Word of Honor Read online

  Tyson nodded to himself. Yes, that was an accurate description. Rage and impotence. They’d been played for suckers. Not only by the enemy, but by their commanders in the field, their commanders at headquarters, their commanders in Washington. They were looking for something or someone to strike back at. In retrospect, Tyson realized those people in the hospital never had a chance.

  Tyson skipped a page.

  On entering the hospital, Tyson demanded immediate medical attention for his two wounded.

  The hospital’s chief of staff, a Frenchman named Dr. Jean Monteau, explained rather peremptorily to Tyson in passable English that the hospital was on the triage system: i.e., there were so many patients and so few staff and supplies that those who were clearly dying—like Peterson—could not be helped and those who were lightly wounded—like Moody—would have to wait. Whereupon, Dr. Monteau turned his back on Tyson and began attending a Viet Cong soldier whose arm was shredded by shrapnel and who apparently fell into the proper category to receive care.

  Dr. Monteau’s medical judgment may have been sound, but his judgment of the situation could not have been worse.

  Tyson looked up from the book. “You got that right, Picard.” He tried to picture the face of Dr. Jean Monteau but he was able only to conjure up a sneering caricature of an arrogant little Frenchman. Surely, he thought, this was a defense mechanism of his mind, a justification for what happened. The real Dr. Monteau had addressed him with some dignity and politeness. What may have seemed at the time like peremptoriness was fatigue. He thought again, then concluded, No, Monteau certainly was an arrogant little son of a bitch. But he didn’t deserve to die for it. Tyson stirred his drink, then read again at random:

  Tyson’s platoon, as I’ve mentioned, had been operating independently of its company for over a week. They had already suffered high casualties in the preceding sixteen days of the offensive. Out of an original platoon of forty men, nineteen remained. Also, they had gone without rest or resupply for the seven days prior to this incident.

  These facts are not meant to suggest extenuating circumstances for what happened. They are provided only as background. Certainly soldiers have been more sorely tried, more lacking in comforts, more exposed to hostile action and the general horrors of war than this unfortunate platoon, without reverting to—

  Tyson slammed the book. He lit a cigarette and watched the smoke rise, then abruptly turned the book over and looked closely at the picture of Andrew Picard. The photo seemed oddly blurred, but he saw the profile of a bearded man of about his own age, dressed in a light shirt with military-style shoulder tabs. There were lines running across the photograph, and Tyson saw that they were actually names. He suddenly realized that the photograph was of Picard’s image reflected in a dark, glossy surface, and he comprehended that the surface was the black granite wall of the Vietnam memorial in Washington.

  Tyson stared at the extraordinary photograph for some time, reading the etched names of the dead that ran across the black wall, across Picard’s mirrored image, out to the edges of the dust jacket—that ran, he thought, across time and space; the army of the dead.

  Tyson opened the book to the inside flap and read the short biography: Andrew Picard is a graduate of Yale University. He served with the Marines as a Public Information Officer in Vietnam at Hue during the Tet offensive. He lives and works in Sag Harbor, Long Island.

  Tyson nodded. Yale. Probably went to Platoon Commander School the summer after graduation but had gotten himself a cushy public relations job and managed to avoid actually having to lead a combat infantry platoon.

  Sag Harbor. A little town just north of the Hamptons. Tyson had rented a summer house out there some years before. He could vaguely recall a roadside mailbox that he passed often with the names Picard/Wells on it, but couldn’t remember exactly where. It appeared that the lines of his life and Mr. Picard’s had converged without touching: once in 1968 at Hue, then in the summer of ’76, and most recently in a bookshop on 42nd Street. It appeared too that they were somehow fated to meet.

  Over his third Scotch, Tyson recollected an incident nearly two years before; he had received a telephone call at his home from a man who said he was researching a book on Vietnam. Tyson recalled being as unhelpful as possible without being obviously evasive. Some weeks later the man had called again. Tyson had been abrupt and hung up. Andrew Picard. Tyson nodded in recognition.

