by Eric Meyer
“So why are you fighting?”
“You know why. Trinh.”
We walked into the village, and I stared at the well where I’d first set eyes on that horrific slaughter. I couldn't go near it, and I felt beads of sweat breaking out all over my body. We checked the hooches, but they'd been checked before, quite recently, and we found nothing, so we pushed on.
* * *
Watching from the spyhole deep inside a bamboo thicket, Commissar Trinh watched the Americans search the village. He smiled to himself. There was nothing to find, so it was unsurprising when their search uncovered nothing. The real prize they hadn’t found, and they never would, the tunnel system.
Even if by some miracle they found an entrance, there was little they could do. He'd drop to the lower levels and close the hatches that protected each level. They could toss in explosives and poison gas if they wished, even their latest weapon, CS-1 gas, and it would make no difference. Little or none would make its way past the trapdoors, and all they need do was wait until they'd gone. During the night they’d come to the surface to continue waging their war against the Imperialists.
He was watching the American soldier and the ARVN lieutenant, who looked strangely familiar. He could swear he'd seen that face before, but he was unsure where. He was so preoccupied he didn't see the American sergeant glance in his direction, but he heard a shout, and then the man was racing toward him. Quickly he slipped away and slid into the tunnel entrance but kept his head above the ground. Watching for a little longer, confident with the booby trap his men had planted several days before. This blundering soldier was about to step straight into it.
He waited, knowing he should descend out of sight, but he wanted to see it happen. To see the man's expression of amazement, then horror, and then the screams. It happened exactly as he'd anticipated, and he watched him thrashing in agony for a few seconds before he descended into the shaft and pulled the camouflaged trapdoor closed.
* * *
"What the hell!" I raced back to the sound of the screams. I’d heard Harrison's explanation of discovery, had seen him racing toward the thicket of bamboos, and Tam shouting, "No! Stop him, don't let him go in there!"
"Harrison, hold it!" I shouted aloud, but he was intent on running down the enemy he'd seen through the vines and bamboos, and he ran on, into the thicket, and then the screams started.
"Booby trap," Tam said, "Be careful, there could be more."
"I'll be careful." Dying didn’t hold much appeal for me. I wanted to rush to help her, but aware of the dangers of more booby traps, I went slowly. Tam ran back to Morgan and gave him the same warning. They held back and watched while I crept nearer to Harrison, who was still screaming and shouting in pain.
I got to him and he’d stepped into a trap. A shallow hole lined with punji stakes, and the agony and fear were mirrored on his face. The agony of sharpened stakes pushed through a man's foot must be incredible, but it wasn't just the pain. It was the fear, the use of punji stakes by the VC was legendary, and everyone knew they smeared them with something poisonous. Often human feces, which would cause infection within hours, resulting in the loss of a leg and sometimes a long, slow death if it wasn't treated instantly.
His foot was still in the hole, and he was too terrified to pull it out, so I put his arm around my shoulder and helped him out. He screamed in agony as the punji stakes slid out of his foot, and I threw him over my shoulder and ran back the clearing. At least I knew it was clear and I'd be safe from other booby traps. Stuff like grenades connected to tripwires and slung in the trees, ready to swing down and explode over a man's head. Showering shards of hot metal to decimate almost an entire platoon.
Goff was already on the radio, and he didn't need an order from Morgan. "This is Delta21. We have a serious casualty, punji stakes, and we need a dust off urgently."
The voice came back over the radio. "Your request is acknowledged. We have a slick in the air, and they can be with you inside of five minutes."
We waited until the Huey flew over the village, circled, and dropped in for a landing in the center of the clearing. It wasn't a medevac chopper. This one was configured as a gunship, with steely-eyed gunners watching from either side, huddled behind their M-60s. Just in case the radio call was a Vietcong spoof and they were about to land in a hot zone. Morgan waved them over, and when they saw the American uniform a crewman jumped out, and we helped carry Harrison into the cabin. They didn't waste time, the crewman waved a farewell, and the look he gave us was unclear. I thought it showed pity.
