CHAPTER 23

17 AUGUST 1970

Cherry had changed, had been changing. He had begun changing long before but now the alteration accelerated. He had changed from play-soldier to trainee, then from state-side soldier to REMF soldier and then to cherry soldier. They were changes which happened to him, not changes of him, changes which occurred because the army had moved him. Those changes were not great. On 17 August he changed greatly, he changed to just plain soldier.

“We’re startin back,” Cherry radioed Quiet Rover. It was not yet first light. “We’re on our way back,” he lied.

“Ah, roger that Two Two,” El Paso replied. At the CP El Paso was on radio watch again. He rolled and woke Brooks. “Ambush team comin back in.”

“Uh! What time is it?”

“Oh five-four-eight,” El Paso said.

First light was approaching. Cahalan stirred beside El Paso. Above them Doc was going through his aid bag. The sky’s blackness softened. It was still raining. Brooks got up and relieved himself against a tree below their position.

“We’re at the blue feature,” Cherry radioed in a fictitious progress report fifteen minutes after his first call. All the soldiers at the CP were up, folding ponchos, cleaning weapons, brushing teeth. The guards were up too. They had humped to the NDP in lights which meant they had not brought food. Some of them bitched about being hungry. Doc Johnson passed amongst them handing each man a Monday Pill, a large, orange quinine anti-malaria tablet. Everyone swallowed one. The Monday Pill was very seldom discarded. It was a big bright orange pill, it looked important, and it marked the passing of another week. That gave it ritual significance.

At 0625 Cherry radioed the CP again to give his position and determine theirs. They were very close. In fact they were less than fifty meters from 1st Plt.

After the ambush squad had blown its cover by engaging suspected enemy movement on the LZ, they had backed off Hill 636 and, in the dark, had wormed back down to the ravine. “Fuck the L-T,” Silvers had said. “We aint stayin here. That’d be suicide.” They all agreed. At the ravine they crossed the stream, discussed setting up but decided to move up. Silvers had followed the trail down but he had not known where to go up. He had simply set a compass course and stumbled in one general direction mumbling to himself the entire time, “God don’t let the gooks be here. God don’t let the gooks be here.” Quite by accident they had found a small indentation in the hill, which was partially protected from the elements and in the dark appeared very defensible. They had devised a guard/ radio watch schedule—two awake, seven asleep—and, exhausted from the day’s work, had slept. Every two hours the guards changed. Every hour the CP called for a situation report. For Cherry, for all of 1st Sqd except Silvers who bore the responsibility of their move, it had been the best night of sleep since stand-down.

The ambush team stood up and marched in silently.

Whiteboy, Egan and Thomaston greeted them. “What’d you guys fire up?” Egan asked.

“Gooks,” Lairds laughed.

“Let’s go over it,” Thomaston said. He pumped them with questions, received vague answers about movement and asked them if they would like to return for a first light check, “Which you shoulda done before you left.”

“Augh, Man,” Silvers groaned, “we just humped back.”

“I’ll go,” Egan volunteered. “Who wants to tricky-trot up there with me?”

In lights the recon element, Egan, Whiteboy, Moneski and his gun team and Hoover with the radio, moved very quickly. They were to the LZ and back in forty minutes.

“Hey,” Egan laughed when they returned. “Hey Silvers. Here’s your gook. Here’s the gook you got last night.” On the end of his rifle Egan had an American fatigue shirt that had been blown to hell. Half the platoon clustered close to see. They were all laughing.

Whiteboy guffawed. “Yer squad finally got a body count.” Whiteboy threw the shirt up into a tree. “It was just a dang-a-lin lahk that,” he laughed.

“Ah, that don’t prove nothin,” Numbnuts protested. Everyone laughed at him.

Egan grabbed the shirt and tossed it at Silvers playfully. “Here’s your gook, Leon.”

They were uncharacteristically loud. Cherry laughed along with them all, not saying a word.

1st Plt and the company CP retraced their steps across the ridge, into the ravine and up, and rendezvoused with 2d and 3d Plts. The unit’s field force now stood at eighty-three, down from ninety on the morning of 16 August if the PIOs and correspondent and the dog team and Ridgefield were included: eighty-three men with the mission of descending into the Khe Ta Laou to assault the suspected Headquarters of the 7th NVA Front, eighty-three soldiers assigned to search out and destroy a suspected, long occupied, extensively developed and heavily defended supply base and staging area.

The company moved in column down a finger toward the valley. 2d Plt led followed by the CP and then 3d. 1st Plt hung back as rear security. The column moved quickly at first; then, as the point element hit thicker and thicker vegetation, the column barely edged forward. The terrain became steeper. Standing was exhausting. Rucks dug deeply into shoulders. The straps pulled at shoulder skin made resistant by the continuing rain. The skin distorted from the pressure and felt as if it were ripping. Arms became weary from holding weapons, from grasping small trees for handholds to keep from sliding, from pushing and lifting bodies and rucks back up after they had fallen. The point pulled his machete and selectively sliced a trail. Behind point one hundred and sixty-six boots mulched the cuttings into the mud and sections of the trail became slides. Alpha came to a series of cliffs. 1st Plt sent forward the ropes Egan had used at the tunnel. The point rigged them for rappeling and the column descended.

