13th Valley

by John M. Del Vecchio

  He began a third time. “My mind came very close to total collapse these past few days. In five days in the field I have shot a man and I have seen my best friend killed. Yesterday I felt like vomiting. Today, immunity, sweet immunity is setting in and I’m finally crawling out from under my shell as the apathy and insensitivity take hold.”

  A slap jolted Cherry’s shoulder and he leaped, grabbed for his rifle and swung around. Egan lurched for his 16 when Cherry jumped. Jax was in the grass between their rucks. “Rovers,” he whispered quickly to identify himself as a member of Alpha. “Doan shoot me Bros. It me, Jax.” He had a huge sheepish smile.

  “Oh fuckin Christ,” Egan sighed. “Cherry, you make me jumpy as shit. Jax, what you come sneakin up on us for?”

  “Yo guys up, huh?”

  “Yeah,” Egan hissed.

  “Marko on watch,” Jax explained as he wiggled his ass onto Cherry’s ruck and shared the seat. “I could not sleep,” Jax orated, his eyes twinkling. “I’s there all tucked up in my poncho an one big ol drop a rain squeeze hisself inside with me en join me bout the neck. I get cold, Man. Chills run up my pretty black neck, down my pretty black back. My toes get colder en yesterday’s cow flop.” Jax’ voice was in its best rhythmic gait. Egan laughed and tapped his feet in the muck in which he had slept. Here was Jax, after their words of the past few days, back to his old style. Egan felt warmed by Jax’ gesture.

  “I looks up,” Jax continued. “An the sky comin almost light nough so yo know it there. I pulls my poncho over my head an rolls back over an tries ta sleep again. ‘Jest one minute,’ say Ol Mista Rain. I’s cold out here too. Yo let me come in there with yo an warm up.’ I says, ‘Aint no way, Mista Rain.’ But he doan listen an he squeeze in again an this time he saunter his sillyass inta my ear. ‘Okay, okay,’ I says. ‘I gettin up.’ Then I peers out en see Ol Mista Rain, he aint cuttin nobody no slack. I get up. I says, ‘body a Jackson, how yo this mornin?’ Ol bod say, ‘Beautiful cept my feet is faauuukkupp.’ So I says, ‘Why doan we go up en see Eg en Cherry? Yo know Eg aint never asleep.’ An sho nough, here Ol Jax right wid ya now.”

  Egan held his right fist out and Jackson met it lightly with his own right fist as they dapped. The two fists tapped knuckles-to-knuckles and back-to-back. Open hands passed over each other in sensual caresses of brotherhood. Left hands came forward and touched and passed open over clasped rights and slid up right arms to shoulders then pulled across to the center of each man’s chest and clenched into fists. “I’m glad you’re here,” Egan said.

  Cherry watched silently then got up suddenly, very quickly said, “Excuse me,” and rushed for the perimeter. A loose warm rush swept down into his bowels. He stopped, opened his pants, squatted. A watery brown gush sloshed onto the jungle floor muck. Feces splashed onto his boots. “Oh God, no,” Cherry groaned. “Not the shits.”

  “Sky Devil Niner, Quiet Rover Four,” Brooks radioed Delta Company’s commander. At 1100 hours, after a lethargic morning, Alpha’s CP and 2d Plt began, moving north in column back toward the road. 1st and 3d Plts had patrols reconning to the south, east and west. At the NDP the remaining boonierats continued silent restful guard.

  “Rover Four, this is Sky Devil,” the radio rasped in jocular reply. “Your wish is my command. Over.”

  “What the hell?” Brooks muttered to El Paso. El Paso shrugged. “Devil,” Brooks transmitted, “my papa element is in your ballpark six zero zero mike to your sierra. We would like to play ball and will jump the red rope on your comic book to close in one hotel. Over.”

  “Roger dodger, Rover. Check it out. Rendezvous with Sky Devils echo tango alpha one hotel. My team is ready to play ball and wilco. Over.”

  “Thanks much, Niner,” Brooks said. “Out.”

  Delta Company had been moving back and forth on the north ridge for five days, being careful never to progress too far from their first secured LZ. Since daybreak they were to have been moving down the mountain toward the road and toward the rendezvous with Alpha. In reality only their CP had moved from a fixed position Delta’s 3d Plt had established atop the ridge to a fixed position Delta’s 1st Plt had 400 meters down a rocky finger. Alpha’s rendezvous element would do most of the humping.

