CHAPTER SIX

ON NEUTRALITY:

“...as defined by international law, specifically the Hague Convention of 1907, which states that, ‘A neutral country has the obligation not to allow its territory to be used by a belligerent. If the neutral country is unwilling or unable to prevent this, the other belligerent has the right to take appropriate counteraction.’ ”

—Harry G. Summers, Jr.,

Viet Nam War Almanac

IT WAS SEVEN WEEKS before Nang laid eyes on Bok Roh. For seven weeks the energy released from escaping death propelled him. He had never felt freer, never as a Khmer boy, never as a conscript, never as a yothea of Angkar Leou. As he approached his thirteenth birthday he was free to live, free to die, free to kill. He was strong and highly trained in all the survival arts—mental as well as physical.

Before he reached the border camp at Bu Ntoll, Nang trekked across the Southeast. At times he posed as a refugee, at times an orphan, at times a mute. He walked most of the distance. In Kampot he linked up with a Krahom guerrilla cell for several days without identifying himself or his mission. East of Takeo he discovered an NVA storage facility and shipping depot which made the warehouse areas of the Ho Chi Minh Trail look paltry. At Prey Lovea he was first assisted by an official of the Cambodian administration, then blocked by one from the parallel North Viet Namese regime, then assisted by a Viet Namese, then ordered into detention by Cambodians. All along the trail he simply asked Khmer families for rice or shelter. In the gracious tradition of Cambodians he was fed, often invited in. On these occasions he found his quick smile, infectious laugh and a simple story led him to be treated like a sibling. Each night Nang listened to stories of bravado and hardship under the parallel regimes; stories of atrocities along the border; stories of skirmishes between clashing foreign armies. Almost every week he found a way to send word to Mount Aural of what he’d heard.

At Neak Luong he worked for two days cleaning river barges. The crewmen entertained him during the evening with imagined tales of private battles with bandits. “The lady owner has armed us with machine guns,” one crewman told him. He produced an aged and worn AK-47. “She says, ‘Shoot and run.’ ” The man laughed. He rubbed his hand over the wooden stock. “ ‘Shoot and run.’ Ha! Do you think you can make this old scow run?” Aside he whispered, “The captain’s obtained rocket grenades, and launchers.”

“The lady owner, she says it’s okay?” Nang asked in broken Khmer.

“She’s too pregnant to think. Ha!”

“And the Prince’s army, they say okay?”

“Eh? Are you crazy? The less they know, the better.”

At Phum Chup, near the huge Chup Rubber Plantation Nang stole a Haklee truck and drove it for a mile toward the border before abandoning it in the quagmire of a paddy. From the back he stole an antitank mine which he quickly buried in the roadbed a dozen meters from the sinking truck. He waited, hidden across the road. In minutes a second Chinese truck and a sedan raced toward the stolen vehicles. The truck missed the detonator and stopped. Four soldiers jumped out, cussed, slogged into the paddy. Nang froze behind his concealment. The sedan parked behind the second truck. No one emerged. The windows were closed and dark. A soldier, dripping from the paddy, walked around the front of his truck. A rear window of the sedan opened and a man called out in Chinese. Nang was unable to understand the words. He imagined the man to be a bureaucrat with the Chinese Social Affairs Department, the ChiCom CIA, and he was delighted. The motor of the sedan churned, caught. The unseen driver edged back toward the road. The soldier stepped forward. Then, as if in one motion, the entire area lit, flashed yellow-orange-bright, a fireball roiling up, out. Then the concussion. It hit Nang, knocked him flat. Laughing, chunks of shrapnel crashing down about him, Nang fled across the paddy, down a dike path, running, laughing, free, easy, exhilarated.

For six nights he walked the road to Mimot and north toward Snuol. At Snuol Nang switched to forest trails. Where no inhabitants were supposed to live he stumbled into the midst of the putrid, loathsome camp. He stared in from the edge of the compound. Thousands of starving listless wraiths were rooted on the half-barren, gravel earthen hump. Most were old, toothless, wordless. They squatted or lay in shelters not suitable for pigs. A few infants lay in watery puddles of excrement. In spite of the torment there was no sound. Nang recognized the tribal dress of a few of the Mountaineers. An ancient Mnong man, the ivory plugs long fallen from his stretched limp earlobes, saw Nang, rose, fell and died. Three frail women cackled, dragged the body to the wooded edge, then returned, squatted, silent.

Nang circled the compound to where a score of Jarai elders lay in the shade of a flimsy blue plastic tarp. He emerged, hissed. No one turned. “Uncle,” he clucked. “Uncle, who are you?”

An old woman turned. The bones of her neck jutted like horns on a lizard’s back. She stared at the boy as if he were a mirage. “Great Aunt,” Nang said in Jarai. He came forward and squatted beside her. “You are Jarai?”

“All Jarai are dead,” the woman sighed.

“You are Jarai,” Nang stated.

“We used to live in the great mountains.” The woman’s voice was light, breathless. “Look how few are left. I am death.”

“Who killed you?” Nang asked.

“We’ve become accustomed to being dead.”

“Who?” Nang persisted.

“Does it matter?” The woman’s voice faded.

“Was it Bok Roh?” Nang insisted. The woman was too weary to answer. Those around her did not even look. Nang raged, “Bok Roh the giant?”

“We are the March of Tears,” a second woman whispered. “Here the march ends.”

“Was it Bok Roh?” Nang demanded.

“Yes,” the second woman answered. “Bok Roh sent us here. He killed the others. Bombs killed many.”

“Why don’t you go to Snuol?” Nang pressed.

“Anyone who leaves is shot,” the woman said. “Our land is empty. Our souls have been destroyed.”

Nang crept out, circled the squalid settlement, staying at the treeline. He circled again twenty meters farther out. Twice he saw trip wires. Bu Ntoll, he thought. A restrained smirk curled his lip.

It was cold though the wind had slackened. The sky grayed. Nang sat in a crotch of tree trunk and limb at the fringe of the North Viet Namese sanctuary. The military complex at Bu Ntoll was built on a 3000-foot peak set in a V-shaped inclusion of Cambodian territory wedging into South Viet Nam. Nang had slithered into the encampment, a small bivouac at the perimeter of the multisited sanctuary, on the third day of August 1969. For two days he sat, trancelike, without eating, without sleeping, vigilant yet inanimate, a machine, a camera and recorder, viewing, waiting, seeking, expecting without reason the appearance of Bok Roh. From his tree-crotch concealment he observed nitpicking cadre thoroughly inspect four distinct elements of clean, well-equipped troops, inspect their mission-specific equipment, saw hundreds of dan cong porters prepare to follow the soldiers with food and ammunition; watched as captured American jeeps carrying officers snaked up the covered one-lane road to the camp, through the camp, on toward the next site. For two days Nang watched as Russian and Chinese trucks arrived with more equipment and new, young troops. They are preparing for battle, he thought. He knew nothing of the plans.

On 5 August, one year to the day from his conscription, Nang spotted, amid a passing unit, Bok Roh. His inanimate trance turned colder. His eyes, penetrating the blocking vegetation, saw the scope of the camp, the scope of his revenge. It was time to move.

Nang slithered from the tree, crept past the guards, out of the camp. Then he rose. Do not concentrate on tools, he thought. He turned, walked back, up to the sentries, surrendered.

It was tricky. Nang wished to appear dumb but not so dumb as to be assigned to a porter unit. He wished to appear experienced but not so experienced as to be suspected of being capable of spying or double-agenting. He could not tell them he was a local boy or a guide or a FULRO soldier. If he told them he was Khmer Viet Minh they easily would be able to check: Bu Ntoll Mountain had two Khmer Viet Minh base sites. If he said he was Krahom they would hold him suspect, turn him over to the KVM. That wouldn’t do. That would separate him from his target and render him unable to accomplish his intelligence-garnering mission. Ideally, he thought, I can be assigned to a communal subcommissar. (Communal commissars were responsible for disseminating combat plans to local people just before or just as an ambush or attack was launched against an enemy element.) Nang felt secure, safe in age, in knowledge. I’ll let them know I can translate, he thought. Then I’ll hear plans.

“Take him to the field hospital,” the sergeant of the guard snapped. “Tie him.” To Nang, “What are you doing here? Your people have been told.”

Nang bowed, held his wrists so the guard could tie them. “Just follow me,” the guard indicated after the sergeant left. “He thinks,” he mumbled to another soldier, “this boy breeches security!?”

Nang told a doctor his name was Khat Doh. He told him he was from the Jarai village of Plei The more than a hundred kilometers north in the Ia Drang Valley and that he had been directed to Bu Ntoll by many people. The man accepted Nang’s story because he did not care if the little boy was telling the truth or lying. Nang told a second officer he had traveled for a few weeks with a FULRO platoon which had come south to Ban Me Thuot but that they had had no food, few arms and no organization. The officer sneered as if to say, “Of course. They’re ignorant moi.” Nang did not stop. He rattled on to his interrogator that he wished to kill the hairy meddling Americans who were behind the death of his father and the conquest of his village, that he wished to join the NVA in their attacks on the Americans. Nang clucked in Jarai, stammered in Khmer, butchered his few Viet Namese phrases. The officer noted it all.

On 6 August, Nang was briefly interviewed a second time, and on the seventh, a third. He was held aboveground in loose “camp arrest” where he was observed and lightly guarded. Had the attacks not been imminent Nang likely would have been handled differently, but with plans set and preparation for the offensive under way, there was no time to concentrate on the small Mountaineer who called himself Khat Doh, who wished to avenge his father.

“You may work at the hospital,” the last interviewer told him. “Assist the nurses. Help them clean. Later we’ll talk again.”

At three A.M., 8 August, the NVA began to move out. Thousands of men climbed from the mountain’s beehive of tunnels and caves to march down scores of narrow paths which led to secret border-crossing sites, fanned out and filtered into southern II Corps and northern III Corps.

In the underground medical station Nang paced, an animal in a cage. “Can’t I go,” he asked the section leader; a strong girl named Thi.

“No.” She laughed. “You’re still a baby.”

“I am not,” he said haughtily.

“You help me here.” Thi smiled pleasantly.

“Bok Roh is my uncle,” Nang said desperately. “I should find him. I could carry his pack.”

Thi shot him a wary glance. “You help here,” she said. “That giant needs no help.”

“Nor do you,” Nang countered.

“There’s been little fighting,” Thi said. “Now there’ll be much. Besides, his company’s just left. You keep oil in the lamps, bring the stretchers back up to the dispensary, help the soldiers with their food. When the giant returns, you’ll see him.”

Nang slunk glumly to a corner. He withered before Thi’s eyes, no longer the ten-year-old Khat Doh, but now a six-year-old. Thi watched him for a few moments as she went about her chores. She felt concern, as one might for a sulking pet, but she thought better than to interfere with the savage’s withdrawal. Thi turned from the boy, walked to a crate of wound dressings and began to unpack and organize them into shelves built into the earthen walls. When she turned again, her spare uniform shirt, a rucksack, a medical kit and the boy were gone.

Night was falling on the Mekong. To the east the sky was leaden, to the west pink, almost violet. Vathana stood by the pier. The barge had been pushed into the channel by a small tug and was now maneuvering into the wake of a freighter heading to Phnom Penh. Vathana rested her hands on her bulging tight abdomen. She was warm, content. The past month had been good. No incidents on the river, no fights with Teck. And the easing of trade restrictions had eliminated an entire layer of bureaucrats who needed to be paid bonjour before any cargo could be off-loaded at the capital. The barge turned in the current. The setting sun glinted in the water and reflected red off the wave wash on the barge side, making the cumbersome ark look as if it were dancing lightly on flames.

