Rewrite

Rewrite as a 20th Century story set in the Jungles of Vietnam:

THE STORY OF A CONSCIENCE 

THE STORY OF A CONSCIENCE

I

Captain Parrol Hartroy stood at the advanced post of his picket-guard,
talking in low tones with the sentinel. This post was on a turnpike
which bisected the captain's camp, a half-mile in rear, though the camp
was not in sight from that point. The officer was apparently giving the
soldier certain instructions--was perhaps merely inquiring if all were
quiet in front. As the two stood talking a man approached them from the
direction of the camp, carelessly whistling, and was promptly halted by
the soldier. He was evidently a civilian--a tall person, coarsely clad
in the home-made stuff of yellow gray, called "butternut," which was
men's only wear in the latter days of the Confederacy. On his head was a
slouch felt hat, once white, from beneath which hung masses of uneven
hair, seemingly unacquainted with either scissors or comb. The man's
face was rather striking; a broad forehead, high nose, and thin cheeks,
the mouth invisible in the full dark beard, which seemed as neglected as
the hair. The eyes were large and had that steadiness and fixity of
attention which so frequently mark a considering intelligence and a will
not easily turned from its purpose--so say those physiognomists who have
that kind of eyes. On the whole, this was a man whom one would be likely
to observe and be observed by. He carried a walking-stick freshly cut
from the forest and his ailing cowskin boots were white with dust.

"Show your pass," said the Federal soldier, a trifle more imperiously
perhaps than he would have thought necessary if he had not been under
the eye of his commander, who with folded arms looked on from the
roadside.

"'Lowed you'd rec'lect me, Gineral," said the wayfarer tranquilly, while
producing the paper from the pocket of his coat. There was something in
his tone--perhaps a faint suggestion of irony--which made his elevation
of his obstructor to exalted rank less agreeable to that worthy warrior
than promotion is commonly found to be. "You-all have to be purty
pertickler, I reckon," he added, in a more conciliatory tone, as if in
half-apology for being halted.

Having read the pass, with his rifle resting on the ground, the soldier
handed the document back without a word, shouldered his weapon, and
returned to his commander. The civilian passed on in the middle of the
road, and when he had penetrated the circumjacent Confederacy a few
yards resumed his whistling and was soon out of sight beyond an angle in
the road, which at that point entered a thin forest. Suddenly the
officer undid his arms from his breast, drew a revolver from his belt
and sprang forward at a run in the same direction, leaving his sentinel
in gaping astonishment at his post. After making to the various visible
forms of nature a solemn promise to be damned, that gentleman resumed
the air of stolidity which is supposed to be appropriate to a state of
alert military attention.

II

Captain Hartroy held an independent command. His force consisted of a
company of infantry, a squadron of cavalry, and a section of artillery,
detached from the army to which they belonged, to defend an important
defile in the Cumberland Mountains in Tennessee. It was a field
officer's command held by a line officer promoted from the ranks, where
he had quietly served until "discovered." His post was one of
exceptional peril; its defense entailed a heavy responsibility and he
had wisely been given corresponding discretionary powers, all the more
necessary because of his distance from the main army, the precarious
nature of his communications and the lawless character of the enemy's
irregular troops infesting that region. He had strongly fortified his
little camp, which embraced a village of a half-dozen dwellings and a
country store, and had collected a considerable quantity of supplies. To
a few resident civilians of known loyalty, with whom it was desirable to
trade, and of whose services in various ways he sometimes availed
himself, he had given written passes admitting them within his lines. It
is easy to understand that an abuse of this privilege in the interest of
the enemy might entail serious consequences. Captain Hartroy had made an
order to the effect that any one so abusing it would be summarily shot.

While the sentinel had been examining the civilian's pass the captain
had eyed the latter narrowly. He thought his appearance familiar and had
at first no doubt of having given him the pass which had satisfied the
sentinel. It was not until the man had got out of sight and hearing that
his identity was disclosed by a revealing light from memory. With
soldierly promptness of decision the officer had acted on the
revelation.

