CHAPTER 12

HILL 848

Beneath the flying marvels of modern warfare a transformation subtly seeped from soldier to soldier about the hilltop. Finding the bodies hastened the change. Alpha reverted, returned to the most traditional soldier life form, the walking marching humping hunting legions, the infantry. Airmobility brought them to 848 but from there they would go on foot.

With Alpha safely atop 848 and Recon on a lower peak 900 meters due north the command decision was made to insert all other units as planned. The operation’s momentum increased. Helicopters seemed to swarm everywhere at once over the Khe Ta Laou. Companies C and D began their insertions. Two kilometers north of 848 the American/ARVN unit exchange on Barnett commenced. Infantry units arrived by Huey and American security teams relieved ARVN security teams. Chinooks could be seen arriving with American airmobile 105mm howitzers slung-loaded and departing with slung-loaded older style 105s of the ARVN artillery unit. Just east of Recon’s LZ Cobra gunships came on station and could be seen working over a draw. Tiny black mushroom clouds erupted in silence below the helicopters. The jungle-muffled karRump reached 848 so much later than the sight, the sound seemed incongruous.

From training and fear, Alpha troops ordered themselves into a tight defensive perimeter below the peak, concealed in the brush. This was front-line Nam. The differences between the boonies and Phu Bai were as great as the differences between Phu Bai and the World. Few people experienced the difference, few recognized it. Da Nang was a forward area to military personnel and journalists who lived in Saigon. Phu Bai was forward to Da Nang, Eagle forward to Phu Bai. Combat and firebases such as Bastogne and Veghel and Khe Sanh were front line compared to Eagle, but to the guys humping rucks in the mountains, everything was rear.

Platoon sergeants immediately organized recon patrols and before the unit had been five minutes on the ground squads were reconnoitering south, east and north. Lieutenant Brooks, the platoon leaders and boonierat advisers clustered at the center of the defensive ring to discuss first impressions of the new AO, to reaffirm the order of movement and to prepare to walk west, off the hill toward an objective they would not reach for thirteen days.

Below them, perhaps two kilometers west of 848 and extending perhaps fifteen kilometers to the foothills of the Laotian border, the Khe Ta Laou Valley was flooded, completely obscured, by a continuous white mistcloud which filled the long valley halfway up the north escarpment and overflowed through spillways between south escarpment peaks. The view of the valley from the summit of 848 was magnificent. In the middle of the immense fog sea, like a jade island in a whipped cream ocean, the top of a single tree broke through the mist and rose to glisten in the sun. Boonierats clustered to the northeast corner of the hill to peer into the valley they had heard held an NVA headquarters.

“Sir. Sir,” Pop Randalph called. “Sir, theah’s a daid gook down heah. He’s all blowed up an covered with dirt. He’s got two Chi-coms an a sachel charge with’m.”

“Well I’ll be dipped in shit,” Garbageman said.

“Go git the L-T.”

“I’ll git um, Pop,” a third soldier volunteered. “I’ll git um but I’ll be dipped in shit, too.”

“We aint been heah but two minutes,” Pop smiled, “an a’ready we got us a body count.”

“There aint much left a him,” Garbageman laughed. They were standing about a depression of soft earth and mulch just below the crest of the LZ. Garbageman snickered, stepped over the depression and climbed toward the peak to see if the L-T was coming.

A fourth soldier from 2d Plt brought Pop an entrenching tool, a short, collapsible shovel/ pick. The old platoon sergeant stepped to the depression, straddled the low spot and began to dig, gingerly picking away at the mulch. Immediately thick odor rose. “God A’mighty,” he sang out cheerfully. “We got us a gook. We got us a gook. We got us a gook all blowed ta shit hell en highwater.”

Other soldiers clumped about the old boonierat picking at the slime in the hole. The commotion attracted more soldiers and they crowded closer attracting more until nearly all soldiers from that sector of the LZ’s perimeter surrounded Pop and the hole and the mob trapped the rising spreading disturbed stench of decaying human, trapped the odor and held it motionless. Pop stirred the muck with the tiny spade, consciously avoiding acknowledging the gathering, humming in the limelight, slime oozing about his boots. Soldiers at the edge of the mob pushed forward to get a glimpse. Those in the middle swayed in two-way traffic driven forward by curiosity and by the pressure from behind. Soldiers at the center laughed, gulped, tried to stop their lungs in mid-stench inhale, tried to escape. Someone vomited. Still the circumference about the pit tightened.

