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There’s a camp near Bau Don. It’s a long hike. We can make it in a day if we start very early tomorrow.”
    “We’ve already talked about it,” one of the men told him. “There’s nothing else we can do. We’ll go north. But tonight the moon is empty. We can’t travel tomorrow. Right after the empty moon, it’s bad luck to start a journey. We just lost another one, thanks to bad luck.”
    “The malaria doesn’t come from bad luck or spiteful gods. It’s caused by living creatures too small to see, as venomous as a snake, but smaller than a speck of dust. We call these creatures microbes.
    “Young brothers, let this sink into your ears. We all die. Do you want to die at the hands of a microbe? The ultimate victory will be composed of many defeats. Do you want to be defeated by a microbe? The sooner we go, the better.”
    They only looked at him as if they couldn’t understand him. Probably many of them couldn’t, coming from so far upriver, a region of different dialects. “We’ll think about it,” the man said.
    While they talked among themselves, Trung stood aside and looked away. The same man came and touched his arm. “We’ll go tomorrow.”
    “If that’s your decision,” Trung said, “then good.”
    The whole group had stayed up all the previous night with their sick comrade. Everyone was tired. There was nothing to do, so they dispatched a few sentries and the rest hung around the barracks. Trung sat down against the wall. He noticed flattened cigarette packs covering leaks all over the thatched ceiling. Several gaunt cats skulked around eating bits of garbage from the floor.
    One of the guerrillas, a one-eyed youngster, brought in an armload of green coconuts. He pointed to his chest. “My Mosa,” he told Trung in some sort of mountain tongue. “My name ,” another corrected him. “My name Mosa,” he said, turning his head sideways to center Trung in his one functioning eye. He smiled: his teeth, in the way of these mountain tribes, had been filed down flat. With a machete half as large as his own leg he scalped the tops of the coconuts. They drank the milk and scraped at the floppy translucent meat with shards from the shell.
    The men offered him a cot and even gave him a small pillow. They arranged themselves in a bivouac tableau: Outside a man stood sentry; inside five men played cards while one kibitzed and another snored nearby. Trung tried to nap, but he couldn’t sleep. He imagined they spent many days like this. The wind died off outside. He could hear the swollen river rubbing along the banks. The day grew dark. The sentries abandoned their outposts upriver and came in for the evening meal. Altogether there didn’t seem to be more than fifteen of these quiet, emaciated men strung along this part of the Van Co Dong, protecting themselves from all who might come, they didn’t care who, and they didn’t seem to realize no one was coming.
    They kept the cook-fire smoldering all night to drive away the mosquitoes. Trung slept with his bandanna over his nose and mouth. The others didn’t seem to mind the fumes.
    The rain came long after dark. The men started stowing their gear in leak-free spots, and they all rearranged themselves, repeating, “Move it! Move it!” They lay back in their new positions while the rain strung itself down all around them through the roof. Nobody talked because of the watery noise. By the light of candles Trung saw their faces staring out at nothing. But their spirits rose. There was singing and laughter. They were good boys. They were only doing whatever came along to be done. As the rain got harder, they stuck more flattened cigarette packs here and there in the ceiling.
    At midnight four dogs snuck in. Trung was the only one awake. He aimed his flashlight around as they prowled silently. When its beam hit them, they bolted out the open doorway. The light cut through the cook-smoke and played over the men and boys sleeping in groups of two or three.