  Brooks signaled with both hands, thumbs jerked outward. 2d Plt and the CP quietly spread out through the grass forming a long line. Again on signal they moved now sweeping forward, slowly, approaching to within two meters of the road. There they halted. They stood completely still for several minutes then one by one squatted or sat to observe. In the midday light and with the higher fog ceiling the corridor was yet more awesome. The surface was composed of rock and gravel and the drainage system was elaborate. On the walls signs of natural material marked junctions and turnaround points. One eight-inch round from the pre-dawn barrage had impacted directly on the road. The explosion had cratered the road surface and destroyed a thirty-foot section of roof. The crater had filled with water. There was no other evidence of damage from the artillery. Brooks radioed the TOC with a new road description and the arty results. Then he cautiously moved forward. The flank gunners also moved to the road’s shoulder. They searched the far stretches. Through the hole blown in the roof Brooks could see a small cut in the cliff and a passageway up to Delta. He walked in the grass down the line, observing from various angles.

  At Alex Mohnsen’s squad Brooks stopped and stood still. The squad leader came to him. “L-T,” Mohnsen whispered, “we aint goina NDP with Delta, are we?” Brooks did not look at him. “They’re the noisiest dudes in battalion, L-T.”

  “I know,” Brooks whispered back not taking his eyes from the north ridge wall.

  They were all silent again. They waited. The road remained empty. Halfway down the line Garbageman tapped one finger against his rifle in time with a silent song being played by a rock group in his head. Toward the far end, Hackworth muffled a cough in the crook of his arm, trapping the sound completely. He stifled the next urge to cough. And the next. Brooks stood rigid. Like everyone else’s, his uniform blended well with the grass. Mohnsen looked up at him several times. Brooks, motionless, was difficult to discern from even this short an interval. “Patience,” Brooks muttered beneath his breath. He was very aware of the suppressed restlessness of his men. Still they waited and observed.

  After forty minutes Brooks moved. He returned to the CP. They rose. In both directions boonierats slowly stood, one by one. Brooks led off. He stepped from the concealment of the grass onto the road, crossed to the narrow cut and began climbing. He climbed slowly yet steadily. A stream fell through the cut. The water felt cold flowing in his boots. Behind the commander others crossed and climbed. Flank security remained out until almost the last man had crossed the road; then the flanks collapsed, crossed and followed. When the entire rendezvous element was on the mountain slope, Brooks paused. He was winded. The passage was steep, the climb exhausting. Pop Randalph crawled past him to take point. Lt. De Barti moved to slack. 3d Sqd slid in behind, then the CP, 1st and 2d. They climbed in column north, then northeast, always up, always toward Delta.

  The vegetation on the north escarpment of the Khe Ta Laou was sparse and offered very little cover. Pop stayed low and stayed in gullies as he climbed. Behind him boonierats stepped into his footsteps. At just under fifty meters up the wall, Pop broke through the fog. High above the sky had a broken cloud cover. To the east there were patches of blue so bright Pop could not look at them. To the west over the Laotian foothills, the horizon was heavy dark and foreboding. Pop continued up. He climbed for half an hour reaching an area where the land leveled and thick jungle congestion concealed their advance.

  “Tim,” Brooks whispered, “call Delta. See if they’ve got us visual.”

  “Yes Sir,” Cahalan answered. The column continued. “Sky Devil, this is Quiet Rover,” Cahalan began.

  “We see ya, Good Buddy,” came the flippant reply. “Just yall stand right up and walk on in. Ol Delta got you covered. We’re just thirty mikes up
the high feature.”

  Company D’s CP and 1st Plt were situated amongst a multi-peaked rock outcropping that overlooked the valley on three sides. On the fourth, the finger ridge ran perpendicular up to the main north ridgeline. The outcropping looked like a bartizan battlement on a castle wall, the sheered off south face aiming directly toward the knoll at the center of the valley. Alpha’s rendezvous element circled the position. The 2d Plt boonierats stopped outside the perimeter. Brooks, his RTOs, FO and Doc Johnson entered the perimeter and walked silently toward the center. From all sides came jeers. “Man, look what just dragged in.” “Hey, Hardcore, don’t go givin the old man any ideas.” “Aint that them crazy fuckers from Alpha?” “Break out the dew. Them dudes need a toke.”

  Brooks walked erect, eyes forward, oblivious to the Delta troops. FO followed the L-Ts example, as did El Paso and Doc. Brown nodded to several of the men he knew. Cahalan paused to talk to an old friend. At the center of the NDP Delta’s CP had erected a poncho hootch large enough for six men to sleep beneath. Throughout the outcropping ponchos were stretched over bootlaces to make pup tents, or tied to rock walls to form lean-tos. No one had made any attempt to camouflage the shelters. Under every shelter there were men sleeping or reading. All of them appeared dry.

