by Eric Meyer
“It seems the reputation of the SS killers is hard to shake off,” I said ruefully.
“Listen, Helene, I’m a soldier. That means I sometimes have to kill people, and usually when they are trying to kill me. Occasionally, I kill civilians when they are unfortunate enough to get caught in crossfire. But murdering a man in cold blood is not something I’ve ever done, nor contemplated. Oh sure, it went on in Russia. I saw it happen many times. On more than one occasion, I have made my feelings known to a senior officer. So murder, no, it’s not my style.”
She smiled. “I apologise. I have misjudged you.”
I smiled back at her.
“In any case, killing Giap wouldn’t have called off the hunt for him, would it?”
She leaned over and punched me on the arm.
“Damn you, Jurgen. Just when I think you’re a nice person, you go and ruin it. What am I to make of you?”
“Whatever you want, my dear. What would you like to make of me?”
She looked me directly in the eyes. “Is that an invitation?”
“Absolutely, Helene, an open invitation. Shall we say tonight, and you can make of me as you will.”
“Tonight, then,” she said with a serious look on her face.
“Seriously, Jurgen, this war looks as if it will drag on forever. Do you see any future for us, for you and me?”
“I would like that, Helene, yes, I think I would. We’re a long way from Hanoi. I think we have much to discuss when we get back.”
“I would like that too,” she replied.
We both sat silently, reflecting on what had just been said, and unsaid. Could I, formerly an SS officer, veteran of the Russian Front, Foreign Legion soldier and scourge of the Viet Minh, ever settle down to married life? With all the baggage that it carried with it, a home, children maybe, a regular job that didn’t mean people shooting at you, and you shooting at them? I realised then that yes, I could look forward to life with this beautiful, brave, fascinating woman. My God, how I was changing.
Helene came to me that night. I’d made my bed in the remotest part of the clearing. She said that she hoped no one would notice. I didn’t tell her that in a tight unit like this one, they noticed everything. You couldn’t even sneeze without half the men finding it amusing.
We made love, silently, passionately, and the bond between us even stronger now that we both knew this relationship planned to become permanent, if we got back to Hanoi, of course. She was naked underneath my blanket, her skin smooth and elastic. The smell of her, the musky smell of a fit young woman, and even more prominent after the hot, sweaty forced march through the jungle, was especially arousing. That evening, I knew in my mind that this was the woman for me. The one I wanted to be my mate for the rest of my life. Once again, in the morning, she was gone. We spent three days in that jungle clearing. Three glorious days in which we relaxed, recuperated and generally got ourselves back to fitness, while the Viet Minh hunt died down. Each day, there were alarms as the sentries ran into the clearing to report the approach of a group of men. We kept still and quiet while they went past. We were not using anything that they could smell, like soap, toothpaste, aftershave, any of the things that beginners to jungle warfare gave themselves away with.
We were one with the jungle, no unfamiliar noise or smells, just an isolated universe, of no threat to the armed groups, nor them to us, as long as we remained undiscovered.
After the three days, the numbers of passing hunters had almost dropped to zero. It was time to move, and I gave the orders. We picked up our packs and weapons and left our jungle haven. We travelled, as usual, with two scouts well to the front, as well as two men in the rear to watch for any unexpected pursuit. It took us six days to get back to Hanoi, six days of hacking and slashing our way through isolated, often abandoned jungle trails.
Despite my freeing Giap, I knew he would not let up until he had exhausted every possibility to capture, and if necessary, wipe out my group; which had come so close to upsetting the communist plans in Indochina. So we carefully avoided any tracks or trails that looked well used. It was hard going, blazing trails where probably no human being had passed in several years. The paths were overgrown with bushes and vines. Often, the trails themselves became impossible to identify, and we had to navigate by compass.
