Saigon (37 page)

Joseph gazed into the glowing embers of the fire for a moment. “I guess,” he said slowly, “1 would have done what you did.” 

A brilliant smile lit Ho’s ravaged features, and he gripped Joseph’s hands. “Thank you, captain. Let me give you another beaker of tea.” 

Still smiling broadly, he turned away and busied himself with the blackened kettle once more. 

In the sumptuous throne room of the Palace of Perfect Concord, the Emperor Bao Dai watched uneasily as Tran Van Kim led the shabbily dressed Viet Minh delegation towards him. Wearing a golden turban and a brocade jacket, the emperor was standing in front of his throne instead of sitting on it, and at his side an apprehensive senior mandarin from the Ministry of Rites stood holding a velvet cushion on which were laid the ancient imperial symbols of power — the emperor’s gold seal and a golden sword with a ruby-encrusted handle. 

As Kim’s eyes took in the tense figure of the emperor and his glittering sword, he felt his heart beat faster. This was the moment he had been savoring in his mind throughout the long dash south from Hanoi to Hue in a commandeered Japanese army truck. The man who symbolized the humiliation of his country’s long collaboration with the French colonialists was about to surrender to him personally his right to rule! The people of Vietnam, in whose minds the emperor’s “Mandate of Heaven” was a deeply rooted superstition, would know soon that he had ceded it to the Viet Minh League, and he himself would have the supreme satisfaction of knowing that the terrible quarrel with his father had been finally vindicated. He had been right and his father wrong! Events had proved it. If only his father could have been made to attend, to witness personally the emperor’s capitulation to the son he’d ordered so contemptuously from his house nine years before! 

Bao Dai’s sudden decision to abdicate in the face of the public acclaim that had greeted the Viet Minh’s seizure of power in Hanoi had taken Kim and the rest of the league’s leadership by surprise. What had begun as a carefully engineered propaganda operation with small, organized demonstrations. marching through streets decked with hastily manufactured Viet Minh flags and banners had quickly grown into a popular celebration of massive proportions in cities and villages the length of the land. The jubilant crowds, uninterested in the political complexion of the men Who seemed to be freeing them simultaneously from the Japanese and the French, had turned out in their millions, and Bao Dai had announced his intention to give up the throne even before there had been time to form a provisional government in Hanoi. As a result, Kim had been hurriedly appointed to lead a delegation to Hue to accept the emperor’s abdication at a private audience of August 25. 

He had instructed his delegation members deliberately to arrive clad in the shorts, shirts and sandals that they had worn in the jungle, and as they crossed the gleaming tiled floor among the scarlet urn-wood pillars, their appearance contrasted sharply with the rich furnishings of the throne room that had enchanted the young eyes of Joseph Sherman twenty years before. Kim and the delegation, of whom more than half were Communists, walked jauntily with their heads held high, determined to show no servility to the emperor, but to Kim’s surprise the sight of the magnificently ornate throne and its occupant reawakened in him instinctive, long-forgotten feelings of awe. He had grown up believing that the mystery of the “Mandate of Heaven” was made manifest in the person of the emperor who ruled from the palace where the white tiger dwelled in perfect harmony with the blue dragon, and he had seen the throne room for the first time as a small excited boy clutching his father’s hand; later he had railed against the emperor as a mannequin d’oré — a gilded dummy — when he became convinced that only Communism could save his nation from the French, but as he stopped before Bao Dai his childhood instincts almost betrayed him and he had to make a conscious effort to prevent himself bowing to the sovereign. In the pocket of his shorts, he carried a small red Viet Minh emblem with a central gold star, which he intended to pin on the emperor’s tunic as a final gesture of the Viet Minh’s supremacy, and when he looked into Bao Dai’s face he remained deliberately silent so as to cause him maximum discomfort. 

