“A what?” Peewee threw down his cards.
“You’re a welcher!” Walowick said.
“How you spell that?”
“And you’re dumb, too,” Walowick added.
“Perry, how you spell it?” “W-E-L-C-H-E-R,” I said. “It means you don’t pay your debts.”
“What else it mean?”
I didn’t know if it meant anything else. That’s when Peewee said he was going to HQ hooch where they kept a dictionary.
“If they got anything in there about race I’m gonna come back here and shove a grenade up your ass!”
Peewee stormed out of our hooch. Brunner was shaking his head.
“Guy’s a moron,” he said.
“Suppose it does have another meaning?” Walowick said.
“Then you got a grenade up your butt,” Johnson said.
Walowick left the hooch and went looking for a dictionary so he would know if he was going to have to look out for Peewee. I found Peewee drinking a soda behind the water tank.
“You find the dictionary?” I asked.
“Yeah, but I still ain’t giving up Mary Wells.”
That night, though, Mary Wells mysteriously disappeared from under Peewee’s pillow.
Sunday. The chaplain came around and asked if we wanted to come to nondenominational services. We said we would all be at the services. Only me, Walowick, and Peewee went.
It was good. The chaplain said nice things. He asked God to bless all the guys that had been killed and wounded, and to protect all of us. We sang a hymn and ended the services holding hands and saying the Twenty-third Psalm. It made me feel good.
I went back to our hooch and hit the nets. Ramsey Lewis was on the radio and I really got into it. I could almost imagine being home. The squad had just got some new barrels for the sixties and two new M-79 S. They were sitting around a tin can full of carbon tet cleaning the cosmolene off the weapons. The whole hooch smelled of the carbon tet and the guys were getting a little giddy.
“Hey, y’all hear about the dudes collecting ears from dead Congs and wearing them around their necks?” Monaco asked.
“That’s rough stuff,” Lobel said.
“It ain’t nothing to mess with a Cong once he dead,” Johnson said. “You cut the mother’s ears off while he still alive and kicking — then you doing something.”
“And what you gonna say to Mr. Cong when he catch your ass with them damn ears?” Peewee said. “’Scuse me, Mr. Cong, I just taking these here ears to the lost and found?”
“I don’t know.” Monaco sighted down the sixty barrel. “You got to be like the Cong to get him.” “They just selling wolf tickets to themselves,” Johnson said. “They see them ears round their necks and tell themselves they ain’t scared.”
“You ain’t scared over here, you a fool,” Peewee said. “Ain’t that right Perry?”
“You guys better open the hooch door and let some of those carbon tet fumes out before we’re all high,” I said.
“That’s why they give us carbon tet,” Lobel said. “To get high.”
I wanted to get up and open the hooch door myself but just then Brunner came in. As soon as we saw him whipping out his notebook we knew we were going on patrol.
“There was some activity down near a stream about four kilometers away,” Brunner said. “We’re going to check it out to make sure that no charlies are slipping through.”
“What stream?” Monaco asked.
“The Song Nha Ngu River,” Brunner said.
Peewee had been drinking a Coke; he started with a fit of laughter, and snorted the Coke out through his nose and all down the front of his T-shirt. He started laughing and trying to wipe the snot off his chin at the same time.
“Is he high?” Brunner put on his pissed-off face.
“Naw, he ain’t high,” Johnson said. “Go on with what you got to say, man.”
Brunner shot Johnson a look and went on talking about how Intelligence had got wind of heavier than usual traffic near the stream. Peewee kept giggling.
“What the hell is so funny?” Brunner turned to him and asked.
“You say we going to the Sha Na Na River?” Peewee asked. “That’s what you said.”
“I didn’t say anything about no Sha Na Na River,” Brunner said, checking his notes.
“That’s right next to the Del Valleys,’ ” Monaco said.
“All you guys have to worry about is identifying and killing charlies,” Brunner snapped. He stood and stormed out of the hooch.
“How we gonna identify them when they don’t even know who they are?” Peewee said. “You catch you a Vietnamese and ask him what he is, and he got to check out your piece. You got an American weapon and he say GI number one. You got one of them Russian AK-47 S, and he say VC number one.”
Bad news. Gearhart was going with the other squads to patrol another sector. That made Brunner the squad leader. All we were supposed to do, according to Brunner, was to check out the river. The rivers in the area were small, almost drying out in the dry season, and swelling in the rainy season. This one crossed a road, Route 586, and it was there that the main activity had been seen.
“If they’ve seen so much activity, how come we re going out by ourselves?” I asked Brunner.
“We’re not supposed to engage any large units,” Brunner said. “Stewart said we should try to get some prisoners.”
“How long he got to go over here?” Peewee asked.
“I don’t know,” Brunner said. “Maybe a month at the most. They just turned down his extension.”
“Then we making the last big push for his promotion,” Johnson said.
The choppers did the same thing to my stomach. Just the sound of them coming in put me in a panic. My arms and legs felt heavy. My palms were sweating. I didn’t want to go out anymore. I had had enough.
“Let’s go!”
I went. Again. Don’t think, react.
