The Generals Page 2

  They were, furthermore, interfering with liberation efforts in their immediate area. It had become difficult, for instance, for the People’s Democratic Government to collect the taxes necessary to support the war of liberation. In more than a dozen incidents, tax collectors had been betrayed. Thus, when they had entered villages to collect pigs, chickens, rice, and vegetables, and to find “volunteer” porters to carry supplies down the valley, they had been met by Green Beret and puppet troops.

  This tended to breed disrespect for the People’s Democratic Government. The situation, furthermore, was going to get worse, unless stopped. Because of the success of the base on Nui Ba Den, Intelligence had learned that the American Green Berets intended to establish bases at other points where they could disrupt the flow of supplies south, and breed greater disrespect for the People’s Democratic Government.

  It was consequently decided at the highest echelons that the base on Nui Ba Den had to be eliminated.

  The commanding officer of the 39th Regiment had then explained the tactical situation.

  First of all, as Chairman Mao had so often pointed out, it was the greatest wisdom to attack the enemy when and where he did not believe an attack would occur. Second, the Americans and their puppet soldiers on the mountaintop believed themselves impregnable to an assault by anything less than a regiment. There was no reason for them to believe that a regiment was anywhere near.

  Consequently it was intended to attack the base on Nui Ba Den in regimental strength in daylight.

  Since Intelligence had reported that approximately once every ninety minutes radio contact was made between the Green Berets and their headquarters, the plan called for the attack to begin immediately after the American radio operator signed off. Initial mortar fire would then be directed at the American communications bunker, and would continue until the bunker and/or its antennae were destroyed. Once this was done, there would be a period of at least ninety minutes during which the Americans’ superiors would think that all was well at Nui Ba Den.

  The next phase of the attack, lasting fifteen minutes, would be a heavy mortar and rocket attack on the base. Since the puppet soldiers were accustomed to return fire without much regard to their ammunition supply, they would fire what ammunition they had almost with abandon, confident that the attack would be like the others they had experienced. The defenders of Nui Ba Den would therefore expend their ammunition in futile counterfire against a force which, with the exception of the troops exposing themselves momentarily to fire their mortars and rocket launchers, would be safely below ground.

  Phase Three of the attack would be the first assault wave. Nine companies of infantry were available for the assault, including Captain Van Hung Au’s Number 9 company. These would attack three companies at a time. While it was to be hoped that the first wave would succeed in breaching the first and second perimeter lines, that seemed unlikely to happen.

  What could be expected was that Nui Ba Den’s defenders, still unaware of the size of the force attacking them, would expend what was left of their ammunition.

  Five minutes after Assault Wave One began its assault, there would be another five-minute mortar and rocket barrage on the enemy positions. Immediately thereafter Assault Wave Two would begin its assault.

  Finally, there would be one more rocket and mortar barrage, followed by Assault Wave Three. Assault Wave Three would be commanded by Captain Van Hung Au. It was politically necessary that he survive the battle, so that the local people, who knew him, would identify him with the victory.

  There would be no prisoners—unless any of the Americans were found alive. If that was the case, these were to be given first priority for medical attention. After all the Americans had been photographed, their wounded were to be taken away. (Publication of such photographs in the United States and elsewhere tended to diminish enthusiasm for the war.) Second priority was the removal of small arms and ammunition. Third priority was the removal of People’s Liberation Army dead. It was politically necessary not to leave large numbers of dead People’s Liberation Army soldiers on the site. Fourth priority was the removal of wounded.

  The weapons, ammunition, and other liberated supplies would be cached in tunnels to be built for that purpose, together with the heavier weapons (mortars, rocket launchers, and ammunition) brought in for the assault. They would be moved after the anticipated sweep of the area had been accomplished by puppet troops.

  The dead would be buried in tunnels, and the tunnel mouths sealed.

  Insofar as possible, the wounded would be moved. But it would be regrettably necessary to eliminate the wounded who could not be moved or who seemed likely to expire. They would be buried in tunnels.

