CHAPTER 22
16 AUGUST 1970
Egan and Whiteboy cussed bitterly when the ground collapsed. Brooks and El Paso shrugged their shoulders dejectedly and walked away. They had argued their best. Cherry did not fully understand. Generally, 1st Plt believed it was a mistake, felt they were victimized into committing an error. The entire day had been erroneous and demoralizing. It had been the kind of day champions lose to cellar dwellers and honor students fail easy exams. When the 1st Plt of Alpha blew the tunnel at 1300 hours and all that ground caved in the situation seemed perfectly normal—all fucked up.
No one had fallen asleep before first light. After the Numbnuts-initiated mad minute, the perimeter went on 100 percent alert. Cherry and Egan crawled outward and reinforced Whiteboy’s squad. The night became colder. Ground mist rising, flooding the dark crevices between already black jungle, drained heat from boonierat bodies and dampened clothes and poncho liners. All pairs cuddled, side-to-side, back-to-back, shivering, awake, miserable, exhausted.
Throughout the night the mity-mite and distant omnipresent artillery bursts rumbled and echoed. Black mist changed to gray. The jungle remained dark. The leaf-vine canopy silhouetted menacingly against the dull sky. First light dispelled the night. Half of 1st Plt fell asleep. They slept past sunrise at 0639 and they slept through a spectacular show as the sun broke over the east ridges and peaks and splashed and refracted in the sky turning the clouds red and the sky purple. “Only in Nam,” Egan smiled at the sky. Half the platoon slept on through routine morning activities, slept until the sun burned away the mist and clouds.
The other half did not sleep. Egan rose at the earliest sign of light and silently prepared his web gear for morning patrols. There was a feeling of relief and happiness amongst the waking, relief that day had arrived. During Nam nights boonierats often feared someone somehow would devise a method of eliminating daylight and daytime would never again arrive. It was always a relief when the sky changed and a boonierat could see his brothers still there.
Doc Johnson and El Paso moved silently through the dispersed squads checking and accounting for the L-T. “How’d the night go?” Doc asked here and there. A thumbs-up sign or a nod were the only responses. Doc McCarthy delivered a daily-daily pill to every soldier, a tiny white pill designed to inhibit falicipreum and volvax malaria. Everyone accepted a pill but half the pills found their way, with a wish, over shoulders. It would be better to be medevacked out with malaria than to get wasted in the valley.
Egan gathered a small team for a first light check. They disassembled the down-trail mechanical ambush, then patrolled west, uphill. The higher MA had blown. Artillery rounds had smashed small craters into the jungle. There were no bodies, no blood trails, no signs. It was as if no one had been there last night. The patrol returned.
“Oh, Man,” Hoover chuckled to Jax and Silvers. “You shoulda seen Numbnuts last night. That fucker says he ate the C-4 from his claymore so he’d get sick. Then he says he hears somethin. I tell him he’s full a shit. I think he pissed his pants. Man, you shoulda seen that dumb fuck. Scared shitless. When I skyed he was near cryin. I know there aint nothin there and I knew what that dumb fuckin shit was goina do.”
Egan returned to his and Cherry’s position. He broke out his C-rat can stove, a canteen cup, water, a piece of C-4 and coffee packets. Cherry woke, shook his head, looked at Egan through bleary eyes. “Twenty-two and a wake-up,” Egan announced cheerfully.
Egan washed as best he could using the corner of a towel and a C-rat tin of water. He concocted a breakfast of virtually inedible C-rat ham and eggs, doctoring the yellowish muck with peach jam, a dash of Tabasco sauce and several splashes of coffee. Egan mixed the mush with his bayonet then ate it with a plastic spoon. The sight of it being eaten turned Cherry’s stomach. Cherry ate a cold can of pork slices, a tin of crackers with cheese spread, eating first the cheese and then the crackers, and his last can of fruit cocktail. Egan cleaned and packed his ruck carefully checking the tightness of every strap. Cherry crammed his gear into the pocket of his pack, as before, then sat on it. Egan retied and tightened his bootlaces, checked his web gear, cleaned his ammo and weapon and then brushed his teeth. Cherry dusted the cover of his M-16 with his hand and sat waiting, expecting word to come to move in zero five.
“Man,” Egan shook his head. “You’re a mess. Look at you. I never seen a dude get so filthy in so short a time. You need a shave.”
“What’s this lifer crap?” Cherry barked back snidely. “Want me to spit-shine my boots too?”
“I want you to be clean, Asshole,” Egan snarled.
All about them boonierats were moving now. Moneski led 2d Sqd out on patrol. Brooks talked with the GreenMan, and FO called the FDC on Barnett with more coordinates. None of Alpha’s three platoons had found a sign of the one hundred and fifty NVA soldiers seen by aircraft two days earlier. The mity-mite continued pumping and the hole continued accepting the smoke. Above the valley and as far west as the Laotian border helicopters searched for smoke rising. None was spotted. Brown called forward supply with a coded, up-dated request list. “… charlie-charlie-uniform one, delta-delta-juliet one, alpha-alpha-foxtrot eight, delta …” He spoke on and on into the handset. On the firebase a supply clerk translated the message into meaningful figures on a cage-sheet, a list to which only the quantity needed to be added. Brooks talked to the Old Fox about the hole. He radioed 2d and 3d Plts and instructed them to return to the LZ on Hill 636 for resupply. He told them the CP and 1st would rendezvous with them at 1300. Routine activity continued and most of the boonierats became bored and simply rested in the shade.
“Jax,” Egan said excitedly, “let me take yer E-T, okay?” He grabbed Jax’ entrenching tool.
“Bro, yo aint gowin back down there, is yo?” Jax asked, incredulous shock beaming from his tired eyes.
“Right on, Jax,” Egan gleamed, spun and trotted toward the tunnel opening.
“Oh, Man,” Jax shook his head. “Dat fucka crazy.”
“Better en havin em tell either you or me ta go down there,” Silvers whispered.
At the opening Egan stood in a cluster of CP soldiers, Whiteboy, Thomaston and Cherry. He had tied off his pants legs at the crotch and knees and bloused them tightly about his ankles. Over his torso he wore a T-shirt, a long-sleeve jungle sweater and a fatigue blouse. As additional protection against the tear gas crystals in the hole he wore gloves and a hat. Like the day before he donned a gas mask and carried two flashlights and two .45s. Cherry secured the rope about his waist and Egan plunged in.
