by Robin Moore
The first round actually dropped beyond the cowboy and his men. The explosion turned the running VC’s away from it and toward us. The second and third grenades also dropped with astonishing accuracy, wounding more of the fleeing Communists. The fourth round landed squarely in front of the cowboy and stopped him as though he had run into an invisible wall. He was hurled backward to the ground.
Scharne handed the grenade launcher back to the Ranger and started toward the man he had brought down. I followed.
Huyot was still alive when I reached him, though almost unrecognizable. His handsome face had been torn badly by shrapnel, his nose lying on his cheek. Blood burbled from ugly rents in his bare chest. Wounds in his arms, groin, and legs bled profusely. His eyes were open, fixed on Scharne who stood looking down at him.
Huyot’s lips moved but no words would come.
Other Rangers gathered to look at the formidable cowboy, barely identifiable as a Caucasian now except perhaps for his great size. Scharne stared down at him impassively until finally with a grating moan Huyot gave in to his wounds and died.
Fritz turned from the dead Frenchman to me. “He knew who I was. He knew who it was got him.”
To the Ranger officer beside him he said, “See what the medics can do for the wounded. Then we’ll go back and search the tea plantation.”
I was still staring at the appalling damage the elephant gun’s shell had done to the lately big, strong body of Henri Huyot. Scharne looked back at the victim of the M-79. “You know,” he said, “the poor, misguided sono-fabitch thought he was fighting for the glory of France and the perpetuation of his family’s estate in Vietnam. I’d have let him get away alive if it hadn’t been for what he did to Andy Bellman.”
Scharne shook his head. “I hope his girl has good friends out here. Maybe you could figure some way to break the news to her.”
“I’ll handle it, Fritz.”
Scharne turned from the broken corpse. “Anyway,” he said, “I can thank the frog for one thing. At last I finally have something favorable to report to the visiting brass: Huyot showed me that we’ve got a much finer graduating class of Vietnamese Rangers than I suspected before this little fight began today.”
7
Home to Nanette
1
Bernard Arklin and I were introduced for the first time just after the events in this story took place. He was a lean, almost cadaverous-looking man when I met him, just out of the Laos mountains. There was an unmistakably bitter twist at the corners of his mouth. The close-cropped hair around the spreading bald spot on top of his head was sandy-colored shot with gray.
Arklin regarded me with predictable suspicion that first evening at the Officers Club bar on the roof of the Rex Hotel in Saigon. I was, after all, a civilian; a writer in fact.
Mutual friends assured Arklin that although I might be a civilian I jumped from planes and went on patrols to cover the war. The beginnings of a friendship between myself and Arklin developed. By the time he had left Saigon for the United States ten days later, Bernie Arklin had told me the story of his life as a revered chief of the hard-fighting, squat, barrel-chested Meo tribesmen of Laos.
The United States officially withdrew its military assistance from Laos as a result of the Geneva accords which in theory neutralized the country in October of 1962. Fortunately, a few highly placed Americans were wise enough to realize that the Communists might not abide by the agreements they had signed and the Communist Pathet Lao with the assistance of their Uncle Ho in North Vietnam would again try to take over Laos.
With the Royal Laotian Army torn by political dissension and hardly a match for a determined Communist drive, attention turned to one group of fighting men who in the opinion of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, which was then in charge of Special Forces activities in Laos, would make the effort to stand up against the Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese Viet Cong troops, or Viet Minh as they are still called in Laos—the hardy Meo tribesmen. A product of different ethnic origins from the torpid Laotians, they would fight bravely for their mountaintop homes. They would also when properly led and supplied, carry on guerrilla warfare against the Communists. Thus, it was the Meos who were trained and armed by Special Forces teams to resist Communist aggression.
One of the most successful Special Forces officers to work with the Meo tribesmen had been Major Bernard Arklin. Operating under the control of the CIA, Arklin’s Special Forces team equipped and trained a large group of Meo tribesmen who took a heavy toll of Pathet Lao lives and equipment in 1962, when the Communists pushed through the jungles toward Vientiane, the capital of Laos, unopposed by the fleeing Royal Laotian troops.
