Casca 11: The Legionnaire (13 page)

Gus shook men off him like dandruff, fighting and drinking at the same time as a small Legionnaire from the 3rd REI stood at arm's length pounding at the giant's massive gut. When Gus finished the bottle of Pernod he was sucking, he tapped the little man lightly with an open hand and broke his jaw. Langer was cornered by six men from different units when Gus reached him. Between them they cleaned the place out leaving broken bottles and soldiers all around them. Gus was cut from a few small scratches and Langer was roaring like a berserker, eyes red and glazed. He wouldn't stop swinging even when the brawl was over, and Gus knew the gendarmes would be coming soon. As a favor to his best friend, he sucker punched Langer into oblivion, threw him over his shoulder, grabbed two girls and disappeared out the back, content that he had once again been the saving of his friend.

When they reported back in the morning, it was an ill and weak crew that stood at reveille, weak, but together and ready for whatever the gods of war were going to bring to them next.

Comrade Colonel Thich reread the communication from Giap. Accidentally, his hand knocked over an ashtray. As he bent over to retrieve it his leg gave a spasm of pain. Once more, he cursed the day he had met the Legionnaire. The doctors had said he would have a limp for the rest of his life. Philosophically, he tried to look on the wound as one more piece of evidence of the loyalty and sacrifices he had made to the cause of the revolution.

Returning his attention to the letter, he absently scratched his head and leaned back in his chair. The dark walls of the tunnels were now as natural to him as his father's home had been before he had taken to the jungles with Giap. Everything was going according to plan. From all reports, Navarre would make his move soon and, if he was as predictable in the future as he had been in the past, they would at last have their victory, one which would break the will of the French people to any further support of the running dog, Navarre and his hirelings. From a hundred sources he had been piecing together the forthcoming picture, which proved once again the wisdom of Giap's methodical and careful planning. Medical supplies were being stockpiled, coffins ordered, ammunition being loaded onto pallets for air transport. All these clues gave him answers he was quite pleased with. After the revolutionary forces had taken the French outpost at Na Sam, there was no other way for them to come. It would be by air, and that was what he wanted. There could be no doubt, General Navarre would move and do it within the week. Men could not be kept in such a state of readiness indefinitely. They were coming and all was in readiness to give them a reception they would not soon forget.

Dawn was just creeping over the horizon, bringing with it the welcome crisp breath of a new day to blow away some of the heaviness of the night. The airfield at Hanoi hummed with activity and the sounds of engines warming up. Langer, Gus, and Dominic adjusted each other's straps on their parachutes to get the best fit. It was uncomfortable to have one's gonads trapped between the canvas harness during the opening shock of the chute. Something like that could ruin the whole day. They were all outfitted in new American marine camouflage jackets over French olive green trousers. Even their helmets were American made. Their weapons were the same mixture as their clothing. Langer looked to the skies. The day was going to be clear with complete visibility. He wondered what kind of reception they were going to have when they hit the silk. If the Viet Minh were waiting for them while they were still in the air, it would be like shooting hanging fruit from a tree. At least the rains were over. November in the highlands was a time when the nights were cool and the days pleasant, but Langer knew that their stay in the valley would not be.

Hermann had made back his stripes, but only because they were so short of qualified men the commanding officer had no choice but to do so. Once the insignia of his rank was re
-sewn on his sleeves, Hermann returned to his old self. Gus's plan to drive him mad had to be temporarily abandoned once they'd begun training for the forthcoming operation. It was there that Hermann hoped for an opportunity to opt rid of all his problems. There were so many ways it could be done. A grenade in their sleeping quarters at night. A burst of machine gun fire in the back during a Viet attack. It was with delicious pleasure that he went over each method of disposing of the three men.

Hermann got the nod from the jumpmaster and barked out the orders for his platoon to board the Douglass C 47. They filed into the plane each taking a long look at the tail of the aircraft and
wondering why no one ever hit it when they went out the door. Hermann 's platoon was to be the only one of the 2nd BEP to go in on the initial drop. The rest would follow later. They were to be attached to the 1st BEP for the time being. Because of their past success in patrolling and sniping, they were to be used as a mobile fire group to keep the Viets busy in the hills until the valley sites could be secured.

