by Robin Moore
The squatting chief stopped rocking, motionless with surprise at hearing this newcomer speak his language. After several moments of silence he said, “You speak the language of the Tai. Good. But what of the crops?”
“While half the men train, the other half work the fields.”
Muk Thon puffed his pipe impassively. “This is the time we get the poppy juice.”
“We pay you and your men. You do not need to tend the poppies.”
“No!” Muk Thon exclaimed defiantly. “Poppy die if we do not care for it. Then when you go away we have no poppy to sell.”
“Half your men work the fields, the other half train,” DePorta went on doggedly. “We will pay better than the Viet Cong Army. And if a man has a wife he is paid extra, and for children, extra still. We pay in local money.”
Thon closed his eyes and rocked back and forth on his haunches, puffing on his pipe. “When will come the first payday?” Muk Thon asked practically.
“When we have enlisted the men and assigned them rank.”
“It will soon be daylight,” Muk Thon said, a trace of enthusiasm in his tone. “We can start then.”
“Are all your men loyal? If one betrays us the whole mission is lost.”
“No Tai man, woman or child would betray this village,” Thon said, his eyes flashing.
Feeling he was making progress, DePorta pushed on. “Now, Muk Thon, you, as chief, will become a colonel in the Tai Army we will form. And we will pay you more than the Communists pay their colonels.”
DePorta reached into his pocket and drew out the three silver buttons that designate the rank of colonel in the Vietnamese Army. He handed them to Thon. “As soon as we open the bundles you will be issued a uniform.”
Thon took the insignia and stared at the gleaming silver in his brown hand. “As your adviser I too carry the rank of colonel,” DePorta went on. “After a week of training we will evaluate the men of your village and create the ranks for our force.”
For the moment, at least, Muk Thon seemed placated. DePorta knew it would be a mistake to push the Tai chief any further at this time.
The smell of cooking wafted across the village as the women prepared the morning meals.
“Colonel,” DePorta said, “we have brought some rations with us but we will have to buy our food from your village soon.”
Thon was smugly pleased at being addressed by his new rank. “I will send women to your house to make fires and cook for your men. My wife and daughter will cook breakfast for you and me here.”
“Thank you, Colonel.” DePorta glanced toward the longhouse assigned to Acbat. “I will see how my men are and return.”
Sergeant Mattrick was sitting in the door, his Swedish K submachine gun across his knees. Captain Smith was examining the bundles.
“There’ll be some Tai women along to cook for you,” DePorta told them.
“No thanks. I’ll eat my own rations for a couple of days,” Mattrick said. “It’s going to take a while to get used to Tai food.”
“Right,” DePorta agreed. “Brick, come over and risk the state of your stomach having hot chow with me and Colonel Muk Thon.” DePorta and Smith walked to Muk Thon’s longhouse. Krak was there, squatting on his haunches beside the chief. “Colonel Thon,” DePorta said as they approached the fire, “this is my executive officer, Lieutenant Colonel Smith.” Soberly Smith snapped a salute at the squatting chief, who was instantly on his feet at attention, returning the salute in a military manner. In French, Smith said, “It is an honor, Colonel.”
“The honor is mine.”
Thon’s wife and daughter bustled among them. The older woman, though leathery and wrinkled, exuded dignity. She was slender and taller than most montagnard women—as tall as DePorta.
Muk Thon’s daughter, Luy, was a handsome, graceful girl in her mid-twenties, with long black hair carefully combed, and skin lighter than that of the montagnards from the south. Her breasts protruded from the shawl she wore around her shoulders. In her thin face and ample eyes DePorta saw a deep sadness. What tragedies had she experienced in this tragedy-ridden land? he wondered.
“You will have breakfast?” she asked in French. Both officers accepted.
Luy soon returned with two bowls of steaming broth, large chunks of meat floating in it, and laid them in front of Smith and DePorta. There was a gourd dipped in each bowl and Muk Thon’s wife placed a bowl of boiled rice before them.
