Fields of Fire (43 page)

38

Snake had told Hodges about the listening post, and they had discussed Kersey's attempt to move the squad positions away from the protection of the dike. Now Hodges was sitting against a wet dike in the middle of the paddy. He scraped out the bottom of a C-ration tin of Beef and Potatoes, moodily contemplating the impotence of the tank that had anchored them in such an indefensible perimeter. When the ambush had erupted he listened absently to its distance, wondering if one of the sweep companies to the west had been hit, then decided it was too close for them. Perhaps, he mused numbly, another platoon in the company had a patrol out. Then Warner, now his radioman, had run to him, his arms flailing, the spacious face in a panic.

“It's the OP, Lieutenant! They've been blown away!”

Then gathering the platoon, finding that Snake's squad had already bolted to the cemetery (not being surprised, and in fact having expected that), so pushing the remainder of the platoon and some volunteers from company headquarters across the perimeter to the dike where the squad's defensive positions had been. And finally past the hootch, that held the battalion staff, moving toward the cemetery under relentless fire even from that distance.

As he passed the hootch, receiving an embittering shock, again not surprising or unexpected, but made acrid by the expression on Kersey's face. The staff hugged tightly to the dirt floor of the family hootch, dry under its thatch, and watched the platoon inch past them. And Kersey peered out to him, his face set in tight aloofness, but the message was more than aloofness. I got mine already, the scowl was saying. I already proved I'm a hero and that mess out there is your war.

Watching Kersey stare at him and remembering Sergeant Gilliland's cynicism and finally understanding it, realizing what he meant when he said that Vietnam had done something to us all, even to the Corps. That there was no great effort for anything anymore, only thousands, no, millions, of isolated, individual wars. That it broke down even here. If They Die It's Not My Problem. They're Yours.

They pressed hurriedly across open grass like moths toward a roaring flame, losing two new dudes whose names he did not remember at the edge of the mounds. The rest of Snake's squad lay paralyzed by the tear gas, littered like live carcasses inside the mounds.

He looked at them. Cannonball was in agony. Rabbit tended to him. Bagger appeared blind. He bled out of one eye, rubbed the other, then both, absently, as if the pressure on them would be enough to bring back sight.

Hodges had people throw smoke grenades on both sides of the single mound that had caused the bottleneck, creating a screen. Then he rushed the React through in groups of three and four, anxious to be away from the lingering tear gas. He left one fire team and his new corps-man with the casualties. The others reached the end of the cemetery and Hodges set the platoon in along the mounds in a half-circle.

Rodeo called to Hodges: “Snake and Senator are out there!”

Hodges crept to Rodeo. “Are they alive?” “Yes, sir. I think. There's a crater out there.” Hodges called to Snake: “Snake. Are you all right?” A voice filtered through the rain. “Senator's all fucked up.”

“Do you need help?” “Wait a minute.”

SNAKE slapped Goodrich again. “Senator. Wake up, man. Come on. Listen to me. Can you lay on top of me? Can you get on your hands and knees?”

Goodrich rolled his head in the mud, half-conscious. “I wish I knew I wish I knew. It doesn't matter. All the same. Blood and water mix. I'm going to die. It makes sense.”

Snake grabbed Goodrich by one arm and rolled him over on top of him, then tested the weight. No sweat. He called to Hodges. “Lieutenant! I'm coming round the mound on your left! When I yell at you, have somebody catch Senator! I got him on my back!”

There was a pause. Finally Hodges called back. “All right. We're ready.”

The platoon put out a steady rate of covering fire. Snake dug his boots into the mud of the crater, tested the weight again, and rushed up the side. Goodrich was large, heavier. He draped Snake's form.

“Here I come!”

Snake crawled the mud bank, stepping over Goodrich's former leg, pallid in the weeds. The treeline erupted with concentrated fire. A machine gun had a bead. Mathis, from Pierson's squad, stepped out from the mound to receive Goodrich and was shot. He crumpled.

Snake felt Goodrich being pulled forward at the shoulder as a round worked its way through his upper chest. Goodrich's body tugged at him. He tripped. Goodrich fell next to a mound. Snake moved to his elbows in a low crawl and was ripped by half-dozen machine-gun bullets. They split his middle parts, killing him.

