Transmission #5-0-5-1 Addendum: "Hospital Visit"
Saigon, République du Viêt Nam
Relief Hospital of Nouvelles Casernes d'Artillerie Coloniale
The hospital in Saigon was a world apart from the rugged landscapes Emilie Barbierre endured trekking with the ARVy's down in the southern delta. The Mekong was rife with activity, even after the raid rescuing General Kanh. The boonies were never a cakewalk for them, but the fact Emilie could never shake off the fear a sniper was watching his every move - either in the villages, the grasses, or hell, even in the rice paddies, ever put him on edge.
He was so relieved when given his leave to return back into the confines of civilization.
Bright fluorescent hummed overhead, casting a sterile glow over the whitewashed walls of the hospital room. Orderly rows of beds filled with weary and sleeping soldiers - French, ARVN, and even a few Germans, too (the Legion never asked what the Huns did prior to joining up to acquire military service - that was considered rude). And amidst all these brave and lucky men, his dearest friend Bertrand de Guillame lay recovering, filled with the warmth of camaraderie and the promise of laughter.
"Dirt roads and rice paddies far as the eye could see, Betrand. Honestly, it was nothing special. But the women, oof! The women! One smile and I was on my knees. Clean, naive, and beautiful - I swear I would've married if I'd stayed longer," Emile exclaimed, voice brimming with exuberance.
Betrand laughs - it's the first human response he's had in almost a month since the riots. Scars where the boots scraped against his heard are still apparent, but Emile jokes and says it's an improvement. Bertrand laughs some more. Finally, it appears his friend was truly on the mend. Thank God, Emile thought: if this place could break this man, he didn't know what would keep him here. Indochina wasn't worth fighting. Ol' Cyrano believed the tricolor deserved it, but so too did the Viet people.
"A new lieutenant now?" Betrand remarks, noting the shining eagle on his friend's beret. "I need to get out of here soon or you'll be a general by the time I'm standing."
"You think I didn't notice you not saluting me when I walked in, you insubordinate swine!" Emile shot back, theatrically slapping his beret at Bertrand's head. He continued to jest, threatening court martial or a shooting squad, even worse - a promotion, which meant endless rounds of marching and perilous patrols along the wire.
Word now from up north says Khe San had been getting particularly hairier: movement was being reported everywhere, patrols were going missing, and what's worse is there were even a few skirmishes between artillery pieces on adjoining hills. Nothing bad enough to cause a full on engagement, yet the breadth of peace up there only went as far as one valley to the next. The porters who traveled the roads even talked grimly of NVA armor coupled with Syndie tanks - T-54's and Ccm-36's - on every National Route 1 intersection going south. Every quarter of it was sectioned off and turned into a mini-fortress apparently. Charles de Gaulle promised reinforcements to man these defenses, but how many men can he possibly shit out?
Algeria grew worse by the day - Africa in general grew worse by the day! Protests broke out in most National French colonies upon that continent, with some of the harshest nearly - NEARLY - turning into full-on rebellion; Syndie propaganda was working wonders there, with the rest of the Fourth Internationale turning that battlefield into their own regular sandbox. Emile put money down if there was ever going to be another World War, it would start in that dark part of the world.
Bertrand wasn't so sure on that.
"My grandfather wrote to me. He says the unrest is growing worse; in Paris they nearly lynched the mayor in the street. Now there are armed gangs roaming around like gestapo, beating anyone critical of the government. Some say de Gaulle put them up to it. I don't know. People are saying a lot of things I don't believe anymore."
"Bah! Let them talk. Hadn't stopped since 1945, and it won't stop now." Emile says with an uncaring sort of bravado; one can only get this feeling if they've faced death before, and survived it. "What did they say when we were in Madagascar, eh? Or in Malaysia? Laos? Cambodia, hm? For young men we've had quite a ride, and now we are here-" Emile throws his arms out comically, gesturing to all the bottles of antiseptic, trays of gray mush they called food, and doctors making their rounds. "Vietnam! Alive. And still young enough to have fun. Let others be old, and tired, and miserable. We've plenty of time to be so later."
