Authors: J.B. Hadley
Andre had told Mike he was getting on OK with Nolan
and Richards, and that the five Hmong with him seemed intent on keeping their part of the arrangement. With a bit of luck,
they might now reach the Viet border and avoid another senseless flare-up like the one of the first day. Even if they were
communists, Mike felt no better about leaving twenty-four men needlessly dead behind him when all contact with them could
so easily have been avoided.
A group of women were at the water up ahead. They could see them soaking clothes, beating them on stones and spreading them
in the sun to dry. Mike’s unit began its detour through the bankside trees and heavy growth, followed by Andre’s after about
five hundred meters.
Mike’s group was about to cross a path leading down to the river when the Hmong at point raised his left hand in warning.
They all froze where they stood—it was too late to dive for cover. On the path, literally only a few feet ahead of the lead
man in the unit, two gnarled, weather-beaten peasants ambled toward the water, one with a wooden rake over his shoulder and
both smoking awkwardly rolled cigarettes. They passed without seeing the eight heavily armed men watching them in the bushes
like cobras rearing to strike.
The man at point did not move, so the others held their position. Right away, the huge bulk and great horns of a water buffalo
appeared. Mike was amazed at the silent tread of this leviathan along the path. A wizened old man walked by his head, oblivious
of his surroundings.
A girl maybe four or five years old sat atop the hummock of the water buffalo’s shoulders and stared with wide brown alarmed
eyes at the members of the unit. She said something to the old man, probably her grandfather, and pointed. He looked up at
her and then into the bushes at the eight armed men. The old man’s eyes glided over the Hmong and settled on the Westerners.
For some reason, the water buffalo chose this moment to stop to eat a tender morsel of grass by the pathside.
“Hold your fire,” Mike said in a calm level voice.
Mike met the eyes of the old man, broke the look to glance up at the child, and then stared at the old man again.
The Laotian said nothing. His eyes also expressed that he knew he had no hope of saving her, yet was trying all the same.
“OK, Grandpa,” Mike said to him in a kindly voice, raising his rifle barrel in the air, “I’m going to take a chance on you.”
With no visible urging, the water buffalo resumed its forward motion and in a few moments was disappearing down the path.
The child looked back at them with her beautiful brown eyes.
Mike felt the glances of the Hmong on him, whether in approval or disapproval he did not know. Or care.
“Let’s go on,” he said quietly.
Murphy gave him a friendly poke in the ribs as they moved out.
They came to the highway in early afternoon and spent twenty minutes observing traffic on it from a heavily wooded area close
by. The roadway was surfaced with tarmacadam which heaved in dips and swells because of the poor foundation beneath. The bulk
of the traffic was carts drawn by water buffaloes along both shoulders of the road and heavily laden bicycles either ridden
or wheeled on its surface. In the twenty minutes they watched, only one truck passed, traveling north.
“If we can bag ourselves a truck like that,” Mike said, “every hour we spend driving it, even on a dirt road, will save us
a day’s trek.”
“We should bivouac here tonight,” Andre said, “and grab one at dawn tomorrow.”
Mike shook his head. “If we capture a truck now and drive for five or six hours, we’ll hit the Viet border just as night falls.
Even if things go wrong, we’ll have the cover of darkness not far away.”
“That’s a good point,” Andre conceded. “Let me talk to the Hmong.” He came back to Mike in a short time. ‘They say it will
not be easy to take a truck. The drivers are heavily rewarded when they resist an attack and likewise heavily punished when
they lose a truck. A few shots and a threat won’t stop them. They say we must allow them to set up an ambush by blowing a
hole in the road.”
Mike grinned. “These guys have a real feel for drama. Well, I’ll show them the quiet way to do it. Nolan, Richards, you got
yourselves an assignment.”
Campbell had chosen the two quickest of his team. He went forward with them in the undergrowth and explained their roles to
them, which would change according to which direction the truck was traveling. Nolan crept along a tiny brook and then crawled
through a four-foot concrete pipe which carried it beneath the road. He would seek cover as close as possible on the northern
side of this culvert. Richards and Nolan could only guess at one another’s positions on each side of the highway, but as long
as they were approximately opposite each other and acted at more or less the same time, things should work out.
