Chapter 1
The chapter opens on the rain‑soaked banks of the Ya Crong Poco river, where the Missing‑in‑Action Remains‑Gathering Team, led by Kien, finally arrives after a grueling fifty‑kilometre trek in a battered Russian ZIL truck. The driver sleeps in the cab, while Kien climbs into a hammock strung between the cab and tailgate. Midnight rain leaks through a hole‑riddled tarpaulin onto the plastic sheets covering rows of dead soldiers, and Kien drifts half‑asleep, haunted by the perpetual sounds of the jungle and the distant howls of the “Jungle of Screaming Souls.”
A flashback reveals that in the dry season of 1969 Kien’s 27th Battalion was surrounded on the same battlefield. Ten men survived a night of napalm, helicopter gunships, and a commander who blew his own head off. Kien recalls blood‑splattered clearings, the corpses that turned the flood‑season marsh to rust‑colored sludge, and his own wound‑filled crawl from the bank. The area earned its name from the countless wandering souls that allegedly whisper at night.
Later, Kien remembers the nearby abandoned Leprosy Village, burned by his regiment, and the grotesque incident where “Lofty” Thinh killed an orang‑utan and later died, leaving Kien as the sole survivor of that platoon.
In 1974, Kien’s scout squad secretly erected an altar beside the creek, lighting incense for the lost 27th Battalion. The platoon spent rainy‑season days hunting, fishing, and playing cards. The card deck becomes a talisman; each member (Tu, Thanh, Van, etc.) is introduced, and their fates—Van burned in a T‑54, Thanh killed at Bong bridge, Tu dying after the Sa Gi Gul airport encounter—are recounted. Before the war’s end, Tu gives Kien the deck as a lucky charm.
The chapter shifts to a cold night when Kien meets “Rattling” Can by the stream. Can, terrified of a pending officer‑training course, confesses his plan to desert, asks Kien to cover for him, and ultimately attempts to flee. Kien initially refuses, then chases after Can in the rain, only to find him dead—his skeleton mutilated and scavenged by crows. The military police later label him a turncoat.
Kien’s conversation with the truck driver, Tran Son, reveals the driver’s belief that the dead soldiers cannot be comforted, that peace is a “tree that thrives on blood,” and that both men are haunted by endless war memories.
A separate violent episode is narrated: commandos capture three farm girls near a farmhouse, torture them, and the scouts are forced to dig a grave for the girls and the commandos. Kien interrogates the commandos, learns the girls were offered to a “Water Spirit,” and ultimately executes the four commandos after a grim exchange over the girls’ bra.
The narrative then follows Kien’s internal struggle with writing. He describes obsessive drafting, endless revisions, and the feeling that his fictional heroes disintegrate on the page. He reflects on his duty to document the war, his perceived heavenly mission, and the weight of his past.
Finally, Kien recalls a quiet encounter years later with Lan, the daughter of his former godmother Lanh, at Doi Mo hamlet. She reveals her family’s tragic losses, offers Kien a place to return, and Kien promises to remember her. The chapter ends with Kien’s contemplation of his path forward, the lingering ghosts of the jungle, and his resolve to survive and write.