Shadows of War

by Larry Bond

  Communications were coordinated at the divisional headquarters, a legacy of decades of Communist top-down military philosophy as well as the political need to keep tight control on the army. The headquarters was actually a mobile unit only a few kilometers behind the lead element of the assault; still, it was clear that they were having a difficult time sorting through the various reports and coordinating support on the fly.

  Jing Yo was told to hold his ground; the tanks would be arriving shortly.

  “We have disabled two enemy vehicles,” he repeated, sure that the specialist on the other side of the radio did not fully comprehend what he had just been told. “I don’t want the tanks to fire at us.”

  “Yes, Captain, I understand.”

  Under other circumstances, the unintended promotion might have amused Jing Yo, but it only made him even more wary.

  “As soon as you see our units, get off the armored car and run away from it,” Jing Yo told Wu. “Take no chances.”

  “You’re a fine one to talk about chances.”

  “Don’t compare yourself to me, Sergeant. Simply do your duty.”

  Jing Yo checked on each of his men, trotting to them in turn. Then he went over to the Vietnamese sergeant. The man was hunkered by the side of the stream, shivering.

  It was such a pathetic sight that Jing Yo thought of putting him out of his misery: the man would face a life of shame as a prisoner of war, even after he was released. But he would have to face his fate; Jing Yo could not help him escape it.

  The Panhard’s machine gun started firing. Jing Yo raced up the embankment and saw that several Vietnamese soldiers had come up through the field near the trees, apparently getting to the road before being spotted. Sergeant Wu had killed all but one; the survivor, having retreated to the ditch at the edge of the road, was firing back with an AK-47. His shots dinged harmlessly off the armored car. But the man was equally protected by his hiding place; Sergeant Wu couldn’t manage to silence him.

  The firefight had an almost surreal quality, as if it were a practice exercise rather than an actual conflict. Wu would fire several rounds, temporarily silencing the Vietnamese soldier. Then, just as it seemed as if the man were dead, he would start firing from a slightly different position. Wu would respond, and the exchange would continue.

  Finally, Wu tossed a hand grenade into the ditch. The AK-47 stopped firing.

  A minute later, more trucks appeared on the road. These were pickup trucks, filled with Vietnamese soldiers who hung over the cab and off the back willy-nilly.

  Sergeant Wu caught the first truck in the radiator, the machine gun’s bullets slicing into the engine block after passing through the narrow fins. Wu’s gun jammed as he swung it toward the second truck just to its left. Cursing, he fired a burst from his own rifle, then climbed out of the armored car and ran back toward the bridge.

  By then, everyone else in the squad was emptying their rifles at the rest of the trucks. The Vietnamese threw themselves over the side, desperate to escape the hail of bullets as the vehicles knotted on the road.

  “Stop wasting your ammunition!” yelled Jing Yo when he saw they were having little effect on the Vietnamese soldiers. “Let them bunch up! Linn, get ready to take it with a grenade.”

  The lack of squad radios—a handicap he hadn’t had in Malaysia—hurt Jing Yo immensely. He couldn’t be sure his men heard what he was saying.

  The hell with the army’s rules, he decided. He would find a way to procure squad radios as soon as possible.

  Jing Yo heard one of the Vietnamese officers yelling something at his men, directing them one way or another—probably away from the truck, though he couldn’t quite be sure.

  “Fire, Linn!” yelled Jing Yo, worried that they would soon lose their easy target. “Fire!”

  Linn may or may not have heard him—they were separated by roughly forty meters—but if not, he read the situation as well as Jing Yo did. The grenade popped from its launcher, rocketing across the darkness in a fiery red flash like a meteorite plunging into the earth’s atmosphere. It hit the cab of the truck and exploded, sending shrapnel and debris into the small crowd of soldiers behind it. Panicked, the men began to retreat, only to be caught by Chin, who worked them over with his assault rifle.

  The darkness, the confusion of battle, and most of all the inexperience of the Vietnamese soldiers had given the commandos a serious advantage against a numerically superior and more heavily armed foe. But Jing Yo realized that those were nebulous and fleeting qualities in war.