They waited almost another half hour before they heard the engine of a truck. When it lumbered into sight, it was such a ramshackle
antique that Mike hoped Nolan and Richards would let it pass. Unfortunately, they had no signal to communicate this. Their
orders were to bag the first truck. The truck was traveling north at about twenty miles per hour, and Mike saw Richards jump
from cover, run alongside the truck for a moment, and then pull himself up on the step beneath the driver’s door. Richards
shot the man in the face with his Colt and reached in to steer the truck as it wavered and slowed on the highway. Nolan gained
entry to the cab from the far side, pulled the driver’s body out of the way, slipped beneath the wheel, and braked the truck
to a stop. They immediately ran to
the back and checked the canvas-covered interior. They waved to the others and climbed in before any of the peasants traveling
on the road approached near enough to identify them as Westerners.
Mike and the other three Westerners climbed aboard unobserved, so far as they could tell. Three of the Hmong who were to do
the driving waited for Verdoux to translate Campbell’s instructions for them.
“About seven kilometers north of here—I doubt if this truck’s instruments are working—”
“They might be,” Richards interrupted cheerfully. “It’s a British Leyland, early sixties’ vintage, I suspect.”
Mike smiled. “Have them look at the gas gauge, too. Seven kilometers north, they turn east on a minor road that doesn’t seem
to hit any big towns, but goes all the way to the Viet border.” Mike traced the route with his finger before handing the map
and money to Andre. “They can buy gas with Thai bahts, and if they won’t accept that currency, the Hmong can shoot them. Get
the drivers to understand one thing. I don’t want anyone to see our round-eye faces between here and the Viet border—and I
want to get there before dark.”
“
Entendu, mon général
”
The six mercs and seven Hmong made themselves as comfortable as they could on the bouncing floor of the empty truck, constructed
of splintering planks. They took turns at keeping a lookout to the front and rear through rents in the canvas, a duty for
which there was no shortage of volunteers, since it was probably more comfortable to stand holding onto the side than sit
and absorb spinal shocks through the floor.
Richards was feeling cocky since his capture of the vehicle. He looked out at the impoverished, wild countryside they were
passing through and said to Verdoux, “Frenchie, your lot made a proper bollox of this place when you had it as a colony.”
Verdoux’s blood pressure rose visibly. He said nothing.
“I’m serious,” Richards persisted. “Look at the ex-British colonies in this part of the world—Burma, Malaysia, Singapore—they’re
all still in the free world. Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos … all French and all commie today. Proper fuck-up, I call it.”
Verdoux looked as if he were ready to go for a gun or a knife.
Mike diplomatically intervened. “I could tell you guys to shut up. Or since Andre hasn’t said anything, I’m going to tell
you to keep your mouth closed, Larry, while Andre tells us who lives here. It’ll help pass the time if nothing else. Go ahead,
Frenchie.”
“Don’t blame the French!” Andre said, which caused laughter and eased the tension. “The Chinese dominated the whole region
for about a thousand years. In the tenth century, the Vietnamese shook them off east of the Annamitique Mountains, while to
the west the Khmer people—present-day Cambodians—gained control of what we now know as Cambodia, Laos and Thailand. Even today,
Cambodians, Laotians and Thais are all closely related in race and language, and are all completely distinct from the Vietnamese.
Which is why they hate them. From about the year 1300 on, the Thais became aggressive. They all fought with each other over
the centuries, gaining or losing pieces of territory. The place was such a mess by the nineteenth century, all the French
did was walk in and say no more warfare. They managed to keep things reasonably quiet until the Japanese swarmed in during
the Second World War, just as they did over the British colonies, too!”