  The assault force would then disperse.

  Priority in the evacuation from the battle site was to be given to the photographers and, if there were any, American prisoners.

  Captain Van Hung Au would be informed when his role in the assault was over, whereupon he would disperse his men and await further orders.

  (Two)

  Foo Two SOP (Standing Operating Procedure) in the event of an attack prescribed the duty stations of the officers and men of the “A” Team. The commanding officer, the operations sergeant, and the commo sergeant were to go to the CP (Command Post). The exec and the deputy operations sergeant were to go to Bunker Hill. The medic was to go to the Dispensary, a sandbag bunker identified with a Red Cross and a neatly lettered sign reading “Obstetrics and Gynecology.” The others of the “A” team were charged with seeing that the ARVN troops did what they were supposed to be doing.

  Dien Bien Phu II made reference to the heavily fortified French positions at Dien Bien Phu, which had been overrun by Ho Chi Minh’s forces some years before the Americans had become involved in Vietnam. The implication was that Dien Bien Phu II, like Dien Bien Phu, was surrounded by enemies and about to get blown away. This wasn’t a precise analogy, for Dien Bien Phu had been in a valley, and Foo Two was on the top of a mountain. Still, Foo Two was in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by hostile Vietnamese. And it was clear to every member of the “A” Team that, presuming Charley was willing to pay the price, Foo Two was just as vulnerable as the original.

  “Bunker Hill” did not, except as a play on words, refer to the hill in Boston. Foo Two’s Bunker Hill was a bunker built on the top of the hill.

  The hilltop consisted of three granite pinnacles, each about ten feet tall, each separated from the others by a few feet. Bunker Hill used these three pinnacles as its foundation. The paths between them had been roofed over with timber, and the roof protected by layers of sandbags. Surrounding this structure was a four-foot-high wall of sandbags. Within the wall of sandbags were four M-60 machine gun positions, each roofed over with timbers and sandbags. Their fields of fire covered the entire compound and most of the approaches to the compound. There were also several sandbag-protected rifleman’s firing positions. The heavy armament of Bunker Hill was mortars, of which there were four. Three were 60-mm M-19s, which could throw shells just over a mile. The one 81-mm M-29, Bunker Hill’s heavy artillery, could throw its shells almost two miles. Two of the 60s were emplaced so as to cover the approaches to Foo Two where the terrain interrupted the machine guns’ beaten zone of fire. The other 60 and the 81 were emplaced to bring the most logical approach to Foo Two under fire.

  The passageways between the stone pinnacles were stacked with ammunition, as was the “room” formed in their center. Bunker Hill was both Foo Two’s first and last line of defense. It was from Bunker Hill that the first rounds in defense would be fired; and if Foo Two was overrun, it would be the last place the enemy could reach.

  It was for that reason that the exec and the assistant ops sergeant were assigned to Bunker Hill by the Foo Two SOP. The exec had telephone and Handie-Talkie communication with other defense positions, backing up the Old Man in the CP. The assistant ops sergeant was in charge of the ARVN riflemen, machine gunners, and mortarmen; and the ops sergeant, down b
elow, was in charge of the troops manning Foo Two’s defense perimeter.

  Since at that moment there seemed to be one hell of a lot of incoming, Staff Sergeant Craig resisted his natural instinct to take cover (Christ, it won’t last more than a minute or two at the rate they’re firing) in one of the foxholes; instead, he ran like hell toward Bunker Hill, and then scrambled up its sides. The round-the-clock team of ARVNs on duty had already brought two of the 60-mm’s into action, and as he jumped over the sandbag wall he heard the much deeper crump of the 81-mm.

  Breathing heavily from the exertion, Staff Sergeant Craig ducked into one of the covered rifleman’s positions and dug in his pocket for earplugs. The first time Charley had pulled this kind of shit, he’d found himself next to an M-60 machine gun, and the noise had made his ears sing for ten days. Master Sergeant Petrofski, taking pity on him, had given him a spare set of his earplugs. Later he showed him an ad in The American Rifleman from which he could order some for himself.

