The rifle weighed heavily, as Hà Quốc Việt carried it transversely across his chest, creeping forwards through the emerald green jungle surrounding the village. Their guide, Lý Chiêu Minh, darted from bush to bush in front of them. Nervous man, a bit twitchy, but he knew the local terrain well, and well, who could blame him for his caution?
As if echoing his thoughts, Hoàng Thái Bình whispered to him "funny little man, really". Việt glanced at him, then shrugged. "It takes courage to be a guide for a village man. They're not inured like us."
"Aye, I reckon we were like that sometime". Binh was a large man, with a smooth open face, large open eyes, a curiously small nose, and a pronounced scar over his cheek. He must have been a handsome peasant son just a few years ago, but now he was grizzled and hardened - a different look, as his eyes grew less open and innocent, instead more closed and steady. They kept creeping closer through the cloying vines, the dusk starting to change the jungle to a darker green. Its sounds surrounded them, the hum of insects, the cry of insects, the rustle of leaves, the sigh of the wind as it brushed through the dense trees. He pushed aside a creeper with the rifle, the dark black of the metal carefully rubbed down to be clean but not to shine in the sun, peering through the vines as the first indistinct signs of the village began to appear.
Minh turned to them and smiled nervously. "Here we are, like I said."
"Good work". Mạch Quang Thái, their squad leader, looked at his watch. Việt found the device curious: why did there need to be something other than the sun to judge the time? But apparently it was more precise, and it wasn't his problem after all. He was just a soldier with his rifle, not in charge of commanding them. Thái held up his hand to them, still looking at his watch, then continued "less than a minute now".
The seconds flowed past slowly. "Its supposed to be a company here, right?" Bình's voice was directed to Minh, but it was Thái who responded. "Yes, you oaf, I've told you that well often enough!" Bình shrugged. Normally Thái wasn't so tense, but combat and all. "I wa-"
A distant voice called, to their right, and Thái's eyes darted up from his watch. "Now!" he called, and threw himself forwards, as the others ran after him, shouting in their attack.
Việt shouted too, throwing asides the vines and bursting out into the open. *thud*, *thud*, *thud* behind him as Bình, and two other soldiers, Vũ Gia Thiện and Trần Việt Duy, went to ground, their rifles covering them. The guide, Minh, was behind too. There came the first sounds of rifle shots, somewhere on the other side of the village, the dull cracking sound penetrating into the still evening air, muffled and deadened but recognizable.
It was a small village, and the troop company must have weighed terribly on its resources for even the bare few nights that it was stationed here. A few houses, huts essentially, gathered around a dirt road, with the smoke of cooking fires rising from the little smoke holes in the buildings, as women prepared the evening meals, and livestock milled about in their pens, groaning and squealing as the sounds of combat washed over them. Children ran away screaming, but Việt's eyes were drawn to the uniformed men pouring out of the buildings, hurriedly picking up their rifles. Shots ran out behind him and some of them fell, but there was a crackle of bullets starting to kick up dust around him as they ran forwards, their feet moving faster to the music of the bullets. The enemy soldiers were going to ground, wary of the bullets cracking over their heads, but Thái shouted them on. "Quicker, quicker, damn you! Close the distance you dogs!"
And then they were on them, as the rifles behind them fell silent. A snarling man lunged up at him with his rifle and bayonet, and Việt parried, knocking it asides, then slashed downards. The man's face cut itself cruelly into two, red bled gushing out, and he fell backwards, his eyes pooling with blood. Việt stabbed down this time, and the man's cry was cut off. The remaining soldiers threw down their weapons and held their arms up in the air, crying "mercy, mercy" Vietnamese, in French, in any language they knew. For a second Việt was still swinging the rifle to club one of them down, and then he stopped just before he hit the man. Thái shouldered his rifle, and picked up the one in front of him of a white-faced man looking terrified and scared. "Get their rifles, don't just stand about like old women", he snarled to his troops, and they bent over to pick them up and stack them in a pile. "Lâm" he said to Quyền Phúc Lâm, another private, "watch over them while the other men come out." The sergeant gestured towards the jungle, and the shapes of their comrades materialized there and pressed forwards.
"Well, what are you waiting for? There's still more in this village, or are you stupid too?"
It was all over so fast really. Once the troops on the outside were down, the ones in the middle of the village didn't have the heart to keep fighting. They'd rather throw down their weapons than keep fighting, not against the wave of men with rifles overrunning them. Here and there a carbine or a pistol cracked, and a man died, but the not many on either side found their end that day after the initial struggle.
They all got a laugh at the fat French officer they found, hiding away in a pig pen, his pants around his knees, a bruised but chuckling women pointing him out. "Fat pig, fat pig, fat pig", she chanted, grinning. "Trying to rut with my daughter like a pig and now in among them!" The man had the dignity at least to not respond and to say nothing.
Việt smiled at a little boy, barely 10 at best, who peeked out at him from behind the corner of one of the bamboo huts. "Hey kid, don't be scared. Come out from there!" The child detached itself from the wall and cautiously approached, and Việt squatted down to his level. "What's your name, son?" "Huy". The accent was strange and the kid's voice shook a bit, but nothing incomprehensible. "Are there any of the blancs around here?" A nod of the kid's head. "Can you show us to them?" Another nod.
