Karns dug the edges of his jungle boots into the slippery surface of the hillside, bending his ankles uncomfortably to hold his grip. He walked like a tightrope artist trying to keep a precarious balance as he poked at the foliage with the tip of the machete. The path ahead was clear except for a broad, thick leaf bending down from above and casting a jagged shadow on the ground. Beyond the leaf Karns could see the path angling down toward the valley, and he adjusted his grip on the smooth handle riveted to the wide machete blade, readying for a backhand swing that would part the leaf stalk on the bias. He swung. The well-honed blade caught the stalk on the upswing, and the leaf head shuddered then floated in a looping turn to settle on the path like an expended parachute. The force of Karn’s swing threw his arm wide; before he could pull it back, the world exploded.
The arboreal hum was shattered by ear-piercing cracks that fed on their own echoes, stripping the mist out of the air and filling all the space in the jungle with noise, so much noise that there wasn’t room for anything else. The noise of AK-47s spitting out the contents of their magazines occupied the entire sound spectrum. But even as the first firing pin struck the first round in the first AK, Marines were already diving for the security of Mother Earth.
Life for the Marines in the Arizona was always tense and spring loaded. You stayed wired tight so your reaction time would be instantaneous and you could leave the Arizona with the life that carried you in. The platoon went to ground like dominoes, but the first down, and with the least effort, was Karns. The opening round struck his chest just inside the loose zipper of his flak jacket. The second shot went in under his left collarbone and shattered the shoulder blade behind, flinging him around and dropping him in a heap. His helmet bounced back and got in Laney’s way as he was trying to become one with the earth. Laney frantically scooped it aside and pushed his chest into the trail. The only thing between his bare chest and the dirt was his dog tags, and he cursed the Marine Corps for making them so thick.
Bits and pieces of plants filled the air like a green dust storm, and bullets sounded like demented mosquitoes as they ripped through the jungle to spend their energies against the trees or lose their momentum far beyond the last fire team in the platoon. Deacon found himself buried in the foliage on the high side of the trail, wanting to move but afraid that the slightest twitch would shake the leaves above him and draw fire. He could see the new guy on the low side of the trail darting wild looks and jerking physically with every blast as though being struck with an electric cattle prod.
Everyone knew that the VC fire was coming head-on, making the air above the path a very dangerous place, but the remembered gravel-voiced screams of DIs from Parris Island to Pendleton pounding in the importance of fire superiority. You didn’t assume control of the battlefield, you took it—and you took it by force. Whatever advantage the enemy grabbed, you grabbed it back, and made him pay a high price for his audacity.
Burke raised himself on his elbows and fired a full magazine over the sprawled Marines ahead of him. He wasn’t sure of a target, only a direction, but apparently his newly bestowed authority brought with it a responsibility to act. To his surprise, he found that he was the kind of squad leader who led by example. He ejected the empty magazine and slapped in a fresh one as the firing ahead stopped. The jungle went silent. The air seemed to vibrate with the quiet. Ahead Burke could see Karns on his back in the middle of the path, arms spread, coughing a geyser of blood. He looked back at the empty ground behind him. “Corpsman up,” he screamed. He could hear the lieutenant’s voice barking orders, and then the entire platoon opened fire.
Lieutenant Diehl was less than a month away from rotating to a new assignment in the rear. He’d spent enough time in the bush to feel he deserved to coast awhile in an area that offered a little more security than a flak jacket and good aim gave him. He wouldn’t miss being in the field, but he wouldn’t change anything either—especially now. The VC firing stopped as though killed by a command, and the silence rang in his ears and teased the dark corners of his experience. He saw the pattern develop as though it were a tangible entity he could reach out and touch; and he knew he had to touch it on the high ground, and fast. One of the gun teams was strung out just behind him, and he called out to the gunner. “Direct fire uphill! Now!” he said with enough force to leave no question about the urgency.
The gunner unfolded his lanky frame, rolled onto his knees, sat back on his heels, and raised the M60. Fifty rounds hung over the C-rat can wired to the side of the M60, keeping the angle of feed honest so the gun could be fired single-handed without it jamming. He clamped the butt stock under his arm and pulled the trigger. Black links dragged the brass cartridges over the can as the muzzle blast jolted the foliage into frantic spasms. He swung the barrel up and forward, covering the ground above the line of Marines ahead of him. He held the trigger down, making his feed man jump to get another hundred rounds from the bandoleer around his neck to the belt vanishing into the chattering receiver.
The third man in the M60 team had the gun’s extra barrel in a soft bag slung over his shoulder. He glanced nervously at the gunner. It was his job to remind him to fire short bursts and save the barrel. A cyclic rate of 550 rounds per minute and a determined trigger finger could fry a barrel in short order, and it was never fun to change one under fire; your concentration always seemed to be needed elsewhere. He raised his M16 and ripped a full magazine into the high side of the mountain.
From behind, the M79 fired, sending the fat explosive rounds up onto the mountainside as fast as fingers could break the breech and reload the chamber. The muzzle ponk and pause ended in a sudden blast hidden in the trees. As the second 40-mm round detonated high up the slope, the mountainside erupted in a storm of firing, sending the Marines pitching back down onto their faces.
As was often the case when the firing began, the only targets moving were the corpsmen. When Burke used the eerie silence to call for help, Doc Garver was already crawling forward, a demo bag full of battle dressings hanging from his neck and his compartmented medical bag dragging along the ground, the strap wrapped around his right hand. He climbed over prone Marines in the path. Those with room squeezed aside while firing to give him room to pass. He was just starting to get to his feet when the mountain burst open again, raining lead down on their position and sending him headfirst to the ground. He landed next to a Marine who was lying on his back and trying to get two LAAW rocket launcher straps from his neck. The tubular launchers always snagged on vines and branches, and when you went to ground they always managed to get in the way. The Marine seemed especially agitated. “Doc,” he said.
Doc Garver spit out a bit of the muddy path. “I’m busy, Bishop,” he said, getting ready to start crawling again.
