South China Sea

At least three of the stricken men had made a rush toward the gully to try to extinguish themselves in the water holes of the gully bed. They were cut to pieces by Chinese small-arms fire before they got beyond the lip, falling, rolling down the steep red dirt slope, Chinese troops immediately stripping them of what weapons they could, some of the Americans’ flesh sticking to their M-16s like melted cheese.

The remainder of the USVUN were also hit by napalm, and seconds after the terrible beauty of an enormous orange flame rolling through a backdrop of green fields and brush, five Vietnamese had been burned black with five U.N. soldiers, including two from the British SAS contingent. Only their badges, “Who Dares Wins,” were recognizable after their own ammunition packs exploded.

By now the forward air controller had seen the Chinese rush the gully, realized about the flare balls-up, and redirected the Intruders. This cleared the gully nicely, an even more devastating attack than upon the USVUN line, since the sharp-angled sides of the gully made it a natural conduit for the flame that raced like a flood of molten hot steel from a furnace down the gully floor. Over two hundred Chinese assault infantry were incinerated, and the presence of the American planes ready to bomb again had dissuaded the PLA from any further rushes, the air filled with a stench of burned chicken.

To further dissuade the PLA, the planes on another run dropped napalm pods a hundred yards in from the gully on the PLA side. The screams of those caught in the swath of burning gasoline attested to the pilots’ having guessed right that the next wave of PLA assault troops had been assembling not far from the gully’s edge. The hesitation this caused the Chinese, along with the fact that much of the underbrush had been set aflame, thus denying troops cover close to the gully, saved the USVUN force, which had pulled back after several units found themselves badly mauled and their positions untenable, though in numbers lost the Chinese had suffered considerably more than the USVUN.

For Douglas Freeman, the retreat was a decision he abhorred. His intuitive reaction was to hold ground and take the gully while TACAIR kept the Chinese pinned down with napalm and rocket fire. But he was too good a soldier to pretend he could hold the gully against the PLA if he had no backup and/or no support from the flanks. He’d trusted the Vietnamese to fight if they were ordered by General Vinh to hold. But it was systematically built into the Communist cadre, as it had been in the PLA by Mao Zedong in his Little Red Book, to attack only when one had overwhelming strength, to withdraw when the odds of winning dropped. You struck where you thought the enemy was weakest, but withdrew once the maximum amount of damage had been achieved and before the enemy could rally in force against you. Though he knew this tactic well enough, Freeman hoped that Vinh’s troops would stay and assist his own men in securing and holding the gully while more USVUN troops could be brought up on the Lang Ro-Lang Son road.

Vinh disagreed. “No,” he explained through the interpreter, “the Chinese main force would come south down the Lang Son-Lang Ro road, so it would be unwise to withdraw USVUN troops from there to come here. It is vital,” he continued, “for the Chinese to take the road if they wish to move supplies quickly to feed the head of their snake.”

Major Cline asked whether he might not have a word with General Freeman.

“What is it, Major?”

“Sir, with all due respect, we’ll get nowhere if you argue with Vinh, particularly in front of his political commissars. He’ll lose face and then he won’t agree to anything.”

“Of course,” Freeman said, nodding, beaming at Vinh and his advisers. “I have full confidence in the fighting ability of the Republic of Vietnam’s armies—” He deliberately left out the Socialist before Republic. “—they’ve proved themselves in battle against us many times.” He paused, then smiled politely. “All I want to be sure of is that if we commit ourselves to an overall strategy, we stick with it till we have a touchdown.”

Vinh and the others were unsure about this term, and the translator had to spend some time imitating the huddle, et cetera. “Ah!” Vinh finally said, nodding and smiling. “Football.”

“Right,” Freeman said. “No good agreeing in the huddle, then having some joker suddenly decide it’s not for him — ruin the whole goddamn play. Right?”

