The Village (12 page)

At the front of the fort, Theilepape ducked into the low bunker containing the Americans' only radio and machine gun. He called PF Hill to make sure the radio was working, then leaned back against the sandbags and looked out across the stake-studded moat through the slatted bamboo fence into the wet, flat black. The beaters at the outer gate were tapping the all-clear signal, the beat being picked up and repeated at other posts throughout the hamlet, the sounds reaching Theilepape like distant echoes, as familiar and reassuring to him as bell buoys to a ship's pilot.

What Theilepape did not know was that the Viet Cong were directing the beat. They had come across from Thuong Hoa village, deep in the Phu Longs, where they had rehearsed and planned the attack for two weeks. Nguyen Son, the quick-tempered leader of the local forces in the Phu Longs, had been reinforced for the attack by the 5th Company of the 409th NVA Battalion. Son had eighty men; the North Vietnamese added sixty more. At the fort, there were six Americans and twelve PFs.

Guided by the hamlet guerrillas from the My Hués and the Binh Yen Nois, the long enemy column crossed the river in a series of sampans, drifting below the village before paddling ashore and wading through the swamps and saw grass south of the fort, thus avoiding the usual river crossings to the north opposite the My Hués, where Faircloth and the others lay in fruitless wait. They came up to the small stream in front of the fort where Lummis had once set in and veered west, passing directly beneath PF Hill, knowing no combined patrol would set an ambush just outside the wire of their neighbor's outpost. Once in the paddies in front of the fort, the unit split up.

The main body moved east in the paddies parallel with the road running from PF Hill to the fort while the special platoon of NVA commando sappers and volunteers from the P31st struck due north, entering the Binh Yen Noi treeline several hundreds of yards to the west of the fort. They picked up a side trail and in single file bore down on the rear of the fort, the guides well out in front, hoping they would not bump into a PF patrol as they had the previous night. If they did, their orders this time were to stand and fight and perhaps distract those guarding the fort so that the main body could breach the front defenses. But that was only the alternate plan. Ideally, the sappers would already be in the fort when the main body assaulted.

The sappers flowed through the hamlet as silent as death, a long line of barefoot men dressed in black shorts and black T-shirts slipping along a mud path in the rain and in the dark. Silent but seen, thirty men in a column snaked through a labyrinth of tight houses from which patches of light fell, in the doorways of which men stood to urinate, from the windows of which children not yet tired peeked out at the raindrops. Behind the sappers lights winked out as the whisper passed from wall to wall and the farmers or the mothers gathered their families, lit their candles, took their thin blankets and climbed down into their deep, solid bunkers.

And the PFs who were supposed to be on patrol in the hamlet saw or were told about the enemy but hid in their separate bedrooms or by the cozy hearths and, when the moment of immediate danger had passed, fled to the bunkers. Frightened and alone, each man, not knowing what to do, did nothing and left it up to somebody else to do something. No man tried a mad dash through the mud to the fort. The risks three or four PFs might have taken together not one would run singly. They were the witnesses who did not want to get involved. That night the hamlet held no heroes.

With fear granting them immunity from exposure, the sappers sneaked into the backyard of the house directly behind the fort and crawled forward. In North Vietnam the men from the 5th Sapper Company had received training for five months in the silent penetration of heavy defenses, and for them the perimeter of Fort Page was about as difficult as would be a two-dollar lock to a master burglar. The single strand of coiled barbed wire was parted and tied back with strips of bamboo, one coil against another, eliminating the need for wire cutters and for the distinctive snap-twang sound of severed steel. Then they were at the shallow, stagnant moat, looking at the thousands of sharp punji stakes which had so impressed Marine inspection parties. The stakes might have discouraged a charging water buffalo, but against men they were useless unless covered by an alert man with a rifle. No one shot at the sappers as they plucked out the stakes with little more effort than is needed to pick flowers.

With them they had carried three boards, one of which they placed down the outer side of the moat, another across the water and the third against the inner side. They paused to put on their sneakers, which they had tied together by the shoelaces and looped around their necks, then climbed up the inner board, which reached within five feet of the back door to Sullivan's room. While some spread out along the sandbagged trench in the rear of the adobe building, most crawled to the right along the trench line to get closer to the Marines' tent, which stood catty-cornered to the building. They were ready. They waited for the signal to attack.