Shit! Stuck in this green hell we deserve something. Pity’s a start.
We crouched down as the engine built up speed to a thunderous roar. Dust, leaves, and foliage sucked up by the rotors formed a dense cloud, which slowly fell back to the ground as the Huey climbed into the sky and roared off toward Cu Chi Base Camp.
Morgan looked at me. "You did good, Yeager. Just one thing, I heard you shout a warning before he went in. How did you know?"
I explained about Lieutenant Tam, and the warning she'd given me. Although I was careful not to use the pronoun ‘she.’ I’d promised to keep her secret and keeping promises was the way I lived.
He frowned. “You think he’s psychic?”
I grimaced. “I wish he was, but no, he just knows the signs.”
He questioned Tamm who chuckled with merriment when he asked about supernatural powers. She came close to giving the game away. A girl’s laughter is just that, a girl’s laughter. But he didn’t seem to notice, and she told him it was kind of a feeling, difficult to explain. "Sergeant, the truth is I just thought it was the kind of place the VC would use to hide a tunnel entrance, so I wasn't surprised when I saw the enemy. Although when your man ran toward him, I suspected something wasn’t right, and they were luring him into a trap."
"You reckon there's a real tunnel entrance in there?"
She nodded. "It's possible, yes. Very possible.”
He gave us a savage grin. "What're we waiting for? It’s time to ace those sneaky bastards."
She put a hand on his arm to hold him back, "No, You don't understand. If there's a tunnel entrance, it could extend for many kilometers and be home to a great number of VC. You can't just go down there and try to flush them out." She paused, "You can try, of course. But you will die, that I guarantee.”
"What do you suggest?"
"We should continue our patrol and pretend we don't suspect there’s a tunnel in that place. We can come back a later time and catch them unawares. If we do it now, they know we're here, and they'll be ready and waiting.”
He looked dubious. "I can call in an artillery barrage anytime. Just give ‘em our call sign Delta21, and they’ll start throwing shells. M114 howitzers, 155mm, and they’ll blow those tunnels apart.”
"No, all they'll do is destroy the first level. The lower levels will remain untouched. As soon as the shelling has ended, they’ll start digging new tunnels. We should move on and come back later when they’re not expecting our soldiers to be in the area."
He gestured to the east, to where the thunder of exploding bombs and shells was a constant rumble. Operation Cedar Falls was in motion, and it wouldn't stop until they'd driven every enemy combatant west onto the anvil held by the 25th Infantry Division, with their backs to the Saigon River. “I’m not sure I agree. We need to give ‘em some more of that HE, not pussyfoot around. How can anyone survive that?”
She stared back at him. “They will survive. The tunnels.”
He wasn't happy, but he finally agreed to do it her way, and we left the area, hiking out of Bong Trang and heading north toward the next village. It didn’t seem right leaving that place behind when we knew the enemy was there, but right or wrong, it made a lot of sense.
The next village was one of those flyblown little places, probably it didn't even have a name, but people lived there in a cluster of hooches. ‘Lived’ as in past tense, for they were in process of moving house. In fact, moving the
entire population. A Sikorsky HH-3E Jolly Green had landed in the village square, and a half dozen ARVN were hustling villagers into the cavernous cabin. A few objected, and a woman rushed up to an ARVN officer, a captain, and began beating him on the chest, screaming in protest.
She pointed to the animals tethered a few meters away, four water buffalo calmly munching on a heap of forage, and her meaning was obvious. They were her family's livestock, and they couldn't abandon them, or they'd starve.
The ARVN officer shouted an order to two soldiers who were gawping and grinning at the distraught woman. They nodded and strolled toward the beasts, unslinging their rifles. The clearing echoed to a volley of bullets, and the water buffalo writhed and struggled on the ground before the soldiers went to each one and put a mercy shot into the brain of each of them.