“Take a look at this,” Bishop said, pulling his left pant leg up to the knee. A dark hole in the inside of the calf led to a gaping red mouth on the outside where a round had split the muscle and flesh on exiting.
The doc wiped his mud-caked hand on the side of his pants and felt the Marine’s shin from knee to ankle. “Tibia’s good,” he said.
The Marine assumed that was a good sign and finally got the tangled LAAWs free, setting them at his side.
Garver unsnapped a compartment on one of his bags that held small bits of shiny metal. He scooped out two safety pins and thumbed the tines open. “You ready?” He said.
“Ready for what?”
Garver hooked the pink edge of the gaping wound with the pin’s point and, squeezing the flesh together, skewered the opposite side and locked the pin closed.
“Shit, Doc,” Bishop whispered through clenched teeth.
Garver pushed the second pin through the puckered skin like hooking a worm. He pulled a battle dressing from the bag and tore the sterile plastic wrapping open. The pad had a pinkish hue, and the four gauze leads, meant to encircle anything from a leg to a torso, seemed excessively long. The doc folded the bandage around Bishop’s calf. Instead of cutting them, he crossed the filmy tails and wrapped them tightly, again and again, until their length was used up. He could hear Burke calling up ahead. The distant and frantic voice cut through spaces in the noise. “I gotta go. Tie these in a knot over the outside of your leg.” He handed the loose ends over so they wouldn’t unravel.
“Hey, Doc. Do you think they’ll send me home?” Bishop said, sounding like a youngster on a department store Santa’s lap asking for a pony but uncertain whether the tired guy in red could deliver the goods.
Doc Garver turned away and started crawling again. “Tie it tight,” he said over his shoulder.
Firing from both sides shredded the lush green vegetation of the Ong Thu. Wildly aimed projectiles punched through everything in their way, and patches of the mountain shuddered under the impact of M79 rounds. The muzzle blasts of dozens of weapons reverberated against the canopy ceiling like thunderous echoes in a drill hall. Instinct dictated that the only position that provided even the illusion of safety was flat on the ground. And if you could burrow, you burrowed.
The incoming rounds kept Doc Garver low. He slithered on his belly like a snake, trying to pull himself forward without raising anything up that could be shot off. Bits and chunks of plants landed on his back, and the gunfire from the Marines he passed set his ears ringing into temporary deafness. Pieces of the path jumped into the air ahead of him as the strikes of a line of bullets skipped across. He stopped, staring at the unsettled ground. He didn’t subscribe to the theory of lightning never striking twice in the same place, and the chewed ground he would have to cross made him feel irrationally vulnerable. When his body scraped over the churned earth, he squeezed his eyes shut and held his breath, steeling his body for the impact of another stream of rounds and hoping he would take the pain of being hit with a stoicism that would do him credit; but he passed by with nothing more than frazzled nerves. Ahead, he could see Burke waving an arm, as if hand signals would get him there faster. He dug in his elbows and toes and inched forward as fast as he could go.
In front of Burke, a pair of legs jutted from the bush. Jungle boots with the toes scuffed to tan pointed awkwardly at the canopy high above. The corpsman looked into the little alcove made by the crush of the falling body and saw a green towel draped over a face, but instead of being supported by facial features, the towel sank into a red crater. He started to reach for the limp wrist, but Burke tossed a spent cartridge brass to get his attention and pointed forward to where Karns lay in the path, his back arched over his pack.
“He’s dead, Doc,” Burke yelled, his face inches from the ground. “See what you can do for Karns.”
The corpsman reluctantly pulled away from the body. It was his job to determine if someone was dead or not, entrenched in the description of his MOS, and he didn’t like having it usurped by anyone but Brede. On the other hand, some deaths didn’t require a studied opinion. Gruesomely fatal damage was as obvious to the layman as anyone else, and he was sure Burke was right. He moved on until he reached Karns’ head. Fragile red air bubbles rose above faint breaths and fed streaks of blood that made tracks down into Karns’ ears. His arms were spread wide and his feet were together as though he was awaiting crucifixion. His flak jacket hung open, and Garver could see the dark hole in the left side of his chest percolating gouts of bright blood.
Garver moved his face close to the Marine’s ear. “Karns,” he said. “Karns.” But whatever life force the Marine had left wasn’t being wasted on hearing. Doc Garver pulled out an empty plastic wrapper from a battle dressing and cut it in two with his KA-BAR, found his widest roll of adhesive bandage, and taped the wrapper over the chest hole. Bright red oxygenated blood smeared against the plastic. His shaky fingers fumbled for a pulse at the Marine’s neck, but he couldn’t tell if the beat he felt belonged to Karns or was just his own charged system pounding in his fingers.
The platoon’s position went no further than the mud caked into the worn tread of Karns’ boots, and the doc shot apprehensive glances at the shadows in the virgin green jungle ahead of him while freeing the buckles on Karns’ pack straps. Once they were loose, he rolled Karns to the left, wounded side down, and pulled up the back of his flak jacket. Another red hole fit neatly between a pair of ribs, and he used the other half of the battle-dressing wrapper to seal the leak. Blood made a sticky pool where Karns’ face caressed the path.
Burke and Deacon fired full magazines into the mountainside, and Garver flinched from the assault on his already overcharged nervous system, but the noise had no effect on Karns. The doc squirmed around until he could see the Marine’s face, eyes half closed, unseeing, thin streams of blood dripping from both nose and mouth. Stinging sweat burned the corpsman’s eyes, and he wiped it away with the back of a bloodstained hand, leaving dark streaks across his forehead. His hand shook. An involuntary mantra ran through his mind: stay cool, stay cool, stay cool.
Behind Garver the voices of squad and fire team leaders were cutting through the gunfire, directing their people to concentrate all their efforts on the upper slope. The telltale flash of a LAAW launcher sent a rocket into the trees that shook the ground with its blast. The doc thought he heard the muffled explosion of a hand grenade and wondered to himself what crazy bastard threw a grenade in this dense foliage when the odds of it getting caught up in the branches and falling back on you instead of hitting the enemy were even money.
