Casca 11: The Legionnaire (17 page)

During the night, two squads from the 2nd BEP made it to Isabelle. Leading them was Lieutenant Villon. Meeting Lange
r and the rest of the crew, he found that instead of being welcomed, they wished he and the others had stayed where it was safe. Villon shook his young head. "Do you think that I am going to miss out on what is promising to be the greatest feat of French arms since World War One?" There was no reply to a question like that, so they let it slide as Hermann, asserting his rank as top non-com, took Villon aside to give him a briefing on what was taking place and to show him around the camp. It didn't take long for the lieutenant to understand what they'd meant by staying where it was safe, but all his life he had wished for the chance to prove himself in a desperate battle. Now he had that chance and he would not fail himself or France. There were more important things in life than dying.

During successive nights, several more drops came in to bring volunteers from the 3rd and 5th REI, most of whom had never made a parachute jump before and never would again. A noble exercise in futility.

Thich watched the drops. They were of no importance. It only added more men to the bag and made their inevitable triumph that much greater. Everything was going according to plan. For the next month, the Viet Minh kept unceasing pressure on the defenders with constant artillery shelling and attacks by the infantry. And every day they drew closer to the main line of resistance. One by one the outposts fell, and this time they were kept, bringing them that much nearer to victory over the hated colonialists.

Giap called Thich to him. Offering his old friend a seat, he poured hot tea, which they sipped with obvious relish. "Comrade Thich. It is nearly done. I have made my decision. The last assault will begin tomorrow and shall not end until all of those below us are killed or taken prisoner. We have them now but if we delay much longer we will lose our advantage. As it stands now, I know that the Americans are not going to send their bombers against us. But, if we wait, the French may find friends in the outside world who admire their foolish stubbornness and force the western powers into sending aid. That must not happen. In addition, our own supplies are running low and we have lost too many men to continue this rate of attrition indefinitely. We must smash them and do it now. I have made another decision and that is that you will have the honor of being the one to destroy the last French outpost, Isabelle. That will be our final objective. Perhaps they will give it up when the main camp falls, but who can tell how these illogical Legionnaires will respond? In any event, it will be you who will be responsible for reducing their last outpost and either killing them or accepting their surrender. I give you this as reward for your years of faithful and unswerving loyalty to me and our great cause. "

Thich was overwhelmed by the honor. To be the one who received the final glory of their campaign was almost too great an honor for him to accept, but he forced himself to. "I promise you, Comrade General, that all will be as you wish, even to the cost of my own life, which I have always been ready to give in our cause."

Giap finished his tea, poured one more cup and looked at Thich 's crippled leg. "Your wound will not hinder you in this, will it?"

Thich rose from his seat and bowed. "Nothing will stop me from achieving that which you desire. I swear it by my ancestors."

Giap gave him permission to withdraw. Thich left, going immediately down the side of the mountain. He took the trenches and trails leading to the south, where he could get a look at his new objective, Isabelle! From an artillery spotter's position, he took over the powerful glasses on their tripod to examine the enemy fortification. Slowly he scanned the camp. It was a quiet time now. The men were resting, regrouping, and having their wounded and dead taken care of while preparing for the next attack. He stopped his glasses. There was a familiar form in the lenses. Focusing a bit more, he could tell it was the same giant Legionnaire he had seen several times before. What was it the man was doing? It looked as if he was passing around a couple of magnums of champagne and eating roast chicken. Where could he have gotten champagne? The giant handed the bottle to another man wearing an American camouflage jacket and the green French trousers of the Paratroopers. He too looked familiar. There was something about him that bothered Thich and frightened him a little. He'd seen him before but he wasn't close enough to make out the man's features, and Thich wasn't really sure he wanted to. A thought passed through his mind and was quickly sent back where it came from. What he was thinking was completely impossible, Still, he didn't like the look of the man and made a mental note to get a closer look at him when the camp fell.

That night, in the early hours after midnight, the final assault phase began. Preceded by massive artillery barrages on all remaining positions, the Viets attacked. Descending in the wake of their heavy guns, they swept over French placements and then were thrown out of them. Once, twice, three times in an hour, a bunker would be taken and lost. The Legionnaires fought like madmen, taking all the Viet Minh could throw at them, then coming back for more. But with each counterattack there were less of them. One by one bunkers fell into the hands of the Viet Minh and at last were kept. The French withdrew into a tighter circle around the main headquarters, until they were cut off even from the airstrip. But that made no difference. Nothing could get in or out anyway. The field was peppered with shell holes and covered by heavy antiaircraft and machine gun fire.