With the end of official military assistance, the Central Intelligence Agency decided that Arklin was one of the men they needed to covertly keep the Meos in readiness to resist any possible Communist attacks in violation of the Geneva convention.
Arklin had just become reacquainted with his wife and three children back at Fort Bragg and was beginning to develop a taste for normal home life when he received orders sending him on detached service with the CIA in Thailand.
In Bangkok, Arklin began to feel his first excitement—and a sense of impending accomplishment—over the opportunity of rejoining the Meo tribesmen at the eastern approaches to the strategic Plain of Jars. This time he would not be wearing a uniform, but would dress as did his charges—in camouflage suits, miscellaneous clothing and the native loincloth. The only thing that distressed Arklin was that he could neither send nor receive mail. Methuan, his CIA control, would typewrite inconsequential letters to Arklin’s wife above the endearments and signatures previously signed by Arklin on a large number of blank pieces of stationery to keep her from wondering what had happened to him.
In mid-June of 1963 Major Arklin took off from a small airstrip in the north of Thailand on the Laos border. He was equipped with a powerful radio transmitter, a medical kit (Arklin had been cross-trained as a medic) and as many weapons and boxes of ammunition as could be crowded into the single-engine plane. It was Arklin’s third trip from the control base in Thailand to his Meo headquarters. This time he would be staying.
Arklin’s first flight had been made only a week after he arrived in Bangkok. CIA had carefully planned for Arklin to visit his old friend Pay Dang, chief of the Meo tribesmen in the mountains around the Plain of Jars. There was a small dirt airstrip only seven hundred feet long on a slanting field near the top of the mountain where Arklin and his Special Forces A team had, a year and a half before, first established their montagnard training camp.
The flight was made in an unmarked U-10, a single-engine airplane built to carry heavy loads into and out of short, rough fields.
Arklin’s first landing was preceded by ten minutes of buzzing, the Meo mountaintop camp. Looking down at the village he and his men had taught the montagnards to keep clean and trim, the major felt a stab of disappointment. The huts were once again ramshackle; the bridge across the gully that surrounded the village looked as though it would collapse in a light breeze. Tribesmen looked up and, recognizing the type of plane the Americans had formerly used, waved vigorously. They could be seen starting for the airstrip.
Arklin and the pilot waited over an hour after landing for the Meos to come down from their camp. Finally the first of them arrived, wearing the ragged remnants of the combat fatigues the Americans had given them. Cautiously, they emerged from the heavy jungle around the overgrown landing strip on which only the incredibly rugged U-10 could have landed.
Arklin’s throat lumped as he saw the crude collection of weapons they were carrying. Most of the men had crossbows and a few had ancient rifles, some of which were homemade by the montagnards, who had spent months boring out long iron cylinders with white-hot rods to make rifle barrels. When Arklin and his A team left the Meo village it had been their duty to disarm the tribesmen—a delicate task. The Meo men cherished the fine weapons the Americans had given them and taught them how to use effectiv
ely.
As Arklin realized at the time, the Meo chiefs were absolutely right to protest against disarmament. The chiefs didn’t understand Geneva, United States policy and, most of all, neutralism. All they knew was that the Americans had come in, given them guns and helped them attack the hated Pathet Lao Communists. Now the Americans were taking away the guns, and no matter what the big men back in America said, the Meos knew that as soon as their arms were gone the Communists would attack them.
It was a tribute to the esteem in which they held Arklin and his Special Forces team that they finally gave up their arms, or most of them. Even though it went against the treaty his Government had signed, and was a court-martial offense, Arklin deliberately had failed to notice that his heavy-weapons sergeant had left behind two submachine guns and a large stock of ammunition. At least they would be able to hold off the Pathet Lao for a while.
