Military Assistance Command-Vietnam wasn’t run by the War Department, but by the OSS. Jack, Captain Rapicault, and all the other American ground personnel were on detached duty from their parent units to serve as advisors to the Viet Minh. Their detachments were mixed, Marines and Army, willy-nilly.
In Jack’s case, a short, bespectacled man named Feldman had shown up with orders pulling him away from his platoon in the 10th Mountain Division. He’d been on year one of an accompanied tour with his wife and kids in the comfort of Pyongyang. Six years after the end of the Japanese War, Korea was booming economically. Better yet, an American sergeant’s paycheck was more than enough for a family of five to live very comfortably.
Instead I’m here, in the crotch of the Orient, where the country smells like shit, half our “friends” are goddamned Reds and the other half are cavemen who haven’t learned to wipe their asses.
“Sergeant, you have some experience working with foreign troops, no?” Rapicault said.
“Yes, Captain,” Jack said.
It was true, he had worked with both Philippino and Korean troops in war and peace, respectively. But he liked Phillipinos, brave little brown bastards, and he liked Koreans, who were open, friendly, and industrious to a fault.
“Then you know,” Rapicault said, “or you should know, that how you communicate information is easily as important as the information itself.”
Jack paused, passing a sleeve over his sweat-drenched face before answering. If he did not like Vietnam, or the Vietnamese, he liked turncoat French officers telling him how to do his job even less.
“That’s true,” Jack said, keeping his voice even. “But given how aggressive your countrymen have been lately, I think by now these troops should understand how to put the right magazine in the right weapon, Captain.”
Rapicault’s brow furrowed in irritation for a moment, gratifying Jack.
Their team was responsible for advising the 1st Battalion of the 112th Regiment of the FVA. Unfortunately, the 1st of the 112th had been rushed to the contested Central Highlands of Vietnam a mere week after receiving its basic loadout of American equipment and their advisors. Other FVA units had spent a month to six weeks with their American advisor teams training in relative security near Hanoi or Saigon.
“My former countrymen, Sergeant,” Rapicault corrected, sardonic half-smile back in place. “Despite my mellifluous accent, I have been a US Marine since 1943, and an American citizen since 1944. Regardless, if my former countrymen decide to take Vietnam back by overt force, and if you were to be wounded in the ensuing battles, how likely are our little yellow friends to haul your overfed American ass up and down these mountains when you’ve been treating them like dogshit for weeks?”
Jack frowned, but didn’t respond. Rapicault nodded at his silence.
“And while you’re pondering that question, Sergeant, you might also ask yourself how long you’re going to sulk before you start discharging your duties like a professional,” Rapicault continued sharply. “Perhaps it is different in the Army, but Marine sergeants don’t generally pick and choose which missions they will accomplish and which they won’t.”
His fatigue forgotten, Jack’s spine stiffened, and he opened his mouth to respond furiously, but Rapicault had already turned away to address the column.
“Không sao đâu, trung úy,” Rapicault said, issuing the Vietnamese song-speech without apparent effort. “Chúng ta có thể tiếp tục di chuyển.”
No more magazines fell on the return march, nor did the platoon make contact with the enemy. All Jack had to take his mind off the oppressive climate was the knowledge that, whatever he thought of Rapicault, he’d earned that ass-chewing.
* * *
From his hide position in the tall, sharp elephant grass, Adjutant Jean-Baptiste Vanderburgh of the Groupement de Commandos Mixtes Aéroportés saw and heard the entire altercation between the Americans. He’d followed the French and Vietnamese conversation easily, but then the American sergeant and captain had switched to English, of which he didn’t speak a word. He could tell they were not happy with one another, though.
Though he lay mere meters away from dozens of the enemy with only one comrade beside him, Vanderburgh was unafraid. He was renowned for his ability to blend with the countryside. He had spent his boyhood stalking game in the Alsatian countryside, then the subsequent decades stalking men everywhere from the woods of the Low Countries, to the burning deserts of Algeria, all the way here, to the sweltering jungles of Indochina.