But our caution paid off, and in six days, we only came close to enemy contact twice, and on both occasions we had sufficient warning from our scouts to give us time to get into cover. On the evening of the sixth day, we came out onto a French military road, and in less than an hour had hitched a lift on an empty supply lorry returning to Hanoi after supplying one of the outlying forts. Just before dark, we drove through the barracks gates. We were home.
* * * * *
CHAPTER NINE
I reported in, found quarters for Helene and went back to my own room where I did my best to shower off the sweat and filth. I opened a bottle of Schnapps, drank a half of it and fell into bed, exhausted as the stress and tension of the mission drained out of me. I awoke suddenly to a knock on the door. Friedrich Bauer stood there.
“Its Joffre, Jurgen. He wants to speak with the Sergeants. Petrov and Schuster are already there. We need to report as soon as possible.”
“He knows, Friedrich? About Giap?”
He nodded. “The word’s got around that we had Giap, and you let him go. My guess is he’s not too happy.”
“Ok, thanks Friedrich. I’ll be there in twenty minutes. I need time for another shower.”
“What will you tell him?” he asked.
“Tell Joffre? Fuck Joffre, I really don’t give a damn. If he wants to murder Giap, he can go and do it himself. I’ll see you there shortly,” I said, dismissing him.
It was thirty minutes before I reported to Joffre, feeling belligerent and annoyed. Without doubt, he could see it in my face. I lined up with Schuster, Bauer and Petrov in front of his desk.
“Sergeant Hoffman,” he greeted me. “I will ask you later for a full report on the mission. In the meantime, I am disturbed at the suggestion that you had Giap and let him go. Is that correct?”
“Yes, Colonel, that is correct.”
“I see,” he responded heavily. “Would you tell me why you did it?”
I explained about the impossibility of returning safely to Hanoi through enemy territory with ten divisions of Viet Minh hunting us down.
“Very well, I understand all of that. Yes, you are quite correct. We already knew that the Viets threw a ring of troops around the approaches to Hanoi. Even if you had escaped the immediate area, they would have blocked your return. I imagine you anticipated that?”
“Yes, Sir,” I replied.
“And the other option?”
“You mean murder, Colonel Joffre?”
He flinched.
“This is war, Sergeant Hoffman. There is a thin line between what we are forced to do and murder.”
“Colonel, if we’d killed Giap, that wouldn’t have called off the Viets. They would have kept hunting us.”
“Yes, of course. So that is why you released him?”
“No, Colonel. I released him because I was never an executioner for the SS, neither will I become one for the French Foreign Legion.”
He paused for a moment, and his expression was angry.
“Sergeant, by letting Giap go, you have made a grave mistake. I must report this to my superiors.”
I felt my anger boil over.
“Colonel, I suggest you report it to the same superiors who were too cowardly to offer us the support we needed. If they had had the guts to send in helicopters for an air evacuation, we could have been back here a week ago, complete with Comrade Giap. As it is, I wasn’t prepared to be a murderer, nor to be party to the effective murder of my men, which would have happened if we hadn’t released him. Now, if you want my sergeant’s stripes, you can have them. And if you want me to resign from the Legion, you can have that, too. Sir!” I shouted.
The other
s looked at me, astonished. I was not always the most obedient of soldiers, but I rarely lost my temper, and never with a senior officer. I saluted, turned on my heel and stormed out of the office.
An hour later the sergeants came to my room.
“Well,” I asked them, “who is to take over the unit?”
“You’re still in charge, Jurgen. Now that Joffre has the full facts, he can see your point of view. On top of that, the senior officer we released from the prison camp has just been on the phone, and he wants to recommend you for a medal. When he put the phone down, Helene came to the office and told him her side of the story, about the freeing of those villagers. Putting it all together, we scored pretty well, even returning without Giap. We certainly had more success against the Viets than the whole of the French Army has had in the past year,” Petrov said.
“Helene? Where is she now?” I asked them.
“She’s gone to report to the Medical Administrator for Indochina, the guy who runs the charity she works for. She’ll be back some time this afternoon,” Bauer said.
