Saigon (35 page)

The next visitor, who appeared at Joseph’s hospital bedside five days later, was a stranger to him. A red-haired army colonel in his early forties, he made great play of placing screens securely round the bed before subjecting the graffiti on Joseph’s leg cast to a long humorous scrutiny. When he’d finished he grinned owlishly and extended his hand. “That plaster should be preserved in a military museum when your leg mends, captain. It’s good evidence for future generations of the average U.S. fighting man’s sexual obsessions in the twentieth century. I’m Colonel John Trench. You don’t know me, but I know a lot about you—mostly from an old Annamite buddy of yours who tells me he’s practically crawled here from Tongking on his hands and knees.” 

Joseph grinned. “Where did you meet him?” 

“Mister C. M. Hoo, as he liked to call himself, has been haunting the reading room of the Office of War Information off and on for months. Until General Chennault passed me your note about him last week we merely humored him — thought he must be some kind of Annamite oddball who got his kicks making up stories about saving Yankee pilots from the jungle. But when the Japanese suddenly closed off Indochina the day after we saw your note, we went running to look for that candle maker’s shop you mentioned and had a long talk with him.” Colonel Trench paused and raised his eyebrows in an expression of inquiry. “You’ve been following the news, captain?” 

Joseph nodded. All radio bulletins of the past three days had been carrying details of the surprise Japanese takeover in French Indochina. On March 9, a force sixty thousand strong had attacked the colonial garrisons that totaled only half that number, and all government buildings, radio stations, factories and banks had been seized. Some resistance had been offered by the French in Saigon, Hue and Hanoi, but it had been quickly overcome, and the troops, their officers and hundreds of prominent French civilians had been interned in barracks and special concentration camps. A few French units had escaped and, according to the news bulletins, were still fighting desperate rearguard actions as they retreated across the highlands towards Laos. 

“What was it that made Tokyo turn on the French so suddenly, do you think?” asked Joseph. 

“It was always in the cards, I guess, but the Japs seem to ha.ve got the idea that Uncle Sam’s ready to launch an invasion any day now all along that fifteen-hundred-mile Indochina coastline. Maybe they reckoned the French were getting ready to hit them from the rear. 

“And what gave them that idea?” 

“After five years of close collaboration with the yellow dwarfs, the French were a bit hasty in trying to switch horses and prove they’ve been loyal Free French supporters of de Gaulle all along.” The colonel grinned broadly again to indicate his skepticism. “Ever since Paris was liberated they’ve been sticking his picture on walls everywhere and daubing Free French slogans all over the streets.” 

“But are we planning to invade Indochina?” 

The colonel peered out through the bed screens for a moment then lowered his voice. “If we are, captain, nobody’s bothered to tell me or anybody else in OSS Special Intelligence, Kunming.” 

He grinned at Joseph again as he watched the casual reference to the Office of Strategic Services sink in. As a pilot, Joseph knew little of the OSS role in China; he assumed that undercover agents had been organizing resistance groups wherever they could behind Japanese lines in accordance with normal OSS practice, but beyond that, the organization’s activities were a closely guarded secret. “Monsieur Ho told me the OSS weren’t much interested in him or Indochina,” said Joseph, studying the face of the intelligence colonel closely. “He said you were too worried about possible Communist connections — and you wouldn’t consider giving his group arms or equipment in case they used them against our French allies.” 

Trench nodded. “That’s right, captain, that’s just how it was — last week.” 

“So what’s changed your mind?” 

