December 18-21, 1966

The rain was still cascading from empty quicksilver skies when the band of travelers halted for the night. There was no hope of a fire, and Lieutenant Khoi wanted to make camp before the last light fled. He and Trieu wandered into the underbrush, eyes open for mines or traps or any sign of recent enemy activity. Cadeo had snapped a sandal thong some hours past, and he sat down to mend it before sunset. Diep and Titi, seeing no need to hunt for groundwater while the sky-water was so abundant, laid out the two cooking pots to catch the rain.

Thanh tended to the prisoner. They had all taken it in turns to bear him upon a makeshift bier fashioned of two bamboo poles and a camp blanket. Titi alone had been exempt from this duty. Though not as tiny as Cam Lan she was a small girl, with neither Thanh's solid, stocky strength, nor Bian's tall, dramatic and almost masculine frame. Khoi had made it plain that she was not expected to carry the American, and no one had protested.

The Air Pirate had not yet regained consciousness, and his head now burned with fever. Though it was her wont to bind him to a tree so that he could not lie down, Thanh broke from custom tonight. She dragged him into the shelter of a dense thicket of furs, where the ground was not so wet and the thickly thatched fronds provided some shelter from the driving rain.

The six guerillas ate their bannock and gnawed at strips of salted pig. Diep struck up a rollicking song full of almost indecent sentiments, and the others joined in. Titi did not know the words, but Khoi took care that the next song was one with which she was familiar. By the fourth, darkness had fallen like a curtain around them. The muffled sounds of the rain gave the air an unusually dense quality, and the mood grew swiftly more subdued as the soldiers prepared for sleep.

As always, Titi kept close to Thanh. Tonight, the older girl did a strange thing. She stripped off all of her clothing and stretched out, naked, on the jungle floor. Titi was shocked and no small bit puzzled at this brazen behavior, but after nearly an hour of struggling to find comfort in her own sodden clothes and damp blanket, she began to see the logic behind Thanh's action. It was interesting, Titi thought as the rain continued to fall and sleep continued to elude her, that Thanh always chose practicality first. It came before shame. It came before modesty. It came before patriotism, and anger, and hatred. It even came before pride.

Soon the rain grew maddening, and Titi's frustration mounted quickly. She did not have to suffer for too long, however, for the second watch was Khoi's. As soon as Cadeo was safely asleep, Titi's lover came to her, and led her off to a safe place some distance away from the camp. There they made love with such fervor that when she returned to her place by her half-sister, the young soldier was too blissful and too drowsy to pay any mind to the rain.

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Though Thanh slapped him and shook him, and even made small, shallow incisions behind his ears and on the soles of his feet and finally on the insides of his thighs, the prisoner would not awaken fully the next morning. He flinched and cried out, mewing like a runt kitten good for nothing but bait, and he once mumbled a string of incoherent words, but his eyes would not stay open and his muscles would not support his body. The fever still smoldered, and it was plain that he would not walk today, either.

The rain had ceased, and at noon they were able to light a small, if imprudently smoky, fire. The hot rice was good; an ample ballast for their chilled bellies. Thanh mashed some of the grains into a paste, and then added ginger root and water to dilute it into gruel. After several sharp slaps and a little manipulation of his dislocated shoulder, the Air Pirate seemed to gain some awareness. At least, when Thanh poured the concoction down his throat he swallowed, it, and more importantly he kept it down. Yet he could scarcely lift his head, and still had to be carried.

That night, Titi could hear him talking in his sleep. He repeated the litany of name, rank and serial number again and again, and he called out a name. Something about the gentle sound of the single syllable and the way that he said it made Titi think it was the name of a woman. A goddess, perhaps? She had heard that the Americans embraced the lies of religion. They were backwards and ignorant, as well as evil. They did not understand that with the truth of Ho Chi Minh and the virtues of communism, they did not need false idols.

Yet the name of the Air Pirate's goddess haunted her dreams.

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The prisoner was most unpopular. The necessity of carrying him slowed their progress far more than Khoi wanted, and everyone tired faster because of the extra strain. The third day of his illness, they covered less than ten miles, by the lieutenant's estimate, and were obliged to halt long before sunset. Titi was not entirely disenchanted with the change. She found it much easier to keep this new pace, and as she did not take a turn with the bier, she did not grow weary as quickly as the others. She knew that her English was improving, too, and she could scarcely wait for the day when she would be able to demonstrate her new skill to Bian.

