The Cham diaspora families remained in Bangkok. Joy and the four children moved into a bungalow with the families and pets of two other case officers. For transportation they relied on buses, tricycle samlors, or sampans. The children played along the klongs, ate Thai satay from passing carts, rode elephants, and attended the International School. Joy went to work for the Bangkok World and, like the other wives and their families, waited for visits from across the border in Cham.
Luang Prabat, 1960–1961
What if I fail of my purpose here?
It is but to keep the nerves at strain,
To dry one’s eyes and laugh at a fall,
And, baffled, get up and begin again.
—ROBERT BROWNING, “The Life of a Love”
A rusted-out Dakota C-47 lay alongside the runway of the Luang Prabat airport, a reminder of the downdrafts and crosswinds that made landing in the royal capital a precarious venture. The terminal smelled of cooking oil from the charcoal braziers of would-be passengers waiting, sometimes for days, for the next flight out.
As a royal capital, Luang Prabat was scenic but without pretensions. The gabled-roofed hotel, with its fin de siècle lobby and high-ceilinged rooms, recaptured Luang Prabat’s colonial past. Aging Citroens and Deux-Chevaux were parked dutifully on the side of the boulevard dictated by the jours pairs (even-numbered days) or jours impairs (odd-numbered day) signs, more reminders of the colonial era.
Tribesmen and Cham wandered around the marketplace and along the river that ran beside the capital. In the evening Luang Prabat’s civil bureaucrats and Cham army officers gathered at the Cercle Sportif to bavarder (chat) and watch tennis matches between the province chief and the king’s chamberlain.
Luang Prabat’s main and only boulevard led from the town’s center down to the royal palace. There an arch of frangipani framed the entrance to the outer garden, while inside the palace in the main anteroom, the late King Rama Sipavong sat embalmed in a large glass jar, his body kept erect by the golden spike driven down through the former king’s spinal column. The king would remain seated erectly in the funeral jar until the perfect sandalwood tree had been found for his sarcophagus.
The Cercle Sportif at Luang Prabat.
The current king, Vang Sathana, was not too well-known, unlike the capital’s other famous resident, the “Blind Bonze.” The aging monk was highly revered, prophesying from his tottering pagoda on a hill outside the city. Following the fall of Dien Bien Phu in 1954, the victorious Vietminh army had marched into Cham, moving toward Luang Prabat. The population panicked and most of the resident Cham were about to flee the capital when they heard a pronouncement from the Blind Bonze. He prophesied that the Vietminh would not enter the royal capital, and as predicted, the column of Vietminh bivouacked outside its gates. Three days later the Vietminh turned around and marched back to Vietnam.
With the help of General Ouane, the former CUBS president who remained in Luang Prabat after the Kong Le coup, I was able to rent a small bungalow for our base. Lucky rigged an antenna on a shed in the back and set up his radio. I sent the first message, advising Headquarters and Viensiang that the Luang Prabat Base was open and operational.
The pace in the royal capital was slower than in Viensiang. Ex-French colonials and Cham sat around the bar in the Palace Hotel, nursing licorice pastises and playing the dice game vingt-et-un,“21.”
In the late afternoon, the mayor, province chief, military commander, and town notables gathered at the Cercle Sportif to play bocce (petanque), watch tennis matches, and gossip (bavarder).
Le Cercle was an ideal recruiting ground. General Ouane introduced me to most of the regulars, and I was soon able to develop a network of informants, including the mayor, the military commander, and the king’s tailor. The intelligence I gleaned from these informants, after sifting out gossip and hearsay, kept the Base fairly well informed on the situation in Luang Prabat and the surrounding areas.
The Pi
And in the air … there fly Things, Beings, Creatures, never seen by us but very potent in their wandering world.
—A. S. BYATT, Possession
I wasn’t the only American in Luang Prabat. Frank Corrigan was the U.S. Information Service (USIS) representative, Dallas Voran directed the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) program, and Colonel Oliver Nelson and his “sheep-dipped” (undeclared) Special Forces team, ran the military assistance program. The ambassador referred to us as his “mini-Country Team” in the North.
