Sand in the Wind

by Robert Roth

  Finally, Hamilton said, “I know what you mean; and it’s true. I never met so many guys I liked besides in the Crotch.”

  Even Chalice, who had often found himself puzzled by or looking down upon those around him, had to admit this. “You’re right, both of you; but the Crotch can be pretty fucked-up sometimes.”

  Most of the men nodded agreement, and Hamilton said, “Yeah, but it ain’t the guys. It’s the lifers that fuck it up.” After a quick glance at Tony 5, Hamilton added, “No offense, Tony.”

  Even before Hamilton had a chance to finish, Tony 5 replied, “Not all the lifers. Sure, most of them are fucked up, but there’s a lot a decent ones. Most of you guys weren’t here then, but the gunny we used to have before Martin was one decent motherfucker. He never got on anybody’s ass unless he had to, and the company was a hell of a lot more squared-away than it is now. . . . How many of you guys didn’t have at least one cool drill instructor at Parris Island?”

  One person said “Me,” but the others nodded their heads or voiced agreement.

  “Ever since PI, I think I had my mind made up to be a drill instructor, and I will someday. I don’t get no special kick out of killing people; but if it comes to that, you might as well know what you’re doing, and there ain’t a better place to learn than in the Crotch. When the skin-headed punks get out of my platoon, they’ll have their shit together. They’ll be somebody you can depend on — a Marine.” Tony moved his stare from man to man, waiting for someone to contradict him, sure that no one would.

  “Yeah,” Forsythe finally agreed. “You’ll make a hell of a drill instructor, Tony. Someday I’ll send you my kid to beat up.”

  Forsythe’s remark broke the seriousness of the mood, but then Childs, who had been the quietest of the group, spoke out. His tone more factual than sarcastic, what he said turned all faces towards him. “How ’bout the Phantom Blooker?”

  “What do you mean?” Rabbit asked.

  But the question had been directed at Tony 5. “I said he was an American, not a Marine.”

  “I think he’s a Marine,” Childs replied without emotion.

  Tony 5 hesitated, staring at the faces of those around him before saying slowly and in an uncommonly demure tone, “I think he’s a Marine too.”

  Childs was unwilling to let the matter drop with this admission. “He went to PI.”

  “I guess he did,” Tony replied softly, but his face suddenly hardened; and when he spoke again, he spit out each word with an anger that made Chalice wince. “I’d take another thirteen months of this shit if I could go home with that motherfucker’s scalp in my hand.” Tony 5 paused and began to shake his head. “I can’t figure that motherfucker out.”

  “None of us can,” Rabbit added.

  Chalice wanted to speak out, but his lips moved silently. Even after he had suppressed this desire, the word “us” continued to reverberate in his mind. He searched the faces of the men in his squad, picking out the ones he had the most affection for, knowing he was irrevocably isolated from even them.

  It was Hamilton who finally spoke. “Just ’cause he’s a Marine doesn’t mean anything. There’s plenty of guys in this company I hate.”

  “It’s not the same,” Tony 5 insisted somberly.

  “Maybe he just went crazy,” Rabbit suggested.

  Wilcox asked in his usually dull tone, “How can anybody fight for the Gooks?”

  The previous remarks had frustrated more than angered Chalice, but this comment enraged him. He turned towards Wilcox with the urge to shout. But the only indication of this was the nervous, almost imperceptible movement of his lips as he said to himself what he wanted to scream. “You dumb, pathetic motherfucker. That’s what they tell us we are doing — fighting for the Gooks, except for the wrong fucking Gooks. One of us has the guts to fight for the only people in this country worth a shit, and you hate him.”

  Forsythe spoke out in an uncommonly slow and serious tone. “I’d kill him. . . . You know as long as I’ve been here, I don’t think I’ve killed a man. I never told anyone this, but one time when I was walking point I surprised a Gook in a clearing. He got up and ran. I saw he was wearing a belt of chicoms. The next thing I knew, I had my rifle pointed at him and my finger on the trigger. But I couldn’t shoot. I could have emptied a magazine in his back, but I couldn’t pull the trigger. For days after that I was scared he was gonna come back and kill one of my friends. I knew it would be my fault, but I was still glad I let him get away. I don’t think I could ever kill a man unless he was coming at me with a rifle . . . except for him. I could kill him and never be sorry. . . . He’s blown away too many of my friends.”

