Chapter 24: Chapter 23 – The VC Put Their Kidnaped People to Work

The woman VC Lieutenant Junior says, "There're a lot of things to do in the tunnels. You can help the cooks, grow crops, make tofu and wine, dig tunnels, make traps and tire sandals, steal American supplies, and catch wildlife animals for meat."

The VC Lieutenant Commander smirks. "You can use exploded artillery shells to make spikes, and then use them to make booby traps. At first, you keep practicing on the same trap until you get good at it."

The VC Lieutenant Junior says, "Every night before you go to sleep, you must write a confession of what wrongs you've done in the day. If you confess, we give you easier jobs to do. If you refuse to confess, we put you in the Chilling Chamber for a little bit, to chill your head up so that you would confess."

I observe the VCs carrying out their routine activities in the tunnels. The women cook, wash dishes in earthenware basins, wash clothes, and feed their little children. The men stage guerilla combats. The crouching girls dig into the earth walls with a short-handled garden hoe, to make more tunnels, and put the dirt in plastic milk bottles with the top cut off. The boys make airplanes from brown construction paper, and paint them white. They paint the word AMERICAN in block letters in neon orange on the planes and hang them dangling on strings from the tunnel's roof. They shoot their pretend rifles made of tree twigs at the paper airplanes while making the "boom boom" sound with their mouths.

The VCs set out supplies in front of me, and give me a piece of paper with hand-written instructions on it, on how to make a trap. They hang around and watch me make a trap.

It takes me 2 hours to make a trap. I look up, seeing eyes gawking at the trap, saying, "OK, Mr. VC Lieutenant Commander, this trap is as good as I can make it. Try it out and see." 

The VC Lieutenant Commander lifts the trap and then gazes at it, examining it like he's trying to make sure everything is up to his satisfaction. "An awesome trap. Let's try it out in a hole at the Skyscraper Tree."

Many VCs gather at the tree. The Lieutenant Commander grabs the trap by its door. "Ouch! My fingers are stuck in the unmovable door!"

A VC teen boy pries the metal spikes loose with a crowbar, to release the Lieutenant's fingers.

The Lieutenant Commander scowls. "The trap has an impressive spring mechanism, but the door gets stuck. Stupid girl. Keep wasting materials. Why can't you learn? I'll put you to work at digging tunnels. You have three choices for a digging tool, a teaspoon, an ice cream scoop, or a ladle."

I say, "I need a ladle. At the rate of digging a tunnel with an ice cream scoop, or a teaspoon, I'll never finish and get out of the tunnels."

A girl says, "You can't get away from the tunnels because they set traps everywhere. If they caught you trying to escape, they'd put you in the fortified tunnels."

Hoa says, "Mai, choose the teaspoon. With the VCs, there is never an end to work. The more you dig, the more digging you're assigned. They make you dig until your hair turns white."

"Where do I put the dirt after I dig it up?" I say.

Lieutenant Junior says, "You put the dirt in your lunch bag, and dump the dirt in a bomb crater outside the tunnels."

I say, "Give me a teaspoon then. I'll take my time digging a tunnel and spooning the dirt into a bag."   

The Lieutenant Commander says, "I let you dig a new tunnel with a pair of chopsticks. When you have finished with this first tunnel, you must dig the rest of the unfinished tunnels leading to the underground railroads. If you do a good job, you get candy."

"What're the underground railroads for?" I say.

"For moving the American POWs around," Tin says.

I say, "Tin, I don't think I can survive digging tunnels with a pair of chopsticks, or any of the other tools the Lieutenant Commander has mentioned."

Lieutenant Junior says, "You must do what you are told, to survive."   

When we are out of earshot, Tin says, "We must figure out some way to escape."

"What do they have you do, Tin?" I say.   

Tin shrugs his shoulders. "I have to make sandals out of truck tires. I must hold workshops to teach other kids to make sandals and camouflage them with green dye, to make them look like leaves."

"What kind of dye do you use to make green sandals?" Hoa says.