All that night and the next day, the attacks continued without interruption. It was the only thing Langer had seen that came close to the intensity of the attacks in Russia. Gus raged like a madman in his glory, leaping from one place to another, wherever the fighting was heaviest. By daybreak of May 6, only Isabelle and a small area around the headquarters was still in French hands. The Viets held everything else. The fighting continued until even the Viet Minh, with their superior numbers, were forced to stop and rest. The attack began again that night and lasted all through the next day. Five thousand men on both sides died in those hours. It was now only a matter of a few hours at most until they would finally make their last full scale assault. Then it would all be over. From Isabelle, there wasn't much they could do to help those at the headquarters. Secret papers were already being burned, and charges set off on radios and what stocks of ammunition they had left. Langer wished they had some of that ammo at Isabelle. The last few days airdrops had been trying to get in. Most of them were beaten off by the Viet Ack Ack and what drops were made usually landed in places held by the enemy. They were running low on everything.

At dusk, smoke covered most of the valley from burning dumps and bunkers. Another assault by a group of Viet sappers hit the north wall of Isabelle. Covered by machine gun fire the sappers exploded their charges and themselves in an attempt to breach a barrier of concertina wire. Hermann blew the heads off of two of them before they could set off their charges. He saw Gus hunched over to avoid the fire from an RPD raking the top of his shoulder-high sandbagged wall. Hermann hated the man. He knew that they were going to die and he was determined to make certain of one thing. Gus and the three men with him were not going to outlive him. Raising his submachine gun, he sighted at the back of the object of so much of his misery. He wanted to see Gus's face when he killed him, the same way he had seen his woman's. “Beidemann!" he screamed out, sighting at the broad figure. Gus looked up as Hermann pulled the trigger on the submachine gun. Click! The damned thing was empty.

Hermann threw it to the ground.

Gus called back amiably, "Catch." Without thinking Hermann reached out his hands in time to feel the weight of a grenade in them. Gus had been holding the grenade with the pin drawn waiting for the next attackers to come in range. Stupidly, Hermann looked down at the small bomb in his hands. The last thought he had before the grenade blew off his arms and part of his face was:
The son of a bitch did it to me again!

Gus laughed and told Xuan who had joined him at the wall to get him some more ammo. Calling to Langer, he chortled, "Did you see the look on his face. The shit knew he'd screwed up again. God it was beautiful." Langer hadn't seen the look on Hermann 's face though he wished he had.

They went back to the job at hand killing thirty Viets trying to leap over the barbed wire. They died there, hanging on the stands. Langer knew that their bodies would serve the Viet Minh later as small bridges which more of them would cross over. Nothing to be done about that.

Giap ordered his men to push harder. The last two positions had to fall, and soon. Thich had moved to where he could better control the attack on Isabelle, taking up resid
ence in a reinforced trench where he could personally direct the assault. He would give Giap his last victory.

At midnight, Giap's Viet Minh forces began the last move of the uneven chess game. Artillery smashed men into bloody mud, until only remnants of boots and burned clothing remained. Others were buried alive as bunkers and trenches caved in on them. Still the French held out. Thich was furious that his men had not been able to reduce Isabelle. From a position of about two hundred meters from its sandbagged walls, he urged his men on. Wave after wave threw themselves at the wire only to be met once more by fanatical resistance. They fought men who believed themselves already dead and had no fear of dying.

Several times Thich saw the giant paratrooper fighting with such reckless abandon that he had to admire him.

Lieutenant Villon came to the four men on the north wall. "I have had orders from headquarters. Colonel De Castries says that anyone who wants to try a breakout can. Headquarters will surrender tomorrow. They are going to continue fighting the rest of the night to give those who wish a chance to break out. This has to be each man's decision. From the Viet Minh we have had a promise that all who surrender will be well cared for and no reprisals taken. Perhaps it is true. This battle is through. Now think about what you wish to do and let me know. At 0500 hours all the men at headquarters and Isabelle still capable of firing a weapon will cut loose to call attention away from those of you who choose to take your chances in the jungle. "

Langer wiped his eyes with the back of a filthy and bloody hand and asked, "What are you going to do, Lieutenant?"

Villon smiled, his young face many years older than it had been only a few months before. Ignoring the scream of a one hundred five shell passing overhead, he grinned bleakly and answered, "That is something that I will say only after you have made your choice. What I do or choose not to do should have no effect on your decision. Make up your own minds. I'll do the same for myself. Do it fast, we don't have much time left." Then he left them to decide among themselves.

Langer knew what Villon was going to do. He was going to remain behind and fight to the end. He was a regular officer of France, and too many times in the past the armies of France had lain down their arms and been marched off to POW camps. This was not any longer a matter of war, but one of pride. Langer had seen it many times before. He already knew that in this battle alone several officers had shot themselves rather than surrender. Even Colonel Piroth had killed himself when he had at last admitted that his artillery was no match for the Viets and that his overestimation of his capabilities had led to much of the death that surrounded him.

