Saigon (33 page)

The little group of squatly built Nung tribesmen peered fearfully up at the Warhawk wreckage by the light of their burning grass torches, then began backing away, jabbering excitedly among themselves. They could see the white pilot’s body dangling from the smashed cockpit on its seat straps, and the gusting wind was making it twist slowly back and forth; as it turned, they saw that the pale face was hideously streaked with blood and one arm stuck out stiffly at an unnatural angle. Behind them, one of the tribal priests who had accompanied the group from their stilted village a mile away cut the air ritualistically above his head with a machete every few seconds to disperse the evil demons gathering around the crashed plane, and instinctively the group retreated to his side for protection. 

“He has already joined the spirits of the mountains and the clouds,” whispered one of the tribesmen, rolling his eyes towards the Warhawk. “We should go now.” 

The priest lowered his machete and stood listening for a moment; the noise made by the six-man Japanese border patrol that had also watched the Warhawk come down in flames was growing louder as they approached the crash site. 

“Dead or alive, the thin man of Pac Bo who promises to make us free wants all white flying men returned to him,” said the priest slowly. “Cut him down!” 

The authoritative tone of the priest’s voice reassured the frightened tribesmen, and they climbed quickly into the tree to sever the seat straps with their machetes. It took six of the stocky mountain men to bear the burden back to their little group of thatched huts, and as they staggered under the weight, the priest walked beside them, chanting imprecations to appease the powerful spirits of fire, sky and thunder which the tribe believed had created the earth. When they arrived at the village, a wide-eyed throng of tribes people crowded into the smoke-filled hut of the priest and watched in silence as he prepared a little platter of betel leaves and a few rice grains to place in the mouth of the corpse in accordance with the tribe’s traditional funeral rites. Before beginning the ritual, the priest signaled for water to be brought from the mountain spring outside, then cut away the blood-soaked cloth of the flying suit. In the act of swabbing blood from the exposed torso, the priest stopped suddenly and bent to press his head against the chest. When he straightened up, he beckoned quickly to one of his helpers. 

“Prepare a bamboo litter at once — the white man is still alive! And send a runner to Pac Bo quickly to warn them to be ready at the river.” 

A gasp of excitement rose from the crowd of villagers, and they pressed closer around then priest as he began to bind leaves and jungle herbs tightly around the wounds that Joseph had suffered in the crash. One of Joseph’s legs, as well as his left arm, was obviously broken, and when the priest had finished treating the wounds, he wrapped one of his own ceremonial robes about the American, then tied his legs together with twisted creepers and bound him firmly to a bamboo litter. The same six bearers who had carried him from the wreck hoisted him onto their shoulders again, and with an escort of a dozen villagers armed with machetes, they set off immediately down the mountainside. 

The Japanese border patrol finally traced the blood trail to the village half an hour later, and when they found no sign of the pilot’s body, they opened fire in their anger. The priest and two other tribesmen were killed instantly and ten other villagers were wounded. Before they left, the Nipponese soldiers set fire to all the huts and dragged half-a-dozen Nung girls screaming into the forest with them, A detachment of French troops riding short- legged mountain ponies from the border post of Soc Gian three miles away located the Warhawk wreckage an hour later; like all the French colonial forces in Indochina they were also under orders to seize and intern all American pilots shot down in the peninsula, but because of the resentment they felt at having to take orders from the Japanese, the Frenchmen simply shrugged their shoulders and turned their horses’ heads towards their home base again when they found the cockpit empty. By that time, Joseph was drifting eastward along a steep-sided tributary of the Li Chiang River on a flimsy bamboo raft piloted by Dao Van Lat and two other young Communist guerrillas. 

The fervent revolutionary who had led the ill-fated march on Vinh in 1930 had poled the raft rapidly upstream from the Indochinese Communist Party’s secret guerrilla base at Pac Bo on receiving the Nung message that an American pilot had been rescued alive. One of his two young companions knelt on the front of the frail craft holding a blazing torch aloft to guide them through the frothing rapids, while the second guerrilla crouched beside Joseph’s litter at the rear, cradling an ancient flintlock rifle in his arms. The stream began to run more swiftly as it approached the main river, and it was the sound of rushing water that first penetrated Joseph’s concussed brain; but only partial consciousness returned, and the blurred images of their rapid passage through the noisy, firelit darkness were terrifying to him. He began to shout incoherently and strain against his protective bonds, arid Lat, fearing that he would capsize the craft, order the Annamese beside him to hit him with the butt of his flintlock. 

