But, Christ! along the line o’ flight they cut us up like sheep,
An’ that was all we gained by doin’ so!
I ’eard the knives be’ind me, but I dursn’t face my man,
Nor I don’t know where I went to, ’cause I didn’t ’alt to see,
Till I ’eard a beggar squealin’ out for quarter as ’e ran,
An’ I thought I knew the voice an’—it was me!
We was ‘idin’ under beadsteads more than ‘arf a march away:
We was lyin’ up like rabbits all about the countryside;
An’ the Major cursed his Maker ’cause ’e’d lived to see that day,
An’ the Colonel broke ’is sword acrost, an’ cried.
We was rotten ’fore we started—we was never disciplined;
We made it out a favor if an order was obeyed.
Yes, every little drummer ’ad ’is rights and wrongs to mind,
So we had to pay for teachin’—an’ we paid!
The papers ’id it ’andsome, but you know the Army knows;
We was put to groomin’ camels till the regiments withdrew,
An’ they gave us each a medal for subduin’ England’s foes,
An’ I ’ope you like my song—because it’s true!
An there ain’t no chorus ’ere to give,
Nor there ain’t no band to play;
But I wish I was dead ’fore I done what I did,
Or seen what I seed that day!
Editor's Introduction to:
THE MIRACLE-WORKERS
by Jack Vance
It is a truism that Vietnam was a traumatic experience for the nation. We are generally less concerned about its effects on the Army—but we ignore those effects at our peril. Republics that bring home a defeated army have often regretted that action. Republics that betray both allies and army have more cause for regret.
While we were in Vietnam, there appeared a clutch of stories about primitive peoples victorious over sophisticated star folk. Generally, civilization was represented in those stories by one or more overbearing military people of no sensitivity. The fact that one seldom meets such people in real life—they wouldn’t survive five minutes in combat even if the enemy were far away—did not prevent such stories from being nominated for, and winning, awards.
Then came our shameful withdrawal. Who can forget those terrible pictures of helicopters shoved over the sides of warships? There sprang up the curious myth that the United States had been defeated by the Viet Cong; that those stories of primitive peoples defeating sophisticated armies were all true. We so believe those myths that even those who know better speak as if something of the same sort is going on in Afghanistan.
The myths are dangerous. They are also not true.
South Vietnam did not fall to the Viet Cong. North Vietnam first attempted to take South Vietnam by main force, by maneuvering through “neutral” Cambodia. The result was their bloody defeat in November 1965 in the La Drang valley at the hands of the U.S. First Cavalry Division.
Two years later they tried again. This time their effort was timed to take advantage of the U.S. presidential elections. They used their regular North Vietnamese units to distract and extend U.S. forces in places like Khe San while employing the Viet Cong guerrillas against population centers such as Saigon and Hue.
The result was an unprecedented defeat.
The Viet Cong was destroyed during the 1968 Tet offensives. North Vietnam lost, by their own reckoning, over 100,000 troops—more than half their strength. The U.S. forces and their Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) allies won one of the most thorough victories in military history.
That victory was thrown away; indeed, in the United States it was not recognized as a victory. It was portrayed by the news media as a U.S. defeat.
After Nixon was elected, the U.S. sought to withdraw from Vietnam; at least to disengage our forces, leaving the protection of the nation to ARVN. This was a workable strategy, provided that ARVN faced nothing more than North Vietnamese regular forces operating as guerrillas. True, the Northern invaders had sanctuaries in Laos and Cambodia, and by using the Ho Chi Minh trail, had what amounted to interior lines; but even so, ARVN could handle the situation.
What ARVN couldn’t handle was a massive invasion. On 29 March 1972, the North launched the Eastertide offensive. Naturally they massed their forces in the “demilitarized zone” (an area politically denied to U.S. and ARVN forces and used as both staging area and sanctuary by North Vietnam). Some twelve divisions, over 150,000 men, swept down from the North, supported by heavy armor and artillery. It was hardly a guerrilla effort.