"Pfft, you only like Vietnam because it's the only place you haven't gotten syphilis. Yet."
"Hey, it's not always about women," Emile puffs out his chest and sticks his chin up in the air. "I'm a war hero now. I saved that Viet general. Pinned this medal on my beret himself."
Betrand scoffs at that. "Might as well pinned his balls there, too. What is this now he's pulling men from the field to go into the hamlets? What, he lost his stomach to fight? Thought Khan was a believer."
"I'm sure Khan believes in anything if you pay him enough. He'd be an all right soldier if there were better ones surrounding him. Unfortunately, there are none; Navarre's seconded the idea of going into the hamlets, and we know how he's like. Whatever. They give us cover - the VC don't like open battles, and it forces them to fight on our terms. Frankly, it's the smartest thing we've done here."
"It won't stop them," Bertrand smiles, and so too does Emile.
"It never does," Lt. Emile Barbierre says, because he knows better. So, too, does Betrand; the hamlets make for fine castles, but they are also stretched and far apart from each other. Logistically, they are a nightmare to supply. Doesn't take a genius to surmise all one needs do is cut one off, starve it into submission, then move to the next.
Trial and error were ever the cornerstones of victory - both of these men were born into this. Yet, the French military was rife with mistakes aplenty. Though the top order ever liked to call it "adapting". Hmph! Adapting into what? A lesser form of fighting man? The amount of battles predicated on simply counting dead bodies was farcical. Victory isn't simply achieved by killing your enemy, they need to "feel" beaten. Dien Bien Phu was the last such time where the enemy - Ho Chi Minh's NVA and Salan's rebel battalions - felt any real defeatism. It brought them to the table to broker a "peace" amenable for both sides. For a time.
But like any disease, sometimes the effects linger.
For Bertrand and Emile, "victory" was a false sense of security and optimism; the Nouvelles Casernes d'Artillerie Coloniale was made worse after Dien Bien Phu, though no one wanted to admit that. After the battle they believed itself superior to whatever the NVA could throw at them, so why bother. The "trial" was the war - which they won. Supposedly. And the "error" was moot - who could argue with success.
"Ah, come now," Emile says, trying to cheer Betrand up. "Surely, they'll let you out of here for one night. I'll push you around in the wheelchair myself. A celebration for my ascension into the upper ranks. I know two girls who love men with scars. Native mothers, but their fathers were Dutch. You'd love them, Betrand. And they'll love you; you're practically halfway set up for a lap dance anyhow."
"I can't, I can't," Betrand shakes his head, another smile creeping on his lips. When Emile pressed if it was due to "doctor's orders", he replied with a mischevious glint, "Nurse's orders, more like."
"Ha!" Even wounded you can't get any relief, I see," Emile laughed, but Betrand's expression changed as he spoke of the woman who'd been caring for him.
"She's beautiful, Emile. Truly, utterly, and sbolsutley beautiful. She must be new here, because I've never seen her before," Betrand described her, eyes lighting up with her memory. Tall, he said she was. Taller than all the other nurses, and French, too. Partly, any how; she definitely came from one of the colonies. Africa. Because everything comes out of Africa these days. Tanned skin that blushed under the sun, with a faint splash of freckles along her face. "She has a smile that tells you the truth, even when she's not speaking. Alls you need do is look at her, and you know how she feels."
"She was tough on me at first, though, Never gentle when she came around - called me a crybaby a lot. She's got rough hands like my grandfather's. She threatened to pluck out my eyes if I kept teasing her about them, too."
"A nurse with rough hands. What is this world coming to?" Emile replied, feigning shock.
"Rough hands are honest ones, Lieutenant," Emile is startled when a voice catches him off guard. Betrand's face, though, is delighted when his muse saunters over.
Mariet, she said her name was. Mariet Argent-Cohen. She grasps Emile's hand in a firm grip; Bertrand was right, her hands were as calloused and tough as a farmhand's.
