by Robin Moore
Maintaining absolute silence, we picked our way slowly and carefully along the jungle path, partially illuminated by a pale sliver of new moon. Twice we waded through mountain streams, and after what seemed an eternity reached our objective. Responding to hand signals, the first and third platoons swept around the village, while the second platoon formed a skirmish line, ready to sweep through the village.
Nim and Locke surveyed the scene. Once again Locke advised him against letting his two sergeants open fire. While some of the more militant Bru tribesmen might take a few shots at the jungle, he said, if no answering fire was forthcoming the chief and his villagers would come along peacefully.
In the pale pre-dawn light Captain Nim made no effort to disguise his feelings. The first dirty mois that shot at him would be cut down. When Locke pushed groundward the submachine gun one of the two LLDB sergeants was carrying, Nim regarded the gesture contemptuously.
The two Bru tribesmen who had previously made contact with the chief, and whose job it was to request that he gather his people before the Viet Cong came to take them away, made their final preparation. Then, the sky pink above the hills directly behind us, the two emissaries entered the village.
They came to the largest of the longhouses and one boosted the other up into the dark entrance. He disappeared and returned a moment later with the notched log ladder, which he lowered to the ground. Both tribesmen went inside to reappear with the grizzled old Bru chief, wearing a loincloth and a black blanket over his shoulders.
It was cold at this time of the morning, and I wondered how these people could stand the mountain chill with so little clothing. The Bru chief led our two strikers to what looked like a small village square. He hugged his chest with both arms, trying to keep warm, and walked about the square to stimulate circulation. A few moments later two young tribesmen climbed down the notched log from the chief’s hut, each carrying what looked like a water-buffalo horn.
The chief, noting that the sun was almost over the mountaintop, gave the signal to his men, and the village reverberated with the squawking bleats of the horns. Immediately heads poked out of the stilt houses, and notched logs were lowered to the ground. Montagnards in loincloths and with blankets covering their shoulders ambled to the parade grounds. Women with unconfined breasts appeared, carrying children.
The chief began talking loudly, and suddenly the people turned toward us and squinted into the sun. Some 20 or 30 men and women broke from the cluster of tribesmen and ran for their houses.
Captain Nim raised his carbine to his shoulder and shouted an order to his sergeants. His interpreter translated the order to the montagnard strikers who brought their weapons to the ready.
“You can’t fire on those unarmed people!” Locke cried.
“They are not unarmed long,” Nim retorted. “We kill now.”
“Wait, Dai-uy!” Locke pleaded. “They can’t see into the sun to shoot you, anyway.”
From the houses toward which the montagnards were running, women handed out weapons to their men below, who took them, fell to the ground, and aimed toward the jungle. The Bru chief shouted out, apparently ordering the militant tribesmen not to fire. But the VC sympathizers obviously had no intention of obeying.
A woman in one of the houses screamed something at the chief, then picked up a long French rifle and started firing in our direction.
“Hold fire, Nim!” Locke called.
Emboldened by her bravado, several VC sympathizers pumped bullets into the jungle.
The chief was shouting at the armed tribesmen to cease firing and Locke was trying to restrain Captain Nim from opening up on the village. It was a stalemate in our favor; because of our set positions, we could have disarmed the Viet Cong montagnards easily and taken the whole village back to Lua Vuc.
Then a round whistled so close to Captain Nim’s ear that he jumped, and suddenly cut loose with his automatic carbine. Instantly, his two sergeants opened up with their submachine guns, and the strikers, though mostly Bru themselves, started raking the village.
Fire streaked back at us through the jungle. The fight was committed, and suddenly there were a lot more armed Brus shooting at us than had been anticipated.
Our two Bru emissaries tried to run for the jungle, but both were cut down from behind.
