Devil's Guard- The Complete Series Box Set

by Eric Meyer

  “Excellent, Nikolai,” I told him.

  I got out my whistle and blew three short blasts, the signal to fall back. The men looked up, saw me pointing to the position one hundred metres away, and then followed me as I ran towards it. They needed no second order, and they literally scooped up their guns and ammunition and were hurtling away from the positions while the Viets were still fifty metres away.

  The last man dived under cover just as the Viet Minh surged over our first defence line. I waited for a few moments as they milled around, to let more troops come up to the kill zone. Then they saw Petrov’s wires. There was a screech of alarm, but it was too late. I turned the switch, and the whole area erupted in a massive explosion of smoke and flame. The screaming started, and it went on for a long time. At least half of the Viet Minh battalion that had attacked us lay dead or dying. The rest of them were either wounded or too shocked and stunned to respond. There was only one order to give.

  “Forward, attack, finish them off. Follow me!”

  In a flash, a literal flash, the situation had changed. The surviving Viet Minh still outnumbered us, but they were slow, shocked, and unable to think or even defend themselves. We gorged ourselves on killing. The riflemen had fixed bayonets, and the rest of us charged in with our MP40s blazing, emptying magazine after magazine into the demoralised troops.

  They never had a chance. We killed them in batches, empty a clip, a line of men dead or dying. Reload, another clip empty, another line of corpses. Some of them tried to flee, but our MG42s had set up position behind a broken and shattered bungalow, firing from gaps between the broken masonry. They chewed into the retreating troops, flinging them brutally to the ground.

  A few, a very brave few tried to regroup and fight back. We lobbed grenades into the middle of their ranks before they could even take aim, and more bodies were flung into the air. Finally, it ended.

  Perhaps a hundred of the five hundred who attacked had managed to find the safety of the jungle. We had inflicted a stunning defeat on a much larger force, and almost wiped out an entire battalion. That would make them think twice before they hit us again. A shout came towards us from the town. “Sergeant Hoffmann, they need help, quickly!”

  I looked up. It was Lieutenant Mathieu, the colonial infantry officer.

  “What is the situation, Lieutenant?” I asked.

  “The Viet Minh, Sergeant, they’ve broken through in several places. If we don’t stop them, they’ll come in behind us.”

  “And Colonel Sartre?”

  He hesitated. “I, I, er, cannot find the Colonel.”

  He looked shamefaced. We both knew what he meant.

  “Very well. Bauer!” I shouted.

  “Jurgen, what is it?” He came running up to us.

  “Friedrich, the colonials have got trouble. The Viets have overrun them in several places, and I’m taking some men to give them a hand. Keep ten of the men here to watch this area, and you can have two of the MG42s,” I told him. “We need to move fast before the monkeys outflank us.”

  He dashed away, calling out the names of troops he needed to stay with him. I shouted for the rest of the men to disengage and assemble with me. We’d lost four men killed in the short action and half a dozen wounded, so it meant we had around eighty men to help out the infantry. It would have to do.

  “Lead the way, Lieutenant. Let’s move.”

  “Er, right, you want me, er...”

  “Lieutenant, run! Wherever the action is, that’s where you’re taking us.”

  “Right.”

  We followed him, sprinting along. We suddenly came across a pocket of Viet Minh setting up a machine gun, one of their Russian DPs. They were as surprised to see us as we were to see them, but we were faster, more experienced, and more ruthless. Without even checking our speed, our two-dozen machine pistols fired into them, and three grenades were lobbed over our heads to land in the middle of them. Then we were past, leaving a dead and dying machine gun crew bleeding on the street.

  We came to the colonials’ position. They were desperately fighting against a much larger force of Viets, obviously another battalion that had launched a separate attack on them. It was not a moment too soon.

  “Sergeant Schuster,” I shouted to Paul, “keep ten men back as a rearguard. We don’t know how many of them have already got past the colonials. The rest of you, come with me, and give them everything you’ve got. Charge!”