Joseph immediately lapsed into unconsciousness once more, hut the sound of his voice had reached a second Japanese patrol on the limestone bluff high above the river, and a moment later their opening shots were kicking up plumes of spray all around the raft. Lat drove his long pole frantically into the bed of the shallow river and sent the craft careering wildly through a long channel where the water boiled white between rocky reefs. He yelled frantic orders to the young guerrilla guarding Joseph to fire back at the Japanese. but in the act of raising his flintlock to his shoulder, the youth was hit in the chest and he toppled sideways into the water without a sound. 

For a few brief moments the body of the Annamese rushed through the foaming water beside them, keeping pace with the raft; then abruptly it was sucked Out of sight by the current and didn’t reappear. When they sped out into the main river seconds later, Lat ordered the surviving guerrilla to extinguish his torch; immediately the shooting died away behind them, and the youth, white-faced with shock at the loss of his comrade, moved gingerly back to the litter to check that it was still secure. The raft slowed gradually in the gentler flow of the broader river, and with a long sigh of relief Lat lifted his pole clear of the water and rested on it, his chest heaving. 

“Why do we take so many risks to rescue one foreign pilot?” asked the young Annamese in a horrified whisper when Lat had regained his breath. 

“Because America is powerful and her forces are going to win the war,” said Lat patiently. 

“But if America’s so powerful, why does it need our help?” asked the youth in a puzzled voice. ‘There are so few of us and we’re poorly armed.” 

“America doesn’t need us at all,” replied Lat quietly. “But if the Americans drive the Japanese out of our country, they’ll be the conquering heroes to our people — and if we’re seen fighting beside them, we’ll be heroes too. When the Japanese are gone we will be able to get back to the real fight-— against France. Helping American flyers escape from the Japanese or even rescuing their bodies will help us win the friendship of America — that’s why we’re risking our lives.” 

The youth nodded slowly as Lat stabbed his pole into the river again and steered the raft into a tiny inlet where another band of half-a-dozen crudely armed guerrillas were waiting. They took the litter willingly on their shoulders, and Lat led the way up through a series of steeply terraced rice fields into another high valley enclosed by sheer limestone crags. Fast-flowing streams had gouged deep caves from the limestone over the centuries, and in one of these deep fissures behind a waterfall, the bamboo litter was finally Lowered to the sandy floor. 

Noticing that Joseph had begun to shiver with fever, Lat ordered the other guerrillas to light a fire beside the litter while he made a pillow of folded garments and covered the American with two ragged blankets. As he was finishing these tasks a thin, aged-looking Annamese appeared silently on the edge of the circle of light cast by the fire: he appeared bent and feeble in the shadows, but when he stepped towards the litter his stride was brisk, and the firelight revealed that his gray goatee and his thinning hair were still streaked with black. His eyes shone with an unusual brilliance in an emaciated face, and there was a peculiar controlled stillness in his manner which caused the other men in the cave to fall respectfully silent and draw aside from him. 

When Joseph opened his eyes for the first time he found the thin Annamese bending over him; because of the delirium brought on by fever and the agonizing pain of his injuries, the sunken face with its wispy goatee seemed unreal to him in the flickering orange glow of the Fire, but when a tin mug of warm coconut milk was pressed to his lips, the American drank greedily from it. During the rest of that first long, cold night on the mountain, each time Joseph swam up to the surface of consciousness the same hand invariably offered soothing liquid or mopped his streaming brow; the same startling face with its calm, knowing gaze also seemed to materialize and dissolve constantly before his feverish eyes, as though it belonged to a benign and paternal mountain spirit, and as he hovered on the brink of death, the sight of it became strangely comforting and reassuring to Joseph. 

