by Eric Meyer
“Two seconds, Jurgen, I’m almost on them.”
I held us on course and kept my eye on our speed, and then three things happened at once. His M2 fired, a long burst that emptied the clip, the two machine gunners were flung to the ground as the hail of fire smashed into them and I reached take-off speed, hauled on the column and we were airborne. We were heavily loaded and I retracted the wheels immediately and kept the aircraft in a long, slow ascent, refusing to sacrifice speed for height. We barely cleared the trees as we flew over the jungle a half mile from the airport, but it was the only way. Too steep a take-off meant we would have been a high, slow moving target, a sitting duck for any enemy guns that decided to take an interest in us. But no more enemy fire hit us and we were airborne.
Paul removed his assault rifle from the window and went aft to find something to block the shattered window. Once we reached cruising altitude it would be a problem with the icy slipstream blasting into the cockpit. He came back with an old army blanket and stuffed it in the hole, the airflow hitting us from the outside stopped and he sat down in the co-pilot’s seat.
“Good shooting,” I smiled at him.
“Good enough,” he grunted. “I thought I’d really have time for just one clip so I had to be sure. There wouldn’t have been enough time reload, it all happened so fast. If I’d needed to change clips it may have been a different story.”
He looked across at the top of my seat and his eyes widened. “Jurgen, that last burst, did you lean forward as they fired?”
I said I had.
“Behind your head there’s a bullet hole right through the seat, exactly where your head is.”
“I had to adjust the starboard engine, it was faltering again.”
“It’s just as well.”
I felt an icy sensation in my stomach. How many times in my turbulent life across the world’s battlefields had I come that close to death? More than a few.
“Paul, when we get back to Tan Son Nhat don’t tell my wife it was that hairy, will you.”
He grinned. “You’re more afraid of her than the Viet Cong.”
“Too right.”
We flew steadily south, the starboard engine didn’t give any more trouble, I tuned the radio into AFN, the American Forces Network station playing The Locomotion, sung by an American known as Little Eva. Not quite the cultured classical pieces I remembered from the many fine orchestras of my homeland, at least when I was last there more than twenty years ago. But this music was modern, young and alive, a world away from the doom laden arias of Hitler’s favourite, Richard Wagner. It was the music of optimism, besides, Adolf was dead, Wagner was dead and Little Eva was alive and singing her songs. Several hours later we were approaching our home airport. When I called for landing clearance the familiar voice of Nguyen Cam Le, the air traffic controller at Tan Son Nhat sounded in my headphones.
“SGN-SS1 this is Tan Son Nhat, you’re cleared for immediate landing, winds south easterly, speed ten knots and the sun is shining as usual on our beautiful city.”
I smiled at his cheery voice. “Thank you Le, I’ll buy you a beer when I see you.”
“You always say that, Herr Hoffman, I calculate you owe me at least twenty by now.”
“I’ll pay you when the war’s over, Le.”
“You mean after we’re all dead?” he chuckled. “Tan Son Nhat out.”
It was good to hear the familiar joking voice of the friendly Vietnamese in the control tower. We went straight down onto the tarmac and taxied over to our hangar where we supervised the unloading of our cargo. I left Paul to talk to our ground engineer Johann Drexler, another Waffen-SS and French Foreign Legion veteran, about repairing the damage to the C-47. Feeling battered and exhausted, as if I’d used up one of the few remaining lives left to me, I went home.
My bungalow lay just outside the perimeter of Tan Son Nhat Airfield, its surface pockmarked with the patches that covered the shell holes from the mortar rounds that struck regularly. I often wondered if we should move further away from the danger zone, but our home was convenient to our hangar. Besides, was anywhere really safe here in Vietnam? I smiled as the tempting fragrances of Helene’s French cooking came out to meet me. In this ramshackle, broken, crazy dumpster of a country of Vietnam that we called home, I sometimes thought that without her none of it would be worth it. She rushed out to hug me, as passionate now as the day when we first decided that we were made for each other, flung together in a dank, jungle clearing whilst fleeing an avenging horde of Viet Minh savages. She was just as beautiful as she was then, more than ten years had passed but not one day slipped by without me counting my blessings for having met this girl. I hugged her to me and felt myself becoming erect, she could drive a man wild almost with a look, even now when she was in her mid-thirties. She felt me against her body and smiled.
