Goodnight Saigon

by Charles Henderson

  “Currently, the 9th Regiment of the 320th Division stands in reserve for the strikes planned against the outlying Phung Duc Airfield, does it not?”

  “Yes, it does,” Lieutenant General Hoang said.

  “Tomorrow, or possibly even tonight, the Ninth Regiment must move swiftly and establish a blocking position at Buon Ho, ahead of this newfound regiment, and must cut off Highway 14 at that point.”

  “It will be done, sir,” Lieutenant General Hoang said.

  “That is all of my information at this moment, gentlemen,” Truong said and glanced at his able assistant, Nguyen, who remained frozen at muted and stoic attention.

  “Well, comrades,” Dung said, rising from his chair, striding proudly to the front of the tent where the map stood on the easel and turning to face the audience of staff officers, division commanders, and regimental and battalion leaders. “My last comment this morning regards our actions in the northern provinces. It is my pleasure to announce to you that the first two lotus buds of our great campaign have begun to bloom. Today, launching their assaults well before dawn, the people’s forces, led by our comrades of the Forty-fourth Line Front, have successfully commenced attacks on our initial objectives north and west of Hue City and in Quang Tin Province, just south of Da Nang.

  “Already, they have overwhelmed fifteen hamlets in southern Quang Tri and northern Thua Thien provinces, sending scores of frightened peasants fleeing to Hue, which will provoke chaos and cause our enemy no small measure of distress.

  “In another two days, our whole lotus bed will surely bloom in great profusion.”

  “GUNNY, DAMN IT!” Deputy Consul General Terry Tull called loudly as she tramped across the Da Nang consulate’s interior plaza, where at its hub stood a fountain and tall bronze, impressionist sculpture of a nondescript human’s smooth-headed, gender-absent upper body with its arms held high and eyes cast toward heaven. The heels of her shoes clacked loudly with each hard step that she took, and the sound of her walking across the courtyard’s hard masonry surface echoed against the edifice that surrounded her.

  Styled in classic French colonial architecture, prevalent among Southeast Asia’s public buildings, Christian churches, and palatial, European-owned coffee plantations, the compound’s primary structure consisted of a double-deck horseshoe of white stucco offices connected by a continuous balcony that overlooked three sides of a concrete and cobblestone square, where the statue stood as the centerpiece. A series of rectangular columns, also covered in white stucco, supported the upper walkway and the overhanging shelter that extended from the roof. Bronze railings and fixtures, weathered powder green, and wrought iron-decorated banisters fronted the balcony that extended the length of the right and left wings. The building that stood at the rear bore a white concrete guardrail supported by four-inch-square, white stucco pickets set every ten inches. Similar concrete, bronze, and ironwork staircases joined the upper walkways at each end and corner.

  A fifteen-foot-tall security wall built of white limestone blocks, each measuring two feet high by two feet thick by four feet long, topped with crisscrossed steel spikes and coils of razor wire, watched around the clock by Walter Sparks’s detachment of Marines, guarded the consulate’s sides and rear. At the front, the high rampart joined, at right and left, two stories of security stations, bunkers, and cells, similarly composed of white limestone blocks. This forward bulwark flanked a pair of wide, wrought-iron gates made of spear-tipped vertical bars, sheltered beneath a red-tile-roofed portal that also held two thick wood and steel, blast-resistant doors that served as the primary entrance to the facility.

  Staff Sergeant Sparks sat on the low concrete wall that encircled the fountain and statue, enjoying the noonday sunshine while eating a tuna sandwich and potato chips and drinking Coca-Cola from a red-and-white, pull tab can. Seeing the consul deputy briskly walking toward him, the Marine set down his lunch and snapped to his feet.

  “Gunny, damn it. I’ve been ringing your office for the past twenty minutes,” Tull said in a lower voice as she came near him.

  “Gunny Damn It’s not there, ma’am,” Sparks said with a wry smile to the most highly ranked female American diplomat in Vietnam.

  “You’re too cute sometimes, Staff Sergeant Sparks,” Tull said and returned his smile with a good-natured smirk.

