Saigon: A Novel Part 30

"I'd sure appreciate it if you decided not to record the hen- hunt for posterity, Miss Boyce-Lewis," he said in a mock- beseeching voice. "We try to teach the 'friendlies' that n.o.body loves a looting army - but they just giggle and tell us they're underfed and underpaid." He paused and rolled his eyes. "And maybe they are - their generals pay them only fifteen dollars a month each because they stash most of our military aid into their private bank accounts."

"We're after something a little more telling than frightened chickens, captain, thank you." The English reporter smiled perfunctorily and turned to watch Gary Sherman hurrying towards them across the clearing.

In his hands he carried a crumpled cotton banner, half red, half blue, with a gold star emblazoned in its center, and his eager young face was alight with excitement. "Look, captain, the intelligence was right. They have been here."

"Sure - you've captured the flag of the People's Liberation Front, lieutenant," said Staudt sarcastically. "But this isn't the kind of war where you get a Purple Heart for that. We need to find the bodies of one or two brave Asian boys who fight under it to make it count."

"But there's a whole VC propaganda kiosk set up in the hut where I found this," protested the lieutenant. "And there are lots of those big earthenware jars that they use as personal air-raid shelters buried in the floors of most of the huts." He broke off and gestured eagerly towards his Vietnamese counterpart, a young ARVN lieutenant who was beginning to interrogate the three silent women. "Lieutenant Trang tells me that he thinks one of his men has found a tunnel entrance under one of the stoves - it looks like we've hit a fortified VC hamlet this time for sure."

Staudt rubbed his sleeve across his brow and glanced slowly about him. Although it was only nine-thirty, the morning was already hot; sunlight s.h.i.+mmered on the roofs of the thatched huts, and the heavy air was still and hushed. "Surprise, surprise," he said softly. "Out of five thousand hamlets in the whole Mekong delta we know four thousand have already gotten to be fortified VC hamlets of one kind or another. If we can stumble into just one of them from time to time against all those odds and find it empty, I guess the war's as good as won."

A flush of embarra.s.sment reddened the young lieutenant's cheeks, and he turned away suddenly so the English reporter would not notice.

"I'm just glad, Gary, that we're finding this kind of crowning success at the end of my year in Vietnam -- and at the beginning of yours' Staudt favored the television reporter with a brilliant smile. "Lieutenant Sherman's been here just two weeks, you see, miss. Ten days from now I wind up a twelve-month tour and twenty years of service in the U.S. Army that began on the Normandy beaches. I guess capturing an empty VC hamlet, a muddy flag and a propaganda kiosk alongside fine Asian soldiers like these is as good a way to cap all that as any, isn't it?"

"Does this mean you intend to abort the mission, captain?" asked the English reporter coolly.

Staudt shook his head with exaggerated slowness. "No, ma'am. Not at all. There's nothing the 'friendlies' would like better than to call back the choppers and haul their little a.s.ses out of here right away. They're too fond of using good intelligence about Viet Cong movements to make sure they arrive too late. That's how they keep their casualty rate down. But I'm going to teach 'em a lesson today. They're gonna search all six G.o.dd.a.m.ned hamlets and work up a sweat at least before we head for home - or my name isn't Lionel Staudt." Turning irritably on his heel, the captain strode over to where the young ARVN lieutenant was questioning the last of the three women, and Gary Sherman and the British news crew followed. "What are these old crones telling us about the VC, Lieutenant Trang?" demanded the American officer brusquely.

The pale, obviously Eurasian features of the ARVN lieutenant, who had been a.s.signed to the unit only the day before, registered instantly the offensive note in Staudt's Voice, and although he'd clearly understood what had been said, he waited deliberately until the sergeant interpreter beside him translated the question into Vietnamese, When he'd finished, Trang answered in his own language so that Staudt had to wait again for the sergeant to translate. "The women are lying as usual. They say only what they have been told to say - that several hundred Viet Cong troops pa.s.sed through the village yesterday. Because they were frightened, all the men and boys of the hamlet ran off to hide in the jungle."

