Maybe from this you can gather that our lives were a bit on the schizophrenic side. While we were on duty, we were responsible for the lives and deaths of our patients, for calming their fears and administering treatments that could cure or kill them. Off duty, we were treated as a sort of cross between a high-ranking general who deserved to be scrounged for, taken around, and generally given special treatment, and a whore. It was a little like that old saying of water, water, everywhere, and not a drop to drink. All those men and you could still be so lonely.
On a date, after you talked about where you were both from, your escort would brag about his aircraft or his unit or, God forbid, his body count. If he was feeling disgruntled, you were supposed to keep up his morale. But you were expected to do the same attentive little cupcake act the football players had expected in high school. Nobody wanted to hear about your day at work. Some of the girls dated doctors, who at least had some idea of what the rest of their life was like. I was awfully glad I didn’t. All I’d have needed just then was to have to spend my off-duty time, too, explaining what I’d done to Tran. Dating doctors, to me, was a good way to screw up both your social life and your work life. Besides, doctors were married.
A nurse captain I’d met at Fitzsimons who had been to Nam twice and Okinawa once told me her prescription for handling one’s love life on overseas duty.
“Keep it light, honey. Keep it light. What happens is you have these real killer romances and then the love of your life leaves country, promising to write, and all that shit, then he goes back to his ever-lovin’ wife or his real girlfriend, and forgets all about you. It’s just not real, see, whatever it feels like. The partying is great, but you can’t take it seriously. What you do is you find a nice guy who has about three months left in country, just long enough to have a little fun. You don’t tend to get so involved when you know how soon the end is coming. You date him and meet his friends, and when he goes, you take up with the nicest of the friends who have only about three months left in country, and so on. It’s the only way to keep from being burned.”
I agreed and tried to maintain a properly cynical attitude, but naturally, I hoped she was wrong in my case, and that I would find true and requited love just for being so goddamn noble. Oh well, at least I was drawing combat pay.
A rugged-looking fellow sporting a blond crew cut and a lightweight flight suit marched up to me and smiled, showing enough teeth to look friendly and not enough to look as if he were about to bite. “Excuse me, ma’am, but if you’re not with anyone, my buddies and I would appreciate it if you’d be our dinner guest.”
“Well, I was sort of…” I glanced around the room again, but it was full of strangers. “Okay.”
“I’m Jake.”
“I’m Kitty. Where you from, Jake?” I asked, the usual opening conversational gambit in Nam. Everybody wanted to talk about where they were from. Damn few wanted to talk about where they were at.
“Florida originally, but my family lives in Tennessee now. Where you from?”
“Kansas City,” I replied and decided as he led me to his table that he was probably okay. Mentioning his family in the first sentence and not hiding his wedding ring were good signs. Whatever else he was, he was not that bane of the single military nurse, the geographical bachelor.
The table was on the veranda, and at it were two more men in flight suits, one sitting and one standing, his feet spread as if he were about to straddle his chair, his hands on the back of it, his face shrouded in mirrored aviator glasses. Those lenses hide a lot, but I felt them locked on me as surely as if they were the sights of a sniperscope. He wore his hair longer than the other two and it was dark, with a rather rakish forelock brushing the tops of the glasses. He was tanned and rangy and his grin was lopsided and only slightly tobacco-stained.
“Pay no attention to this fellow, ma’am,” Jake said. “He’s just one of your run-of-the-mill dust-off pilots. We let him eat with us, hopin’ he might learn how to conduct himself in proper company. Tony, you don’t propose to eat standin’ up, I suppose?”
“Nah. Not that I don’t appreciate educational opportunities, sir, but I ate already, as I would have explained if you hadn’t gone trotting off after the prettiest girl in the room like a—well, anyhow, I got to get back to Red Beach. I’m on alert. But I wouldn’t pass up an introduction.”
“I didn’t think you would, somehow,” Jake snorted. “Kitty, this is Warrant Officer Antonio Gutierrez Devlin.”
Warrant Officer Devlin gave me the full impact of that slightly snaggle-toothed grin and swept my paw to his lips. “Very pleased to meet you. What was the name? Kitty what?”
