A Rumor of War: Chapter Eleven Summary & Analysis

Early the next morning, Caputo awakes to the sounds of rifle fire and Webb Harrison’s voice nearby. Harrison warns him of “visitors.” Caputo steps out of his tent, guessing it is another probe. The night before, the VC tried to infiltrate through HQ company lines. They now seem to be looking for weak spots in the One-Three battalion’s perimeter. He is only guessing, however, and has no real idea of what is going on. Some flares hit the ground. The regimental sergeant goes past him dressed only in a pair of green undershorts and is carrying a Thompson submachine gun in one hand. He jumps into the foxhole with a splash. When more flares go out, they see nothing but bushes. The firing stops and they wait for another hour, shivering and wet due to the cold rain, before the area is secured.

Later, two dead VC are carried into the command post, where they are tied to bamboo poles “like bagged game.” Caputo adds two to the number in the VC-KIA column on the scoreboard. The next week is the same, with additional probes of the HQ perimeter or the battalions’ positions, random mortar attacks on isolated outposts, and a few attempted infiltrations of the airfield defenses, which are now guarded by 1st Battalion, 9th Marines. Due to all of the alarms, the soldiers get very little sleep.

That week, Harrison tells Caputo that the two VC they found were part of a five- or six-man enemy patrol. They were doing reconnaissance and got too close, getting themselves killed by a machine-gunner who shot them at point-blank range. This incident signals an increase in VC activity and the possibility of an enemy attack on the airfield. The VC are also amassing forces south of Da Nang, with the objective of seizing the city. Lastly, two North Vietnamese Army divisions are operating in the South, one in the Central Highlands and the other somewhere in I Corps.

A few days later, two VC are captured while scouting a portion of the regiment’s positions in broad daylight. The following day, a patrol from the reconnaissance battalion sees a battery of enemy 82-mm mortars being moved toward the airfield. The patrol leader reports the map coordinates of the mortars and suggested that they were going to be used to shell the airfield. The report is noted and buried in a file cabinet. On the 28th, an ARVN district HQ near regimental HQ is shelled. The VC also drop mortars on an isolated section of One-Three Battalion’s lines, killing and wounding several marines. Obviously, the VC are planning an attack on the airfield, whose defense is still their primary mission. However, the regimental staff is not overly fazed by this. Therefore, they do nothing but read and pursue other individual hobbies.

On July 1, the VC attack the airfield. The first shells hit around 2:00 A.M., when Caputo is just coming off of duty-watch in the operations tent. The shells burst rapidly, one after another, coloring the sky “a pale, flickering red.” Inside the command post, marines roll out of bed and grab their weapons. Caputo goes back into the tent. He feels that he should do something, though he doesn’t know what. The head officers arrive, along with Colonel Wheeler. Someone talks to One-Nine Battalion to find out where the attack is coming from and how many VC are out there. The colonel sits and stares at a big operations map, as though it can reveal what is happening.

Caputo starts to go out and runs into Major General Lew Walt. He salutes him, but Walt does not acknowledge the formality. Instead, the major general looks angry because the very attack that the Marines are there to prevent is happening. Caputo thinks that Walt is one of few high-ranking officers who takes the VC seriously. Caputo also thinks that, by moving his HQ so far forward, Walt was trying to set an example of personal leadership. He instills more discipline. He puts an end to movie nights at regimental HQ, makes Da Nang off limits to reduce drunkenness among soldiers, and orders the construction of a proper MLR, “with strongpoints, forward outposts, and preregistered artillery concentrations.”

Caputo puts on his helmet and flak jacket and goes over to the tent where the secret-and-confidential documents are stored in a safe. It is his duty to burn all of this with thermite grenades in the event that the camp is attacked and overrun. Sergeant Hamilton asks him if the VC are approaching and says that he has the grenades prepared to burn the tent down. Caputo does not think that they will hit them. He tells Hamilton that he does not want him burning any of the stuff in the tent unless the enemy is coming at him. Hamilton says that, if the enemy approaches, he will throw the grenades and then throw the files on top of the resulting flame to make a bonfire.

With nothing else to do, Caputo goes back to his position on the perimeter. Each junior officer is responsible for a section of the perimeter. He is in charge of a corporal and ten other men. This is the closest thing to a command that he has at this post. They wait in their foxholes while a convoy carrying a rifle company rolls past, heading toward the base. The counterattack is getting under way. Caputo feels slight excitement when he sees the howitzers, “bouncing on their carriages behind the speeding trucks.” A column of white flame from burning magnesium goes up over the airfield as shells burst in the rice fields south of the base.

Later, Caputo and Kazmarack drive past the airfield. Most of it has escaped serious damage. However, two big transport planes are totally destroyed, two fighter planes look like “broken toys,” and another is “just a pile of ashes and twisted metal.” They see, too, the holes the VC blew or cut into the chain link fence along the perimeter road, while coming through the area Caputo’s platoon manned back in March and April, when he believed they would win the war in a few months.