by Robin Moore
Gone was the good-humored joking and chatter that had been the bane of Arklin’s efforts to enforce noise discipline. The Meos pushed steadily, grimly on. It was all uphill. Arklin was almost sick with exhaustion but he kept pushing himself, occasionally pausing a few moments to suck water from his canteen. At the end of an hour he signalled a break and fell to the ground limply, gasping, his legs aching and threatening to give out. Shakily he reached for his first-aid pouch, and rummaged in it until he found what he wanted. He poured two special pep tablets into his mouth but he was so dry he could not swallow them. From his nearly empty canteen he took just enough water to get the pills down. One was supposed to give a man enough extra stamina to keep going in spite of acute fatigue. Arklin felt he’d be lucky if he made it back with two.
Lying absolutely limp for ten minutes Arklin felt the pills begin to take. After fifteen minutes he was able to start forward again.
Every twenty minutes the column halted and its leaders listened intently in the darkness. There was no need for talk about the firing they had heard. Every man in the column knew only too well that the Pathet had found the Meo path to the ambush site and had lain in wait for them to return. The moonlight helped the Meos follow in file, each man staying in sight of the man ahead. Pushing their way up the mountain they began to move with more spirit as they approached their camp on top.
The Meo men near Arklin, Pay Dang especially, watched him closely, responding to his slightest signal or whispered command. While he was certain that there would never again be a breach of discipline as long as he was leading these tribesmen, the price paid for absolute obedience had been too high—not only in men, but in irreplaceable weapons.
Upwards they climbed in the dark through the tangled jungle growth. Checking his compass and watch constantly, Arklin figured that the column was less than an hour from camp when he called a break. It was taking them longer to reach the village than he had first estimated. The pills, at least, had worked, and Arklin knew a strange sense of clarity and awareness, a sort of detachment from his exhausted body.
They would be in the village before dawn, and fatigued though they were their additional fire power should be enough to beat off any ordinary Communist attack. As his legs carried him upward Arklin had a moment of prescience. His mission here was a success. All his efforts, the months he had lived alone out here, were at last to count for something. The Communists would have to wipe out the little fortress he had created before they could call the Plain of Jars secure for their operations.
Ten days Methuan had asked for. Arklin would try to give them to him. And then he could go home. He visualized his name on the promotion list to make lieutenant colonel. His thoughts went to the comfortable home in Fayetteville where a man could wake up in the morning, put on a clean uniform, and go to work like a normal person. . . .
Pay Dang, walking ahead of him, paused and pointed. On the mountaintop above them was reflected the glow of dying fires. Before long they should encounter the camp’s listening posts and outer security guard.
Suddenly, in front of them, the flash of fire and eruption of automatic weapons burst forth. Arklin groaned. Already the Communists were hitting the village. Were his men too exhausted to fight?
“Pay Dang,” Arklin yelled over the shooting. “Tell the men to spread out and hit the Pathet from the rear. Take one platoon to the bridge!”
Pay Dang shouted the orders and the Meos deployed. Only sporadic return fire emanated from the camp. A mortar round exploded from a tube somewhere in front of them; twenty seconds later there was a flash and explosion from inside the camp and a fierce fire started to burn.
“White phosphorus!” Arklin shouted. “Let’s get that mortar.” Pay Dang, Arklin, and a squad fought their way through the tangled growth. The flash of mortar rounds being fired clearly indicated the position of the weapon.
Twenty yards ahead of them they could actually see the mortar and its crew.
“Let’s go!” Arklin yelled, crashing through the heavy foliage. He pulled a grenade off his belt, jerked the pin out, held the handle down until he had a clear pitch, and then let it go.
A deafening explosion and bright flash outlined the mortar tube tumbling in the air. The Meos fell upon the Communists, shooting them and slicing at the living and dead with knives.
From all around the camp now the Communists had turned from the village and were firing into the darkness filled with enraged Meo men. Shrill whistle blasts and shouted commands told Arklin that the Communists were trying to escape through the encircling Meo tribesmen. Screams, gunfire and the blasts of grenades split the night.