“McCulley,” I said.
“From over at Single Parent?”
“What?”
“Single Parent, the 83rd. You’re Army, aren’t you? Your code name over there is Single Parent.”
“No shit?”
“I kid you not. Also referred to more casually as Unwed Mother. Where do you work?”
“Uh—ward four, ortho, as of tomorrow.”
“Hmm—”
“Didn’t you say you were just leaving, Tony? Urgent mission?”
“Yeah, well, I’m sorry, Kitty. I have to go rescue stranded casualties, unlike these heavy-machinery haulers. Since we all work so closely together, I’m sure I’ll be seeing you real soon.” He tilted his sunglasses down to the tip of his nose and gave me a meaningful look out of hazel-green eyes with curly dark lashes that should have been outlawed on a man, then did a smart about-face, swiveled around again, and said to Jake, “Make sure she comes to the party, Cap’n, sir,” then sauntered through the door. Have I mentioned that not all of the masculine attention we girls got was unwelcome?
I was catching my breath when Jake gently lowered me into a chair and continued introductions.
“This fine gentleman here is Tommy Dean Kincaid. Say hello to the pretty lady, Tommy Dean.”
“Hello, pretty lady. Ain’t it awful what you meet on your way to Grandma’s house in the middle of this war?”
These two were definitely going to be all right. They sounded like Bing Crosby and Bob Hope on The Road to Da Nang, with me as Dorothy Lamour. Of course, what I was really wondering about was the Errol Flynn type who had just left, but the comic relief was comforting. I was still feeling a little too fragile to withstand the kind of internal fireworks Tony generated.
But these two good old boys really were good. Like Jake, Tommy Dean mentioned his wife within the first fifteen minutes, and asked my advice about what kind of a present to send her for her birthday. We told each other where we were from, and later Jake and Tommy Dean, between mouthfuls of steak and baked potato, talked about aircraft while I ate in what I hoped passed for awestricken silence. I’m a fast eater, though, being used to institutional half-hour lunch breaks during which fifteen minutes was spent in a cafeteria line, and I finished before either of the men.
“What did Tony mean about you guys hauling heavy equipment? You are pilots, I gather?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Tommy Dean said.
“Fixed-wing?”
“Goodness no.”
“What do you fly, then? Cobras? Hueys? I rode in a Chinook when I first got here. The guys up at Phu Bai had us up for a party. Boy, are those things noisy.”
“Honey, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet,” Jake said proudly.
“You seen anything flyin’ around in the air looks a little like a big grasshopper?” Tommy Dean asked.
“Well…I can’t say as—”
“You’d know if you’d seen it. It’s a flying crane. Looks a little like this.” He pulled a pen from one of his zippered pockets and drew a picture that did indeed appear to be the product of a marriage between a helicopter and a grasshopper.
I examined the picture, wondering if this might be another one of those strange in-country jokes to impress newcomers and girls. Finally I handed it back and asked, “Why in the world would anybody build a chopper that looks like tha
t?”
“It’s a flying crane, Kitty,” Jake said, and then, of course, I understood. I had been associating the word “crane” with the bird, or with the long, spindly legs of the Disney version of the Ichabod Crane who saw the headless horseman in Sleepy Hollow. Jake eagerly pointed out the features of his aircraft to me. “This space under here is for a cable to haul cargo. Watch the air sometime. You may see one carrying a tank or another chopper.” His face lapsed into an expression of almost paternal fondness as he spoke.
“Aw, seein’ it from the ground is nothin’ compared to watchin’ something swinging from its belly.”
“I can imagine,” I said honestly, because I was by now as intrigued as it is possible for me to be by a piece of machinery.
“If you’ll come over for that party Tony was talking about, maybe we can take you for a ride,” Jake said.
“I’m changing wards right now,” I told them and found my voice was a little unsteady at the reminder. “I don’t know my schedule.”
“That’s okay, honey,” Jake said, patting my hand. He obviously mistook the hint of distress in my tone for disappointment that I wouldn’t be able to make an immediate date to acquaint myself with the ungainly object that was the current love of his life. “The cranes will be there when you can make it over. And there’ll be other parties. Don’t worry….”