“I’ve personally always admired the United States of America, Captain Sherman,” said the sibilant Annamese voice, speaking English confidently in a singsong accent. “It was the first colony in the modern world to win independence through a revolution, and I hope one day our little country will be able to emulate your great deeds of courage and endurance. All of us here have much to learn from the fortitude of Americans — that’s why we have taken risks ourselves to save you from the Japanese.” The face with the whispy goatee that for three days had appeared only hazily to Joseph through the mists of his delirium was clearly defined now, and it smiled at him for the first time; the expression lit up the gaunt features, and to Joseph, in his pain-wracked state of exhaustion, it conveyed a rare feeling of warmth and concern. 

“Perhaps you think our two countries have little in common — but maybe you weren’t aware that the emperor of Annam begged for help from your government eighty years ago when the French first began to plunder us.” He looked up again and smiled ironically. “Yes, believe it or not, a message was sent to Abraham Lincoln from Hue proposing a treaty of friendship — but I suppose Mister Lincoln can be excused for ignoring our little cry for help. He was quite busy at the time, I believe, dealing with the small matter of your own Civil War.” 

The Annamese was crouched barefoot by the fire, dressed in a shabby khaki tunic and baggy trousers; from time to time he stirred the embers thoughtfully with a twig, obviously not anticipating any response from .Joseph who lay enfeebled and wasted with fever on a makeshift bed of palm leaves. While the fever had raged, Joseph had been dimly aware that other Annamese were moving in and out of the cave; Dao Van Lat had tended him constantly round the clock and a doctor whom the guerrillas had abducted and marched blindfolded to the hideout from the nearby town of Cao Bang had splinted his broken limbs and bandaged the most severe lacerations on his head and body. Using a burned forest root called nua ao, they had also made up herbal infusions which they forced past his burning lips every hour, and during the third night, the fever had finally reached its climax. At dawn the thin Annamese had hurried into the cave with a little dish of maize and mashed banana and dismissed the others while he fed him personally with a spoon; then he had squatted down by the fire and begun to talk. 

“I visited your country myself many years ago,” he said, gazing reflectively into the flames. ‘I left Indochina when I was twenty and sailed to Europe and America working as a ship’s galley hand. I stoked furnaces and shoveled snow in London and worked for a time as a waiter in Harlem and Boston. It was sad for me to see the contrast between the lives of the rich clients in the hotels and the poor people who had to slave in the kitchens to feed them. I also saw how many Negroes were living in the direst poverty in Harlem.” He sighed as he stared into the fire. “I admire very much the great democratic ideals of America, Captain Sherman, but unfortunately the light from the Statue of Liberty’s torch doesn’t shine equally on all Americans, does it?” 

With difficulty Joseph raised himself onto one elbow. He still felt weak and light-headed in the aftermath of the fever, and the slightest effort made his senses swim. “Where am I?” he asked shakily. “How did I get here?” 

Again the Annamese smiled his seraphic smile. “Don’t worry; you’re among friends, captain. I came myself to assure you of that. These are the caves of Pac Bo in northern Tongking. We’re only one kilometer from the Chinese border. You were pulled from the wreckage of your plane by mountain men of the Nung tribe. They saved you from a Japanese patrol  and from the French who also have orders to take you prisoner. They contacted us and helped us bring you here. As soon as you’re well enough to travel, we’ll smuggle you past the Japanese border guards into China again and take you safely back to General Chennault and your famous ‘Flying Tiger’ friends.” He smiled again when he saw Joseph’s look of consternation. “I know your name, captain, because I read the ‘dog tag’ around your neck.” He rolled the colloquial American phrase off his tongue with obvious pleasure. “And those ferocious teeth painted on the nose of your crashed Warhawk told us you were a ‘Flying Tiger.’ 

Joseph raised his head to stare at the Annamese in the flickering firelight, and then sank back into his bed of palm leaves. “Who are you? And why are you helping me?” 

“All of us here are nationalists of the Viet Minh. Like America, we’re fighting against Japan. We’re waging guerrilla warfare against the outposts in this region.” 

“What’s the Viet Minh?” 