The American officer listened with ill-concealed impatience to the explanation, then his face hardened. "It couldn't be, Lieutenant Trang, could it, that you're not trying hard enough? All our lives could depend on your Interrogation of these bags, remember?"

The ARVN lieutenant's eyes glittered suddenly, and he answered this time in English. "Maybe you've already guessed, captain, that my father was French, He fought against the Communists in the north before Dien Bien Phu. He was captured on a patrol one night after he got separated from his unit. When they found him next day he'd been tortured to death - but that wasn't all. To show how deep their hatred was they'd Cut off his t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es and forced them down his throat before he died. So if you think you've got more reason to despise the Communists than I have, captain, you're welcome to your delusions!"

For the moment the American officer looked startled; then a smile spread slowly across his weather-beaten face. "It's good to know, lieutenant, you've got good reason to be one hundred percent on the team. It makes a real nice change."

3.

Directly beneath the feet of the quarreling American and Vietnamese officers, Tuyet Luong was at that moment moving rapidly through a narrow tunnel on her stomach. Wearing the regional black blouse and trousers that had become the Viet Cong's battle dress, she propelled herself with quick, practiced movements, digging her knees and elbows rhythmically into the dry earth like paddles. Tied tight to her right thigh so that it didn't impede her progress, she wore a captured U.S. Army Colt .45 pistol in its holster, and a twisted garter of jungle creepers was knotted about her left thigh to make it easier, as she'd often told the men of tier special a.s.sault platoon, to drag her dead body from the battlefield.

Through a spy port hidden among the roots of a clump of bamboo twenty yards from the edge of the clearing, she had just seen and heard the American captain and the young ARVN lieutenant talking - and although she hadn't been able to make out what they'd said, she had been close enough to register the unmistakable hostility in their voices. She had also counted the troops she had seen entering the hamlet, and as she crawled through the dark earth, she went over again in her mind the list of their weapons that she'd memorized; a dozen World War Two M-is, nineteen M-2 automatic carbines, one BAR, and two of the formidable new M-79 grenade-launching shotguns that could fire a grenade sh.e.l.l accurately over two hundred yards. The American officers as usual were carrying AR-15 Armalites, and if the planned ambush succeeded, there would be a rich haul of weapons for the Liberation Army's crack 514th Battalion.

When she came to a larger tunnel, Tuyet Luong scrambled to her feet and began moving faster in a crouching run, anxious to report her information as soon as possible to the underground command center half a mile away. She knew her way through the fifteen-mile maze of tunnels that radiated in all directions beneath Moc Linh almost as well as she knew her way above ground because she had helped the peasants of the village with the long, back-breaking work of digging them during the previous six months. Like similar networks that had already been dug in thousands of villages north and south of Saigon, the tunnel system was of far greater sophistication than the Americans or their ARVN allies had so far dreamed. Built in accordance with the well-trained techniques of underground guerrilla warfare first developed by Mao Tse-tung's Communists in China and refined later in Korea, the network consisted of escape tunnels leading into the surrounding jungle, storage cellars, observation shafts studded with camouflaged lookout ports, and in the banks of the ca.n.a.l and along the dikes of the rice paddies, firing embrasures had been hollowed out at regular intervals. lf the firing positions which covered all approaches to the village had been manned that morning, many of the ARVN troops could have been cut down easily before they had waded halfway across the open field; but the plan was to lure them deep into the heart of Moc Linh and engage them only when the troop carriers and the escort helicopters armed with rockets arid machine guns had lifted off that way the Liberation Army would risk fewer casualties and capture more weapons.

As she ran, Tuyet Luong was careful to avoid the numbered entrances to the special decoy tunnels that had been planted with mines and poisoned punji traps - sharpened bamboo spikes smeared with buffalo or human excrement. These pa.s.sages had been prepared with special care so that if enemy troops discovered and entered the tunnels, they could be ambushed easily in the darkness. So far, she knew, the ARVN soldiers had shown little inclination to enter any of the few tunnels they'd found in other villages; the smoke bombs, flame-throwers and grenades they used had often failed to dislodge the guerrillas hiding in them, and the government forces, unaware of the extent of the networks, had usually been content to blow up the odd entrance they found without looking farther. The command post at Moc Linh had been set up in a "Dien Bien Phu" kitchen, an under.. ground chamber from which sloping shafts radiating outwards like wheel spokes dispersed cooking smoke invisibly from dozens of ovens into thick jungle hundreds of yards away, and when Tuyet Luong entered she was surprised to find the gangling figure of Ngo Van Dong, the 514th Battalion commander, engrossed in conversation with an authoritative-looking stranger.

