A Requiem for Crows: A Novel of Vietnam

by Dennis Foley

  Kitty was asleep when Scotty got home, but she had left a small covered plate of cookies on the kitchen table for him, a glass for milk and a note. He unfolded the note tented next to the glass and read it in the yellow bug light over the back porch spilling through the top half of the Dutch door.

  I hope you two kids had a wonderful time. Have some cookies. They probably aren’t as good as those snakes you’ve been eating at Fort Benning, but I’m sure you’ll like them. Your favorite—peanut butter. Now, get some rest, honey. Don’t you dare get up before ten. I love you, baby. And I’m so so glad you are home. Kitty

  Scotty wondered how much Kitty had to do with getting Eileen to help her out around the house, instead of anyone else in Belton who might have been available. He opened the refrigerator for some milk and smiled. He suspected he was being fixed up. And he liked it.

  It was almost three when Scotty finished yet another shower, partially to relieve the heat but more for the sheer delight of the luxury. Hot water, privacy, his own schedule and just to be able to sit naked in the dark in his own bedroom.

  He couldn’t remember the last time he had enjoyed just sitting by himself naked, enjoying the night sounds slipping through the window and the very gentle Florida breeze washing across his body. It was a guilty pleasure and it added to the enjoyment of thinking about his hours with Eileen earlier.

  If he were still in high school he might write it off as sudden infatuation, like the feelings he always experienced with each new short-term girlfriend back then. With Eileen the onset was every bit as sudden, but the feeling was more intense and his gut told him it was different. She was different. He enjoyed being with her, her smile and her laugh. And he looked forward to being with her again.

  He felt a familiar warmth flood his hips, lower abdomen and legs and became aware of his growing erection as he thought of her. His thoughts wandered to her shape and how inviting she smelled. He wondered how she would look naked, how she would feel. He reached down and gathered himself in his hand and began a slow and delicious stroke sure to take him to a release he had not had the privacy to enjoy for so very long.

  Thinking of her quickly brought on the joy of electricity and heat flashing through is body. It was only the beginning of the aching he would feel for her.

  Chapter 13

  SCOTTY COULDN’T SLOW DOWN THE PACE. Time home, with Eileen and Kitty seemed to scream past him. He could do nothing to put off the date when he’d have to leave for Vietnam—when he’d have to say goodbye to both women.

  While he was home, Kitty seemed to brighten and regain some strength and energy she had lost. But he was sure Eileen’s insistence that Kitty follow her doctor’s instructions had a lot to do with her improvement.

  Scotty found being with each alone and both together fun and comfortable. He could see Kitty wanted to do what she could to encourage the relationship between them. She teased him about her and often insisted she didn’t need either one around so they could go somewhere together. He was thrilled to know Kitty was as crazy about Eileen as he was.

  Still, the days felt like hours and the hours like minutes. He wanted to talk about their future and it seemed as if Eileen was avoiding the subject, too. It was as if both of them wanted not to spoil the moments with even acknowledging there would be a separation and the danger sure to come with his time in Vietnam.

  They laughed and talked and touched and every now and then, they’d grow quiet. He had to go, but they didn’t need to spoil their time together by worrying out loud. The awkward moments between them quickly faded as they got used to each other’s rhythms and he discovered how wonderful it was to have a woman like Eileen listen to every word he said and show interest in his concerns. He tried to treat her with the respect she was showing him.

  In the few weeks they had together she had caused nearly as much of a change in his personality as the Army had made in him physically.

  Scotty tried to get caught up on Vietnam by watching Cronkite and reading the papers but not around Eileen. He’d never felt protective about anyone but Kitty before and he wanted to shield both of them from as much as he could. So, unless they brought up Vietnam, he didn’t.

  Chores and repairs badly needed around the house seemed to occupy every minute he didn’t spend with Eileen. He liked fixing the place up for Kitty and enjoyed being outdoors again. It was something he’d never thought much about before joining the Army. Hot sun, a light coat of sweat and sore muscles somehow felt good. And he knew any acclimatization he could do before getting to Vietnam would help.

