"I heard that," Walsh said.

"What I was really thinking a while back while I was waiting for the damned call to go through is that, Civil War aside, this is one of the few places where we really got our ass whipped. The Japs took this away from us."

"What's that got to do with the Civil War?"

"Both sides were American in the Civil War, Jack," Parker said. "Hadn't you heard?"

"Oh," Walsh said.

"Somebody, some soldier like us," Parker said, "had to blow this place up so the Japs couldn't use it, then wait around to be locked up. And not that long ago twenty years."

"You're really full of the old Christmas spirit, aren't you?" Walsh asked. "Any other cheerful yuletide thoughts?"

"I'm going back to the ship before I do get full of Christmas spirit," Parker said. "You coming?"

"You haven't drunk your drink," Walsh said.

"You drink it. If I do, I will try to run them out of booze," Parker said, and pushed himself off the stool.

He walked to the wharf, where a boat was waiting to ferry people out to the USNS Card, which sat, brilliantly lit up, out in the harbor. Even at that distance, it was enormous. Parker had spent a lot of time roaming around the ship (when he was stopped by sailors and asked if they could be of help translation: What the hell are you doing down here, Mac? he pretended that he hadn't seen the signs restricting access to authorized personnel). It was so big as to be incomprehensible. If sailors thought differently than soldiers, that was understandable. They lived in different worlds.

The boat it was called a barge that carried him out to the USNS Card was divided into sections. In the back aft there was a cabin with plastic upholstered seats for officers. Up front forward exposed to the elements, there were wooden benches for sailors. Chief petty officers, the navy equivalent of army master sergeants, rode standing up in the back rather than up front with the other sailors. When they reached the ships, the officers would get off first, then the chief petty officers, then the sailors.

The navy was heavy with tradition, and by and large, Parker decided, it was a good thing. The army had little tradition, and Army Aviation and Special Forces had none that he could see. On the other hand his grandfather had retired as a full bull colonel, after command of a regiment, and it wasn't until after War II that the navy had finally allowed colored sailors to be more than mess stewards.

The army had an officer of the day, one of the warrant officer pilots, standing at the head of the ladder up the side. The ladder didn't reach all the way up the flight deck, only to a door on the hangar deck.

"You're back early, Major," the warrant said to him, tossing a casual salute and checking his name off on a clipboard roster.

"It was either come back now or come back later and be hoisted aboard in a sling," Parker said.

"I get off at 0600," the warrant said. "And then I have shore leave. What sort of trouble do you think I can get myself into from six o'clock on Christmas morning until 1600?"

"I'm sure you'll think of something," Parker said.

He went to the flight deck. A marine guard stopped him at the door. Because there had been several incidents of sailors taking souvenirs from the army aircraft (the instrument panel eight-day Waltham clocks were popular), and after a heated argument with the Card's civilian captain, it had been decreed that only personnel with business with army airplanes would be allowed on the flight deck. There was a list of fifteen officers who were authorized to visit their airplanes whenever they wanted, and the marine guard was doing his duty. He not only checked to see that Major Parker's name was on the list, but insisted on checking Parker's ID card.

A difference in discipline, Parker thought. The marine guard was a black guy, and there was no question whatever in Parker's mind that the black marines were very much aware that there were four black army officers, one major, one captain, and two warrants. The marine guard knew that the very large black man with the major's leaves standing in the door was Major P. S. Parker. An army guard, black or white or brown, would have passed him without question. Not the marine. The marine did exactly what he was told to do.

Was this better, Parker wondered, or did it tend to make enlisted men hesitate to make their own decisions? There was an old army saw that said when in doubt, attack. He wondered if navy and marine enlisted men would attack when in doubt, or just stand there waiting for orders.

He made his way through the closely parked airplanes and helicopters to the bow of the ship, careful not to trip over the cables that tied the aircraft to the deck. The door in the side of the fuselage of a Piasecki H-21D was slightly ajar.

Was the ship's crew collecting souvenirs again? Or had it just been left ajar after the last of the twice-daily inspections? He opened it far enough so that it would close when he slammed it, then changed his mind and climbed aboard.

He made his way up the steeply slanting floor to the cockpit, and he started to slip into the pilot's seat. There was a small puddle of water on the deck, and he slipped on it, falling hard but harmlessly into the seat. The on-deck aircraft were hosed down twice a day with a fresh-water spray to keep the salt water off them, and this bird apparently leaked. Although he didn't think any real harm in that, he thought he would mention it to the maintenance chief in the morning.

This was his world, the cockpit of a chopper, and it was somehow comforting to sit where he was sitting. He sat there for ten minutes, and then got up and carefully made his way back onto the deck. He went back inside the ship and made his way to the wardroom and had a cup of coffee and two sugar-coated doughnuts. Finally he went to his stateroom.

