Abandoned: MIA in Vietnam (24 page)

CHAPTER 38

About two hundred yards from the apartment they had appropriated, Roh put his hand in front of Byrnes, stopping him on the sidewalk near a parking lot full of bicycles and mopeds. A single 1940s vintage, black, Citroen taxicab sat in the lot, without a driver. Standing next to his three-wheeled pedal cab parked at the curb, a cyclo driver leaned on his vehicle and smoked a cigarette. The street and sidewalks glistened with puddles of water, the monsoon season having started days before. It had poured while they ate dinner. Stars shone in a clear sky. “Did you leave the lights on in the apartment?” Roh asked.

“No. I turned them all off,” Byrnes said, looking at the three-story brick building a half block in front of them. He saw lights in the second floor windows. “Are you sure that’s ours? Both those buildings look alike.”

“I’m certain. I used to live in the second one, the one with the giant antenna on the roof.” Roh turned to the pedal cab driver who had taken his seat on the cyclo. “How far will 1000 Piasters take us, father?” he asked the older man.

The old man with sinewy arms and legs grinned, revealing only six to eight teeth. “Half as far as it would have yesterday, about six blocks. The new curfew takes effect in twenty minutes. Where do you want to go?”

“Four blocks straight up this street,” Roh said. He and Byrnes slipped into the seats of the pedal cab in front of the driver. An awning hung over their heads, protection in case it rained again.

The old man stood on the pedals and pushed downward. He pulled up on the handlebars, straining every muscle in his body. His thick thigh muscles labored to move the cab forward. Taking a quick look to make certain no motorized traffic moved in his direction, he steered the cab to the middle of the brick paved street. With no suspension, the sturdy frame of the cyclo transmitted every crack and bump in the ancient cobblestones into Byrnes and Roh’s bodies. “Rough ride, uncle,” Byrnes said.

“Life is rough,” the driver said.

As the cab glided past the twin apartment buildings, Roh and Byrnes saw the woman from the apartment across the hall standing in front of the building. She spoke with two bo dois, NVA foot soldiers, in dark green uniforms. They wore pith helmets and carried AK-47s, in addition to leather holsters and pistols on their belts. Inside the lighted room of the apartment, another soldier walked past the window.

“She turned us in,” Byrnes said, in English. Both men turned their heads away from the woman and the soldiers as the cyclo glided past the building.

“She’s ingratiating herself with the new political regime. I remember her. She’s part of the landlord’s extended family. Three generations of them live in two or three of the apartments,” Roh said. Switching back to Vietnamese, Roh spoke to the driver. “Take us as close to Doan Thi Diem Street as you can on the money I gave you. Give yourself a tip out of it. Oh, and be home before curfew.”

Three blocks later, the cyclo coasted to a stop in front of the Notre Dame Basilica. “It’s not a long ways to Doan Thi Diem
Street from here,” the old man said, “about two blocks.”

“I know the way,” Roh said. He handed the bills to the driver. “I would appreciate it if you forgot you gave us a ride.”

The man’s eyes twinkled. “That watch might lock my lips,” he said pointing at the watch Roh had found in the apartment.

Roh slid the watch from his wrist and handed it to the old man. “Thank you, father. Have a good night. Get indoors quickly.”

“Where are we going?” Byrnes asked after the cyclo disappeared around the corner.

“Not
Doan Thi Diem,” Roh said. They walked past the intersection of Doan Thi Diem and Hong Thap Tu, to Le Van Duyet and took a right. The street led them northwest. No traffic and few pedestrians crossed their path. Of the persons they saw, there was an inordinate number of individuals with amputations, ex-soldiers missing one or more limbs. The injured men hurried on, looking away from Byrnes and Roh, not knowing if they were communist sympathizers. Sirens began to wail in the city. “Curfew,” Roh said. He strode off the road and closer to the structures on the side of the boulevard, sticking to the shadows of the buildings. The farther they walked the sparser the dwellings appeared. Villas with large lawns and walled yards replaced smaller apartments, businesses, and restaurants.

After entering the residential district in western Saigon, the two men passed a grisly scene as they stayed close to the homes along the street. In one house the lights were on and the front door lay open. A man in the uniform of an ARVN general lay sprawled across the entranceway, the left half of his head blown away. An American .45 automatic lay on the concrete step, inches from the dead officer’s hand. Behind him in the well-lit hallway lay an adult female and two small children, all dead of gunshot wounds. “Some people won’t want to be taken prisoner,” Roh said quietly.

Byrnes followed Roh. “That includes me,” he said.

The Korean took a left and stopped six blocks farther down the road, across the street from a corner mansion. “Still standing,” he said.

