by Robin Moore
I had to laugh, the thinking was so typically Kornie, and just what Lieutenant Colonel Train, who was so scrupulous about international politics, was afraid of.
Kornie continued. “If the VC are suddenly cut to little pieces right where they think they are safe, in Cambodia, they will be careful for a while. Maybe they think they get attacked again in this sanctuary our politicians give them.”
“They’ll know you did it, Steve,” I said soberly. “And then they’ll raise international hell.”
“Yes, they know we do it,” Kornie agreed. “This will scare them. But international incident? No. They don’t prove we have anything to do with it.”
“Well, somebody had to ambush those VC,” I pointed out. “If there’s a bunch of shot-up bodies nobody’s going to believe Cambodian-government troops did it to their Communist friends.”
Kornie’s blue eyes sparkled with humor and excitement. “Oh yes. But we got what you call, fall guys. Come, let’s go back to the radio room.”
Just after dark I accompanied Kornie and Sergeant Bergholtz as they led the company of cocky, spoiling-for-action Cambodians to the border where a rally point was established with a squad guarding it. This was the point at which the Cambodians would cross back to the Vietnam side of the border after their mission. Kornie wanted Bergholtz and every one of his Cambodians to be familiar with the place. It was at the base of one of the many hills along this section of the border. For positive identification Kornie sent another squad to the top of the hill. There they would start firing flares a few minutes after the shooting started and keep it up until all the Cambodians had found their way back to the rally point and were accounted for.
With the return point on the border clearly defined, Kornie, Bergholtz, I, and the company of Cambodians stealthily moved northward on the Vietnam side of the border. We carefully gave the VC village of Chau Lu a wide berth an hour later and kept pushing north two more miles. Halfway between Chau Lu and the KKK camp we stopped.
Kornie shook Bergholtz by the hand and silently clapped him on the back. Bergholtz made a sign to the Cambodian leader and they started due west across the ill-defined border into Cambodia. Kornie watched them until they melted into the dark, rugged terrain. In two and a half miles they would come to the river and follow it back south until they were squarely between Chau Lu and the VC camp. They would straddle the east-west road and bridge connecting the two Communist bases and set up blocking positions.
Kornie and I and a security squad walked the six miles back to camp, arriving about 3:00 A.M. We made straight for the radio room and Kornie called Schmelzer.
Schmelzer was handling his operation well. Fifty KKK bandits were already crossing into Cambodia. They would penetrate a mile and staying that far inside Cambodia walk south until they were opposite Chau Lu. Here, according to instructions, they would stop until sunrise. Then they would proceed another mile south. At the point where a needle of rock projected skyward they would cross back into Vietnam and report all they had observed to the Americans.
The KKK leader realized that the Americans had to know what the VC were doing. He also knew they couldn’t send patrols across the border to find out. He was glad to mount an easy reconnaissance patrol in return for the equivalent of $10 a man plus five rifles and five automatic weapons.
Half the agreed-upon money and weapons Schmelzer had already presented to the KKK leader at the time his men began crossing the border. The balance would be forthcoming the moment the men crossed back into Vietnam at the needle-shaped rock and gave their reports.
In the radio room Kornie chortled as his operation began to tighten. “Schmelzer is good boy,” he said. “Takes guts to deal with KKK. If they think for a minute they can take Schmelzer and his men, they do it.”
“Aren’t you afraid they’ll use those automatic weapons against you some day?” I asked.
Kornie shrugged. “Most of those KKK and their weapons will never get back from this mission.”
He looked at his watch. It was 4:00 A.M. Kornie smiled at me and patted my shoulder. “Now is the time to start out for Chau Lu. We will drive the VC straight into the KKK at 0545, and Bergholtz and the Cambodes will cut both the KKK and VC to pieces and be out of there by 0600 hours.” His laugh resounded in the radio shack. “Give me just a few more days and a regiment couldn’t overrun Phan Chau.”
There was a snapping of static and then the radio emitted Schmelzer’s voice. “Grant, Grant, this is Handy. Come in, Grant.”
