13th Valley

by John M. Del Vecchio

  Brooks comes down and talks to Doc and El Paso. He tells them the demo kickout is due in zero two. Then he tells Doc there will be two medevacs. “Get Hill and Frye on the first,” he says. “They’re going to take them to Eagle. Put Hayes and Nahele on that one too.”

  “What bout Egan and Kinderly?” Doc asks quietly.

  “Second bird’s theirs. It’s going straight to Phu Bai. They’ll take em to Da Nang from there.”

  “Hey, right on,” El Paso says. Doc nods his head. He is pleased his most serious casualties are already scheduled to be evacuated to a major hospital complex. He does not care if it is true. He does not wish to ask. He wants to believe it. Instead he says, “L-T. That Cherry. He gone nuts. He crazy, L-T. You can see it in his eyes. L-T, Cherry becomin a animal.”

  Brooks looks at Doc and sighs, tired. “That potential exists in every man,” Brooks says. He shakes his head. “The line between man and beast is very thin. He’ll come out of it.”

  Brooks gets up, walks toward the exposed center of the south slope just behind the perimeter guards. The kickout point is well away from the tree to give the helicopter room to hover. Brown is there on the radio, talking to the approaching pilot. He tosses a smoke grenade a few feet from where he is standing.

  Doc sits down among the wounded and dead and tells them what is happening. Then he says, “Dudes, it goan suit me jus fine ta stay in the boonies here fo the rest a my tour if I doan have ta treat one mo wounded. You dudes short now,” he jokes with them. “Too short ta ee-ven write a letta.”

  The bird is on its way in. Thick violet smoke has covered the kickout point and obscured the L-T and the RTOs.

  “I can’t believe you dudes sometime,” Doc continues his monologue. “You dudes was obsessed with gettin here. Why, Mista? Why?”

  The GreenMan’s C & C bird is circling at 4000 feet. Two Cobras are perhaps 1000 feet AGL. A LOH sprints across the knoll east to west at 75 feet. It loops gracefully, swings back, drops and hovers at 30 feet. The rotor wash swirls and diffuses the smoke casting the knoll in purple haze. The crewman on the hovering ship quickly shoves box after box of C-4 out the side. The boxes crash between Brown and Brooks. The crewman flips out two rolls of det cord and several small boxes of blasting caps. He works very quickly not looking at the ground troops. He taps the pilot. The LOH dives for the river, picks up speed and swooshes up.

  Cherry has been circling back and forth behind 1st Plt’s perimeter. He has checked every position, checked the ammunition situation and redistributed ammo from those that have to those who are out. Somehow he has missed Numbnuts.

  “How’s your ammo?” Cherry kneels beside him. He looks enviously at Numbnuts’ new weapon. What firepower, he thinks.

  “It’s okay.” Numbnuts looks up at him nervously. Cherry senses the nervousness. He does not know if Numbnuts is hiding something from him or if his reputation has made the thumperman nervous. Cherry knows he is being talked about. He has overheard soldiers saying, “That dude’s crazy. He’s a crazy fightin mothafucker.” Cherry enjoys the spreading reputation and he is now enjoying Numbnuts’ nervousness. Numbnuts does not look at him but stares ahead vigilant.

  “How do ya like the over/under?” Cherry asks.

  “It’s fine,” Numbnuts answers.

  “You got some 79 rounds you can spare for Polanski? He shot most a his up comin up here.”

  “I ah … I ah … I got a few. How many does he need?”

  “How-many you got?”

  “I got ah … maybe … fifteen. No twenty.”

  “Hey,” Cherry says trying to sound very friendly, “can I see. your weapon?”

  Numbnuts turns. “What for?”

  “Let me see it.”

  “Fuck you.”

  Cherry darts his hand out and snatches the XM-203. He lifts it quickly to his shoulder, aims it downhill. He lowers it slowly, juggling it, hefting it, then snapping it back to his shoulder. He rubs his hand over it. The weapon is dirty. He looks at the end of the barrel. The flash suppressor is clogged with mud. He opens the lower grenade breech and holds the weapon toward the sun. There are leaf pieces and moisture but no ash in the bore. Cherry ejects the rifle magazine and opens the bolt. A cartridge springs out. Cherry cleans the flash suppressor and holds the barrel to the sun. The rifling is rusting but otherwise clean.

  “You motherfucker,” Cherry says slowly, coldly. “You motherfucker.”

  “Hey,” Numbnuts whines.

  “This weapon’s never been fired.”

  “I was pinned down,” Numbnuts blurts.

  “It’s never been fired,” Cherry screams at him.

