Shock of War

the water as he pushed through the flooded brush. With every step, he thought to himself that now was the moment that Chau and Angkor would fire.

With his first steps, he felt relief. But as he continued, disappointment crept in, and finally concern: Why hadn’t they fired?

Chau stepped from the brush as Zeus approached.

“Major Murphy?”

“Sight on the middle post,” said Zeus, running to them. “The warheads are behind it. Fire! Fire!”

Zeus ran to them, dropping to his knee in a soggy slide. The Chinese were streaming across the bridge in a thick convoy, APCs lined up bumper to bumper.

Angkor moved back to let Zeus look through the eyepiece. He pushed his face against the rubber, saw that the aim was a little low.

“Chau, explain where I put the warheads,” said Zeus. “He has to hit right there.”

Chau said something to Angkor. The sergeant replied in Vietnamese, gesturing with his hands. Zeus immediately understood.

“He says that the missile rides slightly higher than the beam,” said Chau.

“As long as he understands. Tell him to fire.” Zeus stepped back. “Tell him to fire. He’s got one shot. Get them now!”

Angkor knelt in front of the launcher. Zeus rose, not caring if the enemy saw him. There was a click and a swoosh, air rushing away; the missile faltered, nudging left, then corrected itself, pushing back at the beam.

It flashed through. Zeus saw a bolt of lightning — a white sheet rustled under the bridge. The roadway seemed to rise, as if lifting itself away from the missile. But the weight of the carriers pushed it back down into place.

A black and gray cloud of steam and smoke erupted from the water. The bridge caved into it, the APCs sliding downward like so many toy trucks kicked by a malevolent three-year-old. They rolled and twisted and fell on their tops as the entire bridge collapsed, and the sole road to the south held by the Chinese was destroyed, their path to conquest temporarily blocked.

25

Quang Ninh Province

Zeus and the others moved silently after the bridge collapsed, abandoning the launcher and trotting upstream. Their boots splashed in the muck. Zeus felt his side strain and his groin starting to pull but kept on. Every so often he felt the heavy, now sodden bandage at his neck. It surprised him — he’d almost forgotten he had been shot there.

Grazed. A talisman of luck rather than a wound.

Gradually, their pace slowed to a jog, then a walk. The Chinese began scrambling behind them, but the initial confusion as well as the thick foliage made pursuit difficult. With no roads to follow, the Chinese soldiers had to move through the jungle, and had to suspect an ambush at every moment. They fell farther and farther behind.

“It will be dark soon,” said Chau, after they’d been walking for more than an hour. It was first time any of them spoke.

“Yes,” replied Zeus.

“We should find a place to cross the water.”

“We will.”

The stream had narrowed, but it had also deepened. They walked for another half hour, moving northward until they found a series of rocks that were easy to scramble across.

Zeus led the way.

“Maybe we should take a rest,” said Chau on the other side.

“If we stop, we may not be able to get up,” said Zeus.

But the look on Major Chau’s face showed they had to rest. They found a clearing a few yards away from the water — a small space between the trees, barely big enough for the three of them to sit.

“Here,” said Zeus, sliding down against one of the trees.

They looked at each other: Angkor, Chau, Zeus.

“We did it,” Zeus told them.

Angkor said something. Chau translated: Have we beaten them?

“For today,” answered Zeus. “Tomorrow we will do something else.”

* * *

Zeus gave them exactly fifteen minutes, then pulled himself to his feet. Every part of his body was stiff, tired, exhausted, but if he didn’t move now they would end up staying the night, and even if it didn’t seem as if the Chinese were following them, he couldn’t take that chance. The more ground they got between them and the force they had just thwarted, the better.

Blowing up the bridge would stymie the Chinese, stalling whatever they had planned. Eventually, though, they would figure out a way around it. Their APCs would be able to ford the marsh eventually, or they might even bring in bridging equipment. At best, the Vietnamese had gained two or three days, largely because the Chinese were extremely cautious. An American commander would surely have found a way to push the APCs and tanks through the mud, and even risked stringing his forces out, realizing the attacks Zeus had engineered were pebbles from a slingshot against a vast armada.

That was the way the Americans had dealt with the Iraqis in the Second Gulf War: as annoying as the antitank attacks were, ultimately they were no match for the juggernaut of the American forces surging toward Baghdad.

Would that be the Vietnamese fate as well?

Zeus wasn’t sure. But he had already decided on what their next move should be.

And what he, too, would do.

* * *

The sun had already set by the time they came across a winding dirt trail that cut southward. By now it was too dark to use the map for reference. Zeus guessed that the trail was too obscure for it to be marked in any event, but the direction was right. It seemed obvious that they should follow it.

The path intersected with a slightly larger trail, this one occasionally used by vehicles, if the muddy ruts were any indication. They walked along it, moving to the southwest and then west, climbing along a ridge that shadowed the larger mountains to the west. The trail ducked in and out of the jungle; for most stretches there was more than enough light to see by, although the shadows were so deep that Zeus had to feel the brush with his hands to guide them.

They walked for another hour and a half before coming to a Y. There they went to the right, treading past a confused intersection of ruts and trails. Finally, they found a road heading due south and took it.

A few minutes later, Chau stopped and held up his hand.

A truck was coming.

“Send Sergeant Angkor down the road,” Zeus said. “We’ll hide on the side as it passes. If it’s Vietnamese, yell to him and he can jump out and stop it.”

Chau explained. Angkor started to run.

There wasn’t enough time to get very far. Zeus and Chau stepped off the road, waiting as the truck came up.

Zeus had no idea what he would do if it was a Chinese scout, looking for an alternative route south. Run into the jungle and hide? Fire at the truck, kill the driver, take it?

The latter, surely, though he felt too exhausted to even stand straight.

Fortunately, a decision wasn’t necessary. It was a Vietnamese patrol, crammed into a commandeered pickup, scouting the advance of General Tri’s armored brigade as it moved south.