The American officer turned more towards Vanderburgh, giving him a straight-on view of his face for a moment. Vanderburgh’s breath caught in his throat, and his eyes grew wide.
Lieutenant Rapicault? No, it can’t be…
It was. It was Pierre Rapicault, a comrade he’d thought long dead in a Japanese prison camp.
Obviously he escaped and linked up with the Americans. Jesus Christ, has he been here in Indochina the whole time?
Rapicault finished his conversation with the American sergeant abruptly, then switched back to Vietnamese and ordered the platoon to move out. Foom and Vanderburgh waited long minutes after the soft tread of the FVA rear guard was no longer audible before they moved, each rising like a strange jungle denizen, cloaked in layers of vegetation and dirt to obscure their bipedal forms.
“Something troubles you, sir?” Foom asked in a low voice as they made their way west, toward the rest of Foom’s company. Although Foom was a captain and technically outranked Vanderburgh, a warrant officer, it was understood that Vanderburgh retained command over not just this GCMA company, but also their parent battalion.
“I know their officer,” Vanderburgh said. “He was my platoon commander before the Japanese occupied Indochina.”
“A Frenchman fights for the Viet Minh?” Foom said, aghast.
“Many of my countrymen still resent France’s position in the Greater Reich,” Vandeburgh said. “I knew some of them had defected to America. I didn’t know they were being used here.”
Foom shook his head. In the Hmong’s captain’s devout Catholic mind, the Viet Minh forces were comprised of nothing but godless, communist butchers and their brainwashed slave soldiers. Rebranding themselves the “Free Vietnamese Army” meant nothing. The idea that any Christian, much less a Frenchman, fought alongside the Viet Minh was anathema to him.
For his part, Vanderburgh understood why de Gaulle’s fanatics fought. He too hated German hegemony over France. But siding with the Viet Minh to rob France of one of her rightful colonies? How would that hurt the Germans? France’s economy would falter as money from Indochinese rubber, rice, and opiate exports lined foreign pockets instead of French ones. It would degrade France’s already diminished status as a power in the world without thwarting Hitler one whit. The so-called Free French were cutting of their nose to spite their face.
“So, Foom,” Vanderburgh said, putting the thought out of mind. “What did you think of our erstwhile opponents?”
“Definitely a new regiment. City boys, most of them,” Foom said, his tone clinical. “But they are trained well enough; they seemed alert and motivated despite their shoddy treatment by the big white sergeant. They will not be easily defeated in the defense.”
Vanderburgh nodded.
“The 3rd Foreign Legion regiment will attack the base camp,” Vanderburgh said. “Our part will be to cut up any outlying patrols, then delay any relief force from the main base at Plei Mrong.”
“Yes, sir,” Foom said. “How long before we begin?”
“Not long. Most of the light forces are in their assembly areas,” Vanderburgh said. “They haven’t moved de Castries’ armor into place yet. Once they do, we’ll have to move fast or lose the element of surprise. I think our friends back there have about a week to live, at the most.”
* * *
Jack squeezed the trigger on an M1 carbine. The recoil drove the butt of the weapon into his shoulder and, as he’d intended, his magazine hit the
ground for the third time. He carefully safed the weapon and placed it on a plywood stand pointed down range. Then, with comically exaggerated movements, he scratched his head underneath his helmet, then bent over, looking back at his audience between his knees, allowing his helmet to fall off. The Vietnamese troops sitting in a half-circle on the ground watching him howled with laughter. Seeing the wayward magazine, Jack snatched it up and stared at it, eyebrows quirked quizzically to more laughter.
“Corporal Dong,” Jack said, his French pronunciation artificially deep and gruff. “What is wrong with my magazine?”
Dong trotted up to him with an M2 carbine in his hands. The weapon was physically identical to the M1 in outward appearance. He didn’t bother translating Beasley’s French for the non-Francophones in the audience, but he spoke in Vietnamese himself. Having rehearsed this, Jack knew he was saying, essentially, “Sergeant, the magazine isn’t the problem, you’re just using the wrong weapon, here—”
Jack took the proffered weapon while Dong delivered a string of Vietnamese narrative on the features of the M2 and in particular how the 30-round magazine only worked with it. Jack waited for him to finish, then, nodding appreciatively, he rocked the magazine into the M2’s well, pulled the bolt back and let it fly forward to chamber a round, flipped the selector switch near the trigger assembly from SAFE past SEMI straight to AUTO and pulled the carbine’s stock into his shoulder.