“Let me give you facts about Laos today,” Mike said. “At the time the South Vietnamese government in Saigon collapsed in April,
1975, the Laotian monarchy went under. A neutralist coalition government ruled for a short while, but as usual the commies
did in their moderate partners and took over. They call themselves the Lao People’s Democratic Party and take their orders
from
Hanoi or Moscow. In this country right now there are about fifty thousand Viet regulars. The Laotian government has thirty-six
thousand troops. So we and the Hmong and a few other misguided souls are taking on eighty-six thousand full-time trained professional
soldiers, not to mention peasant militias and spies and so forth! If we get caught here, we can’t expect any help from Washington.
The politicians are going about their usual diplomatic bumbling. Know why Washington was so anxious to keep us from coming
into Laos? They’re thinking of upgrading the U.S. diplomatic mission in Laos’ capital, Vientiane, to a full embassy. Our mission
might upset their afternoon tea party, where they all stand around in pinstripe suits and white gloves saying, ‘Definitely
a pleasure to meet you, I’m sure.’ They call that a diplomatic breakthrough, while meantime there may be dozens of poor fucks
captured more than ten years ago held captive in bamboo cages just because they are GIs. I say screw the ambassador and his
garden party.”
They passed the time laughing, joking, even dozing. They shared their C and K rations with the Hmong, and at least one always
kept a wary eye on the passing countryside. They had no trouble buying gas with the Thai bahts from peasants with fifty-gallon
drums operated by foot-pedal pumps along the roadside.
“I bet they are charging us too much,” one of the Hmong said to Andre, “because they think we are smugglers. They won’t report
us because they want to do business with us again. The Laotians are not good communists. They don’t understand it.”
The truck had been on the road for more than four hours when Bob Murphy shouted a warning, “Roadblock ahead!”
The others jumped to their feet and peered through holes in the canvas cover over the cab. It turned out that roadblock was
too strong a word for a soldier standing in the roadway waving a red flag, while his rifle leaned against a fence post fifty
yards away. Two other soldiers,
both without visible arms, talked with a group of women in a field.
The Hmong drove the truck straight at the soldier in the middle of the road. He got the message fast and threw himself out
of its way. Not a shot was fired. They last saw the soldier looking disconsolately after them in a cloud of dust they had
raised. The two other soldiers talking to the women had not bothered to turn and look.
Nolan made an obscene gesture with his middle finger back at the lone soldier. Two of the Hmong liked that and practiced the
gesture themselves. The others were in good humor at the quick defusing of the potential threat. Except for Campbell. He looked
worried and stared moodily out over the tailgate of the truck for some minutes. Then he walked up behind the cab and hammered
with his fist on its metal wall. The truck slowed and pulled over. They were on a deserted stretch of road with a crazy tangle
of growth on both sides.
Mike jumped down. “You might as well stretch your legs for a few minutes,” he called to the others in the back of the truck.
He went forward to the driver. He asked in Vietnamese, “How far do you reckon to the border?”
The Hmong understood him and climbed out with the map, glad to exercise his limbs. The other two in the cab lit cigarettes
and went back to talk to their friends.
“Maybe an hour,” the Hmong said to Andre, who translated.
“You think we should risk staying on the road in the truck?” Mike asked.
Andre interpreted for him. “He says you’re right to stop and think about it. I think he’s afraid that if he says we shouldn’t
stay with the truck, you’ll say we should to prove you’re a braver man than him.”
Mike looked up and down the road and weighed the gain against the loss. Stay with the truck, in another hour be done with
Laos and into Vietman—meanwhile presenting yourself as a ready, identifiable target that just ran a
military checkpoint, assuming those three soldiers had a radio and bothered to use it. Dump the truck, go back to trekking,
and add another day, maybe two, to getting out of Laos, plus leaving yourself with low mobility if a general alarm was raised.
Campbell gazed up and down the road, wrestling with his very limited options. He was pleased to see that everyone, including
himself, had automatically moved out of the road into the cover of the ditch. A couple of days in the field had brought back
gut thinking to the members of the team. Basically he had no choice. Fast transportation was worth almost any risk it involved.
They had to keep the truck. There were so few vehicles on this road, there was no great advantage in exchanging this truck
for another. He was about to wave everyone back to the truck when he noticed a dark shape out of the corner of his eye.