by Eric Helm
At last Fetterman spotted him. The master sergeant instructed the men to take a break and smoke some of the American-made cigarettes, which he handed out like candy. He wormed his way through the group to Gerber and said, “You look like hell, sir.”
“Thank you, Master Sergeant. I appreciate your concern and the compliment.”
“Any time. What can I do for you?”
Gerber glanced at the billowing white clouds growing on the horizon and thought again that the day was going to be miserable. “Since we’re getting short again, and since we spent all night in the field, I thought today would be a good day to stand down. Let Tyme or Bocker kind of run things here. We can just lie around or sleep or read. Just fuck off for a day. Start fresh tomorrow.”
“Yes, sir,” said Fetterman slowly, staring at the young captain. “Something happening that I don’t know about?”
“No, Tony. Just seemed that we should take a day off to rest. There’s nothing pressing and no reason for us to feel that we have to be on the job every minute of every day. Besides, we spent all night in the field. We deserve a holiday.”
Fetterman noticed the bottle that Gerber was clutching by the neck. His knuckles were white, as if he had a death grip on it. “Where will you be, sir?”
“Out and about,” said Gerber, waving an arm to indicate the camp. “Just out and about.”
“Yes, sir,” repeated Fetterman. “Well, I’ll finish up here and then take the day off, too.”
“Fine, Tony,” said Gerber.
He angled toward the redoubt, passed the opening there, then turned back. He had found his hiding place. Slipping into his hootch, he grabbed one of the lawn chairs that he’d purchased in Saigon and left again, heading for the commo bunker. Once behind the bunker, he hoisted himself up on the waist-high double row of sandbags and flipped his bottle and lawn chair onto the top. Then levering himself higher with his arms, he found a toehold in the single row of sandbags and rolled himself over. He opened the chair, sat down and uncorked the Beam’s.
He drank from it deeply, breathed out and stared into the distance at the mortar pits where Sergeant Tyme was working with a Vietnamese crew. Basically it was a hole in the ground ringed with sandbags, which had compass directions painted on them. A narrow trench led from each pit to a small bunker that housed the ammo.
Beyond that was an earthen wall topped with barbed wire, rows of concertina wire that guarded the approach to the camp and then open rice paddies sprinkled with clumps of trees and farmers’ hootches. Some had rusted metal roofs that flashed orange and gold in the morning sun. To the west was the runway, just outside the wire, covered with the black, tar-like substance known as peta-prime.
Gerber unbuttoned his fatigue shirt and distractedly fingered the metal dog tags on his damp chest. They were taped together so that they wouldn’t rattle. He smiled as he thought of the Hollywood soldiers whose dog tags jingled as they tried to sneak through the jungle, or the city, avoiding the enemy. Time for another snort. Placing the bourbon to his lips, he took two big gulps, then put a hand into his pocket so that he could feel the letter.
It was what he had hoped and prayed for — a letter from Karen Morrow. He didn’t know what it could possibly say, but he knew the contents couldn’t be bad because there was no way she could write to him with bad news. The break had been so final, so complete, that Gerber had eventually convinced himself he would never hear from her again. Now he had a letter from her, and although he hadn’t read it yet, its very presence meant that she wanted to open the lines of communication with him again.
He set the bottle down on the sandbags and pulled the letter from his pocket. He didn’t look at it right away. Instead, he kept his eyes on the men who were working in the mortar pits. The sounds of hammering came to him, and he wondered what Tyme could be building down there. Finally he let his eyes drop to the letter and looked at the cancellation. Two weeks had gone by. Gerber smiled, not knowing if he should be angry that it had taken so long, or happy that it had been delayed so that his DEROS was that much closer and he could possibly see her again.
Anxious now, he ripped the envelope open, took out the two lavender sheets, smelling faintly of Karen’s perfume, and then read the salutation and glanced at the closing. He smiled to himself because it was better than he could have hoped for.
He read it quickly, too quickly, but could pick up the drift. Then he reread it slowly, looking for a message between the lines, the one sentence that would chop his feet out from under him. But it just wasn’t there.
