“I can’t be sure who to suggest for a grader operator. He definitely won’t be a replacement for Brad. So maybe, if its just spreading and moving crushed rock one of the younger operators deserve the chance for some experience.”
“Yeah. I hear you. Who.”
“Young Egan. Can’t remember his first name, but I saw him working sand near the taxiway one day and was handling it all right.”
“See?”
“See what, Chief?”
“See how easy it was once you made up your mind to do it. I’ll put him out with Brad the rest of this week so between you two hot shots the kid will get a good start.”
“You are so damn sneaky. You wanted me to tell you Egan. You didn’t want to be the one to bring him up.”
“Yeah. I thought about him but wanted to hear from somebody else who had seen him operating to mention him.
By the way, his first name is Fred.” With the last word and a wave, Thomas turned his jeep around and drove off back towards Chu Lai.
“Let’s go get some chow.” Dan Davis hollered at the cargo truck full of equipment operators. “We did good today. Tomorrow is another day and 0700 is an early start time.
Did I tell you guys, the Marine mine sweep is going to be 90 minutes earlier every day until we finish this project. We leave the Alpha Company compound at 0630. Also the chow hall will be open for us a 0530.
NO QUARTERS for you guys! Be at the truck outside Alpha Company at 0615!
And remember, EVERYONE who goes out the gate will carry their weapon. NO EXCEPTIONS!
I will check that there’s a weapon in every truck and on every piece of equipment.
The Powers-to-be think that Charlie may not like us helping out the First Cav. The Chief and I agree with that thinking. So be on the lookout for anything strange or any Vietnamese you can’t identify. Some of you guys haven’t worked on the road or outside the wire before so you stick with and follow the lead of any of the regular road crew.”
On Tuesday morning just before 0900 Linh appeared at the laterite pit along with several other girls who usually hung around the Army’s Brigade headquarters gate. Honcho saw her from where Dan had parked the crew’s trailer and went down to meet her. Dan had parked the trailer on a little knoll out of the way of the equipment. Yesterday he had had the loader operator rough a road, which was more trail than road, a short ways into a stand of 15 and 20 foot tall trees on the knoll so the trailer would be out of sight of the road and in the shade most of the day.
Honcho reappeared a few minutes later and came over to where Dan was watching the access roads to the pit.
“Linh is here. I told her to stay by the trailer. OK?”
“Yeah Honcho. That’s all right.
Have you talked to the Elders since yesterday morning?”
“Yes. Before you came today.”
“Everything all right? They aren’t upset about the graves?”
“One man said that we are too close to his family, but the old ones said that it was okay.”
“Which grave Honcho?”
“The one at the bottom where the big tractors come out.”
“Okay, the scrapers. Like that one coming back?” Dan pointed out a empty scraper which was just coming back into the pit.
“Yes. The scrapers.” Honcho nodded happily. He now knew the name of another piece of Seabee equipment.
“All right. I’ll get some red flagging and we’ll go down and put it up on another stake or so to make it easier to see. OK?”
Dan walked back to the trailer. Linh was sitting on his flak jacket in the shade of a mango tree sipping on Dan’s canteen cup she had put some ice water in. “Hi, how are you today.” He asked her.
“Hi yourself. Honcho brought me up and said that I could stay here where it’s cool.”
“Yeah, that’s fine. Just stay out of sight if any jeeps come.
I’ll be back in a few minutes. Honcho and I are going down to the road to mark a grave better.”
“I’ll stay here out of the way.”
With a wave Dan grabbed a roll of engineer’s red flagging and started down the Vietnamese’s trail through the graves and down to the road.
Starting back up the hill, Dan turned and looked at their handiwork before Honcho spoke. “That will make the family very happy that you are respectful of their family.”
Just as Dan and Honcho were walking along the access road before returning to the trailer Thomas pulled up their trail and stopped. When they reached the trailer Tom was getting a drink out of a cooler and talking to Linh. He waited until Dan picked up his now empty canteen cup and splashed some ice water into it. “You comfortable with what is going on down on the road? Looks like they just descended on you this morning.”
“They did. Showed up about 0900.”
“Linh seems to think that one of them is an agitator. Maybe VC. She say anything to you about her?”
“We haven’t had a chance to say more than Hi. Honcho and I had to go down and hang more flagging on that first grave. The family was afraid that the scrapers were going to run over it.”
“That’s all right. I’m thinking we should have some daytime security there so none of them get any ideas about interfering with the equipment. Our security is pretty well tied up, but the Army at Brigade headquarters has said they would provide you with security. They’ve already posted guards on the new pads.”
“Might be a good idea. That one female has always been out spoken. Really more like out shouting but not really agitating just too damn mouthy.”
The one standing in the middle of the road now?” Chief Thomas asked.
“Yeah that’s her.
Honcho do you know her?”
“She is not from around here. She stays in the village across the road.”
“Linh?” Dan got her attention and motioned for her to come up to where he and the chief were standing next to his jeep. “Know that girl standing out in the road?”
“She is what you call a trouble maker. She does not like me and calls me a capitalist pig and a whore to you. I’m afraid of her.”