  Was that the question, Chalice wondered. ‘Friends . . . my friends — is that what it comes down to?’ Never before had this word seemed so important.

  Chalice heard his nickname mentioned and noticed that everyone was looking at him. It had been Tony 5’s voice. “Professor . . . when I handed you my blooker and watched you fire it for the first time, I said to myself, ‘He’ll get him. He’ll do the job on the Phantom Blooker.’ I’d always thought I’d be the one to blow him away, because it had to be done with his own weapon and Alpha owed it to him more than any squad in the battalion. It was the only way he could be stopped from killing any more of my friends. When I gave you that blooker, it was like I failed, now it was somebody else’s turn; but just by the way you held it made me sure you’d get him. I don’t know why, but it did. . . . Maybe you will. I won’t be around, but maybe you will.”

  That night it was Alpha’s turn to go on an ambush. The site was less than a kilometer outside the perimeter, and they reached it without incident. Chalice had second watch, but he was awakened just before it was to begin by the sound of blooker rounds exploding in the vicinity of the perimeter. As he listened, he wondered if they were finding their mark, if at dawn he would return to the perimeter and see a body, or maybe a row of them, wrapped in ponchos, and then be told that one of them was a friend. When Chalice did return to camp, he saw no bodies. They were on the opposite side of the perimeter. None were friends.

  The rain gradually increased while the men waited for the medivac chopper to arrive for the bodies. At eight o’clock, they heard a helicopter circling above the perimeter, but the intense rain prevented it from landing. Just before noon, a slight break in the clouds enabled the bodies to be evacuated. Trippitt had planned to move the campsite, but the ease with which the Phantom Blooker seemed always able to find them made such movements appear ludicrous. If they moved to a new site now, they would not have time to send out patrols. If they chose to stay, Trippitt felt the Phantom Blooker might also stay. An attack would be more of a certainty, but they’d have a chance to send out patrols and possibly surprise him. Trippitt chose to retain the same camp.

  Second Platoon’s patrol was somewhat shorter than the other two, but it necessitated a sweep through a larger area of high ground. The rain resumed even before they left the perimeter. Unusually strong winds prevented the exertion of the march from warming the men’s bodies. By the time they reached the object of the patrol, they were not only tired but also shivering. It was an oblong patch of high ground, its length facing their perimeter. Kramer had his men circle around and approach from the narrowest side, thus making it possible to finish the search with one continuous sweep. He arranged the platoon on-line, the distance between the men averaging seven yards.

  Eyes squinting into a wind that lashed the rain against their faces, the men could think of little besides their own discomfort. The sweep was no more than a task divorced from all purpose, something to be done, something to be gotten over with. Booby traps were a possibility, but they had no hopes of finding the Phantom Blooker. To question or to justify seemed equally pointless. All they could do was walk forward, step by step, until an hour later when the far edge of the high ground came into view.

  They found nothing, not even the remains of a ville. Their thoughts were on the march back to camp when Tony 5
spotted it through the rain, an almost obscured human form walking towards them from the rice paddies. He alerted the men on either side, and they immediately froze except to alert other men. What had first appeared as a blur became sharper. Whoever he was, he was less than twenty yards away.

  The men kneeled or lay prone, their rifles aimed at the approaching form. Through the rain, it appeared to be a peasant wearing a white, conical hat and a light-colored shirt. Every few steps the brim of the hat would rise up for a few seconds as he looked forward. Each time the men saw this, their fingers pressed gently against the triggers of their rifles. But the rain kept him from seeing them until they wanted him to.

  He approached within six yards before Tony was certain he wasn’t carrying a rifle. Both arms drawn up alongside his chin, he held a bag over his shoulder. Tony rose to his feet. The men to his sides did the same. The peasant took two more steps before the brim of his hat tilted up.

