The Last Bridge

He lay drawn up, foetal. An annoying light flickered against his eyelids. He opened them. His eyeballs seemed to scrape their sockets. A candle burned; Saville crouched over a prone, blanketed man. Tyreen got up and walked across the uneven floor of the cave. He felt chilled through; he carried his blankets with him, huddling.

Eddie Kreizler’s eyes were open. Saville glanced up. Tyreen sat down as though genuflecting. “Eddie.”

“Colonel.” Kreizler’s voice was pitiably weak.

Hooker and Khang were sprawled some distance apart. Hooker snored. Tyreen said, “Where’s the girl?”

“Standing watch,” Saville said. “Eat some of this.”

“What is it?”

“Snake. Khang killed it.”

The meat was sweet and tender. “How are you, Eddie?”

“Mouth so dry I can’t spit,” said Kreizler. “So you still want to knock out that bridge.”

“That’s the order.”

“David, you’d charge hell with a bucket of water.”

Saville said, “Better not talk too much, Eddie. Save your energy.”

“I’m pretty good at talking,” Kreizler said. “Pretty good.”

Tyreen said, “Take it easy.”

“Next time you send somebody on a job like this, get a guy with spine all the way up.”

“Let’s talk about it,” Tyreen said.

“Trung was a pretty smart boy.”

Saville said, “David—”

“Never mind, Theodore.”

Eddie Kreizler said, “First they beat you up a little. Not too bad. Just enough to sting. Then they give you a needle. Ten percent solution of sodium pentothal.”

“That’s a big dose,” Tyreen said unemotionally.

“It is what the medics call a massive dose, David. It’s supposed to produce narcosynthesis. It didn’t. I guess I’m tough, up to a point. Always had a lot of resistance to drugs. It takes six or eight aspirins to get rid of a headache when I get one.”

Rreizler’s face was shadowed. Tyreen thought he was smiling a little. Kreizler said, “Trung beat me up some more, and then he got a little impatient, the way that kind does. He threw a little tantrum, and then they tied me down and he started poking around at my balls with the lighted end of his cigar.”

Kreizler’s voice was lifeless. He stopped talking. He did not seem to be looking at anyone. Tyreen heard Saville swallow. Saville said, “Looks like we got you out just in time, Eddie.”

“No. Not in time. Not nearly in time.” Rreizler stirred in his blankets. Tyreen, looking away bleakly, heard him say, “Give me half a cap of morphine, will you? It’s pretty bad just now.”

Saville reached for the medical kit. Kreizler said, “David.”

Tyreen’s head came around. Kreizler said, “I was tough. It took me a long time to crack. I’m sorry, David. I spilled my guts out to the little bastard.”

Saville plunged a needle into his arm. He had to move the candle. The light fell on Kreizler’s face — hollow and vacant-eyed. Kreizler’s right hand was broken, splinted up. His nails were burned away. He said, “I guess it’s cut the heart out of me. I just want to sit by myself and listen to the tears splash down my face. You know what I was thinking when I talked to Trung? I didn’t know what the hell it was all about, David. I didn’t care one shit for these Goddamn Vietnamese, North or South. But I’ve got Marie and the four little girls, and I care about them. That’s all I was thinking about. I’m no soldier. I guess I’m pretty corrupt.”

His voice diminished and trailed off. His tongue was a little thicker: “Trung knew. I wanted to die — he knew that. He laughed at me. I did my Goddamn best to die, David, but he wouldn’t let me. And maybe I didn’t try hard enough. I was still alive, and maybe that’s what told Trung I’d crack. If you haven’t got the guts to die, then you haven’t got the guts to live, either.”

Saville said, “You’re all right now, Eddie. You’re all right. You’ll make it.”

Kreizler laughed off key. His eyes were dull as slate. Tyreen looked across the cave. J. D. Hooker lay on his side with his legs scissored like a man running. He had rolled over and quit snoring. Khang, on the other side of the cave, sprawled as if boneless. Tyreen’s jaw muscles stood out like cables. “Can you remember what you told him?”

Saville said angrily, “If he was drowning you’d throw him both ends of a rope, wouldn’t you, David?”

Kreizler said, “Leave him alone, Theodore. He’s paid his dues.”

Saville wasn’t listening. “What’s happened to you, for God’s sake, David?”

Tyreen said viciously, “Fermez la bouche, Theodore. Understand? Keep your Goddamn mouth shut. That’s an order, Captain.”

Saville shook his head. “I thought I knew you. I don’t know you at all.”

Kreizler said, “He does pack a pretty tight suitcase. Leave us a while, Theodore. I’ll be all right.”

Saville got up and went out of the cave. Kreizler said, “If it was anybody else but Theodore, you’d bust him back to the ranks for insubordination. You let him get away with it. I wonder if he appreciates that.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Tyreen said.

“I’ll bet he wouldn’t have talked.”

“Any man alive would have talked, Eddie. It’s only a question of when.”

“You think I could have held out longer? Is that what you think?”

“I don’t think about it at all,” Tyreen droned. “I’ve got to know how much you told them. Colonel Trung is dead. How much information did he relay out of there before we killed him?”

“He had the whole enchilada on a tape recorder.”

Tyreen nodded. “Tell me whatever you can remember.”

“A lot of it won’t matter. Details of the demolition plans for the bridge. Names of men on my team. They’re all dead, anyway, all but one.”

“Corporal Smith. He’s dead, too.”

“A full house, then,” Kreizler murmured.

“What else did you give them?”

“A lot of personal history. Me, Marie, the kids. The home town. They seem to want a lot of that stuff. Then he went to work on bigger stuff. He wanted the number of guerrilla teams we’ve got operating in this sector. Plans, commanding officers, locations. I gave him the whole smear.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It doesn’t?”

“Every one of those units is being shifted — or has been, by tonight. It was on the planning boards two weeks ago. A complete shake-up. Whatever information you gave Trung is obsolete by now.”

“I didn’t know.”

Tyreen said, “The way it worked out, that’s a good thing.”

“When did the orders go out?”

“To the field? By radio — this morning.”

“And one other thing,” Kreizler said. “Who planned this?”

“General Jaynshill.”

“Sure,” said Kreizler.

“Anything else?”

“We got a radio flash from the General a few days ago. Orders to be ready to meet a paratroop battalion. Urquhart’s outfit. They’re dropping in behind the border next Tuesday. Spearpoint for an invasion.”

“Crap,” Tyreen said.

“What?”

“There’s no invasion, Eddie. You got your message garbled, or maybe it was a phony from some infiltrator in the Saigon radio room. Nobody’s dropping paratroopers into North Vietnam. Not this Tuesday or any other Tuesday. Urquhart’s battalion went into action last night within earshot of Saigon.”

“I see,” Kreizler said bitterly.

“Is that all you told them?”

“All I can remember.”

Tyreen said, “Then I guess it won’t do us much harm.”

“It wasn’t intended to.”

“What?”

“I want to think,” Kreizler said. “I feel kind of dopey. The morphine, I guess.”

“All right. Get some sleep.”