After the Man-hao coup, our relations with Colonel Houssong became even more intimate. He began to regard us more as "fellow conspirators" than mere subordinates, and he bestowed on us certain privileges which were denied to other units of the Foreign Legion. The permanent gate pass was the one we appreciated the most. Whenever we returned from a mission my men were free to leave the Army compound from five P.M. till eight A.M. every day. I had free access to the supply dumps and could requisition any amount of food, weapons, and ammunition by simply signing for them. I was given unrestricted access to the top secret intelligence files which dealt with guerrilla activity in certain districts.
Colonel Houssong was proud of us, and I may add without bragging, rightly so. Apart from the famous Paras, my unit was the only force that went into action and returned with results; and more often than not, without a single loss of life. In Indochina it was called a "good result" when troops on a distant mission returned without having accomplished anything, only returned with minimum losses. Many troops of the Legion have entered the jungle never to be heard of again.
Ten days after our return, Colonel Houssong summoned us to his office. We shook hands and he said without preliminaries, "Sit down, messieurs, for what I am going to tell you now will make you sit down anyway." He placed a fresh bottle of Calvados on the table and suggested with a mysterious smile, "Have a drink, you will need it." Evidently the colonel was in a good mood. His eyes danced with amusement.
"Is it going to be as bad as that?" I asked him, taking my seat opposite him. Eisner and Schulze sat down and placed their map cases on the table. Pfirstenhammer opened his notebook, Riedl took pencil and paper. We were ready for the briefing.
"It depends on the way you look at it," the colonel answered my question. Reaching for the bottle he poured drinks for us, filled his own cup, and lifted it slightly, "To your success with the Tien-pao raid."
"You mean the Man-hao raid, mon colonel," Eisner corrected what he thought was a reference to our excursion into China.
"I said Tien-pao," Houssong repeated, stressing the last word. "That is the place you will be going shortly."
There was a curious silence while we digested the implications of that short sentence. "To Tien-pao?" I repeated cautiously.
"To Tien-pao," said the colonel. His eyes kindled. "You have convinced certain gentlemen in the upper regions that such raids are feasible and can be executed without complications. So, off you go. But this time it isn't going to be a pushover, messieurs. You will have to work hard to earn a victory."
"To earn a victory?" Schulze commented with a chuckle. "I will be happy if we can earn a simple return ticket, mon colonel."
"And rightly so," Eisner added with emphasis. "There are some thirty thousand Chinese troops at Tien-pao."
"Eighty to one against," Riedl said.
"Sometimes it was worse in Russia," Karl added and lit his pipe.
"I am glad to note your good spirit; a spirited action is already half a success," the colonel remarked. He unfolded a large map of northern Indochina and spread it on the long table. The map covered the district north of Cao Bang, including Chinese areas as far as the Siang river, thirty kilometers north of Tien-pao. Tien-pao was the town where we believed that Ho Chi Minh's "government" had been hiding out for the past two years, although Ho himself was thought to be residing in Nan-ning, further to the east.
Holding his pen lightly over the map, Colonel Houssong swept the upper regions of the map, then circled a smaller area and looked up. "Do you think you can make it here, Wagemueller?"
"We can always make it there, mon colonel. The question is whether we can also make it back?"
"You had better make it back—and without leaving corpses behind. It must be a clean job like the one in Man-hao."
I rose slightly and bent over the map. It was not just a map but .an operational plan with the essential details already incorporated: the routes were marked out, time elements considered and noted down in brackets: the area between the border and Tien-pao, and eastward to the Sengen highway, featured a number of small red stars, some of them placed within rectangles, others in circles,
"As you can see, I spent some time arranging your action in effective patterns," the colonel said good-humored-ly. "The stars are known Viet Minh bases and Chinese garrisons."
"The size of which, mon colonel?"
"The size of which we can only guess. But it does not really matter for you are to avoid them anyway."
