War Year (9 page)

Guess I had fallen into the same rhythm the 60 was using. I sat down to reload and Willy got up to shoot. “Okay, Willy, I'll be more careful.”

Pop-pop-pop. “You better. We might—” Pop-pop-pop. “—need this ammo more—” Pop-pop. “—after Prof gets back.” Pop-pop-pop-pop. He was shooting just as fast as I had.

“Hey, Willy, slow down yourself!” He started counting to five between bursts. Seemed like a good idea, so I did the same.

Seemed like it took Prof an age to get up the hill. But I was just starting my third turn when he got to the top, so I guess it was about two minutes.

In the movies, I guess Prof would get shot and Willy'd go up to rescue him, and Willy'd get shot and I'd go up and save the day, or maybe get shot, too… but actually, whoever had fired at us earlier was either gone or keeping his head down, because Prof set the charges, lit the fuse, and crawled back down the hill without drawing any enemy fire. When he got back to the perimeter he yelled, “Fire in the hole!” three times, to warn everybody that the big boom wouldn't mean the Russians were coming.

It wasn't such a big boom anyhow—about as loud as one of the artillery shells we had gotten so used to hearing. The little tree flew away like a toothpick, and the bigger one gave a lurch and fell over. Lots of gray smoke and splinters flying.

The firing on the left flank had stopped before Prof went up the hill. When we went back, everyone was digging furiously, trying to build some kind of bunker while it was still light. Prof and I set to digging while Willy took the ax and got us some saplings for overhead.

It was almost dark by the time we finished. We were heating up some C's when we got word that we had to supply perimeter guards all night; two men on, one man off. That meant each of us would only get four hours of sleep. And boy, had I looked forward to hitting that sack.

Shouldn't have worried, though. Nobody was going to get very much sleep that night.

EIGHT

They attacked during the watch when the Professor was getting his four hours' sleep. Willy and I were on top of a bunker on the perimeter. It was about two o'clock and totally black.

We had orders not to shoot until we absolutely had to; the muzzle flash and tracer rounds would give our position away. We had plenty of hand grenades, though; and even though you can't see where you're throwing them, at least they can't be traced back to you.

There was a little radio in each foxhole, a PRC-25 (which everybody called a prick-25). Every perimeter bunker had a code name, starting with Tiger-1, then Tiger-2, Tiger-3, and so on up to Tiger-15. Tiger-1 was the command bunker, where the captain was. We were in Tiger-7. There were three observation posts, Oscar Poppa One, Two, and Three; groups of four men each, sitting about fifty feet outside of the perimeter to give us early warning. Oscar Poppa Two was right out in front of us, and that was where the battle started. It started out real quietly.

The prick-25 whispered. “Tiger-1, this is Oscar Poppa Two. Over.”

“Oscar Poppa Two, this is Tiger-1. Boss speaking.” That was the captain's code name. “What's up? Over.”

“We've got movement out front. Maybe fifteen meters. Over.”

“How many? Over.”

“Hard to say, Boss. More than ten. Over.”

“Well, come back in. If they hear you, chuck some grenades at them. Out.”

“Roger, Tiger-1. Oscar Poppa Two out.”

“All stations, this is Tiger-1. Oscar Poppa One, Oscar Poppa Three, you come in, too. Tigers, hold your fire until all the Oscar Poppas are in. Over.”

“Think we better go wake up Prof?”

“No,” I said, “if anything happens, he'll be up soon enough—you scared as I am?”

“Shitless.”

“Me too.”

“Tiger-7, this is Tiger-1. Over.”

Willy beat me to the radio. “Tiger-1, this is Tiger-7. Over,” he whispered.

“Tiger-7, I want you to trade stations with Tiger-9; that's Pig's M-60 team. Over. Tiger-9, this is Tiger-l. Did you monitor that? Over.”

The radio crackled. “Roger, Tiger-1, this is Tiger-9; we did monitor and we're on our way. Over.”

“Well, at least we won't be so close if Charlie follows them in.” I started gathering up grenades and ammo.

“Yeah, they'll walk right into that 60—think we oughta wait for Pig?”

“I guess so. Got everything of yours?”