At twelve thousand feet the flight of C
-47s made their approach, covering the two hundred seventy kilometers from Hanoi to Dien Bien Phu in an hour when Langer's last trip had taken days. From the sky the country looked deceptively peaceful. Fields were crisscrossed with rice paddies and water buffaloes pulled plows through thigh deep mud. Men fished from the sides of rivers and streams, drawing in nets for their day's catch, some of which would be dried and shipped to the cities on the coast. Then came the range of thickly covered mountains as they passed over what had been the strong point of Na Sam. There were still people there but no French. The Na Sam garrison had been successfully evacuated by air. General Giap made no attempt to interfere with the airlift, leaving Navarre to draw the conclusion that he would be able to keep a major force supplied and reinforced by air, if he so chose. And now, he had chosen to do this very thing.

The flight of planes passed over an isolated Montagnard village. The natives looked to the skies and made signs to ward off evil. For some days they'd been prepared. Already their belongings had been gathered into bundles and packs. By some primal instinct they knew this was not a place to stay. They would head for the remote regions to the west until the coming evil had passed. They left their pathetic fields and huts behind to receive whatever was coming. Driving their animals before them they looked the same as any primitive tribe from ten thousand years earlier, an Aboriginal people on the move searching for safety.

Colonel Thich adjusted his khaki drill uniform, found the cane he had made to assist his stiff leg and went to the entrance of the main tunnel complex. Giap was coming. The great day had begun. From his agents he already had word the French were on their way and, as Giap had ordered, there was to be no resistance to the parachute drop, though many of his commanders wanted to catch the French while they were in the air and butcher them. This was not to be. The foreigners had to be permitted to establish themselves in the valley and then slowly drawn into the net that had been so meticulously prepared for them. Anyone who fired a single shot during the first air drop was to be summarily executed. All the Viet Minh forces were to stay hidden in the hills.

A sudden desire to take a leak came to a thousand men at approximately the same time as the planes began to descend to nine hundred feet over the approaching valley floor. Coming in from the south they would try to get everyone on the first run onto the drop zone within seconds of each other. The first drop to exit the doors would be those selected for setting up perimeter security. The rest of the flight would hang back a few minutes until they saw what kind of reception was given the security force on the ground. If all was reasonably quiet, then the rest of the 1st BEP would come in on schedule. Red lights came on in three aircraft and the command to stand and hook up was yelled out over the drone of the engines. The sticks were ready as the call to sound off equipment check was made from inside the planes. Voices cried out their number in the stick. Twenty okay, nineteen okay, eighteen okay and so on down the line. The jumpmaster held up his fingers. Two minutes to the drop zone. The lead man, Hermann, shuffled to the door. Hands gripping the sides of the plane, he looked to the front, seeing in the distance several small hamlets on the heart shaped valley floor.
The wind whipped at his eyes as the roar of the engines drowned out all other sounds. There was a slap on his shoulder as the jumpmaster yelled out, "Go!" and he was away and falling, his body being thrown through the air by the tornado winds of the plane's propellers. The spine cracking jerk from the old T-7 parachute rattled his teeth with the opening shock. Then there was silence as the planes moved on. Above him, strung out like lights on the gutters of a cabaret, was the rest of his platoon. Each man checked his static lines, then watched the ground, hoping the enemy was not waiting for them and that no sharpshooter had his floating body in his rifle's sights. The sixteen seconds they were in the air seemed like minutes. Then, one by one, they began to hit the ground, going into their parachute landing fall toes down, legs slightly bent, chins tucked in. They hit and rolled, bursting out of their chutes as fast as they could. Releasing their weapons, they spread out to gather in their ammo canisters and turned to belly down in the high grass of the field facing the rim of trees on either side of them.

G
us cursed like a raving lunatic when he hit the ground hard and was twisted by a sudden gust of wind and dragged into a patch of thorn bushes. Langer and Dominic fared better. Making easy landings, they ran to Gus and cut him out of his shroud lines. Jerking the big man free, they too took up positions and waited for something to happen as they watched the ominous looking dense woods. Nothing. All was quiet; not a shot was fired. Langer didn't like it. He knew there were Viets up there. He more than anyone else knew the enemy was watching them. Was this a trap? Were the Viets going to wait until the entire force was on the ground and then make a general assault?