The talk turned to their families again, then, abruptly, Tommy Dean ducked out to see if the sergeant they’d ridden over with was done with his carousing at the NCO club. “Is he okay?” I asked.
“Oh sure, honey. Just a little homesick. You know, I don’t think you realize how much it means to him—to both of us—to have you come over and talk to us for a while.” He stopped looking at me for the first time that evening and studied his fingernails, and the ceiling fan, and took great interest in the comings and goings of the waitresses. “Now, I’m not sayin’ we wouldn’t either one of us take somethin’ if we could get it, if you know what I mean, but mostly we are happily married men. I miss my wife like hell. It feels so good to be able to talk to a woman without, you know, havin’ to use sign language all of the goddamn time.”
It was my turn to study my fingernails. I couldn’t find the right expression to let him know how good it was to talk to men who didn’t treat me like a servant (the doctors), a policewoman (most of the enlisted men), or a piece of ass.
“If you guys have a Jeep, would you mind dropping me off at the PX gate so I can hitch back to the hospital?” I asked.
They insisted on taking me all the way back to the 83rd, of course, and kept me laughing all the way. I was hoping one or the other of them would mention something else about Tony, but they didn’t, though Jake reminded me of the party.
I felt pretty good until the Jeep drove out of sight and I turned to walk past the sign that said “Welcome to Hell’s Half Acre.”
Beyond the gate, floodlights from the guard towers illuminated the compound, sandbags, concertina wire, plywood barracks, and administrative shacks. The hospital’s white humps shone from within, the three long windows at the top of each ward glowing faintly with the light over the nurses’ station. The hospital building was actually two sets of Quonset huts connected by a long, enclosed corridor. It resembled eight enormous oil drums that someone had split open and spread apart so that half of each drum lay directly across from the other. Each entire oil drum was a whole ward, with space enough for maybe another Quonset hut on each side of the ones already in place. You could almost see the cloud of pot smoke swirling above the visitors’ tent, defining the atmosphere between wards five and six.
Smelling it, I forgot about Tony and Jake and Tommy Dean and could see the inside of ward six again as clearly as if I’d never left Tran’s bedside. Shame and grief not only for the harm I might have caused Tran but for the nurse I was not and was never going to be welled up in me again, returning in a massive sodden lump. The closer I got to the hospital, the bigger the lump swelled, until it filled my chest and throat and brought the taste of sirloin and stomach acid to my tongue. I should stop and check on Tran, just so everyone would know that I really did give a damn about her. But what if something had gone wrong? I took a shortcut through the hospital, my boots loud on the concrete hallway. No one else was out there, just the mingled smells of antiseptic, pot, and Nam, and the collective sound of deep breathing, restless sleep, shifting feet, and the occasional clank of metal trays or bedpans. The light glowed softly over the desk on ward six. Ginger was pouring meds. George was behind his comic. Tran’s bed was still occupied. I crept just a little closer, not wanting to greet anyone. The body in the bed was Tran’s, and she was breathing.
I passed through the hospital, out onto the boardwalk, and up the stairs to my quarters, gratefully closing the door behind me. My side of the building had been out of the sun for several hours, so the temperature in the tiny room was more or less bearable. I turned on the fan and let it blow through my hair, evaporate the last moisture from my skin as I pulled off my fatigues.
My laundry was lying freshly pressed on my shelves—well, most of it was my laundry. Looked as if mamasan had left me somebody else’s rice-starched and ironed lace panties.
I grabbed a clean set of underwear, slipped on a shift, and headed for the shower. It was cold, as always, but washed off the sand and the stink. No one seemed to be home in the barracks that night, but the light at the 83rd officers’ club across the road still twinkled and “Proud Mary” warred with the sounds of Aretha Franklin coming from the barracks in back of ours.