“Six grenades, two bandoliers.” Footsteps to our right. “That you, Pig?”

“Yeah. Y'all go on now, two bunkers over, leave your radio.”

Took us about two minutes to find the place, even though we could see it before the sun went down. Pig's radio was squawking when we got there.

“… repeat, all stations, everybody, in your bunkers. We have friendly artillery coming in on the old Oscar Poppa Two position. Over and out.”

I jumped into the bunker and landed on top of Willy. He was pretty fast when he wanted to be.

“Jesus Christ—that's only fifty feet away!”

“We'll be all right in the—” the world bucked and heaved and shrapnel sang through the air. I could feel the artillery explosions in my teeth and my eyes. Willy's face was chalk-white in the light from the explosions. It only lasted a few seconds.

“Goddamn—you could see the flashes,” Willy said. I could hardly hear him for the ringing in my ears. “They've never been that close before.”

“Yeah… but think of what it's doing to Charlie.”

“Let's hope.”

After a minute a bunch of grenades went off, over by Tiger-7. Then automatic rifle fire, with green tracers, coming
into
camp. The artillery barrage hadn't gotten all of them.

Pig answered the rifle fire with his M-60, pouring lead into the jungle at ten rounds a second. Every third round was an orange tracer; it looked like he was spraying a solid line of flame.

A hand grenade went off pretty near, and in the flash Willy and I saw a man walking toward us, not more than ten feet away. I picked up my rifle.

“Wait!” Willy whispered. He pulled the pin out of a grenade and threw it side-arm out of the bunker. “Down!” I was already down.

It went off with a flat CHUNK and Willy got up and threw another. It went off and Willy said, “I think we better get out of the bunker.”

“Are you crazy, Willy? With all that shit flying around?”

“Look, Farmer, all they gotta do is roll one grenade in here, and they'll be scrapin' both of us off the walls. Let's get out and lie down
behind
the bunker.” I could see the sense in that, so we laid our weapons outside and hoisted ourselves up.

Looked like the battle was just about over. Pig's 60 was shooting in short bursts, but there wasn't any return fire. Tiger-6 and Tiger-8 fired M-16's into the jungle.

Then there was a whooshing sound and an orange ball of fire blossomed in front of Tiger-7. Somebody screamed. Another whoosh, this time the machine-gun bunker exploded and whoever was screaming, stopped.

“What the fuck is that?”

“Sounds like a bazooka,” I said. “Does Charlie have bazookas?”

“Look, anything we've got, Charlie can steal. Just hope he doesn't have too many rounds.”

“Think we oughta get back in the bunker?” Another whoosh. Hit just behind Tiger-6.

“Hell, no—you get in if you want. I'd rather take my chances up here.”

The bazooka, or whatever it was, blasted a round right on top of Tiger-8. I was glad that we hadn't been shooting. He seemed to have zeroed in on everybody who'd given away their position with tracers.

Then we had a stroke of luck. The infantry had rigged the woods outside of the perimeter with trip flares, bright super sparklers that would go off if somebody tripped over a wire. There was a loud pop! and the jungle was flooded with light.

We saw them right away—two enemy soldiers in front of where Tiger-7 used to be, one of them with a long tube balanced on his shoulder. The other one had a bazooka round in his hand and another tucked under his arm. Willy and I opened up on them with our M-16's.

The ammunition bearer ran for the woods, and I think he got away. The other man was braver; he swung the tube around to where it was pointing at us, then one of us hit him and he flopped over backwards, shooting his last round into the trees where it exploded right over him.

That was the end of the battle. No telling how many enemy were involved, how many got away. We only found three bodies in the morning.

But the choppers took away three badly wounded GI's and six bodies, including Pig. That round, we had to admit, went to Charlie.

NINE

Willy and the Professor and I spent another three weeks in the field, without getting into any more fire-fights. Then one evening a chopper came in with three engineers, guys I'd never met (though they knew Prof), who took over. The three of us took the chopper back to the fire base.

The fire base wasn't on Alamo anymore. They'd moved to a place called Plei Djaran, in the middle of a grassy field about a mile wide. They even had a landing strip for light planes. There was a mess tent serving two hot meals a day, and a beautiful river just down the road where we could swim a couple of times a week.

