The Improbable Journeys of Billy Battles

Chapter 17

Chapter 17The attack came on a muggy, overcast afternoon. I

was with the horses in the corral when I saw a bright-yellow light

arcing high in the gray sky, then another and then another. Those

flares were quickly followed by concentrated rifle fire from the

jungle that surrounded the base camp. I moved the horses behind the

lean-to and ran toward my hut where I had one of the Mauser rifles

and my Colt.

Bullets whined through the humid air,

thwacking the bamboo walls and stilts of huts and sleeping

platforms. I managed to get to my hut and grab my weapons, but I

wanted to get to one of the bunkers near the parameter where I knew

Ba and Dr. Son would be. There was a stretch of some one hundred

feet between my hut and the bunker. I ran in a zigzag pattern,

staying as low to the ground as I could while keeping a couple of

huts and sleeping platforms between me and the concentrated rifle

fire coming from the jungle. I got to the last hut and then

scuttled crablike the remaining twenty feet to the bunker and slid

inside.

As I entered the bunker, I saw Ba and

another commanding officer looking at the jungle through narrow

rifle ports with field glasses. No one from the base camp was

returning fire. They had been ordered to hold their fire until a

specific signal was given. That signal would be two long blasts on

a brass bugle. Ceasefire would be three short blasts.

“This is exactly what we want,” Ba said as I

moved next to him. “Allow them to give away their positions and

coax them into making a charge across open ground. That will be the

signal for our troops in the concealed tunnels to pop up and attack

their flanks and rear. Then we will open fire, and we will have

them.”

Ba moved away from the rifle port and looked

at me. “Where is Dr. Son?”

“I figured he was here with you.”

Then he looked at the Mauser I was holding.

“Are you willing to use that if necessary?”

“If it comes to that.” I flinched more than

once as countless spent rifle rounds thwacked and thudded into the

solid teakwood logs that formed the frame of our bunker. We were

about as safe as you could be unless our attackers had artillery. I

surveyed the interior of our bunker. The floor was dirt covered

with thatched matting. The earthen walls and ceiling were swathed

with teakwood slats that looked to be about four inches thick. In

addition to Ba, the other commander, and me, there were three other

men in the bunker. They had already taken their positions at the

rifle ports.

About ten minutes later, the firing from the

jungle stopped. Suddenly, everything was deadly quiet. No birds or

insects made a sound. A muggy breeze blew through the camp and

gently rustled the towering coconut palms at the edge of the

forest. That stillness allowed me to reflect on what I was doing

here in a country so far from my home.

I thought about Ba’s question: would I use

the Mauser on the attackers? I honestly didn’t know. I had no

quarrel with the French militia. I found myself resenting Ba for

getting me involved in his war, but then I recalled that it was me

who had insisted on finding him. I was still contemplating my

situation when Dr. Son slid into the bunker holding his leather

medical bag. He had used the lull in firing to scamper from one of

the command huts to the bunker.

Dr. Son wiped his eyes. The bunker was dark,

and it took a minute or two to become acclimated to the darkness.

When he was able to see better, he noticed Ba standing at the front

of the bunker looking through his field glasses. A bright-red stain

about the size of a man’s hand covered the tan shirt where his

wound had been stitched shut.

“Bạn đang làm gì?” Dr. Son demanded. I

understood enough to know that he was asking why Ba was ignoring

his unhealed wound. He moved quickly to Ba’s side and lifted the

back of his light-tan shirt. He removed the old dressing. The wound

was oozing thick blood where a couple of the stitches had come

free.

Dr. Son grabbed Ba and moved him to the rear

of the bunker, and then he looked at me.

“Please, help me, William. I am going to

have to stop this bleeding.” Ba was less than enthusiastic about

all of this but understood enough to know that he needed to keep

his wound cleaned and properly dressed.

Dr. Son produced a large piece of gauze from

this bag, folded it over a couple of times, and then handed it to

me. He sprinkled sulfur and carbolic acid on it and had me press it

against the wound. Then he wrapped several strips of cloth around

Ba’s body until the fresh dressing was held firmly in place.