The soup was strong and gamy but it tasted nourishing and the two Americans were hungry. “This soup has great authority,” Smith said chewing on a piece of meat. “Meat’s tender too.”
DePorta agreed. “They believe in natural tenderizing,” he said between mouthfuls. “They take as long as twenty minutes to beat an animal to death before cooking it.”
Luy knelt before Smith. “Aimez-vous?” she said.
“Very good. What kind of meat is it?”
“Monkey,” Luy said proudly. “We were going to eat dog but when Major Luc said Americans were coming I prepared the monkeys.”
Luy looked steadily at DePorta. “You are American, Colonel?”
“Yes, American by nationality—but like you, I am born Asiatic. Have you heard of the Philippine Islands?”
“Oh, yes. My husband had many maps.” Her face clouded. “He was French. He and three other soldiers lived with us for a year.”
Smith looked at DePorta.
“Her husband must have been a member of the GCMA. They tried to do the same thing we’re here to do. The Communists hated them.” DePorta asked Luy, “Your husband was Groupement de Commando Mixtes Aeroportes?”
Her eyes brightened and she nodded vigorously.
“I don’t think more than a fraction of them ever left Vietnam alive.” DePorta nudged Smith and went on. “But we will not worry, we have much better support.”
“What happened to her husband, Krak?” Smith asked.
Luy’s eyes dropped to the ground. Krak shrugged uncomfortably.
In English, DePorta said to Smith, “The tribe forced Muk Thon to give him and the other Frenchmen to the Communists after the war was over in return for complete pardon and peace for this Tai village.”
“How did you know?”
“One of the little pieces of information they came out with in the commander’s briefing.”
“What makes you so sure they won’t double-cross us?”
“Much has happened in the past ten years. Our Area Specialist team at the SFOB believe the Tais will stick solidly behind us.” DePorta stood up and looked off into the eastern sky at the ruddy sunrise. “We have much work ahead of us in the next few days. I suggest we get a few hours’ sleep. This afternoon we can start officially signing up recruits and getting them on the payroll.”
The heat of late morning and the sun steaming into the hut woke DePorta. Lieutenant Vo was on guard at the door; the rest of the team was just waking. DePorta stood up, pulled off his sweater and walked to the door.
In English, Vo said, “Major Luc is just back. He is with the chief.”
At Muk Thon’s house, DePorta found Major Luc and Krak. Thon had pinned his colonel’s insignia on a ragged black pajama shirt.
“It was a good thing I stayed,” Luc said in English when he saw DePorta. “Much evidence on the DZ. But we cleaned it up so the Viet Cong suspect nothing.”
“We’ll have to exfiltrate you, Major Luc. They’ll need you back at the SFOB,” DePorta said. “Did you have time while you were here to look for U-10 landing zones?”
“I made the time,” Luc said. “Always I was thinking I would have to get out of here.”
“We’ll get you out as soon as we can,” DePorta promised. “Now, let’s get this show on the road.”
By the end of the afternoon one side of the longhouse had been partitioned off for the dispensary. Sergeant Pierrot and his Vietnamese assistant medic, Sergeant Lin, had arranged their limited medical supplies and equipment, cut a new door in the end of the bamboo structure
, and built steps up from the ground so the sick could more easily enter. Colonel Muk Thon, who had been issued his camouflage uniform, had ordered a medical check for all men who would be joining the guerrilla force. This would be every able-bodied man in the village; they would train in two alternating companies.
Luy was the first to arrive at Frenchy Pierrot’s dispensary. She led a ten-year-old boy whose body was covered with open red sores which almost closed his eyes. Frenchy examined the boy. Then he gave Luy a bar of strong medicated soap. “Take him to the river and wash him with this,” he instructed Luy in French. “Then bring him back to me.”
“Merci, monsieur,” the boy said.
“You speak French?”
“Oui, monsieur.”
“My husband was French,” Luy explained. “We try to teach the boy his father’s language.”
“What is his name?” Frenchy asked.