Returning to my cot, I slouched back against the wall with my stationery box on my knees and tried to write a long, philosophical letter to Duncan. Duncan was—well, it’s hard to explain about Duncan now. He was—is—a former professor of mine, a great storyteller, and in my own heart then my own true love. Only he didn’t seem to know it, or value it, and tended to treat me like a kid brother. Of all the men I could have had, he was the one I wanted, though I wasn’t damn fool enough not to have my spirits lifted by the proximity of men like Tony Devlin. Still, it was always to Duncan, rather than my mother, that I wrote the letters that really explained, more or less, how I felt about Nam. I’d been composing in my head, in my sleep, in between snatches of conversation, what I would tell him about the situation with Tran, but halfway through I tore it up. If he found out what a fuck-up I was, he’d never love me. Instead, I wrote a short, funny letter about the beach and meeting Tommy Dean and Jake. I’d save writing about Tony for when and if there was something to write about that would make Duncan realize what an incredibly desirable woman I was.
I stuck the letter in an envelope, and took two more Benadryl. I thought I might finally be able to sleep.
4
Nobody shuddered in horror when I reported for duty on orthopedics. Nobody said, “Oh no, not her.” Nobody gave me knowing glances that said, “Lieutenant Colonel Blaylock told us about your kind.” Major Marge Canon looked up from counting narcotics only long enough to give me a quick, slightly distracted smile. Sarah Marcus, who occupied the hooch next door to mine, wiped the sweaty hair off her forehead with her arm, pouched out her bottom lip to blow upward to cool her face, and looked straight through me in a spacey way not unusual for night nurses just coming off a twelve-hour shift. Then her eyes focused, and she sighed and nodded her head in my direction before resuming the count.
Sarah’s morning report was rushed and perfunctory. “All five of the casualties from yesterday are going out today. I haven’t had time to get their tags done yet. I was supervisor last night and there was a push of Vietnamese from some village that got shelled. I think we may get two or three of them. Joe was triage officer last night and didn’t get scrubbed for our first case till about five-thirty, so you probably have an hour or two before recovery room calls. Right now you’ve got three I.V.s on the GI side, one on the Vietnamese. I’ll do those tags now.”
“Don’t worry about it, Sarah,” Major Canon told her. “We’re finall
y getting some extra help around here. Blaylock sent us Kitty instead of making us wait around for Joanie’s replacement from the States, so there’s no need for you to stick around.”
“Yeah, well, g’night,” Sarah said. “I have to go give supervisor’s report to the colonel. By the way, Kitty,” she added casually, “everybody on your old ward had a pretty good night.”
“Thanks, Sarah. Sleep well.”
She waved good-bye, tucked the supervisor’s clipboard under her arm, and disappeared down the hall.
Before the day crew disbanded from report, Marge made introductions. “Troops, this is Lieutenant McCulley. She’s been transferred to us to replace Lieutenant Mitchell. Kitty, this is our ward master, Sergeant Baker, our interpreter and nursing assistant, Miss Mai, and Specialists Voorhees and Meyers.”
I nodded and said “Pleased to meet you” all around. Sergeant Baker was a broad black NCO with a habitual expression of long-suffering tolerance. Miss Mai looked like an oriental elf who’d been out in the rain too long. All the time I was there, it was Mai’s unvarying custom either to come to work early to wash her hair or to wash it during her break, so maybe she was more of a water sprite than an elf. Voorhees was a compactly built, sandy-haired corpsman of about nineteen. Meyers, the other corpsman, was a tall, chubby-cheeked black guy who looked as if he belonged in high school.
“Come on, Kitty, we’ll try to give you a little orientation before it gets busy,” Marge said. First she showed me how to fill out medevac tags for the wounded GIs, all of whom were bound for Japan for further care, and then to the States. So few of my seriously injured GIs on neuro had lived long enough to stabilize sufficiently for medevac that I didn’t have much practice in filling out the forms.
I was so glad nobody seemed to be mad at me about my screwup on neuro that I wanted to prove myself, show the major how gung ho I could be. As we started rounds, I saw that one of the patients wore a badly saturated dressing over what was left of his right leg, so I pointed it out to Marge. According to the nursing care plan on the guy’s chart, he had been backed into by a tank driven by a friend who had taken too much herbal remedy for the Vietnam blahs.
The Healer’s War Page 5
