“Met Eng,” Nang said softly. He cupped a hand over his new cadreman’s shoulder. “I would make mistakes without you.”
“No,” Eng said. “There will always be someone to keep you from failing. It is the wish of Angka.”
The platoon moved again, south, through the swamp again. They moved slowly. For a time Nang led, then Eng, then a yothea with an M-2 carbine, Met Horl, then Met Soth. With Soth before him, Nang could barely control his desire to punish, to even the score. Now. Not now, he thought. Later. Someday I will get him. At the hamlet of Puk Yuk they crossed the road. Huts smoldered. Nothing remained standing. The devastation seemed enormous, seemed impossible given the size of the duel.
Quietly the yotheas picked through the ashes searching for food, weapons, anything of value. They moved east, very cautious now. Enemy units were near.
At first light, 30 November, without warning, the earth trembled like Krakatoa erupting, trembled, shockwaves blowing the forest down, deep thudding, then tearing, imploding eardrums, typhoon-pressure blasting instantaneous, then stillness. Nang lifted himself from the earth. About him the forest had been splintered. A second wave erupted, rolling-thunder concussions, closer, lifting, throwing him like a rag, like litter in a storm, then stillness. Again he lifted himself. His shirt had been blown off. Blood dripped from his nose, trickled from his left ear, ran from cuts on his chest and legs. He stumbled forward, backward, grabbed a shattered tree trunk for support. “Eng,” he hissed. “Met Eng.” He dropped to his knees. A kilometer north the heavy footfalls of the monster again caused the earth to tremble. Again Nang raised up. He touched his chest, hips, legs. A smile spread across his lips but his lower lip was cut and the smile hurt. He felt his nose, wiped the blood away. He heard nothing, smelled nothing. The lightening sky had darkened with smoke. Then he heard the tanks, but he could not fix their direction. He stared, searching for their approach, expecting to see Pattons. His sense of smell returned as if someone had flipped a switch. Burning flesh registered amid the stench of chemicals and grease. He checked himself again. Something caught his ankle. He stumbled, righted himself, snapped his eyes to the ground. A hand gripped his foot. He pulled, twisted. The hand hung on. What was happening did not register in his mind. He saw only a hand.
“Get down, damn you!” The hand twisted his ankle and he fell into the broken brush. “Nang!” Eng grabbed his face. “How did you get way over here? Ha. Ssshh. The bombers have stirred the tanks.”
Nang squeezed his jaw, his eyes, shut, trying to reorient himself. His ears rang from the concussion and from the pressure with which he clamped his teeth. He gazed blankly at Met Eng. The cadreman was covering his cuts with mud which caked and stopped the bleeding, “eng?”
“yes.”
“platoon?”
“back where we camped.”
“uh.”
“you were scouting, ssshh. the T-54s.” Eng placed a strong hand over Nang’s mouth to silence him. They were concealed by a pile of splintered wood and twisted vines. The tanks rolled west to east fifty meters away. Eng spontaneously counted them. He relaxed the pressure on Nang’s mouth but did not remove his hand. Behind the tanks were trucks, sixteen six-bys, two scout vehicles. The scene hardly impacted on Nang. After the B-52s the tanks seemed less frightening. It was as if he were a prehistoric creature just escaped from Tyrannosaurus rex to face Diplosaurus. He felt as if he could walk up to the T-54s and knock them out with his bare fists. That the closest bomb dropped a third of a kilometer from him meant nothing. Somehow, his mind told him, they’ll never be closer.
Eng led the platoon east, leery of encountering NVA rear guard, then more quickly south; then, completing a semicircle, headed west to the back of the North Viet Namese. Krahom runners were now scurrying like mice throughout the battle area. Their radios were few though well placed and concealed in informer hamlet huts and deep in forested thickets down animal trails the NVA, a conventional force in Cambodia, would never follow. The platoon now had orders, direction. They moved to a prepared ambush site along a camouflaged Viet Namese escape route. Other Krahom units waited in similar positions, waited for the disengagement and retreat.