"But do they know that, mon colonel?" Eisner cut in and everyone began to laugh.
Colonel Houssong paused for a moment, then joined us over the map. "Your principal target will be the establishment marked 'A,' which must be destroyed before anything else. It lies thirty kilometers north of the frontier."
"As the crow flies. Overland it will be fifty," I remarked.
"Sans doute. Nevertheless you will have to get there. The second objective, 'C,' is located only half as far inland but more to the east. As you can see, objective 'B1 is unfortunately off limits. It is much too close to Tien-pao and the main garrisons. Two objectives should suffice for the time being. They are large enemy bases and training camps."
"What are the X-es, mon colonel?"
"Small Chinese guardhouses along road bridges with three to five men in them."
"What about them?"
"Don't ask me, Wagemueller, suit yourself. If you find time to demolish also a few bridges it will be an asset."
The conference lasted for two hours. With all the important problems discussed, the colonel announced, "Needless to say this whole business is strictly between us, messieurs,"
"Of course, mon colonel."
"Your Man-hao raid was a big shock to the Viet Minh and especially to the Chinese. They have many bases along the border and the General—thinks we should hit them at least once more before Peking decides to decentralize." He added with a smile, "// faut piquer dedans— we should hit them where it hurts." His eyes focused on the map. "Alas, most of the Viet Minh training bases and supply dumps are still just across the frontier, but soon Giap will move his establishment farther north, to safer locations." He lifted his eyes to me. "What do you think of it?"
"It seems to me either glory or court-martial, mon colonel," I said jokingly.
"You had better forget about the second alternative," said he. "Since your Man-hao business I am, er, your accomplice in Crime."
"In crime, mon colonel?"
"What else can you call it? We are not at war with China."
"Peking doesn't seem to know it," Eisner remarked. "We should call such actions only an exchange of mutual courtesies, mon colonel."
"How about those garrisons at Tien-pao, mon colonel?" I asked, thinking of the thirty thousand Chinese troops.
"They have no transports," the colonel explained. "Fifteen trucks and some derelict jeeps are all they have. The troops are armed mostly with vintage Russian rifles and for the present their ammo is restricted to about five cartridges per weapon."
"That's comforting," said Karl.
"So keep quiet until you arrive at objective 'A' and the garrisons won't be able to interfere with you in force."
He folded the map and handed it to me. "This is the only map covering the operation," he advised me. "Prepare two copies for yourself, then bring it back. Don't bungle this job, for if you do, you might as well remain in China and go down lighting."
"I understand that, mon colonel."
"You will be wearing civilian clothes, of course—"
"Of course."
Of course, I thought. No papers, no identity tags, no army rations, only native pajamas and foodstuffs.
"What will you do about possible casualties, Wagemueller?" he asked cagily.
"The Chinese will find neither corpses nor graves, mon colonel."
"So be it."
He extended his hand. We avoided discussing the gory details.
Corpses were to be destroyed either by grenades or by flam
ethrowers: blasted to bits, burned beyond recognition, and should there be gravely wounded comrades who could not march while the enemy was pressing us, it was also our duty to turn them into corpses, so that they wouldn't turn into evidence in Chinese hands.
"You will have a good chance to succeed," the colonel said before dismissing us. "I have selected your guides personally. They know the area well and they are also professionals."
We code-named the operation "Longhand" because of its far-reaching implications.
"Here we go, one hundred against half a billion," Schulze remarked, gazing back toward the moonlit ridges of Bao Lac. Ahead of us loomed the sinister hills of China. We crossed the frontier following the remote trail which native warriors must have cut across the virgin woods decades before. It must have been maintained by smugglers, then cleared again, probably by Nationalist warring parties. After a few miles on the trail I knew that Colonel Houssong's "blueprint for aggression" had been based on precise data, the result of exhaustive intelligence and even aerial reconnaissance. The colonel did not believe in venturing an important job on the spin of a coin. And since our lives depended on his meticulous exactitude, we indeed appreciated it.