From the corner of her eye Vathana caught movement. She turned her head. Something darted. Crates of rotting vegetables were stacked four high in a haphazard wall at quay edge. She took a step away. Rats, she thought. She turned back to the barge. The sun dipped, the water became dull, the barge black, ugly. Again at the corner of her eye, a flashed blackness. She snapped her head. Not a rat, a hand. Gone!

“Oh!” She thought to hurry away. Quickly she back-stepped, began to turn. Again the hand, small. Vathana stopped, puzzled, stared. The hand darted into a crate, seemed to stick, then quickly withdrew with a handful of limp bean pods. Vathana moved slowly, quietly, forward. The sky was now deep gray. She walked to a point in the line of crates ten box lengths from where she’d seen the small hand. She laid a hand on a crate and leaned over. Her belly hit the middle box. She adjusted her stance, leaned between two stacks and looked down behind the wall. A small child was eating the garbage. At first Vathana did not understand what she was seeing. He should be home, she thought. What kind of mother would allow such a young one to play here at this hour? But the child was not playing. Vathana squeezed in farther to get a better look. She saw a second child. The sky was getting very dark. She squeezed out, walked down a few stacks, peered over. No one. She stepped down a few more, poked her head between. Still, no one.

“All right,” she said in a motherly voice, “come out here.” She waited. Nothing moved. For a second she felt very self-conscious talking to the crate wall of rotting plants. She started to go. She touched her belly, took a breath, then commanded, “Come out right now. This has gone on long enough.” She paused, readied herself to plunge in. Suddenly a small face appeared. Vathana looked at the child sternly. “Come,” she said. Her voice was firm, not harsh. “Bring the other.”

A tiny boy, perhaps just three, emerged. He was thin, frail, a swollen stomach protruding from his ripped, dirty shirt. Awkwardly Vathana knelt down, held out a hand. Then a small girl, identical in size to the boy, appeared. “What are you children doing back there?” The children didn’t answer. “Come now,” Vathana said louder. “Why aren’t you home?” The children cringed, their faces pinched, lower lips protruded, curled down as if they were about to cry. Still they were silent. Vathana leaned forward, braced herself on the pier with one hand, reached out to touch the little girl with the other. The child didn’t move. Gently Vathana grasped her hand. Still kneeling she righted herself, bringing the girl to her side. “Do you live here?” No utterance. Vathana stood. She held the girl’s right hand in her left, held out her right for the boy. Hesitantly he reached up, placed his small hand in hers. Vathana stepped slowly toward the main road. She looked first at one child, then the other. “We’ll find your mom,” she whispered. The little girl tugged, resisted. “What is it?” Vathana asked, again puzzled, now becoming tired, frustrated. Night had settled on Neak Luong.

Still the imps said nothing, but a new sound came. Something was crouched at the end of the wall, watching, wide-eyed. A shiver crossed Vathana’s shoulders. She glared into the darkness at the new intrusion, straightened her shoulders, maternally protective, holding the hands of the little ones, challenging, intimidating the unseen. “Come along,” she said very properly, attempting to ignore the potential danger.

The thing cried softly like a cat. Vathana looked at the children, then again into the shadow behind the crates. Again the cry. The little boy whimpered. The girl pulled, trying to loosen her hand from Vathana’s.

“You come out too,” Vathana ordered. “That’s no place to play.” Now a skinny girl, looking six, shyly, emerged. “Are there any more?” The older girl shook her head. “Then come along. You looked starved. And you certainly need baths.”

“What do you mean bringing those filthy urchins in here?!”

“I found them on the pier.”

“I don’t care if you found them in a...a cola bottle. I won’t have them in my house.”

“This one is Seta...” Vathana began.

“Stop! Get them out of here.”

“Teck...”

“Give them to your monk.”

“Teck, they...they stowed away on...”

“Then stow them back. You can throw ’em into the river for all I care.”

“They’re border children.”

“They’re what?”

“Orphans. From the border region. Seta said her...”

“Augh! Get them out of here. I’m going out. They’re to be gone when I return.”

Teck left the apartment. Furiously he leaped down the four flights of stairs, ran through the courtyard, stopped only when he reached the main road. He looked right. A few lights shone, the doctors’, the pagoda, some at the garrison beyond. To the left, a few hundred meters down, began Neak Luong’s small strip of cafes and dance halls. Teck slogged through the dim stretch, through his anger and bitterness and despair until he reached the rim of the first club’s lights. Then he straightened, slicked back his hair and walked through the light, glancing in for friends. He passed two more establishments, entered the next.

“Teck,” three young men greeted him.

“Hallo Sakun, Kim, Louis. You are all here.”

“Where else?” Louis joked. “Just waiting for you.” They all laughed silly laughs.

“Where’s Thiounn?”

“His father has obtained a position for him,” Sakun said.

“A position?” Teck pulled his head back with question. The four moved to a small table at the rear of the cafe. A waiter brought their usual, small cups of dark thick coffee laced with chocolate shavings.

“Some position,” Kim muttered. “He won’t be allowed to do a thing.”

“He’ll get to sit in an office and watch the pretty girls,” Louis countered, and again they all laughed.

“What about you?” Sakun asked Teck. “Your father won’t hire you?”

“I won’t be hired,” Teck corrected.

“And what about a teaching position? Can’t the Madame come up with something?”

“Oh come on!” Teck jerked his shoulders haughtily. “Mother thinks I’m very well situated now. She says to me, ‘Why would you want to be in a room with all those foolish brats?’ Besides, the Prince has seen to it that none of the neak ches-doeng will ever work. You know I’ve applied.”

“Ha!” Louis chided him. “Maybe there’s no opening for an expert on Monet.” The young men giggled.

Teck pouted. “Paintings are important,” he said firmly. “They enrich life. It’s only Sihanouk’s fears which makes for no openings.”

The four friends talked and sipped their coffee. Louis nudged Teck each time the daughter of the owner emerged from the small kitchen. Each time Teck looked, the girl glanced shyly at him then immediately turned away. “She likes you,” Louis teased Teck.

“She likes anything in pants,” Teck whispered defensively.

“She doesn’t look at Kim or Sakun,” Louis baited him. “Well, maybe at me!”

“Ha! That’s because she knows,” Teck blurted the words between spitting snickers, “they’ve nothing in their pants.”

Louis laughed and they all prodded one another and finished their drinks. Then Kim said, “Let’s go in back.”

Quietly the young men rose and followed Kim into a hallway with many doors. They shuffled in silence to a room Kim had rented. The cubicle was tiny, no bigger than a cell, windowless, airless, with but a single small low table with two candles burning. Teck locked the door. They sat. Now Louis opened a small sheet of aluminum foil exposing a cube about the size of a lump of sugar. He methodically crumbled the block into grains, curled the foil so the grains lay loosely in a trough. Very carefully, slowly, Louis passed the foil over one candle. Teck, Kim and Sakun leaned in tight. Back and forth, gently, Louis heated the foil until the heroin began to ooze heavy cream-colored smoke. Louis stretched his neck, his face forward, his nose in the smoke. He inhaled deeply, leaned back. The smoke swirled up in the rising heat, fell gracefully back-upon itself as it cooled. Teck pulled a soda straw from his pocket. The smoke became thicker as the crumbs became hotter. Teck put the straw to his lips, put the open end in the thickest swirl, sucked it in and held it. He passed the straw to Kim. The straw went around three times. Then the young men leaned back, relaxed. “Never,” Sakun whispered, “never will Sihanouk let us work.” They all giggled.

They crossed the border. Monsoon thunder exploded above the peaks, trembled in the valleys. With each clap heavy rain crashed in sheets against thick vegetation. Nang fell in at the back of a column, behind a squad of ammo porters. The column wound slowly down trackless ravines where streams gushed. They climbed little, sought crevices below knolls, circled rises beneath thick canopy where humid air seemed as impenetrable as jungle growth. At each rest Nang moved up. Slyly he asked porters or privates details of the plan. By evening he knew he was with an element of the NVA 272d Regiment, that they had moved southwest from Bu Ntoll, crossed between American Special Forces camps at Due Lap and Bu Prang, and were on schedule for a four-day trek which would take them nearly sixty kilometers to a staging area south of Phuoc Binh and Song Be City. There they would rendezvous with other infiltrating elements.

The sky darkened. Rain slowed to a constant patter on the leaves. From caves in Bu Ntoll, NVA gunners began firing 130mm shells at Bu Prang. The column rose, followed the guides. Counterbattery artillery from Bu Prang answered the NVA guns. For an hour Nang’s column meandered behind the scout, beneath cover of darkness, concealment of rain, diversion of artillery duel. NVA soldiers knew the imperialist forces—the American 173d Airborne Brigade, the South Viet Namese 23d Division, and the American Special Forces-led Mountaineer units—relied on seismic sensor devices near the border to detect liberation troop movements, yet they moved without concern. Porters told Nang the rain and thunder would interfere with detection. The column stopped. They entered a fortified, camouflaged way station hidden in dense bamboo groves. Night settled. The rain ceased. A chill wind blew above the camp swaying the bamboo. Nang lay awake, tense, planning.

“Take that boy to Major Bui,” a lieutenant broke in an hour before first light. “How could no one know who he is? Get the giant to interpret. Don’t trust these moi porters.”

Nang started. He wasn’t certain he understood but he thought he had heard mention of the giant. A soldier motioned him up. He bowed his head to the lieutenant. Sheepishly he dragged his feet. His mind raced with possible scenarios, possible lies.

The structure at the center of the way station was four low cornerposts with a vine-lashed ridge pole and bamboo joists covered with thatch. Beneath, in the glow of a small oil lantern, three men sat in large wicker chairs. Two wore NVA officer uniforms. One wore a simple unmarked khaki tunic.

“Excuse me, sir,” Nang’s escort interrupted. “We have a mountain boy who’s been assisting the porters but who is unknown to them. Lieutenant Hoa thought he should be questioned by Mister Bok.”

Nang bowed before the three men. As he lowered his head he noted both officers had their pistols disassembled for cleaning. Between them lay a map. Then Nang saw Bok Roh. His heart leaped. He fought to keep his face empty, to deny his rage visible vent. Bok glanced up sleepily. He had an issue of Nhan Dan, Hanoi’s newspaper, on his lap and a copy of Paris Match in his hands. “So, who are you?” Bok asked in Mnong.

Nang chirred, an odd yet specific Jarai sonant mannerism indicating confusion, but before Bok could rattle off a string of questions in that language, Nang asked in slightly broken Khmer if the officer spoke the Cambodian language.

“So, who are you?” Bok asked in Khmer. He reached a hand to his face, massaged his chin, glowered at the cowering boy. Nang repeated the lies he’d told earlier, embellishing with even more details. As he spoke he respectfully lowered his head. Inside he shuddered, confused. Could this truly be Bok Roh? Bok Roh the violent manic savage? Could this man, sitting in a wicker chair, reading a newspaper not unlike his father used to, be the target of his vengeance?

“He says”—the large man turned from Nang and spoke to the officers in Viet Namese—“that his father was French-Khmer and his mother Jarai, that both were killed by American bombs on the village of Plei The.”

“Do you know the village?” one officer asked.

“I do. I don’t. I know the area.” Bok glanced back at Nang.

“When did he say they were bombed?” an officer asked.

