Ian Slater - South China Sea

“But Comrade General,” an eager young division commander pointed out, “we — you have already posted a man along every fifty yards of track.”

“Yes, yes, I know this, but anyone who is innovative enough to mix his rice with brick mortar — to engineer such an escape out of practically nothing — he is a dangerous man, comrades, and so we must not only try to capture as many of the escapees as possible, but we must be particularly vigilant along the thirty miles of rail from here to the border. I want all rail-section commanders to emphasize this to their troops.”

Among themselves, Wei’s senior officers were convinced that Wei was overreacting. In their view — and they were correct — most of the escapees from the POW camp would have only one thing on their mind: to get back through enemy lines to safety, and to hell with messing around with Wei’s railway. Oh yes, there might be the odd fanatic who would try something like the genius who pulled the rice trick, but with a PLA soldier every fifty yards — what chance did he have?

Nevertheless, Wei was not to be dissuaded from taking extra precautions, and so onlookers saw the strange sight of a regiment of mounted Chinese troops — an anachronism in modern war — heading out in marshland south of the Ningming-Pingxiang line, able to go where armor or any other vehicle could not. And they were protected from U.S. TACAIR by both the foul weather — God’s response to Freeman’s prayer— and by the President of the United States, who, like Truman forbidding MacArthur to take action beyond the Chinese-Korean border, had ordered Freeman not to launch air strikes over the Sino-Vietnamese border.

Shortly before Pierre LaSalle returned to her tent, Marte Price had found her asbestos-lined film box had been opened. She’d put a hair between the lid and sides before closing it, and now the hair wasn’t there. While she was no military strategist, she believed that in matters of sex and blackmail, a good defense was the best offense. In this instance, her offense took the form of insisting that Pierre wear a condom.

“You’re the only one, chérie” he said.

“And I’m Marilyn Monroe.”

“No, truly,” he told her. “You are the only one.”

“Not counting your wife, you mean.”

“Of course. But this is the grande affaire, no?”

“It’s good sex,” she said. “If that’s what you mean.”

“Surely it’s more than that.”

“If you say so.”

“You are a hard woman.”

“You’re the one that’s hard. I still have some illusions.”

“About what?’

“Oh, I don’t know — about honesty among friends, loyalty.”

“I hope you are not talking about me!” He sounded offended.

“No,” she lied. “Just in general.”

He slid his hand between her thighs. “I love the smell of you….”

She said nothing for a moment, then suddenly mellowing from her public persona of tough, hard-bitten war correspondent, having shown she could mix it with the boys, she was now the vulnerable, soft lover Pierre wanted her to be. She gently stroked him, and as he grew hard, she touched a freckle near the base of his penis, all but hidden by his pubic hair. “You always had that?”

“Yes,” he said. “A little birthmark, I guess.”

“It’s cute,” she said, stroking him. “Pierre?”

“Oui?”

“Do you love your wife?”

He shrugged. “You know how it is. We’ve been married—”

“You don’t love her?”

“No, not really. She’s more of a — how do you say, friend, confidante.”

“Then she wouldn’t mind you making love to me.”

He gently pushed her down on the army cot. “I think she would mind,” he said with studied understatement. He laughed. “She would mind it very much, chérie.”

She moaned softly as he entered her.

After, when they had parted, Marte went to the media pool office and told the officer in charge that if they were ever asked to send a pix of General Freeman “in action,” she hesitated, “with the wounded,” she would appreciate them telling her.

“May I ask why, miss?”

“Yes,” she said bluntly. “It’s my fucking picture and anyone who tries to send it is stealing it. And rest assured I’ll have the general on my side.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She put a hundred-dollar bill on the table. “So you won’t forget.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Kacey, now forced at gunpoint to lead the Khmer Rouge column away from the Foxtrot ambuscade out toward the valley of Dien Bien Phu, could hear the pat-pat-pat sound of the children walking behind him. He knew there was nothing he could do about the little girl who lay dead and discarded by Pepper by the trail, as if she were nothing more than refuse to be consumed by some carnivore during the night. In all his years in the Army, he’d never seen anything so wantonly cruel. But now he tried to put it out of his mind, knowing he had to stay alert.

Kacey had no way of knowing that radio silence had been broken and Foxtrot ordered to withdraw to boost the defense of Dien Bien Phu. But he did know that even if the prearranged signal spot on the trail told him the column had been ordered to withdraw, soon Pepper’s column would be leaving the jungle canopy and entering Delta’s fire zone in the valley. And, being the first man in the column, he had no desire to be the first blue on blue in Operation Homecoming.

Then they heard the faint rattle of machine guns and the louder whoomp of mortars.

It meant that Delta and the PLA paratroops were already at it.

“Hey, Ranger!”—from the side of the trail. It was a scout from Delta. Pepper unleashed a burst. The scout dropped to the ground, and Kacey dived off the trail, the scout returning fire at Pepper. Kacey moved fast and low — fuck the bamboo, fuck the brambles, fuck the thorns, just run, man, run — as Pepper and the Delta scout continued the duel, the terrified children flat on the trail, Salt at the rear telling them to stay put or she’d do them. Somebody — Pepper maybe, or the Delta scout? — ran out of ammo, only one man firing, then the two were at it again. Jesus, could they even see one another, or was it all bullshit fire?

Then Kacey was yelling to his fellow Delta buddy, “Delta, he’s a turncoat! They’re Salt and Pepper Two — our MIAs— both gone bad! Heroin!”

The jungle reeked of cordite and decay. The Delta scout didn’t care who the fuck they were — Salt and Pepper, Oil and Vinegar — all he knew was that some fucker was trying to kill him.

“Back off!” Kacey yelled to his fellow Ranger. “We can pick ‘em up later.”

No one was moving now — no birds, nothing — except in the distance they could hear the thump! and thwack! of mortar rounds in the timber around the Delta perimeter.

Kacey knew it had to be the PLA paratroopers harassing the Delta perimeter till they had time to set up heavy arty in the hills around the valley. The mist was thicker now, and ten minutes — an eternity — passed, and who was heading where? Kacey kept heading east, glancing at his watch compass in the gloom. Only once did he see the trail, a rust-red strip about a hundred feet off to his right, while to his front, a half mile off perhaps, he could hear the chatter of small-arms fire. Through it all he felt that something or someone was marking him, either his compadre from Delta or Pepper, who would now be eager to meet up with the PLA troopers.

“Jesus Christ!” Kacey stopped. He could be walking into his own — Delta Force’s — ambuscade. They were bound to have rigged one up as soon as he’d gone forward to try to warn Foxtrot. Shit a brick, it was getting all screwed up, as usual. Didn’t matter what plans you made, something always went — He froze. A drop of moisture on the trip wire, that’s all it was. He was in the middle of a claymore alley. “If anyone can hear me,” he said in funereal tones, “get me outta here!”