Rummaging through the back pocket of her jeans, she retrieved a thick hair-band and tied her hair back. A lock fell loose. She let it hang by her cheek, then snatched up her weapon.
Movement in the street caught her attention. She pushed the rifle stock into her shoulder and looked down the gun sight. It was Captain Việt, running down the centre of the street, pausing occasionally to flash his torch three times. What did that mean? Three minutes? Three enemies? He carried a pump action shotgun. He hoisted it above his head in a kind of salute, then ran back toward to his position which she'd noted was four buildings to her right.
'Ok, it's on,' Huy said. Fidgeting with his weapon. He knelt on one knee then changed to the other and back again.
The beating blades of helicopters thumped somewhere overhead. Their droning grew to an aggressive buzz. Visible only by flashing lights on the tail and body of the helicopters. They flew in a V formation at low altitude. Moments after they'd passed the sound dissipated.
'That was intense,' Huy whispered, 'I thought they were coming for us.'
She tensed on hearing the heavy groaning rumble of armoured vehicles. She tried to guess how many. It was more than one. It was a quick response; perhaps just fifteen minutes since the first explosion.
'It's time,' she rasped.
She tucked the stock tightly into her shoulder the way Huy told her would stop the weapon jerking out of her grip when she started to shoot. She'd wondered how he knew it. Perhaps one of those things guys instinctively know from years of computer gaming.
The first vehicle appeared as a pair of headlights glowing in the otherwise darkened street. A light in her peripheral vision caught her attention; the waving guy was lighting a Molotov cocktail. Too soon! She wanted to scream at him. They were supposed to wait for the demolition charges to block the road first. The convoy approached fast. Her heart thumped against her ribs. Her breath quickened. If the trap wasn't sprung in the next seconds, the first vehicle would pass.
The lead vehicle looked like a beach buggy with a large spare tyre on the bonnet. A soldier stood in the back, manning a large machine gun mounted on a bar which ran over the top of the buggy. Following the buggy was a large dark open topped truck with huge wheels. Pale faces lined the back of the truck. She couldn't see how many but it was stuffed full of soldiers. There were at least two more trucks behind that.
A burst of light blinded her. She was thrust hard against the floor. Her first thought was that she'd been shot. She blinked. The shadows moved, stirred by the sudden brilliance. A high pitched squeal, like feedback pierced her skull. The walls and floor trembled. The window shattered, raining tiny shards of glass on her as dirt blew through the window, choking her.
Lifting her head, she saw Huy pushing himself up from the floor. He looked to her and mouthed something. He might have shouted; all sound was blotted out by the tinny squeal filling her head.
'Are you ok?' Huy mouthed.
She raised her thumb, then sat up, coughing. She felt unbalanced. Her mind spun. She held a finger in front of her face- trying to focus her eyes. Huy was already kneeling by his window. He averted his face from the dust still wafting in from the street. A flickering of light illuminated him.
She waited for the dust to settle. It was no good poking her head out of the window just to get choked. She was still dizzy. Whatever deafened her had upset her equilibrium. She felt vibrations through the wooden floor; gunfire or explosions most likely. She felt disembodied; like watching herself on TV with the sound on mute.
Huy was mouthing something again. The way his jaw worked looked like he was shouting. He turned away, aiming his gun out of the window. Lit up by flashes from his barrel. His skin and clothing were liberally covered in a layer of light brown dust.
She stood. Raising the stock of the gun to her shoulder. The demolitions had been blown. The two buildings where charges had been set had been ripped open. Debris hung precariously from the decimated structures. Rubble from the two houses- one either side of the street, had effectively blocked the road. If the charge had been any bigger it could have toppled the buildings where fighters- including herself occupied.
The beach buggy had taken the brunt of the explosion. Its front half lay covered in rubble. None of its occupants were visible; perhaps buried under the collapsed brickwork. Perfectly timed.
The waving guy’s window was lit up orange. Licks of flame singed the window frame. She decided that the force of the demolition must have made him drop his explosive. She saw no sign of him, but the flames had already spread so quickly it seemed likely the fire had consumed him instantly.