“We got us a gook. We got us a gook,” the refrain passed from man to man, from inside to out.

“Don’t they ever wash?” someone yelled.

“That dude aint got all day protection,” called another.

“Hey! Break it up!” The voice of the company commander exploded angrily. “Break-it-the-fuck-up!” Brooks yelled in a harsh uncharacteristic voice. Spectators parted to let him and Garbageman approach the hole. “Break it up,” Brooks said harshly again, aghast that his troops, including his eldest NCO, would cluster so stupidly. “Where are you supposed to be? One round would get you all. Get back to where you’re supposed to be. Who’s covering the perimeter?”

Brooks stood stone still, stared at his troops. Men shuffled sheepishly away, glancing furtively toward the commander, ashamed by the most elementary of reprimands yet still curious. When the cluster dispersed Brooks asked calmly, “What do you have, Pop?”

Garbageman joined Pop in the hole. El Paso and De Barti stood behind and above Brooks. All five men stared into the pitted moist earth.

“I aint sure, Sir,” Pop said. He smiled at the commander.

“He aint been daid more’n a week, Sir. Looks like he was in this heah hole when a arty round decided ta share it with’m.” The old boonierat backed out of the hole and handed the entrenching tool to Garbageman who immediately assumed Pop’s position in the mulch and began shoveling. The sides of the foxhole had caved in and the dirt was clumped and black and loose. Hundreds of flies hovered and landed and hovered and re-landed with each disturbing movement of the shovel.

“He had im a US pistol belt,” Garbageman said, lifting a slashed soggy belt. “Damn. He had boocoo shit in here with’m.” Garbageman dug deeper and disinterred first a twisted belt of RPD cartridges then three more satchel charges and two aerated ponchos then four more Chinese-communist grenades and assorted personal and food items. Then Garbageman lifted a large brown muck-covered chunk. He examined it closely then backed off and laughed. “His foot’s blown off.” He lifted the chunk on the shovel blade and displayed it.

“Bout a size nine I’d say,” De Barti said and he too laughed. “Pee-uu! Dinks always smell that way?”

“This Tootsie-Roll don’t taste so good,” Mohnsen, the squad leader of Garbageman’s squad, said as he joined them. “That sure is one helluva mess. Do ya gotta dig it up?”

“We gotta dig it out,” De Barti smiled. “Intelligence. You know that. An intelligence report.”

“Here’s his ribs,” Garbageman said producing a decayed shattered human torso. “Looks like a dog’s, don’t it?” The body was very decayed and small pieces came up with each shovelful.

“Well, Sir,” Pop smirked, “the ribs is theah and theah’s a foot. We don’t got enough ta put him tagether yet. Got by artillery. I’d guess a dee-rect hit.”

“Got a gook killed by small arms fire. Killed today by small arms,” De Barti corrected laughing. “Blown away just now by small arms fire. That son of a bitch is blown ta shit, isn’t he?”

“Killed by artillery,” Lieutenant Brooks said flatly.

“Sir?” Pop Randalph questioned. He knelt down by the pit. “Sir, theah’s three sandals in heah. I think theah was two of’m in the hole. Must a been a dee-rect hit.”

Garbageman lifted more satchel charges and grenades and some empty C-ration cans and more pieces of human body. The area about the hole became littered with ration cans and debris. Deeper Garbageman found two Chi-com gas masks and more RPD machine gun rounds. “Hey Pop, there’s his head,”

Garbageman giggled.

“I wonder what that silly sonabitch was doin with it so low,” Pop winked. “Reckon he was kissin his ass good-bye?”

“Think we oughta call him a Medevac?” De Barti laughed.

“Can’t you find his weapon?” Brooks asked flatly.

“Maybe he was layin on it,” Pop suggested.

Lieutenant Thomaston, carrying a belt of M-60 ammunition, approached the group around the hole. The cartridges in his hands were bright shiny new. “Goddamned ARVNs, L-T,” he complained to Brooks. “They must have left this here. Damned ARVNs. It’s like they’re resupplying the dinks.”