“No, Jurgen, down boy, you’re a typical soldier, back from a mission there’s always one thing on your mind. Dinner first, my love, get yourself washed.”
Despite Helene’s charms, I felt distracted, we’d been having a few problems with the starboard engine on our C-47, the aircraft that was our main source of revenue. If the engine had failed completely on the last run we could have lost the aircraft to enemy action.
The Douglas C-47 Skytrain, also known as the Dakota, was built as a military transport aircraft developed from the DC-3 airliner. It had a reinforced fuselage floor and the addition of a large cargo door to allow for the loading and transport of quantities of military supplies. Used extensively by the Allies during World War II it had remained in front line operations through the 1950s. The Skytrain was at one time the standard transport aircraft of the US Army. Since they began to replace them with other, larger transport aircraft, many of them appeared on the surplus market, where we had picked up our own aircraft at a knock-down price.
The phone rang and I held Helene to me while I answered it. It was Drexler, he’d already taken a preliminary look at the starboard Wright Cyclone GR-1820 engine and suspected a faulty centrifugal supercharger. Paul Schuster was on his way into Saigon to buy a replacement unit that Johann understood from his contacts could be found in an engineer’s shop in the city. Probably stolen from the US military, I reflected, but that wasn’t my problem. I turned my attention back to Helene, kissed her again and detached myself to take a shower. Newly changed into clean cotton trousers and bush shirt, I went to check out my dinner, but in the lounge two guys were sitting waiting, sipping cold drinks, I hadn’t heard them come in.
“Jurgen, these two gentlemen have called to see you, I’ll leave you to it.”
I nodded my thanks, she was a soldier’s woman, and knew when my clients would require privacy. I looked at them, they were as different from each other as chalk from cheese, a soldier with the insignia of a lieutenant colonel and a civilian. The civilian’s clothes gave away his occupation as much as the soldier’s uniform gave away his own. The colonel was sitting almost to attention, alert and as ramrod straight as it was possible to be on our old couch. His name badge said Goldberg and I guessed his age at about forty. He could only be Special Forces, the unique units that the Americans had formed to come and train their South Vietnamese allies, and a glance at the green beret he was holding under his arm confirmed it.
Disliked by the army brass, the green beret had been adopted from the style worn by the British Special Forces group, the Royal Marine Commandos. The military hierarchy had initially banned its use, but on visiting Fort Bragg, President Kennedy asked General Yarborough to encourage all of the Special Forces to wear their green berets to attend the event. Kennedy delivered a speech whereby he made the green beret “a mark of distinction in the trying times ahead”.
I had no doubt that Goldberg had earned his own ‘mark of distinction’. He looked fit and tough, about medium height, his jungle green uniform razor sharp, clean and neatly pressed, his hair cut so short as to make him almost bald. He carried a side arm in a holster on his belt, Vietnam was a war zo
ne, of course. But I doubted the weapon was for show, he had a hard look in his eyes, the cold, calculating stare of someone who has seen much action and spilled a goodly amount of blood. A look I had seen often during my own career.
The civilian was wearing clothing so unsuitable for the climate, for the humidity and filth of Vietnam, that I briefly wondered why they had become almost a mandatory uniform for intelligence operatives. Beige chino trousers, pale blue button-down long sleeved cotton shirt and mid-brown Docksiders on his feet, the kind with a little tassel on the toe. He’d obviously left his bow tie and pipe at home, together with his tweed jacket. I could almost sense his discomfort at travelling without the outward trappings of his American WASP upbringing that would have taken him directly from Harvard or Princeton to a career in the corridors of Langley, Virginia. He may as well have been wearing a badge similar to his companion’s, but his would have said CIA.
