The Bamboo Bends

By A Cavanaugh-Johnson

Two men lie motionless in a swamp breathing shallowly through hollow reeds. An enemy patrol is searching the area for them probing the dense vegetation near the bank with bayonets but not venturing into the dank leech infested water. Nearby are six American prisoners in a bamboo cage. Jake Mathews attempted to rescue them before being discovered. For the Americans the war was over, but not for these men.

• Language: English
• Publisher: A Cavanaugh-Johnson
• Release date: Sep 4, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311823359

A Cavanaugh-Johnson

April is a many-faceted writer. Though her background is journalism - The Anchorage Daily News and The Miami Herald - her genre is factual fiction.At the News she was the editor of the Sunday Magazine and wrote major feature articles and several interviews, weekly. She flew the back country in a helicopter with the Alaska Fish and Game Commission herding moose for a survival study, and interviewed visiting senators and diplomats, with equal aplomb. When the King and Queen of Nepal came to Alaska in the mid-sixties to hunt, she was chosen to be the ‘Royal Scribe.'She went to Portugal on vacation and wound up in Africa reporting on the Biafran/Nigerian civil war. In Lisbon she was told there were no flights into Nigeria. So she tracked down the mercenary pilots who delivered fourteen tons of guns, ammunition and explosives to Biafra, and talked them into giving her a ride. Her questions about the starving children she found at the Sisters of the Holy Rosary Mission brought that situation to worldwide attention.On her return to the States she settled in Miami and worked for The Miami Herald writing features and a daily column. When the opportunity presented itself she went to Vietnam and wrote stories on the impact of the war on the civilian population. On her return she hosted her own talk show on WKAT Miami and after a while went back to Vietnam. There she collected stories fact and fiction and on her return, at the urging of her friend Truman Capote, started the process of writing The Bamboo Bends.

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DEDICATION

For Ross, Lynda and Robert

Without your love I would never have had the courage.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

A special thank you to my late husband, Lt. Col. Ross Johnson whose three years in Vietnam gave him special insight into the country, and encouraged me to write this story from the very beginning. And a loving thanks to my daughter Lynda, who believed in this story and kept nagging me to write. She did not live to see the end product, but she knows. And to my son Robert, my computer guru, researcher and champion.

Thanks to Hatcher James and Jim Smith who made all things possible for me during my days in Vietnam. Thanks to Richard M. Mielke, known as Mike, for his notes and memoirs. And a special thanks to all the men whose letters and diaries helped formulate this story. Unfortunately Hurricane Andrew swept your names, notes and pictures out to sea in ’92.

Thanks to my friend, Susie Jaillet, for her expertise as copy and content editor. Her input was invaluable. And thanks to Jody Rehman for her original cover art, and to Michelle Violette for her map of the territory covered.

And thanks to Stephanie Sherman, who began as a reader and became a second copy editor. And thanks to my readers, Joseph Oliveri and Helene Gelish, Elizabeth Shanks, and Jerry Fox, who took the time to read and critique this work.

PROLOGUE

December 23, 1974 Two men lie motionless in a swamp, breathing shallowly through hollow reeds. An enemy patrol searched the area for them, calling to one another and probing the dense vegetation near the bank with bayonets but not venturing into the dank leech-infested water.

Earlier that evening Jake Mathews and Vo, his Vietnamese counterpart, had located five American prisoners of war being held in a bamboo cage. They were discovered while attempting a rescue. As they ran Jake killed a guard and took the five dog tags the VC soldier had hanging around his neck. Earlier that day they had watched him taunt the prisoners with them. The captives knew, with the loss of their tags their identity was no longer a secret. Now Jake and Vo lie motionless in the putrid water knowing the slightest ripple on the surface would call attention to them.

Fear tightened Jake’s stomach muscles as a large python swam around and over them. Jake took out his knife and carefully reached out to Vo, lightly touching him with the Ka-Bar. Vo acknowledged Jake’s intent. The snake lost interest and swam toward shore causing ripples on the still surface.

There were shouts from the soldiers and a barrage of AK-47 fire when they saw the disturbed water. They slashed at the shoreline with bayonets and the dying python floated to the surface. The killing of a twenty foot snake brought some hilarity to the patrol and they moved on laughing.