“Operation Genie” was the brainchild of Corrigan. Although USIS was prohibited from engaging in covert activities, Frank wasn’t bothered by bureaucratic constraints and liked to skirt these by playing spy. Operation Genie centered around the “Pi,” the mystical spirits revered and feared by the Cham. The Pi were invisible but were believed to be omnipresent in clouds, rain, forests, and the breezes wafting over the rice paddies.
The author in Cham.
Frank’s plan called for collecting all the bottles we could find in Luang Prabat. We would then stuff them with leaflets before airdropping them over villages known to be under Pathet Cham control. On the way down, the bottles would sound like the Pi making a whistling noise. They would break open and scatter the leaflets when they hit the ground, illustrated leaflets urging the villagers to “break” from the Pathet Cham like the “imprisoned” Pi had done.
The proprietor of the Palace Hotel supplied us with all the bottles we needed. Since most Cham couldn’t read, Frank drew caricatures of fang-toothed Pathet Cham, and Voran ran off the leaflets on his mimeograph machine. I requested a small plane from Viensiang to drop the leaflets.
When the plane arrived, we briefed the pilot, and at dusk, when the villagers would have returned from the rice fields, we took off. Once over a target village, the pilot would throttle back the engine and the plane would glide almost silently as we threw out the bottles. He would then gun the engine and fly on to the next village to repeat the operation.
We dropped bottles over twelve villages before returning to Luang Prabat. It was dark when we returned, but Colonel Nelson’s team had set out flares on the airstrip to guide the pilot. We had jettisoned our entire supply of Pi bottles.
“Genie” was a one-shot operation, and its success was hard to gauge. We did get some feedback, however. An itinerant rice merchant told the province chief he had been stopped by a Pathet Cham patrol, which warned him that American planes were dropping poison gas in the area. Another source reported that a village chief had called for a goat sacrifice to appease the wounded Pi that had crashed through his roof.
Corrigan’s enthusiasm for unorthodox operations like the Pi finally got him killed. He knew he couldn’t keep calling on the Base for planes for his airdrops, so he chartered the only private plane in the area for a special leaflet drop. The plane was an aging Cessna, and the pilot had a history of bouts of delirium tremens. The plane crashed into a mountain north of Luang Prabat during the leaflet drop, and when we pulled Frank’s body from the plane, he was still clutching a wad of leaflets.
To recruit and train paramilitary teams, I borrowed Colonel Nelson’s interpreter, a native of the area with good Cham and montagnard contacts. Within six months, Luang Prabat Base had ten teams trained, armed, and ready.
Coordinating with the regional military commander, the teams operated primarily in the insecure districts east of Luang Prabat. A month after the teams had begun operating, reports came in that the teams were having some success in a district formerly controlled by the Pathet Cham despite harassment by the Pathet Cham. The teams had dug wells, set up dispensaries, and organized hamlet militia for village defense.
Reports from isolated areas tend to be exaggerated, and before reporting on the teams’ successes, I decided to go to Muong La for an on-the-ground assessment of their effectiveness. Colonel Nelson volunteered to provide an army helicopter to fly us to the area where the teams were operating. The chopper dropped us off at Muong La, where we were met
by the district chief. He had arranged for us to visit the hamlets where our teams were operating and, “for security reasons,” to provide an escort to return at night to stay at his house in the district capital.
Nelson and I made the rounds of the hamlets, observing the teams digging wells, fixing roofs, and training militia. The villagers got along well with the teams but seemed uneasy about the presence of the two foreigners. When I mentioned this to the district chief, he replied that the villagers were afraid of Pathet Cham reprisals even though our teams might try to protect them. Late during the second night in Muong La, we were awakened by the thud of mortar rounds landing not far from the district chief’s house. One of our team leaders rushed in and said we had to leave.
After a quick farewell to the district chief, we followed the team leader across the stream in the rear of the village, then into the forest. We spent the next two days hiking along jungle trails, giving wide berth to hamlets where our teams had been operating. We maintained radio silence, because Nelson’s walkie-talkie could give away our location. At night we slept in groves of bamboo or in fields of rice sheaves, until on the third day we came out on a road that led to Luang Prabat.
When I arrived back at the base, Lucky greeted me casually as if I had just returned from a trip to town. I told him I was surprised he wasn’t concerned about his base chief having been absent for three days. He said somewhat curtly he had assumed I had been “holed up somewhere with Colonel Nelson,” and furthermore had not alerted Viensiang or Headquarters that I was missing, because I hadn’t requested authorization to leave Luang Prabat.