“The Japanese coup in Indochina! The flow of intelligence from the Free French underground has been turned off like a tap. Suddenly we’re getting nothing on things like bombing targets, antiaircraft defenses, troop deployments. And with sixty thousand more Japanese rearing up on their hind legs down there, the spotlight’s on that neck of the woods. Air attacks are being stepped up and the order of the day coming from OSS headquarters in Chungking is ‘Get some kind of goddamned intelligence network down there — fast.’ So we’ve recruited your friend Hoo into one of our little offshoot intelligence groups. His work name is ‘Lucius’ and we’re flying him back to the border tonight with a two-way radio and a Chinese-American operator. If he’s got a political organization several hundred strong spread across Tongking like you say, he should be able to deliver the intelligence goods we need if he’s handled right.” The colonel grinned and leaned across the bed suddenly, tapping Joseph’s chest lightly with his forefinger. “And that’s where Captain Joseph T. Sherman, late of the Fourteenth Army Air Force, comes in — to help do the handling. Nobody around these parts realized, until our old Annamite friend put us wise, that we were using somebody with a head full of Asian history and Chinese and French language capability to heave bombs and bullets at the Japs. And when I looked up your record and found you’d published a slim volume on the Annamites, I went hotfoot to Big Chief Flying Tiger to poach you for OSS operations in Indochina. He’ll yield to my powers of persuasion so long as you give the okay. What do you say, captain?” 

Joseph felt a sudden throb of excitement somewhere deep inside him. “What sort of job are you offering me exactly, colonel?” 

“Running the research and analysis backup in Kunming to start with. We’re going to be parachuting people into Tongking soon.” He nodded at Joseph’s plaster. “When you finally dispense with your graffiti collection, maybe we’ll send you in with a full team to swashbuckle around the jungle a little. Organize some training and some sabotage maybe. Your old Annamite pal speaks highly of you. You’re Number One in his book. He says he’d be glad to make you welcome out there in the hills again real soon. Does that appeal to you?” 

“Getting shot at on the ground might make a welcome change from getting shot at in the air, now that I think of it,” replied Joseph, grinning suddenly. 

Colonel Trench grinned too and patted him on the shoulder. “Okay. You can hobble on crutches already, can’t you? I’ve arranged for you and Hoo to see the general together this afternoon before he leaves. I’ll be there too.’, 

“There’s just one final condition,” said Joseph quickly as the OSS colonel began drawing back the screens around the bed. 

“What’s that?” 

“I need half-a-dozen Colt .45S, sealed and in their original packages, and a box or two of ammunition — and I need them today.” 

Trench’s eyebrows shot up humorously. “The swashbuckling’s supposed to come later, captain. What would a man in your condition want with stuff like that?” 

“I want to give a present to our friend Monsieur Ho — a kind of personal thank you from 308 Squadron.” 

Trench pretended to consider the request with great gravity. “All right, captain, you win. But you’d better make damned sure you do six Colts’-worth of work for OSS before this war ends.” 

Outside General Chennault’s office that afternoon, they were kept waiting for half an hour while grim-faced American and Chinese officers dashed in and out of hurried meetings with their commander. In the anteroom Joseph noticed that the Annamese, who greeted him with his usual warm handshake and brilliant smile, had pressed and darned his ragged khaki tunic for the occasion. Colonel Trench was carrying a zipped up canvas hold-all when he arrived, and he winked theatrically in Joseph’s direction as he placed it beside his chair. 

Although the walls had been soundproofed, the dull roar of aircraft arriving and departing was still faintly audible from outside, and when at last the three of them were ushered into the office they found Chennault working behind a big paper-strewn desk with the United States flag standing against the wall behind him. Three rows of bright medal ribbons gleamed above the left breast pocket of his uniform jacket, and he rose at once and offered his hand in greeting to the Annamese. “I’m glad to meet you, Mister Hoo,” he said courteously. “It gives me the opportunity to say a personal thank you for rescuing one of my best pilots.” A smile flitted briefly across the general’s craggy face, but his manner remained distracted, as though with half his mind he was still considering how best to juggle the limited number of men, machines and supplies at his disposal to defeat the Japanese. 

“The greatest privilege is mine, general,” said the Annamese, inclining his head respectfully. “I never thought I should be fortunate enough to shake hands with such a famous American fighting man. I’ve admired you for many years, ever since you and your handful of volunteer Flying Tigers heroically drove Japan’s bombers from the skies above China’s big cities.” 

The unexpected fluency of his shabbily dressed visitor’s English and the ardent sincerity of his words immediately brought a broad smile of pleasure to the American general’s face, and he hastened to pull a chair into position for him beside his desk. “1 thank you for your kind compliment, sir,” replied Chennault chivalrously. “I’m surprised to find someone from your country knows about such things.” 