The trip down was identical to the earlier one except now smoke residue shortened the effective length of the flashlight beam. Egan turned it off and proceeded in the dark. Slowly down. Deeper. Deeper. It was almost routine. Whiteboy gave three sharp tugs on the line indicating Egan was 100 feet out. Egan pulled once. He forced himself left against the tunnel wall, held the flashlight in his right hand, extended it to the opposite wall. He paused a moment, aimed a .45 down the tunnel and clicked the beam on, one two, off. His eyes registered an empty tunnel. Egan proceeded repeating the lighting at fifteen-to twenty-foot intervals. At 145 feet Whiteboy jerked the line four times. Egan yanked back. He should be in the small room. He turned the light on. The tunnel continued down. Egan inched lower, flicking the light at random. No room. At 170 feet he was stopped by a 250-pound bomb. He could hear digging sounds on the other side.
3d Plt had spent a restless night also. They had backed themselves into a small gorge after retreating from the sniper. Caldwell had placed an ambush team at the top, LPs on the flanks and three fighting positions across the front. He placed his platoon CP at the center in a thin natural trench. The dog handler and the tracker spent the night with the ambush team as far from Lt. Caldwell as possible. “That mothafucka’s dead,” the handler passed sentence on the platoon leader. “He gonna wish he nevah saw the light a day. What kinda man let a dog die? Just let him whimper en die en not even send a squad afta the dink who done it. Just turn around en run. What kinda man is that? I’ll tell you. A daid one.” His feeling penetrated almost every boonierat in 3d. A feeling of total disbelief and disgust had grabbed them all.
“Boy Asshole done it again,” they cussed. “Where we gonna move to if we hit. That coward’s fuckin us.” The hate had not been easy to sleep with.
The sun was high and hot when 3d Plt finally moved out. Rafe Ridge-field walked point. Nahele with his M-60 was at slack. They moved out of the small gorge and onto a little used trail, perhaps an animal trail, Rafe thought. He led them southwest around behind Hill 636. Still they found no indication of the one hundred and fifty NVA. They began climbing toward the peak. Ridgefield moved slowly, cautiously, pausing for a break every ten to fifteen minutes. Various thoughts were accumulating in his head, assembling themselves into a … Da-da! DA-DA! NEW AND UPROARIOUS RADIO PROGRAM FOR ALL MY MARVELOUS LISTENERS OUT THERE IN RADIOLAND.
Ridgefield paused in very heavy vegetation to assess how to proceed. Behind him Nahele sat down and lit a cigarette. Ridgefield studied his map and checked his compass. He climbed forward three paces and mounted the prone carcass of a thick dead teak tree. He stood on the trunk and stared into the erratic green leaf wall of the jungle with the thousand irregular black shadows under palm fronds and behind branches. The trail had completely disappeared. Rafe stared into the dark holes in the vine masses, into the pockets where all light was excluded, blocked by moist living vegetation high above and layer upon layer of dead rotting support entanglement below. Older life supporting new life, he thought. The dead supporting the living in ever increasing heights of jungle, old trees dying, smothered and strangled beneath ever newer covers of green, spreading, reaching for the sun, climbing over the decaying structure, weighing heavily upon disintegrating branches, dying and decomposing as each new layer smothered the one below until the substructure weakened and the weight increased to the point of collapse. Ridgefield stared at the vegetation. A supporting limb snapped. A slow-motion avalanche of green crashed as a section of canopy imploded. He jumped down, squatted. Behind him others sought cover. He stared into the vegetation. It shook as if the earth below had opened its jaws and eaten a huge chunk of life. Ridgefield looked into the new wall, into the new life growing from the old, and he understood it all. He laughed delighted with the revelation and he jumped back onto the tree trunk and searched the black voids and the greenness for a trail to make the climb to the peak easier. As he stared directly into one black nothingness its center flashed bluewhite, a perfect circle, a blinding muzzle flash from within the depths of the void. He never saw anything again.
“How the fuck did a bomb get down there?” El Paso questioned.
“How the fuck do I know?” Egan shrugged.
“Danny, are you sure it’s a bomb?” Brooks asked breaking from his radio report to the GreenMan.
“You fuckin guys think I’m makin it up? Fuck it. Go down and look for yourselves.”
“What happened to the room?” Whiteboy asked.
“I don’t fuckin know,” Egan growled.
“Well Gawd A’mighty, a room caint just dis-ay-pear.”
“Well the fuckin thing just dis-ay-peared.”
“GreenMan wants us moving,” Brooks stopped the questioning. “He wants us to blow it.”
“No way,” Egan shouted.
“Ya caint blow mah hole,” Whiteboy protested.
“We gotta dig it out,” Egan said. “Send three of us down to dig a room before the bomb. Then we can dig the bomb out.”
“Ah couldint fit in thaht hole,” Whiteboy lamented. “If Ah could Ah’d go down there with ya, Eg.”
El Paso took the hook back from Brooks. He radioed GreenMan’s RTO and explained the situation and said they had three volunteers to go back down. He explained what they wanted to do and what they believed, speculated, the tunnel would lead to. Brooks took the hook and talked to GreenMan again. He asked for a day. Denied. Six hours. Denied. Two hours. Denied.
“Aw, they stickin it to us ah-gain,” Whiteboy grumbled walking off and kicking a burnt-out smudge pot.
“We’re gettin fucked, L-T,” Egan complained.
“Blow the fucker,” Brooks ordered.
Towing a reel of wire and two cases of C-4, Egan re-entered the shaft. He was in about fifty feet when word of Ridgefield’s death reached the CP. On the ground above, 1st Plt packed up and prepared to move out. Egan and the hole were the only things keeping them from going.
“Can’t they signal him to hurry up?” Numbnuts whined to Cherry. “We’ll be the last ones to resupply.”
“So what?” Cherry said. He was very tense. Numbnuts’ whine irritated him.
“So what?!” Numbnuts cried. “We’ll get all the leftovers. Them others’ll go through all the Cs and take all the good meals. We’ll be stuck with Ham and Lima Beans.”
“Wow, Dude! Here a man from the company gets wasted and all you think about is lima beans.”
Egan’s progress was slowed by the encumbrance of the explosives. He crawled forward, tired of the tunnel now that it would be blown, caved in, never excavated, its secrets never revealed. Now it was just a hole in the ground. He casually searched the sides for sealed junctions and found none. When he reached 170 feet the bomb stopped him again. He scraped and dug about it and packed both cases of explosives in pockets between the bomb and the dirt. He implanted two electrical blasting caps, wired them and unreeled as he backed out. At the top he was greeted by Brooks who told him about Ridgefield. No matter how many times it happened the death of a boonierat seized his stomach and twisted it. “Fuck it,” he whispered. “Don’t mean nothin.”
