Sergeant Dickinson

by Jerome Gold

  The tall gentleman meets us in the commander’s office. He says in a flat accentless voice: “Are you men racists?” He looks first at Roy, then at me. He does not look at Mitch. He says: “Are you men aware that you are creating an international incident?” He takes our depositions out of an enameled briefcase and hands them to us. We tear them up.

  CHAPTER 8

  The mess hall. The sun diffuses through the mist, refracts in the glass of the window, heats our faces and arms. We push away our trays, linger over coffee and cigarettes.

  I ask, “All of them?”

  “That’s what I heard.”

  “Breckinridge, too?”

  “Breckinridge, too.”

  “Were they mutilated?”

  “No. The Marines found them not too long after it happened. Maybe there wasn’t time.”

  “God.”

  Roy says, “Stay out of the A Shau. That’s all I can say.

  “I’m getting myself assigned to Mike Force. I got to get out of this place.”

  “I’m going up to Eye Corps. A Shau.”

  “’Stay out of the A Shau.”’

  “That’s for pussies like you. John Waynes like me take it as a matter of course.”

  “Okay, John Wayne.”

  “Mitch is going to Okinawa. He’s found himself a slot there.”

  “Yeah, well. He’s been here two years straight now.”

  “He’s had a few R-and-Rs.”

  “That just makes it worse when you come back.”

  “Not for us John Waynes.”

  “You’ll do okay.”

  “I’m scared shitless.”

  “You’ll do okay,” I tell him.

  “I’m not gonna be a fuckin’hero. Fuck Breckinridge.”

  “And all of his men.”

  “Yeah. And that fuckin’ Spencer stays here, snug as a bug.”

  “There isn’t a camp that will take him.”

  “Listen, what happened to that maid Spencer did the job on? I haven’t seen her since that embassy guy was here.”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t seen her around.”

  “They disappeared her. And Mitch. And me. They’ll disappear you, too. Everybody but Spencer.”

  “The fuck-ups stay in place. When are you leaving for A Shau?”

  “As soon as I can get a flight. Maybe tomorrow. You can have whatever I leave behind. You’ll be working out of Pleiku anyway, if you go to Mike Force.”

  “I don’t want anything.”

  “Then give the stuff away. If I have time I’ll do it. Those crossbows, though. How about hanging on to those for me?”

  “All right.”

  “And the photographs. I don’t want to take them.”

  “Not the photographs. I don’t like that kind of stuff.”

  “Okay. I’ll find some greenhorn to give them to. They like that gory stuff.”

  “Listen. Let’s say good-bye now. So we don’t have to do it later.”

  “I’ll go for that. We’ve both said good-bye to too many people.”

  “Amen to that, brother.”

  “Good-bye, Dixie.”

  “Good-bye, Roy. You can leave the crossbows in my room. I’ll leave it unlocked.”

  CHAPTER 9

  The wind burned right through us, stiffening our hands and ankles, breaking the skin on our lips and on our hands where they were callused. Water on the ground had begun to freeze even before dark, and by midnight the puddles were solid with ice and the ground had cracked and we could hardly walk on the frost-slick grass. We did not have gloves or field jackets and we wore pajamas under our fatigues. We could not believe that it had gotten so cold.

  We stood at a small fire in a copse of pine off a French logging road. The stars pulsed in blue-white clarity.

  “Tell me this isn’t the tropics,” Percival says. “Tell me a flying saucer picked us up when we were asleep and set us down in Montana.”

  “Have some coffee.” I pass my thermos cup to him.

  “Thank you, Sergeant. You’re a good man, despite what they say about you. Well, how do you think this exercise is going?”

  We were running a Rhadé company through a training exercise. It consisted of a short patrol up a narrow, brush-heavy drainage followed by a raid in which live ammunition was fired against cardboard silhouettes staked into the ground against a berm. In conjunction with this, a security element was to ambush an “enemy” reinforcing column on the logging road. The reinforcing column consisted of one jeep. Each of the company’s three platoons went through the raid and ambush in turn.

