Devil's Guard- The Complete Series Box Set

by Eric Meyer

  “Here, Sergeant,” the anxious face of the naval lieutenant appeared next to me.

  “Fire order for your ships, and hit the edge of the jungle. We need to stop those mortars and machine guns,” I shouted to him above the intense storm of noise and bullets all around us.

  “But, Sergeant, it’s too near to our lines, and it’s too risky in these...”

  “Get those bloody boats firing, Lieutenant,” I snarled at him, “or I’ll send you out on your own to deal with the mortars.”

  He ducked down and got on the radio. Using his map, he gave the fire order. Less than a minute later, the first shells arrived, shredding the edge of the jungle and creeping towards our position. The oncoming Viet Minh were torn apart by high explosives, and mercifully the mortars stopped firing. Either they were hit, or they were moving to a safer position away from the bombardment.

  The Viet Minh valued their heavy ordnance, unlike the men, who Giap treated as disposable stores to be consumed in endless numbers in his human wave attacks.

  As quickly as it began, the battle ended. Including the damage we wreaked in the jungle, we had taken a heavy toll of the enemy. All around the town, the French forces, supported by artillery and navy gunfire, were pushing back the attack. We had beaten them back, for now.

  Later that day, they attacked again, and through the night we repulsed constant nuisance attacks. The Viets were trying to wear us down with infiltration tactics. The next day they came again, and in strength. We pushed back three more major attacks, and dozens of minor actions, before we judged they’d had enough. By the evening, the jungle had gone quiet. The monkeys had gone swinging back into the jungle.

  “Sergeant Hoffman,” a runner called, “you’re needed at Headquarters.”

  “What for?” I asked the man. This was unusual. Normally, the message would go through Leforge.

  “No idea,” he said. “They just said they wanted you, and so I came to pass on the order.”

  He turned and left. I went to inform Leforge, and then walked over to Headquarters. When I walked in, the divisional intelligence officer, Colonel Joffre who I knew well, was waiting for me.

  “Jurgen,” he shook hands warmly.

  I first came across Colonel Leon Joffre two years before. His attitude towards a former member of the SS was neither warm nor trusting. He’d lost members of his family to SS atrocities in France, notably when his brother was shot as part of a partisan reprisal. However, times had changed. Uncle Joe was no longer the friendly Russian ally. Instead, he was the ugly face behind the vicious communist uprising in Vietnam, and the SS man, who once was his enemy, now fought on his side, for France. It was very different.

  We had exchanged views on several occasions; the natural reserve that French officers felt towards their men set aside, perhaps because of this unconventional war, or maybe as I had once been an officer too. We exchanged pleasantries, and he quickly came to the matter in hand.

  “The communists are getting stronger, much stronger. If we don’t strike them hard very quickly, I fear that France will lose this war to these ugly little natives. That would be a catastrophe, so soon after the war in Europe.”

  “I agree, Colonel,” I replied. “What did you have in mind, more troops?”

  “Impossible, Paris has already indicated that they’re looking to reduce troop levels in Indochina, not increase them. We need another way.”

  He paused and looked at me.

  “Are you looking for suggestions, Colonel? Because if so, I don’t have any, but maybe several divisions of Waffen SS would tip the balance,” I smiled.

  “I don’t think the world is ready for that, Jurgen. My department has come up with a plan, and one that involves a small group of men infiltrating Viet Minh held Tonkin. What would you say is our greatest problem at the moment?”

  I didn’t need to think. There was only one name at the top of communist assets that was tipping the war away from France.

  “Giap,” I told him, “without question. A very clever general and ruthless enough to squander every poor peasant in Indochina, to get the communist paradise he’s seeking.”

  “Agreed, I have arrived at exactly the same conclusion. We’ve decided to recruit a unit to go into Giap’s base area,” he hesitated. The reason came to me in a flash.

  “You want him killed, Colonel. You want me to take a party of my men and apply SS partisan hunter tactics to the problem, yes? A straightforward murder mission.”

  Joffre looked embarrassed.

