20
The gravelled road leading into the village was long and black and straight, and the only saving grace was that it was too dark to see to the end of it. The clouds hid the moon and there was no light from the village, nothing to see, no way of knowing if your eyes were open or closed, and Leon was alone.
They were expecting baddies. Most likely they would come up the road, not guessing that they had got there first. Unless they’d been warned. The rest of the section were dotted about the place, with orders not to smoke, though he suspected these would be ignored. He wished he had some left to pass the time, a tiny light might give some perspective to the black. Might ward off the mosquitoes, might take his mind off the thing that sat next to him in the dark. He held up his camera and took a shot into the black. It had been fine when they were all together, when you could see other people and think about other people, but here, alone, he thought about those three heartbeats, holding the gaze of that first boy he had killed. The feel of the thing crawling up inside him. The hole his gun had dug between his legs, the sick feeling when the barrel jammed. The dead.
The Vietnamese believed in ghosts. He did not, but he was in their country now and you couldn’t help but feel it, alone in the black. He touched his eyes to make sure that they were open. The skin round his sockets was hot and dry, and the coolness from his fingertips was good. It would have been wonderful to lie down. He thought about the yellow print on Lena Cray’s dress, how it snagged over her belly.
In an instant something changed. He stayed deadly still, trying to locate what it was. When he realised he felt all of hell flatten him and horror tightened his throat. He had been asleep and something had woken him. He’d let the buggers in, they’d walked right past him, they were in there now slitting throats. He didn’t move. He barely breathed. He was sure at that moment in the black that someone held a gun to his face. He felt breath on his cheek, he would hear the click of a barrel. Then calmness. Go on then, he thought, go on then. But nothing. The breath on his cheek was gone. Perhaps it had never been there. His eyebrows arched high, he watched for the first wash of light as it turned the sky. He saw the sun rise and wondered if it would make him cry. The grass was wet from dew and between his tripod and gun a spider had strung a web, and water caught the sun as he breathed the dawn deeply.
Tramping off towards the jungle again with no one murdered in the dark, no baddies showing up, he felt heavy and sick as though he’d been drinking hard the night before.
‘Jeeze, you look crook,’ Cray said, wiping repellant on to his neck. ‘Didn’t you get any sleep?’
Leon looked at him. ‘I was watching the road all night.’
‘Well, what did you watch? Was so dark out there, you wouldn’t have seen the bugger come up and kiss you on the lips. We all bedded down, thought to hell with it.’
The corners of his eyes stung. He felt crook. He really did.
A few hundred yards into the trees the creek had come close in to the village. He heard it running from a way off. A couple of planks made a thin bridge and he was glad not to have to wade through – his boots were still stewy from the last crossing. Before they reached the bank, there it was again, the back of Cray’s neck tensed and he felt his fingers numb on his gun. But Cray’s neck relaxed and he turned round to face the others. He didn’t say anything, just shook his head and walked on.
There were bodies. The creek was stuffed with them. Women and men and children and babies, adrift. They’d taken on water, become soft like rotten potatoes. Their faces were dark holes pushed in soft fruit. A baby, swaddled still in its shawl, floated alone and he thought of the family he’d pointed the gun at. The moon-faced boy. He thought about the line of tracers he’d sent out over the trees after he’d undone the jam in his gun.
Daniel shook his head. ‘Why would you get your family along? They always get shot.’
The section crossed the bridge and no one talked, there was just the clump of boots on the planks, one by one, until only Rod was left on the other side. They waited for him, no one told him to hurry up, they just watched him, tired, as he stood and continued to stand on the wrong side of the creek, with one hand over his eyes.
You had to breathe with your mouth open.