Singer and the rest of the fourth platoon moved west from the Americal Division’s base at Chu Lai where their C-141 from Fort Bragg had landed just two days before. They walked slowly in a staggered line across the grassy plain toward green mountains that loomed ahead.
Only a few hours earlier they had sat in low bleachers amid a sea of tents, listening to an Americal staff sergeant, a trim black man in a baseball hat and pressed fatigues, with a Combat Infantryman’s Badge above the left pocket but no paratrooper wings, who paced back and forth in front of the bleachers as he talked. His voice boomed, trailed off, and boomed again as he emphasized each point. The scene was more like a stateside training center than a combat zone.
“You men will forego usual in-country training,” the Americal sergeant said. “You will move north in a few days. Meantime, you’ll patrol here with Americal Division guides.” The sergeant stopped pacing and stood still near the center of the group.
“A Leg’s going to show us around,” Trip said.
Shooter looked to Sergeant Edwards, who raised no objection.
“Our guys know this area. You don’t,” the Americal sergeant said. “I know you all have been here before. You’ve done this. You know it.” The sergeant paused and looked across the group as if measuring his words.
“Most of it will be the same. We’ll do this patrol together then you’ll go north on your own.”
Singer watched the sergeant closely, trying to weigh and retain everything he said. Rhymes had said these first few weeks would be the most dangerous for a new guy. Next to him, Rhymes kneaded his hands and pushed the cuticles back on each finger. Trip had his elbows on his knees and his head bowed as if looking at the ground below the bleachers. Sweat beaded on his face. Bear leaned back, sprawling across the seat. Occasionally his eyes closed, opening again before he started snoring. Sergeant Royce looked off toward the mountains, or maybe it was the airfield and the flight path he was searching out. Stick sat on a lower bench next to Sergeant Prascanni, leaning toward the speaker. A few seats over, Shooter drew his knife across his arm then examined the hairless patch. If the talk was long, Shooter would have his entire arm shaved.
The Americal sergeant took a step closer and continued, nearly shouting the first word. “Here it’s mostly Viet Cong. You’ll find NVA up north where you’re going.”
Singer waited, expecting more exact information, but the sergeant never explained where exactly they were going though he talked as though he knew.
“Some booby traps will be new to you.” Then the Americal sergeant, with the aid of a buck sergeant, spent the next fifteen minutes demonstrating various booby traps. At the end of the demonstration the Americal sergeant introduced his assistant as the one who would accompany them on the patrol. He was a small blond kid with freckles and dark eyes, whose fatigues were neither clean nor pressed. That was the end of in-country training.
“That’s it?” Singer asked.
“What more do you want?” Rhymes asked.
“I don’t know. Just seems like there should be more?”
“You got everything you need,” Rhymes said, looking at Singer’s M16.
They walked from the training site along white-rock-lined paths, past gardens and neatly lettered signs. The low sandbag walls around tents and the occasional bunker were the only indications this was something other than a stateside camp. They locked and loaded before they left the front gate, which held a sign proclaiming the camp HOME OF THE AMERICAL DIVISION. Outside the gate, a group of Vietnamese women and children stood, some carrying buckets of Cokes, others with baskets of bananas or pineapples. A few held bundles of folded laundry that looked mostly like army fatigues. Beyond them was a sea of ramshackle shelters of cardboard and tin. Singer stared. These were the first Vietnamese he’d seen.
“How do you tell the good ones from the bad?” Singer asked.
“If they shoot at you, they’re bad.” Bear’s laugh rumbled from somewhere low in his big frame.
“Fuck, they let the VC hang out at the camp gate,” Trip said.
“Half of them working in the camp are probably VC,” Bear said.
“You think we’d be smarter,” Rhymes said.
“Helping the people, brother. Helping the people,” Bear said.
Kids trailed beside the patrol, holding out cans, the same red labels as home. “Coke, Coke. One dollar. You want?”
Some held out empty hands. “GIs numba one. Give me dollar.”
“Get the fuck out of here, you little pissants,” someone yelled.
“Fuck, give me the boonies,” Trip said.
