Cox ushered us down some stairs into a short corridor that led to an underground room, spartan except for the torrid photographic studies plastered on one side. In front of the facing wall were radios stacked on a sawhorse table, and the captain's tiny work area decorated with tactical maps and gear. Behind a crude partition a dozen cots occupied improvised cubicles. Field equipment hung from pegs and lay draped over stools and locally made tin lockers. A long narrow table flanked by benches occupied the wide middle aisle.
"When's the general expected?" Colonel Bennett said.
The captain consulted his watch. "About eleven hundred, sir."
Despite the heat, we retrieved ceramic mugs from a side shelf and accepted the boiled coffee the captain offered. You could have stood a spoon in it. Army diesel.
"This is all their fault," a sergeant on radio watch grumbled, pointing above the sideband rigs to a framed color photograph of two Green Berets seated alongside commanding general Westmoreland, who was holding the working end of a very long straw arcing up from a ceramic jar of Montagnard moonshine. A shaman was putting a brass bracelet on Westmoreland's wrist to symbolize his initiation into the tribe.
The two Green Berets in the snapshot, Cox explained, had come up with this public relations ploy to put Mai Linh on the map of somebody who could actually do something for the Yards.
"And it worked, big-time. That photo of Westmoreland in Mai Linh appeared in the press worldwide."
"Westy has a distinct bias toward Airborne anyway," Bennett observed, "and Green Berets are all paratroopers, like him."
"The bracelet just helped seal the deal," Cox said. "Mai Linh has but to ask and supplies, equipment, air support, and helicopter assets arrive."
The downside was the camp also received an endless string of ranking officers hoping to get tribal bracelets like their leader's. They'd become coveted status symbols. A two-star was due within the hour. Technically, as Captain Cox's superior officer in the sector, Colonel Bennett should receive whatever general officer came through, but duties often occupied him elsewhere and he couldn't always show up.
Captain Cox jingled when he moved. He wore the serious carved bracelets on his right wrist, the more casually bestowed plain ones on his left.
Sergeant Grady climbed down the steps into the room carrying a box under his arm.
"Our camp's chief scrounger and purveyor," said Cox, by way of introduction.
"What exactly do you purvey, Sarge?" I asked.
"I got it all goin' on," Grady said, taking a mug. "Mostly war souvenirs. Real quality goods."
Cox stirred his coffee. "Grady takes them to big bases to barter and sell, or lays them off on our visitors and chopper crews."
Grady ticked them off on his fingers. "VC flags, Montagnard crossbows and pipes, pith helmets. AK-Forty-sevens when we've got 'em. NVA rucksacks too."
"Captured?" Bennett said.
"The weapons and rucks, yes, sir. The crossbows and pipes the Yards make. The ladies do the flags." He held up a yellow-blue Hanoi flag, soiled and bloody, with a yellow star in the middle.
"Very convincing."
"We're trying to lay in a money supply and build up an armory for the Yards for when we're not around and they done need hard currency and guns. Whenever we capture weapons, they cache some."
"You have reason to think we won't stick it out?" said the colonel.
"Not me, sir. It's them. They don't believe it anymore."
Bennett stroked his cheek. He turned to Captain Cox. "What's the current head count of Yard militia in the camp?"
"CIDG? Just under eight hundred Montagnard irregulars: mostly Jarai, some Rhade. A few Sedang and a fair number of Bahnar refugees. All together—with dependents—maybe three thousand souls. And ten of us Big Noses."
"Did I see Vietnamese Special Forces as we came in—LLDB?"
"Yes, sir," Cox said. "But just for today. I know their reputation and it's well deserved."
"They'll be out of here by tomorrow," Grady added.
Cox said, "They're posturing, showing they're not afraid. Not many Vietnamese have been in the compound since the uprising."
"Uprising?" I said.
"There've been a bunch."
Bennett motioned me closer. "Captain Rider's our new intel officer. It might help to make him aware of our skeletons."
"Yes, sir," Cox said, and turned to me. "We got brought in five years ago to organize the Montagnards into defensive militias. Found the Yards completely disarmed. Anything that looked like a weapon, the government had confiscated. Crossbows, guns, spears, bush axes. Montagnard province chiefs and leaders had been forced out. Vietnamese Catholics were running everything."
