by Eric Meyer
I knew I’d been stupid not checking before I parted with the money. Looked at Hong. “How much?”
We settled on a hundred dollars, and while we pumped the tires, he went away and returned with two jerry cans full of gas. We topped off both tanks, fastened the half empty cans to the carriers astride the rear wheel of each bike, and he went through the process of starting the second. It took us ten minutes, and we had to resort to push starting it, but the engine ran, and I surmised we stood some chance of making it to Dong Ha, a journey of around two hundred klicks. It was past midday, and we had a few hours of daylight left, so I suggested we make a start. The old man proved he wasn’t completely without heart, and he produced two metal pannikins of the rice stew we’d eaten earlier, along with four military canteens each filled with water.
He pointed us in the right direction, and it wasn’t too difficult. A single track led downhill, and the plan was to keep heading east until we reached the main coastal highway, then turn north for Dong Ha. With luck, we should do it in two days, bearing in mind the state of the highways, or rather the absence of highways in South Vietnam. The President’s visit was due in five days, so we’d have time to spare. I went to say goodbye to Barnes, but he appeared to have found his second wind, and once again the hut echoed to the groans and cries of delight. I left him to it, and I didn’t feel the least bit jealous. Well, not that much. Really.
They say Russian roads are a nightmare, many of them unsurfaced, wet mud in the rainy season, and more potholes than mud, and the motorcycles were designed to take punishment. Big, heavy, hard to control, but their sheer brute strength was reassuring, and we began the long, winding descent from the Central Highlands to cross the country and intersect the highway that led to Dong Ha. After that it would be easy going. Apart from the herds of water buffalo that frequently blocked the roads, military convoys, checkpoints, and Vietcong ambushes.
Ray was in front with Lam on the pillion and Le rode on the back of my motorcycle. At first the going wasn’t too bad. The track was dry, and provided we kept the speed down, we managed to avoid the worst of the ruts and potholes. Still, it was a nightmare steering the heavy machines over the rough ground, and we stopped after the first hour to restore some circulation to our aching muscles. The Urals were like driving two-wheeled tractors, cumbersome, heavy, and they had another nasty characteristic, maybe a present from the Soviet Union, a tendency to backfire without warning. The engine would falter, and if you missed it, you could be thrown over the handlebars as the bike bucked like a skittish mare.
“At least it isn’t raining,” Ray said, “After that rainstorm we hit coming down from the north, we could have run into more problems, but the sky is clear, not a cloud in sight. I reckon we’ll have a clear run all the way to the coast.”
“I hate to think what these tracks are like in the rainy season,” Le said, “You haven’t been in Vietnam long, have you?”
I could have told her the truth. I’d been in Vietnam much too long. I’d been thinking that the day after the aircraft that brought us in from the States landed at Tan Son Nhut, but sometimes the truth is best kept buttoned up. “No, but I’ve seen some rain.”
“It gets bad, very bad. Sometimes it is so heavy the roads and tracks become rivers, and travel is impossible.”
Ray pointed up at the sky. “Look up there. It reminds me of a vacation I had in Florida.”
We all looked up, and I recalled that Florida often got hit by freak storms and weather conditions, the occasional cyclone and hurricane. But this wasn’t Florida, we were in Vietnam, the sky was blue and cloudless, and we were going to make it.
We climbed back aboard the motorcycles, started up, and the engines ran smoothly as they ever had. We continued our journey, almost reaching the vast, flat area that extends across the rest of the country. I began to feel we were going to make it when dusk began to fall, and we stopped for the night. Driving through the night on these tracks and in this countryside was not something any sane man would contemplate.
With no blankets or ponchos, we had no choice but to lie on the ground, and I had a powerful dislike of the local wildlife, especially poisonous centipedes, snakes, and scorpions. Apart from that, the place was a real tourist paradise. Provided you didn’t step on a mine or poisonous punji stake, that is.
