by Robin Moore
Worriedly she tried to force such heretical thoughts out of her mind. She loved Al. He was her fiancée and benefactor. She clutched at her college catalogues, trying to equate her American fiancée with all that America and an American education meant for her.
She arrived at the office a little before eight o’clock and spread the newspaper out on her desk. Her heart sank with alarm as she saw the black headlined lead story. Four American advisers killed in the Delta over the weekend. She read further. As usual no names were given. Two sergeants had been killed in an attack on a CIDG camp in Chuong Thien province. Civil Irregular Defense Group, that meant a Special Forces A team was there. Captain Flagg’s team was in Chuong Thien.
Sergeant Major Batterslee walked though the interpreters’ section. Wordlessly he handed Lynette an envelope and walked away.
Fearfully, hesitantly she turned the envelope over a few times. Her name was written on the front in an unfamiliar rather scrawled handwriting. It occurred to her that she had never seen Al write anything on paper.
Slowly she tore open the flap and took out the folded sheets of ruled paper. She began to read.
Dear Lyn,
Well, guess this is it if Sergeant Major Batterslee gave this letter to you. I got a lot out of knowing you, Lyn, even though we sure don’t see eye to eye on some things (like putting the skids to your stepfather). It’s kind of hard to explain the way I felt about us. Like I said, I only just got through high school and I always wished after it was too late that I had more education. Maybe you were right about me trying to make something more of myself if I wanted to marry you. When we talked about it I didn’t want to sound like no martyr so I just said I liked things the way they were. But now, Lynette, I want you to know what was really in my mind.
With you going through four years of college I would have to make all the money I could. If I went to night school and studied weekends and went for a commission I would have had to take a big reduction in pay and I wouldn’t make enough money for support of my daughter and to pay your college too. But as long as I was a Special Forces sergeant, and I would have made E7 in another year, and I was drawing jump pay and pro pay and maybe extended my stay here six more months to get that much more combat pay and per diem, well, no sweat sending you to college.
This sending you to college was no big sacrifice on my part, Lyn. I was looking forward to having a wife who was a college girl. It gave me something to work for. I was beginning to wonder what this over here was all about and why I was in it when I met you.
Then at least something started to make sense for me. Saving my money so you could go to college was giving me something to live for. I felt I was doing something important—more important than killing communists. There’s too damn many of them to beat that way. What with you being mostly Asian and getting educated in God’s country maybe you’ll be able to do something on the intellectual level to win this war that will probably go down in history as the longest ever. Maybe it won’t ever end.
OK, Lyn. Enclosed is the will made up by the legal officer in Saigon. I have seven hundred bucks in the Citizens Trust at Fort Bragg which is all yours. You’ll also see in the will that you get one third of my $10,000 insurance policy. One third goes to my mother and one third to my daughter. Ma’s kind of old fashioned and inbred so if you go to see her back home don’t let on that I left you part of the insurance money, just say you knew me. This will get you two years at least at most any college you want to go to and I know you are smart enough that once you get your foot in the door you’ll get a scholarship.
Just so you will know—look at the date on my will. It was made out the day I came back from my last time out for combat pay and I never changed it and never was going to, no matter if we never got back together again. Like I said, this makes the whole thing worthwhile.
Good luck, Lyn. I’m glad you’re getting your college and keeping your virtue too but watch out for those college frat parties. I hear they’re wild and I’d sure hate for you to lose it now after all we went through together.
Love, Al
Lynette carefully folded the letter, returned it into its envelope and put the envelope in her purse. Besides the grief she felt, a heavy sense of guilt weighted unbearably on her. She walked down between the desks to the end of the headquarters building and stood in front of Sergeant Major Batterslee’s desk. She did not see him clearly but she sensed he understood.
“If you’re feeling bad you can go home, Lynette,” Batterslee said quietly.