Hodges stared in horror. Cat Man grabbed Goodrich, who still breathed shallowly, and pulled him behind the mound. Snake lay dead, touching Mathis. That close. He stared into wet grass with bored eyes, his face expressionless. Hodges examined the face, and noted the holes that filled the weather-beaten flak jacket, and for the first time his own death seemed logical.

The treeline saturated them with fire. It poured in from three sides, immobilizing their retreat. Behind them, the company perimeter was now being hit also. Two more casualties from Pierson's squad. Only one thing to do, decided Hodges.

He called to Sadler. “Sarge! Put 'em all low, inside the mounds. Make sure everybody has some kind of cover.”

He called an artillery mission. Too close for even “Danger Close.” He explained it to the forward observer, and called the mission on himself. The treeline was thirty yards away on both sides, perhaps fifty to the front. Finally the guns were up. The radio hissed. “Stand by for a Willie Peter. Shot Out.”

He heard the puff, could not see it from behind the mounds. He lifted his head quickly to view it. It was not to his front. Where the fuck—

He saw it to the left, two hundred meters off, a breath of white cloud beyond the trees. At the same time his face erupted, driving him to the grass. Sadler ran over to him, his eyes unbelieving.

“Lieutenant! I never—”

“Right two hundred, Sarge. Fire for effect. Tell 'em.” He could feel himself mumbling. No motion from jaw.

“You doan’ understand!” Sadler yelled. “Doc!”

“Right two hundred, Sarge. Hurry up.” The radio handset was calling him, five feet away.

“You got a golden ass, Lieutenant.” Sadler was in awe.

“I feel like I got a broken jaw. Like somebody hit me with a baseball bat. Sarge.” He gestured weakly to the radio. “Hurry. Right two hundred.”

“You doan’ understand, sir. You been shot right through your face!” Sadler grasped the handset and adjusted.

AN eternity of eruptions, rain on face like washing, spitting blood that gathered like saliva in his mouth. Visions racing past, screaming to each other. Sadler calling more artillery. It screamed like quick, violent rockets, dug the earth around him. Numbly, lying almost pleasant after two hits of morphine, he felt a jag of metal rip into his side like a hot knife slicing butter, cleanly through. Felt his new leak and attempted to call but morphine made him lazy and his jaw was shattered and his words rolled limply down his chin with the ooze of blood. More racing figures, even taut words of encouragement and he tried to talk but couldn't and no one could see the low deep wound that stole his blood and drained him.

A last faint vision, seeing helicopter settle toward mounds, almost feeling the rotorwash inside his numbness. But a sudden rush of fire that he did not comprehend and the helicopter settled abruptly next to the mounds, failing him in the moment he had earned the privilege of escaping on it. He did not see its crewmen rushing from it to join the already trapped.

Finally another helicopter. They came to load him on it and after one step noticed the limpness, the nerveless muscles of a dead man. They loaded him nonetheless, next to all the others, the Emergencies who could now escape from hell. He lay drained of life on the floor of the helicopter next to Bagger and Goodrich. Goodrich himself seemed almost dead, legless and shoulder-shot, pallid from loss of blood. Cannonball was just down from him, with three others.

Cat Man and a new dude who never knew him dropped him on the bird, finally accepting that he was indeed dead, and sprinted down the rear door, back into the cemetery. The helicopter escaped. Rounds sought it as it lifted off.

Cat Man was crying. His face held the confused pain of an abandoned child. He knelt in the wet grass, enemy bullets passing over his head toward the helicopter. A B-40 rocket impacted just behind him. He ignored it.

The new dude grabbed him by the back of his flak jacket and tried to push him toward the cemetery mounds, where the remnant of the platoon fought on under Sadler's guidance. The new dude screamed, terrified.

“Cat Man! For Christ sake, man. Do you want to die?”

Cat Man shuddered in the wet grass, holding his face, then bolted toward the mounds.

“No.”

39

DAN: Sometimes I think it will never end, this war.

LAOS, 1971

Operation Lam Son 719
There was an urgent, unstoppable rumble and the ground trembled, vibrating angrily. The dust rose in a hazy blanket that covered the hill and coated lungs and stung eyes. Across the narrow valley was a stream of steady flashes and a black cloud that grew quickly behind the flashes, puffing up like exhaust fumes from a poorly tuned truck. Dan pressed his sweating face into the dust and clutched his rifle and wondered at the ground beneath him as it quivered. It was the arc light again. Perhaps that will stop them, he thought, knowing that nothing would stop them.