"At Outlet Seventeen, Comrade Dong, I counted thirty-four Diemist soldiers with two officers and two Americans," she said breathlessly, without waiting for an invitation to speak. "They're carrying a dozen M-1 Garands, nineteen M-2 automatic carbines, one Browning automatic rifle, two Armalites - and two of the new M-79 grenade weapons The Diemist lieutenant interrogated the three women we left in the huts but afterwards he and the Americans argued and they seemed indecisive."

Ngo Van Dong, as gaunt and gangling in his early fifties as he had been in his youth, turned with a faint look of irritation on his face, but his expression relaxed when he saw who had spoken. "Are there only thirty-four troops in all, comrade?" he asked, moving quickly to the map of Moc Linh and its tunnels that was tacked to the mat-covered wall of the cellar.

"No, I said I saw only thirty-four myself," replied Tuyet tersely. "But the lookouts at the forward ports around Field Thirteen told me a full-strength company of over one hundred men landed from the helicopters." She pointed to the map. "They're grouping together here in the first hamlet."

Dong stared thoughtfully at the point she had indicated on the map. "Good - then we'll stick to the plan we've made." Smiling suddenly he turned to the gray-haired man at his side, "I'm sure you've already heard something about our famous platoon leader Tuyet Luong. She's as fearless and resourceful as all the stories about her suggest." He turned back to Tuyet. "Our visitor is a senior officer of our movement who's Come to observe today's operation. He's an old comrade-in-arms of my father -- and I fought under him at Dien Bien Phu. For reasons of security he's known as 'Comrade Pham.'"

Dao Van Lat's lined face creased into a gentle smile as he studied Tuyet's appearance. Her combat clothes and her cheeks were smudged with earth from the tunnels, and she wore her hair sc.r.a.ped back severely from her face, but her proud bearing, her slender figure and the pistol on her thigh nevertheless made her a compelling figure. "Your reputation as a courageous fighter is well known," said Eat without taking his eyes from her. "But your beauty which is also widely spoken of still has the power to take a stranger's breath away."

"The latter is of little importance compared with the former," replied Tuyet, her face stiff and unsmiling. "Compliments about my appearance are of no interest to me."

Lat's gaze flickered briefly over the drab black tunic, which didn't entirely conceal the soft outline of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and for a fleeting moment somewhere deep inside him he felt a muted tremor of the agony that had continued to a.s.sail him intermittently over the years at moments like this; something indefinable in Tuyet's expression -- perhaps it was a rare fusion of beauty and a fierce pride - made him think of Lien for the first time in many years, and suddenly it was as if a ghostly hand was forcing the honed edge of that glittering knife against his flesh once again. "For a patriotic woman of such great courage perhaps it's not important, Tuyet Luong," he said softly. "But for the impressionable young fighters you lead, I'm sure it helps inspire them to even greater deeds of bravery."

Tuyet stared straight in front of her and said nothing. Since joining the guerrilla forces she had deliberately kept her relations.h.i.+ps with the men around her cold and impersonal, and she had never made any exceptions to this rule, even with high-ranking cadres. She was astute enough, however, to guess that "Comrade Pham" must have come south recently from Hanoi to help strengthen the Liberation Front's organization, and knowing that Communist purists saw her as an unreliable adventurist acting on emotional impulses, she decided it would serve no useful purpose to alienate his sympathy. "No doubt you yourself have come here to Long An province to perform special tasks of much greater importance, Comrade Pham," she said formally. "In which case, I wish you success."

"I've come to contribute my modest talents to the struggle which we all know will one day be crowned with a general uprising in the South," said Lat, his eyes twinkling as he served up the official Liberation Front line with elaborate courtesy. "I hope you and I will be able to work side by side towards that goal!': "I'm ready to do whatever is required," replied Tuyet in a tight voice. "But for now I must return to my observation duties."