  We jumped into the battle. The attackers were literally fighting hand-to-hand in some areas. I noticed the MG42s deploying to our flanks, and they would deter any more of the monkeys from getting into the close quarter fighting. Then we hit the body of struggling men. I tripped over the body of an infantryman, righted myself, and found a snarling Viet in front of me. I fired a burst and saw him go down, but there was another man behind him. I fired again, and he went down. And so it went, but we were turning the tide of battle; the unexpected arrival of our eighty men, seasoned veterans all, bloody fighters, survivors of countless battles, and we gave no quarter. The Viets died where they fought, shocked by our ferocity, a ferocity wrought in the course of our long struggle against communists everywhere. These were not men, not even monkeys. Monkeys at least should expect some respect. No, these were inhuman beasts, the denizens of Stalin and Ho’s deepest, darkest schemes. They were rats, vermin, and to be exterminated. And so we exterminated them. We hacked and slashed at them, shot them. I saw more than one legionnaire strangling his victim to death, the white, blazing heat of barbarous savagery.

  We were winning. The Viet Minh couldn’t withstand our fresh attack, so they slowly began to edge back, and then finally they turned and ran. The men let out a cheer.

  “Don’t follow,” I shouted. “We don’t know what they’ve got waiting in the jungle. Help the wounded, clear the dead and break out the ammunition stores. Let’s get this lot cleared. We don’t know when they’ll be coming back.”

  They started to carry out my orders. Men were running back and forth, carrying wounded soldiers, and a man ran past with a box of machine gun ammunition. Then the sound of a commotion broke my concentration.

  “Who the hell authorised the Legion to give orders to my men?”

  It was Colonel Sartre, red faced, apoplectic. I looked at him coolly.

  “I did.”

  “You? A sergeant? I will report you for this, and consider yourself lucky not be under arrest. I gave orders to these men, and I expect them to be obeyed, not ignored because of a Foreign Legion sergeant.”

  At first he looked satisfied, as he’d publicly upbraided this Nazi. Then I laughed in his face and grabbed him by the front of his jacket. I put my face close to his and spoke quietly.

  “You stupid, cowardly, jumped up piece of shit.”

  I could feel him shaking with both anger and fear.

  “You’ve got men dead here, you turd. Dead, because you were too cowardly to come and lead them properly, like an officer. If you don’t get reported for cowardice and deserting your men in the face of the enemy, I might even shoot you myself.”

  I looked around. A group of men, his and mine, were gathered around enjoying the show.

  “Now I suggest you either start to act like an officer, or get your pistol, put it in your mouth and blow your yellow brains out. Sir!” I shouted.

  I felt him flinch, and I flung him to one side and walked off, leaving him white and trembling.

  There were a few officers like that in the French army in Vietnam, although I never encountered anything similar in the Legion. Most officers that I fought with were brave soldiers, even in the face of overwhelming odds, and a political situation that seemed to be totally stacked against them. I looked for Lieutenant Mathieu and found him nearby, chatting to Bauer.

  “Lieutenant Mathieu, I suggest you start organising your men. I’ve strong doubts that the good Colonel will be good for very much. Keep an eye out for him. Cowards can be very vindictive,” I told him.

  He nodded, “Thank yo
u, Sergeant, for everything you and your men have done today.”

  We kept a close eye on the jungle for the rest of that day, but the Viet Minh seemed to have lost heart. We made sure guards were posted and settled in for the evening. Sometime after ten we were sitting around a fire in the square, drinking some of the local rice wine someone had bought from an opportunistic seller who was making the rounds of the troops, selling his wares. Suddenly, we heard shouts from nearby. We hastily picked up our weapons and ran for the source of the trouble. Two shots rang out in quick succession, and then a burst of submachine gun fire. We ran around a corner and straight into a hand-to-hand fight between Viet Minh and eight of our colonial infantry, who had bumped into the Viets as they patrolled the town.

  We waded into the melee, picking our targets. One Viet, a wiry, tough fighter, had already killed two of the infantry. I headed for him, but he saw me coming and raised his pistol, a Russian Tokarev, a common side arm from the Russian Front. I hit him square in the chest with a burst from my MP40 and saw him spin to the ground, his entrails spilling out, and one fighter who wouldn’t trouble us again. The others were quickly despatched.