III

To any but a singularly self-possessed man the apparition of an officer
of the military forces, formidably clad, bearing in one hand a sheathed
sword and in the other a cocked revolver, and rushing in furious
pursuit, is no doubt disquieting to a high degree; upon the man to whom
the pursuit was in this instance directed it appeared to have no other
effect than somewhat to intensify his tranquillity. He might easily
enough have escaped into the forest to the right or the left, but chose
another course of action--turned and quietly faced the captain, saying
as he came up: "I reckon ye must have something to say to me, which ye
disremembered. What mout it be, neighbor?"

But the "neighbor" did not answer, being engaged in the unneighborly act
of covering him with a cocked pistol.

"Surrender," said the captain as calmly as a slight breathlessness from
exertion would permit, "or you die."

There was no menace in the manner of this demand; that was all in the
matter and in the means of enforcing it. There was, too, something not
altogether reassuring in the cold gray eyes that glanced along the
barrel of the weapon. For a moment the two men stood looking at each
other in silence; then the civilian, with no appearance of fear--with as
great apparent unconcern as when complying with the less austere demand
of the sentinel--slowly pulled from his pocket the paper which had
satisfied that humble functionary and held it out, saying:

"I reckon this 'ere parss from Mister Hartroy is--"

"The pass is a forgery," the officer said, interrupting. "I am Captain
Hartroy--and you are Dramer Brune."

It would have required a sharp eye to observe the slight pallor of the
civilian's face at these words, and the only other manifestation
attesting their significance was a voluntary relaxation of the thumb and
fingers holding the dishonored paper, which, falling to the road,
unheeded, was rolled by a gentle wind and then lay still, with a coating
of dust, as in humiliation for the lie that it bore. A moment later the
civilian, still looking unmoved into the barrel of the pistol, said:

"Yes, I am Dramer Brune, a Confederate spy, and your prisoner. I have on
my person, as you will soon discover, a plan of your fort and its
armament, a statement of the distribution of your men and their number,
a map of the approaches, showing the positions of all your outposts. My
life is fairly yours, but if you wish it taken in a more formal way than
by your own hand, and if you are willing to spare me the indignity of
marching into camp at the muzzle of your pistol, I promise you that I
will neither resist, escape, nor remonstrate, but will submit to
whatever penalty may be imposed."

The officer lowered his pistol, uncocked it, and thrust it into its
place in his belt. Brune advanced a step, extending his right hand.

"It is the hand of a traitor and a spy," said the officer coldly, and
did not take it. The other bowed.

"Come," said the captain, "let us go to camp; you shall not die until
to-morrow morning."

He turned his back upon his prisoner, and these two enigmatical men
retraced their steps and soon passed the sentinel, who expressed his
general sense of things by a needless and exaggerated salute to his
commander.

IV

Early on the morning after these events the two men, captor and captive,
sat in the tent of the former. A table was between them on which lay,
among a number of letters, official and private, which the captain had
written during the night, the incriminating papers found upon the spy.
That gentleman had slept through the night in an adjoining tent,
unguarded. Both, having breakfasted, were now smoking.

"Mr. Brune," said Captain Hartroy, "you probably do not understand why I
recognized you in your disguise, nor how I was aware of your name."

"I have not sought to learn, Captain," the prisoner said with quiet
dignity.

"Nevertheless I should like you to know--if the story will not offend.
You will perceive that my knowledge of you goes back to the autumn of
1861. At that time you were a private in an Ohio regiment--a brave and
trusted soldier. To the surprise and grief of your officers and comrades
you deserted and went over to the enemy. Soon afterward you were
captured in a skirmish, recognized, tried by court-martial and sentenced
to be shot. Awaiting the execution of the sentence you were confined,
unfettered, in a freight car standing on a side track of a railway."

"At Grafton, Virginia," said Brune, pushing the ashes from his cigar
with the little finger of the hand holding it, and without looking up.

"At Grafton, Virginia," the captain repeated. "One dark and stormy night
a soldier who had just returned from a long, fatiguing march was put on
guard over you. He sat on a cracker box inside the car, near the door,
his rifle loaded and the bayonet fixed. You sat in a corner and his
orders were to kill you if you attempted to rise."

"But if I _asked_ to rise he might call the corporal of the guard."

"Yes. As the long silent hours wore away the soldier yielded to the
demands of nature: he himself incurred the death penalty by sleeping at
his post of duty."

"You did."

"What! you recognize me? you have known me all along?"

