In all my years in uniform I have seen thousands of people die. I cannot recall the number of those I killed in combat or executed with my own hands—or killed indirectly by issuing an order to kill. Still, when the occasion arose, I had to repeat mentally, forcing myself into a state of self-hypnosis: You are trying to beat wild tigers into submission… They are not human… You are killing sharks, rats, bacteria… Yet I doubt if I could ever have stabbed a captive tiger. I would lack the all-essential driving force—hatred. The tiger only follows the call of its nature, its instincts. The tiger never kills for pleasure. The Viet Minh kills only to spread terror and to intimidate its victims. For them I could feel no pity. I regarded the Viet Minh as the real prototypes of the Hitlerian subhumans. The most primitive Russian peasant harbored some noble features in his bearded face. At least I thought so. But the faces of those rat-like little Red gnomes in Indochina showed nothing but bestiality. Our hatred towards them knew no bounds. If we had had the means, we would have gassed them by the thousands without the slightest remorse.
Once again it was Xuey who spotted the guerrilla company as it forded the river. We split into three columns and deployed on the neighboring hills. Three hundred yards below the- hill which my group occupied, a wide trail ran between the river bank and the woods farther to the east. Obviously the trail was a major enemy route. Between the river and the woods stretched a wide patch of open bushland. We observed a number of peasants filling what appeared to be large baskets with earth. Another group was planting live shrubs in the baskets.
“They are the Dan Cong,” Noy explained after observing them briefly. The Dan Cong were the labor detachment of the Viet Minh, composed of ordinary peasants compelled to work as slaves a certain cumber of days every month for the cause of “liberation.”
” The shrubs in the basket were a clever camouflage against air observation. Simply by moving the baskets onto the trail, the enemy could blot out the road and consequently the evidence of Viet Minh presence in the area.
Schulze, who had been watching the enemy for some time, suddenly turned toward me. “Look at that, Hans!” He handed me his field glasses excitedly. “Do you see what I see?”
“Dammit!” I swore in genuine astonishment. The scene which we observed was a most extraordinary and rather terrifying one. Down at the river, in plain sight, moved a small convoy of field howitzers. For the first time in Indochina we encountered Viet Minh artillery. I edged toward the precipice to have a better look.
Shouting and gesturing, a group of guerrillas entered the river and pulled ropes toward the opposite bank. “Look at it!” Erich exulted. “They even have a bridge there, a whole goddamned underwater bridge. We have got them dead center. This is not the shuttle service but a Viet Minh highway.”
Indeed, the enemy appeared to be moving, or rather wading, across the river as if the water were only ten inches deep. They certainly had a bridge there, built to remain underwater. Otherwise the reconnaissance planes would have spotted it long ago. Hitched to teams of water buffalo, six small howitzers rolled down the grassy slope of the far bank and onto the bridge. The foremost terrorists had reached our bank and tightened the ropes on either side of the bridge to mark the way. Milling around the guns, pushing and pulling at the wheels, another Viet Minh group was assisting the animals. The enemy artillery caused considerable excitement among my troops.
“It seems that Giap is up to some big business somewhere in the not too distant future,” Schulze remarked, lowering his field glasses. “I wonder where the howitzers are going?”
“I am kind of curious myself,” Karl remarked.
I turned to Riedl. “Where is Xuey?”
“He went farther west with Krebitz and Gruppe Drei.”
“Where in the hell farther west? There is the river!” He shrugged. “A river won’t stop Krebitz…”
“Send word to Eisner. He should move farther up, closer to the bridge, but no one is to fire before we open up here.”
“Understood!” I pointed toward the forest line where the trail entered the woods. “Karl! You should deploy on either side of the trail, keeping low. Riedl will join you.”
Shouldering their submachine guns, Karl and Helmut rose. “Wait a moment,” Noy spoke, lifting her kit. “I am coming with you.”
I pulled her back in a not very gentle manner. “I have the feeling that you are not going anywhere. You are staying right here.”
“But I only—”
“Noy! You just do as I say.”
She sat down.
“Where are Chi and Thi?”
“With Sergeant Zeisl, I think,” Suoi replied hesitantly.
“I asked you to keep them in sight, Suoi. Zeisl won’t have time to look out for them.”
“I am sorry…”
I sent a trooper to fetch the girls.
The guns were coming across the bridge. A short, stocky guerrilla waded forward. Gesturing and hollering toward the peasants, he called to them; the peasants dropped their tools and rushed to help the guerrillas hauling the howitzers. On the other side of the river more Viet Minh emerged from the woods. Suspended from long poles which four men were carrying on their shoulders hung crates and sacks. Still others were pushing bikes laden with bags and boxes.
“A nice party,” Erich commented. “The air force would love to join it. Shouldn’t we call them, Hans?”
“Some other time, Erich. I want to get hold of those howitzers—undamaged.”
He looked at me sharply. “The heck you want them. We cannot haul artillery pieces.”
“You will be surprised. We are going to haul them right up here and prepare a reception party for some others.”
“Are you planning to hold this hill?”
“This is a busy trail, Erich, with plenty of targets coming our way.”
For a moment he looked startled; then he shrugged. “I guess we could camp out here,” he said. “We have a good platform for the MG’s, ample cover, and a good view of the river.”
“Exactly!”
“Sergeant Krebitz is calling,” Corporal Altreiter reported, holding the earphones for me.
“Krebitz… Where the hell are you?”
“Across the river— watching the show.”
“How did you get there?”
“We forded a mile upstream. No one has spotted us yet.”
“How far are you from the bridge?”
“How far?” he repeated my question. “Can you see that tall peasant just moving down the trail toward the river? He is wearing a straw hat with a net hanging from it. The one with the bike… tin cans all over it…”
I picked up my field glasses.
“Right now, he is passing a bare tree.”
“I can see him.”
Krebitz chuckled. “If I stretch my leg a bit I can kick him in the ass.”
“Keep an eye on the group.”
“How about keeping a couple of MG’s on them?”
“Don’t shoot until we open up here.”
“Understood!” The six howitzers were rolling along the trail and had almost reached the woods— where, if all went well, Karl and Helmut should be ready for them. A group of about fifty Viet Minh were still on the bridge; another party-was between the bridge and the forest. The rest of the enemy detachment, I thought, was covered by Gruppe Drei.
“Achtung!” I warned my gunners, who tensed; eyes focused, trigger fingers tightened, gun barrels traversed slowly from left to right, then back again as the men tested the pivots.