Up Country Part 62

Susan translated, John smiled, then said something. Susan turned to me and said, "He wants to know when the American soldiers are coming back."

"How about never? Is that soon enough?" I said, "Tell him the Americans are returning only in peace, and there will be no more war."

Susan told him, and he seemed, I thought, a little disappointed. He'd have to postpone killing Vietnamese for longer than he'd hoped.

I reached into my pocket and took out my Swiss army knife. I handed it to John, who smiled. He seemed to recognize the knife, and in fact, began pulling out the blades and the other gadgets.

I said, "That's a Phillips head screwdriver, John. Just in case you run into any screws. This weird thing is a corkscrew for your Chateau Lafite Rothschild, or you can screw it into a commissar's head, if you want."

Susan was rolling her eyes while I showed John all the handy gadgets on the knife.

John took the dark blue scarf from his neck and put it around Susan's neck. They exchanged some words, and we bid each other farewell.

Susan and I started down the trail.

She said, "That was fascinating... and moving. He still... well, he seems to idolize the Americans."

"They also liked the French, which shows bad judgment on both accounts." I added, "They just don't like the Vietnamese, and the feeling is mutual."

"I understand that." She thought a moment and said, "I can't believe I've been here three years, and I didn't know anything about any of this."

"It's not in the Wall Street Journal or the Economic Times."

"No, it's not." She asked me, "Glad you stopped?"

"You stopped. I went along to see that you didn't wind up on a cooking spit." stopped. I went along to see that you didn't wind up on a cooking spit."

We got to the end of the path, and I said, "I'll bet Mr. Loc is hanging by his heels from a tree with his throat slit and the dogs are lapping his blood."

"Paul, that's gross."

"Sorry. I wanted to drive."

We found the RAV, and Mr. Loc was alive and well, but looking a little annoyed, and maybe nervous.

We got back into the vehicle, and I said to Mr. Loc, "Cu di."

Susan asked, "Is your Vietnamese coming back?"

"Yeah. Scary." Most of my Vietnamese had to do with getting laid, but I did remember some common expressions. I said to Susan, "Sat Cong," which means, "Kill the Communists."

Mr. Loc did not like that, and he glanced back at me. I said, "Keep your eyes on the road."

The bad road continued north, and we came to a small place on the map called Ta Ay, a cl.u.s.ter of primitive bamboo huts in a flat mountain meadow whose inhabitants looked Vietnamese. The Viets lived in the villages and cultivated the land; the tribespeople lived in the hills and mountains and lived off the land. It was was fascinating, as Susan said, and under other circ.u.mstances and without a personal history of these hills, I might have been in a better mood. fascinating, as Susan said, and under other circ.u.mstances and without a personal history of these hills, I might have been in a better mood.

We pa.s.sed through another hamlet, which, according to the map, was called Thon Ke, and the road turned west toward the Laotian border and dropped into a narrow valley, then turned north again and followed this meandering mountain valley until, an hour later, we came to a low-lying area of rice paddies, and a village called Li Ton. The road here was actually the tops of wide rice paddy dikes. The Ho Chi Minh Trail The Ho Chi Minh Trail. Amazing if you thought about it; more amazing now that I'd seen a piece of it.

A little more than two hours after we'd left A Luoi, we crossed a new concrete bridge at a place called Dakrong, and a few kilometers further, the Ho Chi Minh Trail intersected with Highway 9, which was two lanes of semi-paved blacktop, partly compliments of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Mr. Loc turned left onto the highway, and we traveled west, toward Khe Sanh.

I said to Susan, "This road was blocked by the North Vietnamese army during the siege of Khe Sanh, from early January to April 1968. Even an armored convoy couldn't get through. But in early April, we air-a.s.saulted into these hills all around the besieged camp, and about a week later, an armored column with a few regiments of marines and ARVN soldiers forced the road open again and relieved the siege."

"And you were here?"

"Yeah. The First Air Cavalry got around a lot. It's nice to have hundreds of helicopters to take you around, but usually you don't want to go where they're taking you."

We continued a short distance on Highway 9. Traffic was moderate and consisted mostly of scooters, bicycles, and produce trucks.

To the right was the plateau of Khe Sanh combat base, beyond which rose tree-covered hills, which were obscured by mist and fog. Geographically, this place resembled the A Shau Valley, though it wasn't as remote or narrowly hemmed in by the hills.

Historically, Khe Sanh was a place where, like the A Shau and Dien Bien Phu, a great Western army had gathered in a remote, G.o.dforsaken valley, to do battle with the Vietnamese. Dien Bien Phu had been a decisive military defeat, while Khe Sanh and the A Shau had been at best a military stalemate, and in the end, a psychological setback for the Americans, who believed that a tie score was no subst.i.tute for victory.