Lynette nodded and walked out of the headquarters. She pulled her motorbike out of the rack and mounted it, began pedaling to get the engine started. When it coughed up its two horses of power she headed out of the compound and lost herself in the heavy traffic on the street.
4
The Cao-Dai Pagoda
Captain Dewart paused during the tour of his camp he was giving me to stare balefully at the decrepit hut, sandbagged nearly to its thatched roof. Hanging from the eaves was a faded blue board with a large human eye painted on it in white and green. Some Vietnamese words were lettered along the top.
“What is that thing?” I asked.
“That,” he said disgustedly, “is the bane of my existence. Because of it, this camp of mine is unfinished—probably will never be finished.”
“What do you mean?”
“Friend, I’ll have you know what you’re looking at is a pagoda. A genuine Cao-Dai pagoda that up to now was attended by one old lady, who couldn’t have cared less if it fell apart.”
“What happened?” I asked. “She get religion?”
“Not her, but the local Cao-Dai Buddhists have suddenly decided this pagoda is very sacred to them. The Cao-Dai elders say we unenlightened Americans have desecrated their temple.”
I was a bit confused, and said as much. “How did a pagoda find its way into the middle of your camp?”
Dewart laughed. “It didn’t exactly find its way in. As a matter of fact, I built the camp around it. This happens to be the most strategic place in this district for an outpost. As you see, we have a river north of us, and the canal runs across the river at right angles to our west. South and east we have clear fields of fire except for that patch of jungle along part of the south wall which I’ve been trying to get the camp commander to clear out. It would take two battalions to overrun us.”
“And this pagoda was standing, right where you had to build the fort?”
“Correct. But first I talked to the old woman. She said she was the only Cao-Dai left who used the place and agreed to let me build her a new one somewhere else when the camp was finished. So we went ahead with the camp. The first thing I did was sandbag the pagoda and use it for an ammo dump.” Dewart tugged off his green beret and stood bareheaded in the sun.
“I’ve never seen a Cao-Dai pagoda. Mind if I take a look?”
“Help yourself. There isn’t much to see.”
I walked across the open square past partially built buildings and entered the door under the sign. Ammunition cases were piled to the ceiling left of the door, taking up about half the interior. To the right was a large dark wooden table or altar, and above it, nailed to the wall, was a huge picture of a human eye—symbol of the Cao-Dai sect. All around the eye snakes and trees were painted giving the impression that the eye was staring out of some hideous jungle. There were some candles and tapers on the altar. More pictures of eyes adorned the other walls. Straight out of Salvador Dali, I thought.
Leaving the pagoda I found Captain Dewart in conversation with a burly middle-aged civilian. “This is Mr. Brucker from Research and Development at Fort Belvoir,” Dewart said, introducing me as a writer friend from Fort Bragg.
“Mr. Brucker is trying out a new gimmick with us, a radio-detonated mine. We haven’t had a chance to use it in combat yet, but I’m sure we will.”
“I’d certainly like to know what you think of the device,” Brucker said. “If you send your report to Saigon, I’ll be in Vietnam f
or another two or three months.”
Suddenly from above the river I heard a whirring, rattling noise in the air, and threw myself to the ground yelling, “Mortars!”
Dewart and Brucker remained standing above me, and I felt my face flush with embarrassment as I looked where Dewart was pointing. A flock of birds following the edge of the river flapped their way over the camp.
“I see you’re as fire shy as the rest of us,” he said, grinning. “Been out here long?”
“Long enough,” I answered, standing up and brushing the reddish clay dust off my combat fatigues.
“Did the same thing myself first time I heard them birds last evening,” Brucker chuckled.
“I don’t know what it is with ’em,” Dewart said. “They come over every evening regular as taps in garrison, and they sure do sound like incoming 60 mm.’s.”
“Well, Captain,” Brucker said, “my chopper should be along pretty soon. If Sergeant Rutt is around I’d like to talk to him before I go.”