  “I was … I … what are you goina …”

  Cherry punches him in the face. He hits him with a solid closed fist aiming for a point through Numbnuts’ head. Numbnuts’ head flicks over on his neck, bounces down to his shoulder and back up. Immediately the nose bleeds, the eyes blacken. “That’s for Egan,” Cherry says. He rips the ammo vest off of Numbnuts. The man is crying. Cherry scavenges his pack and takes the grenades and all but one M.-16 magazine. “You bastard. You slimy motherfucker.” He spits in Numbnuts’ face. He grabs the XM-203, he thinks twice about it, it has not been battle-sight zeroed, he throws it onto the crumpled back facing him. Numbnuts is vanquished, defeated.

  Egan is propped up, lying with his side across a ruck, staring blankly up the slope at the tree. He feels better now. He can feel the pain in his legs and ass and back. He is happy with the pain. He knows he will not be paralyzed. He is still warm from the morphine and he is not certain if he is hallucinating or if indeed what is before him is real. He does not want to try speaking. He is afraid he will not be able to speak and he is afraid to try.

  “Wow, Man,” Jax says to him, sitting next to him, leaning on the other side of the ruck. Jax is looking into Egan’s eyes. “Yo really strung out,” he laughs. “Maybe Doc got some a that good shit fo Jax too. Make him look jest like yo.”

  Brooks comes down and stands before them, looking uphill. The demo team has the tree partially rigged and all the perimeter guards and extraneous LZ cutters are moving to the south slope.

  “L-T,” Jax calls.

  “Say hey, Little Brother,” Brooks answers Jax.

  “L-T,” Jax says again, “we oughta put Egan in fo a Silver Star.”

  “Yeah, L-T,” Doc joins in. “They sayin he took this hill by his self, the gung-ho fucka.”

  “Sounds fine to me,” Brooks says. He is not paying attention to them. His concentration is on the tree.

  Jax nudges Egan and says softly, “An fuck yo feelin. Crazy fucka, yo gowin be okay in a whirl. They gowin ship yo white ass back ta yo girl.” Jax pauses. He kneels in front of Egan, finds Egan’s hand and taps his knuckles to Egan’s three times. “Yo be cool, Eg. Take care yoself. Yo one fine dude.” Jax gets up and moves back to his guard position.

  Up the hill Lt. De Barti and Pop have packed two cases of C-4 explosive to the far side of the big teak tree. Pop has inserted two blasting caps and has wired them together and fixed the loose ends to a claymore wire. Now he and the lieutenant move downhill as far as the claymore wire will reach. They wait, pause silently looking at the tree, then in unison yell, “Fire in the hole. Fire-in-the-hole. Fireinthehooo …” There is a large explosion. A ball of fire bursts across the knoll’s north end and rolls out over the river. Smoke billows skyward. Chunks of wood fly in every direction. The big tree trembles, the knoll quakes, the tree rocks then settles, still stretching straight and tall toward the sky. A landline telephone set dangles unnoticed from high branches.

  “SHIT,” Pop explodes. “That thang aint comin down.” He and De Barti cross the knoll top and inspect the wound in the trunk. There is a jagged burned wedge deeper than half the tree’s diameter. “This valley’s been one large pain in the ass, Sir,” Pop bitches to De Barti. Baiez and Woods carry two more cases of explosive up to them and Pop crawls up into the wound and again sets to rigging the tree.

  It is now
Brooks’ turn to sit with Egan. He sees that Egan’s eyes are watering. Egan is moaning, rocking back and forth slightly. It has been 180 minutes since he was wounded. He has gone from pain to morphine delirium to immobility and now back toward pain. His body is in shock but it does not seem acute and Doc judges his blood pressure to be within an acceptable range. Brooks holds a towel over Egan with his right hand. His hand is sore from having helped cut the LZ. Egan can see blisters and broken skin on Brooks’ hand and he thinks, L-T, you’re number one. Number fucken one. He tries to speak. He tries to hear his voice. His head hurts and he cannot coordinate his mouth and jaw and breathing. A noise comes out but it is not speech. Egan tires and decides to rest. It will come, he thinks.

