Sand in the Wind

by Robert Roth

  Sand in the Wind

  by Robert Roth

  AN ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS BOOK

  Little, Brown and Company —Boston —Toronto

  Copyright © 1973 by Robert Roth. All rights reserved. no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  First Edition

  Portions of the lyric from “Someday Soon,” by Ian Tyson, on page 478, © 1963 M. WITMARK & SONS. All Rights Reserved. Used by permission of Warner Bros. Music.

  Lines fom “If I Had a Hammer” (The Hammer Song), on page 284, Words & Music by Lee Hays and Pete Seeger. TRO — © Copyright 1958 & 1962 LUDLOW MUSIC, INC., New York, N.Y. Used by permission.

  Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

  Roth, Robert, 1945-

  Sand in the wind.

  "An Atlantic Monthly Press book."

  I. Title.

  m.R84543San [PS3568.O856] 813 '.5 '4

  73-8768

  ISBN 0-316-75765-9

  For all the numbers, but especially the 0311’s

  Though the author served as a rifleman with the Fifth Marine Regiment in Vietnam, this book is fiction — neither personal account nor history — and its characters are fictional.

  Then, returning to himself, let man consider his own being compared with all that is; let him regard himself as wandering in this remote province of nature; and from this little dungeon in which he finds himself lodged, I mean the universe, let him learn to set a true value on the earth, on its kingdoms, its cities, and on himself.

  Blaise Pascal, circa 1650

  Table Of Contents

  BOOK ONE

  1. Da Nang, July, 1967

  2. Hill 65

  3 The Bad Bush

  4. A Hundred Miles from Nowhere

  5. The Cemetery

  6. Charlie Ridge

  7. The Canopy

  BOOK TWO

  1. Da Nang

  2. Hill 65

  3. The Arizona Territory

  4. The Arizona

  BOOK THREE

  1. Da Nang

  2. An Hoa

  3. The Ancient City

  BOOK ONE

  1. Da Nang, July, 1967

  The two groups of men studied each other — one group in a fenced-off area, the other passing by it. Each face searched the faces of those in the other group, seeking clues to what they themselves had looked like thirteen months past or what they would look like thirteen months hence — one group uneasy and alert, just off a plane from Okinawa; the other group laughing, joking, confident, ready to board it after waiting since before dawn for four or five of the longest, happiest hours they had ever experienced, now seeing the plane that would take them home, at last sure of something so long in doubt — their own survival.

  The newly debarked group, some of them still glancing backwards, was led to the rear of the nearest building. They milled around nervously while waiting for their seabags. Beyond the barbwire fence less than twenty yards away, they could see a vast, shimmering plain of rice paddies stretching to the dark mountains miles in the distance. Dikes of gray-brown mud cut the plain into thousands of perfect squares, each a different shade of green. A few peasants and their water buffaloes moved slowly through the knee-deep water working these rice paddies.

  An asphalt walkway ran along the near side of the fence, and every few minutes a young Vietnamese girl or two would pass by. The soldiers’ eyes would follow these delicately beautiful girls. Their loose fitting black or white slacks ruffled beneath long, brightly colored silk dresses slit to the waist on both sides. Occasionally the girls would be carrying white parasols which accented the shiny black hair that fell gracefully down the hollows of their backs. Among the soldiers walked other, older, Vietnamese women in black slacks and dingy white blouses. Straw, cone-shaped hats blocked the sun from their lined faces. Many of them had crudely shaped cigars gripped between their yellow-stained teeth. These older women moved about with their heads down and their eyes scanning the ground for cigarette butts and pieces of paper to be swept into the dustpans they carried.

  Occasionally a soldier would walk by holding a rifle balanced upside down on his shoulder, his hand on the front end of the barrel and a tag dangling from the stock. These weren’t the M-14’s or M-16’s they had carried in the bush, but SKS’s, formerly carried by Viet Cong or NVA soldiers. The newly arrived men stared at these rifles with envy, sometimes saying to themselves or to a friend, “When I leave Nam, I’ll have one of them too.”

