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Back Lost Soldiers Save as PDF
Chapters (48)
  1. COVER PAGE
  2. TITLE PAGE
  3. EPIGRAPH
  4. PRAISE
  5. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  6. MAP
  7. PROLOGUE
  8. CHAPTER ONE
  9. CHAPTER TWO
  10. CHAPTER THREE
  11. CHAPTER FOUR
  12. CHAPTER FIVE
  13. CHAPTER SIX
  14. CHAPTER SEVEN
  15. CHAPTER EIGHT
  16. CHAPTER NINE
  17. CHAPTER TEN
  18. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  19. CHAPTER TWELVE
  20. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  21. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  22. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  23. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  24. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  25. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  26. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  27. CHAPTER TWENTY
  28. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  30. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  31. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  32. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  33. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  34. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  35. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  36. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  37. CHAPTER THIRTY
  38. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  39. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  40. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  41. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  42. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  43. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
  44. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
  45. CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
  46. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  47. COPYRIGHT PAGE
  48. What’s next onyour reading list?

“You are a natural shot. An expert. It is in your files.” Manh lit another cigarette, his dark eyes dancing mischievously. And then he waved a hand, dismissing Dzung for the day. “I will see you tomorrow morning. And when the time comes, you will know why.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Quang Nam Province

They drove south from Da Nang toward Que Son on Highway 1, a narrow, often broken road that was euphemistically named the National Highway. Colonel Pham sat in the front seat of the new Toyota sport-utility vehicle, next to a driver who had been hired along with the car itself in Da Nang. Condley and Hanson Muir sat in the back, quietly conversing with each other. The car crossed low bridges and made its way through a dozen noisy, cluttered little villages that in another life Condley had known with an intimate certainty. Traffic was thick, dominated by bicycles, motorbikes, and very old trucks, many of them creaking, repainted American military “six-bys” left over from the war.

The Toyota’s driver, whose name was Ngoc, was in his late thirties. Whenever they were out of Colonel Pham’s earshot, Ngoc would grin conspiratorially to Condley and speak to him in the pidgin English that the children of Quang Nam had used with the Marines during the war.

“Hey, Honcho, you souvenir me boo-coo chop chop, numbah one, huh?”

Conversing in their odd idiom, Condley and the driver would laugh together as if they were long-lost friends. But as soon as the colonel reappeared, the driver would immediately lose both his smile and his voice, worried that Colonel Pham would disapprove and report him for being overly familiar with the Americans. Now, as they made their way toward Que Son, Ngoc the driver stared straight ahead at the road, unsmiling and unflinching, as if he were both deaf and mute.

Colonel Pham would never understand, but Ngoc and his childhood friends secretly loved Americans. Except in the worst areas further out from Da Nang, the children had always crowded around the American perimeters during the war. They had chosen special friends among the Marines and whiled away the lonely, boring hours with them, helping them wash at village wells, joking with them, playing cards, competing for their favors and for rewards of food, cigarettes, and chewing gum, even mourning the ones who were killed or wounded. True, many of the children gave information to the other side about Marine gun positions, morale, and casualties. But they still remembered the Americans with an intimate, knowing fondness that all the propaganda since the war could never erase.