“Riedl is wrong,” he remarked, bolstering his gun. “I don’t enjoy doing this. Remember our twelve comrades in Suoi’s village. I am only giving them tit for tat. Strip the next one!” he commanded the troopers.
Before the fuse began to turn he was told what he wanted to know.
Sergeant Schenk cut the prisoner free and pulled him to his feet. The man was shaking in every limb. “I have a family to support,” he muttered almost sobbing, “wife and children… five children.”
“You still have your balls, so don’t complain,” Eisner snapped. “Show us the way to the French prisoners and I will let you go home.”
“You lie!” the guerrilla cried; the next instant he was staggering backward under the impact of Eisner’s backhand blow. Bernard stepped forward and grabbed the man by his shirt.
“Never call a German officer a liar, cher ami,” he sneered with his eyes narrowed and boring into the guerrilla’s face. “We always keep our part of a bargain.”
He pushed the man toward the woods. “Forward! Allez vitel” The prisoner led us to a small but well-concealed camp about two miles from the main base. It consisted of only five huts which contained rice, but a nearby spacious natural cave secreted five hundred cases of rifle ammo, seventeen machine guns, and fifty-two satchels of grenades. Not far from the huts the prisoner showed us the entrance of a tunnel. When Karl threw open the bolted lid a repugnant smell of human filth rose from below.
Hairy, haggard faces appeared in the opening, staring into the sudden brightness; thin, skeleton arms and hands tried to shield a dozen hollow eyes.
“Nous sommes le bataillon allemand,” Sergeant Schenk shouted, bending down to grasp a pair of hands. “Ascendez-vous!”
“Come up! You are free!” An instant of frozen silence followed, then someone groaned, “Mon Dieu, c’est la Legion…”
The dark hole exploded. Now everybody began to scream, holler, demand, and plead. Hands shot upward, filling the opening, grasping for help. We pulled them out, one after another, lowering them gently to the ground.
“Goddamit!” Karl swore. “Look at them! Look at the poor bastards… They would have died here like rats.”
The troops hauled up twenty-eight prisoners, among them a lieutenant and an Arab sergeant, both in pitiful shape. Most of the prisoners were suffering from festering sores and untreated wounds. I sent word to Sergeant Zeisl to get ready with warm water, antibiotics, ointments and bandages.
Cigarettes, water, something to chew, something to drink—the poor devils demanded everything at once, trying to hug us and shake our hands at the same time. We distributed all the cigarettes we had with us, our canteens, our biscuits. Some of the Legionnaires began to sob openly. Others laughed or joked, still others just sank to the ground overwhelmed with relief.
“Pull yourselves together,” the lieutenant urged them. They slowly rose and we carried or helped them back into the main camp.
“Marceau is my name,” the lieutenant shook my hand. “Jean Marceau.”
“From the Regiment Amphibie?” I asked.
He uttered a short laugh. “Rather Regiment Sous-terrain… I am glad to see you.”
“How long have you been here?”
“For seven months, cher ami,” he replied. “Are you the famous one-time SS officer Wagemueller?”
“I do not know whether I am famous or not, but I am an officer of the French Foreign Legion, Lieutenant Marceau; that I do know.”
“No offense meant.”
“No offense taken… I also know that we haven’t settled our bill yet.”
“The SS shot my brother in Rouen,” Marceau remarked quietly.
“I wasn’t the one who did it, Marceau. I haven’t been in France.”
“I believe you, but it is hard not to remember.”
“Now the SS saved your life. Strange, isn’t it?”
“Times change.”
He extended his hand again. “Thank you all the same.”
We set the Legionnaires up in guerrilla sleeping quarters. Sergeant Schenk and the girls made them as comfortable as possible. The sudden appearance of Suoi and the nurses startled the men and occasioned a small outburst. Clapping and whistling and muttering complimentary remarks, they forgot about their sores and aches.
Sergeant Zeisl and the nurses quickly attended the seriously ill ones. “They won’t be able to march for weeks,” Zeisl stated after a while. “We had better call in the copters.”
“The copters will bring the Viet Minh here from miles around,” Karl said.
“If they aren’t on the way already,” Eisner agreed. “I have been thinking of those huts and the prisoners” bunker. Some guerrillas ought to have been there to stand guard.”
“Bien sur!” Lieutenant Marceau cut in. “We could hear them chattering only minutes before you arrived.”
“They have gone off to warn the others. We had better get busy here, Hans,” said Erich. “I’m going to set up a perimeter right away.”
“Do that, Erich. Take four platoons with MG’s.”
I turned to Karl. “You should deploy along the ravine to cover the trail with flamethrowers.”
“I have only four tanks left, Hans.”
“Then take more machine guns.”
Karl and Erich left and I walked to Corporal Altreiter, who had just set up the wireless aerials. “Report to HQ… I request the immediate dispatch of helicopters to evacuate twenty-eight wounded Legionnaires liberated from Viet Minh captivity. Eisner will give you the coordinates. Tell HQ that we will guide the copters by straight signals transmitted at one-minute intervals on the usual frequency.”
“Say, Hans,” Riedl cut in, “how about asking for some supplies. Flamethrower tanks, for instance.”
“And booze,” Krebitz added, shaking his empty canteen. “We could also use some more tracer ammo.”
I turned to Riedl. “Draw up a quick list for Altreiter but make it a short one. Otherwise the copters will never get here. Sergeant Krebitz! Begin with the demolition.”
“Don’t demolish your prisoners,” Lieutenant Marceau interposed. “I am looking forward to seeing the canaille. We still have scores to settle.”
“Do you want to… entertain them, Marceau?”
“You bet I do,” said he. “Do you know what those bastards did to us? They forced us to eat shit… real shit, I mean. When I demanded more food for my men, the Viet Minh commander ordered us to chew their excrement. He thought it was funny.”
“Don’t say—”
“He said it was a great honor for us colonialist pigs to eat the shit of a Viet Minh hero.”
“Well, that is a new one!” Eisner exclaimed. “I know a few original Red jokes but that beats them all.”
“For us it wasn’t so funny,” the lieutenant retorted grimly. “Three of our men who refused to comply were dumped head first into the latrine and kept submerged until they choked to death… A very unpleasant way to die.”
“Their commander is dead but you can have the rest of them. Have fun,” I said.
“Fair enough,” Marceau nodded. “I am looking forward to it.”
After his sores had been dressed, I led him to the prisoners. Slowly, Marceau walked past the sullen group, recognizing some of them. “Comrade Nguyen Ho and Comrade Muong Ho,” he said softly and turned toward me. “You still have a fairly good collection here. I would appreciate it if you could take them to where my men are resting, for soon the comrades are going to have their dinner, and no one would want to miss the show.”
“A dinner similar to the one they gave you?”
“Oh, no.”
Marceau shook his head, allowing his eyes to travel from face to face. “We are much too civilized to feed men on shit.”
We returned to the Legionnaires, some of whom were busy shaving and washing themselves. (Before our nurses appeared on the scene the suggestion of shaving and washing had been dismissed en masse with a loud “What the hell for” or “We’ll do that in Hanoi.”