  A truck pulled up and the seabags in it were quickly tossed to the pavement. The men milled among them until, finding their own, they’d heave it on their shoulders and carry it towards the building. They would hesitate at the entrance until their eyes adjusted to the dim interior, then split up and join the appropriate lines to receive their orders. Rows of huge timbers supported the flat, corrugated roof and dwarfed the men standing near them. At one end of the building, a harsh artificial light glared down upon a few battered desks. A high counter separated this small area from the rest of the interior. Long lines of men stretched from the counter to the opposite end of the building. Other men sat or lay upon hard wooden benches. The atmosphere was similar to the gloom of a large, run-down train terminal.

  In one of the shorter lines reserved for officers, there were only seven men. A major was talking to three of the others, all second lieutenants. This would be his second tour and he was enjoying the role of the old salt letting the boots know what they were in for. Behind these four, two more second lieutenants talked about a drunk they’d had in Okinawa. The last man in line, also a second lieutenant, faced away from the counter. His dark hair, though short, was cut somewhat longer than the “skin jobs” of the officers in front of him. He had the patient yet annoyed expression of someone accustomed, but never adjusted to standing in line. A half-smoked cigarette hung insolently from the corner of his mouth. He removed it and turned towards the counter. The line slowly shortened as he studied the spit-shined boots of those ahead of him. When he reached the counter, the clerk looked up with relief seeing that he was the last man to be processed. The lieutenant handed the clerk his orders.

  “Lieutenant Kramer?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ll be going to the Fifth Marine Regiment in An Hoa. Know anything about the Fifth?”

  “No.”

  “The Arizona?”

  Kramer shook his head.

  “I wouldn’t be in too much of a hurry to learn, sir. There’ll be a truck by in about twenty minutes to take you to Ninth Motors. You’ll be able to get a chopper from there. Wait right out front, somebody’ll call your name.”

  Kramer nodded, lifted his seabag, and carried it to the entrance. Shading his eyes with his free hand, he looked for a place to set it down. The area was covered with prone bodies. Stepping over and between them, he made his way to an empty spot and jerked the seabag off his shoulder. He glanced at his watch, then stretched out on the ground using the bag as a pillow. After lying there a few minutes, he changed his mind and sat up, not wanting ‘some lifer’ to bother him about being unofficerlike. He glanced around with aloof curiosity, surprised at how calm and relieved he felt —glad to have all the training over with and not too concerned about what was to follow. What was there to be concerned about? Since his arrival everything he’d seen, every step he’d taken, had been expected, as if he’d done it a hundred times before. It was all a cliché. How simply he’d entered it, been caught within its slow momentum. Nothing remained but to follow it through — passively.

  Kramer sat waiting. He beca
me slightly more anxious and tried to keep from staring at his watch. Doing so always seemed to make time pass more slowly. The harder he tried to avoid it, the more he wanted to look. The watch was a Seiko, ‘a good make,’ he’d been told; but with an American’s typical distrust for anything Japanese, he was always a little surprised to see it had the right time. He’d picked it up in Okinawa for thirty dollars and mailed his Rolex to his brother — ‘No point in having some VC running around the rice paddies with a two hundred dollar souvenir.’

  Kramer waited forty minutes, then decided to lie down again. It was over an hour before a corporal called out his name. The corporal told the men around him to get their seabags and board the six-by, an open troop-transport vehicle. The truck rambled over dirt roads for twenty minutes before reaching Ninth Motors. Kramer walked over to the company office to check in. A clerk glanced at his papers and spoke without looking up, “Fifth Marines.” As he handed the orders back, he smiled and added, “The Arizona.” The clerk then pointed across the road towards the helicopter landing zone. “The LZ’s about a quarter mile that way, sir. When you get there, ask for a manifest slip and tell them you want to go to An Hoa.”