“Viet Minh is the short way of saying the Viet Nam Doc Lap 

Dong Minh Hoi — the League for the Independence of Vietnam. 

It’s an alliance of patriots fighting to liberate our country. First 

we’ll drive out the Japanese — then someday the French too. Pac 

Bo is our temporary headquarters.” 

Joseph grimaced and closed his eyes. The mental effort of absorbing the simple information tired him, and changing his position even slightly on the palm-leaf bed filled his body with pain. Noticing this, the Annamese hurried across the cave and knelt solicitously beside him. Despite his seeming fraility, his grip on Joseph’s shoulders was sure and strong as he helped him into a more comfortable posture. 

“Rest now, captain,” he said soothingly, pulling the blankets up around Joseph’s shoulders. “I think we’ll have plenty of time to enjoy talking together. I wanted only to assure you that you’re in safe and friendly hands.” 

By the morning of the next day Joseph had recovered sufficiently to be carried out of the cave. He groaned loudly as Dao Van Lat and three companions lifted the litter, and outside, it took several minutes for him to accustom his eyes to the blinding glare of the morning sun. A thick growth of reeds hid the entrance to his cave beside a waterfall, and once he was settled on a broad ledge close by, he gazed in astonishment at the tall limestone cliffs towering above dense tracts of rain forest; in the distance across the border in China, other spectacular sugar-loaf mountain formations were materializing as the early mists cleared. 

“So this is where I landed up,” breathed Joseph. “You’ve sure chosen a beautiful spot to hide away from the Japanese.” 

Beside him Dao Van Lat stared too — but not at the spectacular scenery; on the sunny ledge, Joseph’s face was more clearly visible to him than it had ever been inside the cave, and the Annamese was gazing down at him wide-eyed. “Have you ever been to our country before, captain?” he asked, speaking his halting English in a surprised voice. 

Joseph turned to Lat with renewed interest. “Yes. I know Saigon and Hue — and I’ve been in Hanoi once. Why do you ask?” 

“I met a young American in Hue many years ago,” replied Lat excitedly. “He was very much like you.” 

As they looked at one another, recognition began to dawn on Joseph too. “I was at the emperor’s palace for the Tet ceremony in 1925,” said Joseph slowly. “And I returned in 1936 to visit Hue and Hanoi. Could we have met in one of those places?” 

“We met in Hue in 1925,” exclaimed Lat triumphantly. “You were with your mother.” 

Joseph nodded in amazement. 

“My name is Lat — Dao Van Lat. I was the journalist you talked to after the lam lay ceremony.” 

Lat’s features still bore signs of privation suffered during the years spent in Paulo Condore, and his earlier act of self-mutilation had also given his face a permanently strained, unnatural cast; but because of his high scholar’s brown and the fiery glint in his eye, he was still recognizably the dedicated idealist who had spoken so heatedly to Joseph and his mother in the anteroom of Khai Dinh’s palace. 

“I remember you,” said the American, screwing up his face with the effort of recollection. “You were angry about the hypocrisy of the Tet ritual, I think. And you told us you weren’t allowed to write what you wanted.” 

Lat smiled ruefully. “You’re probably right. Then I was young and impetuous.” He bent over Joseph and shook him warmly by the hand. “I’m more glad than ever now that we’ve been able to help an old American friend.” 

Joseph smiled in his turn and shook his head in wonderment at the coincidence. “When did you stop being a journalist, Lat, and become a guerrilla fighter?” 

“I decided to devote my life to freeing my country from the French on the eve of Tet in 1930,” said the Annamese, his expression growing serious. “But I was captured in the uprisings in the north and spent five years in the dungeons of Paulo Condore. That didn’t increase my love for the French, and after I was released I took up the struggle again.” He drew a long, resigned breath. “They’ve been hard years. Although France surrendered Indochina to the Japanese at the start of the war, Tokyo has allowed the French to continue persecuting nationalists. They massacred six thousand of my countrymen in the worst operation in the south, and many villages were burned to the ground. While you and the rest of the world have been at war with Japan and Germany, our French colonial masters have gone on behaving here as they’ve done for the past eighty years. That’s why the Viet Minh League was founded in 1941 to fight the Japanese and the French.” 

