The Improbable Journeys of Billy Battles

Chapter 15

Chapter 15I was drinking a mug of black coffee on the veranda

of the main house. The air was warm and humid even though it was

only a little after six in the morning. I could feel the

perspiration already forming on my forehead.

A thick early morning haze ascended from the

damp red earth partially shrouding countless rows of towering

pepper plants. I had just taken a sip of coffee when I thought I

noticed movement in four or five rows of plants some two hundred

feet from the house. I wasn’t sure if I actually saw something or

if the pale fog was merely playing tricks on me. I stood up to get

a better look, and that is when I saw them.

One, two, three, and then suddenly several

men emerged like ghosts from the mist until I counted about thirty

men armed with an assortment of rifles standing in the clearing

before the house. I retreated inside and called to Difranco as I

headed downstairs.

“We have company,” I said as I reached the

kitchen. We walked to the front door and opened it. Several of the

men quickly pointed their rifles in our direction. Then a wiry

gray-haired man who was apparently in charge said something to

them, and they lowered their weapons.

Difranco and I stepped out onto the covered

front porch of the house, and the man quickly put up his right

hand.

“Please stop,” he said in English. “Mr.

Battles, is that you?”

“Ba?” I answered. I would not have

recognized him if he had walked past me in Saigon. He was dressed

in the same kind of clothes I had seen the natives of Nam K?

wearing: black pajama-like trousers and a conical straw hat. He

wore a dark-brown shirt buttoned to the neck. On his hip were a

holster and revolver. When I had met him in the New Mexico desert,

he was clean-shaven. Now his face sported a short ashen goatee and

mustache.

He looked around and then spoke to two other

men. They said something to a few of the others, and several men

moved off in two groups and disappeared on both sides of the house.

Two or three brushed past Difranco and me and went inside. As they

did, Ba began walking toward me flanked by five or six men with

their rifles at the ready. When he got to within about ten feet of

me, he stopped.

“I am sorry for these precautions… but we

cannot be too careful,” he said. A moment later, the three men who

had entered the house emerged and said something to Ba. He nodded

and then stepped forward until less than two feet separated us. He

looked first at Difranco and then at me, a bemused expression on

his face.

“This is Antonio Difranco, the owner of this

plantation,” I said. “He is a friend from Kansas and Colorado.”

Then I added, “He is Italian.”

Ba looked at Difranco and nodded. Then he

looked at me.

“It is nice to see you again Mr. Battles…

though I must admit I am very surprised to find you here so far

from your home and family. Why are you here?”

“Maybe we should go inside… This may take a

while.”

The three of us walked inside accompanied by

four of the men who were with Ba. We settled in the small dining

room, and Difranco asked Kim Cuc to bring all of us tea.

“Do you have clean water?” Ba asked. “I

haven’t had fresh water for several days.”

Difranco turned to Kim Cuc and said, “Vui

lòng mang theo một số nước ngọt cho bạn bè của chúng tôi.”

Kim Cuc nodded and scurried off to get a

pitcher of water.

Ba looked at Difranco in shock. “You speak

our language?”

“My wife is from Saigon, and she has taught

me well,” he said.

That news seemed to relax Ba. “Now tell me

why you are here and why you contacted me.”

I spent the next twenty minutes or so

relating what had happened in my life since I last saw Ba in New

Mexico almost six years before. I included my friendship with Dr.

Son, how I enlisted his assistance, and my meeting with Ba’s

brother Huynh.

“How is my brother?”

“He seemed well but, of course, disappointed

that you have taken the path you have.”

“Yes, I know how he feels about that,” Ba

said. He took a drink of water and then explained why he joined

with resistance leader Phan Đình Phùng in Quảng Bình province.

After several minutes, Ba said, “Our

objective was to take our country back from the French.”

“Was?” I asked.

“Unfortunately, Commander Phan died of

dysentery this past January, and many of his followers were

captured and executed by the French. I was away commanding another

district at the time, or I am sure I would not be here talking to

you now.”

“So where does that leave the insurgency?” I

asked.

“I am afraid the spirit of resistance to the

French protectorate in Annam died with Commander Phan,” Ba said.

“The men you see with me are all that are left from more than two

hundred that I once commanded.”

Difranco looked bleakly at Ba. “And will you

begin your insurgency again here in Cochinchina?”