Ho Chi Minh glanced pointedly at the map of China and South-east Asia on the wall behind the American, then smiled directly at him again. “There can hardly be anybody in Asia who hasn’t heard of the man who’s proved to be the greatest single obstacle to Japan’s conquest of China, general. I can see, now that I’ve met you, why some of your own flyers talk of you as ‘the nearest thing to God any guy will ever know.’” 

All the Americans were moved to friendly laughter by Ho’s deft use of American vernacular, and when a pretty secretary in khaki brought tea in Chinese-style cups with lids, they sat down and discussed with great good humor Joseph’s rescue and his surprise return to Kunming. They talked too about possible future rescues, but in accordance with a briefing given him by Colonel Trench, the Annamese studiously avoided introducing any discussion of politics, and as the OSS colonel saw Chennault glancing at his watch, he stood up to indicate they should leave. 

“I thank you most humbly for sparing your time to receive me, general,” said Ho, smiling ingratiatingly once more. “But before I go, may I ask one small favor?” 

Chennault glanced impatiently towards a new sheaf of papers his secretary had just placed before him and nodded absently. 

“It is nothing more than a schoolboy’s request, general,” added Ho hastily. “But I would like a memento of my meeting with you. 

When I tell people I’ve met the American who built the Flying 

Tigers into a mighty modern air force, I’d like to be able to show them your picture.” 

Chennault smiled with a mixture of relief and embarrassment and signaled for his secretary to bring a folder of glossy photographs. When she handed one to Ho, he stepped up to the desk and placed it on the blotter. “And if you could be kind enough to sign it for me, general, it would be more than I deserve.” 

Chennault uncapped his pen and scrawled “Yours sincerely — Claire L. Chennault” across the bottom of the picture, then handed it back to the Annamese. “Keep up the good work, Mister Hoo,” he said with a note of finality, and before his visitors had filed from the room he had returned to his papers. 

Outside in the waiting room Joseph handed over the canvas holdall containing the six Colt .45s and a thousand rounds of ammunition, and the face of the Annamese lit up with gratitude. 

“You’ve more than repaid me for the little service I did you, Captain Sherman,” he said, clasping Joseph’s hand with both his own. “And Colonel Trench has told me that I may hope that we’ll meet again when you are fully recovered. I shall look forward with great happiness to that day.” 

Two hours later a little L-5 “grasshopper,” capable of landing in short jungle clearings, took off from Kunming and headed south over the city’s ring of blue hills towards Ching Hsi carrying “C. M. Hoo,” an OSS two-way radio and a trained Chinese-American operator. As soon as the plane landed the two men donned the garb of Nung mountain tribesmen to give themselves the appearance of border smugglers and struck out on foot through rain and darkness towards Tongking; the Chinese-American humped the radio equipment in big shoulder satchels and the frail Annamese himself carried the hold-all containing the precious, guilefully won symbols of American support — the new revolvers and the signed picture of Chennault. Because Tokyo had put its Indochina divisions on twenty-four-hour border alert following the coup, they were forced to walk by night and hide by day, and the journey to Pac Bo took them nearly two weeks. But once the radio was in place, accurate reliable intelligence about Japanese targets and troop movements began to flow steadily back to Kunming and was rapidly distributed to all America’s allies. By the time Captain Joseph Sherman was sufficiently recovered two months later to transfer formally from the 308th Squadron to a desk in the Kunming headquarters of the OSS, radios, weapons and other supplies were being parachuted regularly into the Tongking jungle, and the Annamese agent, code-named ‘Lucius,” who called himself Ho Chi Minh, had become the head of one of America’s most successful wartime intelligence networks in Asia. 

Lieutenant David Hawke watched intently through one of the side windows of the little single-engined “grasshopper” as eight other OSS men tumbled from the open door of the C-46 transport up ahead and plummeted down towards the terraced mountainside rice fields of Tongking seventy-five miles northwest of Hanoi. He held his breath until all their chutes had opened, then turned to peer out through the windshield over the pilot’s shoulder as the L-5 went into a banked turn. Ahead lay another stretch of jagged karst hills and valleys smothered with jungle, and he scrutinized the wild landscape anxiously for signs of a level clearing. 

