Devil's Guard

by George R. Elford

  "Sergeant Schenk!" I called Victor. "Tickle them a little with the bayonets."

  Schenk and two of the troopers stepped forward with their bayonets extended, the points touching the girls' throats.

  "Have you seen what happened to your sick comrades?" I asked slowly, stressing my words. "I am asking you once more where that other dump is. If you don't tell us, you will die."

  The blades, still spattered with blood, were a macabre sight. "Please, no," the smallest girl cried, burying her face in her hands, "please don't kill us. We are very young."

  "You weren't so young when you joined the terrorists."

  "We had to," she mumbled, "we had to go with them."

  "When is Trengh coming back?"

  "If we tell you, Trengh will kill us all ... our families, too."

  "If you tell us, Trengh won't kill anybody anymore. When is he coming back?"

  "Tonight!" she whispered.

  "I want to know—"

  "Leave them alone!" A cry from behind interrupted me. Followed by Erich, Suoi came running toward me. She pushed aside the bayonets and stood between us and the girls with her eyes blazing. "You . . . you cannot do this. . . . You wouldn't dare . . . you. . . ." She was so aroused that she could barely form her words and I couldn't resist teasing her.

  "Oh, yes, Suoi—if necessary I would dare."

  "Not as long as I am here—commander!"

  I cast a glance of resignation toward Erich, who lifted and dropped his shoulders with a grin and waved the troopers aside.

  "I guess this is the end of my interrogation," I remarked in German. "Maybe you and Suoi can take over."

  I glanced at the captive girls, a frightened bunch of little rabbits; the oldest one of them was probably less than twenty years of age.

  "Why did you join those bandits?" Suoi spoke to them softly. "Do you think it is right for young girls to kill people?"

  "We did not kill anyone. We were only tending the wounded."

  "Are you nurses?" I cut in.

  They nodded.

  "All right. You will show us the way to the other dump and we will let you go home." They began to cry again and explained something to Suoi between a series of small hysterical sobs.

  "They cannot go home," Suoi translated for me. "The Viet Minh will kill them."

  "That's too bad, Suoi."

  "You are too bad," she replied, shaking her head. "You are much too hard and have no heart."

  "There is a war going on around here. Wars are very bad—not me, Suoi."

  "But if they betray the guerrilla camp to you, the guerrillas will kill them all. Can't you understand? You might as well kill them right here."

  "All right, all right," I cut her short. "Take care of them, Suoi. I have other things to attend to. We will talk about the dump later. In the meantime the girls can care for our own wounded."

  "We haven't got any," Schulze stated, obviously pleased with my decision about the girls.

  "We aren't home yet, Erich," I reminded him of something that every one of us should always keep in mind.

  We soon discovered not only a large quantity of material stolen from the garrison but also hundreds of Soviet-made guns, pistols, and mortars, along with similar weapons manufactured in China. There were Degtyarev light machine guns, Spaghin and Sudaiev submachine guns, Goriunov machine guns which can fire two hundred and fifty bullets per minute to a distance of one thousand meters. There were also Browning automatic rifles, French Mitra Mats, and even MAS rifles produced in 1937.

  "What shall we do with all the stuff?" Erich inquired, waving an arm about the depot.

  "Don't worry. The villagers will carry everything back to the stockade. They know the way."

  The troops spent the day preparing a reception for Trengh and his terrorists. Fifty men with fifty machine guns, which we uncrated in the huts, were deployed to cover the entrance of the camp and the ravine behind it. Xuey, Sergeant Schenk, and one platoon occupied the vacant gun emplacements of the Viet Minh. The barrels of their machine guns had been carefully muffled with blankets and rags to deaden sound. Those in the village were still unaware of our presence in the hills and of the destruction of the terrorist base.

  The girls had told me the truth. Around six o'clock in the afternoon Eisner radioed the coming of a Viet Minh unit, riding cycles on the road. "Let them pass," I flashed back. "We have a reception ready for them."

  Trengh and his guerrillas arrived at sundown. Xuey waved boldly to them as they passed the first gun emplacement, now manned by Schenk and six troops. The guerrillas waved back and the group proceeded through the ravine and entered the camp.