The captain grinned and gave the woman a stinging rebuke, at which she collapsed in tears. His meaning was clear. The animals were of no further use, so she could have no objections to moving to a new village. He barked another order for her to board the helicopter, but she lay where she’d fallen, her body racked with sobs. Without emotion the two soldiers who’d shot her water buffalo picked up her tiny, slender body and tossed it into the helicopter like she was a bale of hay.
There were no more objections, and they herded the remainder of the people, some elderly and frail into the helicopter, and it took off. I stood watching and felt bad for not intervening. Then again, those ARVN had their orders, the helicopter was U.S. Army, and Private Carl Yeager ought to keep his nose out from places where it didn’t belong. It didn’t make me feel any better.
"They didn't look too happy," I said to Tam.
"They've lost everything," she said bitterly, "Their homes, land, livestock, and the graves of their ancestors."
"They’ll bring them back when it's all over."
She gave me skeptical glance. “And when would that be, Private Yeager? Next year? Ten years? Never?”
I didn't reply. How could I reply when I didn’t know? The war didn't seem about to end any time soon, and it was hard not to feel sorry for those folks. But what was the military to do? This village was without doubt supplying the enemy with foodstuffs so they could keep fighting. After all, this was the Iron Triangle, and the VCs pretty much ruled the entire area. At least they did at night, when we couldn’t see what they were up to. Sneaky bastards.
I recalled the Communists had made an agreement in Paris to separate the country into North and South, separated by the DMZ. They'd gone back on that agreement and started a new war by invading the South. If we sat back and did nothing, South Vietnam would become yet another Communist slave state. As much as those peasants didn't like the prospect of moving to a new village, I doubted they’d enjoy the process of becoming slaves to the new overlords, the self-appointed commissars.
We walked away in silence, and I couldn't help thinking about what we’d seen that day. The massive bombardment and shelling in the west, the booby trap that Sergeant Harrison stepped into, and the forced transfer of those villagers.
War is hell, but the Communists started it. Just so long as we finish it.
Tam had suspicions about another village about ten klicks further west. Where if General Westmoreland’s calculations proved correct, the Communists would be fleeing to escape the massive onslaught from the east. Pouring out of the tunnels like rats deserting a sinking ship, and several klicks away the 25th were waiting. Gunners standing by their artillery pieces with piles of shells ready to load and fire. Men waiting behind sandbagged emplacements and rolls of barbed wire, with spare magazines and grenades within easy reach. Helicopters fueled up and armed, gunships toting M-60 machine guns, and any amount of aircraft, fighter-bombers, F-4 Phantoms, and F-105 Thunderchiefs lined up on the tarmac. Monstrous eight-engine B-52s on far flung airfields, waiting to approach their targets at high altitude, each bomber carrying enough ordnance to destroy a city block. We were a whole army waiting for the enemy to fall into their trap. Waiting for them to oblige.
We walked for two hours and came across yet another cluster of forlorn hooches. Just like a thousand other such places, or maybe ten thousand, hidden in the steaming, stinking jungles. Except this time, she said it was different.
“I’ve been to this place before, and it’s changed.”
Morgan cocked an eyebrow. “Changed how?”
I’d picked up the vibe, and I gripped my M-14 and stared into the thick, green curtain of jungle, like I was about to see a pair of slant eyes looking at me from beneath a conical hat. All I saw were vines and creepers, although one could have been a poisonous snake.
She swept a hand around the surrounding area, and I recalled the briefing when I first arrived in country.
During search and destroy missions, if you come across a field of wheat, you’re looking at a VC larder. Wheat becomes flour, and they make bread from flour.” The briefing officer had smiled, “A diet of rice is nutritious, but after a few days any man would kill for a loaf of bread. I know I would.”
Someone piped up from the back, “Show me the gook who’s growing it, and I won’t need a loaf of bread, I’ll kill him for free.”
We all laughed, but we took the point. We were looking at Charlie’s bread bin. We poked around the field of standing wheat growing close to the huts.
Tam poked around. "I believe there could be a tunnel system below this village. When they captured me, they took me down into a tunnel, and this looks very much like the same place. I don't know where the entrances are, but if I’m right, this place is a Communist base. They're here. It's just that we can't see them."