The captain had risen and was walking the floor of his tent, visibly
excited. His face was flushed, the gray eyes had lost the cold, pitiless
look which they had shown when Brune had seen them over the pistol
barrel; they had softened wonderfully.

"I knew you," said the spy, with his customary tranquillity, "the moment
you faced me, demanding my surrender. In the circumstances it would have
been hardly becoming in me to recall these matters. I am perhaps a
traitor, certainly a spy; but I should not wish to seem a suppliant."

The captain had paused in his walk and was facing his prisoner. There
was a singular huskiness in his voice as he spoke again.

"Mr. Brune, whatever your conscience may permit you to be, you saved my
life at what you must have believed the cost of your own. Until I saw
you yesterday when halted by my sentinel I believed you dead--thought
that you had suffered the fate which through my own crime you might
easily have escaped. You had only to step from the car and leave me to
take your place before the firing-squad. You had a divine compassion.
You pitied my fatigue. You let me sleep, watched over me, and as the
time drew near for the relief-guard to come and detect me in my crime,
you gently waked me. Ah, Brune, Brune, that was well done--that was
great--that--"

The captain's voice failed him; the tears were running down his face and
sparkled upon his beard and his breast. Resuming his seat at the table,
he buried his face in his arms and sobbed. All else was silence.

Suddenly the clear warble of a bugle was heard sounding the "assembly."
The captain started and raised his wet face from his arms; it had turned
ghastly pale. Outside, in the sunlight, were heard the stir of the men
falling into line; the voices of the sergeants calling the roll; the
tapping of the drummers as they braced their drums. The captain spoke
again:

"I ought to have confessed my fault in order to relate the story of your
magnanimity; it might have procured you a pardon. A hundred times I
resolved to do so, but shame prevented. Besides, your sentence was just
and righteous. Well, Heaven forgive me! I said nothing, and my regiment
was soon afterward ordered to Tennessee and I never heard about you."

"It was all right, sir," said Brune, without visible emotion; "I escaped
and returned to my colors--the Confederate colors. I should like to add
that before deserting from the Federal service I had earnestly asked a
discharge, on the ground of altered convictions. I was answered by
punishment."

"Ah, but if I had suffered the penalty of my crime--if you had not
generously given me the life that I accepted without gratitude you would
not be again in the shadow and imminence of death."

The prisoner started slightly and a look of anxiety came into his face.
One would have said, too, that he was surprised. At that moment a
lieutenant, the adjutant, appeared at the opening of the tent and
saluted. "Captain," he said, "the battalion is formed."

Captain Hartroy had recovered his composure. He turned to the officer
and said: "Lieutenant, go to Captain Graham and say that I direct him to
assume command of the battalion and parade it outside the parapet. This
gentleman is a deserter and a spy; he is to be shot to death in the
presence of the troops. He will accompany you, unbound and unguarded."

While the adjutant waited at the door the two men inside the tent rose
and exchanged ceremonious bows, Brune immediately retiring.

Half an hour later an old negro cook, the only person left in camp
except the commander, was so startled by the sound of a volley of
musketry that he dropped the kettle that he was lifting from a fire. But
for his consternation and the hissing which the contents of the kettle
made among the embers, he might also have heard, nearer at hand, the
single pistol shot with which Captain Hartroy renounced the life which
in conscience he could no longer keep.

In compliance with the terms of a note that he left for the officer who
succeeded him in command, he was buried, like the deserter and spy,
without military honors; and in the solemn shadow of the mountain which
knows no more of war the two sleep well in long-forgotten graves.

 

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Here is a retelling of "The Story of a Conscience" set in the jungles of Vietnam during the 20th century.

---

A Debt in the Jungle

I

Captain Ray Hartroy stood on the red-earth parapet of Firebase Eagle, speaking in low tones with the grunt on watch. The post overlooked a narrow, muddy track that vanished into the triple-canopy jungle, the only artery connecting the firebase to the world a half-mile in its rear. The captain was giving instructions, his voice a low hum beneath the incessant chorus of cicadas.

As they spoke, a figure emerged from the direction of the rear echelon, whistling a tune that was jarringly nonchalant. The sentinel, a kid from Ohio barely twenty, snapped his M16 to the ready. "Halt! Who goes there?"