Nim and his two sergeants began lobbing hand grenades into the village, blowing the flimsy houses apart. The Brus fought back furiously and seemed on the point of charging us when our two reserve platoons, until now restrained by the American sergeants, turned on all their fire power. Realizing they were beaten, the Communist montagnards immediately slipped out of the village. The non-Communists who had been willing to go back to Lua Vuc ran off into the jungle, panic-stricken; but the strikers, seeing they were unarmed, did not shoot.
A tragic sight awaited us in the village. Eighteen dead montagnards lay about, blood running into the ground. Most of them had weapons near at hand and were indeed VC sympathizers, but others, including the old chief who had wanted nothing for his people but to live unmolested by either side in this war they couldn’t understand and which offered them nothing no matter which side won, lay dead.
Cries, wails, and moans came from many of the houses, and squads were sent to investigate. Twenty minutes later, 15 wounded children ranging in age from about two to ten, were gently laid out in the village square.
We had two strikers dead besides the two shot in the back, and seven wounded. After inspecting his casualties, Captain Nim stalked over to his American counterpart.
“Four die, seven wounded,” he said arrogantly. “Why you not let me shoot first? We kill all, no one die of us.”
“If you had held your fire no one would have died on either side. We could have performed our mission and taken them back. They didn’t really want a fight.”
The children’s wounds were heart-rending. Many had been badly burned when grenades set their houses afire. One little boy’s left eye had been blown out. Almost every child had a bullet wound of some seriousness. They were dazed, fire-blackened, and strangely silent, as if afraid to call attention to themselves.
Sergeants Binney and Svenson were patching up the little Brus, stopping bleeding and trying to comfort the badly hurt and frightened children. When all had been bandaged, litters were fashioned.
Just an hour after the fire-fight ended we started back for Lua Vuc carrying the 15 wounded children.
We had to stop at frequent intervals so that Sergeant Binney could change dressings, administer shots of morphine, and keep checking for shock. We had no facilities for giving plasma, and one little girl, wounded in the spine, died on the way. We arrived at Lua Vuc just before dark, and Manelli and the tireless Binney took charge of the children. With plasma and more equipment, the two medics were confident they could keep the children alive overnight.
“You’ve got to get these kids to Da Nang, sir,” Binney begged Locke. “I can’t take bullets out of chest cavities. These kids need real medical attention, by tomorrow morning at the latest.”
“They’re civilians, Binney. You know the drill. By the way, did we ever get that woman on her way to Da Nang by sampan?”
Binney nodded grimly. “Yes, sir. The boat came back a couple of hours ago. She died on the river. Her husband has the body—the bodies, I guess I should say.” He walked over to a softly whimpering little girl. “Sir, isn’t there any way we can get these kids to the hospital in Da Nang?”
Locke looked at the children who now filled the women’s ward. “I believe there is,” he said decisively. “I’ll take care of it now. Just keep the kids alive until tomorrow.”
“Manelli and I can do that, sir.”
Locke was closeted in the American radio bunker all evening, and finally emerged late that night. Captain Nim was waiting for him in the teamroom. I listened, as he inquired about the children.
“When they well again,” he said, “maybe my wife, some friends take them our home.”
Lock
e looked hard at his Vietnamese counterpart. “Thank you, Captain Nim. However, the Special Forces B team is supporting an orphan asylum in Da Nang and maybe that is where the children should go.”
“They better with family. Maybe in week, two week, they well. I have friend in Vietnam Air Force. Maybe he fly helicopter out here for children then. My wife, my friends meet children, take them home.”
“Why couldn’t this friend help evacuate that woman whose baby died?”
“Take much planning.”
“Why can’t this friend come tomorrow morning and take the children to hospital in Da Nang? Maybe they die they don’t go to hospital.”
“No civilians go out with Air Force. Take much planning.”
“OK, Nim, we’ll see what we can do. You know what he’s trying to do?” Locke asked when the Vietnamese officer had left. “After aborting our mission by not holding fire, he wants those kids for slaves.” Locke sighed. “What a war! Anyway, those children will be safely out of camp first thing in the morning.”
“How did you manage that?” I asked in surprise.