Both men remained stationary until the last sounds of the enemy faded and the silence of the jungle once more folded in upon itself, broken only by an occasional monkey calling to its mate. Slowly they pulled themselves from the reeking water. They were dressed in the black pajamas of a VC guerrilla and were covered in rotting decay. Silently they returned to the cave where they had lain hidden for the past two days observing the Viet Cong encampment.

They will move them now, Jake. Vo stated the fact with the finality of a man who had watched this drama unfold many times before.

Had to kill him—had their dog tags. They’re proof that men were left behind. Now it’s right up the trail for those poor sons-a-bitches—Hanoi Hilton—if they live that long. Five Americans—just kids—must have been Special Ops—trail watchers. Why didn’t they go in sanitized?

Sometimes when a man knows the mission will end with his death it is comforting to hold on to something that proves his identity. Vo rummaged through his knapsack to find salt to spread on the leeches that had attached themselves while they lay in the swamp.

What were they still doing out there? Anger welled up inside Jake. He wasn’t used to losing. U.S. troops been out of country since ‘73.

Laos, Cambodia, those men in the cage are part of the men who were not there, Vo said. The contempt of the U.S. cover-up showed in his voice.

Jake helped himself to the salt. Special Ops group. Jake said, dangling the five dog tags in his hand for Vo’s inspection. Peterson, Sylvester, Rodriguez, Brown, and Cooper. I should’ve been able to pull them out. Maybe with a little luck we can still head them off at the pass—reach Kontum in time to alert the embassy in Bangkok.

Jake Mathews, a former green beret, retired from service and stayed behind in Nam when the Americans pulled out. He was on a mission to find as many POWs and MIAs as he could and get them home. With help from Vo and some monetary help from a sympathetic senator in Washington, he organized a grassroots organization, SAF, Search and Find. They were following a lead when they were discovered.

They broke out their indigenous rations, cold rice cooked days before with fish and garlic. Then they took turns sleeping. Before moonrise, two figures slipped from the cave and, blending with the night, headed east toward Kontum.

Vo led the way through the head-high elephant grass that flanked both sides of the Ho Chi Minh trail where it crossed from Laos into Vietnam. Jake followed, his six-foot frame forcing him at times to duck walk in Vo’s footsteps. As the moon made its entrance in the night sky the elephant grass gradually gave way to triple-canopy jungle, and the men slipped into the protective shadows. A thick layer of decay from years of monsoon rains covered the jungle floor. Wait-a-minute vines, tangled creepers concealing massive thorns capable of impaling a man, tore at their clothes and bamboo thickets blocked their path slowing their progress. Overhead, trees created a world of interminable gloom. Vo located a little-used foot trail and communicating with hand signals, quickened the pace. There was no time to go by the book for the detection of trip wires and Jake, trying as closely as possible to step in Vo’s footprints, silently prayed there were no long-forgotten tiger pits lined with venom tipped punji stakes hidden in the underbrush. The night belonged to the VC.

Exhausted and mud-encrusted they managed to reach the Pat Smith Hospital compound where both men were well known, and Jake telephoned the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok.

This is Jake Mathews of the Search and Find organization in Vietnam. I’ve just sighted five American prisoners being marched up the Ho Chi Minh trail. What d’ya mean am I sure? I’ve just come in from the boonies. I’ve been tracking them for over a week. I saw them—nearly joined them. Hell, man, I’ve got their dog tags. When can you send a rescue team? What the devil do you mean no-can-do because of the Paris Peace Accord? The North Vietnamese aren’t paying any attention to that piece of shit. Christ man, we’re talking five Americans. Jake’s knuckles turned white as he clutched the telephone and listened.

What the fucking hell do you mean call back next week? They’re west of Kontum heading north. I can give you the exact coordinates where I saw them last. Send a Jolly Green Giant, Jake pleaded. It’s a short hop over the border from where you are. Don’t give me that crap, those chopper jockeys can locate a slit trench on a moonless night—for the love of God, man, those guys aren’t going to sit around and wait. Jake slammed the phone down shaking his head in disbelief. Turning to Vo he said, Told me to call back—said he was working with a skeleton staff—said the Embassy was more or less closed for the Christmas holiday."