  When he had the plugs (rubber and aluminum devices that permitted normal hearing until a ball-and-piston arrangement closed as sharp sound waves struck it) in his ears, he looked down at the compound.

  “Oh, shit!” he said.

  Lieutenant Wills, who could have been no more than sixty seconds after him out of the CP when the siren went off, was quite obviously dead, lying in a spreading pool of blood twenty-five yards from the CP. He had taken a near-direct hit from one of Charley’s mortars.

  There wasn’t much left of the CP. It had taken Christ only knew how many rounds—enough to displace a lot of sandbags and to tear open most of those that were left. The roof and one wall were gone. And as he watched, two more rounds came in, so close that they nearly went off together.

  The only place the mortars seemed to be landing was on the CP.

  What the hell was going on?

  What was going on was very simple. Charley was determined to take out the CP. Charley had taken out the CP, which meant that he had taken out the Old Man and Master Sergeant Petrofski as well.

  That meant several other things—more things than it was comfortable to consider.

  First of all, under the Foo Two SOP, it meant that command of Foo Two passed to Bunker Hill. But since the exec, who was to assume command in case the Old Man got blown away, was also dead, command passed to Master Sergeant Petrofski, the ops sergeant.

  No one had really believed it would ever be necessary to go any further down the chain of command, but the Foo Two SOP listed it anyway—right down to #9, the assistant armorer.

  Staff Sergeant Craig put his Handie-Talkie to his lips.

  “Foo Three, Foo Four,” he said, and listened, and then repeated it. There was no answer.

  Foo Two radio call signs followed the chain of command. Foo One was the Old Man; Foo Two the exec; Foo Three the ops sergeant, and Foo Four the assistant ops sergeant.

  The chain of command had descended to him.

  “Foo Five, Four,” he said to the Handie-Talkie. Five was the commo sergeant.

  “Go.”

  “You all right?”

  “Antennas are down. The generator’s gone, too, so it’s a moot point.”

  “When did they last check in?”

  “About sixty seconds before all this shit started.”

  Goddamn! With the antennas down, they couldn’t yell for help. Until the net tried to check in—and that wouldn’t be for an hour and a half—nobody would have any idea that Foo Two was under attack.

  “How soon can you get on the air?”

  “Forget it,” Foo Five said. “Where’s Wills?”

  “Dead.”

  “Shit!”

  “Six, Four.”

  There was no answer.

  “Seven? Anybody?”

  “Nine, I’m here,” the assistant armorer reported in.

  “You all right?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Wills and the Old Man are both dead?”

  “They don’t answer.”

  “This is Seven. I just took a look. I can’t see anything. It looks like they’re dumping everything on the CP.”

  “What about Eight? Eight? You there?”

  “He’s in that M-60 position, I think maybe his radio’s busted. There’s people over there.”

  “Let me know if you see anything,” Craig said. He leaned against the sandbags.

  And then he had one more uncomfortable thought: Just as soon as Charley was convinced that the CP and the communications had been taken out, he would divert his attention to Bunker Hill. And if he took out Bunker Hill, that would be the end of it.

  There was almost a continuous roar of Bunker Hill’s mortars. The ARVNs were well trained. They could maintain a steady fire of ten or more rounds per minute from each of the mortars, and if they could have unpacked the ammo from its wooden crates any faster, they would have fired faster.

  As Lieutenant Wills had once solemnly pointed out, there was enough 60-mm and 81-mm ammo in the passages of Bunker Hill to fight a war.

  Craig jumped to his feet and ran to the ARVN officer in charge. He tried English, and that didn’t work, and then he tried gestures until the ARVN lieutenant understood him. His face showed that he thought Craig was either crazy or a coward, or both.

  Why should they move the mortars under the protection of the timbers and sandbags of Bunker Hill when they were doing damned well what they had been trained to do, fire Bunker Hill’s mortars in counterfire?