  “Hey,” Brooks says to Egan, “it’s okay. You’re welcome. That sun’s becoming a bear but we’ll have you out of here in no time now. All of us. They’re terminating the mission. We’re going back to Eagle.” Brooks looks down at Egan and he feels sickened. Of all the men Egan was always most alive, most active. It sickens Brooks to see him lying immobile, wounded and stoned. “You know, Danny,” Brooks says softly, “I’ve been thinking a lot today about that theory. It’s part yours, you know. I was thinking if I could teach it, maybe … maybe if it spread … it could stop war forever. But maybe that’s fucked. Maybe you got it right. What causes war? People cause war. People being people. It’s that simple. Love causes war. Hate causes war. Hate of the love of war causes war. We war because we abhor war.” Brooks moans shaking his head and looking at the ground. “Oh Danny, why have I led you all here? Leaders cause war. The shame of it. The crime of it. If you hate war; if you love war; if you try to stop war; you cause it. Even if you run from it you cause it because then you create a vacuum and the pressure about the vacuum rolls in and the turmoil is war. When there are no more people,” Brooks says woefully, “then there will be no more war. War is part of being human. It’s like love and hate and breathing and eating. And living and dying. Just like you said, Danny. ‘It just is.’ It is natural to strive for peace and not to achieve it. But Danny, it does mean something. The striving means something.”

  Pop is yelling again. There are two charges on the tree this time. Pop has stuffed two cases of explosives in the splintered gash, and on the south side, twenty feet up, he has stuck a twenty pound kicker charge. The charges are wired together. “… Fireinthehooo …” The concussion shoots across the knoll, fire and wood blowing madly. Everyone ducks. Everyone except Egan. He is staring into the explosion. He sees the tree lift from its stump and fly upright, north, then drop off the north cliff. “Fuck,” he says.

  The others look up. There is no tree, no shade. The sun burns down on the knolltop searing the ground. The bare land is suddenly torrid. “Hey, where’s that fucker?” someone shouts.

  “Hey, where’s the tree?”

  “Secure the perimeter,” Brooks yells. “Get back to your positions. Brown, El Paso, get those medevacs in here.”

  The boonierats scurry to their positions. FO is the first to discover the tree. It has been blown off the north cliff and it is in the river, upright. The top of the tree is only slightly lower than the knolltop. “I’ll be a horse’s ass,” FO mutters to himself. “That son of a bitch looks like it’s been growing there forever.”

  The GreenMan had planned, detailed and coordinated the extraction with the Air Mission Commander of the 101st Aviation Group two nights earlier. He had anticipated almost every action. There invariably would be modifications, he knew, and he had planned for them. From high over the valley the fighting was going well, better than he had anticipated. He was happy though he knew it was not yet over. Below, his efforts were unseen and unappreciated by the boonierats of Alpha. He was the man responsible for them being there in the first place, they felt. He had volunteered them. They did not blame their predicament on Brooks, he was down there with them. It was the GreenMan they hated.

  The GreenMan had arranged to have one set of Cobras for each of his companies. Now he directs the fleet from the C & C Huey at 4000 feet. He coordinates the incoming Dust-Off helicopters with the firepower teams and holds Alpha’s extraction birds circling high beyond the north ridge, unseen by either Americans or NVA. He had explained to Brooks earlier the pick-up procedure and he had had the company commander repeat it back to him. “Get your wounded ready,” the GreenMan now calls. “Let’s keep bird exposure time to an absolute minimum.” Artillery rounds begin exploding at the base of the knoll. The GreenMan co-ordinates this too. He has artillery salvos crunching into the valley floor at three locations, wary to keep the projectile flight paths and the incoming helicopters apart yet also eager to dissuade enemy gunners from firing at the medevacs. He assists Brooks in establishing unit-to-bird contact. Then he gets off the net.

  “Mercy Eagle Six, Quiet Rover Four. Over.” El Paso has assumed radio responsibility. Brooks is standing in the middle of the LZ with his rifle. He holds it with both hands, gingerly with the left, horizontal. One hand is at the front sight post, the other at the mid-point of the stock. He is facing the bird.

  “Quiet Rover Four this is Eagle Six. Over.” The aircraft commander sounds casual. He asks El Paso several questions which the RTO answers in haste. El Paso signals Doc Johnson to pop smoke and Doc pulls the pin on a smoke grenade. He tosses the canister toward the south end of the LZ. “I see banana smoke,” the AC radios and the bird banks slightly left dropping quickly then levels and aims for the LZ. The bird approaches quickly. There are Cobras high to its left and right.

  “Come on in,” Doc is cheering. He is holding Hill at one side of the LZ. Andrews has Hill’s ruck and weapon and is holding Hill’s other arm, chattering, wishing him well. Across the LZ Kirtley is holding Frye, telling him to get a piece of ass for all of them. Baiez and Shaw are holding Doc Hayes’ poncho-wrapped body. McQueen has Nahele in his arms.

  “Next one’s yours,” Doc Korman says to Kinderly who cannot see what is happening but who has seen it before and understands. The sound of the helicopters hurts his head. Don White is sitting with Kinderly and Korman. He has Kinderly’s gear ready to be thrown onto the second ship.