"Real honky shit," Grady muttered.
Cox ignored him. "We got along great with the Yards. Although the South Vietnamese forbade us to train them to lead troops, we armed 'em up with surplus carbines and taught them to defend their turf. They proved themselves real warriors, scrupulously honest."
"I swear, they'll banish a thief for life," Grady interjected. "In their eyes, stealin' rice or even water is worse than murder."
Cox silenced him with a raised hand. "The South Vietnamese freaked out. Carried on that we'd created an army of mercenaries poised at their backs. Two years ago they demanded we transfer command of the Yard militias and the strikers in the A camps to them. Their country, their call. The South Vietnamese Red Berets took command and we went from being independent operators for CIA to being advisers reporting to MACV—officially anyway."
"More like allegedly," Sergeant Grady added.
"Yeah, well. Real authority didn't shift so easily. The Yards and Vietnamese despise each other—have for centuries."
Grady banged down his cup. "The dumb slopes even tried to confiscate some of the arms we'd given the Yards. That didn't work out so good neither."
"No," Cox said. "The Viets started in with their usual crap. Their special forces jerked the Yards around on their pay, which the Red Berets took over issuing—and pocketed. Pushed them to go on the offensive too and take on the heavily armed NVA regulars streaming in, guided by their Montagnard allies. Our strikers were deployed to distant camps straddling infiltration routes, far from their own villages. They couldn't fathom fighting for some other tribe's turf and they sure weren't into fighting other Yards."
"The dinks were completely okay with usin' them for cannon fodder," Grady mumbled. "Fine with laying air strikes on their villages too. A little depopulating of the real estate for after the war, it seemed like."
Cox said, "Our Yards didn't trust their new Vietnamese masters."
"Or us either after that," Grady said.
"We'd promised them autonomy, title to their tribal lands. Trained them to defend their villages, then handed them over to the South Vietnamese, who were forcibly relocating tribespeople into government settlements—dumps—and ordering the men to fight main force North Vietnamese battalions coming across the borders. We had no say in the matter, but try telling them that."
"So what happened?" I said to Cox.
"Spontaneous firefights between the Yards and ARVN. Mass desertions to the VC. Sabotage. Finally, mutiny—armed revolt."
"Two years ago," Grady said, "Rhade militia in the province next door seized the Vietnamese Special Forces commanders and soldiers and the administrators in five camps. They just detained our guys, but absolutely mutilated the Vietnamese. Slit their throats. Shot 'em. Seventy of them. Did 'em up bad."
"Declared their own independence movement," Cox interjected.
Grady shook his head in resignation. "The Yards wanted their mountains. They thought we'd stand with 'em. Kick the North and South Vietnamese the fuck out of their Highlands."
Cox looked a little pissed. "You still got a hairball about this?"
The sergeant stood with his hands in his pockets. "We strung them along and sold 'em out."
"The Yards go bat shit and you figure we're responsible?"
"We let them think they
were our troops—American legionnaires—doin' for us like their daddies did for the French. The young bloods even got uniforms made like ours—patches, flashes, berets, the works." Grady pointed at the Latin on his shoulder patch and translated. "‘To Liberate from Oppression.'"
Cox sighed. "Sarge, stow it. What's done is done."
Grady stared back. "They have went through hell cause we made 'em think it was gonna happen."
"What happened to the rebels?" I said.
Cox poured out another cup. "Three thousand marched just across the border into Cambodia and set up FULRO—their own liberation front."
"The ones who surrendered mostly got amnesty," Grady said. "But for months guns went off whenever our Montagnards bumped into ARVN or Vietnamese militia. ‘Accidental meetings,' according to Saigon. Full-out fights is what they were."
Cox nodded. "Meanwhile the Viets put General Vinh Loc in charge of Two Corps, an aristocrat with a pathological hatred of the Yards and no great love for us."
"Where were the Berets in all this?"
Grady looked downcast. "Transferred, reassigned, scattered all over. After the uprising, the U.S. Army treated us like we was Hell's Angels. They didn't trust us not to side with the Yards."