“Okay that settles it. Keep your eye on her Dan. At least until I can get some security out here to watch her and keep them out of the road before she or somebody else gets the idea of pushing one of those kids under a truck or scraper to create an incident.
Should be before lunch. Most of those doggies would do about anything to get out of that compound.”
“Can we get the Athey wagons, Tom? They would speed things up and work really well on building up the access roads between pads. Our supply of dumps is somewhat spastic day to day and Duke doesn’t always have enough dumps to keep busy. Duke has widen the pit enough to handle them now, and we can back them in off the highway without much hassle.”
“That will work. Don’t know if we can get them today, but we’ll have them tomorrow for sure.”
Thomas started for his jeep. “The Old Man, (Battalion Commander) and Operations Officer may stop by later, so keep those two interpreters out of sight and keeping a low profile. I’m sure Mr. Roberts will be with them and will smooth anything he has to. He knows about Honcho and is trusting us to keep him out of dangerous grounds.”
“Gotcha Tom. See ya later.”
By 1530 the heat of the day had arrived and Dan was coming back to the trailer for a drink of ice water and the cooler shade of the trees. He had been up and down the hill several times since lunch and was growing uncomfortable with the building commotion going on at the entrance of the pit where the Vietnamese girls were hanging out. The one they had decided was an agitator was harassing the Army corporal that had been dropped off for security. When he first arrived the girls, even the agitator, was quiet and respectful of him. As the day wore on the corporal started buying and drinking Vietnamese beer, the GIs called ‘Tiger piss’ after its trademark name ‘Tiger Beer’, from the girls and as he grew drunker,
the agitator grew bolder and more aggressive.
Dan was watching events from the trailer as he sipped on his ice water. He felt her take his hand in her soft, callus-free city girl hand. “Come over here. It’s hot and you haven’t sat down all afternoon.” He yielded to the pressure to turn into her and as she moved closer. Felt her thigh against his and the warm pressure of her almost bare breasts on his chest.
No bra on today. I guess she gets too hot.
She gently lead his left hand through the opened front of her shirt and he felt the bare skin of the curves of her right breast. She had unbuttoned several buttons on her blue silk shirt just far enough so her firm young breasts were exposed to his eyes.
“Please?” She asked and gently started to lead him away from the trailer and deeper into the shade of the trees.
He took several steps to follow her and allowed his right hand to run down her smooth silky skinned backside and under the waistband of her pants. What in hell am I doing?
She has no panties on either.
He looked into her eyes and was confused by what he saw. The emotion of love or desire that is always in Suzie’s eyes and on her face isn’t here. I have never made love to a woman who didn’t have some kind of emotion in her eyes. What kind of game are we playing here? ‘Take me to America?’ Or is she VC?
A bad actress who has forgotten her lines or was forgetting to act?
They were almost out of sight of the trailer and his M14 when Dan heard the “crack”-“crack” of two rounds being fired from an M14. He took his hand from her breast and dropped her hand. A few quick steps and he reached for his M14 and was searching for the source of the shots.
Honcho, who a moment ago was sitting on the trailer hitch scooted around the trailer and dove under it.
Dan saw the Army corporal raise his weapon as the agitating Vietnamese girl ran out into the road in front of him and started to taunt him to the delight of the other girls.
Although Dan couldn’t hear what she was hollering over the noise of many different pieces of heavy earthmoving equipment there was no doubt it was nasty and she was really getting under his skin.
The corporal fired another round into the ground in front of the girl screaming what Dan believed were probably obscenities at her.
Dan was almost to them and close enough to be heard by the army corporal. “At ease soldier!” He hollered as loud as he could. “Back off, now! Put that weapon down! Now!”
The Corporal looked up. Saw Dan with his weapon raised coming at him fast and a look of confusion flash across his face. He lowered his weapon hastily and looked around again still confused. The agitator was not insight. In the few seconds Dan took his eyes off of her to deal with the weapon she had disappeared.
When he was only a few yards from the soldier Dan slowed down to a careful walk and approached him. Dan reached out as he drew closer to him. “Give me the weapon, Corporal.”
“Yes Sir.” And he raised the M14 up with his left hand on the forearm and handed it to Dan.
Several Seabees had left their equipment and were armed standing in the haul road behind Dan.
“Would a couple of you move these girls back out onto the shoulder of the Highway. Check that no one has been shot and if you see that little agitator run her off or let me know and we’ll have the ARVN deal with her. Or better still the Koreans.”
Dan led the soldier up the trail to the trailer, drew him some ice water. “Sit and drink this.”
“Yes Sir.”
“And don’t call me Sir. I’m only a couple pay grades above you”
Dan heard the whine of a weapons carrier coming up the trail and looked to see the Engineering Aides who worked the road job and now the helicopter pads pulled up.
The driver leaned out the window towards Dan. “You need some help Dan? We heard those shots up the road.”
“Got any idea where Thomas is?”
“We saw him about 30 or so minutes ago. Do you need him?”
“Yeah. I think I’ll let him handle this one. This soldier needs a transfer to less volatile grounds.
Can you raise him on the horn for me?”