  “They look pretty good. It would have been better if that jeep had shown up, though,” I say.

  “Well, you can’t have everything. It probably got too cold for them and they went home. That’s why I’m glad I don’t have to work with Americans.”

  The drivers were American.

  I put some pine cones on the fire. We heard the machine guns start up on the hill. They were firing short bursts.

  “I haven’t heard your booby trap go off yet.”

  “I know. I’ve been thinking about it. Why don’t I go up with the last group as their evaluator? If they don’t trip it I’ll blow it myself on the way. We can’t leave it up there.”

  “I know. I wish we could. I hate fooling around with those things. Do you want me to come along?”

  “No. I’ll just trip it. I won’t try to take it apart.”

  “You shouldn’t have any problem.”

  “No,” I agree.

  The last platoon to go through the exercise entered the wash from the road. The sergeant had put his machine guns toward the front and rear of the column. That was good. The radio man stayed right on the sergeant’s heels. That was good, too. The troops did not bunch up when the column halted but kept their intervals. That, too, was as it should be.

  Of course, it was too short a patrol to tell their real caliber. You needed at least two hours before they would begin to get sloppy. It was the way they handled their propensities toward carelessness that told you how disciplined they were. But, all things considered, they looked pretty good.

  Now the sergeant had to decide whether to march his troops up the draw or to walk one of the slopes. The sergeant had reconned the terrain earlier in the day. To walk the low ground was foolishness; should they be ambushed they would have to run uphill either to assault the ambush positions or to get away. The sergeant knew that there were no aggressors on this problem, but he was expected to play the game.

  The target was ultimately to the left of the draw. If they walked the slope on the left they would not have to cross the draw later, keeping movement in proximity of the target minimal. But the rise of the slope was shallow, with a flat, treeless area farther on. The moon would throw their shadows ahead of them. Were someone watching, they would likely be seen.

  The right-hand side was fairly steep, but there was plenty of concealment. Farther up, beyond where the bare patch was on the left, the drainage rose suddenly and steeply until it was almost level with its sides. They could cross to the left there and still have concealment, for where the brush thinned and became sparse the increased density of trees compensated. The right-hand side was the correct way to do it. The proper way.

  The sergeant marched his troops to the left.

  Sergeant Huk was a lazy man; I would remember that and mention it at the critique after the exercise was over. Sergeant Huk had also presented me with the necessity to do something about the booby trap. I had strung the trip wire down the right-hand slope and across the wash. Had Sergeant Huk led his men in the correct way, the proper way, one of them probably would have set it off. Now I would have to do it on the way back.

  As the patrol passed the clearing a man in the rear stepped out into the moonlight. He followed his perfect shadow back into the trees. Another thing to bring up at the critique.

  They set up the machine guns on an open flat to the left above the draw. If this were for real it would be a
tactical disaster, but here I was willing to forego tactical expertise. I wanted everybody in clear view on that flat; I did not want any trainees killed while I was around.

  Sergeant Huk came up and Mr. Hoang, the interpreter, moved up beside me. Sergeant Huk spoke. Mr. Hoang turned to me. “He say he not want to do fire and maneuver. He say people get hurt. He want everybody fire machine gun.”

  “Okay. Tell him okay. I agree.”

  Mr. Hoang spoke to Sergeant Huk. Then Sergeant Huk spoke to Mr. Hoang. Mr. Hoang turned to me. “He say it be safer just shoot machine guns. He say he no want anybody get shot.”

  “Okay. Listen. Tell him I agree with him. Tell him I think he is a fine sergeant. Tell him I would make the same decision if I were patrol leader. Tell him something like that.”

  Mr. Hoang studied me. Then he turned and spoke to Sergeant Huk at length. Sergeant Huk grinned ingenuously. He saluted me, turned on his heel and returned to his men.

  Mr. Hoang says: “That give him confidence, what you say.” Then Mr. Hoang says: “He’s a moi.”

  I do not respond.

  The machine guns stopped. A light flashed along gray metal. Sergeant Huk and another man were inspecting a gun’s breach.