Bok translated. To the officers he interpreted the answer, “Two years ago. Maybe three. He says he was very young.”

The oldest officer shook his head. “Tien su no! Hell! Why do they bother us with these little problems?”

Nang bowed and stepped to the officer. Feigning confusion, absorbing as much detail as possible in the two-second glance, he shook his hand back and forth over one corner of the map and muttered Plei The.

“Tell him I don’t care where it is,” the officer snapped. “It’s not on this map.”

“Come here boy,” Bok Roh said in Jarai. His voice was calm, gentle. “You look familiar,” he said. He eyed him up and down. “Maybe like I did when I was seven or eight.” Bok chuckled, stood. Nang rolled his head back, feigning shock at the giant’s height. “I could use a porter who’s good at languages. These Viets won’t stoop to learn. Parlez-vous français?”

“Oui.” Nang laughed. “Unpeu.”

In the distance, thunder exploded again. Bok Roh froze. He snapped his head toward the older officer. “Tien su no!” The man shook. The thunder rolled toward them without pause. The younger officer jumped. The older rose slowly, deliberately, snuffed the lantern. All about soldiers could be heard scurrying. The thunder grew. The earth trembled. Bok grabbed Nang, forced him to the ground. He covered the boy with his body as the first bomb flash erupted. The earth burst. Roar and concussion swept across the ground. Bamboo slivers shot like arrows into the hut. Steel shards sliced soldiers at the column’s south point. Dirt clumps crashed about the center. Nang felt pinned, not safe. Bok’s body covered him. Bok Roh who’d killed...was over him! A second concussion flattened the shack. Above, over a thirty-kilometer stretch of border, U.S. Air Force B-52 bombers computer-released their ordnance, eighty 500-pound bombs each. Fifty sorties, each designated for a half-mile-wide by two-mile-long bomb box, targets identified by electronic sensors and aerial infrared reconnaissance.

Another series of crashes. Closer. Erupting burning sucking the air from the graying sky, throwing them up, crashing down, earth banging like hammer-smashed anvil, smoke blackening the fog. Nang pushed up, gulped for air, wanting to see, hear, witness. Bok Roh held him. Then the giant lifted him like a football scooped in one hand tight against his side, crouched, ran. About them men screamed. The bombing stopped. Fires smouldered. Huge rings, craters, were blown clear, clean as new-plowed paddies. Nang’s ears stung, hurt, hurt not only at the ear but all the way to the top of his throat. The sky lightened. Bok Roh halted. He seemed surprised to find Nang hanging from his hand. Nang was shocked, not witless, not dazed, but awed by Bok’s power. He squirmed from the giant’s grasp, dropped to the earth. Then he took the big man’s hand and led him to a crater berm. “Come. Come,” Nang whispered. “If they follow up with troops we’ll need cover.”

Bok Roh too was shocked. His face was burned, his left arm bloody. The concussion of the closest bomb had left him stunned. He shook his head violently, attempting to stop the roar though the bombers had long flown by. Then he started. Khat Doh’s sense of survival rocked him. Beyond them sergeants snapped at men, organized, counted.

Then all was quiet.

Slowly jungle noises returned—birds chirped, a monkey whooped, a small enemy reconnaissance plane buzzed. Nang crept from the giant’s side, squatted behind him, beneath tilted bamboo cover. A lieutenant approached, reported to Bok Roh. There were two dead, seven seriously wounded. The column would not move until the reconnaissance plane went off station.

“You must eat,” Nang whispered to Bok Roh. He had gotten the giant’s ration and his own, had eaten a third of the giant’s. “You must eat,” he repeated calmly. “They say we’ll move shortly. There are Americans to the north.”

Inside, Nang was bursting, frenzied. Again he was alive, unscathed, liberated from fear of harm, elevated by having cheated death, yet he was confused, enthralled with the giant, this new giant, a man who could kill him or save him at will.

“Let me change the dressing and clean your arm.” Nang bowed.

“Khat Doh, you should learn Viet Namese,” Bok said in Jarai as Nang unwound the first hasty bandage.

“Because they won’t stoop to learn Jarai,” Nang retorted.

“No, because they fight for us all,” Bok Roh said. “Because their victory is inevitable.”

“They would as soon destroy Jarai as Americans.” Nang coughed the words out apologetically. Again, in the sky over the valley a small enemy plane buzzed.

“The American war is aggression against all the peoples of Southeast Asia,” Bok said sadly. “The Americans violate our fundamental national rights. Ouch!”

“There’s much dirt in the cut.”

“It’s not deep,” Bok said, leaning over, eyeing the scraped skin below his elbow. Nang lifted Bok’s hand, rolled his arm, forcing him to see the deeper jagged slash on the underside. Bok grimaced. The wound was not deep but looked nasty. Nang smeared on an antibacterial salve. “They escalate the war with these B-52s and their poison gases,” Bok said. “These are crimes against our people. Defoliating crops so people starve is a crime.”

Bok squeezed his hand into a fist, testing the arm. He watched Nang work. “Where did you learn this?” He spoke slowly in Viet Namese. Nang understood the words “where” and “learn” but he did not answer. Bok asked again in French.

“Around,” Nang answered in Khmer.

Forcefully Bok Roh said, “You know too much not to learn Viet Namese. I’ll teach you. You’ll be my aide.”

Nang looked up. A porter came with Bok’s backpack and gear. Sheathed at the pack’s side was a huge machete. Nang smiled.

Bok Roh was not a soldier of the North Viet Namese Army. Nor was he a member of the National Liberation Front, or of FULRO, or of the Alliance of National, Democratic and Peace Forces. He might have been labeled Khmer Viet Minh though even there he was not a soldier. He held a peculiar position, one which gave him the status of a middle-level diplomat or an officer—though he represented no government, commanded no troops, analyzed no intelligence, prepared no supplies and planned no operations. Indeed, the giant had no freedom. He was as much a prisoner, even if willingly, of the NVA as he would have been had he been held captive in a jungle jail. Bok Roh was incarcerated by his past, by conflicting brutal mercenary actions. He was trusted by no one, held outlaw by all, valued no greater than dust. Yet, with his massive physical stature and his mastery of thirty languages and dialects, he was also invaluable.

Bok Roh was pensive, lonesome, a man who buried his mental agitation in books, magazines, reports. Each day he pored over English, French, Chinese and Viet Namese newspapers. When at Bu Ntoll he studied Tolstoi in Russian, Mishima in Japanese and Marx, Engels and Hesse in German. His eye for the written word was nearly photographic; his ear for the spoken nearly perfect. Yet each year he found his talents of less value to others, of less pleasure to himself. He no longer wrote the speeches he delivered but relied on NVA political cadre to tell him exactly what to say. No longer did he question village raids or massacres, but abdicated total responsibility to NVA intelligence and operations officers.

A hundred meters above and several hundred meters south of the camp a white phosphorus marking round burst. Again there was scurrying, soldiers scratching the earth, forming depressions, jumping into fighting positions or hugging crater berms. Two hundred meters south of the way station six 105mm howitzer rounds exploded. Bok grabbed his pack, reached for Nang. The boy was down, shrunken to a ball like a hard-backed insect, shrunken into a small foot-deep depression. Six more rounds screamed in, exploded in succession. Bok dropped beside Nang, pulled his pack over them. Six rounds exploded at the camp’s edge. Soldiers began running, fleeing north. The rounds, shot from Bu Prang, were being walked north in lines a hundred meters apart—three aerial bursts and three contact detonations in each salvo. Mortar rounds, dull thunks, dropped in behind the howitzer explosions. Again Bok reached to pull Nang under him but Nang sprung, sprinted from the giant’s hand. The man raced behind the boy. To the east planes buzzed. Another salvo burst behind them. Soldiers screamed. Forty, fifty dashed, crashing through vegetation, north, fanning out east, west. The salvos chased them. A group broke east. Nang started to follow. Bok caught him, grabbed a shoulder of the running boy, threw him, dove with him into a stream, below the surface, to the side. There they forced themselves up, under a tree’s overhanging root clump. Nang gasped, water cascaded into his mouth. Bok grabbed his head, forced him up. To the east claymore mines exploded, machine guns and assault rifles barked. Artillery rounds exploded north. Then farther north.

Late that evening word came that the remnant of the column of the NVA 272d Regiment should disperse, return to Bu Ntoll, forgo their planned part in the attack on Song Be City. Nang followed Bok Roh, backtracking to Cambodia. As he watched the large man’s silhouette, he thought, I am going to learn from you, Mister Giant. I’ll be your slave. Ha! And you’ll be your slave’s slave. Ah, what you can teach me, eh? But one day, you mutant moi, I’ll have learned all you can give. One day you won’t be surrounded by your lackeys.

From Ben Het in the North through Duc Co on Highway 19, south to Bu Ntoll and Snuol, farther to the Fishhook, Tay Ninh and the Parrot’s Beak, east of Svay Rieng and west of Chau Duc and Tri Ton to the terminus at Ha Tien—all along the Cambodia-Viet Nam border, the summer of 1969 was marred with artillery duels and infantry skirmishes. Thousands of soldiers were killed. Nearly ten thousand were wounded.

A general offensive, mini-Tet II (mini-Tet I having occurred in May of 1968), was launched on 12 August. Communist forces attacked 150 cities and bases throughout South Viet Nam, setting off the heaviest fighting in three months. The city hardest hit was An Loc, the capital of Binh Long Province, fifty kilometers west-southwest of Phuoc Binh and Song Be City. Also hit hard were Quan Loi, east of An Loc, and Tay Ninh, fifty kilometers farther south. Ninety-seven Americans were reported killed and 523 wounded during the three-day offensive. ARVN casualties were 107 killed, 371 wounded; North Viet Namese casualties were estimated at 1,597 killed. Not included in the estimate were 64 NVA killed on 9 August by artillery from Bu Prang or by small arms fire when, fleeing the artillery, they emerged from jungle thickets into a fusillade from a unit of the 173d Airborne Brigade.

In Cambodia internal factors and border pressure caused Prince Sihanouk to appoint a “salvage government” headed by Prime Minister General Lon Nol. Lon Nol’s first reports indicate there were, in August, thirty-five to forty thousand NVA soldiers on Khmer territory and that they were spreading west.

North Viet Nam’s president, Ho Chi Minh, died on 3 September at the age of 79. Norodom Sihanouk, in Hanoi for the funeral, publicly called for the withdrawal of all Americans from South Viet Nam. Simultaneously he expressed Cambodia’s support for the “just stand” of North Viet Nam.

On his return home, Sihanouk privately changed course. American B-52s had secretly begun bombing NVA/VC base camps and supply areas along the border of Cambodia on 18 March 1969. The first strike was called Operation Breakfast. Subsequent border bombings (also kept secret from the U.S. Congress and the American people) were labeled Lunch, Dinner, et cetera, and together became known as the “Menu” bombings. In mid-September Prince Sihanouk ordered his military chiefs to disclose to U.S. intelligence the known locations of VC/NVA sanctuaries. Additional secret bombings ensued.

For two months the North Viet Namese at Bu Ntoll planned and plotted a revenge attack on Bu Prang. For two months the two bases traded artillery shots across the border. For two months Lieutenant Hoa and many others nursed their wounds, first in the underground infirmary, then in surface patient dormitories. And for two months Nang, as Khat Doh, shadowed Bok Roh.