Tin says, "I melt some tire rubber, and add green seaweed powder into it. I brush the green liquid rubber on the sandals."

Hoa says, "They put me in charge of a group of children. We go through the Ho Chi Minh Trail and to the Evergreen Forest to scavenge for supplies. We're ordered to steal supplies from the American Army Base in the DMZ."

Hoa leads a whole bunch of children, and they climb up to a trapdoor in the ceiling of the tunnel and get out from there. They come back carrying boxes loaded with used American Army uniforms, and set them down on the floor."

"Where did you steal these uniforms?" I say.

One kid standing beside Hoa says, "From the Soldiers Field House Pool at the Evergreen Forest."

I say, "What are the VCs going to do with the American Army uniforms? They certainly are not going to wear them, because they wear peasant pajamas."

Tin nods. "I'm ordered to hang the uniforms at the camouflaged doors and ventilation holes of the tunnels. American troops walk around with sniffer dogs at areas suspected of having tunnels. When the dogs smell the familiar American smell from the uniforms, they don't bark."

A woman walks in from a nook in the walls, carrying vegetables picked from the outside gardens. "Since the three of you are new here, I want to introduce myself. I'm the cook of this tunnel. You can call me Mrs. Hen. I have thirty years of experience in French cooking in restaurants, but ten years of grudging cooking in the tunnel."

"If you begrudge working in the tunnel, why don't you just leave here?" Tin says.

"I must stay here for my daughter," Mrs. Hen says.

"Were you and your daughter kidnaped? Both of you can escape with us," Hoa says.

"No, I can't. The VCs have my daughter somewhere else," Mrs. Hen says.

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"How did you and your daughter get caught in the tunnel?" I say.

Mrs. Hen looks upset. "We had immigrated to Paris a long time ago. We owned five restaurants on Rue Bonaparte, one of the prettiest streets in Paris. My daughter and I came back to Vietnam to visit. The VCs kidnaped us and took us to the Cu Chi tunnels. They made me sign the restaurants over to them. My daughter's name is My Lai. She was twelve years old when we were kidnaped."

"Does your daughter have a tiny mole on the side of her chin?" Hoa says.

"Oh, you've seen her?" Mrs. Hen says.

I say, "Miss My Lai is our history and English teacher. She teaches our classes every other day. She is mean when we are late for class and hits our hands with a rubber ruler. She is not being held captive. You must get away from the tunnel with us, and come to stay at my house. I'll take you to school to see your daughter."

"I bet that Miss My Lai escaped from the tunnels through some swing door in the rocks," Tin says.

I hear the clanking of a train coming. "Are they moving the American POWs around?"

Mrs. Hen looks around at the walls. "Actually, now the VCs are moving American POWs into the tunnels. When a train drops the POWs off at stations in the tunnels, the VCs come out of the walls and whisk the POWs away to secret locations. But most of the time, when the VCs get information from their spies that the Tunnel Rats are coming to raid some tunnels, they herd the POWs onto the underground trains, and move them away."

"Where do you go for entertainment in the tunnels?' I say.

Mrs. Hen says, "Let's go to the Entertainment Hall."

The Entertainment Hall is a crater. Steps are cut into the crater's wall, to form benches for spectators. Each performer holds a gun in one hand while performing. Many VCs hold tear gas canisters in their hands, to use them on the Tunnel Rats if they invade the crater.

After one hour into the performance, an air raid siren sounds. The performers drop through the crater's floor to get into the tunnels under the floor, and camouflaged tarps are pulled out to cover the floor. The spectators scramble out of their seats and run into the hollows in the walls. Mrs. Hen leads us through a tunnel entrance in the wall, and we get back to the kitchen.     

Mrs. Hen smiles. "I'll make butter pecan ice cream, with the milk of the cows roaming on Hamburger Hill. Tin and Mai and Hoa, you go out to pick pecan fruits."