The arc light finished and a black cloud hung low over the thick green canopy of the ridges across the valley. There was a moment of hesitating silence. They will come now, he decided. The B-52s are gone and there is nothing to stop them. As if on cue the artillery crunched into the hill, saturating it and the valley in front of Dan with angry clouds, devastating crunches. 152s. They will kill us all, Dan decided. So strange to die in this country I do not know. But, he sighed, hugging the barren ground, that is the nature of things. I warned them. I told them but they would not listen. A Private is not listened to. And it was so logical. A Private knows intrinsically what a General must learn through experience. That is because a Private thinks with caution since he will be killed. A General can be daring when only the Private will die for his mistakes. But it is useless to think about it. Thoughts will not change it.

The night before the operation began they had sat in the abandoned ruins of Khe Sanh and watched the jets as they saturated the Laos road with bombs and napalm. There had been much talk about Khe Sanh among the soldiers. This is where the Marines killed so many North Vietnamese, they had agreed in awe. A great battle for the Marines. Now it was abandoned and the airstrip was tatters of curled plating that used to be runway and the bunkers had dissolved into the earth. And the Marines were gone. But it was a great battle. Thousands of ghosts haunted the dark perimeter.

There had been a pep talk by the company commander. He had clasped his hands in front of his chest, intent. “Tomorrow will begin the greatest test for our Army,” he had said. “Tomorrow we attack Laos.”

Dan could not fully comprehend Laos. Nor did he understand why it was a test. To him it was absurd. So many problems right here, he thought. So many North Vietnamese soldiers in my valley. And no Government soldiers there, since the Marines left. And yet we are attacking this Laos.

Finally his reticence was overwhelmed by his common sense. “And what is this ‘Laos’ that it is so important,” he had asked. “Why do we attack this ‘Laos’?”

The Dai Wei had looked at him with contempt. “It is a country,” he answered. “We attack it because enemy soldiers and supplies are there. Many soldiers. Much supplies. It will be a great victory.”

Dan shrugged, meeting the company commander's eyes. “Enemy soldiers and supplies are everywhere. There are easier places. We do not know this ‘Laos.’ ”

The officer had become angered. He walked over to Dan, standing over him. “Are you a General, then? Three years you spend doing nothing with the American Marines. Before that you are the enemy. And now you are a General. We attack Laos for the good of the country.”

Dan was not afraid of the Dai Wei. The man could only beat him. “We do so many things for the good of the country,” he answered. “We kill so many. We destroy so much. And what is a country? Is it a group of people who think alike and work together and want all other people to leave them alone? Then my valley is a country. Is it a piece of land that can be separated from other land? Then my valley is a country. Two rivers come together and a cliff joins them at their wide part. I do not do this for the people of my valley. And I do not know your country.”

The officer slapped Dan hard on the face. “Your valley is VC. You are VC. I should kill you.” The officer slapped him again. “You want me to put you in prison so you will not have to attack Laos with us. Peasant coward. Que lam.”

Dan stared tiredly at the officer. “I am not afraid,” he said slowly. “I do not have to be afraid to think it is wrong.”

The officer stomped off and Dan sat down and lit a cigarette. Across the border another air strike was dropping bombs along the road. The air strikes are like a magnet, Dan mused. They know what we are going to do. They will wait for the right time and mass on the road and destroy us. It is so stupid.

A group of soldiers crowded eagerly around Dan when the officer left. His willingness to stand his ground in the face of certain pain and ridicule gave him a strong charisma. There were many in Dan's squad who felt the way he had spoken. They did not resent his past. He had been with them for six months, and had always been reliable.

And there were the stories. Dan's melodious baritone sang out the pain of his past in a hard, unemotional ballad that they loved to listen to. They were eager to learn of the VC and were mildly assuaged when Dan spoke of them with disgust. The VC had taken his family and his land and thus his life, for the sake of discipline. He would never forgive them. It was the only passion he felt and it was a personal one. The other soldiers interpreted his passion as one against the VC movement. He did not attempt to distinguish the hate for them. It would not change anything for him.