Khat Doh became the giant’s aide, and to the giant, the mountain boy, awestruck by Bok’s talents, size and apparent status, became his revival. In Nang’s eyes Bok Roh saw admiration; in his impish smile he found levity. Nang smiled for Bok Roh. He smiled and he continued to think, I’ll learn from you, Mister Giant. I’ll learn.

“Coso khong?” Bok whispered in Viet Namese. Are you afraid? There had been another B-52 alert.

“Suc may!” Nang laughed. Hardly.

“Nephew,” Bok Roh whispered. He switched to Khmer. “Tonight come with me. Skip Duc Lap.”

“Uncle, why? Where? I wanted a view of the American dogs.”

“Colonel Pham suggests I meet with the Dong Nai Regiment,” Bok Roh continued in Khmer.

“I don’t understand,” Nang said in Viet Namese.

In Jarai Bok whispered, “Here, don’t ask me.”

At dusk Bok Roh and Nang climbed from the earth. The bombers had unloaded their ordnance ten miles to the south. “We squeeze into the earth like worms.” Nang looked up at Bok Roh. “For nothing.” Bok looked down. He almost held out his hand as a father would to a toddler son. “They’re keeping to the other side of the border,” Nang said.

“Here,” Bok answered slowly. “Yes. But where we’re going they’re bombing both sides.”

The jeep with Bok, Nang and four political officers lurched and jolted south down the narrow mountain road from Bu Ntoll to Highway 14, sped west, then south, on a comparatively smooth though rutted graveled roadway. For an hour they bounced and banged in the vehicle as it approached the border near Bu Jerman. Twice they passed through ghost villages: one bombed out, trees splintered, homes swallowed by craters; the second empty, villager-abandoned or inhabitants-exterminated without a trace. Bok Roh knew. Nang did not ask.

They approached the border. The jeep slowed, entered a one-lane passage. Without lights they bumped over heaves, crashed into potholes. A light flicked—on off on off. In the haze which packed itself between leaves, vines and fronds, Nang could not judge the distance to the source. Again, on off on off. Either a strong beam at a distance or a weak one very close. “We’ll switch here,” Bok said to him quietly.

Nang felt uncomfortable. He was unarmed. They left the jeep and immediately were directed to the backs of small, unseen motorcycles. The entire political entourage mounted up. Riders kick-started the bikes. A dozen muffled coughs sounded in the dark.

For an hour they rode, first down the side road through fields of sugarcane and manioc, then up and down a military trail which brought them to a small cottage. Bok Roh disappeared, reemerged in a black pajama uniform. “Follow me,” he told Nang in Khmer.

“Where to?” Nang asked.

For half an hour they walked through the jungle on a narrow dirt path. With each step Nang tried to anticipate what lay ahead but the secrecy of the movement left him without even the flimsiest foundation upon which to build.

Again they halted at a lone jungle cottage. Nang could hear and smell chickens in a coop, could hear a stream babble, but in the dark he saw nothing.

Bok bent and spoke quietly. “Pham says you must also change.”

“Where are we?”

“By the Song Be,” Bok Roh answered.

“In Cambodia?”

“No. We haven’t been there for two hours.”

“Will we go much farther?”

“A little. This is the first security ring of the Dong Nai Regiment.”

Nang emerged from the cottage dressed in identical black pajamas as Bok Roh and the others. He was escorted to a second cottage crammed with men he viewed as very old and overly polite. For hours the men talked in the dim light of a lantern. Bok Roh was often spoken to, directed, ordered. He was not part of the conversation. Nang curled up in a corner, pretended sleep, attempted to understand the security procedure, attempted to formulate a report for Met Sar.

“You are Hai Hoa Binh.” Bok Roh nudged Nang.

“Eh?”

“Second Peaceful One,” Bok said. “Because you sleep like a baby and you follow me. Come now.”

Soldiers, officers, support personnel and cadres of the Dong Nai Regiment were assembled three hundred strong in a large, open-sided, temporary hall. Representatives of nine other Viet Cong units, plus dignitaries and leaders of the National Liberation Front (NLF), the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG), the North Viet Namese Army and the Central Office for South Viet Nam (COSVN) were seated at tables before a low stage. Draped behind the stage were two five-by-ten-foot red and blue flags with yellow stars in the middle. To one side a huge poster declared, NOTHING IS MORE PRECIOUS THAN INDEPENDENCE AND LIBERTY. Strains of “Liberate the South,” the NLF anthem, played as the last of the dignitaries entered.

Nang sat with the soldiers toward the rear. His blood was aboil in the presence of so many yuons but his countenance was that of a sleepy child. Again Bok Roh had vanished.

The Viet Cong Dong Nai Regiment had been heavily wounded by the U.S. 1st Infantry Division early in 1969 when Alpha Company, 1st of the 26th, blew up the regiment’s base camp along the Song Be River south of An Loc. The regiment relocated farther north where the U.S. 1st Air Cavalry Division destroyed their major food and materiel caches. Again they’d moved north, establishing a small camp on the Song Be twenty miles northeast of An Loc, eleven miles from the Cambodian border.

The rally was formal. Opening remarks by the Dong Nai commander were followed by briefings on the political, military and diplomatic status of the liberation effort, then by reports of specific activities by local units and urban front organizations.

Nang’s attention wandered. Between reports he rose, excused himself, indicating he needed to urinate. The morning had dawned without rain, without mist. By nine the sun had dried exposed surfaces, the temperature had risen. Nang meandered; yet, aware of the numerous guards, he merely peered into the surrounding camp. He was surprised at the crude shelters. Compared to Bu Ntoll the camp was a slum; compared to Mount Aural it was a pigmire. He noted the soldiers, officers and dignitaries. All seemed in a state of semistarvation. One in ten seemed sickly, jaundiced, infected with malaria. He snooped further.

Unit morale was low. In 1967, 27,178 Viet Cong soldiers deserted the Communist ranks and rallied to the government of South Viet Nam under the Open Arms, or Chieu Hoi, program. In 1968 the figure dropped to 18,171. In 1969, by November, more than forty thousand had rallied. Communist field strength in South Viet Nam and the border sanctuaries was at least seventy percent North Viet Namese. Numerous traditionally indigenous southern rebel units were manned by upwards of ninety-five percent Northern soldiers. Nearly every Viet Cong unit shared command with or was commanded by NVA officers. Few North Viet Namese soldiers had defected: 284 in 1968, 302 to November 1969.

Nang returned to the hall. He noted the NVA officers with whom he’d arrived. The VC, he thought, must receive only half the Northern ration. Like Khmers, he thought. Opening their arms to Northern crocodiles who lure them with words and plans, who wish to devour them.

In the hall NVA officers wore dress khaki uniforms, dignitaries wore loose tan or light gray trousers and open short-sleeve shirts. Then Bok appeared. Nang’s body turned to stone. A low chatter rippled across the audience. Bok was dressed in a white tropical suit, white shirt and narrow red tie.

In such dress it was impossible to tell Bok’s ethnic or racial origin—he could have been Mountaineer or American Indian; Khmer, North Viet Namese, or Mongolian; Pakistani, Azerbaijani or Turkmenian. With his stature, his knowledge and his linguistic abilities he, in one man, could represent a quarter of the world’s people.

Nang’s eyes squinted, his face hardened, dagger beams slashed through jungle air piercing his mentor’s heart. How dare he, how dare he...I am the chameleon.

Bok’s head snapped to the beam as if directed by electronic sensors, his own beam clashing with Nang’s, attempting to blast it back into the boy’s head, two pairs of hate-seeking lasers in collision above the heads of the Dong Nai soldiers.

“...please welcome Ba Bac.” The regimental executive officer introduced him as Number Three Uncle, a Viet Namese identity to which the weary troops could cling—could value the man in white only slightly below Bac Ho, Uncle Ho. To establish his prestige further the XO had given Bok the title of Political Affairs Officer, Extraordinary, and had explained that he was the NLF’s ambassador to the Khmer Viet Minh, an organization the soldiers knew only as a supporter of their cause.

Humbly Bok bowed his immense frame. He spoke a formal, rhythmic Viet Namese. “In two days,” Bok Roh began, “we will fight again. In a week the general offensive will be under way. Everything, everything, must be aimed at making the Americans withdraw. That is the first priority for all Asians. In the South, in the North, in Cambodia, all who seek to strengthen our great, united solidarity must struggle ceaselessly to renew their moral commitment during our country’s most difficult period.

“We fight on four fronts. The military, the political, the diplomatic and the domestic front in the United States...”

Nang turned to the soldier beside him. The man, like Nang, was less wrapped in Number Three Uncle’s words than were the mass of soldiers surrounding them.

“...every military clash has consequences far beyond its immediate and apparent outcome...”

The soldier glanced at Nang. “You’re new?” he whispered.

“Yes,” Nang answered.

“...In the integrated whole, every act, every propaganda appeal, assists our cause. Each battle is a psychological event. Each negotiation strengthens our battlefield position...”

“You’re very young.”

“Not so young.”

“...danh va dam, dam va danh...” (Fighting is talking, talking is fighting.)

“We’ll talk later.”

“A little.”

“...Your persistent military actions are impacting on America’s perseverance. I want to tell you what else is happening to positively affect your strong efforts. This past month, Premier Pham Van Dong signed new agreements with China and the Soviet Union guaranteeing an unceasing flow of food, arms and ammunition. This past month American protestors demonstrated their great wish for peace in a moratorium march on Washington. Within a week, Richard Nixon is expected to propose a unilateral, a leopard-spot [units-in-place] ceasefire. The United States has withdrawn twenty of every one hundred combat soldiers. The nguy [puppet] army pales like a man who has lost one fifth of his blood...”

“I’ve not seen Number Three Uncle before, have you?”

“I know him, a little.”

“I’m Truong Cao Kiet,” the soldier whispered. “I too am new here.”

Nang did not turn to look at the soldier but viewed him intensely from the corner of his eye. He did not trust this man, did not believe this was his name. Yet, with his attention split, he made an error, one he recognized as the words slipped from his lips. “They call me Hai Hoa Binh,” he said, giving an obvious code name which would indicate to the soldier that he, Nang, was not simply a soldier but someone whose identity must be masked.

“...when the American president announces the withdrawal of a unit he tells his people it is a signal to us, a show of their willingness to negotiate. In reality, Mr. Nixon is placating U.S. public opinion...”

“We’ll talk later,” Truong Cao Kiet said.

“Perhaps,” Nang said. Suddenly he felt like the boy he actually was. He could not think of a way to extricate himself from suspicion without raising even more. He closed his mouth, concentrated on Bok Roh.

“...We’ll hit and run. We’ll talk ceasefire but never stop until we’ve unified the nation. As we continue the armed struggle in the countryside, our counterparts redouble their political struggle in the urban centers. In Cambodia our partners solidify their role in aiding our just cause. Our successes increase their power. Their power feeds our successes...”

To Nang, as Bok Roh spoke he lost his magic. He became another politician, a lecturer babbling without might. Soon, Nang thought, soon, I will leave this miserable country. When his attention returned to the words spoken he was surprised to find Bok lecturing in terms of Marxist philosophy. The VC, unlike the NVA, were seldom exposed to straight political ideology. To them their objective was to deliver the country from foreign domination and the oppression of the Thieu regime.

“...through these disguised organizations we can induce the masses to respond to our struggle slogans. Through them we will rally the masses, step-by-step, in accord with the directions of the revolution. We will renew our effort to bring about the general uprising...”

You yuon-loving fool, Nang thought. You know this talk is the work of a dull Northern functionary. Look at these fools. Why are soldiers dumb? He knows his words are just so much low wind.