“Thanks, Friedrich. In that case, as I’m still in charge, I’ve got something to do. Before I let him go, Giap let slip that someone fed the Viets information about our mission.”
“That would explain a lot. There were far too many Viets in the area, and many more than we expected.”
“So who was it? Anyone got any ideas about who ratted us out?”
They shook their heads.
I told them of my suspicions, of my chats with the men on the way back, and especially with Manfred von Kessler.
Von Kessler had been seeing a Viet girl for some time. I’d had my suspicions aroused when I caught her one day outside the room where we were discussing our forthcoming mission.
“It would be best to speak to Manfred,” Paul Schuster said. “Thien is a sweet girl. I’ve met her on several occasions when she has been here with Manfred. But if there is any question about her being a spy, well…”
He tailed off. Well, indeed, if Manfred’s girl was a spy, she would need to be dealt with.
“I’ll go and find him now and have a chat. Friedrich, Joffre is waiting for the mission report, would you do me a favour and make a start? I have a feeling that this business with Thien won’t wait.”
“Ok, Jurgen, no problem.”
I left the room and went to find Manfred. He was in the armoury, supervising the checking and refitting of our heavy weapons. Von Kessler was a dedicated soldier that was obvious. In this war, it paid to always be ready for the next mission, and no matter how recently the last one had finished.
“Manfred, I need a word,” I greeted him.
“Jurgen, you look serious. A problem?”
“Let’s go outside for a chat.”
We found the canteen empty and sat down with a couple of cold beers.
“It’s about Thien,” I told him.
“What about her? Has she done anything wrong?”
I went over the various scraps of information we’d gathered together, the listening at doors, the hint that Giap had dropped, as well as other suspicions that had surfaced over the past few weeks.
“Taken one by one, these reports could be ignored, but together, they all point to Thien being involved with the Viets, Manfred.”
He had gone red in the face. I hadn’t realised how close he was to the girl.
“Jurgen, I’d stake my life on Thien being clean. Damnit, anyone could be a spy. What about Mai?”
Mai was Karl-Heinz Vogelmann’s girlfriend. I had to agree that it was also possible, although less likely. She didn’t hang around the barracks like Thien, and seemed less likely a candidate.
“Look, we need to get the girls in for questioning, Manfred. Just a friendly chat, no rough stuff, perhaps they are both innocent. Would you find Karl-Heinz, and both of you go and find your girlfriends and bring them back here?”
“I’ll get onto it right away. The sooner we can clear this up the better. I’ll let you know when we get back with the girls.”
We finished our beers, and he walked away to find Vogelmann and locate the girls. An hour later, they both came back, red-faced.
“They’ve gone, Jurgen.”
“Gone? Both of them?”
“We checked everywhere, their homes, the bars, the usual places. Thien’s mother said that she hasn’t been home for two days, and Mai’s parents said she hasn’t been home either,” von Kessler said hurriedly.
“Maybe they were both up to something, and perhaps they got word from the Viets that we might suspect them,” I said.
“Or perhaps they refused to help the Viets and were kidnapped. At this stage, we don’t know anything until we can locate them,” Vogelmann added.
“Either way, we need to find out what has happened to them. Jurgen, we could do with some help to start searching,” said von Kessler.
“Of course. It’s a security matter now, not just a couple of lost girlfriends, so I’ll clear it with Joffre. I think six of us should do it. Hopefully there’ll be a simple explanation, and we can put this behind us,” I replied.
In the event, Joffre needed no convincing.
“I’m concerned that you all need a rest after that last mission, Jurgen, but I do agree that finding out if these girls are a security leak is a priority concern.”
