“There’s a hundred and eleven vehicles at a rally point just north of you,” he growled, “right near Bien Hoa. They’ll set out for Tay Ninh in an hour. I suggest you get your asses over there.”
In a pig’s eye, I wanted to say. The road to Tay Ninh and the province itself were mostly Viet Cong, had been for years. Playing tag with the VC for ninety-nine kilometers through the Ho Bo woods or the Boi Loi forest could seriously deplete my personal quota of close calls.
“Captain, that’s a sixty-mile trip. It’s gonna take forever going overland. Accompanying armor will slow us up terrible. So will the fully loaded trucks.”
“You’d make it there in three hours, four tops. Convoy’s got air cover, gun jeeps, armored carriers mounted with fifties. Every eleventh vehicle’s a tank.”
“Sir, we’d eat road grit the whole way and spend four hours praying not to hit a goddamn mine. Besides, we haven’t got a vehicle.”
“Don’t be such a candy ass,” Deckle roared. “That road’s loaded with US equipment and personnel at the staging point. Hitch a ride.”
Right, like maybe on a tanker hauling aviation gas.
“We’ll keep at it, sir,” I said, and rang off before he could order us to join the f-ing convoy. A while later a snide Air America crew chief tossed a whole platoon of Vietnamese in battle dress off a short-hop flight and put half a dozen of us round eyes on his DC-3 in their place. The dinks pretended not to care but they had to be pissed at being treated like beggars.
As we climbed to altitude, Robeson tapped me and pointed to a long line of transports uncoiling far below: the convoy setting out for Tay Ninh, a gun jeep with a red hood in the lead, another with an orange hood last in line. The plume of grit that rose along its entire length would quickly turn the goggled drivers and escorts into raccoons.
I kicked back and closed my eyes. “I bet you’re sorry we missed that ride.”
“I am for sure shit glad we missed that sucky fucky ride.”
We flew northwest toward the cul-de-sac that was Tay Ninh province, surrounded on three sides by Cambodia from which it had once been gouged, something the Khmer never forgot. Half an hour later Black Virgin Mountain loomed on the starboard side, and we banked sharply to avoid Cambodian airspace before landing in Tay Ninh City.
Sergeant Moehlenkamp sat at the wheel, next to the Presbyterian holy Joe he’d latched onto, me and Robeson in back. Circular bomb craters peppered the long stretch of road, some filled with water and ducks, others converted to rice paddies or mud baths for water buffalo. A dozen local women were using one to bathe in. Normally we would have commented on the view, but not with a padre on board.
Reverend Crawford was doing most of the talking. “There’s a longstanding tradition of self-sufficiency in Asia where you build political and military muscle around a spiritual center, both to protect it and to maintain order in the community of believers. Here in Tay Ninh, Cao Dai was such a core,” he explained as we bounced along the hard-packed road.
“The founder of Cao Dai was a huge fan of French culture—and of séances,” Reverend Crawford went on, clamping a pipe between his teeth. “Back in the twenties this was. He started conferring with one particular spirit who eventually identified himself as Cao Dai.”
“That means ‘Supreme Being,’” Moehlenkamp said with authority, downshifting as we approached a checkpoint with a warning sign that read:
stopping through red signal
disobey must be killed
“Damn,” Robeson said, “does that mean they’re gonna shoot us if we stop or shoot us if we don’t?”
Laughing, Reverend Crawford waved to the guards and told Moehlenkamp to drive on. “Sometimes the séances called forth Victor Hugo,” the padre said, “who’d dictate poetry—a good deal of it suspiciously anti-colonial,” he added with a wry smile. “The late Chinese nationalist Sun Yat-sen joined them. Then a famous Vietnamese poet—”
“Trang Trinh,” said Moehlenkamp.
“Right you are.” Reverend Crawford grasped his shoulder, cordial and encouraging. “Thank you, Sergeant. The founder declared all three of them immortals of the faith, along with Joan of Arc, Shakespeare, the Virgin Mary, Muhammad, Moses, and a whole drove of other folks they worship as incarnations of the ‘Supreme Being.’”