“...In two days we shall roll back the Saigon lackey pacification program by striking the Chieu Hoi centers and the villages erected to house traitors. In a week, we’ll attack American weak points. Everything must be done to make the Americans withdraw...”

On the harried trip back to Bu Ntoll Nang whispered to Bok, “Why do you serve the Northerners?”

Bok eyed his young charge. The question was idolatrous. “The Northerners fight for all third-world people,” Bok Roh said coolly in Viet Namese. “Their victory is inevitable because their cause is just.”

“I spoke with Truong Cao Kiet. He was very worried and very unsure.”

“He is a nguy agent. We know him. He’ll be eliminated during the offensive.”

“Kiet!?”

“Le. Tran Van Le. That’s his name. You shouldn’t listen to men like that.”

“Uncle, he...he...he seemed to have so much hate for Americans.”

“I don’t hate them.” The conversation irritated Bok Roh and he didn’t hide his anger. “Le hates for show,” Bok said. He put his hand on Nang’s knee as a father might a small son. “I feel sorry at American deaths. They die young because of the Washington governing clique.”

“You feel...! They kill without thought,” Nang retorted.

“Their people mourn for the Viet Namese people. Americans carry a great burden. But their government...I’m indignant at the losses, the destruction caused by America’s war machine. They have their army on our land. There’s not a single Viet Namese soldier on American soil. Ah, Khat Doh, you must learn to read as well as to speak.”

“You’ve taught me to read.”

“No. I taught you to recognize printed words. Now you must learn to read...to expand your thoughts...to know what happens each day.”

“The Northerners forbid soldiers to read anything but what they provide. It’s even forbidden to listen to any radio but Hanoi Radio.”

“We’re not Northerners,” Bok said in Jarai. “We can get around that. I can tell you what President Nixon says in his speech. I can tell you if he promises strong measures, if the antiwar movement presses him with strong measures.”

“All our fighting does, eh?”

“That’s all you know because that’s all you’ve been told. I can get you newspapers.”

“Then why do you serve them?” Nang persisted.

Bok eyed him sharply. Should the question lead to a kiem thao, a criticism/self-criticism session? “I am devoted to peace. Real peace. Real freedom.” Bok paused. Nang’s eyes glazed with disbelief. “I fight to the end,” Bok continued more powerfully. “Viet Nam is indivisible. Seventeen million Northern compatriots live with tightened belts to help us defeat the invaders. It’s our duty to the Fatherland. Armed dau tranh, armed struggle, for the revolution is our supreme duty.”

Nang beamed as if a religious truth had been revealed to him, but inside he thought, Bok Roh, you believe your own stupid propaganda. “Do you welcome,” Nang asked sheepishly, knowing he was baiting his mentor, “the North’s annexation of the South?”

Bok slammed his fist into his open palm. His nares flared, his mouth curled. “Premier Pham Van Dong calls that a ‘stupid and criminal idea.’ He has stated, ‘The South will have its own policy.’ And there will be a policy for Mountaineers.”

“Do you welcome violence against villages which do not support either North or South?”

“There are times when violence is necessary. Violence which advances our political cause is imperative.”

“Then, when we attack a village, it is imperative, yes? For political reasons?”

“There’s a ruup areak in Phuiri Sath Nan,” Sam said.

Chhuon nodded. The two men were in the treeline at the village edge overlooking the paddies. The rice harvest had just begun, and their stores were already a quarter full. In the moonlight the dry paddy stubble gleamed like gold. “I had a dream the night before...”

“You’ve told me,” Sam said sadly.

“Is he competent?” Chhuon asked.

“The medium?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know.”

“I wish to know if my son’s spirit is at peace. If this medium can contact him, I’ll be ready to sit in the corner with the ancestors.”

“Ssshh!” Sam put his hand on Chhuon’s arm. He motioned into the paddies.

Chhuon stared. An entire armed platoon was moving noiselessly toward them, “quick.”

The men, staying in their squats, spun, slithered into the shadows, then ran through alleys and streets rapping out the alert on doors and walls.

For months, ever since Norodom Sihanouk had seriously ordered his army to engage the NVA and halt the border erosion, military units had circled or passed through Phum Sath Din. At First they had been Royal forces on their way east—ragtag outfits dragging cannons and their families, camping on the road, twice passing through the middle of Phum Sath Din, twice shelling areas northeast of the village with antiquated howitzers set up in Chhuon’s paddies. Then units and direction changed, NVA heading west—crack infantry units carried by truck and escorted by armor giving the village wide berth on their way to reinforce a buildup farther south—or Khmer Viet Minh units of Hanoi-trained hardcore Khmer cadres and a growing mix of volunteers and conscripts, Khmers, Mountaineers and Chams.

“wake!” Chhuon ordered his family. His breath came hard and fast, “wake,” he hissed, shook his wife, Sok, then his mother and finally Peou, his last born, “quickly, to the shelter.”

“I’ll sleep on my mat,” Chhuon’s mother said calmly, with the dignity of age when death is not feared.

Chhuon looked briefly at the old woman, “they’re coming. this time...they won’t go by...they’re entering now.”

“And what would they want with this old woman?” As she spoke Sok and Peou rolled up their sleeping mats. “Better I stay and greet them,” the old woman said. “Better they find a house with someone than with no one.”

Chhuon kissed his mother. He turned to the altar. Already many of the ancestral mementos had been removed, hidden, buried in the orchard. He grabbed the bowl of rice he still filled daily for Samnang. He raced to the door, knees, pains unheeded, jumped down the steps and joined Sok and Peou as they skittered like mice through a hole behind the oven, then down into the tight, newly dug family bunker.

Peou slept on Sok’s lap. Sok dozed sporadically, leaning against the cool hard earth, afraid to change positions, to set a mat behind her, afraid to wake Peou. Chhuon sat on his hams for hours, facing the covered hole, listening intently, staring like a raccoon trapped in a tree hollow by barking dogs. Yet there was no barking. Only silent darkness. Silence for hours.

In the morning Sam’s wife, Ry, sat in the central room crying. “They took them,” she wailed. “Took them both. They’ve taken six.”

Chhuon’s hands squeezed tight but hung by his side—meaty, ineffective mallets.

“All young.” Ry rocked back and forth. “Except Sam. But he’s strong. And Mama! Why would they take an old woman?”

Chhuon paced in sorrow, in grief, in anger. “Why?!” he growled through gritted teeth. “Why Sam? Why Moeun? And who? Who are they?” He brushed a hand through his hair. His body tensed, quaked in anger, in grief, in guilt for again not having fought but for having hidden, in guilt for not being taken, for not even knowing who did the taking, for being left to survive, again, survive now without his last consolation.

For months Phum Sath Din had been filling with known and unknown families and workers, each claiming to be, most being, peasants from outlying isolated farms seeking the security of the village, pushed and prodded from behind by military forces, for tactical military and political reasons they neither knew nor understood. Within days of Sam’s disappearance the influx blossomed, swelling the village to over a thousand inhabitants. Some families found vacant homes left by residents who had fled south or west months earlier. When all the houses were filled, the new families built makeshift abodes of bamboo, branches, thatch, built them without order about the old symmetrical quadrants of Phum Sath Din, built them touching one to the next, indeed the poorest built being lean-tos against the walls of the willing neighbor.

In the market Chhuon heard the voices of the new-people but he did not talk with them. Their words confused him, sapped him further of resolve. “When we’re finally liberated,” the voices repeated again and again, “everything will be better.”

Or, “The Royal troops attacked us, shelled our farm because we sell to the Viets. I hope they don’t attack here.” “Why should they attack here, Brother? We’re all Khmers.” “Why should they have attacked my farm?” “Don’t they attack only when the NVA is there? Attack to keep the yuons from destroying villages?” “It’s Royal troops that destroyed my village.” “The monk here, he says we should assist the Royals to save the country. I don’t trust him.” “Maha Nyanananda is a very holy man, but...he’s old. He’s not a military man.” “I’ll tell you this, I’m against the NVA and the Royals.”

Three weeks after Sam disappeared, Chhuon found an ally amongst the newcomers.

“Honored Professor Mister Cahuom,” a young man addressed Chhuon in the most formal fashion. “Maybe you remember me, Uncle. You assisted my father many times with seed and advice. Our farm’s been ruined and my mother killed.”

Chhuon looked into the young man’s face. He did not recognize him.

“Hang Tung.” The young man bowed. “We lived beyond Phum Sath Nan.”

“Your father then is Hang Hak?”

“Yes. He’s a year with the ancestors.”

“Why didn’t you seek shelter in Sath Nan? You’ve relatives there.”

“They’ve all gone. It’s a hard village now. Here the people are more compassionate.”

For a week Hang Tung cultivated Chhuon’s friendship. For a week he lamented to Chhuon about the rumors of pending Royal troop attack on Phum Sath Din. And for a week Chhuon assisted, advised and consoled his new friend who spoke about awakening the people to all threats. One evening Hang Tung said to Chhuon, “Tonight I’m going to set a trip wire and flare on the west approach to town. We’ll know by the light if Royal troops are going to storm through. Will you come with me?”

“I’ll come,” Chhuon answered. “But I place no value in this forecast.”

“Uncle.” Tung changed his tone.

“Um.”

“May I put my sleeping mat in your courtyard? I’m with a family of eleven. There’s so little room.”

“Of course, Tung. Stay in my house.”

That evening the young man and the old set out on the trail which led west from town to Phum Bung and then north to Phum Sath Nan. Hang Tung carried a dilapidated haversack over one shoulder. To Chhuon he seemed tense, nervous, his smile and talk forced. They walked slowly, carefully into the jungle. The path surface, hidden from the sun by the canopy, was damp here, wet there. “For all the troubles that have befallen us,” Chhuon explained quietly as he followed Tung, “this year’s rice looks to be the best ever.”

“Really Uncle? The newcomers have so little.”

“There’s so much to harvest and so few old families, my cousin and I had full granaries before half the paddies were cut.” Chhuon paused. It was becoming easier to mention Sam though the thought was still painful. “We’ll fill the vacant granaries with the surplus. And the pagoda’s small room. We can’t ship and sell as we used to.” Again he paused. “Perhaps we can share with the newcomers, eh?”

“You’re a good man, Uncle. Here, this is the spot.” Tung opened the haversack. From it he pulled not just tripwire and flares but two Chicom grenades.

“That’s not necessary,” Chhuon protested.

“No one’s supposed to be here at night, Uncle.”

“But what if a farmer is fleeing to our village?”

“No more farmers,” Hang Tung said curtly. “All the farms are ruined. Only Royal soldiers or Viets will come this way.”

“Tung! You said a flare. You...”

“Uncle Chhuon, when we return to your house I’ll tell you what I know about their plans. They destroyed my farm. Killed my mother. Surely you understand.”

At Chhuon’s house seven old family elders sat in the central room awaiting his return. Sok had served the men tea and rice cakes as they grumbled bitterly. Chhuon’s mother knelt before the family altar. She was crying loudly. Ry, Sam’s wife, knelt beside her, repeating the prayer for the dead. Peou waited on the steps. He wanted to be first to tell his father the important news.

Horizontal light from the rising moon filtered through the low branches of the orchard as Chhuon and Tung entered the courtyard. “Father! Father!” Peou jumped up, ran to Chhuon, hugged his leg. “Father, Mafia Nyanananda has been assassinated!”

