by Robin Moore
“I don’t remember her from before,” Arklin said. “If I’d ever seen her, or any of my men had, we would never forget her.”
“She was at another village. And she was too young then. But now she is fifteen,” Pay Dang said proudly. “She will take care of your house and cooking.”
Pay Dang seemed worried over Arklin’s hesitation. “We thought you would want her.”
Arklin shook his head, looking down from the door of his new abode. “Pay Dang, you must remember when I was here before. The Americans do not take girls from the village to live with them.”
“But this is not the same. You’re one man alone. And you are our chief, Major. It is not the same,” Pay Dang insisted. “My people will not understand if you will not have one of their women for your house. You have come up here to be one of us and lead us against the Pathet Lao and Viet Minh.”
“I cannot lead you, Pay Dang,” Arklin said gently. “I will train you again, keep you supplied, tell you when to attack the Communists, and go with you on these attacks, but I am still only your adviser. America is not fighting this war, it is only helping its friends to win. You, Pay Dang, are the chief and leader.”
“These are the words of politics,” the Meo said, brushing aside Arklin’s statement. “But the girl,”—his eyes took on a crafty gleam—“that is something real. The Meos will feel you are part of them if the girl is part of you. She will be your wife. She has never had a husband.”
“I have a wife, Pay Dang.”
“I have had many, three now,” Pay Dang answered.
Arklin hesitated. Then—“All right. I will be honored if the daughter of a man who also came a long way to help your people would live in my house.”
Pay Dang clapped Arklin on the shoulder and let out a shout. The girl Ha Ban, or Nanette as her father had called her, would be the wife of the new American military chief of the Meos.
Nanette looked shyly at the ground and the other two girls turned away, hardly concealing their disappointment. Pay Dang bounded down the precarious notched log, took the girl by the hand and led her back up to the house. The girl’s silver necklace gleamed above her almost bare bosom; a toothbrush also hung from her neck. “Ha Ban is your wife!” Pay Dang declared happily. “Now we will have a sacrifice. Then, tomorrow you help us get ready to kill the Pathet and Viet Minh.”
Arklin bowed to the inevitable. But still, discipline had to be maintained. “Pay Dang, as long as I am with you we will have regular guards at all times. No man on guard duty will be permitted to drink any Meo liquor. Is that understood? Otherwise there will be no sacrifice.”
Pay Dang looked nonplussed a moment. Then he grinned and laughed loudly. “You are the chief, Major. We will have two sacrifices for you and Ha Ban. Half the men stay on guard tonight, the other half tomorrow night.”
Arklin’s long experience with many different tribes of montagnards had taught him that it was useless to try to talk, order, plead, or threaten them out of a party or two.
“It will be as you say, Pay Dang,” Arklin agreed. “Two sacrifices and a 50 per cent alert both nights.”
Pay Dang bounded out the door again, happily saying he would go find a buffalo to beat to death—the traditional prelude to all montagnard parties.
“Vous parlez français, Nanette?” Arklin asked when they were alone.
“Mais certainement, monsieur. J’avais cinq ans quand les Viet Minh ont tué mon père. Ma mère parle français, aussi, et il y a beaucoup d’hommes ici qui ont été avec L’Armeé Française.”
“Bon, Nanette, we will speak in French then, you and I. Now, we are expected to live in this house together?”
“Oh yes, sir,” Nanette answered, smiling happily.
“You mustn’t worry about anything, Nanette. You will cook and sleep in this house, but I will not—” Arklin searched his French and Meo vocabularies for words to tell her that he did not intend to actually consummate their Meo nuptials, that she could go on being a happy, innocent young girl. But when he said them, a shadow crossed her delicately featured face. Arklin tried to avert his eyes from her upturned, firm yet demure breasts, so insecurely captive in her bodice.