“They told me when they lured me into this outfit, captain, that they wanted guys who were ‘calculatingly reckless,’” he said, turning to grin wryly at Joseph Sherman. “But if you want my view, I think there’s too much recklessness involved here and not enough calculation. Unless I see it with my own eyes I won’t believe this flying matchbox can actually get down there in one goddamned piece and take off again.” 

Joseph smiled as he watched the crates of bazookas, machine guns, carbines and grenades launchers tumble earthwards from the door of a second C-46 behind them, “Don’t worry, Dave, any man in the Fourteenth could stroll in and out of here with his eyes closed.” 

The young American pilot at the controls grinned at the compliment as he eased the little plane towards the treetops, searching intently ahead for the first sight of the unmarked clearing hacked out of the jungle by the Viet Minh guerrillas. It was the Last day of July 1945, and behind them the sun was already touching the western peaks of the mountains; somewhere in the dense rain forest below was the new secret headquarters of the Viet Minh League, the target of a ten-man OSS Special Operations team which Joseph was leading. Code-named the “Deer Mission,” its task was to train and arm the Viet Minh for sabotage attacks against roads and railways linking Hanoi with Japanese bases in southern China. Since March the Allies had gradually forced the Imperial Army onto the defensive, but it had so far shown no signs of collapsing as Hitler’s forces had finally done in Europe in early May. Consequently a long, hard Allied fight to subdue Japan was still in prospect, and a top-level order had gone out from the White House to “help anybody who will help us shoot at the Japanese.” 

Unexpectedly a little natural clearing that had been enlarged to a length of a hundred and fifty yards, opened up below the plane, and Lieutenant Hawke let out an exclamation of disbelief when he spotted a little group of guerrillas gathered at one end. “It’s not much bigger than a goddamned football field,” he gasped as the pilot waggled his wings and began turning to make a final approach. “I think I’d rather jump, captain — is there a chute on board?” The boyish features of the twenty-three-year-old Bostonian law graduate were flushed with excitement, and his easy grin belied his exaggerated expressions of alarm. He had completed a crash course in Annamese at the University of California only six months before and had been recruited into the OSS as an interpreter while still at Berkeley. “Did you spot ‘Lucius’ among the welcoming party, captain?” he asked, turning eagerly to Joseph again. “I’m sure looking forward to clapping eyes on him.” 

“I didn’t see him. The last radio message said he’s down with fever again. He drives himself hard and his health is poor.” 

“He’s a real Chinese puzzle, that old guy, isn’t he? Every American who’s dropped in to work with him in the last few months raves about his ‘gentleness’ and his ‘sweet nature.’ But there wasn’t anything gentle about the way he closed off Tongking to the Free French agents, was there? Marching the one Frenchman we sent in back to the border and threatening to snipe at any others who came in or starve them out didn’t seem like the actions of a gentle old guy to me.” 

“The Annamese have good reason to hate the French, David,” said Joseph quietly. “I don’t think you’ll find it too hard to sympathize with them when you’ve talked to Lucius’ and some of the others.” 

As the L-5 passed over the treetops at the edge of the clearing, the pilot let it drop like an elevator, and it touched down and humped to a standstill with twenty yards to spare. When Joseph climbed out, he recognized instantly the dapper little Annamese with the shock of dark hair who stepped smartly forward to greet him at the head of the small welcoming party of guerrillas. 

“We’re glad to welcome you back again, Captain Sherman,” said Vo Nguyen Giap, speaking French, and smiling as he extended his hand. “1 trust you’ve recovered from your injuries.” 

“I’m fine now, thank you, ‘Monsieur Van,’ replied Joseph using Giap’s OSS code-name. “My leg’s still a little stiff, but it’s nice to be back with you standing on my own two feet. How’s everything here?” 

“All the Americans who parachuted in have landed safely. My men have gone down the valley to help them collect the supplies and guide them back to camp.” 