Karns’ breaths were shallow and short, and his color was more gray than tan. Even the bulldog tattoo on his arm seemed dull and colorless to Garver, and he dug into the three-tiered pouch that hung from his web belt next to his .45 automatic. The two top tiers held bottles of serum albumen; the bottom contained a Kodak Instamatic camera wrapped in plastic. He withdrew a bottle and stopped to look at Karns again. With Brede off with Sergeant Blackwell and Middleton’s squad, he only had the two bottles of serum for the rest of the platoon, and he couldn’t guess what injuries he would face before this little gift from the Arizona was over. What he did know was that Karns did not look good. It was quite possible that Karns would not survive such wounds even if he were hit while lying on a treatment table at the aid station in An Hoa.
Doc Garver hated the awful decisions of triage in the field, the tyranny of priorities. Who was too far gone to receive live-saving aid? Who, being so damaged, was a waste of vital medical supplies? Though Karns was a long shot, he had to try.
He could see Burke screaming at his squad to slow their rate of fire before their ammunition was exhausted. An M16 lay barrel-down in the brush where it had dropped from Karns’ unconscious hand. The doc kicked the sole of Burke’s boot and pointed at the rifle. Burke tossed it over impatiently, as though angry that his concentration was broken, but he looked back to see if the corpsman intended to exact a little revenge of his own or just needed a twenty-round security blanket. The doc pulled the magazine free and ejected the round from the chamber, then tossed them to Burke. The new squad leader nodded his thanks and turned away. It was better not to dwell on a fallen Marine or what it took to keep him alive lest you begin to see it as prophecy. Turn away and leave the wounds to the corpsman. What you don’t see won’t fill your mind’s eye and become an unconscious guide to your every movement.
Doc Garver fished Karns’ bayonet from the scabbard on his belt and snapped it under the barrel of the M16, driving it into the rich earth. The butt stock wavered over Karns’ head, and the doc hung the bottle of serum albumen from the trigger guard. He unraveled the plastic tubing and, with shaking fingers, searched the inside of Karns’ left arm for a target vein. The skin was as pale as the underbelly of a fish. Intravenous injection had never been Garver’s strong suit. Even during his year at the naval hospital at the Great Lakes Naval Base he often had to enlist the help of a more experienced hand to find a successful way into a patient’s bloodstream, and this with veins that weren’t in the process of collapse. His mind raced to remember the lectures on the “cut down” when it was necessary to open the flesh above the target artery. He hoped he wouldn’t have to dig with a scalpel in this place. After three probes came up empty, he plunged the barrel of the beveled needle in and sighed in relief as blood infiltrated the tubing. He reached up and let the liquid flow free.
The intensity of the fire coming from the high ground seemed to be diminishing. Rounds were still slapping through the branches, but from fewer sources. The lieutenant’s voice cut through the machine-gunner’s heavy trigger finger, and the M60 shifted to bursts that had ends. Burke sent Laney and Deacon forward past where the doc leaned over Karns.
The acrid smell of burned cordite hung in the air and mixed with the odor of shredded plants and the pungent wafts of churned earth. The gush of enemy fire slowed to a trickle, and the Marines knew that the VC were holding true to form. They would hit from invisible positions then fade into the jungle, leaving nothing behind but spent brass—and more often than not, not even the brass.
Lieutenant Diehl already had fire teams leapfrogging up the mountain. The incoming rounds petered out until the only sound was the alternating fire of M16s covering the fire teams on the move. There was no doubt that they were advancing on abandoned positions. With luck they would find dead or wounded with their weapons, but generally that happened only when the Marines designed the surprises. But the VC were running the game plan here, and everyone knew that their plans always included an exit strategy.
Burke stepped around Doc Garver and moved Laney and Deacon into positions that could cover the point while Bishop hobbled up using his M16 as a crutch. The tails of the battle dressing on his leg hung from his cuff like drab pennants. He gave a questioning nod at Karns’ limp body and got a hopeless shrug from the corpsman, then turned his face away to the tortured slope of the Ong Thu where his fellow Marines were in pursuit of ghosts.
The formation of H-34s flew an awkward path over the valley beyond the Thu Bon, their tails slaloming in the turbulence. Corporal Pusic was crushed up against the grunts crowded into the last bird. His shoulders were crammed against those of the men on either side, and his knees were pulled up against his chest, with Sergeant Litinsky’s pack pushing against his shins. Vibrations from the big engine passed from the deck up through the occupants, who passed them along to one another in an impossibly rapid Morse code, an ominous message being shared by osmosis. The helicopter’s interior was infused with the odor of oil and fuel, and even the air currents from the rotors couldn’t rid the heavy atmosphere of the musty warehouse stink of web and canvas gear. And overlaying that Pusic could detect the sweet aroma of gun oil on freshly cleaned weapons.
Some faces looked in his direction with suspicion, but concerns of their own quickly drew them away. The Marine leaning into Corporal Pusic’s left shoulder looked him over from his Kiwi-blackened boots to the bright camo cover on his helmet. The man’s own boots were scuffed and worn and had holes at the ankles. His utilities were faded, and his tattered helmet cover showed burnished steel through holes around the rim. Both men were part of the Corps, but from different worlds within it, and that difference made Pusic uncomfortable. The Marine held his thumb up and smiled around a wad of brown chew. “Get some,” he said, as though he thought the clean corporal was satisfying his curiosity, going on some wild outing of his own choosing. Pusic tried to smile, but his heart wasn’t in it.