“My own daughter is only two years younger than you, Nanette,” he finished lamely. Nanette, he realized, was obviously far more Meo than European in attitude. To her mind it would probably be an insult and a disgrace if they lived together without his enjoying the connubial pleasure she was expecting to give him—and, he suspected, looking at her wide, sensual mouth and heavy lidded eyes, receive in return.
He gave her a friendly smile. “Nanette, we will talk about this later. Over a gourd of Meo liquor perhaps.”
The girl immediately brightened and came toward him. She held her head up, and he rubbed the tip of her nose with his. She laughed happily.
“Now, Nanette, I’ve got to start bringing some discipline back to this village.” He looked out the door at the sun hanging low in the western sky. “Not much time before it gets dark,” he said, more to himself. “I’ll need a secure weapons house, we’ll have to start building ammo bunkers and machine-gun emplacements.”
Arklin started down the notched log, making mental notes of all he must do to make the village secure against the inevitable Communist attacks, which would come whenever Peking and Hanoi and Pathet Lao headquarters decided the time had come to break the Geneva treaty.
2
Arklin’s resolutions to keep his relationship platonic proved no match for Nanette’s efforts to make him treat her as the loving wife she knew herself to be. True, he had lasted through two wild wedding sacrifices without acceding to her wishes, and during this time she had become alternately sullen and melancholy.
Not only that, the reason for her ill humor was obvious to everyone in the village, and Arklin could feel the resentment against him pervade the montagnard community. He noticed that he was having difficulty in getting tasks completed. A secure weapons room was still unfinished after six days’ desultory work.
Finally it took Pay Dang’s not-so-subtle hint that perhaps the American thought he was too good for the Meos to make Arklin realize there was more to doing his duty than training mountain tribesmen.
In fact, Arklin was very much taken with this girl the Meos had picked for his bride. Her thoughtfulness, her desire to please, the way she personally took his fatigues, filthy from hard work in the constant heat, down to the stream and would let no one help her wash them—everything about her made him realize that he had a fine woman by any standards. And while Arklin had trained himself to suppress his natural desires, living with Nanette, or Ha Ban as he called her in front of the Meo people, her charms constantly and so tantalizingly bursting out at him, made it excruciatingly difficult to turn away from her at night and pretend to sleep.
On the sixth night following their second wedding party, a sacrifice was held to celebrate the return of a Meo tribesman who had been away from the village for several years. Out of desperation born of his inability to circumvent his morals and nearly inflexible sense of responsibility, Arklin drank three gourds of Meo liquor. The alcohol produced the release and Arklin consummated his “marriage” to Nanette. Once the breakthrough had been effected, Arklin so thoroughly pleased and satisfied his young bride that the Meos, seeing her the next day, knew at once that the American was finally one of them. They slapped his back wherever he went, calling rude suggestions that were approved by everyone.
Tasks were accomplished more quickly now. The weapons room was finished, and Arklin kept the key to it hanging around his neck. Sandbags were filled and molded into bunkers, and on the firing range the montagnards worked hard to improve their marksmanship. He managed to get the entire village back into the habit of purifying all the drinking water with iodine or halizone pills, reducing the prevalent dysentery almost to nil. Even the bridge was put back into safe, serviceable condition.
It was three months after Arklin first entered the Meo village that he had his first direct c
ontact with control. All radio messages were sent to Bangkok in code and were kept to terse intelligence reports on Pathet Lao movements. It had been decided not to risk flights to the airstrip except when absolutely necessary. If Prince Souphanouvong, the Communist leader in the three-party Laotian government, got word that there was American-supported activity in the montagnard country it would be not only embarrassing, but might even cause such minimal U.S. precautionary activity as Arklin’s mission to be rolled up.
Ammunition for the range was low when, in October of 1963, Arklin received the message that two U-10’s, loaded with equipment and ammunition, would arrive on the 20th at 6:45 A.M. . . . The message said further that control would be aboard one of the U-10’s and that Arklin should be there to receive him.
