The Village by Bing West Page A

jammed with sleeping men the night before was now empty, except for a desk, several chairs, a table and two benches. At the desk sat Lam, his thin face so pale it seemed rubbed with chalk, and on the floor to his right sat a small man with a wispy mustache, clothed in faded black shorts and a black shirt. He looked like a meek and tired old farmer. His arms were bound behind him and there was a purple and red welt on his forehead and he was plaintively explaining something to Lam, who seemed to be concentrating all his attention on the fiberglass tube of a LAW which had been fired. As the prisoner babbled on, Lam picked up a knife, hacked off the front and rear sights of the LAW, then gently turned the smooth tube in his hands. Satisfied with how it felt, he bonked the prisoner over the head, almost playfully, as a teacher might rap an unruly seventh-grader over the knuckles.
    The prisoner looked up apprehensively. Lam asked a question. The prisoner started to give a querulous reply. Wham. Without even looking down, Thanh smashed the man across his shoulder blades. The man stopped talking. Thanh repeated his question. The man started over again with his pat explanation. Wham. Wham. The tube smashed down again and again. The interrogation had begun.
    Ho Chi watched the proceedings for several minutes, walked over to the group of gawking Marines and shook his head.
    â€œToo tough,” he said. “That man will not talk.”
    After beating the man for two hours, Lam came to the same conclusion. All he could tell the Marines was that he was sure the man was a long-time member of the Viet Cong Secret Security Section.
    The man would admit nothing. Late in the afternoon, he was taken out of the village by four policemen. They didn’t say where they were going.
    Lam was worried. It was not just that someone had tried to kill him. That had happened frequently. What bothered him was his lack of information. The enemy appeared active and aggressive in the village, unafraid of the combined unit. Lam wanted to know what the VC leaders were telling their men, what their plan was for keeping control of the village, what sort of attacks he could expect.

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    Lam knew the man who could find out such information. He was Tran Quoc Phuoc, the district leader for the government pacification program. A natural politician, he was just the sort of man to hear and catalogue every rumor floating around the district. Phuoc wanted to run in the August election for representatives to the National Assembly in Saigon and was making a determined effort to get around the district and drum up support for his candidacy in the rural hamlets. But his travels were hampered by a lack of security.
    Lam suggested to Phuoc that Binh Nghia, with its five thousand inhabitants, would make a better political base than the district town. Phuoc’s wife and daughter lived in Binh Yen Noi and he could see them every day. He would have Marine or police protection if he wanted to visit dangerous hamlets like My Hué. In return, Lam was interested only in what Phuoc might learn about the Viet Cong.
    Attracted by the prospect of votes, Phuoc agreed to come. He brought with him twenty RDs, or Revolutionary Development workers. According to a government theory, the RDs were to help the villagers in their daily work tasks while convincing them that they should be openly loyal to the GVN and uncooperative with the VC. Although the RDs carried weapons, their task was not to beat the enemy by force. They were supposed to show the villagers that the Saigon government cared for them and that the Viet Cong were to be shunned. The theory called for the PFs to protect the RDs.
    Within a few days it was apparent that the RDs were of little use. Few of them were from the village, many were in their teens and none was married. In trying to direct their efforts, Phuoc frequently looked like an exasperated Boy Scout master with a high-spirited troop. Send the RDs to work in