The Vietnam Reader (5 page)

“Quite a bit, sir. We’re sure hoping we don’t get hit in the next few days. The camp isn’t secure yet.”

Borst stopped before the Vietnamese Special Forces headquarters to let off the strikers and the new interpreter, and then drove me another twenty feet to a cement-block building with a wooden roof. He pulled to a stop and jumped out. Borst beat me inside and I heard him announce me.

It took a moment for my eyes to get used to the cool interior grayness after the hot, bright sunlight. The big form of Sven Kornie came toward me. He had a large grin on his lean, pleasant face and his blue eyes snapped. His huge hand enveloped mine as he welcomed me to Phan Chau. He introduced me to Sergeant Bergholtz, and I sensed my guess was correct that a Germanic-Viking crew had indeed been transported intact to the Vietnam-Cambodia border.

“Well, well,” Kornie boomed cheerfully. “You come here at a dangerous time.”

“What’s happening?”

“By God damn! Those Vietnamese generals—stupid! Dangerous stupid. Two hundred fifty my best men that sneak-eyed yellow-skin bastard corps commander take out of here yesterday—and our big American generals? Politics they play while this camp gets zapped.”

“What are you talking about, Steve?”

“Two hundred fifty Hoa Hao fighting men I had. The best. Now General Co decides he don’t want any Hoa Hao companies fighting together because maybe they get together under their colonel and pull another coup. So he breaks up the best fighting units in the Mekong Delta. God damn fool! And Phan Chau, what happens? We get more Vietnamese strikers we don’t know if they fight for us or VC. You better go back to the B team,” he finished lugubriously.

“Too late now,” I said. “What action have you got going?”

“Two actions. The VC got one action and we got one. Tell him, Bergholtz.”

The team sergeant began his briefing. “The VC have been making ladders for a couple of weeks now in all their villages. They’re also making caskets. That means they figure on hitting us sometime soon. The ladders they use to throw across the barbed wire and the mine
fields and later as stretchers to carry away the dead and wounded. The VC fight better when they know they’re going to get a funeral and a nice wood box if they’re killed. They see the coffins, it makes their morale go up.”

“We are not ready for attack,” Kornie said, “so it probably comes soon.”

“What’s Schmelzer’s patrol doing?”

Kornie’s deep laugh boomed out. “Schmelzer is looking for KKK.”

“KKK? I thought we were in South Vietnam, not South Carolina.”

“The KKK are Cambodian bandits. They fight only for money. They are very bad boys. Tell him, Bergholtz.”

“Yes, sir.” The team sergeant turned his rugged face to me. “The KKK—that’s what everyone calls them—live around these hills. They even attack our patrols for the weapons if they are strong enough. We figure the ambush today may have been KKK. Last week four Buddhist monks went through here to Cambodia to buy gold leaf for their temple. All the local Buddhists kicked in to buy the stuff. You can’t buy gold in Vietnam.” Bergholtz paused. “We told the monks they better stay home but they said Buddha would protect them.”

Kornie finished the story. “Three days ago I was leading a patrol in KKK area. We find the monks. They are lying on the trail, each has his head under his left arm. The KKK got them and their gold.”

“And Schmelzer is going to get the KKK?” I asked.

“He is only trying to locate them. Maybe they will be useful to us on the operation we plan.”

I gave him full attention, unslinging my carbine and leaning it against the wall.

“We get tired of the VC hitting us and running across the border to Cambodia where we can’t get them,” Kornie said. “This team of mine, we got only one month left before we go back to Fort Bragg. Garrison duty.” Kornie growled. “Two cowardly Vietnamese camp commanders in a row we get. Sometimes is a week between good VC contact.”

“But this time I hear you have a good counterpart.”

“This one
is
good,” Kornie conceded. “He maybe don’t like patrols himself, but if the Americans want to kill themselves and only a reasonable
number of strikers, that’s our business by him. Come, follow me. I will show you what we are going to do.” He led me out of the teamhouse, down the mud road and on past several cement barracks with wood and thatch roofs. We stopped at one and a guard saluted. His dark skin and imprecise features marked the striker in tiger-stripe camouflage as a Cambodian. Kornie returned the salute and walked inside. There must have been about 50 men in the barracks. They were cleaning their rifles, making up packs, and apparently readying themselves to go out on a combat operation.