“That’s some lineup,” I said.
Moehlenkamp nodded. “There’s some other real doozies. Tell ’em, padre.”
“I won’t remember them all.” The Rev concentrated. “Let’s see. Louis Pasteur. Did I already say Winston Churchill? Um, Napoleon, Thomas Jefferson.”
“Lenin,” Moehlenkamp volunteered.
“Of course. Vladimir Ilyich.”
“You’re pulling my leg,” I said. “A Communist saint?”
“He’s not puttin’ you on,” Moehlenkamp insisted. “Buddha, Confucius, and Jesus Christ made the cut too.”
“I should hope,” Robeson said, and quoted scripture: “He is before all things.”
“And in Him all things hold together,” the Rev finished.
“Is the founder still alive?” I asked.
“Nah,” Moehlenkamp waved off the question. “He got bumped off by the Commies years ago.”
“Who’s in charge now?”
Reverend Crawford puffed his pipe. “The sect is in some ways organized like the Catholics, with bishops, cardinals, even a pope, although Diem deposed their pope and forced him into exile. But quite unlike the Catholics, Cao Dai’s priests are both male and female. Women can rise as far as cardinals. They worship a Holy Mother alongside Cao Dai.”
“Are we meeting with a lady priest?” Robeson asked, eyebrows raised.
“No, Sergeant.” Reverend Crawford tried to relight his pipe, but the air rushing past us wouldn’t let him. “We’re having tea with a cardinal. He’s become a friend. His memory is getting a little spotty but eventually it all comes back to him. You’ll just need to be patient.”
“You really like these Cao Dai,” I said.
“Mmm.” He held his hat in front of the pipe and drew in flame. “Hard not to be intrigued by them. They want to unite people of all religions in peace, and they personally eschew all luxury. They communicate with the departed ancestors of believers during their séances. I am reading my way through all the transcripts of these sessions. You can appreciate that Diem’s law outlawing spiritualism has not been well received here. Cao Daists far outnumber Catholics in Viet Nam, but of course Diem and his fellow Catholics hold all the power.” He puffed hard and the tobacco glowed.
Reverend Crawford directed Moehlenkamp along a dusty road into a huge bare plaza with a pink, green, and blue basilica at its center and people in white robes everywhere.
“The Great Temple of the Cao Dai,” Reverend Crawford announced. He pointed his pipe at huge eyes painted along the building’s sides and over the main entrance. “The all-seeing eye of Buddhism.”
The crowd of Vietnamese men and women in white approached the main doorway in orderly lines. We followed at a respectful distance, the only Westerners in sight. Huge stained-glass windows flanked the sides of the building, each with an eye inside a triangle, like giant versions of the eye atop the Masonic pyramid on American dollars. Inside, hundreds of barefoot worshippers sat cross-legged in spotless white ranks on a white marble floor, facing two pulpits mounted on pillars at the front end of the large gallery.
“One pulpit is for men,” the Reverend whispered, “the other for women.”
“Fine-lookin’ women,” Robeson observed.
“The female clergy are all celibate. The men too.”
Two rows of columns ran the length of the hall with enormous sculpted creatures in gaudy colors coiling around them: a bug-eyed dragon, a gigantic cobra, a scaly lizard. It looked more like a carnival back home than a cathedral.
“The colors just scream, don’t they?” Cra
wford said. The sect was obviously more thrilling to the padre than his own Presbyterians.
Reverend Crawford led us out to a patio on the side of a small residence where he introduced us to a white-robed elder with skin like shiny parchment and a polished bald head. The cardinal showed us to a wooden table overlooking a modest garden and served us tea in white porcelain bowls with little clear ovals that the light shone through. Crawford eased him into conversation with pleasantries until the cardinal relaxed and asked us, in quite good English, how he might help.