Nothing much happened the month we were there. We spent most of our time putting up barbed wire around the perimeter. At night we'd sit in the dark and drink beer when we had it, listening to Radio 560, the army's Pleiku station, which played mostly soul music, and a little country and western. One of the guys had some pot, but there wasn't any place we could go to smoke it in privacy, and the Fourth Division is pretty strict about it; get caught and you'll spend a couple of months in LBJ, Long Binh Jail.

The three of us went back out to A Company on the first of May 1968. I was starting to feel like a real old-timer, especially since most of the guys recognized me and Willy from last time. They had had it pretty easy while we were gone; only one light contact. The brass said things were quiet because the 66th NVA (North Vietnamese Army) Regiment, who had been giving A Company such hell since February, had moved on south, toward Saigon. I didn't care what the reason was, but I was mighty glad that things were going to be less dangerous.

Sure enough, we moved around for a couple of weeks without so much as a peep from Charlie. Just walked around the boonies all day, dug in at night, got up in the morning, and humped all day again…

Things were going so easy that I guess I can't blame Prof for being careless. I might have done the same thing.

Prof and I were “walking point”; that is, we were at the front of the center file. I'd be in front for an hour, Prof second; then we'd switch and Prof'd be in front for an hour. This was the worst place to be in the center file, because you're usually the first one to go if you run into an ambush, and you get the first chance to step on any mines or booby traps that might be along the path.

So when you walk point, you're supposed to be especially careful to watch the ground and not step on anything peculiar-looking. Of course, you're supposed to watch the jungle, too, for whatever good it'll do. You can walk within five feet of a good ambush and not know it's there.

But the company hadn't ever come across a mine—they aren't common in the Highlands—and there hadn't been an ambush since the first day we joined the company.

We've got an antipersonnel mine, and I guess Charlie has it too, called a “Bouncing Betty.” When a person steps on it, it doesn't just go off; first a little charge goes off that shoots it up to about chest-high, then it explodes.

I was looking off to the side when Prof stepped on the thing. It was pop-BANG! and I went down like I'd been hit by a truck. Pain like big bee stings up and down my left side. A big purple splotch was spreading along the inside of my leg. I clamped both hands over it and blood oozed out between my fingers. There was another stain welling out on my knee and while I watched I could see other, smaller ones, break out all over the leg. My left arm was covered with little bleeding pockmarks from tiny frags and blood started dripping from my chin. “Medic,” I tried to shout, but it didn't come out too loud, so I tried again, and again, getting louder each time.

A medic came running up, crouched low. “Just lie down for a sec, Farmer, I've gotta check on the point man.”

Prof was lying face-down in a puddle of blood. There was a hole in his neck so big that his head almost fell off when the medic turned him over. His face was blown away completely and his body was ripped open from throat to balls. I fainted.

I came to when they rolled me onto a stretcher. God, that hurt. My right arm was strapped to my side, blood feeding into it from a plastic bag a medic held over my head. There was a helicopter up the trail a ways, and they carried me there, walking very carefully. Guess somebody had told them to watch their step.

When they clamped the stretcher into the chopper, I saw that one of the guys carrying it was Willy. He grabbed my hand and said something, but I couldn't hear it over the roar of the slick's engine, so I just nodded.

It was a long ride. Seemed even longer when I saw what was on the floor, a rolled-up poncho with bloody boots sticking out from one end. Prof was going home early.

We landed in the Ban Me Thuot trains area, and two husky medics carried my stretcher down into a huge underground bunker, all lit up with fluorescent lights. They plonked me down on a table, and a man in a white coat came up with a clipboard.

“What's your name and serial number, son?”

“John Farmer, US 11575278.” He wrote it down and put the clipboard away. He picked up a pair of scissors and started cutting away my trousers.

“Now we aren't gonna… take any stitches or anything, here—I just want to put new bandages on you and maybe give you a little shot. You'll be going to a regular hospital in about an hour.” He also cut off my left boot. “Whoops—here's one the medic missed—son, did you know you'd been hit in the foot?”