The Summer Garden
“How long before the Bright Lights?”
“Thirty minutes,” said Richter.
“Richter!” yelled Alexander. “We don’t have three fucking minutes!”
One of the Sappers thought to bring an RPG-7. Alexander saw him. Tojo saw him and shouted, “Holy shit! Incoming!” and mowed the man down, but not before a launched rocket sailed through the air, landed twenty feet below Richter’s rocky encampment and exploded upwards into gray sickening smoke.
The radio went dead.
For five seconds as Alexander was running to Richter, there was no sound.
Richter was down.
Three of the six Yards were down.
Tojo fell down and started to cry. “How bad, how bad?” he kept asking Alexander.
“All the fucking way, Tojo,” said Alexander. Richter’s leg was gone, his side gone, his neck had a grapefruit-size hole in it. For a moment Alexander couldn’t speak. He held up Richter and made a sign of the cross on his forehead. Inaudibly Alexander whispered what he had whispered over a thousand men. Lord Jesus Christ, most merciful, Lord of Earth, I ask that You receive this man into Your arms that he might pass safety from this crisis, as You have told us with infinite compassion.
They had to go and go now. “Tojo,” said Alexander to the weeping giant, “we have to move out ASAP or we’re all fucked. They’re going to flank us in the woods and cut off our retreat. I’ll get Mercer and Elkins. Tell your Yards to pick up their fallen and order those who can to fire at tail. Now grab your commander and let’s go.”
Alexander’s hand had remained on Richter’s head. “You’re going to be okay, Tom,” he said. “Just hang tight, man.” He pressed his lips to Richter’s bloody forehead and whispered, “Hang tight, my good friend.” Because there are many mansions in His father’s house, and He is preparing a place for you. Then Alexander jumped up and ran, as Tojo, continuing to cry, lifted Tom Richter off the ground.
The Yards picked up their own. Mercer had gotten hit in the leg and was limping down the trail with Elkins covering him, Alexander covered Tojo, as they ran through the woods in a single file.
Tojo, with Richter on his back, flew down the trail first and fast, but for Alexander, never did one kilometer, three thousand feet, seem so agonizingly long. There were fewer Sappers following them through the woods because they got hosed by another three Claymores at the top of the hill. Those that got through dispersed, trying to flank the U.S. soldiers, and new ones continued coming up from below, but slower. Just not slow enough. The enemy hid in the vines, and Alexander’s Yard at drag kept getting hit—once in the arm, once in the thigh— and falling down. Alexander had to keep coming back to help him up, to push him onward. Little by little, Alexander was getting left farther behind with his Yard, who was now bleeding from the arm and both legs, but still somehow managed to get up, run, crank off rounds. When the Yard couldn’t walk and fire anymore, Alexander carried him through the bamboo, but he couldn’t continue like this, he had to protect his men. He told the Yard to crawl to the clearing as best he could. Alexander alone remained tail gunner, covering his wounded men as they inched to the hook.
Where was that fucking hook?
Mercer got hit again, got up again, slowed down, but never stopped firing. He was very good, that Mercer Mayer. Dogged, stoic, bloody-minded, good. Anthony was right; even wounded, Mercer saw the enemy in the hazel bamboo, saw them and killed them. Elkins, too, but then he got hit in the shoulder and couldn’t hold his rifle with two hands anymore, and became much less accurate. Alexander shouted at him to just bloop the rockets at the moving bushes and forget about sniper fire, and he did.
Alexander ran when he could, hid in bamboo when he couldn’t, and walked half backward, half forward the rest of the time, firing in all directions, trying to weed out the overgrown flanks from the concealed Sappers. He threaded a tripwire like a tail behind him, and quickly set up one of his few remaining Claymores. When the NVA would get close enough for him to see through the foliage, he would lob a frag bomb at the brush; he lobbed three frag bombs, two of his HE shells; he set the woods on fire with his rifle—and still the Sappers kept bunching up; in small groups, hiding, running, shooting and coming.
Alexander thought he heard the sound of the turbine engine and the chopper blades up ahead; maybe it was just wishful thinking. He glanced through the woods. No, it was the Chinook, whup-whup-whup-ping only fifty yards away through the thick trees.
Alexander yelled for Tojo, whom he could barely see. “Tojo, who’s on the hook?”