2d Plt had reached and secured the LZ. The first resupply helicopter was landing on the peak only 150 meters west. Brooks, Whiteboy and Egan ran the wire across 1st Plt’s NDP and up the ridge. Moneski and the 2d Sqd had already begun the hump west, uphill, toward the LZ when the demolition trio shouted, “Fire-in-the-hole. Fire-in-the-hole. Fire-in-the-ho …” Egan squeezed the claquer firing device. The C-4 exploded muffled. The earth shook violently. It was impossible to tell if the bomb exploded. The earth continued to rumble sending tremors through-out 636, then a 20 x 25 foot rectangular area of surface, including a section of the trail they had ascended yesterday and defended last night, collapsed, sunk straight down twelve feet, filling a subterranean room almost eighty feet below the surface.
Normally resupply day was a skate, a day the command cut the boonierats some slack. Resupply day meant mail and packages and news items and time to relax and reorganize. Normally there was time to prepare a meal and eat something other than cold C-rations, time to clean up and possibly change clothes, time—between helicopter comings and goings—to be noisy. There had been times when Old Zarno, the battalion sergeant major, had come out to the field with an entire kitchen force and the boonierats of Alpha were served a hot meal on the LZ. One time, up by Firebase Maureen, the resupply after Lt. Kamamara DEROSed, the old forward observer had sent out six cases of ice cream cups packed in dry ice. That was an exceptional resupply. Then there was the resupply during the monsoon operation in the southern A Shau, when no helicopters could fly for seven days because of dense fog and Alpha was totally out of food. No extras arrived. Just food and batteries kicked out the back of a C-130 cargo plane and parachuted down. The boonierats had had to search the jungle for the pallets for twelve hours. It was torture but life was at stake and resupply was blessed and life saving. The resupply on the 16th of August was neither a skate nor an emergency.
2d Plt had arrived at the summit of Hill 636 after a short hump from their NDP. Immediately they set to work, one squad cutting and clearing the LZ while the other two squads provided security. Small trees, brush and bamboo were hacked apart with machetes, and these, along with the loose branches and shattered debris from blowing down the larger trees with C-4 the day before, were hauled off the peak and away from the LZ to insure they would not be swept up into the helicopter rotors. Tree trunks and heavy limbs were tugged aside. The security squads busied themselves clearing fields of fire about the perimeter. Hands blistered. The sun peaked. The temperature rose. The sun baked down on the cleared hilltop and the exposed earth dried and became dusty. Boonierats shed their shirts and continued working. The first two log birds arrived, one behind the other. The boonierats unloaded seventy cases of C-rations, batteries for the company’s fifteen radios and heavy loads of M-60 belts, fragmentation grenades and new M-16 magazines and cartridges. No mail. “Shee-it,” Alex Mohnsen cussed. The supplies were stacked beside the landing zone and the clearing squad became the breakdown squad. Quickly they resupplied, confiscating extra canned fruit and meat slices and tins of pound cake. Grudgingly they broke down and arranged distribution of the supplies. The temperature continued to climb.
3d Plt arrived after having carried Ridgefield’s body and gear up the south slope of 636. A detail from 3d brought the body and extra ruck and weapon to the edge of the LZ. The body was wrapped in a poncho and the legs from the knees down hung out. “That ol mothafucker,” Nahele said lamely to Snell and McQueen, “he sure’s hell heavy.” “The fucker’d a done the same for you,” Snell babbled back. Ridgefield’s detail became 3d Plt’s breakdown squad. The others expanded and secured the perimeter.
Lieutenant Caldwell watched and directed his platoon’s detail as he talked cheerfully to the civilian correspondent, Caribski, and the PIO escort officer, Lt. Carrie. “Ah, you know,” Caldwell said officially, “it’s a terrible thing when one of your men gets zapped.” Carrie pretended to listen but actually he was concentrating on four men standing about fifteen feet behind and to one side of Caldwell. They were Lamonte, George, the dog handler and McQueen. Lamonte seemed to be helping the dog handler prepare a letter or some documents. “They’re good men,” Caldwell said. “Sometimes they can’t always see the reasoning behind command decisions but they’re a good bunch.”
Caribski also paid Caldwell only partial attention. Several of the soldiers from 2d Plt’s detail were wisecracking about his muttonchop sideburns and his hair which was long and completely covered his ears. He was a large man, heavier than most boonierats. He looked strong. Most soldiers considered civilian journalists to be a weird lot. So few went to the field they were always an object of curiosity. For many, flying from Saigon to Camp Eagle was going to the boonies. Very seldom did a civilian actually stay in the bush for days and of those who did only a small percent sat and listened. Most journalists had strong political leanings and tended to lead conversations, tended to get the boonierats to say what they themselves wanted to hear. Caribski was different. He was a cross of both worlds. He was an ex-GI, ex-Viet Vet. He had humped a ruck before. There was a romantic aura about him and about what he was doing. Some soldiers despised him for My Lai but in Alpha he earned general respect. He had talked and listened and humped. When the third log bird came in with clothes from the company fund and sundry materials but still no mail and then left with Lt. Carrie and Caribski and Ridgefield’s body, the disgust thickened.
1st Plt and the company CP reached the LZ on 636 by mid-afternoon, hot, sluggish, disgusted like the rest. They had one hour to resupply before the back bird, the helicopter which would come to remove all the unused and returnable items, came in and resupply was over. Hastily they removed C-ration meals from cases then cans from boxes. They sorted through the meals grabbing ten then discarding those disliked if a suitable replacement could be found. “Ham and Limas! Ham and Limas!” Numbnuts shouted. “I hate ham and lima beans. Hey, Cherry, I’ll trade ya three ham and limas for one can of fruit. Aw, come on. How bout … oh, Man, just give me somethin other than mothers en beans … Aw, no, I a’ready got three meatballs en beans.”
The company fund clothes had been picked over too before 1st Plt arrived. Only forty sets had come out and all forty sets, clean though worn, had been distributed. Forty sets of filthy fatigues lay piled ready for back bird withdrawal. The supply teams had not sent out any clean socks.
Egan secluded himself on one side of the LZ. He had rummaged through the filthy fatigues and removed an untorn set about the right size. Anything was better than his CS crystal-infested clothes from the tunnel. His skin burned in hundreds of places. Egan changed quickly, powdered his feet, put on a clean pair of socks he had had in his ruck, sat back and pulled out the letter he had been writing to Stephanie.
8-16—I’m going to have to give this to the doorgunner in half an hour so I’ll be brief. You’ve been on my mind a lot. I’m due to leave here in twenty-two days and can realistically expect to be out of the army in three or four more. I want to see you. I never knew how deeply you touched me, how much you’d come to mean to me until now. The thought of seeing you again is driving me mad. We had a lot of good times and some bad. I don’t know why I always had to be leaving but I think my desire to wander has been satiated by my time here. I feel funny writing you now, again, after so long, but how could I have written before when I didn’t know how long it would be before I was out. Stephanie, if you can, please say I may come to see you.