Outside, the main body with the heavy breaching weapons had had no difficulty sneaking up to the beaters at the outer gate and convincing them to continue with the all-clear signal while they set their rocket launchers and rifle grenade crews in position along the ditch to fire at the machine-gun bunker. Behind the heavy weapons a two-platoon assault party crouched, near enough to the fort to see the narrow trail across the moat, knowing that it was blocked by a barbed-wire gate and covered by the machine gun. Once the gun was knocked out either by the sappers inside the fort or by the heavy weapons outside, the assault platoons would rush the gate.

Inside the fort, Theilepape had snuggled deep into the comfortable sandbags, his poncho wrapped tightly about him, his back to the courtyard. Boots, a small, black mongrel with white legs, waddled over to be petted. Sullivan had found her as a starving, trembling pup, and she had grown plump and playful with the overattention of the Marines. Glad of the company, Theilepape picked her up and sat stroking her softly.

As he relaxed, death stalked him. The enemy's first attempt to kill him came at one in the morning in a fusillade lade of rifle grenades and a roar of rockets which ripped through the flimsy fence and slammed against the mud bank of the moat, the concussions jarring him but the misses wide enough of their mark to leave him uninjured. Unthinking, acting only from instinct, Theilepape reached forward and pulled back on the machine gun's trigger, loosing a stream of bullets from the gun, which was well seated in the sandbags. He could see the flashes of weapons less than one hundred yards in front of him and presumed the enemy was firing from the ditch along the main trail. So using the gun's red tracers as a gauge, he laid a sheet of fire along the road, pivoting the weapon back and forth on its tripod like a man trying to water the edge of his lawn with a hose that won't quite reach. Theilepape loosed six hundred bullets in a thirty-second burst which forced the rocket firers to go flat in the ditch and wait for a better opportunity.

Following his long initial burst Theilepape was dimly aware of explosions in the courtyard behind him. He thought they were from mortars or possibly more rifle grenades sailing over his head. Then he heard a shout in English and turned to see the squad tent pitching under the impact of grenades. Figures were dashing to and fro. The enemy were in the fort. As Theilepape watched, a corner of the tent burst into flames and he could see the Marines tumbling out. He started to go to them, then stopped, knowing he should not leave the radio and machine gun. Uncertain what to do, he whirled and peered desperately at the dark paddies to his front, momentarily panicking that he might see a screaming horde charging the main gate. Seeing instead nothing, he jerked the machine gun from its tripod and pivoted around to face the courtyard, hoping somehow to help his comrades in their confused fight. But too many figures were darting too quickly in too many directions in the poor light for him to start shooting a machine gun madly, so he became the agonized witness to the fate of his friends.

Fielder. Steady, quiet Paul Fielder pushed the others out of the tent ahead of him and then followed, pausing in the doorway to fire back into the tent, turning, starting to take a step, behind him the tent unfolding and flapping upward like a small rug being shaken out, the force and the shrapnel from the blast catching the Marine and hurling him into the mud. Fielder crying “Doc! Doc!” and dying.

Sueter. The corpsman was well away from the tent, beyond range of the explosion, running behind the big, shielding bulk of Brannon like a flanker back following a pulling guard, when he heard Fielder call to him. He pulled up short and Theilepape saw him stand statue still for about two seconds while the shooting and the shouting went on all around him. Then he made his decision and turned and ran back to Fielder. He reached down and was dragging his friend away from the burning tent when the bullets reached him. Sueter died a corpsman.

From twenty yards away, Theilepape watched that tableau in the jumping light of the flames and bursting grenades. He vaulted the sandbagged parapet of his bunker and was running to the aid of his fallen friends when four figures stepped from the trench line and converged on the bodies and stood gazing down at them. Thinking the figures were PFs, Theilepape yelled, “Get in that trench and get firing.”

Startled, the four Viet Cong looked at him for a moment before moving to kill him. Their indecision gave Theilepape time to slide to a stop, reverse direction and race back to his bunker with the bullets zipping about him. Frantically he grabbed his machine gun, spun and fired from the waist, loosing a five-second burst at the attackers, who were firing wildly at him from fifty feet away. The impact of the machine-gun bullets drove one of the four backward for several feet in grotesque, jerking movements, and the others ducked back into the trench.