The first helicopter lowered its tail and bounced to a stop fifty yards from the crash site, and Marines gushed from the side like blood from a burst artery. They jumped from the starboard opening so quickly that they risked landing on those who had exited ahead, as though they were anxious to get out into the rain. They spread out and ran hunched over toward the downed helicopter—not because they had an overwhelming desire to join the squad closing on the crash but because the sight of the big, awkward 34s jockeying for position on the valley floor would draw fire like magnets if any hostiles were nearby, and the smart move was to get as far away as possible. You ducked down in case the machine took a hit large enough to change the rotational plane of the big rotors enough for a jolted blade to cleave you in half, and you kept moving away until you couldn’t feel the swirling turbulence on your back. The pilots knew they were the object of every enemy gunner’s eye, too, and the instant the crew chief announced that the last grunt had cleared the deck, the engine would roar and the machine would lift and bank away, dipping its nose, swinging its tail, and heading for high air.
Approaching the crash site from the mountainside, Sergeant Blackwell sent a flank of two men into the tree line to warn of ugly surprises while Middleton spread his fire teams out and headed for the helicopter. They waded through the knee-high grass, rifles set on full auto, anxious to pour fire on any moving object that would show itself. The closer they got, the higher their rifle barrels were raised. By the time they were close enough to see the shiny bullet craters in the 34’s paint and the spider webs spreading around the cluster of holes in the windscreen they had their M16s pulled tightly into their shoulders and looked at everything over their gun sights. They could smell the battered helicopter, and the rain gave the dull green fuselage a freshly washed sheen.
The firing on the mountainside had stopped as abruptly as it had started and the sergeant wondered what the platoon was doing, but he would have to wait to satisfy his curiosity. At the moment his full attention was dedicated to the broken H-34 in his sights.
The fresh Marines pouring onto the valley floor gave Middleton’s squad a warm feeling. It was like coming in from night ambushes or day patrols in the deadly Phu Locs and seeing the concertina wire and bunkers on the perimeter of An Hoa. You didn’t feel so alone and exposed anymore. You felt the benefit of safety in numbers. If misery loved company, it especially loved heavily armed company joining the fight, and with the Sparrow Hawk platoon spreading out behind them, the lone squad felt they had the upper hand for the first time, or at least sufficient numbers to prevent them from being overwhelmed. Whatever they found at the crash site, they wouldn’t have to face it alone. Their tentative steps changed to deliberate strides filled with a confident aggression that said peers were watching.
The distant thumping of the transport 34s heading back across the valley drummed an eerie echo from the wreck that sounded like ghostly pleas, like a dying goose calling to its fading gaggle. Sergeant Blackwell signaled Middleton to skirt the tail, then waited at the nose until he could see the squad leader and a fire team at the tail. With a wave of his hand, they moved on the starboard opening in unison, rifles raised, taking short steps that wouldn’t jar their aim. They reached the dark port together. The abandoned M60 and its sprawling belt lay just beyond the door gunner’s boots.
Middleton could see nothing past the gunner’s body and shrugged at the sergeant’s questioning look. Sergeant Blackwell aimed his M16 into the cargo compartment and nodded almost imperceptibly. Middleton nodded back and ducked into the dark interior. Light from the port opening chased the darker shadows into the corners, but the pitch of the deck was steep and Middleton’s boots slipped back toward the opening. He pushed a hand down to keep from falling. It came back red and sticky. Two bodies lay in an awkward stack against the lower bulkhead, a tangle of unrecognizable arms and legs.
“Reach?” Middleton said tentatively, throwing out the name with no real expectation of an answer. Then he noticed the fresh boots and bloused cuffs on the FNG. “It’s just Tanner and the new guy,” he said, regretting the “just” as soon as it crossed his lips. He climbed forward, trying not to slide down into the gunner’s helmeted head, and pulled himself up far enough to see into the blood-spattered cockpit. He lowered himself until his weight was off his arms. Of all the things the squad leader thought he wanted in this world, nothing compared to being away from this dead machine and the men who flew it beyond their lives. He squatted on the stained deck and slipped back into the daylight.
“No Reach, no Chief,” he said, searching the areas of flattened grass with a worried gaze, half expecting to see more bodies. “Do you think the VC took them?” He could see on the sergeant’s face a passing flinch of pain as that possibility was considered.
Sergeant Blackwell studied the ground outside the chopper, searching for a clue, anything that would ignite a spark of hope that capture wasn’t the case. He prodded the grass with the toe of his boot. “Someone blew lunch,” he said. “Does that look like turkey chunks to you?”
Middleton looked down at the mash and globs of mucus without comment, thinking that if it was turkey, the meal looked much the same as it did before being eaten.
“And why did they leave the M60 on the ground?” the sergeant continued. “It looks like they started to take it.” He pushed at the linked rounds with the same inquisitive toe. “And they didn’t even try for the other one.”
Two squad members dragged Tanner’s body into the open air and went back for the new guy whose name they couldn’t remember. The sergeant stooped and grabbed something from the shadows where the bulkhead met the deck: a web belt sliced neatly through both layers. He held it up, looking across the grassy expanse where staggered paths of trampled grass led zigzag courses to the tree line. “It looks like the bastards went across on line,” he said. “Why would they do that?”
Middleton looked at the abandoned 60, the riceless puke, and the belt. “I think Reach skyed up and took the Chief with him,” he said. He looked to the edge of the tree line where shadowy shapes could have been anything. “And I think they had to didi because Charley was after them.
The Sparrow Hawk platoon filed past the wreck, their legs soaked to the knees by the wet grass. Lieutenant Hewitt peeled away with a radioman and one fire team, leaving Sergeant Litinsky to take the rest into the tree line to secure the dark green areas from where danger was likely to come. Corporal Pusic followed the officer’s CP to the chopper. He was out of his element here, and he knew it. In just the last hour he had gone from eight long months in-country to being the FNG in the field. It was the kind of culture shock he had been sure he could avoid, and the short-timer’s calendar in his desk drawer agreed with him more each day. That desk seemed far away now. His mind raced to find a way back there so he would have a chance to mark that calendar again. He could see Staff Sergeant Blackwell from 1st Platoon standing beside the chopper wreckage with Bronsky while other Marines labored moving heavy loads from inside.
When Sergeant Blackwell saw Lieutenant Hewitt heading in his direction he called out, “Sir, I have people in the tree line,” pointing vaguely to the general area where he imagined they might be.