“Sure.” The EA riding shotgun was already on the radio and in a few seconds hollered out his window. “He’ll be hear in about five minutes.”
“Want us to stick around, Dan?”
“It’s up to you if you want a break.
On second thought. Can you go back down on the road and keep those girls out on the highway and off the haul road so my operators can get back to work?”
“You got it.” With a wave the EAs backed off the hill and parked down on the highway before getting out of their weapons carrier to corral the Vietnamese girls onto the shoulder of the highway out of the way of the equipment.
After Chief Thomas had arrived, heard the story and took the corporal and his rifle back to Brigade, Dan realized that only Honcho was still around. “Where’s Linh, Honcho?”
“She left. Went down the path and onto the highway while you were down on the road.”
“Was she upset?” Realizing the Honcho might not understand the term ‘upset’ he tried rewording with no results. Honcho still had a confused look which was unusual for him.
“She took C-rats before she went. Filled her basket and took your canteen cup.”
“You okay, Honcho?’
“Yeah. I think that girl is a VC.”
“How about Linh?”
“She is family. I don’t know though. My mother’s family is from the North. Maybe Linh is also from there.
Do you want me to go?”
“No Honcho. I still want you as my interpreter. You need some cold water?”
‘Yes, please.”
“Where you scared?”
“Yes. Sometimes it is hard not to trust somebody. Especially if you like her.”
Out of the mouths of babes. Dan thought. Smart little shit isn’t he?
The ten days from day one of starting the building of the First Cav’s helicopter pads until today, the tenth and final day, passed quickly. They had built over thirty pads, a huge LZ plus access roads and several maintenance pads where the army engineers were now constructing Quonset huts for the helicopter mechanics.
Dan stood by the crew’s trailer and was impressed by the hole Duke had dug with the NW6 loading out dump trucks and Athey wagons. A little further south was the slot the two scrapers had made as they loaded out fill.
“You got some big holes to fill in and shape up, Dan.”
He hadn’t paid any attention to the whine of a jeep coming up the trail which was barely audible under the sounds of a loaded Athey wagon pulling out of the pit on its last trip and Kramer on his double barrel Euclid scraper making his way up the hill to scrape up a load on its return down the hill. Chief Thomas had arrived almost quietly in comparison.
“Morning Tom. I actually didn’t hear you. Yeah, we did make some big holes out here.
We going to shut the haul down soon?”
“Yes. The Army is going to finish up. We’ll let the scrapers work all day but shut down the Athey wagons after they each make another round. After the last load goes out tell Duke to start walking the 6 to the Chu Lai gate. It will take him the better part of the day to get it there and we want it inside the wire before dark.
The motor pool will bring your D8 out from the shop and leave it inside the wire by the pads. Tomorrow morning you can walk it out here and start dressing up the hill.
Do you want a ‘shotgun’?”
“I don’t think so. Play it day by day? I haven’t heard anything from the Brigade about any VC activity. Have you?”
“Operations have said that the intelligence reports put them out of the local area. There will be a lot of helicopter activity from the First Cav starting before the weekend. The drift I get from the army engineers is that the Hueys will start coming in late tomorrow afternoon or evening. The
ir support vehicles and people will be here early in the morning.
Brad is going to help them out for at least two more days, then go back inside the wire to play in the sand some more.”
“So Ryder will get Egan to work the road?”
“Definitely. He’s with Brad now and will keep the grader when Brad leaves.”
TWENTY
For the next three days Dan enjoyed running the D8 Cat that the battalion had acquired from RMK contractors, (Rogers, Morrison,& Knudsen,) the military contractor who had to pull out of the area as VC activity increased and the Seabees took up their contracts.
The days were sunny, and warm with an onshore breeze that brought in the faint smells of the South China Sea to somewhat override the smells of the rice paddies which dominated the whole area. The breeze grew a little cooler towards the top of the hill so he would hesitate for a minute after backing the Cat to the top and before starting another push down.
Pausing at the top and enjoying the view offered from the height of the hill, Dan couldn’t help but think about the difference between the last couple days and last week. So different from last week. No other engines screaming up and down the hill and road. Nobody else to worry about, just me. And no Vietnamese girls getting in the way or harassing me to buy weed or beer. Almost as nice as Okinawa except there are a few people around here who would like to kill us. Also no Suzie to go home to at night.
Wonder if Tomi is pregnant? I shouldn’t say anything to Brad one way or the other. Suzie said that she saw her Tuesday. That was the 9th and she did mention having a doctor’s appointment sometime in the next couple weeks as part of getting paperwork together so she and Brad could get married.
Who’s that?
Dan saw a jeep pull onto the bottom of the hill and it just sat there for a minute so he put the Cat in gear and pushed a huge blade full of laterite over the remaining face of the NW6 pit before allowing the Cat to drop over the edge and down the steep slope to the floor of the pit. He put the D8 in neutral as the jeep came towards him. Dropped the blade onto the ground and climbed off onto the ground.
Chief Thomas climbed out of his jeep.handed Dan a icy cold can of Budweiser. “It’s almost 1500. Let’s call it a day. You’re the only one still working out here. Even the EAs have called it a day.”