"And the Red Berets," I said, "they're still scared to come around two years later?"
Cox glanced at Grady. "It didn't end back then."
Bennett rubbed road grit from his face with a handkerchief. "Four, five months ago, the week before Christmas—this is fifteen klicks west of here—Jarai militiamen were standing guard on the perimeter at the Phu Thien District headquarters. They turned their guns around—then sounded the alarm. As the South Vietnamese soldiers poured out of their barracks, the Yards cut 'em down. Forty-three Vietnamese and an ARVN captain who'd been installed as the district chief."
"Jesus," I said.
Cox grimaced at his coffee and put it aside. "Their leader marched his column of rebels here. The plan called for simultaneous mutinies, but our Yards hadn't taken us down, thank God. When the dissidents saw it wasn't gonna happen, they surrendered."
"General Loc convened a military tribunal in Pleiku," Bennett said.
"Evil shit." Grady sat down on the edge of the table, one foot up on a chair.
"Sentenced four men to death," Bennett went on. "The first two in Pleiku. They tied them to poles on the soccer field, with a thousand Vietnamese looking on, cheering and munching pineapple-on-a-stick like it was a football match. The firing squad killed one straight off, succeeding in wounding him a second time. Propped him up, bleeding, and shot him again. Wounded him a second time. He looked like Saint Sebastian, just pierced everywhere. The crowd jeered. A French priest pleaded with the soldiers. The third volley finally killed him."
Bennett put away his handkerchief and stood for a moment with arms folded. "Two of the condemned were from here and were brought back to Cheo Reo for a hurried execution. Bob Reed, our local missionary, got called to the airstrip and was told they were going to die that day. At the barracks, the Montagnards got a last meal. They didn't eat. They prayed with Bob, then were taken to the edge of town and tied to posts in front of a crowd of onlookers and a nine-man firing squad. The two prisoners searched the faces, looking for friends. The one Yard called out to someone, ‘Oh, Uncle. Come and take my hand before I die.' Nobody stepped forward. So Bob asked the Vietnamese captain to wait. He walked out to the posts, placed his hands on their shoulders, and said a last prayer."
"The execution was quick," Grady said. "No cheers, no applause."
Cox lit a menthol cigarette. "Since the mutiny at Phu Thien, the Vietnamese Special Forces keep their distance. They're petrified of the Yards."
"Can't blame them," Bennett said.
Captain Cox leaned against a wooden post. "The only bright note was that one of the few Montagnard army officers got appointed our new camp commander."
Grady smirked. "No slope officer would take the slot."
"You have any FULRO rebels among your strikers in the camp?" I said.
Cox laughed, expelling smoke. "Here? Only a couple hundred."
"You're okay with that?" I said.
Grady shrugged with indifference. "They're not a problem to us."
Cox looked at his sergeant suspiciously. "Especially since certain Green Beret noncoms have been known to drive them around, helping them recruit young Yards from the different villages."
Grady sat silent, avoiding looking at the captain.
"It does get a little old," Cox went on, "having Yards on our payroll who the ARVN field police are looking to lock up. Luckily they haven't the balls to make arrests out here."
Grady snorted in derision. "Yeah, good luck with that."
"What's trickier," Cox said, "is the hundred or more Montagnards we bed down with each night who are VC."
Checkman started. "Here? Inside the camp? Viet Cong?"
The captain smiled, amused. "In every Special Forces camp. There are VC all through the ranks of the Montagnard and Vietnamese militias. It's a great deal. They get to keep an eye on our every move, and we train and feed and pay them. Three squares, a bunk, and free military training, all courtesy of Uncle Sam."
Grady harrumphed. "No way to know which ones are VC until they're cuttin' your throat or the wire and swingin' open the front gate for their comrades."
"Could that happen?" Checkman said, incredulous.
"Already has," Grady said. "Thirty VC agents in among the Yard strikers at Plei Mrong sabotaged the mortars and cut the perimeter wire, then turned their guns on the defenders. They let their friends in and took down the Special Forces camp. Same thing at Hiep Hoa and four other camps."