All my love,
Daniel
Egan folded the letter, slid it into the envelope, sealed it, addressed it and wrote FREE on the stamp corner. He strode toward 1st Plt’s CP, found Cherry and said, “Hey, when the bird comes in, go up and see if we got any mail. Get the mail for 1st Plt. And, ah, give this to the doorgunner with the outgoing mail, okay?”
“Why yo ask the man ta do that fo?” Jax said from behind Egan. “Of all us wid interest, aint none got mo interest then yo. Yo the platoon sergeant, yo fine. Maybe she wrote yo, this time.” Egan pulled the letter back from Cherry and walked away. “Problem wid that man,” Jax said to Cherry, “wid his woman, he doan know where he stan.”
On the other side of the LZ Doc and El Paso were listening to Lamonte and George describe their day with 3d Plt. “I can see why they call him Boy Asshole,” Lamonte said. “Man, he wouldn’t even let the dog handler go up an put the dog out of its misery.”
“I think they shoulda had a medevac come in for it,” George said.
“He’s a fucker, Man,” Lamonte continued. “You guys better watch out for him.”
“He do Rafe?” Doc asked intensely.
“Naw, I don’t think that was his fault,” Lamonte answered. “Kinderly said Ridgefield was on the wrong trail. Got crossed up someplace. White wanted ta have a bird come in with a hoist so we wouldn’t have ta carry him but Boy Asshole wouldn’t even request one. He just turned the platoon around just like he did when the dog got it and he had us runnin away. I thought Nahele’d blow his ass off.”
“He’s an asshole, Man,” George said. “I think you’re goina have trouble ever gettin another scout dog team ta work with this company.”
Brooks came over to the group, excused himself and very apologetically told Lamonte he had to confiscate his film. “L-T, I already gave it to Lt. Carrie,” Lamonte said. Brooks pursed his lips. “I know Sir, it wasn’t your doing. That 3d Brigade commander, he sure’s got his head up his ass.”
Brooks shook his head slowly, shrugged his shoulders and winked, “Doesn’t mean anything,” he said. “Hey, both of you. Thanks very much for coming out with us. It makes a lot of us feel good to have you here.”
When Brooks returned to the CP Lamonte said, “He’s one in a million. That man’s got his shit together.”
“Right on, Bro,” El Paso said. “Where you going now?”
“I don’t know,” Lamonte said. “We’ll be in for two days to write our stories then maybe we’ll go out with 2d of the three-two-seventh.”
“You really give the film to Carrie?” George asked Lamonte.
“Fuck no! I told him you gave it to the L-T.”
Cherry, Egan and Thomaston grouped together with Brooks and his RTOs and FO to discuss the afternoon move. There would be three hours of light remaining after the back bird left and the GreenMan was repeating his shrill order: “Get down there and hurt those little people.”
“We aint walkin inta the middle a that valley in the middle of the fucken night,” Egan warned flatly.
“No,” Brooks agreed. “We won’t move down there yet. I think we should set up some ambushes up here. Move out and leave some ambush teams. Can we get some volunteers?”
“Give us ten,” Thomaston answered. He and Egan rose and circled the peak asking for ambush team volunteers. Cherry sat by the CP listening as the others prepared for the continuing move. He brushed a mosquito from his face and felt a small sore bump. He rubbed his fingers over his forehead and down by the side of his nose. “Oh God,” he muttered. “Pimples!” Cherry checked and examined his body. His face had broken out and had several cuts, his arms were cut and bruised and the burns he had received on the CA were sore and oozing. His back and leg muscles were sore and his shoulders hurt from where the rucksack straps cut. Now he had a full ruck again and the straps would cut deeper. He slipped a hand under his shirt and felt his shoulders. There too the skin was breaking out. Just like being thirteen again, he thought. He sat forward and felt the cloth of his pants tighten against his crotch. He was sore there also. His pants, the dirt and sweat, and the night mist were combining to irritate his inner thigh skin. Cherry got up, found Egan. “Hey,” he asked, “is the ambush team goina have ta hump very far?”
“Negative,” Egan replied.
“Are they goina need an RTO?” Cherry asked.
“That’s affirm,” Egan smiled. Oh to get rid of this dude for a day, he thought.
“Could I volunteer?” Cherry persisted expecting Egan to say no.
“Right on,” Egan beamed.
When the back bird came in, Egan grabbed Cherry and pulled him toward the LZ. “Come on,” he shouted. “I got somethin for ya.” The bird set down, Egan ran forward, gave the doorgunner his letter and spoke to him for several seconds. Then he ran back to Cherry. The detail from 2d Plt loaded the material being sent back. “Scream,” Egan shouted into the noise of the rotorslap and engineroar. Cherry looked at him incredulously. “Yeah, SCREAM,” Egan yelled and he screamed as loud as he could. “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaa … Try it.”
Brooks stood on one of the helicopter skids talking to the pilot, the last of the leftovers were being packed.
“Try it,” Egan shouted into the noise of the helicopter and he screamed again jumping and shaking and laughing.
Cherry attempted a yell, “AAaaaa …”
“Really yell,” Egan demanded laughing, tears coming to his eyes from facing into the gale rotor wash.
“AAAEeeeik,” Cherry shouted. He laughed.
“AAAAAAAAAAaaaahh,” Egan screamed laughing and shaking.
“AAAAAAAaaaeeeikk,” Cherry screamed and laughed out of control. Egan was holding his wrist and shaking it up and back. They were like two sport fanatics watching their team win in the last second.
“AAAAAAAAaaaahh …” They screamed together. Then the helicopter lifted and left and again they had to be silent.
It was 1700 hours when Alpha finally began moving again, west again. The GreenMan’s pushing and shouting had reversed the slowdown of resupply. The call of the Khe Ta Laou accelerated their hump. Alpha moved out at a killer pace. They moved in column, 3d Plt, the CP, 2d and 1st. They moved quickly down the west side of 636 to a rivulet gorge between that peak and the peak of Hill 606. Nahele walked point, Snell slack. Their disgust had changed to hatred. Nahele led the column along the gorge, cut above the rivulet, looking for a crossing. He refused to cross where Caldwell directed, nor would he cross where they had crossed the day before, where, on the other side, Cherokee was killed.
Nahele led the column 100 meters parallel with the trickling water to just above a tiny waterfall. There, after sending security upstream, he crossed. The vegetation at the gorge crossing was thick and lush and dark. The canopy created an almost opaque roof and Nahele and Snell followed by the column slipped across in the darkness. Nine men remained at the crossing. They would return to 636 to ambush the LZ. Nahele worked the gorge cut back along the west side then turned due west and picked a steep climb toward 606’s peak. He moved slowly, jungle patrol cautious, yet steadily. He covered the one map kilometer, perhaps two surface klicks, in under an hour. Everyone behind the point was panting. The unit circled the peak, rested for five minutes then moved out again, again Nahele at point. Alpha continued its murderous march. They descended west off 606 into another steep-sided ravine, crossed another stream at the bottom and climbed another hill. Every 200 meters they paused for a five-minute break to allow the column to close up.
