Casca 11: The Legionnaire (7 page)

Returning to his dirt cell, Langer passed several more storage areas. It looked as if the Viet Minh were expanding the tunnels. He saw several labor gangs with shovels and wheelbarrows heading down a passage. There were the sounds of men moving about at all hours; it was apparent that in the tunnels there was no night or day so work could go on around the clock if desired. Beams were used to shore up crumbling sides and tin sheets set against the walls. All were covered with slogans such as:
Vi dan tru chien dau
(We fight for the people), or
Chet Vinh Hon Song Nhuc
(Honorable death rather than a shameful life). Not a bad line, thought Langer. He had heard worse in his time.

Thich did not return for three weeks. In that time no one spoke to him; he was left alone in the dark. The only light was that which came from the lanterns set on the walls of the tunnels and that bit of light crept through the cracks of the tin sheets which served as his cell door. Outside the door on a stool a guard sat around the clock with orders to shoot him if he made any trouble at all. Food was brought twice a day, usually no more than a bowl of pumpkin soup or a few handfuls of rice and half cooked greens of some kind. It wasn't much, but he wasn't being starved and it was probably not much less than the Viets ate themselves. It was enough to keep up most of his strength if he wasn't kept on the diet for too long. Apparently, Thich had left orders that no one was to harass or question him. Thich must have wanted that honor for himself, Langer reasoned. He definitely had the man's curiosity, and that was what he wanted, to keep Thich off balance until the Viet made a mistake. It was not yet time for him to make any kind of a move. For the time being he would just have to be patient. He still had no solid idea of where he was, but he had heard one of the guards mention the name of a river called the Ham Yun. He had passed over a small river by that name once before on an operation. If his memory was right, the river was in a valley named after a small village called Dien Bien Phu, about two hundred and fifty kilometers from Hanoi, near the Laotian border. That would be about right, if one calculated the amount of time it had taken them to reach the caves.

Thich left the staff meeting with General Giap feeling quite good about their progress of the last few months. Things were shaping up very nicely and they had made no serious blunders. The French were spread too thin and did not have enough in the way of air support or man power to do more than hold onto outposts, which left the countryside, especially after dark, to the Viet Minh. According to Giap, their forces now numbered over a hundred thousand regular soldiers, in six first rate divisions, with growing artillery support. Vital to their long range plans were the two hundred thousand regional and village militiamen. These could be called upon as the need arose to either conduct limited operations of their own or replace those who were killed in the regular forces. He could now call on more than twice the number of the total French expeditionary force.

Their basic tactic of wearing the enemy down and making them bleed from a thousand wounds was having its effect. By being able to pick when and where he wished to fight, Giap had made the French chase his forces from one end of the land to the other, from the Plain of Junks in Cochin China, to the limestone mountains of north Tonkin. In the swamps and marshes of the Mekong Delta and the heavily wooded hills of Annam, the Viet Minh had stung, nipped, and occasionally bitten the heels of the French.

He was feeling expansive now from the praise heaped upon him by Giap for the courage and resolution it had taken for him to make an example of his own sister. Giap had confirmed the value her death would have on any who might think to betray them. It proved to their friends, and enemies alike, that there were no favorites in their ranks who had immunity by reason of rank or birth. To all, this great act of sacrifice and pain on the part of Thich was uncontestable evidence of the party's fairness in all things.

By the time Thich was able to return to the tunnels to continue his questioning of Langer, "Operation Hirondelle" had been started and finished by the French, who'd dropped three parachute battalions on some of their bases near Long Son. Giap had refused the gambit and did not commit any of his main forces to an engagement. It was not yet time. He still needed to husband his strength a bit longer. He had learned his lesson the previous year when he had ruined one of his prized regular divisions while attacking Na San in the Black River valley. The French had been reinforced and supplied by air. They'd held out and he had lost an entire division. He knew he could have taken Na San, but the price for it was too high. There were a couple of other actions which General Navarre, the commander of French forces in Asia, thought might draw the Viets out into an open battle where they could be beaten in a conventional manner, but Giap refused all offers; he was patient and his sources, especially those of his loyal Comrade Thich, had whispered in his ear of a new French plan more to his liking. Navarre had believed that when the rains ended, Giap was going to launch a major operation from Laos. To guard against this, he decided to build an airhead in the border hills from which he would be able to interdict any such operation on the part of Giap. The location whispered for the proposed airhead was the valley of Dien Bien Phu.

If the French did as he expected, then this would be where he would at last commit his divisions in full strength for the telling blow against the colonialists. This was not to be like Na San. Here the prize would be worth any cost and here he would have his big guns. He was glad he had listened to the council of Comrade Thich and had not given in to the temptation to use his precious artillery battalions in lesser contests. The number of his guns, and the amount of munitions he had in reserve for them, would be his Queen in the next contest; and, as any good chess master knows, it is not wise to play your Queen too early in the game.

Huang Nguyen Thich was not overly fond of travel. But there was no other way for him to contact, and deal with, the number of agents in his control. Sometimes it was just not possible for one of his men to be away from their jobs for any length of time without the French getting suspicious. They were such fools anyway. They employed hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese in their offices of government and trade, on the shipping docks, and inside their military installations. Cleaning women, cooks, houseboys, barbers, merchants and prostitutes all gathered information for him. A bit here, a rumor there, when put together with a hundred other seemingly unrelated items, gave him advance warning of what his enemies were going to do.