After fifty yards, the last kid gave up and the patrol was alone. Well beyond the camp they left the dust of the dirt road, crossing onto a grassy plain, moving toward the rice fields to the west. Eventually they reached them and climbed up on the banks, moving in single file across an expansive checkerboard of dikes and green, unlike any green Singer had ever seen.
The sun beat down on the treeless plain and Singer’s shadow became a small oval at his feet. His body protested with streams of sweat. Heat rose up from the paddies in oppressive currents. The smell of decay hung in the air. Other smells drifted to him that he couldn’t identify, but he imagined they were familiar to all the second-tour guys.
While they were crossing the expanse of paddies, Rhymes asked from behind, “You okay?”
“Great,” Singer said, immediately feeling bad for the enthusiasm in his answer. He turned and looked at Rhymes, thinking he should say more, but then could think of nothing that wouldn’t sound stupid.
It was all new to him and held the excitement of discovery. He had never seen rice paddies before and thought he would always remember the green even though he wasn’t sure how to describe it. An artist would know the color. The mountains, the mosaic of greens and browns, were beautifully offset by the expanse of blue sky. The string of men leading them across the paddies, helmets bobbing, rifles sticking out to the sides, presented an image of adventure. He knew of danger that the dikes and brush-lines held, as well as the mountains beyond. At least, he’d been told of it in obscure terms. But without the real reference of experience, the prospect of danger didn’t diminish the excitement of it all. More likely, it added to it. He scanned the dikes that paralleled the one they walked on, wondering how many enemy soldiers could be hiding just on the other side of the dike ready to jump up, AKs blazing. He imagined charging toward it, firing his rifle, and felt a rush through his entire body.
After they left the paddies, they moved into a small village of scattered bamboo huts. A young girl came toward them, following a water buffalo, holding a rope tied to a ring in the buffalo’s nose. In her right hand she held a switch, with which she hit the buffalo’s rump. She took little notice of Singer or the other soldiers of the fourth platoon, as though patrols were a common thing. Chickens pecked at the ground, unbothered by the soldiers until Jammer ran up and kicked one and they all scattered, squawking as they fled.
Ahead, a white-haired man with a wrinkled, leathery face couched in front of the first hut, his legs like sticks, chopping wood with a short, odd-shaped knife. The old man looked up without breaking the rhythm of his strokes. Singer watched the man add more sticks to a growing pile, wondering if he might be the enemy. The platoon spread out through the village, the soldiers splitting up into groups of twos and threes, each heading for a different hut. The village and movement confused Singer and he stood there uncertain what to do.
“Singer!” Bear was heading toward a hut by himself.
Singer looked back at Rhymes, who had been behind him, but Rhymes had already headed in the opposite direction with Red. The old man at the first hut was standing, his knife lying on the ground. A solder stood in front of him, his M16 pointed at his chest, while a second soldier pointed his M16 into the doorway of the hut and leaned in cautiously. Singer ran to catch up to Bear.
“Get out here!” Bear yelled into the dark doorway, sweeping the blackness with his rifle. “Out now!” He stepped back slowly, keeping his rifle pointed into the hut.
Singer brought his rifle up, feeling the touch of the trigger and pangs of fear that dampened his eagerness. A man shuffled out, head down, eyes on the ground, gnarled, weathered hands at his side. A woman, at least as old, followed behind him on unsteady legs. The couple stood together in front of the hut, leaning against each other as though holding each other up. The old woman was shaking. She glanced at Bear and then Singer and then to the old man, perhaps looking for some reassurance. The old man kept his eyes lowered as though studying the ground.
“Watch ’em,” Bear said, disappearing into the hut.
The voice that came from Bear and the heartlessness in his eyes were different from the man Singer knew at Fort Bragg. This Bear frightened him.
The old couple tottered before him. What kind of threat were they? Were these the VC the Americal Division sergeant talked about? How could anyone this old be dangerous? Still, he kept his weapon pointed at them, more afraid of what he might be expected to do than of the old couple. Singer ran a dry tongue across dry lips. He glanced quickly over his shoulder toward the other huts but there were no soldiers nearby, no one to help him. The old man and woman hadn’t moved. What was taking Bear so long? Would he look weak if he called to Bear?