We pa.s.sed by the plateau of the old combat base and came to the town of Khe Sanh, which, like A Luoi, had disappeared during the war, but Brigadoon-like, had reappeared years later.

The sky was still gloomy and overcast, and this was the way I remembered it in April of 1968, a sky as gray and heavy as my mood had been, a place where the stench of thousands of dead bodies hinted at your own fate.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO.

We drove into the town of Khe Sanh, where substantial buildings of stucco and red tile roofs were springing up everywhere on well-laid-out streets.

We pulled into a big square where a large market building was under construction. Obviously, this was a showplace town, a place with an evocative name that the government wanted to look good for the tourists and newspeople. And, in fact, there were five tour buses parked in the square and dozens of Western tourists were wandering around the market stalls, probably trying to figure out why they were here in this remote corner of the country.

Mr. Loc pulled into a gas station, and Susan and I got out of the vehicle and stretched. I said, "I need a cold beer."

She said something to Mr. Loc as he pumped gas, and we headed across the square toward an outdoor cafe.

As we walked, Susan asked me, "This wasn't the base, was it?"

"No. We pa.s.sed it on the way in-that high plateau. Khe Sanh combat base took its name from this town that no longer existed at the time. We'll go up to the base later."

There were a number of outdoor stalls on the way toward my beer, and Susan, true to form, had to stop at most of them. A lot of the stalls sold two-kilo bags of coffee, which must be the local produce, and some stalls had pineapples and vegetables. There were a cl.u.s.ter of stalls that sold war souvenirs, mostly junk, like jewelry made from sc.r.a.ps of bra.s.s sh.e.l.l casings. I spotted some 105 millimeter bra.s.s sh.e.l.l casings with flowers growing in them, a mixed metaphor if ever there was one. There were bud vases, which had once been.50 caliber machine gun sh.e.l.l casings, plus the short, squat sh.e.l.l casings of grenade launchers that were being sold as drinking cups with handles welded on them.

Susan said, "Where did all this stuff come from?"

I said, "The United States of America."

"My G.o.d, there's so much of it."

"It was a hundred-day siege. This is probably a minute's worth of ordnance expenditure."

She wandered over to a stall that had bits and pieces of armaments- plastic stocks from M-16 rifles, the release levers and pins of hand grenades, the cardboard telescopic tubes of M-72 light anti-tank rockets, and so forth. Plus, there were plastic canteens, GI web gear, ammo pouches, bayonet scabbards, belt buckles, and all sorts of odds and ends, the archaeological evidence of an army that once fought here, for sale now as souvenirs to the survivors, who might want to take home a piece of h.e.l.l.

Susan questioned me about the bits and pieces, what they were and what they had been used for. I answered, then said, "Cold beer."

"Just a minute. What's this?"

I looked at what she was holding and said, "That happens to be the canvas carrying case of an entrenching tool. You clip it on your web belt, and the shovel blade fits right inside."

She put it down and walked to another stall where a family of Montagnards was selling crafts. She whispered to me, "Paul, do you know what tribe this is?"

They were dressed in bright blue and red clothing with elaborate embroidery, and the women had their hair in huge piles on top of their heads, bundled in brightly colored scarves. The ladies wore huge hoop earrings and were smoking long pipes. I said to Susan, "I think they're from California."

"You're a wisea.s.s. What tribe are they from?"

"How the h.e.l.l do I know? They're all Montagnards. Ask them."

She spoke to an old lady in Vietnamese, and both of them were surprised that they each knew Vietnamese. Susan chatted with the old woman, then said to me, "Her Vietnamese is hard to understand."

"So is yours."

The whole family was gathered around now, talking away, the ladies puffing on pipes, the men smoking cigarettes. They discussed Susan's Taoi tribe scarf and showed her their more brightly colored scarves. At some point they started looking at me, and I could tell that Susan was informing them that I was once here.

A very short old man with bow legs approached me, dressed in an orange sort of tunic with a yellow sash around his waist. He took my hands and looked into my eyes, and we stared at each other. His hands were like leather, and so was his face. He said something, and Susan said to me, "He says he was an American soldier."

"Really? I don't think he meets the minimum height requirement."

He kept talking, and Susan translated as he spoke. "He says he fought for the Americans with... the green berets... he spent seven years with them... they paid him well... gave him a fine rifle and knife... he killed... many, many... he said beaucoup, beaucoup... you hear that?"