  I waited just long enough for them to come out in the open, then ordered fire. The machine guns opened up simultaneously and fired for less than ten seconds. Their chatter was very dull, resembling the popping of champagne corks. During that ten seconds five hundred bullets were poured into the group. The terrorists didn't know what hit them.

  I left a detachment to guard the camp and turned my attention to the village, where shock and consternation was immense, even though we harmed no one. Most of the dead guerrillas were from there. I considered it enough punishment for the people. There was hardly a hut without someone missing. A grim lesson of a cruel war.

  From the concealed cellars and tunnels we recovered everything that had been snatched from the stockade. Taking a hundred troops, Eisner escorted a large group of complaining, crying villagers to the camp to bring down more army wares. He allowed the people to bury their dead. The camp was then destroyed with explosive charges.

  Taking the three captive girls, Riedl and Pfirstenhammer departed for the other guerrilla dump—supposedly fifteen miles, but it turned out to be over twenty-two miles away. Escorting the villagers—some four hundred people altogether—-laden with stores, we headed back toward the stockade.

  A new garrison greeted us when we arrived. Trucks, helicopters, and armored cars crowded the yards, while engineers were busy repairing the damaged buildings and the outer defenses. The perimeter was being improved with minefields and concrete pillboxes near the palisade. A system of covered trenches was to connect the bunkers with the stockade.

  "What did I tell you?" Eisner exclaimed when, descending from the hills, we beheld the brisk activity for the first time. "The French are the greatest builders of forts." Then he added with a chuckle, "In about five years' time those pillboxes and minefields may have destroyed as many terrorists as we have dispatched in the past five days!"

  With the goods properly delivered, we sent the civilians home and settled down to enjoy a well-deserved rest. Riedl and Karl returned two days later. In the secret dump, which consisted of a maze of natural caves and tunnels, they discovered a quantity of Soviet weapons.

  "How did you blast the place if it was all rocks?" Schulze asked. He was busy preparing our report on the past week.

  "Like hell we blasted it!" Karl exclaimed. "We just mined the lot and left everything in order. Who wants to blow up bare hills, Mensch? Sooner or later other guerrillas will come to fetch the stuff. They move a crate and the whole works blow sky-high—with the Viet Minh riding the smoke."

  "A good idea," Erich complimented.

  "My ideas are always good," Karl stated modestly.

  The girls were still with them. "I sent them off near the village," Riedl explained, "but they kept coming back to us. They seemed scared to death of their own people."

  "They prefer to come to Hanoi," Karl added. "We couldn't just dump them in the woods, could we?" He walked off to the canteen and returned with a large bowl of rice and meat. "Here! Take it." He handed the bowl to the smallest girl. "Eat! Mangez . . . essen . . . niam, niam. Her name is Noy," he explained to us. "The other two are called Chi and Thi—if I spell it well. Chi is not a local girl. She is from Szechwan, China."

  "We can use them, can't we, Hans?" Riedl seemed to be suggesting rather than asking a question. "They are trained nurses with hospital experience."

&nbs
p; "We can always use a couple of good nurses," Schulze put in.

  "Sure!" Riedl agreed and began to cite the advantages of having the girls along. They know the woods. They can march like men. They are nurses. They can prepare better food than we are cooking ourselves. Heading off my decision he added hopefully, "They will be an asset to the battalion, Hans."

  "I have heard that already."

  "Besides, Suoi won't be all alone."

  "Neither will you, I presume."

  Karl grinned. "It could be kind of fun to have them along."

  "I gather that. But suppose they don't like your proposal?"

  "But they do!" Pfirstenhammer exulted. He turned toward the trio who sat on the crates, munching without a worry on earth. "You do want to come with us, don't you?"

  The girls looked up and giggled. "Ja, ja," the one called Noy replied in German. "Kayl unt Helmut sint gutte manne"—"Karl and Helmut are good men."

  "What did I say?" Karl beamed. "In six months' time they will even speak German, won't you Noy?"

  "Jahfoll . . . ja, ja," she answered what one could decipher into "Jawohl!" and giggled. "Yes, yes ... we like learning, much learning. Kayl said we can come with you. He will fix up Commander."

