Frankie held on to the girl and did her best to help; the amputation was so brutal she had to look away several times, but when the surgery was over and the girl lay still, Frankie carefully treated the stump and wrapped it in clean white gauze. When Frankie finished treating the amputation, she turned and saw a slim, elderly South Vietnamese woman standing against the wall, with tears in her eyes. “Maybe that’s her grandmother,” Frankie said softly.
“Give the antibiotics to her and try to explain,” Captain Smith said. “Show her how to wrap the bandage.”
Frankie nodded. She went to the silent woman in the back of the room and did her best to explain what care the girl needed.
The woman gazed up at her steadily, nodded in understanding, and then bowed deeply.
Frankie gave the woman the antibiotics and gauze, and then followed Captain Smith out of the building. As she moved toward the truck bed, she felt a tug on her sleeve.
The little boy held out his small hand, unfurled his fingers. In his palm lay a smooth gray stone. He said something in his language, pushed it toward her. She had a feeling it was a precious possession. “Is she your sister?” Frankie asked.
He smiled, pushed his hand at her again. She took the stone gently, not wanting to offend. Then she reached behind her neck to unclasp the Saint Christopher medal she’d worn since her confirmation at thirteen. She handed the necklace to the boy, whose eyes widened in joy.
She dropped the smooth stone into her blouse pocket and climbed into the back of the truck. As they drove away, the very old and very young villagers standing silently in a row, Frankie pulled the stone out of her pocket.
A nothing little rock, something she’d ordinarily ignore.
In her palm, it became a talisman. A reminder that, hopefully, a girl would grow to adulthood because of their work on this day. Yes, the girl would join a generation of amputees who had survived war, but she could run and play and marry and hold a child in her arms.
“You did well today, Frankie,” Barb said. “There might be hope for you after all.”
Ethel took out a pack of smokes. “This is step one toward getting our girl out of Neuro.”
Frankie took a cigarette and lit it up. “What’s step two?”
Barb smiled. “Well, honey, we’re still working on that.”
Eight
April 21, 1967
Dear Frances Grace,
I can hardly believe you’ve been there for more than a month.
In your absence, the country has gone mad.
Sit-ins. Protests. Raised fists. Believe you me, more than a few of these free love girls are going to wake up in trouble, and where will their dirty-footed lovers be then? In prison or long gone, I’d say. The world changes for men, Frances. For women, it stays pretty much the same.
The President says the protests are prolonging the war.
Your father and I watch the news every night, hoping for a glimpse of you, however silly that is. The soldiers seem to be in good spirits.
With love,
Your mother
PS. I saw an old friend of yours, I can’t recall her name, the frizzy-haired girl from St. Bernadette’s that played volleyball so poorly—anyway, I saw her in a televised picket line in San Francisco. Her breasts were moving so fast they looked like Sonny Liston’s boxing gloves doing battle under a dirty T-shirt. Can someone please explain to me how bouncing breasts advance the cause of freedom?
* * *
As her shift neared its end and night began to fall, Frankie sat in a chair beside one of her patients, a young man from Oklahoma. She’d been promoted to the day shift two weeks ago.
She closed the book from which she’d been reading aloud. Sometimes a Great Notion.
“Well, Trevor,” she said to her patient, “I’m beat. Gotta hit the showers and mess and then bed. It was so dang hot today that the water might be lukewarm.” She touched his hand. “You’re heading out to the Third tomorrow. I’ll miss you.”
She gave his hand a squeeze and then went from bed to bed, saying good night to each of her patients with a touch and a whispered, “You’re safe now. We will get you home.” It was all she could think of to say to men so broken. Then she grabbed her warm can of TaB and headed for her hooch.
It was a hot, dry day in May. The blistering sun had baked the dirt to hardpan and dried out her skin and hair. She was constantly scratching and sweating.
In the hooch, she found Ethel and Barb dressed in civilian clothes—Ethel in a summery dress she’d had made by a Vietnamese woman in Saigon, and Barb in a custom-made black silk ao dai.
Frankie saw her dress laid out on her bed, the one she’d bought at Bullock’s: a pretty blue sheath with a Peter Pan collar and matching belt. Something out of the last decade. Her mother had insisted she take it to war “for parties.”
Frankie pushed the dress aside and plopped onto her bed. “I’m exhausted.”
Ethel looked at Barb. “Are you tired?”
“Dead on my feet.”
“Are you going to sleep or go to Captain Smith’s goodbye party?”
“That’s tonight?” Frankie said, her shoulders slumping. “Darn.”
“Move it, Frank,” Ethel said.
There was no argument to be made. Captain Smith had been an amazing teacher and superior officer. He’d shown Frankie kindness and patience in teaching her the skills needed to care for the patients in Neuro. She had spent countless hours with him in the ward, even shared a Coke with him a time or two in the O Club. She’d oohed and aahed over pictures of his kids back in the world. No way she would miss a chance to say goodbye.
* * *
“That’s our ride?” Frankie said, frowning as they approached the helipad. Choppers might be big and maneuverable, but they were targets, too. The enemy loved to shoot them out of the sky, and when a chopper exploded midair, there were often no remains to be found. She knew that too well.
Hot air whooshed from the rotors, whipped up dirt, stung her eyes.
Ethel shoved Frankie forward; a soldier swung her into the chopper. Frankie scrambled for the back, took a seat, and pressed herself against the wall.
Barb and Ethel each sat in one of the open doorframes, their feet swinging over the edge, laughing as the helicopter rose into the air and shot forward, nose down, tail up.
The noise inside the chopper was earsplitting.
As they banked left, Frankie saw Vietnam through the open doorway: The flat green swath of jungle, a brown ribbon of water, dotted with boats. White sand beaches bordered the turquoise waters of the South China Sea. Verdant mountains in the distance reached up into the blue cloud-strewn sky.
There was destruction, too. Concertina wire that caught the light and sent it back in a thousand glints of color. Giant red holes in the earth, trees fallen or cut down. Scrap metal heaps strewn along roads. Helicopters swooping across the landscape, firing at the ground, being fired on. The constant whir of their rotors, the pop-pop-pop of mortar attacks. Tanks rolling on dirt roads, throwing up red clouds of dust. These days, the U.S. constantly bombed the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Up in the mountains near a village called Pleiku, there was fighting.
“That’s Long Binh,” one of the gunners yelled.
Long Binh, Frankie knew, was one of the largest bases in-country. Tens of thousands of people lived and worked there. She’d heard that the PX on base was bigger than any department store back home. From above, it was a sprawling city carved out of the jungle, built on a flat red rectangle of dirt. Bulldozers bit at the edges, constantly making more room. There wasn’t a blade of grass or a tree to be seen, nothing green, no patch of shade left from the jungle they’d torn down to build their temporary city.
They touched down on the helipad just as sunset turned the sky a brilliant, blazing red.
Frankie angled cautiously forward, edged out of the chopper, and followed Ethel and Barb, who knew exactly where they were going in the dirty, smelly confusion of roads and people and tanks and bulldozers. The place was a hive of activity; a huge hospital was being built to house the rising number of wounded.