  Tyson thumbed through the book and regarded the photograph pages. There was the usual lineup of military commanders: Americans and their South Vietnamese allies on one side, Viet Cong and North Vietnamese on the other. Like a football program, he thought.

  Then there were the shockers: the uncollected dead, the trucks and armored vehicles hauling the collected dead, the civilians on their knees weeping and wailing over inert bodies, the grotesquely wounded, and finally the mass graves. And it was all in black and white which he thought was wrong. World War II was in black and white. This war was in color.

  Tyson stopped turning pages and looked down at a half-page photograph. Grouped around the ruined hull of an enemy armored amphibious vehicle were the men of the First Platoon, Alpha Company, Fifth Battalion, Seventh Cavalry. There were nearly forty of them, a team shot, taken before the Tet season began, before injuries cut the roster by more than half.

  They were, he thought, a cocky-looking crew, arrogant and unfrightened. A good deal of that was posturing, of course. But he remembered that the picture had been taken in December 1967, around Christmas—before that first fateful day of Tet, January 30, 1968, when Alpha Company had lost a third of its people one morning in a village called Phu Lai.

  December, though, had been a good month. The rain was light, the winds warm, and the sun not so cruel. Casualties were zero that month, and they’d tallied some kills on their side of the scoreboard. Christmas, if not a Currier and Ives one, had at least been bloodless. Ergo the smug faces of the men of the First Platoon of Alpha Company.

  Tyson saw himself poised in the turret of the enemy vehicle, the warlord atop the scarred castle turret of the vanquished enemy, his victorious soldiers gathered about.

  He scanned the faces more closely and was able to pick out the ones who were fated to die and those about to be wounded.

  He studied the faces with the intensity of a man studying a high school yearbook before an upcoming reunion.

  Tyson closed the book and slipped it into his attaché case. He picked up his drink and noticed the slightest tremor in his hand. He replaced the glass on the bar and drew a deep breath.

  He headed for the door, stepped out into the bright sunlight, and began walking. By the time he reached Fifth Avenue, his mind had settled back into the present. He considered the consequences of this public exposure. He reflected for a while on his courses of action, his family, friends, and career.

  The danger seemed unreal and remote at the moment, but that was the worst kind of danger: the kind you cannot or will not meet head-on. The kind that is amorphous at first, incorporeal, but which takes shape while you’re busy denying it exists and then hardens into a physical entity.

  It was very much, he thought, like when the jungle suddenly became quiet at night. Nothing out there. Then the bamboo would click in the wind, but there was no wind. Moon shadows would move across the outer perimeter, but there was no moon and no clouds to make shadows.

  Then suddenly, between the beats of a speeding heart, the silent and shapeless shadows would appear, black-clad in the black night, dropping all pretense of not existing, moving toward your pathetic little perimeter of invented safety.

  Tyson stopped walking and wiped a line of perspiration from his forehead. He looked around as though to assure himself he was on the sidewalks of New York. Then his mind went back once again to that rainy morning in Hue. It seemed that it had happened on another planet, in another life, and to another person. That Ben Tyson, he thought, was twenty-five years old, unmarried, had never held an infant in his arms or seen a c
orpse outside a funeral home. That Ben Tyson had only a vague conception of love, hate, tragedy, compassion, or even morality. Nothing in his sheltered American life had prepared him for Hue, 15 February 1968.

  The question at hand, however, was this: Had anything since then prepared him to face the consequences of that day?

  CHAPTER

  4

  Ben Tyson boarded the 1:40 out of Penn Station and took a seat in the smoking car.

  The train moved out through the dark tunnels of Manhattan, passed under the East River, then broke free into the sunlight of Queens.

  At Jamaica Station there were the usual garbled PA announcements and the search for the right track before he boarded the correct train.

  Twenty-two minutes out of Jamaica, the train came to a halt at Garden City Station, and Tyson stepped out onto the sunny platform near the quaint station house.

