Chapter 3
Saigon 1967. Trinco's bar on phan Dinh Phung street was a favourite haunt of off-duty American soldiers. There were two reasons why Trinco's was a special favourite of the GI's. It had the best collection of American music, and it had the prettiest barmaids. The bar was located in an old art- deco building that once housed a gymnasium. A part of the large hall had been partitioned and converted into a bar. Old pommel horses still stood against the walls of the bar and the wooden floor of the gym formed a nice dance floor. When the juke box blared out rock-n-roll numbers by Elvis Presly and the barmaids brought you tall glasses of potent Vietnamese beer, the soldiers found it easy to forget that they were in the middle of a vicious war-a war which they were losing.
One evening in the Summer of 1967, Joe Bonatti, a big brash sergeant in the Marines sat drinking in. Trinco's bar along with some fellow soldiers. Joe Bonatti was known as Madcap Joe by his unit for his disregard of danger and his reckless courage. His Platoon had borne the brunt of a terrific Viet Cong onslaught in the jungles south of the Mekong river and fought a vicious man to man battle before withdrawing. Bonatti had lost many of his comrades. It is true they had given as good as they had got for a while. Still a defeat is a defeat, and the loss of his friends and the pain of defeat rankled. In fact it rankled like hell, and Joe Bonatti wanted to forget for a while that he was thousands of mile from home, in the midst of a tropical jungle, trapped in a war that his country could not win. He drank steadily. He ordered one glass of beer after another. He was considerably drunk, when he got unsteadily to his feet and walked over to the bar counter.
The barmaid behind the counter was even prettier than usual. She was a tall girl, slender but with pronounced curves that set Madcap Joe's heart racing. "Hey! how about a dance baby! Letshh show these guys, huh!"
"Sorry sir! I have to attend to other customers." The girl smiled politely and tried to shake off the inebriated soldier.
"Come on baby, don't get pricey with me. Back home in Arkansas, no little girl ever says no to Joe Bonatti." He put a beefy arm around the slender shoulders of the girl and tried to pull her over the counter.
"Please leave me alone, sergeant, can't you see I have a job to do." Said the girl.
But the soldier was not to be put off so easily. "Quit playing games, you slinky-eyed cat, and lets put some daylight between our feet. " He took one of her arms and pulled her out from behind the counter.
Madcap Joe's friends guffawed. Others went on with their drinking. The girl went on resisting, pummelling the soldier's huge chest with her fists. But no one seemed to care.
Then someone placed a hand over the Marine's shoulder and a quiet voice spoke out, "that's enough sergeant. Leave the girl alone."
The voice was like cold steel, calm, composed, but dripping with menace. It had the desired effect. The soldier let go of the girl and turned to face the man who had dared to come between him and his pleasure. He found himself looking straight into the grey eyes of a man who was a head shorter than him and at least three stones lighter. The man was obviously an American like himself, but was not in uniform, so it was impossible to tell who he was. "And who might you be, runt?" said the sergeant to his unknown adversary.
"I am Major James Cameron of the 54th regiment," said the stranger.
"Ha! Ha! If you are a Major I am the commander-in-chief. Get lost Maayjor!" With this the sergeant lumbered up to the stranger and tried to shove him aside with a push from his massive arm. But before he could complete his move the stranger stepped inside the blow and with one lightening swift move, plunged the extended fingers of his right hand straight into the sergeant's solar plexus."
The sergeant went down like a huge bag that's been punctured. His eyes rolled in their sockets. He was unconscious and likely to remain that way for some while. "Ask the sergeant to report at the Command HQ tomorrow morning at eight sharp," said the Major to the assembled soldiers, he then turned his attention to the girl for the first time. "Are you all right miss?"
"Yes sir! Thank you very much." She tried to smile through her tears. The Major merely gave her a smile in reply. A smile that entirely altered the cold expression on his face. This was the beginning of the romance between Major Cameron and Suzy the Vietnamese barmaid.