“What’s this?” Byrnes whispered.

“My girlfriend’s house,” Roh said. “She works for the Saigon City public works. Her father runs an import company, really a smuggling operation, I assume. They were never too clear about the family business, but they are fabulously wealthy. They were probably among the first people to leave Saigon on a jet for the Philippines or the United States.”

“Will it be safe for us to stay there?”

“For a day or two,” Roh said. “The communists will eventually search all these villas for their capitalist owners. They will punish or execute them, depending on their crimes against humanity, in other words: earning a living and having employees.
Exploiting the masses
, as the communists call it.”

“We should probably get off the street,” Byrnes said.

“I’ll go first,” Roh said. He ran across the street and leaped onto the cement wall to the right of a large iron gate. Pulling himself to the top of the wall, he lay along the top and waved at Byrnes.

Byrnes jumped up and grasped the Korean’s hand. Roh pulled him to the top of the wall. They both slid off the wall to the interior of the lot. “Don’t think I could do that twice,” Byrnes said, bent at the waist and blowing out a huge breath. “I’m not as fast or as strong as I used to be.”

Roh laughed. He whispered, “We’ll get you a YMCA membership when we get out of Vietnam.”

Roh led Byrnes to the rear of the residence. He tried the French doors one after the other. Stealthily, he turned the handles. One opened and he entered. Byrnes followed, directly behind him. Byrnes pulled the door closed silently and turned to face Roh. A voice in the darkness said. “You might die, looter.” In the gloom of a large kitchen, Byrnes saw a man with a weapon that looked like an Israeli Uzi pointed at him and Roh.

He and Roh put their hands in the air. “We are not looters,” Roh said.

“Well, you are not the postman, either,” the man with the Uzi said. “Who are you and what is your business if you are not thieves?”

“I am looking for Dang Tu,” Roh said. “Does she still live here with her family?”

“And who are you?” the other man asked.

“Roh So-dong, an acquaintance.”

“Lt. Roh So-dong is dead or a prisoner of war,” the man said. He pointed the weapon at Byrnes. “Who are you?”

Byrnes saw no benefit in hiding his identity. He said, “An American. James Byrnes. Until two days ago a prisoner of the North Vietnamese. Lt. Roh and I have recently escaped from the NVA.”

A flashlight suddenly shone from behind the man. A circle of light lit the floor at Byrnes’s feet and then slowly climbed his body. “He doesn’t look American,” a woman’s voice said, when the light shone on his face.

“Tu.” Roh said. “Is that you? Tu?”

The flashlight swung to Roh’s face. It suddenly fell to the floor, the light winking out as it hit the tile and the filament in the bulb broke. “So! So-dong,” the woman screamed. “It really is you.” From behind the man with the Uzi, an obviously pregnant Vietnamese woman rushed to Roh and threw her arms around him. “Father, it is So-dong.” She laid her head on his chest and began to cry.

The man dropped the barrel of the weapon toward the floor. “Come,” he said. “Tu, take these men to the basement, where no light can be seen. Send your brother up here to guard this door. Tomorrow we will have to figure out how to secure it better.”

“Yes, father,” the woman said. She led Roh by the hand through the interior of the darkened home to the basement door. Byrnes followed quietly. A pale light escaped from the basement as she opened the door. The three walked down the steps. In the basement proper thirty-some Vietnamese adults and a score of children ranging from infant to pre-teen in age greeted them.

“My father has arranged for us and our extended family to leave Saigon tomorrow,” Tu said to Roh. Blushing, she held her hand out to a man who stood in the crowd wearing black trousers, black shoes, and a traditional, embroidered, white cotton shirt that hung over his belt. “This is my husband, Truong Truc.” She began to weep again. “I thought you were dead.”

Byrnes admired Roh’s stoicism, the Korean holding his emotions in check, obviously happy for Tu and sad for himself. Byrnes watched the young woman weep with her head on her husband’s shoulder and holding his hand.  Roh quickly turned his back to Byrnes and the couple, hiding his expression from Tu.

CHAPTER 39

Transporting fifty-some people to a boat without attracting the attention of the communist vanquishers of Saigon proved difficult, but not impossible. The communists had yet to consolidate their hold on the city. The sudden collapse of the South Vietnamese government had been as much a surprise to them as it had to the population. In the midst of hurrying administrators south from Hanoi, the army had to take the reins of government temporarily. In order to do that, they had to rely on city officials already in place, and on those citizens willing to swear loyalty, for whatever reason, to the new regime. That left huge gaps in security. It proved impossible to prevent an exodus of local officials and South Vietnamese who had worked for the Americans. Most had assumed correctly that their actions warranted the death penalty if captured by the North Vietnamese.