For several seconds Lat continued staring at the tunnel exit through which Tuyet Luong had left, then he walked thoughtfully over to where Dong was standing by the wall map. During their conversation a steady stream of messengers had been arriving with little envelopes containing slips of paper two or three inches square; most of the messengers were spindly-legged boys of not more than eight years of age, bare-chested and dressed only in ragged shorts, and Dong praised each one quietly before scrutinizing the information they'd brought. Their young faces mirrored their inner excitement as they waited impatiently for Dong's scribbled response, and he sent them all on their way with an encouraging pat on the head. A table beneath the wall map was already piled high with used slips, and pointing to them, Dong smiled.

"It's going to plan, Comrade Pham. All observers report that the Diemists and the Americans are advancing straight into our trap. They're in the second hamlet now, searching the huts and interrogating the old women again. It shouldn't take more than ten or fifteen minutes to get them where we want them."

Lat nodded his approval and accepted a little beaker of bitter yellow tea from one of Dong's aides. Sitting down beside the map, he sipped the steaming liquid thoughtfully. "Comrade Tuyet Luong is obviously a remarkable young woman. I seem to remember hearing that her husband was killed by Diemist torturers in Saigon - am I right?"

"Yes, two years ago. She swore then to avenge his death. He was Dang Dinh Luong - he joined the Viet Minh while he was a student."

"But she has mixed blood, doesn't she? Could that be what makes her so aloof?"

Dong shook his head. "I don't think so. In battle she's merciless - she fights just like a man, and she has killed many times. Perhaps the coldness is her way of keeping the strong emotions inside her under control."

Lat stared at the battalion commander with a pensive expression. "But there's just a hint of hysteria in her manner now. The hardness is becoming brittle."

Doug shrugged and smiled. "Your eyes are sharper than mine, Comrade Pham. I hadn't noticed anything."

"What's her family background, Dong?"

"Her mother came from a rich mandarin family, but she was born before her mother married and had to be raised in secret by relatives. She grew up very bitter and ran away to marry Luong when she was seventeen. They had two children, and people in the village say she was happy then for the first time in her life. When Diem's thugs murdered Luong, she had to go and identify his body - but she didn't weep. She just vowed there and then to avenge him."

"And did she?"

"Yes. She planted a bomb under a cafe table and killed his Vietnamese interrogators. She threw a grenade at two American CIA agents who'd questioned him too - but they weren't seriously hurt."

"How did she get into your battalion?"

"She had to flee from Saigon when another tortured prisoner gave her ident.i.ty away. She brought her children to her husband's village near here, but she couldn't settle, and the local Liberation Front cadres persuaded her to join a special activities cell. She adopted her husband's name as a nom de guerre - Tuyet Luong - and without much persuasion she carried out several a.s.sa.s.sinations of corrupt village officials."

"Is that how you got to hear of her?"

Dong nodded. "Yes. About a year ago I put her in charge of a special a.s.sault platoon. Twenty or thirty percent of our fighters are females down here - but Tuyet Luong is by far the most fearless in all the main force units."

Lat drained his teacup and stood up. "And what have you a.s.signed her to do today?"

"I've put her in command of two platoons - forty fighters. They'll advance through this field to kill any survivors of the ambush and drag away their weapons." He pointed to the map. "Between the third and fourth hamlets there's a dike half a mile long which the enemy will have to cross in single file. The ca.n.a.l runs along one side and we've set up a machine gun on the far side of the ca.n.a.l halfway along the dike. The Diemist troops will be strung out, so our gunner will make sure he doesn't hit too many of them with his opening burst just enough to make them all jump off the dike into the paddy field to take cover." He paused and smiled slowly. "We've lined the bottom of the bank with mines and punji traps and set up two other machine guns in a camouflaged tunnel opening in the top corner of the paddy so that they'll be firing along the bottom of the bank from close range at those who survive the mines and the traps. Tuyet Luong will take her men through the tunnels to the other side of the field and lead the charge to finish off the remnants."