“Muk Lon. His French name is Pierre. His father gave him that name before the Viet Minh killed him.”
“Pierre,” Frenchy said with mock sternness, “three times every day I want you to take the soap I gave your mother and wash yourself with it in the river. Then you will come to me. Do you understand?”
Pierre nodded solemnly.
“Do the people of the tribe have soap?” Frenchy asked.
“We cannot buy it,” Luy replied.
“Then we will make it,” Frenchy replied. “I will teach you and you will teach the village women.”
“They will be happy to learn.”
At the other end of the longhouse, Sergeant Ossidian’s operations and intelligence room had been set up with maps on the walls and acetate overlays on which information about the area and targets was being steadily grease-penciled.
Manong, the Bru tribesman ethnically close to the Tai and able to speak their language, had located several other men who had fought with the French and was already indoctrinating them in the use of the foreign weapons that would be distributed to the recruits the next day.
Sergeant Ashton Everett, the Negro communications chief, and his assistant, Sergeant Trung, had their radio assembled and ready to start transmitting and receiving. Communications would be the most difficult part of this operation. It was known that the North Vietnamese had acquired from Russia via Red China the latest technical skills and sophisticated equipment for detecting possible antigovernment radio signals or messages from bases outside North Vietnam to agents operating on the border or inside.
Ordinarily, for Acbat to transmit without fear of their base being discovered, the communications men would have to carry their equipment many miles. However, one ingenious officer had developed a ruse which would work for a while, and postpone the time when more intricate methods of anti-direction-finding transmission must be used.
At exactly 1800 hours DePorta, Smith, the two commo sergeants, and Major Luc gathered on the hill above the village.
The antenna had been stretched between two trees, oriented by compass so that it would be precisely broadside to the radio station at the SFOB two hundred miles to the south. Sergeant Trung sat by the transmitter ready to tap out DePorta’s message. The signal would inform the SFOB that all personnel were safe and the operation ready to proceed. It also gave a preliminary request for a U-10 evacuation of Major Luc and the time, two days later, that next radio contact would be made and full LZ details transmitted.
Smith turned to DePorta as a Tai tribesman, sitting on the seat of the generator, began grinding the cranks that produced the electric current to power the transmitter. “I hope this brilliant idea works or we’ll be up to our ass in Communist troops before morning.”
DePorta grinned confidently. “It will work, if we don’t overdo it.”
Sergeant Everett, staring at his watch, nudged Trung as the minute hand hit 6:00 P.M. Sergeant Trung began to tap out the message. On the official Thailand Army radio frequency, carefully monitored in Hanoi, Trundy began sending the message which when analyzed by the Communists would sound like the usual series of Thai code words emanating from Bangkok and other military bases in Thailand every day. There would be no need to make a direction-finding check on such routine traffic.
In five minutes Trung had tapped out his message and the radio equipment was packed up and they were on their way back to the village.
The SFOB would acknowledge the message the next day at a predetermined hour. For the next three days Acbat worked almost around the clock. The medics, between physical checks of the men, helped the women with many disorders. Fifty per cent of the Tai babies had been dying because the mothers had no milk in their breasts to nurse them. Pierrot added to his list of medical supplies fifty pounds of a dehydrated milk formula for expectant Tai women. Skin disease was prevalent and a complete dermatological unit was put on the list for the first airdrop. Bad teeth by the dozens were pulled, relieving toothaches, and water purification methods were introduced.
A patrol commanded by Sergeant Mattrick went out to assess the surrounding area and check out the LZ for evacuating Major Luc.
3
Acbat had been in the Tai village four days when a party of tribesmen along with Smith and Mattrick went out to LZ Hairy to exfiltrate Major Luc. The same day Ton left camp to slip into Hang Mang and make contact with the underground.
When both missions had left the village DePorta went to Muk Thon’s house on stilts for a private meeting. “Colonel,” DePorta said to the Tai chief sitting on the floor of his house, “tomorrow I want to move to the new location we found eight kilometers west of here. We will make it our headquarters. We will take the training company with us and leave the field workers here.”