At times the trail became so steep they had to crawl and dig in with their fingers and knees to ascend. They climbed to a position just below the next peak west, Hill 711, broke for five, spread out on line and swept up and over the top. On top they rediscovered the NVA bunkers Charlie Company had found and destroyed on the 13th. Half the bunkers had been rebuilt. The enemy was nowhere to be seen. Alpha set up a full company perimeter in the enemy fighting complex. It was almost sunset. Brooks directed patrols, FO called DTs to the firebase, Doc checked and taped a turned ankle of a boonierat in 2d Plt. Men were directed urgently in every direction. A hasty CP meeting was called. Brooks, with the concurrence of all the platoon leaders and sergeants, directed 2d and 3d Plts to move out at gray dusk for an NDP 300 meters northeast, downhill. It would mark the beginning of Alpha’s plunge into the valley. Brooks directed 1st Plt, accompanied by the company CP, to follow 2d and 3d to the new NDP, then to leave their rucks and return east in lights. They would move back to Hill 606 and set up as a reaction force for the ambush team.
They waited for the proper degree of grayness in the advancing dusk. It would be only a matter of minutes. From the summit of Hill 711 the soldiers could see west down the Khe Ta Laou and across the Da Krong and the narrow plain and into the foothills of Laos. The sun splashed a reverse pattern of the day’s first light, splashed and refracted against the base of accumulating high clouds. The sky glowed momentarily then became gray. The clouds above the Laotian hills grew thick and began to roll east.
The boonierats watched the front approach, watched the sky seemingly fold in upon itself and upon them. Everything became still and quiet.
“You decide what you’ll do yet, Ruf?” Lt. Thomaston asked Lt. Brooks as they waited.
“What would you do … Bill?” Brooks responded. He had almost called him Lila. Be here, he ordered his mind.
“I’d DEROS,” Thomaston said. “Of course, I can’t make up your mind. But if you go, I get the company, I think. I think the GreenMan’d give it to me.”
“You don’t have much time left yourself,” Brooks said.
“Twenty-five and a wake-up. He might give it to Wurzback but I think I’d be acting CO at least.”
“Let’s ruck up,” Brooks said standing. He helped Thomaston up then asked, “Do you really want it?”
“Can’t look bad on my record,” Thomaston said.
“I’ll let you know within a day or two,” Brooks said.
The ambush team that had dropped off at the ravine between Hills 636 and 606 consisted of the 1st Sqd of the 1st Plt minus Steve Hoover, plus Cherry and Doc McCarthy. They had set up a tiny defensive ring on the east bank of the gorge above the crossing. Ambush had its benefits and its drawbacks. The volunteers did not have to hump. They sat, rested, relaxed. Two at a time they crawled to the stream to fill their canteens and wash. The drawbacks would begin after dark.
“Gettin useta boonie life?” Silvers whispered to Cherry when their turn in the stream came.
“Mostly,” Cherry whispered back. Cherry was nervous and tight. The gorge crossing reminded him of the red ball from the water run. Cherry’s eyes examined the jungle west of the water and the stream above. He could feel the NVA soldier out there, feel his first KIA watching him.
Silvers removed his clothes and sat in the water. He washed himself attempting to make as few motions as possible. He had brought a bar of soap and he lathered himself and rinsed part by part, foot to head, slowly. Cherry’s head snapped up frequently while he filled his canteens. His eyes searched the stream bank and jungle.
“Here,” Silvers whispered flipping Cherry the bar of soap. “Ya owe it to yerself.” Silvers dressed quietly. He stood guard while Cherry undressed.
Undressing made Cherry feel more aware of his body and more vulnerable. He was coated with dirt. Oh God, my pits stink, he thought. The water was cool and clear though it felt somehow grainy as if it had picked up and suspended immense quantities of clear sand. The coolness felt wonderful. Cherry squatted by the stream and washed quickly, cupping water upon himself with his hands, soaping then rinsing by cupping again.
“Ya oughta get in,” Silvers whispered. “That’ll keep the jungle rot from gettin ya.”
“This reminds me of a stream at Pomparaug,” Cherry said stepping into the stream timidly, straining to maintain control. He did not want to step too far from his rifle.
“Where?” Silvers whispered.
“A Boy Scout camp I went to.”
“Oh.”
“This is really a nice spot,” Cherry said. “I wish I could stop thinkin about dinks for just one fucken moment.”
“Yeah,” Silvers whispered. They were standing very close to each other. “I know whatcha mean.”
“Leon,” Cherry said very quietly. He stepped from the water and dried himself with his filthy towel. “I’ve been havin some terrible nightmares.” Silvers shrugged sympathetically. “I keep seein that guy,” Cherry said. Silvers dropped his head and did not speak. “I keep thinkin he’ll go away,” Cherry explained. “Then we get to a spot like this and I can feel him out there watchin me.”
Silvers nodded his head in agreement. He was not sure how to respond. “It was either you or him,” he said finally.
“Leon, I’m goina see that guy every night for the rest of my life.”
“It’ll go away, Man.”
“Leon,” Cherry said trying to stress the intensity of the emotion that had gripped him, “he didn’t just die.” Cherry shook like a naked frightened child. “He didn’t just die, Leon.”
“It don’t do any good to think about it,” Silvers said. Cherry’s emotional display unsettled him. “Man, the first rule out here is survive. That means kill em before they kill you.”
“Leon, when he fell,” Cherry’s eyes were glazing over and he was inducing a trance as if he wanted to force the NVA soldier’s spirit to appear, “he … he was kickin. I wanted to go over and stop him but the AKs were firin. I was like a robot. I just fired at the noise and he kept kickin and twitchin.”
“Come on,” Silvers said grasping Cherry hard by the arm. “Get dressed. Just say fuck it and drive on. Don’t mean nothin. Where’s my soap?”
Silvers’ jolt knocked Cherry out of his trance. He dressed quickly, grabbed his rifle and Silvers’ soap. “Here,” he said returning the soap. “Thanks.”
“Oh shit. Goddamn.”
“What?”
“Look at this, Mothafucker.”
“What?”
“There. On my soap. You fucken pig. Yer pubies.” Silvers held the bar of soap by his fingertips and wiped it against a rock scratching off a few curly black hairs.
“Oh shee-it,” Cherry gurgled beneath his breath.
“Mothafucker. You expect me to use that soap!”