The man was clearly a local—an old man, a "papa-san," dressed in the simple black pajamas common to the region. A conical nón lá hat shaded his face, from which a sparse, gray-flecked beard hung like dried moss. His face was a web of deep-set lines; a broad forehead, a prominent nose, and hollow cheeks. But it was his eyes that held you—large, dark, and possessing a steadiness that seemed to consider everything and be swayed by nothing. He carried a bamboo walking stick, and his sandals, cut from old truck tires, were caked in mud.

"Show me your chit," the grunt said, his voice a touch louder than necessary, conscious of his captain’s gaze.

"Of course, Captain-sir," the old man said calmly, producing a laminated card from a fold in his shirt. There was a faint, almost imperceptible irony in his tone that made the honorific grate on the young soldier. "You must be very careful, I think," he added, as if apologizing for the inconvenience.

The soldier glanced at the MACV pass, his rifle held loosely, then handed it back. "Okay, papa-san. Move along."

The old man nodded, passed through the wire gate, and continued down the track. When he had been swallowed by the jungle’s green maw, his whistling resumed, faint and then gone. Suddenly, Captain Hartroy’s arms, which had been folded across his chest, dropped. He drew his .45 automatic from its holster, the slide already racked, and broke into a dead sprint after the man, leaving the young sentinel gaping in astonishment. After muttering a quiet curse to the indifferent jungle, the soldier resumed the thousand-yard stare appropriate to a state of alert military attention.

II

Captain Hartroy commanded an independent unit. His force—a rifle company, a recon platoon, and a battery of 105mm howitzers—had been choppered into this remote valley to interdict an NVA supply route. It was a command meant for a major, but Hartroy was a mustang, an officer up from the enlisted ranks, and his superiors trusted his instincts. His post was exceptionally dangerous; cut off, supplied only by air, and surrounded by an enemy who owned the night.

He had fortified the small firebase obsessively, and collected a small cadre of local Vietnamese civilians for labor and intelligence. To these few, whose loyalty was presumed, he had issued passes. An abuse of this privilege was tantamount to a death sentence for the entire company. Hartroy had made it clear: any local caught using a pass for the enemy’s benefit would be executed on the spot.

While the sentinel had been checking the old man’s chit, Hartroy had studied him. There was something familiar in the man’s bearing. At first, he assumed he’d simply seen him around the firebase. It wasn't until the man had vanished that a memory, cold and sharp, surfaced from the depths of his mind. With the soldier's brutal efficiency, Hartroy acted on the revelation.

III

To any man, the sight of an American officer, armed and running in furious pursuit, would be cause for alarm. Upon the old man in black pajamas, it seemed only to deepen his eerie calm. He could have melted into the jungle in an instant, but he chose not to. He stopped, turned, and waited.

"You came back for me, Captain?" he asked as Hartroy skidded to a halt before him, the .45 leveled at his chest.

The captain didn't answer, his breathing heavy from the sprint.

"Surrender," Hartroy said, his voice strained, "or you die right here."

The demand was spoken flatly, without menace. The threat was all in the black eye of the pistol's muzzle and the cold gray eyes that sighted down it. For a long moment, the two men stood locked in silence, the air thick with humidity and unspoken history. Then the old man, with the same unconcern he’d shown the sentinel, slowly pulled the laminated pass from his shirt and held it out.

"I believe this chit, from Captain Hartroy, is in order—"

"The pass is a forgery," the officer interrupted. "I am Captain Hartroy. And you are Duc."

A keen observer might have noticed the slightest tightening around the old man's eyes. The only other sign was the relaxing of his fingers. The pass fell to the muddy track, where it lay like a discarded lie. A moment later, still looking into the barrel of the pistol, the man said, "Yes. I am Duc, of the National Liberation Front. And I am your prisoner. You will find on me a map of your mortar pits, your troop strength, and the locations of your listening posts. My life is yours. But if you wish for formality, and will spare me the indignity of being marched back at gunpoint, I give you my word I will not resist or attempt escape."

Hartroy lowered the .45, thumbed the safety on, and slid it into his holster. Duc took a step forward, extending his hand.

"It is the hand of the enemy, a spy," said the officer coldly, and did not take it. The other man gave a slight, formal bow.

"Come," said the captain. "Let us go. You will not die until tomorrow morning."