  He could smell the flowers, great colored protrusions of them, growing wild along the track beds. Out of instinct he turned right toward his house, then reversed his direction and walked along the raised platform toward the center of the village. He descended the short flight of steps and crossed Hilton Avenue.

  Tyson realized that he hadn’t been home on a weekday afternoon in some years. There were children walking and bicycling from school, housewives with carriages, service vans, mail carriers, and all the other signs of activity that made up the life of these commuter towns by day. He felt almost estranged from these familiar streets where he’d spent his childhood.

  Tyson stood before a picturesque brick building with arched windows. The hundred-year-old structure had served as the village stable, public school, and warehouse. Now it was a gentrified warren of law offices where Dickensian scriveners spent the day bent over plea forms and wills. Tyson entered a ground floor office and stood in the empty waiting room.

  He shifted the attaché case to his left hand and was aware of the book, like a tumor, he thought, nascent at the moment, newly discovered, awaiting diagnosis.

  A woman appeared from the far door. “May I help you?”

  “My name is Ben Tyson. I’m here to see Mr. Sloan.”

  She smiled in recognition, not of his face, but of his name. Like most of Tyson’s relationships, the one with Phillip Sloan’s secretary was primarily telephonic. “I’m Ann. Please have a seat.”

  She disappeared and a minute later returned with Phillip Sloan, a man in his fifties. Sloan was dressed in an unfortunate checkered suit, tasseled shoes, and his club tie, whose colors never seemed to match anything. Sloan greeted Tyson effusively, then said, “Ben, did we have an appointment?” Sloan made a silly show of leafing through his secretary’s appointment book.

  Tyson moved toward the entrance to the inner offices. “This won’t take long, Phil.”

  Sloan shot his secretary a quizzical look, then followed. He directed Tyson into the library. “I have a client in my office.”

  Tyson took a seat at a long reading table and regarded the book-lined walls. Corpus Juris Secundum. The law of the land, codified and indexed, spelling out in excruciating detail and obtuse prose the rights and obligations of a uniquely lawless society.

  Tyson placed an open book on the mahogany table and slid it toward Sloan. Sloan glanced quickly at the front of the book, then began to read.

  Tyson lit a cigarette and stared off at the far wall.

  After some time, Sloan looked up from the book, a neutral expression on his face.

  Tyson saw that Sloan was not going to speak, so he said, “John McCormick showed that to me on the train this morning.”

  Sloan gave a professional nod that conveyed nothing.

  Tyson did not particularly like the man. But Sloan’s father had been the Tyson family attorney for years, and it seemed natural that Phillip Sloan should continue to handle the Tysons’ affairs. And Sloan was good, if not likable. Tyson stood. “I just wanted to alert you to this before you heard it on the links or wherever it is you disappear to on sunny days. If anything comes of it, I’ll let you know.”

  Sloan hesitated, then made a motion with his hand. “Sit down, Ben. I can spare a few more minutes.”

  You’re damned right you can, thought Tyson. This is one of those walk-ins you dream about. Tyson remained standing.

  Sloan began speaking with a tone of concern. “Well, this is distressing.” He thought a moment, then said, “I suppose you’ve given some thought to bringing suit.”

  But Tyson was only half listening. He said abruptly, “Could this thing bring about a criminal action?”

  Sloan stayed silent for some time, staring at Tyson, then said, “That depends.”

  “On what?”

  “Obviously on whether or not there is any substance to what is written in that book.” He paused, then said, “Will you sit down, Ben? Let me see that book again.”

  Tyson sat and took the book from his attaché case.

  Sloan examined it, reading the flap copy, scanning the index, then the front matter. He looked up at Tyson. “Major publisher. The author seems to have credentials. The book is annotated and has a bibliography. Seems like a respectable job.”

  Tyson shrugged.

  Sloan said, “You understand, Ben, that whatever we say here is privileged conversation.” Sloan drew a deep breath. “Well?”

  Tyson hesitated, then said, “Look, what I want to know from you is whether or not I . . . or the men who served with me . . . can be called to account.”

