by Eric Helm
She was not his most important prisoner. The American general in the Americans’ team house was that, but to Dung she was the real prize. She was Gerber’s girlfriend, and because of that he had something very special in mind for her.
“Excuse please I ignore you too very long,” said Dung, smiling, “but I have much to do.”
“Oh, that’s quite all right, Major. Please don’t trouble yourself on my account,” said Morrow.
“Ah, you make with the joke, yes?” said Dung. “See, I laugh. Ho, ho. Very funny. But perhaps soon you not laugh too very much.”
Dung walked over to the low sleeping platform with its woven mat upon which Morrow sat. He reached out one hand and ran it along her smooth cheek and over her split and bruised lip almost lovingly. Gently he stroked her silky fine blond hair. Then he knotted his fingers in it and pulled, lifting her excruciatingly into a half-sitting, half-standing position so that he could bend forward and put his face close to hers. His breath smelled like dead fish. For one awful moment Morrow thought he was going to kiss her, then abruptly he shoved her back down on the mat, banging her head against the side of the hootch.
“No,” he said softly. “Soon I think you not laugh too very much at all. It perhaps interest you to know that your friend Lieutenant Novak has escaped his guards, killing five more of my mens,” Dung continued matter-of-factly.
The news surprised Morrow and gave her hope, which Dung quickly dashed.
“Unfortunate for him, he not get too very far. He hide in bunker in American compound. Twos of my mens watch him now, so he no can escape. For the moment we leave him. He not in position to create bother at this time, and I no wish to lose more mens in try to capture him. We leave him there without food and water, and when time comes for us to leave, we will blow up his bunker with recoilless rifle. Big joke on him, yes? Perhaps you like to make the laugh at that one? No? Too bad. I thinks not.”
Dung walked over to his desk and systematically began to clear everything from the top of it.
“Also, I have new guests. After your capture twos helicopters come into camp. My mens capture their crews and passengers. One of passengers is American general. I think this pleasing to my superiors very much. I only major for three months now, but I think maybe I make lieutenant colonel soon. Capturing an American general should be good for promotion, do not you think?”
Dung finished clearing the desk and turned back to face Morrow again.
“Ah, but I can see by expression on Miss Reporter’s face that what she interested in is what happen to her American lover, Captain Gerber.” Dung almost spat Gerber’s name. “Your captain was to have return this evening, and I have prepare big surprise for him and his mens, but at last moment they go to Moc Hoa to help with problem there. He not come back until tomorrow, so we must wait for him. I cannot leave without repaying debt I owe Captain Gerber.”
Morrow wondered what in the world he could be talking about. She didn’t have to wait long for an explanation.
“Your Captain Gerber and his Sergeant Fetterman cause much trouble for friends of mine. You remember Major Vo, my former commander whom Sergeant Fetterman kill? You remember also maybe a certain Chinese friend of mine you meet in Hong Kong?”
A sudden look of horrified comprehension crossed Morrow’s face.
“Ah, excellent,” continued Dung. “You remember. How very gratifying. They would be most pleased to know that their plan for destroying this camp succeed, although not quite as they envision it. Since they no can be here, I must collect the debt for them. Much of this I have done. The rest will undoubtedly be accomplished in the morning. However, I not, I think, be able to do it in so very entertaining manner as my friends would have desired it.”
Dung sighed deeply, placidly, as if reconciled to an unpleasant situation that must nevertheless be seen through to the end. He rubbed imaginary dust from his hands and inspected his fingertips in a bored manner.
“Yes. It most unfortunate that your Captain Gerber not live long enough to provide the entertainment my friends would expect of him. You, Miss Morrow. You will be surrogate. You, alas, must provide the entertainment.”
He addressed the guards. “Tie her to the desk.”
With leering grins the two VC guards dragged Morrow across the room and threw her facedown across the desk. She tried to resist but lost interest in struggling when one of them struck her in the head with his carbine and a thousand tiny stars flickered into existence before her eyes.