They had miscalculated. ARVN was much better than the North had thought. Furthermore, the U.S. initiated a massive air attack on both the North Vietnam army and North Vietnam itself. U.S. Air Cavalry units struck at the invading armor. The result was a complete victory: Of 150,000 men sent south, fewer than 50,000 returned. The army of North Vietnam was utterly defeated. U.S. news media couldn’t have cared less.
On January 27, 1973, Henry Kissinger and North Vietnamese Politburo member Le Duc Tho initialed “The Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam.” The agreement was broken even as it was signed: They had North Vietnamese regulars in the South; we knew that, and they knew that we knew it. The agreement would be kept only so long as North Vietnam feared U.S. retaliation.
The United States began the withdrawal of our combat forces. The war was to be “Vietnamized”; ARVN would have to defend South Vietnam in future. The nation breathed a sigh of relief; our boys were coming home. Of course the U.S. battle deaths in 1972 were only 300 (as compared to more than 20,000 young men of military age killed in traffic accidents in that year); but the news media were happy.
The Vietnam War, that evil and immoral war, was over. The Congress of the United States looked forward to the widely predicted “Vietnam bonus”—that is, a surplus of money no longer needed for the Vietnam War, and which could be spent on ever-expanding domestic programs.
In September, 1973, Ursula K. Le Guin’s story, “The Word for World is Forest,” won the Science Fiction Achievement Award (Hugo) for Best Novella. This is a story of how primitive but artistic and likable peoples defeat technologically sophisticated but loutish star men.
In 1973 the Arabs and Israelis fought another war. Congress, weary of military expenditures and desperate for more money—the “bonus” funds never materialized—cut the appropriations for ARVN. Not only were the Vietnamese to defend themselves without us, but they were to do it on the cheap. By mid-1974, ARVN hospitals were ordered to wash and re-use surgical dressings, since new ones were not obtainable.
In January, 1975, the Central Committee of North Vietnam decided the time was ripe, and on March 4, 1975, they attacked with some 5 to 1 superiority in men and 2 to 1 in artillery and armor. Four Army corps, employing about as much firepower and force as the United States massed on D-Day against the Germans, swept into the South.
Man for man, ARVN was superior, but they were outnumbered and outgunned. Even then they fought heroically: For example, at Xuan Loc the 18th ARVN Division stood and fought and destroyed three North Vietnamese divisions.
It was all to no avail. North Vietnam was plentifully supplied with munitions from Russia and the Warsaw Pact nations. The U.S. Congress’s niggardly appropriations left ARVN with two grenades and some twenty rounds per soldier.
Nor had we made ARVN into a mobile army. Except for their marines and paratroops, ARVN was much like our National Guard, a militia stationed in hometowns with their families. Had the United States secured their borders, leaving ARVN to deal with internal security, Vietnam would never have been lost.
We were willing to secure the Korean border. We would not do it for Vietnam, even though it could be done with fewer troops employing high-technology weapons.
The war in Vietnam was not lost to guerrillas. That war was won. South Vietnam was lost to the failure of U.S. will. The presiden
t was occupied with Watergate. The Congress smelled the blood of political victory; it couldn’t be bothered with a tiny nation so far away, even though we had left much American blood and treasure there.
American soldiers bought their Asian comrades some ten years of, if not freedom, then the absence of slavery. Then both the U.S. Army and the Republic of Vietnam were abandoned. The dominoes clatter down to this day.
Some of those whose stories contributed to our withdrawal from Vietnam remain proud to this day.
During the sixties, Poul Anderson circulated a petition among science fiction writers. It stressed the moral necessity for the U.S. to keep its pledged word in Vietnam. After our interference—it was, after all, with John F. Kennedy’s personal approval that
President Diem and his family were overthrown—many of us thought we had an obligation to finish what we had started: either to win or to persevere.
Jack Vance signed that petition.
I say all this lest someone inadvertently believe that Jack Vance’s “The Miracle-Worker” was one of that clutch of stories intended as a Vietnam allegory.
It was not. “The Miracle-Worker” was written well before the war in Vietnam began to absorb U.S. attention. Jack Vance has long had the ability to create strange and wonderful worlds in which marvelous stories happen.