CHAPTER ONE

Sunday, March 9, 1975 Nha Trang Life was peaceful, not quite idyllic, in Nha Trang that March day in 1975. The late afternoon sun sent heat waves shimmering down Dui Tan, the broad, tree-lined avenue that borders the South China Sea. Palm trees shaded naked, golden skinned children as they splashed at the edge of the surf. Young boys played a game of tag around barbed concertina wire, snake-coiled as far as the eye could see along the sandy beach. The wire was the only visible reminder that somewhere a war was being fought, Vietnamese against Vietnamese, North against South. The Americans had pulled most of their troops out two years before, taking with them the helicopter gunship forays that lit the night sky with deadly fireworks and the B-52s that sent their booming death knell from the mountains to the sea. Nha Trang had a front row seat for both the audio and visual.

Jake Mathews had nothing on his mind that lazy Sunday afternoon as he drove his ‘liberated’ U.S. Army jeep along the coastal road to his new boat. She was a teak and brass, thirty-six-foot lady patterned after, but far classier than, an ocean-going Vietnamese fishing boat. He had taken delivery earlier that day. Jake’s weathered, war-weary face broke into a network of laugh lines as he recalled the sight of her as she chugged her way dockside with the aid of an old Yamaha outboard. The two 180 horsepower Chrysler engines that would give her life were still to come. Until then the antiquated outboard that propelled her would do just fine, he thought. He planned to keep her moored up-river at the fishing village on the outskirts of Nha Trang.

Jake had the boat built to his exact specifications as they were essential for clearance under the Highway 1 Bridge at low tide and the wheel housing of specific footage to clear the bridge at high tide. This was the only passage to Nha Trang Bay and the open sea. Jake, a retired Army major, planned to spend the rest of his days in Vietnam searching for POWs and MIAs. SAF, his Search and Find organization was in place and functioning, and when the last missing man was accounted for he planned to sail the waters of the South China Sea with Thuan, his wife, and eventually head for the Caribbean.

He swung himself and a cooler of beer aboard and felt with deep satisfaction the smooth, warm teak deck under his bare feet. His hands slid over the polished brass work that finished off the exterior and interior of the cabin, and he mentally ran a checklist of the navigational equipment housed there. The cabin was situated mid-deck next to the ladder leading down to the galley and sleeping quarters. The pièce de résistance was a mahogany ship’s wheel, built to scale, a replica of one found on the four-masted schooners that once plied these waters.

Your compass still needs to be calibrated, and your radio will be installed in Saigon, he said. Shit, I’ll have you equipped with radar.

He stepped down the ladder leading below deck, ducking his head and hunching his shoulders while silently applauding himself for having the foresight to allow some additional headroom for his six-foot frame. Back topside he walked around the deck admiring the craftsmanship of the Vietnamese carpenters. Checking the compartment where the engines would be housed he softly crooned to the one lunger rebuilt Yamaha. Don’t you worry, honey, you’ll do just fine for the shakedown cruise. Jake was in love and her name was Finder’s Fee.

He reached into a cooler and took out a Ba Muoi Ba, a beer brewed in Saigon, and stretched out in the sunshine on the deck.

With the American military out of the country and the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, ARVN, containing the North Vietnamese Army, the NVA up north, Jake had settled into a peaceful Southeast Asian complacency. From his vantage point on the deck, his gaze took in the Christian Brother’s Monastery standing resolute on the cliff behind the village dominating the western skyline. He took a long pull of the local brew and allowed his mind to drift back ten years to the first time he saw the monastery. The French considered the massive villa a monument to lasting peace. Lasting peace, now that’s a crock, he directed his comment to the monastery.

Jake tried to dismiss the thoughts that were bent on crowding out the pleasures of the day.

His remembrances mirrored fluctuating emotions—his annoyance when he discovered this was where the sons of the wealthy came to study for the priesthood and, in turn, effectively avoid the draft. He had been impressed when he first saw the carefully cultivated formal gardens and the giant shade trees that covered the grounds. He noted, as his eyes swept the area, that the bright red bougainvillea lining the paths where the young novitiates stroll and pray were thriving, sending streamers of color tumbling over the cliff.