"It sounds like an excellent plan,. comrade - worthy of a chien si Dien Bien." Lat patted Dong warmly on the shoulder and nodded towards the Dien Bien Phu campaign insignia which the battalion commander still wore proudly on the left breast of his tunic. "How did you lay your trap? Enemy forces haven't penetrated into this region before, have they?"

"No, we moved five companies of the 514th Battalion through Moc Linh yesterday as bait. We made sure a known government informer saw them, and we ordered then to remain here until just before dawn. Then I marched them away into the jungle - they're ten miles from here now, hiding underground. Our agents tell us a whole battalion of Diemist troops is standing by to fly in when contact is made - that's why I'm putting only a small number of our fighters at risk. They can disappear quickly into the tunnels OU see before an air strike is launched or any new troops are landed." He smiled again. "It's a simple operation."

A thin, tousled-headed boy dressed only in a pair of shorts rushed in with a message envelope at that moment and thrust it into Dong's hands. While he waited, he watched the older man's face intently, hopping excitedly from foot to foot.

"Good Little Slug, well run," said Dong softly when he had read the message. "Now race as fast as your legs will carry you through Tunnel Route Eleven - and stay and guard your mother and sister in the jungle for the rest of the day."

As the boy dashed out, grinning delightedly, Dong turned to Eat, his face serious again. "The enemy's now entered Hamlet Three. I'm ordering Tuyet Luong to take up position with the two a.s.sault platoons."

While the battalion commander scribbled another note, Lat called for more tea for them both and handed Doug a cup when he had finished. "That last messenger boy was your younger son, if I'm not mistaken," he said smiling. "The physical resemblance was very strong."

Dong's face softened as he drank his tea. "Yes, he's called Kiet - but as you heard he's known affectionately in the family as 'Little Slug.'"

"And don't you have an older boy too?"

"That's right - Minh is sixteen now. He's acting as a sniper for the first time today. I've ordered him to hide in a tree at the far end of the field and help attract enemy fire if we need to lure the company across the dike."

"But why do you give him such a hazardous task for his first battle?" asked Lat in a surprised voice.

Dong's face stiffened a little, "I don't want anyone to think Urn giving him special treatment because he's my son. I want his training to be hard like ours was. But anyway, Minh lives only for the liberation struggle - that's how I've brought him up. You should see his old Garand rifle - it's s.h.i.+nier than any weapon I've ever seen in my life!"

"But it wouldn't hurt to nurse him along a little, my old friend," said Lat gently. "Because your family suffered at Yen Bay and Vinh, there's no need to be quite so hard on Mirth,"

Dong sat staring at the map for a long moment. "It was here in Moc Linh that my father had the only 1)101 of rice land he ever owned," he said at last in an emotional voice, "My brother, Hoc, and I were born in the village only a mile from here. the land was confiscated when we couldn't keep up with our taxes and loan repayments, and it was then that my mother and father had to go and find work as domestic servants. Perhaps you can under. stand now why I jumped at the chance to come back here from the North. Here I cab at least try to settle some of the old debts owed to my father - and Minh wants to do everything he can to help."

Lat nodded slowly and sighed. "Yes, Dong, I understand - life is so ironic, isn't it? Once your father and mother were forced to act as hired slaves for a French hunter and his rich American clients who came to our jungles for sport. If only they could've known that your sons and all our sons would one day become hunters in these jungles - and that the French and the Americans would become the quarry."

Dong glanced at his watch, nodding absently, and Lat saw for the first time the tension in his abstracted expression.

"Our snipers should just be taking up their positions now," said the battalion commander in a tight voice.

4.

"How in h.e.l.l's name can you fight a G.o.dd.a.m.ned war if you can't find it?" muttered Captain Lionel Staudt through his clenched teeth as he stood, feet astride, in the center of Hamlet Three. It was Len thirty A.M., and the South Vietnamese- soldiers were listlessly regrouping after completing another unproductive search of the huts. The usual knot of old women and small children had been a.s.sembled and questioned without result, and most of the troops now had dead ducks or chickens hanging from their packs, their minds obviously on the long noon break when they habitually cooked their main meal of the day; overhead the April sun was now producing a fierce, strength-sapping heat, and this was helping to heighten the tension between the Vietnamese officers and their perspiring American advisers.