  “I know, ma’am,” Sparks said. “I try.”

  “Small talk aside, Gunny, we have a problem. The Communists have launched what I consider a troubling offensive this morning in Quang Tri and Thua Thien provinces, moving toward Hue, and here in our own area, just south, in Quang Tin Province,” Tull said, taking a seat on the concrete wall and then snatching a pinch of potato chips from the paper plate where Sparks had laid his sandwich.

  “Rumor mill about that started early this morning, ma’am,” Sparks said, sitting down and picking up his lunch. “Our Vietnamese gate guards told me one version when I inspected the new watch, just after colors. I wanted to check out their story against what we have on the message board, but the read file hasn’t made it to my office yet. According to their scuttlebutt, though, it seems like a whole division or more of NVA has begun hitting the outlying hamlets, driving people toward the cities.”

  “No rumor, Gunny,” Tull said, nibbling the edge of a potato chip. “I have copies of several MR 1 alert messages routed to the field and higher headquarters from General Truong, and they corroborate that very idea. They even specify that the Second NVA Division and Fifty-second NVA Brigade have moved on Hau Duc and Tien Phuoc hamlets and likely threaten Tam Ky. That might very well cut off Chu Lai.

  “Up north, every road and trail leading to Hue has refugees jammed on them butt to belly, all headed to the apparent safety of the city. Not a good situation at all.

  “First on your agenda, we’d better get security here at the Alamo tightened down, now. Also, you recall those contingency plans that the station chief laid out for us last fall, when Colonel Johnson was here from III MAF?”

  “Yes ma’am,” Sparks said.

  “Dust off your copy and bring it with you to my office this afternoon,” Tull said. “I want everybody’s input.

  “With Al Francis out of pocket, I may have to start making some serious decisions, quite soon, without benefit of his presence. I am greatly concerned about the safety and security of our outlying consulate offices and their staffs, especially in Hue and Chu Lai, and also the few dependents we have with us here.

  “Meanwhile, the station chief makes his case in one direction with his CIA assessments assuring everyone that the South Vietnamese forces are better fighters than we give them credit. However, my concernsabout what we have begun to see now happening in the countryside push my thinking quite strongly the other direction. Furthermore, your fleet Marines over in Okinawa certainly don’t buy the have-faith-in-the-ARVN argument either. They’ve been sharpening their spears for quite a few weeks now.”

  “Roger that, ma’am. Any word from the boss?” Sparks asked, referring to Consul General Albert Francis who had spent the past month in Washington, DC, recovering from a thyroid gland infection, and continued to remain there, recuperating.

  “He’s still quite sick,” Tull said. “I think two more weeks at the very least before we see him anywhere near here. In addition, given the tenor of Ambassador Martin’s don’t-rouse-the-natives policy, wanting to avoid panic and reassuring the South Vietnamese of our commitment to them, Mr. Francis may not even be aware of how serious the situation here has truly become.”

  “That’s hard to believe, ma’am, considering all the firefights in the Central Highlands,” Sparks said. “I think that they would at least brief the boss on some of the intelligence reports I have read just in the past few days. We have captured prisoners talking about not regiments but divisions of NVA massing along the western borders down there. With the attacks up here this morning, on top of that information, it sure gets my attention.”

  “Mine too, Gunny,” Tull agreed. “However, th
e powers-that-be at the embassy in Saigon, Ambassador Martin, and his loyal legion that followed him from Rome seem to have another take on the situation. They do not want reality to mess with their politics nor their agenda. They want everyone to stay convinced that all remains well. America still stands proudly with Saigon. And heaven help anyone who even suggests coordinating discussions about contingency planning or evacuation.”

  “Well, I guess it’s lucky you, then,” Sparks said, smiling. “You’re the monkey in the barrel, and it looks like you get to deal with this Chinese fire drill pretty much on your own.”

  “You know it!” Tull said, smiling back. “But don’t forget, you monkeys are rolling around in the barrel with me,” she added, responding to the irony as she began to walk away.