The first big truck was directly below her window. It had managed to break in time to prevent crashing into the buggy. Soldiers in the rear of the open topped truck were strewn about haphazardly. Some had been thrown clear of the truck and were picking themselves up from the ground.
Bullets from Huy's machine gun riddled the enemy where they lay struggling to rise. The stricken soldier's bodies danced and writhed under the impacts. Phượng added her own hail of death. Faces contorted in pain and fear; their screams all the more grotesque in their silence. She felt no pity, but tried not to focus on their screaming, dying faces- it would be bad karma.
Within seconds her machine gun stopped responding to her violent jerks of the trigger. Thinking it jammed she kept squeezing the trigger before realising the magazine was spent. She pulled the curved magazine from the weapon and tossed it out the window where it wouldn't get mixed up with any of her fresh magazines. Stooping to pick up one, she struggled to get it to click into the gun.
Huy stopped firing too. Ducking to one side of the window, he lit the rag on a bottle of petrol. The flame spread quickly along the rag. Stepping back to the window he heaved the flaming projectile. The so-called 'cocktail' exploded on impact with the truck; the fireball engulfing many of the occupants instantly. Fire spread quickly from one man to the next. Burning limbs flailed. One man jumped from the back of the truck, with both legs alight, tripping as he landed. He desperately patted the flames, igniting his sleeves. He contorted on the ground as the blaze consumed him.
Tearing her sight from the grim scene, Phượng realised she still hadn't slipped the magazine into her weapon. She struggled with it again, then noticing she was holding the magazine upside-down. Turning it about, it slotted in easily.
Those soldiers still alive on the truck writhed in agony. The roof of the truck's cab was riddled with bullet holes. The air was heavy with a scent like burning hair. She tried to breathe only through her mouth.
She turned her attention to the next trucks. Soldiers were shooting from the second and third trucks. Others jumped from their vehicles to take cover from doorways and alcoves along the street. Nowhere afforded them much cover. She took aim at one running soldier. He was cut down before she could squeeze the trigger.
The second truck sped backwards, slamming into the third. Only a few metres separated the two trucks but it managed to build up enough momentum to cause the passengers on both vehicles to be thrown off balance.
A brilliant streak arced towards the second truck- missing it's mark it exploded on the tarmac. A second petrol bomb struck the flat bed of the truck. Bursting into a mushroom-cloud of fire; turning soldiers into human torches. Jumping ablaze from the truck they rolled spasmodically in the road.
The truck lurched forward. Accelerating, it weaved around the wreck of the lead truck. It's wheels bouncing over bodies of soldiers strewn across the road. With the road blocked by debris there was nowhere to go. Phượng looked down the sight of her gun at the panicking driver. She squeezed the trigger. The gun jolted upward, threatening to jump from her grasp. Tightening her grip, she lowered her aim, firing a second burst.
The truck’s windscreen shattered. The driver twitched in his seat as bullets shredded him. The vehicle veered- crashing through the front of a 'Circle K' shop which occupied the ground floor of the building where the waving guy had burned himself to
death.
The remaining soldiers scattered. Firing as they fled. Desperate to find cover. Most were shot down as they ran. Successive explosions from petrol bombs sprouted fireballs along the road; most failed to do more than add confusion among the surviving Chinese. It was just a matter of picking off the survivors. Phượng searched for another target. Her arms ached from the weight of the weapon. She wasn't scared anymore. The enemy were getting everything they deserved. It was like exterminating rats. No worse than killing a cockroach.
She glanced at Huy, he also seemed to be searching for a target. She caught his eye, he lowered his weapon to chest level, smirking at her. She frowned; what was he smiling about? Was he enjoying himself? His eyes looked past her. His smile vanished and jaw fell slack. She spun to see what alarmed him so.
The door had been thrown open- she hadn't heard it. A Chinese soldier stood in the doorway, his uniform covered in dirt and helmet askew. He held his machine gun at waist height. His lips pulled back over his teeth in a snarl or scream. She knew in that instant that she had no time to react. Even as she lifted her own weapon, his was poised to fire, his face screaming fury at her. His body jerked. He stumbled backward, the weapon falling from his grip.