Kornie picked up the mike. “This is Grant. Go ahead, Handy.”
“Last of bandits across. We are ready to carry out phase two. Is 0545 hours still correct?”
“Affirmative, Handy. But wait for us to start our little party off.”
“Roger, Grant. We will be in position. When you open up we’ll let go too. Leaving now. Handy out.”
“Grant out,” Kornie said into the mike and put it down. He walked out of the radio room, and on the parade ground we could sense more than see the company of Vietnamese strikers. Two Vietnamese Special Forces officers, the camp commander, Captain Lan, and his executive officer were standing in front of the company of civilian irregulars waiting for Kornie. They saluted him as he stood in the light flooding from the door of the radio room.
Kornie saluted back. “Are you ready to go, Captain Lan?”
“The men are ready,” the Vietnamese commander said. “Lieutenant Cau and Sergeant Tuyet will lead them. I must stay in camp. Maybe B team need talk to me.”
“Very good thinking, Captain,” Kornie complimented his counterpart. “Yes, since I go out, very good you guard camp.”
Pleased, Captain Lan turned his men over to Kornie and departed. “Lieutenant Cau, let’s get these men on the move,” Kornie urged. “You know the objective.”
“Yes, sir. Chau Lu.” In the dim light from the radio shack Kornie and I could just make out the broad grin on Cau’s face. “We will clobber them, sir,” he said, proud of his English slang.
Kornie nodded happily. “Right. We massacre them.” To me he said, “Cau here is one of the tigers. If they had a few hundred more like him we could go home. He went through Bragg last year. Class before yours, I think.”
For the second time that night we started north toward Chau Lu. Kornie seemed to be an inexhaustible tower of energy. Walking at the head of the column he kept up a brisk pace, but we had to stop frequently to let the short-legged Vietnamese catch up. It took exactly the estimated hour and a half to cover the almost five miles to the positions we took up south and east of the VC village. At 5:45 A.M. two companies of strikers were in place ready to attack Chau Lu. Schmelzer’s men were ready to hit from the north.
Lieutenant Cau glanced from his wrist watch to the walls of the village one hundred yards away. He raised his carbine, looked at Kornie who nodded vigorously, and blasted away on full automatic. Instantly from all around the village the strike force began firing. Lieutenant Cau shrilled his whistle and his men moved forward. Fire spurted back at us from the village, incoming rounds whining. Instinctively I wanted to throw myself down on the ground but Cau and his men advanced into the fire from the village shouting and shooting. From the north Schmelzer’s company charged in on the village also. Within moments the volume of return fire from the VC village faded to nothing.
“They’re on their way now, escaping to their privileged sanctuary,” Kornie yelled. “Cease fire, Lieutenant Cau.”
After repeated blasts on the whistle the company gradually, reluctantly, stopped shooting. Schmelzer’s people had also stopped and there was a startling silence.
The two companies entered the village and routed the civilians out of the protective shelters dug in the dirt floors of their houses.
Kornie looked at Lieutenant Cau in the pale light of dawn. Disappointment was clearly written on his face as his men herded civilians into the center of town. Cau had not been told about the rest of this operation. After a few minutes of preliminary questioning Cau cam
e to Kornie.
“The people say no men in this village. All drafted into the Army. Just old men, women, and children.”
Kornie glanced at his watch. 5:53. His infectious grin puzzled the Vietnamese officer. “Lieutenant Cau, you tell the people that in just a few minutes they’ll know exactly where their men are.”
Cau looked at Kornie, still puzzled. “They run across into Cambodia.” He pointed across the town toward the border. “I would like to take my men after them.” He smiled sadly. “But I think maybe I do my country more good if I am not in jail.”
“You’re so right, Cau. Now search the town. See if you can find any hidden arms.”
“We are searching, sir, but why would the VC hide guns here when just two hundred meters away they can keep them in complete safety?”