I’ll bet those damned iron gates still manage to keep out the war and poor alike, he told the Finder’s Fee as he popped another beer. Jake’s thoughts ran back to Tet of ’68, when the ornate, wrought-iron gates were shut and locked, denying sanctuary to five brave men. His friends. He raised his beer to their memory. Saved only one—that got me a battlefield commission. I’d give all the fuckin’ medals the Army gave me and then some if I could have saved them all.

He turned his attention to the present while unconsciously rubbing old shrapnel wounds that scarred his right side. I wonder how those five guys I left behind in the cage are doing. I haven’t forgotten you guys. I’ll find you.

Jake’s thoughts wandered to a letter he received from SAF’s main supporter, Senator Joseph Bannister, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee. The Senator had used Jake and SAF as part of his reelection platform during the early years of the war. Now with new elections on the horizon he was planning to use SAF again.

Just as long as you keep your fellow politicians in line looking for the missing now that the war is over. And don’t sweep the truth under the rug when you hear it. Jake voiced his thoughts aloud.

He looked across the water toward Hon Tre Island and in his mind’s eye visualized its emerald green jungle marching down the mountainside to meet a beach of dazzling white sand and a sea that reflected the color of the foliage above. It was Thuan’s favorite picnic site—their own perfect get-away spot where they could strip off their clothes, bathe and make love in the sea.

The sun was sinking behind the monastery, and early evening shadows began to finger their way over the beach. The breeze was down, the palm trees still. There was no longer any activity on the larger fishing boats that lined the dock. They were ready to sail with the morning tide. Jake was enjoying the moment when his reverie was broken.

Permission to come aboard.

Hey, Tully, permission granted. Come aboard and meet the lady.

Larson Tully, the aid to the Consulate General in Nha Trang, was an old friend since their Special Forces days. His short-cropped curly black hair already showed strands of gray, a fact he contributed to his association with one Jake Mathews.

Tully went below deck. So where am I going to bunk?

You and Ahn have the alcove on the port side. And you had better not bring anyone on board except Thuan’s little sister or you’ll be in for prime-time, Vietnamese woman cold shoulder."

Not to worry, I’m no masochist.

Jake tossed Tully a beer. Back home in Miami, when I was a wild young stud at the Coconut Grove Sailing Club, we used to call anyone who owned a boat without sails, a stink potter, and look at me now.

Jake, my friend, you’re coming to terms with age.

"Back then sails gave me an edge. I had a little Morgan, the Fia Fia. You’d be surprised how many times I was becalmed somewhere off Elliot Key with some sweet young thing—hey, I might just sail to Florida and let the old gang see how I’ve matured." He caressed the wheel as he spoke.

Tully, this lady and me, we’re gonna have a love affair to end all. First we’ll play around up here for a while, then we’ll move down to Saigon. It’s gonna be this baby and me and Thuan for the rest of our lives. We’ll cruise to Bangkok.

If you do you’d better mount one big mother of a gun on deck. Make it two, fore and aft.

Hell, Tully, the war’s winding down.

Yeah, but the South China Sea pirates are winding up. They’ve been around for hundreds of years, they’ll always be with us. They’ve joined forces with the CIA, and they’re all running drugs out of Saigon now. Tully looked over the stern at the outboard motor. This one lunger is an insult to a lady of her status.

Hey, don’t knock our only means of locomotion. Jake opened another beer and foam fizzed out. Guess she’s christened. We should really call her the Big Red 33, in honor of Saigon’s favorite beer.

"You could superimpose the whole Ba Muoi Ba label over the Finder’s Fee and do the 33 in neon lights," added Tully.

Yeah, and anchor her on the Saigon River near the Majestic Hotel, a floating whore house. What the hell, it’s all legal here.

They climbed onto the dock and looked at the overall structure of the boat as Jake explained. She’ll just clear the underside of the bridge at high tide. I expect we’ll find out for sure if she’ll make it in about a week. How about you and Ahn coming along for a shake-down cruise over to Hon Tre.