The lieutenant spoke over his shoulder to his radioman without breaking stride. “Tell Litinsky we have friendlies in the trees.”
When the small group got close enough, Pusic could see the fruits of the Marines’ labor lying in the grass: five bodies, too still, too quiet. The dead had an awkward composure of their own. Their angles lacked life, and they conformed to any uncomfortable position they were assigned without complaint. Death had freed their limbs to assume attitudes restricted only by the limitations of human joint dynamics. The position of their heads didn’t seem quite right. Viability gone, they were just grotesque husks of stolen potential.
Pusic’s daily efforts had all been designed to avoid the realities of combat. Now, ten lifeless boot bottoms were showing him the blind grooves in their treads. That was the trouble with Vietnam. No matter what your job and how safe your situation, the horror of battle was always close.
The distant murmur of a Cessna Bird Dog droned down from where it drifted just below the cloud ceiling. The engine had an almost soothing sound. It spoke to the Marines with a familiar voice that reminded them of home and clear summer days with civilian pilots in their Pipers and Cessnas, looking down on Home Town USA from a bird’s perspective. The six-cylinder engine that filled the cockpit with noise was a calming voice from the other side of the world to those on the ground. But there were other, more significant reasons for taking comfort in the little aircraft’s ethereal song. The Bird Dog pilots were forward air controllers, and though the FACs had no real armament beyond the marking rockets under their wings and the pilot’s personal firearms, their innocuous sputtering carried with it a lethal promise, like the tip of a dorsal fin at the ocean surface held the promise of flesh-ripping teeth below. With a map, a radio, and some calculations scribbled on the windscreen with a grease pencil, the FAC could rain death down on any spot he chose. The Fowler flaps could drop the little machine into a rollercoaster dive, swooping close to the ground and teasing the enemy into a lethal mistake.
The Bird Dogs were like the weak kid in school who thumbed his nose at the bullies because he had strong brothers who would pound the snot out of anyone with the lack of foresight to think he was an easy target. The FAC’s big brothers were F-105s and F-4s that could split the sky at five hundred knots and make the ground shudder. With the Bird Dog’s simple direction to “hit my smoke” a jet-powered arsenal would rip and burn the jungle until the trees themselves wept in regret.
Sergeant Blackwell looked up at the little aircraft hanging suspended on invisible air currents. “The LT must be pretty pissed to put eyes in the sky,” he said. “Get ready for some fast movers.” Those around him looked up as though seeing the strutted wings ducking the clouds could put a face on Lieutenant Diehl’s anger.
When the sergeant’s eyes dropped back to earth, they settled on Pusic lurking behind the Sparrow Hawk radioman. He couldn’t have stood out more had he been wearing dress blues. The sergeant’s brow wrinkled in confusion at seeing a familiar face outside its normal habitat, like seeing your priest in his street clothes. It took a minute for the juxtaposition to work itself out in his mind. “You lost?” he asked, watching Pusic try to wilt behind Lieutenant Hewitt’s people.
Pusic focused his attention on Corporal Middleton, who was kneeling by the bodies reading from dog tags while Doc Brede filled out the casualty cards. “Woods, Daniel A., Warrant Officer, Protestant,” Middleton said in a hushed voice, trying not to look at the damage AK rounds had done to the young copilot’s body. Brede filled in the appropriate spaces on the tag and wrote KIA in big letters. Pusic watched the two Marines at their task. This was something he could understand: paperwork. Everything in the Corps boiled down to a clerical notation somewhere, from a lost gas mask to a lost life. Middleton moved on. “Kobert, Eric R., Lance Corporal, Catholic.”
Corporal Pusic forced himself to search the still bodies with his eyes. Two wore pilot’s flak gear; one wore new utilities; one was too young, with a pockmarked face; and the last had the wrong color hair. He moved to get a better angle on the helicopter’s interior. “Anybody else in there?” he asked, trying to ignore the sergeant’s stare.
Sergeant Blackwell looked past Lieutenant Hewitt’s people, expecting to see faces further up the Corps’ food chain, the kind of rank with the weight to drag a company clerk along when they went into the field. Maybe the captain, or worse, someone from the battalion’s larger brass circle that Corporal Pusic orbited. Nothing was obvious. It appeared that the spic-and-span corporal was here alone.
“I asked if you were lost,” the sergeant said in a voice meant not to be ignored.
Middleton looked up to see who the sergeant was talking to with such an edge.
Lieutenant Hewitt barked a sit rep to An Hoa over the radio and beckoned Sergeant Blackwell with an impatient wave of his hand.
Sergeant Blackwell pointed a finger at the clerk’s face without comment, as if to punctuate a pause in a conversation that was far from over, then turned toward the Sparrow Hawk CP.
Pusic craned his neck to see into the damp shadows of the helicopter, half hoping, half expecting to see Strader’s sun-browned face crawling out, prisoner in tow, to save his clerical ass and the lifestyle to which he was accustomed.
Middleton hurried through the information on the new set of dog tags in his hand. “Crowell, Fredrick P., Warrant Officer, Protestant,” he said. There was no need to bother with the other two bodies, familiar corpses he had helped carry from the mountain, tags with all the information needed by posterity already flapping from their bootlaces. He stepped away from the bodies, leaving Doc Brede to finish his work.
Pusic surveyed the wide expanse of wet grass that ended at the lush green tree line and the Marines from the Sparrow Hawk platoon moving along it. Being this far outside An Hoa’s perimeter gave him an odd, exposed feeling, like he was standing on the parapet of some tall building gazing at the emptiness below, with nothing but empty air between him and a wet stain on the pavement. He could hear the voice of Sergeant Blackwell in animated conversation with Lieutenant Hewitt. Other members of the squad from 1st Platoon worked close to the wrecked helicopter, and though he knew he had plenty of company standing on this green building’s precipice, he still felt alone, as though everyone around him was blind to the portent of the view and he was the only one with acrophobia.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Middleton said, standing by the feet of the dead Marines as though moving away would be a kind of betrayal.