Excitement and anticipation built up in Arklin as the day approached. Maybe they would bring him some letters from home. Young Bernard would have started high school, his daughter must be having all kinds of teen-age problems. A thirteen-year-old girl needs her Dad; he should be on hand to advise her. In his whole career he had never been so completely cut off from home and family. But he was a professional soldier—more to the point, a Special Forces officer; nevertheless, as he had told Methuan, he had made up his mind that when this assignment was ended he would take the tour of duty with a more conventional unit, which was long overdue him. He wanted to watch his family grow up and he certainly wanted to make lieutenant colonel and bird colonel, and there was no reason why he shouldn’t make general officer before he retired.
Major Arklin smiled to himself as he looked around the village he was transforming into an orderly paramilitary operation. What would the brass at Military Assistance Command say if they could see him now? Hair long and unkempt, almost as dirty and messy as that of his montagnards—he had ordered barber scissors to be sent in. Razor blades were in such short supply that he seldom shaved. His camouflage suit was clean but far from the crisply starched fatigues he was accustomed to wearing. Most of all, he chuckled wryly, what would they say if they could see Nanette, all but bare-bosomed, proudly following him at a respectful two paces to the rear?
The chuckle became a sigh as he thought of his wife back in Fayetteville. Would it ever be possible for her to understand the wholly alien life he was living on this assignment?
Arklin and Pay Dang took a platoon from the 3rd Meo Strike Company to provide security for the aircraft reception party. By now, with almost 350 able-bodied Meos, and the number growing, Arklin had established three 120-man companies each with its designated captain, platoon leaders, and squad leaders.
Arklin had brought along a complete insignia kit, and every time a Meo was appointed an officer or sergeant the appropriate insignia was sewed on his camouflage suit and Arklin made a ceremony of the affair. To Pay Dang he had presented the three silver buttons designating the rank of colonel in many armies of Southeast Asia; Pay Dang wore them proudly.
With Nanette coaching the women, Arklin was able to reestablish certain sanitary practices, such as the use of the latrines he had ordered rebuilt. The pigs were now confined to central pens instead of wandering all around the village, messing as the urge hit them. All refuse was buried outside of camp instead of being allowed to collect in the putrefying piles Arklin had found on his arrival.
What had disturbed him most when he first came was that in the eight months since his American team had left all these basic sanitary habits his men had introduced, they thought permanently, had been completely abandoned, and the Meos had reverted to their old casual and undisciplined way of life.
But then Arklin recalled hearing an American missionary explain the frustrations of trying to make the montagnards improve their lot. This man had been an evangelist and had lived with montagnards for thirty-five years. By giving them a true religion he had got them to observe clean habits, and give up such cherished traditions as torturing animals to death to appease evil spirits and cutting the upper teeth out of boys and girls on reaching puberty. The mountain tribesmen who had been converted to Christianity never went back to their old ways, or so the missionary said. To support this he cited many montagnards who had been sergeants and even commissioned officers in the French Army, leading the most civilized existence with clean uniforms and a respect for sanitation and discipline.
Yet when the French left and these men returned to their tribes, it was common knowledge that they had reverted all too quickly to loincloths and the same primitive existence as the tribesmen who had never been out of their home mountains.
Arklin and Pay Dang and their 40 armed men left the camp the afternoon before the two planes were due. Arklin watched with satisfaction as the months of retraining asserted itself. Every man carried his weapon properly at the alert. The platoon leader set out squads to walk in the bush on both sides of the main group as flank security against ambushes. When they stopped, the men alternately faced to the right and left of the trail.
Interspersed with the security platoon was an armed group of 20 men who could carry the supplies back. These were men whose marksmanship wasn’t as accurate as it should have been, or who had proven difficult to discipline. Arklin made it clear that a man could always advance from the work force into the strike force by showing the proper attitude and improving in military skills. All in all Arklin was pleased with his little Meo battalion. With the new load of arms they would pick up, he would be able to arm two rifle companies properly.