You’re on. Let’s go up the beach for a bowl of pho. I want to bring you up to date on what’s going on in the real world.

Wrong, Tully, this is the real world. That world of diplomats and spies you live in is what’s unreal.

Don’t bet your funky green beret on that.

It was only then that Jake detected the controlled tension in Tully’s voice, but he resisted the temptation to question. There were always too many unseen eyes watching the quiet American and his pipe-smoking friend from the American Consulate. They strolled up the dock to a two-table food stall located on the beach. A bowl of pho was an early Sunday evening ritual for them after a day on the water. Usually they were accompanied by Thuan and her younger sister, Ahn. Onlookers could find nothing unusual as Jake dug his bare feet into the sand and ordered two more beers. The vendor knew the two men and produced a friendly greeting and the pho without waiting for an order.

This is the best damn pho in all of Nha Trang, Jake said leaning back in his chair watching the sun turn the color of the South China Sea from molten gold to blood red.

Tully finished his soup, took out his tobacco pouch and went through the familiar ritual of packing his pipe, tamping the tobacco, and torching it with his Zippo. It was a scenario Jake knew well. And it usually prefaced a serious discussion. Tully drew several times on the pipe, sending a cloud of smoke into the still evening air. Then hunching his wiry frame over the table, he put on a grin as if telling a joke. Only Jake saw the anxiety in Tully’s piercing dark eyes, I’ll tell you what I know and it isn’t much. He said, his pipe clenched between his teeth.

"Something is messing around out there in the Highlands and it isn’t that POW sighting you found on the trail.

Damn, Tully, I asked you to send indigenous personnel, not the CIA clowns to check the sighting. They always fuck things up. You need…

Hold it, Jake. We didn’t send anybody. We’re talking satellite intelligence. We know there’s a major force, at least a division, we think the 316th. It’s always been clear up north on the Laotian border—west of Hanoi in a training camp. Last week we lost it.

The whole fucking division?

You got it, and God only knows where it is now. I made a guess and was told by the powers that be in Saigon I should watch what I smoke.

What’s your guess?

Central Highlands, Ban Me Thuot.

Shit, Thuan’s up there.

CHAPTER TWO

Sunday, March 9, 1975 Ban Me Thuot Colonel Dang Van Hung sat quietly outside his tent in the humid green jungle west of Ban Me Thuot, re-reading and making notations in his diary. From time to time, he was obliged to put down his pen and sit motionless for several minutes, willing his body to adjust to the sultry air so different from his native Hanoi. He had arrived in the Central Highlands a few days earlier with his commanding general, the leader of the Spring Offensive, and found the climate unusually draining. He dabbed at his face and hands with a neatly folded olive drab colored handkerchief. Despite the noon heat, Hung never considered unbuttoning the Mao-type collar of his jacket. He was fastidious almost to the point of obsession.

Hung, the only son of a close friend and follower of Ho Chi Minh, was indoctrinated at the knee of his father into the teachings of Uncle Ho. This relationship came with special privileges, allowing Hung to be formally schooled in Russia where his ear for languages enabled him to speak Russian, French, and English fluently. This background made him the natural choice for his new assignment. Throughout the war years Hung was kept well behind the front lines working closely with Russian advisors in Hanoi and traveling to prison camps, interrogating and updating dossiers of POWs of all nationalities. His new assignment was collector of pearls for the Spring Offensive. Pearls being POWs: pilots, mechanics, technicians, and minor diplomats harvested during the years of fighting with the French and the Americans. Pearls, usually with some persuasion, kept the captured material and installations running. Some of the more valuable, with highly technical knowledge beyond the needs of the North Vietnamese, were sold to Russia or China.

Hung made some notations in his diary and then reread what he had written so far. He wanted to keep a careful record. He was sure there were stars in his future.

February 5, 1975 – Today the General and I left Hanoi for the Central Highlands, destination Ban Me Thuot. First stop Dong Hoi. That was as far south as we could go by plane. From the airfield we were driven towards Quang Tri and transferred to a motor launch at the Ben Hai River. We were deep within our own territory and therefore secure. Our flag with its bold gold star caught the breeze flying freely from the stern of our boat. It was a good omen of success to come.