BRADADA…BRADADA…BRADADA
Aligning the sites at the right hip of the silhouette, Jack methodically treated each target in turn to a short, staccato burst of automatic fire. Then, still careful to keep the muzzle pointed away from his audience, he held the carbine so that the audience could see the thirty-round magazine was still firmly in the M2’s magazine well.
“So, you can see,” Jack said in French as he ejected the magazine and cleared the carbine’s chamber. “The thirty-round magazine is very useful if your weapon has the automatic function. Otherwise, it’s just going to end up on the ground.”
As Dong took up a running translation, Jack saw Captain Rapicault step around one of the sandbag embankments at the rear of the range complex. Rapicault gestured with his chin for Jack to join him. Turning the class over to Dong, Jack followed Rapicault to the other side of the sandbags and up wooden steps to the platform of the observation tower. Rapicault told the sentry on duty there to take a break.
The firebase encompassed a lakeside fishing village of no name and was just large enough to accommodate one rifle company from the 112th on a rotational basis. This week it was 2nd Company of 1st Battalion. The range where Jack had been training the men on the M2 was on the southern side, oriented toward the lake to the south, southwest and southeast. To the north, northeast and northwest, the battalion had cleared the vegetation away from the perimeter for five hundred meters. The camp’s defensive engagement area was defined by the treeline on the far side, and by multiple rows of triple-strand razorwire on the near side, punctuated by anti-personnel minefields.
The perimeter fighting positions themselves were well dug in and carefully laid out to create interlocking fields of fire and eliminate dead space. But Jack frowned at their overhead cover. They’d done the best they could with bamboo, earth and those cypress trunks they’d been able to harvest from lower altitudes. Jack wasn’t confident they’d withstand concentrated mortar fire. He knew a well-placed artillery barrage would collapse most of them, even the heftier machine gun nests and command dugouts.
Jack knew that Rapicault sent weekly requests for engineer support to further harden their defenses, but thus far those requests had gone unanswered. Even the company command post and the advisors’ own operations centers were just Quonset huts surrounded by sandbag walls.
“The classes seem to be going well,” Rapicault said, tapping a cigarette out of a pack and holding it out to Jack.
Jack took the proffered cigarette, his brow furrowed. Rapicault’s tone betrayed no hint of I-told-you-so, but maybe the Frog sonofabitch was just being subtle. Jack decided to take the observation at face value.
“Yes, Captain,” Jack said. “They seem to be dropping fewer magazines lately.”
Rapicault lit his cigarette then passed his zippo to Jack. After he got the cherry on his cig glowing, Jack heard the crack and rattle of small arms fire as the range went hot. He glanced over his shoulder and saw that the platoon he’d left in Dong’s care was going about the range in good order, firers standing at the line engaging targets, their mates queued up nicely a safe distance behind them.
“The balloon is going up, Sergeant. We have reconnaissance photographs of 1st and 3rd Moroccan Spahis staging near Xayden and the 1st Foreign Cavalry at Pak Nhai,” Rapicault said without further preamble. “What’s more, Colonel Huu tells me that his intelligence people may have underestimated the number of infiltrated French units. There may be as many as a regiment of French Colonial Regulars in the Plei Mrong area already.”
The Spahis were units of armored cavalry comprised of Panzer IIIN light tanks and Stug self-propelled assault guns. The 1st Foreign Cavalry was a lighter force comprised mainly of Sonderkraftfahrzeug 234 Armored Cars. Each unit, fully manned, amounted to roughly two thirds the strength of an American regiment of similar function.
The French armored forces were indeed formidable. Taken together, they were unquestionably the most powerful ground combat force in Southeast Asia, but Jack wasn’t worried about them.