  Apparently, they’d hidden in the town, waiting for dark to come out and attack us from behind. They cost us two men, and I immediately gave orders for the town to be turned upside down to find any more Viet Minh who were still in hiding. It was almost two o’clock before we had finished, the men grumbling and moaning that there were no more enemy in the town, and it was a fool’s errand. But Vogelmann and Kessler had found two more Viets, both slightly wounded and probably waiting for the middle of the night to break out. We sent them to join their other comrades.

  We spent all the next day helping the colonial infantry repair the town defences against the possibility of another attack. It was doubtful, the Viet Minh were known to be fight and run soldiers. Long, drawn out campaigns were not unknown, but still uncommon. Two more battalions of infantry arrived in lorries during the late afternoon, together with plenty of supplies and ammunition. We stayed for one more night, enjoying drinks and good food, part of the extra supplies the reinforcements brought with them, before leaving in the morning. We’d been recalled to Hanoi. I watched with Leforge and Bauer as the men loaded our trucks ready to move out. Vogelmann came over to us.

  “Does this mean leave, Captain?” he asked. “It’s been awhile since our last break, so any chance of taking a few days leave in the city?”

  Leforge raised his eyes to the heavens. None of us had taken any leave for several months, since Giap’s new offensives had started. Apart from the odd day grabbed when there was a rare lull in the fighting, there was little opportunity for anything other than fighting. We were outnumbered and often felt outgunned; something that was confirmed after the war when a unit comparison established that the Viet Minh were more heavily armed than the average French company. Fortunately we were not the average French company, and we suffered the burden of extra weapons and ammunition in order to give us the edge in a firefight.

  But overall, the French army in Indochina was fighting for its life and everyone, apart from the politicians and the General Staff, knew it.

  Our gear was finally loaded, and the troops piled into the lorries. We began driving back to Hanoi, a distance of sixty-five kilometres, about forty miles. Halfway there, we reached the village of Nhi Khe, and until recently a haven of peace in the midst of a war-torn countryside. The villagers gave allegiance to neither France nor Ho Chi Minh. The whole area was a humid, marshy plain, given over entirely to rice paddies. Each morning the villagers came out to tend the rice shoots; while their children were given good elementary schooling in the village hut that served as a school, council chamber and even theatre when some travelling group arrived to stage a traditional Vietnamese play. They travelled to Hanoi and sold their rice to the merchants there, refusing to deal directly with either the French or the Viet Minh. They saw themselves as above the war, neutrals.

  Now, smoke poured out of the village. Leforge gave rapid commands, and his leading vehicle came to a halt. The rest stopped, and we all deployed carefully to either side of the road. If it wasn’t an ambush, it was still too dangerous to take any chances.

  We approached the village warily, but it seemed to be deserted. The huts were in flames, still burning, and smoke pouring out. I sent Vogelmann with a small recon section in to check it out. Inside of ten minutes they were back, their faces pale and stretched.

  “You need to see this, Jurgen. It’s not good,” he told me.

  “Legion prisoners, they’ve been...”

  He faltered. This was not like Vogelmann. Surely, he’d seen everything that inhumanity could do to man in battlefields, from the Eastern Front to these steaming jungles. I was wrong.

  “They crucified four of them. While they were still alive, they cut all over their bodies with knives. Then they smeared what looks like honey on the bodies to attract the local insect life.”

  I nodded. “We’ll move in. We can at least give the poor bastards a decent burial.”

  I found Captain Leforge and made my report.

  “Very well, Jurgen. We may as well take a break here while we get those men buried. Dismount,” he shouted to the company.

  Men jumped down from the vehicles and advanced warily on the village, weapons at the ready despite Vogelmann’s all clear. I heard a shout. It was Senior Sergeant Bauer.

  “More bodies, Jurgen, and it looks like the villagers.”