The ravine became still and dark. Everyone had washed. The jungle about them seemed to be tightening down, closing in. The ambush team discussed their plan. Lairds and Denhardt said they should move out now. Silvers paused and told them to wait five more minutes. They all squirmed. “Call Quiet Rover,” Silvers directed Cherry. “Tell em we’re movin up.” They moved out. Silvers led with Jax at slack then the gun team of Marko and Brunak, Lairds, Denhardt, Numbnuts, Cherry and Doc McCarthy at drag. They climbed straight but slowly, pausing often to insure they were not observed.
The ambush team stopped their ascent 200 meters from the LZ on the summit of 636. With each step up the canopy had thinned and it had become lighter. Silvers was apprehensive. Had he left the ravine too soon? It had been very dark by the stream but it was now far too light to move into ambush position. The team sat in line on the trail, in complete silence. With only nine men they did not dare even cough.
Without warning a wind gusted from the west. Just a single gust, then calm. It had come suddenly and it caused the vegetation to shudder. Good, Silvers thought. With a wind we’ll be able to move in undetected. The team’s plan was to slip in from below and set up behind the blown trees just off the LZ. This would give them clear fire across the crest. With luck, North Vietnamese troops would come scavenging. It was common for soldiers of the rich American army to discard unwanted cans of food or even for some, like Numbnuts, to discard extra ammunition. The poorer NVA thrived on American LZs and old NDP sites. The better the American unit the less they left but Americans, unaccustomed to want, able to call in resupply helicopters, nearly always left something for NVA foragers.
A second gust of wind shook the canopy. Keep it up, Silvers thought. He looked west into the wind. The gusts came in force now. The soldiers could see the clouds behind the wind, high towering clouds closing upon them from the west, enveloping the valley and the ridges. They could see the line of the approaching rain, the rain curtain reaching 711, 606, the ravine below them.
Wind shook the jungle above them. The rushing seemed to vibrate the hill. Steadily the curtain advanced, harsh parallel streaking water, not drops but lines crashing, resonating the foliage. Doc McCarthy at the rear of the team got hit first. One gigantic splat then total inundation swept across them all and the rain and ricocheting mist became as ambient as the subdued light. Numbnuts, Cherry and McCarthy at the team’s tail pulled their shirts tight in useless protection. Numbnuts unstrapped his helmet from his ruck and put it on his head. Cherry watched him and did the same. The noise of the rain on the helmets and in the canopy was very loud.
“Rover Two Two, Quiet Rover Four, security check. Over.” El Paso radioed Cherry. Cherry scrunched down over the handset and listened as El Paso repeated the call. Then Cherry keyed the handset twice, indicating they were secure.
With the rain came darkness. What luck, Silvers thought. He stood. He was totally soaked. The trail became a mudbrown stream. Man, what luck, he thought. When the boonierats were moving they liked the rain because it was difficult to be heard. When they were set up they hated the rain for then it was cold and it masked the sounds of the moving enemy. Great, Silvers thought. He stirred Jackson. “Let’s go.” Jax grabbed Marko’s shoulder and gave a tug. Marko grabbed Brunak’s, Brunak Lairds’, Lairds Denhardt’s, and Denhardt Numbnuts’. There the signal broke. Numbnuts did not respond. The wind tore into him, opening his shirt even as he struggled to keep it shut. He did not want to move. He simply sat. The first six team members squirmed up toward the LZ in complete blackness, unaware of the last three sitting quietly.
The squall further eroded Alpha’s morale. It had been a miserable day and now there was this tremendous torrent. From the first stinging splash it had saturated them to the skin. The platoons had humped off 711 in the initial onslaught. They had slid and slipped and fallen on the trail. The weight of their rucksacks toppled them. Their boot soles clogged with mud and their feet shot out from under them a dozen times each. 2d and 3d Plts set up a hasty NDP and sent out patrols. 1st and the CP left their rucks and quickly descended then climbed back to Hill 606. At their new NDP they huddled in pockets under the palms but the rain was so thick and the wind so fierce, they felt totally exposed. In the midst of the assembling CP group Brooks sat. Water puddled on his thighs. It ran from his face into his mouth. It trickled in streams beneath his shirt. The burden of command had become heavier. His company was too spread out for such a hostile AO and his troops were disgusted with the day’s events. Their fear was increasing, their confidence waning. The noise of the rain obliterated any possibility of hearing enemy movement. To add to the injustices their NDP site was so steep they could not lie down without rolling or sliding downhill. The guards found trees or shrubs to lie against or to straddle but gravity pushed them into the trees with all their weight and every few minutes they had to shift positions. It would be a miserable, restless night.
The CP group was joined by Thomaston and Egan and the meeting began. It lasted only a few minutes. Cahalan reviewed the day’s activities about the valley. Recon had killed one NVA in a brief encounter. Bravo had engaged an unknown-sized enemy force with unknown results. Egan bitched about the tunnel. “God mothafuckin whore damn,” he cussed. “We’re practically still right there. We’re jumpin back and forth, not goin anywhere, not doin anything where we’re at.” El Paso agreed and said that’s what killed Ridgefield. That dampened their spirits even more.
“Where ma plasma?” Doc questioned. “They was supposed ta send out a hun’red bag.”
No one answered him. They all seemed to be in a stupor. Their eyes had sunk into deepening sockets. Since leaving the tunnel they had covered 3000 map meters, perhaps six kilometers climbing up and down, each carrying refilled rucks and equipment, all on full alert, in either tropical heat or in harsh cold rain.
“Tomorrow,” Brooks said a little too loud, loud enough to inject command energy into his weary soldiers, “tomorrow we get out of here. We cross the valley. El Paso, get De Barti and Caldwell on the hook. Cahalan get Red Rover. Any questions? No? Good. Tomorrow we get the ambush team back in at first light, then rendezvous with 2d and 3d. Then we cross the valley.”
Cherry shuddered: The wind was harsher now. He had crossed and wrapped his arms about his chest. His rifle was muzzle up between his legs, his thighs pressed it as if for warmth. The jungle was pitch black. Cherry could not even see McCarthy who was sitting less than a meter from his feet. The trail had become a river and the water surged against Cherry’s ruck and his ass. The water streamed right through the material of his pants. Cherry’s teeth chattered. With this wind and rain, he thought, I could probably scream and not be heard. El Paso called again checking security. Cherry keyed the transmit bar. He rolled to his left, to his knees, and crawled forward a foot. Numbnuts was right there.
“Hey,” Cherry hissed. “Hey, find out when we’re …” Cherry reached out and grabbed the thumperman.
“What?” Numbnuts said, startled.
“Cool it. Hey, when we goina move? Were you sleepin?”
“I wasn’t sleepin,” Numbnuts snapped.