Pusic examined the tired-looking Marine with his M16 slung barrel-down over a shoulder. “They sent me to find the . . . the prisoner,” he said, then let his eyes sweep over the bodies.
Middleton looked the clerk over as though he was giving an inspection and didn’t like what he saw. “You won’t find him there, pogue.”
The Cessna Bird Dog finished a lazy circle that carried it from the valley to the higher slopes of the Ong Thu. It banked to port, then dipped its nose. A sudden whoosh sent a rocket of white smoke into the trees that rose into the air like a ghost trying to escape the confines of the jungle.
Sergeant Blackwell finished with Lieutenant Hewitt and started back, tethered to Bronsky’s radio by the coil of cord. He signed off and tossed the black handset back to Bronsky. Despite all the rain and wet grass, the handset was still dry inside its coating of clear C-rat plastic. “The platoon is on the way down with two dead and three wounded,” the sergeant said, stopping by the open side of the helicopter between the wreck and the line of bodies on the ground. “Lieutenant Diehl says they should come out onto the valley somewhere just south of the lake in about an hour.”
Middleton looked to the mountain where a diffuse column of white smoke was struggling through the weave of branches. “Who’s dead?” he said, watching as the lazily rising smoke and the humming Bird Dog worked in soothing concert before their intended collaboration rained a pyrotechnic shitstorm onto the slope.
The sergeant seemed not to hear the question. He only had eyes for the company clerk standing in the wet grass, his starched uniform soaking up the light rain. “Are you people out of your fucking minds back there?” he said to Pusic. “The stress of beer limits at the EM Club or not enough pogey bait at the geedunk making you soft in the head? Sending a Marine into the Arizona with only a couple of days left in-country; that was a shit-for-brains move.”
Pusic felt the sergeant’s words like punches. He had to deflect the anger to another target, but he had to do it without burning any bridges, especially bridges that he needed to carry him across the rest of his tour. He had to point an accusing finger, but it had to be nonspecific, the target anonymous. The only thing that could help him was the natural enmity between the ranks. “I didn’t send anyone anywhere. I’m not running this company. I take orders like everyone else. If you’re looking for someone who gives orders,” he added, “you’re going to have to look a lot further up the totem pole than me.”
Blackwell and Middleton exchanged glances. “Is he making a joke?” Middleton asked in disbelief.
“I don’t know.” The sergeant looked the clerk over from helmet to boots and back again, as if the trip might provide a better understanding of the man’s motives. “That wouldn’t be a crack aimed at the Chief, would it?”
Pusic’s face registered his confusion, and he looked around cautiously in case 1st Platoon’s wild man was somewhere near. Maybe totem pole was a poor choice of images that might be misconstrued as an insult, and he didn’t want to say anything that would set the Chief off.
“Why the hell would I do that?” Pusic said.
“You said you were looking for him,” Middleton said.
“Like hell, I did.”
“You said you were here looking for the prisoner.”
“Yeah, the prisoner escort and, of course, the prisoner, too.”
The sergeant stepped up close to the clerk, uncomfortably close. “The Chief is the prisoner. And you people sent Reach . . . Strader . . . out here with two damned days left on his tour.”
The clerk felt his throat constrict like the Chief already had a crushing grip on it. It was amazing how quickly the status quo could dissolve into garbage in the Crotch. One day things were going along smoothly, and the next the villagers were screaming for your blood. He didn’t see how he could possibly catch any blame for the Chief being a prisoner. Beyond that, any personal responsibility he might bear for Strader’s presence was speculation for these Marines. “I don’t know anything about crimes the Chief committed,” he said, though horrifying transgressions he might envision only in nightmares were, to his thinking, well within the Chief’s capabilities.
The sergeant seemed to be suddenly uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation. “That communication with the com shack was in error. There was no prisoner. And since no prisoner, there was no need for an escort.”
Pusic was confused at the sergeant’s discomfort, but he just shrugged. The backbone of discretion is silence, and since anything he might say would only fuel the fire or provide information he didn’t want to share, he kept his mouth shut.
The sound of a distant blast furnace forced its way into the valley from the north, and two machines dropped through the clouds and materialized in a roaring streak above the bridge at Phu Loc. F-4 Phantoms in mottled camouflage banked to starboard, and the dripping thatch roofs of Phu Phong 3 passed in a blink below their wingtips. The F-4 pilots confirmed the Bird Dog’s position then zeroed in on the mountainside. The trailing Phantom banked to port, showing its light underbelly to the trees, and pointed one wing at the ground, ripping a wide arc that would carry it around to its starting point in a circle filled with crushing G-force. The lead Phantom concentrated on the distant smoke. Two air-to-surface missiles flashed from under its wings, and it was already into its own arching circle when the missiles punched through the smoke and great chunks of the Ong Thu leapt up in protest.
Pusic moved to where he could see over the tail of the downed chopper and watch the aerial ballet. Phantoms flying close air support were always an awesome spectacle. The fighters’ turbojet engines made the ground quake, and it took a special effort not to suck your head down into your shoulders when they split the air overhead at mach speeds. The other members of the squad looked up for a second, then went about the business of collecting gear from the helicopter. They had witnessed the Phantoms’ aerobatics before and didn’t need to watch them to appreciate their presence. A sense of ease ran through ground troops when two such formidable weapons were on station. They also knew that any VC in proximity were already burning up their sandals trying to get clear. The only question was whether they could run fast enough and far enough to avoid the Phantoms’ reach.
Right now, the task at hand overrode all else. Belts of M60 ammunition from the crew compartment, crew weapons, and maps and personal gear from the cockpit were added to a growing pile in the grass. The ground Marines’ only nagging concern was that the F-4s might not know exactly where the U.S. troops were. Often, the distance between friendly and enemy was negligible, and not one of the weapons of death in the Phantoms’ arsenal could discriminate between them.