This is one of them.
THE MIRACLE-WORKERS
by Jack Vance
The war party from Faide Keep moved eastward across the downs; a column of a hundred armored knights, five hundred foot soldiers, a train of wagons. In the lead rode Lord Faide, a tall man in his early maturity, spare and catlike, with a sallow, dyspeptic face. He sat in the ancestral car of the Faides, a boat-shaped vehicle floating two feet above the moss, and carried, in addition to his sword and dagger, his ancestral side weapons.
An hour before sunset a pair of scouts came racing back to the column, their club-headed horses loping like dogs. Lord Faide braked the motion of his car. Behind him the Faide kinsmen, the lesser knights, the leather-capped foot soldiers halted; to the rear the baggage train and the high-wheeled wagons of the jinxmen creaked to a stop.
The scouts approached at breakneck speed, at the last instant flinging their horses sidewise. Long shaggy legs kicked out, padlike hooves plowed through the moss. The scouts jumped to the ground, ran forward. “The way to Ballant Keep is blocked!”
Lord Faide rose in his seat, stood staring eastward over the gray-green downs. “How many knights? How many men?”
“No knights, no men, Lord Faide. The First Folk have planted a forest between North and South Wildwood.”
Lord Faide stood a moment in reflection, then seated himself, pushed the control knob. The car wheezed, jerked, moved forward. The knights touched up their horses; the foot soldiers resumed their slouching gait. At the rear the baggage train creaked into motion, together with the six wagons of the jinxmen.
The sun, large, pale and faintly pink, sank in the west. North Wildwood loomed down from the left, separated from South Wild wood by an area of stony ground, only sparsely patched with moss. As the sun passed behind the horizon, the new planting became visible: a frail new growth connecting the tracts of woodland like a canal between two seas.
Lord Faide halted his car, stepped down to the moss. He appraised the landscape, then gave the signal to make camp. The wagons were ranged in a circle, the gear unloaded. Lord Faide watched the activity for a moment, eyes sharp and critical, then turned and walked out across the downs through the lavender and green twilight. Fifteen miles to the east his last enemy awaited him: Lord Ballant of Ballant Keep. Contemplating tomorrow’s battle, Lord Faide felt reasonably confident of the outcome. His troops had been tempered by a dozen campaigns; his kinsmen were loyal and single-hearted. Head Jinxman to Faide Keep was Hein Huss, and associated with him were three of the most powerful jinxmen of Pangborn: Isak Comandore, Adam McAdam and the remarkable Enterlin, together with their separate troupes of cabalmen, spell-binders and apprentices. Altogether, an impressive assemblage. Certainly there were obstacles to be overcome: Ballant Keep was strong; Lord Ballant would fight obstinately; Anderson Grimes, the Ballant jinxman, was efficient and highly respected. There was also this nuisance of the First Folk and the new planting which closed the gap between North and South Wildwood. The First Folk were a pale and feeble race, no match for human beings in single combat, but they guarded their forests with traps and deadfalls. Lord Faide cursed softly under his breath. To circle either North or South Wildwood meant a delay of three days, which could not be tolerated.
Lord Faide returned to the camp. Fires were alight, pots bubbled, orderly rows of sleep-holes had been dug into the moss. The knights groomed their horses within the corral of wagons; Lord Faide’s own tent had been erected on a hummock, beside the ancient car.
Lord Faide made a quick round of inspection, noting every detail, speaking no word. The jinxmen were encamped a little distance apart from the troops. The apprentices and lesser spellbinders prepared food, while the jinxmen and cabalmen worked inside their tents, arranging cabinets and cases, correcting whatever disorder had been caused by the jolting of the wagons.
Lord Faide entered the tent of his Head Jinxman. Hein Huss was an enormous man, with arms and legs heavy as tree trunks, a torso like a barrel. His face was pink and placid, his eyes were water-clear; a stiff gray brush rose from his head, which was innocent of the cap jinxmen customarily wore against the loss of hair. Hein Huss disdained such precautions; it was his habit, showing his teeth in a face-splitting grin, to rumble, “Why should anyone hoodoo me, old Hein Huss? I am so inoffensive. Whoever tried would surely die, of shame and remorse.”