He would not be able to sleep yet, he thought, so he opened the little safe built into the wall of the cabin and took out a report to study it.

He had taken it out for a very strange reason. He wanted to look at the signature block again. The report had been prepared eight months before, and Major Parker had been provided with only part of it: two copies, classifed Secret, of Inclosure 18. Inclosure 18 was entitled "An Appraisal of Special Aviation Requirements in the Event of the Deployment of Special Forces in the Highlands." In the signature block was "Craig W. Lowell, Major, Armor."

The report was probably very good, accurate, and thorough, for Lowell was very good at that sort of thing. But that wasn't the reason Phil Parker had taken it out. The truth of the matter was that he was lonely and homesick and even a little afraid, and Craig's signature in front of him made him feel a little less lonely, homesick, and afraid.

He wondered where Craig was spending Christmas Eve.

Between the silken thighs of some long-legged wench who would reek of expensive French perfume, he concluded.

That thought cheered him. He put the report back in the safe and went back to the wardroom. There was a warrant officer, a weird redheaded guy who hung around there, always looking for somebody to play chess. Playing chess seemed like a very good way to pass the evening.

Ix (One) An Lac Shi Kontum Province Republic of South Vietnam 2325 Hours, 24 December 1961 For almost two years Captain Van Lee Due, Commanding the Ninth Company, Fifty-third Regiment, People's Liberation Army, had had a working relationship with Sang Lee Do, Mayor of An Lac Shi, a middle-sized village eleven miles west of Kontum.

Song Lee Do had ensured that his constituents had paid their taxes to the Provisional Government of the People's Liberation Army. The taxes were one bag in five of the village's rice stocks. These stocks included not only what the village's farmers had raised themselves but also what had come from the Agency for International Development in hundred-pound bags painted with the legend rooucr OF LOUISIANA. USA. Below the legend was the picture of a pair of hands shaking in partnership.

Similarly, the village of An Lac Shi, through the agency of Mayor Song Lee Do, had contributed one pig in five to the cause of National Liberation; one chicken in five; one bunch of carrots in five; one head of cabbage in five; and so on. The burden had not been intolerable, Captain Van Lee Due believed. It was the duty of every Vietnamese to make some sacrifice to the cause of national liberation. What he was asking of An Lac Shi was far less than other commanders were asking of other mayors of other similarly situated villages.

He had not, for example, demanded that cattle in the village be slaughtered to provide sustenance for his men. He agreed with the mayor that not only were the cattle necessary for the tilling of the rice paddies (which would make their slaughter the same thing as eating the seed rice), but that it would be wasteful. Without refrigeration, or other means of preserving the meat, a substantial portion of it would spoil and do no one any good.

Song Lee Do had also done as much as could be expected of any man in his position to explain to his villagers the necessity of cooperating with the provisional government. He had told them that when the People's Liberation Army had completed its task, they would no longer be required to pay taxes to the regime in Saigon. The fruits of their hard labor would no longer be taken from them to enrich the politicians and generals. When Vietnam was free, taxes would be returned to the people in the form of paved roads, so that shipping of their produce to Kontum would be easier; and to provide schools, medical care, and all the other good things that would come to the people once all Vietnam had become Socialist.

Song Lee Do had repeated to his people what Captain Van Lee Due had told him: "The root of all of Vietnam's problems was colonialism. Colonialism put the property of the people in the hands of outsiders, who diverted the fruits of the peasants' and workers' labors from the good of the peasants and workers into their own pockets.

"When the French left, there remained evil people in Saigon, Vietnamese people, who had not seen to it that the workers and peasants got what was theirs, but who had instead simply assumed the roles of colonial, capitalist overseers themselves. They had been corrupted, infected, as animals or a crop sometimes became infected, and it was going to be necessary to remove these infections ruthlessly from the body of Vietnam in the same way it was necessary to sometimes plow under a bad crop, or use acid on an infection on the body of an animal.

"These corrupt Vietnamese would be killed, and what they had stolen from the people returned to the people."

That is what Number Nine Company of the Fifty-third Regiment of the People's Liberation Army was doing in the vicinity of An Lac Shi. And it was clearly not only the duty of the people of An Lac Shi;but in their own interest, to help Number Nine Company in any way they could.

Captain Van Lee Dee believed that Song Lee Do understood all this, because he cooperated. Not only were taxes paid when due, but the people of An Lac Shi gave beyond what he had demanded of them. When he came to collect the taxes, for instance, the villagers almost always had a meal for him and his men and sometimes wine. They were very helpful in other ways, too, like digging tunnels in which rice and other food could be hidden from the eyes of the Saigon regime's officials.