  “I wouldn’t put it quite like that, Jurgen.”

  “So how would you put it?”

  He looked me in the eye.

  “You know I can only go so far, and say so much. I have French army politics to consider. Let’s just say I don’t disagree with anything you have just said, and leave it at that. What do you think?”

  “I am not optimistic, Colonel. It could be a suicide mission, but let me think about it.”

  The mission was scheduled to depart in four weeks time, after the rainy season had ended, and timed to coincide with a French army offensive to the north of Hanoi; which would divert Viet Minh attention from the infiltration mission. Colonel Joffre gave me two weeks to come to a final decision. In the meantime, he allowed me to discuss it with my own NCOs, but not with the men, and definitely not with Leforge.

  “The last thing I want is this mission to be tossed around in the officers’ mess, Jurgen. You and your trusted NCOs, that’s it, no more.”

  I found Vogelmann, Bauer, von Kessler and Schuster sat outside a bar, relaxing and chatting with a couple of dusky native girls.

  “Get rid of them,” I said, looking at the girls. “You don’t know where they’ve been. Besides, we need a private chat.”

  The women were sent off, and they left sulkily. We pulled our chairs closer together, and I explained Joffre’s mission. There was a shocked silence.

  “Giap,” Vogelmann said, “will have more protection than the president of France. Do you think we’d ever get near him?”

  “Us, no. But Russian military advisors, probably yes.”

  “Ah,” he replied, “so that’s it. They want Russian speakers.”

  “I suspect that’s one of the reasons, yes,” I told him. “I think the other is that they want people who are not too squeamish about killing.”

  “Like former SS men, you mean,” Bauer smiled.

  “Exactly,” I grinned at him.

  “I suppose we weren’t always too fussy in the old days, Jurgen,” said Bauer. “We did tend to shoot first and ask questions afterwards.”

  “Shit on the questions,” Vogelmann grinned. “I used to tell my men just to shoot first then move on.”

  We spent the next hour chatting about possible options for the mission. There were lots of things to look at. It was by no means a simple plan. Getting in would not be too difficult. Getting close to Giap, even with us speaking Russian, which we all did to some degree, would be much more difficult. And after he was killed, getting out would be a problem on a whole new level.

  Giap was their national icon, after Ho Chi Minh. Killing him could stoke up so much opposition that escaping may be an insurmountable problem. My inclination was to say no to Joffre. My men had sacrificed enough. They were in the Legion in Indochina to rebuild their lives and identities, not to throw away what life they had left to them. I felt it was a job for the air force, combined with some good intelligence on the ground about Giap’s movements. A squadron of fighter-bombers could do the job; blast his headquarters apart, and be back at base in time for evening drinks.

  Three days later, we were back in action at Phu Ly, south of Hanoi, where the Viet Minh 304th Division had attacked in force.

  * * * * *

  CHAPTER THREE

  Headquarters received an urgent radio message from Phu Ly; the town was under attack. Giap was developing his strategy of wearing down the French forces by mounting large attacks, rather than using clever or subtle tactics. It wa
s a clever move, in theory. He could lose men at a rate that would bring down governments in any civilised country. Ten thousand deaths to knock out a simple French outpost was a price he was happy to pay, at least in terms of his men’s lives. The Viet Minh master strategist stayed relatively safe behind his lines in Northern Tonkin, close enough to slip over the border if our forces managed to get too close. Phu Ly was less than a hundred kilometres from Mao Khe, and the Legion sent six APCs for us to travel in. My company packed into the vehicles and set off.

  We arrived in the town under fire and quickly set up our headquarters in a single storey baker’s shop, long abandoned by its owner. It was in the town centre, near the church. Although the communists waged a campaign against the Christian religion in parts of the country they had overrun, this beautiful little church had so far been spared. The Viet Minh were besieging the northern side of the town; machine gun and rifle fire was smashing into buildings and mortar shells landed. Civilians were running everywhere, trying to escape the hail of lead and shrapnel sent over as gifts by their Viet Minh fraternal brethren. This was nothing new. Many of us from the SS had seen it often on the Eastern Front, and Russians were always ready to sacrifice their own civilians to get a shot at us Germans. Russian General Zhukov explained after the war on the Eastern front.