For a tense moment or two the sovereign gazed blankly back at Kim, then after a nervous glance at the gowned mandarin at his side, he cleared his throat diffidently. “In this decisive hour of our nation’s history,” he began quietly, “union means life and division means death. In view of the powerful democratic spirit growing in the north of our kingdom, we feared a conflict between north and south would be inevitable if we delayed our decision any longer. That conflict could have plunged our people into suffering, and although we feel a great melancholy when we think of how our glorious ancestors fought for four hundred years to make our country great, we decided to abdicate and transfer power at once to the new democratic republican government in Hanoi...” 

The emperor’s voice shook slightly, but he managed to retain a quietly dignified composure as he spoke, and despite himself, Kim felt a twinge of sympathy for his humiliating predicament. 

“During a reign of twenty years,” continued Bao Dai, his voice gathering confidence, “we have known much bitterness, and it has been impossible for us to render any appreciable service to our country. From this day we shall be happy to be a free citizen in an independent country. Renouncing our reign name of ‘Bao Dai,’ we wish to be known now only as citizen Vinh Thuy, and in this capacity we offer ourselves as a counselor of state to the new democratic government in Hanoi 

Still without looking at Kim, the emperor took the cushion from the mandarin and, stepping forward, placed the ancient symbols of authority in the arms of the revolutionary. “Long live the independence of Vietnam,” said Bao Dai, his voice cracking at last with strain. “Long live our democratic republic.” 

To Kim’s consternation, his own hands began to tremble, and the jewel-encrusted sword almost slipped to the floor. He clutched at it frantically with one hand and passed the cushion hurriedly to the assistant leader of his delegation. “We accept your decision, Vinh Thuy, with a supreme sense of satisfaction,” said Kim, employing an arrogant tone to hide the turmoil of his emotions. “Your abdication has freed the people of Vietnam from the bonds of slavery which have bound them to France for eighty long years and more recently to the fascists of Japan. It frees them, too, from a corrupt system of government which has too long defied the march of history! Long live independent and democratic Vietnam!” 

Stepping close to the emperor, he plucked the little insignia from his pocket. Bao Dai stared straight ahead over his shoulder as Kim thrust the pin into the rich brocade tunic; but Kim’s hands shook so violently that it took several attempts to secure it, and when he finally stepped back, the little red flag with its gold star stuck out crookedly from the emperor’s breast. 

To Kim’s astonishment Bao Dai held out his hand towards him, and for a moment he stood staring at it nonplussed. The hand was clearly being offered to be shaken, but in all history Kim knew that no Annames emperor had ever shaken hands with one of his subjects! Seeing his confusion, Bao Dai began to smile, and Kim, feeling a flush of embarrassment rise to his cheeks, quickly grasped the outstretched hand. As he shook it, the instincts of his childhood finally got the better of him, and to his horror he bent his head low towards the emperor in a gesture of loyalty and submission. 

Half an hour later Kim stood beside the emperor on the ramparts of the Citadel while the imperial flag was lowered and the Viet Minh standard was run up the mast. A great crowd of people gathered below, cheering loudly, and Viet Minh agents among them began to lead them in chants of “Hail the democratic spirit of Vinh Thuy!”” Hail the delegates of the new Provisional Government.” 

Kim raised his arm high above his head in response and forced a smile to his face, but as he gazed up at the red flag fluttering on the masthead, despite the great satisfaction he felt, he couldn’t rid himself of paradoxical feelings of sadness and disquiet at the thought that his father’s familiar world and the world in which he had grown up had been destroyed forever. 

Although news of what was happening in Hanoi and other cities had reached Joseph and the other OSS men by radio while they kicked their heels in Thai Nguyen, they were still taken aback by the tumultuous welcome they received when they finally entered the northern capital with the last of the guerrillas on the morning of September 2. After marching across the Kim Ma plain, they boarded open cars and trucks on the outskirts and rode into the city through wildly cheering crowds. Above their heads every street was festooned with Viet Minh flags and banners that proclaimed repeatedly in Annamese, English, Chinese and Russian: “Welcome Allies — Peace Is Here” ...“ Vietnam for the Vietnamese” ... “Death Rather Than Slavery” . . 