Morrow felt hands at her feet, tearing her boots off and forcing her legs wide apart as her ankles were roped to the legs of the metal desk. Then suddenly the cords binding her wrists and elbows were severed and her arms yanked forward and down. She felt new ropes slipped around her wrists as the men secured them to the desk legs on the opposite side.
“No!” she yelled. She opened her mouth and tried to scream, but someone forced a rag into it.
“That not necessary,” said Dung calmly. “Let Miss Morrow scream if she like. There is no one to help her. Now leave. And tell Commissar Dau and Major Ngoi that they may join me if they wish.”
Looking clearly disappointed, the two guards left.
Dung walked slowly to the wall and took the bayonet from its scabbard on his web gear. He held it up so that Morrow could see the blade clearly.
“Yes, Miss Morrow, you may scream all you like. I think that you will want to scream a lot before we are done.”
Dung walked forward to the desk and ripped Morrow’s shirt and shorts down the middle with the bayonet, then cut through the legs and shoulders so that he could pull them off her, leaving her clad only in her panties. Those he pulled down to her knees, then ripped them apart with his hands.
Dung ran the point of the bayonet up Morrow’s thigh and pricked her buttock with it, drawing blood. She jerked but did not cry out. Slowly he continued to run the blade up along her left side until he came to her breast. He pricked that, too, again drawing blood. She bit her lower lip to keep from screaming.
“I told you it is all right to scream if you like,” said Dung.
Morrow bit her lip harder and tried to think of Gerber.
Unexpectedly Dung withdrew the bayonet.
“Good. You have spirit. I knew this when you killed my twos mens. A woman with your spirit will provide much entertainment,” said Dung hoarsely.
He unbuckled his belt and folded it so that it was double.
“But now, I think, it is time for you to scream. You will scream for me, won’t you, Miss Morrow!”
Holding the belt by the ends, Dung stepped forward and swung it hard.
Morrow screamed.
The VC striker did not scream as he came out of the latrine. In fact, he made only a few low grunts as Krung jabbed his knife repeatedly into the man’s back below his rib cage. Then he made a small gurgling sound after the knife was drawn across his throat. He would have screamed had he been able to at what Krung did next, but by then the enemy soldier was beyond all feeling.
Krung dropped the bloody trophy into his pocket and dragged the man back inside the latrine, sitting him on the toilet seat with his pants around his ankles and his back against the wall, head leaning forward on his unmoving chest. It would make an interesting discovery for the next man using the latrine.
Krung eased his way outside, looking around casually, and strolled away from the latrine unconcernedly. He glanced at his watch and saw that it was fairly early yet. The VC soldier had provided the fifth trophy Krung had claimed that night. He thought perhaps he would take another one or two before attempting to find a way out of the camp. There was plenty of time, and these VC traitors were so easy to kill. Almost too easy. It lessened the satisfaction of adding to his trophy collection to kill Communists that died so easily. Still, it would do. After all, they were not only Communists, they were lowlander Vietnamese Communists. To a Nung Tai tribesman like Krung, that was two very good reasons to kill them.
Also, it would give him a little m
ore time to reconnoiter the camp more thoroughly. He was almost certain that, when he reached American troops, they would want to know all he could tell them about the situation inside the camp.
Krung knew that, once he was clear of the camp, he would show himself only to American soldiers. He had never really trusted any Vietnamese except Captain Minh, the one lowlander he had known who had cared enough about the Nung Tai to try to understand their culture, who had fought the Saigon government for their rights and to get them better uniforms and equipment so that they could kill more Communists.
The Nung Tai strikers of Camp A-555 had appreciated this and had made Minh an honorary Tai, an honor Minh had accepted with great solemnity. A few others of the LLDB had tried to be friendly to the Tai, but for the most part they exhibited only a restrained tolerance toward them. The PF-RF strikers did not do even that, which Krung thought showed great arrogance for a race of people that had stolen his country. But for the most part the Vietnamese kept to their own side of the camp, and racial bloodshed was avoided. Besides, the Americans did not approve of the Vietnamese and Tai killing each other, which puzzled Krung greatly since they approved heartily of killing Vietnamese Communists. There was no understanding the Western mind.