It was midday when firing renewed, not slowly but a well-coordinated fusillade. NVA T-54s ambushed a column of ARVN Pattons and APCs. The Communists, attempting to inflict heavy casualties on the ARVN infantrymen who followed the tracks, dropped 81mm mortar rounds to the immediate rear of the armored line. NVA 130mm cannons blasted both the road behind the column and the villages along that section. They hit the civilian areas with just enough shells to kill a few in each hamlet. With the first cessation of artillery villagers poured onto the road, the ox-drawn carts, bicycles and pedestrians jamming the highway north and south of the battle—north toward the fortified walls of Kompong Thom, south toward Baray.
Counterfire was immediate and prolonged. Nang’s vision cleared but his thoughts remained blurry. He had not dressed, not armed himself. The NVA launched a second coordinated volley. To Nang the sound of firing was distinct from one direction, muffled from others. He could not ascertain the location. In the first minutes there were heavy casualties on both Viet Namese sides. To the south the fight was a standoff. ARVN maneuvering elements bogged down on the flanks. NVA troops sprinted down concealed trenches to fire at ARVN soldiers attempting to regroup behind circled APCs. Communist troop trucks withdrew. The 130s, deeply bermed in heavily vegetated pockets to the northeast and southwest, closed their camouflage covers and lay silent. Four undamaged T-54s raced for hidden bunkers. The sky filled with the roar of South Viet Namese A-37 attack jets.
For four hours along a six-kilometer stretch of Highway 6 the foreign Communists battled the foreign non-Communists, each side bringing to the battle tremendous firepower yet neither side bringing the will to overrun the other. The ARVN particularly showed no motivation to dislodge the NVA but settled back to await more tactical air and artillery support, hoping the bombardments would do the job only ground forces could accomplish. The armies stood like two flat-footed boxers with mile-long arms throwing stinging jabs but not stepping up with knockout punches. After the first few minutes, casualties dropped to a few direct hits. Helicopters zinged in low to evacuate South Viet Namese. Other birds circled high to radio enemy sightings to supporting artillery. More A-37s came on station. The NVA relocated, hid. There were few definite targets. Pilots released their ordnance-rockets and napalm canisters—against probable sites, treelines, high paddy dikes, anywhere troops or machines might be hidden. They restricted their target area to three or four kilometers to each side of the highway even though the NVA field guns had ranges ten times that. The countryside was not their concern.
In the bush away from the battle Nang’s senses returned. It was five hours since the battle had begun, eleven since the B-52 strike. Nang thought, to clean up, to dress, to arm himself, but decided against cleaning and dressing. Only sporadic fire came from the highway. The ARVN column advanced. Helicopters were at point and flanks. Over the relatively flat land Nang could see two east flank gunships. They did not dart, did not skim low level, but hovered above the ground elements, one at perhaps eight hundred feet, the second a thousand feet higher and to the rear. The machines seemed strange. Nang had seen them in Cambodia only half a dozen times—many of the newer yotheas had never seen one at all.
“She’s trying to draw fire,” Nang told a young troop. He felt in control again. “Let me see your rifle.” The boy looked about, unsure, hoping Met Eng would overhear Nang and tell the boy what to do. “I’m not going to fire at it,” Nang said. The lack of confidence irritated him. “We aren’t in range. I only want to teach you how to lead it.” Nang grabbed the AK-47 and drew a bead on the distant ship. “Pow!” The word burst from his mouth. Suddenly the ship burst into flames. A moment later the sound of a twin-barreled 23mm AA gun reached them, then the noise of the exploding chopper, the bang-swish of rockets from the chase bird and additional explosions in the hedgerows between the
paddies to their immediate west. The ship, incongruous to the sound, seemed to stall in air as if the heat of the flames were lifting a burning ash from a fire; then it began a slow twirling descent, then fell like a stone. The yothea stared at Nang, back-stepped, ran.
“Ssshh!” Nang whispered to the boy’s cellmates. “Don’t tell anyone.”
Signals passed along the Krahom line. Patience. Patience. Below them the concealed trail filled with a string of tired Northern troops—men carrying their rifles, holding the barrels, the stocks over their shoulders, knowing they’d entered a secure zone.
Eng squeezed a firing device. Instantly nine Chinese-Communist claymores exploded and yotheas fired into the kill zone, fired on the dying and dead, fired, reloaded, fired, perfect timing, perfect concentration of force. Inaccurate counterfire barked from unseen locations far to the rear of the kill zone. The yotheas fled. The platoon separated as Eng had determined, two teams heading east, Viet Namese in pursuit.