From the top of the first cliff Cherry glared down at the valley. It was the closest he had come. He, all the boonierats, had been looking at it for four days, glimpsing it through breaks in the vegetation, through a waxing and waning fog shroud. Cherry glared down upon it. Beneath the fog there would be a different world. Over he went, rappeled.

The column continued to descend. The morning was quiet except for the rain and the noise of men slipping and falling, and the bursting of artillery far to the northeast. By noon the point element of the column reached the first rolling hills, mounds, between the steep slope of the finger and the valley floor. The boonierats set up a defensive perimeter and rested. The 1st Sqd of the 1st Plt, the farthest extreme of the column, was only halfway down the finger, still in the cliffs. For them the trail had become so mushed by the preceding troops, they had to crawl backward and dig their fingers into the thick slop to keep from tumbling off the trail and into the jungle below.

The column expanded into an elongated egg about the first mound as the troops at the rear completed the steep descent. Alpha was half-in, half-above the valley fog, a thick sticky-feeling mist through which the rain continued to fall but through which no one could see. The vegetation about them was as different from the trees and vines of the ridge as it would have been if they had crossed space to another planet. It was gray scraggle brush, low, only five to ten feet high, and it was so incredibly dense, except on paths, it was impossible to even shove an arm deeply into it. With the mist it made the boonierats uneasy and frightened. It was another world, the NVA’s world. Hand signals passed unnecessarily: maintain strict noise discipline, keep movement to a minimum. Egan moved a thumb toward his open mouth signaling to Cherry, eat. Cherry passed the signal to Doc McCarthy behind him and slipped from his ruck.

Along with all his other aches and stiffness, Cherry found the skin of his thighs was raw. Shit, Man, he said to himself, what if I got a case of the black syph. Oh shit. Maybe I got it from movin them barrels of shit down at Cam Ranh. Cherry glanced about him then unbuttoned his pant fly. He looked at his legs. Patches of skin on his inner thighs from his testicles down about four inches were brightly inflamed. The rainwater dripping from his hands onto the chafed skin burned. “Oh God,” Cherry moaned. He did not want to tell anyone because he was embarrassed by the location of the sores and also because he feared it might be something serious. He had heard stories about strains of venereal disease immune to penicillin and all other modern drugs. There were rumors of an American colony on Guam of infected men from Vietnam that the government would not allow to return to the States. He looked at the rash again. It was on his balls too. Oh shit. Oh shit, oh shit. Cherry tried to recall from his biology classes what the incubation period for syphilis was. He looked down. Goddamn, each day it gets worse, he thought. He thought about how it had progressed, spoke it to himself as if he were telling a medic. “Doc,” he said to himself, “it’s really gettin bad. I don’t know where I could a got it. I aint even sure what it is but I can hardly walk with it.”

Lt. Brooks had been working his way around Alpha’s perimeter. He very quietly asked questions and advice. When he reached Egan he squatted. Egan was sitting in a puddle. He appeared comfortable. The L-T and Egan tapped fists. “If you were a little people,” Brooks asked, “where would you be?”

“If I knew somebody was comin after me?” Egan asked.

“Yeah,” Brooks said.

“Are you rulin out the tunnels in the hills?”

“Yep. Down here. Where?”

“I’d be leavin a trail so you’d follow me to my battleground.”

“Where?”

“Away from my headquarters.”

“Where would you put your headquarters?”

“Away from the trail I’d want you to follow.”

Brooks pulled out his topo map. “Show me.”

Egan looked at the map. He studied it. “Not in the foothills, we might come down on them. Not on the flat, too easy for the birds to fire em up. Ah, unless they got some Russian tanks in here, ya know, L-T …”

“What?”

“… I’d be at the high feature on the river. There’s the ridge comin out toward it from both sides. Not a lot of room for fast movers to work.”

“Thanks.”

“Right on.”

Brooks moved back to Cherry, asked him how he was holding up, and moved on as Cherry nodded okay. Cherry waited until the commander had passed Doc McCarthy then he crept back to the medic. Egan turned and watched. Fuck Egan, Cherry thought.

“Ah Doc, ah, can I ask you somethin?”

“Yeah. What is it?”

“I got this, ah, problem.”

“What is it?” McCarthy asked. He looked at Cherry very sympathetically and asked him, “Where is it?”

Thanks, Cherry thought. This guy’s got a talent for making it easy. “It’s my groin. I think I got the syph.”

“You got burnin?”

“Yeah.”

“Really bad, I mean.”

“I can hardly walk,” Cherry said.

“Walk? I mean when you piss.”

“No Doc. When I walk.”

“Let me see,” Doc said.

Cherry unbuttoned his pants. Goddamn Egan, watchin, Cherry thought. Cherry dropped his fatigue trousers and pulled up the inside of his OD boxer trunks exposing the chafed hot skin.

“Ooooo! You got it bad,” McCarthy said. “You shouldn’t a let it get that bad.” Egan had come back to look. Doc winked at him. “Got it bad.”

“What is it?” Cherry said turning away from Egan.

Egan pulled his bayonet from the sheath at his calf and smiled sadistically. “Ah ha, gotta cut it off.”