  The goodbyes were awful. With Kitty it was long and filled with promises. With Eileen it was short and merciful for both of them. Still, she cried and also made him promise to be careful. But his heart pounded heavily in his chest when she told him she’d miss him every day and she’d write him as often as he’d like.

  When he suggested every day was too much, she quickly said she’d do it. They held each other for a long time, quietly taking one another in—no words, no real goodbye.

  And then it was over and he found himself in the front seat of a Trailways bus heading out of Belton before the sun would warm the streets.

  Scotty had fully expected to be packed into the back of an Air Force cargo plane for the trip to Vietnam but was surprised by the sergeant manning the desk at the Outprocessing Center at Oakland Army Base. He handed Scotty back his hand-carried personnel records stuffed into a large brown government envelope and pointed to a series of colored stripes painted on the concrete floor of the hanger rechristened the departure point for those headed to Vietnam. “Your paperwork’s in order. Now, follow the yellow stripe to the far end of the hangar to begin your processing. You’ll go through stations to check your shot record, your dog tags, you be able to exchange money and you’ll be issued your airplane ticket, too.”

  “Ticket?” Scotty was surprised. “The Air Force is issuing tickets now?”

  The tired Specialist 5 looked back up from his desk. “Air Force? Sarge, you are flying Pan Am to Saigon.”

  “What? There’s got to be a mistake. Me flying commercial?”

  “We don’t have enough folks to fill up a flight every week so you odds and enders go by civilian carriers courtesy of Robert F. MacNamara. So suck it up and enjoy it, Ranger, because it’s sure to be the last luxury you’re going to have this side of a Viet whorehouse.”

  Scotty couldn’t believe his good fortune as he balanced Jake’s duffel bag on his shoulder. He moved forward slowly with the other passengers holding his airline ticket ready to hand it to the stewardess standing at the foot of the ladderway which would take him up into the coach section of the Boeing 707 warming up its engines on the ramp at San Francisco International Airport.

  She was tiny, maybe five feet at most, her uniform was a crisp and neat as his and her smile seemed genuine. She took his ticket and the smile disappeared. “Well, Sergeant. You’re in the wrong place.”

  Scotty looked up as if he could tell if it was the right Pan Am flight by looking at the aircraft. “Doesn’t this flight go to Saigon?”

  “Yes it does,” she said. She turned and pointed toward the ladder at the front of the aircraft. “But you need to board over there. You are on a first class stand-by.”

  “You’re shitting me! Oh, I’m sorry,” Scotty said, too late to take back the words.

  She laughed and pointed to the other stewardess checking passengers in at the foot of the other ramp. “It’s okay, hon. You just go over there and see Jeanie. She’ll take very good care of you.”

  Scotty looked down the center aisle of the plane as he stowed his paperwork, and his folded blouse in overhead compartment. There were only two other military passengers on the aircraft, an Air Force officer and a Navy sailor, both seated near the rear galley.

  “Excuse me.”

  Scotty turned to find a Catholic nun in full black habit pointing toward the inside seat. “I’m the window.”

  He stepped back to give her room. �
��Yes, ma’am. Please, go ahead.”

  In spite of the layers of clothing and veils, she slipped smoothly into the seat and settled back.

  Scotty finished closing the overhead bin and swung around to sit only to find the stewardess who took his ticket standing next to his row. “Can I get you two a drink?”

  Scotty hesitated and deferred to the nun.

  “She looked at Scotty and asked, “You going all the way to Saigon?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The sister looked up at the stewardess. “Bring us both Scotch.”

  He couldn’t remember if he’d ever said more than ten words to a nun in his entire life and searched for a way to thank her or break the ice when she took the initiative.

  “My name is Sister Bernadine. I’m a Maryknoll.”

  “My name’s Scotty Hayes and I’m a sergeant,” he said realizing how silly it sounded as soon as the words slipped from his lips.

  “Well, Mister Hayes, we are about to spend twenty-four hours together.”