He heard Tojo’s voice right next him as he grabbed and lifted the badly injured tail Yard. “Almost everyone’s on, sir. I’m taking him in or he won’t make it. You, too, let’s go, Major. Run in front of me.”
“No.” Elkins wasn’t on, Mercer wasn’t on. “Go, Tojo,” said Alexander. “Get him on and come back for those two. Go, I said.” Tojo ran.
Forty yards.
Elkins and Mercer were helping each other up, bleeding, hidden by the trees, wavering, but still firing. They moved five camouflaged yards when Tojo was already back from the chopper.
“Tojo!” Alexander called, “is my son definitely on?”
A voice sounded right next to him. “No, Dad,” Anthony said. “He definitely isn’t.” The M-16 was at his right hip. He was holding it with his one arm.
“Anthony!” yelled Alexander, glaring at Tojo and then at his son. “Are you fucking crazy? Get on that bird!”
“I get on when you get on,” Anthony said. “So let’s go. And leave Tojo out of it. He doesn’t give me orders. I give him orders.”
But there was no way Alexander could get on, with four of his men, including Anthony, still twenty yards away from safety. The remaining NVA men quickly staked out positions trying to move closer to the clearing. The Chinook, which was armed and had a crew, could not open artillery fire blind through the woods where American soldiers were fighting so close to the enemy, the enemy who in one burst of a moment was going to make the landing zone a hot landing zone, a red landing zone, and extraction was going to become exponentially more difficult, if not fucking impossible. And once the NVA got close enough to bloop a rocket at the Chinook, no one would get out. Alexander stopped moving forward and emptied his chambers backward to give Tojo, Elkins and Mercer—and Anthony most of all—a chance to get on the chopper. He got off the trail, hid in the cyprus trees, and fired on automatic without moving a foot to the helicopter.
Mercer and Elkins were finally near the edge of the clearing, slowly limping toward the hook, trying to stay by the vegetation and not come out into the open. Tojo, bleeding from his own neck wound, was moving, but all three remained under fire.
Mercer Mayer got hit again. He fell down and this time did not get up. Tojo returned to pick him up.
Hidden behind the trees, Anthony stood, shoulder to shoulder against his father, firing his rifle from the hip. When his ammo ran out, he dropped the empty magazine to the ground, flipped the weapon under his bandaged stump, muzzle down, barely holding it in place and, stretching out his right hand, said, “Clip, Dad,” to Alexander, who passed him another 20-round magazine. Anthony jammed it up, slammed the catch down, switched the rifle back to his hip and resumed fire. The tracer rounds had been loaded very carefully and conscientiously by Alexander near the very bottom of the magazine with two rounds under them to signal when the clip was about to run on empty.
“Clip.”
“Clip, Dad.”
“Clip.”
“Anthony,” yelled Alexander. “Please! Get on the fucking slick.”
“Clip.” Anthony didn’t even reply to his father.
“Are they on?” Anthony was blocking his view.
Anthony looked. “Elkins is on. Tojo is almost on with Mayer,” he said. They were ten yards from the clearing. There were still dozens of NVA hiding in the fern leaves, spot-shooting at them.
“Motherfuckers,” said Anthony. “Clip, Dad.”
Shoulder
to shoulder they stood in the bamboo.
“Is this like Holy Cross?” Anthony asked.
“No,” said Alexander. Holy Cross had no bamboo, or my son in it.
“Ha Si didn’t make it.” Anthony emitted a small groan. “Clip, Dad.”
How many were left? God, how many had there been? Alexander unloaded a grenade into the bushes. He couldn’t see who he was shooting at anymore, and he nearly couldn’t hear. Throughout his life, in battles like this, his instincts became wolf-like with the flooding adrenaline: he saw and heard and smelled everything with painfully heightened acuity. But he had to admit that the deafening noise from several thousand rounds of sustained fire and from the hook rotary blades was diminishing him.
Hidden by bush, a Sapper lobbed an RPG-7 rocket right into the clearing. The shell exploded fifteen yards from the chopper, which lifted off into the air for a minute before it could set back down in the flaming grass. The Chinook opened brief fire, but the Sappers were deep in the bamboo; you couldn’t see them, you couldn’t get them. They had two, three locations, maybe four. The Chinook gunner on the mounted weapons thought he was shooting at his own men and was forced to stop.