Cherry’s eyes widened. He began pulling his pants up. “Well what the fuck is it?” he demanded.

In one quick motion Egan slipped the blade of his bayonet into Cherry’s boxer trunks and cut the cloth up the side.

“Crotch rot,” McCarthy said. “Jungle rot of the crotch.”

Egan kept Cherry off-balance tugging at the waistband of his underwear as he slipped the bayonet blade into the other side and cut the material. Then he whipped the tattered cloth away and flicked it into the jungle brush. “You can’t wear underwear here,” Egan chuckled. “It’ll rot yer balls off.”

“Here,” McCarthy said handing Cherry a tube of salve. “Rub some of this on it.”

Suddenly from behind them 60s and 16s erupted. Cherry hit the dirt pulling his pants up. Egan charged toward the firing. Grenades exploded. Snell, Nahele and McQueen from 3d Pit came racing through, running to the fight. The initial firing lasted less than ten seconds. Jackson, Marko, Brunak, Lairds and Denhardt had fired simultaneously down the slope of the mound. They were at the very rear of the column. They had descended the cliffs last, had crossed the small draw to the mound and had been sitting quietly when they heard the chatter. They all turned slowly and looked through the tangle of dense brush and they saw an NVA squad. The enemy soldiers were walking casually, talking, their rifles slung over their shoulders. The initial blast felled four.

Egan, Brooks, Silvers, Nahele, a whole group of them lay on the ground, whispered back and forth. “Silvers, take six men down there,” Brooks directed pointing to the right. “Danny, Don, Queenie,” Brooks pointed to the left. Brooks, Thomaston and Whiteboy dropped down straight. Above, at the spot where 1st Sqd had been when they fired, Moneski’s squad covered the advancing recon and all around the perimeter men shifted to fill gaps.

“Holy fucken Christ!” Egan uttered. In the hollow below the mound there was a red ball but it was unlike any red ball Egan had ever seen. The trail was five feet wide with an all-weather surface. The ground had been leveled and reinforced with bamboo. The canopy above had been woven into living semi-solid mats. Egan’s group followed the trail only half-a-dozen meters then stopped. In the opposite direction Silvers’ squad followed the trail a few meters to where it turned to the hill. Here a culvert allowed a stream to pass beneath the trail without washing it out. Where Brooks descended his group found blood puddles, blood trails, a small rucksack and nothing more. There were no bodies. The boonierats retreated back to the mound.

“There’s gotta been at least a dozen,” Thomaston said.

“You think you hit four, maybe five?” Brooks asked.

“At least,” Marko whispered and Silvers and Jax agreed.

“They had to have at least a dozen to carry those bodies out a there that quick,” Thomaston said. “I don’t think if there were only seven or eight they could a done that.”

“Look at this shit,” Egan whistled. He was pilfering the NVA ruck. Along with a bag of rice and a bowl there was black licorice candy, a C-ration B-2 Unit, US matches and various odds and ends Alpha had left at their resupply site.

“So,” Silvers said punching Egan’s shoulder and chuckling, “there’s my gook.”

Alpha moved out again almost immediately. They remained in the same order, 2d Plt, CP, 3d and 1st. Their fight was not for the road, and they had no intention of following it to a certain ambush. They called the action in to the TOC and found that Bravo Company was again engaged in a major battle. The Bravos had left the hospital complex and had returned toward their original insertion LZ. At the same location where they had been assaulted on the night of the 14th, they cornered a well entrenched NVA company. Artillery was attempting to soften their objective. The rain and fog prohibited Tac Air or helicopter support. Alpha monitored the fight. Recon too was in a skirmish.

The column humped north and slightly west moving from mound to mound of ever decreasing size, descending to the flat valley floor. Alpha humped steadily, cautiously. They crossed another red ball and this one too had an all-weather surface. At a pause Brooks studied his topo map. None of the trails were indicative. Alpha continued toward the river, aiming northwest now, downstream. The mist thickened. The vegetation changed again as they descended, the dense scragglebrush giving way to dense bamboo and elephant grass. In places the bamboo was over fifteen feet high. The point man felt as if he were breaking trail through knife blades of spring steel. His arms were soon slashed and bloody and his face had multiple tiny lacerations. The grass cut fine and quick and a boonierat did not know until after he was cut that a blade had touched him. The blood trickled and microscopic barbs stung in the wounds. The point alternated with his slack and finally every man in the lead squad had experienced the agony of breaking trail.

The valley floor was even more eerie than the mounds. The rain continued. It was nearly impossible for Alpha to establish their precise position. Surrounded by fog and high grass they could not sight landmarks. The flat valley floor revealed no clues. They knew the location of the first mound below the cliffs and their own approximate direction. The distance they moved was vague. When Brooks believed, guessed, his point element was 100 meters from the river, he called a halt. The column sat.

“El Paso, call De Barti,” Brooks directed. “Tell him to move his gunteams to point. Call Snell and get Nahele and McQueen up here. Have Thomaston send up Whiteboy.”

When the two machine gun teams from behind the CP reached Brooks, they and the entire CP moved forward. They walked quietly up the trail stepping over and around seated men. At 2d Plt’s command post Brooks and De Barti planned Alpha’s sweep to the river.