  “Half an hour, Gunny, in my office, with the intelligence and security people,” Tull continued. “Also, in light of what I said about AmbassadorMartin and the current embassy policy on this, please keep everything under your hat. The last thing we need is more friction.”

  “Not to worry, ma’am,” Sparks said. “What’s said here, stays here. I’ll see you in half an hour.”

  A DAMP CHILL lay in the air and caused Le Van Reung to shiver. In the nighttime breeze, cooled by the downslope currents drifting off the neighboring mountains, he squinted to see the faint glow of the radium-coated hands and tick marks on the black face of the Timex wristwatch that he wore.

  A pretty friend who had worked at Chu Lai’s post exchange had given him the timepiece as a gift on the day before the Tet Offensive, in late January 1968. She was one of several spies that the Viet Cong had employed to work inside the American compound and glean tidbits of intelligence information from unsuspecting GIs who might speak freely to a sweet-faced young female.

  The girl had surprised Reung with the gift just before sunset on the eve of the attack. Prior to that day, during various other secret meetings, when she passed information, she often chaffed him with light-hearted banter because he seemed to never know the time. He always had to ask someone or look for a clock somewhere. It had become their little joke, and it helped endear each to the other.

  The day she surprised him with the watch, the girl delicately buckled the olive green strap around Le Van Reung’s boney wrist, where it dangled and then slid up his forearm when he raised his hand, causing her to frown sympathetically because he was so skinny. Then she gently kissed his cheek and told him that his life could very well depend on him having a good knowledge of the time of day.

  When the Americans left Chu Lai and ceded the PX to the South Vietnamese, the young woman went home to Hoi An, a fishing village a few miles to the north, near Da Nang. Le Van Reung never saw her again. Yet even after so much time had passed since their last meeting, she still remained dear in his more peaceful thoughts each day and night, and the memory of her soft, round face and her sweetness vividly lived in his heart.

  Her gift to him, now worn seven years, like his feelings for her, endured. Surviving brutal combat and unrelenting weather, forgiving the scratches across its crystal and the frayed edges on its nylon band, the timepiece, like the soldier who wore it, still functioned exceptionally well.

  “Nearly two o’clock in the morning,” Reung whispered to a comrade who lay with him in the ditch across the street from the military police headquarters in Ban Me Thuot.

  In the dim light, the two men could see a white, spherical structure composed of a multitude of triangular panels, conjoined to form greater geometric shapes, in a ratio of three pentagons per every five hexagons, making the thing resemble a gigantic soccer ball. Its builders based it on the geodesic dome design, patented in June of 1954 by its inventor, American engineer and philosopher Richard Buckminster Fuller. The futuristic-looking object stood on the back lawn, left rear of the five-floor building, surrounded by a second twelve-foot-high chain-link and barbed wire fence.

  Reung estimated that great white ball stood at least twenty feet high on its concrete pedestal and had a diameter of no less than fifteen feet. Judging from the cluster of thick conduit and heavy, black cables that entered the ground beneath the thing, the pair of soldiers quietly agreed that it must contain some sort of highly technical electronic mechanism, perhaps an antenna that communicated through satellites in outer space. Maybe it held some kind of ultrahigh-frequency transmitter and receiver, or even a radar dish. Whatever it contained, the guerillas decided that they must put the strange device out of action very soon after the onset of their attack. It simply looked too ominous to allow to just sit.

  While the large, mysterious dome pressed on their minds, the two machine gun emplacements that flanked the front corners of the military police headquarters and the automatic weaponry in the tower that stood ahead of a tree line near the rear fence caused Le Van Reung and the dozen comrades in his squad more immediate concerns. These three defensive strongholds controlled access to the headquarters compound.

  Considering the dominance that the post held over the perimeter, Reung instructed four of his men to open fire at their maximum sustained rates on the three positions at the instant when he blew his whistle. Their hail of bullets would hopefully suppress the enemy behind his sandbag cover long enough for Reung and the eight remaining members of his squad to cross the roadway and run through the open gates without getting mowed down. Once inside the fence, they would attack the three positions with grenades and take out the machine guns. With these primary exterior defenses of the police headquarters disabled, an avenue would open for the other platoons in his company to follow his squad’s lead and overrun the compound.