Dewart looked off toward the entrance to the camp. “They found a VC mine planted outside the main gate. Rutt’s using that radio bomb of yours to blow it. He’s like a kid with a new toy. Never saw a happier demo sergeant.”
A sharp blast rolled across the camp. “I guess it works,” Dewart remarked.
“I’d better go see for myself,” Brucker said, leaving Dewart in bitter contemplation of the pagoda.
Captain Dewart had briefed me on the whole incredible story of what had happened to his detachment since its arrival in Vietnam. Two months earlier his area had been pacified, so he split his detachment, leaving half his men to guard the old camp and finish turning it over to the Vietnamese. With two Civilian Irregular Defense Group companies his group marched through jungles and mucky rice paddies to reach a new location he had picked out by helicopter reconnaissance deep in the heart of hitherto unchallenged VC territory.
The first ambush was not unexpected. The CIDG reacted well, charging into the ambushers and letting go with all their fire power. Two CIDG men had been killed and six wounded, but the two companies continued on toward the new campsite.
Two days later, almost within sight of the new location, the VC’s hit with another ambush, this time using a mortar. Discipline broke, Dewart’s company fled, and he and Sergeant Rutt found themselves with only one Vietnamese sergeant who had vainly tried to rally his dispersing forces and organize for an attack.
Dewart led Rutt and the Vietnamese sergeant in a three-man charge on the VC ambush. Quickly they moved inside mortar range and Dewart killed three VC with his AR-15, the rounds from this lightweight powerful weapon destroying the VC bodies so thoroughly that the Communists had not even tried to carry them away. Rutt stepped into a pungi pit, but Dewart and the Vietnamese sergeant broke up the ambush and destroyed the mortar with a thermite grenade down the tube. Then Dewart pulled Rutt out of the trap. The sharp stakes had been unable to pierce the sheet metal in the soles of his boots, but the sergeant’s knee had been painfully twisted.
It was the middle of the afternoon before Dewart, half carrying Rutt, finally rounded up the second CIDG company, which had been joined by his own “bug outs.” They were several miles from the objective location. Radioing for a helicopter evacuation of the dead and wounded, Dewart urged the men on, and just before dark they reached the site of what would become the new permanent camp.
“As soon as the VC saw we had a strong fort going up right in the middle of their territory they attacked. We beat them off, killed eight and lost only one friendly. They haven’t hit us again. Now”—he turned from the pagoda as though the sight pained him—“they’re trying something else—seeing if they can knock us out without spilling a drop of blood. They’re smart, the VC. Damned smart. They’ve been terrorizing the local Cao-Dai people hereabouts, making them complain all the way up to Saigon that the Americans are desecrating their sacred temple. They’re saying the government should make us leave this camp. And you know how those generals running this country feel about religion, especially after the way Diem and Nhu persecuted the Buddhists.”
“They wouldn’t really make you move, would they?”
“They damned well might. Look around. The whole place is half-finished. No roof on the teamhouse. The dispensary not built. Bunkers unfinished on the walls. We have orders not to spend any more money until this Cao-Dai dispute is settled, and that won’t be for almost a month. We can’t get enough troops to secure this unfinished fort and still send out effective patrols in company size. No matter what happens, the VC have gained at least a month without harassment. Yesterday a full colonel, American, came through and said there was a fifty-fifty chance we would have to relocate because Saigon doesn’t want to offend the Cao-Dai sect.”
“It’s a damned shame, especially with so good a location.”
“Shame?” Dewart sputtered. “It’s a goddamned tragedy if we’re going to let religion and politics lose us big hunks of this war.”
A Vietnamese interpreter approached and saluted smartly. Dewart returned the salute and clapped the beret back on his head.
“Dai-uy, Cao-Dai elders at the gate wish to visit the pagoda.”
“How many?” Dewart asked.
“Maybe 20.”
“Twenty!” he exclaimed looking at me. “The old woman said there hadn’t been a dozen people in that pagoda since it was first thrown together.”