Theilepape hopped back into his bunker, grabbed the radio and screamed into the handset.

“Get us some goddamn illumination, we're getting murdered down here.”

Then he called for help over the phone which connected him by wire to PF Hill.

“Get some people down here. Fast. We need them now.”

“We're coming,” came the reply.

Putting down the radio, Theilepape peered about, seeking the other Americans.

Glasser. The Marine whom O'Rourke had instructed in the delicate art of shooting rocks had been first out of the tent but had forgotten his rifle. Unarmed, he had dashed toward the front of the courtyard, opposite the machine-gun bunker. There he had hidden for a few minutes before making a dash back toward the tent, perhaps to snatch up a weapon. But the sappers had by then advanced up the trench line and they caught him in the open, a half-dozen rifles firing at him from a few feet away. He died instantly.

Brannon. The Marine who liked to laugh had barged out of the tent on the attack, continuing across the courtyard after Sueter had turned back, pausing to get his bearings, seeing the weapons winking at him from the trench line. Crouching, firing, moving, shifting and snap-shooting, oblivious to the drama of Fielder and Sueter behind him, intent only on the sappers in the trench, it seemed for a moment that he might make it. Then Glasser went down in front of him and Theilepape heard a roar, not a curse, not an intelligible word, just the primordial sound of rage from a dangerous, wounded animal, and Brannon was staggering toward the trench line, the fast sound of his M-14 mingling with the slower sounds of what seemed to Theilepape like a dozen enemy weapons. Then it was over and Brannon fell, having lost his duel and leaving Ho Chi no one to joke with and Luong no one to share point with. He was dead.

“Jesus,” said Theilepape, more in prayer than in curse. He was on the verge of panic. Every Marine he had seen had been shot. Directly behind him, he could see that the PFs had swarmed out of the main hall and were clustered in the back corner of the trench. Desperately, he wanted to jump over the sandbags and run to them, but the part of him which controlled his legs would not let him leave the radio. He could hear Suong shouting to his men, his commands followed by an uncertain rattle of PF fire which soon swelled into a deafening volume. Momentarily, Theilepape was in the backwash of the fight. He could think only of getting help, and from the ammunition box he pulled out a dozen red-star hand flares, their light an emergency signal for the patrols to fall back on the fort. Frantically, he sent up one after another.

A few miles away, Faircloth and his men heard the firing but thought it came from Fleming's patrol. It did not occur to them that the fort might be in trouble. They never saw the flares, which were obscured by the rain and low clouds. They had no radio. The estimated the firing went on for over thirty minutes, but that did not worry them since they had listened to scores of firefights in the months they had been at the fort. So Faircloth and his seven men held their position and returned on schedule at dawn, unprepared for the scene which greeted them.

Learch and Fleming, manning the ambush close to the fort, saw the flares and headed back, automatically taking the main trail. They bumped head on into the enemy main assault party, still gathered outside the front gate waiting for the right moment to swarm in. Hearing the running men, the Viet Cong started shooting just before Fleming, who was at point, reached the beaters' perch at the outer gate. The enemy's burst of fire was so enormous and sudden that as one man the two Marines and two PFs dove headlong into a paddy and crawled, splashed and almost swam their way from the trail out to the nearest mud dike, behind which they lay.

“God,” gasped Fleming, “there must be a battalion of them.”

“What'll we do?” Learch asked. “From where we are, if we fire, we'll hit the fort.”

“Let's not piss them off,” Fleming replied.

“Well, I'm not moving again,” Learch said. “If the Cong want us, they can come and get us.”

The PFs agreed, so they held their fire and their position and waited for the attack which they considered inevitable, unaware that they were a worrisome distraction to the Viet Cong and not a main target.