"If we spent as much energy fighting it as we've done looking for it, this flyblown war would have been over a year ago!" Staudt moved into the shade of a clump of coconut palms, mopping his brow, and stood watching Lieutenant Trang conferring with Captain Hoang outside the last hut. "Or maybe I mean not looking for it. The only thing that's being 'sought and destroyed' around these parts so far today are three dozen Vietnamese barnyard fowl."

The British camera crew to whom the remarks had been addressed dumped their gear in the shade of the trees and sat down to rest, grinning broadly, but Naomi Boyce-Lewis, still looking cool and composed despite the heat, glanced out along the dike they would have to use to cross the s.h.i.+mmering expanse of rice fields to the next hamlet. "How much farther is this operation going, captain, could you tell me please?"

Staudt unslung his Armalite AR-15, leaned it against the trunk of a palm tree and took a long pull at his water canteen. "You're well aware by now. Miss Boyce-Lewis, that I don't have operational control here. If Americans had direct command in this theater, you'd see us whip the VC pretty d.a.m.ned quick. I gave my advice that we should search right through Moc Linh half an hour ago - but we have to wait while our little allies make up their minds whether to accept all of that advice, some of it - or none of it at all."

"Are you so very sure, captain, that the South Vietnamese don't want to beat the Communists just as much as you do?"

The well-bred English voice seemed suddenly incongruous to the American amidst the torrid heat and rank animal odors of the Mekong delta hamlet; it conjured images in his mind of delicate traceries of lace, fine bone china, an obsequious butler with a tray entering from a dark paneled hall, and he looked at her quizzically for a moment. "Maybe one or two of them do - but President Diem's never really changed the old French colonial way of running this part of the world, you know. All forty-five provinces are still run by a bunch of majors and colonels - mandarins in military uniform."

"But that doesn't necessarily affect the quality of the army, does it?"

"If you're running a province or a district, you collect taxes, call all the shots and get plenty of kickbacks - especially if you can misappropriate a few million dollars' worth of American aid and supplies along the way. It makes more sense, doesn't it, to get rich as an army bureaucrat than to get yourself killed fighting the Viet Cong? So most of the ARVN officer corps want more than anything else to be fat cats behind a desk - and Captain Hoang's no exception."

The reporter glanced across the clearing to where the two ARVN officers were engaged in what appeared to be a heated conversation, and she saw Captain Hoang summon his radio operator and take the handset from him to speak into it.

"When I s.h.i.+p out of here in ten days time, Captain Hoang's supposed to have absorbed everything I learned in Normandy and Korea - that's the theory," muttered Staudt. "But Hoang's mind, if you ask me, is fixed on some quiet little provincial administrator's office where he can start feathering his own nest Lieutenant Gary Sherman returned to the group at that moment and nodded meaningfully at Staudt; on his instructions the young American had been using their radio quietly out of earshot to pa.s.s on their own recommendation to the American major at Seventh Division headquarters that the sortie be pressed rapidly into the three remaining hamlets. The U.S. major, they knew, was sitting side by side with the ARVN commander of the operation and could help override any reluctance of the Vietnamese officers on the spot to continue. Gary Sherman's confidential nod told Staudt that their message had been received and understood at headquarters, and he patted the lieutenant approvingly on the shoulder and moved away towards Captain Hoang.

When he'd gone, Gary Sherman grinned ruefully at the English reporter, removed his helmet and ran a hand over his close-cropped blond hair, which was dark with perspiration. "I guess to an outsider Captain Staudt can seem a little hard-boiled, Miss Boyce-Lewis," he said quietly after glancing circ.u.mspectly over his shoulder to check that he wasn't being overheard. "But that's just his way. He'd be the first to admit he's a soldier not a diplomat - but under all that tough talk he believes as much as any American officer out here in the lob we're trying to do,"

The English reporter nodded and smiled, touched by the earnestness of the young American officer who was several years her junior. "I quite understand, lieutenant. I can see your job isn't an easy one."

