The Ugly American (13 page)

Late that afternoon MacWhite returned with the Mao pamphlet. His method of procuring it had been simple: he had stopped at the first newsstand he saw and asked the proprietor to get him a copy. The proprietor, obviously alarmed, said that he knew nothing of works by Mao. MacWhite did not argue with him. He merely said that if the pamphlet were delivered in two hours he would pay the sum of 800 piasters, and no questions asked. Within an hour he had the pamphlet.

The three of them gathered in Monet's tent and MacWhite read aloud for an hour and a half. Neither MacWhite nor Tex looked at Monet during this session. The words in the pamphlet destroyed a way of life and a tradition in which Monet believed deeply. Monet did not stir during the reading. He sat with his hands together in his lap as if by holding himself together physically he could compensate for the destruction of part of his world. When MacWhite had finished there was a long silence.

"On the whole, Mao is right and we have been wrong," Monet said in a steady voice. "Please, let's not talk any more about our traditions. Let us talk about what part of Mao's writings we can use to our advantage."

"Most of what Mao recommends is too long-range for us to use," MacWhite said. "It's the kind of thing you have to accomplish over years. For example, when he recommends sending political organizers ahead of the army, he is talking in terms of years. These organizers never announce that they're Communists; they just keep putting the views of the Communists before the villagers. Then when the fighting starts they organize resistance behind the enemy lines and disrupt as much as possible."

"That explains why we keep getting fire from both the front and rear whenever we have a night fire-fight," Tex said.

"Also it explains why they always have perfect intelligence on the village which we are attempting to defend," Monet added.

"Forgive me for giving an opinion in your area, gentlemen," MacWhite said. "I suggest we forget everything that's going to take a year to accomplish. We have only a few days. Later and in another country perhaps we can use Mao's strategy. Right now we have to concentrate on his tactics."

For hours they argued over the pamphlet. Night came, they ate a cold meal from packaged rations, crawled under the mosquito nets, and continued their discussion until dawn.

From the dozens of ideas which Mao had suggested, they took two.

In rough terrain, Mao said, retreat and disappear until the enemy is strung out in pursuit. Then concentrate on one weak point. Time, space, and retreat are the instruments of combat victors. When fighting an enemy who has superior equipment and numbers, success lies in mobility and the use of darkness.

The second idea involved guerilla warfare. Mao suggested that in a sustained guerilla action, the groups of guerillas can only be successful if they have a rigid and completely centralized command. The central command post directing guerillas in operation should never be further from the actual fighting than a man can trot in a half hour.

Monet said, "It's obvious—even though we've never used it."

MacWhite put down the pamphlet. He grinned at Monet and Tex, and they began to smooth a large detailed map of the Hanoi Plain out on the table.

The village they decided they were looking for was located in the midst of a swamp of paddies; two miles beyond it was a large area of firm ground on which stood a clump of bamboo trees. Both Monet and Tex nodded when they saw it. Any field commander would be insane to choose any spot for a command post other than the bamboo trees. A hardtop road ran like an arrow from the trees directly through the village. And, best of all, just before the village was a small hill behind which the reserve troops could be hidden.

"All right, gentlemen, that village will be it," Monet said decisively. His eyes were excited. "Three days from today we'll try to cure our illness with the hair of the dog that bit us."

It was Tex who suggested the surprise weapon. He had seen it used once in Korea with great success. It was quite simple. The bed of a large truck was covered with a thick layer of sheet iron to which were fastened the barrels of twenty 5-inch rocket launchers arranged so that when the rockets were fired simultaneously they all fell in a circle roughly a hundred yards in diameter. Tex assured the other two men that there was very little chance that anyone would remain alive inside the circle.

On the fourth day they made the move up towards the village. For the first time in weeks the Legionnaires were laughing and joking. Monet left with an advance guard of two lorries of men. A half-hour later MacWhite and Tex set out with the main body of troops. Tex rode on the rocket truck and was in radio communication with Monet. MacWhite was riding in a jeep directly behind the rocket truck.