The landing zone spooked me. It was supposed to be near an ARVN ranger outpost, but I didn’t see any of the South Vietnamese elite troops around.
It took us an hour of cautious walking before we spotted the stream. We stopped a distance from it, maybe the distance from home plate to the left field fence in a regular stadium. On a good day I could have hit a ball that far. How long had it been since I had hit a baseball? I figured it was only sixteen months. It seemed a different lifetime.
We spread out and started looking around. Nothing. I turned and looked back toward the skies. The choppers were already distant silhouettes against the darkening skies.
“Move out!” There was something about Brunner’s voice I didn’t like. He was trying to make it sound like he had more confidence than he did.
There was a ridge off to our left about three hundred meters. It was bad news. It looked down on the stream and made good cover for anybody who might be up there.
We didn’t want to go along the stream with the ridge on our flank. Nobody wanted to go up on the ridge, either. Brunner sent Lobel and Walowick to check out the ridge while the rest of us covered them.
Covered them. Big joke. If there were any Congs there they would get wasted, and all we would be able to do is to chase the Congs off while we picked up the bodies. If we were lucky.
Walowick and Lobel waded across the stream.
The waist-deep water was moving slowly, and flecks of white foam caught the last rays of sunset. I was glad to see them climb out on the other side. They started up the ridge. It was rough going, and even slower than I thought it would be. We watched as they climbed slowly toward the top. I prayed that it would be clear. I asked God to let it be clear, just this once.
Walowick looked, then stood, then signaled. It was clear. I hoped I hadn’t used up a prayer I didn’t have to.
Walowick and Lobel came back and we started sweeping the stream. There was a saddle, a low section in the ridge a hundred meters downstream that was about as scary as anything I had seen. If Walowick and Lobel had misse
d the Cong on the ridge, the saddle would be the perfect spot for an ambush. I wondered how many prayers I had left. I wondered if Buddha was answering prayers on the other side.
We didn’t see anything for the first kilometer out.
“Let’s get back,” Johnson said. “It’s going to start raining.”
“We got another kilometer to go,” Brunner said.
Lobel was the first. He turned and looked at Johnson. What was Johnson going to do? Nobody had said anything about Johnson, but we all knew he was taking over the squad. The hell with Brunner’s stripes, Johnson was taking over.
Johnson shrugged, shouldered the sixty, and kept on. Brunner was visibly relieved.
Monaco was on point. I was rear man. We went out a quarter of a mile more, until we could just about see Route 586, when Monaco halted us and pointed toward the ridge line. I looked up, checked my safety to make sure it was off, and waited.
“I don’t see nothing!” Brunner called out.
Monaco leaned forward, and pointed again.
Brunner had glasses and he checked out the ridge line. I saw that Monaco was edging back toward us. He was motioning to one side of the stream and we started moving toward it. He had seen something, but it wasn’t necessarily on the ridge. We backed toward what we hoped was enough cover for a firefight.
“I don’t see anything up there!” Brunner shouted. He looked nervous.
Monaco spun back toward the direction he had been going in and opened up, shooting into the water. We froze as we saw the rounds kicking up the water. There was nothing there. I thought Monaco was wrong. Then there was a splash and a figure. It looked, in the dim light of evening, as if he were standing in the water, masturbating. Then I saw that it was a Cong, trying to get his wet weapon to work.
Johnson opened up and blew him away.
“Reeds!” Monaco shouted. “They’re in the water!”
We got to the sides of the stream and opened up on the reeds. Suddenly the reeds became people, trying to get out of the water, returning our fire. There was fire from the sides of the stream as well. We moved back fifty meters and set up. Walowick had the grenade launcher and was sending them into the bushes at the side of the stream.
“Watch the ridge! Watch the ridge!” Lobel called out.
We were all watching it already. It could have been a trap. We fired and fired until there was no return. I wanted to move out, so did the rest of the guys, but Brunner gave the order to move forward.
The water the reeds floated in was stained dark with blood. There were four bodies on the side of the stream, one we could see just under the water. Lobel put a shot into it and it jerked up. The guy was still alive! He tried to run, and Lobel hit him with a short burst that sent him whirling, his arms over his head as if he were dancing.
“I killed him!” Lobel turned toward us. His eyes were wild. He looked back at the body that now floated faceup in the water, that now slid below the surface into the darkness.
“I killed him!”
Lobel was shaking. He had killed his first man up close. He had seen him die. It was personal. The shit was real. He was a killer.
Brunner called our position in and requested that our present position be our pickup zone. It was denied. We started back.
Problem. It was nearly dark. The sides of the stream were clear for twenty to forty meters on both sides. On the side of the stream that we were on, away from the ridge, there was a rice paddy that we had to cross. We had passed it coming, but going back was another thing. They knew we were there now, knew we were headed back. If we got Congs on the ridge when we were passing the paddies, it would be hard going.
Monaco led the way. It rained for a few minutes, a cold, driving rain that chilled you in ways you wouldn’t forget very soon. Then it stopped. A slight wind picked up and made the trees that grew in sullen clusters along the ridge sway menacingly. The moon came up. We were almost back to the LZ.