There was a huddle of Vietnamese advisers while Freeman explained softly to Cline, “Point is, we’ve got to have the will to stand ground and use it as a launch pad from which to direct our heavy stuff — arty and TACAIR. For that I need those around me to hold the goddamn perimeter and not suddenly decide to retreat ‘cause we’re taking heavy fire. I meant what I said, Major. These Vietnamese troops are first-rate, but this constant hit-and-run business could suddenly leave me with a flank in name only.”

“We agree,” General Vinh said in heavily accented English, “but…”

Here the interpreter took over. “The general,” he told Freeman, “agrees but wishes to point out that what the Americans might think is a good strategic move, the Vietnamese might see as a simple tactical move in a local battle and therefore wish to break off if casualties are too high.”

Freeman could have spit wood chips. “Please tell the general that he and I must first agree on the overall strategic plan. My strategy is simply this — to pulverize the border area around Lang Son and Dong Dang by bombing, and then to roll forward along the road with arty until we clear the area once and for all and reestablish the correct political line between the two countries.

“Christ,” Freeman said in an aside to Cline, “I’m sounding like one of their damn commissars!”

The interpreter begged the general’s pardon, but what was the meaning of this word “arty”?

“Artillery!” Freeman replied. “Pound the area flat— reestablish a cordon sanitaire — hopefully secure a DMZ.”

Vinh nodded agreement but asked whether the other USVUN forces would agree to it or not, given what, in time, would have to be their countries’ postwar relationships with China.

Freeman was getting annoyed with what he perceived to be the Vietnamese preoccupation with minor players, and he told the translator straight, “You tell General Vinh that there are really only three players on this field: his forces, mine, and the PLA.”

“You have no respect for your allies?” Vinh asked.

“I have respect,” Freeman replied honestly, “but I won’t always have time to consult with my South Korean allies or the Japanese, for example. I know what I can expect from the British and Australian troops. Besides, their numbers aren’t high and they’re integrated with my command.”

Vinh understood Freeman’s underlying concern and brought the conversation to an end by saying, “I am not against nonconsensual decisions or massed fixed battles if they strategically make sense.”

Freeman smiled. “You mean the battle for Khe Sanh?” The Americans had dug in, in and around the airstrip, ringed as it was by Vietnamese artillery, and aided and abetted by U.S. airpower, had won by breaking the siege.

“No,” Vinh said without a smile. “I meant Dien Bien Phu.”

Vinh extended his hand, and Freeman, a sardonic look on his face, as if to say, You old fox, took it in the spirit it was offered.

Vinh bowed and said, “We will try to agree in the ‘huddle.’ A consensus. Yes?”

“Right,” Freeman said, thinking that Vinh would make a hell of an adversary.

Press aide Boyd looked, puzzled, at Major Cline. Boyd had noticed that this general agreement to work together on one plan rather than two had somehow been sealed by the mention of this Dien Bien Phu.

“Who’s this Phu anyway?” Boyd asked Cline.

“You dork,” Cline said good-naturedly. “Don’t you know any history? It’s a place—a valley ‘bout 230 miles west of us — near the border of Laos. During the French-Indochina War in ‘fifty-four, French were always bitching about the Viet Minh’s hit-and-run tactics, never being able to fight a one-place pitched battle with them. Well, the Viet Minh decided on just such a battle, and General Giap ringed twelve French battalions with more than thirty of his own. Viet Minh had brought in artillery — and I’m talking 105mm and triple A — a lot of it piece by piece on their backs through the jungle. French commander called for reinforcements, and six battalions of paratroops were flown in. The French were dug in, and the Viet Minh dug miles of tunnels around the French firebase. Often they came right up to the wire, fired a burst, then disappeared before the French could get a bead on them. French were finally overrun. Over twelve thousand Frenchmen were killed or taken POW. Absolute disaster. Put an end to all the crap about the Vietnamese not being able to win a set-piece battle.”

“What’d it cost the Vietnamese?” Boyd asked.