  “Any moment now,” Reung said quietly, looking up from his watch, holding his whistle near his lips, and searching the night sky for the flash of a green pyrotechnic that would signal the guerilla forces to commence the attack.

  A soldier who lay in the ditch next to him nodded nervously and rubbed his hand up and down the forward stock of his almost-new, Soviet-made AK-47 assault rifle.

  Reung watched his comrade and smiled. He and most of his men had gotten their old, badly worn Chinese SKS rifles replaced with the more reliable, fully automatic, Russian-manufactured Kalashnikovs just days before they began their migration into Ban Me Thuot. It had made them feel important, and appreciated, getting outfitted with some of the best available weaponry rather than the customary, heavily used hand-me-downs that they typically had received in the past.

  “Tonight will be very special, historic,” Reung told his comrades just as several gigantic, green star-cluster flares, shot from a battery of Tenth NVA Division artillery pieces now positioned on the outskirts of Ban Me Thuot, burst in the sky overhead. “Remember this moment well.”

  In the distance, Reung heard the booming voices of dozens more big guns, launching their munitions into designated targets, announcing that the attack had now begun. In the pale green light of the flares, the guerrilla saw the expressions of stress that stretched themselves across his men’s faces as they awaited his signal. So without another second of hesitation, he took a deep breath and gave his whistle three hard blasts.

  The sound of it cut through Reung’s ears and sent his gut into a twist as he pushed himself up from the ditch with his hands and knees and tucked his rifle close to his hip. He felt his hair bristling on his skin while his eyes and ears pounded from a gush of adrenaline that surged through his body as he leaped onto the roadway with his AK-47 spitting fire. Quickly, the soldier focused his vision and his stream of bullets at the double doorways of the building where only a few days earlier the pair of young South Vietnamese soldiers who had insisted on helping him push his cart had gone. He tried not to think about the two boys and focused on advancing his men across the street without getting himself or them killed.

  At each side of him, red tracer bullets arched into the two sandbagged machine gun nests and into the fortified tower. The guerrilla could not tell if the enemy had yet even returned fire.

  Reung’s confidence soared as he ran past the
tall steel and brick corner posts at the front gate, in echelon with eight of his men. Slamming a fresh, banana-curved magazine into his Kalashnikov, he turned his rifle toward the nest on the left and opened fire, straight at the muzzle flash of the .30-caliber machine gun there that had now begun to belch a stream of red at his comrades who ran from the ditch and buildings, attempting to cross the street behind him. He knew that he had to silence this gun, or at least suppress its operators with his rifle fire, so that his comrades to his rear could join the rest of his men in their attack.

  Suddenly, the world shone eerily yellow in the light from dozens of illumination flares that ignited overhead and then dangled beneath small parachutes that drifted across the black sky. South Vietnamese soldiers barracked in the squad bays of the upper floors of the headquarters had scurried to the building’s rooftop and had launched the pyrotechnics with an array of mortars that they had hastily positioned up there.

  Long shadows from the advancing Viet Cong danced across the lawn as the soldiers on the headquarters roof now opened fire with automatic rifles and heavy machine guns and hurled grenades at them. Reung could hear the hollow thump of mortar shells launching into the sky, and then behind him, among the buildings and along the ditch, the ka-chunking boom of the projectiles exploding.

  “Attack! Attack!” he shouted to the men who ran alongside and ahead of him, urging them onward as several of them momentarily stopped and looked back at him, obviously surprised by the enemy soldiers atop the building.

  Reung shoved his hand into a canvas satchel that he wore with its single strap slung across his left shoulder and the bag laid against his right hip. In it he found the clutch of hand grenades that he had put in the sack, along with several quarter-pound sticks of C-4 explosive, and took one out. Quickly yanking the pin that held down its trigger, he hurled the small bomb into the bunker, now only thirty feet in front of him, and then dove for the earth.