He often thought of himself as the master spider who spun hundreds of webs, webs for his flies to fall into. Now he wished to question further his scar faced fly in the tunnels above the valley of Dien Bien Phu. The man had not been far from his thoughts since their first meeting. He wished to find out the reason for his own fascination with the soldier. The man was of no import, merely a common thing who fought for hire, as were all the murderers of the Legion. Perhaps he could turn him over to his side, make him into a tool that he, Nguyen Thich, could use. The thought was tantalizing, but he suspected that he would not have any great success in that direction, not with one such as this. He did have some French who had willingly betrayed their own kind, but they were communists of the old school who had gone underground before the liberation of France. What was it they were called by the intelligence community? Moles. Yes! That's what they were. They stayed in their jobs and offices, or served in their regiments and divisions, until they received orders. He wished now that he was the one who was able to give them their orders, but that privilege was reserved for Moscow.

While he was away, the work on the mountain tunnels went on around the clock, their depth and sophistication growing greater with each cycle of the clock. When it was done it would be large enough to house thousands of men and their equipment. On his return there would be an important meeting held with all of his agents who could get free of their other duties to attend. Normally they would have met in their strongholds in the mountains around Bak An, which was to the north of Hanoi, but lately the French had stepped up their security operations in the region. Thich had no desire for any of his people to be caught in a random roundup.

It would be better for them to meet at the new safe site near the Laotian border. He valued his men highly. It had taken years to prepare and train them and they must not be wasted. They would be vital to the cause; even when the war was over they would be needed. It was up to them to keep the military informed of the possible course of future events. It was also up to them to weigh and judge the value of information, to eliminate by assassination, or torture those whose activities merited it. When the final victory was theirs, they would be the real controllers of the country and its people. Already they had acquired massive file cases on tens of thousands of their countrymen. These would ensure the party's success when they took power. He, Thich, knew who needed to be eliminated, re-educated or merely shipped to labor camps. There were others who could bring millions in gold into the coffers of the new regime, simply by permitting them to live and in some cases leave the country to join members of their families in France or elsewhere. Communists were frugal businessmen and practical ones. If an undesirable person was worth more alive than dead, then by all means sell him to the highest bidder.

Langer swore at the water seeping through the walls of his cell, turning it into a miniature quagmire. Every
day at the same time, the rains came and with it the tunnels turned into damp, slimy, stinking pits. There were drainage ditches and holes to let the worst of the waters flow out to lower levels, but the rains came through the ceiling, seeping through cracks in the tin sheeting or wooden planks. The floors of the larger tunnels were covered with boards but his dirt hole had no such luxury; the ground was constantly wet and slimy. He took his boots off and set them up as high as he could in a niche that he had scratched out in one of the walls with a stone he'd found in the floor. After three weeks, his uniform had started to decay on his body, the seams rotting. Even the thick tough material of the pants and tunic began growing mold cultures of their own, which slowly dissolved the material. Even worse was the particularly stubborn breed of fungus, which had taken up residence in his beard. He felt that if it rained much more he would not have to worry about escaping; they'd never be able to find him. All that would be left in the cell would be a large piece of greenish gray slime with caporal stripes. Once every five or six days he was handcuffed and taken outside to stand in the rain and rinse off. This kept the worst of the rot away, but his hands and feet were still pale white, wrinkled, and bloated from the constant damp.

The only item of interest, other than the constant digging going on, was a steady stream of new faces and voices that he'd noticed in the tunnel in the last few days. Something was going on that
was important. Peeking through the cracks he saw the new arrivals. In most cases they were civilians to whom the guards showed great respect. Something big was going on.

Thich arrived shortly after the afternoon rains had ceased. He noted immediately the improvements made in his absence and nodded approvingly to his subordinates before he went to his quarters to change into a clean, tan colored uniform, modeled in the Mao style. Once he had refreshed himself, he ordered that Langer be brought to him. Once more Langer stood before Thich. His appearance had deteriorated greatly since their last meeting. At first Thich thought about reprimanding the complex commandant, but quickly changed his mind. Perhaps the last weeks of discomfort had made his guest more pliable. However, the smell emanating from the Legionnaire proved too much. He sent him back out with orders for him to be given soap and clean clothes then returned to him in an hour. During Langer's absence, he held a short meeting with his cell leaders, stressing the necessity of their acquiring more intelligence about French troop movements: their supply capabilities, their numbers and types of vehicles and aircraft, and whether they were expecting to get any massive amounts of American aid. American aid to the French had been a sore spot with all the Viet Minh leaders since the day Japan had capitulated. This old sore was still eating at him when he returned for his meeting with Langer, who looked much improved, though a stubborn patch of fungus still stuck to his face.

Tea was ordered. Thich was going to try and reason with his prisoner to make him see the justice of their cause. He still didn't know why he held this compulsion to talk to the scar faced man. But he did! And who knew, there was always the chance, remote perhaps, but still a chance that he might be able to turn this one if he could find out where his weaknesses were hidden or what his dreams were.

He prided himself on knowledge of men and the things which made each what he was. Find the right key and anyone could be made to sell out his father, mother or country. What could it be that he could use to turn the Legionnaire? This man had been in the German Army. Perhaps he could find a common ground with him by making him aware that the Allies he once fought against were now the enemies of the Vietnamese people.

His thoughts were interrupted by Langer 's entrance into his office. Thich indicated he should sit. Sipping his steaming tea with both hands, he leaned back, lit a cigarette and offered one to Langer. "I have something to tell you that not many of your race or the world outside of these lands have heard. Then, I think, you will better understand why we must continue our struggle for freedom against the French colonialists, or any others who come to our land unbidden." Thich paused to see if he had his guest's attention. He did and continued on with his story.