“And how is Monsieur Ho?” 

Giap’s face clouded with concern. “He’s gravely ill, captain. Walking to and from Ching Hsi in the rains has badly sapped his strength. Have you brought a doctor with you?” 

Joseph shook his head. “No but one of the men who jumped in is a medical orderly and he’s carrying drugs and medicines with him.” 

“Perhaps he could make an examination the moment he arrives,” replied the Annamese, then turned and led the way quickly Out of the clearing along a narrow jungle trail. 

The guerrilla encampment, a huddle of crude stilted huts thatched with palm leaves, had been set up on the side of a hill in a dense bamboo forest close to the Kim Lung gorge, and as soon as the OSS parachutists arrived, Giap showed Joseph and the young medical orderly into one of them. They found Ho lying in a corner, trembling violently; he had become very thin, his skin had turned a sickly yellow color and he was moaning and crying aloud in a semiconscious state of delirium, obviously incapable of recognizing anyone. 

“I spent all last night with him,” whispered Giap to Joseph as the young OSS medic bent to examine the Annamese. “In between his comas he spoke with great urgency of what the Viet Minh League still must do. Every time he thought of something, he urged me not to forget it. I’m afraid that he believed they were his dying thoughts.” 

They watched grim-faced as the medic completed his examination. When he stood up his face was resigned. 

“What’s wrong with him, private?” asked Joseph tersely. 

“Malaria and dysentery for sure. But he’s probably suffering from half the tropical diseases in the book, I guess it’s just a matter of time.” 

“Can’t you do anything for him?” 

“I can give him quinine and sulfur if he’ll hold still long enough 
—but I don’t promise any miracles.” 

“Okay,” snapped Joseph, staring down at the skeletal figure. “Go ahead.” 

When the medic had prepared the syringe he knelt to inject the drugs into Ho’s scrawny upper arm, but the Annamese suddenly began to struggle violently and the needle of the syringe snapped. 

“Let me do it!” commanded Joseph impatiently, dropping to his knees. “Prepare a new syringe.” 

Taking the struggling Annamese by the shoulders, he leaned close to him. “Please listen carefully. I’m Joseph Sherman. I’ve brought American medicine from Kunming. You’re not going to die.” He spoke slowly in English, enunciating his words with great precision and keeping his own face in the center of the dying man’s vision. “Please let me help you.” 

Almost immediately the rolling eyes grew still, and the Annamese ceased to writhe on the mat. Joseph signaled for the new syringe to be placed in his open hand, and he injected its contents into Ho’s biceps at a spot indicated by the medic. For a minute or two he continued to kneel by the mat holding the clammy hands that gripped his own convulsively, then when they went limp, lie stood up. 

“Stay with him right through the night,” he told the medic. “I’ll look in from time to time.” 

Outside the hut Giap searched Joseph’s face with anxious eyes. “Do you think there’s any possibility he’ll recover, Captain Sherman?” 

“We can only hope and pray he’ll respond to the drugs,” said Joseph. “But my medic thinks you must be prepared for the worst.” 

All around them the Annamese guerrillas were dragging into camp the heavy crates of armaments and explosives that had been scattered across the rice paddies in the wake of the OSS parachutists, and Giap excused himself to give orders for storing the weapons. One of his lieutenants showed the OSS men to a separate group of new bamboo-floored huts in front of which a fire had already been lit, and after washing in a fast-flowing stream nearby, Joseph returned to his hut to find the appetizing smell of roasting meat wafting across the darkened clearing. 

“We slaughtered a cow in honor of your arrival, Captain Sherman,” said a friendly voice, speaking French, and Joseph looked up to find an Annamese standing in the doorway. “We thought our newly arrived American comrades-in-arms should enjoy their favorite dish — steak on their first night with us.” 

Joseph stared at the face of the man, transfixed. Although he was in his early thirties, his delicate features were still, like many of his race, childlike, almost feminine, and in the gentle orange glow of the camp fire a fleeting hint of the beauty which Lan and her brothers had inherited from their mother stirred Joseph’s emotional memory. For an instant the image of Lan’s modestly lowered eyelids and the curve of her cheek glowing like warmed honey in the light of the Nam Giao sacrificial pyres flashed into his mind’s eye, and he stepped forward impulsively and shook Tran Van Kim’s hand with unwarranted warmth. 