  "He will fix me up, eh? That's what Karl said?"

  "Ja, ja," she nodded, "can we come?"

  "Of course you can come," Suoi answered on my behalf.

  Being outnumbered ten to one, I surrendered.

  "Voila!" Erich chuckled. "The battalion plus four."

  11. AMBUSHED

  We spent four magnificent days in the stockade, sleeping in soft beds; eating cooked meals consisting of meat, vegetables, and salads; sitting at tables, drinking wine, playing cards; reading, relaxing. Then a wireless message arrived marked "Urgent!"

  "Commence with plan TRANSIT in the areas 502 and 511. Intelligence reports massive terrorist supplies moving south to reinforce Viet Minh units in the Delta zone. Advance on point 1123 and interrupt enemy convoys and troops. Send detailed situation report."

  Advance on point 1123—Muong Son, a Communist stronghold. Our short "holiday" was over.

  I had my misgivings about such detailed wireless dispatches whether they were coded or not. I had often requested a change of code but all in vain. In the German Army we had changed field codes every other day. The Foreign Legion used the same keys for months in a row. Recent events made me suspect that the "ears" of the Viet Minh were wide open both in Hanoi and in the provinces. Besides, we had discovered quite a few Chinese radio listening posts in the frontier areas and Eisner swore that some of them were manned by Russian signal experts. I would not have been surprised if the enemy had known the key to our code.

  While in the stockade, we learned that the guerrillas had begun the attack there only two days after the magazines of the fort had been replenished with supplies and only after the departure of the tanks and copters that had escorted the incoming convoy. Moreover, the attack came when our battalion was on its way toward an alleged Viet Minh trail in Laos and was bypassing the stockade—which was within easy marching distance. The prompt terrorist attack on the garrison had diverted us from the trail and the suspected enemy supplies moving south. Had the guerrillas attacked a day later, we would not have turned back toward the stockade but would have moved on to disrupt the enemy convoys deeper inland.

  Was it only a coincidence or the result of deliberate and clever planning? Was there something very important moving south which the enemy wanted to preserve by providing a diversion for us? Had some of their spies been very active in Hanoi? Had they managed to break the army code? Three days later I received my answer to that question.

  We were camped out on a barren ridge, waiting for dawn, when suddenly we came under intense enemy fire which persisted for over an hour. Shouting savagely, several hundred guerrillas emerged from the forest below. Still firing furiously, those on the flanks streamed across the entire width of the hill and began to ascend. Silhouetted against the moonlit rocks, they came charging up the rugged slope. There were too many boulders to shelter behind. The machine guns could not stop them. The enemy advanced, hopping from boulder to boulder, gaining ground rapidly. The night roared with machine gun clatter and the explosion of grenades; shrieks, yells, and curses rose from below, echoing among the rocks.

  "Hell, Hans!" Schulze yelled, as he knelt against a boulder, sweeping the slope with his submachine gun, "there is a whole bloody brigade of them!"

  "It isn't so bad as that, Erich, keep firing!" I shouted back. I glanced at Suio and the nurses, who were sheltered behind a large stone; they appeared more fascinated than scared.

  "Take them higher up!" I called to Schulze and pointed at a cluster of boulders twenty feet above us. Erich nodded and sprang to the girls. "Up there!" he commanded briskly. "Lay low." He helped them climb into a small natural opening and dumped three submachine guns after them. "If they come as far as here, then shoot!" The next instant he was back firing savagely into the oncoming crowd.

  Before the enemy troops were halfway up the hill I could see that we were heavily outnumbered, but I did not consider our situation too difficult; we had the advantage of being better trained, better equipped, and we also held the superior position. The Viet Minh had missed a better chance: They should have attacked us when we were still coming uphill.

  The ridge where we deployed was a sort of natural fort formed by large jagged boulders, but it was circular and could be attacked from every side. As we lay prone on the slabs, the enemy proceeded to do exactly what I anticipated—make a concentric assault. With some pessimism, Schulze could have yelled "a division" instead of only a brigade, there were so many of them coming at us.