I wanted to get back quickly. Lobel was just about holding it together. We had to get him back, give him some peace. Let him get the knots out of his nerves again.
We got almost back to the cutoff point where we would move to the LZ. We had to pass the saddle again.
“Peewee, you and Perry check the ridge,” Brunner said.
“Keep your asses down,” Johnson said.
Me and Peewee started across the stream. It was fairly deep. I remembered I couldn’t swim.
“Peewee,” I whispered, hoarsely. “You swim?”
“No.”
Damn. It took us forever to get across the stream. We got across just as the moon went behind the clouds. I looked back over the stream, but I couldn’t see a damn thing. My testicles shriveled up in a hard knot and turned to ice. I was low, I was moving forward.
We started up the saddle. It sloped more than the ridge did and we got to the top fairly quickly. Peewee put his hand up. It was getting dark quickly.
Whick! Whick!
Two shots hit the rock near me, sending chips into the air. Behind me I could hear the sixty open up.
Whick! Whick! Whick!
“Where the fuck’s the fire coming from?” Peewee asked.
“I don’t know!”
We raced to the top of the ridge. I climbed the last few meters, breathing through my mouth, and started firing over the other side. Nothing. I didn’t see anything.
“What you see? What you see?” Peewee’s frantic voice.
“Nothing! I don’t see anything!”
We hit the ground and turned back toward the stream. There was a firefight below us. We could see tracers, and muzzle blasts. It was all on the other side of the stream. The sixty was sweeping the banks of the stream. The popping of the M-79 sounded like champagne being opened. The squad was turning loose. Then everything was quiet.
Chapter 22
Silence. It was dark and getting darker. Soon even the few silhouettes against the sky would disappear into the blackness. There were the sounds of insects, a constant chirping. The night belonged to them. It belonged to little things with green and black bodies that knew their way through the tall grass.
I listened for the sounds of a firefight. I listened for the sounds of voices. What had happened? Were the Congs gone? Were our guys down?
The sounds replayed through my head. There had been fire in our direction, then the sound of a sixty. Was it Johnson’s sixty or something they had? Were both sides waiting for the other to make a move?
“Perry!” Peewee’s voice in the darkness nearly stopped my heart.
“Here!”
“What’s going on?”
“I don’t know.”
Silence.
Were the Congs creeping up on us? Could they see in the dark? Could they wrap the shadows around themselves and make themselves invisible?
“Peewee!’’
“Wha?”
“Let’s open up, let the squad know we re still here.”
“They got to know already.” Peewee was closer. I was glad he was closer. I wanted to touch him.
“How do you know that?”
“They know we ain’t there, we got to be someplace,” Peewee said.
“Yeah.”
“Let’s just keep quiet and shoot the shit out of anything that come near us.”
“Okay.”
I touched the safety. Changed clips. I put a frag grenade in front of me. I had three. I’d use two and save one for myself if it came to that. I remember hearing stories about what the Congs did to prisoners.
I thought about Kenny. He was afraid of the dark. We were all afraid of the dark.
Peewee put his hand on my wrist.
“What is it?” I whispered.
“Nothing,” he whispered back.
He kept his hand on my wrist. I moved my hand and took his. We held hands in the darkness.
I tried to get the possibilities straight in my mind. Maybe the squad had called in reinforcements. No way they overran the squad. No way. You didn’t overrun
Johnson. Johnson was the man. Johnson would kick some ass. Him and his sixty would sing.
Yea, though I walk through the valley …
Then where were they? They had to know we were over here. They wouldn’t leave us.
Voices. Vietnamese voices. Peewee let go my hand and I knew he was checking out his piece.
“Peewee, we get the direction of the voices, then go the other way.”
“Bet!”
The voices were coming up from the stream. We weren’t going away from the stream, no way. They were coming nearer. Think. Think. Don’t think, react.
I opened up toward the voices. Peewee followed me.
“Skirmish spray!” he called to me.
In the darkness he had moved a little away from me. I did what he said. I sprayed fire down toward the stream in as even a line as I could.
There was some confusion. I could hear a number of voices. Then they returned our fire. They were long.
“Perry! I see them!” Peewee was making his way over toward me.
“How many?”
“A million of them!”
“Damn!”
We started moving backward. Maybe they had overrun the squad. We moved down the long side of the ridge, trying to keep our balance, hoping we wouldn’t step on a mine or pull a trip wire.
The voices were coming closer.
A flare! We hit the dirt. We were on the other side of the ridge and their line was coming up. They wouldn’t come up too fast. They didn’t know how many of us were on the ridge. I hoped to God that they didn’t know how many of us were on the ridge.
I got off the ground as soon as I saw that they hadn’t reached the top of the ridge. We had to get the hell out of there. There were paddies off to the left. They must have used the stream to water them. We’d never make it across the paddies. There was an overhang on the side of the ridge. I pointed toward it and Peewee caught on.
We reached the overhang and tried to back against it. It went deeper than we thought and Peewee turned to me. I couldn’t see his face, but I knew what he was thinking. We were backing into a Cong spider hole.
Peewee turned and rammed his rifle into the hole. Nothing. He moved into it and I heard him flail around.