The words hit Chhuon like a cloud of poison gas, surrounded him, enveloped him in a fog of disbelief. Peou repeated the words and others but Chhuon did not hear. Tung expressed appropriate grief for the community’s spiritual leader though his voice splashed on the viscous cloud about Chhuon without penetrating. Inside the elders addressed him, bombarded him with theories, badgered him with suggestions. For an hour nothing penetrated. A burning sensation steamed from his stomach to his chest and mouth. His knees grew sore. His back ached. Then he heard Hang Tung say, “Yes, my uncle will organize the village guards. Tonight he himself led me out the Phum Bung trail where he set both warning flares and booby traps. If every quadrant of the village blocked and monitored the incoming trails in their sections, no one could come without all knowing.”

“Cahuom Chhuon”—one old man smiled ironically—“you are an explosives expert now, eh?!”

“Not I...”

“Don’t be so humble, Uncle,” Tung interrupted. “Now’s not the time for modesty. Now we need a strong leader.”

“Then it is settled,” a second old gentleman said. “Mr. Chhuon will be chairman of the new guard.”

To the west, on the trail to Phum Bung and Phum Sath Nan, two blasts erupted. The sound rolled over the Cahuom household like the first thunder of an approaching monsoon season.

4 November—Nang sat atop Hill 982 with the NVA command post looking down upon the Special Forces camp at Bu Prang. For Nang, for the defenders of Bu Ntoll, for the remanned NVA 272d Regiment, revenge was near. For twelve days skirmishes and minor assaults had bloodied the hilltop defenders yet yielded nothing for either side except body counts. At midnight the final attack would begin.

From the peak of 982, Nang, Bok Roh, and a contingent of political cadre and artillery forward observers scanned the base through scopes and binoculars. They checked the scale maps produced earlier by reconnaissance teams. Every building, every radio antenna, every machine gun emplacement, the commo and headquarters bunkers, supply points for ammo and POL (petroleum, oil and lubricants), and the tiny airstrip were noted, targeted, preregistered on the big guns at Bu Ntoll and with the mortar and rocket units infiltrating to points closer to the base.

Earlier, at Ban Me Thuot, ARVN and U.S. intelligence reported four new NVA regiments, upwards of seven thousand troops, descending onto the Dar Lac and Mnong plateaus from Cambodian sanctuaries. Yet even with knowledge of the impending attack, U.S. and ARVN efforts to thwart it had been miserable. For months the NVA meticulously planned and prepared the attack. Within the deepest caves at Bu Ntoll sand-table models of the entire area had been constructed in minute detail. Units rehearsed their roles. The battlefield itself was methodically eight kilometers south of the base and to trails and groves seven and ten kilometers west and east. Covertly, bridges had been constructed four inches below water surfaces in order to conceal them from aerial reconnaissance, across rivers that were along advance, primary and alternate withdrawal routes. Caches of food, water, ammunition, weapons and medical supplies had been hidden at strategic points. Ambush sites had been prepared, deep bunkers constructed, camouflaged and interconnected by trenches, fields of fire cut, guides, trail watchers and “custodians” planted. Even the steep hillside approaches to the Special Forces camp at Bu Prang had had stairs dug into the narrow covered trails.

On 30 October the buried NVA guns of Bu Ntoll struck Bu Prang, Duc Lap and Firebases Kate, Annie and Susan which could offer the Special Forces base supporting fire. On the 31st, thirty B-52s bombed the forested valleys northeast of Bu Prang. The American contingent on the hilltop consisted of only twelve advisors and a four-man Studies and Observation Group (SOG). Indigenous Mountaineers made up the bulk of personnel, four hundred Mnong with the advisors and 150 Stieng tribesmen with the SOG. SOG teams had reported the new enemy regiments and the construction of ambush sites and rocket launch pads; indeed, Allied intelligence knew essentially the entire NVA battle plan. Yet both ARVN and U.S. commands responded minimally. The ARVN 23d Infantry Division moved only a two-company potential relief force to Nhon Co, twenty-four kilometers south of Bu Prang. The U.S. command reinforced the Mountaineer howitzer battery with six cannons from the U.S. 1st Battalion, 92d Artillery. As proof of the success of Viet Namization, no American infantry or armored units were brought up.

Dusk settled on the border mountain. From the peak of Hill 982 Nang took last note of the camp’s preparations. He thought of the report he would send to Met Sar. Barbed wire barriers have been restrung and tightened, he imagined writing. Foot traps and mines were laid along obvious approaches. Huge stocks of food, water and artillery rounds have been delivered and stored in open pits or in bunkers.

On 1 November, Firebases Annie and Susan had been abandoned after four thousand rounds of NVA heavy mortar, rocket and howitzer fire rendered them undefendable. More supplies had been brought to Bu Prang.

Every structure on Firebase Kate, seven kilometers south of Bu Prang, had been leveled by 1500 hours on the 1st yet the defenders had fought on. At 1530 hours the NVA artillery units in Cambodia switched to air-burst shells, raining steel shards into the foxholes. American and Mountaineer defenders tightened the perimeter. Two of their five howitzers were destroyed. All that night the NVA guns from Cambodia continued firing, blasting the small hilltop. On 2 November the Allied commands refused reinforcements. Two more howitzers were destroyed.

On Hill 982 Nang had heard Major Bui lament to Bok Roh, “Why don’t they take the bait? Why?”

“What bait?” Nang had asked aside.

“We’re the bait,” Bok had explained. “We must entice the Americans and their lackeys from the lowlands to the border camps. With their troops in the mountains, we’ll slip through the valleys and attack the pacification centers in the lowlands. We’ll make the cities bleed.”

“I want to join them,” Nang had said.

“We’ll see.” Bok had laughed at the boy. “With those artillery bases destroyed, Bu Prang is vulnerable.”

“What of the bombers?”

“They’ll be needed elsewhere,” Bok had said. “Elsewhere.”

Early evening, 3 November, the NVA had offered the defenders of Firebase Kate a break. The surviving American advisors and Mountaineers pounced. Racing from bunker to bunker the officers and NCOs had quickly organized a withdrawal. Under cover of darkness the soldiers spiked the only working howitzer with a thermite grenade then crawled through the concertina wire and raced down the steep slope toward Bu Prang. Twenty seconds behind them, a regiment of NVA soldiers had swarmed the hill. The entire NVA force now was free to concentrate its destruction on the Bu Prang Special Forces camp.

Midnight arrived. The main assault was delayed. Around Bu Prang tunnels, trenches and bunkers were extended toward the camp. As planned, most of the B-52s were diverted elsewhere. Fifteen hours earlier, timed to coincide with Richard Nixon’s television speech half the world away, NVA and VC units had shelled forty-five Allied bases and towns and attacked eight more outposts along the border and the coast.

At Firebase Ike, twenty-six kilometers northeast of Tay Ninh, in a two-hour pitched battle, U.S. helicopters killed forty-eight soldiers of the Viet Cong 9th Division; all but two were Northern replacements. At Firebase Ellen, southwest of Song Be, an element of the Dong Nai Regiment wounded sixteen Americans. Five kilometers away, at Firebase Burton, Dong Nai and NVA 88th Regiment troops breeched the wire and minefields but withdrew under immense firepower, leaving fifty-five bodies. Finally, at 0120 hours on 5 November, heavy shelling of Bu Prang began.

Vathana retched. She covered her mouth, forced the vomit back. She paused, leaned against the wall of her apartment building looking up at seemingly swaying concrete and glass. She panted. The pain eased momentarily. I should have stayed at the pagoda, she thought. I must get home.

Ever since the incidents with the border children and the dead boy on her barge she had spent an hour each morning at the wat in prayer. Even as she’d left the apartment for the quarter-mile walk she’d felt ill, but nothing compared with this horrible, nausea-producing cramping pain—at once constant and throbbing. She breathed slightly deeper. Her vision cleared. She stepped through the main door into the small courtyard and toward the stairs. Again she paused. The proximity of her apartment pulled her. The stairs looked formidable. She grasped the railing, forced back another heaving. Again her vision blurred, her hearing dulled as if her ears were stuffed down deep with wet clay, her sense of balance waned, she swayed, gripped the railing more tightly.

I must get there, she told herself. Must. Must. Up a step. Must. She squeezed the railing until her knuckles whitened. Someone come by and help me, she thought. Why, of all times, are the stairs empty? Up. Up. Must. Labor isn’t like this, she thought. This is too early. Three more weeks. Mother was never so sick. Aunt Voen never said she was sick. Up. Must. Up. At her crotch she could feel warm liquid, a trickle. She squeezed her thighs together but her expanded pelvis held them so far apart the squeeze was useless. On the last flight the trickle reached her ankles. Up. Must. Only a little more. I have calls to make. Three more weeks. Oh, just one more week. The shelter. The barge. Mister Pech. The new oil tanks. Vathana lifted her skirt to see the fluid, the water. Her ankle was bright red. Blood oozed to the top of her foot. The sight shocked her. The pain surged. She vomited, the effluent gushing with such force its spatter splashed back from the few stairs yet to be ascended, splashed over her feet, against her skirt, blouse and shawl, tiny globs hitting her cheeks. The sight and smell disgusted her but much more was the fear. What’s happening? I’ve been so careful. Not a thing have I stitched shut. Not a doorway have I lingered in. What’s happening to me? What’s happening to my baby?

“Teck.” Vathana’s voice was weak. Her foot smeared blood on the floor as she wobbled toward the bedroom. “Teck,” she called. Her husband was still in bed. “Teck,” she panted. “Wake up.” Her voice was shallow, hollow, fearful. “Please wake up.” She shook him. The agitation set off a burst of pain stabbing outward from her abdomen, reaching her entire body, splitting her face, forehead. Teck lay like a corpse, cool like a corpse. “Teck!” Vathana forced a wail. Still he didn’t respond. “I need you,” she whimpered. Tears flooded her eyes. “Why? Why do you do this? I need you.”

She began to sit. How easy to let herself fall, let her knees fold, to collapse beside her husband in his deep heroin-slumber. She straightened. The pain throughout her abdomen was as if a vise were gripping her, the screw closing down with constant increasing pressure. She vomited again, dry bile phlegm. Her long black hair stuck in slithering coils to her sweat-wet face like snakes of the Gorgon Medusa. Again she tried to wake Teck. Still he slumbered. The hemorrhaging flow increased as the placenta, in partial previa, split.

In adversity, in sorrow, in the presence of greed, corruption and evil, in the wake of the killing of the bandit boy by her barge crew and the turning out of the border children by Teck, Vathana had become more Buddhist, more giving, more concerned. With it came more business success, more business, more social responsibilities. Throughout the summer and fall there had been a steady trickle of refugees from the Northeast and border areas seeping into Neak Luong. Most had moved in with relatives, unnoticed, without social burden to the community or the government. Yet an increasing number arrived without money, without food, without shelter, without destination. They slept in parks, along byways, on riverfront piers. They ate by begging. In her fifth month of pregnancy Vathana, her skills sharpened through business, organized through the monks an assistance shelter supported by half a dozen local businessmen, staffed by a dozen volunteer women from apartments and homes. In two months the program had expanded to include a small house for orphans. Each day Vathana split her time between prayer, business and volunteer work. Each evening she remained alone as Teck went to dance halls or to share a pipe with his friends.

Vathana stared at the photo album. Teck was beyond waking. She concentrated on the album’s cover as the pain overwhelmed her body. Her face felt swollen, her eyes forced to squint through puffed skin slits. She had made the call. Help would come. Now she could let go, let what would happen happen. Her eyes pushed closed. The album faded to a negative retinal image, then to nothing. Her hand groped, found the Buddha statuette at her throat.