Moehlenkamp showed him the medallion Ting had removed from General Lang’s no-longer-seeing eye. The cardinal confirmed it was the beret badge of the sect’s former military arm. “Until the newly appointed Prime Minister Diệm disbanded and co-opted the armies of the Cao Đài and the Hòa Hảo sects, we had fifty thousand in uniform, trained and armed. A force to reckon with. Our Cao Đài soldiers were given a wide berth; they managed to keep our region free of Việt Cộng until fifty-six, fifty-seven.”
“This was at the very beginning of Diem’s regime,” Crawford added. “He used nine million of the original aid dollars he received from us to persuade Cao Dai generals they should lead their troops into the ranks of the new nation’s French-trained army. Most of their soldiers were absorbed into the new force, but a good many also went over to the Viet Cong or fled across the border to Cambodia.”
“This is quite true,” the cardinal agreed. “Only a small group of retired Cao Đài military men is left. Less than a hundred elderly veterans.”
Moehlenkamp said, “And with the Cao Dai army gone, Charlies in Tay Ninh go unchecked. They just walk into any old village and provision themselves like it’s a supermarket. They got huge bases nearby.”
“It’s a young Viet Cong lady we’re interested in, sir,” Robeson said. “A sharpshooter, ’round twenty years of age.”
“We have no one like that among us.”
Crawford held up his palm, interrupting. “Perhaps not at present, cardinal. But you did have. Those siblings you told me about? The brother and two sisters we spoke of.”
“Ah. Yes, yes.” The cardinal stroked his chin. “It’s been some years. Remarkable youngsters.” The cardinal paused, recalling. “The boy displayed exceptional prowess with firearms.”
“His sisters,” I said, “were they proficient too?”
“All three acquitted themselves extremely well with weaponry. They had been instructed relentlessly from an early age. Our old militiamen marveled at their skill. Like Japanese archers, they barely needed to take aim.” The cardinal fell silent and sipped his tea.
“They were uncanny shots,” Crawford prompted. “An old Cao Dai sergeant arranged a demonstration, you told me.”
“Demonstration? Ah yes. The sergeant blindfolded the two older children while the younger girl hid behind an upright iron slab some thirty meters distant. The little one recited an ancient poem about an anvil. Her siblings had only her voice to guide their aim.”
“How’d they do?” Robeson asked.
“All their shots clanged the iron on cue. Neither child missed. Each placed six shots dead center. Afterward, their younger sister fired a small-caliber handgun at a paper sign, accenting the letters.” He shook his head at the memory. “The old sergeant awarded the little one his khaki beret with the medallion on it. She was never seen without it from that day forth. The old sergeant had no family of his own. He became like a grandfather to them.”
“Can we talk to this Cao Dai sergeant?” Robeson asked.
“It’s possible but not certain,” said the cardinal, with a smile. “He passed over some years ago. Not a good death. He complains from time to time.”
“And the older daughter, what was she like?” I said.
“Her mother’s child. Quiet, self-contained. All three youngsters had a disarming innocence about them, quite in contrast to their weapons discipline.”
“When exactly was this?” I said.
“They came to us the year the defeated French Expeditionary Force quit Indochina and sailed for home: nineteen hundred and fifty-six. We understood their mother had been the concubine of an important man and sought a contemplative life after the turmoil she had known with him. She shaved her head, became a novice, and took vows. Only later did I learn that the notorious General Bảy Viễn had fathered the children.”
“What became of the children?” Robeson said.
“Misfortune,” said the cardinal, his face surrendering to memories. “Some three years after they came to us, I returned from a retreat to find the community in chaos. The province chief was rounding up former Việt Minh fighters. This was in fifty-nine.” He paused, checking his recollection. “Yes! Four years ago. Our country’s new president had issued a decree launching a nationwide trừ gian.”
“Tru gian,” I repeated, remembering the scrawl on the vengeance card stuck in General Lang’s unseeing eye.
“‘Extermination of Traitors,’” the cardinal translated. “Law ten fifty-nine. A decree from President Diệm, unleashing a national campaign against any Communists and sympathizers among the old independence fighters, the Việt Minh.”
“Signaling the arrival of Diem’s dreaded night visitors,” Crawford said.