  Craig held up his index finger, and pointed with his hand to the command post, nearly concealed in a cloud of dust and smoke and still taking a round every five or ten seconds. Then he extended a second finger, and indicated Bunker Hill.

  The CP had been first, they were next.

  The ARVN lieutenant got the message. He started in one direction around the wall of sandbags, ordering the mortar crews to take their weapons and the machine guns and themselves into the protection of Bunker Hill’s passageways. Staff Sergeant Craig went in the other direction, making his point where he could with gestures, and in the case of the last mortar crew, with the muzzle of his M-14. For a chilling moment, he thought it was entirely likely that the sergeant in charge of this crew, who looked at him with loathing, was going to reply to his orders to stop firing by turning his carbine on him. He had a family below in a sandbag bunker that he felt compelled to protect.

  But he gave in and ordered his crew and the mortar inside, then sent two of them to fetch the M-60 on its tripod and the half dozen cans of ammo beside it.

  The first Charley mortar round landed on Bunker Hill as these ARVN soldiers squeezed by Craig into the passageway. The second followed a split second later. He was so stunned by the force of these explosions that his eyes went out of focus, and his ears rang, despite the earplugs. Something stung his lip, and he thought he had been dinged by a stone fragment.

  He staggered farther inside the passageway, gesturing impatiently to two ARVN soldiers to block the entrance with whatever they could. Then he made his way to the “room” at the center of Bunker Hill.

  The mortar barrage was intense now, rounds falling without pause. The force of the shock waves moved, it seemed, even through the solid granite pinnacles. A nearly steady fog of sand particles trickled between the timbers supporting the sandbag roof, and visibility, never good, was now really bad.

  The pair of two-hundred-watt bulbs that normally burned around the clock in the room in the center of Bunker Hill were of course out. They had died when Charley got the generator bunker. But there was one Coleman lantern hissing and burning brilliantly on the table, and two ARVN soldiers were squatting on the floor, trying to pump another one into life.

  There was something warm and wet on Craig’s chin. He put his hand to it to wipe it off, and his fingers came away sticky and red. He looked down at them, and then at his shirt. There was blood on his fingers, and a teardrop-shaped patch of blood, glistening in the light from the Coleman lantern, on his shirt.

  As he was examining this
in surprise and shock (he felt light-headed, and wondered if he was going to throw up or crap his pants), the ARVN lieutenant came to him, pulled him none too gently to the folding chair beside the table with the Coleman on it, and pushed him into it.

  He examined the wound carefully, his face so close that Craig could smell the garlic and whatever-the-hell-else on his breath, and then gave sharp singsong orders. A first aid kit (a Foo Two kit, not the official GI model: a 7.62-mm steel ammo can, packed with what the Old Man thought should be in a first aid kit) appeared on the table, and the ARVN lieutenant pushed Craig’s head so far back that he had to close his eyes to keep from being blinded by the sand trickling through the spaces between the timbers.

  “OK, Number One,” the ARVN officer said finally, and Craig sat up and opened his eyes.

  The ARVN officer made his thumb and index finger into a “C” to indicate the size of the wound, and then drew on his own face the location. It went from the center of the lip four inches into the cheek. Craig put his fingers carefully to his face. There were two bandages over most of his mouth, one on top of the other, held in place by adhesive tape looped several times around the base of his skull. If he tried to move his head, there was a sharp pain. There was also a dull, tooth-achelike pain extending from his mouth up to his forehead.

  Stone fragment, my ass!

  He wondered if he would have a scarred face.

  He nodded his thanks to the ARVN officer, and then tried French: “Beaucoup ammo,” he said. “Tout les ammo.”

  The ARVN officer raised his eyebrows questioningly, and Craig repeated what he had said, this time adding gestures. He wanted mortar ammo from the crates lining the passage unpacked, so that it would be more readily available when the barrage lifted, and they could go outside and start shooting back.

  There was no longer any question in his mind what Charley was up to. Charley wanted to take Foo Two, not just lob a couple of rounds in to make people nervous.