Muk Thon slowly took his pipe from his mouth, his eyes never leaving DePorta. “No! This is our home. The Tai people will not leave it.”
“Colonel”—DePorta talked in French now, adding urgency to his words—“we must keep our company together. It is important that we become established in a new location.”
“We Tai people do not leave our village,” Muk Thon insisted.
Hearing Muk Thon’s vehement tones, his wife and daughter entered from outside.
“The American says we must leave our village!” Muk Thon cried.
“Must we all go?” Luy asked.
DePorta shook his head. “Just my men and the company of Tai men we are training.”
“I say none of us go,” Muk Thon said decisively.
“Suppose Nguyen That Ton gets caught?” DePorta asked. “How long do you think it would take before he told everything?”
Muk Thon sat silently for a few minutes, puffing at his pipe. “My men do not move without their colonel,” he said stubbornly.
“And there is always a chance that Major Luc and my deputy, Lieutenant Colonel Smith, might be picked up and tortured.”
Luy gasped. DePorta glanced briefly at her. Then he said to Muk Thon, “Colonel, our mission here against the Viet Cong depends on training these men and not getting caught. I am requesting that you move with the training company to the new camp.” He turned slightly towards Luy. “Lieutenant Colonel Smith will be in charge of training. He is proud to work with such an experienced warrior as you, Colonel.”
Luy blushed slightly and turned away. The flattery hit its mark and Muk Thon finally said, “If my wife and daughter will leave this home I will go.”
Five days later, after the successful LT-10 exfiltration of Major Luc, it was necessary for Acbat to send a long communication to the SFOB.
DePorta summed up Acbat’s first ten days in its operational area and then read his message to Smith before giving it to Everett for encoding and transmitting. He reported that Nguyen That Ton had been successful in joining up with the Hang Mang underground. Good progress was being made on planning the abduction of the province political officer, Ti. All targets were under surveillance. An outlet for selling the gold leaf for local currency had been established. A meeting was scheduled two days hence between Acbat intelligence and underground represen
tatives. Acbat was looking for a third base of operations and would send coordinates when the base was established. Two platoons of Tais were undergoing accelerated guerrilla training. Krak had led a small party to a Tai village where a base of operations for Alton was being set up. Krak and the assistant medic, Lin, stayed to provide badly needed medical aid and prepare the Tai people to the north for the arrival of Alton. Much leprosy was reported. Extra supplies would be required by Alton. Manong had successfully made contact with his Bru tribesmen to the south. He reported his area would be ready for Artie soon. He also reported heavy Viet Cong military traffic building up.
DePorta finished his message with a list of coordinates of DZ’s and another emergency LZ in the area, giving their altitudes, the obstructions around them, and the compass heading of the long axis of the LZ.
“This better go by balloon, sir,” Everett said when he saw the length of the communique.
“Right,” DePorta agreed.
Everett reached for the specially ruled code pad and made a swift, accurate encoding of the long message. It took the commo sergeant about fifteen minutes to finish. Then he unlocked a metal box and took out a small transistorized transmitter. Everett grinned up at his CO. “I should get hazardous-duty pay every time I use one of these, sir.”
“That you should, Everett.”
Everett plugged a battery power-pack into the small transmitter, and began tapping out the message with the telegraph key. A magnetic tape whirred through the transmitter, recording the dots and dashes. Everett worked the key for close to ten minutes before he completed the message. Then he touched a switch on the tiny transmitter and the tape rewound.
“Ready to go, sir. This sends on the channel monitored twenty-fours a day at the SFOB.”
“Send it, Everett.”
From the metal box Everett drew out a large deflated balloon and a helium bottle. He carried them out of the thatched-roof commo center, the small transmitter in his other hand.
“Let me help you, Everett,” Smith offered. He took the balloon and inflated it with helium, holding the wire thread attached to the balloon through a vulcanized loop. He clipped the inflating valve shut and let the balloon rise, handing the wire to Everett.