  I went over to where he stood. It was a pit filled with bodies, men, women and children. Clearly the Viet Minh had tired of the village refusing to ally with them. It looked as if they’d forced them, the men, women and the children, to dig the pit, and then made them climb into it, killing them all with rifle fire. The most pitiful sight was of three small children lying on the top of the pile of death, their bodies destroyed by Viet Minh bullets. One child, it looked as if she was a girl, still clutched a wooden doll. I had to walk away. It was too much.

  At that time, the French had a policy of small forts, and often little more than concrete sheds, serving as a defensive line across Tonkin. The theory was that each fort would be part of a network of similar forts, some larger, but many similar to the one in this village. When a fort was attacked, the fort could call on a nearby post to send reinforcements. General de Lattre had built up the Vietnamese National Army to provide support for the French, and used these Vietnamese troops to man the so-called ‘de Lattre Line,’ a series of forts and bases. This freed French troops for offensives against the Viet Minh.

  So much for theory. What had happened here was repeating itself all across Vietnam, especially here in the north where the Viet Minh were much stronger, both militarily and politically. All the isolated forts achieved, was to dilute the French military strength so that Giap’s troops could pick them off one by one. The Viet Minh were anything but stupid. They learned quickly and were utterly ruthless, quick to exploit any French weakness as they had here at Nhi Khe, more French deaths, and more Vietnamese deaths. And still they kept building these small outposts. Some said it was the Maginot Line mentality, the fortification built by the French after the First World War to prevent their country being attacked from the east by Germany.

  The Maginot Line, named after French Minister of Defence, André Maginot, was a line of concrete fortifications, tank obstacles, artillery casemates, machine gun posts, and other defences; which France constructed along its borders with Germany and Italy, in the light of experience from World War I, and in the run-up to World War II.

  Belgium was neutral, so the Maginot line didn’t extend across Belgium and to La Manche, the English Channel. It didn’t need a military genius to work out that to invade France and avoid the Maginot Line, all that was needed was to conquer Belgium, a country with a tiny, weak army. Which, of course, is exactly what the German forces did. Would the French General Staff never learn? Probably not. The problem was that while they refused to heed even the most basic mili
tary lessons, soldiers like these poor devils died the most horrible deaths, as did the people they were supposed to protect.

  I gave orders to cut down the murdered soldiers, give their tags to Captain Leforge, and bury the bodies in a deep grave. There was little we could do for the villagers. They were already in their death pit and beyond our help. Leforge established radio contact with Hanoi, called in a report on the massacre, and then we waited while the burial detail finished the grave. Finally, the bodies were buried. We stood in a group around the grave, at attention. Leforge said a few words and six of our riflemen fired a volley into the air. Private Armand, our company sharpshooter, played the mournful ‘Taps’ on the battered bugle he carried around with him in his pack for just such an occasion. Afterwards, we stood for a few minutes in respectful silence. Then we embarked on the vehicles for Hanoi.

  “Have you an answer for me, Sergeant Hoffman?” Colonel Joffre asked.

  “Colonel, after what we saw today, I would love to hang Giap from a hook on a piece of piano wire,” I told him.

  “Ah, that’s the old Nazi in you, Jurgen. I believe Adolf prescribed that treatment for people he didn’t like.”

  Following the July 1944 attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler, those suspected of being a part of the plot were brought to trial presided over by the notorious judge of the People's Court, Richter Roland Freisler. Hitler said he wanted to see the leaders hung "like slaughtered cattle", and this is precisely what they did at the Plötzensee prison; hanging the condemned conspirators by piano wire or hemp rope from meat hooks. The men endured agonising strangulation before they died. The deranged Hitler even sent cameramen to film the executions for his enjoyment.

  “Maybe,” I grinned at him.

  “But the answer is no, I’m afraid. Much as Giap deserves to die for encouraging his people to torture and murder innocent civilians, especially the children, I don’t believe it is feasible to reach his headquarters, kill him and make an escape. We’ve discussed it, me and the other NCOs, and the consensus is that we would be committing suicide. Sorry.”