From the group of tribesmen now warily approaching the plane one man, whose camouflage suit looked in better repair then the others’, stepped forward. Arklin recognized Pay Dang and they reached out and clasped hands, left hands gripping right wrists in the montagnard two-handed shake.
They greeted each other in Meo which Arklin had learned to speak fluently, and the first question Pay Dang asked was if the Americans were coming back. Arklin replied that he alone was returning.
“Do you bring guns?” the chief asked anxiously.
At Arklin’s nod Pay Dang let out a shout, brandishing his crossbow, and relayed the news to his people who cheered and held up their crude weapons.
“Twice the Pathet have attacked us in small numbers,” Pay Dang said. “Only because we were able to find the two machine guns you ‘lost,’ were we able to defeat the enemy. They will try again.” His smile faded to almost a scowl. “Your big chief in America knows nothing about the Pathet Lao and Viet Minh. They lie to him and say they want peace. You believe them. You go and take back your guns. Now the Pathet Lao can come and kill the Meos!”
“I’m here to help again, Pay Dang. Tell your men to take the weapons from the airplane. More will come.”
Pay Dang shouted instructions and the Meos, crying happily, dropped their crossbows and old rifles and made for the U-10. Quickly they unloaded the plane.
“I hold you responsible for those weapons, Pay Dang,” Arklin said sternly. “‘I’Il be back with more and we’ll start training again. Is the old weapons shed still standing?”
Pay Dang shook his head. “The people took the wood planks from it for their houses.”
“Well, I will be back to live with you soon. In the meanwhile I’ll bring in more guns. From now on I want you to keep men out here on permanent guard.”
“The field will be secure,” the Meo promised. “Shall we take the bush off and make it as it was before?”
“No. It’s good enough for this airplane the it way it is. We do not wish to tell the Pathet Lao what we do.” Major Arklin gave a last look around the mountain that would once again be his home. “I must go now, Pay Dang. The plane has been here too long already. After this you have only five minutes to unload. The plane will not stop its engine, so tell your men to stay away from the propeller.”
“Yes, Major.”
“And start bringing in the best men from the other villages, but be careful what you tell them. Americans not legal here now.”
“We kill Pathet!” Pay Dang shouted.
“When I say so,” Arklin said firmly. “But it must be a big secret I am here. You understand?”
“Big secret,” agreed Pay Dang soberly.
Arklin climbed back into the U-10. The pilot taxied to one end of the grass strip, gunned the engine, and the plane was airborne in less than forty feet.
Back at the CIA operations base Arklin went over the program with Frank Methuan, and gave him a list of supplies that would have to be sent in. Methuan looked it over.
“That’s a lot of stuff to take in by light plane under covert operating procedure.”
“Don’t you ever use choppers?”
“Sometimes. The Agency doesn’t have any of its own here now. The U-10 does the job better anyway. It takes too much maintenance using helicopters, too many men in on the act. Remember, Bernie,” Methuan said firmly, “this operation is top secret. Don’t get yourself captured. All our good old play-it-straight-down-the-line government needs is to get caught violating the Geneva agreements. It’s OK for the Commies to build up for a takeover and disregard the convention, but we have to live by the rules.”
“I know what to do, Frank. I’ve been wearing the green beanie a long time—too long.”
“Getting you down?”
“I’ve got a wife better than I deserve and three kids, two boys and a girl. You know how much I’ve seen them in the last four years?”
“Not much, I guess.”
“Not much is right. Not that I’m unhappy with my work,” Arklin added hastily. “But when you start closing on forty and you haven’t been able to give the family as much of yourself as you wish—well . . .” He shrugged. “Anyway, you know what happens if you stay too long in Special Forces. They think there’s something wrong with you up at DA. I’d like to get back into a conventional outfit some day, hang up the beret and be with the family. Won’t be long before I’m coming up for the lieutenant colonel list.”
He flashed an embarrassed smile at his control. “Sorry for sounding off. But the thing I’ll hate most about this job is no mail. Pretty tough not to know for months at a time what your family is doing.”
