A War Too Far

by David Lee Corley

  Granier watched through his scope, horrified. “God damn it,” he said to himself as he chambered a round into the rifle and took aim at the water buffalo.

  Davis saw the water buffalo too. He glanced at the approaching train. “Close enough,” he said, picking up the detonator, twisting the handle three times and yelling, “FIRE IN THE HOLE.”

  Everyone ducked including Spitting Woman, still holding the little girl.

  Davis pushed the handle downward releasing the spring-loaded magneto and sending a charge through the wire.

  The TNT exploded. The water buffalo disappeared in a mist of red. The ground shook. The rail sheered and bent toward the sky. Perfect.

  The train engineer saw the explosion and hit the brake. Too late. The engine hit the mangled rail. Its wheels were pulled to the side and derailed, digging into the gravel and wooden ties. The locomotive twisted onto its side, plowed into the soft soil. Spitting Woman heard it coming and looked up. It was heading straight for her and the little girl. She cradled the little girl in her arms and ran through the knee-deep water as fast as she could, the mud below the water sucking at her feet, holding her back, slowing her down.

  Granier watched from the hilltop, helpless, through his rifle’s scope. He rose up and said, “Oh, God. No!”

  The locomotive plowed up the earth as it careened forward. It hit the dike like it was nothing. Tons of soil and water flew into the air. Spitting Woman could feel the earth underneath her feet, moving like some unseen force was reaching up to grab her feet, slow her down, doom her and the little girl. She felt the water rising in the paddy as the locomotive charged forward creating a muddy wave. She leaped as far as she could to one side and dove into the water with the little girl. The locomotive plowed forward to where she had disappeared below the shallow water. It stopped with the loud groan of contracting metal and the hiss of steam rising from the water. The iron beast was dead.

  “Please, God. Please,” said Granier, almost in tears.

  Spitting Woman emerged from the water with the little girl in her arms. She turned to Granier up on the hillside and grinned at him like it was fun and exciting.

  Granier fell to his knees, relieved. “Kill me now,” he said to nobody in particular.

  Davis looked over at Spitting Woman and the little girl and shouted, “Are you alright?”

  Spitting Woman nodded, until bits and pieces of water buffalo rained down, pelting everyone.

  The Japanese at the outpost, ran forward, wide-eyed. The first seven cars had crashed into the back of the locomotive in a pile-up and fallen on their sides. The rest of the train was jolted to a stop, still on the tracks, useable. The machinegunners on top of the surviving cars had been slammed up against the sandbags but were unhurt. They re-manned their guns and started looking for targets.

  Many of the Japanese troops on top of the train tumbled off as the train slammed to a stop. The troops inside the cars didn’t fare much better as they were thrown from their seats. There were a few broken arms and legs but most had survived the crash without major injury. Their unit commanders shouted out orders. The soldiers retrieved their rifles and readied themselves for an attack they were sure would follow the derailment.

  Granier snapped out of his panic-driven haze, laid back down with his rifle, and used his scope to scan for potential targets near the front of the train where the demolition team was still hidden.

  The battery of knee mortar soldiers sprang from their hiding places and ran down the hill to get within range of the train. Once in their final firing positions behind a small rise, they placed the curved-base of their mortars on the ground and lined up their mortars’ direction using the simple sight marking on the mortar tube and checked the bubble indicator to ensure their mortars were at the 45-degree angle required. They loaded a grenade-style shell into the top of their mortar tubes and slipped their fingers into the safety rings on their grenade-shells.

  On Giap’s signal, the Viet Minh opened fire. Four hundred rifles fired in unison, then separately. The light machinegunners hammered out the first thirty rounds in their magazines before reloading. Their focus was the heavy machinegun teams on top of the train.

  The knee mortar soldiers pulled the pins on their first grenade-shells and launched them into the sky.

  Bullets rained down on the Japanese soldiers in and around the train. Grenade-shells dropped from the sky and exploded. The Japanese returned fire at the hillside. The Viet Minh were hidden and difficult to see; only their muzzle flashes revealed their positions. The Japanese heavy machineguns sprayed the hillside with a barrage of bullets each gun pounding out a tremendous rate of fire.

  Granier opened fire, targeting the Japanese soldiers closest to the front of the train. He was systematic – one bullet, one kill. His aim was deadly. Eight Japanese were killed or seriously wounded in the first ten seconds. His rifle’s bolt locked back; an empty clip sprang out of the internal magazine. He pushed in another clip, released the rifle’s bolt chambering the next shell, sighted his next target with the scope and opened fire once again. The entire process of reloading took less than three seconds. Rehearsed butchery. With each discharge of his weapon, more Japanese dropped, out of the fight.

  The squad of Japanese soldiers at the outpost took cover and joined their comrades firing on the hillside. They did not notice the Viet Minh moving upon their flank. Green and Santana led the Viet Minh soldiers, each commanding an oversized platoon of fifty soldiers. With the Japanese pinned down and focused on the hillside, their mission was to roll up the flank. It was a simple tactic but very effective – by attacking the side of the enemy’s line, their opponents could not mass fire like a frontal attack. The two platoons would fire on ten to twenty Japanese soldiers instead of hundreds. Once the enemy’s resistance faded, they moved to the next cluster of enemy troops and renewed their assault. Classic. Deadly. The Japanese outpost was wiped out in less than a minute. The Viet Minh advanced on the back of the train.