“Where are we going?” Byrnes asked Roh. The two men accompanied a woman with three small children, meandering slowly north and west. They took random turns at street corners, occasionally doubling back. Roh watched for NVA soldiers or civilians who might be following them, or showing undue interest in their tortuous stroll.

“Can’t tell you,” Roh said. “If the NVA question us, I don’t want you or Mrs. Hung to know, yet.”

The small group approached a bridge across a small man-made channel of water. Roh stopped the group. He leaned over the bridge railing, looking at the brown water and pointing to various landmarks. The children listened intently as he explained part of the escape plan to Byrnes and their mother. “This canal eventually leads to the Saigon River, south of where it meets the Dong Hai River. From there the combined rivers flow southward to the Binh Dong, the East Sea. Or, as the Americans call it, the South China Sea.”

“That’s a long swim,” Byrnes said. “We have water wings, I hope.”

Roh laughed. “Better than that,” he said. “Mrs. Hung and I will stay here, Con co. You go to the far side of the bridge and cross over to the other side. Wait until no one is around. There is a path down to the river. The vegetation and bridge will hide you from sight. You will find a boat there. I will send the others down one by one. Get them onto the boat.”

“Will you be down last?” Byrnes asked.

“No,” Roh said. “I have more trips to make. We should have everyone together by nightfall. The password is, ‘Father Chinh?’
Once you say that, someone on the boat will say, ‘He has gone to Mui Ne.’ Any other response means the northerners have found us out.”

Byrnes nodded. He walked as nonchalantly as possible to the far end of the bridge and crossed the street. A captured ARVN armored personnel carrier, sporting the NVA battle flag, traversed the bridge going the opposite direction. The lieutenant sitting in the command seat ignored Byrnes. No one manned the seat behind the .50 caliber machinegun. Other than two pedal cabs in the distance, Byrnes saw no other traffic. He waited until the APC disappeared from sight, checked the area for other pedestrians, and then dropped onto the dirt trail next to the bridge.

Directly underneath the bridge, hidden by land and water vegetation, Byrnes found a large sampan, not dissimilar to the one that had saved his life in the Gulf of Tonkin. Slapping his hand on the side of the boat, he called, “Father Chinh?”

From the stern of the covered section of the sampan a short man with bad acne and dragon tattoos on a bare chest pulled back a curtain. “He has gone to Mui Ne,” he said. “Are you alone?”

“No. there will be three children and Mrs. Hung shortly.”

“Fine. No names. Be quick. Tell the children to be quiet.”

Byrnes had climbed almost to street level when the youngest of the children, a girl approximately six-years-old, met him on the path. He held her hand and walked her to the boat. As the boat rocked gently in the wake of another sampan passing by, Byrnes handed the child to the sailor.

Next he brought the youngest son, followed by Mrs.Hung. The oldest boy arrived last, accompanied by Lt. Roh. “I thought you weren’t coming.” Byrnes said.

“I’m not. Just checking on conditions. You need to stay in the boat, out of sight,” Roh said.

“Mr. Dang really believes he can sneak fifty people out of Saigon on a sampan?”

“This is no ordinary sampan, Con co,” Roh said and smiled. “It has a large, powerful inboard engine. In addition, it has a compass and a radio. It is capable of sea-going operation. To a smuggler, it’s worth its weight in gold. Mr. Dang used it to meet with larger ships offshore. I’ll be back in about two hours. Get some rest. We’ll set sail after dark.”

Byrnes climbed onto the fifty-foot boat. The sailor who had greeted him sat near the tiller, smoking a cigarette, reading an old edition of the
Nhan Dan
, a North Vietnamese newspaper. He nodded to Byrnes, pointing to the hatchway that led to the covered portion of the boat. Byrnes pulled back the plasticized drape and stepped inside.

In a fairly roomy interior Byrnes found a score of men, women, and children. He estimated the humidity on the river hovered at nearly 90%, and the temperature had climbed to the mid eighties by the early afternoon. The children lay on the deck naked. Adults sweated. They read or slept in silence. In the hold below the compartment Byrnes saw sacks of rice and tins of water. Children lay on the rice bags. One baby nursed at its mother’s breast. Byrnes sat near the entrance. People whose names he could not remember from the night before nodded to him and smiled wearily. Body odor, the smell of raw vegetables, fish, sewage in the canal, and fear hung in the air.

Throughout the day and evening others arrived singly and in pairs. Monsoon rains poured on either side of the bridge intermittently. Byrnes counted fifty-three occupants before Mr. Dang, his wife, Tu and her husband arrived with Roh. Fifty-eight fugitives on the small sampan. All the refugees squeezed into the lower hold. The two crewmen of the sampan covered the hold with boards and laid fishing equipment on top of the boards. In the claustrophobic darkness, parents whispered to their children, trying to comfort them.