“Easy. I reported 14 wounded Viet Cong prisoners of war ready for immediate evacuation.”
He saw my eyebrows raise quizzically. “What’s the matter? They’re wounded and they certainly are from VC-sympathatizing families, or some are. They’re sure not going anywhere, so I guess you’d call them prisoners.”
“They’ll send a Vietnamese intelligence officer with the chopper, won’t they?” I asked. “In fact, technically isn’t this a mission for Vietnamese chopper pilots?”
“U.S. choppers are coming in,” Locke said. “I reported frequent VC ground fire to the B team and they passed that on to VNAF. All of a sudden no VNAF choppers or pilots were available, and VNAF requested Army Aviation to make the run. But you can bet the Vietnamese intelligence officers will be waiting at the airstrip in Da Nang.”
He laughed aloud. “Wait’ll they see their 14 POW’s. Right now they’re probably drooling at the thought of a couple of days of torturing prisoners.”
“What will happen to the kids when they arrive? I hope someone will be there to meet them.”
“I sent a code message to Colonel Tex. He’ll know what to do.”
Early the next morning we were waiting at the chopper pad when we heard the chuffing of helicopters in the distant sky. A sergeant threw a smoke grenade onto the LZ and then two Marine H34’s started in. Flying cover above them, two armed Hueys darted and soared, keeping the area under careful surveillance, ready to blast with rockets and machine guns at the first sign of VC groundfire.
The A team had brought the children out on stretchers, and the medics made them ready for their trip to the hospital. Several Bru women who had sat up all night with the children were at the pad to see them off.
Captain Nim and his XO watched the children being taken to the LZ with intense curiosity. “What you do with children here?”
Locke turned away from the boy with the shot-out eye and stared down at his counterpart. “I am worried about them. I call helicopters to take them to hospital in Da Nang.”
“But it is not possible to move them by military airplane,” Nim protested. “They are civilian.”
“In about ten minutes you are going to see them lifted out of here, Captain.”
“But I must say no. This against Vietnamese orders.”
Locke didn’t trust himself to argue further. Ignoring Nim, he went back to readying his brood of ex-Communist children. Nim, arguing vehemently, followed. Finally, the Special Forces officer could take no more.
“Nim, you people and Americans have big difference in what is right and wrong. For five months I’ve put up with it. But I have three kids of my own, and I and most Americans love all children. It makes me, and it makes the men on my team sick that we have to use tricks to save these children.”
He gestured at the 14 tiny casualties who were being attended by all the available members of the A team. “Not only must we save them from dying out here, or being crippled for life because we cannot properly care for them—we must also save them from being consigned to a life of drudgery—and even being sold like slaves.”
Nim was taken aback. He retreated before the silent, barely controlled fury of his counterpart. “You are American. Only adviser. I give the orders. Americans no good for Vietnam. Do not understand Vietnam.”
Locke didn’t bother to answer. The choppers began to hover and an American sergeant directed them down onto the pad. As soon as the big Marine helicopters had landed, the Americans motioned the strikers to carry the children aboard. Nim screamed orders, and the strikers placed the litters on the ground.
Locke took in the situation immediately. Gesturing at me, he ran to the nearest litter and grabbed one end. I took the other, and together we walked toward a big transport helicopter, its rotors still whirling for a speedy takeoff. Immediately the rest of the team followed the CO’s example.
An officer stepped down from the helicopter cockpit and watched in astonishment as Locke and I handed up the litter to the door gunner and flight engineer. Gently they took it and placed it inside the helicopter.
“Captain Locke? I’m Captain Starret,” the pilot introduced himself. “You have 14 VC POW’s to go to Vietnamese Intelligence in Da Nang for interrogation.”
“We’re putting the POW’s aboard, Captain. Most of them don’t talk very well yet, so Intelligence may have trouble questioning them.”
Starret looked at the children. “Are you sure, Captain, that we’re supposed to be taking those children back? It’s against regulations to evacuate civilians.”
