Clifford Wilkes, as a deserter in Saigon, came to feel himself very much a part of Vietnamese culture, and lived for years with Lanh, a bar girl, speaking Vietnamese with her almost exclusively. At the last hour of helicopter evacuation flights from the U. S. embassy, Cliff decides they must leave, as neither of them would be welcomed by the coming communist regime. Lanh is ethnically Vietnamese, but as an orphan who fell into the life of bar girl and prostitute, surviving by consorting with American soldiers, she would likely be captured, publicly shamed, then put to hard labor — if not executed. Cliff, as an American soldier who deserted but did little to support "the other side," beyond producing a few articles which a working journalist sent on to a leftist publication in San Francisco, expects no better treatment than Lanh.

When the two get to the...