We were lucky the ground we lay on was hard packed earth, and for some reason the poisonous wildlife had decided to go elsewhere. We parked the motorcycles either side and slept in the space between them. Ray and I took turns on sentry, but there was no sign of the other kind of wildlife that infests South Vietnam, the Vietcong. The night was peaceful, and Ray woke me when the first rays of dawn were beginning to brighten the sky.
“It’s nearly light. We can get going.”
We ate the remainder of the food Hong had donated, washed it down with water, and I went to my Ural to start the engine. It roared into life on the first kick, and I grinned at the girls, who were watching. “That’s a good omen. It means we’re gonna have a good journey.”
They didn’t reply. They were looking up at the sky. Ray was looking up at the sky, and I looked up at the sky, which was now crowded with thick, dark clouds. A huge drop of rain splashed down over my forehead. Raindrops tend not to come in isolation, and this was no exception. A moment later, the clouds opened up like the bomb bays of a squadron of B-52s, and the rain fell so hard it was almost painful as it beat down on your exposed skin. Already rivulets of water were running down the track, and we had several klicks to travel before we reached flat ground.
“We’re not going to make it.”
I looked at Ray. “We have to. If we go now, we can make it while the track is still passable. It’ll be slow going, but the alternative is to wait, and we have no food and no shelter. Maybe we’ll find a village or a town with a bar where we can wait inside until the rain stops.”
Lam and Le swapped glances, and they looked at me. “What?”
“The rain could last for several days.”
“We don’t have several days.”
Le shrugged. “Then we won’t make it. The President will die.”
“If the President dies, so does Vietnam. The Communists take over.”
She grimaced. “Then we’d all better start reading Karl Marx and learning to sing the International.”
Chapter Seven
We kept going. Riding the motorcycles through the torrential rain, blinded by the downpour and constantly struggling with the handlebars to keep upright. We rode for an hour, and when we stopped for a break, I had a chance to have a good look at Le. Although her hair and face were soaking wet, some of the freshness had returned to her expression. When we got her out of the cell she looked like she’d take a long time to recover, but it was a testament to her inner strength. She looked that much stronger, and the previous day blood had leaked from her wounds on her face, but now the rain had washed it away. She looked tough and determined. Which was good, because with what we had in mind, we’d need toughness and determination in spades.
Keeping the motorcycles on the track was like wrestling with two giant squids. The handlebars wrenching at our arms, the wheels constantly skidding on wet mud, and several times they went sideways, and we fell into the mud. Each time we righted the machines and started again, but the journey was slow, much too slow. I estimated we were making less than ten miles an hour, and at times it was even slower. The rain beat down, and it was like riding through a waterfall. As the day warmed, mist rose from the wet ground, making visibility even more difficult.
By midday I was seriously considering taking a break. We weren’t getting far, and the chances were we’d have a serious spill and do fatal damage to the machines. That was when I spotted a village in the distance. Not the town I’d hoped for, just a collection of mean hooches at the side of the track, but we were so wet and miserable, the merest chance of shelter from the driving rain and maybe some hot food seemed like the most desirable thing on earth.
Ray looked back
and nearly lost control, but I nodded, and he pulled into the center of the tiny village. There was no one around, and up close it looked even more derelict than from a distance. I was still in the saddle, looking around and wondering why there was no one around. Maybe no one lived there. I know I wouldn’t have wanted to live in such a shithole, so when a dark figure suddenly appeared in the doorway of the hut right next to me, I nearly fell off the bike.
He didn’t look happy he just stared at us with a face that was cold and hostile. He took one step out from his hut, glared at the girls riding on the rear seats, and looked at the M-14s we carried slung across our backs. Next he glanced down at the pistols in the holsters, and I had the uneasy feeling he was assessing whether the amount of hardware we were packing was more than he and his pals could handle. One thing was for sure; he wasn’t about to put out the welcoming mat.
“American?”
“How did you guess? Was it the uniforms of the rifles?” Maybe it was our round eyes. I could have been more polite, but I’d been riding a mechanical monster for several hours in driving rain, and I didn’t feel polite.