There were many things she wished to tell Bian. Titi wondered how her older sister would receive the news that she, little Titi, had a lover. She was not sure how she would tell her sister. Indeed, she was not sure how Bian would react. She might be proud and happy, excited for Titi and delighted at the evidence that she was becoming a woman. She might be envious, as some of the girls of the village had been when Li Jiang had been wedded to the handsome young soldier last summer. Perhaps she would be scornful of Titi's love for Khoi—Bian had never shown the usual feminine interest in clothing, or appearance, or men.

Titi hoped her sister would be glad for her. Khoi made her most happy. When she was with him, it seemed as if all the world were her domain. She was not a weak little schoolteacher when they made love: she was a woman in the full flower of youth, strong and desirable and powerful, while at the same time vulnerable, delicate and lovely.

She liked growing up, she decided as she walked.

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On the fourth day, the prisoner's fever was abating, but his appearance had grown more ghastly than ever. Titi watched his gray-hued face, contracting now and again as he was jostled on the rough paths. By the time they halted for the night, her concern had grown great enough for her to voice it to Thanh.

"Is he dying?" she asked, squatting near the other woman as Thanh dribbled water into the captive's mouth.

"Perhaps," Thanh said coolly. "Many Americans die. They are weak. They cannot bear the jungle heat, the hard roads, the injuries."

Titi looked at the man's scabbing, infected feet. "I would not want to travel without sandals," she said softly.

Thanh's eyes narrowed. "It is Major Quon's wish that he go barefooted," she said. "In any case, he is not walking now."

"But if he dies—" Titi began. Thanh cut her off with an abortive gesture.

"He will not die," she muttered. "He is too stubborn."

Thanh got to her feet and strode away from the haggard captive. Titi followed, anxious to understand. "How do you know that?" she asked.

Thanh turned towards her, and the eye buried beneath the globular masses of scar tissue glinted brightly. "The weak ones buckle under the pressure of interrogation," she said. "They break easily. They offer information in exchange for mending of their injuries. He begged you to fix his shoulder, but did he try to bargain with his knowledge?"

"No," Titi admitted.

"You see? He is stubborn. He will not give us what we want. He will give us as much trouble as he can. It would be easiest for him to die now, before he reaches Hanoi. It would be easiest for us if we could bury him in a shallow pit, instead of carrying him for days on end. He will not take the easy path: he will continue to live. Some people are like that. If the Americans captured Bian, she would do the same thing."

So saying, she made her way towards the fire that Cadeo was building. This time, Titi did not follow. She stood midway between her countrymen and the prisoner, staring at the Air Pirate's motionless form. Thanh's last words were haunting her. She did not want to think of Bian in American hands, beaten and mistreated as this captive was. She did not want to think of her proud, beloved sister with a broken collarbone, a bruised face, stumbling barefoot through strange lands, bound for a grim and inescapable prison…

But it was different, she tried to remind herself. The Air Pirate was not Bian. He was a criminal, a capitalist murderer who came from a land far across the sea. Bian was a brave and dedicated soldier, protecting her people and doing her best to spread the truth of Ho Chi Minh. Bian was her sister, courageous and honorable.

Titi wondered if the Air Pirate had a little sister, far away in America, who missed him. What if there was a young woman with pale white skin and curling hair who admired this man as Titi did Bian?

It was absurd, she decided. The Air Pirates did not have sisters, or wives, or cozy cottages that they called home. They were criminals: faceless, nameless and evil.

She turned away, trying not to heed the nagging, traitorous voice that wanted to remind her that this Air Pirate had a face and a name, because if he was neither faceless nor nameless, then perhaps he was not evil either.

That could not be, for if he was not evil, then Major Quon, and Bian, and Thanh and Khoi were wrong to abuse him so. And they were not wrong. They could not be wrong.

Titi glared at the unconscious captive. "Stubborn," she cursed him under her breath. "Stubborn and wicked, accursed Air Pirate."

The words were correct, but they troubled her heart.