  His small force could easily be overmatched by the sheer number of Vietnamese soldiers trying to retreat down the road.

  The first sign of this danger came a minute or so later, when he saw flashes in the field beyond the trees to his right. The Vietnamese had finally realized they didn’t have to use the road to advance.

  “Chin! Drop back to the bridge, to the ravine!” Jing Yo ordered. He shouted, then had to resort to using his flashlight to send the message up the road.

  Chin acknowledged, and began making his way back.

  Had their instructions not been to hold the bridge, now would have been the time to retreat. The commandos had stalled the retreat, killed a large number of enemy soldiers, and not taken any casualties. An artillery strike zeroed in on the destroyed vehicles and then gradually expanding would safely eliminate a sizable portion of the enemy, and provide ample cover for Jing Yo and his men to get away.

  But such a strike would almost surely damage the bridge as well, and besides, his instructions were to take and hold the span. It didn’t matter that the original plan had called for another three companies to be there to help, or that the bridge seemed, in Jing Yo’s opinion, considerably less important than the planners had believed. It mattered that those were his orders, and he knew better than to try and get them changed.

  Having Chin retreat saved the private, who could easily have been overrun, but it also allowed the Vietnamese to advance without opposition. Jing Yo could partially compensate for this by having someone flank them from the east; it turned out that Sergeant Wu had already thought of this, and tracers began whipping through the brush and high grass.

  A whistle sounded from the Vietnamese line. Jing Yo braced for an all-out attack, then realized that the Vietnamese commander was calling for a retreat.

  “Hold your fire,” he ordered.

  Undoubtedly it would be only a temporary respite. The enemy would regroup quickly.

  Jing Yo called division again, to get a read on the location of the vanguard and to tell them that they were under heavy fire at the bridge. The major who was coordinating the attack communications told him that the vanguard was on Highway 12 and would soon be in his area.

  “How close are they?” Jing Yo asked. “Can you give me a GPS point?”

  “We don’t have specific data points,” said the major. “Things are in flux, Lieutenant.”

  “We have a sizable number of enemy in front of us.”

  “Then you have much opportunity. I must move on; there are many things happening.”

  Judging only by the sound of explosions in the distance, the battle at the Lai Châu barracks had begun to wind down. But there was no way of knowing how close the tanks and infantry at the leading edge of the assault were. Nor could Jing Yo communicate directly with them.

  Colonel Sun could. Jing Yo punched in the colonel’s command line. Sun surprised him by answering himself. His voice was nearly drowned out by the sound of explosions.

  “Sun.”

  “Colonel, we are holding the objective on Route 12,” said Jing Yo quickly. “We have a large force in front of us.”

  “Good.”

  “We have held off two assaults, one by armored cars. The force opposing us is mustering for a fresh attack. We’ve used about half of our ammunition,” said Jing Yo, laying out the problem in its starkest terms. “If they continue to press, we will run out of ammunition.”

  “Hold your position,” snapped S
un.

  “If I could get a read from the vanguard—”

  “Hold your position.”

  The colonel snapped off the line.

  “On the road!” yelled Sergeant Wu.

  “Let them get a little closer,” said Jing Yo. “Wait until I fire. Sergeant, watch the right flank—this may just be to get our attention.”

  Nearly two dozen Vietnamese came up the road, crouching along the sides in the thickest part of the shadows. Jing Yo waited until they were parallel with his position before starting to fire. The others quickly followed, cutting down about half of the attackers within a few seconds. The rest of the enemy fired back erratically, some at the copse, some at the bridge.

  A second wave, another two dozen strong, came up behind them. There was no sense waiting this time; the commandos began firing as soon as the enemy was in range, and once again cut down about half the squad. But they took their first casualty as well: Private Bo got hit in the shoulder, and was temporarily out of action.