Arklin aimed his flare gun high and fired a green star above the camp as the signal for the defenders to stop firing. Anything from inside now probably would kill more Meos than Communists.
“Pay Dang,” Arklin shouted, “the Pathet are on the run. Tell your men to stop firing. They’ll kill each other.” Arklin fired two more green flares and Pay Dang yelled orders. Slowly the firing came to a halt.
“Let’s get into camp, Pay Dang.”
Arklin paused at the recent Communist mortar position. Two Meos were hacking at the Communists. One Pathet, barely alive and moaning, was minus ears and hands.
“Go to the village,” Arklin cried in Meo. The tribesmen looked up from their grisly task and seeing it was Arklin obeyed instantly, carrying their bloody souvenirs with them.
Shouting the identifying password the Meos made their way to the bridge, crossed and entered their village, horrifyingly illuminated by the flickering fires caused by the Communist WP-mortar barrage.
Men rushed to their houses and shouts of anguish in the night bespoke the death of women and children. Arklin made for his stilt house and to his immense relief found it undamaged. He shouted for Ha Ban and found her huddled under the house. She threw herself into his arms, weeping.
“You must help me, Nanette,” he said. “Remember all I taught you about bandaging wounds and treating burns?”
She nodded and pulled herself together. “I will get the medical box.”
With sunrise Arklin was able to evaluate the damage done to the village. A cluster of houses had burned to the ground. Only the complete stillness of the air had prevented the entire village from going up in a holocaust. Ten blackened and unidentifiable bodies were laid out for burial. A hospital section had been set up, and Ha Ban and some of the other women were taking care of the burned and wounded men, women, and children.
Pay Dang followed Arklin on his inspection rounds, looking as grim as the major, knowing as did all the Meos, that all this was the result of not obeying their American leader’s orders.
“They didn’t get the weapons room,” Arklin said in an effort at optimism.
Roll call showed 32 men missing. When the sun had risen above the mountains Arklin took a detail outside camp. Most of the Communist bodies, including those mutilated by the Meos, had been dragged away by stealthily returning Pathet Lao. Most enemy weapons also had been retrieved.
The bodies of three Meos whom Arklin suspected had been shot by the defenders in error, were pulled back into the village and laid beside the others for burial.
By mid-morning much of the evidence of the battle had been cleaned up. The bodies had been taken to the burial ground to lie in woven bamboo huts while commemorative wooden posts were carved. Then they would be buried and the posts placed above the graves.
The burned houses were already being rebuilt by a work detail, and the three company captains had taken accurate casualty counts and reorganized their commands.
Arklin was gray and shaking with exhaustion. The pills had worn off and he didn’t dare sit down, knowing he would collapse into sleep. He ordered the entire 5th Meo Strike Company, which had stayed in camp during the ambush, to mount outer and inner security guard.
Pay Dang asked permission to send a platoon to see what had happened to the men ambushed on the trail. Arklin insisted the platoon take an extra section to
walk flank security. Then with things reasonably under control he shuffled to his house, made it up the notched log and collapsed on the floor into a deep coma-like sleep.
The heat and the sun streaming through the door slowly awakened him. He opened his eyes to find his head cradled between Nanette’s breasts, her familiar musky odor in his nostrils turning his mind to sensual thoughts. At once reality intruded. The Communist attack on the village could be repeated. He should report to control.
Nanette, seeing he was awake, stroked his forehead. Arklin sighed wearily and propped his head on one elbow. “There will be much fighting in the next week. The Pathet will attack this camp in force the next time. We will all have to leave here before then.”
“If I am with you I do not care where we go.”
“I can’t promise you what will happen.”
Nanette reached out and clutched Arklin’s arms. Her hands were very strong for a woman’s, he thought. She didn’t say anything for a few moments and then, shoulders sagging, fingers opening, she fell against his shoulder. He put an arm around her and held her to him. It was all wrong, this thing with the half-French half-Meo girl. Yet down deep he knew much of his success with the Meo tribesmen was due to her. Much as he loved and missed his home and family, he had derived great comfort from Nanette. He was human and, goddamn it, Nanette had provided the few simple pleasures and the companionship that made it possible for him to live and work out here, almost a year now, in a state of comparative happiness.