  “If we come to a minefield, our infantry attack exactly as if it were not there. The losses we get from personnel mines, we consider only equal to those we would have gotten from machine guns and artillery if the Germans had chosen to defend the area with strong bodies of troops, instead of minefields.”

  He was known to round up civilians to walk over minefields in advance of his troops so that the soldiers could be spared to fight the enemy. The communists were certainly consistent.

  I sent Private Armand up into the church bell tower to snipe at the enemy. Captain Leforge took half of the company and deployed at the east side of the little town, and I took the rest of the men and deployed to the west. We had two battalions of colonial infantry in the centre of the town, and they were hard pressed to hold off the enemy attacks that had quietened down since we arrived. The Viet Minh were obviously waiting to see where we deployed before mounting any further assaults on the town. The ground between the jungle and the first of the buildings was already littered with Viet casualties. Inside the town, we had almost thirty wounded lying around on litters, being tended to by medics. Eight body bags were visible, laid out on the ground under a shop canopy. The infantry officers looked wild eyed. They’d obviously been taken by surprise and suffered casualties before they were even able to begin fighting back.

  The colonel in charge of the two battalions was Colonel Sartre, and I went to speak to him.

  “Yes, Sergeant, what is it?” he snapped.

  “Foreign Legion, we’ve just arrived, one company, Sir. My captain has deployed us to the east and west of the town. Could you tell me the situation, enemy strength and positions?”

  “If you need information, your captain can ask me. I don’t have time for sergeants,” he replied haughtily.

  I looked pointedly at the casualties lying on the ground, the body bags, then back to him.

  “Then perhaps you should make time, Colonel, if you want to avoid many more of these body bags.”

  His eyes widened, astonished at being spoken to in such an insubordinate manner.

  “Who are you, Sergeant? What is your name?”

  “Senior Sergeant Jurgen Hoffman, Sir, Foreign Legion.”

  “I thought so,” he sneered. “A Nazi.”

  I boiled over. The Viet Minh were laying siege to the town. His men were draining away in a steady flow of casualties, wounded and dead, and the stupid bastard could only think to drag up old arguments.

  “No, not a Nazi,” I told him, “French Foreign Legion, and trying to stop you getting your silly head blown off, Sir!”

  I emphasised the Sir, making it as insulting as I dared.

  “Now, will you please let me have some idea as to what is going on with the Viet Minh, or do I have to beat it out of you?”

  His jaw dropped, and I could see spittle beginning to ooze out of his mouth. He was terrified, that was obvious, reverting to the familiar safety of military rules and etiquette to try and protect him from enemy bullets. Fortunately, Captain Leforge chose that moment to join us, and he saluted the Colonel.

  “Sir, we need to know where the enemy is deployed, their strength, and anything you can tell us to help get you out of this situation.”

  He looked from me to the Colonel, curious about the frigid atmosphere. Colonel Sartre hesitated for a moment, and then a mortar shell exploded in the nearby town square, causing him to flinch. He looked wildly around him, and then took the opportunity to pass on his responsibilities.

  “Lieutenant, give this officer the intelligence he requires. I’m going to check the stores situation. Carry on.”

  He hurried away. The infantry lieutenant avoided my eyes, just handing me the maps and radio reports from their positions around the town. It took Leforge and me a few minutes to work out that the situation was grim.

  We were under attack from the Viet Minh 304th Division, together with elements of at least two other unidentified Viet Minh divisions. We were faced by possibly several thousand men, and our French forces, including the Legion, were little more than a thousand. It looked to us as if Colonel Sartre had almost thrown the battle away before it started, leaving whole sections of the town unguarded for Viet Minh squads to come surging in. Which in fact, they did. Hurling themselves at the defenders in suicidal rushes, allowing them to be slaughtered in droves, but slowly whittling away the numbers and morale of our men. Personally, I would like to have seen Colonel Sartre on the Russian Front, and possibly these Viet Minh would give him a flavour of what it was like to be there. I had to laugh inwardly at my vision of a tropical version of the battle of Kharkov.