“Gentlemen, what can I do for you? I see my wife has brought you cold drinks.”
The soldier looked straight at me and we shook hands. He came straight to the point. “Mr. Hoffman, it’s quite simple, we have a charter for you if you have an aircraft to spare.”
“That’s how I make my living, Colonel. If it’s just the two of you, I can have the Cessna 170B fuelled up and ready to go in the morning, where do you want to go?”
Our four-seat Cessna 170 was a light, single-engine, aircraft produced by the Cessna Aircraft Company in 1954. It had a metal fuselage and tail and fabric covered wings, and was fitted with a powerful 145 hp Continental engine and large fuel tanks. For simple jobs ferrying passengers or small loads around Vietnam it was the perfect workhorse, able to operate out of the smallest and roughest of the airstrips and it made the jungles of this hostile country a little more accessible.
“To Hue,” he replied, “Tay Loc. Is that a problem? Just the two of us, myself and Mr. Anderson here, not really much in the way of luggage.”
“That’s fine. Journey time is about three hours in the Cessna, she’s a four-seater so we won’t be fully loaded. When do you want to leave?”
“Is ten in the morning ok with you?”
“Fine, that’ll give me time to get back here the same day. I’ll see you at the airfield just before ten, the flight plan will be filed ready and the aircraft good to go.”
We discussed the price, when carrying military men I had a rule of thumb, think of a price and double it, but they just shrugged when I told them how much and Goldberg said it would be fine. Anderson suddenly took an interest in the conversation, he looked up and spoke to me.
“Do you ever miss Germany, Mr. Hoffman?”
The room suddenly felt as chill as his gaze. I could tell that Helene had been listening in the kitchen, she had stopped what she was doing when she heard his words.
“Why do you ask, Mr. Anderson?”
“You’ve got an interesting past, lots of rumours about you. You were in Russia during the war, I gather?”
It wasn’t really a question. What did he want?
“I was here in Vietnam too,” I replied. “I was a soldier in the French Foreign Legion. I am also a citizen of France, but I do not miss France any more than I miss Germany. Surely you’d know that, your people, wouldn’t you, Mr. Anderson?”
He shrugged. “I’ve seen your file, Hoffman.”
“So why do you ask?” I pressed him. “Do you have a problem with Germans?”
He smiled a superior, knowing smile. “No, of course not. Not all Germans were members of the, you know...”
“The SS, Mr. Anderson?”
“Something like that. Amazing, eh? One minute you’re all fanatical Nazis, the next minute half the country is commie. Which side were you on, Mr. Hoffman?”
“I can assure you I was not on the side that your agency is fighting a cold war against, Mr Anderson. The side that is supplying arms to their communist allies here in Vietnam. The side that I was fighting while you were still in kindergarten, my friend.”
His expression darkened and Goldberg jumped in before the conversation deteriorated further.
“Miles, we’re all allies now, you know that, Mr. Hoffman is a French citizen, so leave it alone. We’ll be at the airfield in the morning, Sir, see you then. Would you say goodbye to your charming wife for us? And wish her Happy New Year.”
“Yeah, do that, Herr Hoffman,” Anderson added, putting the accent on the ‘Herr’.
I smiled at them, “Of course, gentlemen, see you in the morning. Happy New Year to you.”
It was January the first, 1963.
So what the hell was wrong with Miles Anderson, CIA agent? The Second World War had ended eighteen years ago, yet some people seemed able to harbour a grudge for life. But he’d need watching, he was one of those people that naturally had to knock people down, perhaps to make himself look good. There was something else, too, something about Miles Anderson that was dark and hidden.
I told Helene I’d be going to Hue in the morning and then I telephoned Drexler and made sure he’d have the Cessna fuelled and ready to go. As I went to sleep that night, I thought more about the two men. One thing I’d learned about Vietnam, everyone had their own agenda and most were on the make too. And one other thing, of course, life was cheap here. Very cheap.