It’s been a long time, Kim, When I last saw you, you were whipping the French tennis champion in Saigon.” 

A wistful smile illuminated Kim’s face. “That seems like part of another life now, captain. When my uncle, Dao Van Lat, told me he’d met you again at Pac Bo, I remembered with embarrassment I had not been very courteous to you at the Cercle Sportif.” 

“Don’t worry about that,” Joseph laughed and patted him on the shoulder. “I asked Lat how your family were, but he said you hadn’t had any contact with them for many years.” 

Kim nodded his confirmation, his expression sad. “That’s right. Unfortunately I fell out with my father. He believed our future lay with France — perhaps he still does. I’ve had to sacrifice my family ties to the struggle for freedom.” 

“And you haven’t heard how Lan is? Or whether she married?” 

“Distant friends told me she married a Frenchman.” 

“Was it Captain Devraux?” 

Kim shook his head a little impatiently. “I’m sorry, I don’t really know. I expect she made the marriage to please my father.. . . But perhaps we should talk of more important things, captain.” He took Joseph’s arm, beckoned to the other Americans and led them to a rough bamboo table near to the fire where the food had been set out. He ordered the meat to be served to the Americans, but took only bean sprouts and rice himself. “In the seven months since you first visited us, Captain Sherman, our forces have expanded greatly,” he said as they ate. “We’ve got three thousand guerrilla fighters under arms now, and since the French were imprisoned we’ve won control of the six northernmost provinces of Tongking. All this region is our ‘liberated zone,’ and Hanoi is only seventy miles away. We’ve got better armaments too from abandoned French stores, but we’re very eager to learn how to use the wonderful new weapons you’ve brought us 

At that moment Vo Nguyen Giap joined the circle and, with Lieutenant Hawke acting as interpreter, began to discuss the training program with the OSS weapons instructors. Towards the end of the meal, some captured Japanese beer was produced, and light-hearted toasts were drunk to victory over the country where it was brewed. As the group broke up to go to their huts, Joseph took Tran Van Kim by the arm and drew him to one side. “When you won your tennis final in Saigon, Kim, you were a convinced Communist, weren’t you? Are you still?” 

The Annamese shook his head vigorously. “Only the French and the Chinese spread propaganda that the Viet Minh League is Communist — because the French still dream of ruling us again one day and the Chinese are trying to set up their own puppet nationalist party here. Uncle Ho has said many times he no longer favors revolution. Once he believed in Communism, but he will tell you himself he’s realized now that such ideals are impractical for our country. I share his new beliefs. Now it will be up to the people to decide the form of government they want. You can call us republican nationalists, if you like. If the people want to keep the emperor as a constitutional monarch without real power, we won’t object.” 

“But what about the rest of the Viet Minh League? How many Communist members do you have?” 

Kim grinned slowly. “How many different parties were there in America, captain, when you were fighting for independence from the British? Ninety percent of the people of Tongking support us, and most of them are uneducated peasants who understand nothing of politics. But they’re all patriots who understand very well the words ‘liberty’ and ‘independence’ — and that’s what all of us are fighting for.” 

Joseph nodded. “Sure, I can understand that. Thanks for killing the fatted calf for my men.” 

Inside his hut Joseph quickly wrote an arrival report for transmission to Kunming. It read: “Deer Mission down safely with all supplies. ‘Lucius’ found gravely ill but otherwise all is well. Weapons training begins tomorrow. Forget once and for all the Communist bogey. Viet Minh League stands for freedom and reforms from French harshness and is an amalgamation of all existing parties. It now claims three thousand men under its command and the support of ninety percent of Tongking’s population. It is not — repeat not — Communist, or Communist- controlled or Communist-led, ‘Lucius’ is no rabid revolutionary but in my view a sincere, capable leader who wants autonomy for his people and speaks genuinely for them.”