Cox said, "We're always finding soil dumped in the feed tray of the fifty cal, or rags stuffed in the mortar tubes."
"God Almighty." Checkman grew pale, his freckles darkening.
Cox slapped him on the shoulder. "So watch your back tonight, young man."
Checkman swallowed hard. "I need my own Nung."
We all laughed. The radio squawked: "One Six. This is Dog Six, we're twenty klicks out."
Cox took the mike and acknowledged. "The general's inbound," he said.
7
THE GENERAL HAD half as many stars as Westmoreland but arrived with nearly as many birds. The first two helicopters bore down on the camp from the west and shot across it breaking left and right, looking like homicidal sperm, guns trained on us.
"Gunships," Cox said, shielding his eyes, "carrying nails and gun pods."
Meaning, armed with seven fléchette rockets strapped on either side and electronically operated Gatling guns tethered to both flanks. They circled low and close, the visored door gunners bug-eyed. Grady waved with his whole arm, like a little kid, as the general's Command-and-Control ship swooped close overhead, trailed by his chaser.
"A slick shadowin' the boss," Grady said, "in case the old man's Charlie-Charlie bird goes down and he needs immediate"—he drew out the syllables—"rescue."
I cupped my hands above my eyes and looked up. The customary altitude for a general was twenty-five hundred feet over his troops, well out of range of ground fire. Commanders formed a kind of airborne chain of command: the general on top in his plush C-and-C chopper, brigade commander in the middle, battalion commander below him, all of them laid back in their flying armchairs, demanding answers and issuing instructions while the shit flew on the ground.
The general's helicopter banked and flared, hovered level, and descended. Twenty feet above the ground, Major General Donal stood on the skid, flanked by two troopers in flak vests, their assault weapons pointed skyward. As the chopper touched down, they stepped off as if from an escalator. An aide jumped to the ground behind them. They all looked like they'd just come from the dry cleaner's. Two stars shone on each of the general's lapels and on the front of his cap.
Camp commander Siu Broai snapped off a salute and welcomed Donal to Camp A-226. The pilot kept his rotors cranking, reducing the rotations but kee
ping them spinning, just in case. The three other choppers circled, zooming in and out over the fortifications, adding their pulse to the anticipation. The Montagnards stayed under cover, staring out from doorways and windows at the commotion.
Colonel Bennett and Captain Cox saluted the general and invited him to inspect the honor guard. Smiling broadly, he strode by the Yards standing at rigid attention in a variety of mismatched partial uniforms, most of them barefoot, one in a loincloth and olive-drab shirt bearing French medals. Next to him, a twelve-year-old in fatigues wearing ammo pouches and bearing a carbine. The general didn't pause. Quickly done with the military courtesies, he clapped Colonel Bennett on the shoulder and made straight for the open-sided hut just inside the wire where the shaman waited, holding a live chicken upside down by the legs.
The rest of us drew closer to witness the general sealed to the tribe forever. Donal assumed a profound expression appropriate to the honor. He had waived the all-day, all-night blood sacrifice, and—by placing his unshod foot on a bronze ax head—he skipped directly to the moment the shaman places the brass band around his right wrist. The general tried to fake the required sip of rice wine from the giant jar but actually sucked some in when a large roach skittered out the top, startling him.
Bending, Cox whispered, "An acquired taste, sir." Donal gave a brave grin, eyes a little wide.
Back at the helipad, Sergeant Grady was finishing negotiations with the general's helicopter crew, war souvenirs and currency discreetly changing hands. An aide signaled the pilot to crank it up. The prop increased rotations. After the briefest discussion, the colonel and Captain Cox escorted the general right to his command ship, its rotor slicing the air at full power. The din was deafening. To my surprise, Colonel Bennett accompanied the general aboard. The bird pulled pitch and rose aloft to speed away, rejoined by the gunships.
"Captain," Cox called to me as he returned, beret clamped in place against the rotor wash of the chase ship lifting off.
I leaned toward him to hear over the rising noise.
"The general invited the colonel to lunch at his mess. Wanted Dr. Roberta too, but she had to decline. Sorry I couldn't get us on the guest list. I hear he serves real coffee. With real cream from the Navy."
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