We go to a grove of pecan trees. As we loiter at a hatch door on the ground, a woman VC yells, "Move back. You're at a booby-trapped exit. You'll step on the wires that trigger the trap to pull you into a dungeon." 

Mrs. Hen comes out of the hatch door. She looks at the other woman while holding three trowels and a bucket toward us. "I give these tools to the children. I want them to go and catch turtles for me to cook turtle soup."

The other woman says, "Tunnels are dug at four different levels. The first level is closest to the ground surface. It contains booby traps, air vents, and firing posts where we shoot up through the holes dug into the ground. The kitchens and sleeping quarters are on the second level. The third level contains hospitals, theaters, aid stations, and rooms for meetings, recreation, and socializing. The fourth level is at the bottom where the well, stream, and entrances are located. We use boats to move around in the stream.

All tunnels come out at the Gold Nuggets River, Assassin Jungle, and Evergreen Forest. Some small turtles live in the stream, but bigger turtles stay in the river. Let's paddle to the river to catch turtles. I love to eat turtle soup."

We follow the woman to the bottom level. She gets a boat out of a recess in a rock wall and sets it into the stream. We paddle the boat to the river.

The woman says, "Look at the turtles playing among the rocks at the water's edge. To catch turtles, you grab them by their back shell."

We put 15 turtles in the bucket and get into the boat.

The woman says into ham radio, "Tunnel Rats at the camouflaged entrance doors? I'll send signals to our comrades. Children, bring the turtles to the cook. Tell her I must go off on duty, and to hold off making turtle soup until I come back."

We bring the turtles to Mrs. Hen, and tell her what the woman has said. Mrs. Hen puts the turtles in a tank.

After we finish eating the ice cream, Tin and Hoa go back to work. Mrs. Hen taps me on the shoulder and motions for me to go to a hidden corner. "Go back to the well, and get me water for cooking. Try to look for escape ways. We need to know where they are for when we need to escape."

A note nailed to a wall reads: WELL. A bucket with a rope tied to its wooden bar handle sits beside the well. I tie the free end of the rope to my waist, wind the rope around it, and get into the well. I brace my feet and palms against the opposite sides of the wall, to avoid falling to the water at the bottom far below. The rope unwinds and the bucket keeps dropping, and it stops dropping when the rope becomes taut. I move down with my feet and palms bracing against the wall until the bucket dips into the water. Then I move up the wall, with the filled bucket swinging on the rope, and get out of the well. I carry the bucket to the kitchen and pour the water into a tub, and a baby turtle falls out with the water. I make repeated trips between the kitchen and the well until the tub is filled.

When I'm done getting water, I go back to the well. This time I bring along a small rake, a pencil, and some blank sheets of paper. I row the boat to the Gold Nuggets River, to where the Skyscraper Tree stands. I wish Tin and Hoa were with me now so that we could leave from here. If I escaped now, the VCs would make trouble for them and Mrs. Hen. I draw a map of a possible escape way.   

When I come back to the kitchen, Mrs. Hen says, "I make good shrimp lomein. I can make you a plate if you want."

"I love to eat shrimp lomein," I say.

Mrs. Hen says, "I need catfish whiskers. You take 15 catfish, one at a time, out of the tank with a green mark, clip off two-thirds of the length of their whiskers into a colander, and put the fish back in the tank with a red mark, where they will stay until their whiskers grow back."

"How long will it take for the whiskers to grow back?" I say.

"In two weeks," she says. 

She stir-fries the whiskers with some shrimps, scoops the contents onto a plate, and pushes it toward me.

"Where are the lomein noodles?" I say.

"Catfish whiskers are used instead of lomein noodles."   

I flip the slippery whiskers around with chopsticks. "Next time when I order shrimp lomein at a Chinese restaurant, I'll look carefully to make sure the noodles are not actually bleached catfish whiskers."

Mrs. Hen says, "We don't have many food choices in the tunnels. If you want to eat meat, you can go catch a fowl at the edge of the Assassin Jungle. I'll roast it for you."

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