by Eric Helm
A first sergeant listened to their request to be assigned to the same platoon if possible. He said it didn’t make a damned bit of difference to him and had no trouble finding a platoon that needed two replacements. There was just one catch. They didn’t need riflemen — they needed a sixty gunner and a grenadier. Take it or leave it. Clovis and Taylor took it. They’d been together since basic. They weren’t going to break up the partnership now.
That night they drew bunker duty on the berm line with Guffey and Erickson, a couple of pros who’d been there nearly four months already. About ten o’clock Charlie decided to probe the perimeter, but first he decided to soften things up a bit with a combination rocket and mortar attack. One of the 140mm rockets landed directly on their bunker, collapsing it. Clovis and Taylor, who had been near the entrance, were eventually able to claw their way free of the ruptured sandbags and shattered timbers. Guffey and Erickson were not so lucky. It was Clovis and Taylor’s second day in-country, and they had just been given a little Christmas present from the VC. It was December twenty-fifth.
“Man, I sure do wonder whatever happened to them typewriters,” Clovis told Taylor after the shelling had stopped. He was sitting on the lip of the smoking, ruined bunker while a medic bandaged the cut on his forehead caused by a shrapnel graze.
“Cheer up, Clovis, it’s bound to get better,” Taylor told him. “Besides, look at it this way. You been here just two days, and already you earned yourself a Purple Heart. That ought to really impress those girls back in Kentucky.”
“I hope you’re right, man.”
“Course I am. Women love a man in uniform, especially if he’s got the Purple Heart pinned on it. Shows he was really there where the fighting was.”
“I meant about it gettin’ better,” said Clovis. “Sure hope you’re right about that.”
But Taylor hadn’t been. They’d been out on three patrols since that night, and each time the patrol had taken moderate casualties, which meant they’d got the shit kicked out of them.
And in between patrols they’d sweated during the day and frozen at night. They’d expected the sweating. After all, it was the Nam, but nobody had told them the place had mountains.
And then finally the big show got started. Operation Masher the brass called it. It had the Cav and the ARVN and the ROKs, and the Marines were supposed to be running a show of their own over in Qui Nhon Province, thousands of men in the field all at once. It was like an elephant looking to crush a rat. And like the elephant and the rat, you can’t fix the enemy if you can’t find him.
So today, like every day for the past week, they looked for Charlie. Today it was in the high elephant grass choking the floor of a valley. Yesterday they had searched the jungle up on the slopes. The day before that they’d waded the grass sea of a different valley and the day before that some other mountain’s slopes. It was all same-same. You looked for Charlie, and you hoped you didn’t find them because when you did, somebody you knew died.
Ahead, Clovis could barely make out the outline of a building through the elephant grass. It had to be a building of a pretty good size to stick up over the top of the grass like that, he thought. He wondered what such a large building was doing in a ville that didn’t have any name on the map. He glanced left again, making sure Taylor was still there, then checked his position on line to the right. Conrad and Malizuski were muttering nervously to each other, and he had to shush them.
“Goddammit, ya dumb asses. Shut the fuck up. Want Charlie to hear us comin’?” Then, for some inexplicable reason, he softened it. “It’ll be okay, Mal. Just hang in here tight and stay loose. If the shootin’ starts, get down and put out rounds. Just like on the rifle range. Fire at the muzzle flashes if ya can see any. Nothin’ to it.”
The grass ahead was thinning, and he could see the building clearly now. It was a two-story structure that looked as if it might have been made out of poured concrete. The corrugated tin roof had rusted, and the rays from the sun high overhead glinted off the reddish-brown tin, giving the roof a golden look. There was a walled courtyard in front of the building, and through breaks in the wall he could see weeds growing in tangled profusion. It might have been an old Spanish mission in Arizona or an abandoned tourist hotel in Mexico if it hadn’t been in the Nam. Clovis decided it had probably been a school or an administrative building of some kind left behind by the French. It didn’t look as if anybody had lived there for a long time.