It was one of many times that Lucky would cover for his base chief, and I thanked him for not sounding the alarm.
The Eclipse
Beyond the moon,
La lune ne garde aucune rancune.
—T. S. ELIOT
Doctor Henri, a French doctor, whom I had gotten to know fairly well, had come by the Base one evening to visit. The doctor had been in Luang Prabat for over twenty years, having stayed on after the French pulled out of Indochina. Dr. Henri was a fount of information on Luang Prabat personalities, most of whom he had treated at one time or another, and on local lore.
I had gone to fix him a drink when several explosions, not too far away, shook the bungalow. When I rushed outside, I saw tracers streaking across the sky accompanied by the sound of machine-gun and artillery fire ricocheting through the mountains. The increasing crescendo of firing reminded me of the “mad minute” demonstrations at Fort Benning, and I was convinced Luang Prabat was under attack.
I started to rush out to the radio shack when I felt the doctor grabbing my arm to restrain me. Pointing up at the sky, he said, “Calme toi, mon ami! La grenouille est en train de manger la lune! Magnifique, n’est-ce pas? Calm down. The frog is eating the moon. Magnificent, isn’t it?”
Dr. Henri then explained that when an eclipse occurs and the moon blacks out, the Cham believe that the black shadow is that of a giant frog trying to eat the moon. The Cham fire at the moon to frighten the frog away, to keep it from devouring their moon. Once the eclipse is over and the moon reappears, it means the frog has been driven away, and then they start firing all over again to celebrate!
I looked up at the moon. The doctor was right. The shadow did resemble a frog.
I was still staring up at the moon when Colonel Nelson roared up in his jeep, jumped out, and asked if I knew what the firing was all about. When I explained, he burst out laughing. “I wonder how my logistics officer is going to explain to the Pentagon about a year’s supply of ammunition having been expended to frighten off a frog!”
The Recoilless Rifle
Unhappy is the land that has no heroes.
—BERTHOLD BRECHT, Life of Galileo
Three Cham army outposts in the First Military Region had been overrun. The defenders, offering little resistance, had melted into the jungle at the thump of the first mortar round. Esprit de corps was sadly lacking in the recently nicknamed “Frightened First” Region. Morale was low. There was little will to fight.
Something, or someone, was needed to revive the Cham army’s flagging spirit.
It was General Ouane’s idea for me to go to Nam Bac. Captain Sang, commander of the outpost at Nam Bac, had been asking for reinforcements for his undermanned garrison. Since the First Region had no reinforcements available, Ouane asked me to go to Nam Bac and offer Sang some of our “special teams.”
I told Ouane the special teams had not been trained to defend military outposts. They were mobile and only lightly armed, and their mission was psychological warfare and civic action, not static defense. If the teams were attacked, they had been trained to disengage and melt into the jungle.
Ouane brushed aside my protests. He said the teams could be used to carry out reconnaissance missions, to set up early warning networks, and to train village militia, adding that their presence alone would boost the morale of the understrength garrison. Turning on his best betel-nut smile, Ouane told me he had already advised the commander at Nam Bac I was coming.
Nam Bac
The youth felt a flash of astonishment at the blue, pure sky and the sun gleamings… . It was surprising that Nature had gone tranquilly on with her golden process in the midst of devilment.
—STEPHEN CRANE, The Red Badge of Courage
The helio landed on the dirt airstrip and taxied to the end. A windsock flapped listlessly alongside a corrugated iron shack. Several fifty-gallon fuel drums, probably empty, stood next to the shack. The airstrip was deserted, and there was no sign of Captain Sang. Johnson, the helio pilot, was uneasy. He recommended we go back to Luang Prabat, but I told him the captain who was supposed to meet me was probably out in one of the nearby hamlets and, having seen the plane circling, would come down to meet me. I told Johnson to take off, reminding him to come back the following afternoon to pick me up. Johnson shrugged his shoulders and didn’t try to argue. Once I was out of the helio, he spun the plane around and took off, leaving me standing in the prop wash.