  “Hi,” shouted Captain O’Hare from within the CP hootch. The Delta commander was a stout jovial man with a bushy moustache. His uniform was clean. His hands were clean. “Glad you could make it,” he called. “You’re just in time for coffee.”

  “Hello, Peter,” Brooks said formally, softly. He squatted outside the hootch and looked in. Delta’s commander and RTOs had been playing poker.

  “Come in, come in,” O’Hare persisted. “Sit down and grab a cup of coffee. Geez, this operation sure’s turned into a giant clusterfuck, huh? Why don’t you have your men come in and join me and my boys? Do you believe all this rain?”

  “They’re okay where they are,” Brooks said coolly. “GreenMan give you anything for me?”

  “I’ll say he did,” O’Hare said, “but first let me get you that coffee.” O’Hare rolled to his knees and crawled to the edge of the hootch where a ten-cup pot was steaming. “All the comforts of home,” he chuckled as he poured rich black liquid into a canteen cup. “Here.”

  “Thanks,” Brooks said. He took the cup, sipped the coffee and passed it out to El Paso. O’Hare sighed. “Peter, I need all the bug juice you and your men can spare. My men are being eaten alive by the leeches in that valley.”

  “Yeah, I was surprised to find you guys crossed the river.” O’Hare avoided Brooks’ eyes. “How is it down there?”

  “Peter,” Brooks said, “I need insect repellent and I want to know what the GreenMan said.”

  “Well, Ruf. Let me first say I’m sure glad the old man didn’t pick my company to go tricky-trottin down inta that. You guys just marched right through the middle of Gookville like you was comin down the middle a Main Street. I bet that scared them gooks halfway to hell.”

  Brooks stood and backed away from the hootch a few steps, hoping to draw O’Hare out. “Shit, L-T. Look at that,” El Paso whispered from behind him. Several Delta troops on the perimeter were smoking and passing their smoke back and forth. The butt popped sending sparks flying. The soldiers laughed. “Holy Mother of God,” El Paso whispered. “They’re blowin dew out here.”

  The personality of Delta Company was as different from Alpha as Brooks was from O’Hare. The companies were like brothers who had grown apart. On the surface Alpha was quiet, pensive, cautious yet daring. Delta was loud, boisterous, macho. In many ways Delta was a throwback to an earlier American personality in Vietnam which exuded bravado and faith in the American military way, while Alpha was the younger brother, taught tactics primarily by the NVA. Yet both companies came from the same parentage, the same battalion, division, country. The same technology was behind both, and the same can-do spirit, and the same ugly withdrawal symptoms sent from a country turned sour on war and demanding the return of its soldiers. Oh God, Brooks thought. Just let up a little, just relax and let them relax, and this is what you’ll have.

  O’Hare came out from beneath the poncho roof. He had put on a rain jacket. “Did you hear, Bravo got another POW? They got em an NVA honcho.”

  “When?” Brooks asked. He stepped away from O’Hare coaxing the other commander into open neutral ground.

  “Earlier this morning. They killed another gook and got this honcho, and an AK and two RPGs. Can you believe it? Taking a prisoner in this shit.”

  “Where’d they get them?”

  “Another bunker complex. Those bastards are dug in all over this valley.”

  “They weren’t moving?”

  “Nope. Not from what I monitored anyway. They said both gooks were clean and healthy.”

  Brooks signaled to Cahalan. The RTO approached immediately. “Get a full sit-rep on Bravo’s action,” he whispered then walked off pulling O’Hare with him. Alpha’s CP contingent followed at a distance. “How much bug juice did your men come up with?” Brooks asked O’Hare quietly.

  “I’m sorry, Ruf,” O’Hare said sheepishly. “My boys don’t seem to be carrying much at all. I got three or four vials you can take.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Yeah. Like I said, we weren’t carrying much. If you’d radioed earlier I could have asked the GreenMan to bring some out. He dropped in yesterday and talked to me for about thirty minutes. Then his bird came back and he left. Can you believe, flyin in weather like this? Crazy, huh?”

  Brooks had continued walking while they talked. Now he was at the edge of the cliff overlooking the valley. O’Hare stopped a few feet back. FO, El Paso, Brown, Cahalan and Doc stopped fifteen feet away. There were no Delta troops at the edge and indeed no perimeter positions along the cliff at all. Brooks seemed mesmerized by the view. He stared silently. O’Hare shuffled his feet. The valley was multiple shades of gray, the floor and Alpha’s lower element covered by a dirty thick gray fluff. Above was lighter gray, to the west very dark, the hills almost black, in the distant east unexpected patches of blue sparkling like jewels.