“They are here, Dai-uy. It is the time of the full moon.”
“All right, Lang. Let them in. But search them first.”
“Dai-uy,” Lang protested, “I cannot search priests and elders.”
Dewart swore beneath his breath. “See what I mean? Saigon says we have to be careful not to hurt their sensitive feelings.” He made an impatient beckoning gesture at the group of men standing around the gate and Lang went off to escort them to the pagoda.
Dewart watched carefully as the Cao-Dais, most of them in long white robes, filed past. He did not miss the way the eyes of many of the worshippers flickered about the inside of the camp, noting the mortar and machine-gun mounts.
“What kind of war are we supposed to be fighting when we invite the enemy in to look the plant over before they attack?”
“Those are elders, sir?”
Dewart turned to Sergeant Penny, his tall black medic. “That’s what Lang says.” He raised his voice. “Hey, Lang, come here.”
The interpreter turned up on the double. “I thought you said they were priests and elders. Most of those swingers aren’t more than thirty.”
“Dai-uy,” Lang explained, “they are ranked by their strong belief, not their age.”
Penny looked at him suspiciously. “Are you a Cao-Dai?”
“No,” Lang replied. “But we are all Buddhists.”
Dewart dourly watched the procession file past the sandbagged entrance into the small pagoda. “At least when they see all that ammo they’ll think twice about attacking us again.”
Lang objected. “The Cao-Dai are loyal to the new government, Dai-uy, and they never fought beside the VC even though they hated Diem.”
“How many of those studs that just passed do you think are really Cao-Dais?”
“They all say they Cao-Dai, Dai-uy.”
“Sometimes I wonder whose side you’re on, Lang.” Dewart turned to Sergeant Penny. “Tell our guys not to take their eyes off these religious zealots for one second.”
“Just look around you, sir,” Penny replied.
Dewart did so. Except for Sergeant Rutt, earnestly engaged in conversation with Brucker, all the Americans were standing on the walls or in strategic locations, their AR-15’s held in readiness, their eyes shifting from the Cao-Dais to the fields outside the walls and back to the Cao-Dais again.
Another flock of river birds whirred and rattled overhead. Many of the Cao-Dais reacted like soldiers—as I had—their eyes searching the area for cover until they realized these were not incoming mortar rounds.
Suddenly Dewa
rt laughed aloud. “I’ve got the answer!”
I looked at him questioningly.
“You hang around, I’ll show you how we’re going to take care of those spook-sheeted dickheads.”
Patiently he waited for the Cao-Dais to finish their supposed prayers in front of the grotesque paintings. Finally they filed out again and one of the leaders, a young man with a crafty glint in his eye, beckoned the interpreter and spoke to him in low tones. Lang returned to Dewart.
“Dai-uy, tomorrow is the night of the full moon, and the Cao-Dai wish to return to worship at their temple.”
Dewart’s decision was a tough one. The security of the camp depended upon his CIDG strike force and their Vietnamese Special Forces or LLDB leaders—Buddhists to a man. Though they might well suspect that the local Cao-Dais, one hundred and fifty miles from the sect’s main strength in Tay Ninh province, were being terrorized into helping the Viet Cong, still the religious bond they all shared was stronger than most Westerners could realize. This was particularly true since only a few months earlier Buddhists in Vietnam had been persecuted, jailed, and tortured by adherents of Catholicism, a predominantly Western religion.
“Let me talk to the Cao-Dai leader,” Dewart said.
The interpreter returned with a delegation of three men. One, spare and truly old, clad in a loose white robe, a fibrous, forked white beard hanging from his chin, was introduced as the chief elder. The second was a cunning young Vietnamese, and the third, a young Oriental who wore his surly expression as a challenge and was dressed in the black pajamas common to Vietnamese peasants—and the VC.
Dewart addressed himself to the elder through Lang. “I am told you want to come into this camp tomorrow night.”