As the sun set, Roh and Byrnes joined the men on deck to augment the crew. Jumping into the canal, they helped push the sampan from the reeds under the bridge. The sailors had given them simple cotton pants and sandals to replace their civilian clothing. To the unsophisticated eye, they passed as crew. Using a small outboard motor, the tattooed sailor navigated the channel north and east, toward the Saigon River. The big inboard motor ran at idle, in reserve if needed.

Saigon was dark. Almost no lights shone in the city. Bridges were deserted of pedestrians. Byrnes saw no vehicular traffic anywhere. The curfew of the second night of occupation kept people in their homes, either planning for escapes or accepting their fate, he guessed.

A police boat pulled alongside the sampan about an hour after they cast off. The small powerboat flew the NVA battle flag as banners from its bow and stern. An infantry sergeant in dark green khakis stood on the bow of the boat. Two armed soldiers positioned themselves behind him. A third man steered the boat. He wore a white T-shirt and dirty white pants. The nose of the police boat nudged the sampan, which was about twice its size. “Where are you going?” the sergeant asked.

“The East Sea,” the sailor with acne replied. “Tide goes out early this morning. We will be trapped inland unless we leave now.”

  “We have orders to inspect all boats,” the sergeant said.

  The sailor with the dragon tattoo threw the sergeant a line. “Fine. Come aboard.” After lashing the two boats together, the sergeant stepped across the gap to the sampan. He followed the sailor into the compartment. Obviously not a sailor, the sergeant wobbled while moving about the boat. He saw the fishing equipment covering the deck, but did not ask to see the hold. He had been unaware the sailor had kept his hand on the hilt of the long knife in a leather scabbard on his belt, prepared to end the soldier’s life if necessary.

“Okay,” the sergeant said. “You may continue. Bring us some fresh fish when you return. I have written your boat’s number down, 513. Don’t forget, or there will be trouble.” He jumped across the gap between the boats and, after loosening the line, tossed it into the water. The sailor pulled the rope into the sampan and coiled it on the deck.

“Yes, sir,” the sailor replied. He returned to the tiller and cranked up the outboard. Slowly the boats parted. The police boat made a U-turn and continued west.

Two hours later the sampan puttered into a larger body of water. “Saigon River,” Roh said quietly to Byrnes. “The Dong Hai is north of us. The East Sea is south of us. There are not many channels between here and the ocean. Mr. Dang’s crew knows them all. We have to hope the NVA are not yet aware of them.”

When the sampan cleared the south edge of Saigon, the sailors pushed the fishing gear to one side and opened the hatch to the hold. They allowed the sweating, confined passengers to come up on deck four or five at a time for brief respites of fresh air and to relieve themselves over the side of the boat. The gunnels sat barely two feet over the brown water.

“I’m surprised the police didn’t open the hold,” Mr. Dang said to Roh when he took his turn on deck.

The tattooed sailor laughed. “Boss,” he said. “That was no water policeman. The NVA probably detained all the real river police. He was a land-lubber for sure. A real sailor would have noted how low in the water we sit. He would have known there is a hold filled with something below the compartment.”

“I guess we should be thankful that they replaced the water patrol with their own people,” Dang said. “How much longer until we reach the East Sea?”

“We are taking our time,” the sailor said. “We will reach the Nha Be River shortly. I hope to have us at the East Sea by dawn. Then we can use the big engine. We have more than enough fuel to reach Malaysia. Do you still want to go southeast?”

Dang shook his head. He said, “My informants say the Americans are escorting a vast number of large and small Vietnamese boats to the Philippines. We should go east. With luck we will be picked up by a larger ship.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

The muscular throb of the powerful inboard motor woke Byrnes as he dozed on the deck. He rolled over and looked into a fat, red, rising sun, surrounded by pink billowing clouds on the horizon over the open sea. Then he heard the gunfire from behind the sampan. Dang had returned to the deck, wearing only his underclothes. “Faster!” he yelled. The inboard growled louder.

Tracer rounds hit the water near the bow of the ship. Byrnes turned his head and saw another patrol boat to the south, closing quickly. “Better surrender,” he said.

“Never!” Dang said. The man pulled an M-16 from inside the compartment and began to return fire.

A third patrol boat north of them opened fire on the sampan with a machinegun. Bullets stitched the water, climbing into the boat, feet from Byrnes. He heard screams from the passengers below. Dang tumbled into the water, covered with blood. The tattooed sailor, the second crewman, Roh, and Byrnes stood on deck, hands in the air. The machinegun fell silent.