Leon Silvers was at the rear of the column. To his front was Brunak, then Marko and Jax and the rest of 1st Sqd ending with Numbnuts. 1st Plt’s CP had dropped back to between 1st and 2d Sqds. The boonierats were sitting at six to eight foot intervals. Thomaston, facing Egan, held up two fingers on his right hand and four on his left. He smiled and mouthed, “Twenty-four and a wake-up.”

“Twenty-one, you cherry,” Egan smiled back.

The column began to move again then it stopped. It moved a little then stopped again. Cherry came up behind Egan and whispered, “They’re at the river.”

Egan nodded, moved up several feet and sat down.

Cherry sat where he had been standing. One by one the men to his rear situated themselves on the wet ground. A cool breeze swayed the tall grass. Cherry examined his fingers. The skin was puffed and white and wrinkled from the long exposure to the wet. He began to meditate, to ponder the loneliness he was experiencing. For extended hours they all humped without speaking. For hours he marched seeing only the one man before him and at times not even seeing him. Cherry longed for a CP meeting. He looked to his rear. McCarthy was lying back on his ruck. From behind the medic, Numbnuts’ whisper seeped into the quiet. That guy won’t ever learn, Cherry said to himself. An uneasy feeling came upon Cherry. He looked left then right. Somebody was watching. He looked over his shoulder again at McCarthy. The mist was so thick it blurred his image. Cherry could feel eyes on the back of his neck. He glanced around anxiously. He could see nothing but dense walls of elephant grass. Maybe it’s better not to look, he thought. He tried to ignore it. His stomach tightened. He felt as if something was about to reach out and grab him. “Fuck it,” he whispered. The breeze swayed the top of the grass again. He fidgeted apprehensively. Trail watchers? Timidly he turned left gaping into the grass. Slowly he looked right. His hand played with the trigger mechanism of his weapon. He shortened his neck. His helmet touched his ruck. He waited for the spell to break, for the column to move. Maybe I oughta tell McCarthy, he thought. He hesitated. It’s too unfounded. I haven’t seen anything. He tried to relax but still he could feel eyes focusing on the back of his neck. Again he turned. He was very low on the ground. The eyes were still behind him. His arms trembled, his fists clenched, his mind lost awareness. He stared vacantly at his fatigue pants—wet and filthy. His boots were coated with slime and splinters of grass. Cherry shut his eyes, shrunk lower for protection. Colors, all shades of green, swirled in strange geometric kaleidoscope clouds. Forms precipitated. At the base he could see ankles congealing, his ankles, his knees. He was suspended in blackness with only his legs illuminated by the geometric green glow. Slowly the kaleidoscope turned. The vision focused. Baggy green fatigue pant legs unclouded. The image cleared upward to his waist. He was not sure if his eyes were open or shut. He could see his shirt, his shoulders. Every minute segment, every stitch, was in perfect focus. Cherry could see his neck. Then the head appeared. It was large. Too large. Then the face. It was not Cherry’s face. It was the face of the enemy soldier. It stared at Cherry. It had Cherry’s body. The face contorted. Cherry’s body took one cautious step forward, stepped right through Cherry lying on the trail. Behind him eyes bore down on his back, burned hate into his neck. It was not a man. It was a bird, some sort of hawk. Falcon. Cherry’s heart pounded. His eyes crushed tight. The falcon hovered unseen behind him—invisible and waiting, waiting to strike, waiting to split the air with lightning speed, to swoop down invisible—The Talons of God!

The man stood between Cherry and God. He glared into Cherry’s eyes from atop Cherry’s own body.

We got to move. I can’t sit here. Cherry was frozen. Thoughts flashed through his head but they could not penetrate the image before his eyes. Don’t let the talons get me, he prayed. Cherry cowered lower into the foul muck. Oh God. Oh God. I’m sorry. I had to do it. Titanic wings beat creating wind in the valley, gusts bending the wretched grass. God, you could have turned him around. He was coming at me. Tears welled to Cherry’s eyes. The valley blackened and for protracted seconds Cherry’s heart ceased to beat.

The soldier took shape again, smiling laughing behind thick vegetation. He snarled and stepped forward. Cherry could see the head, the soldier’s taunting face above the sight of Cherry’s own weapon. The face became Cherry’s face. Cherry squeezed his weapon, he tried not to squeeze, he squeezed, the muzzle flashed, the rifle kicked, the face erupted, the forehead burst red, exploding. The body dropped into the darkness twitching in violent spasms. Crimson gore dissolved to chalkypale hollow, then to sallow complexed bone, an emaciated skull. The skull’s eyes glared green, glared into Cherry’s soul.

Cherry’s body twitched. He opened his eyes. He looked around. He stood. He clenched his teeth. “Fuck it,” he cussed bitterly. “Don’t mean nothin.” Cherry moved up to Egan. “Let’s get this God fucken show on the road.”

Brooks orchestrated the river crossing. He sent 2d Plt’s 3d Sqd upriver thirty meters and directed them to stay ten meters away from the riverbank. 2d Sqd he sent downriver. 1st Sqd he held to be sent straight ahead. Between the squads he sent the extra gunteams. “Don’t approach the water,” he emphasized to every squad, every rifle team. The squads worked to their positions then sat and watched and waited. Brooks made them sit and observe for a full fifteen minutes.