This time the French - well, he was another Vietnamese man actually, but he fought under the French colors - tried harder, as a bullet punched through the bamboo wall as Việt and Bùi Công Giang, a scraggly young man with long locks of black hair and awkward long limbs rushed into the house that the child had pointed to. He didn't get time for a second shot as the rifle was knocked aside and Giang shot.
It had all taken under 10 minutes.
One could still tell the difference between a black and a white string, with the sun starting to fade but still in the sky, when they had assembled the French officers and the soldiers. Commander Phan Ðại Dương was talking to the village headsman, saying more than the latter appreciably. The headsman looked distinctly unsettled, uncomfortable and worried. Villagers gathered around, silent as well, looking equally unsure. The prisoners merely looked miserable.
Commander Phan Ðại Dương stopped talking to the headsman, then cleared his throat and in a huge booming voice yelled out "Fellow freed citizens from the yoke of French rule, your chains have been broken! Behold before you the band of thieves, rapists, and murderers who have plagued you! These are the men who have taken your rice in taxes, these are the men who have killed your ancestors, who have defiled your religion and country. Look up their faces. Are these the conquering souls who once strutted like roosters through this country? No, instead they lie captive and helpless, defeated by the army of a people who stand once more for their customs, for their dignity, for themselves, against oppression from abroad!"
"This is a court of the people, to find out who is guilty, and who may be spared. We abide by the law, however much it may gall us to see men guilty of keeping this system which destroys our moral dignity and life go free. Those who have committed personal crimes will be punished." He waved at a soldier, who brought forward the fat French officer who had been found in the pig sty earlier, still dirty. "This man", he called out again with another booming proclamation, "is known to be guilty of the crime of rape. For that, there is only one punishment that the Union of Vietnamese Independence know."
And just like that, he raised the pistol by his side, pointed it against the man's head, and pulled the trigger. A woman in the crowd screamed at the sound of the cracking bullet, and the rest stirred and fell to whispering among themselves, their fear even more palpable.
Việt sighed. It was a hard task this one, but the struggle had to take hard measures into account. There would be collective reprisals on the village, and the villagers knew that, and they would cooperate because now they had nothing to lose. A French officer had been shot in front of their eyes, and they had done nothing to stop it, and the French wouldn't care about their denials when they showed up. The guilty would be punished, the innocent at their sides. It made his heart heavy, but it was war. Besides, the French who would take their reprisals were the French doing it at after all, it was not the faulty of the Vietnamese that the French still ruled this land, and once it was freed, their abuses would cease.
Another man was brought up. The crowd was silent initially, until a woman stood up and started speaking hesitantly. Theft. A beating this time, as the rifle butt cracked against him, then he was dragged around, bloodied, and -
A prisoner tried to make a run for it, and a rifle barked, and he fell backwards with blood pumping out of chest.
Commander Phan Ðại Dương smiled a wry smile, and gestured at the man to the prisoners. "I would advise to not run", he said dryly.
They went through the ranks. There were some more beatings, a few bullet cracks, and innocents too. When it was over, the cowed soldiers sat back, in their two groups, officers and soldiers. Phan walked to the group of soldiers. "Men. You have been victims of the French too. Those among you who have committed crimes, have been dealt with. This is only fair, for crimes against the peasants and people should be punished, when the French are unwilling to do so. But we bear no ill will against you, and our soldiers are themselves as well, punished when they commit crimes. We have not enough space for prisoners, and we cannot bring you with us."
A stir of foreboding and panic swept through the assembled sad looking men. Phan raised his hand. "No, don't worry", he chuckled. "We aren't going to kill you." He continued, more seriously now. "But you are fellow Vietnamese, who suffer under the French occupation. Now, the French will hold you in even more disdain, with even more distrust, now that you have been captured. I offer you, that instead of fighting alongside the foreigners for the occupation of our country, to join our army. I cannot promise you loot, for we do not steal. I cannot offer you women, for we do not rape. I cannot offer you sadism, for we fight for the people of Vietnam. But I can offer you something which you have not had for all too long, that of dignity, a purpose, and liberty, to fight for a free nation."
"Think upon it. We will be here the night, and tomorrow we will leave. At that point, we will allow you to go home, to take the long walk back to your base and your companions, without your rifles and your supplies, but with your skins. Those who join us will be comrades and heroes, fighting for independence, fighting for the people, fighting for the faith of the Buddha against the foreign occupiers."
The next day, after a night spent in celebration - the rebels were able to pay for it, with the money taken from the French, and after some initial hesitation the villagers joined in - the troop of guerrillas set off once more into the jungle Joining them were a dozen or so new comrades, and some French officers as prisoners in tow. The other soldiers walked back, unarmed, dispirited, but alive. It was by all accounts, a successful mission: 26 enemies killed, a few executed, a dozen or so recruited, a few French officers captured, large amounts of equipment taken, and all for a few injuries and an unfortunate private who had received a bullet to the head. And once more the rebels melted into the jungle, to strike elsewhere in the petite guerre.
