Casca 11: The Legionnaire (4 page)

Langer came up to the clearing with his squad. Seeing that Perault was pinned down, he moved to the right, circling around the clearing. From the return fire, he knew there were only a few of them out there. Perault gave him covering fire, each side now keeping the other in place. The Viet blocking force knew what was going to happen but they didn't give an inch. They stood their ground, knowing that each second they held up the French gave their comrades time in which to escape or for aid to come to them. A Viet Minh battalion was dug in only four kilometers away, near the Bach Su Valley.

Flanking the three surviving Viets was no problem. They weren't able to do much more than just stay where they were and return fire at those across the clearing. Langer and his squad came up behind them and finished them off. During all this time, the rest of the platoon had moved up to join Perault, with them Gus, his 57mm rifle dangling from his left hand. Perault shouted for Langer to get on the trail as he was already in the lead.

Thich knew what was happening behind him. He had a lead of five hundred meters now and knew how to gain more. He ordered five more of his men to halt and dig in. Each second they fought gave him more of a chance to survive. He was in his mind and theirs, of infinitely more importance than they were. Ten lives or ten thousand were not worth the loss of his. His mind was like a computer, already analyzing the possibilities, considering the odds on each action. Why were the French at that spot at that time? Accident, coincidence, or were they waiting for him?

Heart pounding in his chest, he took the lead, forcing his way through thick brush and vines that attempted to gouge out his eyes and rip his clothes from his body. He set the pace and any that fell behind would not be helped. He had to make it just a few more kilometers to where he knew the outposts of the 27th Peoples Battalion would give him protection.

Too soon he heard the sounds of violent death; the unmistakable whooshing of the recoilless rifle accompanied by the staccato chatter of submachine gun fire that meant the five men he had left behind had not slowed the pursuers up very much, if at all.

Gus had caught up with Langer at the next block. His 57mm rifle had taken the enemy out with one round, though he did take time enough to kick out the brains of one of the Viets who was not yet dead but was merely lying there with his left arm torn off at the shoulder. One of Gus's heavy combat boots ended the man's agony.

Another five were sent out, this time with orders to keep separated from each other and to work as snipers. They were to delay, and if possible, rather than kill, make shots that wounded. Wounded men would slow up the French more than dead ones.

With Gus and Langer were seven others who had managed to keep up with their pace. The rest were up dragging behind or taking care of the four wounded they had acquired during the ambush. These were already being taken out to a clearing where helicopters were supposed to have extricated all of them from the ambush. Now only the wounded would be taken back to the field hospital at Hanoi.

Lim Hoah was proud of his rank of sergeant. To be a
Trung si
after only two years' service was not a small thing of honor. He had never been successful in the life left them by the French, but in the great Army of Liberation led by Father Ho, he had found a cause and a reason for being. Perhaps that reason would be realized completely at this point in time. Or perhaps he was to die. But what glorious things would come to pass if his death could bring the defeat of the French? He was ready to do anything that would save Thich.

In another culture he would have gone to his death in the arena as food for the lions, to proclaim his faith. Martyrs are not really that rare. But they are all dangerous especially when they have made up their minds to kill someone else while giving up their own lives. Hoah placed his four men in careful spots where they would have clear fields of fire, as clear as the terrain permitted, and gave them clear orders that no one was to leave his place on pain of death. If they left, then he would kill them. This was their chance to do something with great meaning for the cause of the liberation. Here they would fight and save thousands of their countrymen and comrades from death. If Thich were not captured, but merely killed, the loss of his knowledge would set them back many months if not years, during which thousands more would die.

Hoah selected a place for himself where he had good cover by a fallen log of teakwood. Between its limbs he would be able to see all, and if the
Thanh Tien
(the old gods of the mountains) were kind, then he would be the last of his countrymen at this place to die in battle against the hated oppressor.
Vi Dan Chien Dau!
The slogan of "We Fight For The People" was the last thought in his mind. He was not the last to die but the first. A wild round from Gus's tube had missed its target, ricocheting off a tree, sending a white phosphorous round straight into the trunk of the tree where Hoah was waiting.

Without the example of Hoah, and his weapon at their backs, three of the other Viets decided to give up. One other comrade had gone to join Hoah and his ancestors when his rifle jammed and he tried to bayonet the scar faced caporal. It was pathetic to watch as the Legionnaire tore the rifle from their comrade's hands, then twisted his head so that he would always look from whence he came. They had thrown their weapons down and risen from their places of concealment, ready to cooperate.