The second Phantom closed on the spot where the air-to-surface missiles struck, then lifted and banked to port. A 500-pound general purpose bomb with a fuse extender fell away from the undercarriage. The long nose guided the bomb’s trajectory like the point of a knight’s lance, ensuring that detonation would be aboveground. The blast was enormous. Trees shook and shed their leaves, and a shock wave spread out from the blast’s center like ripples in an arboreal pond. All the Marines in the valley felt the impact of the distant explosion through the soles of their boots. The first Phantom streaked back in and another GP struck the mountain a little higher up than the first. Again the trees shuddered and leaves fell and the ground telegraphed a spasm of its pain to the valley floor.
Until that moment Pusic hadn’t been able to think of a worse place to be than in the miserable, wet valley next to the still congregation of bodies and their dead machine, but the mountain sounded like Hell itself had split open, and for a second he was grateful to be where he was.
The Phantoms spun in turn on their deadly G-force merry-go-round delivering high explosives to the face of the Ong Thu. They would continue until their arsenal was exhausted or the FAC in the Cessna called them off like a handler calling off a pair of attack dogs.
One of Lieutenant Hewitt’s CP caught Sergeant Blackwell’s attention. “The lieutenant wants you,” he said, indicating the spot where the officer was trying to block the jets’ roar, covering one ear with a hand and pushing the radio handset up tight against the other, barking into the mouthpiece like a DI on a drill field to make himself heard above a cluster bomb ripping a hole in the high slope.
Lt. Mark Hewitt stood a little shy of five feet eight inches with muscular shoulders and thick forearms. Like Lieutenant Diehl he had been a collegiate wrestler. Back in those days he worked the weight room until his opponents would groan when they found themselves matched with the “little guy.” He was fair skinned, and his arms below the faded green sleeves of his T-shirt bore patches of red with white edges of peeling skin where the Southeast Asian sun was trying to congeal his freckles into one solid mass. He made up for his lack of height with a no-nonsense attitude and a single-minded focus on his position as platoon commander. He was a decisive leader who never showed a second of hesitation or doubt and would not tolerate either in his men.
After Hewitt was finished screaming into the handset he turned to Sergeant Blackwell. “My people say they found a spot just inside the tree line with a bunch of freshly spent 7.62 brass,” he said, pointing to the tree line where Blackwell could make out Marines stepping into the open.
The sergeant nodded. “We’ve got two men missing from this crash. One is wounded, and the other carries a 14.”
The lieutenant’s face revealed sympathy. “That could explain it; maybe they’re on the run.” He looked away and didn’t hint that it could be anything else. “My sergeant found lots of tracks leading toward high ground, but I’m not sending my people after them. We’re ordered to set up security here until this bird is stripped and lifted out, and I’m guessing that won’t be until sometime in the morning.”
“I don’t think I can wait, and I know my two missing people can’t.”
The Bird Dog flitted just above the valley floor, the pilot watching the Phantoms’ exercises through the transparent window in the wing above his head. He directed the Phantoms to move their strikes higher and five hundred yards north. He assumed the direction would be to high ground, but this was just speculation, and he knew he was shooting blind. The jungle canopy cloaked both the terrain and movement on the mountain, and he knew he could direct sorties all day with no guarantee that the expended ordnance would hit anything but trees.
Sergeant Blackwell moved to the opening in the helicopter and shoved an arm into the shadows, drawing out a pack. “Second Squad, mount up,” he said. When he got close enough to where Middleton stood he tossed the pack into Pusic’s arms.
“What’s this for?” Pusic said.
“I noticed that you didn’t have your pack with you. I guess you were planning on a short trip.”
Pusic dangled the pack by its strap like it was something distasteful. He wondered which of the men on the ground had owned it, then decided he didn’t want to know.
“You said you wanted Strader and the Chief,” the sergeant said. “Well, let’s go get them.”
The sergeant was right. Pusic was planning on a short trip, and it was already longer than he thought prudent for his health. “I’m here with the Sparrow Hawk platoon,” he protested. “I should stay with them.” He was on the ledge of that green building again, and now the ledge was crumbling under his feet. What little stability there was in his situation—and there was precious little—was dissolving, threatening to leave him hanging in thin air.
“Bronsky,” the sergeant said, “get me Golf CP in An Hoa. Let’s find out what role the pogue played in this fuck-up. He sure as hell didn’t volunteer for this trip.”
Pusic wanted to intervene. If there was something he could say that would stop the radioman from reaching An Hoa without admitting his part in Strader’s situation he would say it, but the words weren’t there.
The corpsman from the Sparrow Hawk platoon was helping Doc Brede with his pack. They knew each other well enough to use first names. All the corpsmen were members of a small, exclusive fraternity in the battalion. There were only two for each platoon. When they found time in the chow hall they sometimes shared some unique, personal slant on field treatment that had been successful for them, but mostly they just exchanged knowing glances filled with futility. Being the first responders in combat put them in an untenable situation, and they knew it. They were there because the Navy physicians’ medical degrees were far too valuable to risk in ground combat. The corpsmen’s job was to keep the wounded alive long enough to reach the golden hands of the overworked surgeons, and to stay alive while doing it. They did this whenever possible, but sometimes, they knew, it wasn’t possible to do either.
Bronsky passed the radio handset to the sergeant while the last of the Phantoms’ munitions struck the Ong Thu. The explosions echoed across the valley, leaving Blackwell bellowing into the handset while the jets swept a blistering arch and rose up through the cloud ceiling to disappear like winged specters, leaving only the roar of their engines as an ethereal proof of their existence.
“Pusic, right?” the sergeant said, holding out the handset. “Sergeant Gantz wants to speak with you.”
Pusic stepped up and took the handset, tentatively holding it to an ear. He didn’t want to hear anything Sergeant Gantz had to say, but he couldn’t refuse. Sergeant Blackwell moved away, not to give the clerk privacy but because he already knew the outcome of the conversation.
Franklin came around the tail of the helicopter and stopped where the bodies compressed the wet grass. “Are we going after Reach and the Chief?” he said, tugging at the straps on his pack.