Anthony said, “Dad, rocket at one o’clock for the RPG bastard.”
Alexander loaded a 40mm rocket into the breech, fired at one o’clock.
Anthony was quiet. “Try one more. One o’clock. Not two-fifteen.”
Alexander loaded one more, fired. “That was the last one,” he said, feeling through his vest and bandolier.
“That’s all the motherfucker needed. That was perfect. Clip, Dad.” Dropped the empty magazine, jammed in the new one, resumed fire.
Was there less return fire, or was Alexander just deaf? No, he wasn’t deaf. He heard his son loud and clear:
“Fuck. Clip, Dad.”
Very soon there would be no more clips.
Richter had been right. Tens of thousands of rounds of ammo was not enough.
Moon Lai had been right. They were willing to lose every man to the last, while Alexander wasn’t willing to lose even one.
He had to hold them off long enough for Anthony to get on the hook. Grabbing his son and pushing him away from the trees, Alexander started backing him slowly out to the small clearing, while he continued to walk backwards, firing into the jungle leaves in three-round bursts. Take that, you motherfuckers. And that. Another three rounds.
“Anthony!” he yelled in desperation over the noise of the blades and his rifle. “Please! Can you just get on the fucking hook? Run, I’m covering you. Run. I’m right behind you.”
“Yes, but who is covering you?”
“The gunner. Tojo from the hook. Go, Antman. Go.” Pushing his son, shoving him with his body, continuing to fire. Finally, reluctantly Anthony went.
How long did Alexander’s mad minute last? Fire on all burners at maximum intensity, at maximum velocity? How many magazines had he gone through, how many grenades? How many rounds did he have left before he ran on empty? Go, Anthony, go. Go, son.
Suddenly Alexander wasn’t running. Just like that. He was standing, firing one second, and the next he didn’t even blink and was on the ground. He wondered if he blanked out, blacked out for a moment, maybe got tired, lay down and didn’t remember. He didn’t know what happened. What the fuck, he said, and tried to get up. He could barely sit up. He felt something bubbling up in his throat. Frowning he looked down—and threw up. Blood poured out of his mouth onto his combat vest, oh no, and instantly he was wheezing for breath. He ripped open his vest, his tunic. Blood was coming out from a hole in his chest. Alexander opened his mouth, but he couldn’t breathe; he was choking. His mouth and nose were full of blood he kept trying to cough out, to clear his breathing passage. He reached behind to feel his back. Bits of his battle fatigues mixed with blood and bone came off on his hand. The fucking round went right through him. Alexander became overwhelmed; his eyes clouded; he didn’t know where his son was, if he was all right, if he was on the hook, where he himself was, where the Sappers were. He didn’t know anything. He couldn’t find his emergency kit, and he couldn’t breathe, and he was seriously fucking bleeding.
And he panicked.
And it was at the moment that he was overpowered with fear and anxiety he could not control that from behind him he heard a soft calm familiar voice, a voice not a face—and as soon as he heard it, he said in his own calm, very loud voice, No fucking way, no, Tatiana. Get away from me, and started rummaging wildly for his ruck with blind man’s hands pawing the ground, while her unrelenting voice from behind him blew her breath in his ear and whispered, Alexander, calm down, slow down, and open your eyes. Just calm down, and open your eyes. And you will see.
He crawled back on his haunches, hoping to find a tree to press his back against and tripped over his ruck! Instantly he stuck his hand inside, pulled out the field dressing kit, and with one fumbling hand, managed to get the pressure bar around his chest and pull the rip cord that tightened automatically. The kits were supposed to be worked one-handed by the wounded: that was their purpose in the field. The pressure bar was better than nothing. He pressed his back against a tree, gasping for breath. Suddenly he saw again—Anthony’s desperate face. I’ve been hit but it’s okay, son, Alexander wanted to say. Please—just get on the fucking hook.
Now he knew what the most important thing was: to get on the hook. Everything else they could fix.