The old man said, "Beaucoup, beaucoup, vee-cee-" He made a cutting motion across his throat, which I understood very well, having done it myself. I said to Susan, "Ask him if he still has his rifle."

She asked him and he looked at me and nodded almost imperceptibly.

So, I'm standing there, looking at this incredibly wrinkled old face with narrow slit eyes, and we're holding hands in the Khe Sanh town square, and we don't have much in common, except the bond of war, which can never be broken.

Susan said, "He wants to know if you know Captain Bob, his commanding officer."

I replied, "Tell him I once met Captain Bob in America, and that he's doing well, and he speaks often of the bravery of his Montagnard soldiers."

Susan translated this, and the old man totally bought it. He squeezed my hands, then went into the stall and came out with a bronze Montagnard bracelet, which you can't buy, but which they'll give you if they like you or if you're brave. He opened the thin bracelet, put it on my left wrist, and squeezed it closed. He stepped back and saluted me. I returned the salute.

By now, we had a few Americans around us, plus a few Viets who didn't look happy with this.

I said to Susan, "Tell him thank you, and tell him that Captain Bob and I will be back to organize another Montagnard army."

She said something to the old man, he smiled, and we shook hands.

Susan absolutely had to have six scarves and sashes of multi hues, and for the first time since she'd been in Vietnam, she didn't argue price, but gave the old lady a ten.

Susan wanted to take pictures, of course, so she asked the Montagnards if that was all right, and they said it was. I said to Susan, "They'll cut your head off." But she took pictures anyway, and they didn't cut her head off. We all posed for shots, wearing scarves around our necks, then bid one another farewell, and I made directly for the cafe.

Susan said, "They're from the Bru tribe. Let me see your bracelet."

I held my arm out, like a sleepwalker.

She examined the simple bracelet and asked me, "Is there any significance to this?"

I replied, "It's a token of friendship. I actually have one at home. Now I have two."

"Really? Who gave you the first one?"

"A Montagnard, obviously."

"Why did he-or she-give it to you?"

"He. You didn't mess around with their women, or you'd wind up with your d.i.c.k on a stick."

"Good. So, why did they give you a bracelet?"

"Just a token of friendship. They handed them out pretty easily if they liked you. Unfortunately, they expected you to eat with them, and they ate things that were worse than C rations."

"Such as?"

"Well, nothing as bad as the Viets. They're into meat-deer, boar, birds, weasels, and other horrible wildlife. They burned their meat to a cinder. But it was the cup of warm blood that was a little hard to get down."

"You drank the blood?"

"It went well with the red meat."

We got to the outdoor cafe. It was nearly one P.M. P.M., and the place was filled with Euros and Americans, including backpackers. There were a few guys who could have been veterans, but mostly there were a lot of tour groups sitting together, who I didn't think had any a.s.sociation with this place; Khe Sanh was obviously on the tour route, and I supposed most of these people had signed up for this at their hotels in Hue. The brochure probably said something like: Khe Sanh! See the actual site where the famous b.l.o.o.d.y three-month siege of the U.S. Marine Combat Base took place-Relive the horrors of 30,000 men locked in mortal combat from the comfort of your air-conditioned bus. Side trip to a Montagnard village-Lunch included. Khe Sanh! See the actual site where the famous b.l.o.o.d.y three-month siege of the U.S. Marine Combat Base took place-Relive the horrors of 30,000 men locked in mortal combat from the comfort of your air-conditioned bus. Side trip to a Montagnard village-Lunch included.

Anyway, the tables were full, but I spotted a table for four where only an American guy and a Viet guy sat, having a beer. I went over to the table and said, "Mind if we sit here?"

The American, a big guy of about my age, said, "No. Go ahead."

Susan and I sat.

The guy said, "My name's Ted Buckley." He put out his hand.

I took it and said, "Paul Brenner. This is Susan Weber."

He took Susan's hand. "Pleased to meet you. This is Mr.... what's your name?"

The Viet guy, who looked about sixty, said, "I am Mr. Tram. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

Ted Buckley said to us, "Mr. Tram was a North Vietnamese army officer, a captain-right? He saw combat here. Can you believe that?"

Mr. Tram sort of smiled and bowed his head.

Ted added, "And I was here with the Twenty-sixth Marine Regiment, January to June '68." He smiled and said, "So Mr. Tram and I were here at the same time, but on different sides of the wire."

I looked at Mr. Tram, and our eyes met. He was trying to figure out if I had been here, too, and if I was carrying a grudge, or if, like Ted Buckley, I just found this a h.e.l.l of a coincidence.

Ted said, "Mr. Tram said he would be my guide at the base. Are you guys going to the base, or were you there?"