The Village Read Online Free

had been deserted by a rich landowner in 1950 when the Viet Minh had first taken the village, looked south across a wide expanse of paddies. Its backyard was a short expanse of shrubbery which ended near the back door of a thatched house.
    After explaining that the first order of business was turning the villa into a fort, Lam asked if the Marines could provide the necessary materials. Beebe replied that he personally could requisition none, and since his company commander was leaving shortly, tiny supplies requested by the company would take weeks and perhaps months before arriving. Unfazed, Lam said they could build their own defenses without outside help. He promptly called a meeting of the villagers, explained that his men and the Americans had come to stay, and asked for volunteers to build the outpost. About forty villagers responded, a majority of whom were related to the PFs.
    Beebe expected the police would force the other villagers to cooperate. Instead, Lam himself set to work and his men followed. All that first day under the hot sun the combined force and the villagers toiled, digging a wide moat around the villa, filling sandbags and propping them up as an inside wall, splitting sections of bamboo into thousands of short, sharp stakes and studding the moat walls with them, erecting a high, spindly bamboo fence thirty yards outside the moat on the theory that the wood would cause the premature detonation of recoilless rifle rounds aimed at the fort. They worked with shovels, hoes, axes and knives. Slats were not nailed to the rickety fence; they were tied with bamboo cord. The mud scooped out of the moat served both to fill the sandbags and to cement them in place. Several Vietnamese, obviously specialists at the task, were busy sinking a deep well in what had been the courtyard of the villa. Boys and some young women spent the day shuffling back and forth from the nearby treeline to the open fort, carrying buckets of fresh water. The boys liked to follow after the Americans, although they would jump to carry water to any policeman who shouted at them. They paid no attention to the local PFs, however, and dawdled when asked to bring them water. It was obvious the villagers did not respect the Popular Forces.
    At twilight, Lam called a halt to the work. Most of the villagers went home, the women in one group shuffling ahead to prepare the evening meal, the men in another group ambling slowly behind and talking animatedly among themselves. A few women stayed at the fort, bustling about in a clatter of pans, shrieking to each other, preparing fires and setting plates down in the dirt. Then they, too, departed and a quiet peace fell over the scene, as the men scooped rice and chunks of meat from the simmering pots and sprawled among the sandbags to enjoy the evening meal. There was no wind and the crickets were starting to chirp. Across the paddies in front of the fort the sky was pink and red and soft.
    While the Marines enjoyed the meal and the sunset, Beebe conferred in private with Lam. By the time he rejoined the Marines, several of them had fallen asleep.
    â€œLet’s wake up,” he said. “Here’s the word. We’re expected to go out tonight. The police will pull guard here. All we have to do is patrol with the PFs.”
    â€œAll?” Lance Corporal Gerald Faircloth said. “All? We spend the day like a bunch of ditchdiggers and now we’re supposed to have patrol duty at night too?”
    â€œShut up, Faircloth,” Beebe said. “We haven’t been here long enough for you to start bitching. The police aren’t infantry. They can take care of the fort, but that’s all. It’s up to us and the PFs to handle the patrols. Anyways, only four of us have to go out tonight. You’re one of them.”
    â€œIs that supposed to make me feel better?” Faircloth asked.
    Faircloth was a hard young man, not given to smiling or socializing easily. He stayed to