The odor from the pit nauseated Brooks and he stepped upwind to look at the ammunition. “Oh Christ,” Thomaston stepped back. “What’s that? What did him a J-O-B?” Thomaston scrunched up his nose and stepped further back.

“He don’t smell near half as bad as the one we found on that other LZ,” Pop chuckled.

“El Paso,” Brooks said, “write down what we find and give the list to Cahalan to call in. We’ll stay here until the patrols are back in. Pass the word to chow down. We’ll move out at 1030 hours.”

“Chow down,” Garbageman sang from the hole. “Everybody chow down. Sounds fine ta me. I’d like mine medium rare. How bout you dudes?”

“Get to the bottom of that fuckin stink pit,” El Paso snapped.

“Wanta help me stir the soup?”

“Fuck you.”

The transformation from base camp soldier to boonierat continued amongst the light-hearted quipping, eating, smoking. Half the troops removed their helmets and tied them to their rucksacks. Helmets were required in the 7/402 but the wearing of them was not enforced in Alpha. Many of the boonierats felt the encumbrance of the heavy steel pot was not worth the slight probability of protection from a glancing bullet or piece of shrapnel. Against a direct hit a helmet was considered useless. Brooks replaced his with the odd-style baseball cap; Egan wore a tight-fitting broad-brimmed boonie hat that hid his red hair. Some men stripped off their shirts. Blacks, like Jackson, put only an olive drab towel over their shoulders as a cushion against the rucksack; whites, like Whiteboy, with skin that could be seen through five meters of dense jungle, covered their torsos with olive drab tee-shirts. Infantrymen in the 101st did not wear flack jackets in the boonies, the trade-off of protection for encumbrance not being worthwhile.

Daniel Egan searched the recesses of his mind. He had satisfied himself his platoon’s segment of the perimeter was properly manned and defensible and that his patrols were out reconning. He sat alone in a bush and let his mind grind again, brood again, clash within itself, transforming itself, preparing for the responsibility of a platoon sergeant, for the alert paranoia the field demanded. A giant click, a massive gear grind began.

All the collective lessons of ten years of American involvement snapping into place in his head, all the collective lessons learned, forgotten, relearned by tens of men, by tens of thousands. The lessons were there in Egan’s mind, there from almost eighteen months of combat duty, there from his heritage as an American, as a man, as a human being. All that need be done was to relax, allow the mind to shift, to tap the data banks of 10,000 years of human warfare perhaps 100,000 years perhaps for the entire age of man perhaps earlier. The adjustment was not easy. Egan fought it. All men fight it. Egan’s mind balked. His direct experiences were close and easy to grasp, to drop him into the channel which flowed back, inhibited but deep and straight for a million years to a million years of data. And his enemy, Egan thought, conceived without words, knew, they too would bring the collective lessons of tens of millions of men from tens of thousands of years of fighting, of fighting North against South, brother against brother, the same pattern from antiquity to post-Geneva, the enemy with a mind-set developed by tens of billions of man-years of war all brought to the battle for the Khe Ta Laou. And the land, Egan thought. No experience needed. That he knew for sure, felt for sure. The land knows all, has seen all, has always known it, has always absorbed the blood and returned men to their humus components. Egan’s mind shifted. He was there. He was ready. He was relaxed. He rose with his M-16 dangling lightly in the fingers of his right hand, rose and walked back to the company CP.

Cherry sat alone, in awe of where he was and how he had arrived. Up the hill behind him soldiers were laughing and cursing loudly. He sat quietly, alert, half-hidden, scared. His forearms ached. He rolled his arm over and looked. Both forearms were scraped and burned and bruised. Below his right elbow there was a two inch long incision surrounded by blood and a crusting scab. Cherry did not remember it happening. Thinking about it now he figured he had bruised himself while jumping from the helicopter. He looked down into the jungle then to his sides then to the laughing men. Since the moment after insertion when Jackson had given him the chocolate candy disc and he had checked in with El Paso, no one had spoken to him.

Just north of where Cherry sat, slightly higher up the peak, Jackson and Silvers were eating canned C-ration fruit cocktail from one can with one white plastic C-ration spoon. Jax was lying on his side trying to catch some Zs between passes of the fruit. Silvers was leaning against his rucksack, reading a July 13th copy of Newsweek. They had spoken little since moving into position above the rest of 1st Sqd. “Hey,” Silvers poked Jax. “Listen to this.”