With one hand, Anthony was tying a plastic trench around Alexander’s back and chest, wrapping gauze around him, screaming something, holding him up. Alexander thought he saw Anthony mouth to him: Close your eyes, Dad, smoke bomb incoming. Anthony covered Alexander’s mouth and nose with wet gauze, there was a whooshing pop, and suddenly Alexander really couldn’t breathe, and couldn’t see Anthony for all the coal-tar suffocating tear gas around him.
Anthony lifted him up—how did he do this, with one arm?—lifted him and ran through the smoke! Oh, now he runs. Two hundred pounds on top of him—and now he runs.
Was that dimming sound the rotary blades? And wind? And sudden loud fire? Now that there was no one in the woods but the Sappers— Alexander the last man out—the hook opened some serious fucking smoke from the mounted M-60. And then—finally!—the boy was in the bird.
Alexander saw the gray interior of the chopper, saw Anthony above him, as if his head were in Anthony’s lap, and though he couldn’t breathe at all, he could almost breathe now.
Because his boy was in the bird.
And the bird lifted off, whup-whupped in the air with its rotary wings, tilted once toward earth, once toward the bright sun, and flew away.
Alexander wished he weren’t lying down, but obviously he could not sit up anymore or Ant would have sat him up. Anthony knew how much his father hated lying down. There were gravely tense faces around him, Tojo, Elkins, unfamilar faces, a medic. He was being turned over, something was being pressed to him, done to him, then he was on his back again, his tunic was being torn off. He felt great commotion around him.
But Ant was right above him. In such relief Alexander looked at his son’s injured face, but when he turned his head again and opened wide his eyes, he didn’t see Anthony.
Alexander saw Tatiana.
They stared at each other. Every ocean, every river, every minute they had walked together was in their gaze. He said nothing, and she said nothing. She kneeled by him, her hands on him, on his chest, on his heart, on his lungs that took air in but could not move air out, on his open wound; her eyes were on him, and in her eyes was every block of uncounted, unaccounted-for time, every moment they had lived since June 22, 1941, the day war started for the Soviet Union. Her eyes were filled with everything she felt for him. Her eyes were true.
Alexander didn’t want to see her so desperately that he turned his face away, and then he heard her voice. Shura, said Tatiana, you have young sons. You have a baby girl. And I am still so young. I have my whole life still to live. I cannot live another half my life on
this earth without my soul. Please. Don’t leave me, Shura.
He heard other things, other voices. His arms were raised, sharp things prickled his forearm, something was dripping in. A sharp thin long thing went in his side, it felt like he was stabbed from his rib straight to his heart with an ice pick. He couldn’t see anything, not even Tatiana. He couldn’t close or open his eyes at all. They were motionless.
Chapter Seventeen
Kings and Heroes
Heaven
Heaven, as it turned out, was noisy.
Clattery, clangy, fussy, strident. All accompanied by a nearly constant high-pitched detestable whistling very close to his head. And every time it whistled, the ice pick went right back in his heart. Heaven had unpleasant medicinal smells. Was it formaldehyde, to replace the lost blood in his veins and to preserve him as an organic specimen? Was it old decaying blood? Other bodily fluids? Was it bleach to cover it all up? Whatever it was, it was pungent and dreadful. He had always imagined heaven as a place like Tania’s Luga, where in the chirping serene dawn of tomorrow, someone caressed his head, while his hands braided Tania’s hair, who sat between his legs and murmured jokes in her harp of a voice. That was heaven. Perhaps maybe some comfort food in front of him. Blinchiki. Rum over plantains. Maybe a comfort smell or two. Ocean brine. Nicotine. Oh yes! Nicotine. Sitting, smoking, looking at the ocean, hearing the waves break, while behind him in the house, warm bread rose in the oven. Now that was heaven. Rai. And then perhaps other things, too, rooted in the carnal, yet elevated to celestial. Eros and Venus all in one.
But here in this heaven, not only were there none of these things but clearly the things that were here resembled more a mountain of purgatory than a meadow of serenity. Ad. There was cacophony everywhere and grating sounds: of slamming doors, of creaking windows, of hurrying feet. Of things being dragged and scraped on linoleum floors, of metal pans falling, spilling, of loud language accompanying them like carnage, coming from irritated, frustrated throats. “Oh hell! Can’t you just once watch where you’re going! How many times do I have to tell you! Look what you did! Who the hell is going to clean that shit up?” Flying flapping screeching bats.