“Here in Tây Ninh,” the cardinal continued, “Diệm’s field police swept in before dawn, surrounded the homes of those on their list and dragged them before military tribunals for immediate trial. The edict did not distinguish between nationalists and true Communist ideologues. If they had ever been Việt Minh, the tribunals did not care whether they were Buddhists from the League for National Salvation, men of the Peasants’ Associations, Socialists, or even Resistant Catholics. The accused were given no right to examine evidence, call witnesses, or appeal the instant verdicts. Some were sentenced to prison, many to death by beheading. And, sadly, there were no Cao Đài militia left to resist.”
“The condemned,” Reverend Crawford said, “were put to death on the spot with a portable guillotine.”
“Horrific,” said the cardinal, shaking his head. “The children’s adopted grandfather, the old Cao Đài sergeant, was among them. The children were forced to witness his gruesome death. Naturally, this horrifying purge lost Diệm the loyalty of any surviving nationalists and earned his government the undying hatred of all those affected—which was everyone.” He made a futile gesture. “The children’s mother was also among the accused.”
“Had she fought with the Viet Minh?” I asked.
“No, no. The children’s father, Bảy Viễn, had once sided with the Communists, but only out of convenience. In truth he was an opportunist, not at all a committed leftist, but he had made an enemy of President Diệm and was on their list, and hence so was his former concubine. Her association with the children’s father was enough to condemn her. Our province chief ordered the local constabulary to escort the military policemen to her home. A large detail converged in the pre-dawn dark and encircled her house. Her son, all of seventeen, fired on them immediately, with shocking accuracy. Wounded five, killed two—in moments. Seven shots, seven casualties. Until that moment the combat police carrying out the trừ gian had encountered no armed resistance; they panicked. Their senior man bravely tried to rally them as he rushed toward the house in a weaving run. He was struck in the chest, the third to die.”
“Fully armed soldiers acting on orders to sow terror,” Crawford said, “driven off by a teenager.”
“The government agents were completely unnerved. They fell back and called for artillery, insisting that they faced professional combatants instead of a boy with a handgun. The shells came howling down,” said the cardinal, closing his eyes. “Bursting into white tendrils.”
“Phosphorus,” Moehlenkamp said.
“Mmm. They set the house ablaze.” The cardinal was visibly moved. “Such a shame,” he said. “The mother was arrested as she
dragged the older daughter from the flames, unconscious. Of the children, Mai alone had survived. The brave young marksman and his younger sister perished in the inferno. In the commotion of the mother’s arrest, a vehicle bore the rescued girl to the hospital. Somewhere along the route she made her escape.”
“How old was she then?”
“Mai? Perhaps sixteen. Her younger sister, eleven; the boy, seventeen or thereabout. The Cao Đài community rose up in outrage to challenge the tribunal. To everyone’s relief, their mother, Madame Nguyễn, was quickly exonerated.”
“Madame Nguyen still live here?” Robeson asked.
“No,” the cardinal replied, sadly. “When we entombed her children’s ashes she remained by the grave all night. She exhibited no rancor. Indeed, she seemed strangely calm. We found her body the next morning. She had taken her own life with her youngest child’s aluminum pistol.” The cardinal peered over the top of his glasses. “The tomb the three share is close by.”
“Does Mai ever visit the family grave?” Moehlenkamp asked the old man.
“Not that I am aware. Though I’m told fresh blooms and offerings appear from time to time.”
“And the province chief in those years,” I said, “do you remember him?”
“Vividly. A deeply unpleasant person; truly a swotter. He rose to major general and died violently himself a short while ago. An automaton of a man. What was his name? It will come to me in a moment.”
Chapter Thirty-One
We followed Reverend Crawford and the cardinal to the grave where the family’s ashes were interred above ground in a traditional Cao Dai crypt. A hand-tinted enamel etching of the mother and her children filled a polished oval set into the face of the tomb. I studied the image of the older sister. Impossible to know how good a likeness of Mai it was, or what those features might look like now.
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