Vathana woke with a needle and red tube in each arm. The pain had subsided. Her head was clogged. About her dozens of people were attending patients on steel beds in the cold clinic ward. Teck’s face hung over her, looked down at her, seemingly suspended from the ceiling or floating in air. She closed her eyes.

She opened them again. One arm was plumbed with clear tubing. Teck had vanished. “Welcome back, Angel,” a stout border woman whispered in French. Vathana could see tears in the woman’s eyes but she didn’t know why she was crying or who she was. “You’ve crossed the great ocean alone,” the woman whispered. “You have a son. The grandfather has called him Pech Samnang.”

“They were both Royal soldiers,” Tung said to Chhuon. Chhuon sat on the ground. His legs were spread. He leaned forward and beat the ground rhythmically with his fists. Tears of despair seeped from his eyes. Do not kill the living creatures, he thought. Do not kill. Do not kill. It was a basic tenet of his Buddhist morality, of his righteousness. Through all the struggles he had been able to maintain his integrity, his inner purity. Perhaps he had transgressed on occasion but never had he killed a living thing. Never had he killed a human.

“Uncle, I think they were an assassination team. They would have killed another village leader had they not walked into your trap.”

Chhuon continued to pound the earth with his fist. To him they could have been devils and the words would have made no difference.

“Blood for blood, Uncle,” Tung said. “Blood for blood. Your own words.”

Chhuon rocked farther forward. Had they been yuon, he thought, then it would have been just. “But,” he cried, “they were Khmer boys.”

“Just like those who killed my mother,” Tung said bitterly. “Perhaps like those who killed the monk.”

“We don’t know who killed the monk.”

“Uncle, I’m certain it was Royal treachery. It’s Prince Sihanouk’s wish to punish the Northeast.”

“I can’t believe it.”

“It makes no difference, Uncle. In the eyes of the Royal army you now are a criminal. You can no longer stay in the village unless the village defends itself from the Prince’s troops.”

Nang carried ammunition for Bok Roh. The giant carried an assault rifle and a lightened pack. They moved quickly through tangled vegetation, off Hill 982, into the jungle to join troops poised for the attack. They crossed defoliated swaths, moved down onto narrow paths marked with short white stakes, down toward the river. They paused to rest with a three-man cell of infantry troops from the NVA 272d Regiment. From every direction, unseen in the night, cells moved forward, merged to form fire-teams, combined to form squads, converged to form platoons, rivers of men surging toward final staging, five thousand Communist troops coordinated for the clockwork attack, waiting for the signal.

The NVA plan was simple. The 32d Regiment would launch a broad frontal attack from the east, over Bu Prang’s airstrip and POL storage points, attempting to pull in as many defenders as possible. Then the 165th Regiment would assault the southwest perimeter. Finally, when the defenders were bogged down, pinned down or dead, the 272d would concentrate a pinpoint force against the north berm, would blow through the wire and overrun the hill. From Bu Ntoll the 66th Regiment’s heavy artillery would soften up the foe, and its 82mm mortar teams, dug in and supplied at five points about the camp, would support the infantry. The 40th Artillery Regiment with 120mm mortars could move to reinforce the 66th or deliver knockout blows. Support units included a company of elite dac cong, combat engineers or sappers, plus command and control posts, communication and transportation companies, and the ever-present custodian-guides. In reserve were the 24th and 174th Infantry Regiments.

Nang was shocked, frightened. Even with his exceptional training he had never seen a unit as well concealed and camouflaged as the new 272d. Had the guides not known their positions, Nang would have walked through without sensing their presence. The surprise infuriated him. How? he asked, how did I let them do this to me?

Heavy crashes, NVA shell explosions on Bu Prang, reverberated and shook the cool night air. To Nang the sound was beautiful, exciting. The tempo picked up. Nang’s shock gave way to an anxious itch to experience the death of the hated Americans. Bok had encouraged him to remain at the observation post on Hill 982 but Nang had insisted and Bok had agreed he could accompany him to the giua binh tram, the midjungle post. With each kilometer Nang had expanded, until he no longer resembled the boy, the pet, the aide, but now appeared strong, hard, a midteen athlete-soldier.

An immense concussion rocked the camp on Bu Prang. Volcanic flames shot skyward, lighting the base and surrounding ridges. A 130mm shell had scored a hit, the POL dump exploded. Flames silhouetted bunkers and howitzers then swallowed themselves in billowing black clouds. Outgoing fire from Bu Prang shrieked.

Bok squeezed Nang’s shoulder to indicate his joy. The shoulder was thick, hard, like a pick-and-shovelman’s. Bok dropped his hand. Before thought could form, the sound of the 155mm battery at Duc Lap pulled his attention to what seemed coordinated salvos sent into Cambodia. The Bu Prang batteries, too, came to full life firing preset defensive targets far beyond the concealed regiments creeping toward their perimeter. Again and again and again for two hours Communist heavy guns scored, their projectile trajectories adjusted from Hill 982—walking the airstrip, the perimeter, trying to knock out Bu Prang’s defenses.

The wap of helicopter rotors sounded above the valleys and over the peaks. “Wounded,” Bok whispered. “They’re for wounded.”

Beside Nang a soldier raised his AK-47 as escort helicopters approached low, circling the camp below shell trajectories. Nang grabbed the man’s wrist. “Don’t fire,” he whispered. “Only when they land.” Bok overheard him and wondered who had taught him that.

Nang fidgeted, anxious for the infantry charges. Bok urged patience. The 32d, in place, surged up under a five-point 400-round mortar barrage. Six hundred Communist soldiers assaulted, their weapons blazing as they hit the edge of the airstrip. From the camp’s perimeter hand flares streaked red like Fourth of July skyrockets. Fire from a hundred positions felled a hundred attackers. Mortar-launched flares popped high, hung, hissed, cast their eerie flat light over the hill.

In the chasm where Nang’s heart pounded the light was diffuse, a glint, the shadowed outline of a face. The bark buzzing of automatic weapons was accented with sharp reports from howitzer outgoing and thick crunching explosions of incoming. Above it all, more helicopter noise, then in it, diving unseen in black sky, pulsating birds spewing red-snake streams onto the airstrip, loosing rockets, exploding not loud but whiter-flamed, throatier concussions than howitzer rounds.

Another immense continuous explosion, incoming detonating one of six ammo dumps within the compound. Bok clapped his hands quietly, recognizing the unmistakable chaotic concussive pattern. The fighting continued, the 165th struck from the west. Cannoneers of the U.S 1st of the 92d lowered their barrels and shot beehive rounds, 8,500 flachettes, nail-size arrows, the ultimate grapeshot, point-blank into the advancing wave of NVA bodies crashing against the wire.

Nang rose. It was time. It had to be time. Bok pulled him down. Helicopters swarmed and dove west, east. “Not yet.” “Now?” “No.” “Now?” “Soon.”

The fighting waned, the sounds of rifle reports puttered to a trickle. The mortar barrage ceased. Outgoing fire from Bu Prang slowed. Choppers went off-station, to refuel, rearm. New birds arrived. Evacuation. Sporadic fire linked on thin aluminum skins. Rhythmically, like waves crashing against a jetty, the battle established its own tempo. From east, west, attack, repulse, withdraw, regroup, attack, repulse, withdraw, regroup, attack, penetrate, entangle in the wires, die, kill, repulse, withdraw, regroup.

Heavy crashing footfalls smashed wildly before their concealment. Nang hefted Bok Roh’s pistol. Bok signaled him to hold: Americans don’t pursue at night. Nang understood without a word passing. Heavy frantic panting paused on the trail only feet away. Nang sprung, cat silent, hit the soldier, clamped his hands over nose and mouth, jabbed kidneys with his knees, dropped the soldier, breaking the fall, only dull thumps being made. Nang dragged the wide-eyed troop into their vegetation pocket. The man tried to speak. His back, sides ached; his lungs demanded all breathing effort.

Nang settled beside him. Bok hovered over both. In one hand he held a huge machete. In their three months, Nang had never seen it unsheathed. The cell of the 272d squeezed in. “I...I...” the young soldier tried. Nang rubbed the heel of his hand down the soldier’s back, over the kidneys he’d kneed, pushing the pain away, out. From the corner of his eye, he watched Bok.

“Your unit,” Bok said.

“32d...”

“You’re not wounded?”

“They’re Viet Namese...” the soldier panted. Nang studied him in the dark. He was young, not as young as Nang, in his twenties like most of the NVA troops Nang had seen. Perhaps eighteen. “They’re Viet Namese,” the soldier said again. “They’re not Americans.”

“Who?” Nang asked. He quietly slid the boy’s rifle from him and laid it on his own lap. It felt new. Nang ran his hand up the barrel to the flash suppressor. He forced his smallest finger into the bore. The cool metal felt sticky, packing-grease sticky.

“Who!” the soldier blurted. “Them. On the hill. The ones we...My friends Toai and...he killed. He was killed by a Viet Namese.”

Bok touched Nang’s shoulder. Nang snapped, startled, froze. Bok tapped him to step aside. “He’s new,” Bok said. He’d resheathed the machete. “Brand-new. They don’t tell them at the training centers there are Southern lackeys.”

“Who does he think—?”

“Only Americans. They tell them only Americans are the enemy.”

Nang returned to the soldier. The revelation of incompetence delighted him. What intelligence, he thought. They’re ignorant, he thought. Weak. Nothing. Met Sar will be impressed. We won’t make that mistake.

The soldiers of the 272d were talking quietly to the boy from the 32d. “You haven’t fired your rifle,” Nang interjected.

The others hushed. “I...Toai was hit on our first charge. I tried to carry him...”

“Into battle.” Nang completed the sentence, turning it into accusation.

“He couldn’t fight. I was going to the withdrawal path—”

“Before the signal to regroup?”

Bok tapped Nang. His aide’s questions puzzled him. They were appropriate, should be asked during the kiem thao, the criticism session which would follow the battle. Only, Bok thought, how has Khat Doh learned this? How does he know what to ask? “He’s disoriented,” Bok whispered. “Let his cadre ask him.”

Nang again focused on the boy. “I expected,” the soldier was saying to the others, “to live in a barracks outside Saigon or Pleiku. Why are we in caves? We were told everyplace was liberated except the large cities.”

It is time, Nang laughed to himself, time for Met Nang’s return.

At 0430 hours Nang’s unit crept, undetected, to the edge of the concealing vegetation. Before them were two dac cong weapons squads equipped with B-40 rockets and thirty feet of four-inch explosive-packed bamboo—a bangalore torpedo—to blow a passage through the wire, plus a dozen captured American LAWs (light antitank weapons). Behind them were three squads, each with the set task of taking out one of the three defending machine gun emplacements in their attack sector. Farther back was an entire company, 160 soldiers ready to charge through the hole to the center of camp. East and west attacks were in full renewed surge.

