Thirty Days Has September

by James Strauss

  “I’m a Private,” Zero went on. “A Marine Private. Is Scout a higher rank than Private?”

  “You have to be a Corporal,” I answered, having no idea.

  “So I can’t really be a Scout?” he asked, his voice disappointed.

  “You’re now a Corporal,” I answered, wondering if I was being funny or serious with myself, much less the Marine in front of me. “Combat promotion. The needs of the unit. Heroism in being real when everything and everyone else is shit,” I finished, no humor in my tone.

  “Thank you, sir,” Zero said, rising to his feet and coming to attention. I looked up at the man mountain.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, a bit befuddled.

  “The ceremony,” he said, staring straight ahead, his facial expression as rigid as his body. I rubbed my face with one hand, feeling the oozing remainder of repellent oil from the night before. I was down the rabbit hole but Alice’s Wonderland was a whole lot more sane than where I had landed. I stood up.

  “You are now officially a Corporal in the United States Marine Corps.” I saluted him, even though I wasn’t wearing any cover. He saluted back.

  “When you find the company clerk, if we have a company clerk, then report yourself in on the daily,” I ordered before returning to my hooch. The new corporal saluted again and then moved back to where his own hooch was under construction near where the other departed scouts had their stuff. I thought about the big man. He was the first Marine I liked, other than the boy Marine Fessman was, since I’d landed in country. And he called me sir. I had the feeling that he’d always call me sir, no matter what, and the thought was somehow comforting. I gestured to Fessman by holding out my right hand. In seconds the radio handset was plopped into it.

  “Rittenhouse, sir,” Fessman said. I looked at him in surprise. “Rittenhouse, the company clerk. We have one. I can get him.”

  “No, later,” I said. “I’ve got to set up night defensive fires for the hill we aren’t going to be on. I silently wondered what the battery FDC might think if and when we got hit later in the night. All of the fire I’d be calling would form around a small perimeter circle some distance from the hill that I’d preprogrammed defensive fires earlier. They were cool, dry, just out of Fort Sill and not dummies in the Fire Direction Center. They’d figure things out if we needed too much help and then check fire. The Gunny and the Company was playing an extremely dangerous game I was being required to try to work them around and through without them being aware of what I was doing.

  Trying to talk artillery ballistics to someone who’d not been trained in it was almost useless. The detail was everything. Back at the Battery, when their rounds started going out charge six and seven they had to begin calculating for the earth’s curvature and even its rotation. The density of air the shells would be moving through was vital and the shells went up thousands and thousands of feet through different densities. The Company wasn’t playing chess, it was playing dice, with every night being another throw. I finished setting up my layered defense with both the 105 battery and that of the 155s closer to Da Nang, knowing the 155s would be much bigger rounds but less accurate because we were out near the edge of their effective range.

  The Gunny appeared, bringing with him somehow a cloud of the evening mosquitoes. I reached for the repellent bottle held to the side of my helmet by the big rubber band Fessman had found for me earlier. The Gunny squatted down but made no move to make coffee or be social in any way. I slathered bug juice on my face and neck, and then my hands and wrists. I put the bottle back where it belonged and waited.

  “That’s a bizarre solution and not really a solution at all,” the Gunny began. “That just means we’ll have to deal with them later on or other problems because of them.”

  “So, Jurgens is unhappy over there in First Platoon,” I said, without making the sentence a question.

  “As you knew,” the Gunny answered. “I don’t know what you’ve got against him, anyway, but there’s something between you. He’s probably going to kill those kids. You know that.”

  “Couldn’t ship ’em out and couldn’t keep ’em here,” I intoned, ignoring the Jurgens thing. I realized how hard it was to hide anything in such an emotionally charged environment. Everyone was watching and judging everyone else while lying about watching and judging. I felt absolutely nothing for the ‘kids’ who’d damaged their own feet in an attempt to get out of the same hell I’d have done anything myself to get out of.

  “He may not do it,” the Gunny mused. “Jurgens just may leave them behind for us to deal with when we pull out of here. If we pull out of here.”

  “Then he can lead the way in the taking of Hill 110,” I replied. “I’m playing along with this charade, as is everyone else. I presume you’ve got Lima Company’s 81s under control. If somebody wants to break ranks, then up they go and we all assault that hill or call Battalion and tell Bennett we’re refusing to attack because we’re a bunch of chicken shits.”

  “Well, mister new tough guy, what if Jurgens simply decides to take you out?” the Gunny asked, his voice little above a hissed whisper. I looked over at Fessman, who all of sudden was drifting outward into deeper vegetation.

  “First Platoon is registered,” I replied. “Are they coming now?” I picked up the handset to the Prick 25 Fessman had shed and left lying on my poncho liner.”

  “Jesus Christ,” the Gunny swore, raising his voice. “No. I don’t know. This whole thing is fucked. Leave it alone. I’m trying to help you. I’m trying to help all of us.”

  I heard the sound of mortars leaving their tubes and flinched.

  “Outgoing,” the Gunny said, getting control of himself. “The 81s are firing around the hill we just took, to make it look good. Lima’s okay.”