Ba shook his head. “In Annam, Commander Phan

established a network of base camps, food caches, intelligence

agents, supply contacts, and even secret weapons manufacturing

facilities. My job was to coordinate strategic and tactical plans

with other leaders in the twelve districts that our army

controlled. Commander Phan learned early on that we could not fight

the French in open combat, so he adopted guerrilla tactics. Now

that command structure is gone. To reproduce it here would take a

lot of money and men, neither of which I have.”

“I am amazed that you were able to

manufacture weapons,” I said. “That is a complicated process that

requires precision machinery.”

Ba explained that the insurgents enlisted

artisans to produce hundreds of rifles by disassembling and copying

1874-model French weapons they had captured. It was a laborious

process, and it worked for a while until the need for more, and

better weapons grew. Then Phan and his followers created a secret

route from Hà Tĩnh through

Laos into northeastern Siam. They were able to bring some one

thousand modern Austrian repeating rifles from Bangkok to Laos and

then into Annam.

Ba stood up and shuffled to an open window.

He stared out at the rows of pepper plants for a few moments and

then turned back to us. It was then that I noticed how emaciated he

was. His clothes seemed too big for his body and hung loosely on

him. His weathered face was furrowed, almost spectral, and the

whitish goatee and mustache made him look about seventy-five even

though he was probably no older than fifty-five.

“I am not sure what I will do, but I think

my fight against the French is fini,” he said. “I am old and tired.

This is a crusade for younger men.”

Difranco stood up and faced Ba. “You and

your men are welcome to stay here as long as you need to. I have a

bedroom upstairs you can use, and your men can sleep in the house

wherever they want to.”

“Thank you, Mr. Difranco. We will accept

your invitation. The men have not slept under a roof for several

weeks. But if you don’t mind, I will sleep down here with my men. I

am not sure if I could sleep in a real bed after all this

time.”

Difranco nodded.

“But there is one thing,” Ba said, running

his hand through his goatee. “Would it be possible to have a bath?

I haven’t had one in weeks.”

“Absolutely,” Difranco said. “I will have

Kim Cuc get it ready for you.”

When she entered the room, Difranco turned

to her and said, “Hãy có được một

phòng tắm nóng đã sẵn sàng cho Mister

Ba.”

“Thank you. I must say, I am impressed with

your knowledge of our language.”

Difranco acknowledged the compliment with a

slight nod and added that he had asked Kim Cuc and her sisters to

prepare a dinner featuring local cuisine for Ba and his men.

“I think you will enjoy it. They are superb

cooks.”

Ba then looked at me. “Will you have some

time later to talk?”

“Sure.”

Ba’s men settled outside under the coconut

palms and on the front porch. Many dozed, some cleaned their rifles

and revolvers, and a few played a dice game called

squash-crab-fish-tiger.

Difranco and I decided to take a walk

through the plantation so we could talk privately.

“What do you think?” Difranco asked when we

were about one hundred yards from the house. “Do you believe Ba has

given up his rebel ways?”

“I doubt it. But I don’t think he plans to

do anything here. He has no base of operations, no support, no

money.”

“How many men do you think he has?”

“He said he had about two hundred at one

time… but the men with him are all that is left. I counted about

thirty.”

“Why do you think he came down here from

Annam?”

“I figure he is on the run. It looks like

the French pretty well wiped out what was left of this Commander

Pham’s military organization.”

Difranco pulled two cigars from his pocket

and offered one to me.

“No, thanks… I never got into the

habit.”

“Nothing like a good smoke to get the brain

working,” he said, lighting the cigar.

“Are you okay with Ba and his men inhabiting

your plantation?”

Difranco took a long draw on his cigar and

propelled a thick cloud of pungent blue-tinged smoke into the fresh

morning air. “I’m fine with it as long as it is temporary… but I

have to be careful not to get crossways with the local French

authorities. They don’t bother me too often, but if someone were to

get the word to them that a guerilla commander and some of his men

were my guests, things could get precarious.”

“Should I let Ba know that when I talk to

him?”

“I will tell him… but I think he is wise

enough to know this is not the kind of place he wants to spend a

lot of time in.”

When we returned to the house, we saw that

Ba and several of his men were napping on the floor of the living

room. A couple of others were sleeping in the dining hall. Difranco

and I saddled a pair of horses and rode around the perimeter of the

plantation. It was large, perhaps five or six hundred acres with

thousands of black pepper plants growing in hundreds of neatly

manicured rows.

A couple of hours later, Ba joined me on the

upstairs veranda where I had gone to write in my journal and

compose a number of letters.

“Is this a good time to talk, Mr. Battles?”

Ba said as he joined me on the veranda.