Arklin realized he must soon talk to Nanette about the future. Seeing his expression, she raised her lips to him and drew him down on top of her again, stroking and caressing him. Still fatigued, he submitted, and then finally, reluctantly, he forced himself up. He must contact control.
Calling a boy to come grind the radio’s generator, he sat behind the transmitting key, code pad in front of him, and composed a terse message.
“Ambush success, destroyed enemy company. Thirty friendly killed or captured.”
Arklin listened carefully for an answer. His message was acknowledged and then the dots and dashes told him to stand by. He waited for twenty minutes before the considerately slow keying of the control operator began. Arklin wrote the incoming message down letter by letter on his code pad. When it was finished he quickly decoded the signal.
The message read, “Keep hitting at your discretion. Mark helicopter LZ in your village immediately.” The message was signed with Methuan’s code.
Arklin left to look for a likely LZ. A clear area, enlarged by the burned-out houses from the Communist mortar barrage, was the right size and he ordered the debris cleared away. On his return, Nanette told him excitedly that the radio receiver had been clicking. Hastily he summoned a boy to crank the generator and transmitted that he had not received the message and to please repeat. He listened intently and copied a long message from control on his code pad. Acknowledging receipt he proceeded to decode the new signal. Some of the words had been garbled and it took him a while to get the sense of the entire communication. It was from Methuan.
The message informed him that the Communists were already complaining about an American-inspired ground attack on their headquarters. Higher U.S. command was not as pleased as the Agency with the attack which, the Communists said, precluded negotiations. Control then said that agent reports indicated a Pathet buildup to regimental strength northwest of Khang Khay. It was reported that there were Chinese Communist officers advising the troops. Finally control suggested that if a Chinese Communist officer could be captured it would help give the United States cause in the eyes of the world to use whatever means necessary to halt further Communist military aggression in Laos.
4
Coordinates of the Communist buildup had been given in the message and Arklin plotted the exact location on his map. While Khang Khay was almost due south of the village, the new Communist positions were southwest, close to the edge of the Plain of Jars, but still in jungle terrain. This apparently would be the jumping-off area for large-scale attacks that would spearhead the Communist movement across the last of the country’s government-held territory.
Arklin took the map out to the gate, crossed the bridge and looked down the mountainside and across toward the Plain of Jars, directly west of the camp. Looking southward he could see, about ten miles away, the jungle-covered foothills in which the Pathet Lao, Viet Minh and apparently Chicoms too, were getting their troops ready to finish off Laos as a neutralist nation.
Arklin made his plans for the attack, the purpose of which would be to capture Chinese prisoners. He went to the weapons room, unlocked the door and made an inventory of the contents. There was a fine supply of ammunition for the four 3.5-inch rocket launchers, the most potent weapons at his disposal.
The rocket launchers, he decided, would be the key to his strategy.
Each of the three Meo companies had a weapons platoon, but their training in the rocket launcher had been minimal. Still, there were four two-man teams in each company with some experience on this bazooka; twelve teams in the camp. Arklin would have to determine the four best teams. Walking out of the shed he laughed at the idea forming in his head. He really was becoming a Meo.
Arklin would sponsor a shooting contest to determine which bazooka men were the best. Afterwards the winners would be feted at a drinking party and then accorded the honor of firing the deadly rockets into the Pathet Lao camp. Most important, after being guests of honor at the village revel the winners would die before they’d fail in their mission. Always, to get montagnards working and fighting at peak skill you had to devise tricks, games, contests, and other incentives. Also he thought, a contest and party would take their minds off the unnecessary loss of life in the ambush and attack on the village.