“Move up,” El Paso radioed on Brooks’ command. All elements moved to within viewing distance of the water and sat again, still concealed by valley floor vegetation. Again, for fifteen minutes they observed. They watched the river, the near bank and the far. Fog hung about them, over them, in the grass. But it did not lie on the water’s surface. The water was dark and appeared still, almost stagnant. Rain textured the surface with thousands of minute expanding ringwaves. On both sides the riverbank rose as vertical black muck rims topped with cowlicks of green grass. Elephant grass and bamboo encroached to the water’s edge and variously overhung the river where the bank was collapsing. At the point where Alpha intersected the river, the Khe Ta Laou was about twenty-five meters wide.

The security squads up and down river set up half-arc perimeters with the machine guns facing the river and the back of the arcs open to the column. The machine gunners opened and extended the bi-pod legs of the 60s and laid their ammo out in preparation for a fight. Behind them thumpermen mock registered their grenade launchers. Riflemen opened tiny holes in the grass to aim through.

“Let’s go,” Brooks motioned. 1st Sqd and the company CP and all of 2d Pit moved to the river’s edge. The column moved up behind them. Old Pop Randalph climbed down and into the deceptive current. Even at the very edge it caused him to stagger as the black water suddenly gurgled and surged against his legs. Pop retreated, slipped out of his ruck, removed his boonie hat and web gear and laid his weapon down. Again he waded into the water, cautious, aware that there might be enemy gunners on the far side. The water was running very fast. Four paces out the bottom dropped and Pop was over his head, paddling back toward shore. He was 10 meters below where he had slipped by the time he could stand. He returned to point. He consulted with the L-T and with De Barti and with Camillo Baiez. Pop removed his boots and his shirt and climbed back into the water. He took two steps out, dove in and began stroking with all his strength, kicking and splashing like a miniature paddlewheel riverboat. The current grabbed him and swept him downstream at twice the speed he was swimming across. He was swept past the downstream security team before he was halfway. Mohnsen, Jones, Smith and Garbageman set out after him, noisily, nervously trampling the vegetation as they raced along the bank.

When he finally hit the far side Pop was seventy-five meters below point. He stayed low, pulled himself out of the water, signaled thumbs-up okay to the troops chasing him, and disappeared into the grass beyond the far bank. Five minutes later he reappeared directly across from Brooks. “Goddamn,” De Barti signed. “That ol drunk. I thought alcohol and water mixed. He had me nearly pissin.”

“This is fucked, Mista,” Doc Johnson said toward both lieutenants. FO stood beside Doc. He nodded his head in agreement. He was not impressed.

Brooks glanced at them then turned back to the river. Baiez had a coil of light nylon cord to which he had attached a weight. He looked across at Pop, hunched over, ground his feet into the mud, went into his wind-up and let his pitch fly. The coil backlashed and flew after the weight in a clump, snapping stopped out ten meters and kerplunking into the river. Baiez reeled it in and tried again. Then again and again.

“Bravo got three casualties,” Brown interrupted Brooks with a report of action up the valley. “They’re really in it deep. They’re gettin inta that complex.”

Brooks snarled angry and disgusted. Here Bravo was being chewed to pieces and he could not even get Alpha across a goddamned water obstacle. Brooks grabbed Baiez. “Give me that fuckin thing,” he snapped. Brooks jerked the cord and weight from the squad leader’s hands. He recoiled the line loosely on the ground then threw the weight across the river.

Pop retrieved it. On the company’s side they attached the heavier rope they had used in the tunnel and at the cliffs. Pop pulled the line across, anchored it to himself and signaled for the troops to come. One at a time, in full gear, the men waded in, treaded as best as possible, hung on to the rope, pulled hand-over-hand to the far side. “Fucked, Man, fucked,” Doc shook his head. The weight of their equipment forced each soldier under. After six had crossed, after Shaw had nearly drowned when he lost the rope, several boonierats stripped and recrossed and acted as lifeguards and guides. On the north side each man opened his weapon to drain the barrel of water, then disappeared into the grass enlarging the ever increasing perimeter. 3d Plt crossed after one squad of 2d. Then the CP crossed, then 1st Plt and finally the security teams. They reorganized themselves, emptied and squeezed water from their gear. It had all been soaked by the rain and most of it was not much wetter. But almost everyone’s cigarettes had been saturated. This was a crisis. Cigarettes were carried in two-piece plastic boxes; boxes that kept out rain but they were not waterproof.

Alpha moved out in disgust. Ten minutes later they were forced into another delay. The valley north of the river was infested with a moist-land leech which seemed to thrive everywhere except in running water. The boonierats had unsuspectingly been assaulted by the leeches as soon as they had crossed. The leeches crawled like inchworms and attached themselves, boring painlessly into wet boonierat skin. Unless seen, a leech could suck its head a quarter inch deep before the area began to burn. After the tenth complaint, Doc Johnson ordered Brooks to halt the company. “Have em pair off,” Doc said. “Have the fuckas check each other out.”