“This,” Jax yawned, “I can miss.”

“‘General Creighton Abrams,’” Silvers read aloud, “‘American Commander in Vietnam, is reported increasingly concerned about President Nixon’s plans to withdraw 50,000 more U.S. troops from Vietnam by October.’ Think maybe I’ll get a big drop?”

“Na,” Jax rolled onto his stomach. “By the time yo get a drop, I’ll be a pop. They aint gowin let yo out—word’s out. All Jews stay. Blacks leave today.”

“Hey, Jax,” Silvers said, “that makes me think.”

“Oh shee-it.”

“You see that land out there.”

Jax rolled over, looked at Leon then squinted into the sun. “Where?”

“Way down there. By the sea. That strip’s known as the ‘Street Without Joy.’ You know that?”

“Do now.”

“I got an idea. The way I see it is first we kick out the VC and then the NVA. We get the ARVNs to get the rest of the Vietnamese into refugee camps south of Hue. See? Then we resettle the place with Jews. See? We get an ally and you know the New York money won’t never let this place go then. Shit, Man. We’ll call it the ‘Street Without Goy.’ Get it?” Silvers laughed.

“I thought yo said it a’ready called that.”

“No Man, without goy, not without joy. Don’t you get it?”

“Yo brain gettin fried like spareribs, Leon. Either yo been smokin too much dew or yo got somethin from las night’s screw.”

“Goy, Man, goy.” Silvers shook his head. “It means gentiles. A Jewish Street Without Gentiles.”

“Oh come on na, Bro,” Jax teased. “I knows Jews got gentiles. How else could they like pro-create?”

Silvers returned to the Newsweek. He read about the positive effects of the Cambodian incursion within South Vietnam and the negative effects within Cambodia, turned the page and found an article saying Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird was aiming to reduce overall US military strength from 20 divisions to 15 by mid-1972. “I know it, Jax,” Silvers said waking Jax again.

“Now what?”

“I’m up for a 180-day drop. They cuttin back the size of the armed forces. They’re goina let me out same day as you. You can ride on my lap all the way to the World if they don’t have enough room for ya on my Freedom Bird.”

“Get serious, Man. I knows what comin down. Got the word from The Man himself. Sho did. Right from the head honcho. No Leons ever leave. They jest fade away.”

“No way, Jax. If them fuckin REMF clerkjerks mess with this kid’s drop I’m callin in TAC Air on their AOs.”

Jax sat up, picked up the C-rat can and drank half the syrup. He passed the can to Silvers. Silvers drained the remainder of the juice, crushed the thin can in his hand and threw the tin into the jungle.

At the center of the defensive ring the company’s command post had regrouped and the men were now sitting, discussing the exact details of the move. “Where do you think the little people are, Danny?” Brooks asked Egan. He had asked the same question of each soldier and the consensus had been the NVA were most likely deep in the valley.

“I think they’re right on the next ridge,” Egan said clearly, pointing west.

“I think we oughta get our asses outa here,” Tim Cahalan, a company CP RTO, injected. “This place is goina be an asskicker. Look how steep that fucker is.”

“The jungle is a neutral adversary,” Lt. Caldwell quipped.

“Blow it out yer ass,” Cahalan whispered behind his back.

“Hey!” Brooks said grabbing control. “Okay. It’s time now to get down to business. We’ve had a week of slack, now it’s time to move. Cahalan, have you called higher yet with the report on those two KIAs?”

“Yes Sir. Roger that.”

“Okay. Call Red Rover and let him know our Rover Two element is moving out in two-five. Danny, you and Bill have your platoon ready to move. We’re going to work west down that ridge. Stay in column just below the ridge down to the saddle then spread out and sweep up to that peak. We want to be there by 1300. You have two and a half hours. Second Platoon, Frank, you and Pop, you be ready to move right after 1st leaves. 3d will be back up here before you move out. They’ll follow you, lag by one hour. Bill, Danny, tell your men to eat now if they haven’t eaten yet and tell them to secure their rucks. We’re not making any noise once we leave here. Frank, you and Pop, you make lots of noise up here while we’re moving out and tell 3d to make it look like the whole company’s still here until we reach that peak. CP will follow Rover Two. Where’s Hoyden?”