“If anything happens at the Arklin residence I’ll give you a radio flash. And I’ll take special care to make sure the letters I write will keep your wife happy.”
Now, at last, after a month of preparation, Arklin was making his final trip to the Meo village. The pilot skillfully brought in the equipment-laden U-10, and rolled to a stop twenty-five feet from touchdown point in front of a big clump of bushes. Instantly montagnards in their camouflage fatigues, new ones now, materialized from around the field. Half the men were equipped with weapons. Their high morale showed in their gleaming dark eyes, sparkling white-toothed grins and quick gait as they trotted toward the plane. Those not encumbered with weapons quickly unloaded the U-10, and in a mere six minutes the plane was aloft again.
Arklin did not watch the plane take off, so intent was he on getting equipment and men back into the jungle. For the first time in eight months he would be spending the night back on the mountaintop. But now he was alone. All the skills and influence of the eleven highly trained A-team specialists who had been with him before were now concentrated in the single entity of their former CO.
Pay Dang exuded the exuberance he and his men felt at Arklin’s return. He also made it clear as they hiked up the rugged mountain path to the village that every Meo tribesman considered the American major his unquestioned leader. In the old days Pay Dang had been the commander; Arklin and his team were advisers, suppliers, and teachers. Pay Dang had been fiercely jealous of his authority as Meo chief, something the Americans encouraged, even as they gradually trained him and his lieutenants in the intricacies of modem warfare.
Gaily dressed women wearing blue and white turbans and heavy solid-silver necklaces, old men in loincloths or the tribal blue and white loose-fitting pantaloons and blouse, and curious children were lined up at the camp’s inner gate when Arklin and the Meo men arrived at the bridge. Arklin watched the men walking catlike across the rotting, swaying structure his team had built almost a year ago over the gorge. The Meos were careful never to have two men on the bridge at the same time.
“The first thing we do is fix the bridge,” Arklin said to Pay Dang. “You have the rope I sent?”
“Everything is here, Major.” The last of the montagnards crossed into the village and then Pay Dang gestured for Arklin to precede him. Half expecting the bridge to disintegrate under the weight of a full-size American, Arklin crossed the decaying wood-slat structure, holding onto the frayed-rope handrail. He
made it to the other side and the montagnards cheered.
“We go to your house first, Major,” the Meo chief said and led him toward a thatched bamboo longhouse on stilts sitting about four feet above the ground. It was obvious that much recent work had been done, and just beside the door was a miniature of the house, also on stilts. The mountain tribesmen store their food outside their houses, and this little crib was well stocked with vegetables, rice, manioc and other montagnard foodstuffs.
A notched log hung from the doorway to the ground and Pay Dang indicated that the major should climb up. Arklin unslung his pack and threw it up into the house and then, with his new AR-15 automatic rifle still slung, he mounted the steps. The house was clean and he was touched to see that the tribesmen had remembered what American furniture was like. There was a crude but serviceable table and chair, and a square frame on the floor had been stuffed with fresh grass and palm fronds to make a bed. The montagnards themselves just threw a mat on the floor and slept on their backs. Arklin noticed there was a montagnard mat on the floor near his bed.
“Thank you, my old friend,” he said to Pay Dang. “This is a good home and office. It will be our command post from now on. Tell the men carrying the radio to put it in here beside the table.” Arklin walked around his new residence. It was about twenty feet long by ten feet wide—palatial accommodations in these mountains for one man.
“Longhouse not home yet,” Pay Dang said with a wide, flashing grin. He went to the door, shouted at the group of women, and three girls came forward. Their swelling breasts strained for release from the open wraparound bodices; their dark-brown bodies were slim and their features regular. Their blue skirts were finely pleated and short, barely reaching their knees.
One of the girls was much lighter colored than the others, smaller breasted and more delicately boned. Pay Dang laughed when he saw Arklin eyeing her.
“She is half French,” he explained. “Her father came to this mountain in the early days of the war against the Viet Minh for the same reason you are here now.”