Oh Christ, Brooks thought. What the hell next? Their progress had been very slow. He did not want to sit in the valley unnecessarily. He was embarrassed by the sloppiness of the river crossing. Several of the troops had lost gear in the river and the whole thing, though it began perfectly, lacked discipline. This wasn’t his Alpha. He was sick. He checked El Paso’s back and found a leech near the RTO’s armpit. It was already late afternoon. Brooks wanted to get up to a high feature to NDP. “Goddamn leeches,” he whispered to El Paso as he snapped the tiny slimy body then dug in with his fingernails for the head. Get a hold of yourself, Rufus, he told himself. You can’t lose it now. Fuck that bitch. You can pull this back together. “Augh no,” he sighed. He reached down into his pants. He could feel the cool clammy body of a sucker on his abdomen just above his groin. He opened his pants. The leech squirmed behind its sucking head. Brooks reached for his cigarettes instinctively. He opened the box. Brown tobacco juice water sloshed over his fingers.

It was still raining when the column reached the abrupt face of the north escarpment. They had come 400 meters from the river through elephant grass and bamboo without feeling any apparent elevation change and then they hit the road and the mountain cliff.

“Oh my Holy Mother,” Garbageman gasped seeing the road. 2d Plt had led off again after everyone had tightened and tied off clothing against the leech invasion. The point squad had changed from Catt’s to Mohnsen’s. Garbageman was at point, Smith, with his 60, at slack. Where they hit the road at the base of the mountain there was a ten foot wide all-weather road, not only reinforced with bamboo but solidified with gravel. It was adjacent to the cliff and ran as far as Garbageman could see in the fog in both directions. Elephant grass formed a cleanly trimmed wall along the valley side of the road, the cliff had been evenly cleaved on the other shoulder. Again, grass and bamboo had been woven into living nets to form a natural-looking roof. From the air the roof would appear to be unbroken jungle valley floor and it would conceal all road traffic. To Garbageman standing in the vegetation ogling the road, it was evident that NVA honchos had established the road here because of the difficulty helicopters would have molesting troop or munitions traffic. Garbageman had never seen an enemy road so wide, wide enough for two-way cart traffic, wide enough for trucks. It made the red balls look like animal trails. The surface was rutted with recent signs of activity yet showed signs of continuous care and maintenance.

Smitty up, Garbageman signaled. Smitty came forward. “Go back and get De Barti and Pop,” Garbageman whispered. “They gotta check this the fuck out, Man.” Word passed back. Pop Randalph came forward, then Lt. De Barti. “L-T gonna have to see this,” they agreed and they radioed the CP. The boonierats of the lead squad fanned out in the grass forming a T at the columnhead. The column halted.

Brooks, his three RTOs and FO worked their way to point. From the depths of the grass they all examined the road.

“What do you think, Ruf?” De Barti asked the L-T very quietly. They were separated from the others by six or seven feet. De Barti did not want to expose his deep apprehension to the troops. “I don’t think we oughta use it.”

Brooks pulled out his topo map without answering and the two lieutenants studied it. “If we can find a way up the cliff …” Brooks began.

“No way we’re goin up that shit,” De Barti said. “It’s vertical.”

“It can’t be vertical for very far,” Brooks said. The two mused over the map and peered out of the grass at the road. They could see only a small strip. Brooks removed his hat and scratched his scalp. Go back through the leeches and recross the river, go up the road, down the road, try to climb the cliff. All about him the boonierats were becoming more and more restless. It was getting near dusk. With a road like this, he thought, the NVA could have thousands of troops in here. Brooks went to Cahalan. “Get me Red Rover,” he said. “Bill,” he turned to FO, “have you ever come across a road like this?”

“No, L-T, can’t say I have.”

“Can you get arty on it?”

“Yes Sir. Can do.”

“Good. Call in targets all along this contour.”

“L-T,” Cahalan whispered, “I’ve got the GreenMan.”

The GreenMan was at the forward TOC on Firebase Barnett. For him the day had held several torturous decisions, the most difficult having been whether or not to commit Bravo Company to a full-scale assault against the NVA bunker complex. Rain and fog had socked in the valley and the rear and all helicopter support except emergency medical evacuation had been cancelled. Bravo could retreat and attack tomorrow although they would run the risk of being hit tonight or Bravo could attack without helicopter support. Bravo attacked. When Cahalan reached the GreenMan, Bravo had overrun the bunker complex, killed seventeen enemy soldiers and suffered five wounded. The medevac bird from Eagle Dust-Off, along with four escort Cobras and a chase ship, a Huey on station to pick up the medevac crew should that helicopter be shot down, was approaching Bravo’s location.

“Quiet Rover, this is Red Rover,” the GreenMan snarled after Brooks had reported briefly about the enemy road, “proceed to your echo by november echo ASAP. Caution your papa Sky Devil Six is to your november one kilo. Play ball with Sky Devil.”

“Who’s Sky Devil?” De Barti asked Cahalan.

“Ah, that’d be Delta Company, Sir,” Cahalan answered.

“Oh fuck,” De Barti groaned. “Not that clusterfuck.”

