Part 19 (1/2)
”I hope we might meet again one day in freedom, Captain Sherman,” said Lat warmly.
”I hope so too.” Joseph hesitated, still holding the hand of the Annamese in his. ”Lat, when we met all those years ago you were with the Imperial Delegate in Saigon, do you remember?”
Lat nodded. ”Yes of course. He married my older sister.”
”How is Monsieur Tran Van Hieu and his family, do you know?” Joseph tried to keep his voice casual. ”I met his sons and his daughter, Lan, on my last visit.”
”Tran Van Kim is a prominent member of our Viet Minh League. He's working undercover near Phuoc Kiem to the south of here.”
”And Tam and Lan?” prompted Joseph. ”What of them?”
Lat shrugged and dropped his eyes in embarra.s.sment. ”I'm afraid, captain I know nothing of them. I've had no contact with my sister or her children for many years - nor has Comrade Kim. These have been difficult times for all of us.”
Joseph nodded quickly. ”Of course, I understand.”
”When you are safely back in Kunming, captain,” said Ho, taking Joseph's hand in his turn, ”please tell your senior officers that America has allies ready and waiting to help them in the mountains of Tongking. The Viet Minh will be honored to fight the j.a.panese alongside America. A lot can be achieved by sabotaging their supply routes and arms dumps.”
”I'll tell them,” promised Joseph, gripping the hand of the Annamese firmly. ”They'll be grateful for what you've done for me.
”We'll help any pilot shot down in these jungles - you can depend on us. But as you've been our first American guest you'll always hold a special place in our hearts.” A broad smile of genuine affection broke out on his face. ”And don't be misled back in Kunming by the Free French or Chiang Kai-shek's people if they try to brand us as Communists. Tell them the Viet Minh is an alliance of patriots, and Vietnam today is like America must have been in 1775. Everybody who's willing to fight for independence and freedom is welcome to join us.”
”Have you ever been a Communist yourself?” asked Joseph.
Ho's smile broadened. ”If anybody inquires about my politics, captain, simply tell them this: 'His party is his country, his program is independence.' We'll keep fighting for that independence whatever happens.- and our children will fight on after us if need be.. . Bon voyage.”
Joseph closed his eyes and gritted his teeth as the guerrillas carrying him slipped and slithered on the steep, stony track leading down into China. They were hurrying to reach the shelter of the jungle on the lower slopes, and he couldn't help crying aloud with pain from time to time. As they approached the trees, he looked back and caught a last glimpse of the Annamese standing silhouetted against the bright morning sky. Joseph waved, and on the mountaintop the frail figure raised his cork helmet and lifted his cane above his head in a final gesture of farewell.
7.
By the end of February 1945 the plaster cast that encased Joseph's right leg from hip to ankle was smothered with signatures and humorous obscenities. They had been scrawled on it by other wounded ”Flying Tigers” recuperating with him in the Kunming base hospital, and prominent among the names was that of Major General Claire Lee Chennault, their famous, hawk-faced commander who had taken a break from directing the day and night air war against the j.a.panese to hear for himself how one of his best pilots had returned miraculously from the dead. Joseph had been missing for nearly three weeks when he was finally driven up to the gates of the Fourteenth Army Air Force headquarters on New Year's Eve in a rickety Chinese flatbed truck, and to make his return more mysterious, the two silent guerrillas who has accompanied him from the Tongking border had slipped away immediately to begin their Long return journey.
It had been left to the astonished gate guards to carry him inside, and his surprise return had made the 308th Squadron's New Year's party more riotous than it might otherwise have been. Joseph, however, had taken no part in the merrymaking himself because air force surgeons got busy straight away resetting his broken thigh and the previously undiscovered fracture in the lower part of his leg. When Claire Chennault strode into the hospital next morning wearing the twin silver stars of a major general on the shoulders of his battered leather flying jacket, the other disabled flyers had cheered Joseph to the echo, then launched into a raucously affectionate chorus of ”Why Was He Born So Beautiful?”
The craggy features of the air force general who had become America's most renowned fighting man in Asia softened into a delighted smile as Joseph described how the Annamese guerrillas had spirited him away from the j.a.panese and nursed him back to health in their mountain hideaway before smuggling him safely into China. ”We can sure use that kind of help,” drawled Chennault in a rich southern baritone that reflected his Louisiana upbringing. ”Every Allied pilot's worth his weight in gold right now in the China-Burma-India theater. We're all mighty glad, Joseph, to see you back here in one piece - and we'll be even happier to see you back in the air again.”