Thich had stopped for a breather on the crest of a rise in the trail, a thousand meters farther down from the place where he had left Hoah to set up the final delaying action. He had been watching when the white phosphorous shell incinerated Hoah. Thich had never liked him very much anyway. The man was a fanatic and they were always tricky to deal with.

At a break through the trees, he refocused his binoculars and zeroed in on his pursuers. The man in obvious authority was not an officer but a non
-com. He thanked the gods for the Germans who made such good lenses. He was able to bring the man's face into focus. It was one he would not forget. The color of the eyes was not clear, but there was a scar on his face, and the set of the strong, stocky body had a characteristic to it that he would remember if ever they met again.

Langer felt a chill. He had been alive too long not to know when he was being watched. Turning his body slowly, he faced up the trail toward the ridge. A sparkle of light proved him correct. Someone was watching him and he was pretty sure he knew who. Raising his weapon above his head, he moved it in an up and down motion as he saluted the watcher and made a slight bow as if to say, "I know that I'm not going to have time to visit with you today, but perhaps tomorrow will be better. "

Thich jerked the glasses back from his eyes. He did not like the manner in which the scarred one had turned to look at him deliberately, as if he knew who was watching. Thich was not superstitious, but he did make a promise to visit the grave of his father and make a small gift of rice and incense to his spirit. Of all the things which had happened this day, the salute to him from the Legionnaire was the most upsetting. He would have to make some special inquiries to see if he could find out more about this man. Instinct was often the best weapon that one in the intelligence and espionage field could have, and he felt that the man below him was trouble.

A cry of greeting brought Thich's mind back to his situation. He was safe now. The report of the recoilless rifle had brought a patrol from the 27th Peoples Battalion to investigate. Now it would be the turn of the French to run for their lives. The hare was now the hound. But he would not take part. He had much to do. He especially needed to get in touch with his sister. And there was the scarred one. . . .

Gus had joined Langer and was following his finger to where his friend had seen the reflection from Thich's binoculars. Grunting, he cursed his loader for being too slow. Raising the tube to his shoulder, he set his eye on the rubber framed reticule, estimated the angle of drop, and pulled the trigger. Thich had just enough time to scream as he saw the rocket moving as if in slow motion over the tops of the trees, arcing straight at him. Instinctively, he threw his body down behind a tree as the round passed within a foot of his head to explode in the midst of the soldiers of the 27th Regiment, now rushing to his aid. Four of them were mashed into pate, the others thrown down with ruptured eardrums and eyes that drained serous fluid.

Behind the first soldiers of the 27th came others, a full platoon. Thich rose to his feet, screaming orders at them. Quickly, they set up a line on the ridge and began to lay down fire on the tree line below. The Legionnaires hit the dirt. Langer was trying to figure out what to do next when Perault finally reached him. He pointed out the new situation, which was rapidly deteriorating as the enemy in front gained in fire power. Several crew served weapons and at least one 60mm mortar was brought into play. That meant they were probably outnumbered three or four to one, if not by more. As there was almost no possibility of them being able to take Thich or kill him, Perault made a rapid decision and ordered a retrograde action. In other words, they were to get the hell out of here!

The soldiers of the 27th Regiment of the People’s Army of Liberation were not amateurs. Officers quickly conferred with Thich, who gave them the scenario. Without hesitation, they brought up their units, sent out companies on either flank and began to move down the center toward the French. If Comrade Thich said he wanted the Legionnaires in the valley below, then they would do their best to give them to him, regardless of their own losses. A man who had dinner regularly with Comrade Ho and General Giap was not one to refuse.

Now it was the turn of the French to run for their lives. War had that strange quality of being able to change directions within seconds. Leapfrogging back, they took turns, with each fire team giving cover to the next. There was no panic; these were all professionals who had fought in battles from Moscow to the Philippines.

Bullets snapped by their ears. Three men went down with minor wounds from spent bullets. They were still able to run though and moved to the head of the retreating column pushed along by their friends. The Legion would not readily leave any of its wounded to the tender mercies of the Viet Minh.

They ran back the way they came, breaking through brush and bamboo clusters. Chests aching, mouths sticky and dry and tasting of bile, they cursed and hacked and fought their way back until they heard the comforting, unmistakable, flapping noise of chopper blades. American made Sikorskys were on site, waiting for the word to come in, which was quickly given by Perault whose face was pale and sweaty with the exhaustion of fear and anger that he had failed to get Thich.