  “Every time I see that mother,” Brooks said nastily, nodding toward the lone tree protruding above the valley fog, “it gets bigger. That’s one colossal tree. Look at that thing. Look at the size of that. Peter”—Brooks turned to O’Hare then turned back—” how far do you think that tree is from here?”

  “About a klick,” O’Hare said.

  “If you were up there you could see the whole valley,” Brooks said.

  “Ah, Ruf,” O’Hare stammered, “do you want to know about the GreenMan?”

  “Yes,” Brooks answered. He turned again and leaned casually against a rock at the cliff edge.

  O’Hare began in alarm, “He wanted me to tell, ah, to offer you one of my platoons.” Brooks shifted. O’Hare stepped back another foot. “It’ll be op-conned to you while you’re down there. Ah, he, ah, thought you might need some more bodies.”

  Brooks set his gaze on O’Hare’s eyes. Even leaning Brooks was taller than the stocky commander. Brooks did not move a muscle, his breathing was imperceptible. That’s why I don’t DEROS, he thought. That’s why. My men might get stuck with a man like O’Hare. I wouldn’t give any of them a fifty-fifty chance in the valley with O’Hare. “Peter,” Brooks said.

  “Yes, Rufus,” O’Hare jumped nervously.

  “Do you like small unit tactics? Harassment and attack?”

  “Huh? Yeah. Of course.”

  “So do I.”

  “Oh. Yeah.”

  “You’ll be up here—won’t you—if we get in trouble?”

  “Yeah, Ruf. You know you can count on us.”

  “You could probably be down to us in two or three hours if we were this side of the river.”

  “Yeah. I’m sure we could. Ah, well. You know. It would depend.”

  “Let’s just leave it that way,” Brooks said gently. “Okay?”

  O’Hare laughe
d. “That’s what GreenMan said you’d do,” he said. “You know, Ruf, it’s good talking to you. You’re the only other commander I’ve spoken with in the bush in I can’t remember how long. We got to talk more often, ya know? We got to stick together.”

  “Right on, Bro,” Brooks gave O’Hare a power salute.

  O’Hare nodded furiously. “Sometimes it gets lonely out here, being in command. It’s good to talk to another commander. We understand each other.”

  “Captain,” Brooks let the disgust come through, “if you need understanding, look to your men.”

  Brooks rejoined his CP group and led them through the tiny hootchcity of Delta’s NDP. On their way out the calls came again, friendlier this time, “Go get em, Alpha.” “Do em a job, Man.” “Kick ass. Don’t take no names.”

  Outside the perimeter, regrouped with 2d Plt, Brooks relaxed. He turned to FO, pointed and asked, “Bill, how far is that tree from here?”

  FO glanced to the valley center. “Fourteen hundred meters,” he said. “Maybe fourteen fifty.”

  Brooks nodded. “We’re going to circle that mother,” he said. “I want to go clear around it before we hit it.” The men around him nodded agreement.

  They began the descent. Halfway down to the road the fog enveloped them. They paused. Brooks whispered very quietly to El Paso, “If you ever get a commander like O’Hare, waste him.”

  At the road an eerie feeling swept through the rendezvous element. No one said a word. They crossed quickly and blended into the elephant grass. The crater which the eight-incher had blown in the road had been drained and partially filled. The hole that had been blasted in the roof was already less than half the size it had been when Alpha had crossed to climb to Delta. No one was around.

  * * *

  At dusk, forty minutes after 2d Plt and the CP reunited with Alpha, Alpha moved out. They moved in column, generally east, staying on the valley floor between the road and the river. 1st Plt humped between 3d at point and 2d at drag. Cherry quietly followed Egan. He was weary. Other than the few words with Jax and Egan at dawn Cherry had not spoken to anyone in twenty hours. When 2d Plt left for Delta, Cherry had manned 1st Plt’s CP alone. Egan had gone out on patrol, Thomaston set up a separate two-platoon CP where the company CP had been, McCarthy went with Hoover. Late in the afternoon Cherry had broken squelch on his radio and whispered, “Sit-rep negative,” in response to a call from El Paso. At that point he had realized those were the first sounds he had made in nine hours though he had been carrying on conversations in his imagination with himself, with his brother and with Egan. When Egan returned he had immediately waved Cherry into silence, pointed a finger in the air and circled. We’re surrounded, Cherry speculated. He began to indicate his puzzlement when the rush hit his bowels again and he sprinted for the perimeter. It was his seventh trip since daybreak.