And they were eager to learn of his years with the Marines. Dan spoke of the Marines with mild warmth. They were good years for him and the warm ember of their remembrance was the only pleasure he was able to speak of. So many great battles. So much respect. “I would have stayed with them until I died,” Dan would tell his eager listeners. “It was the best life for me. But they left and there was no place to go. I could not return to my village because of the VC. I have not seen my valley since I was conscripted.” Dan never questioned why the Marines left. It was the nature of things that they would leave. Always the foreigner leaves. This was not their home.

They spent an eerie, restless night amid the ghosts at Khe Sanh, and in the morning began following Route 9 into Laos. The fog was dense and heavy in the lungs and its isolating thickness created an air of unreality about the column's movements. Dan was surprised when Laos appeared no different than Vietnam. He had been sure that different countries would look different. But they are all the same, he had mused in awe. What is this that it is Laos and not Vietnam?

For two weeks they twisted along narrow trails, under thick canopy and bamboo trellises where canopy ended. There was almost no resistance. The Dai Wei ridiculed Dan occasionally. “So we do not know this ‘Laos,’ eh, General? So it is wrong?” Dan did not answer. The North Vietnamese will speak for me, he thought.

He was right. When the column was far enough into the trap that supply lines could be cut, the NVA massed with thousands of troops and hundreds of pieces of heavy equipment. Whole battalions were overrun and destroyed. Dan's battalion had been attacked the day before, and had moved onto a scarred, barren hill in order to defend.

The heavy artillery had shelled the hill for a full day. Dan's battalion now shared an unspoken but permeating conviction that they would be defeated soon. The men stayed in hastily dug fighting holes only because they were more afraid of running than of fighting. There was an undercurrent of panic in every unit.

A medevac helicopter made it through enemy guns and landed on the hill, and was immediately swamped with frightened men. Soldiers hung on to the outsides of the helicopter when the insides were too full. American crewmen cursed the panicking soldiers and kicked at them, knocking them off the helicopter railings so they could depart.

Dan crouched inside his fighting hole, not understanding the depth of the other soldiers’ panic. Why would a man risk his life on a helicopter railing, wondered Dan. It is so stupid. When the helicopter lands he will only be taken by the officers and sent somewhere new to die.

The artillery fire became more intense. The hill was under a cloud of dust. Then there was a creaking rumble to the front, where the arc light had been, and the narrow valley filled with a dozen Russian tanks. The artillery shifted to behind the hill and the tanks charged out of the trees to the front of it, spitting huge explosions and churning curtains of dust behind them. The soldiers watched a Cobra gunship scream above the tanks, pumping rockets. The gunship disintegrated in the air. Someone on the ridge behind the tanks had blown it up with a Russian SAM missile. A second gunship screamed in and also exploded.

When the second gunship blew up there was a high, collective scream of terror and the battalion snapped. Masses of troops and officers fled the hill, running through the artillery barrage behind it. The tanks climbed the hill, taking it easily, and consolidated on the other side of it. Behind the tanks a battalion of NVA advanced in skirmishes, moving quickly up the hill. The Political Officer of the NVA battalion spoke melodiously into a loud speaker. “Hoan ho Bac va Dang! Surrender to us and you will not be harmed. We are fellow countrymen! Throw down your arms and join us in our struggle! Surrender and you will not be harmed!”

Dan had watched the tanks in amazement. There are so many, he had marveled. And they are so good. He knew it would be no use to run. They would kill the ones who ran. He lay curled inside his hole as the tanks passed over him. Then he heard the loudspeaker. He sensed with his natural, uncanny shrewdness that the message was a true one. They truly believe these things, he remarked inwardly. Countrymen. Struggle. They were the words he himself had urged upon villagers years before, when the VC took him into the villages at night.

Dan stood in the haze of dust and put both hands into the air, leaving his rifle in his hole. He joined a group of surrendering men, the men crawling out of similar hiding places, arms in the air. His face was the definition of endurance, cracked with a small, ironic smile. He was not afraid. If they killed him it did not matter. But they would not kill him. He was sure of that. He knew the words they desired to hear and his strong, melodious voice would carry the words into their senses and they would nod and accept his words as urgent truth.

The group of beaten, surrendering men was swallowed by the North Vietnamese. The NVA soldiers were flushed with their victory and eager to interrogate their prisoners.

Dan sighed. They seemed so naive. And it was such a game.