“He shouldn’t be here,” Dr. Son said. Then

he repeated that sentiment to Ba in the Viet language, “Bạn không

nên ở đây!”

Ba flashed a weak smile at me and thanked

Dr. Son. Then he returned to his post.

Ten minutes later, we heard a loud whistle.

Then several hundred militiamen emerged from the jungle and charged

across the exposed open area toward the base camp. As they ran,

they unleashed fearsome screams. Still, the men in the bunkers and

trenches held their fire. Finally, when the attackers were within

one hundred yards of our compound, we heard the two long blasts

from the camp’s bugler, and everyone in the bunkers and trenches

opened fire, cutting down attackers like ripe Kansas wheat.

I poked my Mauser through one of the slits,

but I couldn’t bring myself to fire. Instead, I found myself

scrutinizing the men who were charging us. I could see that most of

them were conscripts from Algeria, Morocco, and Senegal with a few

soldiers from the Annam protectorate thrown in. I didn’t see any

French officers.

I noticed one of the men in the bunker

looking at me. He evidently saw that I was not firing my rifle.

That prompted me to fire several rounds, but I aimed purposely

above the heads of the attackers. The man smiled and nodded,

apparently satisfied that I was doing my duty.

The charge lasted no more than five minutes.

Only six or seven attackers actually reached the outer parameter of

the camp, and they were quickly dispatched. The others, seeing

this, stopped, turned around, and ran back toward the jungle. As

the militiamen got within twenty feet of the trees, a French

officer emerged from the jungle. He began shouting and waving his

revolver menacingly at the retreating troops. He was trying to

rally the troops and seemed intent on leading another charge. As he

stepped forward waving his pistol, a bullet smashed into his

forehead, and he slumped to the ground.

Seeing this, the retreating troops who had

stopped near the officer and seemed about to follow him with

another charge turned and continued their flight to the safety of

the jungle. Or at least they thought so. No sooner had they entered

the dense forest than they were met with withering fire from

insurgents who had crawled out of the camp through the extensive

tunnel system. As the government troops fled, insurgents popped up

from camouflaged holes and fired almost point-blank at them. By

now, the militiamen were in full panic mode. Many dropped their

weapons as they fled for their lives.

Less than twenty minutes after the battle

began, it was over. Our bunker was infused with a metallic sulfur

odor. It was the bitter, acidic sulfur stench of spent ammunition

and cartridge shells that littered the floor. We climbed out the

bunker and examined the exposed area that encircled the base camp.

It was littered with dead and wounded militiamen. The insurgents

had suffered four dead and twelve wounded.

What happened next angered and disgusted me.

Some of Ba’s men walked amid the dead and wounded, shooting anyone

still alive in the head.

I grabbed Ba by the arm. “What are they

doing? They can’t do that. Those men are wounded prisoners.”

Ba looked at me. “We do not take prisoners.

We have no way to care for them, and we cannot take them with us

when we leave here. We could leave them out there to suffer and rot

in the hot sun, but this is more merciful.”

I looked at Dr. Son. He was also appalled,

but he seemed less disturbed than I was.

“This is the way of our war with the

French,” Ba said. “Do you think they behave any differently when

they capture our men? And the French refer to their occupation of

my country as a mission civilisatrice… a ‘civilizing mission.’ Such

a charade.”

I decided not to say anything more. This was

not my fight and I had no right to impose my moral principles. I

was not exactly a paragon of righteousness myself.

The guerrillas spent the next day and a half

dismantling the base camp in preparation for their move to a

location in another province. Meanwhile, the faint odor of

putrescine and cadaverine wafted over the camp from the bodies of

some forty dead government militiamen that were already decomposing

in the hot tropical sun.

The insurgents didn’t seem to notice the

sickly sweet smell of death. But the odor of those decomposing

bodies mixed with the sharp metallic sulfur scent of gunpowder that

still hung in the air was a stench of war I knew I would never

forget.