In the late afternoon, we landed at a dock and were taken to the headquarters of the 559th Division. The brave men and women of this outpost are the builders of the road the Americans refer to as the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

February10, 1975 – This road, east of the Truong Son mountain range, is a remarkable feat of engineering. In 1973 it was a foot trail, now it is eight meters wide, accomplished by the labor of thirty thousand troops, countless civilian workers, brigades of Vanguard Youth, and of course engineers, some of whom were my pearls. The workers suffered heat, cold and monsoon rains, still they leveled mountains and graded steep passes with nothing more than shovels and their hands. They built bridges and turned aside rushing streams. And they laid five thousand kilometers of oil pipeline from Quang Tri Province through the Central Highlands to Loc Ninh.

These brave people did all this while under daily attack by the United States imperialists.

February 25, 1975 – On the way down we passed the 316th Division. It was always based on the border with Laos. Now they were on the move, the whole division to the Ban Me Thuot front. The secrecy of this move was important, and the General gave the order that from the time of their departure until they opened fire they were forbidden to turn on their radios. The troops shouted and laughed when we intercepted enemy communications, as they radioed each other, saying they had lost track of the 316th. We kept in touch with Hanoi by telephone. We strung lines from Hanoi to Ban Me Thuot and from there to all the surrounding base camps.

Hung’s concentration was interrupted by the loud trumpeting of elephants. The entire camp shook as the herd thundered by several hundred yards from the headquarters encampment. They had stampeded before but never so close.

"Merde," he muttered.

A communications lieutenant, running past to check the damage, took a moment to stop and laughingly say, Comrade Colonel, our General said there is nothing wrong in running from elephants. May I suggest, until they become more politically astute, it is best to run for the reinforced bunker when you hear them coming.

How bad was the damage from the last stampede, Lieutenant?

They ran through our telephone lines and took long sections of it with them as they headed for Cambodia. It is all repaired and ready for the attack. As he jogged off he added, This time we will push the enemy into the sea.

Colonel Hung made a last notation in his diary.

Sunday, March 9, 1975 Ban Me Thuot We are ready. Morale has never been better.

CHAPTER THREE

Sunday, March 9, 1975 Ban Me Thuot A morning storm, a precursor of the monsoon season, streaked across the Highlands. The rain cascaded over the windshield of her battered station wagon giving Thuan Mathews a myopic view of the world outside. She slowed to a crawl and inched along Route 21, a tarred road once a proud part of the French highway system. It was the major artery linking the cities of the Central Highlands with Ninh Hoa and Nha Trang on the coast and had escaped total demolition from B52 raids for most of the war. It was an ARVN lifeline.

The hazardous road conditions didn’t bother Thuan as much as a gut feeling she hadn’t been able to shake since morning. Things are not normal, she said aloud trying to control her growing fear. There should have been more traffic before this storm. Where are the peasants? The buffalo carts? I have not heard church bells—missionaries never miss a chance to ring those bells. She shrugged and concentrated on her driving, skillfully avoiding potholes and rubble from old detonated land mines as she approached Ban Me Thuot.

Thuan’s journey over the past week had taken her through dense jungle and over mountain passes, from red clay plateaus to tiny hamlets where she met with the men and women who were part of Jake’s network of contacts. She was searching for news of American prisoner sightings.

Nguyen Thi Thuan Mathews was typical of a young educated Saigonese woman of the time. She spoke her native language and was fluent in French. Her English was liberally peppered with the vernacular of the American GI which she picked up from hearing Jake and his friends talk. Difficulty pronouncing the letter L kept her from using contractions when she spoke English. It gave her speech a slightly stilted quality that Jake found irresistible.

The downpour, not like the never-ending deluge of the monsoon season, didn’t last and now, as she approached the outskirts of Ban Me Thuot, she viewed the city bathed in brilliant sunlight. The air was newly washed. She knew the dust would soon settle again, but at this moment this city that was literally carved out of the jungle looked like a picture she had seen as a child in a book at school. Who was it, she thought, the guy who cut off his ear or the Frenchman, Gauguin? Yes, that is the one.

Ban Me Thuot