  She froze, five rifles pointing directly at her. Tony remained silent, thinking that maybe someone else would approach. The trembling woman before him looked no different from any other peasant. After standing motionless for over a minute, Tony glanced to his left and told Kramer to cover him. He circled behind the woman and took the bag from her shoulder. By its weight and the metallic sound as he placed it on the ground, Tony knew what the bag contained even before he opened it. He slowly reached inside, withdrew a small object, and tossed it to Kramer.

  Kramer turned to his left and said softly, “Professor, up. Corpsman, up.” Chalice reached him first. Kramer pointed to Tony. “We’ve got some ammunition for you.” Chalice knelt down and looked into the bag with disbelief. He then emptied the blooker rounds into his pouch.

  When the corpsman arrived, Tony 5 took a bandage from him and gagged the woman. He then said to Kramer, “If he’s here, we’ll find him.

  Word of what had happened was whispered down the line. The men turned in preparation for another sweep through the high ground. They knew that he might not be within it; but they also knew that if he was, he wouldn’t be expecting them to return. The sweep progressed more slowly than the first time. No one thought about how cold he was, or about returning to the perimeter. Something remained to be done, done with the rifles they squeezed tightly in their hands.

  The rain began to slacken. By the time they were halfway through their sweep, it stopped completely. Chalice tried to convince himself that again the Phantom Blooker would elude them. He knew that possibly he had never been there, or that the peasant was merely leaving the rounds in one of his hiding places. But the chance of coming upon him became unnerving. All logic told him that he had nothing to fear — that it was only myth and superstition which now threatened him. There were almost thirty men in the platoon — the odds were with him. Yet never had the odds seemed so meaningless. There were two other blooker men in the platoon. Yet Tony 5’s words made this seem irrelevant. He told himself that he would never see the Phantom Blooker. Yet thoughts that made him question his own sanity convinced Chalice that their meeting was inevitable. Something had happened, something irrevocable, happened even before the day on the hill when Tony had taught him how to shoot the blooker; and he was now too confused even to wonder what it had been. All odds, all logic seemed meaningless. Chalice feared and believed that soon he would have to make a decision, and he had no idea what that decision would be.

  The men to his sides moved forward quietly, carefully. Chalice recognized a small knoll less than twenty yards to his front. He remembered it from the previous sweep and looked upon it with relief, knowing that not more than fifty yards lay between it and the far edge of the high ground. Again their search would prove fruitless. The odds had saved him. He was sure of this.

  Forsythe was to Chalice’s left, and it was he who began to climb the knoll. In his hurry to get by it, Chalice had gotten a few yards in front of the formation. He stopped and began to turn his head towards Forsythe so he would know when to begin moving again. He never saw Forsythe. His eyes became transfixed upon something he couldn’t make himself believe he was seeing — the form of a man, naked to the waist, sitting on the far side of the knoll. Chalice froze.

  It was too unreal, a dream, reality in its crudest and most threatening form. The figure suddenly rose and spun around towards the top of the knoll, the barrel of a blooker extending beyond its arm — a hollow click, a loud explosion. The figure spun towards Chalice — hunted, protruding eyes and gaunt Caucasian features cast into a hollow mask — then fell beneath Chalice’s stare, dropping to his knees and disappearing as Forsythe yelled, “Over here!”

  Men brushed quickly past Chalice, their rifles pointed ahead of them. They formed a half circle around the base of the knoll. Chalice remained where he stood. As if from a great distance, he heard Forsythe say excitedly, “He’s in here! My rifle jammed. . . . The Professor ripped open his shoulder.”

  The men stood with their rifles pointed at a small, square opening at the base of the knoll. Beside it lay a plant in a crude, bamboo box that had formerly covered this hole. There was blood on the ground, a lot of it.

  “Spread out!” Kramer yelled. “There may be another entrance.” Most of the men backed away as Tony 5 rushed forward and threw a grenade into the hole. Soon almost everyone had a frag in his hand, and they took turns rushing forward and throwing them into the tunnel. Again and again the grenades exploded until Kramer finally yelled, “That’s enough!” He turned to Tony 5. “There can’t be much left of him now.”