As Lat was speaking, Joseph saw the scrawny Annamese who’d visited him each evening emerge from another cave in the clearing below the ledge. He wore a battered cork Sun helmet with his khaki drabs and carried a bamboo walking stick. As Joseph watched, he made his way to the bank of the little stream that ran through the encampment and began to undress. 

“He bathes every morning in the icy cold water and does physical exercises for ten minutes before beginning work,” said Lat, following Joseph’s gaze. “Life is very hard in these mountains, so he sets us all an example by his self-discipline.” 

By the foot of the cliff the stream widened into a series of ponds and small lakes, and along its banks great slabs of rock hung with stalactites jutted out over the water. “That’s his desk down there,” said Lat, pointing to the flattest of the rocks. “He’ll work there all day organizing our fight against the fascists of Japan and France. This morning he’s writing articles for our little newspaper, Viet Lap 

— Independent Vietnam.” 

The Annamese raised his eyes to the ledge at that moment and waved his stick in greeting before descending with surprising vigor into the stream to dash cold water repeatedly over his frail body. 

“Who is he?” 

Lat stared in astonishment at the American. “I thought you already knew. He’s our leader, For many years he called himself Nguyen Ai Quoc — Nguyen the Patriot — but now he has adopted a new nom de guerre, Ho Chi Minh. It means ‘He who enlightens.’” 

“Have you known him long?” 

“I first met him in Hanoi in 1930. He was disguised then as a rickshaw coolie to fool the French Süreté — and even I wasn’t sure who he was. He’s a brilliant man. His father was a mandarin, and he’s traveled all over the world. He can speak French, English, Russian, German, Japanese, Czech — and three Chinese dialects. He was born in my home province, Nghe An, in central Annam.” Lat paused and smiled proudly. “A local proverb says ‘A man from Nghe An will oppose anything.’” 

“And are you now a leader of the Viet Minh too, Lat?” 

Dao Van Lat’s face fell instantly into serious lines again. “I’m proud to say, Captain Sherman, that I’m one of Ho Chi Minh’s closest comrades. Once I was foolhardy enough to think I knew better than he did how to lead our movement. Once I thought that anything could be achieved by a man if he had an iron will and the strength to sacrifice everything for his cause. He warned me that a political leader had to be sensitive to the people’s moods and their needs, but I didn’t have the sense to listen to him.” Lat paused and turned away from Joseph. “Events proved bins right and me wrong. I’ve never forgotten that lesson and since then I’ve learned many more. Often when we’ve been hurrying through a poor village, he’s stopped and spent half an hour bathing a baby for a harassed mother —or collected a big heap of firewood for an old man who can’t bend. His concern for people runs very deep -— that’s why all our supporters call him Pac Ho Uncle Ho. They know he cares for them as if they were members of his own family.” 

“What age is he?” asked Joseph, feeling his curiosity aroused. “At first I thought he must be very old, but flow.. 

“No, he’s not old, he’s fifty-four,” said Latin a respectful voice. “But he’s suffered greatly in Chinese jails recently — that has aged him beyond his years. He crossed the border in 1941 to offer Chiang Kai-shek an alliance with the Viet Minh to fight the Japanese — but the treacherous generalissimo threw him straight into prison. They clamped irons on his legs, put a wooden yoke around his neck and forced him to march hundreds of kilometers across China. He was held in thirty different jails in one year. He became so ill that sores covered his body and many of his teeth fell out. Many prisoners died beside him in the night in those freezing cells, and one terrible day we were informed that he’d died too. We held funeral ceremonies here at Bac Bo and mourned his death. Everyone was paralyzed with grief.” A pained expression crossed Lat’s face at the memory. “Then many months later we received a Chinese newspaper with a poem written in the margin. it was in his handwriting, and from the recent date on the paper we were able to deduce that he was alive. We all went wild with joy. To celebrate, Captain Sherman, everybody here learned that poem. Would you like to hear my translation of it?” 

Joseph nodded absently, still watching the Annamese as he clambered out of the stream.