  More than forty Marines were waiting at the landing zone. Most of them had on jungle fatigues and boots worn free of polish. They lay around casually in small groups, taking advantage of what little shade was available. A confused-looking replacement walked towards Kramer to ask him a question; but upon seeing the officer’s insignia on his collar, the replacement hesitated, then walked away. After an hour a helicopter circled. Practically everyone got up and started getting their gear ready. A member of the ground crew announced “An Hoa,” and half the men sat down again while the others lined up at the edge of the landing pad. As soon as the chopper touched down, some men hurried off and those waiting to board rushed single file up the loading ramp.

  Two benches ran laterally along the bulkheads. Kramer and about ten others got seats; the rest sat on the deck. Most of those on board were looking around smiling, enjoying the idea of getting from one place to another by a means other than their feet. Relaxed, Kramer leaned back against the bulkhead. He’d ridden on copters a few times before and had liked them. The chopper flew low and parallel to a ridge of mountains. Kramer looked over his shoulder out the window. Small streams billowed white down the mountains before reaching the rice paddies and becoming twisting ribbons of mercury. Tiny, barely moving human shapes dotted the various-shaded fields. The bright colors seemed alive and freshly painted. Scattered against the green background were numerous, perfectly shaped orange circles. Kramer mused about what they could be. ‘Wells? No, too many. . . . Circular; man-made. . . . Bomb craters!’ he finally realized, astonished at not having known this immediately.

  The helicopter tilted to the opposite side leaving nothing but sky visible from his window. Kramer turned his head away and scanned the inside of the chopper. His eye caught a nervous face and he studied it until the copter started to descend. Again looking out the window, he noticed they were headed for a sprawling orange blotch in the corner of a large valley.

  As soon as the helicopter landed, the passengers ran single file to the edge of the LZ. From there they headed off in different directions. Kramer picked out a corporal who looked as if he knew his way around. “Where do you check in at?”

  “Follow me. I’m going by there.”

  An Hoa appeared to be a vast, orderless collection of huge bunkers. They were all rectangular, about six feet high, and constructed of large timbers packed with sandbags. Alleys of reddish orange dirt ran between the bunkers. Everything and everybody seemed to be coated with dust of this same color. It hung heavy in the air and Kramer could actually taste it in his mouth. He felt the sun upon his neck, and his eyes squinted from its glare. Carrying a seventy-pound seabag didn’t make him any the more comfortable. In a few minutes, dark blotches of sweat had soaked through his clothing.

  The corporal pointed to a large bunker, identifying it as Regimental Headquarters. Kramer dumped his seabag against its wall. A long line of enlisted men led through the entrance. He ducked beneath the low crossbeam and squeezed past them. The inside was dim and cavernous despite a number of fluorescent light fixtures hung crudely from the ceiling. Rough timbers stood at regular intervals supporting the roof. A wooden counter ran the front length of the bunker, and behind it were a number of desks, only a few of them occupied. Kramer leaned against the counter, holding his orders in front of him. He was ignored by the first two clerks that walked by. A sergeant looked up from one of the nearer desks. Seeing Kramer, he slowly got to his feet and walked over. “Checking in, sir?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’ll take about a half hour to get your papers processed, sir. If you want, you can still probably get some chow at the officers’ mess in the mean time.”

  “All right.”

  “Make a left as you go out the door. It’s about six bunkers down. You’ll see the sign.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome, sir.”

  The bunker was fronted by a fairly wide road. Marines walked along both sides of it. Jeep drivers, tearing around corners seeing how close they could come to splattering somebody on their windshields, yelled to friends they spotted along the road. Soldiers were hanging out of the backs of trucks shooting peace signs at everyone in sight. An occasional tank rumbled by with its driver looking straight ahead, daring anybody to get in his way. Anything that didn’t move on two feet was followed by huge billows of orange dust.

