by Ty Patterson
The communist forces kept on battling their opponents, however.
And the VC? They went underground.
The Vietnamese had started building tunnels in the 1940s, during the French occupation of the country.
That network was built in the Iron Triangle, which was between the Saigon River and the Tinh River. The clay in the region became soft and easily worked during the rainy season, which was when most of the digging was done.
The surface was covered with bamboo and trees of different varieties, making it easy to conceal entrances, create fake ones, or build lethal traps.
During the Vietnam War, the VC repaired the tunnels in the Cu Chi region in the Triangle and developed them into an elaborate architectural marvel.
The cunningly designed underground passages, which ran for hundreds of miles, linked villages and passed below American bases.
The tunnels didn’t run straight. They curved; they had hidden doors that led to other tunnels.
There were ammunition stores, ventilation shafts, and even rudimentary hospitals where the injured VC could be operated on.
The Viet Cong even had theaters in several tunnel networks, where propaganda plays were held.
‘You heard of the Tunnel Rats?’ Templeman angrily drew a puff when none of his men replied.
‘I’m waiting.’ He cupped his ear theatrically.
‘Yeah, Sarge,’ Leroy Duhan murmured. ‘Who hasn’t?’
The Rats went where no ordinary soldier dared. They climbed down, beneath the ground, and cleared each tunnel of the VC.
The tunnels had been discovered by accident, as the anticommunist forces pursued the VC in the Iron Triangle.
The pursuers, to their frustration, found that their enemies seemed to melt into the jungle, popping up every now and then to fire on them.
They found caches of rice and food as they went deeper in the forest. But not enough VC to justify those food stores.
On the banks of the Saigon, a soldier had sat down to rest on the ground and immediately jumped up when pricked.
He thought he had stumbled into a trap, but when the brush and foliage had been cleared, they’d discovered a concealed wooden door, with a nail for a handle.
The first tunnel had been discovered.
‘They’ve been right below us, all along.’ Templeman stabbed his cigar in the air. ‘We go hunting them, these dudes vanish into thin air, making us look like fools. All along, the VC were underground, laughing at us.’
Templeman and his men were in the Cu Chi Base Camp, the US military base for several battalions.
‘Right below our noses,’ he yelled angrily. ‘They’ve been spying on us, shooting at us, and we didn’t know. Well, that’s gotta change.’
Leroy looked sideways at his close friend Billy Patten and made a face.
It didn’t look like the sarge was leading up to any good news.
‘We gotta go after them. We need to find them and fight them where they are. We need to go underground.’ His neck cords stood out as he screamed.
‘We are, aren’t we, Sarge? The Rats are taking the fight to them.’
‘Not enough of them.’ Templeman swiveled and pinned him down with sharp eyes. ‘We lose Rats almost every day. We need volunteers. You will make me proud by stepping forward.’
No one came forward.
Templeman’s face became an iron mask. He ground his cigar against his fatigues and slipped it into his pocket.
‘Not one of you is man enough to be a Rat?’
No, sir. Not us. We’d like to go home in one piece, Leroy thought.
He kept silent, however, staring straight ahead when the sergeant walked down the line of soldiers.
‘I thought I had fighting men with me,’ Templeman roared. ‘I seem to have pussies.’
Pete Garrett stepped forward. ‘I’ll do it, Sarge.’ He swallowed nervously.
‘Get back,’ Leroy hissed at him.
‘He’s right.’ Templeman overheard him. ‘You’re too tall for the tunnels.’
The shorter men in the unit seemed to shrink at that.
A silence fell over the camp. A Huey appeared in the sky, whirling over them for a moment, its blades washing up dust, and then it flew away.
Templeman followed it with his eyes, and when he turned back to his men, he quelled a satisfied smile.
He had his Tunnel Rat.
Billy Patten had stepped forward.
Chapter Nineteen
‘Do you know what you’re doing?’ Leroy harangued his friend when they were alone.
‘No.’ Billy smiled wryly as he stripped off his undershirt and toweled himself down. He had returned after a briefing with a few other Rats in the camp.
They had given him several tips on dealing with dangers in the tunnels, and on staying alive.
He would go down the next day, in a section of the forest near the river.
‘Do any of us know what we’re doing here?’ he chuckled.
‘Relax.’ Billy clasped his friend and grew serious. ‘Leroy, you think any of us will get out alive? We have the best-armed soldiers, and yet Charlie’s still out there. I’ve thought this through. If I die down there, I might get a medal. Even if I don’t, folks back home, in Chisholm, they’ll raise money for Rach.’
Leroy nodded stiffly after a moment. He knew about Billy’s history. His friend came from a family that didn’t have anything. Just the one house that Billy had inherited from his folks. Billy and Rachel’s circumstances hadn’t improved after marriage.
His friend had worked in the mines for a few years and had then joined the Army, figuring it to be a better employer and paymaster.
Rachel lived alone in Chisholm while he was away, teaching at the local school. ‘Besides, who in our unit could be a Rat except me?’ Billy put on clean clothing, then folded the dirty clothes and tucked them in a laundry bag. They washed and dried when they could, when Charlie gave them some respite. ‘I’m the shortest in our unit. I knew Sarge had me in mind when he started off on that.’