  “Thanks, Gunny,” I said, softly.

  “For what?” he answered.

  “For everything,” I said, being careful not to sound paternalistic or commanding, but trying not to sound weak either. “This is impossible and you’re doing the best anybody could.”

  “Shit,” he said, forcefully, and got to his feet. “They’re going to fire down on us tonight because we’re sitting targets and they know it. Use that underground crap you called in before when it starts. I think it shakes them down to their little gook asses.”

  He disappeared into the brush without further comment. Fessman reappeared, as if by magic, as Stevens and Nguyen returned to report back. They both squatted down before me but neither said anything. I gave Nguyen one slight head nod, motioning toward behind me. He moved quickly and silently, like he was made of liquid, and disappeared behind me. I faced Stevens, wanting a cup of coffee, but it was too late in the waning day to light anything.

  The radio on Stevens’ shoulder was turned way down but I heard the announcement by Brother John that the next song would be the last until the morning. The song began to play. I know you want to leave me but I refuse to let you go… came across the short distance between us. I thought about the lyrics of the song and my wife, and Stevens and the Gunny. It was like God was talking to me. Please don’t you leave me, girl, don’t you go. I needed these men and yet the circumstances of my needing and the circumstances of their own seemed so divergent. How could it ever be possible to bring them together? I had my third letter in my pocket. How many letters would I get off before there would be no more letters?

  “Call the other guys,” I said to Stevens, as there was no point in discussing what he’d been ordered to do, what the result was or even how the Gunny had become involved. I waited while I heard the hustle and bustle behind me meant they were coming. My scout team. In the Basic School, one night a week, each platoon got together to play a game before calling it a day. The game was “What now, Lieutenant?” The phrase driving the game was “Any decision is better than no decision.” Decisions were supposed to be what lieutenants did. A problem would be trotted out b
y a trainer. A problem impossible to solve. Like the Lieutenant and his unit had to get across a bottomless chasm where there was no bridge or rope, or they’d die where they were. A few pieces of junk, like stakes, hooks, some fishing poles and a few planks too short to do the job would be provided to be used in solving the problem. The trainer would make sure everyone understood the problem and the only tools. Then he would point at one lieutenant, of those gathered before him, and say: “What now, Lieutenant?”

  My team squatted down before me, except for Fessman who sat next to me in radio cord distance. Stevens, Nguyen and Zero. I thought about how much fun it would be to describe where we were and what our situation was and ask the “What now, Lieutenant” question. But I was the lieutenant and the problem was worse than some chasm or canyon that could not be crossed. I lit a cigarette, ostensibly to let the smoke drift over my face, before talking, but really to delay for a few seconds.

  “Things are going to heat up tonight and there’s no predicting what’s going to happen. We’ll get hit with whatever they’ve got up on that hill because they think we’re going to attack at dawn anyway. I’ll use arty to suppress what I can. First Platoon isn’t happy with me and there’s nothing I can do about it. So, we may have visitors from them, as well. I want you guys to move to another location until dawn. Leave the radio here so I can call in the night fire.”

  I looked at them through the smoke and in the waning light. They were good men, all four of them. God hadn’t been fair to them. I was going to be.

  “I registered First Platoon earlier,” Stevens said. “I’ve got friends there. Are you going to call it in if they come in the night?”

  I stared back at the ambivalent sergeant, torn between his friends, being a stand-up Marine and trying to stay alive.

  “I don’t know,” I answered, truthfully. The nine-digit grid coordinates of First Platoon’s position were at the forefront of my memory. I could even see the code conversion on the map, burned into my mind like blackened letters burned into a wood board.

  “Does it have to be this way?” Fessman asked, his voice a whisper from my right. I puffed on the cigarette without inhaling. I didn’t want to go into a coughing fit in front of these men.

  “One night when I was thirteen years old, my uncle, who was in the Army and had fought from Normandy all the way across Europe, took me up into the attic of his house. He opened a big wooden box and showed me his souvenirs from the war. Daggers, helmets, and even an old non-functional Luger impressed me mightily. I could tell my uncle was drunk. He smiled at my enjoyment until I asked him a question. I don’t know where the question came from. It just blurted out. ‘What was the worst thing you had to do in the war?’ I asked.

  “Uncle Jim’s smile disappeared, like it had never been on his face. He stared at me so furiously I became slightly afraid to be up there in the old attic with him alone. He took a long time to answer, but he finally did. ‘The worst thing was killing the young officers assigned to us. I was the senior sergeant. It was my job to get rid of the officers who might get us killed.’”

  I looked at the men in front of me, and then over at Fessman. I puffed on my cigarette some more, even though there were no mosquitoes.

  “I never believed his story and we never spoke again of the war he was in,” I said. “He died years back. It wasn’t until four days ago that I found out Uncle Jim had told me the truth that night in the attic.”

  I looked from one Marine to another, waiting until I thought they might have had enough time to absorb what I’d said, before I went on.

  “I don’t make the rules out here and neither do you. This was all like this when we got here. We’re here and we’re trying to go back home, just like Uncle Jim. We’ll do what we have to do to accomplish that, all of us together or each of us alone. Now, go find another place for the night and return at dawn, if there’s anything to return to. No matter what, I hope you make it home.”