"I guess the captain tends to be a little hard on the ARVN troops .- and their officers too. They're not really all as black as he paints them. A lot of them, like Lieutenant Trang, have good reason not to love the VC. And they can fight just as well as the VC do -- they're the same people, after all. Families have been split down the middle since the time of the French war, and what it really boils down to is how well they're led,,.."

Naomi Boyce-Lewis smiled again, more playfully this time. "For someone who's been out here only two weeks, lieutenant, 'you've obviously got a good grasp of the situation already."

Gary Sherman's youthfully handsome face crinkled suddenly into an embarra.s.sed smile. "I'm sorry - I didn't mean to try to come on too strong, Miss Boyce-Lewis. I've still got a lot to learn, I realize that. But my father spent some time out here as a correspondent in the 'fifties." He paused and mopped his brow again, and a faintly shamefaced expression crossed his features fleetingly. "I haven't seen him in quite a while, but I guess I soaked up stuff like that from him without realizing it."

'Then perhaps I can try and pick your brains sometime if the two of us ever get the chance to have a quiet talk." She favored him with the kind of practiced, intimate smile that had long since become second nature to her when talking to men who might help her with information f& her news stories, and the young American, flattered as she'd intended he should be, grinned with pleasure.

"I'd be glad to help you any time I can, ma'am."

Over his shoulder she saw Hoang call his interpreter to his side and begin speaking to Captain Staudt in excited high-pitched Vietnamese. "it looks as if we might he about to get some kind of decision now," she murmured, signaling to her crew to pick up their equipment, and all of them trooped across to listen.

"I had decided that we should curtail this operation and withdraw," the little interpreter was saying on Hoang's behalf while the Vietnamese captain stared angrily at his American counterpart. "But when I reported my intention to headquarters, to my astonishment my superiors countermanded my decision. They say the reserves are still standing by and can be here within minutes."

"So what are your orders, captain?" asked Staudt with scarcely concealed satisfaction.

Hoang's expression showed clearly that he knew he'd been out-maneuvered, and his pinched features darkened as he turned and pointed to the next hamlet. "We'll proceed to Hamlet Four at once! I've already told my men to move briskly across the dike in single file and not bunch together."

"You've what?" Staudt's voice was shrill with incredulity, and he stared aghast at the Vietnamese. "Have you taken a look at the terrain, Captain Hoang? That's the most exposed stretch of ground we've faced all morning - ideal for an ambush. If I wanted to set one myself, that is where I'd do it. Your men must go through the G.o.dd.a.m.ned paddy. Spread 'em right across on a broad front The face of the Vietnamese remained as stiff as a mask, and although the American officer knew he must have understood him, Hoang insisted that his sergeant translate the reply. Then he rattled off another volley of Vietnamese, which the NCO conveyed haltingly into English. "The men are tiring. It's very hot. To make them wade through the mud and water again would be foolish. I've already given my orders, captain, and they won't be changed."

Staudt stared at him thunderstruck - then relaxed and drew a long exasperated breath. "Okay - so who's going point?"

The Vietnamese officer's jaw flexed several times as he struggled to conceal his anger at being questioned further. "Does it really matter who goes point approaching an obviously deserted village, Captain Staudt?"

"Yes, it sure as h.e.l.l does matter! It has to be the best man OU have! With a hundred soldiers moving forward one behind the other, they could all be killed with the same G.o.dd.a.m.ned bullet if it keeps going long enough. The only two men. who can return fire if there's a head-on attack are the point and his companion.

All your other men will be shooting each other up the a.s.s if they open up!"

"Then Lieutenant Trang will go point!" The ARVN captain spat the words out rudely, then turned and strode away towards the rear of the column, motioning the waiting troops past him.

Lieutenant Trang, his handsome face expressionless, picked to accompany him a muscular little sergeant carrying one of the M-79 grenade launchers, and Captain Staudt, coming to a sudden decision, nodded towards Gary Sherman. The West Pointer immediately unslung his PRC-10 radio pack, and half a minute later the two young lieutenants led the column out onto the dike under the hot glare of the delta sun.