‘Those Rats told you anything useful?’ Leroy clapped his friend on his back gruffly.
‘Yeah. Get my ass back in one piece.’
‘You’re a hero, Billy,’ Duhan said quietly.
‘Nope. I’m just another scared soldier, hoping to get out of this awful place in one piece. Just like you, and Pete, and heck, even Sarge.’
The next day was hot and humid when Billy went to the hole. It was near the river and had been discovered a few days earlier.
It needed to be cleared, a job for Billy Patten, the newest Rat.
Leroy was with him, as were Pete and a few others from his unit.
Templeman stood at a distance and watched with an inscrutable face.
Billy looked at the hole in the ground, taking a deep breath as Leroy fastened a harness beneath his shoulders and fist-bumped him.
He didn’t have to say any meaningful words. He, Leroy, and Pete had had the talk the previous night. Leroy would sort out matters at home, for Rachel, if Billy didn’t return.
‘Let’s go,’ he told his friends.
He climbed down awkwardly, looking beneath him. All he could see was darkness.
‘Don’t shoot me when I come back up,’ he joked feebly, and then the tunnel swallowed him.
Dark. Damp. Stale air—these were Billy’s immediate reactions as he hit the bottom of the tunnel, removed the harness and tugged at it.
It slid up silently.
He looked up at the dim light from above, and then crouched, focusing his mind on his task.
The tunnel was small and narrow, suited to the body size of the VC. Billy was similar in height to most Charlie, but he was wider in the shoulders, and they scraped against the walls as he crawled forward.
He had a headlamp that illuminated the immediate few feet ahead of him. He held his .38 in his right hand, sweat streaming down his face as moved forward three or four steps and stopped to listen.
He knew the
tunnel he was in was a straight-down tunnel. It went seven feet down and then angled.
The VC sometimes booby-trapped such tunnels with a stick-triggered grenade.
There was no such device in his hole. He had made sure before planting his feet.
Other times, the tunnel could be separated from others by a thin partition.
Charlie could be standing on the other side with a spear, which he would ram into the unsuspecting Rat.
Billy forced the negative thoughts out of his mind.
His goal was to check the hole out and dispose of any VC he found, and then plant an explosive. Once he had climbed out again, they would detonate it and destroy the tunnel.
Billy came to a turn and stopped. He swallowed, breathing shallowly and listening.
Other than the beating of his own heart, he heard nothing.
There was a purpose for the angles in the tunnels. They prevented the American soldiers from firing in a straight line, or throwing grenades.
Is Charlie waiting around the corner?
Billy wondered for a moment why he had volunteered. Forcing himself to control his bladder, he hugged the ground low and peered around quickly.
Nothing.
He breathed a sigh of relief and crawled forward.
It was after another hundred yards of crawling in fear that he came across his first booby-trap.
A three-step snake, so called because you took only three steps after being bitten.
The snake, a bamboo viper, was tied to a pole that was wedged into the floor. It was easy to miss, and if Billy hadn’t been on hyperalert, he would have tripped it, and the reptile would have bitten him.
He shot it through the head and then held his breath as the sound rolled through the tunnel.
He hugged the ground, making himself as small as possible, expecting AK-47 fire from the VC.
None came.
Billy pushed on ahead, through more twists and turns, and suddenly the tunnel opened up into a room.
He got to standing height and moved to a corner, his handgun sweeping the open space.
Something flashed in his memory, something one of the Rats had said, and he jumped back just in time as punji sticks reared out of the wall.
He watched them, horrified, as they pierced the air and came to a stop, quivering.
They would have ripped through my back.
He retched and moved away from the corner, remembering what the other soldiers had told him.
Stay away from corners. That’s where they set their traps.
He wiped his mouth with shaking fingers, planted more explosives, and crawled back into the tunnel.
He cleared out three more traps before turning back, his nerves deserting him.
The return was a blur. All he could remember was his fingers scraping at the hard clay, his breathing loud and harsh, as he slithered towards his exit.
Back at the hole, he struggled into the harness, praying that no VC appeared at this last moment.
And then his friends were hauling him up, and he was breathing fresh air, and it had never smelled so sweet.
Billy Patten had survived his first outing underground.
Chapter Twenty
Present Day
Two days after the confrontation with Ken Farrell and Cole, Beth and Meghan Petersen were in Vietnam.
After the last of the US troops had pulled out in 1973, North Vietnamese troops had conquered South Vietnam, and Saigon had been renamed Ho Chi Minh City after the communist leader.
HCMC, as it was often called, was in the southeastern part of the country and was the largest city in the country, with a population of eight million.
Earlier in the day, they had been in Hanoi, the capital city, with Colonel General Cam Van Lanh of the Ministry of Public Security.
The senior officer was a deputy minister, and the second-highest executive in the department that oversaw the police forces in Vietnam.
In his late forties, Lanh was short in stature, with an unlined face and black eyes that never seemed to blink.
