I will recount some experiences in setting up a well-stocked, orderly depot in places around the world by way of explanation. I promise the reader that the amusing 'touches' are in no way the inventions or embellishments of the author. This is the way it happened, from the twin perspectives of long experience and the front porch of my modest but comfortable retirement home in a racially unified section of Prince George's County, Maryland.
Groaning, I turned to Runnel at Cam Ranh Bay, Runnel in Saigon, Runnel in the field. Then a familiar place- name caught in my eye like a fishhook. Runnel had been at Camp White Star, my first stop in Vietnam. I saw another name I knew and started reading in earnest.
It was during my overburdened weeks at Camp White Star that one of the single most unpleasant events of my career took place. Unpleasant and revealing it was, for it told me in no uncertain terms that the old army I loved, had fallen prey to unhealthy ideas and influences. Noxious trends were loose in its bloodstream.
Here I began skimming again, and turned a couple of pages.
I had, of course, heard of the Green Berets created by the Catholic demagogue put into office by the corrupt expenditure of his father's ill-gained millions, as who had not? This was trumpeted throughout the land, and many otherwise bright and patriotic young fellows tumbled into the trap. But I had never come into contact with the breed until a certain Captain, later, incredibly, Major, Franklin Bachelor entered my depot at Camp White Star. It was an education.
He strode in, in no discernible uniform but clearly an officer with an officer's bearing. One gave leeway to the men in the field. I should explain the normal procedure, at least as I ran my operations. It can be stated in one simple maxim. Nothing in without paperwork, nothing out without paperwork. That is the basis. Of course, every Quartermaster has known what it is to 'improvise,' and I, when called upon to do so, acquitted myself splendidly, as in the case of the six oxen of Cho Kin Reservoir. The reader will remember the episode. I rest my case.
In the normal instance, papers are presented at the desk, the goods requested are assembled and then loaded into the waiting vehicle or vehicles, and copies of the forms are sent to the relevant authority. It goes without saying that Captain Bachelor observed none of the usual amenities.
He ignored me and began ordering his minions to take articles of clothing from the shelves. These were, emphatically, not soldiers of the United States Army. Aboriginal in stature, ugly in face and form, some even smeared gaudily with dye. Such were the 'Yards,' the tribesmen with whom many Green Berets were forced to consort. My command to return the stolen goods to the shelves was completely ignored. I struck my counter and asked, in what I hoped was an ironic tone, if I might see the officer's requisition forms. The man and his goons continued to ignore me. Whirling, bestial little creatures daubed in mud and crested with feathers had taken over my depot.
I emerged from behind the counter, sidearm conspicuously in hand. This, I said, was not acceptable, and would cease forthwith. I approached the officer and as I did so heard from behind me the sound of an Ml6 being readied to fire. The officer advised me to remain calm. Slowly, very slowly indeed, I turned to face one of the most astounding spectacles with which the Asian conflict had thus far provided me. A woman of considerable beauty, dressed in conventional fatigues, held the weapon pointed at my head. She too was a 'Yard,' but more highly evolved than her scampering compatriots. I knew two things almost at once: this beauty would shoot me where I stood, with the well-known Asian indifference to life. Secondly, she was the mate of the Green Beret officer. I use no more elevated word. They were mates, as creatures of the barnyard are mates. This indicated to me that the officer was insane. I relinquished all resistance to the pair and their tribe. My staff had scattered, and I stood mute.
I proceeded on the instant to the office of the commanding officer, a gentleman who shall remain nameless. He and I had had our disagreements over the course of my reorganization of various matters. Despite our differences, I expected full and immediate cooperation. Restoration of the stolen goods. Full reports and documentation. Disciplinary action appropriate to the deed. To my amazement, the CO at White Star refused to lift a finger.
I had merely been visited by Captain Franklin Bachelor, I was told. Captain Bachelor stopped in once every two years or so to outfit his soldiers. The Captain never bothered with paperwork, the Quartermaster assessed what had been taken and filled out the forms himself. Or he wrote it off to pilferage. My problem was that I tried to stop him—you couldn't stop Captain Bachelor. I enquired why one could not, and received the stupefying reply that the Captain was a legend.
It was this asinine CO who told me that Franklin Bachelor was known as 'The Last Irregular.' Irregular, indeed, I allowed sotto voce.
As the reader will understand, I thenceforth took a great interest in the developing career of young Captain Franklin Bachelor.
I declared myself a convert to such as Bachelor, a partisan of the 'Irregulars.' I probed for tales, and heard such stories as those with which the Moor did seduce Desdemona.
The picture that emerged from the tales about Bachelor became disturbing. If so for me, how much more so for Those Who Must Not Be Named, who had encouraged him? Incalculably, yes. It was because of this disturbance, registered in the highest places in the land, that the hapless Jack (I believe) Ransom, a Captain of Special Forces, first became enmeshed in the insane Bachelor's treacherous web, resulting in the final conspiracy—the ultimate conspiracy—of silence. From which silence, leaks an undying shame. I intend to expose it in these pages.
The task of a man like Bachelor was to exploit the existing hostility between ordinary Vietnamese and local tribesmen by organizing individual tribal villages into virtual commando units, strike forces capable of the same stealth as our guerilla enemy. Another goal was to win support for our government by actively assisting the life of the villager. To build dams, to dig wells, to develop healthier crops. It was imperative that these men speak the language of their tribesmen, live as they did, eat the food they ate. The goal was the training of guerilla soldiers to be used in guerilla warfare.
Bachelor soon showed his true colors by turning his villagers into a travelling wolf pack. After several months, the pack established permanent camp deep in a valley of the Vietnamese highlands.
It was at this time that Bachelor's reputation was at its peak. The ordinary soldier idealized Bachelor's achievements. His superiors valued him because he consistently provided intelligence on the movements of the enemy. The rogue elephant kept in communication with the pack.
Here we come to the heart of the matter.
It is my belief that Bachelor had begun to dip into that most dangerous of waters, the role of intermediary— you could say, double agent.
Operating first from his secret base in the highlands and then an even more heavily defended redoubt further north, Major Bachelor became a trafficker in information, a source for intelligence about troop movements and military strategy that could be gained in no other way.
Even I, deep in my duties, heard of instances in which our forces went out to surprise a battalion of North Vietnamese, reported (by Whom?) to be making its way south by devious routes, only to encounter no more than a few paltry squads. Were we victorious? Absolutely. On the scale to which we had been led, by our intelligence, to expect? The response is negative. It must have been some such reasoning that caused They Who Must Not Be Named to dispatch a young Special Forces Captain, Jack Ransom, into the highlands to contact Major Bachelor and return him to the leafy vales of suburban Virginia for interrogation and debriefing.