  “Use the grenade launchers!” shouted Jing Yo, and almost immediately three of the small bombs exploded near the burned-out truck and the roadside. Unlike the rocket-propelled weapons, the 40 mm grenades were antipersonnel weapons, modeled on the grenades American infantrymen typically had mounted to their gun barrels. The Chinese version was roughly as dangerous, but they were in very short supply. The commandos had three launchers, with only four rounds apiece.

  Gunfire erupted to the far right of the bridge, nearly a hundred meters away. One of the Vietnamese soldiers had been spooked in the dark, and he and his companions fired for thirty or forty seconds before their commander took nearly half a minute to get them under control. There were at least a dozen of them in the field, aiming to come up the flank against the commandos.

  As the gunfire petered out, Wu decided to restoke it with a fresh round of grenades, hoping to get the Vietnamese to waste as much of their ammunition as possible. The night became an arc of red light, the gunfire so steady that for a few moments there seemed to be a solid wall of bullets.

  Jing Yo ordered the sergeant to fall back, yelling his command and then signaling with the light. Wu acknowledged with a single blink.

  Jing Yo and the two privates near him began firing, attracting the Vietnamese soldiers’ attention. When the answering fire began to peter out, Jing Yo got up and led the others down the hill, hustling through the trees and then staying low in the field until they reached the ravine. They slid in and moved up to the bridge quickly, reorienting themselves.

  They’d have no hope against a concerted attack down the ravine; the enemy would have clear lines of fire to the bridge.

  There was a whistle from the woods. This time it was a signal for an attack, and the Vietnamese began firing and rushing forward.

  “Lai, Kim, back to the rocks,” he said, pointing to a set of low boulders on the bank. “I’ll cover from here.”

  Jing Yo’s words were drowned out by two grenades, both of which exploded a short distance away. The Vietnamese were now advancing in front of them and to their side. There were at least several dozen men, maybe a hundred.

  Jing Yo tossed a hand grenade, then emptied his gun’s magazine, pulled out the box, and slid in the mate he had taped to it. Within seconds he was through that one too, firing too fast, but there were so many bullets flying at him from so many directions that it was impossible to take his time. He hardly had to aim—there were flashes and bodies running toward him everywhere he looked.

  He fumbled reloading, his fingers wet with sweat. He fired so quickly that he missed the incendiary round signaling he was near the end of the box, and was surprised when his gun clicked empty.

  Jing Yo pushed a replacement into place and started firing again. Grenades exploded in a crescendo. Then something screeched behind the ravine, and suddenly the bullets stopped flying from that direction. Sergeant Wu had begun a counterattack, striking with several grenades into the heart of the Vietnamese force. The enemy was caught in the V of the dried-out stream, where Wu’s grenades found easy targets.

  Jing Yo turned his attention back to the road. The Vietnamese were very close—all around the burned-out armored cars. He emptied his gun, then threw his last hand grenade.

  Jing Yo pressed himself against the dirt, expecting to die now; the only question was whether he would run out of ammunition first.

  Another whistle sounded. The enemy gunfire ceased. The Vietnamese commander had called for another retreat.

  Jing Yo started to get up to look after his two men, then stopped—they hadn’t left his side.

  That was a fatal decision for Lai; he’d been shot through the forehead.

  Jing Yo took Lai’s gun and spare ammo. He’d been down to his last two boxes when he died.

  “What ammunition do you have left?” Jing Yo asked Kim.

  Kim held up his rifle. Jing Yo gave him Lai’s mags.

  “Back to the bridge,” Jing Yo said.

  Kim scrambled up from the streambed and ran toward the nearest dead body, hoping to get his gun and ammunition. It was a good idea, but a very dangerous one—before Jing Yo could warn him, gunfire from the highway shoulder near the burned-out armored car cut the private down. The bullets blew away a good portion of the private’s head, leaving no doubt he was dead.

  Jing Yo fired in anger, unable to control himself. There was no answering fire, but it was impossible to tell whether he had killed Kim’s executioner or merely convinced him to take cover.