It started simply with a “Dear Mack” salutation that gave away nothing, but then it got serious.
I hope you’ll read all this before you throw it away. I know I treated you shabbily when I left, but there was nothing I could do about it. A friend once told me that the thing you find hardest to do is the thing you should do. I violated that rule because I couldn’t stand the thought of seeing you again and then having to leave you. It was easier to just pretend that I didn’t care and slip away to the World.
Now that I’m home I don’t understand why I felt it necessary to leave. I guess my feelings about my husband — yes, I know that I failed to mention him — were a result of remembering only the best things about him. He has turned into a shallow man who is striving up the corporate ladder by devising ways of selling trivia to people who don’t want it. His life seems to revolve around that, and it leaves little time for me. He sees my role as only to support him and produce children so that he can have a cluster of happy photos on his desk.
I never realized how right you and I were. There was something about our relationship that started right, and if I hadn’t been married, I’m sure that it would have developed. I doubt I’ve ever loved anyone else, including my husband. I felt a loyalty to my husband because he was my husband, but I’m not ready to smother my career and my desires so that he can climb another rung. I’m not ready to create babies for his career advancements. I’ve filed for a divorce.
I know this is out of the blue and wouldn’t blame you if you just tore it up without reading it. But I think I know you well enough to believe that you’ll give me the opportunity to explain what happened. Maybe it does no good to tell you that I know I was wrong in just walking out the way I did. By doing that, I could pretend that you didn’t care about me anyway.
I’ll end this by saying that I love you and hope that you can still love me. I hope you realize how hard it was to tell you my feelings after the way I acted, but perhaps you’ll understand and write to me. Please forgive me.
It was signed, “All my love, Karen.”
Gerber folded the letter and carefully put it into his pocket. He picked up his bottle and drank deeply. His face felt numb, but he wanted to shout. He wanted to dance. Somehow the sky looked bluer, the clouds whiter and the day was no longer uncomfortable, but actually quite pleasant.
Suddenly a thought occurred to him. What about Robin? Gerber had momentarily forgotten about Karen’s sister. She had been around almost from the moment that Karen had fled to the World, and Gerber had tried, not too successfully, to keep her at arm’s length. He knew there had been a good reason for not tangling with another Morrow. He should have run at the first opportunity, but he hadn’t. He had let himself be forced into situations where he was alone with her. Situations that Robin worked hard to create.
No, that wasn’t quite fair, Gerber thought. He hadn’t been quite as cold as he could have been. He had encouraged her, had even engineered a few of those encounters, and now he had to find a way to let her down easily. He still remembered the pain of learning about Karen’s return to the World and the news of her soon-to-be ex-husband. The despair had made it almost impossible to think or to function. It had robbed him of the desire to do anything but sit in his room and drink. He rubbed a hand over his face and knew that he would have to let Robin down easily, give her the scene that she would want, and send her off to finish her journalistic endeavors somewhere else. Send her
off to find a Pulitzer story.
He thought about the physical pain and torture that Robin Morrow had endured because of him, how she had clung to him after the ordeal when the camp had been captured by the enemy. But she hadn’t blamed him for any of it. Robin had been a friend when he’d needed one most. More than a friend. She had sat close by and listened as he had poured out his story of Karen and what she had done. And Robin had asked for nothing in return. She had given and never taken. Not exactly the attitude her sister had displayed.
He took the letter out again and read it slowly, as if trying to memorize the words. As his eyes raced across the paper, he thought that he had to be dreaming until he realized that the sun pounding on him was all too real. He was wide awake.
Now he wasn’t being fair to Robin. He was doing to her what her sister had done to him. No, that wasn’t quite right, either. Robin knew about his soft spot for her sister. She probably knew that if Karen came back to him, he would want to be with Karen.
He wouldn’t worry about it. It was something that he would put out of his mind until Robin returned from Da Nang. He didn’t have to deal with it now.