Yet Krung knew that he could trust Americans. So far, every one of them he had met had proven trustworthy. While the Vietnamese had once again proven themselves not to be trusted. Too easily they became Viet Cong.
Krung moved with catlike precision, crossing open areas with the authoritative air of someone who belonged there and knew exactly where he was going, projecting the impression that he might have owned the camp. Yet in each patch of shadows he paused. To look. To listen. To smell. To make himself thoroughly aware and to remember the exact placement of each Viet Cong soldier, each new automatic weapon emplacement or change in the camp’s previously existing defense, anything that might be of a military value.
A company of Viet Cong were scattered about the walls of the camp, occupying key machine gun and recoilless bunkers but leaving the individual weapon firing steps pretty thinly filled by bored, uninterested VC soldiers who were disgruntled at having to stand guard duty while the rest of their buddies got to sleep, pull easy duty guarding prisoners or have fun.
A lot of VC were having fun that night. They’d already drunk every can of beer and bottle of Coca-Cola in the camp, and in the strikers’ family quarters some of the lines outside the hootches of better-looking mama-sans and cos were ten or fifteen men long. From some of those hootches a lot of crying could be heard; from others there was only an eerie silence, broken occasionally by grunts and groans of sweating men.
There were not many guards in the Tai barracks area. Most of the Fifth Independent Tai Strike Company had died defending the camp and their families when the VC had attacked. Afterward a team of Viet Cong had walked among the shambles, dealing with the Tai wounded in the usual manner — bayoneting them. Krung did not know for certain how many of his countryman had survived. It was too risky to get really close and find out. But based on the number of Tai bodies he’d found stuffed into countermortar bunkers, he knew there couldn’t have been more than thirty or forty left.
There were a lot more guards in the Vietnamese sector. Apparently most of the Vietnamese strikers had given up without putting up much of a fight. The VC seemed to be treating them reasonably well, although they were closely guarded. Perhaps the VC commander hoped to make good Viet Cong out of them by showing leniency. Except toward the women, of course. The women were far too valuable a commodity to men who had been in the field for months without release not to be given the privilege of being allowed to make their own contribution to the morale of the Front. In this respect, no difference was shown between a Vietnamese or a Tai woman. Krung thought it a very egalitarian gesture on the part of the Viet Cong.
As Krung approached the low dome shape of the POL bunker which was used to store fuel and lubricants for the camp’s generator, two jeeps and four six-by trucks, he saw a figure in tiger-striped jungle fatigues with a strip of cloth tied about the left biceps. The figure was crouched near the wall of the dome, as though he might be tying his boot or trying to avoid being seen. As Krung drew closer, the man suddenly whirled and disappeared around the edge of the bunker. That, Krung knew, was a bad sign. Apparently the man had spotted him and realized that he was not one of the VC strikers.
Krung moved quickly across the open ground and came up short with his back against the dome of the bunker. He didn’t know why the man had not shouted an alarm yet. He did know that his only chance was to kill the man before he could give an alarm. As silently as possible he drew his M-3 fighting knife from its self-sharpening sheath. Knowing the tendency of a man being followed to spend more time looking behind than ahead of himself, Krung edged quickly around the bunker in the opposite direction and ran smack into the man.
Two knives flashed simultaneously in the moonlight as both men struck, Krung aiming his thrust at the man’s chest while the other slashed at the Tai’s hands. He felt the two blades make contact, felt his own forced aside as the greater strength of the other man’s attack carried Krung’s knife away from the midline of the man’s body.