I thanked him and left. We spent the rest of the afternoon hunting for the girls, questioning the locals and checking every known haunt where they might be holed up. We came up with nothing, and as afternoon turned into evening, found a bar that offered decent food and sat down for a meal and to discuss our strategy. The waitress brought out steaming plates of Banh Chung, sticky rice wrapped in banana leaves and stuffed with mung bean paste, lean pork and black pepper, together with fresh glasses of ice-cold beer. We were wolfing down the food, the first really good meal we’d eaten in a long time, when Petrov suddenly leapt out of his seat, picked up his MP40 submachine gun and dashed out of the restaurant. We heard the sounds of a struggle, raised voices, shouting, screams of pain, and then a massive explosion. We dived to the floor and crawled over to the window. All of us had our weapons out and ready to fire. Nikolai was standing over the prostrate form of a Viet, and nearby, the explosion had smashed apart a palm tree, which had crashed to the ground, riddled with metal fragments. There was no obvious threat, so we cautiously left the restaurant and went over to Petrov.
“Sorry about the fuss, Jurgen. I saw this bastard,” he indicated to the body of the Viet on the ground with a kick, “sneaking past with something in his hand. I thought it might be a grenade, so I rushed out and grabbed him. He’d already pulled out the pin, so I had to chuck it somewhere safe. Pity about the tree,” he said ruefully.
“What about him?” I asked, nodding towards the body on the ground.
“Knocked out. I hit him pretty hard, I think,” he grinned.
I turned over the body. The man was still breathing and looked to be a typical northern Viet. I guessed his age at about twenty. He was well dressed, and not one of the usual peasants who mounted isolated and sporadic attacks on us at the command of their Viet Minh slave masters. This one looked like a student, possibly from Hanoi University. He began groaning and looked up at his captors. There was strangely no fear in his eyes, just hatred, vicious and intense.
“Now, my friend, who are you?” I asked him.
He just stared, so I repeated the question. There was still no response.
“We’ll take him back to the barracks. We need to question him. Maybe he can throw some light on the whereabouts of Thien and Mai.”
As I said the names, I saw his eyes react. Got you, you bastard, I thought. He definitely knew something about them. We just needed to get it out of him. We tied his hands with some twine that Petrov had in his pocket and marched our captive back to barracks. When we got there, I sent for Corporal Dubois and Private Laurent, the two Arabs. They arrived within minutes. Bruno’s eyes lit up when he saw the Viet trussed and ready for a
‘talk’.
“Corporal, this prisoner tried to kill us with a hand grenade. I want him interrogated, especially with regards to the whereabouts of Thien and Mai, von Kessler and Vogelmann’s girlfriends. They went missing a couple of days ago. I want to know why, and where they are at present. You have a free hand, so do whatever is necessary. But keep it quiet,” I said, looking at him meaningfully.
“I don’t want some bleeding heart in the barracks whining about torture and mistreating prisoners.”
“Understood, Sergeant. I’ll make sure he’s as quiet as a sleeping baby,” Dubois grinned.
“Report to me when you have something, and remember, whatever it takes, provided it makes no noise.”
Dubois left with the prisoner. We went over to the canteen, and I bought another round of beers to replace the ones we’d left in the restaurant when the grenade went off. We chatted quietly, waiting for Dubois to get results. Vogelmann and von Kessler especially were edgy. It was their girlfriends that may be in trouble. Either they were spying for the Viets, or they had been kidnapped for consorting with a French soldier. Either way, it meant trouble.
Two hours went by, and I was about to go and ask Dubois about progress when he entered the canteen. He wore a broad smile on his face.
“We have the information you wanted, Sergeant. The man’s name is Trinh Van Dung, and he’s a student at the University. In his spare time, he works as an agent of the local Viet Minh cadre. The attack was his own idea. Apparently, he saw you in the bar and thought it would be easy to throw the grenade and get away.”
“And the girls, any information on them?” I asked.
“He knows the names. He heard the local girls are girlfriends of two of our soldiers and that one of the girls was working for the Viets. The other one found out and was going to report it to us, but the Viets got to her first.”
“Does he know which was which, who was informing?”
He shook his head.
“Sorry, no. I pressed him hard, but he doesn’t know. He gave me an address where we can find them, though.”