Brooks described the road in greater detail, hoping the GreenMan would be able to assist him. He did not want to have his company march down the enemy road. It appeared impossible to cross the road and ascend the cliffs at that point, yet he felt he had to get off the valley floor. As he conversed on the radio the sound of helicopters above the valley pulsated the wet air.

“Get me a full reconnaissance of that feature,” the GreenMan directed. “And, play ball with Sky Devil. Out.”

Oh shit, Brooks thought. “Roger that, niner. Wilco. Out.” Brooks looked around. He directed Cahalan to establish communication with Delta Company to determine Delta’s exact position and to see if the Delta Darlings had found a way up and down the cliff face. “Tell them,” Brooks said, “Red Rover wants us to rendezvous. It’ll be a hell of a lot better if we can get up to them on the ridge than to have them come down here.” Brooks turned to FO again and asked, “Where do you think this road goes?”

“I don’t really know,” FO said, “Like you figure, it probably follows the contours pretty close. If the dinks are moving heavy material, they’d a built the road as level as possible.”

“After we get out of range, have arty seal this thing off behind us. See if they’ll drop some rounds west of here right now.”

It was 1800 hours when Alpha began moving again. Garbageman was still at point, Smitty and Pop walked a double slack. Slowly, apprehensively, Garbageman stepped onto the road and into the dark corridor formed by the grass wall and the cliff. He scanned up and back. Fog limited visibility to under twenty meters. The pointman turned right and began moving. Carefully he checked the mountain wall which rose to his left. The slacks emerged from the grass eight feet behind point, they split and walked one on each side of the road. Mohnsen and Jones emerged next continuing the double pattern set by the slacks, then Greer and Roberts, Sklar and De Barti, and El Paso and Brooks.

Oh Man, I don’t like this one fucken bit, Garbageman whispered to himself. He stopped and crouched. Both slacks moved up and squatted by the point. “This is a Goddamned highway,” Garbageman whispered. “Man I don’t dig this shit one fucken bit. This don’t even make sense.”

“Want me ta walk point?” Pop asked, his eyes twinkling.

That was the ultimate affront, the most severe attack on the Garbageman’s manhood and pride. “Naw,” he whispered. “I can do it.”

“Maybe we oughta both do it,” Pop gave him an alternative that he could accept without losing face.

“Ah, yeah,” Garbageman seized the chance. They rose and with one at each edge proceeded in double point with a single slack.

2d Plt was followed onto the road by the remainder of the CP. All the RTOs had folded their flexible radio antennas that protruded from their rucks and labeled them as valuable communication targets. El Paso had slid his antenna into his belt, Cahalan stuck his into a hole in his shirt, Brown rolled his in a loop and forced it back down into the ruck. 3d Plt followed the CP and 1st followed 3d. They moved very slowly, very quietly. It took almost half an hour for the entire column to turn the corner from the narrow jungle grass passage onto the enemy supply road. The boonierats continued the double column. They remained on the road, heading east, looking for an opening in the cliff they might ascend up to the ridge. They maintained wide intervals. By the time Silvers, at drag, finally stepped onto the road, Alpha was spread 125 meters long.

Silvers came onto the road behind Brunak. He stood at the intersection for several minutes, staring to the rear, allowing the column to progress away from him. An artillery round burst 700 meters west, the concussion rumbling up the road and echoing in from the south escarpment a fraction of a second apart. Silvers turned and quickly marched to catch up. As he reached a point 30 meters from where he had left the grass he turned to look back. A single explosive pop cracked the air. Silvers dropped in the center of the road. Every man in Alpha dove for cover. There was another crack. Boonierats dove into the grass, scrambled for concealment, searched for a target. Brunak had been hit by the second round. “Bravo Bravo,” a squashed tight-chest scream for a medic escaped from his throat. Boonierats raced through the grass toward him. No one had found a target. No one fired. Marko, Jax and Lairds surrounded Brunak. They expected follow-up fire. None came. Marko aimed his 60 down the road. There was nothing there. He aimed the weapon over Silvers’ body which had collapsed backward onto the rucksack it had been carrying. Silvers’ helmet had fallen off and rolled away. His legs had doubled beneath his body before the body had toppled backward and spread across the pack. The head slumped back over the ruck, the eyes stared upside-down motionless down the vacant road upon which Alpha had trespassed.

“Bravo,” Jax yelled from beside Brunak.

Egan, Whiteboy and Doc McCarthy came crashing through the grass. Others were coming back. Most had shed their rucks. Brunak screamed. McCarthy squatted by his side. 1st Sqd with Egan and several others maneuvered down through the grass past Silvers and formed a perimeter.

Cherry, Thomaston and Moneski’s squad reacted second, rushing back and reinforcing the soldiers about Brunak. Doc Johnson sprinted down the center of the road running like a madman, his aid bag in one hand, a .45 in the other. Doc dove into the mud behind Silvers. He got to his knees and hunched over the body. There was a splat of blood in the center of Silvers’ throat. Working quickly yet gently Doc lifted Leon’s head. The neck no longer had a back. The bullet had entered through the soft flesh below Silvers’ chin then tumbled and ripped its way out the nape of the neck carrying most of the cervical vertebrae, the surrounding muscle tissue, the trachea, esophagus, arteries, veins and a tremendous amount of blood.

