“Do you think they were forced to obstruct you, forced by the Vietcong … or were they willing agents of the enemy?”
Chase was silent.
“I’m waiting for an answer,” Fauvel said sternly.
Chase didn’t reply.
“You are waiting for an answer,” Fauvel told him, “whether you realize it or not. Were these villagers being forced to obstruct your advance, forced at gunpoint by the Cong in the tunnels behind them, or were they there at their own choice?”
“Hard to say.”
“Is it?”
“Hard for me, anyway.”
“In those situations you could never be sure.”
“Right.”
“They might have been collaborationists – or they might have been innocent.”
“Right.”
“Okay. Then what happened?”
“We tried to open the gate, but the women were holding it shut with a system of ropes.”
“Women.”
“They used women as a shield. Or sometimes the women were the worst killers of all, cut you down with a smile.”
“So you ordered them out of the way?” Fauvel asked.
“They wouldn’t move. The lieutenant said it might be a trap designed to contain us at that point, delay us long enough for the Cong to somehow get behind us.”
“Could that have been true?”
“Could have been.”
“Likely?”
“Yes.”
“Go on.”
“It was dark. There was a smell in that tunnel I can’t explain, made up of sweat and urine and rotting vegetables, as heavy as if it had substance. Lieutenant Zacharia ordered us to open fire and clear the way.”
“Did you comply?”
Chase was silent.
“Did you comply?”
“Not immediately.”
“But eventually?”
“The stench … the darkness …”
“You complied.”
“So claustrophobic down there, Cong probably coming around behind us through a secret tunnel.”
“So you complied with the order?”
“Yes.”
“You personally – or the squad?”
“The squad and me. Everyone did.”
“You shot them.”
“Cleared the way.”
“Shot them.”
“We could have died there.”
“Shot them.”
“Yeah.”
Fauvel gave him a rest. Half a minute. Then: “Later, when the tunnel had been cleared, searched, the weapons cache destroyed, then you ran into the ambush that earned you the Medal of Honor.”
“Yes. That was above ground.”
Fauvel said, “You crawled across the field of fire for nearly two hundred yards and brought back a wounded sergeant named Coombs.”
“Samuel Coombs.”
“You received two minor but painful wounds in the thigh and calf of your right leg, but you didn’t stop crawling until you had reached shelter. Then you secured Coombs behind a stand of scrub, and having reached a point on the enemy’s flank by means of your heroic crossing of the open field – what happened?”
“I killed some of the bastards.”
“Enemy soldiers.”
“Yeah.”
“How many?”
“Eighteen.”
“Eighteen Vietcong soldiers?”
“Yeah.”
“So you not only saved Sergeant Coombs’s life but contributed substantially to the well-being of your entire unit.” He had only slightly paraphrased the wording on the scroll that Chase had received in the mail from the president himself.
Chase said nothing.
“You see where this heroism came from, Ben?”
“We’ve talked about it before.”
“So you know the answer.”
“It came from guilt.”
“That’s right.”
“Because I wanted to die. Subconsciously wanted to be killed, so I rushed onto the field of fire, hoping to be shot down.”
“Do you believe that analysis, or do you think maybe it’s just something I made up to degrade your medal?”
Chase said, “I believe it. I never wanted the medal in the first place.”
“Now,” Fauvel said, unsteepling his fingers, “let’s extend that analysis just a bit. Though you hoped to be shot and killed in that ambush, although you took absurd risks to ensure your death, you lived. And became a national hero.”
“Life’s funny, huh?”
“When you learned Lieutenant Zacharia had submitted your name for consideration for the Medal of Honor, you suffered a nervous breakdown that hospitalized you and eventually led to your honorable discharge.”
“I was just burnt out.”
“No, the breakdown was an attempt to punish yourself, once you’d failed to get yourself killed. Punish yourself and escape from your guilt. But the breakdown failed too, because you pulled out of it. Well regarded, honorably discharged, much too strong not to recover psychologically, you still had to carry your burden of guilt.”