Nang crouched. Moved forward. Bok reached for the boy, missed, followed him. Nang moved smooth silent, a snake; froze, darted, a spider. Bok grabbed him. They were between the weapons squads. Back, Bok signaled. Forward, Nang motioned. He turned from his mentor, skittered by two RPG carriers. Others moved up, split to six clustered points, three for the machine guns, two between, weapons in a natural gully leading to the wire. Bok crept. Before him he could see defenders abandoning their posts to reinforce east or west, double-teaming attackers, leaving the north sector undermanned. Forward. Nang slipped in with the torpedo squad. He wanted to see how the torpedo was laid. His heart raced. Silhouetted by flare light every hilltop position was visible, running defenders were easy targets. He hefted the assault rifle he’d taken from the soldier of the 32d. Don’t fire, he ordered himself. Don’t fire. Conquer haste. Wait! Wait for the order: Charge! Go! Attack! A signal passed. The torpedo squad eased from concealment, blackened faces, camouflaged backs, burlap-wrapped tube. Nang prone, with the others, inched over defoliated earth, his nose on the heels of the man before him. Bok stretched out, grabbed Nang’s foot. Kick. Loose. Turn. Signal, join me. Bok emerged. His sated enthusiasm for battle growing hungry, stimulated by Nang’s verve, nerve. He crawled to Nang, past.

Nang grits his teeth.

Slow motion bushes, unseen, undetected by defenders, advance to the outer wire. Nang feels for mines, creeps, a pro, a vet. Bok flash-thinks, He learns too fast, knows too much. Who are you?

Red-star cluster to the right. Machine gun attackers detected.

Explosions. Full frontal blast of two claymore mines blow apart faces, bodies of half the squad. “Up! Up! Go!” Screams, orders left and right. More flares. Full charge. Five fire-spewing points focusing on the defenders. “Charge! Attack!” Answering fire. RPGs, LAWs explode at each machine gun emplacement. Two defender guns continue constant red-tracer lead streams. Two attack squads concentrate on bunkers. Between, hilltop riflemen spray rapid bursts, duck, spray, duck, reload. The noise is tremendous, nearness making it louder than five-hundred-pounders at half a klick. Claymore mines, tripwired and command detonated, explode sporadically as 272d troops lunge into the wire. Nang pushes a torpedo section. The dac cong are yet undetected, inching forward, hugging gravel clay hillside as riflemen squads attack. Inching faster, inchworming, knees to chest, reach, the tube end is through the first strands, through the rolls and tanglefoot. New helicopters on station. About Nang the squad attaches the second section, then the third. Nang is amazed at the defenders, at their tenacity, at their firepower, at their stupidity backlighting themselves with flare light. Mortar and 105mm rounds seeking attacker columns explode against the hillside. The NVA tighten in east, north, west, hugging the defenders, making it difficult or impossible for big guns or helicopters to identify clear targets in the flare-lit dark.

The fifth section clamps on, the torpedo is jammed forward. False dawn lightens the firmament. The dac cong begin their slow withdrawal, checking blasting-cap wire. Nang hesitates. He forces himself into the wire. Barbs scratch bloody furrows into his back. He shoves the tube a foot deeper where it reaches a third set of wire. Then he too withdraws. Firing tapers at each side. Nang shrinks back. In the gully wounded moan. Nang clamps his jaw, tries to shut out the noise. Word passes, a night relief column from Nhon Co, two mechanized companies from the 23d ARVN, has been ambushed, has withdrawn. Nang rolls to his back, gulps air. He is suddenly tired. About him additional hundreds of troops are surging, called up because the command sees a major victory in the making. He rolls back. New enemy howitzer and mortar barrages rain shrapnel on the north slope. “Attack!” Orders are barked. The torpedo is blown. A white flame expands as if parting a sea. Nang lurches. Falls. A mortar round explodes before him. Another to his side. He clings to the hill. His body refusing to obey mental orders to attack. He lurches, falls. Is swept by disgust as others race past. He has killed. He has enjoyed killing. He has escaped being killed. In his inner core he is a yothea of Angkar Leou, a disciple of Met Sar. Yet he has never fought a battle where the opponent is armed and fights back. His scuffles have been short. He is not looking for a fight, only for victory, only for defeated foes. It is one thing to lure, play, torture a weak victim, but with a strong enemy, the kill must be quick to reduce his exposure. Nang the boy, Khat Doh the pet, takes pride in the underdog role. It has never occurred to him that an opponent might be his equal, his superior. Again he lurches, trips over three dead, falls face-to-face with a man with no face. Up again, running forward, crazy, behind an entire company, into the gully, the alleyway through the parted wire. Defenders fire recoilless rifle flachette rounds into the trench. Scores fall. Rise up or are picked up, carried forward, wounded and able all firing. Nang cannot move. He is at the wire on his knees staring into the tempest flash-lit by explosions, flat-lit by flares. Silhouettes sprint, engage, fall. Hand-to-hand fighting. One shadow stands huge. In its hand a huge machete swirls. Defenders rush. The blade flies, decapitates.

Nang stands. His eyes widen. He steps forward as if there were nothing but he and the giant and the machete. “You mothafucka,” a defender screams as he leaps at Bek, swings a shovel. The giant grabs it in midflight with his left hand. The GI freezes. Bok swings his right. The machete tip splits the man’s face an inch deep. He falls, rolls. Bok raises the blade, begins his downward arc. Then Bok is upended. A Stieng tribesman’s bullet shatters his calf. Nang fires. The defender crumples.

Suddenly, behind them, beyond them, the earth shivers, quakes. Nang can feel, cannot hear, the rumbling vibration below the maelstrom swirling in his visual plane. Again he fires. He runs toward Bok Roh. The first of twelve B-52s loaded for a “Menu” target has been diverted in late course. The day is dawning gray under thin clouds. On the yet dark earth surface eleven more long hells of 750-pound bombs fire-blast tangential swaths across the hills, jolting attackers. Then Hill 982 blows, a volcano peak erupting blasting outward, imploding, rubble collapsing tunnel complexes, command nerve center obliterated. Low lingering black haze from the petroleum fires darken the windward. Acrid bomb smoke-clouds coat Bu Prang. Hasty orders.

Disengage! Police up! Withdraw! Disperse!

With Bok Roh wounded, Nang had several alternatives. He had pulled, carried, helped the big man during the first frantic moments of withdrawal—a falling plunge down two hundred meters of mountainside into a small, hidden jungle pocket. Now he could call for the transportation unit porters who were assigned the job of policing the battlefield for wounded before final withdrawal, or he could assist Bok himself. The wounds were serious yet the man, with assistance, was ambulatory. Nang gave his “uncle” his hand, helped him to sit up. Quickly he removed his bayonet and split the side of Bok’s trousers, exposing the shredded calf.

“Loosen the tourniquet,” he whispered. Bok complied. Blood spurted from the descending artery. Immediately Bok tightened the cord at his upper thigh. “No!” Nang ordered. “No. Loosen it. It must bleed more to keep healthy.” Again Bok complied. Again the spurt. Bok wheezed. His left hand was broken, swelling. His mouth hung haggard. The sprint fall through jungle away from Bu Prang, the blood loss, sapped him. His chest felt empty. To him his eyes seemed on the verge of caving in, falling behind his cheekbones. He could barely think. About them the battlefield was deserted except for the last of the dead, porters removing the dead, and rearguard snipers.

From their cover they watched a porter slip an ankle thong over dead shattered feet and drag the body away. The battle smoke had dissipated, the sky lightened further. American and ARVN soldiers were preparing a counterattack. NVA mortars sailed over them and exploded at the edge of Bu Prang.

“Do it later,” Bok moaned. His voice was weak. “We must go. Get me to the porters.”

“Relax,” Nang said. “They know we’re here. You’ll be taken next.”

“They’re taking the dead,” Bok hissed. “I should go first.”

“Lie back,” Nang whispered. “They’re coming.” Nang flicked the blade of his bayonet into Bok’s wound. Bok collapsed, his body jerked. His breath came hard, quick, shallow. Nang stabbed the bone with the bayonet tip.

“AaaAh!” Bok screamed involuntarily. He clamped his mouth and controlled it. Above, leaves lay listless in still air. Bok focused on one clump, on one leaf, on one vein in the leaf. Nang stabbed the bone again. Bok’s leg jolted but he did not scream. Sweat broke out in tiny beads on his face. “What are you doing? Where are the porters? Water.”

“I’m afraid this is a very bad wound,” Nang said. “I want to dig out the poison.” He stabbed the bone again then laughed as Bok squirmed, moaned.

“Khat Doh!” Bok’s voice was weak.

“Do you remember the village of Plei Srepok?” Nang asked in Viet Namese. Bok strained, raised his head. He stared at the boy. “That was my village. You tortured Y Ksar. Don’t you remember? You killed my brother, Y Bhur.” As he spoke he scraped the blade up the tibia wracking Bok with pain. “Don’t you recall?” Nang asked calmly in Khmer. “Remember?” he said in French. Nang jabbed the bayonet into Bok’s other calf.

Bok, screaming, rose to sit. To him Nang’s words were unintelligible, meaningless. “Khat Doh...” Bok coughed.

Nang smiled. “I was Samnang,” he said. “Once I was Samnang.”

Then Nang leaped upon Bok’s chest knocking his head back. Bok cussed. His hands shot for Nang’s face. His right grabbed. Nang slashed it with his bayonet. The hand opened. The arm fell. Smirk faced, Nang thrust the blade into Bok’s mouth slicing tongue muscles, epiglottis, soft palate, piercing the trachea and esophagus. He withdrew the blade, slowly dragging the sharp edge hard across the lower incisor until the tooth split. Blood burst from Bok’s mouth. He rolled coughing, hanging his head, trying to breathe. Nang backed off, sat. Bok pulled himself to his knees, a dying buffalo, blood dribbling from his chin, unable to make a sound, blood spurting from his calf. He planted his broken fists on the earth, reared his shoulders, raised his one good leg as if to sprint-start. Deftly Nang stood, stood not as a frightened soldier facing an enemy’s guns of an hour earlier, nor as the eight- or ten-year-old boy Bok had grown to love in three months, but as Met Nang of Angkar Leou, his entire being expanding, crystallizing into harsh angular force-lines, fluid and solid.

Bok leaped, dove with his massive bulk ready to crash, ready to crush the wasp which had stung him. Nang sidestepped, jump-kicked, smashing Bok’s ribs with his heel, the huge body crumpling to earth like a great bag of sand, lying, writhing, retching.

Nang rolled Bok over. Bok’s eyes clouded behind wet surfaces. His abdomen constricted as his body attempted to suck air through the blood-vomit-clogged airway. Nang removed an ankle-thong from his pack, dangled it over Bok’s eyes, smiled a beaming, pleasant, impish smile at his mentor. “Don’t you remember?” Nang clucked in Jarai. “For political reasons.”

Fighting about Bu Prang continued for six days with much of the action being two miles south of the camp where four hundred troops of the ARVN Mobile Strike Force fought to stalemate nine hundred entrenched Northerners.

A two-day artillery duel erupted between Bu Ntoll, Duc Lap and Bu Prang, culminating with the first U.S. Air Force fighter bomber strikes against the NVA complex in Cambodia.

Khat Doh, “seeking revenge” for his uncle, Bok Roh, took part in much of the early November fighting. On the 15th, six days after his thirteenth birthday, he was honored for heroic actions against imperialist forces. Major Bui personally congratulated Nang for destroying two armored personnel carriers and for killing one tank crewman escaping a disabled vehicle through the bottom emergency hatch. The honors were bittersweet. Medical section leader Thi, perhaps the only Viet Namese Nang had ever liked, along with six patients, was killed when a 250-pound bomb exploded and caved in the infirmary. That night Khat Doh disappeared.

On 31 December 1969 Met Nang, a.k.a. Khat Doh and Cahuom Samnang, reported, amongst many details, to his Krahom general, Met Sar: “Without our victory the North Viet Namese cannot win.”