The Legionnaires piled into the open doors of the banana shaped helicopters. Helping hands from the copters' crews pulled them inside to safety. Safety, that is, if they were able to get over the tree line and out of range of the increasing Viet fire that was now coming from the edge of the clearing they had selected as their pickup site.

Gus leaped in behind Langer, throwing his 57mm rifle in front of him, knocking down two of the crewmen. Behind him came a cry of pain. The chopper was beginning to lift off, its rotors throwing up clouds of yellow dust as the last of the on loading Legionnaires screamed again. Bullets ripped through his legs trying to break his grip on the doorway of the helicopter. Gus reached over with one of his paws, grabbed the man by his field jacket and jerked him inside with the same ease he had used to throw the recoilless rifle at the two crewmen.

Noses tilted forward, the helicopters moved up and away, staying close to the tree tops in order to give the Viets less time to sight on them. They moved away from the field, medics already treating the wounded as Gus leaned back against the canvas straps of the seats and lit up a smoke.

Absentmindedly he said to Langer, "I wonder what's for dinner tonight?"

At Bach Ninh they off loaded, turned their wounded over to the ambulance drivers and went to their barracks. Captain Perault had to go on to Hanoi by car and report to General Salan why they hadn't gotten Thich. Langer didn't envy him his task. The general was not a Legion officer and would show little sympathy for failure. After leaving his office, Perault had a sudden premonition that he might be patrolling beaches on Devil's Island until his retirement.

Gus and Langer did what each of them desired the most at that moment. Langer took a shower and hit the sack and Gus hit the kitchen, raising hell with the cooks for not having anything ready for him. Their flimsy excuse of not knowing when he would be coming back was not acceptable. However, Gus was always a forgiving man and after they made reparations by preparing a meal for him of escargot, truffles in wine and butter sauce, garnished with two of the giant six pound lobsters from the Tonkin Gulf, he left the cooks with the promise that he held no grudges for their lack of consideration.

Another was not dining so well that evening. Huang Nguyen Thich sat by an open campfire at the headquarters of the 27th Regiment. Deep in thought, he applied his mind to the problem. It must have been him the Legionnaires were after. Otherwise they would not have made such an effort to catch up with those that had broken through their ambush. He did a rundown on those who knew of his meeting with his sister. It was easy to count them off on one hand. There were only two, one of which had been killed in the ambush. The other one was a member of his personal staff. His aide-de-camp, Phai Lam, was an officer whose father had been killed by the French and had no other living relatives. Thich had taken him into his service when he had only been thirteen years old. Still, he would be checked out as a matter of routine, though Thich felt the informer was not to be found there. Thich was the closest thing Phai Lam had for a father.

He would go to Hanoi. He would have his meeting with his sister. If she was the one who had betrayed him, he would know it. She had never been able to deceive him, not even when they were children. A distant crash of thunder over the mountains to the west brought a cold chill, reminding him of the nearness of the rocket shell that had nearly hit him. He would also f
ind out who the scar-faced Legionnaire was while he was in Hanoi. Perhaps he could arrange a meeting with that person also. Two birds with one stone?

As Thich was moving closer to Hanoi, Langer and Gus were in a bar enjoying a day off, taking their ease, sipping Pernod, reliving the past and wondering about the future. Since the end of the war in
Europe, Gus had been with the Legion after being rounded up in much the same manner Langer had been. He and Langer both liked Indochina, the nature of its people, the richness of its culture. For Gus, the food was a paradise, as were the delicate raven haired women in their silk trousers and flowing
ao dais
.

Langer teased him a bit about his taste in women changing. In Russia, he had been hot about the broad hipped, tree
-thighed women there. Personally, Langer thought that they were better suited for this hairy tank than were the delicate doll like creatures of the Orient. But then, Gus had always been adaptable.

The unit Langer had landed with had been absorbed into several other units. He and Hermann, along with fifty others who had taken jump training at the school of Khamisis outside Sidi bel-Abbes, were transferred from the 13th DBE to the 2nd
BEP, the
Bataillon Etrangere des Parachutistes
. He had a feeling that Gus had been responsible for his assignment and having Sergent chef Hermann with them was just a stroke of bad luck.

1953 had all the earmarks of not being a good year for the French in Indochina. The French General Staff had not been able to pin the Viets down, and since "Operation Lorraine," the previous year, when thirty thousand men drove one hundred sixty kilometers into hardcore Viet Minh territory, there had been one set of mistakes after another.