  “Time to go, I think, Sergeant. We’ve got a battle on our hands, thanks to the good Colonel.”

  “Yes, Sir, I’ll rejoin my men.”

  “Captain, I could do with some advice on deploying my own men.”

  It was the lieutenant, standing next to the map table. Leforge looked him up and down, neat and freshly pressed in his new uniform.

  “Your first battle, Lieutenant?”

  “Yes, Sir, I’m sorry. Lieutenant Mathieu.”

  “Don’t be sorry,” Leforge replied. “You’ve done the right thing, asking advice from someone who’s done it before. Do you have a good sergeant, one with plenty of experience?”

  “Er, yes Sir, Sergeant Villeneuve. He’s been here since the start.”

  “Good. Go to him, ask his advice and put yourself in his hands. If you’re lucky, he’ll keep you and your men alive. I suggest you go now.”

  “Yes, Sir. Thank you Sir.”

  He hurried off, and we looked at each other. Just young lads!

  By the time I got to my men on the east of the town, they had deployed; two each of the MG42s stationed at each of our flanks, and each gun had several spare belts ready to hand. The men had taken up position behind whatever cover they could find, in the empty windows of the few brick built houses, and several were behind a concrete statue commemorating some long forgotten hero. Some had upturned a pair of vehicles, rusting broken down cars probably left over from the Japanese occupation. They had spare ammunition and grenades ready to hand, and everyone was well camouflaged behind some sort of cover.

  “Petrov,” I called, “did you manage to mine the approach?”

  “Sorry, Jurgen, the monkeys have got the open ground covered. I tried to get out there, but nearly got my arse shot off for my pains.”

  “Thanks for trying, anyway.”

  I checked around our positions. The men were well prepared, so there was nothing to do but wait. Occasionally, I heard a crack, followed by a scream. Armand was doing his job well, sniping from the church tower.

  Then they came, a whole stream of men. The Viet
Minh charged out of the jungle, screaming, ferociously. As they emerged, mortars started lobbing shells into the town, throwing clouds of dust, smoke and debris, and making it difficult to see what had been hit. Their flanking DP machine guns opened fire with a continuous clattering, spraying rounds around our positions. It was like being in a hailstorm, a very lethal hailstorm, but it was not one sided. Our troops needed no orders to fire, and ignoring the incoming bullets, the MG42s opened up at long range. As the Viets got nearer, it was the turn of the submachine guns, not the most accurate of weapons unless at close quarters. But there were so many attackers that it was literally a case of point and shoot.

  I saw dozens of the charging men go down hit by our bullets, but most reached our outer defences, the rolls of barbed wire the infantry engineers had placed around most obvious approaches to the town. They leapt over the wire, and many were hit by the increasing rate of fire that we brought to bear. In the distance, I could hear our troops, the Colonial Infantry and the other half of our company, exchanging a blazing rate of fire with their attackers. Clearly, there would be no hope of calling on them to reinforce this position, which was now very hard pressed.

  I could see two of our men down, and neither moved. At this rate, we were going to take a great many casualties.

  I shouted to the men, “Grenades!” and watched them lob the missiles at the Viets. The explosions and rain of metal fragments resulted in more screams, and more bodies torn apart and falling to the ground. It was looking grim. I estimated the enemy force was at least five hundred strong. At best, they’d lost a hundred men to our gunfire, but that left four hundred to close in on us. There were too many, and we couldn’t fight those numbers at close quarters.

  “Jurgen, get them to pull back. I’ve planted mines all around our positions,” a voice shouted.

  It was Petrov, our Ukrainian demolitions expert. I looked around, and there were wires snaking back to a house, a hundred metres further into the town.

  “Yes, that’s where the detonator is positioned. As soon as the Viets overrun this position, we can blow them back to Moscow.”