“These Cambodes good boys,” Kornie boomed. “Loyal to the Americans who pay them and feed them. Not like the KKK.”

The Cambodes evidently liked the captain, for Kornie lustily shouted some indistinguishable words and got back an enthusiastic response. “I ask them if they are ready to kill Communists anywhere, even in Cambodia. They are ready.” He gave them a cheerful wave and we left.

“Let’s go to the radio room and see what we hear from Schmelzer.”

Borst was at the radio, earphones on, scribbling on a sheet of paper in front of him. He looked up as Kornie came in.

“Sir, Lieutenant Schmelzer is standing by on voice.”

“Good!” Kornie exclaimed, taking the mike. “Handy, Handy,” he called. “This is Grant, Grant. Come in Handy.”

“Grant, this is Handy,” came back over the receiver. “Made contact with bandits at BP 236581.” On the map above the radio Kornie located the position of his executive officer from the coordinates. It was eight miles north of Phan Chau, almost straddling the border.

Schmelzer continued. “Our assets now having friendly talk with bandits. Believe you can go ahead with operation. That is all. Handy out.”

“Grant out,” Kornie said, putting down the mike. He turned to me. “Our plans are coming along well. Now if the Viet Cong give us tonight without attacking, we will buy another few days to finish the camp’s defenses. Then”—Kornie grinned—“they can throw a regiment at us and we kill them all.”

Kornie led the way back to the operations room where Sergeant Bergholtz was waiting for him. As we walked in the sergeant said,
“Falk just got another agent report. There are about 100 VC hiding in Chau Lu, resting and getting food. Less than half live there, the rest must be hard-core just come over from Cambodia.”

“That is good, that is good,” Kornie said, nodding. “Now, I will explain everything. Here.” He pointed to the map. “You see the border running north and south? Our camp is three miles east from Cambodia. Four miles north of us is this nasty little village of Chau Lu right on the border near which we were ambushed this morning. Four more miles north of Chau Lu, still on the border, is where Schmelzer is right now, talking to the KKK.”

“I’m with you so far,” I said.

“Good. Now, in Cambodia, exactly opposite Chau Lu, ten miles in is a big VC camp. They got a hospital, barracks, all the comforts of a major installation. The attack on us will be launched from this big Communist camp. The VC will cross the border and build up in Chau Lu, like they do now. When they’re ready, they hit us. If we try to hit their buildup on our side of the border they only got to run a hundred meters and they’re back in Cambodia where we can’t kill them. Even if we go over after them they pull back to their big camp where we get zapped and cause big international incident.”

Kornie watched me intently for a reaction. I began to get a vague idea of what he had in mind. “Keep talking, Steve. I’ve always wanted to go inside Cambodia.”

The big Viking laughed hugely. “Tonight, my Cambodes, 100 of them, cross the border and take up blocking positions two miles inside Cambodia between Chau Lu and the big VC camp. There is a river parallel to the border in there. My Cambodes put their backs to the river and ambush the VC who are running from Chau Lu, which we attack just before sunrise tomorrow morning. At the river my boys can see and kill any VC from the main camp who try to cross it and get behind them.”

I had to laugh, the thinking was so typically Kornie, and just what Lieutenant Colonel Train, who was so scrupulous about international politics, was afraid of.

Kornie continued. “If the VC are suddenly cut to little pieces right where they think they are safe, in Cambodia, they will be careful for a
while. Maybe they think they get attacked again in this sanctuary our politicians give them.”

“They’ll know you did it, Steve,” I said soberly. “And then they’ll raise international hell.”

“Yes, they know we do it,” Kornie agreed. “This will scare them. But international incident? No. They don’t prove we have anything to do with it.”

“Well, somebody had to ambush those VC,” I pointed out. “If there’s a bunch of shot-up bodies nobody’s going to believe Cambodian-government troops did it to their Communist friends.”

Kornie’s blue eyes sparkled with humor and excitement. “Oh yes. But we got what you call, fall guys. Come, let’s go back to the radio room.”