They had killed more of the Viets than they had lost. But there was no way to make up their losses as easily as their opponents, since only regular army men could be sent to Indochina from France and, as the war dragged on, there was a decreasing number of young men volunteering for active duty. The General Staff had tried to make the indigenous forces loyal to them strong enough to hold the static defenses of cities and strong points and leave the French open for more mobile activities, but it had never fully worked out, due to a lack of transport and equipment. In one squad, there might be a mixture of German pistols. French rifles and American machine guns, a situation that sometimes made it difficult to cannibalize a weapon for parts or even to exchange ammo.

Gus agreed that Giap was a first rate general who made the most of his situation and doubted if the French could hold the country much longer. But, with the true spirit of the Legion, he remarked dryly, "Still, old friend, this the only war we have that's worth a damn now and, if we are lucky, it might be two or three more years before our little Asian friends kick our fat asses out of here. " He sighed deeply at the thought of losing a place as comfortable as this and having to return to the scan
t pleasures of North Africa.

Gus had served with the 2nd BEP ever since it had arrived in February of 49 and had made several combat drops in operations in South Annam and Cambodia. He had been sent back to Sidi bel Abbes twice for wounds, but each time, as soon as he was able to make his presence known, his unit commanders in Africa were more than glad to grant his request to leave their company and return to the Orient for another round of service with the 2nd BEP.

The 2nd BEP had been on the go since they'd first set foot in Indochina, being sent out on one operation after another, from Ke Sat to Dong Trieu, Nam Dinh and Kontum. There were battles at Hoa Binh and a dozen others whose names he couldn't recall anymore. Now there was this thing in the wind he had heard called "Hirondelle Operation." Just what it was he didn't know yet, but would within the week as soon as General Salan made up his mind.

Until then, they just wanted to take it easy and enjoy the pleasant weather of the north before the monsoons set in with the winter. Hanoi was a clean city, filled with temples of the hundred faiths of its peoples. Buddhist and Cao Dai sat side by side with the Catholic cathedrals of their colonizers. Everything in the country was touched with the special mixture that France always brought to its colonies, the blending of cultures from all its territories. Moslem Algerians and Moroccans, black Somalians and Thais mingled freely with Vietnamese of the
Indigene
battalions and the Europeans of every nation. Each brought a bit of its flavor to the simmering pot that was Southeast Asia.

Langer enjoyed the variety. The very differences made the country exciting and fresh. He only wished that he didn't have to pull guard duty with Gus at the former summer residence of a Tonkinese merchant who had been executed for paying blackmail money to the Viet Minh. To the merchant, the blackmail money meant that he could continue doing business as usual, not that he was a sympathizer with the communist cause
– few wealthy merchants were. It wasn't that guard duty was that bad, but he knew this was one of the places where many Vietnamese went in on their feet and came out in sacks. It was not a pleasant house to spend a night in. The interrogators of the French intelligence teams and their Vietnamese counterparts could have learned nothing from the Spanish Inquisition of the pious Torquemada. Langer didn't like those that inflicted needless pain, no matter what their reason.

Colonel Thich hated them all. All these ugly foreigners who infested his country, draining it of its individuality, trying to force their ways on them, even to making French the official language in the schools.

The French could be beat. That was firmly believed. He had seen it done when the Japanese occupied the land. It had pleased him greatly to see the once high and mighty French perform kowtow to an Asian. Even if the Japanese were worse masters than the French, they were still Asians and had beaten the French and the British. If it hadn't been for the Americans, the forces of Imperial Japan would still be in power. But once they had gone, the French wanted to regain their favored status, making the rightful people of the land their servants and slaves.

This would not be tolerated. This was not the same Vietnam of 1941. This was a new time and the future was theirs, as was the future of all oppressed peoples who wore the yoke of colonialism on their necks. They would rise up in their millions and claim what was rightfully theirs, though the struggle took a hundred years. That was what they had that the colonialists could never deal with. They had history past, present and future on their side, and they would prevail. If not this year then the next, or the next, until they bled the French dry and sent them back to their own lands to leave Asia in peace.

In effect, the curfew did little to keep those with urgent business off the streets of Hanoi. A million flickers of light gave mute testimony to those who lay awake on their straw mats or sat behind tables graced with fine crystal and the best the vineyards of France had to offer. Those who concealed themselves in the shadows of the darkest places and moved only when they were certain that none could see them were the night stalkers of the city. Some were thieves or simply killers; others went through the night streets and alleys for more important purposes than stealing silver from the houses of rich foreign exporters or killing an unwary soldier. They were out to steal a nation and kill thousands in the process.