  Scotty tried to guess at her age. Her skin was flawless, but her hair, neck and forehead were covered by part of the white starched cotton frame of her habit so he couldn’t get any closer than somewhere between thirty and fifty. “Are you going to Vietnam, Sister?”

  “Call me Bernie. Everyone else does. I’m with the Maryknoll mission in Da Lat, north of Saigon. I’ve been home for some added training. I’ve already been there for three years. I’m a nurse.”

  “Oh. Well, I’m headed somewhere in Vietnam. I’m an infantryman.”

  The stewardess brought four miniatures, glasses with ice and two coasters. She placed them on the tray tables and quickly moved on to the seats behind Scotty and Sister Bernadine.

  Bernie cracked the seal on her bottle, poured it into her class and raised it in a toast. “Well, drink up, Scotty Hayes, because we are both going to earn our pay.”

  After an hour and two drinks Scotty felt completely comfortable with Sister Bernie. Soon they were airborne, had eaten their first meal and put away two more small bottles of scotch apiece. He quickly learned to like Bernie and listened intently as she told him about Vietnam and its people. Her take on everything was more candid and more current than what he had received in training.

  She was fiercely anti-communist but no friend of the South Vietnamese administration. “They come into my hospital and I can’t tell a communist bullet from a Republican bullet. Neither can the children who get caught in the crossfire.”

  “What should we do there?” Scotty asked.

  “I’m a nun, Scotty, not a diplomat or an expert in international affairs, but we are about the only chance the South Viets have. Still, I don’t think there are enough Americans and I think they’re already too late. The communist Viet Cong rules most of the countryside by day and all of it by night.”

  Scotty was surprised by her grasp of the situation in spite of her denials. She talked to the people in the villages every day and knew what they knew and what they felt, even if they were wrong. “Do you speak Vietnamese?”

  “Not well, but they appreciate the effort and treat you differently than Americans who won’t even try. Arrogance is something the Vietnamese abhor. Do you speak French?”

  “French?” Scotty shook his head. “I only had twelve weeks of conversational Vietnamese and bad grades in Spanish in high school.”

  “Try to use their languages when you can. They’ll help you. Use yours and they’ll clam up. They don’t understand why everyone doesn’t speak Vietnamese. Everyone they grew up with does.”

  Scotty liked her laugh. Still, the thought of trying to win over the Vietnamese peasants in their native tongue seemed daunting.

  Somewhere out over the black Pacific they both tired. Sister Bernadine drifted off the sleep while her fingers counted off silent prayers on her Rosary beads and Scotty leaned back and thought all the months of training and the anticipation was now down to less than eighteen hours until he would be in Saigon. He thought of home and looked forward to writing Eileen about spending the night with a nun.

  Chapter 14

  ELDON PASCOE WAS JARRED from a deep sleep to a slightly higher level of confusion in a surreal world making him unsure if he was asleep or awake. Colors alternated between blinding flashes of white light and complete blackness. Over this sounds of deafening thunder finally pulled Pascoe from sleep and he found himself standing in the middle of his room unsure as to what to do first.

  He grabbed his pistol belt and pistol from the hook on the wall near the door hesitated for a moment to try to clear his head enough to think if he should get anything else. He was only sure he had to get to the bunker outside the team house fast, before another rocket impacted on the flimsy tin and plywood world he slept in.

  Pascoe hardly recognized the Americans and Vietnamese soldiers all crowding the hallways running toward the exit. The flashes of light from the incoming rockets painted each face in grotesque stop-action for a fleeting second only to be plunged into darkness again.

  Just as Pascoe looked toward the open doorway to the center of the compound another rocket burst, the light causing him to lose his night vision. Pascoe felt for the wall and walked his way toward the door, hand over hand until he was outside in the darkened compound.

  Another rocket overshot the Sugar Mill compound and detonated out in the river. The flash from the rocket helped Pascoe orient himself and allowed him to identify the womblike sandbagged opening to the underground air raid shelter he was looking for.

