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mud and blood, offering no further resistance. They stood still and silent, shuffling their feet but indifferent to questions.
    "Where are the three girls?" he asked calmly.
    No answer.
    "Well, where are they? If they're still alive, you might live."
    The biggest of the four commandos, his left eye torn away by a bullet, looked over at Kien with his good eye. Blood and mud ran down his cheeks. He laughed scornfully, showing white teeth.
    "The girls? We sacrificed them to the Water Spirit, sir. We used their bodies as an offering.They cried and carried on like crazy."
    Kien's scouts drew their bayonets. Kien held them back.
    "Stop! Don't. Perhaps these guys might also want to cry like crazy as the girls did before they died. They won't want to die immediately, will they?"
    "Motherfucker! Kill us if you like!" another of them shouted."Look at my hands, look,red from the bitches'blood!"
    "Shut up!" Kien said. "Don't worry, we'll do as you wish. I just want to know something. You came here to track us, the regular army, right? So why attack them? Why kill three young girls so brutally?"
    No answer.
    Kien cursed himself for wasting his time on them. Worse, he'd even been polite.
    He ordered them to dig their own graves.
    The four of them dug a common grave, digging quickly, enthusiastically, as though they were on contract.
    "It doesn't have to be so deep, it's just for lying down in so that arms and legs won't show," said Kien. "And hurry up! It'll soon be dark."
    Each of the four had a shovel, the usual collapsible multipurpose sharp tools. They were all healthy, muscled men. They dug violently, digging, scooping, throwing. The hole widened, deepened, then began to fill with reddish water.
    "That's enough, get out!" Kien ordered. He explained: "You have to get out before you throw in the bodies of your three friends.You don't want to leave them to stink up the forest, do you?"
    They asked permission to wash and have a last cigarette. Kien agreed, but his troops were not satisfied.
    One said, "Why string it out? Give them some bronze candy!" It was the troops' slang for bullets.
    "I can't stand these four assholes either," said Kien. "They'll be treated like dogs before they die, but there's something I have to know."
    The four southern commandos went down to the stream and washed their hands slowly, carefully. They also washed the blood from their uniforms, then returned.
    "Please have a cigarette, sir!" said the youngest of them, a round-faced, pale-skinned boy who spoke with a sweet northern accent. He politely offered the Rubi cigarette in cupped hands to Kien.
    "Keep it!" Kien waved him away. "Offer it to your pals when you're under the ground."
    The young commando sighed, then looked imploringly at Kien, lowering his voice: "Sir, the one who was impolite to you is our commander.Yes, he's a lieutenant."
    "Is he? Well, he'll just be an ordinary soldier below ground. Not your commander, so forget it, don't worry."
    "Please don't kill me," the young man said."I didn't rape any of those girls. I didn't stab them even once. I swear I didn't. I'm a Catholic."
    "You don't have to swear to me. Get back in line!" Kien replied.
    But the young man, tears running down his cheeks, kneeled down in front of Kien. "Please take pity on me, sir, I'm still so young, sir. I have an old mother. I'm going to get married. We love each other. I beg you!"
    Trembling, he took a leather purse from his pocket and from it produced a small colored photograph which he placed in Kien's hands. Kien held the photo, looking at it. A young girl wearing a black swimsuit stood with her back to the sea. She smiled happily, her wavy hair surrounding her face and covering her shoulders. She held an ice-cream cone in one hand and waved with the other. A tiny, graceful wave from a girl so beautiful that he could look at her forever. Kien wiped the raindrops from the photo and handed it back to the boy.
    "She's beautiful. Nice photo. Put it away or it'll get wet."
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