  He made his way back to the ravine below the bridge. Wu was already there, tending to Chin. The private had been shot in the leg and groin. His blood flowed freely despite the bandage that Wu had placed; Jing Yo took a look at his face and knew he was going to die.

  To lose so many men for an insignificant bridge—what would his mentors say?

  That he had done his duty.

  “Give him morphine,” Jing Yo told Wu as Chin began to scream in pain.

  “Already did.”

  Jing Yo opened his med pouch and took out his syringe. He pulled off the plastic protector and plunged it into Chin’s leg.

  “Something’s coming,” said Wu. “A truck.”

  Jing Yo turned to the north, then realized the vehicle was coming from the south.

  Ai Gua.

  He ran up onto the road. The vehicle did not have its lights on, and at the last moment Jing Yo felt a pang of indecision—what if this wasn’t Ai Gua? But then he recognized the shape of the cab.

  “Sorry it took so long,” said the private, jerking to a stop.

  “Pull off the road near the bridge,” said Jing Yo. “No—go over the bridge.”

  Jing Yo leapt onto the running board as Ai Gua put the truck in gear and raced forward. They stopped a few yards beyond the stone pillars. Both men jumped out, ran to the back, and began pulling gear from the back. They managed two trips back to the stream before the Vietnamese began firing at them again.

  Their ammunition had been replenished, but the odds were still overwhelming. They were down to six men, counting the wounded Bo.

  “We could drop back off the bridge, let them come over, then retake it,” suggested Wu as Jing Yo caught his breath. “They’re just going to want to get the hell out of here. If we hit them hard enough, they’ll run.”

  Jing Yo frowned.

  “Who’s gonna know?” said Wu. “And what difference will a hundred Vietnamese make in the end?”

  “I’ll know,” said Jing Yo, rising.

  “Trucks coming down the road,” said Ai Gua as the sound of the vehicles rose above the cries of the wounded Vietnamese.

  “There’s going to be another mad rush,” said Wu. “We’ll be massacred.”

  “Take your three men and go up to the copse,” Jing Yo told him. “Wait until you hear me fire.”

  Wu frowned, but then waved to the others and began cutting down the streambed to circle into the trees.

  Jing Yo told Ai Gua and Bo to move up the ravine to the righ
t and cover him.

  “If they begin firing to your right, retreat back to those rocks,” Jing Yo told them. He gave them two grenades from the store he’d pulled out of the truck to use to cover the withdrawal.

  “Where are you going, Lieutenant?” asked Ai Gua.

  “I’m going to rig one of the demolition kits in the truck.”

  Jing Yo crawled up the side of the streambed, moving across to the pavement on his belly for about ten meters before deciding to risk running the rest of the way. No one fired at him as he leapt into the back of truck.

  It was too dark to see. He got to his knees and began feeling around for metal boxes where the demolition kits were stored. He started to open one, then realized it was a med kit. Finally he found one of the boxes with a double latch. Undoing them, he pulled up the top and reached inside for one of the briefcase-like kits.

  The plastic explosives inside were relatively easy to handle. The charges were prewired and set with a small primer package at the side; intended to be put together as modular units and adjusted to the size of the target, they were activated either by a radio signal or, as a backup, wire current.

  Radio was the much better option, but it required coding the control and charge units, a safety precaution to keep them from being exploded accidentally or by the enemy. With no time to do that, Jing Yo had to opt for the old-fashioned wire. He took the reel from the side of the case and clipped the leads in place. Then he put the explosive pack back into the storage box, tucked the control unit under his arm, and took the wire, stringing a good bit as he moved to the tailgate.

  As he dropped down from the truck, he realized he had left his gun in the back. Cursing, he started to go back, then hit the ground as someone began firing at him. With bullets chewing through the macadam, Jing Yo crawled to the side of the road, stringing the wire out behind him.

  He made it to the side of the road without being hit. Once in the ditch, he was no longer a target, and the shooter lost interest. Jing Yo crawled back to the streambed, trailing the wire.

  “They’re coming!” yelled Ai Gua as engines began revving around the road.