Somewhere far off the right Clovis could hear the low rumble of the M-113 APC engines as the ARVN Mechanized Infantry unit assigned to support them jockeyed their tracks into position. Clovis didn’t like that. If he could hear the noise, Charlie in the village could, too, assuming there were any Charlie in the village. In fact, Clovis wasn’t too crazy about the whole idea of having the ARVN support them. After all, it was the ARVN’s war. The Americans should be supporting the ARVN, not the other way around. Besides, you couldn’t trust the ARVN.
A lot of their officers were corrupt cowards and you never knew if they’d stand and fight or run when the shooting started, and when the officers bugged out, the NCOs and grunts usually weren’t far behind. It wasn’t that the ARVN couldn’t fight. If they had good leadership, some of the ranger units were really STRAC, and the South Viet Marines were supposed to be pretty good, too, but with the ARVN you just never knew for sure. If the leadership was good, which wasn’t often, they’d fight; if not, they wouldn’t. Worse yet, some of them might be, probably were Viet Cong. The ARVN uniform meant nothing since the VC did its best to infiltrate all ARVN units and foment unrest among the troops, and there was no way you could tell Charlie from the Vietnamese.
Maybe none of it would matter, though. Maybe the village would turn out to be abandoned, and it would be a skate, just a nice, easy walk-through. It sure looked abandoned. Or maybe the villagers would be friendly. Clovis didn’t think so. There weren’t many friendly villes around here. If there were, the unit wouldn’t be out here looking for Charlie.
Suddenly there was a great whoosh followed by a shattering explosion, and Clovis felt a wave of heat wash over him. B-40 rocket. He felt something sting his leg, but he ignored it, hosing down the building in front of him with the M-60 to give the others time to get down. Then the short belt ran out, and he dropped into the grass, hollering for Malizuski to bring him a belt of ammo, as he knocked open the cover on the M-60. Ahead he could hear the staccato bursts of RPDs and the ragged chugging of a heavy machine gun, while around him the pop and rattle of M-16s built slowly, punctuated by the bloop of Taylor’s M-79.
“Malizuski! Where the hell is that ammo?” yelled Clovis.
Silently cursing the FNG, Clovis glanced over to see why Malizuski wasn’t bringing the ammo. The A-gunner was lying very still in the grass, his uniform covered with blood. Conrad was sitting up next to him, staring dumbly at his own hands, which were dripping with Malizuski’s blood.
“Conrad, you idiot, get down!” Clovis yelled at him, but it was too late. A long burst from an RPD caught Conrad across the chest, ripping him apart, and he tumbled backward into the elephant grass.
Swearing under his breath, Clovis shrugged out of the ammunition belt that was wrapped around his shoulders, fed it into the M-60 and got the machine gun back into action. Without an assistant gunner he couldn’t use his left hand to hold the buttstock tight in against his shoulder. He had to manage the weapon as best he could with one hand, using the left to hold the belt and keep it from kinking so that the rounds would feed in smoothly.
He fired in short, controlled bursts, making it more difficult for the enemy to distinguish his muzzle flash from those of the M-16s firing around him. That way the VC wouldn’t concentrate their fire on his position. Somewhere nearby another B-40 crashed into the company. Taylor blooped another round out of his grenade launcher in reply and crawled over to help Clovis, stopping long enough to check the new guys and dragging a couple of their ammo cans with him over to his friend.
&nbs
p; “New guys have had it,” said Taylor unnecessarily. He had to shout to make himself heard over the noise of the guns. He shoved the ammo cans up to where Clovis could get hold of them. “Your leg’s bleeding. I’ll have a look at it.” He bent to check the injury while Clovis continued to engage the enemy.
Bullets popped and whined overhead as Taylor pulled out his old Case hunting knife and slit open Clovis’s trouser leg. There was a ragged tear about an inch and a half deep across the back of the calf muscle but no sign of an embedded bullet or shrapnel. There was a fair amount of blood, but at least it wasn’t spurting. Taylor pulled a field dressing from the first-aid pouch on his web gear and tied the compress tightly over the wound. Then he sheathed the knife and crawled forward to help Clovis with the M-60.
That was when they started taking fire from the bunkers hidden in the elephant grass on their flank.
