Short story: The August Bell

My name is Tran Van Binh, and I am seventy-six years old. Every morning, I usually go out to the porch, sit under the falling leaves of the banyan tree, my hands trembling as I hold a cup of tea, silently listening to the chirping of birds and the distant church bells. For the elderly, memories are something that naturally come to mind without effort – like the wisp of tea smoke carried on the wind, like the ringing of bells awakening the spirits of the past.

Every year, as mid-August approaches, my heart overflows with indescribable emotion. It is the month of history, the month of the surging red flags with yellow stars, of the cry of "Independence! Freedom!" resounding in the hearts of millions. And for me personally, it is also the month of my father – a silent but resilient security officer who contributed his blood and flesh to the great national uprising.

My father, Tran Van Hoa, was originally from a village on the banks of the Day River in Son Tay province. Throughout my childhood, I only knew him as a man of few words, serious, but always willing to help the poor, loving towards children, and especially fond of sitting silently before the altar to the Fatherland, hidden away in a small attic room—a place my siblings and I were not allowed to go to.

It wasn't until I was in high school, while writing an essay about "The hero I admire," that I asked my father, "Dad, did you fight in the resistance war?" He was silent for a long time before gently nodding. That was the first, and only, time in many years that he told me fragments of a time of war and fire.

My father joined the revolution when he was only 21 years old, a strong, resourceful, and ambitious young man. He recounted that that summer, a Viet Minh cadre named Vu Xuan Tanh was assigned to the village to carry out revolutionary activities. In just a few months, Mr. Tanh gathered many patriotic young people, opened literacy classes, disseminated current events, and told stories about the Nghe Tinh Soviet movement. Through these efforts, he subtly instilled in the people an awareness of the loss of their country and homes, the suffering and slavery they were enduring, so that the Vietnamese people would rise up and make a revolution to save themselves and their nation.

My father not only joined the National Salvation Youth organization but was also assigned the task of acting as a courier, transporting documents, leaflets, and weapons from one region to another. Once, he disguised himself as a boatman, hiding letters in the hem of his jacket and on the top of his conical hat, rowing through a cold, rainy night from Son Tay to Ha Dong. Another time, stopped by French patrols near a dike guard post, he pretended to be drunk, staggering and stumbling to avoid being searched. My father recounted these stories calmly, as if they were just necessary tasks, nothing significant. I once asked him, "Aren't you afraid of dying?" He smiled, his eyes gazing into the distance: "Of course I am. But back then, our people were living lives worse than death. Seeing people being beaten, rice being stolen, people kneeling before those soldiers in their green and red uniforms—it was so painful, my child. Seeing that made me want to do something; I couldn't just sit idly by..."

By 1944, my father was assigned to the Security branch, then called the "Area Security Team" of the Viet Minh. He began learning how to investigate, monitor the enemy, and protect cadres to thwart the plots of informants, spies, and collaborators. The work was dangerous and arduous, but my father never refused a mission. He once recounted a night in May 1945 when he was ordered to protect a top-secret meeting of the Northern Regional Party Committee in Ha village, bordering Ha Dong and Son Tay. In the dead of night, disguised French secret agents infiltrated the village. My father, along with two comrades, risked their lives to lure the enemy out into the fields to protect their main force. Seeing them, the secret agents pursued them. In the darkness, my father jumped over a ditch, his heel cut by a piece of broken glass, but he still managed to crawl into a bamboo grove, transmitting the alarm signal. Thanks to this, the meeting was not exposed, and the key cadres escaped safely. Following that event, my father was admitted to the Party and transferred to reconnaissance work, specializing in identifying and reporting enemy activities, monitoring enemy movements, and supporting rallies and uprisings.

In August 1945, the situation in Hanoi and the northern provinces was boiling over. The revolutionary fervor spread like wildfire. People like my father stayed awake for many nights. They secretly drew maps of enemy-occupied positions, planned the protection of our central government and the people, and arranged manpower in preparation for the General Uprising. On August 17th, my father was ordered to set up a post in Son Tay district – where the French and their collaborators' administrative headquarters were located. He and four other security officers disguised themselves as porters and infiltrated key locations. On the night of the 18th, it rained heavily. They used whistles and flares as signals. A group of people, under the guidance of Viet Minh cadres, marched to the district headquarters. Following the shouts of "Down with colonialism! Support the Viet Minh!", people from all the villages, ready to seize the opportunity, surged forward, some wielding knives, others sickles, carrying poles, sticks, and clubs... following the red flag with the yellow star, their momentum shaking the heavens and the earth. The Viet Minh forces quickly planted their flag on the roof of the administrative building. Son Tay district was liberated, and power fell into the hands of the revolution.

When the cry of "Long live independent Vietnam!" rang out, my father stood amidst thousands of people, tears welling up and streaming down his thin cheeks after years of secrecy, hardship, and living on the brink of life and death. The revolution succeeded. My father continued working in the security sector, quietly dedicating his life to protecting the government and the people. In peacetime, he lived very simply. He never boasted about his achievements or asked for anything for himself. Once, he refused to submit an application for the State to award him the Order of Military Merit. He said, "Many of my comrades have fallen; I am fortunate to be alive."

I grew up to be an engineer, then a university lecturer, and my father never forced me to follow in his footsteps. But in every word and action of his, there was always a sense of decorum, discipline, meticulousness, and caution that made me understand more deeply what it means to be a "silent warrior." Every time I lectured students about the August Revolution, I would tell my father's story. The students were completely silent. Many of them, after the class, tearfully said, "Teacher, now I understand how the freedom we have was bought with blood and tears."

My father passed away many years ago. On the altar, there is only a photograph of him in his youth, wearing a faded khaki uniform, with the red flag with a yellow star above his head, a reproduction based on my mother's memory of those glorious years.

This August, I sit under the banyan tree again, listening to the distant sound of the bells. Suddenly, it's as if his spirit appears, sitting beside me, gently smiling. It seems the bells ringing at this historic moment are a connection between the living and the dead, bringing my father back. The security officer of yesteryear lives on in every ringing of the bells in August, in the red flag fluttering before the village gate, in the silent gaze of the elderly who once faced the fires of war... and in me, his young son, forever indebted to the time my father lived to defend the country.