Inside the fort, Theilepape's repeated shouts had finally raised a response from Sullivan, who had barricaded himself in his small room and, with Phuoc, was fending off the sappers who were darting about like hounds around a bear. The small adobe room had just two outside entrances, a set of wooden doors locked from the inside which opened to the moat in the rear and an open entrance facing the rear flap of the squad tent. The Viet Cong first tried to rush this open front, but Sullivan and Phuoc drove them back with their pistols. To Theilepape the reports of the .45s sounded like cap pistols. There was a heavy burst of firing which ended with the punctuation of a single .45 round. Sullivan had shot one of the enemy at close range and the impact of the .45 slug flung the man backward against the burning tent. This caused the other Viet Cong to retreat momentarily, and the sergeant took advantage of the respite to holler at Theilepape.

“What's it look like?” Sullivan yelled.

“I don't know,” Theilepape yelled back. “They're all over the place.”

“You hold them off up there,” Sullivan replied. “We'll handle it back here.”

A pause, then more shooting, then Sullivan yelling again.

“Where's that goddamn illumination?”

“I don't know. I don't know.”

Sullivan didn't have a chance to say anything further. A satchel charge plopped inside the room and went off, the force of the blast blowing the rear doors outward off their hinges and setting fire to the woodwork in the room. Phuoc wandered dazedly out the rear into the waiting guns, while Sullivan, badly wounded, stumbled into the courtyard.

Theilepape was back on the radio, crouching behind the sandbags while rounds whined and smacked around him. He could hear the metallic clink of a round leaving a mortar five hundred meters away on PF Hill and hollered over the radio, “Where's my illumination?”

“We don't have any,” came the reply. “It's a batch of duds.”

“Listen,” Theilepape yelled, “I don't give a goddamn if you have to shit some, I want some rounds—and some people.”

“O.K. O.K.”

The Americans on PF Hill called the nearest artillery battalion and within three minutes flares were bursting over the fort. But no relief forces were on the way.

On paper, there was a reaction-force plan under which reinforcements for Fort Page should have been moving within two minutes and arriving within five minutes after the distress call had been received by PF Hill. But the commander of the substitute squad on that hill, a second lieutenant, had listened to the fight erupt, heard Theilepape's first call and elected to proceed with caution.

“Let's wait and see what happens,” he had said uncertainly.

One man, Sergeant Brown, thought the lieutenant showed poor judgment. A wiry black man with ten years' service, Brown knew from the intensity of the firing that a full-scale attack was being launched against the fort. It was not the time to wait. His two crews of 106-mm recoilless rifles had been attached to Charlie Company for several months and never once used. When the battalion had moved out, he was left behind because his large weapons, designed to shatter tanks, were not necessary. Now on his own initiative, he told his men to load the guns and aim their long muzzles into the dark paddies fronting the fort.

“Shall I fire, sir?” Brown asked his vacillating lieutenant.

“I don't know,” the lieutenant replied.

“Fire,” Brown yelled to his men.

With cotton stuffed in their ears, the gunners tapped the large firing buttons and with a sound like a thunderclap the guns spat flame and the shells roared through the air like express trains and exploded in the paddies, missing the Viet Cong, missing Fleming's patrol, but shocking the battlefield into silence.

Theilepape took advantage of the moment to sprint toward Sullivan's room, hoping to reach a rack of LAWs stored in a small gear closet. But inside the entire room was blazing and neither Sullivan nor Phuoc was to be seen. Cradling the machine gun in his arms, Theilepape stumbled backward to his bunker again.

Sullivan. Back at his post, Theilepape had just decided that Sullivan must have joined the PFs in the rear of the fort when he heard the sergeant yell from the front of the courtyard just opposite his machine-gun bunker. There followed a strong burst of automatic-weapons fire, punctuated by the feeble pop of a pistol. Another long burst. A pop. Another long burst. No reply from the pistol. Sullivan was dead.

Theilepape was the only American left alive, and his machine gun was blocking the hundred-odd men waiting to storm through the main gate, annihilate the PFs and raise the Viet Cong flag. So the sappers held a huddled conference near the burnt-out tent and then they came at Theilepape again.

From the way they started moving, Theilepape was sure he would soon die. No sapper again exposed himself by venturing into the open courtyard. Instead, they crept up the trench line past Sullivan's body to the front of the fort, and once there they entered the section of trench which ran straight to the machine-gun bunker. While several skirmishers peppered the bunker's sandbags with rifle bullets, a group of grenadiers with sackfuls of grenades bellied forward.