Huy somehow managed to shoot first. Bullets ripped into the soldier's body even after he hit the floor. Huy advanced on him, his machine gun spitting forth it's furious vengeance. Small eruptions burst from the soldier's torso, shoulders, neck and face. Where shots missed, chips of wood exploded from the floor around the soldier. Then all was still.
Huy stood over the body, still pointing his weapon at the corpse. Phượng walked to him. Placing her hand on his shoulder. He flinched as if woken from a trance. His lips moved, but the high-pitched whine in her ears drowned out his words. She squeezed his shoulder.
'Thanks,' she said, uncertain if she mouthed or shouted the word.
She returned to the window. Vietnamese fighters had spilled into the street; darting among bodies and burning wreckage. Was it over already? It seemed like the whole thing had unfolded in just a minute or two. All three trucks were ablaze. Dozens of corpses littered the street.
The horizon flashed like from a thunderstorm. There was still plenty more to do.
Tuấn
23rd March, 21:15
They sat on the floor in a circle around the radio. Shrouded in shadow; faces illuminated by candlelight. The radio periodically repeated the same message for over an hour. Nobody spoke. Even little Dac listened quietly to the Prime Minister.
'Rise up comrades. The time has come to fight,' he urged, passion strengthening his voice, 'Our brave forces are closing in from hidden locations around Ho Chi Minh city. Support our brave soldiers by disrupting enemy forces. Give them no place to hide. United we drive them from the city. One big strike for freedom!'
Tuấn had gone into the street and found nothing. No uprising. No enemy soldiers. They heard a group of helicopters overhead shortly after the message first played, but nothing since.
Between repeats of the Prime Minister’s speech were updates by the 'Rose of Hanoi' as she had become known- supposedly coined by her devoted listeners. She told how artillery batteries had been snuck piece by piece to positions where they now bombarded Chinese positions, and that Vietnamese forces from the 4th Corps were already engaging the People's Liberation Army.
'I don't understand why we can't see anything,' Thuỳ said. Dark rings under her eyes and the shadows made her eyes looked sunken into her skull. She'd been increasingly jittery since the shop incident; biting her nails down, she twitched and fidgeted more than Dac. Shell shocked, Tuấn supposed.
They expected the Chinese to go door to door looking for the culprits of the massacre. They discussed how they'd react if troops came into the workshop. How they'd escape, pre-emptively strike, or even shoot themselves rather than be captured. Thuỳ hadn't liked the sound of that. Heavy vehicles passed several times on the day of the massacre. Once troops on foot passed by; content to continue their patrol without booting down doors. Perhaps the loss of supporting Vietnamese thugs wasn't strongly felt.
'The city is large,' Tuấn reasoned, 'any attack from outside the city would be miles away.'
'We should go look at least,' Minh said.
Tuấn shook his head no. 'The further out we go, the more dangerous it is.'
'We haven't heard anything in hours,' Minh countered.
Tuấn removed his glasses. Polishing the lens with front of his t-shirt. He thought of a military motto he'd read somewhere, something like 'march to the sound of the firing' but there was no such sound. There was nothing at all.
'It could be a trap,' Lâm suggested.
Tuấn had considered that; the Chinese could have hijacked the radio frequency. Teacher had promised instructions, but nothing had come through. However, he also told Tuấn to act on initiative.
'We haven't ammunition for a protracted engagement,' Tuấn said in a half whisper. The others remained silent. Lost in their own musings. Tuấn scolded himself for his indecision. If there was a target he could order an attack. They couldn't wander the streets looking for trouble.
'Maybe we need to engage to get more ammunition,' Minh said, sitting with his knees tucked up under his chin and his arms clutched around his shins. 'Of course, if you'd picked up the shotgun from the traitors’ truck...'
It was at least the third time Minh had mentioned it. They’d left the scene of the executions in too much of a hurry to think of the shotgun the truck driver had. He tried not to dwell on the incident, yet often an image snuck uninvited into the forefront of his consciousness; traitors cowering, terrified faces knowing they'd be shown no quarter.