“What do you want?”
“We could do with some shelter for a couple of hours, a chance to rest and dry out, and maybe a meal. Name your price, and we’re happy to pay.”
He gestured toward a crude building. “You can use the barn. Two hours, no more.”
“You’re mighty generous. About the food…”
“I will bring you food.”
Abruptly, Mr. Friendly spun on his heel and went back into the dwelling. I glanced at the others and shrugged. “I guess living out here makes you forget the social niceties. But at least we’ll be out of the rain for a short time. You never know, by the time we move on it may have stopped.”
We pushed the motorcycles into the barn, and Lam and Le gave me a glance that suggested they knew something I didn’t. The guy came back with a single, large wooden bowl with four bent and rusting metal spoons. The bowl contained more of the ubiquitous rice mixture. This time there wasn’t any meat, but there were a few vegetables, and they’d mixed in some spices to distinguish it from animal fodder.
I’d just swallowed a spoonful of the food when Le said, “There’s something strange about this place.”
“You don’t say. It’s so remote you could hide the North Vietnamese Politburo out here and we’d never find them.”
“I was thinking of the Vietcong. It’s the kind of place they’d use as a local headquarters. Somewhere to store food, weapons, and ammunition.”
I was about to take another spoonful of rice and I stopped. “You think this place is VC?”
“It’s possible.”
I looked at the rice on my spoon, and suddenly it didn’t look so appealing. “You think they could have poisoned the food?”
“It’s possible.”
I put down the spoon. “I think we’d better check this guy out. Find out what’s going on here. If you’re right, they could be preparing an ambush for us, and when we ride away, we could get hit with a few bursts of automatic fire. You girls stay here.”
Ray and I picked up our rifles and got to our feet. We crossed the track to the front door of the dwelling where the guy had entered and stood one on either side of the door. Ray nodded, and we burst in shoulder-to-shoulder and threw ourselves to either side. They looked up, startled. Which was no surprise, the guy who’d brought us the food was busy reassembling an AK-47, and three other men were with him. Two were reloading rifle magazines with 7.62mm bullets, and another was in the process of reloading a Degtyaryov machine gun. The so-called ‘record player,’ due to the circular magazine.
There are times when you give the other guy a chance to surrender. Drop the guns and put up their hands. This wasn’t one of those times. The looks of slant-eyed hatred were sufficiently eloquent for us to know we were facing an enemy who’d made it their life’s work to kill the Imperialist round eyes. As they grabbed for their weapons, we opened up, and the room echoed to the whip crack of bullets. We’d taken them by surprise preparing their ambush, and they didn’t stand a chance. When we stopped shooting, there were four dead VCs sprawled over the room, lying amidst the bullets, magazines, and rifle components they’d dropped.
“There may be more. We need to take a look-see,” Ray grated. He sounded incredulous, “They were going to kill us. Some hospitality.”
I was reminded of one of those Grimm’s fairytales, the kind of story where some dark-hearted loner in the middle of a dripping forest lures innocent passers-by into their cottage and proceeds to eat them or turn them into mice. Something like that, my childhood had been a long time ago. There was no rear door, and we exited through the front door, searched the other cottages, and found no more Viets. But we did find a quantity of assault rifles, boxes of ammunition and explosives.
Ray inspected the Cyrillic writing on the side of the containers and grunted. “You know what this is? Le was right. It’s a local base where they can hide out, rest, and re-arm before going out to kill more of our people. We have to destroy the stuff before they can use it, and we may not have much time. They could be here any time soon.”
“Can you rig up a booby trap? Give ‘em a taste of their own medicine?”
“You’re damn right I can. Give me ten minutes, and I’ll get everything ready.”
I went toward the barn and bumped into Lam who was running to meet me. “You have to come quick. We have trouble.”