The company advanced in a long line, the men keeping about ten paces apart: pajama-clad dark shapes, wearing coolie hats and crude rubber sandals fashioned from old automobile tires. Everything had been blacked with soot, our faces, our hands, the weapons; nothing glinted in the bright moonlight.
Although we carried only the absolute minimum, the load on each man weighed about fifteen kilos. That included a submachine gun with ten spare mags, food, burlap, a small medical kit, magnetic compass, flashlight, bush knife, mosquito net, and hand grenades. The field gear of Gruppe Drei was divided among the troops.
Gruppe Drei was our advance guard, the "Trailblazers," the unit on which our existence depended. It consisted of only thirty men but they were specially trained. Every member of the group had completed a rigorous six-month training schedule that included bomb detection and demolition, trap detection, tracking, and general woodsmanship. Their tutors were some of the foremost experts of antiguerrilla warfare, both French and foreign: an ex-British army captain who had fought the Communist insurgents for three years in Malaya and a former Japanese colonel, the one-time commander of a counterintelligence unit of the Kempe Tai (former Japanese Secret Police) during the war. Both men wore the uniform of a colonel of the Colonial army but they did not formally belong to the armed forces and received civilian wages, as per contract.
A hundred meters ahead of us marched the advance guard led by Krebitz. Still ahead of them marched four Nationalist Chinese officers, one of them a former guide to the forces of Chiang Kai-shek. They knew the area well. Some of the last Nationalist battles had been fought in the province before the vanquished party was compelled to withdraw into the jungles of northern Burma. Colonel Houssong did not inform me how and where he had gotten hold of the Nationalist Chinese. "You may trust them," was all he said, "a well-known American general has vouched for them."
Being well aware of the utter corruption which then dominated the Nationalist army, and which contributed greatly to the final collapse of Nationalist China, I reserved my opinion on the matter. As a rule we trusted no Chinese or Indochinese and we also had some misgivings about the judgment of American generals. The Americans had poured into China money and weapons enough to conquer the earth yet they were unable to preserve a single square kilometer of the "Heavenly Empire" that was now gradually turning into a perfect hell.
I had asked Colonel Houssong if our Chinese companions had been informed about "Longhand" in detail.
"I understand what you mean," he had said, "but rest assured. I did not consider it necessary to reveal all. You may tell them as much as possible under the circumstances." My sigh of relief must have been audible for he had added reassuringly, "I am sure they will be all right."
'They had better be indeed."
He had laughed and" slapped me on the shoulder in a friendly manner. "I know you wouldn't trust Chiang Kai-shek himself, Wagemueller."
"I wouldn't trust Jesus Christ on a mission like this, mon colonel. The slightest indiscretion and—"
"Would you prefer to go on your own?"
"Without reservation."
"It would be much more difficult."
"We may have to climb more hills but we won't be jittery all the way."
"Will you be jittery because of them?"
"By your leave, mon colonel, I shall make my own security arrangements."
"Alors, make them, but return safely." So we kept our Chinese quintet under close surveillance, and I made sure that they knew as little as possible of our general plan. The Nationalist Chinese officers could study our immediate objective but nothing else. One of them who spoke good French must have noticed our polite but reserved attitude, for he spoke to me shortly after we had crossed the border.
"You are not sure about our capability to lead this expedition, are you?" he asked me with a hint of sadness in his voice.
"Major Kwang," I replied in a firm voice, "I am going to be frank with you. We met only five days ago. We don't know you or where you come from." "Colonel Houssong knows," he ventured. "The colonel is in Hanoi, Major. We are on the way to hell—and back, let us hope. But let me ask you something. Have you known your companions for a long time?"
"I know only Major Cheng," he replied. "We used to serve in the same battalion. The others we met in the colonel's office."
"You see, Major. They are aliens even to you—" "But the colonel surely knows them." "The colonel is only a human being, Major Kwang. Human beings are fallible."
