The Spy Who Loved Us_ The Vietnam War and Pham Xuan An's Dangerous Game ( PDFDrive )

246 THOMAS A. BASS
of your guns. I want to see my beloved country up to the moment
of my death.”
Singing the song which is now the national anthem of the Socialist
Republic of Vietnam, Vo Thi Sau was “taken to the cemetery,
where she was surrounded by ten thousand bodies, lying
underground in wave after wave of graves. She looked into the
faces of the seven men—the assassins—in her firing squad.
They were shaking. She yelled, ‘Down with the French colonialists.
Long live a free Vietnam. Long live Chairman Ho.’”
“Seven stray shots came from seven shaking gun barrels.
Cries rose from the prisoners a hundred meters away on the
southern beach. The firing squad ran away. The congai wives of
the guards, who were watching nearby, fainted. As the smoke
from the rifles dispersed, Vo Thi Sau was still standing. Two
spots of blood showed where she had been injured on the
shoulder and hand.”
When his men refused to fire another round, the commander
pulled out his pistol. “Thousands of prisoners, raising
their voices from the bagnes around the cemetery, began shouting,
‘Down with the colonialists. Long live Vo Thi Sau.’ The director
of the prison, a Frenchman named Passi, and the chief
administrator, another Frenchman named Jarty, jumped into a
Jeep and drove like crazy back to the governor’s palace, fearing
a general uprising.” The squad leader walked up to Vo Thi Sau
and put his pistol under her ear. He pulled the trigger and
blew out her brains.
Traveling counterclockwise around the island, we reach
bagne trois bis (Charity Prison), built in 1940. In the rear
of the compound are what the French called “solaria,” cells
open to the sky where prisoners often died of dehydration. Behind
the solaria is a large stone shed, pierced by black iron
doors. Opening one of these doors, we peer into a small cell, fifteen
feet deep, ten feet wide, in which five female mannequins