TWO WEEKS AFTER OUR KISS I watched Li Thi's face turn
ashen as he learned of Sun's death. He was digging a hole. He
responded with extraordinary restraint, asking his commanding officer if
her body had been retrieved, thanking him for the expression of
sympathy, immediately resuming his digging. The hole would be a grave
that living men would inhabit to ambush patrolling invaders.
I
awoke sweating cold despite the oppressive heat and humidity and I found
a blanket in one of the supply tents to wrap around myself. I sat not
far from the sentry. Dull luminescent blurs appeared inland on the
horizon where there was harassment and interdiction, illuminated by
flares.
I had crossed the actual area of my dream region only the
day before on a tangent from my recon patrol,looking for some privacy if
only for a minute. Now there was a trap. Li Thi, scout for a VC
ambush, was already in the area when strayed. He didn't fire at the
lame, lone soldier, either out of caution, sympathy charged by a queer
inkling of familiarity, or because he himself was lost--and envisioning
his living sister--in dream.