The captain in command of the 1st BEP's unit on the ground waited for a few minutes then told his radio operator to hand him the set. To the waiting planes he gave the word that all was quiet and he was expanding his perimeter to the edge of the trees. He would be there by the time they made their approach and if anything was wrong they would still have time to cancel out the rest of the drop. That was not an idea that appealed to him. That would mean those few men on the ground would be on their own with no support except from a single flight of propeller driven fighter bombers, who would not be able to do much more than give them some cover for a short time until they had to head home for fuel. Once they were gone it was not likely that anyone from the initial landing party would survive too long. Signaling his platoon to move out to the tree line, he handed the radio back to its operator, checked to make certain the safety was off his Mats 49 submachine gun and led the way. The platoons from the other two planes that had made the jump with him were doing the same thing. One platoon positioned itself on each side of the valley and one stayed in the field to give covering fire if needed.

Eyes watched them from the mountains. General Giap removed the German made Zeiss binoculars from his eyes, revealing a full fleshed, handsome face filled with intent and intelligence. Small, neatly dressed in drill khakis, as was Thich, he was a tough man totally dedicated to his cause and Ho Chi Minh. The French rat had stuck its head in the trap to sniff the cheese, but it would still be some time before the rest of the body was inside. Let them build their fortifications and bunkers, string barbed wire and build trenches. Let them commit fully to this valley and little by little he would apply pressure that they would have to respond to, making it impossible for them to evacuate the valley, and ultimately, forcing them to admit defeat at the hands of Asians. French pride would be his secret weapon. That's what would bury them in this lonely, isolated place of no value. Giap had come two hundred miles from his headquarters to the north just to witness the prelude to his finely orchestrated plans. He could see that the rest of the aircraft were now filling the sky with parachutes. He turned to Thich, giving him one of his rare smiles of approval.

"Old friend, we have done well this day. Follow my orders to the letter and we will have not only Vietnam, but all of Southeast Asia as our domain. And once we have the resources of a hundred million people to count on, who knows where we may be able to carry our revolution. The world is open and ripe. The western democracies are sick of war and diseased of spirit. They rot in their own softness of soul. We are the new order of this century. Change is coming, change that can only come from revolution. Keep a watch over my valley. I must leave now, for there are yet many other things which require my attention. But I shall return and be with you when the battle proper has begun.”

The 1st Bataillon Etrangere des Parachutistes was on the deck, fanning out, securing key points to establish their airhead. In the hills all was quiet as were the now empty skies. They were alone but did not plan on remaining that way any longer than necessary. Before the next hour had passed, they were already at work clearing a field for an airstrip. They worked with a fever, knowing this single piece of ground would be their only link to the outside world, and their only hope for survival if the Viets hit them in strength. It was to be a long night before the next dawn, when more of their brothers in arms would be brought in by plane to join them. With the additional numbers they would have their field open for traffic and a series of bunkers ready within the next few days. Once that was done, then let the Viets come at them, for they were the Legion Etrangere.

Thich bade his commander farewell and returned to a site where he could watch the progress of the enemy below. Focusing his glasses on a party of men, he spotted one who, even at this distance, was of monstrous size. He suddenly had a queasy feeling. He was too far away to make out individual features but there was something about one man, standing beside the giant paratrooper, that made him uneasy. Troubled by something he couldn't express, he removed the glasses from his eyes and left to attend a meeting of his staff officers to determine their course of action for the next few days.

General Henri Navarre was elated that the drops had gone so well and that his men were establishing themselves with such great rapidity in the valley. He swore to his junior officers in their club that night that: "Dien Bien Phu will be the major stroke of this war. I will guarantee you that we shall hold it and use it as the anvil against which we shall smash the forces of Giap and his peasants."

The attending officers raised their glasses in salute, filled with admiration for their general and his plan. Dien Bien Phu would be the crowning glory for French arms, a name that would go down in history books as an example of the courage and dedication of the French soldier. It would also prove to the world once and for all that the arms of France were again a force to be reckoned with.
Vive Ia France! Vive la Guerre!