Nang did not react. The explosions had rekindled the pain in his ears and brain. He fell, grasped his head, his hands at the back of his neck his forearms squeezing, covering his ears. He tightened every muscle, whipped his knees to his shoulders, curled in a tiny ball in a small hole above the path. He heard firing to the east, a quick skirmish, the noise locking his muscles. Below on the path there was groaning, a chorus of morose moans. Nang shook uncontrollably, squeezed his arms tighter and tighter over his ears. The moans became louder, punctuated with inhuman screeches. Down the line, more small arms fire, muffled. Then sharp cracks close by, then more distant explosions. Nang could not think. His body reacted, rolled, leaped straight up, ran crashing down the slope into the wall of guttural cries. On the path, frantic, his eyes viewed but his mind did not absorb. He should have been elated at the mutilation of the enemy but he barely saw them. He tripped over a body, splatted facedown onto the torn bloody torso of a second, rose, sprinted thrashing, crashing through low crossing branches, sprinted west through forest without thought, toward the battlefield, the highway.
As he ran, more branches ripped his trousers, his flesh. He ran not with a sense of forward direction but with an ambiguous sense of something fearful at his back, ran without stopping until he was out of the forest, without slowing until he was through the marshland and into a treeline between paddies. He slowed. He did not stop. About him trees and brush burned. Before him the village of Sdau smoldered. He jogged on. There was no village. About him the dead lay decomposing. Shells, bombs, canisters, rockets—for three days the village had been killed and rekilled, buried and unearthed. The stench of burning flesh and hair was so thick in the air it stuck to Nang’s tongue like tar. Humans had been shredded, pulverized, reduced to mush, to charred fragments. There, Nang saw Number Two Oxcart, his agent, his KK contact, his friend, without legs. There, his son’s head. They are, were, Khmer—not worthless FANK lackeys, not imperialist Sino pigs—but simple Khmer rice farmers for whom the revolution must be won.
Nang stumbled on, senseless. At the last burning hut he dropped to his knees. Globs of jellied petroleum burned on the sides of a stone hearth. He reached out. Grabbed a handful. Immediately his fingers blistered. He stared at the pain, angered, infuriated, not at the searing of his hand, but at the searing of his land. For two seconds he stared at the napalm then slapped his face to endure more, to purify himself, to strengthen himself for the fight ahead.
On the highway Nang saw the ARVN column. In it, scattered, were peasant carts. His right hand was blistered as was the entire right side of his face. He pulled himself up to full height, walked toward the invaders. He did not hesitate. If it is time to die, he thought, it is time.
“Lieutenant Tran,” an ARVN private said in Viet Namese, “here’s another one.”
“Any papers?” Nang understood the words but was mute.
“Are you kidding! This kid’s got nothing.”
“What’s on his face? And hand?”
“It’s sand. He’s got sand inside the cloth. Looks like a folk treatment for burns. His face must of gotten spattered and he tried to rip it off.”
“I know him. Bring him here. I’ve seen you before.” In Khmer Tran Van Le said, “Your name?”
Nang remained mute. “Augh, Lieutenant, all these brown bastards look alike.”
“No! No, I’ve seen this kid before. I’m sure I have.” Tran turned to Nang. “Name?” he repeated.
Nang’s face screamed with pain as he moved his jaw to form his response.
“Name?” Tran Van Le repeated. “Understand? Name and village?”
“Kampuchea,” Nang stuttered in Khmer. Kampuchea, he thought. Kampuchea, Lieutenant Tran. Kampuchea, Mister Truong Cao Kiet. “Kampuchea,” Nang said again. “It is your fate.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
A DROP OF SWEAT splatted on the page. Rita Donaldson wiped it away with her little finger, pulled her head from over the papers and continued reading, making notes in the margin. Slowly she leaned forward, attempting to keep her back in the shade of the large umbrella, attempting to avoid Phnom Penh’s parching January sun. It was only her third day in Southeast Asia, her first full day in Cambodia. Another drop of sweat splatted on the report. She straightened her back, angry, frustrated, rolled her head back, up, until she was looking into the segmented underside of the umbrella which covered the cafe table. Then she thought, smiled inwardly at the thought, that she was like Alice sitting beneath a massive mushroom.