  Granier ran low on targets at the front of the train. He had lost count, but he imagined he had taken out twenty-one to twenty-four Japanese soldiers based on the bodies lying around the train and the empty clips on the ground beside him. Granier didn’t think about the lives he had extinguished. He was too focused on his mission. He was given a goal, he developed a plan of action, and he carried it out until success was achieved. Humanity had nothing to do with it. He wasn’t cold-hearted or vindictive. He was efficient.

  Glancing over at the Viet Minh on the hillside, he could see that they were taking a beating from the Japanese heavy machineguns. Over a dozen Viet Minh lay dead. He changed his target-acquisition to the heavy machinegun teams on top of the train cars. They were well protected by sandbags. They were more difficult targets than the riflemen near the front of the train. Each machinegun team had three members – a gunner, a feeder, and a loader. He needed to take out two to disable the crew and silence the weapon. A single soldier could fire the machinegun, but it would quickly jam unless the bullet belts were fed into the bolt correctly. The gun’s oil reservoir also needed a constant resupply of oil, or it would overheat and jam. That, and lugging over the heavy ammunition boxes, were the loader’s job.

  Granier recalibrated his scope. Each of the machinegun positions was farther and farther away, making each shot more and more difficult. He began. His first three shots found their targets, successfully killing all three Japanese soldiers operating the closest machinegun. He moved to the next machinegun position and took aim at the gunner. He felt a slight breeze on the side of his face. Wind. Not good. Changes things, he thought. The problem was that he didn’t know how much it would affect his aim. He fired. The first shot missed. He readjusted. Fired again. Hit the loader in the back several feet behind the gunner. He cursed. That wasn’t where he was aiming. But now at least he knew where his bullet had landed. His scope was way off. He adjusted the knobs. He fired again and hit the gunner in the eye. About time, he thought.
He decided to kill the feeder too since he couldn’t tell how bad the loader was hit. He was still moving behind the gunner, now dead. As the feeder pulled the gunner off the weapon, Granier fired again, hitting him in the side of the neck. He went down behind the sandbags. Good enough, he thought. Move on.

  Granier continued aiming, firing, adjusting, firing again, until he had taken out four of the machineguns. The machineguns positioned on the back of the train were an additional one hundred yards in distance and very difficult to hit. He became frustrated. Sweating, his fingers became slippery. His confidence waned, cursing after each shot he missed. He stopped. It took a moment to calm himself. He took two deep breaths and started again. He aimed and fired, hitting the feeder. He wasn’t aiming for him, but at that point, any kill was a win. He continued to fire until he hit the gunner. Good. Move on, he thought.

  He reloaded. It occurred to him he hadn’t checked on the demolition team in a few minutes. He moved his scope back to their position. They were gone. He swung it over to where Spitting Woman and the little girl had hidden. They were gone too. He tried not to panic. He scanned the area and saw the little girl frantically trying to herd the surviving water buffalo away from the train wreck and back to her village. She was alright. The Japanese weren’t interested in her.

  He let his eye leave the scope and raised his head to look down at the rice paddies below the hill where he spotted the demolition team. One of the two Viet Minh soldiers had been hit badly in the back. Spitting Woman and the other soldier were helping him run through a rice field. They stayed low. Davis was behind them defending the rear with his rifle. He was firing his weapon at three Japanese soldiers laying on the opposite side of the dike, firing their weapons at the fleeing demolition team. Damn it. They must’ve been hiding, he thought.

  Granier looked back through his scope and aimed. He knew his aim would be off because the scope was set for a farther distance. He fired and watched for a bullet hit anywhere so he could make the proper adjustments. He saw nothing. His scope was way off. He adjusted the sight to where he thought it should be set, took aim, and fired again. He saw a bit of mud kick up like a tiny explosion. A bullet hit. He adjusted his scope again.

  Granier took aim, took a breath, let half of it out, and squeezed the trigger. He watched through the scope as the head of one of the Japanese slumped down into the mud. One. He moved to the next soldier, took aim and fired. Two. The third soldier had seen enough as his two comrades had died in a matter of seconds from each other. He jumped up from his position and ran back toward the cover of the train. Granier fired. The man’s back arched and he fell. Three.

  Spitting Woman and Davis looked back at the dike and the three dead Japanese. They looked up at the hillside and saw Granier behind his rifle, watching over them. They were safe. They made their way back to the Viet Minh lines.

  With the demolition team safe, Granier once again went back to taking out the Japanese machinegun positions on the train. He readjusted his scope and fired until he killed two more Japanese soldiers – a gunner and a loader. The machinegun went silent.

  The gunfire from the train had slackened. There were a lot of Japanese bodies hanging from windows and laying on the ground.

  Giap and Dewey watched from the hillside. “Affix bayonets!” yelled Giap to his men.

  The Viet Minh riflemen stopped firing their rifles and attached their bayonets to the end of their barrels.