In the grass McCarthy worked on Brunak. Brunak had caught a round in the right side. It was difficult to determine how badly he had been hit but McCarthy was sure it was bad. Brunak was laughing, then tensing, cramping his entire body, then laughing again, flowing from consciousness, pain and spasms, to empty shock. McCarthy applied a field dressing to the hole in Brunak’s side and jabbed him with a syringe of morphine. From his aid bag he took a 500ml plastic bag labeled Plasma Protein Fraction (Human). The plasma solution came in a kit complete with IV needle and airway cannula. McCarthy pumped Brunak’s arm then jammed the needle in. He knew he was missing as soon as the needle broke the skin. He yanked it out. Brunak flinched. Then he laughed. McCarthy stuck him again and began the IV flow.

On the trail Doc Johnson had closed Silvers’ eyes. The medic methodically wrapped a large sterile dressing about the dead man’s neck so no one would see the extent of the damage. Doc pulled a towel from Silvers’ ruck and placed part of it behind Leon’s head. He brought the remainder over the sallow face. Then, holding his aid bag, Doc rolled off the trail into the grass.

Cherry squatted in the grass beside Thomaston. He awaited directions. Egan came back to them. He grabbed the handset, radioed El Paso, explained the situation, and requested a priority medevac. He tossed the hook back to Cherry and snapped, “Git down. I don’t want ta call in a bird for you too.”

Hoover crawled over to the group about Brunak. Thomaston grabbed his hook and radioed the CP. “We’re movin back into the grass fifty meters,” he said after talking to Brooks. “We’ll get the Dust-Off out there.”

Thomaston and Egan directed the perimeter to move further down while they, with Jax’ help, pulled Silvers’ body from the road. With the others breaking a trail and then crushing a tiny clearing toward the valley center, Egan and Jax jumped back onto the road and pulled Silvers’ body, ruck and weapon into the grass. Jax separated the ruck from the body of his dead field partner. He lifted the body gently and carried it to the clearing. “Yo gowin be alright now, Leon, my friend,” Jax whispered soothingly. “Yo kin relax an fo’get this place.” Cherry followed carrying the blood-soaked ruck. Lairds brought the extra weapon and helmet. Brunak, McCarthy and 2d Sqd had already reached and secured the clearing. 3d Plt pulled back to reinforce the evac site, 2d Plt and the CP circled the perimeter in recon patrols, pushing to points 100 meters from the designated pick-up zone.

“Hey,” Egan said to Cherry. “You need some good shit?”

“What shit?”

“Here,” Egan said rustling through Silvers’ equipment. He tossed Cherry a two-quart canteen.

Cherry looked at it, then walked over to the ruck. Across the top, blood drenched but unharmed, was a five-quart water blivet. Cherry untied it. The blivet was a double-layered plastic bladder enclosed in a strong nylon bag, the three bags joined at the top with a canteen neck and screw cap. Water blivets were less cumbersome than canteens and they could be used as pillows. They were in very short supply. “I’d like to take this,” Cherry said.

“You got it,” Egan answered.

“And his bayonet.”

“Take it.”

Numbnuts let Cherry and Egan leave the ruck before he went over and scavenged all C-rat meals that were not Ham and Lima Beans. Denhardt scavenged Brunak’s ruck.

It was after sunset, late dusk, when the medical evacuation helicopter finally found Alpha. The thick mist prevented the Dust-Off commander from seeing marking smoke and it was not dark enough to use the mini-strobes. The birds even had difficulty finding the valley for all of northern I Corps lay in thick fog and rain. The Dust-Off had first to locate Barnett, then follow a vector path 268°, almost due west.

Cherry directed the bird’s approach by ear. “You’re passing to our sierra maybe two hundred meters,” he called. Then again, “You’re approaching us. You’re passing over us right, right … now.”

The helicopter made a half-dozen passes, at first so high it could not be seen through the fog, then lower and lower. Finally it hovered 15 meters over their position. From the ground Cherry could see the crew chief standing on the left skid and the medic standing on the right. Huge red crosses were painted on white squares on the bird’s bottom and sides. The rotor wash from the bird made the rain slam down and sting on upturned faces. Escort ships could be heard circling though they could not be seen. From the right side of the helicopter stuck a three-foot arm and from that dropped a small torpedo-shaped object on a steel cable. The torpedo dropped evenly and in seconds it was on the ground. Doc Johnson, Doc McCarthy, Thomaston and Jax grabbed the torpedo and unfolded it.

“What’s that thing?” Cherry questioned.

“Jungle penetrator,” Egan answered.

The four men lifted Brunak and his gear and strapped him into a sitting position on the now unfolded, tri-pronged, anchor-like seat. They strapped his gear across from him. Thomaston stretched his arms up over his head and extended his thumbs signaling the crew chief to take him away. The hoist cranked and Brunak rose, swayed beneath the bird, and ascended. The medic reached out and pulled him in. The bird departed, circled and returned. The procedure was repeated with the body and gear of Leon Silvers. Then the medevac departed for good. No trace of the dead or the wounded remained except for blood and neck tissue in the midst of the enemy road and the blood stain on Cherry’s water blivet.