The old woman continued to look around with darting eyes as though thinking about running if she were younger. The old man shuffled his feet then raised his face and caught her eye just briefly, then they both looked away. Singer saw it. A look of conspirators. Singer raised his rifle so it pointed at their chests.
“Don’t move!”
The couple didn’t move except for the old woman’s shaking. But their looks seemed a tired defiance. He feared they saw his weakness and tried to hide it with a determined face. In his peripheral vision he watched the dark opening of the hut, willing Bear to reappear.
The old man’s feet moved again, maybe setting himself for a break. Singer waved his rifle and tried to warn the man with his eyes of what he’d do, though unconvinced himself.
Damn. Should he shoot him if he ran or made a move forward? What if they made a break in opposite directions?
What would everyone think if on his first patrol he let an old couple run away? He didn’t want to shoot them, but he couldn’t be seen as scared or weak, a liability to the group. Not everyone had a weapon one could see. Wasn’t that what the Americal Division sergeant had said?
He’d shoot them. He would, if that was what he had to do. Resigning himself to this brought a different fear. He swiped the sweat from his eyes and tried not to let his rifle shake. Finally Bear emerged, ducking to pass through the doorway, rescuing Singer as much as the old couple. Singer lowered his rifle and gasped for breath as if he’d just made it to the surface from some great depth.
Bear stormed past without a word. The foray inside the hut had not softened Bear’s eyes or the tightness in his face.
Singer wiped his trigger-hand across his belly and followed at a distance, keeping his questions to himself. What ghosts had the return to Vietnam awakened in Bear and the others? What fears and angers had been raised that none of them would speak of? He thought himself different, maybe even above some of it. But he couldn’t escape the thought that he was looking at himself in a time to come.
The faces of the old couple stayed with him even after they left the village, as did the fear of what he might have done and the fear of how easily he had resigned himself to it. In the end he shot no one and no shots had been fired in the village, but the damage left in the wake of their visit was impossible to gauge.
The sun now was past the middle of the sky and it was much hotter than when they started. The men’s fatigues were dark with sweat. They moved west, well beyond the village, into tall brush and then towering trees. The shade offered a surprising coolness, and Singer could feel the wetness on his back with a slight chill. They moved on a well-worn trail packed hard by lifetimes of travel, under a canopy of trees that shut out the sun. The slope was gradual at first and then grew steeper, forcing the men to lean into the climb. Singer’s pack grew heavier as they climbed and the hours passed. The excitement he had felt crossing the rice paddies had faded long ago, left behind in the village with the old couple. Now he only felt the weariness in his legs and the weight on his back. The trees ended abruptly, as did the trail, and the sun exposed a ground that looked tortured and dead. Trees sheared off with splayed ends, leaning at odd angles. Ground torn and rolled over on itself. Holes of red-brown earth.
They continued to climb more gradually beyond the shattered earth and then across a saddle of low grass that clutched at their tired feet. The mountain fell off steeply to their right, into a cascade of boulders worn smooth by water that ran during the wet season, finally pooling in the paddies in the valley. Singer moved, tiredly waiting for a break. His weapon, which had been held high at the start of the day, hung lower from heavy arms, mirroring the others.
Singer watched men move through the saddle below him and saw it happen. Sergeant Prascanni stumbled and fell forward, hitting hard, his rifle and right arm trapped strangely under his body and his left arm sprawled out beside him. Oddly, he never reached out to break his fall. Everyone behind Sergeant Prascanni began to stop in accordion-like fashion, though the point kept moving unaware.
Two, maybe three seconds later, the sound arrived, a single bang so distant and diffused it was hard to recognize it for what it was. Weak echoes between mountains masked its source.
“Sniper,” Trip yelled, and was already down.
“Medic! Medic!” someone yelled. Then another joined him in the call.