"The colonel, the generals, the prime minister," Eisner cut in. "We have been around here for a long time, Major Kwang. We have outlived the average life expectancy of Legionnaires, and I think we are still around because we took nothing for granted—never!"
The major smiled politely. "Then you regard every stranger guilty until proven innocent?"
"We regard only one thing, Major—our own survival factors," I said. "We learned that a long time ago: to think, to plan, to calculate, to evaluate and act—everything related to survival factors. Friendship, relations, rank, sentiments are all only of secondary importance. We are living on borrowed time and abiding by the law of probability, which is the only law we carefully observe. Had we done otherwise, we would now be dead heroes instead of surviving experts. For that's what we really are, Major Kwang: neither invincible daredevils nor supermen nor heroes—only survival experts. But survival is the most important thing in any war."
"I will do my best to see that all of us survive during the next few days," Kwang said.
"You do that, Major," I nodded. "But keep an eye on those whom you do not know."
"With regard to my own survival factor?" he asked with a smile.
"You might call it that," I conceded.
It was nine P.M. Tuesday when we crossed the Chinese frontier eighteen kilometers west of the one time Cao Bang-Tien-pao road. Between us and the road, we knew, ran a guerrilla trail that joined a dirt road three kilometers inland. Here the Chinese maintained a small guardhouse for the militia which patrolled the border section. Farther to the northwest and past the place where we intended to cross the dirt road was a village with a garrison of two hundred troops—whom we wanted to avoid.
Thanks to the moonlight we made good progress but even so the terrain was difficult and it took us almost six hours to cover the eight kilometers to the road. We arrived there shortly before three A.M. Wednesday. I wanted to proceed farther inland without stopping but Sergeant Krebitz called my attention to the numerous truck tire marks, which indicated frequent military traffic along the road. In those days no one but the army possessed heavy vehicles in China but even so the army was very hard pressed on motorized transport, and the troops were often compelled to march extremely long distances because of the lack of trucks. The loss of a few vehicles along the road could be extr
emely painful for them, especially if some of the trucks were transporting irreplaceable cargo. Krebitz suggested that we should mine the road, which we did at five different points, approximately three hundred paces apart. The pressure switches were set to permit the passage of anything up to one ton, which was about the limit even heavily laden peasant carts would weigh. We had no intention of hurting innocent civilians walking by or carting home their grains.
By five A.M. we were deep in the hills. Daybreak came swiftly and when the sun rose we camped down. Slipping their haversacks and weapons to the ground, the men dropped into the soft grass, weary and exhausted. A general massaging of feet began, a regular feature of every stop. A few troopers began to munch, while others were too spent even for eating. They just stretched out on their burlaps. Breakfast was no problem. Everybody was still carrying cooked rice and minced meat; the men had their canteens full of coffee or tea, except for those who preferred to drink rum. Sergeant Krebitz carried three canteens to have a bit of everything: two dangling from his belt, a third one in his rucksack.
Sitting on a boulder sipping coffee, I surveyed our rugged company. Looking at some troopers one could indeed wonder if our native pajamas would ever deceive the enemy. Maybe from a distance of five hundred meters but not from any closer. They were armed to the teeth with the latest and best equipment France could offer. But, alas, the main point was that we should not look French, and in that respect we certainly succeeded. As a matter of fact we did not look like anything except maybe the forty thieves of Ali Baba.
Except for sentries posted around the camp, the troops were soon sound asleep; their groanings and snorings could have been interpreted as an oncoming armored division ten kilometers away. I had a good rest under the mosquito net which we needed not so much because of mosquitoes as because of flies. Deep in the woods it was cool enough for the mosquitoes to take over the moment the sun dipped below the horizon. Flies and mosquitoes seemed to live in a merry "divide and rule" arrangement, making sure that no one rested in the open during either the day or at night.
Devil's Guard Page 17