“Right here, L-T,” Lieutenant William Hoyden said from behind Brooks. Hoyden was the artillery forward observer attached to Alpha.

“FO, I want preset coordinates for that peak. I want coordinates registered for the peak, the draw and that canyon there to the November Whiskey. If I were a dink honcho I’d set up in the canyon. Let’s go. I want to hear some chatter. What’s everybody think?”

“L-T, I think Recon’s hit the shit,” Bill Brown said. Brown was the third RTO of the company CP. “They’re callin for a Dust Off.” Brown turned up the volume of his radio which was set on Command Net. The group paused to listen to the dialogue of metallic voices as Echo’s Recon Platoon requested an urgent medical evacuation helicopter. El Paso changed the frequency of his PRC-25 radio from Alpha’s internal to Recon’s internal and the group monitored their sister unit’s movement in the firefight. Egan rose to his knees and looked toward Recon’s position. Red tracers could be seen floating down from a point on the west side of the peak. Occasionally enemy green tracers floated up toward Recon’s insertion LZ. No soldiers, friendly or enemy, could be seen. There was no movement. The sound of the firefight was mostly lost in the sound of helicopter traffic and the booming of artillery batteries already laid and registered on Firebase Barnett. There was no indication of the fighting except the infrequent fireflies of red and green crossing and the crackling voices being monitored on the radio.

“That’s enough of that,” Brooks said shortly. “El Paso, get that radio back on our internal. Let’s break it up. Get back to your people. Egan, Bill, get your men ready to move.”

“Quiet Rover Four, this is Rover Two, commo check,” Cherry said squeezing the transmit bar on the handset of his radio. There was no response. Cherry checked the frequency setting then repeated his call to El Paso. Again there was no response. “Quiet Rover Four, this is Rover Two. Do you read? Over.”

“Two, this is Four,” El Paso’s voice rasped. “I got you lumpy chicken. Hotel Mike? Over,” El Paso said meaning Loud and Clear. How me?

“Four, Two. Say again.” There was no response. Cherry repeated his call. Again nothing.

“Two,” El Paso’s voice squawked in Cherry’s ear. “Do you know what Mike Foxtrot Alpha is? Over.”

“Four. Negative,” Cherry answered.

“Two,” El Paso’s voice came in calm lecture-form, “it’s a Romeo Tango Oscar who forgets to say ‘Over’ when he’s completed his transmission. Mother Fuckin Asshole. Over.”

“Uggh.” Cherry groaned before squeezing the transmit bar. “Four. Sorry. Roger that and Wilco. Over and out.” For a moment longer Cherry sat where he had been sitting all morning. Then he rose and walked toward Jax and Silvers, and Doc and Minh who had joined them. All four were eating and talking loudly.

“If they repealed the mothafuckin Gulf a Tonkin Resolution how come we still here?” Doc shouted. “Huh, Mista? Tell me that. That was the legal basis fo us bein in this bad mothafucka, woant it?”

“Not necessarily,” Silvers said. “Says here ‘Nixon contends that the President’s power to wage war doesn’t come from any particular resolution but is based on his constitutional powers as Commander-in-Chief.’”

“That crazy shee-it,” Jax snapped. “They dee-cap-i-tate dick-tators, doan they? The people aint gowin stand fo it. We gowin tear him down.”

“Amen, Bro. Amen,” Doc said and raised a power fist salute.

“Amen,” Silvers added. “But I got a problem. See, the situation here is connected to the situation in the Middle East. If we show a weak face here …” Silvers paused and looked up. Cherry was standing above them, looking and listening. “What are you staring at?” Silvers asked accusingly.

“I, ah …” Cherry cleared his throat. He did not know what to say. He blurted out, “I was looking for Egan.”

“What?” Silvers shouted.

“Hey, Man,” Doc laughed. “You kin make noise now. No tellin how long we gonna have ta be quiet.”

“Oh,” Cherry said, a silly grin came to his face. “I ah,” he wanted to join them but he was uninvited, “I, ah,” his voice became louder, “ah, gotta find Egan.”