Middleton cocked his head toward Sergeant Blackwell and shrugged. “Don’t ask me. I’m only the squad leader.”
Franklin smiled, knowing how much Middleton hated to have his authority usurped.
Sergeant Blackwell held out his M16 by the sight mount as though it was the handle on a piece of luggage. “Let’s pretend the Crotch is a democracy. Who votes for going after our people?” A short pause followed while he waited for the voices of the constituents. “How about it, Middleton. Do we go?”
Middleton nodded.
“What about you, Franklin. Put your two cents in.”
“The Chief always makes me nervous, but if you’re goin’ after Reach, I’m cool with that.”
The sergeant smiled and let the M16 swing down at his side. “Now don’t you feel good about having participated in the democratic process?”
Franklin shifted his weight from foot to foot, as though he was either embarrassed or anxious to stop being a stationary target. “We was goin’ no matter what we said, right?”
“That’s right, Franklin. In case you assholes didn’t notice, this green machine is not a democracy. If the Marines wanted you to have a vote, they would have issued you one.”
Pusic gave the handset back to Bronsky and stood there waiting for a bolt of lightning to reach down from the gloom and strike him dead; the way things were going, it wasn’t an unlikely possibility.
Sergeant Blackwell watched him standing there like an orphan with the borrowed pack dangling at his side and put on his best Cheshire Cat smile. “Gantz tells me you’re a good man and that he can’t remember a time when you didn’t complete an assignment. He says he’s sure you won’t come back without completing this one. I don’t know if that means that he has confidence in you or that if you don’t find Strader and the Chief, he doesn’t want you back at all. Either way, you belong to me.”
Pusic stepped over, dragging the pack limply through the grass. “Gantz is just a sergeant,” he said pompously. “He can’t make decisions that impact the whole company, not without the captain’s okay.” He knew as soon as he said it that his self-important tone wouldn’t sit well here.
“Really?” Sergeant Blackwell said, his grin showing real pleasure. Besides wanting to pop Pusic’s delusions of grandeur, being a staff sergeant himself, he didn’t like to hear someone in his rank structure being described as ineffectual. “Tell me the last time you heard of a captain taking a corporal’s side against a first sergeant.” He didn’t wait for an answer. “That’s right. Never happened, never will. So don’t give me a ration of shit.” He softened his smile and put his hand on Pusic’s shoulder as though he were Father Flanagan welcoming a wayward child to Boy’s Town. “As of now you are our own personal rear echelon mother fucker.” The smile disappeared. “So, get your REMF ass in gear, strap that pack on your back, and fall in behind the radio. What are you complaining about, anyway? You’ll finally get to see how the 0311s live, because as of now you are one.”
Pusic didn’t move, couldn’t move. Gantz had thrown him to the wolves and now he was being abducted by the pack.
“That’s an order, Corporal. You disobey it and I’ll show you how much power a sergeant can have in the field.”
Pusic resignedly pushed an arm through one of he pack straps, then balanced his M16 between his knees and struggled with the other. Bronsky lifted the pack and helpfully guided the strap onto the clerk’s shoulder with a slap. “Don’t mess with the sergeant, man,” he said. “He’s in a piss poor mood. This morning he took my .45 and stuck it in the Chief’s face and threatened to blow his brains out. And he wasn’t kidding.”
“So he’s not that fond of the Chief either?”
“It ain’t that. He just thought the Chief killed Tanner and the new guy last night. Now he thinks maybe the VC did it.”
Pusic gave the radioman a puzzled look. He’d always known that he left sanity behind when he landed in Vietnam, but he’d always been able to keep the madhouse at arm’s length. Now, here he was, getting his own personal glimpse at the inner workings of Bedlam. “Killed two guys?” he said, shrugging the pack into a more comfortable position.
“Well, Diehl and Blackwell say no, but I’m not so sure.”
Sergeant Blackwell looked back along the fuselage to see if his people were ready. “Franklin. Your fire team is on point. Follow that wide path through the grass to the tree line, and don’t bunch up.” This last was said with enough volume so everyone could hear.
Second Squad of Golf Company’s 1st Platoon began moving away from the downed chopper in prescribed intervals until their elongated line stretched halfway to the jungle.
Doc Brede handed the casualty tags to the Sparrow Hawk corpsman with an apologetic look. “These are for the chopper crew. Make sure they get on the right . . .” He couldn’t think of a description that wasn’t so final and cold. “You know . . . where they belong. I gotta go.”
“Yeah, don’t worry. Catch you later.”
It was funny how simple terms that slipped easily from the tongue took on an ominous overtone in Vietnam. Back in the world you might say “see you later” or “I’ll be right back” with a negligent assurance that didn’t elicit another thought. The element of doubt was absent. But in-country, nothing in the future held even a hint of a guarantee. “See you later” was just a wish. The target of the remark wasn’t even important. Only the idea of being around to make good on it was.
The impermanence of life in the field was also fertile ground for superstitions to take root. Everyone seemed to have something in his possession that lent an artificial comfort to his travails—a symbol of religious faith, a memento from home, some talisman that accompanied a stroke of luck that could rub off on the present, anything that might exert a supernatural influence. For Doc Brede it was a book. Not a specific book, but whatever book he was reading. There was a point, beyond the first pages, where your mind was absorbed by the story. You slipped into another reality and lived there until the end. It would be unthinkable to leave that reality unfinished. Even the vagaries of fate must see that. So Doc Brede would never finish a book before going into the field. The story would have to be finished later. And the only way for it to be finished was for him to come back and finish it. Dying was something you did when there was nothing left to do. And he always had to finish a book. Even now, stuffed into his seabag in the company storage tent in An Hoa, the remaining chapters of H. G. Well’s The Time Machine sat waiting for his return. He also planned ahead. In his field pack, crammed in next to his jungle shirt and extra tee, he carried a paperback Steinbeck novel with the bookmark creeping its way into the volume. If it wasn’t finished before the next trip, it would be left behind to wait, a mystical assurance that he would return. That he must return.