As dusk fell, the main body moved off the highway on to a road that cut across the paddy fields. Tex called Monet on the radio to make sure he had reached his position. Monet's voice came in clearly.

"We're deployed to the south of the village," he reported. "Two Viets left the village a half-hour after we set up positions. They were walking north, but I'd guess they've circled back and are heading for the bamboo grove. It should be another hour before anything happens."

The main body of lorries proceeded as quietly as possible. Tex deployed them in a long line behind the hummock which separated them from the village, and they sat down to wait.

Almost an hour later they heard thin faraway rifle fire, followed by the chatter of a heavy machine gun. Monet's voice came up on the radio.

"I think they've fallen for the bait. They probably think we're weak, and they're moving the troops directly down the hardtop road from the bamboo grove. Just the first patrols have hit so far. They haven't used machine guns yet, although we've opened up with our 50-calibres. Take a weapons carrier with a quadruple 50-calibre machine gun mount on it, and cut your way through the troops on the road. Then make straight for the command post."

"We're on our way," Tex said, and clicked the receiver off.

Moving fast, Tex ordered the quadruple mount 50-calibre vehicle to the head of the column. Directly behind it was a lorry of riflemen. Third in line was the rocket truck.

"Leave your lights off until the machine gun fires," Tex ordered softly. "Then open up with everything you've got. As soon as the rockets fire, get the quadruple mount turned around for the run back on the road. If we have to leave any vehicle we'll leave the rocket truck, so I don't want any men on it after it fires."

They came around the hill as quietly as a column of vehicles can move. At fifty-yard intervals Monet's men were marking the right-hand shoulder of the road with shielded flashlights. The column did not reduce speed when it reached the village, but ground steadily past the tiny thatched houses.

Suddenly they were out of the village and on the plain. Tex was sitting beside the driver of the quadruple mount vehicle, peering ahead. He saw a blur of frantic motion on the road, leaned back, and calmly ordered the machine gunner to fire straight down the road.

The quadruple mount went off with an enormous racket; four streams of tracer rows poured ahead. At the same moment Tex switched on the carrier's lights. Fifty yards in front of them were a group of about fifty Vietminh troops. They froze, as if bewildered by the light; then, in a collective rush, they headed for the right-hand side of the road. The machine gun swung with them and the bullets hit. Clots of mud, shreds of uniform, and broken bits of rifles exploded into the air. The bodies of the men pitched off the road into the ditch. Although the vehicle was moving fast, and took no more than seconds to close the gap, the action was like a brilliantly-illuminated nightmare in slow motion. Then the wheels of the vehicle bumped over the bodies of three men who had fallen on the road, and they were past the enemy group. A moment later Tex heard the rifles on the lorry begin to open up.

The machine gun clicked off above his head. Tex left the lights on, and they roared down the narrow road. He had only two things in his mind. First, he was praying that the road would support the weight of the column. Secondly, he was calculating exactly when the rocket truck would be 500 yards from the grove of bamboo trees. The night before he had measured the distance at which headlights would first pick up bamboo trees in total darkness. It measured out at 600 yards. If he drove at twenty miles an hour for fifteen seconds after the headlights picked up the bamboo trees, the rocket truck should be 500 yards from the grove. At that moment the headlight touched the white and green stalks of a mass of bamboo trees.

"One, two, three, four, five ... Tex counted aloud.

At ten, he stood up, and at fifteen gave the signal to the rocket carrier. Two things happened almost instantly. The truck came to a shrieking halt—and while it was still moving slightly, the rockets let go. For a second the entire truck looked as if it were on fire, and the hissing sound was deafening. Then came a cleaner sound from the zip of rockets cutting through the air. Two seconds later they hit. There were flashes of light among the bamboo trees—and then, in one great yellow patch of fire, the grove exploded. For several seconds the cone of flame hung over the grove, and in it the bodies of half-a-dozen men turned like puppets. Then the light disappeared, and there was the vast harsh sound of things returning to earth.