“Independence or Death” ..“Let’s Bury French Imperialism!” 

Tramcars and rickshaws trailed similar revolutionary banners, and hundreds of crudely painted likenesses of the goateed face that Joseph had first seen swimming before his eyes in the mists of his Pac Bo delirium were draped from the windows of houses and strung between the trees along the boulevards. The unbridled enthusiasm of the crowds and the sudden elevation to national heroes of the ragged guerrillas among whom they had lived in the jungle for a month astonished the American OSS men, and they shook their heads constantly in disbel4ef as they neared the center of the city. 

“Maybe they should put your portrait up there alongside Uncle Ho’s,” said Lieutenant Hawke, grinning mischievously at Joseph. “They would, I guess, if they knew how you saved his ass with that timely injection.” 

Joseph smiled, but halfheartedly. 

“I guess it all becomes clear now, captain, doesn’t it?” Hawke gazed up wonderingly at the vehemently anti-French slogans. “Our ‘Lucius’ obviously wasn’t going to allow any Free French patrols into Tongking when he was planning this little jamboree all along.” 

Joseph nodded abstractedly. As they moved slowly through the congested streets, with half his mind he was trying subconsciously to see the city again as he had last seen it during his ecstatically happy Visit in 1936; but to his disappointment it was scarcely recognizable as the same place. The smart French shops on the main boulevards were boarded up, and the French Street names glorifying heroes of the colonial conquest had been torn down and replaced with names of revolutionary heroes of Vietnam’s own past; Boulevard Henri Rivière, he noticed, had become Dai lo Phan Boi Chau in memory of an early anti-French agitator, and Rue Mirabel had been renamed Duong Tran Nhan Ton to commemorate the Vietnamese sovereign who created the country’s first popular assembly. In the old quarters the French translations had been obliterated from the blue-and-white street signs, and only the original Annamese names remained written in quoc ngu, the latinized national language that was meaningless to Joseph’s eyes. Red Viet Minh flags fluttered proudly in the September breeze from the flagstaffs in the grounds of the governor general’s palace, and Joseph noticed suddenly that none of the thousands of slogans strung across the streets was written in French. 

“Changed a bit, has it, captain, since you were here last?” asked Hawke with a wry grin. “You look as if you wished you could turn the clock back. Or are you still wondering at the deviousness of that old scoundrel ‘Lucius,’ alias ‘Uncle Ho’?” 

“Maybe a bit of both, Dave,” replied Joseph evasively. “But no matter how cunning he might have been, there’s not much doubt now about his claim to speak for his people, is there? The French have given these folk a damned rough ride for a long time. I guess a little bit of chicanery along the way is forgivable.” 

The OSS “Quail “ Mission, which had flown in from Kunming several days earlier, had already set itself up in the best suites in the Hotel Metropole, It had been their commander Colonel Trench who had at last given the Deer Mission the okay by radio to march into Hanoi, and when Joseph and Hawke knocked on his door, it was Trench himself who opened it. In high goad humor, he was clutching a bottle of vintage Perrier-Jouet champagne in one hand and he waved them to seats around a low table where glasses were already set out; through an open doorway they could see that a radio operator had set up his equipment on an empty bed. 

“Welcome to Hanoi, gentlemen,” he said, filling three glasses with a flourish. “The eyes of the world may not be on this city right now — and maybe no American outside this hotel has ever heard of it. But the French champagne’s good and there’s plenty of it — so let’s relax and drink a toast to the end of our war!” 

“To the end of the war!” 