  “What is it?”

  I went down on one knee and bent over the butt of the gun.

  “Hold that gun steady.”

  A round had been driven past the chamber rim. The soft brass cartridge peeped out of the chamber at me like a tired yellow eye.

  “Hasn’t it fired?” I look at Mr. Hoang. “Ask him.”

  Mr. Hoang and Sergeant Huk spoke.

  “He say it shoot one round, then one other round.”

  There must already have been a round in the chamber when the belt started to feed. They’d been using each round to fire the one before it. They should have had a double explosion in the breach, but they hadn’t. Luck. I should have checked the weapon before we crossed the road. But I hadn’t.

  “Tell him not to fire this gun anymore. Shoot off all the ammunition with the other one. Be careful that your men don’t burn out the barrel. I’m sure they’re in a hurry to get this damned problem over.”

  I looked at the sky. The stars seemed permanently fixed. The wind, frost-cold, was coming up again. The single machine gun started.

  “Well, we missed it again. Mr. Hoang, tell Sergeant Huk I want to talk to him.”

  We were in the drainage on the return march. I stepped out of the column and watched it pass. Then it stopped. Sergeant Huk returned with Mr. Hoang. Sergeant Huk looked apprehensive.

  “Sergeant Huk, I have to do something here. There is a booby trap up the hill that I must do something about. I want you to take your men down to the road and wait for me there. Do not worry if you hear an explosion.”

  I waited while Mr. Hoang explained it. I returned Sergeant Huk’s salute and he went back to the head of the column. Mr. Hoang hung back.

  “You go with him, Mr. Hoang. I’ll be only a few minutes.”

  When Mr. Hoang had gone I walked up the wash. I found the two bushes I had picked as markers when I set out the trip wire and I walked between them. Nothing happened. I turned around and walked back. Again nothing. I started back up the ravine. My eyes searched the ground in front of my boots as I walked but I knew that I would not be able to see the transparent line against the rime. The last thing I wanted to do was dismantle that bomb. I walked back down again, then stopped and looked at the sky. There was no indication that dawn would ever come.

  I clambered up the right-hand side of the wash. My feet slid on the frost, and I concentrated on keeping my balance. When I reached the top I turned and faced each direction. In the east beyond the mountains where eventually the sea was, the sky was lightening behind thin gray clouds.

  Now it comes, I thought. Now that I’m here the sun comes. I took my flashlight out of my pocket and turned it on.

  I found the tree with the battery behind it. I inspected the copper leads. The charge was still in place, the blasting cap inside. The monofilament fishing line I had used as a trip wire was tied to a lead from the blasting cap. Four or five inches down from the tie the bared tips of the wire faced each other on either side of a sliding knot. There was not as much distance between the tips as I remembered having left. Someone must have snagged it. The line must have slipped off his boot. He must have caught it with his heel and it slipped off, I thought.

  Oh Christ. I’ve forgotten my crimpers. I’ll have to cut the leads with my knife.

  I passed the flashlight to my left hand and took out my pocketknife.

  I stopped. I had intended to pull the blasting cap out of the TNT, then cut the leads to the battery. But maybe it would be better to cut the leads first. I did not want to try to pull the leads from the pole connections. I was cold, and my hands were cold, and I was afraid of shivering the leads together, completing the circuit. I decided to pull the blasting cap first.

  I squatted on my heels and set the flashlight on the ground. It was light enough now not to need it to see the tape securing the blasting cap in the capewell of the charge. Gingerly, I grasped the block of TNT in my left hand and cut the tape from around the capewell. I slid the TNT away from the blasting cap and tossed it underhand toward a tree about fifteen feet away. I let go of the blasting cap and sat down. I was sweating.

  I’ll take a break. just a minute or two. I’ll relax.