“When we goina move out?” Cherry asked.
McCarthy tapped Cherry from behind. “We movin? I’m fuckin freezin. When we …”
It took three or four minutes in the dark for them to determine they had broken contact, had become separated, were alone. “Hey, nobody signaled me,” Numbnuts defended himself.
“You mothafucker,” McCarthy spit at Numbnuts’ face. “I can’t believe you did that.”
“I wasn’t sleepin,” Numbnuts snapped again. “Maybe you was sleepin.”
The urge to smash Numbnuts in the face seethed in McCarthy. It seethed in Cherry too. Cherry forced his brain back into control. What should I do? he thought. What’s got to be done? He knew he could not call out, ‘Hey, where are you guys?’ though that was his first impulse. He hesitated to use the radio. He could call back to the CP but he could not call the ambush team. He had the team’s only radio.
“Willis,” Cherry addressed Numbnuts using the thumperman’s surname to establish his own authority, “move up the trail about ten feet. See if you can find Denhardt. Doc, you watch below us. I’m goina call Rover Two and get Egan. We gotta link back up with the team.”
“I aint goin up there,” Numbnuts protested. “I can’t see.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Cherry whispered violently. A natural command instinct had surfaced in him. “When you speak, you speak quiet, Fucker.”
“You go up there,” Numbnuts whined irritably. “Why should I listen to you? Huh? It wasn’t my fault … Auughh …” He screamed as Cherry jerked him up by his shirt then slammed him down into the mud. Cherry grasped him by the throat, held him with his left hand. Numbnuts squirmed. Cherry cocked his right arm, squeezed his fist, aimed at Numbnuts’head …
“What the fuck are you doin?” Someone grabbed Cherry. “Where the fuck you been?” It was Silvers. “Get up. Get up there. Get up there. What the fuck’s wrong with you?”
Silvers grabbed Cherry, spun him uphill and pushed him. Numbnuts jumped up about to protest but Silvers was already at the head of the little column. Numbnuts ran a few furious steps to catch up. Cherry was vibrating with rage at the injustice of Silvers’ accusing him. He stepped more lightly than he had ever stepped. Rain or no rain, he was a good soldier and he wasn’t going to take the rap for Numbnuts’ fuck-up. Cherry stepped where Silvers stepped except smoother, quieter. As they approached the summit LZ the slope leveled and they slowed. All of a sudden the howl and roar of the wind was engulfed in three successive explosions BOOM!BOOM!BOOM! and a fusillade of firing.
Cherry and Silvers dropped. The firing was 30 meters away. Silvers rose and crept quickly cautiously forward. Cherry, McCarthy and Numbnuts followed. Jax, Lairds and Denhardt were all firing their 16s and Marko the 60 as Brunak fed. They sprayed fire across the entire LZ.
“Over there,” Denhardt yelled. “Out there,” he screamed. Silvers reached him. “There’s gooks over there. I seen em.” He continued firing. Silvers tossed a grenade and fired. Cherry squeezed off a burst on full automatic. Then everything became quiet. There had been no return fire.
They paused. The team huddled together to discuss what to do next. The rain was still coming down hard and making noise in the canopy. The NVA could be maneuvering up to their sides, around behind them, maybe even in front of them. “We blew it, Man,” Marko said. “We gotta go back.”
“Call the CP,” Jax said. “Tell em we done blowed our position. Ef anybody out here, they know right where we at.”
They all agreed. No one, including Silvers, wanted to remain. They had fired too much at too little.
Silvers grabbed the hook. “Quiet Rover Four, this is Rover Two Two. Over,” Silvers called. At the CP El Paso answered and passed the hook to the L-T. “We’re comin back in,” Silvers informed Brooks. Brooks asked questions. He listened. He thought it would be more dangerous for the team to move than to stay and rearrange themselves. Silvers argued for returning. Brooks denied his request again. Their conversation ended there.
“Let’s go,” Silvers said. And without permission the ambush team backed out of its position behind the blown trees, returned to the trail and descended toward the ravine. Very quietly they descended in column, all of them very alert now, holding the rucksacks to their front in an unbroken chain.
Egan and Thomaston had crawled away from the CP meeting and had dragged themselves through the mud to a guard/ sleeping position at the side of a foot-thick tree. It could not have been more uncomfortable. Because of the slope, they slid into each other, pressed each other against the tree. On top of all else, where the tree’s roots spread, rising from the ground like an inverted fan, the tiny cavities and recesses were filled with spider webs. Egan felt wretched. Finally he got up, moved up the hill several meters, found a thin tree trunk and tied himself to it. He settled back wrapped in a poncho liner and poncho and closed his eyes. Stephanie came to him immediately. Like magic she eased the discomfort and anguish. She floated into the jungle and the rain ceased, the wind became a gentle breeze.
After that October afternoon in New York Daniel Egan lost contact with Stephanie. He called a few times without receiving an answer and finally found the phone disconnected. It must have been at least a month between calls and in those months he found a new Daniel, a man sexually attractive to women. All this time, he thought, I thought you had to be something special to get a girl. I thought they had to love you. In the course of a semester Daniel moved from naive small town boy to campus stud. He kept score, laughing about it with his football friends, and flaunting his prowess at fraternity parties. He fell in love a dozen times and forgot a dozen names. And he found he hated it. Something was missing.
On a cold snowy night in February Daniel was in bed with Little Fannie, a fraternity sweetheart. They had just made love or at least balled. He had just come. He was still atop her, still in her, semi-flaccid. For this, he had said to himself, for this I didn’t pull it for two days. He lay there thinking. Then he rolled off. “Fannie,” he said. “Ah, I got a big exam tomorrow. I got to study.” She said go ahead and pulled the blanket tightly about herself. “Ya can’t stay while I’m studying,” he said.
“You got to be kidding,” she had said. In the end he threw her out. After she left he lay alone for a long time. Then he rose, went to his desk and wrote a note to Stephanie.
Now in the vacuum of darkness, on that empty fetid hillside morass where he had tied himself, her image warming his enslaved soul solidified and she spoke the soliloquy of her reply, a reply which did not arrive until early June.
Dear Daniel,
I’ll bet you’re wondering what’s happened to me. Things have happened quickly and have been very complicated but I’ll try to explain as best I can.
The last time we talked I told you I didn’t know where I was going. I had to leave NYC, so, I went home. I’m skipping around. I’ve been having trouble with my step-father because he thinks what I did was a terrible sin. I’ll get to that. One night, shortly after I moved back in, he and mother were arguing about my being here and I overheard and went downstairs to tell him to leave mother alone and that I would leave. Before I knew it I was telling him how he had never shown me any love. The idea that he had failed as a father and that therefore had contributed to my sin surprised him. He’s always been such a success at everything.