Lord Faide found Huss busy at his cabinet. The doors stood wide, revealing hundreds of mannikins, each tied with a lock of hair, a bit of cloth, a fingernail clipping, daubed with grease, sputum, excrement, blood. Lord Faide knew well that one of these mannikins represented himself. He also knew that should he request it, Hein Huss would deliver it without hesitation. Part of Huss’ mana derived from his enormous confidence, the effortless ease of his power. He glanced at Lord Faide and read the question in his mind. “Lord Ballant did not know of the new planting. Anderson Grimes has now informed him, and Lord Ballant expects that you will be delayed. Grimes has communicated with Gisborne Keep and Castle Cloud. Three hundred men march tonight to reinforce Ballant Keep. They will arrive in two days. Lord Ballant is much elated.”
Lord Faide paced back and forth across the tent. “Can we cross this planting?”
Hein Huss made a heavy sound of disapproval. “There are many futures. In certain of these futures you pass. In others you do not pass. I cannot ordain these futures.”
Lord Faide had long learned to control his impatience at what sometimes seemed to be pedantic obfuscation. He grumbled, “They are either very stupid or very bold, planting across the downs in this fashion. I cannot imagine what they intend.”
Hein Huss considered, then grudgingly volunteered an idea. “What if they plant west from North Wildwood to Sarrow Copse? What if they plant west from South Wildwood to Old Forest?
Lord Faide stood stock-still, his eyes narrow and thoughtful. “Faide Keep would be surrounded by forest. We would be imprisoned…These plantings, do they proceed?”
“They proceed, so I have been told.”
“What do they hope to gain?”
“I do not know. Perhaps they hope to isolate the keeps, to rid the planet of men. Perhaps they merely want secure avenues between the forests.”
Lord Faide considered. Huss’ final suggestion was reasonable enough. During the first centuries of human settlement, sportive young men had hunted the First Folk with clubs and lances, eventually had driven them from their native downs into the forests. “Evidently they are more clever than we realize. Adam McAdam asserts that they do not think, but it seems that he is mistaken.”
Hein Huss shrugged. “Adam McAdam equates thought to the human cerebral process. He cannot telepathize
with the First Folk, hence he deduced that they do not ‘think.’ But I have watched them at Forest Market, and they trade intelligently enough.” He raised his head, appeared to listen, then reached into his cabinet, delicately tightened a noose around the neck of one of the mannikins. From outside the tent came a sudden cough and a whooping gasp for air. Huss grinned, twitched open the noose. “That is Isak Comandore’s apprentice. He hopes to complete a Hein Huss mannikin. I must say he works diligently, going so far as to touch its feet into my footprints whenever possible.”
Lord Faide went to the flap of the tent. “We break camp early. Be alert, I may require your help.” Lord Faide departed the tent.
Hein Huss continued the ordering of the cabinet. Presently he sensed the approach of his rival, Jinxman Isak Comandore, who coveted the office of Head Jinxman with all-consuming passion. Huss closed the cabinet and hoisted himself to his feet.
Comandore entered the tent, a man tall, crooked and spindly. His wedge-shaped head was covered with coarse russet ringlets; hot red-brown eyes peered from under his red eyebrows. “I offer my complete rights to Keyril, and will include the masks, the headdress, and amulets. Of all the demons ever contrived he has won the widest public acceptance. To utter the name Keyril is to complete half the work of a possession. Keyril is a valuable property. I can give no more.”
But Huss shook his head. Comandore’s desire was the full simulacrum of Tharon Faide, Lord Faide’s oldest son, complete with clothes, hair, skin, eyelashes, tears, excreta, sweat and sputum—the only one in existence, for Lord Faide guarded his son much more jealously than he did himself. “You offer convincingly,” said Huss, “but my own demons suffice. The name Dant conveys fully as much terror as Keyril.”
“I will add five hairs from the head of Jinxman Clarence Sears; they are the last, for he is now stark bald.”
There Will Be War Volume III Page 18