He finished his bottle, carefully corked it and wondered why he couldn’t stand up without weaving. Sure, he had finished the bottle, but it had taken a long time, and he couldn’t be that drunk. He lost his balance and fell to a sitting position. He began to giggle, thought that giggling was undignified for an army officer and laughed all the harder. He fell on his back so that he was staring into the almost cloudless blue sky directly overhead and thought that life was absolutely beautiful.
It was late afternoon when Fetterman began to worry about Captain Gerber. No one had seen him for hours, and although he hadn’t gone through the gate, he was nowhere in the camp, either. Fetterman checked the rebuilt team house, erected after a mortar and rocket attack had destroyed it, searched Gerber’s quarters and then talked to everyone who would listen.
Fetterman returned to the team house and sat down, sipping a beer from the brand-new refrigerator that Colonel Bates, the B-Team commander, had sent from Saigon. It was a contrast to the others they had had. This fridge operated near absolute zero, and to try to snatch a beer from it was to risk frostbite and permanent injury.
In fact, almost everything in the team house had been received from Colonel Bates. The materials to build it, along the lines of every other structure on the camp, had been arranged for by Bates. There was a tin roof to reflect the sun and a couple of ceiling fans. There were four tables that each had four chairs around them. There was a bar that separated the rear third of the team house from the rest. Behind it was a stove, a large pantry filled with canned goods and a sink. A Vietnamese girl worked there, preparing the evening meal.
The beer was ice-cold and felt good after a long, hot day. Fetterman, still wondering where the captain had escaped to, drank it slowly. If Robin Morrow was around, he would assume that they were together. But Robin wasn’t due back for a day or two. She was completing an assignment up in the Da Nang area. She had called on the makeshift telephone system to alert them she would soon return. So that was out.
Fetterman had nearly finished his beer and decided that it was time to organize a serious search party when Galvin Bocker entered the team house. Bocker, a big man with dark hair, dark eyes and the ability to build a radio from tin cans, sea shells and a couple of bits of wire, stopped, looked around and asked, “You seen the captain?”
“Not since this morning. Why?”
“Got a message that his presence is desired in Saigon tomorrow morning. Some hotshot at MACV Headquarters wants to talk to him.”
Fetterman drained his beer and slammed the can on the tabletop. As he got to his feet, he said, “Well, then I guess we’d better find him.”
Together they left to search inside the redoubt. That was a dirt breastwork about five feet high and seventy feet across. The entrance was guarded by M-60 machine guns in bunkers. Inside was the dispensary, team house, the American quarters, including Gerber’s hootch, and an ammo bunker. When they failed to find Gerber there, and failed to find anyone who remembered seeing him since early morning, they expanded the search.
As they left the redoubt, Fetterman said, “Why don’t you crawl up in the fire control tower and take a look?”
Bocker was halfway up the ladder when he spotted Gerber lying on top of the commo bunker. He pointed at it and called, “Got him!”
Fetterman walked to the commo bunker, climbed up on the row of sandbags and stared at the top. Gerber was on his back, the empty bottle cradled in the crook of his elbow. His face was a brownish-red from the sun, and his uniform was soaked with sweat and stained with dried dirt.
“Captain,” called Fetterman. “Captain Gerber.”
Gerber stirred, pushed the bottle away and lifted his head, blinking his eyes rapidly. He groaned and let his head drop to the sandbag surface. “What’d want?”
“Don’t you think you’d feel better if you got down off there, Captain?” asked Fetterman.
“I’m not sure,” moaned Gerber. He held his hand over his eyes to shade them from the setting sun. “I’m not sure I’ll ever feel good again.”
“Anything you care to talk about, sir?” asked Fetterman.
Gerber didn’t answer right away. He struggled to sit up cross-legged, his gaze on the sandbags. He didn’t move for quite a while, as if he had gone to sleep in a sitting position. He gingerly touched his face and winced when he realized that after nearly a year and a half in Vietnam he had managed to get himself badly sunburned. Finally he said, “Nothing that we need to discuss. It’s just that I needed to blow off some steam by myself.”