Just after dark I accompanied Kornie and Sergeant Bergholtz as they led the company of cocky, spoiling-for-action Cambodians to the border where a rally point was established with a squad guarding it. This was the point at which the Cambodians would cross back to the Vietnam side of the border after their mission. Kornie wanted Bergholtz and every one of his Cambodians to be familiar with the place. It was at the base of one of the many hills along this section of the border. For positive identification Kornie sent another squad to the top of the hill. There they would start firing flares a few minutes after the shooting started and keep it up until all the Cambodians had found their way back to the rally point and were accounted for.

With the return point on the border clearly defined, Kornie, Bergholtz, I, and the company of Cambodians stealthily moved northward on the Vietnam side of the border. We carefully gave the Viet Cong village of Chau Lu a wide berth an hour later and kept pushing north two more miles. Halfway between Chau Lu and the KKK camp we stopped.

Kornie shook Bergholtz by the hand and silently clapped him on the back. Bergholtz made a sign to the Cambodian leader and they started due west across the ill-defined border into Cambodia. Kornie watched them until they melted into the dark, rugged terrain. In two and a half miles they would come to the river and follow it back south until they were squarely between Chau Lu and the Viet Cong camp.
They would straddle the east-west road and bridge connecting the two Communist bases and set up blocking positions.

Kornie and I and a security squad walked the six miles back to camp, arriving about 3:00
A.M
. We made straight for the radio room and Kornie called Schmelzer.

Schmelzer was handling his operation well. Fifty KKK bandits were already crossing into Cambodia. They would penetrate a mile and staying that far inside Cambodia walk south until they were opposite Chau Lu. Here, according to instructions, they would stop until sunrise. Then they would proceed another mile south. At the point where a needle of rock projected skyward they would cross back into Vietnam and report all they had observed to the Americans.

The KKK leader realized that the Americans had to know what the Viet Cong were doing. He also knew they couldn’t send patrols across the border to find out. He was glad to mount an easy reconnaissance patrol in return for the equivalent of $10 a man plus five rifles and five automatic weapons.

Half the agreed-upon money and weapons Schmelzer had already presented to the KKK leader at the time his men began crossing the border. The balance would be forthcoming the moment the men crossed back into Vietnam at the needle-shaped rock and gave their reports.

In the radio room Kornie chortled as his operation began to tighten. “Schmelzer is good boy,” he said. “Takes guts to deal with KKK. If they think for a minute they can take Schmelzer and his men, they do it.”

“Aren’t you afraid they’ll use those automatic weapons against you some day?” I asked.

Kornie shrugged. “Most of those KKK and their weapons will never get back from this mission.”

He looked at his watch. It was 4:00
A.M
. Kornie smiled at me and patted my shoulder. “Now is the time to start out for Chau Lu. We will drive the VC straight into the KKK at 0545, and Bergholtz and the Cambodes will cut both the KKK and VC to pieces and be out of there by 0600 hours.” His laugh resounded in the radio shack. “Give
me just a few more days and a regiment couldn’t overrun Phan Chau.”

There was a snapping of static and then the radio emitted Schmelzer’s voice. “Grant, Grant, this is Handy. Come in, Grant.”

Kornie picked up the mike. “This is Grant. Go ahead, Handy.”

“Last of the bandits across. We are ready to carry out phase two. Is 0545 hours still correct?”

“Affirmative, Handy. But wait for us to start our little party off.”

“Roger, Grant. We will be in position. When you open up, we’ll let go too. Leaving now. Handy out.”

“Grant out,” Kornie said into the mike and put it down. He walked out of the radio room, and on the parade ground we could sense more than see the company of Vietnamese strikers. Two Vietnamese Special Forces officers, the camp commander, Captain Lan, and his executive officer were standing in front of the company of civilian irregulars waiting for Kornie. They saluted him as he stood in the light flooding from the door of the radio room.

Kornie saluted back. “Are you ready to go, Captain Lan?”

“The men are ready,” the Vietnamese commander said. “Lieutenant Cau and Sergeant Tuyet will lead them. I must stay in camp. Maybe B team need talk to me.”

“Very good thinking, Captain,” Kornie complimented his counterpart. “Yes, since I go out, very good you guard camp.”

Pleased, Captain Lan turned his men over to Kornie and departed. “Lieutenant Cau, let’s get these men on the move,” Kornie urged. “You know the objective.”

“Yes, sir. Chau Lu.” In the dim light from the radio shack Kornie and I could just make out the broad grin on Cau’s face. “We will clobber them, sir,” he said, proud of his English slang.