Krung parried around his opponent’s own block and stepped inside the blade, pressing the attack and grabbing the wrist of the man’s knife hand with his free hand. As he did so, he felt his own wrist seized, and the man suddenly stepped back, using Krung’s own momentum to pull him off balance and execute a perfect tomoe nage. Krung sailed over the man’s head, did a passable koho ukemi, and rolled clear. As he came up into a ready crouch, he realized with some surprise that he was up against a man at least as good with a knife as he was. Probably better. And Krung only knew one person in all of Indochina he could say that of.
The other man had rolled and come up off the ground as quickly as Krung, and he launched himself at the Tai. Krung sidestepped and leaped back but not quite quickly enough — he felt the other man’s blade slide along his hip in a glancing cut. Krung staggered but instantly lowered his own knife and held up his free hand in a gesture of surrender. The other man had lost his boonie hat while the two of them were rolling about on the ground, and the faint reflection of moonlight off the balding head had served to confirm what Krung already knew.
“Sergeant Tony,” gasped Krung, winded, “you better stop now before we kill selfs.”
“Krung? Is that you?” said Fetterman. “Jesus, man, why didn’t you say something? One of us could have got hurt.”
“One of us already get hurt,” admitted Krung, sheathing his knife and pulling a field dressing out of the pouch of his LBE. “Although not serious, I think. How you expect Krung to fill trophy board if you cut leg out from under him?”
“What? Damn. Sorry,” said Fetterman. “Here, let me take a look. What are you doing wandering around here?”
“VC control whole camp. They make big surprise attack. There many traitors among Vietnamese strikers. Lieutenant Dung, he VC, too. When attack come, Vietnamese not fight well because they have no one tell them what to do. Also VC hold too many key bunkers. Tai try to fight, but we surprised and there not enough of us. Fight maybe last only thirty minutes. Afterward I escape by hiding in metal tunnel under runway. VC not find because they find krait in tunnel first.”
Fetterman gave Krung an appraising look at the mention of the deadly snake, then finished tying the compress in place.
“Dung, huh? It figures. They’d have to infiltrate somebody into the LLDB to find out where all the defenses are, and he’s the newest on the team. Sorry about the leg. It doesn’t look too bad, but it’ll probably hurt for a few days. We’ll get Washington to look at it when we get out of here.”
“Understand. We not know selfs in dark so try to kill same-same. Besides, leg already hurt from pungi stake Krung stupidly step on. No hard feelings. Okay fine?”
“Right. No hard feelings. Now I think we’d better move, in case someone heard our little wrestling match.”
“Where we go?” asked Krung.
“The American compound. I can’t find Miss Morrow, and it’s the only place I haven’t checked yet.”
“Sergeant Tony, Krung have bad news. Lieutenant Dung take Co Morrow to his hootch. She there now, entertain Dung and two NVA officers. Krung no think she enjoy it much.”
Fetterman felt his intestines turn involuntarily into cement and the muscles of his jaw tighten. For a second he said nothing.
“So that’s what those bastards were doing. I could hear them working somebody over in there, but there were so fucking many guards around the place that I couldn’t get close enough to see who it was.”
Then it dawned on him what Krung had said.
“NVA? Did you say two NVA officers? Are there NVA troops here?”
“Krung no think so. See only two NVA uniforms. Mostly they Main Force VC and some local guerrillas. Think maybe NVA political cadre. One NVA keep trying make long boring speeches to prisoners.”
“That sounds like a politician, all right,” agreed Fetterman. “What about Lieutenant Novak? Is he alive? Have you seen him?”
Krung shook his head. “Krung no see new lieutenant. Not since fight. Not know if alive or dead.”
“All right. I suppose we’d better go check the redoubt, see what the situation is in there, then get out of this place.”
Krung laid a restraining hand on Fetterman’s sleeve.
“Sergeant Tony, there more happen to tell you,” said Krung. “Short time after attack all over, two helicopters land at camp. They bring big funny metal box with them.”
“Yeah, I saw it. Up at the corner of the helipad. A conex outfitted with its own generator, an air conditioner, and a radio setup big enough to talk to Mars.”