They arrived at the ragged, overgrown airstrip just before dusk and Pay Dang personally took charge of setting out the security ring around the landing zone. He made sure the work force was camped at the side of the field ready to rush out and unload the planes the moment they landed at dawn. Then he spread out his poncho and blankets alongside Arklin. They sat talking into the night, the Meo leader smoking his pipe loaded with the tobacco the tribe grew and cured.
Right on time the next morning two U-10’s suddenly appeared from over the mountains and in the red glow of sunrise landed on the precarious mountainside field.
Both planes cut their engines as the 20 Meo carriers ran onto the field. Arklin, followed by Pay Dang, rapidly approached the two U-10’s as the wide doors of the powerful single-engine planes swung open. Strong brown arms reached into the planes and began unloading the heavy boxes.
Frank Methuan stepped out of the first plane and shook Arklin’s hand.
“You look in good shape, Bernie,” he said. “For a minute there I thought you were a tall montagnard.”
“I’m beginning to think I am,” Arklin replied. “Did you bring me the razor blades and scissors?”
“Sure did. Where are you going to find a barber?”
“I’ll cut this stuff off myself if I have to. Did you bring any mail?”
Methuan reached back into the plane and drew out an orange mailbag. “This should keep you busy for a while. I answered all the letters for you. Only you forgot to tell me you don’t play tennis,” he said sheepishly. “I had you playing with a bunch of VIP’s and then Nancy wrote back and asked when you had found time to learn.”
“What did I answer?”
“Oh, on one of your long trips out of Bangkok there was a court, and since you had plenty of time you began batting the ball around.”
“Batting the ball around,” Arklin snorted. “How would you like to spend a week batting the ball around with me here? What’s happening in the outside world?”
“Things are pretty quiet in Laos except for the Viet Cong coming down their Ho Chi Minh trail along the Vietnam border. But so far it looks like Prince Souphanouvong and his Pathet Lao are behaving. Our people in Vientiane think someone’s going to break things up before the end of the year or in ’64 for sure. Your patrols report no Pathet activity?”
“None. But we’re always set for trouble. Before it comes you’d better get me more weapons. I have three companies and weapons for less than two.”
“I brought you four 3.5-inch rocket launchers and 100 rounds. We’ll get
you more rockets before the end of the year. Oh, and we brought in a bunch of goodies. Even a few cases of C rations in case you’re missing that good old American home cooking.”
Arklin thought of the fall season at home and Thanksgiving and Christmas. “How long do you people want me to stay out here?”
“I know it’s a rough one, Bernie,” Methuan said sympathetically. “If it’s too much, we’ll get someone to relieve you.”
“I’ll stay. Nobody else could come in now and work with these people. At least not without a lot of preparation. They figure I’m one of them.” He looked down at himself and ran a hand through his matted hair. “I guess I am.”
“Got you a nice Meo girl to take care of you?”
Arklin looked at his control sharply. Methuan laughed. “You’re not the only one out with these people. They all say if you don’t have a Meo wife you can’t work with them.”
“They’re about right,” Arklin answered curtly. He noticed that the planes had been unloaded. “Well, I guess that does it.”
“Right, Bernie. By the way, burn those letters as soon as you’ve read them. We don’t want anything lying around that could identify you as an American.”
Methuan clapped him on the shoulder. “Keep patrols and agents out watching the Pathet. They’ll hit one day, no doubt about it, and the only thing that’s going to slow them up when they start for Vientiane is the Meo tribesmen led by guys like you.”
“How many of us are there out here?”
“That’s top secret, need to know basis only. Just be sure that you make it tough on the Communists in your area when they do try to cut this country in half through the Plain of Jars. If you guys out here can give us a week or ten days before Laos falls completely, old Uncle Samuel will probably take action.”
“We’ll do our part,” Arklin said. “Well, see you next trip.”