They were caught in a crossfire. They knew that, if they tried to move forward and assault the village, they’d be cut to ribbons, and if they stayed put, that damned B-40 launcher would chew them up. They could hear Sergeant Stryker yelling for them to fall back, and they passed the word. Taylor loosed a final M-79 round at an open window of the two-story building, and he and Clovis began low-crawling toward the rear, dragging the machine gun between them.
They moved like this for nearly two hundred meters through the elephant grass, a task that should have taken them fifteen or twenty minutes at the most. Instead, it took them nearly two hours. Five times they were pinned down, unable to move forward or backward because of the crossfire from the bunkers and the village.
The VC had built the bunkers so low to the ground that it was almost impossible to see them, let alone bring effective fire on them. Calling in artillery or air support was out of the question. There was a whole series of bunkers scattered throughout the elephant grass, and the company, indeed, the whole second Battalion, was caught in among them.
To have called in shells or bombs would have caused more deaths among the Americans than among the Viet Cong. Always assuming, of course, that there was still an officer or an NCO alive and with a working radio to adjust the arty or direct the air strike. The air was filled with the acrid smell of nitrocellulose, and a thick blue gunpowder haze clung to the top of the elephant grass like ground fog. Confusion reigned, and the men were alone.
“Goddamned motherfuckers,” swore Clovis as a ragged burst from a twelve-seven tore holes in the air not more than three or four inches above their heads. If the sixty had been set up on its bipod, one of the rounds would have gotten it for sure. Both men had long since slipped the harness on their field packs and were dragging them.
“Easy, man,” Taylor told him. “Just stay cool. We’ll get out of this shit yet.”
“It’s these goddamned buttons on my uniform,” Clovis answered. “The mothers are holdin’ me up too high.”
Taylor laughed, and Clovis risked a glance in his direction.
“What the hell’s so funny, man? I don’t see no humor in gettin’ our asses shot off.”
“I was just thinking,” said Taylor. “I was just thinking that those typewriters sure would look good right now. Maybe we should have told that spec five we could type.”
Clovis snorted. “I’ll tell you what would look good right now. An ice-cold beer would look good. Man, I sure could use a beer.”
“Forget that shit, Clovis. Damned Charlie’d just shoot a hole in it before you could drink it.”
“There it is,” agreed Clovis. “I would like to know where the fuck those ARVN tracks are, though. We sure as hell could use a little armored support right now.”
“Might as well forget that, too. Those pieces of junk are worthless against anything but shell fragments. Even an AK round will punch right through the side of one. Doesn’t go all the way through, of course. Just punches into the troop compartment and rattles around the inside walls for a while until it’s spent. Or hits somebody.”
Clovis snorted again. “At least the fuckers could put out a little suppression. They got fifties on ’em, for Christ’s sake.”
The firing shifted as the twelve-seven gunner found somebody else whose life he could make interesting for a few moments, and Clovis and Taylor edged forward again. They made about another twenty-five yards, although Clovis couldn’t have said which way they were crawling, down low in the elephant grass like that. He hoped Taylor’s uncanny sense of direction was working. At any rate, nobody was shooting at them any longer, and they seemed to be moving away from the sound of most of the firing.
Clovis was just beginning to think they might actually get out of the mess alive when they unexpectedly pushed their way into a small elongated clearing. Before they could back away, two VC pushed their way into the open on the other side.
There wasn’t time to shout a warning. Clovis made a desperate grab for the M-60, but his frame of reference seemed to have shifted into slow motion. He could see everything with a sudden crystal clarity. The two VC were both carrying SKS carbines, and one of them had his up to his shoulder and was swinging on them while the other enemy brought his weapon up. Clovis knew he was going to be too late getting the M-60 into action.
Two sharp reports, and it was time to die.
It took Clovis a moment to realize that it was the Viet Congs’ time to die, not his and his buddy’s. He watched both the enemy soldiers tumble backward and lie still in the elephant grass, their outstretched legs still sticking into the clearing. Gradually he became aware of the Star semiautomatic pistol in Taylor’s hand. He’d beaten them all.