He turned his back on his prisoner. The two men walked back up the track and passed the sentinel, who, trying to make sense of it all, snapped off an entirely unnecessary but perfectly executed salute.

IV

Early the next morning, as the mist burned off the jungle canopy, the two men sat in the captain’s hooch. A field desk was between them. On it, beside a stack of letters Hartroy had written through the night, lay the incriminating papers found on the spy. Duc, who had spent the night unguarded in an empty supply tent, was smoking a cigarette.

"Mr. Duc," Captain Hartroy began, "you are probably wondering how I recognized you."

"I have not allowed myself to wonder, Captain," the prisoner said with quiet dignity.

"I want you to know. The story goes back to the winter of '68. You were a 'Kit Carson Scout'—a former NVA soldier working with American forces. You were brave, and you were trusted. Then, to the shock of your advisors, you deserted. Weeks later, you were captured in a firefight, recognized, and sentenced to death as a traitor. While awaiting execution, you were held in a steel shipping container on the edge of the airfield at Pleiku."

"Yes," Duc said, tapping the ash from his cigarette with his little finger, his eyes on the floor. "Pleiku."

"One night," Hartroy continued, "a young PFC, exhausted from a three-day patrol, was put on guard. He sat on an ammo crate inside the container, his rifle across his lap. His orders were to shoot you if you so much as stood up."

"But if I asked to stand, he was to call the sergeant of the guard."

"Yes. As the long, silent hours passed, the young soldier committed a crime that carried its own death sentence. He fell asleep at his post."

"You did."

"What! You knew?" The captain stood, his face flushed, pacing the small tent. His gray eyes had lost their coldness; they were filled with a terrible softness.

"I knew you the moment you leveled your pistol at me," the spy said, his voice unchanged. "In the circumstances, it seemed improper to mention it. I am a spy. I did not wish to appear to be a beggar."

The captain stopped, facing his prisoner, his voice thick with emotion. "Mr. Duc, whatever your cause, you saved my life at the cost of your own. Until yesterday, I thought you were dead. I thought they had executed you, the fate I deserved. You could have simply taken my rifle, killed me, and walked away. But you showed... a divine compassion. You saw how tired I was. You let me sleep. And when you heard the relief guard approaching, you gently shook me awake."

The captain’s voice broke. He slumped back into his chair, buried his face in his arms, and sobbed, his shoulders shaking. The only other sound was the distant whine of a helicopter.

Suddenly, a voice barked from outside. "Sergeant, get the detail formed up! On the double!"

The captain jerked his head up, his face pale and wet with tears. "I should have confessed," he rasped. "I should have told them what you did. It might have earned you a pardon. I tried, a hundred times, but I was a coward. I was ashamed. And then my division was moved north, and I never heard what happened."

"It is of no consequence," Duc said, his gaze steady. "I escaped. I returned to my people. Before I left your side, I had already requested to be released, because my convictions had changed. I was answered with punishment."

"But if I had faced that punishment," Hartroy whispered, "if you had not given me the life I took without thanks, you would not be here now, in the shadow of death."

The prisoner started slightly, a flicker of surprise in his eyes. At that moment, a young lieutenant appeared at the tent flap and saluted. "Sir, the firing squad is formed."

Captain Hartroy regained his composure. He stood and faced the officer. "Lieutenant, have Captain Graham assume command. This man is an enemy agent. He is to be shot by firing squad outside the wire, in full view of the company. He will accompany you. He is to be unbound and unguarded."

As the lieutenant waited, the two men in the tent rose. They did not bow or shake hands. They simply looked at one another for a long moment, a silent acknowledgment of a debt that could only be paid in one currency. Duc then turned and walked out of the tent.

Half an hour later, a Vietnamese woman washing pots behind the mess tent was so startled by a volley of M16 fire from beyond the wire that she dropped a kettle into the fire. In her fright, and in the hissing of the water on the embers, she did not hear the single, heavier thump of a .45 pistol from inside the captain's hooch, with which Ray Hartroy renounced the life that his conscience would no longer allow him to keep.

In accordance with the note he left for his successor, he was buried as the spy had been, without military honors. And there, in the deep green silence of a jungle that has forgotten the war, the two men sleep in unmarked graves.

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