"We have no French prisoners," came the defiant reply.
"You are a liar!" Xuey cut in, stepping closer. "I saw their footprints."
"You are a filthy traitor," the propagandist hissed and spat toward Xuey. "We will get you one day, you colonialist puppet—Gia Xuey. ... We know you well."
"Indeed?" Eisner stepped in front of the prisoner, drew his bayonet and held it against the man's belly. "Do you happen to know me as well?"
"We know you all and we will get you, too, one day."
"You will get us, too, eh? Whom have you already gotten?"
He paused for a moment, then repeated his question in a low, menacing tone, "Where are the French prisoners?"
Silence and a defiant, sardonic smile were all he got as an answer. With a sudden, powerful thrust, Bernard plunged the blade home. .The propagandist uttered a bubbling moan, his mouth opened, and his face contorted in pain; with a low, animal grunt he sagged toward Eisner. Bernard pulled his bayonet free and let the man drop.
"I am not a man of jokes," he sneered at the dying terrorist. Stepping up to the party secretary he repeated his question.
"You may kill us all, you Fascist dogs," the guerrilla breathed with hatred oozing from his lips. "Kill us all, and you may also forget about your Legionnaires for you will never find them." He uttered a short, hysterical snort. "They will rot away alive!"
"That's what you think, cher ami," Bernard grinned. "But you are going to tell us where they are. We will find them all right." He lifted the still dripping bayonet.
The party secretary paled but gathered himself and cried, "Go ahead and stab me, too!" But Eisner only smiled at him with narrowed eyes. He wiped the blade on the prisoner's pajama and sheathed it.
"Your death is not going to be so easy," he said quietly. "When I am through with you, you will be praying for death to come." He turned to the guards. "Strip the swine!"
"Schenk!"
"Jawohl!"
"Take him over there, behind those logs," Bernard pointed to a place some fifty yards from where we stood, "and the others too. . . . Sergeant Krebitz! Please get me a roll of fuse and a couple of primers."
Moments later the naked district secretary lay prostrate on the ground, spread-eagled between four short ! pegs driven into the ground. His companions were lined ; up facing their leader. j
"Erich," I gestured to Schulze and nodded toward the j huts, where Suoi and Chi had appeared carrying a few j small boxes. "Take the girls for a ride!" •
When we wanted to keep the girls away from some unpleasant spectacle, some of us would take them for a ! "ride," usually an "assignment" to do an "important job" j elsewhere. Schulze hurried off to meet the two. Taking the girls by the shoulders and talking rapidly, he ushered 1 them towards the far side of the camp. |
Krebitz returned with the detonators and a roll of fuse. Eisner cut a length of fuse and began to coil it about the prisoner's body. "This is one of Karl Stahnke's ideas which the Gestapo adopted," he explained. "Stahnke swore that it would open the mouth of a stone statue."
He coiled the fuse about the district secretary's leg, his trunk and chest, talking all the while, "So, tovarich . . . you are a cool one, eh? This should warm you up a bit." He ran the fuse down the man's hip, attached the detonator and slipped the charge under the prisoner's scrotum. "It won't kill you but you had better talk now, cher ami. By the time the primer blows your balls off, you will have turned into a pink zebra, you hero of Ho Chi Minh." He lit a cigarette and looked down on the prisoner. "I am asking you once more, where are the French prisoners?"
The guerrilla spat in Eisner's face. Eisner wiped his cheek with his kerchief and lighted the fuse.
The moment the white-hot fire touched the guerrilla's skin he heaved violently and began to scream in agony. He twisted and arched to escape the searing heat. The fire slowly ate along his leg, leaving a burned, bleeding path of raw flesh in its wake. Seconds later the man's body was bathed in sweat. Krebitz gagged him to muffle his cries.
Eisner turned toward the rest of the party leaders, some of whom already looked more dead than alive. "How do you like it, comrades? The next client will have a real nice slow-burning fuse."
With a persistent low hiss the fire circled the prisoner's chest, burning an inch-wide blistering trail as it advanced; the wretch had almost severed his wrists as he twisted against the restraining rope.
"Speak!" Eisner urged him, snatching the rag from the prisoner's mouth. "In a minute you will turn into a eunuch, cher ami. What will your wife or girl friend say?"