“Good as any… Pull up a chair… and please

call me William or Billy, but not Mr. Battles.”

Ba settled into a rattan settee opposite

me.

“I am curious, William. Now that you have

been here a while, what do you think of Nam Kỳ And what do you think about our French

masters?”

Ba was probing. I guess he assumed that

because I was with Difranco that I condoned France’s colonial

objectives.

“Well, first off, it seems to me that a lot

of your fellow countrymen don’t view the French as their masters.

And even those that do see the French as a temporary problem. As

for Nam K?, it’s a beautiful place. But it has a long way to go

before it will be a country where people can move past the archaic

hand-to-mouth way of life that it is today.”

Ba looked stunned. Then he smiled. “I wasn’t

expecting that. The last time I saw you, you were on a horse

chasing a bunch of cutthroats in New Mexico. I must say you have

come quite a distance since then—both geographically and

pragmatically.”

Then he stood up, walked to the veranda’s

railing, and looked out on Difranco’s vast plantation.

“What do you think of the French?” he asked

as he surveyed the rows of pepper plants. “You didn’t really answer

that part of the question.”

I remained seated and laid my journal and

pencil on a small table.

“I am not in favor of any country taking

possession of another if that’s what you mean.”

Ba nodded. He was still gazing at the

plantation below with his back to me. “And the French?”

“As for the French, I have seen both good

and bad Frenchmen and other foreigners since I have been here. Some

like Signore Difranco have fallen in love with this country and

have literally married themselves to it. They provide gainful

employment to those who want it. Others are damnable exploiters who

care nothing for the people and would just as soon enslave them if

they could.”

Ba turned to face me. “You talked to my

brother Huynh. What did you think of him?”

“He struck me as a practical businessman who

believes it is both advantageous and profitable to work in

partnership with the French rather than oppose them.”

“You call him a partner of the French… I

call him a collaborator with the enemy,” Ba said bitterly. “When I

returned to Nam K? six years ago, I tried to accept things, to work

in the family business, to work with the French. But I saw too

much… too much suffering… too much exploitation… too much French

arrogance, and too much kowtowing and humiliation.”

Ba returned to the settee and sat facing

me.

“Finally, I could stand it no longer, and I

left to join the insurgency. When I joined Commander Pham, I felt

as though I had finally met the living soul of my people. He was

both a warrior and a scholar, a theorist and an achiever, and a man

who consigned his life to his country without hesitation. Now he is

gone and with him any chance to achieve freedom from the yoke of

the French.”

I remained silent, not knowing exactly how

to respond.

“Can you understand that, William?”

I nodded. “Yes, I can, in theory. But I have

never experienced colonialism so I cannot fully appreciate just how

intolerable it must be.”

Ba studied me for a few moments. “Be

thankful for that. But I must say I did not anticipate such

convictions on your part.”

We talked for another half hour or so, and

finally, I asked the question I had wanted to ask since Ba

arrived.

“What will you do now? Will you stay in

Cochinchina? You say you are finished fighting, but what about

these men with you? What will they do?”

Ba looked down at the floor. “I have already

told them they can return to their families, but they refuse to

leave. They want to continue the struggle even though they know it

is hopeless. I am not sure what to do about them. We have been

together so long that we are like brothers.”

That evening, Ba, his men, Difranco, and I

all enjoyed a traditional meal of food from Bình Dương province. It

was much the same meal Kim Cuc had prepared for Difranco and me a

couple of nights before but with a few more fish and vegetable

dishes added. It was a noisy repast with lots of talking, laughing,

and even some singing by Ba’s men. I didn’t understand any of the

songs, but in addition to the folk songs, there were also a few

patriotic anti-French ballads on the program.

When I awoke the next morning, Ba and his

men were gone, having vanished during the night into the luxuriant

hills that ringed Difranco’s plantation. When I entered the

kitchen, Difranco was already there.

“Ba left this for you,” Difranco said. He

handed me a folded piece of paper. It was a note from Ba.

Dear William, I want to thank you and Mr. Difranco

for the hospitality you showed my men and me. However, I have

received word from a couple of local sympathizers that people are

already gossiping about our presence at the plantation. Rather than

create any problems for Mr. Difranco we have decided to move along.

In the meantime, Xin chào William. Mai mốt gặp lại.

Difranco translated that last passage into

English: “Good-bye, William. I hope we’ll meet again soon.”

I handed the note back to Difranco. “That is

probably for the best,” he said. “No sense tempting fate.”

We left for Saigon after breakfast, and I

assumed that would be the last I would hear from Ba.