Plei Mrong, their area of operations, was several kilometers of dense jungle away from Colonial Routes 9 and 14, the only paved roadways in the area. It was possible that the French, through determined effort, might bring their armor to bear on Plei Mrong by moving it cross country. It would take them days, perhaps weeks to do so due to the combination of dense vegetation, steep elevations and water obstacles. Thus Jack’s immediate problem was the possibility of a couple thousand regular infantry already within striking distance.
“What the fuck?” Jack said, cigarette dangling from his lip. “How the hell did we miss a regiment of fucking Frenchmen?”
Rapicault shook his head.
“Very little about the French Army is French nowadays, Sergeant. German weapons, colonial troops,” Rapicault said. “Can you tell the difference between a Thai or a Laotian and a Vietnamese? I grew up here, and I can’t until they start talking. The locals could, but the Viet Minh have never been popular here in the Highlands, nor is the, ‘new,’ FVA. Not that the locals love the French either, but until they figure out who is more likely to win, most of them aren’t going to go out of their way to help either side. Safer for them to keep their mouths shut, no?”
“Shit.”
“Indeed,” Rapicault extinguished his cigarette. “Merde. They will move soon, they cannot keep that many soldiers concealed and supplied for long.”
The two men stood in uncomfortable silence, looking out at the camp and the mostly green troops who defended it. Jack had found, once he stopped feeling sorry for himself and started acting like a sergeant again, that they weren’t bad soldiers at all. Some of the NCOs were hard core bastards, as their senior guys had fought the Japs during the war and the French off and on ever since. But he didn’t know if they were enough to stop a regiment of professionals, equipped and trained by the most successful Army in human history, Hitler’s Wehrmacht.
Jack did know that he didn’t want to die here. Fighting the Japanese had been one thing. They had started a war with the United States. The reason they had to be stopped, had to be forced into abject surrender, was abundantly clear. Breaking Japan down so they never threatened America again was imperative.
The French, on the other hand, had never done anything to him. Even the Nazis who pulled France’s strings had done nothing to him, personally, or to his country. He’d heard they were evil, murderous bastards, but the world was full of evil, murderous bastards. Was it America’s responsibility to fight every last one of them?
Jack stole a glance at Rapicault’s impassive
face.
If I don’t like this situation, what is he thinking?
“Captain, I’m going to ask a rude question,” Jack said.
Rapicault chuckled.
“I am shocked,” he said. “You’ve been the soul of tact thus far.”
Jack smiled sheepishly.
“Right, well,” Jack said. “Look, you were right, I needed to get my shit together and do the job.”
“Yes,” Rapicault said, still smiling. “I’m glad we agree on that. Now ask your rude question.”
Jack exhaled sharply before he spoke, trying to phrase the question in a way that wasn’t a flat-out challenge to Rapicault.
Oh, fuck it.
“Captain, if I don’t want to be here,” Jack said, “and, frankly, I don’t; doesn’t it bother you to be here? I know you renounced your French citizenship, but doesn’t it bother you fight your old countrymen?”
Rapicault didn’t answer for long moments, staring out at the tree line of the jungle, his perpetually amused expression having given way to something more pensive.
“Sergeant, if a man broke into your house, killed your father, raped your mother at gunpoint and declared himself your father, would you go along with the fiction?” Rapicault said. “Would the fact that your siblings accepted the tragic, murderous farce as reality change your mind?”
Jack’s eyes widened.
“That’s a hell of a way to think about it, Captain,” Jack said.
“It’s the way I see it, Sergeant,” Rapicault said. “My great-great-great grandfather fell at Valmy in 1792. My great-great grandfather manned the barricades to restore the Republic in 1832. He lived, but was imprisoned. His son, however, fell in the revolt of 1848. His son, my grandfather, lost an arm and an eye to Prussian shells at Sedan. My father...he’s buried, for certain values of buried, somewhere near Verdun. Every man of my line for more than a century has served the republic. For me there is only one credible republic left on Earth, and if it is not the republic of my birth, it is at least more worthy of my service than a cabal of Nazi puppets.”
Trouble in the Wind Page 37