While Joseph recovered from his injuries, outside the windows of the sick bay the roar of heavy transports, bombers and fighters landing and taking off remained constant round the clock. The ma.s.sive j.a.panese invasion army was still advancing westward across China, even threatening Kunming itself, and vital Allied supplies for the Chinese were still being ferried in nonstop from India over the ”Hump” of the Himalayas to beat the enemy's blockade. In Europe British, American and Russian forces were sweeping inexorably into Germany from east and west, and it seemed almost certain that the global conflict was entering its climactic phase. But even though the noise o war was all around him in his hospital bed, Joseph still retained something of that curious sense of detachment that had come to him in the mountains of Tongking. To his surprise he no longer felt the same fierce compulsion to return to combat that he'd always felt before, and he found himself pondering the good fortune that had ensured his survival when he felt certain he would die. The images of his days with the Annamese guerrillas haunted his mind and drew his thoughts back to the past brushes with their country. He remembered to with a feeling of abiding affection the enigmatic guerrilla leader who had shown such concern for him at Pac Bo, but when a medical orderly brought him a brief handwritten message asking permission for its writer to visit him in the first week of March, he stared blankly at its signature.
”C. M. Hoo? I don't know anybody by that name.” He studied the spidery scrawl on the sheet of green rice paper, then raised an inquiring eyebrow at the orderly. ”Who gave you the note?”
The orderly shrugged. ”An old Chinese guy. He looks like some kind of beggar. Says he'd like to wish you well and claims you once met someplace with a Chinese name I can't p.r.o.nounce.”
”You'd better send him in,” said Joseph without enthusiasm, then sat up suddenly in his bed a minute later when he saw the familiar khaki-clad figure in the battered cork helmet hobbling down the ward, leaning on a bamboo cane.
”I'm glad to see you're getting better treatment here than at Pac Bo, Captain Sherman,” said the Annamese humorously as he shook Joseph by the hand. ”I hope you're almost recovered now.'
”I didn't recognize the name you gave in your message,” said Joseph, staring in disbelief.
”Ah yes, I wrote it the way most Americans like it - nice and simple with the family name last and an extra o. I'd forgotten you're a man used to the ways of the Orient.”
'But what are you doing here in Kunming, Monsieur Ho?”
The Annamese continued to smile at Joseph's mystification. ”I'm no stranger to Kunming, captain. Because it's close to the Tongking border, the 'City of Eternal Spring' has often served as a place of refuge over the years for nationalists from my country.”
”And have you come here to seek refuge?”
”No” The Annamese shook his head, still smiling broadly. ”I come here from time to time to find out what's happening in the rest of the world. I like to read back copies of your excellent Time magazine in the library of the U.S. Office of War Information - it keeps me up to date.”
”And how did you get here?”
”I walked across the border to Ching Hsi.”
Joseph gasped. ”But that must be two hundred miles.”
”Yes, maybe more,” said the Annamese simply. ”It took me two weeks. My feet are a little sore now, but 1 got used to walking when I was a prisoner in China.”
”But you didn't walk all this way just to read old copies of Time,” protested Joseph.
The dark intense eyes regarding the American twinkled suddenly and he nodded in a.s.sent. ”You're right of course, Captain. I came to offer the services of the Viet Minh League to General Chennault. I thought we could rescue more pilots if we had better arms and some radios - but your Office of Strategic Services shows no interest. They say no arms can be given to us in case we use them against the French, who are your allies in Europe. They won't even give me a single Colt .45 for myself - and they won't allow me to see your general.”
”Didn't you tell them that you've already rescued one American pilot?”
The Annamese nodded. ”Yes, but I don't think they believed me.” He waved a self-deprecating hand at his dusty clothes and smiled ruefully. ”Maybe you can't blame them, I don't really look capable of saving anyone - even myself.”
When Joseph laughed, the Annamese joined in, and his engaging honesty caused a new feeling of affection to well up inside the American.
”Your OSS officers are too preoccupied, you see, with the idea that we may be Communists,” continued Ho, his eyes still twinkling. ”They listen only to Chiang Kai-shek and the Free French intelligence people. I warned you about that, didn't I?”
”And what did you tell them?”
”I said that the French like to condemn as Communists all those who want independence in Indochina. And because Chiang Kai-shek has spent more energy fighting Mao Tse-tung than he has fighting the j.a.panese, he's anxious to condemn the Viet Minh as Communist too.”
”I'll have a word with General Chennault myself,” said Joseph impulsively. ”I've already told him what your people did for me. Your request to see him has probably never got past his aides.”
”Please don't go to any trouble on my behalf,” said Ho, frowning and laying a restraining hand on Joseph's arm. ”You must rest and recover from your injuries. I didn't come here to disturb you.”
”It's no trouble after all you did for me,” insisted Joseph, patting the hand of the Annamese and smiling.
”If a meeting proves impossible, I would be happy to have just a simple memento from the general,” said Ho hastily. ”I've heard that he keeps a supply of glossy photographs to give away to those who admire his leaders.h.i.+p. If you could persuade him to sign one for me, I would be grateful.”
Joseph laughed. ”A glossy photograph is the very least you'll get, Monsieur Ho,- I promise you that. And as a personal thank you from me, I'll see you get a few Colt .45s and a box or two of ammunition. But I think General Chennault will agree to see you when I tell him who you are and what you've done. How long will you be staying in Kunming?”