  Sloan’s voice had an edge of sharpness. “For what? You haven’t answered my question.”

  “For murder!”

  Sloan leaned back in his chair and thought a moment, then replied, “There is no statute of limitations on murder.”

  Tyson’s face was impassive.

  Sloan continued, “However, the Army would have to establish jurisdiction in this case.”

  “Meaning?”

  “They’d have to get you back in.”

  Tyson nodded. “Can they do that?”

  “That’s the question.” Sloan added, “If they can’t, then no civilian court can try you. You see, you fall between the cracks. It would have to be an American military court-martial or no trial at all. There are precedents for this.”

  “I’m sure there are.” Tyson thought a moment. “Okay, worst scenario. They get me back in. Then what?”

  “The key here is witnesses. Is there anyone in your former unit who would testify against you?”

  “Apparently there is.”

  Sloan shook his head. “Talking to a writer is not the same as testifying in front of an Army grand jury.”

  Tyson stayed silent.

  Sloan played with his pencil awhile, then said, “Look, what we have here is an alleged crime brought to light by a writer some seventeen—eighteen years . . . My God, is it that long ago? Anyway, many years after the alleged facts. The writer mentions three sources for his account: two unnamed GIs whom he claims were in your platoon and whose anonymity he is protecting and one Eurasian nun, identified only as Sister Teresa, who he says is the sole survivor of the massacre—” Sloan looked at Tyson. “Do you know this Sister Teresa?”

  Tyson hesitated before replying, “I knew the nun in question.”

  Sloan did not pursue this but said, “Anyway, here is an alleged crime, committed in a foreign country with which we have no present relations—”

  “I know all that.”

  “—during a military operation, during a time of war, and you are not specifically mentioned as one of the people who actively engaged in this . . . massacre.”

  Tyson stared at the book lying between them. “All right, now what’s the bad news?”

  Sloan leaned forward. “You know. As the commander—”

  “Responsible for the actions of my men, I bear full responsibility, and so on. Yes, I know.”

  “Did you shoot anyone?”

  “No.”

  “Were you at the scene of the alleged murders?”

  Tyson began to
reply, then said, “Picard says I was.”

  “Picard wasn’t there. I’m asking you.”

  “No, I wasn’t even there. Case closed.”

  “I’m afraid it isn’t, Lieutenant.” Sloan tapped his pencil on the table, then said, “Okay, let me play devil’s advocate again. Or Army prosecutor, if you like. Based on what I read here, I, as a prosecutor, want to know if you actually ordered those murders or if you did anything to prevent them. I want to know if you knew of them and did not report them, or even if you should have known of them or should have anticipated them. Because if any of that is true, then the Army will charge you with the actual murders as though you committed them with your own hands.”

  After a period of silence, Tyson let out a breath and remarked, “Rank has its privileges.”

  Sloan stood and went to the far wall of the library. He pulled a large volume from a high shelf and literally dusted it off, then laid it on the table. He said, “Any case that the Army builds against you will probably be based in part on the precedents and principles established at the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals and the Tokyo trials of Japanese war criminals.”

  “I’m in good company.”

  Sloan leafed through the book as he spoke. “The object of these trials was to get nooses around the necks of our enemies, of course. But some of those precedents have come back to haunt the American military.” He stopped turning pages. “To wit: The landmark case of General Yamashita, commander of Japanese forces in the Philippines. Yamashita was accused by the Americans of having ‘unlawfully disregarded and failed to discharge his duty as a commander,’ by permitting men under his command to ‘commit brutal atrocities and other high crimes.’” Sloan glanced at Tyson. “Nowhere was it alleged that Yamashita personally committed any of the atrocities or even that he ordered their commissions or even that he had any knowledge of them. The charges merely stated that during the period of his command he failed to anticipate what his troops might do, should have known what they might do, and failed to provide effective control of his troops as was required by circumstances.” Sloan closed the book. “General Yamashita was found guilty and hanged.”