Langer hunched over and lit a Gauloise, cupping his hand to keep the flame of the match from being seen. He passed it around for each to take a drag from it.

"Well, what's it going to be? Do we stay here or take our chances on breaking out? I think we should let Xuan speak first. What do you think we should do, Xuan?"

The small Vietnamese took the last drag from the smoke and butted it out on the side of a sandbag. He felt good. These men from other lands had accepted him as one of their own.

A tracer from a sniper's rifle flamed overhead searching for soft flesh to enter.

"It is possible the Viet Minh will honor their word to you. They wish to present a good image to the rest of the world. If you surrender I think that most of you will live. For us of the Indigene it will be a different matter. To them we are traitors and will be treated as such. I am going to try to escape, but I think you should surrender."

Langer appreciated the little man's thoughts. He turned to Gus. "And you? What do you want to do?"

Gus shifted his buttocks sideways on the .50 caliber ammo can he was sitting on and farted. "They didn't get me in Russia and they're not going to get me now. I say we go for it. "

Dominic didn't really have to be asked; he just nodded his head in agreement with Gus. Langer cleared his throat. "That's it then. We all go out together with Xuan, the same way we came in."

Langer sent Xuan to Lieutenant Villon with their decision. It was 0400 hours now. They would go out in an hour.

Giap was walking through the rubble of Claudine. Only thirty yards away were the last of the main camp's defenders. All around him were bodies, many locked together in the lover's grip of death. Smoke from fires cast a mist over the scene, wavering and shifting with the rattle of small arms fire. The artillery would not begin again until he had left the vicinity. He was much too valuable to be exposed to any unnecessary risks. He had to admire his enemy, though he didn't understand what drove them to resist with such tenacity. A soldier has to give his enemy his dues, if he has fought well. For the small general it was nearly beyond belief that they had resisted him for so long. Much of the fortifications he was walking through had been built by the two thousand Viet Minh soldiers that had been taken prisoner by the French. Most of them had by now been returned to his ranks and were in action once more. It was nearly impossible to. believe, but his army had received over twenty thousand casualties, nearly twice the total number of the defenders. They were the enemy but they were also worthy of respect. Weary of the slaughter but glad it was now almost at an end, he left the camp to return to his own headquarters. In the morning it would all be over.

Thich stayed where he was, in a trench with his radio operator. His last attack had been beaten off and now he had reports that something was taking place in the trenches of Isabelle. He wondered what the French thought they could possibly do at this late moment? A burst of .50 caliber machine gun fire nearly took his face off. The French had opened up with everything they had, firing off their ammunition with complete disregard, where only minutes before they had been saving every round. Why?

His answer came when, over the top of the sandbagged wall surrounding the camp, small parties of men crawled, ran, and leaped over barbed wire and bodies. It was so unexpected that at first Thich thought it was a counterattack as did most of his men. They were caught completely by surprise. Thich raised up to take a better look and saw a huge shadow before him, a submachine gun chopping his radio operator to pieces and killing the other men of the squad assigned to protect him. The legionnaires crashed into the far end of the trench, heaving grenades and killing everything that moved. Thich lay face down in the trench playing dead as the huge body moved toward him, followed by the others. Langer fired short three and four round bursts from his Mats 49 as Xuan,
Dominic, and Gus looked for their next line of escape. Langer stepped on a body. Thich groaned involuntarily at the sudden heavy weight on his wounded leg.

A hand grabbed him by the hair, jerking him around so his face could be seen in the light of the now glowing magnesium flares being sent up in response to the French actions. Thich's heart jerked in fear as he saw a grim scar faced man looking down at him. The barrel of his submachine gun was aimed right under his nose. A terrible crushing weight grasped his chest with cold hands He was seeing a dead man, a spirit come back to take him. That was the fascination he'd had for this strange man. This was his death coming for him and he had already killed the spirit once. His heart skipped two beats in a row then trying to regain its normal beat, a weak spot in the side gave way. A massive myocardial infraction was created in the wall of his heart, filling the cavity of his chest with blood. He was dying! The weight on his chest wouldn't go away, but the fear at the front of his mind was much worse. In the distance he heard the whisper of the
Than Tien
, the spirits of the mountains, calling to him. They had come to take him up into the dark hills of Dien Bien Phu. He died then.

Langer let the limp body fall. Gus squeezed off a couple of more rounds before commenting, "The son of a bitch looks like he died of fright. Be glad that ugly face of yours doesn't have the same effect on women or you'd never get laid."