Anyway, I’m married, getting divorced, and I’ve had an abortion. Actually, you’re not going to believe this, but I had two. I’ve been through quite a lot since I last saw you. The first abortion didn’t work. I don’t know if you know anything about them. They certainly are not fun. I became very ill after my second D & C which is a scraping of the uterus. I only got out of the hospital yesterday. When I get up and around I’m planning to get a job and save some money so I can go to school. I want to work with children. I have definitely decided not to go into art.
As far as the divorce is concerned that will be happening very soon. Not a definite date now but soon. As soon as possible. I hesitate to write you, Daniel, because I’ve been so sick and because I really don’t know if it is the right thing to do. I respect you so much and I don’t want you to get involved in anything ugly. This is really hard for me to put into words but it is how I feel. I wasn’t going to write then I started thinking about how much I wanted to hear more from you and that you would know yourself just how much to get involved. I don’t understand exactly how I feel. The whole time I was living with my husband I couldn’t stand it and I thought of you constantly. I wanted to call you so badly. Daniel, please write. Write me a long letter. You’re such a wonderful writer, so precise and beautiful with words.
Please don’t be afraid of my feelings. I’ll never press you. Could you send me a sketch too? I know someday you’ll be a superb architect. It’s very late but I don’t want this letter to end. It’s almost like I’m talking to you. I guess I should get to bed.
Love,
Stephanie
Two Fridays after the letter arrived, Daniel left school. He hitchhiked to her, arrived on her doorstep at three Saturday morning and allowed the long sleepless night to torture him in an attempt to atone for his lapse. “I brought you something,” he smiled when she opened the door six hours later.
“Daniel,” she screamed with glee. She rushed to him and they embraced and held each other tightly and then her mother was there saying hello and making them breakfast.
Saturday was beautiful. She took him to a lake and they hiked to the secluded far shore. Stephanie had never been lovelier. The air remained crisp all day, the sunshine warm and clean.
“Daniel,” she said. God, he thought, how much I love to hear you say my name. “Why are you so quiet? Talk to me. I’ve told you all about my past eight months and you’ve told me nothing.”
He wanted to speak but he couldn’t. How could he confess to her that he had been on a fuckathon. He looked into those beautiful eyes and he thought of himself and he felt like dirt.
“I love your sketch,” Stephanie said. She kissed him then raised her sweater and exposed her breasts and gently pulled Daniel’s face to her.
Egan lying tied to a tree on the wet jungle hillside rolled to his side and pushed the poncho liner up higher about his neck. He felt pleasantly warm. The image before him shifted. There were two lovers alone and in darkness. He recognized himself. “I’ve designed some of the world’s most wonderful homes in my head,” his image said.
She laughed. “I’ve painted some of the greatest pictures in my mind.”
They both laughed. Then they stopped and were silent and they shared a sorrow. What if I never really design them? he shuddered. What if they are not the most wonderful when they are on paper? She too shuddered, then breaking their silence Stephanie said, “Please. Let’s go someplace.”
“Yes,” Daniel said. “Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“Nowhere. Let’s just go.” They rose and stood for a dizzy moment and looked at each other. Stephanie sat back down. “Get up,” Daniel pleaded gently. “We will go … somewhere.”
“Where?” Stephanie cried. “You’re going to go back to school or to a job. Leaving me again.”
In the cold jungle the memory now agitated Egan. Perhaps he had been too close to it then. Perhaps he could understand it better now, from this distance in time and space. Much of what Daniel Egan remembered of Stephanie was not her at all but was only him when he was with her. Perhaps I wasn’t sensitive enough to perceive more than just me, he thought. I never asked her how she felt or what she thought. I didn’t really know her. She is not really here at all, he thought. The wind blew colder. He wanted to know her so much more.
His dream convoluted. The warmth vanished. The fragrance became the odor of jungle rot and dead men. The sky’s glow dimmed, became dark and ugly. A harsh glint chased Stephanie’s image from the screen of his mind. Egan was petrified. He was tied down, staked out, unable to react. The sapper squatted by his side. The silver machete was in his right hand. Egan tried to move. The rope restraints cut into his wrists, his ankles. He arched his back, lifted his belly. Moonlight sparkled upon the blade and in the sapper’s eyes as the dark foe raised the knife. The enemy cocked his wrist, aimed the blade for Egan’s eyes, began the downward killing stroke. Egan craned his neck to avoid the slashing blade. The blade touched … Egan bolted upright panting, paranoid. Rain streamed down his face. He grabbed his forehead, his nose, his cheeks. He tasted the stream to insure it was not blood.
SIGNIFICANT ACTIVITIES
THE FOLLOWING RESULTS OF OPERATIONS IN THE O’REILLY/BARNETT/JEROME AREA WERE REPORTED FOR THE 24-HOUR PERIOD ENDING 2359 16 AUGUST 70:
AT 0950 HOURS, VICINITY YD 191298, RECON, CO E, 7/402 ENGAGED AN UNKNOWN SIZE ENEMY FORCE KILLING ONE NVA. CO B, 7/402 CONTINUED TO EXPLORE THE NVA HOSPLTAL COMPLEX THEY UNCOVERED 15 AUGUST. THE COMPLEX CONTAINED A TOTAL OF 18 BUNKERS SCATTERED OVER A SQUARE KILOMETER. SEVERAL OF THE BUNKERS WERE INTERCONNECTED BY A TUNNEL NETWORK CUT DEEPLY INTO THE MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN. THIRTY-FOUR MEDICAL KITS AND 1100 POUNDS OF MEDICAL SUPPLIES WERE EVACUATED. A CACHE CONTAINING 100 NVA UNIFORMS AND 2400 POUNDS OF RICE WAS DESTROYED. IN AN EVIDENT INTENSIVE CARE INFIRMARY BUNKER A BODY WAS DISCOVERED ALONG WITH ONE VERY SERIOUSLY WOUNDED ENEMY SOLDIER. THE PRISONER WAS EVACUATED TO PHU BAI.
AT YD 193273, THE 1ST BN, 3D REGT (ARVN) RECEIVED RPG AND SMALL ARMS FIRE FROM AN ESTIMATED ENEMY BATTALION SURROUNDING THEIR POSITION. THE ARVN ELEMENT RETURNED ORGANIC WEAPONS FIRE RESULTING IN 38 NVA KIA AND ONE POW CAPTURED. 13 ARVN SOLDIERS WERE WOUNDED IN THE ACTION.
AT MIDDAY, FOUR KILOMETERS SOUTHWEST OF FIREBASE BARNETT, ONE US SOLDIER FROM CO A, 7/402 WAS KILLED BY A SNIPER. THE UNIT RETURNED FIRE WITH UNKNOWN RESULTS.