"You will ... all hang . . . you Fascist brigands . . . you . . ." the district secretary gurgled. "Father Ho will . . . avenge . . . us." His eyes rolled up, then slowly closed. He blacked out.
"Put the fuse out!" Riedl stepped forward. "You can't make an unconscious man talk."
"I knew that he was not going to talk," Bernard replied, nodding toward the others. "But they will!"
"Bernard . . . you are a bloody sadist. Put that fuse out."
"Go and join the girls if you cannot stomach it, Helmut."
Without a word, Riedl turned, shouldered his rifle, and left. The fire reached the prisoner's thigh, then the primer exploded with a short, sharp crack. The man's body heaved as a spurt of blood splashed across his thighs, then he fell back and lay still. Eisner pulled his automatic and coolly put a bullet between the district secretary's eyes.
"Riedl is wrong," he remarked, bolstering his gun. "I don't enjoy doing this. Remember our twelve comrades in Suoi's village. I am only giving them tit for tat. Strip the next one!" he commanded the troopers.
Before the fuse began to turn he was told what he wanted to know.
Sergeant Schenk cut the prisoner free and pulled him to his feet. The man was shaking in every limb. "I have a family to support," he muttered almost sobbing, "wife and children . . . five children."
"You still have your balls, so don't complain," Eisner snapped. "Show us the way to the French prisoners and I will let you go home."
"You lie!" the guerrilla cried; the next instant he was staggering backward under the impact of Eisner's backhand blow. Bernard stepped forward and grabbed the man by his shirt.
"Never call a German officer a liar, cher ami," he sneered with his eyes narrowed and boring into the guerrilla's face. "We always keep our part of a bargain." He pushed the man toward the woods. "Forward! Allez vitel"
The prisoner led us to a small but well-concealed camp about two miles from the main base. It consisted of only five huts which contained rice, but a nearby spacious natural cave secreted five hundred cases of rifle ammo, seventeen machine guns, and fifty-two satchels of grenades. Not far from the huts the prisoner showed us the entrance of a tunnel. When Karl threw open the bolted lid a repugnant smell of human filth rose from below.
Hairy, haggard faces appeared in the opening, staring into the sudden brightness; thin, skeleton arms and hands tried to shield a dozen hollow eyes.
"Nous sommes le bataillon allemand," Sergeant Schenk shouted, bending down to grasp a pair of hands. "Ascendez-vous!"
"Come up! You are free!"
An instant of frozen silence followed, then someone groaned, "Mon Dieu, c'est la Legion. . . ." The dark hole exploded. Now everybody began to scream, holler, demand, and plead. Hands shot upward, filling the opening, grasping for help. We pulled them out, one after another, lowering them gently to the ground.
"Goddamit!" Karl swore. "Look at them! Look at the poor bastards... . They would have died here like rats."
The troops hauled up twenty-eight prisoners, among them a lieutenant and an Arab sergeant, both in pitiful shape. Most of the prisoners were suffering from festering sores and untreated wounds. I sent word to Sergeant Zeisl to get ready with warm water, antibiotics, ointments and bandages.
Cigarettes, water, something to chew, something to drink—the poor devils demanded everything at once, trying to hug us and shake our hands at the same time. We distributed all the cigarettes w
e had with us, our canteens, our biscuits. Some of the Legionnaires began to sob openly. Others laughed or joked, still others just sank to the ground overwhelmed with relief.
"Pull yourselves together," the lieutenant urged them. They slowly rose and we carried or helped them back into the main camp.
"Marceau is my name," the lieutenant shook my hand. "Jean Marceau."
"From the Regiment Amphibie?" I asked.
He uttered a short laugh. "Rather Regiment Sous-terrain. ... I am glad to see you."
"How long have you been here?"
"For seven months, cher ami," he replied. "Are you the famous one-time SS officer Wagemueller?"
"I do not know whether I am famous or not, but I am an officer of the French Foreign Legion, Lieutenant Marceau; that I do know."
"No offense meant."
"No offense taken. ... I also know that we haven't settled our bill yet."
"The SS shot my brother in Rouen," Marceau remarked quietly.