“Nice shootin’,” said Clovis appreciatively.
Taylor stared at the two inert bodies for a second. “Yeah. Now let’s get the hell out of here before somebody else starts shooting.”
They backed off from the clearing, raised slightly to a high-crawl since it offered more speed and moved.
They crawled about another thirty yards before Taylor spotted something ahead of them in the grass and craned his neck for a better look. As he did so, Clovis heard the unmistakable double clang of a .50-caliber bolt slamming home, chambering a round and cocking the weapon.
“Don’t shoot, ya stupid bastards!” yelled Clovis. “We’re Americans!”
A short burst erupted from the fifty. One of the rounds caught Taylor, picked him up off the ground and dropped him like a sack of onions.
Clovis buried the side of his face in the dirt and screamed at the unseen gunner. “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot! Americans! Don’t shoot!”
The shooting stopped, and Clovis could hear the sound of an APC revving up.
“Don’t shoot!” he yelled again, digging frantically in his rucksack for a smoke grenade. He found the grenade, popped it and watched it billow yellow smoke. “Don’t shoot! We’re Americans!” He heard the grinding of gears and the crushing sounds of the APC backing away from them in the elephant grass.
“Fucking ARVN shitheads!” he yelled futilely. He checked Taylor. A single round from the .50 caliber had caught him in the front of the helmet, making a big neat hole. It had made an even bigger not very neat hole coming out the back of his helmet.
“Taylor! Wake up!” cried Clovis, feeling the tears well up in his eyes. “Come on now, buddy, wake up. You hear me? I ain’t gonna let you die on me, now. Not now. Not after all we been through together. What am I gonna tell your folks?”
Uselessly he shook his dead friend. “Taylor, you wake up now, goddammit!”
Clovis squatted, oblivious to the fact that he might be exposing himself to more fire. “Medic!” he screamed. “Oh, Jesus, somebody get me some help over here. Medic!”
Clovis stared at the impassive elephant grass, glared at the APC still retreating from the scene of the senseless killing.
“Oh, God damn you to hell, you murderin’ bastards,” he yelled helplessly after the track. “God damn you, you ARVN cowards! Damn you and your whole stinkin’ country! We oughtta let the goddamned Charlie have it! You hear me? We oughtta gi
ve ’em the damned place, and let ’em kick the likes of you out of it! Fuckin’ bunch of ARVN shit-heads!”
Clovis cradled Taylor’s shattered head gently between his hands and softly rocked his friend in his lap.
“Come on, Taylor, don’t die. Please, buddy. Please. Wake up, now. Come on, Taylor, wake up.”
CHAPTER 2
U.S. ARMY SPECIAL FORCES CAMP A-555,
NEAR THE PLAIN OF REEDS, RVN
“Wake up! Wake up!”
The images of Viet Cong soldiers swam before his tired eyes. He could see it all so clearly, like a series of stop-action photographs. The soldier on the left, his carbine up and swinging toward them, the other one just beginning to raise his rifle, and then the two bright puffs of red, drilling each man neatly in the center of his chest.
“Captain Gerber, sir, I’m sorry to disturb you, but could you please wake up? General Crinshaw is on the radio, and he wants to talk to you. And he’s not taking no for an answer.”
U.S. Army Special Forces Captain MacKenzie K. Gerber sat up slowly on the Army-issue folding cot. He swung his feet over the side as he rubbed the grit from his eyes with the back of his hand.
“Who wants to talk to me?”
“General Crinshaw, sir.”
“Crinshaw? Christ! Is he here?” Gerber managed to get one eye unglued and saw that he was being addressed by Staff Sergeant Galvin Bocker, the A-Detachment’s senior communications specialist.
“No, sir,” said Bocker patiently. “He’s on the radio. I told him you’d been out with a patrol all night, asked if I could take a message. He was very nonplussed at my suggestion, sir. Mentioned something about breaking me all the way to civilian if I didn’t get you on the horn most ricky tick.”
Gerber waved his hand. “All right. Tell His Royal Highness I’m coming. I’ll be there just as soon as I get my boots on. What time is it, anyway?”