Men went to the ground, though some like Singer were slow to get down, confused by the distance, time delay, and the muffling of the shot. Sergeant Prascanni made no move to crawl or rise. The fingers of his visible left hand were still.
With a medic bag in his right hand, Doc Randall ran past Singer in a half crouch, dropping down beside Sergeant Prascanni. Sergeant Edwards’s voice, strong and even, without panic, ordered a medevac, though Singer could hear the urgency just short of pleading.
While they waited, an eerie quiet descended over the mountain. There was only the one shot. With the time between Sergeant Prascanni falling and the shot, it seemed unreal. Singer had seen that same thing duck hunting on big water. A flock of birds, barely visible, would fly over a distant marshy point and some of them would tumble silently from the sky. He would see the splashes before the sounds of the shots reached him. It had been interesting then, even entertaining.
The men lay where they fell, looking off at the distant hills or watching the treeline below them. Singer glanced at Rhymes, just behind him downs-lope, staring off at the mountains and turning his head back and forth, his M79 pointing more up than out.
“Shouldn’t we fire?” Singer asked.
“No way to tell where he is. Could be on any of these mountains. More than a mile away, judging by the delay,” Rhymes said.
“We just lie here?”
“He’ll shoot again. Watch for a muzzle flash.”
They lay there waiting for the next shot, watching for a target. Singer could hear Ghost praying a Spanish litany, which stood out against the silence on the mountainside. A petition for salvation or a requiem for the sergeant, Singer wasn’t sure. Singer thought of Sergeant Prascanni talking of the magic of the Italian song that gave his wife no chance.
Singer heard the bird before he saw it. Whump, whump, whump. It broke over the trees below and to his left, climbing, swinging hard toward the swale where a man stood both arms raised, setting low with its nose pointed downhill, grass swirling and flattening in the rotor’s wash. The right-door gunner aimed his gun at the closest hillside, which loomed above their heads. The pilot held the ship there, light on the skids, looking ready to go.
Four men, Shooter and Doc Randall in the lead, broke toward the chopper before the skids had settled, each holding a corner of a poncho bearing Sergeant Prascanni. The poncho sagged with the weight, the center almost dragging. Singer watched for signs of life, wondering if Sergeant Prascanni was still alive. There was no movement he could see.
The gunner frantically waved the men forward. The chopper’s right front window shattered. The chopper tail swayed and the bird lifted slightly. The pilot raised his head, apparently unharmed, and the bird steadied. The sound of the shot, when it came, was covered by the rotor noise and the sound of guns some men fired, but no one yelled to ID the target. Singer watched and waited on Rhymes’s word, though Trip fired at the mountains despite the distance.
The crew chief was there pulling at the poncho as the four men pushed Sergeant Prascanni onto the chopper, then sprinted away. Singer could see the crew chief return toward his gun, the gunner screaming, and the motionless form on the poncho. The Huey’s engine revved and the ship lifted sharply, slipping forward. Both door gunners opened up, firing their M60s, and Singer watched the tracers disappearing into the mountainsides, wondering if it would pin the sniper down, if not kill him.
The right-door gunner’s foot exploded in a spray of color, and he stopped firing. Seconds later, Singer was sure he heard the faint echo of the shot amongst the guns and engine noise. The sound of the engine changed as if the bird was struggling, and Singer wondered if it was hit. The chopper continued gaining air, then fell slightly and pitched right and struggled east at altitude. Singer lay in the grass listening for the whump, whump, while in his mind hearing Sergeant Prascanni’s love song fade away. Then the guns went silent, the chopper was gone, and everything was quiet.
Across the valley on the hillside a black cloud rose, and then another and another until the hill was covered in black smoke. Artillerymen at the Americal base were firing their big guns. The sounds of the exploding artillery rounds drifted to Singer first as individual booms, then quickly grew to a continuous roar. The men got up and moved forward as the rounds were still exploding.
Just that morning, Singer had heard Sergeant Prascanni announce, “Fifty-nine days and a wake-up.”
Despite trying, Singer suddenly couldn’t repeat one line of the Italian words or even hum the melody. This bothered him somehow more than the knowledge that one of them was gone.