  “Yes there can. Get me an E-tool!” Tony yelled.

  Someone handed him one, and he rushed towards the top of the knoll. Once before he had seen a bunker like this. Using the shovel as if it were a pick, Tony swung it down frantically at the crest of the knoll. The men glanced questioningly at each other wondering what Tony was trying to do. Suddenly he flung the shovel aside and grabbed a grenade from his pouch. He threw it at his feet and stepped off the knoll. A muffled explosion came from within as debris erupted from its peak.

  Now everyone realized what Tony 5 had been doing. The entrance merely curved a few feet below the surface, leading upward to a chamber at the top of the knoll. Again they began throwing grenades, this time into the opening at the crest of the knoll. They continued doing so in a frenzy for over five minutes, nearly half the men in the platoon taking a turn. Chalice slowly approached the knoll, searching the faces of the men around him. The brutal satisfaction most of them seemed to take in this act bewildered him. Even after Kramer yelled, “That’s enough!” another man ran wildly up the knoll and flung a grenade inside.

  At first the men stood silently watching the knoll. One by one, their stares turned towards Kramer. His stomach tightened as he wondered what was left of whoever was in the bunker. He turned towards Tony 5. “Let’s get him out.”

  Tony grabbed the flashlight and .45, then headed for the entrance. But he stopped short of it. Turning to the men behind him, he called out, “Professor.” Some men standing between Tony 5 and Chalice moved aside and left them facing each other. “He’s all yours, Professor. You earned the honor.”

  ‘Honor. . . . honor?’ All Chalice could do was shake his head.

  Tony kneeled by the entrance. The grenades had caved it in, so he called for the rope. Some men tied it around his waist, then lowered him into the opening at the top of the knoll. His feet touched upon a bamboo floor. Only now did he turn on the flashlight. Slowly directing it in a circle, it shone upon a stack of C-rations, then some blooker rounds — nothing else. ‘He couldn’t have gotten away.’ The chamber was about four feet by eight feet. Again, more hurriedly, he directed the flashlight over its floor. This time he saw something else — not on the floor, but against the wall a few inches above it — a hand, fingers extended towards the ground. He slowly raised the beam of the flashlight up the hanging arm until it shone upon the entrance to the chamber, from which hung another arm and a limply hanging head. Tony removed the rope from his waist. He slipped the noose over
the head and roughly jerked it taut.

  “Pull him up!”

  There was the sibilant swooshing sound of the corpse sliding from the tunnel, followed by the delicate, metallic tingling of something hitting the bamboo floor, then the dull scraping of bare feet against the box of C-rations as the body swung pendulum-like from the opening in the roof before being awkwardly jerked through it like a recalcitrant puppet.

  When Tony 5 was pulled from the chamber, most of the men were standing around the corpse. There was a blooker wound just below his shoulder blade, and his arms and head were blood caked and mutilated. The face was nothing more than a featureless mass of raw flesh. Blood matted what remained of his brown, wavy hair. As Tony 5 stared down at the corpse, Sinclaire asked him, “How come there ain’t a mark on him below the chest?”

  “He was stuck in the tunnel, never made it into the chamber. Must of been dead before the first frag went off. . . . The Professor did it by himself.”

  Chalice was staring down at the corpse. Some of the men slapped him on the back while offering congratulations. He turned and walked away, but a few of them followed him. Chalice remembered everything — Forsythe’s rifle misfiring, the explosion, the gaunt stare — everything except pulling the trigger. He actually waited for someone to say, “It wasn’t the Professor. It was me,” at the same time knowing that if it hadn’t been him, then it hadn’t happened. ‘They double-crossed me,’ Chalice thought to himself — meaning the odds.

  Kramer had called Trippitt to find out what to do about the body. Trippitt wasn’t sure, and he said he’d call battalion. In a few minutes, Milton handed the receiver back to Kramer, telling him that Nash was on the other end.