  Pascoe’s attempts to walk down the wooden steps cut into the earth turned into a stumble and then a complete tumble leaving him sitting on his butt on the wet floor of the bunker twenty feet below the level of the compound’s courtyard.

  At the far end of the bunker someone had fired up a Coleman lantern which threw a shaky yellow light and gave off a hiss and a petroleum smell mingled with the much stronger smell of burning wood and rocket cordite.

  Though the bunker was big enough to hold forty people, it was already sheltering over sixty. Pascoe found a place to sit on one of the six benches running the length of the low-ceilinged structure. Still not accustomed to the light he raised his voice over the buzz of several excited Vietnamese voices. “Any Advisory Team members in here?”

  “Yo!” was the only reply. Another muffled rocket burst landed outside somewhere and a silhouetted figure moved through the animated Vietnamese soldiers toward him.

  “Caruthers? That you?”

  “Yessir.” Them fuckin’ VC cocksuckers ain’t getting’ me with two days left. I’m thinkin’ I just may start sleepin’ in this rat hole until my last day here.” He turned to a small Vietnamese soldier seated next to Pascoe and tapped him on the shoulder. “Hey, gimme some room here, will ya, pal?” He squeezed in next to Pascoe and dropped the butt of his rifle on the planked floor.

  “How many rockets? We’ll need to know for a report to Saigon.”

  “What?” Caruthers asked trying to yell over the adrenaline-fired cross talk in the underground bunker.

  “How many?” Pascoe repeated, raising his voice.

  Caruthers raised himself to a half squat. “Hey! Ya’ll shut the hell up in here!” The soldiers quieted down and Caruthers sat back down next to Pascoe. “Goddamn, these little people get to jabberin’ and they sound like ducks fuckin.’”

  Pascoe didn’t want to encourage Caruthers’ insults and simply repeated his question.

  “I’ve counted six.” He looked at his watch. “But I’m guessin’ the last one was it for the night. It’s been a few minutes now and they don’t like to stretch these out.”

  “Why?” Pascoe asked.

  “They set up the rockets about five miles out, get ’em all ready to launch, fire ’em all as fast as they can and get the hell out of there before someone can catch them red handed. They know we’ll target them and start returnin’ the favor.”

  “What happens now?”

  “Soon as we get the all-clear siren we
can see what kind of damage they did. Then, when the sun comes up and we can get these little people out of their hammocks and on their feet to go out and find the launch site. If we’re lucky, we can track the VC from there.”

  Pascoe looked out the opening to the bunker for some sign of daylight. The gray-blue of morning nautical twilight was filling the stairway. “You don’t sound too optimistic. I mean about finding them.”

  “It’ll just be S.O.S.—same ol’ shit. We’ll go out there, find their Ho Chi Minh sandal prints, follow them until their path bumps into the Cambodian border. If we could get our asses in gear we might be able to do something but getting these little people out of the barn and onto the trail is like herdin’ old snails.”

  “Why are they doing this?”

  “They’s tryin’ to distract us,” Caruthers said.

  “From what?”

  “My guess is they’re movin’ lots of folks through the area tonight and they need us t’be buttoned up and worried ’bout our own asses. So’s not to be discovered.”

  “Is this their pattern?” Pascoe asked.

  “You watch, Major, in a coupla’ weeks they’ll have enough strength to hit some outpost or camp in enough strength to do some damage.”

  Pascoe sat at the makeshift conference table in the crowded room and tried to hide his discomfort with the smell assaulting him. The room had had once been used to dry the fish caught in the adjacent river but was later pressed into service for meetings by members of the division commander’s staff.

  The smell was overpowering for an American but did not seem to register with the Vietnamese general staff members sitting at the slab of plywood which topped the table.

  The meeting felt disorganized, unfocused and lacking in agenda to Pascoe, but he dared not interrupt Colonel Minh for fear of offending him. Causing loss of face was about the most serious crime an American advisor could commit in Vietnam.

  A Vietnamese captain was stabbing his finger furiously at a plastic covered map spread out on the table. Veins stood out on his neck and is face flushed as he spoke so rapidly Pascoe couldn’t follow him.