In the morning I said goodbye to Helene and walked out to the Hotchkiss jeep, Schuster had called in early to pick me up. The former Waffen-SS officer had stayed on in Vietnam when his enlistment in the Foreign Legion ended. We had both spent our termination pay on acquiring pilots’ licenses in the US, where it was cheap. Commercial and type approval licenses were not difficult to obtain in Vietnam, like most things here it was simply a matter of money changing hands. We drove the short distance to our hangar at Tan Son Nhat in our Hotchkiss, the French copy of the Willys jeep, open to allow the breeze to cool some of the sticky humidity, our clothes were already sticky with sweat.
The Willys MB US Army Jeep was initially built from 1941 to 1945. In the SS we had the radically different and inferior Volkswagen Kübelwagen. Based on a small automobile, the VW Beetle, it used an air-cooled engine and lacked four wheel drive. Before the Americans arrived in Vietnam the French Army produced the Willys derivative, the Hotchkiss M 201, in considerable quantities. When they left Indochina, a large number were put up for sale and our workhorse was one of these French built vehicles.
I noted with approval that Drexler had the Cessna ready to go, the engine already ticking over to warm it up. My pre-flight checks were almost completed when Goldberg and Anderson arrived. Goldberg had changed into Tiger stripe camouflage, almost a copy of the old SS pattern. He still carried his sidearm, but in addition he was carrying an AR-15 assault rifle with pouches of spare clips hung on his belt. Built of black plastic and aluminium, the Colt AR-15 was probably the most lethal assault rifle ever produced. It was light in weight, easy to shoot, and extremely accurate, so that it was fast becoming the standard infantryman’s weapon of the US and ARVN forces.
Anderson was dressed identically to the previous evening, I suspected it was the only type of clothing he possessed or would ever deign to wear. The only difference was that he was wearing a shoulder holster with a huge Colt automatic pistol in it, the standard sidearm of the US military. And of the CIA. He saw me looking at it.
“Yeah, don’t worry Hoffman, if we come down in Gook country, I know how to use this thing.”
I nodded at him. “That’s very reassuring, Mr. Anderson.”
Goldberg smiled. “Are we ready to go, I’d like to keep to schedule?”
“Yes, if you would like to climb into the aircraft and strap in we can take off straight away.”
They climbed into the Cessna, Anderson in the back and Goldberg next to me. I called the control tower and got immediate clearance from Nguyen Cam Le.
“You’re ok to go straight out, Jurgen. If you’re headed anywhere nice you can bring me back a nice present. Something small, like a Rolex watch,” he broke off, laughing to himself.<
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“Yeah, we’ll see, thanks Le.”
I taxied down the runway and took off, heading north towards Hue.
“That guy fancies himself as a bit of a joker,” Goldberg said.
“Le? Yeah, he’s always cheerful, but don’t let the jokes fool you, he’s a good man, very professional, runs a tight ship. Hates the commies, too,” I replied.
“Why is that?” Goldberg continued.
“Le’s family were murdered while he was in the US doing his air traffic control training. Apparently the communists accused them of supporting the Americans by allowing their son to train in the US. When he came back he tried to enlist in the ARVN, wanted to shoot every commie in sight, but he was too valuable in air traffic control so they ordered him to stay there.”
Goldberg grunted an acknowledgment as I concentrated on climbing to our operating altitude.
We reached five thousand feet as quickly as possible. I burned up more fuel that I would have liked but ground fire was becoming increasingly common and I preferred not to offer the Viet Cong a tempting target. We reached operating height and I set the throttle to cruise. Goldberg leaned nearer to speak to me, out of the corner of my eye I could see that Anderson had moved closer to listen.
“Do you know the area around Ap Bac, Mr. Hoffman,” the soldier asked me.
I thought for a moment, Ap Bac was a village about forty miles to the south west. I nodded.