  Traversing the machine guns slowly from side to side, the gunners managed to slow down the enemy but still they advanced, hopping from stone to stone. My men were preparing a defense perimeter with Sergeant Krebitz, Schenk, Corporal Altreiter, and even Kurt Zeisl, our medical officer, shouting orders, running from position to position to bolster the men. We were compressed in a limited area, maybe two hundred yards across, and I could but thank our good fortune that the guerrillas were not carrying mortars.

  On each side bullets dealt death. The foremost terrorists fell but others came hurtling on, regardless of losses, in what was obviously a human wave assault. Their advance platoons established themselves barely fifty yards below the ridge, where a depression offered them shelter. I had no doubt that the enemy had known where to look for us and thought we could be trapped and finished off on the coverless ridge. It could not have been just another "coincidence"; rather it was a planned and timely delivered action.

  The moon suddenly vanished behind a passing cloud and the short period of darkness was greeted by vicious shrieks and yells in the terrorist ranks. Under the cover of darkness the enemy surged forward. We could do little to stop them.

  "A la baionnette!" Eisner commanded. "Fix bayonets!" Corporal Altreiter and Sergeant Schenk passed the word. The firing stopped abruptly, giving way to a multitude of sharp, metallic clicks as the bayonets were snapped onto the gun muzzles.

  "Xung! Phong!" came the Viet Minh battle cry. "Forward! Kill!"

  The leading terrorists were but a dozen yards from us, coming on strong. Howling madly and no longer seeking shelter, they charged. Many of them fell, slithering down the slope dead or wounded. Even so, our last volley could not stop the tide. Only then did I notice Chinese militiamen among the Viet Minh—over a hundred miles inside French Indochina. Nevertheless for Paris, Peking was "neutral," nonbelligerent; we could not even submit a proper report on our raids into China to be forwarded to Paris. It was against the rules to have been there in the first place.

  Indeed the Chinese were nonbelligerent—only bellicose.

  "Loose fire! Aim at their guts!" I shouted, bracing myself for the coming melee. More and more of the enemy lurched, spun about, and collapsed, thrashing in agony, but at least a hundred of them reached the plateau, each carrying a rifle
or a cutlass.

  "Keep shooting!" Schulze yelled. Discarding the empty submachine gun, I drew my automatic and raced up to Riedl, who was already fighting three guerrillas in a desperate hand-to-hand combat. I shot the nearest one through the chest and turned toward the second man, who rushed at me with a broad-bladed cutlass. The terrorist had a submachine gun flung about his chest. Its magazine must have been empty and in the turmoil no one had time to reload. The determination of my adversary was incredible. He saw me lifting my pistol but only howled and kept coming at me. One bullet hit him in the face, the second slug tore out his throat. He stopped, staggered a few steps, and went down.

  "Here, Hans!" I heard a yell. A Chinese rifle with Russian bayonet materialized in front of my face. I grabbed the weapon, barely noticing that Sergeant Krebitz handed it to me. "It's loaded!" Krebitz raced off to Gruppe Drei on the far side of the plateau. I saw him duck the thrust of a militiaman; an instant later he grabbed his adversary by the chest, kicked him in the groin, and as the terrorist doubled up in pain, Krebitz clubbed him with his rifle butt.

  The guerrillas were all around us. They came yelling, howling, brandishing bayonets, spears, and even knives. Shooting became very sporadic. Both sides had fired all their bullets and no one had time to change magazines. It was a day of the bayonets.

  Firing the Chinese rifle, I managed to drop four of the closest terrorists, then bayoneted two more as they came over the ledge. Some of my own men were going down; others sprawled among the stones—shot, stabbed, or cut open.

  "Watch out for Riedl!" Erich cried, hitting and slicing a guerrilla. Wheeling around I saw a couple of militiamen ready to swamp Helmut. The same instant I felt a searing pain in my head and for a moment my world jarred; but my eyes remained open, I could still see and move my limbs and I was still erect. I did not pay any more attention to it. Rushing on, I managed to drop two of the Chinese but emptied my rifle in the process. The third militiaman leaped at Helmut. He, too, must have spent his bullets, for he raised his rifle club-like.