  The Dust-Off comes in from the east, passes, shoots across the top of the knoll, seems to stand on its tail. Stopping, it rotates and drops left, turns around, hovers momentarily. Brooks lowers his rifle—the bird slides to a touchdown on the LZ before him. Debris is blowing everywhere. Men are running. Hill is helped aboard by the crew-chief, on the other side the medic pulls Frye in through the opened side. Gear is tossed in. Hayes’ body bounces on the floor. McQueen is crying as he lays Nahele down. “Good-bye.” Tears are streaming uncontrollably down his cheeks. Brooks jerks his rifle up. The bird lifts. It edges forward then dives off the east cliff picking up speed and swinging up left, up, up out of range of ground fire, out of the flight path of the second Dust-Off coming at the LZ full bore.

  “Man, them dudes are fine,” Jax yells to Doc. “One fine piece a flyin.” Jax has Egan’s ruck and weapon. Brooks and Doc are holding Egan. Egan is standing, shaky, pain in his legs, but feeling. Coming down over the north-ridge are twelve Huey slicks. They are Alpha’s lift birds. They are in line, two sets of six. They are coming in from the valley’s west end. The second medevac bird crosses the LZ and begins turning. Doc and Brooks lead Egan toward the pick-up site. They are by the stump of the giant teak. The bird is coming at them, rotor wash lashing dust and debris into their faces. “I’m going to miss you,” Brooks yells. “You’re the best they come.” “Stephanie,” Egan murmurs. His eyes are tearing. Doc Korman and Don White lead Kinderly. White sees them first and pulls Kinderly down. There are NVA on the north rim of the knoll. “You’re going to see that la … oh shit.” Brooks is cut short by automatic weapons fire. They are firing at the medevac. Brooks and Doc pull Egan down behind the stump. All the boonierats have hit the earth. The helicopter shudders. Now there is return fire. Cherry is running up the LZ. There is steady firing into the helicopter. The bird shakes violently and dro
ps onto the LZ. The tail rotor is dangerously close to the teak stump. There is firing coming from above, from across the river and up the south slope. An RPG round bursts into the bird’s front Plexiglas windows. AK fire is spraying down on the bird from the rear. M-16s and 60s are returning fire, trying to suppress fire. The aircraft commander is hit bleeding slumped over the control stick, his shoulder harness holding him while rounds slam into his face and chest. The first Cobra rolls and dives raking the south slope with mini-gun fire. The medevac co-pilot is still fighting with the controls, trying to lift the ship. He pushes the stick forward increasing rotor angle. The bird does not respond. Oil lines are ruptured. The crew-chief and medic jump from the bird. The helicopter is on fire. Korman and White are pulling Kinderly back. Kinderly is frantic, blind, terrified. Brooks is lying over Egan and Doc, shielding them with his body. The helicopter is being ravaged. All enemy guns are trained on it. Cherry picks off one then another and another enemy soldier coming up over the cliff. For him it is a shooting gallery. The NVA are shooting only at the bird, trying to explode it, trying to jam the LZ so Alpha cannot be extracted. Cherry and now Jax and Pop and half a dozen others are killing NVA. AK rounds impact into the neck and shoulders of the co-pilot. He is struggling. His body stiffens then drops limp. Again an RPG smashes the bird. The bird explodes gushing flaming aviation fuel. Huge chunks of helicopter slash through the air like shrapnel. The NVA fire lulls.

  “Bravo! Bravo!” Screams are coming from the south and west sides of the perimeter.

  “El Paso,” Thomaston shouts, “have the lift birds come in.”

  There is still firing from the south. Cherry and Denhardt race down to help suppress it. Denhardt is hit. His leg blows up splattering Cherry. Cherry thinks he too is hit.

  The middle of the LZ is a ball of fire. In the flames Jax can see the pilots burning. Then he sees Brooks and Doc. They are lying lifeless on top of another body, on top of Egan. Doc’s jaw is sheared, bloody, raw. Brooks is moving. Egan’s legs are moving. NVA fire erupts again from the south. The enemy is right in Alpha’s lines. Boonierats low-crawl and fire on enemy only feet away. Two Cobras dive. They swing in on tangents to Alpha’s perimeter so as not to undershoot and hit the boonierats. They dive from west to east keeping the sun behind them. They do not fire rockets. Their mini-guns are buzzing, nailing down everything in forty foot wide swaths. A LOH is blasting away at the north side of the knoll. El Paso has picked up the LOH commander on his radio. The bird has caught a column of enemy soldiers climbing in a cleft up the knoll cliffs. A Cobra pilot reports seeing forty enemy on the valley floor streaming toward the south slope. The GreenMan orders in the extraction birds.