“Yes, sir,” said Fetterman. “You should’ve let us know where you were going to hide. Took us quite awhile to locate you.”
Gerber turned his head and stared at Fetterman. “I wanted some time to think. Besides, I would have heard if anything happened.”
“You get your thinking done?”
“Yes, I did.” Gerber got unsteadily to his feet. He put a hand out and used the back of the lawn chair to support himself while he decided that he didn’t want to throw up. His stomach settled down. It wasn’t that he felt fine; he still knew that he had a stomach, could feel it churning away, but he didn’t think he would be sick. He picked up the lawn chair, folded it and stepped gingerly to the edge of the bunker. As he handed it to Fetterman, he asked, “Why the big search?”
“Other than it seemed odd that no one had seen you all day,” said Fetterman, “we got a message from Saigon that requests your presence at MACV tomorrow.”
“They say who it was?”
Fetterman looked at Bocker, who had climbed off the ladder on the fire control tower and stood staring up at Fetterman. “They say who?”
“Maxwell,” said Bocker.
Gerber sat next to Fetterman and said, “Maxwell. Can’t believe the son of a bitch would request me to come to Saigon after the shit he’s pulled.”
“Sounded more like an order,” said Bocker.
“An order,” echoed Gerber. “Just fucking fine.” He slipped from the top of the bunker and landed unsteadily on the double row. He grabbed at Fetterman to catch his balance and then dropped to the ground.
“Why do we do it to ourselves?” he asked. “I know sucking down all that bourbon is going to make me sick, make my head ache, but I do it anyway. Christ, Tony, I’m going over to the dispensary and see if T.J. has anything for me. For either the hangover or the sunburn.”
“Yes, sir,” said Fetterman. “What about the appointment in Saigon tomorrow?”
Gerber sighed. “If you’re that worried about it, lay on a chopper ride for tomorrow. Probably coordinate it through the Hornets at Chu Chi since it’s their turn for the ash and trash.”
“Yes, sir. Should I plan to come along?”
“No, I think you’d better wait here, since we don’t have an executive officer.”
“Yes, sir.”
“
Tony, what the fuck has gotten into you? What’s all this ‘yes, sir’ crap, anyway?”
Fetterman stared for a moment, then said, “Just a little concerned is all. I’ll help Galvin make the arrangements for the chopper flight.”
“Thank you. If you feel I’ve slighted you by my behavior today, I’m sorry, but I needed the time off.”
“Of course, Captain. No problem.”
CHAPTER 3
THE HELIPAD, SPECIAL FORCES CAMP A-555
Gerber stood on the edge of the helipad, waiting for the morning chopper. His overnight kit sat on the ground near his feet, and he was holding his rifle. Fifteen minutes earlier Bocker had swung by his quarters to inform him that the aircraft was inbound. Bocker had then returned to the cool, dim confines of the commo bunker. Now he came out again, a smoke grenade clutched in his fist. With his other hand he shaded his eyes, searching the horizon for the helicopter.
When he found it, he tossed the grenade to the center of the helipad, then rushed back up the road into the camp and the commo bunker. Gerber watched the smoke billow, a dark cloud of green blowing gently to the west. The chopper circled north of the camp, as if to avoid overflying it, and made its approach from the west, the nose into the wind. At twenty-five or thirty feet above the ground, the helicopter flared, pushing the rotor wash forward so that it ripped at Gerber’s uniform and stirred up the dust and debris around him. He put his hand on his head to hold down his beret and turned his face away from the sandpapering effect of the wind.
When the aircraft’s skids touched the ground, Gerber moved forward and climbed into the cargo compartment. He pushed his overnight kit out of the way, sliding it under the troop seat. Then he sat down, buckled himself in and waited. Just inside the gate he could see a couple of his men and a dozen Tais, watching the takeoff. Gerber raised a hand to wave, and as the men responded, the helicopter lifted, rocking gently from side to side as the pilot made sure that he was clear of all obstructions.