Morgan gave her a suspicious glance. “Captured? What was that all about?”
She flushed red, for she’d almost given the game away. “The Communists dragged me out of my village, made me a prisoner, and held me captive in a tunnel. They beat and abused me, and, uh, tried to recruit me to their cause.”
“How’d you get away?”
They were all looking at her, their eyes hard with suspicion, but she recovered herself. “I became ill, and they had a doctor who treated me who thought my infection could be contagious. They took me back to the surface and left me tied to a tree to die. I was lucky, a passing peasant found me and cut the ropes so I could escape. I joined the ARVN shortly after.”
I decided it was time to go to her aid. “Sergeant, I was talking to Lieutenant Tam about this, and the man in charge of the unit who captured her was Commissar Trinh Tac. The same guy who ordered the brutal murder of my platoon.”
He nodded. “Trinh, yeah, I recall. Lieutenant Tam, are you saying you believe this Trinh character may be close?”
She didn’t get a chance to reply. Goff called, “Radio message coming in."
Morgan sighed. "What do they want now? Are they sending in some men to lend us a hand?"
He listened for some seconds, acknowledged, and gave Morgan a worried look. "They're sending in one man, and they were asking about a secure LZ, so I gave them our location.”
"One man? Who is he, some kind of a tunnel expert to help Coles? Goff, get back on the radio and tell them we could have located a VC tunnel complex. One man won’t cut it.”
"Sergeant, it's not a tunnel expert. It’s Mark Butcher."
His expression became one of horror. "You're shittin’ me."
"Nope, it’s the truth. They said the Pentagon have given him permission to embed with our unit during Operation Cedar Falls. He's on his way now in a Huey. Due to land at any moment, and they said we’re to wait right here.”
We waited for the unmistakable sound of the Bell UH-1 Iroquois, and the Huey with both door guns manned dropped in for a landing in the center of the huddle of peasant dwellings. They were nothing more than flimsy huts, most of them sorely in need of maintenance, so the downwash from the rotor blades ripped chunks of foliage from the roofs, exposing the interiors to the sky. As the skids touched the ground, a man stepped out and stood for a moment looking around. Like an
all-conquering general surveying the ground he'd just taken. It wasn't an all-conquering general. Mark Butcher looked at each of us in turn and smiled. "I guess you guys aren't too pleased to see me."
“Nope.”
He frowned at Morgan. “I can make or break you, Sergeant.”
“And we can make or break you, Butcher. You’re in enemy territory, and if you’re lucky, you might survive. Threaten to break any of us, and I wouldn’t rate your chances.”
It was Goff who’d spoken, but he didn’t see him. His face flushed and he looked at Tam. “Who’s the gook?”
I ignored the insult. “This is Lieutenant Tam.”
He didn’t look at me. He was still staring at Tam. What he saw was a Vietnamese officer, ARVN, but still a gook. He looked just like the men we were hunting and trying to kill, so he pursed his lips in distaste and looked back at Morgan.
“What's going down? They tell me you've been through Bong Trang and found nothing except a fucking booby trap your Sergeant Harrison was stupid enough to step into."
“How is he?”
He looked at me and shrugged. "How the hell would I know, I'm not a medic? I just write the stories about what happens here."
I frowned. "Stories? I thought that was another word for fiction. Is that what you write?”
With a hide like a rhino, he’d brushed off the insult. "Private Yeager, they tell me you're the man who knows how to locate the tunnel entrances."
"That's what they say, but I wouldn't count on it. Lieutenant Tam is the local expert so ask…” I nearly said her, but I quickly amended it, “Ask him.”
He wasn't interested in listening to the gook. He wanted a juicy story to feed the gaping maw of his eager readership back home. He stared at me with a peculiar intensity. "How do you feel about the VC after what they did to your platoon?"
"I guess the same as you’d feel if it happened to you."
He snorted. “If I was in your shoes, I'd be desperate to kill as many as possible. Don't you care about your buddies?"
