Ghost Mountain and the Train to Nowhere

 

Towards the end of my tour of duty in Qui Nhon, Republic of South Vietnam, I began to push the envelope and take unnecessary risks.  One of those was to explore the dark back alleys on the outskirts of the city where our Military Police patrols usually didn’t go. Fortunately, I survived myself and lived to tell this story.

It was a dark night as we edged our quarter-ton down an alley just wide enough to slip through.  On one side we encountered hooch, after hooch, made of tin, recycled plywood and corrugated steel.  On the other was barbed wire, sandbags and the occasional ARVN (Army Republic of Vietnam) fighting position.  It was just about dawn.  Fog and mist combined with feint light to create an eerie sense of foreboding.

Up ahead a shadowy figure began to emerge, as we moved ever so slowly, closer and closer.  “What the hell is that,” I asked. “Damned if I know,” my driver responded. It wasn’t moving so we pressed on.  As we got nearer, it began to take shape. It appeared to be a 19^th century steam locomotive, gradually revealing itself from the darkness and mist. It was on a single strand of side track, standing alone, a transportation monument to a time gone by. We had apparently taken an alley which led to Qui Nhon’s railhead.

The rising sun began to shine through the early morning fog and ever so slowly, in the distance, Vung Chua mountain began to emerge.  It was shrouded in mist and haze and seemed to gaze down upon us in the city below.

Vung Chua was known to the locals as Ghost Mountain and this early morning it truly lived up to its name.  Mysterious and beautiful.  So regal when compared to the filth of Qui Nhon below.  As we continued down through the railhead, I thought of my wife, Betsy, back home and wished somehow I could share this moment with her.

Many years later, a crew member from a flight that took aerial photographs of Qui Nhon back in the day, saw an e-mail of mine which mentioned coming across that old locomotive.  He had a photograph of that very alley and the old steam engine therein.  What an amazing confluence of events.  When I look at that photograph I can’t help but ask myself, “What were you thinking?”  Other alley adventures didn’t go quite so well as this exploratory patrol; but God had other plans for me.  Despite almost being shot on one occasion and being surrounded by anti-American agitators on another, He reached down and pulled me out of the quagmire that was Qui Nhon, South Vietnam.

As I reflect back on Ghost Mountain and that train to nowhere, I remain eternally grateful.