Langer ignored Gus's remarks. They didn't have time for that. The covering fire from the French position was growing weaker; they were running out of ammunition. "Come on! If we don't move now we never will."

They followed him out and over the side of the trench. Hunched over, they ran through the dark, stumbling and cursing, killing anyone in their way. In less time than it would take to tell of it, they broke free of the last of the camp's defenses and were in the open, racing for the trees to the west. There was no one firing at them. All of the Viets had advanced in closer to the camps, which were still spending their last rounds to aid in the escape of a few of their comrades. By the time they got into the cover of the trees, chests pounding and dry mouthed, the firing below had faded to almost nil. Only twenty minutes had, passed since they'd gone over the wall.

Resting only a few minutes, they began to move up the side of the mountain, trying to be as quiet as possible. There were still some Viets in the vicinity. As they climbed, the sun rose on the predawn of the eighth of May. The tri-color of France was still flying over the main camp to the north. The Viet Minh hadn't replaced it yet with their own red and gold starred insignia.

The escapees could have gone on, but they had to wait and see what happened to their friends at Isabelle. It along with the main camp was still holding.

They found places in the brush to conceal themselves. From their positions on the side of the mountain they had a clear view of the valley.

At headquarters Colonel De Castries sent a signal by wireless to the Viet Minh. At 1730 hours his forces in the main camp would cease firing. De Castries was not going to offer the Viets his formal surrender. Instead he would just stop resisting, a small point of honor which meant nothing to either the vanquished or the victor, the results were the same. Major Grauwin gave out Red Cross armbands to his staff to identify them as medical personnel, in the hope that they would be permitted to keep taking care of their wounded. From their vantage point, Langer and his friends
finally saw the tricolor hauled down as a party of Viet Minh soldiers went into the command bunker and came out with De Castries and his staff as prisoners. The Viets were amazed at how many French had survived their onslaught. From the banks of the Nam Yum River several thousand men came out to give up their arms. General Giap was relieved that he had not had to give the order to go in after them. But the main camp was his. Now all that remained was Isabelle.

Lieutenant Villon smoked his last cigarette. Around him were all the able bodied men who had chosen to stay. With them were the walking wounded. The wounded who could not walk had been moved back to the south wall. All the rest were with him waiting. In their weapons were their last bullets. Without being ordered to, the remaining Legionnaires clicked their bayonets onto the barrels of their rifles. Those with automatic weapons threw them down and went to search for the rifles of fallen comrades. The camp was finished, their radio destroyed and headquarters already in the hands of the enemy. Standing up, Villon pointed his steel tipped rifle in the direction of the enemy. "Avancez, la legion, avancez! Avec la bai
onnette. . . ." The Legion responded to the call and hurled themselves over their own wire at the stunned enemy. They ran uncaring into a barrage of machine gun fire No man stopped or hesitated. Villon died as he withdrew his blade from the stomach of a Viet captain. Three hundred men went out in that last wild bayonet attack. The farthest any of them got was one hundred meters. All died.
Vive la mort, vive l'etranger
. . .

Those on the hill turned away from the sight. Each had a strange feeling that they had been left out of something important. Langer wiped tears from his eyes as did the others, and Xuan wept freely until Langer touched his shoulder, saying, "It's not over yet. You'll be needed later. Now let's get out of here. There's nothing we can do. It's too late for them."

Two days later they were picked up by a patrolling helicopter and taken to Hanoi. Over the next few days more of the escapees from Isabelle began to show up. Less than seventy of the twelve thousand men who had fought made it back. Now they would wait to see what the next gambit would be. For the survivors there would be no more battles. For them the war in Indochina was over.

Four months later Gus and Dominic followed Langer on board ship. They were going back to North Africa. With them were the other survivors of Dien Bien Phu. The war was over. Soon those who had been taken prisoner would be repatriated and would join them. The French were through in Asia, but if there was any solace to be had from the desperate battle of Dien Bien Phu, it was that the communists were not going to get the whole pie. The Geneva conference awarded the Viet Minh the whole of Tonkin, which would come to be known as North Vietnam. Annam and Cochin China were also granted independence; and Cambodia and Laos were demilitarized and placed under international supervision. Langer knew that the communist pigs were not through feeding. In time they would go after the rest of the pie. He wondered if he would be back here for the next round.

At the moment they were going home to Sidi bel Abbes and Sidi Slimane. Dominic leaned over the railing watching the butt of Langer's cigarette as it hissed out on the waters of the Tonkin Gulf. Gus had left them to find something to eat, and Langer was thinking about the future that awaited him. Now what? He knew there was trouble in Algeria and Morocco. The Legion was needed closer to home. Another place, another war. Endless, endless war. And Time. Would it never end for Casca, the Eternal Mercenary?