"Ouch."

"It was awful, really, terribly awful," Sue continued. "It wasn't just soldiers who were coming in either. Civilians had it just as bad if not worse. I think after this a lot of people are going to do everything they can to drive out the communists."

"Good riddance," Taylor said. "Drive'em all back to the North Pole for all I care."

A small, unnoticeable smirk played with Sue's beautiful face. There's only two places in the world people like the communists belong.....Uncle used to say. In Mao's China and in hell. Sue had never agreed more. The communists had killed her parents, many friends and other people they knew when the Ho family had lived in Chau Doc. Why should she have thought any different?

"Here," Sue said, helping Taylor to his feet. "Let's get you to the aid-station. Maybe they can do something about your shoulder."

Taylor threw his aching arm across Sue's small shoulders, the two of them leaning against each other, tired and exhausted from the fight and desperate for rest. Tri held onto Taylor's hand with both of her own tiny little hands as the three of them walked on to the aid-station.