Luckily, for Dr. Son and me, the horses

survived the short battle relatively unscathed. At the height of

the fighting, one of the horses had attempted to jump the corral

fence and suffered a slight gash on his left shank. Dr. Son applied

some tincture of iodine, and we wrapped the wound to prevent

infection.

The next day, as Ba and the insurgents

finished loading their equipment into a few carts, Dr. Son and I

examined the horse with the injured shank. We led him around the

corral for a few minutes to make sure he wasn’t lame. He seemed

fine, but we decided Dr. Son, who was much smaller and lighter than

I was, would ride him back to Saigon.

Things were a bit awkward between Ba and the

two of us after the guerrillas had administered the coup de grâce

to the wounded soldiers on the day of the attack. Ba didn’t

understand my revulsion at that act. Of course, he had engaged in

dozens of battles before this one and was apparently hardened to

killing and death.

This was not the same timorous man I met in

the New Mexico desert some seven years before as he fled from a

gang of thieves and murderers who had attacked the ranch where he

was working as a cook. This was somebody who had turned into a

merciless warrior—an implacable leader of men who was also a

steadfast, unapologetic patriot. I didn’t know this man. However,

it was not my place to judge him.

On our last day in the camp, Dr. Son and I

squatted on the ground with Ba under a stand of coconut palms. We

were drinking what passed for coffee, and Ba was in a good mood.

His wound was healing nicely and was no longer bleeding.

“Cảm ơn bạn Tiến sĩ Sơn,” he said, thanking

Dr. Son in the Viet language.

Dr. Son nodded. “You must not put too much

stress on the wound, or it may open again.”

Ba smiled at Dr. Son, and then he looked at

me. “Well, William, what are your plans? How much longer will you

stay in Nam Kỳ”

“I’m planning on leaving soon for America… I

have been away from my family almost two years now.”

“I am sorry we could not have had our

reunion under better circumstances, but as you can see, things in

my country are in turmoil.”

“Yes, I am sorry too. Maybe when this is all

over, we will be able to enjoy a dinner in Saigon.”

Ba looked down at his tin cup of coffee. “I

don’t think that will happen soon. This struggle will take decades

I am afraid.”

Dr. Son looked at Ba and then dumped what

was left of his coffee onto the ground. “I am sure you are aware

that it is not only the French you are fighting. There are also

thousands of our people who are working and fighting alongside the

French.”

Dr. Son’s comment clearly irritated Ba. “It

is true, Dr. Son. There are traitors among us who profit from

kowtowing to the French. My own family is one of those.”

However, Dr. Son was not finished. “Isn’t

also true that the late Commander Phan, the man you and your men

followed for so many years, was not even allowed to rest in

peace?”

I did not know what Dr. Son was talking

about, but Ba apparently did. He regarded Dr. Son intensely.

“Yes, I am quite aware of what you

speak.”

Dr. Son looked at me and then back at

Ba.

“So it is true that a Catholic mandarin who

is a member of the French colonial administration in Annam had

Phan’s ashes exhumed and had them blended with the gunpowder used

in the ammunition to execute captured insurgents.”

Ba looked at me. I was still considering the

sheer symbolism of such an act when he said, “You must think

harshly of my country and its people,” he said.

“It is not for me to pass judgment… and

frankly, if a foreign power were occupying the United States, I am

sure the c*****e and atrocities would be even worse. As proof, I

refer you to War of Rebellion that ended just thirty years ago. My

father was killed in that war.”

My comment seemed to defuse the situation a

bit.

Ba and I shook hands and promised to do our

best to meet again someday when circumstances were different. Then

Dr. Son and I mounted our horses and prepared to leave.

“Wait!” Ba shouted. “I will send some men

with you until you are on the Saigon road.”

We insisted that was not necessary, but Ba

was adamant. “There are bandits around here, and there could be

militia stragglers.”

A few minutes later, eight armed men joined

us. I looked back at Ba.

Đi với Thiên Chúa!” he shouted. “Go with

God!”

It was the last time I saw him.