Men of the 1st Plt and the company CP finished their lunches and secured their packs. Lieutenant Thomaston had told them to remain where they were until called individually. One at a time they were to circle to the north side of 848, slide into the vegetation then circle to the west ridge beneath the cover of vines and trees and begin the descent. If Alpha was being observed by NVA trailwatchers, as Brooks suspected, the tactic was designed to keep the enemy from detecting the company’s movement into the canopy or at least the direction of the movement. As the first soldiers began to move unobtrusively, an unexpected helicopter approached 848, landed, released two men in fatigues, lifted off and flew away. Thomaston motioned for the first seven men to slip into the canopy under the diversion of the bird and as it left, he motioned for the men to sit and wait.

At the top of the LZ the two men were met by Lamonte. Lamonte seemed to have an almost frantic enthusiasm as he greeted the lieutenant from the 3rd Brigade Public Information Detachment and the civilian correspondent he was escorting. Cherry could not hear anything that was being said but he knew Lamonte was speaking eagerly and quickly. Man, Cherry thought. That’s one cool job. I wonder what you have to do to work for Lamonte.

Sitting behind Cherry in ready order of march was Numbnuts. He threw a small stone at Cherry to get his attention. “That’s Craig Caribski,” Numbnuts said. “He’s the guy responsible for uncovering My Lai.”

“What?” Cherry whispered back.

“Yeah. I was talkin to Mister PIO. He said Caribski was comin out with us. Said he’s workin for Dispatch News now. Wants ta get a story on the Ripcord fiasco.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” Numbnuts said importantly. “Some of the dudes think we oughta blow him away.”

“Yer kidding.”

“Aw, it’s just chatter. Maybe he’ll take a picture of us an we’ll be in all the papers.”

“Hey, yeah,” Cherry smiled.

“Hey, Cherry,” Numbnuts said. “Did you know today’s Friday the Thirteenth?” Cherry shook his head. “You superstitious?” Numbnuts asked.

“No,” Cherry said. “Not really. I don’t think. Are you?”

“Naw,” Numbnuts said scratching at his waist then his right thigh. “Me neither. Except about some things.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. You know. Like this hat.” Numbnuts had an Australian bush hat with one side turned up.

“What about yer hat?” Cherry asked glad to be talking to someone. “Is it a good talisman?”

“Huh? Yeah. That’s just it,” Numbnuts said. “I aint real sure. Last time I wore it I got shot at but I didn’t get hit. Does that mean it’s good luck cause I didn’t get hit or bad luck cause I got shot at?”

“I see what ya mean,” Cherry said. His anxieties were easing with the conversation. “It may require a statistical analysis,” he joked. “How many times you been out with it?”

“I only wore it once,” Numbnuts said not smiling.

“A case of one is useless in statistics,” Cherry tried joking again.

Numbnuts paused. He looked at Cherry, curled his upper lip and turned away.

Cherry knew that the situation he was in had changed. The men about him were different today from the way they had been last night. But he did not know why. His mind had not shifted. He did not yet possess the boonierat mentality. It was frustrating, maddening. He did not know what was happening, what was wrong with him. He felt he was no longer accepted. He was sitting in a bush, waiting, waiting again. Now he was dirty. He had been getting dirtier by the day but at least at Phu Bai, Evans and Eagle there had been places to wash. Cherry removed a canteen from his rucksack, poured some water on his OD handkerchief and wiped his face and arms. Red-brown mud smeared on his skin. He wiped and added water and washed and wiped. The mountain air had heated up and the sun beat very harshly.

I’m losing my marbles, Cherry thought. I’m losing my ability to speak. This waiting’s driving me nuts. What in the hell am I doing here? I thought Silvers was going to be my friend … should have told him to fuck himself. I used to have a mind. Six months ago I remember being able to gross out Phil in the pizza shop and today I can’t even converse with an idiot without sayin something wrong.

Daniel Egan was alone again, sitting above the northeast corner of the LZ on Hill 848 feeling very much like a platoon sergeant. He sat and stared disgustedly at Cherry who was fifty feet to his left and at the L-T who was above on the LZ talking to Lt. De Barti, Garbageman and El Paso. Egan looked east, stared into the jungle before him and beyond that jungle at the jungle on the next ridge and still beyond. Across his lap was his M-16 and around his waist was the pistol belt with two canteen pouches filled each with six magazines of ammunition. Four fragmentation grenades hung from his belt. Strapped to his left calf was a bayonet. Before him ridges fell east with the gorge of the Rach Mӯ Chānh cutting across and through the ridgelines. Beyond the fourth ridge was a fifth where the Rach Mӯ Chānh flowed northeastward into the Sông Thác Ma and another ridge was beyond that and then yet another.