  Like that they were gone in the night, none of them even stopping to pick up gear or equipment. I had the radio, some C-Rations, clean clear water, and the radio. I was surprised to find I wasn’t terrified. I wasn’t afraid. I wasn’t anything.

  sixteen

  The Fourth Night : Second Part

  They came back like they left, only slight movements of the nearby undergrowth giving any evidence of their reappearance. Like wraiths just outside the area of my hooch, they moved to where they were already dug in, although it was mostly useless to dig holes in mud that slowly filled back in without anything to reinforce or hold it out of the excavated area. I felt them more than saw them and it gave me a feeling of unaccountable warmth inside my very being. Warmth where I didn’t think I could feel warmth anymore. Fessman slipped across the mist laden outer layer of my strewn out rubber poncho. He pulled the Prick 25 radio slowly from under the cover I’d shoved it for protection from the elements. The mist and rain, Vietnam’s only and nearly ever-present elements anything could be done about. The heat was unremitting and nothing was to be done about that except when gaining altitude in mountainous regions.

  “We’re staying, sir,” Fessman whispered, since I had not moved or given any indication I knew they were back and about our small area.

  I didn’t reply, wondering once more about the mindset of the men I was among and how nothing in life had prepared me to understand or deal with whatever it might be at any given time. A shiver of fear went through me. It was a shiver because I might live and therefore feared I might die. Knowing you are going to die takes almost all the fear away. The unknown disappears and the process of dying isn’t nearly as fearful of worrying about the prospect of dying. I might live, at least through the night, and that scared me deeply all over again.

  “Corporal Zero,” Fessman said, softly, “he says we live with you, which isn’t likely, or we die without you, which is almost certainly. So, we’re staying and if they come in the night they have to come for all of us.”

  I remained silent. I had no ready answer. I was reminded of war movies back from WWII when such whispers bound warrior Americans together against advancing Germans. How unreal it was to have my small tribe of Marines banded together to face the prospect of an attack by other Marines.

  Suddenly, the Gunny appeared from nowhere to squat down just outside my flowing little moat.

  “It’s me,” he whispered unnecessarily, like who else would it have been. The list of visitors I received was short, indeed.

  Without saying anything further he unstrapped his pack and began settling into the small area between my own hooch and the nearby bracken. Two other Marines soon joined him. After only a few moments of work, getting his own hooch set up, he squatted before me again.

  “Rittenhouse and Pilson, Company Clerk and my radio operator,” he said, glancing to his right. “We’ll set up here if you don’t mind.”

  I would have smiled if I really smiled anymore. Like my permission was needed for much of anything. And, it was rather apparent, the three of them were settling in for the night anyway.

  “Come to protect me?” I asked, sounding confident while feeling anything but on the inside.

  “It might be a difficult night,” he responded, after a moment of reflection. “You registered First Platoon’s position. No, I don’t think they know that, if you’re wondering whether they’ll move or not. There’s probably only one position our 105s probably won’t rain down on tonight so we came here.”

  It should have been funny. I was afraid of what Jurgens might do while the Gunny was afraid of what I might do. Fourth Platoon was no doubt worried about what the crackers would do. The enemy outside the perimeter could strike at any moment but they’d be striking a force more divided and afraid of one another than it was of them. And I was back to being afraid of all of them. And the Gunny was wrong, although I was not going to tell him so. I had registered my own position and I had no reservations about callin
g fire down on it whatever, that I could think of, other than that I would miss not getting off a fourth and final letter home.

  I heard the crackle, pop, and hiss of the real command radio across the short distance to where Pilson, the other radioman, was getting set up to support the Gunny. He came scrabbling across the top of the mud, holding out a handset identical to the one Fessman was constantly sticking in front of me.

  “They want you, Gunny, the six actual,” he said, holding the mic out toward the Gunny’s right shoulder.

  The Gunny took the mic, looking at me for a few seconds before saying anything.

  “They think I’m you,” he said, waiting to answer the call.

  “I guess, in a manner of speaking, you are me,” I replied, feeling relieved that he’d at least waited for my permission to pass himself off as me. I wondered, if I ever transmitted on the command net again, whether the operators at the battalion end would recognize the differences in our voices.

  “Six actual, over,” the Gunny transmitted.

  “Casualty report,” came right back through the little speaker on Pilson’s back.

  We hadn’t lost any personnel or taken any casualties in the attack because there had been no attack. Battalion knew the hill was occupied and fully expected that the Company’s losses would be substantial in taking it, or at least I thought they presumed that. I knew for certain that they wanted low Marine casualties and high enemy casualties for their daily reports.

  The Gunny cupped the mic to his chest, thinking.

  “When does Rittenhouse send in his dailies?” I asked, in the silence.

  “Every morning, just after dawn,” the Gunny said, his eyebrows going up.

  “Tell them the situation is fluid, the hill taken, but a firm perimeter is still being put in place to repulse counter attacks,” I said, reciting training material and language learned in the Basic School back at Quantico. “Casualty report will be filed with the daily in the morning.”