And they sent their children running into the jungle to find one of Captain Van Lee Dee's men to tell him when another shipment for the Agency for International Development was supposed to arrive.

That truck could be then intercepted by Number Nine Company, the foodstuffs and whatever else they carried instantly converted to the use of the People's Liberation Army, the truck destroyed, and the soldiers of the Saigon regime's puppets killed.

The Saigon regime would then waste a good deal of time, money, and effort sending soldiers in jeeps and trucks and armored cars looking for Captain Van Lee Due's soldiers. They would not find them. They would vent their anger at not finding them on the people, and would probably beat up half a dozen young men of the village.

Young men who had been beaten by soldiers of the Saigon regime often joined the People's Liberation Army.

Captain Van Lee Dee would not attack the soldiers sent to look for him. Nor would he attack the column of troops sent to guard the load of foodstuffs that would invariably be sent to replace the loads lost. The People's Liberation Army would get one-fifth of what was successfully delivered anyway. And if he was too greedy, the Saigon regime would decide that it was too risky to send any supplies at all.

He would probably send two or three soldiers to take a few shots at the convoy on its way back to Kontum. If that was done properly, a few Saigon soldiers would be killed or wounded, and their mates would waste time and ammunition shooting in all directions, long after his men were safely out of the way.

There was trouble now in An Lac Shi not much, nothing that Captain Van Lee Due could not handle, but trouble that had to be nipped in the bud before it took roots.

The priest of the Blessed Heart of Jesus Roman Catholic Church, Father Lo Patrick Sho, who had heretofore only concerned himself with the spiritual welfare of his flock, was now starting to interfere in the political affairs of the village. The Saigon regime had come to An Lac Shi three weeks before in three jeeps. One of the jeeps carried an American. The American wore a green beret, and he said that he would be coming back to the village on a regular schedule. The first thing he was going to do, he said, would be to treat the injured and sick. He would also arrange for the very sick to be taken to Kontum to the hospital. There would be no charge for his services, and he didn't even ask questions about units of the People's Liberation Army that might be in the area.

The villagers of An Lac Shi, of course, did not rush to get the free medical services. The first time the American Green Beret came to the village, he just sat there with Mayor Sang Lee Do all afternoon, trying to make conversation in French. No villager went near him. Nor did a villager go near him on his second visit, three days later.

But the third time he came to An Lac Shi, Father Lo Patrick Sho brought a woman with a sick baby to see him. The baby had a very high fever, and the mother was willing to try anything, even an American soldier in a green beret.

The American gave the baby an injection, and gave the mother some other medicine in little bottles. After the American had gone away, Father Lo Patrick Sho made the mother give her baby the medicine. The baby lost its fever, stopped throwing up, and started suckling. The next time the American came, Father La Patrick Sho had two people for him to see, an old man whose jaw was large with a bad tooth, and a young woman who had an infection between her legs.

Captain Van Lee Dee spoke with Mayor Song Lee Do. He told him that he did not want the villagers to go to the American for help. This was not to the advantage of the People's Liberation Army, but more important, the pills and injections the American was giving them were really bad drugs, worse even than heroin, which would destroy their minds and make them slaves to the Saigon regime.

Mayor Song Lee Do did what Captain Van Lee Dee asked him to do, but the priest told the people just the opposite. Father Lo Patrick Sho said that the American was offering them help they could get nowhere else. The injections were not bad. The proof of that was the baby was now well. Consequently he was going to let the American use a room in the Blessed Heart of Jesus R.C. Church and was going to fix it up for him by whitewashing the walls and giving him a desk, a table, and some chairs.

Captain Van Lee Dee then went to see the priest personally. He didn't try to tell the priest that the American Green Beret was injecting a bad drug, because the priest was an educated man and knew better. But he told him that the real reason the American was in An Lac Shi was not to help the people, but to gain information about the People's Liberation Army, so that the Saigon regime could send soldiers and tanks and airplanes. He obviously could not permit that or anything else that would keep the People's Liberation Army from accomplishing its purpose.

Father La Patrick Sho told him that he knew nothing about politics, and wanted to know nothing about politics. He was the parish priest and it was his duty to get help for his parishioners from wherever he could. Before he had made the room available to the American, he went on to say, he had asked his bishop, who had said that as long as he did not take sides in the unpleasantness between the Saigon regime and the People's Liberation Army, he should do anything he felt would help his people.

When the people of the Blessed Heart of Jesus parish went to the church for midnight mass on Christmas Eve, they found Father La Patrick Sho, Mayor Sang Lee Do, and four altar boys in the sanctuary between the communion rail and the altar.

The altar boys had been shot in the ear.