"I wasn't the one who did it, Marceau. I haven't been in France."
"I believe you, but it is hard not to remember."
"Now the SS saved your life. Strange, isn't it?"
"Times change." He extended his hand again. "Thank you all the same."
We set the Legionnaires up in guerrilla sleeping quarters. Sergeant Schenk and the girls made them as comfortable as possible. The sudden appearance of Suoi and the nurses startled the men and occasioned a small outburst. Clapping and whistling and muttering complimentary remarks, they forgot about their sores and aches.
Sergeant Zeisl and the nurses quickly attended the seriously ill ones. "They won't be able to march for weeks," Zeisl stated after a while. "We had better call in the copters."
'The copters will bring the Viet Minh here from miles around," Karl said.
"If they aren't on the way already," Eisner agreed. "I have been thinking of those huts and the prisoners' bunker. Some guerrillas ought to have been there to stand guard."
"Bien sur!" Lieutenant Marceau cut in. "We could hear them chattering only minutes before you arrived."
"They have gone off to warn the others. We had better get busy here, Hans," said Erich. "I'm going to set up a perimeter right away."
"Do that, Erich. Take four platoons with MG's."
I turned to Karl. "You should deploy along the ravine to cover the trail with flamethrowers."
"I have only four tanks left, Hans."
"Then take more machine guns."
Karl and Erich left and I walked to Corporal Altreiter, who had just set up the wireless aerials. "Report to HQ ... I request the immediate dispatch of helicopters to evacuate twenty-eight wounded Legionnaires liberated from Viet Minh captivity. Eisner will give you the coordinates. Tell HQ that we will guide the copters by straight signals transmitted at one-minute intervals on the usual frequency."
"Say, Hans," Riedl cut in, "how about asking for some supplies. Flamethrower tanks, for instance."
"And booze," Krebitz added, shaking his empty canteen. "We could also use some more tracer ammo."
I turned to Riedl. "Draw up a quick list for Altreiter but make it a short one. Otherwise the copters will never get here. Sergeant Krebitz! Begin with the demolition."
"Don't demolish your prisoners," Lieutenant Marceau interposed. "I am looking forward to seeing the canaille. We still have scores to settle."
"Do you want to ... entertain them, Marceau?"
"You bet I do," said he. "Do you know what those bastards did to us? They forced us to eat shit . . . real shit, I mean. When I demanded more food for my men, the Viet Minh commander ordered us to chew their excrement. He thought it was funny."
"Don't say—"
"He said it was a great honor for us colonialist pigs to eat the shit of a Viet Minh hero."
"Well, that is a new one!" Eisner exclaimed. "I know a few original Red jokes but that beats them all."
"For us it wasn't so funny," the lieutenant retorted grimly. "Three of our men who refused to comply were dumped head first into the latrine and kept submerged until they choked to death. ... A very unpleasant way to die."
"Their commander is dead but you can have the rest of them. Have fun," I said.
"Fair enough," Marceau nodded. "I am looking forward to it."
After his sores had been dressed, I led him to the prisoners. Slowly, Marceau walked past the sullen group, recognizing some of them. "Comrade Nguyen Ho and Comrade Muong Ho," he said softly and turned toward me. "You still have a fairly good collection here. I would appreciate it if you could take them to where my men are resting, for soon the comrades are going to have their dinner, and no one would want to miss the show."
"A dinner similar to the one they gave you?"
"Oh, no." Marceau shook his head, allowing his eyes to travel from face to face. "We are much too civilized to feed men on shit."
We returned to the Legionnaires, some of whom were busy shaving and washing themselves. (Before our nurses appeared on the scene the suggestion of shaving and washing had been dismissed en masse with a loud "What the hell for" or "We'll do that in Hanoi.")