Arklin had outlined the strategy in his mind when in the distance he heard a buffalo horn, the signal that friendly forces were approaching camp. He arrived at the main gate in time to see the vanguard of Pay Dang’s relief column. Arklin grimly watched body after body being carried by the Meos, the corpses tied hands and feet to heavy poles or slung over the backs of the tribesmen.
There was absolute silence in the village. The Meos crossed the bridge, walked to the burial ground and deposited the corpses. When the mournful procession was complete there were 15 bodies laid out. Arklin couldn’t repress a shudder. The Communists were no slouches at mutilating the dead either. Stoically, the villagers gazed down at the bodies. Some women, whose men were not among the bodies brought into camp, went anxiously to the gate to see whether more might be coming.
The last of the patrol entered the village with a wounded man on a bamboo litter and took him to the hospital area. His woman was already beside him, pulling at the clothing over his wound. Arklin gently pushed her aside, and cut the clothes away from a chest wound. The bullet had cut across the chest, searing a bloody path, but had not, fortunately, entered the lungs. Loss of blood had weakened the tribesman so that he could not walk. “This man run into jungle. Pathet try but cannot find him,” Pay Dang explained.
Arklin hung a bottle of plasma from a post and introduced a needle into the montagnard’s artery. The woman moaned as he worked.
“Could he tell you anything?” Arklin asked Pay Dang.
“He said the shooting was sudden. He was at the end of the column and ran away. He hid in the jungle until the Pathet go away. They tortured and killed the wounded and then attacked the village.”
“How many Pathet in the ambush?”
“He say many, many, a hundred, maybe 200.”
“Probably a band of 30.” Arklin finished cleaning the wound and bandaged it. As he walked away from the wounded man, Pay Dang anxiously trailed him.
“What do we do now, Major?”
Arklin shrugged his shoulders. “If your men will not obey the orders we give I cannot take them out again to kill the Pathet and Viet Minh. It is too bad. I have a fine plan to kill many Communists.”
Pay Dang, his face pitiful w
ith remorse, reached out and held Arklin. “Meos never again disobey your orders, Major. I make you blood pledge. I kill any Meo who does not do what you say.”
They had reached Arklin’s longhouse and the major gestured Pay Dang up the notched log and followed him. In the house Arklin pointed to the map on the wall. “All right, Pay Dang, we will try again to hit the Pathet and Viet Minh.”
The Meo let out a happy cry.
“This is going to be a very hard operation. Every man must know his job perfectly. We will have only one day to practice the attack and then we go hit the Pathet at their new camp.”
“Kill the Pathet!” Pay Dang cried.
Minutely, Arklin outlined his plan. An hour later, when Pay Dang understood it completely, he left Arklin’s house to start operations moving.
The best four scouts in camp were sent to Arklin for briefing. “You’ll wear your old Meo clothing,” he told them. “Loincloth and blanket. You’ll go barefoot.” At this last they grimaced. Shoes, army boots, had come to be one of their chief status symbols, and even though uncomfortable on their wide splayfeet, the pride they took in owning them more than compensated for any discomfort they produced.
“You will carry no weapons but your own hunting crossbows. Watch the Pathet camp and look for the Chinese. You understand?” The four scouts nodded vigorously.
“You will travel tonight and watch all day tomorrow. Two of you will return tomorrow night and be here before sunrise the next day.” Arklin designated which two by slapping their shoulders. “You other two will keep watching the camp, marking the place the Chinese stay. You two scouts who come back will lead us to the Pathet camp.”
Arklin spent another half-hour drilling his scouts, and then let them go to change into their Meo garb and start out. His next order was for a work party to clear the helicopter LZ. Finally, just before dark, he called out the heavy-weapons men for a meeting.
Meanwhile the old people and women prepared for the mass funeral. The relatives of those whose bodies had been brought back to camp worked cheerfully at their tasks of carving wood monuments for the graves. The spirits of their men would be released from the home village, which was as it should be. The relatives of those whose bodies had not been returned were the ones who grieved and moaned fitfully. There could be no worse fate for a dead montagnard and his family than not having the body properly buried at home. The ghost would wander forever in the mountains.