“I know that better than you, Starret,” Locke replied. “But these are VC POW’s, captured from a VC village that fired on us.”
Starret stood indecisively as the children were loaded aboard the two choppers. “Maybe,” he said at last, “but I’d say they constitute a damned loose interpretation of the orders that came to Marine Aviation.”
“If they don’t have proper hospital care immediately, they’ll die. Besides,” he added, “in my report I have indicated that after preliminary interrogation, it is my opinion that every one of these Viet Cong prisoners, with proper guidance, can be won completely away from their Communist indoctrination.”
Starret laughed loudly. “Goddamned, but you Special Forces types get to the grass roots of this war.” He frowned slightly. “There’ll be a mess of Vietnamese Intelligence types waiting at the pad in Da Nang. They’re going to be damned surprised, and then damned, damned mad.”
“Sorry about that, Starret,” Locke answered cheerfully.
Starret watched the last of the children being loaded in spite of Nim’s interference. “Who is that little dickhead?”
“That is my counterpart, the camp commander, Captain Nim. He violently disapproves of this maneuver. He says I’ve gone around regulations.”
“There are plenty of others going to say the same thing,” Starret affirmed with a smile. “Glad I was part of it. Good luck, Captain.”
“Thanks, Starret.” Locke told me to climb on. “Maybe you’ll write it up our way if things get too tough.”
I shook hands with Captain Locke and swung aboard, finding a bucket seat beside the crew chief. The children were silent, their eyes either closed or staring at the ceiling.
Just before we took off, I saw Locke’s green beret pop in the door. “Just be sure that Colonel Tex gets to them first.”
“No sweat,” I shouted over the screaming engine. “And thanks for the hospitality.”
Just under an hour later the H34 crossed the huge new jet airstrip in Da Nang, and settled down onto the Marine pad.
Outside stood two ambulances, two trucks, and two jeeps with Vietnamese markings. I was relieved to see Colonel Tex surrounded by a contingent of Special Forces personnel, and jumped down and pumped his hand.
Then, noticing a group of Vietnamese officers approaching the helicopters with anticipatory smirks on their faces, fol
lowed by guards with levelled carbines, I asked him if the Viets knew what was in the helicopters.
The colonel gave orders, and immediately Vietnamese and American personnel from the B team began lifting out the children before the astonished eyes of the Vietnamese intelligence officers.
A Vietnamese major looked inside the first chopper, said something to an aide, and then in quick, short, jerky strides, went to the second helicopter and looked in. His rage was eloquent as he approached Colonel Tex.
A graduate of several American service schools, the Vietnamese spoke good English. “What means this, Colonel? Where are the VC prisoners we came for?”
“Those are the VC POW’s,” the colonel said, gesturing at the children being placed in the ambulances.
“That cannot be. It is impossible,” the little major exploded. “Those are children.”
The tall, lean, white-haired colonel gave him a languid glance. “Yes, you are right, Major. Fourteen children.”
“The Americans at Lua Vuc have deceived us, then,” he said ominously. “They conspired to break Vietnamese regulations. I will see the general. This will go all the way to Saigon. The American responsible for this must be immediately relieved of his command.”
“Why, Major?” Colonel Tex asked softly.
“The signal said 14 wounded Viet Cong prisoners of war were waiting evacuation from Lua Vuc. Instead we find a bunch of dirty mois children.”
Out of the comer of his eye Colonel Tex noted that the ambulances were loaded and the drivers were ready to move out. He turned back to the agitated Vietnamese. “Major, would you agree those 14 children were captured in Viet Cong–controlled territory?”
“Of course, Colonel.”
“Would you say that they are Viet Cong?”
“Certainly. But, Colonel—”
Colonel Tex went on imperturbably. “They are certainly prisoners, are they not? And they are wounded, every one of them. To me, the Special Forces captain at Lua Vuc sent you just what the message described—14 wounded VC POW’s.”