In the camp, the demolition work was already under way; thuds, cracks, small explosions could be heard everywhere as Sergeant Krebitz and Gruppe Drei proceeded to destroy guerrilla equipment. The crates of medical supplies had been carefully opened. Zeisl removed what we needed; the rest of the drugs were then intermixed, the containers resealed, and left in place as though we had entirely overlooked the small underground depot. The Viet Minh was always hard up for drugs and in most instances our undoubtedly mean but deadly ruse would liquidate a large number of terrorists by "delayed action," as Sergeant Krebitz put it. Malaria was always a problem for the Viet Minh and the terrorists readily consumed any drug bearing the label "quinine bisulphate." Entire Viet Minh battalions had been wiped out in this fashion. Sometimes, when we heard that a guerrilla detachment was hard up for food, we permitted a truckload of foodstuffs to fall into their hands. The enemy carried away everything, unaware that we had mixed rat poison, containing strychnine, into the flour and the sugar.
Should one call our ruse "chemical warfare"? After all, twenty-nine of my men had died of wounds caused by poisoned Viet Minh arrows, spears, and stakes.
Lieutenant Marceau indeed arranged a "dinner" for the captive Viet Minh. He forced them to swallow their leaflets and printed propaganda manuals, page by page. When one of them stopped chewing, Marceau poked the man with a bayonet and occasionally topped the meal with a spoonful of printing paint, commenting, "Have some pudding too." Then tearing up and distributing the propaganda material, he shouted, "Chew, you canaille. ... It is surely better tasting than shit."
The "dinner" lasted for the better part of two hours. The apres-souper wine was machine oil. When a prisoner resisted, a narrow rubber hose was forced into his mouth and he would either swallow or choke to death. Soon the last of them collapsed. Others still writhed in the grass or were already dead, lying in pools of vomit, black paint oozing from their lips and nostrils.
But we did keep our part of the bargain: the guerrilla who had led us to the underground prison was set free. Eisner even gave him a large sack of foodstuffs with a grunt. "That's for your wife and children. Instead of roaming the countryside with a gun you should stick to the hoe and take care of your family." He gave the terrorist a kick, sending him head over heels toward the trail, then he called Schulze on the walkie-talkie: 'There's a pig heading your way. Let him pass."
Lieutenant Marceau was standing over the last dying terrorists. "Eh, bren," he said, dropping the container with the remaining paint. "They are black enough to join their fellow devils in hell."
"How about this show?" Eisner said when it was all over. "Only a few more Communist brutalities and we are going to celebrate the birth of the first French SS division in Indochina—composed entirely of grudging democrats." He chuckled. "They might call it AB or BC but it is going to be SS from A to Zed." He extended his arm in a mocking Nazi
salute. "Vive la France! Sieg Heil!"
"Merde!" Lieutenant Marceau commented. "One does not have to be an SS man to slaughter these pigs. They aren't human."
"You are right! They aren't human. That is precisely what we have been saying for five years."
Early in the afternoon the copters emerged from behind the hills. Pfirstenhammer fired Very lights to guide them. There was no place to land and the copters had to keep hovering above the trees. The crew lowered the supplies for us, along with a bundle of letters, then hauled the Legionnaires aboard. I received a long letter from Lin Carver. In the envelope I found a color picture of her with a small poodle. She still addressed me "My dear Hans" and complained that I wrote so seldom. . . .
Dear little Lin, I thought, wondering if I would ever see her again. Sitting on an ammo case, I wrote her a quick note, promising a long letter when we returned to Hanoi.
It was very nice to receive a letter in the middle of nowhere. Colonel Houssong had arranged for our mail to be taken aboard. I asked the lieutenant to mail the letter for me.
"I certainly wish I could stay with you," Marceau said when we shook hands. "You are still giving Ho Chi Minh his money's worth—a heartening thought. . . . You know, in a way you have convinced me that France could still win this bloody war."
"Not with a million Red deputies sitting in your parliament, Lieutenant Marceau," I replied jokingly. "Sooner or later they are going to bust the Republique."
"Not if they push the army too far in the process," he remarked gloomily. "We might give up our colonies but we are not going to give up metropolitan France, cher ami. ... By God we won't. It would be better to die than to see the savages ruling France." He reached for the rope ladder. "Give them hell, they deserve it...."
"Ciao!"
"A bientdt."
The copters clattered away and we were alone. "Now let's get out of here," Riedl said, lifting his rucksack and rifle. "The Reds must have spotted those copters from miles around."
I was about to order assembly when ! saw Karl emerging from the woods down the trail. "Hans!" he called and gestured toward me with his gun. "Would you come over here for a moment?"
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