That bland expression had given way to warmth when the twins had entered his office.
Zeb and the minister had history, a good one. Zeb had helped Lanh capture several drug runners on a previous mission.
Those big wins had nailed the colonel’s career to the fast track, and he had been promoted to his current rank.
Lanh served them tea and listened patiently to their story. One eyebrow rose, and that was his only display of astonishment.
‘You realize,’ he said as he bowed and handed the cups to the sisters, ‘that all this happened a long while ago. More than forty years! Finding someone who saw or remembers the tunnel accident will be hard.’ He frowned, looking into space. ‘I don’t even know if there were witnesses. As to this person, Dang, that is a very common name in Vietnam. There will be millions in the country with that name.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Beth acknowledged. ‘We were thinking of inquiring in Ho Chi Minh City. About witnesses, as well as Dang. Finding him might be easier, if such a person exists. He could have been a South Vietnamese soldier. Someone who was in contact with US forces. We know that Billy Patten’s base was in Cu Chi.’
Lanh looked away and then picked up his phone. He spoke rapidly, then hung up and made another call. He was smiling when he finished.
‘Kien Huy Thuc. He will help you.’
‘He is—’
‘Ho Chi Minh City’s police chief. My friend.’
I bet all police officers will claim to be his friend, Meghan thought, suppressing a smile.
A two-hour flight brought them to HCMC, and forty minutes later, they were in the city’s police headquarters on Tran Hung Dao Street.
Thuc looked similar to Lanh, except for a neatly trimmed mustache and greying hair.
He greeted them effusively, bowing a lot, and gave them a tour of the office. Anyone who had been sent by the minister had to be given the royal treatment.
Afterwards, he led them to a room that held a few chairs, a desk, and a computer. It had its own uniformed attendant, who sprang to attention and gave a salute when they entered.
‘All records of South Vietnamese soldiers, there.’ He waved expansively. ‘Names. Addresses. Everything. An Khoi,’ he said, nodding at the officer, ‘will help you if you need anything.’
‘All the records?’ Beth asked dubiously.
‘All that we have.’ Thuc’s smile faltered.
Better than nothing, Meghan told herself and silently indicated at her sister to accept Thuc’s offer.
‘What about witnesses?’ Beth asked.
‘Difficult. An Khoi will do his best, but very difficult.’
Three hours later, they yawned and stretched while An Khoi rushed over and poured more tea for them.
‘Private school, ma’am.’ The officer smiled when they complimented him on his English.
He had conjured up a list of people who knew about the tunnel accident. Officials, ambulance drivers, policemen and women.
Quite a few of those on the list had died. Many had moved away and lived in distant parts of the country.
An Khoi had made calls and had spoken to all those who were contactable.
A few of them remembered the accident, and they recollected one twin dying. However, not one of them could say which son was the survivor.
The Vietnamese police officer had then produced records of all South Vietnamese soldiers who had served with the Americans in Cu Chi.
The dossiers were extensive and were in Vietnamese, as well as in English. They had names, photographs, and occupations of those soldiers who had survived.
There were also over a hundred Dangs.
‘Meghan and I will help out with the phone calls. Let’s split the names up.’ Beth divided the list and turned to An Khoi. ‘We’ll need some interpreters.’
Khoi returned with two female officers, who smiled and bowed too.
They bobbed their heads when Beth explained what was re
quired, and while Khoi arranged for more phone lines and headsets, they studied the lists.
It was close to six pm when Beth called for a break.
They had whittled the Dangs down to five.
Each one of those Dangs had served closely with the Fifth Infantry Division, Billy Patten’s unit.
None of the men were at home when the officers had called.
‘We’ll pay them a visit tomorrow,’ Beth told An Khoi, who pointed an imperious finger at one of the officers.
‘Hy Phuong will come with you. She will help. Those men will cooperate.’
I bet they will. This is a communist country. Citizens will do what the state tells them.
Meghan shook hands with Phuong and thanked An Khoi, while her sister made arrangements for the next day’s visits.
The first two Dangs turned out to the wrong ones. Both of them were in their sixties, and one of them ran a chain of takeout restaurants, while another worked as an insurance salesman.
They remembered the war. Who didn’t? They remembered the American base in Cu Chi, and each one of them brought out several photographs and talked about their memories at length.
However, neither of them knew Billy Patten.
The third Dang started off more promisingly.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I knew Billy Patten. He and I went after VC. We killed many Charlie.
‘He was big, and I felt like a dwarf next to him,’ he laughed, revealing bad teeth.
Meghan sighed inwardly. Billy Patten wasn’t big.
The fourth Dang wanted a reward for revealing any information he might have.
Hy Phuong rattled off a volley at him in Vietnamese, but Dang stood his ground. No reward, no talking.
She called An Khoi, who threatened Dang and promised all kinds of dire outcomes.
The Vietnamese cracked and said he didn’t know Billy Patten.
The last Dang, Nang Quy Dang, lived in a white villa in District Two in HCMC.
It had a gated entrance and a security guard.
‘Master is not here.’ The guard stood implacably when Phuong displayed her credentials.