'Maybe we can just take a peek. Quietly. Just one of us,' Lâm said.
'Send the boy!' Minh perked up.
Tuấn didn't want to rely too thoroughly on the lad, and if something happened to him it would be on his shoulders. Lâm wouldn’t forgive him.
'We're not using the kid... besides if anything was going on, there'd be convoys of troops going to the front. We'd hear it.'
'Not so,' Lâm said, 'we're not on a main route. The Chinese would use highways. We might see something if we could get high up. To get a view of the city.'
'I don't have the 300,000vnd entry fee for the Bitexco tower observation deck,' Minh snapped.
Tuấn glared at him. 'Lâm has a point. Some residential blocks are eight or nine floors. From a rooftop we might see something.'
'Nah,' Minh shook his head. 'There'd be too many towers blocking the view.'
To be on the street after curfew was a sure way to attract trouble. Tuấn hung his head. He needed to make a decision. He should've made it when they first heard the message. ‘Wait and see’ wasn't an option a military commander would take. He noticed Minh staring at him; eyes narrowed and his face screwed up as if he'd just noticed Tuấn for the first time and wasn't sure what kind of creature he was.
'What?' Tuấn growled.
'Did you hear something?' Minh said.
'Hear what?'
'Shush!' Lâm hissed. He lunged at the radio; twisting the volume dial to silence.
'What the hell's wrong with you-' Then Tuấn heard it. Like a distant storm. Holding his breath, he strained to listen. It wasn't the rainy season, but thunder seemed as likely as gunfire.
Dac shifted position. Scraping his sandals on the concrete floor. Tuấn slapped his hand over the boy's leg to halt him. Their breathing was all that could be heard; then a distant bassy 'boom'.
Tuấn thought he could hear the far-off buzz of a helicopter. Perhaps it was a noisy air-con unit in a neighbouring apartment. Then a harsh rhythmic snap like a firecracker; unmistakably small arms fire. It was distant, but it was confirmation of engagement.
'More fighting,' Thuỳ whimpered, wrapping her arms around Lâm.
'We need to go,' Tuấn muttered; more to convince himself than the others. Time to march to the sound of the firing. 'Let’s get ready!'
&n
bsp; Dac scrambled out the way. Lâm headed straight for the hidden assault rifle. Minh handed out the pistols and spare magazines. Tuấn took the revolver. Opening it he checked that all six chambers were loaded before stuffing it into the pocket of his skinny black jeans. The handle stuck out so he could grab it quick.
‘Minh, you take the extra pistol. I’m ok with the revolver.’ Gran had given him the money for the old gun. Perhaps that made it lucky.
Thuỳ picked up her satchel. It contained a first aid kit 'borrowed' from the school, extra bandages, a bottle of alcohol, a pen knife, superglue and silver tape- both of which Thuỳ insisted were good for sealing wounds.
'What's the plan?' Minh said, posing with his pistol like he was James Bond.
'Recon in force.' Tuấn licked his lips. His hands trembled in anticipation of the danger. 'Keep to the shadows. If we see armour- we duck to cover. Wait for my order before shooting anything. We'll head near the fighting and reassess the situation.'
'Just make sure you come back with clean pants, boss,' Minh smirked, 'each time we've finished a mission you've been covered in either piss or blood.'
They boys laughed. It was a nervous laughter but it felt good. Even Dac giggled along, even if he didn't know exactly what the joke was. The joke wasn't very funny, but it released the tension.
Tuấn put his arm over Minh's shoulder. His left arm went over Thuỳ's shoulder. The two of them likewise clasped Lâm into their huddle. Resting their foreheads together.
'I'm proud of you all,' Tuấn cleared his throat. Stumbling for the right words. 'Let's all come back. Play safe. Watch each other. Don't take chances.'
The words sounded insufficient. Cheesy even, but it'd do. He slapped the back of the comrades either side of him. They smiled and nodded at each other. They were ready.
'Dac, stay here. Don't go outside,' Lâm warned before the four fighters slipped out into the night.
The March of the Dragons Page 26