Before Kornie could answer, a sudden, steadily increasing crackling of gunfire resounded through the crisp air of dawn. Kornie cocked an ear happily. The noise became louder and more scattered. Automatic weapons, the bang of grenades, sharp rifle reports and then the whooshing of hot air followed by the shattering explosions of recoilless-rifle rounds echoed up and down the border.
“Bergholtz is giving them hell,” Kornie shouted gleefully, thumping me on the back. I tried to get out from under his powerful arms. “My God! I wish I was with Bergholtz and the Cambodes.” A sharp burping of rounds which suddenly terminated with the explosion of a grenade caused Kornie to yell at Schmelzer, who was approaching us.
“Hey, Schmelzer. That was one of those Chinese machine guns we gave the KKK. Did you hear it jam?”
“I heard a grenade get it,” Schmelzer answered.
The faces of the old men, women, and children were masks of sudden fear, confusion, and panic. They stole looks at we three Americans and a slow comprehension began to show in their eyes. Then their features twisted into sheer hatred.
The fire-fight raged for fifteen minutes as the sun was rising. To the south a steady series of flares spurted from the top of the hill, marking the rally point where Bergholtz and his Cambodians would cross back into Vietnam.
Kornie took a last look around the village. “OK, Schmelzer, let’s go pay off the KKK. Give the ones that come back a nice bonus. If they complain about being attacked by their good friends the VC, tell them”—Kornie grinned—“we’re sorry about that.”
He gave his executive officer a hearty slap on the back that would have sent a smaller man tumbling. “Be sure that your whole company has weapons at the ready,” Kornie cautioned. “They might think we slipped it to them on purpose and do something naughty.” Kornie was thoughtful for a moment. “Maybe I take a platoon of Lieutenant Cau’s men and go with you. If we meet no trouble I’ll go on south, find Bergholtz, and see how he did.”
Leaving Lieutenant Cau the dreary task of searching the village and questioning the inhabitants, we started south. It was only a mile walk to the needle of rock, and a band of about 15 KKK were already there. Schmelzer, well covered by a platoon of his best riflemen, approached the KKK leader who was dressed in khaki pants and a black pajama shirt, two bandoleers of ammunition crossing his shoulders. An interpreter walked beside Schmelzer, and Kornie and I edged forward, being careful not to get between our riflemen and the KKK. Both Schmelzer and Kornie gave the thoroughly mean- and suspicious-looking bandit leader friendly smiles. Schmelzer reached inside his coat and produced a thick wallet. The sight of the money seemed to have a slightly calming effect on the KKK chief.
“When all your men are back I give you the other 25,000 piastres,” Schmelzer said, counting the money.
The translator came back with the chief’s retort. “Maybe my men do not all come back. Who they fight over there?”
“The VC of course,” Schmelzer answered innocently. “Your men are friends of the Americans and Vietnamese aren’t they?”
The KKK chief scowled, but he did not take his eyes off the money as Schmelzer counted it out. There was an uncomfortably long wait in a highly hostile atmosphere until the rest of the KKK started to arrive at needle rock from across the border.
Kornie and Schmelzer impassively watched the wounded, bloody men straggling in. Those who couldn’t walk were helped by others. One or two carried shattered bodies. “Remember how those monks looked with their heads under the arms?” Kornie asked Schmelzer, who nodded grimly.
Of the 50 KKK who had gone out, 30 were alive, only 10 unwounded. They brought back only six bodies.
The KKK chief, regarding his broken force, turned toward Kornie, his hand twitching at the trigger guard of the Chinese submachine gun Schmelzer had given him.
There was no doubt that the KKK knew they had been tricked by the Americans. Still, Kornie and Schmelzer played the game, expressing condolences at the number of KKK killed and wounded.
“Tell the chief,” Schmelzer said, “we will pay a bounty of 500 piastres for each VC killed.”
The chief’s visage grew blacker as he talked to the survivors. The interpreter listened, turning his head sidewise to the KKK leader.
“He says,” came the translation, “that his men were attacked from two directions at once. He says that first the shooting came from inside Cambodia and then from the VC running from the attack we made on Chau Lu. His men fired in both directions but killed mostly the men running from Chau Lu because they were easier to see. He says he wants to be paid for killing 100 VC. His men had no time to take ears or hands for proof. He says we tricked him, we did not tell him about Chau Lu.”