Father La Patrick Sho and Mayor Sang Lee Do had had their throats cut and then had been emasculated.

Captain Van Lee Dee regretted the necessity of ordering that action, but he was under orders, too, and Colonel Hon Kwan of the Fifty-third Regiment had told him that nothing could be permitted to interfere with the ruthless rooting out of opposition by the People's Liberation Army.

(Two) 204 Wallingford Road Swarthmore, Pennsylvania 1930 Hours, 24 December 1961 The chiming of the doorbell annoyed the hell out of Edward Eaglebury, Sr. Who the fuck would come calling on Christmas Eve without telephoning?

As he pushed himself out of his chair to take care of the damn thing, he decided that it was probably somebody collecting for some damned do-gooder cause. Starving Ethiopian Orphans or something. There had been a piece in the Bulletin about that. The fund raisers had found that people were extraordinarily generous on Christmas Eve, and teams of volunteer do-gooders were giving up their Christmas Eve to make the collecting rounds.

Edward Eaglebury, Sr." had nothing against charity, but he thought that it was outrageous that fund raisers should be working on Christmas Eve. He would give whomever the hell it was a dollar and wish him a quick Merry Christmas and close the door in his face.

Suzanne and the kids were with them tonight. Christmas Day they would go to her family. That meant that as soon as they finished trimming the tree, they would be exchanging gifts tonight instead of Christmas morning, as was the Eaglebury custom. Except for watching the kids when they got their presents, the truth was that Edward Eaglebury, Sr." didn't give a damn about Christmas.

And now some sonofabitch was at the door with his hand out. It was a vaguely familiar young man.

Someone who was chasing Dianne and who was not willing to give up the chase simply because of a little thing like Christmas Eve. Why the hell wasn't the fucker home with his own family?

"Yes?" Edward Eaglebury, Sr." asked with less edge in his voice than he felt.

"Good evening, Mr. Eaglebury," the young man said. "Merry Christmas, sir."

"Merry Christmas to you," Mr. Eaglebury said. "What can I do for you?"

"I'd hoped to see Dianne, sir," the young man said.

"I don't wish to be rude, young man," Mr. Eaglebury said, "but we're celebrating Christmas Eve. It's I don't know how to say it just family."

"Oh," the young man said, obviously disappointed. "I'm sorry to have intruded, sir. I wonder if you would give her this?"

He thrust a small, Christmas-wrapped package at him. Damn! If he knows her well enough to give her a present, she'd probably bought one for him. And I will be doing the wrong thing by sending him away.

"Just a moment," Edward Eaglebury, Sr." said. "I'll get her."

He felt something like Scrooge, shutting the door and leaving the kid standing in the cold on the porch, but he didn't want him inside, didn't want him intruding.

"One of your admirers is on the porch," he announced when he went into the living room.

"One of my what?" Dianne asked.

"You left him standing on the porch on Christmas Eve?" his wife asked.

He elected to respond to his daughter: "A young man bearing a gift," he said. "I forget his name."

Dianne walked to the door.

She'll be gone, too, in three or four years, Edward Eaglebury thought. The boys are already after her. And then there will be just two of us in this house.

She knew this one, too. She gave a little yelp when she saw him through the glass beside the door, and then she shouted his name: "Tom!" He could not recall any one of her boyfriends being named Tom.

She brought the kid into the living room. He should have known that she would do something like that.

"Everybody but Daddy remembers Tom, don't they?" Dianne asked.

"Of course," his wife said.

Suzanne, who had been on her knees by a box of Christmastree ornaments, scrambled to her feet. There was surprise and pleasure on her face.

"Oh, Tom!" she said. "How nice to see you!"

She went quickly to him, grabbed his arms and kissed his cheek.

Who the hell is he?

"Please forgive my husband, Lieutenant Ellis," his wife said, "when he is into the Christmas cheer, he turns into Scrooge. I apologize for his leaving you standing in the cold."

She went to him and gave him a hug.

My God, he's the young officer who was with Eddie! The one who brought his body back. What does he want here?

The answer to that was self-evident: Dianne. How the hell had he had time to get to know her? He wasn't here more than five, six hours all told. And now he shows up on Christmas Eve with a present for her.

"Oh, damn!" Dianne said when Ellis handed her the present. "I mailed you yours."

"What are you doing up in this neck of the woods?" Suzanne asked.

"My mother lives in New York," Tom said. "I'm on my way there now. I just stopped in to wish Dianne and all of you Merry Christmas."

"Well, I'm glad you did," Dianne's mother said. "Dianne, get him a glass of eggnog."

"You're going on to New York... City?... Tonight?" Suzanne asked.

"Yes," Tom Ellis said.

"And you drove from North Carolina?" she asked.