I watched the helio as it headed back to Luang Prabat and wondered if I had made the right decision. The only sign of life was an emaciated cat, half-heartedly chasing a gecko that had darted out from behind one of the oil drums. I looked up the road that wound up the hill to the fort on top. Shimmering in the sun, it reminded me of a French Foreign Legion outpost in Beau Geste. I was transfixed, conjuring up ghosts of French legionnaires striding the ramparts in their white kepis, and I almost didn’t hear Captain Sang drive up in his jeep. Sang jumped out and apologized for not having been at the airstrip to meet me. As I thought, he had been out in one of the villages when he heard the plane fly over the fort.
Captain Sang was about my height, large boned and stocky. He had a mahogany complexion and, thinking back to the sun-baked fort, I was surprised his face wasn’t more lined and weather-beaten. We climbed in his jeep and drove up to the fort. As we approached, a sentry called out, and the heavy gates swung open. Inside the fort, fifty poilus in sun-bleached khakis snapped to attention and brought their bolt-action rifles to port arms. Behind them, on a raised wooden platform, sat two World War I machine guns and a 60-mm mortar, anachronisms in a time-warped outpost.
When we had finished inspecting his garrison, Sang led me over to his quarters, a room with a wooden table, two chairs, a bed, and a folding cot in the corner for his guest. Sang spread a map out on the table. He pointed to Nam Bac, which was at the end of the road from Luang Prabat, ninety kilometers to the east. Sang said Nam Bac was a rich rice-growing area, which made it a tempting target for the Pathet Cham. He suggested we climb onto the ramparts to get a better view of the area.
We climbed a ladder, its rungs worn smooth over the years by soles of French and Cham sentinels mounting to man their posts. Then we walked over to the northern rampart, which provided the best view of the town. Huts and kiosks lined the bank of the river that wound slowly through the town, then picked up speed to turn the rice-grinding wate
rwheels further down. The south rampart backed up to the forest, its trees almost touching the fort. It looked as if an enemy force would have no difficulty approaching the south side of the fort without being detected.
From the west rampart I could see jitneys and Citroen trucks being loaded with rice and charcoal for Luang Prabat and villages along the way. When the dry season ended, the road would become almost impassable, making it difficult if not impossible for transporting supplies, or the reinforcements, which would not be coming.
After climbing down from the ramparts, we got into Sang’s jeep and drove out of the fort to make the rounds of nearby villages. The captain said he wanted to show me the area and he could also check on units of hamlet militia. Sang drove without an escort, because most of the people in the area were related to soldiers in the fort. He had recently noticed, however, that they no longer invited him into their homes, which he attributed to fear of retaliation from the Pathet Cham, whose patrols had recently been spotted in the forests nearby.
I could see what he meant when we approached one of the hamlets. The villagers were working in the rice paddies, and when they saw Sang’s jeep approaching, the hamlet militia ran to retrieve their rifles, which they had hidden under sheaves of rice. When Sang lined up the militia to give them a pep talk, they were obviously nervous and kept looking over their shoulders. When we left, I saw the militia running back again to hide their rifles in case the Pathet Cham came by.
I asked Sang about the reports of Pathet Cham troops moving into the area, whether they were reliable or merely rumors. The Pathet Cham often used scare tactics, exaggerating the size of their forces before launching an attack. These tactics had been so effective that a number of garrisons had surrendered without a shot being fired.
Sang insisted the threat to Nam Bac was real. His reconnaissance patrols had spotted Pathet Cham units in the forests, and he believed it was only a matter of time before they attacked the fort itself.
It was almost dark when we got back to the fort. Sang lit a fire, and after a supper of rice and chicken soup, we pulled our chairs over to the fireplace. I decided to bring up the special teams before Sang asked. I told Sang that I had been reluctant to come to Nam Bac, because in spite of what General Ouane might have told him, our teams would be of little use in defending his outpost. Furthermore, if an attack on the fort was as imminent as he thought, our teams would not be able to get to Nam Bac in time. I added that I had reminded General Ouane that these special teams were small, mobile, and only lightly armed and would be little use defending an isolated outpost such as Sang’s. I apologized for being so blunt, but I didn’t want Sang to think I had come under false colors. The only reason I had come was because Ouane had insisted.
Laughter in the Shadows Page 11