Hawke and the colonel drained their glasses, but Joseph crossed to the window and sipped his wine thoughtfully, staring down into the street. From there he could see the little terrace where almost every evening during his last visit he had written a letter to Lan while idling over a glass of Pernod. The same wickerwork chairs and marble-topped tables were set out beneath the same striped sun awnings, and Joseph could even pick out the corner where he had sat. Some echo of the tense exhilaration that had possessed him constantly then returned, and for a moment or two the voices of the two other officers in the room blurred into inaudibility. 

I guess, lieutenant, he still can’t get over the fact that agent ‘Lucius’ whom he found for us in a cave behind a waterfall has turned out to be the president. . . Is that right, Joseph?” 

Colonel Trench’s boisterous laughter broke his train of thought, and Joseph turned to find the senior officer standing at his shoulder. 

“I’ve talked to him a couple of times and he’s still wearing the same old battered helmet and khaki drabs, you know. The Viet Minh’s taken over the governor general’s palace, but Ho’s living in a little cottage in the grounds” Trench laughed again. “He’s adamant now that he’s no Commie, and to prove it he’s promised to dress up a little for the big speech he’s making in Ba Dinh Square this afternoon. We’re all invited in best bib and tucker to stand on the rostrum with him. He’s asked me a couple of times, Joe, if you’re going to be there.” 

“Isn’t anybody worrying about our giving America’s blessing to a bit of political sharp practice?” asked Joseph with a puzzled frown. 

Trench clapped him heartily on the shoulder. “Relax, Joe. Have the grace to behave like an honored guest, will you? Not everybody here’s getting the red-carpet treatment. The Free French from Mission Five in Kunming were put under house arrest as soon as they arrived and they’re still under guard in the old palace. Don’t you remember President Roosevelt told the War Department before he died that he thought the French had milked Indochina for long enough? It’s not our job to take a stand against a native government that’s obviously got the support of the people. Look down there.” 

A chanting crowd of marchers bearing pictures of Ho and Viet Minh banners was filling the street on the way to Ba Dinh Square, while crowds cheered from the pavement; like all the other demonstrations Joseph had seen since arriving in the city, it seemed spontaneous and relaxed. 

“Everything’s hunky-dory here, Joe, so don’t worry your head anymore. The Chinese occupying force is arriving within the week under the overall command of General Wedemeyer in Chungking. It’s been decided that they’ll respect the Status quo. The Chinese will no doubt do a little gentle looting, as they’ve always done, but otherwise they’ll get on with the job of disarming and repatriating the Japanese. If you want to do some worrying about your old Annamite chums, there’s more fertile soil farther south in Saigon.” 

Joseph looked sharply at the colonel at the mention of Saigon. “What’s happening there?” 

“Sit down and have another glass of fizz and I’ll tell you about the next assignment we’ve got in mind for you and Lieutenant Hawke.” 

Joseph waited impatiently while the glasses were refilled, leaning forward on the edge of his seat. 

“Our OSS guys from Calcutta have just arrived in Saigon, and already they’re sending up smoke signals saying ‘help.’ It’s a little team called ‘Detachment 404,’ and they’re doing fine locating Allied prisoners — but they’re making heavy weather on the intelligence front. To quote their report, the political situation is ‘a crock of shit’ and their best bet is that a civil war is about to break.” Joseph sat straighter in his seat. “Why’s that?” 