Suzy lived with her old father in a double story tenement near the Son Nghe Canal. Her father was a fisherman, who was no longer able to go out to sea because of his arthritis. He had lost his wife years ago and lived alone with Suzy in two rooms at the top of the rickety building. The lower floors were let out to tenants and this combined with Suzy's income from Tirnco's bar enabled them to live in modest comfort. It was here that Suzy invited him to dinner one evening. The Major walked through the bustling streets, dodging hand rickshaws, lorries, bullock carts and shiny new motor bikes that had flooded the streets since the Americans set up their HQ in town, to reach the waterfront. Suzy's house stood at the end if an alleyway that was full of similar cramped narrow houses. The street front was taken up by tiny shops selling vegetables, fish, meat and other provisions. The smell of meat, combined with the fragrance of incense pervaded this quiet back street. Most of the houses had small wooden balconies where clothes were hung out to dry, and most balconies also had a chicken coop where the birds flapped about.
Suzy's old father welcomed the Major at the door and led him up the dark narrow staircase. Suzy was waiting for him, decked out in a red silk sarong and green brocade top, with a string of some tropical flower in her long dark hair. The sarong was slit on one side to show off her long legs. It was-here after a dinner of prawns and noodles washed down with sour rice beer that the old man left them to themselves. The Major and Suzy sat on an old settee in one corner, that looked out of a window overlooking the distant lights of the harbour. The Major was too shy to make any advances. They sat side by side on the settee, their bodies trembling with desire, but each of them held back by their innate shyness and inexperience. It was Suzy who made the first move. She took one of the Major's hands in her own and pressed it softly.
"Major?"
"Yeah!"
"When will the war be over?"
"I dunno, but when it does get over, I am going to make you my wife and take you over to the States."
Suzy looked out of the window with a dreamy look, gazing at the distant lights on the riverfront"
"Who's going to win the war major?"
"Call me James, or better still, Jim."
"All right Jim"
"I don't know who will win the war."
"Jim?"
"Yeah"
"Do you care for me. A little."
"More than a little."
"Then show me how."
The Major showed her how. When he got back to the base the sun was just coming up over the Saigon river and the guards at the gate saluted him with a lazy insouciance and raised the stop bar. To the Major the guard's salute looked more like a conspiratorial wink.
The Major lived in perfect bliss for about a month, than his little idyll was overtaken by events. He was drafted to lead his battalion in the last ditch defence of Nym bon Phu after the fall of Da Nang. The Major and his men fought with desperate valour. But the front collapsed all around them and they were forced to withdraw along with the retreating American army. The Major was a patriot above all things. Disgrace and defeat on the field of battle was worse than death, he thought. But he had to 1ive through the ignominy of the fall of Saigon and the disgrace of the final evacuation from the roof of the embattled embassy building in a fleeing Chinook helicopter. He had no time to contact Suzy before leaving Saigon, but he vowed to return as soon as he could.
And return he did, as soon relations between US and Vietnam improved and he was allowed to visit Saigon by the new Communist government. On reaching Saigon, he did not even check into a hotel to wash and tidy up. He headed straight for the tall riverside building where Suzy used to stay. But when he reached there he found neither Suzy nor her father. No one could tell him where they were. One old woman who lived in the neighbourhood told him, finally that both Suzy and her father were dead. Suzy had died giving birth to her daughter, their daughter no doubt, and her father died heartbroken soon after. The little girl, who was two years old now, was alive and well. She lived with an uncle in downtown Saigon. The Old woman took him to see her. The little girl, whom the Major christened Mary Joe, was a spitting imagc of her mother. She took to him at once. The Major arranged with the American consulate to adopt the girl and take her to the US. The Vietnamese government, after initial reservations agreed, and so, the Major was able to realize a part of his dream of retiring to his farm in Vermont and living there with his family.