"I've worked to earn my way here, Lt. Barbierre," She says to Emile, who now stands upright and at attention. Not necessarily a tall man, maybe a sigh under six feet, but it takes him aback seeing this Mariet almost meet him eye-to-eye. "As Im sure you have, also; I've heard the southern delta is not kind this time of year, Messieur."
"Hasn't been since '54, Mademoiselle," Emile replied, trying hard to not make it obvious he tried gaining a few inches by standing a little higher on his feet.
But Mariet carried an aura of strength and grace, her presence commanding attention like she were some officer. She began to talk of her arduous journey that brought her to Saigon, her rich backstory flowing like a vivid tapestry. "I grew up in Morocco," she began. "My father was a French Jew living there, and my mother came from a local Berber family famed for their horse racing." Her eyes sparkled when she talked about her mother, a champion rider who taught her everything she knew; why her hands were so rough - touchy subject for her. But then her expressions darkens.
"Life was good, until came the Vichy regime, and after them the Syndies. They took everything away. I saw the kind of equality they meant to instill. Blood," she emphasized, voice tightening. "Too much of it. And I was powerless to do anything about it. So, my brothers and I decide to take up the cause: to help however we could. I traded in my riding crop and boots, and decided to become a nurse."
Emile was struck by her story. As, too, was Betrand the first time he heard it. "Why so far away from home then, mademoiselle?" Emile asks, curiosity genuine.
Mariet shrugged, a hint of sadness shadowing her feats. "Too many memories, too many bad thoughts. Plus, my brothers are here fighting in Vietnam."
"They're mercenaries with the Wild Geese," Betrand chimes in, referencing the notorious group of fighters known more for their reckless behavior and any tactical acumen.
"Ah, I see: not man enough to join the regular army, eh?" Emile quipped, tone laced with playful sarcasm. To which Mariet took in stride.
"No, not that, she replies. "More that they're a bit more...unrestrained than the regular army can handle. Plus, with their age, it's tough to find any willing to train - or pay - children."
The relation hits Emile hard. Young boys, no older than. fifteen, were out on the front lines, fighting a war that felt never-ending. A crueler reality he's had to face in this "Cold War", worse than any other facet he's had to get used to. It's a sad, terrible thing. And he says as much to Mariet, expressing the regret which settled in his heart for years.
"Meh, c'est le vie," she goes, resilience reflected in her tone.
She moves gracefully to Betrand's side, giving him a gentle nudge. "Lay down, will you? There will be no cavorting around tonight. Not yet," she instructs; his concussion hasn't fully healed, and he needed clearance from the doctor to leave. But it's not all bad, she goes. "I'll be working the late shift. So it looks like you're stuck with me and my rough hands."
Bertrand's face blanches at that, making Emile double over in laughter. If that was going to be the case, then far be it for him to ruin his friend's recovery. He shouldn't push it, he goes. After all, it was nurse's orders. "I'll take a rain check for tonight. More for me, anyway. I'll come by tomorrow to see if you're still alive."
Emile leave the hospital ward in better spirits than he's been in some time. To see his friend recovering as well as he has puts heart into him - with any luck, he and Bertrand will be back patrolling together before they knew it. Tomorrow, even. Or, however long it would be. Didn't matter. So long as they were in it together, Emile felt confident things would be okay, because and Betrand were fighters. They would make it through this. To them Vietnam, Indochina, all of Southeast Asia - the Reds can have it, for all they cared.
That's not what or why they were fighting.
The real reason was, is, and always will be is they fought for each other.
Demain ensemble.
What they used to market off to the Annamites, but now tell to one another.
Tomorrow, together.
What was the point of fighting for tomorrow if they couldn't share it with those who strove with them for it?
Lt. Emile Barbierre walks out into the sticky promenade of the hospital, sun beating off the baking concrete already making him sweat, and places the red beret on his head. He feels more confident than he has in days.
For once in his entire tour here, he felt at ease.