  The light machinegunners and knee mortar grenadiers continued to keep the Japanese pinned down.

  Green and Santana continued with the Viet Minh to attack the Japanese flank, chipping away, cutting them down.

  When the riflemen on the hillside were ready, Giap yelled, “Bayonets at the ready! Advance!”

  Four hundred Viet Minh rose up and emerged from the trees with their rifles held forward at the ready. It was an awesome sight.

  Many of the surviving Japanese stopped firing and looked to each other, wondering what to do. They were vastly outnumbered. The remaining heavy machines guns continued to fire, but they too were being picked off one by one by some unseen force.

  Giap yelled again as the Viet Minh reached the bottom of the hill and moved into the rice fields, “Double time!”

  The Viet Minh increased their speed to a moderate trot, splashing up water and mud, moving forward, unstoppable.

  Giap could see the Japanese in the distance, staring at his advancing troops. He could feel them breaking. “Charge!” he yelled at last.

  The Viet Minh yelled an angry cry as they broke into a run toward the train, determined and terrifying.

  At first, only a few Japanese abandoned their positions and ran in the opposite direction, hoping to reach the safety of the mountains before the Viet Minh caught up with them. Moments later, it was a complete rout. Even the machinegun teams jumped down from the train and ran.

  The Viet Minh overran the train, killing anyone brave enough to stand and fight. There weren’t many. The Viet Minh ran after the Japanese for another two hundred yards and stopped as their commanders had instructed them. They fired their rifles, hitting a few stragglers. The rest were left to flee. They would fight another day. The Viet Minh had their victory. That was enough. The Viet Minh cheered. Giap and Dewey didn’t want to take any unnecessary risks with their fledgling army. They knew that Japanese planes could show up at any minute and tip the scales of the battle. They needed to empty the train of supplies and move back into the safety of the forest.

  Granier stood up and walked down the hill. Spitting Woman was sitting, catching her breath. She rose up. Their eyes met – hers grateful, his relieved. Granier was through playing games. He walked over and hugged her. She hugged him back. Neither wanted to let go.

  FOUR

  It was night, but the Viet Minh were in no mood to sleep, even after the long day. They were celebrating. Dancing. Drinking. Recounting the stories of their victory. Laughing and joking. With the weapons and supplies they had looted from the train, they could grow their army to three times its current size. There was a feeling that this was just the beginning. They were taking back their country.

  Giap had agreed to one single fire in the center of the village so they could roast the pigs they had looted from the train. It was risky, but it had been so long since these people had something to celebrate. He allowed the fire, but only if they kept several containers of water nearby in case they heard a plane’s engine and needed to put it out in a hurry.

  Dewey was walking through the camp when he saw Santana and Green squatting on the ground with twenty Viet Minh crowded around six squares drawn in the dirt. In each square was a simple drawing of a crab, a deer, a chicken, a fish, a shrimp or a gourd. The Americans and Viet Minh tossed down cigarettes or clay pipes filled with smoking herbs as bets on the squares. A dealer rolled three dice. “Santana, a word,” said Dewey.

  Santana retrieved his bet of a cigarette from one of the squares and rose. “Yes, commander?” said Santana.

  “What are you doing?”

  “It’s a Viet game called ‘Bau Cua.’ Kinda like roulette.”

  “Are you winning?”

  “Not so far.”

  “Then you are unlucky.”

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “How do you expect to keep the respect of the Viet Minh if they see you as unlucky?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I really hadn’t thought about it that way. We were just celebrating and trying to make friends. I thought it would be good for morale.”

  “The Viet Minh are not our friends. They are our allies. Very important allies we need to complete our mission. We must keep their respect. The Viet Minh are very superstitious. They hold strong beliefs in things like ghosts, omens, and luck.”

  “Yes, Commander. I see your point.”

  “Good. Let Green know my thoughts, will you?”

  “Of course, Commander. Right away.”

  “It’s okay to have a little fu
n. We just need to be careful of the image we project to these people… for the sake of the mission.”

  Santana nodded, and Dewey moved off.

  Hoagland climbed up to the cave. He had several pieces of barbequed pork that he hoped Ho could eat. Ho was getting stronger by the day, but he still was fighting malaria. The medic found his patient awake, listening to the celebration. “It was a great victory,” said Hoagland as he entered.

  “You were there?” said Ho.

  “I watched from the hillside. Your Viet Minh fought bravely.”

  “Of course. It is what is expected of them.”

  “How do you do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “Expectations. They don’t want to disappoint you. They’d die for you.”

  “They would die for the cause. It’s not about me.”

  “Somehow I think you’re wrong.”

  “I am a symbol. Nothing more.”

  “You’re the one that’s holding them together. You give them hope. You inspire them.”

  “If it weren’t me, it would be someone else. They hope because that is all they have. What future do their children have without freedom?”

  “They’ve lived under the French for almost two hundred years.”

  “They’ve died under the French for almost two hundred years. Enough. My people have paid the price for freedom. It’s time.”

  “I hope you get it… freedom.”

  “We shall. It is only a matter of time and will. The time has come, and we have the will.”

  “I doubt the French will just up and leave.”