I followed her behind the barn, and we could see the track winding down the hill for several kilometers before it reached level ground. There were people on the track, trudging upward in the pouring rain. Vietcong, and they were coming home for some R&R after their most recent killing spree. I started to count them, and I made it thirty men, but then more appeared out of the curtain of rain and mist, and there were more than forty in all.
“We have to go back,” Lam said, “If we stay here, we’re dead.”
I looked back up the way we’d come, and thought of that rutted, muddy track, and riding the motorcycles downhill had been bad enough. The thought of battling to get them back up the hill after our efforts was too much. “There may be another way. Keep an eye on them, and be ready to move out.”
I ran back to Ray, and he was assembly for separate demolition charges. I told him about the VCs coming up the hill. “We have around an hour before they get here, and I was kinda hoping you could prepare a warm welcome.”
He chuckled. “That’s good news. I’d hate to waste all this stuff on blowing up a few hooches. Lemme see…” He went to the door and glanced out, looked around, and nodded in satisfaction, “I can put the main charge in here, two more charges further down, and one across the street. They have manual detonators and plenty of thin cable, so I can rig them to blow at the same time.”
“As long as you make it quick.”
He grinned. “Fear lent him wings.”
I went back to the barn, and between us we pushed one of the bikes out onto the track and back up the hill through the mud. It was hard work, and several times we slipped and fell. Finally, we got the bike fifty meters up the track and pushed it into the side. We went back to the other one, and already a half-hour gone past. We got the bike up the hill and raced back to Ray, who was just emerging from the barn.
“All done, and I’ve run the cable for the detonator up the hill, about thirty meters away. There’s a clump of bamboo on top of a lower earth bank, and we can duck down behind it when it goes up.”
I raced back behind the barn, and they were closer, much closer. I reckoned we had around ten minutes, and I gestured for them to follow. Le called out, “One moment.”
They darted into the house where we’d killed the men and emerged carrying the Degtyaryov machine gun between them, with the circular magazine ready loaded. Le shrugged when I told them to forget the machine gun and hurry.
“You never know, we may need it. There’s a lot of them and only four of us.”
“There’s also several pounds of C4 explosive waiting for them.”
She shrugged. “It’s just in case.”
We ran up the track until Ray called for us to stop. He pointed at the clump of bamboo, and it was a perfect place to hide. We huddled down in the rain dripping from the bamboos, and he’d run the thin cable to the plunger. American communications cable commonly used by the Communists for detonators and booby traps, and lying in the mud it was as good as invisible.
We didn’t have long to wait. The first of the VCs came into sight, and there were a lot of them. I looked at Ray. “Was there enough explosive to take care of them all?”
He gave me a reply that didn’t fill me with confidence. “I’m kinda hoping.”
All we could do was wait. We watched them get nearer and nearer. Lam and Le had the Degtyaryov propped on the mound of earth, the barrel poking between the bamboos, and me and Ray checked the magazines of our rifles. If something went wrong, we were in big trouble. I could only hope we had enough bullets to hold them off until we could make our getaway. Back up the hill, wrestling with those heavy motorcycles in thick, glutinous mud. If it happened, I doubted we could ride faster than they could run. Best not to think about that.
They reached the village, and men pushed into the hut where we’d left the four bodies. Seconds later, they rushed outside, shouting and waving their arms, and more men came into the village, clustered in a tight group. Ray raised the plunger.
“They’re not all there. My guess is another ten are further back down the track.”
“Ray, there’re almost forty VCs a few meters away, and it’s as good as it will get. Do it, and we’ll worry about the others later.”
He muttered, “Fire in the hole,” as he depressed the plunger, and the result was spectacular. The village exploded, huts, men, weapons, and a second after the main detonation, a much bigger explosion rocked the ground. We pressed our faces to the mud, holding our hands over our heads to protect them from the storm of debris that cascaded over us. Small chunks of stone, shredded bamboo, and worst of all, fragments of clothing, and even strips of bloody flesh. We waited almost a minute for the avalanche to die down and raised our heads.