For two years Rita Donaldson had worked a rewrite desk in the foreign affairs section of the Washington News-Times. Since the coup in March 1970 she had concentrated on Cambodia, had kept her own file on the country. Her knowledge was deep yet her feeling for the country was shallow. She pulled a hankie from her new jungle blouse, wiped her forehead. Then she rested an elbow on the table and momentarily cupped her chin in her hand. The sweat of her face on her hand, and of her hand on her face, felt disgusting. Again she wiped her face. She felt self-conscious, almost as if she were taking a bath in public. One week of this’ll...she thought. Ten days, tops. She looked back at the report, a briefing she’d compiled for News-Times correspondent Tom Jasson who, at the last, had decided not to go. Again perspiration dripped from her face onto the page.
SIGNIFICANT ACTIVITIES: During the second half of 1970 SA included: combined Communist force attacks on (1) Kirirom and (2) the, Pich Nil Pass on Highway 4, and (3) a series of battles, commando raids and terrorist rocket attacks around the country. By the end of September the NVA held four of Cambodia’s nineteen provincial capitals and threatened twelve of the remaining fifteen. Pocheantong Airport at Phnom Penh was sporadically closed by rocket raids which temporarily destroyed runways. The capital’s petroleum storage tanks at Kilometer 6 were burned; the oil refinery at Kompong Som was damaged; several strategic bridges over the Tonle Sap River were dropped. Evidence indicates these latter acts were carried out by North Viet Namese dac cong (sappers). The heaviest fighting of the period took place along the Mekong and Bassac rivers below Neak Luong, where a 200-vessel ARVN task force continued to hunt the NVA/VC. The Communists kept continuous pressure on the waterways, often closing them to freighters. Additional large battles were fought about Svay Rieng. In the Takeo area, the ARVN 495th Infantry Battalion rampaged through the countryside during and after operations designed to ferret out major NVA/VC supply units. The rampaging hurt the Allied cause and Lon Nol publicly protested their behavior...
“How long are you here for?”
Rita Donaldson looked up. The light skin of her face was flushed, pink, covered with rivulets of sweat. Her hands and arms were so wet the hand she placed over the page she’d been reading stuck to the paper. She wiped the side of her hands on her jungle blouse. “Excuse me?”
“How long you here for?” the man repeated.
“A week,” she answered. She did not know him but his being American made the approach acceptable.
“Mind if I join you?” He sat without her responding. “Jim White,” he
said. “The Sun.” He motioned to a waiter. “You’re the new gal from the Washington paper.” She began to answer but he interrupted. “What can you learn in a week?”
“Two weeks,” Rita Donaldson said. “If there’s a real story.”
“There’s plenty of story,” White said. To the waiter he said, “Two cold orange juice. Bic?” Then back to Rita, “You better drink more.”
“How do you know? About the story, I mean.”
“Just a feeling,” White said. “Just a...” He leaned forward and grasped the report she had before her. “What do ya got here?”
“What?!” Rita was astounded. She pulled the report back.
“That’s not goina be the way to get along here,” White snapped.
“Who the hell are you?” Rita shot back.
“Screw it, bitch. You’ll learn.” White stood, yelled a jumble of pidgin Khmer, Viet Namese and English at the waiter, then stomped off. Westerners and the few Cambodians in the cafe stared at her. She swallowed, ducked her head, went back to the report.
The anniversary of Ho Chi Minh’s death (9/3) was marked in Cambodia by twenty-one ARVN battalions plus support personnel—about 12,000 soldiers. In Paris, NVA General Xuan Thuy issued a “very flexible and generous” proposal for a coalition government in South Viet Nam. For peace and coalition, the negotiator said, the necessary ingredient is American renunciation of Saigon and the withdrawal of all support.’
On 7 October, President Nixon, in a televised speech, offered the Communists a “cease-fire in place.” The next day the Communists denounced the proposal as “a maneuver to deceive world opinion.” They reiterated their demand for unconditional US withdrawal and the toppling of the Saigon government. In this atmosphere, in South Viet Nam, Nguyen Van Thieu manipulated the South Viet Namese October presidential election by eliminating all alternative candidates. The balloting, unlike the Senate voting in August, was a one-candidate charade. Even at that it might have served as a poll of Thieu’s support, but irregularities negated that potential....
For the Sake of All Living Things Page 40