“Well to start with, about fifteen hundred French soldiers of the Eleventh Regiment of the Infanterie Coloniale are still locked up like they are here, but the British occupying force is coming from the Burma-India theater so it won’t be there for another couple of weeks. A Viet Minh Committee for the South has taken control in Saigon, but its members are busy quarreling among themselves. They organized a big parade through the streets a few days ago to celebrate the setting up of the Provisional Government — and it turned out to be more a show of force by half-a-dozen private armies than a celebration.” Trench sighed and drank some more champagne. “There are some weird religious sects called the Cao Dai and the Hoa Hao tearing at each other’s throats and a criminal secret society known as the Binh Xuyen is trying to run things too — all of them have got arms because the Japanese are deserting in droves and selling their weapons to the highest bidder. The ‘yellow dwarfs’ in general are refusing to do much about keeping law and order and most of them run off to the bars in the Chinese city of Cholon as soon as they’re off duty and get drunk. To top it all, a Free French colonel has parachuted in and is trying to negotiate with the Viet Minh Committee to reestablish French control over the colony again. The mood’s damned ugly according to Detachment 404. French statues are being dragged down all over the place and about twenty thousand French citizens spend most of their time barricaded in their own homes, praying the British will get there before they’re butchered.” Trench paused and grinned suddenly from ear to ear. “It’s a goddamned powder keg waiting for a spark, and Detachment 404 hasn’t got any Annamese speakers or anybody who knows Saigon. I thought you two guys might like to volunteer to help them out.” Colonel Trench looked at Hawke. “What do you say, lieutenant?” 

Hawke drained his glass, smacked his lips and held it out to be filled again. “Is the champagne as good down in Saigon as it is here, sir?” 

The colonel nodded and poured more wine until it frothed over the rim. 

“Then I’m ready to march,” said the young Bostonian, grinning broadly and lifting the full glass to his lips. 

“What about you, captain?” Trench held the bottle towards Joseph, raising one eyebrow in inquiry. 

Joseph pushed his glass across the table without looking directly at the senior officer in case he betrayed something of the sudden surge of excitement he felt coursing through him. “I won’t say no, either, sir,” he said quietly. 

Three hours later Joseph stood beside Colonel Trench and Lieutenant Hawke on a balcony above Ba Dinh Square, looking down on a sea of half-a-million Vietnamese faces gathered below. When the new, self-appointed president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam appeared, a great roar of welcome rose from the crowd. He wore a dark high-necked tunic and his wispy goatee fluttered in the afternoon wind as he stepped up to the microphone; reading from notes he began to speak emphatically in his own language. 

“All men are created equal...•. They are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights and among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness He glanced up from his paper and for a fleeting moment caught Joseph’s eye before looking back towards the crowd. “This immortal declaration was made in the United States in 1776 

“How do you like that?” gasped Hawke, who was translating quietly behind Joseph and the colonel, “He’s even commandeering our Declaration of Independence for his own use.” 

In 1791 in France,” continued Ho, “the Declaration of the French Revolution on the Rights of Man stated: ‘All men are born free and with equal rights and must always remain free with equal rights.’. . . Both these historic statements established undeniable truths, but for more than eighty years the French imperialists, abusing their own standards of liberty, equality and fraternity, have violated our fatherland and oppressed our citizens 

A roar of approval rose from the crowd, and Ho waited patiently until it lessened; then he resumed in a voice that quavered now and then with emotion. “The French deprived our people of every democratic liberty, they enforced inhuman laws, they set up different regimes in three parts of our country in order to shatter the unity of our people. . . . In the field of economics they fleeced us to the backbone, they brought poverty to our people and devastated our lands. They robbed us of our rice and our fields, our mines, our forests, our raw materials. They’ve fettered public opinion, built more prisons than schools and murdered countless Vietnamese patriots without mercy. All our uprisings until today have been drowned by France in rivers of blood.,..” 

Ho’s voice rose to a shout. of indignation as he reached the end of his catalogue of French’ crimes, and the great crowd responded with another angry roar. 

…..In the autumn of 1940 the French imperialists reached a new low when they sank to their bended knees to hand our country to the Japanese fascists,” he said, letting his voice fall dramatically. “From that day forward our people suffered the double yoke of French and Japanese oppression, and as a result more than two million citizens have died from starvation For a moment Ho Chi Minh bowed his head before the microphone, and the crowd stared up at him in a stunned silence. 

“Did he really say two million?” queried Joseph after Hawke had finished his translation. 

“Yes — two million! There’s been a famine for a year now in the provinces between here and the central highlands.”