"All right, dammit, let's get this carrier turned around," Tex shouted.

The driver backed and filled in quick, desperate jerks. In less than a minute he was edging around the rocket truck to get back to the road.

"There's no need to abandon the truck," Tex said to the driver of the rocket truck as they passed. "Back it down the road with your lights off. You'll be able to see where you're going from our rear lights. When you get to the village you can swing around and drive out."

They rumbled heavily back down the road. The fire-fight around the village had stopped completely. Later Monet told Tex that when the grove exploded, the Viet Minhs had instantly stopped firing and had scattered.

They paused in the village only long enough to pick up the advance guard; and then the entire group headed back toward Hanoi.

"I never heard such damn nonsense in my entire life," the American major general said harshly to Tex. "First you violate the rules of war by engaging in combat when you're supposed to be a neutral observer. And then you have the gall to come in here and tell a bunch of experienced general officers how to run their war."

Tex, MacWhite, and Monet were seated in three chairs at one end of a large conference table in a room on the third floor of the Citadel in Hanoi. At the other end of the table were two French Admirals, four French generals, and the American who had just spoken.

"General, I was not personally engaged in combat," Tex answered quietly. "All I did was ride along in the carrier. I didn't touch a weapon. I didn't fire a shot. What I was doing is permissible under the rules which govern the conduct of neutral observers."

"Now look here, Wolchek, don't try to play cute with me," the general said, his voice rising. "Don't try and tell me that some Frenchman dreamed up that idea of the rocket truck. I've been around here..."

The senior French general cut in with a chill voice. "General, we are not interested in the problem of the neutrality of your observer. What interests us more is this fantastic suggestion made by Major Monet and Ambassador MacWhite that the French army revise its operations in accord with the military writings of a Communist bandit."

"General, as you know I was the one who requested this session," Gilbert MacWhite said calmly. "Since December of 1946 the French have been fighting a war which has been maneuvered by the Communists precisely along the lines which Mao outlined in this pamphlet. You are a military man —you will please excuse my bluntness—but you made every mistake Mao wanted you to. You ignored his every lesson for fighting on this type of terrain. You neglected to get the political and economic cooperation of the Vietnamese, even though Mao proved long ago that Asians will not fight otherwise. Gentlemen, I have one simple—and possibly embarrassing—question. Has any of you ever read the writings of Mao Tse-tung?"

There was a moment of silence. The senior French general, a man of wisdom and excellent connections, turned slightly red. The other French generals blanched. MacWhite leaned forward in his chair waiting for an answer.

"If you are suggesting, Ambassador MacWhite, that the nation which produced Napoleon now has to go to a primitive Chinese for military instruction, I can tell you that you are not only making a mistake, you're being insulting," the senior French general finally said.

"That's not what I said," MacWhite answered. "I asked if any of you had read Mao?"

"Hell no, they haven't read him," the American shouted. "And neither have I."

And he bit his lips as if he were keeping himself from saying more. MacWhite knew that only his personal fortune and his political connections were keeping the general from ordering him out of Hanoi under armed guard.

MacWhite shrugged. "Apparently you gentlemen refuse to use your own eyes and ears."

Monet pushed back his chair and stood up. He was pale and his hands were trembling.

"Gentlemen, I am entirely responsible for the operation which we have just described to you," Monet said in a steady voice. "It contradicts everything that I was taught at St. Cyr and everything that this American general was taught at West Point. But it worked. I tell you, it worked. If I had the opportunity, I would multiply this operation a thousand times. In the months of fighting in Vietnam, it is the only complete victory I have commanded. Multiplied a thousand times it might give us a total strategic victory rather than an unimportant tactical success. If anyone is to be punished, it should be me. But, I beg of you, do not ask me to change my mind on something that my own eyes and my own experience teach me is what should be done."