“Tell him it was a very unfortunate misinterpretation of orders,” Kornie said. “We’ll pay him 500 piastres each for 25 VC dead, and we’ll give him a thousand piastres for each of the men he lost KIA.”
Schmelzer’s company of Vietnamese irregulars sensed the hatred of the KKK for us and shifted their weapons uneasily; but the chief was in no position to instigate violence. His eyes glowed malevolently as he estimated our strength and then accepted the deal.
“Why do you pay him anything?” I asked. “He’s going to try and get you anyway first chance that comes along.”
Kornie grinned. “If a battle across the border is reported I think Saigon would accept the proposition that I paid a bunch of Cambodian bandits to break up the VC in Cambodia long enough to make my camp secure.” To Schmelzer he said, “Get receipts from the leader for the money and get photographs of him accepting it.”
The interpreter called to Kornie as he and I were about to leave with a security platoon. “Sir, KKK chief say he lose three automatic weapons and two rifles. He want them replaced.”
“You tell him I’m sorry about that. We gave him the guns. If he can’t hold on to them, that’s his fault.” Kornie waited until his words had been translated. He stood facing the chief, staring down bleakly at the sinister little brown bandit. The KKK chief realized he had been accorded all the concessions he could expect and avoided Kornie’s steady gaze. Schmelzer and his sergeant continued counting out the money for the Cambodian bandits.
The groans. of the wounded men attracted Kornie’s attention. He walked over to where they were sitting or lying in the dirt. After examining some of the more seriously wounded he straightened up.
“Schmelzer, before you go, ask the Vietnamese medics to help these men. They may be bandits fighting us tomorrow, looting, merchants and monks the next day, but they do us a big service today, even though they do not mean to.
“And when you finish here go directly back to Phan Chau. And keep an alert rear guard all the time.” Kornie grinned good-naturedly at the scowling group around the KKK leader. “Those boys have big case of the ass with us.”
Kornie and I and his platoon left the needle-rock rendezvous and walked south for two miles to our Cambodians’ rally point, covering the distance in less than an hour.
Sergeant Falk and his security squad were just welcoming the returning Cambodians as we arrived. Sergeant Ebberson, the medic, had the tools of his trade spread out and ready. Stretchers and bearers were waiting.
“We greased the shit out of them, sir,” Bergholtz cried joyfully. “These Cambodes never had so much fun in their lives.” The little dark men in tiger-striped suits bounced around happily, chattering to each other and displaying bloody ears, proof of the operation’s success.
“How many VC KIA’s?”
“Things were pretty confused, sir. From Chau Lu the VC walked right into us and the KKK. There was a lot of shooting going on in front of us. I think they killed as many of each other as we did in. Then the KKK and the VC both concentrated on us and our Cambodes flat-ass massacred everything that lived in front of us. If there aren’t 60 dead VC lying out there I’ll extend another six months. We lot a few dead and maybe 8 or 10 wounded but we didn’t leave a body behind, sir.”
Kornie’s eyes glistened with pride. “By God damn, Bergholtz. We got the best camp in Vietnam. I volunteer us all to stay another six months. What you say?”
“Well, sir, we still have one more month left of this tour to burn the asses off the VC. This operation we made it out just in time. When we pulled out, the VC were barreling down the road from the big camp, shooting like mad.”
Kornie watched as two Cambodians deposited the gore-smeared body of a comrade on the ground beside two other bodies. Sergeant Ebberson was working on the wounded as they were dragged and assisted in. Even the wounded were in good spirits. They had won a victory and the fact that it had been won by going illegally across the border only made the triumph more satisfying.
Kornie threw a massive arm around my shoulder, another around Bergholtz, and started us in the direction of Phan Chau. “Let’s go back, men. . . Maybe the VC call Phnom Penh and the Cambodian government will be screaming border violation. We must get immediate report to Colonel Train.”