  Kramer noticed a group of shabbily dressed Vietnamese foraging through some garbage cans — ‘The mess hall.’ It was a small building of unpainted plywood walls with screens circling it just below the tin roof. He pushed the door open and saw that the messmen were starting to clean up. No one was eating, but a cook behind the chow line nodded so he went over and got a plate of what was left. Not liking milk, Kramer filled a canteen cup from a large thermos jug he thought contained water — only afterwards noticing the sickening green color of Kool-Aid. The food turned out to be just slightly worse than the stateside Marine Corps chow he had given up hope of ever getting used to. But he hadn’t eaten since early that morning, so he forced the food down.

  When Kramer got back to Regimental Headquarters, he was approached by the same sergeant. “Sir?”

  “My orders.”

  “Your orders?”

  “Yes, I’m checking in. You told me to come back in a half hour.”

  “Oh! Yes sir, they should be ready by now. I’ll take a look.” The sergeant returned to the counter reading the orders. “You’ve been assigned to Second Battalion, sir. It’s outside the gate and about half a mile down the road. I’ll get you a jeep.”

  When the jeep drove up, Kramer turned around to get his seabag. “Thought it was green,” he mumbled to himself.

  “What was that, sir?” the driver asked.

  “Nothing, I just said my seabag used to be green, now it’s brown,” he answered while heaving it into the back of the jeep.

  “The dust, sir?”

  “Yeah, I guess you get used to it.” The jeep lurched forward and headed down the road.

  “No sir, not a chance. Around here it’s either mud or dust — when you’ve got one, you pray for the other — but you never get used to either.”

  “Mud?”

  “Yes sir, in the rainy season this whole fucking dump is covered with two feet of mud.”

  Kramer noticed a huge concrete superstructure just off the road. “What’s that?”

  “An Hoa’s one of the few places in South Vietnam that has coal. The West Germans were building a big industrial complex here, but the war started and they had to pull out. Never finished the buildings, just the concrete frames. The only thing left is a hospital down the road, treats the villagers. They say sometimes a wounded VC walks in and they treat him too.”

  The jeep stopped in front of a wooden building. Kramer got out and entered it. A staff sergeant s
at behind a desk and a first lieutenant leaned against it while talking to him. Kramer addressed both of them, “I just flew in from Da Nang. I’m checking in.”

  The staff sergeant stood up. “Yes, sir.”

  The first lieutenant offered his hand. “I’m Lieutenant Forest.”

  “Lieutenant Kramer.”

  “Glad to meet you, Kramer.”

  He turned and shook hands with the staff sergeant. “Staff Sergeant Allen. . . . Since the colonel’s in the rear today, he’ll probably want to talk to you. I’ll take your orders and record book now.”

  Forest was about to address Kramer when a short, stocky man walked quickly through the door. “Good afternoon, sir. Lieutenant Kramer here has just been assigned to our battalion. Lieutenant Kramer, Lieutenant Colonel Nash.”

  They shook hands. “Glad to have you, Kramer. I’m sure we can use you.”

  ‘You won’t be the first,’ thought Kramer, nodding his head.

  “Lieutenant Forest, if you’re not too busy, why don’t you show him around. Kramer, I’d appreciate it if you come back in ten minutes so I can talk to you.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The colonel went into his office and Forest led Kramer out the door. “I guess the first thing you’d be interested in seeing is the officers’ quarters so you can get rid of that seabag.”

  “Sounds like a good idea.”

  Kramer studied Forest as he led him between the plywood and canvas buildings. Though he was only slightly overweight, Forest’s arms and face lacked muscle tone, making him appear fatter than he actually was. His close-cropped hair receded an inch or two at the corners of his forehead. He spoke with an almost feminine drawl. “Where you from, Kramer?”

  “Florida, Miami, Florida.”

  “Hey, I’ve been there. Wild town.”

  “There’re a lot wilder towns.”