With his left hand Egan kneaded the earth. He moved his right hand to his lap and stroked the pistol grip of his rifle. He massaged the steel of the rifle’s bolt housing with his thumb, fingered the plastic pistol grip and the trigger-guard and the trigger, thumbed the safety selector, now staring east down toward the lowlands and beyond toward the sea. In his aloneness and disgust there was a sadness in vague memories that tried to force themselves to the surface of his consciousness, thoughts which he kept fully suppressed, thoughts which he supplanted with the disgust feeling and which accentuated the aloneness, which if he conjured them up would be dangerous in a bad AO. Egan hid in his disgust and loathing for what he was, for what was about him. He glared at the sun now risen high. He glared at the ridges and the valleys before him. In his mind an old sergeant was chattering. The old sergeant was saying something about the ridges which Egan did not even know he had heard the old sergeant say. Egan counted. There were four ridges down the Rach Mӯ Chānh and two down the Sông Ô Lau. They were clear though the distance made the trees blur. He stopped counting. He put the thought out of his mind, chased it from his mind with thoughts of the gypsy girl in Australia.

“You’re crazy,” she had screamed at him. “Get on out of here.” He’d shown up for a third day even though she’d dismissed him after the second night. It was in her apartment and she’d been listening to Isaac Hayes’ “One Woman.”

“Hello, Darling,” he had said forcing his way in. She had been mean the night before. After 17 months in the jungle there is only one thing a soldier wants to do. Softly, violently, any way. And she had been an extreme bitch. She had tormented him. She had a lovely body and long slender legs. She had been fine in bed. Egan grinned inwardly but it went sour in his mind. Good to love but lousy to sleep with, he thought. Too restless. Stomach cramps or some shit. Everything had been a tease. She was soft passionate kisses on the ferry across the harbor to Bondi Beach; warm hugs in the hallway of the Illowra Lodge then nasty in bed. And the worst of it, Egan thought, she was totally ignorant about the world and the war. She’s got a mind for bed, for love, for money, my money, and not much more. When his money began running out she had cramps. She had a talent for making men fall in love with her. Egan was disgusted with himself for having fallen. She was a poor substitute and he hated himself for having accepted her. Now she became one more thing to chase from his mind.

Egan looked again at the ridges then over at the slow progress the unit was making moving into the jungle. He got to his knees, struggled, rolled his ruck over and removed from it the letter he had begun to Stephanie. He skipped a few lines then wrote:

It’s still the same day. I’m getting short. My time is almost up. I’ll be back in the World in twenty five days and out of the army in a month. I’d like to see you again. Memories of you keep floating up in my brain. Like the time in that funky Martinson Hotel when I told you you deserved better than that. I’m really feeling disconnected right now. Must be because of the start of this new operation. I should be thinking about this thing but you keep floating up before me. I don’t know why but I’ve got this image of you and me in the Martinson right now. There was an old chair in the room and I’m lying in the bed. The lights are off but there’s light coming in the window from the bar signs and street lights across the street. You’re in front of the window looking out and you’re naked. You are saying that I hurt you. Why did you say I hurt you?

Egan stopped writing. It did not sound right to him. He returned the letter to his ruck. The eastern ascent of 848 rose from the jungle abruptly, crested in a false peak of bomb shattered rock, merged with the debris surrounding the landing zone, rose and fell then rose to the peak. Egan was in the cover of the debris on the second rise. Again the view east hypnotized him. On the first ridge every tree, every leaf, was crisp in his vision. The second was less clear and by the fifth the vegetation was splotches of lighter and darker green. On the ridges beyond the green seemed to lose its color and become gray shaded gradations blurring and collapsing hazily into the foothills and finally piedmont. Egan counted the ridges, eleven of them. He could hear the old sergeant at the briefing hall, hear him saying, “You will be on the 12th and highest ridge with”—Egan slipped his arms into the rucksack shoulder straps, turned to the west, and rose—“with,” the sergeant’s voice came, “your back to the 13th valley.”