  When I set the booby trap the afternoon before I tried to ensure that no one would be hurt when it exploded. I placed the charge behind a tree at the top of the hill and strung the trip line down the slope. I took the wrapper off the TNT, for the ends of the wrapper were metal and I wanted to be certain that even if someone placed himself on the wrong side of the tree, the side the charge would explode out toward, there would be no fragmentation to injure him; the TNT itself would absorb the shrapnel from the blasting cap. I had used this device before, in Okinawa in war games with the Marines. The worst anyone had ever gotten from it was a bruised ankle, and that particular fool had had the bad luck to be standing beside it when someone else tripped it.

  The afternoon had gone fine, everything had gone as it had gone before. But that cartridge jammed in the machine gun’s chamber was a bad sign. And leaving my crimpers behind was another. I put this thought out of my mind.

  All that was left to do was disconnect the leads. I picked up the flashlight and inspected the poles of the battery again. I wanted to pull the leads out and be done with it, but I was cold, and there was too much copper showing below the insulation, and it would be too easy to touch the leads together accidentally.

  The blasting cap hung lightly from the wires. I took it in my left hand to ease off the tension between it and the battery connections. Fuck it, I thought. I’ll cut’em.

  When the blasting cap exploded it sounded like a large firecracker had gone off next to my ear. It gave off a peach-colored light and my mouth felt suddenly dry with the taste of adrenaline and I thought, this can’t be happening to me, and I sat down and then I lay down on my side.

  After a moment I made up my mind to get up, and I sat up and found the flashlight on the ground beside me and I shined the light on my left hand. I was not certain that the explosion and the falling down had not been simply a mistake of my mind, that my mind was not playing some malevolent trick on me. And when I shined the light on my hand and I could see no blood but only the puckered and shiny white, like the white of piano keys, of my split fingers, and the deeper obscene white of bone and tendon, and turned off the light and turned away from the hand and sat down again, I still did not entirely believe that it was not a hideous mistake of vision and memory. But then, turning the light again on my hand and seeing the shredded sleeve at my wrist and the welling of blood begin from what was left of the hand, I forced myself to believe that I was not dreaming and I made myself stand up.

  I felt dizzy and I bent at the waist, trying to get my head between my knees and at the same time to keep my hand raised, and I
fell to one knee. When I stood up again I was not so confused and I pressed the thumb of my good hand into the artery on the inside of my left elbow and I started walking toward the road. The direction the road lay in was to the right of where the sun was coming up.

  I wanted to sleep and I thought that I could sleep while I walked but when my eyes closed I became afraid, death was like sleeping, but my eyes wanted to close and I willed them to stay open but tiny spots like gnats were closing in from the sides of my vision and I had to squint in order to see and I remembered that I had dropped my flashlight back where I had got hurt when I was dizzy and had fallen down and I lost my knife, damned knife, back there too. I tried to visualize where the knife would be, the spot of frost-wet ground where it had fallen, the lay of trees and shrub around it. I thought that it must be to the right of the tree as you faced into the ravine, toward where I had thrown the block of TNT. For a moment I thought to go back to get my knife and my flashlight, I didn’t think that I had severed an artery, I probably had more time than I had thought initially. But my feet began to stumble on lumps of things on the ground, and I fell without trying to see where I was falling.

  I had fallen on my shoulder and I lay now on my left side thinking that I would rest for a moment, I was tired and sleepy and I had time, and I felt myself fall asleep and I was very comfortable and warm. But then I stopped thinking and I stood up very easily and I continued walking toward where the road would be. My mouth was dry but I felt good. I felt light of body and I was warm inside my shirt and I did not know what to think of my feeling so contented. But even though I felt very buoyant and eager, my feet were becoming detached from my body and stumbled awkwardly of their own accord. I watched my feet and I was amazed that they should be so clumsy when I felt so graceful.

  I tripped again and fell and when I hit the ground it rolled away from me and I thought that it would be a good idea to roll with it. I rolled over one time and then I lay on my back and I said: “Medic.” I said it quietly, as though telling myself that there was such a thing as a medic. When no one answered or came to help me I said it more loudly: “Medic.” But I knew that no one had heard, and I had not expected anyone to hear, and I stood up.